Playing better tennis I think. Whoopee. Hitting one hand heavy topspin forehands (western) with a closed stance and starting to feel confident it's going to go in. Beat that 6'8" guy who made the finals of the Fitzwater 6-3, 6-1. Bending knees on my serve now somewhat (not perfectly consistently, depends on ball toss) thanks to climbing machine that I really like.

I can say now with certainty that chocolate has played a huge role in my creativity. I say this with some shame. I hate to think my creativity depends on such a thing. But, I didn't touch the stuff for years because of headaches issues and my creativity pretty much disappeared. I have tentatively brought it back. Just a bit here and there (while avoiding all other headache triggers) and my mind is just running off on all kinds of flights of fancy. Like it once did. Though I'll never eat it as much as I once did. Too much creativity may be dangerous.

So I read Planet Narnia followed by all but the last half of the last battle. It didn't ultimately make me a writer. Maybe I should take up smoking? Now reading Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb. It's quite good. Looks like it's going to tie everything up. Bringing a lot of stuff together. Hasn't made me cry though.

One falls into predicaments because: one insists on doing the right thing with little to no regard for one's own self interest, bad luck, making bad choices. One escapes a predicament by exceptional athletic abilities, the help of friends, intelligence creativity, special powers, luck.

Read the Gilded Chain by Dave Duncan... and have no recollection of it at all.... I remember the Reluctant Swordsman which was a series by him I didn't finish.... Oh yes. The Gilded Chain a guard for the King. A bit of magic. These guards have a sword shoved into their chest by the person they are going to guard. It's magic. The king has many such guards but the hero is the best ever swordsman, etc, etc and the King makes him his right hand man. Rollicking good tale.

Then read the Piebald Prince by the master, Robin Hobb. Only 80 pages long. Unhappy ending. Very very good. Exceptional. As expected.

And then reread Tschai. To me it is somehow just such a wonderful tale. And I absorbed it better this time than in the past. ZAP 210 I think I didn't like the love interest before and was figuratively holding my noise. This time didn't feel that way. Ends with Adam Reith, his three friends and four technicians taking off in a spaceship, leaving Tschai..... Wish it didn't end but hard to imagine how.

Everytime I try to use my laptop my nine month old comes running. Oh well.

Tennis. Just about there now. Determined the serve grip determines how much you should face the court on the serve. With an almost eastern forehand grip should just about face straight up, with almost eastern backhand you should be turned sideways. I've been trying to stand a bit sideways while using almost eastern forehand. This means a sort of hitch in the middle of my motion where I really lose accuracy. I dislike facing straight toward the service box though. May experiment more with almost eastern backhand service grip.

Andy Murray backhand now and very happy with it. Extremely good return of serve today. And really trying to hit a two hand forehand drive instead of Santoro style. Because I want to be able to hit winners and not get totally destroyed by anyone. Went pretty well today but still getting used to it. Actually lost to Chi trying to play this way. Oh well.

I had the elliptical on a decline so I didn't hit my knees on it. Switched to an incline (and stand further back) and my 2 mile run went from 14:25 (no improvement for three weeks really) to 14:15 and now 14:10. Otherwise I'm now just doing one 2 hour run at maffetone and 2 hour elliptical also at maffetone.

Decided to hit a two handed forehand so I just don't have to worry about tennis elbow hopefully. Also thinking to do hands backwards (like a left hander) and also hit overheads with two hands, lol.

Read 1st book of new Fitz/Fool trilogy by Robin Hobb. Cried.

Wish I had more time. Don't have time to work, do sports, do music, have a garden, write stories and see relatives/friends. Not even close.

The Left Hand of God by Paul Hoffman
This was a great book. Another hero with who has suffered great injustice who has an ace. Again, that being that he can kick ass. No magic other than his ridiculous ability to kick it. Really liked the beginning of this book. The extent to which it almost reads like alternate history (thus I guess being slightly less creative) did not subtract at all. Really well done. Not much in the way of complaints... I mean I could surely pick holes in it. But I was too busy enjoying it.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N K Jemisim
Not sure I'll finish it. Doesn't have the level of world building that Left Hand has... And has that stereotypical woman writing style, which, just doesn't appeal to me quite as much. Feels like a video game. Jumps right into things a little too quick? I dunno.

Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb
She even mentioned kind of getting sick of having to stick with some unidentified work. This felt slightly mailed in. Definitely not her best. This whole last tril has had a bit much of a YA feel. Hest was too stupid. I guess Prince Regal was also. But irrational paranoia... somehow worked better. Maybe because we spent far less time in his brain. I still liked this book. But it felt like a guilty pleasure and I'm not going to be raving about it to anyone.

I've never read a fantasy fiction book with that much gayness in it. Which, I don't know, almost, I dunno, like too romancy for me. Ultimately was rushed. They defeated Chalced in a day. After how they annoyed on and on through so many books. Feh. At times I wondered if she was actively trying to write more like GRR Martin, with the constant jumping from character to character and annoying cliffhangers. Not as dark as earlier books. Not trying to save the world. Not trying to being magic back into the world. Oh well. I enjoyed it.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Sci Fi. This future dystopia is interesting. Kind of. But the characters aren't. Sci fi characters never seem to suffer very much. Top 100 book on some lists. I guess I can see that it's decent. But exactly not my kind of thing. Geeky tech stuff that in and of itself is not interesting.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Trying to give Gaiman more of a chance. So far this guy is trying to get him to take a job. This is just OK. Not sure if I'll finish it. Feels very tired. Like it's been done many times before. The excon reminds me of a somethng Steven King would write.

A Ring of Endless Light by Madeline L'Engle
A top 100 book that I hadn't heard of. Nothing really happens during the sample. Nothing at all. No Stormy nights are my glory. No 5 year old genius. Just a big family doing nothing interesting at all. I probably should give it more of a chance. Fond memories of Charles/Meg Wallace etc.

Finally a sci fi movie: Elysium
It was awful. I like Damon as a person but he is so wooden as an actor. The "revolutionary" overacted horribly. The australian guy... good lord. Shut up! Pitiful movie. And I wanted to like it. So few decent sci fi mmovies. Someone claimed it was leftist radical. Blah. Whatever. Everything was thin. Such thin cardboard characters. Someone please shut up that australian guy already. Wow, this was a sad, tired movie. Luckily it was a dinner theater and I finally just read some Paul Hoffman instead. (Table with lights.) As my wife will not leave a bad movie, no matter how bad it is. We paid money and we're going to sit there no matter what!

Feel awful today. Don't know if I pushed myself too hard on yesterday's run or it's that Tdap shot.

Anyway, currently reading The Knight by Gene Wolfe
At times I haven't liked the feel of his stories. They are dreamy and seem a bit random, like dreams often do. Really enjoying this one though. Guess I'm in a dreamy mood.

Also audio version of City of Dragons by Robin Hobb. I don't know. Feels a bit unusually childish. Not much adversity. The british lady doing the reading sounds kind of ridiculous doing the male voices also.

Eh. Too tired.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and The Inheritance by Megan Lindholm/Robin Hobb

Reviewing both for the contrast between the two. The Hunger Games takes place in an extreme dystopia. A futuristic and barbaric world. Each year 24 people between the ages of 12 and 18 (why so young? The book is for young adults.) have to battle each other to the death. At home people are struggling to survive, barely enough to eat except at the Capitol where they seem to live a life of opulence.

The Inheritance is a somewhat short collection of short stories. The Hobb stories take place in the Farseer World and feature The Wit (the ability to speak to animals.)

The Hunger Games is light. The main character could get her arm chopped off and I'd think, "Gee, Oh well." This is in comparison especially to the Hobb stories (more so than the Lindholm stories interestingly enough) where one really cares about the charaters. This final story of The Inheritance especially draws one in, about a young woman, an abusive man and a very useful cat.

Beyond just being drawn in more, there is just this feel to Hobb/Lindhom stories, where one feels at home, relaxed. Hard to say what it is. Just her sensibility perhaps. My wife found her similarity to me eeriy(sp). She mentions not being able to afford a synthesizer, goes on about cellos and has multiple stories that have a lot of music. And finally, she had a black cat named Loki even.

Now reading The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove which is annoyingly light. Especially annoying as it's 1864 (the middle of a war) and we're in the South. The characters are presented as decent enough people who just have this slight little flaw, what is it? Oh yes, fighting for slavery. Willing to die in massive numbers for slavery. But gosh, those South Africans from the future, they just hate blacks. Not like people from the South 150 years ago who are almost all actually very kind hearted. "Yes, the negro is inferior but we still should be nice to them," seems to be what the average Southerner thinks according to Turtledove.

Turtledove describes endless scenes of people getting their heads blown off, a million times a bullet has whizzed past the head of the one protagonist. And you know what? Who cares? Light as a feather. Couldn't care less. This book is in sharp contrast to the autobiography of Fredrick Douglass, where one is really drawn in hard to the reality of slavery. Turtledove's book is both light and kind of an offensive apolegetic, although not really an outright defense of the South. I'm 25% in and starting to just skim only because the question of what life would have been like had the South not been defeated really interests me. Otherwise would have thrown this book aside.

Reading short stories of Hobb/Lindholm. Funny mention of both a cello and being too poor to afford a synthesizer, right as once again I'm looking at old analog hardware synths on ebay. I'm going to regret it my whole life if I don't get one. Just the not knowing.... Although it would have been damm nice if I could have just played around with one that someone else owned somewhere at some point in my life. But nope, literally decades without that ever happening. Right now looking at the roland juno-6. Not the 60 because without patches maybe I'll really get good at making sounds. And not the 106 because I'm doing this for ultimate sound and the 106 is said to not sound as good. The 106 does have midi while the 6 and 60 don't... I may have to cover the walls of my "music studio" in foam.

Really like Hobb/Lindholm as I've already mentioned. So far a story about an alien that can make any sound and generally sounded like a cello that turned a kids mom into a hopeless junkie, then got killed, then his little sister gets stolen. Secondly a story about a fortyish man named Merlin. Hobb spends a lot of time talking about her own life between stories, which I would think I'd really dislike but find myself not minding. Maybe since she's female???? (Along with intelligent and 'nice'.)

I also didn't mind seeing/hearing JV Jones. But then she's british and really good looking.

Further August Strindberg. From this must admit:
http://www.strindbergandhelium.com/
Finally actually reading him thanks to kindle. Read the play Comrades so far, which is about two married painters, ending with the husband divorcing the shitty wife. They say Strindberg hated women. This play certainly looks that way. But they say he simply used the people around him and this is just what was around him.

And continuing Lovecraft. Now starting the Call of Cthulu. Lovecraft is just this haze. It's not a given story. It's the overall feel. Like with Jack Vance actually to a large extent. I picture Mr. Lovecraft himself as the main character in each story. Usually alone, in the dark, and walking through these passageways to the eldritch.

Using the reading function on kindle a lot. All those words spoken outloud that no one in my real world will ever say.

The work of Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm
The Fitz books really resonated with me. A main character with special powers in a world that has a decent bit of injustice in it. Not really a dystopia. Actually a medieval escapist setting. Which is pretty well done. Fitz suffers such extreme injustice. (As do the protagonists in all 15 books I've read by her.) Hobb really lays it on thicker than the average fantasy fiction IMO. At the same time you know that Fitz's powers are such that something good is eventually going to happen. Furthermore she teases concerning bringing back dragons, etc. She knows how to keep one turning the pages. The characters are decently detailed, yet still simplistic enough to be an escapist fantasy world. Really she does so much so well. I could go on.

At the same time though there's really virtually no psychological or sociological insights. Some basic ones of course. But nothing interesting and definitely nothing that 99% of people wouldn't agree with... I loved some of her books yet I can imagine some relatively vacant people also did.