Very Early

I was woken up at half past four by someone being arrested outside my front door. I can't get back to sleep, so I wander downstairs and make coffee, and sit and smoke, and set up a Facebook group on golden age detective fiction (members so far: me), surf the wires and the obits groups, where the Americans are up late posting the British papers.

So I read Clute on Lanier and post on that.

Then I check my email, my Facebook messages (I only joined it a few days ago, but already there seems to be lots), Technorati for obits and sf and the science feeds and the livejournal entries and all that stuff which I didn't even know existed until six months ago.

Now I have opened the box which arrived yesterday from Orbit and which includes a book by David Farland. I have never heard of or read anything by David Farland, and I am not greatly cheered up to see that the front cover of Sons of the Oak declares beneath the title: The Runelords Book Five.

I open The Runelords Book Five at random and read this:

"When a lord took endowments, those that gave them, his Dedicates, lost their attributes and stood in need of protection, protection that never seemed quite ample.
For once Borenson took endowments, every lord and brigand would know that the easiest way to take him down would be to kill his dedicates, stripping Borenson of the attributes that they magically channeled to him.
Thus, in the past, those who had served Borenson the best had all paid with their lives."

On the back cover, it says:

"That rare book that will remind you why you started reading fantasy in the first place" Amazon.com.

Do you know what? I don't care. I'm sorry, David Farland, I know I am being unfair. But life is just too short.