Christopher Paolini. What I do.
The only “what I do” meme I’ve felt is worth reblogging/sharing/etc.
Posted 3 months ago
Some fishing stories are a little hard to believe, But this guy has pictures to prove his story…
Tom Satre told the Sitka Gazette that he was out with a charter group on his 62-foot fishing vessel when four juvenile black-tailed deer swam directly toward his boat.
“Once the deer reached the boat, the four began to circle the boat, looking directly at us. We could tell right away that the young bucks were distressed.
I opened up my back gate and we helped the typically skittish and absolutely wild animals onto the boat. In all my years fishing, I’ve never seen anything quite like it!
“Once on-board, they collapsed with exhaustion, shivering. We headed for Taku Harbour. Once we reached the dock, the first
buck that we had been pulled from the water hopped onto the dock, looked back as if to say ‘thank you’ and disappeared into the forest.”
After a bit of prodding and assistance, two more followed, but the smallest deer needed a little more help (that’s him in the wheelbarrow).
My daughter, Anna, and son, Tim, helped the last buck to its feet. We didn’t know how long they had been in the icy waters or if there had been others who did not survive. My daughter later told me that the experience was something that she would never forget, and I suspect the deer felt the same way as well!”From: Second Chance Ranch
Posted 3 months ago
A Tale of Two Epic Fantasies
While I despise long plane rides on principle, there’s no doubt that they’re good for sitting down and finishing a book in one sitting. On my Christmas vacation, I read two epic fantasies that had a similar feel. So it seemed appropriate to post about them after my last post on urban fantasies.
I was introduced to both Daniel Abraham and Guy Gavriel Kay several years ago. I’ll say right now that I consider them both to be excellent authors and worth picking up. Daniel Abraham also writes under the name M.L.N. Hanover (urban fantasy) and James S.A. Corey (sci-fi). Not-so-incidentally, those authors each contributed a book to my “Read next” list.
Guy Gavriel Kay’s storytelling is best described as lyrical and lush. I picked up The Fionavar Tapestry series on my father’s recommendation, and I am currently rereading it, in part because I enjoyed his book, Under Heaven, a great deal. I bought it as a Christmas present for my father, and was unable to resist reading it on the way out.
After that background, I’ll get to why I bundled these two books together. It’s because they are both good examples of rich worldbuilding combined with good storytelling. Under Heaven is a standalone; The Dragon’s Path is the beginning of a series. In both cases, we are introduced to the world through an unfolding narrative. We start with one character in one location, and are gradually introduced to more characters and more locations. Along the way we get the little details about the world, thrown in there to enhance our understanding of this story, but without standing out and being too jarring.
Where these stories largely diverge is in the pacing, which is not all that surprising. Under Heaven has a relaxed, lush feel to it in the first three-quarters of the book, and the action ramps up with a vengeance in the last quarter. Daniel Abraham takes more time to build up the action in The Dragon’s Path. This isn’t to say that the book is slow, by any means. But there is a definite sense of forward momentum throughout the whole story. I found The Dragon’s Path to be a bit more predictable as far as character actions and development, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book - or how much I’m looking forward to the next one when it comes out.
I would wholeheartedly recommend either of these books. They are both the type of epic fantasy that I love and will pick up without a second thought every time. They’re both unique in their own way, which is a delight when so much epic fantasy just retreads the same path.
By the way, I characterize Daniel Abraham’s previous fantasy series - The Long Price Quartet - as one of the best series of books I have ever read. Not only are the individual books good, but they fit together very well as an overall story. And for those of you who hate to wait for a series to finish - they’re already done! Go pick them up!
Posted 5 months ago
A Tale of Two Urban Fantasies
I have been avoiding the urban fantasy genre due to the proliferation of romance novels featuring vampires, werewolves, etc. etc.
However, I kind of fell into Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, and Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Mysteries. In both cases this was because I had the opportunity to pick a book up used, and I went for it.
I read the first Sookie Stackhouse novel, Dead Until Dark, several months ago and found it to be an easy, breezy read. It’s one of those things where what you see is what you get. You want a romantic mystery with vampires, go for these books.
The book by Patricia Briggs that I picked up was actually one from her “Alpha & Omega” series, a spinoff from her more prolific Mercy Thompson series. I figured that, once again, it’d be an easy read. In this case I was pleasantly surprised to find it with more depth and interesting plot than I’d expected from what sounded like a werewolf romance. From there, it seemed logical to get over to the Mercy Thompson books.
I read Living Dead in Dallas (Sookie Stackhouse #2) almost immediately after finishing Iron Kissed (Mercy Thompson #3) and it gave me the chance to compare them. Both have main female characters who are “different” in some way - Mercy’s a walker, Sookie’s a telepath - who have supernatural men attracted to them. However, I think I’m going to keep reading the Mercy Thompson books, while I may not continue with the Sookie Stackhouse novels. This may be because the latter are, fundamentally, mystery books. That’s a genre that I don’t have much affinity for. While I will gladly watch and rewatch shows like CSI, Bones, and numerous other crime dramas, I don’t like those stories as much in book format. There’s probably a number of reasons for that.
No, for me the Mercy Thompson series falls more in line with another urban fantasy series I love and have raved about before - Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series. The real world “plus”, with a tough heroine who gets herself into scrapes - and occasionally needs to help to get out, but also makes an effort to get herself out.
Patricia Briggs’ bio on Wikipedia (not the most reliable of sources, I know) says that her publisher encouraged her to write an urban fantasy, presumably to capitalize on the genre’s growing popularity. If that’s the case, then I would say her success is well deserved. She’s a good writer, and I want to get a hold of her older stuff - more high fantasy - because it looks like the sort of thing I’ll enjoy.
In conclusion: I would recommend both these series, conditionally. If you like mysteries, romance, and fantasy, you might enjoy the Sookie Stackhouse novels. If you like real-world-plus type fantasy, and don’t mind a bit of mystery and romance, you might enjoy the Mercy Thompson novels.
Posted 5 months ago
The Cube has a sweater this morning
YES.
Posted 5 months ago
PHENOMENAUT AEROSPACE: Could Netflix Bring Firefly Back From The Dead?
Ever since Joss Whedon’s space western was canceled back in 2003, its fans — at first, a relatively small contingent, but as time and DVD sales grew, so did the ranks swell — have wondered what could possibly rescue it from the tightly clenched jaws of death. And until now, nothing could….
Posted 5 months ago
WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR: North Carolina is trying to introduce a policy wherein Dobermans, Rottweilers, Chow Chows, German Shepherds, Great...
This is reblogged from Neil Gaiman. I can’t do a native reblog because it was a question post, so I’m reformatting it here to make it easier for all of us to spread this around and effect a change:
www[.]change[.]org/petitions/dr-jeannette-m-council-drop-the-72-hour-kill-proposal north…
Posted 6 months ago
Still Need To Read - November 2011
These are books that I own and have been meaning to crack open for a while - but haven’t gotten to.
Cold Fire by Kate Elliott
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
Unclean Spirits by M.L.N. Hanover (borrowed)
The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (Yes, I know, I’m about 10 years late on this)
Also, I need to return to Ann Aguirre’s Sirantha Jax novels. This will possibly involve me acquiring the books beyond #3.
Posted 6 months ago
License to Enscorcell by Katharine Kerr
I’m not an urban fantasy person. I think I mentioned that before. I find the genre too ill-defined and sometimes overly dominated by romance elements (at the cost of an interesting story) to be something that I actively seek out. I still gravitate towards high fantasy and space opera (and yes, I know those are somewhat opposite of one another) when given the chance.
License to Enscorcell is urban fantasy, but it’s the kind that I’ve found an affinity for, the “real world plus” model. All of the rules that we know apply, but so do some extra ones about magic. An explosion caused by magic still brings real police onto the scene. And so on and so forth.
However, I picked this one up because of the author. Katharine Kerr did a long-running series in a high fantasy world, Deverry, which has some really interesting characters, ideas, and plots, and gets wrapped up in a satisfying fashion. I won’t go into the Deverry series here - but I will note that I liked it enough to give this book a try more or less blind.
The most notable thing about the book is the swerve it does, about halfway through, from an interesting take on magic in the real world to a Pandora’s Box of discoveries and new ideas. It started off feeling like Seanan McGuire’s books; by the end it felt more like the Fringe universe. That’s not a bad thing - Fringe is my favorite show on television right now. It just gave the book somewhat of an uneven feel. I hope that further books will keep with the ideas posed in the latter half of this one. There’s just so much that Kerr can do with this, and it’s a take on the genre that I haven’t seen in a while, which makes me intrigued to read more.
I read a lot. Here is where I post what books I'm reading and whether you should read them too.I will also geek out about certain things in other media from time to time.
