Finished the last of my exams on the 20th, so now I can finally really get into some fiction. The past week has been a bit ravenous, but that might just be months of restricted time being loosened.
Read Heinlein's Star Beast. I'm hesitant to use this term with anyone, but I think he certainly deserves it: Heinlein is a master of his craft. Not sure what more I can say about the book that isn't summed up by that. Whilst reading, I found myself marveling at how every introduction of a new significant character arose as a demand of circumstance within the narrative, nothing came about arbitrarily if you will. He has an amazing ability to keep his aliens alien, yet at the same time make them endearing and accessible. As always, he manages to showcase the tenacity and ingenuity he loves to attribute to Man.
I've been a sucker for Blizzard games since I was a kid (I used to hold a fairly respectable NA ranking in Warcraft III: Frozen Throne back in the day, but that's beside the point). A local book shop closed a few months back and since then the proprietor has been forced to sell off his stock online and outrageously and unfortunately low prices, so I picked up a few dozen novels from him. Among those was a collection of Blizzard novels. I finished The Day of the Dragon by Richard Knaak. I won't bore anyone with the details unless their interested other than to say it's a decent showing of Knaak's early talent and somewhat difficult to reconcile its place in the history if you're up to date with the Warcraft universe.
Yesterday I burned through Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. I really liked it. Went out today and bought the follow up. Only things I had any real trouble with was some of the in world references until about midway through the book when events conspired to make more sense of that. The only other thing I had trouble reconciling, and it didn't detract any from my enjoyment of the story in the grand scheme of things, is Jorg's age. Even for an exceptional character in extreme circumstances, I never really considered him as young as he claims.
Moving forward, I have another Knaak Warcraft novel that I've started and should be done shortly. I started The Last and First Men just before exams, so I'll be back to restart that. I've been leafing through some history texts and I have a Glen Cook omnibus to finish as well.