Eureka

Yes, I’m still reading. Another Nicci French thriller at the moment, interlacing it with the slow poetic (and as yet not engaging) “Alejento Blue”. A quick scan through the reviews on the Internet confirms my suspicions: “Alejento Blue” is a second novel, rushed out hot on the heels of its good predecessor. The language is pretty, so I’ll give it another chance, but the topics introduced so far (extreme poverty and the communist movement in Portugal) don’t really excite me nearly as much as beads did.

(You don’t know the bead story? Well, halfway through last year, I was tasked with writing 6,000-10,000 words about a bead shop. Woe was me! I didn’t know the first thing about beads, and I had no idea how to thread them into a story. I spent a month reading everything I could get my hands on that was vaguely bead-related... yes, yes, the first cardinal sin of any procrastinating writer: over-research... but I digress. Suffice to say that I got fired up about the topic and you can read the result in “Murder @ a Little Bead Shop”: http://echelonpress.netfirms.com/Echelon/nfoscomm/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=81&products_id=399&osCsid=26e0fcb6024db49efa767acfdd5f99a0.)

So anyway. While putting off “Alejento Blue”, I started watching a SciFi mini-series, “Eureka”. It’s fun, and the episodes just keep getting better. The SciFi component is very hand-wavy (so suspend your knowledge as well as your disbelief), but the setting and the characters are way cool.

Now, here’s hoping that the kids go to bed early tonight, so that I can watch another instalment.

Huh, what was that? What “Alejento Blue”?