Living the Fictional Dream

The Summoning is a new young adult novel by one of my favorite adult urban fantasy authors, Kelley Armstrong. There are mild spoilers in this review, so if you’d rather stay pure you might wait until later to read this, but I’m not going too deep. The spoilers are more about the premise and set-up, not about the ending.

The Summoning takes place in Armstrong’s Otherworld universe, which includes witches, warlocks, werewolves, vampires, shamans, half-demons, and necromancer. In fact, I reviewed the most recent paperback in her adult Otherworld series, No Humans Allowed, earlier this summer. The Summoning, however, takes a different approach, asking what would happen if someone had one of these powers and had never heard of the supernatural world.

Chloe sees a dead janitor walking the halls at school one day, freaks out (who wouldn’t?!), and manages to get herself sent to a groups home for emotionally troubled teens, earning herself a diagnosis of schizophrenia. But, while she’s at this home, she discovers that she’s not the only one with strange talents, and that’s when things start to get interesting.

Overall, I enjoyed this book very much. The characters are great, especially Chloe and Derek, and the premise is interesting. I also love how Armstrong takes her Otherworld universe and goes somewhere completely new with it. She could have made a Y/A series based on Savannah — a teen character in her adult series — but, instead, she breaks new ground and gives us a whole new mystery to chew on.

I also like the dynamics between the characters. Angst and drama is part and parcel of merely being a teenager. Add to that supernatural problems and the possibility of more going on than meets the eye with the adults in your life, and things get interesting really quickly.

But, I was very disappointed in one element of The Summoning, the ending. I have the same complaint about this novel as I mentioned when talking about Meg Cabot’s Airhead in this post: there’s no ending, the book just stops. And that really drives me nuts!

The worst part was, I totally wasn’t expecting it from Armstrong. The beauty of the adult books in the Otherworld series is that they are complete. There are overarching character struggles that carry over, but each novel has its own mystery that is solved by the end. You have closure. But The Summoning does not.

According to Armstrong’s website, Chloe’s story will be a trilogy. I’m glad to know that, because now I know that I will get the closure eventually; however, if I’d known this up front, I would have waited to read the novels until all three had been released. I hate going into a book thinking one thing, and then, surprise, having to wait until a later book release (months or years away) for any closure. There should be warning labels right up front! I’m even OK with elements that carry over, but I just want some closure on some of the levels, and The Summoning does not deliver on that regard. We end with Chloe… well, I guess I won’t give that away, but suffice to say that all is not well for her at the end of the novel.

However, if that’s not the kind of thing that bothers you, then I would definitely recommend this book, both for Y/A readers and for people who’ve enjoyed Armstrong’s other books. It’s really well written and an enjoyable read. But if you have issues with lack of closure, you should wait to dive in until the trilogy is complete.

I had a “Ralph the Duck” moment this morning. I woke up to the sound of my golden retriever vomiting (though, sadly, not being a man strong enough to lift a 70-lb. dog, I didn’t get her outside before the big “moment” and she puked in my bed).

I read this short story in the Intro to Creative Writing course I took as a freshman in college. At that time, there was this one guy in the English dept. who taught all the creative writing classes (my college didn’t have a huge writing program at that point). He taught me a lot in that first class. I’d never learned anything about hooks, not using dialog as an information dump, etc. I’d written a (bad) draft of a novel, but I was still a raw beginner.

He liked the beginning of RtD because of that visceral image that sucked you right into the story, and that’s something I always think about when I’m beginning a story. I try to capture the reader’s attention immediately. Not with biological functions, necessarily (canine or otherwise). Sometimes with a sharp piece of dialog or a vivid image. Mostly just something interesting. Of course, such expectations of an opening sentence or paragraph can make it tough to begin!

Writing-wise, this week has been a tie. I got one rejection and on acceptance. The acceptance was exciting — it was for a story I’ve been sending out for a while. I think this story, “Hair’s Breadth,” has a pretty good beginning hook — a man in a hovel talking to a disgusting hag. But, I won’t give anymore away. It’s a flash piece, so it wouldn’t be too long until I’ve given away the whole story! It will be out this winter, and of course I’ll link to it when it appears.

Have a great Wednesday, and happy writing!

I finished Breaking Dawn, the fourth book in the Twilight series last Monday night, but it’s taken me a while to articulate my thoughts on the subject. Then, today, I was flabbergasted to realize how much controversy there’s been over it in fandom. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s the last book in a series… a series that’s very important to a lot of people. It would be hard for any one book to meet everyone’s expectations.

So… what do I say about this book. Well, first of all, I’ll start by saying that this entry will include spoilers, so read on at your own risk.

Spoilers. Got it?

Sure you want to continue.

OK then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Now that we’re actually talking about the book, I’m going to come right out with it. I enjoyed it. Perhaps I’m in the minority, but like it, I did. Stephanie Meyer has this way about her writing and her characters. Her books suck me in and refuse to let me go. She is a master at creating the vivid, continuous fictional dream, and that is the mark of a good writer in my mind.

That said, the previous books in the series I read in about 24 hours. This one took me much longer. Though, that had something to do with the fact that I had to help my sister move, so I was separated from the book for most of the Saturday following the book release party.

After having a little time to reflect on it, I will say that this is not my favorite of Meyer’s work. It is possibly the weakest book in the Twilight series. It’s definitely not as good as The Host, my favorite of Meyer’s books to date. But, I think that Meyer did some things right, too.

So, I’ll start off with the things I liked:

• The wedding — Bella and Edward’s wedding was the culmination of several books’ worth of expectations. Very sweet.
• Jacob’s pack — I loved the Jacob/Seth/Leah pack. Very cool. Jacob learning how to ascend into his own. I hope we get a book all about the La Push werewolves. That would be awesome. Leah would be a really interesting main character, I think!
• Bella’s transformation into a vampire — I had some problems with this, too, but, as a whole, I liked that she was good at the whole vampire thing. It made sense to me. She was so clumsy as a human, and she struggled for so long and was never able to find her place. Maybe this was what she had been born for all along. A dramatic illustration of coming of age.

  All along in this series, people have criticized Meyer for being so hard on Bella, and Meyer said that it wasn’t that she was anti-woman, she was anti-human, meaning that of course a human would be weak and pitiful next to the incredibly powerful vampires that inhabit her world. In some ways, this proved her point. Bella ascended into that pantheon, and now she is as amazing and wonderful as all the rest of them. It fit to me that she was good at immortality. Bella came into her own.

  I also liked the writing from the Bella-vamp’s POV. We’ve watched the vamps through Bella’s human eyes for so long. Getting their POV was very cool, and Meyer explained the way the world is to them very well.

• Renesme — Like with the previous subject, there were things I didn’t like about this, but it was definitely an unexpected plot twist. Once they were on their honeymoon and Bella started having those dreams, I figured out what was going on, but it definitely wasn’t something I ever saw coming before that. Though, perhaps I should have figured it out from that immortal child thing discussed early on…

  I read some comments where people thought Bella’s devotion to her unborn child was uncharacteristic, given her fear of marriage and commitment and stuff she said in previous books about not liking kids. I’ve also read people who thought it was Meyer putting a didactic pro-life message into her books. Honestly, I don’t think either of those are true. Well, maybe the latter, but it didn’t feel that way to me. I totally believe that you might think you don’t want kids, but then get pregnant and change your mind. Motherhood is a powerful thing. No one knows what they are going to do or feel about it until it actually happens to them.

  I actually liked the character of Nessie fairly well. There was a bit of the saccharine to her, but the sweetness wasn’t all bad. And I really liked the whole nonverbal communication thing. There was stuff I didn’t like, too, but I think when the character grows up, she might actually be interesting.

• The expansion of the world — I loved meeting all the different vampires in this ‘verse. I wish we’d gotten more time with them. Despite the length of the book, the sheer number of characters brought in during the last segment limited how much we could know about each of them. We couldn’t get very much depth. But I thought the additional knowledge about the rest of the vampire world was quite interesting. There were more characters I would like to know more about in future stories.
• The happy ending — OK, there are problems with this, as well, but considering this was the last new Bella/Edward story (Midnight Sun doesn’t count since it’s an old story from a different POV) I was glad that it ended happily ever after for them. This is not great literature — it’s fun, escapist fiction. I deserved a happily ever after for Bella and Edward, damn it!

Now for some things I didn’t like:

• The happy ending — The problem with the happy ending is that it was too happy for too many characters. We should have had something bad happen in the end, possibly the death of a more minor character (but more major than Irina… I had totally forgotten about her until they talked about her in the book). I wanted Edward and Bella to end up together and happy, but a note of bittersweetness to the story would have made that happiness more poignant.
• Nessie and Jacob — I’m not sure about this imprinting thing. At first, I thought it was a good thing, because it was the lynchpin that allowed so much of the rest of the happiness to fall into place. I read someone being creeped out because of their age difference. That didn’t bother me. Quinn imprinted on a child, too. I guess I don’t see imprinting as a sexual kind of love. Maybe eventually it could turn into that, but I just see it as love. I actually think of it more as the love a dog has for its human (which makes me sad, because poor Jacob!). It’s pure and unconditional, not pervy or weird. I actually think that if Nessie ends up choosing someone else, while Jacob would be hurt, he would probably do whatever he could to make her happy anyway — it’s that kind of love.

  However, because Jacob imprinted on Nessie, it solved things too easily. Suddenly, the whole Cullen/werewolf fued is over — poof. Everything’s great. Between Jacob and Edward, too. There was a realism about the sacrifice and the choices in Eclipse and New Moon. The pain was real, gritty, and hard. This fixed it almost too pat. And while the Jacob fangirl in me was really glad that he doesn’t have to go through that pain any more, I kind of feel cheated about getting to read about him going through that pain. I love Jacob, and I loved the POV bits we’ve had from him. I was really hoping that he would get his own book after this — a book where he (and whoever else was in his pack, perhaps) went on their own adventure, and Jacob would have his own coming of age. Now that’s mostly moot. The rest of his life will be about Nessie, and that’s the end of it. There are still seeds for a future book about Jacob and Nessie, but I think it would have to be told from Nessie’s POV. Jacob’s POV probably will be boring because it will be Nessie time 24-7.

  Also, I just gotta say… Renesme is the stupidest name in the whole world. Yikes! (Though, since I’ve read Anne McCaffery’s Pern series, name smooshing does have other origins for me. It’s not all Bennifer and TomKat. So perhaps I wasn’t quite as horrified as some people were.

• The other characters — There was so much going on in this book that a lot of the regular characters got the short shrift. Pretty much all of the Cullens, most notably. I kinda think we should have had an Alice book, even if it were just a short one, shorter than the Jacob book. I love her and Jasper, and it killed me that they were gone. I have to say, it was almost more interesting, though, that they’d run off to save themselves. Though them showing up to save the day was interesting. I wish we’d had more Rosie time. I actually started to like her in the last book — I would have liked to see more of her in this book than the snarling beast who only cares about the baby and not Bella.
• The climax — There was so much build up, and then… nothing. That was a let down. Pages and pages of build up for absolutely nothing. No fight at all. There should have been a fight. Even if they won in the end, there should have been a fight. Or, alternatively, we shouldn’t have had that much build up for it. With less build up, there would have been a lot lower expectations for the encounter.
• Super Bella — The super shield thing and the extreme ease with the blood lust was a bit much. It bordered on Mary Sue, or how I felt about Anita Blake after she became the most uber-powerful person in that ‘verse. I stand by my opinion on liking the idea that she’d been made for immortality. However, if that was going to happen, then she shouldn’t have had the uber-powerful shield, too. It was just ridiculous at the battle. She’d worked so hard with no results and then, poof, she could shield not only herself but every other person on their team?! That was just dumb. Too much perfection is just wish fulfillment, not a story.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the series. It was enjoyable to read. It swept me up and wouldn’t let me down. Meyer is a talented writer, and I would read more of her stories.

I word of warning though (for anyone who’s actually read this far). If you have younger kids, I would recommend reading the series, and especially Breaking Dawn before you let them read it. This book veered more into adult territory than any of the others. I’m not going to say don’t let them read it. I would just say, you read it, too, so you can talk about it with them.

It is 12:26 a.m., and I’m home from the midnight madness party for the Breaking Dawn book release. I actually have my as-yet-uncracked copy. Compared to a Harry Potter midnight party, this was fairly tame. My companion and I were numbers 26 and 27 (just one wristband away from being in the top 25!), and we were out of there by approximately 12:07. Pretty amazing!

The fans, though, are very enthusiastic. We enjoyed all the girls who are so excited about this book coming out. Excited enough that they dressed in costume and homemade T-shirts with novel quotes on them. The winners of the costume contest got their books for free, and their costumes were excellent. One dressed up as Forks (the rainy town where Bella and Edward live), one dressed as La Push (the reservation where Jacob lives), and the third dressed up as Bella’s 1960s, red Chevy truck, with a tailgate and everything. They totally deserved to win free books for that effort! But all the red and black evening gowns/prom dresses were great, too.

And, lest you all think that Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series is only for girls, let me say that I did see one boy at the event. OK, I saw a few more boys than that, but most were there unwillingly because of their sisters. But there was one boy, somewhere between 12 and 14, there to buy a copy of the book for himself. And he had “Bella” written on his cheek (a counterpoint to all the girls who had “Edward” written on their cheeks… though, sadly, I saw no one with “Jacob” emblazoned anywhere…).

Well, now it is 12:32, and I must decide whether to read a bit or go to sleep. I think I’m getting old, because sleep does sound appealing. Then again… maybe just one chapter…

I love it when people get excited about reading stories! For the most part, it really doesn’t matter what novel, short story, etc., that they are excited about. Just the fact that people are so excited about fiction that they have to talk about it and share it with their friends is great. It helps balance out all the depressing stuff you read all the time about the horrible state of publishing today and how TV and video games have totally replaced reading in the lives of most people.

My first “midnight madness” party for a book release was for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I read the first three HP novels in a row. A lot of the kids that I worked with at church were talking about it, and I wanted to see what the big deal was. I loved it, and, luckily, Goblet of Fire came out fairly soon after I was introduced to the series, so I didn’t have to wait that long for it. OotP, however, was a long, long wait.

When the big day finally approached, it seemed that all the local bookstores were trying to out-do each other by putting on the best release party for it. Even better, the release parties took place at midnight, so it felt like you were getting your copy early (a few hours early, but still… I was one of the first to have a copy in my hands!). My local Borders is my store of choice, so I signed up for an advance copy (which, of course, helps them know how many copies to order) and headed over to the party that night with such excitement that I didn’t even notice that my husband (who’d been so dead asleep on the couch when I told him I was leaving that he didn’t even respond) running out of the house and yelling for me to wait. To this day, he still talks about how I love HP more than I love him (of course, since he’d been so dead asleep, I didn’t even think to look for him in my rearview mirror and I had the radio cranked up so I didn’t hear him if he yelled, but that is apparently beside the point!).

The party was fun! People (not me, but some people) went in costume. There were exhibits of animals found in the HP books (owls, snakes, etc.). There was fortune telling, tarot card reading, and free samples of bookmarks, stickers, chapters of other new releases, and more. I had such a good time, that I went again for both Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

The best part of these midnight madness parties, though, is the vibe of excitement in the air. Excitement about a book! Previously, I’d only seen such excitement on opening day movie releases (like when my friends and I sat in long lines to go to the first showing of the re-release of Star Wars: a New Hope when it came out during my college days).

At the midnight parties, I got to talk to other HP fans, theorize about what might happen in the next book, relive favorite parts of the past book, debate relevant HP issues, such as who is the best Quidditch player and whether Hermione was destined to be with Harry or Ron. That was the very best part of the whole thing!

Of course, now that the HP series has come to its grand conclusion, I wondered if that was it for the midnight madness parties at Borders. It made me a little sad, honestly, but what book could fill that void enough to warrent such a shindig? If they had midnight release parties before HP, I never heard about them (though, if they had done that for a book I liked as a kid, I bet my mom would have taken me to the party — too bad we didn’t have Borders and B&N in Waco when I was young!).

The other day, I found out what series has replaced HP in the midnight madness release party queue — Breaking Dawn, the newest book in Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. My friend Sandra and I are going to go to the party this Friday night, and I’m looking forward to it quite a bit. I really enjoy Meyer’s novels. Are they as good as HP? I don’t know… I find it hard to think the crowd will be as big as it was for HP, if only because the book series is really more girl-oriented. I don’t know that the series has quite the broad appeal to male readers as HP did.

But, you know, I don’t care. A midnight madness party is people who are excited about reading. They are so excited about a new book, that they will forgo sleep and stand in line for a few hours just to get their hands on a new, hardback book. They defy all those people who think that reading is going out of style. So, I say yay to Borders and yay to Meyer — thanks for bringing us all together.

Let’s get excited about reading. And, you know, even if the book you are excited about reading isn’t big enough for Borders to give it a midnight madness party, that’s OK. Be excited anyway. Blog about it. Talk about it. Tell other people that they need to read it to (and buy their own copy if they like it). Let’s all be excited about reading fiction! C’mon… it’s fun!

It’s time for another random installment of my links posts. I’ve been doing a lot of reading this summer, so I thought I would post links to some of the really good stories I’ve discovered lately. If you’re in the mood for some quality short fiction give one of these a read (or a listen, if it’s a podcast):

• “Directions,” by Caleb Wilson — a quirky flash piece with great atmosphere. Talk about visuals! In retrospect, perhaps the twist at the end should have been obvious, but I was so caught up in the scenery that I didn’t see it coming.
• “Giant” by Stephanie Burgis — A flash piece that looks at a subset of fairy tales (princess-stealing giants) from the giant’s point of view.
• For Fear of Dragons,” by Carrie Vaughn — There’s a virgin and a sacrifice, but if you think you know where this story is going, you don’t. Not until the very end!
• “The Other Magic,” by Gere McClellan — A sweet fantasy romance. My favorite part was the interpretation of the “job” of sorcery.
• “In Lieu of a Thank You,” by Gwynne Garfinkle — I didn’t know what I would get when I clicked on this story, but after I read the first line I couldn’t stop. The old fashioned voice of the narrator was compelling and I was immediately hooked and wanted to know what had happened.
• “Looking for Friendship, Maybe More” by Corie Ralston — Don’t let the title stop you. This story is hilarious. I also enjoyed its use of email/message board format, complete with fonts and font colors.
• “Ghosts and Simulations” by Ruthanna Emrys — This story uses speculative fiction to look at death, dying, and what people will do to keep their loved ones in their life.
• “Rain” by B. Teuscher — I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading this flash piece. The beginning was all about description and atmosphere. But as the story continued, I got invested in the main character, and the ending almost made me cry.
• “If We Were Briar Roses” by Brian Dolton — This story starts out like a love poem, and then, suddenly, the plot is made clear and you look at the poetry again with new eyes.
• “The Mixture” by K.C. Ball — A flash story that begins quietly, but has a surprising heroine.
• “Mail” by Kevin Shamel — Mail carriers and time travel… need I say more?

A few weeks ago, I discovered Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See on one of the summer reading tables at Barnes & Noble. The idea that captured me and pursuaded me to buy the book was the idea of nu shu, a secret language known by females and for females, kept a secret from the men.

The book is set in 19th century China, when footbinding was mandatory for all women who wanted a good marriage. After the footbinding, the women saw little but the inside of the women’s rooms in their homes or their husbands’ homes. They communicated with the women in their natal families and other friends using this secret language embroidered on handkerchiefs and clothes and written on fans.

The women’s society in this novel is like a secret society, revolving around but separate from the society of the men. Of course, in this society where sons are beloved and daughters are considered interlopers that cost money to raise for someone else to reap the benefit from (the sons they will bear), it makes sense that the women would find outlets for their needs for creativity, identity, and companionship.

This novel is the story of Lily and her friendship with Snow Flower, her “old same.” The relationship between the girls is arranged when they are children, and they become closer than sisters through nu shu correspondence and long visits. They are very similar, both born in the year of the horse, but they are on opposite tracks in life. Lily’s rank moves up while Snow Flower’s moves down, and their relationship strains to stay strong despite the changes and other people’s negative views.

This book is not necessarily a “feel good” book, but it is very interesting to read. It takes the reader into a culture that is vivid and (most likely) like nothing they’ve been introduced to before. We’re all used to hearing about what a “horror” foot binding was and how it was degrading to women, but in this novel, it was a normal part of life. The women both hated it and took pride in it.

Lily is a powerful character and very resourceful. It is amazing how, as a woman, she can still exert control over the men in her life. Snow Flower is an emotional and tragic figure, powerful in her own right. I’m a sucker for a story about relationships between women — especially mothers, daughters, sisters, and friends — and the relationship between Lily and Snow Flower is at times both beautiful and painful to watch.

If my description sounds at all interesting to you, I would recommend that you pick up a copy of the novel. I’m definitely glad that I read it. However, I would warn you, that there are graphic descriptions of things like the footbinding, so if that would be too much for you, then you’d either need to pass or skip over those parts.

Podcasts… the short story equivalent of an audio book. Snippets of fiction read aloud that can be listened to on the website or downloaded to your iPod or iTunes to listen to later.

I’d never really thought about this before, but it’s a cool idea. And, from a writing perspective, how amazing would it be to hear the words you write read aloud? Very, is my thought!

I took a screen writing class while earning my master’s degree. As part of the class we wrote two-page scenes and the professor brought in two actors to perform them. Watching my words come to life like that was amazing… Listening probably would be great, as well.

The other good thing about fiction podcasts from the writer’s point of view is that they seem to love reprints (or, at least, the ones whose guidelines I looked at did). It’s not often in the print and e-zine world that you can sell the same story twice!

I’ve been researching short fiction podcasts (with the help of some recommendations from my friend Stephanie), and I’ve come up with a few that seem interesting. I haven’t listened to all of them yet, but the ones that I did listen do had some great stories. If you’d like to try out a fiction podcast, you could start with one of these:

• Pod Castle — fantasy.
• Escape Pod — science fiction.
• Pseudopod — horror (pay attention to that warning on the first page).
• Drabblecast — speculative fiction/weird tales.
• Well Told Tales — horror, sci-fi, crime/hardboiled, pulp.
• Clonepod — sci-fi/fantasy.
• Bound Off — literary fiction.
• The Great Beyond — sci-fi/fantasy (though this one doesn’t seem to be updating very regularly).

If you do check some of these out, let me know which ones are your favorites.

Isn’t the summer a great time for reading? I’ve been up to my ears in books this summer, and enjoying every minute of it!

The most recent novel that I finished was No Humans Involved, the seventh book in Kelley Armstrong’s excellent Otherworld series. The series focuses on women with supernatural powers, which places it smack in the middle of the urban fantasy genre. Rana introduced me to the series a few years ago, and I’m glad she did.

The first two novels in the series are narrated by Elena, the only female werewolf and probably my favorite of Armstrong’s narrators. The second two are narrated by Paige, a witch. The fifth novel in the series is narrated by Eve, a witch/half-demon became a ghost after her untimely death. The sixth novel is back to Elena, and the newest one is narrated by Jaime Vegas, a spiritualist who is actually a necromancer (she can see/communicate with ghosts and raise the dead).

I wasn’t actually looking forward to a novel from Jaime’s point of view. She’s never been one of my favorites as a supporting cast member. However, once I got into the novel, Jaime grew on me, and now I quite like her. The same thing happened with Eve, so I should probably just relax and trust that I’ll like whomever Armstrong chooses as her next narrator.

Despite her profession, Jaime has always been afraid that one day her necromancy will make her go mad. She would rather ignore a ghost than talk to it, because, more often that not, what the ghost wants, she can’t do. And then she signs on for a TV show in L.A. and finds that the house is haunted by ghosts who can actually touch her. There have been some strange goings on in L.A. that aren’t in the normal line of things, and it’s up to Jaime to find out the truth, with a little help from a half chaos demon named Hope and her long-time unrequited love, Jeremy, Alpha of the North American werewolf pack.

I won’t give away any more of the plot, but I enjoyed this novel very much. Jaime is surprisingly resourceful, despite her innate ditziness, and the relationship between brash Jaime and cool and collected Jeremy is fun to watch.

The world building in this series is really well done, and it is one of the things that makes the Otherworld series a delight to read. And even though the series is built around the women in this world, the men are compelling characters in their own right. Armstrong doesn’t give anyone the short shrift.

The other thing I like about Armstrong is her website. Every year she writes an original novella or series of short stories set in her urban fantasy world and publishes it online for all her fans to read. Talk about a way to keep your readers coming back for more. It also totally embraces the new give-and-take that the Internet allows novelists to have with their readers. Should I ever become a published novelist, I would love to do the same!

So, if you’re looking for good, action-packed urban fantasy with strong female characters, give Armstrong’s Otherworld series a try. And if you’re already into the series, don’t miss out on No Humans Involved!

Superhero fiction is eating my brain! As in, I suddenly have so many ideas for short stories in my original superhero universe that I can’t write them down fast enough. Since “Bridge Club” was accepted by A Thousand Faces (no word on the release date as of yet), I’ve written two more.

One was a SED story during the midst of the competition, but it actually turned out fairly well. It’s about a superhero with ocean powers. I need to revise it and then send it out to my writing group. Then the second one popped into my mind this morning, and wouldn’t leave me alone until I wrote it down. It’s about a female superhero this time, which is a change of pace. It is somewhat in answer to a prompt that I gave to my writing group in May — writing a story about a superhero on a blind date — but it also ties in really well with “Bridge Club” and the rest of my superhero ‘verse.

Strangely enough, I have another idea bumbling around in my brain for a story about a woman who can change her appearance (yes, I know… Mystique, but what super power hasn’t been used already — it’s what you do to make the character unique after the super powers!).

I’m totally going to have to investigate other markets that might be interested in original superhero fiction, because Frank over at ATF is going to get tired of me!

And now, in a totally random subject shift, I was reading Shanna Swendson’s blog this evening, and I came across this post. It’s all about what a reader can do to support a favorite book series (her Enchantment Inc. series or any other series). If you’ve ever wanted to help out the sales of a series so that the publishers might decide to continue it, you should check out her ideas on things you can do. There’s more that just buying a copy of the book yourself or buying it for other people.

I especially note her comment about used bookstores. This is a rant that I’ve given many times since my college days working for local mystery writer Carole Nelson Douglas. Used bookstore sales don’t count with the publisher — only new sales do. Now, I understand budgeting and not being able to afford to buy all your favorite books new. It’s a common problem. But, if that’s the case, then you should pick and choose the ones you buy and put your money to where it will do the most good. I save my Half Price purchases for books that are either (1) best sellers (Meg Cabot, Robert Jordan, etc.) or (2) old and/or out of print.

And that’s it for me today. Have a good one!