Google Reader

I don't know who uses the google reader that reads this blog, but it is the most wonderous fabulous thing ever. ALSO – weird thing about it – if you subscribe to janicu.vox.com it truncates the feed, while if you subscribe to janicu.livejournal.com, it does not. Just a tip.

I have about 50 or so subscriptions, (mostly book blogs) over there, and I figured out that you can share the interesting things you see in whatever blogs you are reading – so I did that. They also have a widget thingy which you can add to your blog, so I'm putting it up on the sidebar – will have things I think are interesting plus contests and giveaways that people are hosting in the blogosphere. No one can resist winning something 🙂 Now let's see if posting the widget here will do ANYTHING, otherwise look at the sidebar to the left at my vox screen. LJ won't let me put any javascript up for security reasons so I just have a link to my shared items instead.  If you see a big grey thing below, it didn't work.

 

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The Amazing Staircase

Via Apartment Therapy - I saw this staircase the other day and was left in utter awe. The only problem is that I might trip from distraction going up and down these stairs and break my neck. The post about this and more about what the architects said about this project is here. Another staircase bookshelf is here, and combining a staircase with drawers is here.

 

 

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Keeping It Real by Justina Robson

First of all – this book is a trade paperback and… I HAVE to say this – it smells good! The paper is a nice quality, it does not have that newspaper smell of mass market paperbacks, instead it brings to my mind the smell of a nice new textbook (in a good way). I could get high on the smell. And the book feels heavy, meaning the paper is dense. I was quite pleased with the experience of reading because of this. I would not mind it at all if more publishers paid attention to things like paper if they are going to charge $15+ for a trade paperback.

Anyway, moving on to the actual words on the pages. The book begins with a short summary under the heading of "Common Knowledge" that describes what has been going on in the world. A quantum bomb that exploded in 2015 has changed the world as we know it, opening up five other parallel realities to ours. When I read the first page which described the bomb and altering matter, I was a bit bored. It was pretty late at night and I was sleepy, and I was suspicious that this was a prologue in disguise. Many people skip those things. I never do, but I did put the book down. A while later I read past page 1, and things got interesting.  I recommend that you DO NOT skip the Common Knowledge section, it explains much about the parallel worlds (Alfheim - populated by elves, Zoomenon – world of the Elements, Demonia – filled with demons, Thanatopia – realm of Death, and Otopia – world of Faerie). By the time the story starts the information there will be useful.

The basic premise is that Lila Black, a special agent with a body that is mostly machine, has been tasked to protect the lead singer of The No Shows – an elf named Zal. Zal is unusual amongst his kind and has made a strange choice to be "slumming" down on Earth. Someone from Alfheim, who disapproves of Zal's lifestyle is sending him death threats. Half of the book takes place on Earth and the other on Alfheim, but I don't think I can even begin to start describing it. It was so much fun to read! How do I explain why!? First of all – this was not done in a fluffy silly way – when I tried to explain it to someone: "There were elves, and one of them is a rock star-",  I got a face. It's not like that at all. The characters are compelling. Lila is a woman who has guns popping out of her body and rides a black motorbike, but she's very confused about how she feels about elves – they almost killed her and that's what made her this way. She has difficulties with accepting what she looks like now. And Zal is a bit of a mystery at first, an elf who has chosen to defy his people and "go native" in another world, exiled because of his choices. His character is rather complex and undefinable. There were a couple of other very interesting characters I wish I could get into but I can't without giving away big chunks of plot. Speaking of the the plot, it unlike anything else I've read, unpredicable, full of action and thrills. There are a lot of pop culture references and jokes (other reviews say many funny LoTR references, which totally went past me, I haven't read those books since I was 14), but you don't need to get them to enjoy the story. The only thing I'd complain about is that there were times in the story where, especially dealing with elves, I felt like they understood something about what was going on that I did not (why did they do that now?). Maybe this lends itself to the whole clash of cultures between human and elf, or maybe I just need to reread those parts. I felt like Robson was an intellectual writing something fun instead of something with a serious agenda. And I'm glad, because I loved it.

Keeper!

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Behind on posting …

I'm going to review Justina Robson's Keeping It Real and Mark Del Franco's Unshapely Things soon. I was going to post about them last last week, but something else came up (I got engaged), and then it felt weird writing about anything else. Problem was, I couldn't just post about the engagement online until I'd told people I know. Makes sense in my mind..

Anyway, back to the usual.

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Hmmm

What Be Your Nerd Type?

Your Result: Literature Nerd
 

Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works.

It's okay. I understand.

Science/Math Nerd
 
Artistic Nerd
 
Gamer/Computer Nerd
 
Anime Nerd
 
Social Nerd
 
Musician
 
Drama Nerd
 
What'>http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_be_your_nerd_type">What Be Your Nerd Type?
Quizzes'>http://www.gotoquiz.com/">Quizzes for MySpace

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Staying Dead by Laura Anne Gilman

My dad saw me buy this book and said something like "Staying Dead? I thought the problem is staying alive?". And laughed to himself. Anyway.. Imagine me rolling my eyes.

Here's another new to me author, though I think I've read books that Laura Anne Gilman edited. It's an urban fantasy set in New York City, and I believe its the first in a series, but there is actually a short story that comes before this one. I think the sequence is:

1) Staying Dead

2) Curse the Dark

3) Bring it On

4) Burning Bridges

5) Free Fall (2008)

This is a series of adventures about Wren and her partner Sergei. Wren is a Talent (aka someone who can manipulate energy) and a thief who does jobs retrieving objects for people. Sergei is an art-dealer who takes care of the business side of Wren's job. The clients contact Sergei, Wren uses her Talent and they both work together to track down the object. I believe that there is some background missing from this book but enough hints about it throughout for you to pick up that Sergei and Wren met 10 years ago when Sergei was fleeing from a mage, got into a car accident, and Wren saved him. After that adventure they decided to go into business together, and Sergei feels like part of his job is to protect Wren although she's the one with the special powers. There is also some backstory on Sergei's past (like why he was being hunted by a mage) that isn't revealed until midbook as well.

The book starts with Wren beginning a job. The client is missing the cornerstone of their building and Wren has been tasked to find it. The book goes straight into the story as if the reader has had some background from some prequel story. While I liked being considered smart enough to figure it out, and I did figure it out, I still wish that I knew their backstory earlier on in the book. I'm afraid that not knowing for as long as I was made the book boring at first. I thought the first couple of pages started off promising but then not really being filled in after that started to grate on me.  It was after I picked the book up again and kept reading and got about 150 pages in that the book finally picked up. By then I understood who I was reading about.

The world was interesting – we have people of Talent like Wren, the Nulls who have none, and the fatae (sort of fae people, like men with stag horns, angels, and demons that look like the Yeti). There is also different groups – the Council which governs most magic users, lonejacks (those that have left the Council's rule), hategroups that target the fatae and Talent, and a secret society called the Silence. On top of that there is this job that Wren has – more difficult than she originally expected, with more people involved than she originally realized. But to me the most interesting part of the book was Wren and Sergei. It reminds me of Moonlighting, Remington Steele and The X-Files. Two people partnered together who you know are both secretly in love with the other but who deny it to themselves the whole time. Sergei and Wren are so comfortable together. They can sleep in the same bed or undress in front of the other. And they are so used to their routines – they eat the same meals at the same restaurant at the same table, and they both know to brew tea for each other before the other asks. Yet Wren hides her crush and Sergei is overprotective. I don't think I've read a book with a partnership so in tune and comfortable with each other (yet blind) in a really long time. In the end that was probably the best part of the book. Overall it ended up feeling OK – I wasn't on my seat, but I liked the characters and I'm still interested to see where it goes.

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Games of Command by Linnea Sinclair

Have I mentioned I think these books are addictive? Yes? I read one and 2 weeks later you get three reviews about books by this author. I think I'm going to go through her whole backlist soon, but I'm actually holding myself back at the moment. I'm trying to make the TBR go down first (131).

Side note – amazon is only showing the newer covers, at least to upload to vox. I think the line probably looks more cohesive with the new covers – an amorous couple plus spaceship. It also looks like its romance and science fiction now. I have the older cover though.  I think they both have pros and cons but I think they're both equally nice looking.

This book is about Captain Tasha Sebastian (Sass), a member of the United Coalition forces and Admiral Branden Kel-Paten of the Triad. Sass has just been assigned to Kel-Paten's ship as part of the new Alliance between their governments, but she has a hidden past she doesn't want him to know about. Meanwhile he has something he doesn't want her to know about. He's a biocybe – half man, half machine, supposedly unable to feel emotion, but he's been secretly pining for her for years. Enter mercenary Jace Serafino. He's just been rescued by the Alliance and he has some major secrets of his own that could bring down parts of the Alliance. Sass and Dr. Eden Fynn (Sass's best friend)  get suspicious when Jace reveals some of what he knows. They don't know who to trust.

As with the rest of the books, there's a lot of action, space fights, and cool technology bandied about. I always enjoy the world building. I also have noted that each of the books so far seem to be in their own universe (or part of the universe) - I haven't seen overlapping names of governments, religions, or races yet. Unless I missed one. There are common things in terms of characters using coding skill to hack into computers or ship mainframes, or being brilliant at fixing a dying spaceship on the fly. I love reading those bits.

In this book we also see more than one romance – it's two parallel romances. The center one was Sass and Kel-paten's, and I prefered that one out of the two. Probably because of the comparison of Kel-paten's experience in his worklife compared to the utter lack of experience he has with personal matters. It made his personality strangely vunerable and endeering to read. At times I felt like *wincing* because he was so out of his element trying to deal with Sass and his feelings.

Another interesting element was that there were pets in this – the furzels, which I imagined to look exactly like cats, except these were psychic, translocating, fighter cats. They talked to each other in a childlike way that provided comic/cuteness relief (once or twice it was a little too much for me but overall, they were amusing). I could imagine my cat talking this way sometimes.

This book is the most recent book published of the ones I've read so far. The author's website says Games of Command starts of in a similar way to her book Command Performance (part one of a series, but the rest was never published), but most of it is new. And out of all the three books read so far (this, Gabriel's Ghost and Finder's Keepers), this is my favorite. It's a keeper, and Linnea Sinclair is on my autobuy list. I'm having a lot of fun reading these. Crack I tell you.

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Heart of Stone by C. E. Murphy

I started reading this book because it was the book of the month at the League of Reluctant Adults' blog. On top of that, C. E. Murphy has been on my list of authors I wanted to read because I read a short story by her in Winter Moon and really liked the writing.

This is book 1 in a trilogy that centers around Margrit Knight, a hardworking lawyer working for LegalAid, and a gargoyle named Alban. At first Margrit lives in the "normal" world, unaware of any kind of paranormal happenings in New York City, but after Alban speaks to her, she suddenly becomes involved in not just Alban's situation (believed to be a murderer) but in others as well. I found Margrit's character believable as someone I'd meet in this world, and someone admirable as well. Margrit is just that type of person that's has strong convictions about helping others, and she is very good at that. There were several places in the book where despite the fact that she's in a position of weakness, she never allows that to be an issue when she speaks. She always manages to convey strength with whom ever she is dealing with, and I really liked that! At the league blog when we were discussing themes, I suggested that one of those was feminism, and tmthomas posted a really interesting comment about formal vs informal power. In either case, it was something refreshing to see. I felt like this is the kind of strong heroine I like. 

On top of that, the secondary characters were quite well written as well. Margrit's on-again, off-again lover, her roommates, her boss.. they all played understandable roles of people concerned for Margrit although unaware of what was really going on. There were understandable conflicts that came out of this. Then there are the paranormal/supernatural/Other creatures. Murphy has some new twists to the conventional myths and also populates the world with some beings not usually found in urban fantasy. These "people" feel dangerous and unknown but also  fascinating. Particularly during their interactions with Margrit. I'm looking forward to finding out more about them through Margrit's dealings with them in the next two books. And – the city. I have to say, it does feel like New York to me when I read this book. An everyday, yeah I live here, New York.

So basically – good, above average read. I wasn't staying up all night to read it, I took my time (about 5 days?), but the writing was skilled, I did enjoy myself, and I felt quite satisfied when I finished.

Here's an excerpt from Heart of Stone 

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