How to use this Page

It seems I've got myself in a bit of a 'cat rut' due to Illustration Friday. I thought this page from my book dummy worked well for this week's theme:Hope everyone's having a great holiday weekend!

Is there anything more horrible than a mosquito keeping you awake? You get out of bed and try to catch it, but you can´t see it, so you go back to bed, and this little beast keeps buzzing like he is on a mission, so you try to catch it again and this goes on all night, until you go crazy. I hate mosquitos so much!

Hay algo más horrible que un mosquito manteniendote despierto? Uno sale de la cama, lo trata de atrapar, pero no se ve, entonces te metes a la cama otra vez y esa bestiecilla sigue zumbando como si tuviera una misión, entonces tratas de atraparlo otra vez y esto sigue toda la noche, hasta que te enloqueces. Odio los mosquitos!

Scarlett hates going to bed. She can be an eye-rubbing, falling-down exhausted, emotion-spewing mess and still fight sleep like a rabid little tiger. What’s up with that? I spend most of my life either fervently hoping I can fall asleep or desperately wishing I could stay asleep, and Scarlett, like every kid ever known, avoids it like the plague. We just don’t appreciate what we’ve got until it’s gone, I guess. Sleeping has reached such mythic proportions in my life that I have actually dreamed about sleeping. Sad, but true. I saw a snippet of poem waxing rhapsodic about sleep on a half-torn magazine page once and it captivated me so completely that I had to track down its origin and author. When I finally found all of 19th century poet and humorist Thomas Hood’s ode--”O bed! O bed! delicious bed! That heaven upon earth to the weary head!--I realized that I love him almost as much as I covet naps. He just gets it. The authors of kid books must get it, too, because it seems that time-to-go-to-bed stories are rivaled only by time-to-use-the-potty tales for sheer numbers. In Leigh Hope Wood’s Sleep Tight, Roosevelt Rhino, the two-horned little protagonist gets very tired during his busy day of trains and teddy bears but, in true kid fashion, needs routine and his parents to find his way to the Land of Nod. O bed, I’m sorry for those childhood years of playing hard to get! Can you ever forgive me?


http://openlibrary.org/b/OL12327020M/Sleep_Tight_Roosevelt_Rhino


http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/315582.Leigh_Hope_Wood

I made this illustration as a Christmas gift for my wife. She is dancing on our bed with our 2 ferrets
the one she is holding is called Man.bear.pig as the South Park character and the one holding her leg is called Maricica (a Romanian typical name)

Did you sleep last night?  I did, but only because I took NyQuil.  It is estimated that one in ten people suffer from Insomnia- and Jack D. Edinger and Colleen E. Carney have written a guide that can keep you from suffering alone.  Overcoming Insomnia, in our Treatments That Work series, has two editions, one designed for therapists and one designed for patients.  Below is an excerpt from the patient workbook, which provides essential information about healthy sleep and the reasons for improving sleep habits, and then introduces a behavioral program designed to address that patient’s specific sleep problems.

-Select a standard rising time
It is important that you choose a standard rising time and stick to it every day regardless of how much sleep you actually get on any given night. This practice will help you develop a more stable sleep pattern. As discussed in the previous chapter, changes in your sleep-wake schedule can disturb your sleep. In fact, you can create the type of sleep problem that occurs in jet lag by varying your wake-up time from day to day. If you set your alarm for a standard wake-up time, you will soon notice that you usually will become sleepy at about the right time each evening to allow you to get the sleep you need.

- Use the bed only for sleeping
While in bed, you should avoid doing things that you do when you are awake. Do not read, watch TV, eat, study, use the phone, or do other things that require you to be awake while you are in bed. If you frequently use your bed for activities other than sleep, you are unintentionally training yourself to stay awake in bed. If you avoid these activities while in bed, your bed will eventually become a place where it is easy to go to sleep and stay asleep. Sexual activity is the only exception to this rule.

- Get out of bed when you can’t sleep
Never stay in bed, either at the beginning of the night or during the middle of the night, for extended periods without being asleep. Long periods of being awake in bed usually lead to tossing and turning, becoming frustrated, or worrying about not sleeping. These reactions, in turn, make it more difficult to fall asleep. Also, if you lie in bed awake for long periods, you are training yourself to be awake in bed. When sleep does not come on or return quickly, it is best to get up, go to another room, and only return to bed when you feel sleepy enough to fall asleep quickly. Generally speaking, you should get up if you find yourself awake for 20 minutes or so and you do not feel as though you are about to go to sleep.

- Don’t worry, plan, or problem solve in bed
Do not worry, mull over your problems, plan future events, or do other thinking while in bed. These activities are bad mental habits. If your mind seems to be racing or you can’t seem to shut off your thoughts, get up and go to another room until you can return to bed without this thinking interrupting your sleep. If this disruptive thinking occurs frequently, you may find it helpful to routinely set aside a time early each evening to do the thinking, problem solving, and planning you need to do. If you start this practice you probably will have fewer intrusive thoughts while you are in bed.

- Avoid daytime napping
You should avoid all daytime napping. Sleeping during the day partially satisfies your sleep needs and, thus, will weaken your sleep drive at night.

- Avoid excessive time in bed
In general, you should go to bed when you feel sleepy. However, you should not go to bed so early that you find yourself spending far more time in bed each night than you need for sleep. Spending too much time in bed results in a very broken night’s sleep. If you spend too much time in bed, you may actually make your sleep problem worse. The following discussion will help you to decide the amount of time to spend in bed and what times you should go to bed at night and get out of bed in the morning.

ShareThis

Holy toledo things have been busy lately!

Lots of work and lots of family stuff has made it a wee bit difficult to get around to posting on the ol' illustration blog. Add all of that to the fact that I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping and you've got a recipe for disaster more annoying than a weekend long marathon of Ben Affleck movies.

Anyway, hopefully I'm entering a bit of a downspell and hopefully that'll mean throwing something up on here more often.

Hopefully.

I don't like making promises, so we'll just stick with hopefully.

Anyway, my wife has been snapping some pictures of me early in the morning and we think that we've discovered the reason I'm not getting any sleep.

The stupid cats seem to think my head is their bed.

(Don't give me any guff on the black and white stripped quilt. I've had it since I was a kid, it's ugly as sin, it needs to be thrown away, I've heard it all from my wife more than once. I'll tell you the same thing I tell her...it's not going anywhere. That's right, I'm a thirty year old Linus. Deal with it.)

Steve~

Mull, Brandon. 2008. Fablehaven: Grip Of the Shadow Plague.

On a muggy August day, Seth hurried along a faint path, eyes scanning the lush foliage to his left. Tall, mossy trees overshadowed a verdant sea of bushes and ferns.

The third in the series, Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague continues the story of Kendra and Seth Sorenson, an unforgettable brother-sister team that (along with several 'responsible' adults including their grandparents) enjoys spending their summer vacations fighting in the ultimate battle between good and evil. If you haven't read the first two in the series, you should definitely do so. (That is if you love fantasy.) I enjoyed the first two. I really did. But this third one is even better--if that's possible. Every page was a pleasure. I didn't want to put it down.

For those that are familiar with the series, expect more of the same. But for those unfamiliar with Brandon Mull's fabulous series here's what you can expect. Adventure. More adventure. Danger. Action. Even more adventure. Some mystery. Some intrigue. Some surprises. If you love action, adventure, and mystery, then Fablehaven is definitely for you!

What's the third one about? Well the subtitle of "Grip of the Shadow Plague" says it all. Book 2 closes with the family securing--saving--Fablehaven, doesn't it? Does it? The traitor, Vanessa, has been captured and imprisoned in the Quiet Box. The Sphinx has taken away the other prisoner--the one who was released from the Quiet Box--and all seems to be well. But then if you remember Kendra discovers a note implying or suggesting that the Sphinx is not who he appears. That he is in fact the bad guy though he's been masquerading as one of the good guys--one of the top good guys--for decades and decades. The third book explores that claim and seeks to solve that mystery once and for all. But that doesn't even begin to capture what the third book is about. It is exciting. It is intense. It is good.

471 pages

Haldeman, Joe. 2007. The Accidental Time Machine.

The first sentence: The story would have been a lot different if Matt's supervisor had been watching him when the machine first went away.

The last sentence: In 2072, Jonathan Marsh would be given the Nobel Prize in physics, for discovering a curious kind of time travel.

Our hero, our narrator, is a twenty-something MIT grad student named Matt Fuller. He loves working in the labs. And he's putting off writing his dissertation. You might think he sounds pretty typical for a science geek. (He's also recently been dumped by his girlfriend.) But his life is about to take a different turn. And it all starts when his calibrator disappears. It reappears in a flash. It was just a flicker, one brief instant in time--a true if I'd a blinked I'd a missed moment--but it was long enough that it changed a young man's life forever.

The reset button.

All of the drama, the action, centers around this one tiny button on a machine that is about the size of a shoe box. You might not expect something so tiny to have the ability to change the world in the blink of an eye. But it can and does.

I am NOT going to tell you anything about this one. I want to. I really really do. But I can't, I won't. It wouldn't be fair. No matter what I say from this point, it couldn't do justice to the book.

It is exciting. It is fast-paced. It is funny in moments. The writing is definitely all witty and clever and oh-so-right. But it has its serious moments as well. It's very dramatic. (I don't want anyone to think that this is like the sarcastic and silly Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or anything. The humor isn't like that.) The characters are well developed. Everything about this one is just right. A true must-read in my opinion. It had me almost at hello. (The premise definitely had me at hello.) This is one that I definitely definitely would want to reread at some point. If I'm honest, I'll admit that I want to reread it right now before it's due back at the library. I don't know if I'll give in...but the urge, the temptation is there.

Read This Book. If you've read The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, you need to read The Accidental Time Machine. And if you haven't read The Time Machine, then squeeze that one in as well at some point. Both are fabulous.

Part of me would LOVE to see this on film. I think it could potentially make a great movie. I could almost visualize it. I think it's a nice blend of science fiction and dystopia and just a teeny tiny bit of romance. But the other part of me would hate to see a great great book become a mediocre, laughable film.

278 pages.

Mull, Brandon. 2007. Fablehaven: The Rise of the Evening Star.

It has now been a year since Kendra and Seth have visited their grandfather and grandmother (whom we first met as a chicken) on their Fablehaven estate (or preserve to be a bit more accurate). Our narrative opens with Kendra anticipating the last week of school--her last week at a middle school. It's an unusual time for a school--a class--to receive a new student--with only one week to go--but only Kendra knows quite how strange it is. The new student? Not human. A monster. A monster with foul breath. When Kendra's unable to reach her grandfather, she decides to trust the man who claims to be sent at her grandfather's request. A man called Errol. Kendra and Seth thus end their school year with a bit of adventure and danger and mystery. Soon summer will be here. The summer may just hold another action-packed, adventure-filled, mystery-solving, danger-ridden, journey for the two as they visit their grandparents once more. Full of action, suspense, mystery, and adventure...this second book is even better than the first.

Orson Scott Card calls Brandon Mull a "writer who is clearly going to be a major figure in popular fantasy." And I must admit that I agree with him after reading Fablehaven. Fablehaven is at its simplest the story of a pair of siblings--Kendra and Seth--who go to visit their grandfather for summer vacation. The two did not know their grandfather well. He's always seemed elusive, guarded, unsure. To put it quite simply, a strange man who doesn't act like a grandfather.

He puts his two grandchildren in the attic room. It serves as both bedroom and playroom. The two are given strict rules to obey. Rules that Kendra--for the most part--respects and obeys. Rules that Seth has no intention of following.

For the first sixty pages or so, Fablehaven doesn't seem that magical. It seems strange. Seth in his disobedience finds an unkempt, old woman in the woods living in a shack that he thinks might be "a real witch." And Seth and Kendra both briefly visit the woods and discover a park--a beautiful park--that looks like it came from a dream. Both of those events are weird, strange. But it doesn't get full-blown magical until the two decide to drink some milk.

Bet you didn't expect milk to play a big role in transforming the ordinary world into a magical one!

Seth and Kendra disobey another rule--one prohibiting them from drinking milk--and suddenly get turned on to the world of fairies. Their grandfather instead of being angry is well pleased with his clever grandchildren. For you see, their grandfather's secrets have been waiting and wanting to be discovered.

I don't want to spoil this one for anyone. So I won't tell you what kinds of adventures these kids have while visiting their grandparents. . . but it's exciting through and through. I don't think many will read it and be disappointed.

Some books feel like friends from the very beginning. Such is the case with Isaac Asimov's novel, Foundation. This book was originally the first in a series of Foundation novels. (However, Prelude to Foundation has since been published.) The novel is composed of five sections. Four of these sections were originally published separately and appeared as short stories in Astounding Magazine between 1942 and 1944. They were later compiled together into one volume in 1951 alongside a newly written introduction section, and thus Foundation as we know now it was published. (Does any of that matter? Not really. I didn't read the details on the publishing history until after I read it. But as an after note, I was intrigued by it. So I thought I'd share it with you.)

For twelve thousand years the Galactic Empire had ruled supreme. Now it was dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, could see into the future--a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that would last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathered the best minds in the Empire--both scientists and scholars--and brought them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for future generations. He called his sanctuary the Foundation.

But soon the fledgling Foundation found itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope was faced with an agonizing choice: Submit to the barbarians and be overrun--or fight them and be destroyed.

What can I say about Foundation without giving too much away? It is one of those rare books where it's best not to know. Best not to have preconceived notions of what it's all about. Best not to think too much about what it's saying and where it's going. It's best to just go along for the ride on this one.

The settings? Various planets. The characters? Too many to list. The plot? Complex but not difficult to follow. Each section of the book is separate from the whole. Most are divided by time. Between sections, thirty years, eighty years, fifty years, a hundred years could have passed. The reader picks up hints here and there about how much time has gone by. But this isn't a book where you follow characters around. This is more of a novel where ideas play the leading role.

If there is a cohesive theme to the novel it is manipulation. Whether passive or aggressive, Foundation is all about power struggles, manipulations, and getting others to do what you want when you want. It is all about ambition.

Do not look at this chart unless you want to confuse yourself. (Or you've read a good many of the books already.) For plot summary of the first novel, click here. For more information on the series as a whole, click here.

Wilson, N.D. 2007. 100 Cupboards.

I loved Leepike Ridge. Loved, loved, loved it. So when I saw this new author had a second novel coming out, I was very happy. And since I don't have a Random House contact (I would love, love, love a Random House contact), I purchased this one using my Borders bucks. One of the things I loved about Leepike Ridge was the language, the writing. It was bordering on magical the way Wilson's text wrapped itself around you until you were completely captivated.

This is how 100 Cupboards begins:

Henry, Kansas, is a hot town. And a cold town. It is a town so still there are times when you can hear a fly trying to get through the window of the locked-up antique store on Main Street. Nobody remembers who owns the antique store, but if you press your face against the glass, like the fly, you'll see that whoever they are, they don't have much beyond a wide variety of wagon wheels. Yes, Henry is a still town. But there have been tornadoes on Main Street. If the wind blows, it's like it won't ever stop. Once it's stopped, there seems to be no hope of getting it started again. (1)

This is our first introduction to our narrator and hero, Henry:

The Henry on the bus was not a town in Kansas. He was simply a twelve-year-old boy on a slow bus from Boston, waiting to meet an aunt and uncle he had not seen since the age of four. He was not looking forward to reuniting with Aunt Dotty and Uncle Frank. Not because he in any way disliked them, but because he had led a life that had taught him not to look forward to anything. (3)

Henry is an interesting narrator. A strange blend of a disconnected and unemotional boy with an unhappy but wistful longing for change. Does that make any sense? He is very unhappy in some ways; he's been disappointed by people, by things in the past. Yet he can't seem to shake hope as a companion. He's hoping for some simple pleasures. The pleasures of a real family, a real friend. The pleasures of baseball. Henry successfully kept his mind on the game, which might seem strange for a boy who slept beside a wall of magic. But baseball was as magical to him as a green, mossy mountain covered in ancient trees. What's more, baseball was a magic he could run around in and laugh about. While the magic of the cupboards was not necessarily good, the smell of leather mixed with dusty sweat and spitting and running through sparse grass after a small ball couldn't be anything else. (155-6) It is his longing for the ordinary, the simple things of life that provides such strong contrast to his unwillingly stumbling into adventures. Here is a boy who is not seeking out adventures, not seeking out magical lands, not seeking the mystical dangers of the unknown.

I hope I haven't confused you. Henry, our hero, is visiting his aunt and uncle and cousins. His parents were kidnapped. But Henry is unconcerned. (Which in itself is disturbing in a way to most readers. But when you think about it, most fantasy heroes just have to shake off their parents anyway to go on a quest. It's not unusual for parents to be long removed from the story either by death or abandonment. So why not kidnapping?) Henry is a visitor, and his room is the attic. His first few nights in the attic are strange to say the least. But things are about to get a whole lot creepier.

When two knobs suddenly poke through the plaster, Henry knows something is up. And try as he may, he can't fight his curiosity. What he discovers are 99 cupboards--most small--four inches in height. With his cousin, Henrietta, the two seem determined to uncover them. But while Henry can uncover them (de-plaster them) without much thought as to what he's uncovering or unsealing when it comes to trying to open them, well, he's a bit more reluctant. But Henrietta will not be easily dissuaded. So the adventures seem determined to find them one way or another. Their curiosity is only increased when they discover two journals kept by their grandfather.

The adventures that follow are purely creepy. The darkness and intensity of the text being broken only slightly with humor now and then. For fans of Coraline by Neil Gaiman, this one will be a sure winner. I can see easily why this book could truly become a favorite with kids (and a few adults that will admit to reading kids books). But in all honesty, this book was WAY too creepy for me. Perhaps my mistake was reading it late at night. I suppose I thought that it wouldn't be as dark and creepy as it was. But it was. It was thoroughly creepy. But I've got to remember, that many readers love creepy. They find creepy and dark delicious.

What I can't deny no matter how creeped out I got, was that N.D. Wilson has a way with words, a way with details, a way with characters.

Here's another review of the novel.
Here's the Random House page dedicated to the novel.

Bray, Libba. 2007. The Sweet Far Thing.

The Sweet Far Thing concludes the trilogy following Gemma Doyle and her quests in and out of the realms. (The first being A Great and Terrible Beauty which I read at least six months or so before I started blogging so there's no record of what I thought. And the second being Rebel Angels which I reviewed last winter/spring.) The book is heavy both in content and weight. 819 pages. Most of them of seventeen-year-old Gemma confused about who she is and what she wants. At the end of Rebel Angels, Gemma bound the magic of the realms to herself. She had promised several different peoples or tribes that she would later share the magic and make peace throughout the realms; she would issue in a new era of peace and unity. The close of Rebel Angels also saw the death of Circe. (or did it???)

The Sweet Far Thing picks up three months later. It is spring. Felicity and Gemma are getting ready to make their debut in society. And Ann, poor Ann, is still going to be a governess. She's still being treated horribly by the other girls at Spence Academy. Mrs. Nightwing is planning a big masked ball in honor of the graduating class--the class of which Gemma and Felicity and Ann are a part. The other buzz around campus is the ongoing work to complete the East Wing. Mrs. Nightwing is determined that the East Wing which was originally destroyed by fire twenty-five years before, needs to be rebuilt in order for Spence to regain its honor and prestige. But there are many people who fear what will happen when the East Wing is rebuilt. They're afraid of what might become unsealed and unburied. The Gypsies. Mother Elena especially is full of warnings. Most of which go unheeded. But such is the way with those that prophesy foreshadowing.

Getting back to Gemma. Gemma was having an identity crisis of sorts in Rebel Angels. She feared that no one really loved her for her. That her father and grandmother and brother all have their own "idea" of who she is. An idea that is far from reality. And she's worried that her friends just love her, just include her because of her magic, because of her power. She was tempted for a while by a boy, Simon, but then felt he didn't love her for her, know her for her either.

This quote is from Rebel Angels:

To Felicity and Ann, I’m a means into the realms.
To Grandmama, I am something to be molded into shape.
To Tom, I am a sister to be endured.
To Father, I am a good girl, always one step away from disappointing him.
To Simon, I’m a mystery.
To Kartik, I am a task he must master.
My refelection stares back at me, waiting for an introduction. Hello, girl in the mirror. You are Gemma Doyle. And I’ve no idea who you really are. (396-397)

Back to Sweet Far Thing. So Gemma is still learning who she is, what she wants, what she needs, and even learning what she fears most. When the book opens, the reader learns that Gemma has not been able to regain access to the realms. She can no longer conjure up the white door. She has seemingly lost her power. Also of note, the dreams and visions have stopped for the most part. But with 819 pages, the reader knows this powerlessness won't last long. Gemma will find a way; she always finds a way to get what she wants or what she thinks she wants.

There is mystery, confusion, epic battles between good and evil, trickery, betrayal, secrets, lies, love and lost love, fear and hope. There is family drama and school drama. And drama between friends as boundaries are pushed or nudged and little lies are told. Fans of the series will no doubt be anxious to read this saga through to its bittersweet conclusion. (I read it in two days.) But I'm unable to predict how they'll feel about the ending. I know my response. (Though I won't go there here in this post.) But how will fans react?

While nothing can displace Ender's Game from being my favorite and best Orson Scott Card novel, I love, love, love Pastwatch. I'm not quite sure how I can convey that. But I'll do my best.

It's set in the future. I would guess several hundred years in the future. Humans on Earth have become technologically advanced, but they're still paying for the mistakes of the past--most notably the environmental mistakes of the past. One of the technologies available is the ability to watch past events fold out before your eyes on the big screen. In the early stages, this technology could only watch vast regions--note climate changes and social changes--the building of communities and sometimes their collapses. But as this technology is developed further, it becomes possible to watch history in greater detail, minute detail. Scientists, historians, researchers (whatever you want to call them) can do studies on communities, societies, or individuals.

What's the point of watching the past? To learn. To understand. To answer impossible questions.

Pastwatch has multiple narrators--each one with a special interest, a special research area, together they are trying to answer some BIG questions.

How is Christopher Columbus involved? Well, he's one of our narrators for one thing. But secondly, he becomes the subject of interest for most of our other narrators. It is HIS life that is being dissected and held up for study. What our researchers learn is that at some point in time, future scientists, interfered or manipulated the past that turned Christopher Columbus' interest to sailing west. Their quest to figure out how and why of this manipulation will lead them on a journey with massive consequences. For they're debating whether or not they should do something along the same lines...

Semi-Apocalyptic fiction. Alternate histories. Time Travel.

Pastwatch is exciting. While the characters are well developed, they aren't as memorable for me as those in the Ender books. But that could be because I've read Ender's Game about a dozen times and Pastwatch only twice. Overall, I say this is a must-read. Those with an interest in history will find it fascinating. As will those with a love for science fiction.

Funke, Cornelia. Inkheart.

I have mixed feelings about Inkheart. I loved the beginning. Loved it. I loved the ending. The last hundred pages or so were great. But the middle--well, not so much. This book is nearly 550 pages, and I just think it would have been better if it had been 375 or 425. But definitely not 550! The action could have been a little tighter, perhaps a little less description, perhaps one less chase scene. I don't know. I just found myself hopelessly stuck in the middle of the book thinking that there was no light at the end of the tunnel. The characters. I like the heroine, Meggie, and her father, Mo. And the other characters Eleanor, the aunt, Dustfinger and Farid were alright. And the bad guys were sufficiently and genuinely evil. But sometimes I felt it was just a bit too much. The writing style, when it was good it was good...but sometimes I did get a little bored. There was plenty of action, plenty of description, plenty of characterization. There was plenty of everything. I guess I'm saying I could have done with a little less of each of the above. I liked the book overall; I loved parts of the book. But I just can't say that I loved it completely or thought it was perfect. I would definitely recommend Inkheart to booklovers and fantasy lovers. Those that love getting lost in a good "once upon a time" type story.

The story itself....

Meggie is a young girl who loves to read. She's seriously obsessed. She even sleeps with books under her pillows. Her best friends are books. There's few things she loves more than a good book, a good story. Mo is Meggie's father. He loves books too. He mends them. He's a book doctor. But as much as he loves books, he knows they can be dangerous as well. He's hiding a secret. A big secret. One rainy night, the secret is forced out into the open. Meggie sees a man staring at the house, watching the house, waiting for something or someone. As soon as her father sees this man, you can begin to feel the danger, sense the adventure. Dustfinger. He has found them at last. Found them again. Dustfinger is one of those semi-likable semi-villains. Neither good, nor evil. Selfish, yet not heartless. He wants what he wants. But he doesn't necessarily want other people to suffer. He's full of longing and desire for something that is completely impossible. So he's hopelessly miserable. The secret? Well, Mo, her father, has another name. Silvertongue. Her father has a gift. Or a curse. Depending on your point of view. The 'gift' is something that he's ashamed of, something that he'd be rid of forever if he only knew how. A 'gift' that Capricorn and Basta--the villains--want to use for evil.

Inkheart is full of adventure, full of suspense, full of descriptions. It's exciting but long.

Okay, I'm officially in love with a new author: Ray Bradbury. As if Something Wicked This Way Comes wasn't enough, I topped it off with reading The Martian Chronicles. It is such a great, great book. Okay, maybe the language--sentence structure and phrases--isn't as stylistic and magical as Something Wicked...but the ideas, messages, and premises in this book make for a great read. If you love Twilight-y Zone fiction, then you'll absolutely love The Martian Chronicles. It is this psychological examination of man--of humans--of our faults, strengths, weaknesses--that makes for a compelling read. The setting of The Martian Chronicles is Earth and Mars. (With most of the action occurring on Mars.) The time period for the novel is January 1999 to October 2026. The book is definitely a product of its time--a book written post world war II and in the midst of the cold war...where the threat of atomic war is so high it's almost overwhelming. The Martian Chronicles is a collection of short stories almost. Many were published separately. Most if not all can stand alone.

Some of my favorites include: "The Third Expedition" (dramatized as "Mars is Heaven"), "And the Moon Be Still As Bright" (also dramatized), "Usher II", and "The Million Year Picnic."

But one of the stories that made me think was "Way in the Middle of the Air." Imagine the racism and prejudice of the forties and fifties alive and well in 2003. Imagine that all the progress made between now and then is washed away. That most of the Civil Rights movement and integration never happened, or happened differently. This is a harsh little story--beware of the 'n' word. It made me so thankful to live in the here and now.

Be sure to visit my Reading With Becky post about X minus 1.

Kostick, Conor. 2007. Epic.

Looking for a fast-paced science-fiction novel set on a distant planet? Looking for a novel that explores the depths of the video world? The fun of video gaming and virtual realities? Looking for a great dystopic novel? Look no further for all your needs than Conor Kostick’s novel Epic.

Generations ago, violence was banned on New Earth. Society is governed and conflicts are resolved in the arena of a fantasy computer game Epic. Everyone plays, from teenagers to senior citizens. If you win, you have the chance to go to university, get more supplies for your community, and fulfill your dreams; if you lose; your life both in and out of the game is worth nothing.

Erik and his friends are the up and coming in the game. When Erik takes a risk—makes a gamble—that no one else has ever made, then big things start to happen. The powers to be—Central Alliance—want to ensure that they remain in power for the duration. After all, a country hick shouldn’t be able to beat the system and change all the rules…

While Epic starts off a bit on the slow side, things begin to really pick up in chapter three when the game Epic is finally introduced and brought into focus. Erik, his friends, and their fantasy alter egos are great heroes and heroines, and the story is both interesting and enjoyable. I didn’t want to put this one down.

Here is how Kostick's idea/premise originated:

The growth of online gaming is extraordinary. In the Far East four million people subscribe to one game alone. In the US the two most popular online fantasy games have over 500,000 and 400,000 players respectively. And inevitably these huge virtual communities are having an impact on the real world, as players barter their powerful weapons, magic items, properties and even their long cherished characters themselves. One economist recently evaluated the entire real dollar activity of these virtual creations as being larger than the GNP of Bulgaria.

So the idea for Epic came about from wondering, what would it be like to live in a world entirely dominated by one game; where every human being had to log into the game and their wealth, their political voice, their future, was shaped by how well they were doing in the game? What would happen to those who became the games most powerful players, and thus the most wealth and powerful people in the world? Would they start to dominate the proceedings and protect themselves from challenges? And if you were born poor and had to make your way through the game from scratch, what chance would you have?

Teacher's Guide to Epic
Epic: Chapter One and Chapter Two

Okay, my willpower, as you discovered, was nonexistent. I knew this one was hopeless from the moment I read about it this morning. But I held out for over six hours...which has to count a teeny tiny little bit.

My path is A Theoretical Handbook for the Unseasoned Speculator. Why this path? Well, I like variety. I don't want to just read one genre of speculative fiction. I want a little bit of everything.

My books.

Compatible with the Cardathon challenge and my mini-Inklings challenge:

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (all seven books is my goal for 2008, but a few for this challenge by the April 1 deadline would be great.)
The Lord of the Rings (trilogy) by J.R.R. Tolkien (It is one of my 2008 goals to get to this trilogy. I'd be happy to get in one by the April deadline. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.)
Inkheart and Inkspell by Cornelia Funke are books that I've said I'd read for the Bibliography challenge which ends December 31rst. So I better get to them soon! Although I suppose there could be worse things than dropping out of a challenge.
Pastwatch: The redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card is one I'd love to get to for this challenge. (alternative history/science fiction)
Enchantment by Orson Scott Card (fantasy)
I'll probably add more Card titles to the list if I have time. We'll just have to see what says "read me, read me" when I go to the shelves.
I'd love to get to a Ray Bradbury book or two for this challenge.
And I'd love to get to an Isaac Asimov book as well.
And George R.R. Martin. I've been meaning to read some of his stuff.
And Neil Gaiman.

We'll just have to see what happens. Some depends on how much time I have. Some depends on my local library. And most depends on my mood. But I'll read at least six books. I just don't know exactly which six books. But this is a likely starting place for those six.