Fanfiction: A Writer's Training Wheels

Orson Scott Card wrote, “Writers should not waste their time or talent trying to tell stories in someone else’s universe.”

I disagree.

Fanfiction has been on my mind a lot lately with the popularity of 50 Shades of Gray and Kindle Worlds (which I'll get to towards the end), as well as talking to a friend who primarily dabbles in it. I've never written fanfiction, myself. Any attempts quickly fizzled out after page one. I find it to be difficult to write and it goes nowhere on a professional level, like trying to walk up a down escalator.

Fanfiction also strips your skin off and kills children...wait I think I'm getting lost here.

Fanfiction is usually where a lot of writers these days get their start. Cassandra Clare, author of City of Bones, wrote Harry Potter and hilarious Lord of the Rings fanfiction before she was published. 50 Shades began life as a Twilight fanfiction. That doesn't make it any good, but that's not the point. The point is that fanfiction has a purpose.

Think of fanfiction as training wheels to writing. With fanfiction you don't have to stress about setting up an entire world or intricate backstories to characters because all of that already exists. All you have to do decide what happens. It's like fanart. You learn how to become good at drawing by sketching out other people's characters, eventually working your way up to your own original characters. Fanfiction lets you ease into and hone the craft of writing.

Sometimes, however, people never get brave enough to take those wheels off.

He may look like a child, but he's actually 38.

I've seen examples of people writing beautiful work yet are held back because it's fanfiction. You leave the training wheels on too long and people become dependent on them and scared of the thought of moving beyond that. They worry their writing won't be good enough if they wade out into the wide, open world of original publishing.

Here's a secret though: Nearly every book is, in a way, fanfiction.

Every epic journey with a group of characters is Lord of the Rings, every "magic school" is Harry Potter, every airhead "oh gee he's so dangerous but hawt" YA paranormal romance is Twilight. I don't make it a secret that Crystal's voice in Dusted is the lovechild of James Patterson's Maximum Ride and Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden.

The trick is, once you've got the art of writing down pat you just take everything you love about everything and piece it together to make it your own. The great thing about original fiction is that you're not playing by someone else's rules.

After a few fanfictions move on. If you keep writing them then, years later, you'll be exactly where you were before as a writer.

Kindle Worlds has been a recent invention of Amazon and, while it may look like a shining beacon to fanfiction writers, I believe it's damaging in the long run. By clutching onto already existing properties a writer misses out on an entire process of writing: the creation of characters and worlds.

If you find yourself writing nothing but fanfiction and craving to break out into original work start small. Consider just changing the names of the characters, or write a completely original story and put just one character from your favorite fandom in it. Change all the rules of the fandom, see what happens.

Sure, you might crash a couple of times (or a lot), but so have I. Dusted isn't perfect, nor will it ever be, but I can be proud in the fact that I can call it entirely my own.

Or, you know, as long as no one recognizes all the stuff I ripped off.

My New 20% Rule

As you well know (and are probably tired of hearing) I complain a lot about books. A lot of them are crap (to me, your mileage may vary). I force myself to suffer through them and do nothing but waste my time that could be better spent on better books or procrastinating editing.

I'd better clean this before I start on chapter 14...

So I've decided on a new rule based on the few books I've been trying to read for the past few months. If descriptions or reviews give me certain expectations then they'd better deliver before I'm 20% in or else I'm done. Period.

Wait I'm not THAT done.

I've really waded through some books that were considered pretty awful to me. So what was the ultimate breaking point?

It was a book called Flee by Miranda Kavi, and it was the first sentence:

"I can fly."

I waited...

And waited...

And waited...

Watching my cat proved more entertaining.

Yeah, she hovers 1/16th of an inch off her seat at her desk a couple of times for a few seconds. However, if your opening sentence is "I can fly," you'd better be flying pretty soon.

Here are some examples of what's going on 20% of the way through various other books:

In Maximum Ride, the flock are sheltering in a cavern on their way to rescue Angel. Max is separated from them and trying to escape someone who had just shot her with a shotgun. Might I mention plenty of flying has already happened?

In My Life As a White Trash Zombie, she just received an anonymous note that says "If you crave it, eat it," and she's freaking out because she's craving brains.

In Twilight, Bella fainted and had to be carried by Edward (okay bad example...)

In Divergent, Tris just got the tattoos of her birds and gets beat up to the point of landing in the hospital. They've already done extensive training.

In Starters, she wakes up from one of her times of being "rented" and has already done so several times.



Meanwhile, in Flee (which I actually made it 25% of the way through) it was instant romance of movie star, girly teenibopper talk, and "omg what to wear?"

Now, if you're into that kind of reading, more power to you. The point is, I'm not going to put up with books I don't want to. If they promise me X and deliver nothing but S (S being an unknown factor that of which equals suckitude) then I'm not going to put up with it for the entire length of book.

Of course there are some exceptions, like The Hunger Games. It doesn't launch right into the teen-filled death sport (the name of which escapes me at the moment...)  it has a lot of setup, but the important thing is that it's still interesting.

So, I have decided to implement a new rule on myself. That being if a book doesn't grab my interest 20% of the way though. Looking it up, one website says 50 pages. The problem with giving a hard and fast page number is that books vary in length so much that 50 pages could mean you've finished it (especially with ebooks being shorter than most, it seems) or it could just barely be getting into the intro.

The hardest part, however, is stopping. The first book I ever stopped reading in the middle of was really difficult, so were the other few. It becomes much easier once you realize stopping in the middle of the story isn't the end of the world. If it's bad enough, you'll forget it pretty easily.

Besides, it's much worse to agonize over it, thinking "Why did I waste my time!?"

The sooner a bad book is given up, the sooner a good one can be discovered.

What I read in 2014 Fourth Quarter: I Should Probably be Editing

October

Tricked by Kevin Hearne

I read the entire book in three days. The only thing that stopped me from reading the next one so fast was that I had to work.

Trapped by Kevin Hearne

This one flew by by pretty fast too.

Hunted by Kevin Hearne

This one I didn't seem to like quite as much. Most of it involved running from A to B. Although I still enjoyed it, and it had its good moments, it just didn't totally grab me.

Obsidian Curse by Barbara Aninno

The first three Stacy Justice books were fantastic. Book four, Emerald Isle, however, just didn't have the same spark. I didn't plan to get book five but it was 50% off as a daily deal and decided to give it a shot. Sometimes there's just one book that doesn't seem to "work" with the rest of the series (like Ghost Story in the Dresden Files series) and I wanted to see if that was the case.

It felt like the author seemed to scrap some of the buildup/cliffhanger plot elements of book Emerald Isle and just shrug her shoulders, introducing different plot elements rather than tying them from the previous book. Still, it was a letdown and, while I finished the whole thing, it was a forced effort.

November

Shattered by Kevin Hearne

First, I had to get past the fact that it had a deckle edge (dun dun duuuuuunnnnn) I enjoyed it, and it wrapped up a lot of the stuff that's been going on since Hammered, but there are times when I feel like the author made the story too big, too fast. I keep reading and, for some reason, yearning for the main character's past adventures before things got so convoluted with a bazillion pantheons and an impending Ragnarok.

My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland

I was sucked in just reading Amazon's book preview a while back and was dying (pun seriously not intended) to know what happened next. I think I read the whole thing in 2-3 days. It's a little bit Warm Bodies, a little Sookie Stackhouse, and a little Dead Like Me. It's a very satisfying read, and different than the bazillion zombie novels that have come about in the last few years. Best of all, the whole story wraps up neatly without needing any sequels (although there are some if you wanted to continue.)

December

Night Broken by Patricia Briggs

I didn't like the previous two books, so this one took me awhile to get to. Luckily, it feels like it's getting back on track. Still, the main villain of the story felt completely random, like the author threw a couple of darts at some ideas. I didn't see much that contributed to the overall arc of the series, though I suppose I might be missing some stuff that will become more obvious in the next book

I'm actually pretty baffled, as I could swear that I read a couple more books in December, but I couldn't remember since I was getting lax about writing down what I had read. I also spent a lot of that time doing other things.

On to another great year of reading!
 

What I Read in 2014: Third Quarter: I Can't Read in All This Rain

July

Skin Game by Jim Butcher

First thing I did the moment I had my hands on it was that I thumbed through every page, ensuring the count was correct. I was so paranoid that I even had a couple of scares and had to go back and recheck a small handful. What can I say? I'm incredibly paranoid after that last time.

It was awesome. The story went in a good direction that didn't rehash a lot of the same ideas from previous books. Rather than the usual mystery-solving this one was very Oceans Eleven-esque.

Tales of Ever by Jen Wylie

Minecraft meets Stephen King's Firestarter, then throw in some Hunger Games for good measure. Awesome.

Undead and Unwed by Maryjanice Davidson

A quick reread before loaning it out to a friend to make sure it's still as funny as I remember. It sure is! A shame the series deteriorated before it could finish with some grace. 

Pines by Blake Crouch

This one grabbed me by my shirt collar and walloped me with awesome. When I was finished I immediately bought the second one.

Wayward by Blake Crouch

Part of the enjoyment of Pines was a mystery surrounding the entire story and I worried that, after the Big Reveal, it wouldn't hold water anymore. I'm glad I was wrong. This is the perfect example of how to write Book Two in a trilogy without it turning into a filler book.

July

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

The beginning of Allegiant was far too confusing, and I knew it had been too long, so I decided to reread this one. This one is a perfect example of a filler book.

Allegiant by Veronica Roth

I've had this one when it first came out back in October of 2013. So I've been procrastinating it for nearly a year! I was worried since reviews were lukewarm at best and, I'll admit, I felt that a lot of it was emoing and doing nothing, making it feel like yet another filler book right up until the last 20% of the book, but I was not disappointed with the ending.

August

The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Kind of a creepy book, really. Still, apparently it was published in the 1970's, and has held up well despite the time. Not the most paranormal of books, especially by today's standards, but it did hold my interest.


The Giver by Lois Lowry

This one was actually reccommended to me to a friend and it sat on my bookshelf for about 2-3 years. It's tiny, so it hides well when I'm looking at my shelves for what to read next. The movie released recently so I knew I had to read it before it became a Big Thing. I blasted through it in a single evening. It's nice in the fact that it's pretty much every YA Dystopian novel out there right now, except bite-size. No offense to Veronica Roth, I love Divergent, but The Giver told the same story in 175 pages as what Divergent did in an entire thick trilogy.

The Last Town by Blake Crouch

From the way Wayward Pines Book 2 ended, there was no possible way I could wait for book 3 in any way at all. I actually broke my Kindle rule and spent a whole $5 on it. Anything I say about it would be spoilers of all kind for even book one, but I will say the one-sentence epilogue gave me chills.

Dirty Magic by Jaye Wells

I got about 40% through this one, but was ready to give up at 25%. Generic gritty female cop trying to solve the case of a new drug in town making people go murderously crazy when they use it. Except switch the word drug with magic and that's Dirty Magic. No magic to speak of at all, really. Kim Harrison's Hollows series is a more entertaining option along a similar theme.

Moth by Daniel Anderson

Moth is your typical high-fantasy story except the planet the story takes place on no longer moves. As long as you have some suspension of disbelief for the scientific aspect of that it's not a bad story. On the light side are typical humans, but they are afraid of the creatures living on the dark side. First diving into the book I was expecting some sort of LotR badguy army knockoff to be on the dark side, but was pleasantly surprised. On the dark side are Elven, Asian-cultured people (called Elorians) who live rather peacefully. What I found most interesting is that both sides consider the other a myth. The humans think Elorians are demons who live in a dark, black wasteland. The Elorians, however, believe the light side of the planet is heat and light that nothing can possibly survive in. Although the description of the story suggests it's just the viewpoint of one character, it actually switches between two, one human and one Elorian. The story starts with subterfuge and, as both main characters realize there is a looming war between both halves, it promptly starts going in a circle.

The human character gets a lot of focus at the beginning of the book, however, once it switches to the Elorian girl, it pretty much sticks with her, and she does nothing but putter around. She travels to a large city, waits, joins a thieving gang, waits, leaves, plays a flute until she gets fifty coins, gets it stolen, plays a flute until she gets fifty coins, gets it stolen, plays a flute with the plan of getting fifty coins, ends up in a brothel.

I was 66% of the way through when I gave up. Maybe I'm much more impatient about books at the moment, and it started out interesting, but a good beginning can't make up for a book where the character more main than even the main character does nothing. I don't want to read about a character waiting around to talk to someone, then has to work really hard to get money. It started to feel like some kind of Fantasy DMV from Hell. Despite the unique setting, it failed to keep my interest.

Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead by Christiana Miller

I mentioned this one in a previous post. Aunt Tillie is magical and funny and a but more, ahem, adult than I remember. Still, it was incredibly fun to reread this one. Yes, a reread, of an indie book no less! This one actually holds a special place for me because it was the very first Kindle book I ever bought. It had been almost two years ago to the letter when I found out you don't need to input payment information to download free books on Amazon (Barnes and Noble, meanwhile, does require it.) When I read Aunt Tillie on my laptop I thought to myself "Wow!" because I had never read an indie book before, and it didn't suck! Yes, I know I'm one of those indie authors, but in my own writing career (BAHAHAHAHAHA I know, I know, I said "career" to describe what I do) I've run across a  lot of people who still need a lot of polish in their work.

I said polish not Polish.

But I'm getting off track here. Once I realized how awesome some indie books could be, and getting a few more freebies, it's what pushed me over the edge to go ahead and get a Kindle. So, rereading Aunt Tillie was a treat, what I didn't expect, however, was a sequel being released only a week later.



Wickedly Magical by Deborah Blake

You were expecting the sequel, weren't you? I had finished rereading Aunt Tillie and preordered Aunt Tillie 2 (because Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie We're in Trouble! is both a mouthful and a keyboardful) but, as I mentioned, I had to wait a whole week. I don't go a whole week without reading something, so I picked up Wickedly Magical, a prequel story to Deborah Blake's Baba Yaga series. Now, I've only read nonfiction by Blake, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm not big on short stories, but it was okay. It came, told its story, and left. I was satisfied without feeling cheated, like I do with most short stories. It made me feel better about getting the first book.

Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie We're in Trouble! by Christiana Miller

While not as fun as the first Aunt Tillie, Aunt Tillie 2 still delivered. What I really liked is that Miller must have listened to her fans, because the side character, Gus, has the spotlight. Best of all, I got to experience a type of story I've never really had the chance to read before, something I could really only describe as "Looming Doom". There's not really any mystery, but the main character spends a lot of the story trying to keep certain events from unfolding before the next full moon and, no matter what happens, things keep going in the same doomed direction. It really grabbed me that way and didn't let go.

Wickedly Dangerous by Deborah Blake

This one was part what I was expecting, and part of a let down. Deborah Blake has started a series based on Baba Yaga lore, making Baba Yaga more of a formal title, and the heroine of the story much younger than the crone appearance Baba Yaga has in traditional Russian tales.

It's a mystery romance, but Deborah Blake promised a tough-chick ass-kicker heroine, which I feel failed to deliver. Any ass-kickery was done off-screen, and even then it was by three of Baba's friends. The story kept me interested though, as I wanted to know what happened next. There is absolutely no violence in it, and only some mild romance so, in all, a very cozy mystery for those who enjoy that kind of thing. The setting is also different from the usual large city, instead taking place in a small town and the surrounding countryside/forest. This is one you could read just a preview of and decide from there if you wanted to keep going or not.

Small Town Witch by Kristen S. Walker

Part Hex hall and part Sweep. Small Town Witch nearly put me to sleep. The first 60% of the book is a girl going to school and hanging out with her friends, you know, typical high school girl stuff. Except some minor witch elements were thrown in. Initially it seemed as though the author didn't know where she was going to go with the story and kept writing it until she figured something out. Even then. the mystery in the plot was so obvious I wanted to slap the main character and I nearly stopped reading it, but I'm glad I didn't because once the main character finally (finally!) figures things out the story revs up and then promptly ends on a cliffhanger. If you can read through teenage drudgery there's a good story. The defining part of it, however, is the broom flying. There's not a lot of it, but it gave me a nostalgic Kiki's Delivery Service vibe.

What I Read in 2014, Second Quarter: The Bookening

April

The Witch and the Gentleman by J.R. Rain

I got this ebook on sale at half price, but I'm really starting to regret having even paid that much

It's really more of a novella than even a novel, but I still only made it sixty percent through before finding my attention span wandering. I was sucked right in by the preview of the first two chapters. It starts out with a psychic woman working at a less-than-psychic hotline when a man calls asking about his daughter, who had been murdered. This grabbed my interest immediately,  but the story fizzles out after chapter three.

From there the main character does nothing but have conversations with people while they infodump on her. Yes, in every book there is a certain level of worldbuilding that needs to be done, but when that makes up 60% of the book so far I find myself going "Huuuuuungh!" People constantly show up out of nowhere, infodump, and then disappear again. I'm able to tolerate the Sex-and-the-City friend telling the main character to totally hook up with a guy (joking about him being a Florida Cabana boy, I kid you not), I'll even hold my eyes in place to keep them from rolling as a ghost infodumps about how the main character is a witch and that they are soulmate-BFFs, but the moment Gaia shows up I'm just all:

Nope.

I nearly stopped right there. I did sandwich something else in there, but that will be next.

I also felt like I was missing something. The main character continuously mentions previous things that have happened to her, to the point where I've had to stop and check several times that I am reading the first book and didn't accidentally throw myself into the middle of a series. Everything she mentions manages to sound far more interesting than the literary muck I'm wading through. Later, after finishing the novella, I learned it's a spin-off series. The trick to spin-off series is to write a whole story without making it necessary to read the original series. Unfortunately, the author failed.

Another reason that nearly made me slap the book shut (my Kindle makes a satisfying sound when I close the cover, much like a hardback) was one character's overuse of the word "dear."

"You're a witch, dear."
"Le gasp! I'm a witch?"
"Yes, dear."
"No wai!"
"Totes wai, dear."

Now imagine dear, literally at the end of every sentence of dialogue for the character, while she infodumps on the main character for an entire chapter. I'll admit, I have my own overuse of words, for Dusted I removed two thirds of the instances of the word "just."

"We just can't do that."
"Why not?"
"It's just impossible!"
"No wai!"
"Totes wai."

As I'm working on The Crystal Witch I've been taking notes of the words or phrases I find myself using too frequently (like "realized") and plan to edit them out later. If the author is indie and had to edit their own work, or is a fresh-faced forum poster, I'll make exceptions, but the author of The Witch and The Gentleman not only overuses the word, they recognize that they do. The main character points it out to the overuser, which tells me the author was entirely aware of the overuse.

But, despite all that, I continued on until the end of the story.

I really wish I hadn't.

Really lame spoilers after this point.

So, this character is being infodumped on left and right, wasn't there supposed be a murder and a plot and all that stuff?

...Oh yeah.

So the girl was murdered walking on her way home from school. The main character goes to the school hoping to find some leads, gets a bad vibe from one of the teachers, and talks to him. Here's an approximation of what she says to him.

"You know what I think? I think she got murdered on her way home from school."

Then she leaves the school and is in the parking lot on her way to her car when he tries to run her down. She uses some...magic...shield thingy to protect herself, the first actual bit of magic minus her psychic feelings and talking to ghosts, and he rams into it, flies out the windshield, and dies on the spot. Everyone is happy.

...Wait what?

Seriously, that's it for confrontation and an antagonist. All she had to do was mention the murder, not even accuse him, and he wigs out and tries to run her over. She also psychically sees a box buried under a tree "find the dog and you find your answer" was said twice. Once during a ghost infodump and again when she "sees" the box. Do we ever get to know what's in the box exactly? Or how it proves the teacher murdered the girl, or even why he did it? Nope. Instead the main character tells the police about it and the story ends before it gets to that point. She does that a couple times to the police which brings me to another point:

Why wasn't she a suspect?

She just "sees" things that relate to the murder and everyone just shrugs their shoulders and goes "she's psychic, alrighty then." Nevermind that this is a case that's been cold for 2 or 3 years. Not once do the police ever find it odd that a random woman just appears and starts finding clues and evidence about a cold case. The police should have been on her in an instant. Frankly, it would have been much more interesting if she had been evading the police as a wrongfully accused suspect while trying to solve the case.

Am I right, here?

Normally, if I read a crummy book at half price, I find consolation in the fact that I only paid half price. This book, however, I regretted even paying that much.

Other stuff

After (and during) The Witch and The Gentleman I got distracted reading other stuff, not books per se, but other things that might as well amount up to a book. This forum thread in particular (I rated 18+ for swearing, suggestive themes, crude humor, and nightmarish living conditions), it's chock full of stories that will make you laugh, wince, and clean your house, sometimes all at once. It's also massively long, as in you've been reading for hours and, when you look at the page you're on, you find you're on page 3...of 61. I promise you will never think of wheelchair repair the same way again (if you ever thought about it at all.)


Hammered by Melvin Nazarene

...Wow my kindle keyboard sucks.

What I was trying to say was Hammered by Kevin Hearne

After finally getting my hands on the third Iron Druid Chronicles book I devoured it. The series continues to get more awesome and I actually stayed up late one night to find out how it ends. Not much I can say about it since it's the third in a series, except that it's pretty epic with lots of God-slayings.

May

Origin by Jessica Khoury

Another example of Technology Girl and Tribal Boy, I read a bit of Origin while waiting at a grocery store. It interested me ever since it came out but, thanks to my horrible luck with new authors, I wasn't too interested in reading it. Luckily, I got it for only a couple of bucks on the Kindle.

First, it's rather unique in that the setting is the Amazon jungle, but it rollercoasters up and down between interesting and boring. Oddly, it's when Pia (the main character) is outside her confinement that my interest waned. During that time she would do nothing but wax poetic about how beautiful everything is. Her inner monologue was far too lengthy, and often felt like it was in the way of anything actually happening (I actually wonder if it was used to pad the story so that it could be sold as a book rather than just a novella).

While Pia is immortal, you never get to actually see it in action. What's worse, she actually needs rescued in one scene by her boy-candy.

The climax at the end is eye-rolling. She is forced into a situation where she is right next to the main antagonist character with an almost instant-killing serum injection, and she chooses to drop the syringe and run for it...twice. Yes, she gets recaptured and forced into the exact same scene a second time, except the second time is even worse because she's then rescued by a guy dual-wielding AK-47's.

No really.

Here's a picture of one:

The NSA is breaking down my door as we speak for threatening unarmed readers with a photograph.

I had to go back and reread it, because I saw "AK-47's" and assumed he'd shown up with a couple other guys. Nope. He's playing Rambo. I had to stop reading for a little while, as I'm pretty sure it's hard to read with a hand in my face.

How am I supposed to read now?

After a couple of minutes (a snack, a drink) to reassert logic, I continued.

Sadly, it didn't get much better from there.

Now, when I say Pia is immortal, I mean she is also indestructible. Nothing can slice her skin and, while she can feel pain, she is unkillable. However, the entire last quarter she is being rescued by others from falling victim to the Standard Female Grab Area. For someone immortal and indestructible, she is entirely helpless. I was nothing but disappointed and unhappy with the entire story.

Moms Who Drink and Swear: True Tales of Loving my Kids While Losing My Mind by Nicole Knepper

This one was actually pretty funny, and it's not often that I read non-fiction. Not much to say that isn't in the title itself.

June

A Shade of Vampire by Bella Forrest

I kept fighting with myself over this one. First, thanks to Fifty Shades of Gray I now avoid all books with the words "shade", "gray" and even the number fifty (it actually ruined the name of one working title to a story of mine: Grey Witch, thank you very much...) Along with the title is the author's name: Bella Forrest. Really? An author named Bella writing a story about a vampire? The combination of the two left me dry heaving for as long as it's been in the Top 100 of Amazon's ebook list.

Still, as time has gone on, it never left the Top 100, making me wonder if it was really as much of a cheap knockoff as what I initially thought. So I decided to give it a try, keeping a puke bucket handy the whole while.

It's not a knockoff, and I never heaved, but I didn't totally fall in love with the story either.

It's a typical "Girl in love with a vampire" story, but there are some parts that irked me. One is the ultra-modern tree houses that have electricity despite being on a totally isolated island. I understand solar panels, but this is never mentioned, and there's even an elevator for heaven's sake! Second, the main character is kidnapped by a vampire and is so ho-hum about their existence that you'd think she already knew they existed.

It's short, and I did find myself wondering what happens next, though not enough to consider investing myself in the rest of the story when I have so many other things to read that I'm pretty much guaranteed to enjoy such as...

Cold Days by Jim Butcher

Jim Butcher's Skin Game snuck up on me a little. I've had it preordered for a looooong time, so when I got an email saying it was being shipped I had a little happy moment. Before reading the latest Dresden I always reread the previous one so Cold Days it is. If you're a regular reader you already know about the whole November 2012 excitement for Cold Days, and then the Hulky disappointment of the missing pages. I have since gotten a replacement for my replacement, and then the ebook...meaning I've got 3.8 copies of Cold Days (ebook is one, complete copy is one, and each signed copy is 0.9 each.) After finishing Cold Days I launched right into Skin Game.

What I Read in 2014 First Quarter

I began writing What I Read in 2014 literally at the beginning of 2014, making it as I go, adding each book when I finished it while the story was still fresh in my mind. What I didn't expect, however, was it to become large enough that I had to split it into separate posts.

Expect a ping-pong equivalent of my writing styles as I go. These are approximate times of when I read them, especially from July on, as I was reading about 5-6 books at once.

January

Miss Peregrine's Home of Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Way better than I was expecting. I was a bit put off that it had been labeled Grade School Reader where I bought it from, but if this is what grade schoolers are reading....yeesh. To sum up it's basically X-Men children from the 1940's trapped in a time loop.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

This one I was really looking forward to. Here's a rundown of my thoughts while reading it.

"Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh Boy!"

"This book is awesome!"

"This book is still awesome!"

"This book is...taking a while."

"...For being called Maze Runner, it sure is taking him a long time to actually run though the maze."

"This book is awesome again!"

"This book is...wow, 50% of the way through and I'm still waiting to see why the author titled it Maze Runner."

"Should have called it Variables, or The Final Glader, or something."

"Okay he's been in the maze three or four times. All the times he's been a maze runner he's just in training."

"Why didn't they do X, or Y, or Z? It took them two years to finally start screwing around and discovering stuff in the process?"

"85% of the way through, been (mostly) awesome the whole time, but I really don't think I'm liking where this is going suddenly for the Big Reveal."

"Oh god I'm getting Maximum Ride flashbacks."

"More flashbacks."

"Finished. I...I don't think I want to continue the series."

It's not that I didn't like the book, but I felt really let down considering the promises that the description and first half were giving me. Suddenly it turns into Maximum Ride at the end of the book, as I mentioned, but not in a good way. While it doesn't mirror the worst parts of Maximum Ride, it does mirror the most irritating parts for sure. I already feel like I know where the series is going from there, and I certainly don't want to follow.

Practical Mischief by D.D. Scott

(Only managed 10% of the book)

When I reached "coture, halter-style Armani Prive gown" I knew it was time to stop reading.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

I watched the movie first, so I already had an idea of what it was going to be like. Somehow it was exactly how I expected, better than I expected, and worse than I expected all at the same time. Definitely for people who prefer really traditional fairy-tales. 

Feburary

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

I had a different idea of what this book was going to be when I started

It was a bit of a rollercoaster of worry and excitement between "Oh crap this book is going to be boring!" and "Woo! Excitement!" (I'm simple about expressing what I enjoy.) I worried it was going to run out of plot 10-15% of the way through, but then threw a curveball at me that set the real story up. After that things really got going. No spoilers, but something happened that almost ruined my hope for the book, but came right back in a way that I forgave it (and happens to have a Checkhov's Gun I totally missed!) Overall I liked it, and would consider getting the next book in the series. I'm not exactly clamoring to get the next one, but I would certainly snatch it right up, given the right price.

For March

Starters by Lissa Price

I've been eyeballing this one for a while now and managed to pick up a used copy for cheap. I enjoyed it, but did find myself slow down halfway through as it's fairly generic in terms of YA teen dystopia. Still, I liked it enough to consider getting the sequel, especially since it's just a duet so I know the story would be dragged all over the place in an attempt to milk the series for all it's work. Given a choice between the next Rot and Ruin and the second book of Starters, I would choose Starters.

Hounded (and Hexed) by Kevin Hearne

The Kindle book was crazy expensive (they actually had to reduce the price when they realized it was more expensive than even the mass market paperback!) so I had to keep from squealing with delight when it was on sale for $0.99 during St. Patrick's Day. This one I had a lot of expectations for because, along with the Nightside and Mercy Thompson, series, I was pre-read comparing it with The Dresden Files (which meant I had a lot of high expectations of it)

Luckily I was quite happy with what I got. So happy, in fact, that I even broke my $3 Kindle Rule and bought the second one, Hexed, for $6

It's not Dresden Files, by far, but a review I read described it as "Butcher Lite" and it's quite spot-on in that aspect. There's quite a variety of magics and characters. Along with our Celtic druid main character we have: Russian and Polish witches, Indian body-snatcher, Jewish Kabbalist, as well as a handful of gods and goddesses of various locations (including the Native American trickster god, Coyote.)

One last fun little bit I hadn't even expected was that the series is chock full of massive, archaic words. Not only do I look them up, I also challenge my dad recognize them (with one exception, he's known them all)

My Book List for 2015

So I didn't get around to a bunch of books in my 2014 list but keeping track of nearly every book I read this year (a whopping 36ish books) gives me better insight as to how much I'll read this year. It also gave me a pretty good idea of what's been sitting around for awhile. So expect some repeats from last year with lots of new ones!

Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Enders by Lissa Price
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Strange Angels & Betrayals by Lili St. Crow/Lilith Saintcrow
Lure of the Dead &
Slither &
I Am Alice &
Fury of the Seventh Son by Joseph Delaney (which finishes off the Last Apprentice series for me.)
Liberator by Richard Harland
The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
The Royal Ranger by John Flanagan
The Alchemyst by Michael Scott
False Covenant &
Lost Covenant by Ari Marmell (With book 4, Covenant's End, coming up I'll hopefully read past the cliffhanger to a more satisfying end.)
Through the Ever Night &
Into the Still Blue by Veronica Rossi

Shifting Shadows by Patricia Briggs

Of course, I'm leaving lots of wiggle room for anything else that will pop up in the middle of this year!