Creative Reviews discussion
The Attic
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Welcome to The Attic!!
Angela-- That is so funny!!! He probably thought I was imaginary. He probably thought I was one of the characters in your head! HA HA HA HA! :)I do that sometimes too when something reminds me of someone in the group.
JA- I will check this lady out, even though I might be scared! The pic you paint of her makes me want to behave myself. LOL.
Splitter- your interview is going up tomorrow!! And I don't think you and Katy are that old.
Speaking of ages... I'm 42 and I had never heard of her. I didn't get much tv as a kid tho...
Random question....a group of people from London came into work and me trying to sound smart( never been there) said , " oh the big smoke"? They looked at me like I was crazy. What? I heard someone from there refer to it as that. What does it mean?
@Angela, I refer to people in this group as my buds too without thinking that no one knows who they are. Lol.
Jenn wrote: "@Angela, I refer to people in this group as my buds too without thinking that no one knows who they are. Lol."Hahaha! Glad I'm not the only one. My response was a blank stare as if I'd mentioned my daughter and he'd asked who. Why do ppl not read my mind? It'd be more efficient!
"The big smoke??" I have no idea Jenn but that sounds hilarious!! Would love to have seen that. LOLI wish ppl could read my mind too, it would be more efficent yet somehow i think I would scare everyone away and then I would have NO friends. LOL
Cambria wrote: ""The big smoke??" I have no idea Jenn but that sounds hilarious!! Would love to have seen that. LOLI wish ppl could read my mind too, it would be more efficent yet somehow i think I would scare..."
In Oz, the term "big smoke" is an old expression used by country folk referring to the the capital cities and their pollution. I'd guess the term came from England, and the connotation would be similar. Maybe J.A. knows more.
Cambria wrote: ""The big smoke??" I have no idea Jenn but that sounds hilarious!! Would love to have seen that. LOLI wish ppl could read my mind too, it would be more efficent yet somehow i think I would scare..."
Heh. If people tried to read my mind, it would just confuse them ... I get lost in there myself!
It is a nickname for London, but mostly out of use these days; probably because it used to be so polluted you would get "pea-soupers" - ie horrid yellow fog as thick as pea soup where you genuinely could not see your hand in front of your face. There was all sorts of chest infections attributed to it and routinely people would be robbed or killed by people they couldn't even see. Even the buuildings were all blackened by the smokes and fumes in which the city was suffocating. This was going on all trhough the industrial age and as recently as when my Mum was a kid, I think; then they passed a lot of legislation to sort out the release of smoke and pollutants into the atmosphere and all that sort of thing, and I think they were sorting the city out for a good forty or fifty years after. The Thames had been so polluted that in places it could no longer support aquatic life, even; but they did a lot of work on that too and introduced all sorts of beasties back into it.
The city is in a bowl of hills; (or what they call hills down this end of the country, ha!) as you drive up to the rim of the bowl, you can see a big yellow haze over it which is disgusting, but still much much less bad than it was, once upon a time.
I suspect they've been quite careful to make sure the nickname falls out of use though!!
JAC
J.A. wrote: "It is a nickname for London, but mostly out of use these days; probably because it used to be so polluted you would get "pea-soupers" - ie horrid yellow fog as thick as pea soup where you genuinely..."Whoopsie!
Au contraire; you know more about London than the Londoners - that's some kinda cool!!Anyhow I always think it should be a Philip Marlowe novel of some kind....
JAC
J.A. wrote: "Au contraire; you know more about London than the Londoners - that's some kinda cool!!Anyhow I always think it should be a Philip Marlowe novel of some kind....
JAC"
Thanks for "clearing" that up for me!!!!!
Hello there, I don't have a dog, only a cat but I thought I'd say hello anyway. I'm new here and I'm an author and have been lurking a while and I guess sharp would be salty/sour on cheese... but I don't know...Cheers
MTM
MTM wrote: "Hello there, I don't have a dog, only a cat but I thought I'd say hello anyway. I'm new here and I'm an author and have been lurking a while and I guess sharp would be salty/sour on cheese... but I..."Ah, cat owners unite! LOL
Hey MTM! Glad to see you! No need to lurk, jump right in and join our crazy talk!! Want to tell us more about your book?
I just posted a question in the Book Trailer thread that I would like to discuss.... LOL. If anyone would care to clear up my confusion please proceed to the book trailer thread. Thank you.LOL
Woah! You want to know... um well... if I can get this in before my battery dies... it's called Few Are Chosen and it's humorous fantasy.I've started an egocentric author thread in the authors section, too but here, a little unhealthily at the ready, is the blurb.
The Pan of Hamgee isn’t paranoid. There must be some people in K’Barth who aren’t out to get him; it’s just that, right now, he’s not sure where they are. His family are dead, his existence is treason and he does the only thing he can to survive – getaway driving.
As if being on the run isn’t bad enough, when he finds a magic thimble and decides to keep it, he unwittingly sets himself on a collision course with Lord Vernon, K’Barth’s despot ruler.
Unwillingly, The Pan is forced to make choices and stand up for his beliefs – beliefs he never knew he had until they were challenged. But, faced with a stark moral dilemma will his new found integrity stick? Can he stop running?
Arse battery is going but I'll go and have a look at the trailer thread tomorrow!
Cheers
MTM
Well the book sounds so exciting!! Getaway driving? LOL. That sounds FUN!!Feel free to share a link for your book here so everyone can check it out! thanks!
Hurrah! MTM is here! Everyone, her book is funny and you should all read it. MTM, you're the right kind of nutter to fit right in here. And you'll notice I have refrained from making any comment at all about your "arse battery"....oh damn.
heheheh
JAC
J.A. wrote: "Hurrah! MTM is here! Everyone, her book is funny and you should all read it. MTM, you're the right kind of nutter to fit right in here. And you'll notice I have refrained from making any comment at..."Arse batteries! Tell! Tell!
an arse battery?? Hmmm this sounds painful.
Cambria wrote: "an arse battery?? Hmmm this sounds painful."Sounds a bit like the sort of thing that happens when you pee on an electric fence (men only, of course -- or maybe not...)
oh my goodness, that is not a vision that I will be able to get out of my head.
Phil wrote: "Cambria wrote: "an arse battery?? Hmmm this sounds painful."Sounds a bit like the sort of thing that happens when you pee on an electric fence (men only, of course -- or maybe not...)"
It's like a Ren & Stimpy cartoon! "don't whiz on the electric fence!"
hi all, what we talin bouth, bummr hav 2 wait a whole yr 4 teenwolf
UGH! A whole year??? that really stinks. I guess its better than never getting it at all. LOL
Cambria wrote: "UGH! A whole year??? that really stinks. I guess its better than never getting it at all. LOL"yea a whole next summr
well the season is over here so I have to wait til next summer to see season 2! guess we will all be waiting!
Cambria wrote: "well the season is over here so I have to wait til next summer to see season 2! guess we will all be waiting!"I was watching it on Hulu - it'll probably still be up there, although I haven't had a chance to check on it since after the 3rd episode ...
Mwah ha haargh. Hello again everyone. I should paraphrse that, "Arse! Battery's gone." then the computer died. Not that my arse batteries are up to much these days but...JAC Thanks for the plug, everyone, JAC's book's pretty damn good. Kind of Ursula Le Guin meets Orczy!
Cambria, delighted that you're interested. You can buy Few Are Chosen on Amazon or Smashwords or pretty much anywhere to be honest, in paperback or for Kindle... So link to the book is um... here
Few Are Chosen
Warning; contains car chases, futuristic technology and sarcasm.
Cheers
MTM
MTM wrote: "Mwah ha haargh. Hello again everyone. I should paraphrse that, "Arse! Battery's gone." then the computer died. Not that my arse batteries are up to much these days but...JAC Thanks for the plug, ..."
Wow! You remember Baroness Orczy and the Scarlet Pimpernel? I loved those books when I was about twelve. (Sigh) So long ago...
MTM wrote: "Mwah ha haargh. Hello again everyone. I should paraphrse that, "Arse! Battery's gone." then the computer died. Not that my arse batteries are up to much these days but...JAC Thanks for the plug, ..."
Wow! You remember Baroness Orczy and the Scarlet Pimpernel? I loved those books when I was about twelve. (Sigh) So long ago...
Phil wrote: "MTM wrote: "Mwah ha haargh. Hello again everyone. I should paraphrse that, "Arse! Battery's gone." then the computer died. Not that my arse batteries are up to much these days but...JAC Thanks fo..."
Apparently...... :-)
Michael J. Sullivan, a favorite author of mine and indie that just signed a big contract with Orbit, is seeking BETA readers for a new book: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/group_...I figured some of you reviewer types would want to get in on it.
Splitter
Well congrats to him on his new publishing deal-- so exciting for him!!!!
MTM wrote: "Mwah ha haargh. Hello again everyone. I should paraphrse that, "Arse! Battery's gone." then the computer died. Not that my arse batteries are up to much these days but...JAC Thanks for the plug, ..."
Car chases and sarcasm arre the best! Especially when combined!
C.S. Splitter wrote: "Michael J. Sullivan, a favorite author of mine and indie that just signed a big contract with Orbit, is seeking BETA readers for a new book: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/6...-..."The link is defective :-). It actually pops up twice and gives an error page. I got it to work when I deleted the duplicate... Just FYI :-)...
OK, I fixed the link and here it is again lol:http://www.goodreads.com/topic/group_...
Sorry!
(see what happens when I try to do something for someone else? I screw it up lol)
Splitter
@Phil, Oh yes, I grew up in an old house full of books. I read any old stuff. We had a bunch of books in the spare room that had beloned to my Great Aunt as a child. Most were incredibly un pc but it was all stuff like Stanley Weyman, D K Broster and Orczy. I'm not the only one, I checked with JAC and she's read them all.Cheers
MTM
MTM wrote: "@Phil, Oh yes, I grew up in an old house full of books. I read any old stuff. We had a bunch of books in the spare room that had beloned to my Great Aunt as a child. Most were incredibly un pc but ..."I grew up reading old Tarzan books, if you want to talk about un-PC! Heh. Man, I started to read one over again when I was older and was like "wow, I don't remember these being like THIS!"
MTM wrote: "@Phil, Oh yes, I grew up in an old house full of books. I read any old stuff. We had a bunch of books in the spare room that had beloned to my Great Aunt as a child. Most were incredibly un pc but ..."My mother was a fan of the Scarlet Pimpernel. She had the whole series, plus a lot of the older classics like Ivanhoe, Lorna Doone, etc. I preferred Biggles, but I'd read anything but schoolwork.
My brother loved Biggles. I haven't tried the old Tarzan books but I did read a lot of Black Beauty style stories about animals. I particularly remember Moorland Mousie - about an exmore pony. I think there were three Mousie books all told. In pretty much every story the pony on centre stage was stolen by gypsies at one point which is definitely very un pc although judging by the Mickey Walsh book I'm reading the un PC view is not so unfair... slightly alarming.Lorna Doone was brilliant. I read all the secret garden/ballet shoes/children and it classics but also loved stuff about pirates and smugglers like moonfleet! Brilliant book. Did your Mum like Heyer? Mine has the whole lot. I read one a bit too young but would love to read the rest of them now... think I will look out for those on Kindle.
It turns out that what I thought was my slightly wacky taste in literature is far more main stream than I anticipated... So everyone, what do you think is the weirdest, most obscure piece of fiction you've read?
Cheers
MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology and sarcasm.
Oh and ps, let me know if doing the book link as a signature thing is dodgy and I'll demur from doing it in future!
MTM wrote: "OK everyone so what do you think is the weirdest, most obscure piece of fiction you've read?"Hmmm ... "The Minotaur takes a Cigarette Break" by Steven Sherrill is up there; as is "What it Tastes like to be Sane" by Sean Ahern.
What it tastes like to be sane is one of the best titles I've heard in ages! Although the Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break has got to be a close second. You clearly like a quirky title. Were they written strangely or was it the storyline that was wacky?I thought the oddest book I'd read was probably "A Gentleman of France" by Stanley Weyman. Not because it's particularly odd, per se - it's a cracking story - but because it's so old and obscure I just thought nobody else would have read it. However, now that I've discovered we're all closet Orczy fans I have a feeling it's not quite so aesoteric and off the wall as I thought.
MTM wrote: "What it tastes like to be sane is one of the best titles I've heard in ages! Although the Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break has got to be a close second. You clearly like a quirky title. Were they w..."It is true, a wacky title will draw me in. "What it Tastes Like to be Sane" is surreal to the point where one is sometimes going "WTF am I reading??" but once you get into the flow of it, it's not too bad to follow. "Minotaur" has a somewhat strange story-line - mythological creatures exist and are taking menials jobs - but isn't as ... zany as "Tastes" I really liked them both.
Hmm... I think I might have stumbled upon the Minotaur one before, that's the kind of idea I love...Cheers
MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology and sarcasm.
MTM wrote: "Hmm... I think I might have stumbled upon the Minotaur one before, that's the kind of idea I love...Cheers
MTM
Few Are Chosen
Warning: contains car chases, futuristic technology a..."
Well, check it out - it's here on Goodreads! I got it through a clearance sale @ BN.com a couple years back - picked it up because it was a) cheap and b) had a cool name :-)
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I actually caught that the other night and I told my husband "Oh this is that show that Cambria likes!" His response was to look at me for a minute and then ask, "Who is Cambria?"
I forget that the entire world doesn't know what I'm up to online ;p