Into the Back of the Begone (Potential Series Book 2)

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

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Melissa It was DNA. Someone who's related to the killer uploaded their ancestry DNA data from 23andMe to another site. The data was available to the public …more It was DNA. The data was available to the public and obtained by authorities and the connection was a match. See all 21 questions about I'll Be Gone in the Dark…. Lists with This Book. It got a happy ending yesterday. Now I know what he was talking about after reading this book. It began in with a serial rapist terrorizing the suburbs of Sacramento. He often targeted couples or families and would rape a woman while her husband or boyfriend was tied up helpless in the next room.

His attacks spread to communities outside of San Francisco, but seemed to stop in mid Unfortunately, GSK had just moved south to the LA area where he started up again, but his first known attempt was thwarted when the couple fought back, and he narrowly escaped capture. Instead of scaring him off this triggered an escalation after which GSK would kill those he attacked until stopping in , ten years after he began. This confirmed what several detectives in various jurisdictions had suspected for years.

The statistics of his victims alone are staggering with 45 women sexually assaulted and 12 murders, and those are just the ones that are confirmed. It was Michelle McNamara who branded him the Golden State Killer after she began writing about the case on her blog and in magazine articles.

She had became interested in true crime as a teenager after an unsolved murder of a young girl happened near her home. A big part of this story is about how this case came to obsess her, and she does not make an attempt to gloss over how much it took over her life. Unfortunately, Michelle died unexpectedly in while in the middle of writing this book. In addition to being a great writer Michelle was a relentless researcher.

I sometimes have issues with books or documentaries about true crime cases because I think it too often it shows confirmation bias or prefers wild conspiracy theories to more likely mundane facts and scenarios. She avoids those by imposing clear and logical standards to this which depended on fact checking and interviews rather than indulging in hunches or pet theories. Geo-Mapping his crime scenes should give an approximate location of where he lived.

Scanning old case files and using key word recognition and data sorting can bring previously hidden connections to life. DNA databases are growing all the time, and all it takes is one hit from a relative to narrow it down to the family. View all 29 comments. Jun 12, Will Byrnes rated it it was amazing Shelves: For the most part I mimicked the bedtime routine of a normal person. I scoured thousands of pages of s-era police files. I pored over autopsy reports. Every obsession needs a room of its own. It is not only a tale of obsession, as the author, and others with her particular inclination, bury themselves in the forensic, statistical, genetic, and geographical trail left by this relentless offender.

It is a story as well of how some dedicated active and retired police, and private citizens worked hand in hand to try to track down a homicidal monster. It is also a story of the impact that monster had on the communities he terrorized and on how advances in technology over several decades shortened the distance between suspicion and apprehension. Michelle McNamara hard at work - image from The Times - provided to them by Patton Oswalt McNamara had always wanted to be a writer, but she gained some focus on what to write as a teen. These are not deep profiles, but we are given enough about each to understand their roles in the ongoing drama, and their motivation.

He began with simple burglaries, dozens of them, enough to earn a tabloid name, The Ransacker , then moved on to rape. One of his victims was thirteen. He was nearly caught after one couple resisted, so, to ensure not only compliance, but that there would be no witnesses, he moved on to homicide. His home invasions were well planned, professionally executed, and particularly cruel.

It was not enough to rape women. He made many of the women tie up their husbands or boyfriends, and forced them to watch him commit the rape. He had a signature technique for monitoring whether the male victims moved. Movement, they were told, would get their partner killed. And sometimes he killed them anyway, both of them. There is some very surprising information here on what happens to old police files.

We follow along as new methods are added to tried and true shoe-leather investigation. There were two major technological breakthroughs over the four decades of the investigation. DNA fingerprinting was the first. And even once it was put into widespread use there were still problems with local police departments coordinating with other PDs. She walks us through how that changed. The other major item is what you are using right now, the internet. All the information in the world is useless without the ability to connect a fact here to a crime there. It is quite cheering when McNamara begins to connect with other cold-crime obsessives across the country, and they begin sharing theories, and sometimes actual evidence.

It was an incredibly long investigation, and such projects come with some built-in risk. Focus narrows to a single face. No amount of information on the object of your obsession is enough. You note his taste in shoes and even drive by his house, courtesy of Google Maps.

You engage in wild confirmation bias. As with the infamous Kitty Genovese incident in , how people react not just to crime but to neighborhood security in general comes in for some scrutiny here. A young man jumping a fence is taking a shortcut. The gunshot at three a. You sit up in bed for a startled moment. Awaiting you is the cold, hard floor and a conversation that may lead nowhere: Sirens wake you later. People did react in some ways. Sacramento saw a spate of residents trimming trees and uprooting bushes to deny cover to the GSK, installing floodlighting, reinforcing doors, sleeping with hammers under pillows, and buying thousands of guns.

Victim support groups formed, some of the victimized men joining neighborhood patrols. Community safety meetings were packed. Rape kits were standardized. Point being that the book, while hardly a horror novel, can indeed induce a serious case of jitters. The nutter of which McNamara writes was not caught during the decades investigators private and professional worked the case.

She keeps the narrative moving, slickly evading the potential peril of death by excessive detail. She reports on some of the gore the GSK generated, but not too much, not nearly as much as she might have. Occasionally a particular passage or turn of phrase will make you sit back and sigh in appreciation, but the narrative chugs on and each particular gem is allowed to please, then recede into the rearview. The pair who took on the task of completing the book when McNamara died retrieved some fine samples from her notes. For example, He was a compulsive prowler and searcher.

We, who hunt him, suffer from the same affliction. He peered through windows. Click Mouse click, mouse click…The hunt is the adrenaline rush, not the catch. McNamara died in her sleep, in April, , at age 46, from a combination of drugs interacting with an undiagnosed medical condition that caused a blockage in her arteries.

She had been stressed out from working on this book, putting in long hours and suffering anxiety and nightmares that kept her from sleeping. Her husband engaged researcher Paul Haynes and investigative journalist Billy Jensen to complete the book McNamara had worked on for so long, and with such dedication. All 3, of them. That was on top of dozens of notebooks, the legal pads, the scraps of paper, and thousands of digitized pages of police reports.

And the thirty-seven boxes of files she had received from the Orange County prosecutor, which Michelle lovingly dubbed the Mother Lode. The GSK burglarized more than homes, raped dozens of women, killed at least ten people, and at least one dog during the s and s. We do not know how many people he drove mad in their decades-long inability to find him, or how many lives were ruined as a result of his crimes. The Golden State Killer is finally in jail. He had not killed anyone in thirty years, as far as we know, but it is in the nature of such sprees to have a strong impact long after the events themselves.

Yesterday my brother texted: It was always in the back of my mind that he could still be living around here. In a weird way it feels safer. The fear is gone. But the shadows remain. View all 52 comments. Linda D Reading this now. Will Byrnes Yep updated Dec 12, I'm what you would call a murderino. Sadly, I never read Michelle McNamara's work until after her death. After reading a few articles, I saved reading the rest until after I read this book.

I'm going to try not to fangirl all over the place, but this was stunningly amazing.

Begone the Raggedy Witches

It was such a personal story. McNamara shared so much of herself in this book without overwhelming it, and you really feel her dedication in the text. Her personal touch helps distract from the dehumanizing brutality of the crime very effectively. In a weird way, I almost felt like I had gained a friend during the book, like I was in the car driving with her or scanning through text-filled databases in the middle of the night, too, and that's a difficult feeling to evoke, especially in this genre. Likewise, the story focuses on the many of detectives both law enforcement and less official sleuths who worked the case and the victims as much as it does the killer.

While you get to know McNamara and her story, you also get to know the generations of detectives and their tenacity, frustration, heartbreak, and courage. The suspense builds and falls as the investigators chase leads, then stall, and all the while, you hope for the big break in a way they've learned to not bet on so earnestly. The ending, however, is a little bittersweet. You know going in that the GSK remains uncaught and about McNamara's death, but both still hit me hard.

Yet, throughout both McNamara's text and the ending by follow-up authors, there's an unwavering conviction that they'll catch the responsible one day, and when I finished the final page, that sense of resolve was the strongest emotion I felt. A few random things I loved worth mentioning: McNamara's unmistakable empathy for the victims, the detectives and LEOs, and the communities; 2.

She was never gratuitous describing the rapes or murders, yet she didn't sacrifice attention to detail or suspense; 3. Likewise, she acknowledged the complexity of the crime and how difficult it's been to catch the GSK because of it, but never festishized him, either. This might sound weird, but I've heard and read some accounts where they make rape sound like erotica or it's uncomfortably detailed and you want to throw the book across the room and clean it in bleach ; 5. She had such truly excellent, beautiful, and suspenseful writing.

Seriously, I'll Be Gone in the Dark shows such exceptional, suspenseful writing and beautiful dedication. I cried at the end in the best of ways. Of course, when I have four freaking books with a holds list that I have obligations to read, you, my beautiful love, come into my life, after I've been pining after you for months.

View all 60 comments. Sep 17, Emma Giordano rated it really liked it Shelves: A very enjoyable read! The narration was vivid and engaging. I appreciated the feeling of it being almost like a memoir from McNamara's perspective rather than just stating facts about the case. The order of them became muddled as I delved deeper into the book, but it's possibly not due to the writing itself but factors of my personal experience, such as choosing to listen to the audiobook version or my lack of knowledge of true crime novels in general. Though, I did see another review claim the events are not revealed chronologically throughout the book, so that's also a potential factor!

Overall, a great read and a great listen! Would definitely recommend to my fellow true crime fans. This books is full of detail and great value towards closing this case. It was a pleasure to listen to this following the capture of Joseph Deangelo, and it's excruciating to think that Michelle was so close to unveiling one of the most notorious serial rapists and murderers in US history.

If you haven't managed to snag this one yet, I highly recommend listening to the audiobook if that's your thing; all the narrators were beyond excellent and audible has all the pdf downloads available to view alongside while listening. Highly recommended for fans of tr Incredible. Highly recommended for fans of true crime and those looking to get a glimpse not only into the EAR, but also Michelle's personal life and struggles as well.

All of the stars. View all 18 comments. Mar 27, Julie rated it really liked it Shelves: No butler, no second maid, no blood upon the stair. No eccentric aunt, no gardener, no family friend smiling among the bric-a-brac-and murder. Only a suburban house with the front door open and a dog barking at a squirrel, and the cars passing. The corpse quite dead. The wife in Florida. This book sincerely scared the crap out of me. I grew up in the seventies, one of the creepiest decades, filled with terrifying serial killers and rapists, but I was not familiar with this case.

This book reminded me of how taut the atmosphere was in those days, as the author details her hunt for a prolific serial rapist, which eventually escalated to murder, who went on a virtually unchecked rape and murder spree in California in the seventies. The crime wave and the horrifying details sent chills down my spine and made the hair stand up on the back of my neck on more than one occasion. The rapist was smart, and planned his attack down to the smallest detail, having stalked the unsuspecting victims for a good while, knowing them intimately before making his move. Eventually, the crimes ceased, but no one knows exactly why.

The author has her theories, and I would have to agree with her assessment. The disheartening thing here is the feeling that McNamara was closing in, making progress, despite the roadblocks, setbacks, and dead ends that comes with this type of investigation. As everyone knows, Michelle died before this book was completed, which adds yet another haunting layer to this book. Her passion seeps through the pages, along with her single- minded determination, that did border on obsession.

I can see how that could happen, as this case was never solved and there is a sense of urgency about the book. Michelle's private life musings, added a more personal touch, something that might not always come off so well in the true crime arena, but I think the author was attempting to share with readers how her obsession and desire to see the case solved influenced and bled over into her personal life, taking up her every waking thought.

It lends a poignancy, and occasionally a little humor, to the book that does offset the gruesome revelations unearthed about the crimes and the victims. One quick note about how the book was written, since it was published posthumously, and Michelle had not completed the book before her death. It is my understanding that her lead researchers pieced the book together using what Michelle had already written, along with her extensive notes. Unfortunately, the organization, and presentation, is not great. In true crime, disorganization is a huge pet peeve of mine and I would, under ordinary circumstances, have been more than a little exasperated and disappointed.

In this case, I was a lot more forgiving, but I still think someone should have polished it up a little better. I would not let that deter you from reading this book, however, as, despite the bumpy ride, it is still quite an effective read. View all 68 comments. A book of true crime no extry points this time. So like any responsible consumer, I try to be careful in the choices I make. I read only the best: It was inevitable that I would find Michelle. Michelle McNamara had an uncanny ability to get into the minds of not just the killers but the cops who hunted them, the victims they destroyed, and the trail of grieving relatives left behind.

Twice he entered homes, pressing on undeterred when he knew victims had spotted him and were frantically dialing the police. He never hurt them physically, but he would tie up the older ones and put them in another room. The boy fell asleep. When he awoke, he peered over the bed. The EAR had left. His mother lay bound in strips of torn towels and was gagged with a washcloth. He mistook the ligatures for bandages.

It was a little after four a. She lay face down on her living room floor, naked, her wrists and ankles tied behind her with shoelaces. A ski-masked stranger had just spent an hour and a half terrorizing Fiona and her husband. He brutally raped her. Fiona was five two, pounds - a wisp of a woman. She was also a native Sacramentan, in possession of a dry, matter-of-fact manner, a clear-eyed resilience that belied her petite size. They all smell vaguely of soap. They excel at eye contact and have enviable posture. Irony is never their go-to tone. Wordplay makes them uneasy. The good ones create long conversational vacuums that you reflexively fill, an interrogation strategy that proved to me through my own regrettable prattle how easily confessions can be elicited.

They lack facial elasticity; or rather, they contain it. I married a comedian. Many of my friends are in show business. They maintain a pleasant but vigorous blankness that I admire. A veil comes down. Entertainers get a read only to gauge their influence on a room. Detectives deal in concrete tasks. I once spent an hour listening to an actress friend analyze a three-line text that hurt her feelings.

View all 9 comments. A mind-blowing mountain of evidence to sift through and present in one novel only slightly frightened Michelle McNamara. What truly frightened her and kept her awake at night was the fact that the Golden State Killer has gotten away with his 10 year reign of terror and is possibly blending into society as someone's husband or dad now. Yes, McNamara was obsessed with her search for the monster. It is impossibly frustrating in this day of DNA instant matching that the creep could still be walking the streets.

She rightfully felt until the day she died that she was on the verge of identifying the killer, probably through an Ancestry. A true-crime blogger, McNamara knew she was obsessed with GSK and does not hold back the introspective criticism. She knows herself and she understands people on a level that most of us don't. The seasoned and weary criminalists on the case came to appreciate, even rely on her skills.

She, in turn, relied heavily on crowd-sourcing and advanced technology to help in the relentless search. She writes impressively about the victims, the survivors and the detectives involved. She articulates the many 50 cases in bite-sized chunks and does not glorify nor hold back the details.

It is a terrifying book, yet full of compassion and understanding for the victims. My mouth continually fell open and my head was shaking NO as I listened to this moving account from one woman with an enormous investigation to relate to the public. It is simply a magnificent piece of work. If you are interested to check out a sample of the book, you can read her magazine article here. Aug 12, Christina - Traveling Sister rated it it was amazing Shelves: No one would have taken more joy from th 5, well I'll be sleeping with a baseball bat forever now stars!!!

No one would have taken more joy from this book than my mother. We're given intimate details about the crimes committed by GSK whom we now know is Joseph DeAngelo and are walked chronologically through the escalation and the atrocities he reaped upon the Sacramento area over a decade-long crime-spree. Spliced in between these horrendous retellings we're given insight into McNamara. Who she is as a person, where her obsessive nature comes from, how it was ultimately refined to true-crime. Her passion for the work she does is evident throughout the entirety of this read and it's impossible not to be swept up into the sheer magnitude of research and dedication she put into this masterpiece.

Their rhythm is off, their confidence drained. Divorce and drugs beset them. Statutes of limitations expire. Evidence kits are tossed for lack of room. What happened to them is buried, bright and unmoving, a coin at the bottom of a pool. They do their best to carry on. When you're dealing in such raw, gruesome and heart-rending facts it's easy to get lost in the sensationalism of it all.

So much of true-crime is this in-your-face, all about ratings, how many jaws can we get to drop type of business that the humanity of those affected is lost. This brings me to Nuka-World, which I think I finished this morning. Yes, it just came out. And I think there is a huge problem, this late in the game, with asking the player to suddenly work on behalf of some very thinly sketched raider gangs. The problem is that up until this point you have to be at least level 30 to go to Nuka-World, and more than likely a player will have completed the main game at least once by now raiders have been nothing but faceless enemies.

Sure, there are a few named raiders here and there, and they are humanized a bit by reading some notes or some terminal entries about how they interact with one another. But a player has to seek that information out, and it has zero impact on how the raiders will act in the game. After about the first hour in Nuka World, you're introduced to 3 groups of raiders; the Pack, the Disciples, and the Operators. And after dozens of hours of killing raiders at every moment, of them being absolutely nothing but enemies, you're suddenly supposed to see these 3 gangs as people you're supposed to care enough about to do jobs for them, ensure their survival, and balance their ambitions.

Every single raider in the park goes nuts attacking you. And you then don't get the option of doing most of the quests in the frickin' add-on. You go and kill the leaders and you report to someone for having done it and that's that.

See a Problem?

Let's say you really consider the motives and actions of your character in Fallout 4. Let's say you took seriously the idea of bringing back the Minutemen, and you built settlements, and you defended them, and you wore the Minuteman General's Armor one of the coolest looking get-ups in the entire game and you can't put ballistic fiber in it, FOR SHAME and got a Colonial haircut and mastered the laser musket and the revolutionary sword and by God you built enough artillery to blow the goddamn Prydwen out of the sky after you destroyed the Institute and everything it stood for.

Why on earth are you suddenly going to even consider conquering settlements you built for a raider gang? I mean, literally, their hideout is full of mutilated corpses, has prisoners shackled to a wall for everyone to torture freely. Now, I get that playing evil is an option some people enjoy. Not quibbling with that. What I am quibbling with is that Fallout 4 has only given you the option of playing mean and then wants you to go on evil as soon as you walk into Nuka-World.

Previous Fallout games gave you the option of going this way from the moment your boots hit the ground. Want to be an unrepentant asshole in Fallout 3? Blow the shit out of Megaton and watch Mr. Tenpenny applaud from his veranda. In New Vegas you got a good early look at what the Legion were about, and you could absolutely sign up and be a sadistic, awful bastard if that's how you wanted to play. I never did, but if that's your bag I'm not here to judge. While I do think The Institute is ultimately evil in Fallout 4 and I have yet to complete a playthrough where I sided with them, I can at least see the argument.

I can see the space that would lead a person to take that route, genuinely believing they were doing what was best for the Commonwealth, and especially with the added weight of your long lost son giving the sales pitch. I think it's a facade of bullshit and self-interest, and the self-awareness of the Synths you interact with throughout the game and especially in Far Harbor , which I think had more interesting storytelling than the rest of the game but I am willing to hear the argument. You can absolutely miss me with arguments that suggest that Caesar's Legion in New Vegas is anything but utterly, knowingly, deliberately evil.

But with Nuka-World, nothing in the hours of gameplay prior prepares you for suddenly taking charge of raiders, improving their conditions, listening to their dumb justifications for their behavior after I mowed down the Operators I found some holotapes that I assumed speak to their origins and I rolled my eyes so hard I almost passed out or doing anything but eradicating them from the Commonwealth. And doing that is exactly what the DLC really doesn't want you to do. The game does not in any way position you to accept raiders as heroic, marginalized, misunderstood, or worthy of your admiration, pity, time, sweat, effort, caps, or thoughts.

It positions them throughout as enemies, plain and simple, and then wants to pull a degree switch once you walk through the doors of Nuka World. It hasn't earned that switch. Not even a little bit. The flat, stale storytelling of Nuka-World is probably the most disappointing part of a game that I still enjoyed, but can't love the way I do its predecessors.

I go into a Fallout game expecting my choices to matter. Fallout 4 gives you one big choice; side with the Institute or against it. Blow it up or don't. Sure, the faction you do pick then decides whether you blow up the Prydwen or shoot up the Railroad HQ. And seriously, why couldn't I at least try to hammer out peace between the Brotherhood of Steel and the Railroad?

It was tricky, but it could be done. This entry in the series just gives you straight up or down choices that don't feel like they make a difference except in terms of which bodies hit the floor. I expected more than that. And seriously, why can't I put ballistic fiber in any damn piece of clothing or hat that I want?

So what's your experience with Fallout 4? Enjoy it more than I do? Think it's the best entry in the series?

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For my money, New Vegas is tops, and probably one of my top 5 of all time. I realize I mostly blab about books, writing, reading, RPGs and such here, but I right now I just have so many feelings about West Ham's first league game of the new season. I realize that "American fantasy author" doesn't scream "expert on football" and I am not claiming to be!

But I do watch every game that I reasonably can, I stick around till the end in this case I was out the door after Chelsea's second goal, but only because I had a professional obligation and had to get on the road I have done as much reading as I can manage about English football in general and West Ham in particular, I follow several of the major West Ham blogs and social media sites religiously even if I don't comment on them. In no particular order: Of course he did. That is the most West Ham thing possible. It is maximum West Ham.

Why does West Ham have so many damn wingers if none of them can get a cross into the box for Carroll to do something with? His confidence is shattered. Would anyone really blame him if he actually turned in a transfer request because he's tired of getting played out of position and being mercilessly picked on by every opposing offense? Pick the damn ball up. Sell him for a bag of practice balls. Take the first offer that comes in. I admire his approach and professionalism but he was a net negative today. I love Collins but he shouldn't be our best attacking threat. I don't know if I will do this regularly, or ever again, but this stuff needed to get out of my head.

Been a while since there was any action on this blog, but I thought I'd catch you up on a few things. Secondly, I've got a big stack of bookplates just waiting to be signed and affixed on your copy of Ordination. To get one, all you have to do is any of the following: Tweet a picture of your copy of Ordination and send DM me an address again, DM on Twitter or email me through this site.

Last, I've got a few appearances already scheduled for the end of summer and fall and hopefully more to come, but for now. Monday, August 15 at 6 pm: I'll be a special guest, and a signed copy of Ordination will be given away as a prize. Thursday, September 29 at 6 p. Sunday, October 2nd at 2 p. S aturday, October 22 at 11 a. I'm hoping to add more appearances. Got a book club, library, fantasy bookstore, gamestore, or comic book store within a 2 hour drive of New Castle, Delaware longer also possible?

I'll come and talk your ear off about Allystaire, Idgen Marte, Torvul, and company. Well, the release of Ordination: Book I of The Paladin Trilogy is imminent. With that being said, I'm going to be off selling and signing copies for the second time this spring, and since so many of you are going to be meeting Allystaire and Idgen Marte in the next few days, I thought I'd reveal the cover of Stillbright: Largely, I'm happy to let Kerem Beyit's beautiful art speak for itself.

What I love about this image the most, besides the simple fact that it features Idgen Marte, who I hope many of you will come to enjoy as much as I do, is how much of her character this image manages to showcase. Whatever is happening out of frame, she knows about it, has assessed it, and is readying herself to deal with it, while Allystaire has barely noticed anything. I thought I would ease back into blogging today with a little look at what I've been reading and watching lately, though with luck some of this might spin out into longer reflection.

First up, the books! I read this more or less in one sitting and I almost never do that anymore. I should probably read it again. I don't know what I can or should say about it except that if I had to tell almost everyone I came in contact with to read one book this year it'd be that one. Kind of an interesting if not necessarily deep look at specific examples of objects from WWI; helmets, hats, badges, weapons, the car the Archduke was assassinated in.

World War 1 by S. I've probably read more books about WWI than any non-Irish historical subject and I'm not entirely sure I was enriched by this one. Marshall was the official U. Really hard time getting stuck into it. At times his voice is interestingly dry; at others it was 'oh I've been drooling facedown on that page for five minutes' dry. The Last Days of Innocence: America at War Still trying to really get down into this one, but I will eventually; grading for school, baseball, working on Stillbright and another book project keep getting in the way.

In terms of comic books, nothing much has changed for me; still mostly looking forward to Rat Queens, Saga, Star Wars and G. I'm willing to take recommendations on new Marvel books to jump into; I abandoned ship from Marvel years ago. I am, sadly, deeply skeptical of whatever new relaunch D. In terms of television watching, well, I don't watch as much as I might like, but something's got to give every night before I go to work on a book, and baseball fills up a lot of time prior to that.

I thought Daredevil Season 2 was actually superior to Season 1; making the legal drama about the Punisher was the smartest choice it could've made. Supergirl is easily my favorite of the superhero shows on these days, and I'll probably only catch up with Arrow, Flash, Agent Carter and Legends of Tomorrow by late in the summer; they're packing the DVR right now. Two things I've watched recently stick out; the Jackie Robinson documentary by Ken Burns is predictably amazing, but I think you can hardly help but be amazed by Jackie's life and legacy. If you tried to write a novel or a screenplay today featuring a person who was tremendously athletically gifted, as brilliant, as resilient as Jackie Robinson was, you'd be told it was wildly unrealistic.

Lastly, and really this is the thing I can't stop thinking about, is the FX show Baskets. Zach Galifianakis is extremely hit or miss to me, so I didn't jump right into that show. I started watching it On Demand on my spring break and I am obsessed with it now. That show is odd all the time, painfully beautiful in certain moments, savagely funny in others, and fully humanizing at its best.

I might write a longer essay going over my reactions to it, which began with cautious interest, grew to surreal fascination, and ended in total devotion. I may watch the entire thing again before I write anything too in-depth about it. I'll say this; it certainly seems like certain characters on that show are going to fit a specific, cliched type — Penelope as the unattainable, emotionally distant object of desire, for instance — only for that type to be undercut with humor, honesty, and even tenderness later on.

But even those moments aren't allowed to last too long, because at the end of the day our main character, Chip, is too self-involved and too much of a dyed-in-the-wool fuckup to learn from anything for much longer than a few minutes. Also that show has a few moments where it revives the absolutely lost art of making smoking on-screen look beautiful and desirable. There you have it; are there any shows I should be watching that I'm missing out on if you say Agents of SHIELD consider yourself forewarned that I'm going to ignore that suggestion , books I have to read, comics I should take a first or second chance on?

I am pretty deep into the first big developmental and copy edit of Stillbright: Book II of the Paladin Trilogy and let me tell you, trying to get a nearly page novel into shape is no easy task. Sure, I would try to clean it up and fix mistakes, but revision, as I mean it anyway, is mostly about consistency and story. Now that it's been through the hands of an editor, it's a whole different ballgame, and there's work to do on nearly every page. But that's not what this post is about. No; what it's about is that I've realized how much of my writing style has been influenced by something I spent a lot of time doing back around the turn of the century: Yes, I said text-based.

Back in , we didn't any of your fancy graphics to kill Orcs or pretend to be Jedi. The games I mostly played on were Star Wars based; I'd played and still do! On a MU, in large part, you were simply engaging in roleplay, developing a character in concert with other people. There were plots or TinyPlots, for reasons I'm not entirely sure about that would involve combat and conflict and possible PC death, but those were fairly few and far between, especially compared to tabletop roleplay. I wouldn't consider them that now, but we're talking nearly twenty years ago now, so bear with me.

For the most part I played on a game called Star Wars: Brak Sector , and a little more than briefly on Star Wars: I played on a few fantasy games here and there, but never as long or as devotedly as I did on Minos Cluster MC. There were a couple other SW MU's I'm failing to remember adequately; one that was post Return of the Jedi but ignored the continuity of the growing Star Wars Expanded Universe and posited the Empire splitting into factions, each controlled by different Dark Side disciples of either Palpatine or Vader.

And another, the name of which I cannot recall at all, where I continued playing the character I played the most, from the Minos Cluster. What I took away from the hours you could honestly count it in days; when I fall for something I fall hard is dedication to character building and the importance of dialogue. If you can't keep people interested you're not going to find much RP on any given day. When I'm working on a story and I don't know what to do next, I just have two characters talk until something happens.

You logged in, went somewhere other people were hanging out, and figured out a way to interact with them. Now, this has its downsides; because when you're posing your character on a MU, you want to give everyone interacting with you something to react to, you use a lot of character tags, a lot of movement, a lot of description. At least, I did. So this has filled the early drafts of my books with a lot of people moving their hands and their eyes and their brows and their mouths, and in a story that's just not interesting or necessary.

In a collaborative setting where the story is being made moment to moment, you want to be clear about what you're doing, how, why, who you're looking at, how you sound, and so on. I never tried to spam anyone by over-filling their screen and I hope I generally made RPing with me pleasant and entertaining. I know for a fact I was terrible when I started, and it was only the patience and the continued good modeling of the people I played with that made me any good.

I do think by the time I was done I was at least pretty good at it, given how often I could find folks to RP with. Who was I, and who were they? My most-played character was a Devaronian the race in the cantina in ANH with horns; they look like devils with one missing eye and one busted horn named Ereqai Du'Hrollac.

Yeah, the apostrophes; in my defense, I was continuing a naming convention given to a Devaronian character in a really solid piece of Star Wars short fiction called "Empire Blues: I enjoyed that story so much I even tied my character's backstory to it. He was a hard-nosed career military man alien with a drinking problem because of course and some war crimes in his past read the above story, it's honestly quite good who knew more than his share about blowing things up or stopping things from blowing up I put a lot of points into Demolitions, is what I'm saying.

The point of this blog post, besides reminiscence, is really just to say thanks to all the people I played with back in those days. I used to talk to some of you on AIM or in email, and more than once wound up meeting them in person. A couple, I'm friends with on Facebook. One was already a lifelong friend and one became a lifelong friend and another I married, but that's a long story I'm not telling.

I'm going to attempt a partial list here of people I played with who really stuck with me by character name, naturally. If I forget you, it's not, I swear, personal; it's just that this was a long time ago and I spent ten years in college you do the math. Nadirehs, Valdetta, K'rrayn, Harbinger, Pryden I know I'm forgetting folks from Minos Cluster but that's all I can dredge up right now.

Thanks, all of you! Legacies, I mostly played Droshka, an Ubese conspiracy theorist and arsonist, who worked for the criminal cartel run by a Falleen played by my IRL pal and roommate named above along with the greatest Gamorrean character of all time, Arglebargle, and a half cyborg badass whose name I cannot, for the life of me, remember. I tried dredging old email accounts but they appear to be gone; I know there are logs on the hard drive of an old computer but I just don't have the time to drag them out just now.

We even met up and hung out at the Maryland Renfaire one day long ago. On another game where I continued playing Ereqai, only now out of the military and working as a detective; Selynn, who once sent me a great piece of art of her character and the above named pal's character who ran a bounty hunter's guild she was a part of. There were definitely other people I played with there, and you were great, and I'm ashamed that I can't remember your character's names.

I knew I wanted to be a writer, but all of you helped me become one, a pose at a time in a galaxy far far away. If any of you read this, stumble across it, have thought about any of these old games or all the roleplay we did, please don't hesitate to say hi. This week represented a pretty significant milestone for Ordination: Book I of The Paladin Trilogy. I got my first review, from Publisher's Weekly. You can read it here. They call it promising, single out characters and dialogue, two things I work really, really hard on.

I'm not gonna lie; this was pretty exciting, and I must've read the paragraph two or three dozen times by now. I know I should probably be acting cool and composed about it, acting like I've been here before, tempering my enthusiasm I haven't been here before. This is my first novel, I've been working on it since August of , and getting a good review right out of the gate from a big publication felt great.

I only let it feel great for a day, though, and went right back to working on Stillbright: I'm not going to bore you with craft talk I'll do that some other time but this is easily the most difficult part for me. It's no longer in the fun, creative, anything-can-happen-and-who-knows-what-it'll-be-stage. It's a real thing that I'm working on with other people, with expectations, with professionals involved. Thankfully they're brilliant just like they were with Ordination and working with them makes me a better writer and produces a better book.

It wasn't exactly a read that would be somehow in the very front of my TBR pile but after reading The Cruel Prince and being faced with the cruel reality of the main character being born in posing as a direct slap in the face with a huge red sign saying "you'll never meet a vampire prince and go on a great adventure, real life awaits" , I decided it was time for a middle grade novel.

Since I was in Germany at the time, I didn't have anything suitable in my portable physical library I brought thirty book for a month-long trip. I was well prepared, well, not well enough it seems but there was nothing suitable for my situation. Forced to opt for my Kindle library, Begone the Raggedy Witches caught my eye and I literally swallowed it up. I simply loved it. Variety is the spice of life, my old nan used to say.

I, as an year-old, did thoroughly enjoy the book and its many metaphors and hidden meanings. It was like looking for Easter Eggs though I do tend to overthink things so take that into consideration. At some points, I wondered if kids would get it. The writing style is also quite flowery which I completely condone and I'm all for children widening their vocabulary, but I'd still recommend this particular title for audiences 10 and up, maybe older. Perhaps this is the kind of book a child should read with a parent - it raised questions, provokes discussions, requires explanations.

All of that in the best way possible. Only you are important. You and Stella and the baby! What if I was all alone, like Crow? Would I still be important enough to keep safe? For now, you probably could do your kid a favour and get this for them. Either way, read it. Is that what the rule is for? To stop people understanding each other? To make it harder for people to talk? Oct 26, Giovanna rated it it was amazing Shelves: I often more than not hear people say that to make a strong Middle-Grade character you need to take the parents out of the picture because we have the wrong notion that to take care of a child is to boss them around and take away their freedom.

Begone The Raggedy Witches defies all these stereotypes and more with Mup, an awesome little girl, in the quest to rescue her dad with her Mam, her Aunty, little brother Tipper and Badger, the family's dog. They leave our world to brave through the bright I often more than not hear people say that to make a strong Middle-Grade character you need to take the parents out of the picture because we have the wrong notion that to take care of a child is to boss them around and take away their freedom.

They leave our world to brave through the bright and scary kingdom of Stella's birth and in the forest deep they go. There they find tyranny and friends on an evil queen's command. Are they going to save Mup's father and leave the rebels behind or join them in the fight? This is a popular plot to tackle, but no one does it like Celine Kiernan. I fell in love hard with so many things about the story, but my favourite one, apart from Mup herself, is how organic the magic system is.

It's all within your grasp with the empowering tree climbing, the dancing and the singing. I can't wait to discover more in the next book from The Wild Magic Trilogy. Mar 05, Annie rated it really liked it. Although the target audience would be middle grade readers from ages 8 and up, I found it to be so well written, even adults could enjoy the tale.

The story is fast paced and the action begins from page one and manages to hold the reader captive to the end. I believe this is a promising start to an epic trilogy. Mup is the main character and a likeable one at that, a lovely character with an open heart and determination to conquer evil. You will meet other characters along the way who will stay with you even at the end of the story.

I personally enjoyed the story and I do look forward to the sequel. Recommended to younger readers and adults who are young at heart. Special thanks to Walker Books Publishers for sending me a review copy of this book. Aug 26, Yesha rated it really liked it Shelves: Many thanks to author, publisher, and NetGalley. Importance of family, compassion, and conscience was the center theme of the book. Characters Main character Mup was sweet, innocent, brave, good-hearted child who kept her conscience in situations where adults failed.

Adults acted more childlike than Mup. She was much more developed than I thought but her understanding grew a lot by the end of the book. Her attire was funny, colorful and quirky, the reason behind her rainbowy attire was cute. She was strong character that I loved to read. Development of secondary characters, mostly adults, was tremendous.

Tipper and Mup handled things better than her but her love for her family won everything. The new mam that Mup got to see in the new world was fierce, determined and powerful. She surprised me at the end by making a wise decision. At the end I like her. Aunty was supportive, caring, lovable old lady unlike her sister, The Queen, who was mean power-hungry villain of the book. She protected this little family of Mup even after her death and I liked all she did for them. I wish I could read more about her in the book. I adored that little kid in his new form.

His childish dialect was funny, innocent and sweetest. That little one so brave, he could be fierce like his mother when it comes to saving his family. The Crow was also a character for whom adults and kids alike will feel sympathized. He was rebellious because of adults in clan and their unfair treatment.

What I liked Loved that cover! Characters, world, concept and plot was different. It was not the usual witch book that you might have read. Writing was exquisite, I liked it more in second half of the book. The beginning of the book was intriguing, had a haunting feel with Mup and mam chased by Raggedy witches who were bad scary witches she was warned about by her great-aunt who died just few minutes ago. The terrifying scene of Mup seeing her mother in clutches of witches and seeing her mother losing the recognition of her own kids had a dark effect.

Spirit, magic, evil witches, lot of things were going on in first few chapters. It took little time for me to immerse in the story because characters and world was not introduced the usual way. She saw the points from all the aspects which felt unbelievably remarkable for such young child but she also asked questions, held the innocence, and had her own doubts which was believable. World building was good but not too descriptive which was both plus and minus point. It was like author made readers to use their brain to understand this new world which is called Witches Borough.

Rhymes by rebel males were interesting part of the world building. The rules were different for different people including male and female. Contrary to first book of trilogy, this book focused on the plot and character than the world itself. There was only brief details about the world, not all rules or the different clann were introduced.

Those who were important to mention were described that is also briefly. The book was insightful for both adults and kids. Climax was amazingly action packed and exciting. End was nice with lots of possibilities but I liked the way author gave it a different and hopeful turn. No cliff hanger which was a relief. As an adult I enjoyed it so readers aged 9 yrs — 12 yrs will surely love it. Aunty Boo had always been the one who protected Mup and her family from the evil raggedy witches by by trying to keep them safe in the mundane world.

But no sooner does Aunty pass away, and a bunch of raggedy witches arrive at their home, with the intention of kidnapping Mup's Mam, Stella, and bringing her back across the border to her birthplace in the Witches Borough in the Glittering Land where Mup's tyrannical grandmother rules as Queen.

With Aunty gone, the Queen is afraid that Mam will wan Aunty Boo had always been the one who protected Mup and her family from the evil raggedy witches by by trying to keep them safe in the mundane world. With Aunty gone, the Queen is afraid that Mam will want to claim her right to the throne as the heir. When Mam couldn't be forced to return with the raggedy witches, they kidnap Mup's father instead, who is on his way home from the oil rig he works on in the North Sea.

Luckily, Aunty's spirit is still around when Mam, Mup, baby brother Tipper, and Badger, the old faithful family dog, set out to rescue Dad, held prisoner in the Witches Borough. Once across the border, Mup and her mother are amazed at the powerful magic Mam suddenly seems to acquire. First, she transforms Tipper into a playful, talking puppy, then kidnaps a raven to prevent him from telling anyone about her crossing the border. The crow, nicknamed Crow by Mup, has been order to speak only in rhymes.

But when Mup frees Crow, and he's captured by the raggedy witches, she learns he is really just a boy around her age. Soon, however, Mup is also quickly made aware of the dangers her family faces in the Witches Borough. There's a lot going on here. The raggedy witches want to bring Mam back to their Queen, Mam's mother, to eliminate her as a rival the throne. The rebels living in the Witches Borough want Mam to stay and be their new queen. Crow wants to find his father and have a family just like Mup has. And Mup and Mam, well, now that their world has been turned upside down, they have to rethink who they are and what they want.

All this makes for an exciting, action-packed novel that I personally couldn't put down. The Witches Borough is a place where magic is no longer permitted by the Queen, where all rebels are required to speak in rhyme, and where men can only transform into ravens, and women into cats. But those who remember what it was like before the tyrannical Queen took over want to return to the time when magic was allowed and people could transform into whatever they wanted. Mup, whose real name is Pearl, is Irish and Nigerian, a fact which at least so far has nothing to do with the story other than that is who she is.

The story is told from her point of view, and readers will quickly find themselves enchanted by her. She is a kind, caring, rather quirky character, whose family is very important. I loved the anything-but-mundane outfit Mup chose for her excursion across the border from the mundane world to the glittering world - a pink tutu covered in spangles over a red wool dress, and her green frog wellies. And while this may be fantasy, Kiernan address familiar and important themes of family, friendship, and be able to live an authentic life. If you love middle grade fantasy, this is a book for you.

Oct 20, April rated it really liked it Shelves: Mup is a young tween who spots the men and women witches in the trees following her and her mom as they drive home to see Aunty. The night Aunty dies.

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