Finished reading Horns by Joe Hill last night.

Absolutely terrific book.

Very lifelike, likable characters.  Detailed settings.  The whole things just came to life before my eyes.  Suspenseful, supernatural, gut-wrenching…  I didn’t want to stop reading.  And, considering the horrible things that were happening to some very nice people, I didn’t want to turn the page either.

Once again I’m left sincerely hoping that I haven’t seen the last of these characters.

Judas Coyne, from Heart Shaped Box, gets a mention in Horns…  And I’m hoping for something similar in the future.  I’d like to see somebody in a future book make some reference to that horrible thing that happened with the Congressman’s aide…  Or see a reference to Hothouse…  Or maybe find Ig playing trumpet in a seedy bar somewhere while Merrin waits tables or something…  I just don’t want their story to be done.

Once again I really want to see a movie or TV mini-series or something made out of this story.  It’s so vibrant…  So life-like…  It’s just dying to be made into something visual.

Once again I’m thinking I really need to get my hands on some Locke & Key and see what that does for me.

And now I want to pick up 20th Century Ghosts as well.  Terri read it.  Said it didn’t do much for her.  But she’s never been a fan of short stories.  So maybe I’ll enjoy it more than she did.

Frankly, both of these books that I’ve read were absolutely fantastic.  They remind me of Stephen King at his best.  And I’m just wondering – if this is where we’re starting with Joe Hill, how much better is he going to get with practice?  I wonder if he’ll be anywhere near as prolific as his father?  Or if he’s just got a couple stories to tell and he’s basically done?

Been spending a lot of time leveling my huntress.  I’m really liking the new zones and quests.  The phasing system is being used to great effect.  And the new dungeon finder is simply awesome.

But the flow of level progression through the zones is all kinds of messed up.

I rolled up a draenei, so I started out in Azuremyst Isle.  That took me up to about 10.  Then I went to Bloodmyst Isle, which took me to level 20.  After that, the two logical destinations were either Darkshore or Stormwind.

Darkshore is still a 10+ zone, so it didn’t really have much to offer me.  I would have had to run through Darkshore to Ashenvale to start picking up level-appropriate quests.

Stormwind doesn’t have anything to offer by itself, and it dumps into Elwyn Forest, which is another lowbie zone.

So I wound up having to run all the way out to Duskwood.

In Duskwood I found myself out-leveling quests faster than I could complete them.  I’d grab a whole pile of quests, start working on them, and they’d turn green or even grey before I could turn them all in.

None of which is really a problem…  I’m still leveling fine, and seeing plenty of the world, and having a great time…  But it just doesn’t flow as nicely as it used to.  There used to be a very clear flow from one place to the next, and you didn’t have to run all over the place just to find level-appropriate quests.

I needed to skill up skinning on my new huntress, so I headed back to Duskwood.  The critters there were roughly the right level, and there were plenty of furry things to skin.

You used to be able to skin Worgen…  But now that they’re a playable race, I was curious to see if that was still possible.

Turns out, it isn’t.  The Worgen in Duskwood can no longer be skinned, and they now wear pants.

Which suggests to me that the defining characteristic of sapience in WoW is the ability to wear pants.  Critters that wear pants are sapient, and not allowed to be skinned.  Critters without pants are just stupid animals and can be skinned.

Snow isn’t the worst part of winter.  The cold is.  And the cold shows up a good month ahead of the snow.  So I’ve been unhappy with the weather for a while now.  But today is the first real snow we’ve gotten.

It’s been snowing all morning.  Nothing too heavy…  And most of it is melting as soon as it touches the ground…  But it is certainly pretty.

Took a trip out to the Hillsbrad Foothills today…  It is now Horde territory.  No alliance flight paths in Hillsbrad at all.  Southshore has been taken over by the Undead.  Had to fly in to Chillwind Camp in the Plaguelands.

Andorhal looks much better.  The undead are gone and it is being rebuilt.  I’m told that it’s a phased town and it will change even more if I do the quests.  I’ll have to look into that.

Tarren Mill is obviously in the hands of the Undead.  The generic Allianc-y architecture has been replaced with some thoroughly Undead architecture.  Looks like some place the Adams Family would live.

There’s a new Plants vs Zombies mini-game quest up near the Dalaran Crater.  Spent a good amount of time playing it.  Good fun.

I also spent some time on my huntress this morning…

I learned Call Pet 2, which gave me an additional pet slot.  So I can now choose between two different pets when I’m out in the field.  I also visited a stable and noticed that there’s a pile of pet slots there.  Something like 15 or 20…  Maybe more.  So the days of going back to the stable just to switch between a DPS and a tank pet are gone.  As are the days of agonizing over which three animals to keep.  Very cool.