Michelle L. Levigne's Blog, page 175

Off the Bookshelf: THE LOST CODE

THE LOST CODE: Book One of the Atlanteans, by  Kevin Emerson, was a Nook Free Book Friday book I picked up only a few weeks ago. YA SF/Fantasy, it intrigued me enough to start reading right away.

The setting: A future world where climate change has gone so wrong that people live underground or in domes to protect them from killing UV, the poles have melted and the world seems to be either desert or flooded. Owen, our hero, is a skinny teen from an underground community who gets the "golden ticket" opportunity -- summer camp in one of the Eden domes. During the swim test he drowns ... sort of.

And that triggers a whole ton of changes in his life -- as in plans created by an ancient race that was facing a similar situation -- the lives of some CITs, and sets in motion a chain of events that could change the world. If you read the next book -- and I recommend it.

I'm not ashamed of reading and enjoying YA, especially all the great adventure and discovery and the fantasy or SF elements that are showing up in so many nowadays. When I was a kid, the closest I could get to this kind of adventure was in the Edward Eager books -- remember HALF MAGIC or the TIME GARDEN? -- or Star Trek, or similar bits and pieces. Luckily, when I hit high school there was a huge surge of fantasy in movies and books. I remember people talking about the Lord of the Rings books like they were NEW ... no, I'm not THAT old, but close. Still, the SF and fantasy section at the bookstore was maybe five feet wide. Lean pickings in those days. Before online bookstores and e-books.

But anyway, I like this series, I like the hero -- he doesn't suddenly have all the answers, but he's willing to take risks and he has enough doubts to put a lot of tension in what happens to him and the people around him. I'll be sure to check back (when my reading pile is a little smaller) and see what else the author has to tell us next!

Jane Bondservant #16

Last week, I had just picked up my first coffee of the day when I had a terrible shock. Normally I don’t drink coffee, but after meeting Dr. Noway and his nieces in the parking lot and realizing they were indeed attending my church (despite all my desperate hopes and prayers that O was wrong) I needed the reinforcement. Admittedly, I put four sugar packets in the cup and about one-third of it was chocolate-flavored cream, but hey, we all know what works for us, don’t we? At least I didn't duck into the janitor’s closet and snarf an entire Hershey’s Special Dark -- King Size bar -- which I have been forced to do under extremely stressful circumstances during a mission.
What stunned and stressed me last week -- before I treated you to a Star Trek fan’s rendition (read: revision) of a Gilbert and Sullivan song?
There in the doorway of my classroom at church was the last person I wanted to see for the rest of the day. The rest of my life would have been preferable, but I knew better. After all, he was my assignment.
Dr. Noway stood in the doorway, looking around the room. I could almost feel sorry for him, because he had that look on his face I recognized -- a little lost, a little uneasy, a little wistful. Only a few years ago, I stood in that same doorway, my first day in the class, wishing someone would talk to me and welcome me -- without pointing out to everyone else that I was indeed the new kid in town.
Confession time: I wished, just for a moment, that the other people in my class would just ignore Dr. Noway. Was it too much to wish for an invisibility ray gun, or any kind of gun, to drop down through a hole in the ceiling? If I couldn't shoot Dr. Noway, as my Agency-trained reflexes ached to do, could I at least shoot myself?
But no, the other people in my class were nice. (That was why I stayed, after all. This was my Sunday school class, not a death-defying assignment given to me by O -- who, sometimes, I feared was out to get me!) Before Dr. Noway could finish looking from one end of the room to the other -- and before his gaze could reach the end of the room where I was supposed to help cut up cake and serve other refreshments -- two men walked up to him and held out their hands to shake his.
I almost called out to them to be careful. It’s part of my training, after all. Protect the public from cruel danger. Warn the gullible and trusting away from destroying their lives. After all, Dr. Noway had been known to wear thin plastic gloves and put sleeping powder or truth serum powder on his hands, to trick his enemies.
But no, that was before he said he was quitting B.L. Zebob Industries. Was it too much to hope Dr. Noway didn't pull nasty tricks like that anymore? After all, he needed to be a good example for his little nieces.
"Oh, this is just horrid," I muttered.
"No, I don't think it's horrid at all," O responded in a quiet voice that only I could hear.
I knew only I could hear, because the other two women helping me prepare refreshments for our class didn't react.
Would the two members of the welcoming committee in my class survive their first encounter with Dr. Noway? And just why had O made contact with me in my classroom? I was supposed to have Sundays off duty, after all. Find out next week!

Off the Bookshelf: THREE BRIDES, NO GROOM

I like series. And not just because I write series.
This is kinda-sorta a series, because it's three interconnected stories.
The frame: Three women meet at the day of their college reunion at the big old fountain in the middle of campus where it seemed like everything happened. They didn't plan to meet there -- they barely knew each other in college -- but each came to reminisce about the huge change that occurred in their lives there on campus, near that fountain, on their last days of college.

And since this is a Debbie Macomber book, of course there's romance and humor and some tears and growth and humor and ... *sigh* good story all around. Or in this case, three.

What ties these stories together? Young women, planning their weddings in the very new future, who learn their grooms are ... to put it delicately ... scumsucking jerks. Do they let it destroy them? Well, if they did, this wouldn't be a Debbie Macomber book. It'd be literary fiction, which is always depressing -- why do people read it, anyway? No, these wounded women lick their wounds and mourn the deaths of their dreams, and then they gather up their strength and dignity and move on to make new lives for themselves. Better lives. And fall in love along the way. But Debbie plays a trick on us -- it doesn't seem like they'll get happily ever after with the new, better guy. At first. Each woman tells her story and leaves it at the, "And then he walked away," point. Then they promise they'll get back together for dinner that evening at the college reunion, to tell the rest of their stories. Before they do, the readers get the "rest of the story."

Always satisfying -- Debbie Macomber.

Jane Bondservant #15

Ever see a secret agent faint?Ain’t pretty.Especially when just a moment ago she had filled a fresh cup of hot, hot coffee and was ready to take her first sip of the day.
Not that I was addicted to coffee, per se, but I really needed that jolt of caffeine to get over the stress and drain of getting from the parking lot to my classroom. I walked the Noway girls to their classroom and introduced them to the Middlers class teachers, then I showed Dr. Noway to the Information Desk in the main hallway of our church, right next to the big map and the ubiquitous “you are here” dot. (Yes, my church was big. We weren't a mega-church [Thank You, Lord -- therein lies the pathway to arrogance, complacency, and destructive cliques], but big enough to justify the tall bell tower and the fundraising campaign to buy some of the adjoining property to expand the building. Yet again.)
I thought I had made my escape, and done my duty for the day, taking another small step in generating a friendship with Dr. Noway for the sake of my mission without making him suspicious that I was showing too much interest in him.
Interest -- either as a secret agent, or as a single woman in a church dominated by single women, who all suddenly forget their strong friendships the moment a relatively handsome, successful, unattached man between the ages of twenty-five and fifty walks into the building -- voluntarily.
Gilbert and Sullivan should really have written a different version of “A Policeman’s Lot,” and changed it to, “A Single Christian Woman’s Lot.” We have it a lot tougher than the police -- or Redshirts, if you really think about it. Redshirts? Yeah, you know -- the security officers on board the Enterprise in Classic Trek episodes. The guys with the invisible bulls-eyes painted on their chests, and backs, and foreheads. The ones who are supposed to be brave and daring and able to stand up to anything -- but who turn white and fight for bladder control the moment Kirk points a finger at them and says, “You. You’re on the Away Team.” Because they can hear the ominous music just like the audience does, and they know it’s a signal that at least one of them is about to die before the next commercial break.
As in the song (words by Penny Cusick and other guilty parties/members of the U.S.S. Defiance of Sacramento, music by Mssrs. Gilbert and Sullivan)
Oh you see a thousand Redshirts underneath Kirk (underneath Kirk)We mean to say we do respect the man (respect the man)And you know we do get to see lots of neat work (lots of neat work)But now and then we seem to lose a man (lose a man)For he often wants to go down to see new worlds (to see new worlds)Which is much too often if you know our plan (know our plan)Ah, take one consideration with another (with another)A Redshirt’s lot is not a healthy one.
Chorus:Ohhhhhhhhhhh!When constabulary duty’s to be done (to be done)A Redshirt’s lot is not a healthy one (healthy one)
And just WHY did I nearly spill my coffee down my dress, when I thought I was safe in my classroom? Come back next week and find out!

Off the Bookshelf: ABANDON

Don't you hate it when you pick up a book to read, and you realize it's the middle or last book in a series? Ever have that moment when you're torn between reading it anyway, putting it aside until you can find the first book/s, or immediately giving up and putting it on the stack to go to the used bookstore to trade in for credit, because you told yourself you were NOT buying any more new books for the rest of the year -- or at least until you reduced the to-be-read stack by a few feet?

This happened to me last year, when I got UNDERWORLD, the second book in the Abandon Trilogy, by Meg Cabot, as a freebie at RT in Chicago. But see, I like Meg Cabot, even if she does write YA and I'm ... well ... not in that category. But hey, it's a state of mind, right? Besides, I write YA once in a while, so I should see what other authors are doing. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it!)

Anyway .... I read UNDERWORLD, so when I saw ABANDON in a raffle basket at the recent NEORWA conference and realized it was the first book in the series, I had to have it. Just to see what happened before.

What's it about? Honey, this ain't the Princess Diaries! Thumbnail sketch: Pierce is a rich girl. Wouldn't say she's spoiled, but she has problems. Like, when she was 15, she hit her head, fell into a pool in the winter, and drowned herself dead. And came back. Of course. This isn't a zombie or vampire book. The thing is, she went somewhere between dying and reviving. And it changed her. People think she's nuts sometimes. "Disturbed." Now she's in a "special" program at her new school. Someone (yes, hunkalicious, but dangerous!) is following her around. And he's in love with her. And he has some really nasty, Greek-mythology-type enemies who want to use her to destroy him.

Ever read the Persephone myth? That should give you a clue what Pierce is up against.

I love Meg Cabot's voice. I think I'd be willing to read almost anything she wrote. I found some of her older books -- The Mediator series and the 1-800-Where-R-You? books. Keepers. Try her. You'll find something you'll like.

DIVINE KNIGHT -- up for Book of the Month

DIVINE KNIGHT, one of the Divine's Emporium books, is up for Book of the Month at Long and Short Romance reviews.

Please vote!!!

The voting is only open through today, June 2.

Please click on the link, go over to their site, read the review, and vote for DIVINE KNIGHT.

Please?

For more information about DIVINE KNIGHT and the other Divine's Emporium books, you can go to Uncial Press, or my web site.

Jane Bondservant #14

When we last met, I was just getting out of my car in the back parking lot of my church when Dr. Noway’s nieces came running up to me. They thought I was their special friend. They looked for me every morning in the school office, and stopped in every afternoon in the library to get a new book.
Now, it did my librarian heart good to see those little girls buzzing through their reading at such a rapid pace -- and I admit, yes, at times I wondered if they only pretended to read, just so they could come see me. Who wouldn't want adorable little girls to chase after you and ask your opinion and make you feel special? Despite all my self-esteem and confidence training with the Agency, I still had some issues with wanting to be liked.
And as I've said before, the little girls were adorable. Even taking into account the fact they were Dr. Noway’s nieces -- I mean, after all, they could have been surgically enhanced for adorableness, or maybe even genetically engineered to give off pheromones to make all women, especially agents like me, slide into “mother hen” phase and focus all my attention on them, and go all soft and gooey inside and start cooing and purring over them. Which would make me easily distracted and a ridiculously, embarrassingly easy target for termination. Or brainwashing.
*sigh* Sometimes, my training made life very unpleasant. What’s the opposite of rose-colored glasses?
I let the little girls take my hands, because it was obvious they wanted to walk with me into church. The ten-year-old was Annabelle and the eight-year-old was Clarabelle.
(Keep this to yourself -- although, it’s in my preliminary report after meeting the Noway girls, so it’s not really private, is it? -- but I’m afraid Clarabelle will grow up to be just like her uncle, just because of her name. Personally, if I had been named after the clown from the Howdy-Doody Show, I would have grown up to be a psychopath. Why do parents saddle their children with terrible names?)
"Good morning, Miss Smythe," Dr. Noway said. He did not appear from a black hole in the pavement, but that was how I felt as I turned around to see his smiling face. He was just there, seemingly appearing from nowhere. Of course, I must admit, I was distracted with the girls.
"Good morning, Dr. Noway. I didn't know you were coming to my church."
I wondered: Just how much trouble can I get in for telling such a big lie in the church parking lot?
What would happen next? Now that Dr. Noway found me at my church (although, admittedly, that wouldn't be very hard, considering that my church runs the Christian school that I work for!) how much worse could the day get?

Off the Bookshelf: STILLPOINT

STILLPOINT by Marilyn Kok -- romance in a foreign setting, with danger from deception and evil men, greed, and threats from nature. This was picked up at a book exchange with other members of ACFW Ohio.

I have to admit, I'm touchy when it comes to stories where the hero and heroine have to pretend to be interested in each other for a cover story. So when Kylie wasn't happy to have Jack arrive to investigate problems she  uncovered and one of the first things she learned was that their boss wanted them to pretend to be a couple ... I almost closed the book right there. Tried and true, cliched, call it what you will. I was glad when Kylie was not at all a happy camper and kept resisting it for quite a while. Until more important matters grabbed her attention.

But you use what works, and it makes sense for them to work closely together. What's the story? Jack comes to Hong Kong to investigate suspicious circumstances discovered by Kylie in the import company they work for. People are disappearing or being injured, others are telling lies, and a typhoon is approaching the island. Not a fun time to be had by all.

Except maybe the reader. If you like tension that slowly ramps up as the typhoon swirls closer and the weather gets worse and danger from man and nature grows deeper ... read this one.

Jane Bondservant #13

Have you ever noticed that it gets a whole lot easier to pray when you’re in a bind and up against the wall and the weight of the world is not just resting on your shoulders, but jumping up and down, wearing soccer cleats?
See Jane.Jane is driving to church.Jane stops at every red light and closes her eyes to pray.Poor Jane! Almost all her prayers are, "Please, God, don't let Dr. Noway come to my church today!"Jane is ashamed.Jane knows this is no way for a semi-pseudo-secret agent to act. She should be stronger and braver.She should have some faith in her supervisor, O, and her training.She should have faith in her weapons.Besides, her church is a big, big church, and there are lots of big men who see Jane as a little sister to look after.
Depressing thought. I don't mind when the husbands of my good friends treat me like a sister, but what about the single men? And what about the men in the singles group I would not date if they were the last single men alive on the planet? I left my last church because they decided that being a "family-oriented church" meant everyone had to be married. My mentor -- assigned to me, not someone I would choose to turn to for guidance -- was upset that I wouldn't date his third cousin twice-removed just because he told me to. He couldn't understand why I was repelled by a man who only bathed once a week, had one eyebrow, and thought Benny Hill was high culture.
"Thank You, Lord,” I prayed aloud that morning, “that I am in a good church where people know that women have brains and talents and have a right to choose their own careers and lives."
I turned my car into the driveway of the church and went around to the parking lot behind the building. It is utterly useless to try to find a parking spot near the front door on Sunday mornings.
"Miss Smythe! Miss Smythe!" two vaguely familiar little girl voices called from across the parking lot. The tapping of two sets of little feet in patent leather shoes sounded like the rattle of small-calibre gunfire on a stucco wall.
I froze for two heartbeats -- which, I learned the hard way, is hard to do when meheart doesn't want to beat. I had to remind myself that I was in the parking lot of my church, and those were children’s feet, not gunfire. Then I closed my car door and turned around.
Dr. Noway's two little nieces came running across the parking lot to my car.
In the last week since they started attending the Academy, they have stopped in at the office every morning before school to say hello. For some reason, the Noway girls think I’m their special friend.
It looks good on my report, because what better way to make friends with Dr. Noway, as ordered, than to get to him from “around the back” by befriending his nieces. But to be honest, the little girls chose me, I didn’t choose them.

Off the Bookshelf: SAVE THE CAT! STRIKES BACK!

If you haven't heard of the Save the Cat! books or Blake Snyder ... well, either you've been living in a cave or you're not into screenwriting.

The thing is, I'd recommend the Save the Cat! books to any writer of fiction/drama, whether novels, short stories, or screenplays.

Blake Snyder, who died in 2009, shared his insights into deciphering what worked -- or more importantly, DIDN'T -- in screenplays through books and workshops. I wish I could have attended one of his workshops, had a chance to meet him, but alas, I can only read and re-read his books and wait for those flashes of "Ah ha!" that solve a problem in my writing at that point in time -- whether a novel, a short story, or my yearly screenplay.

What can I say? Read the books and quietly mourn the loss of a master who told it like it was -- and still is -- for writers everywhere, in writing and in their career.

What does a cat have to do with screenwriting? Well, duh, read the book and find out!