Millennium

Jeffrey Deaver's The bone collector. Being not a fan of crime stories, I had to push through this, but it was a must read of the genre and I realized why. Excellent characterization. It was fun.

Murakami's A wild sheep chase. It's intriguing, and the ending really moved me to almost tears. It's a different Murakami, the immersive landscape descriptions in the latter half of it are phenomenal, and Murakami is not exactly famed for in-depth descriptions.

Jo Nesbo's The redbreast. The guy was a suggestion of a friend of mine, and at last I managed to get a look on his books. I'm not much into crime novels, but the WW2 tie-ins and the different perspective taken on nazism/racism/nationalism, then and today, intrigued me, and it paid off. I'm not sure if I'll read more of him though.

Yay for Skrall helmet and those nifty Knights kingdom shin plates. As far as red/black has become a dull color combination, this guy has the aesthetics and the originality to overcome many other entries.

Here's my G3 wishlist: • No G3 • no Let's carry on and build something new.

We clearly have one winner. Even if this entry, like every one so far in every category, is just about 'let's put G1 in G2', with nothing particularily original in the strict sense. I guess we're all nostalgic. But these creations, my man, just blow any criticism away. Well done.

I haven't been checking on here, or on the site in general, from quite some time, so here we go. I'm not sure in what order, in the past...weeks? months? I've read: The soul slayer by Paul Doherty. This one was pretty lame, a good concept (satanic deals, superpowers in medieval England) dealt with poor descriptive power and a boring style. Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard. A surprisingly good one. Surprisingly because it's not exactly my kind of novel, for the setting (Cuba), the tone (fast, direct, almost a movie script), the time period (1898). The mayan civilization by Eric J. Thompson. A great insight on one of the longest-lived continuous civilizations, and certainly the most sophisticated of the Americas (you gotta admit, combining love for life and nature with human sacrifice is pretty tough, and the Maya did it pretty well, at least in the classical and early post-classical periods, unlike the aztecs who were just bloodthirsty). Land of turkey and the deer, another book on the mayans, by Victor von Hagen. I think I've re-read it. It introduced me to the epic story of Gonzalo Guerrero, the man who resigned his faith and identity to become one with the mayans and go against his own native Spain. The search for the maya; the story of Stephens and Catherwood, yet another book on the mayans, always by von Hagen. I'm writing a novel set in the first half of the 16th century in mayan Mexico, that's why all this. This one deals with the rediscovery in the early 19th century of the forgotten ruins and civilizations of southern Mexico by two artists/travellers. The song of Solomon, from the Old Testament. A tender and tragic love story. I leave more complex interpretations to others, I liked it for what it seems to be. Right now I'm reading, at a very slow pace, I've got a job and got not much time, The journey to the west, a classical chinese novel dealing with the obnoxious, OP mythical monkey king Sun Wukong and his partecipation in the from-real-events-inspired travels of a monk from China to India to retrieve authentic buddhist texts. It's funny, and shows how mind-boggingly complex and absurd classical chinese religion and otherworldly affairs are (I hope no one gets offended by this statement).

Congrats on being featured! I knew that was going to happen.

Could someone tell me where is this illegal connection and why is it illegal??

I have only two words for this (and an exclamation mark): oh yeah! Everything Ancient Egypt-related just gets me crazy and this is no exception. The head looks really canine, good work with the ankh and the was sceptre. Are you going to do other gods?

Finished Ides of march by Manfredi. A thriller revisitation of the assassination of Julius Caesar and the days before it. Not one of my favourites, I'm not a fan of convoluted conspiracies - this was one of the reasons I did not particularily like his latest Teutoburg - but I have to say that this time he nailed the characters perfectly, not just Caesar but all of them: he interlaced historical figures and fictional ones really well. To draw a comparison with Rogue one, even if we all knew how it was going to end - Caesar being killed and the rebels obtaining the data - it still managed to keep your suspence high. Like: what's gonna happen next? Will they make it? How? I might read it a second time in the future.

Whoops, I skipped that part.