The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark Carl Sagan, 1995 The Demon-Haunted World is a fine compilation of skepticism for beginners. Structured as a series of related essays, the book explores the need for skeptical and critical thinking, offers some tips, and systematically takes down a few pseudo-sciences. Sagan reaches out to the reader, and in the nicest way imaginable, says: 'You're not a bad person, but here's why you really need to stop just blindly believing in things.' I personally found the book a little long, and with a bit too much time spent on UFOs. It was an important work when it came out, but only 15 years later it feels quaint to me to consider people who report UFOs as a large population, one needing to be engaged with. He also addresses faith healing, channeling, and other instances of magical thinking, but a sizable chunk of the book is spent debunking UFO sightings and alien abduction stories. There is a per...

This is Follow Friday, hosted by  Parajunkee's View This week's question: Share your current fav television show! Tell us a bit about it... Okay, I'll split this into a few sections. Favorite live-action show that's currently airing: Castle Okay, so it's the only major network show currently airing that I'm watching regularly. But, how can I resist Nathon Fillion and super-adorable banter! It consistently amuses me. Favorite animated show that's currently airing: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes  (It's close, though. I'm anxiously awaiting a chance to see the Birds of Prey-ish episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold ) Avengers is an awesome, surprisingly complicated series, with great writing and great action. Plus they keep introducing obscure characters that I want to know more about. The theme song's pretty terrible, though. Favorite just aired thing:  Downton Abbey , a fantastic BBC costume drama that aired on...

Rogue Oracle Alayna Williams, 2010 New Release! Copy provided by the publisher for review. Premise: Tara is an oracle, with the talent to see the future in the cards. She uses her talent to help her work as a forensic psychologist. She'd worked for a government agency until the time she helped profile a serial killer who ended up attacking her. Since then she's been trying to stay out of Special Projects, but now her sometime lover has a new case that needs her special gifts. I hadn't read the previous book in this series ( Dark Oracle ), but I didn't feel lost at all. Kudos for books that can stand alone or work together. I enjoyed this book quite a bit. It was a quick read, and a page-turner. It says urban fantasy on the spine, but I might call it a paranormal crime thriller. It reminded me strongly of the Diana Tregarde books by Mercedes Lackey. There's horror and action, and romance as well, but romance is not the core of the book by a long shot. ...

Favorite Book This Week: American Vampire #12 All books were new in stores on 2/23/11 American Vampire #12 (Strange Frontier) Writer: Scott Snyder, Artist: Danijel Zezelj This was a fun, dark one-off story, almost a break between the last few story-lines and the ones ahead. It's a flashback of sorts, filling in a bit more of Skinner Sweet's background. I loved it. I loved the set-up, I loved the plot, I loved the dialogue. About the only thing I didn't love was the cover, which I found somewhat bland. As for the art inside, I'm not in love with Zezelj's style, but it worked for this issue. Rafael Albuquerque seems set to return as main artist next issue for a WWII arc. I'm excited. X-Men Legacy #245 (Age of X Chapter 1) Written by Mike Carey Pencils: Clay Mann, Inks: Jay Leisten, Colored by Brian Reber I'm amused by this alternate/parallel/whatever take on the X-Men. I don't like the sheer number of characters in this issue, although ...

Hi all Yes, it's another meme, but I quite like lists, so... here we are. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted at The Broke and the Bookish . This week's prompt is: Top Ten Book to Movie adaptations I'm trying to only choose works in which I've read the book AND seen the movie, and the adaptation is good, and both the book and movie are decent. (This eliminates things like The Great Mouse Detective , which is a great movie based on a boring book, or many of my favorite Bond movies, in which the book is great, the film is great, but the two have nothing to do with each other.) In No Particular Order, my picks are: 1: Lord of the Rings (2001, 2002, 2003) Is this one, or three? Whichever. While plenty was cut, and plenty was changed, this still stands as a fantastic adaptation. 2: Sherlock Holmes (Granada TV Series) Gorgeous, spectacular adaptations of Doyle's stories. No other version of Holmes on film makes me as happy, and most of why I love it is the...

Chronicles of the Black Company Glen Cook, 2007  (Originally published in three volumes, Copyright 1984, 84, 85) Premise: Fantasy warfare from a ground-level perspective. The story of the morally questionable mercenaries who make up The Black Company is told by the company physician and historian, known as Croaker. This volume compiles the first trilogy of Black Company books: The Black Company , Shadows Linger , and The White Rose . It's a fantastic read. Thank you to all my Seattle friends who recommended this book to me. It did take me a little bit to get used to the style at the start of the first one. The narrative opens with almost no explanation, just snippets of what's happening as the city The Company is working in begins to collapse around them into rioting factions. They make more than a few hard decisions in order to escape the situation, and take service with a new employer. And then the story really begins. This is an outstanding work, esp...

The Phantom Tollbooth Norton Juster, 1961 I loved The Phantom Tollbooth growing up. It was on my shelf of favorite books for a very long time. I loved the wordplay, I loved the characters, and as a reader and an intellectual child, I loved the message and the whole idea. Now, however, I read it, and it's good, but it feels just a little... thin. I get some of the jokes that passed over my head as a child, and they're corny or on the edge of pedantic. It's still a great book on a lot of levels. It's whimsical and charming. Honestly, I'd probably enjoy more of it if I hadn't read and re-read it to the point of memorization when I was young. Comparisons with Alice in Wonderland are very apt, both in tone and subject, as well as a sense that a person needs to be in a certain mood to really enjoy it. The world through which Milo travels is made up of metaphor, and is very surreal. “As you can see, that leaves almost no time for brooding, lagging, ...

The Westing Game Ellen Raskin, 1978 Fantasy Flashback is a week long event in which I'm re-reading books that were important to me as a young person. And, yes, this one isn't Fantasy, but it's my project, and I'll read what I like. I hadn't read The Westing Game for many years, although I did remember the central mystery and its solution. I loved the book as a child because it was a puzzle that asked for solving, and it didn't withhold any of the clues unfairly from the reader. From an adult perspective, it's a clever story, largely about a group of seemingly unrelated people finding common ground. The sixteen heirs of Samuel Westing are challenged in his will to solve his murder. They are assigned into pairs, each are given clues, and each take a unique tactic in trying (or not) to solve the mystery. The different parts of the mystery aren't hard for me to figure out now (there are big obvious hints on page one), but it's s...

Sun Blind: The Secret of the Unicorn Queen, Book 2 Gwen Hansen, 1988 Fantasy Flashback is a week long event in which I'm re-reading books that were important to me as a young person. You MUST read the article for Swept Away first if you'd like to follow this one . So I finally got a hard copy of the compilation volume of these first two books of the series. Sun Blind is more an additional adventure than anything too special on its own, but I enjoyed it. Sheila continues to improve in swordplay, and the fighting is generally more violent in this volume. I do want to note a few inconsistencies possibly caused by the multiple authors these books had. In this book, Illyria is often (somewhat awkwardly) referred to in the narration as “The Unicorn Queen”, which didn't happen in book one. Also, while it was very clear in Swept Away that what happened to Sheila was dimensional travel, in this volume it's often spoken of as time travel, even though that makes no...

This is Follow Friday, hosted by  Parajunkee's View This week's question: If you are a fan of Science Fiction what is your favorite book? If you haven't read Science Fiction before...any inkling to? Anything catch your eye? That's a stumper. I love Science Fiction, and I read a LOT of it, although I have to admit, more of my recent favorite books are fantasy than sci-fi. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan series is an obvious choice for sci-fi that I absolutely love. I've enjoyed a lot of Andre Norton, and a lot of Asimov over the years. I, Robot is pretty brilliant, and The Cyberiad (by Stanislaw Lem) is fantastic. I really liked Starship Troopers by Heinlein, and Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. Plus, I know it's not a book, but I'm really into Star Trek right now. I watched all of the Original Series last summer, and I've been working my way through the movies. I  have a lot of Star Trek stuff , too. Also, this weekend only ...

Dealing With Dragons (The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Book One) Patricia C. Wrede, 1990 --In Which Lindsay Explains With Erudition Why You Should Read Dealing With Dragons-- Fantasy Flashback is a week long event in which I'm re-reading books that were important to me as a young person. Without a doubt, this is the best book I've read for this week so far. This assertion might be slightly unfair, because it's also the most recent book, and I think the Enchanted Forest books are aimed at slightly older kids than some of the others, but my opinion remains the same. Eilonwy is charming, Dakin kind, and Shiela resourceful, but Cimorene! Cimorene is a fun, fantastic character, and a good role model for parents concerned by the princessification of little girls. The King and Queen did the best they could. They hired the most superior tutors and governesses to teach Cimorene all the things a princess ought to know– dancing, embroidery, drawing, and etiquette...

Favorite Book this week: Avengers Academy #9 All books new in stores 2/16/11 Avengers Academy #9 Writer: Christos Gage, Penciler: Mike McKone This is a really solid issue of a really solid book. The art is still hit and miss, but there weren't any terrible panels this month. I especially enjoyed the scenes between Finesse and Taskmaster, and Finesse and Quicksilver. Nice dialogue, nice structure, well done overall. Darkwing Duck #9 Writer: Ian Brill, Artist: James Silvani Start of a new storyline this issue, and the return of a classic villain. This is one of the most reliable books I collect. I don't know that it's often mindblowing, but I always enjoy it. Plus, Steelbeak claims F.O.W.L. is trying to do something which very much amuses me...I'll look forward to seeing what happens. Supergirl #61 Writer: James Peaty, Artist: Bernard Chang More of the same from last month, plus some good guest stars. I should mention here that I absolutely love Kara...

Swept Away! The Secret of the Unicorn Queen, Book 1 Josepha Sherman, 1988 Fantasy Flashback is a week long event in which I'm re-reading books that were important to me as a young person. Important to me , not to the world of literature. Okay, this one isn't a classic, not by a long shot.  This is an obscure little book which has been out of print long enough for it to be re-released and for that printing to be out of print. For a brief time I was beginning to doubt that these books existed, even though I remember taking the whole set out of the local library when I was a kid. This took some doing, because it consisted of 6 books by 4 different authors. Why so many authors, I don't know; perhaps because they were all released in the space of 2 years? I don't really know anything about the story of how these books came to be. Later there was the internet, and I discovered a small but devoted fanbase built up around this series. It's not exceptionally well...

The Farthest-Away Mountain Lynne Reid Banks, 1976 Fantasy Flashback is a week long event in which I'm re-reading books that were important to me as a young person. I probably read most of these for the first time between the ages of 8 and 12. I am very glad that this book held up to my memory of it. Admittedly, my memories of this book by the time I opened it had worn down to “I used to love this, and there's something about the mountain, and magic colored snow, and red flannel petticoats...” Such are the details that stay with me. If you missed this one, it's a sweet little book with a fairy tale tone, although with more down-to-earth characters than most actual fairy tales. Although she lives on a farm, the heroine Dakin almost fits into the archetype of a fairy tale princess, from before “princess” meant spoiled and simpering. Dakin is beautiful, brave, honest and compassionate, and she's also very pragmatic. She had a turned-up nose and eyes the col...

I'm excited about Jeopardy tonight! If you haven't heard, IBM has built a computer, nicknamed Watson, that can play Jeopardy against two human opponents. The episodes are airing tonight through Wednesday. More info:  http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ken-jennings-brad-rutter-represent-humankind-jeopardy-watson/story?id=12896934 In honor of this event, we are offering a special deal on ebook editions of the Sci-fi novel Facsimile (which I edited). Facsimile is set in the near-future, at the crossroads of artificial intelligence and social networking. It seems like every day I read something in the news bringing it closer to reality. Enter coupon code RR76H at Smashwords , to get Facsimile for just $0.99! Coupon only good this week!

Welcome to Fantasy Flashback Week! The Book of Three Lloyd Alexander, 1964 Fantasy Flashback is a week long event in which I'm re-reading books that were important to me as a young person. Most of these are classics with publication dates in the 60's and 70's, so I feel little need to warn for spoilers, FYI. You know how some people have a story about the first time they read a book that had a huge impression on them, that they remember where they were or how it felt or something? I don't have a story like that. I've been reading fantasy novels for literally as long as I can remember. Sure, I remember the first time I read Lord of the Rings, and certain other books I recall getting as presents or seeking out through libraries, but by that point I was already a confirmed life-long genre fan. I think, though, that The Book of Three was one of my early finds. I was a Lloyd Alexander fan for a good long time, and at one point I had read, and owned, eve...

This is the Book Blogger Hop, hosted at Crazy For Books . This week's question is: "Tell us about one of your posts from this week and give us a link so we can read it (review or otherwise)!" Well, last Monday I posted a review of True Grit , comparing the book to the new movie. I love reading, but I'd like to also post about the occasional movie or other media, etc. What do you all think of that idea? Do you only read book blogs for the book recommendations? This is Follow Friday, hosted by Parajunkee's View This week's question is from Ruby's Reads: What is your favorite romance hero-type? Stereotype wise. Do you like the strong silent type or the brute macho man? This seems like an odd question to me, but I read very little romance. Do you mean favorite romance hero to read about, or favorite type to be attracted to? When I do read romance, I care much more about whether he's the heroine's type. It's her relationship a...

The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir Ken Harmon, 2010 What a shame. Harmon took a great premise and absolutely ruined it with shitty, shitty execution. Premise: Gumdrop Coal is a sorry excuse for a noir hero, in a poorly constructed holiday world. Someone is framing him, or muscling him out, or trying to destroy Santa, or trying to ruin Christmas, or something. It isn't exactly coherent. I loved this idea. Christmas elf noir? That could be great! The dark side of the holiday, maybe the dirty secrets of the elven sweatshops or some artifact is stolen and you don't know who to trust. A murder investigation, at least, right? Nothing that cool is in this book. The story is boring. The characters are shallow, hollow, despicable things. The author doesn't come up with almost anything interesting; he's too busy stuffing the book with more horribly grating references to holiday crap. What horrified me the most was the tone. It alternates wildly b...

Favorite Book This Week: Batgirl #18 All Issues New in Stores 2/9/11 Side Note: I've actually seen The Last Unicorn Hardcover graphic novel in person now. It's absolutely gorgeous. (And currently a pretty great deal on Amazon . Seriously, it's a beautiful book.) Batgirl #18 Writer: Bryan Q. Miller, Penciller: Dustin Nguyen, Inker: Derek Fridolfs I adored this issue start to finish. It's a one-issue story about Stephanie's run-in with Klarion the Witch-boy. Klarion is a character I'm only familiar with through B:TAS, but I loved him here. (According to Wikipedia this may or may not be a version different enough to be a different character or just a different spin. Either way, I like this character.) I loved the way they played off of each other. I love that it was a Valentine's Day Issue. There was comedy, action, magic, and snarky wit, plus the art was fantastic. I throughly approve. Birds of Prey #9 Writer: Gail Simone, Artist: Inaki Mir...

True Grit Charles Portis, 1968 True Grit IMDB Cast and Crew List , 2010 I saw "True Grit" in the theater back in December, and I liked the movie so much that I sought out the novel.  As it turns out, I almost didn't need to bother. Premise: 14-year-old Mattie Ross is determined to see Tom Chaney die for the murder of her father. She hires the meanest Federal Marshal in Fort Smith to hunt her quarry, and intends to go with him to see it done. The novel and the movie are each a delight, although this is one of those cases in which the adaptation is so close that to experience both almost feels like overkill. The movie takes much of its dialogue straight from the page. There are a couple scenes that play out slightly differently, but I think the movie might have the edge in these because it always takes the more dramatic option.  The language is simply fantastic.  Mattie is a great character, one you're drawn to admire, but she's prickly and cares ...

The Book Blogger Hop is hosted at crazy-for-books.com This week's question for discussion: "What are you reading now and why are you reading it?" I'm currently reading The Fall by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, because I loved the first book, The Strain ( review here ). I'm also working through a bunch of Middle Grade re-reading for a week long project starting Feb 14: Fantasy Flashback Week. More about that plan in this post . And Follow Friday is hosted at Parajunkee's View ! The question for discussion there is: What is the book you are currently 'pushing'? (Pushing meaning trying to get people to read it) Well, I'll always push Lois McMaster Bujold on anyone who'll listen, and I'm not above encouraging folks who I think will enjoy it to read my husband's book ... But the biggest thing I'm pushing on people right now is comic books. Don't dismiss them! Much awesome sequential art goes unknown by people...

This week's visit to the comic store was delayed due to weather, and the fact that the only books that came out this week were ones I had considered dropping. (Yes, I know Secret Six was this week, but I'm waiting for the trade.) And I don't have a job for this month yet, so I read these books in the store. Yup, both of these books have officially fallen off the bottom of my pull list. No Best Issue this Week. Issues were new in stores 2/2/11 Batman Beyond #2 Writer: Adam Beechen, Pencils: Ryan Benjamin Inker: John Stanisci Wow. An issue in which almost nothing happens except Terry and the League beat on each other for a bit for no good reason. The big thing that bothers me with this book is the dialogue. The writer needs to be more careful, because some lines that you could have gotten away with in the show, with the actors to give it color and tone, fall flat or worse on the page. More specifically, I don't like basically any of his dialogue between Terry an...