TBR challenge April - The Freak Observer by Blythe Woolston

Hardcover, Carolrhoda Books, 2010

Disclosure: I didn't buy this book, I won it in the draw for contributors to Maureen Johnson's Next Little Shelterbox campaign on twitter.

High school student Loa suffers a series of losses, one after the other. One of her few friends is killed in a road traffic accident, another leaves the country, her father loses his job, and most profoundly, her disabled sister dies. Caring for Loa's sister is the glue that binds the family together, and when she dies, grief affects them all.

The main thing that stood out for me in this book was Loa's voice. The author has nailed the sense of isolation and suppressed pain that carries Loa through her life not quite caring about anything that happens to her in the face of all the things that already have. Death is the Bony Guy, and he is never far away from her thoughts, which she expresses with a certain wryness. Despite this she never disconnects completely. She works to deal with her losses and keeps going using her own unique outlook on life.

Her family's new poverty makes even the simplest things difficult, and I found the lack of a safety net for the family quite shocking. This makes the book sound depressing, but it wasn't. Things get better for everyone, and I finished the book glad I had read it, even if I did wipe away a few tears in the middle. Loa felt very real.

Not my normal genre by any stretch, but a welcome change, and a book I would recommend for anyone wanting to read something a little different.

On werewolves and packs

Photo by Harlequeen, used under Creative Commons Licence

I find the concept of werewolves very interesting, although I read my fill of them some time back and they are more likely to make me put a book back on the shelf these days. I certainly don't plan to write a werewolf story to join the hundreds out there, but they still exercise my imagination when it comes down to social organisation. How much werewolf social structure would come from the animal, the pack and how much from human society with its complicated, messy dynamics?

It interests me because for quite a long time I had a three dog one bitch dog pack at home, not including us humans. We are down to two dogs now. I have seen three pack leaders, and for the sake of argument I am going to exclude the people. Yes I know The Old Git is technically alpha dog and I am alpha bitch, but I want to look at the relationships between them with as little of that human misunderstanding as possible. Looking at canine behaviour in a household gives me a picture of what it means to be pack leader.

One of my dogs was what I would describe as a true alpha. He was a mild-tempered border collie, lovely to live with, but the other dogs didn't cross him on food and you didn't threaten his family. I remember once we had a new arrival, a very traumatised young border collie, and out for a walk one day someone else's dog decided to go in on him. I never saw our alpha move, but as this dog came steaming in on the youngest, suddenly the alpha was there. The aggressor bounced off him and changed his mind about the attack and headed off in the other direction. Likewise, any rough and tumble at home and this dog was there, interfering and making it difficult to carry on.

And yet, I never saw that dog fight. He maintained everything through sheer presence. The others automatically deferred to him.

His two successors are what I would call wannabe alphas. They got the job because no better candidate was available. Huge difference, which showed as aggression. They wanted the job and they worried about keeping it. They exercised control over the lower dogs with an iron fist; they were bullies.

Did the pack benefit from it? No. The pack was more uptight and more likely to misbehave. There were frequent spats, and when one matured and became stronger than the other, the pack balanced on a knife edge until the older dog died because he would not relinquish control.

I also have a natural omega dog. You can see he doesn't want the responsibility of a high position, but that doesn't mean he will be bullied. When he arrived, the wannabe alpha of the time rushed in to bully him and omega dog saw him off with a full display of the pearly whites, and settled down to being just that. Nobody's whipping boy, just not the boss.

Back to werewolves, where the human factor comes into play. I have spent some time looking at the men in my office, and how they fit into their roles at the office (the women are much trickier, possibly because I am looking from the inside). I can see the natural alphas, the wannabe alphas, the oh-crap-how-did-I-end-up-alphas and the natural omegas.

That being the case, where the boys are concerned at least, I see a werewolf pack working much the same as a dog pack. A strong pack would be characterised by a mild natural alpha showing little overt control. Omegas in that pack would not necessarily be weak, more horrified at the prospect of taking responsibility. Where a pack didn't have a natural alpha, they would be more aggressive to each other and show more dysfunction in their ranks.

The girls, now that's a whole 'nother story.

Waiting to hear

Time of stress in Rosieland. I just sent the big scary book project off to beta readers. This is where I start to lose the plot in a very short space of time. I always mislay a few marbles at crit time, and this one is really messing with my head. It goes something like this:

WORRIED ROSIE: They hate it. They all hate it and they don't know how to even start telling me all the things that are wrong with it.
SENSIBLE ROSIE: They haven't even read it yet. People have lives.
WORRIED: But it's been two days.
SENSIBLE: And when was the last time you looked at something somebody sent you in under a week?
WORRIED: But I can't concentrate on anything else. I'm biting my nails.
SENSIBLE: You were the one whining about needing a break. Think of the calories and write something on the blog.
WORRIED: Nooo, not the blog. Anything but the blog.
SENSIBLE: Okay, not the blog. How about any one of the three open projects from writing group. Or, and this is just a suggestion, get out the spade and flamethrower and clean your house.
WORRIED: I hate you.
SENSIBLE: Just shut up and write something else. You're making me tired.

Worried Rosie needs a slap upside the head, to be honest. One like in the old black and white movies where Foolish Woman gets hysterical so Manly Man has to slap some sense into her.

... Okay, maybe not quite like that. The Old Git would have a life expectancy of about ten minutes if he tried it. He favours the Turtle method of dealing with wife-induced trauma. He will just be waiting, ready to talk to me when all the marbles are back in their rightful places and he doesn't have to hide sharp objects away from me any more. Wise, wise man.

Review: A Madness of Angels by Kate Griffin

Paperback, Orbit Books, 2009

Not part of the TBR challenge this one, just one of those books you read and are desperate to tell people about. I've already bought a second copy and sent it off to the US as a gift to a friend.

While a-lurking on twitter recently I saw the campaign to help the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green. Now Wood Green is not a million miles from me, and the BGB is probably the closest independent after the Chorleywood Bookshop, so it seemed only right to do something to help them stay afloat. I picked through their recommended reads and mail ordered this one and Weirdstone of Brisingham (haven't read that one yet - soon my pretty, soon).

Oh my. This is the point where I should give an accurate precis of the plot and say what I liked and what I didn't. However, I'm a lazy so-and-so and a terrible reviewer who just wants to immerse myself in a book without sitting outside it and noting what I liked and what I didn't. I'm just going to copy and paste the blurb at the end of the post and squeal, you have to read this book. London just pops off the page at you, the way it does in China Mieville's Kraken, even more so. It becomes a character itself, and if you have ever lived in London you will recognise it.

And now that I have got that out of my system maybe I do have a few little objective comments. Some of the sentences are huge and would earn a beginner writer like me a swift kick in the pants, but they work. The prose is dizzying; it drew me in and painted me a picture, and I found myself embracing the style and running with it, and so what if I'd be wheezing if I was reading it out loud. I loved Matthew Swift, who remained so very ordinary despite being anything but, and who made the very ordinariness of London work for him.

Most of all I loved that sense of place, the use of the real London and not just the shiny bits in the guidebooks. To me, books like this and Kraken are what urban fantasy is all about.

I think karma gave me a big kiss on the cheek with this one. Help an independent bookshop and be rewarded, because clearly those guys know their onions when it comes to recommending a good book. I'll be buying the next two books in the series from them too and reading them as soon as they get here.

A Madness of Angels, by Kate Griffin (as lifted from Amazon)
When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford - Samuel Johnson In fact, Dr Johnson was only half right. There is in London much more than life - there is power. It ebbs and flows with the rhythms of the city, makes runes from the alignments of ancient streets and hums with the rattle of trains and buses; it waxes and wanes with the patterns of the business day. It is a new kind of magic: urban magic. Enter a London where magicians ride the Last Train, implore favours of The Beggar King and interpret the insane wisdom of The Bag Lady. Enter a London where beings of power soar with the pigeons and scrabble with the rats, and seek insight in the half-whispered madness of the blue electric angels. Enter the London of Matthew Swift, where rival sorcerers, hidden in plain sight, do battle for the very soul of the city ...

TBR challenge March: Humans

Tor books, 2003

Humans is the middle book in a trilogy by Robert Sawyer, the others being Hominids and Hybrids. It tells the story of a parallel world to Earth, where Homo Sapiens was the human species to die out and the Neanderthals went on to become the dominant, technically advanced, species. In the first book, which I haven't read, an accident with an experimental machine on the Neanderthal world led to a Neanderthal scientist, Ponter Boddit, becoming stranded on our version of Earth.

In Humans, Ponter reopens the portal and revisits the friends he made in the first book. He also rekindles a friendship with Mary Vaughan which becomes a romance.

This is very much a hard sci-fi book. It spends a lot of time exploring the differences between the two worlds, and the Neanderthal world was fascinating. A world where you live apart from the men for most of the month then get together for a few days of  'Two Become One'. Hmm, I could live with it, as long as somebody was around to do the heavy lifting.

I found it a bit sermonising in places, and although I saw it described as a sci-fi romance in one amazon review, I don't think it was. The romance was more of a hook to hang any number of scientific and social observations on than what a romance reader would recognise as a romance.

Not a page-turner, but interesting, and aspects of the Neanderthal society have stayed with me and given me a certain amount of food for thought. Of course, that might just be the prospect of not having a husband under my feet for most of the month then the fun of squashing a month's worth of happies into a few days. On second thoughts, sons live with their fathers. Cancel that plan. I couldn't live without my Boy, even if he does borrow my computer when I want to write.

Hey, I was actually on theme this month. Robert Sawyer was a 'new to me' author. How 'bout that, go me! On to April.

Sexytalk is sexy, right?

In the meeting of the chatroom coven last night, beloved writing buddy Mud mentioned a book that she was enjoying, Pack Challenge by Shelly Laurenston. She liked the banter, and I have to say, any book with a discussion about werebunnies has something going for it. After all, why just have predator weres when you can have werebunnies or werebovines.

MUD: Never walk under a tree containing a werebovine at full moon.
ROSIE: Unless you're wearing a really big hat.

So as well as werebunny discussions, apparently there is also lots of sexytalk in the book, which got us to wondering, do lots of people talk during sex? And is it sexy? We came up with some of our own sexytalk to test the theory. Thank you ladies for letting your creative efforts out to alarm and disturb the real world:

1.  "Did you pick up milk?"

2.  "F*** me hard, big boy"

3.  "Where did you put that saucepan lid the last time you did the dishes?"

4.  "Shut up, you're interrupting my fantasy..."

5.  "Where's the remote? Leno's almost on."

6.  "What the f*** is that?"

7.  "Ow, you're on my hair." (borrowed from a twitter post)

8.  "That reminds me, we need to buy noodles."

9.  "These sheets really need washing."

10.  "I think I hear the dogs outside."

11.  "I think it's time to paint the ceiling. There are 123 cracks."

12.  "When are we getting rid of your mother?"

 
13.  "While you're there, could you take a look at that mole on my neck?"

14.  "Dya think you're gonna be much longer? I had beans for lunch. Fair warning."

15.  "Does this pillow make my butt look fat?"

16.  "That reminds me....I think the car's misfiring again."

17.  "Hey. Make that sound again and watch the look on the dog's face."

18.  "The nose hair trimmers are in the medicine cabinet. Right beside the mouthwash."

19.  "Do you smell something?"

20.  "Sorry, I kinda nodded off there."

21.  "How many gallons would it take to do the ceiling, dya think?"

My conclusion: sexytalk is possibly not sexy the way we do it. C-, could do better, and it's a good job none of us write erotica.

I think my personal favourite is no.17. Congratulations En, your reward is for us all to improve our sexytalk ready to try it out on you when we meet up in June.

En's link of the week

My good buddy En finds the best stuff on the internet. I have no idea how. This week, she found a new way to help me put off revisions, playing

Circle the Cat

Can you catch the cat? He's a crafty beast. It did occur to me that maybe in the next edition the game creator could make it more like real life. In real life if you pin a cat somewhere he can't escape, he comes at you claws first. Maybe the kitty could launch out of the screen, which gets splattered with blood or carved up with claw marks.

Maybe not.

I promise I am thinking up a new blog post which has something to do with, gasp, writing. My take on the werewolf alpha male, coming soon.