Mmm, summer weekends. Margarita time. Drank most of a pitcher of 'em over the course of the day, with some help from Heather. Nice way to spend a Sunday.

Advance reader copies of Rangergirl are going out! I know, because they sent me three copies. It looks like a book! Holy crap!

I read Susan Palwick's Flying in Place on Friday evening (Heather was sick and sleeping, so I had to entertain myself). I liked it, pretty much. Disturbing stuff (it's about child abuse, from the POV of the child) -- much more disturbing than most horror novels about the same subject. Good clear writing, good use of fantasy-as-metaphor. It has a too-neat, conquer-the-villain ending, especially as compared to Matt Ruff's Set this House in Order, a brilliant book about survivors of child abuse. The novel also had a framing device that undercut all the suspense of the character's dire situation, but it's a first novel, so such flaws are more forgivable. Speaking as a newish novelist, I can sympathize with the desire to make everything come out okay for your characters in the end, and framing devices are a good way to create some distance between yourself and wrenching subject matter. Now reading Sterling's The Zenith Angle because I haven't yet, for some reason, and I got a copy for cheap. Only to discover that I already had a used copy on one of my bookshelves. Ah, well.

I've got a day off this week, which would be nice, but I need to take the car into the shop that day. One of the wheels is making a weird whining squealing noise when I drive, and I think the wheel bearings are screwed up. Sigh. In further automotive annoyance, the stupid oil change place I went to last week charged my debit card twice, and when I called to complain about it, I was informed that the manager was out of town and they couldn't do anything about it! So now I'm supposed to call their corporate headquarters tomorrow morning. Gah. Stupid crap. Nibbled to death by ducks.

In happier news, we're making some progress toward final wedding plans. As I said to Heather, "We've got a venue, and someone to perform the ceremony, and a photographer, and videographer, and catering, and a DJ, and a wedding party -- now all we need to do is, um, invite people." And also register for gifts. Which we're working on.

We went to see Batman Begins last night. I'm not going to do a big critique of it, because, well, it's a summer action flick, and doesn't warrant such attention. I thought it had some significant flaws, but overall I enjoyed it a lot. Scarecrow is my favorite Batman villain, and I thought the role was cast well. Probably the best Batman movie ever, though it's a shame the director got confused about which button on the camera was "zoom in" and which was "zoom out" -- would've been nice to see some of those fight scenes at a distance greater than six inches from the action.

So, a nice weekend. Not astonishingly productive, but fun.