Quote Week - Day 3

“This is what happens when you hurry through a maze: the faster you go, the worse you are entangled.”


-From House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Happy Birthday!!!

Today; if he was still alive (which in the accordance of Literature, he always will be), the author of one of my favorite short stories, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius would be turning 112 years old today.

Thank you Jorge Luis Borges.

Circus Magicians?

So I have to say that Circus Magicians where not what I was expecting to be the new Harry Potter...

Stories told by Ghosts...

Everyone knows that one of my favorite thigs to do is the famous "What If" game. we liekd to play it as a child, sometimes as we day dream as teenagers, and yet still at othertimes, when we become older. One of the reasons writers are so lucky in my estimation is that they are payed to play this very same game all the time when they write. Anyone can do it; however not everyone can do it well. This is especially true when it comes to writing Urban Fantasy-fiction. One of my favorite series in this field has always been the Dresden Files. I love Jim Butcher's style of writing when he does. Things happen, choices are made and there are consequences. When I picked up Ghost Story I was still riding a high from Changes. It was so amazing to see how Harry's choices brought him to Chichen Itza, prepared him to make terrible decisions and take terrible action. The final moments of Changes hit hard.

And then I read Ghost Story and discovered the biggest problem: Nothing hits hard.

Butcher has always been able to juggle a large number of characters and do them justice, so adding Sir Stuart, Fitz (too close to "Fix") and the lost boys, yet another cultist style black wizard wasn't unusual. Treating major characters to brief cameo appearances and having Harry wallow in guilt for a few paragraphs then move on was extremely unusual for the series. Mort comes out of Ghost Story with some of the best page time. He was never my favorite character, but I felt a little closer to him for all the new stuff taht we learned about him. Butters actually seemed to become less of a real character with all teh page time that he gets. Even though it is explained how Butters has "grown" as well as teh why he was forced to grow in those ways and I have to say that I never really fell behind it all the way. Murphy, Will, other formerly major characters hover on the edges of the story. They do a little here, they do a little there, they provide reasons for Harry to agonize his situation and wallow in self pity, but at the end of it all, they felt more like ghosts to me than Harry was supossed to be.

Molly was the biggest problem with Ghost Story. The choices Harry made that affected her, everything about how they interacted in Ghost Story felt off. It felt like it was being forced into the story or as if it was like one of those really bad Twilight Zone episodes. The lynch-pins between Changes and Ghost Story don't pull the novels together, it feels contrived, and seems like a choice Harry never would have made even under duress.
Ghost Story is one big info dump -- flashbacks to crucial past events, Harry hovering like the Ghost of Christmas Presents to see where the people in his life have got to (and either I'm slow, or I missed something about Justine and Thomas. Or maybe it was just boredom and the chance to hint at a little girl on girl action that was responsible for that bit. This wasn't the only interlude that had me scratching my head.

I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, don't get me wrong. Harry Dresden and all his crew are still an entertaining bunch, and Butcher is too good a writer not to recoup from this bridge novel. however, that is all you should see this as... A bridge novel.

Are you a God if no one Believes...?

YAY! It appears tha0 tone of my favorite books "American Gods" will be turned into a TV show by none other than Tom Hanks for SIX SEASONS!

Read more HERE.

Missing the Wheel...

So I must admit that I have indeed been missing for quite some time through no fault of my own. You see I was transported to a land far far away, where at once a wind rose. You see, it was no ordinary wind...

It was a wind that had been heard before and in this case, it was two of the last three books in the now made epic Wheel of time series. I have to say, this whle adventure is starting to pick up pace once more. What once might have been a really crappy inerlude thanks to Jordan's death is now pickingup speed and interest again where it once began to wane since Winter's Heart. ( All right, i will be honest, well before that. Personally Fires of Heaven was my favorite one, but that is neither here nor there... )

I have just finished reading The Gathering Storm and The Towers of Midnight and let me tell you, my head is abuzz and a blur. Previously, Jordan had indicated he'd wipe his hard drive to stop someone else completing his work. I have to say, that I was expecting this and that this is proboly one of the most horrifying and yet disasterously pleasing things I have ever heard. I feel that I can see myself making the very same threat were I a little bit more crotchety as a human being. However, with him being so close to the end of the story he changed his mind, trusting his wife and editor, Harriet, and his publisher Tom Doherty to find a writer capable of finishing the series well. In theory, it should have led to disaster: typically one writer finishing a series begun by another can be an atrocious idea that only leads to very bad books. I would therefore like you to note the vomit-inducing new Dune novels (which are absolute slag, and yet for some reason I contiue to punish myself by occasionally reading one) and the ill-advised Amber continuations (which should have never been published and teh second writer - who shall remain nameless - should have been flogged for huliliation. No... I am not bitter about teh Amber continuation books...)

The amount of work required to bring Wheel of Time to a conclusion required an altogether different level of commitment and effort and I truly believe that Brian Sanderson was able to pull it off. In fact, The Gathering Storm has the most cohesive through-line in story, character and theme of any book in the series since The Shadow Rising, and possibly out of all of them.


Yes, that is high praise.

The structure of the book uses two storylines as their primary focus; initially Rand's deteriorating mental state  and Egwene's efforts to unite the White Tower and end the civil war within. Might I remind you that that has raged for the past seven and a half volumes. Other characters and stories appear briefly, such as Perrin and Tuon, and Mat has a slightly bigger role, but other major characters and storylines do not appear at all. The recently-quelled civil war in Andor and the Mazrim Taim/Asha'man plotlines are notable by their absences. Instead, this part of the story focuses on two of the central protagonists, Rand and Egwene, and the experiences they go through to achieve their goals.

As for Towers of Midnight - there's a heck of a lot of action and movement, but ultimately, this book is about things *finally* falling into position for the final confrontations. Perrin especially gets a lot of development, and if you've ever thought anything like "Perrin used to be my favorite character, but. . . " you'll probably be very happy about the turn he takes in this volume.


Now down to the real part of this. Because of the nature of the coauthorship (Jordan wrote some sections of this book before he died, and the rest was completed from outlines and notes), it's hard to know precisely how much we're seeing here of Brandon Sanderson's work and how much of Jordan's, and there were one or two moments where I as a reader wondered whose voice I was reading, and one or two points where I felt Sanderson had stumbled slightly in his presentation of a character or handling of internal monologue.
Either way.. this was fantastaclly done and I can't wait for "A Memory of Light".

The Gathering Storm

I just finished, almost 20 minutes ago, the first book out of Robert Jordan's books, that he himself did not write. The Gathering Storm is a largely complex mishmash of several character trying to get places where everyone else is in as little time as possible. I have to say, when I began reading it, I could tell that the writing style was different, almost even in the way things were discribed, the way that people reacted and even responded to others was rather different as well. It was fascinating to say the least. You could tell that Jordan's style was different, missing even, that crucial element that was there was... gone.

I liked it.

I have to say that even though there was nothing there to make teh story any less fast paced, this new way of looking at things is actually pretty fascinating. I will admit, Fires of Heaven is still one of my favorite books in the series, however, even before that, it seemed like the books were stagnating inhow they moved forwards. It seemed that with every breath Rand, Perrin, and Mat took, the world was slowing down. Being ta'verren didn't seem to do anything at all. Now with this new instalment, I feel that the Pattern in the books is not only freying, but trying to tear itself appart by the seams. It really shows how far the Dark One's taint is spreading through the world.

Yes, there is still the same amount of politicking that is going through the world, and the war with teh Seanchan seems to take forever, but now, we have a new vision of teh world. The world is dirtier, and more nitty-gritty. The characters, seem a little less polished, but Jordan really pushed them for a mile and a half with all of that. Sometimes, I could swear that one was only reading about the carpets from other places in the world that were in Caemlyn. Even still, with the amount of detail that Jordan placed in his books (and one cannot fault his eye for detail), the new novels which Brian Sanderson is now writing in order to complete the series, are different.

I know I said they were faster paced, and I men it. Long gone are the chapters that are hundreds of pages long for what appears to be no more reason than to describe a bubble of Evil and perhaps one other thing happening. Now, it's hard paced facts and what is happening in teh world and what the others are doing to stop it. Gone are the "sets" of chapters as I called them, where you would hear about one or two of the main characters of the central three, but never hear or know what happened to the others while reading. I of course, speak of Rand, Perrin, and Mat, whom it sometimes seemed were missing from entire books. All of them are there. Mat, Perrin, Rand, Min, Elayne, Egwene, Nynaeve, even Lan makes his appearance after being relegated to teh back pages for a very long time. A fantastic thing though, answers about many things are also answered, Especially the questions we all had about the Black Ajah. Want to know who it was all along, even though you may only suspect. In grand theory and formation, it is all revieled.

I will say this though, the book does seem a little mashed together at first, but it ends rather spectacularly. The fight scenes are epic in a way that Jordan himself would aprove of if her were still alive, if perhaps, a little more comprehensable. I will always say that when Rand fought with Sammael, that chapter was almost as long as the proulogue in Fires of Heaven.

Still, all in all, I cannot wait to read Towers of Midnight.

Earlier today, George R.R. Martin posted a strange picture up on his blog, of a dead King Kong, and many of us wondered what it might mean. To be honest, I thought I was going to be regailed with a gorgeous new photo and tale of primate hunting. I was also hoping a little for a mini short story about it too. But no — in fact, Martin has actually finished A Dance With Dragons, the eagerly awaited fifth book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Here is where I do my happy dance of doom. Here is where I say that I WILL have a copy for myself.

Oldest Find Evar...

I read this article and I was so flaberghasted that I had to share it with you:

The Oldest Book find in America...

Hurray for News!

The fantastic has happened and the flood gates have lifted and I must say that we have been blessed with an actual time and date. That date is as follows:

JULY 12TH

That is the date when George R.R. Martin's next book in the song of Fire and Ice comes out - a Dance of Dragons.

To read a bit more, please go to my favorite website for news on geekery - io9.

The link is as follows:

YAY CLICK HERE!

Noir... Hardboiled.

I love Noir. Deep, dark, nitty-gritty storyline. The ones that make you jump and the ones that make you seem like you know what is going on, only to find out that you don't. The whole thing is twisted around and you feel like this is the last shot that you have before something bigger happens.

Originally it was called Hardboiled, and it was known as a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories. However, it was even more distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex, and do I mean a lot of violence and sex. Originally it was published in Pulp magazines. It was where the Maltese Falcon was published for the first time. Noir was a sub-genre where the protagonist is usually not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator. They were someone tied directly to the crime, not an outsider called to solve or fix the situation. Other common characteristics were the emphasis on sexual relationships and the use of sex to advance the plot and the self-destructive qualities of the lead characters.

However, Noir is a dying breed. Now I don't mean that in a bad way, nor in a good way. After all, Noir is probably what makes the current craze of Urban fiction so popular. Noir is the basis of the new Urban Fiction line of books. All those authors out there, from Jim Butcher (Dresden Files) and Laurell K. Hamilton (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Books) to Lilith Saintcrow (Jill Kistmit, Hunter Books) and even Sergei Lukyanenko (The Night Watch Series), all of these series involve the supernatural and the same kind of Noir type writing style. They are fantastic.

However, I must insist that someone else has also thought of this as well. I now point you to one of my favorite sites, io9, to an article that they too have on this very same matter and insist that you read it and familiarize yourself with their point of view as well as with the Manifesto that was written to this extent.

The Link is here...

Please read it and see what I also see in this and make some comments!

Concept Art!

So I stumbled upon some of the most beautiful art from one of my favorite books ever. The Phantom Tollbooth is about a boy named Milo who was always bored and could never seem to find anything to do... that is until he receives a magical tollbooth in the mail. What followed was a fantastic journey, taken through many lands like Dictionopolis, The Doldrums, The Islands of Conclusions, Digitopolis, and even the Castle in the Sky. He meets up with Tock, a magical watch dog, the Humbug, Dr. Kakofonous A. Dischord and DYNNE, and even one of my favorite characters, the Mathemagician.

Needless to say, I must insert in here that this book is full of fond memories and a wonderful love of puns comes from this when it comes specifically from the English language when taken literally. I came across some concept art by someone who has re-imagined the settings in which they took place. I hope that you will have as much fun with it as I did and be transported once again to the fabled lands within the Kingdom of Wisdom and feel compelled, like I did, to reread the novel once more.

Concept Art for The Phantom Tollbooth

A Terrifying Vision?

So I was wandering my favorite News sites when I came across this link:

Good Heavens

It gave me the giggles I must admit. No net neutrality and e-publishing dominating the world. I can see it now, a world much like Minority Report and The Fifth Element all smashed up: awesome clothes and no hiding from anything you could do. Imagine, You go to write something, much like a satire and BOOM! the police come crashing in though the roof and arresting you because your satire was going to be written on a piece of paper and you were not going to publish the satire, but try to self publish it.

...

I know it sounds ridiculous, but it made a funny picture in my head. Seriously. I totally mean it.

Of course that was only after reading what Cheryl Morgan had to say on it. I have to say though, some of the other people there also have valid points, but still, totally give it a look-see. Its amazing.

Children's Books

I'm posting this now on Monday, because I am not sure if I will be able to post on Tuesday this week. So I will post this cute little reworking about children's books in the name of Science Fiction. Yes there are only three of them, but I figured that you all might enjoy it.

Books for fun...

The Joys of the Rewrite...

Some authors, if you ask them, will say they wrote exactly what they meant to, word for word, page for page, leading you down into their interpritation of reality as if it was seamless and required no after thought. Some authors will admit to painstacking brain and writer's block, horrific times double checking sections of their writing to make sure that all was as they had wished it to be. Some will however, go so far as to tell you that they re-wrote the whole novel after beginning it, some will even tell you that there were multiple re-writes.

Then there are the relative few (or many, depending on how you view it), that rewrite their books after they have been published. You heard me right. Many authors, contrary to teh belief, rewrite their books after they have already been published. The following is an article about just that phenomenon. See if you have ever noticed these, though many of them are older books, they are still fantastical books. Enjoy:

Writer's who Rewrite

More on Borders...

Borders has always been one of my favorite book companies. So much so that I worked for them at one time, however I am becoming more and more concerned with the way that the company is trending into bankruptcy. Today I saw another article in yahoo news about borders, mainly this one, and I have to say, I have been seeing a lot of articles like this one all over the place. Almost every day, there is something new about how borders is failing as a company. That's not right. As a Brick and Mortar supporter, I recently spent over $300 in online orders from them because of their coupons. However, one of the things that makes it so hard for Borders appears to be their inability to keep up. Rather than creating a book reader all on their own, they have relied on Sony, Kobo, and Cruz as their dealers in teh new digital age of e-readers. Barns and Noble's Nook has done so fantastically that it is now almost on par with the Kindle, Amazon's one-two hit KO machine in the ePub world.

Now the only other thing that concerns me is the fact that because they have so much diversity, they assumed that they would be able to capture the market of people who did not want to get something so expensive as their competitor's models. B&N and Amazon dropped their prices drastically, leaving the bookseller in the dust.

To make matters worse, Barnes and Noble released an ap for the iPad which was a Nook app designed jsut for kids, thus widening the playing field for color eBooks with Apple. What has Borders done in terms of applications for various things? There is indeed a Borders App, which is power by Kobo, but that seems to be it and all that it is there for it. The application is free too, so that means that Borders does not neccisarily have anything on it's bottom line.

However, do not think that Borders is the only one in the lurch. Barnes and Noble is also in tehir own form of litigation. Currently, they are being sued for their Nook display by fellow eBook company Spring Design, who designed the fellow Alex eReader. They claimed that they shared the idea for teh dual screens with B&N, and that B&N stole the design from them and released their eReader early to compete with Amazon. The logistics of the case can be read here.

Needless to say, the state of Book stoday is in a strange and sorry mess. I am hoping that at some point in the near future, we will not have to close down our beloved Brick and Mortar stores in favor of Amazons large eStore. While eBooks are fun and easier to carry, I will shudder at teh day that real books are no longer able to be sold. This is one reader who still prefers to hold an actual bound copy in his hands.

New Writers are Schlock?

British writer Edward Docx has recently in the pages of the Guardian, blasted literature. Wait, I must be a little clearer. Literature was fine, it was the genre fiction that he was unhappy about. To be specific, it was actually a blast on the fact that there was a lot of people reading it. The fact that everyone seemed to love reading it too was apparently shocking and also a little unnerving to him as well. To put it exactly as he said it, and I quote:

"I realise we are sailing into choppy waters here. With Larsson now dead and so decent a chap, how dare I go up on deck and start explaining – amid the storms of publicity and howl of Hollywood and the relentless sluicing of the sales – that his work is not very good even by the standards of his genre?"

Not only does Docx say that Larson is not particularly good, he also states that Dan Brown is the same way. To read the rest of the article, please refer to the following link here.

To add more fuel to this fire, there are a few other people who are in the same boat and have similar views and even discuss as to why it is that these novels seem to be so popular. For example, Laura Miller wrote on why we love horribly written novels. The link for that would be here.

I would weigh in more, but I sadly must head towards my bed. Good night all.

Brick and Mortar

Books are becoming a precarious thing. I have not as of yet gone over to the "dark Side" as some of my friends are calling it and gone to Amazon and bouight a Kindle (though I will say I wouldn't mind owning one...), however, I do have the iPad. That is not neccesarrily the same thin in this new "Digi-volution" of books. More and more people are now joinging the movement that is known as the Digital E-reader. Kindle, Kobo, Nook, you name it and the company proboly has one. It is getting cheeper to buy books and keep them in digital libraries that are easier to keep track of than an actual bookshelf of books (easier to cary too).

I have a rather extensive book library myself; over 17 thousand books as I like to say. I have probobly in my lifetime, read more than that by at least double the number thanks to local and school libraries. However, I now have noticed that even I have calmed down on what my parents and friends used to call "deranged sprees of cathartic spending on books". Instead of going to the bookstores and spending hours in tehre rummaging over books and buying anywhere from a hundred to a thousand (and in one unlucky case $4,376; I kept the receipt. I'm proud of it...) on books. In the last month alone, I have spent less that fifty dollars on new books. Instead, I have found something that makes it worth my dollar: the digital e-book and the free audio book.

Many of you have heard my case for and against the audio book. Not much has changed on that I fear. However, my stance on the digital book, the eBook, is much different. I applaud the idea to allow people to read on the go, without the encumberance that a hardback or paperback book, however many pounds they may weigh, my cause someone hand strain or back pain. That sounds a little harsh, but it is true. More people are reading thanks to the digital revolution than were previously. Read on I say.

Ther eis one other price to pay however. In the neverending duel that is the Brick and Mortar stores, mainly Barnes & Nobel and Borders, they are having some problems. I point you now in teh dirrection of a news article from this monday and allow you to read what I am reading as well. Tell me what you think...

News Article: Borders and B&N

Electric Literature and You

So, I have to ask, how many of you actually have used a ePub reader? How many of you own a kindle, a kobo, a nook, or even an iPad? Those of you who do, how many of you love your eReading experience? Is it better? I'm sure that many of you have considered getting one or another eReaders, and may have even toyed with teh idea. I am also sure that many of you have more than likely shunned the idea all together; the feel of books is what you need to survive. I'm not here to discuss the pros and cons of reading on an eReader though.

Let's talk about somethign else all together. Let's talk about ePublication,and lets talk about it on a scale of refering to an iPad actually. I just came across an article about a published author whose works are avaliable as an eBook, but has also made an app for his book. This is not a way to get around having to buy his book, but instead as a way for people who are fans of his to have a different experience when reading his book. The article is here.

IT's almost as if there is now going to be a new way for books to be published besides the three formats that most people know (namely hardback, paperback, and eBook) It even goes into the company (Electric Publishing) and the services that they offer for making avaliable single to whole libaries of books avaliable in this new app format. Check it out. It's actually an interesting way to self publish.

National Book Awards

So I know I am a few days late, but, the National Book award finalists were announced in Savanah, GA on the 14th. Two of the finalists were L.A. Times staff members recieved a nod for their nonfiction works as well. The link is here.

Check it out.