Summer loose-endedness leads to reading detective fics. Took an Amanda Cross off the shelf, one plucked from the Front Lawn Library-- Death in a Tenured Position. Published in 1980, long after I'd finished my university career, but read like something from the 60s when I was first starting it. Or maybe Harvard is just more mud-stuck than I'd imagined. You can discredit an academic by implying she knows someone in a feminist commune? Really?
Also read my remaining Mary Russell, The Game, which left me unmoved at the time (blame the mug of last week) but now makes me want to find more Holmes pastiche/ fanfic. Find, not read. If I did get those two new Irene Adlers, I'm sure they'd annoy me as well.
And then, fatally, started a Patricia McKillip from the pile, Winter Rose. I-- oh dear. I doted on her first works in the 70s, and I'm not sure what's gone wrong since-- her or me-- but. Oh the airy-fairy etherealness of it all. It's not as bad as RenFaire inspired writers, but they're at least readable in their middle-of-the-road pedestrianism. This is probably good writing, but it leaves me flapping my hands helplessly.
I should probably just go back to reading Japanese until the summer's over.
