I got to this part of the description on Amazon:
Other plot elements involve renegade members of the secret order of Talamasca, who want to kidnap and crossbreed two taltoses; a 200-year-old taltos from New York named Ashlar, who is posing as a toy-industry magnate specializing in dolls; and a dwarf called Samuel from the witches' holy glen in Donnelaith, Scotland.
...and decided, yeah, I never actually read that one. No recollection of any of that.
I think Steven Brust's "Taltos" was much more believable.
Have any of the books you've re-read been visited by The Suck Fairy?
The Suck Fairy is an artefact of re-reading. If you read a book for the first time and it sucks, it’s nothing to do with her. It just sucks. Some books do. The Suck Fairy comes in when you come back to a book that you liked when you read it before, and on re-reading—well, it sucks
Ok, here are my LendMe books. (xposted with Tech, from a chat there on B&N's LendMe program.)
Note: if you have a B&N account, but not a Nook, you can lend and read, too.
Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games – ibid
Graceling – Kristin Cashore
Bonds of Justice – Nalini Singh
Archangel's Kiss - ibid
Bullet – Laurell K. Hamilton (I was weak.)
Phoenix and Ashes – Mercedes Lackey
Under Heaven – Guy Gavriel Kay
Dead in the Family – Charlaine Harris
Dead and Gone - ibid
A Catch of Consequence – Diane Norman
A Murderous Procession – Ariana Franklin
Grave Goods – ibid
The Serpents's Tale – ibid
Mistress of the Art of Death – ibid
Bone Magic – Yasmine Galenorn
Demon Mistress – ibid
Thorn Queen – Richelle Mead
Succubus Shadows – ibid
Silver Borne – Patricia Briggs
Alien Taste – Wen Spencer
I have a B&N membership - but a Kindle.
My lendable book list is very short, since I get most of my books from the library, but anyone who wants is welcome to borrow them.
An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire, (October Daye #3) (currently on loan)
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
The Mystery of Grace by Charles de Lint (currently on loan)
Leave Me Breathless by Trista Ann Michaels (a truly terrible contemporary menage romance novella I wasn't able to read.)
My B&N email address is deena AT dlmfisher DOT com
Random Stephen King quote from Danse Macabre for consideration:
I think that writers are made, not born or created out of dreams or childhood trauma-that becoming a writer (or a painter, actor, director, dancer, and so on) is a direct result of conscious will. Of course there has to be some talent involved, but talent is a dreadfully cheap commodity, cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work and study; a constant process of honing. Talent is a dull knife that will cut nothing unless it is wielded with great force-a force so great that the knife is not really cutting at all but bludgeoning and breaking (and after two or three of these gargantuan swipes it may succeed in breaking itself . . . which may be what happened to such disparate writers as Ross Lockridge and Robert E. Howard). Discipline and constant work are the whetstones upon which the dull knife of talent is honed until it becomes sharp enough, hopefully, to cut through even the toughest meat and gristle. No writer, painter, or actor-no artist-is ever handed a sharp knife (although a few people are handed almighty big ones; the name we give to the artist with the big knife is "genius"), and we hone with varying degrees of zeal and aptitude.
That reminds me, it's time for my annual re-reading of Danse Macabre. It's my favorite book by him, and I wish he'd do an updated version.
Yeah, it's a re-read every few years for me, too. I learned so much from that book. I was SO let down that "On Writing" sucked.