1. Several people made good comments on my review of Age of Ultron. If I get a minute, I’ll do a bit of a round-up and response.
2. Book reviews of John C. Wright’s Architect of Aeons and Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International
(which, by no coincidence, is currently available as a free download on Amazon at the link above – the publisher seems to think that if you read one for free, you may read them all for money. He may be right.) These are very different books, it would have gone without saying had it not just said it, but are both excellent after the manner of their kind. Mind-bending universe- and eon-spanning epic that pays homage to Jack Vance and Cordwainer Smith (and probably a lot of other guys I’m not smart enough to catch) spread out over thousands of pages in 6 novels? Wright’s got you covered. A fast-paced love story between a beefy ex-accountant with a thing for guns and Marilyn Monster, if Marilyn were dark haired and killed vampires for a living, where hardly a page goes by without being spattered with the ichor of eldritch fiends of one flavor or another as a result of the fairly indiscriminate use of military-grade ordinance and heavy weapons? Correia’s your man.
Hey, what’s not to like?
One the update front, we’re heading into graduation season at the Casa de Moore, with lovely daughter #2 getting the boot this year; end of year parties and shows (a tradition at Diablo Valley School); the confirmation of the our young German student (he asked me to be his sponsor – I’m flattered). We’ll be setting up for the graduation and end of the year party at DVS, as well as throwing a graduation party, and, a week later, a confirmation party, at our house – and then seeing our newly-confirmed off on a jaunt around the country with his mom before he heads off to college, too. Aaaand, we just finished the annual school camping trip and the Concord KidFest, in which the school has had a booth for pushing 20 years.
Busy.
Also, after a hiatus of a couple months, back to writing in my copious spare time. Weee! Got a couple stories almost done – just like you heard months back. No, really! This time, for sure!
Finally, if you have any prayers to fire up, my oldest sister has been back and forth from the hospital to a nursing home for the past several months, and recently had a seizure of some sort that left her delusional for several days, and she’s still not totally lucid. It’s a combination of a lifetime of rheumatoid arthritis, cancer and a series of strokes (and all the drugs they give you with all those things.) She’s 75, alienated from the Church, and probably won’t last a year (but of course nobody’s saying – just my gut feeling). So prayers that she will be comforted and reconciled to Jesus in his Church would be appreciated.
On a similar note, my boss’s youngest daughter, age 24 and married one year, has leukemia. Prayers for her and her family would also be appreciated.
Sorry for the downers – weirdly, things are actually picking up, emotion and energy-wise. Next couple posts will be fun, I promise.
Yard Sale of the Mind 