This will be my “chicken with its head cut off” day of travel preparation. Actually, though, I’m mostly ready. This is more my day to clean my house so if I die in a plane crash, I won’t be embarrassed in the afterlife by people seeing it when they come to clean it out. Also, it’s nice after spending several days in pristine hotel conditions to come home to a reasonably clean house. I like not cringing upon opening the front door.
Otherwise, I have the laundry done, my wardrobe planned, I’m mostly packed, I have my presentations ready, I’ve made sure all the relevant accounts are logged in on my travel devices, and my lists for everything else I need to do and pack are made. The goal is to have all the heavy lifting done by mid-afternoon so I can rest and relax this evening, and in the morning I can get up, eat breakfast, get dressed, throw the last-minute things into the bag, and head for the bus stop.
I’m hoping to do a lot of reading on this trip, with a backlog of books on my Kindle app. I’m annoyingly between books now because I just finished a big one and I don’t want to start a new one that I won’t be taking with me (between all the stuff on the tablet and the giant bag-o-books I’ll be getting at the conference, there’s no reason to bring a paper book with me). This might be a good time to read short stories.
The big book I just finished was The Shadow Land, the latest by Elizabeth Kostova. Like her earlier books, there’s a present storyline and a past storyline. In the present, a young American coming to Bulgaria to teach English helps a family get into a cab outside a hotel, only to discover once she’s in her own cab that one of their bags got mixed up with hers, and that bag contains a crematory urn. With the help of her cab driver, she sets out to track down and find this family so she can return it. This quest turns out to be more complicated than she expected, and it reveals some secrets that go back to the early days of Bulgaria’s Soviet occupation — secrets that someone is willing to kill to keep hidden. Meanwhile, we get the parallel story of what happened during that time.
I’m a total sucker for flashbacks woven into a story, with activities in the present uncovering events in the past, and this is a particularly interesting and painful chapter of history. The characters come to vivid life, and the descriptions of the places they visit make me want to visit Bulgaria. However, I don’t think this one lives up to the promise of her first book, The Historian, but that may just be because I keep expecting that book’s magical realism/fantasy elements. There’s one little possible bit of “woo-woo,” but otherwise it’s a straightforward novel. It might be different if you come to this book without that expectation or if you were someone who didn’t read The Historian as fantasy.
One of the story ideas I’m hoping to play with this summer is a past/present book, and I imagine it’s a lot harder to pull off than it would seem from reading it.
Showing posts with label book report. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book report. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Tuesday, May 09, 2017
Published "Fan Fiction"
I noticed that my reading in the last couple of weeks had a theme: it’s essentially published fan fiction — stories based on other works. Otherwise, it was two very different books.
The first was A Little in Love by Susan E. Fletcher. This book is basically Les Miserables from Eponine’s point of view. It seems to stick pretty closely to canon, just fleshing out the offstage parts about Eponine’s life. As she lies dying by the barricade, her life flashes before her eyes, and she remembers her childhood when her family took in Cosette, the ups and downs of her family’s fortunes, their move to Paris, meeting Marius, learning that he loved someone else, and then choosing to be at his side anyway during the revolution. It’s an interesting perspective on the familiar story that will probably appeal to all the drama nerd girls to whom “On My Own” is a personal anthem, but I think I was hoping for something more.
Then I continued in Star Wars mode with a tie-in novel I found at the library, The Cestus Deception by Steven Barnes. It’s set during the Clone Wars and centers on a mission led by Obi-Wan Kenobi to uncover how someone is managing to make robots with Jedi-like abilities and try to stop that without destroying a world’s economy and driving that world even further into the arms of the Separatists. Barnes is a noted science fiction author, so this reads more like a science fiction novel than like a Star Wars book. There’s a lot of worldbuilding to explain the culture of this world and its dominant race. Although Obi-Wan is a central character, the protagonist is really one of the clone troopers, and that’s where this book gets really interesting. Barnes creates a culture around the clones, figuring out what kind of social structure and philosophy they might have. When you think about it, it’s kind of a bunch of identical twin brothers fighting together, and that’s the way they come to see themselves, even though they’re also aware that they’re considered to be more or less cannon fodder. There’s some really good stuff in there that I wish had made it into the prequels. The Clone Wars were mostly a letdown in the films (I haven’t watched the cartoon series), and this explores the ethical issues of a clone army, as well as getting into the psychology of the clones themselves. Things get really complicated for our central clone when he meets a woman who was once in love with Jango Fett and who can’t help but have feelings for his clone.
I’d say if you’re reading to get more insight into that era of the Star Wars universe and Obi-Wan, you might be disappointed, but if you like a good space opera with interesting characters, alien races, and cultures, this would be a fun book even if you’re not a Star Wars fan. I’ve found myself actually a bit haunted by the clones’ situation.
The first was A Little in Love by Susan E. Fletcher. This book is basically Les Miserables from Eponine’s point of view. It seems to stick pretty closely to canon, just fleshing out the offstage parts about Eponine’s life. As she lies dying by the barricade, her life flashes before her eyes, and she remembers her childhood when her family took in Cosette, the ups and downs of her family’s fortunes, their move to Paris, meeting Marius, learning that he loved someone else, and then choosing to be at his side anyway during the revolution. It’s an interesting perspective on the familiar story that will probably appeal to all the drama nerd girls to whom “On My Own” is a personal anthem, but I think I was hoping for something more.
Then I continued in Star Wars mode with a tie-in novel I found at the library, The Cestus Deception by Steven Barnes. It’s set during the Clone Wars and centers on a mission led by Obi-Wan Kenobi to uncover how someone is managing to make robots with Jedi-like abilities and try to stop that without destroying a world’s economy and driving that world even further into the arms of the Separatists. Barnes is a noted science fiction author, so this reads more like a science fiction novel than like a Star Wars book. There’s a lot of worldbuilding to explain the culture of this world and its dominant race. Although Obi-Wan is a central character, the protagonist is really one of the clone troopers, and that’s where this book gets really interesting. Barnes creates a culture around the clones, figuring out what kind of social structure and philosophy they might have. When you think about it, it’s kind of a bunch of identical twin brothers fighting together, and that’s the way they come to see themselves, even though they’re also aware that they’re considered to be more or less cannon fodder. There’s some really good stuff in there that I wish had made it into the prequels. The Clone Wars were mostly a letdown in the films (I haven’t watched the cartoon series), and this explores the ethical issues of a clone army, as well as getting into the psychology of the clones themselves. Things get really complicated for our central clone when he meets a woman who was once in love with Jango Fett and who can’t help but have feelings for his clone.
I’d say if you’re reading to get more insight into that era of the Star Wars universe and Obi-Wan, you might be disappointed, but if you like a good space opera with interesting characters, alien races, and cultures, this would be a fun book even if you’re not a Star Wars fan. I’ve found myself actually a bit haunted by the clones’ situation.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Star Wars Stories
Last week, they announced a slew of upcoming Star Wars novels, and that made me remember that I’d heard good things about one of the pre-Force Awakens novels, Lost Stars, by Claudia Gray, so I decided to read it.
The story follows two childhood friends who are about the same age as Luke and Leia, born around the time of the fall of the Old Republic and rise of the Empire, but they grow up on an Imperial world, so they have a very different attitude about the Empire than we’ve seen in most of the Star Wars stories. They want nothing more than to grow up to pilot TIE fighters. The story follows them as they attend an Imperial military academy, and then we get a kind of “Lower Decks” view of the events of the original trilogy, as they’re present or aware of most of the major moments, but seeing them from an entirely different perspective. The events surrounding the Death Star send them in different directions and make them question the meaning of loyalty.
I’m not sure how well this book would work as just a science fiction novel for someone who wasn’t familiar with the universe and the story, but it really works to flesh out that universe for people who are fans. We get into the heads of people who fight for the Empire and see that they, too, are fighting for things they believe in, and then when the things they believe in come into question, they’re still fighting for the people around them.
It’s interesting to see what other people think of the main characters from the original movies and how they see those events. So, if you’re a Star Wars fan and want more of that universe, this is definitely worth reading.
This and those announcements of other new books have reminded me of one of my earliest writing ambitions. I’d always made up stories in my head to entertain myself, and our main neighborhood group game was what you could probably call live-action group fan fiction, so I’d made up characters and stories to fit into other “universes,” but once I saw Star Wars, it really jumped into overdrive. Since there was a shortage of female characters, I had to make up characters to play, and that turned into an elaborate mental narrative. Even before Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, the first tie-in novel, was published, I wanted to write a Star Wars book. A lot of my earliest attempts at writing started as mental Star Wars stories that morphed into something original before I put anything on paper. Still, I would have preferred to write them as real Star Wars stories. I just had to change them because that was an unrealistic dream.
But then I realized last week that it’s not quite such an unrealistic dream. I’m a published author. I’ve even written for the publisher that does the Star Wars books. I’m not sure how to pursue it or if I even really want to. There are plusses and minuses. The money is good, and it’s a good way to become a “bestselling” author. It’s a good way to gain a lot more name recognition. But there are a lot of constraints to writing in someone else’s universe, and the attention that comes with it can bring with it a lot of negativity. It brings out some of the more obnoxious fanboy elements, those people who nitpick every detail and throw a fit if it doesn’t match their mental version of that universe. I’m mostly invisible to those people now, since I’m pretty obscure as an author, but doing a Star Wars book would throw me into the middle of that nastiness. I can imagine what they’d say if my name were announced and then they went and saw those cartoony covers — probably something about how I’m going to destroy Star Wars by turning it into a romantic comedy.
Still, whether or not it’s something I end up pursuing, it’s kind of cool to realize that something that seemed completely out of reach when I was a kid isn’t entirely unrealistic now.
The story follows two childhood friends who are about the same age as Luke and Leia, born around the time of the fall of the Old Republic and rise of the Empire, but they grow up on an Imperial world, so they have a very different attitude about the Empire than we’ve seen in most of the Star Wars stories. They want nothing more than to grow up to pilot TIE fighters. The story follows them as they attend an Imperial military academy, and then we get a kind of “Lower Decks” view of the events of the original trilogy, as they’re present or aware of most of the major moments, but seeing them from an entirely different perspective. The events surrounding the Death Star send them in different directions and make them question the meaning of loyalty.
I’m not sure how well this book would work as just a science fiction novel for someone who wasn’t familiar with the universe and the story, but it really works to flesh out that universe for people who are fans. We get into the heads of people who fight for the Empire and see that they, too, are fighting for things they believe in, and then when the things they believe in come into question, they’re still fighting for the people around them.
It’s interesting to see what other people think of the main characters from the original movies and how they see those events. So, if you’re a Star Wars fan and want more of that universe, this is definitely worth reading.
This and those announcements of other new books have reminded me of one of my earliest writing ambitions. I’d always made up stories in my head to entertain myself, and our main neighborhood group game was what you could probably call live-action group fan fiction, so I’d made up characters and stories to fit into other “universes,” but once I saw Star Wars, it really jumped into overdrive. Since there was a shortage of female characters, I had to make up characters to play, and that turned into an elaborate mental narrative. Even before Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, the first tie-in novel, was published, I wanted to write a Star Wars book. A lot of my earliest attempts at writing started as mental Star Wars stories that morphed into something original before I put anything on paper. Still, I would have preferred to write them as real Star Wars stories. I just had to change them because that was an unrealistic dream.
But then I realized last week that it’s not quite such an unrealistic dream. I’m a published author. I’ve even written for the publisher that does the Star Wars books. I’m not sure how to pursue it or if I even really want to. There are plusses and minuses. The money is good, and it’s a good way to become a “bestselling” author. It’s a good way to gain a lot more name recognition. But there are a lot of constraints to writing in someone else’s universe, and the attention that comes with it can bring with it a lot of negativity. It brings out some of the more obnoxious fanboy elements, those people who nitpick every detail and throw a fit if it doesn’t match their mental version of that universe. I’m mostly invisible to those people now, since I’m pretty obscure as an author, but doing a Star Wars book would throw me into the middle of that nastiness. I can imagine what they’d say if my name were announced and then they went and saw those cartoony covers — probably something about how I’m going to destroy Star Wars by turning it into a romantic comedy.
Still, whether or not it’s something I end up pursuing, it’s kind of cool to realize that something that seemed completely out of reach when I was a kid isn’t entirely unrealistic now.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Book Report: Lots of Reading
I’ve been making a real effort to read more lately, as I’m watching less TV, so I have a bunch of books to report on.
Fans of my Rebels series might enjoy Arabella of Mars, by David D. Levine. You might consider it steampunk, though if you’re being really pedantic and technical about it, it’s more clockpunk, as it takes place during the Regency era, before the Age of Steam really got going, and the alternate technology is clockwork automata, not steam engines. But it’s still a retro-futuristic thing with airships and adventure, with a plucky heroine breaking out of her defined societal role. A young woman who grew up on her family’s Mars plantation feels constrained when her mother thinks they need to move back to earth so she can be trained to be a proper lady. But after her father’s death, she learns of an evil scheme by her cousin to go to Mars and rob her brother of his inheritance, and the only option she seems to have is to disguise herself as a boy to join the crew of a faster ship heading to Mars so she can warn her brother. Those who are real nitpickers about science may have problems with this, as the technology and science are all based on beliefs at that time, which means we have people living easily on Mars, farming there, with a breathable atmosphere, and then there’s the fact that you can sail on sailing ships to Mars. But if that sort of thing doesn’t have you sputtering “that’s not the way it works!” and you’re willing to suspend disbelief and go with it, it’s a really fun adventure story.
The Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia Sherman is classified as a children’s book (middle-grade, I believe), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. A young runaway gets lost in the Maine woods and stumbles upon a remote house, where a strange old man gives him shelter, then declares that he’s an evil wizard, and the boy is his new apprentice. When the boy finds that he can’t seem to leave, he decides to take matters into his own hands and learn what he needs to figure out what’s going on and how to get his freedom — but the situation isn’t quite what he’s been told it is. I guess you could almost call it Stephen King-lite, with the strange, mysterious town in Maine and the dark forces surrounding it, but it’s not a really dark story. It’s whimsical and has a sweet heart.
I took a slight break from fantasy when I found a book by Julian Fellows, the writer of Downton Abbey, on the new books shelf at the library. Belgravia had no connections to Downton Abbey, but I felt like there were some parallels in story lines and character types. It starts with an incident at the infamous ball that happened on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, then picks up 25 years later with the consequences of what happened. Those consequences entangle a high-ranking noble family and a family of wealthy social climbers. As on Downton Abbey, we have an ordinary guy who finds himself abruptly moved up in society, scheming servants, and a very forward-thinking young noblewoman. The outcome was rather obvious to me from the start, but I think I would have been very dissatisfied if it hadn’t come out that way. I must say that he’s probably a better television writer than a novelist. The plot is fairly strong, but prose isn’t his strong suit. But if you’re missing Downton Abbey and want a bit more historical costume drama soap opera, this is a pretty quick read.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman was recommended by a reader, and yes, it was just my cup of tea. A librarian working for the magical repository of all books gets assigned a new trainee and a strange mission to go to a steampunky alternate reality where vampires and werewolves exist and retrieve a version of the Grimm fairy tales that includes one particular story that doesn’t exist in other realities. But she’s not the only one after it. This has a taste of contemporary fantasy — in that the heroine seems rather contemporary, though we aren’t quite sure which reality she’s from — but she’s thrown into a steampunk kind of world that also has a lot of other fantasy elements. There are already two more with more on the way, and when I finish my current library haul, I’ll be devouring the rest. Thanks for the recommendation!
And finally, The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi is a YA fantasy that doesn’t really read like YA, so don’t let the label stop you if you’re an adult. It’s set in a fantasy version of India and draws upon Indian mythology and folklore, but there are still elements that feel quite familiar from European folklore and fairy tales. A raja’s daughter whose birth horoscope seems ominous believes she’ll never marry because of it, but when she’s put in a situation where she has to choose a husband for diplomatic reasons, she’s unexpectedly whisked away by a mysterious man and taken to a magical realm. As she gradually learns what’s going on, she has to decide who she can trust. The imagery in this book is so dreamlike and beautiful, with some very poetic language. I kept wanting to write down quotes from it. It’s also very romantic, the kind of book you finish with a sigh.
I guess all this is what happens when you cut back on your TV viewing, which is probably good for me. I’m ahead for the year on my reading goals, and my writing output has also increased.
Fans of my Rebels series might enjoy Arabella of Mars, by David D. Levine. You might consider it steampunk, though if you’re being really pedantic and technical about it, it’s more clockpunk, as it takes place during the Regency era, before the Age of Steam really got going, and the alternate technology is clockwork automata, not steam engines. But it’s still a retro-futuristic thing with airships and adventure, with a plucky heroine breaking out of her defined societal role. A young woman who grew up on her family’s Mars plantation feels constrained when her mother thinks they need to move back to earth so she can be trained to be a proper lady. But after her father’s death, she learns of an evil scheme by her cousin to go to Mars and rob her brother of his inheritance, and the only option she seems to have is to disguise herself as a boy to join the crew of a faster ship heading to Mars so she can warn her brother. Those who are real nitpickers about science may have problems with this, as the technology and science are all based on beliefs at that time, which means we have people living easily on Mars, farming there, with a breathable atmosphere, and then there’s the fact that you can sail on sailing ships to Mars. But if that sort of thing doesn’t have you sputtering “that’s not the way it works!” and you’re willing to suspend disbelief and go with it, it’s a really fun adventure story.
The Evil Wizard Smallbone by Delia Sherman is classified as a children’s book (middle-grade, I believe), but I thoroughly enjoyed it. A young runaway gets lost in the Maine woods and stumbles upon a remote house, where a strange old man gives him shelter, then declares that he’s an evil wizard, and the boy is his new apprentice. When the boy finds that he can’t seem to leave, he decides to take matters into his own hands and learn what he needs to figure out what’s going on and how to get his freedom — but the situation isn’t quite what he’s been told it is. I guess you could almost call it Stephen King-lite, with the strange, mysterious town in Maine and the dark forces surrounding it, but it’s not a really dark story. It’s whimsical and has a sweet heart.
I took a slight break from fantasy when I found a book by Julian Fellows, the writer of Downton Abbey, on the new books shelf at the library. Belgravia had no connections to Downton Abbey, but I felt like there were some parallels in story lines and character types. It starts with an incident at the infamous ball that happened on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, then picks up 25 years later with the consequences of what happened. Those consequences entangle a high-ranking noble family and a family of wealthy social climbers. As on Downton Abbey, we have an ordinary guy who finds himself abruptly moved up in society, scheming servants, and a very forward-thinking young noblewoman. The outcome was rather obvious to me from the start, but I think I would have been very dissatisfied if it hadn’t come out that way. I must say that he’s probably a better television writer than a novelist. The plot is fairly strong, but prose isn’t his strong suit. But if you’re missing Downton Abbey and want a bit more historical costume drama soap opera, this is a pretty quick read.
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman was recommended by a reader, and yes, it was just my cup of tea. A librarian working for the magical repository of all books gets assigned a new trainee and a strange mission to go to a steampunky alternate reality where vampires and werewolves exist and retrieve a version of the Grimm fairy tales that includes one particular story that doesn’t exist in other realities. But she’s not the only one after it. This has a taste of contemporary fantasy — in that the heroine seems rather contemporary, though we aren’t quite sure which reality she’s from — but she’s thrown into a steampunk kind of world that also has a lot of other fantasy elements. There are already two more with more on the way, and when I finish my current library haul, I’ll be devouring the rest. Thanks for the recommendation!
And finally, The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi is a YA fantasy that doesn’t really read like YA, so don’t let the label stop you if you’re an adult. It’s set in a fantasy version of India and draws upon Indian mythology and folklore, but there are still elements that feel quite familiar from European folklore and fairy tales. A raja’s daughter whose birth horoscope seems ominous believes she’ll never marry because of it, but when she’s put in a situation where she has to choose a husband for diplomatic reasons, she’s unexpectedly whisked away by a mysterious man and taken to a magical realm. As she gradually learns what’s going on, she has to decide who she can trust. The imagery in this book is so dreamlike and beautiful, with some very poetic language. I kept wanting to write down quotes from it. It’s also very romantic, the kind of book you finish with a sigh.
I guess all this is what happens when you cut back on your TV viewing, which is probably good for me. I’m ahead for the year on my reading goals, and my writing output has also increased.
Tuesday, March 07, 2017
Reading Roundup
It looks like this might be a “music” book. I had decent productivity while having music playing. I mostly used the soundtrack to Order of the Phoenix. That’s a good background noise soundtrack because it sounds somewhat magical, is alternately energetic and dreamy, and it’s not quite brilliant enough music that I find myself stopping to listen to it. It works great to shut out the mental distractions and make me focus without being its own distraction. I did try switching to the other Harry Potter soundtracks I own, but I can’t write with John Williams in the background because I’ll stop to listen to the music, especially Prisoner of Azkaban. That soundtrack may be his most interesting collection of music out of all the film scores he’s done because it’s like they just told him to go have fun and write the music he’s always wanted to write. As a result, we get a somewhat baroque classical piece that could have come from a Rossini opera, an atonal modern jazz extravaganza, a Renaissance-style piece that could fit in with the actual early music recordings I have played on period instruments, and a choral piece. But I can’t write with it in the background because I find myself stopping to listen and figure out what he’s doing with each piece.
Another thing I tried doing was a “brain dump” before I started writing. It’s kind of like the morning pages concept, only not in the morning and with no set amount of writing or other rules. I just started writing down all the stuff that was swirling around in my head until I got to the book I’d be working on. That did a lot to help me focus instead of getting sidetracked by random thoughts.
And now, as promised, a book report! I’ve been making a lot more time to read, trying to get less screen time, so I’ve been getting through more books.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill — this was shelved in the children’s section (I’d guess it’s classified as “middle grade”) but I think it’s very adult-friendly. In fact, aside from the girl in the title, the viewpoint characters are mostly adults, and you might even argue that the actual protagonist is an older woman. She’s the one who drives much of the story. It’s fantasy story about a town that must sacrifice a newborn baby each year to appease the witch who lives in the woods — except the witch never asked for that and has no idea why these crazy people keep abandoning infants in the woods. She rescues them and takes them to another town to place them in good homes. But then there’s one infant she can’t bring herself to give away, a girl who has magical powers that she’ll need guidance in learning to use. I found this to be a really lovely fairytale-like story with characters who came to life for me to the point I wanted to see more of them. There’s a tiny dragon who thinks he’s a normal dragon living among giants, a wise swamp monster, a young man and young woman brave enough to question the order of things. I read this in just about one sitting. It’s a good rainy Sunday afternoon sort of book.
Railhead by Philip Reeve — This is a young adult science fiction book about a distant figure in which there are wormhole-like tunnels between worlds, through which sentient trains can run. So, basically, you had me at “space trains.” A young thief who’s a bit of a “railhead” (a train enthusiast who stows away to ride around) gets recruited by a mysterious stranger to infiltrate the Emperor’s train and steal an item. But nothing is really as it seems, and carrying out the theft is just the beginning of things. This one had some truly creative worldbuilding, imagining how a massive shift in technology might affect a culture and imagining what the hip young things might get up to in that sort of world. If you enjoyed Bladerunner, this might be right up your alley.
Borderline by Mishell Baker — Adult urban fantasy. I have very mixed feelings about urban fantasy. I love the idea of it and want to like it, but I haven’t been crazy about how it’s been executed, for the most part. It tends to be way too dreary for my taste. But I really liked this one. It’s still darkish, but in a sun-drenched way. It’s set in Los Angeles, and the premise is that there are gateways that allow the fey to enter our world. Some of them do rather well as actors, with their beautiful glamours. Others turn out to be a kind of muse/other half for creative people. There’s an organization that regulates fey activity in our world, making sure they don’t outstay their welcome or break the rules. Our heroine gets recruited to join them as she recovers from a suicide attempt that seriously messed up her body (and didn’t do wonders for her brain). Getting put on the case of tracking down a missing fey nobleman who was involved in the film industry gives her a new focus in life — until she starts stepping on the wrong toes. This was a real page-turner, reading like an old noir mystery but with some definite twists. The narrator heroine isn’t the kind of character I normally like, but I found myself pulling for her, mostly because she owns her issues and isn’t looking for sympathy. It looks like this is going to be a series, and I imagine I’ll be gobbling them up.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden — this is a fantasy novel based on Russian fairy tales and folklore. It takes some tales I’m familiar with and fleshes them out and puts a spin on them. It’s really hard to describe the plot without going into a lot of detail, which I suppose means it’s not “high concept,” but it’s about a family of a lower-level prince in medieval Russia (before it really was “Russia” as we know it). The widowed father gets stuck with an arranged marriage to a woman who’s a very bad fit for that situation and who doesn’t want to be there, and it nearly brings disaster to their whole village when the stepmother clashes with the youngest daughter. Both of them can see the household spirits that protect and serve them, but where the stepmother sees demons that must be banished, the daughter is kind to them and learns from them. Which view prevails could determine whether or not they survive a harsh winter. This was a bit of a slow build of a story, one that sets the stage and establishes the situation, the characters, and the atmosphere before the plot kicks into high gear, but I still found it to be a quick read. It really immerses you in that world, so that when the plot does kick in, you feel really invested in the outcome. It was a great book for a cool, rainy Sunday afternoon. I burrowed under the electric blanket, drank tea, and read all day.
Yeah, I’m the weirdo who kind of wishes every Sunday afternoon could be cool and rainy.
Another thing I tried doing was a “brain dump” before I started writing. It’s kind of like the morning pages concept, only not in the morning and with no set amount of writing or other rules. I just started writing down all the stuff that was swirling around in my head until I got to the book I’d be working on. That did a lot to help me focus instead of getting sidetracked by random thoughts.
And now, as promised, a book report! I’ve been making a lot more time to read, trying to get less screen time, so I’ve been getting through more books.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill — this was shelved in the children’s section (I’d guess it’s classified as “middle grade”) but I think it’s very adult-friendly. In fact, aside from the girl in the title, the viewpoint characters are mostly adults, and you might even argue that the actual protagonist is an older woman. She’s the one who drives much of the story. It’s fantasy story about a town that must sacrifice a newborn baby each year to appease the witch who lives in the woods — except the witch never asked for that and has no idea why these crazy people keep abandoning infants in the woods. She rescues them and takes them to another town to place them in good homes. But then there’s one infant she can’t bring herself to give away, a girl who has magical powers that she’ll need guidance in learning to use. I found this to be a really lovely fairytale-like story with characters who came to life for me to the point I wanted to see more of them. There’s a tiny dragon who thinks he’s a normal dragon living among giants, a wise swamp monster, a young man and young woman brave enough to question the order of things. I read this in just about one sitting. It’s a good rainy Sunday afternoon sort of book.
Railhead by Philip Reeve — This is a young adult science fiction book about a distant figure in which there are wormhole-like tunnels between worlds, through which sentient trains can run. So, basically, you had me at “space trains.” A young thief who’s a bit of a “railhead” (a train enthusiast who stows away to ride around) gets recruited by a mysterious stranger to infiltrate the Emperor’s train and steal an item. But nothing is really as it seems, and carrying out the theft is just the beginning of things. This one had some truly creative worldbuilding, imagining how a massive shift in technology might affect a culture and imagining what the hip young things might get up to in that sort of world. If you enjoyed Bladerunner, this might be right up your alley.
Borderline by Mishell Baker — Adult urban fantasy. I have very mixed feelings about urban fantasy. I love the idea of it and want to like it, but I haven’t been crazy about how it’s been executed, for the most part. It tends to be way too dreary for my taste. But I really liked this one. It’s still darkish, but in a sun-drenched way. It’s set in Los Angeles, and the premise is that there are gateways that allow the fey to enter our world. Some of them do rather well as actors, with their beautiful glamours. Others turn out to be a kind of muse/other half for creative people. There’s an organization that regulates fey activity in our world, making sure they don’t outstay their welcome or break the rules. Our heroine gets recruited to join them as she recovers from a suicide attempt that seriously messed up her body (and didn’t do wonders for her brain). Getting put on the case of tracking down a missing fey nobleman who was involved in the film industry gives her a new focus in life — until she starts stepping on the wrong toes. This was a real page-turner, reading like an old noir mystery but with some definite twists. The narrator heroine isn’t the kind of character I normally like, but I found myself pulling for her, mostly because she owns her issues and isn’t looking for sympathy. It looks like this is going to be a series, and I imagine I’ll be gobbling them up.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden — this is a fantasy novel based on Russian fairy tales and folklore. It takes some tales I’m familiar with and fleshes them out and puts a spin on them. It’s really hard to describe the plot without going into a lot of detail, which I suppose means it’s not “high concept,” but it’s about a family of a lower-level prince in medieval Russia (before it really was “Russia” as we know it). The widowed father gets stuck with an arranged marriage to a woman who’s a very bad fit for that situation and who doesn’t want to be there, and it nearly brings disaster to their whole village when the stepmother clashes with the youngest daughter. Both of them can see the household spirits that protect and serve them, but where the stepmother sees demons that must be banished, the daughter is kind to them and learns from them. Which view prevails could determine whether or not they survive a harsh winter. This was a bit of a slow build of a story, one that sets the stage and establishes the situation, the characters, and the atmosphere before the plot kicks into high gear, but I still found it to be a quick read. It really immerses you in that world, so that when the plot does kick in, you feel really invested in the outcome. It was a great book for a cool, rainy Sunday afternoon. I burrowed under the electric blanket, drank tea, and read all day.
Yeah, I’m the weirdo who kind of wishes every Sunday afternoon could be cool and rainy.
Tuesday, February 07, 2017
Book Report: Fun with History
It’s amazing how much more I accomplish when I just get up a bit earlier in the morning. I got up one hour earlier than normal this morning, and I’m at about where I normally am every morning, except I’m not only dressed, but my bed is made, I got the oil changed in my car and a state inspection done, and the scrubbing bubbles are at work in the bathroom. Oh, and I have a grocery list made and coupons pulled for tomorrow’s planned shopping expedition. And I feel a bit more alert. It helps that I decided to try the kind of behavior modification tricks I use on my kindergarteners on myself. I’m giving myself points for various behaviors I want to change. Supposedly, I’ll let myself redeem those points later on something, but I know from experience that this doesn’t really matter. Just the fact of getting points will motivate me, because I’m apparently a child at heart. I should give myself stickers throughout the day when I do something on my list.
I’ve been doing some reading recently, so I have a book report.
First, a book recommended here, Child of a Hidden Sea by A.M. Dellamonica. It’s a “portal” fantasy about a person from our world visiting a fantasy world. When our heroine gets zapped into a strange world, she learns a lot more about her own origins and her role in that world’s politics. Plus, she gets intrigued by the biology of that world and how similar and different it is to earth. The fun thing about this story that I don’t think we see in a lot of portal fantasy is that the heroine is an adventurer and explorer. She goes to exotic places to study wildlife, is into diving and climbing, and all that, so she takes to this new world quite easily. She also makes sure to get all the equipment she’ll need when she gets to come back home. I’m hoping there’s a sequel, because I got the impression that the author is going somewhere with the origins of this world.
Then another book recommended here, The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. My library had this shelved in children’s fiction, but I think it’s closer to YA, and is very adult-friendly YA. Basically, it’s almost like my Fairy Tale series set in Tudor England. Queen Mary exiles a young noblewoman to a mysterious manor that may be the last gateway to the fairy realm in England, where she finds that the caretakers of this manor have been working with the fairy queen, and this has led to tragedy for the family that owns it now. This is a very spooky and atmospheric read laced with bits of the Tam Lin legend and with a rather nice romantic subplot.
I guess I was on a Tudor kick (possibly because of Secrets of the Six Wives on PBS), because my next read was My Lady Jane, by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows. This is a very difficult book to describe. It’s an alternate history fantasy with a very quirky touch. It tells the story of Lady Jane Grey, who was queen for nine days after the death of Edward Tudor but who was then ousted by Mary (aka Bloody Mary) and then executed. Except in this version, there’s magic — some people have the magical ability to change into animals — and this, rather than Protestantism and Catholicism, is the cause of the divide in the land. People like Mary and her supporters think this is evil. Jane is a scholarly girl who’d really rather be left alone with her books, but her cousin the king is persuaded to name her as his heir, and she finds herself in an arranged marriage with a young man who spends his days as a horse, and then suddenly she’s queen in very fishy circumstances. And then history gets thrown right out the window because it works out very differently. It’s all told with a very modern tone that incorporates lines and references from Shakespeare, Monty Python, and The Princess Bride. I have to say that I found this a very satisfying read because the story of Lady Jane has always struck me as so tragic and unfair. I loved the movie about her starring a very, very young Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes, and I was traumatized when the History Channel (back when they had history-related content) did a thing where they’d show a history-based movie and then have a panel of historians discuss it. The movie is romantic and moving, and then the historians talked about how fake it was and how they actually hated each other (though further reading on the subject indicates that the historians weren’t entirely correct about this). Anyway, it’s a fun read if you’re into history and think it would be better with magic and jokes.
I’ve been doing some reading recently, so I have a book report.
First, a book recommended here, Child of a Hidden Sea by A.M. Dellamonica. It’s a “portal” fantasy about a person from our world visiting a fantasy world. When our heroine gets zapped into a strange world, she learns a lot more about her own origins and her role in that world’s politics. Plus, she gets intrigued by the biology of that world and how similar and different it is to earth. The fun thing about this story that I don’t think we see in a lot of portal fantasy is that the heroine is an adventurer and explorer. She goes to exotic places to study wildlife, is into diving and climbing, and all that, so she takes to this new world quite easily. She also makes sure to get all the equipment she’ll need when she gets to come back home. I’m hoping there’s a sequel, because I got the impression that the author is going somewhere with the origins of this world.
Then another book recommended here, The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. My library had this shelved in children’s fiction, but I think it’s closer to YA, and is very adult-friendly YA. Basically, it’s almost like my Fairy Tale series set in Tudor England. Queen Mary exiles a young noblewoman to a mysterious manor that may be the last gateway to the fairy realm in England, where she finds that the caretakers of this manor have been working with the fairy queen, and this has led to tragedy for the family that owns it now. This is a very spooky and atmospheric read laced with bits of the Tam Lin legend and with a rather nice romantic subplot.
I guess I was on a Tudor kick (possibly because of Secrets of the Six Wives on PBS), because my next read was My Lady Jane, by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows. This is a very difficult book to describe. It’s an alternate history fantasy with a very quirky touch. It tells the story of Lady Jane Grey, who was queen for nine days after the death of Edward Tudor but who was then ousted by Mary (aka Bloody Mary) and then executed. Except in this version, there’s magic — some people have the magical ability to change into animals — and this, rather than Protestantism and Catholicism, is the cause of the divide in the land. People like Mary and her supporters think this is evil. Jane is a scholarly girl who’d really rather be left alone with her books, but her cousin the king is persuaded to name her as his heir, and she finds herself in an arranged marriage with a young man who spends his days as a horse, and then suddenly she’s queen in very fishy circumstances. And then history gets thrown right out the window because it works out very differently. It’s all told with a very modern tone that incorporates lines and references from Shakespeare, Monty Python, and The Princess Bride. I have to say that I found this a very satisfying read because the story of Lady Jane has always struck me as so tragic and unfair. I loved the movie about her starring a very, very young Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes, and I was traumatized when the History Channel (back when they had history-related content) did a thing where they’d show a history-based movie and then have a panel of historians discuss it. The movie is romantic and moving, and then the historians talked about how fake it was and how they actually hated each other (though further reading on the subject indicates that the historians weren’t entirely correct about this). Anyway, it’s a fun read if you’re into history and think it would be better with magic and jokes.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Book Report: Thoughts on Fantasy
I might actually meet my deadline. I think I can finish the first draft this week, and that then gives me about a week for polishing. I’m heading into the big final confrontation stuff, so it tends to go more quickly, unless I have to stop and think.
I haven’t done a book report in ages. I guess I went through a bit of a “blah” reading phase. But I recently read one I want to talk about, The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst. It’s the kind of fantasy novel I’ve been looking for. I’m not sure I’d call it “light” because some pretty dark stuff happens, but it has a sense of optimism to it and the protagonists are honorable, relatable people, so it’s not too depressing. The worldbuilding is astonishing. The society and the physical structure of the world are unlike anything I’ve seen before. This is definitely not your standard-issue quasi-medieval fantasy world.
For one thing, the people live in trees! There are whole villages formed among the branches of giant trees. However, the forest isn’t entirely safe because there’s a delicate balance between the people and the spirits of the world. The spirits want to kill people, but people have managed to keep them in check and get their service at times. The story is about what happens when that balance goes off and how it may take a new approach to achieve a different kind of balance. Saying much more about the story would give away too much.
Between this and Uprooted, it makes you look at the woods in a totally different way.
I’ve also been doing some non-fiction reading. It took me ages to get through it since I was fitting it in around fiction reading and writing, but I read The Fellowship, by Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski, which is about the group of writers around Oxford that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The book gets into the history and lives of Lewis, Tolkien, and the other main members of the Inklings, weaving their individual stories together in the ways their lives intersected and delving into their individual faiths and the influence of life and faith on their writing. It was fascinating stuff, if a bit dense at times.
In a way, it made me wish for a group of friends like that, people to get together with and talk about writing and myth and faith. But then the thought of reading my work in progress out loud to people is rather terrifying, and getting together a couple of times a week would be overkill to me. I wouldn’t have time to get any writing done.
Reading about their influences and their philosophies on fantasy was interesting because it echoes a lot of the way I look at it, as a way of exploring ideas and creating places where amazing things can happen.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this book to anyone who wasn’t really, really interested in the topic, though.
I haven’t done a book report in ages. I guess I went through a bit of a “blah” reading phase. But I recently read one I want to talk about, The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst. It’s the kind of fantasy novel I’ve been looking for. I’m not sure I’d call it “light” because some pretty dark stuff happens, but it has a sense of optimism to it and the protagonists are honorable, relatable people, so it’s not too depressing. The worldbuilding is astonishing. The society and the physical structure of the world are unlike anything I’ve seen before. This is definitely not your standard-issue quasi-medieval fantasy world.
For one thing, the people live in trees! There are whole villages formed among the branches of giant trees. However, the forest isn’t entirely safe because there’s a delicate balance between the people and the spirits of the world. The spirits want to kill people, but people have managed to keep them in check and get their service at times. The story is about what happens when that balance goes off and how it may take a new approach to achieve a different kind of balance. Saying much more about the story would give away too much.
Between this and Uprooted, it makes you look at the woods in a totally different way.
I’ve also been doing some non-fiction reading. It took me ages to get through it since I was fitting it in around fiction reading and writing, but I read The Fellowship, by Philip Zaleski and Carol Zaleski, which is about the group of writers around Oxford that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The book gets into the history and lives of Lewis, Tolkien, and the other main members of the Inklings, weaving their individual stories together in the ways their lives intersected and delving into their individual faiths and the influence of life and faith on their writing. It was fascinating stuff, if a bit dense at times.
In a way, it made me wish for a group of friends like that, people to get together with and talk about writing and myth and faith. But then the thought of reading my work in progress out loud to people is rather terrifying, and getting together a couple of times a week would be overkill to me. I wouldn’t have time to get any writing done.
Reading about their influences and their philosophies on fantasy was interesting because it echoes a lot of the way I look at it, as a way of exploring ideas and creating places where amazing things can happen.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this book to anyone who wasn’t really, really interested in the topic, though.
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Book Report: Magicians and Telepaths
I got chapter two of the new project done yesterday, though what that actually meant was fleshing out chapter one, changing the chapter break, and then fleshing out the scene before the old chapter break. Now I'm ready to start chapter three, which will really be moving forward.
Between hang-out time at my parents and my lazy Sunday enjoying the fancy new bed, I got a lot of reading done recently, so I'm due for a Book Report.
A few years ago, I read The Magicians by Lev Grossman and had very mixed feelings about it. I liked a lot of the concept and even some of the execution, but at the same time, it really bugged me. It struck me as rather derivative while trying to be edgy. The stuff at the magical school was rather obviously "It's Hogwarts, but with sex and drugs and drinking!" and then the stuff about the magical land was Narnia with a different name pasted on it, not even an attempt to scratch off the serial numbers. The really annoying thing about that was that while it was so obviously Narnia with a different name, the author was painted as a child molester. So he ripped off CS Lewis and then cast aspersions on him while claiming it was all fiction and not really him. I liked the first part of the book at school well enough, but then the characters left school midway through, and I felt like the book went off the rails. The ending made me mad enough that I didn't read the rest of the series. But then the TV series came on, and I liked it, and I learned that a lot of it came from later books. Since I'm working on my own "travel to a magical world" story, I figured I might as well tackle the whole series, mostly to make sure I'm not being accidentally derivative.
I liked the first book a little better after seeing the TV series, mostly because I like the TV versions of the characters better, and the book read better if I mentally inserted the TV characters. And I did end up liking the second book better than the first. It delved more into the magical world and then did a lot more globetrotting in our world, so we got that mix of magic and mundane that I love. I still feel like the fantasy world is a little too derivative. That part of the plot was basically Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I didn't realize quite how much was cribbed from that book until I rewatched the movie after reading this book, and wow, he barely tried to change things. At the same time, I feel like he doesn't quite get Narnia and thinks he's being edgy by making his world dangerous. Narnia was always dangerous. He's somehow managed the near-impossible of copying a story plot point by plot point while still coming across as never actually having read the original. Still, it was a fun magical adventure story that you might enjoy a bit more if you last read the Narnia books when you were 12 and don't remember them well enough to spot the ripoffs. I also liked that the characters were growing up and becoming a bit more likable. I'm in the middle of the third book now.
Then I got the new Connie Willis book, Crosstalk, which is basically a screwball comedy about telepathy. It has the feel of the old movies like Bringing up Baby and My Favorite Wife, but set in the near future, when people are so intent on communicating even more than their smart phones allow that they get brain implants that allow them to sense their romantic partner's emotions. A woman working for a cell phone company is thrilled when her boyfriend suggests they get the implants, because that means he's serious. But there might be unintended consequences. She's only supposed to be sensing emotions, but she hears a voice. And it's not her boyfriend's.
This was a fun romantic romp. The science is a little handwavy, so I think even fantasy readers might get into it. It might have been a little difficult to get into because the heroine comes across as kind of a doormat, not only with her boyfriend but also with her very intrusive, wacky family. But once the story kicks off, it gets really intense while also being very funny and eventually deeply romantic. It's not a sexy kind of romantic, but rather a really deep emotional bond formed during difficult circumstances, which is my kind of thing. I would say that if you have an intrusive family, the first few chapters might be triggering, but it ends up being somewhat important to the plot. I don't have an intrusive family, and I was practically climbing the walls during those scenes.
Between hang-out time at my parents and my lazy Sunday enjoying the fancy new bed, I got a lot of reading done recently, so I'm due for a Book Report.
A few years ago, I read The Magicians by Lev Grossman and had very mixed feelings about it. I liked a lot of the concept and even some of the execution, but at the same time, it really bugged me. It struck me as rather derivative while trying to be edgy. The stuff at the magical school was rather obviously "It's Hogwarts, but with sex and drugs and drinking!" and then the stuff about the magical land was Narnia with a different name pasted on it, not even an attempt to scratch off the serial numbers. The really annoying thing about that was that while it was so obviously Narnia with a different name, the author was painted as a child molester. So he ripped off CS Lewis and then cast aspersions on him while claiming it was all fiction and not really him. I liked the first part of the book at school well enough, but then the characters left school midway through, and I felt like the book went off the rails. The ending made me mad enough that I didn't read the rest of the series. But then the TV series came on, and I liked it, and I learned that a lot of it came from later books. Since I'm working on my own "travel to a magical world" story, I figured I might as well tackle the whole series, mostly to make sure I'm not being accidentally derivative.
I liked the first book a little better after seeing the TV series, mostly because I like the TV versions of the characters better, and the book read better if I mentally inserted the TV characters. And I did end up liking the second book better than the first. It delved more into the magical world and then did a lot more globetrotting in our world, so we got that mix of magic and mundane that I love. I still feel like the fantasy world is a little too derivative. That part of the plot was basically Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I didn't realize quite how much was cribbed from that book until I rewatched the movie after reading this book, and wow, he barely tried to change things. At the same time, I feel like he doesn't quite get Narnia and thinks he's being edgy by making his world dangerous. Narnia was always dangerous. He's somehow managed the near-impossible of copying a story plot point by plot point while still coming across as never actually having read the original. Still, it was a fun magical adventure story that you might enjoy a bit more if you last read the Narnia books when you were 12 and don't remember them well enough to spot the ripoffs. I also liked that the characters were growing up and becoming a bit more likable. I'm in the middle of the third book now.
Then I got the new Connie Willis book, Crosstalk, which is basically a screwball comedy about telepathy. It has the feel of the old movies like Bringing up Baby and My Favorite Wife, but set in the near future, when people are so intent on communicating even more than their smart phones allow that they get brain implants that allow them to sense their romantic partner's emotions. A woman working for a cell phone company is thrilled when her boyfriend suggests they get the implants, because that means he's serious. But there might be unintended consequences. She's only supposed to be sensing emotions, but she hears a voice. And it's not her boyfriend's.
This was a fun romantic romp. The science is a little handwavy, so I think even fantasy readers might get into it. It might have been a little difficult to get into because the heroine comes across as kind of a doormat, not only with her boyfriend but also with her very intrusive, wacky family. But once the story kicks off, it gets really intense while also being very funny and eventually deeply romantic. It's not a sexy kind of romantic, but rather a really deep emotional bond formed during difficult circumstances, which is my kind of thing. I would say that if you have an intrusive family, the first few chapters might be triggering, but it ends up being somewhat important to the plot. I don't have an intrusive family, and I was practically climbing the walls during those scenes.
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Fangirls and Portals
A while ago I was talking about the portal stories in children's fiction -- how it must have been common enough that it was considered a trope that gets spoofed, but I hadn't been able to think of anything for children other than the Narnia books. I did eventually dig up some others, and there was the mention of E. Nesbit, who got referenced in the Edward Eager books.
Well, I finally remembered to request one of the E. Nesbit books from the library (most of them seem to be in the archive warehouse, so they aren't shelved in the regular libraries and have to be requested). And I may not be able to get through the whole thing. I can see why Edward Eager sort of lampooned them. They seem to be an artifact of their particular time and place. At least, this one was. It's not so much the fantasy part that's the problem. It's the characters. I've barely made it to the fantasy part. I liked the way the characters found the magical land, but boy, are those kids insufferable. I'm not sure I'd have been able to get through this even when I was a child.
So, this little bit of research for the portal fantasy story I'm plotting (which involves a story within a story -- it's a portal fantasy that involves a portal fantasy) may have to go by the wayside. I just know of another way of getting between worlds that I'll have to avoid.
Over the weekend, I read what I suppose you could call a genre-adjacent book, the young adult novel Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. The idea I'm playing with involves a character who's a fangirl of the portal fantasy book, so I wanted to see what else has been said about fan culture (I like to read any books that might get compared to my idea to make sure to differentiate mine). This book is about a college freshman who seems to be shy and withdrawn, without a lot of friends, but she has an active online life as a big-name fan fiction author for a series that's basically Not!Harry Potter. She writes epic Not!Harry/Not!Draco romances. As a college student, she's struggling with keeping up with her fan fiction while also navigating classes and relationships.
I had a rather uncomfortable response to this book. On the one hand, it does seem to accurately reflect what I've seen of fan culture. I've known way too many people exactly like the heroine (just substitute for the fandom of any real property). On the other hand, while the depiction was rather respectful, it also had a note of suggesting that she was this obsessed because she had a lot of emotional damage. She also seemed extremely disconnected with reality -- she's surprised to get an F on a college creative writing assignment because she turned in fan fiction, and she couldn't understand why her professor kept talking about how her work needed to be original when she kept insisting that the story was all hers and therefore was original, even if she borrowed the characters and situation from another writer. I've encountered fan writers who were unclear on how that works (someone once sent me a Buffy fanfic that "fixed" the Willow and Tara relationship to send to my publisher because they were sure lots of people would want to read a book about that), but it was hard to sympathize with the character when I was siding with the professor. The book seemed to go back and forth on whether all this was a positive force in the character's life or something holding her back. It was a big seller -- big enough that apparently the author published a novel that was the fan fiction story the character was writing -- but I'd be curious to know how people really involved in the fan fiction community felt about the depiction.
On the other hand, I did like the way college life and relationships were portrayed, the way friendships form in a dorm and in classes. The romantic plot was rather lovely -- a healthy, positive relationship rather than the weirdness you get with a lot of college-based romances.
It was a fun book I read quickly, though it ends up that this depiction of a fangirl is very different from the one I have living in my head. Actually, the one living in my head was somewhat inspired by a girl at my church who's just so enthusiastic about the things she loves, she manages to work them into every conversation. She was in late elementary school when I first encountered her, and she made what I think she believed to be an obscure and slightly veiled Doctor Who reference. I shocked her by replying in a way that made it obvious I got it. And then she talked my ear off with enthusiasm for having someone to talk to about her obsession. That's going to be my fangirl, the person who meets a kindred spirit and bubbles over.
Well, I finally remembered to request one of the E. Nesbit books from the library (most of them seem to be in the archive warehouse, so they aren't shelved in the regular libraries and have to be requested). And I may not be able to get through the whole thing. I can see why Edward Eager sort of lampooned them. They seem to be an artifact of their particular time and place. At least, this one was. It's not so much the fantasy part that's the problem. It's the characters. I've barely made it to the fantasy part. I liked the way the characters found the magical land, but boy, are those kids insufferable. I'm not sure I'd have been able to get through this even when I was a child.
So, this little bit of research for the portal fantasy story I'm plotting (which involves a story within a story -- it's a portal fantasy that involves a portal fantasy) may have to go by the wayside. I just know of another way of getting between worlds that I'll have to avoid.
Over the weekend, I read what I suppose you could call a genre-adjacent book, the young adult novel Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. The idea I'm playing with involves a character who's a fangirl of the portal fantasy book, so I wanted to see what else has been said about fan culture (I like to read any books that might get compared to my idea to make sure to differentiate mine). This book is about a college freshman who seems to be shy and withdrawn, without a lot of friends, but she has an active online life as a big-name fan fiction author for a series that's basically Not!Harry Potter. She writes epic Not!Harry/Not!Draco romances. As a college student, she's struggling with keeping up with her fan fiction while also navigating classes and relationships.
I had a rather uncomfortable response to this book. On the one hand, it does seem to accurately reflect what I've seen of fan culture. I've known way too many people exactly like the heroine (just substitute for the fandom of any real property). On the other hand, while the depiction was rather respectful, it also had a note of suggesting that she was this obsessed because she had a lot of emotional damage. She also seemed extremely disconnected with reality -- she's surprised to get an F on a college creative writing assignment because she turned in fan fiction, and she couldn't understand why her professor kept talking about how her work needed to be original when she kept insisting that the story was all hers and therefore was original, even if she borrowed the characters and situation from another writer. I've encountered fan writers who were unclear on how that works (someone once sent me a Buffy fanfic that "fixed" the Willow and Tara relationship to send to my publisher because they were sure lots of people would want to read a book about that), but it was hard to sympathize with the character when I was siding with the professor. The book seemed to go back and forth on whether all this was a positive force in the character's life or something holding her back. It was a big seller -- big enough that apparently the author published a novel that was the fan fiction story the character was writing -- but I'd be curious to know how people really involved in the fan fiction community felt about the depiction.
On the other hand, I did like the way college life and relationships were portrayed, the way friendships form in a dorm and in classes. The romantic plot was rather lovely -- a healthy, positive relationship rather than the weirdness you get with a lot of college-based romances.
It was a fun book I read quickly, though it ends up that this depiction of a fangirl is very different from the one I have living in my head. Actually, the one living in my head was somewhat inspired by a girl at my church who's just so enthusiastic about the things she loves, she manages to work them into every conversation. She was in late elementary school when I first encountered her, and she made what I think she believed to be an obscure and slightly veiled Doctor Who reference. I shocked her by replying in a way that made it obvious I got it. And then she talked my ear off with enthusiasm for having someone to talk to about her obsession. That's going to be my fangirl, the person who meets a kindred spirit and bubbles over.
Tuesday, November 01, 2016
Frankenstein
Part of my Halloween weekend fun was watching Young Frankenstein for the first time in ages (probably since I've been adult enough to get all the jokes), and then I realized that I'd never actually read the original novel of Frankenstein. I've seen the old silent movie, I've seen numerous spoofs, I've seen more recent adaptations that were closer to the book, but I hadn't read the book. I decided this was as good a time as any to rectify that, and since it's in public domain, I got it on my tablet.
I have to say that for a novel that's considered one of the early works of horror, it wasn't that scary. I have to agree with those who classify it as science fiction. It really is more about the science and the implications of the science than it is about the scares. There's suspense, it's atmospheric, and some of the stuff happening is horrible, but I didn't find it all that scary. Also, most of the "classic" movie interpretations are so thinly based on the book as to be entirely different entities -- the look and behavior of the creature, the scope, the events, the time period.
I was a little amused by the very 19th century story telling style, something I'm coming to think of as Novel Inception, where it's a story within a story within a story within a letter. That seems to have been a common thing in early novels, where they couldn't just tell a story. It had to be a letter describing events. Sometimes, it's a letter describing a story told to the letter writer. In this case, it was letters describing events that led to meeting someone who told a story, and part of that story was a story told to that storyteller. At one point in the book, it's a letter relating a story told to the letter writer by someone who's telling a story someone else told him.
Now I think I need to read Dracula, since that probably bears little resemblance to all the adaptations that have become famous. Maybe next Halloween.
I have to say that for a novel that's considered one of the early works of horror, it wasn't that scary. I have to agree with those who classify it as science fiction. It really is more about the science and the implications of the science than it is about the scares. There's suspense, it's atmospheric, and some of the stuff happening is horrible, but I didn't find it all that scary. Also, most of the "classic" movie interpretations are so thinly based on the book as to be entirely different entities -- the look and behavior of the creature, the scope, the events, the time period.
I was a little amused by the very 19th century story telling style, something I'm coming to think of as Novel Inception, where it's a story within a story within a story within a letter. That seems to have been a common thing in early novels, where they couldn't just tell a story. It had to be a letter describing events. Sometimes, it's a letter describing a story told to the letter writer. In this case, it was letters describing events that led to meeting someone who told a story, and part of that story was a story told to that storyteller. At one point in the book, it's a letter relating a story told to the letter writer by someone who's telling a story someone else told him.
Now I think I need to read Dracula, since that probably bears little resemblance to all the adaptations that have become famous. Maybe next Halloween.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Digging into the Nebula Book Haul
One fun thing about the Nebula Awards conference is that when you arrive, you get a big bag full of books. The publishers give out books and advance reading copies, probably assuming that authors not only are big readers, but are likely to talk about the books they've read, and they may have a bigger audience than your average reader when they do talk about books, so it's a good way to spread word of mouth. I suppose it's mostly true, though there are average readers and book bloggers who have bigger Twitter followings than I have. (There are inanimate objects who have bigger Twitter followings than I have.)
At any rate, I ended up with enough books that I picked up a Priority Mail flat rate box at the post office down the street and stuffed it with as many books as would fit, along with some dirty clothes for cushioning, to ship back to myself, and I still ended up with my duffle bag packed full.
Now, I suppose I need to carry out my end of the bargain and talk about the books I've read. I've already read one, The Queen's Poisoner, by Jeff Wheeler, and I liked it well enough that I'll probably pick up the sequels.
Clever readers may figure out somewhere during the book that it's kind of an alt-history fantasy retelling of Shakespeare's Richard III, with some other bits of history woven in, but from the perspective of a young boy taken to court as a hostage when his father betrays the king. He's befriended by a mysterious woman who lives secretly in a remote tower of the castle and who seems to be manipulating events. There's also the spirited granddaughter of one of the lords, brought to court to get her away from trouble at home, and the two kids become close friends. This is rather pleasant fantasy reading. There's plenty of tension because the fates of our young hero and his family are always teetering on the brink of disaster, and he's up to activities that could lead to dire consequences if he's discovered, but it's not as dire or grim as has become the vogue in fantasy lately. There are good people who don't suffer terrible fates and there are bad people who get what's coming to them, and that's satisfying to read. I found the book engrossing enough that I almost finished it on the airplane and then stood reading it at the train station while waiting for my bus on the way home. In this book, the protagonists are kids, but apparently in the sequel they'll be in their late teens. This book has its own arc but is also about setting up the characters for more major roles in events.
So, if you're looking for people you want to cheer for, an intriguing fantasy world based on water, bits of real history, and a lot less darkness, this might be a good choice. It's a book published by one of Amazon's imprints, so you'll probably have to get it from Amazon, as most other outlets are refusing to carry Amazon books.
At any rate, I ended up with enough books that I picked up a Priority Mail flat rate box at the post office down the street and stuffed it with as many books as would fit, along with some dirty clothes for cushioning, to ship back to myself, and I still ended up with my duffle bag packed full.
Now, I suppose I need to carry out my end of the bargain and talk about the books I've read. I've already read one, The Queen's Poisoner, by Jeff Wheeler, and I liked it well enough that I'll probably pick up the sequels.
Clever readers may figure out somewhere during the book that it's kind of an alt-history fantasy retelling of Shakespeare's Richard III, with some other bits of history woven in, but from the perspective of a young boy taken to court as a hostage when his father betrays the king. He's befriended by a mysterious woman who lives secretly in a remote tower of the castle and who seems to be manipulating events. There's also the spirited granddaughter of one of the lords, brought to court to get her away from trouble at home, and the two kids become close friends. This is rather pleasant fantasy reading. There's plenty of tension because the fates of our young hero and his family are always teetering on the brink of disaster, and he's up to activities that could lead to dire consequences if he's discovered, but it's not as dire or grim as has become the vogue in fantasy lately. There are good people who don't suffer terrible fates and there are bad people who get what's coming to them, and that's satisfying to read. I found the book engrossing enough that I almost finished it on the airplane and then stood reading it at the train station while waiting for my bus on the way home. In this book, the protagonists are kids, but apparently in the sequel they'll be in their late teens. This book has its own arc but is also about setting up the characters for more major roles in events.
So, if you're looking for people you want to cheer for, an intriguing fantasy world based on water, bits of real history, and a lot less darkness, this might be a good choice. It's a book published by one of Amazon's imprints, so you'll probably have to get it from Amazon, as most other outlets are refusing to carry Amazon books.
Tuesday, May 03, 2016
Book Report: Fun with Secret Identities
It's been ages since I've talked about books I've read. It's not so much that I've been in a reading slump as it is that I've been doing other kinds of reading. I was reading my way through the ballot for the Nebula Awards, and since that's a voting thing I'm a little reluctant to talk a lot about my feelings about those works. I'm keeping up with a reread that's being done on a site. And I'm doing a "read the Bible through in a year" thing with my church, which eats up a lot of my reading time. If you want a book report there, Numbers is like reading the census report, but Judges is pretty juicy. You could make a Game of Thrones-style series out of that. There's tons of sex, violence, and, yes, nudity.
But I have read a book for fun, The Thorn of Dentonhill by Marshall Ryan Maresca. Marshall's now one of my convention buddies, but when I first bought this book, I don't believe I'd ever met him or spoken to him. It just sounded like a lot of fun, the kind of thing I'd been saying I wanted, a "non-epic" more intimate traditional fantasy.
It's about a student studying magic at a university (it's not like Hogwarts where it's a school for wizards, more like he's majoring in magic at a regular university), but at night he uses his skills from his childhood as a carnival acrobat to carry out vigilante justice against a crime boss who destroyed his family. And then one night he foils a deal and finds himself in possession of some powerful magical items that allow him to really ramp up his crusade, but that also make him a target for more than one group.
I suppose there's an element of superhero story here, now that I look at it (there's even a cape involved), but I read it as more of a Scarlet Pimpernel kind of thing. You may have noticed from some of my recent work that I enjoy the secret identity exploits kind of story. So, yeah, this was basically catnip for me. Lots of running around on rooftops at night and sneaking home while trying to avoid being caught, having to keep a straight face when others are speculating on who the alter ego really is and what he's up to. I love that we have a good, honorable hero who really is trying to do the right thing, even if he sometimes screws up. This is a great example of how a nice, good character doesn't have to be boring. He has his own issues and baggage and struggles, while still being basically a good person. The imaginary city where this is set feels like a real place, so it's no surprise that not only are there more books in the series, but there are also some spin-off stories set in the same place but involving different characters.
So, if you're looking for a fun fantasy read involving characters you actually like, this is a great choice, and I'll definitely be following the rest of the books in this world.
But I have read a book for fun, The Thorn of Dentonhill by Marshall Ryan Maresca. Marshall's now one of my convention buddies, but when I first bought this book, I don't believe I'd ever met him or spoken to him. It just sounded like a lot of fun, the kind of thing I'd been saying I wanted, a "non-epic" more intimate traditional fantasy.
It's about a student studying magic at a university (it's not like Hogwarts where it's a school for wizards, more like he's majoring in magic at a regular university), but at night he uses his skills from his childhood as a carnival acrobat to carry out vigilante justice against a crime boss who destroyed his family. And then one night he foils a deal and finds himself in possession of some powerful magical items that allow him to really ramp up his crusade, but that also make him a target for more than one group.
I suppose there's an element of superhero story here, now that I look at it (there's even a cape involved), but I read it as more of a Scarlet Pimpernel kind of thing. You may have noticed from some of my recent work that I enjoy the secret identity exploits kind of story. So, yeah, this was basically catnip for me. Lots of running around on rooftops at night and sneaking home while trying to avoid being caught, having to keep a straight face when others are speculating on who the alter ego really is and what he's up to. I love that we have a good, honorable hero who really is trying to do the right thing, even if he sometimes screws up. This is a great example of how a nice, good character doesn't have to be boring. He has his own issues and baggage and struggles, while still being basically a good person. The imaginary city where this is set feels like a real place, so it's no surprise that not only are there more books in the series, but there are also some spin-off stories set in the same place but involving different characters.
So, if you're looking for a fun fantasy read involving characters you actually like, this is a great choice, and I'll definitely be following the rest of the books in this world.
Tuesday, February 09, 2016
The Second Coming of Mary Stewart
It appears that I wasn't selected for the local teen book festival (yeah, in spite of being local and having a book on the library association's list of recommended reading) because they've announced all the attendees. Not that they've notified me either way, which I believe is rather rude. I had a long bout of feeling sorry for myself yesterday because it's already being a very tough year, career-wise. My agent actually forgot about me (well, something I'd sent months ago), it's not looking good about my publisher picking up my option book, royalties are way down across the board, and now this. Oh, and an out-of-town for-profit convention that invited me out of the blue (but for which I'd have to pay my own travel expenses) is only planning to put me on three panels for the whole weekend -- basically, they're paying in "exposure" without providing the exposure, so I'm considering backing out because I can't justify the considerable time and expense for so little payoff.
It's enough to make me wonder if this business is worth it and if I even have a future. But then I remembered that quitting would require getting a regular job, and that would probably require leaving the house, and I hated my old job, and I'm probably unemployable at my age with my last real job being more than a decade ago, and it would take a lot of retraining to do anything else. So I guess I'll just have to make this work and become really successful, and then when this book festival wants me, I'll laugh and tell them that I'd rather not deal with them after the way they behaved the last time I dealt with them.
Which means I'd better get busy writing. "Success is the best form of revenge" schemes require so much work.
In other news, in my day of lazy reading this weekend, I found a new-to-me author who seems to be basically the Second Coming of Mary Stewart -- contemporary, sort of Gothic romantic suspense. The author is Susanna Kearsley, and the book I read was The Splendour Falls. A young Englishwoman is invited by her cousin to join him for a holiday in a French town with a famous castle. The cousin is an academic who studies the Plantagenets, and this town and castle were held by them. There are legends about a great treasure the wife of King John hid there when the castle was under siege, and the cousin thinks he's found a good local source to discuss this. But when the heroine arrives, her cousin isn't there to meet her at the train station as promised. He's a notorious flake, though, so she doesn't think much of it and makes friends among the other guests at the hotel while she figures he'll eventually show up after he's done being sidetracked. Then she learns about a recent suspicious death and another local legend related to treasure, and she discovers something that leads her to believe that her cousin has actually been in town.
There are all the things that I used to love in the old Mary Stewart books -- picturesque setting (I even looked it up, and now I want to go there), a couple of possible love interests, but you don't know which one she'll end up with, secrets and mystery, a tie to history. And it doesn't have some of the stuff I used to dislike in those books. The heroine is a lot stronger and less of a victim, and the "dark, dangerous" man who treats her like a child isn't shown as all that appealing. This book was originally published in 1995 (this seems to be a newer edition, published in 2013), so in a lot of respects it's not that different from the Mary Stewart books. It's before the age when people would have just Googled to get information and before cell phones were so ubiquitous (it would have ruined the plot if she'd been able to just call her cousin and say, "I'm at the train station, where are you?"). This one was modern, but not too modern.
And the wonderful thing is that there are lots of books by this author, so next free weekend I get, I'll have to stock up from the library.
I will confess that ever since I started thinking about doing some traveling, when I read a book set in a hotel, with the guests as characters, I find myself thinking about how I'd be described as one of the guests. Probably that quiet one who keeps to herself and is prone to long, solitary walks and is therefore the first suspect.
It's enough to make me wonder if this business is worth it and if I even have a future. But then I remembered that quitting would require getting a regular job, and that would probably require leaving the house, and I hated my old job, and I'm probably unemployable at my age with my last real job being more than a decade ago, and it would take a lot of retraining to do anything else. So I guess I'll just have to make this work and become really successful, and then when this book festival wants me, I'll laugh and tell them that I'd rather not deal with them after the way they behaved the last time I dealt with them.
Which means I'd better get busy writing. "Success is the best form of revenge" schemes require so much work.
In other news, in my day of lazy reading this weekend, I found a new-to-me author who seems to be basically the Second Coming of Mary Stewart -- contemporary, sort of Gothic romantic suspense. The author is Susanna Kearsley, and the book I read was The Splendour Falls. A young Englishwoman is invited by her cousin to join him for a holiday in a French town with a famous castle. The cousin is an academic who studies the Plantagenets, and this town and castle were held by them. There are legends about a great treasure the wife of King John hid there when the castle was under siege, and the cousin thinks he's found a good local source to discuss this. But when the heroine arrives, her cousin isn't there to meet her at the train station as promised. He's a notorious flake, though, so she doesn't think much of it and makes friends among the other guests at the hotel while she figures he'll eventually show up after he's done being sidetracked. Then she learns about a recent suspicious death and another local legend related to treasure, and she discovers something that leads her to believe that her cousin has actually been in town.
There are all the things that I used to love in the old Mary Stewart books -- picturesque setting (I even looked it up, and now I want to go there), a couple of possible love interests, but you don't know which one she'll end up with, secrets and mystery, a tie to history. And it doesn't have some of the stuff I used to dislike in those books. The heroine is a lot stronger and less of a victim, and the "dark, dangerous" man who treats her like a child isn't shown as all that appealing. This book was originally published in 1995 (this seems to be a newer edition, published in 2013), so in a lot of respects it's not that different from the Mary Stewart books. It's before the age when people would have just Googled to get information and before cell phones were so ubiquitous (it would have ruined the plot if she'd been able to just call her cousin and say, "I'm at the train station, where are you?"). This one was modern, but not too modern.
And the wonderful thing is that there are lots of books by this author, so next free weekend I get, I'll have to stock up from the library.
I will confess that ever since I started thinking about doing some traveling, when I read a book set in a hotel, with the guests as characters, I find myself thinking about how I'd be described as one of the guests. Probably that quiet one who keeps to herself and is prone to long, solitary walks and is therefore the first suspect.
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Book Report: Uprooted
One thing I'm trying to do more of this year is read. It's one of my favorite things to do, and it's essential to my work, but I haven't done as much of it as I'd like. So, I'm trying to make myself get away from the TV and the computer earlier at night and read more before I go to bed. Not only does that give me more reading time, but it means better sleep because electronic screen stuff can interfere with the sleep cycle.
So, this year I've already managed to read a Big, Fat Fantasy novel -- but fortunately not one that appears to be part of an epic series. I can imagine that there might be room for more stories in that world, but this one actually had a satisfying ending. It was Uprooted by Naomi Novik (the author of the Temeraire series, but this book is entirely unconnected).
It's inspired by/based on Polish fairy tales, and it contains a lot of fairy tale-like elements, though more fleshed-out and detailed than your typical fairy tale. There are some elements I recognized from my reading, but they're put together in a different way.
This is the story about a young woman from a village on the edge of a great Wood. Every ten years, the wizard who lives in the tower chooses a 17-year-old girl from the villages under him to serve him for ten years, and our heroine is in the group of candidates. Much to her surprise, since she's not the most beautiful or clever, she gets chosen. And it turns out that the job isn't at all what she expected it to be.
This Wood isn't just a place that's scary because it's dark and wild things live there. The Wood itself is a malevolent force that takes people or else gets into them and corrupts them. It's basically the demon forest from hell, and it's out to turn all the people against each other. Our heroine and the wizard have to figure out what it's doing and find a way to stop it.
This is the kind of fantasy I wish I could find more of. It's very focused on the characters rather than all the political maneuvering. There's magic, mystery, and romance, but some of the strongest relationships aren't romantic. We have an unlikely heroine who forges her own path. We have a scary villain that's hard to defeat. And there's an ending rather than a cliffhanger.
I'm not sure whether this book makes me want to take a walk in the woods (if only I could find a walking path in the woods that isn't under water right now) or take the clippers to that evil alien vine on my patio. Maybe both.
Oh, and fun trivia fact: it turns out that Naomi Novik's husband is the editor who published the Stephen King story that became the series Haven, and he was one of the producers and writers for the series. There was that episode about the evil plants attacking people ...
Meanwhile, I've started brainstorming something new, and it's going in some very unexpected directions.
So, this year I've already managed to read a Big, Fat Fantasy novel -- but fortunately not one that appears to be part of an epic series. I can imagine that there might be room for more stories in that world, but this one actually had a satisfying ending. It was Uprooted by Naomi Novik (the author of the Temeraire series, but this book is entirely unconnected).
It's inspired by/based on Polish fairy tales, and it contains a lot of fairy tale-like elements, though more fleshed-out and detailed than your typical fairy tale. There are some elements I recognized from my reading, but they're put together in a different way.
This is the story about a young woman from a village on the edge of a great Wood. Every ten years, the wizard who lives in the tower chooses a 17-year-old girl from the villages under him to serve him for ten years, and our heroine is in the group of candidates. Much to her surprise, since she's not the most beautiful or clever, she gets chosen. And it turns out that the job isn't at all what she expected it to be.
This Wood isn't just a place that's scary because it's dark and wild things live there. The Wood itself is a malevolent force that takes people or else gets into them and corrupts them. It's basically the demon forest from hell, and it's out to turn all the people against each other. Our heroine and the wizard have to figure out what it's doing and find a way to stop it.
This is the kind of fantasy I wish I could find more of. It's very focused on the characters rather than all the political maneuvering. There's magic, mystery, and romance, but some of the strongest relationships aren't romantic. We have an unlikely heroine who forges her own path. We have a scary villain that's hard to defeat. And there's an ending rather than a cliffhanger.
I'm not sure whether this book makes me want to take a walk in the woods (if only I could find a walking path in the woods that isn't under water right now) or take the clippers to that evil alien vine on my patio. Maybe both.
Oh, and fun trivia fact: it turns out that Naomi Novik's husband is the editor who published the Stephen King story that became the series Haven, and he was one of the producers and writers for the series. There was that episode about the evil plants attacking people ...
Meanwhile, I've started brainstorming something new, and it's going in some very unexpected directions.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
When a Book Makes Me Feel Inadequate
I was all ready to rock and roll on the writing yesterday because I knew what would happen next -- and then I realized that while I have the big-picture sense of what was happening next, I was entirely lacking in specifics. And then I realized that I was lacking some information. Sometimes, "I need to do some research on this" is a procrastination method, but in this case, it turned out that my vague assumptions were wrong, and that will affect how I write the next part. It doesn't change my plot, just the timeline and how many actions I need to cover the span of time it takes to get from point A to point B.
Though there were one or two research rabbit holes I might have followed that weren't specifically relevant to my work but that were interesting.
So now I have a better idea of what's happening, and today should be rock-and-roll day.
It's possible that I was a little reluctant to write words because I had a reading hangover from the weekend. I read one of those books that leaves me feeling like a fraud and wondering why I even bother. At that library event last week, I picked up a copy of The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, the "one book, one city" book for the year. It's a book that's a bit difficult to describe. Plot-wise, it's about a girl in 1939 Germany whose mother has to give her up (her mother is a communist, and therefore outside the pale of Nazi-era society, and she reaches the point where she's unable to care for her child) and the couple who takes her in. In some respects, she has as idyllic a life as she can expect against the backdrop of war in a small town near Munich. She has friends and her foster parents are good to her. But her foster father is an anti-Nazi and has trouble getting work because of that, so times are tough. He never got on board with the party because of the anti-Jewish stance, since his life was saved in WWI by his Jewish friend. And now the son of his friend is in need of help. The "book thief" thing happens because this young girl has a habit of picking up books -- first when the gravedigger drops one at her brother's funeral, later when she finds one that didn't burn in a book-burning event, later still when she gets access to a private library. She becomes more and more fascinated with words and their power.
But it's not really a book about the plot. The slightly odd thing that takes some getting used to is that it's narrated by Death, who is fascinated by humans and who becomes interested in this girl when he sees her as her brother dies. There's a lot of meditation on the human condition and the impact of war. It's both brutal and beautiful, and it ends up working quite well in a way that had me sighing, "I'll never be able to do something like this."
It's also a pretty intense book. I was glad I'd seen the movie because otherwise I'd have been skipping to the end. I wouldn't have been able to take the tension otherwise. I'd call the ending bittersweet -- part realistic, given the circumstances, but with a big dose of hope.
So, yeah, the kind of thing that gives me inadequacy issues. But then last night I pulled something off the To-Be-Read shelf that had me wondering how it even got published, so I think I'll be back on track today.
Though there were one or two research rabbit holes I might have followed that weren't specifically relevant to my work but that were interesting.
So now I have a better idea of what's happening, and today should be rock-and-roll day.
It's possible that I was a little reluctant to write words because I had a reading hangover from the weekend. I read one of those books that leaves me feeling like a fraud and wondering why I even bother. At that library event last week, I picked up a copy of The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, the "one book, one city" book for the year. It's a book that's a bit difficult to describe. Plot-wise, it's about a girl in 1939 Germany whose mother has to give her up (her mother is a communist, and therefore outside the pale of Nazi-era society, and she reaches the point where she's unable to care for her child) and the couple who takes her in. In some respects, she has as idyllic a life as she can expect against the backdrop of war in a small town near Munich. She has friends and her foster parents are good to her. But her foster father is an anti-Nazi and has trouble getting work because of that, so times are tough. He never got on board with the party because of the anti-Jewish stance, since his life was saved in WWI by his Jewish friend. And now the son of his friend is in need of help. The "book thief" thing happens because this young girl has a habit of picking up books -- first when the gravedigger drops one at her brother's funeral, later when she finds one that didn't burn in a book-burning event, later still when she gets access to a private library. She becomes more and more fascinated with words and their power.
But it's not really a book about the plot. The slightly odd thing that takes some getting used to is that it's narrated by Death, who is fascinated by humans and who becomes interested in this girl when he sees her as her brother dies. There's a lot of meditation on the human condition and the impact of war. It's both brutal and beautiful, and it ends up working quite well in a way that had me sighing, "I'll never be able to do something like this."
It's also a pretty intense book. I was glad I'd seen the movie because otherwise I'd have been skipping to the end. I wouldn't have been able to take the tension otherwise. I'd call the ending bittersweet -- part realistic, given the circumstances, but with a big dose of hope.
So, yeah, the kind of thing that gives me inadequacy issues. But then last night I pulled something off the To-Be-Read shelf that had me wondering how it even got published, so I think I'll be back on track today.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Book Report: Saying Goodbye to Discworld
This is a post that I've put off writing for a while because it feels like writing it makes it real, but it is real, regardless of what I say. I read The Shepherd's Crown, the final Terry Pratchett book, last week, and I want to talk about it, but it also feels like talking about it will somehow give it a sense of finality that it wouldn't have had if I hadn't yet talked about it. If that makes sense. Maybe it's that talking about it completes the process of reading the book, so it really is over. I also procrastinated about reading it. I had it about half a week before I let myself read it, and then after plowing through about half in one day I made the rest of it last the rest of the week.
It's hard to talk about the plot without spoiling a major event, and it's a book that isn't really about the plot. It's about the characters. The story is about the elves deciding to try to make a comeback, and it's up to young witch Tiffany Aching to find a way to stop them and save her land. But it's really a major coming-of-age story for Tiffany, who's still young but having to function like an adult, and it's about the way the world is changing, with new technology and new ideas.
I've read some reviews that say it reads like Pratchett knew this would be his last book, and I'd have to agree. There's a bit of a farewell tour among some of the major characters from the entire Discworld series, and it feels like most of the plot threads that intersect this particular sub-series are wrapped up well enough that we can feel like we know the outcome. I had the sense of an author saying goodbye to his people. Those were the parts that had me sobbing. There's a note at the end that says this book wasn't quite finished -- the story is complete, but all the usual tinkering that would have been done in revisions didn't get finished. I wouldn't say that I noticed this or felt any lack while reading it, but looking back and comparing it to other books, I can kind of see it.
It's hard to judge the book itself without all the emotions attached to it. I enjoyed reading it. I found it profound and funny at the same time. I want more, and it's sad that there won't be any more. It's definitely not something slapped together posthumously. It's worthy of the name on the cover. But it may be difficult for fans to read, in some respects, because these people have become real to us, and it's hard to say goodbye. Fortunately, there are all those other books we can revisit.
I would say that this is a book best read alone, with a box of tissues handy, and with your calendar cleared for the day (unless you end up doing like I did and dragging it out).
It's hard to talk about the plot without spoiling a major event, and it's a book that isn't really about the plot. It's about the characters. The story is about the elves deciding to try to make a comeback, and it's up to young witch Tiffany Aching to find a way to stop them and save her land. But it's really a major coming-of-age story for Tiffany, who's still young but having to function like an adult, and it's about the way the world is changing, with new technology and new ideas.
I've read some reviews that say it reads like Pratchett knew this would be his last book, and I'd have to agree. There's a bit of a farewell tour among some of the major characters from the entire Discworld series, and it feels like most of the plot threads that intersect this particular sub-series are wrapped up well enough that we can feel like we know the outcome. I had the sense of an author saying goodbye to his people. Those were the parts that had me sobbing. There's a note at the end that says this book wasn't quite finished -- the story is complete, but all the usual tinkering that would have been done in revisions didn't get finished. I wouldn't say that I noticed this or felt any lack while reading it, but looking back and comparing it to other books, I can kind of see it.
It's hard to judge the book itself without all the emotions attached to it. I enjoyed reading it. I found it profound and funny at the same time. I want more, and it's sad that there won't be any more. It's definitely not something slapped together posthumously. It's worthy of the name on the cover. But it may be difficult for fans to read, in some respects, because these people have become real to us, and it's hard to say goodbye. Fortunately, there are all those other books we can revisit.
I would say that this is a book best read alone, with a box of tissues handy, and with your calendar cleared for the day (unless you end up doing like I did and dragging it out).
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Re-Reading and New Reading
I got a little more than halfway through the book yesterday, and I'm starting to see that I wasn't totally off-base when I was afraid that the book was mostly conversations. I'm listing all the scenes and will go back and chart which were conversations and which were action. There are a couple of scenes of very intense, conflict-laden conversations, which is okay, but I don't want too many scenes of people sitting around and talking about things that are happening. I need more scenes of things happening. I suspect a lot of this is plotting on paper, where the conversations about what to do are how I figured out what they should do, and I can now cut the conversation and go straight to what they decided to do.
One thing that is impressing me in rereading this book is the way I'm stringing words together. I have the occasional bit of description that I really like, that gives a perfect mental image and that's true to the way the viewpoint character sees things, so that we also get an insight into that person. I'm having a lot of "wow, I did that?" moments.
Meanwhile, I actually managed to read a book for fun all the way through (something that hasn't happened in a while). Last weekend I read Foxglove Summer, the latest in the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. I've described this series as kind of a Harry Potter meets CSI thing, or a British Dresden Files. It's about a young London policeman who gets recruited for a special division that's basically their version of the X-files unit, only more about magic than about aliens, and he ends up being trained as an apprentice wizard.
This book is kind of a one-off after the very intense previous book, giving our hero a break after some really nasty stuff happened. A couple of girls have gone missing in a rural area and our hero is sent to interview some known magic-related people in the area just to rule them out. He sticks around to help with the case and comes to find out that there really is something under his jurisdiction going on.
The fun thing about these books is that the narrator is a fairly geeky guy, so the book is just dripping with nerdy pop-culture references. Like many geeks, he speaks in movie and TV quotes and has them for any occasion. It's like a game spotting all the lines that are from some known thing (Aliens seems to have been the movie of choice for this book). He's an apprentice wizard who's read all the Harry Potter books and who's obsessed with Doctor Who, and that makes things even more fun. I feel like this guy would be my friend if I knew him, so I don't really care what adventures he's on as long as I get to spend time with him. In this case, the story fit in with some of the same folklore and fantasy elements I'm currently working with, so I enjoyed it a lot, even though it wasn't really part of the story arc of the series. It also made me want to go walking through the English countryside. And rewatch Aliens because there might be some lines I missed.
And now I have to wait for the next one.
Speaking of waiting for books, two more weeks until Rebel Mechanics comes out!
One thing that is impressing me in rereading this book is the way I'm stringing words together. I have the occasional bit of description that I really like, that gives a perfect mental image and that's true to the way the viewpoint character sees things, so that we also get an insight into that person. I'm having a lot of "wow, I did that?" moments.
Meanwhile, I actually managed to read a book for fun all the way through (something that hasn't happened in a while). Last weekend I read Foxglove Summer, the latest in the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch. I've described this series as kind of a Harry Potter meets CSI thing, or a British Dresden Files. It's about a young London policeman who gets recruited for a special division that's basically their version of the X-files unit, only more about magic than about aliens, and he ends up being trained as an apprentice wizard.
This book is kind of a one-off after the very intense previous book, giving our hero a break after some really nasty stuff happened. A couple of girls have gone missing in a rural area and our hero is sent to interview some known magic-related people in the area just to rule them out. He sticks around to help with the case and comes to find out that there really is something under his jurisdiction going on.
The fun thing about these books is that the narrator is a fairly geeky guy, so the book is just dripping with nerdy pop-culture references. Like many geeks, he speaks in movie and TV quotes and has them for any occasion. It's like a game spotting all the lines that are from some known thing (Aliens seems to have been the movie of choice for this book). He's an apprentice wizard who's read all the Harry Potter books and who's obsessed with Doctor Who, and that makes things even more fun. I feel like this guy would be my friend if I knew him, so I don't really care what adventures he's on as long as I get to spend time with him. In this case, the story fit in with some of the same folklore and fantasy elements I'm currently working with, so I enjoyed it a lot, even though it wasn't really part of the story arc of the series. It also made me want to go walking through the English countryside. And rewatch Aliens because there might be some lines I missed.
And now I have to wait for the next one.
Speaking of waiting for books, two more weeks until Rebel Mechanics comes out!
Tuesday, February 03, 2015
Girls in Towers
Yesterday was pretty productive. I got a fair amount of research reading done, and I had a few plot idea breakthroughs. I'm starting to see bits of mental movie for this book again. I've also done some PR thinking and planning. I may be about to make the scary leap into Twitter. I have a few more ideas I need to implement, so stay tuned for news.
In the meantime, I have a book to discuss! As you may have noticed, I have a thing for fairy tales. I also love history. And magic. I found a book that combines all of them, Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth. It's a Rapunzel story that's also about the writing of the Rapunzel story. The story of the maiden in a tower may possibly have been a folk tale, but there were two very early published versions, so it might also have been what's often called a "literary fairy tale" that was written by a particular author, like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, or Peter Pan. The earliest version was Italian, and then there was a later French version, but apparently it would have been unlikely for the French author to have seen, heard of, or read the Italian version. This novel attempts to explain this. I suppose in a way that this book could be considered historical magical realism because the fantasy element is that the folk magic that was actually practiced -- love charms, curses, and the like -- really is magic and really works. But the book is based somewhat on real people and real events.
The author of the French version of the Rapunzel story was a scandalous noblewoman and novelist. She was banished to a convent by Louis XIV after one scandal too many. That much is true. In this novel, while she's in the convent, the elderly nun who tends the garden befriends her, and while they work in the garden together, the older nun tells her the story of a young girl who's taken away from her parents by a witch and locked in a tower.
The narrative involves stories within the story. There's the framing story of the woman being sent to the convent and trying to adapt to the abrupt change in lifestyle. There's the story the older nun tells about the girl in the tower. There are flashbacks to the main character's life, from childhood on up, explaining what led to her being sent to the convent. And then we also get the story of the witch's life and why she locked the girl in the tower.
If you're into history, there's a fun look at life in the court of Louis XIV and at life in Renaissance Venice. I found myself digging up Baroque music and wanting to read more about both time periods. The Rapunzel part of the story is one of the more interesting fairy tale fleshing-outs I've read. It makes the story make so much more sense by getting into the motives of everyone involved (and even explains the salad craving and why the witch is so uptight about her garden being invaded). I admit that the book was a bit slow-going at first, but it picked up once I got into it.
Now I think I need to re-watch Tangled.
In the meantime, I have a book to discuss! As you may have noticed, I have a thing for fairy tales. I also love history. And magic. I found a book that combines all of them, Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth. It's a Rapunzel story that's also about the writing of the Rapunzel story. The story of the maiden in a tower may possibly have been a folk tale, but there were two very early published versions, so it might also have been what's often called a "literary fairy tale" that was written by a particular author, like Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, or Peter Pan. The earliest version was Italian, and then there was a later French version, but apparently it would have been unlikely for the French author to have seen, heard of, or read the Italian version. This novel attempts to explain this. I suppose in a way that this book could be considered historical magical realism because the fantasy element is that the folk magic that was actually practiced -- love charms, curses, and the like -- really is magic and really works. But the book is based somewhat on real people and real events.
The author of the French version of the Rapunzel story was a scandalous noblewoman and novelist. She was banished to a convent by Louis XIV after one scandal too many. That much is true. In this novel, while she's in the convent, the elderly nun who tends the garden befriends her, and while they work in the garden together, the older nun tells her the story of a young girl who's taken away from her parents by a witch and locked in a tower.
The narrative involves stories within the story. There's the framing story of the woman being sent to the convent and trying to adapt to the abrupt change in lifestyle. There's the story the older nun tells about the girl in the tower. There are flashbacks to the main character's life, from childhood on up, explaining what led to her being sent to the convent. And then we also get the story of the witch's life and why she locked the girl in the tower.
If you're into history, there's a fun look at life in the court of Louis XIV and at life in Renaissance Venice. I found myself digging up Baroque music and wanting to read more about both time periods. The Rapunzel part of the story is one of the more interesting fairy tale fleshing-outs I've read. It makes the story make so much more sense by getting into the motives of everyone involved (and even explains the salad craving and why the witch is so uptight about her garden being invaded). I admit that the book was a bit slow-going at first, but it picked up once I got into it.
Now I think I need to re-watch Tangled.
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Swashbuckling Romantic Fantasy
The house has now been totally de-Christmassed, aside from all those artificial pine needles that never seem to go away. Since today is Epiphany, I'll take down the Nativity scene tomorrow. So I guess I'm back to normal. I also got a good start on copyedits yesterday and will try to finish today so I can spend the rest of the week giving it one more once-over as a proofread.
I did a fair amount of reading over the holidays, but much of it was re-reading, along with more books in the Phryne Fisher series. I've started thinking of these as Nancy Drew for adults, since just about every book shows off some random skill or knowledge Phyrne has. At least with her, she's an adult who's lived a really full life, so it's more believable that she's a trick rider, pilot, race driver, cricket expert, etc., than it was for Nancy to be able to do all that stuff at 18. And then there's a touch of a gender-switched James Bond thrown in, as she tends to collect attractive men and has at least one new lover per book, most of whom are quickly forgotten.
Last Friday was cold and rainy, and I wrapped up my holidays by curling up with what turned out to be a really wonderful book, Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen, which is a fantasy/romance for adults about Captain Hook from Peter Pan. I will confess that my choice of this book had a bit to do with my slight crush on the version of Captain Hook on Once Upon a Time, and this take probably gets closer to that than to the original, as it's essentially a redemption story. It also fits the Once Upon a Time story structure, with a present-day story interspersed with backstory flashbacks.
In this take on the story, Hook was cursed into Neverland when he chose revenge and his reputation as a pirate over love (the other pirates would have thought he'd gone soft if he gave up piracy for a woman). He's made immortal, so he can't be killed. He just suffers through and heals from wounds that should have been fatal. He and Pan are the only immortals on the island, so the Lost Boys are sent home when they get too old and the pirates get killed in the ongoing fights with the Lost Boys. The pirate crew keeps getting replenished by former Lost Boys who return to Neverland when they can't handle the transition back to the real world and never actually grow up, in spite of being adults. After a couple of centuries of this, Hook is getting really, really tired of it all. And then an adult woman shows up, something that's never happened before (since Pan thinks grown women are icky). She's a war widow who longed to escape the gloom of 1950 London, and she might just be Hook's last chance to escape Neverland.
This is one of those books that manages to be a lot of things, all at once. It's an adventure story, there's a mystery, there are a lot of fantasy elements, and there's a love story. But it's also a meditation on what it is to grow up and be an adult -- about taking responsibility, about standing up for yourself and not following the crowd, about knowing what's right and not being swayed from it, about recognizing consequences. Hook may have been a man in his 40s when he was sent to Neverland, but he wasn't a grown-up. He was just as arrested as Pan himself. So this is also a belated coming-of-age story.
It was the perfect thing to read on a cold, rainy night, and I almost couldn't put it down. This is definitely one I'll be rereading eventually, and I may even end up with a keeper copy (after I move and get some bookshelf space). Now I want to write a good swashbuckling romantic fantasy. But first I have to finish copyedits on this book, then finish writing book 3 in that series, and then I want to get a start on my second steampunk book, and then I have something pretty ambitious that I want to tackle.
I did a fair amount of reading over the holidays, but much of it was re-reading, along with more books in the Phryne Fisher series. I've started thinking of these as Nancy Drew for adults, since just about every book shows off some random skill or knowledge Phyrne has. At least with her, she's an adult who's lived a really full life, so it's more believable that she's a trick rider, pilot, race driver, cricket expert, etc., than it was for Nancy to be able to do all that stuff at 18. And then there's a touch of a gender-switched James Bond thrown in, as she tends to collect attractive men and has at least one new lover per book, most of whom are quickly forgotten.
Last Friday was cold and rainy, and I wrapped up my holidays by curling up with what turned out to be a really wonderful book, Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen, which is a fantasy/romance for adults about Captain Hook from Peter Pan. I will confess that my choice of this book had a bit to do with my slight crush on the version of Captain Hook on Once Upon a Time, and this take probably gets closer to that than to the original, as it's essentially a redemption story. It also fits the Once Upon a Time story structure, with a present-day story interspersed with backstory flashbacks.
In this take on the story, Hook was cursed into Neverland when he chose revenge and his reputation as a pirate over love (the other pirates would have thought he'd gone soft if he gave up piracy for a woman). He's made immortal, so he can't be killed. He just suffers through and heals from wounds that should have been fatal. He and Pan are the only immortals on the island, so the Lost Boys are sent home when they get too old and the pirates get killed in the ongoing fights with the Lost Boys. The pirate crew keeps getting replenished by former Lost Boys who return to Neverland when they can't handle the transition back to the real world and never actually grow up, in spite of being adults. After a couple of centuries of this, Hook is getting really, really tired of it all. And then an adult woman shows up, something that's never happened before (since Pan thinks grown women are icky). She's a war widow who longed to escape the gloom of 1950 London, and she might just be Hook's last chance to escape Neverland.
This is one of those books that manages to be a lot of things, all at once. It's an adventure story, there's a mystery, there are a lot of fantasy elements, and there's a love story. But it's also a meditation on what it is to grow up and be an adult -- about taking responsibility, about standing up for yourself and not following the crowd, about knowing what's right and not being swayed from it, about recognizing consequences. Hook may have been a man in his 40s when he was sent to Neverland, but he wasn't a grown-up. He was just as arrested as Pan himself. So this is also a belated coming-of-age story.
It was the perfect thing to read on a cold, rainy night, and I almost couldn't put it down. This is definitely one I'll be rereading eventually, and I may even end up with a keeper copy (after I move and get some bookshelf space). Now I want to write a good swashbuckling romantic fantasy. But first I have to finish copyedits on this book, then finish writing book 3 in that series, and then I want to get a start on my second steampunk book, and then I have something pretty ambitious that I want to tackle.
Tuesday, December 09, 2014
Reading Update
I think that my huge burst of productivity last Monday may have done more harm than good because it ended up setting an unrealistic standard. When I didn't do that well on subsequent days I felt like I'd failed, and that sense of failure then made it harder to get back on track. So I'm setting more reasonable goals, and if I exceed them, then that's great but I'm less likely to feel like a failure.
I ended up getting really back on track yesterday, but this book keeps surprising me. There's a scene that in my first concept for this book was the climax, then when I started plotting it became the midpoint, and now it's moved way up to become the initial threshold crossing that kicks the plot into high gear -- the event so big that they can't pretend there's no problem anymore. I pretty much saw the movie of this in my head as I was waking up this morning, so I should be able to write it properly.
I'm behind on talking about my reading (and behind on my reading -- I'm not going to make my reading goal this year unless I drop everything else and do nothing but read for the rest of the month).
In one case, I want to talk about an author rather than a particular book. I do still miss chick lit because I liked books that were more like a romantic comedy movie usually is than like the traditional structure of romance novels. However, I tended to mostly prefer the British stuff, and I leaned toward the smaller-town stories rather than London stories. I liked the things about friends and family as opposed to drinking and sex. Fortunately, some is still getting published, and one author I've been rationing to myself (because I don't want to run out entirely) is Jill Mansell. Basically, most of her books are along the lines of the movie Love Actually in book form, though not necessarily set at Christmas (I'll admit to being a wee bit disappointed in the book she did set at Christmas, but that was mostly because I was reading it for Christmas purposes and the book pretty much skipped over Christmas entirely. I might like it if I read it at another time). There's a big cast of characters that's all interconnected, and they all have their own stories, not all of which are romantic. There's usually one central character, and then she has friends, co-workers, relatives, and sometimes even kids who also have plot lines. I suppose it doesn't really qualify as "chick" lit, since her heroines tend to be a bit older -- they're often single moms with teenage kids -- and that may be one reason I like them at this phase in my life. It's very much make a pot of tea and settle in for the afternoon reading, after which you feel a nice warm glow.
I also found a good entry in the "intimate fantasy" (no, not in that way, get your mind out of the gutter) category -- by that I mean focusing on a few characters and their lives rather than the horde of armies. Crown Duel and Court Duel by Sherwood Smith were reissued in one volume, which is how I got them, and I think they might read better as one book, while I'd have been disappointed if I'd just read the first one as a standalone because the story seemed incomplete without the second book. It's first-person narration, so it only shows us what happens through our viewpoint character, and that humanizes some massive events. She's the daughter of the lord of a remote province in an oppressive kingdom, and when her father dies, he makes her and her brother swear to rebel against the regime. Things don't go entirely as planned, to put it mildly. No one is who they seem to be, and the situation isn't quite what they expected. And then they have to deal with the aftermath of their actions. The first book is mostly an adventure story of all the things this young woman has to go through. The second is almost a comedy of manners as she has to adjust to life in what seems like an entirely new world for her. There's also a really satisfying romantic thread woven through the two books. Sometimes you want to bop the heroine on the head (though it's not like I'm allowed to criticize anyone else for being stubborn), but she does eventually figure things out.
Sherwood Smith is the guest of honor at ConDFW next year, so I imagine there will be some fangirling taking place. I already loved her contemporary fantasy Zenda-like series, and now I need to dig into her other fantasy series.
Speaking of Christmas-set romantic/chick lit stories, I'm starting to contemplate maybe novelizing that holiday movie screenplay I tried writing last year. I wonder if there's a market for sweet contemporary paranormal romantic comedy.
I ended up getting really back on track yesterday, but this book keeps surprising me. There's a scene that in my first concept for this book was the climax, then when I started plotting it became the midpoint, and now it's moved way up to become the initial threshold crossing that kicks the plot into high gear -- the event so big that they can't pretend there's no problem anymore. I pretty much saw the movie of this in my head as I was waking up this morning, so I should be able to write it properly.
I'm behind on talking about my reading (and behind on my reading -- I'm not going to make my reading goal this year unless I drop everything else and do nothing but read for the rest of the month).
In one case, I want to talk about an author rather than a particular book. I do still miss chick lit because I liked books that were more like a romantic comedy movie usually is than like the traditional structure of romance novels. However, I tended to mostly prefer the British stuff, and I leaned toward the smaller-town stories rather than London stories. I liked the things about friends and family as opposed to drinking and sex. Fortunately, some is still getting published, and one author I've been rationing to myself (because I don't want to run out entirely) is Jill Mansell. Basically, most of her books are along the lines of the movie Love Actually in book form, though not necessarily set at Christmas (I'll admit to being a wee bit disappointed in the book she did set at Christmas, but that was mostly because I was reading it for Christmas purposes and the book pretty much skipped over Christmas entirely. I might like it if I read it at another time). There's a big cast of characters that's all interconnected, and they all have their own stories, not all of which are romantic. There's usually one central character, and then she has friends, co-workers, relatives, and sometimes even kids who also have plot lines. I suppose it doesn't really qualify as "chick" lit, since her heroines tend to be a bit older -- they're often single moms with teenage kids -- and that may be one reason I like them at this phase in my life. It's very much make a pot of tea and settle in for the afternoon reading, after which you feel a nice warm glow.
I also found a good entry in the "intimate fantasy" (no, not in that way, get your mind out of the gutter) category -- by that I mean focusing on a few characters and their lives rather than the horde of armies. Crown Duel and Court Duel by Sherwood Smith were reissued in one volume, which is how I got them, and I think they might read better as one book, while I'd have been disappointed if I'd just read the first one as a standalone because the story seemed incomplete without the second book. It's first-person narration, so it only shows us what happens through our viewpoint character, and that humanizes some massive events. She's the daughter of the lord of a remote province in an oppressive kingdom, and when her father dies, he makes her and her brother swear to rebel against the regime. Things don't go entirely as planned, to put it mildly. No one is who they seem to be, and the situation isn't quite what they expected. And then they have to deal with the aftermath of their actions. The first book is mostly an adventure story of all the things this young woman has to go through. The second is almost a comedy of manners as she has to adjust to life in what seems like an entirely new world for her. There's also a really satisfying romantic thread woven through the two books. Sometimes you want to bop the heroine on the head (though it's not like I'm allowed to criticize anyone else for being stubborn), but she does eventually figure things out.
Sherwood Smith is the guest of honor at ConDFW next year, so I imagine there will be some fangirling taking place. I already loved her contemporary fantasy Zenda-like series, and now I need to dig into her other fantasy series.
Speaking of Christmas-set romantic/chick lit stories, I'm starting to contemplate maybe novelizing that holiday movie screenplay I tried writing last year. I wonder if there's a market for sweet contemporary paranormal romantic comedy.
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