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!

No More Posts Until 2015!

Hey everyone! (meaning the three people who read this blog) No post today or December 30th, but expect plenty next year.

Of course, you can always check out my Twitter in the meantime!

Bring on NaNoEdMo!

Most writers are familiar with National Novel Writing Month. I say "most" because a writing friend of mine hadn't, but he's Canadian and I'm pretty sure I've worked around a Canadian long enough to get away with the phrase "Those wacky Canadians!" In a nutshell the rules are that you write a novel in the span of a month. Depending on the total word count you want to achieve depends on the number of words you have to type each day. Frankly I think Novella Month would be more achievable, but people have made some pretty good books under such time constraints.

I don't need that though, you know what I need? National Novel Editing Month.

Yes, I manage to procrastinate editing by more writing. I've written an entire manuscript to procrastinate editing the previous one, and you know what happened? I finished it. Now I have two written manuscripts in which neither have been edited.

Editing goes faster though, since the words are already down. You make a few tweaks here and there, maybe add a whole new scene, but it flies right by compared to writing from scratch. Right now The Crystal Witch clocks in at just over 38,000 words, a novella. Luckily the ebook market is more flexible about shorter stories. So, even if I edited a dismal 1,000 words a night (which is the goal I have each night when writing) I would still have it finished in a little more than a month.

More importantly though, Dusted came out all the way back in June 2012, and I don't want to pass the three year mark without publishing something else. What motivated me the most were two things, two authors really.

The first was Kristen Britain, she wrote a book called Green Rider, I already talked about it here, but the focus is how long it took her to write more books in the series. It wasn't that she was busy with other books like some authors, but it must have been some combination of a busy schedule and wanting to perfect it before release. Still, I dutifully read books 1-3, bought book 4 and have never read it (nor, do I think, I will), and now book 5 is out and I'm not even bothering. It took too long for the author between books, and it has taken her literally decades to get to things that were being foreshadowed in the first few books. Yes, you can always go back and reread books, but there are always new authors and stories coming along with promises delivered faster.

Second, and more relevant, is S.D. Tower. Who in the heck is S.D. Tower? This is an author who wrote a halfway decent book ("halfway decent" meaning I read it back in 2003) called The Assassins of Tamurin and then never wrote anything again. A "one hit wonder" except remove "hit"....and "wonder" too I guess.

Point is, I don't want to be like the first author, but I really don't want to be like the second.

So those are my motivations to edit. It won't be pretty and it won't be perfect, and I can't make any promises that I'll have something before the end of 2014, but I'll be working on it.

Let Me Get Sappy For a Moment

For me the holidays have never really meant a lot. Yeah, as a kid it's all the same "OMG stuff!" reaction but, as people get older, they tend to be a bit more family-oriented toward this time of year.


This makes my second winter since moving out of my parents place and, as of September, a full year of living on my own ("On my own" includes parents paying for bills, folding my laundry, washing my dishes, changing a flat tire, and cooking my dinner. Yep, good to be on my own...)

For me "family" doesn't really mean a lot. Whenever extended family visited (or we visited them) I'd be tortured by cousins as they broke my toys (I has toys that lasted 5+ years that only took 30 minutes to break in the hands of a cousin). I have always managed to interact better with adults than kids my own age and I'm glad I finally am one. Heck, I can't wait until I'm 30 so adults won't lump me into the "Stupid Young Adults" category.

You kids wif yer got dern laptops and infinity scarves!

Throw in the usual family drama llama sessions and figure the point I'm trying to make is that Thanksgiving and Christmas have always been a "Why?" thing for me. Had I known it was even a thing, I would have sequestered myself in my bedroom and listened to music with headphones on whenever the family thing happened.

When I got older my family stopped celebrating Christmas. It wasn't that we hated it, or were all bah hum buggery about it. We simply didn't bother. A tree was a pain in the butt to set up and maintain, wrapping paper is annoying, and we already get what we want the other 364 days of the year. Christmas is to me as what Labor Day is to you (except you don't have to hide for 2 months leading up to Labor Day.)

Except this year, it's like my heart melted. Suddenly I want a Christmas tree, something I haven't had in nearly ten years, and I want to put presents under it, and I want to get something special for my parents that says "I know you" and "I love you", and I want to go to their house and spend all day with them and have a huge dinner. We would load the wheelbarrow (or sled, depending on the snow level) full of wood, and I would pet all the cats who miss me (meaning everyone except Sandy), and we would do chores, and it would be lots of fun and as I go to sleep I have the warm fuzzies that only comes from being super duper happy.

Even if I don't accomplish all of that, it does give me an understanding of what real Christmas is.


...But no matter what happens, I will never tolerate Christmas music.

Classes That Should Be Taught at BYU-I

DRV101 - Driving on Icy Roads

DRV 110 - U-Turns are Illegal

DRV 120 - Your Brights Blind Other Drivers, Turn Them Off


EMO101 You're a Grown Up Now

EMO102 Seriously You're A Legal Adult

EMO103 Stop Acting Like a Child

EMO105-A Coping with Anxiety

EMO105-B Coping with Depression

EMO110 Moving Here Won't Solve Your Emotional Problems

EMO120 Helicopter Parents

EMO125 Being an Old Maid at Twenty Years Old


HLTH101 Nobody Cares That Your Mom/Aunt/Roomate is a Nurse

HLTH02 It's Just a Cold

HLTH105 If You're Vomiting It's Not the Flu

HLTH110-A Constipation - Help I Can't Poop

HLTH110-B Diarrhea - Help I Can't Stop Pooping