I know I'm in my own world... it's okay, they know me here

Sometimes these things don't even have to write themselves. Sometimes THEY ALREADY ARE.

I've been off work this week which has been lovely. Not only have I had lots of sleep but I have avoided being responsible and grown-up and done a lot of watching TV shows and read books.

This one book in particular you will be interested in, my loves, and I know you will be interested in it because it is called 'The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty: The Erotic Adventures of Sleeping Beauty' and is all about how Prince Charming finds her asleep in her castle, has sex with her unconscious (virgin) body to wake her up then takes her as his BDSM love slave back to his castle where lots of princes and princesses are kept constantly naked as BDSM love slaves and tormented, because apparently this makes you a better ruler. How this works is yet to be explained.

It's one of those books that: a) has to be read to be believed and b) you keep reading even though it seems Anne Rice is really, really into spanking.

( Like REALLY. )



I am so tempted to buy volume two you have no idea, mostly because I am a bit sick in the head.


In other news, I am going to try to restart doing a rec for you guys every day, if people would be into that? Here's the first of them anyway!

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For those who love witty banter and crazy hijinks and dragons, this fic is for you! A fantastic fusion of Generation Kill with naominovik's Temeraire series, focussing on Ray and Brad. You don't have to have seen GK to read this fic, or in fact have read Temeraire, though as both are awesome you totally should. Really this fic's main strength is the wonderful characterisation of Ray, who has such potential to be irritating but is instead terribly endearing; also the skill with which the prose is written and the description used is so on-period for the Napoleonic era despite using characters who are quintessentially modern in their outlooks and syntax. Seriously, this is good. Read it!


Carrying Dangerous Goods by novembersmith. Summary: From the Signal Code of the Royal Navy and His Majesty's Aerial Corps: B, or Bravo -- I am taking in, or discharging, or carrying dangerous goods.


Tags: generationkill, temeraire, brad/ray, slash, fic, au, crossover, fusion, crossover:generationkill, crossover:temeraire, fusion:temeraire, a:novembersmith

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Since I reread the novel just yesterday, I thought I should rec a Pride and Prejudice fic today! It's sappy but wonderful.

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The End of the Honeymoon by Jane Elliot. Extract: For the most part Elizabeth Darcy did not regard the lack of formal statements of love. Darcy loved her, they were happy, and overall her life was more than pleasant.


Tags: prideandprejudice, darcy/elizabeth, het, fic, yuletide2006

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In case anyone's interested, sarahtales, author of The Demon's Lexicon, is putting up a new short story every week based in the same universe. This week's story is Sorceror and Stone, and it's totally awesome. Go read it! You don't have to have read the book to understand it, either.

Today I logged onto my email and thought I must have been majorly spammed, because I had so many emails, but it was people wishing me happy birthday! Thank you everyone! I got all the stuff I asked for, which is neat. It was a weird kind of birthday because it didn't feel much like one really due to the fact I had all the normal day stuff to do. But now I am older! And also now I have the second set of Merlin DVDs, so I'm pretty happy all-in-all :D

My dissertation first draft was handed in last Friday, and already my tutor is getting back to me about it - I'm meeting her tomorrow. Which leaves me with - 10? - days to complete the editing and hand in the final version. Plenty of time! (I hope!)

Last week my brain threw a tantrum about doing so much concentrating, so I gave in and went off to read the Twilight books, since I've heard bad things about them but wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

ionaonie on MSN.">

I read all four of them last week. The first book was by far the best, and I really quite enjoyed it - Iona was shocked, and I have to say I was surprised after all I'd heard about it, but it hit some of my real fiction kinks, and I liked Meyer's style and use of description. However, for the rest of the series, she suffered from a sophomore slump that continued on a downward slope.

Similarly to HP7, I enjoyed books two through four for the most part while I was reading them, but once i had finished was a little unsatisfied. In the first book, Edward is more mysterious and we have to guess at his feelings through his behaviour (which is properly masculine), whereas in the later books, and increasingly so, he starts talking about his feelings far too much and too openly. Even girls don't do that.

The second and third books I still like, but in a general sort of way, with some bits I really thought were good and other parts were kind of meh. But the fourth book, while it had some very good sections, also had large sections where it just read like badfic. There is a loose plot, but mostly it's 'they got married then they had a baby then everything was yay oops need a plot DANGER! yay!' Some individual sections were good, but as a whole it lacked sophistication. It's a shame, because i liked the first one a lot. I've never been a big fan of love triangles, which didn't help; I liked the forbidden romance / they can't touch! edge to the first one. The first book's story has really stuck with me in a big way, my brain is still turning it over and enjoying thinking about it, but the later ones it seems to ignore.



That's what I've been doing lately - working and having brain tantrums! What about you, flist? What are your opinions on Twilight? What have you been up to?

So, I guess I'm kind of a book snob.

(BTW, I am totally over all the freaking out today. It seems to have blown over. And also I have finished all my exams! Yay! So happy happy la la today. Tomorrow gotta go have my hair cut and buy Dad and Gail a happy engagement card. For those who don't know, they got engaged last week and told me on Monday, at which point I proceeded to freak out over all the change that implied, but I'm over it now.)

Over on Smart Bitches, Trashy Novels a male author who has just been told by his publisher that he has written a paranormal romance wants a primer in paranormal romance, and so has asked for recommendations.

Now, I love paranormal-type novels, and alot of them are paranormal romance. So off I trotted to Amazon with many of the titles from this list to see what they were about, what I thought by reading the summaries, that sort of thing.

But so many of them had really bad trashy covers, and as soon as the pages loaded my finger tended to hit the 'back' button without even scrolling down to read the blurbs.

I'm sure there are very good trashy novels out there, and aren't you supposed to not judge a book by its cover? But so many novels with bad covers are bad inside. How do you tell the difference? And does this make me a snob? If so, do you now look at me with less love and respect than you did before? (Surely it is not humanly possible for you to have less respect for me than before, I hear you cry.)

And when I'm looking at agents, and who they've got on their client lists, and not only see no names I know but see novels with trashy looking covers from publishers who publish that sort of thing all the time, should I be looking for other agents or thinking, 'this agent got that author published in the right place for their novel', rather than, 'do they have the contacts for the kind of novel I want to publish? And do they even publish novels of the standard I hope I'm writing at?'

Am I just an incorrigible snob?

I got this from trinityofone, and it's really cool - it's a site called GoodReads, where you can keep an online book diary with reviews of everything you read, and network with other people to see what they're reading, and also get reviews of books you're thinking about reading. I love it already, and I've only been on it for ten minutes. Give it a go :)

Good Reads

(By the way, this is my subtle way of telling you to join up and come be my GoodReads friends, too :D)

I am also - shock, but not horror, please! - almost finished with the short story I am writing, 'The Things I'll Never Do'. As I am a chronic non-finisher, and you all know this, I expect you to be gaping right about now, but I am not lying! Hurrah!

And also, today on the bus I had an idea for an SGA fanfic I actually quite want to write, which I will do after I finish TTIND, so more yay!

Today is now official Yay Day ^-^

After watching the magnificent Night Watch, and reading the book, I really, really want to read more fantasy stories that are based in Russia, because I've only read one other fantasy based in Russia and that was awesome, too, and so, y'know, from Russia with love, please. If anybody should have any thoughts on the matter. (ali_calder, you are my greatest hope, if you ever actually read my lj entries at all.)

Today I am a little bit ill, on and off, so I was going to go out but didn't in the end because I woke up fast asleep this morning and going out would not improve this for tomorrow. Tomorrow being an entire day off, and Thursday morning too because it's not my week for physics practical, so, y'know, cool :D

Also, am rereading the Temeraire sequence by Naomi Novik which you SHOULD ALL READ, LIKE, NOW, OR I WILL BEAT YOU WITH A STICK, because I found out on Sunday that none other than PETER JACKSON just bought the movie rights to all her books! HOW cool? I'm so happy for her, she's also one of my favourite fandom people :)

(In case you're wondering, Temeraire is a set of fantasy novels set in the Napoleonic wars, but with a dragon-based air force! And the writing is just so, so good. So basically, read it. Read it now.)

I am now torn between Night Watch icon and Temeraire icon, but I will use the Temeraire one because if you go to my journal you can see my Night Watch icon as my default on my sidebar :)

I've been rereading some of my old books lately, remembering how much I loved them. First I reread my Anita Blake books, and I was really enjoying them all the way through book nine until book ten, when it became crap. Those who have read them will know what I mean; those who haven't cannot understand the depths of rubbishness to which they sank. This is my 'late Laurell K. Hamilton' impression:

Ooh, a sexy new character! He's sexy! Ooh, a shiny new power! It's shiny!

So I gave up and didn't finish rereading the series. Now I'm rereading The Wheel of Time, and even though Robert Jordan has made it hugely long and complex and difficult to remember so you have to reread it every time a new one comes out, and even though he pairs everyone up like a big romantic girl, I'd forgotten how brilliant it really is. Just... wow. The patience and the planning and the sheer cleverness of it all. I love it all over again.

Now for a new feature which I've decided to do because I want to and I feel bitchy today:

Ten Things Amy Hates to Find in Fanfic

Out-of-character-ness: Please, for the love of God, if you're writing fanfic keep the characters in character, because otherwise it's not fanfic, it's just mess. Fanfic implies that you be able to recognise the characters and situations when you read it, not that the names be the same.

Feminisation of male characters in slash: Why, why, why, are you writing a heterosexual story with male plumbing? Isn't the point of slash that both of them are men, with all that implies, rather than one being a woman wearing a man suit? This is one of the most common things to piss me off. People writing stories which obviously hold the relationship at the centre of it to heterosexual roles. Why, for instance, would two guys necessarily want to adopt kids/have kids? Sure, they might do, but most don't. That's more a girl thing, more often than not.

Limp dialogue: If the original show is incredibly witty, and you are not, don't try to be, because it falls flat. I know that you might want to write fanfic in that fandom, but really, some things are hard to imitate, you know? You can write fanfic which doesn't try to be witty in that fandom and still have it ring true, if you're good.

Getting things wrong: As in getting details wrong that are clearly known from the canon. Yes, everyone makes mistakes, but sometimes it's not a mistake it's just you being stupid. 'Nuff said.

Bad spelling: It's not hard to hit spellcheck at least, is it? Or even to actually read it before posting it? I'd like to be able to read what you wrote without having to correct spelling in my head so that I can understand your puerile meanderings. (Ooh, harsh!) And bad grammar! Ohmigod, if you mean to do any sort of writing at all, learn the rules of the language in which you are writing! Supposedly you were born into it! It's not that hard!

Cliche: Sometimes it works, especially when the author is doing it on purpose. Sometimes it's just stupid and boring and there are a million other fics out there exactly the same and much better than yours. Suck it up and write something original, m'kay?

Spoilers which aren't listed at the top: Not everyone has read/watched as far as you, and that's fine, except for when you don't warn people. Because then we find out whether we want to or not. And, you know, that sucks, alright? I'm one of those people who hates knowing about anything before it happens before my very own eyes, and I've been known to make horrifying threats towards people who try to tell me anything I don't already know.

Americanisation/any sort of nation-isation: Don't bitch about not knowing the customs of the place where something is set, that's where it's set and anything else is un-canon and doesn't work and is bad. It's not hard to ask questions or merely avoid areas where you might have to show your iggerance. It's called RESEARCH, and there's this pretty thing called the INTERNET now which makes that a whole lot easier.

Everyone's gay! stories: Because there's such a high ratio of gay people to straight people that everyone in a given show could possibly be gay at once unless by some massively improbable fluke which doesn't fit with anything ever *eyeroll* See: Gundam Wing, where all the pilots are apparently gay, and all the girls are lesbians, and so they all have babies together and are happy and gay. And gay, did I mention gay? I like slash, but I want to be able to believe it, I'm not one of those people who goes, 'cool, they're gay, that's so hawt'.

The never-ending story: Where basically there's no plot, but the story just goes on and on forever about banalities. It may have started out with a plot, but you never wanted it to end, so you just kept going about how they all settled down and had babies and marital or marital-equivalent bliss. Yeah, I don't really care enough to read forever and ever. End it on a high, there is always a better end point than 'and then she washed his socks and they were clean and he loved her more than any Jedi warrior in the entire universe and gave her a big wet kiss and...'

I'd love to see anyone else's top ten, if you feel up to doing it. Either post on your own ljs or in the comments here. Or add any to the list, even, that you feel have not yet been properly represented. Feel free to be as bitchy and rude towards stupid people are you like :D (I have low tolerance for stupidity, as you may have gathered XD)

I'm not going to Debbie's thing tonight, sadly, though I want to, because giving all your friends the lurgy is not my favourite way of saying 'Merry Christmas!' So I hope you all have a good time and I'll see you soon. If you don't go back until some time after the end of next week I'm actually finishing work next week, so after that I'm free (and probably won't have the lurgy.)

I did go to work today, though, and was reasonably okay. I get paid, which works well for me and my bank balance, naturally. I missed lounging around at home watching X-Files, but then again I finish next week so after that I'll have time (when I'm not revising, of course.)

Damn, I want more Terry Pratchett... Thud! was so good, I love Vimes. I think the City Watch books are my favourite. Or maybe the Death ones...