Summer Reading Do's and Don'ts

 Hello to my three "Gods Are Bored" fans! Today I learned a valuable lesson. It's my second day of summer vacation, and it only took me four emphatic removals to dissuade my cat Omega from trying to nap on the laptop. Now she's sleeping in her usual spot. Four seems like kind of a low number for a determined cat. Maybe I got a good cat, or maybe she's just lazy today.

Today's sermon involves my own personal "do" and "don't" for your summer beach read.

DON'T go to Barnes & Noble and get suckered into buying the sequel to Fourth Wing. If you haven't heard of this novel, it's a passable fantasy about a military school with dragons and enemies and whatnot, sufficiently entertaining and meant for an adult audience. When I say "adult audience," I mean that it has a five-page sex scene drawn in precise anatomical and sensory detail, so lurid I can't even put it out for high school seniors in good faith. Fourth Wing was somewhat diverting and ended with a cliff-hanger, so when I saw a big ol' table with the sequel on it, I shoved my fist into my pocket for the ducats to buy it. A big mistake. I should have waited for the community book sale copy. The sequel is dull and uninspired so far, graphically violent and directionless. I will finish reading it because I spent money on it, but when I say I put it down to read a book about how Silicon Valley is altering the creative relationship between writers and readers, I think you get the point.

DO instead consider buying a copy of Whisperlights, by Brendan Myers. Also fantasy, this is a sturdy little story with a nice plucky heroine (two, actually) that does what Fourth Wing does without the slobbery sex and ridiculous length. Whisperlights is by a Canadian author who is a college professor, but the story is not at all pedantic. It moves at a nice pace. The publishing house does work with gamers, and this book kind of reminded me of my LARP -- a good group of heroes and villains, moving from adventure to adventure, with a goal that we all can get behind: asking the Gods why They do what They do. I guess that's why the book resonated with me, since I've been interviewing Gods and Goddesses for 20 years, basically asking the same question.

I put the link to Whisperlights above so that you can order it from a source other than Amazon. Long-timers here know I will dig under a rock to find an item before purchasing it from the evil empire. I definitely liked Whisperlights better than Fourth Wing, and I prefer it infinitely to the Fourth Wing sequel.

And speaking of sequels, word has it that the author of Whisperlights is working on his own sequel, as well as some other projects involving the same characters. You'll like lugging this one to the beach. And I can in good faith put it on the shelf for my students. Good stories don't need to be larded with devious tongues and throbbing man-parts.