Happy "Tell a Fairytale Day" Everyone!

So apparently yesterday was Tell a Fairy Tale Day or something (I found this out while half-asleep from my beta, Lorien, who called to tell me). Lacking internet at home, I had to wait until I went into work to post a relevant blog. But here's my relevant blog, yay!

 

I love fairy tales. I've been studying them since my senior year of high school, when I became a library aide and discovered the fairy tale section on the shelves. I've read quite a lot of original tales, both well-known and obscure (nearly everyone knows some variation of "Cinderella," for example, but how many children know the story of "The Children Who Played At Being Butcher" or "The Juniper Tree" or "Bluebeard?"). I've also read and/or seen various adaptations. I own quite a few as well. I just love them.

 

Many of my novels and short stories are either adaptations of or incorporate various fairy tales, too. My Twilight Chessboard novels are inspired by Alice in Wonderland. My sci-fi novel that's slowly coming together (veeeeeeery slowly, since I have other projects) is a space odyssey (sort of) based on "East of the Sun, West of the Moon." I've written various shorts inspired by various stories (my horror short, "Perchance to Dream," is adapted from The Nutcracker, and my tragic fantasy, "The Rat Prince," intertwines "Sleeping Beauty," "Cinderella," "Snow White," "Beauty and the Beast," and "The Pied Piper of Hamelin."

 

Right now I've got two projects in the works that are heavily influenced by fairy tales.

 

One, my high fantasy (meaning set in a world other than our own), The Shepherd's Daughter, draws on The Nutcracker, The Wild Swans, and the motif of the four winds from East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

 

And my current baby (which I'm pushing 76,000 words on, eek! So excited!) is I Hear the Bones Singing, which stars several fairy tale characters including Cinderella, Bluebeard's wife, Rapunzel, the Snow Queen, Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. That one should be out this year (and hopefully will get picked up by an agent 'cause that would make my year)!

 

Apparently Lorien mentioned these books in her blog so I'm gonna go sneak over there and see what she says…

 

In the meantime, check out my fairy tale lists of cool things, yo!

 

- LA Knight

 

Some of my favorite fairy tale movies include:

 

-         Alice in Wonderland (2010) by Tim Burton (yes, Alice in Wonderland counts as a fairy tale; so does Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz)

-         Barbie as The Twelve Dancing Princesses (I know, I know—childish, right? But it's hard to resist a kid's movie with an assassination plot and ballet in it)

-         Beastly (one of the best modern "Beauty and the Beast" adaptations I've seen; the book's okay, too)

-         Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Disney (the book is fairly adult, but the movie can be viewed by almost anyone)

-         Little Red Riding Hood as done by The Cannon Movie Group (live-action with music, done in the 80s)

-         Neverland from the SyFy Channel (a science-fiction version of the Peter Pan story, very unique)

-         The Polar Bear King (low-budget and foreign, not well-done compared to many of these in the list, but it holds a special place in my heart)

-         Sleeping Beauty by Disney (best villain line EVER!!! "Now you must deal with me, O Prince—and all the powers of Hell!")

-         Snow White & the Huntsman (love this movie; and Chris Hemsworth is HAWT!)

-         Tangled by Disney (one of two best versions of "Rapunzel" EVER; the other is a short story and listed below)

 

Some of my favorite fairy tale books include:

 

-         Cinder, book 1 of The Lunar Chronicles (very original sci-fi version of "Cinderella." I'm getting the "Red Riding Hood" sequel for my birthday)

-         Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier (a well-written historical retelling of "The Wild Swans" set in ancient Ireland)

-         Entwined by Heather Dixon (a brilliant retelling of "The 12 Dancing Princesses;" it is one of my favorite fairy tale books, one of my favorite versions of this tale, and one of my favorite books, period)

-         Fortune's Fool by Mercedes Lackey (OMGOMGOMG!!! LOVE THIS BOOK!)

-         Golden by Cameron Dokey (a retelling of "Rapunzel" where Rapunzel is bald; yeah, how weird is THAT?)

-         The Mermaid's Madness by Jim C. Hines (a sad but fairly epic retelling of "The Little Mermaid," with appearances by Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty after the fashion of Charlie's Angels)

-         Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley (beautifully literary, a wonderful retelling of "Beauty and the Beast")

-         Spindle's End by Robin McKinley (LOVE this retelling of "Sleeping Beauty," so awesome, LOVE IT!!)

-         Splintered by AG Howard (an eerie but beautiful redux of Alice in Wonderland that just came out this year!)

-         Violet Eyes by Debbie Viguie (one of the best adaptations of "The Princess and the Pea" I've EVER seen EVER)

 

* Nevermore by Kelly Creagh (not actually inspired by a fairy tale, but inspired by Edgar Allen Poe, who is a literary great, so I'm counting it; Nevermore is one of my favorite books of all time)

 

 

And some of my favorite fairy tale short stories are:

 

-         "Beast" by Francesca Lia Block (a kinda sad but beautiful short, found in her anthology The Rose and the Beast, that shows the aftermath of the Beast's transformation back into a prince at the end of "Beauty and the Beast")

-         "The Blue Mirror" by Kathe Koja (a dark modern adaptation of "Bluebeard" set on the streets, written with beautiful language)

-         "Cinder-Elephant" by Jane Yolen (omg this story's hilarious, and the origin material should be pretty obvious, too)

-         "Gifts" by Poetofnowords (the most beautiful—and disturbing—version of "The Children Who Played at Being Butcher" I've ever read; I found it on Inkpop.com, which has ceased to exist, so I don't know if it got eaten by the internet or what)

-         "The Magic Circle" by Donna Jo Napoli (a sad story where the witch in "Hansel and Gretel" isn't evil of her own will)

-         "Match Girl" by Anne Bishop (a dark, disturbing, but ultimately empowering retelling of the usually depressing story "The Little Match Girl" by Hans Christian Andersen)

-         "Rapunzel by Tanith Lee (not to be confused with her much darker retelling, "The Golden Rope." This version of "Rapunzel" is pretty brilliant and really funny. Everyone should read it. You'll be surprised how everything ends)

-         "Red Under the Moon" by OceanFire9 (found on Fanfiction.net—it's really short, but it's spectacularly brilliant, a short look at "Little Red Riding Hood")

-         "The Springfield Swans" by Caroline Stevermer (a great retelling of "The Wild Swans" set in the Midwest and involving baseball; Ms. Stevermer also wrote another book I adore called River Rats)

-         "Tiny" by Francesca Lia Block (a cute but kind of confusing modern adaptation of "Thumbelina;" I love the story and the language, but the end kinda leaves me going, "WTF, mate?" Still, I like it)

My favorite fairy tale couple on television!

 

WWC WK9: Invitation in the Bag

Author's Note (2-19-2013): I'm posting this piece because it won first place in HarperCollins and Inkpop's Weekly Writer's Challenge #9, which was to write a story inspired by the painting Dark City. My novel that this is an excerpt from has been discontinued after much soul-searching, however, because its content goes against my spiritual beliefs and the tenets of my faith.

Author's Note (5-9-2010): Okay, this is for the image Dark City. I'm pretty sure I fulfilled all the requirements.

I used the word obsolete not once, not twice, not even thrice, but four times, and in 2 different ways. This work was also not post-apocalyptic. It's set in the real world, in real time. I worked the title of the picture into the text of the story ("this dark and decadent city") and had a yellow messenger bag.

The hard part was incorporating the dark hopelessness in the image into the entry. I think I managed that. And because of the lightening of the sky compared to the city, I felt it implied a bit of hope, which I also tried to show. These emotions were shown through Kate's feelings. But if you look at the picture, there are monsters vaguely outlined and hinted at in the clouds, and so I tried to show that with the fact that Kate's personal hope lay hints of danger (since her hope and joy is about seeing a psychopathic whacko). I also alluded to the actual visual image of the city with the red lights in the windows as well.

Although I think the entry word limit should be longer, I can write within it. The entry itself is 1,158 words.

I wrote this on Sunday, May 9. It's actually an excerpt from an adult novel I'm writing called Pretty Maids All in a Row.

If Sila decides to make it okay, I'm going to do a second piece about the Baobab Witch image. Well, I'll do one anyway and then see if she makes it okay.

Hope you enjoyed my descent into nutso-ness. Ta-ta!

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Blood.

All around her, within, without, about, around, over and under and through. It thrummed in her veins, pulsed in her wrists and at her temples, smeared across her lips and her eyelids. It was as if she were drowning in it. As the hot shower spray beat her skin, she felt the singing of crimson under her flesh.

Kate Madison opened her eyes to the stark, white walls of the shower. Stringy, black hair clinging to her head, plastered wetly to her face, she sat hunched in the ivory cubicle, wondering if she had the courage to accept the invitation.

"Don't you want to see him?" Maggie asked.

The ADA glanced over at the woman she knew for a fact wasn't actually there. The ice blue eyes bit her like snake fangs. The pale mouth curved up into a grin as the brunette woman flinched. That was the problem with Maggie. She wasn't just a hallucination—she was Kate's other self. The young woman's closeness with Jack Hollis had only made Maggie's presence in Kate's psyche all the more prevalent.

"Are you insane?" The lawyer demanded of her schizophrenic persona, realizing the futility of the question even before it passed her lips. Still, she pressed on. "He's trying to destroy the city. He's a psychotic killer-"

"So are you," her other half reminded her. Kate pressed her lips together. The psychotic killer bit was not entirely true. She wasn't psychotic. She wasn’t crazy, just a little... unwell. And she hadn't been the one to kill her father.

That had all been Jack.

What child wouldn't run from a swinging fist and a swinging belt? And wasn't it simply natural that she run out the door? To run straight into the arms of the one person in all the world who understood that blood warmed her ice cold skin, that fire against her eyes made her feel alive? Because he had felt the same way. His hands, colder than ice, colder than death, were warm when blood made them wet and hot. His eyes burned with the fires that blazed all around them, burning, always burning....

Why did you do it? She had whispered.

Authority is obsolete, he whispered back, his breath scalding against her ear. They are the Obsolete. They deserve death. And so did your father.

Kate wasn't sure if the moisture on her face was from her suddenly stinging eyes or the shower. But why would she be crying? It didn't make sense.

On her side of the pristine cubicle, Maggie wept into her hands, the strings of black hair dripping wet around her face in a sable curtain. Sometimes the ADA wondered if maybe she were the hallucination and Maggie the host form. Because it seemed as if Maggie was the only one who truly allowed herself to feel.

I miss him, Kate thought suddenly, and tears welled up and flowed like fresh blood. Inexplicably, she realized it was true. She missed Jack.

With David, her best friend since she was a little girl, she was Kate, fresh and good and kind, a fighter against evil, a bringer of justice. She worked within the system to bring about the end of crime in New York. Warmth radiated from her soul, impervious to the smog and grime of the city.

And with Harold, her fiancé, she was pretty much the same, except he considered her a little more naïve. David at least knew what she had dealt with in some aspects—her father's abuse, her mother's suicide and the consequent depression, the loneliness in law school thinking David had died, and even the tiny war waged against the corporate monsters intent on destroying her hometown. Harold hadn't seen her in those days, before she'd started on the meds.

But Jack...there wasn't a need for medications that numbed her soul and made her heart ache around Jack. He understood what blood and fire were for. Jack understood that the fires burning in the windows of the dark and decadent city burned red as blood. He knew about the allure of star bright steel, the shiny draw of a knife blade, the way blood over metal sang and smelled of new pennies and fireworks.

Jack understood things she had never had to explain. David and Harold would never understand the pull of the chaos. Only Jack.

"Can you live like this?" Maggie demanded. "Because I can't. We hide behind the masks, let the world smudge and erase who we are. We're losing ourselves, Kate. Jack is only one we can truly be free with." Tears rolled down the mirage's cheek. "Everything is so dark out there. How can you not want to light it all up? You need to! Let go, Kate. Just let the need flow."

"Let the blood flow," Kate whispered. "Isn't that what you mean? The blood and the fire flooding the darkness?"

Damn Maggie, the ADA thought, because Kate had to admit to herself that she was right. She could not live like this. She had to let the fire come.

"We'll go," she said softly, brushing her hair from her face along with the tears. "We can go. Stop crying," the brunette added, watching Maggie with eyes that, though a deeper, darker blue, were colder than the ice blue of Maggie's gaze. "Come on, before we turn into prunes."

We. The unquestioned, unquestionable we. With Jack's return and the gifts that had begun to appear, Kate had returned to that once-obsolete habit, the schizophrenic "we" of her middle school and high school days when she and Maggie had acted as a cohesive unit, aware of each other and working together to protect themselves and survive in the world that hated them both. Now she tried to bite back the tiny thrill that ran up her spine as she said, "We." The assistant district attorney didn't want to admit, even a little, that she was glad the meds that kept Maggie away weren't working.

Once out of the shower and drying off, Kate glanced at the neon-yellow messenger bag on the vanity. A gift from Jack when they were in middle school, she still carried it everywhere. In the blinding glare of the white lights surrounding the mirror she could barely see its contents, but she knew they were there: the red rose and the invitation.

Come out, come out wherever you are.

The city is dark and cold.

Light hellfire in the windows.

The Obsolete are washed away in the storm:

In with the new, and out with old.

Come play with me, Kate.

Oh, they were going to play all right. They most certainly were going to play.

Book Review - Delirium

"Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet. Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. The deadliest of all deadly things: it kills you both when you have it and when you don't…

"They say that the cure for love will make me happy and safe forever. And I've always believed them. Until now. Now everything has changed. Now, I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie."

So I'm back with another book review because I have no life outside of literature. This time I'm doing Delirium by Lauren Oliver! I actually own book 2 (minor mix-up, got Pandemonium before I managed to read Delirium all the way through) and soon I'm getting books 1 & 3, yay! Then maybe I can get some sleep and stop pacing all the time… I mean, what?

Delirium might seem like a totally implausible concept - a society where love is considered a mental illness and the government forces you to undergo brain surgery at eighteen to literally kill the part of your brain that generates intense emotion. Yet Lauren Oliver spins this world in such a way that it kinda scares the heck out of you totally makes sense. Apparently the author saw on the news about the panic created by some kind of illness-epidemic - SARS or Swine Flu or something - and it spawned the idea of the book. Because let's face it, people can be total morons do dumb stuff when they're really scared, and illness is one of those things that really scares people. Like zombies.

In Delirium, Lena undergoes a transformation from being terrified of amora deliria nervosa, the scientific name for The Disease (aka love) - and for very good reasons, actually, as love is what destroyed her life as a little girl - to realizing that the society she lives in, the cure she's longed for, and the disease she's feared for so many years are all lies.

Lauren Oliver is a literary genius who deserves a medal for word-smithing has a brilliant way with language. At times the narration, in Lana's first person perspective, is a little… not flat, exactly. It's perfectly fine. But sometimes these brilliant lines show through (a few are listed at the bottom of this blog) and when placed side by side with the more mundane text, there's a bit of a schism (kinda made me go, "Awwww… I love diamonds, but make them blue. I want blue diamonds." You know what I mean?). However, those word-choice jewels are what made me fall so intensely in love with this novel that I couldn't live without it because I'm absolutely pathetic decide to buy this book before I'd even gotten 100 pages in, which I NEVER do. We're too poor to do that, lol. Usually I check a book out from the library and read it, then decide if I want to own it. But I was so impressed by Lauren Oliver that I fell in love and became a crack addict for HAD to own Delirium.

Lena is likeable, a well-thought out and 3-dimensional character. She's also very believable. I still remember what it was like to be in love at 17, when (to quote my sister), "[the person you] had a crush on walked in the door and it felt like you'd stuck your finger in a light-socket." The intensity of young love really shines through, and not in a codependent, creepy way. While Lena makes some seriously life-altering decisions after Alex, the love interest, shows up, it's not so much for him as because of him. He opens her eyes to a lot of things, including what she'll be losing when she undergoes the procedure.

I talked to my sister, who's done a lot of research into sociology and such, about this book and she had some interesting observations about the social commentary in the novel. I remember (and so does she) being a kid/teen and having adults completely ignore and/or cruelly demean trivialize my feelings strictly because I was young. In Delirium, there's a big theme of "the officials know best" and "the adults in your life know best" and "once you're cured (aka grow up) you'll see how unimportant all of this is." I didn't consciously pick up on that until my sister mentioned it, but she's absolutely right - that generally universal teen experience is one of the themes of the novel.

An undercurrent to this book that I like is a shadow of the famous Shakespearean play, Romeo and Juliet. It's even mentioned in the beginning of the book as a "cautionary tale about the dangers of the deliria." Kind of like West Side Story, there are plot events that correlate to events in the play - Juliet being forced into a terrible decision when ordered to marry Paris, trying to get a message to Romeo, etc. I can't be any more specific without giving away too much of the plot, but it's brilliantly interwoven throughout the text. As a fan of the play, this just made me love Delirium even more.

Also the love interest is awesome. He's not your stereotypical dark and brooding hottie (like Daemon in Jennifer L. Armentrout's Obsidian or Jace from The Mortal Instruments, though Jace is more blond and brooding). Lena loves him not for his hotness, though he is attractive, but for his personality and how he makes her feel. It's different from most love stories I've read in YA novels before. The only two I can think of that are similar are Katniss and Peeta in The Hunger Games  and Cassia and Ky in Matched. With these three couples, it's not about wild hot crazy monkey lust and darkly magnetic Byronic personalities physical appearances and bad-boy vibes followed by affection and getting to know the guy. I really like that. Not that there's anything wrong with Byronic bad boys. I love those too, lol.

All in all, I give Delirium a 4.5 out of 5 stars (though anyone who takes issue with present tense may find that a deficit). My only issue - the end of Delirium. I can't tell you why, that'd be cheating. But obviously nothing too crazy happens, since there are 6 books in the series (if you count Hana, Raven, and Annabel, the three novellas about Lena's best friend, this other girl, and Lena's mom). But hopefully any issues I had will get resolved in book 3. Can't wait for it to come out! Eeep!

—     LA Knight

Especially brilliant quotes I adore from Delirium:

"Not gray, exactly. Right before the sun rises there's a moment when the whole sky goes this pale nothing color—not really gray but sort of, or sort of white, and I've always really liked it because it reminds me of waiting for something good to happen."

"…and then a new song starts, this one just as wild and beautiful, and it's like the music reaches across all that black space and pulls at something at the very heart and root of me, plucking me like a string."

"Snapshots, moments, mere seconds: as fragile and beautiful and hopeless as a single butterfly, flapping on against a gathering wind."

"I love you. Remember. They cannot take it."

PS - I now own Delirium as well as Pandemonium. Yay!

Dearly Departed - Book Review

                CAN A PROPER YOUNG VICTORIAN LADY FIND TRUE LOVE IN THE ARMS OF A DASHING ZOMBIE?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the mores of an antique era. Sixteen-year-old Nora Dearly is far more interested in her country’s political unrest than in silly debutante balls. But the death of her beloved parents leaves Nora at the mercy of a social-climbing aunt who plans to marry off her niece for money. To Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

 

Now she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting a fatal virus that raises the dead. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and thoroughly deceased. But like the rest of his special undead unit, Bram has been enabled by luck and modern science to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

 

So I'm kinda new to this whole book-reviewing thing, but I'm gonna give it a shot. I read every second of every day because amazing books are like food and air to me a lot, so I figure I've got just as much right to laud my literary faves as anyone. Well, one relatively new book that just blew me away (I only had one complaint, and it was a small one, really) was the steampunk YA romance novel Dearly, Departed, Lia Habel's first novel in her series Gone with the Respirations.

 

First, gotta love the series name, even if Gone with the Wind doesn't take place in the Victorian (or New Victorian) Era.

 

Second, because I've been seeing some rather bizarre names for main characters lately (Pagan, Jezebel, etc.), it's nice that we've gone back to something a little old-fashioned but still fairly normal - Abraham and Nora. Of course, Abraham's a name that will often get you beat up at school not exactly a sexy-guy name, but Bram is, which is the male lead's nickname, so I'm good. And I kinda like the name Nora. Not to mention Bram's last name - Griswold. It's just… neat. The perfect surname for a zombie captain.

 

I expected Dearly, Departed to take some time getting started. I mean, Nora didn't know about zombies at the beginning of the book, and I figured we'd have to get through some world-building and stuff. Plus, the book starts off when Nora's at finishing school. I didn't expect an immediate launch into awesomeness. But Lia Habel is my new literary idol a genius and managed it. Instead of first dealing with snooty girls at charm school for New Victorian princesses, we start off right away with a zombie attack from Bram's point of view. I was immediately sympathetic toward the character - which was needed when Nora meets him. After all, Bram is a flesh-eating, brain-devouring walking corpse dead.

 

Although if you look at the UK covers (posted at the bottom), he's a pretty hot dead guy.

 

I follow Lia Habel on Facebook and I saw a photo she'd posted of some of her original notes for Dearly, Departed. At the very top were the words "sexify zombies." In Bram's case, she's totally done it. Thanks to futuristic medicine (the book takes place about 200 years in the future), although Bram lacks a pulse, he doesn't eat people and he can use words of more than 1 syllable. He's not falling apart (unlike one of his comrades, who's missing an eye and just has an empty socket in its place) and the only ways you can tell he's dead are a) post-mortem cataracts that make him look blind, b) he's pasty as a dead fish, c) he has no pulse, and d) no respiration.

 

A lot of zombie novels (like Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth), while very well-written, are never to be read after dark because they're so effing scary also extremely dark, with not enough humor to lighten things up. Lia Habel does not make that mistake. Bram's got that cute guy-humor thing going on (he's the perfect combination of the romance hero archetypes αlpha male & βeta man), Nora is spunky and funny while still slipping into seriousness when necessary, and her friend Pamela - the other female lead - has her humorous moments, too.

 

I also love Ms. Habel's ways of describing things. One of the things that got me to read this book was the excerpt on the back of the hardcover edition. In a few simple sentences, Ms. Habel set the tone of the love aspect of the story. Normally I'm not into necrophilia (vampires don't count) but the relationship between Bram and Nora is spot-on and works perfectly. I adore it to distraction.

 

(BEWARE - the following contains spoilers for The Hunger Games and The Matched Trilogy)

 

And, and, and!! Dearly, Departed has no love triangle!!! Thank you, Lia Habel, for your contribution to the Anti-Love-Triangle Foundation. Not that I hate love triangles, I'm just kinda tired of them. Exceptions would be in books like Matched by Ally Condie, The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Xander, Cal, and Gale never had a chance).

 

The pacing of the novel kept me on edge, the funny bits made me laugh, not once did I get annoyed with one of the good guys, and I only managed to call one plot twist, which is impressive of Ms. Habel. Usually it's super easy for me to call a lot of them. I give Dearly, Departed a 95% or 4.75/5.00 stars.

 

My ONLY complaint: Bram and Nora's first kiss on the mouth. All that tension and build-up was delicious, but the kiss itself was a let-down. Le sigh. But other than that? Loooooooooooved this book! I'm hopefully getting it for my birthday, along with its sequel. Can't wait to read Dearly, Beloved!

 

Concerning the covers - I like that we see Bram on these two (I like his uniform and his haircut in the first one and the close-up on his face in the second one). I don't like Nora's clothes, so much, but that's because they're not Victorian. She looks like a 1800s Southern belle in the first one and like a 17^th century French girl in the second one. But the model is pretty. =) I also love the typography of cover #2. And I think (though I could be wrong) that the word "Departed" on cover #1 has bullet holes in it, which is just awesome. =)