Superpowers

This vacation I've been reading Superpowers by David J. Schwartz.

I picked this book up as an impulse buy, and here's why:

First of all, it's a novel about college students in Madison, WI. Since I spent a large slice of my college career there, all the locales mentioned in this book are easily remembered. When the characters go to the SERF, I remember myself going to the SERF.

However, you don't need to know Madison to enjoy this book. The concept alone is enough to merit a read: ordinary people wake up one morning transformed into beings with superpowers. You won't find a cliche supervillain subplot here--mostly this is about what would happen if an ordinary person suddenly had extraordinary powers.

The five powers themselves make for a great conversation piece: which of the five would you choose if you could pick one of them for yourself.

1. Speed. The ability to run 20 miles in a couple minutes. When you run, objects in the world seem to be standing still, so dodging bullets isn't out of the question. Running to a nearby state is not a problem.

2. Flight. No wings necessary. The ability to soar through the sky.

3. Invisibility. Can be turned on and off at will.

4. Super strength and near invulnerability. Think of the powers of the Thing, except you still look normal.

5. Telepathy. Not just able to read the minds of those nearby, but also the ability to scan an internet-like web of thoughts.

Which would you choose?

Schwartz does a good job on this novel. It doesn't surprise me that he has a large selections of comic and science fiction/fantasy reviews that he has documented from a former blog and also a current blog. If you enjoy reading reviews, give them a try.

When Zombies Walk the Earth

Found this anthology of zombie fiction in Borders last week. Started reading "Meathouse Man" by George R. R. Martin and found it to be quite good, in a very disturbing way. I put the book back and went on my way.

Then I read the two latest issues of The Walking Dead and realized that zombies have been quite prominent in my film, fiction, and music choices lately.

What makes this such a successful subgenre? I don't know. Maybe it's got something to do with zombies traditionally being dumb and slow. I know there have been variations on this, but I still prefer the mindless wandering version over all the rest.

I think these stories work because the rules are so simple. Add on the fact that most of these take place in a post-apocalypse setting and you know have two for the price of one in horror and science fiction subgenres. Maybe it works best on people who like rainy days. Zombie stories make us thankful for what we have.

I went back to Borders yesterday and bought the anthology. The cover alone was worth the price.

Eraserhead

Want to hear a funny one? For years I avoided watching David Lynch's Eraserhead because I thought it would be too ... normal.

Let me explain. I really started to notice Lynch back in the early 90s, when I was watching Twin Peaks and thinking it was the best thing on TV since St. Elsewhere. Since then there have been the great movies like Blue Velvet and Mullholland Drive. I even went to see Fire Walk With Me the day it debuted.

So, why did I avoid Eraserhead? Two reasons. First of all, I'm not that into black and white movies, although that's a very minor reason. The main reason was that I thought it would just be a simple drama. I had watched The Elephant Man and assumed that Lynch was just getting stranger as time went by.

Boy was I wrong.

Last night when I watched Eraserhead for the first time, it felt like it could have been filmed yesterday. In fact, it almost makes more sense to watch it now, I would think, than to have seen it back in 1977. Now, when we see the small woman performing on the stage insided Henry's radiator, it almost seems natural. The ligthing effects were almost exactly the same as the scene in the Roadhouse on Twin Peaks when Cooper sees the Giant.

By now I "get it" when I watch a Lynch movie. Things make sense because they're consistent throughout his entire career. What used to elicit a response of WTF!? now seems ... normal.

What a great movie.

The ER at 3 am.

Note: After several years of attacks, I finally had my gall stones diagnosed and removed. Went to the ER this last Friday night (Saturday morning) at 2:30--in agony. They removed my gall bladder later that morning and I'm now recovering. I have only praise for the professionalism and level of care that I received. Modern medicine is spectacular. Laparoscopy sure beat the old days, when they used to split you open like a baked potato....

I had great plans to write all about my recent gall bladder removal surgery. I wanted to write all about the great staff that treated me, how interesting the ER can be at 3 am, and other details that would have been a nice exercise in descriptive prose.

Instead, I'm bummed out and feeling like crap. I'm taking the week off from school and normally that would appear to be a great opportunity to get caught up on some planning and programming. Nope. I've been pretty ineffective so far, struggling just to write one test for my AP Computer Science class.

I thought keeping up with my classes would be easier, seeing as I can do a lot of the planning online from home. What I underestimated, however, was how fatigued I'd be mentally. What a bummer, dude. :-(

Hopefully in a couple days or so I'll be writing about all the work I'm getting done.

Postscript: Back to the title of this post. There seemed to be two types of ER patients at 3 am. There were those like me that were there because of something out of our control. Then there was the usual assortment of those that made poor choices and got themselves to the ER for one reason or another: drugs, drunk, in a fight...etc.

Freddie and Me

I'm a sucker for graphic novels.

Something about the immense amount of work that goes into making them means I just can not resist them. My favorite graphic novels are those that are blatantly honest and biographical in nature.

Freddie and Me is a prime example. Mike Dawson tells his life story through a filtered lens that sees the world in terms of the rock group Queen. Childhood memories are told in reference to Queen. Some memories are even rewritten with Queen in them. Everywhere throughout this book you can see the influence of Queen on an impressionable fan.

And yet, I recommend this book to people who couldn't care less about Queen. Really. Read this to laugh and enjoy Mike's funny childhood. Mike moves from England to the U.S. and experiences some culture shock. He finds friends where he can and never loses his overtly optimistic view of life. This book made me feel good. Mike is just darn likable.

On the other hand, if you are a Queen fan, this book can only make you nod your head as you read it. You know how it feels to think Queen is THE GREATEST BAND IN THE WORLD (or at least in the top ten).

The Ruins by Scott Smith

I really wanted to LOVE this book. I wanted to be totally engrossed in a fast-moving story of terror and dread in rural Mexico. This one had all the makings of a great read. Five twenty-somethings decide to take a detour in their Mexican vacation and wind up outside a creepy Mayan village, on some old mining site that seems to be hiding more than a few secrets.

Smith writes in a very straightforward style, although his paragraphs are a bit long and dialog just gets thrown into them. There are no chapters in this book, it just rolls along from start to finish. You get the feeling that you should just read the whole thing at once, and, more or less, I did.

What I like about this book is that it keeps moving forward. Although there are a few flashbacks, you really feel like you're reading the book in real-time. It reminded me of Stephen King's excellent short story The Raft. It had that oh-crap-we're-in-over-our-heads sense of dread that just built itself up steadily. The characters make some dangerous choices in the book, but none that seem all that dangerous at the time. Each next step seems...well, justified. Before too long, though, you know they are in a lot of danger.

To be honest, this will be the type of book that I'll grow to like more after reading it, as time goes on. You have to appreciate a modern suspense/horror novel that is not too cleverly plotted. If there's one thing that can quickly get me out of an interesting story, it's feeling that I'm being manipulated by a writer that feels the need to have a whole lotta plot twists. Smith doesn't do that, thankfully. This book is not predictable, the characters are interesting, and he doesn't blow the ending. The best part of the book, however, is the setting. That little hill back in Mayan country is pretty memorable.

I'll watch the movie, I guess, although I have my doubts that they're gonna get it right: for one thing, the hill looks too dry--where's all the vegetation?

I'm going to hide my main complaint in the comments, as it contains some spoilers and you may want to read this one.

Final grade: B- (but rising).

Book Versions vs. Movie Versions

Reading is such an incredible thing.

Although reading may seem quite basic, the fact is that reading a good story is a much deeper experience than any high def TV and 5.1 surround sound can deliver.

How else can you explain why there are so few movies that turn out to be as good as or better than the prose version?

I believe there are examples where the movie turned out to be better than the book--I just can't remember any of them right now. However, it's all to easy to recall a great piece of prose turning into a pile of crap on the big screen.

Take The Mist, for example. That was one of Stephen King's best novellas. The entire experience of reading it was like watching a mind movie that featured almost total immersion. Then I rent the movie, turn out the lights, and make a serious attempt to enjoy it.

Right away things start going wrong. The characters don't react like real characters, something I don't recall from the book. No, there's something wrong with the logic of their interactions early on in this one. Here's a couple examples:

1. When the mist first arrives, a guy with a bloody nose runs into the supermarket and says terrible stuff's going on. Just from that, and apparently the mist itself, all the people in the supermarket are convinced they can not leave the store. WTF? At least tiptoe out a few feet into the mist, ready to rush back into the store if necessary. Don't just accept the fact that you're stuck inside, no matter what bloody nose guy says.

2. When Ben and a few of the locals try to convince Brent that there really are large creatures out in the fog, the resulting argument is--somehow completely wrong. Brent becomes paranoid and they keep trying to convince him, when they could just go back into the back room, grab a shovel, and bring out the friggin' tentacle appendage that they chopped off the monster. This is the equivalent of keeping the blinds closed and trying to convince your lover that it's stopped raining outside. Try opening the blinds and showing him/her!

Oh well. Some people prefer movies and never even read a book. Can't imagine living that way. The monsters in King's novella were much more convincing than the computer-generated denzians that were in the movie....

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Exorcism of Emily Rose was one of those pleasant surprises. You know, you rent a movie and you think, "well, this will probably suck, but I'll give it a chance...."

It's increasingly difficult to know ahead of time what to expect from a modern horror movie. You can't go by the "critical acclaim" quotes on the DVD package.

Probably one of the best places to look is Rotten Tomatoes, but even then you may find a movie you really like that most critics panned--like this one, which only has a 44% rating.

Anyway, this is a good movie. Surprisingly good and very creepy. Don't watch it with a bunch of your friends on a sunny afternoon. Watch it in the dark and turn off the phone and the lights.

Who would play them in a movie?

I've spent the last few days with my face buried in Joe R. Lansdale's Mucho Mojo book.

My wife always gives me a suspicious look when I use hyperbole and say something like, "now this is the best book I've read in five damn years!" Still, this time I mean it. This is one book that I will actually recommend to others to read, and that says a lot. You see, I'm a relatively slow reader. Always have been. Hell, I'm a prolific reader--just slow, like a big farm tractor pullin' a hay wagon down the highway and pissin' everyone off. So I don't really enjoy it much when someone tells me I "just have to read" a certain book. I think, well, if I have to read it that will keep me busy for a week or so. So I try not to tell people that they "have to" read anything.

But you have to read this book! It's that good.

Let's look at what makes this such a great book--and I'll do this without any real spoilers.

Setting. A poor black neighborhood in an East Texas town, with a crack house next door that seems to have evolved its own ecosystem.

Characters. Hap Collins, a crusty old Vietnam war protester and his sarcastic friend, Leonard Pine. These guys are classic. I read this book not knowing there are already five more "Hap and Leonard" books. I can see why. These characters are just too good to not use again and again.

Early in the book they attend a funeral. Having no good suits to wear, they go shopping at JC Penny. They get all dressed up and then ride in Leonard's big car, without air conditioning, through the humidity of East Texas. By the time they arrive they're all greasy and sweaty and cussing at each other about their lack of fashion sense. Really funny stuff.

Plot. This book would still be a classic on setting and character alone, but the plot is wonderfully suspensefull and also disturbing: someone is murdering children in this small town, wrapping them up in porno magazines and burrying them. Terrible. Sick. Nothing new here, as there are just too many disturbing thrillers out there, but this one beautifully walks that thin line that many novels must walk: only in the midst of true suffering can we appreciate true love and true friendship.

What a book.

[The title for this post comes from a comment by my wife. I was telling her some of the funny parts and reading a few quotes to her by Hap and Leonard. She asked me, "so who would you get to play them in a movie?" I won't answer that--as it would influence how you read the book--but it's a good question.]

So much to read....

Blame my parents--both of them. My father is a retired English teacher who always took me to the library when I was a kid. My mother is a prolific reader who is always reading a book--always.

I learned to read before anyone else in my first grade class--thanks to Mom. I remember feeling like I was the king of the world when I was exempted out of the Dick and Jane books and got to go independently read dinosaur books! Dad gave me the best gift ever: a light on the headboard of my bed. Ever since, I've read in bed every night.

Anyway, it was with my mom in mind that I decided to read the first of the Kay Scarpetta novels by Patricia Cornwell: Postmortem. Yep, it's pretty darn good. Reminds me of the time I read Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and thought it was the greatest thing ever.

So good that it got me to thinking of all these great suspense/thriller series that I haven't read. Damn, there's just so much to read!

So I've been doing some research and have come up with 11 series that I think I'll read. Of course this will take a long time, as most of these series have more than 15 novels in them. Some of these I've already had a taste of, as I've read a few of these novels here and there without realizing they were part of a larger series of books. Anyway, the choices are overwhelming, but I think I'm going to work on these:

1. The Spenser novels by Robert B. Parker
2. The Alex Delaware novels by Jonathan Kellerman
3. The Kay Scarpetta series by Patricia Cornwell
4. The Jack Stapleton books by Robin Cook
5. The Prey series by John Sandford
6. The Myron Bolitar series by Harlan Coben
7. The Quincy/Rainie books by Lisa Gardner
8. The Women's Murder Club series from James Patterson
9. The Sunny Randall Novels by Robert B. Parker
10. The Jesse Stone books by Robert B. Parker
11. The Eve Duncan Series by Iris Johansen

Yes, that will keep me busy for a while. Especially since I have two other books currently waiting on my "read next" shelf:

Mucho Mojo by Joe R. Lansdale
Lifelines by CJ Lyons

Sheesh....