Pneumatised!

I recently finished reading You Suck by Christopher Moore and A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin. You Suck was quite amusing, brilliantly written, and the ending… hm… well, it ended the only way it could end, really. A Wizard of Earthsea is wonderfully written and I see why the Earthsea books are famous novels.

I’m diving into Lady of Avalon now, after having read the first chapter awhile back. I read the next chapter of Dhampir (by Barb and J.C. Hendee) – it does remind me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer but with more of a Lord of the Rings setting. The writing is quite good for an action fantasy story.

I started reading the Cassandra Kresnov novel, Crossover by Joel Shepherd. I think I might come back to it later. I’m finding I really like the style of writing in Gravity’s Rainbow. Some people may not like the style, especially the sections where there isn’t a clear distinction between reality and the fantasy of the character’s mind. It’s an interesting book though if you like to puzzle things out, which I happen to like. It will take me a while to read Gravity’s Rainbow as it’s 700 plus pages. It’s written in four parts though, so I’ll try to get through one part first. I tend to jump between books until my mind decides I just want to finish reading one story over the others more.

I picked up a new fantasy series, The Runelords by David Farland. The story seems interesting, but I’m finding the writing isn’t as good as Marion Zimmer Bradley or Robert Jordan for example. However, it isn’t the worst writing I’ve read. The characters are amusing so far. The Runelords is published by the same publishers as The Wheel of Time so it should be pretty good overall. Another series of interest is A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. The writing is quite good, possibly better than Robert Jordan’s. The first book in the series is A Game of Thrones and amounts to just over 800 pages. It will take me some time to finish that novel too, but it seems quite worth the eye fatigue that will come with reading it.

I think for now I will be rotating through these few books. After some time, I’m sure I’ll get back to reading The Wheel of Time. I start to miss the characters in the story after a while.

Okay, back to.. hm… the world of Avalon.

~~~C

Yay! I finished reading book seven of The Wheel of Time. I had read half of the book, then put it down for awhile. I decided to go back to it the past two weeks and finish it. I don’t think I’m starting book eight, The Path of Daggers, just yet as I might read some other novels first. I think I might actually start Gravity’s Rainbow first. I also want to read the first book in a series by Joel Shepherd. It’s called Crossover, which is a ‘Cassandra Kresnov novel’. Cassandra Kresnov is a “synthetic person” designed to be a soldier. Hm… interesting. Reminding me of the TV series, Dark Angel, except with an artificial life-form. I also started reading a very humourous vampire love story called You Suck by Christopher Moore. The first chapter is called ‘Get Over It, a Lot of People are Dead’. The first line in the book reads ‘You bitch, you killed me! You suck!”‘ Yeah, you know you want to read the rest now. Go on, go get the book. What this vampire couple does with an overweight, fluffy cat is quite a chuckle.

Okay, now, back to more reading and maybe some much needed rest.

~~~C

Well, as you can see from my last post, I delved into astrology again. I was looking at transits to my natal horoscope and trying to determine what factors were relevant to my chart. I’m hoping the effects of some the recent transits to my horoscope are dwindling away. I still feel somewhat hermit-y, but a little more energized. It’s probably due to it being summer and me getting enough sun this time of year, oh, and also the fact that my solar return is coming up (astrology speak for “birthday”). I don’t really celebrate my birthday much, but supposedly the solar return horoscope is supposed to determine what the year ahead is going to be like for me.

So, I’ve been studying astrology – again. Lucky me, I found an old astrology text four weeks ago at the used bookstore – Christian Astrology by William Lilly. I don’t think the bookstore realized how priceless that book is to the right person. The copy the bookstore had, and which I subsequently bought, is the third edition published in 1985 by Regulus Publishing Co. Ltd. in leather hardcover binding. Christian Astrology was originally published in 1647, with a second edition in 1659. While Christian Astrology may be available from astrology publishers as three separate books, I don’t believe anyone has published it as one volume since 1985 by Regulus Publishing. The one volume publication consists of the three books, the first being an introduction to astrology, the second dealing with horary astrology, and the third dealing with how to interpret the natal horoscope (including progressions, transits, and revolutions). This text is the text to read for the serious astrology student who is more interested in classical astrology rather than modern day astrology. Modern day astrology tends to be more concerned with psychoanalysis while classical astrology is more predictive. Classical astrology is more complex than modern day astrology, and William Lilly attempted to clarify this complex art. From this perspective, Christian Astrology is a wonderfully in-depth read compared to modern astrology texts. This book will change your mind about many things in astrology. I’ve only just started reading book three of Christian Astrology (I read book one already, and plan to go back to book two for the horary astrology), but I’m sure I will be referring to this book often as I continue with my astrology studies.

~~~C