I’m happy to announce that an excerpt from my book, Dreamer’s Island, has been chosen as one of several works to be showcased at the next Charlotte Writer’s Club Meeting on Jan 17th at 7 p.m. at the Queen’s University Conference Center on Tyvola Road in Charlotte.
Tag Archive: Science Fiction
I've heard so much about this book, I'm finally getting around to reading it. The hype isn't without its due. I wasn't sure I was going to like it reading the first, say, fifty pages. But now, well, I can hardly put it down. I'll write more after I've finished it.
In a post-plague, baby-hungry world Blair searches for her kidnapped daughter. She works as a tour guide on what mainlanders call Devil’s Island—all that’s left of a future San Francisco. The island is infamous for its high rate of plague survivors, its lively, thriving arts community, and its suspect spirituality.
Islanders are fascinated by mysterious “plague-gifts” – knowledge and skills acquired by surviving the plague and are covertly experimenting with the virus. Mainlanders abhor the mere mention of anything plague-related.
The island is quarantined, yet mainlanders Dr. Lourdes and his daughters insist on a visit. Their stated agenda is to shop the arts district and to adopt a child. But Dr. Lourdes’s curiosity about rumored plague virus experiments has Blair worried about the true purpose of their visit.
When the doctor’s youngest daughter contracts the plague, Blair must call on all her plague-gifts to help her survive. The girl’s fight for her life and Blair’s search for her own daughter dovetail in a startling conclusion that is beyond Blair’s wildest dreams.
Dreamer’s Island is available on Amazon.com and other major retail sites.
Oh, I’m so glad I didn’t stop reading the series before this book came out. At times, I’d been tempted. Some of the battle scenes were getting difficult to follow and the never-ending cast of characters was often too much to keep straight.
However, I am half-way through Dance of Dragons and it is soooo good. I think his writing is getting better and better. Some of these scenes are absolutely blow-your-mind-beautiful. The description of “Arya’s” wedding is so hauntingly lovely–the description of Winterfell. Oh, I can’t begin to do it justice by trying to write about it.
Also Bran’s adventure with the Children is so well done, the description of the caves and the tree roots and shapeshifting into the trees. Marvelously inventive.
I also have to mention Tyrion’s story. He is my favorite character. Not only is he witty, but he’s complex. Not a flat character at all. I would say he’s the one with the most depth.
And lastly, but certainly not least–Daenery’s storyline. The actor (Tamzin Merchant) they chose for her role in the TV series is dead-on perfect. So that now reading the last book, she is who I imagine when reading her storyline.
So I've finished the first four books of Martin's Song of Ice and Fire Series. The fifth one, Dance of Dragons, comes out tomorrow and I've preordered it on my Nook. In the meantime I'm reading Grass by Sheri Tepper. I'm still enjoying Martin's series, but I will admit to getting confused several times during this last book, particularly when it involved battles. I can chalk that up to being female, perhaps. Also in the next book of his, I have to remember there are a list of all the characters at the end, so I could have looked them up and helped myself out, but I didn't. I do agree with a friend of mine that I think this series is more directed to men. I admit to several times thinking I may not finish it, but I did. After all, it is considered one of the classics of Science Fiction and I do try to do my homework. The Cersei thread held my interest the most in this book and I thought it was very well done. I suppose she's one of those characters that, as Martin says, you love to hate. I was thrown by so much attention to the Dornish in this book. And I missed Tyrion's thread, which Martin promises he will continue in Dance of Dragons. He'd better. :)
In the third book in George Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, I start out feeling lost as he takes us to the Citadel (school of maesters), a setting not used before and new characters as well. But I'm quickly getting my bearings.
Th
is was to be the cover of my book, but apparently I can’t use it for copyright reasons, although every other tarot site on the web uses it. Damn! I really liked it and it took me so long to learn to doctor the image to add Mr. Shakespeare and the parrot. Argh! Ah, well. I still like the image.
So I’m now reading the second book of Martin’s Song of Ic
e and Fire series. Good Book. I think I enjoyed it even more than the first book of the series.
I was reading in the back of it, looking over the list of characters. A very long list, but I estimate there are over 500 characters and we’re only in the second book. I think I can honestly say I’ve never read a book with more. Bleak House by Dickens is the only one I can remember that comes close and it doesn’t come close. Perhaps War and Peace?
There is so much to praise in this book, I don’t know where to start. I was seriously impressed by Martin’s description of the Battle of Blackwater. I often tend to skim over long involved battles. But not this one. His description of the battle mentality through Tyrion’s eyes–one of my favorite characters–was masterfully done. The adrenalin, the tunnel vision, the here-and-now, all-or-none focus. The imperviousness to pain until it’s all over. I was in awe by the time I finished reading that section.
Another favorite part was John Snow and the Halfhand or was it Smallwood, climbing the vertical Frontfangs. His description was at once strangely beautiful and terrifying. Wonderful section.
More superlatives for Danys sojourn through the House of the Dead. A fun house gone bad, a house of mirrors, visions and a puzzle to be solved. All these scenes were simply intoxicating.
I did have some questions about Bran and Hodor and Osha’s escape from Grayjoy. Some things didn’t seem to quite fit, though by then I was certainly willing to give Martin the benefit of the doubt.
On to book three.
Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin (A Son of Ice and Fire #1)
My recent strategy in my reading has been to take in some of the science fiction classics. I have been an eclectic reader for the most part, not sticking to any one genre. But if my own book is genre fiction, it would probably be science fiction, which I’m still not quite convinced of, I thought I ought to get grounded in the SF classics. Oh, I’ve read the big names in the field, for the most part–Asimov, Tolkien, Frank Herbert, Miller, Adams, Butler, Le Guin, and those of Margaret Atwood’s that are sometimes included in the genre, but I don’t consider my reading in the area comprehensive by any means.
So, the latest I’ve picked up is Martin’s. Incidentally, the series just started showing on HBO on Sunday nights, which was a nice fluke. So far the series is sticking to the book very closely. I have to say at first I was greatly appreciating his world building, his characters, which are numerous and his extensive number of story threads that he’s juggling. At the same time now, I’m growing tired of the slashing, blood letting, burning, raping, and guillotining that is everywhere in the book. And his work is called fantasy, very gritty, gory fantasy, that’s for sure.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to finish the series as I was a little turned off by the gore in the book, but my curiosity about what happens to the characters got the best of me. Also, I had heard so many rave reviews of his work that I decided to push on. Not to mention I had already bought the next book in the series on my Nook. 
Things I liked about this book: His characters are not flat, most all of them have both good and bad qualities, the Imp, in particular. He’s a very interesting character. The direwolves have caught my interest, too. (Note to self–should my characters have pets–well, she does, in fact.) The characters of the Stark family are all sympathetic characters, Arya and Jon, in particular. Oh, and I can’t leave out Daenerys. She’s fascinating with her dragon eggs. The HBO series I thought did very well with the casting–all except Jon. For me he didn’t ring true from how I’d imagined him in the book. For some reason I’d thought he was blond
I occasionally look around the web for other literary sci/fi writer blogs. I suppose saying that indicates I believe myself in that category; well, I at least attempt to emulate them. Today I came upon a blog named Deep Genre, which I quite liked. One of the contributors David Louis Edelman, a literary sci/fi writer http://www.davidlouisedelman.com/writing/how-to-write-a-novel-part-1/ has written a couple of great articles on “How to Write a Novel”, parts 1 & 2. I would highly recommend them to anyone contemplating taking on a novel. He covers the subject in enough detail that you know he put some thought into it and not so much that you give up on it and say you’ll read it at another time and, of course, never get back to it.
On the much debated subject of whether or not to use an outline, Edelman is an advocate of using them. Having come through an MFA program, for a long time I was above the use of them–citing their supposed limitation of strait-straitjacketing one’s creativity. Well, I’ve changed my mind about this after struggling through my second novel, feeling as if it was flopping all over the place, knowing things weren’t working, but unable to say just how. Each part has to be written with the whole in mind, especially in a novel and there’s no way to do this in my mind until you’ve written that entire first draft and then go back and plot it out. Then go back even further and ask yourself the questions how does this chapter work with the whole in mind, how does this paragraph work with the chapter in mind, how does this sentence work with the paragraph in mind. In other words its something of a working backwards at that point. Pacing is a real challenge for me in a novel–my tendency is to rush through a scene, when just the opposite is required, especially during the peak moments of crisis, or action or highly charged scenes.