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02:54 pm
glamberson
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Pictures & Words
We finished WEEDS Season 2 yesterday, and I have to say S1 set up S2 beautifully, and S2 set up S3 perfectly, and I think S3 may have been the most brilliant season of a TV comedy ever. Wonderful stuff.
We also watched DEATH SENTENCE, starring Kevin Bacon and based on a novel by the DEATH WISHER, and I had a lot of fun with it. I've posted a review of that and the Nigel Kneale book over on Fear Zone.
I did very little other writing so far this weekend, but I have read a lot, which has been a refreshing change of pace.
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10:18 am
jeffstrand
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Those Darn Gypsies!
Necro Publications is known for hardcore horror, stuff that makes my own Disposal look like Harold and the Purple Crayon. But in an effort to cater to the mellower "Maybe three decapitations in a book is sufficient" audience, they recently started the Bedlam Press imprint, which is where you'll find Gypsies Stole My Tequila by Adrienne Jones.
This novella is the story of Joe Blood, a former punk rocker who is about to turn forty. This itself is inconvenient enough, but unfortunately, in his young, successful, "chemicals are good" days, he and his two bandmates sort of made a pact that they'd kill themselves when they hit the big 4-0. And there's a demon in Joe's wall calendar that's going to hold him to his vow. This is, I believe, the first work of fiction I've read that includes a demonic talking wall calendar, although I think I'm going to start including them in my own stories from now on.
What I liked most about Gypsies Stole My Tequila is that I never quite knew where the story was headed (in a good way--I've read plenty of books where I wondered "Jeez, is this stupid thing going anywhere?"). There's a lot of humor, and plenty of great characters, especially Joe Blood himself. "Visual" humor isn't easy to pull off in fiction, but the book contains one fight scene in particular and a memorable gross-out that do this extremely well, in addition to all of the colorful and witty dialogue.
This one is well worth reading, even though about 12 years ago the publisher rejected a short story of mine, and I'm only now easing my way out of the slimy-walled pit of resentment.
Check it out at The Horror Mall right here:
http://www.horror-mall.com/GYPSIES-STOLE-MY-TEQUILA-by-Adrienne-Jones-p-16215.html
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09:18 am
bev_vincent
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/20948434/4373475) [Link] | My Storytellers Unplugged essay Let Me Be Brief, a short (of course) discussion of flash fiction, went up yesterday. If you'd prefer, you can listen to the equally brief podcast or subscribe in iTunes
I'm having a very lazy weekend. Very lazy. On Friday, I caught up on CSI, Grey's Anatomy and Without a Trace. Grey's was pretty much more of the same, though I think some of the characters are starting to rediscover and reinvent themselves and perhaps the two-hour finale will lead to more of that. Here are my thoughts on CSI, behind the cut.
( Read more... )
I've been binging on Banacek, the 1972-73 mystery series starring George Peppard and featuring every sexy TV actress from the era as the weekly objects of his, um, affections. The "impossible" mysteries still hold up reasonably well after all this time, though the one about the stolen computer wouldn't quite work, since the computer in question was the size of a room. The chauvinism is very much of its era, and yet the show is self-aware of its sexism and makes fun of itself. There are also more deep character insights than I had remembered. They're few and far between, injected among the more formulaic elements, like Jay's episodely attempts to crack the cases and the obligatory hysterics from the insurance investigators who object to Banacek being brought in, so when they pop up from time to time, they're surprisingly poignant. Given the lack of household recording abilities back in the day, there are a few episodes I've never seen before. The first three are the ones I've remembered the most clearly over the years, but all it takes is seeing the first few minutes of some of them to trigger memories. The one about the stolen wedding carriage, for example. I had completely forgotten it, but as soon as I saw the fight break out on the pier, I remembered everything that would happen next—up to a point. Though I often remember the "how-dunnit," I generally don't recall who or why. Peppard is a delight. He looks like he's having a ton of fun at times.
I'm reading and enjoying John Connolly's new book, The Reaper, though I'm not sure the story has actually started yet two chapters in.
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03:33 pm
nihilistic_kid
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/23401348/147199) [Link] |
The cover is blown!
I'm only an occasional crime reader. I don't gobble crime books up, but rather wait until something shows up on my radar. Partially due to my Grub Street class, which has many students interested in crime fiction this time around, and partially due to the brain-killing amount of bad fantasy I've been reading via Clarkesworld slush, I've picked up a bit more crime as of late.
Today, I bought two books — as a datum for the question, "Does blogging help a writer sell books?" I bought What Burns Within for no other reason than I find author Sandra Ruttan's crime fiction-themed blog entertaining. Then I saw the Hard Case Crime Bloch books were out, and even better they were collected in one volume as a double. I have a special weakness for doubles — I like doubles the way my autistic cousin Taki likes license plate numbers that add up to a prime (Whee! *handflaphandflap*) but I have a complaint. The covers are friggin' awful.
The Ruttan looks virtually self-published, with the stock image of a lick of flame that carries over artlessly to the spine over a dead black background, the Baby's First Font choices, and 1974-called-and-it-wants-its-texture-back embossments.
The Bloch books are just ruined. The usual retro look is in play, except that as this book has two front covers, the barcode was just plopped onto one of them. Not only does that annoy because it signals somewhat arbitrarily that Spiderweb is the B-title, it was useless. When I put the book down on the counter — Shooting Star side up, of course, because I could not bear to look at the other — the cashier opened the front cover and scanned the barcode on the interior flap anyway.
Don't let these horrible scars dissaude you from checking out the books though! Take pity on poor Ruttan and poor dead Bloch!
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12:20 pm
glamberson
[Link] |
Book Drive
I posted details of a book drive for U.S. soldiers over on Fear Zome; please check it out:
http://www.fearzone.com/blog/book-drive
I'm due to clear some space on my shelves...
Haircut for BEA? CHeck. My new stylist is pregnant, and won't be back at work until August, just in time for FOF. I will be shaggy at WOH.
Caught up on Fear Zone invoices? Check. The payroll clerk was on vacation, so I put off this most tedious of chores for as long as possible.
Girl scout cookies? Check! I ordered some from my pal Tom Sweeney's daughter (buy a box for yourself, send another box to soldiers in Iraq) and they arrived today. No diet can resist those damned chocolate mint cookies!
DVDs? Check!!!! We're watching the second half of WEEDS season 2--great stuff, I can't stop laughing out loud. And my brother-in-law loaned us a some Kevin Bacon direct-to-DVD action flick that Roy Frumkes told me is an excellent throwback to 70s revenge films; more on that later. And included in my uncle's care package yesterday was a copy of THE ORPHANAGE. I am behind on 3 different things I promised to read for people, but I'm gonna watch some moo-vees, then do a lot of reading.
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12:20 pm
glamberson
[Link] |
Book Drive
Haircut for BEA? CHeck. My new stylist is pregnant, and won't be back at work until August, just in time for FOF. I will be shaggy at WOH.
Caught up on Fear Zone invoices? Check. The payroll clerk was on vacation, so I put off this most tedious of chores for as long as possible.
Girl scout cookies? Check! I ordered some from my pal Tom Sweeney's daughter (buy a box for yourself, send another box to soldiers in Iraq) and they arrived today. No diet can resist those damned chocolate mint cookies!
DVDs? Check!!!! We're watching the second half of WEEDS season 2--great stuff, I can't stop laughing out loud. And my brother-in-law loaned us a
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10:51 am
steve_vernon
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My day in Digby...
I worked Thursday and then crossed the bridge and met my drive over at the bridge terminal around 5pm and headed for Digby. Traffic was a little slow getting out of the city but once we hit the highway we made good time.
We had supper at the Captain's Cabin Cafe, (if memory serves), where I had scallops and mashed potatoes and a good Caeser salad, with a gooey apple dumpling for desert.
Goodbye diet.
We stayed at the Summer's Inn, with the men in the outdoor cabin's and the ladies in the indoor rooms. The room was comfortble, although the bed was a little hard and the pillow even harder. I was beat and after spending a bit of time with Frank Sinatra and The Manchurian Candidate I drifted off to sleep.
In the morning we had a breakfast of bacon and eggs, toast and homemade jumbleberry jam, and a gooey lemon danish.
Diet, I kill you again and bury you in a grave of grease and gooey jumbleberry jam.
We each taught three separate workshops. I taught my usual workshop. The kids were lively and interested. The only irritant was the preprogrammed bell. Every half hour or so it would bing - three loud elevator bings.
Over lunch, (veggie lasagna and a half-assed Caeser salad), a young girl came up and asked me to sign the copy of Haunted Harbours that she'd purchased at a local bookstore. Three schools were involved and the school board purchased copies of Haunted Harbours and Wicked Woods for the three school libraries. I signed all six books and then we headed for home.
I had a great time and the school gifted me with a jar of homemade jumbleberry jam.
Oh shit, call Dr. House, my diet has just gone into complete cardiac arrest.
Yours in storytelling,
Steve Vernon
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04:06 am
julia_sevin
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Hey, eagle-eyed constant watchers... "The Look and Sound of Perfect"
Who's noticed this voiceover nonsense in the HD-hawking trailer you see on some DVDs? We caught it again in front of Eastern Promises tonight and just couldn't ignore.
"Everything you know about DVD just got a whole lot better." (Everything you know about English just got raped.)
"Welcome to HD DVD. Spectacular high definition picture, lossless sound, and an entirely new level of interactivity than you've ever experienced before." (Yes, this is verbatim. So, strike that -- raped and brutalized.)
"And now, futureproof your video collection with new combo discs available for select movie titles which include both a DVD and a High Definition version of the movie."
HA hahahaha ha ha ha. So, awesome, it's doubly obsolete.
Eastern Promises, by the way, was totally badass. There's something about seeing male actors I know getting all full-frontal, though. I blush like a kid at a junior high dance. It's crazy. Especially when, you know, they're leaping and jiggling about in a graphic fight scene that seems interminable due to said nudity. Kinda like in They Live, except if "Rowdy" Roddy Piper came to kick ass and wear pants.
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10:13 pm
nick_kaufmann
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Doctor Who: "The Sontaran Stratagem"
Sontarans! Those potato-headed cloned soldiers locked in a millennia-long war with their mortal enemies the Rutans, and whose names always start with S (except for one, Linx, the very first Sontaran the Doctor met)! This was not a very good episode, despite the appearance of an old enemy from the classic series. I have a hard time believing this militaristic race with an unlimited amount of soldiers would bother with sneaky GPS car devices -- something even the Doctor remarks on. And unlike how they've done past resurrections of the Doctor's enemies, the rebooted Sontarans actually look more ridiculous than they did before, not less. So far, I'm unimpressed with season 4, though I'll admit Donna is growing on me.
Also, I thought I recognized General Staal's voice, but with all that makeup over his face I couldn't place it until I saw the credits. It's Christopher Ryan -- none other than Mike from The Young Ones!
And now for some of that Doctor Who neepery you know you love:
The Sontarans were always a second-tier recurring enemy, nowhere near as cool as the Daleks, the Cybermen or the Master, which is probably why they only showed up four times in the twenty-six years of the classic series: 1973's "The Time Warrior" (also Sarah Jane Smith's first appearance, with the aforementioned Linx), 1975's "The Sontaran Experiment", 1978's "The Invasion of Time" (an all-time classic where the Sontarans invade Gallifrey and the Doctor becomes Gallifrey's president), and 1985's absolutely miserable "The Two Doctors" (which would go down as one of the worst serials ever were it not for the refreshing presence of Patrick Troughton, reprising his role as the second Doctor, and Frazer Hines reprising his role as Jamie McCrimmon, one of the best companions ever).
The Sontarans' enemies the Rutans, however, only appeared once, in 1977's exceptional, gothic serial "The Horror of Fang Rock". If you want to see two of the best of the Tom Baker era, "Fang Rock" and "The Invasion of Time" are where it's at!
It's nice to see UNIT in action again too, though it's weird to hear that the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce is now the Unified Intelligence Taskforce (which I suppose would make it UIT, not UNIT, but now I'm just being an uber-nerd), apparently due to a request from the real-life United Nations when the series returned in 2005. But seeing UNIT makes me miss Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. The Brigadier was such a wonderful recurring character, and such a great comedic foil for the Doctor, that I hope Nicholas Courtney chooses to return to the role sometime in the future. And Sergeant Benton and Captain Yates...ah, those were the days!
The Doctor's reference to working for UNIT "back in the '70s, or was it the '80s" is actually a sly commentary on the muddled chronology for the UNIT stories. Though they were mostly broadcast in the early to mid-1970s, the UNIT stories were supposed to be set slightly in the future, and Sarah Jane Smith -- not a member of UNIT, though she worked with them a lot at the Doctor's side -- always claimed to be from 1980. But in the 1983 serial "Mawdryn Undead", it is revealed that Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart finally retired from UNIT in 1977. So to this day, nobody is quite sure when the UNIT stories were supposed to have taken place, the 1970s or the 1980s. This has resulted in quite a bit of heated fan debate, with some going so far as to suggest that when Sarah Jane said she was from 1980, she was referring to her street address!
Lastly, Christopher Ryan is not the only cast member from The Young Ones with a Doctor Who connection. In the painfully ridiculous 1985 serial "Revelation of the Daleks", Alexei Sayle, whom I could never stand and whose so-called "comedy" bits on The Young Ones I routinely fast-forward through, played an annoying rock-and-roll radio DJ. I've never cheered so loudly to see anyone blasted by a Dalek before!
Anyway, reading this blog entry over, I think it scores a perfect 10 on the nerd scale. Time for me to slink away in shame.
Tags: doctor who, tv nerd
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04:04 pm
glamberson
[Link] |
Checking Out Horror at BEA
Procrastinating on way too many responsibilities, I spent Kaelin's nap time today reviewing the signings scheduled at BookExpo America.
Some interesting figures horror-wise. Keep in mind, these signings only reflect the "traditional" signing organized by BEA, not booth signings. For instance, I'll be signing JOHNNY GRUESOME in the "Mystery" signing from 4 PM - 5 PM on Saturday, May 31st, and that's what's listed in the program. But I'll also be doing a signing at Medallion's booth from 11 AM - 12 PM Friday, May 30th, which is not on the chart. So it's entirely possible that Leisure, Kensington, etc.--certainly the HWA, which has their own booth this year--have unofficial signings lined up as well.
Here's what I found:
Neil Gaiman and R.L. Stine are signing children's books.
Melissa de la Cruz is signing REVELATIONS: A BLUE BLOODS NOVEL - a vampire book that is children's or YA (Disney Books)
Kim Harrison is signing OUTLAW DEMON WAILS, part of her Rachel Morgan series, which seems to be in the Buffy/Witchblade vein (Harper Collins)
Whitley Strieber is signing 2012, a SF/Fantasy novel
Drew Silver is signing THE VAMPIRE WITHIN: NEW BLOOD - BookSurge (Self published?)
James Rollins is signing THE LAST ORACLE, which is being marketed as SF/Fantasy, despite sounding an awful lot like horror.
Richelle Mead is signing SUCCUBUS DREAMS from Kensington
Counting myself, I make that four horror novel authors--out of 578.
Needless to say, there will be a ton of publishers giving away children's books, so I'm taking an empty suitcase to stock Kaelin for the next decade. I will also be first in line to pick up a signed copy of THE LORDS OF FLATBUSH.
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02:47 pm
marcy_italiano
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Save the Humans!
I saw something on the news this week about a woman who is illegally taking care of squirrels and nursing them back to health. I can understand doing this for a dog or cat, but a squirrel? (And one that specifically had it's ass bitten?)
Anyway... I got en email this week that I'd like to pass on, and I hope Dave doesn't mind. (I'll cut it out if he does and leave the link.) We've still got a couple of days to fit this in:
"Dear friends,
As many of you know, my wife suffers from polycystic kidney disease (PKD), so she, our daughter and I are going to take part in Sunday’s National Kidney Foundation’ Kidney Walk, and I’m asking you for a donation.
There are a lot of numbers I could throw at you at this point. There are 26 million Americans already suffering from chronic kidney diseases, with another 20 million at risk. That’s one out of nine.
Or I could tell you that 92,000 people are currently waiting for an organ transplant, and that 17 people die every day because they don’t get one.
I hope you do think about all that, but for me, this is about my wife. She has had to watch her older family members suffer terribly from the ravages of PKD, and she’s afraid of the day when that will be her. So am I.
I want my wife to live a long, healthy life without needing transplants or dialysis, and if asking you for a donation will get us one step closer to a better treatment, or gods willing, a cure, I’m more than willing to ask.
Times are tough right now, so I know a lot of you might not be able to help, or can only help with a small amount. That’s fine. We’ll take $10, we’ll take $100, we’ll take $1000, we’ll take emotional support and we’ll take anything in between.
To make a tax-deductible donation, go to http://walk.kidney.org/site/TR/Walk/MichiganInc?px=1071243&pg=personal&fr_id=1162&et=dacTHdUFzGuQ2SisuJi8lA..&s_tafId=1362
Thank you from all of us.
Dave"
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01:48 pm
nick_kaufmann
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Straubathon: Houses Without Doors
And now, the triumphant return of the Straubathon after nearly a year! Ah, how I have missed it. It's not that the books I read in the meantime were bad. Far from it. It's just that, well, there's nothing like reading a Peter Straub book. It's like exercise for the brain, and it can remind you how genre and subject matter do not have to dictate prose style. The next time someone tells you horror has to be written in short, punchy, styleless sentences because that's what readers like, you just point them to Straub's gorgeous prose and slip the phrase "New York Times bestsellers list" into the conversation.
I have a bit of history with the next book in the Straubathon, Houses Without Doors. It was the very first Straub book I ever purchased. I mail-ordered it as a trade paperback from the Quality Paperback Book Club (remember them?) when the book first came out back in 1990. QPBC basically sold hardcover books with the hardcovers removed and replaced with paperback facsimiles, and so my edition of Houses has the classic hardcover art on it: a green meadow with a free-standing door extending up into the cloudy blue sky, and that door is open to reveal a house beyond it with no door of its own. I remember buying it because I thought I'd give his stories a try before deciding whether to read his novels. Somehow, I never got around to it, and it languished on my shelf until now.
The first story, "Blue Rose", is exceptional, a sort of alternate-universe take on childhood events in the life of Harry Beevers, a character in Straub's 1988 novel Koko. It's a powerful, grotesque and affecting study of a developing borderline psychopath trying out hypnotism on his little brother, with devastating results that follow Harry all the way to Vietnam. The final section of the story, a letter from Harry in Vietnam to his girlfriend back home, is chilling. "The Juniper Tree", which also has a connection to Koko, though a vaguer one, is an equally powerful tale of a boy repeatedly molested by a drifter in a movie house. He continues to meet the man there, only vaguely aware that something wrong is happening, until finally he grows up to become an author, and only then can he tell the tale of what happened to him. Hints of a deeper mystery pepper the story but remain frustratingly unanswered at the end.
"A Short Guide to the City" is a short-short written in the style of an tourist pamphlet but mixed with the mystery of "the viaduct killer," a predator who prowls their streets. It's well done, but is somewhat forgettable due to its short length and lack of a protagonist through whose eyes we can experience the story. I felt the same way about the collection's other short-short, "Something About a Death, Something About a Fire." It's wonderfully surreal -- I love the idea of a strange clown driving a magical taxi that frightens and bewilders circus audiences -- but I found it lacked a lasted impact for the same reasons "Guide" does.
"The Buffalo Hunter" is straight up ingenious fiction. Bob Bunting is lost, alone, and more than a little crazy. Preferring the world of fiction to the real one, where he is unable to relate to the people around him without resorting to lying about himself, he drinks vodka from baby bottles and glues even more baby bottles to the walls of his apartment, their rubber nipples facing toward him like an enormous tapestry of bosoms. When he reads, he becomes so engrossed in the story that he leaves his body and inhabits those of the characters he's reading about, traveling through their world and forgetting about his own. It's amazing stuff, brilliantly written, but to me the ending, with its hint of supernatural forces at work, felt wrong somehow.
The short novel "Mrs. God" is, I believe, the strongest piece in the collection. A surreal, gothic, creepy semi-ghost story, it follows a scholar on sabbatical, William Standish, to the great library of Esswood House in England to write a book about an ancestor of his, the poet Isobel Standish, who wrote her best work in that same house. Standish discovers there's a dark secret to Esswood, of course, and in trying to solve it actually winds up replaying history. In my opinion, "Mrs. God" can easily stand beside any of Straub's full-length novels. I thought it absolutely brilliant.
The book also features a series of "Interludes" between the stories that all seem connected as a single tale but also sometimes connected to the individual stories. While they were as amazingly written as anything else in the collection, I have to admit I felt they didn't add much to the overall experience. I believe the book would have exactly the same impact without them. Still, Houses Without Doors is an exceptional fiction collection, and not a bad place to start if you want to give Straub a try.
(One note: Unlike most fiction collections, Houses Without Doors does not include information on where and when each of the stories first appeared. That annoyed the obsessive-compulsive in me who really, really wants to know that kind of thing for some reason.)
Up next in the Straubathon will be 1993's The Throat, believed by many to be Straub's second masterpiece after Ghost Story. Unfortunately, it's going to be a couple of months before I can get to it, but I'm very much looking forward to it.
Tags: books, straubathon
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01:31 pm
bev_vincent
[Link] | I revised, re-revised, and re-revised the short story I've been working on for the past week and finally decided that I had reached the level of tweaking minutia so I submitted it last night. I figure it's a bit of a long shot for the market, but I think it's a good story that will find a home if it turns out to be inappropriate for them.
Boston Legal: I was feeling so bad for Denny when it was revealed it was all a practical joke, but then he pulled off a terrific switcheroo. Well done. Law & Order was pretty good, too, with the "MySpace" pen-pals who were pretending to be other people and the one guy who fell in love with someone who had been dead for two years before he ever started corresponding with her.
LOST: ( Read more... )
I've reconsidered going to see The Police. $50 (plus various and sundry handling charges and service fees) just for lawn seats. The reserved seats go up to something like $240. Maybe I'll just go for a walk along the riverwalk behind the pavilion that evening and eavesdrop.
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12:11 pm
nihilistic_kid
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/47944966/147199) [Link] |
Some some some I some I murder some I some I let go
I sold a brief (<1000 words) personal essay about my days as a pedestrian on aftokinocentric Long Island to Howl Press, which is a private publisher for the cruise and hospitality industries. They do slim volumes of essays and short-short fiction for people to read while waiting for room service to come in or the shuffleboard area to open up. It's not a bad payday, a quarter a word for what is essentially a blog post or a bit of sudden fiction. It was funny though, that the publisher actually called me with the acceptance, because she had important news. It went a little like this...
Pub: Hello, this is L-- from Howl Press. Congratulations, we'd like to buy your essay "Walking On L.I."
Me: Great!
Pub: However, we need to make a change.
Me: Okay.
Pub: So we have to—
Me: It's fine.
Pub: Huh?
Me: When might the money come, if I may ask?
Pub: Oh, but the edit...
Me: You want to get rid of the bit about how people in cars shout "Fag!" at me as if I were pushing a lover in a wheelbarrow in front of me.
Pub: How did you know?!
Me: Eh, it's for cruiseline people. I thought about taking it out when I sent it to you, but then I figured a little edginess might get me noticed. They could just take it out if they didn't like it.
Pub: Yeah, yeah, I left it in! I thought we'd have to take out the part where you step into that dead opposum and have to scrape the guts off on the shoulder of the road for a quarter of a mile. I thought, "This is great, but I want to give him a chance not to gross out the client."
Me: It's all fine. I'm a real freelancer, I stop caring about anything but the money till it comes and then I stop caring about that too. I heard about you from Grub Street, where I teach, so I'm always hustling for paydays.
Pub: Well, in that case let me just email you the invoice. I was writing this email about the cut and wondering how to break it to you, then I figured, "Oh, I'll just call him!" but it doesn't matter! You don't care! That's great. Send me the invoice, and I'll send you the $250 and copies of the book.
Me: Great, thanks again!
Current Music: "Paper Planes," M.I.A.
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11:33 am
glamberson
[Link] |
Swag
Once or twice a year, my uncle goes to big film exhibition conventions like Show West and Show East, and he sends me a big box full of junk from the studios--duffel bags, T-shirts, candy--all sorts of stuff with new movie logos on them. Usually I get T-shirts for movies I have no interest in--"You liked BLAIR WITCH 2? PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN 3? INTOLERABLE CRUELTY?" But today I got a bunch of cool T-shirts, including THE DARK KNIGHT and 21, a set of cards, PINEAPPLE EXPRESS sweat pants--and Kaelin got her first telescopic lightsabre. I can't wait until the next time REVENGE OF THE SITH is on!
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12:36 am
nihilistic_kid
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Procrastination Station: Amazon Reader Reviews of Favorite Books
Here's a little something I haven't done in a while — the game is an easy one. Go to amazon, find some of your favorite books, and post the most distressing one-star reviews.
As it turns out, Nathanael West was not writing fables for kids!
1.0 out of 5 stars a new veiw, September 4, 2001
A Kid's Review
miss lonley hearts is a truely tragic story centered around a depressed lunatic and his immoral and drunk freinds. he sets out to solve peoples problems and ends up only making them worse ruining his life as well as others. while the writers craft may be good, and there are many levels to this story, it is not one to contrive morals from.
(I wonder if the kid's opinion changed seven days later, or what he thinks now for that matter.)
"Kate" (if that is her real name!) is all wrong, but she does nail Bukowski in a sentence, I must say.
1.0 out of 5 stars waste of a generation, December 4, 2005
By Kate M. Maldonado "cromatica" (Seattle, WA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This book was so bad that it actually made my blood pressure go up. Since it was written in the '50s, Gnossos' lack of charm or even the most basic social skills may be seen by those who grew up in that repressed era as signs of having a free spirit, or of being a rebel. It seems Farina couldn't see outside the little construct of his college/drug scene, which, even in the sixties, did not define the world. Anybody can take massive quantities of drugs and inflict themselves onto others under the impression that they themselves are being interesting.
It's as if Farina was in a boardroom with Fox network producers; "Ok, is there lots of drugs? violence? vandalism? Don't forget the lesbians! Point of the story? Never mind, we've got lesbians!"
I think people like this book for the same reason that they like TV shows like "Cops"; a vicarious experience of a degenerate lifestyle.I can see how, 40 years ago, one may have felt a bit naughty reading such graphic fare, but this book is about as hip as wearing a peace medallion with a fringed leather vest. No wonder so many baby boomers are having cuddle parties and paying people thousands to come to their corporate office to teach them to juggle and tune their wind chimes.
Bukowski was a jerk, but at least he was funny.
This one must be from the first reviewer's mother or father:
1.0 out of 5 stars In Bad Taste, January 8, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Geek Love (Paperback)
I had to read this book for an English Lit course and I really had a very hard time finishing it. I must be pretty abnormal since most reviews were good. I found the content very disturbing. For someone's mind to come up with such horrific actions which I feel are immoral as well as sick must have a twisted outlook on life. I really couldn't see the author's point. The ending was a pretty common ending to murder, incest and drug taking. There are so many wonderful literary books out there, I can't understand why a Professor would recommend this book.
(I hope the "Professor" assigned Lolita immediately after this one. You know, as a sorbet.)
And what would a reader review be without a rejoinder to an unnamed group of apologists for Nazism, which had nothing to do with the book in question (hint, parts of it were published in a magazine the year before Hitler was born):
1.0 out of 5 stars A favorite of Neo-Luddites and Neo-Nazis, March 20, 2003
By Michael J Edelman (Huntington Woods, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Hunger: A Novel (Paperback)
Can you seperate the art from its creator? Of course not. "Hunger" is not an exceptional piece of literature by any means. Hamsun's fame rests in large part on his "oppression", as some would have it. I.e., he was opressed after WWII in the same way that Quisling and Goebbles were oppressed.
As Hamsun's popularity gorws, so does the whitewashing of his memory and the moral equivocation that allows some intellectuals to do so. I cannot count myself among them.
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11:21 pm
glamberson
[Link] |
Shock
Well, technically it's Thursday, so I'm a day ahead of my weekly visit to Shocklines. The two threads that caught my attention immediately were this one--
http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/4309/t/OT-Gay-Marriage-ban-struck-down-in-California.html
--in which some right wing yahoos bitch that the court SHOULDN'T have overturned the gay marriage ban in California, and this one--
http://shocklinesforum.yuku.com/topic/4269/t/O-Riley-loses-his.html
--in which the usual tools use Bill O'Reilly's idiotic behavior as a reason to attack everything liberal while maintaining their fidelity to their ridiculous party. I used to think John Morrissey was the biggest idiot on the planet, but he obviously can't help himself. These other guys are actually capable writing sentences, and I'm just embarrassed to read their posts. Once a week is still too much time to waste on this crap. I don't care how bad you think this bb was, it's ten times worse now.
Burn, burn, burn...
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08:29 pm
jeffstrand
[Link] |
Exclusive Interview With J.A. Konrath
This afternoon, I had the chance to conduct an exclusive interview with J.A. Konrath, author of the Jack Daniels series (Whiskey Sour, Bloody Mary, Rusty Nail, Dirty Martini, Moonshine Slurped From A Mason Jar, etc.) and my co-author for Suckers. This interview was obtained via hidden tape recorder under false pretenses. STRAND: Hi, Joe! Thanks so much for doing this interview. KONRATH: No problem at all. The pleasure is all mine. STRAND: First question: How much of Suckers did you actually write? KONRATH: About half. STRAND: The reason I ask is that I'd write a new chapter and send you back the file, and then you'd send it back to me in, like, fifteen minutes, and the manuscript never really seemed to be changed. So, for example, I'd end with "And then there was a knock at the door!" and when I'd get your part back, it would still end with "And then there was a knock at the door!" and the word count would be the same. KONRATH: Your confusion is understandable. What you don't realize is that a single word can change the entire impact of a piece of fiction. It's the finishing touches that make a work of art truly great. STRAND: Right, but I actually printed out both versions of the manuscript one time, and I put the pages on top of each other and held them up to a light, and I really didn't see any difference. Also, remember when I asked you to proofread it before we sent it to Delirium Books and you came back and said that it looked fine? I'd purposely stuck a bunch of typos in there to see if you'd notice. I even threw in three chapters from a completely different book, and the last twenty pages were just the word "hippo" repeated over and over. KONRATH: I noticed that and found it quaint, but I didn't want to stifle your creativity. At least I came up with the title. STRAND: No, you wanted to call it J.A. Konrath's Guide to Picking Up Spanky-Bottom Babes. KONRATH: Yeah, well, whose title would have sold more copies? STRAND: You wanted the cover to be a picture of you getting ready to spank somebody. I wouldn't have bought a copy of that. I asked around, and a bunch of people said that they wouldn't have ordered it, either. KONRATH: So what are you trying to say? STRAND: I just can't help but think that you took half the money and half the credit but didn't actually contribute anything to Suckers. KONRATH: I see. Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. [There's a long, uncomfortable pause.] STRAND: You're a fine writer and a great guy, but in this instance I kind of think that you took advantage of me. That's not what friends do. That's not what you're supposed to be about. Does the inspirational advice on your blog mean nothing to you anymore? KONRATH: I said I was sorry you felt that way! What do you want me to do, kill myself for being a fraud? Kill myself because my past three novels have been written by ghostwriters that I paid in humiliating ways that didn't involve currency? Fine! I'll just gobble this entire bottle of expired medication! There! Mmmmm! Nummy nummy death! [J.A. Konrath gradually dies. End of transcript.] Obviously, this interview turned out to be a rather poor promotional tool, although I expect Joe's tragic death to boost the value of Suckers on the secondary market, if you're into profiting from that kind of thing. If you wish to purchase your own copy, and I know gosh darn well that you do, please visit: |
09:44 pm
lj_spotlight
[bensinclair1]
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/74729420/14940719) [Link] |
05/15/08 Homepage Spotlight
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Meet people from all over the world.
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09:40 pm
lj_spotlight
[bensinclair1]
[Link] |
05/15/08 Homepage Spotlight
fotojournals
Post your photos for other photographers to see.
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09:34 pm
lj_spotlight
[bensinclair1]
[Link] |
05/15/08 Homepage Spotlight
food_ish
Share successful, disastrous or otherwise amusing food stories, photos and recipes.
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04:34 pm
nihilistic_kid
![[User Picture]](http://p-userpic.livejournal.com/49761573/147199) [Link] |
Honestly, kids
...wake me when it's time for Artdecopunk.
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03:04 pm
glamberson
[Link] |
California Gets It So Right--
--after getting it so wrong in the Democratic Primary season.
48 more to go...
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01:30 pm
nick_kaufmann
[Link] |
Those Activist Judges Are At It Again
In a much-anticipated ruling issued Thursday, the California Supreme Court struck down the state's ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional.
Several gay and lesbian couples, along with the city of San Francisco and gay rights groups, sued to overturn state laws allowing only marriages between a man and a woman.
With the ruling, California becomes the second state to allow same-sex couples to legally wed.
Oooooh, those activist judges make me so crazy! How dare they use their power to push radical political agendas such as equality under the law! All we want to do is treat one group of people as second-class citizens by not allowing consenting adults within that group to get married in a country that tells all its citizens that marriage is the foundation of a healthy society. I mean, what's so quote-unquote unconstitutional about that? The constitution was written by straight people! It was so important to them, they made sure to include the name of what they loved as straight people right in the title. It's the consTITution -- not the consDICKtution! Am I right, people?
Obviously, the California Supreme Court is made up of gays who want to make everybody else gay too, even though that would mean everything at Ricky's and Patricia Field would get sold out even faster, and hell, you can't even get into Splash on a Saturday night anymore, believe me, and can you imagine how crowded it'll get once...
Oh, ahem. Anyway. (Note to self: call sponsor Larry Craig at Gays Anonymous. Slip-ups still happening. Be sure to mention staying home to watch In the Steam Room with Jack Hammer while family was at church this weekend.)
These activist judges need to be replaced immediately by judges who understand that the constitution actually stands for all the conservative principles that didn't exist when the document was written over two hundred years ago!
To paraphrase conservative hero George Orwell, everyone is equal, it's just that some of us are more equal than others, and if these activist judges can't see that, if they continue to insist everyone is equal under the law, well, we'll just see what Jack Hammer -- I mean, John McCain has to say about that once he's in office!
Tags: politics
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10:06 am
bev_vincent
[Link] |
New treads
My god, tires are expensive. I had to outfit my car with four new ones yesterday as I'd let the old ones go to pot, pretty much.
Has anyone seen The Police on their current tour? They're playing almost literally in my back yard next week (with Elvis Costello & the Imposters as opening act) and I'm considering going to see 'em.
Criminal Minds was fun last night, with the flashblacks to early days of the BAU ("Hey, Baby Girl") and the story of the amnesiac. Regulars leaving cop shows going on rampages seems to be the theme for this year's run of season finales. First there was the guy on Law & Order: SVU and now something similar appears to be in the cards for Warrick on C.S.I. tonight.
I think Fox was right to kill Back to You. Last night's finale was the worst of the batch, in my opinion. It had its moments, but relied too much on sexual humor and not enough on actually being funny.
Caught up on my graphic novel reading, with issues 3 of both Locke & Key and The Long Road Home. I like the story in the former well enough, but am growing impatient at waiting a month between installments for both. I started reading the new John Connolly novel, too, but didn't get very far with it—just the prolog. I've only read one of his books before, the non-series Bad Men, which I quite liked, but I hope I'm not getting in over my head by jumping into the Charlie Parker novels without starting at the beginning.
This morning I finally finished the first draft of the new story I've been working on. It's actually a very well refined first draft, since I've edited the first 7½ of 8 pages several times. It's in the hands of my first reader now and I hope to revise it a few more times and get it off to the editors within the next couple of days.
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