Plagiarism has occurred to her and I think she wrote a great post about it on her website. The main points she touches on are identifying plagiarism, what to do if it happens to you and how you can prevent it/give yourself more credence in plagiarism cases. Here is the article for your viewing pleasure:
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Plagiarism
Unfortunately ladies, either we have been plagiarized or will be plagiarized for the sheer fact that we are creative writers who write many words, some of which may be stolen without our knowledge. I follow very few author's work, but I have been reading JL Langley since high school and hopefully will interview her soon for an academic paper. She is a writer of romance novels and has received acclaim for her mixture of erotica and solid plot structure. As a closeted diehard for pulp and romance novels, she displays a way to reconfigure a genre from grocery store quality to literary quality. This is my excuse to still be reading her.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The Athena Project: where women kick ass
Hello again. Since we are supposed to be posting more about the books we are reading, I'll review one I just finished. It's The Athena Project by Brad Thor. I'll be honest, I picked up the book at one of few remaining Borders because of the word Thor. Before setting it down because this was only the author's name, I read the inside cover and it was about a team of secret government operatives kicking ass. The best part: they are all women.
This book had some great, intense and harrowing action scenes. And I really like that it centered around four women. This team of four are athletic, attractive women that were recruited by the military to do covert counterterrorism operations in situations where men would not be given access or whatever. Neat concept, I thought. And Thor executes it pretty well.
A couple issues I had right away though were the women's characterizations and the jumpiness of the novel. The reader is introduced to these four women and a paragraph for each summarizes their character and appearance. While reading it, I thought this approach was a little heavy handed and too much info at one time. Although, later I referred back to it to keep the four women straight. (Oh, and I should note these characters have been in another book, so maybe these descriptions were just to get me up to speed.)
Another issue was that in only a couple chapters in we switch locations to follow a new cast of characters. My initial reaction was, What the hell? Go back to the chicks in Venice kicking ass and taking prisoners! I don't care what these new people are doing in a top secret military meeting. No one is getting thrown out of windows here! Later, I understood that we needed to get some of that background from the people in the meeting, but I still didn't like the interruption in the flow of action. This jumpiness continued throughout the book.
Part of the problem with switching between three to four different places with completely different characters is all of the names. I don't know what the appeal is, but Thor loves using first and last names. I understand using both names when introducing new characters, but constantly referring to all characters by either their first or last name when you have so many characters in various places around the world doing completely different things, I get confused. It interrupts flow and brings me out of the book when I have to go searching through what I've already read to figure out who I'm reading about now.
Another glaring issue within this same idea: Thor opens the book with some doctor rooting around in the jungles of Paraguay. We don't get back to the jungle until page 200. Eh. I'm not sure that's okay with me. I understand his reasoning; we need some significant background and things to happen before we can fully understand what the doctor found in the jungle. But still, 200 pages seemed a little too long to keep us hanging. Though I could see how this opening (if speeded up) would be a good opening in a movie.
In fact, his writing seems kind of cinematic in scope. I could picture all of the things that happened and all of the amazing stunts the women pulled off like it was a movie. Although the terrifying Nazi machine they find might be a bit graphic for PG-13...
Anyway, there were some clear problems I had with it, but overall The Athena Project was an enjoyable action thriller worth looking in to, if you're into that sort of thing.
This book had some great, intense and harrowing action scenes. And I really like that it centered around four women. This team of four are athletic, attractive women that were recruited by the military to do covert counterterrorism operations in situations where men would not be given access or whatever. Neat concept, I thought. And Thor executes it pretty well.
A couple issues I had right away though were the women's characterizations and the jumpiness of the novel. The reader is introduced to these four women and a paragraph for each summarizes their character and appearance. While reading it, I thought this approach was a little heavy handed and too much info at one time. Although, later I referred back to it to keep the four women straight. (Oh, and I should note these characters have been in another book, so maybe these descriptions were just to get me up to speed.)
Another issue was that in only a couple chapters in we switch locations to follow a new cast of characters. My initial reaction was, What the hell? Go back to the chicks in Venice kicking ass and taking prisoners! I don't care what these new people are doing in a top secret military meeting. No one is getting thrown out of windows here! Later, I understood that we needed to get some of that background from the people in the meeting, but I still didn't like the interruption in the flow of action. This jumpiness continued throughout the book.
Part of the problem with switching between three to four different places with completely different characters is all of the names. I don't know what the appeal is, but Thor loves using first and last names. I understand using both names when introducing new characters, but constantly referring to all characters by either their first or last name when you have so many characters in various places around the world doing completely different things, I get confused. It interrupts flow and brings me out of the book when I have to go searching through what I've already read to figure out who I'm reading about now.
Another glaring issue within this same idea: Thor opens the book with some doctor rooting around in the jungles of Paraguay. We don't get back to the jungle until page 200. Eh. I'm not sure that's okay with me. I understand his reasoning; we need some significant background and things to happen before we can fully understand what the doctor found in the jungle. But still, 200 pages seemed a little too long to keep us hanging. Though I could see how this opening (if speeded up) would be a good opening in a movie.
In fact, his writing seems kind of cinematic in scope. I could picture all of the things that happened and all of the amazing stunts the women pulled off like it was a movie. Although the terrifying Nazi machine they find might be a bit graphic for PG-13...
Anyway, there were some clear problems I had with it, but overall The Athena Project was an enjoyable action thriller worth looking in to, if you're into that sort of thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)