I gotta read more

I just realized I originally intended to use this to blog about books, but as soon as I started it, my time spent reading went way down. Typical.

I finished The Broken Places. (Enjoyed it. Great character work, and lots of very nice world-building-type revelations.) But I haven't really gotten very far on anything since then. I've been slowly working through The Lord of the Rings, which counts I guess, but it's something of a special project. I've never really been very fond of Tolkien's writing style, but wanted to avoid the temptation to skip paragraphs while rereading the books, so I've been reading them aloud to myself. I've always liked reading out loud, and this gives me a way to really experience the language and characters more fully than I have on past reads. I'd just finished Fellowship when the ROTK movie hit theaters, and I've been working on The Two Towers since. But Christmas and movie-going put a crimp in things.

ANYWAY, I did just start a new book, The Briar King by Greg Keyes. I was VERY excited when this book was released. His first fantasy The Waterborn is a huge favorite of mine with some beautiful imagery, but since that book and its sequel, Keyes has focused on an alt-history (VERY alt) series that I wasn't able to get into, and Star Wars books. The Briar King is his return to a more "traditional" fantasy. I'm not very far yet, and so far the language that I liked so much in Waterborn hasn't made an appearance, but I'm past the prologue material and getting into the meat of the story, and it looks pretty interesting.