Rowan Tree and Red Thread

After re-reading Avram Grumer's depressing but entertaining essay 2000 Books recently I decided to make more effort to read every day. I had fallen into a habit of only really reading at bedtime, filling the other times I had to read in the day with blogs, magazines or playing Civ games (naughty). I've started keeping a list of the books I read and, while I can't come near nhw's rate, I have begun to make a slight dent in that tottering pile of unread books by the bed that threatened to undermine the structural integrity of our house.

Sabriel by Garth Nix: A young adult (i.e. aimed at kids and better than 90% of the adult market stuff) fantasy novel of a young woman's quest to defeat an ancient evil from the land of the Dead. Rattles along at a great pace, full of gorgeous setting colour and an original spin on magic (particularly necromancy), Sabriel was great fun and I'm chomping at the bit to get to the two sequels that my brother lent to me along with Sabriel

Persuasion by Jane Austen: A novel of early nineteenth century manners and suppressed sexual attraction. My first attempt at Austen and I was pleased by it. The style is a bit difficult in comparison to the modern stuff I read, but the quiet confidence of the writing and the understated observations of character are really impressive.

Singularity Sky by Charles Stross: "New Space Opera" SF novel about information-based society coming into contact and conflict with old-fashioned imperialist space empire. The space empire loses. Badly. A highly entertaining novel, with plenty of humour as well as the more usual Stross touches of singularity events, post-scarcity societies and big government as a post-singularity irrelevance.

Godwalker by Greg Stolze: a RPG tie-in novel (the game is Unknown Armies) about a contest for the godwalker slot of the avatar of the Mystic Hermaphrodite. The Freak, New Inquisition goons, and a family of Entropomancers all star in a quiet town turned upside down by the arrival of the occult underground's weird brand of mayhem. Pretty good, after a weak start. The characters of the three avatars, Joe, Leslie and the Freak, are the best drawn and most interesting in the story. Quite bloody. None of that description will mean much to those who don't know the game, unfortunately. Despite that I think it would read well even if you had no prior knowledge of the game setting.