May the Fourth

Happy Star Wars Day!  I hope you are all enjoying a Star Wars filled Sunday be it marathoning a trilogy or reading a favorite book or just wearing a tshirt as you go about your day (If you need one, Her Universe is having a fantastic sale).  It's a day the geek community bands together in celebration of one of our greatest stories.

One of my favorite parts of Star Wars is the wealth of stories that has grown around the films.  The Expanded Universe has developed to the point that it can feel very overwhelming when you come upon it for the first time.  And now with the new films Disney has come out and declared that moving forward everything will be tied together -- which is great except that all the stories preceding that announcement were already tied together.  All of the authors involved in creating the EU, now to be known as Star Wars Legends, have worked together for decades to keep their novels from contradicting one another and to fit together in a larger landscape.  Even though I understand why this decision was made it still felt like a slap in the face to all of the work put in and all of the time we as fans have spent pouring over these books and sharing them with one another.

I came upon the Star Wars EU the summer before my first year of high school.  By that time I had read almost everything in the young adult section of the library as well as any classic novel I could get my hands on.  I was going to the mystery section of our tiny library and happened to notice a Star Wars title in the midst of the science fiction novels as I passed.  It was the novelization of the original trilogy.  I picked it up, started reading, and discovered that there was so much beyond the films I had memorized.  I was hooked.  That Christmas my grandfather gave me a five dollar bill to buy a present for myself and I took it with me to the bookstore.  I decided to pick a Star Wars book, any book, and see if I like it (I had read Zahn and thought he was awesome but was still hesitant about anyone ruining my favorite movies).  That day I bought The Paradise Snare, the first in A. C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy, and read it in under 24 hours.  The rest, as they say, is history.

I will be the first to say that I have not read anywhere close to all the books.  At the time I started on the EU the New Jedi Order was in full swing and there have been several large collaborative works since.  I also discovered what I liked and didn't like in my Star Wars and developed certain rules for myself.  My one pervailing rule to keep myself from upset is that I don't read anything past a point where the original characters have aged beyond a reasonable life span (is that non-spoilery enough for you?).  I don't want to read about how they die or what the world is like once they are gone.  For me the characters are why I fell in love with the universe and I'm too selfish to let them leave me.

If you are interested in the EU then please, give it a try.  Anything by Timothy Zahn is golden and everyone always thought his trilogy would be the basis for Episodes VII-IX.  The X-Wing series is great and does a wonderful job fleshing out some minor characters.  And of course I have a personal bias towards  A. C. Crispin.  She recently passed away and the community has yet to heal around the hole she left in our lives.  I had the privilege of meeting her at Dragon*Con where she graciously signed my tattered copy of Paradise Lost and treated each person in line like she valued us individually.

So enjoy Star Wars Day.  Go check out a book, a comic, or even just watch the movie again.  There is always new content to be had while we wait for December 2015.  And May the Fourth be with you.

A Year of Reading: Month Two

I know, it's been increasingly quiet around here.  But I have a good reason, I swear.  Every time I felt motivated to write I got distracted.

And with so much obsessive reading it has been really hard to knit anything of blogging interest because all I want to work on is stockinette.  I was working on a pair of stripey socks, but then I had the horrid realization when beginning the toe that I knit two identical socks, rather than two mirroring socks.

I would show you a photo but I don't really remember where I stashed the project.  It was that traumatic of a moment that I think I blacked out.  One minute I was knitting and reading Sleep Donation on our porch and the next I was on the couch watching something stupid and eating my weight in sugar.  Don't tell me I can't eat my feelings.  That was an entire Easter weekend's worth of knitting.

But what I lack in knitting content I can more than make up for in books!  Let's talk month two, shall we?

Actually, February saw the least amount of reading of any month this year.  But not for lack of trying.  I had two false starts in the beginning, first with Fever Pitch and then with Oryx and Crake.  If you look at my Goodreads (oh yeah, I've started using Goodreads again / actually using for real this time -- I have a grand total of two friends), you'll see that I have Oryx and Crake still listed as "currently reading".  I am hopeful that I was just in a bad concentration place when I started reading it and that I will be able to finish.  I adore Margaret Atwood and this is the first of her novels I have been unable to get through.  Fever Pitch, on the other hand, I will never be able to finish.  The writing style infuriates me to no end.  I know it is a style, but my inner editor wants at least a subject and a verb in most sentences.  It's just not for me.

I am most proud that I conquered The Dinosaur Feather in February, the latter half while we were snowed in.  It is a pretty engrossing novel, but is quite large and translated from Danish into British English (at least my copy was), which made understanding some passages a little difficult.  The basic premise is that a scientist at a premier university is brutally murdered --  As the details of his death unfold it becomes pretty sickening.  What a lot of reviewers seemed to dislike I actually enjoyed.  Yes, the backstory of all the characters got a little long, but it was fascinating to take a look at each new character and see how they figured into the overall crime narrative.  That coupled with the extensive discourse on the scientific study of birds made it a nice departure from the typical murder mystery set-up.  I did end up throwing the book across the room when I finished, but that was because I figured it out and then spent the second half of the book hoping to be proved wrong.

After The Dinosaur Feather I switched back to urban fantasy with Seanan McGuire's Indexing.  I found this one on a must-read list for January and was fascinated by the concept, even if it felt reminiscent of Once Upon a Time.  The only similarity between the book and the show is that in both universes, fairytales are real and are not what we thought.  In Indexing the protaginist works for a secret government organization that looks for active fairy tales and tries to stop their development.  Every fairytale is an entry in their index and fairy tale incidents are categorized according to the story.  I read this one on our business trip to New York and it hit just the right balance of engrossing and lightness to make it perfect airplane reading.  I've read a lot of good books so far this year, but this was one of my favorites.

The other book I read in February I am almost embarassed to admit.  I keep an eye on the Kindle Deals section and try to have something to read on my phone at all times just in case I find myself stuck somewhere without a book.  In February that book was Witches of East End, which I was intrigued by because I really enjoyed the Blue Bloods series.  This one did not hit the same level of world building, but it was still a fun read.  The idea of witches forever reborn in a world in which they are forbidden to use magic was intriguing, though their decision to refute the rules was rather predictable.  I don't really recommend it for those looking to get into urban fantasy, but for the $2.99 I paid it did the trick.  If the second book is ever marked down that far I will probably pick it up as well.

March and April have both been busy reading months and I'm hoping to get those updates up soon.  But until then if you want to be up to date you can check out my Goodreads page.  I don't post reviews but I have kept everything current with progress and ratings.  We'll see if I can keep it up.

A Year of Reading: Month 1

As the third month of the year comes to an end, I thought it would be nice to check in on my New Years resolution progress.  This year was very simple -- I'm going to read at least 25 books.  To date I have read ten books.  That is probably the number I read in all of 2013 (or at least close), so I consider this a great step for 2014 Faith, exceeding my hope of two books a month.  If you were talking to 2004 Faith she would be laughing in your face.  Ten books was maybe a month's worth of reading for her.  She read Terry Goodkind books in a week and took on the entire Star Wars EU in a summer. But she did not have a full time job, her own place, or this little problem 2014 Faith has with concentration.  All together?  We're getting there.

So January.  So far this was the month that saw the most reading.  Probably because of the books I picked. The Indigo Spell was a fun and quick read, taking very little time.  It's been a while since I read the rest of the Bloodline books, so I may reread them before picking up the next one. I liked seeing the evolution of the characters.  The way Sydney has gone from straight-laced Alchemist to questioning the very core of her identity feels very natural.  The ending, on the other hand, felt a little rushed. No make that very rushed.  It just seemed like there were too many plots crammed into one.  But the overall story arch is heading in an interesting direction, and what girl doesn't need a little Adrian Ivashkov in her life.

My favorite book was The Shambling Guide to New York City, a book I actually heard about on NPR (the author is local to our area).  It's been on my to-read list for a while and I finally picked it up.  Mur Lafferty tells the story of Zoe, a young travel writer, trying to make her way in New York after her personal life forces her to leave her reputable job in Raleigh.  Basic premise, right?  Except that Zoe ends up working on a travel guide for the undead (and various strains of fae).  I found it immensely entertaining and refreshingly original.  The sequel was just published and I have plans to pick it up soon.

Least favorite of the month is a tie between The Good, The Bad, and The Undead and The Casual Vacancy.  I really enjoyed the first of The Hollows, Dead Witch Walking, but this one did not do it for me.  The first reminded me of the Anita Blake series (The early books. I stopped reading after it turned from vampire hunter to supernatural erotica.  There are only so many times I will believe that your characters are a version of incubus and need very explicit sex to survive) but the second fell short.  I won't spoil it for you, but I don't like the way the demon storyline progressed.  It really annoyed me that things had to go that dire that fast.  At the same time, I'm curious to see what happens and I am not nearly as frustrated as I was when I finished reading.  I often find second books frustrating, so I am hopeful that book three will turn things around.

The Casual Vacancy was a different kind of frustrating.  I did not expect it to be another Harry Potter, but I also did not expect it to be nearly as long winded.  Maybe this is a story that will grow better with time, or maybe the reader needs to have read fewer books that deal with masturbating teenage boys (My Jewish humor professor seemed to think that this was an important part of all good fiction).  It hit the same tone as The Virgin Suicides, just with more politics.  Overall I would not say it was a bad novel,  it was often just either too melancholy or not melancholy enough to really hit its stride.  I would actually recommend it to adult Rowling fans, but with the caveat that it is a long slog full of characters you are just dying to slap.

I also read Infected, which was probably the most interesting reading experience I've had in a while.  I happened to be reading it when I stayed home with a really bad migraine.  I laid in bed and started to read it, only to realize when it was too late how stupid it is to read a book about a massive outbreak when you are home sick.  And the kind of outbreak that it is?  Well that just hit all my levels of paranoia, which should tell you just how brilliant of a novel it is.  I remember listening to the start of the serialized version when I was in college before it was published and being unable to finish the first chapter.  I have a vivid memory of walking to the library and becoming suddenly, irrationally, and unequivocally terrified.  The same thing happened when reading it home alone in bed only this time I could not put it down.  I've bought the second book because the ending was just that good but I haven't had the time to be that freaked out again.  Hopefully soon as we're looking to move again and I'm always more paranoid when we first get in a new place.

So that was January.  I'll try to start doing these check-ins in a more promptly, but I make no promises.  The more I'm reading the less time I am writing, and I desperately need to get back to these.

Geektastic Thursday: Richelle Mead

Last week Chris and I went on a date to the library.  I know, it is not one of those ideal evenings you picture newlyweds passing together, but it was really nice.  A) We got to spend an hour perusing books together and more importantly B) the library is free!  Honestly, though, it was nice to get out of the apartment and spend some time together without spending money or watching television.

While we were there I picked up a book I have been putting off reading for the past year -- Richelle Mead's Shadow Heir.  This is the last of her Dark Swan Novels, tying up her second series for adults.  If Mead's name sounds familiar it is probably due to her Vampire Academy series, a young adult series that has gotten a lot of acclaim along with its spin-off series, Bloodlines (I have only read the first of these, but I really like it).

I was reluctant to start on Shadow Heir because I had heard some disgruntled reviews.  You would think at some point that I would stop paying attention to other people's opinions.  Despite the evident fan dissatisfaction, I really enjoyed this conclusion to the series, the story of an Arizona shaman who learns she has ties to the world of the "gentry" aka fairies.  It tied up loose ends without rushing the conclusion and left just the slight possibility of another book.  At the same time, this was my least favorite of the series.  I applaud her decision to tie up the series after four books rather than dragging it out.  So many books, after much deserved success, seem to lead to sequel after sequel with no real structure.  Not so with any of Mead's series.

Recently I reread the first two books of Mead's other series for adults, which follows Georgina Kincaid, an under achieving succubus living in Seattle.  I know, it sounds like trash to a lot of people when you spell out the plot.  But they are really good!  Clearly, because I have read them twice.  Yes, there are gratuitous sex scenes, but her writing is witty and intelligent.  I like to think of them as healthy brain candy.  When you come home from a long day of paperwork and meetings it is really nice to just turn off the brain and read something that is not going to be a major struggle but still engages you on an intellectual level.

So, Richelle Mead. Check her out.  Your mileage may very, but I'm a fan.  And hey, the Vaginal Fantasy ladies have Succubus Blues as their alternative book this month.  Like I said -- brain candy.