I've been writing. Actually writing. Hear that, gilmae? Get your little Bundabergian arse in gear, because I'll be a-sending you stuff tomorrow.

Why am I suddenly writing? It's combination of being so bored I could quite happily comb the cat just to have something to do (take away my internet and my ready access to lots of other people and I am a very bored Dee) and the fact that I just finished reading a mediocre-ish fantasy novel. It was one of my Christmas gifts, and it wasn't really all that bad. But it was... bland. It was a small story, just about a couple of people, not involving the fate of the world, or of nations, or even of large groups of people.

I mean, honestly! I read fantasy because it's epic. Big. Broad. Swashboggling. If I wanted to read a story about a handful of people with no real bad guy beyond one petty and very human schemer (who gets thwarted in the end), I'd read Enid sodding Blyton (which I will, don't mistake me, but that's not what I was looking for here). It wasn't even brilliantly written. In the not-so-gran tradition of Australian fantasy, it was very simply told. With grammar mistakes the copy editor should have picked up.

Anyway, the book was The Magicians' Guild by Trudi Canavan. (Yes, the one with the disputed apostrophe, gil.) I'd been looking forward to it, too. I hope my other Christmas books are better.