L.R. Braden's Blog, page 20

My Alaskan Cruise, Part 1

I've been home for nearly two weeks now, but I still haven't managed to sort through all 2,000 pictures I took on my trip up the coast of Alaska. Part of that is because I came home with a massive head cold. Then there's the fact I had to finish the book 2 revisions that I failed to complete before I left. But I wanted to get started on this post while the details were still (somewhat) fresh in my mind. :) Since it was a rather long trip, I've decided to split this post into pieces to make them more manageable chunks, both for me to write and you to read. So, without further ado, I present Part 1:

The three of us stayed in the Sylvia Hotel, which is right next to Stanley Park in the West End district of Vancouver on English Bay. If you are ever looking at a visit to Vancouver, I definitely recommend staying in the West End. For being such a big city (and the West End was packed full of apartment/condo complexes) it was surprisingly quiet. Other than Denman St. (the main shopping strip) there was relatively little traffic. People walked or biked along the quiet neighborhood roads and on the path that followed the beach. Each night, the beach right next to our hotel would get pretty crowded, but never overwhelmingly so. All-in-all, I found Vancouver quite relaxing. Since we'd arranged to have several days of sight-seeing in Vancouver, we pretty much did one activity per day. The first full day we were there, we rented bikes from a local shop to ride around the sea wall that surrounds Stanley Park.
Now, I have to tell you a little bit about these bikes: We'd slept in that morning, and all that was left in the shop was their backroom stock, bikes that needed fixing for one reason or another. The first bike the clerk offered was called the Cinderella bike because they could no longer adjust the height of the seat. It didn't fit me. Then next bike, and the one I ended up with was still a bit too small but doable. It didn't seem to have any major issued... until I left the store with it and discovered the brakes were stripped so it made a terrible metal on metal screech whenever I tapped them at all. The bike my husband rode was even smaller on him than mine was on me and the front gear wouldn't shift, so he ended up spinning his legs double-time the whole ride. My daughter's bike was good, if a little big for her, but the handle brakes were too far and stiff for her little hands, so she had to ride one-handed whenever she wanted to stop. So, not the greatest collection of inventory, but we made do.

The ride along the sea wall that day was BEAUTIFUL! There was a dedicated path for walking, and one for riding, and both were separated from the actual road. The paths ran along the coast on one side, and a lush forest on the other. We passed a marina, a lagoon, a lighthouse, a huge rhododendron garden, several beaches, and the Lions Gate Bridge. We also found a swimming pool and several parks. As we made our way back toward our starting point, we stopped off at Third Beach (I know, they've got really creative names) for a snack and to relax for a bit, but I'll talk more about the beaches in a minute.

Once we'd made it all the way around Stanley Park (actually one and a half times because it turned out you could only do the full circle going counter-clockwise so we had to back-track a bit) we returned our bikes to the shop and went out for dinner at this awesomely yummy restaurant on Denman called Won More Sezchuan. Their garlic black bean chicken was to die for! The next day was the day we'd designated for swimming. We kicked this off by walking back to the pool we'd discovered on our bike ride. The pool was set right against the bay, separated only by the sea wall walking path and an iron fence. It had slides, which we made good use of, and was, in general, about the same as any other pool I've been in. The biggest difference was that we got quite a breeze off the bay, so it was pretty cold. (By the way, the daytime temperatures while we were there were all in the mid-sixties.) Another strange occurrence was that a Canada goose decided to swim with us. The lifeguard glanced at the bird, but otherwise ignored it. I guess geese land in that pool quite a lot. It paddled around for a bit, then took off when an over-eager girl decided to chase it.
Once we were thoroughly chilled by the cold water and the wind, we got out of the pool and laid on the sun-warmed concrete to dry. Since we were traveling, we didn't have beach towels with us, so we just had to wait to dry naturally. It didn't actually take all that long. After that we grabbed bowls of ramen from the concession stand (you can get Asian food *everywhere* in Vancouver), and ate lunch.

After lunch we headed up to Third Beach to go swimming in the ocean. Oddly enough, the ocean water was warmer than the pool water (that's not to say it was warm). It was also full of floating seaweed. We splashed around a bit and walked out on some barnacle-covered rocks that were exposed by the low tide, but most of our beach time was spent playing in the sand. Arranged along the beach were huge driftwood logs, and I do mean huge. Most were a good three feet in diameter. Apparently a lot of trees wash up on shore. The logs were spaced so that people could use them as seats or backrests, and provided privacy breaks, so even when the beach was crowded it didn't feel so packed as the shoulder-to-shoulder seas of beach-goers I've seen elsewhere. I suppose the light crowds could also be because, like me, many people believe the ocean waters up in Canada would be cold. Whatever the case, I was glad for the relative welcome and comfort of the beach.
We dug a deep, deep hole. Deep enough that I could no longer reach the bottom of it even with my shoulder pressed to the edge. Then my daughter sat in the hole and we buried her up to her chest. She had a bit of trouble climbing free, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience. We stayed at the beach for most of the day, enjoying the sand and the surf, then we got cleaned up and went out for dinner. We went to a nearby poke restaurant (did I mention the Asian influence?) then walked to a Marble Slab ice cream parlor. My daughter got a massive, bright blue, cotton candy flavored scoop of ice cream with crushed Oreos and gummy bears in a chocolate-dipped waffle cone covered in sprinkles (That was her birthday treat since we didn't have a cake). We sat by the beach and munched our ice cream, my daughter getting a very blue and sticky face, and enjoyed some strange bronze sculptures of 8-foot men making funny faces. We spent our last full day in Vancouver at the Van Dusen botanical garden. I won't go into a lot of detail about the plants, but suffice it to say there were a wide variety and many were blooming, so it was a beautiful walk through the 55 acres of cultivated plants. The garden was split into areas such as the Japanese Maple section, a Chilean garden, a Mediterranean garden, and heritage rose garden (seen below). They also had a junior bird-watcher activity book the clerk gave to my daughter. She got to spot lots of different birds, and learn some interesting facts, and at the end she earned a souvenir pin. One of the very best parts of our garden tour was the hedge maze! I've always wanted to do one, and this is the first opportunity I've ever gotten. We actually went through the whole maze twice, then my daughter raced through it a third time while we timed her. It took three minutes and ten seconds.
My only complaint is that there wasn't anything cool at the "center" of the maze. I feel like they should put in a fountain or something. After taking a cab back to the West End, we finished off the day with some truly delicious Persian food and called it a night, and that pretty much wraps up our stay in Vancouver. We re-packed our bags, turned in early, and headed for the cruise terminal the next morning.
Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment of: My Alaskan Cruise.

Character Sketch: James

My newest character sketch: James Abernathy.
Remember, you can see all my character sketches in the Bonus Features tab. Enjoy! BACKGROUND: James owns the Souled Art Gallery, where Alex shows her work. He's known Alex for about two years, and the two of them have become friends thanks to their many common interests. While James is attractive and kind, he tends to keep people at a distance.

Review: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Overview:
This book was a short, thoughtful read. There were many deep themes present, such as the disconnect between childhood and adulthood, the corrupting powers of desire and greed, and the idea that there is more in our world than most people see or realize.
Character & Voice:
The book starts with the narrator as a grown man, then leads into a collection of memories narrated by his seven-year-old self. Most of the actual story is from the POV of the young boy, and Gaiman certainly gets across the feeling of helplessness when a child goes up against unyielding adults. He also captures how terrifying it can be when the adults you rely upon become complicit in your misery.
The boy's family are small characters, with his mother hardly mentioned at all and his sister a side-note. His father is the best representation of a normal person being twisted by the influence of magic, as both Mrs. Monkton and the Hempstock women alter his perception and memories.
Of the Hempstock women, Lettie is the one with whom we have the most contact. She agrees to take our narrator with her when she goes to dispel a creature causing problems for mortals, thereby providing it an entrance into the boy's world and kicking off the main events of the story.

World-building:
Gaiman drops the reader into his world without any explanation. This is understandable since our narrator (for the story portion) is a young boy who really has no idea what is going on, or what is normal and what is not.
Strange things start happening, and the reader is left to piece together possible explanations with the clues provided by the boy's observations. This makes for a rather slow beginning and some confusing moments, but adds to the building mystery and magic of the story.
Even at the end of the book, we never get a full explanation of what happened, or who the Hempstock women are, but we've been painted a picture of possibilities. I was left with the feeling that this story could have taken place fully in the world that I know, thanks to magics that lie just beyond my perception.

Language & Mechanics:
The flashback narration allows strong punch lines like, "'We'll be fine.' That's what she said. But we weren't." Yet, at the same time, that framing eliminates the sense of threat and suspense. We've seen the narrator in the future, we know he survives to become a man. As a result, this book was not what I'd call a page turner, more of an amble, especially at the beginning. It did pick up once Ursula Monkton showed up.
Gaiman's prose flows beautifully, weaving small details and large themes together for terrific storytelling. My reading was never interrupted by mistakes in grammar or mechanics. Once I fell under the spell of the story, I was washed clear to the end.

While this book was labeled fantasy, and there were certainly fantastic elements, it didn't hold many of the features I normally attribute to fantasy writing, and Gaiman's writing style definitely leans toward literary. I'd place this book solidly in the "magical realism" sub-genre.

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Character Sketch: Sophie

Sophie Devereaux joins my cast of character sketches!

Remember, you can see all the completed characters, plus other fun stuff, in the Bonus Features tab.


BACKGROUND: Sophie is a painter and illustrator. Though she hasn't hit it big yet, she regularly shows her works in local venues like Magpie Books and has illustrated several picture books. Alex met Sophie at an artist retreat in Winter Park and bonded over their love of landscapes. They often take inspirational hikes together.

Character Sketch: Kai

My newest character sketch is now up in the Bonus Features section of my website!

AGE: Looks to be in his mid-twenties HAIR COLOR: Light Brown EYE COLOR: Brown when wearing his glamour
BACKGROUND: Kai is a fae knight from the Realm of Enchantment. He's on a mission to stop a killer and retrieve a collection of stolen magic artifacts, and he needs Alex's help to do it. NOTE: This sketch shows Kai when wearing his glamour. I may, at a later date, make another version of him with his glamour off.

Review: The Cruel Prince

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Overview:
The Cruel Prince drew me in right away with a scene that was both exciting and emotionally powerful, and that set the pace for the entire book. The plot was good, but it was the character development and interaction that really carried the story through to its satisfying conclusion.
Character & Voice:
I loved the cast in this book. Each character is painted with unique, deep detail, and the character interactions are what make the story really pop.
The main character, Jude, is stolen from the mortal world along with her two sisters, and raised by the man who murdered her parents right in front of her. Talk about a complicated family dynamic. She was a child when her parents died, and while she never forgot what her foster father had done, she couldn't help but grow attached to the man who raised her. Her sisters have similarly skewed views of their place in the world, and each handles the problem very differently.
Jude is hardly typical, but as a narrator she's about what you'd expect from a teenage girl. I guess hormones are hormones no matter where you are. So, of course, there were times when I wanted to slap her or was left scratching my head at her decisions. But, in general, I found her actions and reactions believable and could empathize with her choices even when I didn't agree with them.
Jude's family isn't the only messed up bunch in the story. As the book progresses, many relationships are brought to light that deepen the mystery of developing events and help shape Jude's path.

Language & Mechanics:
The book is written in present tense, which I tend to have trouble with. I'm not sure why, but it just never reads as smooth as past tense for me. Other than that little hiccup, the prose was clean and smooth, with lots of lovely, descriptive phrases.

World-building:
This story takes place mainly in a world that is connected to--yet separate from--ours, and the author pulls in lots of rich mythology to create a beautiful, terrible place for Jude to grow up. The characters cross over a time or two, back to the mortal world from which they were stolen. But Jude and her sisters are children of both worlds, and part of her internal conflict is that she doesn't really fit comfortably in either.

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A Long and Winding Road

A lot of people start their author biography with how long they’ve been writing stories... but I have no idea what to mark as the beginning. I daydreamed through my childhood. I made up stories and drew pictures of my imagination. When I was about thirteen I plotted out an epic adventure and wrote the first hundred pages of it. That barely got me through the introductions. I read endlessly. In high school and college I studied the classics. I learned the theories behind literary criticism. And I kept reading. I read so much that I earned a literature degree without meaning to.

I started my first full-length novel since setting aside my teenage adventure story (which I still have by the way). I mapped out the whole story in my head -- a story that was way too long for a single book, so I broke it into five pieces -- and started writing. It took me three months to write the first book, and it came to 120,000 words. Five years and a million revisions later, that book is 85,000 words long, and is the first in my Magicsmith series. So, did my writing career start when I was a daydreaming child babbling stories? Or as a teenager penning my first pages? Or when I got my first publishing contract? Or when I held a physical copy of my book for the first time? Who knows? And who cares? I write now, and that’s enough. If people enjoy my stories, even better. Maybe someday, someone will hold one of my books and think, “I could do this.”

Photo credit: Rob Bates

Review: Ready Player One

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Overview:
First, a confession: With this story, I did something I rarely do. I saw the movie first. *gasp* Horror of horrors, I know. But I did, and I worried that that experience might ruin the book. If you're in a similar boat, rest assured that seeing the movie first will not ruin the book. While the main premise stays the same, there were enough differences that I had no idea what was going to happen page to page. Yes, I knew who was going to win in the end, but that's pretty much a given for most books. Suffice to say, the book still held plenty of surprises to keep me turning pages.

Characters & Voice:
The protagonist of the story is Wade Watts, named to sound like a super hero's alter ego. He is a pretty average, poor, outcast, teenage boy. Like most OASIS users, he's overweight and spends nearly all his time logged in. Wade's entire life is lived online through his avatar, Parzival. That's where he goes to school, meets his friends, and does his research on Halliday. Sadly, this is not an unrealistic possibility for the near future, and I think that makes his character very relatable.
Wade is joined by secondary characters Art3mis, Aech, Daito, and Shoto, who are both friends and rivals. Together, they make up the High Five, and are the main competitors for Halliday's Egg. While none of these characters have met in real life, they bond over their shared passion for the quest and a desire to stop the IOI Sixers from destroying the freedom the OASIS represents. I especially liked the dynamic between Parzival and Aech, best friends who were also in direct competition. The romance arc with Art3mis was a little... angsty. But then, they are teenagers, so I guess that's in character.
The main antagonist is the IOI corporation, headed by Nolan Sorrento. IOI is the embodiment of extreme capitalism. They want to bleed the OASIS dry, and they'll get the keys to the kingdom by any means necessary, including threats, cheating, and murder. They use their money and influence to undermine the spirit of Halliday's contest, filling the OASIS with numbered employees called Sixers, and every free user in the OASIS hates them.

Language & Mechanics:
For the most part, Cline's writing is wonderful. The prose is smooth, clean, and clear, and it drew me in right from the get go. Even though I had a good idea how the story would turn out since I'd watched the movie first, the prologue was so engaging that I was enthralled and eager to see what happened next.
While the writing itself was great, the one place where I felt the book could use a little more work was in the flow. After the engaging set-up, the next couple chapters were kind of slow with him going to school, bantering with friends, etc. to establish Wade's "average day." The writing continued to be good, so it's not like I wanted to stop reading, but I did get a little bored. Then he found the first key and things picked up, which was great. But once he got stuck on the second riddle the story lagged again. There were several chapters detailing his new room, all his new tech, and his new daily routine that felt like one big info dump. Luckily, Cline was able to keep tension on the page even when there wasn't much going on, so these slow parts didn't translate to closing the book.

World-building:
There are two very distinct aspects to the world-building in this story. The first is the real world into which Wade was born. This is a dystopian future where the human race has used up most of the resources on our over-populated planet and now live like sardines packed together in major cities with the lands between turned into a barren waste. To escape the desperation of their real lives, people spend most of their time in the OASIS, and MMO that has become the virtual reality where people spend most of their daily lives. Within the OASIS there are thousands of worlds, but we mostly only visit those important to Halliday's Hunt. This brings us to the second part of the world-building.
In the book, Halliday uses his Hunt to share his obsession with 1980's pop culture with the world. I'd argue that Cline does the same thing with this novel. Every aspect of the Hunt is steeped in 80's trivial, from movies and TV shows to video games and music. Now, I'd first like to point out that I was born and grew up in the 80's, so a lot of that trivia was familiar and nostalgic for me. That said, there were, at times, too many details. I get that we need to see Wade as a super-geek who's memorized every piece of media produced in the 80's, but it gets annoying in places having so many references constantly thrown in. It interrupts the flow of the story. This super-saturation of details and the resultant lag in flow are the reason I couldn't give this book a full five starts, but the story was great and well worth the read.


Digging Deeper (SPOILERS): When Wade and the others enter the first gate, each player has to reenact the movie WarGames. The author makes a big deal about the players gaining or losing points based on how closely they follow the script, even gaining bonus points for matching the right tone and timing, but then when each player clears the gate they are awarded the exact same number of points on the scoreboard. So, what was the point of the individual scores within the simulation? This happens again in the final gate when Wade acts out the script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. This also begs the bigger question, why have scores at all? The contest is basically a race. It doesn't matter what ranking a player is on the scoreboard so long as they are the first to reach Halliday's egg. The scoreboard makes sense only as a means for others to monitor a player's progress, but even then the scores themselves don't matter.

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Character Sketch: Emma

My latest character sketch is up online: Emma Yamada!
Remember, you can find all of my character sketches in the "Bonus Features" tab on my website. BACKGROUND: Emma works at the cafe in Magpie Books, making delicious coffee creations and selling pastries provided by her mother's bakery. Her father was killed during the Faerie Wars, and her mother, Loni, is very conservative in regards to magic. She has a younger sister named Mae.