Okay, not really. But after some consideration, I’ve decided to take the summer off from blogging. Looking back at the last few months of posts, I feel like I’ve lost my blogging mojo (maybe it’s to be expected after 5 years?) I haven’t been reading enough to have anything interesting to say about books, when I have been reading I haven’t had time to talk about them, my posts have been sporadic and I’ve been using contests as filler, and this summer is going to be a busy one both personally and writing-wise.

I will still pop in on Twitter, Facebook, and on other blogs, just because I like the social aspect of the internet, but I’m going to step back from this blog until I feel like I can make it entertaining again — for myself and for my readers. I will schedule a few things — like the reminders to nominate favorite covers — but this post will remain as a sticky on the top. If I have news, I’ll post it on the front page of the website and the News page (although, if I have really big news, I’ll post it here, Twitter, and everywhere else.)

As always, I’m available via my Contact page.

Have a great summer!

So. This isn’t a review, because the more I think about this movie, the less happy I am with it, so I’m going to stop thinking too much about it.

This is one of those movies that I mostly enjoyed while I was watching it (especially the first part, before I realized that nothing I’d hoped or expected to see in a Terminator movie was going to show up) and right after I came back home, and I would have enjoyed a lot more if I hadn’t been such a fan of the other Terminator movies (1&2 — you know I don’t really count 3). This didn’t *feel* like a Terminator movie to me, and I didn’t realize until coming out how necessary the role of someone as protector was to my idea of these movies.

I mentioned on Facebook and Twitter that a lot more went into the explosions than into character, and that I really felt the heart of the first two movies was missing here. There weren’t any characters to connect with, not really. John Connor’s character wasn’t revealed in any significant way, and if he had an arc, I didn’t see it so much (but, to be fair, we did see how he became the leader of the resistance). The people around him were … well, they didn’t really have any personalities. I didn’t feel any connection *between* them, and I felt as if I was being told that there was a connection there, just because I knew the relationships — but we were never shown any kind of connection, and nothing to any of the characters beyond the surface level.

Also, the Terminator movies have always been about Sarah and John Connor, and someone in a protector role. I could accept that Sarah was gone in this movie … but although John was there quite a bit, the movie wasn’t his. No, it was Marcus’s, whose character didn’t really have an arc or decision to make, either — although he was the most sympathetic character in the movie. I missed the setup of someone as protector (Marcus didn’t really fit that, though I thought they were *trying* for that — as I mentioned before, far more affecting, to me, would have been a reversal: Connor trying to protect Reese after the kid was scheduled for termination…then after saving him, sending him off to the past to be killed.) And even if I just watch it as a post-apocalyptic movie, it doesn’t bring anything really new to the table (a few scenes felt like they came straight out of the recent War of the Worlds movie … but it does have some nice action scenes).

So, there it is. To me, the movies have always been about relationships (Kyle/Sarah, Sarah/John, John/the Terminator) and there just wasn’t much here to see. We never got below the surface. And although I was pleased by some of the surface stuff … it just doesn’t hold up.

Sigh.

ETA: I’ve heard that the script and the production was rushed through after the writer’s strike. I can definitely, definitely see how that might have affected this movie, and the lack of characterization. I think the bones are there, and good … the execution and the whatever-it-is about these movies that makes me *care* just didn’t come through. The late Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles did that a million times better than this movie did.

It’s my day on Demon Week at I Do Not Want to Wait, I Want the Book Now. My topic?

What does a demon look for in his mate?

Hee hee. Go and see if you qualify for some hot (literally) demon love. (And you can also enter to win a book from my backlist.) I’ll be watching the comments all day, so if you have any questions about the series, the demons, the Guardians, feel free to ask either here or there.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

*sob sob*

They renewed Dollhouse but not T:SCC?

Screw you, Fox.

So, I spent part of the morning bitching about the lack of variety in the covers at the Cover Cafe contest (bitching aside, the ladies on the committee do an amazing job each year putting this contest together — it always looks fantastic, voting is easy, and reading the results a blast). Although a few stand out, for the most part, they all run into a “okay that’s pretty…and boring” blur, or a “how do I choose between one landscape and another” conundrum, followed by the “but…aren’t there any different *good* covers?” Was there not a single category featuring two prominent models that was good enough to make the final cut? A lot of readers buy those covers; isn’t there one that could be considered the best?

Then I thought: maybe enough people aren’t nominating their favorites? I nominated a few over the last year, but my taste is notoriously cheesy, so I can see why they didn’t show up (I’m probably just lucky they didn’t show up in the “worst” category.) So here’s what I’m going to do:

Every month (or as often as I remember) I’ll put up a post saying, “remember to nominate your favorite covers from this month!”

Here are the rules, stolen from Cover Cafe:

Nominations for romance covers issued in 2009 open!

You may nominate as many different covers as you like. However, nominating the same cover several times is not necessary. All nominated covers will receive the same consideration.

Readers, authors and artists are all welcome to nominate their covers.

International covers are acceptable but it must be a cover that is available for purchase by someone in the US. The cover image and necessary information must also be available.

The underlying novel could have been published previously, but the cover has to be new to 2009.
E-Book cover nominations must include the date of first publication in order to be eligible for consideration.

It says romance novel covers, but since women’s fiction with romantic elements like Kristin Hannah’s FIREFLY LANE was a finalist this year, along with Jeaniene Frost’s AT GRAVE’S END (urban fantasy with romantic elements) it looks like it actually just has to have a romantic element to be eligible.

So, it’s mid-May. Have there been any romance novel covers from books published this year that knocked your socks off?

If so, go forth and nominate.

ETA: I just nominated

Jory Strong’s GHOSTLAND
Alison Sinclair’s DARKBORN
Nora Roberts’s VISION IN WHITE
Larissa Ione’s DESIRE UNCHAINED
Merline Lovelace’s THE HELLO GIRL

and a Worst one, but *cough cough* the royal we aren’t going to say what it was

Greta at I Do Not Want to Wait, I Want the Book Now is having a demon week, featuring blog posts from five different authors and a give away each day. I’ll be there on Wednesday Thursday, but it kicks off today with Jaci Burton — click here to check it out.

I just read that Iron Sky is coming soon, a movie about Nazis who have been hiding on the moon, waiting for their chance to return. And I blogged before about Dead Snow, which releases next month — and is about zombie Nazis in the Alps.

Here’s the teaser for Iron Sky:

And here’s the trailer for Dead Snow:

So, here’s a poll:

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How can you *not* recognize an e-mail like this as spam? Especially after I have marked it as spam five hundred million thousand times? (Click to view the glory that is my e-mail program.)

Seriously. That’s SO awesome.

Five hours ago, if you’d asked me what movie I’d NEEDED to see this year, and which one I’d go see over any other, it would have been Terminator. No longer.

I hope to god it plays in IMAX.

(thanks to Kresley Cole on Twitter)

Good Idea:

Promoting your work.

Bad Idea:

Promoting your work by pretending that you are a reader who is commenting like any other person on a blog, pimping your book, and having your fake reader name link to your author website.

There are plenty of stupid people on the internet. But people who spend a lot of time on book blogs — and reading — are generally a lot less stupid than in other internet locales.

God.