Selina RosenBesprekingen

It was fine. The first half held my attention much more than the second. Definitely could have used a proofread - typos and one character whose name changed three times in a very small part of the book - but not incredibly distracting. I got it for free from the Kindle Unlimited program or else I may have returned it for a refund. I hate paying for books that have so many blatant errors... I expect that from online fiction, not for books that have to be paid for.

"That woman is... well, she's way out of my league. I only ever date really homely women; there's less heartache and rejection that way"

My third book by this author. And I was actually surprised when I saw that. I thought I'd read a lot more by Rosen. Hmms. Not sure what happened there.

Not exactly sure when the book was set, but seemed to be early 2000s, at the very least after 9/11, and before the explosion of ebooks (and, to a certain extent, during).

So, two authors were slowly rising up the book charts. Doing everything 'correctly'. They got a publisher and the publisher is publishing their work. Then shake-up in the publishing world. Consolidation of the big players. Some success, some failure of the small press. 9/11 happened. Economy tanks. 'Luxury' items like books got put aside. And the two authors went down two different pathways.

One, the first point of view in the book, went the ghost writer route. His books had stalled, and he got an offer to ghost write someone else's book. So, needing money, he did. Now he makes $50,000 - $60,000 a year ghost writing but hates himself. And most people around him.

Second point of view is a woman who stuck to her own books. Publishing one or two a year. Has a small but eager fan base of roughly 8000 people (I don't recall why that number is in my head). And is popular at conventions. Probably spends more than receives from her writing, though. Has to work many odd jobs to barely make ends meet. Is happy has own books and own name on books. Has rearranged her goals and desires to 'able to make a living writing'.

First point of view man is named Tom Parker and is best friends of Sherry Hays, the second point of view. There are at least three point of views. If not more. A third point of view would be Diane, a convention goer, though she only 'comes alive' as a point of view a lot later in the process.

It's one of those short books that feels longer than it actually is, though I don't mean that, necessarily in a bad way. Just that a lot is packed into a small package.

The book description on GoodReads is probably good enough. I probably should have just pointed at that and gone on my merry way. Certain issues, though 'Meanwhile, he barely ekes by.' He makes $50,000 to $60,000 a year while living in a location where he was able to buy a house for $20,000. He is not barely eking by. He might not always have much in the way of money, but that's on him - he spends his money stupidly. It's not that he barely ekes by, it's that he gets paid peanuts compared to the other people in the process. His agent, the guy who gets him the ghost writing gigs, gets paid a fortune. The person whose name is on the cover also gets paid a fortune. While he gets a very tiny amount. Still, 'barely ekes by' isn't the way to convey that information.

'Yet she constantly refuses Tom’s offers to get her work ghost writing.' - I believe there was once, maybe twice when Tom actually mentioned ghost writing work. If that. There might not have even been once. There were times when Tom thought about the situation - both how he had asked in the past, and how she might be able to better able to make ends meet through ghost writing, but there isn't a constant stream of him offering ghost writing work, and constant refusal.

Right, so. I'm not sure how to label this one. It's a book about book writing/selling/etc. Stars a straight man, and a lesbian woman (two different people, in case anyone gets confused). Certain amount of romance, though that's intermixed with other stuff. A lot of political ranting. It's not slice of life because a ton of time goes by. Well, at least 4 or 5 years. Book wasn't as interesting or fun as the two other books I'd read by this author.

Hmms. I do not really know what to say about this book. I'd been putting it up for possible next reads and pulling it for a longish while now. So I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. It was good for what it was, whatever that might be. I could have lived without the male masturbation scene(s) (I distinctly recall one, I just don't recall if there were more).

December 21 2015

My second book by Rosen, and just like the first one I read, I was initially reluctant to give the book a try. I had this one on my possibilities list for a longish while, and had tried the sample a few times.

Beginning kept putting me off. Mostly because the book is set up with, what I assume are transcripts from pod-casts which have tips on how to survive an apocalyptic situation. Then story stuff. So there I was trying to see if I wanted to try a book and kept running into this survival tip thingie. And that kept tripping me up. I kept not wanting to read that, not wanting to skip to story without having tried podcast, etc. Eventually I just got the book and read it. I admit that I did so directly because of the other book I have read from this author. Completely different genre and subject matter, but I also had a tough time trying to convince myself to try the book but ended up loving it, so . . . I just plucked up my courage and read this one.

It was an interesting enough book, I suppose. A woman has made a nice living through subscribers to podcats in which she gives tips on how to survive stuff. Like the apocalypse. She isn't doing those podcasts for the money, though, but because she deeply believes that the world is about to end. And has believed this to be the case since she was a small child (her parents love of disaster movies, she notes, might have played a part). The money, though, has helped make her own arrangements for survival that much more . . . (insert word here I can't think of). Basically she would have lived in a certain area, with supplies, and in strongly defensivesable (against the weather and like) dwelling. The money just helps her add a few things.

Right. So, if all goes right with the world, and to a certain extent she would have much preferred this outcome, she would have been the crazy paranoid woman doing these podcasts until she fell over dead from old age. Without an Apocalypse occurring, I mean. Well, that isn't what happened.

What happened was, and here's one of my problems of the book, horrible humans existed. Well, I tried to figure a way to make that sentence work, didn't. Point is that the author has the same rant over and over again in the book about how everyone are so damn much materalistic, and if we just hadn't been involved in the middle east for oil, and stuff, the world would have been a much better place. Also, religion kills. And is stupid. It's not that the ranting doesn't have a certain amount of sense to it, it's that it comes up non-stop constantly. Throughout the book. I mean, I get it. The world went 'pfft, humans disease, must get rid of them' *the planet thinks then wiggles really really hard*. And it did so because humans dumb. Just stop telling me over and over again, okay?

Right, well, I meant to say "what happened was that Pakistan and India traded some nuclear missiles, causing the dominoes to fall over and the world went all apocalyptic and stuff, with earthquakes and volcanoes being set off by the nuclear exchange and massive waves of dust crowded the skies, and caused issues". Right after those missiles flew through the air, Katy (the 'crazy' one) had proclaimed, through her podcasts, that the world was about to end now. So, take your survival kits and hole up. Probably too late, now, to flee.

While readying her area for the coming storms, as in pulling her windmill down into the ground and shielding it, and covering her solar panels, a reporter and camera man turn up. The same two who always come out to interview the crazy woman. Katy is somewhat willing to talk to them because 1) their constant observation and cracks about her being crazy actually boosted her own subscriber base; 2) the reporter woman is hot; 3) this one is more one that unfolded as events occurred - talking to them for a few minutes allowed her to tell CNN's viewers to hunker down and expect the worst.

Then the worst occurs. Katy's all safe and snug in her hidey-hole. Annoyed, though, because her idiot sons didn't follow her advice and hightail it to her place before the storms started. So, all safe and secure, when she hears a knocking on her door. It was not a raven saying Lenore, but a woman, the reporter from before. Somewhat changed in appearance, it must be noted, since the wind and storm has blown, and or torn most of her clothing to shreds. She's whimpering. And wishing help. Mostly, entrance. While babbling about how she had run from where her car, and camera man, just got picked up by the wind, to be lost somewhere up there.

So, Katy breaks one of her own rules and allows this reporter to enter. I've a strong suspicion that this reporters name is Lucy, but I'm do not have 100% recall these many days after having read the book. And everywhere Katy goes, walking through her place, she turns and there's Lucy, stuck to her like a frightened woman needing reassurance that other humans still exist.

So. The apocalypse occurs. Lucy and Katy are in Katy's place. Massive waves of snow blanket the area. Long long winter. Other people turn up to inhabit the small bunker Katy built. Tensions built. The longish winter continues.

An interesting book. I felt slightly disconnected from the story, though, for unknown reasons. There were some funny moments. Some moments of 'please stop ranting already, or, if you must rant, change to a different rant, please', some moments of love, and affection in the post-apocalyptic world.

This story was something of a roller-coaster. And quite frankly I was a little scared of it. In an odd little way. I just felt that there was no way it could have a happy ending. I mean, there's this happy moment at something like 16% into the book (16, 9, 11, whatever it was). And I knew, that was too bloody early for such a moment. Unless bad things were about to happen. And I was right. The little roller coaster car the reader was in was at a high point. Then whee . . . falling quickly downwards. Then up again. And down.

I'm being somewhat purposely vague. For the most part I loved the side characters. And, for the most part, I loved the main characters of Jessy and Joan.

I don't normally particularly like the "love at first sight" type of story, but here it had to work that way. Because of the people involved. Jessy is a hermit, because of events in her past she had to get away. She's spent, basically, six years up on a mountain by herself building a massive lovely home. Joan's a self-proclaimed rude bitch who must try everything, at least once. Including every kind of man out there. Striving to get that itch scratched that never seems to actually get scratched.

That, above, is a false impression on one level. Jessy had been a hermit. But had been dragged out on tour for several months by the time she bumps into Joan. Naked. In her . . . hmm, I suddenly can't recall if it was called a hot tub or not.

But I was mentioning why it had to work this way, love at first sight. Jessy had been burned way too often to allow herself to try to get close again. Hell, one of the reasons, not sure how high or low this falls, but one of the reasons she agreed to go out on the road again was, to put it crudely, is for pussy. Out on the road for months. People screaming in joy that she's back again. Out there. Throwing underwear at her. And . . . even though she keeps saying that she's just about to go have fun with groupies, or something like that, she never actually does so. Because she doesn't want to be burnt again.

So, basically what I'm saying is that the only real way that a relationship could suddenly develop would be through love at first sight. Lust at first sight certainly wasn't going to do it.

Course, that's one of the reasons I was somewhat scared about the book, after I started. Two reasons. One, I came to like Jessy and knew that if something bad happened, Jessy would become unglued. Two, Joan's one of those women who didn't realize that they might actually be a lesbian, and once realize such, didn't want to admit it publicly because of fear for their career. And Jessy has been burnt many times, well two times, by getting into relationships with women who don't want to admit, publicly, to be in a relationship with Jessy.

Right, so, Jessy James was born in a rat infested building. Was found at the age of three hiding in her closet, nearby was her dead decaying mother who had been killed, probably, by one of her "tricks". Mother having been a junkie prostitute. Tossed around in the system, Jessy eventually made it, too late to a certain extent, to a good couple. Who bought her a real drum set. One thing lead to another and Jessy and her band, Tidal Wave, became massively popular. Rode the wave for about five years then imploded. Mostly because every other band member got hooked on drugs. And Jessy's lover of the time died in a exploding car. A car driven by this lover into a pole. Around this time, Jessy gets hit by a drunk driver. Gets put into a walking cast. Gets dumped by a different girlfriend who couldn't admit to being a lesbian and returned to her husband. After all of this, Jessy had to get away. Story opens six or seven years later with Jessy living on a mountain in a home-built home. Watching television. VH1 to be specific. And randomly stumbles across the story of her own band. And life.

Hmm. That's a wall of text if I ever saw one. Was going to mention Jessy, then Joan, but bah. It'd just be another wall of text. So.

Jessy - fabulously talented singer/songwriter/hermit in hiding last 6 years.

Joan - fabulously talented singer/actress/songwriter with a reputation of being flightly in romance, hooking up with everyone.

Jessy + Joan = ?

Loved the book. Though, as I've mentioned, I was on edge and scared everything would be ruined.

A fun collection of Bubba short stories as they kick Yumbie ass around the world.

Katy has been prepping for years for the apocalypse....too bad few people took her seriously. Now she's set to become queen of the world if she isn't driven crazier by her kids or the reporter that shows up at her door. A rip roaringly fun tale.

A very entertaining book, not quite as effective as a murder mystery but great fun to read.

It started out slowly with the introduction to the characters, and it took a few chapters for them to gel and feel real and at first I didn't think I was going to like the Vivian Storm character, but by the end of the book she felt less like a characture and became more believeable and sympathetic.
I didn't do any research on this, but I would love to know if the authors each wrote one of the characters and then put them together. The chapters fit well, but they did feel distinctly different, which I feel worked in this case, you got a real feel for each character without one taking prominence over the other.

My pet peeve about this book is a common one in "mysteries". People acting blindingly stupid throughout the whole book.

At least in this one they gave a good reason for people to be acting stupid. Participating in a reality show gives great license for stupidity in my book.

But the main crime solving characters, who in theory have a better understanding of the dangers they face? They shouldn't have been THAT stupid, not and get to not only solve the crime but simply live.

Still, it was fun, the humor felt natural and not forced and I would read a book with these two characters in it in a heart beat.½

Yumbies and bubbas continue their war through time and across the planet. A really enjoyable collection of stories. I think the Yumbies are winning.

I hunted down this book after reading several of Selina Rosen's short stories in some anthology books that I have – I always enjoyed her short stories, so I thought I would give one of her novels a try. I was disappointed.

The story meanders along for a very long time. It may be a conglomeration of many short stories – the annoying patchwork of font sizes and spacing in this book shows the problems of cut & paste gone wrong.

The characters in this book lacked any subtlety of meaning and were very one-dimensional. The book tells you exactly what one character is thinking and feeling, and then exactly what another character is thinking and feeling, and then exactly what a character standing outside watching the action is thinking and feeling... and so on. Even a character who simply walks into a room, and then back out again, never to be seen in the rest of the 400 pages of the book has a paragraph devoted to what they were thinking and feeling. This oversharing is at it's most unbelievable when it seeps into the dialog of a military man who shares his deep, true feelings about the person he is escorting with a person who is manning a road-block (and is about to kill the military man and the person being escorted, of course) – a truly surreal situation. This makes the book a very fast, if not very satisfying read.

Tarius, of the land of Kartik, travels to the neighboring land of Jethrik to join their swordmaster academy. Both his parents were killed by the Amalites, and Jethrik is currently at war with the Amalites, so Tarius wants to kill Amalites. He quickly distinguishes himself as an expert with the sword, and is noticed by Darian, the headmaster, and by King Persius. Tarius also attracts the notice of Jena, Darian’s daughter, who only has eyes for Tarius. He tries everything possible to push her away, to no avail. Tarius is hiding a huge secret, which will not stay secret forever; Tarius is a woman.

Jethrik is a land of rigidly defined gender roles; among them is the absolute prohibition on women wielding steel. Tarius leads several successful campaigns against the Amalites. Persius gets the Amalites to leave Jethrik land, and agree to a peace treaty (over Tarius’ strong objections). Beings like the Amalites, with a philosophy of Convert or Die, will not be bound by a piece of paper; they will be back.

Eventually, Tarius’ secret is revealed, and, as expected, Persius, Darian and Jena hit the roof. Tarius is to be immediately executed, by being dragged throughout the kingdom, tied to the back of a horse. She is helped by friends, nursed back to health, and heads home back to Kartik. Jena is forced to marry Tragon, a man she despises. After her repeated refusal to let him into her bed, Tragon unintentionally kills her unborn child, and Jena kills Tragon. For a wife to kill her husband is a major offense, so Jena is convinced that fleeing to Kartik, to see if Tarius will take her back, is a really good idea.

This is an excellent piece of writing. It’s a sword and sorcery novel with an emphasis more on the "sword" than the "sorcery." The reader will not be disappointed.

The Sword Masters chronicles the adventures of young Tarius, from admission to the Sword Master's academy, through being knighted for saving the King's life, to becoming warlord of all of Jethrik's armies. If you enjoy stories of the young hero's rise through the ranks, with lots of epic battles, then this book is for you. There is enough swordplay to satisfy the most demanding fan of swashbuckling adventure.

If you prefer your swordplay set against a magical backdrop, then this is definitely the book for you. The berserker werewolves, and the occasional invocation of magic, clearly qualifies this novel as sword & sorcery.

If your tastes run more to romantic fantasies, where the young couple has to endure long separations while the hero rides off to battle, leaving the heroine vulnerable to the machinations of the villainous rival, then this book is a must have. There are enough dastardly deeds, lovers' misunderstandings, and outright betrayals, followed by emotional reconciliations (not to mention make-up sex) to satisfy the most jaded fan of romantic tear-jerkers.

If, on the other hand, you prefer character development to mere action, then this book is...still a pretty good bet. Tarius may be the perfect warrior, but comes with a Shakespearian-style tragic flaw -- the one blind spot that inevitably leads to the character's downfall. I was, admittedly, a little worried there that the last half of the novel was going to get bogged down in maudlin Greek Tragedy, as Tarius insists on going down a doomed path against the advice of all his friends. Tarius' actions at this point are so spectacularly wrong-headed that it is almost annoying, but the fall is relatively short-lived, and the story quickly gets back on track with the slaughter of yet more enemies.

Of course, some of you might be bored with the yet another "young-hero-makes-good-by- slaughtering-everyone-in-sight" novel, even when it is reasonably well written. In which case -- you guessed it -- this book might still be the book for you. Rosen has taken the standard S&S tropes and turned them inside out, producing a rather subversive fantasy. Although others have tried similar twists before, Rosen pulls it all off within a fast-paced narrative that keeps readers glued to the page.

I did have a few minor quibbles with the book: First, don't read the backcover blurb. I understand and appreciate why the publisher had to include so many spoilers in the write up in order to be fair to buyers, but you will enjoy the book more if you don't know anything about the story going in. (I've gone to some length to avoid any spoilers in this review.) If you like the S&S genre at all, just trust me on this and buy the book

Second, I questioned some of the details of the various battle scenes: crossbows have greater range than long bows? Heads get cut off shoulders that easily? Tarius is a military genius but puts the royal family and the entire command staff on a single vulnerable ship? What happens if that ship goes down? But it's mostly minor stuff.

There were a couple things that I was going to complain about, but changed my mind as the novel progressed. I found the comic relief that seeps into this otherwise very dark novel whenever the magician or the witches show up, initially somewhat off-putting. But upon reflection, I realized that Rousel was playing off the long tradition of the trickster figure, and in the end I came to quite enjoy Tarius' bewilderment at their silly byplay. Similarly, I initially disliked the cover art, but it has grown on me somewhat as I have come to realize that artist John Kaufman's depiction is precisely accurate in meticulous detail. What you see is indeed what you get.

Which only leaves one substantive issue with the book: I reject the right-wing subtext that genocide is ever a morally defensible strategy. This is just too dangerous a position to ever condone, especially within the current political context of the Bush Administration's War on Terror. I am a bit disappointed that an otherwise radical work should reveal itself to be so conservative at its core, but this is unlikely to disturb many American readers, or pretty much anyone into sword and sorcery. So morally reprehensible stance aside, Sword Masters is recommended to fans of the genre.

A fun ride...very funny!

I love the approach and direction taken with this book. Too many writers now assume the reader wants to identify with the monster, to understand it's actions and even see it as a sort of missunderstood antihero. It's refreshing to see a monster treated as a monster.

A hilarious science fiction romp that turns the sexy heroine cliche on its head. Space captain Drewcila Qwah drinks, smokes and has a mouth that would make a sailor blush. She also happens to be the lost queen of Barious. Kidnapped by their enemies during war she has no memory of who she is. But, she smells an opportunity when they bring her back to ger husband. Never one to pass up a chance to make money, she settles in and turns the planet upside down.

Selina Rosen has an ireverant style of storytelling, a gift for great dialog and has created a truly memorable character. Highly recommended.