Wow, it's been a while since my last update, huh?

It's been a long time since I've posted - so long that every time I thought about posting, I thought, "Gee, it's been so long, I don't think I can catch up!"

Well, here I am again, finally. I'm going to post a series of things with updates from the last few months.

First - my reading since my last post.

I finished The Mask of Atrues - It was quite an enjoyable, if not entirely unpredictable read. I'd recommend it for anyone who enjoys the genre.

My next read was Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds. I picked this up in the book store based on the description and some blurbs. I had high hopes - unfortunately, a bit too high. It was very (!) long and a lot of it didn't seem to be progressing the story. Not necessarily bad but I kept thinking, "When are we going to get to the exciting parts?" "When are we going to get to the mysterious reason the "Amarantin" (a race of aliens) were destroyed??? " Well, it turns out that we got there about 30 pages before the end of the 580+ book. Also, the captain of one of the space ships had some strange virus that forced his crew to keep him frozen. Descriptions and passages of the book about him took up WAY too much considering the relatively minor role he ends up having in the end.

Way too much build up with a payoff that just fizzled in my mind. Not recommended.

I finished that book on a trip and ended up picking up the 10th (!) book in the Terry Goodkind series about Richard Rahl. This has become another one of those (like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books) that seems like it's never going to end. This one, at least, has some interesting reading. The book was Chainfire . I enjoyed it (like I've enjoyed all of these books - much lighter reading than the Jordan books and not *so many* characters that you can't remember who's who from one book to the next), but it was a bit long-winded in parts. Several sections of the book could have dropped pages without significant change in the story; for example, several places where Richard ponders some particular issue go on and on and on and on and on...

For fans, a must-read, though.

Next up, another one suggested by my son - Maximum Ride. This is a book by James Patterson, who I've never read but appeals to me in the if-I-needed-a-book-in-the-airport-I'd-buy-one kind of way. The book is targeted at a younger audience, and the writing style was very brisk - 2 page chapters with a page in between generally meant you'd move through pages about twice as fast as any other book. Still, I enjoyed it and, while I probably won't read the next one (my son is looking forward to it), I'd recommend it even if you don't have kids. For "tweens", I think it's a very good read.

Have just finished that book last night, I'm now about to start in on Time's Eye - by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter. I've read several books by Baxter - I've enjoyed them mostly but often find the endings not completely satisfactory. I haven't read anything by Clarke. I'll let you know how it goes!