Over the last two weeks of vacationing in our little cottage near Sundsvall (that’s up along the eastern coast of Sweden, pretty much in the middle of the country lengthwise), I have continued the little reading frenzy that resulted in a couple of reviews before we left. Since I now have some class work to catch up for a summer class on writing historical novels), these books will have to be satisfied with shorter commentaries rather than full reviews.

Summer vacation usually means a chance to catch up on some reading, and this year was no different, though it took some effort rounding up enough books to keep us happy for two weeks. Clearly, we’ve been slacking when it comes to finding new things to try out. In the end, however, we ended up finding some new favourites, both among recent and older books. 

After a bit of a reading dry spell, the Easter weekend ended up being dedicated to a bit of unplanned but very enjoyable binge reading as the copy I won of Anne Bishop’s Belladonna arrived, shortly followed by the long-awaited Privilege of the Sword by Ellen Kushner.

With just a day left of our vacation, the large pile of books I brought along to read has been significantly reduced. That is, the books are still there, of course, but the amount of reading material remaining is barely enough to last me through the trip tomorrow. Clearly, there is no such thing as too many books to have along for a vacation, regardless of what the weather is like. Both the beach and the comfy couch are great places for hours upon hours of reading.

Four days into our vacation I have already gone through the same number of books. If the stack I brought is to last until our trip back, I may have to slow my pace somewhat. It might slow down of itself, though, as the ones I’ve read so far were some of the more anticipated books that I brought.

Like Linda, I picked up a book or two at SF Bokhandeln’s sale. Among them was Jo Walton’s The Prize in the Game, a book (and, indeed, a setting) that I had long written-off, despite the subject matter being interesting; the only reason I picked it up now was that it was a hardcover and it was selling for 10 crowns (that’s a little over a dollar), and I supposed that if I didn’t like it I could chuck it or perhaps get a good price for it as a used bookstore. I can’t quite recall the reasons for why I wrote it off, now, but I can only say after reading it that I was being an idiot.

Yesterday, we went to SF Bokhandeln in Gothenburg to check out what they had on offer for the annual book sale. We picked up a few things from the sale, and then I couldn’t resist also picking up Anne Bishop’s latest offering, Sebastian, even though I knew it would mean getting no work done once we got home. A prediction that turned out to be quite accurate.

It has been sitting on our bookshelf for quite some time now, but a few days ago I felt the need for a break from my current assignments for my classes, and so I picked up Mary Gentle’s 1610: A Sundial in a Grave. I figured I could stretch out the rather hefty-looking volume for a while, reading a bit now and then. From reading her earlier novel Ash: A Secret History, I thought this might be another fairly tough read that I would need to take my time with.

Boy was I wrong.

Among our Christmas presents this year was a copy of Shaman’s Crossing, the first book in Robin Hobb’s new trilogy, Soldier Son.  This book marks a departure from the world made familiar by the Farseer and Liveship Trader books, and introduces a brand-new setting which by fantasy standards is relatively "modern", with guns, canons and a strictly traditionalist nation on a path to development and expansion.

The main character (who, like Fitz from the Farseer books, tells the story from a first-person point of view) is Nevare Burvelle, second son of one of the king’s "battle lords"; men raised to nobility for their deeds. As a second son, he is destined to become a soldier, and initially he rarely questions the rigid Gernian belief that one should never question the place in life allotted to oneself by the good god. But slowly doubts start to creep up on him, and he finds himself forced to accept that the simple, straight-forward rules that governed his life as a young boy cannot—and perhaps should not—always be followed.

Shaman’s Crossing starts out a little slow, but I soon found it quite impossible to put down the book (I started it on the eve of the 24th, and finished just a little while ago). Nevare may not be as interesting a character as Fitz as he is, at least initially, a far less troubled young man, but the story he tells soon had me firmly hooked. I wanted to know more about Gernian society, the cavalla Academy and, not the least, the strange, dappled Specks who seem to be seeking a way to repel the Gernian expansion that has already claimed the lifestyle of the once fierce and free plainspeoples. And now that I have finished, I am hoping the next one will be out soon.

As I managed to clear out some of my work earlier than expected, I decided to reward myself with a bit of reading from the rather large to-read pile that has accumulated of late. The book I picked up was Song of Unmaking by Caitlinn Brennan (a pseudonym for Judith Tarr ). This is the second in her series from Luna (Harlequin’s semi-new fantasy imprint), following on from last year’s The Mountain’s Call.

Although the most important book that I have read of late obviously is A Feast for Crows (I leave the reviewing of that one to Elio, except to say that it is a very good book but also a very different book from the previous ones), I have also managed to take time out from my work to read the second half of Jacqueline Carey’s The Sundering; Godslayer.

After we returned from the WorldCon, I finally managed to squeeze in a week of reading (before getting back to work on this site, among other things) which resulted in me finishing two books by a pair of my favourite authors that had been sitting on my shelf (the books, that is) for far too long: Banewreaker by Jacqueline Carey and The Runes of the Earth by Stephen R. Donaldson.