Caden O'Brien's Website

A friend sent me one of those humor emails today, and I have to share it. These are the writers of tomorrow, folks! Kids DO say the darndest things…

1. This is a picture of an octopus. It has eight testicles. (Kelly,  age 6)
2. Oysters’ balls are called pearls. (Jerry, age 6)
3. If you are  surrounded by ocean, you are an island.  If you don’t have ocean all  round you, you are incontinent. (Alex, age  7)
4. Sharks are  ugly and mean, and have big teeth, just like Emily Richardson . She’s not my  friend any more.   (Kylie, age  6)
5. A dolphin  breaths through an asshole on the top of its head. (Billy, age  8)
6. My uncle goes out in his boat with 2 other men and a  woman and pots and comes back with crabs.  (Millie, age  6)
7. When ships  had sails, they used to use the trade winds to cross the ocean. Sometimes when  the wind didn’t blow the sailors would whistle to make the wind come.  My brother said they would have been better off eating beans.  (William,  age 7)
8. Mermaids live in the ocean. I like mermaids. They are beautiful and I like  their shiny tails, but how on earth do mermaids get pregnant? Like,  really?   (Helen, age 6)
9. I’m not going to write about the ocean. My baby  brother is always crying, my Dad keeps yelling at my Mom, and my big  sister  has just got pregnant, so I can’t think what to write. (Amy, age  6)
10. Some fish  are dangerous. Jelly fish can sting.  Electric eels can give you a shock.  They have to live in caves under the sea where I think they have to plug  themselves in to chargers. (Christopher, age  7)
11. When you  go swimming in the ocean, it is very cold, and it makes my willy small.  (Kevin, age 6)
12. Divers have to be safe when they go under the water.  Divers can’t go  down alone, so they have to go down on each other.  (Becky, age  8)
13. On  vacation my Mom went water skiing. She fell off when she was going very fast.  She says she won’t do it again because water fired right up her big fat ass.  (Julie, age 7)
14. The ocean is made up of water and fish.  Why the fish don’t drown I  don’t know.  (Bobby, age 6)
15. My dad was a sailor on the ocean. He knows all about the ocean..  What he doesn’t know is why he quit being a sailor and  married my mom.   (James, age 7)

With Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, the two of the largest book retailers in the US, offering a huge array of eBooks, eNewspapers, etc., it was just a matter of time before B&N offered an eBook reader to compete with the hugely popular Kindle reader offered by Amazon. Amazon’s site says they have over 360,000 publications now available in electronic form, while B&N boasts over 1 million. That’s a lot of instant gratification!

Starting at around $260, B&N will offer a competitor to Kindle in November. Called “Nook,” it claims to be easier to read than other readers.   A neat thing about the Nook is that has a full-color touch-screen navigation display of book covers along the bottom, so you can see what they look like. Just tap one to select it.

The two readers are quite similar, with a few exceptions. Nook will have 2G worth of storage for about 1500 books, the same as the basic Kindle. But an expansion card will let you save up to 17,500.  The Kindle2 is not expandable.  It offers WiFi technology, which the Kindle2 doesn’t, and if you take it to a B&N store you can use it there to get coupons, free sample eBooks, and other proprietary content.

Other unique features include more titles (1 million+ versus 360K for the Kindle), support for PDF documents (a plus as far as I’m concerned!), a lending capability if you want to “loan out” your eBooks to others, and a replaceable battery.

All in all, it looks like the Nook could give Kindle a run for its money, and its release just before the Holidays could make Christmas shopping interesting! I know that for the last couple of years Amazon had a heck of a time keeping Kindle in stock for holiday shopping, and the lack of product made a lot of potential buyers very unhappy. We love to give and get gadgets for gifts!

Do you have a digital reader? Leave a comment on how you like it, how often you use it, and whether you think it was worth the money. And also tell me why you like it! I personally don’t own one, and have no intention of buying one. At least not yet. I love books. I love how they look on the shelves, how they feel when you hold them, how they smell. I can’t think of any advantages to having a digital reader that would make me happy to give up “real” books. I’m not that wild about spending a lot of time reading off a screen (I do a lot of work on the computer, and after a while my eyes get tired!), although you can still curl up with your reader in your favorite chair just like with a real book.

And if I did want to get one, there are a couple of things that concern me that keep me from putting it on my Christmas list. The first is compatability with different eBook formats. Are they mutually exclusive, or was the industry smarter this time? Those of us “of a certain age” remember the bad old days when video players came in two mutually exclusive formats: Beta and VHS. If you had a Beta machine, you couldn’t play VHS tapes and vice versa. It was maddening to go to the video store and find that the version of the movie you wanted to rent was unavailable. The end result, finally, was that VHS killed off the Beta-Max, even though many claimed the viewing quality of Beta movies was far superior. We see the same silliness with cell phones and their “proprietary” formats. I’m not a technical expert, so I don’t know if I got a Nook I’d still be able to shop for eBooks on Amazon, or would I have to shop at B&N?

A related issue is availability of eBooks for the titles I wanted to read. Its fine to have a million titles, but if I don’t want to read any of them, then I won’t be happy. I don’t know that all my favorite authors are published in eBook format… I know this is a popular publishing platform for new authors, but what about the oldies but goodies??

And finally, the potential 800 lb gorilla – Apple – has yet to weigh in with a digital reader product of its own. Given how my family loves their i-gadgets, I’d certainly want to check out the Apple product before buying! I also think that $250 and up is a lot to pay, and think that prices can only go down as more players with credible products come into the market. I’ve never been an early-adopter of new technology, because I hate to see the price drop like a rock after I’ve just bought the latest-greatest gadget! I’m happy to wait until the dust settles and the price comes down.

And then all I’d need is a really good reason to buy one! 

Synopsis: “The Quantum Bomb of 2015 changed everything. The fabric that kept the universe’s different dimensions apart was torn and now, six years later, the people of earth exist in uneasy company with inhabitants of, among others, the elven, elemental, and demonic realms. Magic is real and can be even more dangerous than technology. Elves are exotic, erotic, dangerous and really bored with the constant Lord of the Rings references. Elementals are a law unto themselves, and demons are best left well to themselves. Special agent Lila Black used to be pretty, but now she’s not so sure. Her body is now more than half restless carbon and metal alloy machinery – a machine she’s barely in control of. It goes into combat mode, enough weapons for a small army springing from within itself, at the merest provocation. As for her heart … well ever since being drawn into a Game by the elven rock star she’s been assigned to protect, she’s not even sure she can trust that anymore either.”–BOOK JACKET.

This series, which starts off in the year 2021, is a bit of a hybrid between science fiction and urban fantasy/paranormal fiction. It has more relationship stuff than is typical for sci fi, but much less than a paranormal romance story. So if you’re a die-hard fan of either genre, you might be disappointed.

In the first book, Keeping It Real, our heroine Lila Black was saved from death by the earth’s (called Otopia here) government, which invested a half a billion dollars in her high-tech cyborg body. Still trying to adjust to her new body and the trauma of her assault while on a mission in Aelfheim (the elf world), not to mention the loss of her family who were told she was killed on the mission, she is assigned to protect rock-star elf Zal.  Zal is an anomaly, since everyone knows that “elves don’t rock.” But this one does, and he thinks he doesn’t need protection from the death treats that he’s been getting.

Earth as we know it is different. Magic is known to exist and creatures from the other dimensions – fairies, ghosts, demons, etc. – interact with humans in varying degrees with varying results. The worlds are well-defined and make me wish I could visit them! The Elf world is Aelfheim, rich with magic in its non-tech, garden-like existence. Earth/Otopia is in a young alliance with Aelfheim, but both sides are still feeling their way. Demonia is a color-saturated beautiful world where the demons, also magic-users, live. Faery, land of the fairies, has welcomed tourists from early on.  Zoomenon is the world of the elementals, and not much is known about it. Thanopia is the land of the dead, and no one who goes there ever comes back.

The other books in the series thus far are Selling Out, Going Under, and Chasing the Dragon. By the end of the first book, Lila and Zal are lovers. Things start to look as though they’re not what they appear to be, and the tension increases. What are the various governments hiding? Who are the good guys? Author Justina Robson builds a fascinating mystery around skilful and detailed world-building.  Her writing focuses on some fairly broad themes that she’s covered in her previous publications:  the whole idea of identity,  loyalty, revenge, and love.

These books aren’t puff pieces, as Robson’s sci fi orientation makes them a bit more complicated reading than you’d find in for example a romance novel. Ideas are expressed a bit more subtly. I’ve seen reviews that complain about the sex in the stories, but in my opinion I think these were sci fi fans who don’t “do relationships.” I found that the relationships and sex scenes were underplayed relative to world- and plot-development, but there’s still quite a bit of sizzle between the characters. Just don’t expect any throbbing, dripping body parts.

Once I clicked onto the way Robson writes, I was totally buried in the worlds and the stories. I love Lila Black, a woman who’s whole life has been upended through no fault of her own and who is trying to carve out a place for herself in the new reality. It’s not always easy going, as she’s a damaged soul who doesn’t have a lot of experience in doing what’s she’s been assigned to do. She’s always trusted those in authority, but she’s beginning to see that she doesn’t have the whole story and in fact is probably being manipulated and lied to to serve some mysterious end. Zal is sexy and conflicted, as he too starts to think that everything he thinks he knows may not be true. The journey to the truth is fascinating, violent, and treacherous, and I’m totally hooked on this series!

I would have preferred to have had more detail on the hows and whys of Zal and Lila’s relationship. It’s handled a bit abruptly, and it just sort of appears. Still a great read though, and I can’t wait for the next book in the series!

The books I like best tend to be darker, more violent, less hooked on the happily-ever-after formula, and big on world-building. In other words, more of an urban fantasy tilt. After all, the whole point of the supernatural world is that its different. So I like to see those differences in the worlds the characters inhabit.

I like books that give me a different feeling.  That tingle the hairs on the back of my neck, and give me a feeling that I’ve just stepped into something strange and memorable. Ilona Andrews’ Kate Daniels series fits the bill nicely.

The setting is a alternate Atlanta, a bit into the future. For the last 30 years, the balance between magic and technology has become unstable, and the world is lashed with “magic storms” that tear down buildings and destroy technology. Tech surfaces like the sun in between thunderstorms, letting the phones and lights work again, only to be battered again when the magic rises. People get around on horses, mules, camels – whatever non-tech means they can find, because cars often don’t work.

In this realm, supernatural creatures like werewolves, witches, shamans, vampires and more abound, and evil magic threatens everywhere. Magical mercenary Kate Daniels, who’s hiding a secret of her own, battles evil magic first as a solo act, then as part of the Order of magical knights who try to keep a lid on things.

There are 4 books and one novella in the series thus far, with one book out next year: Magic Bites, Magic Burns, Magic Strikes, Magic Mourns (novella in Must Love Hellhounds Anthology), and Magic Bleeds (coming in May 2010).  Author Ilona Andrews and her husband Gordon are contracted for 7 Kate Daniels books, so we’ve got more Kate on the way.

Andrews’ world-building and character development are outstanding. She powerfully conveys a feeling of “otherness” to her world, without going over the top with fantastic characters and improbable plot twists. Kate Daniels is a bit of a mystery. Her mother was killed by evil beings while fleeing with Kate’s father. Kate was an infant at the time, so we don’t know who they were running from, or why they were threatened. She was raised by her father and grows into a smart, strong, and magically powerful person who royally kicks butt. She also gets injured too, so her powers are not infinite.

The series opens with the hard-drinking Kate, a magical mercenary, finding out that her guardian has been murdered.  In trying to find his killer, she encounters the two main supernatural forces in her world:  the group of paramilitary shapeshifters known as The Pack, and the group of  powerful necromancers who control the undead vampires. The latter group is known as The People. In this world, vampires are not sexy. They are animated corpses, meat puppets, controlled by the necromancers in their pursuit of wealth and power. The creator of The People is the mysterious Roland, who’s story is hinted at and who is clearly a key figure in the Kate saga.  Kate hates The People.  Magic and mayhem ensues as Kate tries to get to the bottom of the murder.

Another requirement for a book to be a favorite is that the characters are smart and witty, and have great dialog. Kate Daniels fits the bill. Her head-talk and dialog with others is hilarious, since she’s a cynical smart-ass.

Since I don’t care much for books that have NO relationship development, pure sci fi or urban fantasy tends to not appeal to me much. I have no problem with adventuresome sex, and lots of it, if it furthers the story. That’s why I’m not a fan of the more romance-influenced books, where the hero and heroine are banging away by page 3, and rarely come up for air.  Kate is a normal young woman with normal appetites, and the heroes here tend to be sexy (if not classically handsome), so she indulges. And it’s hot! But it fits in with the plot and isn’t gratuitous.

I know some readers are appalled by the increasing use of same-sex erotic scenes, menages, or detailed descriptions of bondage or anal sex in today’s romance genres. Haven’t seen that yet in this series, but I think the Andrews’ would write it well if there were.

If you like series books with strong, funny, believable heroines and sexy guys, AND a well-written plot, you’ll like the Kate Daniels books.