Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside by Holly Black

This is again my contribution to the Mythopoeic Award Challenge, but only Tithe and Valiant are on the list of nominees. Ironside I read just because it rounded out the story.

Okay, this is a hard review to write. Because I love the Spiderwick Chronicles, I love Holly Black's blog. I even met her for a brief moment at Faeriecon last year and she was fantastic and interesting.

But I just couldn't get into these books. I didn't dislike them, don't get me wrong. The characters just didn't engage me somehow. I blame this partially on the fact that Roiben, the main male character, is an elf. I don't like elves. I know, this makes me a bad fantasy fan, but I don't. They're always gorgeous and perfect, lean and athletic, with pretty hair, and some kind of tragedy that tries to make up for their perfectness. Not interested. Roiben got much more interesting in Ironside, but in Tithe he just seemed like he was a foil more than a character.

My problem with Valiant was that while I could sympathize with Val's desire to run away and I even thought parts of her story were fascinating, the fact is that I just couldn't muster up any sympathy for all the drug users in the story. Maybe I'm not supposed to like them all, but as soon as Val agreed to shoot up Never, I just couldn't feel bad for her when bad things started happening. In my mind I just said, "Well, she's the one doing drugs..."

Now, this part is hard to explain because I read kids books all the time. I don't care what age range a book is for, I care if the book is good. But these books read like young adult books, and that sometimes got in the way of what they were trying to be, I think. Also: I have an intense personal problem with pop culture references. It's very difficult for me to stomach them, no matter what they are. The current trend in young adult novels is basically full of pop culture references. I hear Avalon High is an excellent book, but I made it about two Britney Spears comments before I put it back.

This makes it sound like I'm very negative about these books, I'm not. I would happily recommend them to anybody that likes faerie tales (the original kind, with the dark settings and the bloody bits). Anybody who likes young adult books would probably also love them, and anyone who liked The Blue Girl by Charles De Lint would enjoy them as well, I think.

But if you aren't a regular reader of faerie tales or young adult novels, I think you'd have trouble with all the genre conventions that these books exhibit.

I really look forward to reading anything that Black writes, but I expected these books to be a little different than they were, so I can't help feeling a little disappointed.

Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Okay, so there will be discussion of the Project Runway final collections, but for now we're going to take a break and review a book!

As I mentioned in January, I'm doing the Mythopoeic Award Challenge over at Foxy Writer.

The first book I decided to read was 2004's Adult Fantasy Winner, Sunshine by Robin McKinley

I actually had picked this book up a few times, trying to read it probably three times. I got it from PaperBackSwap on the basis of a friend's recommendation. I picked it up again after another friend mentioned how much she loved McKinley's other book, Beauty.

But I just couldn't seem to crack that first chapter. Reading the book for the challenge, I made myself get through it and I'm not sure if I feel this is an accomplishment, or a foolish endeavor.

McKinley has created a fascinating world, where the Voodoo Wars have changed the face of the city where our protagonist is a baker. Vampires, ghouls, weres, and other paranormal creatures are a fact of life there. Magic handlers are famous, and there's a branch of government called the Special Other Forces.

The author created an interesting situation: the main character, Rae (who is called Sunshine) is the heir of a very important magic handling legacy. She's ignored these talents for years, but has some skills at transmuting. Her "element" is sunshine, which is rare, but gives her interesting skills. Through a few quirks of fate, she ends up imprisoned with a vampire named Constantine, and befriends him. She then ends up joining him in an effort to kill the vampire whose gang captured her.

Okay, with that description, it still sounds like a pretty great book, at least a very interesting one. However, the book doesn't try to actually be about this fascinating world. It doesn't really explore the strange connection between Sunshine and Constantine (though it pretends to, it never gets anywhere). It certainly doesn't really explore why Constantine, of all the vampires in the world, is a good guy. We're told that there are different ways of being a vampire. But then we're told over and over that vampires are evil, terrible, etc.

WHY is Constantine special? HOW is he substantially different from the others? Well, that certainly wouldn't matter, would it?

Except it does. Everything that the reader might desperately want to explore is thrown by the wayside. Why?

I fully blame the fact that the book is written in first person. Rae has only a few settings in her brain, and we're treated to them ad nasueum:

1. She makes cinnamon rolls. Amazing, astonishing, large, popular cinnamon rolls. Lest you forget, we are reminded of these cinnamon rolls every chapter, at least once. If not more times.

2. Rae doesn't trust the SOF, or authority in general. Or really, anybody. So she's constantly talking about all these fabulous people in her life, and then telling us why she doesn't trust them and can't rely on them. Only, her reasons aren't all that sound. Her boyfriend has tattoos. Apparently this means something, though we never get to find out what, and it keeps her from telling him anything. Because he has tattoos. Huh?

3. Rae is a complete vampire fangirl, but don't mistake that to mean she thinks vampires are cool! They're evil, she shouldn't be friends with one! She should stake him on sight! She totally reads anything ever written about vampires but she knows better, she knows they're bad, she just likes to read stories where they're not bad! Or something.

The entire book is Rae complaining that she wants her life to be normal again, while never acting like that's what she actually wants. She pretty much walks around using her powers at every available opportunity, while complaining that she has them and wishing they'd go away. This isn't just a case of the reluctant hero, who eventually accepts that they are the only person who can complete the task. This is just a bad character.

If the story was about Rae, but we weren't treated to her inner thoughts, I think it could have survived. But instead, she thinks the same things chapter after chapter. She doesn't really grow or change. Being treated to her inner workings doesn't give us some insight to her development as a person. She just keeps complaining about how she wants to make cinnamon rolls.

I desperately wanted anybody else's insights. I eagerly read any scene involving her landlady, because Yvonne actually had something to say, and revealed interesting things. But even scenes with Constantine were bogged down with Rae's inner ramblings about vampire physiology. Which would be interesting, if she ever got anywhere with it, but she has no answers or really astute observations.

Sunshine is not a bad book. I've read bad books, this isn't one of them. But I think it desperately needed to be switched to third person, or to go through one more draft to make Rae a fleshed out and interesting heroine. As it is, it reads like a book designed solely to set up a series, but as far as I can tell Mckinley hasn't written any other books in this world.

I encourage people to pick this book up and try it themselves if they think the plot or characters sound interesting, or if they like McKinley. But I also suggest that if you don't make it through the first chapter, don't keep trying. It doesn't get any better.

New book challenge

I'm trying to get myself to clean out my list of "Books to Read" and so I'm going to be doing a book challenge this year. The lovely Lenneth is doing the Mythopoeic Award Challenge:




I'll be listing the books as I read them, along with links to where I'll be reviewing them on this space. Book #1 is one I've had about three stops and starts on and never gotten past chapter one:

1. Sunshine by Robin McKinley.
2. Tithe by Holly Black.
3. Valiant by Holly Black
4. Deerskin by Robin Mckinley.
5. The Stolen Child by Keith Donahue.

The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass - Film Version.

We're going to take a break from Project Runway, because this last week was just a little bothersome. I'll talk about it later, but the fact is the challenge bothered me. So instead I'll talk about the movies I went to see this weekend, starting with The Golden Compass.

Now, I'm interested in how many people are griping about the title. But honestly I like it because it fits better with the idea of "His Dark Materials." Also, it being a noun describing a thing that is very important to the plot of this particular story, I think it fits better.

What interests me is how everyone seems to be making comparisons between this film adaptation and Lord of the Rings. The reviewers keep saying it was made to cash in on Lord of the Rings, it's like LotR, etc.

It isn't. In the slightest, please don't go into it believing you'll have a similar experience at all. This film is made with almost the exact same formula as the Harry Potter films.

I walked out of the Harry Potter movies saying, "You know, that felt like a mash-up of the best scenes in the book, rather than a true adaptation of it." While I never got past the second chapter of The Golden Compass, I felt the same at the end of this movie. Like I had seen a bunch of random bits, strung together as loosely as they could, so that you could cram in as much of the story as possible.

In the case of Harry Potter, it's a forgivable strategy. There's no way you could actually adapt any of those books (or indeed this one) into a single film. But the difference here that even Lord of the Rings couldn't rely on is that most of the people going to see Harry Potter HAVE read the books.

Most people, myself included, have not read The Golden Compass. So the screenwriter desperately needed to take a page from Peter Jackson and make a story that is deeply rooted in the original, faithful to the feeling of the book, but actually a film adaptation. It needed to be it's own entity, and I don't know that the director alone was capable of that feat. He certainly didn't manage it, I'm sorry to say. His heart was in the right place, and you could tell he did love the books very much. But even Peter Jackson had massive amounts of help, a whole team of people working to make it perfect. He had people who had devoted their lives to these books helping him envision this world. While I'm sure His Dark Materials are good books, they don't inspire that sort of devotion.

It wasn't a bad film. The problem was it had the potential to be a great film, it could have been so amazing. But the truly fascinating characters had these great actors to portray them and they had nothing to do. They were there for a split second and given very little motivation or story. Lee Scoresby and Serafina Pekkala could have carried the movie, if they hadn't had to redub all of Eva Green's dialogue in ADR, making her voice and her face just so slightly off that it bothered me and I couldn't watch her talk. That's a personal pet peeve though.

Lee Scoresby introduction was brilliant, I looked forward to seeing more of him and I saw so little. His interaction with his daemon Hester was comical, and hinted of a calculated casualness. I hope that in the books he is explored in much more detail.

I'm happy that Iorek Byrnison got his due, and had his story told. But couldn't we have discovered anything more about Mrs. Coulter's dual-faced character? Couldn't we have gotten into the fact that even though I only read two chapters of the book, I got the distinct feeling that Lord Asriel wasn't a very nice man?

I suppose the problem really lies in the fact that I just didn't identify with or enjoy Lyra very much. Is it the character? The original writing? The adaptation? The acting? I don't know. But I didn't care what she did from one moment to the next, except that it allowed me to see the gyptians, or get to see one of Pan's many adorable forms. She seemed to exist only as a catalyst for everything else, not so much as a well-developed character.

While lesser movies have had their sequels, I don't know that The Subtle Knife will be made at this point. Sure, there was religious controversy surrounding the film, but I don't think that was what killed it. I think the type of people that would avoid a film because they see some persecution in it wouldn't have seen it anyway, and wouldn't have amounted to much of a box office difference. I think the movie itself just isn't that good, and that's the real shame of it all. It seems like the story only gets more interesting as the books progress, they should get their day in the cinema.

A final note: this is not a children's film, or I think so much a family film, and that is part of what will hurt it's repeat business. The fact is it's violent, and I don't make that claim often. In fact, while I called Pan's Labyrinth a violent movie I also heartily recommend it and say people should look past the necessary violence into the great fable that it is. In this film, it isn't so necessary for the battles to be so full of death. While there isn't a lot of blood, there is a very distinctive moment when anyone dies that shows without a doubt that they are completely gone. I don't think death should be thrown around so flippantly, even of the bad guys. It stops having an impact when you just chuck it out there left and right.

I think in the end it's a movie that might be worth renting, especially if you liked the books and can view it as an adaptation and not expect it to be perfect. If you liked the Harry Potter books AND movies, then maybe this is for you. But I won't be watching it again.

Early horror films in book form.

The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

I've never actually seen the movie based on this book, and I have to admit that I didn't actually read the whole book.

I was too bored. I flipped through it, and caught the highlights, but I just couldn't really get involved in any of the characters, and since I knew what happened to them I just didn't bother.

Now, I was just saying the other night about how often I'll flip to the end of a book to make sure it works out the way I want it to. With most books, this doesn't affect my enjoyment because I still like the journey even if I know where it ends. Otherwise, I'd never reread a book, would I?

But this book, once I knew how it ended, I couldn't muster up the effort to care about how it got there. I'll probably watch the older version of the movie eventually, but I'm not really doing it out of any big desire to, it's more because I think I "should."

Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin

I can sum this book up very simply: watch the movie. Actually, between the two the book is probably slightly better because it's easier to put your own creepiness into it and imagine the people the way you want. But the movie is EXACTLY almost word for word a filming of the book. That's probably a good thing, it's a decent story. It gets a little creepy, and I think if it wasn't such a classic that I already knew the ending then I would be much more intrigued by it. But again, knowing the ending makes the ride less fun.

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

I feel I should link to this one because I got it from the library at the same time as the other two, and I got it because I wanted to see if it was better than the movie.

But I just couldn't get into it, especially when I thought about the fact that I'm one of the fifty people in the world who didn't like the movie. I guess I've been horribly desensitized. But because the movie didn't really make me want to go out and learn more, the book didn't inspire me enough to get past the first three chapters.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Warddrobe

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Warddrobe

So, now we tackle the book, the true beginning of the Chronicles of Narnia. Yes, yes, arguements about the way you should read the books are slightly silly, and C.S. Lewis himself said it didn't matter.

But the point is, that I've always thought that chronological order is overrated, and sometimes you should appreciate the middle, then go back to the beginning to learn more, then you'll appreciate the end.

Anyway, the book. First, I didn't remember it being so short and so fast to read. I've read it in only a few days, and I don't get much time to read these days so I'm really surprised by that. I got several chapters in just waiting for my food to heat for lunch the other day.

Second, going back as an adult, I now see some of the criticisms the books have received. I'm surprised by the fact that Father Christmas comes out and says not only that he doesn't want Susan and Lucy to fight, but that, "...battles are ugly when women fight."

Makes me wonder if Lewis was being patriarchal, or just pointing out that women fight dirty.

There's also several hints that he was anti-school. I seem to remember reading that he had a really terrible boarding school experience, so maybe that's where it comes from. But aside from the professor's constant "What do they teach you in these schools?" commentary, there's also the fact that once Edmund returns from the bring of death, the book clearly says he was "looking better than she had seen him look--oh, for ages; in fact ever since his first term at that horrid school which was where he had begun to go wrong. He had become his real old self again and could look you in the face."

And that's the thing with this book. There are little, tiny, almost throw-away moments that say more about Lewis, or the characters themselves, than most of the book put together. He also changes styles often, which threw me some. He actually said "I" but only a few times, and sometimes would address the reader directly, but not often enough for it to be like Series of Unfortunate Events which is constantly talking to you.

In the end, this just made me remember that even when I was younger, I liked the Prince Caspian stories better, but held a special place for the first book because it was the first book.

Another thing that came to mind was something the producers and scriptwriters of the movie said in an interview, claiming that quite a few things in the book were "glossed over" (paraphrasing) and that they fleshed them out. That is actually pretty true. Especially when it comes to the battle, the descriptions of the bad guys, and even character development of the children themselves.

Now that I've re-read the book though, I'll have to say one more disspointment comes to mind for the movie. They made "the trees" talk by not-so-great CGI's of their leaves joining to form people. When in the original, they stuck pretty closely to Dryads and tree-spirits and I've always liked those better.

It's still a very, very good book, and I still encourage anyone to get their children to read it. But I have to admit that it does fall short of what I remember, and that I wanted more detail and description out of it. Maybe not as much as Tolkien, who Lewis is (almost unfortunatly) constantly linked to, but a little more all the same. We can picture Narnia very well, but the actions and the looks of the characters (aside from Aslan and the Witch) are often touched on and left behind.

It is still a dang good story though. I don't care if people think it's Christian propoganda. A moment that surprised me reading it, is when Mr. Beaver tells the children that the Witch is not a daughter of Eve, but in fact the daughter of Lillith. That I think is almost the only blatantly "Christian" part of it, and since as a kid I didn't know what the heck the Beaver was talking about, I just left it alone and forgot about it.

I think the book still stands well as a myth, a morality fable. It's not overly Christian, but actually stands alone and reminds me of the dozens of other ressurection myths throughout the world.

Talk to the Hand

Talk To The Hand by Lynne Truss

I picked this book up because I really enjoyed the parts of Eats, Shoots and Leaves that I read when it came out. While I know I'm a horrible person when it comes to grammar, most of the nitpicky points she was getting at are in fact ones I even know. So I do consider it kind of sad when signs and corporate entities don't get it.

But moving on to her new book, Truss is taking on manners and rudeness, subjects rather close to my heart right now because of the fact that I work in retail. Specifically, I'm working in food service right now since I'm slinging coffee at a cafe. The saddest part is, I'm not fascinated by rudeness as much because of my customers as I am my co-workers.

Truss touches on both sides, terrible customer service, and terrible customers. And I laughed and agreed with her almost every step of the way. Her conversational tone is backed up by excerpts and facts from larger works and studies of manners and society.

Most of what she has to say is very true. She talks about how men are afraid to act nice to women anymore for fear they'll be yelled at for holding the door open. I've always felt it was sad that feminism often thinks being rude to a nice person is acceptable.

She talks about people on cel phones in public places, one of my pet peeves. Truss says she's really okay with people on the train or walking down the sidewalk being on their phone, and I'm the same way, depending on the conversation. What I hate is when people come up to my register on their cel phones. I want to wear a t-shirt that says "I'm sorry, you're already talking to someone, I'll wait until you're done."

Truss does start to go off insulting video games and the internet at one point, and though some of her points are true (internet friends, no matter what you might think or experience, are not the same as real life friends. They can become real life friends though) most of them are reactionary and apply to only a small portion of the population. You know, like every other time people start insulting "gamers" and internet junkies.

But in the end, the book did make me laugh a lot, and it also gave me many things I'd like to photocopy and hang up in the break room at work. There's a brilliant list of 20 types of people you should always show respect towards, and I'd like to blow it up and post it around town.

At the moment when you start to think that Truss is belaboring her point, and repeating herself, she wraps up her book and ends. It's very short overall, I read it in only two evenings. It's definitely worth a look for anybody that thinks if they deal with one more rude clerk they're going to go by behind the counter and ring themselves up.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I read a review before I went to the movie that said "Great acting, great effects, no discernable plot."

I thought that sounded perfect, and it pretty much was. Except for one part that I felt Zaphod's third arm could have been done better, the effects were great. I loved the design of dang near everything. I think they hit all the high points of the book and really captured the spirit of it.

The only thing I felt that this changed at all was that in the books, I loved Zaphod, but in the movie he kinda grated on me. But you know, that's the type of character that would be like that.

The only thing that got left out that should have made it: Mostly Harmless. And Gin and Tonics.

Otherwise, I think it was an amazing recreation of a great book. To say thumbs up would be too cheesy though.

The Price

The Price by Anne Bishop, featured in Powers of Detection, edited by Dana Stabenow

I picked up this book at the bookstore for a lot of reasons. I pulled it off the shelf for the cover art, which I think is phenomenal. It's very intruiging, and I was looking for short stories as I currently have the attention span of a fruit fly.

What made me take it home was that it featured a story by Anne Bishop, who quickly became one of my favorite authors after I bought The Black Jewels Trilogy because, well, they had pretty covers. I had a gift certificate.

I didn't care if the story was based on the world of the Blood or maybe her other series, which I haven't read yet. But it turns out it was based on the BJT, and is a continuation from after the last book. I haven't read Dreams Made Flesh yet, so I don't know how it interacts with those stories.

Surreal is the main character of this story, which made me happy because I would say that she ties with Lucivar for my favorite character in the books. Daemon and Jaenelle are great, but Surreal has so many facets that never got explored. I hoped this would finally give us another one.

In a way, you did get to see a little more of her, but the story suffered greatly from being short. There is too much telling and not enough showing, and things wind up a little too neatly. Though I was happy to see Daemon and Jaenelle show up, they seemed like cameos made just to appease fans, and not vital to the story in the end.

I really wanted to see Surreal on her own, maybe with a new character, but not needing help from the other "mains" of the story. The end came too quickly and too neatly, with too much "inner thought" instead of action, despite a fabulous beginning. I also thought the ending didn't have near enough "bang."

For people who, like me, are in love with the world of the Blood, this is something you should read. But it absolutly isn't a place to start, and if you're only lukewarm to the BJT then don't read this as it won't offer you much.

Various

Sure, this blog isn't actually visible yet, but I'm working on it. I just don't have a ton of time right now. I'm debating what this will be used for, and I think I'm going to go with randomly talking about what movies I'm watching and books I'm reading, along with the updates of the site. Maybe that'll work.

Tonight I'm working at the bookstore, which means I'll be taking back two books I checked out. The first was Juvenile Orion vol. 1. I liked it alright, but I was getting extremly confused. I know this sounds petty, but the binding on the book was annoying, because it was hard to hold it open and really see the art. I'm sure that means it won't fall apart, but I'd like to be able to read it too. I'll probably pick up the second volume, but it's not a priority.

Sin City vol. 1 was the other one, and I can't remember the title of this one. It's the middle story in the movie I think, with the woman named Goldie. I can't decide entirely what I think of it. The story was interesting, but the artwork actually was beyond not my style. Actually it really bugged me. But that was the story of the Sandman comics too, and I read all of those. Def. going to pick up the next volume of Sin City, because the writing really did have a lot of good stuff going on. Will likely rent the movie, but not spend the cash to go see it in the theatre because I'm flat broke.

Last thing I watched on my DVD player was the last of Season 2 of Friends. Man, I loved that show when it first came out. I'm going to try to make it past Ross and Rachel's "break" this time, which is when I stopped watching during the original airings. Ross got so annoying I just couldn't take it anymore. I wanted Rachel to dump him.

Before that it was Demon Under Glass, a good indie vampire flick about scientists who capture a vampire to study him. The big draw was of course that Jason Carter was the vampire. But the story was interesting too, and it really got me wanting to get back into filmmaking, because I could see a lot of the things they did while making it, and I really wanted to do my own movie again. I just wish I had the time.

Time to stop rambling since nobody can read this until I figure out how to insert it anyway!