This week, Oin.
Oin: Well, it happened again last night. Some dignitary was visiting from the West (Gondor, this time), and of course when Gloin and I enter the hall, King Dain gets that look on his face, and he gets up to introduce us. Do we introduce ourselves with our father’s name? No we do not. We can’t help that Grandpap hated him and he wouldn’t change the name. But of course Dain found out. And now he has everyone else doing it. Oin son of Groin. Oh, will you pass the gravy, son of Groin? How’s the knee today, Groinsson? Just what I’d expect from the line of the magnificent Groin. Half of them don’t even try to pronounce it correctly, they just go straight for how it looks on the page. You know what? I’ve had enough. I’ll go with Balin to Moria. Can’t be worse than this place.
Kat: This week I spent several days in my local insane asylum after listening to H.P. Lovecraft stories for 25 hours straight. (I suggest that if you read Necronomicon, you spread these out a bit.) They wouldn’t let me have any books in my padded cell, and even if they did, there wasn’t enough light to read by. After some intense therapy and lots of downers, things weren’t getting better, so I escaped using a technique I learned in a book by Alexandre Dumas. After swimming home and getting a hot shower, I was finally able to settle down with Ian McDonald’s Evolution’s Shore, a fascinating story about the future evolution of humanity.
Kate: This week I finished listening to Kelly Link‘s Magic for Beginners (review to come). What a wonderful, weird, mind-bendy collection that was! It made me think about what I expect from fiction. I also re-read The Magician’s Land by Lev Grossman, which spun me down the Internet rabbit hole reading anything by Grossman that I could find. Finally, I read The House of the Four Winds, by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. I’ll be reviewing that this coming week.
Terry: This week I read Sleep Donation by Karen Russell, a novella that posits a world in which people have terminal insomnia that can be cured with an infusion of sleep from a healthier sleeper. Interesting stuff. I also finished Fool’s Assassin by Robin Hobb (hey, I’m not a fast reader — just a constant one, and it’s over 600 pages long), finishing at about 2:00 a.m. Saturday morning, which should give you some idea of how compelling it is. Now I’m at that weird and uncomfortable “between worlds” feeling that I get when I’m not fully immersed in someone else’s world. Not sure what I’ll read next; I’m rather spoiled for choice. I’m particularly tempted by The Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley; yep, I think that’s the one.
Tim: This week I was terribly busy with work (in fact, I’ve been so wrapped up that it’s actually a bit difficult to believe a week has already gone by), so I’m afraid my reading got no further than my own notes. I’m in the home stretch as regards this course, however, so hopefully things will begin to ease up over the next week. There are a lot of books to look at!
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Kat, 25 hours of Lovecraft is just… plain… scary! I’m glad you escaped and returned to the sunlit lands of relative normalcy.
Kate, I read Kelly Link for the first time about three months ago and I was stunned. In a good way. And I just finished Volume One of Locke and Key, where there is an homage to Link. I loved it.
How do we know this is really “our” Kat who has returned? I have some concerns . . .
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn
I don’t know if I’m more scared you wrote this or more scared I understood it . . .
Ha! You crack me up, Kat.
Yeah, I have gotten the feeling that I really need to get into Joe Hill, despite feeling nervous about reading horror. Is Locke and Key very scary?
There were a few Easter eggs like that in Volume One of Locke and Key, Marion. It was fun looking for them.