book news

Trip to the Outer Rim

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(Photo Credit, image by Vincent di Fate)

Though it is mid-October and I am thick in the process of immersing myself in gothic fiction and my journey with the Hobbits, events have come together of late that have me looking towards January with anticipation. What with the Classic Science Fiction Book Club voting on books for the first half of 2012 and Andrea recently posting about her science fiction treasures from a trip to the local used bookstore I find myself jonesing for a little science fiction. And so to help feed the SF monkey so he’ll leave me in peace I found myself shopping online, in my local Barnes and Noble, and then in a small town used bookstore this past week, gathering science fiction to myself to add to my already enormous pile of unread books.

As you will see as this post progresses, I am laying blame at the feet of Richard, the gang at the Classic Science Fiction Book Club (new members welcome) and Andrea for this surge of science fictional purchasing.

Before I reveal my newest acquistions, allow me to give an early plug to two science fiction related events that begin in January. The first is my annual NON-CHALLENGE, the Science Fiction Experience 2012, which runs from January through February. The second, which ties in nicely with the first, is Little Red Reviewer’s declaration of January being Vintage Month

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Book Reviews, Gothic/Horror, Mystery

The Lantern Group Read, Week Two

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“We all tell stories about ourselves, some repeated so often that we can honestly believe them to be the truth. Stories are our self-protective coating. Everyone has them, not only the people who have survived terrible families, though clearly they will have a larger canon than most.

And what narrative had I invented for my life with Dom? There were plenty, I now realized. Nothing important at first, but that’s the thing with stories–like lies, they start small. You play around to see what feels comfortable.”

Our weather this week has been so wonderfully representative of what I want fall to be. The nights have been cool and they create the perfect mood for immersion into Deborah Lawrenson’s novel, The Lantern. I hope everyone else has had time to get lost in the countryside of Southern France this past week.

Kailana supplied the questions for this second of three weeks of discussion. For those of you who are not reading the novel but want to, following along after the jump is something you do not want to do. Spoilers are present in abundance.

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Book Reviews, Fantasy, Gothic/Horror, Mystery, Short Stories

Fragile Things Group Read, Week Six

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“I love dreams. I know enough about them to know that dream logic is not story logic, and that you can rarely bring a dream back as a tale: it will have transformed from gold into leaves, from silk to cobwebs, on waking.”


~Neil Gaiman
Introduction to “Feeders and Eaters”




As hard as it is to believe, Sunday morning dawns with this, our 6th group discussion of the Fragile Things short story collection. Only two more Sundays to go. I can already tell I am going to miss spending my Sundays with you fine folk, talking about the highs and lows of our immersion into Neil Gaiman’s short fiction.

This week’s stories were fairly short indeed, as are next weeks. A word of advice for those who are reserving each story for the intended week: you might want to read ahead during week 7 as the four stories that make up our final week include a much longer novella.

This week’s reading contained two stories that I think work best when read aloud and I am once again thankful that I decided to revisit the audio collection for this group reading experience.

Spoilers are on the way, let’s go!

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Book Reviews, Fantasy

The Two Towers Group Read, Week One

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After a few weeks hiatus we are back on the group read circuit for The Lord of the Rings, this time with the second book of the trilogy (or second part of the story), The Two Towers. Little Red Reviewer (Andrea) and Geeky Daddy (Clint) are back to host this leg of the journey and I am excited to be a part of the question development team this time.

Over the past few days the weather had taken a decidedly autumnal turn, the leaves are getting to be absolutely gorgeous, and the chill in the night air carries on it the voice of Tolkien crying out, coaxing me to immerse myself in some of my favorite fall literature.

It is a pleasure to be reading The Two Towers again, it has been too long since my last visit. Andrea came up with this week’s questions. For any of you who are unfamiliar with the story, there will be spoilers ahead.

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Lets Blog Off, Personal Essay

Color Me Curious

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(Photo Credit)

My friend James recently blogged about writer’s myopia in relation to the practice of creative writing on one’s blog. He related the discussion to the week in which he skipped a topic that was offered by the Let’s Blog Off project, a regularly scheduled blogging assignment that exists to encourage bloggers to practice the art of writing rather than giving in to the ennui that occurs when the Muse has taken flight. He mentions regretting passing on the topic of “What’s your favorite color”.

Reading his post got me thinking. Not about my favorite color, but about how we as human beings often miss the opportunity for deeper conversations with one another because of the innocuous questions we ask one another and the pat answers that we give to those questions. “How are you?” is probably the most oft used in the course of the normal day and yet I would venture to say that 99% of the time we say “fine” and just move on. It is probably safe to say that 99% of the time when we ask others that question we honestly don’t care to get a real answer. We are just filling up the space of that awkward moment when we make eye contact with another, or pass them in the hall.

James mentioned that it might be fun to each revisit that theme. James’ post can be found here.

I have to admit that unlike most people in the world, when I hear or read any variation of the “What’s your favorite color?” question, the first thing that pops into my mind, and often comes out of my mouth, is some portion of this dialog uttered by a tall thin frustrated Irishman in the film The Matchmaker

“What is your favorite color?”

“Dammit, what kind of shite is this?”

“I don’t have a favorite color! Jesus! Who has a favorite color?”

“I’ll tell ya me favorite color. Bollucks! That’s me favorite color!”

If you need to hear it for yourself, you can follow this link. The conversation begins at minute 6:23.

And if that isn’t the first thing that pops into my head, this scene is:

As I said, it got me thinking.

If I had been assigned the task to write about my favorite color during the initial Let’s Blog Off discussion, this is how I would like to think I would have answered:

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Eclectic Musings of a Renaissance Geek