Catching up on reading

[bunrab]

OK, OK, the reading continues apace.
Tail end of 2006:
Essential Dictionary of Orchestration, the by Dave Black, Alfred Publishing - Amazon.com review here - I was annoyed at how it was organized, and at how it included recorders and banjos as somehow essential to orchestrating, while not including Sousaphones or mellophones, which are far more commonly used in scoring pieces!
I'm the Vampire, That's Why by Michele Bardsley - Amazon.com review here - not very good as vampires go.

And on to 2007:
My Big, Fat, Supernatural Wedding, a short story collection edited by P.N. Elrod, stories of varying quality. I liked the Esther Friesner the best. Rachel Caine's blatant rip-off of Captain Jack Sparrow was funny for all that it was a rip-off, and led me to finally getting around to starting a series of hers that I've had recommended to me - see below. Elrod's own Elvis story was pretty funny, too. The authors who always annoy me, such as Sherrilyn Kenyon, continue to annoy me; no news there. I liked Jim Butcher's story, in which Harry Dresden is the best man at a wedding, but I suspect it would be totally incomprehensible to anyone who wasn't already conversant with the Harry Dresden series, and with Bob The Skull and Karrin Murphy. Worth taking out of the library, not worth paying $13 for a trade paperback for. And what's with so many trade paperbacks lately, anyway?? Blatant profit move from publishers. I'll hold out for mass market paperbacks at half the price, thank you very much.

Ill Wind by Rachel Caine. This is the first in her Weather Warden series; I happened to spot it on the library racks and grabbed it, since I had been recently reminded of the existence of the series by seeing her story in the anthology. It seems OK; a little bit long for the actual plot involved, but I liked a lot of the details about the weather. Could have lived without the details of the classic cars. Liked the Djinn. Don't know whether I liked it enough to pay cash for any of the series, but I'll certainly bother to look for the next one at the library.

Zookeeper, the by Alex MacLennan. The title is what made me grab this off the library shelf, but it's plain old non-genre fiction, full of angst about relationships and trying to figure out what the protagonist wants to do with his life, and wound up just making me feel angsty, despite the interesting details of his job. Too much time spent trying to control other people, not nearly enough tamarins and lemurs.

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

On the subject of trade paperbacks, you might find this thread interesting; it talks about a lot of publishing and writing bits (mostly in a rather snarky way), but actually goes into detail in the comments as to why publishers would choose trade paperback size.