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.
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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. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about a vacation The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain Normally I love Twain, but this book (his first) quickly got repetitious. It's a travelogue of a 6-month cruise he took through Southern Europe and the Middle East. A lot of the humor is just mocking the clothes or strange customs of whatever port they were in that day, along with frequent references to the women being "homely" and the locals trying to cheat the travelers out of money. It's a bit surprising seeing Twain refer to "we Protestants," as he famously rejected religion in his later years. There's a sly running gag about the travelers' visits to various cathedrals, all of which seem to have the same relics from the same saints. No doubt the book felt more fresh in an era when foreign travel was difficult and information about other countries wasn't available with a few keystrokes. And Twain's witty turns of phrase are there throughout the book, giving a glimpse of the great writer he would become. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A historical novel A Lady for a Duke, by Alexis Hall A Regency romance with a twist: the lady is trans. After being presumed dead at Waterloo, she takes on a new identity as a woman, names herself Viola Carroll, and settles in the household of her genial-but-dim brother (who has taken over Viola's former title as Duke of Marleigh), and his wonderfully tart-tongued wife, Louise. Viola reconnects with her former best friend, the Duke of Gracewood, who is struggling with PTSD and misusing laudanum while raising a teenage sister. Gracewood is suffering greatly from grief over the "death" of his best friend, until he discovers Viola's identity and they fall in love. Romance is an idealistic genre, and this one is decidedly free of angst (except over the horrors they witnessed in battle). Gracewood, his sister, and Viola's family accept her as a woman with a minimum of questions. Nobody slips and uses her deadname; we never even learn what it was. Gacewood has no hesitation or self-doubt about sex with Viola, even though he's only been with cis women before. The third-act crisis isn't a breakup; it's a scoundrel kidnapping Gracewood's sister in an attempt to arm-twist her into an unwanted marriage. Gracewood and Viola encounter obstacles on the way to their happily-ever-after ending, but they're mainly "us against the world" obstacles. It's a romance worthy of a daring lady like Viola. Kindle preorders here. The paperback will be available for preorder sometime between now & December 5th. My short story, "Please," just took first prize in the Books on the Bosque writing contest!
As this is the rare contest that accepts previously published stories, "Please" can be found where it originally appeared, in the Saturday Evening Post. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book written for National Novel Writing Month Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree The tagline is "A novel of high fantasy and low stakes." Viv, an orc fighter, gives up adventuring to open a coffee shop in a city where no one has heard of coffee. The fate of the world is not at issue, and the problems Viv encounters are about setting up a business, bringing in customers, and finding her place in the community. Yet the story is engaging, and I was rooting for Viv, especially when her friendship with her barista Tandri gradually blossomed into love. The author goes against expectations with the casting as well. Orcs and succubi are usually portrayed as evil in Dungeons & Dragons and fantasy stories; in this one, they're the heroines. The villain is an elf. I'd advise against reading this book while hungry. Viv's baker, a ratkin (think Rodent of Unusual Size), creates pastries that are described in delectable detail. Entirely fitting for a sweet and wholesome book. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book about or set in Hollywood Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood, by Maureen Ryan Burn It Down shines a harsh light on how Hollywood gets a pass on all the normal rules for an acceptable workplace, and how little has changed despite decades of the same issues being raised. Ryan pokes at some of the myths that Hollywood runs on, including the myth of “necessary monsters” and “toxic creativity.” Someone powerful and successful can get away with verbal abuse, harassment, screaming and throwing things, and demanding that underlings do anything from giving massages to picking up drugs for them. Some hide behind excuses about how this bullying is “part of their creative process.” There’s no way to guess how many people have been driven out of the industry because their own creative process requires being treated like a human being. Aside from a few high-profile takedowns of the worst offenders, #MeToo hasn’t made nearly as much headway as one might think after seeing endless articles suggesting “Has #MeToo gone too far?” (Not coincidentally, many of the same media outlets running those articles had their own #MeToo scandals.) If a studio has any process to deal with harassment, it’s mostly focused on making the victim go away. The problems are structural. When the gatekeepers are mostly white men, the stories they tell will mostly be about white men, and the aspiring writers/directors/etc with the connections to get hired will mostly be white men. Too often, “diversity and inclusion” has meant one woman and/or POC being the only one in the writers’ room or the cast, with that person not feeling safe (and often not being safe) speaking up about anything problematic. In discussing solutions, Ryan references Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s book On Repentance and Repair, and the Al Capone Theory of Harassment, both of which I’ve written about before. In addition to Ruttenberg, Ryan spoke with a therapist who works with convicted sex offenders, and with a screenwriter who used restorative justice after her own experience with sexual assault. The solutions they discuss are unsurprising: meaningfully vet people hired into positions of power, quit making excuses for harassers, don’t retaliate against people who report problems, get unions involved when needed. The book was written before the recent writers’ & actors’ strikes, but it’s nice to see unions fighting for their people. An occasional frustration with the book is that she was given a lot of information off the record, so she'll mention some unnamed person in the industry who would "say horrible things" or "act abusively," but it's unclear what they did or how bad it was. One of the many anonymous stories Ryan quotes involved a director who had his budget padded in anticipation of payoffs to women he would harass. As Ryan notes, a well-run , respectful workplace is not only healthier for everyone — it’s also more cost-effective. Waiting to see if the studios ever figure that out. Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book published in the second half of 2023 Skate the Seeker, by Jeff Ayers This is the sequel to Skate the Thief (reviewed here for last year's challenge). It's a series that needs to be read in order. Skate leaves the familiar city on a desperate cross-country journey to rescue Skate's wizard mentor, Bellamy. She's accompanied by her friends Twitch (fellow underage thief), Petre (guy trapped in a glass globe) and Rattle (a sort of bat-spider creature created by magic, who does scouting with its giant eyeball and makes great pancakes). They make friends and enemies along the way - and there are twists where a seeming enemy turns out to be a friend, and vice versa. (Curiously, this is the third book I've read recently with a good-hearted prince who doesn't really believe in monarchy.) This book has a darker feel than the first one, with some scary moments. Skate and friends battle on, with courage and persistence. As with the first book, this one wraps up its main plot in a satisfying way, and opens a door in the final chapter to set up the next book. The hints are there throughout the book, but only come clear at the end. |