The last batch of line edits for my novel The Darkening Dream are in from my awesome freelance editors. Now I just have to spend the next day or two groveling over them, tweaking, and then…
Read the entire thing again!
For like the 50th time!
Archive for Fiction – Page 4
Title: Human Centipede
Director/Stars: Ashley C. Williams (Actor), Dieter Laser (Actor), Tom Six (Director)
Genre: Gross-out Horror
Watched: February 17, 2011
Summary: Repulsive premise coupled with startlingly matter-of-fact delivery.
Just so you don’t think I always review good films, here comes a doozy. My brother knows the guy who stars as the head of the titular Human Centipede in this film, and he brought it to my attention (although he hadn’t seen the film). We looked it up and the premise was so horrifically nasty, so out-and-out repulsive and dark, that I couldn’t help but watch the film.
Now, in the interest of protecting my dear and tender readers, I’m not going to actually tell you the premise. If you are so inclined, you may watch the trailer and decide for yourself. Be warned. Let’s just say it’s terrifying, gross, and of totally dubious possibility.
But having conceived this idea, the writer/director pursues it with gusto. This is actually not a badly made film, considering it’s genre and budget. But there is no attempt to craft a clever plot or characters. It charges headlong into the ramifications of the disturbing by use of straightforward Horror tropes and coincidence, and replies on sheer dread to deliver. The villain, a twisted German surgeon which a penchant for illegal and immoral procedures, is played to hammy perfection by Dieter Laser. His emotionless delivery as to the nature of his plan is as disturbing as it’s intended to be.
For all the film’s unabashed directness. It actually isn’t that graphic, although the ramifications of the premise are rather nasty. I’m also not sure I’ve seen another movie with so much moaning/pathetic-whimpering in it, I felt compelled to keep turning down the volume. And for all it’s true horror, the deadpan delivery lends it to the almost darkly comic. NOTE: On that note, Robert Ebert (my favorite film reviewer) has an an absolutely hilarious review of it here (WARNING, he reveals the premise). There are also some odd choices, like the fact that in the second half their is almost no English dialog as the Doctor often speaks in German, the “head” babbles in subtitled Japanese, and the two female leads can only moan.
And it isn’t the best paced film (particularly the first half), so was an excellent candidate for the Playstation 3‘s most appreciated 1.5x speed viewing feature. This not only speeds up the film smoothly, but does a pretty good job of time based correction on the audio so it doesn’t sound too funny. Many slightly dull films are eminently watchable in this format. For example, silent films from the early 20th century, with their 1-2 minute title cards. It rendered the Human Centipede in an even hour which was just about perfect.
In any case, if you are a fan of Horror, or the truly deeply sick and twisted, crawl on board.
The rest of the series can be found here: [1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6]
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS:
Season 7:
So at long last we meander to the final, and worst, season. Not that it’s awful, but it does suffer from a number of serious problems.
1. The big bad is diffuse. This season, in an effort to be even more apocalyptic, they decided on an incorporal season villain called “the first evil.” A vaguely couched badness that takes the form of dead people, often Buffy herself (she did, after all, die twice). Frankly, the first is kinda lame, and not very funny. It certainly doesn’t measure up to Glory or the Mayor (although it occasionally looks like the Mayor). It’s “first” appearance (haha) where it slowly winds back through all the villains in reverse order is however kinda cool.
2. The slayerettes – About 40% into the season Buffy is inundated by a collection of 17 year-old idiots known collectively as the slayerettes. They totally suck, are just anoying, gum up the relationships we really care about, and often get themselves killed (good riddance). Only Kennedy has any redeeming qualities — mostly in the form of implied girl-on-girl action with Willow.
3. Andrew – For some reason, this lamest and most annoying of the “Trio” is held captive in Buffy’s house, where he can serve to annoy us, the viewers. He does have his occasional moments and lines, like “Episode one boring?” But mostly he grates on the nerves of the cast and viewer alike. Oh Andrew, why at least couldn’t you have died in “Chosen?”
4. Mysterious documentary-style shooting – Certain episodes have a more documentary style that is not evidenced anywhere else in the series. Notably “Storyteller” (deliberate there for sure) and bits in “Touched” and “End of Days.” It felt amateurish and out of place.
5. No good creative episodes – Nothing like “The Body” or “Once More with Feeling.” Nothing. They may have tried with “Storyteller,” but it was lame lame lame.
At least the writers knew it would be the last season, and so in a neat and orderly manner arced the story toward a decent conclusion. And the first half of the season starts pretty decently. The new character, Principal Wood is good. “Help” is a great episode and the Anya episode, “Selfless” has some totally priceless 1,000 year flash back scenes between Anya and Olaf the troll — totally priceless, and made all the better for being in some Germanic/Scandinavian tongue and subtitled. “Conversations with Dead People” and “Sleeper” aren’t bad either.
Ug. Then enter the slayerettes. The only compensating bit being the sub-boss bad guy, the “ubervamp” who is pretty cool and kicks some ass, including Buffy’s.
The second half of the season is uneven, including my least favorite episode in a long time “Storyteller,” but the pretty good “Lies My Parents Told Me.” The new sub-boss Caleb is decent too. Then we have “Empty Places.”
I don’t know what they were thinking, but it’s obvious the writers decided they had to separate Buffy from her friends for dramatic effect, and so they stage a show down in which they all turn against her. In no other episode of the entire series is there a moment where so many characters just act completely out of character. I can buy a few of them turning on her like this, but the writers failed completely to give each and every one of them a valid personal reason visa-via their relationship with Buffy to do so. I could barely watch it.
The return of Faith however is good, and the last three episodes are pretty strong, particularly the series finale “Chosen.” Despite the lame cameo from Angel, it does all end up in a pretty good place, and reasonably satisfying — a difficult thing to do after such a long and emotional series. Overall, it’s certainly a must watch, but just not on par with the magnificent pair of seasons that preceded it.
As with the previous two times I’m depressed that it’s over. This time I’m going to make a serious effort at Jos Whedon’s season 8 in comic book form.
Since I’m always cryptically referring to my novel in progress, I figured I’d post a few words about it.
The Darkening Dream is a historial dark fantasy. It’s currently 95,000 words and I’ve just finishing up the line editing and polish. [ Updated 3/16/11 ] I’m looking for a literary agent to help me start slogging through the process of publishing.
As to the thing that matters — the story [ Updated 3/25/11 ]:
An ominous vision and the discovery of a gruesome corpse lead Sarah and her friends into a terrifying encounter with a fledgling vampire. Eager to prove themselves, the young heroes set out to track the evil to its source, never guessing that they will take on a conspiracy involving not only a 900-year vampire, but also a demon-loving Puritan warlock, disgruntled Egyptian gods, and an immortal sorcerer, all on a quest to recover the holy trumpet of the Archangel Gabriel. Relying on the wisdom of a Greek vampire hunter, Sarah’s rabbi father, and her own disturbing visions, Sarah must fight a millennia-old battle between unspeakable forces, where the ultimate prize might be Sarah herself.
CONTINUED FROM PART 4 ABOVE. And the whole series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS:
Season 6:
The transition from season 5 into season 6 is the best of the entire series. After the season 5 finale, with its tear jerking “The Gift,” we slam right in with the two hour “Bargaining,” and it’s more or less continuation “After Life.” I’ve never managed to not watch all three of these together because until the end of the third hour things are so unsettled you just have to keep going.
Season 6 is dark, and in my opinion the seven seasons would be ranked 5,6,3,4,2,1,7. With all but 7 being fantastic, and five and six very close. Six is a bit darker, but I’ll give the edge to five just because I like Glory so much and the whole villain bit is more cohesive. But both five and six have almost no “one off” episodes, even those that technically have a monster of the week like “After Life,” or “Hell’s Bells,” are fundamentally crucial to the larger plot. And episode seven of season six is “Once More, With Feeling,” arguably, along with season 5’s “The Body,” the best episode of the entire series.
“Once More, With Feeling” is just mind bogglingly brilliant. Not only is it a musical, sung entirely by the cast and written and scored by Joss Whedon, but it’s a darn good musical. If you are new to Buffy, don’t watch this episode and expect to be wowed — I mean if you like musicals you might like it — but you have to see it in context of the series to really appreciate it. I’ve watched it no less than eight times, and I’ve been spell bound ever time. Plus I hate musicals. First there is the sheer audacity of it: to just up and write a musical episode, complete with MGM musical style titles in the middle of a long running dramatic series. I even own the soundtrack. But then, much more importantly, is how this episode is actually the most central to the season, the one in which everything comes to a head. It has the most plot, the most climax, of any Buffy episode. Nearly every character is pivoting here — and the music makes it happen. Sheer unadulterated genius.
After “Once More, With Feeling,” things grow really dark. This season our nominal villains are the Trio, three geeks who have ganged up to be super villains. They’re pretty funny, although not nearly as menacing as the mayor or Glory. They do have some tremendous lines like “episode one bad?” But really, their villainy is trumped by none other than the best friend. In the middle of this season Buffy herself struggles with Nihilism, and a career in fast food. But Willow… Her magic addiction threatens to destroy her relationship, her life, and ultimately the world. Lots of other stuff is self destructing here. Giles leaves, Dawn suffers teen angst, Anya and Xander implode, and Buffy turns to down and dirty sex to validate her dark self. This is good stuff, almost too dark.
Nearing the end we have the very emotional “Seeing Red,” and then the high speed tripple whammy of Willow’s vengeful meltdown. The end is good too, just not as deeply felt as “The Gift.”
If only season 7 could have stayed this good.
Title: XVI
Author: Julia Karr
Genre: YA Dystopian Fiction
Read: Jan 16-19, 2011
Summary: Good premise, tried hard, fell flat.
I really wanted to like this book more than I did. The premise is fine, set in a dystopian 2150 where teens are branded at 16 as”legal for sex.” Nina is almost 16, and is dealing with not only the stress of this oncoming rite of passage, but boys, the death of her mother, and a bigger conspiracy.
But where to begin with the problems. The protagonist is okay, and there isn’t anything wrong with the prose, but fundamentally this book stands out as an example of premise over plot. Plot, we are told is how the characters in a story deal with or overcome the premise. A good one sells the premise in an engrossing and personal manner. The plot just felt weak, and the characters reactions to it rushed and forced. People keep popping up out of nowhere. Dramatic events — like the narrator’s mom dying — blink by. They live in Chicago, yet everyone seems to know everyone. The villain tattles his villainy while playing hide and seek with the heroine — so very Scooby Doo.
And the Science Fiction is pretty darn mediocre. This is 150 years from now and music and films are stored on “chips!” There won’t even be physical media in 15-20 years. There is no mention of a net or internet — nary a computer. They still have magazines! Video playing machines that play films on chips (like a DVD player). People have phone numbers (also on the way out already). There are no substantial tech improvements. Some “transports” that maybe fly. Mention of moon and mars settlement, but no matching tech on earth. No new biotech, no new computer tech.
150 years ago is 1860 and the civil war!
I didn’t hate the book, in fact wanted to like it, but it just fell flat.
Title: The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate
Author: Ted Chiang
Genre: Historical Time Travel
Read: Jan 10, 2011
Summary: Awesome and lyrical.
This 60 page short story is so up my alley. A story of time travel, set in medieval Baghdad, what could be better? If it were written in a lyrical style reminiscent of the Arabian nights! This is a gold and gem encrusted little dagger of a story. Mimicking prose style AND story telling conventions of its chosen era. It manages to demonstrate its time travel device and constraints in a manner so clear even an Abbasid merchant could understand.
It won both the Hugo and Nebula Novellette awards. Good show. Read it. Ali ibn Hammud al-Nasir (the villan from my own novel) commands that you do so. And he’s been known to make tea from the ground bones of those who refuse him.
It’s for sale standalone (very expensive), and in this anthology (cheap).
Title: Girl Walking Backwards
Author: Bett Williams
Genre: Lesbian cuming of age YA
Read: Jan 10-15, 2011
Summary: Less than Zero meets Rubyfruit Jungle.
This book is rather brilliant, but isn’t for everybody. In my review of Lost It (CLICK HERE), I had inquired if anyone knew any YA that was racy, and this was recommended. It’s written in a breezy first-person past with a kind of stream-of-consciousness lightweight quality that made me have to look to make sure it wasn’t present tense. The prose is very very good — fitting the material perfectly.
Skye is a fifteen-year-old growing up in Santa Barbara, and she’s basically raising herself. Her mother is a self-help seminar junkie and all-around new age psychotic, her dad (divorced) lives in LA where he directs films and has sex with pretty production assistants. Neither seem to think about her at all. She has a boy friend, sort of, but wants a girlfriend. She drinks and does drugs, but she isn’t a bad girl.
Somehow this character rang very true for me, and the voice is intensely personal and likable. Even the hare-brained situations seem very real, and like Less than Zero the substance abuse and self destructive behavior believable. The voice effortlessly shifts with the state of mind — often altered — and does a first class job conveying that. For some, this might be a hard book to read, particularly if one were right-wing, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Bret Easton Ellis‘s above mentioned masterpiece feels like watching a train wreck. While Girl Walking Backwards doesn’t have the terrifying “all rashed and looks dry and I can see that it’s been shaved” moment, and is ultimately transcendant.
Finally, his is a book that is very candid about sexuality.
Not only do we have various incidents of masturbation, near sex, and actual sex, but they aren’t even the focus. This isn’t gratuitous, it’s just frank. This isn’t about a girl becoming a lesbian, or coming out. It’s about a girl trying to find her footing in a world without foundations.
Title: The Windup Girl
Author: Paolo Baciqalupi
Genre: Sci-Fi
Read: Jan 5-9, 2011
Summary: Interesting Science, mediocre Fiction.
This novel won the 2009 Nebula and tied for the 2010 Hugo. It’s set in an approximately 100-200 years-from-now dystopian future Bangkok ravaged by gene engineered diseases. Fossil fuels are nearly exhausted and society eeks by on “megadont” (gene hacked elephant) and human power.
At first I found this intensely gripping, as the depiction of the future world is crystal bright and highly novel. The prose is fantastic, bordering on slightly literary. The problem is that the story has a lot of characters, five or six main points of view, and I found it very hard to care about most of them. I only really liked Emiko, the gene hacked whore/slave looking for a better life. The American gene thief was okay too. The rest of them I could hardly focus on enough to follow their rambling monologues. Once the relative novelty of the world ground down a bit, I just couldn’t keep myself interested in what was happening. There’s plenty of plot, but it’s moderately byzantine, and I just didn’t care.
Because books are all about the characters. Contrast The Windup Girl with something like Song of Ice and Fire (which I need to write up, but is being adapted into an HBO series). The plot and world in that book are intense, but Martin makes you care for all (well most) of the characters. The Windup Girl has a lot of repetitive rantings. The elderly Chinese guy for example goes on for about two pages in his second chapter about his distrust of banks. Sure this was supposed to instill the sense that he no longer trusts any institution (for good reason), but it just felt self indulgent. The seedy scenes with the titular character in sort of future Patpong where cool though, albiet disturbing.
Let me get back to the world, as this is the biggest strength of this book. The author clearly spent some serious time in Bangkok, and the foreign, yet vaguely possible future was pretty damn good. I don’t really buy the relying on springs for power, and there’s very little impact here of either nanotech or computers, both of which I think will dominate the 21st century. Still, it was pretty cool. There’s a serious element of “environmental preachy” between the lines, which I suspect is a factor in it’s award winning status. Award gives love a leftist cause. Not that I’m not pro-environment, I’m just not a “causist.” The book reminded me of Neuromancer and Diamond Age in that they described really cool and consistant worlds, but had inadequate character development. Diamond Age in particular is pretty darn boring once you get over the world (which is great). Two many characters, no reason to care about them, opaque and weird motives.
Personally, I think authors should focus tighter on character in these “new world” type books. For example, Consider Phlebas worked for me. People bag on it’s story, but at least it focuses fairly well on a particular guy’s adventure, and the world is amazing. There’s only so much you can do in one book, and a totally new world is a lot. Occasionally someone managed both, like one of my all time favorite novels, Hyperion, but brilliant as that is, even it still suffers from switching the POV so often. But boy does he work some serious pathos into a number of them.
Title: Across the Universe
Author: Beth Revis
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Read: Jan 10, 2011
Summary: Great read. Reminds me of books I read 30 years ago.
A couple months ago one of the book/writing blogs I read featured an article about first chapters that included one from this book. It was unpublished at the time, but I liked the first chapter enough to pre-order the book on Amazon. Liked it enough to actually read it yesterday when it came in the mail (one day before it was supposed to and the Kindle version wasn’t out yet — so for the first time in a little while I read on paper).
I knew I’d liked the first chapter for a reason. Besides the fact that it (the first chapter) featured a naked seventeen year-old girl, this was a fun book. And no there isn’t much sex in here — at least not for the characters that matter.
And the reason this is a good book… drumroll please… the characters. Particularly Amy, the female lead.
Superficially this is fairly old-school Science Fiction, slanted a bit younger than adult, almost like Citizen of the Galaxy, Home from the Shore, or For Love of Mother-Not (boy is cover design today 1000x uglier than it was in 1980!). Worth a 2 minute diversion:
Left the old one, the right is new. Which would you pick? Personally, I hate photography on fiction covers. I like COVER ART. Call me old-school. Anyway.
Across the Universe (not to be confused with the movie of the same title), is about a girl who joins a generation ship as cryogenically frozen cargo (the ship will take 300 years to go to it’s colonial destination) with her parents, but is accidentally woken early (alone) to find herself amongst a very strange society. The crew has been left to run the ship for centuries, and well nothing stays the same, certainly not human society over the course of generations.
The science here isn’t the most innovative, but it is consistant and easy to grasp. I didn’t totally buy the society and all it’s premises. But it didn’t really matter. The book is told in double first person view point, from Amy’s POV and that of the young future captain of the ship (simplified explanation for review purposes). The POV’s are very good, and stick tightly to single interwound storyline. The classic device of having a newcomer (Amy) works well to make the experience more visceral and personal, and this ties us as a reader into the story. It’s also worth contrasting this with a more “mature” Science Fiction novel I read the day before, The Windup Girl (review HERE), which although Hugo and Nebula winning, and possessed of a MUCH more elaborate and interesting SciFi world, just isn’t that fun to read. As the two main characters are literally the only people on the ship their age, they are fairly obviously in it together. I like the “forced” relationship device.
Again, because the character narrative is too fragmented. I like character. I like narrative. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Science Fiction, I’ve read thousands of them. I like elaborate worlds. But they’re nothing without the glue to hold you there.
Now my small beefs. The book was too teasy on the sex. There was sex flying all around, we should’ve had some with the protagonists! I’m old school that way too. 60s, 70s, and 80s SciFi had lots of sex.
And the last 20% of the book started to get that we-have-reached-the-big-reveal-and-now-it’s-all-going-to-feel-a-little-forced stage that many “big reveal” books have. I had this same beef recently with the otherwise perfect Dead Beautiful (review HERE). Still, I read Across the Universe in one sitting, literally, and I enjoyed it the whole way through. I love when this happens — fairly rare as it is for a reader as jaded as I am — it reminds me that there’s still good writers out there.
Title: Lost It
Author: Kristen Tracy
Genre: YA Romance
Read: Jan 3, 2011
Summary: Forever 2007.
This is a very likable teen romance about an Idaho girl’s first real relationship and of course… how she lost her virginity. I read this in my continued meandering quest to find out just how edgy and racy YA can actually be. I hope someone points me to another answer, but I’m thinking… not very. If you know anything really edgy, please put it in a comment. Lost It is pretty reminiscent of Judy Blume‘s Forever (my review HERE), and it’s gone backwards in the sexual explicitness department big time. Really there’s barely any.
Don’t get me wrong. This is a good book, and it stands on its own. It’s just not racy. But I really did like the voice. Using the standard first person past you are immediately and tightly drawn into protagonist Tess’s head. She’s pretty funny too, and not your totally typical teen girl. There is a lot of interior monologue, but it doesn’t suffer from the “too much tell” problems that this often entails. Like, for example, the Indy book Switched (my review HERE) I read the previous day. With Lost It, I actually laughed a number of times aloud — or at least chuckled. Like all these books, the narrator is what drives the whole thing, and the book delivers 100% in that regard.
Many of the other characters are good. The best friend, the boyfriend, and the grandmother all felt unique and real. The parents less so. Tracy doesn’t have the effortless ability to make every character totally and completely believable like Judy Blume, but who does? Nevertheless, she gives it the good old college try and the results are very good.
But the tameness bothered me. In our era of hyper shock factor, it would be nice if an honest book like this was a bit more honest and open about its central topic. Sex. Forever certainly has the edge there, and it’s more than 35 years old. It’s also worth noting that the two books have almost the same cover. I guess publisher marketing departments all think alike. Observe to the right!
I don’t know what it is, but at the same time the internet has opened the door to vastly more sexual material than my 70s or 80s brain could have ever conceived, popular media has less and less. But more violence. Somehow this seems pretty twisted — at least the more violence less love thing.
Anyway, Lost It, is a good book. Refreshing actually because I didn’t have to force myself to finish it. It’s all character driven, and when well done that’s a very good thing.
Title: Switched
Author: Amanda Hocking
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Read: Jan 2, 2010
Summary: Easy read, but needs editing badly.
I’ve been doing research on publishing for the last year. I’ll have to write a separate post about the changing nature of the biz, it’s relationship to other publishing businesses (like video games), and the rise of the self published ebook author. But in any case, I stumbled upon this independent and self published author who is selling very well (mostly on Amazon) with no prior print history. I figured I’d check one out. Switched appears to be her best seller and she says on her blog that it’s her favorite.
This is a funny little paranormal romance about a girl whose mother hates her and thinks she’s a changeling — but she is. In fact she’s a troll. She’s then dragged off to her real mother. The first 25% is slightly “high school novel,” and the later 75% “fish out of water.”
Overall, I’m not sure what to make of the book. The first person voice was strangely engaging and I pounded through it easy in an afternoon. Still, it felt like a first (or maybe second draft), and it’s full of flaws.
According to her website the author has roughly ten novels, mostly written in 2010 and she pounds out the first drafts 2-4 weeks! I consider myself fast at 2,500-4,000 words a day of first draft, but I have to admire that kind of lightning pace. The book was short. Maybe 50-60k words and it could perhaps be classified as “engaging” but could’ve been “really fun read” with some real editing.
There is a crazy amount of “tell,” in this book. A lot of it buried in the overzealous volume of interior monologue. Characters are constantly attributed characteristics directly, without them being shown. Often, these characteristics are never shown. The protagonist gives the straight dope on things as she sees it, but this often feels more like how the author wants the reader to see it than how it really is. In fact, there isn’t a whole lot of “show” in the book at all.
The author is a solid writer. The sentences themselves are well formed, but a lot of them needed to come out, or be trimmed down. Conversations are redundant. Dialog points are redundant. The author loves the words creepy and foxy. Really loves creepy. The important scenes feel drained of emotion as the excessive interior monologue and somewhat forced dialog rob the moments of any real drama. The more casual conversations feel better than the important ones. When there’s action it’s awkwardly blocked, so that you have to go back and reread lines sometimes to figure out what happened physically. The overall plot is pretty straightforward. The end was abrupt and unsatisfying too.
But still. I can’t say it didn’t have a certain charm. I enjoyed reading it, more than many published POCs (like for instance Personal Demons). The fantasy concept is decent and didn’t bug me.
Of course the novel only cost 99 cents! The writing is probably on par with Twilight (see my review HERE). Not that that’s high praise. It just needs a lot of revision. Some plot changes to increase drama, character tune-ups, and most of all line editing (see my detailed post on that HERE).
This is an Indy book. It’s professional, but it’s also the novel equivalent of a B movie. Written quickly, revised quickly, and sold cheaply. The author has enough talent to shoot higher.
Title: Dexter Series and Darkly Dreaming Dexter
Author: Jeff Lindsay
Genre: Dark Comedic Horror Police Procedural
Read: Dec 25-31, 2010
Show: Summer 2010
Summary: Immediately watch the show unless you are a squeamish person or otherwise sensitive to gruesome fun.
I’m going to try and stick to reviewing tothe first novel (Darkly Dreaming Dexter) and to the first season of the Showtime TV Show. I have, however, seen the whole series.
First, the show. This is one of the best shows on Television, and lots of people know it. It’s incredibly well written and engaging, without resorting to quite the level of crazy plotting that HBO usually goes for. Still, there is plenty of shock, and lots of blood. Not much sex — maybe they thought it would be WAY too creepy to mix in — but lots of blood and death. The idea of a sort of vigilante serial killer protagonist is pretty brilliant, and I’m amazed they pulled it off so well. I mean, taken in any context Dexter himself is really one sick fuck. But you do like him. And the supporting cast is great too. All of them really.
My only problem with the first season is that the Ice Truck Killer is a little too psychic about what is going to happen and what will push Dexter’s buttons. Now granted, there’s a reason for this, but I didn’t totally buy this level of prediction. Still, I had a blast, watching the whole thing in like 2-3 nights.
The show is dark, and pretty grisly. Did I mention dark? I love it. It’s also very very funny, in a perfect way which doesn’t give up on any of the realism. This is great. The writers do this with Dexter’s inner monologue, and the way in which his observations are often so in opposition to the situation. But the really telling thing about the show, and what makes it really great fiction, is that sometimes (terrifyingly often actually) we agree with him. Everyone has a bit of the serial killer inside them. Don’t get me wrong. I escort spiders outside to avoid killing them, but a dark thought or two has been known to cross my mind — or issue out of my keyboard — as my own book is pretty dark. Not to mention that my title (The Darkening Dream) is oddly similar to Darkly Dreaming Dexter. But I want to put it on record that I’d never even heard of the novel when I came up with the title. I guess Jeff Lindsay and I both adore alliteration.
Now the book.
It’s hard for me to judge it objectively because I saw the show first. The voice is really great, and the opening killer — literally. The show stays pretty tight to the novel for a while, and a lot of interior monologue and signature elements are in both. When Dexter is being naughty, particularly at the beginning, it’s totally gripping. The novel isn’t very long, 300 pages, 72,800 words. I liked the book.
But I loved the show. It’s just better. There’s more to it (and I’m just talking the first season). The plot is pretty similar, but the characters have much much more depth in the show. In the novel only Dexter, LeGuerta, and Deb (to a lesser extent) are real characters. The others from the show are mostly there, but mostly just scaffolds. In the show they really pop. Angel, Doakes, Vince, Rita etc. They have more dimensionality.
The plot too is much better developed in the show. The back story with Harry is beefed up. There are more twists and turns, and rightfully, the Ice Truck Killer is brought into the story in an active (on screen fashion) much earlier. Dexter’s kills and habits are better defined and more ritualistic, and there is a strong element of the “Cop Show.” Novel Dexter is less likable than show Dexter. Even the voice of the novel — it’s strongest element — is actually better in the show. Michael C. Hall‘s performance is awesome, and he really sharpens the edge on it.
And all the plot changes are big improvements. I had my one little plot beef with the first season, but the novel has several gaping holes. Not that it isn’t still a fun book. But the end for example. Why doesn’t Deb have him locked up? He really didn’t act in a terribly human manner. Also the element of coincidence and near mind reading on the killer’s part is way more pronounced in the book. This always bugs me. Also, Lindsay didn’t do a great job pre-selling Dexter’s origin. He just pops it out of the woodwork at the end (having seen the show I knew it was coming). The show sets it up really nicely.
He did however do a brilliant job with the little bit about “Mommy hiding the rest of her body in the little hole.” Oh so dark and nasty!
Title: The Spirit Thief
Author: Rachel Aaron
Genre: Light Fantasy
Read: Dec 7-16, 2010
Summary: Ethereal fun.
Between a trip back east, mega editing on my own book, and another parental visit last week I only had time to read five or so novels in December, about a quarter of my usual rate.
Don’t confuse this fun little book with The Lightning Thief, which I also just read and reviewed. The SPIRIT Thief straddles a fairly unique line between totally straight up 80s fantasy and comedic fantasy the likes of River of Dancing Gods or Myth Conceptions. It’s not however as totally comic as those, and somehow seems a bit smaller and lighter (if that’s possible).
The voice is very good, and the opening scene brilliant. There’s a nice new magic system here, where every living thing has a spirit inside that wizards can bargin with, enslave, or what not. Like comedy fantasy Shinto. It’s not entirely evenly developed, but the book is at its best during the magic fights. Although they do have a certainly sketchy quality too them, where the action doesn’t feel entirely blocked out, but I still liked quite a bit of this. The master swordsmen are really nicely done, combining the intrinsic magic of the book with a slightly Robert Jordan-esque blade-master feel. There were moments that almost felt super cool.
The prose can be very wry, in a good way. Funny, without laugh out loud. A lot of this involves attributing emotion to inanimate objects, which given the magical system is perfectly in line. When it’s on, this is certainly very fun to read. But at the same time this levity makes it hard to take the characters too seriously, and certainly not their perils. So it works for and against. I found oddly marooned in a peculiar — albiet unique — tone.
For some reason it also reminded me a bit of Shattered World, one of my high school favorites. Probably because the protagonists is a thief. I maybe wanted it to feel more like that, but it doesn’t feel as big. Everything takes place in a fairly short time and place, and the stakes seem a little local. The light tone also works against the emotional intensity of the characters, and I for the most part feel that they existed to either service the plot, or like the author was more sure of their personality than the character. The villain in particular is of the “i’m very bad, and very mad, and bad at being mad” sort.
So overall I would call the book a snack. But a tasty one.
Line editing and polish is an interesting part of the process of professional writing. It bears a lot of similarities to optimizing code as a programmer, but more fun. One of the weird things is that no mater how many times one has read a chunk of prose, there’s always room for improvement. In code optimization, one is usually trying to make the code either smaller, or use less memory, and there’s a clear logarithmic curve, where for ever increasing energy one can achieve ever shrinking gains. Plus, in order to make it faster or smaller one often has to make the code messier or more complicated. Caching is a frequent speed optimization and this always leads to extra complexity and bugs.
Not so with prose. Optimizing prose should always make it better.
With prose, shorter is usually better — not always, but usually. You want your story to move. Scenes serve a number of purposes. They must entertain, and be cool. They must characterize, and essentially, they must move the plot forward. Each scene therefore has a set of things it accomplishes, changes in the state of the characters, their knowledge, their situation. I have scenes that have dropped from 2600 to 1100 words and yet still accomplish all the same plot and character transformations. Oftentimes even more has been thrown in during the process. If every line, ever word matters, then the scene races along.
At first my editing was a mater of reading the prose over and tweaking the sentences using my inner ear. I have a pretty decent one due to lifelong obsessive reading (5000+ books at least — 150 novels this year alone). If you want to write, you must read. There’s no other way. You have to fill your head with sentences so that when you see an awkward one, it rings wrong. Plus, reading is also the key to vocabulary. Still, you can manually build vocabulary, but it’s tough to build inner ear quickly. My early editing passes were like what I’m going to do with this blog post. I wrote it, then I read through and neatened up the bad sentences — very casual.
But there’s a much deeper level of craft possible.
Here is a paragraph from my novel’s first draft:
The newly exposed body was that of a young boy, perhaps fourteen years of age. He lay naked on his bake in the dirt, covered now only by a few random sticks and leaves. He had light mouse brown hair, and his pale eyes were wide open leaving him frozen with a startled expression. His skin was very pale all over, and one arm was bent savagely behind his back, the shoulder bulging in an odd way as if it had been ripped halfway out of its socket. This was on the opposite side of the mangled leg, lending him a kind of grim diagonal symmetry. He had gashes on the wrists, ankles, and a deep gouge on the side of his torso. There was surprisingly little blood. Numerous flies however had discovered what little there was, they buzzed happily about the wounds, and crawled in and out of his nostrils and mouth.Then again as it was a couple weeks ago, after probably 15 or so light self-editing sweeps:
Revealed was the body of a boy, naked in the dirt, belly up, covered only by stray sticks and leaves. His eyes stared at the sky, a startled expression frozen on his face. His skin was bluish white. One arm was twisted behind his back, the shoulder bulging halfway out of its socket in response. On the opposite side, his knee was mangled, lending him a ghastly diagonal symmetry. Cruel gashes scarred his wrists and ankles, and a deep gouge split the side of his torso. There was surprisingly little blood, though innumerable flies buzzed about the wounds, crawling in and out of his nostrils and mouth.Then two weeks ago, I did a serious self edit pass. The heavy use of passive voice makes me cringe now, even though I had a deliberate intent in using it (to have the effect of someone looking, and then surprised to see this shocking sight). After that my editor got to it, then I cleaned that up yet another time. Notice how the final result is 40% shorter than the original, but isn’t really missing anything. There was too much prose the first time. There’s still a lot, as this is a purposeful attempt to kick the sentences into slow gear for horrific effect.
The body of a boy lay naked in the dirt, belly up, covered only by a few remaining sticks and leaves. His eyes stared at the sky, his face frozen in bewilderment. His skin was bluish-white. One arm was twisted behind his back, the shoulder bulging unnaturally. On the opposite side his mangled knee was twisted, lending him a ghastly diagonal symmetry. Gashes scarred his wrists and ankles, and a deep gouge split the side of his torso. There was surprisingly little blood, though flies buzzed about the wounds, crawled in and out of his nostrils and mouth.Or take this example of some dialog from my first draft. The first speaker is the sister of the second (Sam).
“Hi Sarah,” she began, but quickly turned to her brother, “Sam get that pack on the horses and lets get going. Nothing fun is going to happen here right in front of Sarah’s house.” Sam snapped to mocking attention at his sister’s order, “yes ma’am!” However, he quickly packed Sarah’s stuff into the saddle bags and then put his hands together allowing Sarah to step up and swing onto the small horse.Then the current edited version.
“Sam, get that pack on the horses. Nothing fun’s going to happen here on the street five minutes from our house.” Sam snapped to attention, “Yes, ma’am!”The sentiment is the same, but it’s a third the words, and vastly snappier. A frequent culprit is first pass dialog. In the first line, the same thing is said twice, both indicate the desire to hurry (which is the only real point). Cut one, or merge. The beat about turning isn’t important. The “snapped to mocking attention” is a TELL. We can tell from the action and his dialog that he’s mocking her (it might not be obvious from the isolated lines, but it is knowing they are siblings of the same age). The final bit about mounting the horse isn’t really needed. In the next scene they’re ON the horses, so we don’t have to show them mounting, it’s assumed in the dead zone of the scene break.
In essence, even after one has worked out much of the plot and character quirks, each scene, each paragraph, each sentence can be polished. Lately for example I’ve been trying to make description more lively. A chunk from my first draft:
The Palaogos house was a large home that had been built approximately fifty years earlier, in the residential adaption of the gothic revival style. It was all wood, and had a haphazard and eclectic appearance not unlike a giant gingerbread cake. Frilly little wood details abounded, and it was even replete with a turret like tower. Inside the atmosphere was generally dark (Palaogos men were not often bothered to draw curtains or open windows), and had lots of odd shaped rooms decorated with a very peculiar mix of period furniture. The floors were draped in heavy carpets, mostly Turkish, covered with dizzying non-figural designs. The furniture itself was all very large and heavy, a mixture of things like medieval trunks and benches, juxtaposed with Viennese, Bohemian, and Venetian baroque cabinets and consoles (the later adding a touch of gilt to offset the dark woods of the former).The description is just description. There are a few amusing comments mixed in, but awkwardly with the parenthetical forms. Below is my current version.
He wound through the maze of staircases and twisty corridors that honeycombed his new house. Built by some baker-turned-architect maddened by the American Civil War, its gothic revival style lent it a haphazard appearance not unlike a giant gingerbread cake. Frilly wooden details included a turret-like tower and odd-shaped rooms carpeted with dizzying non-figural patterns. To this Grandfather had added his own taste for the baroque, all grand and substantial, a hodgepodge of medieval trunks and benches, juxtaposed with Viennese and Venetian cabinets. Dark portraits of dour old men and dying saints scowled down from gold-framed canvas perches.
I’ve converted it from passive to active. He actually travels through the space. Attributing the construction to the “baker-turned-architect” livens things up, and instead of just saying there is baroque furniture, it’s attributed to Grandfather such that we get just a smidgen of characterization.
As you can see this is a highly iterative process. If you are curious to learn more — and there is like 10,000 times more to learn — my freelance editor has a great book on the subject (click the picture to the right).
Title: The Lightning Thief
Author: Rick Riordan
Genre: MG Fantasy
Read: Dec 1-6, 2010
Summary: Okay read, but really cheesy.
In my ongoing research of novels: both bestselling and good, I figured I should give this one a try. Sure it’s for a young audience, but I’m also a big Greek history buff.
Hmmm. The voice is engaging, and it’s certainly easy to read. The idea is great. The characters fine, not good but fine. The writing is stiff, and the plotting… oh the plotting is pretty awful. I really don’t understand why it sold so well. Perhaps it’s a vaguely educational angle?
Percy himself is likable, although he is unrealistically brave in this just-go-for-it-because-I-know-as-protagonist-I’ll-win way. The rest of the characters are pretty one dimensional, although they do fulfill the requisite positions.
The flip style is good, but not exactly ground breaking, and the sentences are clunky.
I’m a stickler for accuracy with regard to mythology. But mostly, that part isn’t too bad. Sure he completely goofed Satyrs, as they are hybridized horse people, not related to goats (although they are partial to the beasts). You can see my detailed post on Satyrs. And on a related note, Dionysus was lamely portrayed, missing out on any of the interesting nuances and dichotomies of the god. That’s the name of the game for this book — shy on nuance. Sure he throws in all sorts of figures from Greek myth, but very little of their subtle and interesting character is retained. But the modernized updates are sometimes fun. Even so, this wasn’t my big problem with the book.
The plot. The premise of modern day child of the gods is great. The overall arc of the plot is fine, that a war of the gods is brewing. It’s just they way the main quest is actually architected. The middle 50% of the book consists of a series of encounters with monsters literally concatenated with nary a thought as to connection or relevance to the overall story. In fact, you could delete quite a few of them and never notice. This is always bad writing. If a scene can be deleted without incident, well then, it probably should’ve been. The overall taste we’re left with is one of ludicrous coincidence, where everything just happens to the hero.
Then we get to the end. Can we say cheesy melodrama. There’s no real menace, or challenge. Things just kind of happen. Mostly the hero solves them by whipping out his sword disguised as a pen. It all works out. It didn’t have to be this way. Harry Potter is much better plotted.
Now I have to see the movie and compare. This may be a chore. I wonder if the series gets better, but I don’t have the interest to find out.
Title: Uglies
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Read: Nov 19-21, 2010
Summary: Great Read.
The Science Fiction in this book is a little hokey, but it’s still a extremely compelling read. There is a bit of a silly high concept in this dystopian future, where at 16 teenagers get an operation that promotes them from “uglies” (normal people) to super improved “pretties.” I didn’t really buy the idea of this particular and odd society, but I just suspended my disbelief and enjoyed the ride.
The voice is solid and captivating. It’s a good story, and the world has a really nice feel. The characters are pretty well painted too. I pounded though the book and ordered the sequel. I have some little beefs with the logic of the plot, and a bigger one with a motivation of the protagonist, and the ending. However, when I enjoy a story and care about the characters, a little ignoring is worth it.
There are also some cool gadgets. The tech feels a little uneven — I usually find that the case, where the level of technology changes aren’t consistant across the board. But a good read is a good read.
Title: Adventureland
Director/Stars: Jesse Eisenberg (Actor), Kristen Stewart (Actor), Greg Mottola (Director)
Genre: Period (80s) Comedy Romance
Watched: Sept, 2010
Summary: Touching, funny. Great film.
I didn’t really have a lot of expectations going into this film. I knew it was by the same director as Superbad (great film) and starred Eisenberg and Stewart, and that’s about it. It’s a great film. The kind they rarely make anymore where it’s essentially a character movie woven around a romance. The script is great, the acting’s great, and the direction is great. It’s a funny movie, but not in the laugh a minute kind of way, but in a wry more or less real way.
Comedy varies across the spectrum of dark to realistic to slapstick to abstract. This is realistic. The humor is partially in the fact that these situations are real situations that we did or could have found ourselves in — and hence, it’s a kind of bittersweet humor. The tone is not so different than the excellent Freaks and Geeks TV show, and in fact there’s at least one actor in common (the excellent Martin Starr). They don’t make a lot of comedy romances like this anymore, the kind where there’s no gimmick, just real people, and hence real romance.
The plot is fairly incidental. We have the likable Eisenberg (playing on type, but great as a Geek who isn’t really shy) who has money troubles and needs to take a lousy summer job at a crappy Pittsburg theme park. Having grown up in the 80s this is exactly my generation (I’m perhaps 4 years younger than the characters) and the music and outfits are nostalgic and amusing. None of the people he meets are exactly stereotypes, and they have a delicate underwritten quality. The core that holds the film together is Eisenberg and Stewart (who proves she can do better with a script that isn’t terrible… I mean Twilight — CLICK FOR MY REVIEW). Not just the acting but the writing. He’s the kind of guy I could imagine being friends with, and she’s the kind of girl I could imagine having fallen for in college. There relationship feels real. This makes it sexy even though there isn’t much sex. And isn’t that one of the main things that fiction is about? Depicting real people. It seems all too often forgotten.
Title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Author: J.K. Rowling
Genre: YA Fantasy
Read: 21 July 2007, Watched (part 1): 20 Nov, 2010
Summary: Satisfying but obligatory conclusion to the epic series.
Retarded title aside, this is a pretty good film. Caveats, however, abound. If you haven’t seen all the previous installments, or at least the last several — forget it. The film just roles right into the action, with nary an attempt to explain past events, or even to introduce the rather vast array of characters, some of whom die after only a few moments of screen time. This reliance on the previous chunks of the story I find perfectly reasonable, to do anything else would be difficult and boring.
What is odd, however, is that I’m not sure this film series would make a whole lot of sense to the fifty people on earth who haven’t read the books. In fact, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t. I know a few of those people, and they seem to be universally baffled by the films, and don’t particularly enjoy them. Now I enjoyed my 2.8 hours, but I’ve read all the books, and seen each film at least once (as they came out in almost all cases). The books and films enjoy an peculiar symbiotic relationship. The films rely on the books completely for the sense of the rhythm of Hogwarts (not present in DH part 1 anyway), true understanding of the complexity of the plot, anything beyond names and faces for the secondary characters, etc. They just don’t have time to include it. The movies, on the other hand, prop up the visual world of the series. Now I first read the first four books BEFORE any of the films came out, but when I went back to reread book one this year (it’s still great) I realized how little description is actually in the novel, and how I now visualized exactly the lush and detailed visual world of the films. Most of the viewers in the theatre weren’t even old enough for it to have been possible for them to have read before being exposed to the film imagery. It also seems a bit odd that the films aren’t really made to stand on their own. To the non reader they offer up characters that they never explain. I guess the gravitational pull of the source material is too strong.
Back to DH part 1. Like the book it has an entirely different feel than the rest of the series. Particularly, given how the writers have split it. There’s no Hogwarts at all. No teachers (except a brief glimpse of Snape). Almost none of the other students (Draco and Luna only). It’s a movie about Harry, Ron, and Hermione. That isn’t bad, but it’s different. It’s also a film about Voldemort, because we see a lot more of him — or at least of the CG that completely hides Fiennes. The decision to split the film — beside making the studios et all an extra billion dollars — has given them five hours to work with instead of three. This means that this film is the most faithful to the book since number 3 (my favorite). It feels less rushed, darker and more deliberate. But even having read and seen everything, I had the feeling several times that I just had to take the logical leaps for granted. There still isn’t enough time to really explain the byzantine backstory.
Ron continues to be the weakest of the three core actors, with Harry being fine, and Emma Watson shining as Hermione. I want to see what she can do in a totally different role. Helena Bonham Carter is too over the top. The opening scene with the council of baddies was kinda cheesy, and the death of Dobby felt forced and lacked proper emotional weight. Draco just stands around and looks like he doesn’t know his lines. Hardly anyone else matters. As I said, it’s basically the gang of three in the tent vs the world.
But hell, on top it felt pretty satisfying, and now we have to wait for the last one.
