Two Books for the Price of One Isn't Always a Bargain

Knew Laurell K. Hamilton's new Anita Blake book was long when I saw it on the bookshelf, displayed face out. Didn't realize how long it was until I started reading it. There's something daunting about sinking into a morass of detail and not quite saving yourself by skimming. Yeah, I've read enough of the Anita Blake books to known all the characters that Blake encountered while preparing to go to Ireland to chase down mysterious vampire activity where none should exist. Problem: it was all busy work that really didn't add to the suspence.

This doesn't mean that Crimson Death was a bad book, exactly, but it was long. [I'm sure the sexual puritains have long been winnowed out of Hamilton's readship.] The book is padded with extra details I wasn't really interested in. I'm not a rabid fan of all things Hamilton. Let's just say that the Anita Blake books come, in the movie cliche, with "a cast of thousands".

Crimson Death starts out with a great puzzle--why have vampires suddenly started increasing in Ireland, the one country in Hamilton's world that only has one known, secretive vampire nest. My problem was once the hook was set, it took 350 pages for Anita to get on the plane. From then on, the book was Hamilton's usuall intricate, suspenceful read. A plus: readers get to learn more of Damian's maker, She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

Take a look at the excerpts and other reviews at:

Amazon        Nook       kobo

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Other Reading of Interest

Editing manuscripts. Anyone can be asked to edit a friends writing -- whether a work report, non-fiction writing, or creative writing. Then, there's you own writing. Click here for some suggestions on making the editing process easier.

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My Writing Rut

What, oh what to say. Haven't been writing much, though I've been writing everyday. Actually, I don't seem to be doing much of anything...though I almost have the Christmas baking done. Think I've been reading a 700 page book.

Interested in reading my short stories. I've got several free ones, how many depends on which venue you download from.

     
     Amazon - Most of my published stuff can be found here, including my book There Be Demons.
     Nook - You can find my Far Isles Half-Elven stories here as well as the Andor ones.
     kobo - This venue has a selection of my stories in e-format, including There Be Demons.
     Other places you can find my stories are: iBooks,  and Smashwords [which probably has the most complete listing of my stories, even my free Half-Elven stories, but not There Be Demons the last time I looked.

Squeezing All of a Series Characters into the Action

Wasn't going to review Eighth Grave After Dark by Darynda Jones, but the other book I'm enjoying is over 500 pages long and complicated -- and I'm helping my old man learn enough Word so he can transfer his written memoir into a computer. Not that Eighth Grave is an  unworthy read. But ... *shrug* Yah only can do so much in a week, especially when you're in the winter doldrums.

Do you get the idea my feelings on Jones' series are mixed?

The few urban fantasy books of hers I've read have great, action-filled plot lines. Jones has built up a cast of interesting, revolving characters who usually do intriguing things to push and pull the plot along. Then, there's a main character, Charley aka Charlotte, who I find about as mature as my fourteen-year-old granddaughter, which is especially annoying to me after the revelations in Eighth Grave After Dark. She's going to be responsible for saving the world from Satan ... when she's got the hots and is married to the Son of Satan?
 

A lot is going on in Eighth Grave After Dark. Charley, who is terminally pregnant with the child phophecised to off Satan to prevent the end of the world, is hosting a wedding for her assistant to her uncle in the confines of an abandoned convent because twelve hell hounds lurk on the boundaries, waiting to rip Charley's throat out so said child won't be born.

Yeah, complicated. But that's not the only thing going on in the book. Huge numbers of ghosts are gathering on the convent grounds, including a mysterious nun who refuses to talk to Charley. The wedding goes off with all sorts of weird relatives gathering, including Charely's stepmother who made her childhood miserable. Said Son of Satan is acting strangely. Charley has contacted the parents he was kidnapped from in spite of his forbidding her to contact them. Oh, did a mention the FBI comes to her for help in locating a kidnapped neice of one of the agents?

And that's only the first third of the book.

If you're a writer, I recommend you get the series and map out what the main secondary characters do in each  book. You'll get a great idea on how to squeeze the most out of the characters you create. On the other hand, I recommend you pick a grown up for your main character unless you're writing young adult or children's books. I really got tired of reading Charley make one dumb decision after another, especially when she was putting her child in danger by being an adolescent idiot.

Yeah, I'm recommending the book because it's so entertaining. The craftsmanship is outstanding too. I don't think the pace slowed down much more than to give the reader a chance to absorb the next facts -- though sometimes these were confusing. The book left me wondering why a character couldn't be snarky and grown-up at the same time.

This review getting posted "late" is just another example of my

winter doldrums.

Enjoy the typos.

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My Writing Rut

Got a lesson on why taking a break from your writing can be beneficial. Took a look at the
"chapter" I was trying to fit into the current version of On the Run and realized why the action wouldn't fit. The fact that the main character was called "Cass" should have been a clue. Yeah, I'm still back tracking ... but I think I'm making the manuscript more coherent.

I hope.

Still, I'm in the doldrums though ... but now its the marketing of my short stories which seem to be getting ignored.

Want an Underdog Doomed to Surviving in a Hostile Environment?

   Slow writing week, but I managed to read three books -- given added reading time while waiting for the Christmas cookies [gifts] to bake. Skimmed one book with flat character development but got drawn in by two Yasmine Galenorn books. Flight from Death won my reading derby this week because I thought the characters were more original, even though it's an Otherworld spin off. Maybe because Flight is complicated ghost story featuring a dragon and the other book felt like a predictable urban fantasy.

   Galenorn has a talent for creating three dimensional characters. She layers enough quirks and problems on her characters to make them live and breath. More important, their quirks add to the twists, turns, and suspense of the plot--even when the lsupernaturals land well within fantasy norms. Yeah. Galenorn's characters break cliches.

   What's more, even her secondary characters stand out as individuals. One example, the all important lore-resource character has flaws that both make him more likable and ratchet up the danger in the plot line when he makes mistakes in judgement So, much for the all-wise guru.  [Sorry if you think that's a spoiler.]

   Imagine. Shimmer, an orphan blue dragon exiled to the earth plane without most of her magic for a stupid adolescent-type prank/revenge on a bully, must survive in a world where supernaturals are tolerated on the edges. So, she broke the rules in a society that favors clan, lineage, and wealth above all. But being indentured to a vampire private investigator?????? I really liked that twist. The kid's definitely an underdog, errrr under dragon.

   Flight from Death the the first in a new series for Galenorn. Loosely set in the Seattle of her Otherworlds fae/multi-sup series, it looks like she is letting the book gets its legs under it without playing into the previous saving-the-world-from- the-nasties plot. The book takes us to Port Townsend, Washington where ghosts riddle the town, including the house where a former vampire friend of the boss wants to open a bed and breakfast for supes. Only there is something nastier than discontented ghosts haunting the place, and Shimmer proves she more than just another urban fantasy pretty face with attitude.

   Liked that Galenorn managed to recycle her Otherworld world so it felt new rather than a rehash.

   Recommended. Oh, I felt there were a few missteps where Shimmer exhibited fad/fashion knowledge too subtle for the length of time she'd spent on earth, but these were minor glitches. Overall, the read gallops. A great start for a new series with an intelligent protagonist.

Read excerpts and more reviews on Amazon and at B&N Nook.

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My Writing Rut

What writing?

   Granted I revised an originally drafted chapter to fit the Pillar, the current main character of On the Run. Since I had two such chapters in the que, it should've been a breeze to pound out both of them last week. Didn't get that done. Can only blame baking cookies. At least, I spend very little time in stores trying to find gifts for family.

   Still, it feels good to finally be using material written last spring when I had an entirely different main character for On the Run.

Getting Caught by a Demon, But Ending Up With the Cops

    Good thing I liked the only book I read last week. [I read the magazines I didn't read last week while tangled in volcanic Armageddon.]

    Yeaht, I wondered if I'd have anything to review. While the big, bold "Demon" in the title first drew my attention and the opening plot point set an eerie situation, I wasn't finding Diana Rowland's demons captivating.

   For almost a third of the book I was thinking I deserved the let down for jumping into the middle of a series. Yeah, I knew the book was part of a series because the blurbs told me so. Secrets of the Demon turned out to be the third book in Kara Gillian's story of coming to grips with her arcane abilities.

   Fortunately Gillian is a homicide detective, and the cop part of the story kept me reading--especially after it became the focus of the book rather than what Gillian should do with her demon lord lover. And no, the demon secrets don't really pertain to the demon lord. It's all tangled up in how the plot points twist and turn.

   Secrets of the Demon is an urban fantasy with light romantic overtones. Gillian has problems with human guys, who may or may not be demons, as well as with her demon lord...and doesn't quite resolve them. Rowland depicts the dilemma in realistic terms so Gillian feels like a real person trying to sort through her relationships. She does resolve the mystery in rip-roaring fashion which kept me reading beyond midnight.

   Really liked Kara Gillian as a character. She'd be someone I'd enjoy having coffee with. I wouldn't have to censor my thoughts as much as I usually do. Besides a raucous sense of humor, she smart and thinks fast on her feet. Her arcane abilities are treated more like a pain in the arse than a wondrous superpower. Rowland's nicely rounded secondary characters take on personalities of their own rather than being cardboard plot point stand-ins too.

    Recommended as a fun mystery who-dun-it complete with decent red herrings to lead your guesses astray. Also, the foreshadowings for the next book create more red herrings for the reader to sort through. FYI. Yeah, I'm going to be looking for other books in this series.

Read excerpts and more reviews at Amazon and B&N Nook.

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Some Interesting Links

   Since I assume most of my page views come from writers, I thought I'd share two blogs I found particularly interesting this week. 

   Janet Reid, my dream agent if I wrote the stuff she represents, recently did a blog on what questions writers should ask an agent before signing on the dotted line when going the traditional publishing route. It's an important piece of knowledge to file away ... even if you only scribble ideas for fan fiction. Take a look at The Engagement Period if you even guess you might one day turn into a writer.

   From an indie author point of view, I found another blog by Anne R. Allen on marketing books. Any writer or author wanna-be reading my blog should take a look at Marketing Your Books on Social Media. How to Avoid Scams.

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My Writing Rut

    Am feeling better about my writing. I finally got through my endless "turning-point" chapter of On the Run done. And the ending set up was something I never thought of before until I started pounding the keys. Now, I'm keeping my toes crossed that it doesn't turn into a "darling".

   This week, after I get this blog posted, I finally start writing the big demon attack where Pillar's world falls apart. I also plan to get another snippet up on my website.   It'll be down at the bottom of the first page.

   Still debating what I should do with my own marketing. Have an interesting video in process, but don't know quite how I'll use it. But, I've only got short stories up for downloading, and readers seem to want novel length works for free or 99c. No I'm not complaining. Just trying to figure out what's going on. And, deciding on whether or not I even care.