Quotations Weblog

I was surprised to find out that our Quotes of the Day is number 11 on the Bloglines Top 1000 blogs.

• βloglines | Top 1000

I enjoyed looking at all of the weblogs that I read that are below ours with a secret joy.

Thanks to all of you who subscribe to the Quotes of the Day on Bloglines, and thanks to every person who reads our site or links to us.

I’m smiling right now!

Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? (True Adventures in Cult Fandom) by Allyson Beatrice sounds like an amazing read! Allyson was lonely in a new city, so she went online to find other fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. She found a life instead.

• Unshelved comic strip – Will the Vampire People Please Leave the Lobby? (True Adventures in Cult Fandom) by Allyson Beatrice

To all of those people who tell fans to “get a life,” this book heralds the fact that it’s possible to do what you love AND get paid for it.

Well, Unshelved “Week” was a little of a misnomer. I should have called it Unshelved Month, except I didn’t have quite enough saved for a month. Hope you enjoyed the book recommendations and be sure to read Unshelved every day!

What is reality? That is the question you are faced with in Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff.

• Unshelved comic strip – Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff

In this clever SF thriller from Ruff (Fool on the Hill), almost everyone is a bad monkey of some kind, but only Jane Charlotte is a self-confessed member of The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons. Or is she? In a series of sessions with a psychotherapist in the Las Vegas County Jail nut wing, Jane tells the story of her early life in San Francisco and her assimilation into the Bad Monkeys, an organization devoted to fighting evil. Crazy or sane, Jane is still a murderer, whether she used a weapon like the NC gun, which kills someone using Natural Causes, or more prosaic weaponry. Still, nothing is quite what it seems as Jane’s initial story of tracking a serial killer janitor comes under scrutiny and the initial facts about her brother, Phil, get turned on their head. At times the twists are enough to give the reader whiplash.

How about a superhero book that is not a comic? That’s what Soon I Will Be Invincible: A Novel by Austin Grossman is:

• Unshelved comic strip – Soon I Will Be Invincible: A Novel by Austin Grossman

The realm of comic book heroes and villains gets a dose of realism in this whimsical debut from game design consultant Grossman. The story shifts between the perspectives of Doctor Impossible, a brilliant scientist turned world’s greatest menace, and Fatale, a lonely cyborg and the newest addition to the venerable group of heroes known as the Champions. Though he’s been out of commission for a while, Doctor Impossible hatches a scheme to knock the planet out of orbit. Meanwhile, Champions leader Corefire goes missing, and Fatale has to learn the ropes of superherodom as the conventional climactic showdown draws near. However fantastical, the characters are thoughtfully portrayed, with Fatale—stuck in a perpetual existential crisis—bemused over the Champions’ purpose, and Doctor Impossible wondering “whether the smartest man in the world has done the smartest thing he could with his life.”

If you are a fan of superheroes, you’ll enjoy this novel with a surprisingly realistic outlook (considering all the latex involved).

Third in the series, Always by Nicola Griffith continues the story of Aud Torvingen:

• Unshelved comic strip – Always by Nicola Griffith

At the start of Griffith’s intense third thriller to star Aud Torvingen (after The Blue Place and Stay), the stylish half-American, half-Norwegian lesbian ex-cop and self-defense teacher is still grieving over the shooting death of her lover, Julia, a year earlier. Also distraught over a recent violent incident involving one of her self-defense students, Aud welcomes the chance to leave Atlanta, accompanied by her friend, Matthew Dornan, to visit her ambassador mother, Else, in Seattle. There sabotage of a TV pilot in production that’s been receiving OSHA and EPA complaints disrupts their vacation. Adding romantic tension is Victoria “Kick” Kuiper, a caterer and former stuntwoman, to whom both Aud and Matthew are attracted. Aud’s ace investigation reveals political and environmental chicanery, but more importantly, leads to a surprising lesson about love. Lucid prose and great self-defense lessons are a plus.

Sounds like girl power on overtime, but if you want a story about girls who kick a**, then you’ve got it here. You might want to start at the beginning of the series, however:

• The Blue Place by Nicola Griffith