I am still awake.
Why is this? I could have sworn up, down, and sideways that I went to bed at 1 AM. But I'm not in bed, I'm at my computer. Writing on Livejournal. Which again begs the question, why am I still awake? Because clearly, I am. And this is not a dream.
Ah well. I suppose sleep will strike when it's ready. When it's done lurking in the shadows, teeth bared, much like a cobra, but with out a mongoose ready to hunt it and feed it to its hungry children.
Was that a Riki Tiki Tavi reference? Dear lord.
Well, since I'm not asleep, I'm going to write about Cassandra Claire. I was thinking about her first original novel, which came out a while ago. It's definitely a decent novel, but I regret to say that I find it lacking somewhat, at least in comparison to the Draco Trilogy. And there I hit a snag, find a problem, and experience difficulty. Her original novel isn't as moving as a work of fanfiction? What is this? What's going on? There are actually a few problems I have with it, and the first is directly linked to the Draco Trilogy. There's a flashback of Draco's in the second or third installment in which he remembers a wild falcon his father gave him. Well, to cut a merely moderately-sized story short, Draco teaches the bird to love him and Lucius kills it on the premise that it was supposed to fear and obey him, not love him. Young Draco decides never to cry again, or perhaps I'm just making that part up because it adds drama. Anyway, despite the fact that as the author she is entitled to do this, I am bothered by the fact that this part was included in City of Bones. Not only was it included, in fact, but it was included almost word for word. The only part that changed were the names, Draco becoming Jace, the young Shadowhunter, and Lucius becoming Valentine, his cruel and alluringly blond father. I just don't like that Jace, who also is blond and devastatingly sexy in a sharp-edged and dangerous sort of way, is basically DT!Draco, like she couldn't bear to let him go and had to somehow try to write him into the world that she had created. (The other issues I have with CoB are actually rather minor in comparison, things like my irrational dislike of the main protagonist because she's tiny and has red hair, and the fact that despite the rather stirring battle at the end between the werewolves and reanimated corpses, it still seemed less-than-epic, and I expected more from her). That aside, though, I'm still going to re-read the book and get the second one (City of Ashes) when it comes out, because despite its [perceived] deficiencies, I still like Cassandra Claire's writing a LOT. And now that I think about it, maybe I just couldn't get into the New York setting, or maybe I was jaded by the genius of Scott Westerfeld (a YA author that I had read slightly beforehand and have real respect for; he's great). To make up for it, I'm going to post an excerpt from the first posted chapter of CoA that made me laugh:
***
"Are you still mad?"
Alec, leaning against the wall of the elevator, glared across the small space at Jace. "I'm not mad."
"Oh, yes you are." Jace waved a hand accusingly at his stepbrother, then yelped as pain shot up his arm. Every part of him hurt from the thumping he'd taken that afternoon when he'd dropped three floors through rotted wood onto a pile of scrap metal. Even his fingers were bruised. Alec, who'd only yesterday put away the crutches he'd had to use after his fight with Abbadon, didn't look much better than Jace felt. His clothes were covered in mud and his hair hung in lank and sweaty strips. There was a long cut down the side of his cheek.
"I am not," Alec said, through his teeth. "Just because you said dragon demons were extinct-"
"I said mostly extinct."
Alec jabbed a finger toward him. "Mostly exctint," he said, his voice trembling with rage, "is NOT EXTINCT ENOUGH."
"I see," said Jace. "I'll just have them change the entry in the Demonology textbook from ‘almost extinct' to ‘not extinct enough for MY BROTHER. He prefers his monsters really, really extinct.' Will that make you happy?"
***
Damn. It's still Draco through and through. Amanda, I can't wait until you read the Draco Trilogy. Karen, you really should finish it. It's angsty and really worth it.
Edit: I feel like I should include this. It's an ACTUAL illustration of Jace, straight from Cassie Claire's website.
You do see what I mean, right?
There's one other thing on my mind. I was looking for Sonata Arctica pictures earlier to make into icons (which I did, by the way, and will get around to posting on my other journal sometime), and I found some really, really funny ones. Tony is not good looking, but damn he's comedic. Can I adopt him?
Oh, and one final thing - Karen, I made you a Jyrki icon, if you like it and want it. Actually, I made a couple, but this one turned out the best.
Ah well. I suppose sleep will strike when it's ready. When it's done lurking in the shadows, teeth bared, much like a cobra, but with out a mongoose ready to hunt it and feed it to its hungry children.
Was that a Riki Tiki Tavi reference? Dear lord.
Well, since I'm not asleep, I'm going to write about Cassandra Claire. I was thinking about her first original novel, which came out a while ago. It's definitely a decent novel, but I regret to say that I find it lacking somewhat, at least in comparison to the Draco Trilogy. And there I hit a snag, find a problem, and experience difficulty. Her original novel isn't as moving as a work of fanfiction? What is this? What's going on? There are actually a few problems I have with it, and the first is directly linked to the Draco Trilogy. There's a flashback of Draco's in the second or third installment in which he remembers a wild falcon his father gave him. Well, to cut a merely moderately-sized story short, Draco teaches the bird to love him and Lucius kills it on the premise that it was supposed to fear and obey him, not love him. Young Draco decides never to cry again, or perhaps I'm just making that part up because it adds drama. Anyway, despite the fact that as the author she is entitled to do this, I am bothered by the fact that this part was included in City of Bones. Not only was it included, in fact, but it was included almost word for word. The only part that changed were the names, Draco becoming Jace, the young Shadowhunter, and Lucius becoming Valentine, his cruel and alluringly blond father. I just don't like that Jace, who also is blond and devastatingly sexy in a sharp-edged and dangerous sort of way, is basically DT!Draco, like she couldn't bear to let him go and had to somehow try to write him into the world that she had created. (The other issues I have with CoB are actually rather minor in comparison, things like my irrational dislike of the main protagonist because she's tiny and has red hair, and the fact that despite the rather stirring battle at the end between the werewolves and reanimated corpses, it still seemed less-than-epic, and I expected more from her). That aside, though, I'm still going to re-read the book and get the second one (City of Ashes) when it comes out, because despite its [perceived] deficiencies, I still like Cassandra Claire's writing a LOT. And now that I think about it, maybe I just couldn't get into the New York setting, or maybe I was jaded by the genius of Scott Westerfeld (a YA author that I had read slightly beforehand and have real respect for; he's great). To make up for it, I'm going to post an excerpt from the first posted chapter of CoA that made me laugh:
***
"Are you still mad?"
Alec, leaning against the wall of the elevator, glared across the small space at Jace. "I'm not mad."
"Oh, yes you are." Jace waved a hand accusingly at his stepbrother, then yelped as pain shot up his arm. Every part of him hurt from the thumping he'd taken that afternoon when he'd dropped three floors through rotted wood onto a pile of scrap metal. Even his fingers were bruised. Alec, who'd only yesterday put away the crutches he'd had to use after his fight with Abbadon, didn't look much better than Jace felt. His clothes were covered in mud and his hair hung in lank and sweaty strips. There was a long cut down the side of his cheek.
"I am not," Alec said, through his teeth. "Just because you said dragon demons were extinct-"
"I said mostly extinct."
Alec jabbed a finger toward him. "Mostly exctint," he said, his voice trembling with rage, "is NOT EXTINCT ENOUGH."
"I see," said Jace. "I'll just have them change the entry in the Demonology textbook from ‘almost extinct' to ‘not extinct enough for MY BROTHER. He prefers his monsters really, really extinct.' Will that make you happy?"
***
Damn. It's still Draco through and through. Amanda, I can't wait until you read the Draco Trilogy. Karen, you really should finish it. It's angsty and really worth it.
Edit: I feel like I should include this. It's an ACTUAL illustration of Jace, straight from Cassie Claire's website.
You do see what I mean, right?
There's one other thing on my mind. I was looking for Sonata Arctica pictures earlier to make into icons (which I did, by the way, and will get around to posting on my other journal sometime), and I found some really, really funny ones. Tony is not good looking, but damn he's comedic. Can I adopt him?
Oh, and one final thing - Karen, I made you a Jyrki icon, if you like it and want it. Actually, I made a couple, but this one turned out the best.