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Wed Book Meme...
I've a bunch of doves, sparrows, cardinals, and robins, also pigeons, tweeting in the backyards behind my building. My living room windows look out on a bunch of tree tops - so I see the birds, along with an occasional squirrel in them. I've debated buying a bird feeder - but I've no idea how I'd attach it to the back of a window without killing myself in the process. And it's not really necessary? They perch on my wide window sill all on their own.
***
I finished, Illona Andrews' The Inheritance (Breach-World Series #1) - which is a survival/adventure story not a romance, and if you are at all familiar with the writer - is most likely within the Innkeeper and Bayou world-building, it has similar characters and a similar tone/writing style to those two series, albeit without the romantic elements.
The book is hard to describe? There's a lot of world-building. And it has a convoluted plot. But I'll take a crack at it? Somewhere in the future, a series of portal or gates open up on earth - unleashing otherworldly creatures that attack people - to combat them - earth sends teams into the gates, who destroy an anchor to the world sending the monsters. After the gates opened, some people on earth developed Talents - either combatant or non-combatant talents. These people are enlisted or employed to enter the breach - to assess for minerals or items to help them or fight the monsters and destroy the anchor that allows the monsters to invade and attack them. It has two POV's - a first person point of view and a third person close point of view. The First Person POV is a forty-year old woman single mother, who is an assessor of minerals and otherworldly substances in gates or breach worlds. She enters one of the gates with a specialist team of twelve people both miners and combatants to assess it for valuable minerals and plants, and to destroy the anchor. While the assessor is from the government, the rest are from specific "privately" incorporated and run guilds which are assigned gates. Unfortunately, when her team enters the gate - they run into something unexpected, people being people don't ahem, react well to it, and much chaos ensues, leaving the protagonist, Ada, fighting to survive by herself with just a big German Shepard named Bear for company. On the outside - on earth, there's Elias (the second point of view) - who is head of the guild (whose team members kind of screwed up?) and he's trying to figure out went wrong, and the two who screwed up aren't talking. We jump back and forth between the two point of views. They don't meet up until the last ten pages of the book? And Ada is very wary of Elias, and they don't have much reason to trust each other. So this is definitely not a romance novel - it's a science-fiction survival story and what the heck happened investigation, which is a huge story kink of mine. I love stuff like this. Mystery/Survival/Sci-Fi Hybrids are my favorite. (Also reminds me a little bit of a video game.)
It's the first book - I sped through in a while. So fingers crossed that the reading slump from hell has ended? Not wishing to tempt fate, I'm trying an earlier series by the writers - The Kinsman Series - which has two novellas, a short story, and a book length book involved in it. I don't know - but it appears to be more along the lines of romance fantasy or romance sci-fi, which isn't really my thing? But it might work. Who knows? At least the writers write strong female characters for the most part. Also the books are dirt cheap. The first ebook was $4.99, and the other was free on Kindle Unlimited.
***
Flirting with the television series Succession - which I'm told gets really good after the third or fourth episode, and takes off in the sixth episode. This is unfortunately true of a lot of television series? Particularly HBO series that fall under the category of hyper-realism.
Also flirting with the c-drama, Pursuit of Jade - of which there are 40 episodes on Netflix, it's in Mandarin with subtitles, and is...very pretty on the eyes? Honestly the cinematography is amazing for a television series. It's a historical action/adventure romance. I may continue - it's pretty and kind of relaxing to watch? Considering I have subtitles or closed captioning on half the time anyhow...not sure it matters? I have more issues with it for animated series. Mainly because it's hard to see the close captioning through the animation - they have a tendency to put it in white.
***
Catching up on March Question a Day Meme:
23. When was the last time you ate some chocolate?
About an hour and fifteen minutes ago. It's my main vice. And I'm not giving it up.
24. Harry Houdini was born today in 1874. Are you a fan of magic shows? Have you ever seen someone perform close-up magic?
Depends on the magic show? For the most part I enjoy them? But I also know some of the tricks?
Yes, more than once. I was even pulled into the act once on a girl scout retreat with my father when I was roughly speaking 10 years of age? The magician asked me to be his assistant, and then he kept trying to get me to put my finger or hand in a chopping block and I kept refusing, he enjoyed that (it helped the act), until he finally convinced me to do it. I was teased about it by various fathers and kids afterwards, not my own - who wasn't into teasing.
25. How often do you wash your hair? Do you style it, or just let it dry naturally?
Just did. But typically every other day, and sometimes every two days, depending on what I'm doing and usually at night. I used to do it every day (I have fine, oily hair), but when I got older - the hair got less oily and dryer, so I don't do it as often. Also used to do it first thing in the morning until I figured out - that if I do it at night - it relaxes the muscles, cleans the days dirt off, and I get more sleep in the morning.
Yes, I just let it dry naturally most of the time. Like I'm doing now. I may run a hair dryer through it before bed, not sure yet.
***
I finished, Illona Andrews' The Inheritance (Breach-World Series #1) - which is a survival/adventure story not a romance, and if you are at all familiar with the writer - is most likely within the Innkeeper and Bayou world-building, it has similar characters and a similar tone/writing style to those two series, albeit without the romantic elements.
The book is hard to describe? There's a lot of world-building. And it has a convoluted plot. But I'll take a crack at it? Somewhere in the future, a series of portal or gates open up on earth - unleashing otherworldly creatures that attack people - to combat them - earth sends teams into the gates, who destroy an anchor to the world sending the monsters. After the gates opened, some people on earth developed Talents - either combatant or non-combatant talents. These people are enlisted or employed to enter the breach - to assess for minerals or items to help them or fight the monsters and destroy the anchor that allows the monsters to invade and attack them. It has two POV's - a first person point of view and a third person close point of view. The First Person POV is a forty-year old woman single mother, who is an assessor of minerals and otherworldly substances in gates or breach worlds. She enters one of the gates with a specialist team of twelve people both miners and combatants to assess it for valuable minerals and plants, and to destroy the anchor. While the assessor is from the government, the rest are from specific "privately" incorporated and run guilds which are assigned gates. Unfortunately, when her team enters the gate - they run into something unexpected, people being people don't ahem, react well to it, and much chaos ensues, leaving the protagonist, Ada, fighting to survive by herself with just a big German Shepard named Bear for company. On the outside - on earth, there's Elias (the second point of view) - who is head of the guild (whose team members kind of screwed up?) and he's trying to figure out went wrong, and the two who screwed up aren't talking. We jump back and forth between the two point of views. They don't meet up until the last ten pages of the book? And Ada is very wary of Elias, and they don't have much reason to trust each other. So this is definitely not a romance novel - it's a science-fiction survival story and what the heck happened investigation, which is a huge story kink of mine. I love stuff like this. Mystery/Survival/Sci-Fi Hybrids are my favorite. (Also reminds me a little bit of a video game.)
It's the first book - I sped through in a while. So fingers crossed that the reading slump from hell has ended? Not wishing to tempt fate, I'm trying an earlier series by the writers - The Kinsman Series - which has two novellas, a short story, and a book length book involved in it. I don't know - but it appears to be more along the lines of romance fantasy or romance sci-fi, which isn't really my thing? But it might work. Who knows? At least the writers write strong female characters for the most part. Also the books are dirt cheap. The first ebook was $4.99, and the other was free on Kindle Unlimited.
***
Flirting with the television series Succession - which I'm told gets really good after the third or fourth episode, and takes off in the sixth episode. This is unfortunately true of a lot of television series? Particularly HBO series that fall under the category of hyper-realism.
Also flirting with the c-drama, Pursuit of Jade - of which there are 40 episodes on Netflix, it's in Mandarin with subtitles, and is...very pretty on the eyes? Honestly the cinematography is amazing for a television series. It's a historical action/adventure romance. I may continue - it's pretty and kind of relaxing to watch? Considering I have subtitles or closed captioning on half the time anyhow...not sure it matters? I have more issues with it for animated series. Mainly because it's hard to see the close captioning through the animation - they have a tendency to put it in white.
***
Catching up on March Question a Day Meme:
23. When was the last time you ate some chocolate?
About an hour and fifteen minutes ago. It's my main vice. And I'm not giving it up.
24. Harry Houdini was born today in 1874. Are you a fan of magic shows? Have you ever seen someone perform close-up magic?
Depends on the magic show? For the most part I enjoy them? But I also know some of the tricks?
Yes, more than once. I was even pulled into the act once on a girl scout retreat with my father when I was roughly speaking 10 years of age? The magician asked me to be his assistant, and then he kept trying to get me to put my finger or hand in a chopping block and I kept refusing, he enjoyed that (it helped the act), until he finally convinced me to do it. I was teased about it by various fathers and kids afterwards, not my own - who wasn't into teasing.
25. How often do you wash your hair? Do you style it, or just let it dry naturally?
Just did. But typically every other day, and sometimes every two days, depending on what I'm doing and usually at night. I used to do it every day (I have fine, oily hair), but when I got older - the hair got less oily and dryer, so I don't do it as often. Also used to do it first thing in the morning until I figured out - that if I do it at night - it relaxes the muscles, cleans the days dirt off, and I get more sleep in the morning.
Yes, I just let it dry naturally most of the time. Like I'm doing now. I may run a hair dryer through it before bed, not sure yet.
no subject
They've called in a trapper for the squirrels, which seems hopeless to me given the size of the complex and quantity of squirrels. But this is relevant to us only in that the leasing office insists no feeding of wildlife take place.
We always have a hummingbird feeder up in the summer, and between January and June we also have bird food out in plates on our balcony. The squirrels can't get to it but we have a good number of birds who come and go all day long. We intend to keep feeding them, especially since it's hard for them in the winter and early spring when food is scarce and they begin nesting. I don't think what we're doing is relevant to what they're concerned about. It has nothing to do with small birds as opposed to the rodents and water fowl.
no subject
I think yours is fine and it doesn't sound like it would be an issue. It's usually the feeders on the window or out on trees, which are accessible to rodents that can be an issue. Squirrels are insanely adept. They are nature's gymnasts, I think?
no subject
no subject
In the first decade or so of TV they tried everything they knew to get people and especially kids to watch. People might see a circus as often as once a year at most before TV. People from out away from city theaters and night clubs might hear about magic shows but never see one in person. Before I was ten I could watch circus acts and magic tricks literally every week on TV. And for awhile I did. But I moved on to other kinds of entertainment. I'll watch a magic act once in a great while now as a kind of art form. I have little interest in the tricks, but the skill with which the magicians perform them is interesting and fun to watch in its own right. I've never been to a circus and don't miss it. I know the smell of elephants and saw humane animal acts near home at our St. Louis zoo. The Ed Sullivan show on TV had human acrobats, clowns and animal circus acts long after everyone else had given up trying to present them regularly on TV. When I went to Russia with a tourist group our local guide tried to convince me to buy a ticket and go to the famous Moscow circus. I told her in Russian that I would find it a terrible bore. As I kid I'd seen enough of circus to last a life time.