Wednesday Review 2/3/10

So this weeks review is on the first book of a series of books I like to read. I'll probably end up doing review on each of the books, but I really wanted to start with book one. Mostly because her most recent installment of the series just came out. The series is called the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series by a lovely woman names Laurell K. Hamilton.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="240" caption="I love this cover out of all of the different ones that have come out"][/caption]

So, this book itself came out in 1993. I probably started reading this series... well there were quite a few of the books out by the time I picked up the series, so lets say maybe 2003 or so. So by the time I came into the series there were several books already out so I got to work through the books pretty steadily at first, then had to be a patient little reader waiting for the next set of books to come out. All in all wasn't too bad of a way to start off the series.

I quickly got addicted to the characters and the story line that followed the series, so about seven years of being an avid reader of hers (including diving into her other series as well, which I will talk about later) I thought I would do a little review on the series. So... here we go.

Guilty Pleasures is a series of books that follows a woman named Anita Blake. Anita starts off the series as a full time Animator (someone who raises zombies) and Vampire Hunter as well as a part time helper of a police squad called RPIT, and goes through this first book introducing us to the world that she lives in where those monsters under your bed and in your closet are real. Here is a good snippet on what happens in the book brought to you by Wikipedia:

Anita Blake lives in St. Louis, Missouri, in a world where magic, vampires, werewolves, and the like are, and have always been, "out of the closet" and, in some cases, even legal. Anita is an "animator," with the ability to raise or inter zombies. She uses this ability in employ at "Animators, Incorporated," where she raises the dead for various purposes including murder investigations, will explanations, and other legal services. Anita also works as a "vampire executioner," killing vampires (by court order) and advising the police on supernatural crimes. This first book takes place in July when Anita is 24.

In Guilty Pleasures, Anita is blackmailed by Nikolaos, the vampire master of the city, into investigating a series of vampire murders. During the course of this investigation, Anita begins her relationship with Jean-Claude, another master vampire, and receives two of the four marks necessary to make her Jean-Claude's "human servant." Ultimately, Anita identifies the murderer, but by that point has sufficiently antagonized Nikolaos and her underlings that she is forced to confront them. Ultimately, with help from Jean-Claude and Edward, a human associate who specializes in assassinating supernatural targets, Anita kills Nikolaos and many of her followers, making Jean-Claude master of the city.

So that wraps up what the basis of the first book is about and it sets it up for things to come. That is one thing I like about Laurell. She has a habit, of when writing, that its like life (even though our idea of a life doesn't include what Anita's does) and she writes her books like she's telling a story, like someone retelling an event that has happened. Instead of it being a definitive ending like a lot of stories, where you asking what comes next for these people? and then are left hanging when there is nothing that follows about them. When these stories are written you get the feeling that that story has been told and you know that there will be a new adventure and story with her.

Really that's why I like series books because you get to know characters a lot more then you would in a single book story. You get to get more into the world and the characters in the stories. Things get so rushed in single books, in series you get a chance to explore people and worlds better.

Anyways, to wrap it up, I give this book a 5 out of 5 for books.

Cara Mia Amore

Tuesday Random Post 2/2/10

So... I had yesterdays and today's posts all written up and... poof! they disappeared into the abyss of my work computer as we lost power at work. Which brings me to the wonderful new, and different, topic for this random topic of Tuesday. THE SAVE BUTTON.

I am usually a very anal person when it comes to constantly saving when I am working on projects, especially on word or some system I know has the potential of crashing at any point. I learned that lesson many years ago when I was first starting to write and lost an ENTIRE beginning of a manuscript I had written because I forgot to save and word crashed and was unable to recover the document.

What sucks about work is that our computer systems are on a shared server (as are most companies), so if power goes out or your system goes down for any reason you lose what you were working on and very rarely can recover documents that were unsaved to your system. And because I was getting busy at work and only periodically working on my mock ups of my posts for this week, I had overlooked saving as I usually do when the system went out I knew that I was screwed.

As a writer, most of you understand the importance of saving constantly as well as keeping backups, especially when we are a writer who's livelihood is based on making sure that their work is not lost to evil computers. And those of use who don't base our livelihood on writing, but wish we do, still would die if we lost our works. So I tell you all this:

USE THE SAVE BUTTON!!!!!

Cara Mia Amore

Monday Character Development 2/1/10

**This is actually a delayed posting, I apologize for the lack of post on scheduled day**

With this first Character Development post I want to also introduce you to the form I use in keeping track of my characters, that way everything is uniform in how I keep things filed. With that being said, I am going to do this first character development on a character that is a character in one of my shorter stories in my world.

Name of character: Neasa.

Main novel: God's Story.

Role in novel: Major character.

Physical description, distinguishing marks: She is short, right around five feet tall, she has chesnut brown hair and chocolate brown eyes. She is a bit over weight compared to the standards of what you would see. Her hair is to the floor and is normally in three braids and then wrapped around her head to “crown” her. Her form is ever changing and never settling. She takes the form of whatever child is in front of her or needing her. Because all of her Children have a variety of different forms that is why her form never truly settles around them. When she is just around her husband, who is the same way, her from goes through the different stages of life: maid, mother and crone. She also bears a scar that goes across her abdomen from the birth of her children.

Birthdate: Unknown, the only ones who would have any idea of her age or birthdate would be the fates, but because there is no sense of time or a way of tracking it on Calypto.

Place of birth: Calypto

Spouse: Asher

Children: Alastar, Keeva, Leander, Naida, Drake, Draca, Lupus, Phoebe, Raven, Phoenix, Marius, Deirdre, Jorun, Marah, Alvar, Fae, Micah, Ceri, Caden and Tristan. These are her children but not in a traditional sense. She did not carry them individually but all at once and they burst into being from her abdomen, hence the scar, but they come out in full adult form with all their powers and gifts.

Mother: Technically she has no biological parents. She and Asher were brought into being by the Fates to start a world that they foresee.

Father: See above.

Siblings: None.

Occupation: She's a god.

Residence: Calypto.

Age (separated by story): Unknown.

Godshape: Anything and everything.

Powers and affinities: Basically Neasa and Asher have all the powers that are even possible to have. Their magic is what allows their children and their children's children to have magic. There is no magic that exists outside of the magic that Neasa has. She has an affinity with death and chaos. She can cause death or mayhem with a thought and is only balance out by Asher.

Race: God.

Notes: The Fates lived alone on Calypto with no true purpose. A vision is had of a world of gods and world of non-gods. To make this future and to give them a purpose, the three fates create a man and a woman. They are opposites of each other. Neasa short where Asher is tall. Neasa dark where Asher is fair. Life and death. Creation and destruction. Peace and war. Yes, they have all the powers out there, but Neasa has more strength with the darker powers focused around death. Asher is focused around lighter magic. Neasa and Asher are by themselves on Calypto for quite a bit of time similar to Adam and Eve in Eden.

Cara Mia Amore

Sunday Background and World Building 1/31/10

So this Sunday's World Building and Background is going to be just a generic introduction into my world.

The world that my stories revolve around is called Torrest Reyenne. It was created by some very bored gods who were bugging their parents. Mommy and Daddy dearest (more about these two on a later date) decided to make a contest for their children. They would join together and create a world. They would then have to populate the world with their children. Basically what the contest does is get the whiny bored gods out of Mommy and Daddy's hair.

Torrest Reyenne is a world of magic, there are magical powers, the ability to switch shapes.

Its a world very similar to our own.  Their technology is as advanced as our as well as in some places being slightly more advanced (working on the specifics of that)

There is a lot that I am trying to work out right now, but that is the gist of it for now.

Cara Mia Amore