Disclaimer
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2009
The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent anyone else's view in any way, including those of my employer.
© Copyright 2009
I wish I had a time machine to get more out of my day.
I am currently back into a new session of Taekwondo and have started Pilates. Oh boy. Dunno how that is gonna go, but it has cut into my free reading time. I order a ton of my books from Amazon, but I wish I had a B&N or Borders closer so I could peruse the shelves. My husband tries to tell me that it’s better to buy off of Amazon but the feelings just aren’t the same as being able to flip through a book and actually give it a test drive before you buy it.
This month has been a slow month on books. None of my favorite authors have published anything new. So I await the end of January and beginning of February for the glut of books coming out.
More later as it is time to go practice and then go to pilates class.
I’ve been busy. I wish I could tell you it was doing something fun, but I can’t so we will ignore it and move on. I’ve been reading a lot, and some of it is new and some of it is old. So, here’s the list:
It’s not a lot, but then again I didn’t mention everything I’ve read. That would probably bore you. Reading through reviews and the forums on Amazon I came across something strange. General anger about Authors switching genres.
I have read all of the Laurell K Hamilton books (except the Star Trek and Ravenloft junk) and here’s the deal… I don’t care for the way her books went after Obsidian Butterfly in the Anita Blake series. I didn’t really care for Obisian Butterfly either but there was a marked difference in the books after. Less plot more sex. Then she started a new series with the Meredith Gentry books and she clearly meant them to be the vehicle with which she got to fully explore sex. I’m fine with that. I wasn’t fine with how the Anita Blake books devolved. It went from Urban Fantasy to Romance.
Apparently this cross genre jumping is driving people nuts.
I also read JR Ward’s Brotherhood series. I enjoy it, and yeah sometimes all the extra hhhhh’s she adds to accentuate the difference between human and vampire gets a little silly…er a lot silly. So she published a new book this year and people were unhappy with her jump from Romance to Urban Fantasy. I really didn’t have a problem with it because the story is still there at least it wasn’t all pointless sex with little plot.
Another author that I’ve been reading has been Karen Moning. There is also a subset of people who are upset about her jump from Romance to Urban Fantasy. Especially with how dark the ending was on her new book Faefever. People are getting upset because it’s lacking the sexiness of the Highland series.
So what’s the big difference between Romance and Urban Fantasy? And why does it irk people when authors jump ship to a different genre?
It appears that this Wordpress Blogger came across a lot of the same issues.
I’ve gotten to the point where I wish booksellers would just combine all fiction into one group. I hate going to the Fantasy section to pick one book then find what I want out of the horror section and then run the Romance to make sure I didn’t miss anything.
Now for some reviews:
Swallowing Darkness
Who didn’t snicker when they read the title? And the next Anita Blake book is called Skin Trade. Good grief. Does she really take herself seriously?
I found this book a departure from the rest of the series. It had less sex. I think only a chapter was sex and the rest actual quasi plot. Hamilton’s language in the book was what led it astray for me. The dialogue was so stilted it was terrible, it didn’t flow and was almost boring to read. I put it down several times to go do other things hoping that it was just my mood that influencing my boredom.
It was rather nice to see her back on track, but I think with this series she just isn’t into writing it. I’ve read a few reviews that mentioned this book almost seemed to be the end of the series, as in what would be the point to add more to it. I agree with that. This would have been a safe ending.
Acheron
A lot of people didn’t like the first half of the book. It was rough, dirty, and not at all comfortable. It detailed the life of the main character Acheron. The first half of the book dealt with the mistreatment of Acheron from the time he was born up until his rebirth from being killed by Apollo. Readers had a hard time with it because it was about child slavery and rape. It wasn’t Kenyon’s normal fare. I thought she had written it well and it did an ample job of putting you in the Ash’s mindset for the rest of the book. The second part of the book was a typical Dark Hunter novel, but thank god she went as far as ending the relationship with Artemis. I like to see authors grow out of a segment of writing and advance a plot. Overall I enjoyed the book and it has become a favorite book. It’s a little bit of harsh with a little bit of sweet.
In two weeks I test for a green belt in Taekwondo. I have some trepidation about this because at green the sparring starts. While I totally enjoy learning the forms and sparring stances, I don’t know how I feel about actually trying to hit someone. I played soccer when I was younger and even though they say it’s not a contact sport it required a certain amount of physicality. Playing soccer had some pushing and shoving and tripping….Taekwondo is actually the art of striking with the hands and the feet. So we’ll see.
I’m really diggin’ the Old Man Logan series in the Marvel series ‘Wolverine‘. It’s been awhile since any of the x-books have interested me. I used to collect them avidly until the movies came out and created a ton of spin-offs. I didn’t have the time or the money to spend on them so I gave them up. I just started getting the current x-books via a retailer that gives me the retail cost on comics and so far I’ve been pretty happy with the new story line in Wolverine.
I want to pick up the Deadlands RPG, but am unsure of weather to pick up the old edition or the reloaded edition. I hear (via amazon reviews) that the new books is prettier and more consolidated..that it’s missing some of the ‘feel’ of the original.
