Archive for the ‘Authors & Books’ Category

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Trying to read: The Elfish Gene by Mark Barrowcliffe


19 Aug

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With a title like The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons and Growing Up Strange, a Memoir, its not a surprise the book appealed to me on the library shelf. But so far, not so good. The author seems to think that he’d have been better off had he not been obsessed with D&D- D&D being the problem. I’m pretty certain he’d have been better off not being obsessed.

Maybe the book will get funnier, or maybe I should know better than to try and read a book about D&D that has a quote from the Christian Science Monitor on the cover.

Men who can write strong female characters


14 Aug

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Posted in Authors & Books, David Drake, L.E. Modesitt Jr, Steven Brust, Writing | Comments Off

Writing characters of the opposite sex is one of the biggest challenges writers face. It is too easy to fall into stereotypes. I was never able to get more than 100 pages into the first Wheel of Time book because Jordan’s female characters just bugged me too much.

So I want to give a shout out to three male authors who manage to write women I like, or can at least relate to. L.E. Modesitt Jr, in his Recluse series, Steven Brust in the Vlad novels, and David Drake, both in his sci-fi Lt Leary books and his fantasy novels.

My Favorite Books: The Dresden Files (series) by Jim Butcher


03 Aug

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Posted in Authors & Books, Dresden Files, Jim Butcher | 1 Comment »

We came to Butcher’s Dresden novels through the short lived series, the Dresden Files. I loved the series, and having read the books, I think they did a great job of casting. But there are things you can do in novels that you can’t do on television (limited budget and all).

The Dresden books are great dark urban fantasy pulpy fun. They make for great travel novels, making it easy to escape in to the world, but not being so complex that it is difficult to get back in to them after having to set them down for a minute.

King County Libraries


24 Jul

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Posted in Authors & Books | 2 Comments »

I got myself a library card today. This makes me happy. But the library here is nothing like I remember the libraries of my childhood. Now, it could be that my memory is skewed considering the last library I spent any amount of time in was the library at UNR. You could get lost in the stacks there.

The King County libraries that I have been in are nice, but their collections are small. The Burien library (where I went today) is a lovely building, but its more space than books. The adult fiction section isn’t even divided by genre.

My Favorite Books: Orca by Steven Brust


20 Jul

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Posted in Authors & Books, Steven Brust, Vlad Taltos novels | 2 Comments »

As a series, Brust’s Vlad Taltos novels are my favorite. I buy them in hardback as soon as they are released.

Orca, though not the first book in the series, was the first Vlad book I read. In Orca, two very important bits of information are revealed which are meant to cause a reader to go back and rethink the earlier books and inform the future ones– but the books are not written in chronological order, making it so that the reader needs to remember not only what they know now, but also what the characters know at this point.

A House Full of Books


14 Jul

Posted in Authors & Books, Home Ownership, Reading | Comments Off

Growing up, there were books shelves in almost every room in our house. Nowadays, there are books in every room of my house, too, even if there aren’t shelves to store them on.

We don’t take our books back to the used book store. Perhaps we should, but we don’t. So we have this idea to get a bookshelf for our living room that is the free to good home shelf. This way any time our friends come over, they can leave with a book. Of course, knowing our friends, they’d start bringing books to put on the shelf, too.

My Favorite Books – A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny


13 Jul

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Posted in A Night in the Lonesome October, Authors & Books, Roger Zelazny | Comments Off

I loved the Amber series, especially the Corwin books, but my favorite Zelazny novel is A Night in the Lonesome October. When the story is being told by Jack the Ripper’s dog, Snuff, what’s not to love?

Jack and Snuff are players in a game. All the players begin to congregate into one neighborhood at the start of October. Snuff spends his time meeting other animal companions and trying to figure out who is in the game and who is not. But he doesn’t know what side anyone is on. And come the night of the event, anything can happen.

My favorite books – The Silver Sun by Nancy Springer


03 Jul

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Posted in Authors & Books, Nancy Springer, The Silver Sun | 1 Comment »

Let me be honest, this is not a good book. As someone who has taken numerous writing classes, there are flaws– many, many flaws. But try telling that to my twelve year old self.

I loved the Silver Sun. I loved the characters. I loved the dichotomy of one being the end times king and one being the beginning times king. I had no idea leaving the mainland to go to an island with the elves was derivative.

I still love the book because it helps me remember me at the time it was the best thing I’d ever read.

My Favorite Books – American Gods by Neil Gaiman


23 Jun

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Gaiman is an incredibly talented writer, but he made a name for himself by writing about the dark side of a world disturbingly similar to ours. Read American Gods and you will know why.

The characters are incredibly well drawn and three dimensional. You care about the main character and root for him throughout, but most writers can pull that off. What sets Gaiman apart is the richness of all the other characters- not just the secondary characters but everyone in the background.

His real coupe, though, is to end the book with creepiness tempered by a touch of hope.

My Favorite Books – The Color of Water by James McBride


21 Jun

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Posted in Authors & Books, James McBride, The Color of Water | Comments Off

Back when I was an undergrad, I took a combo English/History class that focused on memoir and autobiography. One of the books we read as memoir was The Color of Water, by James McBride.

I love this book. I have loaned it out and given it as a gift multiple times. The sub-title is “A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother” and it is a lovely story of generations and finding a place in a world where you may not belong. The title comes from the answer the mother gives when the children ask her “What color is God?”

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