Do you ever not feel like reading?

Posted by greengeekgirl — May 15, 2013

I told some friends recently that I hadn’t read anything for a month. Not a single book. Barely part of a book (light poetry for a post, but no heavy reading). These were friends I connect with digitally, but I could feel them giving me a blank look over the miles–something akin to the look I might get if I unzipped my face and revealed that I have been, this whole time, a lizard person.

And then we had a fight IN SLOW MOTION

“Wow,” they said. “I can’t even imagine not reading a book for a whole month.”

My friends weren’t being snotty about it–I’m not trying to imply that they kicked me out of the reading club because I hadn’t read anything lately. No, they were genuinely dumbfounded. It’s not that I just hadn’t read anything to review, or just hadn’t read anything pressing on my TBR, or just hadn’t read anything _______________ (fill in your own reading distractions here). I just hadn’t felt like reading anything. At all. Not a novella, not a short story, not a misleading back-of-book blurb.

Am I weird for going through phases like this?

This hasn’t been the first time I have completely stopped reading for a period of time. Actually, I’ve gone far, far longer than a month before–I’ve probably gone half a year without picking up something to read. Especially since I got the internet fifteen years ago . . . cough. It doesn’t really bother me when I’m not reading; I read when I get the urge, and when I don’t feel like reading, I find other things to do. I make jewelry or knit or watch 50 hours of Northern Exposure* in a row. I make ice cream or take up a new hobby that I will surely abandon at some point.

Oh, TV Guide from the 90′s.

*I don’t actually know if there were a full 50 episodes of Northern Exposure. But damn, that was a good show.

Then, out of nowhere, the urge to read comes upon me again and I devour a stack of books in a week. This time, I broke my hiatus with a re-read of Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, followed closely by Crapalachia by Scott McClanahan. Which is apropos of nothing, really, except that sharing what we’re reading is kinda what happens at this ‘ere blog.

What I’m curious about is, does this happen to you, too? Or are you more like my friends, who would feel weird if they went for a long time without reading a book? If you take the occasional hiatus, what brings you back to reading? What are some good books you’ve read after a dry spell? Leave it all in the comments below!

Warren G shouldn’t have been allowed to regulate.

Posted by greengeekgirl — May 8, 2013

So, I said I would be writing about more things than just books here. Mostly, I’ve still been writing about books; so, I thought, what better way to introduce general entertainment posts than with a post about mid-90′s rap? Super perfect. (fist pump)

Warren G’s “Regulate” came out when I was 11; the song, along with the upstairs neighbor who was allowed to watch as much MTV as she wanted, helped define my middle-school-era musical tastes. I would listen to it over and over again . . . which, I probably shouldn’t have been allowed to do, since it doesn’t exactly speak kindly of women. Recently, when I needed to put together a workout mix, I turned to the mid-90′s rap that I still pretty much love. Listening to “Regulate” again for the first time in quite awhile made me arch my brow (especially after reading this hilarious post about it).

Warren G is a terrible regulator.

No, seriously.

I mean, at the very beginning of the song, he says you can’t be any “geek off the street” if you want to regulate. You’ve gotta like, you know, be good at it. In fact, he says that–”and we’re damn good, too.” So, let’s see how the night goes for Warren G:

Goes out looking for females.
Stops for a dice game and has guns pulled on him.
Proceeds to get robbed at gunpoint in his own town.
Starts wishing he was a bird so he could fly far, far far away.
Is saved by Nate Dogg.
Is led to a car full of stranded women, found by Nate Dogg.
Presumably scores with one or some of the women, but Nate Dogg got the one that he said was “sexy as hell.” Sexiness status of the other women is unknown.

Is it just me, or does Warren G kind of sound like a chump? Rolling up to a game of dice and getting robbed at gunpoint seems exactly like something that would happen to a geek off the street. And Warren G was definitely not handy with the steel (ie, his gun, which, let’s be real–they probably stole from him). Then, Warren G didn’t even help with finding the lay-deez for that evening’s romp. I bet Nate Dogg even had to pay for the hotel rooms, unless they recovered Warren’s stolen property before leaving the scene of their mass murder–or, I guess, mass-self-defense.

Also . . . in a dangerous situation, it doesn’t seem very tough to me to wish you had wings to fly away instead of doing something proactive, like reaching for your own gun or, y’know . . . fighting back somehow. I would fully expect a regulator to be able to take on a bunch of random thugs on the street. (Regulators are kind of like Batman, right? That’s what I’m getting from that song. A Batman who goes out trawling for “hoes”.)

At this point, I kind of feel like Warren G is Gilligan to Nate Dogg’s Skipper. Not very competent, but Nate Dogg keeps him around because he just loves his “little buddy.”

Gilligan-The-Skipper-gilligans-island-26546640-800-597

‘Man, I wanted to find the freaks this time.’ ‘Someday, little buddy, someday.’

Filed under: Yes, these are things I really think about. Welcome to the inner part of my brain.

The Evolution of an Insatiable Bookslut: Susie

Posted by greengeekgirl — April 8, 2013

Not me, but a reasonable facsimile.

This is a new series we’re doing, talking about how we got into reading, how we got into reading what we read, and so forth.

I don’t know if I would be a reader if it weren’t for my mother. Mom has been a reader as far back as I can remember (and probably further back than that, although I’ve never asked her about her reading history); when I was little-little, she read to me every day. Some of my favorites: Ernie’s Big Mess, The Care Bears and the Terrible Twos (I totally had Care Bear sheets; I loved the shit out of some Care Bears, y’all), The Monster at the End of this Book, The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. Also that Dr. Seuss alphabet book.

Between her reading to me and watching as much Sesame Street as I could find on television, I learned to read when I was about three. I know, Mom thought I was just memorizing the books, too–until we were at the grocery store one day, and while we were checking out, I pointed at something and said “Look, Mom! Buy one, get one free!” The surprise face that my mom makes when she tells that story is priceless. She loves telling that story, I think, because she’s the one who taught me how to read and write.

Thanks, Mama. Owe you one.

Mom is also the one who got me into my first big-girl chapter books. My parents got divorced when I was, mm, eight I think. My birthday was a few months later, and my mom sent me a box of gifts that included a Baby-Sitters Club book, Mary Anne Saves the Day. I downed that book in about an hour. What was this magic that was The Baby-Sitters Club? For years, I used my five-dollar-a-week allowance to collect the books. The best time of the week was getting to go to the bookstore and pick out a new, un-read book. My dad moved our single bookcase into my room (Dad was never much of a reader, although I did turn him onto Kurt Vonnegut when I was a teen–there’s a writer for everyone, I think) to hold my collection, which I took great pride in keeping very organized–unlike the rest of my room, which could have been declared a federal disaster area.

4,_Mary_Anne_Saves_the_Day

When I had all of the BSC books that the store had–and somehow, I never bought a duplicate; I could just remember which ones I had because I’d read them all five or six or fifteen times–I branched out into other books. At some point, I picked up my very first science-fiction(eqsue?) book, A Wrinkle in Time. Which I promptly read to pieces. I bet I read that book at least fifty times, maybe more. Maybe quite a lot more. The seed that it planted bloomed later when I discovered adult science fiction; I read Ray Bradbury in middle school, Asimov and Douglas Adams in high school, and went from there. I may not write about it much here, but I have a deep love of sci-fi and speculative fiction. And, okay, I admit it–I also love Star Trek and I read a crapload of Star Trek novels.

In school, I was a rather . . . troubled student, up until about eighth grade. Low grades, detentions, and I took my fair turn being hauled into the principal’s office. I definitely got detention for giving a cafeteria worker the finger behind her back, and someone ratted me out (dirty snitch . . . in my defense, that cafeteria worker was a first-class twat). I almost had to drop out of accelerated English in 7th grade, because I was actually failing. Yes, I was failing English. Me. I got my ass in gear around that time, and I’m pretty sure everyone was completely shocked when, after summer break, I came back busting out A’s on every report card. It was like I had been replaced with a cyborg who did homework.

To go along with my new super-student status, I also joined the Academic Team. You know, that team where you memorize stuff and regurgitate it while taking tests or doing quiz bowl? My focus, being the reader that I was, ended up being Literature, and that changed my reading life considerably. Academic Team exposed me to books I’d never heard about before then, poetry and classics, and tons of literary terms that I had to memorize. I started getting curious about the books I was memorizing facts about; I started reading them in my spare time, in-between trashy horror novels.

Academic Team was like this, but less funny.

In related news: I was a giant nerd. That whole “geek girl” moniker is completely legit.

Two things happened when I was a senior that cemented my reading habits pretty firmly–at least, as firmly as they ever get cemented, since they’re always evolving somewhat. The Richards family had finally gotten the internet not too long before (seriously, it took us forever to get the damn internet) and I found myself frequenting a bookish chatroom. You know, back when you chatted with IRC? That’s where I met Rob way back in the day. (Fun fact? Also met my husband through people in this room. INTERNET ROMANCE.) Nearly everyone who visited this room was older and read quality stuff. I became a literature snob for a long time (thankfully, I grew out of that).

During this time, I also got a job at a bookstore, which gave me 1) disposable income with almost no bills save gasoline, and 2) a discount on books. I bought ALL THE BOOKS. I bought Kerouac and Burroughs, Salinger and Orwell, Márquez, Ellison, Vonnegut (which my father swiped from me). I didn’t even get around to reading all of these books yet, but I loved collecting them. The stories they held felt like magic. I was sad when I sold my collection off several years ago–I had carted them from place to place for years, much to everyone’s dismay who ever helped me move.

I didn’t grow up in an environment that exactly fostered reading; with my mom not being around, and being in a town that isn’t known for its great readers (for years, the only bookstore I knew of was a small Waldenbooks in the mall), reading was actually kind of discouraged. I can’t count the number of times my dad yelled at me to get my nose out of a book and go outside. I needed reading, though. I needed it badly–as an escape, primarily, but also as an education. Books taught me things that my family and teachers neglected; I learned compassion and critical thinking, rationality. And I learned about love and humanity. Reading saved my life.

Thanks, reading. Thanks, books, for always being there.

Don’t worry books; I will never do this to you.

What makes a good villain?

Posted by greengeekgirl — April 2, 2013

Possibly more comic-book-villain than literary-villain but YOU GET THE POINT

We love villains, don’t we? I mean, we love heroes, sure . . . but a good villain really turns our cranks. They get to be wild, unconstrained badasses; they get the best lines; they get to give into those primitive human urges that the rest of us only dream of dabbling in. They get to wear cool outfits and make funny jokes. Heroes can be kind of square, but villains? Far less likely.

What makes a villain good, though? I mean, besides the badassery and the well-timed barbs. I ask because it’s entirely possible to write a shitty villain. Just being a villain doesn’t make a character awesome. So let’s explore some of the characteristics that make legendary villains.

A good villain has complex motivations.

When we find out that someone did something heinous–killed a bunch of people, for example, although that’s probably not even the worst example–for something as piddly as basic greed, I think it tends to leave a bad taste in our mouths. “He did all of that.. just for money? What an asshole.“ I feel that way about certain real-life people (cough) who go around wrecking other people’s lives because they have the mentality of children seeing how much they can get away with before they get punished. I envision a fat little Dudley Dursley type, sticking his hand in the cookie jar again and again until someone finally smacks it. That’s not a good villain at all, that’s a chump villain–they can make great characters, and even great antagonists, but as the major nemesis of a hero? I think not.

A good villain has a good back story. He or she has a reason to be so fucked up. He’s not just greedy, or bloodthirsty, or generically “evil.” Something drives a good villain; he lacks something that he’s desperate to fix or fill. A good villain would scoff at someone who gave in so easily and crudely to base desires. Common murderer? Please. Where’s the passion? Stumbling into villainy is for amateurs.

We don’t need that back story explained to fucking death, though.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, pisses me off more than when people take a great villain and, after he becomes popular, go back and explain exactly how he got so disturbed in exhausting and/or convenient detail. An example off the top of my head: Rob Zombie’s Halloween. Is it just me, or was Michael Myers a hell of a lot scarier before Rob Zombie made up some bullshit white trash background for him? The original Michael Myers was a “force of nature,” with a complex pathology hinted at through his family background and first murder; Rob Zombie turned him into an episode of Jerry Springer.

The truth is, it’s really hard to completely explain extreme villainous behavior in back story. You’re looking at a potent brew of trauma, brokenness, bad seeds, bad timing, opportunity. But a good villain also has to own what they do, or they’re chumps–writers often get carried away creating elaborate reasons for a villain to have gone bad, but in doing so, they take away some of the significance of that choice to cross the line. Letting a villain off with the insanity defense makes him more of a victim than a villain–he can be both, but taking away the choice pales him as an antagonist.

There’s also the risk that a writer will end up writing a completely unbelievable back story that’s so full of holes Swiss cheese would be envious. Over-explanation can absolutely ruin a good villain.

A good villain should be as powerful as the hero, and probably just a tiny bit more powerful.

Imagine the story of David and Goliath. Now imagine reversing them. David, although still righteous, comes off a bit of a bully if he’s the big one and Goliath is the puny one. I mean, it wouldn’t even be a story. Big guy crushes little guy, yawn.

A good villain may have started off life weak and defenseless, but if he doesn’t become strong–either mentally or physically–then he doesn’t pose any kind of challenge for the hero. There’s no story there.

Weak villain syndrome is sometimes known as over-powered hero syndrome. The villain isn’t necessarily meant to be weak, but the hero has no weaknesses at all and defeats the villain without a lot of effort. (A lot of the J.D. Robbs lately have fallen prey to this . . .) If the hero doesn’t fail at least once, the story sucks. Let’s be real. There’s not even a point if the hero can just swagger in and take care of business without breaking a sweat.

A good villain is also not predictable.

If a villain telegraphs all of his moves so that the hero can counter them effectively, well, that doesn’t make for a very good story, either. See previous point about the hero needing to fail and break a sweat and etc etc.

Good villains have a multifaceted personality.

I always feel like a villain, in a different set of circumstances, could have been a hero. They have many of the same qualities–passion, inner strength, resolve, drive–but somewhere along the way, the villain got fucked up about something. Even totally fucked-up people, though–even super-evil people–have more than that to their personalities. The Joker is a great example; everyone knows that Catwoman and Batman have a sometimes-romance, but fewer people talk about the bromance between Joker and Batman. Joker, despite being a psychopath who constantly puts Batman (and many others) in fatal danger, is also one of the few people who really, truly understands Batman; the Joker’s understanding is, of course, a little twisted . . . but it’s there. In The Killing Joke, Alan Moore explores this theme, showing flashes of humanity in Joker that we rarely see; in the final scenes, Batman tries to convince Joker that he can change his ways, but Joker, regretfully, tells Batman that this isn’t possible. (The film The Dark Knight also explores the Batman and Joker connection but doesn’t show any real vulnerability in Joker.)

Showing a villain’s soft underbelly makes the character more complex, more sympathetic–hell, even likable at times. This can cause great emotional conflict in many of us (the Snape Debates still rage on: good guy, or bad guy?) because his actions make him so unlikable. Or it can spark understanding in us, which can be disturbing as we contemplate how we could just as easily end up in the same position. Emotional connection is good, but almost nobody can connect to someone who is pure evil and little else. Purely evil people simply don’t exist; even psychopaths have a distinct pathology that goes beyond “just evil.”

A good villain needs to be his or her own entity, not just a challenge for the hero.

This ties into having complex motivations and humanity, so I won’t linger here. Suffice to say that the villain needs his or her own momentum–a villain can’t just exist for the hero to fight against. It’s like how a love interest is boring if they’re only there to further the protagonist’s arc. We have to be just as emotionally invested in the villain as we are the hero, so he can’t just be a throwaway pawn–he needs substance.

A good villain hits our hero right in the feels.

Wanna ratchet up the tension between hero and villain? Have the villain pull off some dastardly plot that harms a person or thing that the hero holds dear, or have the villain outwit the hero and pull off an amazing scheme while rubbing the hero’s nose in his victory. The hero just went from “Gee, this guy, he’s kind of an evil bastard” to “I WILL FUCKING DESTROY YOU.” A good villain is able to upset the hero, able to disrupt his whole damn life until their beef is settled.

What’s your favorite aspect of a good villain?

I’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to good villainy. What do you love in a villain? What makes a villain unforgettable? Also, what do writers do wrong with villains that drives you insane? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!

I do not like the thing that you like, and that is okay.

Posted by greengeekgirl — March 29, 2013

Also books, television, films, and clothing.

If you’ve been poking around IB for awhile, you know that I have pretty distinct tastes in books. While I’m not a total book snob (see also, my husband, who will re-read War and Peace fifty times before he will ever finish On the Road. And those are both literature), I do tend to hug the border of book snobbery fairly closely. I’m not one to take recommendations from people because it puts me in an obligatory position–and more often than not, I end up having to pretend I really liked something when I really did not. I know I could just be honest and say it very kindly, but people still tend to get a puppy-dog look when you tell them that the book they asked you to read really was not your cuppa. The look, it wounds me.

So, I get literary elitism, to a point. I do. And yeah, I am firmly in the “some books are better than others” camp–not just that I like some books better than others, but that some books actually have more overall literary quality than others. I do believe that there are certain marks of “good” writing (although I’m probably a lot less rigid on those marks than some, admittedly). Yeah, the criteria were made up by people, and yeah, they are subjective–but they have been fine-tuned by hundreds, nay, thousands of writers, editors, and scholars through the years, so I think they’re legitimate standards of quality.

So I get it. I do.

Here’s where the whole subject of literary elitism–any kind of elitism, really–breaks down for me: when people start not only judging the work, but judging the people who like the work. Looking down your nose at someone because they enjoy something? Not cool. Not cool at all. Like, it’s fine to say you think Dan Brown is a talentless hack . . . but, you know, when your friend just told you how much they really loved the new Dan Brown novel, that might not be the best timing.

Cue the eye-rolling here, of course. Die-hard snobs–the ones who have this problem in the first place–feel that it’s perfectly acceptable to judge others for what they enjoy. Why should they worry about another person’s feelings? They’re the ones who have to live with their shitty taste. Etc, etc. The fault in this logic, though, is that it assumes taste is built solely on the perceived quality of the work and the ability of the person to appreciate works of quality. Taste isn’t just limited to how good the work is, though. You have other factors coming into play–emotional connection, nostalgia, memory, personality, life experiences, setting, mood. Taste can be as individual as fingerprints.

Even though this is a bookish blog, I’m going to use music as an example. Music is an area where I constantly feel insecure. I actually thought about writing this post when I realized that I almost never share music on my social media. I’m friends with a lot of people who have very strong opinions about music, and a few who have made it clear that they have no qualms telling people when they have shitty taste. I’m not going to subject myself to that kind of treatment for something that I like, even if what I like isn’t considered “cool;” I have my reasons for liking what I like, and I don’t have to apologize for it. But I keep quiet about it all the same, just to avoid grief.

I never want to make a person feel that way about what they like–especially because most of us slum it in some ways. I see literary writers on Twitter live-tweeting The Bachelorette; I see those same music snob friends going crazy on Facebook over candy-pop tween book series. These kinds of things are mindless entertainment, and why shouldn’t we be able to have that without people looking down their noses at us? I have admitted freely that I watch The Jersey Shore. Yes, it’s trashy, and that’s what I love about it. I love that I can get embroiled in someone else’s dramz for an hour or so and not have to think about things. It’s kind of awesome.

I guess the overall point that I’m trying to make is that, yes, you certainly can judge things to be good or bad–but for pity’s sake, shut the hell up about it if you’re in danger of hurting someone’s feelings over it, because you can’t judge a person by their mindless entertainment. You can, however, judge someone for being an elitist asshole. I have to beg to differ with Rob Fleming/Gordon, here: it’s not what you like, it’s what you are like that matters. And if you’re the kind of person who kills the joy that someone else finds in entertainment because it’s not up to your standards, you’re a fucking jerk.

What book do I keep stashed under a box of tampons? Find out!

Posted by greengeekgirl — March 23, 2013

I guest posted over at TNBBC about my bathroom reading habits. Since I habitually read in the bathroom, I had a lot to say! You can check out that guest post here if you’re so inclined.

Things I wish I could say to Roger Zelazny.

Posted by GuestBookslut — March 16, 2013

Today’s guest post comes from author David Jón Fuller.

NinePrincesInAmber As every year passes, I become more convinced Roger Zelazny died way too soon.

I first encountered his work when I was fourteen, thanks to a friend who thrust Nine Princes in Amber into my hands and swore it was one of the best books he’d ever read.

Since I was already reading two huge fantasy series concurrently at the time, I don’t know why I agreed to start reading a third – maybe his enthusiasm won me over.

Unfortunately, my brain does not enjoy trying to fit a trilogy and two quintilogies (is that a word?) in at the same time, so I eventually abandoned Nine Princes after chapter two and didn’t pick it up again for months.

Funny thing, though. I couldn’t stop thinking about it; and when I picked up the book again I started from scratch and was hooked. An amnesiac prince whose bloodline allows him to walk through any reality he can conceive of has to overthrow his brother for the throne of Amber, the one true reality. Plus, he swears, smokes, makes offhand references to literature, philosophy, politics and history like a boss, all with a sharp sense of humour? I’m there.

I actually read the series slowly the first time, thinking about each book for a long time after I read it.

The concepts Zelazny brought into his sci-fi and fantasy books were sometimes beyond me (was I going to really appreciate an aside about Van Gogh or musings about Freud at fourteen? Not really), but the story, characters, and world were so different from standard fantasy tropes you always had to turn the page to see what he was going to throw at you next.

Also, his books were short! While the norm for fantasy series in the 1980s was for each volume to be 400 – 500 pages a volume, Zelazny’s often rounded out at 200 or fewer. One of his best, The Courts of Chaos, is almost short enough to be a novella. He was a man of few words, then; but he made them all count.

Since Zelazny was still alive as I hoovered up his Amber series, I kept rereading it as each new book came out. Through high school and university. Gaining new understanding of the context behind off-the-cuff remarks, scenes and character motives I thought I knew inside out. The series was one I turned to after two nasty breakups… maybe, like Corwin, I wanted to walk through the shadows and find myself a new reality.

Born in Cleveland Ohio in 1937, Zelazny was a prolific writer by the time he was 17, selling “Mr. Fuller’s Revolt” to Literary Cavalcade in 1954. (This is a story that by rights, I really should have read, but I haven’t been able to find a copy). He studied at both Western Reserve University and later Columbia University, where he received an M.A. in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. He won prizes in poetry, served in the U.S. National Guard, and was involved in a serious car accident. (I imagine the last of these, especially, added context for the car crash that sets in motion the plot of Nine Princes in Amber.)

His father died in 1964, and Zelazny later went on to great success, winning the Hugo award for his novel Lord of Light in 1968. He won a Nebula Award and another Hugo for “Home is the Hangman.” In the 1970s and ’80s he wrote the Amber novels while still publishing many other books (such asRoadmarks). He cowrote Deus Irae with Philip K. Dick, and his influence on other writers, including Neil Gaiman and Steven Brust, was great. Despite that, his books are (sadly) very hard to find nowadays.

As an aside, Zelazny can be fairly criticized for rewriting a similar character in many stories – a flawed superhuman (or supremely talented) man who must unravel a mystery and outwit forces of chaos in order to establish a new order or reality. In his defence, when he does it really well (as in Amber or Donnerjack), he’s better than anyone else.

I’ve had the privilege to see, meet, or talk to some of my favourite authors in person, including Brust, Mordecai Richler, Guy Gavriel Kay, Michael Rowe, and others. But Zelazny, who died in 1995, was one I never got to meet. Even though I haven’t read all of his work, his stories and novels still bang around in my mind, and I wish he were still around to write a few more.

There are things I wish I could say to Roger Zelazny, if he were still alive. Here are a few of them.

You made me question reality.

Seriously. I think this is one reason I didn’t rocket through all the Amber books right away after Nine Princes in Amber when I read it in the autumn of grade nine. What if everything around me is not real? How would I know? What would happen if I could walk through different realities just by deciding to?

The fact this is also a perfect metaphor for reading, or in fact for making choices in your life that matter, escaped me when I was fourteen, by the way.

You made the ordinary seem wondrous and the wondrous seem ordinary.

The scent of chestnut blossoms along the Champs-Elysées in 1905 Paris can somehow make me feel as if I understand the end of the world in The Courts of Chaos. The workaday vastness of cyberspace in Donnerjack still dwarfs the actual Internet. And when genetic manipulation allows German Shepherds to speak — yes, I think they’d talk exactly the way you wrote Sigmund’s dialogue in “He Who Shapes.”

You taught me how to reread.

Every time I came back to one of your books after a year or two away, I realized I’d learned something that made me appreciate the story in a different way. When I reread the Amber books in grade twelve, I got so many more of the literary and historical references then that I realized I’d only grasped a tiny part of the story the first time around. And you had a lot of true things to say about large, Machiavellian families, too.

This happened every time I came back to them, by the way. I slowly realized that though your words didn’t change, maybe I did – and I was enjoying the books on much deeper levels. I started looking for this in all my favourite books. Some stood up to it (hello Tolkien, and Guy Gavriel Kay); others did not (goodbye, Dragonlance Chronicles… gah).

You broke rules I’m only starting to understand, and you made it work somehow.

No seriously, how the hell did you publish parts of Sign of the Unicorn serially first and still make it fit into a five-book epic? In Doorways in the Sand I can sort of see it, but it took me four chapters before I realized each one was basically a standalone story as well.

I still haven’t made it through Lord of Light.

I know. I KNOW. It’s embarrassing to admit it, especially when Steven Brust has been extolling its virtues for years. Maybe this year will be the year I do it.

That Corwin can inscribe a new universe but not reach his father in time to reconcile with him is heartbreaking.

I’m no psychologist, but the fact that you lost your father in 1962, before you made a career creating so many worlds of your own, is not lost on me.

You make me want to write great books.

If folks like Gaiman and Brust wanted to continue your Amber series, that sets a high bar indeed. (They didn’t of course, based on your express verbal wish that no one do that. Guess your estate didn’t feel the same way, sadly.)

The fact you conjured such engrossing stories without writing novels as thick as phone books helps me cut out everything I don’t need from my own work. And I learned to love the power of first person-narrative from you, even if I think in the later Amber books Merlin sounds an awful lot like Corwin did in the earlier ones…

One day I may write a closing line as good as yours, but I doubt it.

“Goodbye and hello, as always.”

What about you? Who is an author, living or dead, you wish you could talk to — and what would you say?

David Jón Fuller is a writer working on an urban fantasy novel that will never be as good as The Guns of Avalon (damn it), but that’s not going too stop him from trying. He blogs at As You Were (http://www.davidjonfuller.com).

Reading Rage: Things I hate about reading comic books.

Posted by greengeekgirl — March 13, 2013

I AM TOO STILL YOUNG SHUT UP

Before I even start this rant, because I know that comics are SRS BSNS for some people, I do want to clarify that I know there are comics that don’t fit into the problems I’m about to lay out. There are comic books and graphic novels that I’m a huge fan of, like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac and its offshoots by Jhonen Vasquez. Mostly the comics I’m going to be addressing are the mainstream comics–the ones that have been around since forever, the ones that my fellow nerds sometimes arch an eyebrow at me for not being deeply and intimately familiar with when I mention that I love Batman.

See, this whole thing springs from my love of Batman.

I have loved Batman since I was a child. I remember the first time I saw the camptastic 60′s Batman show; I was five or so, and Dad was flipping through the channels (it must have been a weekend, if Dad was home) when he stopped on some live-action show that I didn’t initially suspect was going to be any good. I mean, there were grown-ups in it. And a weird old dude and no cartoons. How could this be a good show? But my dad stopped on that show and said, “Aw, I haven’t seen this in years. I used to watch this a long time ago, when I was about your age.” SIGH. How could I not watch after that? I was Daddy’s little girl, and if Daddy watched it when he was little, I would also watch it.

I LOVED IT.

The crazy costumes! The villains! CATWOMAN! JOKER! THE BATMOBILE! (I maintain that the 60′s Batmobile is the sweetest of all Batmobiles.) I was obsessed. The episode that he stumbled across that day happened to be a marathon; dad threw in a cassette tape (VHS baby) and taped it off of TV. I watched the hell out of that tape. When it started re-running on … whatever channel was re-running it, I made sure to tune in every chance I got.

THE Batmobile.

It wasn’t long after that I saw Tim Burton’s Batman. Probably it was not appropriate for me to watch; I was six when it came out, although I wouldn’t have seen it until it was released to video. (Dad dubbed it and cut out the most violent parts so I could watch it. Aw.) That was a different Batman, but still good. Even though there was no Robin (I loved Robin in the old series, I won’t lie–even though Burt Ward was completely old by the time I ever saw the old series, I had a crush on him), and even though it was dark and Joker was more violent than goofy, I loved this new Batman. It gave the character depth for me–because, let’s face it, the Batman from the 60′s was a little too vanilla to be interesting as a character. Tim Burton’s Batman helped cement what has been a lifelong obsession with the hero.

(My husband tells me that Adam West showed up in his tights to audition for Tim Burton. But my husband makes up stuff all the time and I haven’t been able to verify this story, so I can’t attest to its accuracy.)

The only problem? I always have felt like a fake Batman fan because I never read the comics. Oh, I may have read a few when I was a kid, but I’ll be honest, I was all about Archie and not really about superheroes at all. So even though I’ve seen all of the Batman movies, watched all of the cartoons and shows, and am constantly doing internet searches on Batman-related things as an adult, I’ve always felt like a bit of a fraud.

I recently decided to remedy that and buy some comic books. The Joker, who is by far my favorite Batman villain (in fact, I may be more of a Joker fan than a Batman fan), had what looked like a sweet new storyline with amazing art. I knew the comics were edgier than the cartoons–see also, when the Joker beat Robin to death–so I thought, it being 2013 and boundaries being pushed all the time, this could be a really good story. And it was. I don’t want to–what are the kids saying these days? Throw shade? on the Death of the Family storyline. It was pretty bitchin’.

This is the image that came up in my Facebook that captured my interest. HE CUT OFF HIS FUCKING FACE OMG

This is what came up on Facebook that initially caught my interest. HE CUT OFF HIS FUCKING FACE

But fifty-five dollars later, I am reminded why I have never gotten into comic books. I mean, besides the fact that they are FRIGGIN EXPENSIVE JESUS FUCK. I didn’t even get ALL of the comics in that storyline and I spent mad cash, yo. These suckers are going up on eBay shortly.

In comic books, nothing is ever permanent, so why should I give a shit about anything that happens?

Even though I hadn’t read the comics, I had a general understanding of many major events in the Batman universe. I knew that Robin (Jason Todd as Robin, not Dick Grayson) had been beaten to death by Joker with a crowbar. I knew that Joker also was responsible for the paralysis of Barbara Gordon. So I was less-than-impressed to find that, in the reboot, Jason Todd has come back to life and Barbara Gordon is up and around as Batgirl again. So everything that was scary about this:

robinandjoker

and this:

batman-barbara_gordon_shot

is not really that scary. I mean, yeah, that would still hurt like a motherfucker, to get beaten with a crowbar or shot in the pelvis–but if you knew you weren’t going to have any permanent consequences, it would be about a thousand percent less scary to run up against the Joker. You would be like, well, okay this sucks and everything, but it’s not FOREVER so I guess it’ll all be okay in the end. It’s like when Marvin the Martian or Wile E. Coyote gets blown up–it’s fine, because you know he’s not really hurt. In fact, it’s meant to be humorous.

But getting beaten to death or shot by the Joker isn’t supposed to be funny to anybody but the Joker.

I just can’t get emotionally involved in a story when I know everything could just be reversed on the whim of a new writer who wants to sink their teeth into the story, canon-be-damned. I can deal with reboots and alternate realities, but not with miracles fixing up problematic plot points.

And actually, I find that I don’t like the idea of superheroes altogether.

The only superhero I give two craps about is Batman. I used to watch some superhero stuff, like the old Superman shows and the X-Men cartoons, but I never developed much of an interest in them. I don’t watch the movies when they come out, I don’t cruise YouTube looking for old episodes the way I do with Batman. (By the way, Batman: The Animated Series? It has excellent art and stands up very well to adulthood.)

Here’s the thing. Let’s say I’m Superman. I have superhuman strength. I have the ability to heal myself, not that I get hurt that often ANYWAY because I am invulnerable to most human maladies. I’m fast as hell, I can fly, I have motherfucking x-ray vision and other superhuman senses. And I’m orphaned off of a planet that was destroyed and raised by humans who took me in despite me being all weird and alien and whatnot. If I don’t turn out to be a superhero? I’m a complete douchebag. For Superman, stopping crime is like regular humans helping an elderly person across the street. It’s not particularly taxing for him, and since he has superhuman speed, he can do it really fast and get back on with his day. It’s probably completely boring for him.

And then you have the humans who stumbled into their superpowers. Bitten by a spider. Born with mutations. Took a serum that transformed them into perfect human beings. That’s all good and fine, I guess, but . . . isn’t it kind of totally boring, as far as story goes (not in real life–in real life it would be AWESOME), to stumble into superpowers? And isn’t it just as boring to stumble into superpowers and then think, “Gee whiz, I’m gonna use my powers only for good!”* I mean, if I stumbled into superpowers, I would probably use them mostly for good, but I’m human, not a saint. I think that’s why I like Batman, but not the other superheroes–Batman doesn’t have superpowers. He has gadgets that had to be invented and then he had to learn to use them; can you imagine him practicing with the grappling hook and falling about a hundred times? heh, heh. He has physical strength and prowess that he has to train to get. And if someone shoots him in the face, no chance he’s gonna deflect that shit.

Batman may be stuck in the back, but at least he WORKS FOR HIS POWERS. You can tell Aquaman totally feels like a poseur.

*I realize that I probably have missed a lot of subtle character development with that because I haven’t read most of the comics, but I still get the idea that the general gist of the superhero is that he’s usually a good guy with a mostly-sterling character, not a dark and conflicted individual constantly fighting his flawed humanity to be good despite the urge to be selfish and revel in his own power. If I’m wrong about this, please tell me.

Also? Comic books are confusing to get into, if you’re new to comics.

I just wanted to read some Batman comics. But where does one start with Batman comics? Does one need to start at the beginning? Because I didn’t really want to start at the beginning. I’m much more of a fan of darker, edgier, more violent Batman, and the early ones seemed a little . . . . . not any of that. Then you have the various reboots and storylines and offshoots and why the fuck can’t they draw a map or something for noobs like me?

I can go to the blogs, but just like every blog, it’s down to opinion. One blogger thinks I should start here, and another says no no no, start there and I have no idea so my brain short-circuits and I grab a novel instead.

Comics seem to be one of those things that are hard to get into later in life. It’s like if you missed the boat as a youngster, it’s a ton of work to get even remotely caught up. I mean, they’ve been making these things for decades now; there’s no series of novels that extends back as far or as widely as even one long-term comic book character. I can tackle Terry Pratchett’s huge Discworld series without a whole lot of trouble, but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to navigating the Batman universe. I’m ill-equipped to jump into this without a team of guides and a map.

And even if I could, did I mention friggin’ expensive? Maybe if I were Bruce Wayne, I could afford to read about Bruce Wayne.

Sadly, I have determined that comic books are not for me.

We haven’t even touched on other things that would bother me if I were to read enough comics, such as the various tropes that women get forced into, or the unrealistic depictions of people (yes people, I mean both men and women here–I mean, fuck, have you seen the size of Batman’s THIGHS? THEY HAVE MUSCLES ON TOP OF MUSCLES JESUS). My recent foray into comics reading is enough to have me sticking to picking up graphic novel collections at the library, should I get the urge to check out any more Batman storylines. Gritting my teeth when I feel dead inside because nothing is happening for keepsies.

What about you guys? Do you love comics, or dislike them? Why? Am I totally being too hard on comics? Which ones do you love? Sound off about comics in the comments!

I was going to quit blogging, and then I read some comic books.

Posted by greengeekgirl — March 9, 2013

I was thisclose to shutting down IB this past week . . . and by “thisclose” I mean, I already did it. And then changed my mind.

It’s no secret that I haven’t exactly been feeling the bloggery lately. I have wanted to do anything but blog about books. Anything. Mostly, what I’ve been doing instead has been reading J. D. Robb’s In Death series. The whole series. In order. (For the most part.) I spent a few weeks chain-reading the Robbs and doing very little else–I certainly couldn’t blog about them here, right?

So I just read. Barely left the house. Barely did anything else. I’ve already read as many books this year as I read all of last year.

Taking a few months off from IB didn’t seem to help at all. If anything, the distance from my routine made it even easier for me to contemplate cutting the blog loose. My stars, I thought–wouldn’t it be nice just to read whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted? Or even to take breaks from reading and not feel guilty? Not to feel the weight of books-to-be-reviewed coming down on you all the time, or feel the pressure of getting some, any, content rolling? I know, you guys weren’t putting any pressure on me–and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that, and how much I appreciate the encouragement from everyone. I was pressuring myself, because I wanted to do a good job at this. Then I started to crack under my own pressure.

There were other things. I felt like I’d said everything I wanted to say about books–I had ideas for posts, but no burning desire to put the content out there. I also felt like . . . it’s hard to explain, but I felt like being a blogger was making me a more negative person. Coming up with material for rants, getting irate when people took potshots at bloggers, having scuffles with people over blogging territory. Being a blogger means throwing yourself in with a group that is occasionally targeted by other people–or occasionally targeting other people, to be fair–and getting mixed in with conflicts that you wouldn’t normally give a crap about.

It puts up some divisions between you and other people, too. I’ve met a good many authors and publishers (and editors and other people who work for publishers) through this gig, and most of the time, we get along great . . . but then, sometimes, there’s this awkward wall. Because I’m one of the people who publicly judges their work. And if I like it, great–but if I don’t, then I’m honest, and even if I haven’t had to be negative toward a work, that potential is always floating around there.

I fully decided to quit when I had a fight with someone who is, ~~or maybe was~~, a very good friend of mine. No, I’m not going to say who, or what it was about, except that–if we weren’t bloggers, I don’t think it would ever have been a thing. ~~I have no idea if she’s going to forgive me, or if we’re going to be able to go on and be friends from here~~ everything is fine, but I think it fucking stinks that blogging stuff came between me and a good friend.

So, when that happened, all the weight of everything came crashing down at once, and I said, “You know what? Fuck this. Fuck all of this. I hate this. I really hate book blogging. I hate the drama of it, I hate the pressure of it, I don’t even want to do it anymore and it’s not fun anymore. I quit.” And I e-mailed my co-bloggers and I e-mailed a few other relevant parties and told them that I quit. And it felt fantastic.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

The more I thought about it, the more fantastic it felt, actually. Who needs to be tied down to the internet all day? I could be out doing other things. I could be out adventuring! I could go back to doing things just for me. I mean.. y’know, sure I missed talking to everyone. But there’s always Twitter, right? Right?!

And yeah, it gave me little pangs when I would get messages from people who just discovered the blog, because they wouldn’t get to read any new content. Mostly, though, I felt savagely glad–which, looking back on the past week and how I felt, tells me that, somewhere along the way, I started doing this shit all wrong.

The other night, I was poking around the internet, looking up Batman stuff. (I do that sometimes. I kind of love Batman.) I remembered that I’d seen that there was a new Joker storyline happening, and I decided that I wanted to read it, because the Joker is my favorite and the art looked really good. In the spirit of doing things just for me and having adventures, I hopped in my car and drove to the comic book store across town. I don’t generally read comics, so I had no idea if I was completely wasting my time; I didn’t know if they would even still have the comics.

They did have most of them. Forty dollars later (and one mournful moment where the employee called me “ma’am”… sigh), I was the proud owner of eleven new Batman (and Batman-related) comic books. Which I then proceeded to devour over iced tea at my favorite coffee shop.

After I finished them, I thought, “Dang, I really want to write a post about this for IB.”

And then I thought, “Are you fucking kidding me? NOW my inspiration comes back?”

I almost let it go. I almost did. I’d already told people I was quitting, and I didn’t want to look like a flake. The last thing I expected was to get my mojo back this soon. It took giving it up completely to get me to do what I needed to do to save it, it seems–I had to break all of the chains I put around myself and around this blog. I had to get out of my rut by reading and experiencing something that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I almost never read comics; finally having read some again, I remembered why I don’t read comics. And I felt a strengthening urge to rant about it.

Expect that post sooner than later.

For the time being, I don’t know exactly what the future holds for IB. That’s fine. I’m tired of planning. I do know that I want to open IB up to be more of an entertainment blog than ONLY books. Because you know what? I like movies. I like TV. I bet you guys also like these things. And if you’ve enjoyed my book rants, just you wait until I get my claws dug into a movie that I hate. (Like this one.)

I’m back, bitches.

And I missed you.

I have writer’s block.

Posted by greengeekgirl — February 21, 2013

I didn’t want to write this post.

I still don’t want to write this post.

Or any post.

Just typing out the words right now is something akin to pulling a thousand tiny splinters out of my body.

Since about mid-December, I’ve been suffering from what you might call writer’s block. It’s more than a block, though. It’s more like, writing rejection–as in, my brain adamantly rejects the idea of writing. I almost hate writing every time I think about doing it. This bothers me.

I’ve seen many blogs come and go on the internets, and the eventual downfall happens the same way each time: the blogger starts to feel like they’re slogging through posts, instead of sitting down to write them with interest. Updates become fewer and further between. Radio silence ensues. I don’t want that to happen here, but I worry that it’s actually happening right now.

Bloggers: How do I combat this?

I always told myself I would stop doing anything at IB if it stopped being fun, but I’m not ready to let go of the whole damn blog. I rather like it here. I like you guys. I think you’re pretty rad. But I don’t know how to flip the switch back on and want to write again.

Help!

(P.S. If anybody’s ever wanted to write a guest post for IB, now would be the time to ask.)