Amanda Meuwissen on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

Amanda Meuwissen – Changeling [recenzie]

Sun, 30 Nov 2014 09:56:12 +0000

Changeling e al doilea volum al seriei Incubus al Amandei Meuwissen. E o serie pe care o tot citesc și o recitesc, dar de data asta nu dintr-o pasiune deosebită față de serie în sine, ci pentru că am citit-o o dată de curiozitate, apoi i-am făcut verificarea audio ca să fiu sigură că sună bine cartea înregistrată.

Acum m-am reapucat s-o citesc pentru că vreau să-i iau un interviu autoarei despre motivul pentru care femeile scriu povești de dragoste homoerotice, despre fanfiction și despre serie în general. O să fie interesant. (seria e scrisă episodic, așa că de fiecare dată când mă apuc de recitit o iau dintr-un punct aleatoriu și citesc până la cel mai recent capitol)

De primul volum am scris aici (în engleză).

Changeling e un roman de aventuri fantastice împletit cu o poveste de dragoste. Jim și Nathan vin dintr-o familie în care se transmite sângele de… zâne? Spiriduși? Nu știu exact cum să traduc „fairies” în context, mai ales că la noi sună a creaturi mici și simpatice, dar vorbim mai degrabă de ființe magice puțin dilii. În Jim s-a activat mai puternic gena magică și se transformă încet, dar sigur, într-un spiriduș d-ăsta, varianta nașpa. Nathan face tot ce poate să-l salveze. Sasha, al treilea membru al echipei, e un incub, pune umărul și el la bătăile cu monștrii mulți, tipici și Hollywoodieni – și formează jumătate din povestea aia de dragoste de care ziceam (împreună cu Nathan).

Povestea nu e doar episodică, ci chiar amintește de serialele TV horror-fantastice, cu monștri care tot apar de peste tot, cu mici și mari întorsături de situație, bătăi supranaturale, ritualuri magice și nu foarte multă subtilitate. Se simte că autoarea se distrează în timp ce scrie – și chiar dacă îmi venea să-mi dau ochii peste cap în anumite momente care păreau băgate doar de dragul Lecției Morale, momentele respective sunt destul de scurte și acceptabile.

Bine, poate că dacă ideea de homosexualitate te dezgustă cartea asta n-o să fie exact cea mai recomandată chestie de pe pământ (chiar dimpotrivă), dar pentru non-deranjați per ansamblu nu-i rea deloc.

Re: Re: Boss, here’s my not exactly a pen name (Roxana Kiril)

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 20:12:27 +0000

Jim McGovern, the big boss of the small publishing house I’m writing for, wrote this blog post, musing about authors and their mysterious pen names. Why do we have them? Well, he proposes the obvious: going for the other gender’s target audience, or hiding your true identity, or there already being someone with your name writing stuff out there.

And then I got to this part, which I’ll quote:

Some of our authors at BigWorldNetwork.com use pen names, and I never ask why. It really isn’t my business as a publisher.

Well, in my case it’s clear, but I’m taking this as a challenge to reply. My nom de plume is a more readable version of my real name, obviously. My real name’s perfectly fine in Romania where you have about a lot Chirilă people running about, including an annoying musician. Romanians can pronounce my name just fine. But foreigners, well… their struggles are funny, but usually off the mark. So calling me Kiril is fine. Say it out loud and it’ll probably be similar enough to my real one (Kiril-uh) that I might recognize myself.

Now, my editor’s name is Amanda Meuwissen, and that’s the name she writes under, because she’s a bit evil, I’d wager. I had to listen to her reading her series to figure out what I was supposed to call her in my head: May-vessen. I kept calling her Mew-vise-en.

So, anyway, Amanda writes a series called Incubus, which she also narrates. It’s a nice, romantic, and adventurous sort of series which at some point reaches a steamy sex scene or three. Which she narrates. See, that’s another reason to choose a nom de plume: not ever letting your family find out what you did, especially if what you did was write stuff that might be classified by older family members as „erotica”, but said as a four-letter word beginning with „p”. She didn’t choose a nickname, and I didn’t either despite writing some questionable stuff myself, but then again no matter how damned proud I am of Flight from Hell, I have not given dad the link to my story. He’s not really into reading, which is part of why I’m not using a nickname (and I run from mum whenever a new episode comes out).

Jim mentions something else in his blog post: JK Rowling writing mystery novels under a nickname to disassociate those novels from Harry Potter. Which is fine for her, since she’s very rich and successful and need never earn any money again, but without her fame, one of her new novels barely sold 1,500 copies in hardback in the first few months. Once she revealed that Robert Galbraith was her, sales skyrocketed, obviously.

And that’s one reason against nicknames, or against switching between them: spread yourself too thin and it’s like you’re a new writer again and again and again.

Roxana Kiril. Here’s my writer’s name, both real and fake, neither loved by me, nor unloved. When sending in the first episode of Flight from Hell, I considered calling myself something special. Hell, no, even before that I spent a long time wondering what name to choose as an author. Should I invent something? Something pretty, with a lot of ‘a’s and not much krl-ness. I came up with some ideas, and some were great and elegant and suave. I loved them, and they loved me back. Except, unfortunately, I am a person who finds it very hard to commit to things such as names (or initial plots, for that matter: Amanda never commented on how I strayed from the summary I sent her last summer).

No, I decided, I’d rather my pen name was following me around, forcing me to keep it.

Now, there would have been another option. Since I am a woman, I could theoretically have it changed permanently and commit-fully* through marriage: since I’m not a huge fan of my name, I might use this little technicality to grab someone else’s. But whose? Not being clairvoyant, I can’t exactly choose the name of my future husband and run with it. And even if I could, prior to being married, it might be a bit of a faux pas to do so.

Obviously, my writing could not be put on hold for want of a name. I couldn’t wait to get married in order to write, since I’m not part of the chaste-writing club, or whatever the hell I’d need to be part of for such an oath. Nor could I get married in order to get a name, obviously. I could make a name for myself as a porn writer, which I’d never want to get associated with my real name, so I’d need a nickname anyway – but then I’d have to write porn bad enough to never want it known that I wrote it, which… nah.

Nearly real name it is, then. But it wasn’t an easy choice.

Yes, I make up words. Shush.

Amanda Meuwissen's "Incubus" [Book Review]

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 18:01:58 +0000

Title: Incubus

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? Probably. Wait, no! Do gay people bother you? Then no, it’s not. But otherwise, yes. A cool, adventurous novel of the supernatural and romantic sort, complete with a Seer, fairies and magic.

Incubus is the sort of novel that keeps you turning pages (or, in my case, listening to the next audio chapter, read by the author herself). It’s sweet, a bit fluffy, romantic and it has action going on, as well as danger hanging over the heads of the characters for a bit of thrilling fun.

Now, I might be evil here (of course I am), but the story reminds me a bit of the TV show Supernatural – we have two brothers involved in a sort of battle against the supernatural world, a monster of the arc, a silent and stoic helper, some of that old-fashioned monster-chasing through the streets of cities and a sacrificing-for-each-other brotherly love.

Except Incubus has fairies, not angels and demons. And there isn’t anything disturbingly much like a love-hate relationship between the brothers (unlike in Supernatural where the show just thrives on Implications). Nor is the mood downbeat at any point. And, oh yeah, the gay relationship is explicit and clear.

The title character, the incubus, is a fascinating and attractive guy (bonus for chicks who dig wings: he’s got wings (at times, when he’s in incubus-form); and red hair; and tattoos – actually, his descriptions remind me of an occasionally winged, horned, fanged Abarai Renji, but that might be my long dabble in Bleach fanfiction speaking).

I won’t be spoiling your fun, but I’m assuring you it’s fun. And fluffy.

P.S. The paperback is available via Amazon, if Amazon is your thing. If you prefer going to the source, then the paperback, audiobook and Kindle or other eBook versions are on the Big World Network website. And you can of course just subscribe to the Big World Network at $3/month and have access to Incubus and a number of other series.

Amanda Meuwissen's "Real Fangs" [Book Review]

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 16:50:44 +0000

Title: Real Fangs

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Rating: 3/5 (subjectively. I can see it get 4/5 from somebody who likes the style of the story)

Is this book for me? It’s a light, slice of life supernatural novella. Some vampires, some werewolves. No wars. No psychological drama. Not much plot, either. If you’re looking for something fun and almost fluffy, this is it. If you’re looking for something engaging or deep… not so much.

I made a mistake with this book when I started reading it. I thought it would be a traditional sort of supernatural novel, with the drama of being turned, or with bad people needing to be hunted down, or that sort of thing. It’s actually slice of life. It’s not so much about the newly-turned vampire Chris going through huge issues concerning the meaning of life or the meaning of fighting evil, but about the just out of college Chris needing to find his way in life.

After that, my vision changed. Instead of being annoyed with the book that it’s not really pushing the plot anywhere, I started taking it as a sitcom (especially since the Big World Network likens its stories to television series). Which it really works as, actually.

The story doesn’t really do it for me (not a big fan of sitcoms), but it has a few points in which it shines. The ideas about what a number of vampires and some witches do all day are quite plausible as well as amusing. And you can feel the characters. They’re real people, living in a real city and going about their real day-to-day business.

I recommend it for sheer fun.

P.S. The audio version is read by Amanda Meuwissen herself. Her accent is a bit unusual (…said the Romanian, I know), but her voice acting and narration style are quite enjoyable. I think I could rate the audio version 4/5. Her reading it makes the difference.

Amanda Meuwissen's "The Collector" [Book review]

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 16:25:12 +0000

Title: The Collector

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? It’s a light supernatural novella. It has the Devil, some hell creatures and a simple mystery plot. If you’re looking for something light and easy to read this weekend for your enjoyment, then go ahead. If you’re searching for complex plots or philosophical insights, skip it.

The link above is to Amazon, but the book can be read directly on the Big World Network website, where you gain access by paying a $3/month subscription (which also allows you access to a few dozen other books).

The Collector wasn’t really the sort of book I’d usually read – unless I was reading fanfic. It’s light, flows easily and it’s a pleasure to flip through, reading a new episode (chapter) with the ease with which you can take a new piece of chocolate. Not the sort of chocolate you buy from specialized shops which bankrupt you in three days flat, but the sort of normal, common chocolate that you can enjoy on a daily basis. It won’t blow your mind, but it will be fun during the afternoon.

Adam is the Devil’s Collector of souls. That means that the Devil makes a deal… and Adam goes off and takes the soul of the person when their time is due. All’s been good since Antiquity or so, but now somebody is starting to hound him, leaving disturbing messages to him. Things get weirder and weirder, until…

Well, I’m not going to spoil you, am I?

Cute. Fun. Not going to be on my ‘best of the year’ list of books, but I’m glad I read it.

P.S. The audio version, read by Blaise Douros is actually quite nice. I like his voice and reading style – pleasant, clear, fun.

Niște update-uri pe scurt.

Thu, 04 Jul 2013 17:05:32 +0000

Pe Gog.com au reduceri de 70-85% la o grămadă de jocuri în următoarele 18-19 ore (după postarea asta). Recomand Tales of Monkey Island.

Am citit două serii de pe Big World Network, The Collector și Real Fangs, ambele de Amanda Meuwissen. O să le scriu recenzii în curând. Pentru acum: sunt simpăticuțe, ușurele, genul d nuvele din care mai citești încă un episod de parcă ai lua o bucată de ciocolată. Nu o ciocolată foarte specială, dar plăcută oricum. Consider că și singure ar merita cei trei dolari dați pe abonamentul lunar. Deci recomand site-ul ca atare.

Îmi iau aer în piept să încerc din nou să citesc Metamorfoza lui Kafka. Data trecută când am renunțat după ce mi-am dat seam că e singura carte care m-a speriat cu adevărat în ultimii ani. Și pentru că m-am trezit cu o fobie față de gândaci de bucătărie. Dar mai încerc!

Săptămâna viitoare plec la mare, așa că îmi cer scuze în avans pentru întârzieri de moderare sau chestii de-astea. Teoretic o să am net, dar nu garantez că stau pe el prea tare 😛

Cursul de Istoria rock-ului, partea a II-a, începe de luni pe Coursera. Am văzut prima parte și o recomand cu căldură pe a doua. Pentru că e istorie și nu matematică sau programare sau alte chestii de genul ăsta, vă recomand să-l încercați chiar dacă nu v-ați uitat la prima parte. Țin să vă reamintesc că e gratis.

În continuare îmi ofer serviciile de traducător și interpret autorizat de limba engleză (și de limba japoneză, dar doar traduceri japoneză-română, că încă nu sunt la nivel de nativ acolo).