Watching, Reading, Writing

I'll make this quick -- there's no reason for me to entertain you for free, is there? So, just a little listing of what's been filling the hours of my life as we move ever closer to the heat death of the universe.

WATCHING

The Knick is back for season two. It's still good. Still messed up. But now that the novelty factor of season one is wearing off, I'm wondering if I can still call it "great"? Definitely worth your time, though.

Vinyl, a new show about the record business in the 70s takes about 45 minutes to get into. But now that I've seen a good two hours, I find myself falling in love. We follow a bunch of hardened, drugged up cynics -- think, to a lesser extent, "Wolf of Wall Street". But after a while, you begin to realise that the main character -- a total waste of a human being -- genuinely ADORES music and everything about it. It gives heart to something that could have been just another Entourage.

Can't wait to see more!

Also, Better Call Saul is back!

READING

I very much enjoyed Prentice and Weil's Black Arts. It's a YA fantasy about a thief in Elizabethan London. I know, I know, you think you've seen this movie before. But this has a delightful creepyness about it -- just read the prologue in the Amazon free sample chapters.

I also like how when the main character messes up, the consequences are often very severe. It brings out the peril, I find, oh yes.

Next up, will be Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Tiger and the Wolf. I always look forward to his work, until I find, all too soon, that I'm looking back at it.

WRITING

I got the first draft of The Cauldron done in time for Boskone! I'm delighted with myself, although I left so many messes behind me that fixing them will have me cursing like a sailor for months to come.

I'll see some of you very soon. And some of you much later.