Finished A Storm of Swords

Whew!  Such emotional turmoil Martin has put me through!  The last few chapters moved so fast my head is reeling!  The books are great.  Since I am so invested in the characters, I find myself living in their world, trying to predict what will happen next (I am never right) and starving to get back to them while away.

So, I'm on to a light erotic fantasy--Mistral's Kiss by Laurell K. Hamilton.

Officially Angry with George R. R. Martin!

If you are going to make me fall in love with characters, enjoying my visits with them a great deal, DO NOT KILL THEM OFF.  And, if you must kill them off, create others that I like equally as much.  OK, he may be doing the latter.  But I was having trouble sleeping last night because I was grieving!

Nearly half through A Storm of Swords

This is NOT a world I love to visit.  It is a terrifying world full of evil and greed.  But, like The Lord of the Rings, it has great characters struggling against enormous odds, and I love to visit them.  This book is even better than the last two, though, for the most part we are still in the deteriorating action.  Terrible things are happening and are going to happen, and I've got to get back to it right now!

Finished BURNED

Well, I'm happier with the Casts now than I was when I finished the last book in this series.  This book exemplified the qualities of hopefulness and morality that characterize this series (as well as much of fantasy literature.)  The House of Night series is back to a world I love to visit. 

I have now started A Storm of Swords, the third book in the Game of Thrones series.  This will take me awhile...it is over 1000 pages.  The second season of the HBO series spilled over into this third book and I am not yet beyond where it left off.  I'm on p 52.

Finished one, Started another

I finished Tab Hunter's autobiography.  I enjoy these celebrity bios on two levels.  First, I have fun remembering when I was and what I was doing at the time each movie came out.  Second, I can draw from memories of my own "acting career" (as small as it was) to both understand the actor's experiences and add to my own understanding of acting and the creation of ensemble art.  I find it great fun.

Now I have started Burned, by P. C. and Kristin Cast, the seventh book in the House of Night series.  The last of these books ended in a horrible cliffhanger that I wasn't sure I was going to forgive the authors for, but now, several months later, I just want to know what happens next.  :-)

P 252 of Tab Hunter's autobiography

Although once or twice I have found myself wondering if a certain account wasn't a bit self-serving (I never heard any other side of the same story, so who's to say), for the most part I continue to find this very genuine, sweet, and often funny, often poignant.  There is a picture showing some of the filming of Ride the Wild Surf that is downright hilarious.  Every time I think about it, I start giggling again.

I am enjoying his accounts of making certain movies so much that I just visited Amazon and picked up four of them.

P 116 of Tab Hunter's autobiography

After doing three movies, none of which were particularly good, Art (Tab) gets the chance to do his first stage production--Our Town!  Whew.  What a play to be the first!  But he learned a valuable acting lesson that he hadn't quite figured out before.  Other endeavors he had loved to this point had been horseback riding (he did steeplechase) and ice skating (good enough to work once with Dick Button--Olympic gold medal winner).  In both sports, he was used to individual effort with lots of practice producing excellence.   But, of course, this is not true of acting.  In theatre (and I'm sure movies), the team works together to make the whole thing into art....and by the team, I mean everyone...actors, crew, support....everyone.  Although in Gun Belt (his second movie) he learned this about stunt performers, he didn't really understand the whole dynamic until Our Town.

I find myself chuckling often while reading.  He is very forthright about his mistakes, naivete, confusions, and extreme guilt (associated with him mom, though there was nothing there he could have done better, given the circumstances) and I find myself identifying with his struggles quite a bit.  The book is very readable and enjoyable.

Reading Tab Hunter's autobiography

When I saw Tab Hunter promoting this book in 2005, I was delighted that Hollywood hadn't chewed him up and spit him out as I was afraid it had.  Although I am not very far into the book, he certainly has hinted that it tried.  He says Tab Hunter was an invention of the movie machine.  And, I certainly was manipulated by the same machine to have a mad crush on him as a pre-teen.

As it turned out, I did see him on the big screen since then in John Waters' wonderful movies.  I just hadn't recognized him.  Although, from the picture on the back of the book, he was still a very good looking man at 74.  (I figure he is probably about 81 now, and probably still great looking.)

He makes a good point early in the book about why so many great actors are gay.  Growing up gay teaches a child both quickly and well how to pretend to be someone they are not.  And what is acting?  Of course, there are other circumstances that could teach a child that, but none of them sound like they would make for a particularly happy childhood....

Finished People of the Lightning

Featuring complicated characters, relationships, and mythology, the plot of this book moves quickly and absorbingly.  It certainly has more of a plot than the Clan of the Cave Bear books which are also based on archeology.  This book was delightful and I highly recommend it.  So much so that I am bound for Amazon to get more books in this series.

I am now starting Tab Hunter, Confidential  The Making of a Movie Star by Tab Hunter.