FatGrrl Reviews: Fallen Embers by Lauri J. Owen

We were approached by the lovely Lauri J. Owen to review her new book, Fallen Embers. Now I must say that Ms. Owen is a lovely person and has been extremely patient with us because this review has been in the works for a LONG time. Between mail issues (Morgan didn’t get her copy for a LONG time because it got eaten by the USPS) and life issues, it’s been a LONG time coming. Thanks to Ms. Owen for sending us a great book with a fresh voice and story.

From Amazon:

“Was it the unnatural flame that transported Kiera and her nephew to an alternate feudal Alaska one snowy afternoon, or did the strange dog’s attack have something to do with it? All she knows is that now she and Alex are in an icy land ruled by a class of decadent mages who have enslaved the shapechanging, indigenous peoples. Kiera soon finds herself fighting to save three children from an army — and does so, to her astonishment, by summoning fire.

Before she can find her way home she must learn more about the local systems of magic and her own powers. On whose side should she fight? Whom can she trust — Marco, the young mage she saves, or fierce and handsome Laszlo, the slave captain of ruling Lord Vayu’s army?
Kiera’s path leads her deeper into Alaska, to joy and to heartbreak. Choosing to follow her heart may cost her everything.”

Morgan: Let’s do this. =^_^= FatGrrl.com Book Review Powers….TRANSFORM!
Ellie: Snort. Okay, Fallen Embers by Lauri J. Owen.
Morgan: Can I just start with our authoress?
Ellie: And how awesome and educated and Smrt she is? Because yay educated women?
Morgan: Besides being my co-hort in Idaho survival - YAY educated women! A lawyer with a passion for social justice and advocacy. That hits the sweet spot. Smart AND an activist. I liked that we saw the social justice theme pop up on a couple of levels. I saw it in the budding relationship between our heroine and hero, the hierarchy of magic users, and even among an entire class of Shifters that exist in the book. But let’s dig in to this more.
Ellie: Exactly
Morgan: Reading this novel, there is no mistaking it. I think I’d like to take this lady out for a drink!
Ellie: Heh. As for the book, any issues I had with it were outweighed (HA. OUTWEIGHED.) by her great magic system.
Morgan: Dude, what does it take to construct something like that??
Ellie: I read a lot of fantasy novels and it’s so hard for an author to get a new approach to magic systems and this was one that was very well explained and very well fleshed out.
Morgan: Very true. I think a lot of authors can just throw out a few keys words - rune, circle, wand - and the reader starts to pull from a lifetime of digested magical lexicon to imagine the world they are reading about. Good authors use that impulse and put a twist on it that engages the reader. Great authors totally claim it as their own and it challenges the reader to really dig in and invest themselves in the story. In case I was being vague, I’m going to put Lauri in that Great Author category. =^_^= I actually used the glossary in the back….
Ellie: And this was a very, very clever approach to it. I don’t want to give away too much and get too spoilery because y’all should definitely read it, but it used the basic elements - earth, air, water, fire - in a way I haven’t seen before.
Morgan: I agree - definitely worth further investigation.
Ellie: But our heroine, Kiera, is a modern day woman who is thrust into a new foreign world with her adopted son and has to figure out how to survive. Kiera is a fat girl, which you NEVER EVER SEE
And I appreciate how Lauri Owen gave Kiera the normal amount of fat-girl issues, but not in the way that authors usually like to do, by making it the central focus of the story.

Continue reading »

Trudging On

I’m really not so good at the waiting game. When there is a crisis I want to know what to do RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW. So sitting on my hands and waiting for the immigration attorney to formulate the game plan is kind of killing me. My Canadian is in a similar funk. But where mine is more anxiety and restlessness, his tends more to the depressive sort that involves a lot of self-pity and wallowing and “I’m gonna go eat worms” hysterics. As you can imagine, listening to it does little else but increase my anxiety and restlessness. This is a bad combination.

I totally know what PhD Smiley would say right now: what about trying some deep breathing?

How about trying to remove my molars with a potato peeler? That seems like it would do about as much good! I feel like an ass for thinking that, but that’s how it is right now.

What about you? What do you do in a crisis? Are you calm and measured, or psychologically catastrophic?

Watching: Lost - Season 5
Reading: “City of Glass” by Cassandra Clare
Playing: Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time (SO beautiful….)

Please Excuse our Mess

Hey, folks. I’m going to spend this weekend trying to get the google ads up and running on the site. Thanks to everyone for their input and support as I move forward with this. Of course, the top priority will be weeding out the ads that run contrary to the mission of this site, but if you happen to see one of those damn lame diet ads, leave the URL here in the comments and I will get it removed as soon as I can.

Jya!

Reading: The Outlaw Demon Wails by Kim Harrison
Watching: Lost: Season 2
Playing: Katamari Forever for PS3

Booze was created for days like this.

I’m a big liar, of course, because my little eating disorder-bedeviled soul has always believed that days like these - days in which you are quite sure someone SOMEWHERE is pulling on your strings and having a fucking good laugh at your expense - were made with dessert in mind. Lots of dessert.

So, can we call it a step in recovery that I thought of a stiff drink before a slice of key lime pie? No, I didn’t think so either.

The day started and I felt completely off balance for no apparent reason whatsoever. That doesn’t often happen. Generally I know e.x.a.c.t.l.y what is bothering. Doesn’t mean I’m going to be a big brave girl and deal with it, but I do know what the IT is to begin with. Not so today, adventurous readers! Today I was driving the Canadian to work, tears running down my face, and my poor husband asking, “Are you SURE you don’t know what’s bothering you?” I was kind of a mess.

But here’s where the Canadian gets big props: he swooped in like a devoted mother hen and took control of things while I was floundering. He told me I was taking the day off from the world, and he stopped the car, put me in the passenger’s seat, and turned us around for home. The plan was to tuck me in to bed with some movies and a bottle of Diet Coke. I started to feel a bit better, just feeling cared for. I can tell you that one of my favorite parts of being married - besides having someone to clean out the catbox because I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than do it - are those days where I’ve just had enough and there is someone there to say, “You need a break. Whatever you’re carrying around right now, let me worry about it for a while and you just rest.”

I was nestled in the passenger’s seat, kind of glowing; we’re two blocks from the video store, and then….steam begins to pour from under the hood of the car, and I cannot open my eyes wide enough so great is the shock. “Pull over! Pull over! Pull over! Now! Now! NOW!”

We caught a ride with the tow truck and hauled my poor baby in to the garage. Kudos to the Canadian for dealing with a woman who is not only temporarily emotionally unhinged, but also completely pissed off because the car had been in for an 80,000 mile tune up just THREE WEEKS BEFORE!

After hearing more than I care to admit about the considerable marital problems of my mechanic, we headed over to the tattoo shop to kill some time while they checked on my car, affectionately know as Beast Jr. And the day just kept getting better:

1. One of the tattooers put too much water in the autoclave and it sounded like a steam engine horn going off periodically. At first I thought it was a damn pressure cooker. Are they cleaning tubes or canning jam in there?

2. One of my terminal charity cases called from an apt. building and wanted to make a deal about rent. The BEGGING! The PLEADING! The SOBBING & SNOTTING! And all I really want to say is, “Would you mind terribly just fucking off for awhile? Thanks ever so much.”

3. Got a hold of my mechanic. Turned out my radiator is full of goo! And in the pause after delivering the news, the only response I could think of is, “Dude, I did NOT put that in there!”

Reading: City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
Watching: Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel
Playing: Trivial Pursuit for PS3

Tidbits

Today I took one step closer to realizing our relocation to Seattle: I registered to take the GRE. My first step towards applying for the Masters of Library and Information Sciences program at the University of Washington.

I took the GRE once before in 2002, but the deadline has long since passed so I will be enjoying that 4-hour thrill of multiple choice at the end of October. I’m not too worried about it. In fact, 2002 was the first year they replaced the logic section with the essay section and I was in h.e.a.v.e.n. I love me some essays, and you can believe I totally killed that part of the exam. I’m expecting a repeat performance again this year. So I’ll be spending some quality time over the next month memorizing Latin and Greek root words and brushing up on my Calculus.

You know how some decisions, once made, just snap into place? Like the satisfying snap of lego bricks. I love that, and it’s been a long time coming.

Reading: For a Few Demons More by Kim Harrison
Watching: Lost: Season 1
Playing: Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando for PS2
Listening: Lungs by Florence + the Machine (courtesy of Christina the Self-Righteous Drunk)

Current Obsessions

The Dark Reflections Trilogy by Kai Meyer

Hashbrowns (with lots of ketchup, please!)

James Cagney films (pre-1940, thankyouverymuch)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Lego Star Wars for Playstation 2

Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me! (Hello…a Limerick Challenge based on current events!?!? I can’t get enough.)

Celebrity gossip

My sewing machine.

80’s pop music.

The Teen Scene

There’s something about Young Adult fiction that I don’t often find in the (supposedly) more grown up adult market. The young characters have an inexperience about them that I find really appealing. That doesn’t mean they can’t be jaded; but they don’t seem withered either. I enjoy the nostalgia of watching a different pair of eyes navigate emotional landscapes I’ve already had to wander through. I want to know how it will turn out differently for them. Here are my latest escapes:

Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse (known as the Twilight Series) by Stephenie Meyer

Aside from the fact that it features devastatingly beautiful vampires, the main character Bella is someone I really like. She and I both spent the majority of our upbringing propping up our mothers, and Meyer hits it dead on in the book: the tangled sense of responsibility, resentment, and guilt that comes up when you are 17 and the only adult in a house full of grown-ups.

Tithe and Valiant by Holly Black.

I like faerie tales - you know, the Seelie and Unseelie kind of faerie tales - and while Black did a decent job with Tithe, I’d say skip it and go straight to Valiant. Overall, it’s a much more satisfying read.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr. I’m just getting started with this one. Will keep you posted!

The Stainless Steel Compass

Friday night found ‘Stina and I at the theater ready to pee our pants in excitement over the film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel The Golden Compass, the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy. By the end of the film, the pee-my-pants-excitement had been replaced by another bodily urge: I was trying to quash the desire to vomit all over that stinky mess of a film.

(This is your only warning: spoilers ahead!)

Trailers lie! What looked to be a truly inspired and visually fantastic trip through Pullman’s extraordinarily detailed world of Dust, daemons, altheiometers, and the sinister Magesterium, turned out to be nothing more than that: visually fantastic. The story itself was about as inspiring as watching Kiba methodically clean her butt for two hours (but at least I wouldn’t have to pay $10 to see Kiba do that).

The writing was choppy and didactic, and it didn’t feel like the great adventure it was meant to be for our young heroine, Lyra. Rather, we got one long string of dull happenings: first she did this, then this, then that, and then this, this, and that, followed quickly by doing more of this. The writer hacked Pullman’s great story to bits, rearranging and dropping bits, seemingly for no good reason.

The subtlety of the story was lost. Lyra’s deception of the old Armored Bear King and Iorek Byrinson’s triumphant return as King totally falls flat because we don’t get one crucial bit of information: you can’t trick an armored bear. It is the key to understanding the great extent to which the old Bear King had deceived himself and his entire kingdom - which is why Lyra was able to trick him. We need to know why the return of Iorek is so pivotal! And let’s not forget the most grievous and heinous of all omissions: Lyra’s betrayal of Roger. Yes, I’m talking about THAT very betrayal. Lyra, in thinking that she must bring the alethiometer to her father because he needs it to continue his scientific work, unknowingly brings Roger to his death. In fact, what Lyra’s father, Lord Asriel, needed was a child that could be sacrificed and it’s daemon severed, so that the resulting energy would open a tear between the worlds. This betrayal sets up the next two books. It’s vital! What possible reason could the writer have seen to leave that out. Seriously!?!?!

‘Stina and I were in a rage all through the final credits, and upon leaving the auditorium we found another theatergoer to vent our frustrations to. The bitching and moaning continued in the car as we pulled apart the film’s many, many problem areas. We were cheated! Insulted! This was the worst film adaptation ever! Why didn’t New Line Cinema hire Peter Jackson to helm this trilogy. HE knows how to properly handle a trilogy. And yet, there were several key points that ‘Stina and I agreed on:

The cast was stellar, and when they stepped up to the plate, they r.e.a.l.l.y stepped up to the plate. Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter, Sam Elliott as Lee Scoresby, Kathy Bates as Hester (only two lines - but such awesome lines!), and Ian McKellen as Iorek Byrinson….all fantastic. (’Course, when the cast was off, they were really, r.e.a.l.l.y off. What the hell was up with the doddering old fool that was Farder Coram? That was so wrong.)

Lee Scoresby’s air ship: the design in the film was SO much better than anything ‘Stina and I had imagined while reading the books.

Mrs. Coulter: she was stunning from top to bottom. The clothes, the hair, the make-up, and the way Nicole Kidman carried her off. It was perfect. I’ll admit that once she put her glasses on to read a party guest list, I had a bit of a girl-crush on her.

The art direction of the film was amazing. Amazing! The sets were magnificent, and I especially liked the concept and design for the research station, Bolvangar.

And yet…so butchered was Pullman’s story, I can’t do anything else but to urge you to wait for this one to go to the cheap seats. Then once you’ve got a taste of the brilliant imagery, jump in to the books for the truest experience. In the meantime, for your entertainment, Kiba will be presenting daily, free exhibitions of butt-licking. By appointment only.

As if we needed another reason to love this lady…

JK Rowling, the woman that brought us Harry Potter, adopted a retired racing greyhound.

This woman rules. RULES!

Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan has died.

If you haven’t read his books, he wrote the Wheel of Time series, which includes 11 books, to be concluded with the next book.  If you read fantasy books at all, and haven’t found his series yet, they’re excellent.  I reread the entire series at least twice a year.  It’s probably my very favorite book series.  The women characters are strong and independent, and the mythology is complex and interesting.  If you haven’t given them a try yet, you should.

Jordan had a rare blood disorder, and in the last few months his health was really failing.  He knew how much his fans have been drooling over the last book, and from what I understand from different online sources, he compiled extensive notes and audio tapes as he got progressively sicker so that other writers could finish his book for him.  That is really something to admire.  In spite of his failing health, he remembered his legion of fans and made sure that they wouldn’t go without the ending to the story they loved. 

He will be missed.

~Ellie