Disclaimer: Jeaniene and I are BFF.

There are many Draculas but there is only one Vlad. Hehehehe.

Loved it. It reminded me of Halfway to the Grave in the best possible way: it has the same blend of action and intimacy. There is a lot of violence, but the focus is on Vlad and Leila. This book is like watching the leading couple lost in a kiss while things are blowing up all around them.

I really enjoyed it.

Tried reading another book in the genre and had to stop.  The hero was obviously a wish-fulfillment fantasy and it had a touch of Toby Keith flare for me.  Toby Keith gets on stage and gets all patriotic, “Yeeeaah, let’s go kick their asses.”  Toby Keith never served in the military.  Toby Keith never had to fish a fighter pilot’s helmet out of the bay with the pilot’s head still in it.  Toby Keith’s wife never had to deal with deployments and a horrible realization that a war started and your husband might die.   She never had friends come apart, because their spouse is in a thick of fighting, hasn’t called or emailed for a month, and his buddy came home in a coffin.  I remember one woman just started crying hysterically in the middle of an elementary school, and we had to very carefully get her out before the kids panicked. And an E8′s wife took her aside and read her the riot act.  You suck it up.  Your job is to hold it together.

Gordon was in when Toby Keith did his whole Chickenhawk song and dance.  The military spouses would sit together – we did a lot of bake sales to help the unit – and watch him on TV from across the hall and talk about how much we’d like to punch him in the mouth.

Anyway, I despise Toby Keith.

So back to the book: the author was never in the military, so his paramilitary outfit guys do some things that just go against the grain for me, like surrendering authority to a student during a lesson.  I got hung up on that and some other things.  I may come back to it.  Not a bad book, just not good right now book.

What was the last book you read and finished or not?

I am generally a very antisocial person.  Or at least I used to be.  I don’t really have speaking anxiety, for which I credit Russian education.  Over there, declarative reading, poetry and prose, is considered to be a talent and most Russian kids of my generation have recited poetry in class and often on stage.  If you can’t sing or play a musical instrument, you recite.

So, my social anxiety manifests itself in other ways.  A few days before an event, such as a formal dinner out or a signing, I start getting irritable and look for ways to weasel out of it. Strangely, I have no problems with going to dinner with friends or visiting to hang out and play cards.

I also get stressed out during the kids sleepovers, especially when our kids go somewhere else.

Apparently I’ve been cured of my anxiety.  We had four teenagers in the house for pretty much the entirety of the Christmas break.  Sometimes five.  I didn’t only survive, I actually didn’t put up any fights.  Sadly nobody offered to give me a Best Behavior medal.  I was pretty happy, actually, to have a bunch of kids over.  It seemed right for the holidays.

Birthday

This year both my father and Gordon’s aunt called me for my birthday.  My father always remembers it but doesn’t always call.  Gordon’s aunt never remembers it.  I usually get a card two months later, so I feel all special.

Gordon bought me The Relic, which is one of my favorite movies, Kid 2 bought me Gnomeo and Juliet (so I like anything even remotely Shakespearean, leave me alone), and Kid 1 gave me SWTOR, Star Wars The Old Republic Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing Game.  I promptly made a Sith warrior, Gordon made a Sith Inquisitor, so we could run around together, and we spent my birthday being evil.

Funnies

I was reading Shiloh Walker’s IF YOU HEAR HER – interesting romantic suspense, btw – and I got creeped out by the villain.  Usually I eat it up, but for some reason, I came to the part where there is a young woman who just got engaged and the villain grabbed her, and I just couldn’t take it that evening, which says volumes about Shiloh’s mastery of the creepy.  But anyway, here I was, in my bed with my Kindle Fire, looking for something to read.  Gordon is sick, so he had trouble sleeping and I wanted to stay awake out of solidarity.

I typed “something funny to read” into Google for the heck of it and came up with SPELLMAN FILES.  I read it in two nights and laughed hysterically into my pillow.

Here is my review from Goodreads.

A deeply hilarious book about Isabel Spellman, a PI in San Francisco, who works for her parents’ firm. The entire Spellman family is deeply weird but strangely functional. I loved it, the whole thing: the quirky anecdotes about the family, the list of ex-boyfriends, the younger sister addicted to surveillance.

One small warning: before you read this book, take the concept of plot, put it in a drawer in a closet, and don’t come back to it until you are done. It is a non-linear book, and it doesn’t have an ordinary crime-investigation-resolution progression. You just have to roll with it.

I really enjoyed it. As an aside, I really like Lisa Lutz’s website.  I can feel the redesign coming on.  :: listens to the screams of horror from the audience:: Aaaah, yes.  Your fear will make me stronger, for I am Sith, hahahahaha!

Well, I must work. 

Me: Because books are part of our cultural heritage and education and your father and I want you to have a well rounded education.

Gordon: We want to talk to you about books, but all you read is true crime.

Kid 1: But it’s fiction.  It’s made-up.  It’s not good.

Me: How can you make that judgement without trying anything else besides true crime? Pick a book, read 50 pages.

Kid 1, eyes lighting up with evil fire: Then I will read your book.

Me: Grrrr.

Kid 1: I will read Magic Bites.

Me: It’s not a good book.

Kid 1: But it’s the first one.  I have to start at the beginning.

Me: Grrrr.

***

Kid 1 reading:  I don’t get this.  She is talking to a vampire.

Me: She is talking to a navigator.  Vampires are mindless.  There are people who control them with their minds. They are navigators.

Kid 1: Why doesn’t she just kill the vampire?

Me:…..

***

Kid 1:  Who is Greg?

Me: He’s her guardian.

Kid 1: Does she have some sort of feelings for him?

Gordon cracking up in the background.

Me: It’s complicated.  She has problems with authority and she doesn’t want to do what he says but at the same time she respects him and is grateful because he takes care of her and he doesn’t have to.

***

Kid 1: What’s a girdle?

Gordon: it’s a tight piece of cloth overweight people wear to appear thinner.  No, you can’t have one.

Kid 1: Hehehehe, Oklahoma cowboys…

***

Kid 2 wanders into the room.

Kid 1:  What is these words? Is this a language?

Gordon: No. They are made up.

Kid 1: Sounds Arabic. So you have people running around and wrecking things with Arabic words?

Gordon in a thick, thick mountain accent: Oh no, your momma is going to be put on the terrorist list because of them foreign words.

Kid 1 and Kid 2 collapsing on the floor with laughter.

Me: You guys suck.

***

Kid 1, falling down dramatically: There! I have read fifty pages!

Me, sigh: Yes, and it almost killed you.

Kid 1: So why don’t you like this book?

Me: Because we didn’t have much experience when we wrote it.

Kid 1: It’s okay, mom. I am proud of everything you write.  Except if it’s porn.

I looked up her self-published work.  Unfortunately in this case the rejections are code for “not quite ready for publication.”  Had this been a manuscript, I would have dissected the first two-three pages of her work and showed her some of the quick, technical tricks. It wouldn’t by any means guarantee publication, but it would give her some critical tools to evaluate her narrative.  This is a person who has completed two books so she clearly has the drive, discipline, and determination which would help her succeed. Unfortunately, her work is published, I don’t feel comfortable doing that. The author judged it ready for publication.  It is complete.

I end up having a lot of conversations with various editors and I’ve heard this scenario described in broad terms a few times now: agent contacts the editor, stating that self-published author X has sold 10,000 books  and the editor looks at the work and asks at what price the books were sold.  Usually it’s a low price point of $2.99 to $.99 cents.    The editor then has to ask the question, “Would this work sell at $7.99? Would it find audience among the casual browsers of brick and mortar bookstores?” And a lot of times the answer is no.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s a no, because the work’s audience is too narrow for print.  Some books, no matter how well they are written, are best sold in electronic form. If you write a book on designing WordPress themes, for example, most of the audience for it would consist of people who are accustomed to receiving their information via electronic form.  They want that manual to be easily searchable, they want it to have large images (which costs more money to print), and they want it at a lower price point.

But more often that no is because the writer needs improvement.  Don’t rush into self-publishing. I know it sucks and rejections make you feel hopeless and awful.  I’ve been there.  But resist the urge.   Join a workshop first.  Have your work critically evaluated by your peers.

Now I am going to make a U-turn here.  You know what I was doing last night?  I went to bed at two a.m.  This is the culprit.

I could have it free, since I am Prime (tremble, you mere mortals before my Amazon might ::eyeroll::).  But I paid for it, the whole $.99 cents.  I would’ve paid $7.99 for it.  Okay so from technical point of view, the story made a few unusual choices, like the mix of first person and third person, and could’ve used a little bit more editorial input,  but I don’t care.   There is something about Connie’s authorial voice that caught me.  I get Lissa.  I get her older woman’s kindness and selflessness, I get why she lets some things go, where a younger woman wouldn’t.  I get her job, her old egg-shaped self before her transformation, and I get the hesitant romance with a touch of innocence of an older widow. I even get the setting: Texas/Oklahoma.  I’ve been to places Lissa has been.

I haven’t finished the book yet as I passed out – face onto Kindle Fire, ow, ow, ow – but I highly recommend downloading a sample and seeing if she catches you the way she caught me.  As always, your mileage may vary and you might not like it, but it is fun for me.  Big thank you to Dolly who recommended her in the comments.

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Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

Okay, so I have my fancy Kindle Fire.  However, I haven’t bought any books.

I tried going through the best seller list and it is flooded with $.99 releases and free e-books.  I am kind of forced to wade through these to get to something interesting to read, so I just started downloading samples.  Most of them are crap.  There, I said it.  Poorly edited, badly written crap. I am usually more diplomatic, but Christ on a cracker, can’t these people take a little more pride in the drivel they put out?

Beginning of edit

Originally I went on about John Locke syndrome over here, but John stopped by to defend his good name a little bit, so in the interests of clarity, here is a quote which is often used in support of the assertion that at 99 cents people are likely to buy anything, even if it’s poorly written.

 “I’m new to the writing game. But if I’d started self-publishing even three years ago, I would have spent all my time trying to prove to the public I’m just as good as the top authors in America. These days, the burden of proof is on them. Now the best authors in America have to prove they’re ten times better than me. And in a game like that, I like my chances.” – John Locke

John, who is being very nice in the comments, does stress the importance of good editing and formatting.  Sadly, the quote can be read as stating that one should only aspire to be 1/10th as good as a traditionally published author, but it probably wasn’t fair of me to call it the John Locke syndrome.  Anyway, please be nice to John and don’t flame him.

End of edit

I don’t want to read crap even if it’s priced at ninety-nine cents.  It’s still crap!  What happened to taking pride in your work and delivering the best book you can possibly write to the reader?  Books are not vacuum cleaners.  The idea is not to churn out as many of them as you can as fast as you can to get the biggest pay day.  They are an intellectual pursuit.  They contribute to the cultural wealth of us as people.

Argh.

And the reviews of these masterpieces say things like, “It was okay for ninety nine cents.”

::clenches fist and shakes: It’s not the point for it to be okay!  Don’t do okay, do the best you can do! Be awesome!  You are not just taking the reader’s 99 cents, you are taking his time.  The hours of his life.  Come on!

Dear people who have reviewer blogs: can you please get together and create some sort of graphic badge of coolness that can then be applied to the covers of awesome books, so authors can add them to their covers, therefore distinguishing them from the sea of self-published awfulness and so people like me don’t have to blow a gasket when browsing for something to read?  Thank you.

I will start: Jill Myles – awesome books for ninety nine cents and above.  Some are even free.  Funny, sexy, some are a little improbable but super-fun.  Conquistador on a Dinosaur Island – come on, I know you want to read that!

Okay, wait a minute, I just got interrupted.   Just have to share this, because this is very indicative of the way my life has been lately.

Phone ringing.

Me: Yes?

Kid 2: Hey Mom.

Me, thinking, OMG what terrible thing happened now; Gordon just took her to school and he isn’t even back yet.

Kid 2: Do you know how you said it was okay that I rode home with Daphne to spend the night at her grandma’s?

Me: Aha…

Kid 2: I need a note.

Me: Kid 2′s full name, I am not driving there to hand you a note.

Kid 2: I’ll be right back.

Disconnect signal.

Phone ringing.

Me: Yes?

Kid 2: Okay this is ridiculous, but can you call the receptionist’s office and tell them?

Me: Give me the number.

Kid 2: 555- 220.

Me: And?

Kid 2: That’s it.  That’s because it’s a receptionist.

Me, using patient mom voice: 555-220 is only six numbers.  There should be seven.

Daphne: 555-2220?

Kid 2: 555 -220 umm…  I’m sorry what’s the number again?  Mom, 555 – 3420.

(Note by how far off she was.)

Me, calling to school.

Receptionist: Hi, this is Michelle.

Me: Hi Michelle, I am the mother of the knucklehead in your office…

Michelle: Teeeheeheee.

Laugh now, Michelle.  You have a son. Your time is coming.

Okay, so where were we?

Weeks ago, before our problems started, I asked Gordon to buy me Kindle Fire and the nice guy that he is, my husband didn’t cancel the preorder.  So now I am a guilty owner of Amazon’s newest toy.  I feel slightly bad for spending the money, but Kindle’s coolness is undeniable.

I only had a few minutes to poke at it, but here are things at first glance:

Physical dimensions: about the same size as regular Kindle but 2-3 times heavier.

Boot-up time: instant.  press the on switch and it’s alive and kicking.

Display: very Ipad like, the screen featured adjustable brightness.  I dimmed to a pretty low-key grey and it can go all the way to super-bright white.  Okay, you know how when you buy a flat screen TV, the TV is uncalibrated?  The brightness is turned up all the way, and the white is made super-crisp through the addition of blue tint?  At highest brightness, Kindle has the same bluish tint.

Text: crisp.  Page turn is instant.  You can adjust your page to 8 different font sizes, 3 different line spacing formats, 3 different page margins and 3 color styles.  The color styles include that bluish white I mention, black page/white text, and a very comfy sepia page/dark brown text.  That might be my favorite mode.

Interface: the Kind Fire is a slick beast.  It mimics a wooden shelf, and everything is super-easy to navigate.

Images: gorgeous color. Silver Shark never looked so good.

Ease of use: there is a pretty thorough help file.

Web: no issues, the browser renders most webpages nicely. I haven’t found any weirdness, but I also didn’t poke at it too much.

Music: I downloaded Pandora app and we listened to Lou Armstrong rumble about Christmas.  The sound was nice and surprisingly powerful for a small device, so audio books should be no problem.

Apps at first glance: Pandora, Audible, Facebook, Comics, ESPN Score (Ehhh?), Contacts, Email…. Many more at the app store.

Is it worth it?

If you experience eye strain when you read on iPad device or phone, I would be cautious.  I would look at one first to make sure that you would be comfortable, because while it has superior clarity, it doesn’t have that paper page illusion that a regular eInk Kindle provides.  However, the sepia mode is very easy on the eyes.

The sheer coolness of the device, however, is undeniable.  I feel kind of special, because it’s so awesome and Gordon got it for me.   I know it will be a favorite gadget.

If you have any questions, I will try my best to experiment and answer.  But really, the thing is made of cool.

Synopsis:

The best cypherteck in the galaxy, Edie can reinvent planets with little more than a thought. Trained since childhood in advanced biocyph seed technology by the all-powerful Crib empire, her mission is to terraform alien worlds while her masters bleed the outlawed Fringe populations dry. When renegade mercenaries kidnap Edie, she’s not entirely sure it’s a bad thing… until they leash her to a bodyguard, Finn – a former freedom fighter-turned-slave, beaten down but never broken. If Edie strays from Finn’s side, he dies. If she doesn’t cooperate, the pirates will kill them both.

But Edie’s abilities far surpass anything her enemies imagine. And now, with Finn her only ally as the merciless Crib closes in, she’ll have to prove it or die on the site of her only failure… a world called Scarabaeus.

This will be the oddest review I’ve written to date, so bare with me.

Is it a good book?  Yes.

Should you read it?  Absolutely.  It’s that rare beast of accessible hard SF and action that doesn’t turn into fantasy in space.  Neither is it a rehashing of Honor Harrington.  It’s unique, it’s SF, it has a female protagonist.  We don’t get many of those.

Did I like it?  That’s where things get a little more complicated.  First, the writing is lovely.  I dissolved into the narrative, which is a rare thing for me, because I am usually a disagreeable arse who hates everything.  The structure of the novel is somewhat episodic.  SOS would’ve made an excellent television series, because every step of the plot is wrapped in its own action bit. Kidnapping – one episode.  Coming to on the ship – another episode.  Lag escape – another episode.  And so on.  It was very nicely done. The concept is intriguing as well – a human who can change planets with a mere thought, mentally chained to a killer who must protect her or die.  Brilliant.

I recommend this book without reservations.  Now I will ramble a bit about why it was not a home run run for me. If you’re planning to read the book, I suggest you skip this.  There are no spoilers, but I don’t want to skew your enjoyment of it with my observations.

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I started out hanging on every word.  But the more I read, the more I skimmed.  At the end of it, I am frustrated and not because of the cliffhanger.  The world, the characters, the plot, everything about this novel is muted.  It’s almost as if it takes a step away from the sharp edges.  The world promised us exotic planets, but two thirds of the book takes place on the ship.  It’s a very plain ship. It has no odd aspects, it’s never bombarded by asteroids, it never loses propulsion.  It’s just a ship.  The rover crew of the ship had potential, but just like the main characters, neither Haller nor the captain ever mature into the full fledged villains.

Finn is a killer who very rarely resorts to violence.  There are random fights he engages in here and there, but they are fought mostly against mediocre opponents.  He had so much promise, so much menace in the beginning of the story, but there are no strong emotions in him.  No rawness.  No desperation.  Edie is still a shy sixteen year old inside and most of the time she either goes with the flow or very passively resists.  She is unerringly good, but that goodness is never compromised or tested.  As a result, the attraction between the two of them is a bit flat.  I’m not talking about the lack of sexual interaction, but rather about the friction, the sparking of two personalities, the moments of genuine fear and wild attraction. I never understood why she cared for Finn or why Finn cared for her.  There is very little humor in the narrative.

There is a moment that’s very telling in this book: Edie and Finn are loaded into the shuttle and sent through a jump node to escape detection.  Finn jams the door of the shuttle to test Edie.  He wants to see if she will resort to mind control to force him.  Edie doesn’t attempt to unjam the door.  She doesn’t become indignant and pissed off.  It’s in her best interests to escape in the shuttle.  If she doesn’t, she will have to face discovery by the Crib, something she wants to avoid at all costs.  She just meekly waits for him to unjam it.  When he does, and they are shot into the jump node, nothing happens.  The shuttle floats for a bit, and then is picked up by Hoi Polloi, the main ship.

Nothing malfunctions.  They make no frantic attempts to call for help and rig something.  They don’t even try.  They look at the gauge and they have no fuel, and neither of them gets overly frustrated by this development.  They spar a bit.  They don’t have sex.  They don’t share anything too painful.

I wanted to shake my Kindle to turn the dial up.

The stakes are not high enough.  I kept hoping for the sharp moment of “we must do this or die” that mattered to me.  There were two or three action sequences, for example one with eco-rads in the spaceport, where the action level spiked, but the status quo was reasserted very quickly. By the time we get down to the planet, where these moments are aplenty, I had become emotionally disengaged from the characters.

I read for drama, for strong emotions and sharper than life characters.  I wanted a touch of humor and a touch of tragedy.  I wanted the novel to grab me by the throat.  It stopped about a quarter inch short.

Would I read the sequel?  Probably not.

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Would I read the next thing Sara Creasy writes?  Yes.  I will likely buy it when it comes out.

Anyway, I took the question seriously and thought about it before answering.  Finally I told her that no, I did not think her generation is lazy or lacks work ethic.  I explained to her that when her teacher and I were her age, there were older people who thought we, as Generation X, were spoiled and lazy, what with our MTV, Sony Walkmen’s , Atari Gaming Systems and high-speed Commodore computers.  I tried to convey to her that each generation views the younger as sort of having it easy.  It is a common generalization older people often make.

I further elaborated by admitting  that while kids now do seem heavier then we were, but there are also a lot of fat adults.  I pointed out the she and her sister are not fat, the kids next door are not and neither is the boy across the street, who is only a few years older.  We played outside as children, but we were often up to no good.  The biggest difference maybe is that to me younger folks seem to have different ideas of boundaries and what is acceptable behavior.  As an example I will use an email we got recently from a young person in GA.  Her English 1102 class, so I am assuming college, has been assigned a number of books to read, Magic Bites among them.  To me it is amazing that our first book would be included in any sort of academic class like that, so of course when she wrote to ask some questions, I agreed to help with her paper.

Soon, however it became clear that she had not read the book and just wanted it explained to her.  When I pointed this out, her reply was almost indignant.  Of course she has not read it yet.  They are not scheduled to do so until October, and the assignment is to ask questions about books they are reading.  So I fussed a little bit about how it is up to her to read and that nobody, not even the author, is supposed to tell her what the book is about.  It is her responsibility.  I mean we had Cliff’s Notes but I can not imagine emailing an author and expecting them to explain their book to me.

Even Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School, when asked to write a paper on Kurt Vonnegut, could only afford to hire Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to write his paper because he was a very rich business man.  He got a bad grade on it, by the way.   His teacher gave it back, accompanied by, “Whoever did write this doesn’t know the first thing about Kurt Vonnegut.”  To quote another film favorite, you kids “didn’t really think it would be that easy, did you?”

Also, while we never did a signing at one, we have been the poor sad bastards standing or sitting before a “half empty row of folding chairs.”  I love that part.

On Tuesday Lady I__, who as we all know, loves swimming for it is the only sport besides badminton in which she ever showed a passable proficiency, could be seen within the crystal clear waters of her backyard pool.  However, instead of swimming side to side and floating upon the water in the manner usual to her, Lady I__ instead perched upon the pool steps with a paperback and remained stationary.  It is said that she giggled in the most silly manner and all attempts to distract her, including ones by Miss K___, who is indeed a superior expert at guilt tripping her parents, were  unsuccessful.

Occasionally Lady I___ would put down her prize and swim to the opposite side of the pool and back, presumably to mitigate the sun’s damaging effects upon her exposed shoulders.  She continued this pattern until the book was completed, after which she sighed happily and went inside.  We have it on good authority that Lady I___ did indeed incur a mild sunburn, for the following evening she was heard complaining of itchiness on her shoulders and back.  Lord G___, who is most patient with Lady’s antics, offered to apply an aloe cooling gel to her skin.

One wonders what could have captivated Lady I____’s attention so thoroughly?  After all, she had just delivered an edited manuscript to her editor, which typically leaves her in a state of mental inertia, unable to concentrate on anything but television programs requiring only the slightest focus.  In addition, Lady I___ is tragically picky in her choices of printed entertainment and is famous for issuing cutting remarks about the book’s content should the title displease her, which it does most frequently.  It is said that she “hates everything,” so much so that even the notorious Lady J___ has difficulty recommending works that may meet with her approval.

Never fear, gentle readers, through using our modest skills we have ascertained  that the title in question was this one.

Apparently Lady I__ acquired it through the indomitable Lady N___, who as we well know, looks after Lord G___ and Lady I___ literary career.  Lady N___ has sent Lady I____ this marvelous title as a gift in an attempt to take Lady I___’s mind off her recent and numerous appliance failures and stress induced by her punishing deadlines.

We are reasonably sure that more information about this title can be found in this location.  Dear Readers, we have surmised that  this book must be a remarkable piece of entertainment and therefore shall acquire it en toute hâte.