Why Didn't Somebody Tell Me How Awesome This Was?!!


This week: Doctor Who

Ok, asking "why didn't somebody tell me how awesome this was" is a little unfair in the case of Doctor Who, because there are swarms of people on the internet who claim the awesomeness of this show. Fan clubs, societies, blogs, what have you. I guess I just didn't have so many friends who watched it and were like "omg you have to watch this right now!" Truth be told, even after I had heard all the great things about it I was really hesitant. Let me explain.

There is a reason why I primarily read comic books that have clearly defined, limited runs (Transmetropolitan, Sandman, Fables, Hellboy, and lately Y: The Last Man). I'm cool with starting at the bound graphic novel #1 and working my way through to like volume #10. There have been a few superhero comics I've read, but not that many. The reason behind this is mostly because I every time I pick up a superhero comic they reference events that happened in issues released like 10 years ago. Really? I'm supposed to keep track of all these ins and outs and who is whose son apparently? Anyway, so Doctor Who has been on TV for like a bajillion years and even though the most recent incarnation is only a few seasons old, I had this feeling like I couldn't just start watching in the middle because I'd have no idea what Daleks are or any of that other stuff. Would I need to start at the beginning beginning, like back in the 60s before I even started watching the recent version? I really had no idea how much back story I would miss. But, I decided to jump in head first and just deal with it.

Part of the problem, aside from the whole "Ack! 40 years of backstory" thing was that BBC America for whatever reason very rarely shows prior season Doctor Who in reruns. Similarly Syfy for whatever reason does not air it half as much as it shows old episodes of Stargate: Atlantis (which I've pretty much seen all of by now). Watching shows in syndication was the only way I ever saw most of the first 2 seasons of Buffy, for example (I only started at the 3rd season when it was on the air) and I really didn't know if I felt like renting disc by disc for every episode. Luckily for me they are all available on Netflix On Demand! Yay technology.

Despite the fact that I had all these concerns about backstory etc, I decided on a whim to begin with season 2. Why? Because David Tennant is just so freaking adorable, that's why. I want to poke his nose. Also, I had the misfortune of seeing Christopher Eccleston on Heroes first and was not particularly a fan. I'll have to go back and watch eventually because I missed out on a lot of stuff, but now that I've realized I only need a passing knowledge of things (easily found on Wikipedia) I'm a lot less intimidated. For example, in one episode a previous companion of the Doctor (Sarah Jane Smith) shows up, but I only had to Google her name to get all I needed to know to understand the rest of the episode. The rest is really explained in context. Anyway, not going to go for an episode by episode summary, but suffice it to say, the show is really great. Buffy is the perfect analogy for people who have never seen it before. Snarky pop culture references + pretty hilariously bad special effects + escapism. Having only seen the second season and 3 episodes of the third season I'm not sure if future episodes stay as lovely and frothy but I hope so. Even the "dark" episodes manage more humor than some of the broody 7th season of Buffy, for example, and it certainly takes itself less seriously than half the shows on Syfy.

What I like in particular is how much joy the Doctor gets from what is presumably his every day life. Early episodes of Buffy (again with the analogy) had Willow so exuberant over her newly found magical ability that even lifting a pencil in the air was special. By later episodes magic had become so commonplace that nobody stopped to think about how super neat everything was. The Doctor, on the other hand, has been around for eons and yet still gets this childlike glee from say, meeting Queen Victoria or discovering some new life form. Even in its darker moments, when characters are in genuine peril, things just seem more... I don't know... fun. While I always liked the Scoobies, I never actually wanted to live in Sunnydale, whereas I would hop aboard the TARDIS in a heartbeat even if I knew I would be doomed to live on a planet full of sentient squids for 5 years (this is not an actual episode of the show... I don't think. If it really is, then I'm pretty talented).

Science is played with fast and loose, which wasn't a problem for me. I don't really need scientific explanations for time travel or glorpy monsters. I enjoyed the way the show bounces around in time and space and you aren't in any one location for very long. Reminds me a bit of Star Trek: Next Generation, but again, since the Doctor doesn't have to be all impartial and rational he can totally just go up to a squishy looking guy and poke him in the head or something. Even though he is great and wonderful Time Lord and everything, I like the fact that there are things that he doesn't know or understand. Mysteries wouldn't be mysteries of the character was TOO powerful. The TARDIS itself has this tendancy to break down a lot, which reminded me a bit of Farscape. I like the old Fonzi kind of whack to the side of a conduit to make it work again. Oh... and have I mentioned how cute David Tennant is yet?

So yeah, I'm officially a complete fangirl for this show now. What do fans call themselves? Who-ites? Who-kins? Whatever. I'm not going to start writing my own fan fiction or anything nuts like that, and I know that joining so late in the game will never make me "one" of the folks who have been watching forever, but I think it is safe to say that I'm a cheerleader.

For those of you who HAVE watched the show, should I start watching Torchwood now? I'm not sure where "Torchwood" the show ties in with Doctor Who in terms of chronology. Like at the end of Season 2 you actually see the Torchwood Institute and all that, but it doesn't have any of the characters in it. I guess Captain Jack was in 1st season stuff I should probably watch, but do I need to see that first? Keep in mind this is coming from someone who first started watching Angel before she'd seen the first two seasons of Buffy.

Oh wait, I didn't even mention the best part! I watched all these episodes in the span of a week. I'm either very proud or very, very sad.

OLYMPIC FEVER!! Or... well... it's cold... so... not like hot fever... but... icy fever... like when you get chills when you are sick.

For some reason, even though I never watch sports on a regular basis, I get crazy insane whenever it is Olympics time. I literally tore through all 4 hours of the PBS Emma miniseries on Monday just to free up my DVR to tape moguls, snowboard cross and short track speed skating. No, really. I can't quite explain what it is about Olympic sports that captivates me more than, say, Major League Baseball. I think the international angle is pretty cool, it's true, but mostly I think what I like the most about it is that it only takes 2 weeks. In a two week span, I can totally pretend like I knew who Lindsey Vonn was before a month ago and root and cheer like everyone else when she wins gold. Also, races I totally understand. Look! That guy got to the finish line before the other guy! He wins! Yay that guy! OOOOH MAN! Did you SEE how that South Korean speed skater totally knocked that other guy over?! SNAP! Simple stuff. Figure skating, like gymnastics, I'm not a big fan of. I don't really understand this subjective "style" judging. Half pipe snowboard, on the other hand, is pretty awesome even though its judged on execution of certain tricks. Maybe it's just the outfits are better.

But by far of course, the best thing about a lot of Olympic sports is that they last about 5 minutes or less. My attention span is completely suited to watching this kind of excitement. I get this immediate satisfaction when people win or lose and I don't have to wait around for a few more hours to find out what happens. JUST WIN ALREADY! I've often wondered why we can't just reduce most NBA games to just the last 7 minutes. Anyway, because I don't particularly have any vested interest in any of the teams, I'm just happy to watch. Seriously. I don't even root exclusively for Team USA. Why should I, when the Germans are so much better at luging? How did I know the Germans are better at luging? Because some guy on TV told me yesterday.

Also, the mascots are wicked cute. I mean, look at these guys! I want to snuggle them to death.

I sometimes wish that the Olympics came on more than ever 2 years, but I have this sneaking suspicion that curling might not be as interesting if it came on prime time TV every Sunday night.

Things That I Read

This Week: The Gunslinger by Stephen King [audio read by George Guidall]

Grade: H for Huuuuuuuuh?

I have never read any Stephen King books before. There, now that's out of the way. Therefore, I really had absolutely no idea what to expect when I sat down to listen to this book. Based on the movie versions of many King books I've seen: Shawshank Redemption, Carrie, The Green Mile, The Shining, etc, I knew that King had sort of a dual personality; he can be both terrifying and also very lyrical and sad. The Gunslinger was something else entirely. It caught me completely off guard and made me actually think while I was listening, which was entirely unexpected. I consciously tried to avoid reviews or blurbs about this book before I started it, specifically because I wanted that element of surprise, and I'm very glad that I did. I am going to try my best to not reveal any major plot points in this review specifically for that reason, so I apologize now if this is too vague.

First thoughts when I start listening: Holy Cow! Ian McShane is reading this book! Oh... huh... its not Ian McShane. Weird... I wonder if Ian McShane is related to George Guidall. Is George Guidall a pseudonym for Ian McShane? No? Huh. Part of what made this book for me was the reading. The guy really really does sound like Ian McShane which made it work for me since I love Deadwood so much. When I went on the Freedom Trail tour in Boston our tour guide sounded EXACTLY like Paul Giamatti in John Adams so maybe these actors just purposefully put on voices that are approximations of other people. Who knows. Anyway, I definitely recommend listening to this book for a couple of reasons. First of all, the guy gets it just right with the voices, and second, its the kind of story that might be told over some whacked out post apocalyptic campfire, and just sounds better aloud. Anyway... on the review.

The Gunslinger is a post apocalyptic fantasy. I guess. The genre is really hard to pin down. Most of the book feels like a Western with a scifi bent, typical end of the world wanderings. Then there are elements of the story which are very traditional for high fantasy stories, specifically flashbacks to the gunslinger's childhood which takes place in a sort of pseudo-medieval castle where people use guns instead of swords. Last year I read Lamentation by Ken Scholes which is also sort of post apocalyptic, in that the bulk of the story takes place after this major city is destroyed and people are trying to pick up the pieces, etc. But that book made it very clear to the reader that you were reading about a fantasy-type place after a disaster. The Gunslinger on the other hand, throws in references to things in our own Earth's past mixed in with the fantasy stuff. Example: the "old tune" someone is playing on a piano is "Hey Jude." This was very disconcerting. Later on, the character of Jack is introduced, who is this boy who somehow ended up in this barren landscape. He can only vaguely remember his own past, but it seems almost identical to our own. This poses a lot of questions also. How did the world get from how it was in the gunslinger's childhood? How did the boy get there in the first place? Is there some kind of metaphor I'm missing? Are we in Hell/ Purgatory? I'm assuming that some of the answers come in the later volumes, but I can tell you that this book ends without any clear sense of what year it is, what sort of alternate reality these characters are living in, or what the heck everybody is doing.

But the thing I liked the most about this book was the uncertainty. Things genuinely surprised me because I had absolutely no idea where the story was going to go. A similar post apocalyptic story, like The Road by Cormac McCarthy, can only go so far in terms of its storytelling. Roving bands of marauders who kill people? Sure why not. Cannibalism, desolate landscapes, fragments of lost civilization? Naturally. Zombies? Ok, not in The Road, but certainly World War Z has done the whole zombie-pocalypse thing. But The Gunslinger includes all the traditional end of days tropes in addition to some seriously strange, mind bending fantasy. That means that at one moment characters can be walking along in the traditional desolate nothingness and come across a talking crow for some reason. Or, they could encounter people who have been raised from the dead or possessed by demons. That stuff is kinda odd. The moment I'm convinced that the story just takes place after the classic Christian apocalypse (i.e. The Stand), there's another flashback to Roland's childhood and I think "what! ok, this is so not normal Earth we are talking about." Oh, the gunslinger's name is Roland, by the way. You don't actually find out until the second disc on the audio, and I'm not sure what page that would be equivalent to in the actual book. I liked that off the bat. The story starts out and he is just "the gunslinger" like Clint Eastwood in Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Anyway, bottom line, this book is really really good. I hear that the version I listened to is the revised one, but I can't tell you how it differs from the original. Apparently The Gunslinger is the shortest of all the books in the series, which I'm actually happy about. The sparse language worked to jump me right into the story, but I couldn't help but wish there were more descriptions of things, more background information, more plot. Plot actually was the weakest thing in this story. Roland chases this Man in Black across the entire country for reasons that never make themselves clear. He wants to find this Dark Tower apparently, but why does he need the Man in Black to find it? Reading/ listening to this book is definitely like watching the first season of Lost. You have some of the major pieces in play, but you haven't even met Desmond or The Others yet. Remember when the Tailies came? Why the heck are there polar bears?! Looking back as Lost starts its final season, you take a lot of knowledge for granted, even as questions remain unanswered. That John Locke used to be in a wheelchair was such a revelation. Seeing the smoke monster for the first time was really crazy, not to mention the first time the gang jumped through time. I have a feeling that reading the Dark Tower series is going to be a similar experience for me. I really hope so. Oddly enough, there are some of the same themes, both science fictional and religious in both The Gunslinger and Lost, in particular the Man in Black himself, who is much like Jacob's nemesis/Other-Locke. I wonder if in reading/ listening to this series and watching the final season of Lost at the same time will give me any additional insight. Or maybe I'll just have twice as many WTF moments.

On to The Drawing of The Three

Afterword: Started listening to Drawing of the Three on audio and its a different guy who doesn't sound very good at all. I have a few other books on my plate right now, but I'll get around to reading it in actual book form soon.

On rereading books

I did something 2 weeks ago that I very rarely do. I reread a book. In fact, I reread THE book, Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, that I've been talking up to pretty much everyone I know. I just recently shelled out a ton of cash on a signed first edition copy of the book for Rothfuss' "Worldbuilders" fundraiser, but I realized I hadn't actually read it for over 2 years and I couldn't even remember details well enough to explain why it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. So I figured, what the hey, why not read it again and see if I still like it. Yep, it was still completely and totally awesome. Picked up on even more awesomeness this time around. I'm not going to review it now, really because I can't quite put my finger on why I like it so much. I mean, the story itself is kind of the traditional kid learns magic, pisses off people, and eventually becomes a hero, except that it's not. Kvothe is not Harry Potter, Kvothe isn't even Ged, though Earthsea is what people tend to compare it to what with the naming of things and all. The book is at once familiar and at the same time completely original. Look, a magical school! Look a rich student who is a complete tool for no apparent reason! Look a quirky, yet all knowing professor! What makes Name of the Wind special is the language, the writing. The words are elegant, yet simple, but not in a bad way. But I digress... This isn't a posting about Name of the Wind specifically. Rather, its about the pleasure of rereading books.

I don't reread very often. I mean, I know the story right? I know what happens in the end (Or in the case of Name of the Wind, I don't because the second book hasn't come out yet so I'm free to use my nerdy little imagination). There are definitely a lot of TV episodes and movies I've seen at least 10 times. There is a comfort in watching, say, The Simpsons or Indiana Jones, because you know how the characters are going to act. It's the thrill of anticipation for that great scene or line you know is coming up. I can literally quote Princess Bride almost from start to finish along with the movie, but I still watch it almost every time its on TNT. Sometimes, you can even predict the way the story is going to end on new shows, which is especially true with comfortable mysteries. So I guess that's reason why people enjoy reading book series that go on forever. Its like a TV show. You can go back and visit with old imaginary friends and neighbors, excited about what might happen, but at the same time reassured that your hero will live for the next installment (usually). But really, the only series I've ever felt this way about has been Harry Potter. Anything else longer than a trilogy usually fails to hold my interest.

For some reason the same pleasure I get from watching an old episode of Star Trek doesn't translate itself into a need to reread a book again. Maybe its because it just takes so much longer (though not all that long, knowing me). Probably it is because I have such a long "to be read" list that I feel like rereading would take time away from "more important things." But its kind of depressing as a librarian that there are so many books I give to people that I give my stamp of approval to that I can't even remember that well. And the number of books I have read more than once is really small: all the Harry Potters, To Kill a Mockingbird, Prydain Chronicles, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Stardust, The Odyssey, Charlotte's Web, Lord of the Rings, Much Ado About Nothing, Island of the Blue Dolphins, A Wrinkle in Time, Inkheart, and... hm...that's about all that I can think of off the top of my head. Mouse and the Motorcycle definitely, um... Fahrenheit 451 I'm pretty sure. As you can see, they are mostly children's books. Many I reread because I wanted to recommend them to kids. Others because I'm a fangirl. Sue me. But there are a lot of books that I often count among my favorites that I have never read more than once. Or, if I read them more than once, I can't actually remember all that much about them except that they were good and for some reason I decided they were my most favorite ever. Seriously, I can't remember the actual plot details of 60% of things I read 6 months after reading them so this shouldn't come as a huge surprise.

So, with that being said, I've decided to reread a bunch of books and evaluate whether or not I still like them as much as I did before. Some I read as a kid or in high school, some I read just a few years ago but still can't remember them to save my life, some have been made into movies and I can't remember which details were also in the novel, a bunch are from the same handful of authors I was crazy for in college. Ongoing challenge, I have no expectations of finishing all these this year on top of all the other reading I'm doing. Just putting it out there. I don't really feel like rereading books that I didn't really enjoy that much the first time, as educational as that might be. Instead this challenge is to reread books that at some point in my life I have considered to be among my "favorites" or have actively recommended to friends/ library patrons, regardless of whether or not I actual remember them. I'm going to stick with those books that have left really strong impressions on me, but I couldn't booktalk or write a book report on today. I am, however, going to reread Dune for an upcoming post, despite the fact that I remember the book pretty well, because I was really, really obsessed with it in 7th grade for some reason and I'm trying to figure out why.

Possible rereads:
Dune - Frank Herbert - REREAD on Audio - completed 6/10

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Sandman series - Neil Gaiman

Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut

Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon

Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem

Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Catch 22 - by Joseph Heller

Little House on the Prairie - Laura Ingles Wilder

Walden - Henry David Thoreau

Martian Chronicles - Ray Bradbury

Devil's Arithmetic - Jane Yolen

Number the Stars - Lois Lowry

Ramona the Pest - Beverly Cleary

Egypt Game - Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Harriet the Spy - Louise Fitzhugh

Are You There God, It's Me Margaret - Judy Blume

Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

Candide - Voltaire

White Fang - Jack London

On the Road - Jack Keruoac

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold - John LeCarre

Things That I Read

This week (or rather last week): The Gates - by John Connolly

Rated: E for End of the world-hilarity

This review is going to be a quick one since I actually finished it over a week ago and the specifics have started to crawl away from my brain like [insert witty simile here]. Yep, I'm that lazy. Anyway, this book tells the story of Samuel Johnson, a little boy living in a tidy English village, who becomes unfortunately involved with demons and all the end of the world type things that they do. It turns out that his unassuming neighbors accidentally assisted in the opening of a portal to Hell, or rather, a particularly hell-like dimension which bears a strong resemblance to the Hell depicted in Christian mythology. The whole "gateway to Hell" business has been done before, but what I found interesting about this work was how Connolly attempted to explain the phenomenon by connecting the the "magical" creation of the portal to a malfunction of the Large Hadron Collider, and the formation of a sort of black hole/Einstein-Rosen bridge hybrid thingy. At this point you can tell that this girl has never actually taken a physics class in her life. Moving on. The book actually spends a remarkable amount of time on real hard science, which is not really expected in a fantasy novel. Should we then reclassify this thing as science fiction instead? Eh, I mean there are still dragon-like beasties and undead hordes and such, not to mention the semi-magical elements, so I'm going to say no. Still, its pretty different stuff, and I wouldn't mind seeing more science things that I don't understand in fantasy books so I can sound smarter. Science aside, what you have is a pretty straightforward lets-stop-the-end-of-the-world tale written with a lot of tongue in cheek humor and extremely snarky footnotes. If you were looking for a book to compare it too, the easiest would be Good Omens by Terry Pratchet and Neil Gaiman; if you were looking for a movie, then definitely Shaun of the Dead. Except, ya know, with kids. Comparisons to Shaun are particularly apt in the bit where Samuel and his friends fend off these flying demon things with a cricket bat, and of course the part with the actual zombies. I also felt some notes of Hot Fuzz when the semi inept police force is trying to combat the hellspawn. Great stuff that. I particularly liked the character of Nurd, a demon who isn't very good at being terrifying and only sort of good at being good, who gets mixed up in the whole business. I recommend this book to just about everyone. Hard scifi fans are going to like the bits of semi-factual science, fantasy and horror buffs are going to enjoy the magical/ demon stuff, and anybody who likes the absurd will enjoy the ripping good writing. The only other Connolly book I read was "The Book of Lost Things." This book is very different from that, but shows the same talent for storytelling. I wonder whether his hard-boiled crime fiction is as well written. Maybe I'll check it out some day.

Final Word: Definitely the best book I've read this year. Ok, so it's the first book I read this year. Sue me.

Books Read in 2009: A Complete List
or...holy crap! that's a lot of books

Grand Total: 113 books.

Broke this down by Adult, Juvie/YA, Audiobooks and Graphic Novels. Not included on this list are the hundreds of picture books I read for storytime or when they come in new to the library.

Adult Books

1. Already Dead
2. Assassin’s Apprentice
3. Assassin’s Quest
4. Beat the Reaper
5. Beyond the shadows
6. Crooked Little Vein
7. Dearly Devoted Dexter
8. Ender’s Game
9. Fool’s Errand
10. Good Thief
11. Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean
12. Lamentation
13. Last Unicorn
14. Little Country
15. Lost City of Z
16. Lost Horizon
17. Magicians
18. Mistborn
19. Old Man’s War
20. Professor and the Madman
21. Red Wolf Conspiracy
22. Red Seas Under Red Skies
23. Royal Assassin
24. Sandman Slim
25. Shadow’s Edge
26. Sign of the four
27. Street Gang
28. The Strain
29. The Stranger - Frei
30. Warbreaker
31. Warded Man
32. Way of Shadows
33. Wishful Drinking



Children's/YA

1. 39 Clues: One False Note
2. Anything but typical
3. Castle in the Attic
4. Catching Fire
5. Curse of the Night Wolf
6. Diary of a wimpy kid dog days
7. Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks
8. Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell out of a tree
9. Every Soul a Star
10. Farwalker’s Quest
11. Forest of Hands and Teeth
12. Found
13. Frankie Pickle
14. Geek Chic: The Zoey Zone
15. Great and Only Barnum
16. Herbert’s Wormhole
17. Just Grace
18. Knucklehead
19. Last Invisible Boy
20. Leviathan
21. Magicians elephant
22. Monster Blood Tattoo: Foundling
23. Monstrumologist
24. Mousehunters
25. My Haunted House
26. Nation
27. No girls allowed, dogs ok
28. Odd and the Frost Giants
29. Phineas L MacGuire Erupts
30. Savage
31. Shooting the Moon
32. Suddenly Supernatural: Scaredy Kat
33. Tales from outer suburbia
34. When you reach me


Audiobooks

1. Anne of Green Gables
2. Prince Caspian
3. Swiss Family Robinson
4. Vanity Fair
5. Peter Pan
6. Sabriel
7. Mr Monday
8. Redwall
9. Curse of Chalion
10. No Dominion
11. Hound of the Baskervilles


Graphic Novels

1. Angel after the fall v1
2. Buffy season 8v1
3. Chiggers
4. Cowboys vs aliens
5. Eternal Smile
6. Fables - legends in exile
7. Fables: Animal farm
8. Good Neighbors: Kin
9. Hellboy V1
10. Hellboy v2
11. Invincible Iron Man: 5 Nightmares
12. Iron Man extremis
13. Jellaby in the City
14. Marvel 1602
15. Marvels
16. Pride of Baghdad
17. Punisher Omnibus v1
18. Tiny Titans 1
19. Transmetropolitan 1 - back on the street
20. Transmetropolitan 2 - lust for life
21. Transmetropolitan 3 - year of the bastard
22. Transmetropolitan v4 - new scum
23. Transmetropolitan v5 - lonely city
24. Transmetropolitan - spider’s thrash
25. Transmetropolitan - the cure
26. Transmetropolitan v6 - gouge away
27. Transmetropolitan: Dirge
28. Transmetropolitan: one more time
29. Ultimates
30. Ultimates: gods and monsters
31. Umbrella academy
32. We3
33. Wolverine origin
34. Xmen - gifted
35. Y the last man: unmanned

665
A Short Story by Joanne

Introduction:
So, this week, I'm reading The Gates by John Connolly (review forthcoming). I am enjoying it a lot, particularly because it reminds me of a short short story I wrote a few years ago. I thought, in the spirit of giving and as a sort of preface to that review, I would share my story with all of you. I very rarely share things that I write with other people, so you should consider this an special treat. No, really. Please to enjoy...

Subject: Fw: Fw: Fwd: End of the World

When the end of the world comes, at least they can’t blame me. I was the guy who sent the mass email. Now maybe you think, “Hey, mass email isn’t exactly the best way to get across something as massively important as the end of the world.” I guess that’s true. But what would you have me do, huh? Go right up to the police or the FBI and tell them, “Hi, my name is Gary, and my next door neighbor is the Antichrist.” That would just be silly. Besides I’ve seen all those movies. You know the ones with the huge budgets and bad acting where this scientist guy discovers meteors/ aliens/ dinosaurs and nobody believes him, especially this evil general looking dude who says he doesn’t believe in meteors/ aliens/ dinosaurs. Like half the movie is spent with this poor bastard going around trying to tell people to run and hide and nobody does and he gets all frustrated and the meteors/ aliens/ dinosaurs crash/ destroy/ eat people anyway. So basically what I did was cut out all that running around time. Not that I’m lazy or anything, just practical. Besides, this one time I got a chain letter from a friend of mine that started in Pakistan or Paraguay or Papua New Guineaor one of those other ‘P’ countries… maybe Peru. But anyway, it started pretty far away and must have gone to a lot of other people. That’s what gave me this mass email idea. What, you have a better idea?

I mean what is a guy like me supposed to do when he discovers he’s living next to the guy who is going to destroy the world. I mean, ok… so maybe if it was one of these terrorist types it might be easier because people are so jumpy about the whole crazy-guys-blowing-up-stuff thing. But this dude doesn’t even look Arab. He’s like this normal white guy. Ok, well at least he looks like a normal white guy. In reality he is the Antichrist, but I think I already mentioned that. But anyway, there isn’t exactly any point in telling people he’s the Antichrist anyway. I mean what are they going to do, huh, lock him up? I’ve seen this guy kill people with his mind all Darth Vader style. Like locking him up would do any good. Hell, I’ve read enough books and seen enough movies to know that the best thing to do is just chill out, get drunk... on second thought, get REALLY drunk and basically wait around for the inevitable. When archaeologists discover my body, if there are archaeologists, or even people, in the future, do I really want it to look like those sick Pompeii guys with their mouths all open and reaching out all petrified and shit? Hell no I don’t. I want to be found sitting in front of the TV, maybe with a Playstation controller in my hand, just calm as can be. I think that’s really very Buddhist of me actually.

Anyway, so I figured, I have my situation all figured out (couch, booze, Playstation) but I thought I might as well give everybody else an opportunity to do what they really want to before the time comes. I thought that was the least I could do you know. Like the first person I told was my friend Dave and he was like “Yo, I am totally going to BASE jump off of my office building during lunchtime tomorrow.” Something like that would never have even occurred to me (I’m not exactly sporty) but you know that was always his dream to do that so, like, hey, by all means he should. So yeah, Dave saying that got me thinking about all the other people in the world and stuff. Like maybe there is some dude who has always wanted to ask out this girl but he was too afraid or whatever and him knowing that the world is about to end might like give him the confidence and junk… or some chick who has like never gotten laid… or some guy who has always wanted to see Paris but has been saving up for his daughter’s college education but since nobody will be alive by the time she gets to college he might as well go on a trip or whatever.

So yeah, when the end of the world comes you all can’t blame me for not telling you. At least I sent the mass email.Which, like, I totally didn’t have to do.

Things that I Read:

This week: The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Grade: G for Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!

Let it be known that I am not a fan of horror movies. It was with some trepidation that I picked up this book at all, because everything about it from the creepy ass cover to the description on the jacket flap just screams "Not a book with fluffy bunnies in it." However, I am a big fan of the macabre and I've been known to read my share of books full of graphic violence and generally nasty business, and this book came to my attention from positive reviews in various print journals, as well as Amazon.com's "Customers who bought this item also bought" feature which has lead me down many an interesting path before. This is nominally a Young Adult novel, which presumably means it was written with a teen audience in mind, though I have a hard time determining which teens I know would actually read it. The protagonist, Will Henry, is a boy of 12, so perhaps this was the motivation behind the designation. However, I read a book a few months ago, The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti, which similarly featured a teenage character, yet that was considered "adult." Ah well, such things are peculiar even to this well-read librarian. On to the review in earnest then..

To say that this book is horrifying is putting it mildly. This book scared the crap out of me. There, I said it. Now what is interesting is not that this book was scary, but WHY it was scary. Was I frightened by the menacing Anthropophagi with their razor sharp teeth and gaping maws in the middle of their chests? Was I horrified by the gnashing of bones or the tearing of limbs? Eh. I mean, yeah it was gross. But for some reason, the only image I could keep in my mind was this guy.

There is just something about a non-specific blobby monster that is profoundly un-scary to me. I mean, really? REALLY? I'm supposed to be afraid of this thing? There has to be some basis in reality. I guess I just can't suspend my disbelief enough to be genuinely frightened by something so silly.

So what was it that horrified me so by this book? Well, I don't want to get too spoilery here, but lets just say that there are characters in this book infected with parasites. Horrible horrible parasites that worm their way out of one's skin and through their eyeballs. And THAT my friends, makes me pee my pants. Because monsters are monsters. No cryptozoologist is ever going to convince me that chupachabras are real or any other silly monsters of legend. But eyeball worms? Those exist, folks. There are hookworms and tapeworms and filarial worms that cause elphantitis and lets not even mention all the insects that can make your skin cave in or diseases like Ebola. That stuff is real. And holy, crap, gang, I am never going to go to the jungle ever. Much of my fear of being eaten from the inside out came after I finished The Lost City of Z which is the true story of Percy Fawcett's hopeless quest to find El Dorado. The Monstrumologist is just as graphic in its descriptions. While the parasites infecting the people in the story are imaginary, I couldn't help but bring to mind all the true cases of awful that really do exist in the world. Interestingly, the whole parasite thing is like a minor minor part of the actual story, but enough for me.

Plot-wise, overall I found it rather difficult to relate to any of the characters. The story is taken from the journals of the recently deceased Will Henry, an old eccentric who left the pages to a local museum. It relates his experiences as a child working with Pellinore Warthrop, a well-known monstrumologist, or monster hunter, in their investigation of a series of murders carried out by aforementioned beasties. **Spoiler Alert** guess what folks, the kid doesn't die in the book because he grows up to be this old man. I kind of hate when that happens. Its hard to imagine characters in mortal peril when you already know that they come out of their adventures relatively unscathed. As for everyone else in the story, I could really care less about them. You know from the get go that few if any of the secondary characters survive the outing. Then its just a matter of waiting for them to all die in varying, splashy ways.

I would, however, recommend this book to people who like gross out horror movies. The graphic descriptions of body parts being ripped apart, is somewhat comparable to the "Saw" movies. At times, it was more like a catalog of mayhem and destruction than an actual story. Really really gross, at times really really scary (parasites!!) but lacking a bit in its heart. Overally, I enjoyed it, though. Well written generally and quick to read. Would I read a sequel? Meh. Probably not. I "get" the conceit, I just don't need more of the same. Even in the last 60 pages I was sort of just waiting for them to get on with it already.

Final Word: You can read it in a dark room on a stormy night, but I wouldn't bring it on the plane ride for your trip through the Amazon or Congo unless you aren't especially terrified of flesh eating horrible worms.

Final Word (Revised): The Monstrumologist is now a 2010 Printz Honor book. Congrats!

Sherlock Holmes- a movie review
Grade: W for whacked out crazy awesome

If you are looking for serious cinema, then you probably don't want to go see Sherlock Holmes this weekend. If, on the other hand, you enjoy a fun adventure story with whacked out steampunk gadgets and a touch of guy love (#iswearwearentgay) then boy do I have a movie for you. Sherlock Holmes is an entertaining flick along the lines of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie... except better...and no boats.

*Spoiler alert: Actually there is one boat but they aren't exactly on it.

The main reason why this film succeeds is the chemistry between Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. While I think they could have played up Watson's role a bit more, and I did miss his narration (like in the books), overall I thought the two of them were just great. Anybody expecting a film in anyway resembling the original stories or novels will be somewhat disappointed, though. Some fans of both the books and the movie have mentioned that Arthur Conan Doyle did describe Holmes as an athletic man who was skilled in fighting as well as deduction, but let's be honest: they just took the essentials from the characters, added a little bit of name dropping (Mycroft!), and basically just went balls-out crazy with it. Ya know what? It was awesome. Just just deal with it purists. You probably didn't like the new Star Trek either.

As a side note, got to see the trailer for Iron Man 2 on the big screen and man, oh man, does that look sweet. I am somevut dis-toorbed by Mickey Rourke’s abominable Russian accent, but I’ll forgive it if they throw in a few extra splooooshy explosions.

Tales from the Gloop returns!

Yes, I am truly a fancy fancy lady. With my own blog and everything. Look at me. For a while now people have said that I am funny. Not in a “ha ha” way and not in a “funny looking” way, more like the “we find you mildly amusing enough to type you a perfunctory ‘lol’ when you comment on something" sort of way. And so I decided from that strong bit of encouragement to start up my old blog again in earnest so that I might share my mildly amusing comments with an ever dwindling number of people who tolerate me. As I have also succumbed to the twitter (sigh...) I figured I might as well get that on there also. Oh and look, there's a thingy with all the books I'm reading. You really care about this don't you. Anyway... so here's the new blog, same as the old blog, but more differenter. Look for reviews of stuff that I like, as well as humorous anecdotes. Stuff you won't find: day to day life sort of bitching. This won't be one of those kinds of blogs. Or at least I hope not.

The Pursuit of Gloopiness

The Pursuit of Gloopiness

I decided to explain the whole "Gloop" thing. This blog is, after all, called "Tales from the Gloop" so it is only fair that I say, for the record, what the heck I'm talking about.

It started with a dream. No, actually, it started with a 1960s cartoon called the Herculoids. Actually, no, it started with a pillow.
A few years ago these new microbead pillows came on the market. The first were called Moshis and could only be found at Bed Bath and Beyond. You probably have seen them in the store, or seen people carrying them on airplanes. Today they come in all kinds of different shapes and things, but back then you could only get this basic little blobby thing. Well my brother and I both really liked our Moshi pillows because they were very snuggly and, because they made out of Lycra, you could bend them in all sorts of positions.

Well, in a car ride back home from the store, I realized that the pillows sort of looked like those little blobby guys Gloop and Gleep from the old cartoon the Herculoids.

For those of you who haven't seen the show, here's the title sequence that can give you some idea of what I'm talking about


There was also an episode of SeaLab 2021 that prominently featured Gloop.

Anyway, because there came to be so many brands of these microbead pillows (Moshis, Mooshmellows, Fooms, etc.) we decided for the sake of convenience to just call them all Gloops. After a while, "Gloop" came to mean what we did when we snuggled with our Gloops. Then "Glooping" came to mean any time we acted liked Gloops (i.e. lumpy and squishy). Then I started to call my cousins Gloops, because little kids are pretty gloopy. Then my family started to call me a Gloop. And then, then my friends, it grew out of control. I started to use "gloopy" as the Smurfs use "smurfy," as one of those universal words that negates all others. I honestly believe, really and truly, that because of Gloops my vocabulary has suffered significantly, but I'm not going to worry about it.

Now, I must put this into broader context. Growing up, particularly since my brother was born, my mom has used her own made up words. For her, Shtagey (Sht-ah-gee) meant something nice and happy, Dimbly meant much the same, a Figgity Bah was a mean person, and Shnuggly meant that you were snuggling in a particularly shtagey way. It never really struck me as particularly odd that a grown woman would frequently use made up words or that my family just accepted the use of them without question. Needless to say, after Gloop came along, it didn't take much time for it to pretty much replace all of my mom's words.

Anyway, so there you have it. My mom is nuts and so am I, I suppose. But really, am I so nuts? I really think this whole idea of glooping is something wonderful and good and that it should be shared with everyone. Really, I just think that too few of us put enough importance on just lying under the covers with a stuffed animal and a loved one and just being happy. It is something that is really endemic to our society. We are always moving, always going, always doing. Too infrequently do we just savor the joys of doing absolutely nothing, of glooping to our heart's content. Maybe I am obsessed with snuggling. But you know, at least I'm happy doing it.