Myth, the Universe, and Everything

The news is out (via Publishers Weekly): Bloomsbury is changing the cover of Justine Larbalestier's Liar to stop misrepresenting the main character of the book. They're rejacketing the hardcover for the October release. The new jacket has not been decided on yet -- it may be a text version like the Australian jacket, or it may feature an African American girl's face.

As much as I know Larbalestier liked the text idea, at this point, I'm rooting for the second.

Congrats to Bloomsbury for actually listening to their audience on this one, and for (hopefully) learning from this episode. *keeping my fingers crossed that the publishing world has taken note*

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In other news, I've got a new blog post up at Flames Rising about not-quite paranormal romances, talking about books that push the boundaries of the genre (like Nalini Singh's (nalini_singh) Psy/Changeling series and Meljean Brook's "The Guardians") and those that go beyond what I say are the borders all together, like Richelle Mead's (blue_succubus) succubus series and Jeaniene Frost's (frost_light) "Night Huntress" books. Feel free to pop by and comment (and if you think I'm wrong, feel free to share -- I'm forming my ideas about genre as I go, and more fodder is *always* a good thing).

Picking the novels to come along with me as international travelers this year was a challenge. I packed course books and extra resources and had to hem and haw over which novels I would take along for this project. I also have a tendency to buy books while I'm abroad, so along with the large number of books in my bag, I knew I'd come home with more. Such is the way of traveling readers!

( Books on the road! )

So that's this year's tour. Now back to uploading more of my photos for the students!

Highlights roughly in order:

• Spent quality time with my parents


• Helped set marks for a sail boat race


• Took a cruise of the Thimble Islands


• Helped pick monster zucchini on one of the Thimbles


• Ate blueberry coffee cake and Dad's Blueberry Pie (TM) with real Michigan blueberries


• Went sailing on a gusty day without capsizing


• Went to a restaurant with the same name as my father.


• Judged the SpaceWesterns.com senryu contest entries--winners are now available online! (Some of my favorites did not make the cut.)


• Celebrated a wedding anniversary


• Visited with old friends


• Had dinner and watched movies with new(ish) friends


• Stayed out 'til almost 1 a.m. with said friends, which is remarkable for its infrequency


• Went to see the superhero exhibit at the Met in New York


• Debated the virtues of Stark Tech vs. Wayne Tech.


• Had hot chocolate with dragonladyflame


• Wrote several "e-mails" and "interludes" from the perspective of my vampire alter-ego for the Dogs in the Vineyard game I mentioned awhile ago


• Started learning about grant writing


• Ordered and received skzbrust's new Vlad Taltos novel (which my husband promptly devoured), nalini_singh's most recent Psy-Changeling novel (because waiting for it to become available through the library was driving me nuts), and blue_succubus's Storm Born, the first in her new series.


• Typed portions of a new short story I wrote mostly on scrap paper.


• Neglected to turn anything in to Arielle for my first "hold me accountable for fiction" deadline.


• Got paid for freelance work.


• Went to the dentist.


• Spent all day at the beach with a large group of fifth to eighth graders and had an absolute ball.


• Went to B&N to replace Storm Born, as my copy arrived with water damage from the copious amount of rain we've been having.


• Went back to the beach to have a grill out with my Dogs in the Vineyard group.


• Discovered that spending time from 10 a.m. through, effectively, 7 p.m. at the beach leads to sunburn on the face.


• Had my poor vampire almost die. Again. She made it. Also again.


• Found the aloe in the med kit still packed from Greece and Turkey.

I think there's actually more (not that this isn't enough), but I'm a bit exhausted right now (probably due to the sun as much as the time), so I'm going to turn in. Tomorrow is another day with family (I hope!), Friday is a D&D game after work, and Saturday and Sunday I'll be at Mythcon in New Britain, CT (just up the road). If you're also going to be there, send a holler!

I'll try to be back on a somewhat regular blogging schedule next week.

I don't work at the library on Wednesdays. When I'm in a deadline crunch, Wednesdays are my best work-at-home days, because I can spend the whole day focusing on one project or another. In theory, I should be feeling one of these now. I have projects to work on, one due in less than two weeks. (I tell myself that it's percolating, and am actually going to do some online research for it as soon as I finish this blog entry.)

The thing about Wednesdays is that I can afford to be lazy on them, because I don't have anywhere to be besides at home. Which makes those novels I've been putting off awfully tempting, especially when it's still cold enough outside that spending the day curled up in a blanket with a good book sounds like the ideal plan. (To be fair, I should say that it's cold enough in my apartment, as I haven't stepped outside. From the windows, it looks like there's plenty of sunshine, so I *may* actually take a walk.)

So instead of having a super productive, look-at-all-the-work-I've-done kind of day, I spent the morning (and a chunk of the afternoon) reading, first a romance novel by Nalini Singh (who was recommended over on ilona_andrews's blog--I'm looking forward to picking up one of her paranormals, but the romance I read was cute) and then Succubus Blues by Richelle Mead (blue_succubus). As I may theorhetically be reviewing the latter for flamesrising (Matt: has anyone already reviewed it?), I'll keep my comments short. Very rarely have I cared so deeply about a character who's supposed to be batting for team evil--and, in fact, I very rarely cry in urban fantasies (though I'm generally a weeper). Georgina is a wonderfully compelling main character, and I did, in fact, shed some tears right along with her over the course of the novel. (Don't picture a succubus crying? Neither did I.) It is *so* different in style from Vampire Academy that if I hadn't known Richelle wrote both of them, I'd never have guessed. (Even better? I really enjoyed both! So, major points to Richelle on that score.)

And now done gushing, since I really ought to do something productive with my day.