Sharpe's Battle by Bernard Cornwell

(Acquired: bookstore)

I read my first Bernard Cornwell as part of an Advanced Reader program (or at least the first I remember reading) and enjoyed how he brought me into the action. I'd been looking for Nicholas and Alexandra on my shelf this time, in the mood for some historical fiction, but when I couldn't find it, I noticed Sharpe's Battle. I do not regret the substitution at all. This novel surprised me in many ways because it is much more mature than the first one I read, The Last Kingdom, in both language and horrific detail, but still shows all that captivated me before. Sharpe is a soldier in the British Army in 1811 (at least for this book), and while reading, you can feel the grit beneath his boots and the dry gunpowder in his mouth from biting off the cartridges. Cornwell does not pull punches or in any way ""prettify"" war. People die, and die brutally, horrible things happen, people you come to admire are threatened and killed, while people you despise seem sure to walk away clean. There's tactics, strategy, politics, diplomacy, all mushed in together to form a cohesive, gritty whole that makes it a hard book to put down.

From the writer's perspective, there are two things Cornwell does exceptionally well: omniscient (which has been the subject of much discussion recently), and recap of the series. I hadn't been aware that I choose a late-stage book in the series since I picked it up on author name alone, but I'm not one who has to read things in order to enjoy them. On the other hand, the recap of previous events was subtle, touching only on the highlights, and served as a way to give Sharpe a well-rounded background. These events made him the person he was, and whether they'd been covered in detail in a previous book or not was irrelevant. Even better, since no detail beyond the fact was offered, I'm sure the original books that covered those moments will be just as wonderful.

On the omniscient, this is true omniscient, none of the "camera-view" people have started to call omniscient despite the oxymoron in that designation. The POV goes from up close and personal including internal contemplation, to hanging overhead as one army attempts to decimate another. He even managed to pull off a trick that would have driven me nuts in another book, which is he hid a crucial bit of information by temporarily sliding to someone else's close view, someone who could see, but not hear, the main character and another talking. Part of the reason it worked though is that he held the reader in suspense for a very short time. Within the next few pages, we had the answer to that odd confrontation.

Ultimately, reader or writer, I'd recommend Bernard Cornwell as a way to touch history and wallow in the enjoyment of a skilled author.

Magic Burns by Ilona Andrews

(Acquired: bookstore)

Ilona Andrews did not disappoint with her second book, Magic Burns. Kate Daniels continues to be a compelling character, and the story is fast-paced, action-filled, and full of fun things to quote to my family and pique their interest. This book is actually one I had a hand in, though whether she took any of my suggestions I don't know seeing as I don't even remember what they were ;). Still, it's fascinating to read the final version and recognize some of the big changes she's made. Even more so, it's wonderful to finally get to read the end :), a downside of critting when the whole novel doesn't make it to the crit site.

Like Magic Bites, Magic Burns is set up as a mystery in framework, but most of the information we need to figure things out doesn't come into play until the character discovers it. That could be considered a weakness, but it hardly detracts from the fun read , and I'm a stickler for that sort of thing. There is one well-seeded item that I can't describe without spoilers, but I did enjoy having figured out one bit before the character, though Kate ran a close second. I did feel the reason for another aspect of the book ended up on the cutting room floor, but it was not a key element, and I can posit a reasonable enough explanation as much as I'd prefer a provided one, so this little hiccup didn't spoil my enjoyment.

There is no question about whether I'll be buying the next one in this series, or whatever else she decides to write. The only real question is when the next comes out :).

Cetaganda by Lois McMaster Bujold

(Acquired: bookshelf)

My husband introduced me to Lois McMaster Bujold through the Vorkosigan series a few years back. He gave me a stack of books that I was blissfully working my way through, enjoying the political trickery and sheer inventiveness of the characters. Then we moved and the pile vanished. Out of sight, out of mind, sad to say. With a ""to be read"" (tbr) pile like mine, there's rarely the urge to go seek out something that got mislaid :). My youngest started in on the series though, and loved it. Right up until he reached this gap where a book was missing. Some searching found it tucked in a corner of my tbr pile, overlooked because it wasn't in a big stack. I had a bunch of newer books to read and so didn't pick it up until this week, when I couldn't quite figure out what mood I was in.

Now I'm kicking myself. I love the Vorkosigan series. It has what I favor in military, political, and diplomatic fiction combined with a self-aware, sometimes ridiculously so, character leading a cast of interesting people through amazing chaos that could collapse at any moment but somehow manages to stay afloat. This book is one of those that makes me wish I could take a year off just to read, give myself time to enjoy other people's worlds and inventions.

I read a wide variety of genres, though not as wide as some, and I've been lucky to find some fabulous authors. It means sometimes an older book falls through the cracks. You can bet though, I'm getting my stack back on the shelf, because I now have (again) someone to fill that "I don't know what I want to read" slot. Of course I also have to take the leap and try her fantasy as well. Though SF is my first love, if authors I enjoy take the plunge, I usually find myself pleased with the results.

Twilight Fall by Lynn Viehl

(Acquired: ARC my hubby won :).)

Lynn Viehl makes it very hard to choose a favorite in the Darkyn series. Anyone who has been reading the series so far will love this book. Though it doesn't really stand on its own, this is the culmination (though not an endpoint by any means ;)) of the questions raised throughout the series. While the other books had teasers and small advances, this novel gives actual answers...okay, really the start of answers, but Alex moves her investigation of the Darkyn light years beyond where she'd been. That much I can say without spoilers, because she makes some advancement each time, but any hint to the how or exactly what she learns would give too much away.

While Evermore still stands as my favorite romance in the series, the craftwork in Twilight Fall is incredible. When I first discovered I liked Viehl's writing, I went back and bought as much of her backlist as I could find (I still haven't found the Rebecca Kelly novels, but give me time :)). Her first romance was a bit confusing to me because of the large casts and the myriad threads running through them. Even by the second, her ability to control such complexity in so small a space had improved radically. None of them remotely compare to the rich storytelling offered by Twilight Fall.

As usual, there's an Alex and Michael thread, and a separate romantic thread between Valentin and Liling. However, this book adds in at least four others that I can think of (which I'm not going to list so I guess you'll just have to read it on your own ;)), and while they appear separate and distinct, piece by piece, scene by scene, they start to twist and combine until they stand united into a stunning whole.

The ARC came with a request not to spoil a critical reveal right at the end. This isn't a problem for me since I provide reader reaction (with a bit of the writer tossed in on occasion) rather than a summary of the actual text. However, the request stayed in the back of my mind so I was on the lookout for this spoiler. Now that I've read the whole thing, though, while I think I know what Viehl meant, I'm not sure. There are at least three big reveals in this novel. Even more so, the reveals are beautifully seeded to the point that none of them jumped out at me. With the subtle clues she'd laid (and seeing them is my specialty), I expected all but one, and the one I hadn't was a matter of not putting the specific pieces in place though I knew the shape of what was probably coming.

I have enjoyed Viehl's writing for years now. Part of that enjoyment is her characters; part is the unlikely pairing of medical skills and training with fantasy or science fiction; and part is how she likes to push the envelope, to put me in situations that I'm not used to finding interesting or entertaining. The last is a love/hate thing at times, but overall the compelling characters make me accept the circumstances. Twilight Fall has one of these bleeding edge aspects, but that was not my point. My point is simple: there are a number of aspects that keep me coming back to Viehl's writing, but having started (okay with reading the backlist) at the beginning and following throughout, her growth in writing skill is just incredible.

She started the Darkyn series when already a "mature" writer so it doesn't show the weaknesses in some of her earlier works, but Twilight Fall proves she hasn't reached an end-point. Not even close. Those same skills she used in the first romance are still being fine-tuned and perfected. Some writers stagnate once they find the successful pattern. Lynn Viehl is not one of those writers. She might push me, but she's pushing herself as well. And we all benefit from the effort.

So mark your calendars. July 1, 2008. That's the publication date for Twilight Fall, just long enough for those of you who have been lagging to buy the rest of the series and catch up :D.



Note: The reading list has been updated as well.

Heart of Stone by C.E. Murphy

(Acquired: bookstore)

This is the first of C.E. Murphy's other series, and I was forewarned it was quite different from the Walker Papers. However, everything I love about her writing, her worlds, her characters? Still in there and going strong. Seriously, there is no question that C.E. Murphy has joined my list of "I will read anything she puts out." This means that I'm behind the times on many series just because I'm a slow reader and I've found an amazing number of great authors, but she's right up there.

A very long time ago, probably in a Forward Motion chatroom, I read a snippet from Heart of Stone. I hadn't realized that until the moment that Margrit (with the absolutely lovely and telling nickname of Grit :D) learns what Alban really is. It was intriguing then, and just as intriguing now.

Heart of Stone introduces a possible world in which our legends, our haunting nightmares, are members of earlier sapient species that, while they didn't quite die out, lost the race to dominance and now hide in plain sight...sometimes literally. The story builds upon itself in such a way that just when you make one connection, you learn it's much more complicated than you could have imagined, but at the same time the clues that you've learned still work, if not in the way you expected.

I'm limited by my prohibition against spoilers...I don't know what I can say at this point without revealing something out of order just because it all clicks into place now. I've lost the innocence of that first page. I've been tainted with foreknowledge of the significance and how things come together. This book isn't simple. It's got Murphy's straightforward, clear voice--though this time in third person with multiple POVs unlike the Walker Papers--but that very clarity allows her to take you on a twisted, thorn-blocked path where things have more than one meaning and significance. It's a strong book, a strong story, and a strong world. I'd be amazed if anyone reading this book walked away disappointed. Me? I'm waiting for a shipment of books from Barnes and Noble that just so happens to have book 2 in it :).

Oh, and for those writer readers, deliberate or not, there are some lovely discussions or word usages that form inside jokes. Offhand I can remember a mention of "forward motion" that knowing Murphy's background seemed to have a layered meaning, but what really caught me was the discussion of race. Oh, did I forget to mention that? In the midst of this mystery, adventure, paranormal discovery trail, there's also a social message, or more like a social exploration of the concept of race. But mixed in there is a fascinating argument/discussion between Alban and Margrit about the meaning of the word and how it's been warped until it has almost no meaning left. It's not heavy handed in any way as to disrupt the story; it just adds another layer to Margrit's character and the crossovers between Alban's world and ours while offering up some things to think about if you are so inclined.

A Suburban Adventure

It's been a while since I made a canary post, which I suppose is a good sign for my own health and existence ;), but this canary was not actually me. Like all my canary stories though, it has a happy ending, you just have to wait for it.

My parents have a wonderful "durable car" story in that when I was a kid they purchased a Range Rover in England and drove it across Europe to our new post in Iran. Seems simple enough until it broke down somewhere, Germany maybe? At that point, they discovered that the folks who checked off on their brand new car had failed to add any oil. It had driven more than half a continent on packing grease...and once it got some oil in its system, continued on to be the favorite car of my childhood without (as far as I know) any mechanical consequences.

That's pretty spectacular, but today I got my own modern version.

I was scheduled to do a career fair at my kids' school and had timed things so I was on time but not very early, since that's how I do things.

I had 15 minutes to do an 8-10 minute drive, find parking, and get to the library. Easily enough time to spare.

Then, when turning out of my housing complex, I heard a strange thump. I pulled to the side of the road and glanced back to see what looked like a gas cap on the road.

Now my car was almost below the last quarter so the odds of it having been mine and on the roof this whole time were astronomical, but I was in a rush and not thinking clearly. I turned on my hazards and waited for two cars to go by on this 35 MPH road before dashing across the lane to pick up the cap. I then had to wait for another couple cars before I could pop my gas tank cover only to discover my cap in place.

Now I had cut my time margin, AND got slick, smelly stuff on my fingers, all because I rode over someone else's cap. Sigh.

Forgetting about the 60 MPH winds, I put the cap face up on the curb where the hapless gas-cap loser could have a chance of recovery, having had my gas cap replaced not too long ago when my husband drove away from the gas station with it sliding about on the top.

I wiped my fingers with a tissue, continued on to the school, raced into the restroom to wash my hands with soap, and arrived just as things were getting settled.

As the career fair carried on, the whole incident slipped from my mind. After all, I hadn't lost my gas cap, I hadn't been embarrassed by being late, and nothing else had come of it, right?

So after a successful career fair in which I got some decent questions and had fun listening to the DJ and reporter who made up the other two panelists in my room, I headed back to the car and drove the short distance home.

Despite the winds, though, it was warm in my car as it had spent the last almost two hours under the hot desert sun. So I cracked the window and let the breeze flow over me.

Even so, I kept spelling burning oil or something like it. At first I thought it belonged to one of the other cars, but it lingered after they'd gone their own way.

I decided to park the car out front and ask my husband to take a look when he got home because sometimes I pinpoint problems by smells...and sometimes the smells are memory triggers that have nothing to do with current reality ;).

Then curiosity got the better of me.

Despite being in nice clothes for the presentation, I snagged another tissue and figured I could at least check the oil level.

When I popped the hood, I was stunned to see oil all over the engine block, dripping down from the raised hood, splashing down one side of my beautiful car (okay so she's a 1990 Corolla wagon with a bloomed paint job, but she's my first car, my baby, and always beautiful in my eyes :)). Horrified, I took some inadequate swipes at her with my tissue, all the while imagining oil seeping into the air filter, radiator and who knows where else.

So, scared now, I called my husband and told him what little I knew. He asked about fire, burning smells, weird sounds. Nope. Nothing but a faint smell of oil.

While he finished out his work day, I walked back to the corner where I'd picked up the "gas" cap, about a half-mile round trip. But when I got there, I couldn't see the cap anywhere on the curb. Frustrated, I scanned up and down only to find it in the middle of the lane again. Remember the winds?

Well, I dodged a couple cars, hoping no one would hit my cap, and rescued it once again. Only this time I happened to glance at the back. It was clearly labeled "Engine Oil." Sigh. I could have put it back on immediately if I'd just done that glance when I first found it.

Not only that, but in its tossing about in the wind, and/or the intervention of a car, it was now chipped as it hadn't been when I first picked it up.

So I trudge back home, use another tissue (hmm, maybe I should put in another box?) to wipe it clean, and put it back on the engine block, locking the barn door after about 3.5 quarts of oil had already escaped.

Hubby gets home and we (mostly him) wash off the engine with a garden hose and Dawn to cut the oil. I'm still worried because I'm not sure about the chip, because even with the washing there's still oil, and I'm worried about long term consequences on my baby.

I'm also not all that happy about the place that gave me my oil change. They're the only ones who ever touch the cap. My baby runs clean and clear. She doesn't lose oil or burn it, or at least not enough to be a cause of concern between oil changes and certainly not enough to pour some in on my own.

So here I am, grumbling about the mess, the injury to my car, and the person who'd failed to close the cap properly when my friend Val tells me to call the shop. At minimum I should report it, she says, so they can emphasize the importance, and at best they could do something to help. Well, I'd mentioned that to my hubby, but even though I'd only driven 98 miles (I use my car for road trips and little between), it had been over two months since the oil change. I hadn't been the one to take her in either. So I thought about waiting for hubby to get back from taking my youngest to the dentist, then I said no, I will deal with this disaster.

I called the company with my data on the mileage and the dates in front of me, expecting argument but hoping for the best as I asked who I should speak to about a problem with my last oil change. I was transferred to the service department and given into the hands of a gentleman called Ed. I laid out both the time and the few miles as I explained that the cap had come loose and sprayed oil all over the place.

I'd barely explained the basics when he asked: How soon can you bring it in?

Just like that. No quibbles, no "when did you last add oil," no "you waited too long."

I was stunned.

But then I remembered the chip and said that I wasn't sure she was drivable. But when I described the chip, he said it sounded fine to drive that far. And they would check it when I got there. Oh, and he also said that using Dawn was a bad call, not because it won't cut the oil, but because it can damage the paint job. Just in case you're ever in need of this info.

So not waiting another moment, I tossed my things in the car and set off. She drove okay, especially considering she'd just been hosed down with dishwashing soap. My hubby had warned me about some slippage of the belts so I was prepared for that, but when she stalled out, 18 years old and she does NOT stall, at a light, I started getting worried. I love my car if you haven't guessed and this shook me. Another almost stall, and I'd made it there. Found Ed, and he brought two others out to check the car. I went over everything again as they stared into my still-dripping engine. He unscrewed the cap and saw the damage there, declared she needed a complete engine detailing, a top off of oil, and a little TLC.

As we walked back, I asked about the gas cap, but he said the O-ring was fine so the chip would not affect the seal at all, one less worry. Then the guy moving the car can't get her to start. I'm staring at my little baby, watching her engine fail to turn over and imagining all sorts of disasters when a puff of black smoke comes out of her tailpipe and off she goes.

In comes Ed again to the rescue. He not only explains that the stalling and hard start is most likely water in the distributor cap from our attempt to wash the car, but that they'll deal with it. And the smoke is just because of the oil running everywhere. He takes me off to get a cup of coffee, listens to me waxing lyrical about my baby, my first car, my wonderfully reliable vehicle who is still on her first ever clutch after 18 years (got a surprised look on that one like I always do :D), and gets me a comfy seat to wait in.

Some time later (actually quite a bit of time during which she passed into my view then disappeared again much to my consternation), he comes for me and shows me my beautiful car again. Not only have they cleaned the engine, but they cleaned the rest of the car too just because. He proudly shows off the engine, saying I've probably never seen it so clean. I mildly deflate his statement as I remind him I bought her new, but she certainly hasn't been so clean in a long time. There's still hints of oil waiting to drip down from inside the hood because they can't very well clean up inside those tiny screw holes, but overall my car is in wonderful condition.

When I got home, my hubby noticed the receipt said their work was guaranteed for 90 days, so I was actually within the warranty period, but still, Ed took the time to take care of me, to reassure me, to answer questions about how to get the stains off our driveway even. I was impressed and coddled by their grand customer service.

My poor little canary is quietly back in her spot, having driven at least twice with oil splurting all over her engine without catching fire, blowing up, or doing any of myriad things that would have ended her little existence.

And now I have a car to take me back to the school to help with registration. I just hope this trip will be a little less eventful :D.

Evermore and Night Lost by Lynn Viehl

Evermore by Lynn Viehl

(Acquired: Valentine's Present)

By Jove, I think I have a favorite. I've been reading the Darkyn novels since the very first one and I love them. They're all the kind of book that makes you want to be late to appointments or stay up a smidge too long. But Evermore is just a bit better than the ones that have come before. It has all the elements we've come to expect from the Darkyn series with history creating trouble and bringing bad blood between people who surely should have resolved their differences centuries ago but for very plausible reasons did not. Things are tangled and twisted and what you think is right may or may not actually be so. And of course, Alex gets to wield her scalpel and prove once again that the knife is mightier than the sword :).

None of that is any different than the others, which is not to say the tales are anymore than superficially similar. What makes Evermore unique to me is its emphasis on love, true love as opposed to the obsession and blood bonds that bind the characters together in the other Darkyn novels. It's not so much that there is no love in the others but that the characters don't have to fight for their love as much as succumb to it? I'm not explaining well, and can't without spoilers, which I refuse to do. What I will say is that from the start I questioned whether this series belonged in the paranormal romance section. I read them because I enjoy Lynn Viehl's writing and because I don't care if they're romance or not if they're good books with compelling characters and an interesting tale. My husband certainly doesn't read the series for the bonding of hearts with nothing but love to hold them together ;).

Evermore, however, cuts through that distinction. This novel, more than any of the earlier ones in the series, is about real love, the kind of love you can walk away from and regret your whole life or you can decide to stick it out and do whatever it takes. A kind of love unassisted by blood bonds, by scents that twist the ability to decide. That to me is true love because ultimately it can fail. Ultimately the people can make a choice that will drive a copper-plated knife through the heart and leave only green-tinged scarring behind. Evermore brings us back to a love that anyone can share, a love that doesn't rest on the easy laurels of physiological and psychological bindings but which the characters have to fight for to make it work, to make it last.

Anyway, enough blathering on. I loved this book. I really like the rest, but I love this one :D.



It may be unfair to follow the Evermore comments with Night Lost just simply because Evermore was so much more than the others, but there it is. I wanted to post my new comments and couldn't fairly skip the previous book just because I hadn't posted it yet. Still, I don't think you'll find much amiss in these thoughts either :).

Night Lost by Lynn Viehl

(Acquired: gift)

I mentioned a long time ago (I think) how I felt that the first book of the Darkyn series seemed more like a world setup than a tight, strong story as much as I enjoyed the characters. Night Lost helps bring some of that together in such a wonderful way that it resolves issues I didn't even realize I'd been waiting for, but at the same time makes me feel more comfortable with the overall. As usual, there's a primary romance as well as further experiences for Alex and Michael. The story is strong, well-rounded, and has that ever important push and pull of a romance novel that makes the reader question how Nick and Gabriel will manage to pull this off despite the "happily ever after" requirement. My only quibble is a minor pattern of exceptions in the series (and no, I'm not saying more than that), but with my quibbles from If Angels Burn being resolved some time later, I'm willing to allow this discontinuity on the expectation that Alex will come up with a good explanation for what is going on. The worst part of finishing this book is the time before the next one comes out. If you haven't tried Darkyn (or you let the first one turn you off), I'd recommend giving it another try. Yes, these are vampire novels, but they're a different type of vampire, and Lynn Viehl always manages to come up with a new way of bringing two people together.

Emissaries from the Dead by Adam-Troy Castro

(Acquired: EOS Advanced Reader Review copy)

Emissaries from the Dead by Adam-Troy Castro is downright bizarre and completely compelling. I chose this book because it was about futuristic diplomacy, but the very beginning shows just how broad that definition is. This is a science fiction novel, that much is clear from the first page, but really it's a psychological thriller. There's so much going on that doesn't quite make sense but at the same time you're right with Andrea Cort as she tries to put the pieces together, hampered by her own limitations. I did have a point when I wondered if there were any clues for me to put together. I'd collected some, but none of them offered up a clear sight of an answer, so I questioned if the book had that ability. By the end, that concern was dismissed wholeheartedly. Not only had the clues I'd collected actually come to have meaning, but I'm kicking myself for missing something obvious, something that the other characters missed as well because they were thinking too narrowly, but I normally do better.

On the diplomatic side, this is more of an anthropological novel with the diplomats responsible for first contact. However, I can easily make the leap that those functions would become entwined as first contact and species relations became a matter of policy rather than academia. The world this novel is set in has levels of complexity that build on each other and provide fertile ground for the related novels hinted at to come. At the same time, the relationships and situations brought up within these pages make sense. Both the look at bureaucracy and the corporate extreme, while pessimistic, have clear seeds in our current world. This is a logical extension of humanity as existing today, with the added levels of other sapient species, including non-human artificial intelligences that spawned out of biological cultures that have long since died out.

Which brings me to my greatest surprise. I'm avoiding spoilers because this book is definitely one you need to experience in the order given to comprehend the results, but I do want to comment on the ending. As I approached the last few pages, I experienced a vague dissatisfaction because I was sure there was no way to wrap up some of the bigger layers, the ones outside of the scope of Andrea Cort's actual investigation. The investigation wrapped up if not tidily then at least appropriately considering the aims of all those involved (there were some facts that were to be suppressed no matter what, or so Cort was told in her initial briefings). And that was the surprise. After I'd given up hope, after I'd assumed the issue in mind would be spun off into a sequel, resolution happened. Not closure as there are definitely the seeds of another novel to come, but resolution. I hadn't given Adam-Troy Castro enough credit.

So going back to my original statement, this book was bizarre, strange, weird, not what I was expecting, and I'd definitely recommend it. Many were the times when I struggled to put it down because I had other things I had to get done; I often enough thought, "just one more scene," or "I'll read to the end of the next chapter," because I didn't want to step out of the kaleidoscope that was life on One One One.

If you like thrillers, the twisted works of the human mind, first contact, seeing the dangers of bureaucracy, and half a dozen other things people enjoy, there's something here for you.

My "Young Whippersnapper" Rant

I really don't think of myself as old, but sometimes I do feel like I am because the definitions of the genre writing I've loved almost since I started reading have undergone a radical shift.

This is somewhat of an extension on my Arabian Nights rant, and a certain someone will snigger to read this. Her comments might have triggered this post, but the thoughts behind it are old.

I had a somewhat dicey initial experience with reading, which may have informed my attitudes somewhat. Because of that, I'll begin at the beginning and hope you'll stay with me.

I grew up believing I was a slow reader and just couldn't get it...an impression that my dyslexia probably contributed to, but one it turns out was completely inaccurate. It wasn't until much later I learned the true story, which was this:

I went to a Montessori school much earlier than most kids because my older sister got to go, so of course I had to ;). When I joined the traditional school system, they made me repeat kindergarten three times because I was too young to start first grade. Add that to a family that reads and by the time I started first grade, I read at a reasonably sophisticated (for someone of my age) level.

That's the part that I didn't remember or recognize. I only know it from my parents telling me.

What I remember is that I was introduced to "reading" with the Dick and Jane books. These books were instantly worthless and boring so reading was obviously not worth learning. Looking back, they also have many similarly spelled words which are a nightmare for a dyslexic because the letters aren't the same each time you see them, a fact that may have contributed to my reaction.

So, in the most revolutionary way possible, I rejected the concept. I have my early report cards and they're laughable. I could not, or rather did not, read.

At the same time, my father would read Kipling to us every night out of these big black hardback books that were so removed from the Dick and Janes that I literally did not associate what he was doing with reading. I guess I thought it was just a prop because he was as likely to tell us a tale of his own making as to read it from a book. I have wonderful memories of all three of us girls in Jenn's room while Dad read from those books or told us tales. But it's the memory that focuses on the physical book. At the time, I really didn't comprehend that.

Then my older sister, a die-hard, avid reader even back then, forced books on me. I discovered there was so much more to the world of reading than Dick and Jane (though at this point I was reading more, just not avidly). She introduced me to Marion Zimmer Bradley (MZB) and Anne McCaffrey at about seven or eight years old. I don't remember whether it was my parents or Jenn who sucked me into the colored fairy tale books, but they all came at the same time in my memory.

Suddenly reading was wonderful. But I had it stuck in very distinct categories, that initial arrogance in rejecting Dick and Jane filtering through all my reading options.

Fairy tales were very structured and served their purpose.

Science fiction (which both MZB and Anne McCaffrey were classified as at that time) was wonderful, the harder the better, though I loved the soft sciences as well.

Fantasy? Well, that was stupid unicorn and fairy stuff, like the Dick and Jane. Okay, I didn't say I was discerning, just that I was adamant :).

My older sister spent years trying to push me to read fantasy. She occasionally succeeded, but it was *always* an exception. I would reluctantly admit that particular fantasy novel was a good read, but give me a hard SF any day, some Clarke, MZB, or Heinlein. I would never choose a fantasy novel on my own, or by my choice.

With this as my background, though I do read fantasy now...and a surprising amount of it is good ;)...I've always got a bit of a superiority complex, not for me, but for SF over frou-frou unicorn stuff. It's not supported by my reading habits, nor how I feel when I discuss specific works, but like not being able to fall asleep with gum in my mouth because my mother once told me I'd choke and die, it's ingrained, instinctive.

So you can imagine how it feels to have my favorite, the wonderful anthropological SF of MZB and McCaffrey, reclassified as that dreaded word...fantasy. And it's not right; it doesn't make sense. They're nothing like the fluffy unicorn or staid Tolkien high court fantasy. They're cultural, anthropological, and telepathic, all good scientific or scientific-based things. Nothing magic, nothing "you just have to accept because it is" about them.

The other day though, I had a breakthrough.

A friend who is not too much younger than me was introduced to Mercedes Lackey and Valdemar before she read MZB and McCaffrey. She says to me that psionics is clearly fantasy because magic horses use it. She says the elaborate cultures and social structures are clearly fantasy because...well...fantasy's like that.

At this point I fall to the floor and start kicking and screaming...okay, not literally, but how frustrating. When MZB wrote Darkover, fantasy wasn't like that. Fantasy has slowly moved from the pure fantastical to a more logical and cultural social basis. Bit by bit, fantasy is nibbling at the edges of what is clearly science fiction, stealing motifs and common elements of my favorites and undermining the definition of soft sciences so that the science part is left out. Instead of Tolkien and his constructed cultures or the random little races who exist for no other reason than to plague humanity, we have wars over resources, diplomacy, first contact, and half a dozen other traditional SF areas that are now claimed under the fantasy umbrella. For the first time in my life I understand the scoffing and embittered clinging of the hard SF folks. It's not that they really are trying to exclude the soft sciences or limit the definition of SF, it's that they're trying to hold something back, keep something sacrosanct before those fantasy writers take that away from science fiction too. I mean, look at it and tell me I'm wrong. Now magic has to follow rules, has to have physics either natural or created. It's not acceptable to just claim it works, you have to know why. How is that different than a science fiction that extrapolates so far beyond our current science that the only things they have in common are defined, consistent rules?

Now the funny side of this is simple. All these changes? Well, they've drawn me in. I now read more fantasy than I would have ever imagined I could. I can get my anthropological fix as easily from Robin Hobb as from Karen Traviss, my first contact from Wen Spencer whether she's writing about aliens invading the Earth or elves shifting between realms. I've been tricked! Deceived! Snookered into liking fantasy. It's all a sleight of hand. Don't look behind the curtain all you fantasy addicts...guess what you'll find? Science fiction.

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Judging from my to be read pile, yes.

But no matter what, no matter how many of my old favorites you shuffle to another shelf, I've figured out the truth; I've figured out the trick. It's not that science fiction is becoming fantasy, it's that fantasy is becoming science fiction :). Now the prejudice against unicorns on the cover suddenly makes perfect sense. After all, whose roots can current fantasy claim? It's certainly not those frou-frou unicorn stories :).

Albert's Rain by Annette Snyder

(Acquired: Blog contest by Rachelle Arlin Credo at http://zyphe.blogspot.com/)



Albert's Rain was not quite what I was expecting, something I'm a bit grateful for because it ended up reminding me of a type of book I used to read but which dropped off the map.

I know Annette Snyder through one of the writers groups I belong to which is how I heard of the blog contest. However, on the group, Snyder has mostly mentioned romance novels, making me think this would be genre romance. The back of the book also supports that impression with statements like, "Can Albert's heart transcend language and barriers of repression and allow Rayna close?" Now I'm not saying the book does not have love within the story, because it does, but rather that the heart of the story is not two people overcoming barriers to come together.

No, Albert's Rain has no simple focus on the heart but rather speaks to the tangled web of emotions and reality that beset those confined to slavery before and during the Civil War. While I'm no historian and so cannot speak to the historical accuracy, this novel gave a very realistic seeming portrayal of a man who had set his heart on freedom and constructed his life to allow for no distractions from that goal. But everything changes when he crosses paths with a woman who has recently been torn from her island home and thrust into a life of slavery and of being owned that is as alien as the tongue everyone else around her speaks.

I studied literature in college with a focus on minority and women's lit. This book would have been comfortably tucked into any of my reading piles with its use of the rain as a harbinger of change and the way one man has to look beyond a strong and true desire to change his fate to accept responsibility for those around him.

Anyway, it's a powerful read that evokes both the cruelty and the compassion of that difficult time in US history through the eyes of a man and woman who come from different beginnings but find themselves joined by circumstance long before they admit there's more holding them together than just proximity.

A Big Step Forward (an Ostrich Post)

Okay, folks, I've managed to make you fear for my life in my canary posts, so here we go, a new category...ostrich post :).

Where the canary bravely lives life on the edge (though usually not by choice), the traditional (not real) ostrich buries its head in the sand and hopes for the best. Don't know whether this is just a laugh or something useful for character study but...

I'm a nurturer. This has served me very well over the years and has been an incredible blessing in trying to manage the myriad of ways that my life changed when I married and when I had kids for example.

However, it has a downside. Very simply, it's hard for me to put my needs first. I have trouble buying things that I need if I can make do without them, I tend to get bowled over because I don't put my foot down, and being noticed makes me uncomfortable. Simple things that often go unnoticed in our "first person" world.

Well, today you should cheer for me...through your gales of pitying laughter of course ;)...because I have made a huge stride forward :).

When I was pregnant with my oldest son, my mother-in-law took me out to get some pregnancy clothes to places that honestly I could never have afforded on my own. Now remember that thing about not buying things for myself? Well it works out to being very uncomfortable when things are bought for me as well. But we muddled our way through my intimidation and discomfort quite handily and ended up with some clothing that while it could accommodate my physical changes, was also flexible enough that I'd be able to wear it more than nine months or even eighteen. (I wear clothes out, so ten, fifteen years later, I'm still in the same ones.)

Which brings us to the present (yes, all that was back story and if this were a short story, I would have to cut it out :p). My oldest turns fifteen on this very day. That means the whole preggy clothes purchase was some sixteen years ago.

Now many of the clothes purchased that day have worn out over the years, but I still have the leggings, mainly because I only wear them under jeans when cold because molded clothing is something I don't tend to wear...well, except for jeans, but I'm a bundle of contradictions :). One pair is my absolute favorite. It's good thick cotton with ribbing and is both comfortable and warm enough to make a difference. Given my preference, this is the pair I'd choose every time, except...

I have a long torso and short arms. This might sound like it has no relevance, but it is critical. It means that 90% of the tops I purchase, whether off the women's or men's racks, are not long enough to stay tucked in my pants as I prefer to wear them. So there's a tiny gap, okay, of several inches, of bare skin with nothing between it and the icy cold air.

And when I wear the pair of leggings I absolutely prefer because they're so comfortable and wonderful, their horribly scratchy and irritating label is right on that bare skin where it irritates until my back has a red itchy patch.

Now an age ago, I still clung to the belief that over time the label would get less scratchy, that as I washed it, the material would soften and become just another part of these comfortable leggings. Some sixteen years later? It's a bit long and WAY too many washings to hold on to that delusion. So instead, I just suffered. Accepted the bad with the good, accommodated to the world around me as I am wont to do. I still wore the leggings, just wasn't as thrilled or hopeful when I pulled them on.

However, this morning a crazy, wild, amazing thought crossed my mind.

Hmm, what if I...removed!...the label. I could do it. Just a few stitches snipped and my wonderful leggings would be wonderful all over. No one would care. No one would even know (a bit late for that now ;)).

So to make an already long story come to an end, that was my victory. I forced the world to conform to my needs for once. I changed my own environment to suit me. I snipped off the irritating label!

/me peeks out the curtains.

And the label police haven't even shown up yet as I sit here enjoying my now completely comfortable leggings :).

So, don't leave me out on a limb. Maybe I'm completely strange and out there, but I'd guess not. Share one of those moments where something becomes obvious that should have been all along so I'm not out here by myself :).

Mike's Meme

Now I don't normally do tags because I struggle to come up with something to say, but I got tagged by a friend, Mike who's just as thrown by these things as I am, so I figure it's only fair :). Of course now I have to find six more to keep this going...eep! And the scary thing is that not only did I come up with six but I came up with more than six...and six not on Mike's list. As suspected though, it took all day to come up with six things to say.

1) When I was little, I was a matchstick white-blond who loved to wear mirrored dresses. Don't have a picture online of me back then, but the dresses looked sort of like this: Mirrored Dress. And in checking, I went to my parents' site to see if they did. They don't, but if you've ever wanted to do one of those semesters abroad on a ship, you might want to check out their blog: ScholarShip. Dad's teaching and Mom's coordinating offshore trips for a semester at sea.

2) I just recently started playing the guitar again with some seriousness (a friend is teaching me Spanish guitar) but I have a broad collection of instruments that I love but do not have time to play. Actually, it's more that I don't have anyone to play with, as for me, making music is not a solitary activity (Does this count as two?)

3) I had to put www.popcap.com on my banned website lists in my browser because I was playing too much and it made my hands hurt...then I couldn't get the browser to stop banning it!

4) I appear all organized, but the reality is that I struggle to maintain order in my life and my study. I swear gremlins manufacture papers behind my back.

5) I have a fascination with large birds of prey. I love to watch them fly and want to be one with them up in the sky...which is bizarre considering I'm afraid of heights :).

6) When I was in sixth grade, I used to spend recess letting the bees dance along my arms and fingers. I never once got stung outside, but have been stung by bees at least twice inside my house, once in Virginia and once in California.

Here are the rules

Link to the person that tagged you
Post the rules on your blog
Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website

Val

Maripat

Erin

Bonnie

Holly

Jean

2008 Read Books

Here's the list of books that I read in 2008.

Title	Author	From	Date added	Date Read	Read	Blogged
Bad Girl	Maya Reynolds	blog contest on http://mayareynoldswriter.blogspot.com/	09/25/2007	01/04/2008	x
Winter Moon	Mercedes Lackey, Tanith Lee, and C.E. Murphy	Xmas present	12/24/2007	01/10/2008	x
Over the Edge	Suzanne Brockmann	Steph Tyler (stephanietyler.com) in exchange for the progress bar	05/18/2005	01/16/2008	x	x
Albert's Rain	Annette Snyder	Blog contest by Rachelle Arlin Credo at http://zyphe.blogspot.com/	01/10/2008	01/23/2008	x	x
Out of Control	Suzanne Brockmann	Steph Tyler (stephanietyler.com) in exchange for the progress bar	05/17/2005	01/30/2008	x	x
Emmissaries from the Dead	Adam-Troy Castro	EOS Advanced Reader Review copy	01/27/2008	02/05/2008	x	x
White Lies	Linda Howard	Steph Tyler (stephanietyler.com) in exchange for the progress bar	05/16/2005	02/12/2008	x
Writers of the Future Volume XIII	Dave Wolverton	ordered	11/01/2007	02/29/2008	x
Evermore	Lynn Viehl	Valentine's Present	02/14/2008	03/04/2008	x	x
Rose Daughter	Robin McKinley	Xmas present	12/24/2007	03/14/2008	x
The Defiant Hero	Suzanne Brockmann	bookstore	12/27/2007	03/24/2008	x	x
Heart of Stone	C.E. Murphy	bookstore	03/01/2008	03/31/2008	x	x
DragonFire	Donita K. Paul	borrowed	03/01/2008	04/08/2008	x
Twilight Fall	Lynn Viehl	ARC	04/04/2008	04/13/2008	x	x
Her Sister's Child	Cynthia Thomason	We Hear You	04/12/2008	04/16/2008	x
Long Hot Summoning	Tanya Huff	borrowed	12/24/2007	04/22/2008	x
The Accessible Aunt	Vanessa Gray	bookshelf	01/01/2003	04/25/2008	x
Cetaganda	Lois McMaster Bujold	bookshelf	03/03/2008	04/30/2008	x	x
Magic Burns	Ilona Andrews	bookstore	04/30/2008	05/06/2008	x	x
Sharpe's Battle	Bernard Cornwell	bookstore	12/31/2007	05/13/2008	x	x
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - July 2008	Gordon Van Gelder		05/12/2008	05/20/2008	x	x
House of Cards	C.E. Murphy	Mother's Day	05/11/2008	06/07/2008	x
Fanged & Fabulous	Michelle Rowen	bookstore	08/04/2007	07/13/2008	x
The Last Lecture	Randy Pausch	borrowed	08/20/2008	09/04/2008	x	x
Force of Nature	Suzanne Brockmann	gift	09/01/2008	09/11/2008	x	x
Omega Games: A StarDoc Novel	S.L. Viehl	bookstore	08/01/2008	09/14/2008	x	x
Lady and the Vamp	Michelle Rowen	bookstore	08/24/2008	09/18/2008	x
Chill Factor	Rachel Caine	bookstore	08/24/2008	09/21/2008	x
Ally	Karen Traviss	bookstore	06/02/2007	09/23/2008	x
The McKettrick Way	Linda Lael Miller	gift	10/05/2008	10/18/2008	x
Nicholas and Alexandra	Robert K. Massie	gift	07/10/2008	10/30/2008	x	x
Dust	Elizabeth Bear	bookstore	08/24/2008	11/20/2008	x
Ruins	Lazette Gifford	Holly's Store	09/13/2007	12/01/2008	x	x
Texas Baby	Kathleen O'Brien	We Hear You	04/12/2008	12/15/2008	x

David Weber and Honor Harrington

It's been a bit of time since I gave a content post, and I've accumulated a new backlog of comments because I've been reading a lot, so I thought I'd give an overview of the Honor Harrington novels that I have read, a three for one deal.

As soon as I post this, I'll be updating the book table as well. Hmm, maybe I should make a new table for 2008? We'll see :D.


On Basilisk Station by David Weber

(Acquired: family)

My family has been trying to get me to try Honor Harrington for years and it's not that I was resistant, just that it never came to hand when I had a spare moment. Well, I was down there visiting and my older sister shoved the first book into my hands (stole it from my parents' shelf actually ;)). I started reading and then asked for the next books in the series. Honestly, I don't know if I would have enjoyed it when they first started, and may even have tried it before back then. This book is space opera, something I wasn't much into until reading Stardoc by S.L. Viehl. But then, my tastes were very much into hard science fiction or anthropology (genre or mainstream) and have only started branching out in the last 15 years or so. Anyway, suffice it to say that I'm reading the second book now...and enjoying it.


The Honor of the Queen by David Weber

(Acquired: borrowed)

I'd guess that my family (who have been trying to get me to read this series for years) already knew this, but it didn't become clear until my husband said he didn't like David Weber because it was military SF. Anyway, I have figured it out. This is Hornblower in space! Sigh. If only I could come up with good taglines for my own novels :). Anyway, another good novel. There are some points that are old style and so jarred me, but I enjoy the interactions. I do think there is a nasty twist at one point where I got my hopes up twice only to have them dashed both times though. It's a fun read that doesn't pull any punches, and besides the main character, it seems everyone is potentially at risk. And hey, if I don't understand the battle scenes from a physics perspective, at least nothing in them threw me out because it was implausible. I have to laugh at the occasional nods to "this is military SF not space opera" with comments like that an explosion should have blown their eardrums if sound travelled in space.


The Short Victorious War: We Love Our Honor by David Weber

(Acquired: borrowed (actually, my parents wanted theirs back so bought me the series except this one wasn't available, so I snagged it from their shelf over Christmas :)))

Well, it's hard to come up with something new and original to say as this is the third Honor Harrington book I've read. Honestly, this was the weakest of the three because the scope was so large that it was hard to remember who was who and what had last happened to them. The ending made this very clear because of how huge crises were wrapped up just as summary of events mentioned by some of the players. I understand how the climax would have been too confusing if it displayed two major battles simultaneously, but that doesn't stop me from feeling as if the threads weren't really resolved. Ultimately, I enjoyed the Honor parts. I felt this one was a little more messagey than the previous two, which may have contributed to me not particularly liking the parts that were so distant from her career as to be in another empire. Will I keep reading the series? Of course :). It's still Hornblower in space as far as I'm concerned. I definitely wouldn't recommend this one as an intro to the series though. What's odd is that I've said that about two books recently but for completely different, in fact opposite, reasons. This one because the scope moved so far back that it was too broad to take in. The other because it moved so close that you needed the grounding in the character to understand the full significance of the events.



So, have you read David Weber or Honor Harrington? Have you read Hornblower? Are you going to give it a try?

Workshop on Using an Outline to Edit

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the late notice, but I just realized I should mention my workshop on my blogs in case anyone is interested. The workshop is an expansion of part of my Muse Online 2007 presentation with a whole month to complete the work and, I hope, a lot of enthusiastic fellow workshoppers to provide dynamic feedback.

The program is a hands-on exploration of how an outline can help in the edit phase whether you're an outliner or a pure organic. This is the first in a series of workshops designed not only to teach the techniques but give participants experience with them both through completing the exercises and through commenting on others' offerings.

Anyone who is interested is welcome. To take the course you must join Forward Motion, but membership is free. We have to do that to protect first electronic publication rights as we will be sharing portions of our work to get help.

Join using the "Join" link:
http://www.fmwriters.com/

Here's the link to the class board once you're logged in:
http://www.fmwriters.com/community/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=418

The first exercise is posted so hope to see you there. Oh, and a warning from the person who helped me edit the class...come expecting to work for your learning ;).

I'll be posting the second exercise in the next couple of days, but it's a forum-based workshop so coming in late is fine. If you think this might be useful, please come check it out.

Cheers,
Margaret

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Well, I haven't managed to keep up with the one post a week, but I've still been more prolific in posting than I was before I set that challenge. Hope you all are enjoying what I've put up.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

(Acquired: bookshelf)

I read American Gods not because I ran across it and thought it might be interesting, but because a handful of folks told me to...and another handful told me not to waste my time.

Interestingly enough, having reached the end of the novel, I have to say I fall right smack dab in the middle of the two. I do not regret reading the book and Gaiman is beyond question a talented author. I think my reaction had more to do with where I am as a reader than the book itself, though that doesn't make the reaction false.

I found most of the individual scenes appealing. At the same time, nothing drove me to keep going except my innate need to finish what I start. I don't have great stretches of time to read, nor can I muster up the focus to do so when I do have that long a period. This very fact worked against American Gods. With reading times short and stolen from other tasks or using energy I don't have to spare, a book needs to compel me to get back to it. As it was, I read two other books while making my way through American Gods. I didn't want to toss it aside, but at the same time, I needed something more juiced. Though it's not reflected in the back cover blurb, or even in the novel's beginning, this book reminds me more of The Drifters or other such novels where the point is that people wander about experiencing things. That's not a horrible fact at all, it's just a different type of novel than I was expecting.

From the start, the characters in American Gods warn the reader that a storm is coming. But we're held bound within the one character who has no idea what is going on, who is literally adrift, having lost his sense of self to prison, and his wife and job to a car accident. Then even worse discoveries undermine his sense of his past as well. He takes a new job from a stranger to do whatever he's asked up to but not including hurting people--unless it's an emergency. This job he carries out faithfully as he goes along, sometimes offered a glimmering of the truth, but most times kept on the sidelines. This is what both gave me the sense of drift and removed all urgency. If the storm wasn't important to the character whose head I shared then it wasn't important to me.

There was a time in my life where such a story would have been a mystery and a lovely thing to dwell on. I'm not in that space right now. I want my reading to build to something powerful, to accumulate pieces until the tension is unbearable and something has to break. It doesn't have to be world shattering. It can be something as simple as a personal realization. Ultimately I didn't feel that though I did put the pieces together before they were revealed in the story. I'm stuck with Mr. Nancy at the very end who doesn't understand why Shadow feels the way he does (yep, as obscure as possible to avoid spoilage).

For me, despite everything, Shadow doesn't change. At one point, he talks about how all that he learned has seeped away from him and I couldn't help but recoil from the possibility that this would end in the classic, "and then he woke up" space. It didn't, and couldn't, but in some ways it did. For all that we went through on this journey, for all that he experienced and learned, I think his choice at a crucial point to embrace nothingness is the most telling. His wife said he wasn't living. With the exception of two flashes in the dark, I agree with her all the way through the book.

Sigh. And now it sounds like I hated it, which isn't true. The individual writing is often fabulous; the scenes when read as a series of short stories are compelling, interesting vignettes. I think there's lots to enjoy in this book if you know what you're getting into. Don't expect a strong, driving plot. Don't expect an active protagonist who pulls you through so you don't want to put the book down. But if you're looking for a meander through a world that co-exists with ours, populated by people who echo back into the many traditions that have immigrated to America at some point or another, American Gods will fill that need in spades.

Arabian Nights and the State of Fantasy

I wrote this post a couple months before, but forgot to post it. Since it still applies, I thought you might enjoy...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This has turned out to be a crazy year with personal, emotional, physical, and intellectual challenges. Sometimes the simple things are lost in the struggle.

I just finished reading an edition of The Arabian Nights that's been on my shelf forever. Maybe because of the above, maybe just because it had been too long, but I felt the need to go back to my roots. I grew up reading the color fairy books (Red, Blue, Violet, etc.) and the very first stories I wrote all came from that inspiration. I have the three brothers, the arrogant, the mighty, and the naive, I have great monsters that aren't monsters at all but rather cursed innocents, and all the traditional tropes in those 1-5 page stories handwritten on loose legal notepaper in pencil, smeared and hardly legible now.

When I was a kid, I remember taking a match to the back of a sheet of paper to "age" it for the poem I had written there. I don't think that poem survived, but I can tell you all the other pages now look pretty much like the one I'd faked.

Anyway, back to Scheherazade.

I read all the stories with their fantastical natures and fascinating tales only to get to the afterward at the end. The compiler recounted not his efforts to gather this edition but the cause, the first time he'd discovered 1001 Arabian Nights and how the sheer wonder of it swept him away.

It was only then that I consciously noticed what I'd accepted the moment I opened the book to the first page. The Arabian Nights is unique in modern fantasy and I wonder if something might have gotten lost in the translation.

The Arabian Nights is about pure fantasy, fantastical elements, magic, chance, fate, impossibilities galore. It sweeps the reader into a world so distant from any chance of reality that you just have to go along for the ride because any effort to analyze would break the illusion. Don't look behind the curtain.

As a reader of modern fantasy, what catches my attention is the anthropology, the cultural exploration, the interactions between people. I don't generally go for those books with elaborate magical constructs unless they also supply the anthropological focus I prefer because I'm not interested in the logic of magic. Now maybe I wonder if that very logic has broken something for me. Has requiring plausibility hindered fantasy in the same way as hard science fiction is now limited to the mundane because the bleeding edge of science has moved beyond the grasp of the average reader so those novels that still explore it don't get very far?

As I write my fantasy novels, in each one I balance every coincidence, struggle over every time that the plot just falls into place because that might hint at an "act of God." On the other hand, much of my fantasy has active gods who are in there bringing things about. Greek influence? Or maybe the only way I can fit the magic scheme I want to have in with modern requirements?

I've recently adopted the new trend of urban fantasy, as a reader and finally with my latest WIP as a writer. In urban fantasy, magic and technology coexist in a tangled, confusing, contradictory mess that no one really understands. Hmmm? Is it just me or has urban fantasy returned more to those roots of genies and fates and magic for magic's sake. We don't understand it, say the characters, so we can't explain why it does this. It just does.

Anyway, those are some stray thoughts for you to chew on. I'd love to hear your take on the state of magic in fantasy novels, and whether the changes are a good/enduring/sad/whatever event. Or even if you disagree entirely of course :D.

Coyote Dreams by C.E. Murphy

Sorry folks. I gave it my best shot but life just got in the way. I finished my novel for the National Novel Writing Month one day early, did some more freelance work, and managed a little reading, but posting once a week just slipped past me. However, this still may be my most active period in a long while, so maybe I can ease into more frequent posts :).

Coyote Dreams by C.E. Murphy

(Acquired: bookstore)


Coyote Dreams, Book Three in the Walker Papers, lives up to the rest of the series with an engaging main character and an approachable writing style. I just can't put these books down. If I could dissect how C.E. Murphy does it, I would do my darndest to replicate the effort. She even manages to carry off an ignorant, bumbling main character in a likeable way. Joanne is nothing but self-depreciating and a disaster on two legs. But the other characters care for her just as much as I do because despite all that, she's well meaning and trying her hardest, or at least as hard as she thinks she can. This one follows the pattern of the others where the enemy is not who she thinks it is, combined with a sense of sympathy and responsibility, but the solution to Coyote Dreams is even more tangled than the previous ones. I really can't say anything more about the book without giving something away, except that I hope the loss she experienced will somehow come around right and I'm frustrated as all heck with the epilogue for all that I understand and it suits the characters. Sigh. I'll just have to see what happens in the next book...and there better darn well be one for all C.E. Murphy is off starting new series.

I have to say, everyone I've introduced to C.E. Murphy has loved the series, so if you haven't given it a try, the odds of loving it are high :).

Other comments about C.E. Murphy's books are in these posts:

Urban Shaman
Thunderbird Falls

Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

I apologize for skipping last week, but I have a very good excuse...if a little beyond believable :p. I caught another flu. I swear, if I was a teacher I'd start to give myself a weathered eye. On the other hand, I recovered faster this time so maybe I'm getting back some of my energies :).

Anyway, I chose this book because it's a debut by an author I know who, as far as I know, has only published some short fiction beforehand. She has a unique style well suited to her chosen genre of urban fantasy and is well worth the time and money to check out.

Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews

(Acquired: bookstore)

I picked up this book because I have critiqued Ilona's work on OWW and always enjoyed what I read. No big surprise that Magic Bites held up that standard and gave me a darn good read :).

This novel is a cross between cyberpunk and traditional fantasy as it pulls the reader through a quest against the dark evil in a world not too distant from ours where magic has started to take over...and not in a delicate, seep in way either. I enjoyed the badass attitude of the main character, Kate Daniels, but also how she evaluated and interacted with the people in the book. She wasn't always attitude in a devil-may-care way but knew when she'd gone too far or when she had to stop quickly. She shows courage, responsibility, and caring for others, even those thrust in her way without permission or inclination. She respects the balance others have to live within even when she refuses that choice for her own life.

Though I didn't feel the answer to the mystery (like most urban fantasy there's an underlying who-dun-it) was offered the astute reader, something I do see as a flaw because I should at least go "uh huh" with the big reveal if not already suspect that direction, there were some clues and I suspect that aspect of Ilona's writing will only get stronger as she continues forward. This was certainly a worthwhile read.

She's joined many of those I talk about here as one of my list of autobuy authors. Besides ;), I think the next in this world is one I had a hand in critiquing part of. Not only does this give me a cool feeling, I darn well want to find out what happens next because she stopped posting!



So, if you have read this book, or have now that you've got my recommendation ;), drop a note in the comments and tell me what you think.

P.S. I've updated the TBR/Read spreadsheet. The lack of bold titles tells me I need to go to the bookstore :).

Angel with Attitude by Michelle Rowen

And you thought I'd let the week slip by without a review after all this :). Since I'm in such a cheery mood, I thought I'd share a cheery book with you. I wish I could write humor like Michelle Rowen does...heck, I wish I could write humor ;).

Angel with Attitude by Michelle Rowen

(Acquired: bookstore)

A while back, I won a book in a blog contest, a light-hearted romance called Bitten & Smitten that had even my two young sons rolling in the aisles and quoting back the pieces I'd read to them. When I saw Michelle Rowen's second novel on the bookstore shelf, I remembered how much we had enjoyed the first and snatched it up. Then it lingered almost a year on the to-be-read pile waiting for a chance, a chance that came just three days ago (from 7/12/07) when, upon finishing a literary retelling of Theseus, I wanted something light and easy. Angel with Attitude offers that in spades. I got sucked in almost immediately and had to fight my way out several times because I have so much to do that I can't spend a day reading. The characters are compelling, their troubles make sense, and in between all the struggles and worries, there are a good number of laughs as well. My only quibble is a problem with unclear pronouns, especially "she" when two female characters are involved. I suspect this comment won't come as a surprise, since the book has at least two points when it laughs at itself through comments clarifying the character reference. Anyway, Angel with Attitude won't disappoint. And I'm planning to pick up the next by Michelle, and the next, and the next...