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So. I'm back from vacation. Didja miss me?

Here's what got done over vacation: I read five of the six novels I brought with me and am 100 pages into Undertow. I plan to review everything except Move Under Ground (Nick Mamatas). I was impressed with Move Under Ground and I would go so far as to say that I admire the novel. I've read a small handful of Jack Kerouac's novels and Mamatas captures the overall feel of Kerouac, or comes so close that the Mamatas version feels authentic. And that's enough. It's an odd mix of a beat novel with the horror of Cthuthlu and the action of the novel spirals out of control. It's an impressive work of fiction. I'm just afraid I don't have much more to say about the novel that what is contained in this paragraph.

I expect most of the reviews of the vacation reading will show up here the week after next. And before I tell you what I'm doing next week I just have to say that Territory is awesome. This is the first fiction I've read from Emma Bull which is not Shadow Unit and damn, Bull can flat out tell a story.

On to next week.

Next week is Elizabeth Bear week over here at Adventures in Reading. Why? Well, besides Bear's general awesomeness in writing great books, I have a bunch of stuff that's all available at the same time.

So, the week will look something like this:

Monday: Ink and Steel review
Tuesday: Somewhat brief coverage of "Shoggoths in Bloom"
Wednesday: Hell and Earth review
Thursday: *shrug*
Friday: All the Windwracked Stars review

The two Promethean Age reviews are written and done, so those go up for sure. I can whip something up for "Shoggoths in Bloom", no problem. My problem is Thursday and Friday. I finished All the Windwracked Stars a few weeks ago and really need to write up the review. I expect I can / will have it done for Friday. I hope.

Thursday...well, I have a couple things I'm mulling. One is to read the Bear / Monette pairing "Boojum" and talk about it. That's one. Another is to post an interview with Bear. I completed the interview a while back and since I didn't get bites on the couple of places I shopped the interview, I might run it here. I'd hold it and keep shopping it, but I want it to be timely to the forthcoming (end of this month) publication of All the Windwracked Stars. If I kept shopping it, it might not see the light of day until next year depending on how long it sits in a market's queue. So, we'll see. Maybe I'll call the day Black Thursday, pretend it doesn't exist, and not post anything at all. *shrug*