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NaNo WriMo - Update

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National Novel Writing Month

Yikes!!! 

Since my position as a Naturalist at Glenwood Gardens ended as of 10/31 and since I have not been sucessful at finding another job I've signed up to do NaNo WriMo.  I'm going to try and write a 50,000 word novel between now and November 30th.

I'm planning on revising and expanding a short story I did a while back.  If everything comes together I'll have a Steampunk version of Cinderella with a twist.

Like I said Yikes!!!

Soulless - Gail Carriger

Alexia Tarabotti has several strikes against her as far as society is concerned. She’s a spinster-at the dried-up age of 25, she’s a hopeless bluestocking, and her father, who at least has the good grace to have died when she was an infant, was a scholar of things best not talked about in civilized drawing rooms, and Italian too boot. So it’s not surprising that due to an attack of boredom, and the poor quality of food on the buffet, at the Duchess of Snodgrove’s Ball Alexia takes herself off the the Library and orders the servants to bring her tea . Just as she is settling in to exploring the Duke’s under appreciated library a vampire rushes into the room and tries to bight her neck – without a proper introduction! Well, Alexia my be unconventional but she won’t stand for things like that. Unfortunately for the vampire in question, who is shabbily dressed in last season’s style of evening wear, Alexia has inherited more than her unfashionable tan skin, robust figure, and strong nose from her father - Like him she is soulless.

In this enlighten period of the triumph of science this isn’t a religious statement, but a description of her physiology. It seems intelligent creatures are divided into three groups. The vast majority of people are Naturals, with just enough soul to go through a normal life. Some people have an excess of soul, they are Supernatural. If they die under the right circumstances they become Vampires, Werewolves or Ghosts. A few people are Preternatural, they have no or very little soul. Contact with them negates the advantages extra soul gives Supernaturals. Vampires, Werewolves and Ghosts are all productive members of society. There is not of the preying on innocent Naturals that went on in the past. Supernaturals are licensed and policed by the Bureau of Unnatural Registry Alexia unintentional kills her vampire attacker with her trusty parasol. This complication brings Lord Maccon, head of the BUR, chief werewolf in London and close adviser or Queen Victoria on Supernatural matters, into the picture. He and Alexia have been something between friends and enemies ever since the infamous hedgehog incident at a house-party the year before. He’s large, loud, handsome, and almost civilized, for a Scott. Reluctantly he accepts Alexia’s help trying to find out what Vampire Hive is letting its fledglings our so poorly dressed and lacking in manners. They discover a trail of missing lone wolfs and solitary vampires that is quite perplexing. Then the plot thickens… The best comparison I can think of for this novel is Amelia Peabody meats Buffy. But that does not do it justice. It is charming, engaging , has HEA, and best of all is the planned first book in a series of adventures featuring Alexia and Lord Maccon.
There is a little violence, and some sex, but nothing that is beyond very mild.

Detective Inspector Chen Series - Liz Williams

This in my June Review for Enduring Romance.

It's Summer. Time for a get-a-way to someplace warm and exotic.

OK, so we all can't take off and go to Tahiti, or even Florida, or Virginia Beach, but we can travel through books. Liz Williams' wonderful Detective Inspector Chen Novels make for a great reading vacation.

The series is set in Singapore Three a sprawling city in an alternative near future. Creatures from Chinese folklore walk the streets rubbing elbows with traditional grandmothers, and urban techno-punks. Heaven, Earth, and Hell are linked by next generation cell phones, and with the right paperwork business tycoons travel between the levels of reality. Det. Insp. Wei Chen is a detective who can summon ghosts. While investigating why the ghost of a wealthy industrialist's daughter has not shown up for her appointment in Heaven, Chen is paired with Seneschal Zhu Irzh, a vice cop from Hell, literally. He's a demon, but honest and honorable in his own way, and somewhat cursed with a conscience. Chen is middle aged and hard working, he has spent his professional life dedicated to a goddess, he does not rock the boat or break rules, except for marrying a beautiful young demon who he helped escape an arranged marriage in Hell. Needless to say that complicates things when her former fiancee and her family seem to bee connected with the missing ghost.

All this takes place in Snake Agent. In the other two books the plot thickens, a goddess goes mad, two nice young ghosts have a son, who might not be all he seems, Chen, and Zhu Irzh, and Celestial Warrior, who looks like a fragile, young girl, get sent on a fact-finding mission to Hell complications insure and various adventures take place. Oh and there are Dragons. Williams books are Urban Fantasies, but without the clichés that often make the sub genre feel stale these days. She does a wonderful job of realizing Singapore Three, and it's mirror city in Hell. Williams makes her readers feel like they have been to the city, from the small stifling hot go-downs and street markets to the glittering homes and offices of the super-rich business and industrial elite to Chen's house boat docked on the edge of the City's crowded harbor. Hell is run by powerful ministries, War, Epidemics, Lust etc. Upper Class demons, and souls who's family did not follow the proper ceremonies, or pay the right fees to get then into heaven live lives much like folks on earth , the lower levels are full of mindless horrors and hungry ghosts. Heaven is perfect, peach scented and maybe just a touch boring, for those not ready to become Celestial beings.

Chen, Zhu Irzh are great characters. The supporting cast is also wonderful. There is Chen's sweet demon wife Inari, her pet tea pot badger. Robin Yuan, is a wage slave at Paugeng, a powerful multi-national pharmaceutical company and Mhara , a timid young demon being used as a lab rat in Paugeng's research diversion. Jhai Tserai, is the Paugeng heiress, a brilliant business woman, murder suspect, not all the she seems and possibly Zhu Irzh's soul mate. Mrs. Pa is an elderly widow raising the grandson because her daughter's ghost didn't want him growing up in Hell. Mai a young woman sent to Hell by mistake when she died of cholera at age three.

So, if you can't get away the usual way to some place exotic this summer try diving into a books and taking a visit to Singapore Three.

Hope's Folly review

I review Hope's Folly over at Enduring Romance

http://enduringromance.blogspot.com/

Battlestar Galactcia series finale

I didn't get to see this Friday because I was at Millennicon.  The hotel did not have SciFi Chanel in it's cable package, but the Max and Erma's that is the Hotel restaurant had satellite TV and the manager arranged a Battlestar viewing party.  He's a fan. The TV's in the bar stayed on March Madness, the rest of the restaurant showed the series finale.  I missed that because of being on a panel at 10:00 and spent the weekend avoiding spoilers. I got to watch the two hour end last night.

Not as grim as I thought it was going to be, also not as hokey as it could have been. 

I was sure Hera, or at least on of her patents was not going to make it.

I could have done with fewer flash backs, or having the info in these flashbacks worked into the show earlier in the season and over a longer period of time.  I don't know if that was because they didn't know this was going to be the last season when they started or if  they thought viewers have the attention span of gnats and wouldn't remember things that were dropped as subtle hints.  Don't they know the wiki-brain fan-boy types  never forget anything and there has is almost as much blogging about this show as there is about the stock market?  Subtle hints would have been picked out and done to death in the blog-o-verse.

All the "religious" stuff didn't bother me, because I thought it was an interesting way to go for such a "realistic" SF show.  In the real world people do big political stuff for religious reasons all the time, I think overlooking religion and or faith as anything but a cardboard cut-out source for slimy small-minded bad guys is one of the major flaws of the  SF genre as a whole.

Roslyn's is Moses leading the people to the promised land but not getting to enjoy it personally.

Loved finding out that Caprica 6 had a Baltar talking to her in her head all this time.  She is one of my favorite characters in the show.

I've always felt Boomer was a tragic character she got a just and satisfying tragic character not a hero, not a villain death

I'm a sentimental HEA girl at heart so an ending that has at least a small pink bow on it suits me, even if it was hokey and played fast and loose with paleo-anthropology. (I didn't get how people could be both tribal and pre-verbal that didn't make any sense to me)  I like to think everyone can be redeemed and will get what they deserve in the end, all evidence to the contrary.  It nice to see it happen if fiction even if it can't in real life.

Still some unanswered questions - What happened to the centurions? Who was Starbuck?  If she was really and an "angel" who was she talking to in the piano episode? God? Her father? Another "angel".  Is the "He",  who does not like that name, really God.  I'm thinking maybe the missing Cylon Daniel. Is that an opening for some sort of spin off? Obviously whoever He is he's still keeping an eye on things with humanity and its creations.

I felt the take-away-lesson at the end wasn't that technology is bad, but that not accepting creating technology is part of what makes us human is wrong. To be whole and balanced we must embrace technology and its consequences, as equally as any other aspect of human nature.

The blending of human and cylon in a complete social/technological re-boot this time around instead starting another culture where cylons are tools/servants/toys or a separate tribe is what breaks the destructive cycle. Becoming one with the Tech, not the getting rid of it altogether is the road to salvation - That is God's plan.

Millennicon Karaoke Night - You don't know what you missed

So, the take home lesson from Millennicon this year-

Even if you are so tired that you have put on your cozy-snuggle clothes and were thinking you might just hang out for a little bit, then go to bed at a civilized time, if you get talked into going to Karaoke with a group including John Scalzi, go back to your room to get your camera. There will be photo ops ahead.

Thanks to  Alethea Kontis for these pix that I have blatantly stolen from her web site. She was part of what was perhaps the finest all girrrl-group Karaoke perfomance of Bohemian Rapsody of all time, buy the way.  I'm still looking for some good shots of that to post.  I was promised some that I hope will show up soon.

John Scalzi, Kaza Kingsly, Toby Buckell,  getting down to "SuperFreak". Who knew Ohio based SF/F writers were so talented?

 

Wanderlust - Ann Aguirre

 Wanderlust is the second in a series of books about Sirantha Jax.  She is one of the few people who have a gene that lets them manipulate Grimspace so that a ship can pass though safely.  Being able to navigate Grimspace is addictive and in the end it consumes navigators.  They live fast flashy lives until they burn out.  Jax was something of a rock-star navigator until she was set up and framed for the crash of a ship where she was navigator.  The accident also killed her pilot and lover.  The crash and the time she spent in prison getting psych "treatment" have left Jax pretty fragile, mentally and physically.  All that happened in Grimspace the first book in this series.

In Wandrlust, Jax has a newly cleared reputation, a new pilot and a clean road ahead of her.  She is also broke, unemployed, and not likely to be employed by the major jump ship players because of her roll in breaking their monopoly on folks with the jump gene.  She is on the run from unknown assassins, and she is not feeling well.  She isn't experiencing the metal burnout that happens to most navigators, but her body is breaking down.  In desperation she and her crew take a diplomatic mission, where Jax will use her fame to act as a goodwill ambassador to a powerful alien government.  It is a job that is designed to fail and Jax does not find out until too late that she has just volunteered to be a scapegoat.  This leads to a series of adventures and plot twists. 

I liked but did not love Grimspace.  I fond Wanderlust a much more enjoyable read than the first book in the series.  I did have a problem with a portion of the book where they are in underground caves on on a backwoods world with waring clans on the run from invisible monsters.  For some reason that whole plot arc read like Firefly fanfic to me.  I could not say exactly why, but being reminded of he show got on my nerves.  I liked Firefly bunches.  Watching the complete series on DVD helped me get through chemo.  I think it probably inspired more than one writer to do space opera that was grittier and less antiseptic as the standard bright shiny SW, ST scenario.  That's a good thing, but something  just didn't really work for me here.  Part of it was the invisible monsters picking people off one by one thing.  I  hate bug-eye-monster-of-the-week sort of SF.  It alwasy feels like a cheap and lazy way to pad a plot to me.  All that said I'm enjoying this series. I look forward to reading more about Jax and company.

Heart of Light - Sarah A. Holt

  I have pretty much stopped reading fantasy because the genre was clogged with Tolkien wannabe, elf/dwarf/dragon coming of age quest books or the Anti-Tolkien Sword and Sorcery Epics with lots of blood and grime and casts of thousands.  Urban Fantasy countered that somewhat, but that sub-genre has become dominated by blood-sucking dead guys and kinky sex scenarios, so it's become a little ho-hum too.  For me the bright light in Fantasy these day is in Fantasy version of Alternative History like Naomi Novik's Her Majesty's Dragon, and Heart of Light by Sarah A. Hoyt. I'm quite looking forward to Charles Coleman Finlay's upcoming fantasy set against the American Revolution.

Heart of light takes place in an alternative British Empire where magic exists. In some places every one as a small amount of kitchen magic.  In the developed world magic has been concentrated in the hands of the descendants of a few families so the upper class strong magic and the masses have little or none. 

Emily and Nigel Oldhall are young aristocratic newlyweds on a wedding trip to exotic Cairo.  They seem blissfully happy, obliviously naive about the inequality around them, and bland as warm milk.  Appearances are deceptive.  Almost nothing about them is as it seems at first sight.  The instant their luxury hotel flying carpet touches down in Cairo they become embroiled in intrigue. 

Unknown to his wife Nigel is working under cover for the British crown to find a  magical artifact that may control the destiny of all human magic users. African resistance groups, unhappy under British rule, also want the artifact, but for different reasons.  At first they try to scare Emily and Nigel away but latter they become allies of necessity in the quest to find a magic temple hidden in the heart of Africa.  Emily and Nigel's marriage isn't what it should be. Kitwana, one of the African freedom fighters, comes to question his  leaders motives, and fear he may just be changing one dictatorship for another.  His hidden  past may be the key to solving everyone's problems.  Nigel's old school friend Peter may be a government agent set to help with the quest, or he may be something else completely. 

There are plot twists and turns, action adventure, and Romance all of which made Heart of Light a fun read and really make me look forward to reading the next book in this series Soul of Fire.

Warlord's Daughter - Susan Grant

Susan Grant is one of my favorite Science Fiction Romance writers.  She is one of the people who really gets the sub-genre. She knows how to balance SF and Romance.

Warlord's Daughter is the new book in her Boarderland series.  (Unfortunately like the rest of the series it has been cursed with really, really wretched trashy-Romance style cover that is completely wrong for the tone, plot and style of the book - but that is a topic for some other blog)

The Drakken empire is in ruins destroyed by centuries of war with the Goddess lead Coalition and an internal resistance fed up with their brutal leaders.  The Drakken Warlord, the most hated man in history is dead. 

Awrenkka, Wren is the Warlord's daughter.  She has a sheltered and isolated life, on an all female retreat planet,  She is pretty much ignored my her father because she isn't a son.  He has not even provided the commonly available nano-meds that could cure her poor eyesight so she is forces to wear archaic eyeglasses. Her only value to him is that she will pass on his DNA to the next generation after he marries her off to one of his Battlelords.  Until the Empire falls Wren is was unaware of the scope of her father's brutality.  Now that he is dead she has had her eyes opened, in more ways than one.  Now, Wren is on the run from hold-out Empire Loyalists  who want her bloodline to re-create the Empire, and Coalition war survivors who want to her kill her as revenge for her father's acts of mayhem and genocide.

Aral Mawndarr is the oldest son of the Warlord's right hand man.  To get back at his Battlelord father for a childhood of abuse Aral worked  to replace his father as the Warlord's favorite.  At the same time he secretly worked to destroy the only thing his father cared for, the Drakken Empire. For years he has fed intelligence to the Coalition to help overthrow the Empire, and was instrumental in the security breech that lead to the Warlord's death and his father's capture by Coalition forces..  Now that the Empire , his father and the Warlord are gone for his reward Aral wants the only thing the Warlord had he wanted -  Wren.

There is prophecy, a hidden treasure and a sub plot about the  new Triad government formed by the Coalition,  Earth and members of the Drakken resistance, trying to build a new unified civilization out of the ruins of centuries of war and hate.

Aral and Wren are sort of standard Romance style characters.  She is hopelessly naive, yet sensual and fierce.  He is haunted and broken, but she makes him whole again.  To be completely honest neither of them did much for me.  (I distrust the whole beauty redeems the beast plot-line in Romance novels, and I think they send the unhealthy message that brutal men will change if you really love them. But again, that is the topic for another blog) 

What make this book so good, is the same thing that makes Moonstruck, and even to some extent Grant's earlier books like Contact fun to read.  Grant writes some of the best supporting characters around.  Kaz, Aral's second in command, Keir, the Han Solo-esque freighter captain,  Triad ship's Captain Hadley Keyren, and her lover Boilvarr the former Drakken spy are all far more interesting, more complex, characters than Aral and Wren.  They all get a potential HEA too, but in a way that makes me hope we will be hearing more about them in Grant's next book.