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Cracked.com’s “Six Questions the Final Harry Potter Book Had Better F***ing Answer: It’s expected that the main narrative of The Deathly Hallows will be about Harry’s hunt for the remaining Horcruxes before his final confrontation with Voldemort. If this is true, it means that the final Harry Potter Book will have the same plot as basically every RPG ever made, what with Harry having to “collect the Seven Important Things” to defeat the “loosely explained magic barrier” which will allow him to access the “final dungeon,” and in the end he’ll still be a “massive nerd.” Geez. I hope weDown the rabbit hole….

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Well, we’re about two weeks out from the massive THUD of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I will of course buy on day one and read as quickly as I can. I actually haven’t re-read any of the previous volumes yet, but I suppose I will sometime once the series is complete. So, since I’m not totally “up” on my Potter-verse mythology, I’m not equipped to speculate a lot on what’s going to happen. However, I will note that I’m keenly interested in seeing how two specific characters — well, groupings of characters, anyway — ultimately fit intoDown the rabbit hole….

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The other day I posted about my take from my local library’s quarterly book sale, a post which I titled “Monty Haul”. In comments there, Redsneakz asks about that title: Is the phrase “Monty Haul” common koine? The only place I’ve seen it used is the infamous and uproarious “Bimbos of the Death Sun” by Sharyn McCrumb. I’m not familiar with “Bimbos of the Death Sun”, but I came across the term “Monty Haul” in some of the old Advanced Dungeons and Dragons literature I used to own. I don’t remember which book this was specifically in, but the termDown the rabbit hole….

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Well, folks, it’s time to get moving with a long-delayed project. It’s time to start serializing The Promised King, Book II: The Finest Deed. No, the book isn’t done, but I’m not going to let that stop me! When I serialized Book I: The Welcomer over the course of 2005, I posted chapters twice a month, on the first and third Sunday of each. I won’t be able to match that frequency now, since The Finest Deed is unfinished, so I’ve elected to halve that frequency. So for the time being, I will do one chapter a month, which willDown the rabbit hole….

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There’s been some turmoil over the last few days involving the Science Fiction Book Club, of which I’ve been a member for over a year now (and of which I’d been a member sporadically three or four previous times during the 1990s). Basically, the SFBC’s parent company, BookSpan, has been purchased by the corporate behemoth Bertelsmann, which owns BMG/Columbia House. Bertelsmann is therefore set to combine the book clubs it’s just bought with its other direct marketing entities, while also closing some of the smaller book clubs. Most notable here is their book club for conservatives, I suppose; I’d neverDown the rabbit hole….

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I’ve been reading quite a few graphic novels of late, and I have some more in the “to read” stack, seeing as how the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library actually stocks them to a nice degree. (If you live in or near a locality with a large public library system and you’re interested in graphic novels, give this route a try. I firmly believe that one big reason that graphic novels are seemingly forever stuck in that “on the brink” phase, where people are constantly saying things like “Hey, these aren’t the funny books you grew up with!”, isDown the rabbit hole….

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I finished Guy Gavriel Kay’s newest novel over a week ago; since then I’ve been trying to figure out what I thought of it. Spoilers for Ysabel follow! GGK’s career path led many to expect a far different novel this time out. He started out with his epic fantasy trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry, in which he delved deeply into that genre and pretty much wallowed in all its tropes before coming out clean on the other side; then he moved on to a subgenre he kinda-sorta invented, which I call “historical fantasy”. His main aim was to explore themes andDown the rabbit hole….