Girl Genius - Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio

This is both a Once Upon a Time IV & Graphic Novels Challenge 2010 read.

On Friday I read a glowing joint review from The Book Smugglers (who are currently celebrating a second Steampunk Week) about this omnibus edition of the first three volumes in the Girl Genius series. So, despite current attempt to resist adding to Book Mountain, on Saturday my copy arrived and I spent a rather lovely afternoon in the garden reading it whilst enjoying the sunshine. Which, it should be noted, had a rather detrimental impact on the book's spine. :(

Girl Genius is an online webcomic and can be read for free - starting here with new pages released every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Described as a "gaslamp fantasy" featuring Adventure, Romance and Mad Science and, honestly, what more could you ask for?

The Girl Genius in question is the curvaceous Agatha Clay - a student at the Transylvania Polygnostic University who unable to build anything that actually works and seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. Chuck in a tyrant Baron Wulfenbach with an airship city, his son Gilgamesh (perhaps a hint of lurrveee for later episodes?) , a host of supporting characters (mostly made of awesome!) and an action-packed plot and you have a story that is both light hearted and funny. Oh - and I absolutely loved the artwork too.

After the first book, the series is released in colour however the omnibus was black and white. I don't think that was hugely detrimental to my enjoyment but having had a look at the panels online I would have definitely preferred to read in colour. I would absolutely love to be able to justify the purchase of the whole series in individual editions but am not sure even I can convince myself of the $23 a pop (plus post from the USA) investment when it's available free online. Unless it was an investment, of course....

The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

This is a Once Upon a Time IV read.

I have one very strict rule when it comes to reading books that belong to a series. The series must have been already written. All of it. The only exception is if I am absolutely sure that the novel can be read as a stand-alone too. There is a reason...

Many years ago, in 1995, I had a summer job at the Bertram Books Warehouse. These are the guys who supply bookshops, and libraries, with stock. At this point it was still a family owned business and they had a massive warehouse near the centre of Norwich which was about a mile from where my parents lived. The point of this story is that they also had a staff bookshop where the damaged books were sold for 10% of cover value. As you may imagine this meant that they received a substantial proportion of my wages straight back!

To cut a long story short, with diligent application, I was able to build up a Wheel of Time collection for a fraction of its actual cost. All six books. The eagle-eyed reader will have spotted a flaw in this purchase but the younger Peta was very pleased with herself. I read all six books back to back. And then realised that although Lord of Chaos has an epilogue (you see, I'd flicked to the end of the last book to be sure that there was a "proper ending") this was not the Last Book in the series. The next year A Crown of Swords came out and, having waited for a while for it to be released in paperback, I started the whole series from the beginning and when I got to the end of the seventh book I realised that this was not the Last Book in the series... Much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments ensued and it was at this is point that The Rule was implemented and it has not been broken since.

Now I have known for a while that Patrick Rothfuss is one pretty cool guy. I read his blog. I've bought (too many!) tickets for his fundraisers. I've seen evidence that he loves Ana from The Book Smuggelers. I've read other people's universally raving posts about his debut novel and watched the central character, Kvothe, progress to the semi-finals in the cage matches where he was beaten to the final by Jaime Lannister. Who stars in another rather famous series that I have not read. Because it is not finished.

So why give in now and come to the party so late? Well. I'd just finished Absolute Sandman One and wanted to read a really good fantasy novel. One that I knew would be excellent.

I also had a nasty feeling that I was missing out on something that I shouldn't be.

So having given in and broken The Rule was it worth it? Well. All I can say about this book is "Oh to the Em to the Gee". Please note that phrase was not used seriously! This guy can write and I absolutely LOVED this book. Kvothe has to be one of my favourite ever heroes, he has a great story to tell and I have (almost literally) not been without my nose in this book since picking up first thing yesterday. Hurrah for bank holiday weekends!

In fact I loved it so much that I have already placed a reservation for it with the library - even though there is no confirmed release date and amazon currently has it scheduled for August 2011. It seems that two other people from Norwich can't wait either though as I am already third in the queue!

Clearly I am gushing too much to be able to explain clearly why I loved it so I suggest reading what the following bloggers thought:
A Dribble of Ink (plus an interview in parts one and two)
Strange Horizons
Neth Space
The Book Smugglers
Fantasy Debut

Additionally, Orion Books have posted a really nice series of interview with Pat from Summer 2008 in three parts one, two and three. He really is such a cutie!

Absolute Sandman Vol 1

This is both a Once Upon a Time IV & Graphic Novels Challenge 2010 read.

I think it might be time to tell all about a little book buying "accident" that happened earlier this month. I bought (on impulse) volumes one to four of Neil Gaiman's Absolute Sandmans... I've never even read them (which I feel perhaps I should have done to splash out just over £50 per book!) but in my defence I've known that I neeeeeeeeed to own them for at least two years and a couple of weeks ago I had what we shall call a "whoops".

Yes, dear Reader. I bought all four leather bound, hardbacked, slip-cased, digitally re-coloured and generally utterly gorgeous volumes. Whoops indeed! And even had the courage to 'fess up to Mr B before the arrival of the first package. Who kindly didn't point out that we will be moving house in the next few weeks and have to pay for boring things like stamp duty and solicitors fees and removal men and woodworm and damp and render and oh ye Gods what have I done...? Oh well - too late for regrets. :)

Volume One collects the first twenty issues of The Sandman series of comics, written by Neil Gaiman, with the story focusing on the character of Dream – one of the seven Endless - and so covers the trade paperback editions of Preludes & Nocturnes, The Doll’s House, and Dream Country. With guest characters from the DC universe, this books weaves mythology, folk-lore and history together to create something really rather special. What stood, not entirely unexpectedly, out for me about this series is the quality of writing. To be fair, I’ve not read a huge number of comics but some of these stories were so beautiful and I can’t imagine that many series have the guts to include whole episodes that are so self-contained (although do fit into the wider story)

Extras include an introduction, Gaiman’s original series pitch (with outline plot and concept art) and, my favourite inclusion of all, the complete script and Charles Vess’s draft sketches for the 'Midsummer's Night Dream'. As I was reading, I was thinking about the creation process between the story writer, the penciller, the colourist, the inker and the letterer so it was absolutely wonderful to get this insight and I spent ages pouring over this section.

When searching for images to use to illustrate this post I came across the following picture collected on on this blog showing just what a difference the re-colouring has made.
I know some have complained about the "cartoonish" quality of the above but me? Love it. Plus it justifies my purchase. *cough cough*

Genuinely, I am so very pleased that I splashed out as this book is really, really lovely and fantastic quality. It's massive with leather(ish) embossed cover with silver lettering and a black silk bookmark. I felt almost guilty just opening it (eek – cracking the spine! What if I rip a page?) and the dogs were most put out that I was reading a book that was so large there was no room for them and it on my lap. I have even kept the box it was packaged in so that it can be adequately protected during the house move (!) I think I might just be coming across as weird now but in my defence, a great deal of care and attention has obviously been lavished on its production. I can’t wait to read on to the next set of stories although naturally, other than this one, the only volume that’s actually arrived so far is the fourth one so some self-discipline is required of me… Never my strong point!

Once Upon A Time IV - The Shortlist

Hip Hooray! Spring has officially Sprung! At last...

As I look out of the window I can see blue skies and bright sunshine, snowdrops are giving way to hellebores and primroses, my daffodils are nearly in bud, the crocuses are fading and there are tiny shoots starting to form on the roses and clematis. It won't be long now before I can enjoy walking through the woods carpeted in bluebells. I think this might be my favourite time of year in the garden - so much promise of what's to come.

My desk at work has no line of sight to the outside so I've only enjoyed the much needed sunshine we've been having this week on the walk there and back but as I've taken today off as holiday, I intend to spend it enjoying guilt-free blogging, reading and taking the dogs out to enjoy the gorgeous weather with me. If he's very good I might take Mr B out too but he's working on an epic cine-film transfer in a dark room with the curtains drawn and the black-out blind down so perhaps I had better not tell him how lovely it is outside...

I meant to put this list up last weekend but somehow time got away from me - actually I was feeling a little "under the weather" after a great birthday party for a friend - so now seems as good a time as any. This list is in absolutely no order whatsoever, is only made up of unread books I have to hand and is subject to whim.

Absolute Sandman - Neil Gaiman
Goblin Market - Christina Rossetti
Biting the Sun - Tanith Lee
Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin
The Night of Kerberos - Mike Wild
The Rain Wild Chronicles - Robin Hobb
The Crown Conspiracy - Michael J. Sullivan
The Thief - Megan Whalen Turner

As ever, half the fun is seeing what other people choose and I absolutely can't wait to start this challenge properly.

Once Upon A Time IV

Yay! It's time for Carl from Stainless Steel Dropping's Once Upon A Time again.

Now in its fourth year, this reading challenge is all about the story. In this case the kind that fits roughly under our own personal definition of four categories: fantasy, folklore, fairy tale and mythology. The challenge officially begins on Sunday, March 21st and ends June 20th.

There are several levels of participation and I have chosen "Quest the First" which is to read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time IV criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

"Quest the Second" is to read at least one book from each genre and I'll try to do that but suspect I might get a bit tangled up with my definitions!

Glancing over my shelves there are so many books I have to choose from that I'm itching to start right away but after seeing this post by Nymeth , I'll be reading The Enchanted April first which should take me nicely through to the official start date.

In closing, I should also mention that I absolutely love the image that's been chosen for this year - the artist is Melissa Nucera and she also has a horribly tempting etsy site.