Nothing can compare

I meant to post this on Friday--Talk like a Pirate Day--but was too busy being sick and wondering whether the feeling of wandering in a world filled with cotton wool would go away. I found this at my local library's book sale last week (for 50c!). I love the yellow shirt/eyepatch combo on the bloke (and that he appears to be wearing wellies--well-prepared, you might say) but am a bit concerned that the lady appears to have come up on deck wearing a nightie and a (fur?) neck wrap.

I've actually not managed to make myself read it--mostly because I've been swamped with work but also because I fear the actual story will be a sad letdown after that cover.

Romance at Borders

On Sunday, I accompanied my sister to my local Borders. While she dithered about, trying to decide what to buy to take on her long train journey, I saw that Nalini Singh's Mine to Possess was already available, despite having a release date of 2 September (said date having been etched in my mind since this series is, so far, the only series I have followed since its start). I picked it up and went to pay for it.

The lady behind the counter smiled. I smiled back, gave her my book and waited. She looked at the book, looked at me (decked out in "I'm an astronomer in training" T-shirt that I'd picked up during my summer travels) and said, "I always thought these books were only for one thing. You can tell, can't you, looking at the cover"
Me: Eh?
Her: Well, he's hot, isn't he? Look at that (points out the cover model )
Me: And you can't see his face, which makes him perfect.
Her: Bursts out laughing. Continues laughing loudly. Keeps going until my sister, the other people in line, other staff and even people at the back of the store are looking over . Ohhh....that's funny...hahahah...that is really good. I've not laughed…hahhahah.
Me: Umm...great. Can I take the book, now? (and put it in my bag )
Her: holding on to the book I remember this other book. It had a couple and they were wearing very little, you know, you could see her breasts and it was winter! There was snow everywhere! I couldn't think how they would...
Me: These books are just for fun, I reckon. Not for thinking. Logic doesn't come into it.
Her: Still...this seems a good one...haha... I wonder what he does?

my sister, who'd had enough socialising by now, interrupted and dragged me away but not before I saw two of my current students among the group of people observing all this.


ETA: For some reason, I can't upload pictures or anything right now. Maybe Fanny'll help? Or, just go here to have a look at the cover. I think I've fixed it. I also think I've killed the computer my department gave me. Ah well.

Another one.

I swear this isn't a book review site (right, Bum? That's in the charter, right?). I just finished this book:



And I really enjoyed it. Everyone is unearthly beautiful and all that, but the characters are interesting. Generally flawed (with one noticeable exception) with (more or less) believable motivations. I was actually surprised right up until the denouement and with my jaded, I-saw-that-coming-a-mile-away attitude, that in itself was surprising. No spoilers, but there was a good tension going on and not quite sure which way the author was going to jump.

Was also impressed by the way the author described sex or sexuality or what's going on at the age of 16-20, when you're still and adolescent but dipping that toe into adult-ness (that's totally a word). It was handled with a certain discretion, without being coy, but there, no shying away from it. Plus I love tattooed boys burning with longing.

I am rabid to read the next one.


Not because I fell in love with any particular character or am invested in finding out the course of relationships, but because I am invested in this particular universe and want to see what's coming down the pike for this place and time (that takes place near Pittsburgh. Gotta love the hometown shout-out). What will happen next? I want to know.

Plus:

Dark Court King and tattoos and troubled bad girl?

Absolutely.

blogging bags and books

I went to shop for swimmers yesterday and, after visiting many many (okay, three. But it seemed like a lot) shops, I ended up with a bag instead.

Just like the one you see here, except mine is a darker red colour. Fanny'd tell you I'm really not a (posh) bag type of person and I admit I'm a bit scared of my new bag. I'll keep yous updated on its adventures.

Talking of adventures, I finished reading a book in which various totally sex-filled scenes occur, most of which are rather far-fetched.* But, loads of people getting it off in this book. To the extent that it was enough to make one want to go get a David Tennant of one's own (probably NSFW).




* In my admittedly non experiential basis--sex on a horse? Umm...no. I'm not that keen on horses to start off with and unless it's a gelding, wouldn't it get excited? (and that can't be good for all parties concerned).

nostalgia

Sitting in a crowded cinema, waiting for Hellboy II (more on that later) to show, I saw the preview to Mamma Mia and realised I'd love to have been able to see it with my Mum. Some of my earliest memories are of my Mum having the radio on, with ABBA playing, as she puttered around the house, waiting for my Dad to get back from uni.

Seeing this at a popular web site and wishing I'd seen it a few days earlier so I could have put my name in the hat. My aunt (who is a voracious reader--not just romances but everything) first gave me Devil's Cub to read when I was a tween. I can still recall how it ends, though I've not revisited it since I entered my teens. I recall liking how the heroine gets things done without waiting to whinge about stuff. During my undergrad years in far off Northern Queensland and when I had my first long-term job and was living (alone) in Thailand, I had Black Sheep and Venetia with me, both of which were excellent beach (and comfort) reads and reminded me of home.

Another paranormal.

So I'm currently reading this:

I've generally been entertained by the series. Even if they are vampires. So far I'm a few chapters into it.

This latest one has the MainWoman as Chinese. Taiwanese, if you want to get technical. And one part of me goes squueeeeee...There my bitches at! The other part of me goes uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh. Danger, danger, danger. Because while I agree with Bum in her argument about the convolutions romance writers go through to place Americans in stories where other peoples would work (probably better, more interestingly {is that a word? Is that word that should be used?}), I always have this dual reaction when there are Asian characters.

So it was rather providential when I read this from Karen from Karen Knows Best:

See, I have realized that I tend to avoid books wherein any of the main characters are Latino, particularly Mexican. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, I can’t buy the cultural makeup the writer is laying down for those characters. More than once I’ve been overheard saying, “Cojones, dammit, not cajones!!!” or “hispanos are human beings, not a different species!”

Which is funny, because what I sometimes take to be stereotypical representation may in reality come from the author’s life expereince. Case in point: Karen Templeton’s character Félix in Baby I’m Yours. I had trouble with him because I thought he was a stereotypical Latino man based on things like George López or what have you. Turns out Ms Templeton based Félix on a number of actual people she knows in New Mexico where she lives.

Whodathunkit?

So am I being racist in reverse? Am I actually assuming—with all the attendant asshattery—that no one can properly write Mexican or Latino characters that I can relate to?

Which is maybe...perhaps...how I feel about non-Asians writing about Asians. Like I think that we're a mystical people who others just can't get, rather than...well, mostly like everyone else and one doesn't need to belong to the club to write about the members.

I don't know.

I want to see more Asians, more minorities in romance (where they are not the mystical or quirky or whatever sidekick, and really just a big offensive cardboard cutout of stereotypes. I'm looking at you, Iris Johanson, Melanie George and others I will remember later). However, I will fall into the trap of looking for errors, how the author gets it wrong.

Contrary? You betcha.

back with a book.

I've realised that June was a rather lean month for Fanny and I. Not "lean" in the sense that we did anything (well, not sure about Fanny so let's talk about me for now)...I did anything that would make me lean (unless we are talking of the Tower of Pisa variety). Lean in the sense that blog posts were few and far between. But, fear not, we are back and posting and ready to regale yous with reams (bits? bytes?) of information that we feel is in your best interest to know.

Starting with this book: Fanny recommended the book to me and I went all the way to San Francisco (a rather expensive proposition, one which costs about as much, if not more, than buying a new paperback) to buy it and have just started reading it. However, I feel a bit like how historians/experts on X/whatnot might feel upon reading that the MainGuy first saw the MainWoman at the "train station in Kathmandu [Nepal]". A bit of research (Googling? Chatting up your local Nepali?) would have made it very clear that Kathmandu doesn't have a train station. In fact, Nepal doesn't have an (operational) railway at all.

I guess that's why I avoid political thrillers (especially nothing on terrorism, thank you) and stick to SFF. World-building, if done well, can't really go wrong. Real world geography can be nigglingly off.

Though now I'm reading about motorcycles in the Himalayas, so, perhaps, I should just take this as SFF as well and enjoy it that way. It is enjoyable so far.

I'll update yous when I've finished.

Update: Not much more on Nepal though the train trip is mentioned again. I liked it, overall, though I'm looking forward to the resolution.

One quibble. There was pretty much no reason to make MainWoman who she was i.e. some mountaineering, scary-dad-having woman from America. She could (and it'd have been lovely if she had been) have been Mingma's granddaughter or even the Rom girl (though a bit older, of course). This odd desire of authors to organise things so that a random American is doing things in "exotic" parts of the world becomes rather grating at times. It's not as if being American was necessary to this story in any way. Mingma's granddaughter would have been able to do everything this woman did--climb mountains, trek, clean up wounds, shag MainGuy, etc. Well, maybe not fly a plane but I'm sure that could have been easily sorted with a sentence like this: "Pemba took a one-year flying course in Kathmandu since she loved the mountains and wanted to be as close to them as possible" (okay, I'm not a writer. But you get my point). Most people there speak English fairly well and I'm sure the Living-in-Sedona part could also have been fudged easily enough. But, no, we needed some American to be conveniently wandering about so MainGuy could find her, bed her and get her into trouble.

best(est) thing ever

aka "Vampires are made of win"

So much so that a famous professorial type has noticed the trend in vampire-ish books and has blogged about it.

Of course, most of the commenters seem like pretentious wankers (FYI, people, vampires have been around forever. Hee. See? vampires! forever!!) and slag off vampire-ish books as though there were no variety among them.

I do like these comments though:

Comment 1: "I live in Portland, Oregon and recently overheard two Powell's employees discussing this phenomenon. One was explaining to his new-hire charge that "Supernatural Romance" is the largest growing, hottest selling category in fiction right now, a subgenre he described as "women committing every imaginable act of lust and perversion with vampires, werewolves, demons, Lovecraftian tentacled rape gods, basically anything you can imagine as long as it's not a normal human man."

(another person responds):"So, kind of like anime, then?"

Yay person no. 2! I like how science-y types seem to reckon anime and suchlike (comics, graphic novels) are oh-so-cool while, at the same time, being pretentious twats about this...the point being, you can find dreadfully-written books in any shape/style/genre.

in which I'm a year older

and yet not much wiser.

Spring break is half over and I've not done much of what I thought I'd have done. That means you, dear reader(s), will have to remain unentertained and/or go elsewhere for your "fun fix" for the next few days. I have two papers to finish (for a conference I'm headed off to in less than ten days), 30-some papers to grade and a journal issue to send off to the publishers.

Of course, spring has chosen this time to make itself known and it's difficult to get things done when it's 60 degrees Fahrenheit out there and people are frolicking in the streets.

One thing though: as I was sat on the metro this morning, I noticed a chap in the seat across me was reading this. I find it intriguing and wonder whether he reckons his sister is a werewolf (ontologically-speaking) or whether he wants to understand whether she is a werewolf and, if so, how to study her (epistemology).

I suppose I should get back to write those papers.

in which I drop in to say hello

Hello.

Swamped with having to grade papers, write two papers for a conference I'm headed off to in a couple of weeks, and making time for an existential crisis (it's Birthday Week this week for me) but I will stop by (all going well, of course) and write you that book review and add a few more things through the week.

For the next two days, I'm off to Woop Woop, a place that has no Internet and where my phone doesn't work.

in which i say nothing much,

This is the book that I won in an online contest a few weeks ago. I'll review it in a few days though considering half the online world seems to have already done so, it may be redundant.

But, I'll give it a shot anyway. Did I mention this is the first time I've ever won anything in a contest? Ever? Well it is and that it was a book, one of my favourite ever things is a nice bonus.

Though money would have been best, I reckon. Winning money, that is. I've never been much of a lotto player or into scratchies though I know people who do them every week. Even KiwiSis, normally quite sensible, has a strange and unbreakable attraction to scratchies. I guess it's the hope that one day we can win some cash. Yes, we can.

Apparently "steamy romances" are bad for you

And I just finished one * (if only she'd left out God, it'd have been a much better book. Why oh Why was God needed in the midst of all the shagging? And there was no shapeshifting, which disappointed me)

But I digress. Today's almost Valentine's Day tip comes from Christianity Today's Elizabeth Marvin who tells us all how she "overcame her addiction to steamy romance novels" with the implication that "so can you".

Let me deconstruct. She starts off by:

"...Amid the usual traumas of adolescence, I knew I could turn to my mom, but my heart cried out for my dad, who always seemed uncomfortable in my presence." (TMI. Far far TMI and perhaps Dad knew she was going to turn out to be a bit of a nutter?)

Then...she was nearly taken over by teh evil romances...

"Romance novels fall into three categories, based on sexual content. The most innocent romances are sweet, stressing courtship rather than sex. Following those are spicy/sensual and erotica. I never ventured into the latter category, but sampled enough of the second to know which authors wrote the kinds of love stories I enjoyed." ( and, for anyone who takes this bit seriously, I believe I have a bridge that I would like you to buy)

They almost took her over to the dark side...

"Looking to soothe my conscience [that God would not approve of all this reading of sex], I found a statistic in a women's magazine claiming wives who read romance novels engaged in 40 percent more sex than women who didn't read romances. When I mentioned this fact to my husband, he grinned and said, "Why do you think I've never complained?" But then I read a newspaper article about a local romance writers' convention. An editor casually described the genre's most sexually explicit fare as soft-core pornography. I was horrified. That remark put an entirely new spin on my romance addiction—and explained why these books were so difficult to put down." ( Of course! They were the evil PORN!! Temptations from the Devil!!! )

Then the father returns. The biological one, of course. She's still waiting for the other one to make himself heard.

"After serious time on my knees, I knew God wanted me to deal with the spiritual roadblocks in my life: my romance reading and my distant relationship with my father. Even then I didn't realize the two were related." (on her knees--egads! )

It gets weirder after that. Read the rest for yourself here. Apparently, romance novel-reading was a substitute for her not having her father's love and, once she forgave her father for not giving her enough time and attention, she could rid herself of her "addiction".

It's nutters like these who give readers and Christians a bad name. Gah.

h/t Dear Author

* I also read this over the weekend, while I was laid up in bed in between more bouts of throwing up. I'll blog about that tomorrow I reckon since it's perfect for Valentine's Day book blogging. Really.

Ms Singh's "Hot Men" Contest

To celebrate a new book in her Psy/Changeling series (which I've been following since it involves animals/people) , Nalini Singh has a contest in which she urges her readers to list "hot men" from novels (and TV/films). Details here.

When I read the first bit of Ms. Singh's contest guidelines, I reckoned I'd put up Lucas from her first book as the leading "hot bloke". Why? Because he was sensible (useful in a man), could figure out directions (ditto--I'm hopeless at directions), had no hesitation in telling the heroine he fancied her (no waffling about) and could change into an animal (always a huge plus, eh?)

But then there was the addendum. So my field of choices suddenly increased!

In addition to Lucas then here're a few other picks:

5. Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt (yes, together, please!) from the TV series Life on Mars
Why? Because they just work well together :) The series was fun and it was the combined "hotness" of these two that made it so. Sam, with his modern sensibilities and sensitivity; Gene, with his rather un-pc and yet endearingly straightforward view of life and the world around him. Put them together and you have one hot man. And they're coppers. Who doesn't have a thing for coppers?

4. Septimus (Mark Strong) from the film Stardust (among others): It's the hair and the eyes and the determination to get what he considered to be his, despite rather large odds. Nobody said "hot men" had to be all good, right? After all, heaps of novels and plays have told us that evil can be seductive and Septimus surely is.

3. David Tennant as Doctor Who. It's the glasses and the hyperactive behaviour and the lack of availability (though that's been a bit shot lately!). I always fancied a guy in glasses and if they come wearing ratty suits with sneakers and have a tendency to find adventure wherever they go, it'd be fantastic if they took me along as well. Being damaged helps, of course :)

2. Clive Owen (preferably in tights, as in Elizabeth: The Golden Age the Extras episode; or wisecracking as in Shoot 'em Up; or weary and cynical as in Children of Men...you get the idea). I don't think I need to explain why in this case but, if I do, I'd suggest watching any of his films. More than once, actually.

and, finally...

1. Capt. Mal (Nathan Fillion) from Firefly/Serenity and The Operative (Chiwetel Ejiofor) from Serenity. Again, a twosome--opposite and, yet, similar. Both were honourable, both are very fanciable and both are willing to do much for what they believe in. But, they are also not afraid to question their beliefs and respect each other (and the people around them) . As with no. 3, I reckon with these two, adventure would be a constant and, right now at the start of another semester of teaching and writing, I'd like an adventure!

Oh, and MtP is probably the first non-textbook I've pre-ordered. I'm feeling rather fangirlish about it all!

Heee.

Yeah. I'm pretty juvenile.

This is so very, very, very NSFW and for over 18 only.

the things you find in Newsweek

Apologies, dear Reader(s) but this week has seen the start of a new semester and I've been busy teaching a new set of undergrads while wondering how on earth the Library could have "forgotten" about all the books and articles I had asked to put on reserve. In other words, Real Life has gotten in the way of entertaining yous. But, fear not, for I'm back.

I was skimming through Newsweek just now, trying to find an article for my class tomorrow when I ran across this:

"Move Over, ‘Meerkat Manor’ A nature writer suddenly finds himself at the heart of a hot plagiarism scandal." by Paul Tolme.

What's it about, yous ask? Well, here's Tolme:

"When I traveled to South Dakota in 2005 to write a story about black-footed ferrets, I never imagined my words about the little weasels would one day appear in a trashy romance novel. I just wanted to write an informative and entertaining piece about these endangered prairie carnivores.

Three years later my story ("Toughing It Out in the Badlands") is at the center of 2008's sexiest plagiarism scandal."

He goes on..."To see my textbook descriptions of ferrets in a bodice-ripper, as dialogue between a hunky American Indian and a lustful pioneer woman who several pages later have sex on a mossy riverbank, is the height of absurdity."

Apparently a famous romance novelist plagiarised the works of others, including Mr. Tolme.

Mr. Tolme's full story is here. He's actually a rather amusing writer (despite his tendency to characterise romance novels as trashy rubbish, a characterisation not helped by that particular book's cover)

Languid-handed vampires ahoy!

Went over to Border's to pick up the book Fanny talked about earlier. Ended up buying this and this instead.

Just finished reading the first one (see pic). Plenty of vampires and a rather unbelievable tale of how two people who love each other keep their hands off each other for over 600 years. I don't want much in my vampire books but, really? That's taking abstinence much too far.

ETA: Since I was half-asleep when I wrote this, I forgot to add this book comes very close to violating one of my taboos in life. Most things, I'm fine with--I figure if some of us fancy diaper-wearing and weeing on each other while performing tantric sex, then good on them. But, Evermore has one of the few things that make me icked out. Or could have, if the author hadn't magicked it away towards the end.
I want Fanny to read this to see what she reckons.

Muh.

I am very disturbed by this book:

I like this author, I like her other books in the series. This one...I don't know.

Applause on one hand for going somewhere unexpected, especially for this genre and sub-genre. And there are aspects I like. I love the fairy-tale-artifact aspect. It's obviously that archaeologist in me screaming to come out and play.

But...the more I think about it (and I suppose that's some measure of success, that I'm still thinking about a paranormal the next day), the more I feel just a little bit cheated and manipulated and at the mercy of editing decisions that impacted/impeded the narrative. Shoved the narrative down unearned paths.

I have opinions. I want others.

And I especially feel Bum should read this so we can disagree. No languid-handed vampires, though. I'm not sure if she can get past that disappointment.