A quick glimpse into An's mind

Usually, I'm late because I've got too much classwork (but I'm free 'til September) or I've got writer's block.  This time around, I've had too much crap in my brain.  I wrote overlong posts that even I didn't want to read by the end, nevermind hoping anyone else would.  I'll share the bit that I like from Monday's post, and then tell you why e-readers have won me over.

My son is arriving from Texas tonight.  This threw me into a fiction finding frenzy.  I'm reading, and loving, The Blue Girl, by Charles de Lint, and wondered if he'd like it, too.  Actually, I so relate to the main character, I considered making him read it whether he liked it or not.  Then there's Kelley Armstrong's The Awakening (Darkest Powers), and Cassandra Clare's City of Bones (Mortal Instruments).  How many female protagonists can a young man take?  Maybe he'd dig Unleashed by Kris Reisz?  Speaking of Reisz, wasn't him compiling a list of young adult fiction for guys?  I'd look it up but how could I forget Elsewhere?

 This book redefined my youth (don't let the Aug 2004 date fool yah).  Sure, I had Moonheart (which came to mean more to me as grew older) and then War for the Oaks: A Novel, but Elsewhere really marked a place where I became an urban fantasy fan.  More, some inner part of me said, This is who I am.

OK, I never hopped a train to Bordertown where The World meets Faerie.  Not physically.  Emotionally, I'd been squatting there since I was 12; Elsewhere, and the follow up Nevernever, gave it a name and me someone to hang with while he blew up his life and found himself.

...I could go on about that, but I'll follow the twist my thoughts took.

Now about e-readers.


They're neat.

....I'm tempted to leave it there because the discussion about it seems...pointless.  And this from a chick who likes to discuss.  The people who insist they're here, and they'll do to books with CDs did to albums and MP3 players did to Discmen (who was the winner who came up with that name?) are probably right.  Then again. there may be enough people who insist that you'll take their physical, paper books away when you pry them out of their dead, cold hands to make e-readers additional technology rather than replacement tech.  We won't know 'til we know.

Years ago, my hubby bought a handheld computer and I thought it was a dumb waste of money.  It came in handy, though, when we were called out of town suddenly and I was able to buy a couple of ebooks.  Some time later, our toddler broke it and, other than my being still annoyed about the money, neither of us missed it.    We still went to bookstores (or ordered online) and libraries, and barely batted a lash when the Kindle came out.  OK, I liked the hype.  I batted a lash, until the price drew my hard stare.  I was even excited about the iPad, but I'm spending my rent money (or two car payments if I were to actually buy a car, or...well, input your own "this is way more important to me than a gadget" bill) for tech that makes tech I already own portable.  When I can fully use it as a laptop without Steve Jobs keeping me free from porn, I'll think about it.

Then my husband got me a Sony Pocket Reader  on sale for Mother's Day, I...was OK.  With two ebooks waiting for review, I thought that would be a good thing, and at the price, I could barely argue.  He loaded all the backup Kelley Armstrong books that he had bought (ok, cool, but I've read all the hard copies several times and wasn't about to do so again) and his Star Wars ebooks (I haven't read a Star Wars book since Mara Jade was first introduced, what? 20 years ago?).  It was more interesting when a series of links while net surfing landed me at the Ellora's Cave free short stories page.  Woohoo!  Now I could really try out erotica (if I only I could stop editing it as I read).

Long story slightly less long, if you're ever in place where you need 1500 (or 300 for those of us with the cheap version) books, you'll be too screwed to read.  If you discover, like I just did, that the "First Time in Print!" stamp that St. Martin put on the book you bought does not mean "first book in the series" (jerks), you could spend a couple of minutes finding, buying, and downloading the right book.  Quick and easy....assuming there's an e-version of the book.  I guess I'll go look.

Book Meme..and Stuff

This isn't supposed to be a meme kinda place, but I'm sitting here not (apparently) getting back to revisions, and this was just chillin' in my links ...

* Grab the nearest book.
* Open it to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Chris Howard's Seaborn was just a hair closer than Patricia Briggs's Iron Kissed : His jaw started working before he could get sound from his throat.

If I'd cheated, I could have offered up a nearby sentence with oozing blood. Oh,and since I'm here, I should talk about books!

It's too early into Seaborn--Chris Howard's book about two exiled ocean dwellers and the poor girl possessed by one of them--to give much of an opinion. So far, I'm enjoying it. The only drawback, which happens a lot in multi-POV stories, is I'm drawn to one character and want to rush through reading the other to get to her. I wouldn't change it, though. There's a certain value in the tapestry of story woven this way.

Speaking of difficult POVs, I've been trying to find just the right words to "review" (who am I kidding? I'm not a reviewer--I'm a fangirl who likes to babble about books) Will Shetterly's The Gospel of The Knife. This coming-of-age book of "magical realism"* is told in second person present tense, giving many readers the response of, Dude! What?

We're used to reading "I did" which makes us feel like the narrator is sharing their story with us, or "He did" giving us the sense that someone outside of the characters is telling us what happened to them. Stories using "I am doing" (like Ann Aguirre's Grimspace) are sort of like a patient under hypnosis reliving the story as she speaks it. And a lot of folks have reported taking issue with the use of first person present. Shetterly's use of "You are doing"--second person present--is damned uncomfortable at first.

I know from reading his blog that I am not the only person who read "You are..." and responded with, "No, I am not!" BUT once you get past any Choose Your Own Adventure prejudices, there is a really good story in there. OK, to be fair, there may be more prejudices to get over. Chris Nix is 14 year old boy in 1960's Florida. As an artistic young hippy, he doesn't fit in with the "straights"; still, somehow his liberal counter culture upbringing doesn't keep him from some pretty unenlightened thoughts when he meets a young black girl who clearly takes an interest in him.

Funny thing is, as much as that'll get the back up of certain readers (like, say, mine), it's one of the blessings of the book; there are no Mary Sue's here. There's a young man who discovers that he is going to inherit the earth, and who has to make some hard choices because of it.

Before I move on to from that to a young woman who has to save the earth, let me add that Shetterly says that anyone just starting to read his work should read Elsewhere or Dogland first as they're better. I don't know about better, but the former was a defining book in my life. I would say the difference is that I've revisited Elsewhere more often than I can count, whereas I imagine that if I reread Gospel again, once will be enough.

Now, saving the world (so you don't have to) is Phenomenal Girl 5 by A.J. Menden. Lainey--alias the title character--is a superhero. She's worked all her life to become a member of the Elite Hands of Justice, the best group of superheros there is. All she has to do is survive two years as apprentice to the Reincarnist...not a piece of cake.

I had a lot of fears about reading this book. A.J. Menden is also in Kelley Armstrong's Online Writers' Group, and not just a generic member of the OWG but rather someone who I've developed a cyber friendship with. What if I didn't like it? That was fairly likely since the book is considered "action romance" and we all know romance, generally, isn't for me. What if it were worse than not my cup of tea? What if it were one of those things that leaves the reader going, "Really? They published this?"

This book squashed all doubts.

Menden manages to tell a fun story without going campy. She tells a fun story with real seriousness and heart. Yeah, at one point, I cried. If you tell anyone, I'll deny it. But have I mentioned that this is a fun story?



*I nearly got derailed by looking for a quick definition of magical realism and how it differs from urban fantasy. More on this...eventually.