Books

Book buy roundup

Right then, yet another book round-uppie thingie:

  • Demon Hunts, by userinfomizkit (C.E. Murphy), in both print AND ebook because Kit is just that awesome. Since this was two separate purchases, I will in fact be counting this book twice for tally purposes! Urban fantasy, book 5 of the Walker Papers.
  • The Enchantment Emporium, by userinfoandpuff (Tanya Huff), now that it’s been released in paperback. I’m considering if I also want to buy it in ebook form since Huff is another author who warrants it for me, but as of this writing the ebook version is still showing up as $11.99 on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Whoever answers the @dawbooks account on Twitter says this was an error, so presumably that price will drop soon. Until then, I have the paperback anyway! Fantasy.
  • Dead of Light, by userinfodesperance (Chaz Brenchley), in ebook form from here. This is one of his older novels, and by his own description, it was urban fantasy before there was really a term for it. Picked up because in general, his writing is awesome.
  • The Necromancer’s Bones, by my fellow Telgar Weyr alum Deby Fredericks, the sequel to her first book, The Magister’s Mask. Fantasy. Watch this space for a marathon as I finally actually read The Magister’s Mask as well as this one!
  • Too Many Princes, also by Deby Fredericks. Fantasy.

153 purchases thus far for the year.

Fictionwise is still trying very hard to remind me that it’s having that anniversary sale, and that this is the last weekend for it. I may or may not go ahead and get userinfoyuki_onna‘s (Cat Valente)’s other two books in ebook form, since the print copies I have are trade size and I still don’t like carrying those around in my backpack. Must mull after I get bills paid!

I have a whole lot of interesting samples that I’ve yoinked off of B&N’s site, too, which may or may not become actual purchases in the near future. These include in no particular order: The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry, Darkborn by Alison Sinclair, Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor (which is getting quite a bit of attention on Twitter), Magic Lost, Trouble Found by Lisa Shearin, Moonshine by Alaya Johnson, The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, Song of Scarabaeus by Sara Creasy, Stolen Fury by Elisabeth Naughton, Declare by Tim Powers (previously recommended), Territory by Emma Bull (also previously recommended), and last but not least, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

*whew* Can y’all tell I’m loving me that “grab a sample” feature of the Nook? Though it must be said that it’s also supremely dangerous, how easy it is to just go ahead and buy the book after you’ve read the sample. The effort I expend to not do so if I’m not suitably close to a paycheck is TITANIC, I tell you.

June 4, 2010 by
Bone Walker

Unexpected character brainstorming FTW!

Determined to write a couple hundred words for Bone Walker tonight, I lamented to that I had a logistics problem to solve as I started the new chapter. The issue with writing several characters who don’t normally drive, you see, is that when I have a situation that requires them to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible and magic is not immediately an option, and I’ve sent what members of the cast who are established to have vehicles off to do off-camera things, I’m kind of screwed!

I explained to Dara that I needed to get Christopher and Kendis from her house in Sand Point over to the East Side, and that time is of the essence for reasons on which I shall not elucidate, because of spoilers. She wryly suggested that in the Faerie Blood universe, maybe we do actually have the Mosquito Fleet of boats on Lake Washington, or that I could make a faerie/ferry pun of some sort, which might bear investigation later if certain long-term plans come to fruition for the future of these characters. More immediately, though, the best solution seemed to be just have them take Millie’s car.

Those of you who’ve read Faerie Blood may note that at no point in that book did I ever mention that Millicent Merriweather actually owned a vehicle. So when I mulled what sort of vehicle she might drive, Dara promptly started throwing me all sorts of amusing suggestions about cars for a woman of her age and history. As a result, I have decided that Millie has a 1982 brown Volvo, which used to belong to her husband and which she now drives as little as possible because 1) a Warder should walk her city’s streets, not drive them, 2) the car makes her miss her husband, and 3) driving is annoying in general. Especially in Seattle. 😉

This will explain why the hell Kendis has spent the last two months in Millie’s company and never realized she had a car at all. It will also give me an excuse to have her and Christopher get into her car and take enough of a moment to double-take over how wait, what, Millie listens to Nirvana?

I’m tellin’ ya, Millie just keeps unfolding like a flower. Also, character brainstorming with your spouse rocks.

June 2, 2010 by
Book Log

Book Log #40: Jaguar Night, by Doranna Durgin

The first of her Sentinels series of paranormal romances, Jaguar Night is basically Doranna Durgin Does Shapeshifters. The worldbuilding is a bit thin for my tastes: you’ve got the Sentinels vs. the Atrum Core, who are two warring factions theoretically descended from a pair of half-brothers in ancient Britain, one a Druid and the other from a Roman father. The Druid descendants are the Sentinels who can shapeshift and do your basic grab bag of other magical abilities, while the Atrum Core are the bad guys, who are essentially out to grab the power that the Sentinels have. And that’s really about all the setup you get. Fortunately Durgin’s writing remains sound, and even if the worldbuilding is less detailed than I’ve seen her do in her fantasy novels, the characters in this series are appealing.

In this installment we’ve got a young woman, Meghan, who’s the daughter of a coyote Sentinel who died to hide a magical manuscript. The Sentinels have deemed Meghan, who isn’t a shifter herself, beneath their notice–which of course means that she gets to step up to the plate when rogue Sentinel Dolan Treviño comes looking for her, and the Atrum Core comes looking for the manuscript.

I give this story points for a Hispanic hero, for the heroine not actually being a shifter herself even if she’s of Sentinel blood (which is a theme that gets bounced around with other characters later), and for Meghan’s civilian friends who help her work the ranch being brought into the paranormal action in reasonable ways. There’s nothing terribly unusual here in how the plot plays out, either from a paranormal romance standpoint or a fantasy one, but it does play out enjoyably. And the resolution with the antagonist is important to note, as it sets up ramifications that show up in further Sentinels books. So I’ll give points for continuity, as well. Three stars.

June 2, 2010 by
Short Pieces

Meanwhile back on my still untitled story

My Psychic Chick story is still germinating in my brain, and tonight its heroine, Elizabeth ‘Ealasaid’ Breckenridge, who hides actual psychic talent behind a seemingly sham psychic-and-Tarot business, demanded I give her more words. So I gave her 547 of them, enough to move her first scene far enough along that she has now discovered two things:

  1. The story’s male lead, Ross Taggart, knew the instant he triggered her into having a vision that she’s the real deal, and
  2. Something very, very wrong has happened in connection to him.

I’m still mulling what that actual something very wrong is, but as of tonight, I’m pretty sure it has to do with the murder of his sister, who was the last Warder of the city of Providence, Rhode Island. Ross isn’t an active Warder himself, but he’s shall we say Aware of the Lineage, and therefore aware of magical things in general. So he ain’t gonna bat an eye at a psychic chick. All of which is going to be quite the eye-opener to Elizabeth. Muahaha.

I have also figured out by way of character development that Elizabeth has had to vehemently refuse to undergo any weight-loss surgery, despite pressure from her family and particularly her mother to do so. When you’re psychic and your visions can be triggered on casual contact, undergoing a major medical procedure which involves all sorts of contact all over your body just spells all kinds of trouble. I strongly suspect traditional anesthesia doesn’t work very well on her.

Eventually, I’ll give this thing a title! But it’s good to know that it’s a Faerie Blood universe story, that it’s set in Providence, and that my two lead characters are starting to come to life.

June 1, 2010 by
Television

Lost finale reaction post

Our Tivo failed in its final attempt to stab at us from Hell’s heart, despite its best efforts on Sunday evening; userinfospazzkat purchased what we missed off of iTunes, and we were therefore able to watch the Lost finale last night!

My picoreview: um, wut?

(Needless to say, spoilers behind the fold. DO NOT LOOK if you haven’t seen the finale yet, and if you do intend to watch it.)

Continue Reading

May 25, 2010 by
Vengeance of the Hunter

Maynowrimo status check

Shadow of the Rook grabbed me by the throat sometime last night and said “Okay, you? You’re writing about Faanshi today.” So I did a couple hundred words last night, and several hundred more across the rest of today and tonight, particularly after surprise Tivo death meant my household didn’t get to watch the series finale of Lost (sniff).

And oh hey look, I’ve finished a scene, and now Faanshi and her elven companions are fleeing an abbey with a distinctly wobbly Julian hanging onto Faanshi for dear life as they ride. I’m about fifteen hundred words in on this chapter, and feeling like I’ve finally started this book in earnest.

Written today and tonight: 778
Chapter 3 total: 1,521
Shadow of the Rook total (first draft): 15,481

May 23, 2010 by
Television

No Lost finale for me

We just found out tonight, while gearing up to watch the Lost retrospective and finale, that our Tivo took a harder hit during the power outage earlier this week than we thought. We got partway into the retrospective, the bit focusing on Hurley, when the screen abruptly froze up and pixelized. Then the Tivo made scary hard drive noises, and the screen filled with this alarming neon green color and white text in large letters saying “A SEVERE ERROR HAS OCCURRED”. I hadn’t known a Tivo could do a Screen of Death. That was pretty impressive, and by impressive I mean “AUGH WHY DID THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN DURING THE FINALE OF LOST?”

userinfosolarbird had already figured out that the fan had taken some damage from the outage, but what this tells us tonight is that the hard drive is unhappy, too, and that in general the system just seems fucked. After a little bit the system did reset and we got back live TV, so userinfospazzkat tried to kill the recording on the theory that maybe that’d let us get through the finale okay.

No such luck, I fear. We got about five minutes into the actual episode, and then we got the freeze up and pixelize trick again, followed by another reboot.

AUGH. So no Lost finale for us tonight. The Murkworks will have to seek alternate means to watch this episode, probably tomorrow night. Until then I’m going to have to rig for silent running, and I’ll be refraining from looking at LJ/DW/JF posts, my Google Reader feeds, Twitter, or Facebook. Need to yak at me? Email, drop a comment here, DM me on Twitter, or message me on Facebook. (Comfort in the form of Lost-related icons will be most welcome. Especially if they feature Sawyer!)

And for the love of all that’s holy, people, go easy on the rest of the Internet and hide your spoilers. *^_^*;;

May 23, 2010 by