Bit of a book explosion, that

Didn’t I say something about how I wasn’t going to buy any more books until I cleared some shelf space? Ha. If you know me at all you can probably guess how long that resolve lasted. I have over the last couple of days picked up three more physical copies of books, and today, finally vowed to scan the shelves for anything I could afford to lose.

This was brought on by a couple of things. One, that one of my recent purchases was downtown at the Kinokuniya bookstore, since I was going to Uwajimaya anyway and the bookstore was right next door. I was hoping to find something else by Taichi Yamada, but no luck, so I got a book by Kobo Abe instead. (It was pretty neat to be surrounded by all those Japanese books, I must note, even though I couldn’t read the characters and even though the section with works in English was small.) And two, that I went ahead and said “okay FINE” and snarfed up a couple recent releases I wanted, from Third Place. Three, that seanan_mcguire and cmpriest are in a new post-apocalyptic anthology I wanted to check out, so I got solarbird to buy me a copy of that from Soul Food Books.

So I went back down to Third Place again this afternoon and brought the nice folks who buy used books there a big ol’ bag, and as is usual, they took several of them and promised to donate the rest to the library downstairs. I figure that if I can’t get store credit for the books, having them go to the King County Library is almost as good–since that way the library can profit from them. I’ve been giving them enough book-checking-out attention lately that it’s nice to fling them some books of mine that they might be able to sell.

Some of the books I gave them were ones I hadn’t actually read yet. Some of these I have in turn re-bought in ebook form off of Fictionwise’s Stanza store, and some of the others will be bought again in that form soon enough. I have a whole bunch of older books that aren’t in ebook form of any kind; those I will be keeping since they’d be harder to replace. But I think a lot more of my new book buying, at least with untried/untrusted authors, is going to wind up being in ebook form.

Here then is the book explosion tally:

The Face of Another, by Kobo Abe
Hunting Ground, by Patricia Briggs
Skykeepers, by Jessica Andersen
Grants Pass, by a bunch of folks
Magic to the Bone, by Devon Monk
The Decoy Princess, by Dawn Cook
Armageddon’s Children, by Terry Brooks
Path of Fate, by Diana Pharoah Francis
The Serpent’s Daughter, by Suzanne Arruda

Of these, the first four were all things purchased this past week, the second four are ones re-purchased today in ebook form, and the last is the book I picked up at Third Place today, mostly paid for by the store credit they gave me! Grand total of books thus far purchased in 2009: 74.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Done done done

Cross-posting this, since it’s to announce a piece is done!

As of this afternoon I’m relieved to tell y’all that I have indeed finished “The Blood of the Land”, my Civil-War-era story set in the Faerie Blood universe. I think it’s safe to say that this has the highest body count of on-camera characters I’ve ever written, which is pretty impressive considering that this is only 7,107 words, and I killed off a total of five characters on camera, and had one start the story dead. I had to do some interesting thinking as well about who exactly had to die, and who would have to do the killing. solarbird gave me a nice listening ear on that, and after I explained my thoughts to her, she was all about the killing off. Even aside from her usual penchant for violence!

I didn’t call for beta on it because I wanted to go ahead and send it in to my editor, which has now been done. Now we’ll see what happens next with this thing! More on what happens with it when I have it.

Written in scattershot fashion over the last week: 659
The Blood of the Land final total (first draft): 7,107

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

Book Log #67: Still Life With Devils, by Deborah Grabien

Deborah Grabien’s Still Life With Devils is an esoteric little novel, one part police procedural, one part paranormal mystery, and one part romance. Leontyne Chant is an artist with an unusual gift: the ability to walk into her paintings. But her brother Cassius, chief of Homicide in the San Francisco PD, must call upon her for help to solve a string of serial killings–and soon Leo discovers she not only has seen the killer before, but that she’ll have to call upon her unique ability to help her brother bring the case to a close.

This book’s sensibilities are elegant, and it’s refreshing to read a murder mystery that doesn’t lavish gory detail upon the killer’s activities. Rather, Grabien brings a quiet, suspenseful sophistication to the table. Four stars.

(P.S. I know I said I was going to try to be impartial with Drollerie Press reviews, but hey–this one was really, really solid, and I’m really rather proud to be associated with the press that produced it. The same will be said of the next couple of Drollerie books I’m about to review!

Also, it is worth noting that this book is one of the ones Drollerie has out in print. So if you’d like to see what we can do with a printed work, ask your favorite local bookstore to pick this one up today!)

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Book Log #68: Autumn Lover, by Elizabeth Lowell

This is another of the books I’ve read in my marathon charge through a bunch of Elizabeth Lowell’s older romance works, and it’s the last of the “Only” quartet and related duology. Unfortunately, it’s also my second to least favorite.

Lowell’s writing here is certainly about on par with the other works, but the biggest beef I have with this story is a hero who really needs to be punched right in the jaw. Right out of the gate, Hunter Maxwell is convinced that Elyssa Sutton is the “town flirt”, which is code for the “town’s rampaging slut”, and he has no real evidence to believe this whatsoever: just the flimsy word of one minor NPC who’s an ass anyway. He gives her constant shit about it, up until the obligatory “but I’m going to go at it with you like rabid coyotes” scene, and all I could think through most of the story was “wait, and there were readers that found this behavior sexy? Da hell?”

Bah. It’s a shame, because as with the other stories, this one’s not without decent suspense. Sure, the Culpepper Clan is providing stock Bad Guys right out of central casting, but okay, even given that, the whole scenario with their trying to take over the ranch next door and how they’re holding an important side character hostage is entertaining enough. But our so-called hero Hunter’s behavior to Elyssa all throughout the story, even given how he’s all bitter and stuff because the Culpeppers murdered his wife and child and his wife was an actual rampaging slut anyway, really was more annoying than sexy. Lowell’s done quite a bit better since this book, fortunately. For this one, two stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Book Log #69: Remember Summer, by Elizabeth Lowell

In the last of my Elizabeth Lowell Summer 2009 Marathon, I’m jumping out of the historicals and into a contemporary, Remember Summer. I was hoping that I’d get closer in general flavor to the sorts of suspense novels Lowell’s been writing for much of her recent career, and at least in some ways, that’s what I got; it was easy to see the progression from her historicals to this novel and on up to her later work. Still, this one’s got its feet planted way more on the romance side of the fence than on the suspense one.

I’ll give it props for the setting, though: it’s the Summer Olympics, and our heroine Raine Chandler-Smith is on the US equestrian team, aiming for the gold. But OHNOEZ, her father is a government official of Unspecified but Incredibly High Rank, and there’s an assassin on the loose! Our hero, the obligatory Operative of Unspecified Rank but Suitably Dangerous and Broody Competence, and who for purposes of this assignment is going by the name of Cord Elliott (side note: seriously? CORD? What kind of a name is CORD? A romance novel name, apparently), is on the case to keep Raine from getting shot right off her horse by way of being the appetizer for her father.

Definitely the sort of thing Lowell sank her teeth into with later work, but here, there’s way less suspense than I like and way more angsting about how OHNOEZ, Cord’s job is dangerous! And he’s all tired of it and burned out and Raine is all beautiful and stuff! Which was acceptable character fodder as it went, but after pages and pages of it, I was all “ENOUGH ALREADY now get to the shootings and suspense and stuff”.

Which the book did, eventually. With suitable suspenseful shootiness, and even a bit of a bittersweet ending that was appropriate given the Unspecified nature of Cord’s secret-agenty job. All in all, though, for Lowell suspense? You’ll really want to go to her later work. Two stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.