Category Archives: Books

Introducing: the World Unknown Review.

I have been sitting on this idea for a while now, since the beginning of the year, and, as we head into June, the middle of the year, I realized that I’d better get my butt moving on it if I wanted to accomplish this idea before 2013′s eventual conclusion (which is likely to happen much sooner than anticipated).

It’s time to announce the arrival of my very own annual literary anthology, World Unknown Review. Well, not the arrival yet. I plan to roll this puppy out at the end of the year in December, and, in the meantime, I need your stories. What’s an anthology without a good selection of fantastic stories to bolster it and make it incredible?

Every year, World Unknown Review will feature a different theme. In the spirit of starting a new tradition, beginning something new, and taking those first steps on a voyage from which you can’t turn back, I’ pleased to announce that our debut theme will be one that has resonated in the hearts and minds of people since one little British girl took a tumble into a land of wonder. Down the Rabbit-Hole. Inspired by the iconic image of Lewis Carroll’s Alice following the White Rabbit into Wonderland, the flagship edition of WUR will explore that moment when you can’t turn back, when you’ve fallen down the rabbit-hole into something new and strange and life-changing. How do we find the rabbit-hole? How do we make the decision to venture forth? Do we realize what we’re getting ourselves into, and how can we possibly get ourselves out?

I’m thrilled to see what the possibility of the WUR will bring. In addition to being a part of a new indie publication with the sole intent to promote fellow writers, any writer chosen to be published will receive three (3) copies of the anthology for themselves as well as a payment of $15 (USD). It’s not much, no, but I definitely want to offer compensation of helping to make my dream of putting out an annual literary anthology possible.

Here are the rules:

1. Entries must be submitted via email to ellis.engler@gmail.com. Please send entries with the subject “World Unknown Review Submission.” Entries may be sent in the body of the email or as a Word or .txt file.
2. All entries must be submitted before the deadline, October 31st, 2013
3. There is no limit on word count, though moderately sized stories stand a better chance.
4. There is no obligation to follow the theme of Down the Rabbit-Hole, though the more the entry fits the theme, the more likely it is to be considered, with regards to quality as well.
5. Final decisions are purely on the opinion of the editor of the collection, L.S. Engler.
6. Please include a small blurb about yourself for the eventual publication.
7. Spread the word! Okay, technically, this is not a rule, but please spread the news around that the World Unknown Review is looking for submissions. It’s a great opportunity to be a part of something new and exciting.

We will also be accepting submissions for cover art, original drawings or photographs that might be chosen for the cover of the WUR’s first issue. Due to the important nature of a cover, the payment for the winning photograph or artwork will be $25. Again, the greater the relevance to the theme, the more likely it is to be chosen, though any variety of images will be happily considered.

This is an exciting new project I’ve been mulling over since last year, and I’m thrilled to finally kickstart it and get it going! Please share this opportunity with fellow writers and help make the World Unknown Review a reality. My most heartfelt thanks and the best of luck to those who submit their work for consideration! I look forward to seeing where this might lead us!

Review: Dead Until Dark.

“Poor lumpy Maudette, with her bitten thighs, was more interesting in death than she’d ever been in life.”


“Dead Until Dark: Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Mysteries Book One” by Charlaine Harris

The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris have been on my To-Be-Read list ever since the HBO show based on the books, True Blood, came out in 2008. Not having HBO, I never really got into the show, but I’ve heard good things about both media versions of these Sookie Stackhouse stories. And then it just sort of fell to the back of my mind as something to get to eventually, but not exactly a priority.

Fast forward several years later, and there’s the first book of the series sitting on the train station book cart. Exchanging it for the first book of another series (Resident Evil, anyone?), I claimed it for my own, took it home, and had it finished within the same week. Yeah. I was a little astonished at how quickly I devoured this book, especially considering how I’m always reading about eight books at a time. But the story kept me interested, I enjoyed Sookie as a narrator, and definitely intrigued to see how it gets interpreted for television. I have a feeling I’ll prefer the style of the books from what I’ve heard, but there’s only one way to find out.

There were times when the story, especially the love story between Sookie and Bill, made me groan and roll my eyes, bordering slightly on Twilight territory, but, overall, I enjoyed the setting Harris is working from and the characters she’s developed. Sometimes, the characters seemed a little too watery for my tastes, though you definitely feel quickly mired into Sookie’s world. The South and Vampires are always a classic combination; it’s nice to move out of New Orleans for a little bit and examine a different aspect of that culture. Due to having some friends who are fans of both the books and the show, I know a little bit about what’s in store for the series, but not everything, so I’m going to eagerly be keeping my eye out for the next book to show up.

Books read: 010/100.

Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

“And I wonder if anyone is really happy. I hope they are. I really hope they are.”


“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky

It has been a very, very long time (too long?) since a book has affected me in the way that The Perks of Being a Wallflower has. I’m talking spending the whole day being teary-eyed and openly crying on the train home affected. Granted, I was menstruating that day and juggling with some work stress and new relationship stress, too, but even if my emotions hadn’t already been in a messy bundle, I know Stephen Chbosky’s tale of a distant, passive youth in the ’90s would have hit hard. I wish I had discovered this book a little over a decade ago in my own high school years. It’s absolutely incredible.

Charlie is about to enter high school after losing his best (and possibly only) friend to suicide last year, and he tells his story via letters to a stranger he is writing to be “she said you listen and understand and didn’t try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have.” He doesn’t want this person to try to figure out who he is or to write back or anything; he just wants someone to write to and tell his story, a story that involves a blossoming friendship with siblings Patrick and Sam, which leads him down a fascinating road of sex, drugs, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. It leads him to discover who he is, what he has been, and who he will be. It’s the story of a wallflower, someone who observes and lets life pass them by, and how to discover when to start to participate.

Written in a voice that is clear and concise, innocent and deep and naive and observant all at once, Perks is a truly beautiful book, a beautiful story with a beautiful main character. There were some parts that I wish there would have been a little bit more of (the disappointment I felt at the discovery that I was not being handed, finally, a very incredibly impressive male bisexual character in literature still makes me sigh), but there were so many things right about it that those little details don’t sting too much. Because, even if I would have done things a little differently, there’s no denying that this is Chbosky’s character through and through and I can’t begrudge him for staying incredibly true to Charlie.

If you haven’t read this book, it comes to me highly recommended as an excellent slice of young adult fiction that I expect I’ll be revisiting annually.

Books read: 009/100.

“What else was there in any life–human or artifact, mortal or immortal–besides a useful existence?”


“Magic: The Gathering – Bloodlines – Artifacts Cycle Book VI” by Loren L. Coleman

With the completion of Bloodlines, I have officially read through an entire Magic: the Gathering book cycle. Now, I’m not much of a player of the card game; I’m too much of a D&D girl and found it difficult to really get enthusiastic about M:tG, but I do have a good amount of the books from when my fiance passed away, and they’re pretty entertaining reads. Not exactly classic canon material, or anything, but still, they tend to be pretty intriguing in storyline and sometimes even surprisingly well-written.

Bloodlines is, alas, not among those M:tG books. It’s a solid, decent tome, to be sure, but it seemed like a poor end to a pretty strong cycle. I get the feeling that Artifacts was originally intended to be a trilogy, and that Bloodlines was added into the group as an afterthought. Which is a strange feeling considering that this book eventually leads to the culmination of the battle between Dominaria and Phyrexia that’s been building up the past two books…but there you have it.

Bloodlines is basically the tale of the program started by Urza Planeswalker to try to create the perfect species to help defeat the terrible machine demons of Phyrexia. Among the brilliant minds to help him there are those who are uncertain, those who fully support his ideas, and those who wish to branch off on their own to create yet another kind of superrace. Some wish the process to be natural; some wish to exacerbate it; some wish it to end. Either way, the tale spans several generations, and never quite really gets a good hold on any of them (unlike the preceding book, Timestreams, which handled the time pockets excellently). By the time you feel familiar with a generation, they completely disappear, and it’s several decades later into the next one. It creates a big disconnect with the story and the pacing. Each of the Artifacts books were written by a different author, and Coleman was, for me, the least impressive. He uses more epithets than a Homeric epic, and, while he does a better job of bringing the world of Dominaria to life through his descriptions than any of the previous authors, his attention seems to be on the wrong things. I do like to connect with a setting, but not at the sacrifice of connecting with the characters.

Either way, it’s a neat little book series with some really great ideas of blending fantasy with machinery (steampunk before it was cool!!). Worth a look, though the last book did seem a poor end to finish out the series.

Books read: 008/100.

Review: Renaissance in Japan.

“…it is, indeed, the art of ellipsis, or of suggestion,–the incredible technique of impressing the inexpressible by non-expression of an impression.”

“Renaissance in Japan: A Cultural Survey of the Seventeenth Century, Japan’s Literary Giants: Basho, Saikaku, Chikamatsu” by Kenneth P. Kirkwood

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a bibliophile. I can’t borrow books, because I only want to keep them and never give them back. And I’m a huge fan of finding random old books in thrift stores or book carts and taking them home with me. Renaissance in Japan is one of those books, a “cultural survey” did back in 1970 that I found in some random old shop for just two bucks. More than likely, I was probably in my big Nipponophile phase, which never has completely gone away, but has easily been trumped by Chinese history and adoration of all things late Nineteenth Century. Either way, I definitely wanted this book, and I finally got around to reading about it.

It was great to read about art movements in the world that, really, I knew very little about. What I found to be the most fascinating aspect of Kirkwood’s look at Japanese literature in the 17th century were the parallels he drew between what was going on in Europe at the same time. It’s something I’ve never given much thought, especially since, while Europe was exploring and creating empires, Japan was closing in on itself and wanting nothing to do with all of that business. Yet, trends in poetry and novels and the theater seemed to surface in both places at relatively the same time. Very interesting, something I’d love to try to dissect if I should ever have enough time. I was also really interested in the fact that, this is an older book, and it’s always interesting to get a perspective from a different time, as well. I found Kirkwood’s approach to be pleasantly unbiased and professional.

Either way, Renaissance in Japan is a great look at three very powerful and influential writers who influenced a great deal of Japan’s culture as they moved toward modernity. Definitely check it out if you’re feeling particularly scholarly.

Books read: 007/100.

The Pacing of Plot.

As I plow forward in my desperate attempt to get this latest draft of Serpent in a Cage finished in time for a decent publication date, I find myself obsessing a little too much over certain details. I’ve been a trooper when it comes to pushing aside the doubts and striving forward, if only to finish the first draft and then worry about the details, but one of the issues has been weighing more prominently on my mind, and that is the topic of pace.

For me, especially with fantasy novels, the pacing of a book can make or break it. If a story moves too slow, I lose interest in it. Sometimes, though, a story throws so much at you so quickly that you never really feel a connection. It’s definitely the latter that I’m worried about in SiaC. I’m about four chapters into it, and, in the first three chapters, there’s an awful lot of encounters. Some of those encounters are about to swing back around and turn into bigger plot points, but I’m worried that it’s almost too much at once. Will readers find it irritating to have my characters encounter someone, move on, encounter something else, move on again for another encounter before some it starts to tie together? I hope not, and I’m thinking if it does feel like too much, I can always go back and slow the pace down in the revision, with some other perspectives or whatever else might seem fitting.

That’s just the thing, though, these encounters and how I have them set up all seem fitting. It’s hard to tell from my own perspective. I know a great deal of my inspiration and my wanting to write in the first place is based heavily in video games, mostly role-playing ones such as Final Fantasy and Baldur’s Gate, where encounters are basically imperative to moving the plot forward. But I know a common mistake a lot of authors make is to introduce too many players too quickly, and the wealth of personalities in SiaC has been a common criticism in previous drafts.

Do you find yourself distracted when an author has a fairly quick succession of events to throw at you? Do you wish they’d sometimes slow down? How often do you feel they slow down too much? Just some questions rolling around in my brain. I’m throwing in a chapter from a different perspective, happening in the other part of the book, before returning to the busier point-of-views, so maybe that will help. Although that could also just completely interrupt a perfectly good, steady pace with the others! It’s all such a balancing act and I hope I can just manage to get it right…

Review: Kickboxing Geishas.

“I believe the costuming of today’s Japanese young women reveals, in a powerful way, how for many young Japanese females, Japan is a hard place to become a grown-up woman.”


“Kickboxing Geishas: How Modern Japanese Women are Changing their Nation” by Veronica Chambers

For me, Japan has always been an interesting country, and part of what makes it interesting is its constant evolution. Kickboxing Geishas is a look at one of its most recent evolutions: the rise of the modern woman in Japanese society. Granted, it’s a little more complex than just the movement from the Japanese woman as the quiet, subservient geisha stereotype to a powerful force in popular culture, politics, and economics, as well, and Veronica Chambers does an excellent job of taking a look at this shift in perspective through interviews and interactions with a variety of different people from many walks of life, some new and groundbreaking, others more traditional and expected.

Kickboxing Geishas is a really great read. As someone with an interest in both modern Japanese culture and its history, I did not exactly find it revealing or surprising, though there were some new things I’ll have to check out. But I did see it as a very good introspective on people in general, what motivates them, and how they can change their circumstances. Quite a few times, I wished Chambers would dig a little deeper than the surface, but it did make for a pretty quick read. I felt the writing could have been a little polished; perhaps it’s designed to be read much slower, but I felt that, many times, things I had just read were reiterated with only a few shifts in wording.

Despite any little niggling things I may have about this book, there’s no denying that the women that Chambers brings to the floor and the great comparisons she makes about this evolving culture and our own are incredibly insightful and inspiring. Considering that I picked up a book on 17th century Japanese literature soon after finishing Kickboxing Geishas, it’s definitely resparking my love of Japan, which is never a bad thing.

Books read: 5/100.

Review: Paladin of Souls.

“Not one, she realized with a chill, was staring at her as though she had gone mad. They were all staring at her as though she was going to tell them what to do next.”


“Paladin of Souls” by Lois McMaster Bujold

God-tainted, mad-touched, recently isolated, the main character of Lois McMaster Bujold’s fantasy yarn Paladin of Souls has already lead a full and eventful life by the start of the book. Ista is a Dowager Royina with a bit of a past, though we don’t have much insight into the exacts at the beginning of the novel. She has been put into isolation to cure her madness, which is finally cured, and she’s feeling uncomfortable in her current place. Following a wild idea, she decides to break from the castle that has been her prison, and the little spurt of an adventure inspires her to take on a pilgrimage…anything to get the hell out of there for a little while.

What Ista doesn’t expect, however, is to encounter a suspicious wealth of demons appearing in the countryside and to get involved in the middle of a border war that tests all of the things she vowed to avoid in the autumn of her life…tricky and suspicious gods, fighting with demons, and even love. But the gods have chosen her (again!) and she’s the only one that can clean up the mess she finds herself in the middle of.

I call Paladin of Souls a yarn because it is an excellent stand-alone fantasy novel. Very often, fantasy as a genre lends itself to series. I always find it charming and rare to come across a book that isn’t a part of a trilogy or a cycle or a set of ten long and often drawn out books. As far as I can tell (this is my first Bujold), there are other books that take place in the same world as this one, but they are with different characters at different times. Still, even without the arsenal of other books, Paladin of Souls very effectively paints a vivid picture of Ista’s world, the legends and the mythology, and everything else one expects from fantasy. Mark one for Bujold.

Mark another for Bujold in the excellent unconventional heroine. Ista is not a young and beautiful princess; she’s middle-aged, complains of joint issues, and is a little embittered against the world. It never feels like a gimmick, though, it just feels genuine, and it’s a refreshing perspective to take.

There were times when the book felt a little slow, or repetitive, as there was a lot of traveling and a lot of hanging out by bedsides trying to figure out some tricksy demon stuff. But, overall, Paladin of Souls was rich and encompassing, intriguing and different, and, like the main character herself (though she’d be chagrined to hear it) wholly and utterly charming.

Book read: 4/100.

The Long and Short of It.

When I was working on my first publication, Bowlful of Bunnies, I thought I’d hit on a pretty good idea. As a collection of short stories, I could easily put together a collection of the short pieces I’d been cultivating and hawking for the past ten years, and then add some newer material to the pages as well.

And I knew, when I finally published, that I wanted to put out at least one book a year, which seems like a reasonable pace, except for the fact that I’m a pretty slow writer. There are seventeen stories in BoB…seventeen stories over the course of about ten years. So when those seventeen stories are used up, what is left? I’ve been working on Serpent in a Cage for ten years, and I’m trying to push that through, but what if that’s not ready in time? What do I do then? I know I can’t pull seventeen more short stories out of my butt in less than a year.

So I got to thinking: maybe I’ll only need to produce one good short story, and I can let others do the rest of the work! Basically, in the long and short of it (ha!), I’m thinking that, if it’s looking like SiaC is still too far off, perhaps I should put together an anthology, open it up to submissions, and have people bring their own work to the table and put it together in a book.

I love anthologies; I love the variety and the introduction to new authors and it’s a great way for people to get involved. I like to think, especially if I start getting back into RoW80, that people would be interested in submitting, too. That leaves just one question, I think…

Should the anthology be themed? Or should it just be open-ended, topic-wise?

Okay, that’s two questions. But they’ve been rolling around in my brain since I thought of doing an anthology. More than likely, if I started it this year, I’d make it a annual thing, too, so having a different theme each year could be a lot of fun, while it being open-ended would allow more freedom and variety of authors.

I’d love to have some thoughts on this. Have you ever submitted for an anthology? Do you like reading anthologies? Do you find you like them more when their focused on a particular topic? What topics would you like to see?

Happy writing, everyone!

Two in a row! I’m getting back in the game. :)

Review: “Unseen Academicals” by Terry Pratchett.

“A lot hinges on the fact that, in most circumstances, people are not allowed to hit you with a mallet.”


“Unseen Academicals” by Terry Pratchett

Anyone reading the blog could probably gather that I’m a pretty big Terry Pratchett fan. I think he’s bloody brilliant, and I’m continually convinced that he’s only getting sharper and funnier with each and every book. Unseen Academicals only continues to perpetuate this incredible trend. At its base, Unseen Academicals is a tale about football, but, just like regular football (and all things Pratchett), it’s never just about football. It’s about love, it’s about community, it’s about following rules and breaking them. It’s about the incredible power of the game and the incredible restrictions we put on ourselves and the way we may or may not allow ourselves to be great.

Right from the start, I loved the way Pratchett was twisting the usual conventions of familiar stories in his usual fashion, and there’s a lot more that really impressed me about this particular book. Quite often, the over-arching theme underlying the story is almost too dense, but I never felt as though that aspect was too heavy-handed, as a few of his books have been. And I immediately was drawn into several of the characters. Some of them are older; I was delighted to discover that I’m as entranced by the dynamic between Vetinari and Ridcully as I am by Vetinari and Vimes’ interactions. Some of them are newer, and two of my favorite new Discworldians. Glenda is such a wonderful main character, realistic and relate-able and quite frankly a character we don’t see enough of in fiction (and so cool to see one from a male author, as well). Plus, I’m now convinced that no one can make beautiful, realistic, perfectly flawed relationships like Pratchett can. Though I’m pretty sure no one can ever top Carrot and Angua as my favorite literary couple (though Vimes and Sybil are in the running, too), Pratchett almost made me question their supremacy with coupling in this book. Which I won’t say anything more on, because it’s best to be discovered.

This is definitely Pratchett and Discworld at their best, Ankh-Morporkians shine in this fabulous football fairy tale, and it’s really sparked up my love for the series and these incredible characters.

Books read: 2/100.