On the Bookshelf

It is the thirtieth of November meaning that it is also the final day of National Novel Writing Month and National Blog Posting Month.

Okay, so I never did get even remotely close to the NaNoWriMo goal of fifty thousand words but at least I have finally started getting this story down and hopefully will continue on with it past November. At this stage I do already plan to be back for NaNoWriMo in 2010 as well.

As for NaBloPoMo, count those posts - this one makes thirty. I have managed one post for each day this month so I am counting this one as a success. However, I do not think that I will be returning to NaBloPoMo next year. At the end of the day, I prefer to blog because I have something to say rather than scrounging for a topic because I feel like I have to make at least a post a day. Not to mention that I blog all the time but I do not get to do nearly as much creative writing as I would like to. I look forward to November as a time when I can get down those stories that I otherwise do not get to invest the time in to writing. I also find a non-fiction/imformative format easier to write than a creative one, however much as I enjoy it, so I love NaNoWriMo for the quantity over quality philosophy which lets me feel free to just go for it and get in some good writing practice.

Which brings me to my End of November Resolution. 'They' say not to make New Year Resolutions because people make them half-heartedly and don't follow through. Instead, so 'They' say, make your resolution and start on it straight away. Why wait for the new year? So, as of now, I want to get in more creative writing time. While November will still be marked on my calender for writing madness, I want to make sure I am finding time for creativity throughout the year. I feel like I spend too much time, while on the bus trip to work, writing stories in my head but never spending the time or developing the skill to actually put them down in words. This years NaNo started off as a short story that had been in my head for over a year, after all.

Don't be surprised if I do not post any reviews this week. I can feel the November hang over coming on.

Terra

There was a sale on yesterday at Dymocks for members so I took the chance to grab a couple of classics:




In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. Go here to find out more.

Terra

A young woman wakes up beneath a tree with no memories of her life, her name, or her location. She is given the name Willow and comes to learn that she is on Earthsong, a childless planet who has been charged with taking in the children of other planets when their planets elemental lifeblood seeps into them and creates a soul stone, giving the person great powers. All of the other visiting children have remnants of a last memory of their home world and, after a month of residing on Earthsong, can choose to have their soul stone removed so that they can return safely home or remain and use their abilities to defend Earthsong from Beluosus who wishes to take control of the carriers of the soul stones and the tools which Earthsong uses to remove them. The only problem for Willow is that she has no memory at all of what planet she is from and no one recognises her species.

Today's review is of yet another webcomic, Earthsong by Crystal Yates. I love the originality (as far as I know) of this fantasy story which Crystal "Lady" Yates has planned out in great detail. At points, such as in Volume I, Chapter III: Genisis, the pages can get a little bogged down with dialogue in Yate's enthusiasm to describe her detailed world but this is an issue that she mostly works out better as the comic progresses. In comparison, it seems odd that Volume II, Chapter V: The Journal is only eighteen pages long. It is possible that this chapter was Yates experimenting with how best to distribute large amounts of information. Indeed, the pages were less convered with text but it did make for an oddly short chapter in comparison to the others.

About two years ago, Yates decided to commence what has been referred to as the "redux" of Earthsong, editing and reposting the webcomic pages online. The old pages are now inaccessible and I did not start to follow the webcomic until after the redux had commenced so I have never read the old version to be able to compare the art of then and any changes to the story. Regardless, even throughout the course of the redux, Yates' art style changes, develops, and improves significantly. Compare, for example, the cover art for Volume I (above, left) to that of Volume III, Chapter VII: Revelation (below, right). There are mixed views out there on redoing webcomics like this but I think that it is a valid practice, especially if there are plans to publish the work into hard copy for sale. Consider that, although many webcomic creators try to keep a buffer of ready pages, they give themselves only a very limited schedule by which to produce these pages. I cannot blame an artist for wanting to make sure that their work is at the best quality that they can produce before putting it up for sale. The first volume of Earthsong is available for purchase but the publication of future volumes is currently uncertain.

The cast of characters is notably female dominated, which they do discuss in-comic. The main character, Willow, is an interesting balance of meek innocence mixed with a real fiery streak. I have seen criticism of this but, personally, I think it works well.

Earthsong is a webcomic of excellent quality with beautiful art and a great story. It is currently in to it's third volume and is not yet complete. Click on the banner below to go to the Earthsong website where you can read the entire webcomic, hence far, for free!

Terra

This review contains spoilers.

Summary from Goodreads:
Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms -- a struggle that could very well mean her death.

So, I promised that I would give fairy/faery/faerie (even Holly Black could not seem to pick which spelling she preferred in this book) after being considerably disappointed with Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. Well, I am glad to say that I liked Holly Black's Tithe much better. It wasn't really great, but it wasn't as bad either.

There were some instances where I really liked Black's writing style and others where I didn't. I found the characters smoking, especially in the first half of the novel, to be excessive. While much of the smoking and drinking was fairly well in context with the characters that she was trying to portray, sometimes it seemed like a miracle that they could get out a single word between puffs.

For a brief moment I thought that it was really cool that Kaye was half Japanese for some multicultural variety as a main character, only to immediately realise that, no, it is just a major giveaway to the fact that she is not really human. This was even more firmly cemented when she compared her own looks to that of the fairy, Roibin. It was good though that she didn't become gorgeous as a pixie and even greater that she was green.

I liked that sometimes black and white, good and evil were not so clear cut. That in giving the solitary faeries freedom some of them are inclined to go out and wreak havoc on mortal lives whereas Kaye had mistakenly judged them to be like her own faery friends. I also liked that there was some grit, darkness, and cruelty.

 I did not mind this book so much but I am not really loving it either.

Terra

So, the original intent had been to have a review up and ready for today. Instead I have found myself caught up with cleaning out excess junk. It's turned into a pretty big job. I have dared to venture into The Vortex, otherwise known as the space under my bed. Holy carp! The amount of stuff that fits under there!

Hopefully all this hard yakka will pay off and a clean space will equal a good writing space to try and sprint through the last few days of November. I am not going to hit 50K for NaNoWriMo but at least I have posted something everyday for NaBloPoMo!


We have also been getting a lot of spiders around lately so better not to provide them with too much clutter to hide in. It's a great thing living in a country with so many poisonous things. =D

Not to mention that I am terrified of cockroaches so I definitely do not want to be attracting them to my personal space. De-clutter away!

My apologies, by the way, to the arachnophobes.

Terra

Wishful Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Bluestocking at The Bluestocking Guide.

This Wednesday I am wishing for... the fourth volume of Return to Labyrinth.

There is no book description available yet but Return to Labyrinth is a manga, published by Tokyo Pop. It is a sequel to on one of my all time favourite movies, Labyrinth, which starred David Bowie as the Goblin King Jareth and Jennifer Connelly as Sarah, a teenage girl who acccidentally wished her baby brother away to the goblin labyrinth.

Even though I am yet to read volume three (I have it on order from the Book Depository), I only just check in at Jake Forbes' website today to find that he had revealed the cover art for the new volume several days ago! Clearly it is not quite complete as it is still missing the text but this one is really just stunning and makes me so excited to read it! If only I did not have to wait!

You can click on the image to see it larger and in better detail.

Terra

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

From page 82 of Tithe by Holly Black.

Yes, I cheated a little. That is three sentences, not two.

Terra

The Guild, written by and starring Felicia Day, is an online sitcom about the lives of the members of an online guild, The Knights of Good. Together they battle and level their way through a World of Warcraft-esque MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). Everything starts to fall apart when Zaboo (Sandeep Parikh) mistakenly convinces himself that he and Codex (Felicia Day) are in love and shows up on her doorstep and suddenly the guildies online and offline lives begin to blur together.

Felicia Day plays the online priestess, user name Codex, who begins each episode speaking to the camera, filming an entry for her vlog talking about her life which mostly revolves around her gaming addiction and therapy. The guild is conveniently made up of all local members, allowing for them to find themselves becoming involved in each others AFK (away from keyboard) lives after Codex first calls them together to help her get rid of Zaboo. The other members of the Knights of Good are guild leader and fighter Vork, high schooler and rogue Bladezz, neglectful mum of three and mage Clara, and the ranger Tinkerballa a pre-med student.

Currently into it's third season, The Guild was inspired by Day's own experiences playing World of Warcraft and with gaming addiction. The first season was funded by donations but The Guild is now being distributed by Xbox Live and Microsoft and sponsored by Sprint.

While the plot is centred around gamers and gaming, you do not have to be one to follow the show. There is some gamer-speak but much of the humour is centred around the social awkwardness of these internet shut-ins as they begin for the first time to meet each other face-to-face and encounter other people and real life situations as they venture out into the sunlight.

Click here to go to The Guild website and start watching now!

Apologies about this review isn't more detailed. I am still pretty under the weather, unfortunately.

Terra