January 2014 - One Month Down

The year so far:

- We had my partner's daughter with us over from Perth.
- We had Christmas.
- And New Years.
- And cleared out our garage.
- I discovered the Pandora app on my phone, and that led to all sorts of new music.
- Saw Frozen.
- And Sherlock.
- And The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, which was basically the same thing. ;)
- Compiled a truly intimidating to-be-read pile that is no longer under any control at all.

As for New Year's Resolutions... I have two. One of those comes in the form the above mountain. If I manage to at least pick up all of these titles to see if I like them by mid-year, I'll be happy. 

Notable mentions of good books read so far:



Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8: Retreat.

I'm not usually a huge graphic novel fan, but as soon as season seven ended, I knew I'd be buying all of season eight in comics. And so I did, and there they've sat for... far too many years. Every so often, I pick one up, wipe off the dust and commit to reading it.

Then, a Willow specific comic was lent to me (pictured in above pic, far right) and I felt I should finish the last three issues of season eight.

Well! I read it overnight. Kept on turning pages, so very, very compelled. The rest of the books have been a bit of a slog, to be honest, but this one made it all worth it!

Who's that on the left hand side of the cover? Why, it's the reason why I found this book so enjoyable. Oz is back! (full review..)

Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor.


For people who have just picked up this book, please don't be alarmed by the first chapter. You are not about to read a young adult novel with a thin plot and sallow romance front and centre. Though I don't blame you for thinking that with the introduction of Kaz.

Thankfully, the book only grows better than that, and the plot hits such a point that by page 100 you will not be able to put this book down.

I had heard many wonderful reviews about this book, and I am thrilled not to be disappointed by it. This is a young adult novel, with the heroine set in Prague so the schooling system seems a bit skewed from what I recognise; much more adult and seeming like TAFE or college with subjects like life drawing. That only improved my reading experience. Karou is also a kickass heroine who can take care of herself, which is the best pairing in young adult fiction up to date.


I'd also like to keep a record of what I write and where, at least once a month, even if it's fanfiction. (NB: It will be fanfiction at some point. We've just had Season 3 Sherlock. So...)

This month, between 10th - 21st January, I wrote a short six part series posted on Tumblr: Delilah and Sansa.

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.
Part 4.
Part 5.
Part 6.

Inspired by artwork by Fukari, music by Jasmine Thompson and The Dresden Dolls. Word count: 1,448.

From 17th - 21st of January, I also plotted a new novel, projected approx 70,000 words. The first chapter was something I scribbled down during NaNo. Hoping to start that off properly in February, if not before.

December Reading List 2013

It's very quickly warming up over here now that NaNo (November) is over. I didn't write anything else. Thinking of trying to get some more work done today if the heat doesn't end up frying my brain.

I can't even believe that this is the last month of 2013. And the last month this year I'll be putting together one of these reading lists. Crazy.

An Ice Cold Grave

I'm very much enjoying this series of books. Much better, in my opinion, than the Southern Vampire Mysteries series and without all the drama. This series is only four books long, so I'll be finishing it next month.

Magic Bleeds

Getting through this series at a rate of knots because I'm reading it with some big fans of the series. After last month's book, however, I don't even mind. This book is going from strength to strength, just like Jim Butcher's Dresden books, and just like I was promised they would! People picking up this series: It's a slow burn, but it's worth it.

Dime Store Magic.

Just when you think I'd be done with paranormal fiction for this month, I pull out this old favourite. Kelley Armstrong's Bitten is being made into a TV series starting out in January. I've read most of the books that the series is going to be based from but, sadly, I've never actually finished this one. So, into the pile for this month it goes!

Neverwhere.

Next on my list is Neil Gaiman!! After the huge success that was reading through The Ocean at the End of the Lane two months ago, I've been looking forward to reading this one with a group with baited breath. Not to mention, this is the book that the radio play read by Benedict Cumberbatch, Natalie Dormer, James McAvoy and others was based from. :D:D

The Lives of Christopher Chant
.
This just wouldn't be a month of my reading if I didn't go in for some Young Adult fiction. I absolutely loved my introduction to Diana Wynne Jones last month when reading Charmed Life and so I figure this book will be one of the first that I pick up to follow that up with this month. These books are fantastic, even for adults readers who haven't read them before and so don't have the nostalgic value of their first time reading it.

Mistborn.

This is another book I'll be reading along with my group on Goodreads this month. I've never read anything that wasn't a Wheel of Time book from Brandon Sanderson before--even though I previously worked in a science fiction and fantasy book shop--and I've been told that this is something that needs fixing right away. Therefore, this is a book on my list for the month.

'The Hobbit' and talks concerning Middle Earth

Very recently, I have been the proud recipient of an iPad to help with work. They say that it's for work. 13G of music and a whole bunch of personal downloads later, and I have started wondering exactly how much for work this really is...

However, on my list of downloads are a large number of free lectures I have been listening to on iTunes U. The most interesting (to me) so far has been a series of lectures by one Corey Olsen.

Setting aside that this man is a brilliant public speaker, his lectures are so fluid that you really feel like he's speaking to you about something he's passionate about, rather than words printed to a sheet. His subjects are largely to do with Tolkien, and the series of lectures I have been listening to lately have more specifically to do with The Hobbit.

This is a very exciting time for us Hobbit fans. (I include myself in this group not so much as a fan of the books, but as a fan of talks surrounding Middle Earth and, of course, the pretty pretty actors that seem to populate its lands. I am firmly of the opinion, however, that I am just not grown-up enough yet to appreciate this literature, and it is something my brain with eventually work itself around to when the requisite amount of time has passed.)

One of the reason why it is an exciting time is that it is only two months now until the inaugural second movie of this new trilogy makes its way to our screens.

Secondly, it is only a little more than a week since the second of The Hobbit trailer videos were released to the masses.

For those who missed it, there was another trailer that was released about four months ago, in June:

It's going to be fun to see the likes of Christopher Lee and Orlando Bloom present in the cast for these stories once again come December.

Poetry Time - John Keats as read by contemporary British male actors.

I post a lot about fiction on this blog. But in my undergratuate days, I was quite the fan of poetry. Shakespeare to Bryon. Keats, Shelly, Blake. Eliot, Hughes, Plath. It didn't matter to me.

It wasn't that poetry readings were stereotypically shorter than novel readings in courses that often had less time than desired for reading the course content. It was that... I could read something by any of these writers and be transported. I could put it down, only to pick it up and read it again, gaining some other insight to what the poet might have been trying to say.

From there, it was a short step to biographies, trying to find out exactly what they had been trying to say with these words, what were the influences that were pressing in on them in the times of their writing and, in Byron and Shelley's cases particularly, the connections that these poets made in each others lives.

I'm not so much a fan of contemporary poetry, but I am a fan of contemporary actors reading out Keats in their beautiful English voices. There's just something about having poetry read out to you to make you hear it completely differently.

A few years ago, a movie called Bright Star came out, starring Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish. I was, of course, one of the first people in line to watch this movie as soon as I found out it was based on the story between John Keats and Fanny Brawne, the love of Keats' life. It was there that I first saw understood the meaning written into the above poem.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine posted another Keats reading on Twitter and drew my attention to 'Ode to a Nightingale' being read by none other than Benedict Cumberbatch.

This poem is one of my absolute favourites, filled as it is with Dryads and Bacchus and "starry Fays" and Darklings. The wonder of this poem is only increased with Benedict's deep and moving reading of it.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

         I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

         To take into the air my quiet breath;

                Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

         To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

                While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

                        In such an ecstasy!

Edit: I mentioned Ben Whishaw in his role as John Keats in Bright Star, and lo, here is another reading: 'La Bell Dame Sans Merci' ('The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy').

Holly Black's upcoming release: 'The Coldest Girl in Coldtown'.

I had just finished airing excitement for the release of Love in a Time of Global Warming by favourite author Francesca Lia Block, as well as the upcoming new season of Sherlock. There as well is the ever-continuing promise of S.H.I.E.L.D. coming out in September. I had almost thought that all my potential for squee had been all used up for the time being.

Nope. I was wrong.

At the beginning of the month, I promised I'd be writing more on this upcoming title soon, and here it is:

Holly Black! That is a name people have no doubt seen on my blog more than a couple of times. (If you haven't, I have personally devised a clever tagging system at the bottom of each post so that clicking on 'Holly Black' will pull all such posts up. :D)

Holly Black's short story anthology The Poison Eaters got a fair amount of publicity in 2010 when it was released, but by far and away the most noise made of any short story in that anthology had to do with "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown".

Now, more than three years later, it's going to be released as a full length story in its own right. Now, first there was the cover reveal, then there was Entertainment Weekly releasing their exclusive trailer for the book slated to come out on September 3rd, here.

I'm not ashamed to say that I am excited. In fact, I'm already re-reading The Poison Eaters just to tide me through! And, as of today, the First 8 Chapters of The Coldest Girl in Coldtown are available for FREE, you saw correctly, FREE on Amazon now: http://www.amazon.com/Coldest-Girl-Coldtown-Chapters-ebook/dp/B00DB7R7E6/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1375816503&sr=8-1&keywords=coldtown

Only until the date of the release. (September 3rd. Eeeeeee!!) So get in quick!

Sherlock: Season 3, Episode 3.

Remember when I came to you with a very disappointing update on Sherlock season three tacked onto the end of a post?

"(Unlike True Blood, BBC's Sherlock is something I'm looking forward to with baited breath. Come on season three!)"

Well, now this has happened.




This may just be the most exciting thing that has happened to me all morning.

(Of course, considering I've only been up for an hour and it's almost midday, that might be the most exciting thing that has happened to me all morning.)

Episode 3! They are up to filming episode 3 at the end of this month!

Charlaine Harris, Southern Vampire Mysteries and 'Dead Ever After'.

Okay, so, my love affair with Patricia Briggs clearly goes above and beyond any feelings I may have for Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries, or it's associated HBO television show True Blood. Time and again, I mention again how amazing I think Patricia's writing is. I don't think this blog yet has had a thing to say about the certainly more public series written by Charlaine.

At the risk of being just another commentator on the big issue that has come out of the latest--indeed, last--book of the Southern Vampire Mysteries, they are in a similar enough genre to the Mercy Thompson books and I think a person must almost have been hiding under a rock to have missed the outcry that has come along with Dead Ever After.


At the core, Charlaine completed her series of books in a way that many of her fans did not like. As with many fellow authors, she had a vision for the trajectory of the series and, even with the popularity of certain characters over other certain characters, Charlaine made the decision not to waver from her original view on how the books would end.

Now, in the wake of many impassioned and angry fans, Charlaine has had to cancel public appearances and otherwise hide under her own rock until the sensation passes, instead of celebrating the end of a particularly popular series of books.

At the end of season three, I put True Blood aside when they went off and seemed to kill everyone but Sookie at the end of season three, leaving me feeling like I would have sacrificed the main character rather than lose all the rest. I ranted about it a little to my friends that year. I even started voicing it again when time came around for season four to be premiering. I certainly did not write hate mail to the author and producer of the series, or even post my opinion publicly.

As far as the books, I've been trying to figure out how far I'd gotten. Dead and Gone is the last one I read, I think. As much as I loved the 'mysteries' element of these stories, I thought that the character interaction was, on occasion, a little thin. There were a lot of questions about Sookie and Eric getting together that I thought went overlooked in favour of other things.

I've got a Goodreads.com account, and I do post reviews of all the books I read up there. All the books I finish. There have been many I haven't, and to those I simply put a 'Did Not Finish' marker on my blog here and move on.

For any books I've finished and not liked? There is always something constructive one can say about a book. I've also read my fair share of writing in various creative writing courses over the years. It is common courtesy, even when you do not like what you've just read, to say something positive before you give the criticism. I take that route whenever writing a review to a book I didn't feel was all that strong. There's got to be some reason you kept on reading it, even if you didn't like some parts of it, so why not mention those, too? (To be truthful, I also list the one or two things I thought weren't strong in books I absolutely loved.)

The issue has brought up questions of whether authors, as both artists and producers of a service, do or don't have an obligation to give their readers what they want. It's a really interesting debate, but also really scary if authors are put in a position where they have to give in to their readers if they don't want to face all this.

Of course, this is hardly the first time anything of this nature has occurred. In what's probably the most famous previous occasion of public outcry against an author's decision, and probably something that's coming to a lot of peoples' minds right now, Arthur Conan Doyle made the decision to wrap up his Sherlock Holmes series by killing him. In this case, of course, the author did give in to public outcry and brought him back.

(Unlike True Blood, BBC's Sherlock is something I'm looking forward to with baited breath. Come on season three!)

I'll tell you what, though. The public outcry over the end of the Southern Vampire Mysteries series of books has made this little read want to sit up and finish reading these books on my shelf, just to see how she did decide to finish them. :D

'Neverwhere', an updated post!

A little while ago, I posted some early news on the upcoming Radio 4 adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. You might remember it, I was quite excited.

A couple of days ago, an email from one of my lists contained this rather nifty link containing a bunch of updated information for this upcoming radio play. It's happening, guys, it's happening!

I really cannot state in calm and rational sounds just how excited I am by this cast.

Keep in mind, I come from a strong fanfic (fangirl) background, so it's tempting for me to take a look at each individual actor from the popularity of previous fandoms if only for just one second:

James McAvoy.



Look at that cutie-cute. You may know this man from X-Men: First Class where he played a non-bald, non-wheelchaired Professor Charles Xavier. Should you also read fanfic, you will also recognise him as the often-times partner of one Erik Lensherr (Magneto), easily one of the most popular 'ships for months after the release of this movie.

Benedict Cumberbatch.



You may know this man from BBC's Sherlock, where he plays a not!sociopath alongside characters such as a not!housekeeper and not!boyfriend. The fanfic archives would have that otherwise, however, in the overwhelmingly large responses that have risen up after each season finale. The grief-stricken John fics alone, as he first comes to terms with Sherlock's demise only to find that the death has been a fake (and often punch Sherlock in the face). We are all achingly awaiting the day when Moffat finally reveals to us how it really was that Sherlock escaped death, but in the meantime we're happy to just listen to his amazing voice.

Anthony Stewart Head



Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Although I have seen Tony Head in a number of roles past his portrayal of weary watcher Rupert Giles (Repo, Spooks), not to mention the sheer number of hours I personally have whiled away on the computer over the years reading Buffy fanfic. He may appeal to an older audience, true, but there is a lot in this man that's still there to appeal to the younger crowd. See also: previous comment about amazing voice ;)

Other most notable mentions include:

Christopher Lee & Natalie Dormer. 


Lord of the Rings (Fellowship and Two Towers, anyway) & The Tudors/Game of Thrones.

This series will begin on SATURDAY 16TH MARCH, and I will be listening eagerly.

--

It is four months this week since Gothic hit the shelves and I'm pleased to see a whole bunch of reviews coming back this week to commemorate the occasion.
This week, I have both a featured interview and review over on Ashley Torbeck's http://drunkenspacepenguin.blogspot.com

So, in today's news of the most exciting thing ever--

We're going to be putting a pause on book ruminations for radio-play-of-a-book ruminations.

That's right! For any of those who haven't heard yet, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere is being produced as a radio play slated for somewhere in the first 4 months of 2013 and includes such voices as James McAvoy, Natalie Dormer, Benedict Cumberbatch and Anthony Stuart Head.

Neverwhere "tells the story of Richard Mayhew, the strange girl Door and their adventures in Gaiman’s mythical “London Below.” This brilliant alterna-verse is populated with characters named for London landmarks (The Old Bailey), regions (The Angel Islington) and tube stops (The Black Friars). This story is Gaiman’s at his finest and delivers up the perfect blend of fairytale, myth, modern crime story and romance."(Read more here)

Cue me jumping up and down like an absolute fangirl! I will so be on this :D:D:D



(photo and content thanks to http://www.pajiba.com)