Interesting Links for 6-25-2010

What I’m Reading

I managed to take in a bit of short fiction while waiting for my son to finish the book he’d borrowed, Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews (which I now have). There are a bunch of good reads out there for the enjoying.

The Dead Man’s Child by Jay Lake on Cosmos Online offers a lyrical narrative that builds on itself to resolution in the manner of the old teaching tales. It’s not rushed or focused on action or gore, and is compelling for that very fact. What did you think of it?
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/fiction/online/885/the-dead-mans-child?page=0%2C0

I listened to Father’s Kill by Christopher Green on Beneath Ceaseless Skies in audio form. I rarely have time for audio, so it’s not my favorite method of “reading,” but the BCS reader is quite good. I found the tale evocative and primarily mood focused. It does have a twist at the end that I didn’t anticipate, but is both well seeded and surprising too so nicely done.
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/story.php?s=48

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This Is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams

My husband recommended this novel for me, and it meets a lot of my interest areas. This Is Not a Game talks about the gaming world gone one step further into the real one, and then explores the social and economic consequences of same. The novel has a very cyberpunk feel to it while at the same time showing none of the traditional modifications. It reminds me a lot of The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, with modern-based tech as opposed to steampunk.

One of the reasons I enjoyed the book is its very complexity. Walter Jon Williams keeps numerous threads running throughout the book for which the interrelationships are not clear from the start. There are many types of books this one can fall under, but ultimately it’s a mystery. Dagmar is the main character, and she is responsible for crafting complex games run through the Internet but intersecting with the real world as an effort to advertise brand-new products. The games may involve international travel or just research but draw players into a world where treachery is the natural state of things.

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Interesting Links for 06-11-2010

What I Am Reading

I just read Michelle Rowen’s The Demon in Me, and as usual, she did not disappoint. While the novel shows her characteristic upbeat style, it also provides a deeper main character than her Bitten and Smitten series who must deal with some heavy questions and circumstances. Like has happened before, I quibble about the classification of a romance novel, but that doesn’t reduce my enjoyment, or the fact that I’m eager to see what Rowen does next in the series.

Promoting

At this point, I use my social networking time to learn more about publishing for the most part, but this article does a good job of pointing out some of the myths that are used to support how much time is given to free networking sites:
http://chipmacgregor.typepad.com/main/2010/05/the-hidden-costs-of-social-networking.html


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Social Media and the Coffee House

I was at a restaurant with my husband last night and we started talking about social media, specifically the differences between Twitter and Facebook. Something clicked for me, and I thought I’d share what I figured out.

My parents are both retired Foreign Service officers which means that I spent much of my childhood surrounded by reams of fascinating adults. This included other diplomats, company folks stationed in the same country, ex-pats often from Ireland, or any number of other folks who had chosen to live outside their native country, or who were native to the country we were currently in. I learned quite young how to behave among them so I wasn’t sent to bed early, though before that I would hide under the dining room table so I could still listen.

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BayCon 2010 Con Report and Interesting Links for 6-4-2010

This week has been all about catching up after BayCon (I returned to a deluge of over 600 emails and 100-200 more come in each day) so I don’t have very many links for you to enjoy. However, I’ll give my first real con report below them to make up for it.

What I Am Reading

I finished This Is Not A Game by Walter Jon Williams while at BayCon and haven’t had time to write up my thoughts. It’s definitely an interesting read, though I have some issues with the storytelling. I talk about the reader’s 50% for description here: http://fmwriters.com/Visionback/Vision43/Alteredpeception.htm, but in this case my quibble is which thread of a complex novel was given dominance.
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Steamed by Katie MacAlister

I’d been meaning to check out Katie MacAlister because of recommendations, but then I ‘met’ her in the Romance Divas class on steampunk where she mentioned Steamed. I have a soft spot for steampunk that dates back to my early childhood and travel watches I used to take apart and sometimes repair…with a few pieces left over. That was enough to push Steamed to the front of the list the next time I was in a bookstore.

While not exactly what I expected, especially since it starts with Jack in his quantum physics lab, the story is fun with strong characters. MacAlister leaps on the bandwagon of multiple universes to posit a world in which steam, and European dominance, holds sway. It is populated with a lot of the steampunk traditional elements, but there’s enough of a difference to play with when Jack’s interest in steampunk conflicts with his new reality.

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Interesting Links for 5-21-2010

What I Am Reading

This has been a crazy week, so I didn’t get much reading time, but I have finished Steamed: A Steampunk Romance by Katie MacAlister and will be posting my review next week.

Submitting

While I’d be cautious about some of the style tips at the very end, this process for constructing a synopsis is similar to what I taught in my synopsis class and can be quite effective:
http://www.writing-world.com/publish/synopsis.shtml

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Interesting Links for 5-14-2010

What I Am Reading

I’m in the middle of Steamed: A Steampunk Romance by Katie MacAlister. It’s not quite what I expected, but I’m enjoying the ride so far. Ballsy characters in a neat setting make for a fun read.

The Last Stand of the Ant Maker by Paul Jessup on Apex Magazine is a bizarre almost prose poem. I skimmed the first few lines, thinking I wouldn’t like it, but ended up reading the whole thing, pulled in by its surreal nature. I wanted to know what was going on even though I could tell I never would be able to exactly.
http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-online/2010/05/short-story-the-last-stand-of-the-ant-maker

Writing

Using Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to create character conflict:
http://www.plottopunctuation.com/blog/show/77

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Changeless by Gail Carriger

Alexia Tarabotti, the barely tolerated eccentric, Italian-colored spinster without any prospects no longer exists in the second Alexia Tarabotti novel. Instead, she’s been replaced by Lady Maccon, just as eccentric, just as Italian in appearance, and suddenly a hot property in society. While her change in status offers convenience, it does little to mold Alexia into someone society can bill and coo over, a fact which makes Changeless as much of a delight as Gail’s debut Soulless.

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Interesting Links for 5-7-2010

Sorry for the late post. This week has scrambled out from under me as I enjoy the rush of Forward Motion’s annual Story A Day challenge. I have 5 stories completed so far, and I’m quite happy with the lot of them.

What I’m Reading

This week I read Changeless by Gail Carriger. It lives up to the pure fun of Soulless while offering a tour of the British Isles (not really but some) and adding a number of new complications.

Life

Okay, this might be a little much, and I don’t usually post things like this, but my life has been a bit of a struggle and many of my friends have been going through very rough times. Nick Vujicic’s attitude just struck a nerve, a reminder of what’s important. Enjoy:

http://www.shrinkgeek.com/2010/04/30/inspiration-can-trump-perspiration/

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Her Vampire Husband by Michele Hauf

I’ve read another book by Michele Hauf before I received this advanced copy as part of the Library Thing program so I knew I enjoyed her romances, but I’ll have to say Her Vampire Husband surprised me on two levels.

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Interesting Links for 4-30-2010

What I’m Reading

This week I finished Her Vampire Husband by Michele Hauf. This is not the first one of hers I’ve read, but this one surprised me on several levels. It was closer to an erotica than I’d expected, and was a little too detailed on vampire love making for my comfort, but what caught my attention the most was the overall story where two distinct culture groups with a lot of reasons to hate each other have to face up to their similarities and change. This is definitely worth a read.

I received an order I’ve been waiting on forever (stupidly put some prereleases in a B&N free shipping order) and have to make a tough decision as to what to read first. Changeless by Gail Carriger won and I’m devouring it already.

The Freedom by K.M. Lawrence is an odd story that doesn’t quite explain itself but at the same time gives enough to draw me in and keep me reading through to the end. I wonder if this is a glimpse at something bigger just because there’s so much not explained, but that’s not a problem for the story. It’s an amazing study in how to say almost nothing and yet reveal a whole lot. And besides, I enjoyed the story itself. http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100426/freedom-f.shtml

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Kids Sure Can Surprise You

I don’t normally talk about my kids much, in part because my oldest is a private sort of person and also because it’s not fair to tell their stories for them. However, this time I can’t resist. I’ve just had my own assumption handed to me by my youngest in the best way possible.

P.S. My oldest isn’t offering a shoddy showing either having just been named a contender for the National Merit Scholarship Award .

Anyway, a little bit of back story is necessary.

Some years ago, my oldest earned a role in a high school performance of Fiddler on the Roof, his first up here in Reno. I’m the type who’s willing, though not particularly able, and so volunteered to help with costuming. (more…)

Iron Man 2 by Alexander Irvine

Description: “I am Iron Man.” With those words, billionaire industrialist Tony Stark revealed his secret identity. Now a famous high-tech superhero, he uses his powers to protect mankind. Yet things are not going well for Tony Stark. The U.S. military demands control of the most powerful weapon on earth…the Iron Man suit. His beautiful new assistant has a strange, mysterious agenda while his best friend, Rhodey, has betrayed him. And Tony is hunted by a vengeful Russian criminal armed with a lethal technology that may be stronger than Tony’s suit. But even as he fights his demons, the hero faces his greatest threat…one that no armor can defend against…

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My Review

Iron Man 2 may be the first novelization of a screenplay that I have read, and as an introduction, I think it was quite a good one. I’m an old time comic book reader, and I’ve gone to every comic-based movie that I can, including the first Iron Man, so when LibraryThing.com had some review copies of Iron Man 2, I signed up. I wasn’t sure what to expect though, because I hadn’t read a comic-book to screenplay to novel before, as I said, and I was concerned that the feel of a comic book would be lost in a novel, or that it would not appeal.

Face it. Most comic books, especially the old Marvel Comics which originally brought Iron Man to life, have a larger than life aura that defeats efforts to constrain them to the expectations of life. It’s big, beautiful, brutal, life on the edge and without any sign of social conformity. Very few comic book heroes are people I’d enjoy having in my life. They tend to be arrogant, obsessed, driven, and so totally focused that the details which make life livable are just cast aside as unimportant. What that means is that if you’re not the super powered or gadgeted hero, you become something less than an appendage and more like an inconvenience. And none of that changes the fact that within a comic book, these stories are compelling, inspiring, and just work.

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My Livescribe Pulse Pen

Several people have been asking me about my pulse pen and what I thought about it. Only thing is that I hadn’t had the chance to take it out on a road trip yet. Well, now I have and here are the results. This is what the pen captured. You can see my lousy handwriting in its full glory…and I was even sort of trying to write well, okay, trying when I remembered :p. Then I ran it through the OCR software. It certainly isn’t perfect, but the reason for the picture is so you can see what it had to work with. My older son wrote a sentence to test it in his cursive and it translated perfectly. Maybe I should improve my handwriting? Oh, and the pen also recorded the audio for the whole presentation in a usable sound file despite sitting in the left-hand, second to last row of a curved lecture hall.

Anyway, on to the show! (more…)

Interesting Links for 4-9-2010

What I’m Reading

Iron Man 2 by Alexander Irvine was an enjoyable romp with some amazing insights. I had a lot of fun reading what is most likely my first novel adaption of a movie adaption of a comic.

Another sweet story from Strange Horizons, but nothing like the last. This is much more traditional fantasy. The Duke of Vertumn’s Fingerling by Elizabeth Carroll: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100405/fingerling-f.shtml

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A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

I’m coming to this book quite late in its popularity, so there isn’t much that hasn’t already been said. However, as a mother, I love the fact that my son, who largely keeps to Forgotten Realms novels, chose A Game of Thrones to branch out…and that I can share the experience.

Why it took me so long to read this novel is easy. It didn’t exist in my teens when I read veraciously, and I am intimidated by big books. I have so little time to read that giving it over to something huge takes great effort, or outside intervention.

My luck came to play when I was assigned this novel as part of Holly Lisle’s How to Revise a Novel course. I’m on lesson four. It’s due by lesson twelve. I started early in the hopes of finishing in time.

Now you want to hear the funny part? It took me about the same number of days to devour A Game of Thrones as to enjoy The Windup Girl despite the second being half the length.

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Interesting Links for 4-2-2010

What I’m Reading

I just finished Silky, a novel by Lazette Gifford who happens to be a friend as well as a talented writer. My sister, years before I knew Zette, had already read and enjoyed the first edition. Now I know why. Silky is available through Holly Lisle’s Shop:

http://shop.hollylisle.com/index.php?crn=207&rn=403&action=show_detail

My current read is Iron Man 2 by Alexander Irvine, which I received as part of the LibraryThing reader program. I’m finding it quite interesting because it maintains a comic book/men’s adventure feel.

Writing

Fun super hero generator that can be used as a story prompt:

http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/comics/herogen/

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Interesting Links for 3-26-2010

What I’m Reading

I finished HeartMate by Robin D. Owens earlier in the week. This is a novel my older sister leant me some time ago that got lost in the volume of my TBR pile. By luck and persistence, I rediscovered it while adding books to LibraryThing. Owens introduces a fascinatingly complex future society in what is clearly a science fiction romance. The romantic thread has center stage and you get your HEA (happily ever after), all the while discovering a world with a dark side and unexpected allies.

I’m currently enjoying Silky by Lazette Gifford, a novel by a good friend and independently recommended to me again by my older sister. Hmm, I’m detecting that sister has a bit of influence on my reading material .

And this week I managed a short story as well, Merrythoughts By Bill Kte’pi. This story, offered by Strange Horizons, is odd, introspective, and quite powerful:
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2010/20100322/merrythoughts-f.shtml

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Interesting Links for 3-19-2010

What I Am Reading

I finished George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, and now I understand why people are so opinionated and desperately waiting for the next installment. That book epitomizes the epic part of epic fantasy, following several different ruling families and their conflicts in a compelling narrative that manages to juggle a huge cast of POV characters with very few slips.

I also read The Rat Catcher by Kate Rothwell, a wonderful historical romance with unlikely main characters and a venture into the seedier side of historical New York crossed with a sheltered virgin whose ignorance is a source of much confusion, discomfort, and humor. (more…)