I'm trying to read through R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt Do'Urden books (I currently have The Orc King audiobook out from the library, because reading series in order is for people who have more organized lives than I've ever dared to aspire to) and I just. I don't know what to think yet.

The fight scene narration is clunky at *best*, but that's perfectly livable; but I'm very confused by the timeline, because I feel like there was a massive rewind in time that happened between the first chapter and the subsequent ones, but I can't actually be sure; a lot of keystone characters are long-lived enough that they're mentioned in fairly similar terms in both segments. I'm falling more and more on the side of the story being framed as a kind of flashback, but constantly having to wonder about it is detracting from the story.

I do love Drizzt as character so far, though, and I love how unapologetic the narration is about making sure he's always being very cool. It makes for some fun scenes!

But also, I adore orcs with all my heart, so a story dealing with fantastical racism against them, that also seems to be doing fantastical racism on them, is really doing a number on me.

Help, I've been sucked down the Baldur's Gate rabbit hole!

I'm on a decent run of audiobooks from the library, it seems! my reading strategy this year was to scroll through my library's selection of audiobooks on Libby and tag all the interesting-looking ones to borrow later, and it's led to a few disappointments, but some hits, too.

I think my favorite find this year was The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro--it was a really odd, dreamlike story, but I loved how it dealt with the concept of hatred and forgiveness. There were palpable layers to it, all at odds with one another, pulling you one way and then another until I was heartsick with how hungry humanity must be for love. That book was an EXPERIENCE and it led to me putting every other Kazuo Ishiguro book I could find on hold.

That led into starting No Gods, No Monsters, by Cadwell Turnbull. It's a book I have mixed feelings about--I'm curious about the political commentary, but it felt like the book was a never-ending series of plotlines that began and were never resolved or built on. It looks to be the first in a series, but I don't think it's something I'm willing to spend another ten to fifteen hours on in hopes to get some answers--especially since the through-line plot of (spoilers) secret societies hiding their existence from the public and manipulating world events (end spoilers) sets off some serious red flags in my mind. Many of the monster depictions were deeply awesome, though, and I did really think that the portrayal of so many people essentially holding double beliefs (monsters are real and dangerous, but also only crazy people think monsters are real) was fascinating.

I needed a break from seriousness for a bit, so my last read was Swords & Scoundrels by Julia Knight, which I genuinely was not expecting to enjoy as much as I did. Political machinations, hidden identities, highway robbery, evil wizards...I'm looking forward to the next two books in the series!

A couple of my holds on Kazuo Ishiguro books came through, so I think I'm going to delve into those next! Though, I also picked up The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo, and that's a short read, so I may listen to that one first.

It's summer cleaning season at the college I work at, and it's great fun listening to these stories while washing walls and windows in the classrooms--over the school year, cleaning these rooms will bring back vivid memories of the books I was listening to the last time I was there.

writing-wise, I'm in the midst of the opposite of a slump: I'm in a MESSY PILE of ideas that would all be fairly simple to finish, if they did not keep distracting me from one another. Sometimes lists help with these things, so here we go:

- I've got a nearly-finished anthology of my own short stories largely formatted, but I still need to finish writing the foreword, acknowledgements, and the small framing chapters that seperate the stories. I was really charmed by the framing device of 'The Illustrated Man', and I really wanted to do something similar. It also needs a cover.

- I've gotten a fair bit of cyberpunk space pirate novel drafted, and almost all of it plotted out, but I need to buckle down and do character outlines, and that part of my brain kicks and screams the moment I start thinking about it.

- the Last Chance collection is turning into a monster. I've added an additional short story, which I'm still in the midst of drafting, and, as with the anthology, I really want to add intermittent scenes between the individual stories to further contextualize the story. It's in sore need of contextualizing, as my first attempt at writing a serial soon became a 'how many genres can I mash together'challenge. also due to this, all the stories need heavy editing, too.

- Extinction Event, the horror novel with aliens, is fully drafted and, I think, pretty decent for a first draft. again, it's in need of heavy editing.

- Graven Queen, the first in a five-book fantasy series about a kingdom built on necromancy, is also drafted and in need of heavy edits. Additionally, I'd like to have all five novels at least drafted before I think about publishing the first one; it seems like I always end a series with new details that require revisionist foreshadowing in order to make sense.

- I've got two short stories half-drafted, and I'd like to finish them both and publish them on Sleepy Tiger Stories.

- I've got a longer short story about a sentient robot drafted, and I'd like to edit that one and try submitting it to some magazines.

- I'm also actively working on a few brain-child inspired by farscape, and I'm not sure if it will end up keeping my interest or not.

- this is...not an exhaustive list.

- help.

So it seems that tags get auto-sorted?