8:30 pm Ok I didn’t go out and get drunk with my co-workers because reasons, and yet now here I am at home broodingtime again for…
DЯUNK BOOKE REVEIW!
8:30 pm Ok I didn’t go out and get drunk with my co-workers because reasons, and yet now here I am at home brooding about work and wanting a drink. What to do, what to do? Need some distraction. How bout some graphic horror and my good buddy, Maker’s Mark? Let’s do this!
8:45 pm Ritualistic sex murders, ok! Demons? Maybe so. “Incubi” must be the plural for incubus, I guess. Didn’t know they did their business in groups. Now I’m thinking of packs of fratboys. Ugh, what a terrible image, packs of fratboys calling themselves incubi, roaming around. Oh wait, I was in a frat. Ok, not all fratboys want to roam around performing ritualistic sex murders. Or maybe I was just an exception to the rule?
9:05 pm Man that was a whole lot of semen. Feels like a reason for some more whiskey.
9:30 pm Ed Lee is a terrible writer when it comes to writing about women. It’s like he’s never met one. Realistic female characterization is just not his bag. It is kinda cute that he’s trying so hard to sound like he actually knows how a woman thinks. But these don’t sound like any women I’ve met. It is pretty cool that they all like sex so much though.
9:45 pm Wow, Ed Lee also doesn’t know how to write about fine dining. Hmm, some pate and a nice hard cheese sound really good with this whiskey, I think I have some in the fridge.
10:10 pm Oh shit, pubes that are nine inches long. Sorta hard for me to wrap my mind around. That’s some bush on these incubi.
10:20 pm I have no idea why Ed Lee would use the word “poignant” to describe a man “supervising” a woman masturbating. Huh. I guess poignancy is in the eye of the beholder.
10:40 pm Uh oh, Becky Black likes to fuck. Doesn’t bode well for her…
10:55 pm Wow, Amy is smoking some grade-A cocaine out of crack pipe. Never seen that before.
11:07 pm“Like sipping rainbows” … Becky Black, get outta there! That eurotrash dude is probably one of the incubi! No one human says those kinds of things!
11:30 pm The characters are much better when reading this drunk. Wonder if Ed Lee wrote this drunk.
11:47 9m Hey ur her supervisor!! You should not have sex with her! Bad judgment!!!
12:00 am Midnight hour Need more whiskey.
12:10 am Gross. But sorta interesting too. Is this from Ed Lee’s research or he just make this up? Baalzephon!
12:20 am Time for sexy lesbianism!
12:22 am Eh I’ve seen better
12:32 am“The fresh air did not enliven her. It made her, in fact, feel keenly sullen.” I don’t like that sentences
12:50 am Aww Stewie’s sweet and he means well. And he’s bi just like me! Us bi guys really are the best. Cheers to you, Stewie!
1:00 am Hey is Ed Lee’s writing better or am I just drunk and out of it
1:15 am Maybe just need to go to bed. I dub thee 3 STARS because I dunno. But doesn’t feel right But who cares. Ok just skip to the end and see
1:20 am OH NO STEWIE NO!! ! WHAT THE I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS HOW COME BI GUYS ALWAYS THE VILLAIN. 2 STARS, BOOK, 2 STARS!!...more
look inside, young soldier. look inside your fellow soldier, see the nothing there, see the nothing that has been put there as a reason why
[image]
look inside, young soldier. look inside your fellow soldier, see the nothing there, see the nothing that has been put there as a reason why, see the nothing that has become a something, a reason for being a reason for acting a reason for dying. look inside your own self, young soldier. see the slowly building anger, see the red. you can shape that anger, turn it into a weapon, make it a place you can live, make it a reason for moving forward. it is the heart of you.
Soldier of America! shine bright, and bring the radiant dawn of corporate-military interests to these little third world countries! neither you nor your masters really understand why you are there in the first place - but who cares? you are all serving greater interests! be the pawn in a long-game whose rules are long-forgotten!
out of the darkness, into more darkness; out of the jungle, into another. make a home there! America is just a memory now, a place you once were; you are much more at home in this personal heart of darkness, this jungle of the mind, this bubbling sludgy swamp of the soul. you make new friends in this new place. your friends will guide you - and you will guide them! there is so much to teach and so much to learn.
grow up and become a living weapon, little soldier. do your parents proud! destroy! burn the people, burn the land. take everything from them. who is "them" anyway? it gets so confusing in the thick of battle. everyone looks the same yet also different. and what is a "battle" anyway, when both sides share the same goal? the answer to that question: destroy both sides!
The narrative unwinds like a glistening, multi-colored snake, its coils taking the reader here and there, a sinuous adventure that moves from set-piece to set-piece, each part so differently hued from the prior part, all parts leading to one place: the head of the snake.
The prose astounds. Lucius Shepard was a genius. The images are so rich and so beautifully rendered, a wonderful horrible nightmare, so many images.
An attack of butterflies, swarming, covering every inch of them.
A downed helicopter, stuck in the trees. A computer voice that lives on, imagining itself to be God.
Shirtless pilots sunning themselves, black helmets never removed, helmets that allow them to see things far and near, into a person and into the future.
An Ant Hill full of little soldiers. An attack in the mist.
An entertainment for the masses: soldier versus panther. Alas, poor panther! It has no chance.
Gangs of children, victims and victimizers, playing by their own rules, creating their own rituals.
A barrio full of almost-zombies to be used as their masters see fit, living puppets hacking at each other when the need arises and slumping into pools of refuse and excrement while on standby.
A slaughter in a church. A much-needed slaughter. A holy slaughter!
Psychic powers: psychic puppet masters making the whole world their battleground, psychic soldiers and psychic revolutionaries... our psychic heroes, David and Debora:
you have a trait: Anger. she has a trait: Commitment.
together you will inspire each other, feed off of each other, make each other stronger with each bout of lovemaking. your Anger and her Commitment will recharge and refuel - those traits are at the heart of both of you. recognize these traits, their power, and so be made whole. they will move you forward and they will give you love, passion, a way to connect with each other and a way to understand your own selves. and they will provide you with a mission: destroy the puppet masters, one by one.
out of the jungle, into your own jungle. this Green Hell is but one room in this labyrinthine mansion; go through one door and another one will open. it is your memory palace; it is the whole wide world. follow this green path right back to your home. there you will kill and there you will forget. maybe?
He must have a Lucky Star! ‘Cause his brand shines red like an abattoir He just thinks of chicks and he starts to to the tune of Madonna’s “Lucky Star”:
He must have a Lucky Star! ‘Cause his brand shines red like an abattoir He just thinks of chicks and he starts to glow The world needs his light But he just lays low…
[Chorus:] Starlight, starbright – he can’t see your plight! Starlight, [starbright] – can’t make his own life right! Starlight, starbright – he won’t see your plight!
He must be a Lucky Star ‘Cause there’s nothing from which he can’t fly far Want to slap skins – just come on by In a normal world he’s a normal guy
[Chorus]
Don’t ask any favors, he’ll just take flight ‘Cause you know no one can make everything all right
He may be a Lucky Star But you’re the luckier by far...more
And so we slept for a million millennia, on the edge of our great city. So close and yet so far! Why were we outside of our fair ciA TRAGIC HOMECOMING
And so we slept for a million millennia, on the edge of our great city. So close and yet so far! Why were we outside of our fair city, our families and companions mere steps away? The reasons are lost in time. And as we slumbered, our tropical paradise became a land of neverending winter, a polar graveyard.
We were woken, those of us who still lived. Four lived and four were lost. We woke in confusion and terror, our tropic city gone, the snow and wind howling around us. Strange bipedal things cried out and lay their hands upon us, intent on experimentation, their four-legged companions barking and savage... we slew them all in our panic. Odd creatures, these bipedal explorers. Were they the new masters of this world? Were they our peers? We, the Elder Race, have few of those.
We took some of their equipment, and a body each of the bipeds and their companions for further study. We buried our dead and then made haste back to our city, to see what changes a million millennia had wrought. After our leave-taking, new explorers arrived. They discovered our city.
We returned to our home. It had became an empty palace of the dead. Where were our fellows? Where were our servants, the creatures we called Shoggoths?
Only our loyal companions remained in this terrible empty city. They squawked their excitement at our return. A million millennia is a long time! But they could tell us nothing of what had become of our world.
Overcome with despair, we journeyed to a refuge that had been built by our kind, a city constructed within a subterranean sea. We followed our tunnels down. And there we found not our sought-for homecoming... but another necropolis. And so we found our doom. Shoggoths! Traitorous servants! As they had risen up against our kind in ages past, they had rebelled again - but this time they had won. They had destroyed our undersea refuge and all of our kind. And as we gazed upon our shattered city within the dark waters beneath the earth, the Shoggoths rose once more... and slew the last of us.
'Twas indeed a tragic homecoming. We that remained of the Elder Race, lost out of time, born again into a world so strange, and then so quickly slain.
The biped explorers had their own meeting with our rebel servants. The meeting did not go well.
And yet, unlike us, they managed to escape the Shoggoths, and fled our city.
In their flight, did they pass near that fearsome land next to ours, beyond our mountains? Ancient Kadath. A place out of time, home to the Old Ones. Terrible Kadath! We had lived in Kadath's shadow, in the shadow of those old slumbering gods, so long ago. What did the explorers glimpse in their flight near Kadath? Were we not the only beings the explorers had woken?
life is but a game, said the board game to the boy, and to his cousin, and to the wizard who was certainly no friend to either. life is but a game of life is but a game, said the board game to the boy, and to his cousin, and to the wizard who was certainly no friend to either. life is but a game of rolling dice and flipped cards, random draws and twists of fate and luck and unluck and maps that reflect your own reality, if you let them. just let it happen! it's all so exciting if you get into the spirit of things, said the board game. love and death and ruin and fortune doled out with no rhyme or reason, isn't that fun?
life is but the will to power, said the wizard to the board game, and to the boy, and to the boy's cousin, this wizard who was both school physician and Death Incarnate. life is but the power to force my will onto chaos, to create my own rules, to understand the universe's secrets so that they are but tools in my hand. I will make it happen! it's all so exciting to control fate, said the wizard. I shall exercise my mind and so enlarge my dominion, all shall be my puppets, the world itself my stage if I will it, wouldn't that be fun?
life is but a dream, said the boy to himself, secretly. a dream that can be lucid, having its own logic, but understandable, controllable. or it can be a nightmare, lucidity lost, the worst paths taken, threats encountered, villains winning. or it can be a dream where you just follow its flow. what happens will happen! it's all so exciting to barely understand, said the boy. I will project my ideas and see them transformed, my reality becomes dream, I dream then I wake, knowing those dreams will come again - what could be more fun?...more
Nicknames: The Many-Tentacled One, The Dweller in the Deep Likes: dreaming, sending dreams to minions, the watery depths, water sports in general Dislikes: locked gates, being stuck at the bottom of the ocean Favorite Craft: although he enjoys the comforts of home and armchair traveling via the minds of his minions, Mr. Cthulhu also longs for freedom and adventure - and so his favorite hobby besides scrapbooking is planning fun ways to get out in the open and into the world. What He Is Looking For: someone unafraid of genuine depth in another person; strong interest in immersing themselves in different cultures is a must.
Nicknames: The Black Man, The Crawling Chaos Likes: crystals and other "New Age" curios, trying on different outfits and shapes and meat suits Dislikes: racists, close-minded people :( Favorite Craft: a natural orator, Mr. Nyarlothotep enjoys crafting motivational speeches for crowds of naive young people and various mongrel half-human races looking to take that next step into the beyond or as food for the Old Ones - wherever their hearts lie, he wants to make that happen! What He Is Looking For: someone able to cast their innate biases and humanity aside, just let those preconceptions go and try something crazy & new!
__________
and now for the review:
sad to say, this is for Cthulhu completists only. the premise is fun: various characters realize that H.P. Lovecraft wasn't writing fiction at all, he was warning the world of the many dangers of the Old Ones! and off they go around the world, getting into horrific adventures on tropical islands, in the middle of the ocean, on jets and in churches and in dusty little offices and rich bachelor pads. unfortunately the execution is middling at best. although Bloch knows pacing and how to build an intriguing narrative full of weird imagery, unfortunately his actual prose is dull as dishwater (and other cliches). he betrays a certain reactionary, old man-ish stodginess whenever the topic of Youth Culture comes up - rather amusing at first but it quickly became annoying. I didn't appreciate the inclusion of a tired rape joke (the if-you-can't-stop-it-then-sit-back-and-enjoy-it one). but the most egregious flaw runs through the novel from beginning to end: characters can't stop commenting on how this or that scary situation is just like this or that particular Lovecraft story and hey, let's just describe that story, right now in the middle of the action. this happens again and again and again. ugh, so tiresome.
but this isn't a 1 star book, it does have its virtues. a surprising change in protagonists was a strength. the narrative shifts into the future for its last quarter, and I loved that. the novel also depicts the beginning of the end of the world due to Nyarlothotep's scheming and the eventual rise of Cthulhu, and I loved that too. the images of Los Angeles going down in flames then earthquakes then floods were quite pleasing, because I have also imagined such things when trying to cheer myself up....more
A Synopsis: A zero-sum game is played by two female cousins; a young woman is blissfully unaware of her puppet strings.
The Rules of the Game: "In someA Synopsis: A zero-sum game is played by two female cousins; a young woman is blissfully unaware of her puppet strings.
The Rules of the Game: "In some variants, all players discard after the dealer has drawn. The objective of the game is to continue to take cards, discarding pairs, until all players except one have no cards. That one player will be left with the lone unmatchable card; they are 'stuck with the old maid' and lose."
A Certain Kind of Style: Wharton makes a luscious cake with her words. Sly critique and sardonic appraisal carefully hidden beneath the rich details, the sophisticated rendering of a time and place. Under the layers of creamy butter frosting, screws and nails.
Rich Delia has let love slip through her fingers; she instead chooses conformity as her bedmate. But there lurks the heart of a revolutionary beating within her bosom. And so she will redirect her passions; she will give a young woman the freedom to attain what she has herself never achieved. This thoughtful widow barely understands her own motivations. She will give as she takes away.
Poor Charlotte must content herself with others' belongings, be they material goods or children or a man who comes and then goes. And so she will take the Stoical route and don the garb of An Old Maid until the costume becomes a reality; she will attempt to redirect a young woman towards a more realistic path. This embittered spinster has sacrificed everything to save one precious thing.
A Movie Adaptation: "Vividly, unforgettably, a woman's love starved soul is revealed. All those strange secrets she locks in her heart ... moments of rapture and of heartbreak ... longings that no man can fathom. Of these has the year's finest picture been woven!"
A Favorite Quote: "But she had learned that one can do almost anything... if one does not attempt to explain it"
The Moral of the Tale: Conformity will destroy your dreams and maybe your soul. Perhaps it is best to be a puppet who is unaware of their strings. Lucky Tina, the happy, clueless puppet!
a lushly written, weirdly ambiguous, often eerie little tale of an age-old curse and two lost souls who find eachgirl and boy meet-cute; antics ensue.
a lushly written, weirdly ambiguous, often eerie little tale of an age-old curse and two lost souls who find each other.
a night-bound young woman in a castle seeks to explore the daytime world; a young man takes up a harp and hits the road.
lady held captive by two cackling witches seeks support in escaping her dark and lonely castle.
guy looking for thrills and adventure and maybe some punani takes to the road with his enchanted harp.
a tragic woman and an optimistic man find they have much to learn about life, love, and each other.
a sinister enchantress wielding dark weapons and guarded by two brave elders sends out a diabolical spell that lures a young man to his potential doom.
a callow minstrel ignores all good sense by removing a sheltered miss from her castle; he soon grows tired of her and attempts to abandon her at an unfriendly village.
evil witch who has escaped her prison takes control of a poor Duke and terrifies his city; the witch's heartless paramour, a homeless singer, appears in the city to mock its residents and torment its brave Duke.
naïve girl is taken captive by a sinister Duke; innocent boy attempts brave rescue.
a tormented lass is possessed by a dark and deadly spirit; an ensorcelled lad seeks to rid her of this malignant parasite.
lonely, ancient spirit seeks to escape its unappealing mortal cage but another mortal misunderstands. typical mortals. *sigh* ...more
Aries the Ram thrusts forward, discarding the past except as a symbol of what has been overcome. Fearsome, single-minded Aries! This book does not falAries the Ram thrusts forward, discarding the past except as a symbol of what has been overcome. Fearsome, single-minded Aries! This book does not fall under the sign of Aries; it is invested in the past, it is enchanted by it. The past is such an important part of the novel that the narrative continues after its climactic resolution with a series of escalating chapters that take the reader back to where it all began. The Luminaries' characters live under the shadow of their own pasts, they judge others by their past actions as well. Aries is well-represented by Te Rau Tauwhare, a Maori greenstone hunter.
Taurus the Bull is a sign of love, in all of its strength and awkwardness, its earthiness and purity. Obstinate, strong-willed Taurus! This book has a strong Taurean influence: it has at its heart a passionate and moving story of star-crossed lovers, determined to persevere, blind to reason - two parts of a whole that yearn to merge. Taurus is represented - poorly - by the aloof banker Charlie Frost.
Gemini the Twins, sharp and cutting, a sign of the mind, of the air. Impulsive and restless Gemini! This book has a marked Gemini influence in its clever narrative voice, one often sidelined by description and dialogue yet still distinct, full of wit and sly innuendo. Gemini's influence is even stronger when considering the almost dizzying ingenuity of the book's look-at-me structure and its increasingly cheeky chapter introductions. Gemini is represented by Benjamin Lowenthal, a Jewish newspaper editor and a character in need of richer development.
Cancer the Crab moons about in its shell, moody and self-absorbed, yet caring and loyal to the end. Complicated, sensitive Cancer! The Crab has little to do with The Luminaries, except when looking at the novel in general terms. A strong and thick hardcover book, a complicated structure, a soft heart lurking within. Cancer is well-represented by the hotelier Edgar Clinch.
Leo the Lion sits back, the very image of self-satisfaction, a magnet to lesser men, a sun that would have the whole universe revolve around it. Confident and surprisingly generous Leo! The heavy-lidded sensuality of the Lion holds court throughout The Luminaries, its beautiful imagery and its rich descriptive prowess openly displayed; well-hung Leo also clearly influenced this book's impressive length. Leo is represented by Dick (lol) Mannering, a goldfields magnate.
Virgo the Virgin is the sign of this reviewer. It is the most wonderful sign imaginable: critical yet fair, judgmental but only in the most loving of ways, altruistic, well-read, self-sacrificing, practically perfect in every way, the Mary Poppins of the Zodiac. All must bow to the wonder of Virgo! The Virgin is terribly represented by Quee Long, who is about the opposite of any decent Virgo. For shame, Eleanor Catton, you have betrayed the Zodiac with your libelous portrait of a so-called Virgo!
Okay here's the one thing that bothered me about The Luminaries: the way it treated its Asian characters. Perhaps because I'm a hyper-critical half-breed who favors his Asian side, I'm always on the look-out for things to irritate me in the way that Asians are represented. Now I don't think that Catton has an issue with Asians, but it does chafe on a personal level how little they are respected in this novel. I understand the lack of respect coming from other characters, given the time and place. But I resented their actual parts and paths in the narrative - and that's all Eleanor Catton. One Asian is presented as single-minded in the most simple and greedy way possible; another is an opium addict and merchant whose tragic life and grand quest for revenge end in a limp little fizzle, off of the page. I raged (a bit) at the injustice of it all.
Libra the Scales is a sign of beauty, and much like Beauty itself, displays both grace and superficiality, charisma and vanity. Lovely, indecisive Libra! Libra's scales are seldom in balance; this sign seeks to make things equal and often fails. And so it is with the author of The Luminaries, a Libra on the cusp of Virgo. Her favorites among the novel's astrological characters are dynamic and richly developed; those less-favored are given mere cameo appearances. But don't look for fairness from a Libra - look for beauty! And there is much beauty within the pages of The Luminaries. Exquisite prose, gorgeous imagery, lovely moments within its lovely love story; the beautiful mind of its author, yearning to be recognized for its brilliance - and rewarded by the 2013 Man Booker Prize. Libra is represented - perfectly - by Harald Nilssen, a commission merchant.
Scorpio is the Scorpion, and the Eagle as well. It soars above the earth and lives in its holes. This strange sign is the Investigator of the Zodiac and is also its greatest conundrum - secretive to its core, yet suspicious of secrets in others; dark and unyielding; often cold yet deeply sexual. Mysterious, obsessive Scorpio! The Luminaries is intimately connected to the Scorpion, in its basic nature as a Mystery Novel and in its refusal to solve certain mysteries, to keep them shrouded in ambiguity. The Eagle dislikes having to explain itself. Scorpio is represented by Joseph Pritchard, a chemist and a perfectly executed character who is left almost entirely off of the page. Perhaps Catton feared the perverse potential lurking within him and so curtailed her exploration of his depths. I also felt the Scorpio influence upon this novel's villain, the dark, manipulative, unknowable Francis Carver.
Sagittarius the Archer shoots an arrow into the future, his true place; Sagittarius the Centaur gallops quickly, heedless of those too simple and slow to keep his pace. Strong-willed, independent Sagittarius! This sign's influence on The Luminaries is striking: it has no patience for readers of the idiot class. It makes scarce concessions to those longing for explanations or a simple plotline; it will give you the opportunity to come into its world and be surrounded, enveloped... and it will leave you behind if you are unable to keep up. Sagittarius is well-represented by Thomas Balfour, a shipping agent.
Capricorn the Sea-Goat: "still waters run deep" was surely coined for this sign, one whose stable and inhibited surface appearance belies the complicated ambitions within. Patient, resourceful Capricorn! A courageous introvert, a fastidious intellectual, virile yet chilly, dignified and aloof and rich with hidden depths. The novel The Luminaries was born under the sign of Capricorn. The novel's birth sign is represented - perfectly - by Aubert Gascoigne, a justice's clerk.
Aquarius the Water-bearer abhors restrictions and eschews barriers, seeking the enlightenment beyond, traveling the stars without and within, ever in search of wisdom. Inventive, rebellious Aquarius! A shallow reviewer of the novel would find little influence from the Water-bearer as the book is a carefully constructed puzzle rather than an ingenious invention, a mathematically mapped-out pièce de résistance rather than a spontaneous improvisation. But dig deeper and you shall find the sublime Aquarian ruling an eerie and haunting love story, one full of unexplainable visions and brazen leaps of faith. Aquarius is well-represented by Sook Yongsheng, a Chinese hatter and lover of opium.
Pisces the Fish, Pisces the dreamer, the last sign and the oldest. Pisces yearns for escape, in dreams, in drugs, in art, in the dark damp spaces. Elusive Pisces, the sign of self-undoing! I had a Piscean experience when reading this novel. It was my go-to book for a certain period of time, a little bit nearly every morning and every afternoon, for almost 3 months. I escaped into its depths, it was my sweet sweet drug and I fear that I am suffering from withdrawal. This lengthy review was an attempt to live in it again. Alas, now even this review is over. Pisces is represented - rather poorly - by Cowell Devlin, a chaplain....more
O my brothers and sisters, hark! The full moon is nigh. Soon our pale mistress will quicken our blood and command our souls. The great change shall coO my brothers and sisters, hark! The full moon is nigh. Soon our pale mistress will quicken our blood and command our souls. The great change shall come and so our true selves will arise – if only briefly. But perhaps such pleasures should only be given in brief amounts. ‘Tis better for our prey, the human kind, at least! Pathetic, limited humans. They will never know the wonder of our nature: the fearful pain as our furry true selves burst through our human guises, bones reshaping and pelts and muzzles and hard nails and sharp fangs coming forth... the glorious howling, as we sing to each other and to our mistress in the sky... the thrill of the hunt and the long races in the dark as we track and chase and toy with our human prey… the joy of the slaughter as we leap and then bite and tear and devour… the warm, salty tang of blood and the sweet, rich taste of flesh on our tongues. Mere humans will never know such things; they know only how to be prey. O hark, my brethren! The night comes quickly!
But first, a book review.
Moon Dance is an epic novel of the American Old West and purports to be a history of how the decadent European werewolves came to settle the land, only to find that a tribe of the native species have already claimed that land. It is a novel about a war between wolves, and the battles between the human kind and our early brothers and sisters. It is about shamanism and magic, a multiple personality, a human woman caught between wolves, old traditions dying and new traditions being born. It is about a modern day woman, solving a riddle and learning this history. It is about slaughter and atrocity.
I truly wanted to love this book. Certainly the subject matter is of much interest to me. I appreciated the differentiation between the wolf tribes, European and native. I enjoyed its fast pacing and dense plotting and respect for shamanism and native culture. Somtow also demonstrates some genuine skill with his prose; many phrases are compellingly evocative or haunting or strange or mordantly playful. And the story comes from a talented pen: its Thai author has not just been prolific within many genres of popular fiction, he is also a composer of music and a conductor of symphonies as well. He is currently the artistic director of the Bangkok Opera. An impressive resume, for a human.
Unfortunately he has a tin ear when it comes to actual dialogue. The dialogue, oh the dialogue! It does improve over time but there is much that is so strained and so wooden that it became impossible to read the book without rolling my yellow eyes in derision. The author seems to have little understanding of the human species itself! Except for the central character of the boy with many souls, characterization is often tediously flat or even nonsensical. An ongoing and particularly infuriating example: in the modern sequences, an apparently empowered and intelligent young lady is repeatedly degraded and threatened verbally by a handsome young man. He taunts her and continually calls her a bitch and refers casually to her innate racism and stupidity. The young lady not only never reacts to these provocations, her own internal monologue barely even acknowledges them. This is supposed to be a strong and independent woman? Her only reaction to his ridiculous commentary is to be... turned on. She is like no human woman I have ever met. Now I am not the sort of liberal lycanthrope who will often defend or rationalize the soft weaknesses of the human sort, but even I appear to have a better understanding of human behavior and a deeper empathy for the human soul. Humans are not just delicious, they are also complicated and emotional and react to provocation. Somtow does not appear to understand humans. Perhaps he does not belong to their kind?
Even worse is the excessive focus on slaughter and atrocity. Somtow attempts to conduct a symphony of orgiastic violence within his book. I realize my distaste may come as a surprise to my brethren. But page after page after page of atrocity: the torture and rape of children and women and men, the slaughter of animals and humans, the most brutal and vile examples of sadistic violence described in an almost gloating fashion, again and again and again… it became mind-numbing. The violence was so repetitious and so over the top that it also became rather a joke, and a chore to read as well. Violence a chore – to me! Believe me brothers, I was surprised as well. But as much as I appreciate the insensate screams of my victims and the bloody devouring of their flesh, really, there is a limit. There is such a thing as Too Much. Somtow’s symphony of slaughter eventually turned into a tedious cacophony to these wolfish ears.
I was also quite displeased with the author’s obsession with urine and feces. Obviously the marking of territory is a common habit, and a reasonable one. But does everything have to be described as smelling like urine? Does every human and wolf have to smell like and be stained with urine? Must the characters constantly urinate everywhere and on each other? And the feces! There was so much smearing of shit that eventually I realized that the author was overindulging himself, like a toddler who has discovered his diaper and stubbornly insists on playing with his new toys. And then there is the depiction of the rank smell of wolves... like that of a corpse. Excuse me, Somtow? How dare you compare a wolf's musk to the smell of rot and decay and bodily corruption! The nerve of him. I am of a mind to seek out this author and let him truly know my scent. And much else!
O my brethren, I would consider carefully before reading this one. It is not an atrocious book by any means and there is much to savor within its pages. But it should be seen as more of a “guilty pleasure” rather than as a novel of genuine worth. Much like the stalking and devouring of invalids and seniors... sometimes one can enjoy the lazier, less challenging pleasures. But that pleasure should never replace the thrilling joy of hunting and consuming something in the full bloom of health! And so, alas, I must continue my search for the Great American Werewolf Novel. Surely it must be out there somewhere.
and a post-apocalyptic, biohazardous America will be filled with EXTREME GORE and a man will travel across the land, guided by a voice in his head thaand a post-apocalyptic, biohazardous America will be filled with EXTREME GORE and a man will travel across the land, guided by a voice in his head that he will inexplicably name "The Shape" and he will be pursued by a rapacious squirming telepathic living virus known as "Medusa" and he will encounter a lot of EXTREME GORE and he will make friends of psychopaths and other annoying people as well as two women who are of course totally hot and he will fuck both of them even though I would think they would be turned off by all of the EXTREME GORE and so this merry band will meet all sorts of horrible things like the savage marauders The Hatchet Clan and insane mutated crazies called Scabs and giant flesh worms and giant mutated insects and mutated birds and mutated rats and things that live in sewers called Trogs and other assorted monsters and of course the radioactive tykes known as The Children, all of which dole out oodles of EXTREME GORE and the descriptions are really vivid and full of words like "xanthic" and "scabrid" because Curran is surely a very descriptive writer and he particularly enjoys writing about all the horrific things a virus can do to the body, on and on with those descriptions, Curran certainly has his schtick down, he just loves to describe his EXTREME GORE and of course you gotta wonder why I even read these sorts of novels filled with EXTREME GORE and well I do love horror and I love reading about post-apocalyptic horrorlands where you have to fight to survive, so I suppose that's the reason why, I'm not ashamed of my tastes, not at all, and so I read page after page after page of EXTREME GORE and after a while I do have to admit... it can all grow a bit tiring.
it is a perfect home, a perfect life. late at night, a man hears a noise. it is a wife talking on the phone, whispering, giggles. domestic bliss darkeit is a perfect home, a perfect life. late at night, a man hears a noise. it is a wife talking on the phone, whispering, giggles. domestic bliss darkens into horror story. it is a masterfully written sequence.
it is a horror story, but what stakes? an affair, a foolish relationship? an angry husband? who cares? this is horror? it has minor stakes. but it does become more... it becomes A Christmas Carol. it is the past, the present, the future. it is death in three directions; it is death as the only path.
it is well-written. the author is a writer, a writer's writer. he is no dum-dum. he loves his Dickens. he also loves his David Lynch, his Mulholland Dr. and his Lost Highway. there is a slight nod, a sneaky hint, it is there to be found. but it is both more and less than homage, I think. it feels like theft. that doesn't bother me. "property is theft", or so they say. people, take what you will. but no reviewers notice this Lynch-theft, this Lynch-homage. are these reviewers dum-dums? hard to say.
it takes from A Christmas Carol and it takes from Mulholland Dr. and Lost Highway... but what does it give back? what does it make of its own? is the combination and transformation of those sources a reason for being? it brings death to the table, yes. but that is to be expected: this is a horror story.
its Christmas Past: it is an exercise in pathos, then bathos. it is moving, and then not so moving - irritating. it made me itch.
its Christmas Present: it takes from Mulholland Dr, it takes the stage show. and then a gallery of atrocities. it made me scratch.
its Christmas Future: it is time for embarrassingly overripe gore. it has become an open wound. I put a band-aid on it by skimming past that goofy gore, gore for dum-dums only.
it has an ending: it is maudlin, in extremis. shattered lives, the real world, they came through the looking glass and shattered themselves, their lives, their future, during their journey.
it has a perfect old man: who would have, if only, he could have, why didn't they, why couldn't they, why did they have to, what a tragedy, oh the humanity, oh the living death of it all.
it is a unique experience for me. a story I grew to loathe; an author who began to intrigue. its creativity is questionable but the author's skills are undeniable. I throw the story away but not the author. I want to read more: I want to read a story he cared about writing, where he wasn't exercising or playing games. I look through the books he has written. I have found one! will I be rewarded, or will it turn out that I am the dum-dum for continuing this relationship?
Take a collection of mash-up stories featuring various classics, mutilated and then sewn back together. Now pit those stories agMASH-UP MORTAL KOMBAT!
Take a collection of mash-up stories featuring various classics, mutilated and then sewn back together. Now pit those stories against each other: a mash-up of mash-ups.
First up is the sepulchral Emily Dickinson versus the infernal Joe McCarthy. Kristine Rusch’s “Death Stopped for Miss Dickinson” tells a melancholy tale of Emily’s ill-fated romance with the Grim Reaper; Thomas Tessier’s “The Green Menace” finds the evil senator engaged in the good fight against a horde of rampant mutant frogs. Rusch’s wistful story has a lot of potential but it gets fatally muddied by an increasingly overbearing insistence that Dickinson destroyed her life due to an obsession with oblivion. The whole affair is somehow both vague and strident. Tessier’s story recognizes but unfortunately underplays McCarthy’s toxic nature. Fortunately he lives in a well-written, fun, pleasingly old-fashioned and surprisingly evocative adventure. WINNER: Joseph McCarthy in the The Green Menace.
Next up is a clockwork Anne of Green Gables versus an undead but still canny Billy the Kid. Lezli Robyn’s “Anne-droid of Green Gables” reimagines the plucky waif in a steampunk pastoral, yearning for the love of humans; John Shirley’s “Frankenbilly” has the Dr. Frankenstein-resurrected gunfighter visiting the set of the b-film Billy the Kid vs. Dracula. Robyn’s story is sweet and likeable but suffers from an excess of sugariness. It really got to be too much. On the other hand, Shirley (an author I have disliked) injects a certain mean-spiritedness into his spikey and imaginative tale. I’m a reader who prefers the sour to sweet. WINNER: Billy the Kid in the pungent Frankenbilly.
Next we have the tragic life of Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man placed within the equally dangerous world of Pokemon monsters run rampant... versus The Island of Dr. Moreau visited and exploited by a shifty and egomaniacal Walt Disney. Marc Laidlaw’s “Pokky Man” is exceedingly clever and has a nicely challenging style consisting of testimonials about the eventually fatal attempt of a Pokeman advocate to enter the Poke-world as an equal to those unknowable cartoon creatures. Skipp & Goodfellow’s “The Happiest Hell on Earth” has a bracingly bitter quality to it and is also quite well-written. It goes in a surprising direction, with the second half of the story all about Disney’s exploitation of Moreau’s man-animal hybrids within his film empire. I enjoyed both, but I’m going to go with the excitingly weird “Pokky Man” over “Happiest Hell,” if only because of the latter’s rather saccharine ending – although that ending is easy to overlook, seeing as the story is narrated by Dumbo. Dumbo should always get a happy ending. Nevertheless... WINNER: the Pokémon of Pokky Man.
Next is a battle between rock stars: Jim Morrison of The Doors versus Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols! Rio Youers’ “Quoth the Rock Star” has an evil Edgar Allan Poe attempting to suck the soul out of Morrison’s body so that he can replace it with his own. Mark Morris’ “Vicious” has an already soul-deadened Sid Vicious finding himself involved in some bad Louisiana voodoo. Youers’ sinister and hypnotic story really gets the poetry in Morrison’s nature – his story has some wonderful moments describing the Lizard King’s outlook on his performances and on himself. It starts strong and gets even better, ending with a really cool battle between lizard and raven. Morris’ “Vicious” is also pretty strong. Morris is a talented writer and I appreciated his clear-eyed empathy for Sid Vicious. He also knows how to create an interestingly repugnant atmosphere when describing Vicious’ entrapment by a creepy duo of women. Still, I would say Morris’ story is the weaker of the two because of a rather jarring lack of purpose. I don’t need resolution but I do need to know why I am reading something. This was a close call, but WINNER: Jim Morrison in Quoth the Rock Star.
And next up is the entire cast of Little Women versus that Norse bringer of Ragnarok, the trickster Loki . Rick Hautala’s “Little Women in Black” takes Alcott’s classic and puts it through a gothic funhouse; Chris Ryall’s “Twilight of the Gods” places Loki in the teen world of Twilight as he is torn between Team Frost Giantess and Team Valkyrie. Alcott & Hautala’s story is strange and eerie, full of creepy bits of horror that come sliding into the story in unexpected ways. The writing is rather fantastic at times and I can say I often had very little idea of what was coming next. Unfortunately there is a randomness to it all that ended up being confusing and, by the end, irritating. It was as if the authors tried to throw everything they could think of at the story without really looking at the story as a whole. Conversely, Ryall’s tale is all of a piece. This is an awesome story! I would never guess that the drippy, bland world of Bella & Edward & Wolfie could be turned into a clever and fun quasi-90210 tale of romance run awry, with impudent, arrogant Loki torn between a hot-blooded sword maiden and a giantess on the down-low about her cold-blooded nature. The very clear WINNER: Loki in Twilight of the Gods!
Finally we have Snow White & Alice from Wonderland tag-teaming Moby Dick’s infamous Captain Ahab. Sean Taylor’s “The Fairest of Them All” is all sturm und drang: dueling witches, a soldierly White Rabbit, lascivious dwarves, monsters fighting armies, worlds destroyed, an evil Alice (and a tedious Snow White, ugh), and even a little Cthulhu mythos thrown in. Nancy Collins’ “From Hell’s Heart” has Captain Ahab, demon-hunter, fighting the Wendigo in the frozen north. I’m sad to admit that I may have stacked the deck because this was not a fair fight. Simply put, Taylor is long on ideas but short on talent; his attempt to put a dark spin on two classics comes across as overly busy, eye-rollingly juvenile, and just rather amateurish. But Collins’ story is the real deal. Elegant prose, wonderfully conveyed atmosphere, absorbing mysteries, and a suitably horrific monster made the whole endeavor a complete pleasure from beginning to end. Her immortal Captain Ahab is a marvelous creation and deserves his own full-length novel. WINNER BY KNOCKOUT: Capt. Ahab From Hell’s Heart.
☠☠☠
There is a final story, out of competition: Joe Lansdale’s novella-length Dread Island. It is the best story in the collection.
☠☠☠
Winners (in descending order)
Dread Island From Hell’s Heart Twilight of the Gods Quoth the Rock Star Pokky Man The Green Menace Frankenbilly...more
The "Basic Eight" are a group of teenage friends. Flannery Culp is our neurotic narrator. The novel is about love and murder and friendship in high scThe "Basic Eight" are a group of teenage friends. Flannery Culp is our neurotic narrator. The novel is about love and murder and friendship in high school. This review of THE BASIC EIGHT features my very own Basic Eight from Los Alamitos, Orange County.
Photos circa 1988.
KEY WORDS:
REALISTIC ☻ PRIVILEGE ☻ SARCASM ☻ SAN FRANCISCO UNREALISTIC ☻ PRETENSION ☻ FRIENDSHIP
On a technical level the novel is somewhat impressive, given that it is a first novel from a novice author. I enjoyed the dark, intelligent humor because I gravitate towards darkness and intelligence when it comes to my entertainment. I particularly enjoyed the character of Natasha. She’s the sort of chick I also gravitate towards. Overall the novel felt somewhat realistic to me because I engaged in many ‘Basic Eight’ activities during high school such as talks about The Arts while listening to classical music over a sophisticated dinner. Unfortunately, I was a +1 to that group of adjunct friends; my own Basic Eight mainly indulged in binge drinking on our parents’ various boats. Sigh.
I grew up to be a Website Developer. I make more money than you can even imagine.
OH MY GOD THIS BOOK MADE ME LAUGH!!! SO FUNNY! IT WAS FUNNY BUT WITH A SAD AND SORTA DESPERATE CORE TO IT, JUST LIKE ME! HAHAHAHAHA! I’M NOT SURE I UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING BUT I LIKED WHAT I UNDERSTOOD! HA! OK I’M JUST KIDDING, I UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING BUT SOMETIMES I PRETEND NOT TO UNDERSTAND THINGS BECAUSE, WELL, I DON’T KNOW WHY! JUST BECAUSE! ANYWAY, GOOD BOOK!
I GREW UP TO BE A SCHOOLTEACHER! AND A MOTHER! TO A WHOLE LOTTA RUGRATS! PLUS I FELL OFF OF A WATERFALL AND SURVIVED!
Wow, reading this book was like reading my life story, well, not my whole life story and not the whole book either. Just the part about the gay kid, that really spoke to me, I understood where he was coming from and I admired his courage in coming to terms with it so young. But honestly, a lot of the book annoyed me, it wasn’t “laugh-out loud” funny, it was more of the sarcastic sort of humor that Marcy & Mark like so much and I think that kind of humor gets boring after a while, just the same sarcastic tone of voice over and over again, constant sarcasm which is really just being mean disguised as being funny. So I loved the gay character and I loved some of the girls, they were fierce... but I can’t say I loved the book too much.
So after graduating I went on various Christian missions around the world until I came to terms with being gay. Getting it on with another closeted Christian missionary can be an eye-opening experience. Now I’m married, to a man. Life is good!
I have to admit that I didn’t understand many of the references in this book. Also the author mixed up Oprah and Dr. Phil and that didn't make sense. And one other thing really confused and bothered me: this is set in San Francisco? And a schoolteacher – in San Francisco – had his house burned down because he was gay? Okaaaaay. Well that would never happen. I love fantasy but I don’t love things that are set in the actual real world that don’t bother to get their facts straight. Facts are important.
I grew up to be a Senior Accountant for Pacific Gas & Electric.
The girls in this book sucked! So neurotic. Why complicate your life with so much bullshit? Sometimes I just wanted to slap them all, they were so fucking pretentious. FUCK THAT ATTITUDE. Why couldn’t they just get drunk and relax, have a regular high school experience, why be such snobs, what’s the fun in that? BORING. A boring book about boring, angsty teenagers who don’t realize that they live lives of complete privilege. And goddamnit, they should be enjoying that privilege! Kids like that should be having a good time and getting drunk on boats, not hosting boring dinner parties and whining to each other all the time about their boring lives. STUPID. Only a liberal with too much time on their hands would write something like this.
I agree with Craig: these were some whiny, pretentious types who loved talking about themselves. Real twits - the sort of people that Jeff & Bill & Mark snuck off to hang out with because I guess they were just too cool for getting drunk on boats with the rest of us every weekend. What kind of teenager wants to talk about classical music, what kind of teenager prefers theatre to sports? The lame kind. But I will give it this: it has the sarcastic, nihilistic humor down pat. I loved that. I also enjoyed how it took sexual harassment seriously and I really, really enjoyed the comeuppance that one teacher experienced. I hope that scumbag stays in a coma for the rest of his life. I also didn’t mind that Adam State was beaten to death with a crochet mallet. Some guys deserve that. He was one of them.
I moved to Alaska and became an Assistant District Attorney. Later, I had a change of heart and became an Assistant Public Advocate. From one side of the courtroom to the other. Funny how life turns out.
Eh. The book was self-indulgent. It was entertaining, but by the end all of the characters annoyed me. Although I did laugh a lot. It didn’t make me think, but it did make me laugh. And laughing is good. Right? I dunno. Whatever.
I grew up to be a Physical Therapist. And a Jazz Musician.
I quite liked this one. It was a breeze to read and I liked the mind games it played on the reader – although the tricks it played were predictable, they were amusing tricks all the same. The author perfectly conveys a certain kind of voice – sarcastic, highly intelligent, mordantly funny, angsty, insecure. Flannery Culp is a striking and surprisingly loveable creation. The book started off fun and the fun only increased as the narrative darkened. Overall: smart, lightweight entertainment. One caveat: absinthe = acid? Really? No. I've tried both many times when much younger. Very different effects. Come on, Handler.
Anyway, I grew up to be a Goodreads Troll.
(view spoiler)[I’m pretty annoyed with a lot of the Goodreads reviews of this book. Some people need to understand that KIDS LIKE THIS DO EXIST. For real, people, they truly do. Just because their lives are foreign to your own personal experience, it does not mean that those lives aren’t possible. Your teenage years are not everyone’s teenage years. I mean really, duh, get your heads out of your asses. My friend Greg’s review was particularly condescending in how it posited that Daniel Handler was probably an outcast in high school – and so the kids in this book live lives that the author wished he had been able to live. It is all basically Handler's fantasy of an enjoyable high school experience, one where the outsider has a clique of intellectual friends and is finally able to get back at those who supposedly spurned them... when in reality he was probably just a lonely, friendless little loser. UGH, GREG, UGH! I think that since Greg was apparently a jock in high school, it is hard for him to imagine that people who weren’t like him and his friends could ever have Basic Eight-type times in high school. That they could have even enjoyed high school at all – people who weren’t like him and his friends must have been completely miserable, right? Unfortunately that is a common jocko misperception – I remember coming across that attitude in high school. I sneered at the arrogant cluelessness of that attitude while drinking on boats with my own Basic Eight. I also sneeringly recounted the cluelessness of such attitudes over many a sophisticated dinner, in between discussing the theatre and other arts, while listening to classical music, all with my Adjunct Eight, where I was a +1. (hide spoiler)]
☻
Look at us all together: my Basic Eight, my Adjunct Eight, plus some models and some jocks and a duck. But no cheerleaders! Not allowed.
what is a superhero? what is a person? what is a figment of the imagination if that figment is the projection of all we could be, all we can aspire to, all we can fail at, all that exists beyond our understanding? what is a jack-off fantasy template and what is a series of familiar moving images that provide us some small, temporary moments of comfort or satisfaction?
can you be a pessimist and also a realist? can you be cynical and idealistic at the same time? can fantasy be commodity, can it be disposable pop debris and yet also the source of creativity, something transformative, a way to dream the future or even live the present... something life-affirming while also something that is all too disposable - trash?
what is a "fact" and does a fact always retain its nature? can a fact be malleable? what is the difference between pastiche and parody? who is the Man in the Moon and do dreamers dream their own destruction because their dreams replace reality? what is this so-called "reality" anyway?
if you exist in one moment in time do you therefore exist throughout all of time?
hey is that orgy an adventure? do you want to join in or do you want to turn away? is turning an orgy into a massacre just a different sort of adventure?
what is a deconstruction? can you reconstruct a deconstruction? is a deconstruction its own kind of construction?
is every story its own form of reality? is every story equally real?
are you the sum of your history? are you what you are at this very point in time and nothing more? are you the image that you have created, an image that is given life because you have made it so? what if one important thing in your life, something that happened early on, something powerful, resonant, even traumatic... what if that thing was changed, what if what happened didn't happen or happened differently? what would you be like then? what would that version of you look like? would you still be you? if not, then who? what would your dreams look like? would this new version of you have the same sort of dreams?
what is good, what is evil, what is man, what is woman, what is gender, what is orientation, what is a society, what is an individual, what is the future, what is the past, what is life, what is death - and can we just mix and match all of those things together, as we see fit? and what is an Absolute? does that even exist? oh, it does? well who the fuck are you?
what is chaos magic?
what is a hypersigil?
what has happened 32 times and why does 3 + 2 = 5 = the number of sides of the Pentagon, and that's why the Pentagon must be destroyed?
he is an EX-SOLDIER! she belongs to a SECRET SOCIETY! this is a ROMANCE! but it has a lot of ADVENTURE! and MAGIC! in MONGOLIA! I liked all of that MONGOLIAhe is an EX-SOLDIER! she belongs to a SECRET SOCIETY! this is a ROMANCE! but it has a lot of ADVENTURE! and MAGIC! in MONGOLIA! I liked all of that MONGOLIA! she's no prude she wants to be an ADVENTURESS! and also his WIFE! he's your basic decent studly alpha male STEREOTYPE! his eyes, his skin, his hair are colored in shades of GOLD! he apparently smells like the WIND! she is an accomplished ARCHER! she really knows how to use a GUN! also, she sure knows how to ride a HORSE! the story was like a classic fast-paced ADVENTURE MOVIE! the feel of this book is decidedly OLD-FASHIONED! except he frequently mentions his stiff COCK!
Experienced nannies wanted for care of 13 children ages 8-17 in the safe, comfortable, and perfectly controlled upper class EXPERIENCED NANNIES WANTED
Experienced nannies wanted for care of 13 children ages 8-17 in the safe, comfortable, and perfectly controlled upper class environment of the exclusive Pangbourne Village.
✰
Position Description:
The nanny is a specialist working in the family's home, responsible for all tasks related to care of the children. The nanny will serve as a loving, nurturing, and trustworthy companion to the children. The nanny will carefully maintain at all times the liberal attitude enforced by the parents and society of Pangbourne Village. The nanny will avoid being shot, stabbed, electrocuted, and/or run over by the children. The nanny will avoid surprise strangulation by Vietnamese bamboo traps set by the children. The nanny will shower the children with hugs, kisses, and positive affirmation on an ongoing, continual basis.
✰
Major Responsibilities:
*Create a stimulating, nurturing environment for the children; *Supervise and monitor the children's activities at all times and provide a minute-by-minute accounting of all activities throughout the day and evening including in the bathroom; *Prepare meals and bottles for, and feed, the children (regardless of age); *Dress the children (regardless of age); *Place the children down for naps and bedtime (regardless of age); *Bathe the children (regardless of age); *Change diapers (regardless of age); *Discipline the children, when necessary, with a preferred disciplinary regimen that includes naps, hugs, friendly pats on the head delivered with a half-smile that combines subliminal admonishment with the understanding that the child is otherwise practically perfect in every single way, followed by handfuls of spending money to allow the child to maintain a positive self-image after the disciplinary regimen; *Regularly remove bite marks left by children on wall corners, bannisters, headboards, and closet interiors; and *Perform additional positive reinforcement activities as needed.
✰
Job Qualifications and Requirements:
*High school graduate required; PhD preferred. *Experience caring for children. *Experience treating teenagers like children. *English proficiency. *Comfort with status level of service position; lack of interest in upward social mobility. *Car, driver's license, auto insurance, and safe driving history. *Reliable, honest, and trustworthy. *Ability to keep children from, as they say, "running wild." *Ability to run very, very fast. *Ability to plan, organize, and multitask. *Ability to counter any plans and tasks organized by the children that could potentially lead to the violent massacre of all adults within Pangbourne Village. Safety first!
✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰
Pangbourne Village is a subsidiary of Ballard Microcosms Unlimited, Ltd™. Our model of absolute positive reinforcement at all times is delivered in the classic Ballard style, using the traditional Ballardian techniques of cool appraisal, ironic distance, postmodern pastiche, sardonic detachment, and small moments of gleefully vindictive humor at the expense of the affluent upper class and various soul-deadening institutions.
Pangbourne Village... Where Nature Is Unnatural! Pangbourne Village... Where Nurture Rules And Nature Drools! Pangbourne Village... Where Teh Children Come First!
As the saying goes: 'It Takes a Village'... Pangbourne Village!...more
My name is Banning Jainlight. I write fiction, specially tailored fiction: pulp sex American adventure stories. I I WAS A PORNOGRAPHER FOR HITLER!
My name is Banning Jainlight. I write fiction, specially tailored fiction: pulp sex American adventure stories. I write them for a very specific clientele. These clients, these monsters, they come into my life and I enter into theirs. Am I a monster, am I their fellow monster, their comrade-in-arms? My birth was monstrous, and I dealt with my monstrous family as they deserved - monstrously, as their own monster. I fled to New York; I fled to Europe. To Hitler's Europe. And there I found myself in a world of dreams, dark dire dreams that mass alongside a dire, dark concrete reality. I make my own reality! I change this world: I let evil make a nest of it. I reach out to new worlds, better worlds.
I live in a lusciously written, extravagantly hypnotic book called Tours of the Black Clock. My fiction creates worlds and my fiction recreates a woman. I punch through time and space to be with this woman; I leave my fluids upon her, a baby within her. She dreams me and I, her.
My name is Dania. I lived in Africa, in Austria, on Davenhall Island. I am a dancer! I dance men to their deaths: they die when I fling myself about, spastic and free, they die and die again, they die grappling with each other, hurling themselves through windows. Men burn for me; men die at my feet.
I have a special sort of face. Perhaps not a classic beauty - but this face launches its own sort of ships. One glance at me is enough to move men, to transport them to a sentimental past, to force open windows in space and time to be with me. One such monster ravishes me, a phantom, a phantom writer. He comes to me in the night, he comes to me throughout the years, he comes in me and upon me. And sometimes he brings a friend with him: a little tyrant who lurks in the corner of the room, looking at me as if upon his own past, as if looking upon what cannot be, such a longing for me. But I am not his woman.
But for whom do I toll? For Banning Jainlight? For Dania? For the white-haired boy Marc, that son of phantoms?
I toll for none of them and for all of them. This black clock tolls for an entire century! I move my characters in and out of history, I make a personal history a pulp story, I make the world's history a fever dream. A dream of a fever. A fever of love!
Hallucinatory prose and a circular narrative; time restarted and time disobeyed; murky motivations and characters as ciphers. A flow of strange words that progress clock-like, ever forward; a flood of words that submerges its banks; a river of words that moves backward, to its source. I am all of these things.
This black clock tolls for you, reader! I toll as you project your own desires onto the page, as you project those desires onto the faces and bodies of others. You remake history all the time, do you not? Your personal history, the history of the world with you in it; you remake history to allow yourself to survive within it. You project those dreams and they become your reality. You are both pimp and whore for those dreams. Banning Jainlight, Dania, Marc, even that sad and faithful detective Blaine, all my voices, all of my so-called protagonists... and you! You are all slaves to your dreams. Dream away! Dream it all away. Again.
wait, why did I write that? "vampire" diary? maybe cause everything in my life is vampire, vampire, vampire! best friend vampire. tDear Vampire Diary,
wait, why did I write that? "vampire" diary? maybe cause everything in my life is vampire, vampire, vampire! best friend vampire. training to protect vampires. actually protecting vampires. I'm half-vampire. I go to a Vampire Academy for chrissakes. vampires, vampires, everywhere. and now apparently I have a vampire diary too. hello, unconscious. argh! ok enough of this bs, I'm getting annoyed and need to work it out by working out. maybe this diary thing isn't going to work out. I wish I could talk to Dimitri instead.
Rose
❁
Dear Vampire Diary,
ok, let's try this again. just came back from a great workout with Dimitri and I need someplace to vent. hello, diary. I'm not really a diary sort of girl, whatever that even means. that's probably more of a vampire type thing, thinking about life, deep thoughts, writing it down, all that. deep. deep and not exciting. but I need someplace to put all these dimitris thoughts. whoah! ok, I guess I need someplace to put all my thoughts about Dimitri. those eyes! that voice! the body! shoulder length hair! now I know that shoulder length hair on guys is a total romantic cliché but whatever. I love that shoulder length hair. oh, Dimitri! Dimitri. ok, enough about Dimitri. I should talk about more important things like my training and my best friend Lissa and all the plots swirling around her and stupid school cliques and my hectic schedule and what I learned in dimitri today. what I learned in class today! it was something about - uh - hmmm - I don't know. honestly I was thinking about Dimitri the whole time. ok I think I need to take care of some business here because I'm feeling sorta frustrated and I can't get Dimitri out of my dimitri.
Rose
❁
Dear Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead,
there, that feels better. who needs a stupid diary when I can just write to the story of my so-called life. it's not like anyone's going to read this, they can just read the book. so anyway... I want to thank you, Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. you really got it right. sure you put a lot in about Dimitri and his hair but all that stuff really wasn't the point and you know that. first of all, I want to say how much I just plain LIKED the story you made of my life. it was fun to read! and exciting. you kept some of the boring parts, sure, whose life is all excitement, but mainly it was fun from beginning to end.
ok, that's all I want to say about the fun. you made it fun, thank you, but fun is not everything. what really counts for me is that you did not gloss over the things that were uncomfortable and deep and sometimes even ugly.
you got the addictive part right, the blood sucking, how it is like a drug or like sex and how much I want to do that drug-sex thing (or actually how much I want Lissa to do it to me). and getting bitten feels so good, so incredible, damn how it makes me feel! but I can't admit it. I don't want to admit it to myself and I especially don't want to admit how much I like it to other people, they'll think I'm some junkie or some slut or whatever, and if I think too hard about it, I'll probably think the same thing about myself. so yeah, you got that right, Vampire Academy. the self-loathing that comes with feeling good about doing something bad. but is it so bad? I like how you left that ambiguous.
you left Lissa's cutting in. I love you for that. you made sense of the cutting and why she did it. you didn't dismiss it, didn't shy away from it, and you didn't make it pathetic. you made your readers understand cutting in an honest and real way.
here's another thing you got right: my pettiness and my hypocrisy. I used the same disgusting tactics of gossip and shaming - both slut-shaming and shaming around status & class - on the people who used it on me. you didn't leave that out. you didn't excuse it. you showed how I was sometimes just as bad as the villains in the book. you didn't justify how low Lissa and I went in trying to defend ourselves, how we became just as terrible as the people who were tormenting us. that was hard for me to read. and it was important for me to read too.
but the most important thing you got right was the central relationship. you are not about me and my thing for Dimitri. you are about friendship between women. you are about two best friends, me and Lissa, everything else is secondary. that's the point of your whole story. sisterhood! that feels corny to write but whatever. it's true. your story is moving because it is about how girls can bond and protect each other and hurt together and move forward together. how they can understand each other. thank you for getting all of that right.
so in case you're wondering, I gave you 3 stars instead of 4 and that's because the writing was kinda bland and the second half got a little bogged down in DimitriDimitriDimitri. but so what! nobody's perfect (except Dimitri). I will still read your sequels.
ok I've been reading the reviews for this and am getting a little disturbed. reviewers are going on and on about how excited they are to read a romancok I've been reading the reviews for this and am getting a little disturbed. reviewers are going on and on about how excited they are to read a romance that features a Neanderthal. come on, ladies. Neanderthals aren't even our own species! well I suppose they are a subspecies of the homo sapien. but still. I bet there's not a single Neanderthal in Transcendence.
so get it straight, please. NO to Neanderthals! YES to Cro-Magnons. there is a reason why Cro-Magnons survived and Neanderthals went the way of the dinosaur: it's 'cause those Cro-Magnons were so darned cute, obviously.
❤
I finally got around to reading this! below is a review, with spoilers:
(view spoiler)[my experience with romance novels is fairly minimal (although I do have a bit of experience - it is a genre I find fascinating), so I wasn't sure what to make of this one when I was reading it. it just felt so unusual to me, and refreshing. can something be refreshing if you haven't been burnt out on other things like it? I dunno. but this was a charming read and had me smiling throughout.
I thought when I started trying out romance novels a bit ago that I would be attracted to the darker, more fucked up romances, particularly since my favorite so far is the very morbid The Silver Devil. but I loved the lightness and the warmth in this one. it could also be that I've been in a cheerful mood these days and the novel didn't take me away from that.
I had some issues with Ehd's internal voice - mainly the language he used and the way he described things. didn't really seem to fit how a prehistoric type would think. but that was easy to let go of and after a while it didn't bother me at all. the repetitiousness of some of Ehd's commentary annoyed me in the beginning as well - until it didn't. it began to feel like the way a person like Ehd would actually think. it became sorta cute too, with his constant focus on Beth's strangeness and his frequent desire to "put a baby in her".
so Ehd was adorable and so was "Beh" - I actually liked her character just as much. her excitement at being able to make useful things was a lot of fun.
about halfway through I began to wonder if there would actually be a sex scene and then BOOM here comes the very graphic sex and there sure was a lot of it. but it is hard for me to consider this an erotic novel, no matter how explicitly the sex was described. I wasn't turned on... I was charmed! the sex scenes were sweet and even heartwarming, which kept me cheerful because these are two virginal kids just discovering sex. I wish sex could be as positive an experience for all virgins.
I loved the whole set-up of the story. it was interesting reading something that was about living in a prehistoric world on a day-to-day basis, the minutiae in the descriptions. how to stay safe, how to stay warm, how to prepare for winter, etc. I suppose some could find the repetitiveness of the storyline to be tedious but I found it to be absorbing. there is also something fascinating to me about a story that is solely concerned with a man and a woman loving each other in this time period - and with no interest in telling any other story but that one basic story. being set in a prehistoric time made the love story intriguingly stark.
I loved where the novel went, that sure was unexpected. the story follows them until they die in each other's arms at a nicely old age. it was so tender, so loving. for a long time I was wondering where the title would come in, and hey there it is at the end, and it made perfect sense. this is mainly a 3 star book for me (and I like my 3 star books, it's not a bad rating)... but I was quite moved by its gentle ending.
liked the minor science fiction rationale in the epilogue. clever!
overall the book was original and highly enjoyable. I'd recommend it to Romance readers but I don't really know what "Romance readers" are generally into. I hope they like this sort of romance. (hide spoiler)]...more
Loading...
