Alternative Booker Awards

Seumas Gallacher went and did it again – he has graciously honored me by tagging me for an Alternative Booker Award. Personally, I think this is a ploy to get a peep at my personal bookshelves, but… at least as far as books go, I’m a bit of an exhibitionist, so he’s in luck. The idea is to mention five of your favorite books – preferably without going all literati and pretentious – and then tag 5 other bloggers with this delightful award. Now, choosing only five books is going to be completely impossible for me, so bear with me, you’ll just have to cope with several series!

My newest favorite series on my ‘keepers’ list is by Sean T. Poindexter, and because it’s new and I haven’t mentioned it before I’m going to natter on about it, because I tend to be a little enthusiastic about finding a new favorite. The Dragon’s Blood Chronicles – thus far I’ve read books 1 and 2 – The Shadow of Tiamat and The Will of the Darkest  respectively, are simply wonderful. I would seriously go all fan girl on this poor fellow, so it’s probably good that he’s far, far away. No, I don’t go in for going fan girl because an author is ‘cute’ (although… he is kinda cute), I go fan girl for authors who can write a damned good story. Nothing’s sexier than brains, good vocabulary, and creativity. I’ve already started pestering the poor man about when book 3 is coming out and was treated to the news that there’s a spin-off series coming along as well, which delights the hell out of me. Brains, vocabulary, creativity, and productivity too? What? Oh. You want to know what the books are about? Silly you.

The books center around Megan, a young woman who is entirely average – which I love. She’s fairly pretty but not fall-all-over-yourself gorgeous. She’s got a job she cares about that she’s actually qualified to hold… That’s a pet peeve of mine – characters with jobs their degree wouldn’t qualify them to get. She’s not rich. She doesn’t drive a faboo car. She has realistic insecurities about her appearance but doesn’t hate herself. She thinks her roommate is prettier – or at least hotter – than she is. She’s had past relationships that were lousy, and past experiences that were awful, but she’s not completely destroyed by them. She has a boss she thinks is cute but she hasn’t asked him out. She has a friend who is a complete bitch (oh, come on, we all have at least one). In short, she’s ordinary. I love that because that lets the reader identify with the character even when she’s thrown into extraordinary circumstances.

One of those extraordinary circumstances is hitting a motorcyclist with her car. She’s banged up, but he ought to be dead – and isn’t harmed in the least. He’s rich as Croesus, tall, dark, handsome… and a dragon. What I love about Garrett is that for all those wonderful things he isn’t the least bit charming. He isn’t ‘smooth’ with words, and he doesn’t know how to express his feelings. For me, that’s just about perfect – I, for one, can’t stand a hero who is “perfect” and romantic and all that. Love, in my opinion, isn’t about smooth talk, flowers, candlelight, and dancing. I find “romance” a silly thing for the most part. Love is about how you really feel – and how you continue to feel – when ‘the chips are down’. If your love doesn’t survive all hell breaking loose in your lives it wasn’t really love to start with.

Now, I’m not going to spoil the story for you, except to say that loving a dragon may very well be the definition of all hell breaking loose. Meg is targeted by vampires, as is Garrett, and Meg’s considerably more special than she appears to be. I will say that the plot is exceptionally well done; the ‘minor’ characters and their sub-plots are absolutely essential to the story and Mr. Poindexter develops their characters extremely well. The sex scenes are hot without being disgusting and tawdry or heavily laden with purple prose and ridiculous euphemisms. Better yet, they’re accurate for sex with a… um… well-endowed fellow. I’m sorry, folks, this may be blush-inducing, but unrealistic sex scenes in which the man is well-endowed and they go ‘all night’ are insanely stupid – there’s some wear and tear involved and you’re going to be walking funny and sore as hell the next day, plainly put. The fight scenes are dead-on accurate in choreography and physics (given that there are dragons involved, of course). That’s another pet peeve of mine – fight scenes that just couldn’t possibly work that way make me skim and roll my eyes at an author’s lack of research.

Next on my list is David Eddings’ Belgariad and Mallorean  series. I adore epic fantasy and these series are an excellent example of how it should be done.  Of course, Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series is also exceptionally well-done epic fantasy.  For both authors, however, I really only like these series and I’ve never been able to get “into” their other work.

I love funny fantasy, so competing for the ‘funny’ slot are Piers Anthony’s Xanth series and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Of the two series, Discworld is considerably cleaner – I begin to worry that Mr. Anthony’s just a touch pervy. Mr. Anthony has, of course, produced several other series, most of which are even more ‘questionable’ than Xanth;  sex is fine by me, pedophilia isn’t, so I’m not going to recommend any of his other series.

I love science fiction, particularly space opera, and again I have competing favorite series. Lois McMaster-Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga and Sharon Lee & Steve Miller’s Liaden Universe are my picks, and both have gotten Hugo nominations for the 2012 installments of their series – at least on my ballot. Yes, I get to vote on the Hugos this year. Much as I love Lois’s Vorkosigans, I really can’t get into her other books like Spirit Ring; they’re just not as well done and not as engaging.

My last category of absolute keepers are “my” authors. I’m probably biased, but I think that Justin Macumber (A Minor Magic), Lindsey Loucks (Grave Winner), Shawna Romkey (Speak of the Devil), Cindy Young-Turner (Thief of Hope and Journey to Hope), Jody A. Kessler (Death Lies Between Us), Diane M. Haynes (Rift Healer and Sirocco), Rusty Fischer (Reanimation Reform School among others), Denna Holm (Soul of a Warrior), and Wendy Russo (January Black) are putting out some of the best new books out there. Better yet, most of those books are either going to be series or already part of a series, which means there’s more to read! 🙂 Now, you may over-rate my bias here and think that I love them just because I’ve edited some of their work, but the truth of the matter is – that makes me that much more certain that these are really good books! Think about it; I’ve read these books several times over and I absolutely adore them and will read them again and again. That says something, right?

And, because it’s my blog, I’m also going to mention that I adore Neil Gaiman, David Weber, Larry Correia, and Eric Flint. Just because I can. 🙂 I read a lot, okay?

The five people I’m tagging with Alternative Booker Awards of their own – mostly because I want a peep at their bookshelves:

Shawna Romkey

Lindsey Loucks

Wendy Russo

Jody A. Kessler

Cindy Young-Turner

Just can’t wait to see their favorite books!

 

Dreaming Up a Series

I was just chatting back and forth with Shawna Romkey, author of Speak of the Devil, which I edited for her and Crescent Moon Press. Since Speak of the Devil is the first book in a planned trilogy, she’s found herself needing a name for the whole series.

This, of course, led me to the realization that while I have titles for several of the books in my series I don’t know how long the series will be, and I don’t have a name for it! As far as I’m concerned I’ve got enough material to compete for length with Piers Anthony’s extremely long-running Xanth series, so that’s a thorny problem all by itself. Added to that is the problem of a series title. I could just call it Smuggler’s Universe, a la Sharon Lee & Steve Miller’s Liaden Universe, or Smuggler’s Saga a la Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga, but that seems a bit… done. While either would work with the titles of the books, I’d really prefer not to be quite so derivative. I’m much more seriously considering Smuggler’s Journey, since the overall story arc fits that much more neatly and I’m not likely to be writing short stories about other places and people in the story universe like Lee & Miller or McMaster-Bujold have done. I have to admit that when I write a story, short pretty much never describes it. Heck, when I write anything short never describes it.

So far the story lines for Smuggler’s Pursuit, Smuggler’s ‘Flu, and Smuggler’s Necessity, with some thought put towards Smuggler’s Gamble, Smuggler’s Pardon, and Smuggler’s War. Smuggler’s Justice is done, so that’s seven already, and definitely in need of a series title. Of them, Smuggler’s Pursuit and Smuggler’s ‘Flu are best developed, particularly since I’ve spent the last 5 years or so messing around with Smuggler’s ‘Flu before I realized that Smuggler’s Justice and Smuggler’s Pursuit were necessary in order to refrain from confusing the reader with an annoying lack of background.

The series is bringing itself to life in my dreams. I was reading a blog kindly recommended by Seumas Gallacher in his ongoing Blog Scratcher’s Union efforts ( #TBSU – yes, there’s even a hashtag!). The fellow’s name is Donovan and in his blog post titled ‘Casting the novel…’ he posts pictures of actors and actresses who come closest to the characters he envisions for his novel. This gave me the fun idea of doing the same so that perhaps everyone else can see what I’m thinking when I’m talking about my characters, particularly when I’m talking about them as if they’re real people.

So, for Sophocles I’m thinking David Faustino – not prettied up, though, scruffy like this picture I grabbed from Wikipedia, taken by Gage Skidmore:

David Faustino by Gage Skidmore

Just the right age to show a little life battering, right hair color, right blend of homely to be handsome (I can’t stand a ‘pretty’ man – a man should look like a man, not a woman with potential for growing a beard!), and fit enough to withstand the rigors of being Sophocles. He’s good at playing the smartass little jerk, which is the front that Sophocles puts out much of the time when he’s not being dead-serious and competent. Personally, I think Mr. Faustino could manage the role admirably.

For Magdalene May, I propose Zooey Deschanel:

I think that Miss Deschanel is good at playing the innocent, but has enough tartness and spunk about it to be a convincing Maggie. The only problem I have with the young lady is that I don’t know how convincing she’d be at playing a girl so scary-smart that the government would Imprint her mind and personality into crystal, then kill her so as to not have to deal with the costs of upkeep. Yeah, the government that produced the partnership between Sophocles and Maggie was pretty damned evil. I think her appearance of shining innocence would point that out without having to do too much extra explaining about how it’s just plain not okay to kill people off for governmental convenience.

For Melia, on the other hand, I’m thinking Gwendoline Christie:

Gwendoline Christie

Because she can look like a lawyer, but she can also look like a complete badass:

Gwendoline Christie in Game of Thrones

As amply demonstrated by her acting in Game of Thrones. Naturally, something much different would need to be done with her hair, since Melia has a thick braid of dark auburn hair, eventually with the trinkets won in battle woven into it in the style of an Amazon Warrior. She’s an inch shorter than Melia should be, but David Faustino’s an inch shorter than Sophocles should be, so the height difference is preserved.

I’m considering Dot Jones for Barbara, Kim Blacklock for Hippolyta (even if she would have to play much older than she actually is), Suzie Plakson for Susan, Lindsay Hayward for Sonya (again, the hair issue), Jodie Kidd ( with a lot of padding, possibly even a ‘fat suit’) for Carrie Filbert…  The casting for the Amazon women from Smuggler’s Justice is mostly taken from the IMDb Tallest Actresses listing since they’re all very tall women.

For Crandal? How do you cast a lizardman when you know that whoever the actor is will be covered in some serious makeup? I want someone tall and brawny, but excruciatingly dignified and noble-looking in a sort of Norman Invasion kind of way. At this point Dolph Lundgren is looking like the most likely candidate:

Dolph Lundgren

He isn’t really 100% ideal, he’s a bit too old to carry off the idealism convincingly, but he’s got the right look to carry off Crandal’s stiff almost-medieval formality, and he might be about right. I like Brad Garrett’s voice, but he’s too typecast as a comedic actor playing deadpan to pull off a role where the deadpan is “for real” rather than “straight man” to a more hyperactive “funny man”.  I’m thinking Crandal should remain quite human-like, rather than having some sort of alligator face, but not a human with bad tattoos like that Erik Sprague fellow.

There you have it, that’s the cast of characters that bicker and laugh and carry on all through my dreams. Now, for those of you familiar with my five years of prodding Smuggler’s ‘Flu,  you may be familiar with Calliope as well. For her, unfortunately, I haven’t had much success in finding an actress’s picture (and career/talent) that matches. I have yet to find someone with Marilyn Monroe’s general “look” (and curviness – what the hell is wrong with Hollywood that actual curves puts those poor girls on the ‘fat actress’ list? What the hell is sexy about looking at someone else’s skeleton through their skin?) and Eartha Kitt’s glorious purring voice and talent for being just plain evil – at least on the surface. Add to that the problem that she has to be a Pocket Aphrodite (little bit of a thing height-wise), and you’ll see my problem!

On the editing front –

I’ll be editing a new book for Crescent Moon Press – Soul of a Warrior by Denna Holm. I’m looking forward to getting the manuscript via email soon.