Here and Where: Book Reviews + Infidel753’s Meditations + Podcast

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Reading and writing (like on my novels) offer the easiest ways I know to gaze at life from either a searingly photo-realistic angle or a dreamy fantasy vantage.

The one just read and the one I’m in the middle of couldn’t be further apart in terms of vistas, and I’m grateful for both!

Here are my reviews of them for Goodreads and Amazon …

Acts of Desperation, a literary fiction novel by Megan Nolan: Combust the most harrowing things inflicted upon you, burnish them into self-hurt, then smelt them into strength… Acts of Desperation is so literate, so raw, so intelligent that after I finished it in print, I couldn’t stop listening to Lauren Coe’s brilliant audiobook performance of it. Beyond a mere ‘coming of age later’ by a young Irish author, it’s a nakedly honest take on how todays cultural place for girls and women still has a long way to go. Warning: could be triggering, though was worth it for me.

Legends and Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree: Such a sweet fun novel that I almost abandoned it — I’m halfway through and so glad I didn’t! There’s something so cocaine-addictive about monster-ish creatures un-besmirched by computers, phones, and electricity. Especially these ones who’ve just been blissed off their feet by their first tastes of giant killer-ess Viv and horned and tailed Tandry’s java, and furry little guy Thimble’s cinnamon rolls. Now that I’ve sampled Gaslamp Fantasy, I can’t wait to try more. Travis Baldree penned and illustrated his first book as a kid, went on to develop computer games and start a family, and has voiced so many novels (including this one) that surely the story telling rhythm and form run through his veins.

By the way, here’s Travis’s fascinating account about how his book sold incredibly well as soon as he initially self-published it.

Today’s guest, Infidel753. blogs from Portland, Oregon. He first contributed to Happiness Between Tails with this post about his work helping women seeking abortions and this post about his thoughts on eating flesh. For his poetic meditations that follow, he explains, “I’ve long felt that I should have lived in a different world entirely — a world that doesn’t exist, and can’t exist.  These two pieces represent, perhaps, the light and dark sides of that feeling.”

Meditation #6 — what should have been by Infidel 753

Meditation #7 — temptation in the sky by Infidel753

Do you prefer fiction based on fantasy or reality?