Best Worlds and Settings in Modern Sci-fi/Fantasy

Recently, I’ve been reading Literary Wonderlands: A Journey through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created by Laura Miller. It outlines literary works with the best world-building across history, from early myths to modern sci-fi/fantasy franchises. Inspired by this, I’d like to share with you some of the books with the most immersive settings I’ve ever read, books that had me walking their worlds long after I closed the pages. (I skipped the obvious ones like Harry Potter, which were of course featured in Literary Wonderlands.)

How to Snag a Supernatural Date this Valentine’s Day

Who wouldn’t want their own Damon Salvatore to be their Valentine?

So the big day is looming and you still don’t have a special someone to share it with. You’ve exhausted the dating possibilities in the mundane human world and have consigned yourself to being forever alone with only your cat and your never-ending TBR pile for company. Why not take a leaf out of our favorite paranormal romance books and try to catch the attention of a vampire, werewolf, faerie, or other magical hottie this year? Looking through the stories of some of our favorite fantasy YA heart-throbs I’ve compiled a list of the most likely places and techniques for landing yourself a sultry supernatural S.O.

Soundless by Richelle Mead Review

You know Richelle Mead from her hugely successful YA Vampire Academy series, or perhaps her adult succubus or faerie series, but her latest work is in an entirely different vein (get it? Veins… vamps…). Soundless entwines an obscure piece of Chinese folklore with the story of the rediscovery of sound by a girl born into an entirely deaf community. Yet while Fei gains a sense, many in her community are losing one as the mines they toil in poison their sight. Only Fei and her ex-fiancé Li Wei have the courage to venture down the treacherous cliff that isolates their community to confront the powerful people below, whose control of food supplies keeps her village under their control.

Literary Ladies Who Should Get More Cosplay Love

I love that recently it’s become cool to cosplay Katniss (The Hunger Games) and Shadowhunters (The Mortal Instruments). Granted, both of those book series also have decently popular film versions, I really think it’s possible to cosplay literary figures, be recognizable, and look awesome. Think about it. If Welcome to Nightvale cosplayers can be recognized, so can any character in a book.

I’m going to focus specifically on female characters, but scroll to the bottom for my shoutout to the literary male characters I wish I saw more people cosplay.

Be Nice Around Books: Signing Etiquette

Lines everywhere!

For the last several days, a few of the Geekettes have been in New York for a professional book expo/Book Con. While we were very excited and had a very wonderful experience overall, we found that on the one day of Book Con, we lost our faith in humanity a little bit. Every person I attended Book Con with had a negative story. A box of one book was stolen from an exhibitor. A panel of the most famous bestselling authors was cut off by people more interested in free books. Line cutters everywhere.

Here are some tips that I, as a former bookseller and current literary fangirl, think could help everyone enjoy book signings a little bit more: