Fiction/Pretty Little Liars
Pretty Little Liars: Ok, I’m not a huge Aria fan, and I’m … conflicted about introducing a slut-shaming storyline; I think it’s a distraction from A, though sadly not implausible. But I straight-on loved that Aria just turned Sleazeboy down. No mention of other romantic interests, even though she has them, because they weren’t relevant, and what was relevant was that she wasn’t interested, and I’m pretty sure the show understands that. I wish that weren’t surprising to see on TV.
A Commonplace Book of the Weird: The Untold Stories of H.P. Lovecraft, ed. Joseph Fink: I bought this to support the producers of Welcome to Night Vale. It’s based off of a list of story ideas from H.P. Lovecraft, some more detailed than others; the entire list is reproduced at the end with charming indifference to the complicated copyright issues that arise from unpublished material of this sort (but then Lovecraft copyrights are as tangled as Cthulhu’s tentacles). The stories are not as good as Night Vale, though there are a couple of gems (Meg Bashwiner: “The heat is tortuous but we will miss it when it’s gone…. Suburban dogs bark in the distance. They would drink blood if I wrote them to.”) I’m probably more interested in the concept than in this execution. One of Night Vale’s producers said that he hated Lovecraft as a writer and as a racist person: “That said, I think he was brilliant on an idea level, and that's definitely where we connect with him. Our Lovecraft book, for me, is a way of leaving behind all vestiges of his writing, including the stupid names of his gods, while keeping the brilliance of his unnerving ideas and images.”
Ginn Hale, The Rifter: This is sold as a ten-part ebook series, but it’s really just one story, and somewhat overpriced given that. John and Kyle are roommates, but Kyle is also from another dimension, sent to watch over John in case he needs to be killed; in Kyle’s world, John has immense power to disrupt and destroy. When Kyle’s distracted by the needs of his sister (who happens to be a living bag of bones-it’s a thing they do to women there), John crosses over to the other world with two of his friends, and there his troubles begin. The worldbuilding is interesting, but sometimes confusing; the story plays with time and causality in ways I’m not sure hang together, but am willing to accept. I really liked the idea of dimensional gates that did serious, long-term damage in their opening; Fringe did that in TV, but I’m not sure I’ve seen it in fantasy fiction. Just in terms of “fantasy with gay hero protagonists,” I think this suffers from comparison with Richard Morgan’s work, though if you can’t stand total grimdarkness then Hale has Morgan beat, despite the presence of homophobes and the extreme offscreen violence against women-not by our protagonists, but by others-in some phases of the story. I was carried along until the end, but you can probably tell that it didn’t quite have that spark that makes me pick up the next independent story.
Scott Turow, Identical: Paul Giannis is running for mayor just as his identical twin Cass is about to get out of prison after a 25-year sentence that was the result of a plea bargain for murdering his girlfriend, Dita Kronon; the Giannis and Kronon families have been intertwined for decades, and Hal Kronon, Dita’s brother, starts accusing Paul of having been involved in the murder. This leads to various revisitings of the evidence, which turns out to be more confusing than anyone understood at the time, and deep family secrets are implicated. I thought I’d figured out the big twist, but I was basically wrong. If you’re looking for justice under law, Turow is often not the writer for you, but at least you the reader know what really happened by the end.
Lemony Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”: New series starring a twelve-year-old Snicket, in much the same style as A Series of Unfortunate Events, definitions of words and literary references included. The central mystery-involving a statute reminiscent of the Maltese Falcon-is just not as interesting as the story of Klaus, Violet, and Sunny, unfortunately. But I like Snicket enough to keep reading and see if the plot thickens.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
A Commonplace Book of the Weird: The Untold Stories of H.P. Lovecraft, ed. Joseph Fink: I bought this to support the producers of Welcome to Night Vale. It’s based off of a list of story ideas from H.P. Lovecraft, some more detailed than others; the entire list is reproduced at the end with charming indifference to the complicated copyright issues that arise from unpublished material of this sort (but then Lovecraft copyrights are as tangled as Cthulhu’s tentacles). The stories are not as good as Night Vale, though there are a couple of gems (Meg Bashwiner: “The heat is tortuous but we will miss it when it’s gone…. Suburban dogs bark in the distance. They would drink blood if I wrote them to.”) I’m probably more interested in the concept than in this execution. One of Night Vale’s producers said that he hated Lovecraft as a writer and as a racist person: “That said, I think he was brilliant on an idea level, and that's definitely where we connect with him. Our Lovecraft book, for me, is a way of leaving behind all vestiges of his writing, including the stupid names of his gods, while keeping the brilliance of his unnerving ideas and images.”
Ginn Hale, The Rifter: This is sold as a ten-part ebook series, but it’s really just one story, and somewhat overpriced given that. John and Kyle are roommates, but Kyle is also from another dimension, sent to watch over John in case he needs to be killed; in Kyle’s world, John has immense power to disrupt and destroy. When Kyle’s distracted by the needs of his sister (who happens to be a living bag of bones-it’s a thing they do to women there), John crosses over to the other world with two of his friends, and there his troubles begin. The worldbuilding is interesting, but sometimes confusing; the story plays with time and causality in ways I’m not sure hang together, but am willing to accept. I really liked the idea of dimensional gates that did serious, long-term damage in their opening; Fringe did that in TV, but I’m not sure I’ve seen it in fantasy fiction. Just in terms of “fantasy with gay hero protagonists,” I think this suffers from comparison with Richard Morgan’s work, though if you can’t stand total grimdarkness then Hale has Morgan beat, despite the presence of homophobes and the extreme offscreen violence against women-not by our protagonists, but by others-in some phases of the story. I was carried along until the end, but you can probably tell that it didn’t quite have that spark that makes me pick up the next independent story.
Scott Turow, Identical: Paul Giannis is running for mayor just as his identical twin Cass is about to get out of prison after a 25-year sentence that was the result of a plea bargain for murdering his girlfriend, Dita Kronon; the Giannis and Kronon families have been intertwined for decades, and Hal Kronon, Dita’s brother, starts accusing Paul of having been involved in the murder. This leads to various revisitings of the evidence, which turns out to be more confusing than anyone understood at the time, and deep family secrets are implicated. I thought I’d figured out the big twist, but I was basically wrong. If you’re looking for justice under law, Turow is often not the writer for you, but at least you the reader know what really happened by the end.
Lemony Snicket, “Who Could That Be at This Hour?”: New series starring a twelve-year-old Snicket, in much the same style as A Series of Unfortunate Events, definitions of words and literary references included. The central mystery-involving a statute reminiscent of the Maltese Falcon-is just not as interesting as the story of Klaus, Violet, and Sunny, unfortunately. But I like Snicket enough to keep reading and see if the plot thickens.
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.