Lacking Natural Simplicity

• A Secret Atlas, Book One of the Age of Discovery, by Michael A. Stackpole, copyright 2006; Bantam Spectra/Bantam Dell/Random House, Inc.

• The Hallowed Hunt, by Lois McMaster Bujold, copyright 2005; EOS/HaperCollinsPublishers, 2005.

• Proven Guilty, by Jim Butcher, copyright 2006; Roc/New American Library/Penguin Group (USA). Number eight in the Dresden Files series.

• The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril, by Paul Malmont, copyright 2006; Simon & Schuste, 2006.

• The Blue Girl, by Charles de Lint, copyright 2004; Firebird/The Penguin Group.

• Widdershins, by Charles de Lint, copyright 2006; Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, May 2006.

I was playing Sunless Citadel with the kids, using 3.5E rather than 3E, and I nearly had a TPK when they busted open the can.

• Nothing Like It in the World, The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869, by Stephen E. Ambrose, copyright 2000 by Ambrose-Tubbs, Inc.; Simon & Schuster, 2000. Dry, but very interesting.

• The King's Treasure, The Falcon #4, by Mark Ramsay; Signet/The New American Library, copyright 1982, 1983; March, 1983.

  After reading the first three Falcon <link://slug/2006-04-04> books, I did some looking on-line and found the fourth book. It turns out that Mark Ramsay is a pen name for John Maddox Roberts. This volume of the series contains the first chapter of Falcon #5, Greek Fire, but I haven't been able to find any proof that #5 was actually printed.

• The Poyson Garden, by Karen Harper, copyright 1999; Delacorte Press/Random House Inc., February 1999. The first in Harper's series featuring Elizabeth I.

• Purity of Blood, by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, copyright 1997; translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayes Peden, copyright 2006; G.P. Putnam's Sons/The Penguin Group (USA), Inc./The Penguin Group, 2006. The second in Pérez-Reverte's series featuring Captain Alariste.

• Nightlife, by Rob Thurman, copyright 2006; ROC/New American Library/The Penguin Group (USA) Inc./The Penguin Group, March 2006. An interesting take on Faerie.

• The Falcon Strikes, Falcon #1, by Mark Ramsay; copyright 1982 by The New American Library, Inc.; Signet/The New American Library, Inc, first printing September, 1982.

• The Black Pope *, *Falcon #2, by Mark Ramsay; copyright 1982 by The New American Library, Inc.; Signet/The New American Library, Inc, first printing September, 1982.

• The Falcon Strikes, Falcon #3, by Mark Ramsay; copyright 1982 by The New American Library, Inc.; Signet/The New American Library, Inc, first printing December, 1982.

Apparently there was supposed to be fourth entry in the Falcon series, The King's Treasure, but the fellow who loaned me these three has never been able to find it. (Later: see also <link://slug/2006-04-22>).

• Sand of the Arena, A Gladiators of the Empire Novel, by James Duffy; McBooks Press, 2006. Interesting.

• The Queene's Cure, An Elizabeth I Mystery, by Karen Harper; Delacorte Press/Random House, Inc., 2002. Strained my suspension of disbelief a bit, always a problem when famous people are main characters in a novel.

Today I switched from GAIM to Miranda IM for my MS Windows IM client because the stable GAIM isn't working with recent versions of GTK+, alas. Miranda IM has the added benefit of being much smaller.