Microlit: I hope this is even half as much fun to read as it is to right. Condensed book reviews  with added snark.

Ian McEwan – Atonement
Briony: I’m very smug. And talented. And they’re… what are they doing exactly?
Celia / Robbie: Dammit!
Robbie: I definitely wasn’t molesting your sister.
Paul: I’m molesting your cousin, though.
Briony: HE DID IT!
Paul: Terrible. How could he?
Robbie: Huh? Dammit!
Briony: Oh bollocks. Guilt.

Fiona McIntosh – Odalisque
Pez: I know everything. But I’m a dwarf.
Lazar: I can kill anything. Yay me!
Ana: I’m very pretty. And err, yeah, I’m very pretty.
Lazar: She really is very pretty. And I’ve sold her into the harem. DAMMIT!
Grand Master Eunuch: Oh good, a way to upset Lazar!
Ana: DAMMIT!
Pez: Wheee, I’m an owl! Dwarf. Owl. Oh look, it’s just metaplot, okay?

Assassination Review here.

Jo Walton – The Matter of Britain The Saga of Tir Tanagiri
The King’s Peace
Sulien: The Jarnsmen raped me. I shall kill them all.
King Urdo: My kind of gal. Come on in, the water’s fine.
Jarnish raiders: DAMMIT.

The King’s Law
King Urdo: We defeated the Jarnsmen. They are now our subjects. No killing them, Sulien.
Sulien: DAMMIT. Oh, okay. No, really. I’ve grown.
Jarnish raiders: She has, you know. Freakish tall for a woman.
Queen Elenn: Are you sleeping with my husband?

The King’s Name
Sulien: Crap, my sister poisoned me! Err, war! War! WAR!
Urdo: What? DAMMIT. WAR!
Sulien: If you’ve read your King Arthur, the ending should come as no surprise.
Urdo: *dies*
Sulien: DAMMIT!
Queen Elenn: Were you sleeping with my husband?

Reviewed here. Excellent stuff.

Michael Marshall – The Intruders
Jack Whalen: My wife has disappeared.
Gary Fisher: My client left his money to the wrong people. And this bloke has disappeared. After apparently slaughtering his family and trying to burn his house down. And I think my daughter was possessed by that chick who had a crush on me in high school and-
Jack: Yes, but my wife has disappeared.
Gary: No she hasn’t. See, I have photos. Oh, that guy’s not you? Oops.
Jack: Dammit.
Mrs Whalen: Trust me, it’s much, much more complicated than that…
Jack: DAMMIT.

C. J. Sansom – Sovereign
Shardlake: Is a quiet life too much to ask for?
Archbishop Cranmer: Yes.
Shardlake: Dammit.
Henry VIII: Oh look, a hunchback. Eeeuuwwww!
Shardlake: Grrrrrr. You’re not even the rightful king…
Privy Council: To the Tower with him!
Shardlake: DAMMIT.

Kim Stanley Robinson – Forty Signs of Rain
Tibetans: Our island is in danger of sinking beneath the flood tides.
Americans: Poor you. Pizza?
In which there is some rain
Americans: Our city is sinking beneath the flood tide!
Tibetans: Poor you. Tigers?

Kim Wilkins – The Autumn Castle
Christine Starlight: Woe is me, for I am a broken woman. But hey, I’ve got a sexy boyfriend.
Jude the boyfriend: with a big dark secret. Shhhh.
Mayfridh: I’ll match your irritating neuroses and I’ll raise you a stunning faery queen. Whose boyfriend?
Christine: Dammit!
Hexebart the witch: I’m going to eat your toes.

Review here.

Kim Wilkins – The Resurrectionists
Maisie: Woe if me, for I am bored and dissatisfied and my mother has planned my entire life. What if I don’t want riches and a handsome husband?
Adrian: Then you can fuck off to England and get terrorised by rural religious nuts.
Maisie: Okay.
Sacha: Also, you can sleep with dashing gypsies who will teach you about your psychic powers.
Maisie: I win!
Religious nuts: Not if we have anything to say about it…

What have you been reading?