I have participated in Sci Fi November for the past two years, as it happened that when I created my blog on the 31st of March, 2013 (my blogoversary!) I did not launch Jorie Loves A Story to the world until the 6th of August, 2013. Therefore, I indeed gave myself plenty of time to prepare for Sci Fi November 2013! Each year, I seek out a way to read Steampunk, and sadly, for the past two years, I have faltered a bit in my reach to hit this mark of my SFN event plans. I even re-queued the notion to read a bit of Steam during this year’s Sci Fi Experience (another annual event I participate in!) except to say, I only made it through the lovely appendix of Ms Elliott’s icepunk/steampunk novel! A bit more on this will be revealed at a latter time!
I like to keep my eyes peeled for upcoming Steampunk authors as I am looking towards uncovering a particular ‘type’ of steampunk novel. Previously I have discovered the Dystopian Steampunk styling of J.L. Muvihill’sThe Boxcar Baby inasmuch as the mech insects and mech-tech steam world of A MidSummer Night’s Steampunk by Scott E. Tarbet (based on a Shakespearean play!). Both novels were published by Indie Publishers who are dedicated to wicked quality and the craft behind world-building which gives a reader a firm grounding of where they are exploring once they pick up their books.
In this, I discovered the same dedication from Month9Books, and as I discover each new novel which whets a thirst of an appetite to read their selections, I endeavour to host their authors for special guest features in lieu of reading their novels for review (as at this time they only provide e-books). I must say, between the cover-art (which is eye-popping bang-on brilliant!) and the synopsis, this novel definitely held my attention! So much so, I am hoping my local library might take a chance and respond to a purchase request I submit for it in April!
My local library has a small collection of Steampunk novels, most of which I have explored or mentioned during one of the Sci Fi events I referenced above and/or on other exploratory blog posts such as my Library Loot where I discussed my hit/miss love affair with Steampunk! I am quite eager to continue my search for stories which invigorate my mind as much as capture my attention within the Victorian Steam worlds writers are happily creating for me to devour! If you haven’t picked up The Clockwork Man by William Jablonsky I highly suggest that you do! I read this one in conjunction with a steampunky event a book blogging friend of mine created, thus giving me my first foray into reading Steam!
I am hopeful as you go back through the links I’m sharing to see where and how my travels in stream have led me to traverse thus far along, you’ll be a bit closer to understanding how wicked happy I am to be hosting this lovely author interview on behalf of Ms Statham!
Lady Marguerite lives a life most 17th century French girls can only dream of: Money, designer dresses, suitors and a secure future. Except, she suspects her heart may be falling for her best friend Claude, a common smithie in the family’s steam forge. When Claude leaves for New France in search of a better life, Marguerite decides to follow him and test her suspicions of love. Only the trip proves to be more harrowing than she anticipated. Love, adventure and restitution await her, if she can survive the voyage.
What initially inspired you to create a story set within 17th Century France and bend it into a steampunky world where an adventure awaits your young protagonist as much as the reader who picks up the novel?
Statham responds: I first discovered Marguerite’s story while doing genealogy research. She is one of my great-great grandmothers. I knew I wanted to write her story, but when I started to do it straight up historical fiction, I was soon bored to tears. I had just finished reading Scott Westerfield’s Leviathan, and I thought – wait a minute, who says I can’t make something steampunky out of 17th century France? And that was all it took. I was in love once again. Read More
One of the happiest moments for a book blogger is eagerly going to their postbox & seeing what delightfully wicked print books have arrived for their reading pleasure! I have always held a keen interest in postal mail, being a long-term postal letter correspondent which has given me such a heart of joy seeing envelopes & bundles of love arrive from dear friends around the world. Imagine my new excitement in seeing the books I am reviewing arriving by publisher, author, publicist, or literary agent! Such an exciting new chapter in postal splendor!
I have been wanting to blog about my excitement about being placed on certain blog tours and/or in receiving books for review direct from authors, publishers, or publicists. I originally came across a weekly meme on Mondays entitled Mailbox Monday and you could say, that my new feature on Jorie Loves A Story is an extended idea from the original! Except to say, with one minor switch-up! Although I attempt to write down when books arrive by Post, I am never quite as certain when the books arrive as I am always reading the next book in hand! Therefore, please join me as I get excited about the books on my shelf which are next in line to read!
I apologise I was not able to keep up with my posts for this Feature. Most of the latter half of 2014 was a bit difficult for different reasons, wherein I simply tried to read all the books I could whilst I had captured the hours to give to them. I was too wrapped up in my readings to realise I had forgotten to post about upcoming books of interest! You will happily see a resurgence of this post hitting weekly starting this Winter 2015!
I am working on completing my “End of the Year Survey 2014”:
Spring & Summer might have dissolved into each other and collided straight into Autumn, but I must confess I read a heap of beautiful writ stories! Enchanting my mind, endearing my heart, and enveloping me inside a knitted eclipse of story craft by writers who know how to give readers a pause out of their hours and a settling inside their spirits as they turn page after page of evoking narrative which never fully leaves you once you place the novel on your bookshelf!
By the time it came around for the *End of the Year Survey* to be written, I must admit I was still working on a few reviews whilst resting a bit after New Year’s as I love to watch the ball drop in Times Square! I have been compiling the survey for more than a month now, working on it off/on whenever I have a few free hours to go back over the books I read during the past year, inasmuch as sort out my final thoughts as where they might ‘fit’ into the survey itself. I plan to release my “Top Picks of 2014” and the completed survey quite soon! Stay tuned to see what truly captured my mind from last year!
I have several carry-overs from January,
of which I will be reading whilst tweeting about this week:
Impossible by C.A. Gray (last book in the Piercing the Veil series: Book 1, Book 2, Interview)
(“Space” by Stephan Martiniere, used with the artist’s permission)
THIS is still true: Finding a renewed joy in reading science fiction stories during SFN, and having my hours to enjoy the stories grow a bit limited as November shifted into December, I was most delighted to find: the Sci-Fi Experience! (Review Site of the Experience!) As 2014/5 continues to move forward, science fiction & fantasy will both play a larger role on my blog as I am a member of The Classics Club, whereupon one of my focuses is specifically on: classic science fiction, classic fantasy, and classic/modern Magical Realism. (I tend to include the latter under this umbrella due to the elements which attach the sub-genre to the creativity of the former!)
*note: although I kept the paragraph intact from last year, I updated the links to reflect 2015!
To fully understand why I was so wicked happy last January during my 1st attempt to participate in the Sci Fi Experience, please direct your attention to my participation log from 2014! There is one component that I hadn’t realised was similar between 2014 & 2015’s #SciFiExperience, which is the fact I had the lovely pleasure of tweeting Ms. Elliott just ahead of embarking on my science fiction journey! Last year, I had the direct intention to read her Jaran series but this year, methinks as the boxes in which I have stored her High Fantasy series Crown of Stars is located somewhere out of sight and mind, I’ve decided to see if I can ILL the series which perked my interest originally for it’s uniqueness! I may or may not have mentioned this previously during Sci Fi November 2013 (although I’m sure I must have remembered to include on my essay about “From Seventeen to Seven”), I first picked up King’s Dragon when I was seventeen years old. I remember this quite well as it served as a turning point in my life; not just my reading adventures but my writing adventures. Up until that particular point, for whichever reason I hadn’t yet put the pieces together and realised I was a bonefide sci fi geek and a high fantasy appreciator!
The evidence was quite strong, I had begun writing my science fiction based on science fact novel three years earlier, and my dedicated passion for Star Trek (Gene Roddenberry’s vision of it), Star Wars (George Lucas’s vision of it) and Battlestar Galactica (the original series) were a good indication I had strong roots in the genre. However, reading science fiction & fantasy novels was a slower progression of mine, as I was always keeping my eyes peeled for a new motion picture and/or tv serial which would whet an interest for the fantastical as much as the science-based elemental explorations! I adore Space Opera the most because I love the interconnected elements it provides but truly, I’m still mapping together my wanderings within the Speculative Fiction genres!
This year, during the Sci Fi Experience I am going to keep a running list of books I am reading a few chapters at a time, as I want to see if I can discover new authors and stories to explore as the year progresses forward. I thought for the large batch of what I had borrowed from my local library (my dear librarians are used to me carting off more books than I can carry in a soft grocery bag that has become my ‘library book bag’!) whilst Sci Fi November was in-progress I will be reading 50 pages per novel to see if the style, the voice, and the tone of the writer’s vision sits well with me. Some of the novels were ones I picked up off the shelf based on visits within the book blogosphere either this year or last year during Sci Fi November and/or the in-between months leading up to this year’s events for Sci Fi November & the Sci Fi Experience!Read More
Each of us who joyfully blogs about books will find at times, even our best laid plans to host concurrent blog events can sometimes become a bit hard to juggle when our personal lives intercede on the time we had scheduled to devout to the events themselves. I found myself in this particular pickle last Sci Fi November, but this year, I felt I had shifted a few things around to where I had more hours to give and thereby could redeem myself from what I could not put together last year. Suffice to say, a few unexpected issues arose the least of which were a knock-out of my internet connection by a severe lightning storm and a broken toe of which looked far worse than the injury itself yet gave me enough wincing pain to forestall my blogging.
I was able to jump dive into the #RRSciFiMonth chat at the very tail-end of the conversation, whereupon I happily enjoyed speaking with Ms. Czerneda, Asti, Ana, and Rachel Noel (@Silelda & Purple Owl Reviews)! It was during this part of the convo, I expressed my desire to carry forward into December the posts I was unable to contribute during the last fortnight of SFN: 2014! I was happily surprised to find others were in agreement; November for whichever reason had become a bit of a quagmire for a lot of us, and I was not the only one wanting to extend the celebrations!
*I received a bit of a surprise whilst getting the link for Rachel Noel’s blog! (read: 2014 Thanks) I have always appreciated the randomness to my conversations with Rachel Noel on Twitter & I had always meant to expand our connection by visiting her blog. To see my name listed as a part of a note of gratitude of whom gave her the most joy and support in 2014 was simply an unexpected blessing to discover. Our lives touch each other in ways we do not always realise have an impact that gives us all a boost when we need it most. I can attest the same in return!Read More
I love participating in book blogosphere readathons, readalongs, and reading challenges that not only encourage me to read a bit more than I might have expected to become wicked happy to devour at any one particular time during the year, but it allows me the honour of getting to know new bookish souls through the bookish blogosphere I may or may not have already had the pleasure of visiting beforehand!
When I first saw the announcement for this readathon I had this to exclaim:
Hallo, Hallo!
:) I’m joining the SFN party late tonight (wait til I post my blog wrap-up for Horror October to explain why!) — however, I wanted to say smashing idea to host a RAT during SFN! I cannot wait to participate in this, and as I get all my posts lined up to go LIVE (backposted) for today & on-time for Sunday, I’ll add in a post for this wicked sweet readathon! I seriously did not get to read as many SF/F books last year for SFN which really upset me — this year I’m combining my *love!* of Fantasy into my SFN month schedule because the two tend to walk hand in hand; my new favourite sub-genre is “sci-fantasy” especially on the heels of having read “Uncovering Cobbogoth” (in late Spring) & “Intangible” (earlier this week!)!!
Thank you for organising this and I will most DEF be back to add my link to my Intro Post as I’m still working my way through the SFN Bingo Card! :) You rock!
– Jorie @ Jorie Loves A Story | 1st November, 2014
There are two beautiful BINGO CARDS celebrating this annual event now which I am displaying below but I have individual posts where I am cataloging my reading adventures and seeing which squares on the cards themselves will become filled per book I am consuming! I was hoping to have read more novels last year but thankfully I can redeem myself a bit this year by continuing from where I had left off in 2013!
I want to spend November exploring different books through my local library as much as showcasing science fiction & fantasy authors on my blog throughout the month to help spread the joy of their stories! One thing I love about a readathon, is that even if you are reading throughout the month you do not have to schedule full reviews for each of the novels your consuming. This is why I am going to be posting reading journal updates as I go along through the next three weeks to chronicle what I am reading and my thoughts whilst I read the books I checked out via my library inasmuch as the novels I am reading for scheduled reviews.
I will be tweeting out my #SciFiReadathon novel by novel updates as well!
Be sure to follow my tweets!
This list will evolve and/or expand as my readings progress during Sci Fi November!
I am projecting these spaces will be filled on both cards:
Oh, dear! In my haste to post my missing SFN: 2014 posts I accidentally forgot to refer back to the hostess of this beautiful readathon, except that I did give her full credit in the title! Ladies & Gents of SFN: 2014 the #SciFiReadathon is hosted by:
IF your participating in SFN 2014 — are you participating in the Bingo Card challenges and/or the readathon!? What did you pick to read and which spaces do you think will be filled at the end of the month!?
This post is brought to you by:
{SOURCES: Asti @ Oh! the Books made the SFN Bingo Card for SFN 2014 participants to take part in the joy of an undisciplined reading challenge! Whereas Leanne @ Oh! the Books made the SFN Bingo Card for SFN 2013. The Bingo card is used with permission. Sci-Fi November Badge created by Jorie in Canva. Sci Fi Readathon hosted by The Nerdy Journalist badge created by Jorie in Canva. Photo credit: Has Bonk (Public Domain Image via UnSplash).}
Lady Marguerite lives a life most 17th century French girls can only dream of: Money, designer dresses, suitors and a secure future. Except, she suspects her heart may be falling for her best friend Claude, a common smithie in the family’s steam forge. When Claude leaves for New France in search of a better life, Marguerite decides to follow him and test her suspicions of love. Only the trip proves to be more harrowing than she anticipated. Love, adventure and restitution await her, if she can survive the voyage.
