Thanks to the general nifty-ness of Fictionwise, I've been reading all sorts of stuff on my Palm Pilot. I remembered that I'd gotten a copy of Charles de Lint's book Memory and Dream a year or so ago, and I'd been having the urge to read a Newford tale again (there's something very comforting in his created city full of artists, craftsmen, and writers), so I added that to my Palm, along with the free copy of Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (which sort of got slammed a bit unfairly in the latest Asimov's, I might add, by Grumpy Spinrad, though I did like most of what Spinrad had to say about style and voice).

By the way, Fictionwise is offering Paul DiFilippo's novella "A Year in Linear City" on it site for free, as part of a special Hugo Award deal. Check it out -- I'm looking forward to reading it. And check out the Greg Frost novellette and Jeffrey Ford story as well -- good stuff!

So I'm mostly reading the de Lint, though I'll sometimes flip over to the Doctorow, and I also have read a couple more stories in Stephen King's Everything's Eventual, which is also on my Palm (along with the 12 reprints of my stories up at Fictionwise so far -- for handy beaming to friends and fans, of course!!). I really loved King's story "Autopsy Room 4," right up to the very last scene/coda, which I didn't think was needed at all. But he's got a great voice and eye for detail, and the story didn't disappoint. I think he tacked on the ending because he felt a need to explain away the protag's apparent death -- not needed.

If anyone's read the title story, "Everything's Eventual," could you please explain why it's such a good story? It did nothing for me, and I feel like I missed something. I read somewhere that Dinky from that story is going to be in the Dark Tower books, along with Ted Brautigan from the painfully boring "Hearts in Atlantis" (at least the movie version was dull), and I really don't know why. Okay, they're psychic. Big deal...

I got stalled out on The Etched City for a while, mostly because it doesn't have the kind of narrative I'm looking for right now. Bishop's book stops and starts and circles a bit too much -- nothing against the book, because I think she knows exactly what she's doing -- I'm just too scattered right now to enjoy that sort of thing. It'd be a great book to read at the beach, with no distractions, along with Mieville's The Scar.

Oh, hell, and I also started reading Tim Powers' pirate novel On Stranger Tides, as pseudo-research for my own Blackbeard novel, but mostly to enjoy his detailed research and crazily-wild-but-plausible plots. And Stede Bonnet, the villain from my novel, is in the Powers novel as well.

It feels good to read again. I'd gotten out of the habit, writing so much. Seems like all I've really read this year are a handful of stories and novellas, and mostly critiqued stories and novel excerpts from friends. After reading ALL the threads on the New Weird discussions hosted by M. John Harrison, I feel like I need to dive back into reading and learn some more. I know I learned a whole lot, just reading all that info. I'll probably do an entry about that later, after I've had time to process it all. Most of the good stuff that was relevant to me at least was in the first half of the first thread.

And now I'm off to see if I can't find some more con reports and photos from WisCon to see what I missed. Next year I don't plan to be this jealous. Later!