She’s Back…
Well, Amanda arrived home safe, but crazy tired, yesterday.
She had a nap yesterday, and she’s napping now.
I love her.
…And she also brought cool stuff.
She brought some Pratchett books that are early birthday presents (Yay! Jingo, Interesting Times, Men at Arms, and The Fifth Elephant!)(Thanks mom, nan, & Jen!).
She brought some books that Mark thought I should read (Yay! Happiness, The Once & Future King, The Name of the Rose, and The History of the World in 10 and a Half Chapters!!) (Thanks, Mark!).
She brought some books I asked for (Yay! The Harry Potter books, American Gods, Fearful Symmetry, and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell!).
She brought PS2 games, many of which Jen gave Amanda as early birthday presents (Yay! Dragonball Z: Budokai, Dragonball Z: Budokai 2, Dragonball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi, Dragonball Z: Sagas, Kingdom Hearts II, and Final Fantasy XII!!)(Thanks, Jen!).
She brought candy (Yay! Assorted gummies, Gobstoppers, yogurt covered peanuts & raisins, chocolate covered peanuts & cherries, misty mints, and candy coated chocolate Easter eggs!).
She brought chips, mashed potatoes, canned tuna, gravy mix, maple cookies, boullion, and CHEEZ-freakin-WHIZ!!!!
She brought other cool things!!
Rock on!
I love my wife!!
(And that uses my monthly allotment of exclamation marks for both March and April.)
He's Just So Stalkable!! 
I’m jealous.
It seems like you’re turning into a DBZ freak with all those fighting games but I’ll assume a few of those were the birthday gifts. I used to own DBZB1 and it was o.k.
But it’s not like any of these games matter when they’re in the presence of FFXII. *imagines the majesty of Major Armstrong*
And there was much rejoicing!
…
yay.
Let me know what you think of Strange and Norrell. I liked it, but at the same time there were parts of it that bothered me. She has a similar style to Neil in that her worlds are real and imaginative and believable but where Neil manages this in a few precise words and phrases, Susanna gets overly verbose and becomes very dry. There were times when the story felt like it could/should burst into whimsy and take the reader on a different tact but it was as if she reined herself in and forced the story to go where she wanted it.
I have her collection of short stories “Sisters of Grace Adieu” on my “to read pile” (I ran out of shelf space) under about 30 other books that I intend to read first. I expect I’ll like it, but I’m a bit hesitant to start for fear of more of the same. Instead I’m reading Lost Girls.
I agree with what Greg has said. I’d say she exercised too much restraint since by the end of the book I was expecting something much more. I don’t know what this something was but it didn’t happen. I suppose magic had become commonplace.
This is all fairly abstract and I’ll have to wait for your reading of it to really get into any meatiness.
I read the first half (or maybe third) of Strange last summer. I enjoyed what I read immensely, and, to that point, I didn’t find Clarke’s verbosity overly annoying. Granted, I didn’t finish the book (to be fair, I was taking a university course, editing someone’s book, and preparing to come to Japan, so I may have just had too many things on my plate).
I think the language that Clarke chooses and her methods of description all serve to make the book an “English novel” (as Gaiman’s comment calls). In so doing – again, based on the part I read – make it feel like a period book. As it is somewhat passé to provide the level of detail that she does, I think that it doesn’t read like a modern fantasy novel. It reads like something from the period.
But, as I say, I haven’t finished it, so I could totally change my mind.
And, since I’m currently reading Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism (in theory), I have no idea how long it will be before I get to Strange again.
The perils of being a media junkie.