#jennifer roberson

[highfantasybobbyhillreads]

Come plan a reading journal with me.

This year I got really into bullet journaling. I like that they’re free and creative. There’s no real rules, but there’s still structure to the pages. It’s really just a good way for me to plan with my neurodivergent brain.

For 2024 I want to use a dot grid book to do a reading journal. Reading is really important to me, and after taking some genre specific classes this past semester, I want to branch out and read things that I wouldn’t normally read. I also think it will help me a lot as my family and I go into a “no buy” year. I have a lot of books I’ve purchased but haven’t read, so there’s plenty for me to pull from. I also plan on using Libby, my college library, and the local library. Not to mention, there’s plenty in my kindle and audible libraries I haven’t read yet.

I’ve done some research on TikTok, and found a creator whose reading journal style I vibe with. Admittedly a lot of my category ideas came from her channel (@lindseybluher), but I think that these can be so broad that it allows creativity to flow. If this is something you’re into, I highly recommend checking her out.

I ordered some supplies today, a new grid journal and some pens. I’m a perfectionist at heart, so pre-planning a journal helps me to avoid mistakes I might dwell on later. Here’s what I scribbled in Goodnotes while I wait for my supplies in the mail.

Here I was really just jotting down all the section ideas I had seen that I liked. The ones that are crossed out are ones I’ve decided not to do, and the highlighted ones are the ones I’ve chosen to organize the journal.

Starting with “# of books for the year”, I really just decided I don’t want to put an overall quantity goal on books to read. The main goal of this project is to read more intentionally. A number seems like more pressure than I’m comfortable with. “List of books I already own” (or “book backlog”) ultimately got cut for similar reasons. Like I mentioned earlier, I have a lot of unread books laying around. A list of them might be too overwhelming. The “abc” challenge just didn’t vibe with me anymore when I was reviewing these sections.

This page breaks down the broader sections of “Series to read” and “Book Bingo”.

Series to Read: Order of Crowns by Kate Elliott, The Witches sub-series of Discworld by Terry Pratchett, Parable of the Sower (reread) and Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler, and the Sword Dancer series (reread) by Jennifer Roberson.

Some of the categories for Book Bingo are a bit plain maybe, but I tried to think about the books I already own when deciding what to put in this section. This is one of the many coloring activities I have planned.

Genre Bubbles will be another page of coloring that is basically just a bunch of circles of various sizes that have genres scribbled in them. Each time I read one of the genres I’ll color in a bubble.

The other two sections on this page are lists of books in my kindle and audible libraries that I haven’t read yet. I chose 12 from each, one each for every month. This will be important for the Bracket pages I’m planning.

For this last bit I was just tracking down the books in the Discworld sub-series I’m planning to read. This is the only series I chose that I don’t own. The books that are available on Libby (all but 1) I also went ahead and tagged in the app so they are easy to find later.

And that’s it for now. I plan on using this as a place to track my reading progress.

Next post when the new journal arrives!

*C*

#order of crowns #sword dancer series #parable of the sower #discworld #book bingo #kate elliott #Jennifer Roberson #octavia butler #terry pratchett #reading plans #journal prompts #planner #bullet journal #journaling #journal #reading goals #reading in 2024 #reading journal #reading blog #reading #the novels of tiger and del #books and reading #books

[alexa-santi-author]

Since we’re visiting family in Chicagoland anyway, I took a side trip to Love’s Sweet Arrow bookstore in Tinley Park and found one of my Holy Grail books: Irresistible Forces, a fantasy and science fiction romance anthology that features stories by Jo Beverley, Lois McMaster Bujold, Mary Jo Putney, and Jennifer Roberson. All in the same book! I’m WAY too excited to have finally found it.

#jo beverley #lois mcmaster bujold #mary jo putney #jennifer roberson #catherine asaro #deb stover #fantasy romance short stories #science fiction romance short stories #love’s sweet arrow (Chicagoland) #bookstore finds #romance novel recs #romance novel blogging

[othercat2]

TFW

You want to be deeply snarky about The Chronicles of the Cheysuli by Jennifer Roberson but you are reasonably certain that Very Few People are familiar with it. But you still want to be deeply snarky about it anyway because for some reason you are strongly remembering it, and your general frustrations with Fantasy Eugenics: The Good Guys Can't Keep It In Their Pants And Keep Getting Seduced by the Bad Guys. (I will probably be snarky at some point about the series. Just. Good grief.)

Frankly, I also want to be snarky about the Other Jennifer Roberson Series I Generally Snark About, Sandtiger and Del, or as I have nicknamed it, The Adventures of Straw Feminist and Cheap Knockoff Conan in Fake Orientalist Sexist Bullshit Land.

#jennifer roberson #i used to kind of like the books in question #but i find the authors real world opinions be the terrible #which is relevant because said opinions show up in her work #chronicles of the cheysuli #sandtiger and del #I wonder if there's fanfic on ao3?

[mikeypasta]

I've been listening to the Tiger and Del series (or is it the Sword series?) by Jennifer Roberson. Great series, I love the characters and the descriptions the author makes are poetic. The narrator, Stephen Bel Davies, brings so much personality to the book, and he really makes the characters distinct.

I've been really enjoying it. And I recently found out Jennifer Roberson wrote the eighth book in the series just last year (2022), which is surprising since the first book was written in the 80s! Hope it gets an audiobook soon, I'm halfway through the sixth book, and will probably start the seventh shortly after.

#Books #Audiobooks #Tiger and del #Sword series #Jennifer Roberson #Stephen Bel Davies #Fiction

[dangermousie]

On "upscaling" of covers ie why are we so boring now?

So, my recent desire to reread some Robin Hood retellings I used to love led me to Jennifer Roberson's Lady of the Forest. Roberson wrote a LOT of fantasy (Tiger and Del series is amazing) but she also wrote period novels now and then, and LotF is a historical take on the Robin Hood legend with focus on Marian.

I adored that novel back when I first read it many years ago and every time I've reread it since. My paperback copy is somewhere it's a pain to get to and is probably falling apart, so I went on amazon to get a kindle edition. It's there, I own it, yay but it also made me discover the new cover for it.

This is the original cover. This is the edition I first read as a young Mousie back in the 1990s:

And this is the current cover:

Notice the difference?

The first cover would definitely make me pause and check the book out a bit in a book store. It has a gorgeous old tale vibe that actually does convey a lot - it's heavy on romance (which it is), it has our protagonists (no wonder it's one of my favorite versions - I am a total sucker for blond with PTSD MLs.) The new cover is so depersonalized and generic I'd never pause twice.

This cover, like so many others, has gone respectable. No pretty people (no people at all), no romance no nothing. Some medieval weapon or two, a bland pattern and color. WHY?

The first cover you may like or not but it conveys a story! It catches attention. The second I wouldn't even pause in front of.

I know that romance novels have (sadly) moved from those gonzo covers with shirtless dudes clutching busty ladies but this is not even that. This is just boring.

Two corollaries.

One: I miss 1990s fascination with blond dudes holding their OTPs. Here is Melanie Rawn's Dragon Prince (a delightful old school fantasy read I totally recommend.)

Two: I can't say I get the romance novel cover switch either. This is the old cover for Justine Davis' Lord of the Storm:

This is the new cover:

It's not any less eye popping but it's kinda odd to leave off the heroine (though as someone who's read this novel more than once (it hits some VERY specific kinks; if you read it you know which ones. This is my judgment free zone :P) I am still not sure where she was clutching the dude's leg while wearing a nightie and 1980s hair.)

There are some amazing relatively recent covers that fight the bland and photoshop:

I mean look at this beauty! I checked out this trilogy because of that cover! It's just as gloriously pulpy as the cover promises (side note if you like fucked up x fucked up battle couple, dude finding meaning of life and learning to trust because of one deadly woman, and hot blond guys with supernatural powers and hot dark haired ladies with a huge kill count, boy do I have a series for you.)

Anyway, I don't even know where this is going any more except you should read all the novels I mentioned.

#books #book covers

[sharpestasp]

Rare fandom poll

Rolling the random numbers (you people) to see if I can spark something in a beloved but less written fandom.

Reblog for sample size.

#polls #writer's life

[shadow-words]

How to Socialize Your Aeriat: Imprinting and Husbandry

_How to Socialize Your Raksura: Imprinting and Husbandry_ continuing meta about my favorite bee-dragon people. @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] #books #booksoftheraksura

The first essay in this series introduced the concept of ring species and detailed some of the basic worldbuilding of the Books of  the Raksura setting. Some comparisons to Jennifer Roberson’s Chronicles of the Cheysuli were made to address the way the Fell appear to be a “alignment: evil” species. The reasoning being, that the Ilhini in the Chronicles are literally written as being evil people…

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#books of the raksura #fantasy #writer: martha wells

[velvet-cupcake-games]

Do you have a favorite Robin Hood iteration (so many movies and TV shows!) from which to draw inspiration? Or are you basically doing your own thing at this point?

I've drawn inspiration from a wide variety of Robin Hood sources, including old tales (I hesitate to say "original" because the originals were probably oral tales), books, and movies. I haven't watched any of the Robin Hood TV shows.

Two of my earliest Robin Hood inspirations were the Robin Hood series by Jennifer Roberson and The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley. These are very different Robin Hood re-tellings with a late 20th century feminist bent, and they're both very Marian-centric. They planted the seed in my head of having a Robin Hood tale with Marian/Marion at the center.

Fans of Robin Hood media will find little references throughout the game to many different versions of the story. Most of it is my own thing, but I definitely try to stay true to the spirit of the tales!

#made marion #ask

[bornitereads]

Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina - Ed. Kevin J. Anderson

Read: Mar - Apr 2023

Normally my strategy with collections is to rapid fire go through all the stories and give them a quick yay or nay. But this collection was unique in my experience. Each story is about a background character seen in the cantina scene in A New Hope. And all the stories interconnect. Not only do they all converge on the cantina for the scene with Luke, Obi-Wan, Han, and Chewbacca, they often intersect with other stories in other ways. The first couple stories I was like is this worth it? But as I went on and caught onto what they were doing it became way more fun to read.

Info: Bantam Spectra; 1995; Contributing authors: Kathy Tyers, Tom & Martha Veitch, Timothy Zahn, A. C. Crispin, Dave Wolverton, David Bischoff, Barbara Hambly, Daniel Keys Moran, Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Doug Beason, Jennifer Roberson, Jerry Oltion, Kenneth C. Flint, M. Shayne Bell, Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens

#tales from the mos eisley cantina #star wars #fiction #science fiction #sci fi #kevin j anderson #short story collection #short stories

[ladyherenya]

All the books in the top row I started reading before October -- one I started back in June and just took months to finish.

Also read: The Hookup Equation by Roxie Noir.

Reread: The Gate of Ivory, Two-Bit Heroes and Guilt-Edged Ivory by Doris Egan.

Total: Twelve novels (including two audiobooks), one graphic novel and one play.

Still reading: Sarah Morris Remembers by D.E. Stevenson.

My favourite: My Eyes Are Up Here has a funny and perceptive protagonist.

I’d also recommend: The One Month Boyfriend and The Bodyguard.

I wouldn’t recommend: The Hookup Equation or The Spitfire Girls.

Cover thoughts: The cover for My Eyes Are Up Here is clever and effective! Meanwhile The Agathas is attempting to be clever, showing both narrators by having one reflected in the other’s sunglasses, but the effect is a bit odd.  

Titles, authors, genres and ratings listed below, with links to my reviews on LibraryThing.

Lady of the Forest by Jennifer Roberson. Historical fiction, Robin Hood retelling. 2½☆

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. Romantic comedy. Play. 4½☆

Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland and illustrated by Mike Holmes. Graphic novel, middle grade fantasy about dragons. 3☆

The Spitfire Girls by Soraya M. Lane (narrated by Sarah Zimmerman). Historical fiction about women flying for the ATA during WWII. 2☆

To Treasure an Heiress by Roseanna M. White (narrated by Liz Pearce). Historical romantic Christian fiction set on in the Isles of Scilly in the early 1900s. Sequel to The Nature of a Lady. 3☆

The One Month Boyfriend by Roxie Noir. Contemporary romance, fake dating.

The Hookup Equation by Roxie Noir. Contemporary romance.

The Bodyguard by Katherine Center. Contemporary romance, single POV. 3☆

With You Forever by Chloe Liese. Contemporary romance.

My Eyes Are Up Here by Laura Zimmermann. Young adult. 3½☆

The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow and Liz Lawson (narrated by Mehr Dudeja, Sophie Amoss and Holly Linneman). Young adult mystery. 3☆

#Herenya reviews books

[feotakahari]

Reading a well-recommended book that immediately turns me off. The back cover has positive quotes from McCaffrey, Goodkind, and Bradley. Now there’s a combination that hasn’t aged well.

(It also has a rec from someone named Jennifer Roberson, who’s apparently written a gazillion famous things I’ve never heard of.)

[c-k-mack]

It’s surreal listening to Bronson Pinchot read Chronicles of the Cheysuli. Jennifer Roberson’s series was the first that I waited impatiently at the bookstore every year for (Judy Blume’s books had mostly come out by then and were only loosely related except for the fudge books). I didn’t realize at the time what a novelty the fantasy romance was, I just loved the strong character and exotic world building.

When men voice a woman’s role they, intentionally or not, tend affect their voices it with a delicacy that doesn’t serve a spirited character. Even Robin Wrights damsel Buttercup had more fire. This isn’t a slam on Bronson, I’m still going to finish listening, just an observation (The previous book I listened to was Lauren Sweet narrating The Fiancée Farce where I scarcely questioned the personality of each character regardless of gender).

Aside from Matt Mercer, are there any others male voice actors you would recommend?

#this has been a post #voice acting #gendered roles #audible #books

[epacer]

Education

Why San Diego Unified Is Closing iHigh to Middle and High Schoolers

District leaders point to performance metrics and cost for why they decided to shut down the virtual academy.

When iHigh Virtual Academy’s principal submitted her two weeks’ notice, San Diego Unified officials recognized they had a problem. It was the school’s fifth leadership change in three years.

“That’s a big red flag,” Fabiola Bagula, San Diego Unified’s deputy superintendent, said of the leadership turnover. So, she decided to pop the hood on iHigh and what she saw concerned her.  

More than 70 percent of students in the classes of 2024 and 2025 were not on track to graduate, according to district data. The district didn’t immediately provide data about how these rates compared to other schools. Bagula said iHigh’s students were also receiving an abnormally high number of failing grades compared to the rest of the district.  

But it wasn’t just student performance.  

The cost per pupil was nearly three times higher than the district average. Average per pupil spending is around $30,000 at iHigh, while the San Diego Unified’s overall average is around $11,500, according to the district.

All of this was compounded by what look to be impending budget cuts emanating from a decrease in funding from the May revise of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget.

“When I saw that resignation letter, I thought, ‘So we’re going to hire a new principal for this school system that’s going to have a 20 something percent graduation rate?’” Bagula said. “No. This is not a good, fiscally responsible decision or even supportive of students.”

On May 12, San Diego Unified announced it would be closing iHigh to students in grades 6-12. The virtual academy originally served students in an independent study capacity, but during the pandemic the district redesigned iHigh to be a regular school for families who wanted an online option. It offered synchronous instruction rather than self-paced coursework.

The announcement took many families and teachers by surprise.  

Last week, more than 40 parents and educators attended a virtual meeting of iHigh’s Site Governance team. The frustration at times reached a boiling anger. Attendees argued they weren’t consulted prior to the decision and despite being directly asked during the meeting, district officials only hinted at why they closed iHigh to middle and high schoolers.

“We sacrificed hours of our time away from our families, hours,” iHigh teacher Tiffany Cuellar said to San Diego Unified Senior Director of Instruction Jennifer Roberson, who attended the meeting. “We held the school up when the wings were falling off and there was no engine, and to just be thrown out like the trash … it’s really disheartening and so disappointing.”  

The district plans to still offer families an online option through a self-paced Edgenuity system that will be tied to school sites and based on what they see as a successful credit recovery program at Scripps Ranch and Hoover. But iHigh was more than just a credit recovery program, say some parents and staff, who are convinced Edgenuity is not the right model for their children.

The district chose not to close elementary levels of iHigh, Bagula said, because they didn’t have successful models to look to. “We just didn’t feel confident enough to say we have a different model,” Bagula said. “We don’t have data where I can say these children are not on track or on track to graduate, but in sixth grade through 12th grade, the data was there and quite frankly screaming.”

Bagula said she wants this redesign to be an iterative process, not something set in stone from the outset.  

“You try an idea, but you collect data to see if the idea works. And if it is not working, and you know, within three weeks or four weeks, then it’s not the right idea,” Bagula said.

Still, she said going forward she hopes to engage stakeholders in a more collaborative way when big decisions like this come up.  

But for Cuellar, a third-grade teacher at iHigh, even though the district didn’t decide to shut down the elementary school portion of the school, the closure still stings. She’s also worried that given the abruptness of this recent change, there’s no guarantee the district won’t cut the elementary side of iHigh in the future.

“Any other school site would not have been treated with this level of disrespect,” Cuellar said. “The teachers carried the Virtual Academy, and in a way saved San Diego Unified when they needed to be saved. They needed a program to help families and the teachers and the staff during this unprecedented global pandemic, and we were there.”  

iHigh saw a significant drop in enrollment from last year to this year, but Cuellar said that was something teachers expected. Staff knew the transition back to in-person learning was likely to mean fewer students at iHigh. But she does question Bagula’s assertion that the school had five leaders within three years. Multiple iHigh staff members said they don’t remember the school having that many leadership changes.

Cuellar also isn’t sure how the district determined iHigh was spending so much more per pupil. “I have to question that … How is it $20,000 more per student at virtual? I mean, the kids are at home,” she said.

Cuellar said she doesn’t have much insight into what the middle and high school levels of iHigh requested from the district, and what the district may have provided, but that she’d sent many emails begging for support that went unanswered.  

“The district did not offer support. They knew we needed help and they did not offer the support that we needed to be successful,” Cuellar said. “The teachers have worked so hard, and for the families who really needed the Virtual Academy, it’s been such a blessing.” *Reposted article from The VOSD by Jakob McWhinney on May 30, 2023

[paulsemel]

It's been a long ten years, but Tiger and Del, the titular heroes of Jennifer Roberson's romantic fantasy series, are back with a new adventure called "Sword-Bearer." And it's not their last hurrah. For more, check out this exclusive Q&A.

📖⚔️💕

#JenniferRoberson #JenniferRobersonInterview #JenniferRobersonSwordBearer #JenniferRobersonSwordBearerInterview #JenniferRobersonTigerAndDel #Books #Reading #AuthorInterview #AuthorInterviews #Fantasy #FantasyBookSeries #Romance #Romantic

[dangermousie]

Reading that whole “sex helps magic” stuff in Jeffe Kennedy series made me think:

1. Anne Bishop is such an influence, conscious or unconscious, on so much of a type of fantasy. Saw in Maas, in Kennedy, in so many others.

2. It’s so interesting and telling that even with a much larger pool of novels for more and more niche categories thanks to e-publishing that fantasy nowadays is nowhere near as gonzo as 1990s with Bishop, Melanie Rawn, Goodkind or even Jennifer Roberson. I mean try imagining a modern publisher, let alone a mainstream “proper” “paper” publisher publishing early Black Jewels books. The thing is, even Anne Bishop doesn’t write old school Bishop books any more and hasn’t for ages.

3. It’s sort of a bifurcation - either you go full into erotica and it can be gonzo and all but with little plot or you can have a “proper” novel but then it would never be as gonzo as those 1990s books. A pity.

#books

[atowndailynews]

Obituary of Alvin 'Al' Varner, 78

Alvin “Al” Varner. Memorial service will be held on Jan. 25 – Alvin “Al” Varner passed away peacefully on Dec. 3, 2022, at the age of 78 in Atascadero California. Al was born in November of 1944 in Sanger California to Shanks and Zeeda Varner. Al married Jennifer Roberson in April of 1966 and they were married for 56 years. Al worked for PG&E for 42 years before retiring in 2011. He was a devoted…

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