Category: Uncategorized
The Best and Worst of January 2015
Well, January was a pretty good month for me in terms of posting. I posted every day except Friday and I didn’t post that day because I was pretty sick. So far, so good. Hopefully in February I can honestly say that I posted every single day in keeping with my new year’s resolution. And while blogging was pretty good for me, my personal life wasn’t too bad aside from the aforementioned sickness. I’m fine now, however, and am looking forward to both The Walking Dead and John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight returning next Sunday.
In January I received 6,644 views in total with 3964 of those being unique views. I noticed that my comments were way down for most of the month but that’s probably because I didn’t post anything too terribly interesting/controversial other than some Saturday discussion posts. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it and I’m just happy that January did so much better than December and that I’m back on a regular posting schedule.
So what were the best posts this month?
1. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
2. How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour
3. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
4. Best Seller by Martha Reynolds
5. The Mad Reviewer Reading and Reviewing Challenge 2015 Sign Up
Once again, there are no real surprises here. All of the top four have been in the top five for at least the last three months and my reading challenge sign up is always popular. I just have to get around to updating the official list since more people joined! It’s not as many people as last year but I think those people that did join this time around are more serious contestants. I can’t wait to see how everyone does with their goals!
So what were the worst posts this month?
2. The Best and Worst of November 2013
3. Goddess Born by Kari Edgren
4. Sondok: Princess of the Moon and Stars by Sheri Holman
Um, ouch? My Forgotten Figures article on Zenobia seems to be truly forgotten by pretty much the whole internet since it only had one view in the entire month. I spent two hours writing it and far more time researching it so yeah, that’s one of the most disappointing ‘worsts’ in quite a number of months. The others aren’t that surprising as they’re not the most popular books or they’re quite dated but I was sad to see Goddess Born by Kari Edgren on there since that is an amazingly underrated novel. But, like Zenobia, my beloved main character Selah was forgotten.
Well, that was how my January went. How was yours?
Lazy Sundays: Game of Thrones Season 5 Trailer!
When I saw that the Game of Thrones season 5 trailer had been leaked to the internet in the form of a videotaped Imax preview, I was so excited. Then I got really excited when I saw that the producers had gone ahead and just released the official trailer since it was leaked anyway. (Knowing them, they knew full well it was going to be leaked and totally planned the whole thing.) Of course, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I watched the trailer a couple of times and now am so excited for April 12. *mild spoilers ahead*
In the trailer we see the Sand Snakes, some of my favourite Dornish characters and they look absolutely amazing. We also see Tyrion and Varys, Cersei being her usual scowling self, Littlefinger with his hands all over Sansa, Daenerys being queenly, etc. Nothing really all that surprising since I’ve read the books but I’m excited nevertheless. One of the really short clips was of a young blonde girl and a young brunette in fancy gowns walking in some dark woods. Could this be young Cersei going to see the witch and receive the prophecy that haunts her throughout her life, particularly now?
Seriously, I can’t wait for Season 5. It’s going to be good.
Any other Game of Thrones fans out there? What do you think of the trailer? Anything you see that particularly excites you/piques your interest?
Discussion: The Most Disappointing Book Sequel (For You)
Sometimes an author’s debut novel or their first novel in a new series is just awesome. You fall in love with the characters, the world-building and the author’s writing style and you’re so eager for the sequel that you can hardly wait. You try to make sure your expectations aren’t too unrealistic but you do expect that the second book will be the same high quality as the first…except it isn’t. The writing is trite and full of purple prose, the characters do total 180s and seem to have completely lost their minds and the world-building is revealed to be shaky at best. It’s the curse of Book 2 Syndrome!
This happened to me most recently with Captive by Aimée Carter. Pawn had an unique premise, decent characters and a plot that just kept me guessing. But the sequel Captive was absolutely awful. Where the main character Kitty had been a smart if relatively naive main character who generally knew when to keep her mouth shut, in the second book she just would not shut up about anything. She kept smart-mouthing everyone, revealing important secrets she could have kept for leverage later and just generally having a bad case of verbal diarrhea in order to move the plot along. It was just awful and is one of the best examples of Book 2 Syndrome I’ve ever seen.
What I want to know now is this: Have you ever had a really bad book sequel experience? Whose book was it and why was it so awful/disappointing? Or, if you haven’t ever been disappointed by the second book in a series, what was the most disappointing sequel to a movie you’ve ever seen?
Let me know in the comments below!
Lazy Sundays: Sick Brain
Just on Friday night I woke up from a nice long sleep and felt like crap. My throat hurts (again), my nose is running and I’ve got an aching body that suggests good ol’ influenza. I’m hoping it’s not because I have some pretty important stuff to do at work on Monday but it looks like it’s not getting any better anytime soon. Yuck.
On a side note, one of the things I’ve noticed during the numerous times I’ve been sick is that I get so-called ‘sick brain’. My head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, I can’t focus on anything for too long and I’m sleepy yet unable to sleep. Also, my coordination is next to nil so I’m typing this post at about 10wpm. I wouldn’t mind being sick as much if I didn’t lose all of my higher brain functions along with it. Does anyone else get this?
So basically my plans for this Lazy Sunday are as follows: sleep, sleep and more sleep. Maybe interspersed by reading books I don’t have to think too much about and trying to coherently reply to comments. In essence, this really will be a lazy Sunday. I had planned on doing some research for the next Forgotten Figures article (which I’m really looking forward to; my next subject is a pretty cool lady) but obviously that’s not happening now. Next weekend!
What are you guys up to today? Do you get ‘sick brain’ as well when you have a cold/influenza?
Discussion: Books You Want to See Adapted
Every book fan has had their favourite book butchered in either movie or television form. (Trust me, I used to be an Eragon fan.) But sometimes you get a very faithful adaptation of the books that are in some ways even better than the source material. See: Harry Potter (done well) and Game of Thrones (sometimes even better, sometimes worse but generally done well). One of the things that really annoys me about movies these days is that they’re remaking movies that no one wants to see remade: movies that just came out a couple of years ago, classics, etc.
Then that got me thinking: what if the movie industry decided to adapt more worthy books instead of remaking old movies again and again?
One of the books I would love to see on the silver screen is Feed by Mira Grant. Zombies are popular now and Shaun and Georgia are main characters that are fairly easy to relate to. Mira Grant wrote the book in such a cinematic fashion that it would be very easy to adapt and make a two to two and a half hour movie out of the novel without really cutting all that much. Plus, there’s a ton of humour, political intrigue and of course zombies (with extra added science!). If the right director got his/her hands on it, I would probably be first in line to go see it as a movie.
What I want to know now is this: If a good director that stayed faithful to the source material was going to adapt any book, what book would you want to see as a movie or a TV show? Why?