It's that spooky time of year when ghosts and goblins come out. Since I'm a big
wimp, I tend more toward reading mysteries at this time of year than horror or
any other books about things that go bump in the night, but I'm going to go out
on a limb and give
Charlaine Harris's
Southern Vampire Mysteries series a try
because I've been enjoying the
True Blood series on HBO.
My convention travel season has wound down for the year, and I wrapped things
up by going to FenCon in
Dallas. One of the big topics of discussion (at least, I was on a panel about
it, so it was big for me) was spoilers, which could be kind of scary, depending
on your viewpoint. It seems like there are two main camps, those who can't wait
to find out what will happen and who seek out every little scrap of information
they can find, and those who'd rather be surprised when they read the book. I
mostly fall into the latter group. After all, I'm the one who spent a
convention last summer threatening dire things (it involved a kazoo and Barry
Manilow) to anyone who even hinted at discussing the new Harry Potter book that I
wasn't going to get to read until I got home.
Then there are all the questions about how far you should go to protect others
from spoilers. It's one thing with television, when a show airs at a certain
time, so everyone pretty much watches at the same time and those who Tivo know
they're taking a risk. But books, except for those huge bestsellers where they
hold midnight release parties at the bookstore, aren't on that kind of
schedule. You may discover a book years after it was first published, and even
if you do buy it on release day, everyone reads at a different pace. How long
must you wait to openly discuss what happens? I suppose if you really want to
talk about a book, that's an incentive to make all your friends read it
immediately.
Another fun thing about this convention was meeting
Doris
Egan, who is currently a writer and producer for the television series
House. But Doris is
also a fantasy novelist, and I recently read her Ivory trilogy and loved it.
Unfortunately, it's out of print, and Doris seems to be focusing her efforts on
television now, so there aren't likely to be more books anytime soon. I did
find it amusing that at one point in one of the books (which was published long
before Dr. House was a gleam in anyone's eye), the main character trains under
a gruff and unconventional healer ...
I was also on a panel about the works of C. S. Lewis. I was
pretty much obsessed by the Narnia books as a kid, and talking about them made
me want to go back through that wardrobe.
Until next time ... Shanna
Shanna Swendson writes "Fairy Tales for Modern Times" and is the
author of the Enchanted, Inc. series about a Texan in New York City, a
magical NYC. Visit her
website or blog
for more information.
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