Nonfiction: TED Talks, Chris Anderson

TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking
Chris Anderson
ISBN: 9780544634497
Chatty and informative, with lots of tips and no hard rules.

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, edited and annoated by Leslie S. Klinger

The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft
Editor, annotator: Leslie S. Klinger
Norton & Co
ISBN: 9780871404534
852 pages.
Collection of most of Lovecraft's "Arkham Cycle" stories, from Dagon to the Haunter of the Dark.
Read ALL FREAKING SUMMER

Confession.  I've never actually read any Lovecraft, other than At the Mountains of Madness and The Call of Cthulhu.  This is a fantastic way to have remedied that oversight.  The collection puts them all in roughly chronological order, and only includes the stories that have major elements of what Klinger calls the "Arkham Cycle" of nebulous mythology.  (Interesting discovery that the idea of a coherent and complete "Cthulhu Mythos" was more likely the hero-worshipping tendencies of the young author who oversaw the preservation of Lovecraft's legacy.)

Anyway - if you like Lovecraft, or enjoy a good annotation (don't be ashamed to admit it - I've got my eye on that Laura Ingalls Wilder annotated autobiography Pioneer Girl next...) then this is an excellent collection.  Just be warned.  It's a freaking TOME, and it's heavy and awkward as hell.  This is a desk read if I ever saw one.


Stories: great fun, occasionally a bit overwrought.  Not actually frightening, which was a bit unexpected.  He name-dropped his own mythos and his own stories (and to be fair, the mythos, characters, and stories of other authors) with truly astounding frequency.  Not much for subtlety.

Annotations: usually very interesting, occasionally a bit too densely architectural or local-history-centric.  Really drove home the amount of research (or, alternatively, the really terrifying amount of arcane science and historical knowledge) that went into writing; setting these stories in superbly realistic, everyday, mundane surroundings, up to and including citing recent scientific discoveries and having accurate moon phases referenced ALL THE TIME (I'm giving Tolkien a dirty look here).

Author: (ie Lovecraft) blazing racist asshat with really severe anxiety about progress and "otherness."  Lots of weird fascination with the size and scope of the universe, and of our solar system, and humanity's relative un-importance in relation to that.  Lots of body horror.  Overly concerned with inhuman things coming out of the ocean or from space, from what we now know as the Kuiper Belt.


So, that's Lovecraft for me done.
Now I really want to go out and hit up Klinger's Annotated Sherlock and Annotated Sandman. I'll leave you with a lovely link to a really nice interview by Klinger and Neil Gaiman about Lovecraft and the New Annotated collection.

Nonfiction: Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Edited by Laurie Lamson

Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror: Speculative Genre Exercises from Today's Best Writers and Teachers
Edited by Laurie Lamson
ISBN: 9780399165559
Read June 2015

Collects exercises and encouragement from:
Steven Saus
Jule Selbo
Glenn M. Benest
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Kate Bernheimer
Vincent M. Wales
Lisa Renee Jones
Piers Anthony
Aimee Bender
Kim Dower
Brian James Freeman
Brittany Winner
Vonda N. McIntyre
Kealan Patrick Burke
Sabrina Benulis
Elliot Laurence
Steven Barnes
Diego Valenzuela
Danika Dinsmore
Xaque Gruber
Sequoia Hamilton
James Wanless
Michael Reaves
Raymond Obstfeld
Lois Gresh
Michael Dillon Scott
William E. Nolan
Christine Conradt
Derrick D. Pete
Todd Klick
Sara B. Cooper
Ben Thompson
Edward DeGeorge
Lisa Morton
Jan Kozlowski
E.E. King
David Anthony Durham
Mark Sebanc
Melissa Scott
L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
Janice Hardy
Kij Johnson
Chris Howard
Nancy Kress
Harlan Ellison
Pen Densham
Douglas Mcgowan
Marc Scott Zicree
Richard Bleiler
Brianna Winner
Devorah Cutler-Rubenstein
Wendy Mewes
Eric Stener Carlson
Diana Peterfreund
Karen McCoy
Eric Edson
Bruce McAllister
Jeffrey A. Carver
Derek Taylor Kent
Jessica Page Morrell
Stacey Graham
Mark Sevi
Brad Schreiber
Reggie Oliver
James G. Anderson
Gabrielle Moss
Vanessa Vaughn
Maria Acevedo
Jack Ketchum
Rainbow Reed
J. Michelle Newman
Lillian Stewart Carl
Jody Lynn Nye
Scott Rubenstein
Lance Mazmanian
Simon Clark
John Skipp
Ramsey Campbell
David Brin
John Shirley
Jay Lake
Nicholas Royle
Jeremy Wagner
Dana Fredsti
Peter Briggs
Sharon Scott
Joe R. Lansdale

Whew!

All of those lovely authors and writers and industry-persons took time from their schedules to offer advice and exercises and encouragement.  Lots of them didn't mesh with my writing style, some of them were weird, some of them were self-congratulatory (very few of those) and some of them were like little golden nuts to squirrel away into my writer's file to pull out when I need a boost.

A fun resource, and a great summer read.

YA Fantasy: The Orphan Queen, Jodi Meadows

The Orphan Queen
Jodi Meadows
ISBN: 9780062317384
Traditional "western european" YA fantasy sets a young exiled princess against a conquering kingdom and a murderous magical incursion.  First in a projected series, with a GIANT CLIFFHANGER ENDING!

First things first: I read this immediately after devouring two other fantasy series back to back, by absolute masters of the craft, and THEN I read another very similarly plotted book immediately afterwards, which was flat-out one of the best fantasy-fairy-tale adaptations I've ever been blessed to read.  So I'm going to be a little sharp here, and it really is unfair of me, because this book was not bad.  It wasn't even mediocre, it just - wasn't at the very top of the heap, and that's where everything else this week was, so this suffers unjustly by the comparison.

With that in mind: a decent start-up to a series, with a Hunger Games inspired cliffhanger for the ending.  Sadly, I wasn't invested enough in the characters to actually care one way or the other about said cliffhanger, and I won't be particularly looking out for the next in the series.  Now, if it happens to come up, or cross my desk, I'll certainly read it - it was an interesting set-up, and I'm curious to know where things will go - just, more in an academic sort of way.


List of unfortunate things:
Character names don't make any damn sense.  This is a stereotypical white western european fantasy medieval/Victorian setting.  Please just pick a real medieval kingdom to pretend the characters are from, and choose names from there: France, Germany, Poland, wherever!  Just don't name one girl Wilhemina, another Quinn, another Teresa, and yet a different girl Paige, and expect me to not slip a few gears.

The "spy ring" was not so great.  Naming yourselves (and identifying as such to potential enemies or informants, and wearing clothes embroidered with the representation of such) after the heraldric creature of the fallen kingdom is sweet, but it's also stupid dangerous when living in enemy territory.  My desire to think of the main character and the group as a whole as competent and formidable was straining against this the entire book.  My opinion was also not helped by the main character's utter uselessness at an infiltration that had apparently been planned for quite some time.  I know they're all kids, but they're all trained and espionage-hardened kids, or at least that's what they're supposed to be.

The rationale behind going to the "mysterious location" in a totally different kingdom was really stretched.  When the character was explaining her motives to another person, I could just see the author explaining the reasons to an editor, who just nodded with a glazed look under the torrent of words.  Set up your plotting better, so decisions and events are actually important to the character's stated goals.

Have you ever seen Zorro: The Gay Blade?  If not, go see it, I'll wait.  Back now?  There's a very "Zorro" character here, and it was super obvious, and a little forced.  While I liked the masked version of the character, I had to restrain myself from rolling my eyes otherwise.  Cute, decently executed, but so very obvious.



List of enjoyable things:
Wil was an awesome lead, despite being utterly useless at most of her life choices.  She made her decisions, stuck to them, and mostly (despite one glaring plot-rail) had in-character reasons for them.  She had agency, personality, and an interesting background conflict.

The growing relationship and partnership with "Zorro" was meet-cute.

The plot concept was nifty, and has potential for interesting developments through the series.  The "magic gone bad" concept is sort of hot now, but this version also has intro-country political repercussions (slim and plot-dependent, but actually acknowledged) of the magic problem, and attempts to solve it in earlier years.

The lead friendship was very well drawn.

The "mysterious location" was, on reflection, one of the best parts of the book - it was supremely creepy and paced well.


All in all, a fun way to spend an afternoon.  

Nonfiction: The Elements of Eloquence, Mark Forsyth

The Elements of Eloquence
Mark Forsyth
ISBN: 9780425276181 (imported from England)
Read January 23, 2015
Author goes through various rhetorical figures and how they are used.

Lots of Shakespeare in this book, and a decent smattering of classic English lit, some nursery rhymes and political speechifying, and even a few pop standards.

Very useful for a literature/writing craft resource.  I agree heartily with the author that this sort of thing should be consciously taught to anyone who is planning on verbal expression as a large part of their life or profession.

Writing Resource: Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade against Child Labor, Russell Freedman

Working on (probably will always be working on) a possible novel, and this is a great collection of Lewis Hine's stunning and heartbreaking photographs of child laborers across the country, in a softbound 9x12 horizontal-orientation book.  Most useful to me for the photos and info on mill and textile workers, and of cannery workers and cotton pickers.

Kids at Work: Lewis Hine and the Crusade against Child Labor
Russell Freedman, photographs by Lewis Hine
ISBN: 9780395797266
Goodwill Find, November 5, 2014