When in Doubt, Link

Lacking anything original to say today, I will link to a couple of interesting entries over on Dear Author. The first is an interview with Heather Osborn, formerly of Ellora's Cave and now with Tor. Osborne has insight into both ePub and print publishing, which makes for some interesting reading. Also, I find Tor's move to break into romance quite interesting.

The second interview is with Jaid Black (a.k.a. Tina Engler) the founder of Ellora's Cave. Engler addresses the recent brouhaha on Karen's blog about possible declining standards at Ellora's Cave.

(To put my $0.02 in: the Vampire/Werewolf/Clusterfuck genre may make bank for EC, but it does tend to go bad if not properly refrigerated.)

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This is a Review: Revealing Skills

As with all my (not a) reviews, descriptions are half-assed, my taste is mercurial, and ratings are assigned entirely by whim.

In most Fantasy novels, if chapter one introduces the main character mucking out stables or scrubbing pots in the kitchen, you can bet your subscription to Everquest that Young Humble Stableboy/Scullerygirl won't be holding that menial position for long. In no time at all, YHS/S will fall in with Interesting Company, discover a Hidden Talent, undertake a Great Journey and become an Important Person.

If a Fantasy novel also happens to be an erotic romance, the Great Journey may traipse through the bedroom, the linen closet, the dungeon, and various anatomically challenging positions before YHS/S becomes an Important Person and gets his/her hornily ever after, but the basic premise is the same.

But if the author of that Fantasy erotic romance is Summer Devon (aka Kate Rothwell), you can expect tired tropes and genre conventions to be twisted, turned on their heads, and tickled 'til they beg for mercy. This is, after all, the author whose cursed-to-be invisible heroine actually had some fun. Devon also dared to write a story with a virgin hero.

[You have earned the Chalice of Chutzpah, +5 Hit Points]

Revealing Skills by Summer Devon
Synopsis: Tabica is a Young Humble Slave in the castle of a mean baron. When she helps shape-changing escaped prisoner Gilrohan hide from the baron, shenanigans and sexin' ensue. Like every good little fantasy heroine, Tabica has heretofore unrealized magical talents. And since this Fantasy tale is also an erotic romance, I'm sure you can guess what and who it takes to bring those talents to light.

The Summer Devon novels I've read have all had a sort of easy-going good nature. She doesn't go in for overwrought drama or dark whiny angst, and I find that pretty damned refreshing.

[You have earned the Plot that Refreshes, +23 Health Points]

Where another author might have played the very played out "beauty and the beast" angle of the shape-changer trope, Devon's take reads like an ex-rated retelling of an extra-hijinky episode of Bewitched.

[You have earned the Helmet of Hijinkiness, +12 Hit Points]

Devon strikes a good balance with setting, deftly sketching an world that is unique enough to draw you in and familiar enough to keep you reading, but is never cliche. As always, her main characters are appealing and likable from the start. Tabica and Gilrohan could easily exist in a story that didn't feature shape-changers and magic.

[You have discovered the Wand of Worldbuilding and the Cape of Character, +9 Defense Points]

The first chapter pulled me right in. Gilrohan changes into a rat in order to escape the mean baron's dungeon. Tabica recognizes Gilrohan-the-rat as a shape-changing morphlange and saves him when he gets caught by a servant. Lucky for Gilrohan, and for the reader's delicate sensibilities, he changes back into a man when Tabica touches him.

The two feel an immediate, inexplicable attraction to each other, and proceed to act on it throughout the book.

[You have been struck by the Arrow of Inexplicable Attraction, -8 Health Points]

The problem is, while our two lovers' appetites stay hot, the story itself sort of looses steam after the first few* chapters.

[You have become lost in the Fjords of Fiznuckin', -9 Health Points]

The complication that keeps the lovers apart feels contrived. Toward the end of the story, Tabica gains an irrational admirer and comes down with a case of magical who-ha .

[You have been cursed with the Codpiece of Cliche, -2 Hit Points]

Devon is a gifted writer with talent for creating realistic, relatable characters while turning genre conventions on their collective ear. Revealing Skills starts strong and is consistently readable, but it is rather disappointing to watch an interesting, inventive beginning wander into mediocrity.

Rating:

You are a 4th level Mermaid

(beautiful at the start, but kind of fishy toward the tail end)

* Note, originally, the linked portion of the review read "first two chapters", but the version I read had an extra-long chapter two. I believe the chapters of the final versions are different.

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Back to Black ( A Two-Item List of Very Cool Things)

Thing 1: Kate Rothwell/Summer Devon (the gentle voice of encouragement urging me to update my blog in not a few of the comments) is having a contest drawing for a $30 gift certificate of your choice to Barnes and Noble, Amazon, OR Samhain (the publisher of the upcoming print release of her book Revealing Skills). To qualify, you can do one of the following:

• Send her a request for one of the books listed in her May 6th announcement of the contest and review it on your blog or website. If you are blogless or website-impaired, send her the review via email.
• Link to Kate's/Summer's May 6, 2007 contest announcement, and send her a link to your link to her contest. If you are blogless or website-impaired, get yourself a blog or a website.

Thing 2: Amy Winehouse's CD Back to Black. Amy Winehouse is a scrawny twenty-something Brit chick, but she sings like a voluptuous thirty-something chain-smoking Mowtown-era diva who has done a man or two wrong in her time. Her Motown mimicry is initially interesting, but after the novelty wears off, the songs are great on their own. And in addition to pulling off one hell of an American accent, this chick can sing.

Also, the divine Ms. Winehouse has added a lovely new phrase to my vocabulary - to wit: What kind of fuckery is this? Try it out. You might find the phrase has a certain lilt to it - both Shakespearian and profane (though the two are hardly mutually exclusive). And also, it is loads of fun to say.

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On Procrastination

A friend of mine says that procrastinators (como yo) are closet perfectionists. She says we procrastinate because we don't want to do a thing if we can't do it perfectly - and no one is perfect. I've always thought of my penchant for procrastination as the result of some sort of inherent laziness, but I think I'm starting to see her point.

Witness, this blog. I wanted to do a redesign, but I couldn't get the images just right. So I stopped blogging altogether. Every time I thought about blogging, I'd think about that redesign I wanted to get done. Then I'd think about how the stupid images and stylesheets were such a pain in my ass, and then I'd go do something else because I didn't have 5 hours to spend on my blog right then.

Trouble is, I think I do the same thing with my writing. Hubby gave me Stephen King's On Writing for my birthday, and I was surprised to read that King did not map out his plots, do character charts, or make revisions during the first draft. There are all these things I keep thinking I have to do when writing, but maybe I don't.

I'm a compulsive re-reader. Every time I sit down to write, I reread my last few chapters. And then I find typos, sentences that are not quite right, and plot points that could use a tweak. Result: Half a dozen works-in-progress in which the first four chapters read like a final draft, and which bore me absolutely to death.

So my project for the week is not to write, or to blog, but to stop being so damned picky. I did the redesign. It took me 1.5 hours. I still can't ditch the 2 pixel gap above the header, or the 10 pixel gap below the footer, but damn it, this is good enough.

Ex-ProcrastinatorPerfectionist,
Bettie

P.S. Does anyone know how to get rid of those gaps? They really bug me.

P.P.S.
Number of corrections made to this post after Bettie hit publish: 4

Advantage: Perfectionism

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This is NOT a Review: Hells Belles

This is not a review of Hells Belles by Jackie Kessler. If you want a review, mosey over to Mrs. Giggles' Romance Novel Central or Bam's site. As with other entries in this series, which were also not reviews, all descriptions are half-assed and ratings are assigned wholly by whim.

Synopsis: Immortal succubus demon Jezebel goes AWOL from Hell after a bureaucratic reorganization of the Inferno repurposes her skillset to an emotionally unfulfilling post. She tricks a witch into making her appear human and heads to New York City to strip, shop and narrate her story in witty, sarcastic first person prose studded with country music and 2002-era pop-cultural references.

As Bam noted in her review, this book reads more like chick lit than romance - but fear not! Hell's Belles avoids the most annoying cliches of the genre, borrowing only the sex-positive (+ 2 crisp fives, tucked politely in the side strap), girl-bonding (+ a 20% tip), uncomfortable footwear (-$10 per warm domestic beer) aspects. A classy rhinestone-studded pair of 7" Clear Heels to Jezebel because she never says, "I can't help but wonder..." .

Refreshing fact: This book is delightfully angst-free.

I really like how Jezebel is completely not guilty about sex or stripping, or pretty much anything (+ 1 hour in the Champagne Room) . She also deviates from her chick lit sisteren in that she's not so much neurotic as clueless about certain human emotions. Yes, she does some dumb-ass stuff that seems to happen solely to move the plot along, but Jesse is a likable narrator, and it's easy to forgive her these tiny flaws when she's got so much else going for her.

Like many a chick lit, the romance in this book is pretty underdeveloped. I don't quite get what Jezebel sees in her true love, nor, what he sees in her. Still, this being a paranormal tale, we poor readers do get some sort of explanation about fate, and people who were "meant to be together" during the chunk-o-exposition toward the end of the book. Like that's supposed to help ( -$25 copay for Valtrex prescription) .

Good/bad news is, this is first in a series (-$25 copay for refills - serialized novels are a gift that keeps on giving), so more detailed characterizations and explanations may be forthcoming.

Hell's Belles is well-written, fun, fast and endearingly predictable. I'm not quite sure it's worth the $15 over-sized paperback format, but otherwise I have no complaints. Also, I adore Jackie Kessler's website design (+ a brand new $20, still warm from the ATM) even if it does feature a blog by her novel's main character (-$4 ATM surcharge).

Rating: 36-24-36 (Only if she's 5'3").

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