The worst book I couldn't put down.

This book is so bad that I'm reading it again!

...Which makes it so good that I'm reading it again.

I went on an indy book streak a while back (that hasn't exactly ended, come to think of it).  Self publishing has become more and more valid as the authors have put in more effort to put across well written, well edited stories--not the hot messes that we used to get when authors were rejected by publishers and yet still wanted to get their stories out there.  Between their efforts and the lower prices, why not give them a shot?  So I read Sterling by Daninka Dark and declared it the worst book I couldn't put down.  I'm reading it again because I wanted to make sure I still felt that way before declaring that public and yes, there's plenty in it that makes me want to grind my teeth, and yet I once again can't put it down.

Book description (via Amazon):

Zoë Merrick lived an ordinary life until late one night, she was brutally attacked and left for dead. 

She was found, covered in blood, and taken in by an ex-soldier named Adam. Zoë didn't just survive that night - she underwent a physical transformation and acquired unexplainable abilities. Severed from her old life, her frustration grows as she tries to comprehend what's happening to her. 

Serendipity leads her to Justus De Gradi. He's handsome, arrogant, and not entirely human. Through Justus, Zoë learns the truth about what she is and where she belongs. A young Mage is vulnerable in this dangerous world. The only way Zoë will understand her power is by putting her trust in a stranger and accepting the protection that he offers.

When her immortal freedom is threatened by the one man who has a right to claim her, Zoë learns the price of freedom...and the value of loyalty.

I want to launch into the excessive adjectives, the many times that the author seems to think "why just show the audience when I can show and tell them?", the odd interactions/uncomfortable dialog, the off use of wording, including slang gone terribly wrong....And yet the best example of why I find this book so bad is in a bit of plotting early on.  Zoe's been attacked, left for dead, picked up by a sympathetic ex-military hottie, and transformed while she slept it off.  She wakes up taller, with different hair and a different face--I mean, she really transformed.  She establishes a friendship with Adam, who feeds her and picks up some clothes without asking too many questions since she doesn't want to give any answers.  And then nothing happens for two weeks.

For two weeks, she doesn't search the internet for similar transformations, regardless of the fact that she would find none.  She doesn't experiment to find out of she's gotten more for her trouble than killer hair.  Basically, all she did in that lapsed time was chew up my suspension of disbelief and spit it out.

Yet, I recommend it.  For all the book's flaws, the author created a story in which I always wanted to know "What happens next?"  I read the first book, immediately bought the second, and checked her site to find out when the third would be out.  Now that I'm nearly done with the re-read of the first, I'll do the same with the second before buying the now-out third and probably the novella set in the same world.

There's the bones of good story telling in these books that will hopefully grow as the author has more practice, and is still worth the read in the meantime.  You should check it out for yourself.

Maybe New To You: Vicki Pettersson

I've been reading indie books lately, not posting because I wanted to re-read one or two before commenting.  In the mean time, I dusted off my copy of Vicki Pettersson's The Scent of Shadows.  I loved this book, and quickly bought the second, but during the wait for the third to be released, I got distracted.  Now five years later, the series is complete.  The question isn't if I'll devour them, but if wait the time it takes to get hard copies of the last four to make the first two, or if I'll get them all instantly by e-reader.

When she was sixteen, Joanna Archer was brutally assaulted and left to die in the Nevada desert.  By rights, she should be dead....

After what she survived, Joanna had a right to become a snarky, kick-ass heroine.  This could have easily been another wounded heroine more obnoxious than the last, but the situation was managed beautifully with great writing, clear-eyed secondary characters, and character growth.

By her birth, Joanna is destined to become an Agent of the Light--a superhero.  Both times I read it, I loved this urban fantasy departure from vampires, were-whatevers, and fairies.  (Don't get me wrong, I love the others, too, or I wouldn't be such a fan of genre; but it's nice to have something different from time to time.)  If I have any complaint about the book, it's that like many superheroes, Joanna has a secret identity.  The good guys are curious about it, the bad guys want to uncover it and use it to destroy her.  With surgery involved, it's just a little less painfully obvious than Superman-with-the-glasses-off and Clark-with-the-glasses-on.  Since I've lived my whole life with Superman movies, TV shows, and animation without rejected it, I say that's a small complaint.


 

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.

Books have gender? (Or 'Watch An Stick Her Foot in Her Mouth')

I was looking up a certain interview to respond to the wonderful gentleman from Falcata Times when I stumbled upon Angry Chicks in Leather by Lilith Saintcrow.  

What defines urban fantasy?

That's simple, you might say. Chicks kicking ass. Well, leather-clad chicks kicking ass. Leather-clad chicks kicking ass in an urban environment where some form of "magic" is part of the world. There. That’s about it.

The sound you just heard was the grinding of my teeth.  It's just the old resistance; I grew up with the old UF that was really fantasy set in a modern, urban setting.  It was bad enough when any urban setting got lumped regardless of time period (cuz no high fantasy has been set within a city?), and worse still when paranormal action adventures, not actually having a genre of their own with that title, became UF, but leather clad chicks kicking ass...Basically none of the original UF is UF.  Fine for De Lint...he's long called his work "mythic fiction" rather than urban fantasy, but what about the...others who wouldn't give a damn to know that I'm defending their honor?  On to what really got me to post...

But that's not all there is to it.

Urban fantasy, they tell me, is "hot" right now. Paranormal romance (vampire/werewolf/something girl meets vampire/werewolf/something guy, wackiness or danger ensues, happy ending happens) is just as hot, but the "romance" tag keeps it from being literature. The "fantasy" tag keeps urban fantasy from being classified as Serious Literature as well.

It reminds me of Tom's Glossary of Book Publishing, where LITERATURE is "Designation applied to titles judged unsaleable", and MAINSTREAM FICTION is "The pretense that there is a group of readers who can be reached through writing that is sufficiently unspecific as to exclude no one". There's just one thing lacking from this set of definitions--the fact that Literature and Mainstream Fiction are seen as highbrow.

They're genres you don't have to act ashamed of writing in. But romance or urban fantasy? You might as well start embroidering your own scarlet letter, honey.

Paranormal romance is considered lowbrow and trashy because it's female. Despite the fact that it's a multibillion-dollar business (and every dollar a woman shells out for it costs more because let's face it, we earn a lot less), it's still that pink-jacketed crap for bored housewives. Tom Clancy is supposed to be Real and Hard-Hitting, even if his "novels" are thinly-veiled technical manuals. Nora Roberts is supposedly less Real because she writes about feeeeeeelings. While we could debate the relative merits of Clancy vs. La Nora all day--and not agree, mind you, because Roberts is just plain the better writer--the fact remains that Clancy has a better shot at being considered "serious" because his is MAN'S FICTION.

Smell that testosterone, baby.

Urban fantasy is mostly women's fiction too. (Yes, I know there are significant exceptions, like Jim Butcher, Simon Green, and Charles de Lint. We'll get to that.) There's a lot of crossover between paranormal romance and urban fantasy. I like to say that UF is PR without the HEA (that's Happily Ever After, for those just joining us.)

I know that's a really long block of text to quote, but I really don't want to chop it up and remove context for anyone who chooses not to open the link (which, of course, you should do). Let's ignore my own Clancy vs. Roberts opinion.  We can even ignore that I nearly fractured my jaw grinding my teeth on "UF is PR without the HEA."  (What. The. F...no, I said I'll ignore and I'll genuinely pretend to.)  The women's fiction bit hits the same "dude, what?!" bell with me as "no one reads any more" and "men don't read."


No one reads any more.  All the bookstores we city dwellers pass all the time, and Amazon plus all the lesser known online bookstores are entirely products of our imagination.  If no one reads, no one buys books, so there are no bookstores.  (Of course, this has nothing to do with what Saintcrow wrote.  In fact, my rant at her text is nothing that changes my adoration for her work. Like I said, though, it all rings the same bell.)


Men don't read.  Those genres aimed specifically at men as well as those rumored to (like sci-fi) are place holders in the imaginary stores that don't exist because no one reads.


Those false facts have bugged me for a long time.  I'd hear--or worse, read--someone going on about nobody reading and want to shake the silliness out of them.  Now, lots of people don't read (er, beyond what's necessary to function).  I don't understand these folks, but they exist.  And while Jason Pinter wrote a really good article on why men don't read, if the actual words were true, how could there women's lit?  Wouldn't it just be...lit?


Of course Lili's (it's how she refers to herself, it's how I think about her...'til I'm disagreeing and distance myself in case she reads it and gets annoyed) statement that urban fantasy is mostly women's fiction isn't as senseless.  But it is...disempowering.  


On the one hand, OK, a lot of it is written by women and/or  marketed to women, so what else would you call it?  On the other hand...WTF?  I've written and deleted the following, rewriting it differently, many times over.  I think I can divide it into two more hands...


1. There is an unfixable wrong in naming romance women's fiction.  I come from a speculative fiction background, as do many of the woman who write UF rather than PR, and the fans who read one over the other.  We have tits and ovaries.  We're demonstrably as female as the women who read PR interchangeably with UF or who prefer all manner of romance, but a good amount of us hate that stuff.  Unfortunately, it wouldn't do to start calling romance "fiction for a large group of women and a handful of men."  It's irreparably labeled as it is.


2. A lot of men like UF and other spec. fic. with female leads.  It's anecdotal, but I want to use one of my brothers as an example.  He was, for a long time, a scary dude.  I'm not going to put all his business out there, but ...yeah, scary dude fits.  He turned his life around and followed in our dad's footsteps to become a big, burly fire fighter.  He is, in short, one of the alpha males that most romances require.  Hanging out at my place, he glanced at a certain book, and later couldn't get it out of his mind.  He had to read it, then he had to have the whole series.  With no one telling him it was women's fiction, his testosterone had no need to keep him in his usual non-fiction mode.  


Why shouldn't he?  Great characters, fantastic action, and being UF rather than PR, there were deep and complicated relationships beyond the romantic ones.  


Aaaand (since this really isn't about Lilith's post so much as my angst each time I see these labels; she just happened to write in a way that allowed me to examine the reaction), does money from men have cooties?  On the off chance that my fiction doesn't suck and I get over the issues that keep me from sending it out, could we please not convince men that the genre isn't for them until after I get my royalties?  I'm just saying.

Part of what makes this so fascinating to me is the fact that female UF protagonists are almost without exception extraordinarily tough, and that violence is acceptable for them to use. This is a huge revolution in the type of stories our culture tells itself. Violence in our culture is a man's game...

Bat Girl.  Rogue.  Storm.  Marvel Girl (though I've always thought that such an unfortunate name).  Firestar.  They and countless other comic heroines who don't make my list because they aren't mostly good (like Cat Woman) or are fall to late in my awareness 'cause I'm thinking pre-UF (Witchblade)  or because the list is long enough (Scarlet Witch, et all)... all tough females for whom violence is acceptable for them to use.  All from a "classically male" genre. 


It's not that I think there is no room here to talk about the marginalization of women or that I don't think that's still a very real thing in this day and age.


But.


Every genre sucks.  The day I moved beyond See Spot Run, I dove into spec. fic., augmented by the occasional good mystery, and that has barely changed in the decades since.  It's how I'm wired.  That same wiring gives me a huge distaste for all non-paranormal romance and most mainstream.  All spec. fic. lovers have had to deal with highbrow lit. fic. lovers lecturing about the useless escapism of their genre, and none of us like lit. fic. either.  And while we make obnoxious comments about one another's genres, those who prefer non-fiction think we're all filling our minds with junk.  


Hmmm...maybe it's time we all stop alienating one another and focus those who can't appreciate a well written fiction of any type.

A Whine with My Cheese

Actually, I get to pimp books while I whine. What could be better?

I'd long thought of writing a story from the omega's point of view rather than the alpha's--that is from the weakest member of the group's pov rather than the leader's. When I focused on epic fantasy, I thought I would feature the sidekick who would change and grow yet not be the hero who saves the world. In urban fantasy, I imagined a story told by the lowest shifter in the pecking order who sees everything but is largely ignored.

So was excited (in that, "Great book, but damn, I wish I'd stop thinking about writing these things and actually do it before every old idea I have is done by someone else first" kind of way) when I started reading Kitty an the Midnight Hour and discovered she was just such a character. Kitty's a werewolf--yeah, ha ha--but don't let the humor fool you. After the brutal attack that changed Kitty, she was stuck with a pack lead by a brutal alpha pair. It's been years since the book debuted, but I vividly remember how I cringed and couldn't decide what was worse: what she suffered through or the fact that she took it. She had two sustaining things in her life--a good friend and job as a radio D.J. When the pack's alpha male tried to take the latter away, Kitty stuck up for herself and got on the path from victim to victor.

Each book was better than the last with character growth and more revealed not just about lycanthrops, but vampires as well. I *almost* missed out on book 4 having somehow convinced myself that I'd read it. Certain things had drastically changed in the opening of book 5, though, so I went back and devoured the story. Kitty came full circle, and with a vengeance.

That's where my whining came in. Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand isn't bad, but that's not exactly a glowing recommendation. How do I describe it without giving spoilers? Let's say it's a good idea gone a bit cheesy. By the time the steaks rose to an emotional high, my response was, "So what? Whatever." There were definitely some interesting things in the story. Sooner or later, series like this tend to take on the question of who's really a monster, and this book did it well. And when we got a peek of some of what's out there besides vampires and lycanthropes that actually made me tingle. Otherwise, it was like the comic relief episode in a serious show.

You know...horrible murders, more powerful that last demons combined enemy, and an oncoming apocalypse for the poor, hunky hunters of Supernatural leads an episode featuring a six foot tall, depressed teddy bear and bullied nine year old who gets his by canneling Zod a la Superman. Kneel before Todd! Only it's not so brilliant in the book.

I started asking a question that I know the answer to. How do you know when you've got a hit? Of course, you don't know. As writers we doubt our work when the stories are great. We cling to bad ideas, or good ideas with bad execution. And there's no way to know which is which except by trusting others who may also be wrong.

My story has gotten a few fans before it's ready to be seen by agents. What if those are the only fans it ever gets? What if the agents hate it? Worse...what if an agent loves it and convinces an editor who gets his publishing house to give me a fat advance, but then the book comes out and everyone declares it the worst book since what they thought was the worst book possible and... Yeah, I was panting by this point, lost in my own newbie hell.

I got over it. Mostly. Even better, when I went to mark this off as 'read' in my litte virtual bookshelf, I saw reviews from a whole lot of people who also thought that book 5 was good-but-not-Carrie-Vaughn-good and they say that book six rocks. I'll be getting that soon as I can. If you haven't tried the series, check 'em out!

Kitty and the Midnight Hour
Kitty Goes to Washington
Kitty Takes a Holiday
Kitty and the Silver Bullet
Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand
Kitty Raises Hell

Seaborn and Night Shift

I'm late, I know. My paltry excuse is that I'd planned my next post to be a "review" of Seaborn by Chris Howard and Night Shift by Lilith Saintcrow--two books connected only by my reading them at the same time. In my mind, I toyed with titles like, "Two OK Tastes That Taste OK Together."

To be fair, half of Seaborn is much more than OK. Half of the book follows Corina, a California college student possessed by a seaborn sorcerer. (The book lends itself to alliteration--it's not all my fault!) I didn't know it when Tez's Review prompted me to put Seaborn at the top of my TBR list, but Corina's story is exactly what I've been missing since keeping up with new urban fantasy and close-enough paranormal romance has distanced me from Charles de Lint's back list and old favorites like The Borderland books. She's an interesting heroine with a story I really feel. Howard's on Boskone's 'Men Writing Women' panel tomorrow and Corina makes me sorry I'm going to miss it.

Then there's the other half of the book. Kassandra is a Seaborn royal, exiled to the surface because her grandfather, King Thasaleos, is a murdering son of a bitch. His being such a jerk is the only thing that keeps me from wishing literary harm on Kassandra; I want him to get his in the end so she needs to live long enough to do it. Despite a promising beginning, her story reads like a young adult novel that I did not sign up for. Worse, there are chapters missing--a whole book's worth (that might explain why her dialogue is so tediously stiff) that gets shoehorned in as a few paragraphs of backstory.

It's entirely possible that no one else would be bothered by the narrative mode(s) of the novel. Third person omniscient exists even if it's mostly more "third person limited with multiple characters." In fact, this is mostly that until suddenly we jump heads just long enough for my teeth to itch. In Corina's story, with another consciousness sharing her body, that actually makes sense. In Kassandra's, it's one more reason for me to push through to the end so I can reread the book, skipping her chapters.

And that brings me to Night Shift. I'll usually read one book at a time, but I found myself finishing Corina chapters and thinking, "Well Night Shift is going to have to go back to the library so I'd better read that now."

Working for the Devil grabbed me with its title and its back cover blurb held on until I bought it. I loved the worldbuilding and writing. Unfortunately, if I don't really like Howard's Kassandra, I hated WftD's narrator, Dante Valentine. The feisty, kick-ass woman that books of this type can't do without became bitchy and obnoxious in the form of Dante Valentine. I couldn't stand her, couldn't stand her friends, and couldn't accept that a demon was the only likable character in the novel. Yet, the writing was so damned good that I went back for book two.

I polled the fans, learned that Dante was no better in the third book, and put away my Saintcrow cravings....until I heard about Night Shift. Jill Kismet is a Hunter, trained to walk on the nightside and take down demons and other creatures that make the city streets unsafe for humans. She's already running on empty when five cops are ripped apart and the police need her help more than ever.

There is no doubt in my mind that Lilith Saintcrow will someday make my short list of favorite authors, but "this is not that day." Kismet's setting has the same lovely dark grittiness as Valentine's with a more likable narrator. The upside is that I don't find myself pulling for the bad guys in this book. The downside is that the story doesn't suck me in, and more likable does not translate into loving Kismet.

Flashbacks of Kismet's dead mentor both spice up and slow down the narrative is they explain why the Hunter is so deeply damaged. The hunt for the killer is OK. The possible love interest is OK. It's all just...OK. I keep reading because (1) Saintcrow has a way with descriptions that makes me want to see what else she'll describe, and (2) I need to get to the end in case the next book is the one where all of her impressive talents come together in a story that I won't want to miss.

Welcome to A Writer's Block

The problem with Touch the Dark and Claimed by Shadow by Karen Chance is that she never shows us why her heroine is like us...

How's that for not starting at the beginning?

In the beginning, I posted a comment to a friend's blog and discovered that I was registered. Google had apparently taken my gmail address, added it to the name I use for another site*, and created a blog waiting to happen. I didn't necessarily need a blog; I've been using LiveJournal for years to keep in touch with friends publically and to write a private e-diary, and I use the other site to publish opinion pieces. Yet, an idea had taken seed in my head and it clearly wanted to grow.

A chronicle of my success going from would-be-novelist to novelist, or of my failure--a cautionary tale to keep others from being stuck in place, too.

Like most other things, the idea was procrastinated upon until it looked like I would never do it. As Chance would have it, (bad pun originally not intended, but why write around it?) I'd started re-reading Touch the Dark--a book I hadn't liked all that much--to refresh my memory before giving the second book a shot. I kept thinking, This isn't bad. Was the only problem that I read it right after something that I loved so much more?

I'm a reader on a budget. I want to get plenty of enjoyment out of each book I buy. And I'm a serious fangirl--I like to get as many books from new authors as I can to stimulate their careers (in my own little way) and keep the books rolling in. Lastly, as someone who wants to be where they are, I've got this huge cheerleader mentality. I wanted to like it. It wasn't bad. The opening scene was one of the most attention grabbing that I've seen. So why was the rest of it leaving me flat?

When I figured it out, I took the answer as another lesson in writing, and as a reason to start the blog.

Item. The information dump. Speculative fiction writers have a big challenge in letting the reader in on how their world is different from The World We Know. When done "right", the reader gets a lot of info without feeling force-fed. As it's done in the books question, I wouldn't have been surprised to see sidebars with gaming statistics.

Item. Why should we like her? This is what it really came down to. Touch the Dark is an interesting story with the sort of feisty heroine urban fantasy readers eat up. From the very beginning, we're shown how Cassie Palmer is special. But that's a given. Genre novels are written about characters who either leap into a strange new world, or get dragged, kicking and screaming. They're all special, be they necromancers, werecreatures, vampires or vampire hunters, or relatively regular people with talents. You can't get rid of all the frills--that would just turn paranormal romance into romance, urban fantasy into everything from adventures to chick lit to mysteries. But what makes the characters normal is at least as important as what makes them special. We need that connection to a person to give a damn about the cool powers or thrilling situations.

Now, the trick will be internalizing the lesson for my own work.

.....Or, you know, cleaning up a manuscript and putting it in the mail. It's hard to get published without that.

(Oh, and that other site: dustymoon )