Under-Appreciated Novel Reviews: Perfect Circle

I can't remember when I first read Sean Stewart's Perfect Circle.


I do remember someone on some blog recommended it, and said it was one of the few perfect novels they had ever read.  But not which blog.  Lost in the sands of time!

It is indeed a perfect novel, one of my top 20 novel, one of the few I read over and over every few years, and every time I see more in it, and every time it satisfied me more.  For instance, the first several times I read it I thought the narrator (Will "Dead" Kennedy) was a straight-up hero.  Only after the second or third reading did I come to realize that Will was your classic unreliable narrator.

I remember when this came to me -- I was reading the book in the bath tub (where I read many of my books which are not on the iPad) and I suddenly got that point and I sat bolt up right and said, "Hey! Hey! HEY!" and water went everywhere.

Because, wow, that changed everything.

It's hard to know what else to tell you about Perfect Circle without giving too much away.

Well, this -- Will sees Dead People.  (It's not why he's called Dead Kennedy.  Or not exactly.)  This ability to see the dead has done a lot to shape (or warp) his life.  And we pick up the novel at the point where the ability is about to warp his life some more.

Also, the writing is just lovely.  Sean Stewart has written other books, and I like them, too; they're also nicely written.  But nothing like this one.

The closing pages of this book are written so beautifully that every time -- every single time -- I am driven to aching tears.

Go.  Read.  You won't be sorry.

Packing and moving

Yes, still. So, yeah, I'm still gonna be a little slow with these posts. It's not you, it's me. I'm late posting to my own blog, too.

And of course, I haven't had any time to read or watch anything new. I'm slowly making my way through Supernatural. It's highly entertaining, but I do still wish for a female character who can really hold her own.

Maybe after I see The Dark Knight Rises, I'll be back.

"Things Blow Up" Is Not A Movie Premise

So this weekend Dr. Skull and I went to see the Spiderman remake.

And it was fun.  I liked it enough.  Denis Leary is funny, and the guy who played Spiderman was good, and Sally Fields was great as Aunt May.  Plus cool special effects.

But.  You know.  Lots of blowing shit up.  Both in this movie and in the previews for the upcoming movies.  And I gotta say, especially in a SF movie?  "Things Blow Up" is not my favorite premise for a film.

Though it does seem to be Hollywood's, these days.  Blow things up and kill people in graphically appalling ways.

Now I have nothing against violence, per se.  Just as I have nothing against sex or graphic language, per se (as you have probably guessed).  But all of these things should be used in service of the story.  Blowing things up, killing people and torturing people in shocking ways, these should not be used instead of stories.  If they are, I am neither shocked nor entertained, but simply bored.

Also I get a migraine from all the racket, frankly.

Here, at i09, is a list of upcoming SF movies.

Most of them look as though they are going to be of the blowing things up/killing people in gruesome and inventive ways variety.  (I has feels about this, as my kid tells me we say on the nets these days.)

However: two I am looking forward to.

Knights of Badassdom.

Robot and Frank.

Collectibles Help?

So, I've been all over the place lately. Not reading a lot because my Aerial Dance teacher is moving away and I've been going there twice a week and volunteering at the library and the organic veggie thing so there's a lot of work I've taken on that has little to do with reading or writing.

All that means I've been forgetting to show up here. It's been years since I've spent this little time in front of my computer.

And then today I come in looking for help.

You see, my other computer-free time (garage-sale Saturdays) I've kept for years because it was originally my only child-free time before my kids were old enough for sleep-overs. (Full-time Moms need that sometimes.) And during my garage sale time today I found some dolls.

Four of them.

Arwen, Galadriel, Eowyn and Galdalf.

From the Franklin Mint.



I had the wonderful idea that I would buy them, keep the Gandalf and Arwen in my writing room, give my neice Eowyn and my daughter Galadriel for their respective birthdays. Then my friend looked them up and suggested that they're highly sought after collectibles and that people would cry if I gave them to a five and nine year old.

Now they're pretty, and I think everyone would like them, but I wouldn't appreciate them like a collector would. (And it's pretty obvious the children wouldn't.) Then I think that I should sell them as a set. Or people with most of a set might be happier if I sold them individually. Or, I'm not seeing many  completed auctions sold (yes, I do my pricing research on ebay) so maybe they're not as collectible as my friend thought.

But I couldn't find a Gandalf at all (online, I mean. Obviously I have one in person), so maybe they are....

What do you guys think?

History was never this exciting

I listened to the audio book of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter a few years ago and found it really good fun. Taken from works about Lincoln's life and weaving in vampires (the real cause behind the Civil War) was entertaining and engaging. It was done with such a deft hand as to be believable.

The movie? Not so much. It definitely put form ahead of function. Glorious to watch, but the plot was rushed with such intensity that Lincoln's decisions seem almost blithe, toned down, and at times, cringe worthy. It dealt with the lengthy expositions in the novel by cutting them completely.

*Spoiler alert*

Vampires kill my mom? Fine, I kill all vampires. Guy offers to teach me how to kill vampires? I become his soldier, obeying him almost with question. The book wove in the reasons for why Lincoln made all his life decisions, taken from his own journals. In the movie, he seems a bit of a scatterbrain, and his transition into politics is waved away. I guess we're all just supposed to know why he did what he did. Yeah, rose to presidency, Civil War, freed slaves, yaddah yaddah. But I find the why behind those decisions just as important as the decisions itself. If I just wanted a man fighting vampires with an ax, I can get that from any number of movies. I wanted a vampire story starring Abraham Lincoln to be just as much about the man. Sadly, they didn't look to go that deeply.

Popular Culture and Its Revolutions

Hounded into it by my kid, I just watched The Legend of Korra in three or four marathon viewings.

(You can view the episodes free on Nickelodeon, but you need an adolescent to navigate the page, I do believe.  Or apparently I do.)

There's a lot to like about this animated series.  Korra herself for one thing, an energetic adolescent hero who acts like a kid (unlike many adolescent heroes) but is also tough and brave enough that we want her to succeed, and goofy enough that we engage with her; and Korra's foster family (her mentor, Tenzin, and his wife and kids, all descendants of Aang, the Avatar from the previous series, Avatar: The Last Airbender) is just adorable.

But what I want to talk about is the plot at the center of the series -- the Revolution, and the Revolutionaries, that fuel Korra's coming of age.

On Korra's first day in Republic City she comes across an "Equalist" giving a speech in the town square -- the agora, as it were -- arguing that the Benders are abusing their power, using it to rob and exploit non-benders, and that benders should be dealt with.  As we soon find out, this is the flat truth.  Korra almost at once finds several Fire Benders extorting a shopkeeper for protection money.  And it is implied throughout the series that other benders rob and extort and enslave non-benders (and less powerful benders) as a matter of routine.

The point I'm making is that the Equalist Revolutionaries have a case.  The Benders are exploiting non-benders.  They do need to be regulated.

Sadly, though, while the series raises this point, it then goes on to ignore it totally.

Instead of giving its viewers an interesting conflict, with Korra and our other heroes torn between supporting their caste (the benders, the powerful) and the side of justice (the powerless, the non-benders), the show takes the easy route and makes the leader of the Revolution eee-eee-eevil.

So if he's ee-ee-ee-eevil, then obviously his Revolution must be wrong.

And we don't have to worry about whether the benders are wrong as well, and whether the powerful exploiting the powerless is wrong.

Nope.  We can all just cheer when the ee-ee-eevil leader of the Revolution is defeated.

The End.

Busy, busy, busy x2

Seems like we're all busy here at Fansci. I'm in the process of moving (yet again), and Kelly and Marilou are probably hip deep in their own fast-paced lives. Summer is a busy time because the kids are out of school yet work doesn't stop. I don't have kids but I make up for it with four pets who are bored staying in the house all the time because it's too hot to go out.

When I read or watch some new F/SF, I'll be sure to let you know. Now, let's all have a lemonade and sit for a bit, what do ya say?