FF: There Is Balance

Mei-Ling Balances

For some reason, I’m reading a lot of shorter works right now, which is not all bad.  Since my current audiobooks is a very long novel, there is balance.

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.  And it’s also a great place to tell me what you’re reading. 

Completed:

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold.  Audiobook.  One of the FF regulars mentioned Bujold’s fantasy, and my library had this, and here I am.  Court intrigue on an intricate scale.  The “different realty” elements enter in more in the latter portion, but far from making life easier for the characters, they make it harder.

Liavek: Players of Luck edited by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly.  I’m liking this collection even more than the first.  More variety in types of stories, as well as more inter-play between characters and plotlines.  A more ambitious collection.

Liavek: Wizard’s Row edited by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly.  Quite sound, although the first collection where I felt that having read the earlier volumes was beginning to be necessary.

In Progress:

Paladin of Soul by Lois McMaster Bujold.  Audiobook.  Not really a sequel to The Curse of Chalion, except in the sense that it takes place three years after the other novel.  This one focuses on “Mad” Ista, and her attempt to find an identity that is not defined by her relationships to other people: mother, wife, sister, niece.

Lord Peter by Dorothy L. Sayer.  A collection of the short stories featuring Peter Wimsey.  I came across this collection and, although I probably “read” most of the stories in various audiobook collections, I decided to see how they held up without Ian Carmichael’s excellent narration.

Also:

My work on getting my backlist up in new e-book editions is progressing, with the two “Artemis Awakening” novels (Artemis Awakening and Artemis Invaded) now available (in the case of the former) or almost available (in the case of the latter).  I’m starting a re-read of Child of a Nameless Year, one of my standalone novels.