NextRead

No really, it is. I’m having a great time and loosing body fat, but not weight for some reason. I’m hoping that I’m putting on muscle otherwise I’m deluding myself and I’ve wasted hours of valuable reading time. 

I’m currently reading John Connolly’s second novel Dark Hollow. As a story it’s a first person retelling of the events but it still feels as if it’s taking place in the present. The only time you feel like it’s not is when Charlie Bird says things like, ‘this was the last time I saw them alive.’ And in this secondary characters case we know them and feel for them before we meet them as a body. Not that Connolly makes a big deal of it. It just shows how good he is at playing with the readers emotions. How have I not read more by him?

Apparently, I have to watch last Friday’s

Jericho as actually contains some interesting plot developments. I don’t think I can be bothered. After 11 episodes I can’t believe how much they have dragged out the little bits of plot we’ve had so far. Now dropping a bomb on them would be something more exciting. 

Speaking of exciting. I forgot to mention that I was lucky enough to get tickets to the May Bank Holiday edition of Most Haunted Live. I’ve never been in an audience before and I didn’t realise how much clapping they do. Not that I minded. I had a great time. The entire team seem genuine and fascinated by what they do in Most Haunted.

Right back to reading, though I might just close my eyes for a few minutes.

I’ve just finished The Queen of Sinister and I can’t wait until I start The Hounds of Avalon.

Mark Chadbourn’s writing is compulsive and his plotting tight and complex. He is also thoughtful and the world he has created is both fantastical and grounded in the human spirit; as the novel explores what it is to be human and what we can achieve is we think beyond what we are.

There are lots of twists and turns along the way. Even though you can consider this a stand alone novel. It follows on from the Age of Misrule
trilogy as well as the first in the The Dark Age Trilogy. I would wholeheartedly reading them from the beginning especially for the scene in the Royal Mile.

This is one of the best fantasy series ever written.

Read It Swap It | The UK’s Free Book Swap Shop! | Questions
What is ReadItSwapIt?

At ReadItSwapIt, you can swap your old old old books for new ones.

It is a free book exchange website that allows you to swap the books you don’t want for the second-hand books that you do.

www.readitswapit.co.uk 

I’m a buggar for buying books I don’t get around to reading so this site is an ideal solution for getting books that I will. I’ve had a really good experience on it so far. And if you’re worried about swapping books with complete strangers it has an ebay-like rating system so you can see the feedback that everyone is getting.

Ofcourse, the downside is that you are not actually buying books and paying royalities to the writer, but you are getting to experience writers that you might not actually spend money on.

Give it a go. You might like it.

Blackfish Publishing

The New Home of Science Fiction!This is Death Ray, the newest, most exciting thing to happen to science fiction and fantasy in years. No other magazine goes into the vast multiverse that is SF & F in quite such detail, and no other magazine covers quite such a wide range of stuff every issue.

In Issue 1, on sale now!

I picked this up today and it totally rocks. Much better than the floundering SFX.  Try it, you might like it.

Where is the year going? It’s flying away fast.

The gym is going well, have I told you about the gym? No? Well. I’ve joined one. I’m paid up until October. So far I’ve been at least 3 times a week and greatly enjoying the steam room and the Jacuzzis. And it’s got over 100 pieces of equipment but somehow the ones that I’ve got on the plan I’ve been given are always full. Grr.

Apart from the gym I’ve read over 500 pieces of micro-fiction for work. I’ve read the first of the Dresden books, Storm Front, by Jim Butcher. I liked it. I’ve making my way slowly though The Queen of Sinister. It’s going slower than the earlier ones in the series. I hope it’s going to pick up soon.

I’m been expanding my must see  TV list. It now includes: Graham Norton, Have I Got News for You, Supernatural, Dresden Files, Q.I. (repeat)…actually that’s not a long list. Plus there’s some good stuff on Radio 4…

I was at Ikea at the weekend buying another bookcase. We’ve now got 3 tall Billy’s, two small ones, and a half tall one and I’ve still got books in boxes. I think I might have a problem there…