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Angela Korra'ti

Music, Nethack

If Irish musicians played Nethack

It has amused me for a while now that in the vast repertoire of tunes available to Irish musicians, several of them have vaguely SF/F-nal names, like “King of the Fairies”, “Queen of the Fairies”, and “The Elven Cloak”.

That last one in particular, though, got me thinking of Nethack thanks to my propensity for playing Elf characters. Which, of course, led me to wonder about other hypothetical Nethack-themed Irish tune names! Such as:

  • The Surly Shopkeeper
  • Farewell to My Pet Cat
  • Gold in the Bag of Holding
  • The Cursed Loadstone Lament
  • The Polymorph Trap Jig (this one would definitely change keys AND time signatures between the A part, the B part, and the C part)
  • Yet Another Stupid Death Reel
  • The Elven Boots
  • The Infravision Jig
  • Izchak’s Magic Lamp (That I Stole in Minetown)
  • The Vibrating Square
  • The Lich That Cursed My Broadsword
  • Road to Gehennom
  • Drowsy Maggie Needs Sleep Resistance
  • A Luckstone to Banish Misfortune
  • The Succubus Washerwoman

Anybody got any others?

August 10, 2011 by
Books

And, yet a few more books

Picked up electronically:

  • Sasha: A Trial of Blood and Steel, by Joel Shepherd. Fantasy, one of Pyr’s line. Currently available for free on the Kindle store, so I snagged it for reading on either the phone or the iPad when I’m in the mood. Pyr unfortunately doesn’t hand nearly as much electronic love to the Nook store; the title’s available for sale there, but free beats nearly ten bucks, so.
  • Countdown: A Newsflesh Novella, by Mira Grant. For reasons which should be ENTIRELY OBVIOUS, given my love of Feed and Deadline. Those of you who follow userinfoseanan_mcguire know she was posting snippets of this leading up to the release of Deadline, but this is the polished up, edited version. Those of you who are e-inclined, grab this–it’ll help convince her publisher to let her do another one leading up to the release of Blackout.
  • The Door into Sunset, The Door into Fire, and The Door into Shadow, all by userinfodduane. Ebook editions of the “Door Into” books by Diane Duane, currently available for sale directly from the author over on her site. Those of you who are longtime fans of hers and in particular of this series may wish to check her post about the STARLIGHTGUILT discount currently active, and why she hasn’t finished this series in the last thirty years.
  • Prince Ivan, Firebird, and The Golden Horde, all by Peter Morwood, also available for direct sale on Diane Duane’s ebook site. These are re-releases of the Tales of Old Russia, and y’all should check Ms. Diane’s LJ post about that, including an OLDRUSSIA coupon code. Act fast, I don’t know how long this discount will be active!
  • Footsteps in the Dark, by Georgette Heyer. Old-school romantic/paranormal suspense, this week’s freebie from B&N.

163!

August 6, 2011 by
Valor of the Healer

Gosh, that horse I have to get back on is awfully tall

My writing morale, for various reasons I won’t get into in a public post, has been pretty low for a while–another round of that self-defeating, self-perpetuating cycle that I daresay any writer who’s been at it for more than five minutes knows all too well. The only real cure for it is to just do the damn writing, and the simple fact that I’ve had an R&R to finish for a while has been enough to keep the morale from vanishing entirely.

So I dragged another 250 words out of my head tonight for Chapter 18 of Lament of the Dove. Even this tiny number of words has felt like an effort, but I don’t want to think of it like that; I’d rather think of it as a victory, tiny though it may be. And I’m going to write tomorrow, dammit, come hell or high water, gods willing and the creek don’t rise, etc. I can commit to writing tomorrow. Even if it’s twenty words. I will write tomorrow.

But now I have to go to bed.

August 5, 2011 by
Books

And now, a great big ol’ pile of books

Here’s what I spent my tasty store credit at Third Place on:

  • Downpour, by userinfokatatomic. Book 6 of her Greywalker series. I’m working on reading book 4 right now and hope to be caught up on this series soon! (Also, the observant reader will note that I already bought the ebook before; this is the hardback. Because I did indeed buy this book twice! I do that for fellow authors who love Twice Upon a Time, you know.)
  • Working Stiff, by userinforachelcaine. First book of her new series.
  • Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel, by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris. Steampunk/paranormal investigation type novel, set in Victorian England. Sounded like fun, so I snagged it.

Meanwhile, this is how I spent my money from the sale of my original nook:

  • Hounded, by Kevin Hearne. Book 1 of the Iron Druid Chronicles. Urban fantasy, starring a protagonist who’s an ancient druid trying to keep a low profile in the modern world. I expect his attempts to pull this off will go very badly, or otherwise we wouldn’t have a series, now would we?
  • Crossed, by J.F. Lewis. Book 3 of his Void City series. Urban fantasy, starring a vampire protagonist, and y’all may remember I quite liked the first two of these.
  • The Hob’s Bargain, by Patricia Briggs. Fantasy, re-buy of a book previously owned in print.
  • Steal the Dragon, by Patricia Briggs. Another re-buy of a previously owned fantasy, one which I quite liked, I note–but Briggs has so many books now that it’ll be easier for me to track her electronically. But I liked this one in particular
  • Out of the Deep I Cry, by Julia Spencer-Fleming. Book 3 of her Clare Fergusson mystery series, starring a young woman who’s an Episcopalian priest and the town sherriff with whom she’s developing a relationship with–even though both are fighting against it, because he’s married.
  • Death Most Definite, by Trent Jamieson. Book 1 of his Steven de Selby series, picked up in no small part because userinfoseanan_mcguire spoke highly of it. Hero’s working for the Grim Reaper.
  • Masques, by Patricia Briggs. Fantasy, another re-buy of a book I’d previously bought in print, but in this case I hadn’t actually read it yet. This is a re-issue of her very first novel, set in the same universe as Steal the Dragon and When Demons Walk and Wolfsbane.
  • Wolfsbane, by Patricia Briggs. Fantasy, yet another re-buy, one which I hadn’t read yet in print. Most recent of her Sianim universe fantasy novels.
  • When Demons Walk, by Patricia Briggs. The last of my Sianim universe fantasy novel re-buys, and I very much liked this one, as the heroine must pose as the mistress of a crippled nobleman to discover who’s been killing others of noble blood–and who caused the accident that crippled him. This was great fun and I look forward to re-reading it.
  • Follow My Lead, by Kate Noble. Romance. Bought due to really liking all her previous novels I’ve read, thanks to the fine ladies at the Smart Bitches site! Third of her Blue Raven series.
  • The Young Widow, by Cassandra Chan. Mystery, the first of her Bethancourt-Gibbons series, which I’ve already read and highly enjoyed. Buying this now because it finally hit ebook and I hadn’t been able to find a print copy; my prior read of it was from the library.

That’ll bring me up to 154 for the year and this should sustain me nicely until the releases I’m eying for September. userinfomizkit, userinfocmpriest, and Mr. Richard Castle!

August 2, 2011 by
Books

Screw it, the hiatus is pretty kicked in the head

Yes yes yes, I know, you all knew that already. Work with me here. 😉

Due to selling my old first generation nook to , I now have a hundred bucks’ worth of unexpected money–and it will surprise none of you that that’s going right back into ebooks for the new nook as soon as I decide what I want to get.

Meanwhile, I took a big ol’ bunch of books down to Third Place because I was out of space for trades and hardbacks. I also took a bag of mass market paperbacks, half Patricia Briggs and half Star Wars novels, and everything I took down is going to be re-purchased for the nook as well. But that also scored me $45 of store credit to use!

Conveniently, userinfokatatomic drops a new release this week so that’ll eat up a good chunk of that credit right there, since I do buy Ms. Richardson in hardcover. I’ll also be grabbing userinforachelcaine‘s newest in paperback since she maintains her status on the Buy in Print Because I Would Be Sad If I Could Not Read Her When the Power Is Out.

All of which leads me into noting that I took a second pop into the downtown Borders, looking for stuff I could buy in print that wasn’t available in e. I picked up Dorothy Sayers’ Busman’s Honeymoon, on the grounds that more Lord Peter Wimsey is always a good thing to have in one’s library.

And also, I grabbed Sheri Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country at the Friends of the Library sales rack down at the Lake Forest Park library. They were selling it for a quarter. Works for me, given that that was on my To Read list anyway!

140 for the year, though that number will be going up sharply once I spend the nook sales money and the store credit. Stay tuned!

July 31, 2011 by
Books

Ghost Story/Dresden Files spoiler thread!

So if like me you were anxiously awaiting the release of userinfojimbutcher‘s Ghost Story, and promptly devoured it the moment you got your mitts on it with its release this week, come on back behind the fold for some spoilery discussion!

This isn’t a proper review post–I’m behind enough on my reviews that the proper review post will be a while–but I wanted to go ahead and get this up so that it’d be timely! So hit me with your discussion thoughts, y’all!

But if you haven’t read Ghost Story or any Dresden at all, for the love of god, stand back and stay out of the comments. For here be spoilers OH MY YES.

Continue Reading

July 27, 2011 by
Other People's Books

The Rejectionist speaks truth!

I was unable to drop a comment on this post by The Rejectionist, so I’m sharing it with you all instead, as well as the comment I was going to drop over yonder.

Speaking as someone who keeps telling her own blog readers she is on Book Buying Hiatus She SWEARS (and who just bought three new ebooks and four trade paperbacks), I totally feel the Rejectionist’s book hoarding pain. Because it ain’t like I don’t have enough books to occupy me reading for the rest of my natural life, what with the nearly 900 things on my To Read list! And it’s not like I can tell the entire publishing industry to take a six month hiatus so that I can get caught up please kthx AUGH so many awesome people writing awesome things!

Also, I totally envy her the Francesca Lia Blocks in that pile, because I read Primavera ages ago and very much want to read it again, and Ecstasia as well, and cannot find them for love or money.

But all this said, I am also quite charmed by the idea of leaving Secret Letters in copies of favorite books for other people to find. And I would totally leave a letter in a Barbara Michaels, an Elizabeth Peters, an Esther Friesner, a Julie Czerneda, or a Tanya Huff, as these are authors who were all formative influences on me. This is certainly one thing you can’t do with ebooks, not nearly as easily anyway–unless an author gets clever with an embedded hyperlink or something somewhere in the middle of an epub file.

July 25, 2011 by