I’m bad at doing things like this. I actually made a Goodreads profile some time ago, added some books I’d read (mostly the ones I wrote about in my last Recent Readings), and then couldn’t get myself to add all the other stuff sitting on my mini-bookcase. I might get around to it eventually, who knows? Regardless, this is even more work. It involves writing about other writing. Writing!

There’s not a whole lot to report on, actually, though. I guess first I’ll mention Fox’s Bride by A.E. Marling; I mentioned his first book, Brood of Bones, in the previous RailRoad, and since then I bought and read what I’m going to assume works as a sequel, since it features the same protagonist. Once again it has the sort of mystery feel to it, but less so than the first.

I have to say, though, a character who starts out seeming important ends up dwindling in importance until he’s almost forgotten… almost. Inannis the thief has a rather important role in the first half but then appears in something like one scene in the second half. It just seems like a weird shift in this character’s role, and he just sort of disappears from events. I guess it makes sense, but it’s still seems jarring, and I’m still not entirely sure what his whole deal was. Plus that one scene in the second half doesn’t give any insight on what happens after and seems kind of out of place. Apparently there’s a bonus epilogue scene with him you can get online, but leaving something like that available outside of the book? Who would do that? What’s that? A message from my future self saying I do that all the time with minor characters? Well then.

The other books I’ve been reading lately–aside from some rereading–is finishing A Series of Unfortunate Events, after having read the first four in the last Rest&Relaxation. The series certainly picks up; the first, about, six or so books could be seen to all follow a very similar structure, but then it starts to change as mysteries open up and then fold over themselves. And, of course, throughout the dark themes and confusing puzzles, the writing is always very silly, though in a serious manner. It’s all treated seriously, no matter how silly it is. Repeating yourself in a looping sentence only to end it by revealing it as a distraction to hide a letter in the narration? Amazing, I say!

Funnily enough, the series also leaves a lot of open-ended stuff, to make note back to Inannis, from Fox’s Bride, but in the case of this series the things left behind are given attention. The unexplained details are left in a shroud. (I read that the last book had some criticism in leaving so many unsolved mysteries. If you want mysteries solved, then never ever read The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. NEVER.

That’s what I’ve been reading lately. As for what I’ve been writing, still working on that… lots of planning…