Want to really work on this post for a long time. Possibly rereading all of these. Really understanding in great detail what I like about each.

Favorite writers and why...
Lev Grossman-.. Felt like it is a very realistic examination of the fascination with the Narnia books.... J liked it was like Potter but darker and more realistic characters. Like almost truly realistic characters in a fantasy fiction setting.


Robin Hobb- in Farseer, etc she stays in first person with just Fitz throughout and puts him through hell. Endless injustice and he is affected by it. Permanently. He's not some stoic super hero. He's affected and the reader cares. Meanwhile it's a world full of mystery. The magic is left vague. There is a real feeling of history and realness to the world. Plots are nothing special.

It tantalizes in that you know Verity and Fitz have great Skill abilities/potentials yet you wait and wait and wait for them to actually use them. To finally right past injustices. Fitz's Skill and Wit are both denied him for so long and you wait and wait.

Fitz has a true friend throughout that he can communicate with telepathically. What an escapist dream. Just the two of them through the dark cold nights traveling.

In Liveships we have such pain. The bad guy Kennit, something horrible was done to him as a child. The Mad Ship finally just abandoned, blind. The young boy who's father reads like some ME stereotype. Cutting his own finger off. And the mystery of bringing back dragons. The symbolism of the return of magic to the world. What will happen? What will they be like? The serpents trying to find their memories. (Mystery, etc, page turning).

Mervyn Peake
The characterizations are so detailed and... strange. They stay with you. Though little actually happens and really not a page turner.

Brent Weeks (night angel)
Escapism. To be such a badass. Even actually returning from the dead.
Third person. Starts by showing just how pitiful Azoth is. Shows doesn't tell as he tries to complete a task.
Got so engrossed in the story again forgot I was analyzing it.


Dave Duncan ( A man of his word/a few good men, also the Great Game)
Tough one to summarize. Seriously underrated. Rap has perfect morals and very very slowly turns into the ultimate bad ass. And he holds back from showing what he's capable of.

The guy in the Great Game has the same morals. Great job on the setting.

Wrinkle in Time and the rest of the series
I don't know now. Extreme nostalgia. Didn't really have much to compare to. Still I love these and somehow I picture S. as Meg, which drives me crazy somehow. Hearing about being young and getting home from school and looking in the fridge for a snack and having a liverwurst and cream cheese sandwich. And the rock out back. The sky. The garden. I don't know?? I can't explain.

So Charles is a genius. That's nice. Loved the Swiftly Tilting Planet cover with Charles on the unicorn and demons grabbing for them in the clouds. At Tara in this fateful hour....

Narnia
How I'd love to slip into another world through a closet. Nostalgia.

Tschai
Everything Vancian. Worlds made so complete with so few words. Here they don't believe he's from another world. Religion is used to subjugate man. The most competent man. A typical hero I suppose. And a stoic. Not touched by the hardships that happen to him. One can adopt this attitude IRL. If necessary.

Gene Wolfe
Hard to explain..... A stoic like Vance....

Drizzt
Escapist. Bad ass fighter in a simple easy to understand world. Bad guys are clear. Beat them with your sword fighting. Yet Drizzt is like a real person. Affected by being a good person yet stuck in such a terrible dystopia. Surrounded by Dark Elves.

Also really like Anthony Ryan, Aldous Huxley, Tolkien, Kundera, Robert Tressel, Richard Adams, Christopher Buehlman, Charles Bukowski, Dickens, Leguin, Lovecraft, Murakami, Stapleton, Sheri Tepper, TH White, Paar Lagerkvist....

I last timed a run two years ago. 2 miles in 14:10. I last labeled a post with running in May 2015. 16 months ago. I guess I quit running and just played tennis instead. Not a terrible thing I guess. Not much time to do both and spend time with wife, son, etc. But since heart surgery and being forced to be completely sedentary, I really find myself wanting to get back into it. I miss it. So trying to run just about everyday right now. Which is different. Previously I was running 3 or 4 times a week. Just maybe I'll get way faster than ever before with this greater frequency? My plan is to just run hard once a week. The rest of the time go really really slow. And not even worry about my speed. Right now slower than a walk actually. In fact I've been reading a book on my smart phone while running. Although I have to run in a long tunnel or when it's dark to do that. Going so slow makes it much easier to stick with it. I jog the 0.6 miles to my car after work even. Terribly slow though. But I feel like it's still worthwhile. Like how it's making me feel. Also switching to ball striking. Hopefully a high frequency of runs will stop me from getting much calf soreness. Jury is still out on that.

So today did my first time trial. It is 12 weeks since surgery. My resting heart rate is in the 70's when it used to be in the 50's. My ejection fraction is only "low normal". The cardiologist says these things will improve. Anyway, 9:58 for one mile. Average of 10:28 for two.

But it's been 16 freakin months since I really did any hard running.I shouldn't get too worried about how the heart surgery may have affected things.

12 weeks out. Been running hard. Want to get back into that. Provided I don't start getting headaches again. And played tennis wednesday with Chi. No two hand backhand though. Would like to switch to dominant hand on top for groundstrokes like Gene Mayer. Hoping to play in two hours but looks like a big storm is coming.

Read a bunch of stories by Fredric Brown. I had remembered from 20 years ago the talking donkey. Very, very dated stories. Read them while jogging. LIke them but ultimately didn't read all 33. Not much worth saying except that whole sci-fi age is just behind us now I guess. Innovation has slowed down such (not even a space program really at the moment) that people lost interest. And I guess there's only so many stories about first time alien encounters, which is mostly what he wrote about. I will say they have more meat to them than most stories these days as far as plot/things actually happening that you can't see coming. That's largely a function of short stories though.

Read Justin Cronin, The Passage. It was for an online book discussion club. There's not much to discuss except how it's not really very good. Best seller of course. 900 pages with a cliff hanger ending. Zero interest in the next book. Most of the characters felt the same. Not distinct. Also randomly influenced by the 12 prime vampires... just makes it pointlessly random. Don't really care when people die. Blah. I will say I can't put my finger as easily upon why it's not very good. That could be me getting old though.

City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett. The follow up to City of Stairs. Loved the beginning of Stairs, where there is the mystery of the departed gods. Was hoping they'd return. They sort of do. But just to be killed off for good. Blades seems to be the same idea. Characters aren't terribly interesting. Well Sigrud is good. A bad ass who's been put through hell. But otherwise not so interesting. Reads like it was written by a women, kind of. Almost like detective/mystery novels also, which wasn't, and apparently still isn't my thing.

Was hoping for a rainless miracle.... now the wind is blowing really hard... but the dark clouds are kind of past... Please....? Sprinkling but the heat could dry it fast...

The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick. 33% in. Meh. YA. A bit. Started in a factory where children worked like slaves. Combined with magic. She escapes on a "dragon". Now she's going to a high school but they're looking for her. Bit to YA.

Ash by Mary Gentle. You'd think with rapping 8 year olds and so on it'd be very grim and adult like but no. Not really. Read a review. Bit of a stereotypical light romance like women always write.

Bad habit lately of finishing bad books. Related to buying them. These days that first 10% (the free sample) are really good.