Booklog for America
Sep. 8th, 2008 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityofone149. The Soldier and the Unicorn, Helen Louise Caroll — Haha. Okay. Um. So this magnificent narrative follows Ed, an American soldier in WWI, who’s injured on the battlefield and then, ha, saved from death by a unicorn who then, hee, scoops him up on its back and takes him to an abandoned house where it astonishes him by turning into a hot German dude, with whom Ed immediately has sex. Even though he is not gay. And then afterward, the unicorn is all “Wham bam danke man” and disappears—only to track Ed down in America once the war is over! And then they have sex some more. The end.
I read this because I was hoping it would be hilariously stupid, with maybe a side order of hot. It’s certainly the former. The prose isn’t actually that awful, but the premise is so frickin’ ridiculous that the author would need to do some pretty fancy footwork to sell it, and she doesn’t. In fact, the fact that one of her characters is a goddamn shapeshifting unicorn seems to matter very little to Caroll—it just is, so that while Ed is mildly surprised to discover that things like hot shapeshifting unicorns exist, he never even bothers to ask his lover, “So, you’re a shapeshifting unicorn. What’s up with that?”
The sex is pretty boring. There are a lot of weeping cocks and things of that ilk. Luckily, this thing’s really quite short—the perfect length if you just want something ridiculous to read/boggle at the sheer existence of. I think it would be best enjoyed read aloud with a group of friends, preferably while drunk.
150. Quiet, Please, Scott Douglas — Supposedly a memoir about Douglas’ work as a public librarian, this book is actually about how Douglas is smart and sane, while everyone else who works at or comes into the library is crazy and dumb. My god: rarely have I read a memoir where the author comes off as more of a pretentious ass. If Douglas were funny it might work, but instead he’s just mean. And not even honestly mean: he keeps trying to turn his mocking into little lessons about the importance of community, or “covering” a chapter of spiteful observations about a coworker with “I didn’t hate Brenda, but…” Oh you big liar. You totally hate her. I know that you hate her, because after saying “I didn’t hate Brenda, but…” a whole bunch of times at the beginning of the narrative, toward the end you slip and reveal, “I hated Brenda.” In the words of Marshall Eriksen, “LAWYERED!”
Douglas says there are two types of humor, David Sedaris humor and Dave Barry humor (the latter, obviously, being the unsophisticated, plebian type that’s only funny to people who aren’t Scott Douglas). Actually, there’s a third kind: humor that totally doesn’t work. Librarians everywhere can feel free to shelve this book in that section.
151. Superman/Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, Edmond Hamilton, et. al. — Really? The greatest? Most of these seem to involve Batman and Superman having to face down villains who somehow have—gasp!—the powers of Batman and Superman combined! (Um. Not that Batman really has any powers…) They are mostly pretty boring. There’s also one where Lex Luthor and the Joker team up to commit the horrendous crime…of stealing. My stars! Man, comics used to be tame.
It would also be nice if someone, at some point, could figure out a way to draw Clark and Bruce so that out of costume, they don't look exactly alike.
However, there were two stories in this collection that I did enjoy. The first is the first ever canonical meeting of Batman and Superman, in which they each decide to go on a cruise and, due to the cruiseline’s error, end up having to share a cabin. (Seriously.) The second is a recent retelling of that first meeting, with the addition of flashier art and some alternate universe shenanigans. And also Clark and Bruce in bed together. *snerk*
All right, so not the greatest, but those two were pretty darn fun.
152. Out of the Deep I Cry, Julia Spencer-Fleming — Third in the “A priest and a cop fight crime!” series. This one started out very slow—about half the narrative is devoted to flashbacks to Millers Kill in the ’20s and ’30s, and I just found it hard to be interested in that when I wanted to know what was up with Russ and Clare. They’re separated for much of the early part of the novel, as well, in part because they’re busy, and in part because they’re kind of avoiding each other as they try to not let things heat up between them again. When they’re finally given scenes together is when the book comes alive: this novel’s fairly dull mystery is saved for me, utterly, but just two sequences, one in which Russ falls and breaks his leg, and another in which he and Clare are trapped in a flooding basement. Man, those crazy kids can sure get into trouble!
I am going to keep reading these books because Spencer-Fleming has created a couple—and an arc of sexual tension—that I really believe in and want to see find resolution.
153. Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle, David Michelinie, et. al. — ’70s-era Iron Man, in which, you know, it’s hard out there for a man with a pimp haircut and ’stache like Tony’s. He’s got to deal with the Sub-Mariner, who looks like Mr. Spock in a Speedo but has way fewer social skills. And there are a bunch of lameass villains with lameass superpowers he has to dispatch. Plus, he has to address the problem of his alcoholism in a single issue that reads much like an Afterschool Special. Can you feel the excitement from here?
No, that’s just me still cringing about Tony’s hair. Egad!
154. The Dreyfus Affair, Peter Lefcourt. — Reread. Midway through my Ted Bundy scare (see below) I decided I needed some fluffy baseball players in love. I wish more people would write books about baseball players in love—then I wouldn’t have to read the same one over and over.
155. The Stranger Beside Me, Ann Rule — The story of serial killer Ted Bundy, told from a unique perspective: Rule, a former cop and a crime writer, became friends with Bundy several years before he committed the main batch of murders that made him (in)famous. A large part of this book is about Rule coming to terms with that fact that the man who was her friend and this horrible murderer are, impossible as it seems, the same person. It’s truly fascinating.
It’s also really scary. Bundy’s is a horrible, horrifying story, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. I still can’t believe that law enforcement agents in Colorado allowed him to escape from jail not once but twice—the second time enabling him to flee to Florida, where he killed at least three more women and nearly beat to death several more. Christ.
In general, Rule does a good job explaining but not exploiting the terrible events, although her prose does sometimes suffer from bad true crime clichés: stuff about “the pitiless eyes of a killer” and so forth. The book’s also rather too long—I enjoyed the updates included in this edition, following how the case progressed (when the book was originally published, Bundy had been convicted of two murders and was awaiting trial for one more; years of appeals followed, and he was finally executed in 1989) and how Rule’s impressions of her friend continued to change; however, I could have done without the lengthy middle section detailing Bundy’s first stint in jail—for all that he must have had an incredibly complicated and deeply fucked up psyche, he’s not a particularly interesting correspondent, and there are only so many of his letters that I need to read.
If you’re interested in true crime, I think this is a very thoughtful, thorough example of the genre. It is not, however, for the faint of heart.
156. Sex for America, Ed. by Stephen Elliott — This collection bills itself as Politically Inspired Erotica. However, having read it, I am really forced to question whether it was actually political, erotic, or even remotely inspired. My vote would be “none of the above.” It definitely wasn’t erotic—there was absolutely nothing I would consider sexy in any of these stories. There is, however, an awful lot of rape. Almost every single story contains rape—often brutal, bloody, anal rape. Um. That is not hot. Even Paris Hilton doesn’t think that’s hot. I don’t see what’s especially political about lots of brutal rape, either; even as a metaphor for “the current administration’s relationship with the American people and the Constitution,” it’s stretched mighty thin after being used in every other story. And in some cases, the symbolism strikes me as utterly bizarre: there’s one story about a guy who has to deal with being gay in the military…which he does by knocking his fellow soldiers unconscious with ether and raping them. So gay men in the military are rapists. Thanks for clearing that up for me, book!
Probably the funniest and most astute story in the collection is about Dick Cheney’s sordid gay love dungeon, which posits that the Vice President shooting that old man in the face was the result of a love affair gone wrong. And even that tale is not exactly subtle.
Fandom could come up with a better assortment of “Politically Inspired Erotica” in about five minutes. Fail, published fiction, fail!
157. Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris — Sigh. I tried to give this a fair chance, I really did. I went into it hopeful, despite some other negative reviews that I’ve read, because I quite liked the pilot for True Blood, the new HBO series based on these books. Dark, however, loses points from me right away because the two most interesting characters on the show—Sookie’s cranky best friend Tara, and Lafayette, the fabulous (in every sense of the word) chef at the bar where Sookie works—either completely don’t exist or have only the tiniest of roles, respectively. Lame. Still, I find the basic premise Harris has cooked up intriguing: in this world, vampires have come “out of the coffin” and are public knowledge; they can drink Japanese-manufactured synthetic blood and have basic human rights. (On the show I believe they are still working toward those rights, but it hasn’t been made entirely clear.) That’s an idea that seems rich with symbolic significance that, correctly handled, could be truly fascinating.
Instead, as Harris handles it, it’s just another boring romance between a powerful, possessive alpha male and his frail human woman who’s in need of his protection. Sookie isn’t, to be fair, as helpless and hopelessly devoted to her man as Bella Twilight Swan is, but the basic power dynamic between her and Vampire Bill is still incredibly boring. In general, as a couple, they are boring. So there’s that dullness—bad enough—which Harris proceeds to combine with several shakes of sheer lunacy. Sookie completely under-reacts to incredibly traumatizing things, like waking up with a naked shapeshifter in her bed, or a loved one’s murder. She believes the PR that vampirism is a virus and is really surprised when someone points out that that doesn’t make sense considering that shapeshifters and telepathy also exist, and, you know, vampires can fly. Despite being telepathic, Sookie’s only able to solve the oh-so-complicated mystery when the killer attacks her. (Handy!) Oh, and Elvis shows up. I am not kidding.
I wish I were, though. I also wish I was wrong when I say that I can predict pretty much exactly how the rest of this series will go, with Sookie, like a less lubricated Anita Blake, fighting off the affections of two men (or more) and unable to make up her goddamn mind. Both of those men will devote their lives to protecting her, and Sookie will say, “God! I’m a grown woman, I can take care of myself! I don’t need you to protect me!”—and then, instantly, need them to protect her. And then Kurt Cobain and Jimmy Hoffa will show up to hang out with Vampire Elvis.
Gimme a break. I can only hope that the show proceeds to more interesting ground, because reading this book, all I could think was: been there, done that, have the lousy fang marks.
Total Books: 157
I read this because I was hoping it would be hilariously stupid, with maybe a side order of hot. It’s certainly the former. The prose isn’t actually that awful, but the premise is so frickin’ ridiculous that the author would need to do some pretty fancy footwork to sell it, and she doesn’t. In fact, the fact that one of her characters is a goddamn shapeshifting unicorn seems to matter very little to Caroll—it just is, so that while Ed is mildly surprised to discover that things like hot shapeshifting unicorns exist, he never even bothers to ask his lover, “So, you’re a shapeshifting unicorn. What’s up with that?”
The sex is pretty boring. There are a lot of weeping cocks and things of that ilk. Luckily, this thing’s really quite short—the perfect length if you just want something ridiculous to read/boggle at the sheer existence of. I think it would be best enjoyed read aloud with a group of friends, preferably while drunk.
150. Quiet, Please, Scott Douglas — Supposedly a memoir about Douglas’ work as a public librarian, this book is actually about how Douglas is smart and sane, while everyone else who works at or comes into the library is crazy and dumb. My god: rarely have I read a memoir where the author comes off as more of a pretentious ass. If Douglas were funny it might work, but instead he’s just mean. And not even honestly mean: he keeps trying to turn his mocking into little lessons about the importance of community, or “covering” a chapter of spiteful observations about a coworker with “I didn’t hate Brenda, but…” Oh you big liar. You totally hate her. I know that you hate her, because after saying “I didn’t hate Brenda, but…” a whole bunch of times at the beginning of the narrative, toward the end you slip and reveal, “I hated Brenda.” In the words of Marshall Eriksen, “LAWYERED!”
Douglas says there are two types of humor, David Sedaris humor and Dave Barry humor (the latter, obviously, being the unsophisticated, plebian type that’s only funny to people who aren’t Scott Douglas). Actually, there’s a third kind: humor that totally doesn’t work. Librarians everywhere can feel free to shelve this book in that section.
151. Superman/Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, Edmond Hamilton, et. al. — Really? The greatest? Most of these seem to involve Batman and Superman having to face down villains who somehow have—gasp!—the powers of Batman and Superman combined! (Um. Not that Batman really has any powers…) They are mostly pretty boring. There’s also one where Lex Luthor and the Joker team up to commit the horrendous crime…of stealing. My stars! Man, comics used to be tame.
It would also be nice if someone, at some point, could figure out a way to draw Clark and Bruce so that out of costume, they don't look exactly alike.
However, there were two stories in this collection that I did enjoy. The first is the first ever canonical meeting of Batman and Superman, in which they each decide to go on a cruise and, due to the cruiseline’s error, end up having to share a cabin. (Seriously.) The second is a recent retelling of that first meeting, with the addition of flashier art and some alternate universe shenanigans. And also Clark and Bruce in bed together. *snerk*
All right, so not the greatest, but those two were pretty darn fun.
152. Out of the Deep I Cry, Julia Spencer-Fleming — Third in the “A priest and a cop fight crime!” series. This one started out very slow—about half the narrative is devoted to flashbacks to Millers Kill in the ’20s and ’30s, and I just found it hard to be interested in that when I wanted to know what was up with Russ and Clare. They’re separated for much of the early part of the novel, as well, in part because they’re busy, and in part because they’re kind of avoiding each other as they try to not let things heat up between them again. When they’re finally given scenes together is when the book comes alive: this novel’s fairly dull mystery is saved for me, utterly, but just two sequences, one in which Russ falls and breaks his leg, and another in which he and Clare are trapped in a flooding basement. Man, those crazy kids can sure get into trouble!
I am going to keep reading these books because Spencer-Fleming has created a couple—and an arc of sexual tension—that I really believe in and want to see find resolution.
153. Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle, David Michelinie, et. al. — ’70s-era Iron Man, in which, you know, it’s hard out there for a man with a pimp haircut and ’stache like Tony’s. He’s got to deal with the Sub-Mariner, who looks like Mr. Spock in a Speedo but has way fewer social skills. And there are a bunch of lameass villains with lameass superpowers he has to dispatch. Plus, he has to address the problem of his alcoholism in a single issue that reads much like an Afterschool Special. Can you feel the excitement from here?
No, that’s just me still cringing about Tony’s hair. Egad!
154. The Dreyfus Affair, Peter Lefcourt. — Reread. Midway through my Ted Bundy scare (see below) I decided I needed some fluffy baseball players in love. I wish more people would write books about baseball players in love—then I wouldn’t have to read the same one over and over.
155. The Stranger Beside Me, Ann Rule — The story of serial killer Ted Bundy, told from a unique perspective: Rule, a former cop and a crime writer, became friends with Bundy several years before he committed the main batch of murders that made him (in)famous. A large part of this book is about Rule coming to terms with that fact that the man who was her friend and this horrible murderer are, impossible as it seems, the same person. It’s truly fascinating.
It’s also really scary. Bundy’s is a horrible, horrifying story, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. I still can’t believe that law enforcement agents in Colorado allowed him to escape from jail not once but twice—the second time enabling him to flee to Florida, where he killed at least three more women and nearly beat to death several more. Christ.
In general, Rule does a good job explaining but not exploiting the terrible events, although her prose does sometimes suffer from bad true crime clichés: stuff about “the pitiless eyes of a killer” and so forth. The book’s also rather too long—I enjoyed the updates included in this edition, following how the case progressed (when the book was originally published, Bundy had been convicted of two murders and was awaiting trial for one more; years of appeals followed, and he was finally executed in 1989) and how Rule’s impressions of her friend continued to change; however, I could have done without the lengthy middle section detailing Bundy’s first stint in jail—for all that he must have had an incredibly complicated and deeply fucked up psyche, he’s not a particularly interesting correspondent, and there are only so many of his letters that I need to read.
If you’re interested in true crime, I think this is a very thoughtful, thorough example of the genre. It is not, however, for the faint of heart.
156. Sex for America, Ed. by Stephen Elliott — This collection bills itself as Politically Inspired Erotica. However, having read it, I am really forced to question whether it was actually political, erotic, or even remotely inspired. My vote would be “none of the above.” It definitely wasn’t erotic—there was absolutely nothing I would consider sexy in any of these stories. There is, however, an awful lot of rape. Almost every single story contains rape—often brutal, bloody, anal rape. Um. That is not hot. Even Paris Hilton doesn’t think that’s hot. I don’t see what’s especially political about lots of brutal rape, either; even as a metaphor for “the current administration’s relationship with the American people and the Constitution,” it’s stretched mighty thin after being used in every other story. And in some cases, the symbolism strikes me as utterly bizarre: there’s one story about a guy who has to deal with being gay in the military…which he does by knocking his fellow soldiers unconscious with ether and raping them. So gay men in the military are rapists. Thanks for clearing that up for me, book!
Probably the funniest and most astute story in the collection is about Dick Cheney’s sordid gay love dungeon, which posits that the Vice President shooting that old man in the face was the result of a love affair gone wrong. And even that tale is not exactly subtle.
Fandom could come up with a better assortment of “Politically Inspired Erotica” in about five minutes. Fail, published fiction, fail!
157. Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris — Sigh. I tried to give this a fair chance, I really did. I went into it hopeful, despite some other negative reviews that I’ve read, because I quite liked the pilot for True Blood, the new HBO series based on these books. Dark, however, loses points from me right away because the two most interesting characters on the show—Sookie’s cranky best friend Tara, and Lafayette, the fabulous (in every sense of the word) chef at the bar where Sookie works—either completely don’t exist or have only the tiniest of roles, respectively. Lame. Still, I find the basic premise Harris has cooked up intriguing: in this world, vampires have come “out of the coffin” and are public knowledge; they can drink Japanese-manufactured synthetic blood and have basic human rights. (On the show I believe they are still working toward those rights, but it hasn’t been made entirely clear.) That’s an idea that seems rich with symbolic significance that, correctly handled, could be truly fascinating.
Instead, as Harris handles it, it’s just another boring romance between a powerful, possessive alpha male and his frail human woman who’s in need of his protection. Sookie isn’t, to be fair, as helpless and hopelessly devoted to her man as Bella Twilight Swan is, but the basic power dynamic between her and Vampire Bill is still incredibly boring. In general, as a couple, they are boring. So there’s that dullness—bad enough—which Harris proceeds to combine with several shakes of sheer lunacy. Sookie completely under-reacts to incredibly traumatizing things, like waking up with a naked shapeshifter in her bed, or a loved one’s murder. She believes the PR that vampirism is a virus and is really surprised when someone points out that that doesn’t make sense considering that shapeshifters and telepathy also exist, and, you know, vampires can fly. Despite being telepathic, Sookie’s only able to solve the oh-so-complicated mystery when the killer attacks her. (Handy!) Oh, and Elvis shows up. I am not kidding.
I wish I were, though. I also wish I was wrong when I say that I can predict pretty much exactly how the rest of this series will go, with Sookie, like a less lubricated Anita Blake, fighting off the affections of two men (or more) and unable to make up her goddamn mind. Both of those men will devote their lives to protecting her, and Sookie will say, “God! I’m a grown woman, I can take care of myself! I don’t need you to protect me!”—and then, instantly, need them to protect her. And then Kurt Cobain and Jimmy Hoffa will show up to hang out with Vampire Elvis.
Gimme a break. I can only hope that the show proceeds to more interesting ground, because reading this book, all I could think was: been there, done that, have the lousy fang marks.
Total Books: 157
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-08 07:35 pm (UTC)I o_O at the political sex one. Like, even though a published book might not have all the leeway fandom does, HOW are people who supposedly use their imaginations to make money quite that... inellectually blind? o_O
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-08 09:00 pm (UTC)There are so many interesting ways to combine politics and sex in fiction. (At least, I think so.) I can't believe this collection had to struggle to find even one of them. LAME.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-08 09:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-08 10:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-09 06:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-08 10:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-09 01:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-09 03:39 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-09 06:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-09 01:28 am (UTC)When I'm in the mood for the good crack, I reread that issue. The snark, the bed-sharing, Clark undressing Bruce,
Deadpoolalt!Deathstroke--it's so random yet funny.(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-09 06:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-09-13 06:56 pm (UTC)Have you read "Changing Pitches" by Steve Kluger? http://www.amazon.com/Changing-Pitches-Novel-Love-Baseball/dp/0595468721/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221331899&sr=8-1
He has a quirky style of writing- through newspapers, notes, locker room billboard, and short conversations on the mound. His later books are pretty good, most especially "Almost like Being in Love" but I haven't been able to get through the newest book "My Most Excellent Year".
I keep hoping "The Dreyfus Affair" will finally be made into a movie. It's still listed "in development".