Book:The Hob's Bargain by Patricia Briggs
Month Read: November

Notes: Briggs debut, good fun and interesting because you can see little rookie mistakes, but she succeeds in spite of them. Her writing grows more confident in the novel's second half. I imagine that readers who got this one when it was fresh off the press and became instant Briggs fans are a bit smug now, because they discovered her before the rest of us.

Recommended? Yes


Book: This Simian World by Clarence Day
Month Read: November

Notes: Day uses the gimmick of "what if people had descended from tigers, ants, elephants" etc. to philosophize about human nature, the origin of religion, and our future. This book is awe inspiring not only because every sentence is beautiful, but also because it could have been written in 2009 instead of 1920. In fact, the copy I read was printed in 1936. (A sensation you can't get from a Kindle - the simple coolness of flipping through a bound bundle of ink and paper 31 years older than yourself.)

Sometimes Big Ideas transcend their original place and time, reminiscent of the Sappho volume I read in September.

Recommended? Yes


Book: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea by Ursula K Le Guin
Month Read: November

Notes: Some transcendent stories, I especially enjoyed 'The Rock That Changed Things'. I've heard the phrase "all politics is local politics". I wonder if UKLG would paraphrase that idea as "all human society is tribal society" because that is the way she portrays people, no matter how far into the future her stories are set. UKLG really is on a different plane than the rest of us.

Recommended? Yes

Book: Donovan’s Brain by Curt Siodmak
Month Read: November

Notes: This is an old school mad scientist story originally published in 1942 and made me nostalgic for the stacks of Asimov I read as a kid. This book has that same golden age style. It gave me nightmares - brains are just creepy.

Recommended? Yes

As for the story, good fun and supremely urban fantasy: tough angry girl shapeshifter against the world, coincidentally surrounded by hot supernatural dudes who are all madly in love with her. There were a couple of genuinely scary vampire scenes, too. Briggs does not do sparkly vampires, hers are the old-fashioned variety, phobic about crosses and properly Evil.
Recommended? Yes

Here I am, 42 years old, taking the first course in a Master's of Business Admin. program (Fundamentals of Business Development). Tonight, of course, being the premiere of the new incarnation of the terrific TV series "V", I thought I would multi-task and while watching the show, do homework during the commercials.

About halfway through the episode I identified the deja vu I was feeling. Twenty five years ago during episodes of the original "V" I was following the same routine, scribbling away at my Algebra II homework during the commercials, back when I was a sophomore in high school.

By the way, don't read this next bit if you haven't watched your Tivo of this new "V" yet:

( Read more... )

Hey, I found this on the SciFi Channel schedule and tivo'd it just in case, because sometimes "SyFy" accidentally shows good movies. And what do you know, zeppelins and vampires in the same flick! It is "Perfect Creature" from New Zealand and I do recommend it.

I just loaned $25 on Kiva toward a group loan for the residents of Svay Prey Village in Cambodia.  Check them out, they look like nice folks in their photo. 

Mrs. Yeoung Khim Village Bank Group

Click image for cakeheadlovesevil bloggage.

Truth, it's a rare endangered bird.  There's been a sighting over at therinth's blog though:

http://therinth.livejournal.com/340749.html

Book: Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
Month Read: September
Notes: This is Sanderson's debut novel and I definitely want to read his Mistborn series after enjoying this one.  While the pace was sometimes a bit slow in the beginning, the book is well written and is a Big Fat Fantasy in the heroic tradition.  During the last third of the book I was having a tough week at the day job and found myself at the office secretly pining to get back to Elantris and the main characters.  Is there any higher praise for a fantasy author than a reader preferring your reality to her own?
Recommended? Yes

Book:  Sappho, A New Translation by Mary Barnard
Month Read: September
Notes:  Sappho wrote poetry in Greece 2600 hundred years ago, and IMHO Mary Barnard's book has the best translations of the few intact poems that have made it to 2009.  Sappho wrote (correctly):

Although they are
Only breath, words
which I command
are immortal

Recommended?  Yes

I'm glad I am keeping this book log, because I have realized that I'm not finishing any of the 5 or 6 books that I currently have going.  October will be a more disciplined reading month - I will read until the end before moving on to the next, I really mean it this time.

Lately I've been having trouble getting into a writing routine, despite having a novel in progress that I'm excited about.  I keep finding myself doing lame stuff to procrastinate, like watching Tivo'd episodes of Criminal Minds (from 2006, I missed that season), reading the October Realms of Fantasy (Not a lame thing actually, the reborn ROF is pretty darn good), cleaning house (Very lame, I'm so embarrassed.  But I have clean bathrooms for a change.) 

Watching this clip by Mary Roach during my writing time is by far the oddest and most interesting procrastination I've so far committed (aside from the real thing):  Ten Things You Didn't Know About Orgasm

So here I am, no word count but I'm all educated about pig orgasms.  And as for the work in progress, I'm thinking I need to get away from the old laptop altogether and write in longhand for a while.  Youtube and I need some time apart so we can re-establish our boundaries.

The amazing Carol Emshwiller, author of Carmen Dog and The Mount,  is in Strange Horizons this week:

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2009/20090928/safe-f.shtml

<fangirl>She is terrific.</fangirl>

The Alchemist's Feather!  Check it out!

http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/audio.php

Go Erin!

We played Dungeons and Dragons at Dragoncon for the first time in several years.  The best campaign was called "Circus Maximus" and was dungeon mastered by the excellent Kip Campbell.  The setting is a chariot race.  Each player got two characters and a chariot, along with some specialized movement rules and a chariot damage chart.  I won the initiative roll and was the first chariot out of the gate.  This was my last good dice roll for the entire game, however:

Here we are going into turn 1:




I tried to do an "aggressive turn" to catch up, with disastrous results:



Here's the big finish, my chariot isn't even in frame:



And here are the proud first and second place chariot drivers:

I am a co-ed again, sort of.  I just registered for an online graduate program here at Florida Tech:  http://www.floridatechonline.com/graduate-masters-information-technology-management.asp

I had been considering either this program or an MFA, but I couldn't find a low-residency MFA for spec fic writers, so I guess I succumbed to the demands of the  rat-race while making this decision.

I had a great time at DragonCon this weekend, but now I've come down with a furious case of the Con Crud.  It is slowing down my planned blogging about the con, but here's a teaser, me with Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (She signed the latest Saint Germain novel for me, too).  Note the goofy fangirl expression on my face:

Hey all.  I will be out of touch this weekend because the fellas and I will be at DragonCon in Atlanta.  Our main goal is to get into this:

http://www.dragonconthriller.com/

Cheers!

Hi all, here's what I read in August.

Book: The Stars Down Under by Sandra McDonald
Month Read: August
Notes: First of all, I am the best Sandra McDonald fan ever, because the first copy of this book I ordered from Amazon got lost in the mail so I popped out to the Barnes & Noble and got another one.  I think this installment is arguably better than book one in the series, and it still has that unexpected trippy tone change in the center of the book - reality slides sideways.  Sandra McDonald writes a good hallucination.
Recommended? Yes

Book: Mothers and other Monsters by Maureen McHugh
Month Read: August
Notes: Good stories and good writing with themes like coping with Alzheimer's, the old using technology and medicine to prey on the young, and an outstanding ghost story.  I am sending my copy to infinitejulie next week, promise!
Recommended? Yes

Book: Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Month Read: August
Notes: Great writing and a clinic for us spec-fic writers on good characters.  Shusterman creates a complicated, despicable villain and then makes us empathize with him.  He succeeds because of (besides great writing) a commitment to his premise.  The theme is one that is most important in YA, IMHO:  that the established order is often wrong.  Also, the idea that real heroes think for themselves and a folklore-inspired subtext about growth and transformation through sacrifice.
Recommended? Yes

I'm guardedly celebrating a day where I accomplished both:

15 minutes on the treadmill (running, not walking!)
writing 450 words (fairly good first draft words)

Could this be me getting my life back in order after a summer of stress?

Last week my mother-in-law, who has been in poor health for a long time, passed away.  Even though everyone knew she wasn't doing well it was a terrible blow, especially to my husband.  She was a dear person and a great mother in law, because even though we didn't see eye to eye on some things she recognized that we both loved her son.  She never tried to meddle in our marriage or tell us what to do - she was just loving and caring.

One other thing Tish and I had in common, a love of books.  In the last few years diabetes ruined her eyesight so that Tishy couldn't read, even large print.  Although I don't really believe in it, I hope with all my heart that heaven is a real place and that Tish is there right now, curled up with a good book.

Rest In Peace, Tish Reynolds.  We will miss you so much.

I'm still recovering from my big move, so my reading list has suffered almost as much as my blog.  Here's what I read in July:

Book: Blindsight by Peter Watts
Month Read: July
Notes:  Peter Watts at his best - in space.  Watts' central theme could be summed up:  What's screwed up about humanity is also its greatest strength.  The science here is a lot of fun, and Watts makes technically difficult writing look easy.  I bet Peter Watts is a prickly SOB in person, I wish I could have a beer with him sometime.
Recommended? Yes

Book: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
Month Read: July
Notes:  One of the first books I read in my new Florida home is about how a small Florida town survives a nuclear war.  It's a great novel, one that you think about when you aren't reading it and look forward to getting back to.  And, I love a good apocalypse story.
Recommended? Yes

Book: The Empire of Ice Cream by Jeffrey Ford
Month Read: July
Notes: Every single story is good, and there are at least two that stay with you for a long while.  I guess Ford is classified by some as a writer of literary fantasy, but his writing doesn't have that aloof quality that I associate with the dreaded "literary" label.  Maybe it's because he wrote some of these stories for his children, as he talks about in the notes for each story, but a warmth comes through in his writing even when he's tormenting the main character.
Recommended? Yes

I'm enjoying my first few weeks in Florida very much.  First, nice to live in the same house as my husband again, in a comfortable place with a pool.  I always thought a pool would be too much hassle, but so far we love it and try to swim every day.  I enjoy the weather, because even when it rains the sun always has the last word.  But one thing I hadn't anticipated about Florida, especially here in Weston on the eastern edge of the Everglades, is creepy crawlies. 

There's bugs and varmints, and then there's South Florida bugs and varmints - really in a league of their own as far as creepiness goes. Every time we open the door it seems there is some creature desperate to get into the house with us, such as this little guy who we finally captured in a french fry box.

 
Over the weekend the cat chased a small frog inside that we still haven't located.  At night I can hear a faint cheeping from hubby's closet...

My co-workers warned me about the local toads on my first day. 

http://floridagardener.com/critters/BufoMarinus.htm

Apparently, if your dog or cat bites one of these things it can die from the poison.  First aid includes washing pooch's mouth out with soap and the garden hose and then giving mass quantities of milk to drink.  I have spotted one of these things out on the patio, but it is so huge and ugly I can't imagine one of our pets being stupid enough to bite it.

And despite our love of the pool and the fact that it is enclosed in screens, we always inspect it carefully now before jumping in, ever since we discovered the drowned corpse of what we tentatively identified from Google as a redbellied snake, although our specimen had an orange belly:  http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/snakes/stoocc.htm

It doesn't help that I found the snake in the pool a few days after reading about the uncontrolled Burmese python epidemic here in South Florida:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080520131750.htm

So Florida is nice, but no going barefoot.