Kat Kennedy: Stephanie Sinclair and I are here with McCormick Templeman to gaze delightedly upon the cover of her new book, The Glass Casket. McCormick, has anyone ever told you that your name is perfect for raiding lost archeological discoveries?
McCormick Templeman: I get that a lot. Also that used to be my main goal when I was a wee thing. Also, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here!
Kat Kennedy: We’re excited to have you here! Steph and I LOVE fairy tale retellings so we’re super excited!
Stephanie Sinclair: We sure do.
McCormick Templeman: Yay! It’s a very loose retelling, but it’s got a lot of dark Grimm stuff in its heart.
Kat Kennedy: Loose… *snickers*
McCormick Templeman: Tee hee.
Stephanie Sinclair: But we are hoping to convince you to instead go with one of Kat’s covers.  She makes art, I tell you!

Welcome to our tour stop on the Proxy blog tour, which hits shelves today! Pitched as The Whipping Boy meets Feed, Proxy is set in a dystopian society where everything has a price. Alex London is here to talk about the the quotes found at the beginning of Proxy and how it relates to the plot and characters. Also, at the end of the post there’s a giveaway for an ARC of Proxy!

Welcome, Alex!

Both were being denied their childhoods: the prince by a smothering excess of privilege, [the whipping boy] by none at all. —Sid Fleischman

This quote comes from Sid Fleischman’s speech when he won he Newbery award for The Whipping Boy in 1987. It sums up my feelings for each of my main characters perfectly.

Knox, who certainly lives the charmed life of a prince in the world of Proxy, might think he’s got no worries, but he is a victim of his wealth and privilege in ways he doesn’t fully understand.

Cuddlebuggery is on a two week hiatus as of today.  This means there will be no Buzz Worthy News post going up today or next week either.  In case you haven’t noticed, Steph and I have been a little bit lackluster about posting lately.  We’re tired.  We’ve been posting almost every day for more than a year and thus need a little holiday.

It’s easy to lose your passion for blogging.  A blog isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.  And most blogs take an extraordinary amount of time and attention to maintain.  Not only to keep the site going, generate content, organize giveaways, handle the huge amount of emails we get, acquire and read books, and organize interviews/guestposts, but also to be creative and try new things.  When we first started Cuddlebuggery, we loved to try new things and experiment with different posts and styles.  Lately, the more exhaustion sets in, the more we simply do the bare minimum to get by. 

My, that was traumatic.

So here we are at last.  The third installment in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent series of blood and steel and general unhappiness.  I was assured long before I picked up A Storm of Swords that it was going to wreak havoc upon my heart, even more so than the previous books had done, and so I did my best to brace my tender emotions for the impending doom.

It didn’t work.

Because Martin, it seems, has absolutely no limits or provisions whatsoever when killing off his characters.  No matter what your importance to the story may be, no matter how big of a role you may have played thus far, you are vulnerable to the creator’s mighty pen.

And it’s just awful.

A lot of people die in A Storm of Swords.  This series has never been a stranger to death, of course, but it’s different here, because the killings don’t fall primarily upon the unnamed masses or small, secondary players this time. 

This is going to be one of those rare times where my rating isn’t very indicative of my personal feelings of the quality of a novel. (Savor this moment because I don’t see it happening too often.) Here’s the thing about Neptune’s Tears: if you are a veteran Sci-Fi reader, chances are it will be lacking in complexity for you. However, if you are a noob to the genre or a younger reader or a reluctant reader, this novel may be perfect for you. Unfortunately, I don’t fall in the latter category and I don’t think I’m a part of the target audience for this book, but I can still see a lot of redeemable qualities for Neptune’s Tears.

The Good:

- The writing isn’t bad at all. Even though I mentioned I think this book would be great for younger readers, I didn’t ever feel like Waggoner was talking down to the reader.