Reading, writing, and crafting...oh my!

A month's gone by since I posted, but I haven't forgotten my ROW 80 goals. I'm about a 50% overall I think. I've written on half the days, exercised...mmm...less than half ;), but read many books. I won't try to give a full review on all of them, but here's a listing of what I've read this month (including non-spec fic) and the ratings I gave them on Goodreads.

The New Kid at School (Dragon Slayer's Academy #1) by Kate McMullan
4 stars - both my son and I enjoyed it.

Letters to Jenny by Piers Anthony
5 stars - I tried to write a review on this, and I flounder with the words. A must read. Very touching and a wonderful insight into a writer's life.

Song of the Wanderer (Unicorn Chronicles #2) by Bruce Coville
4 stars - doesn't really read like an individual book but rather like Part 2 of one mega novel. But I still really enjoy the story.

The Ship Avenged by S.M. Stirling and Anne McCaffrey
3 stars - not as good as most of the Brainship universe books, but that's mostly because of content, not the writing. Bit on the dark gritty side. But I was expecting that. Picked it up to read another story with Joat.

How to Be a Pirate (How to Train Your Dragon #2) by Cressida Cowell
3 stars - my son liked it, but the differences in some of the characters and dragons from the How to Train Your Dragon movie was disorienting at first. For instance, in the movie, they were ride-able. In this book, they were small enough to ride on people's shoulders. Cute story though.

The Castle Corona by Sharon Creech
meh, granted it was written for kids but I've read intermediate books with tighter plot, even with keeping the whimsical feel that enticed me to pick it up in the first place. It had potential to be better.

Dark Whispers (Unicorn Chronicles #3) by Bruce Coville
4 stars- still not done yet with the overall story. Need to find The Last Hunt. I think that one is supposed to finish off the arc.

One Good Knight (Five Hundred Kingdoms #2) by Mercedes Lackey
4 stars - This book had some great twists both in plot and with the Sir George vs the Dragon tale. Great ending.

Princess of the Midnight Ball (Princess #1) by Jessica Day George
5 stars - Loved it! A fantastic spin on the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses. The soldier didn't start off with the intent to find out why their shoes kept getting holes; he made friends with them first while working as a gardener at the palace. Friendship and concern made him finally take his turn to solve the mystery.

One Corpse Too Many (Cadfael #2) by Ellis Peters
4 stars - Pretty close to the movie version (movie #1) I've seen with Sean Pertwee as Hugh Beringer and Derek Jacobi as Brother Cadfael. This was recommended to me when I was looking for mysteries that were solved without modern tech. Very useful for people writing historical fantasies even when they aren't writing in this time period or setting.

The Sanctuary Sparrow (Cadfael #7) by Ellis Peters
4 stars - Yes, I'm reading them out of order. But it doesn't matter too much since I knew this and that the movies had been somewhat out of order as well. So I expected the change of Abbots from Monk's Hood. It has a few differences, but still very close in plot sequencing.

Monk's Hood (Cadfael #3) by Ellis Peters
4 stars - I haven't gotten to read A Leper of St Giles yet, but out of the three stories I have read and watched, this one had the most differences in plot. I rather liked the movie, but now that I've read the book, I think the book plot makes more sense and the characters more engaging. (And I like Brother Mark better than Brother Oswin as Brother Cadfael's assistant.) Still worth checking both versions out if you can find them.

Tripping Over the Lunch Lady: and Other School Stories edited by Nancy E. Mercado
4 stars - This collection of short stories was hilarious. Following each story was a blurb about each author's school years such as worst school smell, favorite field trip, and worst/favorite subject.

Harry and the Terrible Whatzit by Dick Gackenbach
3 stars - cute picture book. Harry's mom goes down to the cellar and doesn't come back up. He goes down and discovers the terrible whatzit. But he learns the whatzit isn't as terrible as he'd thought.

St Peters Fair (Cadfael #4) by Ellis Peters
4 stars - The town is still dealing with the effects of the fighting that had happened when King Stephen moved in on Empress Maud's forces earlier in the year (see book 2). A series of events seemed ordinary at first but they covered a deeper plot involving kingdom politics.

A Coming Evil by Viviane Vande Velde
4 stars - This intermediate level story is a historical fiction story...with a ghost. I wouldn't have picked it up since I don't normally read war themed stories-this one takes place during WWII in German-occupied France-but I liked the author's spins on Rumpelstiltskin in The Rumpelstiltskin Problem, so I gave this one a chance. Glad I read it, because it worked well, and she uses the ghost aspect in a unique way. A nice way to introduce young readers to some of the issues that some kids faced during the war without being in the middle of the worst parts.

As you can see, many books, a couple of which had been on my to-read list. I've also been doing lots of beading and crocheting, experimenting with pieces I'll want to sell once I open my Etsy shop. Some aren't too bad, but some things are too tedious or not working as well as I want. Even though all this crafting has taken up a bunch of my brain time, my ROW 80 goals have kept me from losing track completely.

When magic and detective fiction collide

I finally got around to reading one of my husband's highly recommended books: the first book of the Dresden Files - STORM FRONT by Jim Butcher. We have some overlapping tastes like most of Lackey's and McCaffrey's books (and Harry Potter, go figure), but even though we're both big SF/F fans, we have widely different preferences within spec fic. Well, last night I was browsing through our newly reorganized book collection (with my flashlight since the power had gone out thanks to high winds), and I decided to grab something different.

By the end of the first chapter I was hooked. "Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face." The voice is incredible. I really felt sorry for Harry while he's trying to work with a police contact, keep a gangster from sending his thugs after him, figure out who is cooking up the new drug on the streets (to help with point 2), not reveal anything to a sexy reporter, solve a grisly set of murders caused by magic, and not take the rap for it by the police as well as the White Council and a biased Warden. Oh yeah, and not get killed before the Council even meets to put him on trial. What's a nearly broke wizard to do? Keep moving of course. And have a little faith that he's the good guy.

I really liked the combination of magic in a contemporary world with an old fashioned detective sort of novel. I've been reading more mysteries lately, for variety, and this was well done in more than just voice. The mystery kept me guessing but all of Harry's thoughts made sense as he worked out what was going on and how it all connected. I give this book 5 stars.

As for my ROW 80 goals, I haven't been as on track as I'd like.
Writing 100 words every day: Wed, Sun, Mon - no; Thurs, Fri, Sat, Tues - yes
Exercising 10 mins a day: Wed, Thurs, Sun - yes; Fri, Sat, Mon, Tues - no
New book for the week: yes a few times :D

I haven't counted today for yes or no yet, but I'm going to get on that soon. Dresden tied up my morning.

Murder and Mayhem (for writers)

The full title of today's featured book is Murder and Mayhem: A Doctor Answers Medical and Forensic Questions for Mystery Writers. D.P. Lyle M.D. compiled the top questions from his The Doctor Is In column for a couple newsletters for the Mystery Writers of America. I discovered this book at my library while looking for Howdunit Forensics, another book he wrote.

The questions are organized into three major sections: Doctors, Hospitals, Illnesses, and Injuries; Methods of Murder and Mayhem; and Tracking the Perp. These are further subdivided into chapters such as Traumatic Injuries and Their Treatment, Medical Murder, and The Police and the Crime Scene. Each question is headed by its simplified form, followed by the scenario and questions given by the submitter.

His answers are clear, even when he uses the medical jargon, because he explains what the technical parts mean. His light touch of humor glimmers in some of his responses. One writer asked whether drinking brandy while waiting for help to get out of a half frozen lake would enable the character to survive, if it would act like antifreeze. The brief answer, "Sorry, but your character is doomed, and his actions would only hasten his demise." Then Dr. Lyle went on to explain why and what would happen instead.

My favorite question is in the Odds and Ends, Mostly Odds chapter at the end. The writer had a teenaged girl whose father was having an affair with a young mom. The girl wanted to punish them both, so she was going to tamper with the diaphragm (contraceptive device) the woman was using by putting some sort of "hot" substance on it but wanted something that wouldn't be readily detected. The writer wanted to know what the girl could use. The answer began with "Tabasco. No contest." He gave a short explanation of why and what would happen, including how a spermicidal jelly would affect the onset of the burning, then finished with "What a totally diabolical question." It sure is, and I hope I get the chance to use it in a story sometime. Is that bad of me? ;D

Even though I'm not a mystery writer and have no plans to be one specifically, this is an awesome reference. He even stated that this is for all genres to keep from rehashing info from books and tv or using wrong or misleading info from the internet. It's going to my to-buy list, and I highly recommend that you read it at least once. None of us need any blunders that will cause our credibility to plummet.

Filk Friday: filk from Parnell Hall

The next time I go to the library, I really need to remember to look for Parnell Hall's books. Authors who can write filk get a step up in my reading list, and the Puzzle Lady mysteries have sounded neat. Here I have two filk songs that he did: Signing in the Waldenbooks and Kill 'Em.

Signing in the Waldenbooks is about the woes of trying to get noticed once you get published, a humorous lament. The part where he's seated next to Mary Higgens Clark at a con is one of the best parts. Kill 'Em is a guide for writing murder mysteries. He has some great chains of rhyming.

The City versus Forks

And the winner is...Oops. I can't open the envelope yet. You've got to hear how they performed before you get the ratings. Silly me.

The City and the City won the coin toss to perform first. Only reviews put this contender in front of me. The cover does nothing to call attention to it. Nor do I read many mysteries. However, I was vaguely curious about the overlapping cities concept. I wondered if they were partially out of phase to each other somehow. After all, how could it be possible that two cities could really be that overlapped and not interact with each other unless they were partially intangible to each other?

No, they really were fully tangible. People just unsee the people and buildings of the other city. Though more science-fictiony, being out-of-phase would have been easier for me to wrap my brain around, more plausible. Go figure. I spent the first half of the book trying to puzzle how the how and why of such an existence. It wasn't the, "How could the brain be able to be trained to ignore so much information?" It was the, "How could the brain know which information to discard?" And, "Why would you have to or even want to live that way?" Many of the citizens were happy with the divide. I'm still not sure I fully understand the why part, but I did finally get enough information to answer the how. Sort of. But don't ask me to explain it, because I'm not sure I can. I certainly couldn't picture it.

The story follows Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Besźel Extreme Crime Squad. His murder investigation of a young woman's death leads him through both Besźel and the neighboring (overlapping) city of Ul Qoma to discover something that could disrupt both societies on a fundamental scale. Check out Amber's teaser and review on SF Scrivener.

I almost gave up several times in the beginning. It's got that sort of gritty noir/old detective movie vibe going on, stories like Dick Tracy and whatever those other ones are you sometimes catch on Turner Classic Movies. Not much emotion from the detective but plenty of tenacity. Not really my thing, but I know some people like that style. That combined with confusion about how the cities even functioned made the first several chapters difficult to keep my interest. I stuck with it, because I'm tenacious myself when it comes to reading. I seldom give up on a book, and those cases usually involve emotions a good deal warmer than boredom and confusion.

Once I got the hang of the rules and Borlú was digging deeper into the underlying issues involved behind the murder, my fingers no longer reached for a bookmark. I didn't exactly enjoy it, but I couldn't leave Borlú's side until he solved the crime and learned what it would cost him. Even when I turned the last page, I still wasn't sure. But it's been a week, and I still find myself drifting back to the streets of Besź and Ul Qoma. The City and the City may have been hard reading, but I feel like I learned something from both the story and the storytelling. Maybe I did actually like it, just on an intellectual level rather than an entertainment level.

Then there's Twilight, the book I've been avoiding as best as humanly possible when you work in a bookstore. Vampires: not really my thing. I mean really not my thing. Especially when you add teenage angst. But if I'm going to despise a book this much, I should read it so I know the details of why. If you think I get too psychoanalytical, feel free to blame it on watching too many episodes of Bones, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and Rissoli and Isles.

I avoid sitcoms and soap operas. The melodrama and deliberate overacting make me flip channels faster than getting a clean diaper on a baby boy before he sprays. (So glad to be long past that part of parenthood.) Twilight read like a continuous sitcom, and Bella like a typical "star" of one. In other words, implausibly annoying.

She deliberately, and on her own, chooses to leave a place she loves to go someplace she finds depressing. Ok, maybe plausible. She was attempting to build a connection of sorts with her dad. But it would have been better to make that clear with the first sentences about how much she hates Forks and would rather be in Phoenix. I didn't want to be wondering that long about why she chose to make such a distasteful move.

She's seventeen or just turned seventeen and she's still that completely a klutz? That's the sort of gracelessness you hear about with young teens during growth spurts. Once past that point, they usually gain back at least some of their coordination. These days, if anyone was that severely lacking in coordination, they'd be checked out for some sort of inner ear imbalance or mild physical disability, thereby giving them a medical excuse to not do most gym activities. Plus she'd probably be medically supervised about the kinds of activities she should and should not be doing. Such as no walking in the woods without a cane or walking staff. If she was choosing to go without such devices despite doctor's orders, that's her own idiocy and pride, but there was nothing in the story to even suggest that she'd been examined for the cause of such extreme uncoordination or that her parents couldn't afford such an assessment. Not a single mention of the possibility of medical impairment. Normal gracelessness can be trained away, but did anybody ever bother to try help her get over that? No.

She should certainly get that drop-of-a-hat tendency to faint checked out.

Let's move onto the plot for a moment. Besides reading like a teen sitcom, Twilight also read like an attempt to create a modern edgy version of Tuck Everlasting, with vampires creating the immortality rather than a tiny fountain of youth in the woods. Think about it. Family of immortals. A normal girl getting romantically involved one of them. Discussion over ethics of her becoming immortal just to stay with her interest.

No. Sorry, that's a fail. Winnie actually learned something about herself and life by the end. Bella was exactly the same klutzy spastic angsty teen who got her own way. Spoiled rotten. I thought less of her by the end than I did when I started. I can give a character some leeway in the beginning, because I expect events (the plot) to instigate changes, forcing them to evolve in order to cope. For a character I'd supposed to sympathize with, she should have become a better, stronger person by the end. But no, she was just as helpless and spoiled.

Edward, who is supposed to dazzle, just made me mad. He complained about having to rescue Bella all the time, but he never taught her any moves to make her less helpless. He reinforces her inability by blatantly telling her she's helpless. Defeatist. If that had been me, I might have smacked him, even if it hurt me more than him to do so.

Then there is nothing substantial to their relationship. The only thing holding them together is pheromones and selfish desires. Every time they started to get a glimmer of something worth more than vampire sparkle, such as a discussion of music tastes, it gets drowned under the sludge of "Oh Edward is so hot. I can't live without him. I want, I want, I want." Gagtastic. That's the stuff of erotica, not real romance.

Here we are with the final scores.

The City and the City: hard to read in one sitting, dry and serious, complicated world/political situation, solid world building, and plot that maintains logic even through its intricacies.

Twilight: a fast read because I didn't care if I missed anything, primary characters with no admirable traits, almost no plot until the end, and an overdose of teen melodrama.

And the winner is...

...The City and the City! Congratulations, Inspector Borlú. I think I'll travel with you again sometime.