Title: The Warded Man
Author: Peter V. Brett
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 453
Quality Rating: 7
Content Rating: R
I picked up The Warded Man because Borders kept recommending it to me. You see, I buy a lot of books from Borders, and so when they email me coupons and the like, they also send me Book Recommendations. Usually they recommended books I already owned, but The Warded Man just kept popping up again and again, so I bought it. From the beginning the characters were compelling. I sympathized with the characters' unusual plight. In Brett's world, magical demons hunt humanity, slowly withering them away to nothing. The people don't know how to fight them, and the demons have almost broken their will to fight. But three youth desire to fight back and throughout the events of the novel they are drawn together.
The world is unique, the characters are believable, but somehow the plot was lacking. The book itself had no overarching plot, other than the development of our main characters from children to adults. This book seemed to be a set up book. It'll be interesting to see if the sequel is worth the set up. I hope so, since the premise is fascinating. For readers interested in a unique world, where humans are the hunted, this would be a good read.
This book is rated R for many sexual situations including rape and lots of violence (after all, people are being killed by magical demons).
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Secondary Characters
Other than background "extras" like a shopkeeper who is only visited once, secondary characters are our third type of character. They can be the minions of our main character or antagonist. They can be a friendly neighbor. They can be a supportive best friend. Basically, they're the character who would be looking to get "best supporting actor/actress" if this was a movie.
Spirit Riddled has several that I can think of off the top of my head. All are created because the main character or antagonist needs this person to exist, either to further the plot or to be the character they are. For example, if your main character is a second son who is not to inherit the throne, then there needs to be a firstborn. This firstborn may not be directly tied to the conflict in anyway--he may not even show up in the story directly. But his existence directly correlates to how the second son thinks and behaves. An example of someone who furthers the plot might be the assassin your villain hires to kill off your main character. He exists so that there is an assassination attempt on your main character, allowing him to realize someone has it in for him--thus furthering the conflict.
So these characters are created to compliment the other characters (though by compliment I don't always mean to make look better. Sometimes they make the main character worse). In a past post, I mentioned how its important to me, as a writer, to know the future of a main character--to know whether they marry and if they do who it is. And I asked for your help to create this person. So Mage's wife. Who is she? How did I create her? Did you guys help? Yep. Your comments definitely helped.
So, I was having an extremely hard time thinking of this character--how she would compliment Mage, how she would challenge him, make him grow as a character, and yet be the wife he needed. I was really stumped, and all the comments helped. Some of the comments made me think "No, Mage would never go for that" or "No, that sort of person who never help Mage to be who he needs to be". But some made me think "Yes, Mage needs that!" or "that could help him". However, one comment in particular struck me. My friend, Michael Gabriel said that she and Mage needed to have a "mutual concern for children".
My immediate thought was "yes, of course!" Mage could never be with someone who didn't care for abandoned and lonely children like he did. He would resent her, she would be in direct conflict with one of his life goals. This thought gave me the foundation I needed to create a character who loves lost children more than anything--perhaps even more than Mage.
So for those of you who helped and are curious, here is a small blurb about the woman who will be Mage's wife. A secondary character that was only recently created.
Name: Bridgette Tailor
Occupation: tailor, teacher
History: Bridgette is the middle class daughter of two tailors, and that is what she believes she will one day be. However, she has a kind of heart and is always caring for sick neighbors. She particularly loves children and wants to help the abandoned children of her nation, but doesn't know how. Her parents worry for her safety and don't want her going into the bad parts of their city. And then one day she comes into contact with an abandoned boy.
Attributes: Kind. Bridgette's main characteristic is that she's a bleeding heart. She will help anyone if they need it, even if they are thieves or "demon-possessed". Self-Conscious. Bridgette doesn't really think much of herself. Most people mistake her self-demeaning personality as modesty, but its not. She really just doesn't think she's worth most people's time--which is one of the reason why she is so selfless and throws herself into helping other people so much. Hard-working. Bridgette believes in working hard to get where you want. Though she's willing to teach and help anyone, she believes in teaching a man to fish, so he can feed himself forever. Ardent. When Bridgette believes in something or someone, its with her entire being. She will do everything she can for that cause or person. Reasonable. Despite her ardent nature, Bridgette never loses her ability to be reasoned with. She doesn't blindly believe anything.
Thank you everyone who helped! I'm excited to see how the secondary character of Bridgette will affect Jess and Mage and help them to become better people.
Thank you everyone who helped! I'm excited to see how the secondary character of Bridgette will affect Jess and Mage and help them to become better people.
Monday, February 7, 2011
A Book Review: XVI
Title: XVI
Author: Julia Karr
Genre: Dystopian (YA)
Length: 325
Quality Rating: 8
Content Rating: PG-13
In Julia Karr's debut novel, when girls turn sixteen they get a tattoo of the Roman Numerals "XVI" on their wrist, signaling they are ready to have sex. Nina, our main character, is a fifteen-year-old girl who is not looking forward to turning "sex-teen". As if that's not hard enough, her entire life changes when her mom is killed. Now Nina must stop her step-father from stealing her little sister away from their small family.
I was looking forward to reading XVI because I have been following Julia Karr on the League for quite some time. And Julia did not let me down. Though I wished we had gotten to explore the world of XVI a little more, I realize this is a YA book, and as such it must meet the usual YA themes and standards. There is only so much you can explore from a 15 year old's perspective. And yet what Nina did explore was a scarily realistic world--a world that ours could easily become. Nina was also a realistic character. She's the sort of character I would have enjoyed reading about as a 15 year old and enjoy reading about now. And though her love interest is handsome and charming, he's also realistic in the way he interacts with Nina. He doesn't always know the right thing to say, and sometimes puts his foot in his mouth. In short the characters were realistic, the plot was intriguing, and the conflict riveting. I was rooting for Nina the entire way and felt for her the entire time. I highly recommend this book for lovers of YA dystopian novels or just YA in general.
I give this book a PG-13 rating for violence, murder, rape, discussions of sex, and some intense sexual situations. However I would like to add that this book is a great discussion starter about gender roles and the over sexualization of teens. It's the kind of book I could see a mom and daughter reading together and discussing.
Author: Julia Karr
Genre: Dystopian (YA)
Length: 325
Quality Rating: 8
Content Rating: PG-13
In Julia Karr's debut novel, when girls turn sixteen they get a tattoo of the Roman Numerals "XVI" on their wrist, signaling they are ready to have sex. Nina, our main character, is a fifteen-year-old girl who is not looking forward to turning "sex-teen". As if that's not hard enough, her entire life changes when her mom is killed. Now Nina must stop her step-father from stealing her little sister away from their small family.
I was looking forward to reading XVI because I have been following Julia Karr on the League for quite some time. And Julia did not let me down. Though I wished we had gotten to explore the world of XVI a little more, I realize this is a YA book, and as such it must meet the usual YA themes and standards. There is only so much you can explore from a 15 year old's perspective. And yet what Nina did explore was a scarily realistic world--a world that ours could easily become. Nina was also a realistic character. She's the sort of character I would have enjoyed reading about as a 15 year old and enjoy reading about now. And though her love interest is handsome and charming, he's also realistic in the way he interacts with Nina. He doesn't always know the right thing to say, and sometimes puts his foot in his mouth. In short the characters were realistic, the plot was intriguing, and the conflict riveting. I was rooting for Nina the entire way and felt for her the entire time. I highly recommend this book for lovers of YA dystopian novels or just YA in general.
I give this book a PG-13 rating for violence, murder, rape, discussions of sex, and some intense sexual situations. However I would like to add that this book is a great discussion starter about gender roles and the over sexualization of teens. It's the kind of book I could see a mom and daughter reading together and discussing.
Friday, February 4, 2011
A Book Review: I Am Number Four
Title: I Am Number Four
Author: Pittacus Lore*
Genre: Soft Science Fiction (YA)
Length: 440
Quality Rating: 6
Content Rating: PG
I Am Number Four is a book I picked up because its being made into a movie, and I always like to read the book before I see the movie. The idea of the story is intriguing. You basically have some kids who are brought to Earth because their homeworld was destroyed. They have (or rather will have) superpowers. They are being hunted by their destroyers and can only be killed in number order. Numbers One through Three are dead and our main character is Number Four.
This idea could have gone in many ways and been truly fascinating--sort of like Superman meets Roswell. However, the characters came across as a little flat. They didn't really grow and change throughout the book. And the characters seemed a little too similar to the characters in Roswell. Mysterious alien, girl who once dated a football player who happens to be the sheriff's son....Roswell, anyone?
I give this book a PG rating for SF violence and some pretty mean bullying at the beginning. There is a lot of kissing, but nothing too deep or intense.
*Pittacus Lore is the pseudonym of a writing duo: James Frey and Jobie Hughes
Author: Pittacus Lore*
Genre: Soft Science Fiction (YA)
Length: 440
Quality Rating: 6
Content Rating: PG
I Am Number Four is a book I picked up because its being made into a movie, and I always like to read the book before I see the movie. The idea of the story is intriguing. You basically have some kids who are brought to Earth because their homeworld was destroyed. They have (or rather will have) superpowers. They are being hunted by their destroyers and can only be killed in number order. Numbers One through Three are dead and our main character is Number Four.
This idea could have gone in many ways and been truly fascinating--sort of like Superman meets Roswell. However, the characters came across as a little flat. They didn't really grow and change throughout the book. And the characters seemed a little too similar to the characters in Roswell. Mysterious alien, girl who once dated a football player who happens to be the sheriff's son....Roswell, anyone?
I give this book a PG rating for SF violence and some pretty mean bullying at the beginning. There is a lot of kissing, but nothing too deep or intense.
*Pittacus Lore is the pseudonym of a writing duo: James Frey and Jobie Hughes
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Antagonists
Technically main characters are "protagonists" and opposing characters/bad guys are "antagonists". However, outside of my AP Lit class I've rarely called a main character a "protagonist" but "antagonist" is a word I can't help using. Why? Because not all opposing characters are actually bad. They're not all villains. But this is common knowledge, I'm sure, so I won't cite literary examples or anything. I'm sure you can all think of antagonists who weren't actually bad.
I'm a huge fan of bad guys who aren't pure evil--who have good sides. Mainly this is because unless your bad guys is the devil, Sauron, or some equivalent, he probably wasn't born evil. At some point in his life, he was probably a decent fellow--if not good--and he made some bad choices, like Saruman the White Wizard in LOTR. And then there are antagonists who aren't bad at all--they just stand in the main character's way.
Spirit Riddled has two kinds of antagonists. Those who are genuinely bad (but weren't born that way) and one who is actually good but just stands in Jess's way. How did I think of these antagonists? Well, it's all about creating conflict--something we still have a need to discuss. In the world of Spirit Riddled our three (that's right, three) antagonists came directly from the world building. We have the High Priest--who staunchly believes that all people with magic are demon-possessed. We have the Godfather like ruler of the thieves--who seeks to take out his revenge on Mage. And we have the ruler of the nation--who simply fears that Mage might overthrow him with all of his "magical" power. Basically, all my antagonists run on fear of these magical people.
Spirit Riddled is very much a story about fear in that way.
To create a good antagonist, you need someone who is going to oppose your main character, someone whose intentional and unintentional actions create road blocks.
Generally, my antagonists come in two sorts: products of the world and products of the main character. The products of the world are rulers, priests, lords--people who come form the world building, who would exist regardless of whether the main character existed. The products of the main character are people who are directly connected to the main character and who are unimportant otherwise: an abusive father, a jealous brother, a former best friend, a neighbor.
It's hard to talk about antagonists without talking about conflict, but fear not. Soon we will. And conflict is what drives the story.
I'm a huge fan of bad guys who aren't pure evil--who have good sides. Mainly this is because unless your bad guys is the devil, Sauron, or some equivalent, he probably wasn't born evil. At some point in his life, he was probably a decent fellow--if not good--and he made some bad choices, like Saruman the White Wizard in LOTR. And then there are antagonists who aren't bad at all--they just stand in the main character's way.
Spirit Riddled has two kinds of antagonists. Those who are genuinely bad (but weren't born that way) and one who is actually good but just stands in Jess's way. How did I think of these antagonists? Well, it's all about creating conflict--something we still have a need to discuss. In the world of Spirit Riddled our three (that's right, three) antagonists came directly from the world building. We have the High Priest--who staunchly believes that all people with magic are demon-possessed. We have the Godfather like ruler of the thieves--who seeks to take out his revenge on Mage. And we have the ruler of the nation--who simply fears that Mage might overthrow him with all of his "magical" power. Basically, all my antagonists run on fear of these magical people.
Spirit Riddled is very much a story about fear in that way.
To create a good antagonist, you need someone who is going to oppose your main character, someone whose intentional and unintentional actions create road blocks.
Generally, my antagonists come in two sorts: products of the world and products of the main character. The products of the world are rulers, priests, lords--people who come form the world building, who would exist regardless of whether the main character existed. The products of the main character are people who are directly connected to the main character and who are unimportant otherwise: an abusive father, a jealous brother, a former best friend, a neighbor.
It's hard to talk about antagonists without talking about conflict, but fear not. Soon we will. And conflict is what drives the story.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
A Book Review: Beastly
Title: Beastly
Author: Alex Flinn
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 300
Quality Rating: 9
Content Rating: PG-13
I'm going to confess something here. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie, by a landslide. So when I saw the movie trailer for Beastly--a retelling of Beauty and the Beast in New York City which happens to have Neil Patrick Harris in it (though not as the Beast), I knew I had to read the book it was based on. I wasn't disappointed. Beastly is a retelling of the story from the Beast's perspective, starting with the curse. Our Beast is a shallow, popular high school student, who has gotten everything he has ever wanted because he's handsome. When the inevitable happens (if you know the story) he is shunned by everyone--including his father. He's left with only his maid and a blind tutor. I really enjoyed this look into the Beast's psyche, the depression, the angst, the agony. Anyone who enjoys the story of Beauty and the Beast will enjoy this modern retelling.
Though there are some intense romantic feelings, there is no actual sex in this book. There is very little violence, except a mugging. However, I felt a PG-13 tag was necessary because the idea of a father willing to give up his daughter to save his own skin is pretty scary and drugs do come up. However, I would be willing to say this book should be like PG-12.
Author: Alex Flinn
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 300
Quality Rating: 9
Content Rating: PG-13
I'm going to confess something here. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie, by a landslide. So when I saw the movie trailer for Beastly--a retelling of Beauty and the Beast in New York City which happens to have Neil Patrick Harris in it (though not as the Beast), I knew I had to read the book it was based on. I wasn't disappointed. Beastly is a retelling of the story from the Beast's perspective, starting with the curse. Our Beast is a shallow, popular high school student, who has gotten everything he has ever wanted because he's handsome. When the inevitable happens (if you know the story) he is shunned by everyone--including his father. He's left with only his maid and a blind tutor. I really enjoyed this look into the Beast's psyche, the depression, the angst, the agony. Anyone who enjoys the story of Beauty and the Beast will enjoy this modern retelling.
Though there are some intense romantic feelings, there is no actual sex in this book. There is very little violence, except a mugging. However, I felt a PG-13 tag was necessary because the idea of a father willing to give up his daughter to save his own skin is pretty scary and drugs do come up. However, I would be willing to say this book should be like PG-12.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Excel Madness
Today I was going to post about Antagonists, but I decided to postpone it in favor of something else, something that is very near and dear to the heart of everyone I know: Excel.
Yes, Microsoft Excel. I don't think I can describe how wonderful it is, how useful it can be. It's rows and columns, its tabs and sheets, its functions and capabilities. My love for Excel is undying. Oh, I may get frustrated when the lookup function doesn't work like I think it should or when Visual Basic crashes, but I still love it.
And this week I found another use for Excel. It has become the database for my personal book collection. Every book I own (at Tech) is now listed in an Excel sheet. For each book I recorded Title, Series Name, Author, Genre, Subgenre, and Age of Audience. I also created Excel sheets to organize each book by age of audience and genre.
Regardless, this tool gave me an interesting insight to my book collection. I currently have 418 non-textbooks, non-cookbooks in my apartment. What kind of books are they? Voila, the first pie chart:
It doesn't really surprise me that the majority of my books are adult and the minority are YA. This is definitely my leanings in reading. I mean if you think about it, I started reading adult books when I was in the fifth grade and really didn't start reading MG again until college. YA is very new on my reading list in general. I'm sure if I added all the books I had at home into this archive, the percentage of adult books would only increase.
The genre division was a little revealing though. Here it is:
When people ask me what I read I always say "Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Classics". Looking at the pie chart, it's true. Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Classics are the top three (discounting the "Christian" genre which includes Christian Non-Fiction and Fiction, but many of those books are also cross referenced into other genres, like Fantasy--so they're sort of double counted). However, I never realized how much my collection skews towards Fantasy over SF.
Once again, if my childhood collection was added into this count, I know things would change. I was more of a SF reader when I was really young, and if all my Star Wars books at home were added into the Star Wars genre and then you added that to the SF genre, SF might come close to challenging Fantasy. However, I don't imagine it would overrun Fantasy.
When did I, the Engineer who loves Science Fiction, become more of a Fantasy person?
Partially, I think its because there is so little real science fiction out there. Glance at the shelves in the SF/F section of the bookstore some time. There isn't a lot of space opera or hard science fiction jumping out, which is generally what I like. Most science fiction is so soft it might as well be fantasy.
Another part is that there is just less SF in general. The shelves are dominated by Fantasy. It's hard to find SF at all, good or bad.
However, mainly I think I'm going to blame Harry Potter. The girl who only read Science Fiction began to gravitate towards Fantasy because of Harry Potter. I blame Wheel of Time, which introduced me to truly epic story lines, an epic-ness that I feel a lot of science fiction is lacking (which shouldn't be! Space Opera is meant to be epic). And partially its because as much as I love Science Fiction, a lot of Science Fiction is written for men, by men. And though all of my favorite Fantasy writers are male, I think Fantasy writers simply recognize more that some of their readers are female. And trust me, I don't read a lot of female oriented books (did you see the Romance percentage? It's like 2% and that's including romance as a major subgenre and double counting books), but sometimes I feel that extremely male oriented books can leave out a lot of the character development I crave in favor of action. I want to know the characters as well as I know myself and watch them grow and change. Some of the SF I've read has just had amazingly two dimensional characters who do a lot but never really change.
Maybe I'm not just finding the right Science Fiction books. Maybe you guys have recommendations for some great stuff. My SF collection (discounting Star Wars and the books I have at my parents house which are not included in the archives) barely reaches 100 books. There must be stuff I'm missing.
My favorite SF writers are Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, and Anne McCaffrey. Anyone have suggestions that fall along those lines?
Yes, Microsoft Excel. I don't think I can describe how wonderful it is, how useful it can be. It's rows and columns, its tabs and sheets, its functions and capabilities. My love for Excel is undying. Oh, I may get frustrated when the lookup function doesn't work like I think it should or when Visual Basic crashes, but I still love it.
And this week I found another use for Excel. It has become the database for my personal book collection. Every book I own (at Tech) is now listed in an Excel sheet. For each book I recorded Title, Series Name, Author, Genre, Subgenre, and Age of Audience. I also created Excel sheets to organize each book by age of audience and genre.
Regardless, this tool gave me an interesting insight to my book collection. I currently have 418 non-textbooks, non-cookbooks in my apartment. What kind of books are they? Voila, the first pie chart:
It doesn't really surprise me that the majority of my books are adult and the minority are YA. This is definitely my leanings in reading. I mean if you think about it, I started reading adult books when I was in the fifth grade and really didn't start reading MG again until college. YA is very new on my reading list in general. I'm sure if I added all the books I had at home into this archive, the percentage of adult books would only increase.
The genre division was a little revealing though. Here it is:
When people ask me what I read I always say "Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Classics". Looking at the pie chart, it's true. Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Classics are the top three (discounting the "Christian" genre which includes Christian Non-Fiction and Fiction, but many of those books are also cross referenced into other genres, like Fantasy--so they're sort of double counted). However, I never realized how much my collection skews towards Fantasy over SF.Once again, if my childhood collection was added into this count, I know things would change. I was more of a SF reader when I was really young, and if all my Star Wars books at home were added into the Star Wars genre and then you added that to the SF genre, SF might come close to challenging Fantasy. However, I don't imagine it would overrun Fantasy.
When did I, the Engineer who loves Science Fiction, become more of a Fantasy person?
Partially, I think its because there is so little real science fiction out there. Glance at the shelves in the SF/F section of the bookstore some time. There isn't a lot of space opera or hard science fiction jumping out, which is generally what I like. Most science fiction is so soft it might as well be fantasy.
Another part is that there is just less SF in general. The shelves are dominated by Fantasy. It's hard to find SF at all, good or bad.
However, mainly I think I'm going to blame Harry Potter. The girl who only read Science Fiction began to gravitate towards Fantasy because of Harry Potter. I blame Wheel of Time, which introduced me to truly epic story lines, an epic-ness that I feel a lot of science fiction is lacking (which shouldn't be! Space Opera is meant to be epic). And partially its because as much as I love Science Fiction, a lot of Science Fiction is written for men, by men. And though all of my favorite Fantasy writers are male, I think Fantasy writers simply recognize more that some of their readers are female. And trust me, I don't read a lot of female oriented books (did you see the Romance percentage? It's like 2% and that's including romance as a major subgenre and double counting books), but sometimes I feel that extremely male oriented books can leave out a lot of the character development I crave in favor of action. I want to know the characters as well as I know myself and watch them grow and change. Some of the SF I've read has just had amazingly two dimensional characters who do a lot but never really change.
Maybe I'm not just finding the right Science Fiction books. Maybe you guys have recommendations for some great stuff. My SF collection (discounting Star Wars and the books I have at my parents house which are not included in the archives) barely reaches 100 books. There must be stuff I'm missing.
My favorite SF writers are Isaac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, and Anne McCaffrey. Anyone have suggestions that fall along those lines?
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