@Dark eagle, personally I actually like the medeival stuff from time to time, or at least I like to change things around and look at different environments and peoples.
that is one thing about none human races, since a good author can make them interesting as alien races in a scifi setting, though with the added trouble of being a race that boring old humans have to share a planet with.
That is one thing about Tad williams I really like.
Even your standard evil as evil orcs, trolls etc I don't mind if the story is good enough and if there isa logical reason for them being that way within the worlds' cosmology, plus of course, though they've been stupidly overdone in the Peter Jackson films, fantasy battles can be fun, provided your invested enough in the characters and the battle itself isn't just an excuse to show how awesome the heroes are for no reason.
Hope you like the Butcher series, they're sort of steam punk I believe, though thus far I've only ever read his dresden files.
@Nocturnus, sorry to hear things are difficult.
My lady and I didn't exactly have much of a valentine's day either mostly due to her being absolutely shattered. we usually go out somewhere nice for a meal at least, or at any rate that is what we've done for the past few years, we'll probably need to wait until the radiotherapy is finished to do that this time around.
Wes Hollow, sorry to hear about the problems. Finding people who either A, get blindness or B, are at least empathic enough to understand without getting it is not easy, or at least it isn't in Britain, then again Britain is pretty crappy for disability generally and blindness in particular.
That is one of the side bennifits of having a soulmate who is also blind; not that I'd advocate uniquely looking for someone blind either. In our case it just sort of happened that way.
As people will gather, other than radiotherapy and reading, the other thing I've been doing most recently is working on the db, that and playing various games like cosmic rage and Dreamy train.
I do have all the Miriani sounds downloded, but the setup looks pretty complex, plus with having to play db related titles, I'm rather taken up with planet saga at the second anyway.
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)