Farewell to 2013, you slimy snake.

I hear you galloping my way 2014, you shiny horse.

I would like to take this time and give you, our readers, a sincere bow of thanks. There are many, millions of blogs out there, but you choose to read ours. For that I am humbled and pleased.

I signed on to this blog team with much, much, much trepidation. I was welcomed and encouraged to write my reviews. It has helped me take away some (but not all) of my fear in writing.  So thank you for reading our blog and supporting this love for science fiction and romance!

I would also like to share with you some retrospective of the past year and some resolutions for the future in terms of this blog.

Book of the year for 2013: “Ready, Player, One”

I have mentioned this book several times. I haven’t had a chance to review it.  Ok that’s a lie. I was too much in love with it to share it. I discovered Ernest Cline at a convention.  He was so charismatic and hilarious that I had to check out his book. I LOVED IT. I cannot stop gushing about this book. If there should ever be a movie made off of a book, it really should be this one. It combines a love of 80’s trivia, retro gaming, epic puzzles, and tron-like atmosphere in one. It’s a great action read. If you want something to pump your fist in victory, read this now. I read this book earlier in the year and it easily became my own book of the year. It’s still resonating in me.

Surprise Favorite of 2013: “Hearts of Ishira” 

I had no expectations when I selected this book to review. It completely blew me away. I went into great depth in my blog. What made my love for the book deepen was that Bethany Ann commented on my post. I will admit, I danced around work with glee (my coworkers had to gently pluck the scissors from my hand). And Bethany Ann has become one of my favorite people to follow online. She is hilarious and we have too many damn things in common. I love finding new authors to cyber-stalk.

Things That Turned Me Away From Books

I refuse to write what I considered the worst because that just makes me too awful. I know many of the authors send their first works to us and I’d hate to think that I shredded all their hard work to pieces.  But I will mention the general things that turned me away from books.

Deal Breaker Word of 2013: Cunt. I hate that word. It’s ugly. It doesn’t insinuate any positive or witty emotions. I cringe that I even typed that word. Living in LA, I am exposed to this word at various times. For me, once I that word comes out of someone’s mouth, I’ve lost my respect for them. It’s especially heartbreaking for me to see a female writer add this word to their characters’ dialogue. A lot of the works I started reading featured this word. I’m sorry but once you write that,  I will dismiss your work.

Most Horrible Scene EVER of 2013: I appreciate carnal sexuality. I am no prude. I have seen, read, and heard many dirty, dirty things.  Since I read erotica fiction, I am open to many scenarios.  I just have two, tiny conditions: there has to be a point to it and it has to make sense. Surprisingly, I have met very few that have met those conditions. I have read so many horribly written erotica scenes that I am jaded and numb. So when I started to read this scene I was floored at how horrible and turned off I was.

In short, it was a scene of a nightclub with desperate women trying to reach through the bars of a cage to get at a naked man with an erect penis.  Nothing in that scene seduced or intrigued me. I was filled with disgust instead.

I have been at a male stripper club. I have yelled and screamed at the dancers. It was all fun and silly. I giggled so hard that I was red in the face.

So to imagine this scene was just sad. And then whatever plot reason the author gave for the cage was thrown out the window for the next chapter. I never went further than that chapter. That was months ago I read that. I’m still shaking my head in disgust.

Wishes For 2014

I’ve never done resolutions since I’ve never seen the point. Rather than give myself a specific list of what has to be accomplished, I have general wishes. Since this was my first year with the blog and I got a taste of all the delicious fiction out there, here is what I hope 2014 will bring:

• More diverse Steampunk

  This will be an absolute challenge since Steampunk literature is absolutely saturated. The whole point of Steampunk is creativity so I’m curious to know which ones will stand out.

• Steamier Romance

  Notice I wrote steamier AND romance. I feel that too many stories contain one and not that the other. I want a romance to cheer for; I want a steam,y smexy scene to huddle under the covers with. I will gladly keep searching for this.

• I want to be surprised

  Now that self-publishing has  opened the gates, I can’t wait to see the influx of new story-writers!

For you, our lovely readers, I wish you a jam-packed year of delicious reads!

Happy 2014!

TONI