Lacking Natural Simplicity

• The Empire of Fear, by Brian Stableford, copyright 1988; Carroll & Graf, 1991. A rather more cerebral approach to the alternate history vampire novel than Kim Newman's Anno Dracula.

• Lord of the Silent Kingdom, A Novel of the Instrumentalities of the Night, by Glen Cook, copyright 2007; Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, LLC, January 2008. Very interesting series.

• Star Well, An Anthony Villers Adventure, by Alexei Panshin, copyright 1968; Ace Books/Charter Communications, Inc./Grosset & Dunlap, Augusth 1978. I think this is the first of Panshin's delightful Anthony Villiers novels; thank goodness for Internet bookstores.

• Iron Kissed, A Mercy Thompson Novel by Patricia Brigs, copyright 2008 by Hurog, Inc.; Ace/The Berkley Publishing Group/Penguin Group (USA) Inc., January 2008. Another entry in Briggs' series about her shapeshifting coyote/auto mechanic, Mercy Thompson. It was interesting to find out more about her version of the Fae. I'm going to have to find those of her novels that I don't already have.

• For a Few Demons More, Kim Harrison, copyright 2007; EOS/HaperCollinsPublishers, December 2007. This is the fifth in Harrison's engaging series about a witch/vampire/pixie bounty hunting trio.

We played part 3 of an adventure that returned to the setting of a campaign I ran in the Frontiers of Alusia from 1985 to 1994.

N.A.B. wasn't able to attend this time, either, but the kids and I had fun.

We played part 2 of an adventure that returned to the setting of a campaign I ran in the Frontiers of Alusia from 1985 to 1994.

N.A.B. wasn't able to attend this time, but the kids and I had fun.

We played part 1 of an adventure that returned to the setting of a campaign I ran in the Frontiers of Alusia from 1985 to 1994.

I had one of the original players, N.A.B., and my daughter and my niece and nephews for players. It was fun to see N.A.B.'s face when he figured out where the adventure was set, and that the old characters were in the same city as the new characters, and how he insisted the new characters get as far away from the old characters as they could. (I hadn't planned on there being any interaction anyway.) And the kids and I had fun.

• The Devil Wives of Li Fong, by E. Hoffmann Price, copyright 1979; Del Rey/Ballantine Books.

• The Jade Enchantress, by E. Hoffmann Price, copyright 1982; Del Rey/Ballantine Books.

E. Hoffmann Price, according to the blurbs in these two books, sold his first fiction in 1924 and was writing full time by 1932, wrote fantasy and non-fantasy alike, and knew many of the greats of the Pulp Era. It is interesting to see that he was still writing books into the 1980s. These two, the first things I remember reading by Price (thank goodness for Internet bookstores!), are enjoyable Chinese fantasies. Well worth reading.

I haven't been keeping track of the books I've been reading for some time, alas. I hope to be able to get back to it soon. I may try to list at least some of the books that I read during the interim, but when that happens I'll probably list them in a page to themselves, rather than as part of this log. Say, maybe, here.

It's been a while since I've looked at Factor, and things are looking good.

When using emacs with Factor under Microsoft Windows, remember to make sure before you start Factor that emacsclient is in your path, and then do:

"editors.emacs" require

to tell Factor your going to use emacs. After that, make sure that you've started the server in emacs with server-start and try something like:

\ . edit

to see the definition of the . word.