#8--The Host, by Selina Rosen

I'm a total worthless shit, and I misspelled Selina's name not once, but twice. I know how to spell her name, and have for years, but something switched off in my brain and not only did I get it wrong, I didn't catch it to fix it until several days later. No excuse. In penance, I'm going to buy a few extra books next time I see the Yard Dog folks.

Also, if you're interested in the Yard Dog Press books, you can get their ordering information here. You can find copies of the Host on Amazon here, but if you go that route, order a new copy.

And if you really need an explanation for why you should always buy books new from small presses, micro presses, and new authors regardless of how big the house is that published them, I don't think we can be friends.


Dammit.

I really, really wanted to like this book. And I arguably gave it more of a chance than I should have, even after I continued past several points that made me want to hurl the thing across the room. Part of that may be that I'm using the cannonball read as an impetus to finish all of the books I start.

I like Selina Rosen. I love, love, love what she's done with Yard Dog Press. Every time I see them at a con, I pick up a few more books, and some of them have been real gems. So naturally, I was excited when I decided to pick up her Host series, especially with the promise that the vampires were seriously evil and the good guys weren't stupid.

Awesome, right?

And the thing is, I think all the potential for that awesome was right there in this trim little book. It's just...

It was like reading a NaNovel that had been edited once (poorly) for spelling and grammar. The plot was there, the idea was good, the characters at least had the potential to be likable or despicable, depending...

And yet this was missing so very much.

A lot of the writing felt rushed, like she had this great idea and wanted it out as fast as possible so she wouldn't miss anything. Which is a fine way to write a novel. But it seems like she never went back to flesh it out, smooth out the rough edges, and round out the characters. I also wanted to take a red pen to the thing and mark up every time I found a typo, a quotation that hadn't been either opened or closed, or the wrong word in the wrong place.

I can forgive a few typos here and there, especially coming out of a small or micro press, and most particularly when the work I'm reading is good enough to suck me back in.

Also, I hated that so many of the characters had names that started with the same letter. It's something really stupid, but when they're as thinly drawn as this, it makes it that much harder to keep Burt, Bill, Devon, Davil, and Damon all straight.

And for the love of God, if you're really wanting to show that your good guys aren't stupid, please show me. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT actually have one of your characters utter the words, "Good isn't stupid." And really, really try to refrain from doing it twice.

Finally, I thought that all of the not-entirely-subtle "look at how awesome Judaism is, wouldn't you like to be part of it" stuff was kind of weird. Mind you, as an outsider to all of the world's major religions, you could substitute Judaism for Christianity or Buddhism or Islam or whatever and I'd have exactly the same reaction. I guess it's hard to avoid some kind of discussion of faith in a vampire novel, especially when your main character is a Rabbi, but it got a little heavy-handed and obnoxious. I also got kind of annoyed by the trashing on other religions, including Christianity and one character turned into all of the worst parts of paganism in one cliched asshole.

Now that I've shit all over it, I'd like to say again: the idea here was pretty great. I liked the new vampire mythology (or rather, another take on the psychic vampire as opposed to the blood sucking variety). I liked the idea of the host presented in the story, and I did like Tracy, and I got a real kick out of disposing of the vampires by running them through an industrial chipper/shredder and working them into customer's gardens. Ha.

There are two more books in this series so far, and although this one let me down, I'm still going to pick up the next one at the next convention I attend. I'm hoping the second will be better because the first was there to get the origins nonsense out of the way so the real fun could start. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed, and I'm also going to pick up a few more books from some of the other authors, because far more often than not, I find the Yard Dog books to be well worth my money and time.

Up next: Turn Coat

#7--Maledicte, by Lane Robins

I found Maledicte by chance while browsing through the new books at the book store, keeping an eye out for new authors. I picked up a copy, got it home, and more or less forgot about it.

Months later, I unearthed it and read most of the first chapter, then forgot about it again.

This is often to kiss of death for a novel with me. Once I've picked it up and started it once, I have a lot of trouble ever making myself start over. When I do get around to it, I very often find myself richly rewarded, as when I made myself pick up Harriet the Spy again, or when I finally sat down and read all of Dracula or Puck of Pook's Hill.

There honestly wasn't much to recommend the book when I did pick it up: a novel of love and vengeance. A girl pretending to be a boy to maneuver through court politics in a decadent kingdom. Gods meddling in human affairs. All well and good, but...yawn. We've all been there and done that, right?

This novel definitely has its flaws, with many earmarks of a new author. While reading it, you're often reminded of details that have been many times discussed, just in case you've forgotten since it was last mentioned earlier on the page. While the story unwinds itself through tragedy, betrayal, love...there's nothing here you don't sort of expect.

And yet...

And yet, I really loved this book.

I loved the world, with the tumbling, god-ravaged Relicts to the glittering, festering court. I liked Miranda, who became Maledicte after stumbling upon a dead goddess who wasn't quite so dead, and very ready for a new foothold in a land deserted by its gods. It was a pleasure following the twists and turns of the story, and if the path was maybe a little familiar, it was so in the way of the best fairy tales--it isn't so much that you know how it's going to end, or even maybe how it will get there. The pleasure is in the players, and how skillfully the game is laid out before them.

Despite its flaws, or maybe in part because of them, I was absorbed in this book. It's the first one I've had in a long time that stayed with me, nibbling at me until I could pick it up and read further. When I was close to the end, I stayed up late into the night, and only gave it up before I hit the final page because I needed to get to work the next day.

And who each of the characters was at the beginning was not who they were by the end--and their journey there was convincing as I read through each step, through each little change that brought them to the endgame, and finally to an ending that thoroughly satisfied me in an almost guilty way.

Is this great literature? Not particularly.

Do I care? Not in the least. I pre-ordered the second in this series, Kings and Assassins, which is due out in late April. And this time, I won't put it down after reading only a couple of pages.

Up next: The Host

#6--Blood Noir, by Laurell K Hamilton

This book opened with one brief chapter of talking/whining/angsting, and immediately moved on to three straight chapters of sex.

I don't care how many people are involved, how many different positions they go through, and whether or not they're drinking blood and/or shifting into different animals: there is never, ever an excuse for a description of fucking to go on longer than a chapter.

So, why did I read this dreck?

Because once upon a time, the Anita Blake series did not suck.

No, seriously.

I started reading around the time the third book, Circus of the Damned, was released, and I still maintain that the second book, The Laughing Corpse, was the best of the series. Laurel Hamilton had found her voice, and the editors were still willing to do their damned jobs, Anita was still adamant that she didn't date monsters, she killed them, and it produced a really enjoyable mystery/action story with plenty of literal monsters of the human and inhuman kind. If you like the Dresden Files, you'll probably really enjoy the early Anita Blake books.

However, if you haven't started on them, all I can say is: Don't! Save yourself now!

Holy flying, fucking werewolves, did these books ever start to suck.

Why am I still reading? Because I was duped into caring about the characters back when they didn't suck. This is, however, the very first series to go from books I'd check out from the library to books I'd purchase as soon as they were released to books I'll eventually read when I pick up a used copy on the cheap at the local Friends of the Library book sale.

Which is exactly how I ended up with my copy of Blood Noir, and if it weren't for the fact that my $2 went to support my favorite library system, I'd be whining about being ripped off.

This particular time around, Anita finds out that Jason (werewolf, friend, occasional fuck buddy, and Jean Claude's regular food) has to go home to see his dying son of a bitch father (because there is not a single character in this entire series who has a good relationship with their family, as though Mrs. Hamilton has somehow determined that you can't be interesting unless you've got the appropriate tragic back story to go along with it). There is much whining from all the other men in her life, but she still packs up and flies off to meet the family.

Blah, blah, confrontations with family, blah, more sex, blah, lots of whining and personality deconstructing, blah, blah, lots more sex we at least don't have to read about, blah, blah, the plot finally shows up and people die.

There was actually considerably less sex in this book than in the last few, and we're at least blessedly spared the two day fucking marathon (which, had it been described in the usual manner, would have made the book at least four times as long and sixteen times more unbearable).

I'm so sick of this series, and I'm not sure why I'm still compelled to pick them up. Anita Blake is a detestable woman--she's selfish to an absolute fault, even when it's come to her attention that she's somehow hurting someone she'd have you believe she cares about. She'll only act to fix the problem when and if she decides she can 'handle' it, and she's obsessed with having the moral high ground, even when she's lying on her living room floor in the sticky leavings from her most recent round of sex with a minimum of two men. which is always accidental. How many times can you accidentally fuck multiple men before it's not really an accident anymore? I swear to God, this woman can no longer cross a room without tripping and landing on a dick. And the men surrounding her are their own special breed of pussy whipped (a phrase I find contemptible, but highly appropriate in this one case).

And the sex is mind-bogglingly boring. Or maybe I just have an abnormally high tolerance for violent vampire and lycanthrope group sex. Have you seen what's lurking in the depths of fanfic.net? Forget the furries. Once you've read Dumbledore topping Hagrid, you can handle anything.

Also, I absolutely love psychoanalyzing my characters. I totally corner hapless friends into discussions involving characters they've somehow been involved with, and it does help me work out all kinds of issues and smooth out personalities and all the ticks and quirks that go along with them. But all of that needs to happen in the background, where it's reflected on the page in actions, words, and deeds, not agonizingly poured over by the characters themselves.

I wanted to say that with a competent editor wielding a machete, this could possibly have been chopped into shape, but I'm not sure that would be true. This could maybe pass as a novella or a short story, and I think there were all kinds of details that fell by the wayside that could have better served the story itself (Jason only saw his dad twice? Really? There was a possible war between vampire masters of cities, and it was barely mentioned? Spoiler--a master of a city freakin' died and it barely gets a mention in the final wrap up? What the fuck? Endeth Spoiler).

At this point, Anita Blake can go fuck a duck (she's already doing a swan, so it's not too far out of point).

I need a drink and a good book.

Next up: Maledicte.

#5--Affinity, by Sarah Waters

I came out of the closet, in as much as I ever needed to, when I was about 16. I've wavered back and forth between the idea of being a lesbian or being asexual from time to time, but that I might be straight has never really crossed my mind.

I always kind of suspect, though, that I don't make a very good lesbian. I've never really been a part of the community, although I'm sort of aware that it's out there. I know of at least three lesbian-specific clubs right here in town, even though I live in Oklahoma, which most people wouldn't expect to be very gay-friendly. We've got an actual gay district, though (tiny though it may be), and the largest gay resort in the entire center of the country (which, seeing it every day on my way to work, makes me a little sad. That's the best the vast geographical majority of the country can do? Seriously?).

Several years ago, I went through this phase where I thought I was going to make myself a better lesbian. I started hanging out at a local feminist-but-mostly-lesbian-focused library/community center, I started trying to watch more lesbian movies, and I decided to try reading more lesbian books.

It didn't last long before I lost patience with the whole affair. Guess I'll never be a good lesbian, whatever the hell that means.

I especially had trouble finding lesbian fiction that I cared to read. I know a lot of people really love coming of age stories, but I have trouble stirring up my interest. I wasn't too into lesbian detectives solving murder mysteries, either. Take out those and the erotica, and you've got like, maybe five books to chose from.

Which would be how I came across Tipping the Velvet, which I'll admit I selected for the most shallow reason of them all (the cover was pretty). And I really enjoyed the hell out of that book. So much so that I gave it to a friend to read, who started out skeptical and ended up also really enjoying it.

So when I came across another book by Sara Waters, I grabbed it.

And Fingersmith totally let me down. It was a well crafted book, and the plot itself was enjoyable, but the relationship between the characters felt so forced and unnatural that it ruined the whole thing for me. Especially the end.

So I approached Affinity with a great deal of caution. I picked it up occasionally. I read the first few pages every now and again, and then I put it back down.

Then I made a critical error: I watched the BBC movie based on the book.

The movie was faithful to the book, in as much as a movie can afford to be. The problem is that this is a story with an ending you really shouldn't know going in. Knowing where it was all heading cast a shadow over the rest of the book, and I'm sorry I didn't go in blind.

Tipping the Velvet was a lesbian adventure in Victorian theater and the socialist movement. Fingersmith was a dash through London thieves and Victorian pornography. Affinity was a look at Victorian spiritualism and the women's prisons of the time.

I think it was also weaker than Waters' first outing, but I enjoyed it far more than Fingersmith. This is a much darker book than the previous two, tackling weightier issues.

I won't get into the plot, because it's better explored blind. I loved Margaret Prior, and wanted the best for her throughout. I thought that the relationship that developed between her and one particular prisoner she visited in Millbanks, Miss Selena Dawes, was natural and believable. I enjoyed the handling of the spiritualism, and I think the plot wrapped itself up neatly without being too exasperatingly clever.

And it is dark and sad. I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it's a book I'll revisit.

Next up: Blood Noir

#4--The Fat Girl's Guide to Life, by Wendy Shanker

I am a fat girl. I won't get into too much detail (because who needs that), but there's not a whole lot I can do about it. Eat right? Check. Exercise? Check. Cholesterol low? Check. Blood sugar normal? Check. Blood pressure normal? Check. Warning signs for impending health problems related to being overweight? Not a one.

I'm in good health, I'm just fat. All of the conventional (and unconventional) ways of fixing that last problem haven't worked (short of surgery, which I think we can agree is taking things a little far when my health is otherwise unaffected by the fat). So there reaches a point where I have to look around and think, Is it really so terrible?

I'm not so much into self help books. I get their appeal, just not really on a personal level. I've read a few, and really did enjoy some of them. And this one really seemed right up my alley.

I can't tell you what I was expecting, but I couldn't really enjoy the Fat Girl's Guide to Life. It felt less like a book that should somehow help me so much as a book in which the author was trying to work painfully through her own issues.

As hard as Ms. Shanker tried to convince me that she had gotten past all of the self-hate, the bitterness and discomfort with herself sort of dripped off of every page. Like maybe she's almost there, but not quite far enough to be writing anything that goes into self help.

I had a hard time identifying with many of Ms. Shanker's trials and tribulations, though it's possible that some other fat girl could read them, sympathize, and even feel inspired. Mostly through this book, though, I wanted to make her a nice cup and tea and tell her that she looks fine, and not to worry so much.

I think what mostly sticks with me is a long passage about how she liked to go to the gym, crank up her headphones, and sing along while she worked out. When someone working there asked her to keep it down, there followed a long, self-indulgent rant about how she deserved to use the gym, and how dare she be treated that way?

And I kind of hated her guts. How fucking rudely was she behaving? And how much like a teenager was her behavior following? If you want to sing while you work out, more power to you. But you really shouldn't be doing that in a gym where you're inflicting your concert on other people, whether they're also working out, or just sitting on the equipment and pretending.

The entire book struck me as self-indulgent and whiny, and I'm not sure I want to be taking advice on how to live my life from someone like that.

I think for now, I'm going to stick with the advice found here:



And if I really just need a quick pick-me-up (and a lot of really adorable girls to go with it), I'll hit YouTube for this:



Next up: Affinity

#3--Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

It's gotten really cool on the 'tubes to hate on Twilight. And, honestly, I kind of love it. I loved it before I ever even touched a copy of any one of the books. It's hilarious, and has provided me with hours of entertainment.

I actually have a friend who picked up the series when it was first starting. She told me about it before the third book had been released, and she was really thrilled with the series. I wrote it down in my little notebook that I have with me everywhere, and occasionally saw the name and title while I was flipping through looking for something else.

Then, somehow, the whole damned thing exploded and Twilight was everywhere. The popularity actually made me more wary of touching the thing, but I decided to take the plunge, and I was determined to keep an open mind about the whole thing, just in case there really was gold hiding in those pages.

And besides, I like vampires. I was in 8th grade when the Interview with a Vampire movie came out, and I was at just the right age to be totally taken in by the whole thing. I devoured the book, zipped through the Vampire Lestat, and never finished Queen of the Damned. That Christmas, my mother (bless her) gave me a copy of Rosemary Ellen Guiley's Complete Vampire Companion.

And thus, my love of vampires transfered from the angsty gay foppish vamp to the mouldering corpses waiting in their coffins to be staked while they infected their loved ones with consumption. Give me mullos and the sari kedi and polongs and all of the oddball creatures that somehow subsist off of blood, viscera, psychic energy, or by sickening their victims. Give me succubi and incubi. Give me real, live human murderers who drank the blood of their victims and so were dubbed vampires by history or the media.

I still really enjoy fictional vampires, though. And I'm all for a reimagining of the vampire mythology. I've got books and anthologies devoted to that idea, and some of it's great. So I was all ready to pick up Twilight and really enjoy it.

Holy hell.

Every damned thing everyone's got to say about it is completely right. I won't even go into listing the offenses, because I might do myself or my keyboard harm. And it seriously isn't worth the energy required.

I ran into the friend who had recommended it, and told her I'd finally read Twilight. She asked what I thought, and all I could do was cackle. Turns out (bless her) that she loves the series, but she kind of loves to hate it, too. We met up in a coffee house with our computers, and we took turns pointing each other towards all things funny and Twilight-bashing. Much fun was had by all, and for that, I can't really bring myself to hate it.

Also, I went to high school with far too many people who never actually read an entire book cover to cover, not even for class assignments. I know adults who haven't read a whole book, or who are proud of not liking to read. Even if every single Meyers fan never cracks another book after finishing the Twilight saga, that's still that many more people who have read one to four books, and that's a good thing.


more lol celebs!

Next up: The Fat Girl's Guide to Life

#2--World War Z, by Max Brooks

Ok, I love me a good zombie movie.

Hell, I love me a bad zombie movie.

I had been aware of the Zombie Survival Guide for some time, and I occasionally saw a copy of it around somewhere and thought, "I need to get a copy of that and read it." It still hasn't happened, but it eventually will. I first heard about World War Z thanks to vague references to the Battle of Yonkers on Fark threads. That alone was enough to get my attention, but the favorable reviews that I started reading sealed the deal and I ordered a copy.

I really enjoyed stringing together the interviews in order to really flesh out the history of the zombie outbreak. It was a device that I think could easily have fallen flat, but was carried off with a kind of skill and style I envy. Some of it was definitely chilling (WTF happened to North Korea?!), and some of the stories had the ring of reading real history instead of fiction.

Still, this was never a book I had trouble putting down. I read it on lunch breaks at work, and when my time was up, I didn't mind dropping it and getting back to work. I wasn't devising methods to keep reading it without the boss noticing. I wasn't squirming around waiting for the next bit. I didn't grab it to read more as soon as I got home.

And, honestly, the ending kind of fell flat. I think it ended how it had to--how it would if it were a real history. I have no suggestions for what should be changed.

I just think it's a book I could have happily checked out from the library and never thought about again. It's not one I need on my shelf to revisit occasionally, though I'm glad I have it to offer to friends to read. I am glad I read it once.

Next up: Twilight