E Passer

 My birthday was April 16th and the gift that I promised myself was a book that I had long been waiting for the release of, Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor. Okorafor also wrote Who Fears Death is a nominee for the 2010 Nebula award. Her book Akata Witch is geared toward an younger audience, but as I myself am grown, it has a wider appeal than that. Anyway; the book came out two days before my birthday...the 14th, and though I got it on the 14th, I promised myself I'd not start it until the 16th. (What a hard promise that was!) I got up extra early since I worked on my birthday, just to read for an hour.

Anyway having finished the book, I figure I owe a review; I rarely do reviews, but I feel the need to make one for one of my new favorite authors and I think that I will continually do so for others of my favorites if I have not already. I may even go back and reread their books just for this purpose. I hope to do one for every one of my favorite authors or, as I sometimes put it, my authors of interest.

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor is a brave new story. It tells of a young Nigerian-American girl, Sunny, living in Nigeria and the difficulties she endures being American and albino. She also has a difficult relationship with her father, who always seems to disapprove of her.

Her life drastically changes when she discovers that she is a Free Agent, a label given by the Leopard People (those with magic) to those with magic that have non magic parents. She forges a strong friendship with other young Leopard People as she learns about the expectations and realities of the their world. But as she enjoys the changes in her life, she is aware of a powerful danger that is looming over the horizon.

Two of features of Akata Witch that make it so appealing are the characters, the different levels of conflict and the brilliant tone. For the characters, Sunny shines but so often do the personalities of the Leopard People peers. There is Sasha angry and proud American, Chi-Chi, both proud and foolish and slightly over confident and the wise, observant and responsible Ochu. Okorafor makes these characters so vivid and realistic. They can be incredibly endearing or impossibly frustrating. In addition the supporting characters, even those with limited and brief interactions are real enough that the reader can feel like they are actual aquaintances.

The story has great conflicts as well. Sunny consistantly feels the part of the outsider in her world and the juxtaposition of her relationship with her two cultures she knows obviously leaves her feeling somewhat alienated. Much more so is the fact that she is an albino; she can't help but stick out. Most of her peers at school are not receptive of her. There are the lighter conflicts she has with her family, namely her father, who favors her brothers; her mother to a much lesser degree treats her differently as well. For an amazing internal conflict, Sunny has difficultly with her life as Free Agent, keeping such an amazing secret from her family, knowing that they'd not understand; this is an area where I initially thought there should have been more discussion, but I could settle for what was there.

Tone made the story impressive. It brought Nigeria to life and gave it culture in a brilliant way. A lot of the word use related to this; there are words that I did not understand while I was reading the book and they showed up frequently; this I liked it was real and gave the story the perspective of being among the people and not just simply telling the story about the people.

My greatest complaint was that I wished it was longer. I didn't want it to end and had to stall with reading the last chapter so that it could go one. (I often do this with shorter books that I really enjoy). I also would've like if Sunny was a tad more evolved as a character; it seemed as if at some point in the story her characterization stepped back in favor of the other characters. On second thought; I'm more inclined to believe this may very well have been a part of Sunny's character; considering she had far less audacity and Gaul than Chi-Chi or Sasha and had not been raised in that world.

This book is definitely worth the read for anyone looking for a fun and unique perspective from a fantasy novel. The characters are fantastic and realistic enough to cause the reader alternately facepalm and laugh or listen carefully. The protagonist is appealing without being trite, her conflicts manage to be interesting without being the only driving element in the story, which is beautifully linear. I do wish this novel was longer, but the measure of a truly magnificent storyteller is leaving you wanting more.

Deathonator

 Happy New Years!  I've so far been true to my resolutions.  Yay me!  Here's a bit of what I've been working on:  

Have you any idea of how deadly still the air is aboard a space vessel? Even when doors open, the air doesn't seem to move itself. There are noticeable pressure changes sometime even, but the air stays absolutely still. This bothered me more than anything else about the large space vessel, the Aspen. Long after I got use to the silent hum of the engines and the gravitational compensator and even the ever imposing sterility of everything, I was still extremely uncomfortable with the air. Night time, or should I say sleep time, made it all the worse.

I suppose one could say it was my fault. Flip, one of my few friends would have said that, but really it wasn't. He would say all these things I could have done to avoid this fate. But my fate was sealed the day I was born. There's no running away when they have you chained down.

Born and raised as a member of the underclass in New Cinci meant that I didn't have options. There are many stories I've heard regarding my parentage. Maybe my parents were dissidents against the American Progress (the biggest political party in the country). Dissidents were either killed on spot or sent off to prisons. A few lucky ones got house arrest. Or maybe they were just unlucky poor, unable to afford another child like so many others. Maybe they were dead. In any event. I ended up being a child of the state. That's a crap thing to be. I wasn't asking anyone for sympathy though.

I turn over slowly in my bunk, trying not to wake the person below me, though I'm certain these beds are shake proof; it's a habit. It's a pretty small space, just wide enough for two average sized people to stand side by side. There are bunks, three levels of them, on either sides so each of these mini barracks house six people. At each end of the bunks there is a set of lockers so we might store our meager possessions.

The bunks are contributing to his being utterly unbearable for me. It's a little cubby hole built into the wall. This place doesn't seem like the best set up for an emergency evacuation. Then again, if we are far enough away from earth, which we will be, I doubt an emergency evacuation would do us much good. Space is like that.

I'm so wide awake right now, agonizing over being here. I'm not as bad as Langley or Winters both of them ended up on Doc Watch. That's what they call it when people go space crazy. The isolate them and send them to this simulation room. So that they can calm themselves. I've not seen Langley or Winters since.

Right now we are about three weeks from Earth. It's not too late to turn back. They brought extra ships just for that. They're going to follow us for five weeks after that...there's no going back. Of this crew of seven hundred, one hundred and thirteen have turned back. Only three hundred are eligible for that option.

The Aspen is two thirds public/government, one sixth corporation and one sixth private. Only the private and the corporation sectors are allowed to turn back since their people are the ones that brought the extra ships. Most of the people are volunteers. Guess who's not included in that most. There is no going back for me; even if I could. I am in desperate need of a fresh start.

 It's December 15! There are sixteen days until the new year. I need a plan. I've alredy started working on my New Years resolutions. So far, I have

1) An hour a day for writing. I need to not waste so much time not writing and not doing other things. I have my stories half written, but procrastination has been getting the best of me every since the end of nanowrimo (no I didn't finish). If I can wake up every morning and waste two hours on Farmville, but not even spend 30 minutes on my story, my priorities are in the wrong place. Some would even say that I'm not serious about writing. I want to be taken seriously and I want to get more writing done. Still it's easy to want anything, but wanting is useless if it is not fortified by action.

2) An hour a day for reading. I'm trying to finish more books on my booklist. I was good for a while doing a book a week, then I slipped to a week in a half, then to two weeks etc. It's mid December and I'm still working on beginning of November book. Time is not even an excuse, since stated before, I have plenty of it; I just mismanage it like crazy.

3) Keep better logs. This is the best I've done at keeping a log (i.e. this year). I want to do better. I want to have a guaranteed one entry a week; that's not too much. It wouldn't even have to be long, just a decent update on my progress and activities during the week.

4) Toilet Train the Cat. This has been on my list of "OOh I should do that!" for a few months now. She's clever and she catches on to things really well. There would be many benefits to doing this; the only reason I haven't yet is because I'm lazy.

That's all I have for now, more to come later probably.

 I just got my copy of Invizimals.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but so far I feel positive.  It's a little more work than I would like to put out for playing a game.  I really don't like having to move around.  Though, If I am honest, I move around when I get frustrated:  Prince of Persia nearly had me running a hole in the floor.  

The fighting style.  While the strategy necessary in turn based games is fun to think through, I'd much rather have real time.  Honestly for me at least, it's much more demanding.  I find that I have to think through my plan of attack as the game requires some multitasking. I also like the quickness.

The story; it's insanely ridiculous yet falls short of being annoying for some strange reason.  The over the top characters are appealing to my inner child.

Usually I fall by the wayside and get lazy if I don't keep up with it when I have the opportunity and/or an idea. Ideally I'd like to have two to three entries a week. While I may have failed at meeting my quota, I have not failed completely!!! Partly why I have not failed is because I've been logging stuff. I say stuff because what I've been logging varies. Most of it is not about my writing, but I find that I enjoy giving my mind a stretch before my workout (i.e. writing).

So not much ground covered in writing, but I've been consistent in working on writing.

I've been thinking I need to take a hiatus from anything involving zombies. I read a lot of zombie books and watch a lot of zombie movies. I find the genre to be one of my favorites; it has been that way since I was little and I first saw the original Dawn of the Dead.  

I've even been working on my own zombie story.

The problem is that I have reoccurring zombie dreams. (Sidenote: I dream almost every night) Perhaps reoccurring is not the right word since every dream is different. But when you dream about zombies more than half the times when you dream, it's a safe bet that you might have zombies on the mind a little too often.

That said. I will be watching the Walking Dead.

Time can be measured by the seasons, but the sunrise, by the sunset and by the moon.  Time can also be measured by growth.  I couldn't imagine a world that would be pleasant without these.

 They call me dead, they call us dead. We are zombies. We pass through the motions of what was once living. Passing each day feeding our insatiable hunger. A hunger we have for humans. Humanity is at an end.

Looking back on my life or me as I was once living, the me of two months ago. I can’t say I regret being this way, being dead. In fact, somewhere in the back of my mind where my ever fading memories reside, I can’t seem to recall if I ever did live.

Five Months Ago:

“Sid they are gaining on you!” I screamed into the radio, “Get out of there now!” I looked through a pair of dollar store toy binoculars.
Of course he didn’t answer. Doing so would have been a death sentence. Sid was trying to get out of there. From a roof top nearer to the end of the street, I could see the mob of undead chasing him. Gap between him and the undead shrunk for a moment, before Sid picked up his pace. Sid wasn’t as fast as me, maybe as fast as Lillian, who definitely had him beat for endurance, and he was pretty much deadweight to the rest of us; he knew it and we knew it. That’s why no one protested when he insisted on running this time.

While Sid led the undead one way, Lillian and I would be the ones who had to run to the given destination and retrieve whatever needed to be retrieved. I looked at another rooftop; Lillian raised her hand and waived; she was ready.

“I’m off.” I said to Mac as I put on a backpack. “We’ll meet up tomorrow at Building three.”
Mac, an NRA loving vegan (go figure), was staring out the scope of the gun, following Sid’s movement. “See ya. Oh and pick me up some batteries.”

I ran from the roof downstairs and did a quick look out from the second floor to the ground below. Not a dead in sight. Since the first floor is boarded up, we climbed up and down from the second. I hopped out the second floor window, and crawled carefully down the rope ladder and stepped out in the rear yard of a narrow apartment building.

It was getting cooler; fall was coming. It was ominously quiet, a ghost town. I found myself less and less bothered by it though. I had acclimated to this environment of death. Our system worked we were alive. I hopped the fence and ran east, opposite the way Sid was running, climbing fences, not taking the roads.

And I smiled as the feeling of familiarity crept into me. This was easy and automatic even; I did this all the time. It was reminisce of before, back when the undead weren’t everywhere. I wasn’t afraid of getting bitten I realized. I’d been doing this way too long.

I entered through the back of the store, where they kept stuff stocked. The front was open too, but the back was safer. The store was partially lit. Still, it was darker than normal making it extra creepy. I was curious if Lillian made it, but I didn’t call out. You never called out. Even if most the undead had ran after Sid, there were always that one or two that didn’t. In stead I start in first isle collecting stuff.

A shuffling noise caught me dead. I paused and turned around, my grip tight on my weapon of choice, a hatchet. Side note about guns: They are loud enough to bring more dead and I’m a piss poor shot; I could practice shooting, but the hatchet was easier, even if it was more work. A hand shot out from a shelf and grabbed my leg. I screamed as I took a swing at the arm, adjusting it so that I missed the arm completely, but barely.

And Lillian stood up grinning. “What sort of asshole are you? Do you want me to end up hacking your head off?” I swear Lillian must have been one of the stupidest people I knew. Either that or she didn’t care.

“You should have seen the look on your face.” Lillian giggled. “I didn’t know you were a screamer!” What an idiot. I half felt like hacking at her anyway.

My nerves were up and I no longer felt the comforting ease of doing something monotonous. I was suddenly very much off balance. “Let’s just go get stuff.”

“All done.” Lillian said. “What took you so long?” I ignored her and went to go finish grabbing stuff. I found some batteries. Realizing, Mac hadn’t told me which ones he’d wanted. I was half lost in my own world when Lillian came up and grabbed me again. She latched onto my arm. “Turn around and look out the front.” She said, whispering.

Sid may have held them away, but they were certainly back now. At least fifty of them stood outside the front of the store. Their eyes were glazed like a kid window shopping at a toy store. Some were in nearly perfect condition, obviously fresh. Others were missing limbs or pieces of flesh. I could see the ribs of one shirtless woman. There were too many of them…and the matter of the front door of the store being open. We kept it open because two easy access exits were always best. Luck would have it that it worked against us.  After a moment of deer in the headlight syndrome, I grabbed Lillian’s arm roughly and pulled her toward the back exit. The dead had already started running in. We ran to the back storage area.

I realized there was no possible way we were going to make it to the designated area. We ran down the side street, easier than backyards with fences, but more attention grabbing. Lillian was right behind me, the dead not too far off. I quickly scanned houses…what to do what to do what to do. There was one place…An apartment complex that always had the basement unlocked.

I turned down another street, checking behind me for a moment. Lillian check, dead check. Then I ran around back to the apartment building, running past the dumpster. The back area was deserted. There were three different basement entrances from the back. I ran down the steps to the first door. Locked. Just my luck that the second would be as well. Only it wasn’t. I pulled up the latch and we ran in. Non too soon because the dead had rounded the building and spotted us.

The smell hit me instantly. Rotting flesh made me wrinkle my nose and gag. I could hear the flies buzzing around. ‘Good Eats’ was the first thing that popped into my head, nearly making me vomit. The smell was always the worst for me, but Lillian couldn’t handle any of it. She usually chucked up at the first sight of blood. She had gotten better, but I could still see the paleness of her face against the darkness of the room. She dry heaved for a few seconds.

We were in a narrow hallway. The lighting was really dim. The fluorescent above us was about to give out. Someone had held a slaughter fest in here. Old blood spattered the walls alongside not so old blood. There were chunks of what I’m certain were people all over the floor. At the end of the hall were bodies. It was a really bloody mess and there was no way to step around it.

The body pieces were still kind of squishy and saturated with fresher blood. Stepping on them sounded a lot like squeezing a soaked sponge. Lillian was behind me. Definitely crying. A bang at the back door she jumped and slipped falling in the gooey bloody mess. She screamed then.

 I've been at it again.  I woke up this morning and managed to get something on to paper.  I hope to start on some more writing; but I guess I'll put out the first part of it right now:  It's a zombie short story here's the synopsis:

In the near future when humanity is near it's end, zombies will run rampant.  This story follows one survivor as they learn not only just how to survive, but how to live for the first time in their life.