TTitle:  Pale Demon

Author: Kim Harrison
Publisher: HarperCollins (22 Feb 2011)
Genre: Urban Fantasy (alternately Contemporary Fantasy)
Pages: 448 Hardcover

I have a love/hate relationship with Rachel Morgan.  It's mostly love, or I wouldn't be here telling you about Pale Demon, book 9, of Kim Harrison's Hollows series.  But hate has sneaked in once more.  As I'm reading the book, I'm tucking away bits of info to go into the review: it starts with recognition of the heartache that the characters (and thus we loyal fans) suffered at the end of the last book; Trent comes in early and plays a heavy role (yay for those of us who have secret Trent redemption fantasies).  It didn't take me long to think I'd be pimping this with a focus on those who aren't sure they're dying for next book.  Believe me, you want to read this.

Then, at halfway through (my e-arc; there's not telling just where this scene will land in the edition you end up with), hate smacked me like a spell knocking me almost into the ever-after.  A character did something absolutely unforgivable, and Rachel's reaction, after a bit of temper: I'd done some pretty stupid things in my day, too.

Rachel could be the poster child for stupid things, so she's got me there.  But this...this is the sort of thing that evil characters are made of, not an "oops" that we can forgive our friends for.  And Rachel lets it go without so much as a "My bad."  Unacceptable. 

Why continue reading?  Because Kim Harrison is that damn good a writer.  I've learned that, if I give the story the chance, not only will I be entertained, but Harrison will also fill the breaks that make me go, "Wait...what?"  Things that I thought were mistakes turn out to be character and world building genius.  Reading more, I discover that the genius had continued in Pale Demon.

If you new and you've read all that thinking "Thanks for avoiding spoilers, but what's this all about?" read on.

Dead Witch Walking  starts off the Hollows series featuring Rachel Morgan, a "runner" (kinda like a cop) and witch in Cincinnati after "The Turn".  See, the world has changed thanks to genetically modified tomatoes and the virus they spread that took out a quarter of the human population.  Hidden in plain sight, supernatural races came out and stepped up, keeping society from crashing.  Rachel, her pixy partner Jinx, and drop-dead-gorgeous  living vampire Ivy make up a team of runners that help police the city since stand human cops are not equipped to bring in supernaturals who don't want to come quietly.

The bad news is that, if you're like me and a book or series first described as funny doesn't rock your boat, you might roll your eyes through a lot of Dead Witch Walking.  Rachel's cases are on the sillier side of serious and I might not have made it through the first half of the book if I hadn't been so determined to see what all the buzz was about.  Then the action gripped me and I was buzzing, too!

The effort to amuse is, in my mind, the worst part, and it is quickly replaced by the organic sort of humor that even we grumpy people can enjoy.  The best part is the characterization.  Rachel is flawed, as all good characters are.  Her taste in clothes is hooker chic, she makes terrible decisions about relationships, and at the start, she doesn't begin to understand how screwed up she is.  And everybody else knows it--a lovely factor in a genre where the worst personality traits are often counted as good things.  Her friends see her clearly, loving her despite and because of her faults, and addressing them.  There is adventure, action, love, and heart ache, but there's something more in the characters that makes me especially want to recommend this series.   

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.

                    
                             

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.

Rethinking self-publishing

We've covered this.  Self-publishing is a good thing...for Other People.  If you're like me, you've grown up wanting to see your books published by the same folks who publish your favorite authors. You may or may not get over that; for me, the dream is still being published by Tor or Ace, but the goal (sometimes my dreams and my goals don't match) is to write for a living.  This meant accepting, first, that my work (when finally ready) might find a home in at a small press.  Eventually, I accepted that I may become an e-book writer.  Self publishing was out of the question...until now.


Some great books have been self published, but their numbers are eclipsed by the many, many crappy books self published because no agent or editor would consider them.  The list of self pubbed books that made the big time--sometimes remaining self published, but often bought by a big house--is nice and long...until you realize how many hundreds of thousands are never seen outside of the author's circle of friends and family.


And then there's the industry pressure.  I've heard/read "Agents and publishers won't even bother with your work if they've learned you've self-published" enough that it's not worth looking for links.  Even if your self-pubbed novel gets a serious readership, you're not eligible to join many of the writing associations that you may want to.  The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America association doesn't come out and say NO SELF-PUBLISHING, but they give a list of what makes you eligible and Lulu isn't on it.  Horror Writer's Association are longer and more involved, and at the end of the active membership regulations (as opposed to associate or affiliate), they let you know that any non-comic book self-published author need not apply.  And so on.


None of that matters if you just want a story "out there."  But if your goal is to quit your day job, the emergency medical fund, insider track for future publication, and other benefits are pretty damn important...


Yeah.  I can go on and on about why self-pubbing is my second to last choice.  The above doesn't even touch on marketing and other such issues.  So why rethink self-publishing at all?  My friend Julie.


I have the urge to write about how fabulous she is as a writing buddy, how smart, how dedicated to her craft...What matters more, though, is praise for her work. When I read that post, I thought, "Wow, how fabulous!  Too bad it's utterly useless!"  


The chances of an agent stopping by, reading that review, and asking for the manuscript seem ridiculous to me, regardless of my sucking at math.  IF she were putting that book out herself while her other manuscript is in agent limbo, it would be another story.  Apparently, Julie thought so, too.  She revamped her long idle site (love that logo!), added the Doc stories that are getting a following of their own, and put serious research into the details of what it would take to publish Senior Year Bites herself.


Rather than thinking of all the reasons for why she shouldn't, I immediately thought of why she should.  Critiquing selected chapters of Senior Year Bites, I was impressed by Julie's talent and skill, but I didn't love it the way that Rabid Reader does (if you didn't click the "praise for her work" link, go take a look).  


Young Adult books start with a strike against them when it comes to me, and SYB is "light" while my tastes run toward "thick" if not "heavy".  It's a totally irrational bit of personal taste that I mentioned before with published authors Anton Strout and Mark Henry.  I was randomly thinking the other day how Strout's Dead To Me has my all time favorite opening scene, though I'm not crazy about the book.  Less randomly, I just reminisced about how fabulous parts of Henry's Happy Hour of the Damned were, though I gave up on reading the whole thing early on.


These books are well loved by other people, but were I an agent deciding whether or not to rep them, Henry would have gotten an encouraging "But it's not for me" letter and Strout would have gotten a request for the full manuscript, only to have to change major elements or to move on to someone else to represent him...


Industry pros will tell you, "That's the process" and "if the story's good, it will get published."  I've swallowed that whole.  But I've also watched Julie revise and fine tune Arabian Dreams, send it out, and learn that there aren't a lot of agents interested in young adult equestrian fantasy books.  The chapters I critiqued were great, agent response reflect that, but alas...


I thought, "Send it to publishers that don't require you to go through an agent!  It would fit right in with the equestrian adult fantasy published by Luna."  Except that they don't publish YA books.  "Carina!  They seem to be looking for everything that doesn't easily fall into other categories."  Except for YA books.  


Maybe the idea should be "if the story's good, readers will read it."  I'm not advocating doing away with agents (do you know how to navigate international rights?  me neither), but in the days of social networking, more book blogs than you can shake a magic wand at, and relatively simple (so I'm told) tech to make great-looking trailers, why can't you write a good story, edit the hell out of it, and get it out to the would-be fans without:
~~~~~Shopping it to agents and waiting months between each for a "cool, but no thanks"?
~~~~~Waiting for where you fit into the schedule IF you get an agent who finds you a publisher?
~~~~~And still having to do a lot of the marketing yourself because you've just made the bottom of the mid-list?


To Julie, I say, "Go for it!"  For anyone else (maybe myself included one day), I say put in the time for researching how to do this right.  If the pros outweigh the cons, rock on with your bad self!


(Link of encouragement: Konrath ebook sales top 100K)

Just Anita Blake and Me.

Here, there be spoilers.  If you've read the series, have no intention of reading the series, or, like many, are a mix of both, the spoilers won't bother you.  If you're don't fall into one of those categories, seriously, there will be spoilers.  And TMI of other sorts.


Why even go there?

This is not yet the world famous blog that it will be (..yeah, go tell your writerly or readerly friends to get in now), so most readers are long time internet buddies; you know my stance against reading more of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake books.  If you're not a long time internet buddy, and can't infer that I have such a stance from what I just wrote, I don't know what to tell yah.

So I was exploring the not-so-wonderful world of borrowing ebooks from the library--fantastic concept, less than stellar inventory--and I saw Flirt (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 18).  Yes, I know better.  But it was free!  My rules for buying Anita Blake books went from MORE! NOW! getting each new release the weekend, if not the day, they came out, to never again at cover price, to not for one thin dime.  I put it out of my mind completely as I slipped into "Um...well, maybe if someone's paying me, but probably not."

....That requires back story.  Many, many years ago, I needed, desperately to replace Diana Tregarde (Children of the Night: A Diana Tregarde Investigation).  Mercedes Lackey, for both personal and publishing reasons, decided to stop the series at book three.  I decided to stop reading at book two, for the silly impulse of "if I don't hunt down the last, there will always be one more book."  What can I say?  I was in love.

In my mad search, I discovered Guilty Pleasures (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter).  Perfect!  Same type of story, Anita even looked like Diana...but, not so perfect...I didn't actually like Anita.  I put the book down, unfinished, and eventually did this twice more with consecutive books.  It seems the fourth time became the charm.  Facing a long overnight shift in which I would have to do a flurry of work and then simply stay awake until I could do another flurry of work, I grabbed a book, *any* book so long as I hadn't already read it.

Burnt Offerings (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 7) gave me something that allowed me to embrace Anita's flaws.  I devoured the book, went back and read the first three, then quickly bought the missing books in between.  Then I had to wait for the next to be published, so I read them all again.

An discovers the wider world of fandom...and the ick factor

I always knew I wasn't alone in my geekhood.  All of my close friends and I read the original Dragonlance books at around the same time.  A boyfriend introduced me to Anne Rice, and a buddy dragged me (happily, as it turned out) back into reading sci-fi by forcing eluki bes shahar.  I'd had friends, of course, who didn't read the same things as me, and more rarely, who weren't readers, but I hadn't really thought about the throngs of fans out there until connecting to others on the internet.

And one of the things I did was look for other AB fans.  One person, reporting on a convention, wrote about LKH cuddling with a man who was not her husband.  I felt a little greasy, just reading about someone else's private life and tried to put it out of my head.  You don't really think of writers in the same celebrity terms that you think of actors, especially back a little more than a decade ago, so accidently receiving the information was a lot more uncomfortable than knowing way more than is my business about Sandra Bullock and Jesse James.

It was nastier still when the AB blog--which I followed seriously, both as a fan of the series and a would-be novelist soaking up all the tidbits about the writing process that were dropped--turned into LKH's blog and she shared details about her and hubby #2 that bordered on graphic.  Yeah, ick.

As she let us (or pulled us...for those who really just wanted the character and writing stuff) more into her personal life and the content of her novels changed more and more, a grumpiness grew among her fans until a large faction became anti-fans.  I was among them, hoping upon hope to get the old Anita back, trying to shoosh the loudest complainers--or at least those who had to take their complaints to the source--because she told us, repeatedly, that she was contrary by nature (her words) and would keep writing crap (our words) if anyone tried to tell her she couldn't.

Why we loved it and why we split into those who still do and those who want to scream

Oh, my.  How do I put this?  Have you ever had a place that was part of who you are?  For me, it was Paragon Park (opens to video...::sniffle:: I gotta share on Facebook so my brother can see this..::misty eyed sniffle:: ).  I could try to explain the dynamics of my family and how this was one of the things that pulled us all together every summer, but the highest rated reply perhaps says it best for both those who miss this place or any other, including the world of Anita Blake: I would give every remaining second of my life to ride in the kooky kastle just one more time.  Maybe that's going a bit far for me, but it gives the idea...


Hamilton made the "Anitaverse" such a place.  Maybe even back in the early days we'd complain about Anita's version of feminism being taken from a confused ten year old, or other wee problems of the character or the prose.  But when you got down to it, a part of us moved into a Saint Louis where vampire politics sometimes spilled out on the innocent, and that teacher you crushed on was secretly a werewolf.  We shared the characters' sufferings and triumphs.  Having Anita's ultra violence by proxy helped me through a painful divorce.  We were invested.

And then there was the sex.

I went looking for LKH's old blog post where she defended the sex--and insulted old fans still clinging to hope--but alas, she's got a new integrated version and the archives are gone.  (I wonder if it were just for the better look or if something happened like the shit storm on the old deleted guestbook that broke out when my husband flipped over her remarks....I digress.)

Just the facts, ma'am.  Anita was (annoyingly to some) celibate in the early books.  Her heart had been broken pre-novels, and unlike everyone else on the planet, she didn't hurt and get over it, she metaphorically glued her legs together and nurtured the pain as only Anita can.  But you can't stay celibate surrounded by the hottest guys in fiction who want you.  Who would she choose...the sexy French master vampire, or the gorgeous All-American alpha werewolf?  If you use a sliding scale for the definition of "choose", she picked one.  People who don't use a sliding scale (obviously, that would be me) accepted it, and others rejoiced.  Surely, there would a deepening of relationships and the stories would be even better!

...Or no.  Don't get me wrong--two of the three next books were the best she's written, and the odd one out, though it happens to be the one of three with sex (real sex and on the page, as opposed to sensual situations that don't go that far or off-stage rape) isn't bad at all.  But the sex just meant there was more whining, not that things went deeper.  Anita had been a good Catholic girl before the Church excommunicated all necromancers; while that did not keep her from having sex before marriage, it did make her a stickler for monogamy.  For a while...

There were arguments, back in the day, about which was better: Burnt Offerings (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 7) or Obsidian Butterfly (An Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 9).  OB does read as though LKH wrote it while reading Burning Water (Diana Tregarde Investigation), but I'm sure that's a tribute to the lesser known series rather than something less pleasant.  Either way, it's a damned fine book, that maybe edges out BO by virtue of taking place out of town, away from the angst that loving two men has caused...(Oh, had I forgotten to mention that once she had one, she had to have the other?)

I remember that LKH's A Kiss of Shadows (Meredith Gentry, Book 1) came out around the time of OB.  I thought "Ah, here's the sex she wanted to write before.  I'm glad she has an outlet."  And I wasn't just happy for her; I actually enjoyed the book.  I didn't know that I should've taken it as a warning.

Things got bad while Anita was out of town and Narcissus in Chains (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 10) starts with violence that nearly kills her.  But there are (see how I change tense when I get like this?) new shifters in town with the power to bring her back from the brink.  A few pages/minutes after regaining consciousness and meeting Micah, the leader of the group, he rapes her and becomes the (additional) love of her life...

In one printing of the story, at least.  The next--and sadly, I am missing one of the texts and the patience to go through the archives of the one place where I know I've faithfully copied each--edition changed the text so she finally gave in before he enters her.  That was the beginning of the end.

Anita gains the ardeur from her vampire boyfriend, which makes her have to feed on sex everyday, several times a day.

Yeah.

It wasn't painful yet.  The sex didn't get in the way of the plot yet, and the plot wasn't bad.  Some of it, combined with knowing too much about the author's personal life was ick, (and super-Mary-Sue-meets-are-you-fucking-kidding-me) but there was a solid story and resolution.This became less and less true until, four books later, she totally phoned the ending in.  Screw resolution, there were just too many penises to examine.

Seriously.

Upon purchase of the book before, the clerk felt the duty to explain that there wasn't any actual plot (as fans of a paranormal thriller would see it--if you were in the market for stupid relationship angst, there was plenty) for the first 200 pages.  But but that couldn't be true, right?  By the end, more than wanting my money back, I wanted those hours of my life back.

But I still bought the next one.  Yeah, this time I waited until it was sold at significant discount, but I bought it. I read it.  I stared in horror after reaching the end that was basically a letter reading, Dear good guy, I was the bad guy all along.  Bwahahaha!  I commiserated on message boards, read all the posts saying, "OK...you've got a lot of readers drawn to the sex and your career has exploded, but what about those of us who have been here since the beginning?  We've gotten all our friends to read your novels.  We've put up with the bad editing and fought the urge buy plane tickets and find your house to personally hand you a thesaurus.  We're not even asking you to take the sex out, we just want real stories again."

Anger grew as we read interviews explaining that Americas are repressed sexually.  Certainly far too many of us are, but do you really think these are the same people reading your books?  Hell, anyone who bought into the series through book clubs got the book in spite or because of the explicit sex warnings.  I can't speak for all of us, but lemme tell yah, I like sex.  A lot.  Most of us read other series that include sex--some, I'm given to believe from the boards, come from romance or erotica backgrounds and don't read much that doesn't include sex.  But remember when the adventures were so much more than that?  We just want to come home.

That, if you haven't guessed, is why so many bitched for so long while the stories got worse and worse.  Why so many talked about the books (often for years) after we stopped reading.  And why so many still complain and yet buy the books as soon as they come out, taking what they can of the characters and world no matter what happens.  Some of those who "type" the loudest about Anita and her magical vagina will still pre-order the book or be in the stores for the first day of sales, wanting to come home.


 I would give every remaining second of my life to ride in the kooky kastle just one more time.


So I read Flirt.  By the end of the first chapter, I knew what the action of the story would be--and had a moment of being annoyed that Anita pulled a 'too stupid to live' move and didn't see the threat coming--but I didn't care.  It was Anita.  The "why do you all love me?" and revelation of her grandmother's nastiness was little more than a rehash of crap from before I stopped reading, and almost kept me from going on.  It certainly made me want to sit character and author both down and introduce them to (a) the wonderful world of therapy and (b) the real world where millions of white women are not blond haired and blue eyed, let alone billions of non-white women, and neither dark hair nor bitchy relatives make you ugly.  

I kept reading.  I lived through the almost sex and the inevitable sex with the bad guys (no less), because there was plot.  There was the old Anita, using her mind and her power, and not just her magical vagina.  It was almost like coming home.

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.

Things I found wandering around book industry blogs...

Agent Janet Reid tells us to make MORE mistakes, not fewer--great advice for any of us who's fear of "not getting it right" has kept us from getting anywhere at all. 

I've had mixed feelings about starting Wade's story.  On the one hand, I was itching to write, but on the other, any story that I've gotten anywhere on has come from some flash of inspiration, not by following an outline alone.  I pushed out the intro, but since have been writing a line at a time...Seriously...a line, then maybe doing four hours worth of laundry or catching up on Lost or whatever, then coming back to force another line out.  I've been keeping Reid's post in mind to get me to not junk the whole project in order to wait (foolishly) for the type of inspiration I require.

So it doesn't thrill me.  The opening does what I need it to do, and I can edit it into literary joy-joys later.  Maybe it feels like a mistake, but I need to get through it to produce something better.

I've been casually watching Jim C. Hines gather information for a survey of how writer's broke into publishing.  Here's his first results post, complete with graphs!  While the first entry deals with how the writers in his survey broke in--short stories first, no short stories, agent or direct to publisher--the second covers how long it took. 

As you can guess from scattered reviews of books that have just come out mingled with long running series and things that are just new to me, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what's next on the horizon.  Still, it's nice to get a heads up from time to time.  The lovely Tez has a list of April releases that reminds me to put two of my favorite authors' work back on top of my TBR list, and informs me that another favorite has turned to Young Adult books--something I'll be sure to check out. 

How do you get a publisher to listen?

I'm in a mood. More than a mood. I'm battling depression with City of Bones by Cassandra Clare and strategic internet reading. The latter lead me to Ain't That a Shame, a fantastic blog post by Justine Larbalestier about why the U.S. arc of her book novel has a white girl on the cover though the story is about a black girl. If you don't follow any other link I give you (though, of course, I hope you do), please follow that one.

While reading the responses, I kept reminding myself that I *am* in a mood and should appreciate how many people commented in appreciation of the post, rather than keeping an eye out for those who don't get it (um, and ask questions about my psyche and what it means that I was so pleased when Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden did get it--but that's a whole other post that will never be written). What gave me pause was a response of an entirely different nature:

Thank you, Justine. Well said.

But Bloomsbury is not off the hook. One needs only look at how they “screwed” over the author of an earlier book (by “burying” the book upon release) to know there is a systemic issue at that house regarding books featuring an ethnic protagonist. And when properly embarrassed (outed for their behavior), continued to bury the book but began heavily promoting the a new book which featured a white protagonist on the cover. I thought things would improve when the marketing person left. Now it seems they hired a twin to replace her.

This is a business. We get that. And I applaud you for taking a difficult stand. But you are right – the only way for us to make a statement is to exercise economic clout.
That means I can’t buy this book – or a subsequent paperback, nor can I recommend it. I’m a writer – but also an affluent mother (read “book buyer) with college bound kids who are sick of being ignored. The damage is already done.

The local city paper recently ran an article about my family and reading. We often buy two copies of a book – one for each daughter. African American book buyers are not as “invisible” as Bloomsbury would have people believe.

If Bloomsbury releases the book without the original cover, the games over for many of us. I don’t advocate protesting you as an author (or any author) – but Bloomsbury as a publisher in general for it’s sustained and continued stupidity in the sales and marketing arena.

Will this help? My immediate thought is that if others follow this woman's example, the publisher will dump the author for low sales, not rethink it's obnoxious policies. Worse, it might not just harm this author, but every author who's main character is a person of color if they jump to the wrong conclusion for the bad sales.

Yet, I don't have a better solution. A write-in campaign? Someone spending the time and money for an exhaustive poll of all American high schoolers to discover how many of them read for pleasure and, of them, how many care what color the protagonist is and/or will only pick up a book with a white girl on the cover? Those ideas don't sound any better, but at least they aren't an accidental attack on the author.

Any suggestions? (And I'm nosy--anyone know what book Bloomsbury buried in the past?)

I am almost....

...but not really...in a professional writer's group.

I was deleting something on my Facebook invites page because it's an event that'll take place six hours from here (assuming one doesn't hit traffic) and I don't have a car. But it was sent by Anton Strout, so I took a peek anyway. There's going to be a multiple-author signing at the Borders Express in Paramus, New Jersey on August 1st. Strout, Jackie Kessler, S.C. Butler, Barbara Campbell, Laura Anne Gilman, and Joshua Palmatier. If you live nearby, or can get there, check 'em out!

Meanwhile, thinking that was a brilliant idea, I clicked on their link for the League of Reluctant Adults. The first thing I noticed as I tried to discover the identities of the 18 paranormal romance and urban fantasy authors who make up the group was that I'm already a member. Not one of the authors, of course! But some time in the past, I apparently agreed to be one of the fans they're gathering about the group. What a wasted resource! Sure, it's totally my fault I had accepted an invite to join and then, among the several dozen invites I accept or reject each week, forgot about it, but still! With a full 18 members, that's minimal work from each a month to remind old fans of their books and sling them over (by osmosis, almost) to the other writers.

Judging books by their covers (yes, I'm shameless), I'll be checking out Seanan McGuire, Diana Rowland, Kelly Medig, and J.F. Lewis. The site also reminds me that Jaye Wells is on my TBR list. Check out the blog, and if you're already familiar with these authors, gimme the skinny on their books.

Blue Diablo by Ann Aquirre

Eighteen months ago, Corine Solomon crossed the border and wound up in Mexico City, fleeing her past, her lover, and her “gift.” Corine, a handler, can touch something and now its history—and sometimes, its future. Using her ability, she can find missing persons—and that’s why people never stop trying to find her. People like her ex, Chance.

Chance, whose uncanny luck has led him to her doorstep, needs her help. Someone dear to them both has gone missing in Laredo, Texas, and the only hope of finding her is through Corine’s gift. But their search may prove dangerous as the trail leads them into a strange, dark world of demons and sorcerers, ghosts and witchcraft, zombies---and black magic….
~from the back cover.

The morning after finishing Blue Diablo’s advanced reader copy, I lay in bed wondering how I could explain more than the blub does without leaking spoilers. I could note how the first four pages are in present tense, like an odd holdover from Aguirre’s sci-fi series, only to suddenly move to past-tense for the last page and a half of the first chapter and ever after. Of course, this is the ARC, so that may not still be the case for the actual print run. Even if it is, it only takes you out of the story a little; I was in the middle of the second chapter before I thought, “Wait. Huh?”

I could tell, I thought, about how the heroine has an enjoyable personality with the sort of self-esteem issues that we get a little tired of in our friends but put up with. That’s when it hit me: not only did Corine’s thoughts and fears remind me of real life conversations, everything from those issues to the description of her looks, down to what she wore—in the text, not the obligatory sexed up cover-- reminded me so much of one of my best friends that I wanted to post a picture. (Don’t worry, D. I won’t do that to you; not only do I know it would be wrong, but also you’re scary when you’re mad.)

Aguirre managed to create a character who really could be one of us. Her power isn’t so bizarrely out there. I attended an intuition workshop that included psychometry. Each participant handled objects much like Corine goes—granted, with far less success and none of the price our heroine has to pay. She’s kick ass without being able to kick everybody’s ass; in a combat situation, she’s better armed with a cell phone ready to call 911 than with a gun, but she’s no damsel in distress waiting for the big strong men to come rescue her.

What would you do if you gathered all your courage and moved to a brand new place to escape the relationship that had almost gotten you killed? And if the ex who could still make your knees go weak tracked you down looking for help on something even more dangerous than what you had left behind? Pre-order Ann Aguirre’s Blue Diablo, due out on April 7, 2009, to read what Corine Solomon does when it happens to her.

Do we really pay attention to reviews?

Or maybe a better question for what I'm thinking is when should we put our faith in them.

Mostly, I check out reviews after I've read a book. I'll peek on Amazon and see how many others thought that it was the best story since the last one that totally captured my imagination, or how many also thought "I paid money for this?"

Recently, I've used reviews to sort of rank books. Having grown up with movie critics that rarely like the flicks I adore, but rather praise the sort of films I can barely sit through, I only take the opinions of those who have proven they have similar taste. Yet, since joining Facebook, I've got a To Be Read list a mile high. A bunch of writers friended me, and I'm pathological in wanting to support them. Reviews help me to put books in their place from "OMG, gotta read that right now!" to "How bad can it be? I'll get to it eventually."

Lynn Flewelling's fantasy has earned a permanent place at the top of my list. It's only through a combination of wanting to reread the Night Runner series before picking up the last installment and having so very many books on hand that I stumbled across Homophobic Content in 'Shadows Return' before I formed my own opinion. As it was, I stood in a bookstore, novel in hand, frozen with doubt. In the end, I bought the new (to me, at least) Keri Arthur book and a debut novel that had a blurb by Patricia Briggs (if Patty likes it, who am I to doubt?).

That review really threw me! My first reaction was anger; how could she?! Then denial; surely the reviewer misread! I looked for other reviews and found only the unhelpful from "you/your books are so great! (on the author's blog) to "yay, you get to read about the characters you love again!" (because...that wasn't implied by this being the next book in the series?).

So how much should this one review affect me? Flewelling has given me six fantastic books in two great series...should I deny my reading pleasure based on one person's opinion? Should I ignore the opinion and perhaps set myself up for bitter disappointment?

What would you do? How much attention do you pay to reviews?