Favorite as in among all the books I have ever read or books that I have only read this year? For this year, I would refer to the answer that I gave last week. For me, "best" and "favorite" should be the same. A book must be both well written and have that extra something that makes the reader form a positive emotional attachment to it. If it's just well written, it can't be best or favorite, can it? The only thing the writer has done is to rearrange words in an aesthetically pleasing manner.
Onesome: Better-- butter than margarine? ...or Mayonnaise? What goes on your bread for sandwiches? How about dinner rolls? Honey, anyone?
How about hummus? I like the stuff at the local Co-op (in Moscow) although I get it rarely.
Twosome: Late-- again! I think that's something I do about once a year. May I blame it on Christmas cleaning? How about you: is your place all cleaned up from the paper-fest? ...or can you even get to the door yet?
There was very little paper involved this Christmas. All I can say is: gift bags. You can reuse them for next year. Far more environmentally friendly than wrapping paper.
Threesome: than Never-- again? Do you have any Christmas memories (this year or Christmas Pasts) that you'd just like to never repeat? I'm thinking humourous stories would be best!
Christmas, for me anyway, is a quiet and sedate affair. I tend to avoid the crowds of people out shopping or the stress of shopping for other people. In other words, I'm boring. I have no crazy holiday stories to share.
It's always interesting traveling--some people just seem to conform to stereotype even if they don't realize it. Like those older ladies who always talk loudly and non-stop about their recent trips around the world to say, oh, Vienna and Santiago. They remind me of those certain younger ladies who talk non-stop without seeming to take a breath. These people fascinate me, in one respect, because they can gab about nothing for hours. I, well, only feel comfortable talking when I have something important to say. And sometimes I just need silence. I can't fathom wanting to fill the air with talk all the time.
And I'll be taking off in a little over two hours. At least I'm not flying to a place where it's snowing.
I usually stay far away from Christmas themed books with romantic undercurrents unless the author is someone I would read regardless of the subject matter. Maybe I'm just a cynical person. Or maybe it's because some Christmas stories skirt too close to the "inspirational"--which annoys me. Miracles which force the characters to act (rather than having the characters choosing their own decisions) seem de rigueur for these stories--making them cliched and as sweet as candied plums. Too many authors go for the sappy feel-good instead of the edgy such as, say, Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising.
An Enchanted Season contains four novellas. I got a hold of this book only because there was one author I wanted to read (who also happened to have penned the best novella of the lot). There were two other authors who I have read before but have only found so-so--although only one of them managed to rise above the mediocre. The last author I have never heard of before, and I doubt I'll ever want to read her again.
"Melting Frosty" by Maggie Shayne. The two main protagonists, Matt and Holly, have had terrible things happen to them during Christmas in the past, but they have dealt with it in different ways. When the two meet, it is up to the heroine to convince Matt that Christmas is supposed to be about joy and happiness. This just seemed like a generic trapped-in-a-cabin-with-a-stranger-because- there's-a-freak-blizzard story. Nothing in Shayne's story was original or striking enough to elevate it above the kazillion others with similar themes.
"Charlotte's Web" by Erin McCarthy. An unfortunate title, since it evokes the children's story of the same name but has absolutely nothing to do with it. Like Shayne's story, this one has a well used cliche as its backbone--two childhood friends falling in love. Fortunately, it doesn't use the particular variant in which one person abruptly sees the other person in a different light (which to me, shatters the suspension of disbelief). Instead, Charlotte and Will are already in love with each other--they're just too afraid to admit it. It takes the sudden manifestation of Charlotte's latent telekinetic powers for them to take a risk at moving their relationship beyond friendship. This story worked because the plot focused on one problem and none of the characters were actually trying to change each other.
"Beat of Temptation" by Nalini Singh. This is the reason why I got the book. "Beat of Temptation" is a prequel to Singh's Psy-Changeling series, although it's odd in that I would recommend reading at least one of the books in the series before reading the novella--otherwise the reader might find some things confusing. But that's a minor detail. In an alternate future world, the Psy have attempted to outlaw Christmas--but with little effect. However, this takes a back seat to the main part of the story which deals with Tamsyn, the healer of the shape-shifting leopard pack, and the mating bond tug-of-war she has with Nate, a fellow pack member. Singh really drags the two protagonists through the emotional wringer, but it's worth it. In the end, when Nate presents Tamsyn with a bouquet of orchids, the reader actually believes that he means it and that the token was not just obtained to get into someone's good graces. Well, it was impressive to me that the author got me to buy into the ending--I'm usually quite skeptical about men and flowers.
"Gifts of the Magi" by Jean Johnson. Steve and his fiancee Rachel are struggling with a family bed-and-breakfast. The weather is horrible, the guests cancel their reservations, and their relationship is on the rocks. It doesn't seem like a very good holiday until three unexpected visitors show up. I didn't particularly like this story. The three visitors--Bella, Cassi, and Mike--were sort of annoying. I felt as if the entire story was a deus ex machina. If Steve and Rachel truly cared about each other, they could have worked it out even with a failing bed-and-breakfast--no magical interference needed.
I found it interesting that the two stories that I liked out of the entire anthology weren't exactly Christmasy. The preachy Christmas magic woo-woo stuff was probably just a bit too much for me. I'd recommend the Singh and the McCarthy. Now if only people will figure out a way where they could sell novellas separately...
I first read Kathy Love last year. Although I did not review them, I can say that Fangs for the Memories and Fangs But No Fangs were amusing. The first, because it was a wacky twist on that old amnesia plot, and the second because one of the main characters was a vampire living in a trailer park...who blogs! So I had similar expectations with the next novels.
In I Only Have Fangs for You, Sebastian Young is a vampire busy running Carfax Abbey, a nightclub for paranormal creatures, and in general wooing the ladies with his supernatural playboy charms. That is, until he gets distracted by a very clumsy and newly hired cocktail waitress. Wilhelmina (Mina) Weiss is a vampire in denial. To prove herself to the Society of Preternaturals Against the Mistreatment of Mortals (SPAMM), she decides to take on Sebastian who is supposedly the number one menace to humans by taking a job in his nightclub. Most of the characters in this novel, including Sebastian, are superficial. Mina's mishaps read less as shenanigans and more as the misdirections of someone who is trying to get her (un)life back together. It was far more interesting to see her develop as she struggles to overcome the traumatic memories spawned by her early existence as a vampire and to accept who she has become.
The last book in the tetrology is My Sister is a Werewolf - an unfortunate title as it is a spoiler for the three books that came before it. (However, I am not convinced that the original title, My Hair Lady, is any better.) Elizabeth Young is the sister to the three vampires in the previous books. Her aim in life is to find a cure for her lycanthropy--except her latest research isn't going so well. In her restlessness, she heads to her brother's bar--only to end up jumping the bones of veterinarian Jensen Adler who up until that point was moping his ex-fiancee's death. Unfortunately, hormones aren't the only problem. A crazed werewolf from Elizabeth's former pack has started stalking her. I found this novel the least convincing of the four. How can the protagonist be so sure that her feelings are true and not the result of being in heat? How can Jensen be so dense to his paramour's true nature and how can he be so nonchalant about it once he does realize the truth?
On a whole, I Only Have Fangs for You is better than My Sister is a Werewolf, but I would not recommend anyone to read these first of the author's paranormal oeuvre.
I've been looking over the responses to this meme because I'm curious as to what the rest of the book-reading blogosphere thinks is "good." Two top cited fiction books are J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows and Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. A number of people did not answer the second question because they did not read any non-fiction.
I haven't read any of Hosseini's work so I have no idea if he is actually any good as a writer, but both of the above books are "bestsellers." I wonder if people are nominating them for "best" because they've been hyped by critics and fans and have been bought by lots of people--so that if you say they are "best", no one's going to argue with you.
And I was disappointed with the non-non-fiction readers. I was hoping to find some interesting recommendations. Instead, people were like: "I only read one non-fiction book this year, so I guess I'll nominate it for best!"
Maybe people who actually read books don't do memes.
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I just watched the "Jungles" episode of Planet Earth. I was totally excited with the parasitic fungi (Cordyceps) segment. I first read about it in Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard (review) which only had some black and white line drawings to go on.
The Royal Mess is MaryJanice Davidson's third Alaskan Royal book. It takes place in a parallel universe in which the author wondered: "What if Alaska was its own country, with a weirdo royal family?"
The Baranovs are the rulers of Alaska, down-to-earth tabloid magnets who are hilariously strange (fortunately, the funny ha-ha rather than the funny farm). However, the king is shaken up when out of nowhere, a bastard daughter writes a letter to him explaining who she is due to her dying mother's last wish. Nicole Krenski only wrote the letter as a favor for her mother, but it is that very letter that propels her into the front of the cameras and into the royal family's life. Nicole wants nothing to do with the royal family, but they insist that she live with them. To convince her, the king sends in one of the bodyguards, Jeffrey Rodinov, whose family has served the royal family for generations.
Davidson excels in the eccentric and does manage to add in some character development in her own odd style. Nicole is loyal to her mother's memory and resentful of the interfering king who suddenly bursts into her life fully expecting her to accept him as her father quickly, if not immediately. She finds an odd ally with the youngest prince who is also a bastard--although no one wants to admit it. Jeffrey is somewhat more two-dimensional as most of the time, he oscillates between his attraction to Nicole and his sense of duty.
This is a fairly short book--a novella almost--and unless you're a die-hard fan for this author, buying the trade paperback is probably not worth it. I like Davidson's style--short, terse, and to the point. Plenty of sudden action and mouthy dialogue. However this gives short shrift to description and introspection which can really be a detriment at some points. It gives the impression that the interactions between the main characters are passionless, fueled by nothing more than a sugar high and an abnormal spike in hormones.
1. What fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the best new book published in 2007? (Older books that you read for the first time in 2007 don’t count.)
I feel so underqualified to answer this. Although I've read more books than most people (as evidenced by my bookrolling page), most of the fiction I've read fall in the romance/speculative fiction hybrid category. And even those--I've only read a fraction of what's been published this year in just that subgenre alone. But if I did have to recommend books, curiously they all have strong sci-fi elements. So here they are: Nalini Singh's Visions of Heat (review) and Caressed by Ice (review), Linnea Sinclair's Games of Command (review), and Eve Kenin's Driven (review).
Now if you had asked which was the best fiction book I have read in the year, regardless of publication date, I would have said Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (review).
2. What non-fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the best new book published in 2007? (Older books that you read for the first time in 2007 don’t count.)
I'm probably even less qualified to answer this question than the one above. My non-fiction reading has always been somewhat sporadic and random. My recommendations are more nature oriented. The absolute best would be Chrysalis by Kim Todd (review) followed closely by Amy Stewart's Flower Confidential (review) and Terry Abraham's Mountains So Sublime (review).
If that list was not restricted to those published this year, I would have included The Face in the Mirror by Julian Paul Keenan (review), Nabokov's Blues by Kurt Johnson and Steve Coates (review), and something that I'm currently reading: The Arcanum by Janet Gleeson (review forthcoming, but I can tell you right now, it's a kickass book about Meissen porcelain).
3. And, do “best of” lists influence your reading?
Ha! I amuse myself by reading them, but no, they don't influence my reading much. Unless your reading tastes align with mine, I suggest people go find books that they like on their own. Reading books which other people deem "good" (which on an individual basis may or may not be true) is a waste of time. Example: I would not pay attention to a list heavily weighted with Thomas Pynchon and other writers with his sort of style. If I did, I'd end up swearing off my book addiction.
Onesome: Angels-- as tree topppers? ...or spires? Stars? Bears? What do you like to use to set off that tree?
I don't really have a preference.
Twosome: we have-- heard you're getting something special this year! Do you have any idea what any of your Christmas presents are going to be?
I'm at the age where I don't really give a damn about presents anymore. (Although I must say that I never really gave much a damn before...) What's wrong with just relaxing and spending time with your family?
Threesome: ...heard-- the worst Christmas song ever this year? Which one is it for you? I mean that one that even if Aunt Martha is playing it on Christmas Eve puts you out on the porch!
Er, all of them? Yeah, I know I sound like such a Bah Humbug on these questions, but I just can't get up enough enthusiasm for something that remains the same year after year. I know it's tradition, but tradition is boring.
Or maybe I'm just grumpy because I'm stuck in lab until almost the end.
Tanner's Scheme by Lora Leigh is another one of those books which is in the middle of a series. I've skimmed the previous books, but the characters in those books somehow never seemed to hold my attention. Here, the characters seem so out of control that you can't help but look.
In this alternate world, Breeds are genetically engineered--deliberately created to be super soldiers for a military purpose. But their training was abusive--in order to drive any humanity out of them. The series takes place after the existence of the Breeds have been exposed and while they are fighting for equal rights. Scheme Tallant is an assassin and a double agent ultimately working for the pro-Breed faction. Her father, however, is a high-ranking member of the Genetics Council who wants to destroy the Breeds even if it means getting rid of his own daughter. Tanner Reynolds is a feline Breed who doesn't hesitate to kidnap Scheme for revenge against the atrocities the Genetics Council had visited upon his kind.
The characters were interesting on a psychological standpoint. Even saddled with several fears, Scheme somehow survived her father's brand of brutal conditioning and torture. Tanner is an almost irredeemable cad with anger issues. Most of the time he was channelling those old-school contemptible alpha heroes with Scheme perilously on the edge to succumbing to Stockholm Syndrome. It wasn't so much as the two characters trying to trust each other as Tanner trying to break Scheme in. At least she didn't completely give in (that would have been uber irritating) as she didn't give up trying to find a way to escape him.
Things really jump-started about two-thirds of the way through when Tanner's twin brother Cabal shows up. Then it was all action and craziness. This is one of those novels where I ended up preferring the secondary character over the main ones. Scheme and Tanner were just plain nuts. Cabal, however, seemed more mysterious and complex and not as high strung as his brother. I'll take a pass on Leigh's other books, but if she decides to write more about Cabal, I'd probably read it.
It's Tangled Bank #95 over at Ouroboros. Read about scientific fraud, lovebird behavior, and insect-devouring pitcher plants!
Fact of Fiction?: Stress Causes Gray Hair. I also wonder if some people have more stress tolerance than others. I've been under a bit of stress, but I'm not silvered yet.
The Future of Food. Hm. Flavoring food with a rotary evaporator--well, in some ways, it doesn't really hold a candle to the local science club making milkshakes with homogenizers (which were originally used on rat brains).
Twilight of the Books. According to the writer of this article, decline in reading is a symptom of the decline in literacy. And apparently, if people are not literate, they will fail to develop the cognitive abilities that one might use for analytical thinking. It's mostly a deconstruction of Maryanne Wolf's Proust and the Squid. I think it's really less about literacy than what you do with your free time. If you're only watching stupid TV shows rather than educational documentaries or playing shoot-em-up computer games rather than perusing an online newspaper, then of course you're not going to know anything.
Romance Needs a Makeover. I dislike most of the covers in all fiction--but that doesn't stop me from reading a book. Of course, nobody else follows the maxim to not judge a book by its cover, so I suppose changing current covers might help improve its perception. But I doubt it. (Just as some broccoli haters have never even tried broccoli or some people who assume everyone living in downtown LA is a gangster, people who've never read romance will continue to hate it due to the stereotypes perpetuated since the 1970s.) Like all other genres that get dissed, if you want other people to take it seriously, then take it seriously yourself. Talk about it as a story first. As genre, maybe second.
Reading: Too Much Work, Or Just Too Much of a Chore? I'm at the point where I don't mind "required" school reading. (Science all the time? Coooool.) But high school English classes? Frankly, the reading lists sucked.
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Oh man, I feel a little burned out writing all these book reviews which almost no one reads. I've read them a while back so it's not like I'm on a reading binge now--I just want to write them up before the year is over. Several more to go...
Ain't Myth-Behaving contains two novellas. In "Stag Party", the Irish fertility god Cernunnos must find a bride quick since the goddess he had been married to ran off with a salsa dancer (a.k.a. Bacchus). If he's not married by Beltane, he will die. Fortunately for him, he falls for a visiting travel writer--except he will have to convince her to tie the knot...in one week. "Norse Truly" is about an American visiting her Swedish relatives when her car skids into the ocean. She gets rescued by a group of cursed Vikings who are convinced that she's going to save them from sailing up and down the Scandinavian coastline for eternity.
In this book, as in all of MacAlister's other books--be they paranormal, contemporary, or young adult, the author is once again revisiting the theme of American female tourist going off to a foreign country, falling in love, and most of the time making a fool of herself. MacAlister is also one of those authors who make it a habit of writing in first person--which totally doesn't work because all of her first POV characters sound the same.
This is abundantly clear in "Stag Party". The first POV character in this instance happens to be Cernunnos, a male, but he's not particularly original. In fact, he sounds just like MacAlister's heroines--ditzy, desperate, and doomed to tunnel vision. He's oblivious (although if you wanted to be stereotypical, you could call that a plus) and not exactly bright for a deity. I had trouble understanding why the heroine liked him in the first place--unless he had somehow put some sort of spell on her.
"Norse Truly" is a bit better--but only because the first person narration (by the heroine) is overshadowed by the hijinks of the plot. The pace was breakneck fast--the primary characters were rushing all over the place as if they were being chased by a serial killer in a suspense thriller--except all they were trying to do was to find Odin to help them break the curse. What was interesting was the identity of the villain--who is none other than the heroine's "grandmother", Brynnhilde the Valkyrie.
Of course, if you like MacAlister's somewhat breezy humor, don't let me stop you.
No Rest for the Witches is an anthology of four novellas. I liked three of them. The other one was, well, problematic.
"The Majicka" by MaryJanice Davidson - Davidson is one of those authors who writes in a very distinctive style--you either find her so grating that you want to throw the book out and take a bulldozer to it or discover that she's absolutely hilarious. I find her sarcasm amusing. This particular story is a wacky twist on the mentor/pupil cliche. Micah is a Tutor who goes around finding The One to train--sort of like Yoda and Morpheus, except he's bored out of his skull from doing the same thing over and over again. When he finds the next One, he's in for a surprise because Ireland is in complete denial of her gifts. She's too busy taking care of her roommates--a whiny vampire, a fairy who does nothing but eat and sit in the hot tub, a werewolf who got kicked out of his pack, a possessed SUV, and a zombie.
"Voodoo Moon" by Lori Handeland - An FBI agent is assigned to Devil's Fork, a small town right outside of New Orleans, to solve a recent rash of murders. The only catch is that all these murders seem to be locked-room mysteries with the only clues pointing to a local voodoo priest. I thought the concept was interesting, but the story itself could have benefited with the length of a full novel. The characterization of the voodoo priest was handled fairly well--he was subtly ominous. But the agent was a bit flat--with more pages, she could have been more than just another kick-ass heroine.
"Breath of Magic" by Cheyenne McCray - This story is part of a series. Basically, a group of witches and fae warriors must team up to prevent an evil god from getting hold of an amulet which holds his powers. If he does, the world will be overrun with demons. "Breath of Magic" centers around one couple--a witch and a warrior--and their developing relationship amidst all the urban fantasy-ish magic slinging and sword swinging. I really did not like this story. I find it hard to believe that the main characters could find the energy to get it on while there was a war waging in their city.
"Any Witch Way She Can" by Christine Warren - This is also part of a series, but in a way, it's more of a direct sequel to just one of those books (Wolf at the Door). Depressed with her lackluster love life, Miranda Berry decides to cast a love spell. Except it backfires and lands her in the middle of one of her grandmother's dinner parties--in the past. Warren doesn't deal at all with the repercussions of time travel, and Miranda falling in love with one of the dinner guests went way too fast for my taste. But it was the heroine's interaction with her grandmother that saved the story from the mediocre. It was obvious that their strained relationship couldn't be repaired in a single night, but somehow, they managed to take some steps toward reconciliation.
UPS left me a note saying that I had a package. What package? I wasn't expecting any packages. People usually tell me to expect stuff before they send it. So I went to pick it up. This warrants the use of an internet acronym:
OMG.
I now have two humongous door stopper books. One of them is an ARC. I guess I know what I'm going to be doing over break.
Lovecraft by Hans Rodionoff, Enrique Breccia, and Keith Griffen is an evocative graphic novel paying homage to the master of horror himself. I must admit in my opinion, bringing anything Lovecraftian into any sort of visual medium loses something in translation, but that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate this particular interpretation.
In this fictional biography, Lovecraft is an odd lantern-jawed child coddled by his mother who dresses him up like a girl. His grandfather fills his head with scary stories and his father goes mad--ultimately ending up in an asylum. It's then that Lovecraft discovers the Necronomicon to which he feeds sacrifices of small animals and unwittingly unleashes monstrosities.
In his adulthood, he's still plagued by these horrors, but manages to write all of them down as stories to be sold in magazines. He falls in love with Sonia, an older woman, but his happiness is marred by his visions and his mother's subsequent breakdown after reading the Necronomicon which he left at her house. When Sonia implores him to take her into his confidence, to tell her what is constantly troubling him, the narrative takes a turn for the truly bizarre and one can't help wonder, in the context of the story, what is real and what is imagined.
The illustrations are in a dreamy watercolor style--the color palette far from the garishness of conventional comics. Instead, it has a sepia wash to it. Any bright color will immediately draw the eye to something peculiar and disturbing. My favorite parts were the splash panels, especially the ones depicting the nightmarish landscapes of Arkham. I'm particularly amused by the fat gelatinous-looking creatures with too many teeth yet dressed to the nines lurking about in the main character's periphery. Perhaps they symbolize humanity's vicious greed, thinly cloaked in civility?
This graphic novel is definitely worth a look-see. But one must remember that this is a story; anyone expecting facts etched in stone or a treatise on Lovecraft's political views and philosophies will be disappointed. It's more thought-provoking than terrifying, but I'd probably only recommend this to high school age kids and up.
Oh boy. Where to start? Well, let's just say that I'm all for mixing genres. But that does not give people leave to throw in everything and the kitchen sink and think it will be good.
In Master of Dragons by Angela Knight, Nineva Morrow--an orphaned fairy princess and avatar for a goddess trapped in a sword--must work with a shape-shifting dragon named Kel to thwart some power-hungry fae and evil demon aliens from taking over and possibly destroying the Mageverse. To save the universe Nineva and Kel must have (frequent) sex which will supposedly feed power to the goddess and free her from that pesky sword. Obviously, this isn't particularly a hardship for the characters, except Nineva keeps having dreams that Kel will fry her to a crisp.
I'm not against plots hinging on sex especially in an erotic romance, but in this book, it only serves as mere titillation. There's no chemistry between the characters. And they weren't particularly smart or logical either--if the goddess needed to be powered by sex magic, couldn't they have just invited a bunch of people for a huge orgy and have it done with rather than prolonging the agony with two characters who go at it like robots?
And don't get me started on the world building. To say the least, it's sloppy. It's confusing and complex in a not good way--like having someone playing a terrible prank at the UN by swapping all the placards and translators while having the agenda being argued over by Japanese girls in Lolita costumes and Trekkies fluent in Klingon. Not only are there prophecies, fairies, and dragons--but also demons, King Arthur and his court, vampires, werewolves, deities, trans-dimensional alien travelers, mages, talking books...well, pretty much everything except superheroes in tights.
Frankly, Master of Dragons is a blight on both fantasy and erotic romance. If you want a successful blend of the two genres, go read Emma Holly instead.
The rule: post the first sentence of the first post for each month. (*If the first post happens to be a meme, I've posted the first sentence that I have written, not the first sentence of the meme.)
January: Now that I'm unwittingly in possession of an iPod, I'd have to say that I'm not impressed.
February: People should stop saying "chaps my ass."
March: Hm, I'm not sure if this counts: designing multiple choice quizzes with the occasional Really Obvious Wrong Option, yet having students mark that one anyway.
April: It amused me to see horny college boys drooling after nosebleed heels and short skirts while trying to restock their freezers with frozen pizzas.
May: Recently, I've seen a lot of people using the word "loose" for "lose".
Reef is a hefty coffee table book produced by Scubazoo. It's filled with bright eye-catching photography showcasing the creatures that inhabit the kelp forests, mangroves, and coral reefs of the world.
There's tons of stuff to browse through. The usual suspects are present of course--who can miss the flashy nudibranchs, the cleaner shrimp, or the ingenious cephalopods? Sure-fire crowd pleasers like shark close-ups and cute sea lions also make the pages. But there are other interesting animals too. I was struck by the unusually ugly although perfectly camouflaged whitemargin stargazer (Uranoscopus sulphureus). A diver also managed to capture a cannibalistic devil scorpionfish (Inimicus didactylus) in the midst of devouring an unfortunate potential mate who failed to impress her with his courtship rituals.
Nature photographers have my respect in their efforts to capture the perfect shot. It requires diligence, patience, and sometimes guts to get close to wild animals. In the making of Reef, they had to endure hours of waiting in cold waters, snapping who-knows-how-many pictures because nothing was in focus, or getting their fingernails ripped off by cranky moray eels. Of course, the end results are some pretty terrific photos--some of them seemingly surreal in their neon colors and alien detail. My favorite photograph out of the whole book is on page 219. It is of a pygmy sea horse (Hippocampus bargibanti) with its tail curled around a branch of coral. It's almost like a cartoon--pink and lavender--yet it blends in with its home so well that as a reader, I had to do a double take.
Reef also contains a supplemental DVD which has video footage of many of the places where the photographs were taken. It was interesting to see the sea life on the pages now depicted with movement--but the film did not have any narration. Instead, it was set to some sort of synth easy listening soundtrack that would do well as elevator music. That is, I was not impressed with the DVD. Then again, I'm pretty much spoiled for all ocean documentaries after watching The Blue Planet.
Silver Master by Jayne Castle (a pseudonym that Jayne Ann Krentz uses for her futuristic novels) is touted as the fourth book in the Ghost Hunters series and there are references to the Arcane Society series that she writes under the Krentz and Amanda Quick names, but it is not necessary to read any of the other books to get this one, as it is a stand-alone.
Some time in the past, space-faring colonists have set up camp on a planet called Harmony which is riddled with underground alien ruins. Unfortunately, some sort of spatial cataclysm cuts off their contact from Earth leaving the colonists stranded and scrambling to rebuild their civilization back up from scratch. Silver Master takes off at the point when the colonists are back up to a technology level on par to early 21st century except humans have developed psychic powers.
Celinda Ingram has just settled in Cadence City with her matchmaking job (aided by her foolproof ability to tell when two people are compatible) after escaping her hometown due to a scandal when the local law enforcement pays her a visit. The owner of the store, where she bought a toy for her pet dust bunny Araminta, was murdered in an apparent act of random violence--but the toy is no ordinary toy. According to Davis Oakes, a security specialist working for the Guild--the equivalent to the mob, the toy is a valuable alien relic. But before Celinda can hand it over, Araminta takes off with the relic.
I like how Castle keeps the origins of the dust bunnies mysterious. These animals are probably native to the planet and on the surface their behavior seems rather straightforward. But their relationship with their human counterparts is at best quirky and enigmatic. And although the characters speculate on a dust bunny's psychic bond with its human partner, they still don't know how it works. However the real strength of this novel, similar to Castle's other work, is the interaction between the primary characters. The conversations between Celinda and Davis spark with wit and they work through their own problems--from Celinda's fear of the scandal she left behind to Davis' hang-ups about his own unusual psychic abilities--without so much of the melodrama that litters other books.
One caveat though: If you've read one Krentz/Quick/Castle book, you can pretty much predict how the others go. It's not so much the detail but the overall plot, themes, and character archetypes that are reused. I'd probably compare it to Joseph Campbell's theory of the monomyth. But hey, the monomyth has worked for thousands of years. And even if Castle is retreading her own version of the monomyth, it's still something fun to read.
If one is reading fantasy, it would probably help if one didn't read forum threads on fantasy cliches at the same time*. It sort of spoils the fun.
In Diana Pharaoh Francis' The Cipher**, we meet Lucy Trenton, a member of the royal Rampling family who works as a customs official at a shipping port in Crosspointe. In her capacity as a supervisor, she has free range to the warehouses. On one of her rounds, she senses majick coming from some of the cargo. And in her carelessness, she finds herself attached to a dangerous cipher--a cursed object created by an ancient mage with a twisted sense of humor. But before she can even think about removing the cipher (which as far as she knows, is only possible if she's dead), a friend introduces her to Marten Thorpe--a ship captain, persistent suitor, and compulsive gambler. Although she wants nothing to do with Thorpe, it is his initial shifty motives that embroil her in deadly political waters--both figuratively and literally.
Many fantasy novels contain the classic good versus evil theme. I personally find this overdone although I'm aware that in the hands of a particularly skilled and imaginative writer, this well used conflict can have fresh life. The heroes in The Cipher have believable flaws--they aren't selfless and free from vice (although I will have to say that the relationship between Lucy and Marten doesn't ring quite true to me), but the villains are flawless in their evilness. Surely the villain and his allies the Jutras have some thought that their actions are justified, even if it's terribly wrong. They can't all be black majick wielding, blood-thirsty, government-overthrowing barbarians. With that, I also find it a little too convenient that the heroine got transformed into this uber-mage. In the end, everything got fixed rather quickly--anticlimactic and not very exciting.
But all of that aside, I did enjoy the author's writing style and her world building. The concept of sylveth was particularly interesting. It's a type of sinister magic that courses through the sea. The inhabitants of Crosspointe must somehow work it so that it becomes usable--and thus a valuable commodity to be exported--but it is also treacherous. If free sylveth comes in contact with flesh, animal or human, it becomes deadly sylveth spawn that sounds like it came straight from a Lovecraftian tale.
I'm sure people who love fantasy political intrigue would like this book. I would have liked more tentacles though.
*Such as the threads on the Nanowrimo forums. **I received this book as an ARC.
I've tried reading Lori Handeland's previous novels in her Nightcreature series, but I've always stopped after the first two or three chapters and then skimmed. They're all in first person and for some reason, it felt jarring to me due to the disconnect between the character's attitude and her situation. I'm not a particular fan of first person POV anyway--I trust very few authors (such as Robin McKinley and Connie Willis) to actually do it right. However, with Rising Moon, I think Handeland finally manages to nail it--as I found myself pulled all the way through to the end.
Private eye Anne Lockheart is obsessed with her sister's disappearance. It doesn't help that on the night Katie vanished Anne had a fight with her that caused her to storm off. So when Anne receives a package in the mail containing a photo of her sister standing in front of a club in New Orleans, she immediately takes off, convinced that she's finally found the trail. This leads her to the Rising Moon, a club owned by the mysterious John Rodolfo. Anne wheedles her way into a job at the club, hoping that she might glean more information on her sister's whereabouts in the French Quarter, but things quickly get weird.
For a PI, Anne sometimes acts too ditzy although she has the awareness that some of her actions qualify as stupid. Her one-track mind blinds her to all the clues and little indications that things are not what they seem. Rodolfo is suitably magnetic and shady. Anne is reluctantly compelled by his presence even when he disappears at strange times, meets with people who are later found dead, and lures people to his club with his saxophone playing--just like the pied piper.
I thought it was an interesting twist on who was behind getting Anne to New Orleans and in what happened to her sister. However, after finding out exactly who Rodolfo was (especially after looking through one of the previous books in the series), it seemed rather unbelievable--in a character development sort of way. Just as Anne finds it impossible to reconcile the personality swings of one of the secondary characters, I found it difficult to believe that Rodolfo did such a turn around from one book to the next. This is where the first person POV fails--in some circumstances, unless we actually get a glimpse inside another character's head, the reader is going to come away baffled at some character behavior.
The Bride Finder by Susan Carroll is probably going to stand out in my mind for a while because it is the perfect example for not believing in the hype of random reviews. I started reading the book thinking I would get one thing, but the story was quite another. It came close to what some would call "a wall-banger."
Despite getting visions of impending doom in the form of a red-haired woman, Anatole St. Leger summons the Bride Finder--who also happens to be the local reverend and a relative--to find him a wife. Armed with St. Leger's list of wifely qualities that sound more like traits to look for when buying a horse, the reverend heads off to town and finds Madeline Breton who is in dire need of a rich husband. Her parents go through money like water and it would be a social disaster if they could not keep up appearances. Along with the reverend's creative embellishments on St. Leger's personality and an out-of-date portrait, Madeline agrees to the marriage. Of course, once she arrives in Cornwall, she discovers that this is all a sham.
Aside from the silly setup that would make anyone who've told white lies and uploaded duplicitous pictures of themselves on dating websites proud, Madeline does credibly deal with the weird gothic setting that she's put herself into. The story would have benefited as well if it had concentrated more on the secondary characters and conflicts--from the mysterious feud the St. Legers had with another family, Anatole's visions, the bumbling Bride Finder, and even the resident lecherous ghost named Prospero.
What really brought this book down was the character of Anatole St. Leger. Other people might like the idea of the brooding hero--and I agree that one should expect a certain amount of angst in a gothic paranormal. But let's face it, this guy was just a depressed whiner with mommy issues. I found it both irritating and tedious having to read about this character constantly moaning that his psychic powers were a curse.
A main character doesn't have to be a nice or reasonable person for me to like a book. But if the writer doesn't try to convince the reader to sympathize with the character even with all his melodrama, the reader will head to another novel where the angst doesn't feel like a lecture.
Addendum: I just found out that this book received the RITA award in 1999. Blarg. Just more evidence that winning an award does not mean it's actually (in my opinion) good.
The premise seems almost absurd: a post-apocalyptic trans-Siberian trucker romance? It sounds like something a desperate marketing director for NASCAR, a bit too tipsy on eggnog, might come up with after accidentally stumbling onto a romance convention (oh, wait...). But as weird as this may sound, it actually kind of works in Eve Kenin's Driven.
Raina Bowen is in a race against time to get her rig of grain to Gladow Station as the resulting reward would be enough to pay for her sister's safety. Unfortunately, the only highway across Siberia is controlled by the Janson--a shady corporation with its fingers in everywhere and headed by a sadist with a hefty grudge against Raina. Driven opens at a grimy trucker stop where Raina is waiting for a man named Wizard who supposedly has passes to enable her to get on the highway. And when he does show up, she ends up rescuing him from a trucker fight.
Nothing is as it seems. Exactly who is Wizard and what are his motives? Is the contest to Gladow Station really about delivering supplies to a northern outpost or something more sinister? Raina is a tough, self-sufficient character often conflicted about the relationship she had with her murdered father and how that spills onto her interactions with others. Wizard is more enigmatic--sometimes even stereotypically so--but in some ways, he has more to struggle with due to his past sacrifices and his attempts at being more human.
It was interesting seeing Raina and Wizard learning to trust each other, but I think I had more fun reading the sci-fi and action adventure aspects of this novel. How can you go wrong with crazy truckers and big explosions?
Notice a pattern? There's slang and then there's slang in which you sound like you've been slapped around a couple times with a two by four. I actually don't hear anyone say these words--they're more often than not written on the internet somewhere by female posters. In some ways, it's on par with LOL, ROTFL, and emoticons. And in other ways, it's worse--the kind of worse that makes fingernails on chalkboard sound like Beethoven's Fifth. Unless you're trying to make some sort of rhetorical (or perhaps comedic) point, it makes me think that you're linguistically lazy.
Wallpaper: Love It or Hate It. Actually, it's less about this link than the memory that it sparked. During middle school and high school when the teachers would instill the fear of whatever-it-is into the students for scratching and damaging textbooks on loan, everyone one scrambled around to get book covers. I would get the cheap-o crazy wallpaper at the local Old Time Pottery--fifty cents a roll--and make my own book cover. And it was unique. No confusion over all the other textbooks covered in brown paper or neon plastic!
Ethics in Book Reviewing Survey: The Results. I think on a blog, any book is fair game, as long as you disclose any sort of conflict of interest (such as being the friend/enemy of the author).
56 Geeks. I'm a book geek and a lab geek. Which one are you?
Are certain forms of address ill-suited to academe? I call everyone either Professor _____ or Doctor _____. Unless I see them every day in lab. In a classroom setting (especially in a lecture type situation), if I hear another student address the professor by his/her first name, I feel that the student is too presumptuous.
Do you use any of the online book-cataloguing sites, like LibraryThing or Shelfari? Why or why not? (Or . . . do you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking to?) If not an online catalog, do you use any other method to catalog your book collection? Excel spreadsheets, index cards, a notebook, anything?
I use LibraryThing, which I have to say, is well worth the twenty-five bucks for a lifetime membership.
The aspect I'm most fond of is the tags. Combined with the tags that I and other users give a book, this is a far more accurate way of sorting out books than those little labels publishers and marketing departments put on the spines. And this makes it easier when you want to find books on a certain subject or theme. Want to find a cyberpunk mystery or sword and sorcery that's also considered literature? Well now you can!
Another note: There's a follow-up from last week's BTT here and here. Just reading all those entries would surely increase your vocabulary.
Onesome: 'Tis-- Hmmm... More or less an older contraction? Do you have any semi-archaic words you use regularly? (Yes, Laurie, "allegro" would qualify...)
The only one that comes to mind is the word "don" as in don clothes for put on clothes. I don't say it, but I write it sometimes.
Twosome: the-- heck you say? Okay, how about a 'regional' saying you're known to be fond of? You know, the one the relatives just don't get when you say it on the phone... Sure, slang will work!
Regional? I probably move around a little too often to really get entrenched in one place to pick up any slang. I usually don't hang out with people who use a lot of slang either, so it's hard for me to think of an example.
When I was still a sophomore in college, there was a girl who had moved into the dorm and she often used the word "wicked" to describe something cool. At the time, I thought it was a really weird way to use that word. Well, I still think it's weird, although now, it also sounds outdated to my ears.
Threesome: Season--ings for the season? Mulled cider? Peppermint bark? Apple pie? What do you look forward to in the Winter months?
If you have any left over seltzer water, don't attempt to make hot chocolate with it. Adding the cocoa mix to it will only cause your mug to bubble over like a chemical reaction gone horribly wrong.
Run for the hills! Cthulhu is not just in the realm of imagination anymore. It's right here and right now--abeit in microscopic form.
For quite some time, it's been known that bacteria move. Most people have the idea that bacterial propulsion is mediated by the flagella and cilia which help the microbe swim and tumble. Another type of bacterial locomotion concerns "gliding motility" in which the cell secretes a slime trail--the resulting physical forces allowing the bacterium to ooze its way along like the Blob. Bacteria can also drag themselves along via grappling hooks which are formed by structures called pili. The pili act as tethers which hook onto the surface and the cell merely reels them in to pull itself into a certain direction.
Mycoplasma mobile is one of these microorganisms that supposedly have gliding motility. It was originally isolated in 1984 by Kirchhoff and Rosengarten in the gills of the Tinca tinca, a fish called the trench. It's believed that this type of motility is associated with the infectivity of this bacterium. However, a recent paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Nakane and Miyata found that what drives the movement of M. mobile is far different than slime trails and grappling hooks--in fact, the authors compare the movement to that of a jellyfish.
M. mobile movement had previously been classified as gliding, but the researchers wanted to find out exactly which mechanism was being used for it. To do this, the researchers killed the bacterium with a detergent that partially damaged the cellular membrane so that one could see into the interior of the cell but left the cytoskeleton intact. The result was a bacterial "ghost" that, amazingly, could still move when energy in the form of ATP was added to the system.
The visible inside structures of these "ghosts" were unusual--the cytoskeleton of M. mobile consisted of a jellyfish structure that contained a "bell" and associated "tentacle" structures studed with particles. The proteins that make up this jellyfish structure have no known homologue in other systems and M. mobile mutants that cannot glide have a disrupted structure. Although it's still not known exactly how the jellyfish structure is involved in M. mobile movement, Nakane and Miyata do postulate some possible roles. Perhaps the jellyfish structure acts as a scaffold to support the gliding machinery. Or it could act as a transporter to move the gliding machinery to its proper location. Or even more wildly--act as a coordinator for bacterial "leg movements" enabling it to crawl around like a cephalopod on the sea floor.
Wriggling tentacles that act like legs? Oh come on, you might say. That's not Cthulhu. It sounds more like a millipede. But whether it resembles a jellyfish or an insect, this is another example of the diversity of locomotion in even just bacteria--as apparently, none of them have any problem reinventing the wheel.
Do you have a favourite book, now out of print, that you would like to see become available again?
The only ones that I can think of, off the top of my head, are all the previous editions of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Of course, I own all these copies now, but it took me a while to find them all.
Onesome: Chocolate-- The joy of the Christmas season? Boxes of See's and Godiva and other "Food Pron" showing up at the office? How do you feel about chocolate at the holidays? Yeah, really!
Chocolate is ubiquitous on every holiday. Although I will have to say, it's the easy gift to give, especially to people you don't know that well (or at all).
Twosome: Pop--ping into your mind as the next thing that you only find this time of year? What are you looking forward to/forgot to go by to check on/oh, heck, it's time for? Pick one and go for it!
I'm taking the easy way out of this--you only find Christmas trees on Christmas. What I don't get are the people who use real trees every year. I'm not a rabid tree hugger, but dang it, why do they have to kill a tree, even if it is grown on a tree farm? At least plant the tree somewhere after you're done with it instead of throwing it away or turning it into mulch.
Or, you know, not even have a Christmas tree at all. People always tout the idea of the holiday spirit, that nothing else really matters except being with friends and family, that it's the thought that counts and not all this "stuff". But no one seems to think that any holiday can be celebrated without needless decorations and gifts.
Threesome: Tarts-- ...and is it also "candle time" around the place (work or home)? ...and do you use those 'tarts' to make the place smell nice? (Google it if you aren't familiar with them.)
I think there was a previous T3 question about candles, and my answer then as it is now is "no". I'm not into creating unnecessary fire hazards.
I just found out that one of my favorite writers has a blog. It's just amazing. When I was a kid, the only stuff I knew about authors were those little biographical blurbs on the back flap of the book jacket. I dug around in the library and bookstore shelves or even rummaged around in the card catalogue, to no avail. I didn't have any internet access until the last year of high school (and even then it was sporadic). And now, you can find pretty much anyone on the electronic highway unless they live in a bunker in the middle of nowhere.
I also recently got my hands on a copy of Dragonhaven. However reading it (or anything else for that matter) will have to wait until the weekend.
This link reminds me of a conversation I had not too long ago with a male reader of fantasy. He told me that he only read books by male authors. Under further questioning, he admitted that he had never even tried female speculative fiction authors. But--why? Sexism? Hearing bad reviews of books authored by female authors? Some sort of subtle marketing that brands certain authors so that they deliberately appeal only a segment of the reading population?
Or maybe this is just a symptom of a more widespread trend. Like how it's perfectly acceptable for girls to wear pants but society still thinks it's weird for boys to wear skirts.
contains four novellas. I got a hold of this book only because there was one author I wanted to read (who also happened to have penned the best novella of the lot). There were two other authors who I have read before but have only found so-so--although only one of them managed to rise above the mediocre. The last author I have never heard of before, and I doubt I'll ever want to read her again.
