Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire

Finally finished a book!

278 pages

Notable passages:

"The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say."

"Faith is a floor. If you don't work on making it for yourself, you have nothing to walk on."

"A mirror's image is always forward of the truth by an instant or so. While a question is formulating, the mirror always knows the answer before the question is asked."

Weekly Geeks #24: Fun facts about authors

From: deweymonster

How to:
1. Choose a writer you like.
2. Using resources such as Wikipedia, the author’s website, whatever you can find, make a list of interesting facts about the author.
3. Post your fun facts list in your blog, maybe with a photo of the writer, a collage of his or her books, whatever you want.
4. Come sign the Mr Linky with the url to your fun facts post.
5. As you run into (or deliberately seek out) other Weekly Geeks’ lists, add links to your post for authors you like or authors you think your readers are interested in.

Mercedes Lackey



Mercedes was born on June 24, 1950, in Chicago.
She was named for actress Mercedes McCambridge.
She graduated from Purdue University in 1972 with a degree in biology.
In addition to her fantasy writing, she has written lyrics for and recorded nearly fifty songs for Firebird Arts & Music.
Mercedes has written nearly 70 books in a career that has spanned two decades.
She is married to author Larry Dixon, with whom she has written several novels.
She has also worked with fantasy authors Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Piers Anthony.
Her first sale was to Friends of Darkover.
Mercedes Lackey lives with her husband outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
She has won 5 Pegasus Awards, mostly for her songwriting.
Queen's Own is her official fan club.

Lackey is one of my favorite women authors, and I'm glad she's so prolific. My favorite series are:
Diana Tregarde (a trilogy, no more forthcoming)
Elemental Masters
Five Hundred Kingdoms

and I want to start reading:
Doubled Edge (a historical fantasy series based on Elizabeth I)

Here are links to a few other Weekly Geeks and the authors they chose (either favorites of mine, or ones I want to read):
Harmony (Anne McCaffrey)
Ali (Christopher Moore)
Jill (Neil Gaiman)
Juliann (Alexander McCall Smith)

Once Upon a Time II

Carl over at Stainless Steel Droppings has not disappointed his legions of blogging fans, and has challenged us again to explore the fantasy genre and to share our adventures with our readers.

It's been a year since I joined my first reading challenge (this one), and I'm now set up to begin Quest 3 (6 books total, read by the Summer Solstice). Here are the paths I've mapped out for the next 12 weeks:

Fairy Tale-- Grimm's Last Fairy Tale (Haydn Middleton) and
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (Bruno Bettelheim)
Folktale-- Folktales of the North American Indian [originally The Indian Fairy Book, published by Stokes]
Mythology-- Myths to Live By (Joseph Campbell)
Fantasy-- Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)
and...
A Midsummer Night's Dream (William Shakespeare)

I'll be using only the Bettelheim book to fulfill another challenge (Awards), and if I find that other books (in the fantasy genre, obviously) I come upon would be of interest to other questers, I'll add those links to the review site.

I'll start reading tomorrow (the official start of the journey), and will try and do a better job (than of late) of staying current with the reviews.

ETA: it's taken me a while to get here, but this is my 100th post! Yay me!

The Deathly Hallows Experience (non-spoiler, I promise)

I'd been eagerly awaiting the release of Rowling's newest and last offering in the Potter saga, but I wasn't caught up in the frenzy of pre-ordering the book nor any of the release parties held Friday night. I knew that there would plenty for everyone, and it would be folly for any of the major stores to be caught without a copy by the following afternoon. I did curtail my usual online browsing, focusing on comics and blogs of those who I knew would respect the several-day spoiler moratorium for which many others had begged.

Since I'd been unsuccessful in buying the stuffed salmon for Sunday's dinner earlier in the week, I figured that I should be able to also pick up a copy of HPDH at either Costco or HEB on Saturday afternoon. Since Costco was the nearer of the two, and I was on a tight schedule (I had a small music event and after-party to attend that evening), I drove there with my son (who fell asleep before we got into the city limits of our town), and had to wait out a particularly hard rainshower before we could dash in to the store. The shopping carts were, of course, all wet, and I was faced with the dilemma of how to get out of the store with an undamaged copy. While I was waiting for the solution to present itself, I carried my one copy (could've had 5--this is a buy-in-bulk store after all) in hand and managed to keep from hitting anyone as we made our way to the meat department in back. Scored a nice package of salmon, and noticed (for the first time--honestly) a roll of plastic bags at the end of the bin. Thanking the book-fairies, I wrapped my book and slowly made my way upstream toward the checkout counters. Apparently, on Saturdays, Austinites use American and British sides of the road.

At the checkout counter, one of the employees tried to get me to upgrade my account, and was about to launch into how much money I'd save, blah blah yada yada. I met her gaze square on, gave her my best Italian-style HairyEyeball, held up my book and said
"See this?"
"Yes ma'am?"
"You're. In. My. Way."
Smart girl got out of said way.

I hadn't eaten anything yet that day, so I had a small lunch at Sonic with what I could scrape together from two pockets of loose change in my wallet. I also had to drop off our car payment paperwork at the post office; by the time I got home, I was seriously pressed for time. My outfit for the evening was a little more involved than usual--my lace-up Pendragon bodice and my leather pants from eBay--so I recruited my husband, and I was out the door 1/2 hour later than I'd planned. No, it's not what you're thinking, you naughty-minded people.

I drove to Things Celtic, scored the last spot in the parking lot, and did a little shoppping while Diane Linn (a regular on the RenFest circuit with 3 albums under her belt) sang trad songs, Janice Joplin, and some of the own work. I picked up a cd, a celtic mood ring, a cat gargoyle for Kimmy's grave, and a butterfly magnet for Anthony to look at during mealtimes. I left a little early in order to pick up a bottle of wine (Twisted Lot merlot seemed a fitting one to bring this hostess), and still managed to be the first one there, as the second set ran late. It was nice to have a chance to talk to my friend S before she had to perform the HostessDance for everyone else. My friend K and I talked about our reading plans for Sunday, and she said that she wasn't really going to be as anti-social as she'd warned in her blog (something to the effect of "don't interrupt me unless your head is on fire"). I told her that I'd have to fit reading in between taking care of my son, which really was my plan.

I finally rolled onto the farmstead at about 2 in the morning. DH hadn't had luck corraling any of the cats, and they weren't cooperating for me, either, so it was about 2:30 before I could think seriously about going to sleep.

But the book beckoned.

I could just read a few chapters, right? I'd get tired enough to put it down and fall asleep quickly, right?

Right. Color me crackheaded.

So, from about 2:30 am until 11 am, with an hour break for feeding and diapering A, I was enthralled by Harry's journey to the last battle. I kept up with the twists, was impressed by Rowling's ability to move the plot along while honoring the age-appropriateness of the school-aged characters, and even giggled a few times. There were a few parts where I raised my eyebrows and thought "she got away with saying that? Wow!" I also availed myself of the kleenex box when necessary.

Thank you, J.K. Rowling, for a wonderful, frustrating, magical ride. Even though you are rich enough to never again have to write another word for pay, I hope this is not the last we see of your work in print.

[#33 for this year]

God of the Golden Fleece, by Fred Saberhagen

Fantasy fandom knows Fred Saberhagen through his more prolific series (Berserker and Swords) and perhaps to a lesser extent his Vampire books. In the late ‘90’s, he started writing about the gods of old; he focused on, but didn’t limit himself to, the Greek pantheon. In this installment [the fourth of five], Saberhagen chronicles the development of the newly-transferred Triton while telling Jason and Medea’s story, sort of.

Saberhagen definitely has no compunction in reworking the classic myths to perhaps tell a better story. I didn’t read the original original, and my memory of the general story is admittedly fuzzy, but I was surprised at who (and even more so, how) was brought down by the end. Saberhagen’s gods have their physical and territorial limitations, and their “powers” sometimes go completely out the window when when it comes to dealing with Giants; such is the hazard of being housed in a human host.

There’s only one left in the series, the reason for which I’ve read two explanations: 1) the publisher isn’t interested in more, and 2) the author was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during or soon after the publication of the last book and hasn’t been up to writing more (for this series, anyway—I didn’t dig deep enough to see if anything’s been forthcoming). I do have to say that I enjoyed the first two (Mask of Apollo, Ariadne’s Web) over the last two I’ve read, but I think that the next one, set with the Norse pantheon, will redeem the series as a whole. I’m curious to see if Saberhagen actually wraps the “big picture,” or if he left it open for either his return or another’s efforts to continue.

Once Upon a Time Challenge

Between now and June 22, I'll be reading (and reviewing) 5 fantasy books:

God of the Golden Fleece, by Fred Saberhagen
Greenmantle, by Charles deLint
Silver Birch, Blood Moon, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Giving Birth to Thunder, Sleeping with HIs Daughter: Coyote Builds North America, by Barry Lopez
A Midsummer Night's Dream, by William Shakespeare (on the 22nd itself)

[here's the link, I'll do the coding and hope to add the banner somehow]

http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/?p=642