Life goes on around us...

Despite the emotional backlash hitting me from various sides today (some terrible, some... emotionally draining but good), life does indeed go on. Which is what life does, you know?

Last night, we hosted my brother- and sister-in law for dinner, along with their two offspring and respective spouse/fiance. Chrissy has re-upped on reservist status, as expected. Her fiance Jose, however (aka 'the jarhead') has opted out. So he gets to be, as he proudly announced at dinner, 'the official dependent.' Made a pretty basic dinner (chicken parm, green salad, sauteed mushrooms and stir-fry string beans). Everything came out quite well, despite a somewhat comic but annoying incident with an exploding bottle of green food dye in the pantry ten minutes before everyone arrived. Opened a couple of bottles of wine, and generally had an excellent time, during which I was able to separate myself entirely from the aforementioned emotional impacts.

And I managed to finish up chapter fourteen, which brings me to around 70,000 words on CtD. Which means that it's time for a particularly meerkatish behavior pattern.

Y'see, once I write the ending of a book... it's done. And making any major changes to it becomes even more difficult. So I can't write the end of the book until everything up to it has been drafted to my (draft-status) satisfaction. And since I suspect that the remaining chapters will become a mad dash, pacing-wise, to the resolution, it's time to call a time out, print out the pages, and pick up the editorial pencil and put on the Bitch Goddess Editoral hat, and go to town on my sorry authorial ass.

But today was also the day we were going to start talking about The Game So I get to save space in the day for that, too. :-)

Laurie King's The Game

Okay, so I jumped into this book, expectations high because, well, it's Laurie King. It's a Mary Russell book.

And, for the most part, those expectations were fulfilled.

The language is beautiful (her descriptions of India of the time are quite moving and totally believable), the character interactions are totally human and just rough enough to give the proper three dimensionality, and although the pacing starts slow it, you realize soon enough, does so intentionally, and picks up where it needs to. And the scene of the pig-sticking was quite dead-on, from what I've read of that sport. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

And yet, from the very first scene I had hestitations. And when I read the last page, those hesitations were still with me. There wasn't any real sub-plot at all, which made the book seem slighter than it should have been (and there were a number of places where a subplot could have been developed out of the material available), and while reading I was too aware of the tricks of the trade, making me feel like a music fan who, instead of listening to the incredible voice of the singer, is instead fascinated by the mechanics of her breath control.

Too, I was able to predict quite easily where the plot was going, although I was uncertain about the loyalties of one character until the last five chapters.

Overall, I'd give it an 8 of 10, with the assumption that her publisher wanted another Mary Russell book, damn it, and she was under the deadline gun. Still an excellent book, and once again I'm glad that I buy her in hardcover, and don't wait for the paperback.

Okay, I shall now wait for those of you who think otherwise to step up to the plate with rebuttals...

In A Perfect World...

Got this via e-mail from a friend.

the rules:

Answer in one word only. Be honest. Be as frivolous, or as serious, as wish-fulfillment as you like. But be honest.


Answer the following questions:

In a Perfect World I would be: wise.
In a Perfect World you would be: here.
In a Perfect World life would be: explained.
In a Perfect World I would still long for: sleep.