Po(sey) Sessions

It is a pleasure to have my first guest review of Silver Phoenix come from someone who I personally pushed to read the book.  I bet Gail $5 that she couldn’t finish Silver Phoenix before the weekend was over, and she came through.  I also still owe her the $5.  Gail blogs at Ticket To Anywhere , where you can find great reviews, fragment fridays, contests and more. You can also find her on Twitter , @Irisheyz77 . Thank you, Gail, for letting me repost your review on my blog.     Publisher: HarperTeen Source : Purchased Publication Date : 28 April 2009 Series or Standalone : Series ISBN: 0061730211 Format : Hardcover Pages : 338 Websites : Cindy Pon - Official Site (be sure to check out the amazing artwork on her site!) Cindy Pon - Blog Cindy Pon - Twitter Place(s) Traveled to : The Kingdom of Xia (based on ancient China) Rating : 4 out of 5 stars   First Line : The eunuchs said the windows were ceiling height to all...

Never in my adult life have I read a book that immediately made me want to go out and meet the person who wrote it. Never until I read Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon . Honestly there are so many things not to like about Silver Phoenix for me.  That may seem like a harsh thing to say, but I have blogged quite a bit about how much I dislike fantasy and find it unapproachable.  I also particularly dislike historical fiction.  Cindy described Silver Phoenix as faux historical and instead of hating that fact about the book I LOVED IT.  The fantasy, the history, and the mythology all weaved together into a perfect story for me.   In honor of the forthcoming sequel entitled Fury of the Phoenix , I am giving away 5 copies of the paperback edition of Silver Phoenix so you can have a chance to read this remarkable book before the next one releases on March 29, 2011 .   To enter just leave a comment on this post saying you would like to win the book.  ...

Well my goal was to read a lot of dystopian books in February for Lenore’s Dystopian month.  But, as so many things that I plan, that never actually happened.  I did START a lot of dystopian books including: The Scorch Trials, Eva, Those That Wake, Rage, and The Dispossessed. I actually finished all of…two.   1. Inside Out by Maria V. Snyder (audio) - young adult, dystopian 2. Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton - young adult 3. The Dark Divine by Bree deSpain (audio) - young adult, paranormal 4. The Legend Of Spud Murphy (audio) - children's, humor, Ireland   That’s right. I only finished 4 books total and three of them were audiobooks.  I need to find better ways of coping with reading while traveling.  I usually can’t read in the car, but have found that I can now read at night on my phone (back lit) since I can’t see the motion outside.  For whatever reason this doesn’t make me sick to my stomach.  I started reading Dreaming A...

It is sunny this morning in the desert of California.  You would think the desert part implied the sunny part, but yesterday southern California was covered in snow!!  It was a very weird experience as we drove in and out of San Diego to be faced with a small but surprising amount of snow.  I have already had two cups of coffee; it always tastes better when someone else makes it for you!   On the spur of the moment Mr. X and I decided to escape in the dark of night! We ran away to San Diego to go to a science fiction and fantasy convention called Condor . It is a three day convention, so there are some people having an amazing time there right now, but we only had time to go for about half a day. We  left Utah and stayed overnight somewhere around the halfway point.  We made it to San Diego just in time to get to the first panel I wanted to go to.   I am so lucky Mr. X  is willing to drive me around to all these types of author events. Es...

Today I am going to Condor . I made an unexpected trip to San Diego in order to be able to meet the AMAZING Cindy Pon . I haven't blogged yet about how much I loved Silver Phoenix , but know that I loved it enough to drive many hours (actually Mr. X is driving) in order to have Cindy sign my copy of the book.     There were too many panels at this science fiction and fantasy convention to be able to pass up. I decided at about 4pm last night that we needed to be in San Diego by 11am.  Mr. X was apprehensive but we went for it. My main priority this morning is The Killer Bs plus V and L: Four greats of hard science fiction sound off - David Brin, Gregory Benford, Vernor Vinge, Larry Niven. Then a panel with Cindy and some signings.  I think this is going to be a blast and something you just need to fly by the seat of your pants.   Even though I haven’t posted picture of LTUE , they will be up soon.  Also expect some pictures of Cindy and my review of ...

Please check out my dystopian mash-up over at Lenore’s blog.  Thanks Lenore for letting me stop by again.

Today I have the pleasure of being a guest over at Dreams and Speculation where I am reviewing Orson Scott Card’s latest young adult fantasy The Lost Gate . Thanks so much to TJ for letting my stop by and share my thoughts with her readers.