13 posts tagged “books”
Yesterday was dads 50th birthday party, he let me invite one friend, and I chose to bring Marie, who I thought would at least get her moneys worth out of the free alchohol. It was at the Geebung Polo Club in Hawthorne, which is actualy a pretty popular spot with young people from around here.
Before leaving I decided to wear my rainbow psyco scarf, just because it is so incredibly me. I think if I had to describe my personality, presenting that thing to someone with a smile on my face would be pretty effective. Anyway...
Before leaving, mum started to go through the list of guests, "Oh they arn't coming? Shame. Wait Paul... Wayne? Is Trudi coming?" Marie and I look at each other with complete evil glint. Oh the plans. Several jokes followed about Marie finding a knife and killing her, but yeah.
We left and got there, then went and had dips. Marie was making plans with mum to force me to drink alchohol. One of them involved finding a cute guy and getting them to buy me a drink without asking me what I wanted.
"Marie, your idea of what is attractive and my idea of what is attractive differ by about twenty years."
We finaly went upstairs to where we had booked the rooms. We both got a drink, and explored the maze. There were two rooms with fireplaces and the bar room. We then decorated the place with toy cars and road signs. We also placed the red car napkins stratigicly then grabed ourselves a sear on the couch and waited for people to arrive. Some people turned up and dad walks in "Do you want me to introduce you to Trudi." we said no and started 'stalking' her, me demonstrating my stalker skills by trying to take a photo of her in a mirror. Eventualy he did introduce us as her "Two biggest fans" much to our embarrisment. We ran to the loos and then went down stairs and sat around for a while.
Shortly after this we went back up stairs and found callifornian rolls. "Ooh, prawn!" I said, grabbed one and ate it. Marie says "Oh ok, prawn." grabs one, takes a bite and starts making some very, very funny faces, and running around. Turns out that wasn't avacado. I quickly took a picture while she was still making 'Wasabi faces' and then showed it to anyone I could find.
We then retreated to the stir case, where clair came over and chatted. And then she came over. Trudi. (She is REALY tall) and sat down between marie and I. "Hello, I thought I'd come over and do some reasearch."
Marie got in first, and asked if Dannyl and Tayend where in it. I couldn't hear what she said. Claire was starting to look confused, so I explained. "Trudi just happens to be our favourite author." Claire was stunned, and started asking her lots of questions about how you write a book. Trudi's answers were pretty intresting. She talked about not understanding fan reactions, saying "Well there is this one character, Akkarin and I killed him off at the end of the last book, I had no Idea fans were going to react like that. I find the dark silent ones the most annoying." Marie and I both squealed. "Oh girls, this is not a spoiler, he's not coming back. Unless it's as a zombie. BRAAIIINS BRAIINS!" she did a great zombie Akkarin voice. She then told us this story about how in the original draft Rothen had taken Sonea to his ranch in the county, and they had both gone rinding and "..it was all very jane austen." she told us that instead of doing the whole comming into her room and "I know everything, you must be my novice!" thing (she said this in an Akkarin voice) he had ridden up on a black stallion. Marie and I were absolutly cacking myself, and all I could think of was what it would be like to have Colin Firth play Akkarin. Not Good.
She then told us about Sonea in the next book being around fourty and getting very grumpy. "The problem with that is that grumpy and a black magician are not a good mix." we laughed. "There's a problem with there whole system. What if the black magician goes bad? What if they get killed? The guild wouldn't be able to defend themselves, so they need a second magician to keep an eye on the other one. And he happens to be a very upright, moral individual, and Sonea hates him. 'Why can't I go outside the walls?'" trudi crosses her arms and sits up strait "It is against the rules!' the intresting thing is that in the secong book he is hunting someone down and is very scary. He's not bad though."
"Tell me who you think sonea will end up with?" she looks at us, "Oh and it's not him."
Marie asks "Is it someone we know?"
Trudi pauses..."Yes...oh I hope I didn't give too much away."
She started telling us about the underworld in the sequle and how it's alot darker and very gangland, shes been reading gangland biographys and stuff as reasearch and is no longer sure it can remain a young adult novel. She then told us about wondering how far she could go with Cery and about the less icky trades like "Smuggler, or a running a realy clean brothel."
"I can't imagine Cery running a brothel!"
We asked about the blood ring and she didn't tell us annything except that she might not include it in the sequle it might remain a mystery. We talked about the audi books, she couldn't listen to the Aussie one because apparently it made her feel like a kid being read to in the school library, and I told her about Cery and the Blood leaches being cut out of the british ones. She was like... well i can take that as a complement, if they had to take out a whole character then that means my writing was pretty clean. No Savarra!"
We switched to chatting about the prequle and I predicted that fans would be trying to work out who is related to present day characters, and she indicated that that it is possible to work some of them out based on the names.
She told us that the first chapter of the prequle will be up in the next 6 weeks (Squeal) and that the book would be around the same size as priestess.
Theres so much to try and remember! I'm done for now I'll post the second half of the night later on, although I'm sure marie will post and fill you in before I get around to it.
"But how do you come up with Iideas? You must be so creative."
"Not realy, Ideas are deffinitly not the problem. I have more problems not coming up with ideas."
Marie and I are looking at eachother grinning.
Claire left and trudi asked us what we would like to know. She had this thing where she looked at each of us turning her head from side to side, which I found very intimidating.
"To tell you the truth my brain walked out the door when you came up, this is rather intimidating."
"Don't worry, I find talking to fans intimidating."
Ok I think, "Sea leeches."
Her eyes brightened. "Sea leeches!"
"Yeah I adore them, that was an awesome scene. Possibly my favourite."
So she explains about how her editor had told her to have travel, and she had thought, ok who isn't doing much? Dannyl! and to make the journey more intrsting she needed a sea monster, but instead of having one big sea monster, she thought how can I subvert this? So she made them leeches and about this long, the idea being that in mating season they all grab onto you and sink you under their weight, then suck the life out of you.
After my post about Petrador Marie and I started talking about the characteristics of Mary Sue, and I decided to do a Mary Sue test on Sasha. Reading the criteria, I started to think that maybe, just maybe Mary Sue isn't that bad. Or at least she is misunderstood.
Part of the reason for this was Marie's comment in the post "Jess, you realise that "sexual humour, insinuation, a fair deal of swearing" *are* Mary Sue qualities?" I found this comment rather hilarious. So I decided to whip out the Mary Sue test again as a bit of an experiment.
As I thought. Marie, despite not being a book character scores 47 on the mary sue test. I must point out that Sasha only scored 43. Marie, real, living breathing marie. Marie who "...at this point...[is] likely to provoke eye-rolling and exclaimations of "yeah, right!" from your readers." Sounds about right doesn't it? I also have to point out that if she had scored just three more points on the test I would have been obliged to "Kill it dead." Ok, so I was being a bit tough on her, but the majority of the test answers where 100% true. Why don't you try it yourself? I used Elise, Skye or Mrs Gramaticus as the Villain just for reference.
Whats my point? If characters didn't have at least some of these characteristics they just wouldn't intresting enough to make a story about. That, or they wouldn't survive past the second chapter. There is a reason why authors make characters royalty, it leads to pollitical intruige. There is a reason they are good with either a sword or magic, it's because if they wern't the dark lord would just blast them to smitherenes. The problem with both Marie and Sasha is that alot of their faults happen to be seen as Mary Sue qualities themselves, and I think here, it realy depende on how the Author uses them. If their anger, foul mouths and sexual insinuations are seen as something to be admired, we are crossing into Mary Sue territory. If they get the character into trouble, make people in the story world not like them, and they fit the character then not so much.
I also tend to think that a character like Auraya, and to a lesser extent Sonea is more of a Mary Sue than Sasha. They don't have any faults and they are rediculusly powerfull. They don't even have Mary Sueish faults unless you count falling in love with the 'bad guy'. It doesn't mean I love them any less though. On the opposite scale, Emma from Kylie Chan's books is, in personality at least rather a lot less of a Mary Sue (That whole, I can't work it out thing) and yet she spends at least half of her time driving me absolutly nuts. I also think that in Sasha's case, it's not necersarily being a Mary Sue that makes her cliched but a rather serious case of rebellious princess syndrome, and the thing is, I don't necersarily mind. The author has used a character that is a fantasy classic and put her in a setting where she would usualy be out of place, then created a pretty damn good plot around her. What's wrong with that?
What am I saying here? Well, basicly, Mary Sue shouldn't be applied to orriginal fantasy. It's a term that came from fanfic where adolecent girls suddenly introduce a non cannon character that then goes and fulfills their fantasys while defying the rules of the story universe. In original fantasy, well pretty much any main character is going to be a Mary Sue to some extent. It just makes things so much more intresting.
Well I'm done, I'm going to start work on my bomb shelter now, and just so that you don't think you can kill me before I finish, I've hired a few Mary Sues from various fan fics, and you know, they are more than able to defend me.
Got this a couple of days ago and wow. I have to say, yet another aussie fantasy book that I can add to my awesomeness list. I know their are a couple of series I realy love from brittish and american authors, but seriously, Australian Fantasy writers have their own spiecial flare. I am so glad I am Australian. (Isn't it funny? Books make me more patriotic than gold medals.)
WOW this book is good. I don't think I could compare it to Trudi Canavan, just because it is so amazingly different, but I think I could safely say I liked it better than Kylie Chan books, it has many of the same elements (A romance, something that Sasha was missing) and better writing. Don't get me wrong though, Kylie Chan still rocks my romance world. He he... gods.
Petrador has the amazing detail that I loved Sasha for, not the iritatingly detailed descriptions of Allison Croggon (they are good, but seriously I skip most of it) but the beautiful tactical believable descriptions of battles and fights that bring the action alive. It has the added bonus that Sasha loses some of her Mary Sue qualities, adding sexual humor, insinuation, a fair deal of swearing (She particularly likes to use Cock and Fuck) and her angry, bitchy arrogance to her previously bland personality. It was always their, it just didn't get enough screen time. Their is also another weakness that I liked the use of. Trust.
Ahh Joel Shepherd. I admire you. When you can write a serious, philisophical debate, with one person seriously ingured, humiliated and at the other persons mercy, battle is raging around them and still center the whole thing around cheese, you have won my heart. When you can use a sex scene to reveal a major plot point without making the thing seem forced, you have shown rather ingenoius ways of giving the thing a purpous (For reference, his sex scene description surparces Kylie Chans in detail by rather a lot. It might even come close to his battle descriptions, yet it's not pornographic at all, I don't feel embaresed reading it, which I think deserves extra kudos. It also involves a LOT of talking (as I said, plot points) which is probably the reason it works.)
It is a realy good read. Better than Sasha, and you can proabably get away with reading Petrodor without the first book, although I realy did enjoy Sasha, and some of the stuff about Serrin the meaning of certain Sallshen words and the interrelation of Nazi Keth, Verathain and Goren Yai might be lost on you. Yeah. read them. If you can't read Sasha at least give Petrodor a try. If you can't read Petrodor, well Page 421 is a good starting point if you want to get to the cheese bit. But then again, you won't get the start of the chapter... maybe 402? I don't know. Just read the whole book. It's realy good.
CHEESE!
Do you ever read the "Acknowledgments" at the beginning or end of a book? Why or why not? Bonus points: What book contains your favorite acknowledgments?
Submitted by Strive2Be.
It depends. I always read the acknoledgements at the begginign of trudi canavan books, and I've read the locke lamora ones too. I also realy like the harry potter ones, although I suppose they are more dedicated to rather than acknoldgements. Mostly thought I don't bother, because realy they have not real relevance to the book, and none at all to my life.
My favourite acnoledgements come form the tough guide.
"For Mum and Dad for having me
For Jeannie (or jack or debrah or donnie or...) for putting up with me so supportivly
and for my nine children for not interupting me
and for my publisher for not discouraging me
and for my writers circle fot listening to me
and for Barbie and Greta and Albertt Einstien and Aunty May
and so on.
Ignore this, even if you are wondering if Alber Einstien is in fact Albert Einstien or in fact the dog."
It is advice I usualy put to good use,
Did you see the Harry Potter movie this weekend? Are you going to read the new book?
Hahaha! Yes! I have already seen the movie twice, and if I don't have any homework, I am going to see the movie again on Sunday and see it in... 3D at Imax!
As for the book, I've pre-ordered (finally) and am planning to be there at 8:30 ready to pick it up. I will then retreat to my house, and not talk to anyone until I've finished.
OK, time for some last minute Harry Potter Predictions, feel free to copy the list and make your own predictions (This is mostly stolen from the Deathly Hallows Madness: On Demand) and when we have read the book, post and tell us how many you got right.
Ron Weasley will... LIVE
Hermione Granger will...Live
Severus Snape will...Live
Lord Voldemort will...Die (Obviously)
Remus Lupin will...Live (He bloody well better)
Ginny Weasley will...Live
Molly Weasley will...Live
Arthur Weasley will...Live
Nymphadora Tonks will...Live (Sniff, I love tonks!)
Luna Lovegood will...Live...maybe
Neville Longbottom will...Die to kill Bellatrix
Minerva McGonagall will...Live, someone has to run Hogwarts
Peter Pettigrew will...Die you filthy little RAT!
Bellatrix Lestrange will...Be killed by Neville
Draco Malfoy will...Suffer his kids being snobby blond shits, he'll live.
Rubeus Hagrid will... Live, unless Fang dies.
Fred Weasley will...Live
George Weasley will...Live, but then again, I did have a dream where he died and became the hufflepuff house ghost...
Charlie Weasley will...Live
Fleur Delacour will...Live, I vink I am to pretty to be murdered!
Harry Potter will...Live!
Is RAB Regulus Black? Well as he is the only RAB ever mentioned...Yes.
Is RAB alive? Nah, he got murdered by Voldie, Or possibly eaten by a Hypogriph.
Did RAB destroy the locket Horcrux? Nup, Its at Grimold Place
Is Harry a Horcrux? Nah, too complicated. I mean what kind of IDIOT would make a person into a Horcrux and then repeatedly try to MURDER them? Ohhh, unless he's a Horcrux for...Snape, I always wondered why he never tried to kill him...
Will Harry and Ginny end up together? Yes, unless Ginny isn't mentioned in the first 200 pages.
Will Harry and Hermione end up together? Yes and they will marry and have...Of course NOT! I mean the Anvils people!
Will Ron and Hermione end up together? Remember the Anvils? Yes.
Will Draco and Hermione end up together? Ewww...No. If she was Going to do something like this it would be Hermione and Snape.
Snape loyalties lie with: Himself, undoubtedly.
Will Draco Malfoy redeem himself? Meh, unimportant, probably.
Will Percy Weasley redeem himself? Nah, he will always be a prat! He may even get murdered (Here's hoping)
Will Hogwarts re-open? Yeah
Assuming Hogwarts does re-open, will Harry return? Not for school. Yes for other stuff. (See below)
Assuming Harry does return, will he graduate? If he returns? Assuming it is open, and he returns and Voldie doesn't Nuke it (Note this would be a hell of a way to get rid of half the order) and that Bill and Fleur get married, and Sirius likes honey and Ginny doesn't die and...
Is Dumbledore really dead? Hmmm, Avada Kadavara, fall of 20 foot tower, possibly poisonous potion, let me think...Yes.
Assuming Dumbledore is dead, did he plan his death? Nah, never liked this one, but will admit it is possible.
Is Sirius Black dead? Yah, but we will meet him and Dumbledore again behind the Vail...Allegedly.
Will any of Luna's conspiracy theories be found to be true? (If yes, please include which ones at the end) Allegedly Loony... No. Well Maybe the rot fang conspiracy.
Is/was Snape in love with Lily Potter? Yeah probably (the freak), but it isn't relevant, or we wont find out.
Will Wormtail repay his life debt to Harry? Yeah, remember the three secrets of Harry Potter, Dumbledore is always right (unless it's about trusting people) Hermione is probably right (Unless shes quoting someone) and Ron is not right (Unless he's joking)
Was Wormtail present at Godric's Hollow the night Voldemort killed Harry's parents? Nah.
Who will be the squib/muggle who uses magic later in life? Figg maybe, or Filch.
Is Harry the heir of Slytherin? Where did this come from? No!
Will Dumbledore's Army re-form? That would be cool, but if they do, harry won't be leading them unless he returns to Hogwarts (See will Harry graduate)
Will the Muggles ever discover the wizarding world? Yeah, but I don't think they will in the Books, or if they do to quote Torchwood "My boyfriend says they put drugs in the water supply"
Will we ever see the other side of the veil? Yes.
Will Neville be the student who gets a job as a Hogwarts professor after graduation, teaching herbology? Maybe.
Will Hermione be Head Girl? See will Harry Graduate.
Will Ron be Head Boy? See Will Hermione be head girl.
Will Harry be Head Boy? See will Ron be head Girl...I mean Boy.
Will we see time travel in Book 7? Nah.
Did Voldemort ever fulfill his wish to make Horcruxes out of objects belonging to each Hogwarts' four founders? Yeah
Is Ollivander working for Voldemort? Yes, under the impirius curse, unless he's dead or Winky is the Elf on the cover.
Will Harry's scar disappear? No.
Does Voldemort have multiple spies in the Order? Ehh...I'll say yes, Snape and someone else.
Was the green potion Dumbledore drank in the cave the Draught of the Living Death? What? Isn't that a sleeping potion?
Will Dumbledore's defeat of the dark wizard Grindlewald in 1945 be relevant? Yeah, but only in that harry might learn something from it.
Will Hagrid rekindle his romance with Madam Maxime? Nope.
Will Harry go through the veil? Yep.
Is the veil the gateway to the underworld? Errr...
Will we see the Mirror of Erised again? No.
Will McGonagall lead the Order of the Phoenix? No. Um..Yes...um...No..Maybe!
Will Voldemort ever realize his undying love for the giant squid? Of course!
Who will win the final battle? Harry and the Order.
Harry will attend the Wedding and then go to his parents house looking for clues. He will visit their graves. He will find a clue and destroy all horcruxes bar Nagini, Voldemort and the Locket, he will in this time visit Gringotts and Meet Abaforth Dumbledore. He will not know where to find the locket so he will return to Hogwarts (very weird experience as it is either closed or it is the holidays and no-one is there except possible Snape of McGonagal) and will talk to Dumbledor. He won't be able to work out the password, but will say something accidentally and it will open, it will make him sad. He will talk to Dumbledor, and will for some reason have to visit the hogwarts grave yard. Dumbledore will say something about RAB which will make Harry remember Regulus Black. He will return to Grimuld Place and ask kreatcher if he hasn't by any chance done something disturbing with a locket. They find it, destroy it. Jump on the dragon (which conveniently turned up from a recent trip to Australia and is looking for a golden egg...i have no idea) and Harry will talk to it in parcletoung and they will fly to the ministry of magic. Harry will step fight voldie and both will fall through the vail, and they will fight. While outside, ron and hermione will seize the opertunity to kill nagini, and harry will fight, and then he will do that spell Dumbledor used in book 5 at the ministry and it will kill voldie. Sirius and dumbledor will help harry to return to the outside, or possibly he will have a family reunion and stay. Ok. Thats it.
Show us what the weekend has in store for you.
Ha. Lovely timing. Although I assume this refers to this weekend, when I first saw it I thought it refered to next weekend. So I'll tell you what I think of that.
One thing. Harry Potter...SQUEEE!
Is this going to be Eragon all over again?
As you all should know, the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Book covers were released today. This is of course the biggest clue to the contents of the seventh and final Harry Potter book since the release of the title it’s self. This, by all accounts didn’t give us much information other than it is going to be “Deathly” which most of us knew already.
So, as I have asked all of you to create an in depth analysis of the three covers, I thought I better do one myself, and because I want my Vox to be pretty, I’m putting in pictures as evidence (I am such a good little lit student)
Firstly, the adult cover. Although there doesn’t seem to be mush to analyze here, last lime it was this cover which provided the biggest clues. It contained a picture of a potions book, and to any astute literature, should have immediately suggested Snape!
Here we clearly see a necklace, with a bronze, or old gold appearance, and many small green jewels set into an elaborate “S”. We may assume based on our previous knowledge that this “S” is representative of Salzar Slytherin, and therefore that this is the locket which belonged first to this mythical figure and eventually fell into the hands of Voldemort, supposedly becoming a Horcrux. While the metallic finish and elaborate “S” suggest age, and perhaps a lack of polishing, the Jewels seem to be in pristine condition. The shape of the S along with the green Jewels seem to have snake like connotations. We may assume that these Jewels are Emeralds, which may or may not be in reference to the famous Tattie. Emeralds (according to dictionary.com’s entomology section) the Hebrew word bareqeth meaning emerald came from the Arabic barq or “Lightning” this of course has deep connections to Harry, and is perhaps another link between Voldemort and his opponent. It is also an acronym for “Enhanced Measurement for Early Risk Assessment of Latent Defects” although what relevance this has, is yet to be discovered.
This image is clearly that of Harry’s Patronus, a Stag, which was of course his fathers animagus form. Its appearance on the cover can be interpreted in one of thee ways, as a symbol of James, a symbol of protection, or as a reference to the order of the phoenix (don’t worry I will explain.) Firstly, the Patronus has always been a symbol of Harry’s connection with his father. This may indicate that Harry will once again find a connection to his father, perhaps by visiting his grave. The second more obvious interpretation is that Harry will use it for protection, either from dementors or other foes. Finally it may be in reference to the order of the phoenix, who use their patronus’s to communicate.
Also, this stag appears to be very happy. It is reminiscent of the scene where Harry reaches to touch his patronus, but disappears before he does.
The stag is representative of a stag party. Perhaps Bill and Fleur’s wedding? Or of going on ones own, or an all male activity. This indicates that either Hermione will die or that Harry will go on by himself. Perhaps even both.
The Stag is also a common symbol on shields notably that of Hertfordshire, perhaps indicating that Harry is going to visit this location. In this case the stag is a Stag Trippant of a Purple Field. Perhaps Marie will be able to better interpret this.
That’s it for part one of my analysis! Stay tuned for part two, analyzing the front cover of the UK Children’s addition.
Book: Show us a great biography or memoir.
A very intresting book. Mum gave it to me to teach me about the "Birds and the Bees" *snigger*
