Giveaways!
I’ve got two more giveaways going on Goodreads. Right now, there’s one for THE MOON AND MORE by Sarah Dessen and on for ARCHIPELAGO by Monique Roffey.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Sarah Dessen Giveaway
Hi Guys! Just a quick update to post a link to my Sarah Dessen giveaway on Goodreads. It’s for a SIGNED advance copy of The Moon and More.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
The Moon and More
by Sarah Dessen
Giveaway ends February 28, 2013.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Crazy Math
I’m stage managing a production of Proof for South City Theater. It’s a play about a woman whose father was a genius mathematician. He revolutionized mathematics by the time he was 22. Then he went crazy. Catherine is struggling with his legacy and her own place in it. It’s pretty awesome, although parts are disturbingly close to my own feelings about my parents… but I digress. The actors are all great and I’m really excited about the show. However, one of my jobs is to fill 24 composition books with crazyness. So… I’m doing my best. I don’t really know what to do. Fill them in with numbers, copy passages from books, draw pictures? I wrote out the first 1,000 prime numbers and I copied out pi to 2710 places. If anyone has more ideas, please let me know! Or if you have a favorite math… thingy.
If you’re in town you like live theater I recommend coming out! The show runs Feb 21, 8:00pm to Feb 23, 8:00pm, Feb 28, 8:00pm to Mar 2, 8:00pm and one Matinee: Feb 24, 2:00pm.
My book quest continues apace. I have, thus far, read 20 new books. I just finished The Mouse With the Question Mark Tail by Richard Peck. It’s pretty adorable. The protagonist is a very small mouse who lives in the Royal Mews on the eve of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Our intrepid mouse protagonist knows very little about his background. He was discovered as a tiny little mousekin and kept alive by warming under the stove in the Royal Kitchens. He did not come conveniently labeled like a parcel. His origins, and indeed, his very name, are shrouded in mystery. He feels sure that the answer to his question is out there. Perhaps Her Gracious Majesty could tell him the truth if only he could reach her?
One day, when he escapes from school in his smart blazer with its gold crest and is SEEN BY A HUMAN, he begins the adventure of his lifetime. He will go further than a mouse has ever gone before. And he will learn the ultimate truth, that for every human job there is a mouse doing it faster and better.
This was a very sweet book. The advance copy I read did not have all of the art in it, but the pages that were available were beautiful. Mouse Minor, as he is known in school, is very relatable. We all question who we are and how we fit into the greater scheme of things. One thing I really liked about this book is that it’s an adventure story in the most classic sense. He sets out on an adventure. There aren’t particularly villans. It’s kind of awesome that in order to succeed he doesn’t have to beat some one else. Not that I don’t like a good book where the hero defeats the villan and everything is awesome forever. It’s just cool that Peck was able to write a story about friendship and courage and overcoming adversity. No one really loses at the end of this book. And that’s kind of refreshing.
LetterMo contiues. They’ve gotten rather brilliant and added achievements! I love getting achievements.
These are mine so far! Badges! It’s like digital Girl Scouts!!! 
All the Projects!
You know I love projects and challenges. I figure if you’re here you’re relatively interested in them too. So, I thought I’d take a quick second to post about my latest projects. It’s Mary Robinette Kowal’s Month of Letters challenge. The goal is to send at least one piece of mail every day in February that the post runs. That’s 23 days this year. There is a website if you want to be official. There are forums and faq’s and postcards you can buy to support the project. If anyone wants a letter send me your mailing address to medusasmirror@gmail.com or sign up over at lettermo.com and friend me!
Also, I have really, really, really exciting news! (Please prepare yourself for internet shouting…)
MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL IS GOING TO DO A BOOK SIGNING AT MY STORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also, twitter is magical. We posted Glamour in Glass as the Book of the Week at Little Professor. And Mary tweeted back offering to stop by the store sometime when she’s down south. Some squeeing and bouncing later (gently, because I have a sprained ankle), we had an actual date. September 14 at 3:00 the epic awesomeness will begin.
New York Circulating Materials Repository
Ok, so the New York Circulating Materials Repository doesn’t exist. I wish, I wish, I wish upon a star that it did, because that would be awesome! But, alas, alack, it doesn’t. However! you can read about it in Polly Shulman’s wonderful YA novels; The Grimm Legacy (available now) and The Wells Bequest (available in June from Nancy Paulsen Books). One of the things I really like is when an author can build a series around an idea rather than around a character. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy books that are built around characters, I do! I read lots of them (exhaustive list to follow at bottom of post), but sometimes, it’s nice to let the characters you like go off to their happy endings, but still get to stay in the world and meet new characters. Polly Shulman does an excellent job of setting up a world I want to immerse myself in.
It’s all centered around the New York Circulating Materials Repository. It’s like a library. And many people call it a library. But libraries, by their most common definition contain books (recordings, or films) not objects. The NYCMR is a collection of things; tools, toys, teapots, telescopes, trains. In short, it is chock full of stuff that members can examine and even check out. There are 14th century teapots, automata from ancient China, vacuum cleaners from the 1950’s, and Elizabethan doublets. Then, there are the Special Collections.
One of the reasons I think I like these books so much is that I have spent a lot of time in the Special Collections building at the University of Alabama. As a grad student I had my own office in the Osteology lab where I analyzed and cataloged part of that collection. We shared a floor with lots of people who worked with the textile collection. Our hallway had beautiful illustrations of fabric patterns and rug designs. During one class I got access to our files of antique photographs. There were amazing photos of archaeological digs during the 1930’s when the Tennessee Valley Authority was working on projects all over the southeast. There were excavations all over Alabama working just ahead of the dam building. There were stranger things in the stacks; large taxidermied animals from the Natural History collection, a shelf full of dolls and their accessories, preserved butterflies. Downstairs was the Hoole Library with its rare books, boxes full of donated letters and manuscripts, and of course, the Tiffany window.
A Stained-Glass Tiffany Knight By Robert O. Mellown
Originally published in Alabama Heritage, Winter 1993 (No. 27)
How can you not feel awesome when you exit an elevator and see light shining through that? I used the Hoole collection several times when I was researching my cousin, Sara Mayfield. She was part of the literary world of the 1920’s and 1930’s. She was friends with H.L. Menkin and Zelda Fitzgerald. She was also hospitalized for mental problems. She donated her papers to the library (after burning all the really interesting stuff according to my mom). I was named for her although she died right before I was born. I’ve always felt a kind of creepy resonance with her. So, I spent a summer reading through her letters and diaries and looking at the caricatures she drew of her doctors in the psych ward. There was something kind of magical to me about getting off the elevator, looking at that amazing window, and then proceeding into the reading room. I’d fill out my call slip with the tiny pencils and hand it to the librarian who would assign me a desk and then bring out my box of artifacts. The papers were old, but in good shape so I didn’t have to put on the special gloves. Though, to be honest, sometimes I wore them anyway.
This otherworldliness is something that Polly Shulman captures with the New-York Circulating Materials Repository. There are stained glass windows in all the walls of the main reading room. The call slips are sent through pneumatic tubes down to pages in the stacks. There is the everyday magic of a beautiful building full of knowledge and history. But the Special Collections have real magic. 
In The Grimm Legacy Elizabeth Rew gets a job as a page at the NYCMR. At first it’s fairly normal. She works in the stacks pulling artifacts and repackaging them and replacing them when the patrons are done. But she keeps hearing about the Grimm Legacy. It’s one of the Special Collections. The items listed in the inventory seem… unusual. There can’t really be seven-league boots down there, right? Or Cinderella’s glass slipper? Or was it a fur slipper? They must be props or toys. But, if the stained glass windows in the reading room can look different for every person, or your boss’s freckles can move around his face, maybe tiny tables that fill with food when you knock on them can exist too. The Grimm Legacy seems to consist of items straight out of fairy tales. And, as in all fairy tales, there is a villain who wants the powerful magic available within the collection. It quickly becomes apparent that it is up to Elizabeth and the other pages to protect the artifacts and each other.The Wells Bequest takes place some years later. Leo comes from a family of scientists. And not just any scientists, but really, really good scientists. He’s… creative. He’s a really good inventor, he can see the machines before he even picks up a tool. It’s just that they don’t always do exactly what he expects them to. One night a tiny machine phases into his bedroom. It is being driven by a miniature version of himself and an amazing girl. They tell him that they’re from the future and that it is important that he read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (If that makes you think of the title of the book, good catch). The girl tries to tell him something else, but future-Leo stops her and they disappear.
When Leo goes to the New-York Circulating Materials Repository he meets the regular sized version of the beautiful girl. Her name is Jaya and she’s the head page at the Repository. Leo falls in love and manages to get a job as a page in fairly short order. Leo has two goals for his time at the Repository; spend as much time as possible with Jaya and find the time machine that was in his bedroom. Along the way he discovers the Special Collections at the Repository. The Wells Bequest, in particular, is of interest. It has a time machine. It’s just… it doesn’t work. The glittering rod doesn’t glitter and the machine as a whole doesn’t go. When one of the pages goes a little crazy and threatens New York with a (theoretically) working version of Tesla’s Death Ray it becomes vital for Leo and Jaya to go back in time and stop Tesla’s assistant from stealing the plans.
This was an amazingly fun read. The first book is pretty girl focused, but I think the second one will appeal to boys too. The book stands on its own. You know that something has happened at the Repository before, but you wouldn’t be lost if you started with the Wells Bequest. There’s romance, but not so much that I’d call it (in the immortal words of The Princess Bride) a kissing book. This novel has my whole-hearted recommendation.
Penguin Giveaways
Ok, so the tagline may have been a wee bit misleading. I don’t have actual penguins to give away. I’ve got some advance copies of books to give away over on Goodreads. I’m going to try to get a bunch of these set up with things from my publisher reps. These two awesome giveaways are sponsored by the fine folks over at the Penguin Group. They’ve got some of the prettiest books on the market as well as the cutest company mascot. The only thing we ask is that if you win one you post a review and send me a link. The publishers like to know what people think.
Also, I got my new computer and my copy of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries on the same day. I’m going to wallow in some awesome Australian television!
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker
by Jennifer Chiaverini
Giveaway ends January 31, 2013.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Above All Things
by Tanis Rideout
Giveaway ends January 31, 2013.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Snowmageddon
Ok, so it really didn’t snow that much here. It’s Alabama, what do you want? I didn’t even get to go to work late yesterday. I feel cheated. Also, in pain. I fell down my icy stairs at 7:00 a.m. There’s nothing quite like shattering the early morning calm with lots of cursing and an embarrassing amount of crying. I don’t take being injured very well. It’s one of the reasons I wasn’t very good at rugby. Yes, I played rugby. Yes, I was horrible at it. Sadly, my horrible winter injury isn’t even horrible enough to require bed rest. I went on to work. I just have a big bruise and a ruined pair of boots. So I didn’t get any extra reading out of it. Despite that, I’m doing really well meeting my numbers for this month. If I keep this up I will make it well past my goal, which, to remind you, is 110 new books and 200 total books.
At the moment I’m still working my way through Gini Koch’s Alien series in paper form. Since we last spoke I finished Alien in the Family and Alien Proliferation. 
I’m in the middle of Alien Diplomacy and then I’ve only got one book left. I may cry. The covers continue to be… covers. I think Alien Diplomacy is my least favorite. Kitty looks way too sharp. But it still expresses the general idea of blonde kicking butt so I’ll shut up about it.
Spoiler: Kitty and Jeff have a baby. Weirdly, I’m not done with the series now. Normally, when the heroine becomes a mother at the end of the book I get cranky and bored. It’s not that I’m against motherhood. It’s just not my thing and so I don’t really identify with it as being the exciting conclusion of an action adventure story. However, Gini didn’t let me down. (She retweets me now, so I feel comfortable using her first name.) First of all; Kitty doesn’t have the baby at the end of a book. She has the baby pretty darn close to the beginning. In the middle of crazyness. Because it’s Kitty and that’s just how she rolls. She also doesn’t stop being Kitty once the baby has arrived. She worries that all she’s around for is baby care and supporting Jeff, but I think lots of new parents, especially mothers, feel that way every now and then. But at the heart of it all, she’s still herself. And that’s what I love about her.
I’m also listening to John Scalzi’s Redshirts. It’s pretty hilarious if you’ve ever been a Star Trek fan. Which I was. In the days before I failed at playing rugby I was the Commander of my high school’s Star Trek Club. I had pips. I accidentally demoted myself in college because one of my pips fell of my coat. Wil Wheaton narrates the audiobook and is, once again, awesome. I listened to him read Ready Player One when it came out and was really impressed. I know it’s logical to assume that actors would make good audiobook narrators, but it doesn’t always follow. Some actors arent’ very good at keeping multiple characters going at one time. They tend to focus really hard on the protagonist and then all the side characters sound the same. Also, strangely enough, not all actors are good readers just in general. It always surprises me at script read-throughs when an actor stumbles over their reading. But, if you think about it, they aren’t reading on stage. They’ve memorized all the lines. I happen to act and enjoy reading out loud (I think it’s because I just like talking) so I associate the two more than most people. Wheaton does an excellent job with both of the audiobooks I’ve listened to him read. Here is a list of some of my favorite audiobook narrators:
Wil Wheaton
Bernadette Dunne
Barbara Rosenblat
Mary Robinette Kowal
Kate Reading
David Suchet
Hugh Fraser
Bruce Coville
And I cannot say enough about the awesomeness of Full Cast Audio. They have some really talented people working for them and if I lived in central New York I would be begging them for any kind of job at all. But I don’t live in central New York so I have to content myself with buying as many of their recordings as I can afford. You should do the same if you’re interested in YA books. May I direct you to the Tamora Pierce selections? She’s my favorite. You can find more of her books, some read by Bernadette Dunn on Audible too.
Bout of Books 6.0 Wrap Up
I spent most of yesterday assuming that I would fail to meet my goals for this round of the Bout of Books. But Gini Koch’s prose zipped me through to the finish line. I re-read the first book in this series at the tail end of my vacation and had this one out on my desk to read through. Once I’d given up on my zombie theme I just grabbed books as they caught my fancy. So I read Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter, The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi, The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie (an Agatha Christie I hadn’t read before! Who knew there were any of those out there?), and then I finished up with Alien Tango by Gini Koch.
Kitty has settled into the swing of things at the Centurion Division. She’s got her on division – The Airborne Unit, and she’s ready to kick some butt. Only, the parasites are slowing down. There hasn’t been much activity and none at all that requires air support. Kitty really should appreciate the time to relax while she’s got it. Before she knows what’s happening there’s a call to come to the Kennedy Space Center, where she will meet her alien boyfriend’s parents (who hate her), face off against a paranoid anti-alien group that wants to wipe out all A-C’s and everyone who cares about them, and deal with the Machiavellian machinations of a rogue Congressman, and Jeff’s mother.
The immediate situation is that three astronauts in an experimental craft made an unexpected contact on their way into space. They, and it, came right back to earth. The three astronauts are now in quarantine, oh, and one just happens to be Kitty’s high school boyfriend. Could things get any weirder? Silly question, of course they could.
Ok, look, any book that uses alligators as an attack strategy is high on my list of awesome things. No, I’m not explaining that. You’ll have to go read it yourself. I’m currently reading book #3 – An Alien in the Family. The covers in this series aren’t great. But, they’re the sci-fi paranormal romance, but Kitty is cynical about the whole Alpha-male thing, which makes me happy. She’s snarky, she listens to inappropriate music in life or death situations, and she’s irreverent. All of which I like.
So, the Bout of Books was really fun. I will definitely do it again. And an extra thank you to Gini Koch for being so fun that I met my goals!
Bout of Books – Day 6
Well, I’ve fallen off my bookish wagon. I had PLANS! THEMES! I was going to rock the zombies. But then, after reading Alice in Zombieland, I tried to read Breathers and I just wasn’t feeling it. It’s not that it wasn’t a good book. It just wasn’t 
the story I wanted in the moment. What I wanted was… sci-fi. I craved it. I had to have it. I picked up The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi. It was amazing.
This is the sequel to Old Man’s War, which I read over my New Year’s train trip. One of the things that makes it so cool is that it takes place shortly after Old Man’s War, but has an entirely new protagonist, although familiar characters crop up over the course of the story.
Jared Dirac is a new Special Forces soldier. He’s so new, that he’s born a couple of chapters into the book. The Special Forces, or the Ghost Brigades, are made up of genetically created soldiers. They are the ones who test the latest innovations in body design and BrainPal architecture. Their genetic progenitors are Colonial Defence Forces volunteers who die before they enter the ranks. Usually. Jared is a little different.
Some time before Jared is ‘born’ a scientist named Charles Boutin appears to have committed suicide. An alien base is raided and one survivor is kept for interrogation. What he has to reveal could change the entire political face of the universe and spell the end of the human race. Charles Boutin is alive and he is working with three alien species to bring total war to all human settled planets, including Earth.
Other than job security, this can’t have anything to do with a newly minted CDF Special Forces soldier. Unless that soldier’s DNA came from the supposedly deceased Dr. Boutin. It goes a step beyond that though. Boutin’s area of interest was the BrainPal, the computer implanted into the brain of every CDF operative. Boutin took his study of the BrainPal a step further. He actually managed to map and record his on consciousness. Jared isn’t only created from Boutin’s DNA, he has Boutin’s consciousness inside his brain. But it seems to be inert. Jared is developing his own personality that seems to be completely unaffected by Boutin. But can anyone, even the members of the Ghost Brigades, cope with a comrade with the mind of a traitor? Jared will either be the key to saving humanity, or another part of what destroys it for good.
So, I loved this book. I found myself empathizing with Jared as he tried to figure out his place in the world. This is an amazing look at what makes a person. Is Jared a real person? Should he be held responsible for the crimes of his progenitor? What if the memories start to come back? How much does memory impact personality? All these awesome questions are rattling around this book along with a really awesome sci-fi adventure. Also, Jane Sagan becomes Jared’s commanding officer so we get to see some more of her following the events of Old Man’s War. I’ve already ordered the rest of this series.
Bout of Books – Day 2
So, it’s Day 2 and I’ve finished my first book. I started with Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter. I decided to do a zombie theme to my challenge. I enjoyed the book and moved through it fairly quickly.
Alice’s father was crazy. He spent his night afraid of the monsters and his days drinking to forget them. He refused to let his family out of the house after dark, which seriously put a crimp in Alice’s social life. Unfortunately, he was also right. The night that Alice loses her entire she also loses her illusions. The monsters are real. She can finally see them, but they can see her too.
In this new version of the world Alice has no one to rely on except herself. At least at first. Soon, she realizes that Cole, the baddest of the bad boys at her new school, knows something about the monsters. Something more than hormones are drawing her to him. But does she really want to be involved with a guy from the wrong side of the lockers on top of everything else?
So, in many ways, this was a pretty typical YA, paranormal romance. The girl has faced tragedy that only the hot, but illusive guy can understand. Hot, but illusive guy may be worse for her than the original tragedy and is it worth the risk? Girl is extra special. Ok, fair enough. They’re tropes because they work. I’ll absolutely read the second book when it comes out. Two things, however, threw me a little.
#1 – The book is set in my hometown. I spent a ton of time trying to place it in the city. But despite saying specifically that it’s all happening in Birmingham, AL there isn’t any other geographical information given. Birmingham is a pretty big city, so there are lots of places within the city that everything could be happening. It’s not something that would affect most readers. I’m special. Just like Alice. The author also made up the two high schools mentioned in the book. Totally fair. She needed them to be up to her specifications. I get it. But added to my sense of disorientation. I think I would have felt a little more settled if it had been in an unnamed town outside of Birmingham rather than specifically anchored in the city itself.
#2 – The monsters are called zombies. But… they’re NOT! At least, not to my zombie-loving heart. I’ve read a LOT of zombie books. I’ve had chemical weapon induced zombies, voodoo zombies, zombies created by a cure for the common cold, and zombies with no explanation. I’ve had magic zombies and science zombies. But I’m not sure I can cope with incorporeal zombies. They’re just… I don’t think I can do it. They don’t eat the flesh of the living. They don’t shamble. They’re rotting, so that’s something. But… Ok, when I was younger my Mom couldn’t afford name brand stuff for me. So we drank Diet Rite instead of Diet Coke and I had knock off Keds. As zombies, these monsters had that faint aftertaste of the wrong artificial flavors. I had to teach my brain to see monsters instead of zombies so I wouldn’t pout. They’re awesome, scary monsters. They’re just not zombies.
Medusa's Library 