Thinklings Books shared their 10 favorite quotes from "The Star-Crossed Pelican." As a bonus, here's mine:
“Frink, there is treatment available for kleptomania.” “I know. I’ve stolen a few books about it.” Read the rest here.
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Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book with mythological creatures The Shepherd's Crown, by Terry Pratchett This is the last book of the Tiffany Aching series (and in fact the last Discworld book). There's a sense of coming full circle. In her first adventure, The Wee Free Men, Tiffany was a child up against the powerful Queen of the Fairies. Now Tiffany is a young woman coming into her full power as a witch, and the fairies are once again up to no good. The fairies of Discworld are a cold, dangerous bunch. It's not that they hate humans; they simply regard humans as fit only for their entertainment. And if that means dancing them to death, or stealing their children, the fairies don't see a problem with that. The story includes Tiffany dealing with the death of a character who's a longtime favorite in the series. We're also introduced to an appealing new character, Geoffrey, who wants to be Discworld's first male witch. Whether it's fairies, disgruntled rival witches, or an opinionated goat, we see Tiffany stepping up to become a leader. It's a worthy farewell to her and to Discworld. Thinklings Books has an "interview" with Frink, the slightly sticky-fingered pilot character in my book "The Star-Crossed Pelican."
Thinklings: What do you hope to do in the near future? Frink: I’m putting together a bucket list of things I want to steal. (Why do they call it that? I almost never steal buckets.) I already have the first one: the legendary lost jewel of Togmagog. Some of the other items on the list: -The gavel from the Supreme Galactic Court -The first known manuscript written in Old Jupiteran (rules for billiards in zero-gravity) -Nina Mikeljohn’s spaceship (preferably while she’s smuggling chocolate) -A small planet (a moon would do, I guess) There’s more on the list, but I’m not sure I should admit to all of it without a lawyer. Read the rest here. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book you bought from an independent bookstore The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates The story is a mix of slave-era historical novel and fantasy/magical realism. Hiram, the narrator, is the son of an enslaved woman and the plantation owner. Hiram is in a slightly better position than the other enslaved workers: he's spared from working in the fields, and instead is the personal servant of his father's good-for-nothing "legitimate" son. But Virginia's fortunes are sinking, and the people around him are being sold to the Louisiana cotton fields, including Hiram's mother. Hiram knows that this will likely be his own fate after his father's death. Hiram discovers that he has a power called "conduction:" he is able to teleport across water. He resolves to escape, along with Sophia, the forced concubine of Hiram's white uncle. He winds up being trained by "Moses" herself, Harriet Tubman, who has the same power. And eventually Hiram must confront his memories of his mother, the "water dancer" who could dance with a jug on her head without spilling a drop. Some of the language/style things in the novel puzzled me. For instance, Hiram always refers to working as "tasking," and to enslaved people as "the Tasked." It didn't interfere with my enjoyment of the story, but I'm not sure what it was supposed to convey. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book with a rabbit on the cover I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett Terry Pratchett's Discworld books are often very funny, and this one is considered "young adult," but there are also some very grim parts, including cruelty to children and animals. Pratchett doesn't shy away from the dark. 15-year-old Tiffany Aching, a rural witch, must defeat a supernatural creature called the Cunning Man. He has the power to stir up anger and suspicion toward witches, and many of the locals get caught up in it - including Tiffany's ex-boyfriend Roland, who has recently inherited the title of Baron - and suspects Tiffany of killing his father. Tiffany is helped - and frequently hindered - by the Nac Mac Feegle, also known as the Wee Free Men. These tiny fairies are tougher than they look, and prone to drinking, brawling, "borrowing" items, and generally making Tiffany's life difficult in hilarious ways. The book includes a side trip to the city of Ankh-Morpork, so there are "cameos" by members of the City Watch, in addition to the witches who typically appear in Tiffany's stories. Apparently the wee Free Men have something of a reputation in the city, and the Watch members are anxious to be rid of them. Although the other witches are able to help, it's made clear to Tiffany that they expect her to prove herself by coming up with her own solution to the Cunning Man problem. She does, of course, and manages to figure out a few other problems - including her own love life - along the way. Popsugar Reading challenge category: A book becoming a TV series or movie in 2023 The Power, by Naomi Alderman The premise to this story sounds like straightforward feminist wish-fulfillment: women and girls develop the ability to give a powerful (or even deadly) electric shock by touch. Suddenly it's men, not women, afraid to walk alone at night. Rapists find the tables turned, trafficked women rise up, and whole countries are overthrown. But the book is really about power itself, and how it changes those who have it and those who don't, individually and societally. In one early scene, women at work are joking about using the power. The one man there says it isn't funny, and he's told to "calm down." Later, he has to worry about not seeming "too angry." Within a few years, an Eastern European country has decreed the same sorts of restrictions on men that we currently associate with Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. There's a female-on-male rape scene that's absolutely horrifying and not even slightly sexy. We follow several characters through the tumultuous ten years after the power emerges. Roxy is a British gangster's daughter. Margot is a rising American politician; her daughter Jocelyn has the power only intermittently. Tunde is a male journalist from Nigeria, trying to capture the story of a changing world. And Allie is a runaway who starts a goddess religion, renaming herself Mother Eve. The book's framing device takes it to another level. At the beginning, there's an exchange of letters between a fictional "Naomi" and "Neil Adam Armon," who wants Naomi to read his manuscript for a historical novel called "The Power." [SPOILERS FOLLOW] There are more letters at the end, and we learn that the world is now 5000 years past an event called the Cataclysm. Humans bombed each other back into the Stone Age, and civilization developed in a different direction. Naomi tells Neil that his story is fun but unrealistic; there's no reason to believe men were ever soldiers except in a few isolated cultures. Evolutionary psychology teaches that men are "naturally" gentle and nurturing, while women are warriors because they have babies to protect. As for the notion of men trafficking women for sex, the fictional Naomi giggles over the absurdity and "sexiness" of the idea. The things that are accepted as natural, inevitable gender differences are ultimately only a matter of power. Thinklings: If you belonged to one of the alien species in your books, which would it be and why?
Laura: I wrote a whole quiz to answer that! I was surprised how much I had in common with Cygnoids, mostly because of their idealism. But I hope I have a little of the Jupiteran sense of justice, the Venusian extreme self-esteem, the Ursan sense of fun, and the Mercurian quirkiness. Wait, I left out Plutonians. Do I have anything in common with them? I share their view that Pluto is a real planet. Read the rest on the website for Thinklings Books. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book based on a popular movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke From the way the prompt is worded, I assumed that a book that was later made into a movie wouldn't qualify; the movie was supposed to come first. 2001 is a special case: the book and movie were created simultaneously. It makes sense, then, that the writing is so visual. There's a long stretch where Dave, the ship's captain, has no one to interact with, but the vivid images of stars and planets keep it from feeling slow. The description of the iconic obelisk was so clear that I could hear the famous music in my head. The AI computer having a nervous breakdown feels even more relevant today. We don't have true artificial intelligence, but Siri and Alexa make HAL easy to imagine. The ending is kind of esoteric, and probably works better on the screen. But like the rest of the story, it leaps off the page, easy to picture if not entirely easy to understand. |