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Andrea's Reviews > And All the Stars
And All the Stars
by Andrea K. Höst (Goodreads Author)
by Andrea K. Höst (Goodreads Author)
Andrea's review
bookshelves: australia, apocalyptica, science-fiction
Sep 29, 12
bookshelves: australia, apocalyptica, science-fiction
Read in September, 2012
And All the Stars began as a discussion on Goodreads about another of my novels, Stray. Two readers, Flannery and Wendy Darling, were particularly taken with the first section of Cassandra's story, and encouraged me to write a survivalist or post-apocalyptic novel. I shrugged and said I don't write survivalist or post-apocalyptic novels...and promptly began thinking about what kind of survivalist or post-apocalyptic novel I would write, if I were ever to write such a thing.
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Reading Progress
| 02/16/2012 | "Finally got her out from underground!" | |||
| 02/21/2012 | "Never had a book where I could download the floor plans of my settings before. :)" | |||
| 03/04/2012 | "If you thought the world was dying, would you want to watch it go? Or would you bury yourself in something, anything else rather than witness all that fear and pain?" | |||
| 03/05/2012 | "I'm making a little almanac of world times for the apocalypse. Midday Sydney, night time London, evening rush hour LA - a simultaneous worldwide event is different in every country thanks to time zones." | |||
| 03/11/2012 | "Yay - finally get to meet the other main characters! [Strangely reminiscent of Touchstone in that Madeleine spends the first few chapters alone.]" | |||
| 03/12/2012 | "Met Noi, taking in the apocalypse in style. --- A café table, set with a brilliant white tablecloth. Seated very upright beside it was a girl, pouring herself a cup of tea. And eating scones. Scones with jam and cream. --- Mild problem as scones mean different things in US/UK/Aus." | |||
| 03/16/2012 | "<3 Noi" | |||
| 03/16/2012 | "Some of the secondary characters in this book could potentially overwhelm my main character. Not going to make them less interesting...will have to get reader more on her side..." | |||
| 03/25/2012 | "Trying to differentiate the voices of several different teens in a conversation so difficult... Some basic tricks I can use but realistically most people don't have distinctive verbal tics or definitive ways of speaking on a purely textual level." | |||
| 03/25/2012 | "Researching putrefaction. :)" | |||
| 04/04/2012 | "Social media and a partial apocalypse means all my survivors keeps exchanging phone numbers and twitter names." 13 comments | |||
| 04/10/2012 | "First the scones, now fudge! That's what you get when you have an apprentice cook as a character." | |||
| 04/12/2012 | "Gah - spend ten minutes trying to decide between "chemist" or "chemists" (Australian version of pharmacy), knowing that no matter what I choose someone's going to think it's wrong." | |||
| 04/12/2012 | "A "that's not a knife" scene! Maybe I should add some crocodile wrestling as well. :D" | |||
| 04/22/2012 | "At some point I still intend to write a short story about Gryphons cavorting at Bondi Beach. As it is, it's the location of the Big Dramatic Reveal." | |||
| 04/24/2012 | "The multiple references to Peter Pan in this book are not related to the initial inspiration for writing it, but the coincidence does amuse me." | |||
| 04/25/2012 | "Chapter titles or no chapter titles..." 1 comment | |||
| 05/02/2012 | "And we now take a break from our fudge-making and girly bonding for some running and hiding and cricket bats." | |||
| 05/03/2012 | "I often have weird deja vu moments when writing. I finish something, re-read it, and feel like it's something I wrote long ago." | |||
| 05/07/2012 | "Oh Noi, why must you make me love you more?" | |||
| 05/09/2012 | "Perils of having a drama student character - he suddenly bursts out with King Lear." | |||
| 05/11/2012 | "Ha - plot point inspired by bookshelfy Pinterest page. Social media has such an influence on my writing these days..." | |||
| 05/11/2012 | "One of the biggest things to learn in writing is knowing when to end the scene." | |||
| 05/13/2012 | "An explanation! An explanation! The nice lady is explaining it to you! Why do you all look so appalled?" | |||
| 05/16/2012 | "Had a zippy old typing spree this morning. Pan's back story, and a Bertie Wooster mention. Bertie Wooster is my evil alien overlord!" 3 comments | |||
| 05/19/2012 | "Word Count today: 0. Diable 3 levels: 10." 3 comments | |||
| 05/20/2012 | "This book could well be called "Madeleine's Muses", but somehow I don't think that would convey the genre in quite the same way..." | |||
| 05/21/2012 | "While writing a partial apocalypse interests me far more than a full one (after all, I LIKE civilisation), it's seriously daunting. There is so much world out there, so many different people, all reacting both exactly the same, and entirely in their own way, and I can't hope to do more than pencil in an outline, little brushstrokes of detail, and leave the rest to the reader." 3 comments | |||
| 05/27/2012 | "Finally figured out what to do with upcoming "lull" chapter (where I need at least another chapter of character development before next major event, but can't just have them sitting around watching TV for the entire middle section of the book...) Admittedly, it's very exciting TV, but still, like to have characters DO stuff." | |||
| 06/02/2012 |
"Okay, so THAT plot development dives off the cliffs of probability and will have every physicist who encounters it snorting with mirth. Still gonna do it. :)" 7 comments |
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| 06/05/2012 | "Okay, I'm officially redubbing this book The Kitchen Sink." | |||
| 06/07/2012 | "Noi is having way too much fun teasing Madeleine. And she changes the way Madeleine acts - she stops being super-serious girl and tries to keep up with the banter. I like writing galmances." 4 comments | |||
| 06/18/2012 | "Man, the beginning of this chapter is _purple_." | |||
| 06/23/2012 | "That feeling your main character gets when she walks into a room full of shocked, stunned people, who all turned and stare at her..." | |||
| 06/27/2012 | "Today I learned the moon sets 50 minutes later each day, and spent an extraordinary amount of time reading abuot the correlation between moonrise and moonset and high or low tide and tidal variation and tidal delay and then I said: "Stuff it, I'm just not going to mention whether it's high or low tide."" 2 comments | |||
| 06/30/2012 | "Researching a Sydney landmark which hasn't been built yet. This is one thing I can't go visit - but there's handy planning videos online! In the next couple of weeks, though, I get to go have a look at the third major setting, where the novel goes all Rapunzel." | |||
| 07/03/2012 | "I am fortunate in the people I went to high school with. Having had the microbiology professor check disease control responses, I'm now interrogating the chemistry professor about carbon dioxide scrubbing possibilities. Handy smart people!" 3 comments | |||
| 07/07/2012 | "I'm so bad at the first draft concept. All day rearranging the last four paragraphs of chapter 17 instead of, y'know, just writing chapter 18." | |||
| 07/08/2012 | "Re-reading a chapter from a few weeks ago and going "gosh that's good" vs reading the current chapter and thinking "cludge, stodge, dull, blah". Sigh." | |||
| 07/11/2012 | "Coming up on the more emotional/crisis chapters. Looking forward to many days of trying to hide that I'm crying while typing on my morning commute." | |||
| 07/12/2012 | "Cue the Barry White music..." | |||
| 07/16/2012 | "Give a boy a big vocabulary and you end up with the _wordiest_ damn romantic speeches..." 1 comment | |||
| 07/19/2012 | "We've taken on a distinct Great Gatsby feel now. Gods, this is such a mad bunch of characters." | |||
| 07/23/2012 | "Have reached the part of the book where I cry for four chapters straight." | |||
| 07/26/2012 | "And chapter 20 is where I start crying all over the keyboard. Man, finishing this off on the morning commute is going to be embarrassing!" | |||
| 07/31/2012 | "Out of fudge. Time to lick the toaster." 4 comments | |||
| 08/05/2012 | "The "YNMF Moment". I am so cruel." | |||
| 08/09/2012 | "T... ;;" | |||
| 08/11/2012 | "Action scenes. So much easier to write. Characters stand on precipice, trying not to freak out." | |||
| 08/11/2012 | "Plot twist I've used before. Totally different outcome." | |||
| 08/14/2012 | "Using Google Earth to make detailed examination of rooftops for rooftoppy adventures." | |||
| 08/21/2012 | "Can't tell whether this chapter is cludgy or not. Might be fine when I do end-to-end read-through, but feels like work at the moment." | |||
| 08/22/2012 | "What the hell was I thinking when I set myself up for in any way, shape or form having a speech which aspires to be "Shakespearean"? Words, they do not dance for me..." 2 comments | |||
| 08/25/2012 | "Speechifying. Sad speechifying. Stop making me cry, dammit." 5 comments | |||
| 08/27/2012 | "I love my little galmance. Both hurting hard, both awkwardly trying to make it better for each other." | |||
| 09/02/2012 | "Just the epilogue to write." | |||
| 09/03/2012 | "I love epilogues. Time to get mah goopy on." | |||
| 09/04/2012 | "First draft done! And if people don't tear up at the last three words, they're made of stone, I tell you..." | |||
| 09/06/2012 | "About a third of the way through the re-read and I have to say - I LOVE this book. It's going to be one of my all-time favourites." | |||
| 09/12/2012 | "Retooled last page to underscore emotional impact and themeyness. Now with added sniffles." | |||
| 09/13/2012 | "Apocalyptica generally is about the loss of civilisation bringing out the worst in humanity. AAtS appears to be my reaction against that." 1 comment | |||
| 09/16/2012 | "Beta reader tells me I retain my "Thief of Sleep" title with AAtS. *rubs hands together* Just as planned." 4 comments |
Comments (showing 1-17 of 17) (17 new)
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Jul 04, 2012 04:58am
I loved your "Stray" series. Gobbled them up. One of the best parts was the beginning survivalist parts. Awesome!
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It's funny - people either really love the beginning of Stray, or think it's incredibly dull and that the story doesn't really start till she's rescued.
OH. I just saw this description! Yay. I love survivalist stories, so I'm glad the discussion made the wheels start to turn. Look forward to reading this!
Wendy Darling wrote: "OH. I just saw this description! Yay. I love survivalist stories, so I'm glad the discussion made the wheels start to turn. Look forward to reading this!"A very non-typical way for me to start a book, and probably barely recognisable as "survivalist", but it was a heap of fun to write. ^^
I like that part! Cassandra is a very real girl, it's easy to read her using her knowledge about the wild. And her nonchalance in later books that she would have survived, barring sickness, amongst all the agoraphobics there! Better than cringing through Bear Grylls knifing into something icky or drinking his own urine. And while our Native Americas are interesting people, they've always been survivalists and their techniques are a bit dry reading. SO looking forward to And all the Stars!
Andrea this was a really fun read! (Now I'm stalking your goodreads page because I have run out of all your books and have to wait until the next one is done!) I noticed a comment you made that indicates you are working on a book with Aristide?! I hope so!!! I was actually trying to figure out how to make a comment to get you to do this since you have now let your fans in on the secret that you are suggestible... :-)
I'm glad you enjoyed it, ala. :)Yes, Aristide is a major part of "Bones of the Fair". Not a POV character, but definitely pivotal.
I wouldn't say so much suggestible as always having ideas. So many ideas, but so much work to make them real...
Now I gotta start a discussion that inspires a novel so they don't have bragging rights over me. Quick, have you ever considered writing a vampire novel?Just kidding, just kidding. I really loved Stray, and I can't wait to try out this one. (Incidentally, I'm sort of in the middle about the beginning - there was nothing dull about it exactly, and I do see the potential for a survival novel there, but it could've been condensed to half its length to tighten the pace.) Anyway, this one looks a lot more up my alley conceptually, so I think I'll really love it.
But don't forget about Aristide!!! ha ha! (Actually, I'm now hooked by your blurb for Pyramids! (Good thinking, Mike.)) How many books do you need to sell before you get to quit your distracting day job, Andrea? Congrats on 10,000 btw!
