The Maximum Ride Movie Snuck Up on Me

I love Maximum Ride with all my heart. Even now, after getting rid of books 4 and up, I still think to myself "Why oh why did I get rid of those?" before I read my old review posts and remember just how bad they really were.

I knew for a long time that a Maximum Ride movie was announced but, somehow, the production and even the release managed to evade me. When I first heard about it I tried not to get my hopes up, the longer something is hyped for me the bigger my disappointment seems to be, even when it's good. I resigned myself to the fact that it may or may not get made and, if it did, I would know.

So, imagine my surprise a week ago when the movie popped up on Amazon. My first thought was "Holy flockcakes, it exists?" followed by "Thirty freaking bucks!?"

Which translates to 39.98 Dollarydoos

Luckily, a few days ago, I found out Netflix has it on streaming. My Internet is slow, but I managed to watch it for the most part. 

It's actually weird that I didn't know. I don't follow anything but people on the book of faces, but I am a Jenna Marbles fan, who was one of the Executive Producers. I actually had to rewind the opening credits to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Other big names include the director Jay Martin known for his work...

...in the Art Department apparently.

Well, at least they got a a good actress for Max! Allie Marie Evans was great in...uh...

Actually I don't mind, I'm all for small names. As an indie author I would be a hypocrite if I wasn't, and everyone has to start somewhere, right? (I did catch the way you said "sorry" though, Allie, nice try but I worked with a Canadian nurse for 3 years, I am now deeply educated in Canadian culture. Maple syrup y'all!) I do have a small problem with her hair to eyebrow shade ratio:

Which actually looks even more exaggerated in the movie. A lot of people, oddly enough, had a problem with all the character's hair color. It looks like Miss Evans's original hair color, based on her eyebrows, would have been a better choice. Rather than a brunette Max they decided to go with Nevermore!Max.

I'll come back to this in a just moment.

So let's launch right into the movie itself. It's low budget and been trapped in development hell for ten years, what could possibly go wrong?

One of the beginning scenes has Nudge looking at an outfit on a laptop because she's the fashionista of the group. I wanted to show you a picture of her wearing a sunhat indoors in their gloomy house but all of the shots I can find are conspicuously absent of her (I think the movie poster even has Max twice instead of Nudge).

Oh, Nudge, did you get a tan?

She's thinking about running off to buy it but, when Max finds out, she's yelled at for risking exposure when they have to stay hidden. This is from Max who, from the looks of it, must go to the salon to get her roots done on a regular basis. An earlier scene showed her with black-painted toenails as well. At some point that nail polish had to have been purchased.

Anyway, it diverges from the book story-line in a few small ways, but it's the worst regarding their wings. The first time I saw the wings, I was expecting bad but not so bad I would start laughing. Apparently (?) the wings are stored inside of their bodies and slice open their backsides every time they are spread out. This has led to two built up lines of scar tissue.

Just like real birds.

My main beef is that the fun is missing. The characters in the book are witty and wry most of the time, especially in bad situations, and love to give each other a hard time. The movie focused entirely on dark brooding to the point where all of the characters wear black like they're an offshoot of the Addams Family.

Another weird problem is that, despite being a main character (second only to Max herself) Fang's name is never mentioned.

Uh....Chad?

The Erasers, the minion mooks, aren't even trying to be wolf-guys, they just look human, except for discount Jacob Black Ari.

"I'm here for Bella Max."

Suddenly, the movie comes to a halt halfway through the book because apparently they took the advice of Peter Jackson while he was directing The Hobbit. It ended as though it was going to continue, but I get the feeling that's not going to happen.

Despite all of that I actually liked it. I went in knowing full and well that it was going to be a steaming turd of a movie. I liked it for what it was, not what it was trying to be. Thanks to MST3K and Rifftrax I love B grade movies, the wackier the better.  I would say Maximum Ride almost verges on "so bad it's good."

At least it was better than Eragon.

Did you like this post? Then check out:

Nevermore Book Review

Max Ride Forever Review: Part 1

Max Ride Forever Review: Part 2

Max Ride Forever Review: Part 3

Books I read in 2012

Now you're stuck in an infinite loop.

Yet Another Maximum Ride Book!?

If you've read my blog posts in the past you know about my Love / Hate relationship with the Maximum Ride Series by James Patterson. Well just last Monday I discovered this:

From Barnes and Noble:

THE NINTH AND ULTIMATE MAXIMUM RIDE STORY IS HERE! Legions of Max fans won't be disappointed by this encore episode in the beloved series about the incredible adventures of a teenage girl who can fly. As Maximum Ride boldly navigates a post-apocalyptic world, she and her broken flock are roaming the earth, searching for answers to what happened. All will be revealed in this last spectacular "ride"- a brand-new grand finale featuring all of the nonstop action, twists and turns that readers can rely on in a blockbuster Patterson page turner!


You know what I say to that? Bull. Freaking. Crap.

This book says to me "Remember that really crappy ending in book eight? Haha just kidding here's the real-real ending!" Book eight is literally titled Nevermore: The Final Maximum Ride Adventure. I bet this is Patterson's (or, what I suspect, one of Patterson's many ghost writers) attempt at "fixing" the mess of the Maximum Ride storyline that was already so messed up even as far back as book three. So stop, just stop already.

Am I going to buy it? Yes, but my heart won't be in it. It died reading book four, and went through agonal heart rhythm during books five through eight. I'm going to read through book nine and watch as they take a bad taxidermy job and try to make it look better using a baseball bat.

What the series looks like, and also my current expression.

A Trend That Needs to Stop

I like book covers, it's like a little slice of the story made into a good visual. I am particularly in love with the Italian edition of Moira Young's Blood Red Road. If I could have this as a poster hanging in my bedroom, I would.

But there is a trend in book covers, YA books in particular that needs to stop.

I am talking about the Half of a Face cover (which I will now acronym into HOAF, which sounds like a sound effect for being punched in the stomach.)

I'm not talking about a whole face, either. There are lots of whole faces on book covers, and those, with a few exceptions, are rather uninspired, but the Half of a Face is definitely a theme I'm getting pretty sick of. Maybe all of our super-gorgeous models these days are disciples of some secret order of Harvey Dent we don't know about? Don't know what I'm talking about? Let me show you some examples of covers just from going through the books on my shelf. We have...

Uglies, by Scott Westerfield:

This the older (and way less creepy) cover. It technically wraps around the book, where there is a whole face, although if they had made the whole face the cover I think it would have looked much better.

The whole series is at fault for following the HOAF theme, actually.

If there's an odd number of eyeballs on your covers, something is wrong.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan:

I actually like this cover, but it kind of distracts me that the girl would be wearing eyeliner during a zombie apocalypse. Now, it's believable that a girl would wear some during a recent outbreak, but to give you a time frame for how long zombies have been roaming, the quest of the main character is to find the ocean, which no one in her village thinks is real. It would have to be several generations into the zombie apocalypse, eyeliner being the least of people's problems.

Vampire Academy, by Richelle Mead:

Mostly it's the first one, and I definitely prefer these covers over the new ones, which are faded out versions of these with a giant VA slapped over the top of them...except for the 6th, which is further zoomed in to create the HOAF look.

Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce:

Tamora Pierce is a prominent author of my childhood and none of her other books have HOAF as far as I'm aware of.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver:

(Pic refused to work right, so I removed it.)

What is it with girls hiding in the woods? First Uglies, then Forest of Hands and Teeth, now Delirium? I picked this book up about a week ago at a thrift store for a buck, and is the only one listed here I haven't read yet. It sounded dystopian, which drew my interest since the second book has been out, but it also sounds romancey, which made me cringe. It's another of those books that makes me afraid to read it because I've been disappointed so many times since the Twilight craze started.

For comparison, here's the cover's whole face:

I'm not the only person who's noticed this (thank heavens, I'm not crazy) as this gal has pointed out this trend, as well as many more.

Rules of Magic

Magic has rules.

Blessed be the Maiden Goddess on this holy Sabbat of Ostara.

No not that kind of magic. I mean fictional magic.

Some books have very detailed rules of magic, while others are more laid back. One series with the loosest rules of magic I can immediately think of would be Harry Potter. Harry didn't have mana, or even get tired if he cast too many spells (as far as I'm aware of, please correct me if I'm wrong), nor did he have to do any setup or preparation. The only limits were that they had to use words and wands.

Except for this badass reading Stephen Hawking

Kids' books are more likely to have loose rules (or no rules at all), but on the other end there are some books that have such tight, planned-out rules that they rival some hard science fiction books. Both can be frustrating to a reader because magic should be believable, but also fun.

Here's a rundown of magics that I've come across and/or used. They are usually a mixed and matched to fit the story.

Physics

Some people like to anchor magic with physics, and I use a little bit of this myself. To create a fireball, Crystal has to gather heat from her surrounding area. A witch creating a fireball would then see their breath fogging up. The same would be for ice, in order to freeze something, a witch would have to heat up the air around them. Realistically using these two abilities would risk hypo and hyperthermia if used on a grand enough scale. If you are writing using magic of this caliber, consider using it more creatively than just an attack. A good example is in the Dresden Files Series, Harry manages to shoot a fireball up into the sky not to attack something, but so that he could draw heat from a lake and freeze the surface, giving him a chance to run across the surface.

Knowledge

In my personal opinion, this one is pretty weak. You need to read dozens upon dozens of books just to light a candle with your mind. Instead, consider real-life hobbies. You are building a deck.

Fancy.

Do you need to read books and books and books before you can even pick up a hammer? Heck no, but it's probably a good idea. You can build a deck with absolutely no knowledge or experience. The wood will split because you didn't finish it, the posts will rot because you didn't use treated wood, the hot tub will collapse because you built it with shims. It won't be a good deck, but you still had the power to build a deck. The same really should be said for magic.

Mana

Mana is a general term for "magic power" it's pretty common in videogames, that gauge below your health meter that is always blue for some reason. Mana is typically used in some form or another. It's why a character gets tired after casting a bunch of magic. Mana comes from various sources and depends on the book your reading. It can be from within, from the air, from someone's life source, from specific items. It can also be called nearly anything: energy, essence, MP, ether, essence.

Object enchantment

Even if mages require books or have mana-based magic, there are almost always objects imbued with magic. Only in a small handful of books do you read about a mage actually charging the object with said powers, and even then, it's always on purpose. You never hear about mages accidentally creating enchanted items with a spell gone awry or even simply by a mage standing too close (I like to think of ambient magic having the properties of radiation.)

Ritual

Summoning a circle, using specific tools, Latin, rhyming words or songs. Ritual-type magic is seen more for traditional witches and less mages or sorcerers.

Others

Jim Butcher's Codex of Alera uses "furies" or spirits, for magic.

The Mortal Instruments series uses runes.

And stupidity. Runes and stupidity.

And then there's the general "born with a natural affinity" that books seem to love.



There are lots of ways to get magic, but what do you do once you have it?

The most popular is the four elements: earth, fire, air, and water. Fire is always super popular because it doesn't take a lot of brain power to write, so it's always refreshing to see the other elements used as a primary. I don't mean having the power of air and pushing someone over with it, either. If you have the power of air and feel like killing someone, how about sucking it straight out of their lungs? Bet that would work pretty well. Air is always seen as the weakest, daintiest magic, but given some serious consideration, I bet a good author could make an air-based mage pretty formidable.

Sometimes, when a writer is feeling "really creative," they'll throw in other elements. Light and shadow being another two. Occasionally earth will be split in two, creating rock and plant magics. Ice and water are separated quite often, because apparently the temperature can make a difference. Healing, protective, summoning, if you want to get into more obscure concepts. Hey, you know who would be perfect in a medical facility during war time? A fire mage. I'm not kidding. Got a wound? let's cauterize that sucker!

A character of mine used in a collaborative writing forum used completely random spells. The most memorable being a battle golem made of cat litter.

That said, use "magic elements" more creatively than what's been done to death. Better yet, think of a totally different magic system. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson uses ingested metals to create unique powers that totally blew my mind.

Do some research outside of reading this post. Look up "rules of magic" or think back to some books you've read. Magic is such a nebulous concept, so why have we allowed ourselves to assume such cliche rules about it?

Oddly Specific: Technology Girl and Tribal Boy

It wasn't until recently when I reviewed Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi (a fantastic book of which you can get for $2.99 on Kindle this month! Don't say I never do nice things for you.) that I noticed an oddly specific situation that has sprung up in YA books. I have since dubbed it Technological-Dependent Girl Falls in With Tribal Boy.

I'm not saying these books are bad. Far from it, all three books I will be using as examples are in my top favorites. Rather, it is just something that I decided to sit back and really think upon.

"I'd better ready by Thinking Pipe, just in case."

 Let's start with Under the Never Sky (did I mention it's a super awesome story at only $2.99 for Kindle this month?

Cool girls never look back at explosions... or.. whatever that stuff is supposed to be.

Aria has grown up in an environmentally-sheltered dome that has circulated air, computers, and all kinds of advanced technology. She even has a communicator implanted so that she can stay in constant communication with all of her friends and the like. Through certain circumstances she is booted out into the harsh real world, etc etc, disguised as a metaphor for growing up. We all know how it goes.

Perry, meanwhile, is literally tribal. We're talking a character who is considering killing his brother so that he can take over as leader of the tribe. He's surrounded by a world of firestorms, cannibals, wolves, and anything else that might decide to kill him at a moment's notice.

Next is Uglies by Scott Westerfield (as of this writing on January 7th it is $1.99 on Kindle, another one I suggest you grab a copy of!)

I refuse to use the latest cover.

 Tally has technology at her fingertips. She has entire computer screens for room walls, hoverboards, nanomachines, and a lot of other things I've forgotten (it's been something close to 8 years since I've read it.)

David has lived at what is basically a campsite his entire life. He knows hunting, logging, and survival among the ruins of what used to be civilization three hundred years ago.

One of many, many, many covers.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis is a little bit of a mesh between the two.

Amy is cryogenically frozen, so she's behind the times in a lot of ways. Granted, she lived in a world technologically advanced enough to allow cryogenetically freezing people.

Elder, meanwhile, has kind of a combination of technology and tribalism. While he is board a starship, and they have made advancements since Amy was first frozen (approximately 100-ish years ago. I can't remember if the story actually says how long.), but there is also a lot of farmland and cattle and a general alien feeling of each other's worlds.


Heck if I wanted to make a guess and throw a wild card into the mix that I haven't read (yet), it would be Delirium by Lauren Oliver. Correct me if I'm wrong, but my Reader's Sense tingles at the mention of this book following this theme.


Anyway, got a particular picture in your head? Good. We're going to break it down into two reasons as to why the particular theme of Technology-Dependent Girl Falls in With Tribal Boy exists and is popular (note that I don't specify "Falls in Love" because Uglies is the rare exception.)

1. Technology is Feminine

"What?" You're probably thinking to yourself as you spew coffee at your screen. "How can inanimate objects lean towards a certain gender?"

Well, there are a lot of adjectives you hear with computers: sleek, slim, thin, trendy, sexy, etc (I don't keep up on latest...well...anything). Basically you want this:

To be the technology equivalent of this:

And that's fine, we all like things pleasing to the eye.

But rarely do you hear masculine adjectives being used to describe computers: tough, hardy, durable. With maybe the exception of the word "Powerful." Maybe it's just my opinion, but it seems like we want our technology how we want our women-folk.


2. We Miss Masculinity

In a world where meterosexual and manscaping are real things we have gotten tired of the pretty-boy Edward Cullen/Justin Beiber/One Direction image continuously in our faces, and now yearn for something more masculine. Teenage girls, however, still find anything too masculine as threatening, so they're not likely to be making out with Ron Swanson anytime soon. By having a tribal boy as a fantasy they can imagine a youthful type while still maintaining a masculine personality. (Please just trust me on this, I'd back this up with some links, but I'm probably already on several FBI watchlists for even trying.)



So there we have it, an oddly specific YA story genre that comes down to general appearance and attractiveness. Also, for those of you possibly offended that I would pigeonhole the entireity of our species:

I don't claim accuracy in my rantings, just opinion.

My Book List for 2014

I have books piling up past my ears. A couple of months ago I had to sit down and review my bookshelves and really evaluate which books I was going to read. If the book had been sitting on a shelf for a couple of years and I still didn't find myself with the enthusiasm to read it, off to a better home it went. Things have gotten a little less cluttered from there, but I've still got quite a few sitting pretty, so let's see it I can get through 30 of them and look back on this list a year from now.

In all fairness I've intentionally left a few books unread so that I can read the next book in the series right after. I tried picking up Allegiant right away and felt totally lost, even with a scrap of paper I had written during the reading of Insurgent to help get me up to speed, and so ended up having to reshelve it.

Here is my list in no particular order, it doesn't include every unread book, just the ones I really want to get to.

Allegiant by Veronica Roth
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Girl in the Arena by Lise Haines
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Claire
Three to get Deadly by Janet Evanovic
Delirium by Lauren Oliver
Starters by Lissa Price
Cinder by Marissa Meyer
Strange Angels & Betrayals by Lili St. Crow/Lilith Saintcrow (the gothiest name I have ever seen.)
Lure of the Dead by Joseph Delaney
Liberator by Richard Harland
The Eleventh Plague by Jeff Hirsch
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan (I sped through all of these and then ground to a halt before starting the last one. Weird.)
The Royal Ranger by John Flanagan
The Alchemyst by Michael Scott

Here are more, in omnibus form or more than one in a series.

False Covenant by Ari Marmell
Lost Covenant by Ari Marmell
(Although from what I've seen I will probably leave these two alone until book 4 comes out. I loved Thief's Covenant but I heard Lost Covenant (book 3) left off on a cliffhanger.)

Through the Ever Night and Into the Still Blue by Veronica Rossi
(Another example of leaving book 2 alone until book 3 comes out.)


Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
(I read the first one so this is books 2, 3, and 4. Frostbite, Shadow Kiss, and Blood Promise.)

Flora Fyrdraaca SFBC Omnibus by Ysabeau Wilce
(This is two books in one: Flora Segunda and Flora's Dare)

Steel City Magic SFBC Omnubus by Wen Spencer
(Another two books in one: Tinker and Wolf Who Rules)


Witchworld: Swords and Spells by Andre Norton
(Three books in one, the Trey of Swords trilogy, Sword of Ice, Sword of Lost Battles, and Sword of Shadows)

Do Something!

I've read a couple of teen books that have a similar theme going, one that really hits a nerve for me and is becoming more and more common in YA girl's books.

Let's see if you can spot it:



She's mostly made of angst and tears.

Mila 2.0 by Debra Driza had the potential for a lot of cool. I've been interested in it since before it even came out, but I've been disappointed so many times that I now physically recoil from books of authors I am unfamiliar with. However, the siren song of the Kindle Daily Deal and its low price of $2 was too much to pass up.

Mila 2.0 started out good. Mila gets in an accident and realizes she's an android, from there it's a whirlwind of cool as she's on the run with her adopted mother as they try to escape the group that created her. They capture her, of course, and then Mila spends the rest of the book emo-ing and freaking out that something is going to happen to her. She's pretty much paralyzed with fear until the last couple of chapters when she escapes and then the book suddenly runs out of pages just when it starts to promise that it will get better.





 A book about waiting.

Wither by Lauren Destefano was one I was even more nervous about. It looked angsty, it sounded angsty, but it also sounded pretty different from most YA books out there, and I once again was tempted by the Kindle version for $2.

This book, simply put, is about waiting. Rhine, the protagonist, bides her time the entirety of the story, of which spans ten months as she struggles with both a mix of fear and Stockholm Syndrome. She sits and waits for the perfect opportunity to escape her situation until, finally, the time presents itself and she promptly walks out.



Now, neither of these are, by any means, bad books. I didn't constantly roll my eyes and feel the need to throw them across the room (which, considering they're on a Kindle device, would be costly), but I didn't love them to bits either. I would consider reading the sequels of both, but only if they were less than five dollarydoos each.


An actual currency.

Both books have a large theme going: Both protagonists spent the majority of their time waiting for a specific opportunity, and in the meantime they wait. I'm actually specifically avoiding using the term "heroine" for the main characters because heroine is defined as "a woman admired or idealized for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities." whereas protagonist is "the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text."

Now, I'm not a feminist by any means, but if the main character is a docile bunny waiting for something to happen, then your readers are waiting for something to happen, too. You don't read books because you want to read about waiting, you read books sometimes because you are waiting.



Wait-ception.



You want vicarious action while you stand in line at the post office/bank/DMV.

This is all based on a writing article I read a long time ago that I wish I could find again. It was so inspiring to me that it has been probably the single piece of writing advice that I have taken to heart. I recall the (I'll word it more cleanly here) "Go out and do stuff" versus "Have stuff done to you" where the article-writer did a comparison of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz.



The fact that I can find a picture of  Dorothy kicking the crap out
of Alice just means you can find anything on the Internet.

In Alice in Wonderland, Alice falls down the rabbit hole and is promptly subjected to all manner of things. Everyone around her pushes, pulls, and directs her movements. Dorothy, meanwhile, has an objective at all times, she makes her own way through the world.

Ever since then I have read books (YA books in particular) keeping this concept in mind, because I find that when the protagonist is always being lead around, or is waiting for something to happen, I find myself getting more entertainment from counting the ceiling tiles.

I try to keep this concept in mind for my own writing as well. In Dusted it's somewhat of a mix, while Crystal and company do find themselves being led around sometimes, they do often set out on their own without someone pulling them along the entire way.

Of course, that's not to say everything should always go the protagonist's way. That creates a Mary Sue problem (of which I already discussed Here). Instead, sometimes you need the situation to spiral out of control of the main character, that creates conflict, but if the character is nothing but a rug to be walked all over, what's the point?

Cynthia Hand Book Giveaway!

Cynthia Hand is giving away multiple copies of her Unearthly Trilogy, you can read about the details on her blog.

(Note, although she mentions I am going to give away 5 paperbacks of Hallowed and 5 ARCs/hardcovers of Boundless to anybody who can show me that they tweeted / blogged / posted / pinned about this giveaway somewhere. I'm not going to show that I mentioned it. I already have my copies so I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart/for the lulz.)

Twilight: The Blank Pages

I've actually managed to get some editing done. Nothing motivates like a looming deadline when you realize you really ought to be publishing a book at least once a year. Perhaps my largest procrastinating tool is this blog, I'll write posts rather than edit or write a manuscript (or struggle with the awkward settings for pictures...as evidenced by the strange white squares at the start of this one. Trust me, the more I fiddle with it, the worse it gets, so let's just use this as a reminder of how I have no idea what I'm doing.)

The weather has been pretty dreary here in Idaho. When it's not just looking cloudy, it's so windy that I swear it's trying to tear the roof off various structures on our property (succeeded in one case, too) So everything is becoming green and alive as Spring arrives.

Naturally, I figured I would dedicate this month to Twilight.

Love it or hate it, you have to admit that it's changed the world of writing forever.

Now, you've likely noticed the occasional jab I've made at Twilight's expense, but over this next month you'll get to truly see my relationship with the series and how it's evolved over the years and come to settle down into how I will always probably think of it.
It started with my absolute hatred of it. At the time of the series' popularity, I was a minority. These days it's actually more popular to hate it than love it, and it appears that Team Sweden can't stand the anti-fans as much as the fans. Perhaps even more. So, because of this, I had to come up with a more in-depth reason. It's easy to love something, and it's even easier to hate something, but it's hard to really break down some of the details of why and, to be honest, there are reasons that I both love and hate it these days.

For today, we get to have some fun at Twilight's expense, with math!

This was originally written by me in 2009, so of course the numbers have changed, but it's still interesting to see.

In the second Twilight book, New Moon, there is a point where Edward leaves Bella. Bella becomes so devastated that she literally becomes a brain-dead zombie ("There's a change?" you ask yourself), this is represented by four blank pages.

I admit, it did manage to make me go "Whoa" at the time, though nothing else managed to give me that feeling in the series, but the effect was quickly lost and it wasn't long before I realized how stupit it was. It was a waste of good paper.

So I decided to figure out how much of a waste it really is.

There are 4 blank pages in New Moon. I did some research and figured out that over 24 million copies of New Moon were sold as of the end of 2009 (This doesn't include the gobs of them that haven't sold). Take the 4 blank pages and multiply them by the number of copies of New Moon.

4 x 25,000,000 = 100,000,000

We now have 100 million blank pages.

But I'm not finished yet. Let's put those pages to good use.

The US standard edition versions of the Harry Potter series (Books 1-7) equal a total of 4,165 pages. Let's find out how many copies of the entire Harry Potter series we can make using the blank pages of New Moon alone. Take 100 million and divide by 4,175. If it comes up as a fraction, round down to the whole number because we don't want a partial set of the Harry Potter series.

100,000,000 / 4,175 = 23,952

We now have 23,952 copies of the entire Harry Potter series, the adventures of Harry, Ron, Hermione, and many others, made from all the blank pages of New Moon alone.

Happy reading everyone!

SYAWAN: The Cover

"Don't judge a book by its cover."

You've probably heard that your entire life but honestly, when you walk into a bookstore, what's the first thing you notice?

The cover.

Yes, it's really an example meant for people, so let's use a person as an example, shall we?

GAH!

Sight is the primary sense you use and, whether you want to admit it or not, you do judge a book by its cover. You've already formed an opinion of the person in the above picture (for me it's late at night and I can't help but get the feeling this is the last image people see before their soul is sucked out through their eyes).

The cover, I think, can sometimes make or break the sale of a novel. If you have a homely cover people aren't even going to bother reading the title. Really, in order of attention, it goes like this:

Cover > Title > Blurb > First Sentence > Book

(Quick side note: Somewhere in there is Name Dropping. Name Dropping is something like an Oprah Book Club sticker or someone like Stephanie Meyer or Suzanne Collins saying "Couldn't put it down!" and they quoted it on the cover. Name Dropping can vary from person to person, it can be something a person pays a lot of attention to (I've heard of a reader picking up a book just because it was read by her favorite author) to absolutely insignificant. Name Dropping falls into the second category for me because I usually don't even notice it, or read it only after I've read the entire book. There have been a few handful of times where certain names praising the book have actually repelled me from purchasing it.)

I've actually been lured entirely by the visual siren song of novel covers. Some turned out to be amazing stories, others terrible ones that I wish I could just keep the cover, frame it, and use the pages of the book to insulate the place where my cats sleep.

Some examples of covers that have greatly influenced by purchases are: Anna Dressed in Blood, Airman, Worldshaker, Maximum Ride, Ranger's Apprentice, Eyes like Stars, The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch, and Across the Universe.

 Those are just examples of books that I really enjoyed (Whereas Hush Hush is an example of a pretty book that made me vomit rage once I actually read it, and Girl of Nightmares, though even prettier, wasn't nearly as good as the first book.)

Some examples of books that actually repelled me upon first sight were Uglies (original cover), Mistborn (original hardback cover), the Sookie Stackhouse series, Peeps, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Wereworld (US version) and, yes, even the Dresden Files series (with the exception of the Science Fiction Book Club editions, which I love. The rest are incredibly generic and you can't tell them apart.)

I'm rather biased, of course. If you're familiar with them you'll notice half the covers I dislike (Uglies, Peeps, and Forest of Hands and Teeth) are super closeups of people's faces. For some reason I'm always incredibly distracted with the fact that I've got my fingers all over someone's face when I'm trying to read (this is only true in paperbacks, with hardbacks I just take the dust jacket off). I also get distracted when I'm reading a book with an ugly cover. When I'm reading a book all of the super interesting stuff is pointed toward me, anyone else who happens to look at me is just going to see an ugly book and wonder what in the heck kind of drivel I'm reading. All of this over-thinking starts wedging into the story I'm trying to enjoy reading
.


My head does this at least once a day.

"Okay," you promise, "I won't make an ugly cover with a really closely-zoomed in picture of some person's face. So then what kind of cover do I use?"

There are two answers: A cover that is pretty, or a cover that is relevant to the story (or both). The cover is probably the second-most popular part of a book an author fantasizes about (the first being who will play the main character in the inevitable movie based on your soon-to-be bestselling novel) I'll admit I gave the cover a bit of thought, but it wasn't until crunch time that I suddenly found myself going "Uhhh." It was the cover that slowed down the publishing of Dusted more than anything else once I got going.

Here are some things I learned in the process.

Stock Images and Public Domain

Unless you specifically commission (pay) someone to create an image for your book, chances are you will be using a stock image. A stock image is a photograph that is meant to actually be used in some form instead of just looking pretty. Some stock images you still have to pay to use. If you're on a tight budget, consider looking for free-to-use or public domain ones.

If I had all the money in the world Dusted would probably feature Crystal and company. I don't, so I had to come up with a cover that would be visually appealing and still sort of link to the story. Dusted starts in a forest, escalates in a forest, and finally they have to go through the forests of Faerieland, so naturally a forest scene for a cover would be rather fitting without breaking by puny, non-visually-artistic brain.

I browsed the Stock Photos of DeviantArt with the search word "Forest", found a picture I liked, and asked for permission. I told her exactly what I was going to do, and she allowed it, but only if I edited the picture. I'm not the best at photomanipulation, I don't own anything like Photoshop, and wouldn't even know how to use it, so I used PaintNet (it was that or MSPaint), tweaked the appearance until I got something that looked interesting, and left it at that.

Don't want to bother with stock images, too shy to ask people for one, or can't find anything in the public domain that fits just right? Another choice is to...

Use your own Artwork or photos

The great thing about your own work is that you own the rights to it.

If you can't draw, don't try. I've seen several self-published ebook novels with covers that look like a 14 year old anime fan churned it out during English class. The same holds true for your BFF "Artist" that says she wants to draw the cover for you.

Photographs are harder to screw up. It's impossible for something to look unnatural because, well, it physically exists (bad angles and lighting and the like not withstanding.) Owning the rights to a photo is a bit of a grey area. Please be aware of the laws behind photography, especially since you will be using it as the cover to a product you intend to sell to the public (you want to take into consideration photos of people, licence places, company logos, things like that.)

So now you have the perfect cover for your book, but you've forgotten one last thing...

Font

"But Jen, you oh-so-brilliant and totally under-appreciated author of written prose," you say, "Why can't I just use Comic Sans and call it good?"

First, because Comic Sans causes people to punch other people in the face for a reason I can't seem to understand.

Second, when was the last time you saw Arial or Times as fonts in your everyday book cover? Yes, the font inside the book should be as standard and easy to read as possible, but the title on the cover is another part of the cover art: It's meant to be visually appealing.

I went through various websites looking for a good font, but you just can't beat the good, hardworking artists at DeviantArt. I did see one I really liked, but it was labeled "For personal use only," meaning I couldn't use it to sell something. Instead I found a lovely one called Northwood High and found the font rather interesting. Better yet, it was free to use.

Have Fun

This is the most important. This is your book and you have finally gotten far enough that you can consider making a cover. Best of all, as a self-publisher you can choose whatever you want for the cover. Have fun looking for pictures, choosing a great font, and putting it all together.

Books I read in 2012 (Spoiler Free!)

It's March but, since I'm scheduling these ahead of time it could be December 2012 for all you guys know (okay January 12th)

January 12th 2078 that is!

I decided to take a cue from the lovely and talented Cynthia Hand's blog (found here no seriously why are you still reading this you should totally be reading her blog instead ) and make a list of books I read from the year 2012. This is, by no means, an exhaustive list. I read quite a few older books (like Mistborn not too long ago) but this will be just books published in 2012.



She hardly looks 17, amirite?

The Calling, by Kelly Armstrong.

It's a sequel to The Gathering, and is meant to be a trilogy (Darkness Rising). It, in turn, was a sequel trilogy to the Darkest Powers trilogy (The Summoning, The Awakening, The Reckoning) Both read pretty much the same, but the trilogy that includes The Calling is a little bit better, the main character actually going out and getting things done rather than pacing a proverbial room wringing her hands until bad things come to her to cause trouble. It's slow and, like all middle books in a trilogy, mainly a filler book. The characters are hard to remember. I found myself totally lost between reading The Gathering and The Calling a year later. I decided to prepare ahead of time for The Rising and made a list of cast with little descriptions for them as I read the second book.

Prettiest covers of 2012, that's for sure!

Anna Dressed in Blood and Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake

I'm going to cheat a bit here. Technically Anna Dressed in Blood was published late 2011, but I picked up my copy used only a few months ago, and it's only a duet. I totally devoured Anna Dressed in Blood, it's a fantastic YA story that casts a boy as the protagonist (which, to me, seems to be rather rare). It's all about ghost hunting and action. There's barely any lovey dovey in the story and, what little there is, is so sleight that I didn't even notice it. Anna Dressed in blood takes you on a roller coaster ride of awesome, then parks you right where you wanted to be. It tells a story, gets the job done, then has a satisfying ending.

Oh...Girl of Nightmares, you're still here, aren't you?

When I finished Anna Dressed in Blood I was a little hesitant to pick up the sequel. Anna ended that well. It didn't need a sequel, so I was worried it would be forced. Unfortunately, it was. The characters plod around for a boring 300-something pages and, in the last 30, it gets really interesting and then ends. If anything, Girl of Nightmares causes bumps and biffs in the story's ending that Anna Dressed in Blood had smoothed out so well. So, in a nutshell, I suggest Anna Dressed in Blood, but I'd avoid Girl of Nightmares if you want a good, standalone story with a fulfilling conclusion.


This cover is symbolic of my hopeless frustration now.

Cold Days by Jim Butcher

You didn't think we would get through without Cold Days, did you? Not after all that trouble! Hahahahaha! If you've read about my previous Hulk-like, tear-stained, multi-book escapades involving being able to read Cold Days, then you should know the weight of what I say right here: It was worth it. I was a little disappointed in Ghost Story, and worried that the series was starting to jump the shark but Cold Days renewed my faith in the Dresden Files. Better yet, despite the amazing twists and turns and reveals, the ending left me sitting happier than Ghost Story and Changes did when it comes to waiting for the next book. Which is a really good thing because I've been hearing rumors of Jim setting aside Dresden for now in favor of whipping up a Steampunk novel. Of which I will then immediately snatch up...


...caressing it sweetly in a manner that can only be
described by Luis Royo.

Sorry, no "dead" puns here.

Undead and Undermined, by MaryJanice Davidson

 This book is what jumping the shark in a series is all about. Actually Undead and Unfinished, the previous book, was where it started. You know it's pretty bad when even the author admits it in a foreword but with a little "hang in there!" No, Ms. Davidson, you don't do that to your readers. If you're apologizing and telling readers to wait something out, then you're doing something wrong. The hilarity that sucked me into the series in the first place is dead and these last two books have been the smell of the decaying corpse. Maybe I'll take it back if Undead and Unstable manages to wow me, but I collect these in mass market paperbacks, rather than hardbacks, so it's going to be a little while before I have news.


The shiny is lacking in this pic

 

Hallowed, by Cynthia Hand

 

I already mentioned here how amazing the Unearthly series is. Hallowed is the second book in the series and I'm waiting eagerly for the final book. It's got heart but isn't gag-inducing like most young adult romance books (especially in the paranormal genre). Of course, for many of the same reasons, I cannot recommend this book to guys.



Rawr, and stuff.



Wereworld: Rise of the Wolf by Curtis Jobling

"Never judge a book by its cover" is pretty appropriate in this circumstance. I actually held back on getting this book because of the pure cheese pouring forth from the cover and waited until paperback in the hopes that maybe they'd change it. They didn't, so I shrugged and decided to give it a try.

I'm glad I did. There's been something missing in my literary life since the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan wrapped up, and Jobling managed to fill that hole pretty well. It's another good book for boys (and girls sick of the kissy romance stuff) that has plenty of action. The only thing that bugs me is that the image below is the cover they scrapped in favor for the one above when they started selling it in the United States.


Reading upside down? No problem!



I not only would have bought it right away, I'd have been salivating the entire time.

 

 

 

Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan

 

I'd been looking forward to this one for a while, based on the title alone. It turned out good, not absolutely amazing, but good. If you hate the whole vampsplosion in books thanks to Twilight, then I'll admit you won't find any solace in reading Team Human. Instead, it is its own unique spin on a vampire story. Vampires are known to the world at large, and wear something like space suits when they go out during the day time, and one of the vampires has an adopted human brother named Kitten. Named so because of how the vampire feel he's more of a pet than anything else. There's no love triangle and the book makes you laugh a bit. If you like vampire stories and want something new and refreshing, give this one a try.

 

 

So Silver Bright by Lisa Mantchev

 

The Theature Illuminata trilogy came to a close with So Silver Bright. I'd gone back and forth with Eyes Like Stars (the first book) for a couple of years before deciding to give it a try. I had absolutely no idea what was going on, though I kind of liked it. The second book promised the same, and the third?...more of the same. I'd hoped that So Silver Bright would clear up a lot in the strange story, but from beginning to end I'd just gone "I have no idea what is going on" the entire time. It's possible that I would have to know Shakespere to really get an appreciation for a lot of it, but otherwise it felt incredibly confusing in some places, downright irritating in others. While there was a love triangle, it's a terrible example, because I knew wholeheartedly who she would end up with. Love triangles shouldn't be like that.

 

 

 

Nevermore by James Patterson

 

I already made my opinion very clear.

 

 

Across the Universe and A Million Suns by Beth Revis

 

Holy cow.

 

Across the Universe is a book that attracted me by the cover. I've seen alternate covers and, not only would I have not paid attention, I would have outright avoided the book. Because it was science fiction-y looking in its cover, it attracted my hamster-span attention long enough to read the description, of which gained my interest even further. I only got a few chapters in before my dad got hold of it and devoured the thing. I'd been hoping to wait a month or two for A Million Suns to come out in paperback before buying it, but it apparently was too long for my dad, so now I have non-matching formats of a series (gah!) though, admittedly, I'm glad that I'll get to read Shades of Earth (the final book of the trilogy) soon. This series really wowed me, start to finish. I can honestly say that because it actually wraps up pretty well as just a duet, but it still really leaves you wanting more. Science fiction, especially in the YA/teen section, is really hard to find. Good YA/teen science fiction is nearly impossible. This is one of those few books that makes me freak out a little at the thought that I had nearly missed out on it. It's that good.

 

 

Divergent and Insurgent, by Veronica Roth

 

As I'm going through my list I'm having a hard time, because one book keeps trumping the other. I was loaned a copy of Divergent and didn't even manage to finish it before I had decided I needed a copy of my own. Afterwards I only had to wait a month for the sequel, Insurgent, to come out. This series has everything you'd ever want: train-jumping, dystopia, mind control, action, adventure, awesome, depth, and, best of all, the lack of a love triangle. Since then I've been tearing my hair out waiting for the third book. This is the beautiful sister of Hunger Games and Uglies both. If there's any book in this list that I could recommend to everyone I know, it'd have to be this one.

 

And so, if I had to rate all 11 of these books for 2012 I'd make it as this:

 

1. Divergent

2. Cold Days

3. Across the Universe

4. Hallowed

5. Wereworld

6. Anna Dressed in Blood

7. Team Human

8. The Calling

9. So Silver Bright

10. (several blank spaces)

11. Watching paint dry

12. Watching a dog chase his tail

13. Watching a dog watch paint dry.

14. Undead and Undermined

15. Nevermore