scripsi

I have never kept track on my reading before and I find this a lot of fun. I seem to read a book a week on a normal pace, which is largely due to the hour I spend on a train every workday.

What I am reading: Prudence by Gail Carriger.

Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold.

What I have finished reading: Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois McMaster Bujold. This is Bujold’s great fan service. Not that it isn’t a good book, it is, but a book about Miles’ cousin Ivan have been high on the fan’s wish list. This is also her last book to date, even if it takes place before Cryoburn. Ivan and Miles are each other opposites, both to body and mind, though they love each like brother’s. From the outset Ivan is described as handsome and stupid, though the reader gets more and more aware that Ivan may be a lot more intelligent than he seems. In fact, he may be almost as smart as Miles. He also have some very good reasons to lay low, beginning with his father being murdered the night he is born.

Bujold is a Georgette Heyer fan and Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance has a classic romance plot. Boy meets girl in peril and ally himself with her to save her. Then they fall in love but as both have agreed that this is temporary there are some twists and turns before they can live happily ever after. Here Ivan gets a visit from Byerly Vorrutyer (a sure sign of trouble) and in a very short order he has been shot at, tied up, met a blue lady and married the beautiful and mysterious Tey. There is also a treasure hunt.

It’s all good fun, in fact, this book is almost all pure fun and romance and even if it lack Miles, apart from one short scene, we get to see a lot of Emperor Gregor, Lady Alys, Simon Illyan and By, so you hardly miss him.

The Rats In the Wall by H. P. Lovecraft. One of his best novellas about an American who returns to his ancestral home in England. His forefather fled it in the 1660’s after killing his whole family and the castle has a bad reputation stretching back into the dawn of time. Well installed he starts to hear rats in the walls and eventually a much more gruesome secret is revealed.

What I will be reading next: No idea! I am thinking of re-reading Diana Wynne Jones, though!