Hello, and welcome to my thirty-ninth essay in my accidental series of essays about the wacky little thing that we call "writing." It's a little daunting to realize that not only do I have an accidental essay series, but that accidental essay series is well on the way to being finished. Soon, I'll have to find something else to do with my spare time. Anyway, this series of essays will soon be fifty essays long, all of them based around my original set of fifty thoughts on writing. The original fifty thoughts covered a lot of aspects of the writing life; the essay series is doing the same. Here's today's thought:

Thoughts on Writing #39: Getting Jealous.

There are lots of reasons for getting jealous, so it's probably important that we expand today's thought, and give it a little bit more context. Without context, after all, we're essentially lost in the woods. So here's today's expansion:

Envy is useful; it motivates you to work harder. Envy is toxic; the world is not innately fair. Acknowledge your envy, take a deep breath, and let it go. You're going to find yourself with a lot more room to work if you can do that, and you're going to be a much happier person.

Envy is a fascinating emotion. It's natural: everybody has it to one degree or another. It's normal: it really does happen to pretty much everyone. It's no more automatically a "bad" emotion than anger or sadness or fear, all of which happen naturally and normally and to everybody. But we're taught that envy is bad; that it has no positive sides; that if we're envious, we're somehow in the wrong, and will be punished if we're caught. So how do we deal with something that's natural and normal—and yes, unavoidable—and how do we harness its powers for good? Let's take a look at envy, why it's a good thing, why it's a bad thing, and how to use it. Ready? Good. Let's begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on envy. )

Having been asked (about fifteen times) to post this, I now present you with the recipe for dark chocolate chip pomegranate cookies. You will need:

* Three cups of all-purpose flour
* One teaspoon of baking soda
* One-half teaspoon of salt
* One cup of granulated sugar
* Two-thirds of a cup of packed light brown sugar

* One cup of softened butter or margarine
* Two large eggs
* One tablespoon of vanilla extract
* One quarter-cup of pomegranate molasses

* One twelve-ounce bag of dark chocolate chips
* One-half cup of pomegranate seeds

Line several cookie trays with parchment paper, as the cookies will be sticky when they first come out of the oven, and it's best if they stick to something other than your actual cookie tray (you may need it for another batch, depending on how many trays you have). Mix your flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl that you aren't in danger of knocking over. Put it to one side. In another, bigger bowl, mix your butter, granulated sugar, white sugar, pomegranate molasses, eggs, and vanilla until they form a sugary pudding-like goo that you really just want to eat with a spoon (but won't, due to the presence of raw eggs in the mix).

Begin adding your flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing thoroughly as you go. First the contents of your bowl will look like some sort of horrible elementary school art project. Gradually, they will turn into cookie dough. When this happens, mix in the chocolate chips and pomegranate seeds. Stir to distribute as evenly as possible through the mixture. Put the dough in the fridge for an hour. Go do something else. Watch TV. Read a book. Read my book. I don't care. It's your hour.

Actually, I lied. After about forty-five minutes, come back and pre-heat your oven to 400 F/around 205 C.

Once you're ready to bake, put tablespoons of dough on your cookie trays, about two inches apart (to allow for spread). You may need to mash them a little with your spoon or hand to get them to stay in place. Bake at 400 F/around 205 C until light brown (usually eight to ten minutes; longer if you want crispy cookies). Allow to cool at least a little before eating. The pomegranate seeds will soften to the texture of baked walnuts, while the juice parts will be little exploding sweet-sour surprises.

Eat.

Welcome to all of the new people who’ve started reading over the past weeks/months.  Please feel free to say hi and introduce yourselves!  Or not, if you prefer.  It’s all good.

Today I’m going to point folks to the guest blog post I did at Grasping for the Wind.  From time to time, readers will ask me where they should go to buy an author’s books.  Does it really matter if you buy from Amazon or the local independent?  Click over to GftW for my response.

And just because I haven’t done it in a while, have another LEGO pic.  Many of you should recognize Crow and Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater.  These were built by Christopher Doyle at Reasonably Clever, which is a fun little site and worth checking out.  Click the pic for the step-by-step on the ‘bots.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

So today was interesting. I intended to get some writing done, and I did. Not much, but still some. Mostly what happened was that I ended up working on a bunch of small things for various writing projects. So it was productive in many aspects, just not the physical "words on page" aspect, which is what I REALLY need to get cracking on, since the next book is due in August (and today was the first day I actually wrote any words for it).

Also of interest, while all of this various activity was going on, I ran across a post on Facebook about winning tickets to see Avatar on Thursday, midnight showing. I figured, what the hell? so I entered . . . and won. So I now have tickets for Avatar. On Thursday night. Midnight showing. And guess what I've discovered? All of my friends have day jobs and can't go! (Well, they could still and I'm trying to convince them of this, but so far it isn't working.) So we'll have to see what happens, whether I go or not, etc.

If I do, I'll be sure to do a review.

Well, here we go: the final current projects post of 2009. When next I prove that I don't sleep, it will be 2010, the last year of the first decade of the new century. It's a little boggling to realize that, well, I just frittered away an entire year, measured out in coffee spoons and word counts. And now here we are again. This post and its kin are the reason I scream like a lingerie-clad blonde in a horror movie every time someone asks me "What are you working on?" The answer takes too long to actually deliver. Anyway, this is the December list of current projects, because I am the gift that keeps on giving.

To quote myself, being too harried to say something new: "These posts are labeled with the month and year, in case somebody eventually gets the crazy urge to timeline my work cycles (it'll probably be me). Behold the proof that I don't actually sleep; I just whimper and keep writing."

Please note that the first four Toby books are off this list, because they have been finished and turned in. You can purchase Rosemary and Rue [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] now. You can pre-order A Local Habitation [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] now. An Artificial Night and Late Eclipses are off the list until The Editor tells me otherwise.

The first Newsflesh book, Feed, is off the list because it has been turned in to The Other Editor. Not only that, but my page proofs have been finished and returned. You'll see this bad boy again when it comes rolling off the presses! Discount Armageddon is off the list because the first draft has been finished, and it'll be a little bit before revisions start.

The cut-tag is here to stay, because no matter what I do, it seems like this list just keeps on getting longer. But that's okay, because at least it means I'm never actively bored. I have horror movies and terrible things from the swamp to keep me company.

( What's Seanan working on now? Click to find out! )

Hey, y'all, I'm the guest blogger for Penguin USA this week. Wander by the site to learn about my approach to holidays, discover why I think Santa Claus is the son of Persephone and Hades, and convince the nice folks at Penguin that having me blog for them is a worthwhile exercise.

Pretty please?

From time to time, I get an e-mail or a comment from male readers who enjoyed my goblin books, but are hesitant to pick up Stepsister Scheme or Mermaid’s Madness because they look like they’re for girls.

My reaction to this is all over the place.  The goblin books went over well with younger boys, and I can understand why a teenage boy might be hesitant to walk around with a book that has three women surrounded by swirling pastels on the cover.  I also think it sucks that we’re still raising boys to think it’s shameful to be caught reading something “feminine,” but having been a teenage male myself, I can understand that reluctance.

I like the cover for Mermaid better, less because we lost the pastels, and more because I think it’s just a great image.  But I still get the questions.  This is obviously a book about three girls, so doesn’t that mean it’s written for girls?  (Much as Name of the Wind was written for red-haired boys, and the Zombie Raccoons anthology was written for decaying scavengers.)

I’ve said in multiple interviews that I wrote Stepsister for my daughter, in response to the Disney/Barbie princess infestation we went through at the house.  So in a way, these books are written for girls.  Or at least for one girl.  Which means … what, exactly?  I don’t even know what a “girly book” is.  I assume it’s shorthand along the lines of:

Boy Books = Action/Adventure; Girl Books = Romance
Boy Books = Plot/Idea-centric; Girl Books = Character-centric
Boy Books = Explody things on the cover; Girl Books = Chicks and pastels

There’s value in being able to find the kind of books you want.  If you’re into character-oriented fiction, you want to be able to discover those books in the store.  You don’t want to buy a book, take it home, and discover that what you thought was an action-packed vampire adventure is actually a 400-page relationship angst-fest.  I get that.  But trying to classify those preferences by gender, with all of the stereotyping and judgement that goes with that?  It doesn’t work for me.

Josh Jasper wrote a piece over at Genreville about genre shame, and about being male and reading romance novels.  “Why should I be ashamed of reading something fun when women aren’t?  The answer is that I’m afraid of being judged by people I don’t know, whose opinions don’t really matter, about something they have no real business judging me over.  Social conditioning is strange and stupid.”

When you ask me if Mermaid and Stepsister are girly books, the answer is that I don’t even know what that means.  I don’t want to know.  I can’t tell you whether or not you’ll like the books, but I can try to give you an idea what they’re about and let you make your own decision.  In a nutshell, the princess series is about:

Fighting and magic and family and fairies and revenge and unrequited love and requited love and hairy trolls and sailing and a three-legged cat and flying horses and wolves and drunk pixies and sewer goblins and enchanted swords and mermaids and friendship and ghosts and strong women and not-so-strong women and also some men and birds and rats and lots of ass-kicking.

It’s bad enough we still try to force people into fairly rigid gender roles.  Do we really have to do it to books too?

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

OK, so holiday shopping is upon us, so I thought I'd reiterate some of the holiday deals I mentioned earlier this year.

First, I thought I should remention that all three of the books are available on Kindle now, for all of the Kindle lovers out there. Here are the links to the kindle versions: The Skewed Throne, The Cracked Throne, and The Vacant Throne.

All of the books are now, as far as I know, available in all other electronic formats as well. Go forth and download them!

And now for the dead tree versions. I'm currently running a few holiday specials, one for hardcovers and one for paperbacks:

Hardcover Deal: You can buy all three hardcovers of the books for a total of $30! That includes shipping.

Paperback Deal: You can buy all three paperbacks of the books for a total of $20! That includes shipping as well.

If you're interested in any of these deals, contact me at jpalmatier@sff.net and we can arrange payment and get address info, etc. Individual hardcovers and paperbacks are available as well at $15 and $8 respectively (shipping included). Just let me know what you're interested in! All prices are for the US shipping only. I can give you a quote for international shipping if you get in touch with me.

Happy holiday shopping everyone!

*********************

Words: 4,297.
Total words: 81,336.
Reason for stopping: end of chapter fifteen.
Music: Moxy Fruvous.
Lilly and Alice: waiting for me to go to bed.

So I finally broke 80,000 words. In a very short period of time, I will break three hundred manuscript pages (the current manuscript paginates to two hundred and seventy-eight pages). Again going by Feed as my benchmark for "this is how long books in this series will trend," I have less than half the book left to go. I'm looking at about 45,000 to 50,000 more words, to say and do and accomplish everything that's left to say and do and accomplish.

Yes, I can do it.

Yes, it's going to hurt.

Yes, I set a very high bar for myself with Feed...but I think I can actually reach that bar again, with this book. Because some of the places it's going are painful as hell, and with something like this, that's a damn good sign.

Now we must rinse.

So in the last seventy-two hours, I have...

...finished "Good Girls Go To Heaven," the first Sparrow Hill Road story, and returned it to my editor for review. (I like to be early, so that there's time for me to be thoroughly edited.) I'll probably be starting "Dead Man's Party" in a day or so.

...finished "The Alchemy of Alcohol," my first-ever steampunk story (also my first story about Mina Norton, alchemist, bartender, and exceedingly cranky native of San Francisco). It was ludicrously fun to write. Mina is refreshingly annoyed.

...started "Gimme A 'Z'!"—which, as you can probably guess from the title, is the next adventure of the Fighting Pumpkins cheerleading squad. The wearing of little pleated orange and green skirts is clearly dangerous, given the trouble these girls manage to get themselves into.

...started "Slow," a much more viscerally upsetting zombie story. It's a zombie week here at Casa de Blonde.

...written way too much of Blackout, which probably explains why I have so many zombies on the brain right now. I love this series a lot. I'll love it even more when I get about another five thousand words on in the current book, since that will mean it's time to pause, consider, and process edits. (Yes, I really do schedule everything.)

...finished reviewing my page proofs for Feed. Alive or dead, the truth won't rest. Rise up while you can.

My new website will be going live real soon now, which means new material, including the Toby FAQ and the Sparrow Hill Road landing page. Watch this space for details. I am now going to go extract my Maine Coon from my purse.

Saturday was my wife’s birthday, so much of the weekend was spent doing things like making breakfast for her and the family, going out to birthday dinner with my parents, then going out to lunch the next day and watching a movie with just the two of us.  As a result, I spent zero time on things writing-related.  Nothing on Snow Queen, nothing on the new series proposal, and nothing for the blog.

Instead, have a picture of Flit with multicolored eyes beneath the Snoopy-infested Christmas tree.  (Is anyone really surprised by the Snoopy addiction?)

And as long as I’m posting pics, here’s the artwork Socchan did from my story “The Creature in Your Neighborhood.”  She drew this during my reading at Icon, and I’m most impressed.  That’s Rolly (after his breakdown), the Mall Rats, Peter the Pretendisaurus, and poor Tommy the Tuba.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

I decided to buy and read "The Surrogates" because, of course, the movie was coming out soon and it had Bruce Willis in it, and I've lately been drawn into the graphic novel universe. So I said, why not? I've read a few other graphic novels and the concepts presented in this one were interesting.

First off, the graphic novel is significantly different from the movie, so you should probably read it even if you have already seen the movie. It starts off with the same initial setup--some surries get zapped and detectives are there to investigate--but pretty much from that moment on it diverges from the movie. Characters are the same, but they don't do what they did in the movie, tec. So read the novel, it's worth it.

The storyline is definitely interesting and pulls you along, weaving the actual detective work together with the life of the main detective, Greer. You find out about his relationship with his wife and how the introduction of the surrogates--androids that the user controls and that pretty much act out everyone's daily life for safety reasons--has altered society and interpersonal relationships to a huge extent. The main idea of the surrogates is what kept me interested in the novel, although the plotline about who's zapping surrogates and why also drew me in. The ramifications on every aspect of society if we did ever reach a point where the majority of the population lived their lives through surrogates is . . . astounding. And that's why this graphic novel rocks.

It's also why it's slightly disappointing. There are so many aspects of life that would change that what was presented in the novel seemed . . . limited. I loved the story and the novel, but when I was finished I felt that there was SO MUCH MORE to explore with this concept and I was disappointed that there wasn't more, a volume 2 or something. I know there's a prequel, and I will definitely read that, but I seriously hope that there will be more set in this world in the future because there is so much more left to explore.

Since this is a graphic novel, I must also comment on the artwork: spectacular. The artwork was subtle and appropriate and a perfect amalgamation of art and photoshopping, especially regarding some of the SF elements that were incorporated into the artwork, such as realistic digital screens and such. At the same time, the artwork was extremely simple. The level of detail was appropriate and minimalistic, as well as the color palette. Some panels were sketchy and blocky, others were more finely detailed, and the ability of the artist to convey complex emotions through facial expression and such was astounding.

So, overall a very good graphic novel, the only drawback being that the world created had SO MUCH potential that I felt there should have been much more done in this universe and with this plotline, so was disappointed when the novel ended. I'd love to see more from this pair, and even if you've seen the movie, I'd definitely suggest reading the novel.

An interview has been posted over here regarding my Throne of Amenkor series and the release of the translated versions of the books in Germany. The link is to the English version, but there's a German translation of the interview posted at the same site as well. Check it out!

Just a reminder: I'll be appearing at Writers With Drinks tomorrow night. The details:

When: Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009, 7:30 to 9:30 PM, doors open at 6:30 PM
Who: Dan Fante, Joshua Mohr, Mark Coggins, Mollena Williams, Meliza Banales and Seanan McGuire
Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St. between Mission and Valencia, San Francisco
How much: $3 to $5 sliding scale, all proceeds benefit the Center for Sex & Culture

I'll be reading from something (either the first chapter of Feed, "Dying With Her Cheer Pants On," or "A Citizen In Childhood's Country," depending on the mood by the time it gets to me), and generally being happy to see everybody who drags themselves out to enjoy the show. It would be awesome if I could see you there!

2010 debut author kodykeplinger has declared this to be Agent Appreciation Day. Now, around my house, every day is Agent Appreciation Day (except maybe for the days where I want to watch horror movies instead of making my deadlines, and only the fear of The Agent keeps me at my keyboard), but still, it's nice to have a day dedicated to appreciating somebody. So today, I appreciate The Agent, and I appreciate her by making a post I've been pondering for a while. Namely, why are writers so protective of their agents? Because we are. Even when we're mad at them for not answering our phone calls/not thinking that a paranormal romance about steampunk space pirates with a super-evolved pod person as the heroine will sell/not understanding why it's so important that we spend a weekend dressed as Emma Frost and falling off our shoes, instead of making our deadlines, we're protective.

There are a couple of reasons for this. I mean, one, we're frequently protecting them from total strangers going "will you introduce me to your agent?" (My answer, by the way, is generally not a positive one, and on the rare occasions where I offer to introduce someone to The Agent, she gets an email from me warning of the pending introduction. So emailing her cold, saying I sent you, doesn't actually work.) Now, we're not trying to be nasty, and we're not trying to say "no, you can't join our special club." But we're also not going to sneak people we don't know through the back door, past the rest of the pending submissions. We are not magical doors to representation, and because our agents will often feel obligated to look at any real referrals, we try very hard not to be too extravagant with who we send their way.

Two, our agents are the people who take care of us. I mean, as protective as most authors are of their agents, our agents are ten times moreso. They're the ones who understand the weird little clauses in our contracts, tell us when interesting opportunities open up, and keep us from being eaten alive by our editors. When there's a problem, the agent fixes it. (That goes for problems on both sides. If I get behind on my word count, The Agent will probably be poking me about my deadline before either The Editor or The Other Editor. Because that's her job.) Since our agents take care of us, we feel a little obligated to do the same for them, at least to the best of our abilities.

Does this mean we don't want to share our agents? Hell, no. I want The Agent to sign twenty people who become New York Times best-selling authors and get six figure contracts and can afford their own diamond-plated ponies, because then she'd be able to eventually afford an island, and she'd probably let me genetically engineer dinosaurs as long as I kept meeting my deadlines. An agent is only as successful as their client list, and the more really successful clients an agent has, the more not-so-successful but-oh-so-wonderful clients they can afford to keep working with. It turns into a delicate balancing act that I'm really glad I don't have to perform.

Somebody said recently that we don't work for our agents, they work for us, and so the submissions process shouldn't seem so much like a job interview. I view it as more like the relationship between a householder and their butler. A good butler is for life, and that's not a contract to be entered into lightly. If the butler can't like you, then they can't work for you, and you wouldn't want them to. My agent works for me. I also work for my agent, just like most people would agree that Bruce Wayne works for Alfred as much as Alfred works for Bruce Wayne. And because they have that relationship, he gets to go out every night and be Batman.

Why do I appreciate my personal superhero?

Because she lets me be a superhero, too.

Zombie Miss Muffet
by Jim C. Hines

Little Miss Muffet
sat on a tuffet
eating her old friend Trey.

Along came a spider
who sat down beside her
and squish – she had spider paté.

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

I tend to hoard interesting links and reviews of Rosemary and Rue until they hit a certain critical mass, at which point my choices become "make a post" or "suffer from a browser crash." Because this is how I sort of preserve things for future reference, here's the latest in our "Seanan likes reviews" series of entries.

Over at ALPHA Reader, Danielle has posted a lovely, well-considered review. She says "I really loved this book" and "McGuire is currently contracted for three books, but has six planned all together." Won't she be surprised when we reach book eight? (To be clear, I am currently contracted through book three, working on book five, and clearly outlined through book nine. I clearly never want to sleep again.)

The Williamsburg Regional Library posts a daily book recommendation, and recently Rosemary and Rue was their book of the day. Their Circulation Services Director says "What makes this book original are the myriad details. A wealth of characters from fantasy—Daoine Sidhe, Kitsune, Undine, Cait Sidhe, as well as goblins, selkies, and a variety of changeling combinations populate both Faerie and the human realm. It's interesting to see how the different races interact with each other." Yay world-building for the win!

ashnistrike has posted a brief review, and says "It's very good urban fantasy—not so brilliant as to make me do cartwheels and cry because the next one isn't out yet, but good enough that I will buy the next as soon as it's available."

Our next review comes from the Warren Public Library, and says "It's a gripping mystery with a lot of urban fantasy thrown in to the mix, and as Toby delves into the dark side of her past and present (and maybe even future), you'll learn about the world of the fullblooded fairies and the halfblooded changelings that inhabit the California coast." Works for me.

Renee's Book Addiction (and, one presumes, Renee) says "This was a really enjoyable new UF (urban fantasy) series. I love stories about the fae, and the San Francisco setting really made the story vivid for me."

Finally for tonight's roundup, Felicia Day sounds off on the topic of Toby. She says "This book had a GREAT setting and environment, I was engrossed in the mystery and, (although a bit exposition-y in sections) I was along for the ride the whole way and immersed in the mythology." She has some plot issues (which are spoilery if you haven't read the book), but it was a positive review, and I couldn't be happier.

That's it for tonight. Join me next week when I try to close down Firefox without using a hammer. Again.

Words: 6,418.
Total words: 77,039.
Reason for stopping: end of chapter fourteen, time to work on my page proofs.
Music: Eddie From Ohio.
Lilly and Alice: warming my feet.

What does a two hundred page zombie novel do to its author? Anything it wants. I swear, working on this book is like riding a roller coaster with no brakes. The ride operators are evil clowns, and if I sleep, they'll eat me. I get up, go to work, write on the train. Get off work, go home, write on the train. I feel like I'm in a foot race with my own brain. But I really like what's coming out on the other end; it could definitely be worse.

I did the math today, and realized that I'll only have fifty-nine days between the release of A Local Habitation and the release of Feed. That's nowhere near long enough. That's all the time in the world. So in the interests of only going a little crazy during that narrow window, I'm slamming through Blackout as fast as I can without losing my footing, and I'm enjoying every second of this crazy ride.

Plus it's an excuse to contact scientists and ask them horrible questions.

My baby is turning into a real live book, with a real live plot and real live problems, and I couldn't be happier.

OK, so holiday shopping is upon us, so I thought I'd reiterate some of the holiday deals I mentioned earlier this year.

First, I thought I should remention that all three of the books are available on Kindle now, for all of the Kindle lovers out there. Here are the links to the kindle versions: The Skewed Throne, The Cracked Throne, and The Vacant Throne.

All of the books are now, as far as I know, available in all other electronic formats as well. Go forth and download them!

And now for the dead tree versions. I'm currently running a few holiday specials, one for hardcovers and one for paperbacks:

Hardcover Deal: You can buy all three hardcovers of the books for a total of $30! That includes shipping.

Paperback Deal: You can buy all three paperbacks of the books for a total of $20! That includes shipping as well.

If you're interested in any of these deals, contact me at jpalmatier@sff.net and we can arrange payment and get address info, etc. Individual hardcovers and paperbacks are available as well at $15 and $8 respectively (shipping included). Just let me know what you're interested in! All prices are for the US shipping only. I can give you a quote for international shipping if you get in touch with me.

Happy holiday shopping everyone!

*********************

I am a total comic geek, and I'm not ashamed. I'm also a Marvel girl, and—as seems to be increasingly unusual in some circles—I'm a superhero fan. I like my flying men in tights and my women in impractical shoes. No matter how insane the storylines become, at the end of the day, it's pretty easy to make me happy.

We start, of course, with comics. For the X-geek in your life, or for the geek who just wants people to understand your love of all things X-Man, the Grant Morrison run on New X-Men is a fantastic place to start. It has enough backstory to "fill in the gaps" for people just joining, while being an incredible, world-spanning story that it's hard as heck not to love. The Grant Morrison run has been collected into three massive volumes. New X-Men: Collection I [Amazon] kicks things off with the bombing of Genosha, the world's only all-mutant country. New X-Men: Collection II [Amazon] ups the ante in a dozen different ways, and New X-Men: Collection III [Amazon] brings things to a screaming, ass-kicking conclusion. I highly recommend these books, and not just because Emma Frost features heavily.

If you're looking for something a little outside the mainstream of the superhero world, Robert Kirkman's Invincible is an amazing title from Image, one that dares to show superheroes as a little more human than most publishers will dare. It's a painful, beautiful story, and since it's relatively new (IE, "this century"), catching up isn't all that hard. Invincible: The Ultimate Collection, Volume I [Amazon] is a big, beautifully sturdy hardback introduction to Mark Grayson and his world. If that's a bit too big for your budget, Invincible book one: Family Matters [Amazon] and Invincible book two: Eight Is Enough [Amazon] include the first issues of the series, and are more than awesome enough to get you hooked.

My current favorite superhero title is a lot darker. Garth Ennis—the man who brought us Preacher, which really tells you something about how dark we're talking here—has turned his attention the superhero world, and the resulting title is...disturbing, to say the least. Start with The Boys, volume one: The Name of the Game [Amazon]. Proceed from there to The Boys volume two: Get Some [Amazon]. With fantastic art, a gritty storyline, and an all-too-plausible superhero community, The Boys is a great antidote to all that four-color brightness. (If you need still more dark-but-awesome superheroics, look up Incognito [Amazon] and Wanted [Amazon], which really has nothing to do with the movie. But don't say I didn't warn you about the dark.)

Important note: All of the above are graphic novels, and can be obtained from your local comic book store. The Amazon links are for reference, and for people who don't have a local comic book store. Buy local. It's awesome.

Soon I Will Be Invincible [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Austin Grossman is a brilliant piece of superhero fiction that looks at the heroic and the villainous at the same time. I can't recommend it highly enough. I also can't say much about it without spoiling the surprise. Check it out, it's awesome.

If you enjoy the "Velveteen vs." series, you absolutely have to take a look at Black and White [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] by Jackie Kessler and Caitlin Kittredge. This is the start of a bad-ass series about a world where superheroes are under corporate control, and stepping outside the lines costs you more than you could possibly imagine. It's an awesome treatment of a superhero world, and the contrast between good and evil has never been more blurred.

Sometimes you want your superheroes to be fluffy and fun, and those are the times when you should reach for the Bigtime books by Jennifer Estep. Karma Girl [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], Hot Mama [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy], and Jinx [Amazon]|[Mysterious Galaxy] are superhero romance cotton candy with a sharply sweet bite, like cocktails that look completely innocent until they knock you on your ass. They're more fun than a barrel of radioactive monkeys, and I hugely recommend them.

I've tried to avoid movies in today's gift suggestions, but I can't resist slipping one in here: Krrish [Amazon]. It's sort of the Bollywood answer to the big-budget Hollywood superhero movie, with a dash of Tarzan and several large dance numbers. It's incredibly fun, and incredibly weird, and really, really worthwhile. For seriously.

Got any heroes or villains to recommend? Tell me about it!