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mephistia

attempting obscurity

I mess around with writing, but deep down I'm pretty sure I'll never actually get published because I treat it like a hobby and not a passion -- I write when I have time, instead of making time to write.

 

When I read, I prefer YA sci-fi/ fantasy as my go-to fiction reads. I tend toward this genre because I read fiction as an escape from the daily drudge of life. YA sci/fi-fantasy usually has more upbeat/ hopeful endings, while adult fiction of any genre (except romance) tends to have more depressingly realistic endings. Sometimes I read romance novels, but I really prefer the type with plot/ character development between sex scenes, and I don't like having to hunt for them.

 

In non-fiction, I prefer history, biographies, psychology, gender studies, social/applied sciences, and law/ public policy.

Currently reading

Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow Into Troublesome Gaps -- And What We Can Do About It
Lise Eliot
White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race
Ian F. Haney López

Legion of Thunder: Orcs First Blood, Book 2

Legion of Thunder - Stan Nicholls It was . . . an interesting concept. I liked the idea of a book featuring the orc as the anti-hero protagonist. I thought it would be a neat way to explore fantasy tropes and I was intrigued at the possibilities.The execution was a bit choppy. It's not bad in the way that Twilight is bad -- the pacing was decent, the writing was overall okay with flashes of brilliance. It was vaguely annoying how he would spend 5+ pages describing each sword-chop and flung blade in battle -- during the first battle, I thought it was cool. By the 3rd, I was getting irritated, and by the 5th, I would just flip to the scenes post-battle. I guess maybe battle is one of those things where the excitement and terror and trauma are better transmitted on-screen than on-page. The other major complaint I had was how predictably he moved the story along. I swear, every single person/ group who met that orc warband was under a death sentence from the time they saw them. It didn't matter how innocent they were, or how kindly or cruelly the orc warband treated them. They either fought the orcs and died, or the orcs interacted in some manner with travelers who were then tortured and killed for information regarding the whereabouts of the orcs. It was so predictable, I started getting irritated.