anthimeria | Entries tagged with recommendations: books

WisCon was awesome, as usual! The Romance in Spec-Fic/YA panel went really well, and even though I made a few missteps in the How to Ally panel, my fellow panelists saved the day.

I'm so glad I workshopped The Novel at WisCon this year--everyone seemed to like the book and had really good points. Because the piece is so polished, most of the work I need to do now is big-concept stuff that either I just didn't pay enough attention to when I wrote it originally, or are things that didn't make it through all the changes I made in the last few Big Edits.

This means that while I do have fixes for most everything, there's a lot of time-consuming searching through the whole manuscript for every instance Thing A is mentioned, tweaking it or deciding it doesn't need to be tweaked, and then moving on to the same for Thing B, Thing C, etc.

There were also a few plot points I needed to work out that meant I spent several hours this afternoon yapping with my roommie-and-muse and then writing down my thoughts and counter-thoughts. I oftentimes don't see good answers to problems until I talk them out with people or until I write down the solution and realize it wouldn't work/is too complicated.

There's a lot more to work on, but I do actually need to get up and go to work tomorrow, so I'm reluctantly putting aside the critiques for the night.

Book rec: finally read Karen Healey's The Shattering--loved it! Great mystery with enough subtle terrible twists to keep me going. I love the three main characters and the diverse cast as a whole. Guardian of the Dead is still my favorite of her books, but I really enjoyed The Shattering. Check it out if you like YA mystery!

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: Coppagen Barony
Current Music: Blood Ritual

I am making headway on the new project, but Life has been happening as well--some exciting things for me (depending on how cute they are, you may or may not hear about them ;), and several awesome new books have been read, but it is unfortunately late and I have work in the morning, so: drive-by recs!

Bo at Ballard Creek by Kirkpatrick Hill
Never have I loved a book designed against my grain so much. It has no plot! It's a series of day-in-the-life! It's a little slow and thoughtful and quiet. But it's wonderful. It stars 5 year old Bo, who lives in the Alaskan mining community of Ballard Creek in the late 1920s. Bo was adopted under somewhat unique circumstances by her fathers, two miners, and has lived in Ballard Creek--with its multinational community of miners, good-time girls, and Eskimos--for her whole life. Bo at Ballard Creek is wonderful and touching and great for kids--they'll love the pace and the occasional threat of bear attack--and great for adults--they'll love the characters and the historical details. I loved Bo at Ballard Creek. It's a middle grade book, historical fiction for ages 8-12.

Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire
Yes, yes, we're all surprised I loved the most recent McGuire book. The plot is tight, there are reveals expected and unexpected, loose ends from previous books are followed through on and new hints are dropped for future stories. That the series is still so tight seven books in is impressive, and I can't wait for more.

Now I should probably sleep.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Ballard Creek
Current Music: crickets

Phenomenal. Go read it.

The Diviners is the story of Evie, who can read objects, but prefers to be a flapper, escpaing to her uncle's place in New York, New York. It's 1926, and Evie is thoroughly modern. It's the story of Memphis, a numbers runner in Harlem who dreams of being a poet. It's the story of Theta, whose name isn't Theta, who lives with her brother who isn't her brother, who is--now, at least--one of the Ziegfeld Girls. It's the story of Naughty John, who does his work with his apron on . . .

The Diviners is built around Evie, but it is many stories. Libba Bray does everything I tend not to like in fiction--there are many points of view, though Evie's is primary, she spends some time describing and anthropomorphizing landscapes and elements, she flips around in whoever's point of view is most useful, and she digresses into character backstories that don't all become relevent in this book. I also don't like big books and this one is long, clocking in at nearly six hundred pages of decently-sized hardback. With all of that in mind, I loved this book. Everything, every word, has its purpose, and in a book this long, that's saying something. Every point of view shift is worth it, every digression interesting, every nuance telling.

Even better is the historical setting. The Diviners isn't just set in the 20s, it lives and breathes the 20s--down to the slang, the tech, the culture, the language, the scars of one world war and the setting-up of the next. A lot of historical fiction--especially speculative historical fiction--tends to be merely flavored with its era. The Diviners is brilliantly 20s, and could not have been set in another era and told such a story.

For all that The Diviners is being marketed as YA, it's a chilling, incredible urban fantasy that I would urge anyone who enjoys the genre to check out. For all that the construction of the book hits all the things I tend not to like (and yet I loved it, note), the premise is everything I love: YA with a spunky girl protagonist! Historical spec fic! Urban fantasy! Serial killer mystery! Diverse characters! Thoughtfulness about society! All wrapped up in speakeasies and paranormal abilities.

The Diviners is also that rare first book in a series that stands on its own, but is clearly sowing the seeds for a series. I hope that many of the digressions I spoke of above, which came to little more than character pieces in this book, will bear fruit in the next. I loved this book and I want more, so if anything I've mentioned here strikes your fancy, hop on the trolly, old girl, and cough up some dough! Or, y'know, hit the library, if dough is hard to come by.

Current Mood: impressed
Current Location: 1926
Current Music: Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile

PART THE FIRST: I have just finished the ARC of a new book coming out on June 25 called Sidekicked, by John David Anderson, and it is awesome. I love the main character, his voice and his choices, I love the plot, I love the worldbuilding, the way a larger world is hinted at without needing to be on the page all the time, the mystery and the adventure. I love that it has diversity (at least two characters of color, one of whom is deaf! And it does acceptably well gender-wise) without Being About Diversity. I love the in-jokes and the chapter titles. If you like superheroes, check this book out come June 25. It is, technically, a kid's book, but the writing is definitely of a kind that I wouldn't hesitate to hand it to an adult who likes superheroes, or any teenager who likes a good adventure story.

Possibly one of my favorite things is that Sidekicked doesn't take itself too seriously, while taking the genre itself seriously. Every speculative fiction fan knows there are aspects of their genre or subgenre that are laughable out of context, and sometimes even in context. The best works are like, Yes, this is actually ridiculous, but work with us here--what if? Sidekicked does this marvelously without going too over-the-top or disrespecting its origins.

Also, it has really good superhero and supervillain names, which is a feat. I was impressed.

PART THE SECOND: Recommendations!

The story behind this bit is that I recently attempted to read another superhero novel aimed at the same age group and had to put it down after forcing myself through the first hundred pages, hoping it would get better. I love superheroes and I love books, but I am well aware that the two usually go together like cats and cold water (and I'm not talking tigers. Housecats. Fluffy housecats). Most of the few superhero novels and even comic book novel adaptations I read in high school and college sucked. Even stuff like Hero, which was passable, weren't great. But as superheroes become more popular and we get more books, I've been reading everything I can get my hands on, looking for the good books.

So: this is my the good, the mediocre, and the don't bother list of superhero novels. I'm not making any distinctions between intended reader age, though I shall mention it, along with a brief reason why I gave a novel this ranking.

I invite discussion and suggestions of more superhero books for me to read in the comments!

( My opinions, these are )

AND that's it's so far. There's a few obvious books I haven't read, like Jennifer Estep's Karma Girl, but it's on my to-read list. If you have other recommendations, let me know in the comments!

If you disagree with me, tell me why. I'm up for spirited discussion but trolling or rudeness will be summarily deleted at the discretion of the author.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Justicia
Current Music: Fighter

Does what it says on the tin.

No spoilers: Orleans, by Sherri L. Smith

First came the storms.
Then came the Fever.
And then the Wall.

A few decades in our future, the Gulf Coast Delta has been quarantined from the Outer States of America for fear of Delta Fever, which struck after a series of devastating hurricanes and which discriminates solely by blood type. In Orleans, your blood tribe is all.

I snagged this as soon as it came out and read it in three gulps. It's a thick enough book (not page count, really, but amount of action and information per page) that I needed some time, but by those last 100 pages I was flipping as fast as I could. It's really good near-future with a disease-based social sci-fi twist, and I loved it.

Fen de le Guerre is a phenomenal main character--practical, emotional, absolutely nothing unnecessary about her. Daniel, a surprise second POV character, is exactly what he is--and I as a reader spent a lot of time on Fen's side, wanting to smack him. Fen is that wonderful kind of character who immerses you in her world, to the point where Daniel--who comes from outside Orleans, who in a less well-told story would be our audience-POV character--comes off as a bumbling fool. Or, at least, naive in a well-educated and privileged way. The reader belongs to Fen, which is as it should be.

If you like well-told adventure stories that don't hold back from social-sci-fi darkness, with impeccable characterizations, and don't mind getting punched in the gut a few times, Orleans is for you. It's fantastic, thoughtful, and doesn't ever stop.

So many spoilers:

( Iron Man Three )

So, all in all, I'm doing fairly well on stories consumed today. Now I have editing to do in prep for WisCon, so that'll be interesting.

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: by the pool
Current Music: I Got Your Country Right Here

It's no secret that I love superheroes beyond the telling of it. I'll try anything if there's superheroes attached (well, almost anything. It's an important caveat!). So when I saw the shiny cover of a new middle grade book called The Ultra-Violets: The Fuchsia is Now, I may have jumped up and down. A superhero book aimed at 8-12 girls? Where it's okay to be girly and superpowered? Where half of the cast-of-four are characters of color? And everything is purple?

Eeee!

My spoiler-free review looks like this:

The Ultra-Violets: The Fuchisa is Now, by Sophie Bell, is what would happen if you took Lemony Snicket's writing style (and his habit of humorous inserts), mixed well with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and used it to write the origin story for a group of sixth-grade superheroes. Iris, Cheri, Scarlet and Opal are reunited after four years apart, and after their first sleepover as renewed BFFs, they realize something very weird is going on: they have superpowers! But weirder, creepier things are happening in SyncroniCity, and it's up to them to put a stop to it. The Ultra-Violets is fast, fun, and viomazing. (Plus, the text is purple. Really!)

For actual opinions, follow the cut.

( Spoilers ahoy! )

All in all, not great but not bad, either. And anything that lets girls (and the publishing industry!) know they can be superheroes too is good in my book.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Location: SynchroniCity
Current Music: Storybook Ending

Three rejections and one full MS request for Skywatch, plus two more NRMN (no response means no) rejections. I need to spend an afternoon sending out new queries, but I've been focused on some editing for others that I promised and on polishing the outline for Flying Machines (finished through Act Two, just need to get Act Three done).

I also read two awesome books, one YA and one grownup urban fantasy.

The YA is White Cat, by Holly Black. This book is a few years old, but I avoided it because I barely got through Tithe. It wasn't bad, just . . . meh. But I really enjoyed White Cat and the questions about rights and agency and safety that are raised throughout the book, and also of identity--we find out as the book goes on that Cassel, the POV character, is beyond the definition of an unreliable narrator--he's unreliable even unto himself. How that effects who he is and how he reacts to things is fascinating. I started the sequel today, and I'm interested in seeing where the series goes.

The urban fantasy is, of course, Seanan McGuire's latest, Midnight Blue-Light Special! McGuire is pretty much my favorite author for adults, and MBLS lives up to her standard. It has all the cryptids we know and love from Discount Armageddon and a plot that moves like anything. Plus the Aeslin Mice, perennial fan favorites, play a big role--I think they were sort of fun background in Discount Armageddon, but they have plot purposes and are integrated into Verity's life in MBLS, which I really appreciated. HAIL THE SEQUEL!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Book Club
Current Music: Thriller

It turns out that while I am still ace at writing on planes/in airports, car rides with my family and without headphones are not a productive working environment.

One chapter away from hitting the two-thirds point with Trial, and crossing my fingers that life is kind and gives me time to actually finish the damn rough. I don't want time to edit it yet, just give me a chance to finish a draft of my 30k-ish dragon book.

But I did finish the Hidden Cities ARC, which was awesome (release date in April) and also the ARC for Scarlet, by Marissa Meyer, the sequel to last year's Cinder. I enjoyed Cinder, as a sci-fi update on Cinderella, but there were a whole bunch of awesome sci-fi politics we only saw glimpses of in Cinder because it's almost entirely just her story. But I like Scarlet more, because in Scarlet, the story is split equally between Cinder (who now also KNOWS a lot more) and Scarlet (who dives headlong into things), with some smatterings of Kai's POV (Cinder's love interest). I also like Wolf, Scarlet's love interest, a lot more than Kai--personal preference. Scarlet picked up a lot of momentum, and I can't wait for Cress. Scarlet releases in hardback in February, so keep an eye out.

Also, I borrowed my cousin's copy of Mockingjay and read it like a boss. I now no longer have to be worried about getting spoiled! But I have no idea how they're going to make that into a movie. ( mini-sorta-spoiler )

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: District 12
Current Music: At the Beginning

Got another chapter in--shortest one yet, under 1k, yay!

I'm celebrating because the chapter before this, which was a bitch to write, ended up almost 1800 words, which is 300 over my self-imposed max word count for a chapter for this book. I may have to add the last scene from that chapter to the one I just finished, which would even out the word count, but it's an alternating POV and right now I really want that scene in Eva's POV.

We'll see. That's what editing is for.

Also, the whole picture book thing is making me antsy. I'm trying to stay away from it for at least a week, to give myself perspective, but it's hard. Everything that reminds me that I wrote a picture book makes me want to poke at the MS again.

Must stay strong. Must be able to accurately asses whether this is a possible thing. I will only do more than cursory research into picture book publishing if it's worth it. I have TWO novels and a short story ready to go, if I end up shopping around a third book, it will be worth it or I won't do it. Dammit.

In Other News, I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post that I just finished Karen Healey's GUARDIAN OF THE DEAD, which was epically fantastic and everything I want out of YA (a heroine with sense, a kickass adventure story, real-life consequences, no punches pulled, girls working together, a myriad of races and mythologies, a romance story that wasn't the main part of the plot but did present a believable build-up and a solid subplot, and just--read it, okay?), and I just got my hands on the ARC for her new book, WHEN WE WAKE. I follow her blog and am so excited about this I can't even tell y'all, especially after Guardian was so fantastic. So excited!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Bracer Academy
Current Music: Into the Well

I love superheroes. Just, so much. Even with everything that's done badly in the genre, I love them, they make me happy, and when they're done right--

--well, nothing makes a crappy day better than new superheroes. But I've been broken up with DC since the reboot (I am NEVER getting over what they did to Oracle), and the new Batman movie was awful, and let's not even TALK about original superhero novels. They're always bad. Mediocre and uninspired and lacking in scope at best.

. . . except.

The first exception I ever found to this (IMO!) was the book Black and White, which was a really interesting take and even better, had two women superheroes as the main characters! Loved it. And today I just picked up the second exception, called Sidekicks, by Jack Ferraiolo.

Sidekicks is the story of a kid who's starting to outgrow his 60s-Robinesque childhood and his 60s-Batmanesque mentor, but his world is an entirely different place than he thought it was--and it's about to come crashing down around him. Good thing he's got some help, right? Just one problem: She's his arch-nemisis.

( All the squee. All of it. )

Sidekicks, by Jack Ferraiolo. Check it out.

Current Mood: happy
Current Location: Brooklyn
Current Music: The Long Way Around

Outlines are a lot of fun when they're working and a pain when they're not. I'm about halfway through three different outlines for three different pieces (a steampunk romance novella, Horizons, and the sequel to Skywatch) and they're all a little stalled. I think I finished at least a first draft of my novella outline today. Yes, even my outlines have drafts. I usually go through three or four before I get to the one I'll actually use.

For the Skywatch sequel (current working title is Flying Machines), the problem I'm running into isn't the plot, per se, but the character. I have character issues, witness the explosion that was Sanctuary. Julien, who'll be the main character for this book, is being very stubborn about what he wants, and also he isn't talking to me.

As for Horizons, I just figured out it has a second POV character, so I've wandered off to do more research and stalled the outline at the end of Act I. Also, because I had so much trouble with this book the first time and was trying something out with the outline, I don't have a beginning of Act I yet. So I have, er, about two-thirds of Horizon's Act I outline, but only as it pertains to the original POV character, Tomi. Her best friend, Dawn, has been insistent about her inclusion and her own arc, so I will have to go back to do some rewriting even in what little outline I have. But for now I'm still doing character building for her, since a POV character needs more profiling than a non-POV character, even a primary non-POV character.

I'm also debating the wisdom of both POV characters having four-letter names. It didn't matter when Dawn wasn't a POV character, but both of them? Dawn and Tomi.

In reading news, I read the ARC for a really great YA book called Colin Fischer, by Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz. It's a mystery in the Sherlock Holmes style, and is incredibly focused and fast-paced. It's on the younger side of YA, 12 and up, and is a fun, engaging read. The characters are great and the mystery is interesting without being too much for a high school. It comes out this November.

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: couch
Current Music: The Long Way Around

. . . can be found here (link leads to the DSF page).

I have been remiss! But also on vacation, and then writing (short stories, yes I know it's not May anymore), and now back at work which means buried under a pile of e-mail. I got halfway through last week's e-mail today! Working backward. And also skipping anything that couldn't be immediately dealt with. Still progress, I suppose.

It seems to be FINALLY summer here, which makes me happy, even if the nearest pool is still in that phase where it's overrun by kids and teenagers b/c it's the beginning of the summer and they haven't swum for nine months. I suspect the glamor will wear off in a few weeks, but for now I have to REALLY want it to brave the jumping and splashing and that weird feeling of being a single person going to a small pool when everyone else there is with family or friends. Awkward much? Yes. Keeping me from swimming on weekends? So far. I just have to get home from work before the temperature gets too low. One of these days . . .

And that's about it. Vacation was awesome and relaxing. WisCon was The Best, again. I will be returning next year, barring financial ruin.

Ooh, also, I read some really good YA books! I will list them here, in case I am too lazy/overworked to come back and review them properly: Cinder by Marissa Meyer, Team Human by Justine Larabalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan, The Five Flavors of Dumb by Anthony John, and a re-read-but-still-awesome, Highway to Hell, By Rosemary Clement-Moore.

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Location: Daily Science Fiction
Current Music: Fairytale

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: vast empty reaches of Canada
Current Music: It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

Through means cunning and clever, I have laid hands on an advance copy of Discount Armageddon, by Seanan McGuire. The official release date is March 6^th, also known as next Tuesday.

I had a lot of fun with this book. I love the variety of cryptids, I love that Verity reacts to everything surprising with violence, I love the many, many questions (and terrifying suspicions) the book leaves us with at the end, and like everyone else, I love the Aeslin Mice. HAIL THE NEW SERIES!

( Cryptid, noun: Any creature whose existence has not yet been proven by science. See also )

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Underneath Manhattan
Current Music: Raise Your Glass

Skywatch: Two synopsis drafts, one 1-page and the other 2-3, working on just 2. List of possible agents to query acquired; currently going through their websites and writing down what they want from a query (just the query, query+synopsis, query+synopsis+1st five pages, etc). Frustraing, difficult, time-consuming.

Horizons (that YA sci-fi I was talking about): Rough draft started--three times, so far--and we'll see if it picks up momentum or if I wandered off the drawing board too early.

Moxie: A little more worldbuilding, some poking at what I want from book two (yes, I know, I'm not even ready to start book one yet, but--I'm universe-building, here. A wide scope is necessary. We're not going to talk about the plotting I've done for book five. Or eight).

The Girl She Truly Was: no news yet. I will annouce its publication date as soon as I know it!

Other: some random mish-mash of stuff--a couple of short story drats that likely won't go anywhere, and research for a world idea I'm not sure is going to pan out yet.

I did plow through the book Parasite Rex (nonfiction) with great enthusiasm, and checked a few more parasite books out of the library, so we'll see if my intellectural curiosity can beat down my gag reflex long enough to learn anything interesting.

Besides my favorite parasite, which has been toxoplasma gondii for years. You can thank Scott Westerfeld's Peeps for that. (And also for the book rec on Parasite Rex, whichi I second.)

Current Mood: working
Current Location: beneath a cat
Current Music: wind

Completely aside from RL issues, I've not been feeling well, but today I dragged myself out after work to see Scott Westerfeld, YA author extraordinaire, at a local indie bookshop. Due to traffic I came in a little late, but his talk was well worth the drag. (Please not to be commenting on my terrible English; I is fuzzy-brained.)

My favorite of Westerfeld's books is Peeps, because it is a fascinating new take on scientific vampires, it does that thing I love where the author did so much research that it shines through magnificently in the book, and it provided a lot of small talk for me on the subject of interesting parasites (yes, really. Parasite small talk). He's most famous for his Uglies series, and he was talking/touring today because the final book in his steampunk trilogy recently released. Unfortunately the book store did not have a copy of Peeps, so I bought Leviathan instead for him to sign (but he DID write "parasites rule!" in it when I fangirled at him about Peeps, so that was kinda awesome). Leviathan, Behemoth and Goliath are the titles, in order, of his steampunk series.

Leviathan's the first book in his YA steampunk series, which I recommend. His work is unfailingly awesome and well-research, and this triology comes with pictures, the coming about of which was the subject of his talk. It was fascinating and interesting and hilarious and he's a great speaker; he kept everybody in the audience entertained and didn't talk down to his readers, no matter their age.

I'm not really doing this justice, but this is all I have the energy for. Westerfeld is an engaging, hilarious speaker, and I learned things, and I rec all his books (well, I don't know about the rest of the Uglies series, but Uglies itself was good), especially Peeps.

Current Mood: listless
Current Location: the Leviathan

Likely as close as I'm going to get to an actual review, because frankly I suck at those. They require a lot of thought that I'm not as good at articulating as I was when I graduated.

What I REALLY wish I could've done was write a running-reactions post as I read the book, because that would've been a lot more entertaining, if not a lot more coherent. Thing is, I could not tear myself away from the book long enough to turn the laptop on. We're lucky I made the drive home from the bookstore without crashing.

( Needless to say, saying it anyway: DEADLINE SPOILERS BEHIND THE CUT. LOTS OF THEM. SERIOUSLY, READ THE BOOK AND GET BACK TO ME. )

So that's Deadline. A lot of fun, some zombies, a virus-related twist or three, and in the grand tradition of Feed, snark, blogging, and conspiracies.

I had great fun. I'm rec'ing it. Start with Feed, come along on Deadline, and then wait with the rest of us poor souls for Blackout to release next year. It'll be a long wait, but at least this year I'll have two Newsflesh books to re-read instead of just one.

Alive or dead, the truth won't rest. Rise up while you can.

Current Mood: giggly
Current Location: Newsflesh
Current Music: Wicked Girls

So, if I haven't made it clear on this blog, I have been pretty much obsessed with the book FEED, by Mira Grant (aka Seanan McGuire) since I read it last summer. The sequel, DEADLINE, is coming out on May 31, and until that day, she's posting a snippit a day from the Newsflesh universe pre-Rising on her livejournal.

These snippits will make the most sense if you've read FEED (which, if you haven't, SHAME! Go!), but you could probably read them without having read the book. They've been the highlight of my days since she started posting them, so I thought I'd rec and link.

T-minus 29 days to DEADLINE

It's almost the summer of 2014. When will you Rise?

Current Mood: enthralled
Current Location: After the Rising
Current Music: Wicked Girls

So, I don't know whether I'm ever going ot talk about the interesting things, literary and life-wise, that have been happening to me in the last two months, because let's face it, it's been two months and going back over all of it would be boring for all involved.

So! Abbreviated Two Months in My Life:

I went to APE (it was fun), I met Trina Robbins (OMG I fangirled at her so much, she is one of my heroes), I bought Feed (by Mira Grant, go read it, it's awesome!), my laptop died, I have a crazy landlady and want to move out but can't afford to yet, my new job is good, I have been hiking in places where the fog is so think it condensed and dripped off trees, I wrote a couple of short stories, I did a first re-through of Skywatch, I read Hunger Games, I dressed up as Supergirl for Halloween in a costume I made myself, the company I bought a new laptop from cancelled my order and I had to spent my lunch break making them un-cancel it, resulting in my shipping date being delayed to late November (ack!), I edited the beginning of a novel for a friend, and I've been watching way too many mid-ninties tv shows via Netflix.

The End.

PS: TEN DAYS AND COUNTING TILL SWORD AND SORCERESS XXV COMES OUT!

Current Mood: thirsty
Current Location: You Are Here
Current Music: Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats

The MZB Literary Works Trust website finally posted the cover for Sword and Sorceress XXV (25)! I couldn't fit the whole thing on an icon, but I figured this was enough. Using it in excitement, and because I'm posting while procrastinating proofing "Well Enough."

Also, it's fairly appropriate because I went to my first RenFaire in years yesterday! I'd never been to this particular Renaissance Faire before, but a few of the women at work run a booth and told a friend of mine, who also works with us, and she and I decided to check it out. I'd forgotten how much fun RenFaires are! We poked our noses into a bunch of booths (a little out of our price range, but the craftsmanship is beautiful) , saw a couple of shows, listened to Celtic rock, and watched jousting!

( Go faster. )

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: New Home
Current Music: I Know This Story

_

WisCon, editing, and a quick book rec

Life attack

The Diviners, by Libba Bray

Superhero Books

Two Reviews: YA book Orleans and Iron Man Three

The Ultra-Violets: Middle Grade superheroines

Books--mine and other's

Conclusion:

Trial movement

Superhero book rec!

Outlining fiend

The Girl She Truly Was

BLACKOUT

Discount Armageddon review (no spoilers)

Drive-by update

Scott Westerfeld

DEADLINE REACTION POST

Countdown

Sixty-Two Days in the Life

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Positive Obsession

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