Wed Reading Meme...
Apr. 20th, 2016 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. I meant to work a bit more on my sci-fi novel tonight, but alas, I'm drawing a blank. So either after dinner or tomorrow...
Inkitt sent me a tweet, asking if I'd publish a book with them. So I checked them out. Alas, it's not that easy. If I wanted to have them publish the book that I recently self-published through CreateSpace, I'd have to reformat it to their specifications, re-edit, and then send. Also, there's no guarantee they'd publish it. The book would be entered into a contest with other books, where readers would get the chance to rip it apart, critique it, and decide if it was worthy of publishing or needed to be edited and rewritten. (The group online edit approach utilized by writers such as EL James, Jamie McGuirre, and various other push to publish fanfic authors.) I don't like this approach for various reasons...which I probably shouldn't go into here. So no, not for me. If you think it is for you -- feel free.
2. Lovely day. As the subway clicked and clacked its way across the bridge, I looked out at the skyline. The blue sky and the city below and inside of it. Bathed in light. Buildings of various shapes and sizes shrouded against that bright shiny turquoise blue, no clouds, not a blemish. NYC is an interesting city, its buildings are all shapes and sizes, some squat, some tall, some filled with nothing but glass. It can be insanely beautiful at times.
3. Wednesday Reading Meme
* What I just finished reading?
Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs -- eh, better than the first novel, but not by much.
Nothing really new here in regards to vampires. Although to be fair, is there really anything new that can be said about vampires? I do, however, like the heroine quite a bit. She's a spunky, thirty-something, mechanic. Which is rare, they are usually in their early to mid-twenties, and cops, agents, bounty hunters, or inept detectives. Mercy Thompson is actually fairly bright, and adept.
She's good at figuring things out. And tends to save the macho heroes most of the time.
The mythology, oddly, is German. Okay, maybe not so oddly, since that's the writer's background, German history, language, and mythology. But the book takes place in the West, or Tri-Cities, I think somewhere near Illinois or Montana, not sure. And the main character is Native American. I was hoping for more Native American history and folklore. German seems a bit out of place here. But whatever.
It's at least different.
* What I'm reading now?
Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs -- this is apparently everyone on Good Reads and Amazon's favorite of the series. Even though, the heroine gets raped in it. Yes, I knew about it ahead of time.
Not the specifics, just that it is brutal and a big deal. And apparently is highly controversial.
Brigg's does admittedly have a tendency to heal the heroine a bit faster than she should. I noticed that in Blood Bound. The heroine in Blood Bound gets beaten up rather badly, yet, manages to go to work the next day. I'm like...I don't think so. It's a problem in this genre, because, let's face it, it's boring to have your lead point of view character lying around in bed for weeks on end, healing. Sort of kills the action. Got to get them up and at it again. Illona Andrews gets around this problem by having a healer -- magically heal the heroine. Most writers seem to do that. Briggs...hasn't come up with a nifty trick..outside of hoping the reader doesn't notice. Sorry, Briggs, the readers notice.
As for the rape, this isn't a trigger for me in books. Sexual violence doesn't bug me any more than any other violence does -- particularly not in books. Television shows? Yes. Movies? Definitely. Books? No. My 10 year old neice stated this quite well a year or so ago, when she was still 10 - "with books, you don't see it. It's not as real. It's not burned on your brain. When you see it in a movie or television show...you just can't not see it any more." Particularly if you think visually, which apparently we both do. And have a visual memory.
So, I didn't really understand the incessant whining about the rape in the reviews. Haven't gotten to it yet...so I could change my mind. I think it works in urban fantasy and women's fiction -- because it is the boogey man for most women. You can't be female and not fear it. That's why it comes up in so many romance novels and genre fiction written by women. Particularly anything in the gothic or horror tropes.
The difficulty I have with it...is it has become a bit of a cliche over time. Too many writers have used it as a plot twist or plot point to either keep the hero/heroine apart or shake up the heroine, and I'm not sure it's necessary.
*What I'm reading next?
Probably Bone Crossed by Briggs. Haven't made it very far with Hamilton, mainly because I've been binging on Brigg's books.
4.) More political news...the NY Primary has resulted in a class action lawsuit against the Board of Elections.
Tuesday’s voting in the New York primary was marked by chaos, particularly in Brooklyn, as tens of thousands of voters found their names had been removed from the polling rolls or that they were unable to vote at their polling station. The New York City Elections Board has confirmed that more than 125,000 Brooklyn voters had been removed from the voter rolls since November 2015. There were also reports that polling staff were unable to operate voting machines, gave out conflicting information and erroneously directed voters to alternate sites. In a statement, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said, "It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists." We speak to Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
And...from gothamist:
New York Voters Sue Board of Elections.
Like, I said previously, this is going to be an interesting election. With any luck it may motivate us to overhaul our election process. It's 180 years old, time for a bit of an overhaul.
Inkitt sent me a tweet, asking if I'd publish a book with them. So I checked them out. Alas, it's not that easy. If I wanted to have them publish the book that I recently self-published through CreateSpace, I'd have to reformat it to their specifications, re-edit, and then send. Also, there's no guarantee they'd publish it. The book would be entered into a contest with other books, where readers would get the chance to rip it apart, critique it, and decide if it was worthy of publishing or needed to be edited and rewritten. (The group online edit approach utilized by writers such as EL James, Jamie McGuirre, and various other push to publish fanfic authors.) I don't like this approach for various reasons...which I probably shouldn't go into here. So no, not for me. If you think it is for you -- feel free.
2. Lovely day. As the subway clicked and clacked its way across the bridge, I looked out at the skyline. The blue sky and the city below and inside of it. Bathed in light. Buildings of various shapes and sizes shrouded against that bright shiny turquoise blue, no clouds, not a blemish. NYC is an interesting city, its buildings are all shapes and sizes, some squat, some tall, some filled with nothing but glass. It can be insanely beautiful at times.
3. Wednesday Reading Meme
* What I just finished reading?
Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs -- eh, better than the first novel, but not by much.
Nothing really new here in regards to vampires. Although to be fair, is there really anything new that can be said about vampires? I do, however, like the heroine quite a bit. She's a spunky, thirty-something, mechanic. Which is rare, they are usually in their early to mid-twenties, and cops, agents, bounty hunters, or inept detectives. Mercy Thompson is actually fairly bright, and adept.
She's good at figuring things out. And tends to save the macho heroes most of the time.
The mythology, oddly, is German. Okay, maybe not so oddly, since that's the writer's background, German history, language, and mythology. But the book takes place in the West, or Tri-Cities, I think somewhere near Illinois or Montana, not sure. And the main character is Native American. I was hoping for more Native American history and folklore. German seems a bit out of place here. But whatever.
It's at least different.
* What I'm reading now?
Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs -- this is apparently everyone on Good Reads and Amazon's favorite of the series. Even though, the heroine gets raped in it. Yes, I knew about it ahead of time.
Not the specifics, just that it is brutal and a big deal. And apparently is highly controversial.
Brigg's does admittedly have a tendency to heal the heroine a bit faster than she should. I noticed that in Blood Bound. The heroine in Blood Bound gets beaten up rather badly, yet, manages to go to work the next day. I'm like...I don't think so. It's a problem in this genre, because, let's face it, it's boring to have your lead point of view character lying around in bed for weeks on end, healing. Sort of kills the action. Got to get them up and at it again. Illona Andrews gets around this problem by having a healer -- magically heal the heroine. Most writers seem to do that. Briggs...hasn't come up with a nifty trick..outside of hoping the reader doesn't notice. Sorry, Briggs, the readers notice.
As for the rape, this isn't a trigger for me in books. Sexual violence doesn't bug me any more than any other violence does -- particularly not in books. Television shows? Yes. Movies? Definitely. Books? No. My 10 year old neice stated this quite well a year or so ago, when she was still 10 - "with books, you don't see it. It's not as real. It's not burned on your brain. When you see it in a movie or television show...you just can't not see it any more." Particularly if you think visually, which apparently we both do. And have a visual memory.
So, I didn't really understand the incessant whining about the rape in the reviews. Haven't gotten to it yet...so I could change my mind. I think it works in urban fantasy and women's fiction -- because it is the boogey man for most women. You can't be female and not fear it. That's why it comes up in so many romance novels and genre fiction written by women. Particularly anything in the gothic or horror tropes.
The difficulty I have with it...is it has become a bit of a cliche over time. Too many writers have used it as a plot twist or plot point to either keep the hero/heroine apart or shake up the heroine, and I'm not sure it's necessary.
*What I'm reading next?
Probably Bone Crossed by Briggs. Haven't made it very far with Hamilton, mainly because I've been binging on Brigg's books.
4.) More political news...the NY Primary has resulted in a class action lawsuit against the Board of Elections.
Tuesday’s voting in the New York primary was marked by chaos, particularly in Brooklyn, as tens of thousands of voters found their names had been removed from the polling rolls or that they were unable to vote at their polling station. The New York City Elections Board has confirmed that more than 125,000 Brooklyn voters had been removed from the voter rolls since November 2015. There were also reports that polling staff were unable to operate voting machines, gave out conflicting information and erroneously directed voters to alternate sites. In a statement, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said, "It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists." We speak to Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
And...from gothamist:
New York Voters Sue Board of Elections.
Dozens of New York voters are suing the state, saying that their voter registration changed without their input, costing them the ability to vote in Tuesday's primary. The lawsuit, filed this afternoon in Long Island federal court by the group Election Justice USA, argues that the voters' alleged registration changes deny them equal protection under the constitution, and demands a blanket order allowing "tens of thousands" of potential plaintiffs to vote in tomorrow's presidential primary.
"Plaintiffs are in imminent harm of losing their right to vote," the suit reads. "They have beseeched the various Boards of Elections without result. Nothing can save their right to vote save an order from this Court."
New York's primaries are closed, meaning only members of a given party can vote in that party's primary, and the deadline to change parties is more than six months before Primary Day, the earliest in the country. Those who signed onto the lawsuit say that their paperwork was in order, and in many cases they had voted repeatedly in Democratic primaries from the same address, but that recent checks of their voter registrations revealed that their party had been changed or could not be found at all. The accounts echo online reports of other spurned would-be voters.
"We were seeing an alarming number of voter affiliations changed without people's knowledge or consent, people who were registered listed as not registered," said Shyla Nelson, a spokeswoman for Election Justice USA.
As the primary neared and the group solicited accounts of irregularities, reports poured in, she said: "What started as a trickle is now a river."
More than 200 voters signed onto the lawsuit, Nelson said on Friday (she was still tallying late additions this afternoon as lawyers pushed up against the close-of-court deadline).
Like, I said previously, this is going to be an interesting election. With any luck it may motivate us to overhaul our election process. It's 180 years old, time for a bit of an overhaul.