Cleaned off the coffee table

When I’m done reading a book I intend to review, I leave it on the coffee table. It’s a way of nagging myself. Sometimes the stack starts to get out of hand, as it did recently, so I devoted my weeknights to clearing the table. Last night I wrote my review of The Reapers by John Connolly. I haven’t read any of the other “series” novels, so I wasn’t as intrigued by discovering the backstories of what I learned through my research were actually secondary characters from the previous books. I took the novel at face value with no history, and I liked it quite a lot. Connolly is a mesmerizing writer, and the fact that he can carry off half a novel that has very little forward momentum is a testament to his skills. For all of my recent book reviews, including this one, visit Onyx Reviews.

I recorded Fear Itself last night, but haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. Any good? Anyone? Bueller?

Finished The Blue Hammer last night. Jesus, what a convoluted story. You need a scorecard to figure out who’s alive and who’s dead, who married who and slept with someone else, who their offspring were, etc. A rewarding finale, but there were times when I felt like I was lost in the wilderness. I was glad that Bobby Jo survived, though. I’ll have to track down the next Archer novel chronologically to see if she persists into another book. Archer wasn’t known for long-term relationships and he fell for her hard and fast in this one.

This morning I did another full edit of the story I’ve been working on the past few days. Trimmed 200 words, getting it down to right around 5k. My feelings about the story have changed radically. It was originally written in 2000 and ignored for the better part of a decade, but I think that it’s definitely publishable, and I intend to test that theory starting this weekend.