Book Two: AGENTS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

Agents of Light and Darkness, by Simon R. Green. Second book in the Nightside Series. Published by Ace, 2003.

TTR: Started 1/1/13 and Finished 1/2/13

Comments:

The Nightside series is set in London, England and built upon the premise of a sort of "underground" world/London in which all vice/illicit desire/things that society kicks to the curb exist and are amplified. In the Nightside, it is always 3am, reality isn't obvious/existent, persay, and crazy bleep happens. The series follows PI John Taylor and his crazy "friends," Susie Shooter and Razor Eddie as they find the solutions to mysteries (Taylor is gifted with a "Sight" that helps him find things, he claims not to solve mysteries, although that is basically what he does).

This novel is the second in the series, which means that the first one was good enough to peak my attention. The story was entertaining, but I felt that there were a lot of things that could have been expounded on. Elements of the plot and the story world that I found intriguing were brushed over and dismissed. There was lots of telling rather than showing. But still, and entertaining read.

Book One: THIS YEAR YOU WRITE YOUR NOVEL

This Year You Write Your Novel, by Walter Mosley. Little Brown and Company, 2009.

(Wow, feels weird not to be using MLA format, here. But for the sake of you nonacademic bookworms, I'll persevere).

Time To Read (TTR from here on): Started and finished on January 1st, 2013*.

Comments:

While this is a book for honest-to-goodness newbie writers, and I am certainly not that (I'm working on novel six, at the moment. They say you've got to write about 1,000,000 words before you break through, and I'm seriously close), it felt like time well spent. Why? Because it was the new year and I needed encouragement/confirmation, which I found. I also found a few gems of insight, which is a plus. I especially liked the section on revisions/rewrites.

Here's a link to the NPR review, too: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9620861

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*I am a crazy fast reader (I'm not necessarily bragging, sometimes this is a very bad thing. Just ask my overtaxed eyeballs**), but This Year You Write Your Novel is also really short.

On the topic of fast reading, I feel like--but have no experience to back me up on this--that my fast reading is akin to being a junkie. I recently read Jim Butcher's Cold Days, a 500+ page novel, cover to cover over five hours, without stopping for anything. I read my two-volume, gateway edition of The Count of Monte Cristo, which is about 1400 pages, in a week (and I was lagging, then).

**Actually, no, I do not wear nor do I require glasses. My eyeballs are resilient little boogers.