Got a parcel in the mail this morning from HarperCollins, which were the reprint copies of The Palace of Impossible Dreams and Warlord. Last week, Eye of the Laybrinth turned up, and the week before that it The Immortal Prince. The week before that it was The Gods of Amyrantha, and a few days before that it was Warrior and Warlord.
I used to blog how many reprints each book had gone through, but I've completely lost track now. But it's always fun to get them, because it means at least someone in the warehouse thinks they might keep on selling... Of course, the issue of storage starts to come into it after a while. I've had to hire a storage unit to store all the excess stock...
	Maybe we should have a few competitions so I can off-load a few copies... Or we could auction some of them on eBay and give the proceeds to a charity other than the JFRIAVPHSRSF (that's the Jennifer Fallon Retirement In A Very Posh House Somewhere Really Scenic Fund)... hehehe Thoughts?

I have lost my mobile phone...

I have no idea what's happened to it. I'm pretty sure it's not stolen. I've just put it somewhere I don't normally put it down and now it's gone.

Curses...

On the upside... I may have to buy a new one... aaaww...

What a shame... gadget shopping... gee, you know how much I hate gadget shopping:)

UPDATE... cleaned the car out. Found the phone jammed down beside the seat with 18 missed calls on it.

But those nice people at Telstra are ordering the i-mate Ultimate 9502  for me. Be a pity to disappoint them... :)

Got a call from the ABC earlier this week, wanting to know if I would be free to do the Saturday morning breakfast show as the announcer. All four hours of it. Oh, and it's about time you learned how to use the panel and find out what all those shiny button and flashing lights do, so you can run your own panel, Fallon... (Seriously, they call me Fallon at the station all the time... not sure why)

EEEEEK! But, I said yes, (like I was ever go to say no to anything involving a microphone) and after finding out I had to go on air at 6:00, IN THE MORNING, I then had to come up with several stories organise interviews, and, I discovered, learn to tell the time backwards.

You see, on radio, it's never 7:32 am, it's "28 minutes to 8". I am not good at mental arithmatic at the best of times. Under pressure with lots of flashing lights, a deadline to the news and the boss in the producer's booth making wild hand signals throught the glass, and you had no idea what they mean... phew... turns out I'm a complete bozo:)

I don't know my numbers at all because a couple of times, not only did I get the minutes wrong, but I got the hour, wrong too. Whoops.

A few panicstriken people in Alice Springs would have got to work very late this morning if they were relying on me for the time:)

I had a ball, but the problem with this "on the job training" is roughly 10,000 people get to hear your stuff ups:)

Oh well, they've asked me back, although the boss thinks it might be a good idea if I come in and do the show during the week a few times, to get the hang of what all those shiny lights and buttons are for.

This involves starting work at 5:30 in the morning, to which I asked the obvious question... 5:30 AM... they HAVE one of those...?

I saw this meme on a site the other day (although I can’t remember which author with a sick sense of humour started it) but the challenge was to post the best/worst 1 star reviews authors have ever received on Amazon.

So, of course, I had to go looking. This turned out to be quit a bit of fun. There weren’t that many, but it’s absolutely amazing what some people dislike about a book. And funny, too.

Medalon (Amazon US – 32 reviews – 2 of them 1 star)

7 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

 A few words of warning..., June 20, 2005

This book contains violent rape and torture in multiple scenes. During the middle-to-last half of the book, it seems like the female lead is enduring either being beaten and/or raped, having a friend of hers being beaten or raped even more violently in her stead, or being put through some type of physical, mental, or magical pain. It made me very, very angry, and I didn't feel like the remainder of the book, or any attempt at character development, made up for this assault on my senses.

I think a good deal of fantasy readers have stumbled on this type of story before and many enjoy this formula. For those who love it, or are able to desensitize themselves enough to take pleasure in the book anyway, please read and enjoy! However, for the readers who really don't like this type of fantasy (and why oh why does it always seem to be written by women?), please be wary. The other reviews on this site led me to purchase this book, and I never suspected what I was getting into.

[I read this review and thought “what the?”. Had to check the title to make sure it was Medalon they were talking about. I’d like to get hold of this edition. Not the one I remember writing. Sounds interesting

BTW… I believe the sales peaked on Medalon the day this review was posted! ]

3 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

 NAMES!, April 25, 2005

I was really looking forward to this after reading the other reviews here. But after 5 pages, I got a heroine with an unpronounceable name, "Lord Draco", and "Lord Wolfsbane".

Lord Draco? Are you kidding me?

[For the record, there is no Lord Wolfsbane in the series…hahaha]

Lion of Senet (Amazon US – 30 reviews – 2 of them 1 star)

3 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

 depressing read, yuch characters, April 26, 2005

When I read I book the 1 thing I ask for is at least 1 character that I can like. All of these characters were obsessed with power and just plain nasty. the plot does not really go anywhere, except down hill, and you end the book with a bad taste in your mouth that no amount of chocolate can get rid of.

hated it enough to write this review!

[I haven’t tried the chocolate solution, but it sounds like fun. I’m also inclined to think that if this person had read it on not tried to, you know… eat it… just a thought…]

Wolfblade  (Amazon US – 11 reviews – 1 of them 1 star)

3 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

Really bad book, April 28, 2006

This book is one of the worst I have read in a while. I did not finish it because I just couldn't bring myself to care about the characters, which were wooden. There are so many good fantasy writers out there that I just can't see wasting any more time with the trite and tiresome Ms. Fallon.

[Trite and tiresome”. Hmmm… why not ridiculous and rascally? Poor and putrescent? Terrifying and tormented? Scandalous and scabrous? I mean… if you’re going for the alliteration, one should make the most of it, don’t you think?]

Mind you… once I started on this quest, I decided to see what was happening over at Hogwarts, where JK Rowling copped a whopping 62 1 star reviews (out of over 3000, it has to be said… which make her percentages way better than mine, I suspect) my favourite of which contained the following insightful analysis…

“There are hundreds of things I loved about Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows, and millions of things I hated with the fire of a thousand suns.

One word review: SUCKITUDINOUS.

This book is just bad.”

How’s that - a billionaire AND she has fans who can make up words like suckitudinous. Some people have all the luck:)

So come on, all you other authors out there… let’s see if your critics can top “suckitudinous”. Mine can’t…

Went and saw 21 this week. Not a bad film although I made the mistake of going with a bunch of casino workers who scoffed at much of the detail. I should learn not to do that. It should be a rule... Never go to a murdery mystery with a cop, a medical drama with a doctor or a nurse, or any sort of sporting movie with a coach who knows something of the sport. Oh, and don't try sitting through The Core with a geologist, either, who'll totally ruin the film for you in the opening scenes by announcing "this film is going to be crap."

"Why do you say that?" I ask innocently.

"Because the main character is a geologist ," says Evil Ella, "They don't even let guys as good-looking as Aaron Eckhart into Geology School, so there's no chance the rest of the film is going to  be believable, either." :)

Here's the review...

In the mid-1990s a bunch of very clever, brainiacs from MIT, made a killing in Las Vegas counting cards at Blackjack. This is the movie based loosely on Ben Mezrich’s non-fiction book (Bringing down the House) that turned out to be only very loosely based on the truth.

In this version, working-class mathematics genius and MIT student, Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), finds himself accepted into Harvard Medical School, but short by an awkward $300,000 for the tuition. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as it turns out) his mathematical ability brings him to the attention of MIT professor, Mickey Rosa, (Kevin Spacey). Rosa runs a secret club of brainiacs who spend their weekends in Vegas winning at blackjack. Convinced to join the club by hottie whiz-kid, Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), Ben proves to be a star pupil with the ability to keep his head (and the figures in them) even under extreme duress, and soon becomes the key player of the team.

Ben initially joins the group to earn his Harvard tuition, but soon gets lulled by the fabulous lifestyle, the girls and the money, finally running afoul of both Rosa and the thuggish Vegas security chief, Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), when he starts to gamble on the odds, rather than calculate them.

English actor Sturgess does a credible job as the naïve Campbell, lured into the life of a high rolling gambler, while trying to maintain his geeky-exterior (and his grades) during the week at school, aided by the starkly contrasting cinematography of sun-drenched Vegas and snow-bound Boston. Kate Bosworth is more convincing here as a college student/gambling whiz than she ever was as Lois Lane, and Laurence Fishburne is genuinely frightening as the old-school Vegas security chief, who deals out reprimands with a be-ringed fist to card-counters (which technically isn’t illegal) in the vast and lonely basement of his casino. As usual, Spacey rules the screen, and it’s to Sturgess’s credit that he manages to hold his own against both Fishburne and Spacey.

The only thing I found completely unbelievable in this film, in fact, was the scene where Ben and his geek friends take time out from their robot-building project — about which they’d been obsessing for over a year, and which they were on a deadline for a prestigious robotics competition — to shoot hoops in the gym with all the jocks and the beautiful people. Real geeks don’t come up for food very often. They certainly don’t take time out for sport. 

Directed by the sure hand of Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde, Monster-in-Law, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton) the film proves to be — at least until the closing scenes — a slightly implausible, albeit highly entertaining, morality tale. Although based very loosely on fact, the story has been enhanced for the screen (as was the book), but then, Hollywood never lets the truth get in the way of a good story. Basketball-playing geeks, notwithstanding, the movie delivers a solid couple of hours of entertainment and a fascinating suggestion for a career option for those aimless souls out there with an IQ of over 150, wondering what they might do with their lives.