Housewife with a halflife by Alison Wells
Housewife with a halflife is another speculative fiction novel that I’ve recently read on my Kindle.
Susan Strong is a housewife like any other, until her fairy godfather Dave shows up to warn her that she’s literally disintegrating and that her falling apart could be the end of our universe. He’s there to save her, but he’s not having an easy time of it. First of all, Susan doesn’t quite believe him, even though she likes him. Secondly, during a shopping trip, she and her twin boys are sucked through a portal to another universe. Dave is doing all he can to save Susan’s life and get her and her sons back home again, but he’s running out of time and Susan isn’t really cooperating. She has too much to do, trying to cling to her everyday chores.
I really liked this book. The only thing I didn’t enjoy completely, was the way the book kept getting more serious. I preferred the lighthearted beginning. It wasn’t shallow, just more fun. At this time I really need something to take my mind of things, not be forced to contemplate sombre topics like life and death. However, even at the end, which was somewhat a happy one, I still loved this book and can really recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction and humour.
Kindle Worlds: Do fan fiction writers want to make money?
Read more here.
These women make some interesting points. It’s nice to know that there are other fan fiction writers who are no longer in their teens and who stay with their fandoms over many years.
The Kindle
My sister and I are working on getting our own books published. Eventually, we hope to be able to publish other people’s books too. In the course of our work, we decided that we’d need an e-book reader to optimize the file formats.
So I set to work doing a bit of research online.
To begin with, the Kobo was my primary choice and my sister was preferred the Nook. Unfortunately, we found out that neither are available here in Sweden, or at least that they’d be very hard to get. The only readers we can easliy get our hands on are some European ones, that were probably great when they were first made, but are beginning to look old. The iRiver Story looks great, but for various reasons I won’t go into now, eventually we decided against that too.
So we were back to square one. Early on, I’d looked at the Kindle and been very impressed, but I didn’t like the fact that you can’t change the internal battery. If the battery dies you need to send your Kindle back to Amazon and get a replacement, which will cost you almost as much as buying a new one, if I’ve understood correctly.
But since we felt that the Kindle was our only really positive option, we looked into it again. Apart from the battery issue, everything else I’d read about the Kindle was fantastic, so in the end, we decided to get one.
Ordering one to have it shipped to an address in Sweden was no trouble at all. We just had to get an adapter, but that was easy enough.
Then we just settled down to wait. Can you imagine our surprise when we got a notification only two days later? Two days after we ordered it, it was delivered to our house. All the way from America.
Alright, I’ll stop gushing now. LOL.
Perhaps I should mention that I’m a major book lover, if you didn’t know that already. Books (and animals) are my life. Printed books, that is. However, there are thousands of free books available on Project Gutenberg, and though in the past I’ve read some of those on my computer, I thought it might be time to get something more lightweight. (Not that my laptop weighs more than about two kilos.)
I don’t think e-book readers will ever replace the feeling of holding a paper book in my hand, but I’m also a bit of a tech freak, so the thought of another gadget is rather appealing.
In any case, iearning how to use it was very easy. I only glanced at the manual, because the controls on the device are more or less self-explanatory. Easler in fact than handling my sister’s and my mom’s iPhones.
It’s also really cute. 🙂 And not very heavy. Holding it with one hand for a long time, might get a bit much, but you can always switch hands or put it on the table or on your knees etc. We named it Spock, because my sister’s iPhone is Uhura. (Ok, enough with the geek talk.LOL)
My sister promised she’d get round to writing a more detailed review of the Kindle including a comparison with an IPhone as an e-book reader, and also, if we’re lucky, and some store near us begins to sell it, with an iPad (at least as much as they’ll let you play with it without buying it. LOL:)
