Article | It's Monday, What are you Reading?

It’s Monday, What are you Reading is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at One Person's Journey Through A World Of Books to discuss what we are reading this week, as well as books completed the previous week.  This will be my new Monday night routine, besides of course my writing meeting, I will check in with my reading goals too.


This Past Week:
Finished: Wanderlust By: Ann Aguirre
Started and Finished: Doubleblind By: Ann Aguirre
Started: Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs By: Molly Harper


This Week:
I would like to Finish: Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs By: Molly Harper
Start and Finish: Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men By: Molly Harper
Start: Nice Girls Don't Live Forever By: Molly Harper


I am bit behind in my blogging, but am hoping to get caught up this week by forcing myself back into a NaNoWriMo Schedule, where I posted every day Monday to Friday. I also got a lot more writing done during NaNoWriMo, so I am going to try and hunker back down to those roots. My goal for my posts goes like this:

• Mondays – What are you Reading
• Tuesdays – Book Review
• Wednesdays – Mid Week Check in with writing goals
• Thursdays – Booking through Thursdays
• Friday – Another Review (book, website recommendation, movie, etc…

It feels much more concrete to put my goals out there where I have to stay accountable to them. I’m really looking forward to this upcoming year, and can’t wait to finally get a good grasp on it. So far, I have a better reading habit kicked in, just need to get my writing more under wraps.

Review | The Magicians By: Lev Grossman

I found this book singularly boring.

I wanted to love it. Had heard good things about it from Patrick Rothfuss and A Dribble of Ink. But couldn’t bring myself to love it.

Perhaps it’s just me. Perhaps it’s ennui. I have been having trouble with my reading lately; I can’t seam to be engaged. I keep waiting for a book to rescue me, and to fall in love again. This book was not it. And consequently I trudged through it with a bitter edge of expectations that were never met.

Fillory (or as I like to think of it Narnia) is Quentin’s obsession. He is of exceptional intelligence, higher than an IQ aught to be, but obsessed with a series of children’s books written in the early 1930’s in regards to a magical land and a family of children who visit it.

Magic exists. As Quentin finds out and he gets to go to a school for it. At this point the novel has been compared to Harry Potter. It is nothing like that. It is like to Harry Potter as dog shit is to chocolate. Vague resemblance in that there is a school of magic, but nothing else really in common.

The Magician is Literature with a capital capital L. Or at least that is how it feels like to me. It feels narrated rather than told from a point of view. It doesn’t delve deeply into the life of Quentin but rather takes snapshots and flits along the surface. I never feel a sense of desperation just an aimless wandering. Consequently, I was left in a constant state of waiting for something to happen, anything. However, when something finally did happen, it never seamed as grand as it aught be. It was mired down in drudgery and alcohol.

Furthermore, magic, is singularly dull in this novel. None of the wild and exoticness that I picture. Methodical, yet elusive.

This book has been deemed a love hate relationship and I by far fill into the hate category. My views on this book and reactions side more with Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist, and The Book Smugglers.

Review | Eerie Cuties

This is my third web comic. They are a most recent development, spring 2009. I got caught up on this comic in approximately 2 hours. It isn’t very far in the story line and still heavily in world building mode, however still very entertaining.

As per the graphics: the color is vibrant and the graphics are good bordering on anime, yet with their own twist.

This story takes a whole bunch of supernatural elements tosses them in a pot (special school) and sets them to boil. The idea is for some great comic relief. The characters seem a little shallow, still I like their idiocy. I find it amusing and entertaining. They have Vampires, Secubi, Werewolves, Ghost Pirates and more. With so many different elements it borders on cheese but manages to pull it off.

They first started with a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule but have since adjusted to a Monday, Wednesday schedule. I am very interested in seeing how things develop and if this project has enough wind in it sails to propel it onwards.

Review | Questionable Content

This is my second web comic.  It is not in the fantasy stream what so ever and I can’t remember how I got to them.  Yet here I am. 

I would click on it every now and then and read a comic and felt lost, like a plethora of inside jokes were streaming over my head.  This frustrated me.  However, I am stubborn.  I looked at their archives; over 1500 comics.  Gulp.  I can do this. This means that this will last me awhile. 

Ha…. I finished this during NaNoWriMo.  I wrote over 50 000 words towards my novel and read all of Questionable Content. 

This one fit with my graphic needs for comics.  I liked the realistic style.  But going back to the beginning left my skin crawling.  The beginning is very rough artistically. Yet it was interesting to see the artist grow.  How his style and technique developed as he progressed.  It was a great experience, as the characters grew so did the artist. 

As for the story, it deals with real life.  Shit happens, we get through it.  I kind of like that it deals with mundane issues in a funny way.  If this were on TV it would be a sitcom slightly on the dramatic side.  Plus it is filled with geeky content, mostly pertaining to music.  I really like that quirk even though I don’t know much about any of the bands they blather on about.  The characters are also very quirky with raise your eyebrow back stories that are utterly entertaining. 

The only catch is that I advise against reading the blurb posts he puts at the end of the comics.  They are usually fairly uninteresting, or very whiny.  I know that life sucks and it has got you down sometimes, and I too get the urge to unload on my blog as well.  I am sure I have broken that golden rule a few times too.  And I forgive him for doing it.  But you can avoid that hassle if you so desire by not reading the blurbs. 

They post daily, Monday to Friday.  This pleases me to no end.  Yet if they wanted to post more I could handle that too.  They also sell T-shirts with content from the comics – more inside jokes.  

Review | Girl Genius

My first web comic….

As mentioned previously I primarily avoid comics. Their medium for story telling eludes me.  I get focused on the words and forget that the story is also told through pictures.  Needless to say I miss a lot skipping from one dialogue bubble to the next barely looking at the graphics. Yet when the Hugo finals came up and Patrick Rothfuss linked to the winner for web comic a small part of me couldn’t resist seeing what the fuss was about. I was more than pleasantly surprised to stumble upon Girl Genius.

First off, I loved the graphics and their use of color. As this is a visual story telling means, this is the first thing I consider. If it is in black and white I raise a questionable eyebrow. Next it’s the style of the drawings. If it is done a la Noire, I leave.  Noire, at this point is not my thing.  I hope that someday I will be able to appreciate it, but currently I don't, so no point in forcing it.  Not only do they have superior color (so vivid), they have an amazingly talented artist who draws women with curves that don’t look like anime characters.

Secondly their idea and premise is very compelling. I love the idea of Sparks in a steampunk/Gaslamp fantasy.  Sparks are people who are inventors, but they kind of go mad scientist when they are in focus mode.  Definitely creates some pretty funny and dramatic scenes.

Their plot is fast moving covering a lot of interesting ground. Agatha doesn't know she is a Spark.  She is studying at the university and gets these wicked headaches every time she tries to invent something.  I really don't want to give anything away, so what you are going to have to do is go and read it.  It is well worth your time.  I ate through their archives as fast as I could manage although it was an addiction that could only be quenched online so it took me a little longer.

This comic finishes out as one of my best reads of 2009. This is what made me decide to give other web comics a try.

They post on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule, however, in my opinion once an hour couldn’t be enough. They also sell their comics in yearly editions if you are the type who wants it nicely collected on your shelf.  I am.  *Cough*present*Cough*

Next Review:  Questionable Content - another web comic but in a different vein.

Review | Julie & Julia

Movie and Book Review

Okay so the reason I got caught up in this book and movie was due to the name. My name is Julia. Not sure if I ever mentioned that. The movie trailers looked funny enough, but it was the name that tipped the scales. The fact that it was based on a book was a no brainer for me. On the to read list it must go.

The Book
This book talked about food. Specifically French Cooking. It is the story of a girl who rescued herself from a downward spiral of nothingness through the challenge of cooking her way through Julia Child's cook book Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I cook and I need to be rescued from that same spiral of hopeless nothingness. I could relate. I chose my rescue in the form of writing mind you, but on the primitive save me level, I got it. I got the struggle, and why she needed the project.

The project started off as a blog. However at the end of it, she was offered a book deal. The details on that are vague in the book, but kudos to her.

The books voice was unique. It was funny and witty and it did a lot to carry the novel forward. The topic and plot itself could have been desperate but the way in which it was presented and written was highly enjoyable, like a fluffy desert that is healthy for you.

The Movie
There was a pause of time between reading the book and watching the movie. The book wasn’t as fresh in my mind, and this is usually a good thing. It allows me to enjoy the movie more and criticize that it is not the book less.

Overall I liked. Sure there were differences from book to movie, but in general I really enjoyed it. I liked that we got to see more of Julia Child in the movie. Perhaps this isn’t an accurate rendition of her, but it really helped to flesh out the story more. However, Meril Streep could do with less of the shrill drunkenness joy de vivre.

Overall the book to movie was a fairly solid adaptation with no obvious missing parts, with areas of improvement and areas that needed improvement.

Both the movie and book are highly entertaining and you could explore either without needing the other and still get a good taste for the project.

Movie Review | Sherlock Holmes

I have never read any of the Sherlock Holmes books. In fact in discussing them with a friend I was told that The Beekeeper's Apprentice by: Laurie R King does it better. Perhaps when I am ready I will start there, maybe do a little compare and contrast to the original inspiration.

However, despite not having read it, it still looked like an amazing movie. So on New Years Day greatly hung over and lacking energy, when friends said lets go do this, I said yes. I should also mention that I love costumes. Any period piece will draw me in with costumes alone. Needless to say the movie delivered tenfold on that front. It was a feast to look at all of the little details.

The movie was amazing. The setting was very well done, the attention to detail was astonishing. I felt that we got a good sense for what London was like then. And even if it wasn’t like that, I still really admired what they did.

The actors also did a splendid job. I believed their characters and wasn’t viewing them for previous parts, or stereotyping them. And the script was very well written. I would have loved to be the scriptwriter on that project. And kudos to the director who pulled it together as well as the rest of the team that made this film possible.

When Sherlock was looking for clues, we saw him do it. We saw what he touched what he looked at. When the final moments came and he pieced things together, we knew where he was grabbing his information. It astounded me though how much he knew. In this day and age we are very dependant on the Internet for looking up information. To not have the same resources, and solve those problems, is a commendable task.

Also when Sherlock would attack someone he had a mental calculation of exactly what he would do, and you would see it, and then he would do it and you would see it again. How he could assess people so well was astonishing, however, for one moment I would have liked had he been wrong. It just seamed too arrogant for him to be right all the time.

I also found the London Police force was comical in their incompetency, however I also really liked how genuine they were too. I liked how they treated Sherlock, with respect instead of resentment. It could have easily gone the other way.

I was genuinely drawn in by the story and how it developed. The conclusion left room for a sequel, but now that we know the world, it may not be so spectacular to visit it again. Each time Sherlock will look for clues and pick up a rock we’ll just file that away and wonder how he will connect it. The same awe and wonder would be lost in a sequel. However, I would still be interested in seeing how they would manage it.

P.S. They had a bulldog instead of a basset hound. I was a wee bit disappointed by that of course because I have basset hounds, however I also understand how hard they are to train, so can see why the change in dog was made.