Her Book Self

It's time for a mini-update on my Song of Ice and Fire Challenge.  What was supposed to be one book a month has been dastardly delayed due to the simple fact that I forgot just how long these books are!  We're talking grandiose chunksters.  But I love them.  Really.  Every literary trip to Westeros pulls me more deeply into the world and the expansive landscape is truly amazing!  Plus, as a reread, I'm stunned by Martin's brilliant use of foreshadowing in the series.  There are plenty of scenes that have a significantly increased impact the second time around.

Back to my challenge.  It's mid-to-late-June so I should technically be mostly finished or at least starting A Feast For Crows.  Unfortunately, I've only just begun the substitute barbell that is A Storm of Swords.  Yet, I'm still super excited for next month's release of A Dance With Dragons!  With just under a month to go, I thought it would be fun to peek into the world of marketing and share some of the changing cover images for this awesome book!  Those that follow GRRM's livejournal will know that he posted these images back in March, but I thought they would make a good discussion point for A Weekend to ReCOVER.

The first is the original cover announced back in 2006, the middle was the updated cover circa 2009, and the left is the current cover that will supposedly grace the book when it reaches the eager hands of readers in a few short weeks!  There are aspects of all three covers that I appreciate.  I'm a bit partial to the one on the right, only because it matches with the copies of the first four that I own, but the shield image on the right is really interesting as well.  I'm not sure I understand why the middle has a sword and nothing particularly dragon-ish, but this is a book that could be released with the most generic of covers and I would still be exceptionally excited about reading it. 

Do you have a favorite among the covers for A Dance With Dragons?  Which one best catches your eye?

A Weekend to ReCOVER is a meme hosted by Her Book Self dedicated to discussing book jackets and cover art.  Feel free to leave your comments and thoughts here or chime in with a post of your own on this book or any interesting attention-grabbing cover(s) that you want to discuss.  Leave me a link and I'll be sure to stop over and see what bookish art you're spying this week!

My friend Ellen recently introduced me to a really awesome website called We Give Books.  I checked it out and decided - this is one of those things I can't not blog about!!  Yeah, double negative, I know, but it fits.  This is a really awesome organization and I'm remarkably surprised how many people don't know of it's existence.  Basically, you go online, read a children's book and they donate a book to charity!  Read a book, Give a book.  It really is that simple!

Now, I should mention that I don't currently have children, but I still love to read children's books.  Why?  Well, partly it is the opportunities to share my love of reading with nieces and nephews, sometimes it's me reminiscing about works I loved when I was small, and occasionally it's just pure curiosity about new and creative stories for young people.  And illustrations.  I'm a sucker for great illustrations!

There are some awesome charities being served by this project so if you have a few minutes, why not check out your favorite - or find a new favorite - children's book online?  Feel free to stop back and comment to let me know what book(s) you chose!

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is an urban fantasy alternate version of US history in which the sixteenth president of the United States embarked upon a hidden career as a slayer of bloodsucking fiends. Seth Grahame-Smith - creator of the instant cult-classic Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - returns to his form of incorporating humorous yet violent warfare against the undead into an otherwise well-known story. In this case, the book still represents a fairly accurate biography of Lincoln, granted the addition of vampires as a primary cause of the US civil war keeps the book in the fiction section, despite Grahame-Smith's prologue relating why the book is true and should be taken seriously.

I suppose I would have enjoyed this work more had it not tried for the pretense of conspiracy theory. I was highly entertained by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and was expecting a similar lighthearted spirit to this book. The opening of the story, in which Abe as a young boy discovers that the same axe he splits logs with can be used to decapitate vamps, maintained the classic-meets-paranormal feel. However, once the book progressed and Lincoln's political career began, the mash-up did not work as well. As much as I enjoy suspension of disbelief in alternate history, to suppose that Lincoln supported the abolishing of slavery to remove a vampire food source rather than because it was an abhorrent institution didn't sit well with me.

There was still plenty in this book that was entertaining, and the Photoshopped images were well done and captioned perfectly. For fans of Seth Grahame-Smith and those who want a based-in-truth but quite twisted biography of Lincoln, it is a worthwhile read, but I still find myself wishing it hadn't taken itself quite so seriously. Rather than paint a darker portrait of not-so-honest Abe I think the book could have succeeded even more by creating an exaggerated hero out of the sixteenth president.

I wanted to throw out a little teaser for a feature I'll be running over the next few months.  Partly because I'm really proud of the badge I designed (isn't it cuuuuute?) and partly because I want to gauge how other readers/bloggers feel about independent authors and/or small press works.  Obviously, I fall pretty firmly in the pro-indie category.  Anyone who's poked around this blog knows that I read a lot, and I read a lot of different types of books.  I think I've gotten pretty good at telling good writing from not-so-good writing.  I know what I like as far as storytelling goes.  So why do I need a publisher to stand as a gateway between me and a writer?  If I sample a book, can't my own tastes, preferences and editorial eye tell me if I like the work or not?  So why not read indie?  Wait, wait, wait - let me guess what you're going to say!

"But lisa, indie authors don't edit their work well!"
On this point I'll admit that some independently published books are in sore need of an editor.  I recall one book with hideous typos that became so laughable, I couldn't put down the book because I was incredibly amused at how awful the editing was.  A character named "Nathaniel" was even misspelled as "National" - who doesn't catch these things?  But trust me, that's the exception to the rule.  Yes, there is the occasional, "Did your copy editor even graduate grammar school?" novel, but for the majority of indie works the editing is clean and superbly done.  Yes, there's the occasional minor typo, but I've come across just as many errors in final copies of traditionally published books.  (Not to mention ARCs - I have a new pet peeve of readers that devour ARCs but use "poor editing" as an excuse not to even attempt reading indie works.)

"But lisa, I want a publisher to vet out good work from bad."
It seems a little arrogant to insist that the mark of a good writer is a publisher's stamp of approval.  Think for just one moment about the last really bad book you read.  The one that made you cringe and sigh and think, "I could've come up with a better ending than that!"  Chances are that novel you're shaking your head about is not an indie work.  It may even be one that garnered critical acclaim that left you wondering what all the fuss was about.  Publishers don't make works well written simply by the act of publishing them.  Talented writers make works well written, and with six billion people on this planet, I'm going to venture a guess that many more of them have talent as writers and storytellers than will ever see their name on a NYT Bestseller list.

"But lisa, if indie authors can write so well, why aren't they picked up by traditional publishers?"
Some of them are.  I use the term "indie author" rather liberally and would even go so far as to put Christopher Paolini and Lisa Genova in that category as both Eragon and Still Alice were published independently before being picked up by large presses.  Some authors have published their work traditionally and then gone the indie route when their works went out of print.  But maybe those are exceptions to the typical indie author experience.  Not everyone can get an agent.  Not everyone can make the right connections.  Not everyone can get their foot in the door to get their manuscript in the right hands.  We sadly live in a world that's more about who you know than what you know.  I don't want to be the kind of reader that rejects a work just because it's not what a publisher was looking for at the time. 

"But lisa, there are soooo many indie authors out there.  Even if I wanted to read them, I wouldn't know where to begin!"
That's where I come in!  Well, not just me, but fellow bloggers!  The more people that get involved reading and reviewing indie works, the easier it is to discover what you're looking for and which books and authors you'll most likely enjoy!  The same way supermarkets offer samples to let you taste a product before you buy it (the only way on the planet I was able to convince my carnivore of a husband that he might actually enjoy black bean veggie burgers), most indie authors offer sample chapters of their work online.  Try before you buy and you just might surprise yourself.  If you read a chapter and don't really like the writing style or aren't connecting with a character, move along to something else. Books come in all types, shapes, and sizes because readers do as well.  

So where do you fall on the indie author spectrum?  Love them?  Refuse them?  Never tried them? Better yet... why?  I'd love to start some dialog on this topic!  Do you have a reason to seek out independent works that I haven't yet mentioned?  Do you have an objection to indie publishing that I haven't addressed?   

I realize this feature may end up alienating some readers from my blog.  Hopefully, even if you're anti-indie you'll stick around and keep reading my usual posts and maybe even check out my reviews of indie works this summer.  I'll be hosting some interviews, guest posts and fabulous giveaways as well so stay tuned for what I hope will be a super fun feature!  If any other bloggers want to join in and spotlight their own favorite independent author or work, feel free to borrow the badge above and be sure to drop me a link in the comments!

Kate Winters has had her teenage life on hold - missing a year of school and barely socializing - due to her mother's cancer. When her mom's greatest wish is to retreat to the small town of Eden, Michigan where she grew up, Kate begrudgingly agrees to the move and tries to settle in at a new school. Making a few friends but more concerned with her mom's declining health, Kate doesn't exactly fit in but when she crosses path with Henry - who eventually reveals that he is really Hades, god of the dead - Kate is given the opportunity to step up into the path of Persephone. Chosen to live with Henry for six months, Kate must undergo a series of tests to determine if she is worthy of the role she has been asked to fill. The reward is immortality, but no mortal has survived the test yet.

Aimee Carter takes on a clever premise with this novel. I liked Kat's character and her relationship with her mother was both realistic and heartwarming. Her dutiful love and anguish over the illness was well painted and Kate maintained a degree of character strength throughout the book that I appreciated. Carter also took some interesting twists and turns with the traditional Greek mythology. In some ways the updated version was unique and it was blended into Western religion as an interesting twist. However, I wish that there had been a little more substance to the mythology and the characters - especially the gods - could have been more strongly tied into the figures on which they were based. Especially at the end, many of the gods seemed to be haphazardly introduced with little basis or character development other than that it seemed convenient to include them. Also, the tests that Kate is challenged by were hardly tests at all. I suppose with the setup that every girl before Kate died trying to reach her position, I was expecting trials more akin to the labors of Hercules. It was clever that Kate did not know what the tests were before she had to complete them, but all-in-all I think there could have been more action and intrigue surrounding her endeavors.

There are definitely novels that do a better job adapting ancient traditions to present time, but in terms of a girl-meets-boy high school novel with a mythological twist, The Goddess Test was a decent book. The ending sets up nicely for a sequel and leaves off with a promising cliffhanger. Hopefully future stories in the series will bring more adventure for Kate and lend more character development and deeper insight into several of the gods introduced in this one.

I know Aimee Carter's book has gotten mixed reviews, being praised and panned throughout the blogosphere.  Have you read The Goddess Test?  Are you planning to?

I received this book for review as an eBook through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, via NetGalley.  The badge at left is from the wonderful blogger Mad Scientist over at  Steampunkery & Book Reviews.  This badge denotes any review I'm posting that I read as a digital book.  Clicking on the image will take you to my "eBook" label to check out all the books that I've read in Kindle format!

Usually when I think of a book being described as "epic", that book is a lengthy piece of fantasy or a nonfictional history tome. However, I think "epic" is great word to describe Juliet by Anne Fortier.

The main story is set in modern day with heroine Julie Jacobs discovering secrets about her ancestors after the death of her dear Aunt Rose. Julie learns that her real name is Guilietta Tolomei and several generations ago a relative bearing the same name was a real star-crossed lover whose life became legend and eventually inspired Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

Set in Siena, Italy - rather than Verona - Julie's story alternates with that of the Guilietta Tolomei in the 1340's. The history and culture of this story-within-the-story are brought to life in beautiful detail. The tale that is unraveled is presented as historical fact, bearing only faint resemblance to the popular play it evolved into.

As Julie unravels clues to her family's ancient past, she finds that the parts of the story Shakespeare got right may have huge implications for her future. Along with a "plague" that seems to have cursed her family for several generations, Julie wonders if she is destined to fall for a Romeo of her own. She can only hope that this time the tale will have a happier ending.

I really enjoyed this story and found the rich landscape of Italy to be enchanting in both the present and past portions of the book. Though there were a few spells when the narrative seemed to drag, for the most part I found the story intriguing and enjoyable. Fortier did a great job of creating a precursor to Romeo and Juliet and tying it nicely to a modern story. Even with such well-known, frequently reinvented source material, Fortier managed to take a new spin on Shakespeare, and Juliet is a book to be enjoyed by fans of the bard as well as those looking for a freshly original work.

I love Steampunk.  The crazy scientist and dreamy romantic sides of me collide in this historical meets techno genre and I'm always intrigued when authors venture into it as the stories that I've read so far are inventive, creative, and unique.  When I first heard Cassandra Clare was writing a steampunk prequel series to her Mortal Instruments saga, my attention was caught.  Keep in mind, I haven't actually read the Mortal Instruments series (feel free to persuade me to do so in the comments section) but I've heard pretty positive things about it.

Back on topic, meet Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare - Book One of the Infernal Devices Series.  First off, I love the title of this work.  I read it and I find myself immediately thinking, "Ooh an angel... made of clockwork?  Is it good or evil?  Who made it?"  And the series name is even more gripping, "What are these Devices? And why are they Infernal?  Is the Clockwork Angel one of them?"

(Oddly enough most of these questions are not answered in this book, though I suppose there's the possibility for revelations in the upcoming entries in the series.  Yes, it's very much a "Book One" - don't expect the story to be concluded when you reach the back cover.) 

I also really love the cover of this book.  The London scene and the gentleman tipping his hat set the backdrop beautifully and the glowing tattoos and the sparkly angel add the steampunk flair.  If there's one thing Clare and her publicity department have mastered it's how to hook a reader before they reach the frontispiece.  I know we all say that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover but that adage applies to humanity much more than to literature.  I'll be the first to argue that plenty of good books have been graced with less than stellar cover art, but I've also yet to meet a bibliophile who won't confess to at least a few cases of book lust based on a drool-worthy book jacket.

Now on to the story:  Theresa "Tessa" Gray is a seemingly normal sixteen year old girl summoned to England to find her brother.  Immediately off the boat in a slightly alternate version of Queen Victoria's realm, Tessa is whisked away by two women known as The Dark Sisters and along with discovering a darker side of London - with witches, warlocks, vampires, and demons - Tessa learns that she herself belongs to this odd sect of Downworlders.  Possessing a unique and powerful talent Tessa draws the attention of a malicious figure known as the Magister and soon aligns herself with the Shadowhunters, a group of warriors known as Nephilim dedicated to battling demons and keeping chaos from reigning over London.  Still determined to find her brother and learn more about her strange ability, Tessa seeks sanctuary at the Institute, the Shadowhunters' base of operations, and becomes ensconced in their world and fascinated by two friends - James and Will - each with their own secrets.

This book took me a while to get into which is odd since the action begins from page one.  I felt that the pacing and intrigue of the story were much more gripping once Tessa arrived at the Institute though the dialog became humorous and enjoyable as soon as Will entered the story.  For the most part, I never connected with Tessa as a heroine.  I felt that she was a bit too passive about her circumstances - this could be attributed to a character trait of the era, yet her behavior towards the male characters in the story never reflected that level of period decorum.  In fact, the only quality in Tessa that I really found myself connecting  or relating to was her love of books.  It was the secondary characters that really saved this novel for me as I found myself really interested in Charlotte, the director of the Institute, as well as James and Will (though I could have enjoyed the book equally or more without the love triangle).  The steampunk side of things was well played, but I do wish it had been expanded even further.  And I still want to know more about the titular clockwork angel. 

As much as I want to protest that I didn't love this book, I do find that I'm eagerly anticipating the second in the series.  The writing was solid and the story catchy enough that I definitely find myself pondering the question of what comes next.  Clockwork Prince is due to be released in December of this year and I look forward to the next episode of this saga. 

I read this book as part of the Tales to Tomes Online Book Club hosted by Tif Talks Books.  If you've read Clockwork Angel and want to join in the discussion, check out the links to our GoodReads discussion group and Twitter feed at Tif's site.  (I can be found on GoodReads here but I don't think I have the first clue of how to be succinct enough for Twitter.)  There's also a Tales To Tomes link up where you can share in other reviews of Clockwork Angel and feel free to vote for future group reads and jump in for June's discussion of Lauren Oliver's Delirium.