3:00 Again...

[handful_ofdust]

...and I'm now about 1,500 words behind on "The Underneath", because I was forced to spend much of today doing my marks and much of tonight/this morning helping Steve prep manuals for mailing. OTOH, I also skipped ahead to The Amber Spyglass--Steve was already reading The Subtle Knife, but I thought it unlikely I wouldn't be able to figure out what'd happened in between (and in this regard, I proved to be correct). Man, what a rambling pile of dreck. I was particularly amused to discover that while the climax did indeed feature the euthanization of an old, retarded primary deity, it has a considerable side-helping of catfight-cum-slapdown, as evil Mrs Coulter and her Byronic baby-daddy Lord Asriel pull the Metatron down into the abyss in order to consummate their doomed and poisonous love/sort of apologize to Lyra for ever having birthed her into this shitty, Dust-ridden [bunch of] world[s]. There's also an interminable middle-ish section which seems to be Pullman doing his own little version of Out of the Silent Planet, except without any of the charm, pacing or drama of the original. Phillip P., for the fail!

At any rate. Got my first set of printings done, and tomorrow I'll run those marks to school physically. After which, come Hell or high water, I'm going to write a bit before I have to start printing out the rest. Thus I swear!