Cassandra Clare, let's talk.

I'm trying to read your teal deer post about the inclusion of incest in your books, but I keep getting hung up on something that is very important to me: mythology. You're using the Greek myths as a support for having an incest kink, which I guess is fair, except for the fact that A) the Greek gods were, oh, gee, let me think fucking gods so incest wasn't nearly the same for them as it would be for mortals and B) myths were cautionary tales. Just because the gods did something didn't mean you should, too.

Here's the thing about the gods: they are the extremes of humanity, without the consequences. They can be vindictive and warmongering and they won't die - humanity is constantly caught up in their petty squabbles and they aren't very fond of it: look at the Trojan war! The entire reason Hera is so against Troy? Because Ganymede came from Troy. Zeus stole Ganymede because he was hot and Hera did not take well to Zeus's having sex with everything that existed (pretty much).

I'm not really sure why you felt the need to start with cannibalism and Tantalus, since that only proves my point: Tantalus is punished severely for what he did. He is forced to stand in a stream, but every time he bends to drink it recedes. There is a fruit bearing tree above him, but ever time he reaches up to get something to eat, the branches pull back. This only enforces my point: myths were cautionary tales. You don't want to do the shit that people do in myths, it's not a good idea.

As far as Oedipus goes, that has a lot to do with the dangers of prophecy: if you tell people something's going to happen, they will try to avert disaster, but in myths and stories they very often only succeed in bringing about what was foretold in the first place because they're so worried about what's going to happen they don't think about how they're going to get there.

Also fucking no, it's not fucking hubris! Oedipus has no control over fucking anything in that play, for the love of. ARGH. Okay. Oedipus's father, you can argue, is suffering from Hubris because he decides that Oedipus won't sleep with his mother because he's going to kill the sucker, but instead Oedipus gets raised by farmers and then hears about the prophecy and in order not to hurt his adopted family leaves.

BUT no one bothered to tell Oedipus that his adopted family was his adopted family, so he meets this woman, takes a liking to her, and marries her. And voila, prophecy fulfilled.

That's why I hate Freud's whole "Oedipus complex" bullshit, because Oedipus had no idea what the hell was going on. Also, the "Elektra complex" makes even less sense because Elektra never has a relationship with her father other than the normal father/daughter one. But that's another rant entirely.

How hard was it to just say "There's incest in my books because I find it interesting to explore the psychological and cultural ramifications of such a taboo subject?" I've never read your books, so I can't comment on how well you explore said psychological and cultural ramifications, but that's still a fair answer. And you don't have to piss off mythology nerds.

-Wart

So as you all know, I'm doing NaNoWriMo. So far, I'm doing a whole lot better than I expected, though I'm losing focus quickly. My goal this morning was to finish my Cinderella story before 10:30. So far...I'm at the ball scene and I keep getting distracted by the internet.

Because the internet is distracting.

Normally I'd write by hand or use my typewriter, but that makes word counting difficult. I think what I'm going to try to do is get 1,000ish words written, then I'll let myself back on the internet. I'm at 447 so far, so that's not too much more.

Wish me luck.

Maybe if I'm really lucky I'll get on a roll and write even more than that!

How do you guys deal with distractions?

--

In other news, I've got my first commissions for crochet stuff! I made my brother a pair of fingerless gloves for his birthday and he wore them to work and his coworkers were like "where can we get those?!"

I have six orders in a variety of colors. I've already got one order half done and I'm figuring out my yarn situation for the others so I know what I have to buy and what I don't since I also need to buy supplies for Christmas presents.

This is super exciting because I never thought I'd sell anything I made...I figured I'd just be that crazy cousin who crochets all his gifts for the holidays, lol.

Magefable by Heimdall Thunderhammer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I received this book free through a GoodReads First Reads Giveaway

There's a lot that Magefable is.

Magefable is adorable, fun, quirky, intriguing, and epic.

Magefable Magefable is the story of some little critters working to defeat a big bad one, against all odds. What does that mean? Well. Clove is a Mouse Mage. She is being trained by Elementals to control the four main elements and one other: light so she can become a Geomancer and defeat the evil Lion King of Feralis, Sinviscious, who is a Necromancer (which means he controls the four main elements and one other: dark.

Clove travels with Herod, a spear-hog (aka Porcupine). In their travels, they meet Durbin, a young mouse who dreams of becoming a Swashbuckling adventurer, and his friend Morro, a Hedge-hog who tends to be thinking about the next meal as soon as he's done with the last.

But Clove and Herod are being tracked and hunted by a Rat army sent by Sinviscious to stop them from succeeding, so they leave Durbin's village behind to keep the people there safe. But Durbin isn't going to let them go that easily and soon he and Morro set off on their own quest in search of Clove.

On the way, they meet Bailey, a Squirrel that wants to tame dragons, and Reverie, a bird with a broken wing. And together they meet up with Clove and Herod and turn back to fight the Rats before they continue to the next elemental.

Magefable has a colorful cast of characters, all of whom have distinct, clear personalities. From the gentleness of Clove and Reverie to the excitable bravery of Bailey and Durbin, from Herod's responsible shoulders to Morro's simple look on life. Each character is their own distinct person, and it shines clear in Thunderhammer's writing.

The world Thunderhammer has created is beautifully crafted. His descriptions bring the landscape to life - from the village of Sapsward to the Swamp of Wrath, Thunderhammer paints a stunning picture of the world that these characters are traveling through.

Magefable is quite the adventure, and it leaves you wanting more.

But it wasn't perfect.

First and foremost, Mr. Thunderhammer, I ask you this: why is Clove the only girl? She's a wonderful character in a wonderful story, but she's surrounded only by male characters. Everywhere we turn, more boys. I would love for there to be a few more girls in the mix, because it's the perfect setting for some, and your characters are all so unique and fresh I have no doubt that you have more awesome female characters somewhere in that brain of yours.

And my other problem was the fight scenes. They felt very...telly instead of showy. I felt disconnected from them. Especially when all of the main characters *plus* a horde of rats are fighting. I think it was the head hopping, perhaps it would have been better if one character had been used as the POV character for the fights, instead of jumping between and making sure the reader always knows exactly what each character is doing and how.

That being said, Magefable was fun and I really enjoyed it and I look forward to reading Talonridge.



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My Fair Captain by J.L. Langley

My rating: 1 of 5 stars




'Tangled' is on ABC Family so I'm watching that while I write this review. Because I need something happy to distract me when I start to get extra ranty. Because this review? It's gonna be really freaking ranty.

I wanted to give this book two stars for two reasons: Jeremy and Rexley. Rexley doesn't get to do anything until like...the second to last chapter, but his interaction with Jeremy is beautiful and I love them and I want a book about them because it's bound to be better than this was.

Here's what I was looking for in this book: A fun, science fiction, regency inspired mystery with a quaint romance subplot.

Here's what I got: A HORRIBLE romance that occasionally paused for a page or two to remind you there was supposed to be a plot. It also has some creepy misogyny thrown in, too, which does not help its case.

I really don't know where to start with this.

How about the misogyny? Okay. Sounds good. The planet of Regelence is founded on this theory: that "lovers would fight better together than non-lovers because they would be less willing to disgrace themselves in battle." Okay. That could be interesting. EXCEPT apparently this only applies to men. So the entire society is disgustingly patriarchal.

What do I mean by disgustingly? The aristocracy genetically engineer their children so they will all be male and will all be attracted to men.

...

I kind of had this head canon going that the women were off in their own little country of lesbian awesomeness ignoring the stupidity of the men folk. The country also has heterosexuals, trans* people, and any gay men who also think Regelence is a giant sack of bullshit.

That head canon got axed towards the end, though: "All the women are so inelegant and lower class."

ALL OF THEM, YOU GUYS. There are no classy ladies on Regelence. Probably because they all left. And are planning a rescue mission to get the rest of the women off that hell hole of a planet.

Also, there's another regency based planet called Englor, where Nate is from, that is more concretely regency based in that homosexuality is frowned upon. So, you can probably guess how the women are treated there.

BUT there's even more creepy misogyny. We only meet three female characters in this book, but I'm going to list four because one gets mentioned and illustrates my point about Englor.

1. Muffin. She's 4. She's named Muffin because the guy who named her (Rexley) was hungry at the time. WHO THE FUCK LETS THAT HAPPEN?

2. Christy. She's the nurse. We don't see much of her.

3. Kindros. Nate's second in command. The only time we see her, a prisoner escaped and has a gun to her head. THE ONLY TIME WE SEE HER.

4. The fourth doesn't even have a name. She was the fiance of someone Nate knew on Englor. Nate caught her leaving a rendezvous with another man, so to save face she accused Nate of trying to take advantage of her.

These are the only women in this book. At all. And that's fucked up. Because with all of the other misogynistic bullshit going on it just adds to the pile and makes this book a steaming pile of misogyny. Among other things.

Like. Okay. This is science fiction. I want a really good reason why people have to be chaste until marriage (men on Regelence, Women on Engelor). Saying it's because it's based on Regency sort of flies on Englor but not really because it's the future you can discard the stupid parts of a society, as evinced by Regelence, which is where "it's regency" *doesn't* fly because, oh, hey, THE ENTIRE ARISTOCRACY IS GAY MEN. So clearly they're not opposed to not being entirely based on regency.

Let's talk about Aiden. I don't know how old he's *supposed* to be, but he reads pretty freaking young. Like, middle school/early high school age. So whenever Nate - who, by the way, can't control himself when he's around Aiden, which is hella creepy - calls Aiden 'boy'? ADDS TO THE HELLA CREEPY (except when my brain farts and I think he's talking about Jeremy, his adopted son, then I'm just confused).

Then there's the 'plot'. The plot that only crops up when the characters aren't having or wanting to have or thinking about having sex. The plot needed a hell of a lot more development, because I could not figure out who the fuck a few of the people involved in the thefts and shit were. Like, characters should not pop up out of nowhere if they're central to the plot!

Also, everyone in this book has like...six different names. And there's no rhyme or reason to why someone uses one name over another. So one minute Jeremy is Jeremy and the next he's Trouble and I'm like who the fuck are you talking about? Seriously, it took me a good chunk of the book to realize Jeremy and Trouble were the same person.

You know what, screw that shit. This book is getting one star. And I think I'm done with this review. I probably have about a hundred more things to rant about, but I can't think of any of them right now. I'm going to watch 'Tangled' and stop thinking about this.



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On Friday, GoodReads posted this announcement. Essentially, reviews and shelves that are focused on author behavior will be deleted. Indeed, GR immediately began deleting, without warning. One of my friends on GR had 78 reviews deleted. 78. With no chance to get them back or save them before the deletion.

I don't post a lot of reviews talking about authors themselves, because usually there isn't much to say. They wrote the book, I read it, I liked it or I didn't. End of story.

Most of the time.

But the Author isn't always dead and sometimes it is necessary to bring them and their behavior and attitudes up in a review. Readers should not be penalized for warning friends of authors who attack reviewers, or authors who are bigoted, etc...

For an example, this debacle led me to reread Ender's Game to see if I still liked it as much as I did when I first discovered it, despite knowing now that Orson Scott Card is homophobic to the extreme. The answer is: I don't. I can see his bigotry and biases seeping into the text in little ways and bigger ways, and I know my review will reflect this fact.

And will violate GR's new terms.

Knowledge of the author can color a reading. This is not necessarily a bad thing, indeed, it is simply a fact of writing. It should not be surprising that an author's biases are evident in their work, even if they try to disguise it. And readers should be allowed to discuss these traces of the author.

I will not be leaving GR, not entirely, but I will no longer post reviews directly to the site (except like...2 more, one of 'Ender's Game' and one of a book I got through a giveaway).

Just my 2 cents. Happy Banned Book Week.

So I'm putting Wednesdays with Wart on hold for a bit because I've found I'm not terribly good at this blogging thing. I promise I'll try get it back up soon, I just have to figure out what kinds of things I want to talk about and how I want to talk about them.

I will still post my reviews here and as I've been getting back into a crocheting mood, I will hopefully have some projects to talk about soon!

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I didn't think I could love a Markus Zusak book more than I already love The Book Thief, but I am the Messenger comes very, very close.

Zusak has this amazing way with language. His descriptions, his characters words, all of it is so well chosen and beautiful. It adds to the world of his fiction, bringing it to life and drawing the reader in.

And it is very hard not to get drawn into Ed's world. Here is this stalled nineteen year old, thrust into something more as each card arrives and he delivers each message, and the reader sits on the edge of their seat as they go with Ed to each address, to each person.

Until the end.

And what an end. It isn't every day that the book sums itself up as succinctly and beautifully as I am the Messenger does:

( spoiler )

"Keep living...It's only the pages that stop here."



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So, I love Mythology. And I happen to be very big on Greek Mythology, for a variety of reasons. So, of course, I tend to love everything Rick Riordan writes. Kane Chronicles, Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus...they're all so much fun and absolutely great for a mythology nerd like me. But sometimes I have to set the fanboy cap aside and take a bit of a critical look at some things, and Percy Jackson is one of them.

Most particularly, for this post at least: Demeter.

Percy has a very dismissive attitude towards Demeter's children. Annabeth shares it (though I cannot for the life of my dig up the quote I'm thinking of, which is frustrating!), so it isn't just a Percy thing. It also doesn't help that there aren't any focal characters who are Demeter kids, so we don't know if it's just how Percy and Annabeth think or if it really is an overarching problem within Riordan's world building.

Because here's the thing about Demeter: She's a nature goddess. Nature goddesses can seriously fuck your shit up. Freak snow storms, droughts, dead crops, etc... Nature is kind of really important to the survival of every species on this planet, so whether the Demeter kids are 'aggressive' (pg. 117) or not shouldn't really factor in, you don't have to be aggressive to seriously hinder or hurt your opponent when you control nature.

Clearly Riordan is aware of this, to an extent, as Gaia is the bad guy in the Heroes of Olympus series, so he's aware that nature goddesses have the ability to be difficult opponents.

I don't know, the dismissive attitude Percy has towards Demeter's kids just kind of bothers me.

Well, that wraps up this week's Wednesdays with Wart. I'm not sure what I'll be doing next week, feel free to throw some suggestions my way. If all else fails, I'll probably do a recommendations post.

Hello and welcome to my first ever 'Wednesdays with Wart' post. Basically, Wednesdays with Wart is my attempt to make sure I regularly update this blog. So, pretty much expect a post every Wednesday on some topic related to writing, books, or Crochet.

This week's topic: editing!

I'll be honest with you, I'm atrocious at editing. I am very very lazy. But Editing is important. So important I felt the need to capitalize it in that sentence (it's not a typo I'm leaving for funzies, I swear). I have this bad habit of just skimming over whatever I've written - be it an essay or a story - and that's not enough because, inevitably, I will miss something.

So, how to make sure you edit? Here's some things I do:

Write by hand first. I do this for two reasons: 1. The internet is really distracting. 2. When I go to type, I will edit as I type.

Type the second draft on a typewriter. Again, the internet is really distracting, and again I can edit when I retype on my computer. Also, I just really like using a typewriter :)

Take a break. Once I've finished something, I'll set it aside for awhile. At least a few weeks, preferably longer, because then when I come back to it I'll have cleared my mind of all the many rereads I've already done and while it won't be fresh and new, it will at least be less recent in my mind and I'll be able to look closer at it because I won't skim parts I think I remember well enough.

So, there are my editing strategies! What about you? What editing strategies do you have?

Next week on Wednesdays With Wart: Dear Rick Riordan, Demeter could totally Kill you.

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Cuckoo’s Calling is an intriguing, well written, noir-style mystery that keeps you hooked from the start. Or, at least, it kept me hooked. I loved the development of the mystery, how as Strike uncovers more and more pieces that don’t add up, the reader follows the breadcrumbs and clues with him to the end, searching for the truth in a tangled web of lies.

Not only is the plot well developed and wonderfully written, the characters are a colorful, intriguing lot. Each is well developed and three dimensional, including Lula Landry, who’s story is uncovered to reveal who she is beneath the mask of celebrity.

Strike and Robin are quite the dynamic duo, and the development of their relationship is beautifully handled. They are awkward with each other, understanding of each other, and they work well together as they navigate both the case and personal issues. I’d have to say their relationship is probably my favorite thing about this book.

I did have one big problem, however: written out accents. I can’t stand them to begin with, so maybe I’m biased, but I felt like they weren’t necessary most of the time. Plus, it frequently took me a few minutes to figure out what the person was supposed to be saying, which adds to the frustration.

That being said, as a fan of detective novels and noir novels, The Cuckoo’s Calling has earned a place as one of the best.



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