Facebook flog - Jun 2 2014

[blogfloggery.livejournal.com]

Link: Jun 2 2014, 6:41
Disclaimer: This blog entry is verbatim, as originally posted on LKH's Facebook. Copyright belongs to Ma Petite Enterprises.

On plane to LA for first event tonight. See you at Huntington Beach B&N. Shirt & copies of A Shiver of Light that I pre-signed last few days!




Link: Jun 2 2014, 13:59

Here's the trailer for the new Merry Gentry novel, A Shiver of Light! http://geekandsundry.com/view/shiver-of-light-trailer

Comments

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

Ugh. If it wasn't LKH I'd be excited.

[katekat]

agreed.

[eden-guardian.livejournal.com]

Looks exactly like the last Anita book trailer. Copied and pasted wholesale. Like the narrator though.

[mystickiwi.livejournal.com]

I don't remember book trailers being a thing until about 6 months ago and now it seems everyone has one and they are all thoroughly mediocre.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

They've been around for a few years, and invariably they look like Zale's commercials from 1995. I have to try to do one for my book release later this year and I'm dreading it. Granted, I have a background in animation and video editing and can put together a pretty well-done promo spot properly timed to the music, but that doesn't change that I'm cobbling together stock footage and royalty-free music into a generic visual meant to advertise a written story. The two media don't mesh very well.

[marcusthewu.livejournal.com]

Wait, they know who the fathers are, right? They had the visions. Sholto, Rhys, Galen, Mystral, Frost and Doyle? Unless, the father of the third one is the question, even though she was only having twins with 3 fathers each at first.

[raven7601.livejournal.com]

Since when has LKH ever considered six men enough? This is what a fan posted on her facebook page:

"I'd had sex with one demi-fey and one snake goblin while I was already pregnant with twins, so I thought I didn't need protection. I was already pregnant, as safe as a girl could be, but as I felt the flexing of those wings on Brylegn's back, I knew that I needed two more men to come see their daughter." - A Shiver of Light

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Is it just me or does the concept of SuparAmazeballsMagic babies leave other people feeling meh? I mean what can you do with them, when they're all super magic and more awesome than anybody else FROM BIRTH? (This is not just an LKH thing of course, other authors seem to go this way.)

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

Barbara Hambly's Time of the Dark series does it pretty good; first the magic baby can't tell anyone anything about the Dark because he's a baby. Even when he learns how to talk, he can't always filter what's important info (like, hey guys, I totally had a vision on where the ancestors hid a delicious store of seeds. what does "hydroponic efficient gardening" mean?) and what's important to HIM as a kid having flashbacks to his own ancestors.

And even tho I hate to say it, Piers Anthony did have some good Magician babies. Dragon on Pedestal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_on_a_Pedestal) and Crewel Lye (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crewel_Lye:_A_Caustic_Yarn)are both fun.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Good to know. I will have to check them out!

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

I think the key to writing good super powered babies is that the world itself still has to present challenges. That's the flaw in LKH's writing. Every new challenge that comes up for Anita/Merry, it's hand-waved away almost immediately as either the ardeur or the Goddess intervenes. So Ivy might be the Magician of Enhancement (meaning she can amp up others' emotional or physical traits) but she's still a little kid, so she can still get lost. But in an LKH-verse? Right when Ivy gets lost, she'd discover that on top of being a magician of enhancement, she's also the first ever crackpot Navigator of the forgotten Goddess Loseyasocks.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

I remember a science fiction series by Julian May featuring a super psychic fetus baby child who was talking while still in the womb. Jack The Bodiless. Or the book before that. It wasn't bad. I think they dealt with it well seeing as everyone in the family was psychic but Jack was a super special savior psionic.
This was a looong time ago. Lots of books in that series. Meta- something.

[polymexina.livejournal.com]

That's the Galactic Mileui series. It's actually really interesting, but it's best to read it AFTER the Saga of the Pliocene Exiles. Jack the Bodiless turns out to be humanity's first AND final form.

[brightlotusmoon.livejournal.com]

*snaps fingers* Galactic Milieu! That's the one. I devoured those books when I was a teen. I loved Rogi.

I never did get around to the Pliocenes books.

[deadsong.livejournal.com]

This is the second time in a week I've seen someone mention that trilogy after years of getting blank looks when I said it was one of my favorite sci-fi series ever. I love how they handled the whole super-baby concept of Jack, and plus Marc and his fuckups. And Uncle Rogi...god, he made the story. He made it relatable and real while still giving me that shot of sci-fi I love. Definitely in my top ten series of all time.

[magdalen77.livejournal.com]

I read the Pliocene Exile books, but I never made it to the Galactic Milieu. I know I was reading the PE in the mid-80s because it was around the time of the LA Summer Olympics.

[lliira (from livejournal.com)]

I am completely sick of it. I avoid any work that does it. Even baby Jesus just lay there drooling and pooping while people gave him gifts. Babies who actually use magic powers? Blech.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

I will give the makers of the trailer credit for making it sound really interesting. Even if I find some of it a bit much. The battle for the throne? Really? And speculation on the father(s)? Seriously, if the kids don't all have different fathers, I will be surprised. I think everyone knows that's going to happen.

ETA: And, really, if it's a polygamous marriage, they're all the fathers. Or at least that's how real life polyandry works.

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

Everything you just said... plus the social media use when AFAIK, LKH uses none of it in her story.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

I suspect you're right.

And when I think about it, it's the media and their role as antagonist to a famous person that makes me interested in this story.

False advertising by implication that they matter?

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

It's the same problem as the rest of the series - Merry's POV is boring. The things it talks about could be GOOD if we saw them from other POVs - like a scene where Merry has to send the guys off to fight for her, or something from the media POV (especially if turns out the faeries aren't all that interesting) would be entertaining.