First crossover, yuri fic; and An author review.
First, the first crossover and first yuri fic accomplished by Yours Truly, Peony. I've got to give both mhmartini's meme and my awesome hat some credit for making me do some things I wouldn't normally do (the crossover thing, not the yuri part). In this case the pairing spat out by meme and hat is Botan and Rurouni Kenshin's Megumi. Which is, of course, awesome, because we're pairing up the grim reaper and a doctor.
So there's that; now, this:
Author Review - Poppy Z. Brite
This author’s work is a rather new find for me. As in, post-Spring Break. My interested was roused when I read a description of her novel Exquisite Corpse. I’ve not yet managed to lay hands on said novel, but have obtained and gone through several of her other pieces, beginning with the purchase as a half-price bookstore of the short story collection Wormwood. Since then I’ve also read every Poppy piece at Manhattan’s library, which are in the order that I read them: Liquor, Soul Kitchen, Lost Souls, the short story collection Antediluvian Tales, Drawing Blood, and The Crow: The Lazarus Heart.
The difference between the older stuff (e.g. Lost Souls, Brite’s first novel) and the newer stuff (the newest that I’ve read being Antediluvian Tales) is genre. Here the older stuff would include Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, and The Crow: The Lazarus Heart. All these are horror- and supernatural-themed. The newer stuff, which here would include Liquor, Soul Kitchen, and most of the Antediluvian Tales, not so much. I think they might call this genre “contemporary.”
A lot of Brite’s stuff has a certain Anne Rice-y feel, not just because of the horror/supernatural elements, or the frequent LGBT characters (though Brite’s are usually less casually queer), but also the location. Most, though not all, of the stories take place somewhere Down South, especially in New Orleans. Brite definitely differs from Rice, though, because most of her characters are not rich, do not go on for paragraphs about the appearance, make, feel et cetera of the clothes they wear or the cars they drive or the homes they inhabit, and aren’t so much for fucking their underage or geriatric relatives (Hello? Witching Hour?). Many of the characters live in either tenement-like apartments, or in rural areas-and they’re not portrayed as dumbass backwards hicks, the way some of Rice’s less sophisticated (though sometimes not-so-less incestuous) characters can be rendered, sometimes to the point that it’s a little offensive.
… Wait, this is a Brite review, not a Rice review, right? I’ll redirect (by the way: I do like Rice’s stuff; I’m just using it as an example for compare/contrast).
So, from what I’ve read, I would most highly recommend:
Lost Souls - Features recurring (but now, I’ve read somewhere, retired) characters Steve and Ghost, whose band is also called Lost Souls?. Steve’s an endearingly choleric asshole; Ghost is the weird but peaceful, sweet guy raised by the mountain-witch grandma, who can see/sense ghosts, ghouls, et cetera. Naturally, when a van of hedonistic, goth-gypsy-nomad vampires comes rolling into town (town being Missing Mile, North Carolina), their paths are all bound to cross.
I should note that the vampires in this story are not vampires in the traditional (think Stoker, Rice) sense, but function as a separate species, living among humans and close enough to them that they can sometimes interbreed with them, as evidenced by one of the characters, Nothing. The inter-species relationships in this story aren’t typically very benign, though, so in the case of little human-vampire babies don’t go thinking anything like that Twilight crap: these babies, be they full-fledged vamp or half-breed, eat their way out of their mothers. Seriously, I was reading the birth scene and thinking that’s how it should have been in Twilight (though I’ve heard that birth scene was pretty fucked up anyhow, but then again so’s that entire series, proving that sometimes fucked up does not equate fantastic). Younger vampires in Lost Souls are capable of walking in daylight and consuming food and drink, though the older ones cannot; all, though, are able to be killed if their brain or heart are attacked.
Wormwood - If you don’t want to tackle a novel right now, this collection’s got some good stories as well, including two Steve-and-Ghost ones. Plots include a pair of spooky Siamese twins; the ghost of Jean Lafitte (a historical Gulf Coast pirate who frequented the Louisiana Bayou country); a toddler and a strand of electric Christmas tree lights (this one made me laugh and grimace, in different parts); and zombies in Calcutta; to name a few.
Also, for one of the non-horror books:
Liquor - The first in that series, it’s about two guys, Rickey and G-man, who, having been fired from their most recent kitchen stint, work toward opening their own restaurant-named Liquor-where everything on the menu is booze-based. Going from that description, it’s not typically my sort of thing, but I really, really enjoyed it. They’re poor, they talk trash, and they’re lovers without it being all flamboyant (which neither of them are) or overly sugary or anything constituting some more romantic or shoujo-yaoi-type of story would be like. It’s all very real, the way I read it. And I kind of want to try emulating a few dishes they make up in the book now.
Out of what I’ve read, what I’d categorize as so-so:
The Crow: The Lazarus Heart - Which is sort of understandable, I think. I’ve read that they made a film adaptation from this novel-one of those film sequels which, unlike the books, I don’t ever intend to see because I don’t think they should have made any sequels-though I’m not sure how. From what I read, the film eliminates all the gay, bi, and trans characters-and yet, the protagonist that the crow resurrects in the book is a gay S&M photographer, killed in prison after the wrongful conviction of murdering his cross-dressing boyfriend. His earthly help is the boyfriend’s identical twin trans-sister, and the bad guy is a psychotic serial killer who preys on the transgender. How the fuck did they make a movie out of this plot while eliminating everything queer-related about it? I don’t know; I don’t intend on watching to find out, either. Gah!
Anyway: it’s not a bad read, it’s just nowhere near as good as anything else of Brite’s that I’ve read. I’m blaming that on the fact that 1) this was written for a series not created by the author, and 2) that series, having begun with a graphic novel and being famous for the original film, is highly visual in nature, and the novel reads a lot more like the notes of what a film should be like, if that makes any sense.
Well, I don’t often do review-things like this, but I don’t think I did half-bad on this one. There’s some other stuff I’ve read (I have kept a list of every book that I have finished reading this summer, I kid you not), seen, or listened to lately that I would really like to make comment on because it’s some good shit, so you’ll probably see more of these in the near future.
It is now raining and sun cannot decide whether it wants to be out or behind the clouds. (You know what they say about that, right?) I've finished reading and commenting on a draft of the next chapter of Sekah's "Counting Crows"--everyone's gonna want to read it, trust me ^^
And now I believe I'll pack another box of books. I move into my duplex on Saturday, and this week I've got to pack all my shit up, call the landlord about keys and turning the gas and electircity and all that stuff on, and hopefully he'll be calling Johnna like he's said he will but I don't think he has yet. Go figure: we have father-and-son landlords, and it's the son we've been doing most of our business with.