Best Authors You Aren't Reading: John Peel

Best Authors You Aren't Reading is an IBWB feature. In it I discuss authors who I don't perceive as being popular, but whom I truly love.

I cannot possibly cover John Peel's entire bibliography. For one thing, I haven't read everything he's written! But there's a good chance if you read a TV tie-in during the nineties that you came across at least one of his books. He's written books for Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Outer Limits, The Secret World of Alex Mack, Eerie, Indiana, and more. But those aren't why I'm recommending John Peel today.

I'm not recommending him for his horror either. I've never tracked down the Foul Play series and the only standalone I've managed to collect is MANIAC.

So, which of his books can I talk about?  I can discuss  THE SECRET OF DRAGONHOME, for one. It is currently out of print, but you can order it on Amazon for a cent. THE SECRET OF DRAGONHOME is Peel's most topical novel since he just self-published its sequel THE SLAYERS OF DRAGONHOME.

(Sorry I can't get Amazon to display the cover. Annoying, I know.)

I first read THE SECRET OF DRAGONHOME in the sixth grade after discovering it in the junior high's library, to my great joy. You see, by that point I was already a Peel fan. And favorite author + dragons = good things. THE SECRET OF DRAGONHOME begins when "Talents" Melayne and Sarrow flee to a neighboring kingdom to escape persecution. Melayne takes care of the widowed Lord Sander's son, but finds that their new home has its own secrets. It's a terrific fantasy, with just a touch of romance, and I was quite excited to hear that there was a sequel.



I first discovered Peel through the six-part serial 2099, way back when I was in fifth grade. I ordered DOOMSDAY through a Scholastic book club newspaper because the cover was shiny. (The blurb was about 25% of the decision.) It was late 1999 and everyone was going crazy about Y2K. (Youngsters, think about the current Mayan Apocalypse craze.) 2099 projected a future world in which everyone depended on their automated systems - the perfect playground for a bored and amoral hacker. Each book was short but burned through plenty of plot, much like the television version of The Vampire Diaries. Also like The Vampire Diaries, there were a lot of identical people running around. That's right. 2099 was full of clones. Just like dragons, everything is better with clones.

And know what crazy trivia I recently discovered? Peel wrote 2099 at the request of David Levithan.

I always loved the backs.

The best thing about the 2099 series might be that it led me to Diadem. Diadem told the tale of Helaine, Pixel, and Score, three teenagers taken from their worlds and told they have magic powers. Not a new plot, but a well-executed one. Diadem meant a lot to me, back in the day. It drove me to write fanfiction with my best friend. No lie, we have a binder filled with a 200-page epic that will never see the light of day if either of us have anything to do with it. (It has twelve precious years of our snark in the margins, mocking our awful writing when we were eleven.) The news, in 2002, that the series would be reprinted and continued by Llewellyn was ridiculously exciting.

The original Scholastic covers

I read the series rather piecemeal. My mom gave me the first book THE BOOK OF NAMES, having bought it at a book fair as a present. I found the fifth book at the local used bookstore, then received the second and fourth for Christmas. (My mom had to order them from Amazon, which was special in those days.) The third and sixth were out of print, but I finally hunted them down in a used bookstore. This was one of the greatest triumphs of my young live, since the BOOK OF MAGIC contained the conclusion of the first arc and the BOOK OF NIGHTMARE's resolved the fifth's cliffhanger.

The first page of puzzles

It's hard to say why I loved the books so much that I would put a great deal of effort into tracking them down and writing silly things about them. It might have been that Helaine, one of the three main characters, could defeat either of the boys in a physical contest. It could have been the puzzles; I've always loved solving puzzles. (These were written by David Levithan! Unfortunately, they disappear after the fifth book since Levithan was no longer an assistant.) It might have been the culture clash caused by all the world-hopping. I don't know.

I just know that the books were terrific and it was the first time I bonded with someone over a book. It's sad that most of Peel's stuff is currently out of print, but in the days of the internet it is fairly easy to find his books. And believe me: they're worth it.

John Peel's books on the shelf and in good company.

Best Vampire Book You Aren't Reading: Look for Me by Moonlight

Mary Downing Hahn has written multiple classics of children's literature. She managed to do this without writing many books in respectable genres like wartime historicals (STEPPING ON THE CRACKS). In fact her most famous books are ghost stories (WAIT TILL HELEN COMES, TIME FOR ANDREW) and mysteries (THE DEAD MAN IN INDIAN CREEK).

Note: If you didn't know the above books existed, you now do. You have no excuse for leaving them unread.




Despite the fact all of Hahn's books are worth reading, not all of them can win awards. This is the way life works. For instance, LOOK FOR ME BY MOONLIGHT has never won an award. Yet LOOK FOR ME BY MOONLIGHT is due for a comeback, since it was a vampire story for teen girls before vampire stories for teen girls became homogenized and saturated the market.

You can read a lengthy excerpt here, on the Houghton Mifflin site. Cynda and her brother Todd are staying with their father at his inn in the north. There are a variety of guests, but Cynda is drawn to one in particular. They meet in secret, signaling each other through clever use of Scrabble.

Then things go terribly wrong because this is a vampire story. A good vampire story.

This was one of my favorite books in elementary school, and no matter what you think of little kids, I had good taste back then.

Best Authors You Aren't Reading: Julian F. Thompson

Best Authors You Aren't Reading is an IBWB feature. In it I discuss authors who I don't perceive as being popular, but whom I truly love.


Julian F. Thompson doesn't have a Wikipedia page, though this Answers.com article is a great introduction and intimidates me since I'm trying to write something similar, aside from the biography parts. On LibraryThing.com, his most added book is on 90 shelves; the next book is on a mere 26. (I own both, though neither are on my LibraryThing shelf.) He only recently created a website - the last time I looked for one, it didn't exist. Since 1983, he has written eighteen novels for young adults.



His most famous novel, one of his first, and the first I read, is THE GROUNDING OF GROUP SIX. (Check out this awesome article about it on Jezebel.) This is one of the few books I've had to buy more than once. I lent it out and it never returned. I had to buy this when I found it in Half-Price: parents paying someone to off their kids? An exotic premise, yet strangely believable. With a premise like that, an author has a lot to deliver. Thompson did and I immediately went trolling for his books in all the local USBs and libraries. By now I've read all but a very few.

First, you aren't going to like Thompson if you don't enjoy reading about sex at all. Many of his characters have sex; most of them get into sexually embarrassing situations. Second, his books are almost always feature teenagers versus adults. The bad adults are very bad. The books tend to be very cynical about some things, though most of the teen protagonists are optimists (see A BAND OF ANGELS). Third, some parts of the books are very dated. Only two of them came out in the past decade, so it's to be expected.

Here are some of my favorites:



TERRY AND THE PIRATES

Girl tries to escape boarding school by stowing away on a boat. Boat is driven by the wrong guy, who goes overboard anyway. Girl gets captured by pirates. Boy might not have gone overboard. Boy has split personality, in fact. Boy and girl fall in love and escape the pirates and their offspring. TERRY AND THE PIRATES shows of Thompson's lighter side, which definitely made it work picking up for me. I like when he tackles issues, but sometimes you want to read a book that's insane, knows it is insane, and just goes with it. Terry is clever, in a street-smart sort of way, and pragmatic, just the sort of personality you need when faced by her adventures.

SIMON PURE (no cover image on Amazon)

Did you like Doogie Howser as a kid? Well, here's another story about a whiz kid in college. Simon Pure is smart, but he sticks out like a sore thumb among the older college students. Again, this one is on the lighter side. My copy has a stab mark through it, which I suppose means the previous owner would disagree with my recommendation. But hey, I enjoyed it, and I don't care about the opinion of someone who would mistreat a book so.

Thompson's books are strange. They combine fantasy and reality, contain exaggerated personalities, and are full of teen wish-fulfillment. But even the his light comedies contain darker passages - like getting out of a potential rape - that keep the silliness anchored. To me, his books are compelling because of a juxtaposition of sophistication and trashiness. There's a fearlessness to his writing that I respect. If you want to read something different, try Julian F. Thompson.

Unofficial Best Authors You Aren't Reading: Rob Thurman

I'm not sure Rob Thurman counts as obscure. On one hand, she's made the NYT bestseller extended list twice. On the other hand, one of her series just got canceled. This makes me very sad as she's one of the few authors I buy immediately. I would seriously consider buying her books in hardcover, like I do for Tamora Pierce.

How did I come across Rob Thurman? Borders's 3-for-4 sale.



Back in ye olden days, Borders would let you use their coupons with their regular promotions. This made Livi a happy consumer. Like, I was buying around $50 worth of books a month happy. It was a more innocent time, when I wasn't buying my own food.

So one day I'm at Borders, in Georgia, as I am visiting my grandparents and my entire extended family knows that I enjoy going to bookstores. I've found three books that are known quantities, but I need to find a fourth for maximum savings. Suddenly, this slim volume with pretty cover art catches my eye. NIGHTLIFE. I turn to the blurb, and I'm pretty much caught from the beginning.

There are monsters among us. There always has been and there always will be. I've known that since I can remember, just like I've always known I was one...

...Well, half of one, anyway.

I took it home with me and fell in love. Cal, the narrator, has a deliciously snarky voice. I adore it when authors play with point of view (c'mon, that's part of why Megan Whalen Turner is one of today's most awesome writers). And, well, Rob . . . she pulls off some pretty fun point of view tricks. (TRICK OF THE LIGHT and DEATHWISH, definitely.)

The Cal series also features a strong brotherly relationship. Niko holds his own, for all that he's 100% human in a world full of monsters. The Cal series is also a breath of fresh air in the urban fantasy genre, which tends to be dominated by female protagonists and vampires. (Not that there aren't vampires. They just aren't the focus monster.)



I'll admit, I was bad for Rob Thurman's ratings and bought MOONSHINE early. Hey, I wasn't quite eighteen and didn't know better. I paid for it with MADHOUSE. I tried ordering it at my closest indie, but they wouldn't since it was a mass marker paperback. Of course, they didn't tell me this until I went back several days later to check. It ended up taking me three stores in two cities to get ahold of it, by which time I was a little rabid. I learned my lesson and bought DEATHWISH and ROADKILL at my ever trusty Borders. (It may be an evil corporation, but it's done good by me. Borders has my more than earned my loyalty.)

(Also, you can read my review of DEATHWISH. For further proof of my love of this series, MADHOUSE made my Best of 2008 list, alongside Maggie Stiefvater and John Green. I first blogged about the series in my second post ever.)



She's also got a neat werewolf story in the Charlaine Harris headlined anthology, WOLFSBANE AND MISTLETOE. While I wouldn't rec an anthology for one story, most of the stories in this one are winners even if you don't know the authors' other works.

Her other series is the Trickster novels, which do feature a female protagonist. This is the series that got cut.



TRICK OF THE LIGHT is set in Las Vegas and features what may be the world's most subtle roaring rampage of revenge. It's a fun, gay friendly fantasy with lots of action. What more could a girl want? Well, she could want all of the planned sequels.



THE GRIMROSE PATH will come out as planned next September, but that will be the end. (That is, unless millions of people buy it, inshallah.) I, for one, will be sad to see the characters go.

I am, however, excited about Thurman's June 1 release:



Back cover copy:

From Rob Thurman, national bestselling author of the Cal Leandros Novels, comes a sci-fi thriller that questions what makes us human, what makes us unique . . .

. . . And what makes us kill.

Ten years ago, Stefan Korsak's younger brother was kidnapped. No one knew who took Lukas, or why. He was simply gone. But not a day has passed that Stefan hasn't thought about him. As a rising figure in the Russian mafia, he has finally found him.

But when he rescues Lukas, he must confront a terrible truth--his brother is no longer his brother. He is a killer. Trained, brainwashed, and genetically transformed into a flesh-and-blood machine with only one purpose--assassination. Now, those who created him . . . will do anything to reclaim him.

And the closer Stefan grows to his brother, the more he realizes that saving Lukas may be easier than surviving him…

If there's one genre I like better than urban fantasy, it's SF. Especially SF involving genetics. Also, I think I've mentioned my love of assassins on IBWB before. It's like CHIMERA was written to ping my buttons. Plus, I love Rob Thurman and she's proven she can do brothers.

Do you like to burst into laughter every other line? Do you enjoy character driven action? Do you like your protagonists to be just a little bit insane?

Rob Thurman is hands down, one of my favorite authors. I'll be buying CHIMERA on June 1, but you don't have to take my word for it. After all, you have weeks to pick up NIGHTLIFE or TRICK OF THE LIGHT and give her a try. (I made it easy, after all. The cover images will take you to Amazon.)

This has been an unofficial message from IBWB's Best Authors You Aren't Reading.

Best Authors You Aren't Reading: Patrice Kindl

Best Authors You Aren't Reading is a new feature for IBWB. In it I will discuss authors who I don't perceive as being popular, but who I truly love.

Patrice Kindl is a former model and secretary who often works with animals. (It shows in her choices of subject matter.) She first appeared on the children's lit scene in 1993, with OWL IN LOVE.



Fourteen-year-old Owl is a shapeshifter in love with her science teacher. It's a bildungsroman (she grows from schoolgirl crush to true romance) about a misfit, and features paranormal elements before they were in vogue. Owl's voice is charming and absorbing, setting the stage for Kindl's compelling female narrators.



Her next novel, THE WOMAN IN THE WALL, was the first one I read. Unfortunately, it appears to be out of print. I must say, if you find a used copy, buy it and read it. Shy, crafty Anna retreats into secret passages she built in her family's home when her mother remarries. A love letter, however, might force her out of her retreat. Although Anna is alone for much of the story, Kindl manages to develop a compelling cast. I loved this book, which reads like a modern fairy tale, magical without any actual magic occurring.



Kindl began the new millennium with GOOSE CHASE, an actual modern fairy tale. As the back of the novel puts it:

An orphaned Goose girl, Alexandria’s troubles begin when she offers some of her precious bread and water to a hungry old woman. The woman just happens to be a witch in disguise, and poof! Alexandria is suddenly heartstoppingly beautiful. When she brushes her hair, gold dust showers to the ground, and her tears turn to diamonds.

She may be heartstoppingly beautiful, but she'd rather people just let her do her job. Alexandria is a fabulous practical heroine, the exact kind of girl you wish starred more often in fairy tales. Lovers of fairy tales will enjoy how familiar stories weave in and out of GOOSE CHASE.



LOST IN THE LABYRINTH, conversely, will appeal most to those who enjoy mythology. This is a retelling of the Theseus's defeat of the Minotaur . . . from the point of view of the Minotaur's half-sister, Xenodice. Kindl manages to make the story compelling even when the fates of the characters are a foregone conclusion. She also manages to inject real history into the proceedings, which is always a bonus.

Kindl's writing is elegant and captivation. There are many years between her books, but she clearly puts that time to good use. Each of her four works - OWL IN LOVE, THE WOMAN IN THE WALL, GOOSE CHASE, and LOST IN THE LABYRINTH are gems. Fourteen years later, OWL IN LOVE doesn't read as dated, but prescient of the YA genre's evolution. THE WOMAN IN THE WALL is both original and romantic. GOOSE CHASE is hilarious and perfect for fans of Shannon Hale. LOST IN THE LABYRINTH is a haunting historical, showcasing another side of Kindl. I can't wait to see what she'll show her readers next.

But don't take my word for it. Pick up one of her books for yourself.