Black Powder War, by Naomi Novik

Late, but here! These being my remarks for the third book in naominovik's Temeraire series, Black Powder War.

Picoreview: Has a definite "middle of a series" flavor about it--not unlike trying to read one of the Aubrey-Maturins. It reads a lot more like a series of unrelated episodes than one big plot. But as with Patrick O'Brian, if you think about it as one big ongoing story, that makes it less jarring! Plus, there's lots more goodness here with Novik's dragons, interesting glimpses into how more cultures besides Britain treat their dragons, and some new and entertaining characters both human and draconic.

Meanwhile, Novik has posted that she has contracted with Del Rey for three more books, though they will be coming more slowly now, one per year. Yay! And in the same post, she links to a short story she has put on her site! It's cute--and shows how Temeraire leads an effort among the dragons to see if they can get at some tasty snacks sheep.

And as if the Patrick-O'Brian-y flavor of Novik's books isn't already strong enough, apparently it goes both ways! Also in the same post, she mentions that someone commented to her that they'd watched Master and Commander for the very first time, and found themselves thinking in the opening minutes of the movie, "But where would they put the dragon?" HEE!

( But anyway, on to the spoilers... )

Strawberries... so... tempting...

It is apparently All About the Strawberries Week in the cafeteria here at Real. They've had lots of strawberry-related yummy-looking desserts, as well as just cups of fresh strawberries. As I am very, very fond of strawberries, the cups of fresh ones are a Good Thing... but the hard part is the humongous chocolate-covered strawberries they've also had, in the aforementioned category of strawberry-related yummy-looking desserts. The little card by them calls them "tuxedo" strawberries; they're decorated in both milk and white chocolate, like all the strawberries are wearing tiny tuxedos. And they look SO! TASTY!

It was extremely hard to bypass those and just get the cup of fresh strawberries today, I'm here to tell ya.

This is the hardest part of the day, too, the long stretch of hours between lunch time and dinner, in which I have a very hard time not thinking of food and have to drink a lot of water to try to convince my system I'm not that hungry. I'd get a snack, except that a) very few healthy snack options around here, and b) I have observed that my normal eating habits tend to keep my weight pretty stable. (See all my previous remarks about being in a tight little cycle weight-wise over the last six months or so.) But right now, since I have to keep my weight trending downward, I have to put up with being a little hungry sometimes.

Like right now.

Even if I'm obsessing over strawberries.

Wednesday evening miles: 2.4
Thursday morning miles: 2.1
Miles out of Hobbiton: 1107.5
Miles out of Rivendell: 649.5
Miles out of Lothlórien: 187.5
Miles to Rauros Falls: 201.5

I GOT THE JOB!

Word finally came in this afternoon, ladies and gentlemen: the Times has made their offer! :D :D :D

I have to go through another couple of final hoops before it's really official, but I did go ahead and accept the offer--which means that Very Soon Now, I will commence my employment at a Major Metropolitan Newspaper right along with spazzkat! I find it quite amusing that two denizens of the Murkworks will thusly be employed--I'm sure this means there are Super Villains some time in our immediate future. Paul tells me that the actual reporters work in the other Times building, not the one we're in, so I won't be able to stealthily observe who's got glasses on and looks suspiciously brawny underneath their mild-mannered clothing. ;)

And so now we start thinking about start dates as well. The guy who's hiring me on is going on vacation next week, so it wouldn't be convenient to have me start while he's gone. Plus I have Writer's Weekend coming up--and I went ahead and told him about that, and said that I'd be perfectly willing to start at any time, but I didn't necessarily want to show up, have a three-day week, and then vanish immediately for a four-day conference. So although we're tentatively looking at the 19th as a start date, it may get shifted over to after Writer's Weekend. We'll have to see how things go! It'll be nice though to have a bit of a vacation between jobs, regardless. It'll be good time to get stuff done around the house, not to mention writing!

I got me a frappucino and a snackie on the way home tonight by way of celebration, and I will also be purchasing myself a Nano, because JOB! JOB! JOB!