Royal Assassin - Robin Hobb

More of the same, and very satisfying. Fitz is a wonderful main character, I really felt for him. There's a great line in this one, or passage, where he gets suddenly very angry at being moved around like a piece on a chessboard. Having had time to get acquainted with the setting and characters though, I have noticed these books are not all that well written. There not much economy, lots of kind of pointless adverbs and so on and it gets a bit frustrating. The story and characters make it worth it.

The Shining - Stephen King

I flew through the first half then slowed right down. More than any other Stephen King novel, it impressed me far more with the human stuff, the characters and their relationships and pasts and states of mind, than with the supernatural stuff. In fact the film did a much better job of being scary. Hedge animals coming to life is not very scary at all. Still a very good book. Confirms again my view that King should be read as simply a writer, not a horror writer.