What I Was Reading in Early September 2004

This is turning into a busy day, and I doubt I'll get a chance to really blog. So I'll drag something down from the attic instead: this was originally posted to rec.arts.sf.written 9/10/04, and it sort-of made sense in context:

Just finished: Wake Up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames. Way off topic here, but it's a humorous novel about a young alcoholic writer and his valet Jeeves. There's a major Chekhov Gun that remains not only unfired but resolutely ignored by the narrative right up to the end, which annoyed me a bit. It was pleasant, but I think it will get recycled back to the store where I bought it.

Before that: Once More, With Footnotes by Terry Pratchett. His collected short fiction, and as much non-fiction as could be dug up and/or as was needed to fill this up to book-length. Very much a small press item, in the best of senses. I have a real fondness for fiction writers' occasional non-fiction, and I don't know why. It's a book for Major Fans, but a very nice book for those who qualify.

Before even that: The Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle. I had a good excuse to read it over Worldcon, and enjoyed it a lot (my original intention was to skim most of it, actually -- I'd read The Gripping Hand when that was published and wasn't particularly impressed). I've been boring people ever since with my crackpot theory that this is the ur-Military SF novel, with its spit-and-polish space navy, jump-point tactics, random unlikely Empire of Man, and so on. I am now convinced Jim Baen has a copy of this in his desk, heavily marked up.