Books 'n' things

[sholio]

1. That handmade meme - naye sent me a package of total condensed awesome. ♥ ♥ ♥ I haven't even started making anything for anybody yet!

2. And here's why I won't be working on it this weekend -- I got all of my Amazon.com boxes! Which means I'm currently drowning in tempting entertainment options! Pepper and space zombies, or Harry Dresden? Choices. SO MANY CHOICES. ♥ Here is a partial list of what I have:

- Sly Mongoose (Tobias Buckell) (already about a third finished!)
- Backup (Jim Butcher)
- Welcome to the Jungle (Dresden files graphic novel - I CAVED)
- Why I Hate Saturn (Kyle Baker) (I love Kyle Baker, and there's still so much I haven't read!)
- Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China (Leslie T. Chang) (I read a review of this book a little while back and put it on my wish list immediately - it sounded utterly fascinating!)
- Inkheart (Cornelia Funke) (I know nothing about this book and haven't even seen a trailer for the movie - please do not spoil me even a little!)
- Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot (John Callahan)
- Two more seasons of Scrubs

And I was halfway done with China Mieville's Un Lun Dun when all of this arrived! Plus, in the process of hunting down fiction markets, I've become thoroughly sucked into the many, many joys of free online fiction, such as the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler which is currently sitting open in a tab. I am SO DOOMED. I'll see you all in April. XD

3. On the subject of books (like I need more books), WTF happened to the next Locke Lamora book? It's been available for pre-order on Amazon.com for ages, but now that we're almost to the release date ... it's gone! It can't be had! Is it just a glitch, or have they pushed back the release date? And if so, then why aren't they showing any dates at all? WHERE IS MY BOOK?!

Comments

[naye]

First of all: *beams*. You're making me so happy! ♥

Second: NOES! Poking around the internet reveals that there's talk about the manuscript not having been turned in at all in December 2008, and other bookstores now listing it as a late August release... Siiiiigh~. Fantasy authors. So unreliable! How dare they have a life!

I'm going back to snuggling my One Piece, where there's a new chapter every week, unless the author is attending the one con they drag him out of his office for, or. Dead? (Seriously, Oda is incredible about keeping his publishing schedule. 20 pages a week, every week of every year for going on 11 years.)

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

NOOOES! *wails* Silly authors, having lives and such.

Oh well. It's not as if I don't have enough to read already ...

[spark-force.livejournal.com]

Rumors have been floating around that the next LL book has been pushed back a ways. D: All I really know for sure is that Scott Lynch posted on his LJ a few days ago, saying he'd be gone for a while longer for "personal reasons."

*sigh* Why this book?? I want to know what happens next, dangit!

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

So it's beginning to appear. *sniffle* I hope that it'll be worth the wait when we do get it ...!

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

I'm happily making my way through the Dresden Files tv show, so I just have to ask: are the books in any way comparable to the show? Because I'm enjoying it a lot, but then I also love Dexter on tv and think that the books are crap.

Help?

[naye]

Totally butting in here (hi!) to say that I think the books are way better than the TV show! And I rather liked the show. But the books make so much more sense, and introduce a whole host of characters I love rather madly. ♥ The books also get better as they go along, and are now very high on my list of Yearly Things To Look Forward To. So much awesomeness!

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

Nice, thank you. I'll check them out, then. ♥

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Like Naye just said -- the books are better than the series, at least in my opinion. For one thing, they're huge -- it takes the first few books to really gather momentum, but there's an incredible, gigantic, complicated world in the books that just builds and builds; I admit that I haven't seen all of the TV show, but what I saw didn't give me nearly such a sense of scope and complexity. And the books have a bunch of awesome characters that aren't in the series at all; Harry's little circle of friends and supporters and relatives and pets is really a lot of fun. The TV show seems to focus mainly on Harry and Bob and Murphy, and while I do love them, I love some of the others at least as much.

I definitely recommend them!

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm a sucker for good world-building. Thanks.

Uh, say, which one is the first, though? They all say (Dresden Files) behind the title, so which one do I start with? ^^;

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

The first one is Storm Front. (http://www.amazon.com/Storm-Front-Dresden-Files-Book/dp/0451457811/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234006887&sr=8-1) Here is a list of the books in order (http://www.jim-butcher.com/books/dresden/). :>

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much! ♥

[friendshipper.livejournal.com]

Heh. I also wrote fanfic for it. (http://friendshipper.livejournal.com/74683.html) XD

[lavvyan.livejournal.com]

You did! That's awesome! :D

[ladyofluthien.livejournal.com]

The TV show got me into the books, so I thank the show.

But I heard it got cancelled cos too many fans complained it wasn't the same. Eeesh. (Of course it's not the same!) I don't the the Blue Beetle would be very photogenic. So I like the Jeep he drives.

But, Jim Butcher said at some point that the TV show was like in the same 'verse as the books, but like an alternate universe.

[parisntripfan.livejournal.com]

Actually from what I heard the problem with the Blue Beetle wasn't that it wasn't photogenic, it was that Paul Blackstone had a hard time getting in and out of the car... which goes to show the advantage of proses - the author doesn't have to worry about things like that when there are no real people involved.