One thing about Abarat. Nobody can say it’s not interesting. In this second of five installments, Candy Quackenbush travels the islands of the Abarat trying to escape the super evil Christopher Carrion. Along the way she meet an assortment of wacky good guys in this young adult novel that very few young adults have read. Right there is where I’ll throw down on of my two negative comments on this book. I wish it weren’t geared for young adults. It fits young adult’s fine, I think. But at several points in the story I really wished, Candy, with her multi-colored eyes were maybe… read more
18
Apr
I found a few reasons to buy a story twice and I think a few of you might agree with me. Let’s talk about Fight Club, the book that inspired the Brad Pitt/Edward Norton movie. I read the book years ago after I watched the movie and loved both of them. It’s only now that I’ve decided the book is superior. The first-person present-tense narration is done brilliantly. I originally picked it up again after reading The Hunger Games. I had to see if all stories done in first-person present-tense were as stilted and of narrow a scope as “Games”. So, seeing that I lost my paper copy of… read more
21
Mar
I’m going to be honest. The Hunger Games is a good story. Katniss is a character that young girls will be able to latch onto. As a matter of fact, I’d rather young girls and young women find a place in their hearts for Katniss long before they identify with that girl from Twilight. The Hunger Games is a rather short, dare I say, sort of fun novel that begs to leave an impression on the reader. It certainly left an impression on me. As I was saying, Katniss moves this story. And she better. It’s written in first-person present-tense so if Katniss can’t move the story, it would be… read more
19
Feb
I’m sure I’m breaking some kind of rule by writing a review of a novel that I didn’t finish. But it’s more that I couldn’t finish it rather than I didn’t, is my opinion. The book in question is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I’m going to talk about it only on a few levels. I’m not going to bring up its plot points because, well, I didn’t really get that far. This is a novel of over a thousand pages in which I got merely a few hundred into. I wanted to force myself to complete it but I simply couldn’t get it done. Obviously I can’t talk about the rise of action and the third act. I wasn’t… read more
12
Feb
Here’s the question: Do you prefer a series that does not rely on the previous books or do you like a continuation? I think we can all agree that the end of the book should leave us satisfied, no matter what. Not many of us want the story to just stop, as if the novel was really just one big chapter. Agreed? Not quite, come to find out. As an author, I’m in the middle of writing the In Blackness Trilogy (I actually really like the sound of that). I decided early on that I wanted each book to stand alone but to not disregard the previous novel. You know, to please both the new readers… read more
08
Feb
The point is to become more human isn’t it? My upcoming novel In Blackness: The Reinvention of Man, the second installment in the In Blackness Trilogy has a central theme that kind of sits right below the surface. As you know the story follows several young adults: Saline, Dustin, and Lenny. We learn about the major changes in the world through their view points. In the first book the reader is simply wondering what’s going on, and then this question is asked to the humans: Why are you not food? This book expands the question, asking, how are you human? What makes us human and is… read more
05
Feb
What if we are the aliens that we look up at the sky and look for? Most people write this off, because why think about it? It will do you no good. But I’ll give a few reasons here to think about it. If you’re familiar with the subject you know that I’m only touching the surface of what might be taking place below the surface, if that makes any sense. First of all, I want you all to think about something. Have you ever heard of the missing link? Apparently–and I’m no specialist on this–the DNA of what would become human beings changed at some point, for no particular reason. Many… read more
02
Jan
Let me just start this by giving a big spoiler alert. SPOILER ALERT! I got asked the other day what my novel In Blackness was about. Immediately I told them something similar to what is on the back of the book. You know, it’s a coming of age story about three teens taking a journey into the past and discovering all kinds of cool stuff, like how their parents might have been on drugs. I told this person about the aliens in the story, the one character, Saline, rediscovering religion, and another character finding work for the first time at a young age and all that stuff. Then I implied… read more
01
Jan
Welcome to my Sunday Writing Tirade. Here is the question: To trust or not to trust the reader. The question stems from how much a writer is willing to let the reader infer. Let me get personal for a second. When I’m wearing my reading hat I read with a lot of ego. When I say that I mean I don’t want the author to dumb it down for me. I want to be engaged by thinking, not only by visualizing and setting. I don’t necessarily need the author to “put me there” as much as I want them to set it up so I can get there on my own. They should make it feel like I did something creative rather than… read more
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