Now that I have been reading the original ‘The Boys’ graphic comics, I think the Amazon Video series is definitely capturing the essence of what the cNow that I have been reading the original ‘The Boys’ graphic comics, I think the Amazon Video series is definitely capturing the essence of what the comic’s creators were doing creatively in thinking about a world of “supes” and how the typical corruptions of Humanity would interact with super-powered beings. Of course, the “supes” and the characters who are controlling/marketing/using them are simply metaphorical comic-book fantasy stand-ins for real-life people who think they are supermen. Like real-life businessmen, leaders of religious cults, politicians, many members of the military services, celebrities, idealogues, tech bros, etc. etc. etc., who believe they not only are above the law and above the masses, but they deserve to be.
I think both forms of the story, comic book and video series, are satirical and apocalyptic, written with a shitload of bitterness and anger about real-life corruption exploding off the pages. The graphic over-the-top violence might seem gratuitous, and maybe it partially is, but it also feels like it’s a statement of rage and hopelessness and horror that such things happen all of the time in the real world. There is very little we can seem to do about it but laugh in wonder at all of the horrible vices of human nature. Bitter wonder.
Yet Hughie, one of the main characters, keeps trying to savor the moments of peace, love and community he finds. Hughie is always opting for that option, to savor those moments of niceness and hope, even when the writers blow it all up a few more pages ahead in the script. He also suffers from a lot of masculine insecurities which make his personal relationships unnecessarily fraught. He still often falls into the trap of feeling women are either saints or sinners, Madonnas or whores, knee-jerk blind to their lack of ability to choose their fates. The men around him fill him with disgust by their displays of hypermasculinity. Yet, there it is in his own heart.
It’s interesting the writers keep having Hughie returning to his inner centering place of hoping this time a little kindness and love will make a difference despite the dreadful things that happen to him and his friends. Is he a fool? Yeah, he is. As are most of us....more
If Dilbert, the office nerd from the eponymous comic strip, was working for a top-secret English organization (called The Laundry) which specializes iIf Dilbert, the office nerd from the eponymous comic strip, was working for a top-secret English organization (called The Laundry) which specializes in tracking down Lovecraftian critters and Old Gods who are escaping from other dimensions into our own, you’d have the personality and life of main character Bob Howard, narrator of the Laundry Files series. ‘The Fuller Memorandum’ is the third in author’s Charles Stross’ alternate universe science fiction/horror/fantasy series. Howard is a computer geek who has by necessity learned special skills of magic in addition to those of a computer technician. Besides being a whiz at math and computer programming, he now knows a lot of magical spells and the art of dispelling demonic Cthuloid attacks.
Howard is not happy about this, but he doesn’t have a choice in working for The Laundry. In the first book, The Atrocity Archives, he accidentally almost destroyed an entire English city by creating a magical computer algorithm. So. He was given a choice - work for the good guys of The Laundry, or die, or something. Because he activated a portal, he demonstrated he had the talent The Laundry needs. This talent made him dangerous to be loose in the world without any knowledge or training about his skill set. Besides, in the second book, The Jennifer Morgue, he falls in love with another Laundry employee, Dr. Dominique (Mo) O’Brien.
There is an American and a Russian spy department which also deals with the Old Gods and the various magical monsters who invade our universe. Everyone in these national organizations try to play nice together, but, you know, nationalist pride of place in defeating horrific stomach-turning monsters.
I have copied the book blurb:
”Bob Howard is taking a much needed break from the field to catch up on his filing in The Laundry's archives when a top secret dossier known as The Fuller Memorandum vanishes - along with his boss, whom the agency's executives believe stole the file.
Determined to discover exactly what the memorandum contained, Bob runs afoul of Russian agents, ancient demons, and the apostles of a hideous faith, who have plans to raise a very unpleasant undead entity known as the Eater of Souls...”
It's in the book of rules for agents of The Laundry that officers keep a classified journal of their assignments, thus Howard’s narration. This is a good thing, gentler reader. The horrors of Howard’s job, both human- and monster-caused, puts his life in exciting jeopardy every time he must go into the field. Not to mention the awful rules of corporate life which drain the mind of energy because of the time-sucking horrors of required expense and activity reports, and attendance at Human Resource meetings, with which many of us can sympathize. We readers would never know about the terrors going on behind the screen of what we think of as ordinary life, or the bravery of the secret agents of The Laundry otherwise, if not for these books! You go, Bob!...more
‘Hell Bent’ by Leigh Bardugo is book #2 in the Alex Stern series. It cannot really be understood unless book #1, ‘Ninth House’ is read first. Unfortun‘Hell Bent’ by Leigh Bardugo is book #2 in the Alex Stern series. It cannot really be understood unless book #1, ‘Ninth House’ is read first. Unfortunately, ‘Ninth House’ is necessarily an infernally in-depth introduction for half of the novel to how paranormal magic works in this accursed universe Bardugo has dug up from the subterranean depths of her imagination. However, the characters drew me on to finish the book, and I be damnably happy with the series after all!
I liked ‘Hell Bent’ a lot more than ‘Ninth House’! I thought it fun to read because there are a lot of fiendishly shocking surprises and diabolically mind-blowing twists.
I have copied the book blurb:
”Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell in #1 New York Times bestselling author Leigh Bardugo's Hell Bent.
Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.
Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.
Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.”
Startling turns in the plot, especially new powers suddenly given to Alex, promise to make book #3 even more devilishly better than the previous two books in the series! I can tell it’s going to be a beastly difficult wait for its publication!...more
‘Our Missing Hearts’ by Celeste Ng doesn’t seem like speculative domestic fiction to me. In reality, what this book is fictionalizing has happened in ‘Our Missing Hearts’ by Celeste Ng doesn’t seem like speculative domestic fiction to me. In reality, what this book is fictionalizing has happened in real life in the past all over the world, and it is slowly creeping up on us Americans again. Social demonization and legalized discrimination is already happening in reality here and there, everywhere. Social demonization of certain lawful populations, at least they are legal citizens today, is already a reality in many places around the world. Stalin did it. Hitler did it. Now Texas is doing it. Florida is doing it. North Dakota is doing it. Idaho is doing it. Mississippi is doing it. Louisiana is doing it. Utah is doing it. North Carolina is doing it. And many other American states.
‘Our Missing Hearts’ is about characters who have been demonized because they look Chinese. Anyone who expresses support for Chinese-Americans loses their jobs, houses and then their children. One of the demonized children is the main narrator. Bird, or Noah, is a young child of a White father and a Chinese mother. After an economic collapse, the American government officially blames the Chinese for the poverty and financial losses. To make sure people don’t disagree, laws are changed, media is censored, books are burned.
Bird is too young to understand what is happening. When his mother disappears, he is distressed. Then his father loses his job as a professor. He becomes a worker at a University library, taking care of the books. They move from their house, where they are attacked by neighbors, into a small apartment provided by the University. For some reason, every book in the house is removed. Bird’s father won’t discuss the past, Bird’s mother, or much of anything. Bird is vigorously policed by his father, his classmates and neighbors, forbidden to talk about many subjects or ask any questions, especially about his mother.
He doesn’t know what is going on, and he doesn’t know why these things are happening. He is a child, so he can’t even frame the questions in his mind. But his heart feels something is wrong about everything. Why? He has childhood memories of his mom. She left when he was nine. He now is twelve years old. And he wants to know what happened, and why he isn’t supposed to even think about, much less know about, who his mother was and why she is now a bad person. Then, his best friend at school, a girl who was taken away from her parents and given to foster parents, disappears, too. She was a rebel, asking questions. She kept running away from her foster parents, trying to find her real parents.
Bird is starting to wake up.
There has been an economic crash. In response to the losses of jobs, more people living on the streets, the impoverishment of many sectors of society, the American government has decided to announce the economic crisis is due to the manipulations of the Chinese government. At first the government arouses only social anger, then laws are changed and made to ‘reform’ the definitions of decency of all kinds, starting with anyone accused of looking as if they are Chinese. Over time, the government is culling books, newspapers, and magazines of any historical content which disagrees with the government’s version. Eventually, the social assumption is that anybody who appears Chinese must be bad parents. Eventually, the government begins to take the children away from people the government has demonized as the cause of all of the ills of society, no matter what their race.
Is the economy better for this? As usual, the rich hold all of the power, losing nothing, and are above the law. The less rich feel better demonizing ‘the other’, as it has been in real life history. They go along with it. People get used to things. But fear also underlies and overlays every social interaction, every job performance expectation, every neighborhood, every friendship, every family.
I think ‘Our Missing Hearts’ describes a future that could happen because it already has happened in the past and is happening now in America, 2023. Books about slavery and about the existence of homosexuality are being culled from libraries as I write this review. In many states, kids currently are not being taught in public and private schools the history that in America we had legal slavery for two hundred years, and that people who are non-binary sexually exist. Sex education and science has disappeared from a lot of Southern and Mid-Western American states, replaced with evangelical Christianity values in public schools. Evangelical Christianity and its mores is being made into laws in half of the country. Abortion, scientifically and ethically safe, have been replaced with Christian science from the Bible written 2000 years ago. Since nothing has done to provide American mothers with financial support, such as free or low-cost quality childcare, millions of young mothers will be forced to stay home again as they were forced to do just 50 years ago. Women will no longer be able to work, and have their own money again. Any diseases which spread throughout the country are being blamed on the Chinese. As a result, people who have Asian facial characteristics are being murdered by White supremacists and neurotics. Vaccinations, which have prevented more diseases and deaths than I can list, are being demonized as infecting people with the very diseases they are inoculating people from. As a result, diseases which were rare are roaring back killing or permanently maiming people for the rest of their lives. Or course, they either can’t get any healthcare, or they can’t afford healthcare which would save them after they catch some disease which was preventable.
What do dictators do, gentler reader?
Dictators normalize:
-Political scapegoating of an ordinary lawful minority or majority in order to grab political power by creating needless fears. -Introducing enhanced police and arrest powers to disappear or imprison anyone the police personally want to, and give political cover for all police criminality. -Enforcing social conformity of expressed thoughts, education, culture, and religion by law and through social demonization. -Shutting down all means of peaceful formally legal political dissent and all public formally legal expressions of cultural/social difference. -Controlling all sources of information - remove/burn factual books and magazines in schools especially history, censor information on all media, create fear of all personal conversations through rewarding neighbor-on-neighbor/family-on-family reporting of what is said. -Selecting lawful ordinary people out of any crowd of people to arrest, beat up, and imprison, who have done nothing wrong except be there - wrong place, wrong time - under the cover of patriotism and supposed criminality. -Arranging for the arrest and disappearance/deportation of anyone - ANYONE - who is heard to say anything different from government announcements or has a disrespectful expression on their faces. -Create conspiracies which don’t exist, spread lies as truth, forbid real news based on facts, release information developed from propaganda only, emphasizing social demonization and approve only books cleansed of real history.
In America, White Evangelical men are taking control of the law, many of the courts, many state governments, and are shouting down or demonizing liberal political parties. Through criminalizing abortion and forcing Christian religious faith mores on us all, they are making criminals of women who choose to not have a child and the medical professionals who do abortions. These are the same men who are going after anyone with non-white skin or the wrong eye shapes under the cover of dark nights. They are calling it patriotic religious values. I call it another White-male repression of anyone not a Christian White male.
Gentle reader, until the 1970’s, our country was run by White Christian males, with laws, judges and state governments all in their hands alone. It was a horror of mores and social chains holding back all women from self-realization. White Christian males politically buried anyone who wasn’t White or Christian. It happened here, and I see it coming back. It is happening again....more
‘Circus of the Damned’ by Laurell K. Hamilton, the third book of dark horror in the vampire executioner/necromancer Anita Blake series, is a novel abo‘Circus of the Damned’ by Laurell K. Hamilton, the third book of dark horror in the vampire executioner/necromancer Anita Blake series, is a novel about very flawed people driven by incredibly destructive impulses. Anita is particularly annoying because she refuses to accept anyone’s common sense advice or help. I really really mean she has zero tolerance for advice or help or assistance of any kind. She has absolutely not a bit of any common sense if it involves someone having tried to tell her something important, no matter how true the information is or even if it means saving a life, including her own. Gentle reader, it will depend on your tolerance for such a character whether you appreciate this series or not. Anita also controls her fear with the lamest snark I’ve ever had the pleasure to read.
Anita is a suicidal fool, but she definitely is brave, a hardass assassin of bad guys, and wants to save good people. However, her insistence on believing nothing, trusting no one, which causes her to often get good guys killed and allows bad guys to walk away, is frustrating. She is very neurotic, basically. Sometimes it got on my nerves, to tell the truth. But these are fun books, if one doesn’t mind extreme gore, a lot of bloody killing, and a frustrating woman warrior as the main character and narrator. She wants to like people, even love them a bit, but once she becomes aware she is attracted to anyone, she intentionally does whatever she can to not do so, even to the edge of killing herself to kill her feelings for anyone.
I’m not sure I like her, she is WAY too antisocial, but her life is definitely exciting. The snarky humor is a plus. I think she appeals to me because she deals with the reality of evil, recognizing evil exists. Other characters make her life harder than it has to be because of their sunny irrational beliefs in a civilization where nice always comes out on top simply because they believe in niceness as a protection or cure against evil. Anita and I agree that is not true.
I have copied the book blurb below:
”In Circus of the Damned a rogue master vampire hits town, and Anita gets caught in the middle of an undead turf war. Jean-Claude, the Master Vamp of the city, wants her for his own - but his enemies have other plans. And to make matters worse, Anita takes a hit to the heart when she meets a stunningly handsome junior high science teacher named Richard Zeeman. They're two humans caught in the crossfire - or so Anita thinks.”
I do not recommend starting to read the series with this novel, but instead start with Guilty Pleasures. I don’t think any of the books are standalone because each book adds more information to the previous reveals about the vampires, werewolves, zombies, other weird creatures, and the alternate American cultural world Anita lives in. She is also attracted to a male vampire that she refuses to admit she likes - a typical romance trope.
The books are extremely violent similar to any horror-military thriller involving supernatural science gone wrong, like a Jonathon Maberry novel (see Patient Zero). The only difference I can see between violent male-oriented military novels and the universe in these novels is the main character, Anita, is a woman. She describes things from a woman’s point of view, while most novels involving a lot of shooting and killing and sex usually involve an ex-military black-ops dude. In any case, if a reader enjoys exciting military action with a supernatural twist, kinky sex, horror and gore, I recommend this series. I admit I skim some of the action....more
“This quasi-heroic stuff isn’t an exact science you know…”
Deadpool never spoke anything truer than this in one of the comics included in Deadpool Clas“This quasi-heroic stuff isn’t an exact science you know…”
Deadpool never spoke anything truer than this in one of the comics included in Deadpool Classic, vol. #2. He is an emotionally damaged mercenary who seems to often become confused about what part he wants to play. He releases evil mutants from cells because he’s been hired to do so only to spend the rest of the comic trying to save their souls and sometimes bystanders from the psycho-mutants’ murderous acts. Evil people seem to surprise him when they begin doing more evil he never sees coming. Deadpool also has some difficulty maintaining whatever virtue in himself he is trying to nurture. He loses his temper. Deadpool goes to his dark side when he loses his temper. Like another familiar mutant says, you won’t like him when Deadpool loses his temper…
I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
”Landau, Luckman, and Lake want Deadpool to rebuild himself as a hero - but he'll be lucky to pull himself together as his healing factor's down, and the only thing that'll juice it up is a dose of the Incredible Hulk's blood - administered by the Weapon X alumnus who helped make Deadpool what he is in the first place. Not even mad science can mend a torn heart, though, as Deadpool's infatuation with X-Force's Siryn (later of X-Factor) is challenged by Typhoid - who turns heads as easily as she cracks skulls When she sets off on a grudge match against Daredevil, can Deadpool contain a killing machine even more off kilter than he is? Also featuring wily weapon-boy Weasel, hostage extraordinaire Blind Al, and the Taskmaster, later of Avengers: The Initiative Collects Deadpool #2-8 and #-1, and Daredevil/Deadpool Annual 1997.”
The artwork is as gorgeous as the plots are quasi-dark. Being hopeful for Deadpool’s redemption is as futile as being one of his fictional friends. I fear we readers will never see him completely sane and succeeding entirely as a ‘good’ Avenger. Good enough, or good sometimes, is all that we can hope for him. But damn! The Motormouth definitely can quip! Not politically correct. Not ever....more
This paperback, Deadpool & Wolverine, is 1. misleadingly titled; 2. very tame stuff, perhaps aiming at the younger juvenile fans.
The included comics This paperback, Deadpool & Wolverine, is 1. misleadingly titled; 2. very tame stuff, perhaps aiming at the younger juvenile fans.
The included comics do not really showcase any stories with both Wolverine and Deadpool together. Instead, the selections are very tame versions of the superheroes with sometimes S.H.I.E.L.D members working with one of the A-listers; i.e., Spider-Man alone, Spider-Man and Deadpool, Spider-Man and Wolverine, and Wolverine alone.
I was disappointed, but maybe you won’t be, gentle reader.
The collection:
-Marvel Adventures Super Heroes #4 -Marvel Universe Ultimate Spider-Man -Wolverine: Origin of an X-man -Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #3
All of these titles are complete misrepresentations of the content....more
‘Deadpool Classic’ is a graphic comic collection, Vol #1, of the antihero character Deadpool. It is a collection of the appearances of Deadpool, from ‘Deadpool Classic’ is a graphic comic collection, Vol #1, of the antihero character Deadpool. It is a collection of the appearances of Deadpool, from his introduction to the comic universe, where he appeared and was gone after a few pages, to his first starring roles in his own comic.
As Deadpool was briefly introduced in a comic called “New Mutants #98” Feb 1991”, this collection includes only those pages in the New Mutants comic where he first appeared. This means the first few pages are really a sampling, not the entire New Mutants comic. Deadpool’s next appearance was in Deadpool: The Circle Chase #1-4, 1994. It appears to be the entire comic plot storyline. The next is Deadpool #1-4, 1994. Last in this collection is Deadpool 1997 #1.
The earlier appearances of Deadpool were in comics that were drawn in VERY busy visuals with color and huge casts of charmless characters. Each page features action boxes so crammed with action, fighting characters, explosions and exposition, I could barely make out what was happening. The last comic in this collection was drawn by artists with a different ethos, so it is considerably cleaner and clearer in the plot action.
What are the plots? Well, they all are the same plot. Deadpool has taken a mercenary job for money. He seemingly doesn’t care much about the ethics of the job. If he is required to assassinate someone, he does it. If he is to destroy someone’s laboratory or work project, he does it. If he is stealing something, he does it. He has no interest in backstories or whether he is working for evil people or good people. He kills whoever gets in his way.
Except he doesn’t seem to actually work without ANY ethics in practice.
Deadpool is actually not quite so oblivious to ethics as he pretends. If he learns the backstory of a company that he is destroying, or the person from whom he is stealing something or he was supposed to kill, he sometimes changes his mind and allegiances and fights off the bad guys he was hired by.
These merc jobs seem to always mean he encounters only other mutants or sups, so the fighting is spectacularly destructive with a lot of physical damage to bodies of the fighters. Many of the other mutants hate Deadpool because of previous encounters, so it is clear they would kill Deadpool for free even when they are fighting him for a job they were hired to do. A few mutants are Deadpool’s friends. A very few. However, luckily for Deadpool, he possesses the power of miraculous healing. His hands grow back if chopped off for instance.
Deadpool got mutant powers because he agreed to be part of a Canadian government’s (!) military experiment in altering bodies. Wade Winston Wilson, Deadpool’s real name, volunteered because he was diagnosed with cancer and he was dying. But although he survived the experiment and received awesome physical powers along with being cured of cancer, the change left him with his skin covered in scabs, or something like, from head to toe. He is a pebbly-looking monster in appearance. He hates this, and often drinks himself under the table whenever he thinks about it too much. If he hasn’t drunk himself into oblivion, he is always full of rage and feelings of injustice about his appearance when sober. He displays his rage about his looks under the cover of being a motor mouth, constantly spewing biting, non-politically-correct, satirical humor and taunts to whomever.
One of his taunts I liked: “I’m gonna put a few warning shots into your spine.” I was laughing at this and most of his many other rude comments, so, I guess I’m a little, um, off, gentle reader. I like Deadpool. Done....more
The graphic comic book 'The Boys, Omnibus 1' is a gorefest consisting of 14 issues of the comic. It's an extreme horrowshow full of vivid scenes of viThe graphic comic book 'The Boys, Omnibus 1' is a gorefest consisting of 14 issues of the comic. It's an extreme horrowshow full of vivid scenes of violence and sex, hand-drawn and colorized beautifully page after page. The images have become standardized by video games like Mortal Kombat and the darkest M-rated horror movies. Thankfully, there are also several well-written plots and interesting characters filling out the reasons for the violence and deaths and torture.
When I think back to how the movie 'The Exorcist' sickened me so bad when I was eighteen years old that I walked out before the ending, and now when I compare the cheesy effects of that movie to what I watch and look at today, I must sit down and reflect a bit about how jaded I've become...
Oh well. I do still feel sickened by extremely over-the-top violent visual effects or graphic comics. 'The Boys' crosses into that territory for me. I was appalled. But. 'The Boys' is definitely witty art, a dark dark social satire and a sophisticated comedic snarky noir commentary. Perhaps perversely, I pick up, and sometimes only skim, these horribly graphic works despite that I have actually lived through some real-life shit. These fictional dark fantasy stories are exaggerated and hysterical, yet they mirror real life daily violence in the real world so artfully and compellingly. I have had years of therapy and I no longer have PTSD, I think. No worries, gentle reader. One of the methodologies of psychology is normalizing the experience of whatever is causing fears one may have, like of seeing spiders or using elevators. No psychologist would recommend reading this kind of pulp pop-culture fiction, though. But why I'm drawn to read or watch these dark tales of fictionalized horrors, idk. I see and admire the wit, the acid sarcasm, and the bitter bitter burning rage of the writers and artists. Maybe that's why.
I have copied the book blurb below because it is accurate:
"All-new printing collecting the first 14 issues of the critically acclaimed series, now heading to live-action on Amazon Prime! This is going to hurt!
In a world where costumed heroes soar through the sky and masked vigilantes prowl the night, someone's got to make sure the "supes" don't get out of line. And someone will! Billy Butcher, Wee Hughie, Mother's Milk, The Frenchman, and The Female are The Boys: A CIA-backed team of very dangerous people, each one dedicated to the struggle against the most dangerous force on Earth - superpower!
Some superheroes have to be watched. Some have to be controlled. And some of them - sometimes - need to be taken out of the picture. That's when you call in The Boys! After the opening story arc introducing Hughie to the team (issues 1-6), Dark avenger Tek-Knight and his ex-partner Swingwing are in trouble (issues 7-14). Big trouble. One has lost control of his terrifyingly overactive sex-drive, and the other might just be a murderer. It's up to Hughie and Butcher to work out which is which, in Get Some.
Then, in Glorious Five-Year Plan, The Boys travel to Russia - where their corporate opponents are working with the mob, in a super-conspiracy that threatens to spiral lethally out of control. Good thing our heroes have Love Sausage on their side.
Featuring some ever-so-slight tweaks the creators have meticulously restored, The Boys Omnibus Volume 1. It also features bonus art materials, the script to issue #1 by Garth Ennis, a complete cover gallery, and more! "
Of course, viewers of all ages can watch bloody movies and TV shows every day, with commercial breaks advertising munchies, on the SyFy and the FX channels among many other 'regular' cable-TV channels. We have choices of fictionalized bloody, bloodier, and bloodiest movies and TV shows. This kind of stuff, believe it or not, used to be only obtainable in specialty S&M shops in red-light areas of big cities. Even if you yourself ARE only watching the Hallmark channel or family dramedies, many others are watching the now normalized everyday viewing of S&M plots, undisguised except by appearing without being spoken and named out loud by the actors, scriptwriters and producers. Adults can watch even more graphically uncensored violence and visually-imagined S&M deaths and voyeuristic explicit sex acts on the elite, commercial-free, subscription channels. The only thing I've noticed that is still out of bounds unless it is an X-rated show, is real sex penetration. Fake penetration (of mouth or nether regions) is good to go for an R-rating.
Mainstream CBS, NBC and ABC and Fox channels have supposedly PG shows showing graphic simulated operations of people having surgery with doctors smeared in blood squirting out of abdominal cavities or open chests, along with sound effects, such as of saws on skulls or limbs, with sometimes a discreet sheet or having the camera swoop into a close up of the surgeons to 'hide' the seemingly act of cutting that is happening. Not to mention the many many many scenes and sounds of breaking bones in fights.
Quite amazing, really, what visual effect artists and sound engineers can do with their life/education skills and imagination. But of course, even if talented visual and sound artists have been in a war, or are serial killers or American-city police officers, or have seen or done surgeries, most of the rest of us have seen smashed up roadkill, and some of us hunt deer. We all, well, most of us, cook meat for dinner.
'The Boys' is rubbing our noses in what violence looks like without gauzy subterfuges. A case can be made for 'The Boys' series having artistic values besides that of simply salacious sadism because: 1. beautiful and realistic artwork (argumentatively, right?); 2. witty social satire on the having of power over others in all of its rawest, most obvious forms; 3. the moral and psychological corruptions of fighting fire with fire to defeat genuine Evil. Absolutes of being only Good means dealing with the Bad Guys as always a Good person results in the Bad guys winning a lot, even all of the time.
Doctor Who occasionally realized genocide and murder was a necessity, as did Frodo Baggins (The Lord of the Rings books). The problem is in not being taken over by the darkness of moral depravities and human evils. Hughie is that kind of Goodness and somewhat walking-in-the-Light anchor for 'The Boys' team, much like Doctor Who's human companions are for the Doctor or how Sam was for Frodo. Books are an excellent Goodness anchor through vicariously feeding readers justice, too, even if only in a fictional story....more
'The Laughing Corpse' by Laurell K. Hamilton, the second in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, is exciting hardcore horror!
Anita Blake is a bada'The Laughing Corpse' by Laurell K. Hamilton, the second in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series, is exciting hardcore horror!
Anita Blake is a badass slayer heroine in a dark fantasy world where vampires, witches, zombies and ghouls live (sort of live, being dead, right?) among humans, set in an alternate modern America. She is known as an animator of anything dead. She also graduated from college with a degree in biology, and she lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
Yeah, this series is full of dark noir snark and satirical touches.
In the first novel, Guilty Pleasures, Anita fights vampires. In 'The Laughing Corpse' Anita is drawn into several plots involving zombies. I must say the world building in this series is intricate, detailed, fascinating and logical, even when the author is mixing into the traditional horror elements of these paranormal creatures her newly invented ones! The vampires have rigid intricate rules they must live by, and surprisingly, so do zombies! They are not entirely only mindless eaters of living flesh. Ok, mostly they are, including in this series, but the author has "fleshed them out". So to speak.
I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
"Harold Gaynor offers Anita Blake a million dollars to raise a 300-year-old zombie. Knowing it means a human sacrifice will be necessary, Anita turns him down. But when dead bodies start turning up, she realizes that someone else has raised Harold's zombie--and that the zombie is a killer. Anita pits her power against the zombie and the voodoo priestess who controls it.
In The Laughing Corpse Anita will learn that there are some secrets better left buried-and some people better off dead..."
As much as I enjoy the vicarious thrill of riding invisibly on Anita's shoulder while she massacres extremely wicked people (and other creatures, like the vampires, ghouls and zombies), these novels are incredibly gory. If you have ever spent a Saturday watching SyFy horror movies, just imagine reading on the page in words the many televised scenes of disembowelments in a Leatherface movie, or heads popping in a telepathy-horror pic, or an actor being torn limb from limb in a Sharknado movie. In fact, author Hamilton might be worse than Stephen King in writing a graphic description of horrible maiming and killing. Gentle reader, skimming is a useful skill. However, these books definitely have loads of charmingly powerful schadenfreude. Anita is a good person, and her enemies deserve her wrath! Still, I can tell I have to be in the right mood for an Anita Blake novel. She goes to war against the bad guys, no holds barred....more
I think people will believe me to be insane, but 'The Atlas Six' by Olivie Blake appears to be, to me, a book of dense creativity similar to Dune by FI think people will believe me to be insane, but 'The Atlas Six' by Olivie Blake appears to be, to me, a book of dense creativity similar to Dune by Frank Herbert. The book is clearly part of a planned series involving a complicated landscape of imagination and world building. The characters have personal ambitions that they slowly realize are being used against them and that they have enabled a powerful organization to manipulate them because of their ignorance of its overarching plan for them. Besides the world-building differences, the two books differ in that 'The Atlas Six' leans heavily on magic instead of science in its fictional alt-world of the present. However, 'The Atlas Six' is similar to 'Dune' in how much it depends on descriptions of internal mental experience, and self-talk dialogue, to move forward in chapter after chapter.
I still can't decide if I actually like the book, and I definitely do not feel much attraction to any of the magicians. So far. They all seem like different versions of "mean girls" to me, even the male characters. Is there some sort of fantasy rule magicians are somewhat or a lot narcissistically or blindly immoral? The main characters are very immature and arrogant. But during the challenges in the novel, each character develops a bit more recognition of the legitimacy of the needs other people have, and are moved to introspection and self-examination. They each reluctantly begin to respect the other characters, and reassess how they've always seen others as tools to use or enemies to be conquered.
I copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
"The Alexandrian Society is a secret society of magical academicians, the best in the world. Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. And those who earn a place among their number will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation – and here are the chosen few...
-Libby Rhodes and Nicolás Ferrer de Varona: inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds. - Reina Mori: a naturalist who can speak the language of life itself. - Parisa Kamali: a mind reader whose powers of seduction are unmatched. - Tristan Caine: the son of a crime kingpin who can see the secrets of the universe. - Callum Nova: an insanely rich pretty boy who could bring about the end of the world. He need only ask.
When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they must spend one year together to qualify for initiation. During this time, they will be permitted access to the Society’s archives and judged on their contributions to arcane areas of knowledge. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. If they can prove themselves to be the best, they will survive. Most of them."
Even though the characters are not admirable people, they are extremely interesting. The magical powers each one possesses are fascinating, and until the contest, they were unaware they had not yet reached the top of their powers. They already know themselves to be exceptional human beings who stand above "mundies" - ordinary unmagical or weakly magical people. All of the invitees given the offer to compete for membership in the Alexandrian Society are young and eager to compete, and they each are used to winning at every endeavor they attempt. None of them know the word 'humble', but some are angry at their crappy parents. They do love learning and want access to the library's amazing books, many of which were in the original library of Alexandria, established probably between 285 and 246 BC - yes, that legendary library created in Egypt which supposedly had been destroyed. Surprise! It had been hidden by magic.
But as the months go by, and as they check out books pursuing individual interests, attending classes that the Society wants them to be in, they learn the Society is not as benevolent as it seems. Something is going very wrong.
The fantasy novel ends on a cliffhanger. Will I plan to read the next one? Yes! I want to see what happens. But I still do not know if I will ultimately like the series. Each of the different kinds of magic each character has is almost entirely explored in mental word-salad concepts as dense as the descriptions of political machinations in the book 'Dune'. I understood Dune, though. But these descriptions of the magical talents of the characters caused me to re-read many a paragraph in trying to grasp what was happening. I think the author's vision of how these magic abilities worked was beyond me to a small degree. I needed a movie art director to help me visualize each of the Atlas Six's mental experience of their magic, like the way the CGI in Doctor Strange movies are designed! However, I managed. Eventually....more
I really enjoyed the updating of these wonderful fable characters! The new new Snow White and Rose Red, transformed into mBeautiful art, cool stories!
I really enjoyed the updating of these wonderful fable characters! The new new Snow White and Rose Red, transformed into modern New Yorkers, trying to keep the lid on a wild bunch of misfits and strong-minded people, magical creatures and talking animals who are refugees living/hiding in plain sight in New York, is very engaging! The writers and the artists have outdone themselves in a creative noir reboot....more
'Book of Night' by Holly Black is disguised as a dark fantasy, but it also is a mystery, a paranormal romUnique world building and a mindblowing plot!
'Book of Night' by Holly Black is disguised as a dark fantasy, but it also is a mystery, a paranormal romance of sorts with blood-soaked secrets, and a unique thriller! Oh, and it is exciting and well written, whatever the genre definition. I believe there will be a sequel - I hope there will be a sequel! It ended on a sour cliffhanger moment which has made me very unhappy. Nonetheless, I'm in!
I copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
"Holly Black makes her adult debut with Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies.
In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.
Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows....more
''The Midnight Library' by Matt Haig is mostly a dramedy cozy for me! I think it a fun idea there is a purgatory where sometimes a dying person is off''The Midnight Library' by Matt Haig is mostly a dramedy cozy for me! I think it a fun idea there is a purgatory where sometimes a dying person is offered the opportunity to "purify" one's old life through the ability to choose moving one's essence to another universe. Bad choices made by the "root" self have led to crippling regrets, guilts and losses for Nora Seed, the main character. But she is given a chance to do a makeover by moving into her same, but maybe happier better self, into an another universe where her other "Nora" self made different choices.
Nora is currently dying by suicide, but she discovered her essence is drifting out of her body in her apartment into a strange misty place. Why is she trying to suicide by overdose? In the previous nineteen years, she walked out on Dan, her fiance, only two days before they were to marry; her brother Joe has refused to talk to her for years after she walked away from their music band, the Labyrinths, when they were about to sign a contract for an album; and today she was fired from her job at a music equipment store where she has worked for nearly thirteen years. Plus her cat just died in the street (omg) perhaps because she was too inattentive. Her mum died of cancer. Her dad died of a heart attack. Nora is having a lot of troubles piling on top of her.
Although Nora is only 35 years old, she has attempted and failed at several careers. She feels she messed up because she could not make herself push through and persevere with her initial, or her family's, enthusiasms. She wanted to be a glaciologist because she had a strong interest in science, but Nora got a philosophy degree instead of a science one at University. She inexplicably never used her philosophy degree for her choices in jobs. She trained as a swimmer and qualified for the Olympics because of her dad's hopes, but gave up professional sports to join the music group "Labyrinths" to help Joe become a famous musician. She quit Joe's group because her fiance Dan hated her being on stage, and then she called off the wedding because Dan wanted kids. Now, her boss Neil has fired her for being late again. She feels not only has she let everyone down, she feels she is unloved by everyone.
Instead of the nothingness of a suicide death, Nora wakes up in a library. The librarian in charge, who looks like Mrs. Elm, her school librarian when Nora was a child, tells her this is the Midnight Library. It is full of books that represent all of the lives she is currently living in an infinity of universes. The librarian tells her there is a Nora in all of the books who made different decisions than she had at various points in her life. Dying Nora, who is now standing in the library, is "root" Nora. However, she is in between life and death at the moment, which means she has the power to choose a book on the shelves which will temporarily pass root-Nora into a life she might have had if she had made different choices. Nora will be 35 years old in every book, but she will take over the Nora-body in whatever book she selects.
Most interesting to me is the idea in the novel that the choices one makes affects the trajectory of quite a few of other people's lives, including those folks you'd think would be more autonomous instead of dependent on what direction you've chosen to make. Obviously parents affect their children dramatically by their choices, but Haig chooses to have Nora's choices take down or uplift her brother and neighbors and friends!
Haig did not go in deep into the questions he raises with his remarkably entertaining brain candy of a plot. I wish he had! But he does stir up dust with a storm of existential possibilities for his main character, Nora Seed.
I noticed some Goodreads' reviews by reviewers I adore panned this novel. I did see the same issues they do. For readers accustomed to sophisticated reads, there ARE a lot of obvious revelations and hopeful (and often repeated by many self-help books) messages/advice/platitudes, especially in the last third of the book. Maybe because it's Christmas, or maybe it's the isolation of the year-long Covid-19 lockdown, but I enjoyed this feel-good, if a little edgier than normal, cozy. Sometimes reminders that we CAN always change our frequently ingrown or blinkered perceptions by widening out our horizons and/or looking at a problem from a different angle, giving ourselves permission to think outside of our customary mentalities, no matter how odd or weird or different, are exactly what a reader wants from a novel! Personally, I loved being reminded of these old suggestions for making lemonade out of lemons right now -bite me....more
‘The Space Between Worlds’ by Micaiah Johnson has created a fascinating main character, Caralee, a very scruffy low-life girl from the murderous slum ‘The Space Between Worlds’ by Micaiah Johnson has created a fascinating main character, Caralee, a very scruffy low-life girl from the murderous slum of Ashtown. But she has had a bit of luck. She has moved on up and out to a beautiful city, called Wiley City, where its fortunate citizens are of educated and polished families. She has done so by taking over another girl's life, stealing her identity. Caralee is pretending to be Caramenta. Caralee found Caramenta’s body. She saw they looked exactly the same except for the broken bones and blood. When she heard the voice from a collar on Caramenta’s neck asking if she was ready to return from Earth 22, she grabbed the collar, put it on, and just like that, she traversed to a Wiley City in another universe on another Earth.
I adore Caralee so much I have given this novel five stars even though it probably should be rated a 4-star read. Those who have read other books about multiverse travel between universes have rated this book three stars because of their ennui from reading other books involving multiverse conspiracies similar to the one in ‘The Space Between Worlds’. However, unlike other reviewers, I did not experience ennui. I was enthralled, confused, amazed, seduced, and ultimately a big fan of the author’s skillful buildup of thrills and chills! ‘The Space Between Worlds’ is more of a fantasy, or, more charitably, speculative science fiction, but nonetheless, I loved it. Bite me.
I have copied the book’s blurb because it is accurate:
An outsider who can travel between worlds discovers a secret that threatens her new home and her fragile place in it, in a stunning sci-fi debut that’s both a cross-dimensional adventure and a powerful examination of identity, privilege, and belonging.
Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total.
On this Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now she has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security.
But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgängers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse.
I am crossing my fingers in hope that there is a sequel. I will be waiting for it in this universe, which unfortunately, is the only one I live in. I would love to have Caralee’s job as a traverser. Except for all of the murder and gore and psychopathic emperors and leaders and their minions.......more
'The House in the Cerulean Sea' by T. J. Klune is wonderful! I LOVED IT. It's a five-Kleenex-boxes-used-in-wiping-happy-tears-away read. Plus, good pl'The House in the Cerulean Sea' by T. J. Klune is wonderful! I LOVED IT. It's a five-Kleenex-boxes-used-in-wiping-happy-tears-away read. Plus, good plot, good writing, lovable characters.
But gentle readers, do yourself a favor when settling down to read this heartwarming book - forget you are a serious person with adult worries and concerns. Forget the news and politics. Forget your college degrees and ivory-tower literature-criticism studies. Forget showing off your critical-thinking academic training. Stop your worrying for awhile. Play some Buddy Holly or Big Bopper or Little Richard or Ritchie Valens tunes (Lucy's favorites in the novel). Or maybe some sappy romantic tunes from, like, Bobby Darin. Or Nat King Cole (orphanage director Frank Parnassus' favorites).
Just sit yourself down and lose yourself in a ridiculously happy sappy book with fun characters in a fantasy world of special magical beings who despite social dangers win the day. Isn't this why we all loved the Episode IV-VI Star Wars movies? Or Avatar? Or How To Train Your Dragon?
In 'The House in the Cerulean Sea' there is a garden gnome, a wyvern, the antichrist, a blob, a wood sprite, a werePomeranian - all children, all very funny and adorable. They've all been abandoned, abused and rejected until arriving at a Magical Youth orphanage run by Arthur Parnassus. It's called the Marsyas Island Orphanage and it is located on a beautiful island only reached by a ferry. The town near the island hates the kids, so they never leave the island.
The agency, the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, that controls all of these Magical Youth orphanages sends out inspectors who investigate the orphanages for any deviations from a massive strict Rules and Regulations manual. Linus Baker is one of the agency's best investigators. He is a very emotionally restrained forty-year-old man and holds to a very disciplined quiet life. He lives in a rented gloomy house with a quiet cat and only loves playing old vinyl records. He is selected to investigate the Marsyas Island Orphanage. He is ordered to stay a month, interview all of the kids, watch their behaviors, and observe Arthur and his management of the orphanage.
Settle yourself down, and remember when you were a kid who still believed good things happen to good people, and bad people can be ignored, fixed, defeated or changed. Remember the delight of imagining real dragons, or imagine yourself piloting space ships or owning a talking cat or being an Avenger using telekinesis against a bully.
Think how wonderful, if only for the seven hours it takes to read this imaginative and life-affirming book, how wonderful it would be to come to a loving, supportive home where damaged hurt people (or the magical creatures who are the really cool kid characters in this book) could heal, especially orphaned and abused kids (or magical kid beings!). Think how wonderful it is to be in sunny flower gardens, or to swim in a warm turquoise ocean off of a beautiful island on vacation after existing/working for a living in a grey cold heartless city among cruel judging folk. Think about being a gay man who can love another gay man without fear or judgement in a house of lovable magical kids!
However, the Marsyas Island Orphanage has enemies! The nearby town hates and fears "the monsters". The Department in Charge of Magical Youth is concerned about Arthur's methods, hearing rumors he is not following the book of Rules and Regulations. If Linus doesn't like how the orphanage is being run, or finds out the kids are being abused, he'll close the orphanage and the kids will be moved elsewhere.
This would not be a good thing. The kids love each other. And it turns out there ARE secrets to be uncovered about Parnassus and his methods...which disturb Linus very much. Rules are NOT being followed! What will Linus do?
I LOVE this book. I cried and cried. I used up five boxes of tissues so I'm rating 'The House in the Cerulean Sea' five stars. I think it is a story for all ages even if it isn't supposed to be. Bite me. Unless you are a were-Pomeranian....more
‘Guilty Pleasures’ by Laurell K. Hamilton is the first novel in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, paranormal mystery series. I have seen the books here‘Guilty Pleasures’ by Laurell K. Hamilton is the first novel in the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, paranormal mystery series. I have seen the books here and there but I never picked them up until now. I liked it! There is a lot of thrills and chills! However, Blake must have been covered in scars from head to toe by the end of this exciting action novel.
‘Guilty Pleasures’ is one of the first fiction series to feature a continuing main character who is a woman and an action figure who is indistinguishable from the fictional male ex-military protagonists in many popular action thrillers. Blake is an “animator” - she makes zombies by raising dead people using a method which seemed like voodoo to me. But in 'Guilty Pleasures' she is hired as a detective by a powerful leader of a vampire coven residing in St. Louis, Missouri. Blake is an employee of Bert Vaughn, owner of Animators, Inc. The business has an investigator on staff, but it isn’t Blake's job. Usually.
The vampire client, Nikolaos, is insane, unfortunately, and very evil. She can’t seem to stop herself from wanting to torture Blake to death even while Blake is trying to solve the mystery of who is killing vampires. There is a law in this alternative United States that forbids the killing of vampires unless sanctioned properly by legal authorities. But clearly the powerful of any kind, dead and undead and living, can do whatever they want in this alt-universe of ghouls, werewolves, vampires and zombies. Nikolaos is using blackmail and threats to coerce Blake to work for her. Blake hates vampires.
Published in 1993, the technology in the book is at the beeper notification stage of communications with phone calls being returned when in the field by finding a convenience store with an AT&T phone booth standing outside of the store. (If you, gentle readers are completely mystified by that previous sentence, Google is a good search engine to use to find out about ancient technology before cell phones and the internet.)
The gory graphic violence in an Anita Blake plot has never gone out of style. John Wick, Mad Max, every Quentin Tarantino character in every Tarantino movie ever made, for example, has continued the tradition of graphic body-destroying ass-kicking in most modern blockbuster actions movies. Of course, graphic stomach-turning scenes have been in most noir detective novels since they were invented, even in the strict regulated eras of media in American history. Fans will find the action in the Blake series familiar territory. If you enjoyed Tarantino’s ‘Dusk to Dawn’ movies, you will LOVE ‘Guilty Pleasures’!
I have not read the other books in this Dark Romance action series, but all of the reviews speak of the novels becoming pornographic around book ten. I suspect, based on the reviews I’ve read on GR, the porn in the Blake series will be a turn off, but for others, maybe not. After all, sexual pornography is the number-one type of entertainment consumed by people all over the world. I do enjoy moderately graphic vampire horror novels. To a point. Punishment/retribution/revenge porn induced by or for the purposes of schadenfreude on evil adults, or things - well, ok then, I admit I’m mostly good to go, especially if it's funny. I might end up skimming scenes of way too much violence between my fingers held over my eyes. But I also have the curiosity of the proverbial cat to my regret.
I am not exactly a reader of gentle genres in the first place. I can already see Anita Blake is not developing into the usual Dark Romance horror heroine. She is definitely without snowflake liberal sensibilities (indeed, I am detecting a distinct self-sufficient libertarian vibe). She possesses an obvious Catholic Christian circa 1990's faith. She IS developing a bloody romance with a vampire, Jean-Claude, manager of the vampire club “Guilty Pleasures”. Is Hamilton the author practicing a "give the suckers (hehe-pun alert) whatever low-rent entertainment they will pay for"? series? Very likely.
I never said I didn’t read or investigate trashy novels (see my profile). Perhaps you are a GR member of breeding and discernment, and maybe sensitivity. I absolutely cannot recommend this book to you. I’m going to read book two in the series. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯...more
‘A Brightness Long Ago’ by Guy Gavriel Kay is very poetic, and it is a beautifully written young adult-ish novel. It is a fictional memoir about sever‘A Brightness Long Ago’ by Guy Gavriel Kay is very poetic, and it is a beautifully written young adult-ish novel. It is a fictional memoir about several personalities who were a ‘brightness’ while they lived. The narrator, Danio Cerra, was only a young commoner, a son of a tailor, who through accident met these unusual aristocratic personalities in this ‘memoir’ of his youth. The ‘fantasy universe’ where all of these characters live is an era which resembles closely Renaissance Italy.
Most of the characters Danio meets who shine so bright in his remembrance are members of several high-born families in charge of neighboring city-states. Some are mercenary princes for hire in the almost constant wars and skirmishes between important aristocratic families. Alliances between the princes are temporary and fluid. Businessmen and merchants hold some secondary power due to their wealth and ability to hire or provide funds to the princes for supplying their armies. They also can buy their way into the aristocracy, taking over newly created titles, as well as marrying up.
Some of the interesting people Danio meets were not only male warriors, they were women who through their bravery and strength of character flouted gender conventions of the era. One in particular whom Danio meets after her successful assassination of a psychopath who was ruling over a city-state he saves by aiding her escape. She sustained an injury to her leg and needed help since she could not walk out after she killed the tyrant. This intervention changes the course of Danio’s life. As a result, Danio meets a lot of people he might never have met. Before too long, he learns he possesses a wit which impresses many powerful people, some of whom he has to play against each other to save his own life.
Kay also lists in the back of his novel in an Acknowledgments section the books about Renaissance Italy which he used as source material for his lightly disguised ‘fantasy’ universe.
If you are familiar with the Italian Renaissance era, gentle reader, then you have some idea of the fluidity of the real-life dramas between the actual rulers of the Italian city-states, including the Pope. They were interesting times. I have posted a Wikipedia link:
If you enjoy Kay’s not-really-a-fantasy YA-ish historical-ish novel, I recommend Dorothy Dunnett’s fictional series, the House of Niccolò (start here: Niccolò Rising). Dunnett’s European Renaissance series is set in the real world and is much more dense with the real-world politics of the Renaissance and its people. Dunnett’s books are more of an adult read. The novels are extremely convoluted with the actual politics, wars and marriage alliances European aristocrats and merchants actually played in history fencing with other for power and wealth....more
'The Memory Police' by Yōko Ogawa is completely whack. Or it's a masterpiece. Maybe both. At least, that is what it is to me.
The novel was on the shor'The Memory Police' by Yōko Ogawa is completely whack. Or it's a masterpiece. Maybe both. At least, that is what it is to me.
The novel was on the short list of a number of prestigious foundations who select books for literary awards. Written originally in Japanese, I found the English translation quite good.
The novel is profoundly disturbing on several levels. It could be classified as a horror genre despite that it is very quiet and understated almost in its entirety until the very end. I was reminded of Never Let Me Go, written by another writer of understated horror novels, Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, because of its believable platform of normalcy - middle-class people having babies/going to work/enjoying birthday parties, etc. But the characters accept a horrific social circumstance while going about their normal lives. However, don't be mislead by the comparison I made of the tone of these two books. 'Never Let Me Go' could actually happen in the real world. 'The Memory Police' is set in an alternate universe which operates under very bizarre rules of physics.
What most bothered me about the book is its lack of coherency in what the narrator remembers in order to tell her story despite losing memories, senses and knowledge as time moves on. However, readers are not expected to understand the book as a realistic story. It clearly is an allegory. Western readers will see it as similar to the novel 1984 in its themes, but it introduces a dystopia that is very different. Instead of emphasizing how people are socially controlled by technology and harsh punishments and censorship of history like in '1984', in the world of 'The Memory Police' it is by selective erasure of memories as a control mechanism over people. There is no pain, emotionally or physically. The effect of removing memories is a lack of pain. An emptiness is experienced by some for awhile.
Memories of things are removed from brains overnight mysteriously. Yet, people recall enough to know in the morning that they must go to cupboards or dressers or places of storage, grab those objects and bring them to be burned in community bonfires or throw them in a nearby river. After removal of all of whatever was erased from everyone's minds, people go on to live normally. At least, as normally as they remember they lived. People don't miss what they no longer know they ever had.
If this process of overnight memory removal was smooth and efficient, which it is, people would live without a single clue to what has happened to them after a day or two. Unfortunately, some people keep their memories. When they wake up, they still remember the objects which all of the other people have completely forgotten, things like photographs, harmonicas, birds, ribbons and perfume.
The Memory Police are sort of a S.W.A.T (special weapons and tactics) force. Nobody knows how they know which people still have memories of whatever object has been erased from society, but they do. They also do random house, work and train station checks on the island where this is all happening. People have no civil rights. Everyone must submit to their interrogations and arrests. No one knows what happens to people taken away who still owned the forbidden objects, or who still remember how perfume smells, or how a music box sounds, or how a food tasted. However, the narrator, nameless, recalls seeing the body of her mother after she was taken away because she remembers that.
The narrator is an author and she is writing a book about a typist. Her novels have acquired some fame. She has friends she relies on and feels much affection towards. One is R, her editor. Another is an old man who used to work on boats before knowledge of working on them was erased. I think she loves both of these men, one as a father, the other as a mentor. When she discovers R remembers everything which has been erased from her mind and the others, she becomes afraid he will be killed by the Memory Police.
How can she save him? The risk is enormous. The Memory Police take away entire families of those who have unerased memories. She is terrified, but she must do something...
I thought the book well-written and disturbing. It is possible the fictional typist that the fictional narrator who dreamed up the typist is really doing the writing of the story of the island of forgetting, but that is horrible too. The typist ends up in a situation where she loses memories of her past, forgetting who she is and what she wanted to do with her life besides wait for the end.
Whatever. This is a dystopian nightmare for whoever is imagining it, writers in particular. After all, writers write of real life and truths of all sorts and use thought experiments as fictional ideas to provoke and entertain and educate. A dystopia of hell for writers would be living in either '1984' or 'The Memory Police'. As a reader, I'd want to not survive in such worlds. Although, as an aging adult, I could end up like the people in 'The Memory Police'. Brain cells are the issue with dementia, a common disease of old people. Sigh. And, omg.
But, gentle reader. I must admit that after turning the last page of 'The Memory Police', I guffawed. The book went one step (and arm) too far, so to speak, pictorially, for me. Those of you who read it already, will understand I am ending my review on a pun. When the author decided to push the disfunction of this imagined society that far, despite however symbolically wonderful it is for those possessing literary sensibilities to use and understand such literal plot devices might be, I lost my sh*t. ROTF. Sorry. I apologize to those who felt the book deserving of a more sober literary reflection to the end. I can't do it.
'Jennifer Government' by Max Berry is pure rock-'n'-roll satire turned up to ten. In the fictional world of the novel, American corporations run the w'Jennifer Government' by Max Berry is pure rock-'n'-roll satire turned up to ten. In the fictional world of the novel, American corporations run the world. But if you think that means we have the peace of pushing around grocery carts and walking around stores looking for the best sales and visiting strip malls on the way home to pick up a hot dog, think again. Corporations have always been murderously competitive. Think Jack in the Box vs. McDonald's. Think Nike vs. Adidas. Think of corporate marketing ideas such as the Nike President hiring the NRA to shoot up kids at a mall in order to increase the street cred of a new Nike shoe to increase sales. After fourteen kids are shot dead, sales increase 1000 percent. Give that merchandising executive a raise!
Jennifer Government, a government police agent, works for the rump power that remains of the United States government. Hack Nike works for Nike. Buy Mitsui works for Mitsui. Billy NRA works for the NRA. The last name of people is always that of whom they work for. If people don't have a job with a company, they have no last name at all. Taxes are illegal. If the government does any work, like fight a fire or investigate a crime, they charge upfront before showing up. Only the European Union still has governments in control of individual countries, taxes and businesses. American corporations are in charge of the rest of the world and they always get paid for their services or there is no service.
John Nike has a plan. He wants to rid the world of what remains of the government. He also wants to get rid of the competitor merchandising group called the Team Advantage, an aligned co-operative group of corporations. Nike belongs to the US Alliance, which competes with the corporations of Team Advantage. The US Alliance is not aware of John Nike's assassination plot. But as John knows, all an executive needs to do is take charge, assign people to tasks. People are sheep. John Nike is a psychopath. He is confident of his schemes. One of those schemes is killing the teens who line up to be first to buy the new line of Nike shoes. He assigned the murder of the mall kids to an employee, Hack Nike.
It is surprising to most people how orders from an executive are often obeyed, gentle reader, no matter how insane the command, as is demonstrated in the book and in the real world, despite an employee's qualms or morals. Promise of a raise and job promotion, threat of a job loss - that is all it ever takes.
Jennifer Government knows John Nike very well. She is not aware of his machinations regarding increasing the popularity of Nike's new $2500 shoes, but she is aware of his cold ambitious nature. She is busy tracking down the killer of the kids at the mall unaware of John Nike's involvement. The trail leads her into a maze of corporate ambitions and business alliances, all of whom have their own agendas and none know of the others' plots.
The book is absurdist satire. Coincidences and close calls and near misses and misunderstandings ensnare all of the characters into grievious difficulties. The plot reminds me a bit of what author Elmore Leonard does in injecting fun into his novels, but Barry goes in harder and deeper into the land of the absurb, creating more intensity into the politics of the story rather than invest much more than what is necessary for characterization. It's a romp through an alternate world (well, maybe an alternate world) where capitalism rules!...more
aPriL does feral sometimes
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