Stardust

There are some words that will ever haunt you.

"They say that each night, when the duties of state permit, she climbs on foot, and limps, alone, to the highest peak of the palace, where she stands for hour after hour, seeming not to notice the cold peak winds.  She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.

I picked up Neil Gaiman's American Gods years ago, because I heard nothing but wonderful things about him as an author.  Could not get into it.  His writing was too rough around the edges for the girls who loves all things lyrical and flowing.  I ran headlong into the same conundrum when I looked through Neverwhere so I wrote off Gaiman as one of those authors that other people loved and cherished, but that I would never really like.  Obviously, he is very brilliant and successful (hell he's co-written a few Doctor Who episodes), but there was just a stylistic discrepancy that I couldn't reconciled, kind of how I'm viewing Cassandra Clare.

Stardust is different.  Here was that magical, flowing, fairytale language that I crave with a few harsh patches to keep things interesting.  It follows the adventures of young Tristran (for the first half the tale, I thought it was Tristan, which is waaaay easier to pronounce) Thorn in his quest through the land of Faerie to find a fallen star in order to fulfill a promise made to the lovely Victoria Forester whom Tristran (along with every other young man in the village of Wall) is enamored of.  Victoria promises to give Tristan his heart's desire if he brings this back to her, but when she says it, she's only indulging the fantasies of silly shop boy, never dreaming that he would seriously seek to complete such a quest.  The village of Wall sits on the edge of the Faerie world and once every nine years a magical market takes place in the meadow just beyond.  The story begins prior to Tristran being born and actually *spoiler alert* ends after his death, which I found very clever, because it showed that while he is a major player in the turnings of the world, he was not the end all and be all of the world itself.  While Tristran is out on his quest to find this star for love, a witch-queen is also seeking it for the burning heart of a star will bestow eternal youth on her and her sisters, and along side of this there is also a family blood fuel occurring involving three once seven brothers for the right of succession to the mountainous Stormhold. 

The star, Tristran discovers, is not a lump of cold, lifeless metal as he had thought to find, but a beautiful girl with a blue dress, white blonde hair, and a broken leg from where she'd fallen out of the sky.  He binds her with a silver chain made out of materials meant to hold magical/mystical things, and she, of course, hates him for this, but as the journey continues they both change.  By the time they return to Wall after thwarting the witch-queen and resolving the issue of the succession, Tristran realizes that his heart's desire was found in the quest itself, and Vicky Forester was actually betrothed to another prior to their conversation about the star, hence her indulgence of his fantasies.

That bugged me to no end and I was hoping the tale would end as it did, because frankly I thought Victoria Forester was a vindictive twit, and that Tristran could do much better.  I was also bothered by the fact that he was willing to drag this poor star along with him with her broken leg in order to fulfill a promise to a woman who clearly was playing him for a fool.  It made me think less of the character, but ingeniously, this was Gaiman's intent.  The hope that he would turn things around kept me reading, and I'm very happy I was not disappointed. The language and world building in this story are phenomenal.  As I said it's fairytale with rough edges, but polishing such would ruin the effect.  You are left with the idea that much more could be said about the world of Faerie where Tristran dares to venture. Gaiman also incorporates common myths and legends into his world to give you a sense of familiarity.  Things such as the battle between the lion and the unicorn along with the hidden loopholes and obligations in all magical things.  I really can find no fault with this story, and I believe I will be reading his Coraline next.

Four and half stars and now I need to watch the movie.

All of the Fandoms. ALL OF THEM.

I know. I know...I haven't updated in a while.  I've just been BURIED in paperwork.  Really though, I've honestly been so tangled in editing, swapping, and beta-ing along with all of the other insanity in my life that I've neglected my little ol' blog, and this isn't really the post I wanted to do.  I have a list of things I want to writeabout.  Reviews, rants, MFKs, comparisons (yeah yeah, I'm meta-blogging; leave me alone), but alas that will not be done today. Today I'm going to make a list of all of the fandoms I am in.  ALL OF THEM.  FYI they're stacked.  So for example, I'm not only a fan of Doctor Who, but a fan of the 10th doctor.  Please feel free to leave comments talking about all of the fandoms you are in if you so wish.  We can geek out and squee together.  I'm always down for that.

Chances are I'm not going to name every single fandom I participate in because my memory is shit and I'm going to forget at least one.

Final Fantasy
-Final Fantasy VII
-Sephiroth
-Sephiroth & Aeris fanfic parings

Avengers
-Loki
-Tom Hiddleston

Sherlock
-Benedict Cumberbatch

Family Guy
-Stewie
-Seth McFarlane

American Dad
-Roger

Doctor Who
-10th Doctor
-David Tennant
-The Daleks

Community
-Abed
-Troy and Abed
-Joel McHale
-Alison Brie

Dexter

Lord of the Rings

Grumpy Cat

Star Trek
-Captain Picard
-Patrick Stewart

Family Guy MFK

Continuing the MFKs of my favorite things, this week I bring you Family Guy with commentary from my good friend and fellow writer Matthew Dunlap!

Guys: Peter, Brian, Stewie

Peter - Fuck.  Honestly, the only reason I picked fuck is because I couldn't put up with his shennanigans for marriage, and I already figured out who I was going to kill.

Brian - Marry.  He's pretty intelligent even if he can get douchy at times whenever he enjoys even the slightest bit of success.  If he ever got under my skin too much, I could just call animal control and nip that shit in the bud.  Let's not forget that golden singing voice and the fact that he's into big band music.

Stewie - Kill.  We see what happens to Stewie in the future.  A thirty something virgin working a dead end job living with childhood teddy bear (hey...wasn't that the plot of Ted minus the virgin part, hehe).  Sorry Stewie.  You had potential, but you totally failed in your attempts for world domination, and I'm a power hungry bitch.

Girls: Lois, Meg, Bonnie

Lois - Fuck.  Lois was wild and crazy in her bygone days, and we've seen it doesn't take much for her to get that back.  I mean KISS referred to her as "loose Lois."  You would never be bored in bed with her, and if you can get your hands on a time machine or make friends with Death you get to experience 18 year old Lois.  Hawt!

Meg - Kill.  I don't really think I even need to explain this.

Bonnie - Marry. Bonny can put up with a lot of shit.  She's been married to Joe so she's had to take care of someone physically handicapped for a long time.  She would be an awesome wife and totally appreciate it if you had the use of your legs.

Matt's Take

Peter - Fuck.  I can't tolerate his shennanigans for too long.

Brian - Marry.  We'll have good times smoking pot and drinking at upscale jazz bars.

Stewie - Kill.  I don't trust life with him and he's proven to be a terrible lay.

Lois - Marry.  She's a housewife through and through.

Meg - Kill.  Just ew.

Bonnie - Fuck.  She would be a tiger in the bedroom with all that pend up sexual desire.

My Adventures in Editing a Paranormal Romance

Methinks it is time I blogged about editing or in other words wrote about writing (meta alert!).  As many of you know (or don't know depending on who is reading this blog) I have been working on what I considered a dark fantasy for five years.  I finished the actual writing on January 12, 2010 a date I precisely remember because it's my late mother's birthday.  The past three years have been spent editing, submitting queries, being rejecting, becoming extremely depressed/suicidal, gaining a crap ton of weight, finding new encouragement through an amazing support system, writing other stories and fanfics, working on that fore mentioned crap ton of weight, and currently re-editing.  I went from over 212k words to currently just under 140k, which as a non-published writer is one of the most important things ever.  I also decided I was going to market it as a paranormal romance instead of a dark fantasy even though it has elements of the latter, because in a romance novel the big bad doesn't have to be a particular entity but only a situation that keeps the protagonists apart.  The correct genre is something else that is very important in marketing as you don't want to have fifty billion of them when you sub, but just one main one even if the story could fit in several.  I think of the novel more as a Gothic fairytale than anything else, but I'll get to that soon enough.

The novel is titled The Serpent's Tale and it's set in "ye olde olden times" similar to Game of Thrones, Sword of Truth and other similar stories so no tech, shiny swords, and fancy, fancy clothes.  The title is a double entendre to "the Serpent's Tail," which is the name of the main male character's weapon, which is of course a sword because I love swords.  The male MC's name is Uriel, which btw is pronounced "yore-EYE-EL," not "yore-ee-EL" with slightly more emphasis on the middle syllable.  Most people don't say it right and I just kinda decided that during one of my read out loud edits, where I just found myself saying it like that and I liked it.  He's an assassin/dark angel if you couldn't tell the last half of the latter part from his name.  He doesn't really know this yet, although it's pretty damn obvious to everyone else since, well, he looks like an awesome Gothic one, long black hair, gold eyes, paler than white skin, and, oh yeah, a freaking halo.  He's hired by the main religious bigwigs, the Order of the Holy Serpent, to escort/guide/protect Maya, a priestess, to their Holy City way way in the west for reasons unknown, but it's a fairly simple sounding job, and Uriel has a bit (and by a bit I mean HUGE) hero complex so he agrees to do it even though she utterly despises him.  Maya is pretty damn adorable herself (note: I don't write about ugly people.  Life is way too short for that shit).  She looks like a tiny Gothic doll with her dark, wispy hair, and cream complexion, but she obviously doesn't dress the part being a priestess and demure and whatnot.  She's also a virgin.  Important.  Uriel is insanely and inhumanely beautiful, which drives her up a wall because one, his an assassin so ewwy evil! And two she has this idea that she's plain bordering ugly because the other priestesses in her house tell her so.  To the former point this is a huge concept for me because it really delves into the Aesthetic Fallacy idea that I came up with a while ago that TV Tropes essentially nails with its Beauty Equals Goodness page.  I'm still writing an essay on it though!  Beautiful people are not evil and if they are then there are a SLEW of excuses either real or imagined that you can toss out to explain away the bad.  This is a tangent I don't want to get into now, but if you know me think about who I'm the BIGGEST fangirl of.  See?  There you go.

Anyway, Maya hates him, but she's stuck with him because he's her guide to the Holy City, and she also hates admitting that she thinks he's attractive, a problem he shares even though he thinks she's a total brat.  Well something happens where she gets kidnapped by slavers who intend to sell her after they've raped the shit out of her, and after Uriel rescues her, she realizes that are far worse things in the world than him and his existence must serve some purpose after all since he only kills bad people.

This is the part I'm actually at in the editing and I have to tell you...I HATE the part where she gets kidnapped.  HATE HATE HATE IT, but it has to be in there because it's the turning point.  There has been way too much rape rhetoric in currently events because jackasses still believe that a woman could be "asking for it," or the way she's dressed "provokes" men to rape them.  Well, if this is true than men are ravening beasts who can't control their urges and why should women be forced to dress/act a certain way because of this?  If this is the case then maybe men need to be locked up or not allowed to go out at night since they're the one's committing the heinous acts!  *ahem* Excuse me...I'll step down off the pedestal and get back to my novel.  The part after it I love because I can FINALLY show Uriel's true character since he's been all aloof/mysterious prior to this and you're really not sure if he is going to harm her like Maya fears through this first part.  Once she starts seeing him for how he really is he starts showing it.  Of course...this becomes a big problem when feelings get caught by both equally, but they still have obligations to fulfill...

I'll try to keep up with where I am in the editing process and hopefully any of you reading like my bibble babble about this.  This novel has essentially taken over my life.  It was in my head for nearly a decade before I was finally able to write it down, inspired by fanfic, and impossible to ignore.  If I don't write about Uriel and Maya for a few days all I hear is their dialogue in my head or I see scenes play out in my mind.  I'm a writer...did you truly expect me to be sane?

Storm Front (Dresden 1)

Finally finally after much friend recommendations and hullabaloo I started reading Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series, and I absolutely love the first book Storm Front.  Harry Dresden is a modern day wizard who plays detective in this well written urban fantasy.  He's been a bit down on his luck and late on the rent when he gets a phone call from a mysterious "Monica," who asks him to find out what her husband has been up to.  Not his typical work, but he could use the money, and one of Harry's weaknesses it not being able to avoid damsels in distress.  He agrees to meet with this Monica lady, but before that appointment he gets another more urgent call from Karrin Murphy of the Chicago police about two dead bodies that she needs him to look at asap.  Harry also works as a consultant for the Chicago PD.  It pays the bills and gets him out of the office.

Thus starts absolute insanity.  You're reading and thinking, Okay, he's going to go take a look at these bodies and get back in time to meet with this Monica chick, but then he gets kinda kidnapped by the mob on the way back to his office, what WHAT?!  THAT'S THE ENTIRE NOVEL!  Stuff just keeps happening to him.  Like how he had a date with one woman forgets about a date with another who shows up at his door right before they get attacked by a toad demon and he accidentally gives her a love potion that he HAD to make to get Bob the Skull to cooperate.  They wind up in a magic circle to ward of the demon and did I mention that Harry is naked because he was in the shower when his date came calling?  Yeah, that's what it is.  I heard friends describe Dresden using the phrase "It's like Harry riding a dinosaur down the streets of Chicago."  This is the absolute best description.  The plotting is so twisty, cohesive, and well done (Butcher is a Scorpio, the kings of super secrecy).  His snarkiness is appropriate and amusing, and some of the descriptions and metaphors are downright beautiful.  They come as surprising in this often very gritty world that still has room for pizza craving fairies.

Basically, Harry gets involved trying to nab a serial killer who's using magic to literally rip peoples' hearts right out of their bodies, bolstering their magic by using the power of storms, and the chase becomes more desperate when he's next on the list.  The B plot is what's going on with Monica and her husband, and Butcher is a genius at twining these two together.  Our resident wizard detective is also trying to keep out of the fire himself since the White Council of wizards is looking for any excuse to execute him.  Harry was forced to kill his magic mentor who turned evil, and since killing with magic is a big no no even for self-defense, they decide to put him on wizard probation. 

Many times I felt as though I'd been plunked down in the midst of this world, but I wasn't unhappy about it.  There's so much on the outer edges that you're just hoping you'll find out about as the novels progress.  I actually wondered and double checked that I was reading the first book in the series.  I was and I intend to read the next and the next until I'm caught up.  Looking back I'm surprised I didn't see a major plot point all along, but that is the mark of a good writer: being able to throw all the clues out there, but still managing to surprise the reader in the end.

4 stars.

MFK - Final Fantasy VII

I figured it was time to do an MFK of my all time favorite thing in the universe.  Fellow blogger Kat McIntyre of Rants on Unicorns and Spaceships fame may chime in!

Guys: Cloud, Vincent, Sephiroth
Girls: Tifa, Yuffie, Aeris

Guys:

Cloud - Kill.  Sorry Cloud you didn't become a useful human being until after the girl you were supposed to protect was killed right in front of you.  Then you went into heroic BSOD for a while and let your other love interest handle things.  Hell, even after she was killed Aeris did way more than you ever could.  You're kinda cute, but you have to die.  Sorry.

Vincent - Marry.  Poor Vincent...the woman you loved was used for a sick experiment by an even sicker mad scientist then you had your arm cut off and were locked in a coffin beneath the Shinra Mansion for what 30 years?  And you STILL love her?!  You don't find that kind of devotion every day, plus you're a pretty goth boy sort of vampire/werewolf thing, which was okay before Twilight ruined everything.

Sephiroth - Sweet merciful Cthulhu FUCK FUCK FUCK and then FUCK some more.  Not only did one of the songs associate with you just come on my iPhone (Chasing the Storm) because the universe just KNOWS, but oh my God...I can't even.   I wouldn't even have the muscle control to fall to my knees; I would just fall over.  I would be like when Dean Pelton saw Jeff wearing aviators and just laid there convulsing and screaming "Look at his shadow!"  I am so lucky that no one in real life is actually that beautiful because I would be done.  My life would equal over.  I don't even care about the insanity.  That just makes it better.

Girls:

Tifa - Fuck.  She has an awesome rack and is a martial artist.  Sounds like a phenomenal romp.

Yuffie - Kill.  You annoyed the crap out of me Yuffie.  I had no use for you at all.

Aeris - Marry.  Um, she's "heiress" to the Planet (yeah...I know her name was supposed to be "Aerith," which is still an anagram for "I Earth," don't get sassy!) and was the most powerful person in the entire game (think about it for a moment).  She managed to save everyone even after or rather because she was martyred, which is the point where all of you "Phoenix Down" people need to shut the hell up.  Dying in game because you get killed by an enemy is far different from dying as a plot point. Think about it as if it were a novel.  Gah, this will turn into a rant really soon if I keep it up.  Suffice it to say I'm attracted to power.

Kat McIntyre's Take.

Guys:

Cloud - Kill.  He gets kinda wangsty at times and with how big that buster sword is, he's obviously overcompensating.

Vincent - Marry.  He had excellent fashion taste (come on, who doesn't love that red cloak).  Besides, he's quiet and aloof, just the way I like 'em.

Sephiroth - Fuck.  Come on, who doesn't want to take a tumble with a bad boy?

Girls:

Yuffie - Marry.  Yes, I'm probably the only person on the planet who'd pick her, but I loved Yuffie.  Tiny, hyper, ninja chick.

Tifa - Fuck.  She's the bangable girl next door!  Who wouldn't give that a go.

Aeris - Kill.  Sorry Aeris, but you're going to end up as Lifestream stew.

The Resolution Revolution

Tis the time of the year (the beginning?) where everyone is a resolutionist.  It's when we decide that we sucked way too hard the last 365 days and something needs to happen to change that.  Since I've been making the necessary steps to lose weight and since I quit smoking several years ago, I decided I'd make one simple promise to myself: finish what I've started.

Way too many projects have been left by the wayside.  Far too many series have yet to be finished and I dare no mention how many video games have remained unended.  And since I like making lists here it is!

1.  Finish watching Doctor Who - I kinda stopped at the beginning of season 5 because one, I was pouty that David Tennant had been replaced with Matt Smith, and two, I had just received the absolute WORST beta review from the world's biggest douche bag.

2.  Various and sundry books - I've been really neglecting this and it's very sad.  I used to read close to 50 books a year.  Now I'm lucky if I read 10.  Let's split the difference and go for 25.

3.  Finish Final Fantasy VII - OMG *shock and awe from the populace*  Yes...I've never finished FFVII.  It's ironic...I'm aware.  I have seen the ending; I've just never finished it myself. 

4.  Finish editing The Serpent's Tale - Most important thing EVER!  As much as I was uber annoyed with myself for not catching a lot of stuff the first ten times around, I'm trying to be nice to myself with this one, especially owing to something that happened near the end of last year.

This list is no exclusive and most certainly not complete.  I may add to it or I may just start another blog post.  Haven't decided yet, but as you all know I do what I want.