By Lee Cross

We blog about writing here, so I’m not entirely sure what the feck to write about St. Patricks day – but as I live in Dublin and the main contributors to this site would consider themselves Irish-American (I’m assured it’s a good thing!), I feel obliged to write something 17^th of March related… for the life of me though, I’m not sure what!?

Books wise, I’m on a bit of FantSci buzz at the moment – can I talk about that?… what with religion and God being made up (like sandwiches and bedspreads).

BOOM! Hard hitting atheist opinions right there! …but feck all to do with books, so…

Last week I read, The Magicians by Lev Grossman, which I had high hopes for [it was recommended by a hardcore FantSci head], sadly, despite a really good start, it didn’t really go anywhere.

I’m not panning it or anything like that, it was written with skill and feeling; I Just honestly felt it got caught a little between styles, no doubt deliberately aimed as such, it just didn’t quite pull it off …also the ending felt nailed on; you could almost hear the publishers whispering “…trilogy…”.

Shout out, though: – there are a lot of fun lit. in-references scattered throughout the pages.

What else…? …oh, yes of course, how could I forget – I read the first fucking Assassins Creed book.

What an absolute piece of shit; seriously, one of the worst books I’ve ever read (hence, “how could I forgot”).

Terrible, from the first page to the last, not one character has a face to me, or a plausible motivation. And… actually, I’m stopping, just believe me – TERRIBLE.

Why did I read it? [yeah, I heard that] – I wanted to see if I was wrong about books written based on computer games; what better place to start than a book based on a game known for having a great plot.

It turns out the answer is – ANYWHERE ELSE. Trust me, don’t read Assassins Creed Renaissance.

So… that’ my reading this last week… sorry if I offended anyone with my religious slurs (live and let live, love and not hate – blah, blah, blah, etc), I just knew I didn’t have any great books to talk about and thought I’d try and get your attention.

Happy St Patricks Day.