John Birmingham’s latest, Without Warning has showed up on Amazon. Looks great, although it isn’t out in the US until February. If I make it to Asia again this fall, I may get it early … as I was able to do with Final Impact, since they get the Aussie editions at some of the Kinokuniyas there (can’t, at this point, remember if it was the Singapore one or the then-new Siam Paragon one in Bangkok.)
It does lead to the interesting question of whether to pre-order (then cancel, if I get it in Asia) or whether to wait to see if the fall vacation (A) happens, and (B) if it’s Asia or Buenos Aires… lots of steak plus the 32.5k mile Citi award (*) make for a tempting option, even with hotel and other prices once I’m on the ground so much higher.
(* vs 40k usually, and 70k for Asia… seeing as I’ve made PLT for the year, this is a good chance to burn miles rather than earn them.)
Don’t read this unless you’ve finished The Deathly Hallows, don’t care about spoilers, are or just a jerk who wants to find out what happens at the end and ruin it for everyone.
Sadly the funny parts are pretty much wall to wall spoilers, but once you’ve read the book, this is a must read. If you are not bothered by spoilers, while you CAN read it without spoiling the book, I don’t think it would be very funny on its own.
Finished reading at a bit after midnight last night… since I started a bit after noon, and given about a three hour break for dinner “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” provided about 9 hours of solid entertainment. Not bad.
Overall, liked it. A very few bits reverted to the “whiny/angry Harry” of Order of the Phoenix (OotP/Book 5) but fortunately that part didn’t last TOO long. Solid action sequences, and a nice resolution although a few questions left unsanswered.
I’m going to keep the body of this spoiler free and add a few of the latter to a comment. If you have complaints about unanswered questions or other comments/reviews, please add them there
Is out… although my copy won’t be here until later today (/tomorrow, subjective to sleep time)… and in light of my earlier suggestion for Harry Potter fanfic (”Book 7 ends with Harry and Voldemort, the way Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards ended”) here’s a youtube clip out of Wizards.
Catch it quick, as I don’t plan to leave this up indefinitely.
In other reading this month, I’ve read “The Disunited States of America” by Harry Turtledove, the latest softcover in his Crosstime Traffic series (#4 in the series; 5 is out in hardback, but I’m not quite that addicted to those, unlike one of his others) and have “Settling Accounts: In At The Death” also by Turtledove (said other series) and Michael Stackpole’s “A New World” (last in his Age of Discover trilogy) coming in the next 10 or so days, and then the softback of the latest (last?) Honor Harrington novel (”At All Costs”) comes out in Sept I think so overall it is being a good period for my reading.
I guess we will have to wait to find out. In the meanwhile, the decision is whether it’s time to reread “Half Blood Prince” now, or wait for a definite ETA for the final book.
First, because it’s too cute to resist: (from a mailing list I’m on.)
Other than that, not a lot of news. I’m back from a vacation that wasn’t, in the end, all that relaxing… though I will have got my AA Platinum renewed for another year once the miles post for the flight home. I’m not sure I’m going to bother next year; I’ve got the miles for Marie’s graduation trip, and I can’t help feeling that I’ve got better things to do with my life than travelling by myself (with company would help, I grant… perhaps someday, when Marie is done with school, or under other better circumstances.)
Slappy’s getting married this Saturday, which is really cool, though I am sad I will be missing a third weekend in a row out of town. Work is hectic; we have some deadlines coming up I have been procrastinating on finishing up rather badly, so I will be busy with that. Ah well.
OK, there are a few fanfic stories I’d really like to read. Perhaps I’ll get to writing one someday; more likely not.
Two alternate versions of Harry Turtledove’s Lizards/Worldwar books:
1) “Fleetlord Atvar and the Cuban Missile Crisis”
2) Lizards arrive in 2021, as described/implied in John Birmingham’s Axis of Time Trilogy
Harry Potter:
1) Book 7 ends with Harry and Voldemort, the way Ralph Bakshi’s Wizards ended
2) An alternate universe where Harry joined Slytherin house
There are some others I’m forgetting now, perhaps I’ll update this later
At the UNC Chapel Hill online library. Very cool, and if you’ve ready much time travel fiction, you’ll know exactly why this is so handy if you ever get trapped in the pre-industrial past. I love the internet.
Not content to wait for May 18th or whatever it is to know that George Lucas will not pull any rabbits out of his hat, I bought the Episode III novelization today. Review possibly to come later… we’ll see.
Anyway, when it comes to portraying human destiny, where would you rather live, assuming you’ll be a normal citizen and no demigod? In Roddenberry’s Federation? Or Lucas’ Empire?
