Laura's Fantasy Corner 2015

[Signor Finzione]

Have you seen the trailer for the upcoming tv series?  I'm not sure what to make of it.  On the one hand it will be good to have a new space-based sf series around, on the other it looks a bit . . . cheap.  And having Thomas Jane as the star isn't going to sell it to anybody 

 

It's airing on Syfy, what do you expect? [/snobbery]

 

Yeah, the special effect of the planet at the start looks a bit awful, and I'm a bit doubtful of the casting - I don't like the look of the guy who's playing Holden, and shouldn't they all be a bit older? I'll still watch it, though, in the hope that Avasarala is as awesome in the TV series as she is in the book.

 

EDIT: Also, floating space sex promises to be hilarious.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Signor Finzione

[Karsa Orlong]

It's airing on Syfy, what do you expect? [/snobbery]

 

I expect better from them these days, given that they made Battlestar Galactica and had a hand in Farscape.  Although seeing as they cancelled the latter I should probably hate them.  Actually, I do hate them.  And the 12 Monkeys series is crap    

 

But the sets in that trailer, and the effects . . .  Babylon 5 looked better and that was made 20 years ago 

[Little Pixie]

Aww, what lovely kitty pics ! 

[Signor Finzione]

I expect better from them these days, given that they made Battlestar Galactica and had a hand in Farscape.  Although seeing as they cancelled the latter I should probably hate them.  Actually, I do hate them.  And the 12 Monkeys series is crap    

 

They also regularly show Sharknado and the like. They could at least air some decent rubbish films, like Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. Now that's a classic.

 

Aww, what lovely kitty pics ! 

 

Thanks!

[Signor Finzione]

Review: 'Wyrd Sisters' by Terry Pratchett

 

 

 

 

Witches are not by nature gregarious, and they certainly don't have leaders. Granny Weatherwax was the most highly-regarded of the leaders they didn't have. But even she found that meddling in royal politics was a lot more difficult than certain playwrights would have you believe...

 

 

When the King of Lancre dies of natural causes (a dagger in the back is, for a king, natural causes), the evil Duke Felmet takes the throne after the king’s rightful heir mysteriously disappears into the night. But the kingdom isn’t happy about this . . . and neither are the local witches who, against all tradition, decide to take it upon themselves to meddle. 

 

In a parody/tribute to Shakespeare, here you have the main stories of Macbeth and Hamlet mashed together, sprinkled with awesome Discworld characters and seasoned with an enormous measure of Pratchett humour. There’s a vengeful ghost, a ‘play within a play’, a dramatic death and a wicked tyrant who just can’t seem to scrub the blood from his hands no matter how hard he tries, a la Shakespeare. Throw in three bickering witches, a group of travelling players led by a dwarf, an evil cat named Greebo, and a Fool who has been taught that humour is in fact not a laughing matter, and you have all the essential ingredients of Wyrd Sisters. Oh, add to this a bunch of famous quotes taken directly from Shakespeare, but thrown into a context where no one responds appropriately. The Duke’s desperate queries of “Is this a dagger I see before me?” are met with confused responses by those around him, and the witches’ mantra of “When shall we three meet again?” sparks somewhat un-eldritch replies along the lines of “well, I can do next Tuesday.”

 

Wyrd Sisters boasts the most coherent plot of the series so far, despite being crammed with typically bizarre yet hilarious Pratchett moments, such as the old witches experiencing the theatre for the first time, a mad duke wearing a white sheet and insisting he’s a ghost, and Death getting stage fright. It’s fast-paced and focused and funny, and I whizzed through it in less than a day. Best of all, it stars Granny Weatherwax in her first appearance in the Discworld series since Equal Rites, and she’s on mighty fine form. Along with her fellow coven members Nanny Ogg and Magrat, it’s up to Granny to use her wits, her defunct broomstick and her skills in Headology to save the kingdom from tyranny, but not before she’s learned a few things about the world, such as the meaning of ‘acting’ and how not to interfere with a live theatre performance (“He done it! We all seed ‘im! He done it with a dagger!”)

 

As is often the case with Discworld novels, one of the things that brings Wyrd Sisters to life is the cast of supporting characters, most notably in this case Nanny Ogg. Nanny is ancient, runs her own little empire of sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, and thinks that actors come from a faraway country called Thespia. When locked in a dungeon and threatened with torture she passes the time by playing I Spy with a ghost. She has no teeth at all, is fond of a drink or three, and is known to burst into cackling song whenever she’s had one too many apple brandies, some of her favourite ditties being ‘A Wizard’s Staff has a Knob on the End’ as well as the old classic ‘The Hedgehog can Never be Buggered at all’.

 

Wyrd Sisters is a rare diamond in that I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish, and is by far the best Discworld instalment so far.

 

5/5

[Chrissy]

Your review has reminded me just how much I loved this book, and that I should DEFINITELY read it again soon. 

 

Great review. 

[Signor Finzione]

Your review has reminded me just how much I loved this book, and that I should DEFINITELY read it again soon. 

 

Great review. 

 

Thanks Chrissy. It's definitely a book worth re-reading - I found it to be even better than I'd remembered.

[Athena]

I loved this book too! Great review, I'm so glad you enjoyed re-reading it. I must do so too some day .

[Signor Finzione]

Review: 'The Red Knight' by Miles Cameron

 

 

 

 

Twenty eight florins a month is a huge price to pay, for a man to stand between you and the Wild.

Twenty eight florins a month is nowhere near enough when a wyvern's jaws snap shut on your helmet in the hot stink of battle, and the beast starts to rip the head from your shoulders. But if standing and fighting is hard, leading a company of men - or worse, a company of mercenaries - against the smart, deadly creatures of the Wild is even harder.

It takes all the advantages of birth, training, and the luck of the devil to do it.

The Red Knight has all three, he has youth on his side, and he's determined to turn a profit. So when he hires his company out to protect an Abbess and her nunnery, it's just another job. The abbey is rich, the nuns are pretty and the monster preying on them is nothing he can't deal with.

Only it's not just a job. It's going to be a war...

 

 

 

The Red Knight has been gathering dust on my shelf for a couple of years now, but I’ve always put off starting it because of how hefty it looks. However, I recently read a bunch of positive stuff about it, and since my reading mojo has been brilliant lately I thought now would be a good time to finally give it a go. I have to say I found it very underwhelming at first – in fact there were several occasions when I almost gave up on it – but it gradually picked up the pace as it went on, to the point where the second half of the book felt almost like a different, far superior book than the first half.

 

Firstly, it has to be said that The Red Knight is VERY slow in getting off the ground. I struggled a lot with the first hundred pages or so, finding the prose to be somewhat laborious and the descriptions of duels, complete with the names of guards and stances and such, to be pedantic and dull. In fact, the book didn’t really grip me in any way up until the 200 page mark; unfortunately by that point it already felt as though I’d ploughed through closer to 600, and so I didn’t really start to appreciate the book until quite a way after this. (I’m not sure if the fact that my copy is a trade paperback made it feel weightier than it really is.) However, I did start to enjoy it a lot more as the story progressed, and what begins as a slow introduction of multiple threads does build up to quite a climactic convergence towards the end.

 

The majority of The Red Knight’s story is set during a siege, which takes place over the course of a fortnight. The eponymous Red Knight and his company of mercenaries have been hired by the Abbess of Lissen Carak to provide protection for her nuns and to investigate the violent murders that have been taking place in nearby villages. It quickly becomes apparent that the murders are not isolated incidents: in fact, they herald an imminent invasion of Alba by an enemy host, and the Red Knight must use all his strength and cunning to defend the nuns’ mountain fortress against an incursion by the fearsome creatures of the Wild.

 

Despite the novel’s title, only around half the story is actually told from the point of view of the Red Knight himself. The rest of the book alternately follows a range of other characters, perhaps ten or eleven in total, in their own individual conflicts which ultimately become different strands of the main story. The regularly shifting POVs are jarring at first, particularly as each and every transition is heralded by the name and location of the next character, almost as though the author doesn’t trust the reader to keep track. There are also a few characters who felt superfluous to the story, such as Peter and Gaston, and I found myself impatient for their segments to end. The Red Knight himself is something of a mystery, and spends much of the novel nameless and faceless, which makes it hard to sympathise with him. However, hints about his identity are leaked gradually enough to keep the reader intrigued, and he becomes much more human and likeable as the main events unfold. As the story progresses and the reader becomes more familiar with the characters, the multiple POVS actually help to enhance the plot-driven story, giving it a cinematic quality so that you can almost visualise a Game of Thrones-style TV adaptation, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

 

The way the author uses multiple points of view to create epic convergences is strongly reminiscent of Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen. However, generally speaking The Red Knight reminded me more of Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire trilogy in that the main character is more than he first appears, has fallen from high station, and leads a company of morally reprehensible men and women on a quest for glory. There are also clearly influences from the works of Tolkien, and the concept of the ‘Wild folk’ being kept from civilisation by a protective wall has the ring of A Song of Ice and Fire. Despite this, The Red Knight didn’t actually feel too derivative. In fact, what sets it apart from pretty much all other fantasy I’ve read is the fact that the characters fight in head-to-toe armour (or ‘full harness’) in the style of medieval knights, and the author makes a very big deal about this. Somehow the big battles feel all the more realistic when seen from the point of view of characters who have limited vision and are gasping for air due their obstructive helmet visors, and who are hit with multiple swords and arrows during a fight, surviving only because of their heavy armour. And the grim realities of battle are driven home that much harder by showing us thoroughly exhausted knights whose armour is so heavy and restrictive that it requires at least two people to equip and remove it, and whose muscles and joints hurt constantly from bearing its life-saving weight.

 

Despite the initially confusing multiple points of view, the entire story of The Red Knight actually takes place within a relatively small area of a single country. The author doesn’t feel the need to make vague references to hundreds of obscure places that will never be heard from again, instead concentrating on no more than four or five main locations. This, along with the pleasantly simple map at the beginning, is actually very refreshing. However, there were parts I had difficulty with. I found a lot of the battle scenes to be overcomplicated and confusing, particularly those towards the end of the book; and the way the author swaps out names and noun phrases also occasionally caused me some confusion as to who exactly was doing what, and led to me quite often having to go back and re-read entire paragraphs, especially at the beginning when lots of new characters are being introduced. I also found that there are numerous cases where character or place names are spelt differently throughout the book, sometimes even within the same passage (Sossag/Sassog, Qwethnethog/Qwethenethog/Qwethenog, Emota/Emmota, demon/daemon/deamon, etc.), as well as a surprising amount of general spelling errors, which I find disappointing in a professionally published novel. These inconsistencies and errors continued to repeat themselves throughout the book and became something of a distraction, as did one or two occasionally bizarre descriptive passages (the Queen had “lashes so long that she could sometimes lick them”? Eh?) 

 

To sum up:  I found reading The Red Knight to be something of an uphill struggle, at least for the majority of its first half. Once I’d got the hang of it, I did become suckered in to the story, but I still wouldn’t describe any part of the book to be an easy read. However, The Red Knight compensates for its slow start by being packed with gritty descriptions and bloody action, and has an interesting take on the relationship between religion, magic and the fae. The book has the dubious achievement of seeming twice as long as it actually is, and yet I’m quite interested in seeing how the Traitor Son cycle continues.

 

3/5

[Athena]

Great review ! I'm glad you liked it but it's a shame the start was slow. The errors would really annoy me too.

[Signor Finzione]

Great review ! I'm glad you liked it but it's a shame the start was slow. The errors would really annoy me too.

 

Thanks Gaia. Honestly, there were so many I wish I'd kept a tally! Then again, I've always been a bit obsessed with spotting errors - when I was a little kid I'd always point out spelling mistakes and misplaced apostrophes to my parents.

[Athena]

Thanks Gaia. Honestly, there were so many I wish I'd kept a tally! Then again, I've always been a bit obsessed with spotting errors - when I was a little kid I'd always point out spelling mistakes and misplaced apostrophes to my parents.

Me too ! So I can imagine it irked you .

 

EDIT: I love the quote in your signature!

Edited April 21, 2015 by Athena

[Karsa Orlong]

Phew, at least I don't have to bother with The Red Knight now 

[Timstar]

Phew, at least I don't have to bother with The Red Knight now 

 

My thoughts too! Mistakes like that would annoy me a lot.

 

Wyrd Sisters sounds great, looking forward to getting to it

[Signor Finzione]

My thoughts too! Mistakes like that would annoy me a lot.

 

Wyrd Sisters sounds great, looking forward to getting to it

 

I hope you like it! t's definitely my favourite of the series so far.

[Signor Finzione]

Review: 'Assassin's Apprentice' by Robin Hobb

 

 

 

 

In a faraway land where members of the royal family are named for the virtues they embody, one young boy will become a walking enigma.

Born on the wrong side of the sheets, Fitz, son of Chivalry Farseer, is a royal 'person of dubious parentage', cast out into the world, friendless and lonely. Only his magical link with animals - the old art known as the Wit - gives him solace and companionship. But the Wit, if used too often, is a perilous magic, and one abhorred by the nobility.

So when Fitz is finally adopted into the royal household, he must give up his old ways and embrace a new life of weaponry, scribing, courtly manners; and how to kill a man secretly, as he trains to become a royal assassin.

 

 

 

I first read Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy about eight years ago, so my memories of it are muzzy to say the least. The only thing I could remember about it was that the first two books were quite good, while the third was okay. I never had the urge to revisit the characters, or to read any of her other books. But I’ve been on a bit of a re-reading spree recently, and came across the trilogy whilst sweeping my bookshelves looking for candidates for my next read. And after finishing Assassin’s Apprentice for the second time, I officially revise my initial impression of the book, and can’t believe I’ve let this series sit and gather dust for so many years without wanting to read more.

 

The Farseer trilogy is so-called after the royal family of the Six Duchies. The Farseers have ruled for hundreds of years, and are unique amongst the kingdom in that they possess the Skill, a hereditary ability that allows them to initiate mind contact and manipulate others for their own purposes. Used for the most part in the defence of the kingdom against pirate raiders, the Skill is both feared and respected, and is believed to be solely the province of royalty and those of otherwise noble birth. But if the Skill is considered as one side of a coin, then on the other side of the coin is the Wit: the ability to communicate with animals. Unlike the Skill, the Wit is reviled, with those who possess it considered to be perverted or tainted in some way. Anyone with the Wit foolish enough to make it publicly known is promptly lynched by neighbours who believe them no better than the animals with which they share their thoughts and feelings.

 

FitzChivalry Farseer has both the Wit and the Skill. But as a 'person of dubious parentage' of the royal line, he is considered unworthy of the Skill by many. Furthermore, he must keep his Wit hidden from all or else face disgracing the house of Farseer and seeing himself horrifically punished. Fitz is first brought to the royal Keep when he is six years old, and Assassin’s Apprentice details his growth throughout the next ten or so years. Fitz is trained as a – you guessed it – assassin’s apprentice, but he is also trained by others in the arts of swordplay, Skilling, and the mastery of horses and hounds. But despite his achievements, almost no one - including himself – can see beyond his shameful illegitimacy, which almost proves fatal on several occasions.

 

The entire focus of Assassin’s Apprentice is on the main character, Fitz, and one particular aspect that makes him so captivating is the sheer amount of conflict surrounding him. Fitz is training to be a loyal assassin, yet is unable to ignore his own sense of morality. He desperately wants to learn the Skill, but despises the cruel man who is teaching him. And he struggles to understand how he should feel about his father’s eccentric but well-meaning widow, Patience, who was responsible for his father’s decision to abdicate his claim to the throne and retire from the castle after first learning of Fitz’s existence. Perhaps the most defining of them all is his ongoing conflict with the stablemaster Burrich, who loves Fitz like a son and yet is repulsed by his use of the Wit to the point where he will no longer speak to Fitz at all. Hobb makes us genuinely care about Fitz and his relationships with those around him, both good and bad, so that his mind-contact with his new puppy is just as exciting to read about as his altercations with his enemies.

 

 But not everything is as positive or rewarding as his bond with the animals: there are plenty of harsh challenges for Fitz, with many sad moments and passages that are genuinely moving. I found these parts of the story to be both emotionally draining and satisfyingly cathartic (in a good way), and am not ashamed to say I was actually reduced to tears on more than one occasion. Then there’s the assorted cast of truly reprehensible antagonists, in particular Galen and Regal, at whom my mind would boo and hiss whenever they appeared on the page. Seriously, they both made me furious. And that’s not even mentioning the true baddies of the story, who are currently operating in the background. The Red Ship Raiders are a constant threat to the coastal villages of the Six Duchies, and the ‘Forged ones’ - vicious zombie-like beings who are all that remain of the Raiders’ victims – are a chilling adversary.

 

Both the plot and the characters are well-rounded and captivating, as is the setting and worldbuilding, but the novel’s main strength is its narrative voice. It has a consistently pleasant, engaging tone that makes it a joy to read from beginning to end, and the flowing, almost poetic voice makes the narrative feel light and effortless. The focused first-person narrative brings to the fore a likeable and very sympathetic main character; one who is conscious of telling his own story, yet who is at the same time brutally honest, choosing to include all the damning facts about himself and his own actions. I’ve no idea why I didn’t get along with this series and its protagonist when I first read it all those years ago, but now I can’t wait to devour the rest of the books in Hobb’s Elderlings sequence.

 

5/5

[Karsa Orlong]

Great review, Laura.  My tuppence worth: I thought the first book was great, the second book was even better, and the third went on and on.  And on and on.  And on and on and on and on.  Kind of spoiled it all, imo.  But her writing style, as you say, is poetic and very enjoyable.

 

I went on to read the first of the Liveship Trader books but never got any further than that

[Timstar]

I enjoyed it as well, but probably not as much as you. I'm a third of the way through the second book now but having a break while a get through some library books.

 

Great review!

[Athena]

Great review ! I have most of Robin Hobb's books on my TBR, this was the one I planned on starting with (yes, I haven't done so yet.. it will be a tie between Hobb, Brooks, Eddings and Feist which one I'll read first ). I'm so glad you enjoyed re-reading this book . It sounds like a book I'll enjoy.

[Signor Finzione]

Great review, Laura.  My tuppence worth: I thought the first book was great, the second book was even better, and the third went on and on.  And on and on.  And on and on and on and on.  Kind of spoiled it all, imo.  But her writing style, as you say, is poetic and very enjoyable.

 

I went on to read the first of the Liveship Trader books but never got any further than that

 

Yes! I remember we had a conversation aeons ago about really disliking the third book. Hope it's not as bad as I remember.

 

I enjoyed it as well, but probably not as much as you. I'm a third of the way through the second book now but having a break while a get through some library books.

 

Great review!

 

Thanks Tim! I'm almost ashamed to say that one of the things that spurred me to return to Hobb is the gorgeous new covers on her books. I really want to enjoy this trilogy enough to justify buying the rest of her books in the new design.

 

Great review ! I have most of Robin Hobb's books on my TBR, this was the one I planned on starting with (yes, I haven't done so yet.. it will be a tie between Hobb, Brooks, Eddings and Feist which one I'll read first ). I'm so glad you enjoyed re-reading this book . It sounds like a book I'll enjoy.

 

Thanks Gaia! It's definitely a book worth reading - I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot.

[Signor Finzione]

I recently finished re-reading Prince of Fools by Mark Lawrence, despite the fact that it's been less than a year since I first read it. Even though I already posted the review on here last year, I thought there was no harm in posting it again, since after my re-read I still agree with every word.

 

 

 

Review: 'Prince of Fools' by Mark Lawrence

 

 

 

 

The Red Queen is old but the kings of the Broken Empire dread her like no other. For all her reign, she has fought the long war, contested in secret, against the powers that stand behind nations, for higher stakes than land or gold. Her greatest weapon is The Silent Sister—unseen by most and unspoken of by all.

The Red Queen’s grandson, Prince Jalan Kendeth—drinker, gambler, seducer of women—is one who can see The Silent Sister. Tenth in line for the throne and content with his role as a minor royal, he pretends that the hideous crone is not there. But war is coming. Witnesses claim an undead army is on the march, and the Red Queen has called on her family to defend the realm. Jal thinks it’s all a rumor—nothing that will affect him—but he is wrong.

After escaping a death trap set by the Silent Sister, Jal finds his fate magically intertwined with a fierce Norse warrior. As the two undertake a journey across the Empire to undo the spell, encountering grave dangers, willing women, and an upstart prince named Jorg Ancrath along the way, Jalan gradually catches a glimmer of the truth: he and the Norseman are but pieces in a game, part of a series of moves in the long war—and the Red Queen controls the board.

 

 

 

Mark Lawrence’s Broken Empire trilogy was one of my best discoveries of 2013, largely due to its dark tone and brilliantly captivating first person narrative, and I expected big things of Prince of Fools. It delivered all of them, bigger and better than even I’d been looking forward to. Prince of Fools is the first book of Lawrence’s new series ,The Red Queen’s War, and it follows the converging paths of two very different characters: Snorri ver Snagason, a Norse raider from Viking lands; and Jalan Kendeth, a bone idle prince from Red March.

 

Lawrence’s prose is poetic and flowing, easy to read and with the usual characteristic undercurrent of dry, occasionally dark humour. The tone is light even when the plot is gritty, which makes it very engaging and difficult to put down. The protagonist is witty, amusing and occasionally outrageous, and his insights and narrative voice are always entertaining (although sometimes he appears to get so caught up in his own witticisms that he forgets to tell the story). The fact that he has Snorri to bounce off (sometimes literally) helps to highlight his personality even further, and the juxtaposition of the two opposing characters works really well.

 

Those who found Lawrence’s Broken Empire trilogy too dark and its main character unsympathetic may have more luck here. Jalan Kendeth is certainly no Jorg Ancrath, despite the similar-sounding names. True, they’re both royal princes, they both leave their homelands to go on adventures, and neither of them care very much about anyone except themselves, at least at first. However, while Jorg is a somewhat sociopathic, homicidal teen with aspirations to rule an empire, Jalan is a self-professed coward, a twenty-something womaniser and gambler who just wants to spend his time enjoying the finer things in life. His internal monologue, in which he continually whinges and whines and ruminates on the wisdom of running away in every possible situation, is refreshingly different to Jorg’s no-nonsense goal-centred character, although I personally find both very entertaining in their own way.

 

One of my favourite aspects of the Broken Empire series were the references to the ‘Builders’ world, and the irony created by characters’ ignorant observations and assumptions about the things left behind from this world. I was pleased to see this continue in Prince of Fools with many more humorous comments, such as the legend of the train (which Jal thinks must have been a “fearsome beast” to have been able to plough through the side of a mountain), Skilfar’s “plasteek guardians”, and – my personal favourite – a Viking longship named Ikea.

 

Unlike the Broken Empire, there are no confusing time hops in Prince of Fools. Aside from the occasional memory, and Jalan’s gradual telling of Snorri’s tale, the entire story is focused solely on events occurring over several weeks, and from the perspective of one single character. This makes it easier to see how the main character develops during the course of the story, and demonstrates the author’s ability to subtly build character without resorting to flashbacks and time-jumps. I will say that I was a little disappointed with how the development seems to reverse again by the end of the novel, but hopefully more will be revealed in the second book.

 

If you didn’t enjoy the Broken Empire trilogy, I’d definitely recommend giving this a go instead. If you did enjoy the Broken Empire trilogy, then why haven’t you read this yet??

 

5/5

[Signor Finzione]

Quick update of this year's book stats so far:

 

Books bought: 26

Books read: 22

Average rating: 4.18

 

And that's about as detailed as they get.

 

Started reading Betrayal by Fiona McIntosh, but got about 30 pages in and realised that I just didn't care. I also started Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and got up to chapter 4 before I had a sudden urge to re-read Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. So that's what I'm doing.

[Athena]

Thanks Gaia! It's definitely a book worth reading - I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot.

Thanks Laura ! I'll be sure to let you know when I've read it. 

 

Quick update of this year's book stats so far:

 

Books bought: 26

Books read: 22

Average rating: 4.18

 

And that's about as detailed as they get.

 

Started reading Betrayal by Fiona McIntosh, but got about 30 pages in and realised that I just didn't care. I also started Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and got up to chapter 4 before I had a sudden urge to re-read Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. So that's what I'm doing.

Well done on having such a high average rating . And you only bought just more than you read, so that is good too! I hope you enjoy your re-read .

[Signor Finzione]

Well done on having such a high average rating . And you only bought just more than you read, so that is good too! I hope you enjoy your re-read .

 

Thanks Gaia. I hope to have read more than I've bought by the end of the year. Please can I borrow some of your new-found willpower?

[Athena]

Thanks Gaia. I hope to have read more than I've bought by the end of the year. Please can I borrow some of your new-found willpower?

Sure !