Po(sey) Sessions

Good morning! The weekend is here, the Ick will be leaving soon. I have a very busy reading weekend planned for  myself.  Vasilly decided to have a little weekend read-a-thon and I invited myself to join her. We both have a lot of reading to do and can feel the end of the month bearing down on us. Today I hope to finish 4 books. Do you think that is too ambitious? I have already start The Silver Child and I am more than halfway through it. The problem? I HATE IT. It is weird and awkward and just weird. I don’t like the writing, and the concept may possibly be even worse. So, what’s driving me to finish it? Well, it’s short and it’s on the dystopian list. And it is the first book in a series and I kind of want to figure out where the series is going. The cover and jacket flap of The Silver Child really caught my interest. (The cover in real life is striking, pictures of the cover are just kind of creepy. Weird how there’s a difference.) I expected it to be a really quick ...

I know what you are thinking. Megan, what happened to all the details of the symposium you promised us? What about stalking James Dashner ? We NEED to know. We’ll folks, while your enthusiasm is refreshing, I have bad news. I have Ick. The Ick has settled in my chest and head like a ugly slimy green monster. Ick is like a horrible temporary (I hope) zombification. I have become one of the walking dead. Each day is filled with less hope than the day before. Therefore pondering about my experience and sharing it has become an impossible task. I have but limited time periods of cognition, which makes me hopeful that I will recover. As far as i can tell zombies never have cognition. Maybe James Dashner will find a cure for zombieism and use his knowledge for good and not evil. Is Dashner even capable of good??

I was really excited when I found out Lenore was devoting a WHOLE MONTH to reading dystopian fiction. I have been a fan of this genre/subgenre for a really long time. Oddly, I never realized that a lot of dystopian fiction can be classified as science fiction. Over the years I have always struggled to find more titles to satisfy my desires. But dystopian is trendy right now and there are also some great lists of dystopian fiction out there. It has been great finding other people around the blogosphere with the same interests as me. I think Lenore agrees with that because when I asked to interview her about dystopian fiction she didn’t hesitate to agree! And now, may I present Lenore! What was the first piece of dystopian fiction that really impacted you and why? Well, some of the dystopian fiction I’ve read, such as THE HANDMAID’S TALE or 1984 , I read long before I was conscious that I was reading “dystopian fiction”. I just thought of them as really great novels. I guess...

One of the advantages/disadvantages to going to any book event is the inevitable growth of your wish list! At The Life, Universe, & the Everything Symposium I attended over 20 panels and presentations. That  meant a lot of titles getting jotted down in my notebook. I found myself drawn to different titles mentioned for different reasons. Some sounded like a similar title to something I already liked. Other books were simply by people who seemed interesting to me. Local authors who are passionate about the science fiction and fantasy genres. The most exciting part about my experience was the suggestion of some fantasy titles in particular that I am interested in reading. Readers of my blog know that fantasy has been a huge stumbling block for me. It is hard for me to accept worlds I can’t understand. I have been exploring different titles in the fantasy genre and even when I enjoy them I feel something missing from reading experience. One of the early panels I went to was c...

LTUE is officially over. And, let me tell you, that was a LONG three days. Now I have over 50 pages of notes to wade through to share some amazing information with you! There were lots of authors I was excited to meet, but actually I had not read anyone’s books except for James Dashner. I didn’t even like The Maze Runner that much. (Don’t tell!) But then he first walked into the room for one of the first panels and I found myself more excited than I ever expected. This is shortly after my first Dashner sighting. Yep, that teeeeeny tiiiiiny head approximately in the exact middle belongs to the man himself. This first panel was on the style of science fiction. It was a great discussion and Dashner had some really relevant things to say. Though he would tend to disagree with me. Part of what makes Dashner so charming is that he dispels many of the myths that are connected with writing. He is the first to admit that he was not academically trained in writing. But through...

I am here at BYU for the LTUE Symposium . I had never even heard of this until I saw it on Maw Books , so thanks to Natasha for alerting me to this great experience. It was only a few weeks ago that I first heard about this and thought it would be cool to attend, but I wasn’t going to. Then I made the mistake of checking out the schedule and seeing lots of great panels and presentations on things I was REALLY interested in….. Luckily the symposium is free because after seeing the events and authors attending there was no way I could justify missing it.  The drive isn’t exactly a short one, but I left at 5am Thursday morning to get to the school! It made for a VERY LONG first day. Here are some of the authors I was excited about seeing/meeting: James Dashner Brandon Sanderson Lisa Mangum   Well, It is time to head off to a Brandon Sanderson reading! More later, I hope. Happy reading!

Lenore invited me to do a guest post on her blog about some dystopian novels. Check it out .