Well, I couldn't take it any more. I ripped open one of my official transcripts to make sure Day Hall didn't fuck up and forget my transfer credits and/or refuse to admit I graduated.

They didn't, remarkably. But now I need to order another transcript. And I had to, you know, look at my transcript.

Man, I really stunk up that joint back in the day. Good thing the writing sample is the main criterion for admission to most programs.

###

Speaking of stinking up the joint, and also of fulfilling one's dreams, I see that Lou Dobbs is leaving CNN to become a full-time bigoted asshole.

Shakespeare's Landlord (Lily Bard Mysteries, Book 1) Charlene Harris

2/5.
Lily is the main character in the book series. In the first book she finds someone placing a dead body near her house when she is out on her nightly, comforting walks. She doesnt want to bring attention to herself so she anonymously makes a call to the cheif of police who lives close by. Throughout this novel she finds herself trying to figure out who the murderer is while cleaning her many clients homes.She chose this job to keep to herself. She cant put her finger on the case but knows it must be solved for her to ever feel comfortable in her small town again. Of course a book like this needs some romance. She finds herself involved with her instructor. Lily has learned how to protect herself because of her unforgetful past. She cant seem to put it behind her. Someone in her small town is letting her know they know about her past as well by trying to spook her. Through out the book Lily is trying to understand her liking of Marshall, find the town killer, and make sure her past remains hidden.

I was impressed with this book after I was about 75% through it. (Not sure about page number due to reading it on the kindle.) I had started it and was a little down about the plot but then it started getting better. I would have probably given the book a 3 if it hadnt taken me so long to get to a part I really enjoyed. Once I did though, I was on edge. I have already read 2 more books of this series and am on my fourth. I will post another review tomorrow on book 2.

Title: Seminar, Chapter 21
Fandom: CSI / CSI NY, CSI Miami
Pairing: Warrick Brown / Don Flack,
Nick Stokes / Greg Sanders
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Feedback: Always Welcome

Seminar, Chapter 21

Prologue   Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Chapter 3 (NC-17)   Chapter 4  
Chapter 5   Chapter 6 (NC-17)   Chapter 7  Chapter 8   Chapter 9  
Chapter 10   Chapter 11 (NC-17)   Chapter 12    Chapter 13 (NC-17)   
Chapter 14   Chapter 15   Chapter 16   Chapter 17   Chapter 18  
Chapter 19   Chapter 20

61. Kushiel's Dart - Jacqueline Carey - 816 pages (7.5/10)

Firstly, I must say I absolutely hate these covers. Her mark looks like a giant tramp stamp. It doesn't even look like a real tattoo--it looks like a peel on sticker you'd get from a machine for a quarter, honestly.

Secondly, I re-read this for the first time since I was 15. All I can say is: wow, I can't believe I read this kinky stuff when I was so young! This novel tells the story of Phedre no'Delaunay, a girl sold off as a whore from a young, tender age to the god (of love) Naamah's service. Luckily, she is fostered first by the Night Court and then by a handsome and mysterious man alongside a fair boy and becomes a learned and multi-talented courtesan, among other things.

Phedre has been marked from birth with both an unlucky name and an unlucky scarlet mote in her eye. The scarlet mote represents Kushiel's Dart, meaning she's been struck by the god to be very kinky, horny, and submissive. This makes her a one-of-a-kind commodity among the rich sadists of Terre D'Ange (Land of Angels), a near-medieval France.

The setting was quite interesting. There is the nearly French Terre D'ange, the Nordic Skaldi, the Scottish Alba, the Roman Tiberius, among others. The reader ends up seeing several of these lands throughout the course of the novel. The varying religions and politics were engaging enough to keep me interested.

In general, the writing is fairly good, but the prose can be much wordier than it need me. Over and over Phedre says things like "although how this happened, I cannot say" or "I did not learn it then, but I learned of it later." Just explain at the beginning that this is your "memory" and it's imperfect, and leave it at that! Phedre also weeps frequently and usually has sex with most of the men she meets.

Overall, it's an entertaining enough novel and worth reading if erotic fantasy is your cup of tea.


If you like my reviews, this journal is full of reviews of books I read, some films and tv shows I watch, gadget reviews, occasional looks into what it's like being an ex-pat American in Scotland...feel free to add me as a friend if that sounds vaguely interesting to you!

On Saturday the 14th at 4AM UTC/GMT we will be upgrading the operating system of our network load balancers to a newer version, one that will allow us to use both CPUs! Nifty, because multiprocessing is nice.

Since we have 2 load balancers, the plan is to upgrade 1 at a time, and there really should be very little impact to our website. Hopefully you won't notice a thing and I'll get to go back to the hotel and watch some wonderful late night infomercials.

We've got a lot of exciting projects coming up for 2010 and we're hoping that we'll be able to deliver them all to you, that you will find it useful/cool/lovely and then you will use the site even more. Behind-the-scenes work like this will give us the capacity to handle the anticipated traffic, so expect a few more maintenance windows especially in the beginning of next year as we've got some neat ideas to improve performance around here! We had the recent 30-45 minute outage yesterday due to one of our logging databases filling up disk space -- not so great design coupled with my human error in handling the initial problem -- and it looks like we're going to finally have some resources to eliminate stuff like that. I can't wait!

As usual, I will be updating status.livejournal.org before and after, just in case you are not able to reach our main website during the work.

 

"Properities of Glass" by Eleanor Lavish
PAIRING: Gil/Nick/Greg
RATING: NC-17
SUMMARY: Nick's okay. Greg and Gil, not so much.

Has just been added to CSI Slash and is listed on the new stories page, and the Gil/Nick/Greg page.

CSI Slash's Chirstmas wish page.

Jenna Vincent - a young Australian artist started drawing at twelve.

In honor of Veterans Day/Remembrance Day, I came up with a new topic (last year we discussed weaponry).  How do we portray the military (and other large governmental units) in urban fantasy?

In traditional/epic fantasy, fighting wars is usually considered a noble deed. Oftentimes, the alternative is annihilation of the heroes' people, their home, and All Things Good.

But as in other matters of morality, war is more ambiguous in urban fantasy than it is in traditional fantasy.  Good and evil aren't always clearly delineated in our contemporary times, right?

With its emphasis on the individual, does urban fantasy often portray large units such as the military and government agencies as the Big Bad?  Are they more likely to be the thing to escape than the thing to join?

The shadowy super secret agency is, let's admit it, a staple of urban fantasy. Even when the hero or heroine allies with it, he or she is often frustrated by bureaucracy and incompetence. And then there are those conspiracies...

Or am I wrong?  Are there examples in urban fantasy of the military and/or other government agencies doing good?  Are there veteran characters who aren't bitter about their time in uniform?  What about career servicemen and -women or lifelong bureaucrats? Are they automatically portrayed as brainwashed, or can we see them as serving something larger than themselves?

Feel free to broaden the topic as you share your thoughts in the comments. As always, Members and Watchers alike are encouraged to participate.

Have a great week!

The price for attending Odyssey is due to go up on Monday 16th November.

The current prices are adult £55, unwaged £45, supporting £25, junior £25.
From Monday, these will be £65, £55, £30 and £30, respectively. All other prices stay the same.

There will be an Odyssey table at Novacon in Nottingham this weekend, and that's a good opportunity to join at the current rate. Alternatively, you can join via the Odyssey web site at:

http://www.odyssey2010.org

 

There Once Lived A Woman Who Tried To Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, selected and translated by Keith Gessen and Anna Summers, isbn 9780143114666, 206 pages, Penguin,  $15.00

This was one of those books I picked up in a "holiday frenzy."   I get those frenzies twice a year, really: I buy lots of Christmas fiction starting in late November, and I buy lots of scary fiction in the month or so before Halloween.  So with a title and subtitle like this book has, on a blood-red cover with the image of a woman's head and armless torso perched on a skull set in the smallest of a series of nesting eggs ... how could I resist?  The author's name wasn't familiar until I opened the book up a few days later and recognized the title of one of the stories -- a story I'd read recently and reviewed over in 365shortstories called "The Fountain House."  That story was decidedly off-kilter, so I knew the rest of this collection was going to be similar.

I have posted some short thoughts on the other 18 stories in this collection at the aforementioned community in the past day or so.  I won't go into details here.  The editors / translators, Geffen & Summers, do a wonderful job in their introduction of explaining why Petrushevskaya is just becoming recognized outside of her native Russia, and of explaining how she was suppressed for a long time in her own country.  She has written novels, plays, and short stories.  The stories in this volume are culled from her long career, with a focus on the stories that have at least some nominal supernatural bent.

Not all of the stories are horror -- in fact, most of them might better be labeled as "horrific" or "fantastical" -- not quite fantasy, not quite horror, but also nowhere near mundane at all.  Although Petrushevskaya's characters most often exist in a world that is very clearly Communist Russia, and although her female leads almost all represent the harsher plight women faced under that regime, there is also a sense in most of these stories, even those close to "reality," that we are one step removed from the world we know.  Petrushevskaya, though, never outright says this -- she intimates and describes the fantastic and super-natural, but then in most stories leaves us, as the reader, the room to decide if the supernatural aspects really happened or if they were simply the imaginings of a lonely lost character trying to make sense of his or her life (specifically here I'm thinking of the stories "The Fountain House," "The God Poseidon," and "The Black Coat."

Only about 5 of the stories in the collection are actually presented in fairy tale form, opening with "There once was a  ..." (the author's version of "once upon a time..."), but like most good fairy and/or folk tales, almost all of the stories have a lesson to teach us.  In addition to the three stories just mentioned, I also particularly liked "Hygeine," in which the plague comes to a city; "The New Robinson Crusoes," in which the end of civilization is imminent and a family tries to survive (in fact, I felt the story could give Cormac McCarthy's The Road a run for creating an eerie almost post-apocalyptic world without actually addressing what the apocalyptic event is/was/will be); and "Marilena's Secret," in which twin dancing sisters are cursed by a selish magician and must exist in one obese body.

Definitely not "light" reading fodder, but worth investigating!

I know there are several other similar types of sites but this is the one I started using. I have been unable to add books for the past month. Every book I search for (even things currently in my library!) cannot be found. I also can't add books from say the libraries of others. I've emailed the webmaster twice but haven't received a reply. I tried the site on two different computers with Windows XP and Vista on Firefox, IE and Chrome, but no go.

Thanks!

I'm looking for some good Ryan Wolfe fiction when he leaves Miami and ends up in Vegas.Any pairing is fine as long as he's in it.

Title: Writers' Block: The Great Myth
Summary: ... since I began writing, I've heard many different people exclaim "What shall I do? The horrid Overlord Writer's Block doth wound me greviously!"

Down the Rabbit Hole, Alice

Foxfire (Trickster's Game #3) (2009)
Written by: Barbara Campbell
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Pages: 628 (Mass Market Paperback)

The premise: taken from the author's website, because I'm evil like that: On the bleak northern moors, Darak and his family begin a new life, free from the prejudices of their tribe and the looming threat of the Zherosi. But their past continues to haunt them, and choices made years ago threaten their future as surely as the armies that raze their forests.

As rebellion spreads and the tribes fight for survival, a new force enters the game--Rigat, the youngest son of Darak and Griane. Gifted with magic far greater than Keirith’s, Rigat is the only one who might be able to save his people. Aided by the Trickster, he embarks on a dangerous game of deception that will determine the future of the children of the Oak and Holly--and the fate of the gods they worship.

My Rating

Give It Away: which is a hard rating for me to give. Because I sort of know the author, and I really, really, REALLY like the author. And I'll be honest: I couldn't have written something like this, so I applaud that she was able to write an epic fantasy trilogy with such detail and description and well-realized characters. It's her "first" effort, and as a writer, it's not a stretch at all to say that Campbell's got potential, and I'm really, really, REALLY looking forward to her future books. I want to see what else she's capable of, and based on what I've read so far, I think she's capable of a lot.

That said, the trilogy's final installment didn't satisfy me the way I'd hoped, but I think that's in part due to my own personal bias when it comes to reading fiction. And an important note: Heartwood, the first book, is essentially a stand-alone. You can read the second book, Bloodstone, without reading Heartwood (though you'll miss important character-building stuff), but you cannot, absolutely CANNOT, read the third and final installment, Foxfire, without having read at least Bloodstone.

Should you give the trilogy a shot? Heartwood remains my favorite of the trilogy. I love Campbell's focus on tribal people, as that's not something I've seen often in epic fantasy unless it's to vilify them. And the latter conflict between the tribal people and the Mediterranean-like peoples is also compelling--again, it's something I haven't personally seen all that often in fantasy, so I was happy for something different. And again, Campbell does a great job with setting and world-building. It's just that the trilogy didn't resolve on the emotional note that I wished, and I'm happy to acknowledge that may be more my fault than the author's. If you're interested, I'd say you should start with Heartwood, especially since it can be read as a stand-alone.

Review style: if I'd reviewed this book sooner (sorry folks, I've been distracted), you would've gotten far more in-depth. Instead, you're gonna get something stream-of-conscious that has the POTENTIAL of going in-depth, but may or may not get there. Spoilers? Yes, because it's the end of the trilogy and I want to talk about how that makes me feel. :) So if spoilers don't bother you, feel free to click below to my LJ. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome. :)

REVIEW: Barbara Campbell's FOXFIRE

Happy Reading! :)

ALSO!!! November's Book Club Selection is Alaya Dawn Johnson's Racing the Dark (YA Fantasy). Interested? Details are here.

Foxfire (Trickster's Game #3) (2009)
Written by: Barbara Campbell
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Pages: 628 (Mass Market Paperback)

The premise: taken from the author's website, because I'm evil like that: On the bleak northern moors, Darak and his family begin a new life, free from the prejudices of their tribe and the looming threat of the Zherosi. But their past continues to haunt them, and choices made years ago threaten their future as surely as the armies that raze their forests.

As rebellion spreads and the tribes fight for survival, a new force enters the game--Rigat, the youngest son of Darak and Griane. Gifted with magic far greater than Keirith’s, Rigat is the only one who might be able to save his people. Aided by the Trickster, he embarks on a dangerous game of deception that will determine the future of the children of the Oak and Holly--and the fate of the gods they worship.

My Rating

Give It Away: which is a hard rating for me to give. Because I sort of know the author, and I really, really, REALLY like the author. And I'll be honest: I couldn't have written something like this, so I applaud that she was able to write an epic fantasy trilogy with such detail and description and well-realized characters. It's her "first" effort, and as a writer, it's not a stretch at all to say that Campbell's got potential, and I'm really, really, REALLY looking forward to her future books. I want to see what else she's capable of, and based on what I've read so far, I think she's capable of a lot.

That said, the trilogy's final installment didn't satisfy me the way I'd hoped, but I think that's in part due to my own personal bias when it comes to reading fiction. And an important note: Heartwood, the first book, is essentially a stand-alone. You can read the second book, Bloodstone, without reading Heartwood (though you'll miss important character-building stuff), but you cannot, absolutely CANNOT, read the third and final installment, Foxfire, without having read at least Bloodstone.

Should you give the trilogy a shot? Heartwood remains my favorite of the trilogy. I love Campbell's focus on tribal people, as that's not something I've seen often in epic fantasy unless it's to vilify them. And the latter conflict between the tribal people and the Mediterranean-like peoples is also compelling--again, it's something I haven't personally seen all that often in fantasy, so I was happy for something different. And again, Campbell does a great job with setting and world-building. It's just that the trilogy didn't resolve on the emotional note that I wished, and I'm happy to acknowledge that may be more my fault than the author's. If you're interested, I'd say you should start with Heartwood, especially since it can be read as a stand-alone.

Review style: if I'd reviewed this book sooner (sorry folks, I've been distracted), you would've gotten far more in-depth. Instead, you're gonna get something stream-of-conscious that has the POTENTIAL of going in-depth, but may or may not get there. Spoilers? Yes, because it's the end of the trilogy and I want to talk about how that makes me feel. :) So if spoilers don't bother you, feel free to click below to my LJ. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome. :)

REVIEW: Barbara Campbell's FOXFIRE

Happy Reading! :)


ALSO!!! November's Book Club Selection is Alaya Dawn Johnson's Racing the Dark (YA Fantasy). Interested? Details are here.

"Something Junkie" by Eleanor Lavish
PAIRING: Gil/Nick
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Nick keeps waiting for something to change. (a post Grave Danger fic)

Has just been added to CSI Slash and is listed on the new stories page, and the Gil/Nick page.

CSI Slash's Chirstmas wish page.