jordan179 had a review of Stephen Baxter's
Ark (
over here if you want to take a gander) which, following a PRSFS review of
Flood a couple months ago, makes me 99% sure I don't want to read any of Mr. Baxter's work unless I have no alternative reading material, including the nutritional information box on whatever food is closest. Apparently everybody in that novel carries
the Idiot Ball from beginning to end, and I really don't like stories like that. Real life has enough idiots in it.
Now, this may seem contradictory to some folks who know I love me some Daniel Leary stories, most recently
In the Stormy Red Sky 
, since in many of these novels, the Deadliest Librarian in the Universe, Signal Officer Adele Mundy, forces Leary's enemies to carry the Idiot Ball by cracking their codes, snooping on their communications (sometimes spoofing them), and often times making them look like idiots. Best of all, David Drake manages to do this in about 500 pages, so it doesn't take you a week to grind through the latest epic. I can't help wondering how Drake manages to write this tightly while David Weber's more recent efforts in the Honorverse are becoming increasingly bloated - is Drake that much better as a writer? Are his first readers and editors better than Weber's? One does wonder.
Did a little grocery shopping today, mostly to take advantage of some BOGO deals Harris Teeter has going this week, and in the process of doing so found that Dannon has quarts of 2% plain yogurt. These don't have the higher protein content of the Chobani/FAGE Greek yogurts, but they also cost less than $3 a quart as opposed to nearly $4 a pint, and that's a Good Thing. It's not like I'm not taking in enough protein from meats & cheeses. Also, I got my bottle of liquid sucralose from Amazon today, and this weekend I intend to try some of the interesting recipes from the somethingawful.com low-carb thread. Probably the cheesecake, maybe the ice cream. We'll see.
On a related topic, I should mention here that the doctor's visit yesterday morning was outstanding. I have lost fifty pounds since starting with the VA last April, and the bulk of that has come since this April. My A1c is down to 5.1, my cholesterol and blood pressure are good, and my doctor says I'm free to tweak my glipizide dosages if I get my weight down some more and start having hypoglycemia issues. Which I fully expect to do. :D
