Let's Talk About Sequels...

It used to be that the majority of books outside of the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre were stand alone books. (Yes, I remember when they used to be one section in the back of the book store but that's a story for another day.) Now it seems that everyone writes sequels and prequels and postquels ad infinitum but is this necessarily a good thing? 

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for continuing the story - I like to settle down into a world and get to know the characters. I love when beloved characters from earlier books show up later in the series to make a cameo appearance, it's sort of like checking in on an old friend. Too much of a good thing though, and you get what I call the Capitalism Effect. It goes something like this...

An author publishes a few good books in a series, they sell like hotcakes, the public wants more, and the publishing company sees a good thing. Then they push it that few steps too far. Rather than allowing the series to develop naturally, they sign the author to a multibook megacontract, forcing them to fulfill a preset number of books. The publishing house will make money because most people will continue to buy the books but the quality isn't always there.

Case in point, Charlaine Harris. I adore Charlaine Harris. She is a delight in person and her books are quirky and fun. Long before True Blood (and we'll talk another day about movie/TV adaptations), I discovered her Sookie Stackhouse series. Sookie is a treat - down to earth, funny, and with a penchant for getting in over her head in the supernatural world. I can honestly say that I enjoyed books 1 through about 7 in the series and after that they sort of drooped. A storyline that would make a good short story was pulled and stretched into a novel. Rules were changed. Details were missed. I still read them but something was missing.


Now, I just finished reading the 11th book in the series and I'm eagerly awaiting the 12th (and last). The magic is back. There was no meandering. Charlaine Harris clearly has an end in mind and everything is moving in that direction. Personally, I think she could have happily ended the series about 4 books ago but then the publishing company wouldn't have been able to squeeze all those extra books' worth of profit out of her. This makes me sad. I would rather read 4 well-crafted books, than 8 so-so books. I would like to think that I am not in the minority, that there are plenty of other people out there who value quality writing over quantity, but the sheer number of authors who currently publish multiple books a year suggests otherwise.


In defense of Charlaine Harris, I feel compelled to mention that she is not alone and that even on an off book, her writing is still superior to a lot of the dreck out there. There are so many authors who started out writing good books but the more books they publish, the faster they publish, the more disappointing the results. It's not all the publishing houses. The demand is there. We don't like to wait. We can get a book delivered to our device immediately at midnight the night it comes out and within days are clamoring for the next. Perhaps we should go back to publishing books the way Dickens did - in weekly installments. But would we soon be chafing over the 6 day wait?  What do you think?

Silver Linings And Sparkly Vampires

No girl should ever have to decide between a vampire and a werewolf but if she does, and she happens to weigh 92 pounds, live in the Pacific Northwest, and run around with blue lips most of the time, she should pick the warm-blooded one. It's just more practical.


As promised, here is the story of how I came to read the Twilight books...


I adore Charles de Lint. He's a delightful man and I have huge amounts of respect for his body of work. As far as I'm concerned, Urban Fantasy owes its current revival to him. He is the original and if you want to read the best, start with his Newford books. They aren't a series because he doesn't believe in them but they are all set in the same world with many repeat characters. Pick up any one - each book is a complete story and can be read on its own. But I digress.


I attended one of his book signings several years ago. I had his current YA book signed for my little sister, Traci. He asked who Traci was and we had an actual conversation (rare for book signings in my experience) about how I had moved to Portland from Arizona to get away from the sun but I missed my family, so Traci and I would read the same books and then talk about them as a way to stay connected. He thought this was a wonderful idea. And then this light came on behind his eyes, he perked up, and made his assistant go find him a piece of paper. He knew what book we had to read next - a book about a girl who moves from Arizona to the Pacific NW and meets vampires who live there to get away from the sun. He had only read the first one but he enjoyed it and thought the series showed promise.


At this point in time, there was no Team Edward or Team Jacob. The books were new enough that I hadn't even heard of them. Besides, what would you do if your literary idol told you to read a book? I bought the book. We read it. We read all of them.


I will say that I enjoyed the first book. I'm a sucker for a vampire story. I was less than fond of Bella in the beginning, and by the last book, I downright disliked her but I still wanted to know how it would end. I was fairly certain she'd end up with Edward but held out hope for the underdog (pun intended). Edward is a teenage girl's dream - he lives for her, moons over her, cuddles endlessly without pressuring for sex, drives a fast car, and even saves her life. Jacob did all of the above with the exception of living for her, he has his own life and his own challenges.  Plus, being with Jacob had the added bonus that it wouldn't have disrupted (or ended) her life. He even encourages her to live her life and to be herself. All Bella does with Edward is love him. She has very little identity of her own. So why choose the vampire? With Edward, Bella also gets a family that adores her to unreasonable lengths. I believe absolutely in the importance of family, the family you're born with and the one you choose, but it bothers me that she had to give up one family to gain another for all time. It also bothers me that I now think of vampires in terms of the Mormon faith. 


To say that I was disappointed in the ending would be understating it. Vampires can't have babies. Not even sparkly Mormon vampires. Becoming a mother destroys what little was left of Bella's self-identity. Not to mention that the ludicrous pseudo-compromise of Jacob imprinting on Bella's baby was just disturbing. I don't regret reading the books though. There is a silver lining in all of this, and that is thousands of teenage girls asking for romance and chivalry, demanding to be treated as well as Bella was treated, and putting the emphasis on emotions, rather than sex. Maybe expecting a boy to save your life is a bit over the top but asking a boy to respect that you're not ready for sex is a damn good trend. So thank you, Mr. de Lint, I'm glad that I read the books and even more glad that Traci and I got to talk about them.

Don't judge a book by the hype...

I'll do my best to make this relatively spoiler-free, in case you've somehow managed to not read the book or see the movie...

When pretty much anything, be it book, movie, actor, musician, or product, gets too popular, it's easy to dismiss. The backlash begins almost immediately with anti-(whatever it is this week) comments and jokes. The negative bandwagon is an easier one on which to hitch a ride. It's almost reflexive. Anything with that much hype can't be any good. But what about when it is? 


I finished reading the last book of The Hunger Games today. I cried. It's not about beautifully written prose or a carefully worded phrase, although there was a bit of that as well. It's about a girl who finds herself swept up into something bigger than she can ever hope to control. Her whole world is coming apart and they've chosen her as the poster child for the rebellion. In the midst of incredible pressure, she does the most courageous thing she can - she narrows it down to a fight to save herself and those she loves.
 
It's a complicated story. There is very little that is black or white but rather a whole lot of gray confusion. It's about breaking, and being broken, and putting yourself back together.  There is violence and blood and death and torture and beauty and love and friendship and hope. There is a love story, if you want to call it that, but it's not the center of the book. Romance takes a backseat to survival, which it should. 

Best of all, there is no fairy tale 'shove the bad under the carpet' happy ending. There are consequences; there is a price to be paid by everyone, not just the bad guys or the ones who don't make it, but the survivors as well. It's messy. It's real. I didn't feel cheated or tricked at the end because the end fit, it made as much sense as could be made after all the tragedy and violence and upheaval.
 
Hats off to Suzanne Collins for not taking the easy way out, for not bowing to pressure from her audience like some other YA authors have done and forcing a happy ending, and for acknowledging that being young doesn't mean that you don't understand the big stuff. If you haven't already read The Hunger Games, give it a shot. You just might be surprised. Or not. Let me know.

The Dragonriders of Pern

My parents divorced when I was 10 and we moved temporarily into the house built for my grandparents' eventual retirement. There was only one proper bedroom but upstairs were two lofts - one filled with twin beds and the other filled with books. I'll let you guess where I spent most of my time.


Up to this point, my favorite book had been The Hobbit but much as I loved it, there was really no place for girls in Tolkien's Middle-earth. Dragonflight was the first book that I remember wanting to live in; I could picture myself at Benden Weyr. Of course, I wanted to Impress a dragon, which makes me giggle a bit because I've since developed vertigo and it's funny to think that I used to want to fly.


Anne McCaffrey passed away last November and I'm ashamed to say that a friend's post about her death triggered the first thought I had had of her books in at least a decade, maybe longer, but when I decided to start this blog, hers was the first name that came to mind and I knew I had to reread at least the first book.


So, I bought the trilogy for my Kindle (yes, it's blasphemy but how else can I carry a library with me wherever I go?) and with the first page, I was hooked. I know how the books end. I know the storyline and the characters. It didn't matter. I stayed up reading until 3am because I couldn't bear to stop.


Perhaps The Dragonriders of Pern isn't literature, perhaps it's Fantasy and not even 'proper' Science Fiction, but Anne McCaffrey created a world in which women could be heroes and when she first wrote it, it was a new and daring premise.  And she told a damn good story. I remember being young and slightly lost and feeling more at home in the pages of her book than I did in real life. 

Almost 30 years later, and it's still a good story with well-drawn characters, a fascinating world, and excellent pacing, but its hero is no longer unusual. I love that it's become normal for girls to be heroes in our fiction because fiction, especially Fantasy and Science Fiction, is a safe place to explore new ideas, it opens doors and gives people the idea that they can walk through them confidently.  

Thank you, Anne, for Pern and all who follow in your footsteps.

Greetings and salutations!

Inspired by my cousin to start a blog, my first thought was, "Yes, but about what do I write?" The answer came as quickly, "Books, silly." So here we are.


Books, and more importantly, stories, have been a large part of my life for as long as I can remember. I taught myself to read because my mother insisted on stopping at the end of the chapter at a reasonable bedtime when she read to us, even if that left Bilbo in some rather precarious positions. (Anyone remember the giant spiderweb fiasco?)


Since then I have read and continue to read a little bit of everything. I lean toward character-driven narrative over plot. I adore Jane Austen but also Charlaine Harris. I've even read Twilight. Don't judge. I'll tell you the story one day of how one of my favorite authors suggested that I read it.


In case you hadn't guessed, this blog will be mostly about books - books I love and books I hate, books that inspire me or make me think, and books that make me twitch. I'll probably talk about being a reader and the smell of books and the glory that is a good used bookstore but I'll try not to stray too far off topic.


I thought I would start by rereading some old favorites from my past. We'll see where it takes us from there.