crazy week

So I finally got a job. Yay! It’s at a place called Seek Publishing. You know those greeting cards you can get at places like Cracker Barrel that tell you all about what was going on the year you were born? That’s the kind of thing Seek publishes. I’ll be fielding calls from our business customers regarding discrepancies in their shipments. Which is cool enough.

Also, I had a wreck yesterday. I was part of a 5 car pile-up on the interstate in early morning traffic. Nobody was hurt (my neck is a little sore, but it’s nothing really) but I’m pretty sure my car is totaled. I really loved that car. Oh well…

What I’m reading now:

The Warrior-Prophet, The Prince of Nothing, Book 2 by R. Scott Bakker – I’m really getting into this series. If you like the fantasy genre at all you really should hitch your star to this guy’s wagon. Great characters, very in-depth plotting, at-a-clip pacing, and no elves or fairies. Seriously, check it out.

The Star Fraction by Ken MacLeod – The first book in a Trotskyist science fiction epic. Socialist hero meets idealistic scientist working on scary memory drugs and goes on the run from an oppressive government. Oh, and there’s a libertarian Christian kid in it also. It’s chock-full of 4th Internationalist terms and stuff from Collectivism 101 but it’s really not bad at all so far. More exciting than I thought it would be actually.

What I’m Reading Now

- The Darkness That Comes Before (The Prince of Nothing, Book One) by R. Scott Bakker

A fantasy in the vein of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. Very character-driven. Instead of being set in an analogue of Medieval England, The Prince of Nothing is built around a version of the Middle Eastern Holy Wars. Jihads abound. So far very recommended.

-Song of Kali by Dan Simmons

This came highly recommended to me as a very scary book. I’m only into the third chapter and it’s good so far – not very frightening though. We’ll see…

-and in the car: Neverwhere (the author’s preferred text – read by the author) by Neil Gaiman

I read Neverwhere years ago and of course I loved it. Haven’t run across a bad Neil Gaiman story yet. What makes this so special, aside from being the version of the story that Gaiman apparently prefers, is having the author read it. Neil Gaiman reads his work perfectly – his Scottish lilt and quiet manner bring depth to the characters (especially Richard Mayhew, the main character – this is what he sounds like) and pushes the action along. Everybody should hear this.

So what are you reading? Or what have you read recently that you think the world needs to hear about?