Books

Books I’ve read or wanna read.

NaNoWriMo Update #1

| xeyeti

As of this moment, I’m sitting at 10,032 words, which isn’t exactly as far along as I’d like to be (at this point, I should be closer to 15,000 words), but isn’t too terrible, honestly. Breaking that 10,000-word mark was nice, and felt relatively easy, all things considered. There’s still lots of story to go through, and I’m only just now getting into the meet of Act II.

Granted, I also didn’t get a comic done last night, so now I’m behind in two artistic endeavors. Three, if you include all the music I want record and haven’t yet. Why are there only 24 hours in a day?

NaNoWriMo

| xeyeti

So what the hell, I’ll try to write a novel.

November is National Novel Writing Month, a time when amateur (and possibly less-than-amateur) writers attempt to create a draft of a full, 50,000-word novel in a single month. It’s a daunting challenge, but it’s one I’ve always wanted to try. I’ve written a number of short stories in my day, including a few that were quite lengthy (upwards of thirty typed, single-spaced pages), but I’ve never managed an actual novel-length work. I mean, 50,000 words is a lot (at an average of 250 words per double-spaced, type-written page, that’s…um…200 pages. Had to do that math). A heckuva lot.

But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? So I’m going to give it a shot. I’m already behind where I need to be (50,000 words in 30 days averages out to about 1700 words per day, and I’ve only got 6700 after six days), but I think I can catch up on the weekends. I’ve already written the first act, and I’ve got Act II mapped out and part of Act III. We’ll see what happens, I guess, and I’ll keep everyone here up to date.

Terry Pratchett – I Shall Wear Midnight

| xeyeti

The long month of having no money is finally coming to an end. We got a rent check from my sister-in-law, which definitely gets us through until payday on Tuesday. So to celebrate, the wife and I each bought a new book: she grabbed the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy, and I grabbed the latest Terry Pratchett novel, I Shall Wear Midnight.

I’m a huge fan of Pratchett and his Discworld novels. The Tiffany Aching novels have been a bit hit and miss (Wee Free Men and A Hatful of Sky were both great, though I felt a little let down by Wintersmith), as was the last adult Discworld novel, Unseen Academicals, but this particular entry in the series (the last Tiffany Aching novel, apparently) is great. Whereas Academicals suffered from a lack of clear purpose or much of the trademark humor that Pratchett’s novels usually possess, I Shall Wear Midnight is witty, clever, and well-plotted. There are plenty of returning characters – including a nice bit with Eskarina Smith, the young woman who became a wizard back in the early Discworld novel Equal Rites – and a couple of new characters, including the guard Preston who is much smarter than he seems, an overbearing Duchess, and her daughter Letitia (who, at the point where I am in the book, is on her way to becoming sympathetic).

It’s nice to see Tiffany getting to grow as a character and even making mistakes. All too often in novels, the protagonist never makes mistakes, doesn’t do things for petty reasons, and is able to easily solve their problems. That ain’t the case with Tiffany; she’s a 16 year old girl, and she behaves like one (albeit a rather intelligent one). This means she sometimes does things because she is angry, tired, or frustrated.

I don’t want to give away what happens in the book, but it involves a being called the Cunning Man who has a mad on for witches in general and Tiffany in particular. Being as Tiffany is a witch, she has to figure out (on her own) how to deal with this. I’m about 2/3 of the way through the book, and it feels like classic Pratchett. Definitely recommended.

Weekend Reading

| xeyeti

Haven't we already been through this once this winter?This is the view out the back door of my townhouse at 10:00 AM this morning. The view from the front is much the same. We’re snowed in, baby, so it’s a weekend of reading and enjoying the warmth of our townhouse until the power cuts out and we’re left to huddle together under blankets for warmth. So what, exactly, am I reading? Well…

Runaways, Volume 1: I’ve read these before, but I felt this would be a great time to sit down and re-read the three digest-sized trades of Brian K. Vaughn’s first Runaways story. The second volume was alright, and I haven’t had a chance to read anyone else’s stuff with the characters, but this first 18-issue arc was fantastic. It’s nice to see kids portrayed in a way that isn’t condescending or makes them seem like they’re just adults with acne. And the anime/managa-influenced art is pretty solid, though the characters’ mouths open tremendously wide sometimes. Like, freakishly so.

Booster Gold, Vol. 3 – Reality Lost: I rather dug the Booster Gold stuff Geoff Johns wrote in the first two trades of this title, so went ahead and picked up the third trade yesterday before Snowpocalypse 2: Electric Boogaloo got underway. It’s not bad; not nearly as good as the stuff in the first two trades, but the art (by Booster Gold creator Dan Jurgens) is still top-notch, and there’s some neat little ideas running around in it. Can’t wait for Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis to get ahold of the title in the coming months.

No Hero: I’m a big Warren Ellis fan, and this is supposed to be classic Ellis: over-the-top violence, weird concepts, snarky dialogue, the works. Can’t wait to dig into it.

The Starman Omnibus, Volume 1: I’ve heard phenomenal things about this, James Robinson’s opus, and picked up the first volume of the set to see what I think. It’s pretty awesome so far. I’ll definitely be picking up the rest of the set as they come out (they’re up to number 4 of 6 so far, right?).

John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and Utilitarianism: What, I’m not allowed to read something deep and intellectual? I’m not all fights and tights, folks. There’s hidden depths here. Plus, I just really like a philosophy built around the idea of “if it doesn’t hurt someone else, you should be able to do it.” And yes, that’s an oversimplification, but it’s early still and I haven’t had breakfast yet.