To be continued...

I am in a foul fucking mood because of work. I worked most of the weekend and then was too tired to do anything for the remainder. So it is Monday and shit is still going wrong and the work from this weekend was mostly time wasted due to errors completely outside my control. (Even those things which are supposed to be within my control are not because no one ever does what I ask them to do.) </rant>

Wow, that just burbled out. I'm not going to talk about that though. There have been a few things on my mind and I hope to exorcise them now. In no particular order:

• I like the Avon smooth minerals mascara better than the Maybelline Great Lashes. Thanks for the tip Karen.
• Too many Novels are actually just Volume One these days. I'm getting really tired of coming to the last 75 pages of a book and realizing there is no way the plot will be done before I run out of pages. I like series, I really do. I do not like when I read 500 pages under the impression that what I'm reading is a self-contained story and then it just ends before any plot elements are resolved. Tolkien got it right with LoTR; Three volumes that sort of have end points that make sense, but since I know there are three books I am not surprised when Fellowship ends right at Gandalf's death. These three are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.*
  
  1. A Discover of Witches**: I finished this book this weekend and it pissed me off so much I'm not sure I'll read the concluding "novel" if it ever comes out. This is a big fucking book and I enjoyed reading it, nothing I read in the book flap told me it was just part 1. I knew I was in trouble with two new characters that seem to be important to the overall plot were introduced in about the last 75 pages. Unless the second book is spec-fucking-tacular there should have been major editing here. And if there turns out to be a third I'm boycotting the author for good.
  2. All-Clear by Willis**: I finally decided to start the second part of a book I read last year, Blackout. I really like Connie Willis, but not all of her books equally. Again, I didn't know until I was almost finished with Blackout that there was a second book. I normally would reread the first book in preparation for the second, but it was a very long first book that I didn't particularly enjoy reading the first time around. When I read the acknowledgments searching for clues I had missed about this 2 part story I saw her thanking everyone for helping her through the insanity of one book turning into two. So far I'm wishing someone had made her sit down and edit. There are too many people, plots, jumping from place to place. And so far in All-Clear it seems like it could easily have been edited into just one book if the characters hadn't decided they needed to keep important secrets from one another for no good reason. I have little patience for plots that would have been over before they began if people had just been honest from the start. It's not like she needed to bump the page count up.
  3. Leviathan by Westerfeld**: This one got me too. The first whole books ends up just introducing the main characters and getting them in place. The boom! The end. Again, I had no clue this was just part 1. At least part 2 I was prepared, but still it didn't feel like enough happened in either to really hand together as a story on it's own. Both are just beginning and middle.

• I think today's TeeFury t-shirt (will have to update this after today to get permanent link to March 28 Scooby Who design) would be much better if it showed Mickey instead of Tom Baker's doctor with K-9. ("Oh my God, I'm the tin dog!")
• I'm getting my annual urge to sew my own shirts. I bought some material over the weekend for a t-shirt pattern I've had for over a year. Also, I bought a cheap sewing machine (Singer Heavy Duty from Joanne's) so I can finally bring my Pfaff to the store for repairs. Considering it took 3 months to get a replacement foot I'm reluctant to let go of my machine to get the reverse lever fixed.)

* See how I set your expectations there? I'm going to talk about three books that are not properly novels, but should be labeled as parts of a larger whole. Just think how you'd feel if I said five books and then just stopped at two or three with no explanation.

** I'm too pissed off right now to even do proper notation and like to amazon. Take that bitches!

exorcise

Comments

[Karen]

Glad you like the Smooth Minerals mascara. : )

I hope to have a COMPLETE novel WITH a satisfying ending for you soon!