Books

Book roundup to start the month of May and book buying hiatus

I think this’ll be my last book roundup at least for a couple of months–userinfosolarbird and I are about to hit summer doldrums in our rental income, so I need to back off buying books for a while. Also, I need to get massively caught up on reading and reviewing! So as of this post I’ll be on hiatus for buying new books through the end of May, at least. Possibly the whole summer, but let’s say for now the end of May.

Therefore, in print:

  • The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, by Mark Hodder. Steampunk. Picked this up since I’d been hearing about it for a while, and because it just won the PK Dick award.
  • Mark of the Lion, by Suzanne Arruda. Mystery. This is a re-buy, in print, on the grounds that I’d tried to shift over to ebook with these series, only to discover that book 1 is not actually available electronically to US readers. To wit, bah. Re-bought it so I could keep it in my library, but will buy the rest in ebook.
  • Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente. Fantasy. Re-buy in print as I gave my previous (unread and still in new condition) print copy to userinfokathrynt as a birthday present!
  • Nine Coaches Waiting, by Mary Stewart. Romantic suspense. Because, as I’ve observed before, you don’t get much more awesome than Mary Stewart for old-school Gothic romance.

In ebook:

  • Mansfield Park and Mummies: Monster Mayhem, Matrimony, Ancient Curses, True Love, and Other Dire Delights, by Jane Austen and Vera Nazarian. Jane Austen mashup, bought partly because of userinfonorilana‘s recent financial troubles and partly because I’d already tried to buy a print edition of this via Third Place’s book-printing machine, only to have it come out large and kind of fragile in binding. So I’ve elected to buy the Kindle edition for my iPad instead.
  • Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons, also by Jane Austen and Vera Nazarian. Another Jane Austen mashup, not actually previously purchased. Buying the Kindle edition since that’s the only ebook version available, though I wish it were available for the nook.
  • The Native Star, by M.K. Hobson. Steampunk/romance. Because I’ve been eying this one for a while and it sounds like fun, and I have to admit that I’m a sucker for a hero with a goofily pretentious-sounding name like ‘Dreadnought Stanton’. I hope he’s as awesome as that name makes him sound. 😉
  • Uncertain Allies, by Mark Del Franco. Urban fantasy. Book 5 of his Connor Grey series.
  • Face Off, also by Mark Del Franco. Urban fantasy. Book 2 of his Laura Blackstone series.
  • Play Dead, by John Levitt. Urban fantasy. Book 4 of his Dog Days series.
  • Married With Zombies, by Jesse Petersen. ‘Cause, well, y’know, ZOMBIES, and also because the Smart Bitches reviewed it, and because the author started following me on Twitter. Hi, Jesse Petersen! Looking forward to this.
  • Wild Ride, by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. Romance. Bought because I have highly enjoyed the previous two collaborations by these authors, and I expect to enjoy this one, too; this time there appears to be a touch of paranormal involved, so it’ll be interesting to see what they do with that. Also, there appears to be an amusement park.
  • Dead Waters, by Anton Strout. Book 4 of his Simon Canderous series.

Also, as a bonus, the following books were picked up in print while I was at Norwescon:

  • Well of Sorrows, by Benjamin Tate, a.k.a. userinfojpsorrow (Joshua Palmatier). I’ve already bought this in ebook, of course–and had also read an ARC of it and reviewed it for him. But I wanted to buy the print edition to support him, and also to get him to sign it! Woo!
  • Diving into the Wreck, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. SF. Acquired as a freebie for volunteering at the con, along with the following two titles, all of whom are trade editions of Pyr titles.
  • Blood of Ambrose, by James Enge. Fantasy. Another freebie.
  • Empire in Black and Gold, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. SF. Another freebie.

This puts me up to 106 for the year. Now let’s see how many of these I can actually READ.

May 1, 2011 by
Television

This is entirely Paul’s fault

So userinfospazzkat‘s been watching a lot of Hetalia via Netflix streaming lately. I’d known about Hetalia already so I knew the concept behind the show, but I hadn’t ever seen any–so I hadn’t really realized a few fundamental truths of this particular anime.

One, most of the country characters are awfully hot.

Two, the closing theme song is devilishly, insidiously catchy. INSIDIOUSLY, I TELL YOU.

Three, what really got me giggling over this was seeing the character of Canada, who looks suspiciously like America, being COMPLETELY INVISIBLE. And making the other countries wig out whenever he was in the room, because they’d think the room was haunted. Also, Canada is adorable. So is the Kodiak bear he carries around.

Four, some of the country characters are, in fact, girls.

All of these things combined to get userinfosolarbird and me imagining what Cascadia’s character in this cast of shenanigans would be like. We decided Cascadia is a girl, that she has a ponytail and wears a windbreaker, that she is very, VERY good with computers, and that she’s physically active. She is also the only country who can in fact see Canada, and she has a massive crush on him, but thinks she’s bonkers because she sees that nobody else can see him! Problem is, Canada can’t see her.

The fanfic just WRITES ITSELF. Which it should. Because I don’t have time to write it!

May 1, 2011 by
About Me

Norwescon 34: Made of epic and awesome

So here’s a super-quick summary of the various awesome things about Norwescon 34, this past weekend:

  • At least a couple people seem to have taken my Faerie Blood cards off the freebie rack, because two more people have added me on Goodreads. Thank you, Goodreads adders!
  • I did actually sell one of my Faerie Blood CDs, on Sunday afternoon while I was waiting for userinfosolarbird! Thank you, nice lady in fairy dress who stopped to talk to me in the lobby, and I hope you enjoy the book.
  • Dara got props from the Seattle Geekly podcast for the awesomeness of her music programming!
  • I discovered that nerdcore is, in fact, pretty cool.
  • My and Dara’s friend userinfotereshkova2001 took Best in Show for her Na’vi costume at the Masquerade! Go Torrey!
  • userinfoseanan_mcguire (Mira Grant) up for Best Novel Hugo for Feed! BOOYA!
  • I volunteered officially for the first time ever. I got over 15 hours helping Dara by running water to various performers, and by helping man the merch table as well! This netted me several free books and a shirt. Go me!
  • Stood in line for nearly two hours to get books signed by userinfojimbutcher and his wife Shannon. Worth EVERY MINUTE. Also got to get a book signed by the awesome userinfokatatomic, and said hello to Mary Robinette Kowal as well. Told her I very much looked forward to reading my copy of her book.
  • Bought several awesome shirts, including one of Jayne’s shirts from Serenity and a new Matt Smith Doctor Who shirt!
  • Got a mass market copy of userinfojpsorrow‘s (Benjamin Tate’s) Well of Sorrows, bought directly from him after a great panel on ebooks. He very kindly signed it for me right then, too! Thanks, Joshua!
  • Had the pleasure of meeting Heather Dale and her husband Ben, and watching them do a joint double set with userinfovixyish and userinfotfabris and userinfosolcita and userinfostealthcello. Bought a couple more of Heather’s CDs and a shirt, and she very kindly signed a CD for me as well. Her song about Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea, was GREAT. She is now clearly part of the ongoing conspiracy to make all my favorite music Canadian. 😀
  • My and Dara’s favorite Barcon quote: VODKA OF THE RIGHTEOUS! APPLE TINIS OF THE JUST!

All in all this was a very, very enjoyable convention and I look forward to doing more Actual Volunteering next year! And maybe doing some actual readings or something. ‘Cause, like, I have a book and stuff.

April 25, 2011 by
About Me, Faerie Blood

Hello Norwescon!

Taking a moment to put up a post before having dinner, just to say that I’ve left assorted business cards on the freebie table and the flyer rack here at Norwescon. If anybody happens to pick one up and comes by this site to visit, hello and welcome, and I hope your convention is being awesome so far!

If you HAVE come by because of Norwescon and you’re interested in buying my book, arrange to find me before EOD on Sunday and I’ll sell you one of my small number of Faerie Blood CDs. That will get you an ePub AND a PDF of the book, both DRM-free, along with a free short story, “The Disenchanting of Princess Cerridwen”. I’m offering Norwescon attendees a special price of $5 per disk!

So say hi if you are at the con and you see this, and tell me how your con is going! Better yet, find me and do it in person. 🙂

April 22, 2011 by
About Me

Off to Norwescon this evening, find me there

Not doing anything in any sort of official “writer” capacity–but I’ll be showing up at various panels out of basic interest, and hope to see any of y’all who might be reading this there. 🙂 Look for me in particular at any panels where the redoubtable userinfokatatomic and userinfojimbutcher are involved!

I’ll also have the last six Faerie Blood CDs with me, so if anybody who’ll be at the con wants one, bug me about that! And I’ll leave a lot of my business cards on the freebie table as well.

Please also do bug me if you want to meet up for a meal or a snack or something. Those of you who I know locally anyway probably already have my cell number for texting purposes. But if you don’t and you want it, shoot me an email with how I can reach you, and we’ll meet up! (Gmail is my preferred email address, annathepiper as always.) I’m busy early Thursday evening, when I’ll be having dinner with userinfokarenjunker. Then I’ll be playing backup guitar for my beloved userinfosolarbird later that same evening! But other than that my options are fairly open.

See you all there, I hope!

April 20, 2011 by
Book Log

Book Log #4: The Sergeant’s Lady, by Susanna Fraser

The Sergeant's Lady

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Carina Press had already grabbed me hook, line, and sinker before they released The Sergeant’s Lady, but I went from zero to “I MUST HAVE THIS NOW” on the strength of several delightful things, only one of which is actually immediately pertinent to the book: i.e., the author, Susanna Fraser, cheerfully admitting she’d modeled Will Atkins, her hero, on Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly. This, as you might imagine, was music to my Browncoat ears.

Happily, the book proved to be quite solid even above and beyond the pleasure of envisioning the hero played in my brain by (a strangely British-accented) Nathan Fillion. Class conflict is generally always good for setting up the sparks of a romance, and this one’s particularly crunchy with the added bonuses of Will being in the military, Anna being a married (although widowed during the course of the plot) woman, and her husband being a raging douchebucket. Fraser does a delightful job having Will and Anna try very, very, very hard to maintain the proprieties as Will must escort Anna out of enemy territory, and even more importantly, making me genuinely like these people. That Will is a voracious reader charmed me immensely, as did the scenes of him and Anna not only fighting off mutual attraction, but also talking to one another and liking each other. It was very clear to me that these two had more going on than just raw hormones, and it was awesome.

Bonus points as well for Fraser not pulling any punches with the ending, about which I will say simply that Will, as a military man, is not exempt from the dangers thereof even if he IS the hero. All that’s keeping me from giving this five stars are the scattered moments when I was thinking “yes yes get on with it”–but those moments were few and far between. (Browncoats who may read this book, keep a sharp eye out as well for the name of Will’s best friend; soon as I noticed that, I had to tweet the author and go I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.)

All in all, this was a fine read and I’m very much looking forward to reading Fraser’s newly released second book.

April 19, 2011 by