The Evolution of an Insatiable Bookslut: sj

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young_sj

I don’t remember learning how to read.  I know that I was reading before my fourth birthday – and have vague memories of being impatient with “age appropriate” books when I was in pre-school – but don’t remember if it was my dad who taught me how or if it was just something I was determined to pick up on my own.

It wasn’t just the books I was impatient with, but with pre-school in general.  I wanted more time to read, but was instead encouraged to (ugh) spend time OUTSIDE.  And INTERACTING.  I have never had the greatest social skills.  This was particularly evident the time I smacked a girl in the face because she’d stolen my jacket that had the book I was reading in the pocket…only to later find out that we just had the same jacket.

chocolate feverIn kindergarten, I was so proud when Mrs Heck (yes, really) asked me daily to read aloud to my class at naptime.  I later found out that when I was reading a chapter of Chocolate Fever to my classmates, Mrs Heck was outside having a smoke break.  I could be upset about this, but I can totally understand.

Heh, Chocolate Fever.  Did you all read that, too?

In the first grade I was tested for the GATE program, and was told that my reading and comprehension were already at a college level.  In addition to having to switch classrooms to go with the other GATE kids (it was 3 grades in one class because there weren’t enough smart kids in the school to have individual classes for each grade), I had to visit the 6th grade GATE class during Reading and Language classes every day.  Luckily, I was always tall for my age, so I wasn’t this tiny little kid being sent to hang out with the 11 year olds for half the morning, but when you’re six, even when you’re in a class with the other “smart kids” this can kind of do a number on you.

I had a difficult time making friends, and (again) had no interest in playing Thundercats during recess, so I spent most of my days hiding in the library, or just sitting next to my classroom door with whatever book I was reading at the time.

In early elementary school, I was in love with the work of Edward Eager and I tore through Nancy Drews like nobody’s business.  These were easy reads, and I had no problem burning through two or three in a day (especially during vacations when I could just READ AND READ FOREVER!).  In the 4th grade, my uncle gave me my first two Stephen King novels (I talked about that a little here), and for a while, I read as much of Unky Steve’s work as I could get my hands on.

I added Tolkien and Diane Duane to my list of favourites and discovered that fantasy was my first true love, as it provided me with the biggest escape.  I didn’t like reading about things that too closely resembled my own reality, so I stuck with things I knew weren’t really real.

red as bloodLate elementary school/junior high also rekindled my love for faerie tales.  By the time I was 13, I’d collected nearly all of Lang’s Colour Faerie books and was moving on to re-tellings/re-imaginings.  I found a copy of Tanith Lee’s Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer at a yard sale, I read and re-read those stories (but when I tried to re-read it last year, I lost my patience with them and gave up after only reading two or three).

THEN! Towards the end of junior high, I was given the opportunity to volunteer at my teeny tiny two room local library in the summers.  I jumped at the chance because I got to spend 3 days a week sitting behind the actual desk and reading the whole day away.  The librarian (who was also a volunteer, tiny town, no money for a real library) would leave me there alone and go pick up the ILLs or…I don’t know, I’m pretty sure she frequently went to hang out at the General Store (go ahead and laugh) to have ice cream or whatever, since someone else was holding the fort.

I didn’t care what she was doing, it was just the best being able to be surrounded by books and pick whatever I wanted off the shelves to lose myself in.

What_mad_universeThat was when I discovered sf, and when I found a lot of the books and authors that are still my favourites today.  PKD, Fredric Brown, Douglas Adams (actually, I have a different story about my introduction to The Guide, which you can read here if you’re interested) – my science fiction roots may have been planted in Star Wars soil, but the pulpy greats of the 50s and 60s were (and still are) some of the best Imagination MiracleGro I’ve ever encountered.

I still primarily read fantasy and sf.  I occasionally branch out into other genres, but I’m not an adventurous sort at all when it comes to the books I choose.

I still read to escape, and because I slip into books to get away from the things that are making me mad/sad/angry/frustrated, I know I am not as well-read as many of my contemporaries.  Heh.  Yeah, I read a lot, but I’m not well-read.  That’s my new catch phrase.

 

Reading Rage: You can’t hide a self-published work under a vanity press name. Just don’t.

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hiding

I will just say that my book was published by Fancy Unicorn Pants Press and people will never know I published it myself.

Our review policy has undergone (is that a word? did I conjugate that correctly?) some changes in the recent past. I decided to stop accepting pitches from self-published authors because it was eating up an enormous amount of my time for very little return on my time investment. I changed the policy at that time to say that we would only accept books published by small and/or independent presses, because that’s kind of our bag when it comes to reviewing books.

An interesting thing happened when I changed the policy, which led directly to our new new policy (we just don’t accept books anymore). We started getting a lot of books that were “published” by small presses that I’d never, ever heard of before. Not that I’ve heard of every small press, but I’ve gotten fairly well-versed in small presses; when I see one I haven’t heard of, I like to look them up. Just for my own education–and, okay yeah, because some of these “small presses” were a tad suspicious. When I followed the Google trail for these presses, I found some interesting things:

  • Many of the small presses were vanity presses, where the author paid to have their book published. This? is not the same as being published by a small press.
  • Other authors actually made up small presses, which had only published their book, or maybe two or three selections (probably from their friends). The pages for these presses are usually nothing more than a makeshift, generically-branded shop where you can purchase the author’s book. It’s pretty obvious that it’s a fake press.
  • Still other authors didn’t even bother making any kind of online presence for their fake press. They would slap an appropriate-sounding press name on their book, but when I searched for any inkling of the press existing, I found nothing.

headdesk

Look, authors who have tried or are considering trying this–it’s really obvious when a small press is not a real press. It’s really obvious when someone starts a press (even if they’re legitimately trying to start a real press, which is only true about half a percent of the time in these cases) just to self-publish without being “self-published.” I’ve never run across this situation where I have had to carefully ponder whether the press was real or not. The evidence is immediately damning. The only way to be slick enough to pull this off is actually to fully launch a legitimate small press where you have editors and designers and you publish books for real… and then you’re not being sneaky anyway, you’re being industrious.

Pretending to have been published by a small press when you haven’t been is really annoying. For one thing, it’s totally lying, which I hate on its own. Only smarmy people and grifters lie about things that they’re representing or selling. If you published your own book, you shouldn’t hide that behind a fake press name–in my eyes, that’s tantamount to fraud. The difference between being published and publishing one’s own book is quite significant in terms of process; to indicate that you were published when you did the process yourself is to misrepresent your book. If you want to put a vanity name on  your book, then you need to make it clear that it’s a self-published book under the name of your vanity press. I shouldn’t have to go hunt through Google to try to figure out whether you published your book yourself.

(And if you’re reading this thinking “What’s the big deal?”–if it weren’t a big deal, it wouldn’t be happening in the first place; nobody would be trying to bury the self-published stigma under a fake press name.)

It was also annoying because it was disrespectful to us. Our policy clearly stated no self-published books. Even if your book has a press name slapped on it, if you self-published it, you self-published it. The fake press names were included specifically to circumvent our policy, which had 0% to do with whether a book had a press name on it and 100% to do with the differences in process between small-press publishing and self-publishing. Those authors were attempting to cheat their way into getting a review, and apparently didn’t think I would be smart enough to figure out their tactics. Because, you know, that’s exactly the kind of person you want writing a review of your book. Derp.

Dear respectable self-published authors: all of these shady jerkwads are ruining it for the rest of you. I’m so sorry you have to deal with stigma because a bunch of people don’t know how to be courteous and professional.

Here’s the deal, shady authors: bloggers such as myself put a lot of work into our blogs. We will do our homework if we specify certain policies. And we talk to each other–try to put one over on one of us, and word is going to get around to many of the rest of us. Information travels at high speed these days, and we don’t like to be tricked or lied to, so that’s information we will definitely pass along whenever the opportunity arises. So, you need to stop trying to loophole yourself out of being self-published. If you did the work yourself, own it! Don’t bury it under a fake press name. It’s rude and perilously close to fraud.

Have you experienced this tactic as a blogger or a reader? Have you bought books thinking that they were traditionally-published, only to find out later that they were self-published? What’s your favorite TV show? Leave your comments below!

Review: A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers

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Book: A Hologram for the King

Author: Dave Eggers

Published: June 2012 by McSweeney’s, 328 pages

Date Read: March 2013

First Lines: ”Alan Clay woke up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It was May 30, 2010. He had spent two days on planes to get there.”

Genre/Rating: Literary fiction; 3.75/5 bottles of moonshine, drunk alone in furtive gulps long after midnight, that make you think performing surgery on yourself is a very good idea

Review: I met Dave Eggers once.

It is true! He gave a reading at one of our local colleges, and after the reading, he did a book signing. He was very polite and very kind, even though he was there forever signing books and the line was very long. He wrote something like “your beautiful smile lit up the room” in my friend’s book, and that made her so happy she beamed like the sun. I loved that about him.

I know a lot of people think Dave Eggers is a hipster god. I think he’s fine. I like him just fine, but I like a lot of authors. I think he does a lot of good work and I like McSweeney’s a great deal and know he founded it. He works a lot with disadvantaged youth. He seems like a good guy. I think I’ve only read one of his books – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – and have had The Wild Things on my to-read shelf for ages, but haven’t read it yet. I like him just fine.

Not surprisingly, I liked this book…just fine. A tiny little bit more than just fine, I guess. Just a bit under liked-it-a-lot.

Alan Clay is a consultant for an IT firm. He’s had a string of failures – his marriage, his various businesses, his relationship with his father. He thinks he’s dying of cancer. He can’t afford to pay his daughter’s tuition for her next year of college. He arrives in Saudi Arabia with his young, dynamic team of fellow consultants to present technology to the king. If this works, he will have enough money to do what he wants, send his daughter to college, take his house off the market. But in Saudi Arabia, things don’t run as Alan plans. The timeline seems to be much slower than he expects. There is no sense of urgency. Everyone is waiting for the king – but the king, much like Godot, never seems to arrive. And Alan seems to be looking at yet another failure in a long line of failures.

As a rule, I like books like this – a man pushed to the limit, at the end of his rope, a man who has to make a change or end up a casualty of life. I like them because I like to see what actions the character takes to get themselves out of the hole they’ve dug for themselves. I like to see the activity. What I didn’t like about this is there was very little activity. Which is, I suppose, more realistic – life, at times, seems to be all about inactivity – but I don’t know that I want to read about inactivity.

Alan didn’t do much. He was given opportunities to grab life by the balls and didn’t even make a snatch at it. He just let things pass him by. He seemed beaten, weary, depressed, down. And I know, this is realism. I know that. But I wanted him to fight. I wanted him to say, no, not today, I’m going to win this. And every time I thought he might – nope. Same old nothing.

That being said, the writing was beautiful. Eggers’ prose is haunting and spare and evocative. I love his words. I liked the characters, and I did appreciate the realism (even if I was wishing for a little more optimism in there.) I liked reading about Saudi Arabia – I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything about that area before.

Overall, not a book I’d unequivocably recommend, but not a book I’d steer people away from, either. It was good read, a solid one, and not a waste of time. And Dave Eggers, thank you for being so kind at the book signing. I will always remember that. We waited a very long time in line and you could have been an asshat, but you totally grinned like we were the only ones in the room.

Mine says "Do not turn away from the light!" This is a signed copy of Giraffes? Giraffes!" which he didn't write, but it's a McSweeney's book, so he signed it anyway. Also, read it, because it will make you laugh so hard you have a coughing fit.

Mine says “Do not turn away from the light!” This is a signed copy of “Giraffes? Giraffes!” which he didn’t write, but it’s a McSweeney’s book, so he signed it anyway. Also, read it, because it will make you laugh so hard you have a coughing fit.

The Evolution of an Insatiable Bookslut: Susie

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Reading

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.

apetit

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.

Book of Love

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

You should read this: História, História by Eleanor Stanford

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historiacover400

Book: História, História: Two Years in the Cape Verde Islands

Author: Eleanor Stanford

Published: March 2013 by CCLaP

First Lines: ”We landed on the island of Sal on a July afternoon. We had been flying over unbroken ocean for hours, and suddenly we were descending, despite the fact that there was no land in view.”

Rating: 4.5/5 songs about sodadi, or deep longing

Before I even start this review, I want to point out something awesome about this book, and apparently this applies to all books put out in ebook format by CCLaP (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography): you can download e-copies of this book directly from their website for free. Not just a pdf, but also a MOBI or an ePub. Free. If you like it, you can pay voluntarily, any amount that you choose. So, if you think you’d like the book, go here and download it for your e-reader. Please also consider donating to CCLaP if you read the book, because this ebook policy? is fantastic.

História, História is a memoir in essay form, sort of like David Sedaris’s books (although not similar in writing style)–the essays are separate but also form a whole work when put together, rather than being fragmented.  Eleanor Stanford tells the story of her time volunteering in the Peace Corps, during which she was stationed in Cape Verde, islands off the coast of Africa that were settled by the Portuguese. She talks about the language, which isn’t Portuguese but a derivative called Creole (Kriolu); she talks about the people, curiously neither African nor Portuguese, and not fitting in with either; she talks about her marriage, trembling on ever-shakier ground.

Stanford’s prose is vivid; I could feel Cape Verde around me. To me, it felt like our travels through Mexico, especially the times we drove past the tourist areas and into small towns where the roads were dusty and unpaved. I could put myself there, and I could feel her love for the people, the culture, and the language. Her prose is also lovely, but without being flowery or affected. Stanford has a knack for including details that illuminate and nixing details that would bog down the story.

I loved the way that Stanford intertwined her personal journey and the culture of the islands, but I was initially disturbed when Stanford turned her observational skills on herself; twenty-two at the time that the events were taking place, the girl in the book was  . . . well, a bit whiny. Several pages after my thinking that, though, Stanford demonstrated that she has keen hindsight vision: “Later, I would want to shake that twenty-two year old girl, to tell her to get over herself, to stop being so serious”. I saw then that Stanford had deliberately and perfectly encapsulated that state of being twenty-two, not quite a full adult but certainly no longer a child. If it made me uncomfortable for book-Ellie, it’s because I remember all too well being in that state; I would also love to go back and shake some sense into myself.

I actually really appreciated the arc of herself as a character; she unfolded her troubles subtly, without beating the reader about the head with them. I worried that it would become a work of first-world self-indulgence, a risk that we always take when we read about Americans going to less-privileged areas of the world. Stanford wrote about herself candidly, without inviting pity but allowing us to be compassionate for the girl she was; she wrote about Cape Verde in the same way. I have a lot of respect for Stanford showing us her life from that time, at an age that many of us would love to forget ever existed.

I only wish I could have been reading this in San Quintín, where it’s too windy to fish and the beach is made of dunes. I definitely understand the feeling of sodadi, a kriolu word that Stanford explains means something like an aching longing. (Can you tell I’m a little heartsick for Mexico lately?) I really enjoyed this book, even if it stirred up a lot of longing feels. I hope you give it a shot, as well (especially since you can read the ebook for free. FREE YOU GUYS).

 

Reviews: 8 Pounds and Dead Letters by Chris F. Holm

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Chris Holm's books

Books: 8 Pounds: Eight Tales of Crime, Horror and Suspense and Dead Letters: Stories of Murder and Mayhem

Author: Chris F. Holm

Published: October 2010, 94 pages (8 Pounds) and February 2013, 116 pages (Dead Letters) by Poisonville Press

First Lines: ”It was bound to happen, I suppose. There was a time, of course, when I didn’t think so. We were too smart, I thought. Too careful. But there’s men’s plans and then there’s God’s plans, and it looks for damn sure like God didn’t think much of mine.” “Seven Days of Rain” from 8 Pounds

“First time I met Chip McRae, I thought he was a god.” “The Putdown,” from Dead Letters

Genre/Rating: Short stories (crime/horror); 4.5/5 young girls with a horrific hunger in their eyes (8 Pounds); 4.5/5 voices muttering evil truths from the laundry room (Dead Letters)

Review: When sj tells me to read a book, I listen.

I’m sure you have friends like this. At least, I hope you do. If you don’t, you need to find some. Friends who know your taste well enough to know when they run across a book that’s perfect for you, they say, “You need to read this.” And if you’re smart, you pay attention.

sj’s review of 8 Pounds made me sit up and take notice. I’m not a huge crime fiction fan, let’s be honest about this, but I love short horror fiction. She promised me I’d love all of the stories, even the crime fiction, because Holm was just that good.

She was right. I inhaled 8 Pounds and immediately purchased Dead Letters (which she also loved – what can I say, we have similar taste) because I wanted more of his short fiction as soon as possible.

And even though I’m not a crime fiction fan, I’m officially a Holm fan. The man can write. Oh, can the man write. His mind is a twisty place, a dark one, and it’s quicksilver-fast. I couldn’t get enough. He can do in just a few words what some authors attempt (and fail) in an entire novel. He’s talented and he’s wryly funny and he’s very intelligent. If he can manage to make me forget my dislike of crime fiction? Well, he’s a talented man.

The standouts for me? In 8 Pounds, they were “A Better Life” (the terrors that lurk when you think you’re at your safest), “8 Pounds” (friendship, passion, and betrayal), and “The Well.” I can’t tell you about “The Well.” It’s brief, and I want you to go into it knowing nothing about it. Just know you aren’t going to be able to forget it once you read it. It’s…dark. And it’s terrifying. And it’s the perfect little horror story in fewer words than most people use in an inter-office memo.

In Dead Letters, written only a couple of years later, the ones that stood out far outnumber the ones that didn’t work as well for me – a sign, for me, the author is getting better. And since he was already so very, very good – well, this is a good sign. Such a good sign. “The Putdown,” about how the past continues to shape the present. “A Night at the Royale” and “Action,” as good as any Tarantino movie. “The Final Bough,” an homage to a Christmas classic in a way you’ve never imagined. “The Hitter,” a surprisingly tender story about a contract killer – well, a killer of contract killers. “Green,” where family ties come out of nowhere  - and tie you tighter than you thought.

And “One Man’s Muse.” Oh, this story. I don’t even have the words. If you’re a Stephen King fan, you must read this story. It’s an homage to King, but also a perfect story on its own. I can tell you, without ruining too much – it’s about the trailer King lived in when he wrote his first books, before he was able to move somewhere a little less run-down. Think about that trailer. What might still reside there, in the trailer where Carrie and ‘salem’s Lot were written? How could such a place be benign?

Short fiction is very easy to get wrong. You’d think it was easy – it’s shorter, right? Therefore, easier? No. It’s a lot easier to screw something up that has to be perfect in just a few words. In longer work, you have more time to hook someone. In shorter work, you have limited time to win over your reader.

Holm wins us over easily, seemingly without even trying. I’ll be watching him in the future – I’m going to want to read more of his work. Especially if he keeps getting better as time passes.

What makes a good villain?

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evilvillaindiagram

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.

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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.

Review: A Million Heavens by John Brandon

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Book: A Million Heavens

Author: John Brandon

Published: July 2012 by McSweeney’s, 272 pages

First Line: ”The nighttime clouds were slipping across the sky as if summoned.”

Genre/Rating: Literary fiction; 3/5 songs, written by the man you loved who died, filling your mind until you can think of nothing else

Review: I am an unabashed John Brandon fan.

His Citrus County was one of my favorite books of last year, and I’m still looking to get my hands on his Arkansas (my library isn’t the best at stocking indie-published novels, and the price tag is still a little steep for my Kindle, but I’m going to break down one of these days. I’m a terrible impulse-buyer when it comes to the Kindle.)

(Also, can we just marvel over this cover? Gorgeous. McSweeney’s really excels at cover art.)

I was so looking forward to A Million Heavens, and after a few initial disappointing chapters, I thought, “it will get better. It just has to hit its stride.”

Unfortunately, it never really did.

Set in New Mexico, it follows, in small, somewhat strange chapters, the events that happen to various townsfolk over a bleak winter. A young prodigy lies in a coma while his father sits by his bedside, helpless. People sit outside in vigil, for various reasons. A woman on the run from her life attempts a new start with a man with a checkered past. A lost young musician mourns the death of the man she loved, which is proving to also be the death of her muse. The mayor of the town tries to find himself through his love for a woman who is possibly off-limits. And a wolf travels through the town, trying in vain to retain his wildness in a town that’s becoming increasingly industrialized and filled with the mystery of humans.

The problem I had was that I cared about very few of the stories/characters. I found myself waiting, somewhat impatiently, for the chapters involving Cecelia, the musician, and her departed love, Reggie (who actually gets a voice and a storyline from the beyond.) They were the two characters who seemed the most fleshed-out, whose fates and outcomes I actually cared about. The rest of them, although not poorly written (Brandon couldn’t write clunky prose if he tried; the man writes beautifully) were…somewhat cardboard. Uninteresting. I was not invested in their stories, in their fates. I was reading to see what happened to Cecelia; if she would redeem herself, if she would find what she was looking for under the New Mexico stars, in the damage she found herself drawn to cause. I was reading to see if Reggie would be able to finally communicate his love for her from beyond, because he’d missed his chance when he was on earth.

I’m not flat-out panning the book. Brandon’s prose is leaps and bounds better than most people’s I read, and I will continue to read his work, and eagerly await what he publishes next. But after the wonder and mystery and magic of Citrus County, I found myself disappointed by this one. I know he’s capable of more and of better. I appreciate that he was trying something different and outside the box, and I like that he’s attempting to evolve; I just don’t think this book worked on all levels.