Finished Matt Ruff's latest book "Bad Monkeys" today. While the book itself was an engrossing page turner, the end fell a bit flat to me.

I finished China Mieville's latest book Un Lun Dun a couple of days ago. When I first heard about it I was a bit surprised that the author of the dark, twisted and bizarre Bas-Lag novels would write a book for young adults. But as it was set in London and its mirror image UnLondon, I decided to get it.
As expected from a young adult novel, the prose is less lyrical than in the Bas Lang-novels. But apart from that the book is great. An amusing twist to the "boys/girls steps through a protal and due to a prophecy becomes the Chosen One" plot. Lots of bizarre ideas and word plays (I especially liked the "binjas" and "utterlings").
In the acknowledgments Neil Gaiman / Neverwhere was (obviously) mentioned, but I was quite surprised when I also found a mentioning of the German author Walter Moers. Thinking about it, the connection is there: Mievielle did the illustrations for his book himself as Moers does. Seems as if Moers has some degree of popularity in the English speaking countries with his Zamonien books.

So, Un Lun Dun is a definitive recommendation.

It could also make a good read for GMs of urban fantasy games, as there are lots of good ideas to be reused.
Two games that come immediately to my mind are "Don't Rest Your Head" and "The Zorceror of Zo".
On a scale for the tone of settings where DRYH represents the darker end of the spectrum and ZoZ the light (hearted) one, Un Lun Dun is maybe one-third away from ZoZ. Less fairy-tale than ZoZ, but much less darker than DRYH.

Yes, this entry is backdated, but no, not too much: We get our presents in Germany on the 24th of December :)

Among other things, I received the "Laputa, castle in the sky" DVD and the "Weapons of the Gods" rpg.
New entries to my reading stack: Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys" (which was on my wish list) and his short story collection "Fragile Things" (which was not).

We invited some friends on Saturday evening to party in my birthday: Stef, Ralf(uthoroc), Uwe, Melanie and Mert. The evening was very enjoyable and it was midnight in no time.
I got a couple of great presents:

• the inevitable mp3 player (a Creative Zen V Plus 4 GB muwahahaha - who needs an Ipod...) I was bugging Katrin for some time now
• Thurn und Taxis, the Game of the Year 2006
• the complete edition of Selma Lagerlöf's "Nils Holgersson" with a nice map of Nils's travels
• Neal Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" (which I already had, so Uwe is going to exchange it for another book)
• the "Porco Rosso" DVD
• the "Wallace & Grommit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" DVD

All in all, a great birthday...