In just over a week, we will arrive at the annual End-of-December holiday, one we have been building up to for weeks maybe even months. I refer, of course, to The Doctor Who Christmas Special. With his special event nearly upon us, I thought I would take a look back at the most recent episode to air, the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special.
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Tag: review
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Review: Doctor Who 50th
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The Girl of Fire and Thorns (Book Review)
So I read The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson and thought the story-telling was brilliant. I loved the book. The pages turned rapidly and I’ve already picked up the second book in the series to read. I want to reiterate. I loved the book. I hate myself a little bit for that and this is why.
From the first few pages, I could tell that something about Elisa, the main character, wasn’t quite what I was used to reading. She was a princess. She had a destiny. Both of these things are commonplace in YA literature. That wasn’t it. Things started clicking into place as she describes herself as looking like a “sausage roll” in the corset required for her wedding dress. When the seams rip on the dress I wondered if the author has ever worn a corset before or seen anyone wearing one. A “sausage roll” is not the way I would describe the effect of a corset. (more…)
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The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan (Book Review)
The Red Tree is the story of Sarah Crowe, a writer who rents a rural Rhode Island house. Sarah is running from a lot of things: her career, her agent, the book she can’t seem to write, and her girlfriend Amanda’s suicide. There, in the cellar of the stifling old house, she finds typewriter and an old manuscript. Titled The Red Tree, the manuscript is the historical work of the house’s former tenant, an academic who hung himself with an extension cord before completing his work. His subject is the ancient red oak near the house, and the tragedies that seem to surround it. Sarah becomes obsessed with the manuscript, as well as with Constance, the young artist who rents the attic.Kiernan writes a line in this book talking about the old horror versus the new horror. The old horror, specifically Algernon Blackwood, whom she mentions by name, was largely atmospheric, defined almost as much by what you weren’t shown. The new horror, blatantly influenced by horror cinema, often shows you everything. Blood splatters as monsters crawl, saliva dripping from their teeth. As a result, a lot of horror writers are torn between two worlds of the Gothic, the new and the old.
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Post in Review – 2012
I have to admit to something you might not know about me: I have a terrible memory for things I read and especially the things I write. It has to be exceptional for a detail to really stick out in my mind. Or I have to read it multiple times. So I’ve had to glance through my own posts to even remember what I’ve written.
Of my own posts, my favorite is the character interview week from the second week of October — Everything In Its Place. It was fun to write from the point-of-view of my favorite minor characters, and to explore a post-novel scenario I hadn’t really given much thought.
In fact, that was probably my favorite week to read. Check it out; it started October 8th with Jack’s Meeting With Mitch. We’ve discussed before how writers are sort of insular — I’ll write most of my novels while making every effort to avoid divulging concrete details. That particular assignment revealed a lot about not just what sort of writers we are, but the sort of characters we write.
Generically, any assignment that gets into the depth of our processes and systems is fun to read. I like seeing not just how we’re all different as writers, but how we’re also the same. Even though some of the other writers tackle genres that I don’t usually read, the process that get us all to the end product isn’t so different.
Its been a fun year, doing this with a writing family that’s supportive, fun, and talented. Here’s to another year!
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Playing Favorites
To my surprise, this was one of the most difficult posts I’ve been asked to write here at the Café. Do I pick through my own posts and choose my favorite? Do I pour through the posts of my fellow Confabulators and decide — like some awards committee — who was the funniest, the most poignant, the wisest, or the most likely to succeed in the world of publishing?I tried, I really did. As it is, this is terribly late because of all the false starts and endless time spent scouring past entries from each writer.
So, we’re going to avoid the question altogether. It was a great idea, but I don’t have it in me to pick and choose.
Instead, I want to talk about how proud I am of this group. (more…)
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I simply remember my favorite book…
My favorite books all enter into the category of those that make me weep hysterically (except maybe everything Douglas Adams ever wrote, which only promote the tears after hysterical laughter. Maybe I should say books that promote hysteria!). But for today, I’ll go with my favorite novel by a living author: Galatea 2.2, by Richard Powers.
My first reading of Galatea 2.2 came during my freshman year of college; I found the book by wandering the library bookshelves and pulling something that looked interesting off, a practice that has introduced me to most of my favorite writers. Later, I would discover that the head librarian was also a fan of the relatively unknown Richard Powers; hence, the library including all his works in their otherwise scanty recent fiction collection. With the book’s ample treatment of the history of literature, it instantly hooked this budding English major.
