I'm in my least favorite part of revisions for Thermionic Night. As if to compensate, my brain has thrown me into my favorite part of revisions for Sampo: the part where I haven't yet cracked open the manuscript and am still convinced that it can be made into something good. (Incidentally, if you have TN and suspect that you'll have comments for me at some point, can you e-mail me and remind me? Or comment here, I suppose. Thanks.)
I underpacked books for the weekend, out of a combination of overestimation of how long I'd be willing to spend on one volume and forgetting to pick up To Say Nothing of the Dog for a reread. (Now that I didn't have it to reread on the trip, I likely won't reread it for awhile. Ah well.) So I was bookless for the last 1.5-2 hours of the drive, which was not the worst tragedy known to mankind but was uncharacteristic and annoying. I read a volume of Siberian folk tales that annoyed the heck out of me: the compiler/reteller said that he'd left the bawdy ones out. No reason why, just left them out. This was not explicitly a children's book. Yarg. Also the compilter/whatever had some clear preconceptions about what made something "authentically folk," which made me want to hurl. I also finished Gwyneth Jones's Bold as Love. I don't care if it's a Hendrix reference, I think it's an awful title, on a par with Time Enough for Love, which must always be pronounced Time Enough for Luuuuuuurve. But -- still more unfortunately -- I liked the book. It kicked a few of my squids dead center for character relationships (we all know what a sucker I am for character relationships by now, right?). Why is this bad? Because I bought it in England -- not out in the States -- and the last page says that the next volume of the story is called such-and-such. Sigh.
Also I read The Spring of the Ram, which is good and interesting and all, but the Niccolo Chronicles are just not on a par with the Lymond Chronicles; at least, not yet. Maybe later books will be. Anyway, they're good. They're just not Lymondy, and they lack Philippa.
And now I'm reading
porphyrin's copy of Technogenesis and having some suspension of disbelief issues I suspect are related to the indifferent quality of the prose. It's not a bad book so far, though, and not one I'm in danger of putting down unread. Also I'm eating a pecan roll from Wheatfield's and listening to thunder. I hope it stops by the time I need to take Ista in for her vaccine boosters: both of us would be much happier if we could walk the 4 blocks to the vet instead of having to drive. Still, I love thunderstorms, and they're a reminder that we're home.Also there were no alarming messages on the answering machine when we got home, so the dubious optimism keeps getting less dubious by the hour.
ETA: Can't believe I almost forgot: and
matociquala won the Campbell Award! WOOOOO! Go Bear! (Most of you already know this, I think, but it's still worth acknowledging.) 