The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

So, Tokyopop has decided to make some of their titles monthly - Fruits Basket, GetBackers, Saiyuki, and Samurai Deeper Kyo. Fruits Basket makes sense, since it's consistently one of their top sellers. GetBackers and Kyo always seem to do well, and they're both long, ongoing (I think) series, so those make sense too. Saiyuki...doesn't make as much sense to me. For one thing, it's a much shorter series, even counting in Reload. With a monthly release, they're going to run out of Saiyuki in a year or so. Ah well - I'm not really complaining, it just seems like the odd man out.

DMP currently has a petition up to license the Only The Ring Finger Knows novels. Where's the "oh god yes!" option?

Spent last night reading a good chunk of Wraethu. It's a beautiful, beautiful book - Storm Constantine writes some of the most...clear prose around, vivid and painful like a bruise. Simply enchanting, even if some of her subject matter is a touch controversial.

I should have this book very, very soon. I'm thrilled - the world needs more Lovecraftian Sherlock Holmes stories.

I'm not sure what I'm going to tackle next. I have a huge number of unread books, which is positively unprecedented in the history of the world. Frank calls it being book-fat, and agrees that it's just about the most wonderful thing in the world. He keeps sending me books, too - although I actually already own a few of the most recent batch.

I have all of Robin Hobb's Tawny Man trilogy, which is calling me - I read the first book pretty much the day it came out in paperback, and concluded quickly that I needed to wait until I had all three on-hand before I read the second. I think that's next. (Hey! Robin Hobb's been translated into French, Spanish, and German! Neat!) And Stacey should be sending me more Sharon Shinn soon.

I also have the hardcover of Tad Williams' (damnit, the man needs to write faster) Shadowmarch, which started out life as an interesting online bi-monthly subscription thing, which was awesome, but apparently didn't pan out as intended. Del Rey bought the rights to the first book, took a year to publish it, and I've been Shadowmarch-less ever since. I want to see what the differences between the online and published versions are, and I want the rest of the story! You can preview a good chunk of the story here.

Hmmm...maybe I should make up a list of the books I have to read with short summaries. Or maybe not, since it would probably be 50 or so books long. And I have an absurd number of books on my Amazon wishlist, which is made even more absure when you take into account how many of the books (both on the wishlist and on my shelves) are simply the first book of a series that looked interesting. I need more bookshelves - I think one more in the hallway, three tall ones in the Great Room, and I can probably fit six tall ones in the second spare bedroom if I get rid of the bed. That ought to keep me in shelves for at least a month or two...^_^

Ah, yes - it appears that someone has managed to poison at least part of the NMCI ARP cache. Just lovely. How much am I paying for this, again? I can only get to a handful of sites at the moment.

And my calendar was somehow invaded by a ravening horde of meetings this week. Nasty things, meetings - they breed like roaches. You get one, which turns into three more, each of which generates even more meetings...not pretty.

This week - not as much of a wash as last, but still nothing I'd exactly call fun. I'm struggling to stay awake at the moment, which is why I'm typing this in the first place.

Another cast guessing game kicked off today, with a grand total of only three correct guesses in the first round - I managed a single one. It's a show I'm not sure I really care about, which means my chances of winning are high. Anyone care to place bets on me winning? ^_^