Very, very interesting, but kind of short and repetitive. I think the author could have done a lot more research. At a couple of points she contradicts herself (like about how many sociopaths are in jail), and it seems like there are big sections missing from the description of sociopathy. The main thing I felt was missing was a discussion of gender. Are more men than women sociopaths? From what I see on TV and the examples in the book I would guess yes, but no statistics are ever brought up, and while the section on socialization and culture seems like the perfect place to discuss gender, it’s not even mentioned. Whether I’m right or wrong in my assumptions about gender and sociopathy, I’d really like to know! I have to wonder if the author left that out to avoid controversy–and if she left out that aspect that is so glaring to me, what else is missing for fear of controversy? Race? Ability? Sexual preference?

I was also disappointed by the “Groundhog Day” chapter. The author stated in the beginning that it was entirely fictional, leading me to expect a short story about a sociopath. I was looking forward to it the whole book. But when I reached it, it turned out to be a very brief (five or so pages) fictional case study about a neighborhood tormented by a nasty, sociopathic old woman. There was no plot and the sociopath’s motivations were never really explored. I doubt I’ll be reading anything else by this author.

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I would give this four and a half stars if I could. A very delightful book. It hit a few of my particular buttons (faeries, queen of the underworld, alternative historical fantasy Earth), but besides that it was just a very good story. It was a quick, easy read, but I’m sure part of that was just that I was enjoying it so much I wanted to find out what happened next!

I have just a few quibbles. Clothing was very important in the book, at least at the beginning, but the clothing was not always described enough for me to picture it clearly; I could extrapolate from what I had to actual historical clothing, but not all of the details seemed to fit. More importantly, while it’s implied that only men are allowed to become sorcerers, the one woman who seems to be able to do magic is a villain and <spoiler>comes to a rather horrible, if deserved, end</spoiler>.

I will definitely be purchasing the sequel as well as Ms. Dolamore’s other upcoming book when they come out on Kindle. I hope that the sequel will delve more deeply into fairy culture and how sorcery works.

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This book is one of Rusch’s first published novels, and it shows. I thought the book had a lot of promise in the beginning–and it wasn’t bad–but it got too complicated too quickly, trying to fit too many characters and too many plots into a fairly short book.

There are two threads at the beginning of the book, one following the magician Seymour (or really, following the bard Byron, since Seymour is following him after a very short time), and one following the young prince Adric. When they come together, about three-quarters of the way through the book, it’s in a way that I never predicted. That sounds like a good thing, but even when I thought back through it with my new knowledge of how they fit together, I could find no clues. It could have been a really cool revelation if there had been a few clues that I could have said on hindsight "oh, that’s what that meant," but that didn’t happen.

As I said, there were too many characters; several even had POV sections only to disappear or at least fade away. I would have loved to have seen more of the faerie-like Enos, and though they did take a greater part toward the end, I never really got to understand the beings. I think there would have been more room for them, and other world-building (I’m not even certain what technology level the country had), with a more judicious choice of characters.

The ending was disappointing as well; I won’t spoil it, but it seemed rushed and some secrets I hoped would come to light never did.

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If this book had a plot, I could forgive the pernicious misogyny, racial stereotypes, and insufferable arrogance. If it didn’t have the misogyny, racial stereotypes, and arrogance, I could forgive its lack of plot. But alas, it is what it is, and it isn’t worth my time.

One good thing I can say for this book: the writing, the prose itself, is quite good. It drew me along when I wasn’t stopped dead by my complaints in the previous paragraph.

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You’d think I would prefer pie. I’m vegan, and pie (at least fruit pie) is pretty much vegan by default. Plus, my sister makes a wicked pie. But I just don’t. I’ve always preferred cake. Even though the rest of my family doesn’t. Well, they do now–since I’ve started baking vegan ones! Especially the cupcakes. Mmm… fresh cupcakes.

I’m not sure exactly why it is that I don’t like pie as much. Part of it, I’m sure, is that I’m not a fan of pie crust. I just don’t like the texture. And part is that I prefer my fruit fresh and whole… or dried. But I guess I just also like the texture of cake. And I like cake frosting. Yum. (Only if it’s good frosting, of course. The stuff they put on store-bought cakes is just gross.)

Oh, and pie falls apart when you cut it. I hate that.

I feel I ought to point out that Boston Creme Pie is, in fact, a kind of cake. I’ve made it. It’s two cakes with some cream in between. Tasty, but bearing no resemblance to pie.

Extra credit: My favorite kind of pie? Pumpkin pie. Of course–the most cakelike of pies! Sadly, I have been able to neither make nor buy a decent vegan pumpkin pie. My quest shall continue.

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I’ve worn glasses since–as my mother actually told me at my eye appointment today–I was four years old. They had me checked when it’s recommended to have your child’s eyes checked, and it turned out that I had really, really bad vision. I have vague memories of getting those glasses, and it was wonderful. I could see the individual leaves on trees! They really existed! I was about eight when I got bifocals, but I believe this story takes place before that.

I somehow managed to lose my glasses. Yes, this is the only time that has ever happened in my life, because as I mentioned above, my vision is really bad. It’s hard to lose something that is pretty much the only thing that makes you capable of accomplishing anything. Nevertheless, I did it somehow.

Thankfully, I didn’t lose them for, as the question suggests, months or years. I think I must have only lost them for a few days, or I would have gotten new ones. I probably wore a previous pair so I could see somewhat. (I was getting new glasses every six months at that point, so my older glasses weren’t too old.) But the older pair were obviously not my current prescription, so it was very frustrating! I couldn’t see as well as I was used to, and my favorite pastime of reading was rather more difficult.

One day my sister and I were playing in our room and I was probably having a hard time playing, because I couldn’t see the dolls all that well. My sister decided that she would cheer me up and told me that she would do some magic. She would reach into a dollhouse and pull out an ice cream cone for me. She reached in…

And what did she pull out but my glasses!

It might not have been an ice cream cone, but it cheered me up much more than anything else could.

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I like it when my books all fit together on some indefinable theme.

I also have out Sense and Sensibility, which sadly does not fit in the theme.

In other news, I am getting pretty sick of hearing about Andrew Wylie’s move to publish his clients’ backlist. This makes him a publisher as well as an agent, guys. He’s now doing more than one thing, not just agenting. Also? Not all that scary.

My answer to this assignment is suggested by the question itself. What kind of camp is it? Why, it’s a fantasy camp, of course!

OK, in real life, I couldn’t call myself any kind of an expert on fantasy. I’ve read Tolkien, but it’s been years, and I didn’t like it that much. In fact, I’ve hardly read any epic fantasy and didn’t like what I did read, so I’m pretty much missing a whole subgenre. And even of the subgenres I do read, I’ve probably read less than one percent of all the work that’s out there.

But in my dream world, I can darn sure be a fantasy expert!

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I don’t often go to see plays performed, actually. I did more often when I was in high school (especially for my drama class) and in college (because I could walk right to them). I’ve never seen an opera, but I used to see a lot of musicals–that is, if participating in or running spotlight for amateur productions counts!

From when I was about twelve to when I was seventeen or eighteen, I was involved in a community theater group. People in the group ranged in age from eight to old enough that I wasn’t going to ask. Our director, Tom, had to be in his seventies or eighties. My closest friends were all in the group (and in fact, it’s how I met most of them). It’s hard to express how important that place and time was to my life. I’m a little afraid to write about it because I don’t think I’ll do it justice. People who were also involved in it understand. Perhaps it will suffice to say that the people and the rehearsals were my haven, that I might not be around today without it.

When I got too old to be in the kids’ shows (there were shows that were all kids and ones that were kids and adults), I started working spotlight. This started with Peter Pan–you see, it was the first one I didn’t get to be in, but I thought I might get to do Tinkerbell! I didn’t end up with that job, unfortunately, because there was a problem with the spotlight and the people in charge of sound took over with a flashlight. But I did discover that I loved doing the spotlight, so I did that for a few years. I was really good at it.

Tom died not all that long after I stopped doing the plays–it must have been after I went to college. His is the first funeral I went to that I can remember any of.

Well, I’ve gotten way off topic, so I’ll return to the extra credit. Yes, I’ve seen Shakespeare performed a few times. I’ve read far more than I’ve seen, but I absolutely adore Shakespeare. I will hopefully get to see a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream later this summer!

I’ll have grounds
More relative than this. The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.

Funny thing, I was really excited about this week’s assignment when I saw it last Thursday… and yet it’s taken me until now, practically the last minute, to actually write the post. I guess it’s a leftover from college. I always procrastinate, but I always made my deadlines!

Part of the reason I was excited is because I saw it only a couple of hours after coming home for the library. For that reason the extra credit is difficult, because I checked out eight books! When I was a kid, I would check out as many books as I could at a time (I think it was twelve). In high school, though, my library patronage dropped off–I guess I had more books I had to read for school, so I didn’t need to borrow as many. Also, I had more money by then and was buying books more often. In college, I pretty much stopped using the library, other than the school library for research. Even when I was home for the summer and the winter, I didn’t go to the library, because, well, I had all those books I kept buying, and I was worried about checking them out and then having to go back to school before they were done.

Now that I’ve finished college and am living at home again, though, I’m back to using the library. Partly to save money, and partly to help cut down on the vast amount of books filling up my room… I just don’t have enough bookshelves. And boy, is going to the library addictive. It’s worse than bookstores, because you have to go back, and when you go back there are all sorts of other books that look interesting. And when I have to wait for my mom or my sister, well, the books just pile up. Hence my ending up with eight books last time.

To get back to the actual question in the Weekend Assignment, yes, I’ve probably had late library books, but not since I was a kid. Remember the beginning of my post? I might wait until the day the books are due, but I’ll always get them back on time (even if that means renewing, which is much easier now that the library has a comprehensive online system). I do remember one occasion when I was young when the dog threw up on several books. It mostly just ruined the covers, but we did have to buy the books from the library. I think my sister was upset about that, but I didn’t mind, especially since one of the books I’d borrowed was a cookbook (or maybe a craft book).

And here’s a list of the books I checked out last time I was at the library: Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves, The Big Fat Kill and That Yellow Bastard by Frank Miller, Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card, Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler (which, as it turned out, I’d already read–she has a few books with similar covers and titles), Fortune’s Fool by Mercedes Lackey, and The Complete Sherlock Holmes: Volume 1 by, of course, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Now that I look at it, that’s actually an odd collection for me. It’s mostly science fiction and only one fantasy, whereas my reading habits tend to be much more heavily skewed toward fantasy.

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