Books Read in June

1. Heart-Shaped Box, by Joe Hill
2. I, Claudius (audio book), by Robert Graves
3. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, by Diana Wynne Jones
4. An Artificial Night, by Seanan McGuire
5. Locke and Key: Head Games, written by Joe Hill, art by Gabriel Rodriguez
6. Unbeknownst, Julie Hanson
7. Desert Places, by Robyn Davidson

Click here to read reviews on my livejournal.

Story Completed!

About six months ago, I stayed up past midnight writing the scenes and outlines of a story for anthology market that wasn’t even open.

Well, guess what? Machine of Death opened up for submissions for Vol. 2! Yay!

All my writing over the last several weeks has been focused on getting, “Shaking Hands,” my submission for MoD, Vol. 2 written. Those midnight notes came in handy and the story fell into place rather quickly. A couple of edits, a run through my writing gang (who gave some excellent feedback), and another edit later, I have a 4,150 word story that I’m rather quite happy with. In fact, I think it’s about ready to be sent in.

This marks the first story I’ve written for a specific anthology that I’ve actually completed by the deadline. Woohoo!

Also, a spin off of sharing my story with my writing gang is that most of the group has been inspired by the MoD concept and is sitting down to write their own stories for the anthology, which makes me all smiley with joy. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we all got into the anthology together? Heck, it would be awesome if anyone of us got into the anthology. (^_^)

[Cross-posted to my livejournal. If you feel inclined, you can comment either here or there.]

Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami

I just finished reading Kafka on the Shore.

How do I even begin to describe this book? Let’s start with the bare facts. Kafka is a fifteen year old boy, who runs away from home, in part to escape the Oedipal curse his father lays upon him, and in part to find his mother and sister, who abandoned him as a child. Meanwhile, Nakata is an old man who, due to an accident when he was a child, is a bit slow mentally, but has the ability to talk to cats and has an internal wisdom that leads him to know exactly where he needs to be (if not the reasons why). The lives of these two characters are deeply connected, and yet not.

Things in Murakami’s world involve strange twistings and surreal happenstances. For instance, there’s the boy named Crow, who may be real and may not. A person may be a ghost while they are still alive. Things are unsettled in this book; nothing is certain. Just when you think something is what it is, it isn’t. It’s something more, or perhaps nothing of importance at all.

Reading, you don’t quite know how all this cacophony can possibly fit together and yet it does. It’s a logical disorder, full of metaphysical musings on the nature of the universe. It’s a very strange and beautiful book, or possibly a very strange and deeply unsettling book. But mostly it’s a book that you have to sit and think about for a while, because things are all tangled up after reading it — which is rather quite wonderful really.

[Cross-posted to my livejournal. If you feel inclined, you may comment either here or there.]

Books Read in April

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Omnibus, by various authors
2. Horror Vacui: Poems, by Thomas Heise
3. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
4. The Civilized World: A Novel in Stories, by Susi Wyss
5. From Alice to Ocean: Alone Across the Outback, by Robyn Davidson, with photography by Rick Smolan
6. Life of Pi (audio book), by Yann Martel
7. 13 Little Blue Envelopes, by Maureen Johnson
8. Locke and Key: Welcome to Lovecraft, Vol. 1, written by Joe Hill, art by Gabriel Rodriguez
9. Monster Island, by David Wellington

Click here to read the reviews on my livejournal.