What with an aching jaw, the occasional spurt of blood and a swollen face, I haven't done an awful lot of writing over the last couple of days. I have, however, started to read Ricardo Pinto's rather excellent book, The Chosen. The sequel, The Standing Dead has been sitting on my shelf for months, but I haven't been reading it because I knew I didn't remember the first book well enough.

I'm glad to say that I'm enjoying The Chosen as much as I did the first time around. One of the most disappointing things I've discovered as my own writing has progressed is how many of the books I used to think were great now seem poorly written and clumsy. When I discover books that still hold up, I am delighted.

As with the first read, I was a little put off in the first few chapters of The Chosen by Pinto's overuse of sentence fragments, but that soon stops, and if that's the worse criticism I can come up with for a first* novel, then it's pretty damned good.

Other writers who seem to stand the test of my now over-critical reading are George RR Martin, Steven Erikson and Connie Willis. I'm tempted to list those that don't, but I don't think that would be fair.

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I came across this news item today on the BBC: Here. Apparently, Indian vultures have been catastrophically declining in recent years. This has caused immense problems because of their role in disposing of carcasses, not least in the area of human health. The culprit has now been found to be a vetinary drug whose use in cattle has been increasing in South Asia.

It strikes me as reprehensible that drugs are allowed to enter the food chain in this way without studies into their effects. This particular one is causing ecological havoc. But it's only because of the associated effects, the proplems of corpses not being disposed of, that it has been found out. We pump vast numbers of drugs into animals, all across the world. We also remain completely ignorant of the effects of this. We shouldn't. I wonder how much funding goes into this when compared with, say, the costs of developing and marketing the drugs?