It's hard to deny that horror has had a big upsurge in popularity lately. It's everywhere. It seems like every other movie falls into the horror genre right now, and it's a whole lot easier to find shiny new horror novels than it was even last year. And because I'm a huge geek, I look at the trends and wonder why. Why is this popular now?

It's always tempting to blame trends on one uber-popular work. But saying horror is making its comeback because the Twilight crowd is looking for more fangs isn't exactly fair; I mean, I highly doubt there's a huge crossover between the audience enraptured by Edward Cullen and the folks excited by the movie Zombieland.

In a recent interview, Stephen King says in our currently crappy economy, people are reading scary and/or gross stories because it makes them feel better about their own lives. Which I find interesting, because one of the working theories as to why sales of romance novels have been virtually untouched by the recession is that people search out the happy endings and feel-good aspects to cheer themselves up.

All this, of course, leads me to ask about your theories. Why is horror so hot right now? Is it related to the crappy economy, or something else currently driving us to seek out stories of scary monsters? Or is it just random, the cyclical nature of trends coming back around?

Series: Need #1
Publisher: Bloomsbury 2009
Genre: Fantasy/Horror
Sub-genre: YA urban fantasy; paranormal romance
Rating: 2 pints of blood



This is a fairly pretty, simple cover with a bit of gold glitter, and the prickly branches are a nice horror touch. BUT all I see is Giant Chin. I think it's too much of a close-up? Her face is shapeless. There's no shadow, no definition. This cover seriously put me off reading this book since it came out - until I caved and thought, what the hell, other people seem to really like it, maybe this will re-invigorate my faith in YA fantasy/romance?

Well, so continues my YA slump. I don't know exactly what sub-genre to lump this in with - it's not very romantic, it's not terribly scary ... urban fantasy? Seems to do the genre no favours. Perhaps this lack of direction is part of the problem? In short, this book is mediocre. For a debut novel, it's fine. But it's also rushed, lacklustre, superficial and convenient. I mean, parts of the story are convenient. And horribly predictable.


( Yet another story where I can sing the teddy bear picnic song -When you go down to the woods today / Be sure of a big surprise... )

Let's face it, we all like a little peek behind the scenes, and seeing how a book comes together is both dorky and exciting. Thankfully, Orbit has decided to let us in the loop when it comes to cover design with their recent blog post which shows us exactly what goes into the actual cover design for Gail Carringer's Blameless. It's the third in the Parasol Protectorate series, following Soulless and Changeless, books which got some major buzz in the past year or so.

But you don't want to hear me babble on about this, you just want to watch the movie. Alright fine. Here it is.

Publisher: Orbit 2010 (2009)
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genre: Urban fantasy
Rating: 3 pints of blood



This is just the right cover for this book. Loud and colourful, it's also an ad for the character called Monster; I love the little bit down the bottom: "We capture yeti! Call us for all your pest control needs." It's certainly eye-catching, and lets you know what kind of urban fantasy this is: the funny kind.


( There's something weird in the neighbourhood ... Who you gonna call? ... Ghostbusters! (sorry, couldn't resist!) )

Fond of urban fantasy? The All Things Urban Fantasy blog has put up a list of 117 different contests going on around the web right now. This is a ridiculous list, folks, and if you're keen on the paranormal, I'd wager you could find a contest or two to your liking pretty easily in that great huge list. For added convenience, they're listed according to deadline.

As always, the battle of e-books versus print books is raging wildly along with the discussion about what the value of an e-book should be. (Why publishers can't just consider the book as the object with the format as a mere vessel to be treated equally, I have no idea.) John Hilton III and David Wiley did a study recently on free digital books and their effect on book sales. Their findings back up the statements of authors like Neil Gaiman or Cory Doctorow, proving that giving out free books does, in fact, increase book sales rather than lowering the value of a book. Which, y'know, is not so different from reading a book in a library, enjoying it, and buying your own copy or buying the rest of the books in the series as they come out.

In other news, water is still wet and lolcats are popular on the internet.

This may come as a shock to some of you, but I read a lot as a kid. Nono, it's true. Some of it was trash and some of it was treasure, but if it was words on a printed page, I was willing to give it a chance. Many years later (not telling how many years exactly), I look back at some of those books with fondness. Unfortunately, some of my favourites from my youth are now out of print and difficult to find. Thankfully, the internet makes them a lot easier to track down than they would otherwise be, but some are now rare and/or expensive. Some of them, though, are worth the effort, and I'm slowly building up a collection of books from my youth to go along with all the current YA books on my shelves. Monica Hughes's Crisis on Conshelf Ten, for example, has been out of print for many years, but is worth looking up if you can find a copy that isn't priced outrageously.

How about the rest of you? Do you still have the books you loved as a kid, and if not, would you be willing to hunt them down? What sticks in your memory?

Series: Night Huntress World #1
Publisher: Avon Books 2010
Genre: Romance/Fantasy
Sub-genre: Paranormal Romance; Urban Fantasy
Rating: 4 pints of blood



Uh. I don't dislike this cover - I love the reds and blues, and the lift of her hair and the bared back and the shadows. But I keep looking at the guy and thinking he looks like a drug dealer. Or drug addict. The incredibly accentuated muscles arrowing into his groin don't help. I normally like to see some nice male bods on these covers, but here I want to tug his pants up 'cause it looks off somehow. That and his chin, his eyes and the angle of his head to his body. She has such a nice, simple pose. He, sadly, comes off as a bit creepy.

( This review contains a spoiler or two for the Night Huntress series, of which this is a spin-off book/series. )

Publisher: Harlequin Teen, 2010
Genre: Sci-fi
Sub-genre: YA
Rating: 4 pints of blood



I find the cover very effective. It makes me stop to look at it, and catches my attention, and if it can do that, the cover art has done its job. The sparse white stands out from the pastels or vivid reds and blacks that make up the majority of YA covers, and the intensity of the young woman breaking through, breaking out from the inside (O I SEE WAT U DID THER) piques my interest. Why is she so intense? What is she breaking away from? I must read the book and find out!

( Sorry kids, if you also must find out about the breaking out from the inside, you must read the book yourself. No spoilers here. )

For those who appreciate LGBT fiction, Lambda Literary has just opened up a "new online home for LGBTQ Book Lovers," a website and community for those who enjoy reading and/or writing characters whose relationships veer outside the conventional male/female. There are tons of discussion topics, from "Is There, or Should There Be, Such a Thing as ‘Trans Lit’?" to "What Do LGBTQ Teens Want?" as well as book reviews, interviews, news and updates from the LGBT community, and basically offers a place for people who enjoy LGBT fiction to hang out and discuss the books and issues. Since there aren't enough places that discuss this type of thing, I for one am excited about the new Lambda website.

Hey, who wants some free e-books? Download and devour:

Suvudu is offering a bunch of Star Wars fiction for those of us who pretend the empty wrapping paper tube is a lightsaber every Christmas (oh please, I am not the only one who does this):

-Precipice (Lost Tribe of the Sith #1)
-Skyborn (Lost Tribe of the Sith #2)
-Paragon (Lost Tribe of the Sith #3)

The Lost Tribe of the Sith books are written by John Jackson Miller.

If you're in the mood for fantasy more than sci-fi right now, there's also Elizabeth Moon's Sheepfarmer's Daughter and a pair of short stories by Kelly Meding (The Hoarder and Pride Before Fall).

And a reminder to those who may not have checked it out before or who haven't stopped in for awhile, Baen's Free Library has a huge assortment of books available from all different types of genres and authors.

Also, for those who enjoy audio books, I have good news: Dorchester and Ellora's Cave are both now heading into that field. Dorchester has put out a press release (complete with linkage), and while Ellora's Cave has not, there is already a list of available audiobooks to purchase through there.

What the marketing folks have learned the past year or two: if you're aiming for a teen demographic, add pretty boy vampires and a generous dollop of romance. It sells! (The best part of the commercial happens in the last couple of seconds.)

Series: Valerie Stevens
Publisher: Snowbooks, 2010
Genre: Fantasy
Sub-genre: Urban Fantasy
Rating: 2 1/2 pints of blood



The idea behind the cover art, I believe, is a conscious departure from the leather-clad bottoms that dominate the urban fantasy genre. The result is certainly different from anything you'll find in the fantasy section of the bookstore. Actually, my first thought was "comic book," followed shortly by "Dude, are those She-go's eyes at the top there?" (She-go is a villain from Disney's Kim Possible cartoon.)



So, uh, now I pretty much envision the heroine as looking exactly like She-go.

( There are worse characters to look like. At least I'm not picturing King Lear or something. )

With the recent disastrous covers of Magic Under Glass and Liar still hot in memory, the ladies over at The Book Smugglers have put together an excellent dissection of whitewashed cover art, including a bit of history and the implications it carries. There's also a word from their special guest Ari of Reading In Color, and I highly recommend taking a peek.

Brain slump. It happens to the best of us sometimes, after having read something that challenged us, that really made us think. You finish it, ponder it, pick something else up... and realize your brain is now broken. It's not that the new book is bad, or even that it's not catching your interest, it's just that you can't concentrate on much because the previous book swallowed all your power of thought. Now it's gone and that new book you've been looking forward to can't get you doing much but staring blankly at the page.

So... what do you do? Do you stay away from the books for a little while and let your brain recooperate by doing whatever else you do in your spare time, be it snuggling with small defenseles animals or playing with your lego collection? Do you move on to another book, something light and easy to digest, perhaps a silly and fluffy YA novel? Or do you struggle on, continuing to stare blankly at the pages of the book you really wanted to be reading?

It's no secret that the world of books and publishing is changing dramatically. With the internet, e-books, and a society that increasingly demands their media to be shiny and interactive, Hillel Cooperman has just unveiled A Story Before Bed, where you can digitally read a book to your child/grandchild/favourite kumquat. The idea is that the website offers several books, the parent can choose one and record themselves reading the story with a webcam, and the two will sync when the child plays it for bedtime. It's marketed to parents who travel or family members who live far away but still want to be a regular part of the child's life.

I have to admit, this is a really neat idea. And if technology keeps going the way it's going, they'll soon be able to add in all the tickles and cuddles that my kids think are requisite for storytime.

I'm going to assume that most of the folks who drop by here read book reviews on occasion. There's been a lot of discussion over the past couple years about why people read book reviews and what they're looking to get out of them, especially considering the way book reviews have been disappearing from newspapers with increasing rapidity. The internet is filling in that gap, but since newspaper and internet are very different mediums, the tone and style of those reviews has changed considerably.

Personally, I have a few places I go to read reviews. They're sources I've come to trust, who I know will give me honest reviews and whose tastes align with mine at least to some degree. I'm most likely to check out a review for a book I've been on the fence about, unsure if I want to take the jump and spend the money on that puppy. What's even better, though, are the reviews that make me think. I like a review that starts something in my brain, whether it be a discussion about that specific book, a particular trope, a setting, or what have you. My literary geekery loves these thoughtful and detailed reviews for being the catalyst for an open conversation about bookstuff. Mmm, bookstuff.

So how about you? Why do you read reviews? What types of reviews are your favourites?

Good news, everyone! Remember the white-washing Bloomsbury did on the cover of Jaclyn Dolamore's Magic Under Glass and the uproar that caused? Remember how Bloomsbury recalled the racist cover art to re-do it properly and everyone cheered? Well, we have a finished version, and it's really lovely. More importantly, it prominently features a woman of colour, whose appearance matches the description in the book.

Check it:

Old art:

New art:

I highly recommend everyone do what they can to pick up a copy of the book with its shiny new cover, in spite of the hardcover price. Let's show the publishing folks that books can, in fact, sell with a person of colour on the front cover.

SFWA has announced its final nominees for the 2009 Nebula Awards. Voting is being done now by members of SFWA (so if you happen to be a member, go and vote!), and the awards ceremony will be held on May 15 in Florida.

There are, of course, approximately seven billion categories, but since most of you will be more familiar with the nominees for Best Novel as opposed to, say, Dramatic Presentation, here they are:

-The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi
-The Love We Share Without Knowing
-Flesh and Fire, Laura Anne Gilman
-The City & The City, China Miéville
-Boneshaker, Cherie Priest
-Finch, Jeff VanderMeer

And just for good measure, the nominees for YA:

-Hotel Under the Sand, Kage Baker
-Ice, Sarah Beth Durst
-Ash, Malinda Lo
-Eyes Like Stars, Lisa Mantchev
-Zoe’s Tale, John Scalzi
-When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead
-The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente
-Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld

Publisher: Elder Signs Press, 2009
Genre: Horror
Sub-genre: Paranormal
Rating: 3 1/2 pints of blood



Ok, I often mock the romance and erotica covers for the total lack of subtlety, proudly proclaiming "HEY Y'ALL, HERE THERE BE SEX." This cover, in spite of its lack of sexiness, makes me think much the same thing. There's no attempt at hiding the contents here: "HEY, Y'ALL, HERE THERE BE ZOMBIES! And, like, blood and stuff! If you wanna read about some dead folks devouring flesh, you are in luck!"

Really, need I say more? ( Nom nom nom. )