UNDERSTATEMENT

I'm very fond of understatement. That must be why I'm dying to see Van Helsing as soon as it comes out. Any movie in which the hero says "I think we've overstayed our welcome," while people are trying to kill him, is getting off to a good start in my book. Possibly why I like Stephen Brust's latest pageturner, The Lord of Castle Black so much. I read the whole thing in two nights, couldn't put it down. It is the sort of book where the hero, a warrior, explains that he intends to take an army into the East because he "had to leave home there rather suddenly, before I could punish certain persons who had caused me an annoyance."