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I read the first two chapters of the Inventor's Companion in the waiting room today. Delicious! Not sure where its going, but I like the set up.

SO! After reading through like 70% of the first RA book I decided that I'm going to concentrate on Son of Neptune and put some progress into it. Neither Frank nor Hazel, though, seem as "memorable" as Leo or Piper, though. Has me worried. They actually seem pretty bland when considering the whole of the Percy Jackson universe. However, the story is only getting started and the book always takes off once the quest is underway.

Meh, whatever. Worst case scenario, Percy Jackson manages to drag me through it. :3 It's great having an outside view of him and seeing others' opinion of him. I was afraid he would lose some of his wise-ass-"ness" but nope - he's still Percy Jackson. The boy with a million comments, a penchant for bad/incomplete thinking, and a whole lot of luck and power. <3

Finished Inventor's Companion the other night, marathon style.

It was meh. Everything worked out a little too easily for the main characters, and I never really felt like there was strong drama or emotion pull. Lots of sex scenes, though. The main character was a little too perfect; he behaved exactly like the best person ever would behave. I enjoyed reading it, but I'm not replaying scenes in my head or obsessing over scenes or really feeling it. I can't see myself falling all over myself to reread it, either, like The God Eaters, Havemercy, Melusine, Downtime, The Fire's Stone, Magebound, whatever.

I'll say this was thoroughly disappointing just because it was so bland. It wasn't a bad book, not at all; it was very well written. It was just kind of boring when I was done. I liked reading it, but once I was finished I just had the attitude of like "Oh. Okay."

Not sure what I'll start next.

Finished Son of Neptune. Lot of gold moments after the 50% mark of the book. A lot of the fun wit and strange oddities that makes the books so fun in my perspective. Including one fun line near the end "Welcome to Canada, idiot." Which is funny in itself but ten times more funny if you know the situation.

.... ... -_- Now time to start waiting for the third book: Mark of Athena. *sigh*

T-T

Reading Dracula. I had started it a few weeks before for Halloween and hadn't finished it yet. Heh, as good as I can be with reading Shakespeare and other such old stories, this one is proving somewhat difficult and a lot will sometimes go over my head and I have to reread sentences to understand what it is that they are saying.

However, despite that, I'm enjoying the book immensely. ^_^ I love vampires - not the stupid, idiot Twilight-fetish vampires, but the old evil monsters. When I first started reading the book I was actually put off a little that it is not in typical book format - that it's written as a series of letters and diary entries by this or that person. However I've absolutely fallen in love with this style of story telling. It leaves a LOT open to the imagination which is wonderful for this spooky sort of story. More than anything it's able to leap easily from one person's point of view to another without being overly jarring. :[ But can potentially leave you on a cliff hanger of the worst sort - I'm looking at you Johnathan Harker.

I think it's more than worth the effort that it's taking to read it. ^_^ And seriously, I've never read a vampire story that was this good and exactly the sort of thing I love in vampires. <3

Slight mid-way story spoilers

Whoops, the new Eragon book is out. I bought the other 3 for 5 bucks each, so I guess I should get it.

I still think I'd like to read Inventor's Companion. But it sounds like it lacked sufficient conflict.

@Trifkin: I noticed you're reading 500 Ways to be a Better Writer! What do you think of it? I've read most of it and have enjoyed it a lot.

Not that I actually know the particular book that you guys are referencing, but, do you really "READ" books like that? I usually get those sorts of books and just skim through and reference my favorite/problem areas.

I'm familiar with Wendig, at least I assume that has to be who this is about, and uh ... yeah, you definitely read it.

Edit: Which reminds me actually, I'm getting a Kindle out of the Black Friday shopping extravaganza. Suggestions? I have a huge glut of Golden Age Detective stuff I want to get through so it'd be nice to have basically anything else as reads for in between.

@Jubie - I am enjoying it so much! It's one of those books that makes me laugh out loud in public and not care even a little bit.

@Maxine - I think I know what you mean there. There are some books I'll skim to just find a specific tip or answer to a question... but since I'm still so self-conscious about writing (and so incredibly rusty), I do tend to read every word of any writing book I get. How do I even know what problem areas I have yet? There have been several passages I've read that pointed out potential flubs I hadn't even thought of.

@scy - What other types of things do you like to read?

^_^ My god, the deeper I get into the novel the better it gets. I'm shocked that the author, who I figured considering the era he's writing from, would be, I don't want to say sexist, but just a bit male dominating. I figured it would be swooning ladies and males to the rescue. While it the cast consists of primarily men (Harker, Seward, Helsing, Morris, and Arthur) I'm shocked that Mina is given more character and life than most of the men and is made out to be a great deal more intelligent half the time. Maybe not as scholared but highly intelligent nonetheless and far more open minded. And it's fairly obvious that Stoker probably enjoyed writing her character the most perhaps. I can feel the love the author put into her.

I'm still struggling to get through the reading half the time and have come to just skip whole sentences. ... In Helsing's case, though, I skip quite a few more because dear lord that guy rambles. ^_^; Actually, he reminds me a lot of Ducky (NCIS) in that regard. Still... there's quite a few times things go over my head. I've learned, though, that just continuing on leads me to be able to infer enough to gain understanding.

Favorite scene so far:



....

It really does inspire me to want to write my own vampire story. I would just hate for someone to pick it up and be like "where's the Twilight" :[ .... *sigh* But I like the vampire lore and the spookiness and mystery.

I lied. Future Babble became the morning read while I waited at the airport and I'm engrossed in it for the time being. It has proven to be an interesting read on the fascinating subject of human psychology towards predictions; goes through many of the normal motions of explaining it thus far (seriously, everyone knows the pattern dilemma) but entertaining none-the-less.

And it did remind me of a good quote: "The most important product of science is knowledge; however, the most important product of knowledge is ignorance." Truf.

There's a good chance a Murakami work will move into the upper ends of the to-do list as well (1Q84 most likely; maybe some of the short story anthologies). Or I'll just say fuck it all to planning and drawn names from a hat.

I took the shrink-wrap off my new book today at work, thinking to read it on my lunch break. It's a yaoi novel, which I usually refrain from reading because a) the quality isn't all that great to begin with and b) I utterly hate reading in translation. However, I'd heard really good things about this series. One reviewer was like "I found myself reading this yaoi novel for the plot. Let me repeat that. I was reading a yaoi novel, for the plot"

So anyway.

First page, full-color bonus insert -- extremely hardcore sex scene.

#___# oh my