It only took me five years.

This essay on the Buffy episode "Flooded" has a lot of good insights not only into this particular episode, but also Season 6 as a whole. It made me see what I always took for a lackluster episode in a new light and gave me a new appreciation for the thought that went into the season.

It also gave me a new insight into the choice to have Spike sexually assault Buffy, something that has never jibed with me or felt true to the character. I could never understand why they (the writers) couldn't have achieved the same result (prompting Spike to seek out a way to get back his soul) simply by having him do something more seemingly in nature with his character, e.g. attempting to bite Buffy, instead of going for the shock value of an attempted rape, not only apparently betraying his character, but also reducing an iconic feminist superhero to a rape victim cliche in the process.

I still suspect that the writers didn't fully think through the consequences of this choice; several comments I've read over the years from the former writing staff, and from Whedon himself, have indicated that they planned an all-out romance between Spike and Buffy in the show's final season, but they had to pull back because of the outcry surrounding the rape attempt. But the following has at least helped me to understand the reasoning behind the decision:

During season six, for the first time it is Sunnydale’s human monsters that take centre stage. These human monsters certainly include the Trio (who slowly become more and more villainous as the season progresses) but it also includes characters like Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Spike; each one of whom will commit monstrous acts at some point in the season.

What I believe I'm finally starting to get is the necessity, at least insofar as keeping with the central theme of the season, of having it be an act of human violence and betrayal that ultimately lead Spike to choose between his lingering humanity and his demonic nature, ultimately making the choice to be a better human being. As this essay also points out, each of the Scoobies in turn succumbed to the darkest parts of their nature, and each of them had to deal with their own penchant for monstrosity before they could grow into healthy adults.

Spike was no different. The monster inside him was more blatant, closer to the surface, and literal than the rest, but ultimately it wasn't the demon in him that attacked and betrayed Buffy. That attack had nothing to do with him being a vampire. It was the man who was broken and defeated by Buffy's refusal to even allow for the possibility of his existence, who ultimately snapped and tried to dominate her and force her to acknowledge and validate him in the most violent way possible. And it was the man who then chose to overcome his dark nature and seek out redemption. Anything else he could have done to her could and would have been attributed to the demon, but it wasn't about his demon nature. It was about humanity, the good, the bad, the disgusting, and the sublime.

That's... actually pretty cool, and I'm sorry it took me so long to get it. The writers deserve kudos for sticking to their guns and knowing what they were all about, even when the rest of us didn't.

Link: “It’s unbelievably important”: “Flooded” as Blueprint For Season Six

It could always be worse.

As infuriating and distracting as is all of the roof construction hereabouts, at least it's not as bad as all this:

Cube News 1: Between the Plastic Sheets*



*Affiliate link

Et Cetera: Holiday Highlights

The construction crew was at it bright and early this morning, pounding their little hearts out. They're still at it, although at least for the time being they've moved down a little from the window outside my cube and the banging's slightly muffled. Thank God for small favors.

Welcome back, everybody. Hope you had a good weekend, long or otherwise.

Mine was spent, among other things, getting my dog checked out at the vet, looking at rental houses, and catching up on the remainder of the 2006-07 television season on the TiVo.

Fizzgigg went in for a teeth cleaning, but was found to have an infection, and was instead sent home with about two weeks' worth of antibiotics, and I was sent home feeling like a neglectful mother and complete dumbass for assuming his lethargy and weight loss were simply due to old age and not getting him checked out sooner. Since his medicine's kicked in he's been acting like his old self again, and I think he put about two pounds back on over the weekend. Let that be a lesson to us all: don't assume your pets are just old when they start going downhill. Get them checked out. It could be something fixable. [/PSA]

Husband and I checked out a couple of rental houses on Friday, and one of them appeared to have a lot of move-in potential. We couldn't see the inside because it was getting ready to undergo a paintjob, but from what we saw of the outside, we're definitely going to go back and view the interior once it's ready to show.

The other highlight of our weekend was a late night walk we took on Saturday, during which we got to watch an entire brood of baby foxes frolic around the empty lot across from our boarding house while their parents skulked and kept a watchful eye on us from the bushes. The sight could have given Cute Overload a run for its money. What I would have given to have a video camera with night vision, but alas, I didn't even have so much as my camera phone on me, so you'll have to take my word for it: SO CUTE!!!

Otherwise, I spent the weekend being as lazy as possible while still getting enough of my share of the household chores done to get us by another week, reading, and watching a lot of movies and TV, all of which I'll write up in detail later today. For now, I'm feeling quite refreshed from all the rest, and ready to take advantage of the muffled pounding to hunker down and get some work done.

Hire yourself out with PayPerPost Direct

Sponsored post alert!


PayPerPost is at it again, rolling out yet more upgrades and somehow becoming even more awesome. Their latest feature is PayPerPost Direct, a new program that cuts out the middleman by letting advertisers hire bloggers directly to write blog ads. So if they're hiring you directly, do you really need to go through PayPerPost for that? Of course you don't need to in the strictest sense, but when you consider ease-of-use, the security of having an arbitrator to ensure that you get paid (or, if you're an advertiser, to ensure that you get what you pay for) and the fact that PayPerPost only charges a 10% fee (unbelievably low compared to the 50% and up charged by competitors such as ReviewMe), it begins to look like a pretty sweet deal.

So how does it work? Bloggers in the network simply place a badge on their blog advertising their availability. If an advertiser surfs across such a blog and sees what they like, they can just click on the badge to sign up and hire that blogger to advertise their site. It doesn't get much easier.

The other improvement this rollout brings that's got me all excited is the ability to reserve an opportunity for six hours. Six hours!!! This should make it much easier to nab quality opportunities that have actual relevance to this blog and to you, dear readers.

PayPerPost just keeps making it easier to make a good bit of extra income for just a little bit of extra work. Have you signed up yet? Why not? You can use any of the links in this post to head over there and sign up today, or if you feel like helping a girl out, you can also click the affiliate badge over on the side bar to send a little kickback my way.

And now for some peace and quiet. With lightsabers.

Colbert, Whedon and Jackson describe the first time they each saw Star Wars. Excuse me, I have to go home now and watch A New Hope for the eleventieth time. Right after I wipe this nostalgic tear from my eye.

The blog is going dark for a few days. I got approved to be on the every-other-Friday-off schedule, and my first Friday is tomorrow, which means I get a whole entire four day weekend. That comes dangerously close to a vacation! Tomorrow's going to be jam-packed with errands and household chores so that I can devote the other three days to R&R. And also possibly to Star Wars.

Happy Memorial weekend, everybody. Stay safe.

It's not just me

A particularly exuberant chorus of pounding and banging was just accompanied by a loud, despairing cry of "Oh, for God's sake! Shut up!" from one of my cube neighbors.

You thought I was kidding about that part, didn't you?

(hee.)

*POUND*

Another day, another round of incessant pounding. Ooh! Ooh! And now there's also drilling! Joy.

I might be ever so slightly less cranky about it if I didn't stay up past my bedtime to watch the Lost finale, but I did, and all I have to say about it is this: now I KNOW they're just screwing with us.

Seriously, wtf?

Construction ruckus and fic fracas

It's a slow week here on the blog, partly because I'm busy at work (busy but productive! I actually have time to do the parts of my job that isn't just putting out fires. It's nice), and partly because I just don't feel like saying much. There's construction going on, on the roof above my cube and outside the window five feet away, and it involves a lot of REALLY LOUD pounding, and it's not very conducive to thoughtful post construction. It's more conducive to getting headaches, nervous tics, and having to reign oneself in from jumping up from one's chair in the middle of the workday and screaming "For the love of TiVo, SHUT THE F*** UP!!!!"

It's happening now. "POUND! POUND! POUND! POUND! POUND!" with a slightly less loud "bang-bang, bang-bang, bang-bang" serving as backup.

ANyway.

I'm sure those of you from the fanfic community who either followed or managed to track me down here probably already know about the FanLib fracas, but in case you don't, allow me to point you to it: Making Light blogged it first, and then Scalzi blogged his two cents, and now Lis Riba has uncovered the "shocking" truth of what they're really all about, which is essentially, as Scalzi put it (there's just too much hammering to put it in my own words *tic*), to "[control] and [exploit] [Fanficcers] as cheap labor by the copyright holders."

As I'm not really part of the fic community anymore, I don't really have anything to say about it that hasn't already been said by these guys and others, other than that I took a curious peek, and I don't get what about this site could possibly appeal to veteran ficcers. My guess is it's populated with young, impressionable newbies with high hopes of getting discovered via their fic who think this will get them more exposure than FF.net or a niche archive.

So there, at least, is something to keep y'all busy whilst I get caught up on stuff, or while I'm working things out with my court-appointed attorney for pounding a construction worker in the head.

Looking for higher yields?

Sponsored post alert!

It's not quite been three months since I opened what might very well be the first of multiple high yield savings accounts. Since starting mine with a mere $25, I've been amazed at how much it's grown in such a short amount of time. Just getting past that first obstacle of starting a savings account seemed to make it a lot easier to find money to put in it. Now I'm considering switching to an account with an even higher yield, or possibly opening a second account and using separate accounts for separate funds. eMoneyCentral is making it a little easier to decide by allowing me to compare my current bank side by side with pretty much every other high-yield e-savings bank out there. What I really like about this site is that in addition to simply providing facts about each bank, they also allow users to comment and discuss their personal experience. This kind of commentary can be much more informative than bank-provided stats, and goes a long way to clue potential customers into exactly what kind of service they can expect. It's already gotten me to think twice about a certain bank I was considering switching to. That's a pretty handy tool right there.

Battle of the Blogvertisers!

I've got a new article up at Associated Content: Making Money From Your Personal Blog: PayPerPost Vs. LoudLaunch, comparing the two blogvertisers and what they each have to offer.

In other news, today I'm feeling decidedly bleah.

The Wow Factor, or, Things That Left Jean Speechless and Near Tears

Wow the first: Miss Snark is closing her doors.

Wow the second: Joss on cultural misogyny and the teeny divide between how western and eastern cultures view women.

Wow. Just... wow.

What I was trying to say about Veronica Mars was...

... pretty much everything she said. Only she said it way better.

What price pet health?

Sponsored post alert!

I've been considering buying pet insurance for a while now, especially for Fizzgigg. As he gets older there are more and more occasions when I have to decide whether something is serious enough to warrant taking him to the vet, because we can't really afford it. I just received a free online quote, and the senior care coverage is a little high, but it would cover the tummy problems he's prone to having if they come up again (for the moment we appear to have them licked). Regular coverage is more affordable, and just having that would have saved me over fifty bucks when the cat accidentally clawed his eye last year.

I also see that they offer a ten percent discount for three or more pets, so we could get regular coverage for the cats and end up saving money for all three. Knowing our cats, having accident coverage on them wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.

This is something I'll have to mull over and see whether we can really work it into the budget. But it's definitely something I would like to be able to do. I mean, just look at the little guy. Of course I want to do everything I can to ensure he lasts as long as possible.

Doctor de Carabas

In this lovely introduction essay to a Doctor Who novella, Eye of the Tyger, Neil Gaiman admits that he wrote the Marquis de Carabas (from Neverwhere) as if he were writing his own version of the Doctor.

I can't put my finger on exactly why this pleases me so very much, but it does. I'd never made the connection before, but yes: The Marquis is SO the Doctor.

There goes my Tuesdays.

Veronica Mars is cancelled. I'm not surprised, and after what I've seen of this season so far, I can't say I'm all that heartbroken, except over the fact that it was awesome once upon a time, and that time is no longer.

I've also been storing up the latest round of new episodes, planning to marathon them after the season finale. I'm sure I'll watch them over the summer, but now there's certainly no reason to hurry. At any rate, now everything I watch on Tuesday nights is cancelled. Maybe I should finally check out that House show I keep hearing so much about.

In other news... Reaper sounds an awful lot like a short-lived show I used to watch starring Peter Horton, with Jon Glover as Satan. If I'm going to be pointing out rip-offs, though, then I suppose I have to also mention CBS's Moonlight:

Moonlight (Fridays, 8 p.m.) is a drama about an "undead" private investigator (Alex O'Loughlin) who uses his vampire senses to help humans instead of feed on them. Of course, he also has to deal with the "bad" vampires — including the wife (Amber Valletta) who turned him into one of the undead — and a human reporter he's in love with.

Yes, well. Like they say, there are no new ideas under the sun, and what matters is the execution. Knowing CBS, execution will probably come about three or four episodes in. Badump-bump! Seriously, tho', quality-wise I expect something that really wants to be Angel managing to fall short but at least turn out better than Forever Knight. And I'll betcha this one won't have any puppets.

Goodbye Girls

I haven't yet watched the final episode of Gilmore Girls. It's on the TiVo, but I don't know when I'll get around to it. I've been frustrated with that show more often than not the last couple of years, and I've considered breaking up with it a few times, and I have to admit, when I heard that it was ending, I felt a little bit relieved. Sad, but relieved. But now that it's done, I'm just sad.

These pictures of the remains of Stars Hollow, taken by Pamie, are making me more sad.

I'll probably go ahead and watch the finale this weekend. I feel like I can stave off the end by not watching it, but that would just be prolonging the inevitable.

Goodbye, Gilmore Girls. I never got my wedding under the chuppah, but you still gave me a pretty good ride.

Win a Date With Tad Hamilton....'s One-time Co-star!

Sponsored post alert!

All right, boys: fire up those video cameras, polish off your best pick-up lines, and get ready to Seduce a Celebrity. If the audience likes your video the best, you could win a date with one Mirelly Taylor, an up-and-coming actress who's recently been featured on the likes of Las Vegas, Numb3rs, and the Matthew Perry vehicle, Serving Sara. So what's the catch? It's all for a new online reality show on GoFish that will feature a different celebrity each round putting in a plea for what they're looking for in a date. Then it's up to willing lotharios and lothariettes to upload their video responses, with the winners to be selected by audience vote.

If you think that's intimidating, just check out some of the competition:



Hee. Be sure to check out the other video entries. It just gets more embarrassing (and hilarious) from there.

And don't worry. If Mirelly's not your thing, upcoming "prizes" include Emmy Award Winning Producer Scott Sternberg, and The Bachelor's Andrew Firestone. This is, of course, a chance for much hilarity to ensue, and ensue it does. Check out the rest of the competition as well as other free videos at GoFish.com

I has a window!

Husband just sent me this pic of a butterfly hanging out on our bedroom window. I like how the screen makes it look pixelated.

That's a nice little dose of pretty.

Do uTango?

Sponsored post alert!

From the "Looks Too Good to Be True" Files: you can earn cash rewards and even eventually fund your retirement simply by doing all of your regular online shopping. Yeahbuhwhat?! It seems the utango rewards program gives online shoppers the opportunity to sign up for free and earn rewards for logging into uTango and shopping their affiliate merchants, which include the likes of Target, Starbucks, and Barnes & Noble, places I shop all the time. Apparently, if I start shopping at them via uTango, I can start earning $200 per year, and if I stick with it over a lifetime, my loyalty could earn me up to a cool million in retirement funds!

This is awesome. Not only can I make free money just by buying books, CDs, ground coffee, clothes, jewelry, adorable inexpesive pre-fab furniture, housewares, home decor, and about anything else I normally shop for online, but I can also research and book my travel through the utango rewards program and earn even more. Pretty much everything I ever do online, commerce-wise, is included in this program, so there's not a single reason I can think of not to sign up. And did I mention the part where it's free? Wow. Double this with your credit card's rewards incentive program and you could really rack up the extra cash. Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

Weekend Pop Culture Roundup, Part 1: The Non-TV Bits

In theaters: Mama Mia! - this would be in the actual theater, pronounced "thee-ah-tah" if you're kind of pretentious. I love this show like I love Abba, which is an unabashed lot. This is the second time I've seen it, and I think I liked this cast better, and not just because the male lead reminded me a heckuva lot of Nathan Fillion. I thought the actress playing Sophie had both a better voice and more chemistry than in the last production I saw, plus, not to imply she had anything but a lovely figure, but I appreciated that she wasn't a twig.

On Netflix: Near Dark - yes, I thought of Nathan Petrelli the entire time I watched this, because it's not as if Adrian Pasdar has had a long and varied career in between now and when this movie first came out. Even so, I started to get the sense that he's getting typecast: likeable, well-intentioned guy with understandable aspirations (getting laid, becoming president... same difference [insert your own Clinton joke here]) gets in over head with evil, murderous group who wants to make him a pawn; he doesn't really want to go along with it, but he doesn't exactly stand up to the bad guys, either, at least until his family becomes threatened. Yes, methinks Pasdar had some prior experience at playing that role. But besides that, Bill Paxton is cheesier and more over-the-top than ever in this movie, and I can't help loving it.

Croupier - this one was a pick from Matt's queue. Clive Owen stars as a writer turned blackjack dealer who's really researching a book, except that secretly he really wants to be dealing, and he almost unknowingly sleeps with his step-mom-to-be... or something. Clive Owen is pretty. That's what I mostly remember. That, and he needs to give The Edge back his hat.

In comics: - I'm slowly but surely catching up on Astonishing X-Men. I read #s 16 and 17, and so far, I'm with Kitty: "YeahbuhWHA?" I need to track down issues 18-20 so I can understand what the heck is going on. What I can say for sure is that I adore Joss's treatment of Wolverine, and also that he's made me love Kitty almost as much as Buffy. And, I hope Emma's not really evil, and has a good excuse.

More Than Hotel Reservations

Sponsored post alert!

In my vacation desperation, I'm wistfully making the rounds of the online booking sites and checking out the various hotel discounts. Hotel Reservations is a fairly new kid on the block that tends to get overshadowed by the creepy garden gnomes and creepier William Shatners in the neighborhood. Don't let the name fool you -- they're not just about hotels. You can also research and book flight packages, cruise getaways, and everything else you'd expect from a DIY travel web site. I'm searching hotels in and around Chicago, and I found some great deals for three-star hotels that fit nicely into our budget... assuming we can work the getting there part into our budget, as well.

Company Time

Welcome readers of engtech! I'm not entirely certain how my lame little blog got dragged into a debate on a site I've never heard of by someone I don't know, but hey, since it did, let's go with it. So if you've stopped by to "gawk at how it’s possible that [I've] not been called on the carpet for spending all [my] work time on personal blogging," that's a very good question, with a very simple answer.

My company knows. They don't care, as long as I get my work done. I'm incredibly fortunate that way.

I should also note that I've been blogging for most of this decade, and I've reached a point where it doesn't really take that much time and thought for me to hammer out a post (the ones that do take longer usually get written on my lunch hour, or at home, longhand, and then typed up here in a matter of minutes). I blog on my breaks, or when I'm sitting around waiting for something to be done before I can move on to the next project. My job involves a lot of sitting around and waiting. It's actually a fairly low level job and one of its major requirements is, simply, sit around and be available. As long as my 'net usage doesn't violate company policy (it doesn't), and I'm doing my job and doing it well (I am, on both counts), then everybody's happy. Sorry if that comes as a disappointment to the gawkers who are waiting for the doody to hit the fan. I realize how much more interesting that would make my blog, but, well, it's just not going to happen. At least not as long as I'm in this job.

*checks clock* This one took about 7 minutes, in case you're counting, but I checked it for errors and stuff, since it's for company and all.

P.S. I've temporarily turned on comment moderation. I developed a severe allergy to controversy around the same time I learned my lesson about allowing people to say whatever they want about me in my own blog. I'm probably massively overreacting. But if you can't say something polite, then don't bother.

I only have time for a quickie

~ I'm busy, I'm burned out, and I need a vacation.

~ I'm thinking about seeing if I can switch to the every other Friday off program. I'm putting in the necessary long hours throughout the week anyway, and I'm confident people would still mostly leave me alone to write first thing in the morning even if I'm on the clock. I think getting an extra day added to my weekend every other week would go a long, long way toward curing my burnout.

~ I'm also thinking about seeing if Matt's willing to use part of our tax refund to finance a long weekend in Eureka Springs. Because if I don't get a change of scenery and a weekend that's not mainly about doing laundry and cleaning up pet poop soon I'm very likely to snap and hurt somebody.

~ Other things I'm thinking about:

• Becoming an Avon rep. I figure I can sell it here at my office (we seem to be currently lacking an Avon Lady) and earn some extra money to throw at the credit cards--assuming I don't succumb to temptation and take too much advantage of the seller's discount. Anybody have any experience with this?
  
  
• Jumpstarting Growing Up Money. I didn't mean to abandon it, but I did think about killing it and just re-opening the finance topic here. I don't think I want to kill it, though. If work will let up enough to let me, I'll infuse some life over there again.
  
  
• Reshuffling the whole blog-website network. But again, until my workload lets up a little, that's a laughable notion. HA HA! See? Laughable.

~ I have TV thoughts, but I doubt I'll get around to writing them up today.

~ I have to pee.

~ Okay, here's one TV thought: Boo, Dreamz!

~ I'm slow on the uptake, but I just discovered the customizable Google homepage, and I'm in love with mine now that I've got it all tricked out. It has seriously streamlined how I waste time on the Internet and made me way more productive at my procrastination.

~ I'm going to go pee now.

There she goes again, letting her religiosity show.

This is cool: eBible is a searchable online study Bible with a built-in social network that lets users share their thoughts and study notes with each other. This ought to make it about a million times easier to fit some Bible study into my day.

I suppose an argument could be made that finding time to devote to God and study of the Word isn't supposed to be easy, but you know, God is aware that we're leading extremely hectic, overscheduled lives, and now He's gone and made provision for that fact. Of course, now this means I have no excuses NOT to read my Bible every day.

Free Postage Offer from Stamps.com and Coupon Chief

Sponsored post alert!

Postage rates are going up again on Monday. Postage increases are always a pain in the hinder; I'm rushing to mail everything I can this weekend and use up the stamps I've got, so that I won't have to mess around with buying any three-cent stamps. Snail mail is getting expensive, too, and with the USPS's customer non-service and track rate at losing packages, pretty soon we're going to run out of reasons to send things via regular mail instead of something more reliable like FedEx or UPS. In the mean time, though, here at least is a chance to catch a break on postage: My favorite coupon site is listing a Stamps.com coupon for $25 in free postage when you sign up for their 4-week free trial. As if that's not a cool enough freebie, you also get a free digital scale. You know how much I love bargains, especially when they involve freebies. I'm all over this offer.

HE'S my daddy

TWoP has posted a pretty entertaining podcast interview with one Jack Coleman, aka Horn Rimmed Glasses Man, aka Mr. Bennett, aka one of the major reasons I adore Heroes.

Tired again. But not too tired to beg a favor.

I had to stay late to get another huge construction drawing order out last night, which was the second such night in a row, so I'm feeling pretty worn out right now. Trusty Pedometer said I walked/jogged/stair-climbed the equivalent of 5(!) miles in the course of getting them done yesterday afternoon. Who needs the gym when you've got semi-hard labor?

Of course, I wouldn't be nearly so tired today if I hadn't stayed up to watch Lost. I'm glad I did, though, because it was co-written by my old Mutant Enemy boyfriend Drew Goddard, and it was good, and provided some actual answers, and featured actual communication between some of the characters. How novel! It even managed to genuinely creep me out for a minute there, which I don't think it's done since the first season. Well done, Drew! Not that you'll ever read this or even know who I am.

***

Fan-ficcers, I need a favor, and it's a shallow one: I keep getting review notifications from Elysian Fields. As much as I insist on leaving my fanficcing days behind me and moving on, I'm still a shallow praise whore, and if somebody's saying something nice about my writing, I'd like to be able to read it. Trouble is, this here Net Nanny has begun to spank me whenever I try to do so. Seems it finally figured out that site contains a shameful amount of vampire pr0n. I would appreciate it muchly if somebody would go over there and copy the reviews from the last couple of months for Butterfly Effect and Dead Leaves and paste them somewhere I can get to them, such as in an e-mail, or even right here in the comments.

Still :heart: PayPerPost

Sponsored post alert!

You might have noticed that I'm back at trying to make money blogging. I got a little burned out for a while there, and I had a heart to heart with myself to determine whether I would rather be a "pro blogger" or a writer with a blog. I'd rather be the latter. However, a couple of discouraging pay periods have convinced me that pro-blogging in moderation is better than no pro-blogging at all.

I've signed up with a few of PayPerPost's competitors to help ameliorate the dry spells when it's difficult to beat the competition to decent opportunities, which has given me an opportunity to compare and contrast (I'm even working on a comparison article for Associated Content as I type this; well, not RIGHT as I type this, because I only have the ten fingers. But you know what I mean). It's given me new appreciation for PayPerPost. Although their success can mean more competition which makes it more difficult to grab great opportunities, their lower-end opps still pay better than most of their competition. They've also built a thriving community of "Posties" who love to help each other in advancing their blogs and improving their blogging skills. And having been at this for almost a year now, they've got most of the bugs worked out and have streamlined the entire system. Best yet, they've proven that they care about the Posties as much as they care about advertisers. As much as I have to admit being frustrated by some of the changes they've made since I first signed up, I still think they're the best in the biz, and I'm still pretty impressed by them as a company.

So you should still expect to see the occasional sponsored post here on this ol' blog o' mine, although I promise only to accept opportunities that I can write honestly about, and that I think are either useful or of interest to at least some of you out there. It's not about to become all ad-blogging all the time, so no worries on that front. Because I still would rather be, simply, a writer with a blog.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

It took me more than a year after this book came out to get ahold of a copy and finally start reading it, and I was beginning to fear that it would take me just as long to finish it; but finish it I did, and in the months it took me to do so (you guys, I'm just not a fast reader), I went from mildly entertained but dubious to blown away and in love.

There are a few things you should note when deciding whether to take up this book. One, it's long. The paperback weighs in at over a thousand pages. The only other contemporary author I've been willing to wade through that many pages for is George R. R. Martin, and coincidentally enough, I had a similar reaction the first time I read A Game of Thrones. "This book is so looong," I whined in the beginning. "It's long and it's hard to read because there are so many characters to keep track of and so, so much description and gah! It's long!" This, of course, eventually turned into "This book is the best book ever and I can't wait to read the next one OMG I need it now!" All of which is pretty much what I felt while reading Strange & Norrell.

Another thing is the style in which it's written. It's set in Regency England, and the writing deliberately affects the style of literature from that era, most notably Jane Austen. So if you can't handle Pride & Prejudice, you won't be able to handle this. On the other hand, if you love Pride & Prejudice, you will most likely love this book even if you're not a fan of fantasy, if only for its deft handling of the language, it's reserved yet painfully sweet treatment of romance, and its wry sense of humor.

Also, there are footnotes. Don't let them scare you away. You can safely skip them without losing any information that's vital to the story, although taking the time to read them adds to the richness of Clarke's version of English history.

The book opens on early 19th century England, an England in which magic was once commonplace and practical magicianship was a highly regarded profession as well as a matter of national pride, but is now a lost art, gone away with the overgrown fairy roads and the disappearance of the Raven King. The only magicians remaining in England are the theoretical kind, and are more historians than actual practicioners of magic, devoted to studying the history of English magic. That is, until one Mr. Norrell, an elderly gentleman with undeniable talent and skill, makes his presence and his power known in a spectacular display of true magic. Norrell is an overnight sensation, quickly achieving celebrity status and becoming England's foremost authority on magic in his determination to restore England to the glory days of its magical past.

Norrell has a free and clear road to rebuilding English Magic in his own image, at least until he agrees to take on a pupil. Jonathan Strange is a young gentleman whose natural talent astonishes even Norrell. As he grows in both knowledge and skill, he begins to have different ideas of what is best for English Magic, and his frustration with the limitations placed upon him by his teacher, as well as his unwillingness to place any limitations upon his own magic, ultimately leads to a conflict that changes the face of England, and of English magic, forever.

The story spans about ten years in the lives of these two men, and includes a rich cast of supporting characters. In the beginning, as first Norrell and then Strange make their way through English society and slowly advance their careers, the people and events they encounter seem random and unrelated to the point that I began to wonder if there was any plot to this story. Thank goodness I kept reading, though, because Suzannah Clarke accomplishes the awesome feat of tying everything together into a seamless, satisfying whole, painting vivid imagery, revealing surprising twists and relationships, and subverting the reader's expectations in effective, delightful and often even gut-wrenching ways. She has an almost Whedonesque way of building anticipation of a seemingly inevitable outcome, only to undercut it by doing exactly the opposite, and the result is both unexpected and absolutely right for the characters involved.

This is an astonishingly well-written, romantic urban fairy tale. It requires a certain amount of patience, but the payoff is well worth it. I definitely recommend it.

Take an Art Break

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Russian Artist Victor Lysakov is a former Soviet engineer turned full-time painter. He's a celebrated artist in his own country, and I expect he soon will be pretty renowned in this country as well. For the first time he's making his work available to the American public. I've been perusing his web site, and I gotta say, I like his work. Some of his more traditional motifs remind me of Van Gogh, and his more modern expressionistic work has a vaguely creepy, ethereal quality that appeals to me. He uses a palette of rich, calming colors that increase the dream-like quality of his paintings, except for when he trades calming for disturbing reds and dream-like for nightmarish, as in The Abyss, which just might be my favorite. I especially like the way there seems to be a story accompanying each painting, as though he's captured a brief scene of something larger. If you're interested, quality prints, digitally replicated on museum-quality canvas, are available for purchase from the Lysakov Art Company.

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