Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 112
May 31, 2019
For Love of Distant Shores, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Tales of the Apt # 3)
A kind of fix-up novel in the Apt world about a Beetle professor/explorer and his Fly assistant Fosse, written by the latter. It’s in the style of old-school pulp adventures and consists of their explorations in corners of the Apt world that we either never saw in the novels or saw only glancingly. The conceit is that Fosse is writing these as essentially serials, and occasionally mentions the reception of previous installments. She’s a really fun narrator, adventurous, put-upon, and with an eye for handsome men.
Rather hilariously, the stories take place before, during, and after the events of Shadows of the Apt, and extremely important events in that become mere backdrop for these stories. At one point a gigantic battle going on in a city, which is the subject for an entire novel in Shadows, just means that to Fosse’s annoyance, her planned vacation there gets canceled in favor of an expedition into nearby forests where there won’t be any fighting going on.
The worldbuilding and the kinden was one of my very favorite aspects of Shadows, and this book is almost 100% about that, plus fun characters having adventures. One story, “Spires of the Builders,” contains a kinden and Art that is hands-down the most horrifying and nightmarish thing in the entire series, so thanks I GUESS for putting that in my head. I can’t quite regret reading it because it’s so damn clever, even though it will probably haunt me forever.
There are two previous volumes of stories which are more scattershot, tales of various kinden without a narrative throughline or recurring characters. The first one, Spoils of War, was pretty gloomy so I skipped ahead. You don’t have to read these books in order.
Spoilers! ( Read more... )
For Love of Distant Shores (Tales of the Apt Book 3)[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
Rather hilariously, the stories take place before, during, and after the events of Shadows of the Apt, and extremely important events in that become mere backdrop for these stories. At one point a gigantic battle going on in a city, which is the subject for an entire novel in Shadows, just means that to Fosse’s annoyance, her planned vacation there gets canceled in favor of an expedition into nearby forests where there won’t be any fighting going on.
The worldbuilding and the kinden was one of my very favorite aspects of Shadows, and this book is almost 100% about that, plus fun characters having adventures. One story, “Spires of the Builders,” contains a kinden and Art that is hands-down the most horrifying and nightmarish thing in the entire series, so thanks I GUESS for putting that in my head. I can’t quite regret reading it because it’s so damn clever, even though it will probably haunt me forever.
There are two previous volumes of stories which are more scattershot, tales of various kinden without a narrative throughline or recurring characters. The first one, Spoils of War, was pretty gloomy so I skipped ahead. You don’t have to read these books in order.
Spoilers! ( Read more... )
For Love of Distant Shores (Tales of the Apt Book 3)[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
May 30, 2019
Thursday Rec Day: Jukebox Stories
Jukebox is an exchange for writing stories based on or inspired by songs, so it's halfway between fanfic and original fiction.
Here's the archive.
Here's a table with links to all the songs.
Light the Sky (Art). Sunny Came Home - Shawn Colvin
Five Things Me and Julio Did Down by the Schoolyard - Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard - Paul Simon. Really sweet, fun story.
I maintain that we did nothing wrong. We were perfectly normal kids doing normal kid shit down by the schoolyard.
And a set of lovely, folkloric post-apocalypse stories. They're all the mythic/archetypal type of post-apocalypse, not the miserable cannibal type. The first two are very hopeful, the second two aren't unhopeful, but the tone is more haunting.
A Beginning Song. Sons & Daughters - The Decemberists
For the tide always turns, and the day always dawns. That is how the world works.
a thousand miles just to slip this skin. Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen
Jude believes that there is nothing in the wasteland, but a chance encounter with a stranger might just prove him wrong.
The Chance. Easy Way Out - Low Roar
We could have saved the world, but I stepped away.
If You Can Hear. Drowning in the Sound - Amanda Palmer
In the beginning was the Sound.
comments
Here's the archive.
Here's a table with links to all the songs.
Light the Sky (Art). Sunny Came Home - Shawn Colvin
Five Things Me and Julio Did Down by the Schoolyard - Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard - Paul Simon. Really sweet, fun story.
I maintain that we did nothing wrong. We were perfectly normal kids doing normal kid shit down by the schoolyard.
And a set of lovely, folkloric post-apocalypse stories. They're all the mythic/archetypal type of post-apocalypse, not the miserable cannibal type. The first two are very hopeful, the second two aren't unhopeful, but the tone is more haunting.
A Beginning Song. Sons & Daughters - The Decemberists
For the tide always turns, and the day always dawns. That is how the world works.
a thousand miles just to slip this skin. Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen
Jude believes that there is nothing in the wasteland, but a chance encounter with a stranger might just prove him wrong.
The Chance. Easy Way Out - Low Roar
We could have saved the world, but I stepped away.
If You Can Hear. Drowning in the Sound - Amanda Palmer
In the beginning was the Sound.
comments
The Haunting of Cassie Palmer, by Vivien Alcock
Cassie is the seventh child of a seventh child. Her mother, a medium, is convinced that Cassie will have great gifts and follow in her footsteps. Cassie, who is afraid of ghosts, is really hoping she has none.
On her thirteenth birthday, goaded by her sister and brother, she goes to the graveyard and tries to conjure the most harmless spirit she can imagine. That spirit is a no-show. A much more ominous ghost, Deverill, shows up instead. He doesn’t follow the ghost rulebook, and he’s dead-set on getting something from Cassie, but it’s not at all clear what…
This book has zero gore and intended for kids, but parts are genuinely scary. Like Alcock’s The Mysterious Mr. Ross, it concerns a girl on the brink of adolescence and a sinister but ambiguous male. Cassie’s family is a big part of the story, and in a much more interesting way than children’s fantasy often utilizes parents, as people to be evaded. Cassie’s relationship with her mother is central, and the ambiguity in her mother’s character (real medium, fake medium, or a little of both? Bad mother, good but stressed mother, or a little of both?) echoes the ambiguity of Deverill and Cassie’s relationship with him.
An excellent book with tons of atmosphere, excellent characterization, and a well-crafted plot.
Haunting of Cassie Palmer Pa[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
On her thirteenth birthday, goaded by her sister and brother, she goes to the graveyard and tries to conjure the most harmless spirit she can imagine. That spirit is a no-show. A much more ominous ghost, Deverill, shows up instead. He doesn’t follow the ghost rulebook, and he’s dead-set on getting something from Cassie, but it’s not at all clear what…
This book has zero gore and intended for kids, but parts are genuinely scary. Like Alcock’s The Mysterious Mr. Ross, it concerns a girl on the brink of adolescence and a sinister but ambiguous male. Cassie’s family is a big part of the story, and in a much more interesting way than children’s fantasy often utilizes parents, as people to be evaded. Cassie’s relationship with her mother is central, and the ambiguity in her mother’s character (real medium, fake medium, or a little of both? Bad mother, good but stressed mother, or a little of both?) echoes the ambiguity of Deverill and Cassie’s relationship with him.
An excellent book with tons of atmosphere, excellent characterization, and a well-crafted plot.
Haunting of Cassie Palmer Pa[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
May 29, 2019
Hopepunk?
I pulled this comment of mine from a locked entry on my f-list on "hopepunk," which linked to some articles on it. After reading the articles, I wrote:
Apart from the impossible-to-pronounce name, hopepunk is a weird movement because it seems so utterly undefined as anything but "not grimdark," which is also a useless term as nobody agrees on what that even is either. One of the articles says The Handmaid's Tale (novel) is hopepunk because Offred is resisting inside her mind, but lots of others would say the book defines grimdark.
You can't have a movement without a set of media that everyone agrees exemplify it, but there doesn't seem to be a single example of something everyone can point at and say "it's hopepunk." If you take steampunk, there's tons of things that everyone can point at and say, "Those are steampunk." I think "punk" should be limited to things with a clear aesthetic that includes visuals - which was also the case for originalpunk.
The most interesting possible definition of hopepunk, IMO, would be this:
- Stories involve communities rather than lone individuals.
- Great change requires communal effort.
- Communities are not inherently bad, though some may be.
- People are not inherently selfish and cruel, though some may be.
- Compassion, kindness, and idealism is more likely to lead to good rather than bad consequences.
- Protecting only yourself or only your own loved ones at the expense of the Other or strangers is wrong.
- Meeting strangers is more likely to lead to interesting conversations, trade, or relationships than fights to the death.
- Even if the society contains prejudice, from the point of view of the story, all people are equal. Even if a story takes place in a racist and sexist society, the story itself will not marginalize those characters.
- Non-racist, non-sexist, non-homophobic (etc) societies are common in these stories.
- The visual aesthetic is pretty/beautiful/intricate/fun, with multiple cultures represented. There is an effort to make even ordinary items fun to use and pleasant to look at. Clothing is colorful and individual. The aesthetic is that things are both for use and for pleasure, showing that life is not only for survival.
Black Panther would be a good example of this, I think. Everything ever written by Diane Duane and Sherwood Smith.
comments
Apart from the impossible-to-pronounce name, hopepunk is a weird movement because it seems so utterly undefined as anything but "not grimdark," which is also a useless term as nobody agrees on what that even is either. One of the articles says The Handmaid's Tale (novel) is hopepunk because Offred is resisting inside her mind, but lots of others would say the book defines grimdark.
You can't have a movement without a set of media that everyone agrees exemplify it, but there doesn't seem to be a single example of something everyone can point at and say "it's hopepunk." If you take steampunk, there's tons of things that everyone can point at and say, "Those are steampunk." I think "punk" should be limited to things with a clear aesthetic that includes visuals - which was also the case for originalpunk.
The most interesting possible definition of hopepunk, IMO, would be this:
- Stories involve communities rather than lone individuals.
- Great change requires communal effort.
- Communities are not inherently bad, though some may be.
- People are not inherently selfish and cruel, though some may be.
- Compassion, kindness, and idealism is more likely to lead to good rather than bad consequences.
- Protecting only yourself or only your own loved ones at the expense of the Other or strangers is wrong.
- Meeting strangers is more likely to lead to interesting conversations, trade, or relationships than fights to the death.
- Even if the society contains prejudice, from the point of view of the story, all people are equal. Even if a story takes place in a racist and sexist society, the story itself will not marginalize those characters.
- Non-racist, non-sexist, non-homophobic (etc) societies are common in these stories.
- The visual aesthetic is pretty/beautiful/intricate/fun, with multiple cultures represented. There is an effort to make even ordinary items fun to use and pleasant to look at. Clothing is colorful and individual. The aesthetic is that things are both for use and for pleasure, showing that life is not only for survival.
Black Panther would be a good example of this, I think. Everything ever written by Diane Duane and Sherwood Smith.
comments
Dead Water (Benjamin January # 9), by Barbara Hambly
The owner of the bank that Ben and Rose put all their money into approaches them in secret to inform them that a bank employee has made off with so much of its money that the bank will go under if it's not retrieved and/or anyone finds out. He knows where the employee is, but not where the money is. And so Ben and Rose, posing as slaves owned by Hannibal, get on a riverboat headed into slave territory to find the money.
This becomes a classic mystery, with plenty of clues, murders, suspects, and misdirections. It's got tons of great character interactions, a very clever and solid plot, good supporting characters, and is absolute gold for Hannibal fans. In fact this is the book that tipped me into becoming much more of one than I already was, and I already liked him a lot.
It also has one of my favorite trademarks of the series, which is the sudden plunge from a comparatively low-key pace into wildly tropey action in which an incredible number of wacky things happen in extremely fast succession. They're all meticulously set up and logical things, which makes it even more amazing and hilarious.
Here are my very spoilery emails to Layla once I hit that part, with timestamps so you can get a sense of how fast everything starts happening.: ( Read more... )
Grimness quotient: Low. Taking the time period into account, it's surprisingly upbeat.
Only $4.49 on Kindle: Dead Water (A Benjamin January Mystery Book 8)[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
This becomes a classic mystery, with plenty of clues, murders, suspects, and misdirections. It's got tons of great character interactions, a very clever and solid plot, good supporting characters, and is absolute gold for Hannibal fans. In fact this is the book that tipped me into becoming much more of one than I already was, and I already liked him a lot.
It also has one of my favorite trademarks of the series, which is the sudden plunge from a comparatively low-key pace into wildly tropey action in which an incredible number of wacky things happen in extremely fast succession. They're all meticulously set up and logical things, which makes it even more amazing and hilarious.
Here are my very spoilery emails to Layla once I hit that part, with timestamps so you can get a sense of how fast everything starts happening.: ( Read more... )
Grimness quotient: Low. Taking the time period into account, it's surprisingly upbeat.
Only $4.49 on Kindle: Dead Water (A Benjamin January Mystery Book 8)[image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
May 28, 2019
Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
A book about intelligent spiders by Adrian Tchaikovsky… oh wait, all his books are about intelligent spiders. You have to admire a person who has a niche enthusiasm and really goes for it. I applaud his commitment to all things entomological and arachnid, and if he ever visits Mariposa he can sleep in the Spiderhouse.
If you do not want to read about spiders, skip this entire post.
This book is fantastic. I am arachnophobic and I loved it anyway, though admittedly my issue with spiders is how they look, not reading about them. (In fact, the parts of the book I found squicky and horrifying and phobic-triggering all involved ants, not spiders.) I can’t believe how attached I got to the valiant spiders and their civilization, and how much I was rooting for them to succeed.
[OH SHIT as I am typing I noticed my cats staring at something and there is a GIANT FUCKING BLACK SPIDER ON THE OUTSIDE SCREEN OF MY DOOR!!!! IT’S GOT A BIG FAT BODY AND THICK LEGS AND IT’S FUCKING HUGE!!!! I am not making this up. Um, so I guess this book did not cure my arachnophobia. Luckily someone came to the door and the spider scuttled away. Welp. Guess I won’t be using the back door any time soon.]
So, back to Children of Time. It’s old-school, big-picture, sweep of history, cool ideas, sense of wonder anthropological science fiction – something I haven’t enjoyed in ages. It reminded me of how much I used to like it.
The premise is that Earth has been largely trashed by wars and environmental damage, and there is currently a war between the humans who are trying to terraform other planets, and humans who are trying to stop this from happening. One woman is doing an experiment in which she plans to seed a terraformed planet with monkeys and
[AAAAAH I JUST NOW REALIZED THAT THE GIGANTIC SPIDER IS INSIDE THE DOOR, BETWEEN THE GLASS AND THE SCREEN AND THERE IS A BIG CHUNK OF GLASS MISSING ON THE INSIDE OF THE DOOR SO IT CAN GET TO ME. I just ran and grabbed tape and taped the inside of the door so it can’t get in. Hopefully there is a way out that it can use to get out the same way it got in. And thanks to decluttering, I knew instantly where my tape was. Marie Kondo just saved me from the spider.]
Um, so, this scientist, Dr. Kern, intends to seed a planet which has already been terraformed with Earth plants, bugs, and some small mammals like mice with a literal barrel of monkeys and a nanovirus which will enable them to evolve extremely fast, so what would normally take millennia will occur over a few thousand years. Her intent is to create a monkey civilization that will be intelligent but not as much as humans and can be used as servants. But things go drastically wrong, the entire Earth civilization blows up, and the monkeys never make it to the planet. But the nanovirus does. And it turns out to be quite compatible with spiders…
Meanwhile, a motley handful of human refugees flees the now-destroyed Earth in a generation ship. They have cryogenic sleep, so the story of the same few humans continues on their ship over a period of thousands of years, as they wake up for a few days or months or years at a time. At the same time, the spiders are evolving. We follow generation after generation of spiders as they fight wars and plagues, develop new technologies, and try to communicate with the mysterious thing in the sky—the AI that’s all that remains of Dr. Kern—that keeps sending them messages…
I don’t want to say too much about the spider civilization is because it’s so much fun to discover it on your own, but as a lure, I just want to mention that they figure out how to make colonies of nonsentient ants work as living computers. But seriously, the spider technology and culture is SO FUCKING COOL.
It took me longer to warm up to the human characters, and I was almost always more into the spiders’ story. But I did end up enjoying the humans’ story too. But the spiders? I LOVED the spiders. And not just as a civilization, but as individual, complex characters.
The nanovirus also uplifted some crustaceans, and in the midst of all the spider and human drama, every now and then we get an update about how the crustacean civilization is living out its own grand epic underwater and 99.9% off-page. It was delightful and slightly hilarious.
Spoilers: ( Read more... )
[Okay, my door spider is now out of the door and has been swept off the balcony. Pretty sure it’s fine and will live out its spidery life, hopefully very far away from me.]
More book spoilers. ( Read more... )
Only $2.99 on Kindle! Children of Time[image error]
The cover is both correct and not really representative of the experience of reading the book. However, an accurate cover would probably make at least a quarter of the intended audience flee screaming, so there's that.
[image error] [image error]
comments
If you do not want to read about spiders, skip this entire post.
This book is fantastic. I am arachnophobic and I loved it anyway, though admittedly my issue with spiders is how they look, not reading about them. (In fact, the parts of the book I found squicky and horrifying and phobic-triggering all involved ants, not spiders.) I can’t believe how attached I got to the valiant spiders and their civilization, and how much I was rooting for them to succeed.
[OH SHIT as I am typing I noticed my cats staring at something and there is a GIANT FUCKING BLACK SPIDER ON THE OUTSIDE SCREEN OF MY DOOR!!!! IT’S GOT A BIG FAT BODY AND THICK LEGS AND IT’S FUCKING HUGE!!!! I am not making this up. Um, so I guess this book did not cure my arachnophobia. Luckily someone came to the door and the spider scuttled away. Welp. Guess I won’t be using the back door any time soon.]
So, back to Children of Time. It’s old-school, big-picture, sweep of history, cool ideas, sense of wonder anthropological science fiction – something I haven’t enjoyed in ages. It reminded me of how much I used to like it.
The premise is that Earth has been largely trashed by wars and environmental damage, and there is currently a war between the humans who are trying to terraform other planets, and humans who are trying to stop this from happening. One woman is doing an experiment in which she plans to seed a terraformed planet with monkeys and
[AAAAAH I JUST NOW REALIZED THAT THE GIGANTIC SPIDER IS INSIDE THE DOOR, BETWEEN THE GLASS AND THE SCREEN AND THERE IS A BIG CHUNK OF GLASS MISSING ON THE INSIDE OF THE DOOR SO IT CAN GET TO ME. I just ran and grabbed tape and taped the inside of the door so it can’t get in. Hopefully there is a way out that it can use to get out the same way it got in. And thanks to decluttering, I knew instantly where my tape was. Marie Kondo just saved me from the spider.]
Um, so, this scientist, Dr. Kern, intends to seed a planet which has already been terraformed with Earth plants, bugs, and some small mammals like mice with a literal barrel of monkeys and a nanovirus which will enable them to evolve extremely fast, so what would normally take millennia will occur over a few thousand years. Her intent is to create a monkey civilization that will be intelligent but not as much as humans and can be used as servants. But things go drastically wrong, the entire Earth civilization blows up, and the monkeys never make it to the planet. But the nanovirus does. And it turns out to be quite compatible with spiders…
Meanwhile, a motley handful of human refugees flees the now-destroyed Earth in a generation ship. They have cryogenic sleep, so the story of the same few humans continues on their ship over a period of thousands of years, as they wake up for a few days or months or years at a time. At the same time, the spiders are evolving. We follow generation after generation of spiders as they fight wars and plagues, develop new technologies, and try to communicate with the mysterious thing in the sky—the AI that’s all that remains of Dr. Kern—that keeps sending them messages…
I don’t want to say too much about the spider civilization is because it’s so much fun to discover it on your own, but as a lure, I just want to mention that they figure out how to make colonies of nonsentient ants work as living computers. But seriously, the spider technology and culture is SO FUCKING COOL.
It took me longer to warm up to the human characters, and I was almost always more into the spiders’ story. But I did end up enjoying the humans’ story too. But the spiders? I LOVED the spiders. And not just as a civilization, but as individual, complex characters.
The nanovirus also uplifted some crustaceans, and in the midst of all the spider and human drama, every now and then we get an update about how the crustacean civilization is living out its own grand epic underwater and 99.9% off-page. It was delightful and slightly hilarious.
Spoilers: ( Read more... )
[Okay, my door spider is now out of the door and has been swept off the balcony. Pretty sure it’s fine and will live out its spidery life, hopefully very far away from me.]
More book spoilers. ( Read more... )
Only $2.99 on Kindle! Children of Time[image error]
The cover is both correct and not really representative of the experience of reading the book. However, an accurate cover would probably make at least a quarter of the intended audience flee screaming, so there's that.
[image error] [image error]
comments
May 27, 2019
Google Photos technical help
1. Google photos stopped updating new photos. When I looked up what to do about this, it says to go to Google photos, select settings, and then select sync. The only "sync" under settings is "sync with google drive." Is that what I'm supposed to select? I was expecting a "sync with phone/devices" option.
2. All my photos from 2015 - mid 2017 are duplicated on Google photos. Is it safe to delete the duplicates, or will that also delete the originals on my phone when I sync the devices? They're not duplicated on my phone.
comments
2. All my photos from 2015 - mid 2017 are duplicated on Google photos. Is it safe to delete the duplicates, or will that also delete the originals on my phone when I sync the devices? They're not duplicated on my phone.
comments
My Hurt-Comfort Exchange Stories
I hope everyone who participated had as much fun with H/C Exchange as I did. I wrote two stories for it, my assignment and a pinch hit. I wish I'd had time to write all the treats I contemplated; maybe next year...
bear me my brother under your wing - Umbrella Academy (TV). When Klaus is badly hurt in a drug deal gone wrong, Ben has to get him safely home. That's tough when you're intangible.
Heal Thyself - Dragonriders of Pern. Sebell and Oldive are forced to admit their feelings when Oldive is injured in a shipwreck.
comments
bear me my brother under your wing - Umbrella Academy (TV). When Klaus is badly hurt in a drug deal gone wrong, Ben has to get him safely home. That's tough when you're intangible.
Heal Thyself - Dragonriders of Pern. Sebell and Oldive are forced to admit their feelings when Oldive is injured in a shipwreck.
comments
May 25, 2019
The Poseidon Adventure (1972 Movie)
This movie came out the year I was born, but I didn’t see it until yesterday. It’s one of the big disaster movies which were popular in the 70s, and I’m now realizing that I don’t think I’ve seen any of the others either, though I did see the Airplane! parodies. Now I'm tempted to look some of them up. The Towering Inferno was the other really big one, right? It's about a flaming skyscraper?
I said all I wanted from the movie was Belle Rosen being awesome and lots of upside down-ness. It really delivered on Belle Rosen, but only somewhat delivered on the upside down aspects.
There was plenty of suspenseful, harrowing travel through difficult areas, but it didn’t hit on the upside down aspect as much as I’d hoped. I did really enjoy the flipping over sequence, and the bit afterward where Susan is trapped on an upside down table bolted to the ceiling. But I was really looking forward to seeing the grand sweeping staircase Gallico describes being upside down, but it’s not in the movie at all. I also was hoping we’d get a really good sense of what areas looked like right side up before we saw them upside down, but, again, the spatial elements were a bit lacking.
Some of the really spectacular action set-pieces in the book were very toned-down for the movie, in particular the staircase-climbing sequences and one where they climb a sort of tower of engine parts, girders, etc. I’m not sure if this was because they would have been practically difficult, too expensive, or just seemed too out-there.
Belle Rosen was great. Shelley Winters played her as a type of Jewish grandma we all know – sweet, funny, a bit up in your business — who at first seems like the comic relief, but turns out to be heroic and saves the day. That was very satisfying. Her dialogue was also 100% better.
I enjoyed the movie a lot. It’s definitely of its time, but I like accidental period pieces. I could have done with less bombastic yelling, especially when the two biggest bombastic yelling culprits, sexy young Gene Hackman (the Reverend and leader) and Ernest Borgnine (the argumentative cop) bombastically yell at each other. But the story was engaging and a lot of the action sequences were really tense.
The movie was more humane than the book, with far more likable characters. The book has two cheating husbands, a rape, domestic violence, the Reverend lying to a woman that he was going to marry her to get up her skirt, and a woman who’s madly in love with an alcoholic guy who leads her on when the only thing he enjoys about her is that she can hold a lot of booze. None of this is in the movie. While the cop’s wife is still a former prostitute, we know this from the get-go rather than it being a shock twist at the end. She’s also pretty likable in a brassy/bitchy way, rather than a vicious, racist, anti-Semitic harridan who’s mean to everyone. In the movie, her husband loves her and supports her. In the book, he beats her up. I see all these movie changes as huge improvements.
There was also a bit which was very sensibly cut from the book, which was that in the book pretty much everyone on the ship believes that the intense asshole cop must have gone on the cruise in order to investigate someone onboard, because it's totally impossible for a cop to go on vacation or have a personal life.
In the movie, nobody has sex while climbing for their lives against a ticking clock. In the book, this happens three times if you count the rape. This means that the movie did not have the extraordinary scene in which two characters foraging for food discover a gigantic pile of pastries and packaged cookies, push enough of them aside to make a space where they can lie down, and pluck pastries from the teetering mounds surrounding them before having sex there. I kind of wish that had been immortalized in Technicolor because it would have been a contender for the campiest scene ever filmed.
There were some other interesting differences which I’ll cut as they’re very spoilery for both movie and book, in case anyone has not yet been spoiled/still cares.
( Read more... )
The Poseidon Adventure[image error] on instant video.
[image error] [image error]
comments
I said all I wanted from the movie was Belle Rosen being awesome and lots of upside down-ness. It really delivered on Belle Rosen, but only somewhat delivered on the upside down aspects.
There was plenty of suspenseful, harrowing travel through difficult areas, but it didn’t hit on the upside down aspect as much as I’d hoped. I did really enjoy the flipping over sequence, and the bit afterward where Susan is trapped on an upside down table bolted to the ceiling. But I was really looking forward to seeing the grand sweeping staircase Gallico describes being upside down, but it’s not in the movie at all. I also was hoping we’d get a really good sense of what areas looked like right side up before we saw them upside down, but, again, the spatial elements were a bit lacking.
Some of the really spectacular action set-pieces in the book were very toned-down for the movie, in particular the staircase-climbing sequences and one where they climb a sort of tower of engine parts, girders, etc. I’m not sure if this was because they would have been practically difficult, too expensive, or just seemed too out-there.
Belle Rosen was great. Shelley Winters played her as a type of Jewish grandma we all know – sweet, funny, a bit up in your business — who at first seems like the comic relief, but turns out to be heroic and saves the day. That was very satisfying. Her dialogue was also 100% better.
I enjoyed the movie a lot. It’s definitely of its time, but I like accidental period pieces. I could have done with less bombastic yelling, especially when the two biggest bombastic yelling culprits, sexy young Gene Hackman (the Reverend and leader) and Ernest Borgnine (the argumentative cop) bombastically yell at each other. But the story was engaging and a lot of the action sequences were really tense.
The movie was more humane than the book, with far more likable characters. The book has two cheating husbands, a rape, domestic violence, the Reverend lying to a woman that he was going to marry her to get up her skirt, and a woman who’s madly in love with an alcoholic guy who leads her on when the only thing he enjoys about her is that she can hold a lot of booze. None of this is in the movie. While the cop’s wife is still a former prostitute, we know this from the get-go rather than it being a shock twist at the end. She’s also pretty likable in a brassy/bitchy way, rather than a vicious, racist, anti-Semitic harridan who’s mean to everyone. In the movie, her husband loves her and supports her. In the book, he beats her up. I see all these movie changes as huge improvements.
There was also a bit which was very sensibly cut from the book, which was that in the book pretty much everyone on the ship believes that the intense asshole cop must have gone on the cruise in order to investigate someone onboard, because it's totally impossible for a cop to go on vacation or have a personal life.
In the movie, nobody has sex while climbing for their lives against a ticking clock. In the book, this happens three times if you count the rape. This means that the movie did not have the extraordinary scene in which two characters foraging for food discover a gigantic pile of pastries and packaged cookies, push enough of them aside to make a space where they can lie down, and pluck pastries from the teetering mounds surrounding them before having sex there. I kind of wish that had been immortalized in Technicolor because it would have been a contender for the campiest scene ever filmed.
There were some other interesting differences which I’ll cut as they’re very spoilery for both movie and book, in case anyone has not yet been spoiled/still cares.
( Read more... )
The Poseidon Adventure[image error] on instant video.
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May 24, 2019
The Poseidon Adventure, by Paul Gallico
You may perhaps have noticed that I enjoy reading trashy dated novels. No apologies.
I spotted this... somewhere... and having never seen the movie but having enjoyed some of Gallico's other books, I grabbed it and finally got around to reading it. Gallico has a compulsively readable quality for me that many better authors lack, and this book had that in spades. It also satisfied my need for a motley party of people surviving (or not) an unusual and vivid deadly catastrophe. And it even had a heroic Jewish woman, which I was not expecting and enjoyed despite the way she was written, which was... okay so I mentioned that this was dated and trashy.
The Poseidon, a luxury cruise ship whose captain has an unfortunate habit of cutting corners on safety, is sailing through a seasick-making storm when an underwater earthquake flips it over. The handful of passengers who aren't seasick and so are having lunch rather than in their cabins must ascend through the upside down ship, up upside down staircases and other obstacles, to reach the hull in the hope that any rescuers will be able to get to them before the ship sinks.
When I was a child, I used to lie on my back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling and imagining exploring the place I was in if it turned upside down. I used to imagine it if everything miraculously stuck to where it was, rather than behaving the way it really would if gravity still worked. The Poseidon Adventure is about how it would work if gravity did still work, but was nonetheless very satisfying to the part of me that still wants to explore an upside down world.
What makes it trashy: Oh, man, where do I even start? The book was published in 1969, and it feels regressive even for then. Every stereotype and offensive word possible flies thick and fast, there's a ton of "We made a two-second effort to convince these people to come with us and they stared at us while obviously still in shock, guess we'll just leave them to die then," a rape followed by the raped girl hoping she got pregnant (this kind of makes sense in context BUT STILL), screaming harridans, cheatin' husbands, sex in the middle of a giant pile of pastries, and an extremely strange minister who views God as a football coach - that's not my joke, that is totally literal.
But let me talk about Belle Rosen, my favorite character. Belle is a hugely fat old Jewish woman, terribly out of shape and not up to the rigors of the journey, who makes multiple attempts to just sit down and die in peace. She's married to Manny Rosen (also old and fat), and they own a deli and have kids and grandkids that she grumps about. She's often referred to as "the fat Jewess," mostly by a very unsympathetic character but also by some others, and much is made of how she's fat, fat, FAT.
She also has the only truly happy, honest, and loving relationship in the entire book. She and her husband are still madly in love and very tender with each other. While everyone else is being nonstop horrible to each other and wasting precious time arguing, being mean, getting into battles of the egos, etc, she is consistently nice, supportive, and sensible. She points out that all this bickering is a waste of time and everyone should just suck it up and cooperate, and then she puts her money where her mouth is.
And! Spoiler: ( Read more... )
Content notes: Child death, rape, wildly offensive in every possible way.
I have never seen the movie; should I hunt it down? Does it do a good job with the upside-down staircases and Belle Rosen, which would be my main reasons for watching?
ETA: There's three movies! There's the 1972 movie, which is the one I'd heard of, starring Gene Hackman as Reverend God Is My Football Coach, Ernst Borgnine as the asshole cop, Leslie Nielsen as the captain and apparent inspiration for the Airplane! movies, and Shelley Winters as Belle Rosen. There's Poseidon, a 2006 film directed by Wolfgang Peterson, which has Andre Braugher in it but I can't tell how big a role he has as the characters all have different names. And there's a 2005 TV movie which has Rutger Hauer, but I again can't tell in how big a role as the characters are changed (and the captain is named Paul Gallico!) Anyone seen any of these?
Please no comments along the lines of "I am a superior person who only reads actual good literature, unlike you." It's the judginess that annoys me. "Haha, that sounds hilaribad" is fine.
The Poseidon Adventure[image error]
Enjoy three covers in decreasing order of classiness.
[image error] [image error]
[image error] [image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
I spotted this... somewhere... and having never seen the movie but having enjoyed some of Gallico's other books, I grabbed it and finally got around to reading it. Gallico has a compulsively readable quality for me that many better authors lack, and this book had that in spades. It also satisfied my need for a motley party of people surviving (or not) an unusual and vivid deadly catastrophe. And it even had a heroic Jewish woman, which I was not expecting and enjoyed despite the way she was written, which was... okay so I mentioned that this was dated and trashy.
The Poseidon, a luxury cruise ship whose captain has an unfortunate habit of cutting corners on safety, is sailing through a seasick-making storm when an underwater earthquake flips it over. The handful of passengers who aren't seasick and so are having lunch rather than in their cabins must ascend through the upside down ship, up upside down staircases and other obstacles, to reach the hull in the hope that any rescuers will be able to get to them before the ship sinks.
When I was a child, I used to lie on my back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling and imagining exploring the place I was in if it turned upside down. I used to imagine it if everything miraculously stuck to where it was, rather than behaving the way it really would if gravity still worked. The Poseidon Adventure is about how it would work if gravity did still work, but was nonetheless very satisfying to the part of me that still wants to explore an upside down world.
What makes it trashy: Oh, man, where do I even start? The book was published in 1969, and it feels regressive even for then. Every stereotype and offensive word possible flies thick and fast, there's a ton of "We made a two-second effort to convince these people to come with us and they stared at us while obviously still in shock, guess we'll just leave them to die then," a rape followed by the raped girl hoping she got pregnant (this kind of makes sense in context BUT STILL), screaming harridans, cheatin' husbands, sex in the middle of a giant pile of pastries, and an extremely strange minister who views God as a football coach - that's not my joke, that is totally literal.
But let me talk about Belle Rosen, my favorite character. Belle is a hugely fat old Jewish woman, terribly out of shape and not up to the rigors of the journey, who makes multiple attempts to just sit down and die in peace. She's married to Manny Rosen (also old and fat), and they own a deli and have kids and grandkids that she grumps about. She's often referred to as "the fat Jewess," mostly by a very unsympathetic character but also by some others, and much is made of how she's fat, fat, FAT.
She also has the only truly happy, honest, and loving relationship in the entire book. She and her husband are still madly in love and very tender with each other. While everyone else is being nonstop horrible to each other and wasting precious time arguing, being mean, getting into battles of the egos, etc, she is consistently nice, supportive, and sensible. She points out that all this bickering is a waste of time and everyone should just suck it up and cooperate, and then she puts her money where her mouth is.
And! Spoiler: ( Read more... )
Content notes: Child death, rape, wildly offensive in every possible way.
I have never seen the movie; should I hunt it down? Does it do a good job with the upside-down staircases and Belle Rosen, which would be my main reasons for watching?
ETA: There's three movies! There's the 1972 movie, which is the one I'd heard of, starring Gene Hackman as Reverend God Is My Football Coach, Ernst Borgnine as the asshole cop, Leslie Nielsen as the captain and apparent inspiration for the Airplane! movies, and Shelley Winters as Belle Rosen. There's Poseidon, a 2006 film directed by Wolfgang Peterson, which has Andre Braugher in it but I can't tell how big a role he has as the characters all have different names. And there's a 2005 TV movie which has Rutger Hauer, but I again can't tell in how big a role as the characters are changed (and the captain is named Paul Gallico!) Anyone seen any of these?
Please no comments along the lines of "I am a superior person who only reads actual good literature, unlike you." It's the judginess that annoys me. "Haha, that sounds hilaribad" is fine.
The Poseidon Adventure[image error]
Enjoy three covers in decreasing order of classiness.
[image error] [image error]
[image error] [image error]
[image error] [image error]
comments
