[taosaur]

I took a break from Emberverse with one or two books left and started in on a random sale item: Cast Under an Alien Sun by Olan Thorensen. I was aiming for something more sci-fi, but what I got was A California Grad Student in King Arthur's Court, more or less, so not far off from Stirling. It's keeping my attention well enough (I am a sucker for these stories), but Thorensen doesn't stand up well to Stirling in terms of either writing skill or historical and technical knowledge. Jonathan Davis' narration is also mediocre at best: melodramatic in the action scenes and often just sing-songing in ways that lose the sense of the text. Granted, the text does him few favors. Like I said, it's holding my interest, and it's only 16 hours so I imagine I'll finish it, but I doubt I'll look for more from the author.