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Archive for October 2010

Food as Art: The Bazaar

Oct31

Restaurant: The Bazaar [1, 2]

Location: 465 S La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048. 310.246.5555

Date: Oct 30, 2010

Cuisine: Spanish influenced Molecular Gastronomy

Rating: Awesome, one of LA’s best places.

_

My first exposure to the genius of José Andrés was at Cafe Atlantico in Washington D.C. On an occasional Sunday I’d go with my parents for their Nuevo Latino Dim Sum, which was a ludicrously large prix fix brunch (30 some courses and several hours). I was thrilled when he opened a restaurant in LA. The spectacular result is The Bazaar in the SLS hotel. I’ve been five or six times and the scene alone is great. They  have a number of different rooms and restaurants  grouped together. There is the bar, with cool snacks and molecular cocktails, the scrumptious pataserie, two rooms of the main restaurant, and the secret prix fix only Saam. This meal  was in the main Bazaar. Everything is tapas style, small dishes (about 4 per person) shared by all.

They have all sorts of interesting cocktails, but the signature one is the nitro caprina. Dry ice is used to freeze the rum and lime concoction down without added ice or water.

The result is above. It tastes like a sherbet, with a highly unusual smooth texture, but it’s intensely potent (in terms of proof). Goes down all too easy.

Then I pulled out the first of my wines. The 2007 Laurel. Yum. As I mentioned in my review of Calima this is a fantastic Spanish wine buy. Parker gives it 94 and says, “The 2007 Laurel, a blend of 65% Garnacha and 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, is deep purple-colored with a bouquet of wet stone, Asian spices, black cherry compote, and incense. Dense and sweet on the palate with tons of spice, it is super-concentrated, rich, and smooth-textured. Give this lengthy effort 2-3 years of additional cellaring and drink it from 2013 to 2027. Laurel is produced from the young vines of Clos Erasmus as well as from the results of a triage in the vineyard and cellar of the flagship wine.”

Ordering here can involve a bit of planning — not to mention paper and pen.

This first dish is “Sweet potato chips, yogurt, tamarind, star anise.” The crisp chips are used to scoop up the fluffy cool yogurt, which has a pleasing fruit tang.

Then we have “Spanish olives, traditional.” Classic olives with pimentos and anchovy.

This is followed by “Spanish olives, modern.” Pureed olive has been “sphereized.” The flavor is basically the same, but these pop in your mouth to deliver a concentrated burst of olive.

“Embutidos platter, chorizo, lomo, salchichos.” A selection of pig, pig, and pig. The chorizo in particular is intense, although not nearly as much as some of the examples I had in Spain where each bite transported you magically to the barnyard sty.

Served with some grilled “tomato bread.”

“Bagel and lox cone,” is deconstructed and re-interpreted. Cream cheese is paired with Ikura (salmon eggs). Tasty.

“Bunuelos, codfish fritters, honey aioli,” these are specular (but hot, right out of the fryer). The sauce gives them an almost Chinese flavor. Fried fish always works.

“Baby beets, citrus, pistachio, goat cheese.” A nice variant on what has become an LA classic.

“Sea scallops, romesco sauce.”

“Brussel sprouts, lemon puree, apricots, grapes, lemon air.” This was a big hit, the sprouts aren’t bitter at all, and have a light cabbage-like texture. The lemon air is the best part, adding a nice zing.

“Jicama wrapped guacamole, micro cilantro, corn chips.” This was really good, vaguely like a caterpillar roll.

“Barramundi, black beans, garlic,” was an incredibly tasty fish. The skin was perfectly crisped, the meat moist.

“Not your everyday caprese, cherry tomatoes, liquid mozzarella.” This is a near perfect deconstruction of the caprese. The mozzarella balls explode in your mouth, and pair great with the pesto and the little crunchy crackers.

“Seared artichokes with pastrami Saul, La serena cheese with PX reduction.” This wasn’t my favorite. The artichokes seemed a little dry.

The deconstructed “Philly cheese steak” is one of my favorites. The bread is super crispy with liquid parmigiana. the beef is wagyu.

You can see the cheese oozing out.

The vegetarians got this “Hilly cheese steak” with mushroom instead of beef. Same cheese.

“Braised Waygu beef cheeks, California citrus.” This tastes like the best pastrami you’ve ever had, melts in your mouth.

“Catalan spinach, apple, pine-nuts, raisins.”

“Butifarra senator moynihan, Catalan pork sausage, white beans, mushrooms.” The beans were a little dry, but the sausage rocked. This dish reminded me of the equivalent Tuscan sausage and fava beans. I suspect in both cases it hearkens back to the traditional Roman combination of pork sausage served with lentils (over at new years, the lentils symbolizing coins and the wish for wealth in the new year).

At some point we switched up to the 2008 Flor de Pingus, which is even better than the Laurel, deep inky, but silky smooth. Parker gives it 96 saying, “The 2008 Flor de Pingus had been in bottle for 2 weeks when I tasted it. It offers up an enticing nose of smoke, Asian spices, incense, espresso, black cherry, and blackberry. On the palate it displays outstanding volume, intensity, and balance. Rich, dense, and succulent, it has enough structure to evolve for 4-5 years and will offer prime drinking from 2015 to 2028.”

“Lamb loin, Jacques Maximus pistou, trumpet mushrooms.”

My personal favorite along with the cheese steak, “Cotton candy fois lollypop.” The little cube of fois pairs with the sugar like a Sauternes. Oh so yummy.

If that little bit of fois didn’t stop the heart, take a “Fois gras, quince, toasted brioche.” A perfectly put together burger version of the classic pairing.

On Halloween eve, weird costumes abound.

Savory dishes complete, we transferred over to the patisserie for desert. I ordered a glass of this lovely 1927 Pedro Ximenez sherry. I love PX. This one was like sweet motor oil.

“Nitro coconut, floating island, passion-fruit, banana.” I don’t like bananas (had too many with half a bottle of whiskey in ’91), but the nitro island was delicious. Cold, refreshing coconut.

I’m a huge flan fan and this Spanish classic didn’t disappoint.

“Chocolate cupcake.”

“hot chocolate mouse, three layers.” This was good. You gets to inject it with the little syringe of chocolate and the little balls add great texture.

The passion-fruit “Pate des fruits” packed a wonderful wallop of fruit flavor.

Assorted bonbons.

No other restaurant in LA has the combination of ultra modern chic and whimsical playfulness that The Bazaar does — plus everything tastes great and you get to experience an great melange of flavors in one meal. One of these days I need to try Saam and let the chef throw his best at us. I never plan far enough ahead. One note, I ‘ve done The Bazaar’s “set menu” twice, and ordered myself four times. If you know what you are doing doing it yourself is the better way to go, particularly because they don’t mix up their set menu enough. However, if it’s your first visit, letting them handle serves as a fine introduction.

Related posts:

  1. Food as Art: Calima
  2. Food as Art: Urwasawa
  3. Food as Art: Sasabune
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Bazaar, Cooking, Food, José Andrés, La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, Restaurant, reviews, Spain

Book and Movie Review: Twilight

Oct31

TwilightTitle: Twilight

Author: Stephenie Meyer

Genre: YA Romantic Supernatural

Read: January 2008 and Oct 2010

Summary: Confused.

_

Since I’m such a vampire fan, having seen or read vast untold volumes of the stuff, I thought I should put my formal two-cents in on the strange source material that spawned the Twilight phenomenon.

First the book. I read it before the movie came out. There was a lot of buzz about it already, and I was excited about it. Generally, things that are really popular have a kernel of quality about them, and I love vampires and teen heroines. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite TV series of all time — I will blog about it one of these days. So I started reading Twilight in the Vegas airport while waiting for a flight. Despite the clunky prose (more on that later) I was actually pretty engaged in a low key way during the first half. Then Edward revealed to Bella that he was a vampire (not that I didn’t know) and the whole thing went to shit. I had to force myself through most of the rest, and the ending left me baffled. “Wait, where’d the fight go?  What about the climax?”

Back to the writing: It’s really clunky. I won’t go into too much detail, this other blogger did. But let me say Meyer is the anti Cormac McCarthy (I’m in the middle of The Road right now). He eschews punctuation, she loves it. Every long improper sentence is peppered with a random assortment of commas and em-dashes. She adores the em-dash, using it in approximately 50% of sentences, and usually not for its proper purpose of offsetting a parenthetical. Maybe she felt she had too many commas (she does), and needed to replace some of them with em-dashes for the hell of it. Oh, and she loves certain words or word combinations, like “cold fingers” and uses them several times a page in places. And she clearly choses random synonyms from the thesaurus without being aware of the connotations of said words. For example: “His expression shifted instantly to chagrin.” Can the word be used that way? I don’t think so. But none of this really matters when reading the book, you adjust and just role with it. I guess if you’re 14 and haven’t read a lot you don’t notice to begin with.

The plot and content: Given what actually happens in the first book, it’s pretty long: 118,000 words. Not much really does happen. We have a LOT of words devoted again and again to how pretty Edward is and how much Bella loves him. This isn’t really SHOWN too much, or justified, but she sure TELLS us about it a lot. But again, the first half was okay. However, once the reveal came in, it gets really silly. Basically they go play this ridiculous baseball game and the Black Eyed Peas (oops, I mean the evil vampires) walk onto the field, sniff Bella, and decide the most important thing in the world is to sink their fangs into her blood. There is no real attempt to sell anything in this plot, to provide any believable reasons, it just happens. You couldn’t possibly have more one dimensional villains — although they do compliment the one dimensional heros nicely. Then my all time biggest gripe, we close in on the unbelievable “final” confrontation of the book and Bella gets knocked unconscious (she is after all the narrator) and we miss the whole thing. It’s told to us by Edward after we know it came out okay so as to minimize tension. I had the feeling that the author didn’t know how to write an action scene, so she just chickened out.

The vampires: Oh my. It’s totally clear (particularly in later books) that Meyer doesn’t do research. This includes even watching a few vampire films or perhaps reading Dracula. Her undead aren’t really vampires, or even undead, except for being immortal and having a taste for blood, and “cold fingers.” They don’t seem dead, or particularly evil. They sparkle in the sun, they apparently have like, oh my God, no real weaknesses. And they’re all really pretty. We hear about that a lot. Let’s not forget their smorgasbord of cool psychic powers like seeing the future, and reading minds. These make hack plot construction really convenient. I actually started my novel a year before even hearing of Twilight, but reading it certainly motivated me to make sure my vampire heavy was a really bad-ass undead in a nasty evil way. He doesn’t sparkle in the sunlight but he will leave your entrails hanging from a tree to make a point — and he certainly wouldn’t ever concern himself to learn current High School vernacular.

Publishing mystery: Twilight had a very aberrant publishing history. As a first time novelist it was picked up by Jodi Reamer of Writers House really quickly. This is a very prestigious agency and that’s very rare. It was then sold quickly to a great publisher for a really huge advance. That Reamer showed interest in it is not what surprises me. There is a mysterious something about the first half of the book — it had potential. But what surprises me is that it was never edited — or if it was I’ve never heard of an editor that lax. The standard length for YA books is more like 50-70k, and there is a LOT of fluff in the book, not to mention the bad grammar and the flaccid ending that would be easy to fix. Having been through rounds and rounds of revision myself, the book was held to none of the standards my editors have exhibited. Of course it turned out to be a great decision for Jodi, but I still don’t understand why it was never edited.

The movie: Catherine Hardwicke directed the first movie. She actually did a really good job with the source material, and I think the movie is actually better than the book. Not exactly great, but better. The casting was excellent, particularly Kristen Stewart who does have a soft charisma, and she’s hot in a non obvious way. If you see her in some of her other films like Adventureland or Speak you realize that she’s actually a very fine young actress in certain roles. Twilight doesn’t provide a lot of room for subtle acting. I myself had casually known Hardwicke from when she did production design for Insomniac’s Disruptor in the mid 90’s (Insomniac was located next to my company Naughty Dog in those days). So I’d noticed when she started directing with Thirteen, which is a depressing but brilliant movie — particularly given what must have been a VERY low budget. Hardwicke brought the same kind of hand-held-documentary style to Twilight, and it worked well to offset the inherent cheese factor of the material. Not totally offset, but the result was somehow watchable. She did a nice job capturing Bella’s POV. This is tricky because in a novel, particularly a first person one like Twilight, so much of the book is dominated by the voice. With a combination of diary style voice over (more-or-less quoted from the book) and a peeping-over-the-shoulder viewpoint (as also used in Thirteen) Hardwicke pulls it off. For some reason, they ditched her with regard to directing the sequels, and the those devolve into further cheesiness. Of course so do the later novels. Can I just say Volturi?

Conclusion: I’m kinda baffled. Twilight isn’t particularly good, or well done, but it does have a certain appeal. However, the overall magnitude of success has left me totally confused. Harry Potter is ludicrously popular, but at its core rest three stunningly good initial books. The first book is really well written, the central premise is very novel and sold with incredible style. Even the ridiculously melodramatic Vampire Dairies is more fun than Twilight. I’m just left scratching my head and hoping the anti-vampire backlash isn’t too bad.

My reviews of New Moon and Eclipse or Breaking Dawn, part 1 or part 2.
For more Film reviews, click here.
Or read about my own paranormal novels.

Related posts:

  1. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  2. Book Review: Hex Hall
  3. Book Review: Personal Demons
  4. Book Review: The Passage
  5. Book Review: Forever
By: agavin
Comments (16)
Posted in: Books, Movies
Tagged as: Bella, Bella Swan, books, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Catherine Hardwicke, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction, Kristen Stewart, reviews, Robert Pattinson, Stephenie Meyer, Supernatural, Twilight, Vampire

Food as Art: Urwasawa

Oct30

Restaurant: Urasawa

Location: 218 N Rodeo Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, 310-247-8939

Date: Feb 16, 2010

Cuisine: Japanese

Rating: Mind blowing, but a hefty blow below the money-belt.

I’ve been here four or five times over the years, both in it’s older incarnation as Ginza Sushi-Ko under the supervision of chef Masa Takayama and in recent years when helmed by his disciple Hiroyuki Urasawa. To tell the truth, given my limited sampling, I think the student has surpassed the teacher. This is no strip mall sushi joint, but a deliberate effort to maximize the impact of flavor and presentation to the nth degree. This includes an almost gratuitous use of exotic and luxurious ingredients — not to mention gold foil. There are no menus here, no choices, just an expensive parade of delectables the chef selects. The place is tiny, only about 8 sushi bar seats and two little private rooms (one table each). This time we had a room as there were five of us celebrating a birthday.

It’s been a little while so forgive me if I miss-remember some ingredients.

We start with some Toro (ultra rich tuna belly) wrapping a special kind of tofu, banded by daikon, topped with scallions and the omnipresent gold fold, and dosed with ponzu. Yum. Notice the shabby presentation.

I can’t even remember what this was. But it had gold foil too.

Sashimi. Look at this presentation. Ice has been carved into a form of sculpture. Flowers and little rocks adorn. The fish was melt in your mouth.

Caviar with a few other bits on the spoon. Might have been Uni. Everything was delicious here, although if you’re some kind of land-lubber, stay home, pretty much 95% seafood.

Gold foil again. This dish had that kind of subtle Unami flavor profile that is unique to asian cuisines. I happen to love this kind of salty/savory flavor. I think there was a traditional egg custard underneath.

Tempura, very traditional style with the little mound of Daikon radish one can add. I can’t remember what was fried up, but I’m sure it was something rich like lobster. Or it might even have been Fugu (blow fish).

I bet this spider crab didn’t think its body would end up being the cooking pot for its own meat. But it did, with a little Uni (Sea Urchin) to add some extra zest. Again very subtle flavors, and very juicy crab.

This was sort of the ultimate shabu-shabu. Below is a peice of kobe beef, some Akimo (Monfish liver), some japanese scallop and something else I can’t remember. They are cooked in the heated broth in the upper left (very briefly, by swish swishing them — that is what shabu-shabu means), and then dipped in the tangy ponzu. The resulting broth, rich from the fats of the beef and liver you drink as a soup.

I think this is the above broth after it was served to eat.

Some of the sushi got eaten before I got my camera aimed. The sushi here is incredibly good. Even the ginger is all hand made.

More sushi, classics such as Maguro, Hamachi, and Ika (squid), but spectacularly tasty.

More sushi. I think you can technically keep on getting it as long as you have room (for the same high high price), but one fills quickly.

This is the big slab of Kobe beef that is the source of the bits we were eating.

 

Toro, Uni, and some kind of clam.

Three different grades of Toro. A rare treat.

I think a mackerel, or maybe more than one type, and some thing else.

I of course, being a dedicated gourmand (i.e. glutton) kept on letting them bring me more and more rounds.

The very best sort of grilled sea eel.

It is traditional to judge a sushi chef by the quality of his Tomago, or sweet omelet. Urwasawa passed muster.

A refreshing course of various plums and pressed fruit things. Much more sour than American taste would normally allow.

Red bean paste — which I’m not normally a fan of, but this one was great. Not pasty, but smooth with a nice crunch from the topping, not only the signature gold foil, but crumbled nuts of some sort, adding a pleasant richness. This was accompanied by very special green tea, frothed to a foamy consistency, but with a nice bitterness.

And then a VERY high end “tea ceremony” brown tea.

The overall meal was exquisite, blending fully food, ambiance and style. I forgot to photo my wine but I brought a number of high end whites including my last bottle of the 1986 Chateau Y, which is the almost dry secret wine of Château d’Yquem.

Related posts:

  1. Food as Art: Sasabune
  2. Food as Art: Calima
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Food, Hamachi, Japanese cuisine, Japanese Food, Masa Takayama, Restaurant, reviews, Sashimi, Sea urchin, Shabu-shabu, Sushi

Book Review: Tropic of Night

Oct30

Tropic of NightTitle: Tropic of Night

Author: Michael Gruber

Genre: Supernatural Horror Thriller

Read: Spring 2010

Summary: Very good.

_

I read this book both because it was represented by an agent I was interested in and because it loosely fit the ill-defined cross-genre of my own novel: Supernatural thriller with realistic style and magic. In fact, in this book it’s not even 100% clear that the magic is intended to have actually happened — but I like to think it did. There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on here, particularly to my taste. There are three points of view, and not all are as good. One is the female protagonist, a former anthropologist hiding out in Miami from her murderous African shaman ex-husband. The second is the same character, but told in the format of journals written during her field work in Siberia and Africa. And the third is a Miami Cuban-American police detective investigated a series of horrific murders in Miami (perpetrated by the nasty shaman of course). I loved the detective, his investigations of the ritual crime scenes, and the bit of Cubano Miami flavor . The present action protagonist was okay, and the journals were intermittent. When they got into the magic stuff they were good. What I most loved about this book was the creepy and very realistic feel of the mostly Yoruba based shamanistic magic. Overall I enjoyed reading it, but the book could have benefited from some tightening up. The detective investigating this awful ritual crimes was very good too. If you like murder procedurals, and you like creepy well researched voodoo-esque magic, then give this a read.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  2. Book Review: The Passage
  3. Book Review: Still Missing
  4. Book Review: Personal Demons
  5. Book Review: City of War
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Africa, books, Cuban American, Fiction, horror, Magic, Miami, Michael Gruber, reviews, Siberia, Supernatural, thriller, Tropic of Night

Food as Art: Sasabune

Oct29

Restaurant: Sasabune [1, 2]

Location: 12400 Wilshire Blvd Ste 150 (South Carmelina Avenue) Los Angeles, CA 90025, (310) 820-3596

Date: October 29, 2010

Cuisine: Japanese

Rating: Excellent as always.

Today I went to one of my usual lunch spots, Sasabune. This is one of LA’s many top sushi joints. It’s an culinary descendant of the Nozawa school of “warm rice” sushi making. The best way to enjoy these places is with Omakase. I opted for the “Japanese Omakase” which means more “squirmy creatures,” and hence more fun for me.

The appetizer here is some kind of giant mollusk. It was served with pepper/yuzu relish and 10,000 year old sea salt. The clam has a taste similar to scallop, but with a firmer texture. Although salty (no duh) it’s very nice with the yuzu and salt.

Big-eye tuna (Maguro) and Toro. As is typical at this school of sushi place many of pieces already have sauces, and do not need soy sauce. If you are a sushi neophyte you should know that Toro is the fatty belly of the tuna, which means it tastes better. The Japanese rank Toro into different grades of honorability. This is fairly normal Toro (some get almost white with fat), but it melted in the mouth like butter.

I believe this was Tai (red snapper) and another white fish. The little bits of seasoning are customized to each fish and add a nice zing.

Oyster done two ways: raw with vinegar and spicy radish, the other baked dynamite. The later is richer, but the first has the pleasant briny taste of fine oysters.

Salmon with the traditional sesame and the sheet of seaweed stuff (which I love). A very nice Hamachi (yellowtail), with a little yuzu for kick. Giant clam, and sweet shrimp (raw). This last is sweet and soft and melts in the mouth.

Orange clam and two kinds of mackerel, Spanish and Japanese.

After a brief trip to the fryer, the sweet shrimp head makes a return appearance, tempura style. You eat the whole thing, the heat has denatured the chiton in the shell into a softer more sugary form (chiton is a quad sugar organic construct like cellulose).

Waste not, want not. The shrimp roe returns too, marinated in a nice tart vinegary ponzu.

My brother groaned at this from across the table, but I love both. Very sweet Ikura (salmon eggs), which pop in the mouth to release their sweet/salty flavor, and a very nice sweet Uni (sea urchin) — from the taste I would assume from Santa Barbara.

Ankimo (Monk fish liver) and sea eel. Yum! The liver was in a miso sauce. The eel of course is BBQ, with the sweet sauce.

Probably red snapper again? and maybe another cut of yellowtail.

Japanese sea scallop, with salt and yuzu. This is SO good.

This is actually an eel roll my brother ate. But we each got the blue crab hand roll before it. However, the Sasabune blue crab rolls are SO GOOD that we gobbled it down before I remembered to grab the camera and snap a picture. If I hadn’t been full I would have ordred another.

Don’t miss my detailed post comparing the American and Japanese Omakases. CLICK HERE.

Related posts:

  1. Food as Art: Calima
By: agavin
Comments (4)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Clam, Food, Japanese cuisine, Omakase, reviews, Sea urchin, Soy sauce, Sushi, Yuzu

Book Review: Hex Hall

Oct29

Hex HallTitle: Hex Hall

Author: Rachel Hawkins

Genre: YA fantasy

Read: Oct 23, 2010

Summary: Fun.

_

Continuing my unrelenting survey of both supernatural and YA books (together and separate). This is a vaguely Harry Potter-ish tale of a fifteen-year-old witch who ends up in magical reform school. It was surprisingly decent. Not great, not super innovative, but the first person voice was very enjoyable. Occasionally I found myself cringing when the events served the plot in ham handed ways. For example, the protagonist and boy she likes are both sentenced to the same detention — just the two of them. And there are vampires, but they are treated too casually like everything else. Still, it was funny and I enjoyed reading it, I didn’t have to force myself through anything. I plan on buying the sequel. This is actually pretty high praise for a reader as jaded as myself.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Personal Demons
  2. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  3. Book Review: Still Missing
  4. Book Review: Forever
  5. Book Review: The Passage
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Book, books, Fantasy, Fiction, Harry Potter, Hex Hall, Rachel Hawkins, reviews, Supernatural, Vampire, YA

Book Review: The Ghost Brigades

Oct28

The Ghost BrigadesTitle: The Ghost Brigades

Author: John Scalzi

Genre: Sci-Fi/Space Opera

Read: Oct 27-28 2010

Summary: Great read!

_

Since I enjoyed Old Man’s War so much I jumped right in and pounded this out last night. I might have liked it even better. The characters are a tad less likable than the first book, but there is more plot, and more aliens — remember I like aliens. The book starts off with a great prequel that holds your interest (and I’m not a prequel fan), slaps you with a nicely done twist, and is immediately obvious to the real plot that develops. This involves a Special Forces space marine who is a complete genetic construct. He is born an adult, learning to be a solider and human all at the same time in a frantic computer-in-the-head rush. There is some good Sci-Fi in here, and some really fun aliens, but it doesn’t get in the way of a really fast fun story. I’m very much reminded of a lot of my favorite authors from my High School Sci-Fi reading: Robert Heinlein, David Brin, Larry Niven, etc. but Scalzi‘s books (at least the two I’ve read) don’t feel derivative in any negative way. He maintains a good balance between character, story, action, and Sci-Fi elements without letting any of them overshadow the rest. I’ll read the third book soon.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Old Man’s War
  2. Book Review: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
  3. Book Review: The Passage
  4. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  5. Book Review: Rabbit Run
By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: books, David Brin, Fiction, Ghost Brigades, John Scalzi, Larry Niven, Old Man's War, reviews, Robert Heinlein, Science Fiction, Space Opera, The Ghost Brigades

Book Review: City of War

Oct28

City of WarTitle: City of War

Author: Neil Russel

Genre: Contemporary Thriller

Read: First week August 2010

Summary: Extremely fun read.

_

I don’t read too many Thrillers without a Horror/Sci-fi/Fantasy/Supernatural element, but I was introduced to the author through a friend of mine and decided to check his book out. I’m glad I did. This is a roller coaster ride I can only describe as Fletch meets James Bond meets The Big Sleep. A billionaire playboy who happens to be ex-special forces happens to rescue a naked (and gorgeous) kidnapping escapee on the freeway, and things snowball into a globe spanning conspiracy of murder, art forgery and more. It’s fast and fun, but what really sells everything is the know-at-all first person voice of the protagonist. The action is often a little over the top, but his snarky attitude makes everything amusing. Perhaps (like Bond and many other action heros) he is a little too good at what he does, too calm under pressure etc. But it doesn’t really matter because he entertains with every paragraph. Great settings and a plot with a few shocking moments and unexpected changes of direction doesn’t hurt either. A director and well cast lead with the talents to capture the voice could turn this into a great action movie.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Still Missing
  2. Book Review: Personal Demons
  3. Book Review: Old Man’s War
  4. Book Review: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
  5. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: books, Fiction, reviews, thriller

Book Review: Old Man’s War

Oct27

Old Man's WarTitle: Old Man’s War

Author: John Scalzi

Genre: Sci-Fi/Space Opera

Read: Oct 26-27 2010

Summary: Top notch fun! If you liked Avatar and want to see how much better a good Sci-Fi novel can be, read this.

_

This novel borrows heavily from classics like Starship Troopers and Forever War, but who cares. It’s great. A flawlessly breathless read from start to finish. Basically it’s about a normal (for the year 2200) 75 year old man who volunteers to leave the sheltered Earth, gets upgraded, and is thrown into the maelstrom of interstellar alien combat. It’s action driven, idea driven, AND character driven. Not that the characters are painted with some kind of world shattering mastery, but they’re good, and likable. The atmosphere and action are all great. I also enjoyed seeing aliens again in my Sci-Fi. By that, I mean weird and tentacled out hostile aliens. I like my aliens alien.

There are also a lot of good newer Sci-Fi ideas packed into the book, plus a healthy dose of classic 60’s-80’s ones that have been nicely updated. I have a few little bones to pick with the author’s vision of the future. Particularly on Earth where things seem to have barely changed. Hell, there are even magazines in a waiting room. We won’t have magazines 20 years from now. In addition, the alien planets seemed to too often have the coincidental breathable atmosphere. This is common across Sci-Fi but always bugs me. The space marines have combat suits, it could just mention the suit dealing with the issue. And several of the aliens liked to eat humans. Now I liked the gruesome touch, but the reality is that alien biology would be way too different. The odds of them having the same amino acids, salts, etc as life on Earth are astronomical. But as I said, I liked Scalzi’s aliens, particularly the weird militant advanced religious nut warrior bugs.

But still, these complaints are just nitpicks. I loved the book. I downloaded the next two sequels already (via Kindle to my iPad). Enough said.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Still Missing
  2. Book Review: The Passage
  3. Book Review: Summer Sisters
  4. Book Review: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
  5. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: books, Fiction, Forever War, John Scalzi, Old Man's War, reviews, Science Fiction, Space Opera, Starship Troopers

On Writing: Revising, and Waiting

Oct27

The Darkening DreamOne of the weird and disconcerting things about the revision stage of novel writing is the waiting. For me a revision often goes like this:

1. Receive a bunch of notes about problems or possible improvements for the book.

2. Become briefly depressed (1-2 days) as I ponder how to fix the problems.

2. Cheer up as I create a revision plan with little notes per chapter detailing my grand scheme to fix everything. I try and visualize in my head how the big picture of the story will be affected.

3. Do all the “little changes” that can be done without breaking the book and requiring a full read to fix.

4. Take one by one the bigger changes (including big cuts) and make them, attempting to repair the story as I make the changes, including finding any references in the story that are now inconsistant because of changes. Anytime a scene requires substantial changes I need to make the changes and then do at least one full sweep read of the scene to pickup typos and the like. Within each of these changes it often involves moving around passages and cutting stuff first, then blending in the changes and repairing the loose ends. I think of this as the surgery stage.

5. Sometimes certain “global” changes which involve small changes across a lot of the book are left out of the surgery. An example of this would be adding a pervasive trait or line of thought to a major character. For example in one draft I added a dead little brother into the history of the protagonist and needed various little references here and there.. These are things that can only be easily done in the context of a full read.

6. Start reading at the beginning. As I go through each scene correct any errors, line edit, revise, tighten etc. Insert in any changes that are part of large sequential changes, particularly things that involve complex reveals of information back and forth across the entire novel. If the changes in a particular scene are big, do a sweep read. An interesting note here is that one’s style evolves. Even simple things like how I use line breaks, or most particularly my style of dialog tagging change over time. The full pass is a good place to “modernize” scenes and try and bring them all up to the latest style.

7. After finishing the whole pass do line edit and compression passes on a few scenes that might have felt “fat” but for some reason I didn’t compress during the big sweep.

This whole process is very intense and I tend to do it in a big manic burst of energy. Then I have a new draft. Given that I’ve read the book so many times, I’m usually out of new ideas for improvement at that point. If I had any, I would’ve put them into the draft. I’m unlikely to get any more until someone else jogs my brain via feedback. I’m a maniac workaholic so I’d prefer to work steadily on the book until it’s done. Totally done. But at this point until I get some feedback the only thing I could actually do is read scenes over and over and “tune” the prose. However, If I just completed a big full read this is counter productive. One only gets so many reads of any scene before it becomes very difficult to actually pay attention, so doing too many back to back isn’t a good idea. Plus, what you can’t tell after big changes and cuts is how exactly the overall reveal of information in the book works for a new reader. As the author one intrinsically knows too much about everything. You need a virgin reader for that.

So I have to send the book out for comments and wait. I send it to my professional freelance editors, and I try and solicit as many friends and family readers as is reasonable for the draft with the goal of getting just a hand full of decent commentaries back.

I hate waiting. So I try to keep myself busy with other things. Catching up on my reading. Learning to Blog. Updating my synopses and/or query letter (mind numbing!). Searching the web for possible agents. All this is dull and not nearly as creatively rewarding as working on the book itself. What I really want to do is find out what might be wrong with it and fix it until it’s done.

But it takes at least two, usually more, weeks to get comments back. Arrgh! I’m used to video games where everything is done NOW NOW NOW. Let’s not even talk about the archaic mid-century operating speed of the traditional publishing biz — I’ll save that for another time — the only things slower than that are French silk factories, municipal construction, and the US PTO.

What I really SHOULD do is work on the outline for my next book. I do a bit of this, but it’s hard to jump full tilt into the early stages of another gigantic creative endeavor when what I really want to do is finish the one on my plate. I used to have this exact same feeling after we’d ship the US version of a Crash Bandicoot or Jak & Daxter game. I’d sit around waiting for the external QA department to approve the Gold Master, or the foreign groups to return their last tiny localization changes. Meanwhile, I could neither go on vacation nor devote proper creative energy to the next project.

Maybe it’s just my hyper kinetic “finish it!” type personality, or maybe it’s just part of the process.

By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Darkening Dream
Tagged as: Book Writing, Fiction, Fiction writing, Video game, Writers Resources, Writing

Book Review: The Passage

Oct27

The PassageTitle: The Passage

Author: Justin Cronin

Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror

Read: Late June 2010

Summary: Excellent.

_

One of this year’s top new vampire entries. It’s an odd book, long, and broken into three parts, but good. The first third is set more or less in the present and deals with how a viral epidemic that turns people into nearly indestructible vampire-like creatures gets loose and destroys the world. The writing is good and this section is a bit of an oddity in that the plot itself is minimal, but padded out with almost gratuitous backstory on nearly every character. Bit players that we meet in the gas station for one page get five pages of life story flashback. All these people, lovingly details, die quickly. Oddly, it works and is a compelling read. However, it makes me scratch my head as all the standard writing advice I’ve been given by editors, agents, and the like would’ve been to cut all these backstories. In fact, they certainly would’ve told me that the entire first third of the book is backstory, and the proper place to start was far later. At a certain level they are correct, because there is only one character — and an odd one at that — who crosses from this long prelude into the main two thirds of the novel.

The middle third of the book takes place 100 years later and totally kicks ass. This was some of the best Sci-fi/horror I’ve read in years. It’s post apocalyptic, taking place in this one compound somewhere in the California desert. They are under continual siege by vampires, and their numbers are dwindling. Their entire life and society is organized around survival, but slow attrition of their numbers is the only thing in their future. The Road Warrior meets I-don’t-know-what feel of this section is awesome. Cronin does a fantastic job of world building here, and the specific animalistic vampires (a bit reminiscent of I am Legend) is great. In some way’s it feels more like a Zombie apocalypse because it has that feeling of instant-death-at-any-second.

In part three, these same characters are forced out of their little sanctuary into the big bad world. This part is still good, but does a little shark jumping and borrows very heavily from things like the Stand, etc. I didn’t mind, but the ending felt a little forced and just didn’t quiet sustain the promise of the amazing middle section.

Still, the overall novel was excellent. Flawed, but the middle part was so great, and the first and third sections enjoyable enough, to make it one of the better books I’ve read in a while.

Related posts:

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  3. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
  4. Book Review: Rabbit Run
  5. Book Review: The Way of Kings
By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, books, Fiction, horror, Justin Cronin, reviews, Science Fiction, The Passage, Vampire

Book Review: Personal Demons

Oct26

Personal DemonsTitle: Personal Demons

Author: Lisa Desrochers

Genre: YA supernatural romance

Read: Oct 20 2010

Summary: Detested it.

_

The premise of this book is that a demon and an angel are both vying for the love (and soul) of the same high school girl. This I don’t mind. The execution however…  Let us start with voice and character. The book is told in staccato alternating first person from the girl and the demon’s POVs. The girl is written in currently-in-vogue snarky-boy-crazy voice which is frankly repulsive and (hopefully) not even accurate in all but the most brainless products of mass media consumption. All she can think about is that whichever guy is in front of her looks hot in his jeans. The demon was less annoying but even more ridiculous. He’s supposed to be a 4000 year-old denizen of Hell out to corrupt the souls of the innocent and he comes off like a self involved High Schooler. At no point does he actually BEHAVE in any way particularly evil. He shows no particular long term perspective, but instead just has the hots for the girl. There is no real thought about what it might mean for God and the Devil to actually  meaningfully over someone’s heart, or even what it means to be a good or evil person. The good vs. bad is couched in terms of which boy the girl sleeps with. The high level premise is fine, but the book as written just makes no sense except on the most superficial level, and most importantly the characters are cardboard cutouts serving only the voice and premise — so who cares about them. This makes Twilight seem a work of art, and is exactly the kind of pseudo-religious story that I wrote my novel in counterpoint to.

Related posts:

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  2. Book Review: Tiger Eyes
  3. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  4. Book and Movie Review: Let Me In
  5. Book Review: Forever
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: Angel, books, Demon, Devil, Fiction, God, Hell, reviews, romance, Supernatural, YA

Book Review: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Oct26

The Adoration of Jenna FoxTitle: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Author: Mary E. Pearson

Genre: YA light sci-fi

Read: Mid Oct 2010

Summary: Liked it a lot.

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I’ve been disappointed by a lot of the contemporary Young Adult novels I’ve been reading and this was a pleasant surprise. Told in first person present tense this is the story of a girl who awakes from a mysterious accident with almost no memory. She doesn’t know what to make of what her “parents” tell her and the videos and images of a life she doesn’t remember. It’s very light Science Fiction, set in a near future with very little prose-time spent on explanation of tech stuff — which is fine. It’s just very well written and the point of view engaging. The characters feel real, and you invest some emotion in them. At a certain core level this is all it takes. For many young readers the concepts of deconstructed identity might be novel — for me as a sci-fi reader who likes that theme this book wasn’t really about the plot. But there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just a good book and an easy read. I liked the voice and found it pleasantly free of forced attitude.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Rabbit Run
  2. Book Review: Forever
  3. Book Review: Tiger Eyes
  4. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  5. Book Review: Summer Sisters
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: books, Fiction, Literature, Mary E. Pearson, reviews, Science Fiction, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, YA, Young-adult fiction

Book and Movie Review: Let Me In

Oct26

Let Me InTitle: Let Me In / Let the Right One In

Author: John Ajvide Lindovist

Genre: Horror

Read: Mid Oct 2010

Summary: Liked it, but had issues with the second half.

_

This is the original novel (translated I believe from Swedish) that forms the basis of the recent movie Let Me In and last years Swedish film Let the Right One In. First I’m going to talk about the book, then I’ll also discuss both movies and a bit about the process of adaption.

The novel has a lot going for it. It’s a relatively new take on vampire feel — and I’ve certainly seen/read an exhaustive amount of vampire films/books. Lindovist loosely sticks to the basic lore tenants (some of which I regard as sacrosanct). No daylight sparkles, feeding on blood, requiring invitation, etc. But his vampire(s) live a more marginal less powerful existence than many. The emotional core of the story is about a human boy who is misunderstood and bullied in school, and how he is therefore ripe for the kind of symbiotic/parasitic relationship that the book’s central vampire needs to survive. This part I like, and the character of the boy is well done, as is the girl vampire and the relationship. For me it kind of depends on the pubescent pre-sexuality of the central couple. But there are some things the book does to work against itself.

It’s too long, and has an extensive subplot involving some neighbors in the apartment complex. I ended up skimming much of this and it hardly mattered. It should have been trimmed to the bone (which the movies did). In the later third the book also goes crazy with this hard to understand devolution of the vampire’s former thrall/Renfield type into some kind of weird brainless half-vampire. This also was cut from the movies for good reason. But most critically, in the later part of the book [ SPOILER ALERT ] the gender of the vampire is thrown into question back making her/him into a castrated boy, and tossing in a horrific undead on undead anal rape scene. I’m all for extreme, but this whole ending left me not only feeling grossed out, but requiring myself to kind of ignore it and try and pretend she was still  a girl to finish the book. I really didn’t see the point and this more than anything mared my overall opinion of the book. I try to like it despite the twist.

So this brings us to the film translations. The process of stripping down a longer work into the compact requirements of a feature film is interesting. You have to find the central story and rip everything else out. This is what the filmmakers did, and in my opinion, almost all for the better. By stripping down the subplots, removing the crazy monster, and most important the gender ambiguity (although there is a hint of it in the Swedish film, but not enough to bother) the story concentrates itself on the central relationship and becomes very effective. Both films are good. The Swedish one is a bit moodier and the vampire is a little more androgynous. In the American adaption, which at times feels like a shot by shot remake, the subplots have been stripped even further and the sexuality notched up just a hair (Chloe is very clearly feminine). The American version also adds a slight tragic-comic quality to the vampire’s old familiar which I liked. Both films are very good, and very similar (besides the language spoken). I really liked this combined take on the story. The only thing I would have borrowed more from the book was a sense of the strange pedophiliac relationship with the old familiar — which although horrible, jives well with the creepy mood of the work.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Still Missing
  2. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  3. Book Review: Rabbit Run
  4. Book Review: Summer Sisters
  5. Book Review: Forever
By: agavin
Comments (3)
Posted in: Books, Movies
Tagged as: books, Fiction, horror, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Let the Right One In, reviews, Vampire

Food as Art: Calima

Oct25

Restaurant: Calima

Location: Marbella Spain

Date: June 10, 2010

Cuisine: Molecular Spanish Gastronomy

Rating: Mind blowing.

 

Okay, I’m a ridiculous foodie. But I believe passionately in food as a Fine Art, which has been practiced by mankind since the dawn of time in parallel to other cultural and artistic traditions. Sometime maybe I’ll blog about Apicus as an example of the high development of ancient culinary traditions. But today is about Calima, a fantastic Molecular Gastro place in Spain that shows off cuisine at its most modern and technical — but also extremely tasty.

Not too shabby a location, right on the south coast of Spain. If it had been a clear evening we could’ve seen Africa straight ahead. Like many high end restaurants Calima only has fixed menus. Here was ours.

Note that all the dishes below are individual portions. Each person received their own. We begin with the series of Amuse-Bouche, small bites to amuse the mouth.

The first one came in this neat little container.

Inside was revealed “Olive oil and Raf tomato nitro popcorn.” More or less pure Spanish olive oil frozen in liquid nitrogen to create this thing that looks like popcorn but tastes like olive oil and tomato. It’s very cold too. This is a neat example of trends in Avant Garde cuisine where things look like something they aren’t and also have unexpected textures and/or temperatures. It was good — but everything here was great so I won’t keep saying it.

This is “Crystallized transparent shrimp fritter ‘Tortillita de Camarones’.” It had a cellophane consistency and reminded me of certain japanese snacks.

Because a truly fine restaurant never half asses anything. The homemade bread options weren’t anything to snicker at.

And there was a second shelf.

This amuse is “‘Mollete de Antequera’ cooked in aluminum foil and stuffed with braised Tuna.” The foil was edible.

This was one of my favorite items. A devine “Nougat of Foie and Yuzu.” I’m pretty sure there was peanut butter in there too, or at least it tasted like it. Both incredibly rich, sweet, and tangy at the same time.

“Cold almond soup from Malaga ‘Ajoblanco’ thickened with red pepper caramelized and lichis” is served inside an egg. Ajoblanco is a very traditional Spanish soup made from garlic and olive oil, and this is a riff on that note.

This is a cold cherry Gazpacho.  The menu says “Manzanilla,” which translates to “Little Apple.”

No fine meal is complete without the wine. We had three. A nice Spanish Cava (Champagne equivalent that I failed to get a picture of) this tasty white and a fine red, below.

The “Laurel” is worth mentioning as it’s the the “second wine” of one of Spain’s greatest wines, the Priorato “Clos Erasmus.” The “first wine” costs upwards of $700 a bottle, but the Laurel, if you could possibly find it, is often $45-50! This for a 95-96 point wine! Priorato is a fantastic Spanish wine region. We consumed the Cava, at least two whites, and three or more reds.

“Cold ‘Puchero’ broth scented with mint; hummus flowers and soft boiled quail egg.” Very Japanese flavor profile to this dish. Light and refreshing.

“False Raf tomato stuffed with ‘pipirrana,’ cold avocado soup with ‘Quisquilla’ shrimp from Motril.” This was spectacular. The tomato, which tasted like one, is in fact some kind of reconstructed creation of the chef’s art. It was filled with a type of tomato mouse.

To illustrate the flexibility of kitchens at this level, the above is the “vegetarian” version of the False Tomato that they whipped up for one of our vegetarian dinner mates (notice no shrimp).

“Caviar ‘Per-se’ from RioFrio; a Calima surprise.” The custard underneath the fine Iranian caviar is vanilla with a bit of oyster juice. The contrast with the salty roe was fantastic.

This wasn’t on the menu, but it came nonetheless. Some kind of mushroom in a custardy broth.

“Citrus Oyster.”

“Sardines in a Moroccan flavored something (the menu cut off the sentence).

‘Olla Gitana’ of green beans, pumpkin and chickpeas, slow-cooked Foie and red curry. This was really good too, with a very fresh vegetable flavor to the “soup.”

“Roasted Sea bass with beans and citrics.”

A rich cut of pork in a fruity sauce that I couldn’t find on the menu, but it came.

An anonymous fish dish that came instead of the pork for a non meat eater at our table.

“Braised Iberian Pork tail dumpling with scarlet shrimp.” This was one of my favorites. The “dumpling” tasted like pork shumai, and the prawn was spectacular. The butter sauce held it all together, because “never too much butter.”

This measly collection of mostly Spanish cheeses confronted us, in both a visual and olfactory wallop.

This was the Spanish greatest hits we ended up with for the table, plus a tray of accompaniments.

“Caramelized Apple Hearts, acid yogurt, honey and eucalyptus thyme ice-cream.” Sort of a fancy take on Apple Pie al-la-mode.

“A piece of Sierra Nevada; pineapple iceberg with passion fruit, fennel and ginger.” This was amazing.

“Chocolate with caramelized pecan nuts, cacao, coffee and 16 year-old Lagavulin whiskey.”

“Nitro ‘Coconut’ with honey rum.” Yum.

The bonbon cart, because four deserts is just getting started.

Each person got one of these.

And one of these, which includes nitro frozen berries and chocolate truffles.

At three in the morning (the meal was 5 and a half hours long) the staff debriefs in the kitchen.

This meal was so good we had to come back two weeks later and try it again (mostly different dishes). While not priced like “In and Out” this gigantic 25 course extravaganza was no more than you’d spend at a pricey LA sushi place (I’m not talking Urasawa either — I’ll have to post one of my meals there too). In Spain wine prices are very reasonable too. This new form of Spanish cuisine is hard to find in the states. In LA we only have Bazaar, which is very good but not nearly as elaborate. I hope you can appreciate the artistry and effort that goes into these dishes and they tasted as good as they looked.

If you are interested in this kind of cuisine, also check out my reviews of La Terraza or The Bazaar.

By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Food
Tagged as: Amuse-Bouche, eating-spain, Food, Gourmet, Olive oil, Restaurant, reviews, Spain, Wine

Why the iPad is a Document game changer

Oct25

iPadI work with a lot of documents. By this I mean things one reads, usually mostly text and often PDF’s or Word docs. I always did, but especially now that I’ve been writing. I have drafts of my books, drafts of other peoples books, notes on them, peoples screenplays, programming manuals downloaded off the internet, etc. Books and other printed versions of documents have always been the nicest way to read or edit these things as you can sit somewhere comfortable and you can mark on them easily, but books take a long time to print. The two traditional solutions were:

1. Print it out, which takes a while and wastes paper.

2. Sit at your computer, which is uncomfortable.

The iPad changes the game because it makes it  so easy to read these things. There are lots of ways to get your docs on the device, including just emailing a PDF to yourself and clicking “Save to iBooks.” But you can also use Dropbox. This free app allows you to drag files into a tree of folders on your computer and have them immediately accessible on any iPhone, iPad, or computer with a Dropbox client. You can read there or save to a better app.

Goodreader is a decent and cheap PDF/doc reader ($0.99), although for PDFs the free iBooks is great. Goodreader even allows you to do markup on top of the files and email out annotated PDFs. But the interface for this is a little clunky. For serious editing I use iAnnotate which admittedly is “expensive” for an iPad app ($9.99), but has a really slick interface for marking up documents. I’ve sat on my couch and highlighted, crossed out, edited 500 pages that way. If someone emails you a doc you can do it anywhere without even going to your computer, and no destroying a big hunk of tree for the ream of paper and toner needed to print. Not to mention that 500 pages of looseleaf is hardly convenient.

Basically if someone sent me a draft screenplay or something before I’d put off reading it because sitting at the computer was no fun. Now it’s no different than a published book — I read those on the iPad too.

By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Technology, Writing
Tagged as: Document, Dropbox, IBooks, IPad, iPhone, Microsoft Word, Portable Document Format, tech

Book Review: Summer Sisters

Oct25

Summer SistersTitle: Summer Sisters

Author: Judy Blume

Genre: Chick Lit

Read: Oct 21-22 2010

Summary: Loved It, but had issues with the second half.

_

Continuing on the Judy Blume theme. This is a the first adult novel I’ve read by Blume. It’s longer than her YA fare, but it still shows the same skill at painting fascinating characters. Summer Sisters is the tale of a girl, Vix, who joins her “wild friend,” Caitlen, for a whole summer on Martha’s vineyard (in 1977) and ends up with this surrogate family every year after. It follows them from 12 to about 30. The POV is present tense, but flips around between everyone in the story except for Caitlen (she’d probably be unwritable). About 2/3 the word count is from Vix’s point of view. The first half is frankly awesome. The people are so weird, yet so real. The late 70’s early 80’s Martha’s Vineyard setting is so true to life (been there). The sex is hot, and there’s plenty of it. The pre-sexual experimentation is really well told too. However, in the second half the story picks up the speed at which it moves through time and we blow past the college and post-college years. Caitlen runs off to Europe and essentially disappears from the picture, although not the mind of the protagonist. I’m not sure I loved where it all went and wrapped up. But it doesn’t really matter because the island scenes with the two girls are unforgettable and worth the price of admission. I’m still in envy of Blume’s character and dialog skills.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Forever
  2. Book Review: Tiger Eyes
  3. Book Review: Rabbit Run
  4. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  5. Book Review: Still Missing
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: books, drama, Fiction, Judy Blume, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, reviews, Summer Sisters

Book Review: Tiger Eyes

Oct25

Tiger EyesTitle: Tiger Eyes

Author: Judy Blume

Genre: YA Drama

Read: Oct 19 2010

Summary: Loved It.

_

After reading Forever I went on a bit of a Judy Blume kick, trying to find all the ones I missed that are aimed at teenagers or up (I’m not sure I’m up for an MG novel). I’m determined to figure out how to write normal life scenes this engaging. It almost seems like she could have the characters do anything and make it a fascinating read. They shower, they change their sneakers, trim toenails — all stuff that is generally forbidden in writing guides — and yet it works. Tiger Eyes could have been like an after school special. In fact, it probably was made into one. It’s about a 15 year-old girl whose father is killed in a hold up, and she has to learn how to deal. It’s not preachy. The people are just real, the friendships real, the family dynamics real. The early 80’s Los Alamos setting is even interesting. There’s no sex, no violence (other than the retroactively occurring murder), but there is a lot of excellent dialog.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Forever
  2. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  3. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
  4. Book Review: Rabbit Run
  5. Book Review: Still Missing
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: books, Fiction, Judy Blume, New Mexico, reviews, Tiger Eyes, YA

Book Review: Forever

Oct25

ForeverTitle: Forever

Author: Judy Blume

Genre: YA drama

Read: Mid October 2010

Summary: Loved it.

 

Everyone should read. Okay. I admit I read a ton of Judy Blume back in Elementary School, but it’s been a long time. I found this because I was trying to find out how edgy YA books really get, particularly with regard to sex. Incredibly, a quick googling seems to indicate that 1975’s Forever is still about as much sex as YA gets. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong (and link me to some books) because I really want to answer the question as to how extreme (when well done) is appropriate for YA books today. In any case, somehow I had missed Forever in the 70’s — probably because I stopped reading Judy Blume at 10 or 11. I shouldn’t have. It’s great, and holds up perfectly well as an adult novel. After reading so many recently published and truly mediocre YA books (I’ll get around to reviewing some of them) this was like a breath of fresh air. First of all, I’m in awe at Blume’s skill at holding your attention with nothing but normal life. Mostly through dialog and a bit of interior monologue she paints incredibly real people effortlessly. I’ve now read a couple other books recently, and all her characters are always distinctive and real. In Forever she writes in a tight first person present. This drops you nicely inside the head of the narrator, but she doesn’t overdo the interior monologue (which I find tedious). There is none of the snarky-boy-crazy quality of so many current voices, just a very real teenager. Also, having grown up in the 70’s, I loved the subtle nostalgic flavor of suburban 70’s life. The book is never preachy, and despite the fact that absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happens, holds your interest through every word. The sex is frank and quite funny, using a clever device to soften it. You’ll know when you meet Ralph. Basically it just sticks your head right into this little slice of life, particular person, time and place, and holds it there for about two hours.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Rabbit Run
  2. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
  3. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  4. Book Review: Still Missing
  5. Book Review: A World Undone
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: books, Fiction, Forever, Judy Blume, Literature, reviews, sex, virginity, YA

Book Review: Still Missing

Oct24

Still MissingTitle: Still Missing

Author: Chevy Stevens

Genre: Thriller

Read: Late Sept 2010

Summary: Ambivalent

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I picked this up because it was edited by the same editor that I use (the amazing Renni Browne), represented by a top WME Agent, and debuted on the NYT best seller list. It’s not normally my cup of tea, even though I am very guilty of reading plenty of chick novels. Essentially, it’s about a woman who’s kidnapped, held for a year, and repeatedly raped, by a creep she can only call “the Freak.” In the present she’s escaped and is attempting to deal with this rather horrific course of events. The flashbacks to her captivity are intense and gripping in the same way that the police reports for serial killer cases are. They certainly feel realistic and whipped by, but they also left me with a kind of “dirty” feeling for enjoying them — not the what was being done mind you, but the reading of it. The present tense “action” however bored the hell out of me, for there was no action, merely interior monologue and brief conversations with her therapist. Obviously getting over such a thing would be HARD, but it doesn’t really make for a fun read, or represent a mental process I really need to work through a fictional telling of. Then in the last third, after the backstory has caught up to the present, the book takes a whacky left turn and the whole thing turns out to be a cockamamy conspiracy and non-coincidence. This, while easy enough to read, just bugged me. The writing was clean and out of the way. You didn’t notice it — which is about right for this sort of thing. So overall a was just left with the sordid tale of her capture, captivity, and escape, which was pretty good, but felt exploitive. The rest I could leave back at the cabin in the woods.

Related posts:

  1. Book Review: Rabbit Run
  2. Book Review: The Gathering Storm
  3. Book Review: The Way of Kings
  4. Book Review: A World Undone
  5. About Book Reviews
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Books
Tagged as: books, Chevy Stevens, Crime, Fiction, Murder, reviews, Serial killer, Still Missing, thriller
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