Rainy Day Reading. Resurrected Post.

The grey days are here again. The storms roll inland from the Pacific in succession, bringing the seemingly continuous rain. The temperatures drop and coats come out of the closet. The days grow shorter. The nagging bugs commence. My daughter has already picked up a cold from somewhere and has graciously shared it with my wife. I imagine I’ll get to join the fun soon enough.

Goodbye summer. Hello long hours indoors. Those with the time curl up under a warm blanket and read. For the purpose of this web log post I’ll pretend I’m one of those fortunate folks with time on their hands, and not someone with a full-time job, a wife and infant deserving attention, novels to write, and a home to keep clean and maintained. I’m going to pretend I can do more than snatch a few minutes here and there to read.

What then is on the shelf? Currently I’m near a third of the way into “The Elfin Ship” by James Blaylock. So far it is the perfect seasonal book, opening as it does with the sentence “Summer had somehow passed along into autumn, as it will, and with October came a good bit of rain.” How can you beat that for fall reading? Maybe a re-read on Halloween of “A Night in the Lonesome October” by Roger Zelazny.

Playing along with the scenario that I could actually while away the grey hours like a rainy-day reader and move along to the next book in short-order, next I’d pick up “Hawk” by Steven Brust. My guess it is more properly a summer book, but I don’t intend to wait that long to find out what happens next to Vlad Taltos. I suppose a massive, 1,000 page epic fantasy would be a more appropriate choice for the season. Does anyone have any fiction suggestions for my fictional self? What’s in your reading queue?