R is for ... Reading

Hi there

So I'm off to the South Island (yes, exotic place names in NZ) tomorrow morning, with something from no to dubious internetness for the next 10 days.

R was tricky, so here's a list of the books I've been reading recently;

Adrian Czajkowski's (real name) loooong series about human empires based on insects.  Only a hundred or so pages in, so I think it will involve seeing the character's work their way from 1st to 20th level over some eight novels. Not bad, but reminds me a little of a slightly less original Belgariad where, instead of each kingdom being based on a human stereotype, it's bugs. Still....

 Stephen Erikson's Malazan Empire series is epic.  Very, very epic. So epic I can handle the books in small quantities. This series is even looooonger than the one above, but I'm at book eight or so, and it's entertaining, so I'll keep going....

 I got it very cheap at a second hand book stall... It's got some good stories, but, with all respect to MZB, the liberation angle is wearing a bit thin by now (and many of the stories in the first half admit this, and, amazingly, have strong male AND female characters in the same story, although the number of princes getting on with humble druidesses is rather high). Not too sure how the series got to number 20, but I'll admit women didn't feature at all, let alone feature well, in some of the early novels.

That's all at the moment, along with some of the Fight On! episodes, and the complete 90's collection of National Geographic magazines....