Last night I had the strangest dream

I had a disturbing dream last night, where I learned that both Dave Barry and Frank Black had died. I don't remember how the former died, but I believe the death had taken place last year. As for Frank, at first I heard it was a suicide, and then that it was a motorcycle accident (he was riding with Joey Santiago). I don't think I totally believed that either of these people had died, but I was quite upset.

Incidentally, I stole the title of this entry from a thread on the Frank Black Forum. People discussing their Frank-related dreams might have been part of what caused me to have one.

Witches, Pictsies, and Dragons

I finished reading two stories today. The first was The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett's young adult novel about a witch-in-training and the Nac Mac Feegle, who was introduced in Carpe Jugulum. I liked this book quite a bit better than Pratchett's last Discworld book for younger readers, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, probably partially because The Wee Free Men contained more familiar concepts and characters from the main Discworld series, including the Queen of the Elves from Lords and Ladies and a brief cameo by Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. I don't believe Death appeared at all, though, which is odd for a Discworld story.

The other story was "The Silver Jug," which was in The Salt Sorcerer of Oz and Other Stories, a collection of Eric Shanower's short Oz fiction. I had read all of the book's other stories (including the title one) in Oz-Story and Oziana, but "The Silver Jug" had only been published as an unfinished story, for which readers were urged to send in endings. I actually wrote a hastily done and really lousy ending for it. The two endings that were chosen as winners were pretty good, but Shanower's own ending is much better than either one. I liked the back story of Dragonspeck and Yvar, and the meta-humor when Amanda and Louise thought they might be characters in a book was a clever touch. I do think it was rather odd for Glinda to give Amanda an item she knew so little about in order to test her, though.