Kate's blog: ...in which I go to Las Vegas and bring the snow with me

So I'm back from my weeklong vacation. I didn't read three novels in a week like I did last time, but I did read two and some change.

As mentioned previously, we had some blizzard-type weather just as we were leaving town. It dumped on Minneapolis a few more times while we were away, but now that we're back it's in the 40s and it's all starting to melt. Yep, we missed all the fun. Happily, one of our neighbors quite unexpectedly snowblowed our driveway for us, which is really appreciated when you get home at 1:30 in the morning because the flight home was delayed and you've been dreading hauling suitcases seemingly full of bricks and sleeping children (they always seem heavier when they're sleeping) over a couple of feet of snow into the house. So thank you, Patrick!

Of course the flight out of Minneapolis was more delayed than the flight in, although this apparently had nothing to do with the weather; we were waiting for our plane to make it up from Mexico. We spent nearly four hours in the airport play area watching our departure time get bumped back again and again. This play area seemed designed to magnify any sound made within it, and the little girls waiting to go to Orlando were playing some sort of game that involved lots of shrieking.

But that's OK, because I was on the banks of the Mississippi, eating catfish and biscuits in a house on stilts listing over the water. In my head, anyway; I was reading Jon Clinch's Finn. It's based on Huckleberry Finn, of course (it's about his father), but stylistically it's something else entirely. It's dark and completely engrossing. I was particularly fascinated with the dialogue. Not only are there no adverbs in the dialogue tags (she said gleefully), there are no tags at all. And the punctuation for dialogue is all periods and question marks, no ellipses or dashes even when someone trails off or is interrupted. It's all implied. Very minimalist, very cool. I would recommend reading it just to enjoy all the nuances contained in the words "I know it".

I was halfway through with that before we even landed in Phoenix (did I mention we waited in the plane for an hour before even taking off, waiting our turn to get our wings deiced? I'm just grateful this all happened now that my youngest is five and capable of dealing with it. If this had happened when he was two or three, it would have been a complete screaming nightmare.)

I finished Finn in snatches while we were on the road. We went to Hoover Dam and took the dam tour, took a lot of dam pictures. The boys were quite impressed. We also saw the work they're doing to build a bridge so traffic can bypass the dam. It's way too far up there; there is no way you're ever getting me to drive across that thing once it's done. It needs to be built, though, and apparently it's quite the feat of engineering. No trucks have been allowed on the dam since 9/11 and all other traffic passes through a security check first. The horse trailer in front of us had been inspected, but the door hadn't been latched properly afterwards, so we drove through the curves and turns of the road leading to the dam watching this door loaded with tackle swing open then shut, open then shut. Nothing got that guy's attention; not flashing your headlights or pedestrians gawking and pointing. He crossed the dam and kept going past the parking lot; I have no idea when he discovered his door was open. For someone like me who can't go to bed with the closet door cracked open because it's supposed to be closed, it was an exquisite form of torture.

Then we went to Vegas. As we crossed the pass and started down into the valley we could see clouds hanging over the city. As we got closer it started to rain. Then the rain got slushy. Then, just as we pulled onto Las Vegas Boulevard and got our first glimpse of the Luxor, it honest to god started to snow. It only lasted a minute and of course it didn't stick to anything. I just have to say, I went to Vegas and it snowed for me.

We spent the next two days running around Vegas. It's like Disneyworld for grown-ups, only it doesn't cost anything to roam around, provided you never get thirsty or hungry or buy anything in the shops. Everything costs twice as much as a midwesterner like me thinks it ought to. I can put Michael Jackson's million dollar Las Vegas shopping spree in some context now (I mean, it's still nuts, but it's nuts in context). We went through the Venetian, which has a canal running through it complete with bridges and gondolas, false fronts on the buildings and a ceiling painted to look like the sky. The Luxor was cool too, all done up like Egypt. There was someplace else that was all Roman (yes, already it's all starting to blend), and lots of things were covered in decorations for Chinese New Year.

In short, it made me really want to play Tomb Raider again.

(You're getting the edited highlights here; we also drove down some parts of Route 66, which is Oliver's avowed favorite part of our vacation, and we saw a replica of the London Bridge in Arizona which is certainly a cooler tourist stop than the biggest ball of twine).

So then we were back in Phoenix and had a few days to just mellow out. I specifically had left this book on my unread stack to bring with on vacation. I had read Marie Brennan's first book, Doppleganger, on my last vacation, so I wanted to bring the sequel with this time. The cover is an improvement over the last one. The book is a perfect follow-up; it widens and deepens the world in lots of cool ways. I like a well thought-out magical system, where the way things work makes logical sense, but where the people using it don't necessarily understand every aspect of it (like physicists working on string theory, for instance). The first book hinted at things which are more developed in this sequel about where their magic comes from and how it works. All I can say is: wow. I like the sense of magic as where science and religion meet; if you're intrigued by that idea you're definitely going to want to check out Marie Brennan. 'nuff said.

I mentioned I only read two and some change this time, the "change" was the first chunk of Temeraire. This is actually a 3-in-1 from the Science Fiction Book Club, a compilation of Naomi Novik's series of dragons in Napoleonic times. Sort of Master in Commander meets Eragon. I was intrigued by the idea and had her name on my "to be bought when I've worked the to be read stack down to a manageable 50 or so books" list for a while now, but when SFBC offered it as a 3-in-1 I caved and bumped her up to the top. Also, Peter Jackson is making the movie version. Apparently he has a thing for trilogies. I'm only 80 or so pages in (mostly read on the plane back from Phoenix; the upside of night flights, it's easier to get some reading in when someone is sleeping on your shoulder rather than asking to go pee every 15 minutes). It's already caught my fascination. Lucky me, I still have another week off of work which should be enough to polish this off.