Choking Marmots

1. It occurs to me that I have not posted in roughly 11 days, and inconsistent updates is theoretically bad for viewership. (I say theoretically because in recent days I have actually received more attention than ever before in my blogging career.) But, in the interest of providing still interested readers with something new to see when they check this site, I will transcribe the following.
2. So that this isn't entirely unrelated to the topic I've been working on, characters, I should probably mention characters. What is something that could go here as a supplement to The Gears and Cogs Behind a Novel without technically being a part of it? I've got it! Examples. This list is going to be a short mention of a few titles I've read and what that particular book had to offer that made it somewhere in the range of good to phenomenal. 

 to , The Skinjacker Trilogy: aside from other aspects, Everlost had a very vibrant setting that absolutely fascinated me. There were extensive laws and quirks to the world that added flavor. The story encompassed a broad range so that you experienced but never became tired of one location. However, being in third person, I found it difficult to connect with the characters of Everlost. This book also had a good plot. (Have I written about plot yet?)

Hunger Games: the primary appeal of Hunger Games, I think, was 1) the plot and 2) the message. The violent and shocking twists intrigued and kept you guessing, throwing wrenches in the machinations and flinging the story into whole other directions while making paths that were inevitable (no spoilers here but fans should know what I'm talking about) still fascinating to traverse. The message . . . well, finishing that trilogy left me awake for several nights just contemplating. As for the characters . . . after the first several died off, I tried not to get too attached. 

Eon and Eona: some of these books best qualities were the characters and the plot. I've already said a lot about plot in the above examples that applies to Eon and Eona so I won't elaborate on that. Instead I'll say that, being in first person, I immediately forged a connection with the narrator, and followed their splendid character arc (I'll talk about that later) with much delight/revulsion/disappointment (no spoilers). I came to care about the other character's through the narrator's perspective. The writing of Eon and especially Eona is also skillful.

1. You may have noticed that I am avoiding punctuating non-defining relative clauses and breaks in thought with EM dashes. This is because there are no EM dashes on this confounded blog. I will have to figure out how to type those, since I can do it just fine in Microsoft Word.
2. Some fun ballads to listen to: Fire Coming out of a Monkey's Head (not as violent as it sounds, but this isn't part of the song title) by Gorillaz; Rocky Racoon by The Beatles; and Boy Named Sue by Johnny Cash.
3. And the last thing this post is about is not choking marmots. No, reader. Choking marmots are lame. I hate to break it to you.