Top Ten Creature Characters

Posted on January 24, 2017 by Thistle

I’ll admit, I’m not usually a fan of talking animals and the like in books. However, some authors really think outside the norm and have made me fall in love with all sorts of creatures over the years. Here are some of my favorites:

patternPattern – a spren from Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. Generally the spren are interesting characters in this series, but Pattern is my absolute favorite at this point.

Taggle – the cat in Plain Kate by Erin Bow, who can talk for specific magic reasons, and who is brilliantly cynical.

Iko – an android in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. Supposedly, Iko’s chip is faulty, causing her to behave unlike androids, but Cinder considers her more of a friend, with a distinct personality that has grown out of her life experiences. Iko remains constant whether she’s inhabiting the body of beautiful-woman-android or a spaceship.

skullThe Skull – a haunted talking skull in the Lockwood & Co series by Jonathan Stroud. Lucy, narrator of the series, is the only person who can communicate with this very rare kind of ghost, and the Skull is often irascible, rude, whiny, manipulative, and dangerous. Still, he’s saved her life a couple times, and I’m unaccountably fond of him.

Nightblood – a sentient sword in Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. Nightblood was created to destroy evil, but has no concept of what evil is, and is quite a cheerful little destructive beast.

Wanderer – the alien creature living inside a human body in The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Because she lives in a human body, Wanderer (or Wanda) appears human in many ways, even in personality and thought, but is also distinctively her own species.

bovrilBovril – a perspicacious loris in the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld. He’s a bizarre created-in-a-lab creature with excellent wit that made me smile every time he started talking.

The Cat – an unnamed cat in Coraline by Neil Gaiman. In the regular world, the cat is just a stray cat on the properly. In the other world, he can speak, and acts as a mentor for Coraline.

TenSoon – a kandra from the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson. I won’t talk about TenSoon’s role in these books as it would be major spoilers, but regardless, I completely fell in love with him!

Mirko – a rapion in Firstborn by Lorie Ann Grover. Rapion bond with their humans over a single year, growing into human size and eventually able to communicate both with gestures and telepathically. The connection is so intricate that if one half of the pair dies, the other will as well, as if the bond is something physical as well as emotional.

What are some of your favorite creature-characters?

topten

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

 

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Sunday Coffee – Looking for a Book

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Thistle

img_7353Two weeks ago, a vague book plotline popped into my head. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to puzzle out what book it’s from. Unfortunately, the plotline in question is background to the book, taking place before the book began and only serving to affect the narrator’s psychology throughout the actual events of the novel. More unfortunately, I remember absolutely nothing about the main plot, except that it was a thriller or mystery of some kind. Honestly, I’m not even sure I read the entire book, or if I gave it up partway through, which would account for it not being including among my blog posts and GoodReads lists.

It’s really bugging me, though, so I thought I’d send a little plea of help out to the book world just in case any of you know what book I’m talking about. Here’s what I know. None of this is spoiler as it happens before the book begins and is revealed very early on:

The narrator is a woman who at one point in her life was a teacher or in some way employed by a high school. Some time before the book began, someone broke into her home, and she shot and killed him. Though charges weren’t filed and no one considers her at fault, she feels extremely guilty for shooting the intruder, and much of her current psychology is affected by the trauma of that night.

That’s the non-spoilery bit. More about that night is slowly revealed, though again, I’m not sure how long the book takes to reveal it as I’m not sure how far into the book I read. For all I know, the rest of this may not be spoiler at all. However, just in case it is, I’m going to white out the next two paragraphs. This is the rest of what I remember:

[highlight to read] The intruder was a former student at the school where the narrator worked. He wasn’t a good student and it’s possible he dropped out at one point. The narrator continues to let him use the band room to practice music. The kid is in a band and always talks about making it big in the music world, but the narrator internally observes that he’s a terrible musician and not really improving despite practice. At one point, she comes to the school at catches him stealing instruments (a drum set, I think) for one of his band’s performances. She gets angry. He tells her he was planning to return the equipment after the show, but she tells him she’s already putting her career in jeopardy by letting him practice in the school after hours when he’s no longer a student. In her anger, she tells him to grow up, stop whining, that he’ll never be a real magician because he has no talent. He goes blank, stops pleading, and leaves.

Years later, it’s that kid who has broken into her house. I don’t believe she recognizes him at first, but it turns out he has become a criminal, regularly breaking into houses. He didn’t pick her house at random. He tells her that she took away his dream with her words, and now he wants to do the same, and is going to kill her. She shoots him in self-defense, but in a sense, he does destroy her dream as well, because she believes she made him into the monster he became. [End spoiler.]

I know there’s only the slimmest chance that one of my readers might have also read and recognize this book, but I thought I’d put the plea out there anyway. Help?

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Sorcerer to the Crown, by Zen Cho (audio)

Posted on January 20, 2017 by Thistle

sorcererFrom GoodReads: At his wit’s end, Zacharias Wythe, freed slave, eminently proficient magician, and Sorcerer Royal of the Unnatural Philosophers—one of the most respected organizations throughout all of Britain—ventures to the border of Fairyland to discover why England’s magical stocks are drying up. 

But when his adventure brings him in contact with a most unusual comrade, a woman with immense power and an unfathomable gift, he sets on a path which will alter the nature of sorcery in all of Britain—and the world at large…

I’ve been intrigued by this book for a long time now, but my library in San Antonio didn’t have an audio copy, and my library in Wisconsin doesn’t have an audio copy, and I really, really wanted to listen to this one on audio. Jenny Sterlin – one of my favorite narrators – reads the audiobook, and I had the sneaking suspicion that listening to her read it would make this book even more magical than it would normally be. Finally, I gave in and bought the Audible version, knowing that if worse came to worst, I could always return it. That will not be a problem. This book was awesome!

I can’t review this book without first remarking on a few similarities. As this is British historical fantasy, with a conflict between various magical ideals, I was reminded in many ways of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Not enough to feel that this was derivative or anything, just enough to remark on, like a nod of respect to Clark’s book. It was the same with the other similarity. The magic – kinda inexplicable and random – reminded me so much of Diana Wynne Jones (and I’m sure Jenny Sterlin’s narration increased that comparison for me, since she read the Howl books). This book didn’t feel like a copy of these in any way. Just like that nod of respect, as I said. Just enough to note.

Because the book was definitely unique. Yes, magic-in-Britain has been done many times, but Cho took that trope and used it as the opener for a discussion. Zacharias Wythe, Sorcerer Royal, is insulted, thought incompetent, accused of crimes, and generally dismissed by his government, fellow magicians, and the public – because he’s black. Prunella, probably the most magical person in the story, is treated as a serving girl and undeserving of magic because 1) she’s “half-caste” of uncertain Indian origin, and 2) she’s female, and women can’t and shouldn’t do magic. There’s classism – the lower classes, including women, can do menial magic, but can’t actually learn proper magic, of course! – and imperialism – Britain’s interference in Malaysia – and a general relationship with magical creatures that leans toward slavery. The book is full of politics, but not in a way that stuffs them into your face. You can read deeper, sure, or you can simply read what is quite a fun story of clashing magicians.

My favorite part about the book and what makes me really admire Cho’s writing is the way she handled her main characters. So often in fiction, characters are very likable or they’re unlikable in the extreme. In my experience, it’s rare to come across characters who are lovable but not necessarily likable. Think Howl from Howl’s Moving Castle, or Captain Jack Sparrow. They aren’t exactly people you’d want to hang out with in real life, yet you fall in love with them anyway. Some of these characters were the same. Prunella is loud, rude, and ruthless, but absolutely lovable. Mak Genggang is an absolute tyrant prone to violence, and I adore her as well. And so on. The ability to create characters like this, walking that fine balance between love and hate, is in my opinion the mark of an excellent writer.

Though it’s a series, Sorcerer to the Crown is completely standalone, and could be read on it’s own without ever reading further. I have no idea what’s to come in the second book – what parts of magic or the world Cho will explore or what problems magicians will face – but I certainly can’t wait to find out!

Performance: As already stated, Jenny Sterlin read this audiobook, and she’s already one of my favorite narrators. This was, as expected, an amazing performance.

Posted in 2017, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Wellness Wednesday #42: Fitness Test

Posted on January 18, 2017 by Thistle

buttonOne of my health goals this year is to improve my overall strength. I’ve lost a lot of strength as I’ve gained weight and since my foot prevented me from doing many exercises. I need to get that back, and to evaluate my progress, I took a specific fitness test. This fitness test is one I first came across in May 2013, back when my weight was still all trim in the 150s. Since then, I’ve taken the test six times, including this past weekend. Before this last test, the last time I took it was at the beginning of 2015. In all my previous tests, my weights have ranged from 158 to 170 – in other words, far below my current 225 lbs. That, of course, affected many parts of this test, especially the exercises that involved pushing/pulling/holding up my entire body weight. Still, I was surprised to find that despite the 60 lbs of gain, I’m not doing too badly in terms of strength.

pullup-2

(look at me back then!)

Pull-ups: I knew this one would be severely affected both by my heavier weight and by my major abdominal surgery in 2014. Indeed, my highest pull-up count was just before surgery with 4, and I haven’t been able to do more than 1 since then. I’m currently unable to do any, so I took my hanging time instead. It’s a paltry 12 seconds. I really want that to improve!!

Push-ups: Ditto the body weight thing. I could only do 8 push-ups. Previous tests have ranged from 15 to 32. I have a long way to go!

Toe touch: This is one area in which I’ve improved – yay yoga! I can reach 7 inches past my toes with straight legs, and hold it there no problem. Previous tests show in the 3-4 inch range.

V-crunches (no hands): This is another one affected by my abdominal surgery. My abs are just not what they used to be. Still, I managed 16 of these without putting hands or feet down, and previous numbers were only around 21, so I’m not doing as bad as I thought here!

Wall squat: I expected to last less than 30 seconds on this exercise. When I hit 1:09, I was extremely surprised. The highest time I’d gotten previously was only 1:23, and my time today was longer than almost every other test score. Woot!

Arm curls: This is a to-failure exercise, and you have to estimate the poundage to use. When I first started taking these tests, I used 10 lbs in each hand and could only do 14 curls before my muscles gave out. I later upped the weights to 15/hand as my strength grew, but I knew that wouldn’t work out now, so I dropped back to 10. Still, I got 23 curls in before failure, so my arms are apparently stronger than they were at my lowest weight of these tests. Again, yay yoga! I’m guessing all those downward dogs are improving my arm strength, haha.

There were two exercises I had to skip on this test – vertical leap and a jumping jacks heart rate test – due to my foot injury (nothing high impact! jumping is out!). Generally, though, I have a good baseline to work on, with a plan to re-take this test on a quarterly basis.

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The Stories That Have Stayed With Me

Posted on January 17, 2017 by Thistle

Back when I was writing about Words of Radiance two Sundays ago, I got to thinking about how some books really resonate and stick. Some books just seem to come at exactly the right time, and influence your life so much that they become a permanent part of you. I’ve come across so many wonderful books in my life, and I thought I’d bring together a list of the books, series, and stories that have stayed with me. In no particular order:

  • Words of Radiance – Brandon Sanderson
  • the Mistborn series – Brandon Sanderson
  • the Raven Cycle – Maggie Stiefvater
  • The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway
  • The Unit – Ninni Holmqvist
  • Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell – Susanna Clark
  • The Host – Stephanie Meyer
  • Howl’s Moving Castle – Diana Wynne Jones
  • Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
  • the Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
  • Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
  • The Omnivore’s Dilemma – Michael Pollan
  • The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern
  • Gentlemen and Players – Joanne Harris
  • Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
  • Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
  • The Awakening – Kate Chopin
  • Possession – AS Byatt
  • The Egypt Game – Zilpha Keatley Snyder
  • The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

Not every book I read and love ends up sticking. But some books simply worm their way in and become part of me in the long term. If I created a “me” bookshelf, these are the books that would make it up – a hodgepodge mix of classics and fantasy, of adult and YA and children’s books, of heavy philosophical reads and whimsical fun stories. Y’all? This is my ideal bookshelf! One to look at and bring me 100% joy!

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Sunday Coffee – Comfort Things

Posted on January 15, 2017 by Thistle

img_7269Coffee.
Family.
Bubble baths.
Libraries.
Pizza.
Kitty-snuggles.
Harry Potter.
Chocolate.
Board games.
NCIS.
Massage.
Sunsets.
Spaghetti.
Friends.
Audiobooks.
Stiffs Inc.
Thrift stores.
Geography.
Lists.

Posted in Personal | Tagged | 5 Comments

My Unscripted Life, by Lauren Morrill

Posted on January 13, 2017 by Thistle

my-unscripted-lifeAfter receiving a rejection from a summer art camp, Dee feels like the whole course of her future is suddenly off track. She jumps at the opportunity to intern for a small-production movie that’s just come to town, and finds herself drawn into more than she expects.

I’m currently reading a very heavy nonfiction book (Half the Sky) with some disheartening and gruesome stuff in it. To counter that, I needed comfort, and that’s where Lauren Morrill comes in. First I reread one of my favorites of hers, Meant to Be, and right when I finished that one, the library finally got a copy of My Unscripted Life to me. The reads were exactly what I needed – light, comforting, sappy (in a good way!), and happy. I admit, this particular book was a teensy bit over the top in terms of believability for me, so it won’t join Meant to Be and The Trouble With Destiny as favorites. However, I’m still a huge Morrill fan and don’t mind the over-the-top-ness all that much. It was just what I needed at just the right time!

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Shadows for Silence (collection), by Brandon Sanderson (audio)

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Thistle

This audio collection contains two novellas by Brandon Sanderson.

shadows-for-silenceShadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell
Silence is the owner and proprietor of a safe way-stop in the Forests of Hell, where Shades are attracted to movement, noise, and violence. She seems a crabby matron, but in truth, she has a secret – at night, she has a secret identity, collecting bounties of criminals in order to fund her way-stop. This story takes her through the night of her attempt to capture one of the most notorious criminals in the Forest.

Thoughts: I was sucked into this story and this world immediately, and remained on tenderhooks the entire way through. Kate Reading reads this novella and does an amazing job (as always!) with all the characters. I don’t want to give anything away, but I love Sanderson’s blend of positive and realistic in his treatment of characters, and the world-building, in even such a short work, is fantastic. Loved it!

perfect-state-smPerfect State
The God-emperor Kairominas, liveborn and living in a perfectly-simulated world of his own, must leave his realm to visit neutral ground. Purpose: to have a date and procreate with another liveborn from another perfectly-simulated world. Existential crisis follows.

Thoughts: I had a really hard time getting into this one. That’s partly because it’s more sci-fi than fantasy, but it’s more than that. Kairominas (Kai) is a difficult character to sympathize with in the beginning. He feels very robotic in a way, which makes sense given the environment he’s in. There was also the audio narrator, Christian Rummel, who wasn’t bad but also wasn’t my favorite kind of narrator. I think I would have preferred to read this one in print. However, once Kai got into the neutral world and I met his date, Sophie, things started to change and I got hooked. I do admit that the whole story fell a little flat for me, though, by the end. It was okay, but I definitely preferred the other novella in this collection.

Posted in 2017, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

2017 Book Priorities

Posted on January 10, 2017 by Thistle

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday asks about the books we meant to get to in 2016 but didn’t. Happily, I actually managed to get through my entire 2016 book priorities list, either reading, culling, or forwarding to 2017 (in the case of changed release dates) every single book. Having a list of priorities actually worked really well for me last year, and so I thought I’d do the same thing this year. This list, compiled at the end of December, includes the handful of unread books on my physical/virtual shelves, some books scheduled for release this year, my waiting Audible queue, and a handful of books I have earmarked to investigate.

  1. My Unscripted Life – Lauren Morrill*
  2. Shadows for Silence (collection) – Brandon Sanderson*
  3. Arcanum Unbounded – Brandon Sanderson*
  4. The Goodbye Year – Kaira Rouda
  5. Sorcerer to the Crown – Zen Cho
  6. Me Before You – Jojo Moyes
  7. After You – Jojo Moyes
  8. The Book of the Unnamed Midwife – Meg Elison
  9. Bird by Bird – Anne Lamott
  10. The Elephant Whisperer – Laurence Anthony
  11. Nim’s Island – Wendy Orr
  12. Twelve Angry Men – Reginald Rose
  13. Flicker and Mist – Mary Thompson
  14. The Young Elites – Marie Lu
  15. Leaving Atlanta – Tayari Jones
  16. Sandlands – Rosy Thornton*
  17. Phantom of the Opera (unabridged version) – Gaston Leroux*
  18. Wires and Nerve – Marissa Meyer (Jan)
  19. The Scarecrow Queen – Melinda Salisbury (March)*
  20. Strange the Dreamer – Laini Taylor (March)
  21. The Savage Dawn – Melissa Grey (July)*
  22. Wonder Woman: Warbringer – Leigh Bardugo (Aug)
  23. Oathbringer – Brandon Sanderson (Nov)*
  24. The Gatlin School for Vigilantes – Marissa Meyer (Nov)
  25. The Empty Grave – Jonathan Stroud (TBD)*
  26. The Elusive Elixer – Gigi Pandian (TBD)*
  27. untitled (Gold Seer) – Rae Carson (TBD)*
  28. untitled (Cormoran Strike) – Robert Galbraith (TBD)*

That sounds like a reasonable list to me, about the same as 2016’s list in size and balance. Wish me luck, and if you have any recommendations or reservations about the above books, definitely let me know!

*guaranteed reads

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Sunday Coffee – Best of the Best

Posted on January 8, 2017 by Thistle

img_7222If you use GoodReads regularly, I’m sure you saw the whole “2016 in books” feature that popped up at the end of the year. I never take advantage of their stats because I have so many rereads, and those rereads don’t show up in the year’s review on GoodReads. This year I glanced over it, though, and one fact popped out at me. Apparently, of all the books I read in 2016, Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson was ranked highest.

Since that was my favorite book of the year, I was quite pleased to see it ranked highest. I was a little surprised, though, to see just how high its average rating was on GoodReads – over 4.75 stars average, with over 90,000 ratings. Usually when I see super-high rated books, they’re ones that only have a small handful of ratings, often little-known books read mostly by friends-of-the-author, or childhood favorites that almost no one bothers to put on their GoodReads lists. So for WoR, with 90K+ ratings, I expected there to be enough poor ratings to drag the average down.

words of radianceI decided to take a look at something. Of all the 1000+ books I’ve marked read on GoodReads, excluding those with the handful of ratings I mentioned above, what was the highest ranked books I’ve read? As it turns out, Words of Radiance is the highest-rated book in my entire list. The only two books higher than it are a virtually unknown play with only two ratings, and a virtually unknown children’s picture book with only four ratings. I wouldn’t count either of those in a comparison. So WoR is top dog here.

Then I thought, okay, well it’s a sequel, so maybe that’s just because no one would bother reading it unless they liked the first book, which might explain the bump in ratings. I kept looking down my rating list. The next highest non-one-off kind of book on my list is Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo, another sequel. After that? The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, the series opener before Words of Radiance. With nearly 150K ratings, it still rates higher than 4.6 average. I guess it’s not just being a sequel that puts WoR so high! Of course, this makes me very happy, because I love that book so much that it very possibly may have displaced Possession by AS Byatt, which has been my favorite book for over a decade now.

I wish I could get more people to read this series. I know the books are long, but they are so worth it!!!

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