Originally published at deus ex machina complex and other theories. You can comment here or read comments there.

My birthday was sweet. Let’s just say it was like Neil Gaiman came to my party (and did the funky chicken) courtesy of echthroi. I owe a lot of people e-mail provided I can find addresses for some folks. I also apologize for generally not being around. The end of 2007 was filled with a) PAIN and then b) DEPRESSION coming off the pain and c) getting a retail job at the beginning of the holidays. My HR person says things will even out a lot now. So expect contact! Coming soon (no, I swear). Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday on their journals and wrote me fic like this neat ficbit by owlmoose. Tidus and Gippal are BFF! ♥

Also! Booking Through Thursday asked what titles readers were looking forward to for 2008 (mine includes loads of books published before because I am playing catch-up). Lists! I love making lists. Happy birthday to me, I get to make a list.

• Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse: I’ve written about New Moon, but I haven’t published it yet because I’m waiting on justira to read so I can be bemused in good company. The thing about New Moon: I liked it?

  MY BRAIN WANTS TO CALL SHENANIGANS. My fangirlish heart wants to uh, fangirl. But not the writing. Never the writing.

  No, I really don’t get it. Twilight was like the toaster-in-the-blanket trick, except instead of the toaster Meyer wrapped up a big hunk of FAIL and then bashed the shit out of me with it. So I expected to find the same problems with New Moon (and I did) but Meyer actually wrote some romance. Hot damn, there was romance, the romance that was 100% absent in Twilight. It was an upgrade! I was actually impressed some of the time. So now I’m (self) obligated to finish the third book and I’m sort of looking forward to it. Why do I feel conflicted…

• Joe Hill, 20th Century Ghosts: This is a collection of Hill’s short stories. I’m not really a short story person; the last I recall reading was a Southern Gothic tale about the chick who offs her husband and then keeps him in the house. I feel like I get invested only for it to be over all too soon. I’m hopeful about this book because I loved Heart-Shaped Box.
• John Green, Paper Towns (2008): Well, 2008 looks pretty fantastic considering a) Brotherhood 2.0 will continue weekly so my massive crush on John Green can be sustained and b) Paper Towns comes out in September and there might be a tour. A tour that should come somewhere near me. Definitely. John reads excerpts from the novel here and here.
• Naomi Novik, Victory of Eagles (2008): D—DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS? Novik practically personally shoved all her readers off a cliff that’s over a BOTTOMLESS PIT with Empire of Ivory. I love this series. I love the characters and the world-building and I’d totally make out with this book a little. Totally.
• Catherynne M. Valente, In the Cities of Coin and Spice: I heaped a mountain of praise on top of the first volume of Valente’s wonderfully female focused In the Night Garden. I looked for this book at B&N, but it’s not available and my library doesn’t have it, either (I do not understand my library and its policy on volumes of work and why it takes them 84626372 years to reunite books that belong together). I have the same hopes for the second volume, because I really just fell in love with Valente’s writing and the way she built her stories.
• Mark J. Ferrari, The Book of Joby: This book is actually why I read The Book of Job, OR God Goes to Vegas last year. I had read a description of the novel and it seemed pretty character driven and I passed it by, but then I read an interview where Ferrari talked about talking Christian mythology and mixing it with fantasy. The interview said something about it being a re-imagining/telling of Job and well. Okay, if someone is coming out to say, “I’m writing AU Bible fanfiction!” I’m going to be all over that. I bought it, and it’s waiting for me to pick it up.
• Gordon Korman, Bruno and Boots: Several little birds told me this series was awesome, and as a friend mentioned, anything with a all-male boarding school in it is automatically 75% homoerotic. One of the stories is about getting a pool, which closes the gap on the last 25% leaving us with a nice round 100% of Bruno and Boots being in love. I’ve read the first three so far; I have four to go. I wish I had copies of them, but it was not meant to be. I will live with my html files of them and be thankful I get to read them at all.

Now I have to go read Upon the Midnight Clear and try not to gouge my eyes out.