Katherine Nabity's Blog, page 214
March 15, 2014
Deal Me In, Week 11 ~ “The Eighth of December”
Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis
“The Eighth of December” by Dave Smeds
Card picked: Jack of Clubs
From: Tales of the Impossible, ed. by David Copperfield & Janet Berliner
Review: Alternate timeline fiction.
“Back when people listened to a different kind of rock ‘n’ roll,” Brad Taylor was as big as The Beatles and likewise a musician with a social consciousness. After John Lennon is killed on the 8th of December, Brad receives a terrifying amount of threats and decides to pull a disappearing act. The best way to fall off the radar? Fake his own death. Unfortunately, Brad Taylor being “murdered” so soon after Lennon sparks a rash of violence against rock stars. By 1982, Paul McCartney, Donovan, and Bob Dylan are all dead and many others have left public life. In 1995, the Cold War continues, the Berlin Wall still stands, and republicans run the United States. Brad couldn’t stay away music and has found fame a second time as Vic Standish, lead singer of the heavy metal band Victory. On the 15th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, Brad/Vic wonders if rock ‘n’ roll, or the lack thereof, could have really changed the world.
Writing about music is a difficult thing. How do you manage to convey what’s being played, especially if it’s a fictional song being played by a fictional band. Dave Smeds pulls it off fairly well. (Considering recent news, it makes me wonder how well Anne Rice pulled it off. It’s been a long while since I read The Vampire Lestat.) He also doesn’t out-and-out say that he thinks music after 1980 sucks, but there’s definitely the implication. Victory, I suppose, is analogous to Metallica or Def Leppard or maybe Guns ‘n’ Roses; probably nothing harder or more deviated from the rock music of 1969-1980. Where Dave Smeds and I differ is in this opinion of music. I think he sets up a false dichotomy. To say that social activism was only fostered through peace-love-and-rock-and-rock ignores much of punk and a good swath of industrial. Just sayin’.
Is This Your Card?
I’ve been trying to find tricks that feature each cards, a concept that only occurred to me a few weeks ago. So far, I only have about a third of the deck accounted for, so this will be an occasional feature. James Galea’s routine features the whole deck, but jacks play a specific part…and I was low on videos for clubs.
March 12, 2014
Ides of March Readathon 2014
Hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer
The event kicks of at 12:01 am on March 13th in your time zone and ends at 12:00 midnight on March 17th.
Must post either start-up post or wrap-up post and participate in at least one challenge. (around time of event) for participant giveaway.
Earn extra entries for participant giveaway for each challenge you participate in.
Earn an extra entry for reading one of the following: a book from your TBR pile published before March 1, 2014
Extra entries for sharing, adding button and following challenge hosts
Have fun!
Goal
Make some progress on any/all of these books. Just progress. I’m not even shooting for finished. I have a couple chapters of A Feast of Crows and a short story to read too, but no ARCs this weekend.
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King
Start: 7%
The Magician’s Study by Tobias Seamon
Start: 18%
Dunningers Complete Encyclopedia Of Magic by Joseph Dunninger
Start: 22%
Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson
Start: 16%
Progress
Thursday
Pages Read:
Total Pages Read:
Books:
Notes & Challenges:
March 11, 2014
Review ~ Eerie America: Travel Guide of the Macabre
This book was provided to me by Schiffer Publishing Ltd. via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Eerie America: Travel Guide of the Macabre by Eric R Vernor & Kevin Eads
America is the land of the beautiful, but it is also a land of mystery and many haunted and bizarre places. With 150 images, addresses, and directions, go state-by-state to tour the macabre side of the United States. Journey to haunted old battleships, abandoned prisons, creepy lunatic asylums, the Amityville Horror House, the Winchester House, museums such as Edgar Allan Poe’s home, New Orleans Voodoo Museum, the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast, and much more! In addition suggesting places to visit, where to stay, and places to eat, chapters on each state have a break down of how best to experience the curious and bizarre sometimes just a building and other times a whole town. Come on this unusual but richly satisfying tour. You won’t be disappointed. (via Goodreads)
Eerie America is a travel guide with a distinctly Discovery/SyFy channel sensibility. In fact, if you’re a fan of shows like Ghost Hunters, Haunted Highway, Destination Truth, and the host of similar shows available, you’ll be familiar with many of the places mentioned in this book. I’ll confess; one of my guilty pleasures is partaking in this sort of pseudo-scientific fare. Nothing passes the time like watching a bunch of people scare themselves in a “haunted” location.
The unfortunate part of reviewing this book as an e-ARC rather than owning a copy was that I couldn’t take a long trip across the United States, read up on each state’s particular peculiarities, and leisurely check attractions off the list. Reading the book straight through is not ideal. Despite a few macabre museums (like Minnesota’s Museum of Questionable Medical Devices) and fun tourist traps (like Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway), most of these places are haunts. Reading about the “most haunted” hotel/asylum/prison in the state/town/district becomes pretty repetitive after twenty entries in a row. I did really appreciate the “Where to Eat” entries. Food is an important part of travel! The other place this guide shines is in the little bits of practical advice: business hours, admission prices, and other physical consideration like lots of stairs or walking.
There were a couple areas that I wished were better. One was the longer articles. There were only two and a few more would have been nice. I would have liked to hear more in-depth stories about these places or maybe about the author’s experiences. The writing was occasionally a little wonky. Some sentences were clumsily constructed, probably in an effort to add some variability to descriptions. Most importantly, maps would be an excellent addition to this travel guide. While something big and fold out would be great, even state-level page-sized maps would be helpful. Otherwise, Eerie America is beautifully illustrated and designed.
Publisher: Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
Publication date: Feb. 28, 2014
Genre: Non-fiction, travel guide
Why did I choose to read this book? Sounded like fun
March 10, 2014
It’s Monday! What am I Reading? (03/10/14)
Hosted by Sheila at Book Journey
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between! This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!
Happy Monday Everyone!
Last week, I felt like I finally got back into my reading groove. This week, I’m going to try to comment more instead of only being a Monday meme page-view sucker.
Reading
I’m about a third of the way through The Revenant of Thraxton Hall and it’s going fast. Also on the agenda the usual chapters of George R.R. Martin and a Deal Me In story. I shied away from Kimba’s Take Control challenge because I had a few ARCs on my reading list (The Revenant of Thraxton Hall being one of those), but I should have that finished with those in time for the Ides of March Readathon. I’m going to work on some in-progress books.
Dunningers Complete Encyclopedia Of Magic by Joseph Dunninger
22% Done
The Magician’s Study by Tobias Seamon
18% Done
Lifted: A Cultural History of the Elevator by Andreas Bernard
12% Done
Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson
16% Done
On the Blog
Tuesday: Review of Eerie America
Thursday: Ideas of March kick-off post
Saturday: “The Eighth of December” by Dave Smeds for Deal Me In
Work This Week
Model Species is now available for free directly from Amazon. Huzzah, and time to once again update blog sidebars, etc.
I have 58 pages left on my latest Pas de Chat editorial pass.
Read Eric’s changes to the Divine Fire short story extra.
March 9, 2014
Deal Me In, Week 10 ~ The Queen of Hearts and Swords
Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis
“The Queen of Hearts and Swords” by Karen Joy Fowler
Card picked: Ten of Spades
From: David Copperfield’s Beyond Imagination, ed. by David Copperfield and Janet Berliner
Review: I was a little worried going into this story. I’ve been having a bad couple days arthritis-wise and a quick skim showed a long-ish story broken into parts. Would my hands be up to holding open a mass market paperback for that long, especially if the story didn’t keep me interested? Could I justify putting it off a week and “picking” a wild card in order to read something online? Why, oh, why hadn’t I read it earlier in the week? (Because I’ve come to like my Saturday short story…and also because I’m a procrastinator.) After a bit of wavering, an Aleve, and a bottle of Guinness, I settled in. Thankfully, this story kept me distracted enough.
The story is a fictionalization of the life of abolitionist and entrepreneur Mary Ellen Pleasant, with a dash of supernatural elements spun from her connection to Marie Laveau.
As I mentioned, it’s broken into sections, only two of them. “The Queen of Hearts and Diamonds” features Pleasant’s arrival in San Francisco, as Mrs. Smith, though the eyes of Mrs. Radford, a widow who becomes her lodger. Pleasant gains her clout within San Francisco’s society by passing as a white woman, also a widow, but young and exotically beautiful. In this section, she wins her popularity and also adds to her fortune.
Pleasant proves herself to be “The Queen of Wands and Swords” in the second section as she reverses society’s expectations of her as a black woman.
They depended on her. She also knew the most prominent families in the city. Best of all she knew her place. She could be invited to any social gathering and be counted on to send her polite regrets.
But now it was clear that too much fuss had been made over her. By giving a party herself, she created the kind of awkward occasion San Francisco society expected her to avoid.
Through her series of parties, Mrs. Pleasant manages to fund-raise for the Underground railroad and expose the not-so-subtle hypocrisies that surround her while remaining strangely unsullied by scandal. Pleasant never lies, but that truths she does not broadcast stay eerily secret until she has use of them.
About the Author: Often, I read short stories without really paying much attention to who the author is. Karen Joy Fowler was ringing a loud bell for me, but I couldn’t place from where. Her biography in the back of the book gave me no clues. The book *is* nearly 20 years old. Had she edited one of those Best American Short Story anthologies I read in college? (She hadn’t.) A quick Wikipedia search led to an exclamation of “Oh, she wrote THAT!” That being “What I Didn’t See,” an award-winner from a while back known for being a genre/literary straddler. Searching my blog, this is at least the third story I’ve read by her. She also co-founded the Tiptree Award.
March 6, 2014
“Read an E-Book Week” Haul
I don’t usually post book hauls because, well, I’m poor. I just don’t acquire enough books often enough for it to matter. What’s great about Read an E-Book Week? FREE books!
Here’s what I’ve picked up this week (and previously) at Smashwords that I’ve read and enjoyed or am really looking forward to. Just remember, the Read an E-Book promotion ends Saturday, March 8th.
Title: Dead Man’s Hand
Format: Three interconnected stories.
Genre: Paranormal Western
Price: Free during Read an E-Book Week
Icy Sedgwick’s Checkmate and Other Stories is also available on special.
Title: Never Ever After: Three Short Stories
Format: Novelette
Genre: Fairy Tales
Price: Free during Read an E-Book Week
Ruth Nestvold’s “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” are also available for free and Yseult and Looking Through Lace are available for 25% off!
Title: The Last Rakosh
Format: Novelette
Genre: Horror Thriller
Price: Free everyday
I’ve been meaning to check out F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series for *ages*.
Title: The Turtle Boy
Format: Novella
Genre: Horror
Price: Free everyday
“Offline” a short story by Kealan Patrick Burke is also availabble.
Title: Nearly Departed
Format: Novel
Genre: Horror Comedy
Price: Free everyday
Title: Engraved on the Eye
Format: Short Story Collection
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Price: Free everyday
Title: Bad Luck Cadet
Format: Novella-length
Genre: Memoir, Humor
Price: Free everyday
Bad Luck Officer isn’t on sale, but it’s definitely worth buying.
Title: Harry Houdin: “The Great Polynational Mimic”
Format: Pamphlet
Genre: Non-fiction
Price: Free everyday
No, not Houdini and not Robert-Houdin either, but the nearly forgotten Harry Houdin.
And just as a reminder, Model Species, Divine Fire, and Lucinda at the Window are all available this week too!
March 4, 2014
Review ~ Eleanor & Park
Bono met his wife in high school, Park says.
So did Jerry Lee Lewis, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be, she says, we’re 16.
What about Romeo and Juliet?
Shallow, confused, then dead.
I love you, Park says.
Wherefore art thou, Eleanor answers.
I’m not kidding, he says.
You should be.
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, this is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love—and just how hard it pulled you under. (via Goodreads)
I generally don’t read YA. We’ll get to that in a moment. But I’ve wanted to read Eleanor & Park since, well, since I discovered it existed.
First: When I was a student at UNL, Rainbow Rowell wrote a column for The Daily Nebraskan, the campus newspaper. I enjoyed her writing a great deal. Heck, I still have a clipping from Dec. 1994 about mothers and daughters. Rowell always had a reasonable voice; a little geeky, a little neurotic, but still sensible. A few years back, I realized that she was writing for the Omaha World-Herald, and a while after that, that she’d published a couple novels.
Second: Eleanor & Park is set in Omaha in 1986 and I grew up in Omaha in the 80s and 90s. There’s a certain weirdness to reading about things you *know*. Those gym suits? The red and white onsie with the zipper? Yeah, I wore one of those. The Old Market? Drastic Plastic? The Antiquarium? Been to those places. The hair styles, the music. The cliques. I’m talking heavy nostalgia here.
So, the book. And YA and my relationship to it. During a class discussion of Romeo and Juliet in the book, Park gives an answers as to why the play has lasted four hundred years: “Because people want to remember what it’s like to be young.” I’m 39 years old. The experience of being 16 is over half my life ago. What YA has to do for me at age 39 is make me remember what it was like to be young. Whether it was the setting, or era, or the author (an Omahan a couple years older than me), or the two smart, geeky protagonists, Eleanor & Park felt real to me. For better and worse, it made me remember what it was like to be young.
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Publication date: February 26th 2013
Genre: YA contemporary-ish, 1986 is contemporary, right?
March 3, 2014
It’s Monday! What am I Reading? (3/3/14)
Hosted by Sheila at Book Journey
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between! This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!
Happy Monday Everyone!
I gave up on the Triple Dog Dare Challenge and, with Read an E-Book Week this week, my resolution about acquiring books has fallen by the wayside too. I made it two months. That’s good, right? (…Speaking of Read an E-Book Week, I have a few specials going on at Smashwords. Navigate to the book pages for details.)
What am I reading this week? And e-book!
On the Blog
Tuesday: A review of either Eerie America or Eleanor & Park.
Thursday: My “Read an E-Book Week” haul and other Smashwords authors you should check out.
Saturday: I’m reading “The Queen of Hearts and Swords” by Karen Joy Fowler for Deal Me In this week.
Happy Reading Everyone!
March 2, 2014
Read an E-Book Week
Read an E-Book Week is a site-wide promotion at Smashwords to help authors connect with readers. According to the press package, the catalog includes nearly 40,000 books available for free or discount. That’s a lot of reading materials and it includes books by Eric and me.
Everyday Deals
The first two books of the Apothic Man series, Model Species and Divine Fire, are both available for FREE from Smashwords and Barnes & Noble every day! For Smashwords, just head to the site and download the format that works best for you! If you own a Nook, we’ve got you covered at B&N.
About Model Species:
Alcander, an old man with a decrepit body and shattered sense of self, has a murderous plan to seize power and replace the life he cannot remember. Investigating a body with bizarre wounds fished from the bay are a middling apothynom, Inspector Paulos Gaent, and a religious objector to apothynom rule, Clerk Teria Bellaphaerenous. At cross-purposes, a private detective, Laros Nero, is hired by an anonymous client to discover the identity of the murderer for reasons other than justice. However, it will take more than keen investigative abilities to stop Alcander. It will require the unearthing of dark apothic knowledge that has been buried for an age.
About Divine Fire:
In the Radiant Agnosian Empire, emetanisms and apothic methods from outside are restricted. The culcursus of an apothynom and the implants of the Oinos are illegal. Apothos is a sacred act that comes from Agnos, their god, the sun.
In Florey, the banking capitol of the Radiant Agnosian Empire, there is unrest. Agnos is smiting the wicked with Divine Fire. Neltiar Silva, an apothynom from the Polities, and Marie Lemieux, a woman possessing a verboten Oinos implant, want to know why and how. As they dig deeper, they find out the real reason men are dying.
More about Weordan, the setting for the Apothic Man series.
Read an E-Book Week Specials at Smashwords
Shhh… Don’t tell Eric, but I put Model Species: The Apothic Edition on sale for 25% off. Just use the coupon code (REW25) when checking out. The Apothic Edition includes the novel, Model Species, and extra goodies including the short story “A Game of Moths by Gieter RR Morgan.”
Purchase Model Species: The Apothic Edition
The first novel I ever wrote, Lucinda at the Window, is FREE! Just use coupon RW100 at checkout.
About Lucinda at the Window:
Lucinda Harris is very put out.
One of her oldest friends, Rebecca O’Malley, has married an impetuous Irishman. The fortnight-long party at the O’Malley’s newly-inherited rural Ohio Manor is filled with some of the most common people. The Manor itself is in poor condition and staffed by three mostly incompetent servants. Worst of all, Lucinda has been murdered.
Lucinda is determined to solve the mystery of her own death, but unfortunately for the guests of the Manor, the only thing more haunted than the house is Lucinda Harris.
“Purchase” Lucinda at the Window
March 1, 2014
Deal Me In, Week 9 ~ Klassik Komix #1
Hosted by Jay @ Bibliophilopolis
Klassik Komix #1 by Steven Millhauser
Card picked: Six of Diamonds
From: The Barnum Museum
Review: A story told as descriptions of panels in the fictional first issue of Klassik Komix. The cover is described as having a lobster-man on the cover. The internal panels present a surreal evening in the life of our protagonist, a Victorian man named Alfred. Or, maybe the whole thing is just an inspirational dream that Alfred will use to fuel his writings.
Millhauser is a very visual writer. He does a great job of imbuing his descriptions of comic panels with overly vivid colors, repetitions of form, and the little details that are the shorthand of the comic form.
Blue lines of tension crease her forehead and two black vertical lines separate her arched blue-black eyebrows.
Story-wise, I feel like I’m missing an allusion. The descriptions are all very fine, but it doesn’t really go anywhere.
Interesting that I should read this story after last week’s Jack Kirby episode.
If you have a MyJSTOR account (and why wouldn’t you?), the story is available in Grand Street, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Autumn, 1988), as well as in The Barnum Museum.
