Review Me Twice: Stardoc by S L Viehl

At first glance, when I pulled this book off the holds shelf at my library, I thought it had to have been published in the 1970s. Back in the decade where "star-" was a prefix that magically made any topic exponentially cooler. And my copy is in pretty sorry shape... "well-loved," you might say. But actually, it was published in 2000.

It's... better than I expected. I thought it would be horribly cheesy and overwrought and medically unsound, but this is definitely an instance of a time you should not judge a book by its (1970s-sci-fi-ish) cover.

Sometimes the first-person narration sounds a little haughty... but Cherijo Grey Veil (our protagonist) has good reasons to think like a dictionary, like isolation from peers from a young age, intense academic study forced upon her by her father, etc. And I admit to thinking with a large vocabulary sometimes, so it's not like it's impossible. It just sounds a little awkward every once in a while.

The alien names and words take a little getting used to, but I think that's part of the experience. Cherijo is getting used to them too. And they're not impossible (though the charge nurse at the FreeClinic has a name I never could sort out how to pronounce in my head).

All in all, I think Stardoc was fun to read. I don't think I'll run out and grab the next book in the series, but I might go back and read them someday, if I run across them.

When I first read this series, I actually read the third one, not realizing it was the third one in the series.  Let me tell you, it's not the type of series that you can jump in at book three and know what's going on.  But I liked it enough to go back and pick up the first two books in the series and figure out what the hell was going on.

You get a strong female lead, who is just a little more genteically badass, making it her fit right into the sci-fi world she lives in.  And it's very sci-fi her world.  She is a doctor who heals aliens of every sort and travels to another wold.

I have read (almost) the whole series, and her asshole father becomes a big deal as it goes on, along with Duncan Reever (the linguist she continually runs into).  I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's an intellectually stimulating story, but it's fun with good characters and is a fast read.

Author Bio: S L Viehl

That's not actually S L Viehl. Well, she is, but she's actually Sheila Kelly, who writes under a number of different pseudonyms, one for each genre she writes in. S L Viehl is her science-fiction pseudonym, under which she writes the Stardoc series.

Since part of the point of having a pseudonym (or many) is to stay more anonymous than people who publish under their own name, there isn't a lot of publicly available information about her. I know she's American, and I know she has pretty typical hobbies (knitting, for example).

So we'll have to let her writing speak for itself later this week! We'll be reading the first book in the Stardoc series.

Favorite Book With Aliens

I actually talked about this series pretty recently (and, looking at the post I talked about it in, I get the feeling this post might end up exactly the same way), but I'm still going to put it out there.  I really love this series.  And there are SO MANY ALIENS.  She dates an alien in the first book.  She gets adopted by an alien  race.  She heals aliens, she lives with them, she fights with them.  You almost forget that she is human, there are so many aliens in this series.

And they're all described so well.  Viehl's strength is probably in creating fascinating alien races that are individual, with individual looks and strengths, and weaknesses, and languages.  Part of what I love about this series is not necessarily the characters, but the world building that he does.  I don't read a lot of sci-fi, so for me to recommend a sci-fi series twice in one year probably means you should go read it.

I loved the My Teacher Is an Alien books when I was in middle school. And it wasn't just because they are fun, silly, books... I thought it was just the coolest thing in the world that my 6th grade math teacher's math teacher wrote them. (I also thought my 6th grade math teacher was really cool. Shout out to Mr. Tyminski!)

I don't remember a lot of the details of the books, but I remember loving them. Another teacher, or maybe the principal or something, she's an alien too. I think the teacher's house was the spaceship? And there was a little fuzzy squishy creature that I always pictured as something like a Tribble. I seem to remember a scene similar to that one in Lord of the Rings where Merry and Pippin are separated (except with middle school students, and space, instead of hobbits and Middle Earth).

Review Me Twice - Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

So, for a graphic novel, it wasn't bad.  I like the concept (only one guy left on the fact of the planet.  How would the world change?  How would we repopulate the Earth?) and there were enough questions left unanswered in this first volume that I want to read the next one if for no other reason than to have some questions answered.

And in terms of pictures vs. my sanity in having to "read" them, it wasn't even that bad.  Sandman by Neil Gaiman is a rough GN, not because it's bad, but because there is just SO MUCH going on it it, that you have to read it about twelve times to really get a feel for what's going on.  Y: The Last Man isn't like that.  The pictures are... I don't want to say simple, but they aren't so intense that I need to pay as much attention to them to figure out what's going on, which is nice.

So, overall, a graphic novel that I would continue, which coming from me, the great graphic novel hater, not a bad endorsement.

I love this series. I read the whole thing (10 volumes) before going to New York Comic Con in hopes that I would get to meet Brian K Vaughan. (Unfortunately for me, he's just too popular, and that didn't happen.)

The characters? Unique and real. The pacing? Perfect. The plot? As far as I know, unlike anything else out there (at least unlike anything else I've read). And, without giving you spoilers, the ending? My kind of satisfying.

This is one of those stories I want to say I'd love to see turned into a movie, but I can see Hollywood making the wrong choices and changing the great bits and thinking the worse bits are what we like about it. So maybe not.

Author Bio - Brian K. Vaughan

This week, we're reading Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan.  Vaughan has written several graphic novels, including Saga, which Alex touched on a few weeks ago, and Runaways, which is actually one of the few graphic novel series I love.

Vaughan also writes for television.  He was a screenwriter for the show Lost from seasons three through season five.  He was also a show runner and executive producer for the show Under the Dome, based on the book by Stephen King.

So basically, the guy has dabbled in a whole lot of stuff.  He even wrote for some of the big names like Batman, Captain America and Buffy the Vampire Slayer during his career.  He started with Marvel comics, before moving over to DC Comics.  Eventually, around 2002, he decided he wanted to have his own characters and started doing Y: The Last Man along with some other projects.

As far as I can tell, this is his website, where he sells directly to the fans, but he doesn't really seem to keep up with any sort of social media.

Favorite Book with a Flashback

Walk Two Moons has always been one of my favorite books.  It's really a book for all ages kind of book, because the girl is 12, so she's not quite a teenager, but she's not quite a kid anymore, which I think just makes the book all that more relatable.

Sal is going on a trip with her grandparents to see her mother (and Sal is going to try and make her come back, though she doesn't tell her grandparents that.)  Throughout the whole trip, she's telling her grandparents about one of her friends, whose mother also left, though for different reasons than Sal's mother.

Through these flashbacks we see the parallels to Sal's life, and Sal's troubles.  She also tells the reader about her life with her mother, and all the things that she grew up with and the places that she used to go.  Inevitably, the story takes place m
ore in the past than it does the present, but it is wonderfully balanced and incredibly written and definitely something that should be read by everyone.

Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five doesn't have so much "flashbacks" as it does "flash-arounds" because the timeline is all jacked up. The protagonist doesn't really stay in a linear timeline so you don't really know when the "present" is. This is the only Vonnegut book I've read, so I can't say whether I'm a fan of his in general, but I do think this is really excellent writing. I can't imagine trying to keep track of everything while writing like this, and I'm impressed, to say the least. There's just something about being able to reveal the right information at the right time that I don't have the hang of, and it's even more difficult when you've basically thrown your story's timeline into a blender and are reaching in for bits and pieces while it's still on.

Favorite Sci-Fi Book

Since we're reading a sci-fi book this week, Timeline by Crichton, we're telling you our favorite sci-fi book.

Mine is really a sci-fi series that I like, but with sci-fi, that's not uncommon.  The very first book in the series is called Stardoc.  Cherijo is a doctor, who, throughout the series spends time traveling the galaxy, healing people.  She also happens to be a clone with a super immune system and is running from her father/creator.

There's a lot of adventures and twists and turns and secrets revealed, and while each book COULD be read alone (I started on book three inadvertently and got through it without much problem), they really should be read in the series that they are.

That's a photo from my wedding, y'all. I think that demonstrates that yes, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy qualifies as my favorite sci-fi book. (This particular copy was mutilated in the name of holding our rings... totally worth the sacrifice.)

Beyond the usability as a prop in my nuptials, it's a great series. If you like British humour and non sequiturs and weird little side plots and you have an open mind about the state of things in the universe, it's perfect for you.

Review Me Twice: Teen Angst? Naaah...: A Quasi-Autobiography by Ned Vizzini

I read this book for my YA lit class as an undergraduate. I think most recent high school graduates should read it as a way of helping them deal with the transition from high school to either college or "the real world." The book isn't about that transition, but it reflects on Vizzini's high school experience in retrospect, and a lot of people don't stop to do that before moving on to the next stage of life. It can be interesting, enlightening, or just a nice way to let go of things.

Hindsight being 20/20, memory being imperfect, and the unreliable nature of narrators all lend themselves to the fact that Ned Vizzini seems to have had a TV sitcom high school experience. He went to a gifted school (maybe you've heard of Stuyvesant?) and had unique experiences mostly related to his writing, and stereotypical experiences dealing with alcohol and sex. But the way he tells the stories - whether embellished or misremembered or solid truth - is wonderful.

Vizzini had the gift of writing in such a way that makes you feel like you know the guy. Like he's an old friend you just haven't spoken to in a while. And that's what I think made him a great writer: identifiability (which I insist is totally a word now).

I read this book in the same YA literature class that Alex did.  This is the first time that I've read it since then and, honestly, I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't classify it as OMG IT'S THE BEST BOOK EVAR!  It was humorous and I really like how Vizzini's captured high school life.

Honestly, a lot of high school is exactly as he writes it, probably because he was in high school as he was writing these essays.  And considering how young he was at the time, the writing is incredibly impressive.  You realize that he was writing a lot of these for the NY magazine at just 15 or 16 years old, which is pretty awesome if you ask me.

It's a good book to pick up and enjoy, and he is quite relateable, but it's not one I would necessarily put at the top of my to be read pile.

Seeing Ned Vizzini

We're concentrating a lot on Vizzini this week, one because we're reviewing his book, but we're reviewing it due to his passing recently.  Since many of you probably didn't know much about him before this week (or had even heard of him), I'm going to link you to a few of the interviews that he's done throughout his life.

http://whatanerdgirlsays.com/2013/10/10/interview-with-ned-vizzini/

This one is from the LA Girls Teen Fest.  It's a pretty standard interview, but he does talk a little bit about his battles with depression and also tell the interviewer who his fantasy crush is.

Below is a video that was taking at the San Diego Comic Con.  It's a fun interview and you get to see what he's like in person.

http://www.bookbrats.com/house-secrets-blog-tour-interview-author-ned-vizzini/#.UsuL5fRDvT9

That one is nice because he talks about what it's like to co-author a book and also about the other things that he's done, like books he's written and movies that his books were being turned into.

There are a million and one interviews with him out there, these are just some of the ones that I liked.

Author Bio: Ned Vizzini

Ned Vizzini started writing as a teenager in the late 1990s. He was born in 1981 and lived in New York City.

He did lots of freelance work as a high school student (a lot of which you can read about in this week's review book). In 2004, Be More Chill - his first novel - was published, and it was criticized by many for not having a clear moral, but it's also widely celebrated by Vizzini's fans.

His second novel, It's Kind of a Funny Story (2006) is what most people remember Vizzini for, perhaps because it was turned into a movie in 2010. It's based on Vizzini's five-day stay in a psychiatric hospital in Brooklyn for suicidal depression.

In 2012, he published The Other Normals (another novel) and wrote two episodes of MTV's "Teen Wolf." With Chris Columbus (the filmmaker) he wrote the first novel of a middle-fantasy series, House of Secrets, in 2013.

Despite years of travelling to give talks and writing essays about getting help for suicidal depression, Ned Vizzini committed suicide on December 19, 2013.

We're going to do our tiny part in remembering him by reviewing Teen Angst? Nahhh...: A Quasi-Autobiography this week.

Authors Diagnosed with Dyslexia

Lots of famous people have been diagnosed with dyslexia: Steven Spielberg, Orlando Bloom, Henry Winkler, Guy Ritchier, Keanu Reeves, Pablo Picasso, John Lennon, Keira Knightley, Jay Leno, Bruce Jenner, Salma Hayek, Whoopi Goldberg, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Anderson Cooper, Cher, Tom Cruise, Lara Flynn Boyle, Alexander Graham Bell...

You might think being an author is an unusual career choice for someone with dyslexia. But Patricia Polacco - author of this week's review book, Rechenka's Eggs, and dozens of other children's books - was diagnosed with dyslexia, and she is not alone!

Louise Arnold
In 2003, the BBC wanted to find "the next J K Rowling," and they found Louise Arnold. They asked for the first paragraph of a children's book, and put the finalists to a public vote. When Arnold won, she got an agent and started writing the Grey Arthur series, which to date includes three books: Golden & Grey (An Unremarkable Boy and a Rather Remarkable Ghost) (in England, titled The Invisible Friend); Golden & Grey: The Nightmares that Ghosts Have; and Golden & Grey: A Good Day for Haunting.

Octavia Butler
Author of the Patternist series, Lilith's Brood series, and Parable series, along with many short stories and articles, Butler has won the Hugo and the Nebula, and is arguably the best-known female African-American science-fiction writer. She was the first sci-fi author to earn a MacArthur fellowship (aka the Genius Grant).

Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)
The famous creator of Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and such) was diagnosed as dyslexic, which is simultaneously not surprising (have you read "The Jabberwocky"?) and very surprising (for a man so amazing at word play and a child who read difficult works so early in life).

Fannie Flagg (Patricia Neal)
Flagg wrote the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (which was adapted to the movie, Fried Green Tomatoes, for which she won an Academy Award) and she was also a regular on the show The Match Game. She has spoken about her dyslexia, saying that it's an ongoing problem, and that her writing was put on hold for most of the '70s because she was discouraged.

Jules Verne
French novelist Jules Verne is best known for Around the World in Eighty Days, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. He is the second most translated author in the world (following Agatha Christie) and is one of three authors referred to as the Father of Science Fiction (along with H. G. Wells and Hugo Gernsback). While he is considered a children's writer in most Anglophone regions, much of Europe considers him a major literary author.

So if you have been diagnosed with dyslexia or any other learning disorder, don't be discouraged! These people weren't! (Or they were, and then later they weren't. I'm a bad pep-talker.)