Spring Break – Mockingjay Read

I know I went missing for a week and I’m sorry.  I’ve been sick and sleepy.  And then there was Titanfall.  So, that happened.  But!  It is now Spring Break!  I get one of those because I work at a school now.  It’s awesome!  And goes a long way to making up for the kid who was chewing on my library one day.  That was weird.
So, in honor of Spring Break I am going to fling myself back into a dystopic world of danger, devistation, and betrayal, which is kind of what I assume all the beaches are like this time of year.
All this week, starting later today, I will be posting my thoughts on Mockingjay.  So, if you haven’t read it, you might want to ignore me until I’m done because I will be spoiling the heck out of this thing.

Here’s a quick update of what I’ve been doing, book-wise.  I ordered all of the currently available Atomic Robo trades, so I’ve got those to go through.  I’m hoarding them just a little bit because they’re so awesome.
I also picked up Mur Lafferty’s Shambling Guides series.  I finished The Shambling Guide to New York on Thursday and dove straight into The Ghost Train to New Orleans, which I’m also enjoying.  The basic premise is that an out of work travel book editor ends up working for a startup, supernatural publishing agency.  The goal is to write travel books or the people you don’t think are real.  Where can you get brains in New York?  Is it safe for a demon to attend Mardi Gras?  There is no Buffy the Vampire Slayer in this world.  Instead, there’s Public Works.  After all, the sewers are the easiest and safest way for obvious non-humans to move about the city.  So, it makes sense that Public Works would be aware of them.  I find the books engaging and just a little bit silly in the right sort of way.  Mur has sampled from several mythological traditions, which my inner folklore enthusiast appreciates.  Who doesn’t love the idea of meeting one of Freya’s cats in Jackson Square or working down the hall from a Welsh death goddess?
On the audiobook side, I’m listening to The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer.  I was in the mood for more Regency after I finished my Stephanie Barron books, so I picked this one up from Audible.  It’s much more like a Jane Austen novel than a Stephanie Barron or Mary Robinette Kowal book so far.  The unknown heir has been recalled to the ancestral homeplace throwing the family into an uproar.  The patriarch is a despot, the males of the family are variously flawed, and the only one with any sense seems to be the feisty granddaughter.  Enter the heir, grandson of the house by way of a disagreeable union between a gentleman and a weaver’s daughter.  Major Darrracott is cut from an entirely different cloth than the rest of his family and he and the old man are soon at odds.  We’ve just started to explore the possibility of some smuggling, so things may head in a more action-packed direction soon.  I’ll report back when I’m finished.