*sigh*

I completely apologize of having been a slacker on posting here recently. I have no legitimate excuse. The reality of the matter is that Mark of Athena came out, so that's all I did on Saturday. Read.

There will be a post on my thoughts on Mark of Athena, though I may put it on Shelf of Friends instead of here.

There will be a post on Friday, and I WILL post normally next week. I am determined. It's going to happen.

And so you have something to spend time on, I direct you to the tumblr, Memos From Fury, which is hilarious but has some strong language.

Repost: Burning, Banning, Censoring, and Rating Books

(It's been brought to my attention that this week is banned books week. It's also been brought to my attention that I've been a complete slacker about posting yesterday. So here on Thursday *gasp* I'm reposting something I originally wrote on June 19, 2009. I wasn't going to write anything but this post at the League brought the topic up again. So here I am. Enjoy and please let me know your thoughts.)

The title above lists several things that are sometimes associated with books. I have listed in them in the order of the worst possible thing to the not-nearly-as-bad-as-creating-bonfires with books. This list is of course, only in my humble opinion.

Burning books is clearly bad. I read Fahrenheit 451. I’ve studied WWII. I love the movie Equilibrium. (If you’ve never seen Equilibrium, you need to. It’s about a dystopian society where Christian Bale is the main character. It’s sort of a Fahrenheit 451 meets The Jungle meets 1984. It’s fantastic). Now some people may say that burning books and banning books are all the same. Both ways you take the book out of the reader’s hands. To the people who say that, I have a short response.

Banning books gets the books out of your local library, possibly out of the Library of Congress, and out of the country. However, Canadians could still be reading that book. Burning books takes the books away completely. There is no changing your mind and saying “Oh, the Catcher in the Rye wasn’t that bad. Let’s un-ban it.” Once you’ve burned every copy of the book found in your country, destroyed all electronic records of it (electronic burning…), and done away with every physical form of it, how can you bring it back? Well let’s hope Canada wasn’t just reading it but keeping electronic copies ready, or else if we change our minds someone is going to spend a long time retyping a lot of books.

Banning I sort of already addressed. Banning books is bad. It’s the government, or the state, or the county, or your mother taking the books off the shelf and saying “You can’t read this”. Generally banning books makes people read them, which is why this is not quite as bad as book burning. When you burn books people get all excited and start throwing books you’re not even supposed to burn on the fire. When you ban books, you get all the teenagers excited and they start reading them. (They’re being rebellious. Ooo, how fun is it to read rebelliously!)

Technically everything listed (burning, banning, rating) is a form of censorship, so I’ll be a little more specific. When I say censorship, I mean when your teacher blacked out all the curse words in The Day No Pigs Would Die or when they tore out those two pages in the Diary of Anne Frank (you know which pages I’m talking about). The censoring I’m talking about is taking out certain parts of the book, butchering books. I bet you’ve come across this in your life. Both of the examples listed have happened to me. Is this nearly as bad as banning or burning? Well, the books still exist so that’s a plus. The books are still on the shelves, another plus. However, the books that remain are butchered books. Books where only what The Man wants you to read is still part of the book. Goodbye hooker scene in the Catcher in the Rye. Goodbye Anne Frank’s dream. Goodbye artistic freedom.

Now all the above things I’ve mentioned are bad, bad things. I do not support any of these things. It’s not the government’s job to tell me what I can and cannot read. That’s my choice. I’m pretty sure books are part of my freedom of expression and the government can’t limit that. Please, keep all books published in their complete form in the libraries. It’s the editor’s job to butcher them, not your librarians.

Rating on the other hand, I feel very differently about.

I’ve wished books were rated since I was ten. I’ve been outspoken about it since I read A Throne of Swords by George R. R. Martin. (Note: I’m not recommending this book. This is like the opposite of a recommendation. However, neither do I believe it should be pulled off the shelves. Read what you like and I’ll read what I like). I guess I didn’t realize that most people didn’t feel this way until Daphne Unfeasible (a literary agent’s blog) mentioned banning and censoring books on her blog and asked her readers to comment. I read the comments and was stunned. I had to say something. I could not let these comments go uncontested. I have commented on someone else's blogs 4 times in my life. It’s just not something I do. But yesterday, I could not control myself. My comment was twice as long as anyone else’s.

All of the commenters expressed their dislike of banning books (completely understandable). One of the commenters said she did not like banning books but wished her 12-year-old could stay a little girl as long as possible and not be exposed to such things. Practically everyone who responded to that said they understood and that it was the parents job to monitor what their child was reading.

It’s not the library and bookstore’s job to make sure the book is in MG instead of YA, or in adult instead of YA. It’s the parents’ job to make sure the book is appropriate.

I laughed.

Are these parents really so naive? Really? Do they really think they can read ahead of their middle school student who has tons of free time? Do they really think that an online synopsis of the adult book your 11-year-old is reading is going to warn you about adult content? (Of course it has adult content, it’s an adult book). Do you really think your 11-year-old wants to talk to you about the strange, sexual content they came across in a book that you’re not aware of? I laugh.

When I was nine years old I read my first sex scene. It was in a Madeleine L’Engle book. My parents approved of Madeleine L’Engle. I’ve already discussed how amazing A Wrinkle in Time was. I loved it so much I read every book by her that my library in the 5th grade had. I stumbled on a book that was a little too old for me. It probably wasn’t that graphic, probably not nearly as graphic as half of the YA out there, but at nine it was more graphic that I ever wanted to be exposed to. How was I supposed to know that this one book out of twenty or more contained this scene when none of her other books did?

When I was ten I read my first curse word in a book. I cried because it was Han Solo who said it and I couldn’t imagine one of my heroes ever saying such a thing. It’s one thing to hear a curse word briefly, it’s another to see it spelled out – staring at you.

I outgrew the kids section of the library at ten and plunged into Star Wars books, where I did not have to worry about sex, just some kissing at worst. But by the time I was twelve, I had read every published Star Wars book. More were coming, but I couldn’t wait. I started reading Wheel of Time and the Dragonriders of Pern that Christmas. Lucky for me both are fairly tame when it comes to cursing (since they both make up their own curse words) and both have only PG-13 love scenes. (It’s insinuated that something happened, but no details). However, some of the pure evil I read in the Wheel of Time (the Forsaken are a group of pretty evil people) was too much for me to understand. I suppose I should still wish it was, but now I understand it better.

I read my first graphic romance scene in the tenth grade. It was in a fantasy book – not a romance book – a legit fantasy book sold in the sci-fi/fantasy section of the bookstore and it was recommended to me by a friend. It was more than I needed to know. I regretted reading it.

I read two of George R.R. Martin’s books my freshman year in college. After the second one I just could not go on. The plot was not worth the graphic images of sex it was putting in my mind. It was not worth the curse words that I learned (words I had never heard before but read in the book).

Now I’m very careful about reading books. I rarely pick up a book I’ve never heard of or read a book that wasn’t recommended to me by a friend I trust. The fact that books don’t warn me about their content keeps me from reading.

All of this description was to bring up two points.

1) Do you really think you can read every book your child reads? I read 500 words a minute. I read two adult books a week in middle school. My parents tried to read Wheel of Time with me, but my dad is a slow reader. I was always at least two books ahead of him. Did this make him a bad parent? No. Would it have made him a bad parent if he had forced me to read books he could read quickly or if he had made me wait the weeks and months it took for him to read a 1000 page Robert Jordan novel? Yes. He would have been stopping me from reading.

2) I think books should be rated.

The second statement might shock some people. It might cause some people to cry out that I’m censoring books. Well, we rate movies. No sane, good parent would let her seven-year-old see a sexually graphic movie. We put age limits on movies. G and PG movies are good for kids to just show up in. If you’re seeing PG-13 you better have an adult with you. To see an R you better have your parents and you’re not allowed to see it after seven pm. If it’s NC-17, I don’t care how much you beg. You better be old enough.

Is this rating of movies censoring movies? Is this rating of movies banning certain movies to an entire generation of movie-goers? Is this rating system infringing on children’s rights to see what they please? I’ve never heard anyone try to argue in favor of any of these points. Most people would laugh and say the movies are still available – it’s not censoring (that’s what TBS is for). The children can see the movies when they’re old enough and children don’t have rights.

Many people also agree that books are more powerful than movies in a child’s imagination. If that’s true, why do we let our children read books we would never let them see in movie form?

And if you really want your child to read a PG-13 book it’s not like they can’t. You, as the parent, buy the book and give it to your child. It’s not illegal or against the rules to take your child to a PG-13 movie. Neither would anyone frown upon you for reading a PG-13 book. The point is that you know and your child knows what they are getting into. As a young reader (and still as a slightly older reader) I would have liked to know. Is this book PG-13 for violence? Ok, I won’t find the violence so shocking. Is it R for sexual content? Maybe I should put this one back on the shelf and read it when I’m older. Is it PG? Sweet. No worries for me.

I think half of the horror of what I read as a child is that I did not expect or see it coming. If I had been warned the book contained cursing, I wouldn’t have been as surprised when Han Solo cursed. If I had been warned the book contained sexual content, I wouldn’t have been surprised when it happened. I could make informed decisions about what I should and should not read.

When I was twelve I remember thinking “I wish books were rated” and that feeling has not changed, but maybe you feel differently. That’s cool. That’s what America is all about. It’s about the freedom to disagree. I just wish I had the freedom to know what books would be rated if they were movies.

Sorry!

Let me apologize for not posting on Friday and apologize for the fact that this little apology post is all I will be posting today.

To say "work has been crazy recently" is an understatement. I literally pulled ten hour days for the past week including the weekend. And for the past few days when I got home all I did was read. That's all I wanted to. Well that and watch the latest episode of Doctor Who, but beyond that I'm behind on all of my Fall TV! I know! Me! The girl who loves her TV shows.

Anyway, I plan to post normally on Wednesday and Friday. Please stay tuned, dear readers. I will be back.

Fighting Words

Sometimes, I get very excited about certain things, and other people don't understand. And when I say sometimes, I mean every other day. And when I say "things" I mean generally geeky things. 

If you're friends with me on Facebook, I'm sure you've noticed the Wheel of Time banner on my Facebook timeline. (For the record, it's the Moraine one). I've made several comments recently about the impending end of the Wheel of Time (and about how Tarmon Gai'don is coming), and how I'm pretty sure I'm going to cry when I finally hold that book in my hands. I told my boss that I won't be coming into work the day Wheel of Time is released or the day after. Because all I'm doing is going to be reading it.

If you've been in my presence in the last week, you've noticed my bouncing off the walls excitement that The Avengers is finally coming out on DVD. (Which I totally now own). And I'm planning an awesome Avengers party with my friend Melody, where we will watch The Avengers, dressed in the colors of our favorite hero (or villain, as the case may be), and eat Avengers themed snacks (I plan on making Captain America shield sugar cookies). It's going to be awesome.

Over half of the blog posts I've commented on in the past month have been Doctor Who related. And any time myself and another person who watches Who have been in the same room, all we've done is discuss how we feel about the new season. And it never fails that there are strong feelings on either side and voices sometimes get raised to volumes that probably shouldn't be used indoors (though never angry yelling, just over excited hysteria, mainly).

These are only the recent things I've been geeking out about. I've been a geek all my life. And over the course of my life, there has been a set of words that will immediately make me furious.

Sometimes it's not actually said in words. Sometimes it's just a raised eyebrow when I excitedly start talking about my crazy Wheel of Time theories or how I feel Steven Moffat has forgotten which Doctor he is writing for. Sometimes it's in an indulgent shake of the head. But those I can ignore. It's the words, though, words that make me angrier than most people probably realize.

What words?

"It's just a movie."

"It's just a book."

"It's just a TV show."

"It's just a......"

Three very short words put in front of a noun. But it's amazing how three short words can patronize and belittle. 

Three short words that say, "Why are you so worked up about this? It's not real. It doesn't matter. It's silly. There are bigger, more important things in life that you should care about. Things that real grownups like me care about. Stop being such a silly little kid."

I recognize that my love of Mat Cauthon isn't going to end world hunger. I know that my love of Harry Potter or Stargate SG-1 isn't going to end war or hate. 

But beyond that, who are you to judge my love of something and what it has done for me and others?

My love for geeky things has brought me a career and community. Through the characters I have come to love like friends, I have learned lessons from their actions and avoided mistakes in my own life. Through my love of these things, I've had revelations, both about myself and my faith. These things I love, these things I get excited about, they are a part of me, inseparable from me. I am not just Loki or Meg Murray. I am also Rand al'Thor, because I have learned his lessons. I am Menolly, because I have walked with her through her life. I have never just been a student of my teachers and professors. I have been a student of Hari Seldon, Moraine Sedai, Luke Skywalker, Dumbledore, Kelsier and so many others. 

When you belittle and demean my enthusiasm, you're belittling and demeaning the impact these things have had on my life. I am who I am today, because of these things. 

So next time you find yourself uttering, "It's just a...." Catch yourself. Stop and think. Because it's not just a book or movie. It's not just a song or a game. It's something more. It's someone else's identity. Their life.

And the next time you want to tease someone because they're geeking out over something, just remember this quote from John Greene.

"Nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff… Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they’re saying is ‘you like stuff.’ Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, ‘you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness’"

Think about that. "You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness." 

May that always be said about me.

Avengers Assemble!

In honor of The Avengers, finally coming out on DVD this week (which I will be buying and watching over and over and over and over again), I present to you How It Should Have Ended.

If you haven't been watching HISHE, you should. Seriously, these videos are the best thing ever. They never fail to make me laugh and whenever a new one comes out, my colleagues at work and I huddle around my computer and watch it. And we laugh hysterically and quote it non-stop for the next week.

So, below are the How It Should Have Ended videos for all the Phase 1 Marvel movies (or at least, all the ones they made a video for), and then the last one is the Avengers.

Iron Man:


Thor:


Captain America:


And finally, The Avengers:


You're welcome.

Where to Start: Star Wars Expanded Universe

Star Wars was my first fandom. Before Harry Potter was popular, before I discovered The Wheel of Time, before I started watching Stargate: SG-1, I had Star Wars. The movies have been my favorite for as long as I can remember. I started reading the books in the fifth grade and have read over 100 of the Expanded Universe books. 

I never really thought about the Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU) being hard to break into, because when I started reading them, I read them in no particular order. I read whichever book my Waldens had in stock that weekend. But recently, it was brought to my attention that some people view the EU as a baffling wall of books, with no idea where to start. I'm sure that has only gotten more baffling with the addition of the books that take place before and during the prequels. (I've read about a dozen of those, but not all. I'm more of a Luke/Han/Leia/Wedge kind of girl).

So if you are wanting to break into the EU, but have no idea if you should start at The Truce of Bakura or at The Jedi Academy, I have your answers here! Yay!

There are three ways to read the Star Wars EU:

One is in order of Star Wars chronology. That is, start with A New Hope, read the books that take place right after it leading up to The Empire Strikes Back, read the books between it and The Return of the Jedi, and then read the books that take place after that in the order they take place in the universe. This chronology is published, and you can find a pretty good one here. Because it's all inclusive, if you're looking for Han/Luke/Leia books you need to scroll about halfway down. I suggest using ctrl F to find one of the original trilogy movies and then look at the books around it.

If you choose to read the books this way, there is one important thing you'll need to remember. A lot of the Rebellion Era and New Republic Era books were written before the new trilogy came out. This led authors to create some history of the universe that directly conflicts what we're told in the new trilogy. Like we didn't know before the new trilogy that Jedi couldn't get married. Authors assumed they could, since Luke and Leia were the children of a former Jedi, and they talk about historical Jedi who were married. Also all the history of Boba Fett in the Bounty Hunter books is now completely bogus, thanks to George Lucas. So I would suggest checking publication date before you read a book, just so you can know if something was written before or after the new trilogy. That will help you figure out why some of the history seems weird. 

The second order of reading the Star Wars EU is in order of publication. That's probably closer to the order I read it. I can't find an order online for that, but it shouldn't be too hard to find.

The third way to read it is to read the books I'm about to suggest in the following order, which is a mix of the first two (this only covers books that take place after The Return of the Jedi).

• The Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command). The Thrawn Trilogy was hailed as the follow up trilogy to the original trilogy. And it's amazing. If you read no other Star Wars books, read these. They take place around there years after The Return of the Jedi.
• The Jedi Academy Trilogy (Jedi Search, Dark Apprentice, Champions of the Force) This one takes place after The Thrawn Trilogy by like two years.
• Truce at Bakura. This takes place almost right after The Return of Jedi, so that's going back in time a little. 
• The Courtship of Princess Leia. This takes place after Truce at Bakura but before The Thrawn Trilogy.
• X-Wing Series 1-8, Rogue Squadron, Wedge's Gamble, The Krytos Trap, The Bacta War, Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, Solo Command. These actually take place before The Courtship of Princess Leia and for the most part they don't follow main characters. But these books are what cemented Wedge Antilles as my favorite character, and introduced the awesomeness of Corran Horn. Seriously. Awesomeness.
• I, Jedi. Now that you know who Corran Horn is, you can read this book, which actually takes place during The Jedi Academy Trilogy.
• Children of the Jedi, Darksaber, Planet of Twilight, The Crystal Star. These books aren't a set, or even by the same author, but they sort of follow a story-line. Also the next couple are in chronological order within universe.
• X-Wing Star Fighters of Adumar
• The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy (Before the Storm, Sheild of Lies, and Tyrant's Test)
• The Hand of Thrawn Duology (Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future)
• Young Jedi Knights. You need to read at least the first four, because these characters are important to later stories. Jaina, Jacen, and Tenel Ka are all important. I love all of these books, but they are written for kids.

At this point, you have a couple of options. Go ahead and read The New Jedi Order, or go back and read all the other books that take place during the time period, like Shadows of Mindor or Tatooine Ghost. Either works.  But DO NOT read the Legacy of the Force Series without reading The New Jedi Order and do not read Millennium Falcon until you've read the Legacy of the Force. Heck, DON'T read the blurb for Millennium Falcon until you've read Legacy of the Force. Seriously, the blurb has major spoilers. Then once you've read Millennium Falcon you can move onto The Fate of the Jedi. So that order is:

• The New Jedi Order
• The Legacy of the Force
• Millennium Falcon
• The Fate of the Jedi

Also, recently a ninth X-Wing book came out (like this past week), but it takes place after The Fate of the Jedi. So DO NOT read Mercy Kill. K?

Ok, so that's pretty confusing. If you're interested in reading in the EU and you're confused, you can ask me about it. But the real moral of the story is start with The Thrawn Trilogy.

Happy reading!

When Characters Do Things You Would Never Do

When it comes to authors and characters, people often get confused. Sure most everyone knows that Dumbledore is a character (and therefore fake) and J.K. Rowling is a real person, but somehow the fact that Dumbledore is gay becomes a stance on J.K Rowling's personal feelings on sexual orientation. Now, I'm fairly certain that J.K. Rowling doesn't have any sort of problem with gay people. But I'm also certain she does have a problem with say...murderers. But we're ok with her writing murderers, but not ok with her writing about a gay character. (I use the term "we" very broadly here, to mean people in general, sort of like the French "on" which means "we" but doesn't mean necessarily you and me. If that makes sense. I am completely ok with people of different sexual orientations.) 

Now, you might say, that's a completely different scenario! It's very clear that J.K. doesn't support murder. It's her bad guy who does the murdering after all. So that's a very clear line. An author supports things the good guys does and doesn't support things the bad guy does. 

Except that's not necessarily true. 

I don't think Brandon Sanderson supports thieving, but the main characters of Mistborn are thieves. I think half of the fantasy writers out there would be very upset if they lived in a fuedal system, yet half of their characters are the very princes who rule one--and those princes are rarely handing out rights to the people they are subjugating. Authors build worlds. They create characters to live and explore those worlds. But the characters (most of the time) are not the author. Which means they can do things that the author would never want to do or approve of doing. 

But in this day in age, readers and even critics often forget that. If you write a misogynist character--and that character is your main character--suddenly you're a misogynist.  If you write a weak female character, suddenly you're saying all females are weak. But that's not true. Maybe the story calls for a girl who grew up sheltered and always told she was worse than men, and that she needed a man, and maybe that's why she latches on to the first guy who comes along...and you know what, maybe that guy is a good guy. A legitimately nice guy and this isn't a story about showing how terrible it can be for women with that mindset. Maybe it's a story where the main girl character just happens to be like that. We can hope that over the course of the story she learns otherwise...but so what if she doesn't? Maybe that's not the point of the story. But maybe it's necessary to the plot for some strange reason for her to be that way. I don't know. I'm making stuff up here. Anyway, if you write a character like that, suddenly the author is being slandered and labeled as a crazy anti-feminist. (Not always that extreme, but sometimes it is).

So when I see things like this, as an author, it sort of scares me. Because my characters, my good characters, do stuff I don't believe in. They have premarital (non-described completely off screen) sex. They drink alcohol (which I don't at all). Heck, they might smoke. That doesn't mean I support those things. That doesn't mean I think you should do them. It means in that situation, it makes sense for this character, who is not me, to do these things.

Take my current dilemna. I do not curse. At least, not anything the modern world would gasp at. I say "crap". I occasionally say "hell", and I really struggle with taking the Lord's name in vain as in "Oh my god and "oh god" and the like. But in the story I'm currently working on, The Descent of Chris Chappell, there is a scenario where I need one of my characters to curse. And not like s*** or d***, but the f word. 

Nothing else makes sense with his background and the situation. This is probably the most moral character in the story, the most straight-laced (but not straight actually) who is always encouraging everyone else to do the right thing. He has a very strong sense of right and wrong. But there is one situation, one argument/fight, where he is pushed to an extreme where the only response that can express the level of digust he is feeling with his friend is "F*** you." And sure I could say "Eff you," but that's not what he would say. That's not right. He needs to say it.

And I don't know if I can write it. I don't support that kind of langauge in any context. I  would never say it. I'm actually struggling wtih the idea of typing it and then it having to be there on the page. Staring at me. But that's the only correct response for him, if I'm true to the character.

In this modern world where author and character get confused, what's a girl to do? i don't want anyone to think I condone that kind of language, but my character isn't me.

So where is the line?