Back To What Passes For "Normal"

Leading off with some meta-bits:

I am proud to welcome the unique voice of my oldest friend Downstrike to my blogroll. I've known him since our first day of kindergarten at ol' H-R. Our lives have taken a great many turns since then. Thanks to an alert ex-wife #1 and classmates.com, we found each other on the Innerweb. Check out his bloggity goodness here and here.

I also added Catnip and Fionn, aka Michelle and David, to the roll.

SotR: It feels like I'm past the worst of the tummy bug that had me in its evil grip. I actually feel like eating again. I hope this does not hose my weigh-in on Wednesday.

I spent much of the time ill finishing Storm Front
I'm not a big mystery fan, despite an addiction to juvenile mysteries like Nancy Drew / Hardy Boys books when I was seven or so. I dropped mysteries when I found Heinlein and Doc Smith's sci-fi, the science and military history on the shelves in the school library. As for fantasy, I did not read anything remotely fantastic until I started playing D&D in the Navy; Tolkien, the Pern series, Kurtz' Deryniverse and Robert E. Howard's Conan.
Then Iz turned me on to Jim Butcher's series The Dresden Files.
The best way to think of this series is "Harry Potter meets Sam Spade."
All I'm going to say is "if you like either hardboiled detective fiction or modern fantasy, you'll probably like Storm Front."