My Favorite Martian Bloghop

Co-hosted by The Geek Twins, Just a Dash of Geek, L.K. Hill, and Comic Book and Movie Reviews, this blogfest is all about Science Fiction.

From The Geek Twins:

On January 21st, 2013, share your all-time favorite alien individual (Martian or not) and why you love them. Find like minded blogs, get new visitors and make new friends!

I wasn't sure what alien to choose for this blogfest at first, but then I realized it wasn't a very hard choice. I'm absolutely going with whatever caused the circumstances of 2001: A Space Odyssey, because it's my favorite portrayal of "aliens": Strange, incomprehensible, confusing, and non-human, as I would be willing to bet real aliens would be. Sure, it's fun when aliens are humanoid and speak our languages and resemble human society (I'm lookin' at you, Star Trek) but it's very unlikely to happen if we did encounter anything from a place other than Earth. At least, that's the way it seems to me.

What's your favorite alien?


-----The Golden Eagle

Teaser Tuesday (104)

Teaser Tuesday is a bookish meme hosted, every week, by MizB at Should Be Reading.

Rules for participating:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week my teaser is from Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku. I'm thrilled to finally be reading one of his works; I'd heard of him and noticed his books (and even wrote a blog post about the guy) but I'd never gotten around to actually reading any of them. Physics of the Impossible is quite interesting: He explores when and how society might achieve certain technological capabilities (most of them from pop culture, which makes my nerdy side do the happy dance) such as invisibility, teleportation, telekinesis, time travel, etc., etc.

Given that the number of moons probably greatly outnumbers the number of planets in a solar system, and given that there could be millions of wandering planets in the galaxy, the number of astronomical bodies with life-forms in the universe might be much larger than previously believed.
   On the other hand, other astronomers have concluded, for a variety of reasons, that the chances for life on planets within the Goldilocks zone are probably much lower than originally estimated by Drake.

-p. 134

**********

Are there any books/authors you've heard about and want to read but haven't gotten around to yet? If so, which ones?

Got any teasers to share?


-----The Golden Eagle

Teaser Tuesday (103)

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

Rules:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week, my teaser is from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (or Dostoyevsky or Dostoevskii or however you like to spell it) translated by Constance Garnett. I recently read Notes from Underground for school and became interested in reading another work of his. Like all the Russian books that I've read, Crime and Punishment rambles on with long sentences, various tangents, extensive description, and lots of internal monologue, but the characters are interesting.

(This is not the edition I have. But since the edition I took out from the library is a falling-apart, yellowed, Modern Library version published in 1950, I couldn't exactly find the cover via image search.)

Pyotr Petrovitch belonged to that class of persons, on the surface very polite in society, who make a great point of punctiliousness, but who, directly they are crossed in anything, are completely disconcerted, and become more like sacks of flour than elegant and lively men of society. Again all was silent; Raskolnikov was obstinately mute, Avdotya Romanovna was unwilling to open the conversation too soon.

-p. 291


Have you ever read a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky? What are your favorite "classic" books, Russian or otherwise?


-----The Golden Eagle

Cover Reveal: From the Ashes by Jessica K. McKendry

Jessica K. McKendry has revealed the cover and blurb of her debut, From the Ashes! I'm excited to be part of the reveal, since it sounds like a really good book (and the cover is fantastic):

Blurb:

I'm not sure how it all went wrong.
The concept was simple.
The Trials were made to test us. They were made to challenge our strengths; our bravery.
We were supposed to come out better.
Winning the Trials would make us Superior citizens.
It would bring us honor and demonstrate our loyalty to the Imperial Alliance. I knew exactly what I wanted.
Until I met him.
There was something about him. Something dark. If only I had known the danger it would put us in.
I thought I knew the risks.
But I never imagined the price we'd pay.

**********

Sound like a book you'd check out? What's an upcoming debut that's caught your eye?


-----The Golden Eagle

Writing The Human Stories: An IWSG Post

The IWSG was founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Alex, Tyrean Martinson, and Jamie Gibbs.

About:

It's time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group! Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic.

I'll tell you right now, I'm not that good at characterization; my strength, I think, lies in plot while setting falls somewhere in between. Whenever I consider something I've written I usually think "Gosh, those characters are melodramatic drama queens", or "Gee whiz, they're robots for people", or "Heck, is that main character supposed to be bipolar?", or "Dagnabbit, I didn't mean for the poor sod to be that simplistic."

And so on. Granted, a writer can do very well on plot alone, so long as the characters have the right motivations and the main character isn't going "Huzzah!" when, say, the love interest falls into the Pit of Doom and Despair--but I really think it's a demonstration of a writer's skill when there's great emotional conflict and the battlefield involves making decisions that can change or hurt or improve people's lives, not just the fate of a galactic empire or something (though I love high-stakes stories).

I have trouble pulling off the human element. Making sure my characters are realistic human beings with believable thoughts is one of the things I have to work on; making sure they react to and behave as though things are actually happening with them, not only to them.

I guess I've got a goal for 2013!

Do you have trouble with human stories? What's your writing strong point: Characterization, plot, setting, something else? What's your weak point and how do you try making it stronger?


-----The Golden Eagle

2013: Let's Get This Show On The Road

Hope you all have a fabulous 2013! 

2012 is over and 2013 has begun, believe it or not. Oddly enough, I'm having no trouble accepting that I have to end my dates with "13" instead of "12"; I'm looking forward to the new year, if only because it's a good opportunity for a reboot.

Starting with The Eagle's Aerial Perspective. I've been neglecting blogging since November and NaNoWriMo and didn't really make the effort I could have in December, either. Nothing very drastic is going to happen on this blog other than a few more posts per month (including book reviews, which is something I'd said I'd get back into last year yet did not . . . *cough*). Furthermore, I am going to try commenting on your blogs more often and stop calling return visits to your comments as much as I can do in one day.

As for other goals, I'm still formulating my list of things to get done this year (because I procrastinated at the end of December). I'm going to continue writing, certainly, and probably start working on another project like the Eagle Directory within the next few months--and then there's schoolwork and dance, and also my perennial resolution to finish teaching myself how to juggle. I hope I don't end up accomplishing the least important of the life skills the fastest, but I probably will. LOL.

Got any plans/goals/resolutions for the new year? Anything exciting ahead for you in 2013? Are you finding it hard to let go of 2012, or is it easy?


-----The Golden Eagle