Nate > Recent Status Updates

So the main thread so far has been basically an English mercenary company entering a Byzantine civil war, but with magic 'n shit. These books are made of the stuff of greatness.

URGENT NEWS GUYS--I HAVE THE COOL COVER ON MY UPDATES NOW THANKS TO MY FRIEND ASHLEY!!

Woah...shit just got real. OBSESSIVE REVENGE-DRIVEN COP ALERT!!

This is really, really good shit so far. The rise of the Cartels and the Mexican Drug War is a painfully brilliant setting for a crime thriller. Also, I'm in mortal agony that Goodreads still has the old cover for this one. Mine matches The Cartel and is much cooler.

They came up behind him. He didn't hear shit.
Dudley said, "Those grand girls won't be the same now. This prevents recurring grief."
He started to turn around. He started to say "Say What?"
Six triggers snapped. The rape-o blew up. Bone shards took down palm fronds. Carlisle's glasses got residual-spritzed.

This is the only time I will condone Dudley Smith being Dudley Smith.

Ser Hartmut stepped back from the rail. His helmet was ruined--it had holes burned right through by the thing's toxic flesh, and pitting and tendrils of rust and decay trailed all the way down his armour. He turned to de Marche. He had burns all over his face, and his hair was rucked and tufted like a patchwork grown. He was smiling.
'Now that, monsieur, was the sort of fight a man can come to love.'

Mmm...glorious authentic medieval fashion/armor porn.

I like how even the Culture has a term for how mindcrushingly huge Banks' ships and space stations are: gawp factor.

Pausing several of my stalled-out current reads and getting back to this one. No monster fighting yet, but Cameron is handling all the courtly intrigue and setting up of the new places, people and things very nicely. Also, Jean deVrailly is still a giant douche.

Okay, this is the second time I've read the part with Lenipobra and the AG and I burst into laughter both times, because I am a horrible person. Also, for some reason it weirds me out that Banks was such a harmless, friendly-looking dude that came up with utter goddamn nightmares like Fwi-Song and his cult.

Starting this one again as the first engagement in my campaign to clear my ill-come-back-to-it shelf.

Man, if people consider this one a weak entry in the Culture series I can't wait to get to the later ones. There's just so much to this book that is obscenely cool and imaginative, like the Culture's General Systems Vehicles, the Changers, or the Dra'Azon and their Planets of the Dead.

Cornwell should give up the Saxon Tales stuff in favor of a 20-book Lord Pumphrey series. I feel comfortable that all Uhtred fans agree with me on this.

I'm so proud of Uncle Bernie for not including some token lust interest that soaks up 40-50 pages. To be honest I just really miss Grace (and I think Cornwell and Sharpe do too 'cause dude was just dreaming about her six years after her death.)

Honor is the Maryest Sue of them all but somehow I don't care. Also, I want a RMN uniform.

Eric Flint's sense of humor makes me want to crush someone's windpipe.

Belisarius begins his campaign in Mesopotamia outnumbered 20 to 1 with only a mutinous, ragtag Byzantine-Persian army to work with. This should be good!

Giving this a second shot because I wanted to read something lighter and sillier than my usual fare...didn't like it the first time but the concept is so goddamn nerdy and fun and I'm enjoying it after giving up my hopes of a Turtledove-esque über serious alternate history. Plus the naive American in me loves the idea of my 21st century kinsmen bringing some relief to poor Thirty Years War-era Germany. WITH GUNS!!

It had a body as serene as its face, and as ambiguous, even in plain sight. There was no hair on any part of it; nor nipples; nor navel. Between its legs was the source of its transforming self. It was neither phallic nor vaginal, but a third genital form entirely, fluttering at its groin like an agitated dove and with every flutter reconfiguring its glistening heart.



Woah, man. Woah.

Woah...without Amparo's "exquisite breasts" (not my words) to distract him in this one, Tannhauser is free to devote all his time to being a kind of medieval Punisher...and he does it so well.

Literally got the goosebumps from some shit Wesley just said. Most potently creepy and dangerous Burke protagonist yet!

Dudley Smiths gonna Dudley Smith.

Kay Lakes gonna Kay Lake.

Lee Blanchards gonna Lee Blanchard.

Hideo Ashida gonna...sniff panties, take clandestine locker room pics, investigate ritual-suicide-looking-murders and be conflicted about his Japanese heritage?

WHO SAW MAD MAX?!?!

So good to be back with all these corrupt, violent, alcoholic, drug addicted freaks.

Did anyone else see Enemy with Jake Gyllenhaal?

My God...so much cock description. I know Barker is gay, but I feel like I know more about these characters' dicks than my own.

I love how Barker (happy, Carmen?) is really playing with the idea of sexuality and gender, especially with the androgyne/shapeshifter/hermaphrodite Pie'oh'pah.

Tucson content!

This is definitely the long-form fantasy Clive I suspected (and hoped) to exist.

"They called it Rawhead."
"What?"
"The beast they buried. It's in the history books. Rawhead it was called, because its head was huge, and the color of the moon, and raw, like meat."
Declan couldn't stop himself now. He was beginning to smile.
"It ate children," he said, and beamed like a baby about to receive its mother's tit.

This is oddly enough reminding me of Wells' The Invisible Man, except for, you know...dismemberment, rape, and voodoo cult murder-sacrifice orgies.