OMFG... I've just had terrible news...

There is no sequel to Sunshine!

If you click the link she explains why. It's the pathetic excuse, "I just don't write sequels". Not happy Robin.

According to Bujold's myspace page:

"If Amazon is to be trusted, Horizon now has a street date: January 27, 2009".

Horizon will be the fourth and final instalment of The Sharing Knife. Bujold goes on to say:

They definitely are not standard villain-driven action adventure, however, and so have a shape that has nonplussed some readers who were expecting the rigid rhythms of the former. A lot of events are constrained more by geography than by where they fall between the covers. Nor is TSK plotless, nor does it have an anti-plot -- the tetrology has too definite a direction, argument, and conclusion for that. If anyone has a name for the sort of plot TSK has, I'd be grateful -- because it's not just a romance, either. "Social fantasy", perhaps. Although really, it may be premature to look for this sort of analysis, as there's still a quarter of the tale to go.

I just finished checking the copy edit this morning, so the conclusion, which none of you have seen yet, is still fresh in my mind.

I found that Sharing Knife series has got better as it goes along, and is much improved by re-reading. No, it's not Curse of Chalion. And it's not Memory or A Civil Campaign either. Bujold says these are very personal books, just for her.

And even if you don't like it, now that she's got it out of her system, she can give us something else.

O frabjous day! Kalloo! Kallay! she chortled in her joy.

Christopher Brookmyre's new book "A Snowball in Hell" will be out in August. It's not a Jack Parlabane book, but does include 2 past Brookmyre characters:

Angelique from "The Sacred Art of Stealing" and the villain Simon Darcourt (not as dead as we'd hoped) from "A Big Boy Did It & Ran Away".

The story involves celebrities. Simon has come up with his own, very interesting, ideas for reality TV...

If you haven't read the previous books, it doesn't matter. Brookmyre says he has tested Snowball in Hell on various readers and they had no trouble understanding and enjoying it without any prior knowledge.

For more on Christopher Brookmyre, visit his website: www.brookmyre.co.uk/new.htm

I've recently been reading a terrific book about a London theatre critic who decides to move to rural France, with only a cat for company. It's called C'est La Folie

I decided to read it because I'd like to run away from my life, and he seems to have got away with it. Also, after I glanced through the opening chapter and read:

More than anything, I want to be able to look my eighteen-year-old self in the eye when I tell him what I've been up to. I'm tired of his finger-wagging.
'Do you mean to tell me that's all you've done in the last twenty years, after the start I gave you?' he says, as he stands beside my bed with his fresh skin and his blond hair. His face is half in shadow, so I cannot read his expression. But I'd say he isn't angry; just bemused. p. 19, paperback edition.

It's not all fun, and made me cry in several places. Some of the animals die, and the author is almost as unprepared for it as me, the reader. But it's one of those reads that makes you feel more hopeful and more courageous.

There is also a website so you can keep up to date with what's happening down on the farm: http://www.lafolie.co.uk/

There, having done some of the mountain of washing, I rewarded myself with posting on this, which I've been meaning to do for nearly a week.