The Week Just Gone

Well well well, lookee here, a review of the week. I hope to do this on a weekly basis, probably on a Sunday or a Monday - it will contain my random thoughts on the books I'm reading (with spoilers clearly stated), prettyful links, anecdotes and other random loveliness.

5/12/2011-11/12/2011:

This week has been eventful to say the least. I started three books, got one signed, subsequently lost it on the bus and went to a Steampunk evening. Oh, and I started blogging.

Bookwise, I'm reading The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett, Summer Knight by Jim Dresden and The Scar by China Mieville. Somewhat surprisingly only one of those is a re-read, The Scar. Having never read any Pratchett (I know, I know), I read The Colour of Magic in November and loved it, and decided to enjoy myself and occupy my OCD-brain by reading the lot in order. Surely it makes more sense that way? Summer Knight is book 4 of The Dresden Files (warning, contains spoilers), a series I started in August, and is equally wonderful. I'd recommend a look to anyone interested in genre fiction - simply summed up, its like Harry Potter in America for adults, and as such is a bit grittier. The series currently stands at 13, and doesn't seem like it will stop soon.

My tale of The Scar is a sad tale, full of woe and tears. I went to the lovely Steampunk Evening at Blackwell's, and met China Mieville there (detailed below). He was kind enough to sign my dog-eared and well read The Scar. Personalized. To me. With some French words and mention of tentacles in it. It was amazing. I had it for all of 12 hours. The next morning, I took the number 68 from Denmark Hill (where I live) toward university at the Strand. At Camberwell Green we had to get off, and get on the bus in front. The books stayed behind, having fallen out of my coat pocket (yes, I like to carry my books around in my pockets. I got on, we started going, I realised I'd left it behind. I got sad, upset, angry. A seminar on Language in Time just wasn't going to cut it. I got off at Elephant & Castle, and checked 5 68 busses in a row - 30 minutes of wasted time - before going back to the bus garage, and checking whether it had been handed in. No luck. Rang again later. No luck. So went my book :(.

Because I'm contrary (and much prefer Mieville's old cover art), I have bought an old copy of it off Amazon (despite being a massive advocate of a real bookshop, and real books). I will have a period of mourning until it comes into my pigeonhole at university halls, and I shall start to wear bright colours again. But until then, I'm the Man in Black.


On the subject of the Steampunk evening, which I've already blogged about, there have been myriad response to it (thanks to the previously unknown wonder of twitter): @CTD did this lovely visual take on events, Sarah McIntyre (@Jabberworks) wrote this and Rhys (@fictionthirst) wrote up about the Philip reeve event at Foyles before as well. Have a read.

Elsewhere:
this youtube clip is very cool
Gollancz are offering all kinds of goodies (Direct Link)
and Skyrim is officially awesome

Oh, and I LOVE the cover art for Railsea:

For next week's show, I shall have many more links and things, but I'm a tad useless at pre-planning, so only small amounts this time round.