Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

I loved this book and not because Jonathan wrote it and not because it's about Zombies and not because it's a coming-of-age story.
I loved it for all of the above and more.
This is a Zombie book with "heart". I know that sounds funny but it's true. Our hero, Benny, learns many life-lessons, mostly from his older brother Tom, but from some of the secondary characters as well, and even from the Zombies that stagger through the story.
When I first started reading this book, I compared it to The Hunger Games. I need to read the next two books in that trilogy; however, Rot and Ruin's future was more hopeful - mainly because of the central characters and the attitude toward Zombies.
Jonathan Maberry can take an almost-worn out theme- zombies in the aftermath of the apocalypse - and make it feel new.
Now, I'm waiting for the next one.

It's My Birthday......

But that's not the reason for this post.
Reading and posting about the books I'm reading slowed down the last few days - NJRW conference and getting ready for Seattle.
But I should be back on track once we get situated in the hotel this evening.
I've downloaded way too many books on my Kindle.
So I'll have new titles and new subjects to write ab out.

Packing Light

Tomorrow Morgan and I fly to the Pacific Northwest. Look out, Heather. Here we come.
No matter where I go, I take books. And it's usually a wide assortment because I never know what I'll want to read. My suitcase is usually full of books.
But not tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will carry my Kindle.
I just finished ordering some books by speakers at NJRW and WAR, PennMed's latest book for our book club.
So, when Heather gets tired of us and dumps us back at our hotel, I can write OR read - anything from WAR to a mystery with Daphne DuMaurier as the main character.
Definitely will be heaven: Heather, Morgan and books (including the one I'll be rewriting).

Total Books as of Today...

27

The Swan Thieves

I was with this book until the end. I felt the truth of creative obsession - especially after reading The Monsters. I felt the truth of obsessive love - again, especially after reading The Monsters. I could almost smell the linseed oil and paint and wanted to buy canvas and oils and an easel - I wanted to paint, to feel the pull of repeating what I saw in my own colors and light.
But the final "cure" of the painter, Robert Oliver, was too pat, too obvious, too easy. That's not how it really happens. I know. I've worked with patients like Oliver - silent, moody, cyclical in their psychopathy.That's when Kostova lost me. She had me for almost 600 pages and then she lost me.
And I'd also had the center issue figured out before it was revealed.
Because that's how I would have written it.
Sometimes it doesn't pay to be a writer-reader.

Life's Centerpiece

I read a short article yesterday in Real Simple magazine about the Thanksgiving centerpiece the writer's non-crafty mother had used each year. It was a lovely story but it got me wondering about the centerpieces of our life.
If you look at life as a table set for a meal and all your family sitting around it, what would be the table's centerpiece?
For me "family" would include my four-legged companions, probably sitting expectantly around the table waiting for droppings.
The centerpiece? It would be a stack of books - all shapes, sizes, colors, authors, genres, ages...
Books have been, will always be, the centerpiece of my life.
I hope to die with a book in my hand...I'm not sure which one right now.

Finished....

... listening to Linda Fairstein's Hellgate. This wasn't my favorite in the Alex Copper series but maybe it was the woman who read it. I've heard her read other mysteries, lighter ones - so that could have been it. My favorite so far has been Entombed but that's because it's about Poe. I did learn a lot about the Federalist mansions in New York, including Gracie Mansion. I also have to look for a biography of Eliza Hamilton - she seems to have been quite something.

And I've finished reading Mourn the Living by Henry Perez, the first book I've read by this writer. I found the premise a little contrived - but then I reread one of my own manuscripts while reading this book and thought, "Uh..huh..Who are YOU to say anything?" I did like the character of reporter, Alex Chapa who is going through personal and professional issues. Hm? Aren't all good protagonists doing that these days?

Soon I'll be finished with The Swan Thieves - moving away from creativity and obsession ...or will I?

Swan Thieves

I'm almost finished reading this wonderful book about obsession, love and the madness of creativity. I do believe that anyone with a strong creative streak is a "bit off."
Like Lewis Carroll said in "Alice...": "We're all mad here."
To be obsessed with one's creativity must be the bliss of madness.
To have one person be the center of that creative obsession - and a dead person at that - could lead the artist down a long tunnel of insanity, the creativity lost forever.
Such a fine line...

When Fiction seems to be reality...

The Swan Thieves....
I returned to that book and now I wonder why I'd ever stopped reading it...why did I put it down for a mystery or a thriller.
It's a book about obsession and love and painting and...
And have you ever been reading a book and suddenly think "that's me - that's what I feel..."? I'm finding this in the Beatrice and the Mary characters in this book (not, however, in the Kate character - the wife of the haunted painter, Robert Oliver). My emotions are wrapped up in theirs or theirs are wrapped up in mine.
I had a difficult time putting the book down last night to go to bed. I was up at 4 AM this morning, took a quick shower, got my coffee and began again.
Obsession. Is there anything that I would do above all other things?
Read and write. But the fire in the belly can be doused by rejection.
Would I feel the same way if I were a painter? If my work could be viewed almost instantly - not requiring time to read through a manuscript? At least the entire "product" would be there, out in the open, not sitting in the confines of two hundred plus pages.
I want to work at my obsession - like Mary, like Beatrice, like Robert and Olivier. I want to work at it to the detriment of everything else - to have the cats crying at me that I've forgotten the evening treat, that I can't find toilet paper or even tissues, that my hair is unkempt and I've ignored eating while I put just the right words together.
And I want to love...oh, to love...someone who understands that obsession. Happily, I believe, I've found that person to love.
I'll finish reading this book today but I will not be finished with it.
The fate of the world does not rest on the shoulders of these characters - possibly not even their own fates for that may have been taken out of their hands more than a hundred years before. But the telling of their stories, their loves, their obsessions...it all makes me want to keep on reading...
And it makes me want to paint.

Total So Far...

I've finished Dismissed with Prejudice and I'm almost half-way through Rot and Ruin and Henry Perez's Mourn the Living (another mystery - this one about a serial killer with a reporter as the protagonist). I'll probably finish both tomorrow (and soon I'll be finished listening to Hellgate), but as of now, my total is 25 books read/listened to.
I've also read half of Morgan's manuscript: Somewhere in Space and Time.
Coming up will be The Swan Thieves, Riptide and Wolf Manor.
I also have Muhammad by Deepak Chopra waiting on my Kindle.
And, of course, I'm also re-reading Dracula...it's just that time of year.

A note about Jonathan Maberry's Rot and Ruin: it reminds me of the Hunger Games; an apocalyptic setting with a area of land designated dangerous. IN R&R by 15 everyone has to have a part time job or gets a decrease in rations. In HG, there is a lottery for participants in the "games" for food. I hope to read a YA novel with a happier future...oh, wait...no drama. 

Reading at 2 AM

It was unusual for me - being awake at 2 AM - wide awake.
What to do?
Yeah, right.
I read. I went back to JA Jance's Dismissed with Prejudice, one of her Detective J.P. Beaumont mysteries. I found Jance in a used book store in Everett, WA - a short walk from my daughter's apartment. I was just learning about Seattle and the Pacific Northwest and reading a book set in an area that was becoming familiar to me was fun. Now I'm hooked and I will soon be moving to Jance's desert mysteries. But I do love Beaumont - love those tattered heroes. Unfortunately I started reading the series in the middle. Dismissed with Prejudice is giving me the Detective's history - difficult history.

As you can see, I jump around a bit with what I'm reading - from Rot and Ruin to Dismissed with Prejudice.
I've always done this - had at least two or three books going at once. That's why I love my Kindle - can carry lots and bounce back and forth, depending on my mood.

Today I'm in the mood to finish a mystery - or two.
And to finish Morgan's Somewhere in Space and Time.
Busy day - but I got a head start on it at 2 AM.

What I'm Reading Now...

Jonathan Maberry's YA novel: Rot and Ruin.
JA Jance: Dismissed with Prejudice.
Morgan Reinbold: Somewhere in Space and Time (working title)
Mitzi Flyte: The Last Prophecy (revising/rewriting)
Listening to Linda Fairstein's Hellgate

When Reading Isn't Enough

I've been trying to go to work through this terrible bronchitis that won't let go of me.
Yesterday my doctor wanted to know if I wanted to be admitted to the hospital. Like, what? Why? What can the hospital do for me that I haven't been doing for myself?
Oh, yeah - that's right - fix my meals, get me my meds, but also poke and jab me - stick IVs in me - make me go for tests I don't need. I think the just wanted to put me where I wouldn't get into trouble - ie: work.
Even though I turned down the opportunity, I felt crappy - couldn't read, couldn't write - heck! May as well go to the office.
But I did manage a peek at Jonathan Maberry's wonderful YA novel, Rot and Ruin, and I'm loving it. I'll probably have it finished by the weekend and then I'll delve into The Swan Thieves.
And waiting for my ears is Impact by one of my favorite authors, Douglas Preston.
Bronchitis will not stop my goal of 100 Books in One Year.

'Tis the Season

It has to be because it's October.
I decided to read Polidori's Vampyre, a novella that is steeped in Gothic atmosphere and very much a tell and not show story. If written as a modern story, it would be hundreds of pages long instead of less than 50.
But it does show the seductive lure of the vampire, before and after he became undead. Lord Ruvhen, Polidori's vampire, was not a good person before he died...and afterward, he was worse, preying on his only friend's sister.
Since Vampyre is short, I won't count it as one of my 100 books - see how honest I am?

Angel Interrupted ---

Did I say this book was "light" reading?
Well, color me wrong.
As the characters careen to the ending of this mystery, they're confronted with the meaning of good vs evil, immortality, revenge and redemption. All the characters - the "real" ones and the "spirit" ones.
I had to stop to catch my breath.
And I have to go back and see if I have enough layers in my own paranormal mystery.
Damn. I hate when that happens.
But I'm thoroughly enjoying the careening.... 

Angel Interrupted

After the "heaviness" of The Monsters and "In Defense of Harriet Shelley", I'm enjoying a bit lighter reading.
As I said previously, I would love my own book, Elizabeth Peacock and the Body on Abbey Road, to be published by Prime Crime. (Any editors out there? Huh? Please....)
Oh, well...I digress.
So I make it a point of reading mysteries from that imprint.

This book combines two of my favorites: police procedural and paranormal. I love the scarred main character, the ghost of an alcoholic cop who has a beyond-the-grave crush on a fellow detective - he still follows her around and tries to help her solve a case even though she can't see him.

My next book? I may go back to "heavy." 
I started The Swan Thieves by The Historian author Elizabeth Kostova. I loved, loved, loved The Historian but I was having problems getting "into" this new book. But after hearing a coworker rave about it, I've decided to return to Kostova and give her book a second chance (thanks Steve - I think).

Twain vs Shelley

The Monsters lead me to this wonderful literary criticism  by Mark Twain of a Percy Bysshe Shelley biography. The criticism was titled "In Defense of Harriet Shelley" and was wittily scathing towards the biographer and the famous poet.

I loved it. But of course, it was Twain. And once again, one book has lead me to more.

Now back to Prime Crime's Angel Interrupted, a totally different book.

The Monsters - The Monster Inside

I often regret not having a college degree - not that it would have given me any more money a year - but what I missed learning. I did take some night courses, but nothing that would have given me the depth of a four-year degree, probably one with a major in English/Journalism or History.

For the last forty-odd years I've been trying to make up for those lost four years I never had in my youth. Reading Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler's The Monsters was part of that.

The Hooblers' biography of the "monsters" that gathered at Villa Diodati in the summer of 1816 - a summer of darkness and thunderstorms caused by a volcanic eruption half a world away - was also a biography of the "real" monsters who were conceived during that tumultuous summer: Frankenstein's monster and Vampyre (by John Polidori). "Root cause analysis" is a modern term but this bio certainly is an analysis of the monsters' creative birth.

Frankenstein's monster, ugly on the outside  and rejected by his creator because of that, taught himself by viewing a family secretly through a hole in a wall of the family's home. The monster became a being of knowledge and sympathy but was still ultimately rejected by his creator, much as Mary Shelley was rejected by her father, the philosopher, William Godwin.

Although many traditions have vampire folklore, the monster was usually a peasant. Polidori made him an aristocrat, handsome and seductive - the view that has been handed down for the past 200 years.

By the time I finished The Monsters, I felt I'd had a college course in the Romance Poets. The Hooblers have led me to the biography of Mary Lamb, Polidori's Vamprye and Anne Radcliffe's works - and help me to continue my education.

At the end of The Monsters, the Hooblers write:

At the heart of the book is the mystery of creativity and its consequences, something  that concerned -

   even at times - tormented - all...the people at Villa Diodati. In their out-sized passions, their remarkable talents, their distorted personal lives, their never-satisfied yearning for love -

they were all monsters.

And as I peak through the wall of a college education I know which "monster" I am.

The Shelleys and George Gordon, Lord Byron

I've immersed myself in early 19th century Europe today while trying to get rid of this terrible bronchitis. I've learned so much about these very talented and very flawed (by any standard) people - more than I ever learned in school. In fact information I would never had been taught in school, at least not in a high school in the 1960s.

I found myself wondering if in getting the gift of genius means you give up something else - for these people, a sense of responsibility to themselves, their families. Percy Bysse Shelley was a self-involved child who never grew up, not even when he was married and a father. To all of them (the women less than the men for they always had to care for the children), the discussion of the intellect and creativity was more important than anything else. Of course they also came to adulthood during a time of great social upheaval - but they seem to take it a few steps too far.

The correlation between Frankenstein's monster and Mary Shelley's life is remarkable. A mother who died giving birth and father who rejected her when she ran off with a married Shelley - so very much like the motherless monster also rejected by his creator.

So now I'd like to learn how Dr, Polidori came to write Vampyre,  inspired by the time he spent with Byron and the Shelleys. I think I have an idea - blood suckers all around.
 

The Monsters

I have to post before going to bed:
I'm loving this book about Mary Shelley, PB Shelley, et al.
I'm so into it that I just got Mary's complete works on my Kindle and I ordered a bio of Mary Lamb.
English Lit/American Lit classes should include this type of biography before actually reading the author's works.
Which leads me to another thought: why isn't everything in our education intertwined? I mean like learning about the history of the time while reading the literature of the time while learning about the science of the time.
Or is that too simplistic?
Shouldn't kids be reading Franklin's papers while learning about the American Revolution or Shakespeare's Henry plays while learning English history?
And while I'm at it: I want my Kindle to link into sites about certain things in the book. Yeah, I want those nice blue words that tell me I have a link for more information.
At 63 I devour information 'cause I'm still learning.

And the next book(s) are:

Angel Interrupted by Chaz McGee - a cop who is an angel.
The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein by Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler - a biography.
Two very different books.


Angel Interrupted is from Prime Crime and since I would love to have Elizabeth Peacock and the Body on Abbey Road picked up by that imprint, I read from that line. 


But I must have my share of the "different" - hence The Monsters.


I've always been fascinated with the beginnings of the Gothic novel and the horror novel - two of the genres I write. The Monsters should give me some odd dreams and hopefully some story ideas.

The Hunger Games and Reality TV

An afternoon on the sofa with a cat on my lap and trying not to cough (me, not the cat): I finished reading the first book in The Hunger Games series.

The premise of the book bothers me but the story was so well-written that I'll be reading the other two books in the series. Maybe it was the medicine or my own twisted viewpoint but I could see the TV show "Survivor" morph into the Hunger Games.

Reality television is becoming TMI: Too Much Information...from Hoarders to Bridezillas to the Real Housewives of anywhere. I admit watching some of these shows of virtual self-destruction in front of a camera crew. It seems that each new season ups the ante for the participant in search of viewers, ratings and money.

In a post-apocalyptic world it's not a stretch for one to imagine a televised program of young people fighting to the death to assure that their District is well-fed and their own family safe. And that the government, not a TV channel, sponsors this "show", not only to keep the people entertained, but to also show the "Capitol's" power over the individual Districts - a necessity after a failed rebellion.

I wonder if the next books will take a George Lucas turn and tell the reader more about the rebellion.
As they say in TV land (and "on" TV Land), stay tuned.

The Hunger Games

I know why this book bothers me.
It's because I can see it as a possible future.
The Hunger Games in the plot could be the extension of our "reality" television shows.
With the increasing divide between those that have and those that don't, I can see fighting to the death to provide food for your family becoming a program for the amusement for the "haves".
And that thought is frightening...
I'm not sure that, even if I finish the first book of this series, I can even read the other two.
The premise bothers me that much.
Maybe I should stick with zombies and werewolves and ghosts...

And the Number So Far Is....

21

From July through September I've read/listened to 21 books. Tonight I finished Craig Larson's Mania. I'd started it yesterday and it was a fast paced suspense; therefore, a fast read.

And no, I'm not becoming obsessed by writers named Larson - with one "s" or two. It was a title on my Amazon recommended list.

I also started listening to Linda Fairstein's Hellgate - one of her Alex Cooper mysteries. I'm closing in on reading or listening to all of the books in the series. As you can tell by my choices, I love mystery but I really love mystery with history and Fairstein gives the reader both - the history is usually centered around New York City. I started with the wonderful Entombed, a homage to Poe, and I was hooked.

Hellgate's theme centers around human trafficking - as did parts of London Bridges. It seems to be the crime du jour these days (is that redundant...well, so be it).

Twenty-one books in 3 months. I'm certainly not going to get to 100 at this rate. In addition to my One Hundred Books in One Year Challenge, I'm rewriting one of my own books and planning for NaNo.

I must be crazy. But that's beside the point.
I get more done when I set goals and have a time frame.