Does the ending hold up? Nope. Not in a million years.
AreIs this a fun book? Yes.
Is this a good book? Maybe-ish.
Does this book make sense? Not really.
Does the ending hold up? Nope. Not in a million years.
Are there likable characters in there? Well ...
Talking about characters: Enzo -- ridiculous; Millie -- sociopath; Nina -- oddly cool but unethical; Cecelia -- whatever; Detective Connors -- don't blink. You'll miss him; Andrew -- I guess he's evil, but not as evil as Millie (who we are supposed to side with).
For a while now, I've found myself drifting further and further away from podcasts. I climbed aboard the podcast train very early on, and gravitated tFor a while now, I've found myself drifting further and further away from podcasts. I climbed aboard the podcast train very early on, and gravitated towards the supernatural and true crime pods. But I grew tired of hearing multiple takes on the same batch of cryptids or haunted houses or cults or murderers, and the mostly amateur sleuthing about and readings of those topics started to seriously bore me, so I moved back to more academic histories and creepy fictions.
I couldn't help myself, though. After a while, the itch for the creepy and weird pouring into my ears though some disembodied voice(s) came back, and right about the time it did I found Colin Dickey's Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places on sale on audible. All I registered in the title was "Haunted Places" -- which screamed "SUPERNATURAL" to me -- and that was enough to shelve it and dive into some spooky places.
What I got was a surprise that shouldn't have surprised me because it was right in the title. Ghostland is first and foremost "An American History." Yes it is about "Haunted Places," but it is about what those haunted places can tell us about U.S. American history, what they can tell us about the U.S. as a society, what they can tell us about trauma in the American psyche. The places are incidental. They house the damage and crimes and exploitations of centuries of hurt, and those things are all morphed into mythology, ghosts of the traumas the country has undergone, has self-inflicted, has inflicted on others, places that contain the ruins of a country now aging itself into obsolescence.
Dickey argues that America's haunted places spring from the classism, racism and inequality at the heart of a nation that likes to believe it is more than it is, while carrying a history of deep divides, genocides, slavery, and failures to care for its most vulnerable citizens. And because of those traumas, ghosts spring up on Hurricane Katrina ravaged street corners, Civil War Battlefields, in the ruins of dying cities, in the strange houses of the eccentric or the psychopathic rich, in every corner of a country uneasy with itself and its history whether it recognizes it or not.
Ghostland was much more than I signed up for, and much better than I hoped. I would love to see something similar written about Canada and our Haunted Places. ...more
I don't know what possessed me to actually buy this book. I don't often pay attention to recommendations from my many book apps and sites (including gI don't know what possessed me to actually buy this book. I don't often pay attention to recommendations from my many book apps and sites (including goodreads), trusting, instead, friends and folks whose taste I admire, but I saw the ugly, toxic, choo-choo train cover and felt compelled to click some link somewhere and read the plot summary.
I think I found out at that point that Keith C. Blackmore was a Canadian author, so that probably influenced me. I remember thinking, too, that the cover of The Majestic 311 reminded me of one my favourite repeating billboards in my many Trans-Canada journeys, a billboard trumpeting the awesomeness of The Minnow Trap (a truly awful book by some goofy writer from Northern Ontario), and I thought The Majestic 311 would at least be some trashy fun to take my mind off all the serious books I've been reading. But even then I shouldn't have been convinced enough to spend the money on The Majestic 311, yet I did and much to my surprise I didn't just put it on my "to read" pile and let it languish for five years. I opened the cover and started reading.
Awesome decision.
I love The Majestic 311. It really defies description, but let me try one out without spoilers: a gang of Canadian train thieves finds themselves in the wrong train one cold, wintry, Alberta night, and that train takes them across the universe and back again. Or something like that.
The Majestic 311 started out feeling like an old black and white Twilight Zone episode, blending Western and the supernatural, then it turned into an 80s mash-up of Slasher & Western movies before becoming a full out Bizarro novel before morphing its tone to the New Weird before shifting to full-out Sci-Fi before giving way to John Carpenterism then eventually winding up in a sort of Rod Serling's Night Gallery double twist ending. I never knew what was coming next, what was waiting from train car to train car, and I loved every second of it -- much to my surprise. I loved it so much that by the time I made it about two thirds of the way through the book I had to slow down my reading just to savour the remaining story.
I'm not sure how many people I know would love this book as much as I do, but there is no denying Blackmore is a solid technician and a fiercely imaginative author. I'm already nearly finished the first book in his Zombie series -- Mountain Man -- and I can't see myself slowing up. Blackmore's writing is just too damn entertaining.
There is one sad thing about The Majestic 311, though. I have been dreaming of starting to record audiobooks, and I was going to beg Blackmore to let me narrate The Majestic 311. Turns out that audiobook ship has sailed. Too bad. Back to dreams of classics, I guess. ...more
I remember as a kid in the '70s that books by James A. Michener took pride of place in the bookshelves of everyone my parents knew, as well as taking I remember as a kid in the '70s that books by James A. Michener took pride of place in the bookshelves of everyone my parents knew, as well as taking up plenty of space on our own bookshelves. My main memory, and I admit that is a long stretch of time to be remembering with clarity (even though I feel like I am completely clear on this), was how untouched those books all looked. They were all hardcover, and the slip covers looked pristine in those shelves.
I also remember my Mom -- who was the most avid reader (and the reader who inspired me to become the bookwyrm that I am) -- was the only person I ever saw with a Michener in her hands. We had four on our shelves: Centennial, Space, Chesapeake, Hawaii, and it was the latter she tried to read. She tried and failed. I'm not sure how far she got, but I do know that she found him to be boring as hell. And she wondered aloud to me if anyone who'd ever bought a Michener book had ever actually finished reading one.
Yet I also remember the great excitement over the movie adaptations and "Event" T.V. mini-series adaptations Michener's books (and Clavell's and Wouk's) generated amongst the Boomers. And I sat and watched most of those adaptations with my parents, which must have been the impetus for so many people to own so many giant tomes that they never meant to read. They could watch the adaptation and then claim to have read the book, and it worked because no one around them had ever actually read the book and had no idea what parts had been cut or expanded.
I can now declare that I have read a James A. Michener novel -- Centennial -- and while I came close to tossing it aside in the earliest moments I am thrilled that I didn't.
It really isn't a novel, however. Centennial is a string of many novellas that tell one overarching tale. Sure, Michener calls them chapters, but there are chapters within his stated chapters, and each of Michener's chapters could or would be a complete novel in the hands of another.
I won't go into any details here, but it is important to know that details from every chapter / novella are important in some other chapter / novella somewhere else. Characters come back in the future whether they are a dinosaur, an overlarge beaver, an Indigenous family, a hermit, a herd of cattle, a suicidal rancher, a pseudo-princess in her castle, a murder victim, or the descendants of murderers. The interweaving of so many seemingly disconnected tales lends a depth to Centennial that makes every revelation in every antecedent chapter / novella actually exciting to discover. I wasn't expecting anything like that from James A. Michener, but once it began I couldn't stop listening to his tale of a parallel Colorado that helped him tell the tale of settling the west.
I expected little, almost stopped, but got so much in return for my perseverance that I may actually tackle another Michener epic. If you have any suggestions of what is worth the effort, please let me know. ...more
I finished my umpteenth rewatch of Firefly last month and was feeling a little sadder than usual that the Serenity and her crew didn't have any more aI finished my umpteenth rewatch of Firefly last month and was feeling a little sadder than usual that the Serenity and her crew didn't have any more adventures for me to watch. Then I thought, "What about the graphic novels?" But I have other graphic novels I've promised myself I will read that are already gathering dust, so I set aside that idea and thought, "What about the books?" And sure enough they're all on audible.
So I started at the beginning with Big Damn Hero, and I've gotta say it wasn't too bad. James Lovegrove (from a story concept by Nancy Holder) delivers what I like to imagine as a steady, middling episode in this literary second season of Firefly. All our favourite characters are present, and they are all very much themselves. It must be a gift to get to write about such well developed characters because so much of the work that needs to be done to endear characters to their readers is complete. And Lovegrove takes full advantage of that, trusting his readership enough to know that we all know everything we need to know. So he knows that we know and we know that he knows and no we all know what we know. And it's good that we know it. I know ... I digress.
The best parts of Big Damn Hero, at least my favourite bits, were the flashbacks to Shadow and Mal's youth. I presume everything in these novels is accepted canon, but even if that isn't so, Lovegrove's really nailed the feel of what Mal would have been like and the folks Mal would have run with, and the events and motivations that would have nudged Mal into his Browncoat, and that feeling of "rightness" is good enough for me.
A quick note on the narrator, James Anderson Foster. The man is "solid." Not mind blowing but "solid" in a Niska way. He doesn't spend his time trying to impersonate the actors; instead, he seems to be embracing their rhythms of speech, and he uses those rhythms to make each character feel like themselves even if they don't strictly sound like themselves. It is an excellent tactic, and he pulls if off fairly well. ...more
When the mood takes me, and it takes me increasingly often, I love diving into the tawdry, the naughty, the dirty, the sultry, the lusty, the sexy, thWhen the mood takes me, and it takes me increasingly often, I love diving into the tawdry, the naughty, the dirty, the sultry, the lusty, the sexy, the intimate, the loving, the erotic. And recently I find myself turning to the erotica of GK Grayson.
There is a refreshing kindness to most of Grayson's work that is too often lost in erotica, particularly erotica involving bisexuality. Too often I find humiliation and cruelty is the order of the plot, but Grayson (perhaps his name is a clue as to his perspective?), especially here in His Cuckold Craving makes kindness and love the heart of his tale. It's refreshing, and it also arouses the hell out of me. If you enjoy the erotic and you appreciate respect in your smutty books, Grayson could very well be the author for you. ...more
By the end of the first chapter, I knew I was going to like Bridgerton: The Duke & I. Over the years, I have become a fan of Regency period literatureBy the end of the first chapter, I knew I was going to like Bridgerton: The Duke & I. Over the years, I have become a fan of Regency period literature/fiction. (Jane Austen is, of course, the best, with the nautical tales of Patrick O'Brian a close second), and I will read damn near anything based in that era. So when Bridgerton entered my sights on Netflix I knew I'd have to read at least couple of volumes before I watched the adaptation.
Shortly after buying Bridgerton: The Duke & I, before I started reading, I made the mistake of watching the Netflix trailer; I was none-to-pleased with some of the anachronisms -- language, attitude, costume (mostly the misinformation around corsets) -- so it sent me into volume one of the books with trepidation, which, I must admit, was swiftly dispelled.
It was dispelled because almost instantly I saw what Juliet Quinn had done, and it was pretty damn brilliant. You and I both know that some of the best nineties movies took classic literature & turned them into high school rom-coms and rom-drams. What Quinn has done is to reverse the concept -- Bridgerton takes high school themes and motives and drops them into the Regency sans high school. Almost immediately the characters of Bridgerton reveal their anachronistic modern roots. They talk like my first year University students, not Mr. Darcy, Anne Elliot, Mr. Knightly, Catherine Moreland, et. al., and their behaviours are the same as our teenagers and young adults. I absolutely loved this move. It freed me from caring or worrying about having anything but fun.
So I let myself go and had a surpising amount of fun with Bridgerton: The Duke & I. I even liked a few characters (mostly the protagonist & her Duke), and the story's most delectable conceit: the Mean Girl who is the gossip pamphlateer Lady Whistledown. Now I want to read the sequel, & I doubted that possible after watching that trailer. So one more book, I think, then I'll let Shondaland's adaptation ruin my fun.
P.S. as Erotica goes, Bridgerton: The Duke & I was pretty tame, but I did appreciate Quinn's fearlessness (well ... maybe her mild bravery) in offering some slightly explicit moments of intimacy (of the Red Shoes Diary variety), and she even made me believe the Duke was a good lover when he finally went down on Daphne, even if it took forever & only occurred in the 2nd prologue written years later. I'm hoping things are even spicier in the future, but I can only cross my toes cause I smell vanilla sexiness ahead. ...more
I read a list somewhere by somebody that mentioned the 10 best detectives in fiction. Travis McGee was on that list (my favourites, Beck / Kollberg, wI read a list somewhere by somebody that mentioned the 10 best detectives in fiction. Travis McGee was on that list (my favourites, Beck / Kollberg, were not), and after reading the quick explanation for McGee's inclusion, I thought he'd be worth a try, so I went online and ordered a copy of what I thought was the first book in the series. I guess I saw #11 as #1 -- it was very late, so let's pretend my fatigue was the problem -- and the first McGee book to fall into my hands was Dress Her in Indigo.
I started it the next morning in the shower, and only realized then that I had missed the first 10 novels. A misting of water had already stained the pages, though, so there was no turning back. I'd probably have done better to read The Deep Blue Good-by first, but I am not sure it would have improved my experience with Dress Her in Indigo. In some ways diving into the middle of the series when our main characters, McGee and his partner Meyer, are well and truly established felt comfortable. I never felt like I was being introduced to these men. They were already there, already fully formed, they thoroughly existed, and I just happened to be meeting them in the way the characters in Oaxaca, Mexico were doing. And I found myself having similar responses to the pair that those connected to their search for what had happened to 'Bix' Bowie -- the daughter of a rich friend of Meyer's -- were having, which meant mostly charmed by them and filled with confidence in their capabilities.
Turns out that Florida is their usual bailiwick, and that Mexico was a journey afield, but the pair slipped right into the rhythms of Vietnam-era Mexico, full of reasonable Mexicans just living their lives while expats from all over the world -- the Euro riche alongside drug addled and/or shady Yankee hippies -- converge to hide from their past lives or make their fortunes in the Mexican underbelly or exact savage vengeance on those who've wronged them.
Dress Her in Indigo is a cracking tale. I am sure the inevitable new edition will have a couple of trigger warnings attached, what with all the sex and violence and sexual violence and drug use and torture (did I mention the violence?), yet so long as they keep John D. MacDonald's words intact such a warning shouldn't stop the daring amongst you from enjoying the sun drenched noir that awaits you.
If only someone had cast Jeff Bridges as McGee and Saul Rubinek as Meyer back in the late-80s. Now that would have been a series of films to rival even the great noir streak of Bogie.
Anywho ... The Deep Blue Good-by is on its way, and I am keen to take the journey back from #1 to #11 just to see what I think about Dress Her in Indigo with all the information I should have had this time through. I hope I end up liking it even more. ...more
My favourite "crime/mystery /police procedural" books of all time (and you already know this if you read my reviews on a regular basis) are the ten boMy favourite "crime/mystery /police procedural" books of all time (and you already know this if you read my reviews on a regular basis) are the ten books of the Martin Beck Series. I have read a physical copy of each book at least once, and many of them multiple times; I have also listened to all ten books every year for the last four years. Funnily enough, though, it isn't because I am a giant fan of crime fiction. I love the Martin Beck novels because they go well beyond simple crime fiction into the realm of societal reflection. They are a mirror and a chronicle and a criticism of the societies the West has created, and they are brilliant indictments of who we've become.
Having just finished Louise Penny's first Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novel, I can say that her series has the potential to make me love it for a completely different, though parallel reason. Like the Martin Beck books, the crime in Still Life, the mysterious death of Jane Neal, is an excuse to do something entirely different; here that something different is not a sociological examination of Western Society but an exercise in contemporary world building, where Three Pines -- the town at the heart of the Gamache novels -- is as much a character as its denizens are, and is as lived in and rich as any Fantasy world or Sci-Fi galaxy you've ever read.
Indeed, it is clear after just this one, first book, that Penny's Three Pines goes far beyond the small slice of the community that we first see through the eyes of Armand Gamache.
Every community in every small town is filled with mini-communities. In Quebec, where Three Pines makes its fictional home, there is bound to be a curling community, a hockey community, a softball or soccer community, a community of farmers, a community of bikers, a clique of car enthusiasts (or motorcycle enthusiasts), a clique of gardeners, church groups, school groups, groups of musicians, theatre groups, blue collar organizations, birdwatchers, drunks and ne'er-do-wells and any number of charitable groups. All these and more. On and on. And in Still Life we get just such a group at the heart of the mystery -- the artistic community. Yet all around the fringes of that community we see hints of all the other communities, and when we first open the pages of Still Life we get a glorious, rich map of the town, just as it must be in Louise Penny's head.
Still Life is crime writing as an excuse to create a fantasy world and populate it with its own people, its own history, its own mythologies, its own legends, and it is as immersive as any world filled with dragons and elves and orcs has ever been, maybe even more so because the folks of Three Pines could be you or me or us. I have a feeling that I am going to get as sucked into Three Pines as Armand Gamache did, and I am okay with that. ...more
When my son and I started reading Claudia Gray's delightful novel, The Murder of Mr. Wickham, my wife teased us with, "Reading some Jane Austen fan-fiWhen my son and I started reading Claudia Gray's delightful novel, The Murder of Mr. Wickham, my wife teased us with, "Reading some Jane Austen fan-fic, huh?"
We, of course, took offence in defence of Gray, telling my son's mom, in no uncertain terms, that this fun whodunnit was "not fan-fic." Darcy was not harbouring a deep love for Wickham that he'd been hiding for decades; Emma Knightley (née Woodhouse) wasn't having an affair with a well hung stable boy; and Marianne Brandon (née Dashwood) wasn't falling madly in love with Anne Wentworth (née Elliot) and throwing over Frederick in a mad dash towards Sapphism.
But really ... The Murder of Mr. Wickhamis fan-fic of a sort, just fan-fic of a higher order. Claudia Gray tells us, in her afterword, that she is a huge fan of Jane Austen (Austen even brought her and her husband together), and there is really no way she could have produced The Murder of Mr. Wickham if she wasn't. Gray knows Austen's characters, and everything that happens at the Knightley's ill fated gathering at Donwell Abbey happens in ways that ring true. In fact, from Gray's two new characters -- Jonathon Darcy (son of Fitzwilliam and Lizzy) and Juliet Tilney (daughter of Henry and Catherine), to her murder mystery and its investigation, to her evocation of Highbury, Gray gets everything right. Indeed, there is only one thing that she's done that feels a little too modern to me, but since I thoroughly enjoyed that moment it would be churlish to call it out by name.
If you are an Austen fan, I highly recommend The Murder of Mr. Wickham. And if you are not an Austen fan, I am forced to ask you what the fuck your problem is? Answer below, if you like ;)....more
Shift was another strange reading experience for me, and I've been having a lot of those lately. The reason for my strangeness with this book is not uShift was another strange reading experience for me, and I've been having a lot of those lately. The reason for my strangeness with this book is not unique to Shift, however. I have happened to be reading a lot of prequels (and watching film prequels too), and I have to admit I really struggle with the form.
And so it turned out with HughHowey's Shift. I'd struggled throughout with the question of whether I really wanted to be reading the book or not, compounded with the thought that maybe Howey should never have even written this chapter of his tale, that maybe the events that preceded Wool should have stayed in Howey's mind, or as a jumble of notes in a file folder in his filing cabinet.
Prequels -- and even sequels -- take away one of the great joys of the creative experience for the reader. Because I think we all forget that thing Wolfgang Iser was trying to tell us about being a reader, that idea that the stars in the firmament are fixed but the person looking into the sky connects those stars with lines that provide shape. So the drive to monetize what came before and what comes after a truly creative series diminishes the imaginations that connect those stars. As I say, however, I struggle, because Howey, surely, doesn't want some other writer coming along when he is gone, and imagining a completely different set of precedents to Wool because some book company or family member or movie company wants to cash in with his brilliant tale. At least this way, with Shift, we get the authoritative events as Howey intended. We now know what happened to the world, we know who, how and why a Solo became, and now no one can take that or change that.
But I miss those days when there were only three Star Wars films and an entire afternoon on a bus then an LRT then on foot, then in a comic book store, then back on foot to the LRT and another bus could be filled with "what ifs?" that could only ever exist in our heads and in that space of a single day with no external record or fan fiction or potential to preclude anyone else's imaginings we could live our very only series of Star Wars prequels. That creativity was fierce and lovely and pure. I long for that creativity as a reader / viewer to come back. And I was enjoying something like that for a spell after putting Wool down.
Shift took that away. Yet here I am still giving Mr. Howey 4 stars, because I really enjoyed Shift and I am glad I read it -- even though it wasn't what I had imagined for myself. ...more
Delicious from beginning to end, from its Chocolate-Cream Soldier to its Soubrette, from its military buffoonery to its homefrontYummy, yummy satire.
Delicious from beginning to end, from its Chocolate-Cream Soldier to its Soubrette, from its military buffoonery to its homefront worshipfulness, George Bernard Shaw baked a perfect souffle of anti-war, anti-romance, anti-establishment.
It should be staged today, tomorrow and forever. ...more
Nothing tires me more in today's media and social media than the constant coverage of the super-rich or super-famous. It goes beyond my personal annoyNothing tires me more in today's media and social media than the constant coverage of the super-rich or super-famous. It goes beyond my personal annoyance at hearing about every move billionaires make, or having the death of the figurehead of a long ridiculous institution dominate our news cycles so that real news can be shunted to the side and ignored. I think it endangers us all on an individual level, suggesting that whomever we are and whatever we are doing is not good enough. That our lives are not a story. That we all have no value.
84, Charing Cross Road is the cure for that ailment.
It is a beautiful, simple, epistolary autobiography by Helene Hanff (well ... at least half by Helene), which tells the tale of her life in late '40s / early '50s USA, and how it intersects with a group of real people she befriends at the Marks & Co Antiquarian Booksellers in London -- most importantly the company's book buyer, Frank Doel.
These are not the super rich, these are not the super famous, these are not politicians or world changers, and Hanff's story is not one of high drama or intrigue or action. But these are compelling people because they, quite simply, are real people living real lives with real struggles. And maybe it's these people ... all of the rest of us ... who we need to be hearing about from day to day. Maybe these are the stories we should be telling. Maybe then we'd move ever so slowly towards something like equality rather than being pushed farther and farther apart. ...more
Girls Like That really blew me away. I am not sure what I was expecting because my expectations were solely based on the cover of the book, but I wasnGirls Like That really blew me away. I am not sure what I was expecting because my expectations were solely based on the cover of the book, but I wasn’t expecting to be so moved -- I suppose, then, it exceeded my expectations by a fair bit.
This is a play I would want to take my whole family to, without a doubt. Evan Placey doesn’t shy away from anything difficult, from anything that would make “a parent” uncomfortable, thereby treating his intended audience, which I think is teens/young adults, with great respect, knowing that the very things he is writing about are things that teens must deal with everyday. And, wow, the possibilities for staging this play! I think it would be perfect in the round, but it could be done almost any way and be a success. And if an all-“Girl” cast could be put together, it would be a fantastic ensemble to watch.
Really ... everything Evan Placey wrote makes me excited to see Girls Like That. The inciting moment of the nude photo (and its landmark as a gateway in the play) is far less important than how Girls Like That examines the power dynamics between social groups and between “traditional” gender groups after such a gateway moment is revealed. The raw emotion of the play, even stagnant on the page, is overwhelming, and seeing this staged is an exciting prospect. Two scenes standout above all others, however: 1. the McDonald’s scene (and what comes after); 2. the Vigil scene. I think these two scenes have to be seen on stage to have maximum impact, but my mind’s eye was captivated by them both just the same.
I couldn't help wondering what a discussion of this play would be like. I imagine there would be an almost universal feeling within individual audience members that they would not behave as badly as the people did in Girls Like That, which would prompt me to do all I could to coax my interlocutors to challenge this perception about themselves. The very fact that we are all likely to deny that we would act like the people in Girls Like That is why such behaviour is consistently perpetuated. I wouldn't make friends in this discussion, but it would sure be a fun conversation. Ultimately, Evan Placey’s work speaks a universal truth; someone must be acting the way they do in the play because it happens everyday. If not us, who?
See this play. Read this play. Find a way to engage with Girls Like That....more
I was reading and right in the middle of a good page Like all at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking at my brain Before I go inDear Leigh,
I was reading and right in the middle of a good page Like all at once I wake up from something that keeps knocking at my brain Before I go insane I hold my pillow to my head And spring up in my bed screaming out the words I dread I think I love Kaz (I think I love Kaz)
This morning I woke up with this feeling I didn't know how to deal with and so I just decided to myself I'd hide it to myself and never talk about it And did not go and shout it when I read another page I think I love Kaz (I think I love Kaz)
I think I love Kaz so what am I so afraid of I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for
I think I love Kaz isn't that what life is made of Though it worries me to say that I never felt this way
I don't know what Iwe're up against I don't know what it's all about We've got so much to think about
Hey, I think I love Kaz so what am I so afraid of I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for
I think I love Kaz isn't that what life is made of Though it worries me to say I never felt this way
Believe me you really don't have to worry I only wanna make you happy and if you say "hey go away" I will But I think better still I'd better stay around and read you Do you think I have a case let me ask you to your face Do you think you dig me?
I think I love Kaz I think I love Kaz I think I love Kaz I think I love Kaz I think I love Kaz I think I love Kaz I think I love Kaz I think I love Kaz
Oslo -- capital of Norway -- is the unlikely home of the Oslo Accords that brought a brief semblance of peace between Israel and the P.L.O. (PalestiniOslo -- capital of Norway -- is the unlikely home of the Oslo Accords that brought a brief semblance of peace between Israel and the P.L.O. (Palestinian Liberation Organization), which ended with the Second Intifada. The back door channel to the Middle East peace process seems a difficult beast for the stage: so many players, so many months, so many meetings, so many concerns.
I expected to see one crucial moment of the process, one important meeting that would dramatize the overall historical moment. I expected a dull, dry, heavy handed (possibly even one-sided) opinion piece. I expected to be interested but not entertained. Truth be told, I expected very little.
I am so glad to have had my expectations overturned.
Playwright J.T. Rogers' Oslo is a wonder. It flies along at a Nandorian pace. It hits us with all the anger and arrogance and disdain we expect from the negotiating parties; it digs out moments of sadness and emotion and humanity from everyone involved; it also finds -- in this strangest of historical moments -- deep wells of laughter, sometimes slapsticky, sometimes witty, sometimes jokey, but always laugh out loud funny. And it left me wanting more of everything.
This is a play I have to see on stage someday. Or on screen (why is this not a movie?). But I have to see it someday. Well done, J.T. Rogers. Well done, indeed. ...more
Three things stand out to me about Fred Saberhagen and his First Book of Swords:
1. -- His Style: I didn't expect Saberhagen to be such a fine writThree things stand out to me about Fred Saberhagen and his First Book of Swords:
1. -- His Style: I didn't expect Saberhagen to be such a fine writer, but he is. The man can write a sentence. His prose is clean, his prose is crisp, his prose does what it needs to do without any bullshit. I was expecting something lesser, something hack-like, but my expectations did Saberhagen a disservice. The man was a good writer, and I will seek out more of his work beyond this trilogy.
2. -- Showing Not Telling: I often struggle with Fantasy because of the clear cut, black and white, diametric opposition of good & evil - good vs. evil. Too often this manifests from the opening pages with a clear delineation between the good guys and the bad guys. We're told who to cheer for rather than deciding who to cheer for based on their actions. Saberhagen explodes this expectation by presenting people. His people may seem one way then reveal themselves to be another way; they may engage in a simple act of kindness, or sadness, or loyalty that reveals their nature, or they may engage in a casual act of cruelty, or sadism, or selfishness that reveals their nature, but we're never told what to think of his men and women ... we're given the opportunity to decide for ourselves based on their actions. I love that.
3. -- Surprise: I'm an old and jaded reader. I didn't think I could be surprised anymore (it happens so very rarely), yet Saberhagen surprised me. Not once. Not twice. Thrice. Maybe I was gullible to what was happening because of personal, real life distractions + the ten books I was reading simultaneously, or maybe I am just a knob, but I was genuinely surprised by directions the novels took three separate times, and I can't help appreciating an author and a work that creep up on me and makes my heart race the way my sneaky teen -- Brontë -- does every times she moves silently down the stairs and makes me jump. Nice job, Fred. I hope your revenant is scaring the shit out of folks walking by your resting place every day and night for the rest of time. ...more
This sentence is a place holder while Miloš and I listen to the book: him for his first time, me for my second.
Audiobook complete, so here is my List This sentence is a place holder while Miloš and I listen to the book: him for his first time, me for my second.
Audiobook complete, so here is my List of Ten Mistborn Things I Want To Talk About:
1. It's All There: There are a couple of mysteries building throughout Mistborn, a couple of moments that could come as a surprise to a reader. Brandon Sanderson offers these mysteries then delivers on them when it comes to the payoff, but what I most love about these mysteries is that Sanderson provides the evidence of their solutions throughout. They are implanted in passing comments or occasional omissions or fragments of a journal or a character's thoughts or something happening on the periphery, and when one rereads Mistborn these clues deepen and enrich the experience. It's great writing.
2. A Killer Supporting Cast: Everyone who joins Kelsier's crew is magnificent. They start as classic archetypes -- as they should be in a situation where their skills are more important to the plot than their personalities -- but Sanderson uses those archetypes as a foundation to build attractive supporting characters of complexity, who may just end up being the lead characters as the series goes on.
3. Our Heroine: Vin! Vin is something special. She is what I wish Rey could have been in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy. She is real. She is naive. She is untrusting. She is emotional. She is tenacious. She is forgiving. She is keen minded. She is a learner. She is adaptable. She is petty. She is a realist. She is a cynic. She is infuriating. She is a critical thinker. She is a romantic. She is powerful. She is everything a fictional hero should be.
4. Steel Inquisitors: If these aren't some of the scariest mother fuckers ever conceived in a fantasy world, then I don't understand scary. They are nearly free of personality, which adds to their horrifying blankness, and what personality they do have is brutal and sadistic, but what is much more frightening is the way they look, the way they move, the way they're built. They are nasty, and they'll be amazing if they ever make it to the big screen.
5. The Lord Ruler: Oh he's powerful all right, but what is more impressive is all the power that we don't see. He must have made the Inquisitors, for instance (hell ... he admits as much), and he has been in control of his Empire for centuries if not millennia (and how much of allomancy was his discovery? if not his creation?), but more power lies there beyond what we've seen. If The Lord Ruler was holding back the Deepness (and chances are that holding the Deepness back took some serious power), then what we see in Mistborn can only be scratching the surface. It's a terrifying prospect for what's to come.
6. Open Endedness: There is a big, satisfying ending in Mistborn. It could stand alone if Sanderson wanted it to, but there is so much more in this world, so much he leaves undone, so many places he could go, so many things he earned, that moving on to a second and third book is actually thrilling rather than stultifying. And stultified is often how I feel when I finish the first book in a series. Not this one.
7. Allomancy: I am loathe to call it a magic system, but allomancy is a serious system of power, and the care Sanderson put into his pseudo-science offers a believable internal logic that can be compared favourably to the workings of other great speculative fiction creations -- like Herbert's melange production on Arakas or Gygax's spellbooks (and VSM components) in his D&D world of Greyhawk. Allomancy makes all kinds of fantasy sense, and it just feels right when you are deep in the Skaa slums of Luthadel. Plus ... is it ever going to look amazing when Mistborn finally makes it to the screen.
8. Religion: From Sazed's encyclopedic knowledge of all religions ever conceived to the new religion that forms at the end of Mistborn to the discussions of religion that mean different things to different characters, religion plays a pivotal role in Mistborn, and its presence and excellence suggests that George Lucas could have achieved much with the Force if he had taken the time to truly understand the role of religion to all classes and castes within a society. Sanderson matches other greats in other elements of his tale, but he bests Mr. Lucas in this one.
9. Pits of Hathsin: The Pits are a detail of legendary proportions: the sort of thing that makes heroes and villains; the sort of thing that lies as a shadow over a story's proceedings; the sort of thing that fertilizes the sown fields of a baby religion. Once again, Sanderson casts his spell brilliantly, imbuing the Pits of Hathsin with the power to stir his audience as much as it does the people who populate his world. It seems a small detail but it is immense.
10. Brandon Sanderson: This is the only book of his I've read. I will read more. I have to say that I am totally confident that I will not be disappointed. That's just how good Mistborn made me feel about his talent. I am sure you will read about it if he disappoints me....more
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