Aaaaaand it's Friday, ladies and gentlemen! I will leave you to fill in your own personal cheers of happiness, because I am far too tired for it.
This is what happens when all of my energy goes to being excited over china patterns. Not my china pattern, mind you, seeing as Kendrick and I haven't picked one out yet. No, I found an item in my parents' china that they don't have, and I picked it up for less than half of its normal price. Giddiness followed, because I am just that much of a dork. Still, whenever I look at it I want to squeal and jump up and down (carefully, seeing as it's china and all). And I have been looking at it all day, as it is currently resting on our bookcase, and I spend quite a bit of time there.
Now, let's discuss the reasons why I spend so much time at that bookshelf:
1) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Progress: 144/265 pages.
I am officially over one half of the way done! And yet the thought gives me no pleasure, because I really do like The Hobbit, and I know the slog that will come once I'm through with it.
2) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Progress: 143/143, that is to say, DONE.
This is officially the first book that I have completed in this challenge. Granted, it's not hard, seeing it is a rather short book, but I'm still allowed to feel accomplished. I mean, for crying out loud, I read 143 pages in just one book out of four!
And now I get to start in on the next book in the series, which I hope will be just as pleasant a read. I haven't attempted to read it in a very long time, and I've never finished it, so this will be fun, unexplored territory.
3) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Progress: 153/324 pages.
To answer some of my questions from last time, Ender became a toon leader at age eight or nine. This was around when his launch group moved up into the regular armies, and it seems that some of them skipped being a soldier in a toon straight to being a toon leader. Perhaps that's the normal way of things, then.
As for everything that's actually happening in the story, I'm holding off judgment, because I want to see where it all goes. There's wonderful writing in Ender's Game, and a wonderful, horrible feeling of needing to know what happens next.
4) Dune by Frank Herbert. Progress: 161/762 pages.
See what I was writing up there about Ender's Game? It doesn't apply to Dune in the slightest. While the writing has gone from absolutely terrible to passable and even decent at times, the pacing is still a drag. I can't say that nothing's happening anymore, but I can say that it happens far too slowly, and that most everything drags. At 160 pages in, I feel like I should be able to say more about the characters or at least more about the story. As it stands, though, I feel that there are really great characters here, and that I'm not allowed to know them. As for the story, let's just say it hasn't really come up yet.
One exception to my liking the characters overall: Paul. Paul Atreides is a blander than bland Gary Stu at this point in the book, and I don't know why. Doesn't he have some response to either of his parents' angst besides spouting quotations and inane "wisdom"? I realized he's been trained to control his emotions on the outside, but aren't we in his head enough for him to have some glimmer of actual personality? He keeps having these thoughts of great and terrible purpose, but it seems like he just kind of takes it all in stride.
Oh, yeah, maybe I'm going to become a Mentat. Oh, yeah, maybe my dad's going to be killed or damaged in some horrible way and I can't stop it. Oh, yeah, maybe I'm going to become some kind of crazy Messiah figure someday.
Whatever. It's not that big of a deal.
Right.
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