Thanks!! I'm all for Veronica/Logan. Or UST. Or angst. Or so on and so forth.

A boxed set of the first three novels in Lindsay Buroker's Emperor's Edge series is free today for Kindle.

I finished Gone Girl. That was so fucked-up and I loved it. And now I never want to get married ever. Amy Eliot Dunn is the worst/best.

I've signed up with Bookbub, and I've downloaded several of the free books (I'm cheap). I've just started two of them, read the first chapters of each, and deleted both of them. I'm not impressed with the third one I've started either.

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm a snob anymore. Maybe too much fic has left me without the patience to get to know an unfamiliar character. But I don't see it as a good sign if after a chapter I don't want to spend any more time in the company of a character. And I shouldn't have to read a paragraph two or three times to be sure I know where everyone is standing, and it shouldn't take over a page for me to realize that the character is actually sitting in a carriage, not standing in a room behind curtains.

Then I picked up a "sequel" to Count of Monte-Cristo--apparently several were done back in the day, early professional fanfic!--and maybe it was just the effect of wondering what they'd do with this character I liked, but I didn't find myself getting impatient with the writing. Basic workmanlike prose, identification of locale, time of day and weather, basic disposition of character, a few gracenotes of description. They describe the Count as well-dressed, they don't spend two sentences on the cut of his trousers or the quality of his cravat. They set the scene and moved on with the plot. Granted, one of the books got right into the plot, but my annoyance with the character couldn't make me care what was happening. The book was 1st person POV, and her oddness is only apparent by living how odd she is. I may not appreciate the stylistic choices necessary for that POV.

The other book had too many similies in too short a time, everything was like something, and none of this was that cleverly done. To be fair, one of the characters is in the process of losing his legs to diabetes, which isn't a character point I want to examine, but the book was already in trouble with me by the time we got to that point.

This writing stuff is hard, yo. I wonder if any of the original books I've got will hold my interest.

The free books I've downloaded have been lackluster also. There have been a couple that I have read all the way through but feel no desire to keep on my Kindle app (but I can't remember how to delete them). There have also been a couple that I started but haven't bothered to finish.

Thank Heaven for Gutenberg and public domain. When in doubt I can always read The Moonstone again.

Thank Heaven for Gutenberg and public domain. When in doubt I can always read The Moonstone again.

Or Robinson Crusoe!

Signed, Just finished The Moonstone (and was very fond of Betteredge). Also, am a Huge Dork.

There's also the library for new books free, Connie.

I have to say that most of the book bub books are not good. Sometimes you find one you really like. For me: Lindsay Buroker's Emperor Edge books, A. Wendeberg's "Kronberg" books are the ones that totally got me.

I liked Buroker's Emperor's Edge books, although they're not brilliant. And the prequels/affiliated books read a bit too much like Bujold's Cordelia Naismith novels with the sharp bits filed off.

I bounced off the steampunk thing set in Alaska, though.

Instead, I recently read ALL of PC Hodgell's Kencyrath books, which are great fun. Classic epic fantasy, with really creative cosmology and cultures, and vivid, distinctive characters that you care about, even when they screw up royally because they're tired or lazy or selfish. Good stuff.