American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
It was a bit light. Nice idea but ultimately not all that deep considering it's supposed to be about gods in general, which is such a vast subject. All the forgotten gods throughout time. Not terrible either. Better than I've ever managed certainly. Shadow was a bit simplistic. Has free time and sits around practicing card tricks. Dead wife says it's like he's half dead and well I guess, yes. Simplistic thought processes. But I enjoyed it as I read it.

Given up on Malazan, just randomly goes on and on in a pretty meaningless way.

Started the Magic Casement by Dave Duncan and LOVE the first page or so. The description of the weather, terrain/geography. At least the first page or so anyway. That kind of detail is so important.

OK. Almost to the end of my tennis experimentation. Two hand backhand with eastern forehand grip. Two hand forehand with semiwestern grip for topspin and slice. Attempting to hit volleys with both hands on racquet in eastern forehand grip. Overheads... I dunno. Maybe eastern forehand. Serves... down to messing with the serve. Experimenting with eastern backhand grip (almost) on the serve.

I've been successfully running 1/2 intervals (60 secs fast/120 secs slow). In the past my right knee couldn't handle this. In general potentially hard on the body. With short very controlled strides I've been ok for a week or two now.

Trying to eat applesauce every morning for breakfast (heated). Been doing so for almost a month now or so I think. Finally found a way to eat fruit. Having just rice, peas and tomato sauce usually for lunch. For dinner I eat out (indian, burritoes/fries, etc) or have good bread toasted with hummus or tomato sauce, or Amy's burritoes, or rice and beans/peas. In other words starting to truly eat healthy. Completely sworn off cheese which causes migraines for me (along with cancer and cardiovascular disease). And being careful of foods with preservatives (migraines). So really eating healthy finally. No salty chips (migraines/kidney stones). No chocolate (migraines). Not too much sugar (migraines). Thanks to migraines I eat healthy now! And I don't get migraines anymore it seems.

Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Recommended by Christopher Buehlman. Called pretentious by hundreds of amazon reviewers. Zombie apocalapse(sp). Not much of a story. Got distracted 52% in and forgot about it. Not sure I'll bother finishing. The main character is dull.

The Better Angels of our Nature by Steven Pinker
We're getting less violent he says. His evidence is convincing. He belabors the point. Stopped 25%. Should skim ahead as it very well could get interesting again.

Went to a book thing in Gaithersburg, MD. Just happened to be there for something else. I loved it. But these things are always so far away and I didn't love it quite enough to drive 4 hours just for it. Maybe someday when Hawthy is older I'll see about any in Pittsburgh... Anyway there must have been 100 published authors there. Only one fantasy fiction guy I think (not counting the children's area). Aire. I got a sample on kindle. It has the memorable line. "'Grandmother', said Annie's granddaughter." And so on.

But I did enjoy listening to this one lady who writes teen fiction go on and on. J did too. Got me wanting to write again. But I haven't. Was so hot though so we left early worried it was bad for Hawthy.

Steven Erikson's Malazan series.
Held off for the silly reason that I didn't want to read military fantasy fiction. Well maybe it wasn't so silly though. The first book is very inventive. Tattersail with her cards. What his name getting his soul but in a wooden doll. Moon's Spawn. But it goes a little overboard with powerful wizards popping up everywhere at the end. And no one person is quite likable enough. Paran almost. But not really. Book two isn't as good but supposedly it picks up again.

So after all these years I think that's it for S. Unless she makes an amazing and sudden turnaround. I became friends with her sister and my wife had a baby. Not sure if it was just one of these things or both. They both coincide with a very sudden and strange change in her behavior. Well I shouldn't say so strange. I've seen her act like this with other people. Why do I pick out the one person who I've ever seen manage to get fired as a hospital orderly? Why do I do this? Is it just that I'm attracted to broken people? That I want to fix them/help them? Or J wonders, do I want "friends" that I can feel superior to/have power over? It's definitely worth thinking about, but I really don't think the latter is the case.

I think perhaps part of it is that everyone is either boring or crazy and I keep choosing crazy. At least J is boring instead of crazy.

It does depress me that she did this. There doesn't seem to be anything I can do about it. But then, it's nice not to worry abut people who keep trying to start shit with me also. I don't think I'm going to choose to hang out with any more crazy people. But as one gets older it gets harder and harder to make any new friends. Not sure I'll every make any more.

Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson, first 200 pages of it. First book of the Malazan series.

This was recommended concerning escapist dystopian fantasy. But just because everyone's at war doesn't truly make a novel dystopian. For it to be dystopian there has to be something unique about the social norms and here it's the same old generic stuff. The exact same social norms but with the exact same simplifications which makes it fantasy. Also characters are a bit light and it's basically just killing. One hardly cares who dies. Best feature is the level of detail of the magic which I suppose makes the setting more believable but I don't think it's the correct way to go about introducing magic actually. It should be vague. It's supposed to be the unknown. Although granted plenty of unknown is left here so I guess the level of detail is OK.

Lots of political intrigue. Which isn't interesting. Reminds me of Dune in that.

There is something essential missing from the characters. There needs to be something other than endless war and killing and political intrigue in order to make one care about the results of all that muck.

What's keeping the pages turning?
There is some injustice to be righted. Although it's not strong enough IMO. And there is a sort of hero who one gets a very slight feeling has something special about him. Some ace up his sleeve. Barely. Maybe. Not leading to something very wonderful though. Just maybe they'll ease up this killing. They've not made room for anything in the place of the killing therefore nothing wonderful can loom.

..furthermore it just occurred to me they're really pushing the military angle a bit much... But then it is war.... Eh.