New Books for my Birthday!

My birthday was this past weekend (the 23rd, for those of exacting curiosity) and my geeky bookworm side was indulged to the max. Witness below:

On the left, you see 3 books that I purchased just today from Austin’s wonderful BookPeople store with a gift card from my friend Nicholas. I picked a good mix: a modern sci-fi, an epic fantasy, and of course a book all about dragons. I’m eager to dive into them, but my reading attention is currently taken up by the other half of the picture above.

On the afternoon of my birthday, the doorbell rang, a box was delivered, I near broke my back picking it up expecting something lighter, and then I open it. The ENTIRE Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. Sent by none other than my awesome boyfriend, who gets bonus points for being clever and absolutely surprising me. See, I’d first stumbled on this series when I chanced to watch an episode of Legend of the Seeker and got hooked. I found out it was based on this series, which I’d been meaning to read for awhile anyway. I got the first one from the library, thoroughly enjoyed it, and requested the 2nd one, which was checked out but they could put on hold for me when it came back in. And then I waited. And waited, and waited. Longest library hold EVER. I commiserated with my boyfriend on the long wait more than once (he, too, is a fan of the series), and he decided to end my wait and make me squeal girlishly in birthday book excitement all in one fell swoop.

I’m halfway through book 2, Stone of Tears – witness the crease down the spine – and the bookworm inside me is rubbing its hands together maniacally in anticipation of tackling the rest of this haul.

Book Review: Flash Forward

Flash Forward

by Robert J. Sawyer

I won a copy of this book from @torbooks on Twitter in a giveaway they did around the time the TV show based off of it premiered. Overall, I thought it a fairly good read. It did what I like to see science fiction do: use the premise of some science-fictiony event or discovery to explore human psychology and philosophy. The premise in this case being that the entire human race blacks out for two minutes and each person sees a vision of themselves 21 years in the future (and for the record, I think the 21 years gap works a lot better as a story vehicle than the 6 months used in the TV show). Then the world has to deal with what to do about these visions, what they mean, whether they are real, etc. For me the most interesting parts of this story were the worldwide and individual reactions to what happened, and on the individual note I thought it fell just a tad shy of the mark it could’ve hit. Parts of this book focused far too much on the science rather than plot or characters, and it may very well have been valid science and served as an extended explanation, but for me as a reader, that wasn’t what interested me. When it did focus on characters, it was only sometimes believable. Michiko’s reaction to her daughter’s death in the Flash Forward, and Lloyd’s role in that, was completely believable. Lloyd’s reaction to his vision was not as much. And sometimes I thought characters were being unduly stupid. Theo, for instance, the character that learns he will be murdered by three shots to the chest a month before the visions in the Flash Forward – I was tempted to scream at him, “Just wear a bullet-proof vest that day, you idiot!” And don’t go anywhere alone, as he stupidly and inevitably does. He worries and obsesses about it for 20+ years and then just ignores everything he learns? I don’t think so.

The ending was interesting. I’m still on the fence as to whether I liked it or not. It was at once both surprising and not surprising, disappointing and satisfying. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, so I’ll just say that despite the stupidity mentioned above, I ended up liking Theo’s character more than Lloyd’s, and ultimately finding him more believable.

I’ve been watching the TV show based on the book, and so far I like that better overall. It does a much better job of characterization (with a superb cast!) and plot, and they haven’t even gotten to what might have caused the Flash Forward yet, so no chance for it to have gotten bogged down in science speak. It is only very, VERY loosely based on the book though. A few character names are similar (just names, not the characters themselves), and of course the main event of the Flash Forward, but everything else is different.

I give the book 3/5 stars
I give the show 3.5/5 stars (subject to change as the season continues)

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month: http://www.nanowrimo.org

Well, it’s official. I’ve signed up for this madness. Starting on November 1st, I will attempt to write at least 50,000 words of a novel over the course of the following 30 days. If you figure that one page has about 250 words, that works out to about 6-7 pages each day, which doesn’t seem quite as intimidating. I have an idea and rough outline in mind, and strangely enough it’s not going to be of the science fiction or fantasy bent, but a bit more true to life. It’ll still be fiction, but will be set in current times, and be about a very real-world issue for this particular character. Right now I’m leaning towards writing it in first person, even though I know that will bring the inevitable ‘is this about you?’ questions. We’ll see. It will be an interesting exercise, in many ways.

I’ll be posting word count updates on the NaNoWriMo site, so if you’d like to track my progress (and possibly chivvy me along occasionally) you can do so here: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/522485

Any one else out there onboard for this crazy ride?