Great Big Sea

Safe Upon the Shore album review!

RIGHT THEN! userinfospazzkat texted me when I was on my way home this evening to alert me that the desperately awaited Safe Upon the Shore had finally arrived in the mail. It should surprise none of you that I ripped that envelope open as soon as I kicked off my shoes and changed clothes and got some dinner in me! And I slapped the disc into the actual stereo with actual speakers, not just the penny-ante little speakers on my laptop. ‘Cause if I’m going to listen to a shiny new GBS album for the first time, I’m going to listen to it right.

My review, overall? Um. Fair warning that if you didn’t care for Fortune’s Favour, you probably won’t care for this album either. There’s a lot of the same feel to its production and mixing, in that it feels slicker than older GBS albums have done, and the B’ys are experimenting with vocal styles and types of songs they haven’t historically played with. Which is awesome if you’re a band that’s had ten CDs and you need to mix stuff up a bit to keep it fresh–but if you’re a long-time fan who signed on for the tasty, tasty trad, this takes quite a bit of getting used to.

That said, there are so far two confirmed tracks I’ll be coming back to in regular rotation, “Nothing But a Song” and “Safe Upon the Shore”. There are four others that are potential repeat plays. This is about the same for me as Fortune’s Favour, which gave me ultimately only five songs I regularly go back and replay on the Favorites playlist. And both of these are pretty low overall for GBS albums for me. I’ll have to see how my opinion changes as I play through the album a few more times!

Track-by-track reactions behind the cut.

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July 15, 2010 by
Contests

Safe Upon the Shore of Faerie contest results!

Right then, sorry about not posting this yesterday, y’all, but this is what I get for being smacked upside the head with a 36-or-so-hour bug. I spent most of yesterday sleeping!

But now it’s time to announce the winner of my little Safe Upon the Shore of Faerie contest! Since I had only three entries, but since all three entrants offered more than just one of the options I suggested of title, caption, and drabble, I’m actually going to offer one main prize and two backup prizes!

GutterBall, because of the line about “I have feet” and the line about the Kraken, you get the main prize of your choice: a) a copy of the shiny shiny Safe Upon the Shore goodness, from the music vendor of your choice; b) a $25 gift certificate from the book vendor of your choice; or c) a copy of either Faerie Blood or Defiance, your choice! (You can have them both, if you like, even.) Please to email me your choice!

Jess and Sticckler: because you guys also jumped in, and because I liked your entries too, I want to give you each a little something as well so I will offer you both a $10 gift certificate from the Drollerie Press bookstore OR any other book vendor of your choice! Again, please email me your request.

Thanks all for entering!

July 14, 2010 by
Books

Yet more books, and also, stats in Calibre

I promise to post about something else as soon as I do this latest book roundup, I swear. 😉

Picked up in print:

  • Red Hood’s Revenge, by userinfojimhines (Jim Hines). Fantasy. The latest in his Princess series, which came out just as I was finishing book 2, and I am now working my way through this one! Score!
  • Rift in the Sky, by Julie E. Czerneda. SF. Read this as a library book when it came out, and this is me getting my paperback copy, since Ms. Czerneda remains on the Must Have in Print list!

And, picked up electronically:

  • Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord. Sort of fantasy/magical realism, from what I’ve been hearing from the buzz this book’s been getting lately. There’s a nice Big Idea piece about it over on John Scalzi’s blog, which is a nifty source for new books for me these days.
  • Exit Light, by Megan Hart. Urban fantasy/paranormal romance, one of my new purchases from Carina Press. DRM-free epub files FTW! This one’s featuring interactions in dreams as the paranormal aspect.
  • Song of Seduction, by Carrie Lofty. Historical romance, another Carina purchase. This one sold me for being centered around a gifted musician and the composer she adores, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
  • Fatal Affair, by Marie Force. Romantic Suspense, third Carina purchase of five. Political and suspenseful stuff set in D.C., I believe.
  • Love and Scandal, by Donna Lea Simpson. Another Carina historical romance. The schtick of this one is that the heroine’s been writing scandalous novels–but OHNOEZ, a notorious rank is being accused of writing them, and won’t believe that sweet little ol’ her is the actual author! Sounds like fun.
  • Captive Spirit, by Liz Fichera. One more Carina historical, and I’m looking at this one since it’s featuring a non-white heroine, so looking forward to that.
  • Dark and Disorderly, by Bernita Harris. Urban fantasy/paranormal romance, the last of the Carina purchases for this round.

And that’s 189!

On a related note I finally decided that I have so many ebooks that it was high time I yoinked them all into Calibre. This is a super-helpful tool, both for organizing your ebook library and for converting ebook formats (as long as they’re DRM-free). It’s also clever enough to communicate with both my Nook AND the Stanza app on my iPhone so I can do a pretty decent job of keeping track of what books I’ve got where.

It may amuse you all to know that I have a total of 426 ebooks now. Of these, 140 were acquired from various free sources: the big ebook giveaway that tor.com did when they came online, the Baen Free Library, the Suvudu Free Library, assorted authors doing promotions of their releases by giving away older releases, some acquired from Drollerie as free short pieces, and one that I won from Carina!

Of the books I bought, 63 were purchased from Barnes and Noble, 7 from Amazon, 176 from Fictionwise, 11 from Carina, and 16 from Stanza. Small presses represented in my purchases are Drollerie, Small Beer Press, Cobblestone Press, and the Book View Cafe. (Carina, being powered by Harlequin, is NOT a small press. Just so we’re clear on that!)

My next purchase is going to be userinfonaominovik‘s sixth Temeraire novel, because this is pretty much NOT OPTIONAL. But once I get that, I’m thinkin’ I’m going to take a book buying hiatus for a bit and actually READ some of these things I’ve been purchasing! Place your bets now on how long I’ll go before I buy something else!

July 11, 2010 by
Contests

Last call and upping the stakes for my contest!

Okay folks, we’re down to the wire here. Safe Upon the Shore drops on Tuesday! So I’ll be announcing the winner of my Safe Upon the Shore of Faerie contest on Tuesday evening.

And I STILL have only two entries! This is just silly, you guys, so I really need some more people in on this action. So I’m going to up the stakes! In addition to accepting entries as per my original rules, I’ll ALSO add anybody to the drawing if I see evidence that you’ve done one of the following:

  • Tweeted about it (including any RT’s of my own tweets)
  • Posted to Facebook
  • Posted to your own blogs and journals
  • Posted anywhere else you see fit

For bonus goodness, if any efforts of yours actually bring me a new entry to the contest, I’ll note you as entered in the random draw TWICE.

Additionally, I will add one $25 gift certificate to the book vendor of your choice if the original prizes (i.e., a copy of the album or a copy of either of my Drollerie-published works) don’t work for you. This makes the final prize list as follows:

  • Gift certificate
  • Tasty shiny new Great Big Sea musics (and I still heartily, heartily encourage you all to get a copy of this album even if you don’t get it from me; Kendis would TOTALLY be buying this album)
  • Words written by me, either in Faerie Blood or Defiance! And if you choose the latter, you also get tasty words by Laura Anne Gilman or Joely Sue Burkhart!

So spread the word, you all! Get me some new folks in here and new names for the draw! You have 48 hours!

July 11, 2010 by
Books

Signal boosting: Liaden Expanding Universe contest

Because free electronic books are awesome, I’m spreading the word that authors Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are celebrating the release of the latest Liaden novel by doing a contest to hand out thirty-six copies of the omnibus edition of the first three novels, entitled The Dragon Variation.

The ebooks in question are from Baen, so they’re DRM-free, and you can read ’em on whatever device or system you damn well please. Which is also awesome. ^_^

Go check it out, y’all! And if you blog about it, you can share your link for it to get into a drawing for a Barnes and Noble gift certificate.

July 6, 2010 by
Faerie Blood

One week left on my Safe Upon the Shore of Faerie contest!

Hey folks, just wanted to put out one more reminder that there’s one week left until the release of Safe Upon the Shore by my B’ys of Great Big Sea–and therefore one week left in my Safe Upon the Shore of Faerie contest!

If it’ll help make up your minds, the fine folks over at greatbigsea.com have announced that you can preview the album in its entirety right over here. Go see if that inspires you, and if it does, come back and give me an entry! I’ve got only two entries at this point so chances of winning are very, VERY good. C’mon, folks, I want to hear from you!

July 6, 2010 by
Books

The latest book roundup

Because I’ve picked up quite a few more books, like, y’know, I do.

Picked up in print:

  • Idlewild, by Nick Sagan, which I got when Third Place was having a used books sale last weekend. SF.
  • Ammonite, by Nicola Griffith. I follow her via the Outer Alliance, and was pleased to discover that she’s got some queer SF and thrillers; queer SF starring women is pretty thin on the ground, and I’m looking forward to reading her work.

And, picked up electronically:

  • The rest of Jessica Andersen’s current series: Dawnkeepers, Skykeepers, and Demonkeepers. Buying Dawnkeepers for the first time although I’ve already read it in ARC form; the other two are new to my collection and I need to get caught up! Paranormal romance.
  • Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald. SF. Was pleased to see his work finally showing up in electronic form on the B&N store, since most of his current stuff is available only in trade size and it’ll be easier to read on the go electronically.
  • The Manual of Detection, by Jedediah Berry. I’m honestly not sure what genre this is supposed to be, but I’m thinking general fiction?
  • Blood, Smoke and Mirrors by Robyn Bachar. Picked up because the ladies at Smart Bitches Trashy Books positively reviewed it. Paranormal romance.

Last but not least, bought in both print AND electronic:

  • Pure Blood, by userinfoblackaire (Caitlin Kittredge). This is book 2 of her Nocturne City series, the next one I need to read–and I actually wound up buying it in both forms because I’d been bitching about it not being available for the Nook on the B&N forums, but had not gotten any movement on that for a while. So I caved and finally re-bought it in print. But then one of the forums admins finally notified me that they’d posted it at last with the rest of Kittredge’s work and he was very prompt about it, so I felt like I had to really buy it electronically on principle!

Which brings me all the way up to 180 books acquired for the year so far. Meanwhile I’m working on the last of my userinfojimhines marathon since Red Hood’s Revenge is about to come out and I want that too–but I’m eying both userinfodesperance AND userinfomizkit for my next marathons. I am open to argument as to who ought to go next. 😉

July 3, 2010 by