Finding Wonderland: The WritingYA Weblog

Turning Pages: Supersweet Superheroes

2009-11-21T13:10:00.000-08:00

This is a favorite genre subdivision -- epic heroes and heroines. Not quite as good as X-men, or the MiB, none of these novels have quite the same feel as comic book pages beneath one's fingers... but you've gotta admit, they're pretty darned close.

Warrior priestesses are pretty much superheroes.

Of course, Zira doesn't think of herself as that. She has just as much practice to do as anyone in learning swordplay, and her teacher, Deo, would soon correct any arrogant attitude on her part. She's just one of the other novices, living at the House of God, doing her best to worship in the proper spirit and help train the refugee children at the temple, who are now homeless because of the Sedorne invasion. The Rua royal family has been decimated, and all the Rua people can do is pretend to be harmless and pacifist and in the meantime train, prepare...and survive.

Noirin Surya, the high priestess and keeper of the Flame of God, loves Zira as much as her own mother once must have, before she was killed by the Sedorne so long ago. When Surya takes Zira with her on business to a nearby village, she's glad to help. Their cover as harmless priestesses is blown when Zira saves the life of a Sedornese noble - leaping into the fray, swords flying.

The outlaws were going to burn him alive in his carriage...something which Zira, with her own burn scars, could never have faced in silence. Her impetuousness costs her more than she knows -- and gives her a greater gift than she could have ever found on her own.

This is a satisfying adventure story that never feels hurried, even though it's epic, and sweeping, and there are tons of details. It's very superhero.

(One cover complaint -- although the flame is outstanding, the character has a facial scar. She's not knock-down dead gorgeous. How hard is it to show that on a cover? Oh, wait, what am I saying? LIAR, anyone?)

Lisa Haines poses a very serious question of "what if" in Girl in the Arena. What if bloodsports were legal? What if war wasn't something faceless old men sent young warriors to do, but it was a mano-y-mano, on-screen thing? What if Roman gladiators had never died out?

Lyn's whole life has been GSA -- Gladiator Sport Association. Her mother, one of the first Gladiator Wives, has been married now SEVEN times, and all of Lyn's stepdads have been fighting men. Caesar's, the GSA association company, has rules. The rules say that Allison has married her last warrior. When Tommy, Lyn's seventh stepfather dies, it's going to be all over.

For various reasons, none of them like to think about that.

There's a ceremonial aspect to the gladiator life. There's the reverence for the old Roman warriors, there's attention paid to the right clothes, the proper gladiator footwear with fifteen leather straps and buckles, and the right attitude. And then, there are the bylaws:Always lend ineffable confidence to the gladiator. Remind him constantly of his victories. And most importantly: Never leave the stadium when your father is dying. Lyn isn't hot on Gladiator culture, but she always expected to go to Gladiator Wives College, like the other Glads daughters she knows. Her friendships within the Glads fade and she is fast waking up to the heavy toll that being a gladiator girl has on everyone -- her mother, Allison, her seer brother, Thad, and worst of all, Tommy, and the strapping young lad, Uber, who vanquishes him.

What if violence like this were an everyday part of life?
What would the media do to keep the bloodletting going?
How far would they go... until people said, "Enough"?

Americans are addicted to spectacle. This novel explores the concept of bloodsport as just another reality show. (And though the cover looks not at all like the character, it has a certain sense that reflects the contents of the book. Props to the graphic designers.)

How much do I love Dull Boy by Sarah Cross?
Oh, a whole lot.
Rarely do I pick up a book that makes me laugh all the way through -- even when the characters are in SERIOUS DIRE STRAITS. Even when they're in pain. It's like reading the best comic book/buddy movie/sidekick novel ev-ah. And I do mean that in all the best ways.

Avery Pirzwick is fifteen, and previously, he was okay with life. He was... like his friends, like everyone else in his high school -- dull and content and dead mediocre. Until one day, in an emergency, he lifted a car off a toddler's leg. He got some attention, then, and he was -- cautiously thrilled. It wasn't so bad to stand out, and wow -- he was super strong that day.

Wouldn't super strength be cool?

Avery thinks so, until he breaks a guy's arm on the wrestling team. And the figured out he could bench press his mother's car. And fly.

It makes him want to do something with himself. Something good. Something cool. Something...heroic. Unfortunately, all the pieces of Avery's life are crumbling in his hands -- just like his cell phone.

Instead of using his powers to be a hero, Avery's supergeeking gets him put in an expensive private school for delinquents where he meets the most unusual people. Nicholas. Catherine. Darla. And ...Jacques.

Who are they? What does Jacques' mother, the icy cold Cherchette, want with him?

Tune in next week when our superheroes...

Find Daughter of Flames, the thought-provoking Girl in the Arena, or the hilarious Dull Boy at an independent bookstore near you!

Turning Pages - A Wing and a ...Prayer. Sorta

2009-11-20T06:41:00.000-08:00

This year's Cybs have popped out an unusual crop in the paranormal teen novel category -- angels. Maybe it's only unusual to me -- I never thought of angels as having lives, romances, disputes, but hey -- science fiction and fantasy is all about "What If," right? We had Starfire Angels who were kind of vaguely sci-fi, Strange Angels wherein no angels actually even appeared and then two books where the angels were a little more... unexpected. Here are the two titles that stuck with me.

Coffeehouse Angel by Suzanne Selfors, is one of my favorites in the angel genre -- and because the first Selfour book I read was about a mermaid in a bathtub, I knew she was good at "what if" scenarios, and she shines with this zany little romantic comedy.

Katrina is just your average working stiff -- trying to help her grandma keep a roof over their heads by working all the hours she can at the Norwegian coffee shop they own. It's a stodgy old place where they only make coffee one way, there's no Wifi, and the sandwiches have sardines and pickled onions. I said Norwegian, right? Unfortunately for Katrina, there's a really hip coffeehouse next door -- and it's about to run her grandma out of business.

There's a lot more bad luck on the way, but Katrina's still got the heart to do a good deed. A homeless guy in the alleyway outside of the shop gets a bag of chocolate covered coffee beans, some day old danishes, and a big cup of coffee, on the house. It's the least she could do for someone who's had to sleep in the cold.

One selfless act.

It's amazing how much trouble that can get you into.

The homeless guy -- when he's awake -- is actually a gorgeous kilted "messenger" named Malcolm. And not particularly easy to get rid of. He just wants to repay Katrina for her kindness -- to give her what her heart desires. That can't be so bad, right?

Hush, Hush, by Becca Fitzpatrick introduces us to Nora Grey, who has no interest in high school romance. Her friend Vee is the one with stars in her eyes, and Nora has no problem turning off the charm, until Patch, the darkly seductive and broody new guy...

...who seems to be sort of everywhere. And for a new guy, he knows an awful lot about her. Now, why is that?

Nora's a little shaken -- granted, Patch is cute, and really intense, but there are weird things that happen around him. Almost accidents, near misses -- Nora's beginning to wonder if Patch isn't out to hurt her. Or, is he there to help?

Secretive, manipulative and obsessive, Patch has a lot of similarities to a.) vampires, and b.) other evil characters who mistake obsession with relationship, but in his case, there's (somewhat of ) a reason for it -- a reason that's been going on for thousands of years. Critical readers might raise a brow at a few of the stock characters and a few "Oh, please, she isn't going to do that is she??" moments, but for those looking for a "spooky dark lover" fix and who aren't turned off by the hype the novel's received, this will go down like candy.

You can find Coffeehouse Angel, and Hush, Hush, as well as Starfire Angels at independent bookstore near you!

Winter Blog Blast Tour: Five Questions for Sheba Karim

2009-11-20T01:00:00.000-08:00

- from Macmillan Books:

If Nina Khan were to rate herself on the unofficial Pakistani prestige point system – the one she’s sure all the aunties and uncles use to determine the most attractive marriage prospects for their children – her scoring might go something like this:

+2 points for getting excellent grades
–3 points for failing to live up to expectations set by genius older sister
+4 points for dutifully obeying parents and never, ever going to parties, no matter how antisocial that makes her seem to everyone at Deer Hook High
–1 point for harboring secret jealousy of her best friends, who are allowed to date like normal teenagers
+2 points for never drinking an alcoholic beverage
–10 points for obsessing about Asher Richelli, who talks to Nina like she’s not a freak at all, even though he knows that she has a disturbing line of hair running down her back.

Funny. Disturbing. Nina.

In our review of Sheba Karim's debut YA novel Skunk Girl, we wrote: "[T]here really isn't much (if any) teen literature out there that deals with the quirks of growing up as a Pakistani girl in America, with Muslim parents who are conservative, even restrictive in some ways, but still close and loving." As a portrayal of the general angst of growing up, the book was equally spot-on, and we were eager to ask the author about her writing process, her favorite reads, and her thoughts on the role of religion and culture in the story of Skunk Girl's main character, Nina.

We had limited time to spend with this busy New York born author, as she is in the process of recovering from an international move. We appreciate the time she took away from her boxes and bags to speak to us!

Finding Wonderland: Many of our readers are writers. Can you talk a bit about your process? What was the original first line of Skunk Girl? Did it change, or stay the same? What are your revisions like? Do you do flowcharts, outlines, or a flurry of Post-It notes?

Sheba Karim: The first line of Skunk Girl remained unchanged. In terms of writing process, I tend to think of structure first, and outline a chapter before I write it, at least the major plot points. It's very hard for me to start writing without having an idea of the direction I'm heading. My revisions for the book were across the board—some chapters I barely changed, while I rewrote the second half of the book entirely.

FW: As a follow up: From your blog we learn you were previously a lawyer before becoming a writer, and you received your MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop, and did a residency at Hedgebrook. How did your family feel about your decision to move from something solid like law, to something chancy like writing? Do you feel that having an MFA made a difference to you as a writer?

SK: I think it was easier for me to switch career tracks because I applied to MFA programs, so rather than quitting my job and heading into some great creative unknown, I was simply transitioning into graduate school, and the fact that I was fully funded helped a lot. My parents still worry about me, as parents are wont to do. It's hard to make a career as a writer, and there's a lot to be said for a stable paycheck, but I haven't once looked back.

FW: We're definitely glad you haven't looked back!

What were your favorite books when you were a child, and who are your favorite writers these days? Any multicultural YA authors we should be on the lookout for?

SK: My absolute favorite book when I was very young was Are You My Mother? followed some years later by the complete Sherlock Holmes and, later, Jane Eyre. I love Margaret Atwood, and two of my all-time favorite books are A Fine Balance and Midnight's Children. In terms of multi-cultural YA writers, I've heard good things about Meja Mwangi, Sharon Flake, and Neesha Meminger.

FW: Neesha is one of our favorites, too!

What was your family's response to Skunk Girl? Knowing that you are a woman with a Muslim background, and that you're familiar with the religion, what was it like to write about Muslim religion from an outsider perspective? Did you feel any pressure to present a particular picture of Islam, or did you simply write what you know?

SK: I didn't feel any pressure to convey a particular picture of Islam, though obviously I didn’t want to demonize it in any way. In my mind, I was writing a novel about one particular Muslim girl’s experience, which would undoubtedly have similarities and differences to the experiences of other Muslim-American girls. My focus was on discussing certain aspects of growing up female and Muslim in the US (as it pertained to Nina) rather than conveying some broader message about the religion itself, though I did try to convey that, like most religions, there's a fluidity to Islam in terms of people’s beliefs and practices.

FW: The choice Nina makes about her relationship with Asher at the end of the book might not be one that every reader can relate to. Can you talk a bit about your decision to end the book with her choosing to stay closer to the dictates of her culture and family than "following her heart," so to speak (something very much lauded in mainstream American culture)? What do you think the ending conveys to readers of Pakistani or Muslim background? To non-Pakistani or non-Muslim readers?

SK: I think the decision Nina makes is more of a practical one. Some readers would have probably preferred that Nina be determined to pursue a relationship with Asher no matter what the cost. I think it's a lot easier to do such things when you're older and more independent. I'm not saying it's not possible, I'm just saying it’s a lot more difficult.

Some Muslim readers might be taken aback at the fact that Nina never questions the morality of dating, while some non-Muslim readers might be upset that Nina seemingly panders to cultural mores by deciding not to date Asher. But I don't want readers to come away thinking Nina's decision is meant to convey some kind of message, because it's not. It's just one character's individual decision in a complicated situation. For Nina, it's more of a timing thing. Of course, who knows, when school starts again, Nina's resolve might not be so strong.

Bonus Question: Will you continue writing in the YA genre? Can you talk a bit about what you're working on now?

SK: I'm currently working on a historical fiction novel set in 13th century Delhi, India, and I just started working on a YA fantasy book. It's quite new, so I won't say much about it, except that it involves djinns.

FW:Thank you so much again for taking time out of your busy schedule for us! We can't wait to read more of your work, and wish you the very best.

Gotta love the djinns, huh? And we're always HEARTILY in favor of multicultural fantasy here at Wonderland, so GO, SHEBA KARIM! If you want to read another fun, quirky interview, check out Sheba's toe-to-toe chat with the Longstockings (Yum, chocolate peanut butter ice cream!), or check out her author essay at Powells.com. Some good reading on women and identity in Islam, which is what Skunk Girl is about in a smaller, less academic fashion.

And, don't forget to check out the rest of today's awesome WBBT author/illustrator interviews:
Lisa Schroeder @ Writing & Ruminating
Alan DeNiro @ Shaken & Stirred,
Joan Holub @ Bildungsroman
The amazing Pam Bachorz @ Mother Reader
R.L. LaFevers @ Hip Writer Mama

Turning Pages: Bring on the Shorts

2009-11-19T09:42:00.000-08:00

It's sort of an open secret, my obsession with anthologies.

I love short stories and think there should be way, way, WAY more short story collections for young adults and teens, and heck, adults and science fiction lovers and fantasy fiends. I think genre fiction has kind of stolen the short story, handed it to Raymond Carver, and effectively blocked out everyone else. I mean, think about it: the words "short story" make some people break out in a graduate-school induced pox, a flash-fiction induced fever. They hear the words and expect Pretentious. Insanely ambiguous. Boring. And that's not right. After all, a short story's just like a novel, only... shorter. Beginning, middle, end. Engaging characters, subtle tensions. Depth. Conclusion.

My favorite short stories are those which are pieces of the author's heart that they couldn't leave behind when they finished writing a novel. Minor characters are fleshed out and briefly given life -- it's a wonderful gift to be allowed into a world one last time. (J.K. Rowling should have considered doing something like that instead of the whole "I control this world and will now tell you exactly what happens to everyone their whole lives, thus ruining the whole Potter mystique permanently." I mean, a short story. OR three. It would have helped get him out of her system.) Select and savor the story collections in the SFF genre group for the Cybils this year:

The Eternal Kiss: 13 Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire, edited by Trisha Telep actually didn't grab me right off -- mainly because the cover depicts Eyeless Head Girl, and her mouth is open. Whether she's meant to be gasping with that aforementioned Desire or not, she looks like she's dead, with her neck situated limp-awkwardly. Which would be just right for vampirism, but eek and ewww.

Never mind. The collection is chock full of awesome -- freaky, disturbing, arresting stories, told by some of the most loved names in YA fiction. Sword Point by Maria V. Snyder tells the story of obsessed fencer, Ava, who dreams of Olympic gold, and is on her way to being trained by the best. Never mind that loitering outside of the karate studio next door to the fencing school gets her doused with water -- what was up with that?? Her fencing trainer has an unlocked room full of swords, and a GREAT BIG CRUCIFIX on the wall in his inner sanctum. He's Italian - obviously serious about his religion. Who cares if everyone at the school looks at her a little weird, and the karate guy thinks she should learn self-defense? Everything's cool...

Undead Is Very Hot Right Now, by Sarah Rees Brennan is horribly ironic and funny and sad and poignant. Like a lonely rocker vampire in a boy band, searching yearningly for his one true love, and never finding her. Yeah, exactly like that.

Kat, by Kelley Armstrong is my FAVORITE, and anyone who's read Darkest Powers series will be lured by this one, too. The Edison Group: they're baaaack... And chasing people down. Again.

In the terrifying category are Cecil Tell-It-Straight Castellucci with Wet Teeth (Yes. Your stomach. Turning. Got it.) and Cassandra Clare's Other Boys. Egads. There's a woman whose imagination I don't want to meet some dark night in an alley. Yikes. And Libba Bray's The 13th Step?? Talk about disturbing. Vampires: some scary people. Things. Whatever.

Sharon November heads up the Firebird imprint at Puffin, and since it's just her month all over anyway (How much do I love her name? And the brilliantly autumnal shade of her hair...), I've got to give props to the newest in her triumvirate of speculative fiction anthologies. Firebirds Soaring is a much meatier collection that the previous one, twenty tales which fill over five hundred meaty pages. This collection will appeal to adults and teens who love speculative fiction. Firebirds has a more literary mien, and readers will have to work a little for the gems of story concealed in its pages, but it's good, satisfying work, and pays high dividends.

Some of the numerous highlights of the collection are Ellen Klages' scary Singing on a Star, wherein a very young girl finds her way into a new world by way of a friend's closet -- and has to make a decision about whether or not she'd be better off where she is, as the song says.

Jo Walton's Three Twilight Tales opens up the delicious possibilities of reversal that most fairytales often don't broach. What would happen if the handsome King came to the village and met the shy maiden, and, instead of making her the Queen, became something else himself?

Dolly, the Dog Soldier by Candas Jane Dorsey is a powerful story about pack behavior, the gifts that innocence and childhood give us, and the strength it takes to fight incandescently for something else -- not to be an obedient puppy, looking for puppy love, but for bigger, better, and more.

The collection is rounded out by Something Worth Doing, Elizabeth E. Wein's meticulously written tale of a true flygirl, whose feckless but much loved younger brother is run down by a van in the spring of 1940, just a month shy of his eighteenth birthday. Bereft and infuriated by her parents who can only nod in agreement at the sympathetic murmurs of "what a waste," in reference to her brother's life, Kim is bound and determined to memorialize her brother better than that. She finds a way to make him live again - with her own life. This is an absolutely smashing piece with which to end an all-round pleasing anthology, and Firebird readers are already looking forward to the next dose of intelligently written fictional shorts, I'm sure.

More anthologies, people! Short stories make good reading. Bring 'em on.

Buy The Eternal Kiss and Buy Firebirds Soaring from an independent bookstore near you!

Turning Pages: Don't Judge the Book by its Cover

2009-11-19T08:46:00.002-08:00

Science Fiction and Fantasy, my peeps, can produce some staggeringly bad, bad, BAD covers.

Not that they're not the apex of graphic design. Not that they're not a genius of artistic achievement. No, nothing like that - and props to all of your graphics people out there. It's just sometimes? I think that whomever gives you the "this is what the book is about" write-ups should do just a tad more work. That might make a difference.

With their carefully arranged dead in bright primary colors, the Generation Dead books look... amusing. Comedic. Yet Kiss of Life, the one I just read was not. Folks in Phoebe's town are used to the dead -- they don't call them zombies, though. That's not PC, even though that's what the "differently biotic" call themselves. Adam, a boy who had a major crush on Phoebe, who even took a bullet for her when an angry classmate had tried to shoot her for being the first to date across the ...um... lifeline, is now dead -- and he's not recovering well. It takes him months to learn to speak and move again, and in the meantime, Phoebe -- whom shooter Pete calls Morticia Scarypants -- is giving her whole life to him, trying to help him cope, thinking they're a couple, and that she owes him this. After all, he gave up life for her. Never mind that she really still loves Tommy, who, in an effort to be a guiding light to other differently biotic kids, is traveling across the United States to Washington to help change the world.

Kiss of Life, by Daniel Waters is a book that deals with the political and emotional ramifications of a minority group -- and the ghostly pale diva in the coffin with the football player mooning over her -- supposedly Phoebe and Adam, which is bizarre, since Phoebe is alive, and Adam is the one who is dead -- doesn't really do much to advertise the book. But, maybe that's just me.

Watersmeet, by Ellen Jensen Abbott looks like that Costner thing. Waterworld. The girl on the cover has wet hair... and one iridescent green eye.

Despite the cover, Abisina does not spend most of her time in the water. She's an outcast in her village because she has green eyes. Most days she's getting pounded on and beaten. Everyone in the village is poor, they're being hunted by centaurs, and are in constant danger. They're also hyper-religious and it's a hard, cold religion that brings no one comfort. Only the presence of her mother, the village healer, preserves Abisina from being driven away. They live on the outskirts of town, with the other strange ones who are dark and not blonde.

It's only an accident of birth, maybe, but Abisina believes that something is wrong with her. That she is wrong. And when the charismatic new leader comes to Vranille, the first thing he does is turn the villagers against the outcast.

Abisina convinces her mother to run, to leave the village, but it's too late. The healer dies at the hands of a mob, as do many of the outcast. All that is left is her mother's necklace, a strange metal amulet that Abisina finds on the heap of her ashes. The necklace is a key to finding her father -- of braving centaur attacks and coming to an uneasy friendship with another who has lost his home. This is a story of a person finding their strength and going on a quest, and coming out whole on the other side.

Too bad the cover just shows another alluring looking girl.

I can't actually argue that the cover of Pastworld is inaccurate. It's not. It's definitely as dark and confusing as the contents of the book. There's a Victorian looking street, gas lamps, and ... a dirigible overhead?

The world has become so enamored of the idea of the past, that the future has recreated it. London has lost its use as a modern metropolitan center, and has been recreated as Victorian -- a living, breathing theme park call Pastword where for a sum, people of the present can dress in costume and gawk at the people of the past. London in Victorian times was a place of obscenely rich as well as obscenely poor people, and all the technology of 2048, and all the power of the Buckland Corporation has been bent toward recreating an exact replica.

Down to the last knife-wielding, mad-eyed inhabitant.

Oh, yes. You didn't think they'd forget to include the most infamous London inhabitant of them all, did you? The problem with a theme park is that the people who "work" there are supposed to be "actors." The Buckland Corporation isn't paying any actors. Some of the people in London think it's Victorian times. Some of them haven't been told what it is that they're in Pastworld to do.

And some of them, they just do what they're born to do...

This is a classic Technology Gone Oh-So-Wrong novel. I look forward to seeing what the cover will be in paperback; maybe it will get even darker and creepier.

Here's hoping, anyway.

May all your books match your covers; barring that, may you continue to ignore the covers, and read all the words.

Pick up Buy Generation Dead: The Kiss of Life, the epic Watersmeet, or Pastworld at an independent bookstore near you!

Winter Blog Blast Tour, Day Four

2009-11-19T01:47:00.000-08:00

The Tour Rolls On

I get a real kick out of reading the blog blast tour posts -- especially Hip Mama Writer's interview of Cynthia Leitich Smith, who I think is such a phenomenal person. The video interview of Dan Santat at Fuse #8 was by turns hilarious and ...well, more hilarious, because two such silly people just can't help being funny. And, there are hand puppets. Nova Ren Suma at Shelf Elf made me excited for a book I hadn't yet heard of, and Ann Marie Flemming at Chasing Ray was just phenomenal -- an unusual use of family history and stick figures in memoir. Love it.

Today:

Sy Montgomery, Part II @ Chasing Ray is all pigs and birds,

Laini Taylor @ Shelf Elf wants a positive future,

Jim DiBartolo @ Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast shares the contents of his breakfast: Clementine Pie. Of course.

Amanda Marrone @ Writing & Ruminating uses vampires as a catalyst for change. It works! And then some...

Thomas Randall @ Bildungsroman has tricked me into reading a Christopher Golden novel. Wonder how he did that?

Michael Hague @ Fuse Number 8 owes it all to Mad Magazine. And Prince Valiant, of course.

Read and enjoy, and stay tuned for a brief chat with Sheba Karim, author of Skunk Girl here, tomorrow!

Winter Blog Blast Tour: Sarwat Chadda

2009-11-18T03:00:00.000-08:00

Aquafortis here. On my recent travels, the Mr. and I visited the Church of Vera Cruz in Segovia, Spain (a city an hour away from Madrid which I HIGHLY recommend). This church reminded me of Sarwat Chadda, and his novel, The Devil's Kiss--because, according to legend, the church was founded by the very same Knights Templar that Chadda's main character, Billi, is so conflicted about being a part of.

As it turns out, the legend that the Templars founded the church is just that--a legend. In reality, the Church of Vera Cruz was evidently founded by the Knights of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and/or the Order of Malta--and the Knights of Malta are the Hospitallers mentioned in The Devil's Kiss. How cool is that? (And, honestly? It sounds just as fascinating as the Knights Templar!)

The church is named vera cruz because the Knights allegedly kept vigil over a sliver of the true cross. This slightly blurred (oops) photo shows the interior of the church, and the banners of the various Orders, just as they appeared in medieval days (only with brighter colors). And that's your bonus don't-you-wish-you'd-been-in-Spain-with-me travelogue! And now, on with the show!

Finding Wonderland: Hey, Sarwat! Welcome to Finding Wonderland!

According to your website, you studied Engineering at your university (yay for another YA author who is also an engineer! Varian Johnson finally has company!). Where do you get your love for history and research? Did you study deeply into Templar and Muslim mythologies and traditions, or did you mostly loose your imagination when writing The Devil's Kiss?

Sarwat Chadda: Oh, the engineering was the classic day job while the history, mythology and religion was what I really loved, but couldn't find a way to earn a living out of it until recently.

So while I did spend a long, long time doing research, it was all stuff I would have read anyway, whether or not I was a writer.

The basis of DK came from a visit to a pediatric intensive care unit and it was that event that led me to write about the Tenth Plague. If there is a God, why does he let innocent children die? I'm not convinced by the 'moving in mysterious ways' get out clause.

FW: Yeah, that's a tough one for a lot of people, and it's interesting to see that you came to this book with such serious thoughts in mind.

So, what was your family's response to The Devil's Kiss? What did the Vicar have to say? Knowing that your parents are Muslim and that you're familiar with the religion, what was it like to write about Muslim religion and mythology from an outsider perspective? Did you feel any pressure to present a particular picture of Islam, or did you simply write what you know?

SC: My parents love that I'm a writer. I think deep down they knew I never really enjoyed the engineering. In fact, they took a large box of my books over to Pakistan last month to hand out to all the relatives and it appears to have gone down well. As to my father-in-law, the vicar, I've not really spoken to him about the book. I don't think he's read it!

I would consider myself a British-born Muslim and I find Islamic history fascinating, be it the Crusades, the Ottomans or the Islamic rule of Spain. That said the Napoleonic wars where a major influence on my writing, so it's difficult to draw the line over what influences me most. I think the best way to avoid getting stale is to spread your interests as wide as possible. I just love history, be it Greek, Roman, Mongol, whatever.

Actually, it never occurred to me I was presenting a picture of Islam, or any religion in particular. I've travelled a lot and live in a very ethnically diverse are of London (though you could argue it's all ethnically diverse) and the more you travel, the greater are the similarities. What's also so interesting is the common themes in what appear to be hugely different cultures. Ancestral memories or universal Jungian archetypes, it shows how the same stories and themes pop up over and over again, everywhere.

What's interesting is the feedback I've had from some schools regarding the religious and ethnic mix of the characters. Again it was just how I see the world, so that's what I wrote.

FW:This book has a lot of action -- and a lot of bloodshed and loss. What reaction did you have from editors and publicists in regard to the violence? What was the original first line that you wrote for this story? How much did it change in the published version?

SC: The violence is there for a reason. I'm hoping it affects you because it is brutal and leads to loss. I hate the 'kill and quip' style of comedy violence where brutal things happen and the hero walks away with a smart one-liner. Death has consequences. I needed to establish that on the first page, on the first line. The original line was an different scene altogether, it was a big werewolf fight rather than a spooky encounter in an derelict playground. The boy on the swing scene fitted the mood of the tale perfectly. Some people really hated it but I think that's because I don't present Billi as a sympathetic character. Hey, her first thought is about killing a little kid, so I can see how it might be awkward to put her in a 'good gal' box. But as long as you understand why she is who she is, empathize rather than sympathize, that's great.

FW: Oh, I don't know! I think Billi was really a sympathetic character there -- she obviously didn't want to do what she had to do. That conflict continues -- and grows.

As Billi gripes to herself about her father's world and rules, readers might be tempted to tell her, "Well, just leave, then!" but the Knights Templar in this novel are a group bound by devotion to duty -- though not necessarily devotion to God. If you could distill the Knight Templar's underlying reason to be into a single sentence, what would it be? To what in the modern world can your readers compare this concept of duty? Do you think young adults today have a concept of duty like Billi's -- unattached to politics or religion or emotion?

SC: The Templars have no single underlying reason. They are ultimately the great contradict of all warriors, peace through violence. It is way too easy to say it's the struggle between good and evil because working out who is good and who is evil is a tricky business at the best of times. This is something I develop more in Dark Goddess, where it's clear the Templars are wrong, but Billi must see things through nevertheless.

Billi questions her beliefs, which I think is no bad thing, and is very wary of any dogma, hence her desire to quit. But then what? She knows no other life. Whatever she feels, she's a Templar, through and through. What she isn't is a mindless soldier. She questions the morality of her actions and has not become blinded to believing her cause is the 'right one'.

Of course she could quit, but then who would be left? Arthur is too blinkered by his own damaged past to see clearly that he's leading the Templars to destruction, and Gwaine is too backward looking to see the Order must evolve to survive. Billi, despite her personal desires, realizes she greater role within the community. Simply put she is realizing what it is to be an adult. That is not to live in the land of do as you please.

As to concept of duty, that's a hard one. I don't think most adults have any concept of duty. Given the mess we're making of things I'd hesitate to advise anyone what theirs should be!

FW: Billi - a lone girl among men - obviously struggles. What would Billi have been like as a boy? How difficult was it to get into the head of a teen girl? What role or character would you like to challenge yourself with next?

SC: If Billi had been a boy I think he would have been a lot less questioning of Arthur. He would have relished the Templar life because he would have felt he'd belonged from day one. But that would have made him a follower, not a leader. Billi's destiny is to make her own path, not follow in the footsteps of anyone, even her father. Being the only girl is merely an external symbol of her individuality as a Templar.

I have daughters, my first reader is my wife, I have two female editors and my agent is also a woman. They made sure I stuck within the head of a 15 year old girl. But some issues are sexless. The key one is deciding your future. At 15 you're on the verge of adulthood. You have to decide what sort of adult you're going to be. Not easy.

Bonus Question:We know that the next book in your series you're almost finished with (!!) - The Dark Goddess - and we're excited! According to your website, you were a newbie to the YA genre when you started writing The Devil's Kiss. Now that you're in the know on the YA scene, who are you reading? Any multicultural authors or new voices we should know about?

SC: Can I admit I don't read much YA fiction? Obviously I've read Phillip Pullman (it was the Dark Materials that got me thinking about becoming a writer) and with regard to genre, I was a huge Anne Rice fan back in the day. I read a lot of historical fiction but recently I've been reading some Lehane, crime fiction set in Boston. I'm trying to be more varied in my reading habits to keep a bit fresh. If any of you are planning to become writers, don't spend all your time just reading your chosen genre, there's a risk of becoming myopic. That goes double for anyone writing a vampire story.

Right now I'm reading a lot of South Asian mythology. I've old copies of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, both by Rajagopalachari, and one by Narayan. They're not multicultural as such since they're writing about their own culture but they're great books and I thoroughly recommend them.

FW:Thank you so much for dropping by - we can't wait for the next book in Billi's world, and we wish you the best in your writing!

Behind every great author is a lot of heart. If you haven't checked out Sarwat's blog, and his website (and yes, he said we could call him by his first name, so we're totally name-dropping here) -- you simply must. It's funny and thorough and gives a little glimpse into his personality. (And his prowess with Photoshop.)

For another great interview, check out Sarwat at The Enchanted Inkpot.

And, don't forget to check out the rest of today's awesome WBBT author/illustrator interviews:

Sy Montgomery Pt 1 @ Chasing Ray,
Jacqui Robbins @ Bildungsroman,
Cynthia Leitich Smith @ Hip Writer Mama:
Beth Kephart @ Shelf Elf, and the bonus interview,
Annie Barrows @ Great Kid Books

Cover images courtesy of the author.

Turning Pages - Disturbed Obsessions

2009-11-17T05:31:00.000-08:00

The Cybils books continue to pile up in a happy fashion, and I try to pack two or three of them into each weekend, and at least one a day. I've found another amusing thematic bundle into which to gather my reviews - the theme of obsession.

The thing about obsessions are that they begin so normally -- as a fine appreciation for a person or a thing. And then it morphs into a thing of sheer horror. These books flirt with horror -- some more than others -- and take the reader into obsession, and back again.

Fire, by Kristin Cashore
Take the case of Fire.
She's just a girl whom everybody wants.
Well, not really. She's not actually a girl, per se. But everybody -- even people who are supposed to be her trusted friends -- want what they can get from her. Women stare at her enviously, and then hatefully. Men stare at her lustfully -- and then get really scary. And, just to top things off? Monsters would like to eat her.

Fire is the last of the human-shaped monsters in the kingdom of Dells. She can change minds. She can exert her will on others. She can get into their heads. She really, really would rather not.

The only one who ever truly loved her for herself is her father - a psychotic monster who nearly brought down the kingdom as he tormented the old king. Fire believes that no one will ever truly see past their obsession with her blinding beauty. Not her guardian, not her good friend, Archer, not even the King...

Fragile Eternity, by Melissa Marr
Ash, who at the end of Wicked, Lovely married Keenan, the Summer King, yet kept her mortal love, Seth, is beginning to wonder if anyone really loves her - not just the warmth and life that flows from her. What seemed such a perfect compromise -- to be the King's consort, but only bear the title Queen in name, has backfired incredibly badly. Keenan is pushing -- pushing -- for them to get together, since having the King and Queen together strengthens the Summer Court. Seth is hiding his hurt, but anger and jealousy are just under the surface as Keenan takes all of her time and the Court holds more and more of her attention. Donia, the Winter Queen whom Keenan had loved for so long, is growing stronger -- and more jealous. Seth is soon left in the unenviable position of not being sure of Aislinn's love, feeling unable to protect her or guard her, and hating his mortality. Love has been twisted, and only trouble can follow. Seth is sure he's got the right answer -- if he were fae, wouldn't everything be just fine...?

The threads of possibility wind tighter and tighter...

Waking Dreams of the Dead, by Thomas Randall
Kara is sixteen, and new to Japan, and desperately wanting to fit in, forget the car accident that claimed her mother's life, and create new, happier memories in a new world with her father. Befriended by tough girl, Sakura, Kara finds a kindred spirit in another struggling person, as Sakura copes with her sister's unsolved murder. Oddly, it seems that no one cares that Sakura's sister is dead. And then the nightmares start. It seems that a bodiless entity is escaping to the waking world -- and killing students at Kara's new school. Is it Sakura's sister? Or has Sakura somehow herself started this? Is there any way to convince either girl to let things go?

The Tear Collector, by Patrick Jones
Cassandra Gray really just wants you to let it all out. Just cry it out. You'll feel better for it, really. Most of the kids at Lapeer High who are friends of hers do. They cry on her shoulder, sob noisily as she breaks up with them -- for the third time -- and pour our their hearts to hear at peer counseling. And she wipes up their tears with a monogrammed handkerchief, and stows it away.

Go on, cry. You can trust her with your secret pain.

Cassandra is obsessed with the sadness of others. It feeds her. It keeps her moisturized. It's perhaps killing her friends. It's so hard to tell anymore, what's Cassandra's fault, and what's not. She just needs tears to survive, is it her fault that the world is such a painful, awful place...?

...at the other end of the theme of obsession is... well, zombies. The Forest of Hands and Teeth has already been ably reviewed by AF, so I won't go into it again. It was ...definitely horrifying, yet inspired, in an awful way. Zombies. Obsessed with breaking through the Fence. Sisters, obsessed with secrets and silence... creepy.

Of all of these books of obsession, I enjoyed Fire the most, after I reminded myself that the Graces would show up in due course, and it was not a sequel to Graceling, but a companion book. Cashore's skillful writing created another great story and Fire made up for any disappointment I might have felt. The Tear Collector is possibly even creepier than the zombies. If you're afraid you're a little vampire obsessed, try emotional vampirism. Yuck. Nothing romantic about that at all.

You'll find Buy Fire, Fragile Eternity, The Waking: Dreams of the Dead and The Tear Collector -- all 2009 Cybils YA SFF Nominated Books -- from an independent bookstore near you!

...and the fun continues!

2009-11-17T03:42:00.000-08:00

TODAY'S SCHEDULE:
Ann Marie Fleming @ Chasing Ray.

Laurie Faria Stolarz @ Bildungsroman,

Patrick Carman @ Miss Erin

Jacqueline Kelly at Hip Writer Mama,

Dan Santat at Fuse Number 8,

and Nova Ren Suma at Shelf Elf

Click! Read! Enjoy

Winter Blog Blast Tour: Brilliant Derek Landy

2009-11-16T01:00:00.000-08:00

Skulduggery Pleasant is kind of a hottie.

Yeah. We said it. Skulduggery is a hottie. And it's not just that he throws fireballs, either. There's something way too attractive about a guy who knows how to wear a hat, who is dangerous and witty and funny, and has -- face it -- really, really good bones.

What Harry Potter was to many American kids, Skulduggery Pleasant is to many British kids, and his popularity in the U.S. is definitely on the rise. We're also Skulduggery fanatics at Wonderland, and are fascinated by the sly sense of humor, fast-paced action and cleverly-named characters in all of the books. Imagine our glee (and, okay, Tanita's outright breathless squee-ing) to have gotten to talk to the man behind the magic. We were so tickled -- or, chuffed, as a Brit might say -- that author Derek Landy agreed to speak with us. He's one of those brilliantly creative people who does all kinds of things -- and he started with zombies. As a screenwriter he wrote Dead Bodies in 2003 ("Every situation is a grave situation."), and Boy Eats Girl in 2005, and then moved right on from zombies to... skeletons.

He's an exceptionally intelligent writer, so we were quite flattered when he told us, "These are, without a doubt, the best questions I've ever been asked. Well, almost. The best question I was ever asked was in my second ever school event in 2007, when a kid put up his hand and asked 'Have you ever been in a fight with another writer?' Pretty hard to beat THAT one, I think you'll agree."

Right. Guess that IS a hard one to beat. (And now we kind of wish we'd asked it ourselves...) But we asked him just about everything else--and he rose to the challenge with wit and charm and candor.

(*swoon*)

FW:Welcome to Finding Wonderland!

Mr. Landy, most of our readers are also closet writers, so we always have to ask: what is your writing day like? You get up, feed your cat menagerie (we heard about the cat thing), and then --...? How much of your daily life has changed since becoming such a successful author? How did your family respond to having a writer in their midst?

Derek Landy: My life has changed utterly since Skulduggery. He has allowed me to buy my own house, stop working on the family farm, and basically live the life I've always dreamed of living. My family is thrilled about everything that's happened, and you can especially see it in my parents' faces. For years, I was the kid they had to worry about, the kid who refused to focus in school, who got kicked out of college, who spent his days dreaming... And now, suddenly, I'm the one whose dreams have come true. For months after I got the news that Harper Collins wanted to publish the book, I'd walk into the kitchen and my parents would instantly break out into the biggest smiles I'd ever seen.

That was back in 2006, of course, when it all began. These days, I've settled into a new routine which I find quite agreeable. I like to get up a little before noon, wander around the house for a bit, check emails, saunter off, eat a couple of apples (apple-eating is my new thing), and drive over to my parents' place (they're only 5 minutes away) and take the dog for a walk.

Three days a week I'll do a little light shopping, mostly buying DVDs and games and comics and books, and I'll return home and answer more emails. Maybe I'll play a video game for an hour or two.

I'd usually start writing anywhere from 3 to 4 in the afternoon, then stop at 6 and drive to my parents' place again (my mother told me she didn't mind me moving out, just as long as I dropped by at least twice a day to have a chat...!) So I have my dinner there, and have a laugh with my folks and my brother, and I take the dog for another walk, and I'll get back to my house at about 7:30.

From this point on, this is when I really write, and I'll write until 3 in the morning. I prefer to write at night because people stop sending emails, and they stop calling, and I'm generally left alone.

Bear in mind, however, that this routine can change drastically. When I'm between books, I force myself to not write anything, so I can build up enthusiasm. But when I'm in the MIDDLE of a book, when I've become obsessed by it, from the moment I wake up to the moment I sleep, I'm writing. With several breaks to walk the dog, naturally.

FW: In so many ways, that's just an ideal schedule. Who else schedules time for both the importance of video games and apples? And writing while everyone else is asleep definitely cuts down on the email interruptions!

What was the biggest challenge in going from writing horror films for an adult audience to writing fantasy for a MG audience? Did you feel you had to sort of tone down the gorefest? How long did it take you to develop the world setting for the stories?

DL: Bizarrely, I haven't really changed my approach now that I'm writing for a younger audience. The only concessions I've made is that nobody curses. I have a healthy respect for the Skulduggery readers, and I'm pretty sure they can handle whatever is thrown at them. There are some pretty gory scenes in these books, but I don't really dwell on that aspect. If someone's head explodes, for example, the only thing I'm going to say is "His head explodes"- I'm not going to describe the blood or the brain matter! It's up to each individual reader to conjure up an image to suit the words- those who want to see gore will grin happily and see gore, those who don't, won't.

When I started writing, I decided early on that these books should be set in a realistic world. This way, all the magic and freaky stuff will seem even weirder, if it's set in a world we recognise as normal. From that, logic told me that all these sorcerers live in an underground society with their own rules, laws, and authorities. The world evolved as I wrote, quite frankly, and it's still evolving today.

FW: Valkyrie Cain (Seriously - Might have to give that name to a child or cat or something), Tanith Low and China Sorrows, all in their own way are an amazingly diverse crop of strong female characters. What were your influences, in the fantasy genre? And do you feel that there's still a noticeable gender gap in terms of strong female heroines in fantasy? Also--we have to ask--are the names Tanith and China deliberate nods to other fantasy/sci-fi authors?

DL: To be honest, populating these books with strong female characters never occurred to me--this was never the objective. The fact is, this is merely how I see most women, and these are the only kinds of women that interest me. My mother is fiercely intelligent, my sisters are formidable, my female friends are admirable--I have been surrounded by strong women my entire life, and this is the only thing I know.

Valkyrie is actually based on a friend of mine, so I know I'd get a slap if I ever wrote a scene where she curls up on a forest floor and cries herself to sleep after a boyfriend breaks up with her...!

From Ripley, in the Alien movies, to Catwoman, to Agent Scully and Buffy, strong female characters are a huge part of the fantasy genre. Gone are the days when the girl would scream and cry and wait for the handsome hero to decide what to do.

Well, they're ALMOST gone...

Oh, and as for China and Tanith, China was the first character to pop into my head after Skulduggery, so her name wasn't based on anyone- but I've always thought that the writer Tanith Lee had the best name EVER, and so when I needed a cool name for a cool girl, Tanith Low was born...!

(Strong women are the only thing he knows, people. That. Is. Awesome.)

FW: We're sure everyone asks -- knowing that the first Skulduggery Pleasant was quickly optioned for film -- any news on a Skulduggery movie? As a screenwriter, are you anxious about that -- have concerns that they might totally screw up your story, or are you pretty much blasé on the topic of your books going to film?

DL: The Skulduggery movie is progressing... slowly. There are no guarantees it will ever get made, but we have an excellent screenwriter who has taken over the script, so hopefully we'll end up with something that everyone likes.

Obviously, Skulduggery Pleasant is close to my heart--these books have changed my life, and I owe these characters so much. I want the film to be great. We've seen good books get turned into dreadful films again and again, and that is always a real and genuine risk. But the fact is, nobody sets out to make a bad film, so the object of the game must be that we spot the flaws, we communicate, and we listen to logic. Respect the material and respect the audience, and just pray that we get it right.

FW: There's so much humor in your Skulduggery Pleasant books. Do the jokes come naturally or do you spend time agonizing over them? Is it challenging to balance the humor with the more serious, dramatic elements? Do you think that the sense of humor in the book translates well to other English-speaking countries like the U.S., or do you think we're separated by a common language, and edit accordingly?

DL: I think the humour translates into different cultures without much of a problem, and the books are doing well in other languages too, so it would appear that we all laugh at the same things...!

The jokes come naturally to me. Too naturally, in fact. I have tried writing without jokes, I have tried serious stories, but by page three the jokes start to creep in and suddenly I'm writing another comedy. It's really annoying! I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to write something without humour, but I'm still going to try!

As far as balancing the humour with the more serious aspects of the story, it IS a tightrope. Too many jokes, and the tension and the sense of danger are lost. Too little, and the whole thing becomes far too grim. The fact is, I make jokes at really inappropriate times--I made jokes when I was being mugged, for example, and I actually made a few of the muggers laugh. So I tend to throw jokes into moments when most people wouldn't open their mouths--but thankfully I have an editor who looks out for these things!

I am getting better at it, though. I hope.

FW: It's just not everyone who can make jokes while being mugged...

The fight scenes in the SP series are vivid, detailed, and realistic, and we know from your blog that you’re a black-belt martial arts dude. Did you have to learn any other techniques, like staging, for instance, in preparation for the writing process? (Please don't say you learned necromancy!) Alternatively, have you ever unexpectedly used any real-world knowledge from previous jobs or activities in your writing? (Much like all the teachers said we'd use Algebra someday, we'd like to know if picking cauliflower and cabbage on your parents' farm prepared you to write about animated skeletons and zombies.)

DL: The reason I include martial arts in such a prominent way is that I was getting so tired of reading fight scenes by writers who have obviously never been in a fight. Fights are awful, and messy, and desperate, and things move so fast and one mistake could end it. For the best fight scenes in books, I recommend Joe R. Lansdale, who also happens to have the best tough guy banter you're ever likely to read. And for the most terrifying fight scene in the last few years, "The Girl Who Played With Fire" would get my vote, when the boxer goes up against the blond giant. Just brilliant.

I'm trying to think of skills that I've learned that I've included in my writing, and I really can't think of any. That Algebra thing is a CON!

(Hah! *WE* thought that Algebra thing was a con, too!)

FW: Part of the beauty of Stephanie being able to put off her Stephanie-ness and put on her Valkyrie life by turns is that she is able to, in some ways, put off actually coming to conclusions about her identity, and delay participating in the day-to-day minutiae that make a life...how do you see young readers relating to the idea of being able to take on a different persona? Was there a deliberate thematic choice to include so many characters in disguise? Do you intend this to convey anything about good masquerading as evil (were the Guild ever the "good guys?") or the idea of a centralized "good" in terms of authority figures or government?

DL: I think we'd all like a secret identity, we'd all like a name or a mask to hide behind while we do the kinds of things we wouldn't normally do. Valkyrie's situation is pretty much a prime example of how this would work out. On the one hand, she has her reflection to go to school in her place, and to tidy her room and do her homework and generally live the normal life she would otherwise be living, while she's out there saving the world. The downside, as she is going to discover more and more, is that there are elements of normal life that she's going to miss out on. She's growing up under Skulduggery's wing, but this means she doesn't get to bond with her parents the way she really should at her age.

The idea of the reflection, however, seems to have struck a chord with many readers. I get truckloads of letters and emails telling me how much they would love to send their own reflection to school while they did other, more exciting things. There's a part of me that wonders if, maybe, I should be more responsible, and tell these kids that they really should appreciate school and all they can learn there, but the fact is I tend to grin when I read these letters... This PROBABLY makes me a bad influence on an entire generation of kids, but hey, if you're going to be an influence, why not be a bad one?

Besides, Valkyrie is the real role model here. Skulduggery has his ups and downs, but Valkyrie has an incorruptible code of honour that she will not break. I think it's very important that she does not automatically respect authority, but rather that she questions it and tests it until breaking point. Respect, in Valkyrie's eyes, is earned, not given, no matter the job, the uniform, the title or the badge.

I suppose the question of authority keeps popping up in these books. Everyone has an agenda, and nobody can be trusted, not even the people who say they're protecting you. Even our good guys look like bad guys--we have a skeleton and a man covered in scars, we have a beautiful ice queen and the most powerful man on Earth, who just happens to be also one of the scariest. And they are our HEROES.

One of the nicest things about writing these books is that most of the characters are hundreds of years old, so that gives me hundreds of years worth of motivations and secrets to explore as the story progresses. If I were to rewrite these books from the villains' perspective, their goals would be just as honourable as the heroes, just with a different set of standards.

There is no good, there is no evil--there are just people who want what they want.

FW: Huh. That gives us a bit to think about.

So, following up to the last question, these books explore the role of outsiders in whatever society--both the role of those who keep the world safe, who are revered and feared, and those on whom society turns. Skulduggery is, himself, kind of a... um, ghoulie. He is something scary and posthuman whose constant battle is to keep humans safe. Do you see a parallel between the idea of monsters and the idea of outsiders in general?

DL: The fact is, monsters and outsiders are the best kinds of characters to write! Practically every cop movie is about a cop who plays by his own rules, because that's the only way to bring down the bad guy. And so the cop becomes the outsider, doing what he has to do. Skulduggery and Valkyrie and their friends are the outsiders of the magical community, who in turn are the outsiders of our normal society. So, really, Skulduggery is the outsider's outsider--and he's also the monster...!

He's a lot of things, is our Skulduggery...

We have our rules and our laws, and these are good and necessary things, because they keep us safe. But whenever we have a law, we will have a lawbreaker. Whenever we have a rule, we will have something that lives beyond it. The truth is, it takes an outsider to catch a monster. They think alike, they act alike, and the only difference between them is a matter of degrees.

FW: It's hard to say who we're more in love with -- Skulduggery or Valkyrie. They kick butt! They take names! They make quips! They're always out there, fighting Ultimate Evil! Steph/Val does all the cool stuff we dream about, but since she's growing up into those tricky teen years... should we expect her to become suddenly tolerant of vampires watching her sleep and/or... want to date one? Just asking. You don't have to answer this. Or say if you're in favor of either werewolves, or vampires that sparkle, or anything like that. We just... wondered.

DL: This is a popular question I'm asked- "When will Valkyrie get a boyfriend?"

I've had suggestions, both practical and downright unsettling, from readers all over the world! Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on this, and they're not shy about letting me know!

Valkyrie WILL get a boyfriend--she is a teenage girl after all, one who tends to get all kinds of attention from all kinds of people! And in future books, she might even embark on relationships that are not exactly healthy. A lot of girls do go through the "bad boy" phase, and I'm sure Valkyrie will be no different.

However--this isn't some wilting wallflower we're talking about here. This is Valkyrie Cain, the coolest character I've ever written, based on the coolest girl I've ever known. You can rest assured she would not be happy to learn that sparkling vampires have been watching her from outside her window every night...!

(*muffled snickers*)

FW: *cough* Right. Good to know, good to know.

You are quoted as saying, "Without Harry Potter, I wouldn't have seen children's books as a viable career move, and so I would have tried to shove Skulduggery into some other framework where he wouldn't have fit." Now that you've had time to explore more of the children's lit world than the Potter books, what are some of your favorites? What does it take to feed the kind of creative mind that comes up with people named Ghastly Bespoke?

DL: I tend only to read books by writers who are better than me. I don't see the point of reading anything by someone on the same level, and it's infuriating to read anything by someone who's not as good! So, really, the books I love are by writers who make me look drab and boring by comparison.

"The Graveyard Book" and "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman are two books I wish I was good enough to write. I wish I had an imagination as immense as Clive Barker's, so that I could produce something like "Abarat", or that I was as intelligent as Philip Pullman so that I could dream up "His Dark Materials". Books like these inspire me every time I glance at them on my shelves. I want, one day, to be as good as these people, and that's what I'm working towards.

FW: You want to be as good "someday"? We're happy to tell you, we believe that "someday" started in 2006. You are CLEARLY already there.

So, what's one question interviewers never ask, and you wish they would?

DL: I wish interviewers would ask me how did I get to be so brilliant. But they never do.

FW: It is just tragic that they don't ask that. We suspect most interviewers don't ask because they already know the answer. It has something to do with clean-living and apples. Right?

Clearly, at the end of The Faceless Ones, you've left events open for a sequel. We've heard that there are plans for NINE Skulduggery novels. You just had to go one better than the Potter series, didn't you? Why not an even ten? What can we expect from the next book, if you can tell us anything? Are you working on any other projects for young people or adults?

DL: The fourth Skulduggery book is called Dark Days, and it's out in most countries next year--I'm not sure when it's out in America, though! I'm hesitant to talk about it, but I will say that it's all about revenge...!

I've always seen the Skulduggery series as three sets of trilogies. The first trilogy, which is now over, is about the Faceless Ones. The second trilogy, which begins with Dark Days, is about the Necromancers. And the third trilogy will be about what the entire series has been about all along--something I can't tell you about just yet...!

I'm writing the fifth book right now (at least, um, I SHOULD be...) so hopefully next year I'll be able to take a break and write something completely new. Our plan is for one Skulduggery book a year, and we’re sticking to that, but I'm hoping to get something else done in between. Whether it will end up being for a younger or an older audience, I haven’t decided.

You can be pretty much guaranteed, however, that it's going to have jokes in it. Because I can't get away from those damned jokes...

FW:We can't wait for the next book! And we're so grateful to you for fitting us in to your busy schedule -- right between the apples and the video games, no doubt. Thank you for making us think, as well as making us laugh. We wish you joy in your writing, and the best of everything.

DO check out the lovely U.S. versions of the Skulduggery covers. Check your local bookstores, please!

Was that NOT as entertaining to read as a Skulduggery Pleasant book? Are you still wondering, "How DID Derek Landy get to be so brilliant?!" If you're not done swooning (Okay, that swooning thing could just be Tanita, but we won't ask) (Nope, it's not just Tanita--swoon city around here) (Thank-you, AF, it is kinda pathetic to swoon alone) and want to read more about Derek Landy's multiple cats, or how screenwriting helped him write strong dialogue, or how much fun he had helping make the Skulduggery audiobooks, click and read on.

And, don't forget to check out the rest of today's awesome WBBT author/illustrator interviews:

Jim Ottaviani at Chasing Ray
Courtney Sheinmel @ Bildungsroman
Mary E. Pearson @ Miss Erin
Megan Whalen Turner @ Hip Writer Mama
Frances Hardinge @ Fuse Number 8!

WBBT, 2009: COMING MONDAY!

2009-11-13T03:00:00.000-08:00

IT'S ON!

Monday

Jim Ottaviani at Chasing Ray

Courtney Sheinmel at Bildungsroman

Derek Landy at Finding Wonderland

Mary E. Pearson at Miss Erin

Megan Whalen Turner at Hip Writer Mama

Frances Hardinge at Fuse Number 8

Tuesday

Ann Marie Fleming at Chasing Ray

Laurie Faria Stolarz at Bildungsroman

Patrick Carman at Miss Erin

Jacqueline Kelly at Hip Writer Mama

Dan Santat at Fuse Number 8

Nova Ren Suma at Shelf Elf

Wednesday

Sy Montgomery Pt 1 at Chasing Ray

Jacqui Robbins at Bildungsroman

Sarwat Chadda at Finding Wonderland

Cynthia Leitich Smith at Hip Writer Mama

Beth Kephart at Shelf Elf

Thursday

Sy Montgomery Pt 2 at Chasing Ray

Laini Taylor at Shelf Elf

Jim DiBartolo at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Amanda Marrone at Writing & Ruminating

Thomas Randall at Bildungsroman

Michael Hague at Fuse Number 8

Friday

Lisa Schroeder at Writing & Ruminating

Alan DeNiro at Shaken & Stirred

Joan Holub at Bildungsroman

Pam Bachorz at Mother Reader

Sheba Karim at Finding Wonderland

Robin LaFevers at Hip Writer Mama

Random Reminders

2009-11-11T02:12:00.000-08:00

AF is on her way home from Spain and Italy, and is probably going to be Very Grumpy Indeed, what with the jetlag, and the Returning to Real Life. So, a little something to amuse her: a new picture book!

There is every chance I should stick to writing YA novels, and never, ever try writing picture books.

However, YOU CAN!

CREATE YOUR DEBUT PICTURE BOOK COVER

1 – Go to “The Name Generator: at http://www.thenamegenerator.com/

Click GENERATE NEW NAME. The name that appears is your author name.

2 – Go to “Picture Book Title Generator” at http://www.generatorland.com/usergenerator.aspx?id=243

Click CREATE TITLE! This is the title of your picture book.

3 – Go to “FlickrCC” at http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/index.php

Type the last word from your title into the search box followed by the word “drawing”. Click FIND. The first suitable image is your cover. It will give you the option to go to Picnik.

4 – Use Photoshop, Picnik, Powerpoint, Publisher or similar to put it all together. Creativity is, of course, encouraged.

5 – Post it to your site along with this text.

Don't forget to post your results at 100 Scope Notes; so far, only a couple of them look like real picture books, but I'm sure yours will be much better. Much, much better...

NANOWRIMO Peeps: Don't forget you've got a chance to blurb your newly emergent novel, on the Cybils Blog. Pass your 50 Word Pitch to Cybils cofounder, Anne Levy.

Turning Pages: Only YOU Can Save...Mankind, the Planet, the Realm, the Earth, Him/Her... Pick one.

2009-11-06T10:44:00.000-08:00

It's time for another reading round-up, and let me tell you, the books are being read faster than the reviews are being written. I'm keeping my head above water, but only just! However, someone out there appreciates our efforts here at Wonderland; a reader we don't know informed us that he'd gifted us with an award. Thanks for the Lovely Blog props, Mr. Maurer; we do try.

Only YOU Can Prevent... Pick a heroic tale, and you'll see the familiar steps of the journey. The untried hero/ine is bewildered and beset, wrenched from Life As They Knew It onto the trail of a Quest. This journey is thrust upon them because they are Good, or Noble, or Just-Minded, or Fated and will not tolerate Bad, or Ignoble, or Unfair. Science Fiction and Fantasy handles these tropes routinely; a few novels even do it with flair. You've got a hero/ine. You've got a quest that only THEY can fulfill. Will they find success?

Aden Stone's habit of talking to himself has gotten him a lifetime of mental institutions and the label of schizophrenia. Okay, so he does hear voices, but they're...real, and they're really there. They're the voices of the four souls somehow trapped in his body ever since he can remember. He'd deal with them, if a.) stop raising dead bodies, b.) stop vanishing, c.) stop inhabiting other people's bodies, and d.) stop being able to tell the future. Obviously, the souls are implicated in the insanity going on with him, and their anxious advising, complaining, cajoling and opining really might drive Aden nuts. The voices are silenced, however, in the presence of Mary Ann Gray. Why? Who is she to Aden? And who is the other girl Aden dreams of, who says he has called her to him? Can Aden save himself? Or everyone else?

Intertwined, by romance legend and YA newcomer, Gena Showalter, does have an interesting premise. The cover is pretty standard for romance -- guy chest -- but I guess Covered Guy Chest is the name of the game in YA. I kind of wish the cover gave some clue of what the book is about. It seems to be the first in a series, which might be why it sometimes has a chaotic feel of too many characters and multiple competing storylines. Slightly awkward, but the series has potential, and if you're a fan of forbidden romance with a side of Inadvertent Necromancy, this might work for you.

Kernel Fleck's name even suggests he's a mere speck against the powers of Lord Loss and the Demonata. His all-seeing, newly rebuilt (don't ask - ugh) eyes notwithstanding, he can do nothing for his allies under the influence of the lights he now sees in his peripheral vision. Is it the new eyes malfunctioning? Or is some dire power controlling the lights -- and his mind? Can Fleck save himself -- or his friends?? Well, you'll have to keep reading to find out; Fleck and his cohorts have battled the demons for eight books, and in this ninth book of the Demonata, Dark Calling, Darren Shan has continued their very dark, very scary journey. The Demonata series is definitely for those who like their horror dark with a side of gory. *shiver*

In Dreaming Anastasia, Anne doesn't dream about much more than her grades and the right choice of college, but lately, things have ...changed. She's dreaming of being in a mansion, and watching everyone around her gunned down. She dreams she's in a tiny cabin, talking to her doll, in claustrophobic confines with a very old woman and her cat.

The dreams are recurrent, and all too real.

Ethan, a new boy at school seems to know something about her. He knows she dreams -- and he's come to tell her that she needs to help him save someone named Anastasia. She's the youngest daughter of the Tsar of Russia, and she's the only survivor, when her whole family died. Anne is supposed to save her. But how? And, what if Anastasia doesn't want to be saved?

Probably my favorite from this bunch was Hiromi Goto's Half World. If you loved Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki), this book will overwhelm you with the same wonderfully surrealist energy, and you'll be hooked.

Pudgy, miserable Melanie Tamaki has always found her friends not in the human world, but in the world of crows. They're always there, and they're not mean like the girls at school. Mel's mother is ...fading, a fiercely private woman who is drinking her sorrows away. Melanie has no idea what has happened to her father, and there is only one, desperately unhappy looking picture of him in the house, which Melanie finds the day her mother disappears.

When the phone begins to ring -- the phone which has been dead for the last five months -- and Melanie is told by the mysterious and menacing Mr. Glue that her mother has abandoned her -- it's up to Melanie to go where she's told, in order to save her. She's terrified. She's only fourteen, exhausted, scared, and starving. And she just wants this whole nightmare to go away.

It's not going anywhere, but Melanie is, and with the help of her strange old neighbor, Mrs. Wei, who gifts her with a jade rat pendant and a white stone cat, Melanie is on her way to the Half World, to find her mother, and the truth about the world in which she lives. Can Melanie save her -- and perhaps save the whole world?

There have been Ingrams on the farm now for six generations, counting Jerry. Dad and his brother, Uncle Ted, have the family land divided between them -- unevenly -- and both mean are farming on their inheritance. Somehow, Uncle Ted makes it look easy. He's successful in everything he does. His son, Will, is handsome and popular at school. All of this is in direct contrast to Jerry's family. His Dad is taciturn and quiet. Their farm barely squeaks out enough to get by, and the sheriff is always lurking by, snarling at Jerry's Dad, and peering at him with suspicious eyes.

There's something different about the Ingram's. But they're not talking.

Jerry's project of digging in the sunflower field for Native American relics isn't something his dad encourages. Despite what a chance look at an aerial map suggests, Jerry's discouraged from talking too much about his finds. His Dad is worried that archaeologists tromping through the sunflowers will endanger their already at-risk livelihood. And... the Ingrams need to keep their secrets. Jerry's keeping secrets -- from his Dad and his friend Shaun, too. He's found more than ancient Native burial grounds. He's found proof of an alien civilization, and a portal to another world.

Unfortunately, doors open two ways. And not everything on the other side is friendly... Can Jerry get back in time to save ...his farm, his family, and his town?

We don't have many small press books in the Cybils, but it's always great when we come across one that is a real gem. Read and discover Jerry's fate in Henry Melton's incredibly readable book, Falling Bakward.

You can buy Intertwined, as well as Dark Calling: Deomonata #9, and Dreaming Anastasia, Half World, and Falling Bakward all 2009 Cybils YA SFF Nominated Books , from an independent bookstore near you!

Books courtesy of the library, individual authors, and Bloomsbury, USA for use of the Cybils.

A Quick Hola from Spain

2009-11-05T14:02:00.000-08:00

Really, I just wanted to tune in and say that yes, I'm still alive and well...just filling each day on my trip with sightseeing, new food experiences, and, uh, not so much blogging. You can find a few posts on my personal blog, but I haven't even been great with that. I'm hoping to put another post up there tomorrow evening, if my eyeballs aren't completely shot when we return from the Prado!

In the meantime, I took a few book-related photos I wanted to share, and this seemed like the perfect place. You'll notice that the photo above depicts a different kind of "book-mobile"--this hanging sculpture was part of the Venice Biennale, which is, I believe, the largest international exhibition of contemporary art in the world. The sculpture here seemed to consist of a lot of translation dictionaries to and from various languages, which I personally enjoyed.

The second photo is of a--honest to god--book vending machine. We found this contraption in a large indoor shopping mall in Madrid that was connected to a Metro station. We went in to find a bathroom, and ended up walking around a little and finding this. Of course I peered in, and what did I see but a copy of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (in Spanish, of course).

So, yep, of course I'm thinking about writing while I'm gone, but I'm fearing that this year NaNoWriMo will have to take a backseat to novel revisions for Flux and freelance writing work. I do have some interesting new ideas, though, that I'm still trying to work through in my mind. My handy notebook accompanies me, fortunately, although there's an awful lot of train schedules and random Spanish reminder phrases jotted in there right now...

'Til later! Hasta luego.

Turning Pages/Wicked Cool Overlooked Books

2009-11-02T06:06:00.000-08:00

First, may I just note that I wrote up this review well before the delivery of thirteen Cybils books to my home this morning...!

It's Wicked Cool Overlooked Books Day, the first Monday of the month where some in the blogosphere pull out a particular book that's come to their attention in the previous month that they'd never heard of before. These are books are serendipitous grabs from the library, usually accompanied by the sounds of, "Huh!" as I look at the title and author.

Today I wanted to take a moment and ponder the brilliance of Phillip Pullman. I'd never read any of his non-series YA books, nor any of his plays, picture books, middle grade chapter books or ANYTHING but the His Dark Materials series, and the Sally Lockhart books. I don't quite know why I thought that was all he'd ever written... but I did. Imagine my surprise when in my library perusals I discovered The Broken Bridge.

Ginny is sixteen, and happy living in Wales with her Da. She works, has a great group of friends, and though her Haitian artist mother died when she was a tiny baby, the artistic genes have passed to Ginny. Secure in the love of her absent-minded English father and her mother's legacy, she's feeling confident enough this summer to maybe take a chance on telling her best guy friend, and the only other person of color in their small Welsh village, how she feels about him.

A bewildering visit and a series of strange questions from a social worker, a passed on piece of gossip from her best girlfriend's older sister, and Ginny's summer cracks wide open. From knowing herself and her place in the universe, Ginny plunges abruptly into questioning everything -- herself and her father, and her newfound brother, who is ... English. White.

And Ginny's father doesn't want to talk about her half-brother's mother.

Nothing is reliable anymore when half-remembered wisps of things she thought were dreams are perhaps a real part of Ginny's history. Bewilderment, isolation, and suspicion push Ginny out of her safety zone and into the world to find out -- something. Not knowing who to trust, she must repair the broken bridges of her life in order to go on.

This is a really poignant book about mistakes, assumptions, what we keep from each other and what's really important -- those we love. Ginny could be any girl, biracial or not, and the Welsh town of the story's setting is, as Pullman admits, where he discovered some things about himself one summer. This is a really excellent read, published in 1990, and overlooked by me 'til now. Check it out.

You'll find Phillip Pullman's The Broken Bridge at a library or an independent bookstore near you!

Five Things That Make Me Happy This First Day of November

2009-11-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

1. A Book Moot Halloween: Every year, The Ents and Entlings get cooler. Every. Single. Year.

2.Popcorn, jellybeans and toast for dinner, a la A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

3. The School Library Journal's Blogomania piece. Doesn't our Betsy clean up well?

4. Pre-Cybils books -- blurb your NaNoWriMo month YA or kids' book in any genre and Anne Levy will run your professionally polished blurb on the Cybils' blog. Visualizing the dream of getting published -- and practicing for your jacket blurbs -- is just one more step toward making it come true.

5. Homemade Caramel Popcorn. THE stuff of autumn.

We're in the last gasp of 2009, and I join Kelly in wishing the year a less than fond farewell. I feel like I've been grumpy for weeks, so it's nice to kick off the month with anticipation. Winter Blog Blast Tour is in a couple of weeks, and the Cybils are ticking along nicely. Aquafortis is leisurely strolling through Seville, and I'm counting down the days 'til I get on a plane to come back to the States.

All is well.

So Long, and Thanks for the Inspiration

2009-10-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

We're a little sad today to bid farewell to our buddy Eisha from 7-Imps. There aren't too many duo girl blogs in our "age" group (i.e., that started when we did), and we sort of shared a kinship with the neighbors at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Eisha shared more of herself than she thought, with her incisive poetry choices for Poetry Fridays (remember that scary awesome Thomas P. Lynch diatribe? Or that gorgeous one by the female sufi?). She introduced me for real to Naomi Shihab Nye and the Poets Upstairs. She had the amazing ability to find photographs and artwork and music videos that coordinated just perfectly with her posts, and usually meant I spent more time perusing other sites and messing with Youtube than working, but whatev. We're totally impressed with Eisha's mad cool rare manuscript archiving job at Cornell, and though we are sorry it takes her out of children's lit, we're happy she's lovin' the awesomeness and letting it take her.

(Ridiculously, I feel like I'm losing a friend. It's insane; duh, Eisha still exists, she's no further away than she was before, but it was a fine illusion of having her close, to know her blog address. What fools we mortals be, attributing tactile space to the blogosphere. Feh.) Eisha of the Cool Name, we will miss you. We wish you happy trails, and wicked kicks to take you there.

Just a Little Announcement...

2009-10-28T09:48:00.000-07:00

~ NANOWRIMO PEEPS: HEADS UP! ~

Serendipity Literary Agency, in collaboration with Sourcebooks and Gotham Writers' Workshop, is hosting its first Young Adult Novel Discovery Competition for a chance to win a one-on-one consultation with one of New York's leading YA literary agents!

The top 20 submissions will all be read by a panel of five judges comprised of top YA editors at Random House, HarperCollins, Harlequin, Sourcebooks and Penguin. All 20 will receive free autographed copies of Writing Great Books for Young Adults by Regina Brooks. Of the 20, they will pick the top five submissions and provide each author with commentary and a one year subscription to The Writer magazine. ONE Grand Prize Winner will have the opportunity to get feedback on a full YA manuscript and win a free 10-week writing course courtesy of the Gotham Writer’s Workshop. Read all the details carefully, because you'll want to be sure and have the fine print nailed down. Once you're sure of the rules, submit here.

In honor of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org)—an international event where aspiring novelists are encouraged to write an entire novel in 30 days—entries for the YA Novel Discovery Contest will be accepted from 12:01am (ET) November 1 until 11:59pm (ET), November 30, 2009.

JUDGING

YA literary agent Regina Brooks, along with editors at Sourcebooks, will read all of the entries and determine the top 20 submissions. These submissions will then be read by Dan Ehrenhaft, head Acquisitions Editor at Soucebooks Fire; Alisha Niehaus, Editor at Dial Books for Young Readers (Penguin); David Linker, Executive Editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books; Michele Burke, Editor at Knopf Books for Young Readers (Random House); and Evette Porter, Editor at Harlequin. These judges will whittle the top 20 down to four winners and a grand prize winner—all five will be provided commentary on their submissions.

So, if you were only THINKING you MIGHT do NaNo this year, here's a bit of incentive, eh? Good luck.

Hat tip to Inkygirl.

Turning Pages: It's Not What You Think

2009-10-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

Today's batch of novels are some of the zig-zags of the Cybils reading list that I've come across thus far. These books start off going one direction, then turn on a dime, giving the reader that little zing of surprise.

Mel loves to draw, and Fa Theum loves Mel, so it's no surprise that the priest hangs his sketches. Despite being the son of a poor weaver, in a village where everyone wears dull brown -- because the poor do not have the Pleasure of color, Mel is happy. He dreams, and his wild imagination, even in just plain soot-ink on carefully hoarded white paper from Fa Theum, provides him hours of entertainment. While it's unsurprising that Mel's skill brings him joy, it's astounding to him is how much of a fuss is being made over his sketches. Mel never knew how important art was, and that it wasn't supposed to be enjoyed by the poor, even in black and white. But now that he's an apprentice to the great artist Ambrosius Blenk, he learns that there's more to artwork than meets the eye. Even the pigment is not what he thinks it is... A picture isn't just a picture. It can be a gateway. An escape. It can be everything.

London artist Mike Wilks brings his mind-bendingly meticulous artwork to his newest medium of storytelling and opens up a world of clocks and cogs, mechanism and mystery in this suspenseful and unique story. If you're a fan of mysterious, intricate worlds, you'll enjoy Mirrorscape. It drew comparisons to Monster Blood Tattoo, which is a high compliment indeed, so check it out.

It's never a good thing to be so behind your classmates that you feel like a freak, so when Laurel finally starts to get acne, in the form of a little blemish in the middle of her back, she actually breathes a sigh of relief. She's always had weird eating preferences, which have worried her parents, but she filled out all right. Maybe now this little spot means that her period is probably on the way. She's fifteen, after all, and it's way past time for all systems to be up and running. It's a great time for a new start, after all, Laurel is attending high school after ten years of homeschooling. And if the cute braniac in biology turns out to be more than a friend, well... the world is full of possibilities.

Course, it's never a good thing when what you thought was your first zit, turns into a boil. And then a tumor. And then...

Laurel isn't sure WHAT the heck is going on with her body, but she's frantic -- and desperate and terrified. Turns out that zit sure isn't what she thinks it is.

WINGS, by Aprilynne Pike is a fresh tale of fantasy which discards the usual tropes about faeries and elves in place of something unique and fun. It's 100% VAMPIRE FREE! Laurel is an engaging, ordinary high school student who does the best she can with a stunning -- and suddenly dangerous world, and remains true to herself and her friends. I look forward to seeing what else new author Pike will bring to the fantasy scene.

There are things which we learn in childhood which are viscerally frightening -- a ghost story will hit us the wrong way, and we'll be unable to sleep for looking at an opening in the closet door. A cousin's whispered story will have us avoiding mirrors after midnight well after all such fears should have faded. In Malice by Chris Wooding, the scary bit is a dark comic.

It's only something silly-spooky people have heard before -- you get the comic -- and you'll have to track it down, then you gather the things you'll need, and say the incantation six times. And then...

Well, nothing happens. It's just a comic book. It's just a stupid superstition. There is no Tall Jake, and no matter if you burn cat hair or whatever and call him six times, he won't come and take you away.

Right?

Malice is not a comic book like Luke, Heather, Seth and Kady think...

My favorite pink-haired librarian is not in favor of this book, as the cover is 3-D, and it makes it hard to shelve, but this is Goosebumps for the UK set, and horror fans will appreciate it.
-------------
Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow has already been reviewed here by Aquafortis, but I add it to my "it's not what you think" list for some unexpected twists. The premise - motherless girl, ghoulie-hunting father, vampire-attracting girl -- has kind of been done, most recently in The Devil's Kiss. However this was... somewhat unexpected, and is the beginning of what promises to be a long series. Definitely not vampire or zombie free, but an intriguing book nonetheless.

You can find Mirrorscape, as well as Wings, and Malice, and Strange Angels, all 2009 Cybils YA SFF Nominated Books, at an independent bookstore near you!

Turning Pages: Bay Area Writer Makes Good

2009-10-21T02:18:00.000-07:00

Aquafortis and I are always interested in giving props to writers from our neck of the woods. Ying Chang Compenstine, who we interviewed in 2008 about her YA novel, Revolution is Not A Dinner Party (which won 19 literary awards, woot!), is a Bay Area author who has a new picture book out called Dumpling Boy, illustrated by James Yamasaki.

Ying also celebrates the release this month of a collection of Chinese festival-themed ghost stories for older readers, called A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts. Dumpling Boy has a yummy looking simplified recipe for dumplings (Boy-free, the author assures us) which kids can make themselves.

The Hungry Ghost Festival is a festival which occurs on the seventh month in the lunar calendar; apparently at that time, the gates of the underworld open, and unleash the ghosts onto the world for a month so that they can eat. Many Asian and Southeast Asian families leave offerings of food near graves and shrines. If that's not a pre-made setting for a fully creepy collection of stories, I don't know what is...!

Ying is an author who knows the way to her readers' hearts. For the release of her hungry ghost book, she hosted a FOURTEEN COURSE Chinese banquet for her guests. And you just know they had dumplings.

Why am I suddenly starving?

You can find Dumpling Boy or A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts at an independent bookstore near you!

Turning Pages: Cybilization's Worst Choices

2009-10-19T05:19:00.000-07:00

There's nothing worse than watching a movie and observing the hero or heroine -- or, if you're watching Star Trek, the extra guy in the Away team -- moving toward making a fatal mistake. There's that sense of "No, no! Don't go in there!" as you watch the girl head merrily down to the basement where the machete wielding psycho is waiting. That feeling comes along in fiction as well. It's not always pleasant to read a character making a bad choice, but a good story allows a character to use a bad choice, and not let it overwhelm them utterly.

It worked out well for the three girls in Lips Touch, for the most part. For one thing, they got their kisses... and they willingly -- and sometimes painfully -- chose those kisses over other, safer things they could choose. But, not everyone gets a good bargain from their bad choices...

Kate Thompsen's Creature of the Night introduces 14-year-old ex-Dubliner Bobby, who has recently been relocated to the country against his wishes, as his mother's money troubles are kicking down their door. In Dublin, Bobby was the pickpocket and runner for his cousin's crew; the fast one who could make the snatches. But his real love is stealing cars. There's not much of a high for Bobby, in the farming village of Ennis where they now live... so, he steals a car, and hightails it for his home turf.

Whoa, bad choice. The first of several, actually.

Foul-mouthed, angry; a boy on the dole with an aggressive sense of entitlement, Bobby both hates and adores his young mother, whose mercurial temperament has made him resent her and her manipulations. He's got no idea who his Dad is, and shifts the blame for that, and all the other miseries in his life, to his mother's account. After the Skoda he stole is totaled, and they're close to getting kicked out of their new life -- which is what Bobby wanted... isn't it? -- Bobby's forced, for the first time in his life, to face a consequence for his actions, and to work off the worth of the car. Being a dogsbody for his landlord, Mr. Dooley, means talking to the family and listening to the grandmother, who tells him a spooky story about a baby who disappeared, about a fairy changling left in its place, an unsolved murder, and a little woman who haunts the house where they now live.

Bobby's not got too much time to worry about that sort of nonsense. He refuses to fill the bowl of milk for the fey, as Mrs. Dooley warns him to... until his little brother starts talking about the tiny woman who comes in through the dog door...

This is a novel with the lightest touch of horror, real horror -- a good, creepy tale for those who like their books with just a touch of goosebumps.

It's probably never a good idea to leave a tour company, if you're not savvy enough to make your way out of the country and get yourself home. Period. Though most of us hate guided tours, we all know that any travel irritation is exacerbated if you a.) don't speak the language, b.) piss off the hotel concierge, and c.) trespass.

The storybook village you found behind the massive thorny hedge? You probably should have avoided. The hot girl you saw, lying asleep at your feet? You probably shouldn't have kissed.

Honestly? Bad, bad choice.

Alex Flinn's A Kiss in Time is a rote retelling of the Sleeping Beauty tale; for me, the modern setting and the ultra-spoiled princess in addition to a contemporary prince still doesn't sell it for me. I never fell in love with Princess Thalia, nor with the prince-in-error, Jack, and I admit to being bewildered as to how this story adds anything new to the already overflowing canon of fairytale retellings. Though the characters are merely sketched instead of drawn dimensionally, they do change, a bit, and if you love a frothy dress and a "happily ever after" tale, this one might just be for you.

Even professionals know better than to go out onto the ice without telling anyone where you're going, or where you'll be. Cassie's not quite a professional yet, but she's closer than a lot of her father's interns, and yet, she does it anyway. It's just that the massive polar bear is so close. She just wants to track it and tag it on her own, to prove to her father that she's more than ready to be an Antarctic scientist. So, she takes off after the bear.

While the reader may think this is the moment of "Ooh, bad choice," it's not quite as bad as it could be. For one thing, the massive polar bear confirms for her the strange stories her grandmother told her, growing up, and relieved her of the fears that her mother had abandoned her. That choices opens up the world to Cassie, as the mundane fades in comparison to the magical.

But Cassie chooses to gamble with what she has... and ends up losing everything.

Ice, Sarah Beth Durst's retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon has a gorgeous, romantic cover, which is initially beguiling, and it continues to improve from there. The novel starts with the contemporary trappings of technology and logic, but the vestiges of reality begin to fade only moments into the story. At the height of the novel, the fantastical heroine's journey takes on a dreamlike sensibility, as the reader follows the spark the author's imagination far beyond where we expected to go. Fairytale lovers will embrace this sweetly simple tale, and sleep with it under their pillow.

You can find Lips Touch: Three Times, as well as Creature of the Night, as well as A Kiss in Time, and Ice, all 2009 Cybils YA SFF Nominated Books, at an independent bookstore near you!

Turning Pages: Cybilization's Fine W(h)ines

2009-10-19T04:29:00.000-07:00

In real life, I don't do whiners, but sometimes, whiners in fiction make me smile. We all know we're not supposed to whine; especially the young adults in the literature doing the whining know it's not an especially grown-up response, but sometimes... whining is all you've got.

In Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, by Beth Fantaskey, there's a bit of vampire whining -- which made me snicker every single time. Math girl Jessica Packwood is fairly... normal. She lives with her über-vegan parents (sneaking only the occasional sloppy joe at school) and mucks out the barn and does her chores and is the anchor of the math club. She has really zero dreams of being a princess, and, unlike her earthy best girlfriend, Mindy, is only sneakingly interested in the opposite sex. When the luscious looking Romanian boy, Lucius Vladescu, appears to be stalking her, she's not flattered, she's irritated. So what if he's heartstoppingly gorgeous, and smart? He's also rigid, misogynistic, snobby, and a whole host of other really annoying things. Jessica is SO not into all of that.

And really, Lucius's whining about that is gut-bustingly funny. He's bewildered and offended. In his letters home to his Uncle Vasile, he complains that usually women throw themselves at him. Where on EARTH does this little math-addict from linoleum-infested Woodrow Wilson High, who has no idea who she really is, where on earth does she get off ignoring him? He's rich! He's royal! He's... going to really regret ever leaving his castle in Romania to find her.

Although the ending was a teensy bit contrived for my taste, this sassy Princess Diaries Meets Vlad the Vampire comedy skips along nicely. If you need to know how to date the undead, this one's for you.

Oy, Amanda Beeson. Even her name sounds high-toned and sulky. She's the Queen Bee of Meadowbrook Middle School, and works hard to maintain her frosty distance from the little people surrounding her. She has to -- or else.

Tracy Devon is nothing like Amanda. She's at the low end of the popularity pole, and is practically invisible comparatively. Unfortunately, Amanda's forgotten the lesson she knows about keeping her distance, and she's taken notice of Tracy. And now, she's too close to the other girl's problem of invisibility. Way too close.

Amanda's weird predicament really does bring out a few bursts of self-pity and whining, but her big personality shines through in this unique first-in-a-series novel, Out of Sight, Out of Mind, by Marilyn Kaye. Amanda's one of the Gifted, and it'll be fun to see how the rest of the books in the series unfold.

And, finally, you can't really round up the whiners without including the screamers.

No, seriously. Kaylee Cavenaugh would really give a lot not to be one of the screamers, but sometimes, a scream just works its way up through her, and she can't control it. She's done some time in mental hospitals, and fears that her panic attacks are out of control forever. First, her vision darkens on a particular person. And then, the scream starts.

As it turns out, Kaylee isn't exactly crazy. She just sees people who are going to die...

Aside from asking myself WHAT was going on with the cover (is this supposed to be Kaylee? No, seriously? The whole Irish thing with the harem outfit?), I found myself wishing that junior Kaylee wasn't quite so dependent for her mental health on Nash Hudson, the gorgeous senior who pulls her back from the brink when one of her "panic attacks" hits at a club where she and her best friend, Emma, have slipped in illegally. However, this is a novel that is meant to have a big helping of romance (Hi, Harlequin!) and so her leaning on his is meant to underscore just how close they're getting. It's not entirely successful, but this will be a favorite romantic series for die-hard paranormal romance fans.

You can find Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side, as well as Out of Sight, Out of Mind, and My Soul to Take, all 2009 Cybils YA SFF Nominated Books, from an independent bookstore near you!

Turning Pages: More Cybilization Sequels

2009-10-17T10:30:00.001-07:00

More sequels to keep you busy in this Cybilization:

Bloodhound (The Legend of Beka Cooper, Book 2), by Tamora Pierce is an easy novel to get into -- and not just because I read the first book in the series when it came out. Pierce has made sure to leave enough clues to Beka's world in the set up of the novel that the "dogs" and the Provost's guard force seem merely episodic. This time, Beka is being sent away from the town where she lives and her
comfortable place between her friends in the Watch and her friends in the district who are thieves and entertainers -- for her own safety. Beka is resentful that she's being sent to Port Caynn to investigate something as simple as counterfeit coins, but it turns out that not only is there a hunky man to keep her occupied, the investigation heats up all around her. Her "puppy" skills of sinking her teeth into a case and not letting go are crucial, and fans of the series will enjoy watching Beka's Dog skills go Bloodhound, as she and her senior partner do a bit of sleuthing.

Carpe Corpus (Morganville Vampires, Book 6), by Rachel Caine, is another book that I've struggled to get into. Fortunately, since I don't have time to read the previous five volumes, the premise is simple enough: Morganville was doing just fine as a Human/Vampire city, under the auspices of the vampire Amelie, who had marked Claire Danvers as one of her own, to be treated with special care, as a loyal human. Not everyone liked it, but it was...workable. Except that Amelie was overthrown by a bloodthirsty vampire called Bishop. Now her boyfriend and his father, vampire hunters, are held captive, and Morganville is under the thumb of a bloodthirsty, vicious despot. Claire would do anything to save her boyfriend Shane, up to and including begging Bishop for his life, and further gaining the hatred of the townspeople by serving as his errand girl and notifying the townspeople of their status as prey. Amelie's got a plan -- but after all the power plays and bloodshed, it's improbable that Morganville is going to ever be the same.

Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games), by Suzanne Collins, is not a stand-alone either, and readers will step right into the turbulent tale that left off in Book 1. The Capitol is still insane, Peeta and Gale are still the boys Katniss' mind, and President Snow is still scary as heck. Nothing much has changed, even though Katniss is a Hunger Games victor. She's still uneasy, and in a few pages, you'll see that she was right to be. As usual, there are a plethora of choices in front of her, and she doesn't make the right choice at every turn, but oh -- reading the book is a can't-put-it-down, heart-pounding adventure. Have been looking forward to this one!

Recently The Spectacle recently had a two part discussion of this book -- it contains spoilers, be warned, but it's always fun to read what authors think about a popular series.

There are tons more sequels, but these are the ones I've gotten to thus far. Check out some of the earlier books in the series, and enjoy!

Bloodhound, as well as Carpe Corpus, and Catching Fire, all 2009 Cybils YA SFF Nominated Books, from an independent bookstore near you!

Turning Pages: Cybilization, the Sequel

2009-10-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

Happy Kidlit Conference Weekend! Welcome to Cybilization, the Cybil's version of my Turning Pages book reviews.

I admit that I have a hard time with sequels.
They make the Cybils reading a bit hard for me.

If the sequel you nominated isn't stand-alone, I feel... somewhat obligated to figure out the thread of the story. How else can I honestly say if it's worth putting into my shortlist or not? Unless it's book 8 of a 18 book series, I usually do my best to find and skim at least one previous book in the series. Occasionally, this is really time-consuming.

It's not like I'm going to complain about having a new excuse for reading, though.

This week's Cybil's reading had a whole lot of sequels going on -- but happily, most of them turned out to be awesome.

The Ask and the Answer, The: Chaos Walking: Book Two by Patrick Ness was a tricky book to get into; it's not a stand alone, but is the sequel to The Knife of Never Letting Go, which I've had sitting on my TBR shelf for months. Yes, I've had it, but never read it, fearing an emotional backlash from the many wailing reviewers who said, "Oh, MAN! The ENDING!!!!" I have a horror of endings which leave me waiting a year, in agony. They make me... in a word, cranky. (They make TechBoy even worse, so I generally try to hide books from him that will have him mumbling and walking around kicking things.) Since I had enough other stuff to read, I could avoid that "Oh, MAN!" moment. Did putting off the first book save me? No. I read it in one setting, and plunged into the sequel, which picks up right where the first leaves off. Angst! Violence, danger, torture, war -- these huge themes are simply swirling through The Ask and the Answer, which is gritty and important and real, and talks about human nature and the corrosive nature of absolute power. I was so sure that things would finally be OVER in this book, and then... those last few pages happened. Yes, Virginia, the sequel also ends on a cliffhanger.

Oh, MAN!

On the up side, the UK hardcover version has a REALLY neat, transparent dust cover.

Awakening, The (Darkest Powers, Book 2), by Kelley Armstrong is also not really a stand-alone, but I was thrilled to read the first book in the series. Can you say School Story + Xmen? I love this series to bits. Normal high school student, Chloe, suddenly starts hearing voices and seeing things. A tiny mental breakdown she doesn't want to show up on her school transcripts (never stopping to think that mental issues really aren't the sort of thing to show UP on transcripts. Or are they? I should check my own...) leads her to Lyle House, a group home, filled with Really Weird Kids. Simon is charismatic and gorgeous. His "brother" Derek is huge, acne-ridden, constantly bathing to keep down his rampant b.o., and he's the grumpiest, meanest person EVER. Her roomie is adorable -- but some of the other girls are SERIOUSLY evil. It's just a group home, though. And in two weeks, she'll be going home. Not. Book II picks up with Chloe on the run from this alleged group home, which is not at ALL what she thought it was. Oh, and Simon and Derek aren't at all like she thought they were. And that could be good. Or not.

That little "not" keeps things nicely off-balance, and keeps readers eager to know what's next. Kelley Armstrong is really very good at that, and I look forward eagerly to the rest of this series. I'm not fond of the cover, really, since the novel keeps it real about acne and stuff, and the chick on the cover is airbrushed perfection, but don't worry -- the story more than makes up for any cover inconsistencies.

Blood Promise (Vampire Academy, Book 4), by Richelle Mead is really tough to get into -- but a fourth book in a series is always tough. In previous books, Rose has learned about different kinds of vampires, and their kin, and has made a promise to her friend, Dmitri, that if it ever came down to a choice between him being a good guy or one of the bad guys, she'd make sure he didn't stay on the dark side. Now the Academy's peace has been breached -- students and teachers killed, and the Strigoi have even taken captives. Dmitri has been kidnapped,and it's up to Rose to take him out.

It's a lot easier said than done, when keeping one promise means breaking another.

Because this isn't a stand-alone, and it's so far into the series, I'm not as emotionally invested in Rose and her troubles, but it might be worth reading back a ways to see how this all started.

You can buy The Ask and the Answer, as well as The Awakening, and Blood Promise, all 2009 Cybils YA SFF Nominated Books , from an independent bookstore near you!

Alice vs. Alice

2009-10-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

I have to admit that despite my English degree and being required to read him, I am not that huge a fan of the work of Charles Dodgson/Lewis Carroll. While his wordplay was kind of fun in Jabberwocky, I'm not really good with nonsense over an extended period of time. Some of the literature we studied suggested that there were political aspects to his writing and/or religious overtones, which was a big yawn (sorry, college professors), and then there's the tired argument that he was a pedophile stalking Alice and/or he was on drugs. (Wasn't everyone on drugs in the 19th century? Opium: the choice of the dedicated writer. And then all 20th century writers were drunks. I tell you, it's hard to imagine why I write sober.) I fear I'm a bit too boringly logical to truly and deeply enjoy the surrealist nightmare which is Alice in Wonderland -- but if you take into account that I don't really like The Wizard of Oz, either, you kind of know where I'm coming from.

Nevertheless, people have been fascinated with the Alice thing for ages -- the whole idea of a reversed world that is just on the other side of some metaphorical wall (or hole in the ground), where things you expect to be safe are not, and things which look harmless, like playing cards, can be fatal, and your size can change at a moment's notice. There are two nifty versions of the Alice thing coming out this year -- and one I hadn't taken into account comes from the SciFi -- oh, excuse me, SYFY channel. (Let's not get me started on Imagine Greater. Egregious grammar. Seriously.) Following are both trailers... and I've gotta say that even though I'm not a big Alice fan? I'm excited about both of these.

I thought this first Alice was based on the Frank Beddor Looking Glass Wars series, but it doesn't look like it, not exactly. Can I say how scary good Kathy Bates is, as The Red Queen? Isn't it nice when an actress over thirty can still work and be ...menacing? She does menacing very well indeed. Alice looks a bit frantic, but also like she KICKS people. Which I kind of like. I very much would want to kick people if I fell down a hole and there were all of these ...cards MESSING with me. Only, the Red Queen is remarkably non-flat and multi-dimensional.

Is the padded room scaring anyone else but me?

Can Helena Bonham Carter's head be any bigger? It cracks me up that it STAYS like that. Tim Burton always knows how to make movies that look like some fever dream. I love it. Alice looks fluffy and pretty and ...totally out of her depth. The cat looks like a carnivore.

I still don't get why Alice drinks from the little bottle that says Drink Me. I mean, would you? But I'll get a kick out of watching these new versions of Alice explain how what she does is perfectly normal, and look forward to seeing her modern adventures get underway.

Hat tip to SF Signal