All the Pretty Words

A certain friend of mine has been after me to blog about the books I’ve been reading. So…right now, I’m actively reading three books: Legends: Short Novels from the Masters of Modern Fantasy, Legends II: Short Novels from the Masters of Modern Fantasy, and Assasin’s Apprentice, by Robin Hobb. The first two are pretty self-evident…collections of short novels by, guess who? Masters of modern fantasy! Seriously, though, they’re quite good. George R. R. Martin, my all-time favorite author, has great short stories in both. In the first book is “The Hedge Knight,” which Martin fans will recognize as a sort of prequel to The Song of Ice and Fire. The second book contains a continuation of that story, “Dunk and Egg.” The Martin stories are very good, and I recommend them to all fantasy fans. Hell, I recommend both books to fantasy fans. They’re a great introduction to the best of the genre. I have started to read Assassin’s Apprentice because there is a contribution from Robin Hobb in Lengends II, and I think it is also quite good. This is the first book in one of Hobb’s series, so I can’t make any judgements about the rest of the series just yet. It does, however, look promising :)

Now, for the books I am reading, but have currently put aside for the moment. All Night Awake, by Sarah A. Hoyt. This is a sequel to Ill Met by Moonlight. Both are based loosely on the real life of William Shakespeare, but with some major tweaking, which is done by having the inspiration for his greater works coming from dealings with real fairies. It’s an interesting premise, but the second book has not held up the the promise of the first. Next book–The End of the Third Age: The History of the Lord of the Rings, by Christopher Tolkein. This tells of the creation of The Lord of the Rings. Very interesting, but I haven’t been able to read very far into it yet. Finally, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. I purchased this hefty book, not quite realizing that I would need to first read the entire works of Shakespeare, or at the very least, the major plays, in order to fully appreciate it. So, this book has been put aside until I can manage to read up on my Shakespeare :p

Oh, I’m not done yet. One more: A Song for Lya, a collection of short stories by George R. R. Martin. I haven’t even cracked the cover yet, but I thought I should buy it when I had the chance, as it is somewhat hard to find.

Hehehe, if you’re not bored with me yet, I’ll start in on my school projects soon :p

Woohoo! Flickr just went public! It’s really cool to watch all the new people come in. Give it a try, you know you want to :)

Well, not much has been going on in real life…school, homework, work, sleep, eat. Same stuff, different days. However, my life on the internet has just gotten much more interesting. Ludicorp, the maker of GNE, has just released an early beta version of Flickr. Flickr is a realtime media sharing application which includes chat, groups, friendships…basically a lot of the things you see in GNE. Right now we’re using the developer’s version, so if you are interested in participating, let me know by commenting below and I’ll help you get set up.