Audioreview: The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor

Listened 11/26/12 - 12/6/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended to fans of The Walking Dead on AMC
Audiobook (9 cd's, 11hrs)
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Narrated by: Fred Berman

I am a total sucker for "companion" reading. Once I get hooked on a tv series, sitting around each week waiting for it to run on its scheduled night soon becomes unbearable. Like a junkie with no idea where my next fix will come from, I seek out ways by which I can keep the buzz alive.

I first remember doing this with The X-Files and a few of their "companion guides". It wasn't exactly what I was looking for but I do recall it calming the cravings between episodes. The next series I went die-hard on was Lost. Lost was a book lover's dream. I came to the series a year late, but caught up on the entire first season in a sleep-deprived, feverish mad rush three days before the second one premiered. Not too long after, I nearly died and went to heaven when I discovered the Lost Lit List, realizing the show was based loosely on and influenced highly by tons of incredibly smart and strange books. Hence the birth of my Flight 815er's Goodreads group. Mythology to discuss and books to read?! Both of these elements were welcome additions to the way I experienced the show. And yes, looking back, I see that I may have taken things a wee bit too far with that one. And no, I'm not sorry.

So now, here we are, three seasons into AMC's The Walking Dead, and I'm starting to feel those same awful stirrings all over again. My co-workers are getting sick of talking to me. My oldest called it quits when Dale died and my husband just isn't getting into it the way that I am. And when I found out that the show was taking a two month "mid-season break", I admit it. I started to freak. But someone, let's call him The Walking Dead God, was looking out for me, because while I was wandering the audio bins at my local Book Warehouse a few weeks ago, I stumbled across Rise of the Governor.

Now, yes, I know there were a gazillion TWD comics before the tv series came out, but I'm not really a comic book reader. Something about the whole "cartoons smooshed consecutively into small panels, some of which might contain words, some not" turns me off. But we'll come back to this in a minute. I promise.

Did I mention how crazy the timing of this whole thing is? I mean, not only are we coming up on the mid-season break when I stumble on this audiobook, but we are ONLY NOW BEING INTRODUCED to the Governor. And this audiobook - which was first published last year - just happens to tell the story of how the Governor became the Governor. I mean, could The Walking Dead God have timed this any better for me? No. The answer to that is no.

Rise of the Governor, written by Robert Kirkman (creator of The Walking Dead comics) and Jay Bonansinga, is the first in a series of three books that expand heavily on the Governor's story line. Had I listened to this last season, when it first released, without prior knowledge of Philip Blake and his daughter Penny, the novel may have had a much lesser impact on me. Don't forget, I only know The Walking Dead through the eyes of the TV series. I come into all of this without any prior knowledge or biases. With the introduction of the Governor this season, I happily devoured the audiobook, seeking any and all information the writers were willing to give me on the history behind this incredibly secretive, twisted individual. And Fred Berman works wonderfully as the narrator, his voice perfectly sets the pace and tone of the The Walking Dead universe.

In this book, we learn very little about the zombie outbreak - a theme we're used to, whether we like it or not - and begin following Philip and Penny, his brother Brian, and two of their closest friends as they run from their hometown towards the hope of a refugee center in Atlanta. The group travels from place to place, scavenging what they can, fighting off hordes of zombies, and do their best to try and keep their wits about them. Though told in omniscient "third person" narrative, the book spends quite a bit of time focusing on Brian, Philip's older brother -  a skinny, nervous man who plays babysitter to little Penny throughout most of the story - and, of course, on Philip, our Alpha Male.

Everything Philip does is driven by his desire to protect his daughter and you get the sense that he is barely straddling the right side of sanity as the decisions he makes for the group push them further apart and deeper into danger. When they finally make it into Atlanta, and discover there is no rescue, no refugee center, no escape from the streets that are teeming with the dead, they meet up with another small group of survivors. Penny and our guys settle in nicely and things start looking up.. until Philip falls in love with one of the women and takes things way too far. In an instant, Philip single-handedly ruins what was, up to that point, the best thing the group had going for them, and as they're sent on their way with no supplies and no weapons, we begin to discover the monster within him that has been tensing itself just beneath his skin.

As the group makes their way out of Atlanta and seeks out new shelter, Brian and Nick (the one remaining friend), worry over Philip's mental state. Their increasing concern only agitates Philip more, and it all comes to head when their newest "home" is raided by a bunch of druggie survivors who want what they've got. It is here that we uncover how little Penny turned, and it is here that we watch, helpless, as Philip descends completely and uncontrollably into madness.

The story wraps itself up in the town of Woodbury, an off-the-beaten-path town that our dazed and damaged group manage to stumble into. A settlement of disconnected survivors that appears to be run by no one, Woodbury offers our men a place to call their own, and is the scene of the story's greatest twist.

Though you can certainly see it coming, Rise of the Governor will deliver fans of the show - those who have not read the comics - a sucker-punch shot straight to the solar plexus. It will immediately change the way you view the show. And although I've been told this book follows the story line of the Governor as written in the comics, I have a hunch that the TV show is splitting off from the comics and giving our Philip a life he never lived...

When I finished the audio, I read through a few of the reviews that were posted to Goodreads. Do I agree with the masses about the fact that the authors dwell a little too much on what everyone, zombies included, is wearing? Perhaps. Is the writing sometimes as clumsy and awkward as the shuffling, re-animated, rotting corpses? It very well may be. (Is it as bad as that analogy I just tried to pull off? erm....) Am I ashamed to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the back story and insight into he-who-had-been-named "Villain of the Year" when he debuted in the comics? Absolutely not. None of that mattered to me because I wasn't expecting this to be the next Nobel Prize Winner. I was craving more of The Walking Dead and this story satisfied my hunger more than Penny's bucket of bloody hands and fingers ever could. Rise of the Governor is the ultimate guilty-pleasure read and a kick-ass companion guide to the TV show.

Even better than that, now that I've gotten a taste of the what the show is hiding, it's turned me on to the comic books. And if you think this book is a game-changer... you ain't seen nothing yet!

Benoit Lelievre Takes it to the Toilet

Oh yes! We are absolutely running a series on bathroom reading! So long as it's taking place behind the closed  (or open, if that's the way you swing) bathroom door, we want to know what it is. It can be a book, the back of the shampoo bottle, the newspaper, or Twitter on your cell phone - whatever helps you pass the time...

Benoit Lelievre, the man behind the Dead End Follies, wins the internet for being the first to take it to the toilet:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

How I came to read The Hockey News on the john

I can’t stay on the toilet for more than five minutes. It’s not my fault, I have a good metabolism. It likes to purge. I was kicked out the bathroom once, true story. Back in the days where my girlfriend lived with her roommate, we went out one night and partied way too hard. We woke up the next day with major hangover and the bowels like the last days of Babylon. Naturally, because of my good metabolism, I went to the john’s first.

Big mistake.

                

About three minutes in recreating the Vesuvius’ last eruption in Pompeii, roommate knocks on the door.

               

“Ben.”

“It’s busy.”

“Ben, it’s an emergency, I need the bathroom.”

“Can you-“

 “Now.”

                

I swept the crime scene, flushed, got out and braced for impact. Roommate ran into the bathroom and started retching her life way. For the following fifteen minutes, all I could hear was: “You’re a fucking pig, Ben. BLEEAAARGH. I fucking hate you, motherfucker,. BEEEEEURGH. There’s still poop smear at the bottom. AAAARGHEEEU.” Did I mention I forgot to turn on the fan? You know, hangover and all.

That said, I can’t read a novel on the crapper. Not even short stories. I tried, believe me I tried. I even tried to read Proust’s Swan’s Way there. Didn’t work. But by the time I was done doing the deed, I had a page and a half to three pages done. I don’t know about you, but I’m the kind of guy who always finishes his chapters. So reading stories or novels was asking for an anal fissure or some other bathroom calamity.

                

So I do my magazine reading on the throne. Being a healthy and normal Canadian male, I subscribed to The Hockey News for this very purpose. Not the most uplifting stuff, I admit, but when my bathroom smells like the seventh circle of hell, I prefer thinking about the Habs’ top six conundrum and how they can possibly get rid of Scott Gomez, rather than try to grasp the beauty of Haruki Murakami’s prose. I reserve this privilege to my couch or for backyard reading.

                

Of course, there’s not only hockey magazines on the toilet’s lid. All the gossip magazines from the house mysteriously find their way to the bathroom too. So whenever I’m done with the NHL problems and waiting for my next issue, that’s what I’m reading. I am up-to-speed in regards of Jennifer Anniston’s marriage obsession, Lindsay Lohan, Rihanna and Britney Spears’ self-destructive ways and Kim Kardashian’s post-Kris Humphries dating activities (she’s dating Kanye West, by the way. A no-brainer, I know. No idea why she didn’t think about this BEFORE having this ridiculous fake wedding).

                

I auditioned other magazines for the bathroom part. Harper’s is too heavy. The Atlantic’s articles are too long. GQ has way too much publicity for a male interest’s magazine. Men are rational creatures who think about efficiency first. It’s all about the content you can take as you’re…you know…letting the bad stuff out.

Short, to the point reporting about something real like sports, that gets the job done.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

God help me, if this blog series doesn't solidify my status as "one of the boys" at the break table, I don't know what will!

Where Writers Write: Robin Lamont

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is Robin Lamont. She is the author of Wright for America, published in October - a biting political satire and a fiercely funny detective story. 

You may also know Robin Lamont as the voice behind the hit song ‘Day by Day’ from the Broadway show and motion picture Godspell.  Lamont was not only an original cast member, she was one of the creators of the show. Her voice was a beacon for a new generation of theatergoers, and fans continue to follow her. 

Where Robin Lamont Writes

There are two different places where I write.  When I’m crafting a storyline or constructing a scene or a character, I tend to stare into space a lot.  When weather permits, I’ll do that outside on our deck, which sits high on a wooded hilltop.  It feels like being in a tree-house.  You’d think it would be distracting to be in a such a beautiful place, but the leaves, sky and clouds create a repetitive rhythm that’s as soothing as being rocked in a boat.  I need peace when I’m thinking big picture.  

If it’s too windy or cold or rainy, which is a great deal of the time in the northeast, I work at my desk in what used to be the dining room of our house.  Although my desk is cluttered with necessary writing tools – a cup of coffee, thesaurus, a dictionary, my reading glasses, and Kleenex – I keep the wall in front of me bare.  I feel that pictures or photos hung on the wall where I can see them will color my ideas and limit my thinking.  

Once the outline is developed and I’m working on individual scenes, I feel as though I can let more of the world in.  To get going each morning, I’ll re-read what I’ve written the day before.  For me, it’s sort of like getting an old car rolling downhill so you can jumpstart the engine.  Then as I get going, I stay connected to my computer because I will toggle back and forth to other documents where I’ve kept my outline or notes, or I need to look something up quickly on the internet – like, how much does a good size pig weigh?    

Next week, Lynn Melnick shows off her writing space.

The Audio Series: Alexander Yates

Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.   


Today, Alexander Yates reads an excerpt from his novel Moondogs, which was published by Doubleday in 2011. Alexander has an MFA from Syracuse University, and his fiction and reviews have appeared in Salon, American Fiction, Fivechapters.com and the Kenyon Review.  He currently lives in Kigali, Rwanda, with his wife and cats. His cats fucking love it, and he does, too.

Click the soundcloud file below to experience an excerpt of Moondogs as read by author Alexander Yates. 

The word on Moondogs:

A singularly effervescent novel pivoting around the disappearance of an American businessman in the Philippines and the long-suffering son, jilted lover, slick police commissioner, misguided villain, and supernatural saviors who all want a piece of him. 

Mourning the recent loss of his mother, twentysome­thing Benicio—aka Benny—travels to Manila to reconnect with his estranged father, Howard. But when he arrives his father is nowhere to be found—leaving an irri­tated son to conclude that Howard has let him down for the umpteenth time. However, his father has actually been kid­napped by a meth-addled cabdriver, with grand plans to sell him to local terrorists as bait in the country’s never-ending power struggle between insurgents, separatists, and “demo­cratic” muscle. 

Benicio’s search for Howard reveals more about his father’s womanizing ways and suspicious business deals, reopening the old hurts that he’d hoped to mend. Interspersed with the son’s inquiry and the father’s calamitous life in captivity are the high-octane interconnecting narratives of Reynato Ocampo, the local celebrity-hero policeman charged with rescuing Howard; Ocampo’s ragtag team of wizardry-infused soldiers; and Monique, a novice officer at the American embassy whose family still feels feverishly unmoored in the Philippines. 

With blistering forward momentum, crackling dialogue, wonderfully bizarre turns, and glimpses into both Filipino and expat culture, the novel marches toward a stunning cli­max, which ultimately challenges our conventional ideas of family and identity and introduces Yates as a powerful new voice in contemporary literature.
*lifted with love from goodreads

Review: Grey Cats

Read 11/24/12 - 11/27/12
4.5 Stars - Highly Recommended to readers who enjoy having a good story slap them in the face
Ebook
Publisher: 3 AM / Press
Released: Nov 2012

"In ze night, all ze cats are grey."

Ah, Paris at night. I cannot imagine a more perfect setting for a love story. Nothing could be more romantic than walking hand in hand under the street bridges, following the silent canals that reflect the twinkling street lights, breathing in the smell of bread and cigarette smoke as you pass by the late night cafes, listening to the gentle clinking of silverware and the husky voices of those dining outside.

And yet nothing could be more heartbreaking than waking in the middle of a Paris night to discover her side of the bed cold and empty, throwing on clothes, and hustling out into the lonely dark to wander the streets in search of her.

She is a night person. You are of the day. This is not the Paris you are familiar with and it behaves much like a living, breathing thing. You should be wary of it, and yet, you believe you can tame it. As the city reacts to the threat of an impending ash cloud, you begin to trace the cold trail of her passing based on the words of complete strangers.

Adam Biles's  Grey Cats, a finalist in the 2011 Paris Literary Prize, is tricky little thing. A deceptively delicious tale that is at once tender and twisted, we follow along in the shadows as our narrator moves through this dream-like terrain, spurred on by his intense longing and random encounters with an ex-convict, a roller-skating gang member, and a surly underground sex club pimp. As he picks his way through the dark underbelly of Paris in search of his Melina, we are bombarded by the memories of their relationship - a feisty, passionate coupling that, more times than not, leaves them achingly and emotionally spent. As we are left chewing on their history, he continues to weave his way deeper into the nightlife, and soon the two realities come collapsing in on each other.

Much like what I imagine it must feel like in those first few moments as you slip out of a fevered dream - the blurry vision and confusion wearing off, the slow realization of where you are and what you've just gone through - Grey Cats reads like a soft yet urgent slap in the face. (Are you awake, reader? Do you know where you are? Do you know what year it is? Phew! That was a close one. For a moment there, I thought we'd lost you.)

I dare you to finish it and fight the urge to reread it immediately, filled as you will be with the truth of what just took place. No, on second thought, I want you to. Because it won't be the same book the next time around.

Where Writers Write: Joyce Hinnefeld

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is Joyce Hinnefeld. Her work has appeared in a variety of literary and scholarly publications, and her short story collection, Tell Me Everything and Other Stories (University Press of New England, 1998), received the 1997 Bread Loaf Conference Bakeless Prize in Fiction. 

Her novel In Hovering Flight was the Booksense/Indie Next #1 Pick for September 2008. Her novel Stranger Here Below was published in the fall of 2010. She is the recipient of a Christopher Isherwood Foundation Fellowship and is the Cohen Chair in English and Literature at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA. 

Where Joyce Hinnefeld Writes

The subject of where I write is a fraught one for me. I seem to be perpetually dissatisfied with my writing space, wherever it is, and not for particularly good reasons. Here’s a photo of my main workspace, which occupies part of a room in our house that we refer to as my study--though it’s also the guest room.

You can see that there are two windows looking out on a lot of green, some photos of my daughter, bookshelves, files. On the wall are photographs from Mexico by a photographer named Ron Terner and a nice black-and-white portrait of my husband by photographer Karen Tweedy-Holmes. Behind that big Dell monitor is my beloved MacBook Pro. I set up the monitor, and the Apple keyboard on a lower tray, and the chair with the back cushion, two years ago, when I had an unhappy incident with a herniated disk and decided I needed to create a workspace that would be easier on my back.

So what’s to complain about, right? Well, I wrote a blog post on this topic, or sort of on this topic, last spring (see http://strangerherebelow.blogspot.com/2012/03/my-writing-process-and-my-beautifully.html). Actually, that post was about giving writing advice, and specifically about my own “writing process.” In discussing my own writing space, I referred to my inability to keep my desk cleared of

notes about my daughter’s camps, school field trips, acting and dance and music classes and lessons and performances and recitals; printed email messages (because I’ll never remember them otherwise) and so on from people I need to write to, etc., as part of promoting my novels; receipts; bills; more printed emails, etc. related to my teaching; recommendation letter requests; coupons; publishers’ flyers about books I need to order; tape paper clips a phone nasal mist a camera old printer cartridges notebooks files and a ridiculous number of books, most of which I looked a little something up in, six months ago or more, for the novel I’m working on and which I can’t bring myself to return to the library because what if I need to check one more thing?

I’ll confess that I cleaned the desk up a bit for the photo above. But a lot of those things I mention in that breathless list are still there.

For a while I wrote at this little table in our tiny enclosed porch during the warmer months:

 But then we moved the cat litter box out there.

Eventually, when I felt like I couldn’t bear the clutter of my desk any longer, and that I had to have a clearer space for writing, I reclaimed a little alcove in “my study” (I forgot to mention that for a while my study/the guest room was actually my study/the guest room/my daughter’s play room). This alcove had been filled with my daughter’s toys and drawings--mostly things she’d outgrown some time before. I moved those things out, and at first all that I had in that alcove was a nice, empty table. But now it looks like this:

 More books have moved in, as you can see, all pertaining to various writing projects. Also a lot of manuscript pages (there’s a big stack below the table that you can’t see in this photo). I love what I have on the wall here, all images of birds, including two crows and one thrush, and, in the largest image--the photograph on the back wall (a piece called ‘they wondered where the path would lead” by photographer Krista Steinke)--two more crows, these following two children along a country road and consuming a trail of Wonder bread slices.

My husband Jim, daughter Anna, and I spent a sabbatical semester in Santa Fe, New Mexico back in 2005, and I wrote a good bit of my novel In Hovering Flight in the reading room of the Santa Fe Public Library. I wish I had a picture of that room, with its old leather chairs and its lifesize horse statue and the homeless guys dozing over newspapers. I love libraries. Here is my local public library, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania . . . just because:

(Guys! I know this library! I hit their book sale every other month!)

When the clutter, or the noise, at home gets to be too much, I sometimes write in a study carrell at Reeves Library, the campus library at Moravian College, where I teach. I’ve been fortunate to share this small, enclosed study with my friend and colleague Theresa Dougal for many years now. I don’t think we’ve ever been in there at the same time; when Theresa’s not there, sometimes I peruse her various books on Mary Wollstonecraft. Here’s a picture of my delightfully spartan study carrell desk in Reeves Library:

 Last fall, when we had a freakish snowstorm two days before Halloween and lost power in our neighborhood for five days, Jim, Anna, and I spent a couple days together in that study carrell, reading and staying warm and charging our various electronic devices. Did I mention that I love libraries?

As I get older, I’m realizing something about myself. For a long time I thought that what I wanted and needed was a space in my life that was free of clutter, someplace clean and white and vaguely buddhist, with nothing to distract me from the purity of my own work. But I’ve noticed that no matter how many times I try to create such a space, I always seem to end up filling it with more stuff. I’ve also noticed that, instead of cleaning up my old spaces, I just keep adding new ones. Eventually I’ll run out of spaces to fill, of course. And I’ll have to follow my own advice in that blog post, where I admonished anyone who was reading it just to “shove the crap out of your way, and get your ideas down.”

In other words, learn to write wherever you are. I think I’m getting there, slowly.

Check back next week when we take a peek into Robin Lamont's writing space.

The Audio Series: Ken Sparling (read by Jonathan Goldstein)

Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.   



Today, Jonathan Goldstein reads an excerpt of Ken Sparling's first novel Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall, which has just been reissued by Mudluscious Press. Jonathan Goldstein is the host of CBC Radio One's Wiretap. He is the author of three books, most recently, "I'll Seize the Day Tomorrow." Ken Sparling is the author of six novels. He is the creator and curator of TheSerialLibrary.com.

Click the soundcloud file below to experience Ken Sparling's Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall as read by  Jonathan Goldstein.

The word on Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall:

From Ken Sparling's intro: "When someone asked me what DAD SAYS HE SAW YOU AT THE MALL was about, it felt like I'd seen a beautiful tree and struggled to describe it to someone, only to have that someone say: 'Yes, but what is the tree about?' You wouldn't know how to answer that question. It isn't the right question. The tree wasn't ever about anything. It was just beautiful."
*lifted with love from goodreads

Book Giveaway: Wool

Since July 2010, TNBBC has been bringing authors and readers together every month to get behind the book! This unique experience wouldn't be possible without the generous donations of the authors and publishers involved.  

I'm excited to be partnering with Hugh Howey 

to bring you next month's Author/Reader Discussion Book!

We will be reading and discussing

Wool and Wool Omnibus with Hugh!

In order to stimulate discussion, 

Hugh Howey has agreed to an INTERNATIONAL give away of 10 copies of either: 

A signed copy of Wool 

-----or-----

 

The eBook version of Wool Omnibus (Wool 1 - 5)

Winners choose which option they prefer!

Here is the Goodreads description:

 This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.

This giveaway will run through December 8th. 

Winners will be announced here and via email on December 9th.

Here's how to enter:

1 - Leave a comment stating which you format you prefer - a signed copy of Wool to be mailed to you, or an eBook version of Wool Omnibus (Wool 1 -5) to be sent to you electronically. 

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from January 15th through the end of the month . Hugh Howey has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for him. 

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before the discussion begins). 

 3 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred). 

Good luck!!

Review: Fridgularity

Read 11/19/12 - 11/23/12
3.5 Stars - Recommended to font and word nerds, internet addicts, and end-times humorists.
Pgs: 397
Publisher: Monkeyjoy Press
Published: November 2012

I'm a GenXer. Born into that strange "slacker" generation where the Baby Boomers weren't yet ready to loosen up their death grip on the cool corporate jobs and personal computers and MTV suddenly became permanent fixtures in our daily lives - slowly softening, then mushing, then downright killing our brain cells. I can clearly remember the day our Word Processor was replaced with the Commodore 64. And the day my parents allowed us to upgrade our gaming system from Atari to Nintendo is forever etched into my mind. Or how about this doozey... remember Webtv? Microsoft's failed attempt at bridging the gap between those who were afraid of the internet and those who just couldn't afford a home pc? Yup I owned one of those bad boys! Even bought one for my mom when I moved out so we could keep in touch more easily. Heck, I think the first time I ever used a real, honest to goodness computer was in my High School Journalism class. It's amazing to me that my kids were TAUGHT on pc's  in preschool and kindergarten.

And please don't get me started on the transition from LP's to cassette tapes to CD's to MP3's.... I'm still a little bitter about being forced to move through each one of those phases; I lost some amazing albums along the way. And how about the evolution of the telephone? From princess dialers to wall mounted 20 foot corded phones to portables to cell phones to internet-enabled smart phones? Mind. Has. Been. Blown.

The one thing I will say about my generation? We are awesome at adapting. In a time of ever-growing and ever-changing technology, we've sort of had no choice. If it can be dreamed, it can BE!

And if you were to turn to me one day and inform me that our technology has grown smarter than us and is currently holding the internet hostage while it builds itself up into a god-like entity, well hell, I'd probably be awfully likely to accept and adapt to that too.

In Mark A Rayner's newest release, Fridgularity (a satire on technological singularity), that is exactly what is happening when a web-dependent generation is suddenly and horrifically without internet. An end-of-the-world panic blankets our Canadian characters with fear and a geeky corporate boy named Blake Givens is chosen by the bi-polar internet-stealing entity calling itself Zathir as its Speaker.

The country quickly divides itself into two groups - those who pledge allegiance to the extremely reluctant Blake and worship Zathir as the New Machine God, and those who follow the anti-Zathir movement led by Lord Sona (a lowly gamer who's tired of being a nobody). While these two factions duke it out, Blake finds himself acting as mentor and therapist to this highly unstable entity, which chooses to speak to him through his web-enabled fridge using a variety of fonts and poor grammar structure, while trying to keep his friends alive and healthy. The younger generation, those who have been plugged into the net since birth, are having a helluva time coping  - fighting the urge to become cyber-zombies, they "play" twitter and write on Blake's walls in an attempt to share information and validate each other's existence as they wait for the world to either return to normal or evolve under Zathir's new consciousness.

I want to laugh, but I can totally relate to the paralysis that accompanies not having access to Twitter or Goodreads or my blog. When my computer caught a virus that kept me offline for over a week, I was incredibly thankful for my Droid and Kindle Fire. Without them and their web-enabled little hearts, I probably would have been one of those cyber-zombies pacing the floors every five minutes, unable to read a book for fear of coming across an amazing sentence that screamed TWEET ME. Go ahead, I don't care what generation you were born into, try to live a week without being able to access the internet. I bet you use it more than you realize you do. And I bet by the end of the week you'd be biting your nails down to the nub... no email, no facebook, no evernote to jot down reminders for things... That's the power of Fridgularity... the more you think about it all, the more scary it becomes.... Mwahhahahaha

Rayner constructs this complicated new world with tongue firmly stuck in cheek. It's 1984's Big Brother but at a much more alien, satirical, and technologically crippling scale. It's a world I hope I don't have to ever adapt to, that's for sure!

Where Writers Write: Kristy Athens

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

Kristy Athens is the author of Get Your Pitchfork On!: The Real Dirt on Country Living (Process Media, 2012). Her nonfiction and short fiction have been published in a number of magazines, newspapers and literary journals. In 2010, she was a writer-in-residence for the Eastern Oregon Writer-in-Residence program and Soapstone. She is a contributing editor at Bear Deluxe magazine. Kristy lives in Portland, Oregon, where she works at Oregon Humanities. 

Where Kristy Athens Writes

This story is not about my usual writing place, but about two months I spent in Harney County, Oregon, as a writer in residence. In March and April 2010, I visited most of the county’s schools and the library in order to give workshops to children and adults, and worked on the manuscript that became Get Your Pitchfork On!: TheReal Dirt on Country Living.

This residency was ideal for me—not only did I have lots of time to write but I was immersed in rural culture. This was perfect because my book covers everything a city person needs to know if they want to move to the country.

Harney County is seriously rural. It’s 10,000 square miles and there is just 0.7 person per square mile. (By comparison, Portland’s county, Multnomah, is 430 square miles and 1,700 people per square mile.) Scattered around the county are a half-dozen elementary schools, which have two sides: kindergarten through third grade on one side and fourth through eighth on the other. Maybe twenty kids total.

The high school is a boarding school—students live at Crane High School Monday through Thursday, and travel on Friday for sports competitions or go home to help on their families’ ranches.

The only problem: Where to write. Because some of the towns are an hour or more from each other, I couldn’t stay in one place the whole time or I’d waste my whole residency in the car. But there aren’t hotels, and the two bed-and-breakfasts that would have made the most sense refused to open early in the season just for me. So I cobbled together a series of unique residences.

Stay #1: Frenchglen

I stayed in the guest room of the teacher’s residence, right next door to the school. Carolyn provided a great first impression of Harney County. She was a conscientious and easygoing host. In retrospect, I should have stayed longer, but I was anxious to have some serious sequestering and dig into my manuscript. I had reserved a trailer in the middle of the desert, where hundreds of scientists and bird watchers gather because of the major migration routes that pass over Harney County.

Stay #2: Malheur Field Station

Trailer for sale or rent …

Wow, they weren’t kidding when they said “trailer” on the website. It actually had a hitch on it!

Not that it would survive being moved. While it wasn’t dirty per se it was easily the most run-down, ramshackle domicile I’ve ever seen. The floor was squishy with layers over layers of rotting plywood patches under the yellowed, chipped linoleum. The mattress was gray, but it seemed cleaner than the couch. I cowered inside my sleeping bag at night and during the day tried not to touch anything except the kitchen table, where I worked. I got a lot of writing done there, because even washing was off the itinerary—the size, number and variety of spiders inhabiting the shower stall saw to that.

Stay #3: Crane Hot Springs

My cabin is on the right; the steam is from the hot springs

This modest resort seemed absolutely lavish after leaving the field station! I rented a little cabin next to the small lake that is fed by a natural spring. The owners were smart and pumped the water under the sidewalks, which was great because it was still snowing in March! It was very sweet but it didn’t have a bathroom, a kitchen, or, most importantly, a desk, only a giant overstuffed armchair. The whole room had a cowboy theme! I tried to save my back by piling pillows behind me and sitting on the very edge of the seat. Not sustainable. Luckily, I could go dip in the hot springs when I cramped up!

Stay #4: Silver Spur Motel

No vacancy on Fridays!

This was the most practical place for me, so I spent most of my time here. I had wireless internet, a desk and a microwave; there were restaurants within walking distance; I was across the street from the library; the motel served a continental breakfast. The only bad times were Friday nights—I hadn’t brought headphones so it was difficult to hold at bay the revelries of country copulation from all sides. One Saturday morning after a particularly long, acoustic night, I had my revenge: I woke at 9 and starting practicing my fiddle.

Stay #5: Riley Store

Taken from a picnic shelter under a billboard that reads, “Whoa! You missed Riley!”

Classic Western “town”: a post office on one side of the highway and a gas station/convenience store/taxidermy/gun shop on the other. There were two apartments over the store, and I rented one for a couple days. I wrote at the kitchen table, in front of the “fireplace.”

Stay #6: Lone Pine Guest Ranch

This bed and breakfast has quite the view!

My hosts were super-nice but staying there was a little surreal, as I was basically in a house in the next bedroom over from people I had just met. I could hear them talking (and only talking, thank you Jesus) in bed. I’ve always had fantasies of just walking into strangers’ houses and sitting down like I belong there, and that’s more or less what I did!

Being a bed and breakfast, the house was decorated to the nth degree—knicknacks and doilies on every surface. Those sorts of “kountry krafts” like wooden plaques on which things are painted like “God bless this mess.” I hoped they didn’t take it personally that I mostly hid in my room when I was there; the television was blaring in the living room so there was no way I’d get anything done downstairs. I sat on my lace-bedecked bed with my laptop on my legs. I put doilies on them so I fit in.

Stay #7: Reload Ranch

Fine hosts, indeed

During the workshops that I held for adults I met many fine people, including a literal one—Nancy Fine. We got along swimmingly, and she took my plight to heart when I lamented going back to the Silver Spur for the final week of my residency. I will always be grateful to her and husband Matt for inviting me into their home.

They were the ultimate hosts—because Nancy is also a writer she understood my need for a desk (she set me up in a spare bedroom) and privacy, but was always there when I needed food or a break to chat. We are still friends. The best was, truly and by far, last.

Check back next week when we show you where Joyce Hennefeld writes.

The Audio Series: Erika Marks

Our audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.   



Today, Erika Marks is reading an excerpt from her novel The Mermaid Collector. A native New Englander, raised in Maine, Erika Marks now lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband, a biologist, and their daughters. She has worked as an illustrator, a cake decorator, an art director and a carpenter. THE MERMAID COLLECTOR is her second novel after LITTLE GALE GUMBO.

Click the soundcloud file below to experience The Mermaid Collector as read by author Erika Marks.

The word on The Mermaid Collector:

For thirty-five-year-old Tess Patterson, the legend is more than folklore; it’s proof of life’s magic. A hopeless romantic who is profoundly connected to the ocean in which she lost her mother, Tess ekes out a living as a wood-carver and longs to find a love as mystical as the sea. But when she’s hired to carve the commemorative mermaid sculpture for the coming festival, a chance to win the town’s elusive acceptance might finally be in her grasp.

For Tom Grace, life’s magic was lost at eighteen, when the death of his parents left him to care for his reckless brother, Dean. Now thirty-five and the new owner of Cradle Harbor’s prized lightkeeper’s house, Tom hopes the quiet town will calm Dean’s self-destructive ways. But when Tom discovers Tess working on her sculpture, an unlikely and passionate affair ignites between them that just might be the stuff of legend itself—even as it brings to the surface a long-buried secret that could tear everything apart.  
*lifted from goodreads with love