Month: November 2011

What’s on my (mostly virtual) nightstand 11-6-11

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | books> ebooks> Virtual Nightstand

“The hurrieder I go, the behindeder I get!”

I participated in the Library 2.011 WorldWide Conference on November 2, conducting a webinar on genre fiction. I’d never conducted a webinar before. Well, now I have. But the prep time threw my reading schedule off. A lot.

And I still have stuff to read for this week!

I review ebooks for Library Journal Xpress Reviews whenever they send me a book. The reviews are published at the Library Journal site, and sometimes they are printed in the Library Journal print magazine. Which is really cool, because it gives me something to show my mom. Last week, I got a book to review for LJ. So I’ll be reading White Hot Christmas by Serenity Woods. My review is due to the editor on November 11.

November 11 is Veterans’ Day. In honor of Veterans’ Day, Bell Bridge Books is publishing a collection of romance novellas featuring Navy SEALs as the heroes, titled SEAL of my Dreams. Proceeds from the sale of the book will go towards Veterans Research Corporation, a non-profit fundraiser for veterans’ medical research. I have a review copy of SEAL of my Dreams from NetGalley, and this is one review I want to make sure comes out for the release date.

I need to read both Fallen Embers and Blowing Embers by Lauri J. Owen. I received both books from the author, and promised to provide an honest review. I also promised to provide said review by this Friday. I had intended to read Fallen Embers last week, and didn’t quite make it. So I’ll be reading them both this week.

I mentioned last week that I glommed up half the Carina catalog for November from NetGalley. What was I thinking? I have three books with release dates next Monday, November 14; Dark Vow by Shona Husk, Knight of Runes by Ruth A. Casie and The Hollow House by Janis Patterson. Knight of Runes is definitely a time-travel romance, Dark Vow looks like a fantasy romance, and the description of Hollow House reads like a cross between a paranormal and good old-fashioned gothic! They all looked so good! They still do. Thank goodness none of them are the length of War and Peace, or even the average Charles Dickens’ novel.

Looking back at last week (groan, moan) I still have that archiving problem with Frost Moon and Blood Rock. I have to read them before 11/26 or they will timebomb off my iPad. Never got to Snuff, but at least that won’t go away. And doesn’t that look strange as I write it. Slip Point and The Lady’s Secret are done, I just need to write the reviews. I did finish Cast in Secret. It will be a couple of weeks before I even contemplate Cast in Fury.

The other problem is that I want, I really, really want, to read Scholar, the new book in L.E. Modesitt’s Imager Portfolio series, that will be released on Tuesday. I absolutely adored the first three books, and see no reason that I won’t love this one, whatever the early reviewers might say. But if I can make myself wait, the price will come down. What’s a girl to do, I ask you?

Amazon wants to be your library

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | Amazon> libraries

We’ve all read the news by now. Amazon has gone into the library business. And as the Baltimore Sun described it on November 3, this is bad news for libraries.

Amazon’s announcement on November 3 of the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library is a masterpiece of marketing. But the service it offers, at the price point that Amazon is willing to provide it, is a direct shot across the bow of every public library in America.

Any Amazon Prime customer is automatically a subscriber to the new service. There is just one catch. The service only works if you have an actual Kindle! No Kindle app users need apply.

But an Amazon Prime subscription only costs $79 per year, and includes pretty much the same video streaming as Netflix, in addition to 2-day shipping on everything in the Amazon marketplace. For people who do a lot of their shopping through Amazon, this is a great deal. I’m not currently one of those people, but the Netflix to Amazon comparison may make it worthwhile on that cost alone. I can’t say we’re not thinking about it.

The current cost of the lowest price Kindle is $79. That’s a one time cost. Has anyone noticed that three of the very prominently displayed titles in the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library are The Hunger Games Trilogy? This can’t be a coincidence. The Hunger Games ebooks are not available to libraries through OverDrive. They are available as audio through OverDrive, but not as ebooks. Scholastic does have a deal with Amazon to lend through their lending program, but not through public libraries.

Currently, the “Big Six” publishers do not participate in Amazon’s lending library. That’s Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Hachette. But then, two of those six, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, don’t participate in the library lending space, and HarperCollins’ participation brings up the number 26 and a whole lot of curse words.

But the lending library program is merely another string in Amazon’s bow. Let’s look at what it is again. Any Kindle owner who is already part of Prime Services can borrow one book per month for 30 days, no overdue fees and no hold queues. No muss, no fuss, no additional charges, on a platform they are already familiar with.

What Amazon gets out of this transaction is data, which is also what they get out of allowing Kindle users to borrow OverDrive ebooks from the libraries. They get more data about what people are reading on their Kindles, and they get the opportunity to sell them more Kindle books targeted to them based on that data. Amazon wins big on this.

But I have to contrast the Amazon service with a recent experience at a local library. I decided to finally read the second book in an older mystery series, the Ian Rutledge series by Charles Todd. I listened to Test of Will on a car trip, liked it, and wanted to find Wings of Fire. The library didn’t have it, I don’t want to own it, so I tried interlibrary loan. ILL costs $2. The ebook only costs $7.99. I almost bought it, but I still don’t have a need to own it, and organizing my ebooks is getting to be a chore. I wasn’t worried about how long it would take for the book to arrive, so the month it took to get here was no big deal.

I have three weeks to read it. Not a serious problem for me, I’m used to shorter deadlines, but a nuisance. On the other hand, there’s a 20 cent per day fee if it’s overdue. Since I know the ebook cost $7.99, I’m starting to wonder why I didn’t just buy it, except I’ve already paid $2. And there’s a bookmark in the book to let me know that if I lose or damage the book I’ll automatically be charged $50 until my library settles up with the library that actually owns the book. Since the copy I have is the hardcover, that wouldn’t be $50, but it would be more than $7.99. Obviously, I need to keep the cats away from the book.

I understand about cost recovery. I’ve made all those arguments myself. And multiple times, at that. But I still won’t do another ILL for a book that’s available for under $10 as an ebook. Why? Because the experience is all negative from my perspective. I place the request, and I wait. The book comes in, and I have to figure out when the branch it’s at is open, which is a big issue here. I pay for the ILL, and then I get served with a series of warnings, because the presumption is that I will do something wrong. Those warning labels are attached to the book, just in case I forget them. Then I have to return the book, or I will have to pay again.

The Amazon experience is neutral or positive, and this is true for any ebook purchase from Barnes and Noble and Google and Apple as well. The book is there or it isn’t. Amazon has the special case of the lending library. So someone can borrow it or they can’t. If it’s available for purchase, and I’m willing to pay, I buy it. It automatically downloads to my device, which is already set up from my previous purchases. I’m done. No further charges, no need to go anywhere, no warnings, no fines, no delays. And some potentially helpful suggestions about other books I might like. I’m free to browse further or ignore them and dive into my new book.

Libraries need to be different and good and positive about it. Always. All the time. Whenever we face the public. Are we? If we’re not, Amazon has the potential to do to us what they helped do to Borders.

NetGalley Month Recap

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | blogging> book reviews> NetGalley

October was NetGalley month., hosted by WilowRaven at Red House Books.

As I look back, I’m not sure which is more astonishing, that I knocked 14 NetGalley books out of my review queue, or that there are 34 more in that queue? And is that more, or again? I can never tell.

Also, and I am probably insane to admit this, but if I say I’m going to review something, I review it. Even if it gets archived and I have to either buy it or get it out of the library.

The other truly amazing thing to me is that I wrote something about all 14 books. And that I read another 14 books from other sources and blogged about most of them, too. Book blogging is a full-time job. And this would be why I read in the middle of the night.

Of all the NetGalley books I read in October, my favorite is still Dearly, Departed, by Lia Habel. While I adored The Iron Knight, as the conclusion of the Iron Fey, Julie Kagawa’s book was expected to be excellent. It would have been a surprise, not to mention an extreme disappointment, if it weren’t.

On the other hand, Dearly, Departed was not only original and delightful, it was also a first novel. I love those kind of surprises!

But here’s the entire rogue’s gallery, my month according to NetGalley:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sauntering Vaguely Downward

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Sauntering Vaguely Downward, by Nessa L. Warin, is a book about falling in love at a science fiction convention. It is a story that is, itself, in love with science fiction conventions. Sauntering is also an M/M romance.  Last, but not least, the title is an homage to the science fiction genre. It’s a reference to the demon Crowley in Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece, Good Omens. For anyone who has attended a lot of cons, this story is sweet, fun and touching.

Dragon*Con is a five-day extravaganza of a con that takes place every Labor Day weekend in downtown Atlanta. It spreads across three major hotels and overwhelms them. The hotels don’t just sell out, they’ve learned not to bother letting mundanes book rooms, because unsuspecting mundanes and fen just don’t mix well at big cons. I’ve personally been there and done that, and the t-shirts are generally very messy.

Sauntering Vaguely Downward starts out with a “meet-cute” that is actually pretty common at cons. Dylan Rojers and Brendan Stone have arranged to room together at the Con, but they’ve never met in person. In their case, it’s because their usual con roommates have bailed for this con, and in Brendan’s case, his roommate also cancelled their room. Dragon*Con sells out months in advance, even with three major hotels.

They need to check-in for the Con and get their attendance badges as early as possible, because the badge check-in line is going to be incredibly long later in the afternoon. But Dylan is on time and Brendan is late. And hasn’t called. Brendan’s plane arrived late, and he just didn’t think about it. So when he finally does arrive, they’re both pissed at each other, and they get started off on the wrong foot. Both figure that it doesn’t matter, they each have friends they were planning to spend time with that they only see at cons, and they’ve split the cost of the room, so it’s all okay.

But it might be better than okay. Brendan and Dylan are both gay, but at the beginning, neither of them knows that about the other. And they have no friends in common, so it takes a while for the light to dawn. Especially since they start out way too annoyed with each other to find any common ground. At first they only thing they have in common is the Con itself, and a mutual love of the book Good Omens, except that Dylan thinks Terry Pratchett wrote the best parts, and Brendan is certain that Neil Gaiman did. This is almost as bad as the Mac/PC debate.

But Dragon*Con works its magic, and with the assistance of their friends, along with too much unidentified alcohol at a room party, they do manage to find out that they are very interested in each other, in spite of the somewhat rocky beginning. But the problem with Con romances is that the Con always ends. Is their five-day romance just part of the magic of the Con? And if it is, how will they make it in the real world of long-distance relationships?

Escape Rating C+: I enjoyed this book because I know what it’s like to be at a con. It brought back some pretty fond memories. On the other hand, I could easily see that for someone who didn’t have that experience, a lot of this would seem like an in-joke that they didn’t get. And even for me, the story went on too long. I know Dragon*Con lasts five days, but the story dragged at bit toward the end.

The experience of coming to a con, having a roommate you’ve never met, falling in love (or lust) at the con, wondering if it’s real or just con magic–that story is universal. It’s happening to someone,  somewhere this weekend, at a con near you.

Shadowlander

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Shadowlander, by Theresa Meyers, had an absolutely terrific first 15 pages. I totally got hooked on the teaser pages. Consider me duly teased.

Catherine O’Connell can see the fae that inhabit our world. Except for her three sisters, no one else can. And it would be very, very dangerous for the fae to ever find out that she can see them. So, when ferretlike fae sample her best friend’s food at an outdoor cafe, Cate has to pretend she doesn’t see them. When a fae practically climbs into her friend’s cleavage, Cate can’t even let herself look, no matter how much she wants to go, “Eww,” just before she squashes the little perv like a bug.

But when the guy her friend Maya hooks up with after a personal ad online turns out to be a big, bad fae, Cate has a really big problem. Because Maya doesn’t know about the fae, and her so-called date abducts her right through a rift into faery realm.

Cate has an even bigger problem. Since she turned 16, she’s had her own personal fae stalker, named Rook. Rook follows her everywhere, all the time, and she can’t ever let him know that she’s perfectly aware that he sits behind her when she’s reading and breathes down her neck, or that she likes it. Or that she thinks he looks like he belongs on WWE, or that she thinks he’s hot.

Or that she’s just heard him tell one of his fae groupies that her best friend was abducted as a “war prize” for the upcoming “Invasion”.

Except that now she needs a way into the faery realm. And letting Rook know that she can see him might just be her ticket inside. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that she’s been dreaming of his touch for years. Does it?

And Rook. He is beyond astonishment when Cate reveals that she can see him. He’s been watching her fourteen years, since she turned sixteen. But Rook is much, much older than that. But knowing that she can see him changes the game. He had intended to capture her as a warprize, but if she can see him, then she is a Seer, a high-caste prize. Higher in caste than the Prince that he is. And he does not want to give her up to the Court. Rook wants her for himself.

Cate just wants to rescue her friend. These goals are not compatible. Not at all.

Escape Rating C: This is the teaser book for a longer series and it shows. The set up of the “Uplander” world (our world) was interesting, where the fae were here, but most of us couldn’t see them. The picture of the havoc they could wreck while we suspected nothing was both funny and nasty.

The fae world needed a LOT more explanation. Cate was a Seer. Because she could “see” the fae in the Uplander world. I got that part. What I didn’t understand was why that made her high-caste in the fae world or why all the Seers before her had chosen to stay in the fae realm. The book was too short for the world-building required. I would like to have seen it, I was definitely intrigued.

The next book in the Shadow Sisters series will come out in the Fall of 2012. Cate’s sisters will each get their own story.

Darker Still

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Darker Still, by Leanna Renee Hieber, is a Victorian ghost story with a twist. The strange romanticism of Victorian spiritualism was particularly suited to this haunting tale of a painting that had captured rather more than just the likeness of its handsome subject.

Natalie Stewart was struck mute at the age of 4 when she witnessed her mother’s death under the wheels of a runaway carriage. When our story begins, the year is 1880, and Natalie has returned to her father’s New York City townhouse after her schooling in the Connecticut Asylum. The Asylum is a school for children with unfortunate handicaps like Natalie’s; some are blind, some are deaf, some are crippled, but all are well-to-do. As is Natalie, since her father is an important man at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

An intriguing new painting has arrived in New York. It is a portrait of the late Lord Denbury. Denbury is a compelling subject in his own right, young, aristocratic and handsome. Dead by his own hand just after the portrait was completed, distraught over the death of his parents. His case is tragic. But there is something about the painting itself: it seems as if the man’s spirit inhabits the painting, almost as if he is somehow alive in that canvas.

The story of the tragic young lord compels Natalie to visit the current owner of the portrait, Mrs. Northe, in spite of the fact that Natalie can only “speak” either by writing or by sign language. But Mrs. Northe is eager to meet Natalie.  She almost seems to be waiting for her…and Mrs. Northe knows how to sign!

When Natalie is brought before the painting of Lord Denbury, she is certain, she feels, that Denbury is trapped in the painting. Each time she looks at the painting, she sees that something has changed, something has been moved. In the painting, Lord Denbury is writing on the desk, asking her questions, communicating with her!

Natalie takes Mrs. Northe into her confidence, fearful that she will be thought mad. But when Mrs. Northe believes her, they conduct an experiment. Natalie touches the painting, and falls in–to the world of the painting, where Lord Denbury waits for her to save him.

On that other side of the canvas, Natalie must face her greatest hopes, and her greatest fears, in order to have the chance at a real life. The one thing that she feared her handicap had placed forever beyond her reach.

Escape Rating B+: This was a neat story to be reading the night before Halloween. Very gothic, with an added slice of the Picture of Dorian Gray thrown in for good measure. Just a slice.

While I enjoyed Natalie as a character, I found that having the entire story told from her first-person point-of-view to be a little limiting. I wanted to know a lot more about why the other characters were doing the things they did. Mrs. Northe’s motivations were not as clear as they might have been. Was her flirtation with Natalie’s father a ruse, or was she genuinely interested? Why did the demon choose Denbury in the first place? What society of devils? Who else is involved? I still have questions.

And how are Natalie and Denbury going to get out of the pickle they’re in? When is the next book?????