How anticlimactic. I was really hoping to have to fight some obnoxious, pimply teen over the last copy left in the store, throw them into a stack of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen DVD’s before triumphantly running out with my copy held high and proud. Instead I sauntered down to Costco, got some laundry detergent, saw a pile of books, picked one, got some dental floss for good measure and headed for the cashier. After a brief but lively discourse with him about how many copies of the Hallows had whiskered past his nose and how sad some people were for standing in line to get the damn thing and a bewildered ramble around the Costco carpark looking for the RAV (I always lose the car there), I’m home and ready to read. 

Yes I am an unashamed Harry Potter fan. A lot has been said about Rowling’s writing abilities, or rather lack off but to a neophyte like me, they seem fine. And the story is interesting and relatively simple. I like my fantasy, even when it doesn’t involve leather kits or nursing uniforms and Harry Potter slides nicely in between Tolkien’s epic tales and Terry Pratchet’s humour. Since it’s the final book I’m quite glad that I’ll be getting closure shortly. That was one aspect where Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time really fell apart, I’ve read a number of the books in my youth before I couldn’t find anymore of the series. At the time the number of characters and storylines were confusing and when I picked up the 314th book in the series some time ago and realized that I didn’t remember any of the previous plotline I gave up. Maybe some day I’ll read all of them, when nuclear apocalypse has hit and I’m confined to die in my house or some such.

Anyways enough rambling and back to reading. Oh yeah I peeked, Harry’s still alive at the end…blah…