Graphic novel of Farseer Trilogy

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Assassins-Apprentice-port
Assassins-Apprentice-port

Oh my god, I wish I knew french!!! There is going to be a "a French graphic adaptation of Robin Hobb's The Farseer Trilogy. The comic books will be produced by Soleil." – this news from Pat's fantasy hotlist.

I loved the Farseer trilogy. I own the Liveship trilogy and the Tawny man trilogy. But, I've been told NOT to read Tawny man until I've read the Liveship trilogy because they are somewhat related. Unfortunately I seem to have an aversion to the characters in Liveship and its taking me YEARS (since.. oh when they came out?) to read it. So far I've read halfway through book 2 and stopped. Now I can't remember most of the story and have to start again. Meanwhile I'm dying to read Tawny man.. sigh. One day I will prevail. But probably when my TBR is down to something like 50.. so in a year or two? Meanwhile I've started reading the Soldier son trilogy (finished book 1, will pick up book 2).

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Yes.. Come to the dark side…

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J is a big reader, but is in Law school, and supposed to be studying - to the point she disabled her Internet between certain hours of the day, and I think she turned off her cable. Yes, very hardcore actions in order to stay focused. But.. the siren call of being able to rant about books is too strong and she has just created her very own book blog on vox! She was in the middle of posting a rant apparently but her time on the Internet was up for the day.

On one hand I feel evil, on the other I want to hear her rants because when J rants it's pretty amusing. So don't flunk out, because then I will feel guilty. But really, this was her idea and not mine so I shouldn't feel guilty. I really am innocent. Truely.

Her blog in its infant stages of life is here.

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Stephen Chbosky

This book is a series of letters written to an unknown friend by Charlie – a quiet young man who lives mostly in his head. These letters span about a year from the start of his freshman year in high school, as Charlie starts to learn how to "participate" in life instead of watching. He makes friends with some seniors who take him under their wing and seem to be understanding about his innocence. Charlie is a very unusual character – quiet, observant and thinks a lot about what he sees, seemingly highly sensitive and prone to crying, and unsure about how to interact with people comfortably. He seems very intelligent and yet strange. I had a feeling like.. something is up here, something I don't know, so I had to keep reading not only to find out about his high school experiences (which were hilarious, sad, crazy, unexpected and wonderful all wrapped up in one), but also to figure him out. I really had a good time reading this book – Charlie feels like a sweet kid everyone knows and is fond of, and I just zipped through this, and I want to go back and revisit.

I think this is a good book to read if you ever felt like a wallflower yourself (probably most people at some point). It had me thinking about the things you think about when you are growing up and figuring people out – watching others and daydreaming and imagining what other people think or see (everyone does this, right?). I think one of the only problems I would say I had with this book is I'm not sure I believe so many people could be that patient and understanding about Charlie and willing to bring him into their group of friends, but it WAS a small group of people who were on the fringes anyway so perhaps I'm being too picky here. The other thing was – ok some of the things that happened made me squint in disbelief - ALL that madness happened in ONE YEAR?! I'm just dying to say something that's a spoiler so I'm just going to comment that in my post on vox and if you want to find out, go there.

9.5 outta 10

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Eyes of Crow by Jeri Smith-Ready

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Eyes Of Crow
Eyes Of Crow
Jeri Smith-Ready

I just finished Eyes of Crow a couple of days ago. The book was pretty long -  (473 pages? Something like that), but the writing was simple and the font wasn't tiny, so for me, I was reading a hundred and so pages in an hour (it was an absorbing read).

This is a story set in a world that could be ours in the future or maybe its set in a different world, I couldn't tell. The society depicted here is a tribal society where every person has a Spirit animal. I found this very interesting – these Spirit animals are not just symbols, they really exist for these people and each person has powers and a personality that fits their Spirit. For instance – Owls are wise and it is impossible to lie to one, Wasps are warriors and quick, Bears are strategists. As each person progresses through life they move from one phase to another and their abilities increase (Wolves can become invisible at Phase 2 for example).

The focus in this story is Rhia. As the book starts she is a young girl and it is becoming evident that she has the aspect of the Crow – bringer of death (here is a excerpt from Eyes of Crow showing this that made me want to read this book in the first place). What's interesting is that Rhia does not embrace this right away at all. She doesn't want to be able to tell who lives and who dies, and she doesn't want to be feared by the rest of the populace; but because she refuses to embrace her Crow Spirit and doesn't go on the trek she must take to become adult and a Crow woman, there are consequences.

This is a journey from childhood into adulthood story. This was done very well, Rhia doesn't want to grow up, and has to face becoming responsible for the consequences of her actions, and to think about the world outside of her own comfortable place. Its not always as simple she she would hope (there is a feeling of resentment between tribes because of the differences between them, and an even larger difference between her people and the "Descendents" - could mean war). Because of this, and because of the straightforward writing style, there are some elements that feel young adult, but there are adult situations. I enjoyed the way the story flowed and Rhia's journey, moving from young girl to embracing her Crow aspect (and the Spirit journey she takes to get there), moving past loss and heartbreak as well. The rest of the characters were also interesting – most of them had more than one dimension, flaws and heartache that defined them, which added more depth to the cast. I think the story could have become stereotypical but the author avoids making it predictible and stale. This is a Luna book as well which means there is some romance too.

I didn't really find much wrong with the book, unless you aren't into young adultish books - 8 or 8.5 out of 10.

Book two is Voice of Crow, out October 2007.

And there is a free online story set in the same world here (Wild's Call, supposed to be a distant prequel). I haven't read it yet though.

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Bloodring by Faith Hunter

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Bloodring
Bloodring
Faith Hunter

This is a story that centers around Thorn St. Croix, a neomage hidden among humans in a post-apocalyptic world. The book blurb calls it a "ambiguous apocalypse" because while seraphs have descended upon the world and mass genocide occurred, followed by a continuing war against dark beings, life seems to be going on. Now the survivors aren't sure of what the Divine Powers expect or what religion is right; they all live in an uneasy peace, following strict rules against sin (or the seraphs could exact vengeance) and in fear of demons that live underground and DO exist.

Thorn is a mage whose powers are from stone, and she's pretending to be human because for some reason most humans hate and fear mages. Humans will turn into a murderous mob if they found out who Thorn really was. Most mages are protected from humans in enclaves but Thorn cannot do so.

 The story starts when Thorn's ex-husband is kidnapped under mysterious circumstances and Thorn is determined to find him. A cast of interesting friends and acquaintances surrounds her at her store – Thorn's Gems, who form a family that help Thorn even though they are unaware of her powers.

THOUGHTS: Overall the world was fascinating so I enjoyed the book. 7/10

Good things: I found this to be a very well-imagined and detailed world. I could see the scenes very well, especially the cold weather and ice (nice to read about when it's summer). It also felt like Hunter spent a lot of time thinking about the way Thorn's magic worked and how different stones worked differently for a stone-mage: chants to get magic working, shortcuts, and how magic is taught to the mages, and there was a lot of thought about the history of the apocalypse, and about different species in the world – mages, humans, and seraphs. Sometimes the details were hard to keep track of (Thorn's amulets were described particularly often) – I found this page @ the author's website helpful and interesting after I finished the book. Another thing I liked was the side characters were pretty interesting and well-written, especially the interaction between them. There is a sense of history and shared memories between her business partners and I could believe the relationship and reactions of the characters.

Less good things: I had a lot less questions answered at the end of the book than I expected. Really big, obvious questions that I expected to have answered were not. I know one biggie that other readers commented on was.. why do humans hate mages so much? This is the one out of them all I most wish was answered in this book. Another one I had was - why is there this weird "mage-lust" between Seraphs and mages, but they are not allowed to mate? Many times in the book Thorn goes into throes of lust. Amazon reviewers compared it to Laurell K. Hamilton's "ardeur", but this book does not have the sex all over the place that Hamilton does (point to its favor). Still.. what's up with that? Finally (Hunter did this several times in the book) – Thorn notices something and then she'd "forget", or it seemed important for a second but she moves on. What is this stuff she keeps forgetting? It usually does not get referenced later on! So because of all these questions, Bloodring did not feel like a standalone book and even though there is sort of an ending to it, it has a huge "to be continued" feeling and I have to go get the sequel now because I'm still quite confused.

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book sales 2

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Greenwich CT FOL Book Sale
Greenwich CT FOL Book Sale

I went to the huge booksale I posted about previously. Well I got lost on the way there (wrote down the directions to the library, not the sale and had to stop by a shop to ask someone where it was), but other than that it was a booknerd's dream. There weren't many sci-fi/fantasy books there though, I think either not many were donated or the sci-fi/fantasy nerds raped the place before I could. I ended up with several young adult titles (The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, the first two Georgia Nicolson books by Louise Rennison, a tiny book on sayings, a Tamora Pierce book that turned out to have several pages ripped out of the middle so I had to recycle that), that were jumbled with the fiction so I guess they were missed since they were in the wrong place.  My sister got a lot of heavy hardcover artbooks. We put them all into one of my big reuseable whole foods bags (yay, good birthday present) and only paid $3 for about 16 books.

The place really looked like the picture above except the books were much messier and there were a LOT of people scrambling around. Take the number you see up there and double it because all the tables had boxes of books stacked under them.  When we first entered the room all we heard was desperate shuffling noises. The room smelled like crazed desperation I tell you. It was awesome. There is another huge FOL booksale happening in the Poughkeepsie South Hills Mall starting June 22nd. I'm most likely going the Monday after it starts. Not sure what good stuff will be left by then, but we shall see.

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book sales

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Ug. wtf is up with vox, it made my IE crash. Anyway.. I went to a yard sale run by the local Gilda's club and I was so good: 2 hours in which my sister tortured me by looking at e.v.e.r.y. single thing at the sale and I managed to resist and only buy one book – "The Book of Sandwiches" by Louise Steele (this link is to google book preview of the book) for $1. Its all about sandwiches and finger foods and has lovely pictures and recipes and makes me very hungry.

This made me think about looking up book sales @ booksalefinder.com which Jen (I think?) introduced to me many moons ago. If you are near Greenwich, CT, there is a book sale categorized as "EXCEPTIONAL" by booksalefinder. My IMs to Josh regarding this sale:

me: eeeee http://www.booksalefinder.com/NYU.html#X7945
pictures from last year: http://www.greenwichlibrary.org/images/Byram/ByramBookSaleGallery2/booksalegal2.htm
Josh: nice
go for it, it's close
me: no, i should resist
Josh: what makes you say that, the box of 100+ books in our bedroom?

I got that ebay win beside my bed and I'm resisting opening it before I bring my TBR down..

Other good websites for used books (which I troll when I want to find something out of print):

www.bookfinder.com (composite used book website search engine)

www.half.com

www.bookcloseouts.com (ok, not out of print usually. But I have found a couple of recently OOP there)

www.ebay.com (of course)

And not a used book place but I forgot to add a link to www.fantasticfiction.co.uk - good place to look up authors and what other books they have written, and it puts things in order of print and series, so the place I look up what book comes before what in really long series.

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Bestseller lists

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There is a post over at Dear Author (a primarily romance review site but they throw in a good amount of book industry news and other types of reviews every so often too), about bestseller lists. Its very interesting and worth taking a look at if you just like knowing crap like this:

"The bestseller lists actually identify only the velocity of the sale of the book rather than cumulative overall sales. This is why lay down dates are so important to authors. If the authors can capture most of their sales in one week instead of two, the book has a better chance of achieving bestselling status even if another author outsells them overtime. According to Stanford professor and researcher, Alan Sorenson, bestseller appearance actual slows the deceleration rate of book sales. Books sell well soon after their release and then the sales taper off. For a bestseller, the sales taper off at a slower rate than a book not on the bestseller list.

In Sorensen’s research, the regular visitors to the bestseller list such as Nora Roberts or John Grisham receive very little sales boost than the newcomers. First time appearing authors might see an overall increase of sales by 57% whereas repeaters might average a 13-14 percent increase in first year sales.

All a bestseller list can do is imperfectly capture the state of bookselling for one week. The problem is that no one list truly represents the nation’s consciousness as to the most popular books. Every list has a different set of measurements. There is rarely overlap between the lists and if there is, it is generally a fiction book."

The point was that the best new books aren't always the ones on the bestseller lists, and Dear Author listed the top 10 books that should be bestsellers but aren't. I agree with the first one: Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews. I've been thinking what other 9 books I would put in that list.. I think I have to think about it for a little while. What is your top ten that should have been a bestseller but isn't?

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Working for the Devil and Dead Man Rising by Lilith Saintcrow (mini review)

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There's a review of Working for the Devil by Lilith Saintcrow (I love that name), over at Smart Bitches, Trashy books. The books deal with a futuristic world where the protagonist is a necromancer who calls the dead to ask them questions, or brings people back if they aren't over the gate yet. A review I mostly agree with (Dante is angry and explodes over things I don't really think are that big a deal), except I thought that the relationship between Dante and Japhramel was believable (it grew subtley, I noticed it, but I think many people didn't find it obvious enough? I don't like the over-obvious "I LOVE YOUUUU, you are my SOULMATE even though I just met you and know nothing about you" storyline, and didn't think this was that).

The angry Dante thing was better in the second book – Dead Man Rising. There is more backstory of her past which explains some of it she's had a tough life. Actually I was beginning to feel wrung out over reading about her past and how many loved ones she's had die. In Dead Man Rising Danny seems to have grown a little bit, although her very headstrong attitude remains. Anyway, I liked the world quite a bit in these books (necromancers, schools for people with gifts, going over to hell and talking to the devil? how could you not), although there is quite a bit of angst going on. I reviewed them on PBS here (book 1) and here (book 2, don't read if you dont want to be spoiled over the end of book 1)… too lazy to review it again on vox.

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