Book Review: The Emperor’s Blades, plus Waiting on Wednesday Book Meme

books poetry lit October 15, 2014 Leave a comment

New WoWWaiting on Wednesday is a weekly book meme hosted by Breaking the Spine in which bloggers post about an upcoming book they’re eagerly waiting for.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating Ashley Weaver’s Murder at the Brightwell, which sounds like the most delicious murder mystery ever, a beautiful cocktail of romance, 30’s beachy glamour, and murder, but since it came out yesterday (I have already requested it at the library), it would be cheating to include it. So I’ll go with my other choice, the second book in Brian Stavely’s Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne, The Providence of Fire.

the emperor's blades book coverThe first book in the Unhewn Series, The Emperor’s Blades, was rich, fast-paced, and immensely satisfying – it did a brilliant job of laying out three, strong personalities and their very different worlds, and then culminating them at the end. It was largely the tale of hot-headed yet brilliant Valyn, the emperor’s son who has been in training his whole life as one of the Emperor’s Blades, warrior-assassins who are put through years of intensive, regimented training in all kinds of weaponry as well as stealth tactics, survival, etc. Valyn is already a gifted, deadly force at the beginning of the novel, and only grows as it goes on, also stepping for the first time into a leadership position he’ll have to learn how to exercise.

A world away, his brother Kaden, the heir to the throne, is a pupil at a remote monastery where he learns what seems to him esoteric and useless skills – which might one day save his life.

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Two Upcoming Web Series Based on Mansfield Park and Midsummer Night’s dReam

film & television October 14, 2014 Leave a comment

The creators of University Ever After are debuting A Midsemester’s Night’s Dream in late October. I didn’t like University Ever After, which was muddled and a little dull with far too many characters, so I’m a little hesitant going into it, but I do think that college is a perfect setting for the madcap events, general insomnia, and obsession with romance that characterize the story, so on that level I’m excited.

Follow the Tumblr and subscribe to the Youtube channel.

from mansfield with love web series

And, Foot in the Door Theatre is debuting From Mansfield with Love on December 3! There’s not much info yet – “from Mansfield With Love is a contemporary adaptation of Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, and is produced by UK – based company Foot in the Door Theatre.”

Follow on Tumblr and there’s a website and a Twitter. This I am excited for 🙂

Poetry: Boat

books poetry lit October 14, 2014 Leave a comment

My son sleeps
the way a boat
comes free—

ropes thrown back
on deck, and the soft hands
of the water all around.

-Elizabeth McMunn-Tetangco, Star 82 Review

Kdrama Review: Iron Man/Blade Man starring Lee Dong Wook and Shin Se Kyung

film & television October 13, 2014 Comments: 5

ironmankdramareview The most puzzling thing about this slightly odd drama is that it’s not based on a manwha. It seems tailor-made to have been based on one of the melodramatic, romantic manwhas that are so often the rage in Korea and Japan. And yet it’s an original creation from screenwriter Kim Kyu Wan – to which all I can say is, you got grit, to break from the tailor-made drama template most screenwriters use in this way. Kim Kyu Wan tends to write problematic dramas with a lot of potential, like Cinderella’s Sister and Robber. Iron Man centers on Joo Hong Bin (Lee Dong Wook), the oddball CEO of a hugely successful game company (video games, not board games). A chance encounter with Son Se Dong, an aspiring game designer, and the unexpected appearance of a young son he didn’t know existed, turns Hong Bin’s world upside down.

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Poetry: Orderly Dispersal

books poetry lit October 13, 2014 Leave a comment

I’m asking you now in my calmest voice, my voice of patience and maintenance and strength, to rise slowly from your seats and turn to face the nearest aisle. The person in front of you is moving deliberately and efficiently. Put your trust in that person’s control of his or her impulses to rush or push or trample the persons between him or her and the ultimate goal of the exit just as you exercise your power over your own impulses to act in the same way.

Listen to the tone of calm in my voice. Do not worry. Relax the muscles in your shoulders. Lift your feet one at a time, move each a few inches forward and put it back down with plenty of clearance for the shoes and feet of the person in front of you who is proceeding in the same measured way out of the row of seats to the aisle and on toward the ultimate goal of the exit.

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-Jesse Minkert, Paper Nautilus

 

Art Love: Warmth

art & illustration October 13, 2014 Leave a comment

warmth contemporary painting womanby contemporary LA-based artist Scott David Laufer

 

Favorite Fictional ‘Boys-Next-Door’

books poetry lit, this & that October 12, 2014 Comments: 4

anne+green+gables1. Gilbert Blythe, Anne of Green Gables series. Gilbert Blythe doesn’t literally live next door, but he’s exactly the type – he grows up with you, teases and pulls your pigtails when you’re younger, than turns into a kind, sweet friend, then a smoldering romantic interest. Mostly though, he’s just that sweet, dependable, good-looking guy next door that you’ve always taken for granted and one day fall for.

Drug of choise: Watch webseries Green Gables, which is utterly dull for most of its run but sparkles right up with the introduction of Gilbert Blythe offering warm coverings in the rain. See also Staircase Wit’s Top Ten Most Romantic Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe Moments.

lola-boy-next-door2. Cricket, Lola and the Boy Next Door. In Stephanie Perkin’s delightful second novel in her young adult series, Cricket literally lives across the street from strong-willed aspiring clothing designer Lola. The two kind of grow up together, then start to fall in love, have a fight, and Cricket moves away…until he comes back in Lola’s senior year of high school. Lola’s first love now inhabits the balcony across from hers. Cricket is a family friend, loved by her parents, and creative like her – his hobby is mechanical inventions made of metal and wood. Funny, supportive, and vulnerable, he’s very much a boy next door.

I know there are more, but most fictional heroes frankly fall into the snarky, aloof mold or the icy arrogant, combative mold. Who are your favorite boy-next-door figures?

Fall Love

this & that October 12, 2014 Comments: 2

fallcoffeecup

 

Poetry: What Happens Happens in the Body

books poetry lit October 11, 2014 Leave a comment

You are not a windchime. You feel this
when it’s ten below and the window
falls out of the storm door and though
there is another door behind that one—

because this is the way with storm doors:
they protect—soon enough you have to
replace the strip of framing, you have to
admit you threw out when it fell out

in July as if it were never important.
It was. It was always coming for you,
this or that bit of significant plastic
dislodged by one predictable destructive

action. Cue sharp ice forming on a super-
efficient furnace exhaust: it’s exactly what
they kept saying about the sublime: how
it happens in the body and it hurts.

-Sarah Barber, Word Riot

Reading Kierkegaard at the Bar

books poetry lit October 9, 2014 Leave a comment

I am practicing exercises in futility.
I call it hope.

At the bottom of this beer,
drunk becomes Enlightenment.
It will this time.
The stool will stop quivering
rippling tsunamis to my thighs.

The ice cubes invited themselves
to this party, but they can’t tell
a good lie. They look like a priest
I once knew.

The corners of the bar look like God
right angle perfection. My fingers,
bell curve or parabola
depending on the glass. Mismatched.

There is an infinite qualitative difference
between the desire to sit on a bar stool
and the feeling of your ass two hours later.

I am as lucid as the waitress’s open pockets.
I have exact change. I know grace
when it catches me by the throat
and refuses to kill me. This is why
I come to the bar. Alone.

I have all the fear and trembling
and drowning has never been
so difficult. The floor, the only
leap of faith I cannot make.

I found God in apron pockets. Not hers.
Never looked, just felt. Just fought the urge
to hide behind the potted palm
beside the ladies’ room all night,

sipping the glass half-full
tucked between the corner
and the plant.

-Hilary Kobernick, Paper Nautilus