16) The Darkness That Comes Before, by R. Scott Bakker
Had been meaning to get around to this for ages. Hmm. Perhaps it’s the consequence of reading it on a transatlantic flight at the end of my second working weekend in a row, but this didn’t really do it for me. It’s a big fantasy novel, the first (inevitably) of a series called “The Prince of Nothing”, but I found the cultures and characters insufficiently distinguishable or engaging. Apart from the women, that is, though even there I was uncomfortable about their stereotyped roles (one querulous queen; one whore with a heart of gold; one naive concubine kidnapped by barbarian prince). I know other people have raved about this but I won’t be looking out for the sequels.
Tedious it would be, yes. It’s possible Jennie would’ve found it in time, but at the point she got the new phone, the gadget she’d been looking forward to for months, she’d just got out of hospital after an emergency opp.
You want a gadget like the Desire to work as advertised/reviewed and be at least as fun as the outdated device it was replacing (also a 5800), whereas it was neither.
She did order a much larger battery, which came with a bespoke cover as well, but by the time it arrived she was so fed up with the thing she’d already told the phone company she was sending it back.