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shala_beads
02 July 2009 @ 12:17 am
Signs of the Zodiac and the start of it all  
Today while I was at the supermarket, I decided to look for the recently released newest installment in Vicki Pettersson's Sign of the Zodiac series. If you haven't read it, it's a lot of fun. Ms. Pettersson creates a shadow world of superheroes and supervillains based on the signs of the zodiac and carrying the appropriate weaponry for each sign who are at war with each other in major US cities. Her story tracks the Sagittarius of the group in Las Vegas who is on the side of light, but who is born of both sides. It's a comic book world that would be neat to see in comic book format and one of my favorite guilty pleasures. However, for some odd reason, Amazon has the dead tree format for 7.99 and the Kindle version for 9.99. Not helpful.
So I checked the supermarket. They've had the other 3 and I was hopeful. I ran into a normal problem now looking for certain books.
Vampires have messed up the genres.
You see the equivalent of vampire bodice rippers in the fantasy section or horror section, Charlaine Harris seems to confuse everyone and I've seen her Southern Vampire books in horror, romance, fantasy and this week.. mystery. Some pretty good fantasy reads with hardly a wet kiss in them wind up next to Harlequin's newest, and while sometimes this is a good thing, I've found a lot of new books I'm interested in trying to figure out how things are categorized this time, it's still annoying. And all because of vampires.

But I did see one thing that made me laugh. A newly covered and released version of Anne Rice's Interview With A Vampire in the romance section with the words "The book that started it all" blazoned across the cover. Apparently, they are trying hard to find that one vampire fan out there who hasn't read Anne Rice's first three vampire books.
To be honest, my favorite books by her remain Cry to Heaven and Feast of All Saints with Belinda probably in third.
Anne Rice on her worst day though is better than an awful lot of the stuff out there now. The most recent Laurell K. Hamilton book made me nostalgic and wistful for Pandora.

They didn't have the Vicki Pettersson book. Well, tomorrow we are going out for pork schnitzel at Cafe Amsterdam which is a couple blocks from B&N. So I'll check there.
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Feeling: amused
 
8 cups of coffee | Caffeinate me
 
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Crystalplane[info]xtalcy on July 2nd, 2009 01:18 pm (UTC)
I actually didn't even get the latest LKH ;(

I've been re-reading the Sookie books this week (they're so short!!) since Pam's been watching True Blood. They're a bit like the Rachel Morgan books, in that they're better the second time around :D

I'll have to get the Sign of the Zodiac books!!
shala_beads: fruity oaty bars[info]shala_beads on July 2nd, 2009 07:27 pm (UTC)
And the books mentioned below. :) Carey and Galenorn. You'll really like both.
Neolithic Cheesecake[info]roisnoir on July 2nd, 2009 01:31 pm (UTC)
Dan has taken to perusing the book section at the grocery store for the most ridiculous things he can find. Last weekend, he found me a romance where one of the characters is "Arion, King of the Unicorns." (It was nowhere near as deliciously awful as it ought to have been. *pout*)

I'm always kind of amazed when I find Laurell K Hamilton, or Bertrice Small there. Yasmine Galenorn, too. (If you haven't read her, the Otherworld/Sisters of the Moon series is very good - 6 books in, and I still don't dislike any of them. The Chintz & China series, not so much.) It's full on smut, which I'm usually pretty unapologetic about reading, but then again, it seems like that aspect of 'women's fiction' seems like a pretty well kept secret. (Not that Hamilton is chick lit/romance, but she does seem to get lumped in with them at the grocery store.)

My bane isn't the vampires, but the werewolves. And the utter glut of series about werethings with puns for titles. I'm over those, and they're the majority of I can find lately, unless I go to an actual bookstore.

I think that Poppy Z Brite is better than Anne Rice, but The Mummy will always have a place on my shelf of well-loved books.
shala_beads: csi london[info]shala_beads on July 2nd, 2009 07:22 pm (UTC)
I don't have a cat icon. I need one.
I have an autographed copy of Night Huntress from entering a drawing on [info]yasminegalenorn's journal! *grins*
I really like her Bath and Body series which is penned under the name India Ink. I love cozy mysteries, they are potato chip books for me.
As far as werewolves go, Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey isn't really a werewolf book and it's excellent. I don't read such things for the smut but for the stories which sounds an awful lot like reading Playboy for the articles, but it's true. Jacqueline Carey writes a good story that happens to have some really hot scenes in it.
amedyr[info]amedyr on July 2nd, 2009 04:28 pm (UTC)
That zodiac series sounds very interesting!

I used to like Anne Rice (I still think Cry to Heaven is pretty good), but I haven't been quite fond of her writing style, lately. It happened after I started reading Stephen King with more of a passion (the whole Anne Rice Amazon forum fiasco didn't help much, either).

On the vampire note, I've been curious about Tanya Huff's The Blood Books, the series that inspired TV's Blood Ties. The series is ok, not as great as Moonlight was, but it gave me the feeling that the books might be interesting.
shala_beads: alien dance[info]shala_beads on July 2nd, 2009 07:26 pm (UTC)
I still need to put up one of my vampire icons
The Tanya Huff books are so much better then the series. The characters are a lot more complex and interesting.
I like earlier Stephen King. I haven't quite forgiven him for rushing through the last two Wasteland books and what he did to them after years of waiting.
*points up* I can't recommend Santa Olivia enough. I posted my review on Amazon.com, but that was one of the books I loved most this year, in fiction, it's right behind Valente's Palimpsest which was a whole lot of wonderful.
Jade[info]jadedone2many on July 2nd, 2009 08:31 pm (UTC)
I have been enjoying Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Mysteries for the fun fluff they are, but I agree, Anne Rice was a lot better, even her crap stories were better. I have become a bit disillusioned with her, but I still hold out hope that one day she will come back to it all.
In the meantime, I wish I could burn every Stephenie Meyer book published. I have made fiends out of my two best friends. It's very sad. :(
Jade[info]jadedone2many on July 2nd, 2009 08:34 pm (UTC)
Also? Cry to Heaven and the Feast of All Saints are some of my favorites, too. And I thoroughly enjoyed the Mayfair Witch books (Mona was my favorite). But I can't love anyone else as much as I love Louis, my emo-before-emo-was-cool vampire. :)