Friday Fragments - Story Recs Edition

A few book/series/whatever that are pretty excellent and, if you are so inclined, you would do well to check out.

1) Airborne (The Matt Cruse Trilogy) by Kenneth Oppel
Book One: Airborne
Book Two: Skybreaker
Book Three: Starclimber
I read the first two books in high school, and they were the first steampunk books I'd ever come across. This world is just captivating and has this magical quality, even though it's technically sci-fi, and the characters are so much fun. So yeah, there's this spirit of adventure, but it also manages to cover some pretty interesting issues that steampunk is known for.

2) Other Electricities by Ander Monson
This is a collection of short stories that kind of tell one big story. It's really interesting. It's about this town in Michigan that's responding to a girl's death. The voice is kind of odd and the prose is more poetic than in most stories. There are no real "main characters", exactly. It's a strange story, but a good strange.
And yeah, I had to read it for class last fall.

3) Geektastic by an assortment of writers
This book is amazing and pretty much a must-read if you're a nerd or a geek in any way, shape, or form. Sara Zarr's "This is My Audition Monologue" pretty much makes the whole book. It has all the geeky fun things like conventions and RPGs and such, but there are some pretty deep themes explored, too.

And, if you're into fanfic like my friend Kirstin and me:

The Very Secret Diary. (Harry Potter/ Chamber of Secrets)
Dear. God. This story is terrifying in the best possible way. It starts off slow, but of course it gets exciting right around the October 31 entry (and you probably know why). My friend and I both read it in one night.
But just a warning, it gets really dark and disturbing. This is basically CoS from Ginny's perspective.

"Don't be afraid to be deep."

(Despite the title, this is not a serious post.)

So I told you guys about how in the New Play Project, we're writing about a group of super sexy scientists that have to stop a spacecano from destroying earth. Professor Feffer has been telling us that we shouldn't be afraid to be deep and really explore the characters.

Cue him walking in on the Episode Three team (the team I'm on) discussing character histories, personality flaws, and vulnerabilities.

"You know what I said earlier about not being afraid to be deep?"

"Yeah?"

"Not for this group. Don't be afraid to be shallow!"

He's started implying that we're the special group because while all the other teams have stuff written, it took us 2 1/2 hours to even start writing. We were too busy discussing character arcs and motivations and... and chips.

We might be the special group, guys.