Finals are now over, and with a handful of exceptions, I’ve got my grades in.  That means I can get back to doing what’s important, as opposed to what’s necessary. I’ll be posting more updates, starting later tonight, with a review of Ari Marmell’s YA novel False Covenant, one of the best books I’ve read this year.

Some of those updates will be over at Futures Past and Present.  It’s been about six weeks since I posted anything there, and I’d like to make the site more active. I’ve got novels by Trent Jamieson, Mary Sisson, and a space opera by Eric Brown I’ve had on  the shelf for over a year that should be reviewed within the next three or four weeks.

I’m needing to take a break from several things for a few weeks, work being one of them and fantasy being another.  There are novels by David A. Hardy, Anthea Sharp, and Keith Baker that are in the queue.  I’m going to bump those back a bit.  I’ll be reading mostly the above mentioned science fiction for the rest of the month.  The fantasy I’ll read will be a couple of nominees for the Gemmell Morningstar Award for Best debut Fantasy.

I’ll also be reading short fiction across a variety of genres and posting reviews where and when appropriate.  I haven’t abandoned the Conan series and will try to post at least once in that series.  I’ve got a number of commitments to review books, and I want to finish most of them up by the end of June.  I’m thankful for all the review requests I’ve gotten, and I’ll continue to accept them.  Probably just not many over the summer.  They’re starting to feel like work, and reading fantasy, science fiction, historical adventure, horror, and detective/crime novels should be fun.

Summer should be a lighter schedule than spring was, for one because I’m not teaching, and two because soccer will be over after this week. There are some things I’ve not gotten to that I want to fit in, both in the fantasy and historical adventure fields.

Anyway, those are my plans for the next few months as far as reading and blogging are concerned.  Thanks to everyone who follows either of my blogs or just checks in from time to time.  April had the most traffic ever, and I appreciate all the page views and comments.

I’ve not posted much lately, certainly not as much as I’d like.  Last week was not one of the best I’ve ever had, which contributed.  The less said about that, the better.  I’ll just say that my reading and blogging rate decreased noticeably for a few days.
Anyway, I’ve got a few more novels I’m committed to review.  I’ve started the sequel to Wolfsangel.  I hope to have that posted within the next week to ten days.  I have a deadline on a personal writing project at the end of the week, so that will slow down the reading and blogging somewhat.

I spent the weekend at Fencon and should have a report on that up tomorrow.  Then there’s another Conan post.  After that, more novel reviews, with reviews of shorter pieces and maybe some opinions mixed in. 

And as soon as I get my hands on the new Jasper Kent novel (volume 3 of the Danilov Quintet), that will move to the top of the reading stack.