No One Likes Michael

Still have my eye infection. One is all puffed up, like that guy in Angela's Ashes except not as tragic.

Recently I have found a good way to pass the time, while on holiday. I'm translating a Manwha, (or Chinese manga) using two online translators, bablefish and MDBG's Chinese-English Dictionary. MDBG is very good as it tells you the meaning of each character so that when I get a gibberish answer, which I do get, alot, I can look up the meaning and see if it fits. it's quite hard as I'm using a text from picture, program which guesses the characters from the scans of the manga. It often gets them wrong so I have to look up each character separately.

Actually even though it's quite hard and takes a long time, I'm having a blast. Like "I forgot to eat" kind of fun, really! Getting each character from the picture and then putting them into the translator, then trying to figure out what is going on, then editing the picture to put the english in. It's really fun! I'm also really getting into the story, because it takes me so long I have to really think about what the creator is trying to put across and I don't just skim read like I usually do. Every word is precious!

I'm doing this rather than looking for a scanlator because, no groups are currently doing it :( so I am left all alone, doing this manwha. Also this manwha is one of my favourites (the other being ushi no tane), you can probably tell which one i'm talking about from a previous post :S.

Oh yeah, about the header. Right now i'm writing a book about angelic beings (I think it's going well, last chapter I wrote wasn't so good, gonna edit it for about three days until i'm happy *sigh*) so i'm reading a lot of romance books with angels in. Including Sharon Shinn's books, A pocketfull of paradise by Kathleen Kale and Fallen by someone else.

I love Sharon Shinn's books, her world building is wonderful. In the last book I read Angelica, I could have sworn she was writing from real life, it seemed to real to me. If she hasn't spent time as part of a nomad commune than she is one heck of a writer! I like her angels too, though they aren't the pretty, blonde haired versions I so love (they wear leather 0_0) but they are cool. In terms of the romance I prefered, Gabriel and Rachel to Susanna and Gaaron and all in all, I prefered Archangel to Angelica. Angelica was longer but I felt it was just Archangel rewritten, she uses the same character types. Now comes the things I don't like, she's strong on her main characters but really weak on her supporting characters. There was one part in Angelica where the Eyrie (where all the angels live) gets well, sort of bombed and I was... happy... I didn't like any of the supporting characters, they felt so wooden! However this is a problem I have myself.

Me and Sharon, we have the same kind of writing style. We just sit down and write and don't plan. So often our scenes and characters are rather chaotic. This is something I am really trying to change! it was one of the reasons I gave up on QOWE after FOUR YEARS (it still upsets me). Also her characters are... very promisicious. Being not promisicious (i'm one step away from being a nun, no joking. However I am no prude, why do you think I read romance novels, if not for the hot, wet action?) I find it hard to relate.

Anyway I want you to keep track: her main hero was called: Gabriel (even Gaaron, he was basically Gabriel Aaron ((they might as well have been the same character for all I know )) it was just shortened)

Now Pocketful of Paradise. That was quite good, I enjoyed it. Ms Kale is a very good writer, she is balanced over her entire book. I never felt unlike with Sharon, that characters weren't well rounded. I liked the main character though she was a little flat, I like her son, he was cute, I liked the main character though I can't have liked him that much as I don't remember his name. The probably was, there was this nice story about people on a farm and them wham, bam, really steamy sex scene! I get more and more shocked by romances haha XD. But yeah it just felt like I walked in on my neighbours bonking, I kinda didn't want to know. Also there was a very distressing lack of wings considered he was turned into a human for a while. Curses... :(.

The last book, I should have been better but I bought it based purely on the cover! oh shallow me. I do regret it now. This book was BOOOOring! Do you ever get so bored that you head goes numb? you keep reading but your mind is just not there? this was how it was with this book. It may have been because there was just TWO characters in the whole book! two! the hero and heroine and everyone else just got like one scene! and they spend their time in an apartment and that's all they do! However I did enjoy one scene, it's where the hero realises that every woman will fall madly in love with him (and I mean madly) and he hates it, coz he doesn't love them back and stuff so it drives them crazy (psychotic crazy) and there's one part where he sinks so low as to get it on with a gutter rat, thinking even she couldn't love him but she does. This scene was really good! you didn't expect the toothless old girl to love him but she did. (BTW i would have loved this story if it had been about him and the ugly urchin)

This book also falls into the "i'm watching my neighbor" category. The hero and heroine can't have sex because then she would go ape-shit crazy in love with him, so he plays the piano and she masturbates in front of him (no kidding) then, in a scene probably inspired by pretty woman, he gets her on the piano and sticks his tongue... in... her... and I was just like 0_0...ok???
Then later, I am not kidding, they do some bondage, without the bondage. He can't touch her, coz he's afraid and all that jazz, so she just impales herself on him and he just has to lie there and take it.
And I was looking at the really sweet looking woman on the back of the book and going "You've done bondage haven't you! haven't you!" all Apu like.
It was just like, i've seen you walking around, talking, dancing, eating and now PORN. And people say Sex and the City is bad!!

Also one last thing about this book, rehab romance anyone? (type Romance covers into google and click on Longaman or whatever his name is, romance covers) both the hero and heroine are the equivilent of crack whores and for some reason, she thinks him being irrestible is a good thing. I was just like, you're gonna end up a crazy bitch like the rest of them.

Oh and also, this guy: Gabriel (but apprently not the annuciation one, I BET HE IS PISSED! imagine that though, "Gabriel you get to go and tell Mary she is pregnant with the Messiah" "who me?" "oh...no, not you, the OTHER gabriel")

Also in Angel Myth, Hui Sheng's guardian angel is Gabriel too. Everyone loves Gabriel, they really do.

Me, I like Michael. I do, I think he's cool. Michael is the leader, he's the guy who cast Lucifer into hell (I think, haven't read me paradise lost much) but he's not a hero in any of these books :(. It's always Gabriel, I wonder why. I guess he's the nicestest one and he gets the most art drawn about him.

So yeah, there you go. I'm signing off now. See ya.