When I finished the Lord of the Rings, I started Orson Scott Card’s Shadow of the Giant. As usual, I wanted something very different from where I’d “been” (Middle Earth) and I’d picked up Card’s book at Border’s Books on the sale rack; $6 for the hardback, a first edition (which I don’t really care about at this point, but still…) and cheaper than the mass market edition.

I got a few chapters into it, but clearly I need to read a book or two in between Shadow of the Giant and Ender’s Shadow. I am missing some pieces of the story; I didn’t realize it was so important to read them in order, once you get past Ender’s Game. I was actually looking for Shadow of the Hegemon, but this book is turning out to be harder to find than an out of print Agatha Christie (there are two of the 80 or so mysteries I’ve never been able to find). That is, indeed, the book I should probably be reading next in the Ender series, so I’ll have to trudge on in my search for it.

In the meantime, last night I hit a crucial missing piece of information while reading at about two in the morning and couldn’t take Shadow of the Giant any farther. I put it down, searched the bookshelves for something palatable. Ah hah! On the “going back home” theme, I picked up A Wizard of Earthsea, and was immediately swept up in its peculiar mix of magic and the hard lives of village folk, of petty concerns mixed with the deep cycles and powers of the earth. I read till nearly three in the morning, barely able to keep my eyes open but unwilling to let the story go. Wonderful stuff.

Ah… good to be back home again.