I’m not totally recovered from my back pains, but things are much better now.

Those who are  paying attention to my sidebar might have noticed I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of reading in the last week, at least compared to usual. I’m caught up on my subscriptions to F&SF and InterZone, with one issue of Fantasy left to go, and I’ve also finished several whole books in the last week, too. This is a good thing, even if it took a strained muscle in my back to remind me that I can and should read a lot, and that I want to.

Just now I’m working my way towards the end of Richard Lupoff’s Space War Blues, which was recommended to me last summer by Vernor Vinge, and am only partway into Berberova’s Moura: The Dangerous Life of Baroness Budberg (and wishing there were more Moura in it). But there are tons more books I’m also digging into — another couple of Vernor Vinge recommendations titled What Mad Universe and The Octopus, plus some neglected DVDs, and of course research books. It looks like I’ll be working on a novel this summer, and I want to have more in my head about North Korea than I do now, since I’m going to be working on a superhero thing — for those who know Jjangguk, it’s the continuation of that story, novel-length, but spanning a few years at least and maybe a fair bit more.

Gonna keep trying to work my way through the piles of neglected books on my shelves as I get better. Which means I need to get my butt out of this chair, now, since I have a good hour before I need to take off for the “Speech Contest” this afternoon.