The Worlds Without End “Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge” asks readers to choose books written by authors they’ve never previously read. That being the case, I think the most important question to address in a review of one of these books is – are you now interested in reading more books from this author?
In the case of Lauren Beukes my answer is an unqualified, absolute, as-soon-as-possible-please, YES! Continue reading
A few weeks ago I took on two new challenges that will run the span of 2013. The first was a writing challenge and the second was a reading one.
The writing challenge came from the fantastic musician John Anealio. Well, to be specific this isn’t a writing challenge, its a challenge to be creative. He’s calling it “23 in ’13” and, as you might guess, it’s all about doing 23 creative things over the course of the year. His goal is to create 23 new songs this year. My goal is to create 23 new short stories that I consider good enough in quality to submit to editors. I’m a little behind myself but I’ve got one new story out in the slush piles (it’s already gained it’s first rejection) and one new installment of Empire and Animal.
You can join in the fun over at John’s blog. I recommend getting on his mailing list. You can also download the three instrumental pieces he’s made for the challenge so far or pick up his album “Laser Zombie Robot Love” which is really good.
The reading challenge comes from Worlds Without End. They are having a Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge. The goal is to read 12 books this year each by a different woman author that you have never read before. If you sign up they’ve got a great tracking page set up for the challenge and a huge list of authors to explore. Full participationi also includes writing at least a small review for each book you read but it gives you a chance to be featured on their blog. If that happens you also get put into a poll for a chance to win Amazon gift cards! I highly recommend joining in this.
I’ve read my first book for the challenge, Lauren Beukes amazing “Zoo City”, and I’ll be posting my review in the next day or two. I’ve started my second book, Kelly Link’s “Stranger Things Happen”. After that it’ll be Octavia E. Butler’s “Wild Seed”. After that? Who knows. Something awesome I’d bet.
Any of you participating in these challenges? Know of another great one? Got your own? Shout it out in the comments!
I’ve always been a fan of horror movies. Old school horror movies anyway. The Shining is one of my favorite movies ever. Alien and Aliens were both great. Psycho! What a movie. I also enjoy a good scream-queen fronted b-level horror or slasher film. The Nightmare on Elm Street series, for example. I am not a fan of the more modern gore and gross-out centered “torture-porn” kind of movie though. Assume I’ve never and will never watch most things that fall in that category. Until last year though, I’d never really read horror.
I don’t know why that is. Before 2012 I think I had read exactly two horror novels: The Shining by Stephen King and Dean Koontz’s From the Corner of His Eye, and one of those may not even really qualify as horror. While I didn’t hate either of them I didn’t love them either. I’d also read a handful of short stories that could be considered horror – all written by Harlan Ellison. That was the extent of my literacy in horror prose. 2012 was the year that changed.
I have become an audiophile! Or, at least an audiobookphile. 2012 was definitely the year I fell in love with the audiobook. I joined audible at the end of 2011, but only thought of it as a little experiment at the time. I’d always had a bit of a snobbish feeling that we should look down on audiobooks or “books on tape” as somehow being inferior to “real reading”, but I don’t really know why. Having spent a year enjoying some great audiobooks I certainly don’t feel that way anymore.
In fact, I’m starting to wonder if audio books aren’t sometimes superior to their original written form.
I noted in my post on audiobooks yesterday that I was currently listening to Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell. That is no longer true. I finished it about an hour ago and it was great.
I know I’m 4 or 5 years late in discovering this book but I’m very glad I finally did. I’m also glad I listened to this instead of read it, because the narration brings the accents of the characters to life and I think it made it easier to immerse myself in the wonderful cultural flavors of the story. I liked it so much that I can’t wait to start on Buckell’s second book in the same universe (which is not a direct sequel).
I want to listen to that one as well, but I’ve got so much on my Audidble wishlist that I decided I was going to need a better subscription. So Crystal Rain is officially the book that made me upgrade my Audbile membership to platinum.
NOTE: Uh, do to a weird thing I did about changing the timezone my blog is set in this post actually appears before the post on audiobooks I am referring to in it. Whoops.