In which Meyer goes “oh shit, it’s time to end this sucker” and spins out close to 750 pages in one volume. At first it’s kind of exciting, because instead of taking 300 pages to work out the obvious Bella does it in maybe 100 and we shift focus entirely to the supernatural shit so [...]
A lot of people consider this their favorite of the Twilight books. It has some cool elements, such as the first serious fight sequence (though it’s a sideline to the main battle that Edward has to narrate to us because Meyer didn’t budget for a fight coordinator and a second camera unit), and something of [...]
One point on which Cleolinda and I differ is the porn factor of these books. For her it’s mushy vampire romance, which she both loves and laughs her ass off at. For me it’s Jacob Black running around shirtless and getting naked at any opportunity…granted, it’s so that he can turn into a wolf, but [...]
I’ve finished the rest of the Twilight series. After this I’ll post some comments on each of the other three books. First of all, let me admit that I did mostly enjoy reading them, which is pretty amazing considering that I hated a lot of the characters, situations, and plot developments. I really don’t like [...]
I was really severely into vampires around the time I was entering college. I’d just discovered Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, and at that point she was only three books into them and they were still good. I loved the atmosphere, the melodrama, the imagery, and of course the homoeroticism. But most of all I think [...]
I may or may not write about these at greater length, but here are the capsules. Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay Loved it. It’s a slight drag that the quest in this one is for two (specific) girls instead of a shitload of little hamburgers, but it allows for some cute scenes and [...]
I always assumed that I would have two jobs when I grew up. One would be a job with a salary and benefits. The other would be fiction writing. Since college, I’ve had jobs with salaries and benefits. I haven’t done a lot of fiction writing. I’ve typed a lot of words, it’s true. And [...]
The other day, my sister, in her Livejournal, linked to a rant about how Livejournal in specific and blogging in general interferes with the art, craft, hobby, and profession of fiction writing. This is the rant. I hate the word “rant,” at once falsely modest and self-excusing. I hate the way this rant was written; [...]
I finished rereading the original novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, and now it’s hard not to be a little bitter at how they eviscerated the book for the movie. I don’t remember too well but I almost think the Charlton Heston film was more faithful (so to speak). Will Smith’s version is still [...]
William Gibson started out way ahead of everyone, both in terms of the time period he was writing about — a fictional future in which cybernetics and space travel are commonplace, and artificial intelligences are sentient and nearly omnipotent — and in terms of style — a mashup of hard-boiled picaresque crime fiction and ultrasleek [...]