Well, bugger

The finalists for the Great Big Sea Karaoke Contest were announced this morning and I fear that our video was NOT included on the list! Sniff.

Many thanks to all of you who took a look and offered words of encouragement, they are much appreciated! I would like to endorse, in our stead, the “Hit the Ground and Run” video by the Singing Roberts–since they had an awesome acting out, complete with costumes and a mini-script, of that particular song. You can vote on the video of your choice here.

I shall now also accept kittens, cookies, and other forms of consolation, if any happen to be around. *^_^*;;

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Saturday’s reading

Although my foray into Great Big Sea video fandom did not go as hoped, I can say that Saturday’s reading at the Wayward did go quite swimmingly!

I was horribly nervous, enough that when I got up to do my bit from Chapter 1, I could feel my knees loosen–and when I got done and back to my seat, my hands were shaking as I tweeted about it. solarbird says I read a bit too fast, but on the other hand, that actually kind of helped since I’m fairly verbose in style. Reading quickly helped offset that.

I was pleased, too, to note that I got giggles where I wanted them, and no giggles where I shouldn’t have. jennifer_brozek kindly told me later that she enjoyed my reading, and I sold a total of four of the CD copies I’d made of the book, out of the 12 that I’d made Saturday afternoon. (One of them went to technoshaman, finally buying a copy of the book; thanks Glenn!)

Also, I must note that I quite enjoyed several of the other stories read. catrambo had a nice one about a woman who discovers that her coffeemaker is not only sentient, it’s also neurotic, and Nate Crowder actually opened AND closed the proceedings, with two different stories. I liked his superhero one, the one with which he closed the reading. kehrli read two short ones, one of which was quite moving from a genderqueer perspective; props for that. And Ms. Brozek quite aptly demonstrated that, yeah, the phrase “zombie erotica” is every bit as disturbing as you’d expect.

On the whole it was a very enjoyable evening and I was very happy to get the chance to participate. And if anyone new happens by who was at the reading, I hope you enjoyed my contribution!

Mirrored from angelakorrati.com.

Book Log #53: Red Hood’s Revenge, by Jim C. Hines

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It gives me great, great glee to think of Jim Hines’ version of Little Red Riding Hood: a formidable assassin, “the Lady of the Red Hood”, whose magical cape grants her the ability to take on wolf form. She’s the central new character in Book 3 of his Princess series–and it just so happens that she’s coming back for a second round against Talia, “Sleeping Beauty”, one of the few warriors to ever successfully stand against her in battle.

Turns out that the Lady of the Red Hood has been unleashed on the kingdom of Beatrice and Theodore, and she’s aiming for a rematch with Talia.

That we get a whole lot more of the backstory for Talia in this installment of the series is my other favorite thing about it. Our three heroines are forced to venture into Talia’s homeland to track down who’s hired the Lady of the Red Hood to come after her, and in the process, we get an excellent portrait of a kingdom that’s been forced to reshape itself ever since Talia’s unhappy story began a century before. Tensions are high between the humans and the fairies, and equally delicious between our heroines and the the assassin who’s come after them.

If I had any quibbles at all with this story, they lie in wishing that Talia’s homeland was a bit more distinct from Danielle’s; save for a few changes of style in naming of places and people, I had a hard time telling the kingdoms apart. It didn’t help either that the heaviest influence on types of fairies in this series is still European, which struck me as weird in Talia’s clearly Arabic-influenced kingdom (with the exception of the peris). But this was a pretty minor quibble overall and I quite enjoyed this latest book, including the advancement of the romantic subplot! Four stars.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.