Month: January 2016

Fiction Friday: The Lioness and the Innkeeper’s Daughter

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday3 Comments

I’m spending January deep in revisions for my next Beyond the Tales novel, The Lioness and the Spellspinners.  You can read the whole thing (if all goes well) in the fall, but in the meantime I thought I’d share an excerpt.  The Lioness of the title is Karina, who’s on the run and currently stuck on a very small island.  She’s gone into town with Forrest, a local, looking for a ship…

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For such a small town, it seemed to take a long time to get through, but at last they reached The Wool and Spindle. It was the second largest building in town, after the royalty’s house. Two stories, a thickly thatched roof and a wooden sign hanging above the door. Karina glanced up at the sign as they passed under it. It showed, predictably, a sheep and a spinning wheel.

Inside, she let out a relieved breath to find herself on more familiar footing. Taverns are taverns the world over. It was a little cleaner and more light shone than in most of the places she frequented back home, but the scattering of tables, big fireplace, and long counter at the back were familiar enough. And it was blessedly empty, apparently too early in the day for hard-working, respectable townsfolk to be at the tavern. Which meant there was no one to stare.

She had started to relax when a girl came into the room, from a doorway probably leading to the kitchen. The girl’s face broke into a broad smile as soon as she caught sight of her visitors. “Oh, Forrest!” she trilled. “You haven’t been in to visit in ages!” Continue reading “Fiction Friday: The Lioness and the Innkeeper’s Daughter” →

Book Review: Winter (The Lunar Chronicles)

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science FictionLeave a comment

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the final book in Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles ever since May, 2014…when I read the previous book!  Happily, Winter did not disappoint in the slightest.

The story has grown complicated and the cast has grown large by this fourth book…catch up on my earlier reviews of Cinder, Scarlet, Cress (and Fairest, a prequel).  Spoilers to follow for the earlier books!

In a more-or-less distant future, Earth is on the brink of war with Luna, whose wicked Queen Levana is bent on world-domination, and she has an army of mutant soldiers, a plague virus and some nasty mind-control to back her up.  The one hope is Cinder and her rag-tag collection of allies.  Cinder is both the long-lost heir to the Lunar throne and a cyborg…who once left her mechanical foot behind at a ball.  Her allies include Scarlet, a pilot with a fondness for a red hoodie sweater and a certain Lunar soldier named Wolf; Cress, a brilliant but naive hacker who was held captive in a satellite by Levana until rescued by Cinder and co.; Carswell Thorne, a dashing captain who will tell you just how wonderful he is…while secretly doubting that he’s as good as Cress thinks he is; and Emperor Kai, who was abducted in Book Three but isn’t very sorry about it, considering he and Cinder have a romance that is (slowly) heating up.

Book Three also saw Scarlet carried off to captivity on Luna, but she’s fallen under the (doubtfully effective) protection of mad Princess Winter, and by extension her one loyal guard, Jacin.  The only chance of rescuing Scarlet, defeating Levana and reclaiming the Lunar throne is for Cinder and co. to somehow make it to Luna, probably under cover of plans for the royal wedding between Kai and Levana.

Are we all caught up now?  🙂  Continue reading “Book Review: Winter (The Lunar Chronicles)” →

2016 Reading Challenges – Books Ahead!

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations5 Comments

It’s a bright shiny new year (several days in, even) and definitely time to talk about plans for the year to come–specifically, reading challenges.  I was a little burned out on the subject this time last year, and had a very laid-back time, rereading old favorites and, frankly, ignoring my “match-categories” challenge until the last quarter of the year.  Result–I’m ready to dive back into some more proper reading challenges in 2016!

What I like about challenges is that they focus me, and help me read the books I actually want to read, but don’t always think of.  Since I read a lot of books, challenge books make up a pretty small percentage, leaving me plenty of reading freedom but still helping me get some special types of books in.

So…what kind of books do I want to read in 2016?

More Medal-Winners

PictureThis is probably a direct result of spending Christmas talking to my cousins who are watching all the Academy Award Best Picture nominees (ever).  I’m not doing that, but I like the idea of working through a prestigious list.  The Pulitzer Prize is decidedly out, so I thought–why not Newbery Medal?  And when I looked at the list and realized I’d only read a third of them, that sealed it.  There are 94 total, I have read 32, and my goal is to read 15 Newbery Medal Winners, to bring myself up to half.

I’m joining the Smiling Shelves Newbery Challenge; there’s a (slightly) complicated point system, and it looks like I’m aiming for the third or AVI level.  This may inspire me to read a few more and achieve the Lowry level…I always liked her. 🙂

More Universes

If you were following along in November, you know that I wrote a NaNo Novel involving traveling into parallel universes.  The whole concept fascinates me, plus I have that novel to revise next year…so I want to find more novels that explore those ideas (GoodReads is so helpful for this kind of thing, by the way!)  I haven’t been able to find any officially-organized challenge around this topic (it’s slightly niche, I admit) so I’m just doing this one myself, with a goal of 12 books, or one per month.

More Diversity

I read a lot of British and American authors, and I’m pretty much okay with that…but I’m less okay with the predominantly white protagonists I’m reading about.  Racism, representation, and the role of media in shaping cultures’ unconscious (or conscious) views on certain groups is a MUCH bigger topic than I want to tackle right here…but suffice to say, I believe in beginning at home and so I want to read more diverse protagonists, particularly ethnically-diverse.

I’m setting a goal of 18 books with non-white protagonists, hoping that will be a low bar and suspecting I will find out it’s not…but we’ll see.  I feel sure there must be an official challenge around this topic, but I haven’t been able to find it.  If you know of one, let me know!

Edit: And thank you to MerviH, who pointed me to “Diversity on the Shelf” which I’ve now joined!  A goal of 18 books puts me on the Third Shelf level of the challenge.

More Shakespeare

shakespeare400A conversation on New Year’s Eve made me realize I have not been much in touch with Mr. Shakespeare in recent years, and that’s no good at all.  So I decided to throw the Bard into my reading challenge mix, and then went looking for a challenge–and found the Bardathon.  There are many, many ways to participate–in a perfect world I’d like to do Tragic Shakespearean (read 5 tragedies), Comedic Shakespearean (read 5 comedies) and Cinematic Shakespearean (watch 5 plays), but realistically that’s overreaching…so I’m only officially going for Mix-and-Match, to engage with 5 plays in any of the above-mentioned ways.

More Seasonal “Challenges”

…by which I mean Carl’s seasonal reading experiences, over at Stainless Steel Droppings.  I completely fell off the wagon on these in the second half of 2015, and am not going to get back on in time for the currently-running Sci Fi one…but starting with my favorite, Once Upon a Time in the spring, I want to get back engaged with these.  They’re the best for blogging community, and are just always so much fun.

So there you are!  Not too strenuous but a bit more focused and as of right now at least, I’m excited to explore where these will take me.  Happy reading in 2016!

NaNoWriMo Day Infinity…

On By cherylmahoneyIn NaNoWriMo1 Comment

What with Christmas and end-of-the-year posts, I got very distracted from sharing about my NaNo novel!  I was working towards a half-NaNo (25,000 words) during December, but happily, I finished ahead of time.  I got to 65,882 words and the end of the story on December 20th!

There will definitely be revision needed, thematically and on some POV issues I’ve mentioned earlier, but overall I’m pretty happy with how the first draft turned out.  Since it’s shorter than most of my first drafts, there’s plenty of space for expansion.  And considering this is a very complicated plot involving alien fairy tales, a conspiracy theory, a millennia-old treasure hunt and, of course, parallel universes, I’m happy to have managed a mostly coherent first draft in the frantic rush of NaNo.  Writing to the end helped me figure a lot out, and give me a better idea of the direction to take when I revise.

But that won’t be for a while.  I plan to let this one percolate in my backbrain for at least several months, maybe a year, while I focus on last year’s NaNo novel, book 4 in my Beyond the Tales series.  So it’ll be some time before this one pops up again.  But have a last excerpt in the meantime. 🙂

        I turned to go, and maybe I really would have gone—or maybe I would have walked five steps and turned around again—but it didn’t matter because when I turned to go, rather too fast and without looking around, I collided right into someone carrying a big lot of groceries, disrupted the antigrav field holding everything together, and sent a whole pile of food flying all over the walkway.

            “Oh—sorry!” I said, stooping down to catch some kind of wildly rolling fruit.

            “No, I wasn’t looking where I was going either.”

            My breath caught and I looked up, fruit in one hand but letting another piece go right by me.

            Of course it was Lark. Her hair was a little bit longer and I had somehow, irrationally, expected her to be wearing her blue coat, which she wasn’t, but it was still definitely, unmistakably Lark, briskly and cheerfully tossing groceries back into the antigrav net.

            “I’m sorry,” I said again. For a lot of things.

            “No harm done,” she said, tossing one last loaf of bread back into the hovering pile and standing up. She flashed me a grin, a familiar grin that made my chest hurt. “I’m Lark, I live here,” she said with a nod towards the house. I managed not to say I knew that. “Are you new to the neighborhood?”

            Because of course she’d introduce herself to any new neighbors. She was like that. “No,” I said, regretting it. “I’m—my family, we’re startraders. Our ship is—in port.” Or in orbit. I had no idea, but it probably didn’t matter. Then I started slightly, realizing what I hadn’t said, overlooking the obvious thing that she still didn’t know. “I’m Aza.”

Movie Review: Star Wars – The Force Awakens

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Science Fiction6 Comments

star_wars_poster_full.0.0If your friends are like my friends, then you will understand why many of the conversations I’ve had recently began with a variation of, “So have you seen it yet?”  And by “it” we all understood that we meant Star Wars.  We’ve been comparing excitement and concerns for a good two years now, so we all have a good grounding of discussion.  I’m not getting this review up immediately, but I went to see the movie on Saturday of opening weekend.  I was clinging to caution right up until the lights dimmed (and maybe for an hour after that…) but the final verdict?  I liked it!

And from here on out, spoilers abound.  I warned you!

The story is set thirty years after Return of the Jedi.  The politics are slightly confusing, but the Rebel Alliance has evolved into/been replaced by the Resistance, who are fighting the First Order, heir apparent of the Empire.  And there’s a New Republic, but we’re not sure how powerful they are.  Much more importantly, Luke has disappeared, General Leia Organa is heading the Resistance and hoping to find her brother, a renegade Stormtrooper named Finn gets mixed up in galactic complications, then drags Rey, a scavenger on a desert world (but not Tattooine) into the mix too.  And there are battles and uses of the Force and funny droids.  Of course.

That is not a good summary, but you’ve probably seen it by now, so it doesn’t matter that much.  We know what I’m talking about, right? Continue reading “Movie Review: Star Wars – The Force Awakens” →