YouKneeK’s 2017 SF&F Overdose (with Bonus 2016 Preview!)

Introduction
Hi! I’ve echoed reviews on LibraryThing for about three years now, but I haven’t been very social here. In an attempt to get more involved, I started lurking in this group a few months ago. You all seemed like friendly, intelligent, and more-or-less rational people, so I tested the waters further by replying in a few of your threads.

Apparently the only reason I didn’t get chased out with pitchforks is because they were lost after a marshmallow toasting. There’s a rumor that they’re in a shed, but I think it’s just an intimidation tactic. So, until I see pitchforks, I thought I’d maintain my own reading journal thread. I was going to wait until 2017, but I’m not very patient, so this thread comes with a “Bonus 2016 Preview”.

Also, since the question came up in a later post, I'm a female. I'll answer to male pronouns, but I'm partial to the female ones. ;)

What I Read
The majority of what I read these days is science fiction and fantasy, but I do read other genres now and then. None of my friends or family like to read the same types of books I do, so I really crave online sites where I can have conversations with people who are interested in the same books I am.

The books I read tend to be at least a few years old. This is mainly because:

1. I was an adult before I became hooked on SF&F, so I still have a lot of classics to catch up on. In 2016, I “discovered” authors such as Margaret Atwood, Octavia E. Butler, Philip K. Dick, Joe Haldeman, Guy Gavriel Kay, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Terry Pratchett.


2. I don’t like to start an incomplete series, and my definition of “incomplete” is pretty narrow. Even if each book stands alone, I prefer to read related books closely together. I feel like I appreciate a series more if can remember and appreciate all the little nuances and references from book to book. It’s also easier for me to maintain my emotional investment in the story if I don’t have a long cooling-off period between books. Newer books are often part of an ongoing series, or they may turn into a series if the reception for the first book is good, so I usually try to wait. It’s not like I don’t have enough other books to read!

What to Expect from My Posts
I review every book I read, and I average a book or two per week, depending on my schedule. I think I’ll probably just post my full reviews in this thread, rather than linking to my reviews on the work page, but I may change my mind.

I’m pretty cautious about avoiding spoilers in my reviews. I do usually include a small amount of plot-related info to provide context, but I try to limit it to what a reader will find out early in the book. If I’m bursting to talk about a book in more spoilerish detail, I enclose those comments in spoiler tags. I myself like to go into a book as blind as possible, and I often start books without having any idea what they’re about. I loved to be surprised, and it can be too easy to figure out where a story is going if I know too much about it in advance.

Also, I’m sure nobody would have ever guessed, but sometimes I can get really wordy. If you’re brave enough to follow my thread, you might want to invest in a mouse with a hyperscroll feature. :)

This post contains an index of what I’ve read since starting this post, with links to the post below where I reviewed it.

Reading Index - Bonus 2016 Preview
1. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin – Review Post
2. Jingo by Terry Pratchett - Review Post
3. John Dies at the End by David Wong - Review Post
4. The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett - Review Post
5. The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin - Review Post
6. The Shadowed Sun by N. K. Jemisin - Review Post
7. The Sea and Little Fishes by Terry Pratchett - Review Post

Reading Index - 2017

Review: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin



The Lathe of Heaven is a standalone science fiction story by the same author that wrote the Earthsea series. The writing style seemed so different to me that it felt like it was written by a different author. The premise was great, the ideas and questions were thought-provoking, and the execution was… well, I don’t know. It never really grabbed me. I would get interested for a short period of time, then my attention would wander and I’d have to put the book down to do something else.

The book is about a character who can literally change the world with his dreams. Occasionally, he has a dream that is particularly vivid and powerful and, when he wakes up, he has two sets of memories: the memory of what existed before his dream, and the memories of a past that he never lived through. The rest of humanity only remembers the new set of memories. What would happen if this power could be harnessed? Could you get rid of famine, plague, racism, and war? Would it be moral to do so? What would the consequences be?

I really liked the premise, and the story was interesting. I liked the main character pretty well, although his passivity annoyed me at times. The other main character in the story annoyed me to no end, as intended I think, with his arrogance and his inability to see beyond his own narrow perspective. And his incessant monologues. I think those monologues were one reason why I kept losing interest in the book.

This is one of those books that doesn’t give you all the answers, ever. There are unreliable characters interpreting what’s happening, so you’re never quite sure if what they say is accurate, mistaken, or an intentional deception. The ending is also pretty fuzzy in terms of how (or if) anything was resolved.

Next Book
Jingo, the 4th book in the Watch subseries of Discworld.

Glad to see you starting your own thread. Now those threatening people can leave me in peace ;-)

>4 BookstoogeLT: LOL, I was rather hoping they would stay in your thread and not notice mine. ;)

I enjoyed your review, I tried to read this book earlier this year, but I lost interest and did not finish. I too read a lot of Sci-fi, but I also read non-fiction. I am a lurker here, so you won't see too many posts from me, this is a great group.

>6 Book-Dragon1952: Thanks! I’m glad it wasn’t just me who had trouble getting into this book. When I looked at friends’ ratings on another site, most people seemed to appreciate it a lot more than I did.

Maybe if you start a thread of your own for 2017, the three of us can work together to create confusion and keep the pitchfork-wielding people distracted?

>7 YouKneeK: I will be starting a 2017 thread soon, I have such a large TBR mountain that I'm trying to organize into piles for next year. If you can shield us from the pitchforks, I'll try to be more social! Looking forward to 2017 reading.

>8 Book-Dragon1952: LOL, I'll do my best! I look forward to seeing your thread.

Hey, guys! They're over here! Did you get that shed door open yet? Oh wait, >1 YouKneeK: called us friendly, intelligent, and I'm not sure what that third word means, but maybe we should belly up to the bar here with some PGGBs (Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters) instead. Any snacks?

I am very excited to see new members who take the plunge and start posting here! Welcome all, and I look forward to reading your book adventures.

>3 YouKneeK: Ooooo, sparkly chart/graphic thingy!

>10 MrsLee: No, no, they’re over there! ---->

LOL, thanks. :)

Rational? Who? Where? *Looks around frantically.*

>12 SylviaC: The keyword was "seemed". Past tense! ;)

Very happy to see you've started your thread!
:o)

>12 SylviaC:

Maybe there's another Green Dragon group?

>14 clamairy: Ha, I'm not sure if I should say "Thanks!" or run for the hills...

>15 suitable1: Or I'm a terrible judge of character. ;)

Hi, @YouKneek. We share the desire to read books with as little advance information on the work as possible and to write spoiler-free reviews.

I look forward to following your 2017 reading.

>10 MrsLee: I found the key to the shed.

Following along! Your reading tastes echo mine. I expect some book bullets over the next year. What do you think about sequel series set in the same world with the same characters? Do you wait for both the original and sequel to be written or are you ok reading the original first then waiting a bit for the sequel series to be written?

>14 clamairy: LOL!! Perfect!

>18 Narilka:

You mean an excuse to re-read earlier installments? If I waited for some authors (who shall not be named) to finish the series before buying and reading, I would only be spending less than a quarter of what I do now...

(cough)George R. R. Martin (cough)

>20 suitable1:

Wasn't who I was thinking of, but the boot fits...

>17 pgmcc: I’m happy to meet a fellow completed-series and spoiler-free stickler! ;) The completed-series sticklers are an especially rare breed, which is probably good since somebody has to buy the new books so they can afford to write the sequels…

>18 Narilka: Regarding multiple series set in the same world, that one is a bit harder, just because it’s hard to be sure an author isn’t going to return to a world. Well, being dead is a good clue, but even that isn’t fool-proof! :) If I know for sure an author is still writing in the world, even if there are completed series within it, it goes on the back burner in favor of all the more complete stuff I want to read. This is similar to my treatment of series that are made up of standalone books. If I ever run out of “completely complete” stuff, then those books are next on my priority list.

But sometimes I don’t realize there are other books, or they didn’t exist and I didn’t know the author was planning to write them. If it happens, I don’t sweat it too much. For example, Abercrombie’s First Law series. When I started reading it, I didn't know he was planning to write another trilogy. But I enjoyed the first 7 books and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the others whenever he publishes them.

@pgmcc, @YouKneeK called you a stickler, and he/she just met you!

>23 suitable1: “She” would be my pronoun of choice. ;) I probably should have put that in my initial post… I barely even noticed that we don’t have avatars here to help provide pronoun clues.

>24 YouKneeK: Not sure why but I thought you were a she. *scratches head* Wasn't anything in particular, either.

>25 clamairy: The high-pitched screech when I saw the pitchforks, maybe?

>26 YouKneeK: Oh, males shriek at the same pitch when they see them. Trust me.

>27 clamairy: Experience is a beautiful thing.

>19 Maddz:, >20 suitable1:, >22 YouKneeK: I was thinking Robin Hobb and her Realm of the Elderlings world. She's working on her 3rd Fitz trilogy now. I've finished the first two trilogies and am waiting (im)patiently for her to finish writing the 3rd.

>29 Narilka: Oh, that’s a good example. Did you read the other related series also, Liveship Traders and Rain Wild Chronicles? I read the first two Fitz trilogies, as well as the Liveship Traders series, but I never got to Rain Wild.

I loved all of them, especially the Fitz books. When I read them, I don’t think there had been any info about more books being planned, or else I just didn’t find it. I didn’t check as carefully back then. Even though I don’t do much re-reading, I may make an exception for this and re-read the entire series, along with the books I haven’t read yet, after she finishes the latest trilogy. That sure would consume a lot of reading time, but they’re some of my all-time favorites.

>30 YouKneeK: I have not read the Rain Wild Chronicles yet. I'm planning them for next year.

>29 Narilka:

Ah - define series...

Stand-alone books and trilogies set in the same world vs what seems to be a never-ending series of stand-alone books. Katherine Kurtz vs George RR Martin if you want authors. I prefer the first type of world exploration and tend to get bored with the second (with a few exceptions).

I'd have spoken up sooner, but up there in >14 clamairy: , she said we had to sharpen our torches. Which meant I had to go search Amazon for a whetstone. (Surprisingly, moderate in price...) At any rate, at least we know where to find you now.

Oh dear, another thread which is bound to cause my TBR piles to grow! Welcome, I'm glad you are making yourself at home here!

>32 Maddz: I was referring to trilogies (or more) set in the same world. The Robin Hobb example. The overall series/world is The Realm of the Elderlings. Within this are 5 separate series so far. You have The Farseer Trilogy, The Liveship Traders trilogy, the Tawny Man trilogy, Rain Wilds Chronicles quartet and The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy that is in progress.

>35 Narilka:
So in fact you have 4 completed trilogies and one in progress. Why would you delay reading a completed series just because the author has chosen to start a new one? Especially if it does not deal with more-or-less the same characters / viewpoint / geographic area / history as an earlier series?

I can see the point in holding off until a self-contained trilogy is complete (not that I'd do that myself), but not in holding off until the author has definitively stopped working in that world - which may effectively be never once you get into Frank Herbert or sharecrop territory.

Heck, it's like Mark Smylie and the Artesia series of mini-series. It was projected to be several multiple mini-series of which he completed 3 but the 4th has been on hiatus 2/3 completed for many years.

>36 Maddz: That's why I asked what YouKneeK does in that instance since the series did extend and she doesn't like starting incomplete series :) In my example above series 1, 3 & 5 are all the same characters, region, etc. and direct continuations of each other.

>33 jillmwo: How did you solve the problem of lighting the pitchforks? I was hoping that would keep the violent people busy for a while. ;)

>34 Sakerfalcon: Thank you!

>36 Maddz: “Why would you delay reading a completed series just because the author has chosen to start a new one?”

For me, the question is the exact opposite. Let’s say I have 25 different series I want to try, all of which are in a universe that the author appears to be finished with. (Granted, you can never be entirely sure, like I said in >22 YouKneeK:.) Then let’s say there’s another series that looks interesting to me, and it has a complete trilogy, but the author is still writing in the world.

What would motivate me to prioritize the latter series ahead of the other 25 I want to read? The “completely complete” stuff has the highest priority on my reading list. If I didn’t have that hypothetical list of 25, then I’d read the latter series, but I don’t expect my to-read list will ever be that short.

I know a lot of people need more variety, and so for them reading an entire series all in a row is a bit like torture. For me, it’s not. I enjoy the immersion in a particular world. I do still break up really long series though, because I like some variety. I’m currently working my way through Discworld for the first time and that series has over 40 books. About 1 out of every 4 books I read is from Discworld, so I get plenty of breaks but I’m still never away from it very long.

>39 YouKneeK: I'm with you on the complete series thing. I have several TBR piles that are just for collecting pieces until I have the entire thing.

I just read the Farseer trilogy recently, and am collecting volumes of the other ones now. I did the same with Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series, which is also broken up into trilogies with a few stand-alones mixed in. I had read most of them separately over the years, but last year made a concerted effort to track down all of the books and spent an enjoyable two months just reading the whole thing from beginning to end. Was feeling quite contented with it, until I found a newer bibliography that shows that she had written more books that I didn't know about, which fit into the MIDDLE. So one day I will have to get the missing parts and read it all through again, so I can see the whole story.

>40 Darth-Heather: LOL, Lackey seems very prolific. I had downloaded several of her books for free from the Baen Free Library a few years ago and then, when I went to investigate the series statuses, my head exploded. Some of them are on a “figure it out later!” list.

I hadn’t had much exposure to her work until I read the Bedlam’s Bard series earlier this year. It was only 4 books long (not counting a "half" book that I couldn't find and decided I didn't care about), so it seemed like an easier place to start. I liked it, it was cute and fluffy, but I was starting to get more annoyed with the writing by the end. I probably would have stopped after the 4th book even if there had been more.

In the books I've read, she goes off the deep end a bit with her recaps. I see recaps as a necessary evil, but they're more tolerable if the author can accomplish it subtly. At the beginning of one of the books, Lackey had her character standing in the mud, with buckets of rain falling on his head, trying to get a wagon unstuck from a ditch. While he was in this state, the character apparently thought it would be a good time to pause and think over his entire life history!

>41 YouKneeK: I have to say that I didn't like her bard series as much as her Valdemar series. That certainly has stronger and less strong books, but overall I really like it. The bard stuff I stopped after the second book.

>42 zjakkelien: Maybe I'll give that series a try sometime. Of the 20+ Lackey books they were offering at the time I downloaded them, I don't think a single one of them was from that series, but it seems to be the one I see mentioned most often.

I find Lackey's writing style really grates on me now, with all those long self-pitying interior monologues which, I agree, are largely used to recap the previous book! I hate the overuse of italics too. But I still love the world of Valdemar and the heralds, so I've been enjoying the short story collections (first one is Sword of ice) where other authors get to play with Lackey's toys. Some pretty impressive authors have contributed, including Tanya Huff, Michelle West and Fiona Patton, and most of the stories are really good. It's nice too that many authors have chosen to explore areas that Lackey has only touched on, such as Bards, Healers, soldiers, and characters from outside Valdemar.

Lackey was one of the first fantasy authors I read so the world of Valdemar and heralds has a special place in my heart.

I used to like to read series' and as such would very often re-read the entire series when a new instalment came out, so that I'd be properly prepared. However some series start to get very long doing that, and so now I normally only read the last two or three, unless I've already read them this year. The bonus of ebooks is want =have (mostly).

>44 Sakerfalcon:, >45 catzteach: I want to try more of her work eventually, but I think she’s one of those authors I’ll need to take in small doses. I read her Werehunter anthology in late October and it was a pretty mixed bag for me. I liked most of the stories, but I had a lot of complaints about the writing.

>44 Sakerfalcon: I can’t say I noticed the overuse of italics, though! ;)

>46 reading_fox: Re-reading just the last two or three sounds like a really good compromise. I imagine by that point you would be reminded of most of the relevant parts and you would have regained the emotional momentum needed for the newest book.

>44 Sakerfalcon: Although I see your point, it doesn't bother me. Partly nostalgia, I suppose, and partly it's that sometimes I just feel like something like that. I don't mind the italics at all. I like how some of the more simple magical beings sometimes respond with punctuation marks.

I'm surprised you like the short stories, though. I've tried two of the anthologies, and never read more than 2 or 3 stories. I found them to be rather flimsy.

>47 YouKneeK: I was pretty young when I read her: late high school, early college, so I didn't know good writing. Plus, I can handle writing that isn't the best if I'm in the right mood. Brain candy and all that. ;)

Review: Jingo by Terry Pratchett


Background
I first started reading Discworld about 8 months ago. I wasn’t sure I’d like it. It has the kind of humor that I haven’t responded well to in the past, a more satirical humor that, while funny, makes it impossible to take the story seriously. I prefer humor that feels like a natural extension of the characters and events in a more serious story -- the kind I can take seriously while still laughing my head off, if that makes any sense.

I knew in advance what to expect humor-wise from Discworld, but I wanted to try it anyway. Being prepared may have helped. For the most part, I’ve been able to enjoy the books for what they are, laugh at the humor, and just give in to the ridiculousness of it all. They serve as a nice change of pace in-between more serious books, and they’re also good travel books because I don’t care as much if I get distracted while reading them. Even though I enjoy them, I tend not to rate them very highly. The books I love best are the ones that completely suck me into a story and make me care about the characters, and Discworld doesn’t really do that for me. For Discworld, four stars is a high rating that only three books so far have earned.

I’m reading the books in publication order. My x of y series count in the above header may seem odd because I’m counting everything on my Discworld reading list as “books”, and that includes a few short stories, some illustrated novels, and the Science of Discworld books. It’s just easier to have one simple count. It varies but, on average, I read one Discworld book per every four books I read, so you’ll see these crop up in my thread quite a bit.

Review
Jingo is the fourth book in the City Watch subseries of Discworld. When I first started this subseries, I didn’t think I was going to like it very much. It’s grown on me, though, and I think it’s now my second favorite after the Witches subseries.

In this book, a disagreement between fishermen in the middle of the sea between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch triggers buried resentments and prejudices among citizens of both places until it appears that war is inevitable. As is common with this subseries, there was a little bit of a mystery involved, and that helped keep the story more interesting.

Pratchett often uses humor to impart some sort of a message, and I thought this book was one of the better examples of that. He used humor to point out the ridiculousness of how people tend to divide themselves into “us” and “them” and vilify the “them”, assuming the worst about their intentions and beliefs. There were a lot of very funny moments, and yet those ridiculously funny things weren’t so terribly far from the behavior of real people in our world.

Next Book
John Dies in the End by David Wong, a title that has always filled me with curiosity. :)

Nice!

Great review. I'm trying to read my first Discworld - The Colour of Magic, but I keep pushing it aside. Maybe next month.

I'm fairly new to Discworld, too. I've only read about four or five of them so far. I'm not really going in order, as I just buy them as I find them at book sales. I'm really enjoying the humour, which kind of surprised me, since I generally don't appreciate that sort on non-stop silliness like I used to when I was younger. (I loved the Hitchhiker's Guide books when I was in my teens and twenties, but now they leave me cold.) I think it would be too much for me to read a lot of Discworld books at once, but it's working nicely at the pace I'm going.

>52 Book-Dragon1952: FWIW, a friend tried to introduce me to Discworld with The Colour of Magic many years ago, when it was new. I hated it, and haven't been inspired to give it a second chance. But a few years later I was drawn in by one of the later ones, written when he'd gotten into his stride. That converted me. I suspect you'd be well advised to drop the one you're reading and try Equal Rites rather (of the earlier ones) or possibly Guards, Guards of the "middle period". I've recently re-read Raising Steam, which comes right near the end of the canon -- that would leave a new immigrant to Discworld totally lost, as it refers heavily back to previous stories.

>51 BookstoogeLT:, >52 Book-Dragon1952: Thanks. :)

>52 Book-Dragon1952: I’ll be really interested to read what you think once you do read it.

>53 SylviaC: There seems to be something about Discworld that makes it hard not to like it at least a little bit. I definitely think taking it in small doses is a good plan, though! I read the Hitchhiker books in my early 20’s (I’m 41 now), and I didn’t care for them at all because of the silliness. I wonder if I’d be able to stomach it better now that Discworld has softened me up a bit. :)

I have to say that The Watch Discworld books are my favourites, I found a lot of the earlier books, especially the Rincewind books, just too silly for my taste. I was a huge HHGTTG fan in my younger days but humour-wise found them much more to my taste than The Colour of Magic (which I read when it came out). I suspect the reason is that I prefer wit and tongue-in-cheek humour to slapstick comedy.

>56 Maddz: The last couple of Watch books I've read have had more of an actual plot, as compared to some of the other books. That's one reason that subseries has grown on me. Vimes annoyed me early on in the series, but I like him better now. Did you like Guards! Guards!? I see that one mentioned favorably quite a bit, but it wasn't one of my favorites. I liked Men at Arms better, and I really liked Feet of Clay.

Before I tried Discworld, I’d read a lot of comments that Rincewind wasn’t most people’s favorite subseries, so I was prepared to try a few books from the different subseries before I gave up. I found Rincewind pretty tolerable, though. His distinctive personality amused me.

It helped that the first two books are so short at less than 250 pages each. Then they were immediately followed by the first book in the Witches subseries and the first book in the Death subseries. By the end of the fourth book, I felt like I’d had a decent taste of what the books were like. The sixth book, Wyrd Sisters, is still one of my favorites.

>57 YouKneeK:

Well, it was always obvious exactly which other fictional cop Captain Vimes riffed off, and as my sister and myself were always huge fans of the actor...

I will say I enjoyed Guards! Guards! better than The Colour of Magic. In all honesty, I never read Discworld for much of a plot. As light reading they range from tolerable to reasonable, but I don't think I've read any more than once, apart from the Watch subseries.

>58 Maddz: Not to me; I didn’t know he was riffed off anybody. I don’t watch much television, so some of the pop culture references in Discworld go over my head. I think it’s safe to say I missed many of the jokes in both Moving Pictures and Soul Music.

>59 YouKneeK:

Dirty Harry via Inspector Morse. Paul Kidby actually draws him as Clint Eastwood.

Another literary version of Dirty Harry is Black Cal Halloran in CJ Cherryh's Merovingen Nights sharecrop.

>60 Maddz: Ah, ok, thanks. That isn’t familiar to me at all.

>60 Maddz: Speaking as a devoted fan of Discworld, I never caught that reference! I think of Vimes more in terms of Humphrey Bogart, a Noir kind of detective. Maybe because of my age?

>62 MrsLee:

Have you never come across any of Paul Kidby's illustrations?

There's a fair amount of British cop TV series that's gone into the mix as well, I'd say - I've already mentioned Inspector Morse, the other that springs to mind is The Sweeney (oddly John Thaw again). There's a little bit of Dixon of Dock Green cosiness as well, maybe some Z-Cars grittiness as well.

Given that Guards! Guards! was first published in 1989, I'd say that Kojak and Hawai 5-0 were more of an influence than 40s and 50s noir cinema. Both were shown on British TV in the late 70s, then we got Cagney & Lacey in the 80s.

>63 Maddz: Oh, I wasn't arguing with your premise, I was only saying how I read him. :) I have seen/have some of the Paul Kidby works. This may be blasphemy, but *whispers* he isn't my favorite. I see the fun of his vision, but it frequently doesn't match mine.

Review: John Dies at the End by David Wong



This book was on a list from which I pull many of my reading selections. Every time I noticed this title on that list, there was always a brief pause while I speculated about it. Is John the main character? Does he in fact die at the end of the book, or at the end of something else? Is it a physical death, a metaphorical death, or a spiritual death? Is it a complete lie? I had many, many other theories, but I knew absolutely nothing about the book itself. When the Kindle edition went on sale a month ago, I grabbed it so I could finally get some answers.

I’d believed this was a fantasy book, but it reads more like a horror story to me. I could see reasons to classify it as either horror, fantasy, or science fiction, depending on which parts stick out the most to the reader. I’m happy that I went into it completely blind, and I think a large part of the fun in reading this came from not knowing what to expect, so I’m afraid to try talking about the plot. The story is crazy anyway, and the only way I could make it sound very sensible would be to explain things that aren’t revealed until near the end. I’m going to limit myself to this: The main characters in the story are two early-twentyish males who are completely immature. They get caught up in some… strange events. Chaos ensues.

I’d be afraid to recommend this book to anybody, and yet I wish everybody I know would go read it right now so I can find out what they think when they’re done. :) Most of the time, I was completely wrapped up in the story, but once in a while I would pause and think to myself, “Ok, now that’s just ridiculous.” But even though this book has a lot of crazy stuff in it, the story still felt coherent and interesting. It isn’t one of those stories where the author throws in every crazy thing he or she can imagine to the point that it overwhelms the story.

There were some inconsistencies, most of which I blame on the unreliableness of the narrator rather than on problems with the writing itself. There’s a lot of goriness, cussing, and crude humor. There was also a lot of clever and truly funny stuff, and the story completely sucked me in. It's told in a slightly non-linear fashion, which helped keep it interesting. It wasn’t a terribly scary book, but there were some parts in the second half that did start to creep me out a little. I think it probably depends on what scares you. I could easily see other people being freaked out by completely different parts that didn’t bother me at all. This is a complete story without any cliffhangers, but there were some interesting reveals near the end that I hope will be dealt with in more detail in the sequel. The sequel is definitely the next book I intend to read.

Next Book
This Book is Full of Spiders, the sequel to the above book.

>65 YouKneeK: There is a movie with the same title. I assume it's based on this book. I have noticed the listing on Netflix or Amazon streaming in the past but never did watch it.

>66 ScoLgo: Yes, you're right, it is based on this book. There was some discussion of the movie in the front and back matter of the book. I’d never heard of the movie until I read this.

"crude humor"

I think I'll take a pass then...

>68 BookstoogeLT: Yeah, it probably wouldn’t be a top choice for a crudeness-free reading experience. :)

>65 YouKneeK: I enjoyed reading John Dies at the End a couple of years ago. I've had the sequel sat on my tbr shelves for a while but haven't got around to reading it as yet so will be interested to see what you think of it.

>70 AHS-Wolfy: It’s great to hear from somebody else who read this! The problem with reading some of the more obscure books is that nobody knows what the heck you’re talking about. :)

I only had time to read about 10% of the sequel yesterday, but I’m enjoying it so far. It has the same crazy humor.

This Book is Full of Spiders by David Wong



First of all, look at that cover. On second thought, if you’re afraid of spiders, cover your eyes and scroll on by. I really like it, and I don’t normally take much notice of book covers. Pictures don’t usually do much for me; I’d rather have 1000 words. But apparently I like pictures of books with holes that have book-page-spiders crawling out of them. Who knew?

This book is the sequel to John Dies at the End. Each book tells a complete story that stands on its own, although there are some fun references to the first book that would go over somebody’s head if they hadn’t read it. This second book has the same crazy humor combined with goriness, crudeness, and silliness, but I did think it was toned down a little bit as compared to the first book. On the other hand, I’ve now read almost 900 pages of this author’s writing, so I may have just built up an immunity. Or brain damage.

I didn’t think this plot was as unique and strange as the first one, but it still had its own unique flare and it was told well. In fact, I may have been more absorbed by this story simply because it wasn’t quite so bizarre. It definitely wasn’t devoid of craziness and fun, though. With this book I don’t see much harm in a brief synopsis, as long as I leave out all the juicy details: The story is basically about the zombie apocalypse coming to a small town in the Midwestern U.S., but with the not-really-zombies caused by not-exactly-spiders. Normally I hear the word “zombie” and reflexively reply with the word “ugh”, but this isn’t one of those tedious types of zombie/monster stories. I get bored if a story primarily consists of characters running from scary monsters, finding a temporary refuge, getting found by scary monsters, and running from scary monsters again. This book has an actual story, and it never once felt tedious.

The first book had been told primarily from the first-person perspective of the narrator. In this book, our main characters aren’t together for large portions of the story so the reader gets to spend some time in the heads of the other main characters. I enjoyed that because I felt like I got to know those characters better, and I enjoyed not being confined to a single viewpoint and a single chain of events. On the other hand, I wished the characters were together more often because I think they’re more fun that way.

One semi-spoilerish comment: It seems pretty pointless to persist in calling the town “Undisclosed” to discourage tourists, considering the entire world has been watching news about it for days. The town is likely to be a household name for years. But then, the narrator does make references to potential readers 200 years from now, so maybe he’s trying to prevent tourism in 200 years. :)

In summary, there were some things I liked better about this book as compared to the first book, and some things I liked less. On average, though, I think I enjoyed them about equally. I may have to check out some of the author’s other work someday.

Next Book
The Last Continent, the 6th book in the Rincewind subseries of Discworld.

>72 YouKneeK: Glad to see you enjoyed this one as much as the last. Also good to know it's not just a re-hash of the previous story. I'll definitely be getting around to reading it some time though when that will be I have no idea.

>73 AHS-Wolfy: Thanks, I hope you enjoy it too! Either way, I look forward to finding out what you think about it once you do read it.

I'm trying to thumb up your reviews so they'll make it into the Hot Reviews Zeitgeist list.
I know how important that is to you ;-)

>75 BookstoogeLT: LOL, yes, that's definitely my whole goal in life. ;) I don't remember ever looking at that page, but I just went over and found it. I had to laugh at how we're both on there with our 1 thumbs-up apiece.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Well, I knew this wasn't going to be my social hub...

and another How To question.

I would like to show my "Currently Reading" list on my front page so I don't have to click on "your books" but I can't find a way to do that. Any ideas?

>77 BookstoogeLT: It’s definitely a different type of site, but the whole friending and liking thing was never the real draw for me as much as just having comments and discussions in general. In that regard, this Group format is working well for me. But I think a lot of it is what we’re used to, and you have such a long blogging history whereas I don’t. Most of my online communication over the decades has been in message forums.

The one thing I really, really wish LT had is the ability to sign up for e-mail notifications on threads. I’d rather get an e-mail notification on my smartphone when there’s something new to read in a thread I'm following, because I'd be less tempted to check online for new messages so often. Once I log onto the internet to check one thing, it's too easy to get distracted and spend time doing stuff I really didn't intend to be doing right then.

>78 BookstoogeLT: I don't see a way to do that either. Maybe somebody else will know of something we're missing and can jump in with advice. The only thing I can find is the “Your Collections” panel which I don’t think is what you want. It includes the “Currently Reading” collection, but you still have to click on “Currently Reading” to actually see those books. (That panel lives under the “About You” page on the left-hand menu.) There’s also the “Recently Added” panel which does list books and show covers, but that's probably only useful for a monogomist reader like me since my most recently-added book is almost always the one book I'm reading. With you and your polygamist habits, you need a better solution. ;)

(a href="http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?tag=currently+reading&view=majkia") (img src="http://www.librarything.com/gwidget/widget.php?view=majkia&tag=currently%20reading&top=Currently%20Reading" />)

replace the four parens with less than and greater than signs and put your own user name in there. You can display this on your user page or use it in emails or on webpages.

It looks like this:

@YouKneek:
Well, adding the Collections module is one step in the right direction. At least now I've got something directly on my front page.

@Majkia:
Thanks for the info. I've created the link using the widget, now, where do I place it? You say on my user page. Is that my profile page? If so, where on my user page and how?

>80 majkia: Aaah, very nice, thanks Majkia! I also see now that the Widgets Menu helps make it pretty easy to create a customized one. I hadn’t played with that screen at all.

Is there any way to add it to the Dashboard on your LT home page, or only to your LT profile page and other non-LT places? I think Bookstooge’s goal is to have something like that on his Dashboard so it can serve as a one-stop shop. I have my Dashboard customized to show the topics from my groups, the news feed from my friends, recent reviews on my shelved books, etc. so that I have pretty much everything that interests me all on one screen without having to click around much.

WRT the dashboard, maybe in the your notepad module?

ETA: Yeah, just tested it, it works there.

And where is my notepad module? I can't find one...

ETA:
found it. Thanks for pretesting.

>84 BookstoogeLT: It's under the "About You" screen. I'm currently trying to figure out how to make it point to a collection instead of a tag, since I don't have a "currently reading" tag. Although I guess I could just create one and use it. But I'm set in my ways. :)

Yeah, with no currently reading tag, I'm stuck. I also don't know enough about html to even guess where to begin. Well, that is for another night. I've reached my limit :-)

Thank you both very much! Appreciate all the facts, and thanks again for letting my hijack your thread @YK :-)

No problem, it's fun learning new things about the site.

I was trying to replace each occurrence of tag=currently%20reading with collection=7, because that's what I see in the "permanent link" if I actually go to that collection in my books: http://www.librarything.com/catalog.php?view=youkneek&collection=7&shelf...

But that just seems to display a random selection of books.

After some searching, I found this page which lists the parameters you can use with the gwidget. I don’t know if there’s a more recent page, but it looks like collection just isn’t an option so I guess you would have no choice except to use a tag. It wouldn’t be much extra trouble, really, to create and use a tag for that purpose, but I didn’t want to be defeated in my attempt to get it to work the way I thought it should work. ;)

http://blog.librarything.com/main/2006/12/graphical-widgets-for-lj-and-etc-first...

Also I just wanted to add a thanks, Majkia, for pointing this functionality out to us! I love how customizable things are here.

Edited because it is late and I'm leaving now :-)

>90 BookstoogeLT: I think so. We can only use the parameters that the programmers set up to work with the gwidget. (When I say "parameters", I'm referring to the things following an &, like "&tag" and "&view" that you can then define by adding an "=something" to it.)

So without a &collection parameter, it doesn't work no matter how logical it looks. :)

well, I caved. I now have a Currently Reading Tag along with the Currently Reading Collection. It isn't the covers like the "Recently Added" but it shows the info that I want :)

>92 BookstoogeLT: Cool. :) Down the road I might add some TBR books and use the gwidget to display some of those. Right now my LT library only has things I've already read.

As you mentioned, my polybookamist ways certainly add complications. But I can't just love one book. I love lots of books ;-)

And I'd lose track if I wasn't using a Currently Reading list...

Review: The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett



The Last Continent is the sixth book in the Rincewind subseries of Discworld. For me, this was one of the more average Discworld books. I don’t normally fall asleep while reading, but the cat and I took a few short naps while reading this book. :)

Rincewind has accidentally become stranded in a remote area of Austral… I mean, in Ecksecksecksecks. While Rincewind is innocently going about his business of trying not to die of starvation or get poisoned by giant spiders, a talking kangaroo tries to enlist his help to fix a problem. You see, something has happened to stop the rain and apparently Rincewind is the only one who can set things right. No worries.

I liked the story, but it wasn’t a page-turner for me. There was plenty of humor as usual, but not as much that really made me laugh out loud. Rincewind is always a fun character though, so it was nice to see him again. Some of the humor went over my head because there were clearly Australian cultural references that were unfamiliar to me. Actually, until reading this book, I didn’t even know that “no worries” originated in Australia. I hear it quite a bit here in the U.S. now, but the first time I started noticing the phrase was during discussions with my European colleagues. I had thought maybe it was a UK thing. My Kindle educated me with a relevant Wikipedia entry when I highlighted one of the many, many occurrences of “no worries” in the book. So at least I learned something new!

Next Book
The Killing Moon by N K Jemisin

Review: The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin



I’ve been hearing good things about this author, but this was my first time reading any of her work. I was pretty impressed. The story and the characters grabbed me right away and held my attention to the end. There are some morally-ambiguous plot elements, as opposed to a story where it’s very clear what’s right, what’s wrong, and what to root for.

This is one of those books that will exasperate some people, at least in the beginning, because the author throws a lot of unfamiliar terms, names, and places at the reader in rapid succession. It’s nothing more than what epic fantasy fans are used to, though, and everything starts to make sense pretty fast. It helped that I was reading it on my Kindle and could search for past occurrences of a word to remind myself of its earlier context. There’s a glossary in the back, but I didn’t see it until the end, and I tend to avoid them anyway for fear of spoilers, however slight they may be.

The general premise of the book is that a few people called “Gatherers” have the gift of helping people die peacefully, by sending the person’s soul into a peaceful dream world before killing them. The theory is that this is only done for willing people who are very sick or elderly, or for evil, corrupt people. But what if this power is abused? There’s much, much more to the premise than this, but learning the details throughout the story is the fun part so I don’t want to spoil it.

At 418 pages, this book felt really short. Part of that was of course because the story was so interesting that it was a quick read. However, a large part of this book’s apparent shortness was because I wanted more meat and detail to expand on the world-building, history, and characters I was introduced to. I would have liked to see the characters wrestle a little more with some of the moral ambiguity, and I also wanted a more drawn-out ending. Things seemed to be resolved a bit quickly, and I wanted to learn more about how the characters we had been following and the greater civilization around them would change as a result of the events.

I’m hopeful that maybe I’ll get a little more closure in the second book, if only by seeing what the state of affairs are in the next book. I plan to start the next book later tonight, although I’m not likely to get much more reading time in before I have to go to sleep. Happily, another four-day weekend is around the corner! :)

Next Book
The Shadowed Sun, the sequel to the above book.

>96 YouKneeK: sounds good! I just put it on my TBR list for the library.

>97 catzteach: Woo hoo, my first book bullet credit! I hope you do enjoy it when you read it.

>96 YouKneeK: I liked The shadowed sun even more than The killing moon - hope you enjoy it too.

And I've never been quite so fond of the Rincewind Discworld books as some of the other story arcs. Even reading The last continent while in Australia couldn't make it one of my favourites.

>99 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, so far I’m really enjoying The Shadowed Sun. The story seems to be a little meatier than that of the first book. I’m hopeful I might be able to finish it today.

I like the Rincewind character, but story-wise I think his subseries is one of the weaker ones. Reading The Last Continent in Australia sounds like it would have been rather fun, though. :) It’s high on the list of places I’d like to visit. Australia that is, not Ecksecksecksecks.

>100 YouKneeK: Oz is, however, strikingly similar to Fourecks ...

>101 hfglen: Hmmm... complete with sandwiches and such under the rocks? Or is that only if I befriend a talking kangaroo? This could affect my budgeting decisions.

>102 YouKneeK: Only the talking kangaroo can tell. But the gunge he made from beer dregs and vegetables exists in all good Aussie B&Bs; it's called Vegemite. And you'll recognise Bugarup if you go to Sydney at the right time of year.

>103 hfglen: Ah ha… I had wondered if Rincewind’s concoction might have been a reference to Vegemite, but I didn’t know enough about the substance to be sure. I've just heard it mentioned a lot. The connection between Bugarup/Sydney went entirely over my head.

Review: The Shadowed Sun by N.K. Jemisin



The Shadowed Sun is set ten years after The Killing Moon. Each story stands alone, but there’s a larger story arc that ties them together. At the end of the first book, I had felt slightly unsatisfied because things were wrapped up so quickly. It tied up the main plot but left me with a lot of questions about what the repercussions would be. This second book gave me what I had been looking for by showing me what those repercussions were, and by then going on to deal with those repercussions. I felt more satisfied with the ending of this book, particularly in terms of the larger political situation.

The Shadowed Sun focused on a different set of main characters, although some characters from the first book did make an appearance. I won’t mention any names, since that could spoil the first book. I liked most of the main characters in this book, but I think I was slightly more attached to the ones in the first book. Story-wise, this book felt more fleshed-out to me, probably in part because it was the longer book, and maybe partly because it had the world-building from the first book to support it. On the other hand, it became more romance-heavy than what I typically prefer toward the second half and I thought that dominated the plot a little too much.

In the end I enjoyed both books about equally, but each had different strengths. It was definitely a great series to end 2016 with, and I look forwarding to trying more of Jemisin’s work at some point in the future.

Next “Book”
The Sea and Little Fishes which is a short story (novella?) in the Witches subseries of Discworld.

Wishing you a Happy New Year with plenty of time for enjoyable reading. I shall be following along and trying to dodge the bullets that I predict will be flying looking at your thread so far.

Review: The Sea and Little Fishes by Terry Pratchett



The Sea and Little Fishes is a cute short story in the Discworld universe, featuring Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. It can be found for free here: http://loki.ovh.org/T%20Pratchett%20-%20The%20sea%20and%20the%20little%20fishes....

In this story, we see what happens when somebody accuses Granny Weatherwax of not being “nice”. Sometimes you don’t really want what you think you want… This was a fun story, featuring two of my favorite Discworld characters.

Next Book
Carpe Jugulum, another Discworld book in the Witches subseries, but a full-length book this time.

>106 Peace2: Thank you very much, I wish you the same!

At this point, the “Bonus 2016 Preview” portion of this thread is at an end, since it will be 2017 for me in about 20 minutes local time. I hope I haven’t scared anybody off yet! I’ve really enjoyed posting in this group so far.

2016 was a good reading year for me. Although I haven’t achieved the astonishing #’s that many of my fellow readers have managed, I did read more books in 2016 than I have in more recent years. Normally, I consider myself to be doing pretty well if I average a book a week. This year, I read 90 books and 6 short stories, for a total of approximately 35,500 pages.

Also, I learned a very important piece of wisdom in 2016 that I would like to pass on to anybody whose home contains one or more cats. On New Year's Eve, as it starts to get dark, any cats sitting in your lap should be gently extracted and placed on the floor. Otherwise, when the fireworks start going off, they may tear you to shreds in their haste to find a more secure hiding place. ;)

I wish everybody the best for 2017!

>109 YouKneeK: LOL regarding cats!! Both my girls could care less about fireworks though my boys are not happy. One is a bit tense and flinching at some of the explosions. The other is scared to death and under the bed the poor little guy.

Happy New Year and happy reading in 2017 :)

>109 YouKneeK:

Dunno about cats, but years ago when we owned a dog, as soon as it got dark on November 5th it would go and hide under my parent's bed and not come out until bedtime. I think he used to have to be forcibly extracted and returned to his basket as Mum objected to sleeping in the same room as an animal.

>111 Maddz: Yes indeedle. We used to have an SPCA-graduate dog that went bananas at every peal of thunder. At the time we lived in an area noted for electrical storms.

And happy new years!

>110 Narilka:, >111 Maddz:, >112 hfglen: I always feel rather bad for the scared animals because there’s not usually much you can do except stay calm yourself and hope they’ll take the hint.

It’s hard not to laugh at them sometimes, though. For some reason my cat tends to “hide” on the stairs when loud noises scare him, even though there’s a perfectly good bed for him to hide under. He’s a little unpredictable, though. We hear fireworks pretty often, for just about every holiday. Sometimes they don’t bother him at all, and other times he acts like the end of the world is nigh. The same is true for thunderstorms and vacuum cleaners.

>113 BookstoogeLT: Thanks, happy new year to you too!

Do you think you're going to be doing many/any non-review posts at Booklikes? I went on this morning and it was slower than ever, I had to comment directly from the dashboard or not at all and frankly, was greatly discouraged.

I am seriously thinking about just following you here. It seems the less people I follow at BL the less my frustration at not being able to comment. But the flip side is that you wrote some really interesting non-review posts last year and I don't want to miss out on them.

>114 YouKneeK:

The vacuum cleaner never bothered Pasha; he'd bark whenever someone came to the house, but he'd go bananas at the dustman - because he was stealing the dustbin.

There was the time he got out on bin day and went for the dustman and got him in the fundament. Luckily, all he got was a mouthful of loose overall, and reprehensibly I still giggle when I remember this burly dustman with the bin on his shoulder and an angrily growling Jack Russell cross hanging off his backside slowly rotating from side to side. Mum was absolutely mortified.

I believe the dustmen got a very substantial Christmas box that year.

My sister has two dogs, one hates the vacuum cleaner, the other doesn't care. Both think the Roomba is a fascinating toy and have to be told to leave it alone - otherwise they follow it around and confuse it...

>115 BookstoogeLT: It’s really bad, isn’t it? The only thing making BL at all tolerable for me right now is that so few people are posting so it’s easy to keep up without checking as often. At the same time, the site isn’t any fun without a lot of people posting.

So to answer your question, probably not. I never felt like I did many non-review posts to begin with. Aside from the occasional BL-related rant, and the API stuff which I definitely won’t be doing any more unless things turn around, I think most of my posts were responses to the Q&A’s that went around. I doubt we’ll see many of those with the site in its current state, and I’ve answered so many of them anyway that it seems there couldn’t possibly be anything new for me to say. :)

It would make perfect sense to me if you want to consolidate your followings between the sites. I plan to do the same eventually because I’m getting tired of seeing the same reviews on two to three sites, although I'll probably wait a couple months to see what (if anything) happens with BL.

>116 Maddz: LOL, the poor dustman!

I have on occasion thought about getting a Roomba. I had the original model, but it drove me positively bonkers watching it vacuum in such an inefficient pattern. It did help me keep the floors cleaner though, because watching it would inspire me to pull out the vacuum and do it myself. My current cat would probably end up being one of those cats that sits on it and rides it around.

Thanks. I'll be posting my reviews there for at least Q1, but my next "let's reevaluate the site" will be mid-march and I'll know if I'm sticking around or not by then.
So I'll be unfollowing you there and just follow and blab here. thanks!

>119 BookstoogeLT: March seems like a reasonable time period to give them. I’m skeptical that they’ve actually done much work on the site this past month with the holidays, despite what they say. Their philosophy seems to be to tell us what they think we want to hear instead of what’s actually going on. It’s nice that they’re communicating again, but they have such a strange way of handling things. I’m hoping things might start to improve in January with the holidays over.

>107 YouKneeK: Oooooh. Thank you for including a link! I hadn't read that one!

>121 dovelynnwriter: No problem! I found it on the Discworld series list on Goodreads back when I was preparing to read the series. Here are links to all the free short stories I have on my list in case you or anybody else wants them and hasn't seen them all:

Death and What Comes Next
Theatre of Cruelty
Troll Bridge
The Sea and Little Fishes
A Collegiate Casting Out of Devilish Devices

I haven’t read the last one yet, but I’ve read the others.

>122 YouKneeK: Ooooooh, thank you! This is the first of the shorts I've read, I think, so those links are really useful.

>122 YouKneeK: Many thanks for the link! Any minute now you'll be needing to start part 2 of this thread; so before you do so, let me wish you a Happy New Year.

>123 dovelynnwriter:, >124 hfglen: No problem!

>124 hfglen: Thank you, Happy New Year! When I started this thread, I didn't expect to have so many posts in it before 2017 or I would have just planned on making it a December 2016 thread. I might just start a new thread when I finish my first book in 2017. Are there any guidelines for how many posts should trigger the start of a new thread?

>118 YouKneeK:

According to my sister, the trick with a Roomba is to set it going before you take the dogs for a long walk. That way you don't trip over it because it's moved. Neither do you have to watch it waltzing around. Or yell at one or other dog to leave it alone.

Now we have laminate, we've considered getting one, but until we do some more decluttering, it will be seriously inefficient. However, as I've been made redundant, I'll stick with the steam mop and the Dyson unless I can get another permanent job.

Cats aren't an option for us - himself is mildly allergic. Neither are dogs because we both think it unfair to leave a dog cooped up in the house all day on it's own.

>50 YouKneeK: "I wasn’t sure I’d like it. It has the kind of humor that I haven’t responded well to in the past, a more satirical humor that, while funny, makes it impossible to take the story seriously. I prefer humor that feels like a natural extension of the characters and events in a more serious story -- the kind I can take seriously while still laughing my head off, if that makes any sense"

I am this way too x 10

>55 YouKneeK: "I read the Hitchhiker books in my early 20’s (I’m 41 now), and I didn’t care for them at all because of the silliness."

Me too! I was just afraid to say so!

>122 YouKneeK: Wow, thanks for the links! That's awesome. I need to read those.

>125 YouKneeK: After about 150 posts or so LT will put a line in blue below the "Add a message" panel inviting you to continue the discussion in a new thread. After about 250 posts a thread becomes a dog to load, and a new one will stop the regulars muttering. What we all said about @MrsLee's 430-poster is best left unrecorded ;) (but Lee, we do still love you)

>126 Maddz: Good luck with the job search!

I like dogs, as long as they belong to somebody else. I feel much the same about children! ;)

Dogs are a bit too needy and in-your-face (literally) for me. On the other hand, at least dogs don’t tend to attack random large lamps, pictures on the walls, and any other object smaller than, say, a large boulder. I’ve stopped buying knick-knacks for my home even though my home decor is still a bit sparse. New breakables have about a 75% survival rate until the cat gets used to them and loses interest. He has a regularly revolving array of approved cat toys, and we have interactive play times daily, so it isn’t like he’s bored, but he thinks everything is a toy. He makes up for it by being hilarious, though.

>127 stellarexplorer: It sounds like we may have similar tastes in humor. :) I like to state my opinion about the Hitchhiker books early when joining a new site so that people can choose right away whether or not to shun me. ;)

>128 Narilka: No problem, I hope you enjoy them!

>129 hfglen: That's very helpful, thanks! I did notice that some of the longer threads take some time to load, especially if I’m browsing on a mobile device rather than on my desktop.

>129 hfglen: *sigh* I did some fair muttering of my own, but it was a 2016 thread, darn it! I think this next year I won't try to keep my threads to six months or any date, but simply go by length, since I love the visiting and chatter as much as the book discussions. 250 posts seems a good limit for convenience, maaaaybe 300. Life just isn't tidy, is it?

>107 YouKneeK: & >122 YouKneeK: Thank you! I had no idea these existed, and just spent the better part of my morning reading the first one, which was delicious.

>134 MrsLee: No problem, I’m happy you enjoyed the first one! :)

>130 YouKneeK:

A soon to be ex-colleague got a kitten early last year. The mother's owner said it was a girl so it was named Edith.

Then they took it to the vet to get shots and to be spayed. The vet said, actually it's a boy, and did the necessary. The kitten was renamed Monty (but now no longer the full Monty).

Colleague was showing photos of kitten at an office impromptu party. He also had a video of the kitten's reaction to the Christmas tree he and his wife put up. Obviously, what was going through Monty's mind was 'they've put my balls somewhere, this one is a big enough replacement, so c'mere!'. (Sitting on back of sofa and trying to hook the bauble off the tree...)

I fully expect to end up back at the council as a contractor; the recent reorganisation basically meant that all the technical specialists left rather than accept downgraded posts. So the council went from being 20 over establishment for the new structure to being 17 under, and have been left with little technical expertise and nobody left to train the generalists.

>136 Maddz: LOL, that’s too funny! Was it not obvious that Monty was a boy? I brought my cat home at 3 months and the evidence of his gender was small, but I don’t think I would have missed it even if I’d been told he was a girl. He was my first boy cat though, so I don’t exactly have vast experience with distinguishing cat genders. Maybe it isn't always so obvious.

I don’t decorate for Christmas, but I can only imagine the chaos if I did. The tree would likely be knocked over, and I would definitely have ornaments scattered everywhere. On the other hand, maybe it would have distracted him from his latest trick of opening furniture drawers… part of my bedtime ritual now includes opening my bedroom furniture drawers to prevent the cat from waking me up when he opens them himself in the middle of the night. And how often does one have to cat-proof the inside of the furniture?!

Yikes, it sounds like they may not have thought through the consequences of their reorganization very well. Being a contractor would probably have its advantages. The contractors we use at work seem to enjoy it and to always be busy. I would be uncomfortable with the lack of stability, but then full-time positions aren’t necessarily stable either.

I don’t want to bombard everybody with cat pictures in my thread, but in April I put up a blog post about him on BookLikes. Cat posts are fairly common over there! I thought I’d post the link here in case anybody wants to see pictures of the freak that I talk about so often.

If you right-click on the images and select “view image” (your browser may list it as a different option name), you can see them in a larger size. Apologies if it loads slow; the site has seen better days. http://youkneek.booklikes.com/post/1394643/the-cat

>138 YouKneeK: He's adorable :)

>138 YouKneeK: Oh, he's gorgeous! Thank you for sharing those pictures!

>139 Narilka:, >140 dovelynnwriter:, Thank you very much! :)

>138 YouKneeK: Those ears!

>142 MrsLee: Ha, yeah, it took him a while to grow into them! :)

>138 YouKneeK: oh, he looks like our Scooter! Scoot was a Russian Blue and an awesome cat. Have you mentioned his name?

>144 catzteach: He’s my first Russian Blue and I’ve never had a cat quite like him before! I can understand why people get so attached to the breed. His name is Ernest. I gave him that name as a small play on words because of his earnest little expressions. However, I call him “Freak” or “Brat” nearly as often as I call him Ernest. ;)

>138 YouKneeK: Very nice pictures! I like the last one, one the bathroom door. Cats and bathrooms are weird. My sister's cat comes to sit on her lap when she's on the toilet...

>138 YouKneeK: He clearly has his hoomin slave well trained.

>146 zjakkelien: And here I thought my feline overlord was the only cat that dotty!

>137 YouKneeK:

Apaarently not. I believe they took him home as soon as he was 'ready' and from what Danny said there wasn't any obvious external sign.

>146 zjakkelien: Thanks! LOL, that's one thing I'm very happy to say my cat has never done...

>147 hfglen: That's definitely the truth.

>149 Maddz: Huh, interesting!

>137 YouKneeK:, >149 Maddz: It isn't always obvious, surprisingly. My friend's aunt has a boy kitty called Peggy Sue ...

>150 YouKneeK: Have you found the "Cats, books, life is good" group here on LT? I haven't looked at it in a while but it used to be quite active.

>151 Sakerfalcon: LOL, I guess I’ve learned something new today. Mainly that, if I ever get another “female” kitten, I might be better off giving it a gender-neutral name until he/she has been examined by a vet. ;)

No, I hadn’t seen that group. I’ll have to look it up in the future, thanks!

>145 YouKneeK: Ernest! I love it! Someday we will have another Russian Blue.

Since this thread filled up faster than I expected, I went ahead and started a new thread for my first 2017 read. Thank you so much to everybody who participated in this one, and for making me feel welcome! The link to the new thread is below.