Eseme's Den

Life has been busy lately! I drove down to Rochester to see two of my friends get married. It was a lovely wedding, and I got to see many of my friends, which was truly wonderful.

While the weather was totally uncooperative for walking, I was able to get a bunch of reading done!

( Book reviews and walking totals )

The plan for the next couple of weeks:
Find the rulebook for the game I'll be playing the weekend of June 11.
Figure out costuming for the game in June, and sew what I need to.
Sew stuff for my Galactic Police Officer costume for PortCon
Do yet more dishes.
Do laundry.
Clean more of my apartment.
Go to the prop-making session for the playtest game I will be playing in August.
Go to what may be the last bean supper of the season in my hometown.

There may or may not be more publishing links later this weekend.

I nearly died laughing at Jim C. Hines' cartoons this week.

The first is Writing : A Reality Check.

The second is on what happens when you misuse the apostrophe.

They are brilliant. Enjoy.

I have finally gotten some reading time! This is sometimes a distressingly rare thing for me. While Panther was here, I finished Sharon Lee's Carousel Tides.

I've enjoyed it. It is an urban fantasy, I suppose, although the setting is decidedly non-urban (a small town on the coast of Maine that is a tourist mecca in the summer and full of boarded up storefronts in the winter). It is a fun tale, though I must admit it resonated more for me because I have been to Old Orchard Beach (for the book release party). The town in the book is based off OOB, and having seen the town I could envision it full of strange inhabitants and unusual events (I am working on a supremely long travel post about OOB, which will probably be of interest to no one other than me).

As for Carousel Tides:

Kate Archer was the Guardian of the Land in Archer's Beach, until she did something she felt was unforgivable, cut her ties with the Land, and fled to the southwest deserts to slowly die. She reluctantly returns when the management of the Fun Country amusement park inform her that rent on the carousel is past due. And Kate can't reach her grandmother, who should be running the carousel. The carousel needs to be tended to - it is no ordinary carousel, and Kate is not certain she can keep the other-worldly criminals who are bound to it in line. The past returns to haunt her and there are threats, both of this world and of others, taking advantage of the Guardian's absence.

The book launch party for Carousel Tides was a lot of fun, with some great conversation and lovely art. Sharon Lee throws a good party.

I've never been to OOB before, and had a lovely time. Most of the town was shuttered, but the few stores that were open had the nicest stuff, like Board Silly and the candy factory.

That was my birthday mini-vacation. And it was good weekend in a lovely place, with books and book-people.

Edits - the link for Board Silly now actually works!

There are a couple of authors that I am reading online, and enjoying. I still prefer print, but since both authors publish onlien in a serial format, I get updates faster this way.

Most of you probably know about Addergoole, as the author is a mutual friend. In case you don't, it's mysterious boarding-school/college story, and the subtle strangeness of the place is revealed slowly, which keeps the reader's interest. The story does get rather sexual at times, so if that is not to your taste, look elsewhere. It updates twice a week (occasionally once a week if the author's life is unisually busy). Friending addergoole will get you updates as they happen.

I'm really enjoying the recently started Spots the Space Marine story/novel/script: This link is to the most recent episode, but it has a link at the top to all episodes (scroll down or go to previous entries with the tag to get to the earliest stuff). haikujaguar is well worth reading - she is an artist and writer, and her work is varied and always interesting. She also wrote the Aphorisms and Admonisments of the Kerdishar, two sets of short stories which can be found on her website Stardanger.org and on Amazon. She also publishes daily updates on her life and that of her young daughter - her observations of her baby at 21 months are very interesting (she notices things like the first time her daughter displays imagination, makes new sentences, and the various times she puzzles out the world around her). Friending her LiveJournal provides for interesting, near-daily reading and artwork (she has thousands of images up in the gallery on her website). Oh, and she just started a Zazzle store, which can be found here - I want stuff! Those interested in selling stuff with their artwork or logos on it may want to check out her initial post on Zazzle as there is a conversation comparing it to CafePress.

There are no cons around here.

Closest cons are in Albany, which is an hour away.

But SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Anne McCaffrey will be here! Near my Birthday!

I must go to this con!

http://www.albacon.org/index.php

September has been a sad month for genre fiction.

First Madeline L'Engle passed (for info, see http://www.madeleinelengle.com/news/ )

Today, Robert Jordan did. His blog takes an extremely long time to load, given the many fans trying to get to it, but a very heartfelt statement can be read here: http://www.dragonmount.com/RobertJordan/

While I haven't read Jordan, having had a friend tell me that the apacolypse takes too long, I have a great deal of admiration for a man who would work so hard to finish a series whilst going through chemotherapy. A Wrinkle in Time was a comforting book for me as a child, it being about smart kids who do important things and manage to deal with schoolyard teasing. I didn't like some of the later books due to the religious overtones, but that first one is a gem.