USA Today Best Sellers  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100722/ap_on_en_ot/us_best_sellers_books_usatoday

#6 The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
#11 Breaking Dawn
#12 Eclipse
#23 Twilight
#28 New Moon
#50 The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion by Mark Cotta Vaz

New York Times Best Sellers
www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller

#25 (Trade fiction) The Host
#1 (Series Books) Twilight Saga (also note this is it’s 154 week on the list.  The Percy Jackson books however have been on the list of 158)
#4 (Graphic Novels Hardback) Twilight: The Graphic Novel Vol 1

Amazon.com Best Sellers
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books

#20 Breaking Dawn (Pre-order for Paperback)
#23 The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
#64 Breaking Dawn (Hardback)

Barnes and Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Bestseller-Books/379001057/?start=21&cds2Pid=17351

#25 Breaking Dawn (preorder for paperback)
#26 The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

I really find it interesting that a presale of a book that has already been out for years is a topseller. It is insane how well the books are still doing.  Honestly, I think it is cool.  Kudos to Meyer for doing so well.  Being on the best sellers list is a huge thing for an author.  Seeing anyone do that well is very cool.

In the House of Night novels, Nyx is the goddess that all the vampyres worship.  She is the goddess of night and has many different names and seems to show up across multiple religions.  Even the nuns that work at Street Cats believe that Nyx is just another name for the Virgin Mary.  To most characters in the series, Nyx is an obscure figure but to Zoey and a few other characters, she actually speaks and even occasionally appears.  She is also the one that gives the vampyres and fledglings gifts which she say she can never take back.

In Greek mythology, Nyx is a goddess that is the personfication of night.  Her name in Roman mythology is Nox.  Nyx came from the black void known as Chaos along with Erebus (as in the sons of Erebus in House of Night) and a few others, including Gaia, who became the mother of the titans.  Erebus is the personification of darkness.  Erebus and Nyx mated.  Their children included the personification of sky, day, Nemesis and Charon, the ferryman across the river Styx to Hades. 

It has been years and years since I’ve read Theogony by Hesiod so someone correct me if I get this wrong.  Nyx produced children asexually as well.  These included Doom, Fate and Death (sometimes written out as Fate of Death), Dreams, Blame, Woe, Hesperides (who guards a garden in the corner of the earth that we see in the Hercules myths), Age, Strife, Friendship, Deceit, and possibly some more that I forgot.  Wikipedia list some more that I can’t remember ever learning about in mythology so I’m not sure.  It also list her as mother of the hellhounds.  Not sure on that one.

Nyx, along with Erebus and most of her children are considered personification gods.   This is a statement true of many gods and goddess in mythology.  It is exactly what it sounds like.  They are an abstract like love, darkness, night, dreams, and so on put in human form.  An example of a non personification god would be Hades who is god of the underworld or Zeus, god of the gods.   Think about it this way, Nyx is consider to actually be night rather than the goddess of the night.

In many different myth, Nyx is seen as living in a cave often at the end of the ocean.  She is also sometimes seen as just being a dark mist.  Hmm, that sounds familar.  Zoey in the House of Night novels sometimes travels that same way. 

As for Greek religion, Nyx is persent but not really a main focus.  I’m not familar with their being any temples of Nyx.

Okay now to the modern.  NYX was the name of a comic that ran for a couple years that was an offspin from X-Men.  There was only a handful of issues made.  The comic has nothing to do with the Greek myth though.  NYX means New York District X.

Nyx is also the name of one of the bio weapons that shows up towards the end of the video game Resident Evil Outbreak.  Again, I don’t see any relation to Greek myths.

This last week I got to go see PC and Kirstin Cast, authors of the House of Night series at Powells in Portland.  First off, they are so funny.  It is awesome seeing a mother and daughter work together.  PC writes the story first then Kirstin edits.  PC had obviously been an author for some time but Kirstin is also starting to do some stuff on her own as well as working as an editor.

Okay, I’ll admit, I couldn’t help but ask about how many cats they had adopted from the shelter Street Cats that they talk about in the book.  I love the fact that they include both the shelter and a cat they got from there, Nala, in the book.  When I publish a book, I’m definately going to continue to give money to the West Columbia Gorge Humane Society, where I adopted by cat Temperance.

Most of the people there ask questions about the plot but there was some about writing and publishing.  A few people asked questions about why certain characters died or had other things happen to her.  PC kept saying that she cried and cried when certain characters died and some of them she just couldn’t part with so had to come up with new plots.  Some people acted confused about this answer but it made perfect sense to me.  When I write, I’m just conveying what I see and hear in my head.  I tried writing stories that I planned out the entire  thing first but it didn’t work.  I just have to write as it comes into my head and then edit later.  PC said it is like writing out a movie in her head.

Since I’m big into House of Night right now, I’ll have a few more post going up soon.  Watch for those.  Thanks everyone that reads my blog.  Love you guys!

What are people talking about?

Everyone is comparing Harry Potter to Edward Cullen.  Note, Green and Levithan were mentioning Harry Potter and in no way where talking about Twilight.   I find this interesting because I realized how much it has seeped into our culture.

The conversation started with someone saying “I’m kind of in love with Harry. He’s my Edward Cullen.”  This prompted people to instantly start talking about how much more they loved Harry.  They wore comparing their love to him to how much a Twilight fan loves Edward.  It was like now their is a scale to love and at the top of it is how much you love this certain character.  Everyone seemed to know exactly how much this meant too.  Like there is a quantitative amount of love.  I just find it so completely interesting that as a culture, we have created a symbol of a quantity of love based on a character. 

How I just flipped back to read some more of the chat and the conversation went back to talking about Green and Levithan for a while but then shifted back to Twilight.  This time people are talking about how awful the book is.  Someone even said that it was a disgrace to literature.   One person is even making fun of it despite saying they have not read the books or seen the movie.  Why have such a strong opinion about something you have not even actually experienced? That seems a little bit crazy to me.  Like I have said on this blog before, this book was written for teenagers as a fantasy book.  Meyer’s was not trying to break ground or create a perfect piece of literature.  Yet, the series has become so huge that even people that have not read it care enough to say they strongly dislike it.  How amazing is it that a book has that kind of effect on people?  That to me is what makes Meyer a great writer.  She made something that truly has become a cultural phenomenon.

This also caught my attention yesterday when I was inside Experience Twilight which is a store in St Helens, Oregon that is, as you can guess, all Twilight stuff.  I used to live very close to St Helen’s which is where many scenes from the first movie were filmed.  Until yesterday, I hadn’t been downtown, where the Port Angeles parts were filmed.  It is insane how into Twilight St Helen’s is now. There is photos all over.  Store fronts have cut outs in them.  There is the whole store.  Have other books made that impact on towns?  I know lots of movies are filmed in Oregon yet I don’t see whole areas of  towns dedicated to them.   Again, completely fascinating.  I can see why people are researching and writing books and doing documentaries on how much this series has impacted society.

By the way, thank you so much to Experience Twilight for staying open a couple minutes extra for us to look around! The people working in their were super nice.

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/breetanner.html

          First off, I think it is awesome that Meyers is letting more of her work involved with Twilight be seen.  I find it very interesting that she had all these left over stories going as she wrote the series.  It makes sense though.  I haven’t read Midnight Sun but I love the idea of seeing what happened during Edward’s time away.  It didn’t have a place in Twilight but it is something that adds to the overall story.  Bree Tanner is the same situation.  We don’t know what was going on from the other side and now we will. 

          I love the fact that Meyer let the actors playing Victoria and her band of vampires read the story first.  It sounds like Eclipse is going to let the viewers see what happened, at least to some extent, so it is nice that Meyer’s came up with a story verses the film writer doing it all.  Giving the actors more information to add depth to their roles is awesome too.  While on the subject, is anyone else pretty excited to see Bryce Dallas Howard step in as Victoria? I’ve enjoyed her acting in the past so I think she will be a good fit.  I didn’t have anything again Rachelle Lefevre but I am a big fan of Howard so I love seeing her in stuff.

          My favorite part about Meyer’s releasing this novella is that she made it a point to have it available both free and in print form.  Personally, I will buy the book.  I have a huge book collection and can’t wait to add it.  But for those who don’t want the physical book, it is awesome that she is making it available to them.  For anyone with e-readers, that will be a huge plus.  I’m assuming it will be able to be uploaded to them.  It is cool that some of the proceeds are going to the red cross too.  If (hopefully it is more of a when then an if) I become published, once I get to a stable point money wise, I want to donate money or whatever I can to help end world suck.  Nerdfighter reference there but honestly, it is true.  I want the world to be a better place.  I try to donate to charities, especially pet charities, whenever I can.  I don’t have a lot of money but I like to try to help.  There would be no better feeling in the world then to get to a point where I could donate my entire portion of my book to charity.

          So who else is excited for The Short Life of Bree Tanner?

+++++++Contains a some spoilers for the Sookies Stackhouse novels+++++++++

****Seriously, I’m not trying to ruin anything.  Read the books before reading this****

          I’ve always been the kind of person that once I start a series of books I like, I tend to read them straight through.  The Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith certainly has me hooked right now.  Insert cheesy vampire reference about biting in to the series here.

          In the first book, The Awakening, we are introduced to the love story between the vampire Stefan and the high spirited Elena.  The Struggle introduces the third part of the love triangle, Stefan’s brother Damon.  In The Fury an unknown threat looms over the city.

          The fourth book, Dark Reunion stands out against the other three for me.  The main storyline is that yet again, there is an unknown treat looming over the city.  The huge different between the other books and this one is that the main character completely shifts.  In the first three, Elena is the center of the story even though it is an omniscient third person point of view.  Dark Reunion shifts to being focused on Bonnie who is one of Elena’s best friends.

         The shift is natural when you read in within the series.  The Fury ends with Bonnie writing in Elena’s journal which sets up for her to take over in the fourth book.  Since we are still gettings lots of different people’s view, the story is still told similar to the others. 

          I found this shift is the center character interesting because I really can’t think of another series that did the same thing.  If anyone else knows of one, let me know.  Harry Potter books all centered around Harry.  The Twilight Saga centered around Bella although I guess the last book did have a huge shift in perspective.  Hmmm.  Maybe that idea came from The Vampire Diaries since they were written almost 20 years ago.  I’m not being serious about that last one.  I think that lots of idea in books overlap and a lot of times, it isn’t intentional.  I know that when I wrote 60 or so pages about a girl and Greek gods, I had absolutely no clue that Percy Jackson was out there with the exact same concept.

          Sorry, I’m getting off point.  Sometimes a series is all told from different people, like the Vegas Vampire books by Erin McCarthy are each centered around a different person even though the same characters are present.  Wasn’t the Babysitters Club books written that way too? 

          Like I already said, in the series, this shift worked.  LJ Smith was taking a risk getting rid of the character she had attached her readers to but it definitely worked.  This made me think though, how will that work for the tv show?  I still haven’t watched it.  I fully intend to buy the dvd when it comes out so when that happens, I’ll blog again with comparisons.  I don’t know how close the book and the show are but I have a feeling that even if they are close now, they will not follow the story line of moving Elena out of the way.  It just wouldn’t work as well on tv. At least I don’t think it would.  It is kind of like how New Moon the movie had to find a way to put more Robert Pattinson in because fans are so obsessed with him.

          Guess we will have to wait and see if Vampire Diaries makes it that far on tv.  Kind of like we have to wait and see what True Blood does with Bill.  After the first few books Bill fades out to a minor character and Eric becomes more prominent.  I hope so much that True Blood sticks with the books.  Eric’s character is so much more interesting and funny and charming.  So far on the tv show they have showed a little of that but I want more.  Plus this season I am excited to see Alcide. 

         Hmm, maybe I see why people always associate me with being vampire obsessed, lol. I hate when people say that but I guess it is kind of true.  I think I’ve always loved supernatural books.  Then of course I got hooked on Buffy and Angel.  Oh Angel.  And Spike.  Okay, I’m going to stop typing now since I’m going off on too many tangents.

          So I’ll admit, the first few Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris did not really catch my attention.  The first two books I thought were okay but they did not stand out to me.  I found them entertaining but I thought the television series was doing a better job at really filling out the story.  Obviously, the show varied a lot from the books but it did it in a way that stayed true to them.  Does that make sense? Anyways, I ended up deciding to pick up Club Dead as a fast read.  I am now completely hooked on the series!

          Club Dead really picked up for me because there was more than here is Sookie and Bill and here is a problem happening.  It made it, here is Sookie and Bill is gone but Eric is there and another guy and Sookie has tons of stuff to deal with.  I absolutely love what a strong character she become in this book.  She basically kicks ass.  Plus I think Harris really caught on to Sookie’s voice in this novel.  It came alive more than the previous books in my mind.

          The next book, Dead to the World was actually my favorite in the series so far.  Hate to spoil this to all the Bill fans out there, but he’s out and Eric is in (at least for this book) and I absolutely love it.  Pam also starts to have more personality in this book.  This book was funny, sexy, and a story that I could barely rip myself away from.  Now I’m only two books (plus the short stories) away from being completely up to day.  I’m actually quite sad about that.  I want more!

          Besides the books,  I can’t wait for more True Blood. I liked both seasons so far (yes even the crazy Greek stuff in season two) so am interested to see if it will follow the book.  If so, I think the book is going to get better and better.  Before I wrote this, I decide to see if I could figure out where season three was going.  Let’s just say, big question mark at this point.

          I tried not to read too much since I don’t want to spoil the season for myself.  I have never been one to read television spoilers.  The anticipation of watching it each week is better.  I found two sites that said a little bit and interestingly enough, the said complete opposite things.  First was IMDB.  It has episode one listed as “Pack of Wolves”.  There is two other titles for episodes listed two but it has no details on any of them.  This makes me super exicited because Club Dead introduces us to the super sexy werewolf Alcide.  He sticks around for more of the books too.  Plus, who doesn’t love a werewolf/vampire/girl with weird mind power love triangle?  Sorry, I had to referred to Twilight at least a little.  I bet you anything that people will say True Blood is copying Twilight even though Club Dead was out years before Twilight.  

          Personally, I really hope this is the way that the story goes.  It makes sense with the ending of last season, if I remember right.  Could Bill have suddenly disappeared because of A) vamps trying to get his computer disk, B) Lorena calling him, or C) the Queen showed up?   All of these (well minus A, since we don’t know about his computer stuff yet) would fit with the last season plus the book.  Plus didn’t I hear rumors about Evan Rachel Woods showing up more in season three.  Sidenote to anyone that has read the books, how perfect is she for that role?

          I also found a site that listed news about a girl being cast as Crystal.  This makes me super hopeful for the show following the books.  She doesn’t actually show up until Dead to the World but she is definately a big(ish) character. She is a character that is meant to be disliked but not exacted hated. I think seeing her on screen will be funny.  Maybe the show is going to roll two books into one season. I’d be okay with that because I can’t wait for more Eric! Plus that would make Quinn show up sooner too. He is going to be someone super hot, obviously.         

          Another site I found that I can’t remember the name of listed episode one as “Mine”.  It then gave really long details on every little thing that happens in this episode.  I scanned through it (again, not wanting to ruin it for myself) and found that it was giving a completely different story than Club Dead.  There was something about other vamps trying to take Sookie and Bill saying “She mine.” There was a lot of stuff on Layfette and Tara.  Layfette is not in the books at all so it would seem if they are focusing on him that they are getting even further from the books. 

          Only time will tell I guess.  What do you think will happen in season three?  Have you read the books?

Then last night before a work meeting I stopped at the bookstore.  My boss asked me what I bought and I said Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs then explained that it was the series that Bones was based on.  Again, no  one around us seemed to have any clue that the show was based on books.


Why is that? Maybe it is just because I’m such a huge bookworm but I usually pay attention to if a show is based on one.

Especially with True Blood, I have noticed people complaining about it not sticking to the books.  Personally I actually have no problem with that.    I feel that in any case (tv or movie) that there is two ways to do it; you can recreate the book or you can use it as a reference.


In the case of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, the reader really is only getting Sookie’s side of the story.  We don’t see any backstory with Jason, Sam, or any of the other characters.  When you are making a tv show, there has to be more than one storyline going or it gets boring.  The shows writers do a great job as far as I’m concerned with using the characters in a way that is true to the books while still making there stories better for tv.  


Furthermore, I don’t think the books are necessarily amazing pieces of literature.  They are more of a fast and entertaining read.   Along with that though, I think it takes an enormous amount of talent to write a book that is successful and a number one best seller on the New York Times list.  I fully admit, I have every intention of reading the whole series because I do really enjoy them. 


With Bones there is a far bigger gap between the show and books.  Sure the main character is named Temperance (which I named my cat after by the way) and she is a forensic anthropologist that works with the FBI but that basically ends the similarities.  I don’t see people complaining about how different those to are though.  Maybe it is because they are so different that people have an easier time seeing that the tv show is just using the books as a starting point.


The Tempe books are extremely well written.  I don’t read tons of crime series but I do think that Reichs’ novels are among the best I have come across.  They are written on a high reading level but are so good that I can’t put them down so end up finishing them in days.  The story comes together in such an interesting way in each novel.  The show writers do a good job at bringing that element into the episodes as well.


So what does everyone else think?  Have you read a series that had a tv show based on it?  Do you think True Blood or Bones is completely ruining the books or doing them justice?


On a sort of related note, I noticed the other night that the last four books I have read were Deja Dead, Death Du Jour, Dead Until Dark, and Living Dead in Dallas (currently reading).  Do you see something in common? Maybe I should read something not so morbid sounding next, haha.  Actually next I will definitely be reading Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs.  Maybe after that I will go for something less dark sounding.