Enemy of Entropy
Review: The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance, edited by Trisha Telep
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The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance by Trisha Telep
My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’m extremely surprised by how much I enjoyed this anthology! I picked it up intending to just read the stories by authors I know I like—Kelley Armstrong, Ilona Andrews, Carrie Vaughn, Holly Lisle, Jeaniene Frost, Maria V. Snyder. I had never heard of some of the other authors. A few names I remembered seeing in other anthologies and not enjoying their work.
I did, however, deliberately put myself in a tolerant mindset: this is a book of romance stories. It wouldn’t be fair to judge them as anything else.
That worked rather better than it has in the past. I still got a little annoyed at having so much of each story dedicated to couples (and all het/mono couples, at that!) rather than some intriguing world ideas, but managed to stay on track.
In the end, I only skipped one story—I just don’t like the Weather Wardens stuff at all. I found a couple of others substandard, but all in all, Telep chose very well. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys paranormal romance (maybe even those who usually stick to just romance), and most urban fantasy fans.
Miscellany
soreI lost track of who originally linked to what, so I can’t credit them properly. But thank you to whoever they all were, anyway!
Filed under “another reason I’m proud to be a homeschooler”: California court rules that private school can oust lesbian students. I do understand that it’s a private religious school, and that their denomination doesn’t approve of homosexuality. On the other hand, the girls’ parents chose to send them to that school, not the girls themselves. And demanding that everybody in the school be heterosexual makes every bit as much sense as demanding that they all be right-handed! (It also sounds like the school went WAY the hell overboard in interpreting the “evidence.”)
Can I get an “Amen”?! Ending Weight Bias: The Easiest Way to Tackle Obesity in America
This is news? Readers build vivid mental simulations of narrative situations, brain scans suggest
Not Good News: Mercury found in kids’ foods – and in pretty much anything else that contains HFCS. I’m confident of my ability to kick the soda habit, but totally avoiding HFCS pretty much means avoiding all processed foods. GAH!
This is so cool! Implants Tap the Thinking Brain
No surprise to me, at least: Watch out. The Internet will cut you
Reality check: Sorry, you don’t have a 200 IQ
Another no-brainer: Video Games May Hinder Relationships
Books & Cute Photo
Totally unrelated to anything else: Squee! (Thanks, AMQ!)
For some odd reason, I got this weird notion about tracking down as many of the books I’ve read as possible. No, I don’t know why.
Read on…
Book Joy! And Stuff
I’m so tickled! In the last two weeks, I’ve found not one, but two books that Sam and I have wanted for ages at good prices on eBay!
First, I’ve been looking for
Seeing Red: The Rapture of Redheads by Howard Schatz for years and years. Seriously, it has to be at least five years since Sam first mentioned that he’d love to have it. Unfortunately, it’s out of print, and the only thing I found for the longest time were used copies for $150 or more. It’s a gorgeous book, but that’s far more than I could pay for it.
I had the book on my wish list at Half.com, which is part of eBay, but for some reason I also set up an eBay search a few months back, and finally got found a copy going for $35.1 I didn’t happen to see the email until a day later, and by then the seller had dropped the price further for some reason. It was more than I pay for most books, but after five years, it was more than worth it. We received it in the mail earlier this week, and it is just a beautiful as any new copy.
That gave me an idea, so I set up a search for another book I’ve wanted for a while, but couldn’t afford. John C. Lowe’s tome Your Guide to Metabolic Health came out in 2003, and I haven’t ever found it in stock anywhere. It must have gone out of stock quickly, because Amazon has only ever had used copies that I’ve seen. And again, they were always pricey—$180 was the price I’d seen most recently.2
Today, eBay came through again! The “buy it now” price was very reasonable, so Sam encouraged me to go ahead and get it instead of chancing the auction route.
Dr. Lowe has also written another book that’s specifically about the metabolic treatment of fibromyalgia, but it runs over $500. Apparently, that one is intended for physicians, rather than laypeople. I have an eBay search going, but I’m fairly certain the book I bought today has the information I need in it. From what I’ve heard, it’s mainly about fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.3
I’m busily reading my ARC of Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! It’s good stuff.
1 For what it’s worth, Half.com still shows only the higher prices. Weird.
2 It’s available more cheaply now, but I still got a deal.
3 Aha—the publisher actually sells the latest version of that one for $99.95. Why would anybody pay the used price? Why do the used sellers think they can demand so much?
Bookcase Bedroom!
I suppose it could be called a Bookcase Tree, because of its iasic deisngn. It wouldn’t be the best choice of design for sleeping quarters for a claustrophone lke me, and procratinators wpuld find it even harder to quit reading and go to sleep. I would love to have this for a little one
