Recruitment call(s)!
Jun. 4th, 2007 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofoneOh woe is me, my fellow angsters! There's a Drabble Tree Challenge over at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
mcshep_match, and I believe we are getting our black-clad asses thoroughly walloped. Don't make me cry emo tears! (I'll ruin my eyeliner!) Dash over there (it's open through Wednesday) and help out the cause! (And yes, that goes for me as well—so far I've been too busy lying in the dark, listening to "How Soon Is Now?" to contribute.)
Go, goth army, go!
ETA: I'm going to talk to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
trobadora about the posting problem. In the meantime, if you have a drabble you really want to post, please e-mail me and I guess I can put it up for you, assuming my luck holds. trinityofoneATgmailDOTcom
Now, on to the books I've been reading in the dark while listening to The Smiths (I had a flashlight).
Week 22: 28 May—3 June 2207
123. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Diana Wynne Jones — This is a fun faux-encyclopedic guide to fantasy conventions. Jones mostly addresses high fantasy clichés, and I actually haven't read very much high fantasy at all, but almost everything Jones skewers still felt familiar to me. Tolkien has a lot to answer for.
124. My Lucky Star, Joe Keenan — Keenan, a former writer/producer of Fraiser (which I don't believe I have ever actually seen a full episode of), does an impressive job with this comedic novel about a trio of screenwriters, an old Hollywood family with a whole heap of skeletons in its Bel-Air closets, and a newly opened spa/gay brothel. Much of the plot—which is actually incredibly tightly-woven, with many seemly insignificant details having surprising payoffs—revolves around the efforts of starstruck Philip to help protect movie star Stephen Donato from being outed as gay by his memoir-writing aunt; however, as one would expect, nothing goes quite as planned. This book is very funny (choice line: "Here was no brainless Hollywood hunk. Here was a man of vision, a passionate and sensitive idealist, and I prayed with all my heart that he might someday instill these noble qualities in me, preferably via fellatio." Hee!), and sufficiently sharp-edged if never too nasty. I think what Keenan was aiming for was something like Jeeves and Wooster Do Hollywood, and he's not far off.
125. Vintage: A Ghost Story, Steve Berman — Following a suicide attempt, Berman's nameless teen protagonist starts being able to see and speak to ghosts. He also falls in love with one: the spirit of a high school jock who was hit by a car in 1957. It's every emo kid's dream, right? Ahh, but of course there is a catch—namely, that the ghost, Josh, has major jealousy issues; his death may have been related to the fact that he thought his boyfriend, Roddy, was cheating on him with another guy. (Yes, the doomed lovers in this book were named Josh and Roddy. Yes,both all three times I tried to type "Josh" in this paragraph, I first wrote "John" and then had to go back.)
Berman does a great job with atmosphere—his spirits are really creepy, and he achieves this without the slightest bit of Stephen King- (or even Sixth Sense-) level gore. He also creates for the nameless narrator a really interesting group of friends: goth gal extreme Trace; Trace's intriguing younger brother, Second Mike; girlfriends-on-the-outs Maggie and Liz. (Though why the fifth, Kim, is always referred to as "the annoying Asian girl" or "the skinny Asian girl" is beyond me. Dude, we get it: SHE'S ASIAN. Did someone of Asian-extraction dent your car or something?) Oddly, though, despite its promising beginnings, the book actually becomes less suspenseful as it goes along; the climax was not nearly as intense or as frightening as it ought to have been. The book is still compelling, but it needed a little extra oomph at the end. (Maybe Bruce Willis should've shown up just so the narrator could tell him he was already dead.)
126. When the Stars Come Out, Rob Byrnes — While sharing several plot points (not to mention a title word!) with My Lucky Star, this book is much more serious—and much less enjoyable. Conversely, it would seem, Byrnes' novel's best parts are some of the more serious ones—toward the beginning, there's some interesting discussion about the politics of coming out, mostly based around the book protagonist Noah Abraham is trying (and failing) to write about closeted congressional staffers. (*waves to Julian Lodge*) Noah abandons this project, however, when he meets Bart, personal assistant to former movie star Quinn Scott, who Bart reveals is not only gay, but has been secretly living in Long Island with his partner for thirty-six years. Noah must then try to convince Quinn to let him ghostwrite a tell-all, even if it invokes the wrath of Quinn's ex-wife, the Hollywood heavyweight Kitty Randolph.
There are several problems with this book. First, it's too long; everything—Noah meeting Bart, Noah convincing Quinn, Kitty's machinations—takes much too long to occur. Second, none of the characters are really done any justice; Noah is barely in the last third of the book, and Bart remains as flat as a backlot prop. Why do he and Noah fall in love? 'Cause they're there? How very romantic.
And that's the male characters. The female ones, well. Noah's mom is out of the picture. (After several mentions of the fact that she eats her salad in an annoying way. Clearly, she deserves to die! Or, well, move to Florida.) Noah's dad's third wife is a dopey fag-hag lush. Then there are some other bitchy women, and of course Kitty, who is an absolute monster. Which might fly if the rest of the novel were a bit broader, but it can't really seem to decide if it's a wacky comedy or a serious issues piece. To be both requires a delicate balancing act, and whoops, I think Byrnes just got egg on himself.
127. Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie — The first Christie I've read, aside from The Mousetrap, which I acted in in 10th grade. (I played the victim, which means I got to be a real bitch before getting strangled at the end of Act I. It was awesome.) This was a lot of fun—I realize I like the methodical clarity of the type of detective story where the inspector interviews all the suspects, and carefully pursues each new piece of evidence. There were also some very fun secondary characters in this, though man, was I surprised at the emphasis placed on various people from various nationalities hating each other. (There were reasons behind some of this, but honestly, a lot of it was just, "Jeeze, those fucking Italians!")
I'm also puzzled by the common "well, I know you did it, but I am going to let you get away with it/not punish you in the traditional manner" wrap up of so many mystery stories. This happens often in the works of Doyle and Sayers...does no one ever get arrested? Y'all are conspiring to put ordinary policemen out of business, aren't you?
But, tangents aside: this proved a very fun way to spend a couple hours; I'm looking forward to reading more.
128. Hominids, Robert J. Sawyer — In a quantum computing accident worthy of a Stargate episode, a Neanderthal physicist from a parallel Earth where Homo sapiens died out while Homo neanderthalensis (or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, if you prefer) thrived is sucked into our world. He's rescued from drowning by physics postdoc Louise Benoît, put under the medical care of Dr. Reuben Montego, and befriended by geneticist Mary Vaughan. Meanwhile, back in Ponter's, the Neanderthal's, world, his work and life partner Adikor is accused of his murder... <--please note ellipses of dun dun DUN!
Most of this novel's focus is on comparing the Neanderthals' culture with ours: they live in a society where men and women are treated equally, but live separately; where everyone has two romantic partners, a man-mate and a woman-mate; and where crime has been almost eradicated through alibi cubes—monitoring devices implanted in everyone's wrists—chemical personality readjustment, and the forced sterilization not just of convicted criminals, but also of their immediate families. While I'll admit that our world is hugely fucked up—a fact Sawyer conveyed by having a man rape Mary when she's walking home from work; an event he dealt with well, I suppose, but which I still found traumatizing—Ponter's world didn't seem so great to me, either. Parts of this are addressed when Adikor is falsely accused and has to struggle to prove his innocence—oh yeah, was it mentioned that in Neanderthal land you're guilty until proved innocent?—but in general, Sawyer seemed to think that this alternate system he came up with was just AWESOME. Now, maybe this will be further addressed in the next two books in the series, but any society where forced sterilization = fantabulous legal policy is also pretty fucked in my mind. (I'm not so fond of the "women living separately from the men" idea, either.)
When the two societies were merely contrasted, I found this book very interesting; I also liked how Sawyer showed the rest of the world's reaction to Ponter. However, that the book seemed to come down so much in favor of the Neanderthal way was troubling to me. I mean, not only did Ponter have his "I am so ashamed of what you humans have done to this planet" moment, Mary had a "sterilization FTW!" one. I hope the next book readdresses this disparity; it would be much more interesting if the series were about how two societies can learn from each other, rather than how some Other can save us from ourselves. (With castration! It's fun for the whole family!)
Total Books: 128
Also, calling all booklovers: have you checked out Good Reads? I think it looks like it could be a really fun, book-related networking site, but it only really works if you know other people who have accounts. Joiiiiiiin meeeeee! I'm trinityofone there, too. I want to make friends!
mcshep_match, and I believe we are getting our black-clad asses thoroughly walloped. Don't make me cry emo tears! (I'll ruin my eyeliner!) Dash over there (it's open through Wednesday) and help out the cause! (And yes, that goes for me as well—so far I've been too busy lying in the dark, listening to "How Soon Is Now?" to contribute.)Go, goth army, go!
ETA: I'm going to talk to
trobadora about the posting problem. In the meantime, if you have a drabble you really want to post, please e-mail me and I guess I can put it up for you, assuming my luck holds. trinityofoneATgmailDOTcomNow, on to the books I've been reading in the dark while listening to The Smiths (I had a flashlight).
Week 22: 28 May—3 June 2207
123. The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Diana Wynne Jones — This is a fun faux-encyclopedic guide to fantasy conventions. Jones mostly addresses high fantasy clichés, and I actually haven't read very much high fantasy at all, but almost everything Jones skewers still felt familiar to me. Tolkien has a lot to answer for.
124. My Lucky Star, Joe Keenan — Keenan, a former writer/producer of Fraiser (which I don't believe I have ever actually seen a full episode of), does an impressive job with this comedic novel about a trio of screenwriters, an old Hollywood family with a whole heap of skeletons in its Bel-Air closets, and a newly opened spa/gay brothel. Much of the plot—which is actually incredibly tightly-woven, with many seemly insignificant details having surprising payoffs—revolves around the efforts of starstruck Philip to help protect movie star Stephen Donato from being outed as gay by his memoir-writing aunt; however, as one would expect, nothing goes quite as planned. This book is very funny (choice line: "Here was no brainless Hollywood hunk. Here was a man of vision, a passionate and sensitive idealist, and I prayed with all my heart that he might someday instill these noble qualities in me, preferably via fellatio." Hee!), and sufficiently sharp-edged if never too nasty. I think what Keenan was aiming for was something like Jeeves and Wooster Do Hollywood, and he's not far off.
125. Vintage: A Ghost Story, Steve Berman — Following a suicide attempt, Berman's nameless teen protagonist starts being able to see and speak to ghosts. He also falls in love with one: the spirit of a high school jock who was hit by a car in 1957. It's every emo kid's dream, right? Ahh, but of course there is a catch—namely, that the ghost, Josh, has major jealousy issues; his death may have been related to the fact that he thought his boyfriend, Roddy, was cheating on him with another guy. (Yes, the doomed lovers in this book were named Josh and Roddy. Yes,
Berman does a great job with atmosphere—his spirits are really creepy, and he achieves this without the slightest bit of Stephen King- (or even Sixth Sense-) level gore. He also creates for the nameless narrator a really interesting group of friends: goth gal extreme Trace; Trace's intriguing younger brother, Second Mike; girlfriends-on-the-outs Maggie and Liz. (Though why the fifth, Kim, is always referred to as "the annoying Asian girl" or "the skinny Asian girl" is beyond me. Dude, we get it: SHE'S ASIAN. Did someone of Asian-extraction dent your car or something?) Oddly, though, despite its promising beginnings, the book actually becomes less suspenseful as it goes along; the climax was not nearly as intense or as frightening as it ought to have been. The book is still compelling, but it needed a little extra oomph at the end. (Maybe Bruce Willis should've shown up just so the narrator could tell him he was already dead.)
126. When the Stars Come Out, Rob Byrnes — While sharing several plot points (not to mention a title word!) with My Lucky Star, this book is much more serious—and much less enjoyable. Conversely, it would seem, Byrnes' novel's best parts are some of the more serious ones—toward the beginning, there's some interesting discussion about the politics of coming out, mostly based around the book protagonist Noah Abraham is trying (and failing) to write about closeted congressional staffers. (*waves to Julian Lodge*) Noah abandons this project, however, when he meets Bart, personal assistant to former movie star Quinn Scott, who Bart reveals is not only gay, but has been secretly living in Long Island with his partner for thirty-six years. Noah must then try to convince Quinn to let him ghostwrite a tell-all, even if it invokes the wrath of Quinn's ex-wife, the Hollywood heavyweight Kitty Randolph.
There are several problems with this book. First, it's too long; everything—Noah meeting Bart, Noah convincing Quinn, Kitty's machinations—takes much too long to occur. Second, none of the characters are really done any justice; Noah is barely in the last third of the book, and Bart remains as flat as a backlot prop. Why do he and Noah fall in love? 'Cause they're there? How very romantic.
And that's the male characters. The female ones, well. Noah's mom is out of the picture. (After several mentions of the fact that she eats her salad in an annoying way. Clearly, she deserves to die! Or, well, move to Florida.) Noah's dad's third wife is a dopey fag-hag lush. Then there are some other bitchy women, and of course Kitty, who is an absolute monster. Which might fly if the rest of the novel were a bit broader, but it can't really seem to decide if it's a wacky comedy or a serious issues piece. To be both requires a delicate balancing act, and whoops, I think Byrnes just got egg on himself.
127. Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie — The first Christie I've read, aside from The Mousetrap, which I acted in in 10th grade. (I played the victim, which means I got to be a real bitch before getting strangled at the end of Act I. It was awesome.) This was a lot of fun—I realize I like the methodical clarity of the type of detective story where the inspector interviews all the suspects, and carefully pursues each new piece of evidence. There were also some very fun secondary characters in this, though man, was I surprised at the emphasis placed on various people from various nationalities hating each other. (There were reasons behind some of this, but honestly, a lot of it was just, "Jeeze, those fucking Italians!")
I'm also puzzled by the common "well, I know you did it, but I am going to let you get away with it/not punish you in the traditional manner" wrap up of so many mystery stories. This happens often in the works of Doyle and Sayers...does no one ever get arrested? Y'all are conspiring to put ordinary policemen out of business, aren't you?
But, tangents aside: this proved a very fun way to spend a couple hours; I'm looking forward to reading more.
128. Hominids, Robert J. Sawyer — In a quantum computing accident worthy of a Stargate episode, a Neanderthal physicist from a parallel Earth where Homo sapiens died out while Homo neanderthalensis (or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, if you prefer) thrived is sucked into our world. He's rescued from drowning by physics postdoc Louise Benoît, put under the medical care of Dr. Reuben Montego, and befriended by geneticist Mary Vaughan. Meanwhile, back in Ponter's, the Neanderthal's, world, his work and life partner Adikor is accused of his murder... <--please note ellipses of dun dun DUN!
Most of this novel's focus is on comparing the Neanderthals' culture with ours: they live in a society where men and women are treated equally, but live separately; where everyone has two romantic partners, a man-mate and a woman-mate; and where crime has been almost eradicated through alibi cubes—monitoring devices implanted in everyone's wrists—chemical personality readjustment, and the forced sterilization not just of convicted criminals, but also of their immediate families. While I'll admit that our world is hugely fucked up—a fact Sawyer conveyed by having a man rape Mary when she's walking home from work; an event he dealt with well, I suppose, but which I still found traumatizing—Ponter's world didn't seem so great to me, either. Parts of this are addressed when Adikor is falsely accused and has to struggle to prove his innocence—oh yeah, was it mentioned that in Neanderthal land you're guilty until proved innocent?—but in general, Sawyer seemed to think that this alternate system he came up with was just AWESOME. Now, maybe this will be further addressed in the next two books in the series, but any society where forced sterilization = fantabulous legal policy is also pretty fucked in my mind. (I'm not so fond of the "women living separately from the men" idea, either.)
When the two societies were merely contrasted, I found this book very interesting; I also liked how Sawyer showed the rest of the world's reaction to Ponter. However, that the book seemed to come down so much in favor of the Neanderthal way was troubling to me. I mean, not only did Ponter have his "I am so ashamed of what you humans have done to this planet" moment, Mary had a "sterilization FTW!" one. I hope the next book readdresses this disparity; it would be much more interesting if the series were about how two societies can learn from each other, rather than how some Other can save us from ourselves. (With castration! It's fun for the whole family!)
Total Books: 128
Also, calling all booklovers: have you checked out Good Reads? I think it looks like it could be a really fun, book-related networking site, but it only really works if you know other people who have accounts. Joiiiiiiin meeeeee! I'm trinityofone there, too. I want to make friends!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 06:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 07:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 07:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 06:53 pm (UTC)I think I still prefer Library Thing, though I haven't researched which came first.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 07:14 pm (UTC)I like LibraryThing, too. I'm suggesting this as an addition to LT, not a substitute!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 08:56 pm (UTC)*cocks head* double everything up?
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 09:14 pm (UTC)I hope it fixes itself soon!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 09:38 pm (UTC)Also?
*adds yet MORE books to her wishlist* I hate you.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 07:16 pm (UTC)I don't think of "letting the villain escape" as a particularly common trope... Wimsey angsts plenty about getting people hanged, although he does also have that tendency to let them take The Honourable Way Out. I don't think Christie does it very often, though. Not that I can remember off-hand, anyway.
Also, Hominids sounds totally WRONG IN THE HEAD. Eugenics for the yay? Um...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 07:29 pm (UTC)Yeah, but that's part of it. It's the, "We'll just leave the real law enforcement out of this, okay?" thing. What's with that? I think I mentioned it in my review of An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, too—not one, not two, but THREE bad guys accidentally or on purpose offed themselves before Cordelia had to bring them to the police!
I'm still trying to decide if Hominids is actually wrong in the head, or if Sawyer is just leaving some of that up in the air for the next two books. Maybe I'm just being really dense, but if I had to pick between the society that accidentally killed off all the woolly mammoths thousands of years ago and the society that is currently promoting sterilization...I'LL TAKE THE MAMMOTH KILLERS KTHX!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 10:53 pm (UTC)Looking forward to seeing what you add!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-04 11:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-05 12:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-05 12:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-05 12:50 am (UTC)As for the not-letting-the-criminal-suffer or not bringing law enforcement into it, that's actually a pretty rare event in her books, as far as I recall. The majority of the time, the law is brought into it, and she actually stood out from say, the Sherlock Holmes novels because she actually did show more respect for Scotland Yard in her novels, and didn't make them all out to be idiots.
If you're looking for more, I'd recommend And Then There Were None, Death on the Nile, and if you're looking to be creeped out a lot, Crooked House.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-05 01:14 am (UTC)I have And Then There Were None (though under one of its other titles—not the deeply inappropriate one, thankfully). I'll look for the other two, as well. Thanks!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-05 02:56 pm (UTC)And omfg Agatha Christie - I, er, was a bit of a Christie freak for a bit there, since I love cheesy murder mysteries and hers are up there with Holmes in defining the genre. Conan Doyle is much better in a lot of ways, but Christie's can be great fun. I think Murder on the Orient Express is the best one - it's the most original in both setting and resolution (I LOVE the ending, so much, like, I actually didn't see it coming, which is my favourite murder mystery thing in the world) and only a few others are quite as Up There in the list of Christie classics. I would recommend The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The ABC Murders, The Labours of Hercules, and maybe After the Funeral. If you've not read any of the ones featuring Miss Marple then Murder at the Vicarage and The Moving Finger are probably the best intros. The ones involving Tommy and Tuppence Beresford can be ignored unless you end up really liking her stuff (though By The Pricking Of My Thumbs is one of the creepiest of her books, imo), and the Mr Satterthwaite/Harley Quinn ones are just... weird.
... wow, I really wish that most of brain cells weren't full of crap like that. Heh.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-06 11:37 am (UTC)As for less supernatural/suspenseful at the ending... shrugs... certainly not sure how to respond. Not my intention. Ah, well.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-06 10:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-06-06 10:57 pm (UTC)