I got up late today (around noon) because it's Saturday, you know? Then I trundle downstairs to feed the assorted creatures, especially the Beta. My husband's -- the white one -- goes nuts, because he's absolutely starving, yeah right. (The other fish is so fat he looks like a blimp with fins.) He thrashes madly while I open the canister of food, then lunges at the food bits with a loud smacking noise. Next thing I know, he's floating sideways on the bottom, not moving a fin. So I tell my husband that his fish is probably dead, since healthy fish don't float around sideways. We go out, run some errands, and then come home. The fish is vertical and thrashing about for, you guessed it, more food. He was only stunned. Sheesh.

Meanwhile, I've read 1/2 of Dead Things by Richard Calder. While he does have an interesting style and I'll admit that I haven't read the first 2 books in this trilogy, I just didn't like it. Bordering on despised it, actually. He's compared to Burroughs and similar. Yes, it does compare a bit to, say, Wild Boys, which I only got 1/2 way through as well. However, I have a respect for Burroughs and his technique that I just can't muster for Calder. Burroughs is probably a lot easier to handle if you're on heroin, or if you have some sort of short-term memory problem. But he was a groundbreaker on some things. Calder's book, on the other hand, has some decent prose and an interesting technique. But, and this is a big but, it comes off like so much male sex fantasy tripe. All the girls have this virus where they're transformed into these things with no working genitalia and their source of nourishment is semen. They survive by giving men blowjobs, begging to give men blowjobs, just to live. And they transfer their virus that way, too. And the main characther, a 1000 year old male, has a job: to kill them all. In a "sexually appropriate way". He's got a super-penis that he can break open their heads with while they're sucking him down. He prefers to lace a rapier through the spine and out throught their belly-buttons, though. Or ripping their guts out from the front. It's very satisfying, apparently. About 150 or so pages of this an no real plot movement, and I gave up.

I wonder if he'll be reincarnated as a Beta? *sigh*

Currently Reading: Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote & just finishing Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Recommend: Death Comes for the Archbishop

Books Read: 5