She's the rose, she's the pearl, she's the spin on my world, all the stars make their wishes on her eyes

Nice having the day off after a frustrating week. I looked forward to relaxing after picking up some groceries and going for a run. Didn't really happen like I planned, but not much ever does.

I picked up a few groceries and walked over to Porter Square Books, where I debated whether to pick up Bakker's The Judging Eye, or Brett's The Warded Man. The latter, I'd been reading up on for some time and seemed to be just the type of book I was looking for. Think The Village, only set in a quasi-medieval setting and with real demons. As for Bakker, well, he's a powerhouse of a writer. The Judging Eye is the first installment of The Aspect Emperor trilogy, though it's really part of a larger oeuvre, which began with The Prince of Nothing trilogy.

These days, I only read books from the Fantasy genre if they really catch my interest. And, because of the crop of great new writers that has emerged over the last few years, I've had my hands full. Besides Bakker, Joe Abercrombie, Ken Scholes, Brian Ruckley, Steven Erikson, Robin Hobb, and Scott Lynch, have all released books that have brought the genre to another level.

I hope to add Peter Brett to that list, because I picked up The Warded Man. I'm about fifty pages into it and, so far, it's good. It reminds me a bit of Robert Jordan's earlier books in the Wheel of Time cycle, but that's not such a bad thing. I know it's been important, especially for the new writers and fans, that the stereotypes (farm boy on quest, elves, dwarves, etc) be altered or removed entirely, but I've never minded much the traditional aspects of the genre so much as long as the story I'm reading is well told.

After finishing Fall of Thanes, I returned to Erikson's Reaper's Gale, a book I'd put down a while back after putting a good dent in it. Erikson writes long, convoluted books, which I generally love, but his stuff, while rife with positives, often reads too much like an RPG in book form. That is not very appealing to me. If I was fourteen, running around in the forest with my friends, hacking at each other with plastic swords and hurling magic at each other, maybe I'd find it more appealing. But, alas, even when I was fourteen, I never cared much for RPGs. So, I put down Erikson once again, mostly because it, at least so far, hasn't compared to Fall of Thanes, which excelled in every conceivable way. I'll keep at it, though. The Warded Man looks to be a quick read, so when that's done, I'll pick up The Judging Eye.

When I returned home from the book store, I couldn't find my phone. I looked everywhere, but couldn't find it. I ran back to Porter Square and discovered that I had left the phone on the counter at the book store. A relief, to be sure.

Tomorrow is the 4th and it looks like I'll be headed up to Nashua to attend a cookout and then back to Cambridge to Spira's, where we'll celebrate the 4th, and, more importantly, my birthday.

Ah, we'll see.

Just joined Twitter, though, so far it's pretty boring.. I'm not posting, just lurking, and I'm not sure I need to know what everyone's doing all the time. That's what Facebook is for.

Had a dream last night about seeing friends. They headed out to some event, a Dave Matthews concert, perhaps -- I don't know -- and left me behind accidentally. That was fine with me because a young, pretty woman took a shine to me and we quickly became a couple. Of course, as often happens in dreams like this, she disappeared from the dream. Still, it was nice while it lasted.