(no subject)
So on to happier posts.
I've been editing a lot lately. My novel should be finished by a week Tuesday. For real. I'm already looking into modes of submission for major publishers.
I've also been reading a lot lately, in my long commutes to and from English placement tests (I'm full-time at work lately. I've got a lot I want to review here, but we'll start with the novel I just finished, Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, the only recent young adult fiction I've read besides Harry Potter.
And in fact it's rather similar to The Philosopher's Stone.
And by similar I mean that in places, The Lightning Thief looks like someone typed up The Philosopher's Stone, crossed out proper names, re-set it in America, and submitted it to jittery lawyers to see if the recently litigious Rowling could sue.
It's not always like that, and it gets more and more original toward the end. But near the beginning I kept wincing, especially when he steals some of Rowling's terminology to fit it to a new purpose.
The Lightning Thief is about a boy named Harry Potter Percy Jackson, who discovers that he's a Half-Blood wizard Greek god. Being American, he goes not to a boarding school, but to a summer camp. He discovers he's a sort of celebrity because of who his parent is, and generally goes around making fools of the evil, ugly kids of House Slytherin Ares.
But when the adults around him are blind to a lurking evil, he sets out on a quest with the hyper-intelligent, book-obsessed girl Hermione Annabeth and goofy-with-a-heart-of-gold sidekick Ron satyr. Plots twist.
The borrowings are quite conscious - and lampshaded. A security guard is reading a Potter book on duty. And Lily Potter's famous sacrifice is viciously parodied.
The second half - when he's plundering Classical mythology instead of Rowling - is a lot better. And he knows his major works of Classical mythology. He uses elements out of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid that shows he knows them well.
On the scale of uses of Greek myth in popular culture, he does fairly well -- far above Disney's Hercules and Clash of the Titans, that's for sure. The gods are not squeezed into Christian role-model format. Their crimes are exposed for all to see. Hades isn't Satan. And yet they're also given more dignity than they've had in any adaptation for a very long time.
Except Dionysus, whom he got horribly, horribly wrong.
And he didn't chicken out about the adultery - in fact, the Olympians have 100 bastard teenage half-mortal children among them, and adultery is front-and-centre throughout the book. In fact, there's probably more adultery in this book than in any book recommended for children since the Bible.
Since I started talking about how he ripped off Rowling, I'll move on to where it's very different.
Most unfortunately, Riordan clearly hasn't had the kind of experience Rowling has. He doesn't have that darkness that's the stamp of brutal experience, and he doesn't have that profound psychological insight which is part of Rowling's books. His book is lighter and airier, with less wangst and more action.
One of the distracting things in the first half of the book is a certain edge of cynicism. It's not just that it's a stolen plot. It's that Riordan is clearly aiming for a specific demographic of Potter fans - those that didn't like direction Rowling went in. Some of the changes I like, and others I don't.
In the "like" category, it's that his Hermione - Annabeth - is an action girl. She carries a knife. She plays sports. She doesn't break down the first time she's faced with a nasty plant and wax poetic about how all she has is book-knowledge, and the male's the real hero.
Also, Pagans who'd hoped that the religious right was right and Rowling was secretly a Pagan - and were disappointed by all the Christian imagery toward the end - will be happy to know Riordan's universe is unapologetically Pagan. There's a lovely scene of a televangelist being dragged off to be judged by the furies in Hades to hammer that home.
In the "neutral" category, Harry Potter "harmonians" - and count yourself lucky if you don't know what that is - will be pleased to know that there are no indications that Annabeth and the satyr will be getting together.
Also, it is set in America, so Americans will no longer have to be beset with perplexing allusions to British things like Manchester United and A-level exams. Instead it's got an American cast of characters, set in America, with American pop culture references. And the upcoming movie was filmed in the beating heart of America, Vancouver.
(I'd assumed it would be Toronto.)
In the "not liked" category, this the first book I've read - besides ironic uses in Douglas Coupland - crammed with product placements. They'll be canon, then, when they're in the movie.
Also, his monsters re-spawn. Perfect for video games. Rowling's books were always so hard to adapt to video game format, and programmers will be pleased to know Riordan was thinking of them.
I'm always so critical in my reviews. I will say this, though. Among the many things he pillaged from Rowling, he got much of the sheer addictiveness and pleasure. I read it faster than Philosopher's Stone, and it's almost four times as long.
And yes, I will be seeing the movie when it comes out in February, even though it's Chris Columbus and I can already see strange changes in a short trailer (Trailer here).
I've been editing a lot lately. My novel should be finished by a week Tuesday. For real. I'm already looking into modes of submission for major publishers.
I've also been reading a lot lately, in my long commutes to and from English placement tests (I'm full-time at work lately. I've got a lot I want to review here, but we'll start with the novel I just finished, Rick Riordan's The Lightning Thief, the only recent young adult fiction I've read besides Harry Potter.
And in fact it's rather similar to The Philosopher's Stone.
And by similar I mean that in places, The Lightning Thief looks like someone typed up The Philosopher's Stone, crossed out proper names, re-set it in America, and submitted it to jittery lawyers to see if the recently litigious Rowling could sue.
It's not always like that, and it gets more and more original toward the end. But near the beginning I kept wincing, especially when he steals some of Rowling's terminology to fit it to a new purpose.
The Lightning Thief is about a boy named Harry Potter Percy Jackson, who discovers that he's a Half-Blood wizard Greek god. Being American, he goes not to a boarding school, but to a summer camp. He discovers he's a sort of celebrity because of who his parent is, and generally goes around making fools of the evil, ugly kids of House Slytherin Ares.
But when the adults around him are blind to a lurking evil, he sets out on a quest with the hyper-intelligent, book-obsessed girl Hermione Annabeth and goofy-with-a-heart-of-gold sidekick Ron satyr. Plots twist.
The borrowings are quite conscious - and lampshaded. A security guard is reading a Potter book on duty. And Lily Potter's famous sacrifice is viciously parodied.
The second half - when he's plundering Classical mythology instead of Rowling - is a lot better. And he knows his major works of Classical mythology. He uses elements out of the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid that shows he knows them well.
On the scale of uses of Greek myth in popular culture, he does fairly well -- far above Disney's Hercules and Clash of the Titans, that's for sure. The gods are not squeezed into Christian role-model format. Their crimes are exposed for all to see. Hades isn't Satan. And yet they're also given more dignity than they've had in any adaptation for a very long time.
Except Dionysus, whom he got horribly, horribly wrong.
And he didn't chicken out about the adultery - in fact, the Olympians have 100 bastard teenage half-mortal children among them, and adultery is front-and-centre throughout the book. In fact, there's probably more adultery in this book than in any book recommended for children since the Bible.
Since I started talking about how he ripped off Rowling, I'll move on to where it's very different.
Most unfortunately, Riordan clearly hasn't had the kind of experience Rowling has. He doesn't have that darkness that's the stamp of brutal experience, and he doesn't have that profound psychological insight which is part of Rowling's books. His book is lighter and airier, with less wangst and more action.
One of the distracting things in the first half of the book is a certain edge of cynicism. It's not just that it's a stolen plot. It's that Riordan is clearly aiming for a specific demographic of Potter fans - those that didn't like direction Rowling went in. Some of the changes I like, and others I don't.
In the "like" category, it's that his Hermione - Annabeth - is an action girl. She carries a knife. She plays sports. She doesn't break down the first time she's faced with a nasty plant and wax poetic about how all she has is book-knowledge, and the male's the real hero.
Also, Pagans who'd hoped that the religious right was right and Rowling was secretly a Pagan - and were disappointed by all the Christian imagery toward the end - will be happy to know Riordan's universe is unapologetically Pagan. There's a lovely scene of a televangelist being dragged off to be judged by the furies in Hades to hammer that home.
In the "neutral" category, Harry Potter "harmonians" - and count yourself lucky if you don't know what that is - will be pleased to know that there are no indications that Annabeth and the satyr will be getting together.
Also, it is set in America, so Americans will no longer have to be beset with perplexing allusions to British things like Manchester United and A-level exams. Instead it's got an American cast of characters, set in America, with American pop culture references. And the upcoming movie was filmed in the beating heart of America, Vancouver.
(I'd assumed it would be Toronto.)
In the "not liked" category, this the first book I've read - besides ironic uses in Douglas Coupland - crammed with product placements. They'll be canon, then, when they're in the movie.
Also, his monsters re-spawn. Perfect for video games. Rowling's books were always so hard to adapt to video game format, and programmers will be pleased to know Riordan was thinking of them.
I'm always so critical in my reviews. I will say this, though. Among the many things he pillaged from Rowling, he got much of the sheer addictiveness and pleasure. I read it faster than Philosopher's Stone, and it's almost four times as long.
And yes, I will be seeing the movie when it comes out in February, even though it's Chris Columbus and I can already see strange changes in a short trailer (Trailer here).