Book reviews; A critical analysis

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I read a book once, let's call it The Big Batsby. I read a book, and I liked it. I enjoyed the way, before I read it, I could use it as a fan when I was a little too warm. I especially like the way how, after I read it, I could use it to think about how terribly complex people can be. I also enjoyed the middle part with all the words in it. The book was also useful as (in no particular order) a place to keep my house keys, something to hold in social situations, a bookshelf ornament, a calming scent, and miscellaneous entertainment.

Because this was a good book, I continued enjoying it for quite some time. It wasn't like Henry has no Legs (which I quickly outgrew) or Who Sank the Boat (a classic tale of woe and deception that I will only admit to still loving if it is made perfectly clear to me it is okay for me still to read picture books). This was kind of sophisticated.  It was also, as I have previously mentioned, rather good.

I read an opinion piece once. Let's call it Why I don't like The Big Batsby. It was not a good review. I disliked it.  I couldn't use it as a fan for anything because it was electronic and, after I had read it, I only felt hollow. This lead me to here, and now.

All I can really think about Why I don't like The Big Batsby is that there is always a trade-off between writing what is true and writing what will grab attention. And all I can feel is vaguely dirty, because what I've read is perhaps not something written from the heart but by the mind of a person who knows how to create controversy. To me, the review felt calculated. You take a well-known book, you add in a strong opinion, and you generate an audience.

I'm not saying the review read well, even if it was generated instead flowing from the fingertips -- for to me it was kind of like reading an essay handed in at the very last moment by a person with a haunted keyboard that refuses to type words shorter than nine letters -- but I did read it, right to the end.

I suppose somewhere within the empty feeling it left me with, there was a little despair too. It worries me to think that book reviews can be tainted by our constant need for excitement. It concerns me that, sometimes, just occasionally, people write things just to get read.

You might think we all do that, but for fiction writers I know it's not the same. We write to find the truth, and touch upon reality through mirroring the world. We blog for the company, and not for the view counts. We internet because somewhere within the webpages filled with cats riding rainbows, there is another deeper truth that we're all trying to touch upon.

I know book reviews need to be at least a little interesting, but it concerns me all the same that some might not be written completely from the heart. I'm not sure what a review can be without emotion, except a bundle of words and calculated opinion.


Insert Cool Name Here

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"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca




I have this secret. I love, and write, stories without names. And I think we should talk about that.

At first even I didn't see what I was doing. I would avoid naming a character until chapter five and think that was just my whimsical way. I would merrily type [INSERT COOL NAME HERE] and chuckle as I thought of all the trouble that little humdinger would cause my future self. But it slowly dawned on me, like a manatee surfacing hot on the tail of a gooey cabbage, that I love stories in which the protagonist never gets a name.

One of my favourite books, as a teen, was Rebecca by Dauphne Du Maurier. It's a real fab book, if you ever get the chance to read it. It has all the fabtacular language of The Great Gatsby, coupled with awkward British problems, and a murder. There are also mantelpieces, fur coats, fast cars, and a Ball, if that tickles anyone's fancy. Anyway, I love this book. It is a book that fell apart it my hands because I read it a little too much. It is a book that sits waiting for it's red scuffed spine to be loving restored. And it is a book in which the main character is never named.  This had a substantial impact on me, I know it, for most recently I have a character who is never named. She’s given nicknames, she definitely wants a real name, but it never appears. And here's the really interesting part: I never intend to name her. I already know that she'll never find her name, and that when I type OMG FIN* she will remain that way.

It’s not that I'm just bad with names, or lazy**, but that I love the way the absence of a name can create both distance and a kind of intimacy all at once. I love the paradox of that -- that somehow by not naming a person you're opening a window, and letting people project themselves into a small part of this whole new world you've created around them.

And everyone loves a good paradox, right?

I even like that not offering a name out makes the main character a little shady. If they don't trust us with a real name, what else are they hiding? I think this is kind of a great attitude to have when reading!*** Life isn't full of reliable narrators; it's dangerous and full of unsolvable problems. It's difficult. Even our own memories can lie to us for the sake of continuity, so I like the idea that my narrator might lie a little too. Maybe my not naming her is a way of showing, from the very start, that there's something not right.

I do understand that not naming a character can be problematic. I even recognise that maybe I'm fooling myself. Maybe I think that a character can be made to be "bigger" than an ordinary person just by not having a name, and I'm foolish for doing so. I do see that anonymity can make a main character hazy to the story, creating unnecessary distance, too. But I still think there's definitely an argument for naming most protagonists. Just like there's a case for mostly not over-using adverbs, but sometimes going wild with them anyway. There's a case for most things in fiction as long as we do it well, right?

What do you think? Maybe I should bite the bullet and just name the character, already? I should say all my other WIPS eventually end up with protags with names this is not, currently, a total addiction I have. *laughs nervously* *sweats*

 * that's how everyone ends stories, right? 
** although, okay, maybe I am 30 percent lazy
*** perhaps in life too! some people will try to tell you that life is not a vampire detective novel and you don't have to interrogate everyone you bump into, especially not postal workers, but those people clearly have not spend a whole lot of time around people, nor around me on a wednesday afternoon playing herd-the-zombie-into-the-cupboard while desperately searching for the partner to the lone shoe I wear; anyway, bigger picture here, we're all detectives in a mystery that nobody will ever solve

Why Nobody Talks Anymore (but this is a good thing)

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"The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest." Kurt Vonnegut 
1. Spelling: It means autocorrect can take the reigns and make sure I stop spelling embarrassing with three s's and five e's because there's a lot of them and I can't remember the order they go in and I am an idiot but now! Nobody need know that!

2. Smiles: They are all over the interwebs! Often if I am unsure of the exact tone I am conveying I just throw in a few smileys for luck into things. This is mostly fine except for when my hand slips and I send such monstrosities as seen below to people who I think are probably not at that stage of the relationship with me to appreciate it. I am either very weepy or I have been hit in the eye with a nasty hex from a member of a rival house and am recovering and plotting my revenge.

;(

3. Silence: Noise pollution has probably dropped by, like, 48 percent.

4. Style: Poor handwriting is now acceptable as a thing that happens to all of us because what is a pen anyway and where do I make the symbols come out?

5. Significance: I actually think passed notes, and silence, and weirdly placed emoticons can go a long way in books! Even sometimes a graph at the end of a chapter is a fabulous thing. We communicate differently than, say, a while ago but that doesn't mean we communicate badly. It means, instead, that books get to try exciting things like explaining a reddit-like forum to readers and how exactly chat-roulette is a thing still and people do that. Never has there been a more exciting time to be alive!*


 What communication do you use more and more every day? I play I-spy and word games with my brother quite regularly via my phone but that is less communication and more just amusing.



* although, I imagine being an astronaut and playing tennis with skittles must rival this considerably.

How to Write Time Travel

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"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde 

With the recent advent of time-travel coming back with a punch to YA fiction and beyond it's really handy not just to know where you are but when you are in the books. I've come up with these five handy lessons for keeping your characters on top of things should you wish to had dived straight in! I find it almost impossible to write time-travel (although I do have something in the works about a toaster time-machine; it's very sad really because it is also kind of a sore point in the WIP's family and it only has two defrost settings, but let's not dwell on my tribulations!) so these are lessons I am still learning:

Lesson One: Abandon Secrets
To a time-traveller, everything is changable!* With that in mind it is always an idea to let somebody in the immediate circle of characters know the current status vis a vis the wobbly timey wimey stuff so that there is somebody to refer to for important things like who the president is and how many corgis the Queen owns**. This is normally played out as the main character and a close compadre; although a book involving a character who didn't realise they were all over the time might be hilarious so you have my permission to deceive! As a trans-timeline wanderer it is helpful if your main character can convincingly drop hints of their exotic travels into conversation to identify other like-minded individuals. Alternatively, tell only your reader (and nobody else!) about the time-travel and avoid any confusion vis a vis timelines. See Lesson Three for more details on why this is even an issue.

 Lesson Two: Attempt Tenses
A great deal of time and energy (in preparation for what will have been the invention of the time machine) has gone into making sure we're all on the same page RE tenses in time-travel. This has mostly led to widespread confusion and panic. Just how will your character have warned their grandfather of an event that hasn't but will happened yet? The answer is simple! First allow yourself to read Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. Secondly, forget everything you have diligently read! It is widely accepted that so long as your characters give the future definite tense a proper British try then it doesn't matter whether they got it right or not. See Lesson One for more details on how to cope with not being about talking about what characters will have done during their travels.
Example: 
Bob: Don't worry about Flora! I left her in 1897. She got better... will get... would get... had... woll? RATS.
Henry: ...
Bob: ...
Henry: ...?
Bob: Forget it. Let's just go prod dinosaurs again.




Lesson Three: Attune Timelines
Fiddling with time leads to a fiddly mess!*** So, if you can find a way of clarifying what timeline we are on as the story progresses that is an added bonus. Colour or smell coding chapters is definitely an option. Having your characters write journals might seem a little weird but this is also a tool in clarification of exactly when we are in space and time. Your readers are only as intelligent as your writing so make sure you also know things too.

Lesson Four: Accept Paradoxes
The best way to handle a paradox is to admit it's a little confusing and move the story along! It is generally accepted that the universe is a pretty complicated chap, and were we to ever understand him he would promptly explode, so use that to your advantage! Remember, when the plot takes a turn that you don't like you can always write your way around that! I have it on the highest authority that spinning the earth backwards turns back time so there is always that to fall back on.

Lesson Five: Admit Difficulties
It's probably going to be hard. Not going to lie, my dalliances with the time toaster, microwave, and kettle has not been easy!***** Time-travel is fabulous at providing agency, and moving the plot forward and creating conflicts and drama, but it's also fabtacular at creating headaches. Be patient with yourself! Recall that there's a reason we gave up on the tenses thing. Let yourself have fun!

 What are (have been)(had)(will have)(woll)(RATS) your thoughts on time-travel in books and fiction? Any particular mistakes you see a lot of? What's your favourite time-travel series or story? I have so many it's hard to choose but definitely the Time Machine by George Orwell is up the top simply for scaring me stupid as a four year old.




* except non-changable time-space continuum fixed points but that's a different lesson altogether omg see TARDIS and every series of Doctor Who ever for more details on how not to deal with that

 ** a reliable method of testing for time-travel and/or amnesia, so much so that I can neither confirm nor deny the actual number of corgis she has off the top of my head

 *** messier even than jam tennis on the international space station****

 **** don't tell me that's not a thing, it's totally a thing

 ***** this is probably partially due to my obsession with household appliances that can time-travel

I feel it in my fingers.

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"Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself." Franz Kafka


I tend to enjoy the finer things in life — words that move me, cups of tea on snowy days, the smell of a new book, the look of a new day (preferably after the am period I am so not a morning person), that moment when I find the missing half of my pair of gloves while simultaneously realising I have enough bread for a sandwich this morning. Indeed! And perhaps there is no greater thing than a phrase that shakes me to the core.

I like other things that shake me too though. And I love the vibrations that wash over me when something doesn't just make a noise but it roars.



The ocean can roar just as loudly as a roller-coaster when it wants, but the ocean scares me more often than not*. I like to watch it from the shore, instead of from the perspective of a probable future drowned person** and feel the sound that can creep into my bones. I like to feel it in my chest, and know that it is not just emotions that can move me but the physical world too. I like to be reminded that there is a hidden power in this universe.

When I know something for certain, I sometimes feel it like that. I make decisions based upon the tension in my muscles and the vibrations in my bones. So maybe there's a sense of certainty when I feel a song literally shake me as I stand. Maybe I find a sense of the profound in that rush of air, and the loudest feel of noise I've ever know, when I watched a shuttle launch from a few miles away as a child.

Also, maybe that's the little known thing: I once got to watch a Nasa shuttle launch. It was awesome and, like so many of the best events in my life, I didn't bother to film it. It wasn't the sight that moved me anyway, but the vibrations of the earth.

 What do you love? I'm sure my love of roaring sound is reflected in my reading. I love books that are full of sensations. Physical feelings are just as important as emotional ones, I think. 




* genuinely that is kind of a thing that also, at some point, we should talk about; I mostly call it a respect of the sea but who am I kidding? It scares me.
**my own personal view omg seriously


FORGED BY FATE: Interview

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"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed." Ernest Hemingway


Today I have an absolute treat for you! My long time bloggy friend and all around great writer, Amalia Dillin has graciously agreed (with some amount of arm twisting)(I kid, no arm twisting, she is just amazeballs) to do an interview here to celebrate the release of her new book! Forged by Fate! Ahhh! Reasons you should love both Amalia and this book include:

  • it is so pretty
  • omg look at it
  • guys, just read it you will see
  • maybe Thor is involved in this book and who doesn't love that? 
  • this one time we wrote a series called Thor in Zombieland and hilarity ensued and thusly Amalia is awesome
  • I'm going to post the blurb just to let you have more info

Every god, from each of the world’s pantheons, mythologies, and religions — they’re all real. After Adam fell, God made Eve to protect the world. 

 Adam has pursued Eve since the dawn of creation, intent on using Eve’s powers to remake the world with himself as God. The last immortal child of Elohim, Eve is charged with the protection of all humanity, and she has spent an eternity hiding from Adam and thwarting his plans. But this time, Adam is after something more than just Eve’s power — he desires her too, body and soul, even if it means the destruction of the world. Eve cannot allow it, but as one generation melds into the next, she begins to wonder if Adam might be a man she could love. And if he is, if he’s given up his quest to make himself a new god, it could change everything.

 Anyway, now you know about the book let's learn a little about the author with my weird and wonderful questions! 

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 Tell us about Forged by Fate. What’s the story about? 
Forged by Fate is the first book in a trilogy that rewrites history and myth, beginning with creation and ending in the near(ish) future. 

What were you doing when the idea of the story come to you? 
I’m pretty sure I was in the shower. That magical place where your brain starts spinning  and ALL THE IDEAS bubble up to the surface. The opening scene of Forged by Fate was composed there. Which may also explain why Eve is in the shower, too...

What makes Eve’s character so interesting? 
Eve has survived incredible hardship, watched the people around her suffer and die, fought against tyranny – but she hasn’t lost the ability to trust, or the impulse to love. She’s every woman, looking for that happily ever after, trying to find her place in the world beyond just the daily grind, and as the world gets bigger around her, it starts becoming harder for her to define her purpose. I mean, when you’re one of only a handful of people, it isn’t hard to find a role, because everyone is necessary just for survival. But when you’re one of 7 billion? What then? What difference can one small person make?

What appeals to you about the story of Adam and Eve/mythology in general? 
Well, I think mythology speaks to something larger than ourselves, and I was raised to believe in something bigger, to believe in God, but I always wanted all these different mythologies and gods to fit together somehow – like they were all just one big extended family, and all working together for the greater good. Of  course, once you start really reading Greco-Roman mythology, it becomes pretty clear, pretty quickly that some of these gods are kind of selfish, and way more interested in themselves than in their people, but the idea that they were all co-existing stuck with me. So I kept reading, searching for those clues about how it all fit together, looking for the parts that pulled people together. And I guess, too, the idea of gods as beings who were very real, walking the earth and despoiling daughters and taking this interest and interfering in the personal lives of their people, drew me deeper. I mean, as a Catholic, the last time God walked the earth and mucked about, he was Jesus, and when he comes again – well, you better hope you’ve been to confession. But here are all these stories about gods and heroes and you get this sense that they could just SHOW UP at any second and steal your lunch, and then whisk away again. Maybe whisk you away with them, even. It’s just FUN. So. All of that, I guess, is what interests me!

If you could be any god, who would it be? 
Uhhhhmmm. I think maybe I’d be some kind of Nymph or Dryad or Vaettir, rather than a real god-god. They seem to have all the fun without so much of the responsibility. I mean, don’t get me wrong, being the god of storms would be pretty sweet, but then you’d have to worry that you were flooding people out any time you decided to cut loose, you know? Or I guess I could say I’d want to be Sif so I could be married to Thor... I do love Thor. But El Husband would probably not appreciate that so much.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I have been writing since I actually learned TO write, actually. In first grade I was writing little stories about my cat and reading them in front of the class for show and tell. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write. I mean, I wanted to do other things too, but writing was always first. I wanted to be a writer AND a zookeeper.  The zookeeper thing fell through when I realized in order to get my wildlife biology degree, I’d pretty much have to give up taking everything else that wasn’t science classes – and that meant creative writing was out, too. Deal. Breaker.

Are you a planner or a pantser? 
I am a pantser. All the way.

What's the weirdest thing you've ever googled in relation to writing? 
I’m going to go with number of fleas per cubic centimetre. No surprise to anyone, google did not have the answer to that calculation. I had to do it long hand and it was stupidly hard. Apparently I have forgotten a lot of math.

What books do you think should be on everyone’s reading list and why? 
Mine! Ha. No, seriously, if you love YA romance, Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. If you love really sexy, really adult fun with mythology, Desperate Housewives of Olympus, by Saranna DeWylde – she breaks the Hades-as-villain trope and makes him into an amazing hero. If you love Paranormal romance/horror, Giants of the Frost by Kim Wilkins – you will fall in love with Vidar and Odin will give you nightmares. If you prefer less romance and more Adventure/Action, Norse Code by Greg Van Eekhout does some really interesting things around the edges of Ragnarok. And for Science Fiction, R. A. Heinlein. He cannot be beat. I’m also a really big fan of Anne McCaffrey’s books. Especially Moreta, The Rowan, Decision at Doona and the Crystal Singer Trilogy. That is a lot of books. Sorry. I’ll stop now.

And finally, where can people find you and your book online?
You can find me, and information about FORGED BY FATE over at www.amaliadillin.com, and World Weaver Press also has all the latest on FORGED BY FATE and the Fate of the Gods trilogy on their website. Or you can head straight to Amazon or Barnes and Noble and buy now

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Amalia Dillin began as a Biology major before taking Latin and falling in love with old heroes and older gods. After that, she couldn't stop writing about them, with the occasional break for more contemporary subjects. She lives in upstate New York with her husband, and dreams of the day when she will own goats — to pull her chariot through the sky, of course.  The first novel in her Fate of the Gods trilogy, Forged By Fate will be published by World Weaver Press in March, 2013 and is available here on amazon or from Barnes & Noble.




Fallen Words.

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"One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple." Jack Kerouac


 I lost my headphones at the weekend.

 I could spend an age complaining about how this renders me useless RE working in public, or something else equally not important in the grand scale of things (like how my Marco-Polo game was largely unsuccessful), but it's not really the headphones that worry me.

 It's the losing of things. 

 The feeling of something that is there, but somehow also not, is difficult to stand. My headphones, like the thoughts I lose in the middle of the night, are still there somewhere — I know it — I just can't see them right now.

 I spent an age retracing my steps yesterday, and recalling my exact whereabouts in a mad-dash headphone hunt. At one point I ended up in the kitchen, dubious but willing to suspend reality in order to consider the possibility I'd left them inside the oven or under the toaster. In some ways I spent too much time looking them. And yet, in the back of my mind, I think they're worth at least three or four more whacky searches under the fridge and between my books.

 It's the same way when I lose a word, or entire chapter, that I've been silently working on in my head. There's the same sense of loss, like nothing can ever be right again until whatever is lost returns. There's the same suspension of normal activities, and a similar kind of frustration.

 The only difference between the words and my headphones is how anxious I become about never finding them again. With headphones, if all else fails I can always go get more (don't get me wrong, in an ideal world I will find my original headphones again!). But with my words, and my thoughts, often I am struck by the fear that they will and can never return — that they were with me for only a short period of time, and because my hands would not hold them they saw fit to fly.

 I tell myself a great idea or line will always return, because we think in circles and good ideas like to swirl. I repeat it like a mantra, and hope that it's true. But perhaps the reality of lost words is just too hard for me to understand right now; perhaps I use my mantra to lie to myself.

 Perhaps all of my lost words remain just that — lost, waiting to be found by somebody better able to hold them. Perhaps, as Jack Kerouac once kind of said, some day I will find the words again and they will be simple.

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