In addition to the writing diary I started one post down, I plan to post a reading diary, probably just once a week or so. Sometimes I might write a bit of a review, sometimes it’ll just be a “what-I’m-reading” kind of thing.
I just finished reading Ruled Brittania, by Harry Turtledove. I enjoy alternate history when I read it, but I’ve usually read shorter versions of it in the SF magazines. I’ve avoided Turtledove’s Civil War alternate histories because there seem to be several hundred of them. But this was a stand-alone novel, and it combined a fascinating premise–what if the Spanish Armada had succeeded, and England had fallen to the Spanish invaders?–with a particularly fascinating cast of character; and I mean “cast” literally, since many of the main characters are actors, and the central character is none other than William Shakespeare.
Being an actor, very occasional playwright, and all-round theatre afficianado, I was sucked in from the very beginning and only regretted the story didn’t continue for another several hundred pages.
The other book I’m (re-)reading is Phillip Pullman’s The Subtle Knife, the second book in the His Dark Materials trilogy. This is the book my wife and I are reading together (more accurately, I’m reading it to her, out loud, a chapter or so a night–this is a habit that goes back to before we were married). It’s been so long since I read it the first time around that it might as well BE the first time around, and I’m looking forward to going straight on to the final book in the trilogy, because although I started it, I didn’t finish it, mainly because there had been such a long pause between my reading the second and getting to the third that I couldn’t remember what was going on.
Finally, I’m working my way through the latest issue of Asimov’s SF Magazine, and so far have been underwhelmed. I didn’t care for the cover story much at all, the Tanith Lee “Moon Wolf” was atmospheric (if you can have an atmospheric tale set on the moon, what with the complete lack of atmosphere and all) but thin…and that’s all I’ve finished so far.
More next week!
