The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa

A wonderful thing has happened: The Iron Queen is out three weeks earlier than originally posted, at least in the U.S.  International fans should check your local sites and stores to see if you can get your hot little hands on the book now, too.  Go on.  We'll wait.

If you're already a fan, what you need to know is that this book is even better than the last.  I'm trying to think of what I can tell you without giving spoilers, and I think I'm going to have to settle for my own reaction...I had to start dinner when I reached the climax, and I was so engrossed in the story that I took carrots, the peeler, and a little bag into the room with the computer (ah, the joys of e-reading).  I just barely spared enough attention away from the book to make sure I didn't accidentally peel my fingers!




Normally, I wouldn't post the trailer, but it does a good job of introducing Meghan, summing each book up shortly without giving too much a way, and doing it with lovely graphics.

I love...
1. The world-building.  Kagawa's version of the Nevernever is memorable, both conforming to faerie lore that long time fantasy fans will find familiar but also breaking new ground.  The Iron Fey themselves come (in)organically from the dreams of humans in the age(s) of technology in a way that makes one think, "Huh, how'd I miss that?"  Good, good stuff.

2. The only thing Meghan Chase and I have in common is gender, and yet I spent close to no time thinking of that at all.  There were a few moments of resistance when I had to remind myself that I was judging her choices from my own experience (and with a son her age, that's considerable) rather accepting her youth.  But for the most part, I tagged along in her adventure joyfully.

3. Meghan Chase herself.  The more-obnoxious-than-the-last heroine doesn't seem to as big a problem in Young Adult Urban Fantasy as it is in adult UF, but the genre does have more than its fair share of I-don't-think-I'm-pretty-but-the-hot-guys-love-me Mary Sue characters.  Meghan isn't one of them.  She's a girl who doesn't have it so easy, even before her world takes a turn for the weird, but she's full of heart and she tries.  More importantly, over the course of the books, she grows.

...And if you don't want to try the series out because of all that, there are, of course, hot guys.

                    
                             

From beneath you, it devours...

Maybe the title is a bit dramatic; the First Evil is not coming for me (10 pts for anyone who immediately recognized the reference).  But the first day of the next semester is fast approaching and I'm looking at everything I don't have done.  And my husband is the literary version of my brother's puppy.

I'd seen pictures, but unlike my dad and husband, I'm not a dog person.  I haven't taken trips to my brother's house just to visit his pup.  Then last weekend, my brother took his family out of town and got my husband to agree to dog-sit.  This juvenile Great Dane is already bigger than the full grown Dobermans I grew up with, but with all the energy of a little yappy dog.  Since he's crate trained, we were able to go out around his schedule, but the rest of our weekend was punctuated by, "Humans! I love you, you love me? Wanna play? I wanna play! Can I sniff your butt?  Sit on your lap? Chew your house shoes? Playplayplayplayplayplay!"


Having put aside all that I'm working on to read the first half of his unfinished manuscript, I still had to go to bed last night/this morning (I've gotta work on my sleep schedule) to "I introduced a new character! Wanna read it?  This who he is and what he does and how I introduced him. Do you like him? Wanna read it now? Whatcha think?!" Only to sleep in late and wake up to, "You gotta read my new scene! Here's who's in, this is what they said, this is what it's leading to. Wanna read it? Whatcha think? Is it OK? Why aren't you reading it?!"


On the upside, my husband doesn't smell like a dog and I don't have to take him for walks in the snow.  On the downside, my brother took the crate with him when he picked his pup up.

Meanwhile, I've got to work on my own projects because, once classes start, who knows when I'll be able to sneak in the time?

Oh, but I can't go without mentioning that I was guest blogger for J.A. Campbell's Tea Time.  All mentioned!

So far beyond OMG!

I always try to blog in a way that will be understandable to people who don't know the first thing about me, but let's be real: most of you lovelies who visit A Writer's Block know me from somewhere, if only a forum online.  You know that I'm pretty down to earth, generally friendly, and not too over the top.  You'd have never guessed how I'd be a total gibbering idiot in front of (but mostly, thankfully, behind the back of) one of my favorite authors.

OMG!OMG!OMG! O. M. Friggin'. G.  I had dinner with Kelley Armstrong!

Note that I've been a sci-fi/fantasy fangirl since I was too young to know what fandom was.  And I was an officer in the sci-fi/fantasy club my first go 'round in college.  But I'd never been to a convention.  Note also that, while I'm not particularly impressed by "special people" (as I said to my friend today, "How impressive can they be when I know they poop, too?  They're only human.") I am a little starry eyed about my favorite authors.  A little.  I thought.

Then I got all late-registered for my first con ever, and my husband and I slipped into my first panel: Introduction to Kelley Armstrong.  I thought, "She's so much prettier than her photo!"  (She's very cute in her photos, but more than cute in person.)  Then I focused, cuz I can do that.  Unfortunately, I didn't think to take notes until after she mentioned an anthology, Blood Lite, that I had never heard of.  What I can tell fellow fans who have been anxiously awaiting any sort of development on a series based movie--it's off.  What may or may not be on is a TV series pilot.  Space TV green lighted the project, but after the whole movie thing, she's not holding her breath.

If, like me, you've got all the books but Counterfeit Magic (OK, OK, I don't have Men of the Otherworld either, but I read most of the stories so it was easy to put off) because you won't pay $40 to $100, rejoice!  If you don't hate ebooks, at least.  The Kindle edition is out now for $4.99. 

I'm not going to list her favorite authors, and that's the end of my notes, so back to my geekdom!  After the panel, we followed her out and introduced ourselves.  Or at least, I meant to introduce myself.  What I actually did was hold up my badge and explain (perhaps in spasms, I'm not sure) that I am An, Avangyline, Angela who moderates her writing forum so she may remember telling me to do stuff sometimes.

She very kindly did not respond as though I were the lunatic I present myself as.  And she asked if we wanted to meet for coffee.  Now, I was expecting coffee...Bea had contacted her in advance and then contacted me. But Kelley Armstrong asked me to go for coffee!  I gracelessly got out of the way of other fans and the husband and I went in search of Bea, then in search of the next panel.  Sure, I'd finally gotten my butt to my first con because it's in my city and Kelley would be there, but it was shear coincidence that she was a part of the next panel (Vampires,Gender, and Sexuality--Oh, My!), but good because Bea was able to confirm for coffee while I stood there like a nut...a silent, star-struck nut.  

We had lunch, hung out more since there was no room at one panel we wanted to attend, staying in place so we could catch seats the next, Fail! (about, of course, Racefail--linked for Bea's benefit)...and then it was time.

I called on all my years of theatre training to only be a little bizarre.  We made it through dinner, and talked about Kelley's books, books in general, my own writing (she scolded me; *squee*) and my husband's...yah know.  Stuff.  Then dinner was over, we took a coupla pix, talked some more, and said our good-byes.  And when Kelley was out of sight, I geeked out so hard that I looked like a giant 12 year old freakin' out over Justin Bieber.  

And I am only a tiny bit sad for my lost dignity because that, my friends, was so far beyond OMG.

Drunken New Year's Musing

I love urban fantasy because it makes anything possible right here, right now.  I realized this as my husband and I walked home from my cousin's house.  We paused to speak to a gorgeous woman who could have been Eshu (harkening back to my White Wolf days [and look, totally sauced, I still found yahs a link]--think African storytelling fae) and sidhe/shee by the look of her, or Eshu and pooka, by my desire to have at least one good pooka showing up at any time.  The dark woods nearby most certainly held sluagh (or an urban gang of young werewolves for those not following me and my love for fae).  Near the bottom of my hill is a house that can't decide if it's a Cape or a Tudor, and there is most certainly something magical going on within.  Two houses up from that is a brick Victorian that has definite opinions about its new occupants, though it hasn't shared them with me.

Considering all this I thought, "And any black car that passes might be a horse in its natural form."  Sure enough, a black car slowly rolled down the street.

There was a world of mythic possibility just avoiding ice patches a few blocks on the way home from a party. I like to see that world reflected in what I read.

Jumbled assumptions

The last day of class was Monday (before last, as this has sat here progressing paragraphs at a time), so, despite having a take home final and a rather large paper due this upcoming Monday (no past; someone should have talked me into just revising this completely), I've been an almost total slacker.  I'm doing laundry as I type.  I've taken care of mommy things.  And I've stretched my wee budget to do some Xmas shopping.  But I've done none of the fiction writing I promised to do as soon as I was "free" of academics, nor the academics I should finish to be really free.  Maybe it's the guilt from scholarly procrastination that got me thinking of a class from last semester, and kid in it that I dubbed Mr. Whiner.

I'd blame his attitude on his youth, but since we attend a public, commuter university, the classes are a mix of old folks like me (and older by decades) returning for their degrees, and young, first time college students like him; he's the only one I've met with the attitude.  And it wasn't just the class (which he could have transfered out of in the early weeks, or withdrawn from for quite some time after) or the perfectly lovely teacher (again, it was one of those classes with a bazillion sections from early morning to late night because every student who enters below the grad level must take it, so he could have left if they didn't click)...In addition to ridiculously loud music, he filled my mornings with other complaints like how his dad wouldn't just sell the family business already since he was sick of working there on the weekends.

My edited response was, "You should appreciate what you have."  My inner voice said, "Get a grip, you little twerp!  Someday, when your dreams of being the next celebrity DJ fall through, you're going to be glad your parents worried more about your future than their own early retirement.  Enjoy getting into clubs you're otherwise too young for and the free tickets to more concerts than most folks with real jobs could ever afford; it'll only last so long.


I told you all that to tell you this: Mr. Whiner came to class one day more out of sorts than usual.  I don't remember if I asked or he just assumed I'd receive his venting.  He'd been on the commuter rail, making his way into the city, and dropped his pass.  By the time he realized it and went back, the pass was gone.  He'd been sitting near a black lady (no offense), and now he was out $100+...

Yeah, I was offended.  If I am to be drafted to represent "black ladies" everywhere (offensive in and of itself), how come we're the thieves?  Did she come from a special suburban ghetto and was commuting to her job as crack whore in the city?  (And who visits crack whores at 8am?)  Are all the white suburbanites magically immune to greed?

Never assume--it makes an Ass out of U, though it has relatively little to do with Me.

It's a side note, since he was already wrong without it, but at the start of the next class, he tried to sell his commuter rail pass.  The woman had indeed seen the pass left where he had been sitting, and tried to locate him to return it.  Like a modern romantic comedy, they must have just missed each other, but came so close to the meeting that would have changed the course of the story before it became tedious to its audience.

No, he did not apologize to me about his accusations toward her, which I would have accepted as the representative of black ladies everywhere.

The original plan, in keeping with this being a writing themed blog (as opposed to my free-for-all LiveJournal or the blog I should open for non-writerly things), was to write something witty about assumptions in fiction, and then turn that into a launch pad for why I love Kelley Armstrong's books...

But I came across Elif Shafak's "The Politics of Fiction" and thought that fit so well:

::whimper::

I want to curl up in a ball and just stay there.

For a week, I was sick.  I have lupus, it's a fact of life, blah-blah.  I couldn't concentrate so I struggled to be just a little behind on school work (technically, I'm not behind in the two classes that I dreaded it most in...I just feel behind).  My professors for the two classes I most worried about were great--understanding that it's a chronic illness, and if I could manage my work, so be it.  In my 3rd class, it hasn't been an issue.  It's just once a week on Mondays--I am a paper behind, but I've been averaging an A and the last class was canceled anyway.  Now worries...

...X's "stomach virus" put him in emergency surgery to remove his appendix.  (I wrote that and remembered this is not my journal and not everyone reading this knows that X is my husband.  Now you know.)  It was horrible.  I was a little scared by the time that I got him into my brother's car to go to the hospital, but at that point, it was 1am; I needed to get my daughter and nephew to school in the morning and get myself to class, and I still believed that he'd get IV fluids and better meds than I'd gotten him over the counter.   He called at 5am to tell me that his appendix had burst and they were about to prep him for surgery.

I was so not going to class.  I explained the situation to the lovely two professors mentioned above with my assignments attached.  They were great about it.  So I foolishly didn't think to get anything on hospital letterhead explaining what happened.  I was worried about how weak he looked, how I needed to feed him. They only kept him one more night, but he was so much stronger that I didn't question that.  All I cared about was what I needed to know for his post-op care.  So guess what Professor #4 wants to not smash my grade over my absences?

Hopefully, it will be easier to get in touch with someone who can give me something on hospital letterhead once the weekend is over.  My bitchy-self says, "Or I'll just show her all the post-op info sheets and she can take 'em or leave 'em."  My regular self is tired...tired from being so worried about my partner...tired from being worried about my grades...tired from my lupus flare...

I want to call in dead for the rest of the semester.

And I want to write.

In all the stress, I turned to fiction.  Having read an *almost* satisfying novel, I want to put my own words on the page as though I might make a million and one mistakes, but I've been inoculated against those that made that piece of work *almost*.  And that fear from suddenly learning that X was going into surgery and the awareness of what can go wrong even in simple procedures is with me in a little ball that I can't throw away despite it all ending well.  I want to fictionalize it so it has a place outside my body.

But I can't phone the semester in so I'm going to hit the books.

...Screw it.  I'll hit the books after writing for half an hour.

Strange young adult kinda dream

I was young, pretty, white.  I loved him and he was gone, my only lead--only REAL lead--a phone number.  So I dialed and found this weird network like nothing I ever experienced before.  And it wasn't him, but I was closer.  I dialed again and again, til I had to take a break.  I didn't like going out of his room, seeing his family trying to be normal while I was a stranger in their home so nothing could be normal.  Mom cooked, twin boys tried to play only to freeze when they saw me.  He got his parents to say yes to my coming by promising I'd stay in the kid sister's room, but I haven't done that since he disappeared and she looks at me with this longing like I'm still supposed to still stay up late braiding her hair and whispering Older Girl secrets.  Kid brother's worst of all cuz he's just a couple of years younger than us, all punk rock/skater hot and getting closer to me while we looked for HIM.


I'm getting out of that house and freeing us all, but just one more round of calls.  I hide out in the bathroom upstairs and dial.  There's an answer, it sounds like a party, and I thinking YES!  I'll be pissed when he answers, demand why he didn't just say that things were too intense...or no, I love him so much I can let him go without that scene if he just picks up the phone....But I see IT, one of the visions I'd had through all the phone calls, this a repeat of the first where he's walking along the shoulder of a dark road and van pulls up, he gets in, and vanishes...


There's a clicking sound on the phone and the party noises disappear.  The phone pressed to my ear rings as though I'd just dialed a number, and I can hear the echo of a phone ringing somewhere in the house.  My stomach seems to drop, an shadow of the sinking feeling felt throughout my soul.  Both rings stop and I'm already moving to hang up before I hear the little sister answer the phone.


There's a knock.  "Come in."  I'm scrubbing at my eyes when kid brother walks in, seriously hot, but not the one.  He holds up a portable phone.  "Were you...calling the house phone from a house phone? How is that possible?"


.....That last bit's not true.  It's already morphed in the recording.  It WAS the same number, so the best I should have gotten would have voice mail, but that's not what he said.  It had been something about Lucy thinking I might need something...I said, "Um?  Toilet paper?" and we both looked at the roll--not full, but full enough so that if I needed more I was probably about to go through something no one wanted in their bathroom.  I shared a smile with him, but it was almost like there were two of me--the one sharing a moment with him and the one still totally engrossed by the search for HIM.


The dream ended with flashes of vision and...a Damien Rice song playing on loop. 


______________________________________________


The dream that I had left this page open to write about was kind of like that.  In a way, it was totally different--the woman I was in then was more solidly grown, a woman of color.  There had been less urgency with no missing lover.  But it was the sort that, upon waking, I knew was a story, not some sort of working things out from real life.  I'd gotten up from that dream and wrote about it in a hard copy note book.  Then, I'd set about trying to build a plot around the character study I'd been given in my sleep.


That was about two weeks before NaNoWriMo had started.  We're a week into and I'l still trying to build a plot, plodding along well behind writing schedule.


There's still lingering urgency from this morning's dream.  I feel like I could figure out what was up with that phone network, and spend the day writing the book, each bit missing from the dream unraveling as I reach.  Reality's throwing cold water on that fantasy.  Having a lupus flare, I phoned in all of last week, so I cannot skip class today.  If I did, I would probably end up spending hours just trying to make sense of the phone thing alone, hours writing the opening (if I dove right in rather than hours spent outlining), and I'd hit the middle and run out of steam.


But it's recorded (shifts in tense and any other flaws) so I can come back and revisit this if I ever need/want to and you can see how this kinda, sorta works for me.  Sometimes.