I just finished reading the book Drood by Dan Simmons. It’s about the last few years of Charles Dickens’ life – and is in particular a fictionalized version of the origins of Dickens’ last book, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” which was not yet complete when he died. Kind of a horror/mystery novel, which is not my usual genre, but it was very well-written and I enjoyed it a lot.

It’s a bit long at 771 pages, and I thought it was a little repetitive in some parts with all of the comings and goings, etc., but I read it very quickly because I kept wanting to find out what happened next.

I remember when the book came out in 2007 and was well-reviewed then – I remember thinking about buying it and I may have even had it in my Amazon shopping cart for a while. But I didn’t buy it then for some reason and just happened to see a copy of it in a bookstore here recently and bought it.

Simmons wrote another book called Terror which is a fictionalized retelling of the doomed Franklin expedition in search of the northwest passage. That story was also fictionalized in The Rifles by William Vollmann, which I read not too long ago and found very interesting. (Franklin’s ship was named the HMS Terror.) I hope I will run across a copy of that one too – or maybe I’ll just break down and get a freaking Kindle, in which case I could just download it for $8 or whatever.

10 days until wedding. 2 days until my mom and stepdad arrive. Wow! This is really happening!