I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, is having a Happy Hanukkah or will have a Happy Kwanzaa this holiday season. I feel very blessed. It’s been years since I’ve had this much time off, much less Christmas off —- a hazard of being a copy editor.

However, I haven’t been bored once. I’ve been visiting friends (including the fab writer/editor Mary Ann DeSantis), traveling (Philadelphia, where I saw former colleague Jaime), spending time with my family and rebooting my yoga practice during my break. Tomorrow, I’m going to a Tweetup (a Twitter meetup). Then, on Jan. 3, I can officially claim my new title of “Associate Editor.”

Life is good, truly.

I could go on all day, but she is an amazing person to interview. Her answers were clear and concise. I really didn’t have to change much at all for the online version. (The print version had to be trimmed to fit the space.)

Here’s a taste of the article, which you can read unabridged.

The best urban-fantasy novels take readers to cities in a world much like our own — except vampires, demons and witches exist there, too. And no one writes it better than New York Times best-selling author Kim Harrison, who wrote “Pale Demon,” the ninth and best book, so far, in a planned 12- to 13-part series about witch and bounty hunter Rachel Morgan.

Rachel, who dabbled in black magic to protect the people she cared about, must get to a convention witches are holding in San Francisco, where she will be tried for using black magic. Roommates Ivy, a living vampire, and Jenks, a pixy, accompany her, as does Trent Kalamack, a sometimes criminally minded elf, who has his own reasons for heading west.

For my lovely, loyal readers, here’s a question and answer that didn’t make it in either the print or online version (it really didn’t fit in with anything else I asked):

Did I read that you had moved from Rock Hill, S.C., to Michigan? How are you coping with the weather?
We’ve had a nasty winter in Michigan. But I’m from Michigan, so I’m eager to see some snow. It’s been 13 years since I’ve had a real, solid cold winter. Fortunately, since my job takes place at home, I don’t have to get out, you know, and shovel the snow off my car every morning. If I did, I’m not sure I’d be appreciating the snow quite as much as I do. [Laugh]

Having said that, I am so ready for this winter to be over, it’s not funny. It had better be gone by the time I get back from this tour. I want to play in the dirt again.

***

If you didn’t read the full version, above, go to http://www.go386.com/culture/2011/03/-the-best-urban-fantasy.html, and better yet, buy the book, too!

I have to admit: Kim Harrison had me worried with “White Witch, Black Curse” that her series was losing its sparkle, but she’s back with style in “Black Magic Sanction.”

Here’s my review:

Kim Harrison regains momentum with her fast paced eighth novel “Black Magic Sanction,” which finds bounty hunter and witch Rachel Morgan working to remove her shunning from the magical community. Like the majority of the series, the title is a takeoff of spaghetti Western titles.

Read more at go386.com.

Since I no longer see book reviews listed on the News-Journal Web site, I’ll start posting my reviews here. For instance, while traveling (more info to come), my book review of Stephen King’s enormous “Under the Dome” ran.

“The King is back”
The sheer size of Stephen King’s latest book “Under the Dome” is imposing. It could pass for a doorstop.

But readers shouldn’t worry: The 1,088-page book is hard to put down. There were several nights of saying, “Just one more chapter before bedtime.” As that so often goes, however, one chapter turns to two, then three…

In “Under the Dome,” the town of Chester’s Mill is isolat­ed by a sudden invisible dome. No one can go in or out, and that brings out the best and worst of its citizens. The dome may be remind some of “The Simpsons Movie,” but King has said he started writing portions of the novel in the 1970s.

Because there are a hundred or so characters, going through all of them, much less remem­bering each one, is a little tricky. Before the novel starts, there’s a who’s who of charac­ters.

One of our heroes is Dale “Barbie” Barbara, an Iraq war veteran who made enemies out of the good old boys in Chester’s Mill because of someone else’s lie. He’s perfectly content to be a drifter and leave the town, but circumstances require him to return to duty.

He’s helped by Julia Shum­ way, who is the editor and pub­lisher of The Chester’s Mill Democrat. She gets the word out when those in power would wish otherwise.

The major villain — and truly one of King’s most terrifying vil­lains since Annie Wilkes in “Misery” —is used car salesman and local political kingpin Jim Rennie Sr. (His son is just as scary — and sick.)

It’s amazing to see how a func­tioning society just falls apart, and so easily, too. That’s part of the pull of the novel.

With its topic and scale, “Un­der the Dome,” compares to King’s epic “The Stand,” but doesn’t quite surpass it. There seems to have been massive trimming in the second half to shorten the gigantic novel.

By the time one reaches the end — and finds out whether the dome has been placed by the government, supernatural forces, local yokels or some­thing else entirely — some of the magic evaporates. Deaths get glossed over, and while King rightly kills some of his darlings and wraps up the entire enter­prise, readers are left wishing he’d done an epilogue to explain it a little more.

Though the ending may feel unfinished for some, the novel is worthwhile. If nothing else, it will inspire readers to think about how they or their leaders should act in a crisis.

Teachers around the world tell students, “Show, don’t tell,” when learning to write. Too bad the author of “The Book of God and Physics: A Novel of the Voynich Mystery” did not take this advice to heart.

Enrique Joven, its author, takes a fascinating mystery and puts us to sleep instead. It’s all the more infuriating because the mystery — an either 15th or 16th century manuscript painstakingly written in an unknown language and illustrated with what looks to be symbolic drawings — is real and stored at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The author of the Voynich manuscript is unknown, but it’s associated with the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia Rudolf II, who patronized a variety of artists, writers, philosophers and scientists, including Dane Tycho Brahe and German Johannes Kepler.

Those names should sound familiar because their work (and the work of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei) formed the basis of our understanding about astronomy and physics. In fact, it was the tumultuous relationship between Brahe and Kepler as well as Brahe’s strange and untimely death that should have been shown, not told to us in lecture after lecture.

The narrator of “The Book of God and Physics” is a likable Jesuit named Hector, who teaches at a Catholic prep school in Spain. He belongs to an online group dedicated to unlocking the secrets of the Voynich manuscript, which has never been translated. And many have tried, including American military cryptographers after World War II.

Then, Hector’s online world collides with reality, as two of his online friends — Juana, an heiress from Mexico, and John Carpenter, a physicist with the Royal Greenwich Observatory in Cambridge, United Kingdom — seek his help to unlock the secrets of the manuscript. Together they become enmeshed in a conspiracy possibly stemming from Rudolf II’s court to the present day.

Author Enrique Joven, who himself holds a doctorate in physics and works as a senior engineer in the Canary Islands, obviously loves and is enthusiastic about science. He puts forth all the theories surrounding the Voynich manuscript as well as discusses the speculation about Kepler’s possible role in Brahe’s death.

Though Joven wisely makes his narrator both a priest and teacher, who might be forgiven a little too much exposition, he unfortunately litters the book not only with long summaries of events but also clunky dialogue, such as this scene from page 282:

“That last one sounds good. Explain,” Juana asked.

“Aqua regia is a yellow, extremely corrosive solution, a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid, highly concentrated. It got its name, royal water, because it could dissolve precious, or royal, metals like gold and platinum. Very few reactants could do that,” John explained.

Unless the reader is a very dedicated scientist or history buff, “The Book of God and Physics” won’t capture many people’s imagination, which is a shame because the Voynich manuscript — and all the people associated with it — resonates as a real-life mystery needing resolution.

This was a fun review to write, which sounds terrible since it was negative, but the disappointment I felt reading this book made it easy to offer criticism. Apparently, my passion was obvious.

“You should only write negative reviews,” my co-worker David said. “That was your best book review yet.”

Stay tuned then for my review of Stephen King’s “Under the Dome,” which isn’t all negative but isn’t all positive either.

Also, I want to direct you to The Onion, which in addition to its hilarious Michael Jackson headlines, documents a copy editor’s revenge:

“So, when he described the carburetor warmer as a ‘twentieth century’ invention, I decided to leave the copy untouched and let him deal with the consequences of his actions. The fucker.”

]]> http://sherrymims.com/2009/06/28/undress-me-in-the-temple-of-heaven/feed/ 0 http://sherrymims.com/2009/05/25/top-5-things-i-like-about-being-a-journalist/ http://sherrymims.com/2009/05/25/top-5-things-i-like-about-being-a-journalist/#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 18:45:29 +0000 Sherry http://sherrymims.com/?p=117

I inform people about people, places and/or events they should know about.

I meet the most fascinating people doing interviews. I’ve interviewed artists, actors and people in far out fields, such as steamboat operators!

My co-workers are all educated and well-read.

You can read books, screen movies and try products for review purposes for free before they’re released to the general public.

When people ask you what you do for a living, most of them seem impressed. Even though the job isn’t glamorous, people seem to think it is.

Speaking of reviewing books, my book review on “White Witch, Black Curse” by Kim Harrison published on Sunday. I really enjoy doing book reviews, especially since I can use my downtime at work constructively.

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