I left out of here at 4pm and had a nice relaxing ride into work. I got in and Will wanted me over at Pat’s old dialer. I had a slow start but I ended up with $250 and x2 credit cards for $10 in bonuses. The 2nd part was a lot better doing Burn and I ended up with $700 by the end of the night. Of course I let Will know that I’d be out for tomorrow night. Lodge night of course. I hurried out of there and decided to wait and maybe to get a bit of reading in. Rob Deroshe came in to meet me and apparently one of his friends took a nasty fall off of a 5 story complex and is in the hospital on life support. I think her name is Kristy or something like that. The fall occurred at a house party over the weekend or something like that. I talked with her a few times but I didn’t know her very well. Rob and I were talking about changing jobs and possibly getting out of Xl. So he mentioned Atco Security. Apparently they pay $16/hour. I don’t know what that’s all about.

Anyway, I finished Julie E. Czerneda’s “A thousand words for a Stranger.” There was a short story she added in there. I didn’t read the short story. Ok, so here’s my “Review” of “A thousand words for a Stranger.” I really enjoyed this novel. She’s such a fantastic writer. Czerneda paints with a wide brush and uses broad strokes. Her description is fresh and lively and taught me something about writing. The book is about this race of beings called The Clan and the main character is someone that finds herself without memory. She is befriended by someone named Captain Morgan of the spaceship The Fox. Or just Fox. This novel is more fantasy then science fiction. Or at least I thought so. This is book #1/3 in the Trade Pact Universe. I don’t know if Czerneda will be using the same characters in the other novels.

Pros: Wonderful dynamic writing style. Highly motivated characters with compelling settings.

Cons: Story tends to wander a bit in the middle like most large science fiction novels.

All in all I liked this book but it’s not enough for me to want to continue to read more of the same. I felt the book became tired in places even though Czerneda’s wonderful pros made up for the difference, I still felt drained by reading it. The story held my interest in parts but there wasn’t enough sense of wonder in the story. I kept on waiting for that sense of awe just around the corner which never came. I wish I could do just as well. I’d give “A thousand words for a Stranger.”

7 thumbs up 10.

Well, that was Halloween 2007. Halloween is one of my favorite times of year. Fran at work gave me a “Halloween o’ Rama” candy grab bag for Anne. They were taken by the end of the night as there weren’t many left for the night staff.

Joe Haldeman’s Camouflage is coming along nicely and ready well. It’s 289 pages. At 20 pages/day I should have this read in about 15 days. “The new Space Opera Is 515 pages long. Should have this read in about 25 days. More or less. And that should take me up until the end of the year. Then I start Timothy Zhan’s “Last train to Rigel.” That one has 326 pages. That should take me 16 days to read that one.

Anyway, that’s all for now

e. Jim