Peace and serenity restored

Two days later, I am calm and serene once more or at least, as close to it as I ever get :-) I have some new books, including S.M. Stirling's latest, The Sky People and In The Courts of the Crimson Kings, an alternate universe where Mars, Venus etc are as depicted in the tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs et al and where sf writers are treated as wise gurus. Yes, there's something of the fanboy in these two. I read the first as a library book a while back but the library has unconscionably not obtained the sequel yet.

I haven't yet settled down to any new writing. Not sure why yet, it's just not happening. I may even go back to a plan I had awhile ago of quitting the field. It's possibly true that there are too many writers and the Internet has certainly encouraged their proliferation but also true that I haven't been having much fun writing for awhile.

Gaming has resumed in the form of GURPS Space, where the team, still busily recording for an intergalactic reality show, decides to go scavenging for weapons in the wake of a planetary peace. An unknown craft has attacked us midflight and attached a burrowing robot to our hull. All the folk with scanty free-fall skills volunteered to go remove it, so we were out there when the shooting started. I've had the sudden dire thought that perhaps the ship was sent by the show's producers to create some more interesting footage? Spice things up a bit. We were already space-happy anyway. Sorry about the ball-gag, Dowerby.

Work's slowed right down again; they don't want me tomorrow. "Not a cracker," says the boss.