Another day, another book

[winterkoninkje]

Momus tells me that I should blog every day. Or well, he says that to blog one should do it every day. And I think it wise advice. Like practicing a language or an instrument or other writing, things get rusty when left too long. So I'm here to say: no, I'm not going to blog every day, good gods are you nuts? I don't have time for that. But, I will say that I mean to get back into writing more often, like I used to; this I think will be good. And for a time at least I should be able to manage it.

In other news, I finished A Feast for Crows, the fourth book of A Song of Ice and Fire. For those who aren't familiar with the series, it's a medieval low-fantasy setting and George R.R. Martin is one of the gods of writing; thusly, start at the beginning. And when you get to the end, stop. Or read what's out, read his other stories, harass him endlessly over email about when the next book'll be out, and then go and read his blog like everyone else does you ingrate.

For those who are familiar, admittedly, this volume is weaker than the first three. For the vaguely familiar, the series was slated to be six books but what was to be the fourth book grew too long and ended up being split into this and the forthcoming fifth. Rather than telling half the story for all the characters he decided to tell all the story for half the characters; fair enough. Unfortunately, given the nature of the story and how spread out all the characters are, doing this means that the book feels unbalanced. The switches from fast to slow, from intrigue to war, from mystery to resolution, all seem a bit flatter than usual, though because of the missing characters and not the quality per se. All the same, it's a good book rife with all that we love and love to hate, even if short on the jalonqar, the dragons, the men in black, and their fiery new cultists.