Review: Blackout & All Clear by Connie Willis

I have long been a fan of Connie Willis. I've read The Doomsday Book, Passages, Lincoln's Dreams, and To Say Nothing About the Dog. The first and last both concern a group Oxford historians who travel into the past as observers, as do Black Out and All Clear.

Black Out begins in a future Oxford where the Director is suddenly moving everyone's assignments around and no one knows why. The main characters are Merope, who goes by Eileen, Mike, and Polly, all traveling separately back to WWII, England. Eileen to observe war orphans, Polly to observe shelters and tubes, and Mike to Dunkirk.  Once they get there, however, they discover that their drops (their way back home) are no longer functioning. This leads them to find one another to try to discover what's gone wrong, because the history they thought they knew is not exactly the one they're experiencing. This causes Polly and Mike in particular to believe that in addition to not being able to get home, somehow they may have changed history.

All Clear is Black Out's sequel.

I'll start with my single criticism. It's one I often have for 'big' authors (Stephen King I'm looking at you). Too many words! Both of these books are fairly long by today's standards, and I feel pretty certain the story could've been condensed, which probably would've upped the tension.

However. I enjoyed every single word. Connie Willis won the Nebula, Locus, and Hugo awards for these novels and there's good reason for that. First, she knows how to write well. Like, really well. Second, I can only imagine the sort of chart she must've employed to keep all the time lines straight but she did a masterful job. Third and last is the research that went into these two stories, which primarily take place during WWII.

Sure, I knew the Brits had a tough time of it during the war, I'd heard of children being sent away to the country side (The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe come to mind), and I'd seen some movies depicting the London blitz. But really, I had no clue. Connie Willis immersed me in that time period more than anything I've seen or read. Her attention to all those details that make a place feel real is on full display, and the dialogue is some of the best I've seen. As someone who majored in history, I adored these books, and they gave me a new appreciation of what the Brits went through and how much everyone sacrificed, rich and poor alike.

Finally, I have to mention the orphans, Binnie and Alf, the most awful children you could imagine, who have an interesting part to play. They were horrible and I loved them!
                                                    

The Morrigan's Curse - Author Interview with Dianne K. Salerni

The Morrigan’s Curse is Dianne K. Salerni’s third book in the Eighth Day Series, which began with Jax Aubrey discovering an extra day of the week sandwiched between midnight on Wednesday and 12:01AM Thursday. At first Jax thinks it’s the Zombie apocalypse but he soon discovers that there are certain people—Transitioners—who experience this day in addition to the other seven, and others—the Kin—who only experience this day.

Today, Dianne is here to talk about the third book, The Morrigan’s Curse.

Happy release day, Dianne, and thanks a bunch for stopping by to answer a few questions! For those who haven’t read the series, tell us a little about how the idea came to you, and how it evolved from the idea to the story.

Thanks for having me here, Marcy! The idea of a secret, extra day of the week came from a family joke. Whenever my daughters asked my husband when he would take them to the amusement park – or ice skating, or the beach, etc – and he didn’t have a specific answer, he’d tell them, “We’ll do it on Grunsday.” And the girls would exclaim, “Oh, Dad! There’s no such day!” I started wondering what it would be like if there really was a Grunsday, but only a few people knew about it.

Then I started wondering what it would be like for a person who lived only on Grunsday and didn’t experience the other seven days of the week.

You know I’ve loved this series from the moment you first started it, but when did you actually start thinking it would turn into a series? Did you have ideas for a second and third book, or did it come to you as you were writing?

I wrote the ending of the first book with a clear resolution to the conflict, but a hopeful “We’ll-have-lots-more-adventures-together” tone. I hoped that it could become a series, but I didn’t have the subsequent books planned at that point.

After HarperCollins bought the book and at least two sequels, I began to plan the other books. I was asked to write a 5-book story arc, even though they had only committed to three books. At that early stage, I planned a premise for each of the books but didn’t really outline the plot of each one until it was time to write it.

Lots of us dream of writing a series, but it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Tell us what was hardest about writing a series, and what was the easiest.

The easiest part was falling back into character with each subsequent book. I knew my main character, Jax, and his friends, Riley and Evangeline, so well it was easy to write their parts. That isn’t to say they didn’t grow over the course of the series – and that was one of the easier things as well. Their growth seemed natural and obvious to me.

The hardest part was that with each successive book, I was locked into the circumstances of the prior books. When writing the first book in a series, or a standalone, you can change the events, characters, or world-building as suits you. But when writing sequels, you are stuck with what appears in the published books.

Luckily, the publication process takes so long that there is often time to go back and change small details in the previous books before they go to print, just to make sure everything lines up correctly.

You drew a lot on Arthurian legends and Celtic mythology in the writing of these books. Was it planned, or did it just happen? And did your research prompt any new ideas?

While I was researching legends about alternate time and suspended time, I re-discovered an Arthurian story about Merlin being trapped in an eternal cave by his apprentice.  Several aspects of the story matched what I was planning for the inhabitants of the secret eighth day and the people who put them there. The more I considered the parallels, the more characters in my planned book started clamoring for Arthurian-based ancestors.

Once I got to the third book, however, I was introducing a group of characters who needed to come from outside the Arthurian saga. For The Morrigan’s Curse, I delved into Celtic mythology (which sometimes mixes with Arthurian legend anyway). The race of people trapped in the eighth day are loosely based on the Tuatha de Danaan, and I mined lists of Celtic deities for the names of my characters and their special abilities.

In The Morrigan’s Curse, you introduce The Morrigan—a three-in-one deity who embodies chaos and destruction. Did you go looking for her or did you discover her?

My research into Celtic mythology for Book 3 led me to the Morrigan, and I was immediately fascinated by her. She didn’t exactly fit among my planned villains, and it occurred to me that the Morrigan could be an outside force manipulating both sides of the conflict for her own dark purpose. If this were the case, however, her arrival needed to be foreshadowed earlier in the series.

This is one of those times when the slow publication process worked in my favor. As soon as I knew how the Morrigan would fit into Book 3, I went back and revised Book 2 to set the scene for her arrival. The Morrigan is mentioned a number of times in The Inquisitor’s Mark and makes a brief appearance at the end – but it’s in the third book that she becomes a force to be reckoned with.

The Morrigan’s Curse is the third but possibly final book of the series (I’m rooting for more!). How the heck did you manage to write a book that serves as both?

I was contracted for three books, with an option for a fourth and fifth, so I knew from the beginning of my planning that Book 3 needed to serve as either the end or the middle of the series. In order to do this, I had to write a story that would leave the reader feeling satisfied that the conflict in the series seemed resolved.  However, that doesn’t mean that there was a happy outcome for every character. There’s one character in The Morrigan’s Curse who does not get the happy ending readers will be rooting for. If the series continues, that character’s fate will be further explored.

In addition, one of my editors suggested that I plant a version of “Tom Riddle’s diary” in one of the early books. If you recall, at the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Tom Riddle’s diary is destroyed, and we have no reason to think about it anymore. However, we later find out that the diary is one of Voldemort’s horcruxes, and the search for the rest of them drives the plot in the later books.

Therefore, there’s an event in The Inquisitor’s Mark (Book 2) that appears to be resolved but is actually only the tip of an iceberg. Marcy knows what it is. (wink, wink) Everyone else will have to look for it!

Oh, yes! The scene in the…no, I won’t say, because everyone should discover it for themselves. In fact, everyone should immediately go buy all three books (if they haven’t already) and read them because The Eighth Day series is perhaps my favorite MG series since HP. Not to mention the fact that buying these books increases the likelihood of a book four and five, and I really want a book four and five!

Dianne, thank you again for stopping by and congrats on the release of The Morrigan’s Curse!

The Cephalopod Coffee House - Red Glove

A while back I read the first book in this series, White Cat, by Holly Black, which I absolutely LOVED. Today, I want to tell you about Red Glove, the second book in Black's Curse Workers series.

In White Cat readers are introduced to Cassel Sharpe, whose family are not only curse workers - people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands - but grifters as well. His brothers both work for the Zhakarov crime family and his mother funds her lifestyle by conning and cursing wealthy men, all with a touch of her hand. Cassel meanwhile (who believes himself to be without any worker abilities), is mourning the death of his best friend Lila (daughter of said crime boss), attends a private high school, and runs a betting operation on the side for extra cash. He also has strange dreams about a white cat which soon leads to his discovery that he's been worked by his own brothers in the biggest con game ever.

Red Glove continues from where White Cat left off, with Cassel having discovered what really happened to Lila, as well as his own ability, which just happens to be the the most powerful and rare. He's back at school for his senior year but before he can settle in one of his brother's is killed, Zhakarov offers him a job, and the Feds grab him and try to blackmail him into helping them solve his brother's murder.

I loved Cassel and the way he manages to con everyone. I also loved the world Black creates, where everyone wears gloves, curse working is a crime, and no one - not even your own family - can be trusted. I highly recommend both books in this series and can't wait to read the third, Black Heart.

***

Much thanks to The Cephalopod Coffeehouse for hosting this monthly event :)

Guest post by Author Dianne Salerni and a give away of The Eighth Day

Mutiny in the Manuscript:

How a YA Historical Author Wrote a MG Fantasy by Accident

The whole thing started with a simple idea: a secret day of the week which only certain people could access.

It wasn’t a concept that lent itself to historical fiction, which is what I’d been writing for the past six years. I identified myself as a YA historical author, and with the word “branding” popping up all over the internet, I thought I was supposed to stick to one genre and one audience.

Nevertheless the idea of a secret day haunted me until I had no choice but to give it a try -- even though I was convinced I didn’t have the world-building skills needed for a speculative novel.  It also seemed like a middle grade premise, but I decided to stick with YA. Bad enough I was venturing outside my chosen genre into a contemporary setting with a “science fiction” premise. I didn’t want to change audiences too!

I started my draft with a few plot points to guide me (my normal method) and was immediately faced with a mutiny. One of the characters changed his name and his personality in the first chapter. I shoved him back into his planned role, and he resisted. CPs reading my chapters complained he was behaving like two different people  – and so he was while I battled for control of him.

He won.

The second uprising occurred when I happened on an Arthurian legend about Niviane, the Lady of the Lake, who trapped the wizard Merlin in an eternal, timeless forest. Merlin could not escape, but Niviane was able to visit him as she liked and learn the secrets of his magic. The situation eerily matched my plan for the secret eighth day and the race of people trapped there versus the people who could enter and leave it.

This wasn’t supposed to be a story about magic, and I never had any intention of bringing in Arthurian legends. But I wasn’t in charge anymore. Tattoos had entered the tale. (Huh?) And a motorcycle. (I’ve never ridden one.) And now that mutinous character had dragged in honor blades. (What?) I was already way out of my comfort zone.

Oddly enough, the story was still following my planned plot points, but it had become a fantasy, and yes, it was connected to Arthurian legend. I wondered if I’d ever show it to my agent. She’d think I was crazy!

I was creating a hot mess, but I still wrote compulsively, ending up with a bloated 100k word YA contemporary fantasy – and finally a clear idea of what the story was supposed to be about all along. Four drafts and a lot of word-cutting later, I had something I was willing to send my agent -- although I still wondered if she’d gently tell me to stick to historical fiction.

Instead, she got really excited and wanted to put the manuscript on submission as soon as possible. “One thing though,” she said. “This is really a middle grade story. Are you willing to revise some more?”

I had to laugh. The story told me it was MG right at the beginning. I should have listened.

When the book went on sub a month later and sold to HarperCollins in less than two weeks -- in a pre-empt -- in a 3-book deal, I realized three things:

1.  Branding is nonsense. I can write what comes to me.

2. I am capable of writing any genre – and for any audience – if I’m inspired by the idea, willing to do the work, and open to revising repeatedly.

3. When the characters in my WIP launch a mutiny, I should surrender immediately. It’ll save me a lot of grief down the road.

In this riveting fantasy adventure, thirteen-year-old Jax Aubrey discovers a secret eighth day with roots tracing back to Arthurian legend. Fans of Percy Jackson will devour this first book in a new series that combines exciting magic and pulse-pounding suspense.
When Jax wakes up to a world without any people in it, he assumes it's the zombie apocalypse. But when he runs into his eighteen-year-old guardian, Riley Pendare, he learns that he's really in the eighth day—an extra day sandwiched between Wednesday and Thursday. Some people—like Jax and Riley—are Transitioners, able to live in all eight days, while others, including Evangeline, the elusive teenage girl who's been hiding in the house next door, exist only on this special day.

***

I love this book so much I'm giving away a copy to one lucky commenter.

PS That guy looking at you is a Herring Gull, seen in the Mills aka Damariscotta Mills. Photograph courtesy of the son.

T is for TED and Tombstone

My theme for A- Z is the year my book takes place: 1881. I"ll be posting about people, places, and random facts about the year as it relates - however distantly - to my book, West of Paradise.

However, before I tell you about Tombstone and how it figures into my tale, I have to share something very special. This is TED, better known as The Eighth Day, a brand new novel by my friend and mentor, Dianne K. Salerni.

This book is honestly the best MG book I've read in years. Seriously. And talk about characters to love! There's Jax, our hero and orphan who suddenly discovers an extra day along with a mysterious girl who lives in that single day. There's Riley, Jax's young and seemingly tough guardian, who covers himself in tattoos to hide who he really is. And of course, Evangeline, the mysterious girl next door, who only lives one day out of seven...


Next month (May 12 to be exact) I'll be featuring Dianne here and I'll be giving away a copy of The Eighth Day to one lucky winner.

***

 And now back to our regularly scheduled letter, T for Tombstone.

This is where my characters end up toward the end of my tale and, as it so happens, they arrive just in time for the famous gunfight, something that thrills Jack (a history buff) to no end:

...he pulled the curtains aside for a quick look and was rewarded with the sight of four men all walking together toward the Oriental while a fifth man, Sheriff Behan, Jack saw by his badge, trailed them, calling out.

     “You know I have to arrest you, don’t you?”

     One of the four (Wyatt, Jack knew) turned around and looked Sheriff Behan straight in the eye.

     “I won’t be arrested, Johnny. You deceived me; you told me they weren’t armed. I will answer for what happened but I won’t be arrested.”

     Sheriff Behan glared back at Wyatt, considering perhaps whether to try to arrest Wyatt Earp. But short of starting another fight there was little he could do and he let them go though it clearly irked him to do so. Jack watched Wyatt Earp and his brothers and Doc Holliday walk over to the Oriental Saloon, feeling his heart race at the sight of them.

***

Any historical event you'd be thrilled to witness?

ps After the gunfight, Sheriff Behan tried to arrest Wyatt Earp who refused to be arrested at that time. According to William M. Breckinridge (Helldorado), the Earps and Doc Holliday all went into the Oriental Saloon after they were released from custody. I have them all going over immediately after the gunfight - a bit of poetic license on my part.

Where the heck am I?

I'm afraid the flu paid a visit to my house last week, kicked my butt to the curb. I'm just starting to feel like myself again so I'll keep it brief. Fist off, I finished reading The Boy Who Loved Fire, by Julie Musil, and I just have to mention how impressed I was by the way Julie brought Manny's character to life, made him feel like a real boy rather than some cardboard cutout. I think one of the hardest things to do is draw a character who doesn't necessarily elicit sympathy from the reader right off and boy did Julie nail it. Second, I got Terry Lynn Johnson's Ice Dogs in the mail, and I'm equally impressed by how interesting Terry makes dog sledding sound - and this from someone who you couldn't pay to go! I love how she describes the dogs...as a dog lover and I can appreciate all the personalities. Third, I'm also reading Allegiant and so far loving it. I have no idea how it's going to pan out. Yikes! Have you read it?

Finally, I hope you'll all come back next week for First Impressions, brought to you by yours truly and Dianne Salerni, who, don't forget, has The Eighth Day coming out in April...

Even better? It's book one of a series and I've had the privilege of reading book two and three, which are absolutely fabulous. I haven't loved MG this much since HP or Artemis Fowl!

No lie.

So, how have you been? Gotten sick this winter (if so, I hope you didn't get what I had - ugh!)? Read any good books lately? Looking forward to a release?

The Raven Boys

I don't really do reviews of books per se, mainly because I am not a a professional reviewer and I don't want anyone to think I am. However, every now and again I feel compelled to share a book, especially when I think the author is doing a stunning job. The Raven Boys is such a book.

The story begins with Blue, who every year with her psychic mother goes to the same ruined church to identify those who will die in the next twelve months. Unlike her mother Blue is not a psychic, she just makes things louder for those who are. (don't you just love that expression? It's Maggie's btw and it describes perfectly what Blue does without going into a long explanation.) But this year Blue sees one of the dead, a boy named Gansey, and when she asks why she gets this for an answer: "Either you're his true love, or you killed him." C'mon, isn't that enough to pique your curiosity right there?

After that it isn't long before Blue becomes involved with the Raven Boys who are searching for an ancient king using ley lines - straight energy lines that connect major spiritual places. It is said that whoever wakes the ancient king will receive a favor. And who doesn't want one of those?

I'm not going to say any more about the story except that it unfolds with lovely precision, gorgeous words, and fascinating, complex characters. I will give you one more snippet, which occurs when Adam, one of the Raven Boys, has entered a magical place.

"The skin of his hand in front of him had become rose and tan. The air moved slowly around his body, somehow tangible, gold flaked, every dust mote a lantern."

I read some of the less complimentary reviews on Amazon out of curiosity and while I can see why those particular complaints were made I can't quite agree. After all, this is magical realism. A suspension of belief is required going in.

All I can say is I was hooked as soon as I stepped into the old churchyard with Blue on St. Mark's Eve, the minute I knew we were standing on the corpse road.

good new/bad news

We'll start with the bad, because it's always best to get any unpleasantness out of the way, don't you think? And the bad new is it's Monday. Worse yet, not only is it Monday - the first day of what is always a much too long work week - but it's also my first day back from vacation, which makes it extra hard to go back, especially after the lovely week I had. It was Heavenly.

Now for the good news :)

The weather was perfect, I slept in every single day, and I did exactly what I wanted which was pretty much hang out on my computer and write and blog and then run and shower and write some more. I was incredibly productive as evidenced by the fact that I just sent out my latest wip to be read by three excellent people who will no doubt tell me what I've done well, and, more importantly, what I haven't done so well.

I'll also be announcing the first winner of the great give away this Wednesday (I can't wait!!!) and if you didn't hear about it do click on the link so you can see what you can win. It's wicked easy; all you have to do is comment and follow. And to make it even simpler I'm asking questions so I hope you'll offer up your two cents - or three :)

Today's question is, what book or books have you read more than once? LOTR has been one I've read multiple times and even though I know it's not a perfect book every so often I just have to go to Bag End for Bilbo's infamous birthday party and then follow Frodo and Sam on their not so merry quest to get rid of that damn ring. I've also re-read Dan Simmons HYPERION, Peter S. Beagle's THE LAST UNICORN, and Ursula LeGuin's EARTHSEA TRILOGY.

What's on your list? And how do you feel about Mondays?

what's up in the blogosphere

A few things. One is this ...

a nifty little contest hosted by Unicorn Bell, the other blog I belong to. It starts next week and if you have a finished manuscript that's ready to send out in the world maybe you'll check it out. There will be a ton of posts about the entire query process from writing it to finding the perfect agent to send it to. Not to mention the editor judging at the end in which you could win a request from one of the wonderful publishers we've recruited.

Two is The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment, where Matt MacNish critiques queries in expert fashion (hint, hint, for those participating in the aforementioned). Yesterday was the query BEFORE Matt got out his red pen. Today is the after. By the way, he's really good at this.

Three, if you like contests, is this one: Aspiring Writers Competition with The Reading Room where you can win $1,000 for the first 450 words of your middle grade or young adult novel.

And last but not least is a question - because I know you're all dying to comment in order to win one the fabulous prizes being offered in the great give away and this will give you a reason:

What book would you like to see made into a movie? Who would you cast as the lead character(s)?

I'd like to see In the Garden of Iden made into a movie and I imagine Juliana Margulies (as she appears in this pic) as the botonist, Mendoza. In Kage Baker's debut novel, set in the 24th century, the Company recruits orphans from the past, renders them all but immortal, and trains them to preserve works of art and extinct forms of life (for profit of course). One of these is Mendoza the botanist who is sent to Elizabethan England to collect samples from the garden of Sir Walter Iden. While there, she meets and falls in love with Nicholas Harpole, who is secretly Protestant at a time when Queen Mary and Philip of Spain are on a Catholicizing rampage. Mendoza knows Nicholas is probably doomed but love has a tendency to make people do desperate things...

Joe Abercrombie

He might be my new favorite author. I'm reading BEFORE THEY HANGED, book two of the trilogy, THE FIRST LAW. I'll admit it took me a bit to get into the first one, THE BLADE ITSELF, but now that I'm almost half-way through book 2 I'm getting a little anxious, feeling the need to have that third and final book right at my fingertips. Because I'm beginning to worry about these characters, these horribly perfectly flawed characters. That's why it took me a bit to get into the first book. These people were not exactly likeable. They weren't awful, just not the sort of main characters I'm accustomed to. I don't want to say too much but I'm really enjoying them now - which is why I'm worried. There's a war coming and I'm afraid they might not all make it. But we'll see, maybe Abercrombie is a kinder god than Martin.

Here's Amazon's description: Logen Ninefingers, infamous barbarian, has finally run out of luck. Caught in one feud too many, he's on the verge of becoming a dead barbarian - leaving nothing behind him but bad songs, dead friends, and a lot of happy enemies.


Nobleman, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, Captain Jezal dan Luthar has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.


Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.

Now, tell us, what are you reading?

How to write a story - Description, cont.

"From two-thousand feet, where Claudette Saunders was taking a flying lesson, the town of Chester's Mill gleamed in the morning light like something freshly made and just set down. Cars trundled along Main Street, flashing up winks of sun. The steeple of the Congo Church looked sharp enough to pierce the unblemished sky. The sun raced along the surface of the Prestile Stream as the Seneca V overflew it, both plane and water cutting the  town on the same diagonal course."

I love the comparison of the town to something gleaming and "freshly made" and how the first sentence immediately suggests to me that our narrator may be hinting at something... interesting. Either the town is indeed like something "freshly made and just set down," or, it is not. And really, where do cars trundle? Probably ONLY in Chester Mills. Some mythical small town in some northwest corner of  Maine - my fair state.

It also happens to be the home state of the author, Stephen King, and this first paragraph is from his novel, THE DOME. If you like Stephen King I'll wager you'll like this. Both as a writer and and a reader.

The Windup Girl*

I love science fiction. But it can be hard to read. By that I mean you absolutely have to pay close attention and it helps if you possess a scientific mind, one which can not only imagine but comprehend a future based on scientific principles you may or may not be familiar with. And while I have no trouble at all paying close attention I do not possess a scientific mind. I barely passed most of my science based courses in high school and college - even when I studied my ass off. Which is why reading The Windup Girl was more challenging than some of the books I read.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book immensely and if you like scifi, I think you will, too. Here's the basic premise:

Anderson Lake is a calorie man, living in Thailand where he's searching for "foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories." Emiko is the windup girl, a "creche grown" creation who moves in stop-stutter time. She is New People, perfect and beautiful, designed to be as loyal and as obedient as a dog. "Regarded as soulless beings...New People are slaves, soldiers, and toys of the rich in a chilling near future in which calorie companies rule the world, the oil age has passed, and the side effects of bio-engineered plagues run rampant across the globe."** When the two meet, events proceed in an unexpected fashion and this is probably why I like scifi so much; it almost always surprises me.
 
The Windup Girl is no exception.


Paolo Bacigalupi also wrote Shipbreaker, which I loved.

* This book won the 2010 Hugo Award.
** from Amazon's review

Huge news

No, no, not for me, not yet. But Dianne has some awesome news to share and I for one could not be more happy for her :)

something intelligent

first off let me tell you that Florida is definitely hot this time of the year. Very hot. But I didn’t melt and I walked every day and to be honest, I didn’t mind the heat. But then, I am a summer girl.

second, I am working very hard on revising The Way to Dendara and have managed to cut over 10,000 words and I’m only on page 85. At this rate I will definitely reach my goal of getting the word count under 120,00. And don’t laugh. It started at 164,000!!!

Third and last, something intelligent. And because I’m still a little hung over from my ever so pleasant day yesterday – in which I spent an inordinate amount of time in airports and on planes – I’ve delved into Writer’s Digest Magazine for a little help and stolen an idea from 2004: How to grab a reader’s attention in the first paragraph. 

Here are three examples from books I love:

“Sam Vimes sighed when he heard the scream, but he finished shaving before he did anything about it.”

from Night Watch by Terry Pratchett.

I’ll admit this is not a subtle opening but rather the sort that likes to clobber you over the head with a fry pan. On the other hand, this is Terry Pratchett, the master of the satirical fantasy, and Sam Vimes*, my favorite watchman.

“That Friday started badly, and it got worse as it went along.”

from Pirate’s Passage by William Gilkerson.

By page 3 the yacht appears, ‘running for its life before the storm,’ and after that there’s no putting the book down.  

“The Unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam, but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.”

From The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

There’s not much to say about that opening, except that it might be near to perfect.

Of course the hard part is making the rest of the book as good as the opening. But if you start off with something to draw the reader in, be it a scream, things going from bad to worse, or a unicorn, you'll probably keep yourself interested enough and thus the reader as well. 

* "Commander Samuel Vimes: Head of Ankh-Morpork’s City Watch, despite his best efforts to the contrary. A slightly tarnished walker along mean streets, and like all good cops knows exactly when it’s time to be a bad cop.” Direct quote from a list of characters, found in the back of most of the Discworld books.

vernor vinge

if you don't know Vernor Vinge I can only say you're missing out. He's one of my favorite science fiction writers. The first book I read of his was A Fire Upon The Deep, which won the Hugo Award.

In this novel, faster-than-light travel remains impossible near Earth, deep in the galaxy's Slow Zone--but physical laws relax in the surrounding Beyond. Outside that again is the Transcend, full of unguessable, godlike "Powers." When human meddling wakes an old Power, the Blight, this spreads like a wildfire mind virus that turns whole civilizations into its unthinking tools. And the half-mythical Countermeasure, if it exists, is lost with two human children on primitive Tines World.

Serious complications follow (huge inderstatement. Vernor Vinge does not write a simple story. There are multiple, fascinating threads). One paranoid alien alliance blames humanity for the Blight and launches a genocidal strike. Pham Nuwen, the man who knows about Countermeasure, escapes this ruin in the spacecraft Out of Band--heading for more violence and treachery, with 500 warships soon in hot pursuit. On his destination world, the fascinating Tines are intelligent only in combination: named "individuals" are small packs of the doglike aliens (but don't let that fool you, no one has ever done this sort of thing better.). Primitive doesn't mean stupid, and opposed Tine leaders wheedle the young castaways for information about guns and radios. Low-tech war looms, with elaborately nested betrayals and schemes to seize Out of Band if it ever arrives. The tension becomes extreme... while half the Beyond debates the issues on galactic Usenet.

Vinge's climax is suitably mindboggling. This epic combines the flash and dazzle of old-style space opera with modern, polished thoughtfulness. Pham Nuwen also appears in the nifty prequel set 30,000 years earlier, A Deepness in the Sky.*

No, this is not for the faint of heart. This is a complicated told expertly by a master so you will have to pay attention. But aren't those the best books?


*from Amazon's review

A is for Action

Here is what Janet Burroway* says about action: "The significant characters of a fiction must be both capable of causing an action and capable of being changed by it." She defines action as "that meaningful arrangement of events in which a character is convincingly compelled to pursue a goal, to make decisions along the way, and to undergo a subtle or dramatic alteration in the process." Which is essentially what makes a great novel in my opinion; people changing and being changed by the events of the tale.

The Coldfire Trilogy by C. S. Friedman is an excellent scifi/fantasy example of this.

*I'll be referring to this book a lot: Burroway, Janet, Writing Fiction - A Guide to the Narrative Craft (fourth edition), Harper Collins, 1996, p.110.

new book #2

First, I absolutely loved The Name of the Wind, which was the Chocolate Mousse of Fantasies (and if you know what real chocolate mousse is with folded not whipped egg-whites and almond and lady fingers then you’ll understand what I mean). I can't imagine trying to write a story about a hero from first person pov. How not to come off as an arrogant bastard? And yet, Rothfuss managed exactly that with Kvothe, a man who says of himself:

“I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with the Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during the day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs to make the minstrels weep.”

“You may have heard of me.”

ok, maybe a little bit arrogant, but still, how could you not want to know more?

But I also have to say that I was very annoyed with Mr. Rothfuss for making me wait so long for this next installment. I kept looking and looking and every time the date of publication was getting pushed back and back. Whose fault was this? Was the writer not writing? Had they all had a falling out? Was I ever going to be find out what happens next? I had valid cause for worry. Fifteen years ago I read the first two books in what was called the Exile series. But the third book never came out.  Robert Jordan died before finishing his series and only now is there a release date (hallelujah) for the next George R. R. Martin book (Dance with Dragons, July 11, 2011, 1008 pages, hardcover). You can see why I was concerned.

But apparently all for naught. I finally have the book in my hands and the very first thing Rothfuss says is this:

To my patient fans, for reading the blog and telling me what they really want is an excellent book, even if it takes a little longer.

And he's right. We would rather wait for an excellent book than get a hurried draft he wasn't happy with. Becuse if he isn't happy with it there's a pretty good chance we won't be impressed either. That's the only trouble with writing something so good first time out. You have to write something equally good or better the next. It's like raising the bar before you begin.

new book #1

This book has been on my list ever since I finished Incarceron last year. Incarceron is about Finn who lives inside the live prison, and Claudia, who lives out. She lives among the priveleged in a stagnant society mimicking a time that never existed. She tries to help Finn get out.

Sappique is the sequel (Isn't the cover beautiful? Covers attract me. I'm a moth to their luminous light.). Mind you Incarceron does stand on its own but ending does not wrap everything up with a pretty ribbon. Much is left to the reader's imagination or guesswork and hopefully Sapphique will tell the rest of the story. But I didn't look at the inside cover. I'm just going to open the book and start reading, knowing that I'm in for a treat. Because Catherine Fisher is my one of my favorite writers; she knows how to write a story with real and true characters to care about, flawed characters, evil characters, strange characters but all interesting characters and possessing their own motives, which moves the story of this place stuck in time. I can't wait to begin!

But first I have to finish Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I'll just share one quick thing about this book (which I definitely recommend if you like your fantasy a little dark and twisted). There are these creatures in it called Slake-moths. They suck you dry of sentience and leave you a mindless drooling idiot. Now I ask you, is not slake-moth exactly the perfect name for such a creature?

ps enjoy your sunday; it's actually sweater weather here! Yay!

mandavilla

a reminder of summer

Meanwhile, I'm a tiny bit sad because I finished my books. I read the last of The City & The City Wednesday night before bed and finished Matched over dinner last night. I loved them both. However, they are vastly different books. The first is foremost a murder mystery but it gets wierd when you discover that there are two cities occupying the same space and everyone is trained to 'unsee' anything in the other city. And if, for example, one was to notice something in the other city and did not unsee it but instead actually touched it, well, that would be 'breach,' and one does NOT want to invoke breach. I loved the way Mievile used words we all know and twisted them just a little. I loved that he made me think and pay attention to his words, savor them. I can't remember the last time I read anything so intently.

As for Matched, a dystopian YA, I fell in love slowly, but only due to the subtle beauty of the story and the way it is told, from Cassia's perspective. When the tale begins she is about to attend her matching banquet where she will find out who has been chosen for her mate - who she has been matched with. Because in this society, you have no choice. Everything is determined according to statistics and best outcome. Your work will be what you're good at. Your meals are delivered according to your needs. No one hardly ever has cake. The only bad thing about this book? It's the first of three and book two doesn't come out til November.

Next on my short list:

Perilous
Shipbreakers
Cassastar
Saphique

what else should I be reading?

Charles de Lint

You may have heard of him; he won the 2000 World Fantasy Award, and he's the chief book critic for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. He writes urban fantasy and many of his stories are set in the imaginary town of Newford, where 'magic lights dark streets; where myths walk clothed in modern shapes; where a broad cast of extraordinary and affecting people work to keep the whole world turning.'

Among these characters is Jilly Coppercorn, an artist whose vision extends beyond what most of us see. I met Jilly in the book Onion Girl, the first of de Lint's books I picked up (I now own seven). As Jilly will tell you, 'Pull back the layers...and you won't find anything at the core. Just a broken child. A hollow girl.' But Jilly's wrong about that; there's more to her than she believes and she's much stronger than she thinks.

It begins with an accident, a very bad accident in which Jilly may have lost the one thing she treasures most, her art. In order to get it back she's going to have to go to some strange places and confront a past that's eager to swollow her whole. What she doesn't know is she's got some great friends who will do anything to save her, even if it means to follow her in those dark places few of us want to revisit.

Favorite passage: "Once upon a time there was a little girl who wished she could be anywhere else in the all the wide world except for where she was. Or more preferably still, she wished she could find some way to cross over into whatever worlds might lie beyond this one, those wonderful worlds that she read about in stories. She would tap at the back of closets and always look very carefully down rabbit holes. She would rub every old lamp that she came across and wish on any and everything..."

Why? Because Jilly is me. Granted a much prettier me and with a far more horrific past than I would ever want to lay claim to. But I've tapped the back of those closets. I've rubbed those same lamps. I've wished upon any and everything I thought might possibly offer me a way out, a way over, or a way in.

Which is why I loved Onion Girl and Jilly Coppercorn whose paintings capture the magical side of Newford. I loved her friends and how loyal they are. And I loved Newford, a city where a door can lead to another world, dreams can offer you a whole other life, and magic lives in the most unexpected places. But most of all I love Charles de Lint for creating this world, a place you'll wish was real so you could go and live forever in Newford with friends like Jilly and Sophie and the Crow girls. This is urban fantasy at its very best.