Long Awaited Book Review!

Pogue, Aaron. Gods Tomorrow. OKC, OK: Consortium Books, 2010.

“He used to say, ‘Peddlers today, Gods tomorrow.’ It was like a mantra for him….We have some amazing technology, but we haven’t made any gods yet” (144).

It’s a world not very hard to imagine for us who live in the twenty-first century: a world where the cyber world knows everything about you, knows what you’re going to order for dinner, and has every minute of your day recording onto the big database in the sky. Privacy is dead, and that means that every criminal will be brought down and delivered justice.
Or does it? Some people, called ghosts, have managed to slip through the system. Now someone is dead, and there’s worse things at stake than just an unpunished murderer. Katie Pratt, new to Ghost Targets division of the FBI, is on the case. She will not rest until she finds the ghost behind this senseless murder and threat to modern society.

I am all about the character development, and Gods Tomorrow does not disappoint. As intriguing as the story and the world were, it was Katie Pratt and the other characters she meets along the way that really made me want to finish the book. The thing about these characters was that they weren’t just cookie-cutter stereotypes slightly changed to fit into the roles that Mr. Pogue made for them. They were real, and their emotions were real. They all had a little bit of good and a little bit of bad. Sometimes I wasn’t sure who was supposed to be the antagonist, and sometimes I wanted the antagonist to win. Through it all, Katie’s character is strong and I rooted for her every step of the way. I can’t wait until the next book comes out and I can see her continue her journey through Ghost Targets.

I give it a four star rating because I found the beginning and the techno-jargon a little slowing. It was necessary for the plot and to understand the world, but the how of the whole thing didn’t interest me nearly as much as the characters and the story.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Gods Tomorrow is now for sale on Amazon and in every format of e-book reader. Grab your copy today!

Office Observations

So the IT director just came into our office and asked how to spell "finagle" while also managing to mispronounce it. Jordan helped him out, but Laura just asked, "Doesn't he know how to use the internet?"

I have found on multiple occasions that Grammar Girl is very helpful with her quick and dirty tips. Of course, I already know the rules that she is teaching, but sometimes I like to look them up just to reassure myself, because I live in a world that is plagued by incorrect grammar, and we all know that if the majority of people are doing it, then it must be right. Today I looked up the difference between bad and badly. The way I've always remembered it is that badly is an adverb (obviously, because it has an -ly), and adverbs, as their names denote, modify verbs. Therefore, in what way am I feeling? I feel badly. But bad is an adjective that defines a noun, in this case, I. So if we want to know how I feel, we would have to make it an adjective. But I find that her transitive and intransitive section is even more enlightening. Read and enjoy.

What is your superpower?

As many of you know, I have a world where most of the inhabitants have superpowers. The point is that it is the people without superpowers who are different, and they have to find their way in a world where being normal isn't considered normal. Did I also mention that this is a world of unicorns, gryphons, and dragons? Anyway, I decided to come up with a comprehensive list of all the different powers that people in this world could possess, and realized that I only have thirteen different ones. Even if I come up with twice that, this world isn't going to be very diverse. So I beg your aid to come up with more. What are some common powers super heros have, some uncommon ones, and what power do you really wish you had if you lived in a comic book world? Tell me all your ideas!

So far I have:
Telepathic
Telekinetic
Super Hearing
Create objects (I guess it'd be kind of like alchemy)
Super Voice
Can locate anything
Invisibility
Super Jumping
Wall-Crawling (like Spider-Man)
Healing (they don't have great medicine)
Speak/understand any language
Fire manipulators
Lie Detectors

Dark and Stormy Night Publishing

I just want to say that I am so proud of Sean for finally working on my new blog and getting it to look like an actual blog--although not anything like the finished product. In light of these actions, i'd also like to officially announce that Sean is making me a new blog that should be up and running by October, and I will be moving over there as soon as I can. In case you were wondering the difference, this one is going to be on wordpress, and since it is coded by Sean it means I can do lots of extra stuff that I haven't been doing on here--hopefully. I have grand plans for it, including book reviews, tidbits of my writing, things that I learn about writing from my own experience and from others, a list of books that I plan to read, and perhaps occasionally anecdotes from my authors at work. But more on that later!

Teaser Two!

One of my failed attempts to start this story. I got stuck here and realized that it was not going in the right direction.

Bracken Carnegie. Not much thought went into that name. Bracken, a type of fern. Also the name of my mother’s grandfather, who was a lord of something or other in England. Carnegie, my father’s surname, of course. Passed down from the unknown generations. We’re said to be cousins to the famous Andrew Carnegie, the steel guy, and that’s why we’re rich, but not as rich as he was. And that’s all there is. No middle name, no nicknames, nothing. Just Bracken Carnegie. My parents consistently told me that their expectation of me were very low. Everybody else in their family had already done everything impressive. All I had to do to make them happy was play the violin like an angel, attend Harvard or Oxford, and marry a Kennedy.
Harder than it sounds.

NaNoWriMo 2010 teaser

"She had told me, three months ago, that she could breathe underwater, and I had believed her. But now, waiting for her among the cattails, glancing at my watch every two seconds, I realized that I hadn’t, not really. Despite the years of repression, my hero instincts wanted to take over. My heels kept lifting off the ground, allowing me to peer into the murky brown water, wanting to save her. Needing to save her. She had done so much for me, and now, here I was, still standing helplessly by. She told me to trust her, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to protect her. Why didn’t she ever need protecting?"

This isn't going to make it into the final draft, because I decided that the time frame for the story is going to be restricted to before he met Rahab, but I did this as a little pre-writing to get into Bracken's head. (Also I decided to make the story 3rd person.) Only 42 days until NaNoWriMo...

NaNoWriMo 2010 goals

So I feel much better now that I've chosen what project to work on for November 2010. And what project is that, might you ask?
Bracken's novel! Something I've always wanted to write, but never really sure how to. I didn't know whether I should basically re-write Into the Flames from Bracken's perspective (chose not to do that as soon as Midnight Sun came around), write about his childhood, or about his relationship with Rahab after the events in Into the Flames. Well, I still am not completely sure of the answer to this, but I do know that I feel I have a very solid opening scene, set a few months before he meets Rahab. The craziness of NaNoWriMo will hopefully drive the plot along. I mean, it's not like I have nothing to work with, I basically know everything about Bracken's life, it's just deciding which part of his life to document, and in what way. First person, or third person? Retrospectively (since we all know what's going to happen) or from a more active stand-point? Any suggestions along these lines would be welcome. But I'm just glad I know who my specimen is going to be for this year! *sigh of relief*

Now excuse me while I go update my nano profile.