Interview with Claudia Christian!

There just isn't enough SQUEE in the world really.

LeedsBookClub is delighted to welcome the sublime 

Claudia Christian

who joined us this week. 

To hoards of SF fans, Claudia will always be General Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5 - one of the greatest SF characters in one of the greatest SF TV series EVER. However - as you'll hear during our chat - she's a true renaissance woman, with a diverse range of activities and creative outlets. 

She writes. She sings. She enjoys food, travel and books. She's even written a few herself! All that on top of portraying countless memorable characters across tv and film. AND single handedly destroyed a small fleet.

Intimidating?

Just a touch. 

During out chat we start off by discussing Claudia's latest project - it's more of a mission really - narrating One Little Pill. This is a documentary to raise awareness of The Sinclair Method - a revolutionary and scientific treatment for alcohol addiction that, Claudia frankly admits, saved her life. Claudia has been so determined to heighten the profile of this method, that she has founded a charity - the C Three Foundation.   

From there, we discuss her no holds barred autobiography - Babylon Confidential - a memoir of love, sex and addiction. Every life story that comes out of Hollywood claims to be honest and open - this one actually delivers! Every soaring height and each crushing fall is explored with an often heartbreaking forthrightness. It turns out that Claudia is every bit as passionate, funny and honest in person!


Finally, we moved onto Babylon 5. It's been 15 years since the show ended and the friendships created (and indeed the fandom) have sustained and become legend. It's always such a pleasure to discuss something that you love with someone involved in the process - to have it held in their hearts too is just a cherry on top. Or a raspberry...I don't like cherries. 

Spoilers for all of Babylon 5. 
And life the universe and everything. 

Language warnings apply as usual.



Listen HERE!

On the go - the mobile LINK!

If you're interested in learning more, you can contact Claudia (and her magic internet elves) here:
One Little Pill
The C Three Foundation

On the web  - Claudia Christian
On twitter  - @ClaudiaLives
On YouTube  - HERE
On FaceBook - HERE

Babylon Confidential - a memoir of love, sex and addiction

(Cross posted on Culturally Fixated)

Lainibop Challenge - Book 28 - Sexing the Cherries

READ!	TO GO!
28	102

The LainiBop Challenge

SEXING THE CHERRIES

JEANETTE WINTERSON

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* * * * * SPOILERS * * * * *
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BLURB

In a fantastic world that is and is not seventeenth-century England, a baby is found floating in the Thames. The child, Jordan, is rescued by Dog Woman and grows up to travel the world like Gulliver, though he finds that the world’s most curious oddities come from his own mind. Winterson leads the reader from discussions on the nature of time to Jordan’s fascination with journeys concealed within other journeys, all with a dizzying speed that shoots the reader from epiphany to shimmering epiphany.

This was a second time read for me, I took a course in college on Magical Realism and this was one of the books I had to read. 

“Magical Realism is a genre where magic elements are a natural part in an otherwise mundane, realistic environment.” 

Wikipedia. 

In this case this novel tells the story of the gigantic Dog Woman and her adopted son Jordan. The story is told amidst lots of flitting back and forth through time and space, with jumps from one story to another with little or no warning. 

For example, Jordan hears the story of the Twelve Dancing Princesses from Grimm's Fairy Tales. However, he hears a sequel to this from eleven of the princesses themselves. 

They tell of what happened to them and their husbands after their wedding day and it is not exactly the happily ever after you might expect. 

Jordan then becomes obsessed with finding the missing princess Fortunata and hearing her story.

At time confusing, and always a little strange, I found this book to be quite enjoyable on the second reading, it's fun, a little disturbing at times, but a real page turner. 

SCORE       

7/10

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Say Hello to @Lainibop

Her To Be Read Challenge - The Countdown Begins!

Book 30 - ?

Book 29 - ?

Book 28 - Sexing the Cherries by Jeanette Winterson

Book 27 - Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Book 26 - Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer

Book 25 - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Book 24 - From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne

Book 23 - Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Book 22 - Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffery Archer

Book 21 - Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Book 20 - Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

Book 19 - Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Book 18 - The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry

Book 17 - A Falcon for a Queen by Catherine Gaskin

Book 16 - The Marian Conspiracy by Graham Philips

Book 15 - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Book 14 - Mary, Mary by Julie Parsons

Book 13 - Glitz by Louise Bagshawe

Book 12 - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Book 11 - Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Book 10 - New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos editor Ramsey Campbell

Book 09 - Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Book 08 - Glamour by Louise Bagshawe

Book 07 - The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

Book 06 - The Blue Hour by Jefferson Parker

Book 05 - The Drifters - Jim Thompson

Book 04 - The Turn of the Screw - Henry James

Book 03 - Atonement - Ian McEwan

Book 02 - Waiting for Columbus - Thomas Trofimuk

Book 01 - Under the Dome - Stephen King

Find more reviews HERE

If we've used any videos, you'll find them on the LeedsBookClub YouTube Channel - 

Visit LainiBop's playlist HERE 

Visit Fizzy Elephants HERE

The 10 Things I Hate About You playlist is HERE!

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Table of Contents - Guest Stars

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Table of Contents - Laini's Book Shelf

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Full Table of Contents

Dead Heads (Gloomwood)by Ross Young - Review

FULL DISCLOSURE - Ross Young is a friend of a friend, who happens to be a writer. Actually, it’s a neighbour and friend - if we’re going to get nit-picky about it - who asked if I'd be interested in checking out this new novel. As he is a chap with impeccable taste, I enthusiastically agreed and then forgot all about the book for a ~mere~ matter of months...because I’m awesome like that.

Dead Heads is the first in the Gloomwood series by Ross Young.

THE BLURB

Augustan Blunt is a washed out cop with a bad attitude, a drinking problem and a troubled past. Oh, he's also dead but that's okay - so is everyone else. Other than that things are just peachy.
Someone has stolen the Grim Reaper's head and Blunt has been told to find it. In a new city where the rules of the living don't apply; Blunt's up to his neck in the brown stuff and he's never been much of a swimmer. With the aid of a woman who keeps turning involuntarily invisible; a journalist who hasn't written an article since she died and a bureaucrat who can't say no to anyone – Blunt's got to stop whoever is stealing the heads of the city's elite.
As he begins his investigations he finds things aren't all they seem. Who are the Gloomwood Youth Order? What do you call the murder of someone already dead? Why are people having their heads chopped off? And what is in the hot dogs? With time slipping away he needs to learn what makes the city tick before there's no city left.

*****SPOILERS*****

Gloomwood is a city for the dead - founded by no-less illustrious a personage than the Grim Reaper* himself – as the final resting places for dead people, gods, ideas and concepts. The Grim Reaper is the de-facto ruler, key holder and all round nice guy. His very visage stirs fear in the hearts of the newly dead and respect in those a little better acquainted, so it comes as a bit of a shock to the Office of the Dead when someone decapitates him and steals his head.

Augustan Blunt – an old school detective with a bad attitude, a nasty case of alcoholism** and a propensity to hate everything and everyone - is promptly recruited by Crispin Neat to find the Grim Reapers head and the culprit before any of the Gloomwood residents cotton on...about 12 hours after Blunt's own untimely demise.

Gloomwood is grey, unsatisfying and decidedly weird.It’s also proof positive that death isn’t always the worst case scenario.

Blunt is a joy! I kept waiting for him to grate on me; as his rudeness, dissatisfaction with the world(s) in general and entitlement alienated him from everyone in the book...but it didn't happen. Though he is Obnoxious (capital O there); I really enjoyed his cynical and bleak view of the world. It’s hard not to feel a certain degree of sympathy for someone who has had every negative assumption he’s ever made in life confirmed...and then has to do it all over again in death! Even better – he knows that he’s a jerk and takes his various snubs, beatings and general abuse as his due with a wry stoicism.

Blunt finds himself in Gloomwood to solve a very particular crime. Though it’s not really alluded too in much detail; I think that his demise felt a little too convenient and I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out there was some hanky-panky relating to the how’s and the when’s in future stories!

His right hand man - Ralph Mortimer; I was a bit more up and down about. Initially I just loved him, but his meek manner did slightly irritate me in the middle. Nevertheless, I was delighted to find that he had a spectacularly glorious looking wife. Hey, I'm not saying that they're happy, but it was so satisfying that Ralph had *something* in his life that left everyone around him speechless with envy and surprise, as he is portrayed as such a worm.
There are also hints that Ralph might have more to him than meets the eye...though I’m not sure he’d enjoy the realisation that it is in fact Blunt that brings out the best in him.

Sarah Von Faber – the barely there forensic expert – provides the final member of Blunt’s working crew. Her intangibility aside (an unfortunate side effect of an experiment gone awry), Sarah is easily one of the more intelligent members of the Gloomwood community and her astute observations and sarcasm ensure than she is a vital team member, rather than a conveniently creepy plot device. Indeed her special skills are far more often a hindrance than a help.

Quite a bit of writing is devoted to setting the scene and Gloomwood is more than a mere geographical oddity – the land is as much a character within this book as Sarah or Ralph or the Reaper. For Blunt, solving the mystery depends on his rapidly coming to terms with his new environment. I wish so much that I had one of those special edition illustrated hard back versions because I would have LOVED to see long lost hopes and dreams (such as the perennially depressed embodiment of the Earth is flat belief or Petal) illustrated! eBooks are awesome... but those colour plates of my youth are hard not to miss!

It’s a great initial idea, - a murder set in the afterlife - and is well executed for the most part, though the pedant in me has to point out that in the kindle edition I read, there were a few grammatical errors and structural mis-fires that interrupted the narrative flow. Honestly, it probably wouldn’t have bothered me as much if the main wasn’t written so well.

I found the first few chapters to be gripping but also utterly discordant - I couldn't understand how they would all link up to one another, or if indeed that was even the goal of the book! While it all works out beautifully - I think that it would have been a bit off-putting if I hadn't been so cheerful in general that week! Talk about feeling thrown in the deep end from the first page.
Perseverance brings rewards and joy, boys and girls!

The mystery is very well drawn out indeed - while this is ostensibly a straight-forward whodunit; the set up of the world and the potential abilities of the plethora of very individualistic characters ups the game considerably. Once you read the ending you immediately see the sense of it, but I hadn’t a clue what was coming – my favourite state to finish a book!

For all that; this is a book that I would only carefully recommend. If you’re a fan of Tom Holt, Neil Gaiman or Terry Prachett – you’ll probably do just fine. However, it is as weird as it is wonderful and I don’t think I’d pass onto someone morally opposed to SF or fantasy!

Two sentence summary:
Despite the weird and wacky sounding set up outlined above; this read to me as primarily a character driven SF book. The mystery is – you know – the point, but it’s the humour and drive of the characters that keeps you reading.

The second in the Gloomwood series – Get Ted Dead – will be out soon...

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Check out our Podcast with Ross HERE
Visit the Gloomwood website HERE
Stalk...Chat with Ross on twitter HERE. He's very friendly. 

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*Best. Backstory. Ever.
My new definitive history for the Grim Reaper.

**I assume that future books are going to explain where the heck the food and drink turns up from?! Although maybe I'd be better off not knowing. The possibilities are rather grotesque. The hot dog question I think I’ll avoid! *shudder*

CSTS Leeds

Book your ticket HERE

Breaking Bad - Ozymandias - Percy B Shelley

OZYMANDIAS

PERCY B SHELLEY

I MET a Traveler from an antique land, 
Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand, 
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read, 
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: 
And on the pedestal these words appear: 
"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings." 
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair! 
No thing beside remains. Round the decay 
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, 
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

First published in 1818

The poem above was used to launch the second half of season 5 of Breaking Bad - one of the oddest, most compelling and addictive TV series. The internet is already rife with speculation as to what it all means. Me? I just can't wait for the remaining episodes to air!

Also posted on Culturally Fixated.