"She shone like she swallowed the moon"

The above is possibly one of my biggest pet peeves about LKH*'s books. It is used ad nauseum in the Merry Gentry books and in some cases, multiple times on the same page. From the very first book, it was established that when two of the fae get together, their skin and eyes start to glow with shared magic, but with Merry's fair skin, it is akin to the Moon shining. But does she always have to use the same metaphor? It's rather annoying at this stage and whenever I see it, it breaks my concentration instantly.

( About Mistral's Kiss )

And it turns out that she's gotten enough negative comments on her boards to encourage her to write an open letter to fans (or to ex-fans) to say "you don't like them, don't buy them. It'll make me much happier!" and "It's obvious that people love my books - see my sales figures - it proves that I write well!"** She has succeeded in pissing off a lot of her borderline fans who buy the books to see if her writing has improved, and who have invested so much time in the various series' that they want to see how it ends. I would love to see her sales figures drop but... People are idiots! Me included as I would be one of the ones who just wants to see how it all turns out. *sigh*

*LKH = Laurell K Hamilton
** Paraphrased from here

At Work...

They've decided to install a content filtering engine for the interweb. Now, having worked in several places that had one, I figured that it would curtail a lot of my reading of internet posted fanfic! Not true. The only thing impacted at the moment, is Kingdom of Loathing. However, it has managed to block the main Trócaire website, the Eircom site, parts of the Ticketmaster site, you know... one's that probably shouldn't be rated.

The biggest problem so far has been that most sites are unrated because it doesn't do standard content filtering, but rather haphazard content filtering. It's amusing but annoying. It doesn't seem to pick up words on a page. It doesn't seem to work smartly at all. If fact, with the amount of complaints that people have sent into IT so far, they might just have to rate the entire internet. Now that would be funny! Now, pardon me, I must go surf some more textpr0n!

Contemporary Fantasy/Fantasy Romance

Is it just me or are there a lot more contemporary fantasy books out there in the past two years than there used to be? Are they just higher profile now as opposed to hidden away at the back of the store or on the bottom shelf that you always ignore because it involves dropping your bag and hunkering down and causing an obstruction in the aisles? As a personal thing, I've spent the past year reading contemporary fantasy or fantasy romance - because the genre's seem to overlap rather a lot. Yes, you've probably read the rants on my journal before but this isn't a rant, it's more of a pointing out of information and opening your eyes to different series of books that are out there.

( Read On... )

I have the distinct feeling that I've read more authors than that... but I can't think of more off the top of my head. Anyway, those are the reviews and my opinions.

WooHoo!

So, I've gotten myself a computer desk.  Lidl were having an offer and one of my housemates was nice enough to wander up there today and pick it up for me.  He has a car and is really sweet!  So after moving some things and doing a general tidy (my chest of drawers is in the wardrobe currently!) I have a desk.  Oh and my back is a bit sore.  And today was my day to find my glasses.  At least a year ago, I lost my nice glasses, the ones that I like!  They magically turned up on my floor this evening!  ^_^

Bed now!  Definately! 

ETA: Aaand, the heating is back working and I have the appropriate tools (a vice grips) to turn on my radiator.  That is the first time all winter!