The Most Horrible and Perfect Sentence of A Dance with Dragons

First, a note: No spoilers, I swear. You can read on safely, fellow fans.

Ten days ago was the release date of GRR Martin's A Dance with Dragons, a book for which I, along with many fans, have been waiting a long time. Not that I mind - there's plenty of other books to read in the meantime - but once it was there, I wasn't going to wait another day.

I bought on Tuesday and spent my week doing little else with my free time than read through the thousand-page epic.* I was done Saturday afternoon, and "forced" the book in a friend's hand so I'd have someone to discuss spoilery goodness with.

Not that I'll expand much on the book. By now there's plenty of reviews out there if you're curious. 

See, Martin does grim and brutal super well. He's known for the frequent character deaths and general grittiness of his setting. And among a bloody description of a city's ruins after the war came by (bodies in the water, entire streets burnt down, etc.) was a sentence fragment so perfect  I just had to stop.

Maybe it's just me, but that sentence caught my attention, and that rarely ever happens when I read. And with all the set-up I just did, maybe you'll be disappointed. :P It's still one of the most horrible and perfect sentence I've read in a looong time (hence the title!)

So, here goes. Remember: part of a list of war-related horrors. It wasn't standing alone. And if you're eating anything, put it down.

Children fighting over half-cooked puppies.

And that's it! Tell me, do you remember powerful descriptions that made you stop and pause?


*It's 959 pages of actual text, but with the appendix it goes over 1000. So, I decide that it qualifies!

You Should Go Into the Woods

My internship has one precious advantage over my previous (well, current but "on pause") job: there is a lot of downtime, and I can do what I want with it. I try to do some housekeeping at the lab, of course, but there's only so much tip-racking I can put up with in a day.

The result is that I read a lot more. I bring my kindle along and can alternate between science papers and novels as I wish.

Last week I started (and promptly finished) David Gaughran's short story collections, If You Go Into the Woods.

So pretty and creepy and awesome!

So, how do I put this...

Creepy.

Chirp.

Mysterious.

Chirp.

Masterful.

Chirp.

 More seriously, though, both of the short stories within are great to read. This is well worth the 0.99$ you have to pay through Amazon. It's short and sweet, perfect for a coffee break. I'm not a big short story reader, but these left me with no regrets at all.

For the record, David keeps a wonderful blog chronicling his progress through self-publishing, along with what he did to get there and what you need to know. It's an incredible wealth of information on the subject, so if you find yourself contemplating self-publishing, you should definitely keep an eye on it.

A Giant KAPOW!

Molecular models for the win!

I hope you backed up your lives, ladies and gentleman, as today might be the end of us all.

May 12th. A plague unleashed upon us all. A young boy, trading a corndog for a spaceship, shooting into space and blowing up the universe. Be ready for it!

It's time to party! 

May 12th is the release date of Jacob Wonderbar and the Giant Space Kapow, by the most awesome Nathan Bransford, whose blog and forums I've squatted for months now. Did I say he is awesome? Oh yes, I said he was awesome.

In honour of this launch, here is one explosive mix: Alkali Metals and Water!

P.S: Thursday is my post day at Wicked & Tricksy! Come check it out, if you dare.

Three Little Gifts From Me, To Me

I'm a student, and it's a well-known fact that students don't have that much money to go around. At the end of this holiday season, though, I found myself with a little extra, and I decided to give myself a little something.

Three books on the craft of writing.

It should be understood I can't pick those books at local libraries. They have a limited english selection, which does not include anything on the craft of writing. Plus, there are very few of these books that are translated. When I checked a few 'classics', all I found was King's On Writing, which I promptly devoured.

So what do I have now?

• How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, Orson Scott Card
• Write Great Fiction : Plot and Structure, James Scott Bell (apparently I picked "Scott" people ..?)
• Writing the Breakout Novel, Donal Maass

I'll be starting with Maass. He's by far one of the most often recommended book I've seen around. Hopefully I'll learn something from all of these before I jump into the (fast-approaching) next draft of White Echoes!

I Bet the Rug is Tired

Human societies have a history of sweeping their problems - past or present - under the rug, and acting as though they aren't there, and never were.

The most recent example of this is, of course, NewSouth Books' decision to pubish a version of The Adventures of  Huckleberry Finn  completely free of offensive words.

I've spent the last days trying to come up with a clear way to say how I felt about this. All I ended up with was this:

It's idiotic.

Thankfully, Donna at Bites has a far more eloquent post that reflects what I mean to say. Same goes for Sommer's post Go read these, it's well worth it!

Sharing the Banned Book Love

(I nearly titled this Share the Bad Book Love. That would've been shameful, and I need more coffee.)

This post is part of Tahereh's call for Banned Books review, although I will apologise right away, because this is not a review – not a proper one anyway. I wish I could give one, but I have not read a banned book recently (or any other book, really) and this novel I last read six years ago, as a teenager.

I figured, though, that since I am a storyteller, I should blog about how I fell in love with this story.

Yep, I'm talking about To Kill A Mockingbird, from Harper Lee.

Despite this being an award-winning novel, and often taught in American schools (or so I hear), it is a bit of a miracle it ever reached me. I was 15, a teenager obsessed with fantasy novels, and I went to a French school, as is the norm in a French-speaking province. English classes rarely, as such, presented us with interesting piece of literature. It was hard enough to teach us a new language, they had to make sure they had our interest, and as such they'd often use books we already knew (namely Harry Potter... twice). 

So, yes, I was lucky enough to get an extra-motivated English teacher, not yet discouraged by the lack of interest she received from her students. And she forced us all to read To Kill a Mockingbird, and made sure we did with small tests. As with 99% of school books, most of the class hated it right away.

Heck, even I had trouble at first. I had to get over the southern accent (thank god for dwarf-speak, which gave me a few tips as to what meant what), there were no fast-paced scenes like in my regular fantasy novels, and always thought Scout was being an arrogant know-it-all. Half this book is about kids playing games in summer, and my teenage self wasn't sure she cared. 

I kept reading, though, and not just for class. I kept reading because of the mystery behind, and because when I start a novel, it takes a lot for me to put it down (says a lot about those I never finished...) I started to see the life lessons as I went on, to understand what it was about and what I had to learn. When my friends told me the novel sucked, I answered "Keep reading. There's a story in there, and it means something."

I finished the novel within a week of the handout. I remember telling my teacher I loved it, and I remember her smile (and her surprise.  I bet most of her students don't go that fast). It's a bit hard for me to say why To Kill a Mockingbird became so special for me, but I know I've defended it against friends with a passion before, and I can remember the story better than most other novels.

There were a lot of barriers between To Kill a Mockingbird and me, but this novel breached all of them and touched me. I will never regret the hours spent with it in my hands (and will forever scold myself over the highlighter marks in my copy, when I still couldn't care). 

This novel, like many others, deserve to be read by as many as possible. Censorship should have nothing to do with literature. When I think that others are trying to keep these stories away, to silence the authors that wrote them, I shiver.

Love your Banned Books. Cherish them. But even more importantly, Share Them.