Welcome to Smugglivus – Day 28!

Throughout this month, we will have daily guests – authors and bloggers alike – looking back at their favorite reads of 2009, and looking forward to events and upcoming books in 2010.

Today’s Guests: Liz and Mark of the speculative fiction/horror/fantasy blog My Favorite Books. Liz and Mark are quite the married couple – they promote a lot of the finest up and coming books in the UK and KNOW EVERYONE. It’s staggering! So, naturally, we had to have ‘em over for Smugglivus.

Please give it up for Liz and Mark!

Retrospection and the Future

Events 2009

2009 for MFB (read for Mark and myself) has been a very interesting year. We set out to become as active as we possibly could within the blogging and reviewing community. We attended as many signings as we could, we created an autograph book and took it around to every event we attended, we took photos and we reported on various events.

It’s been a blast. When it comes to the adult events, the highlight was definitely the unexpected and very flash invite to attend the Gollancz Autumn party which was a fantastic evening. We got to hang out with some of the coolest and most creative people in the industry today – I got to say “hi” again to the amazing Robert Holdstock and found him to be as gracious and friendly as ever. I got to embarrass myself utterly by having the most cringeworthy conversation with Sam Sykes, debut Gollancz author, ever and then got rescued by Ana, Gav and Mark. Thank the gods.

Here it is to illustrate why I should not be left alone with people:

ME: You look a bit like Jack Black. I agree with Alex. (that would be Alex Bell)
HIM: Really? I am not sure I am happy with that…should I be insulted?
ME: You shouldn’t be – Jack Black was hot when he was younger.
HIM: !!!!
ME: Actually, more like Leo Di Craprio now, to be honest. It’s the eyes.
HIM: !!! What, I hate him.
ME: Oh, look at that: the earth just cracked open to swallow me. *dies*

On the kids’ side, the coolest event has to be a tie-up between Random House Three Author evening and the Puffin event. Both totally exceeded my expectations and I’ve now become fans of even more authors and am now unhealthily fascinated by Jason Bradbury…

The largest event we attended this year was definitely Eastercon. It. Was. Amazing. And for the record, I booked our tickets for 2010 already. Not only do you get to hang around with some cool writerly types, publisher types, and readers and fan-types, there is the traders hall and zomg, the lovely beautiful books they were selling was just ace!

Here are some choice photos from various events and some photos of some autographs from our autograph book.

2009 in retrospect

I read my first ever Eoin Colfer novel: Airman – and loved it. I thought that if this was the way the new year is starting, things are only going to get better. Mark discovered Brent Weeks and fell in love – embarrassingly he’s now quite a fan-boy but is still torn about his Joe Abercrombie/Brent Weeks allegiance. Mark also got the chance to get stuck quite heavily into his Black Library books and keeps raving at me about them and all you have to do is look at his reviews and you can tell that he’s a fan of the authors and their writing. He’s currently reading Gav Thorpe’s The Shadow King and it does sound simply amazing.

One of my many highlights for 2009 was Tom Lloyd’s The Stormcaller. I couldn’t believe the complexity and depth of character, political plotting and force of storytelling. It blew me away. I’ve not read the other novels as yet – I’m waiting for them to be in travelsized editions as lugging the oversized books around is just way too heavy. But I’d heartily recommend Tom’s writing. Definitely an author who deserves a larger profile for writing proper epic fantasy that makes you want to swing a sword yourself.

Probably one of the most illustrious people we got to meet this year was Raymond E Feist. Who sushed me. Yes, you read that correctly. I got all fan-girly and got him to sign my various books and I took photos and I then stood to the side, giggling with Danie Ware from Forbidden Planet and Kaz-Mahoney-soon-to-be-very-famous-author, and we made so much noise he looked up from his signing, scowled deeply and said “Can you please be quiet?” we were dumbstruck. Then he laughed and said “only kidding” and then did the rest of the signing whilst chatting to us and his various fans. *phew*

In May I tackled one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read and although I didn’t want to, I decided to put the review up regardless. The Atlantis Code by Charles Brokaw just did not sit well with me at all. It broke my heart because it was badly written, the story was unrealistic and the characters were flat and awful. He had managed to destroy one of my favourite genres. I have subsequently had a great number pop by the blog to leave their own negative comments and although it’s not something I’m proud of, I’m just relieved to have found that I’m not the only one who has issues with it.

We had the chance to attend – as volunteers – The Gemmell Awards. The event was a stunning celebration of one author’s strength of personality and determination to write larger than life fiction. So many authors and publisher peeps were there and we all felt very glamourous, swanning around in our fab outfits. Naturally, we got to swing axes around after the fact and needless to say, it’s been grand and if the inaugural Awards were this well received, we’re hoping for an even better year in 2010.

Looking at this entire year’s reading and things we got up, we’ve had a bumper year. I’ve read and reviewed in excess of a hundred books. Which I’m quite proud of but I know others out there who have read vastly more than that!

Goals for MFB for 2010:

Read more books to review, run even more competitions and stalk authors mercilessly for interviews.

On a personal level I want to read more fantasy. I’ve not read much fantasy this past year and I feel the need to sink my teeth into big books and experience some epic battles. I also want to read / try to read science fiction regularly – I’ll try a book a month, I think! I can see Ana and Thea laughing their heads off already. Shush! I also want to try and establish a level playing field for myself when reviewing. At the moment I’ve been swept off my feet by so many great childrens’ and YA books coming up that I’ve completely let all my adult reading fall by the wayside. Not good! Mark mentioned that he’ll be focussing on reading more sci fi this year too, along with some non-fiction books, which will be interesting for us as we tend to share books we’ve read and then we have little arguments about them…maybe I take a leaf out of The Book Smuggler’s forest and we do co-reviews!

Something I’m also thinking of bringing onto the blog is relishing “older” books and authors we’ve somehow managed to miss reading. I think highlighting these authors we feel passionate about, and who we owe our love of reading to, is a good idea! If we can garner these guys a new audience, then we’ve won a little bit, at least.

We’ll be doing as many events as we can in 2010 and we’ll try and blog about as many as we can and give away random goodies from these events, if there are any to be had. Stay tuned for that.

Overall, I’m incredibly excited about 2010 as a reader – forget reviewing, that’s accidental (and a happy accident) – but having had the chance to see some of the amazing novels coming out from the big names and the indies, I can’t wait for it all to happen soon dammit! One of the crowning moments for 2010 – for me personally as a big fan and reader of his books – is the publication of Phil Rickman’s novel: The Bones of Avalon with the main character being Elizabeth I’s conjuror and alchemist and maybe the original 007, John Dee. I’ve read the opening chapters and people, it’s amazing.

I can go on and on and on about upcoming books but to be honest, it’s going to get tedious and dull. All I want to say is: support your authors and bookshops. Without us, their readers and clients, these talented people won’t have jobs. Show your love by buying books from independents bookshops too, keep talking about authors and where you buy, and challenge yourself by trying a new author or a new genre and to just keep on reading!

Thanks Liz & Mark!

Next on Smugglivus: Gav of Next Read

Karen Mahoney ( a.k.a. Official Honorary Book Smuggler) is a Young Adult writer whose first story, Falling to Ash has been published in The Eternal Kiss Anthology (reviewed today by Ana) . She is also one of the Deadline Dames and can be found writing about writing, reading and other cool stuff in her livejournal. When we were organising the YA month ,we just knew we would invite her over.

We are more than happy to give the floor to Karen Mahoney and her post on writing YA.

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Eternal Teenagers

I write YA fiction because every time I sit down to write something, my characters turn out to be 17 or 18. Apparently, this means I write YA. I think I’m drawn to these ages because this is when a lot happened in my own life, and those experiences always seem more important and powerful when you’re going through all the inevitable changes that the teenage years bring. All those ‘first times’ that we go through… It makes for wonderful drama and conflict in fiction. The potential for emotional writing is huge, and I love writing big emotional scenes. I remember how brave I could be at 17 – there’s a fearless quality to being a teenager that I wish I could get back.

I used to work with older teens, as a student advisor, and I learned so much during that time. I think it was then that I realised I wanted to focus on the teenage years in my fiction. Now that I’m writing YA urban/contemporary fantasy, I can allow my imagination to soar while still grounding myself in the very real issues of what it’s like to be growing up in today’s society. To think that I’m writing books and stories that might one day be read by young adults who experience things so passionately… that just blows me away!

My story in THE ETERNAL KISS, ‘Falling to Ash’, is about an 18-year-old vampire called Moth. She was Turned into a vamp over a decade ago, so she’s really a 28-year-old woman stuck in the body of a teenager. I love thinking about all the questions and issues that raises: imagine being trapped as a teenager for eternity… How would you change and grow? Would you develop as a regular human being should do, or would you always be just a little immature? (Moth can be quite immature and impetuous, but at the same time the wisdom of her years shows through when she needs it.) How would it feel to see ‘real’ teenagers enjoying life, while you just continue on the way you’ve always been? Never growing physically older, but perhaps feeling the weight of years as each one passes. Imagine how it would affect your family and friends. What would you tell them? Would you tell them? All these things I’ve explored with Moth, and packing it into 32 pages wasn’t easy! Luckily, I’ve now written a novel about her (BEAUTIFUL GHOSTS) which I hope will be picked up by a publisher one day. Watch this space…

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In her varied career Karen Mahoney has been a professional Tarot reader, a college counsellor, a dating agency consultant and a bookseller. Ever since she was six years old what she really wanted to be was Wonder Woman, but has instead settled for being a writer which she thinks is the most fun you can have without bulletproof bracelets.

Her YA contemporary fantasy, THE IRON WITCH (Book 1 of The Ironbridge Chronicles), is currently on submission in the US. Among other work she has recently completed a companion novel, BEAUTIFUL GHOSTS, which is set in the same world but completely stands alone. It continues the adventures of Moth, the teenage vampire who was introduced to readers in her recently published short story, ‘Falling to Ash’.

A huge thank you to Karen for the great post.

Now for the giveaway:

Karen is generously offering a signed copy of The Eternal Kiss to one lucky reader! The contest is open to anyone, and will run until Saturday August 1st 11:59pm (PST). To enter, simply leave a comment here. Good luck!

Title: The Eternal Kiss

Author: Various – see list below.

Genre: YA (all vampire stories)

Publisher: Running Press
Publishing date: July 28, 2009
Paperback: 416 pages

Stand alone or series: both. Some stories are stand alone some are part of series.

Summary: There’s an allure to vampire tales that have seduced readers for generations. From Bram Stoker to Stephanie Meyer and beyond, vampire stories are here to stay. For those fresh-blooded fans of paranormal romance or for those whose hunt and hunger never dies, these stories have what readers want! This collection of original tales comes from some of the hottest, most popular, and best-selling YA writers.

Why did I read the book: FULL DISCLOSURE – I don’t usually read anthologies but I just had to read this one mainly for two reasons: my friend Karen Mahoney has a story in it (hooray!) and I was very happy and proud about it! And because of Sarah Rees Brennan ‘s story –she is now an instant-buy for me.

Review:

The Eternal Kiss is a new anthology for Young Adults with 13, vampire-themed short stories. In all honesty, usually I find that anthologies have one or two stories that are REALLY good and the remaining ones, mediocre at best (unless we are talking about Neil Gaiman and the book Smoke and Mirrors, but I digress). To my surprise, I found The Eternal Kiss to be a really well-balanced collection of stories and I ended up enjoying all of them (although some more than others, of course). It also worked really well for me as a taster for I had never read any book by most of these writers before. I particularly enjoyed Maria Snyder, Rachel Caine and Kelley Armstrong’s writing – Thea has been raving about these writers for some time now and I am yet to pick up their books. Their stories here gave me the final push, definitely.

Another aspect that is relevant to mention is how diverse these stories are: some of them are self-contained, others are clearly connected to other stories by the authors or the beginning of a larger tale. There is also a great variety in the way the vampires are approached (good vampires, bad vampires, romantic vampires, etc) and with regards to the genre of each story: there is Comedy, Romance, a lot of Horror and Urban Fantasy.

Now, for the stories themselves in the order they appear in the anthology :

Falling to Ash by Karen Mahoney – a Vampire called Moth reunites with her sire (whom she may or may not love) and he tasks her to get the ashes of a staked vampire kept by the vampire hunter who killed him. He meets with the hunter’s son and they have a stand-off. I really liked Moth and her attitude – how can you not love a young(ish) vampire girl named Moth. Really? – and there are a couple of cool fighting sequences and an interesting spin on vampire lore. This is clearly an open-ended story and the author has been working on Moth’s story.

Shelter Island by Melissa de la Cruz – a 15 year old girl who lives in a mysterious holiday place – Shelter Island – and one night is visited by a vampire boy who is terrified of someone out there. This is a very short story and although I liked the writing well enough and the idea behind the story , this was also the one tale that frustrated me the most. Note to Young Adults out there: if you find that there is a vampire living inside your closet you run for help, you scream for your parents, you pick up a lamp and throw at him, you FREAK OUT. You do not, I repeat, do not, keep it a secret and then offer your neck as a sustenance. Just saying.

Sword Point by Maria V. Snyder – Ava is a very driven teenage girl who loves fencing and wishes to make the Olympics. She starts training at the Academy of the Sword and then meets a guy named Jarrett who is a martial arts instructor and who ends up introducing Ava to the supernatural world. This is one of the stories where vampires =BAD. I was surprised at how in such a short amount of pages, Maria Snyder was able to convey a lot about Ava and I really liked this character and her voice.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black – Ah. Easily one of the best stories in the book – another one where vampires are not really GOOD. A young girl tries to fight becoming a vampire after she is bitten. If she manages not to drink blood for a number of days, the venom is expelled – she does that by being constantly drunk. But it is hard and even harder when she finds out that a friend and the guy she loves have gone to Coldtown, where the vampires live. This is a pretty atmospheric and horrific self-contained tale. I loved it.

Undead is Very Hot Right Now by Sarah Brennan – Hands down my favourite story in the anthology and worth the purchase just for this one. I have read Sarah Rees Brennan’s book The Demon’s Lexicon (recently released) and found that I really like her brand of sarcastic humour, something that is really evident in this short story. Basically, a young vampire joins a boy band and hilarity ensues as he tries to fit in this new world. Do you know how in each boy band, there is always one that is the “hot” one, or the “cool” one? Christian is the “gimmick” and every single cliché about boy bands and vampires are explored here to maximum laugh out loud factor.

Kat by Kelley Armstrong – I thought this to be a very interesting story as Kat and her vampire guardian flee some unknown pursuers. Kat is the result of a genetic experiment and she knows that she is a paranormal being of some sort (she wishes she could be a were-cat) but so far there is no evidence of WHAT she is. I like the dynamics between Kat and her foster mother and the fighting scenes were cool too. It reads like the beginning of a new series.

The Thirteenth Step by Libba Bray – Another one of the more “horrific” variety in which a girl finds a job at a House for recovering addicts. She is driven there because of her own, unhappy family story with drugs and her need to do something. Unfortunately things are not what it seems and there is a thirteenth step that all must go through. There is a bit of romance to counterbalance the horror of a self-contained story.

All Hallows by Rachel Caine – This is the only story that is part of a larger series, The Morganville Vampires series. I have not read any of them but I was not lost when I read All Hollows. It did make me wonder about the overall story arc though – seems pretty interesting. Eve Rosser dates a vampire and then he goes missing and together with some friends (including a hunter) she goes after him.

Wet Teeth by Cecil Castellucci – I loved the opening sentence of this one, with a vampire musing about how pieces of skin always remain on his teeth after he bites someone. It is a very appropriate opening to a creepy story – it sets the mood just fine. Another horror story and a sad one at that. Boy meets girl and there is no happily ever after.

Other Boys by Cassandra Clare- there is a new guy in school and he says he is a vampire – attracting the girl who is the main character. Things are not what they seem though and there is a twist. This one is another horror story and even though it wasn’t bad, it didn’t rock my world either.

Passing by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguié – Now, this one has an interesting premise. In a post Vampire -apocalypse world, a group of students go to the Academia, in Spain (love the setting) to learn how to become hunters. There is a lot of background that was left out but the story is interesting enough and I wouldn’t mind reading more about it. Here is hoping for a series.

Ambition by Lili St. Crow – I think this is the darkest of the stories in the anthology, one that has an ending open for interpretation and no matter how much I think of it, I only come up with this terrifying feeling. This is a story of bullies and high school separation of class – and also about a girl who ends up being seduced (and dazed) by the dark side. I sort of liked it, in a totally creepy kind of way. Reminded me of Heathers.

All Wounds by Dina James – another one that seems to be the beginning of a new series with a girl struggling to make do with going to school and taking care of her grandmother who seems to be losing her mind. Then, she discovers that there is more to her family than she thought and that things like vampires and hellhounds are very much real. And …there is a set up for a Love Triangle of Doom and god damn me, I liked both guys.

And check out the Australian cover:

Which one do you prefer?

Additional Thoughts: Karen Mahoney will be here later today guest blogging about writing for Young Adults and you will have a chance to win a signed copy of The Eternal Kiss.

Verdict: overall, a pretty good collection of short stories. Horror seems to be the main genre though, so if you are looking for HEA and Romance you won’t find it in here.

Rating: 7 very good.

Reading Next: Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink

Yesterday I received a VIP for dinner. It was one of the Deadline Dames, our Good Friend, Official Honorary Book Smuggler, Pimp Extraordinnaire and as of yesterday, one of Ana’s Soul Mates, Karen Mahoney.

I was super nervous, couldn’t sleep. I mean, how do you prepare yourself and your house to welcome a proper Dame? I woke up at 6 to slave around the house, scrub the floors and cook a feast fit for a queen. She arrived and….I will let her tell you the story in details and with photos:

The One Where Ana and Kaz Go to Cambridge

Thanks for a most excellent day dude!!!

I believe one of the best things about blogging is the friendships that have been born since we started. One such good friend is Karen Mahoney – a few months ago, this Karen person started to comment on the blog and then one day she emailed us to talk about our Neil Gaiman, an author she also loves. We started exchanging emails back and forth and of course, we now read her own Livejournal as much as she reads our blog. Karen is super cool, a geek such as us and she is a writer as well, with her first story about to be published in an anthology.

This whole post is to say that luckily, Karen lives in England as I do and today I went to London to finally meet her in person! We had a splendid time, chatting over coffee for 3 HOURS about all sorts of things.

This is a picture of us, at Murder One, where she works. I am holding in my hand, the “excuse” we had for meeting up: the collection of Manga she lent me for a Manga Appreciation Week we have in the works!

It was really great and I can’t wait to see her again – which I am sure, will happen soon, right Karen?