She liked to make me run

The Balderdash (a 4x1 Mile relay race organised by the sports and social club here at work) approaches, and I get invited to run the course to see how bad it is. My time is about 7'30", which pleases me muchly, given that I only started training about three weeks ago. I feel more confident about running it on Thursday now.

Later . . .

She liked to eavesdrop

A Man Betrayed by J.V. Jones.

The trouble with the second book in a trilogy is that quite often nothing really happens. No new plotlines are introduced; we usually see the continuation of existing plotlines, or maybe the combination of them. Rarely are new major characters introduced or, if so, chances are they will only be around for the middle book, or will play a minor part in the third. It's hard to like or dislike the second book in the trilogy (or any middle book in a series) -- you find yourself having little opinion until you've finished the trilogy and you can judge it as a whole. It doesn't stand alone; if you liked the first book, then chances are you'll like the second. If you didn't, then you probably won't even read the second.

I liked The Baker's Boy, so I read A Man Betrayed. I found it quite good, although things continued to happen that, whilst amusing in the first book, began to get annoying. Page after page of the Archbishop thinking about food. Bodger and Grift gossiping and sharing invaluable advice about the ways of women (when it comes to Bodger and Grift actually getting a bigger part, it seems misplaced, part of you thinks that they shouldn't be interacting with the other characters, they should just be talking about them in a 'lady melliandra's sure is pretty' way).

Tawl and Nabber remain my favourite characters, and the way their friendship is developed and the strains that are put upon it are quite nicely written. Jack and Melli's stories are good, although at times the rivalry between Baralis and Maybor gets boring. I'll read the final book, as I've enjoyed what I have read so far. I'm quite interested in seeing just how Jack is going to save Melli ('cos you know he's going to).

Later . . .