Book Review: Bite Me

This was the third and final installment of my favorite comedic trilogy about vampires.  Granted, it's the only comedic trilogy about vampires I've ever read, but still- it was pretty great.

If you haven't read the first two books- Bloodsucking Fiends and You Suck- then you're missing out.  Not because you'd be that out of your depth if you just happened to pick this up as one of our MCs fills you in the bulk of the fun from the last two books (complete with a re-cap quiz) in the first chapter.  No, you' be missing out because the first two are just as good as this one and you'd be robbing yourself if you skipped them.

I've spoken before about my deep love of Christopher Moore.  I don't know anyone funnier than him in literature. This book, and subsequently the end of this story line, has assured him permanent residence in my heart.

It isn't just the humor- though I agree with the critic who called this a laugh-a-page book.  And isn't just the vaguely Whedon-esque way that he exposes us to the new villains and developments within his world, though again, you wouldn't be wrong for making that comparison.  No, it's the heart.  Christopher Moore's characters have just as much heart as they do hilarity and you can't help but fall madly in love with them with each new utterance, actions and conflict.

He's called the last two installments of this trilogy "A Love Story" because at heart, that's what the story is about.  Our young lovers Tommy, a writer, and Jody, a newly made vampire are in love.  And as great love stories go theirs is filled with just as much conflict, depth of feeling and intimacy as one could hope for.  I won't spoil the ending for you but suffice it to say that their love story felt very real in the end, even in the face of a city over-run with vampire cats and sword-wielding samurai.  And, it ended with both of the characters being true to themselves- and how many great love stories can say that?

Though Tommy and Jody are far from the most colorful characters in the book.  Everyone of them- even the Animals who only tend to get screen time as a group- are entertaining to the last.  Abby Normal, who serves as the primary narrator for our final story, is one of the most funny I've read and her vocabulary is absolutely unforgettable.  (For example: “Oh my God, you’re like Obnoxious and Annoying had an ass baby!”)  I'll never forget her.

Technically, Moore uses enough alliteration and poetic phrases to keep me respecting him while still keeping the narrative chock-full of silliness and laughs.  This novel isn't going to be winning any literary prizes, but that doesn't mean you can't love it.  And Moore shows his deep respect for words and they way they can define a person in the overall arch of one our MCs.  "I need the words, Jody.  It's who I am."  You'll have to read the whole story to find out what that means, exactly- and I highly suggest you do.

Because in the end, this was one of my favorite story arcs.  I would highly recommend it to anyone who loves Whedon, Vampires, San Fransisco or turkey-bowling.  Or, you know, anyone who really like a funny book.

Write... Edit ... Publish for October: Haunting

It's time for another edition of Write... Edit... Publish hosted by the wonderful Denise Covey.  This month's theme is appropriate to my favorite holiday- HAUNTING.

I originally wrote this piece around Halloween-time a couple of years ago and I decided to use it for this because A) It's sort-of about a ghost and B) I just really liked it and would love for it to get a few more reads.  It's a dialogue-only piece which is semi-rare for me but I don't think that distracts from it at all.  It's also humorous rather than frightening but I figure you readers could use a break from all the spine-tingling stories you're reading today!  Clocking in at 469 words I present to you:

Highway 174

“His headlights cut through the fog like… like daggers cutting through… something.”

“What are you doing?”

“Shh! I’m narrating.”

“Uh… why?”

“Because it’s not scary if we’re just sitting here listening to Queen, we need a creepy voiceover.”

“And why is it supposed to be creepy? I thought we were just going to a Halloween party.”

“We are, but we’re on highway 174.”

“It looks like a country road.”

“It is- but it’s old highway 174. You know, like ye old highway 174. Like the place where that guy died on all Hallows eve- that highway 174!”

“I thought you said that was out at the edge of the county?”

“I did? No- I don’t- I don’t think we’re that far out. We’re just a little off the beaten path.”

“So… we’re lost.”

“We’re not lost, we’re just taking a slightly different route at the off chance that we happen to see him- his misty figure floating along the side of the road, ghostly thumb out in the hopes that someone will pick him up and finally put an end to his eternal wandering. Ooo- that’s good.”

“So we’re lost and you’re going to narrate it.”

“We are not lost we’re- ooo! What’s that?”

“What?”

“That shadowy figure over there- could that be…?”

“I think it’s a bush. Wait for it- yep, it’s a bush.”

{grumbling}

“But it was a very dark and shadowy bush, so I can see where you’d be confused.”

“Whatever, Scully!”

“Well, since we’re calling names- Mulder- might I point out that when we did do research we never found any news stories about a hit and run out here and that your urban legend of the ghostly hitchhiker was- you know- disproved.”

“Ok, first of all, it’s not an urban legend if it’s true and secondly the internet wasn’t around back in the 70’s when this guy got hit. Ghosts don’t need the validation of the internet in order to exist.”

“Sigh.”

“Hey, do you want to see this guy or not? Cause I will turn this car right around, young lady!”

“I don’t want to do anything other than to go to the party which is where you claimed we were going before you got lost and tried to cover it up by pretending that you meant to drive us out to the middle of nowhere so we could spend all night doing 25 on backwoods roads looking for ghosts.”

“You’re just no fun at all, are you?”

“I just want to go to the party- it’s getting late and we’re gonna miss the costume contest and-“

“Fine, fine, we’ll go to the party. Jeeze.”

“Thank you! That’s all I ask.”

“We just need to get back onto 202…”

“I’ll look at my phone.”

“We’re not lost!”

“Uh huh, I believe you.”

“Grrr…”

And now, hop along and enjoy all the other awesome entries!  Happy Halloween!

It's the Anti-Blogfest!

Created in order to celebrate the astounding Gary at Klahanie.

See, Mark Koopmans, Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh, “Life is Good” Tina, Robyn Engel and Morgan Shamy all got together to host this crazy thing because they all know that Gary, while being a wonderful guy who supports, promotes and generally leads the parades for other writers rarely (if ever) participates in blog bops.  And what better way to feature someone who doesn't do blog hops?  Why, with a blog hop, of course!

The rules are *very* simple. Create the titles of three PG-13 rated blogfests you would never join - and then add a descriptive sentence or two. That's it!So, without further ado, here are mine:

Worlds Most Embarrassing Photo Blog Hop Contest
Yeah, we've all got a few photos or ourselves that are the MOST embarrassing and could, possibly, beat out others.  But those of us who are wise burned those suckers long ago. 

The Complain-athon Blog Hop
Wanna participate in a blog hop where you just complain, complain, complain?  Yeah, me neither.

The Txt-Spk Blog Hop
OMG, ROFL SYK IPN DAMHIKT BOTL YBYSA.  BB4N!
(I know, I'm annoyed having just composed that!)

So, this is still a blog hop.  Which means that it's time to hop along and visit Gary, Mark, Alex, Tina, Robyn, Morgan and all the other hop-crazy peeps!  Don't forget to leave happy comments and say hi. 

---

1. Mark Koopmans	2. Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh
3. Morgan Shamy	4. Tina @ Life is Good
5. Robyn @ Life By Chocolate	6. Jeremy [Being-Retro]
7. Queendsheena	8. Positve Letters Inspirational Stories
9. Confessions of a Watery Tart	10. Spunky L. Diane Wolfe
11. Huntress	12. Left and Write
13. Jemi Fraser	14. Damyanti@ Amlokiblogs
15. Bish Denham	16. Elizabeth Seckman
17. Empty Nest Insider	18. Livia Peterson
19. Tami @ Thrift Shop Commando	20. Stephen Tremp
21. Writing By Marilyn	22. Heather M. Gardner
23. thecontemplativecat	24. Carrie Butler
25. rewritten	26. Musings on Fantasia
27. WriterlySam	28. Wanna buy a duck
29. tara tyler	30. It's Rhyme Time
31. Sydney Aaliyah Michelle	32. Melissa's Imaginarium
33. Feeling Nosey?	34. Michael Pierce
35. Back Porchervations	36. Writer's Mark
37. Michael @ In Time . . .	38. Michelle @ Writer~In~Transit
39. Some Dark Romantic	40. Lexa Cain
41. Trisha @ WORD+STUFF	42. Tryst with the Sutter Bug
43. tammy theriault	44. The Write Game
45. The Beveled Edge	46. Philipscom
47. The Journey South	48. I Think; Therefore, I Yam
49. Defending The Pen	50. M. L. Swift, Writer
51. Sabrina's Writing Reflections

A True Story from the Life of Bev

One lazy Sunday afternoon Dave and I were flipping through channels looking for something to watch.  We landed on the Syfy channel and some horrible Syfy original was on (like there always is).  Can’t recall what it was, something involving the ghost of a murdering hitch-hiker and some kids lost in the woods with said villain.  Suffice it to say that, like every other Syfy original, it was craptastic.

The exchange went a little something like this:

Him: "I can not believe that anyone actually watches these things." 

Me:  laughs in agreement at the unimaginably poor quality of said movie  "Oh, I’m sure it’s a lot more than you’d think.”

Him:  gives me an incredulous look  “Come on- look at this.”

Me:  “You know what?  I bet you five bucks my parents are watching this movie right now." 

Him:  “No way!”

Me:  with 1000% confidence “I bet you- seriously.”

Him:  hands me my phone with look on his face daring me to prove it

Me:  smiles at him smugly, puts phone on speaker and dials home.  Waits for two rings

Mom:  “Hello?”

Me:  “Hi mom!”

Mom:  “Dolly!" [my mother’s nickname for me since I was born]  "How are you?”

Me:  “I’m good, what’re you guys up to?”

Mom:  “We’re just watching some TV.  What are you two doing?”

Me:  smiles knowingly  “Same thing.  Hey- you wouldn’t happen to be watching ‘Insert name of terrible movie whose title I cannot remember for the life of me’, would you?”

Mom:  sounding as if I just showed psychic abilities “How did you know?!?”

Him:  Commences hysterical laughter

From then on, whilst flipping through channels and seeing the name of some other assumedly equally fantastic Syfy original, I will reference this instance.  "Wanna call my parents and get the full review?"

Book Review: The Pleasure of My Company

Before I begin this review, I have to take a minute to draw your attention to the absurd level of talent contained within the one Steve Martin.  He is widely considered the funniest stand-up comic of all time (quite the label for a trade so unforgiving and harsh).  Every movie I’ve ever seen of him I have absolutely adored.  Every time he’s been on SNL (which is quite a lot) he’s been hysterical.  His writing is entirely too good for someone who should’ve been  otherwise occupied with a bustling film career.  And as if all that weren’t enough, he’s now making quite a name for himself as a skilled banjo player.  Is there anything this man can’t do?  It’s just absurd.

Ah-hem, sorry- just had to get that out of my system.  On to the review!

The Pleasure of My Company was my first exposure to Steve Martin’s serious feature-length works.  Though I knew he had the ability to create beautiful character studies as I’ve seen Shopgirl I didn’t read the book it was based on so this is the first time.  I was, to put it mildly, blown away.

I’m going to start by critiquing the main character himself since that is the focus of the story.  Daniel Pecan Cambridge is a genius and, like many geniuses, his brain’s excess intelligence has limited the man himself.  His particular form of limitation comes in the form of a rather extreme case of OCD.  He counts, performs mathematical equations, lays out grids upon the world he sees, breaks down time into smaller, more sensible fractions.  And he has used all of these abilities to impose a set of constrictions on himself so severe that he can barely stand to leave his apartment.

He has rules he uses to keep his mind- which would otherwise become so transfixed on the irrational nature of existence- occupied.  He avoids curbs as their “illogical elevation” confounds him so the only places he can get to are ones that a circuitous walking route with scooped-out opposing driveways will lead him to.  He keeps the bulb wattage in his apartment at a stable 1125 watts which requires a constant dance of turning on and off certain bulbs as he enters and exists rooms.  He finds solace in creating magic squares- which are sort-of like a geniuses’ version of sudoku where instead of each row of three equaling 15 there are 16 rows adding up to 491,384.   (Yeah, my brain hurt just looking at the thing.)  But, as he points out, “my salvation, the making of the square, was so pointless; there was no person attached to it, no person to shut me out or take me in.”

Which enlightens us to the largest, most devastating consequence of his illness: a sense of loneliness so deep that you, the reader, feel it in your heart, as if it were your own.  The words Martin uses to describe his melancholy are so soulful that I found myself often taking a breath as I read, trying to separate myself from the mind of this character who I so connected to.  His thesis: "There are few takers for the quiet heart."  Words so simple that I ached for young Daniel, praying that he would find a way to release himself from his prison.

There is one passage that sums up his fears, his beliefs and his realty perfectly that I just have to share with you:  “I guessed that one day the restrictions I imposed on myself would end.  But first, it seemed that my range of possible activities would have to iris down to zero before I could turn myself around.  Then, when I was finally stoic and immobile, I could weigh and measure every exterior force and, slowly and incrementally, once again allow the outside in.  And that would be my life.” 

Coming from a place that dark it's amazing that Daniel is able to emerge but he does, and in the only way one can: human connection.  He forms his relationships almost by accident, instinctually picking up on cues people give him, reading them and responding to them like a reflex.  And because of the people he is surrounded by he is drawn into them, the messy quality of their lives, the idiosyncrasies of them.  His neighbor who leads him to take his first few triumphant steps over a curb simply by addressing them as the inconsequential things he views them to be.  His case manager who inadvertently creates the opportunity for him to instinctively rescue a child.  And the one person who has the biggest impact on him- Teddy, a 2 year old too innocent, Dan concluded, to be corrupted by his craziness.  "If, as the books say, my habits exist to keep demons at bay, what was the point of demonstrating them in front of someone who was so clearly not a demon?  Who, in fact, was so clearly a demon's opposite?"

This is where all of those reviews labeling this book as gentle start to make sense.  Because his resolution is anticlimactic, quiet.  Found in the small moments where an immeasurable connection occurs.  The tiny triumphs that seem so inconsequential in "real life".  The space that exists between two people when they are just being.  There's no grand epiphanies, no life-changing cataclysms- just the quiet existence of a man living life which is made striking by the lack of life we've seen him trapped in.  It's a conclusion that many authors, filmmakers and creators fail to grasp and it struck me more deeply than most of the grand tales I've ever read.

Before I end, and I apologize for the length here, but I just have to say a couple of things about the writing itself.  I found the narrative fascinating.  This story could not possibly told in anything other than first person and while Daniel is clearly a reliable narrator he is not always telling the story linearly.  There are the memories of the past which we need to make sense of the present, of course.  But there are also the statements about future events which have not yet happened, dropped into the moment because of his hindsight about what the moment means, pointing out the transitions for us before they have actually started.  It's not foreshadowing in the classic sense I'm used to.  It’s something I haven't seen done in this particular manner and it’s definitely going to stick in my memory the next time I find myself writing in first person.

But the most striking quality about this book is that it’s written almost like a poem.  It's incredibly short because each word was so painstakingly chosen that there is no excess, no unnecessary descriptors, nothing that doesn't convey exactly what was meant to be conveyed.  Because of this, the number of passages that take on a lyrical, alliterative quality are almost overwhelming.  You can scarcely flip through more than two pages of my now deeply loved book without finding a sentence, a passage or a paragraph that I highlighted because of its beauty.  I want to memorize these lines and recite them.  I want to sear them into my brain so I can be lifted by them when life becomes just too much.

In conclusion, I loved this book.  And I can now say with certainty that Daniel Pecan Cambridge is one of my favorite characters of all time and I will hold him in my heart along with Wemmick, Bilbo and so many other greats forever.

The Towel Day Blogfest!

First up, HUGE thanks to our fearless leader L.G. Keltner who's love for Douglas Adams is almost as incomprehensible as the cosmos.  Quick note here, her A to Z challenge was a 26 part story that so closely resembled the twisted logic, absurd connections and life changing hilarity of the Hitchhiker's series itself that it would be a true tragedy in your life for you to miss it.  If you haven't read it yet, put it on your reading list.  Really.  It's just great.  And a perfect send up to the genius who inspired this blogfest.

And now, Douglas Adams.  I could not possibly sum up how something as magnificent as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy effected me.  Well, maybe if I had Deep Thought here.  But it’d undoubtedly tell me something incredibly unhelpful like “42” or something.  So I’m just going to hide under my towel until this is all over.

Or I could take the easy way out and simply share some of my favorite quotes and moments with you.

First up: The Infinite Improbability Drive is one of the greatest creations the universe has ever known.  Far better than, say, smug automatic doors and the super-genius robots that hate them.  In addition to being a terribly useful device it also provides us with some of the best quotes like

"Ford... you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.” spoken by Aurthur upon seeing Ford's particular reaction to the dive.  And I was delighted to get an inside glimpse of the thought process of sperm whale on the occasion of being suddenly called into existence and then plummeting to its untimely death

"Hey! What’s this thing suddenly coming towards me very fast? Very very fast. So big and flat and round, it needs a big wide sounding name like … ow … ound … round … ground! That’s it! That’s a good name – ground!  I wonder if it will be friends with me?"

Next, where would would we be without the Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe?  Missing out on some of the finest dining, most elaborate decor and best show in existence, that's where!  It has become a common problem-fixing location to set up characters when you'd like to be able to see them interact without destroying the canon because while it may be completely impossible for those two characters to know each other it is impossible for them to get to know each other in this restaurant as it is, itself, impossible.  Try it the next time you get stuck in your writing, you'd be surprised what gets knocked loose.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in addition to being the most successful book ever to come out of Ursa Minor, is also a great source for hilarity.  From the psychological benefit of carrying around a towel:

"any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.” to filling you in on the greatest drink in existence, the effect of which is "is like having your brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick."  But of course the best thing about is is the cover- it's not the fact that the words "Don't Panic" appear on the front, it's the fact that they are printed in large, friendly letters that really reassures.

And of course, the most useful thing in the entire galaxy and the source of this hop's name: the Towel.

"you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble‐sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand‐to‐hand‐combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindbogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you — daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough."

Makes me want to take a shower whilst studying star charts.  And, of course, read more Douglas Adams. 

Thanks for stopping by, all.  And Happy Towel Day!