L Isn't Just for Losers...It's for Lakers

To call game three of the second round of NBA playoffs last night between our Dallas Mavericks and the L.A. Lakers (the team of my youth) a nail biter is putting it mildly. We got on the train after an early dinner at Mockingbird Station with plenty of time to walk around and soak up atmosphere...which last night meant listening to live music, looking at a couple of Ducati bikes on display, and watching a few crazed fans in wacky outfits (if you dress up crazily enough, they let you stand in a section for the entire game for free).

Once inside we put on our "The Time Is Now" blue t-shirts everyone was asked to don (and those who wouldn't were embarrassed into it by the "shirt cam" that relentless honed in on the scofflaws).

As for the game itself, the Mavs got off to a bad start, but eventually came back to lead.

Then they went down again, and with scant moments left, began to come back as a result of a couple of game-changing three-pointers, the first by Peja Stojakovic, the second by Jet Terry. Nowitzki, who scored 32 points, was named "player of the game," but without that shot by the wish-he-still-looked-like-this Serb, I don't think things would have turned around.

In the end the Mavs won by a healthy margin. At the start of the game the chant was "Beat the Lakers." By the end it was "Sweep the Lakers," in reference to the now 3-0 lead we have over Bryant et al. I hope that's the case, but at this point it's nearly impossible for the Lakers to come back. No team has ever been down 3-0, and I should know. The Mavs almost came back a few years ago, but didn't. That was the year they choked less than usual during the playoffs.

Watching the game was incredibly frustrating because even after losing year after year after year in the playoffs, the Mavs continue to stick with their same outside game. I've watched several coaches come and go, and it doesn't matter; the Mavs refuse to shoot within the paint. Yes, when their 3-point game is on, it's fantastic, but is it too much to ask that they be able to add some lay-ups into the mix? Honestly, I don't think so.

When we got on the train to go home, a gaggle of adorable teen-age girls got on at the West End, with a guy, probably one of their dads, and though they hadn't been to the game, they knew all about it. Everyone was in such a party mood that the smack talk began when one of the girls mentioned she was going to "Cali" for the summer. (Note to cute girls everywhere...us "Cali" natives don't call it Cali.)

Even after that faux pas, we were all having such a good time together that after she said she was a Lakers fan, I felt confident enough to tease her in return. In my very first ever bit of smack talk, while making the L is for Losers sign on my head, I said, "L isn't just for losers...it's for Lakers!" The whole back section of our train car—including the cutie—erupted in laughter, and then we were back at Mockingbird Station. The perfect end to a really fun night.

On Sunday we'll be watching game four, this time on television, to see if the Mavs make a clean sweep. With Ron "I need anger management" Artest back from his one-game suspension for hitting J.J. Barea in the face, who knows what'll happen?

L Isn't Just for Losers...It's for Lakers

Fantastic Fiction Sidebar

...I simply turned to my favorite backlist website, Fantastic Fiction. If fantasticfiction.com isn’t on your radar yet, it’s the best source I know for sussing out backlist and series order information. Just last week I learned that Rose Fox’s (one of my PW editors) mother wrote romance. I looked Jennifer Rose up on FF and sent Rose the link, which she promptly included in her Twitter feed. (from Order of Importance, my blog piece for H&H, online May 5th.)

When I wrote the first draft of that blog entry, I took a "time out" smack dab in the middle of it for a sidebar about fantasticfiction.com. In my next draft I decided to pull it out as a full length companion piece, only it really didn't "fit" at H&H. So I talked about it with Megan, and decided to post it here.

For those who haven't used fantasticfiction.com before, it's well worth a detailed introduction. As talk of Christine Warren's new Others book kicks off my H&H piece, I captured a screenshot of her Fantastic Fiction page and broke it out into three more manageable images. If all of this is too elementary because you've used Fantastic Fiction forever, forgive me.

This first image shows the author's picture and provides a generally brief biography. I say generally because the bio for Julie Garwood is extensive. Photos aren't always included. Sometimes the author's birth date is included. If the author is dead, the date is generally noted.

New and forthcoming books are broken out, with dates attached, and clicking a cover/title link brings you to a separate page for an individual book. All the individual book pages include, when possible, synopsis information, along with purchase and issue/reissue information. Click here for the page to Black Magic Woman and see what I mean.

Below the new/forthcoming books section is the meat of the page. This part of the page provides the backlist and series information I use on an almost daily basis. I was thrilled when the computers at the bookstore were able to access the Internet because using Fantastic Fiction was often easier in helping to determine a series order than B&N's own system. Many customers walked off with a little slip of paper in their pockets/pocketbooks with "fantasticfiction.com" written on it for future use.

Christine Warren's Fixed series (with each of the six titles and their dates of publication) is followed by her Novels of the Others. The 11 already published books—in order and with dates included—and other titles in the series set to be published this year are listed. Stand-Alone novels follow, then anthologies. All of the titles are links to individual pages, and wherever possible, linked covers are shown.

The third part of the page features author recommendations and a set of links to other authors that may interest the reader. To be honest, I've never actually scrolled down far enough to pay much attention to this part of the page, but it's probably worth a look.

As with the individual book pages, Fantastic Fiction provides quick links to Amazon in the U.S. and U.K., and for those looking to find copies of perhaps hard to find books, those individual pages also provide direct links to various used copies.

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Before signing off, I thought I'd also mention a site referred to in one of the first comments to my corresponding H&H piece: FictFact.com. While it's a free site, unlike Fantastic Fiction you need to register. Once registered, though, you click "follow" for the series you read, and it'll let you know when the next installment goes on sale. I registered and will be giving it a shot in upcoming weeks and months.

Let's see...I now use my personally designed database, honed and adjusted over the last six or so years to track my reading, goodreads, fantasticfiction, and now fictfact. How do I ever find the time to actually, you know, read?

Fantastic Fiction Sidebar

Reading Series in Order (Or Not) at H&H

My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog went online an hour ago. I actually didn't know it was going to appear at all until I checked my twitter feed. What a nice Cinco de Mayo day surprise, and how exciting to see two comments already!

The article is all about reading series in order...when it's important, when it's less so, and what to do when you can't start at the start. I hope you'll swing by, read it, then talk about your own experience by adding to the comments.

Reading Series in Order (Or Not) at H&H

Voices in My Head

Evan Fallenberg's When We Danced on Water, my favorite book so far in 2011—and my first Desert Isle Keeper in more than half a year, will be published later this month. It's terrific for a lot of reasons, chief among them its elegant prose.

Those of you who've known me online for long know that I often point out bad prose—hence a decade of the Purple Prose Parody Contest. It's less often that I talk about prose in a positive sense. When I do, it's generally to compliment spare prose, as I've done with other DIKs, such as Paulo Coelho's The Fifth Mountain, or overall spareness, both in prose and plot, as with Mary Balogh. Fallenberg's writing isn't so much spare as it is precise. Coelho's writing packs an emotional punch because the prose itself is so spare. Balogh's emotional success comes from the all-round spareness. It is Fallenberg's precision that works so well in this book because it allows him a tremendous fluidity, like Baryshnikov flying across a stage.

The book features an 85-year-old choreographer, so indulge my using that as a metaphor for Fallenberg's writing. Just as a choreographer can capture the fluidity and emotionality of a piece of music and dance, so does this author. Just as a dance features moments of different tempos and varies in boldness and strength, so does Fallenberg write with a pin-point focus, creating a similar fluidity and elegance.

In a couple of scenes his lead character explains how he sees and feels music in his head. While a beautiful concept, it did not fit my experience of music. I wanted needed to understand it better because it was conveyed with such beauty. As music is so integral to his being, I read those passages aloud to my husband, who seemed surprised when I asked if he understood what Fallenberg's character was trying to explain. "Of course," he said matter-of-factly, as though everybody experienced music in that way.

It's been quite awhile since we had that conversation, but it wasn't until recently that I realized he sees music...and when I'm reading, I hear dialog. I hear dialect, voice inflection, even timbre. I don't listen to audiobooks because hearing someone else voice characters interferes with my experience of hearing them in my head.

Among the reasons I so love Eve Dallas' Roarke is that his voice is so clear in my head, particularly when he jokes with Eve or croons sweet nothing to her in that yummy Irish brogue. And when he speaks Gaelic in moments of pure passion, I'm a goner. When a poster to yesterday's piece for H&H objected to a similar speech cadence in Roberts/Robb's writing, I had to sit back and think about whether I'd ever noticed that. I haven't, but I'll start paying attention. That said, though, some of her most vibrant characters are those with accents, so perhaps there's something to her criticism.

What about you? Do you experience music, art, or books in an unusual way?

Voices in My Head

"This Is the End"...now at H&H

My newest piece for the Heroes and Heartbreakers blog went online late this afternoon. I've been on sort of a writing frenzy the last several days, turning in two more spec pieces to the blog. This one, though, on why I won't be buying Dead Reckoning, Charlaine Harris' new Southern Vampire Mysteries release that goes on sale tomorrow, started forming in my head probably a month ago. Anyway, it goes from Sookie Stackhouse and Liz Phoenix to Eve Dallas, LOST, The Sopranos, and Mad Men, all in the space of about a dozen paragraphs.

I hope you'll swing by, read it, then post a comment. As for me, I'm still trying to take in the death of Osama Bin Laden...and yes, episode three of Game of Thrones.

"This Is the End"...now at H&H