Jeremy L. Jones's Blog, page 9

8 Things About 'Lifting The Lid'

The inspiration for picking up this book came from a strange place. This was the first book ever to be listed on Saturnius Mons' Amazon Page, as 'People Who Bought This Book Also Bought.'  Now, at the time, it probably meant that one person bought Saturnius Mons and this book at the same time, but that is an interesting thought by itself. Plus, I was so intrigued by the cover and the fact that my book has nothing obviously in common with this one that I felt compelled to see what was inside.

So here we are:

 
Trevor Hawkins looking for an escape. He's fallen into a rut so he's packed up his belongings, along with his terminally misbehaved mutt, Millie, into a VW campervan and has left his life behind looking for adventure. He didn't expect this much. During a comically insane switcharoo involving a broken toilet tank lid and traditional British embarrassment, Trevor ends up with an envelope containing a set of instructions. A set of instructions that was supposed to go to Sandra, a private detective that was offered a large sum of money to make sure a package was picked up and delivered to a group of gun-toting gangsters who are suddenly very interested in Trevor. Add to that a couple of inept MI5 agents, and a police force increasingly hot on the trail, Trevor finds himself careening from one dangerous situation to another. And worse yet, his own past seems to be catching up with him.

1. Missing The Funny:The major thing that fell flat for me is that this was supposed to be an 'action comedy thriller' and it just missed the mark and I'm not sure why. Maybe the exaggerations weren't there. Maybe that dry English wit just wasn't on point. Maybe I just didn't get the joke. But outside of a few minor chuckles, nothing struck me as irresistibly amusing. Although that being said...

2. In The Author's Defense, Comedy Is Hard:Writing, in general, is hard, but I think writing comedy is especially difficult and I have some experience with this. The first novel I ever tried to write—which has been forever banished to the deepest depths of my hard drive—was supposed to be a comedy. At least I thought it was.  I remember giggling in almost masturbatory glee as I wrote it. As the words poured out of me, I couldn't believe how fucking clever I was. (I was an idiot. I'm okay with that.) Luckily I was working with a writing group at the time, and some of the other members were honest enough to basically say, "Yeah, I don't get it."

The problem is that it's just the reader and the author. It's not like a comedy show or a movie theater or even a movie at home with two or three other people in the room. It's just me and Rob communicating telepathically via paper. And me going, "Okay, buddy, make me chuckle." What a person finds funny is so subjective and sometimes changes minute to minute.

I guess what I am saying is that I have to give a bit of a pass on this aspect. Not to say it doesn't have a few good points.

3.One Hell Of A Set-up:It's like this. Trevor, an almost terminally embarrassed and awkward Englishman (I couldn't help picture Hugh Grant with a ponytail) accidentally breaks the toilet tank lid in a hotel. Mortified about admitting what he did and, perhaps getting charged more money that he didn't have, he sneaks into another room and swipes the toilet lid. The problem is that room is being rented by a private detective who's just been hired to pick up and deliver a mysterious package, the directions of this assignment hidden underneath the toilet lid Trevor steals. 

The set-up was so delightfully absurd and well-executed that, as the reader, I couldn't help but face-palm as I watched the characters do ridiculous things for a completely understandable reason. Well...mostly understandable for stammering, be-ponytailed Everyman and the sharp diet-obsessed private eye. But it kinda goes downhill from there.

4. Why Is The Main Character Starving To Death?:Maybe it was one of the jokes, but Trevor spends the entire book not eating. He occasionally tries to grab a bite but is thwarted. Or he just seems to forget. Another running gag is that people are constantly asking Trevor, "Is this your dog?" which is a fair question since Trevor is constantly sneaking his dog into places that do not allow them. It think both these running themes are meant to be funny but, again, I don't get the joke.


5. Why Is The P.I. Weight-Obsessed?:Another running gag. Sandra, the hard-nosed private detective—and the only character that seems to have a fully functioning brain at times—is regularly in a deep philosophical debate on whether or not to have another piece of toast at breakfast.  Which, again, not sure what the joke is there.


6. Why Is The Gang Leader Such An Ineffectual Arsehole?:Okay, he's a gang leader, I get it. But still. 

I think the idea was to create a character that the reader would despise on some level so that when he met his ultimate fate, the reader would jump up and cheer. But I didn't get that. What I got from Harry was a character who was just... well... an asshole. And not like a ruthlessly effective Walter White-style asshole. Just... an asshole. Who, when his fate was revealed, made me go... yep, maybe that's why you shouldn't be such a dick to your own people.

7. Let's Hear It For The Scotsman:The only character that I really dug in this book was MacFarland, the gruff, Scottish bruiser that never appeared to get a break. There was almost a Rodney Dangerfield aspect to him. In my head, I pictured this gun-toting mountain of a man who, in the end, 'Can't get no respect.'

8. The Verdict:⭐⭐⭐

It was a fun, light-hearted crime spree like a Guy Richie movie but with a softer touch. Although I feel that anyone going into this hoping for sharp wit or a keen sense of dramatic irony are going to be disappointed. 

It does have a sequal, but I don't see myself rushing out to grab it anytime soon. The plot of this book wrapped everything up as well as can be expected, and nothing about the main characters really grabbed me enough to see them darting willy-nilly through another caper. I liked this book well enough but that is where the story ends for me.

10 Things About Snow Crash

Strap in, friends. This one gets a little weird.

Hiro Protagonist (a character name so brilliant that every author should slap his/her head for not thinking of it before) is just an average guy delivering pizzas for the Mafia a.k.a Uncle Enzo's CosaNostra Pizza Inc. Except for he's actually this brilliant hacker that helped create the Metaverse, a virtual reality world where millions live, play and work. Oh, and he's the best swordfighter in the world.  And his best friend is this new pop music sensation.  But ALL THAT ASIDE, yeah he's just a normal guy.

But when a new drug/virus, Snow Crash, is released on an unsuspecting Metaverse it's up to Hiro along with his teenage, car 'pooning, Hell On Wheels, skateboard messenger partner, Y.T. to discover its secret and prevent spreading across the Metaverse and unleashing the Infocalypse.

 1. Our World. Only More So.Where this book really shines is not really the story or the characters (although I did love Y.T. with all the hearts), but it's the world. Imagine our modern world, but where all the insanity that you see around you has been bumped up to the Nth Degree. The United States has been bought, sold, and divided among a few mega-corporations. The middle class has racially divided themselves in individual 'Burbclaves.' The most brilliant minds in the country are forced into menial labor to survive. Religious dogma has driven people to live in almost junkie-like squalor. Individuals are running around strapped with nuclear weapons. And, in the middle of it all, there is an unprotected digital realm that can bring the whole damn world crashing down if someone got the itch to do so.

The world of Snow Crash is a stupidly weird place, but it's weird in a chilling way because it's only a slight exaggeration of our modern world. This concept becomes clear from a passage from page #2:

"This is America. People do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, you got a problem with that? Because they have a right to. And because they have guns and no one can fucking stop them. As a result, this country has one of the worst economies in the world. When it gets down to it—talking trade balances here—once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel—once the Invisible Hand has taken all those hitorical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity—y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else.

music
movies
microcode (software)
high-speed pizza delivery

2. Wait, Dirigibles?
Yep, I just saw that as I was typing that quote up. It never really comes up at any other time in the book.  Just a weird quirk of this world that is never explained.

3. Jim Crown In A Burbclave
 One of the most interesting concepts from SnowCrash was the Burbclave. These are the identical planned communities/ sovereign nations spread out across this land where the middle class has racially and culturally segregated themselves from the rest of the country so they can live safe and sheltered away from the anyone who looks or thinks differently from them. And despite sounding like something that would have happened if the South had won the Civil War, I'm not entirely sure that we, as a society, wouldn't do this now if given half a chance. Remove the inherant inequality that came with segrigation and make the entire idea truely 'seperate but equal' I could see huge portions of the country packing their shit and moving to a place where they knew everyone shared the same culture, values, religion and, yes, skin color. And that, in and of itself, is a little frightening.


4. I Left The Story Here Somewhere...
The world-building is amazing. But the story that takes place inside... probably my least favorite part of the book. It's weird to say that my least favorite part of the story is THE STORY, but there you are. That's not to say it's bad. It's just like... taking a drive through the most beautiful scenery in the world only to arrive in Muncie, Indiana.
And it might be me. I found myself having to stop and go back several pages more than a few times to figure out what the figgity fuck was actually going on. It weaves into the Metaverse and darts into Babylonian mythology before charging headlong into a high-traffic area where crazed gun-toting racists, trillionaire capitalists, drug-addled religious fiends and the occasional killer dog-cyborg hybrid charge at each other screaming into battle.

5. The Ultimate Protagonist— Hiro:
I was conflicted about the main character. I mean everything in this book is Over The Top.  Guys running around with rail guns, a villain who's goal is to nuke the United States and carries around said nuke in a motorcycle sidecar, a guy who's wheelchair is basically a armored assault vehicle... my point is that every character is written with the wry eye to subtly as a pyromaniac with a flame thrower. So why wouldn't the main character be basically the Ultimate Hacker/ Warrior? And I guess it was unsettling because of Chapter 1.  This book really drew me in at first for the outlandish almost breathless1st person speaking in 3rd person narrative:

The Deliverator's car has enought potential energy packed into its batteries  to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a bimbo box or Burb beater, the Deliverator's car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished sphincters. When the Deliverator puts the hammer down shit happens.

I immediately fell in love with this charming dweeb for whom pizza delivery was a matter of life and death. I looked forward to his rather pedestrian life being narrated as if it were some kind of action/ spy thriller with Deliverator standing between the world and Certain Doom. Not to mention late pizza.

Except... that's pretty much it for Deliverator and his pizza delivering.  The rest of the book follows Hiro Protagonist, and it turns out that he actually is a badass. And something about a badass who knows he's a badass and who narrates his own life like a badass... ironically, not badass at all.

6. Yours Truly For The Win:
I got to the point where I was looking forward to the chapters featuring Y.T. more than Hiro.  While he was busy arguing about Babylonian mythology with an elderly virtual librarian or and occasionally getting into real and virtual sword fights, the sassy, quick-witted Kourier was busy breaking out of jail, ingratiating herself with the mob, terrorizing drug colonies and generally sticking an M80 up the ass of society. Whether or not she was meant to be Robin to Hiro's Batman, she pretty quickly sped away with the Batmobile leaving Hiro in the dirt and flashing him The Bird.

7. I Lied. I Liked The Babylonian Stuff:
Okay for a history nerd like myself, I actually did like how to explain what Snow Crash was, one had to go back to the beginning of human civilization. The way Stephenson weaved our modern technology into the fiber of our very being was fascinating, and this mixture of Ancient civilization with near-future consequences was fun. Some of the chapters that went deep into Babylonian mythology started to drag a little, but they were interesting in their own right. And the pacing was done well enough that Y.T. was never more than a few pages away to 'poon us out of class and take us for a ride.

8. Meet Your Villian. I Dare You To Hate Him:
Speaking of over the top, let's talk about Raven. Raven appears on the scene like The Mountain from GoT but on a motorcycle. And has that same air of focused chaos. Like, you don't know what he's going to but it doesn't matter because ain't nobody going to try and stop him. But as his back story becomes clear and you actually get to know this three-hundred-plus pound of rage and muscle, you can't help but like him. Maybe even root for him a little. Sure, his goal is to nuke the United States but watch cable news for a twenty-four hour period, and you might start to agree with him on some level.

9. The Most Abrubt Fucking Ending EVVARR:
Not going to say much about it. This is not a place where spoilers happen.  But you know that chart they used to show you in class about story structure? It had Inciting Incident, Rising Action, Climax, and Falling action, remember that?  Yeah, this book said, Fuck You Falling Action, we're done!  End Story Now!

It works, but it did catch me off guard.

10: And the Verdict:
⭐⭐⭐⭐ and 1/2.  I liked it. A lot. Would recommend and would (and probably will) read again. The main character kept this from being the full five-spot for me. But, overall, a fun read full of chilling quotes about our modern world.

6 Things About Virtual Light

A vision of the past as seen from the future. Set in near-future quasi-dystopia Virtual Light follows Chevette Washington, a young bike messenger who makes her home, along with aging burn-out Skinner, on top of the Golden Gate bridge which has been turned into a shanty-town of sorts. In true cyber-punk, dystopian punk fashion, it is the last place in a cruel world where the working poor can live and be themselves.



But Chevette when makes the mistake of lifting a pair of expensive sunglasses from a drunk groper at a party, she finds herself a target in a shadowy conspiracy. Enter Barry Rydell, ex-cop, ex-security guard, ex rent-a-cop, ex pretty much anything. He is hired to drive for a team whose mission it is to recover the glasses. But when he sees the murderous truth of it all, he rescues Chevette, and they ride out chased by all manner of Bond-villain-esque characters.


1. The Future Is...Ten Years Ago?
The part I loved best about this book and the most quotable parts of Virtual Light involve the author's predictions about the near-future.

“We are come not only past the century’s closing, the millennium’s turning, but to the end of something else. Era? Paradigm? Everywhere the signs of closure. Modernity was ending. Here on the bridge, it long since had.”

“There’s only but two kinds of people. People can afford hotels like that, they’re one kind. We’re the other. Used to be, like, a middle class, people in between. But not anymore.”

“And Yamasaki knew, without asking, that the red dancer represented the way of Shapely’s going, like some terrible base stupidity waiting at the core of things.”  

These are a few, but there are many others, and I loved the way they were eerily accurate but just not in the way the author probably imagined they would be at the time. It's like a writer during the 2007 market crash imagining the country being run in ten years by a deranged cartoon character vis-a-vis Waldo from Black Mirror.  I mean, wow, spookily accurate but the real-life implications would scare the shit out of the poor soul who actually wrote it.

2. A prediction on Google Glass:
Among those scary predictions has to do with the titular device Virtual Light a pair of glasses that function as a computer. And much like their real-world analog, they seem to be a big deal, everyone is talking about it, but it only shows up a couple of times, and then it disappears. They don't affect much, and nobody seems to care.
That's right, take that Google!

3. Cult of Personalities:
The biggest draw of this book was the characters. Chavette with her spunky, go-gettum-girl punk rock attitude. Skinner, her gutter poet/ philosopher father figure. Loveless the dark, bizarre, Bond Villian hitman. Sammy Sal, Chavette's sassy best friend and coworker who really helps frame the world we find ourselves in.
Overall, Rydell is probably the weakest character but, when I got past his mono-tone Male Protagonist Hero persona, there are glimpses of a man desperate to find his place in a world that seems to not want him.

4. Now where did I put Chekhov's Gun?: 
The story is the weaker element in this book, although I'm keeping in mind that this is the first part of the series. But I could never figure out why this Holy Mcguffin, Virtual Light, is so great that everyone seems willing to kill over it. It looks vaguely tied with this dark, sinister plot to turn San Fransisco into a haven for the rich (another amazing prediction just, again, not in the way Gibson likely anticipated.) The story takes the reader on a thrill ride through a near-future eerily like our own, but I feel like the whole reason we are taking this journey is fuzzy right now.

5. Sexual Tension You Could Cut With A Hand Wave:
Maybe it's inevitable in a novel like this. You got the spunky, quirky, young punk-rock girl living life on her own terms until all hell breaks loose at which point she gets thrown together with the gruff, world-weary former cop. While running for their lives, sparks fly, and they begin the 'will they, won't they, for the love of all the GODS, please fuck already' dance. But in this book, for some reason, I just didn't believe it. It was like both characters were looking at each other and thinking, 'Well the plot pretty much demands that I want to jump his/her bones so... Yeah, I guess I do?' 


The romantic aspect felt forced. As if the editor read the first draft and sent back notes that said, "Yeah, these to characters gotta bang. The reader is just not going to be into it otherwise."At which point Gibson swore and just wrote it in to get the editor off his back about it.

6. Back to the Bridge?
Despite its shortcomings, the world and the characters are enough that I've got the next two books of the Bridge Trilogy on my To Be Read Pile. And even now as I immerse myself in yet another cyberpunk thriller -I'm kinda digging on those recently- I'm looking forward to going back to the world of Virtual Light.

 

Unpopular Opinions #1: Daenerys Targaryen Is A Sociopath

Unpopular Meditations On Modern Literature #1: A Game of Thrones, Book #1 of A Song of Ice and Fire Okay, I'm late to the party. What else is new?
In my defense, Epic Fantasy just isn't my genre. It tends to be dense, complex, and hard for my ADD-addled brain to keep track of.  And any book I have to take notes on seems too much like homework and thus gets crumpled up at tossed in the bin. NO HOMEWORK WOOO!

Then Game of Thrones became one of the biggest shared cultural experiences of my lifetime. And even weirder than that, I enjoyed it. My interest in a thing is, more often than not, inversely proportional to the popularity of that thing.  But, despite all the hype, I dug it and decided to try and plow my way through the original novels expecting a Tolkien-esque slog through endless descriptions and paragraphs that run on for pages. 

Except I fell into it hard. Like in a way I hadn't fallen into a book in a good long while. And even though I'd watch the series all the way through, I found myself reading the book on its own terms. Not, as I typically do when I watch the movie before the book, as an interpretation of the story as portrayed on the screen, but as it's own separate entity with slightly different characters, altered motivations, and voices that don't belong to actors.


And in those pages, where the thoughts of the characters were laid out in front of my eyes, I began to see something in one of the most popular characters from the show that I had missed when I watched it portrayed on screen.


Thesis: I think Daenyeres Targarian might be a fucking sociopath.
First, Jeremy Covers His Ass:
Okay, before we get started, a few caveats.
1. Fucking Spoiler Alert: The end of Game of Thrones was, as of this writing, over two months ago.  So I think I’m safe talking about how it ends.  HOWEVER, if you haven’t seen it and have somehow avoided accidentally hearing of it, first of all, welcome back, how was living in a cave?  I hear it's peaceful. And second, just… don’t.  Don’t read this, don’t send me angry messages about how I spoiled the ending. Just don’t. Here endeth the warning.

2. Relax, It's a Book That being said, if I write something here that makes you vibrate in your chair and gets your fingers itching to hit Caps Lock and go to town… see above.  Just don’t.  Calm down, I'm just messing around here, and if that upsets you, I encourage you to seek your entertainment elsewhere. That being said, if you want to argue, the comments area is open. Change my mind. I dare you. Just don't be a raging asshole about it.
3. Bad Things AheadMost people know by now that Game of Thrones is a pretty rapey book. The whole series is. But rape, unfortunately, is a reality. A horrific reality, but a reality. And there is a lot of reality in this book. The subject is probably going to come up. And if you’re reading this and you happen upon something that makes you think, ‘wait, does Jeremy think rape is okay?’ The answer is no, no, he does not. At all.
4. Jeremy L. Jones Thinks Strong Women Are Badass: I was raised by one, I married one, and I’ve loved a few. So if you read this and think, ‘Does Jeremy think all strong women are sociopaths or otherwise mentally unwell?’ No, no, he doesn’t. I think Daenerys Targaryen, a fictional character, might be and I shall endeavor to prove that. But as a rule? No, I do not.
Cool?  Cool. Let us begin.
I perceived a massive cry of horror when, on the penultimate episode of GoT, —which is what we cool kids call Game of Thrones—Daenyeres unleashed a dragon on Kings Landing. I heard the horror on social media and within my own house. After the episode, my wife and I had a… discussion about the events. It was her opinion that Dany was not in control of herself at that moment and what happened to Kings Landing was not her fault but that of every person who forced her into that position.  And it was my opinion that she was now making excuses for a mass-murdering dictator.
There was disquiet in the house of Jones that night.
But I understood. My beloved still wanted to cheer for Dany even though she… you know… burned down an entire city and killed thousands if not tens of thousands. And that urge led many to have the visceral reaction they did.  But, in retrospect, we should have seen it coming from the get-go as a few articles that asserted that claim. Which is part of the brilliance of George R. R. Martin's writing. Once you get over the shock, you realize that the Truth was staring at you the entire time. In this case, a lot of writers lamented that even a personality as great as Daenerys Stormborn couldn't resist the corrupting influence of the Iron Throne.

But I'm going to take it a step farther. I'm here to argue that it wasn't the corrupting influence of Absolute Power that led to Dany's downfall, rather a pathological need to acquire it for its own ends. She wasn't turned from the path of righteousness as much as a form of psychopathy doomed her from the start.
What is a Sociopath?
For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to use the definitions as laid out by a couple articles in Psychology Today. Specifically, this one and this one. Is it a good definition?  Don’t know!  Not a psychiatrist! Not a psychologist! Just an interested amateur poking at a patient with a stick. (The patient, in this case, being a fictional character so I feel it's fine.)

I'm also going to take a look at this blog, for a little bit of insight into the workings of a sociopathic mind.
In short, Dany is afflicted with Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) which is defined in the DSM as, “an ingrained pattern of behavior in which individuals consistently disregard and violate the rights of others around them.”
Note that, while psychopathy and sociopathy are on the same spectrum, there seems to be some feeling that they are different. Specifically, a psychopath has no concept of an action being evil. A sociopath does but doesn't care. Also, a psychopath is born, a sociopath is created. Again, don't know if that is a valid psychiatric idea but, fuck it, we'll go with it.
And how does one identify a sociopath? Well, Psychology Today laid out three steps:
1. Their Words
2. Your Emotions
3. Their Behavior (90% Rule)
And I’m going to add a fourth one. Since the source material is going to be the first book, A Game of Thrones, we have something that practicing psychiatrists don’t; access to our patient's mind.  Hence:
4. Their Thoughts.
Anyone else tingling a little? Awesome! Let’s begin.Criteria #1: Their Words:

Sociopaths are fast talkers. Their words are mostly, if not entirely false. But they use many, many words designed to cover their behavior. They may be a completely different person from who they say that they are. Watch out for extremes—big promises; big stories, about the past or the future; and big plans, with no basis for them or no experience at whatever they’re planning.

Is there any sign of this in A Game of Thrones? Admittedly some, but not a lot. Keep in mind, Dany is all of fourteen in most of this book, so she is still coming into her own. At this age, if she were being raised in an environment we considered 'normal,' she would start realizing that the way her mind worked was different somehow.

One commenter on the sociopath world blog described growing up and realizing who he or she was like this:

For me, I knew from a young age I was different and I felt like I was behind everyone and couldn't catch up, so I was going to have to fake it if I wanted acceptance.  In my mind everyone else was just like me but had "passed" to the next step but I couldn't even understand the test, so I lied and cheated into "normal" life.

That being said, there are some signs in her language that can be interpreted as this. Specifically, this one where she is talking to Khal Drogo

"In the Free Cities, there are ships by the thousand. Wooden horses with a hundred legs, that fly across the sea on wings full of wind."

The text indicates that she's been working the Khal for a while on this. He doesn't really want to listen at this point but, after she is attacked at the market, he does come around.

BUT! Does she have any idea what she's talking about? Does she actually believe she could return to Westeros with the Dothraki? Does she have a fucking clue how to do any of this?! I would argue no, No and HELLL NO! Youthful overconfidence? Possibly. Let's look at some more strange positive language like this stirring speech she gives after... *ahem* killing her husband.

" 'You will be my khalasar' she told them. "I see the faces of slaves. I free you. Take off your collars. Go if you wish. If you stay, it will be as brothers and sisters, husbands and wives.' The black eyes watched her, wary, expressionless. 'I see the children, women, the wrinkled faces of the aged. I was a child yesterday. Today I am a woman. Tomorrow I will be old. To each of you I say, give me your hands and your hearts, and there will always be a place for you.' She turned to the three young warriors of the khas 'Jhogo, to you I give the silver-handled whip that was my bride gift, and name you ko, and ask your oath, that you will live and die as blood of my blood, riding at my side to keep me safe from harm.' "

What's happening here? Well, she's basically acting as if she was already named as the new khal. She is appointing her blood riders, gathering her soldiers, and, overall, acting as if this is just a thing that is happening. Even though the men she is naming as blood riders are almost begging her not to saying that 'This is not done' or 'It would shame me to be blood rider to a woman.'  But does Dany give a figgity fuck?  Hell no. Now could this be a sign of a True Born queen coming into her own. Perhaps. But it does seem to match pretty well with the words of a sociopath as well.

What about some really dark moments from Dany. They happen:

“ 'He was no dragon, Dany thought', curiously calm. 'Fire cannot kill a dragon' ”

 Yep, that's her physical reaction to watching her brother die. Horribly. At the hands of her husband. With molten gold. This is a brother that basically raised her... and physically abused her and sold her into sexual slavery, yes, but that's not a normal reaction. Furthermore, Dany knows it. Look at that dialogue tag 'curiously calm.' Even she finds it strange that she feels nothing. Yes, again, her brother physically abused her and was likely sociopathic himself (it seems to run in the family) but still... FUCK.

“It was a cruel fate, Yet not so cruel as Mago's will be. I promise you that, by the old gods and the new, by the lamb god and the horse god and every god that lives. I swear by the Mother of Mountains and the Womb of the World. Before I am done with them, Mago and Ko Jhaqo will plead for the mercy they showed Eroeh.” 

Here we are jumping back to when Khal Drogo is basically a zombie. She finds out that one of Drogo's former riders stole one of her slaves that she rescued from the raid of the Sheep People, raped and killed her. ...Which... okay that might be an appropriate response.  But still... that's some heavy shit from a teenager.Criteria #2 Your Emotions:

How do you feel around the person? It’s often your emotions that first tell you to beware, because your brain wants to believe them. 

Or, more accurately, how do other people react to Daenerys? The article says it's common to feel three

things when around a sociopath: fear, infatuation or extreme sympathy.
So does anyone fear her? Not really. Not yet anyway. If people fear Dany, what they really fear is her husband and his Khalisar. But, again, fourteen-year-old girl.
Extreme sympathy? Yes, perhaps. It's not really stated, but it's very possible people feel sympathy for Dany. But that's less a sign of her manipulating people rather people showing empathy to someone it a terrible situation.
Infatuation? There we go! Dany is charming as fuck. She managed to worm her way into the heart of Khal Drogo which is impressive in a way. I picture Khal Drogo as like the leader of the Hells Angels. Here comes this thirteen-year-old girl who is basically sold to him. How long does it take for Dany to end up on top? (literally) A few months?

And how does she manage this? By getting Really Good At Sex. Like magic cooter level Good At Sex. Like if sex were an Olympic sport (and let’s be serious, it totally should), she would be standing on that pedestal with some gold hanging between her legs.

Ser Jorah pledges to Dany - by AmokBecause Dany knows the cardinal rule of realpolitik, “If you have them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”

Let's talk about Ser Jorah. Sworn to serve and protect her brother who he sees as the true and rightful ruler of the seven kingdoms.  How long before he falls under her spell? About the same time she is wrapping the Khal's Little Drogo around her finger, Jorah is basically saying 'to hell with my oaths, I want to follow her.' 

Hell, by the end she's basically convinced a group of hardened bikers to make her the leader of their gang which, as they stated before, is not something that happens.
 Criteria #3: Thier Actions

A surprisingly simple way to spot a sociopath is to stay focused on their behavior and ignore their words. Pay special attention to any extreme behavior—things they do that 90% of people would not. Ask yourself, Would I ever do that?

Okay, does Danenyeris Targarian do something that 90% of humanity would not do? *checks notes*
Oh yeah, she WALKS INTO A FUCKING FIRE!
Okay, yeah there are some special circumstances because we are dealing with magic or whatever the fuck allows a girl to WALK INTO A FUCKING FIRE and live. That being said, it’s still a baller move. She’s gotten hints that she has an affinity toward heat leading up to this moment.  She enjoys scalding hot baths, she can touch dragons eggs fresh out of the fire without getting burned, and she seems to know something is up when her brother dies from having molten gold poured over his head.
But she isn’t 100% sure. I would gauge she is about… let’s say… 50% sure.  Let’s say 60% sure she will survive. Let's also remember that she has a perfectly reasonable option at that point, one might even argue a better option. Ser Jorah is ready to have her spirited away where she can sell her eggs and live a perfectly comfortable, quiet life.
I think it’s a fair argument that 90% of people would just run away and take the quiet life. Or, at least, I think it's fair to say that 90% of people wouldn't WALK INTO A FUCKING FIRE!
That’s the most extreme example.  But there are others.
How do 90% of women fare when sold into sexual slavery? Think about a biker gang or a terrorist group or some other male-dominated subculture that glorifies violence and the sexual domination of women. How do the unfortunate victims who find themselves in that situation make out? How many of them make a concerted effort to lead the fucking biker gang?  
Less than 90%?
Less than 99%?
How about this, how many pregnant women would willingly eat an entire horses heart?  Because that happened!  There’s a cultural thing at play here and, for those raised among the Dothraki, eating a whole horses heart might seem perfectly reasonable.  
But Dany is not Dothraki, although she assimilates rather well.  But she wasn’t raised in that society. So imagine, if you will.  You're pregnant, and your husband comes to you and says, “Hey honey, could you… this is going to sound weird… but could you eat an entire horse's heart?  It would REALLY impress my friends.”
Again, we’re talking about a different culture. Still, I think the argument could be made.  Less than 90%

How about tying a wine merchant behind her horse for trying to poison her?  How many people could actually do that until the guy died? I think it’s easy to say ‘yeah, he tried to kill me.’  But honestly, how long could you watch a man being dragged behind a horse before you just couldn’t stand to watch it anymore? 90% would probably give in to empathy, untie the poor bastard, and send him packing.
Criteria #4: Her ThoughtsAgain, we find ourself in an interesting position because we know what's going on in Dany's mind. Most psychologists have to diagnose people based on their words and deeds, but we actually get a glimpse at the gears turning in her skull.  We also have an article from a person who claims to be sociopathic, and they describe how their mind works.  I'm going to throw up a few quotes, let's see if they are at all similar.
'Remorse is alien to me': Uh, that's a Texas-sized ten-four.  Dany is perhaps sad that her brother died, but she feels no remorse over it. She feels empathy for the Sheep People being killed and/or raped by Drogo's men, but she doesn't feel remorse for the part she paid.  I don't think there is a single moment Dany feels remorse for anything.
'I have a penchant for deceit': Meh, not really. Although I can't pinpoint any moment that deceit would benefit her, she doesn't seem to crave it either. This is perhaps a flaw in my theory. On the other hand, APD is described as a spectrum disorder and can manifest in different ways.
'I am generally free of entangling emotions': Possibly. Dany is quite calculating. But she also expresses concern and love for the people around her. She expresses empathy and is sometimes motivated by concern for others.  
But she also appears to have the ability to turn it off if it is inconvenient. She appears to love her brother (even romantically at first which... ew) but is sort of fine with it when he does die. She clearly loves her Khal but, after spending one last night together, smothers him with a pillow. After that, she appears more concerned with consolidating power than mourning her husband. She doesn't seem at all concerned after burning Mirri Maz Dur alive after her ill-fated attempt to bring Drogo back from the dead

So I would argue that, yes, that very much applies.
'I am strategic and canny': To be fair, in A Game of Thrones, those that aren't die quickly. But she lives so...
'I am Intelligent and confident':Yep and yup. While she does express some anxiety or even fear during the book, those feelings are brief, and they don't seem to motivate her in the slightest. But confident? Let's peer into her mind as she is WALKING INTO A FUCKING FIRE:

No, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don't you see? Don't you SEE?

Maybe it's me, I've never experienced that level of confidence. I was barely confident enough to hit the little 'publish' button when I was done with this screed. But I feel this level of self-assuredness has to be pathological'I struggle to react appropriately to other people's confusing and emotion-driven social cues': This one is tougher. Since she is in a position of power, people are careful about what they express around her. So it's hard to see how she reacts to emotional cues. Still, I am reminded of the scene where she tries to form her own khalisar after Drogo dies.  When s tries to declare some of the other warriors as her blood riders, they protest saying pretty much, "Uh.. no. That's not how that works. What's wrong with you?"  And she gives exactly zero fucks about that. Enough to fall into a grey area, I feel.
And, again, let's keep in mind, the woman that will burn Kings Landing into ashes is still a girl of fourteen at this point. She is, by our modern definition, still a child and her brain is still wiring itself. 
But it is wiring itself in an interesting way, isn't it?
The Game of Thrones ends with Dany naked, laying in the smoldering ashes with three dragons, two of which are breastfeeding.  That was a part they left out of the show!  Wow... just... wow.
So we will leave it there, and I'll address the question again when I get around to Clash of Kings. Again, comments are open, nerds. Tell me why I'm wrong.

Hello You Wierd Old Friend: Jeremy Rediscovers His Love Of Shitty Paperbacks

" 'If the Holy Bible was printed as an Ace Double', an editor once remarked, 'it would be cut down to two 20,000-word halves with the Old Testament retitled as "Master of Chaos" and the New Testament as "The Thing With Three Souls." ' "
— Charles McGrath, New York Times, May 6, 2007

In retrospect, maybe it was inevitable.

I was—and sadly, still am—finishing up my second book in the Ruins of Empire series, Templum Veneris at the time which takes place on the planet, Venus. I was scanning the science fiction section of my local bookstore looking for something.  Inspiration, maybe. Or a distraction. Something to either get the juices flowing or get them to calm the fuck down.  I dunno, I've got problems with juices, apparently.

Anyway, my eyes fell on this old paperback on a bargain rack. Any person who's spent time hunting for books (by which I mean any human worth talking to) would recognize the style immediately.  The red-tinted pages, the worn, chipped edges, the kitschy artwork and that musty smell like your father's long-lost collection of girly magazines. It was an old pulp sci-fi paperback from the late '60s, early '70s.

And this particular one was an Ace Double. These were mass-produced paperback novellas with a side of the book featuring one novel and, when you're done with that, flip it around... ENTIRELY NEW BOOK!!  All for 75¢. (I paid $4 because, you know, fucking inflation)

The one I found was titled To Venus! To Venus! on one side and, on the other, The Jester At Scar.

I remember loving those pulpy, sci-fi adventures when I was a kid. In fact, I'm not entirely sure my interest in astronomy and space science didn't stem from these books. I've always been more interested in planetary science than black holes, quasars, magnetars, lensing flares, pulsars, gamma-ray bursts, and other more abstract phenomena.  (And just to prove that you don't either, one of those terms isn't even real, and you didn't even know which one!)  But planets, especially planets in our solar system always did, and still do, hold my interest.

The reason for that was, in my mind, those planets are places we could go! They are out there! Spinning within reach of Earth! We could, conceivably, get a rocket, set it on top of a bigger rocket, set that on ONE HUGE FUCK ROCKET, blast off and land on the planet. And then we could battle space monsters and discover hidden alien treasures and possibly kiss a green girl with three boobs...

Yeah, I was a nerd long before being a nerd was considered cool. I'm like a hipster nerd. Which flings me right back into the 'not cool' category.


So I grabbed it, popped a few beers and dove in to see what weirdness lie in wait between these worn pages that have been around nearly a decade longer than me.

And just because, SPOILER ALERT.  I doubt anyone out there really wants to seek this book out and read it as well, assuming you could even find it.  But lest this actually finds somebody with a fifty-year-old backlog of reading material who screams, "You ruined it!" Spoilers, I guess.

Book #1:
To Venus! To Venus!



The Story:

The Russians (gasp!) have landed a probe on Venus! (Those dirty Commies!) But all is not lost because our brave Space Agency of the United States (Yay!) is on the case along with none other than Chet Duncan (Woot! Woot!). Those sneaky Ruskies (Booo!) might have landed the first probe on Venus, but 'Merica will be the first to land people who will plant Old Glory on that mysterious, cloud-covered world. (YAAAY!)

But all is not well, for there may be trickery afoot (gasp!). While the Russian probe sent back data that indicates that the nearby planet is a paradise with conditions perfect for life, Chet considers that it might be a trick. For it has been long assumed that Venus is, in fact, a hellish world. Could the Russians be lying to our Brave American Heroes? (please stand for the National Anthem)

...

(You may be seated) ANYHOO! So the Space Agency decides that they can't risk it and they send Chet up in a lander (YAY!) along with Carter and Quincy (Quincy?).  And it's a good thing they did too because the Russians (booo!) have a lander en route as well. It's a literal race to Venus! But the Americans are well ahead, and they land first. Only to find out that, yes, Venus is indeed a superheated hellscape. (Those sneaky Russian bastards!)  Not only that but the landing crippled the lander, and they have no way to get it back into space! (Noooo!)

But all is not lost, because the Russians (boooo) have called for help. (yay?) The Russian cosmonauts have landed, but they have been stricken sick and need the penicillin the Americans carried with them. Chet's only hope, and the only hope for his crew, is to make his way to the Russian landing site.

So our heroes set off. Braving windstorms and 300-degree heat to reach the stricken Russian lander (booo... I mean...yay?) They reach a mountain and begin to climb.  But as supplies of water and food run short, morale begins to be tested. About halfway up one of the men, Carter, leaves his equipment and wanders off to die alone (*plays Taps*)

And yet, Chet and Quincy continue on. And, as they climb they begin to notice the temperature dropping. Then they find liquid water! Soon they emerge into what actually is a little Garden of Eden on top of the Venusian mountain.  The Russians weren't lying after all, the highest peaks on Venus can actually support Earth life.  They find one Russian cosmonaut (booo) left alive after the rest have succumbed to some unknown pathogen.  But our American Heroes (YAAY!) put aside their differences, help nurse their Russian college back to health, and they all escape Venus together (Awwww!)

Why I Loved This:
First, is there a better name for a space-race, cold war era astronaut than Chet Duncan? Chet Duncan is the name of every blonde, blue-eyed, thick-necked jock that won every football championship in states where the other primary form of entertainment revolves around corn.  Chet Duncan has a handshake that would make any red-blooded American man question his heterosexuality and then immediately shame himself for it. You could go into a barbershop and order a Chet Duncan and, when the barber was done saluting the Freedom Eagle, you would walk out with a haircut that would make a drill sergeant cum in his pants.

And the main character in the book is all of those things.

And second, like the main character,  this book only makes sense if viewed through the lens of the Cold War. The Russians are all portrayed as these conniving, scheming little bureaucrats who need to play underhanded tricks to compete with a force as formidable as the Space Agency of the United States.

Not that the Russians would ever be able to pull one over on the United States.  That would just be ludicrous.

...
...
Yep, couldn't happen.
...
...
And, of course, the strange moral at the end where we realize if all the people of Earth put aside our differences, we would recognize that we are all just human and then we could explore space together.  But, you know, just as long as everyone else realizes that America got there first and, therefore is the awesomest.

Overall Review:
Actually, the science isn't bad, especially given what we knew when the book was written.  There was no reason to believe, at the time, that all of this wasn't totally doable.  The paradise on top of the mountain was maybe a bit of a stretch, but, then again, we now know there is a space high in the Venusian atmosphere where the pressure and temperature are at a level where humans could live.  You know, provided that they had an oxygen tank because there's nothing to breathe in the atmosphere.  Oh, and a protective suit from the sulfuric acid. And some kind of protection form the hurricane-force winds.
Yeah, Venus is a terrible planet. 
Anyway, it reminded me of the Martian but based on what we thought Venus might have been like in the 1970s. So if you could get past the eye-roll-inducing Cold War politics, it was a fun hard-ish sci-fi read.

Book#2 The Jester at Scar


The Story:
More of a space opera meets film noir.
The planet scar is a haven for tourists and adventurers alike. For the rich aristocracy of nearby Jest, Scar is a place where one can experience the delicacies created from the planet's local fauna and enjoy the mild weather provided by a red giant sun that keeps one side of the planet in darkness for months at a time. For the adventure, one can test their bravery and skill by leaving the safety of the city in search of the highly prized fungus, including one with a spore that will grant immortality. But, mostly, the spores just kill anyone unlucky enough to breathe it in.

Enter Earl Dumarest (who's name sounds like a brand of mattress they sell on the Internet) an adventurer looking for the Lost Earth, the legendary planet that birthed the human race.  Meanwhile, Yeon and Joylanda, the couple who rule Jest have decided, based on a coin flip, to visit Scar. For... you know... reasons.  Dumarest finds a patch of the golden mushroom but, just as he gets to it, some marauders from the town swoop in, kill his partner and leave him without a protective suit from the dangerous spores.

After a Daring Escape, Dumarest engages in a complicated game of WhoDunIt until the trail leads him to Yeon and Joylanda where he figures out that their servant did it.  (read, The Butler Did It). As a reward, the couple's robot companion informs him that he's found a clue to the location of Lost Earth.  You see, Earth was the old human word for dirt.  So all you have to do is find a planet named after the Jester word for dirt.  Mystery solved.

*Cough*

Why I loved it:
I had to check to see if the author, E. C. Tubb, wasn't by chance one of L. Ron Hubbard's pen names.  It wasn't, but it well could have been.  The story seems to lurch drunkenly from one thrilling adventure and daring escape to another.  When Dumarest isn't engaged in gun battles with random goons, or scaling mountains or jumping into waters inhabited by some carnivorous creature or another, he's playing Sam Spade with a cast of completely forgettable characters that seem to appear and disappear with equal fanfare. All of this is tied together with a loose storyline that... kinda makes sense?

But it was a fun read. It was one of those page-turners that had me sitting back when I was done muttering, "What the figgity fuck did I just read?"  It's pure pulp fiction. Monsters, Bad Guys With Guns, gruesome deaths and even a femme fatal that isn't really bad as much as she just needs to remember that she's a woman and, thus, should stop being so goddamned ambitious.  Seriously, sweetie, let the men work it out.

That last bit would probably upset a lot of people but, for me, it was that kind of overt sexism that goes way past offensive and gets into the hilarious.   It was the 1970's as this book wasn't exactly written for the hip crowd. We have a long way to go as a society, but it's nice to look back and realize how far we've come.

Overall Review:
This book was like sex with someone you don't really like. At the time it's kinda fun but after you're like, "Why did I do that? What's wrong with me?" My summary above feels disjointed, but that's literally the best I can do. It was a space opera adventure. Parts of it made sense taken apart but together... yeah.

But, you know, Durmarest found Earth in the end so... cool.

In conclusion:
I think I might do another one of these sometime. My local used bookstore seems to have a constant collection of them, and they are as fun now as they were when I was a kid.

If anyone out there has come across another one of these, hit me up. I'd love to hear what strange, bizarre, and interesting things lie within the discarded paperbacks of times gone by.

Also, please somebody write the Bible as an Ace Double. The description sounds amazing.

6 Thoughts About Novice Wielder

Britea was just your average farm girl living the simple life pouring through books and bickering with her sister. But during a particularly nasty squabble, she finds that she has the budding abilities of a wielder. Specifically, a water wielder as she discovers by pelting her annoying sister with water she magically lifted from a kettle warming on the stove.

These things happen.

And when they do in this world, the perspective wielder must attend a special school in a far away land.  Within a matter of hours, Britea and her father talk their way aboard a ship and sail off for Raven’s Fall.  But, in this world, the seas are the realm of the Dyhaeri, a race of humans that live in an underwater city and harbor a deep mistrust of humans that live on land.  Not long after they sail off, a young Dyhaeri man named Khal boards the ship with orders to begin Britea’s instruction.  And after that… well if you are a fan of Young Adult Fantasy Romance, you can probably guess where it goes from there.



 1. The Tight Trope Walk: This book struck me as pretty formulaic. I feel like there is defiantly an audience for this kind of book, that audience knows what they like, and they have a checklist to make sure everything they want is there.

Teenage girl who is remarkably unremarkable gets superpowers? Check.

Said girl possibly (read defiantly) fulfilling a ‘Promised One’ prophesy? Check.

Girl meets Handsome Young Man who’s adorably awkward and unthreatening? Check.

Handsome Youth part of race, nationality or family at war with or at least mistrusted by race, nationality or family of Girl? Check.

Girl and Handsome Guy begin totally awkward, yet endearing, romantic dance around each other? Checkity, check check!

Handsome Guy turns out to be a vampire? Well… it’s only the first book in the series.
2. Conform Damn You! Conform!
One thing that did bug me was that, as I read, I could almost feel the story bending to hit all the required plot points.  One, in particular, struck me pretty hard.  So at the beginning of the book, Khal is ordered by the king of his city to find and train Britea.  Flash forward toward the end of the book and the Dark Powers That Be are circling around Britea and Khal rushes out to help her, the same king and high priest seem to have forgotten all about that order and shocked -SHOCKED- that he would help one of those… surface people.

Overall a lot of plot moving the characters and not a lot of characters advancing the plot. 
3. Atlantis or the Little Mermaid?One thing I struggled with was what exactly the Dyhaeri were. For the first half of the book, I was pretty much picturing humanoid sea creatures.  Something like Kevin Costner in Waterworld; mostly human but with adaptations that allowed them to live underwater.  As the book went on, it seemed that they were fully human, but with some magical and/or technological progressions managed to build a functioning society underwater.  Now that the book is done I’m still not exactly sure what those people were.
4. Is There A Villian In The House?So dark forces are circling. A dark queen (who we really never see) has sent Captain Wolfen to patrol the seas hunting down every wielder he finds.  Why does the queen order this? Nobody is really sure. What are they trying to accomplish? Wolfen, like a good soldier, never questions it. In fact, Wolfen’s entire presence in this book is way in the background until the big climax. 

Because you need a big fight at the climax. Girl must use her powers and newly acquired self-confidence to beat the bad guys. It’s just what happens.

Also, the bad guys use ships powered with oil.  Because bad people have no regard for the environment. That’s also a thing.
5. When The Intangibles Come Together…So, at this point, it might sound like I absolutely hated this book. It had its flaws, for sure, but I strangely enjoyed it, and I don’t know why. Something about the characters, the language, maybe even a bit of the swashbuckling adventure aspect, I can’t put my finger on it which… you know, is which is what intangible means. 

I’m saying I liked it. It was a fun read...
6. The series continues?...But maybe not enough to continue with the series.  Part of this is because I am picky, and a series is a big commitment. But, this type of book clearly has an audience.  And that audience is not likely to get hung up on the details that I do and would absolutely devour a series like this.

6 Thoughts About Trust A Few

Avilon Revid is being released.After five years in the 'specials' a military platoon made up of expendible criminals, he is one of the few who have survived long enough to return to society. But, in order to learn how to exist in a world beyond the strict military disapline and set rules, he must seek out an old friend of his. He finds himself tossed on the streets of the 'City where the crime lords are invovled in a brutal campaign of murder and betrayal and the only way to survive is to... well... that's where the title comes in, isn't it.


Ladies and Gentelmen, Meet Your Players: The only way to really talk about this book is to look at the characters inside. If forced to summerize this book in the simplest way possible I would have to say, 'a group of criminals get shoved into a starship and flung to a crime-ridden hellscape to deal with their issues'.  Which, of course, begs the question, who are the criminals in question.

We Believe in Nothing, Lebowski!: Okay, the central theme of the book doesn't really cross over into true nihilism, I just really, really wanted to quote the Big Lebowski.  The ideas surrounding good and evil swirl around Avilon Revid who is a convicted criminal and was sentenced to serve as a solider for five years in a regiment that, to put it mildly, was considered expendable. The problem is, Avilon has no memory of what he did to land himself in that situation and while he appears to accept that he was an evil person who did terrible things, the reader is left with this feeling of uncertainty. And, in fact, if there is an innocent in this story, Avilon is probably the best candidate. His record is far from clean, but nobody's is in this world of crime, betrayal, and murder but there is an ambiguity to his crime that begs several questions about the nature of evil and justice.
 Kafka Would Be Proud: Another interesting aspect surrounds Charity, a freighter pilot from the rich and protected world of Central who is suddenly and without warning pulled from her life for violating a relatively minor part of her immigration agreement and thrown out into a world she has never known and is not prepared for. The obvious parallel to a prominent issue in our modern world aside —althought that is interesting too— it is, in a sense, her desire for freedom and individuality that gets her tossed in with this group of miscreants but, in the end, drives her ability to survive. I feel like life would be easier for her if she could just Conform GodDamnIT! but she won't.

Truth Justice and... The Morally Ambigous Way?: You gotta have a mysterious figure. You just gotta. I think it's in the Contract.  That roll is filled by Durban Chola. Where does he come from? Nobody is really sure. What does he want? Seems to change by the hour. The only constant about this guy is his urge to bring justice to a place that hasn't seen a lot of it. Which is good, right? Wel... that depends on your view of 'the ends justify the means'.

Oh, And Then There Is The Asshole: Jaz is almost the embodiment of the world the characters find themselves in. He is violent, opportunistic, selfish and good at what he does.  Which is mostly involves beating the crap out of people. AND YET... the author manages to coax something relatable out of him.  For me, I got the sense that he wasn't that way because he wanted to be that way. He became that way because that's how society engineered him. The carrots and sticks alighed so that only the most brutal, selfish bastard gets to live. You run that algorithm and SURPRISE! the brutal and selfish rise to the top. But glimpses into his past as well as his interactions with the others suggest something deeper.  When he is, you know, not punching the aformentioned crap out of someone.

Dance Puppets, DANCE!:  And therein lies the most interesting thing about this book. It's not so much the events which the book moves through at a pace that was, admittedly, a little hard for me to stay engaged with. Maybe it's my ADD mind or the fact that I've gravitated toward books that move at the pace of a rocket donkey so long that I've forgotten how to enjoy a slower novel with a richer, more powerful build-up.

Also... Rocket Donkey!SEE! That's how my brain works now.  I actually stopped writing mid-sentence so I could look up a picture of a rocket donkey!  THE POINT IS... for me this was a book that took some effort to read.  But I'm glad I did. I seemed to pick this up right in the middle of the series, although I didn't feel too lost falling right in the middle. Well definately book some time to crawl through this entire series someday.

10 Thoughts About Josh Anvil and the Cyprus Door

10 Thoughts About Josh Anvil and the Cypress Door
Josh Anvil is your typical American teenager until something happens. He ventures into the Lousiana swamps in his canoe trying to figure out how to tell his family that he's leaving school but, after he is found unconscious, he suddenly realizes that he has the power to alter the nature of reality just by making up the story. But even though he can conjure dragons, a floating island paradise and a housekeeping staff for his parents, he must contend with all the trials and tribulations that come with being teenager including sports, being popular and trying to get the cute girl to go to homecoming.

Also there's someone setting fire to his entire town. That's also happening.

1. Gettin Into A Saturday Morning Frame Of Mind:It's weird how my brain works sometimes. As I first started crawling through the pages of this book, I have to admit, I was mostly annoyed. Nothing made sense. You've got a teenager who is essentially omnipotent. His parents are mostly fine with that. There are dragons flying over Louisiana and the people are only vaguely weirded out. Half the town is burning to the ground, but nobody is all that concerned.

But there was also something charmingly playful in this book, and, as I let myself get sucked in, I felt like I was reading a Saturday Morning cartoon or one of those goofy teen dramas they used to (and probably still do) play on Nickelodeon. I'm talking about the Secret World of Alex Mac or Space Cases or other shows that only people who grew up in the '80s and '90s even vaguely remember anymore. Shows that only really work if every adult in the Known Universe has had their brain removed.

In a weird way, I enjoyed it after I put myself in that headspace.
2. Mood This Is Story. Story, Mood.  Now Go Get It ON!I got the sense that the author didn't want to write a story that has to be taken totally seriously. It was like the entire thing was designed from the get-go to be a whimsical tale about a kid creating dragons and floating island, and whatever else he could dream up.  And to do that, well... you have to suspend a lot of disbelief. You're just going to have to accept that dragons can appear and the people will more or less take it in stride.  You're going to have to accept that the FBI and the military are essentially huge Three Stooges sketches with helicopters. You'll just have to make peace with the idea that since the kid is essentially omnipotent, any conflict is more or less for the look of the thing.

Don't think about it too much, just enjoy it.

3. That being said, that's really hard for me so...Yeah, dragons just appear! And everyone's fine with that. Again, I know why it has to go like that.  A fun, whimsical tale is a hard thing to tell when an entire population is thrown into panicked anarchy. But still...

4. Also, can we talk about his parents for a second?When Josh Anvil and his mother have a heart to heart about his powers, she reacts by saying this:

She leaned toward him. “Josh, we know you. You are a dependable, loving, and caring person. We can trust you to make right decisions.

I'll take things no parent has every said to their teenage son for $100, Alex. I don't know about anyone else, but, when I was a teenager, my parents barely trusted me to not light my hair on fire at any given time. And they were right to do that. I was dumb as shit.  So are most teenagers. The fact that he can create anything he wants by sheer will alone should have his parents running for the state lines.

But again, hard to be playful and whimsical when the parents are fleeing from their son who has the powers of a god.
5. And can we talk about the FBI and Military?Early in the book, Josh and his dragon are picked up and chased by military helicopters. He conjures up smaller flying dragons to take them down.

Later he is (very belatedly) picked up by the FBI who let him go when his dragon attacks the building.

Both agencies pretty much take both of these incidents in stride. The military is totally okay with two of their black hawks being taken down by hostile dragons. Prisoners escape from FBI custody all the time with or without the aid of mythical reptiles.

But again. A playful, whimsical story rarely includes a teenage boy locked away for his own protection and the protection of the entire world and subjected non-stop to medical experimentation.

6.  Don't get me started on the other kids!At the beginning of the book, Josh finds himself at the butt of abuse and bullying from the other kids in high school.  But when he gets SUPER POWERS.... nothing really changes.  The kids are still total jerks. Which is obviously... 100% accurate. No complaints there really. Teenagers are the worst humans, and to have that illustrated was one of the things I found most charming about this book.

7. Hey wasn't there someone lighting fires all over town?Okay, one legitimate fault in the story was that, while Josh is summoning dragons, floating islands and an entire household staff for his family and dealing with high school, there is apparently someone running all over town BURNING EVERYTHING TO THE GROUND!

And yet, it's a part of the story that's always weirdly in the background.  It's brought up quite a lot, every once in a while Josh pauses his whimsical adventures and notices the burned-out buildings, sees a news report or comments about the amount of smoke in the air. But it's very much a story arch that's left until the very, very end.

Maybe it's me, but I would have found the story of Josh trying to track down and stop who or whatever was doing this a lot more than chapters detailing entire days spent at high school.

Of course, for me, just about anything is better than a day at high school.  It was the worst. Just sayin.

8. In the End, Tell The Story You Want To Tell:At this point it probably feels like I'm shitting all over this book, but, looking back, I find all these things rather charming. Art isn't supposed to be reality. Becuase reality doesn't allow for a teenager to summon dragons, spiders and slightly offensive Irish horse breeders out of nothing.  Reality sucks like that.

But what if one could, and the rest of the world kinda went along with it to see where it goes?  That's the point of Josh Anvil, I think.  Or, at least, that's what I took away.

9. Continuing the Series?So Josh Anvil and the Cyprus Door is only the first in a series of books that detail the adventures of the young god/human.  Is it something I'm going to continue?  Possibly. Not immediately. But I could see myself making another visit to this strange reality. We'll see.
10. Okay, one more thing:Should we talk about the moral implication of creating consciousness beings from nothing in order to be your servants....nope?  Fair enough. Enjoy!

10 Thoughts About 'Going Postal'

Yes, back to Terry Pratchett again. I love the fact that he was so prolific during his life that if I keep diving into Diskworld every year or so, I'll still have new Terry Pratchett stories for another decade. Because books are awesome like that.

But this one might be a new favorite of mine.

 The Story:Moist Von Lipwig is about to die. As one of the most infamous conmen in all of Ankh-Morpork, he has been sentenced to be hung for his crimes, although the people of Ankh-Morpork are very nice about the whole affair. But, after the lever is pulled, he finds himself cleverly spirited away at the last minute to face an arguably more horrible fate. The Ankh-Morpork post office has fallen into disrepair and irrelevance and Lord Vetinari, the Tyrant of the city, has ordered him to be the new postmaster general.

When he first arrives at the post office, he is greeted by an old man from mail's glory days and an overly excitable pin collector (or pinhead as they call themselves) and thousands of undelivered mail. While exploring the inner depths of the abandoned post office, he becomes struck with a vision and becomes the avatar of the messenger god. He resolves to use his skills as a conman against the company that owns the 'clacks' a kind of telegraph analog, reawaken the sleeping post office and get the mail moving again.

1. Probably the Most Relevant Discworld Novel To Our Modern World:
Sir Terry is brilliant at taking aspects of the real world, twisting them and pushing them into the Discworld where they can be examined with more care.  One of the main issues in this book, though, is how much do we allow huge corporate interests to control the technology on which we base our lives. This book looks into the soul of this fictional company, The Grand Trunk, and asks the question, 'Should these robber barons be allowed to run an ice cream stand, much less a technology that connects the entire world?"

2. Following One of the Most Underrated Characters: Moist Von Lipwig only has a few novels in which he is the star. He's got nothing on the almost iconic characters from Pratchett's world such as Rincewind, The Witches, or even Commander Vimes who's very names almost embody the spirit of Discworld.  But of all these zany characters, Moist stands out as almost the straight man of a world gone completely bonkers. One gets the feeling that he never knows why he sees what he sees, only that he can maybe scam a buck or two. 

But he is especially intriguing in this novel for his almost suicidal urge to push the envelope to the breaking point. Just when you think he's won, he goes out of his way to make his own victory harder, as if just to prove he can.  He's like a trick shooter who voluntarily blindfolds himself before a quickdraw match.

It just wouldn't be any fun otherwise.
3. Ghosts In The Clacks: One of the major technologies used in the book is something known as 'The Clacks.' Without going too far into it, one can think of it as a primitive telecommunication tool or even telegraph. Through the use of complicated semaphore, messages can be sent across Diskworld in hours rendering the Post Office useless and, thus, overflowing with undelivered mail.

But the interesting thing is that reading the book really made me appreciate another book I read several years ago. It's a non-fiction story about probably the first and most notorious hacker in history. And a lot of that comes from how Mitnick got his start. Long before hacking computer systems and cell towers, he had fun just playing pranks on the phone companies using almost laughably simple tricks.

And that was interesting because...

4. The Spirit of Hacking Is AliveIt's weird to come across a group of hackers in Discworld, but they are there, and they live to make life difficult for the Grand Trunk. And the way they operate would put a smile on the face of Mitnick himself. One of the more brilliant things Pratchett does in this novel is describe this weird sub-culture of mad tinkerers in a way that flows beautifully with the rest of the story. You feel like you know these people. Not just know them but have to deal with them every time you ring up IT.

5. Strange Predictions?:The villain of this book is the perfect complement to its main character. Reacher Guilt is not only a conman but possibly the greatest conman. Even better than Moist himself. This master and twisting words and minds runs the Grand Trunk out of...

wait for it...

Trump Tower.

Sir Terry passed away long before 2016, but I wonder if he didn't see something the rest of us missed. Or maybe just a cheeky jab at a sad cultural icon that turned out to be an amazing accidental prediction. Either way... Oh, My Gods.

6. At The Crossroads of Profit and Utility:The more important issue that the novel deals with is trying to figure out where the need to generate wealth ends and the interests of the public begin. In the novel, The Grand Trunk is every worthless mega-corporation you have to deal with in real life. They are the cable company that manipulates your bills, the telecom service that doesn't work and makes you pay anyway, the credit card company that robs you blind and tells you it's your fault. All with Reacher Guilt at the helm.

And through it all it begs the question, aren't there thankless, unprofitable but incredibly necessary services that must be carried out to keep society moving? And, assuming there is, who really should be in charge of something like that?

7. The Truths of the Corporate World:Anyone who's ever had to suffer through corporate documents will immediately identify with this passage:

It was garbage, but it had been cooked by an expert. Oh yes. You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravaged, stripped of all true meaning and decency, and then sent to walk the gutter for Reacher Guilt, although “synergistically” had probably been a whore from the start."

8. And while we are talking about the use of language:For the record, “Trumpet and skittles” is my new favorite euphemism for male genitalia. 

9. Con of Cons:Leaving all the implications about the real world aside, the casual reader will no doubt appreciate the build-up of this story. The novel itself is like a fantastic con game that you can't help but get sucked into. I had to read this book in and around some other novels I have been reading for a Goodreads author group, but I loved how I could leave it for a few weeks and come back and be instantly immersed again.

10. The Truth About Gold At The End of the Rainbow

One final thought from Sir Terry himself:

"They'd saved the city with gold more easily, at that point, than any hero could have managed with steel.  But, in truth, it had not exctly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fantasy of gold, the fairy dream that the gold it there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there forever— provided, naturally, that you don't go and look.

This is known as Finance."

10 Things About Xenoman

Every once in a while I find a book that is just gloriously, unapologetically and intensely weird.  It’s the kind of book that yanks you out of your dull day to day world, slaps you around and dumps you by the side of the road with your pants on backward and cab fare stuffed into your back pocket.  Xenoman is one of those books.   This book is basically what would happen if the Church of the Subgenius wrote the Fear and Loathing version of Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.



The story takes place in a commercial dystopia populated by fame-crazed, drug-addled pop stars, love-sick video game avatars, orgy couches, a terrifying fast food franchise named Klownburger and a designer drug with the minor side effect of causing its users to burst into flame.
I don’t know why this book was so entertaining to read but it just… was.  A lot of times I found myself pouring though the story thinking to myself, "I have no fucking idea what is happening and I don't care!  This is awesome!"  How exactly does the author, Adam Martin, pull this off?  Well, I'm going to mostly use quotes from the book to answer that because I think they speak for themselves.

1. The Author Takes the Inane and the Bizarre and Slams Them Together Like a Baby With A Saucepan:

She  caught  a glimpse  of  a  couple  on  the  showroom  floor,  testing  out  the  latest  orgy sofa.  The  salesman  tapped  the  sofa  control  panel  and  appendages  extended from  the  plush  surface  in  all  shapes  and  sizes,  accompanied  by  orifices that  expanded  and  contracted. The  woman  unbuttoned  her  blouse  while  her  consort  unzipped  his pants.  Circular  blinds  enclosed  the  trio  for  more  privacy,  while  other shoppers  continued  feeling  out  the  furniture,  testing  the  poofiness  factor, sternly  talking  over  the  price  tags  with  the  sales  team,  making  rectangle shapes  with  their  fingers  as  if  framing  where  it  would  sit  in  their  own living  room.

2. It Provides a Glimpse Into The Modern World By Viewing the Extremes:

"Insto-Plas.  The  old  formula  caused  infections  if  it  got  under  the eyelids,  but  I  couldn't  stop  rubbing  it  into  my  face.” Velva  opened  a container  of  beauty  cream  and  rubbed  it  into  her  cheeks  and  jowls.  “It  did something  to  my  brain.  My  self  image  became  vivid.  Vibrant.  Like  a  video game.  The  skin  softened  and  I  could  mold  my  face  exactly  the  way  I wanted  it.  The  pouty  lips!"

3. There Is Anarchically Snarky Glee:

The  slide  showed  a  close  up  of  the  chimp's  face,  glaring  into  the camera  with  a  peeled  banana  sticking  out  of  its  mouth.
“What  happened  to  the  chimp?”  Xeno  asked.
“We  let  him  play  with  the  knobs  on  the  black  box.  Within  minutes. he  just  froze  from  the  effects  of  a  synthetic  sensory  seizure.”
“And?”
“He  was  a  good  chimp.  He  went  out  with  a  banana.”

4. There Are Ideas In This Book That Will Haunt Your Dreams:

“What's  with  the  Lick  Me  flyers?”
“They're  treated  with  bio-mind-cream.  You  lick  the  flier  and  Holly feels  it  on  her  skin  through  an  implant  in  her  brain.  And  if  Holly  licks the  flier,  you  feel  it  on  your  skin  .  .  .  if  you  have  the  implant.”

Me: *Shutters*
To be clear, that is a flyer that, if you lick it, another human on the other end feels it.  If that isn't Twitter gone totally off the cliff, I don't know where the cliff is.

5. Did I Mention Snarky As Fuck?:

“Andrea,”  Xeno  pushed  her  back  a  ways  to  get  some  space  between them,  “you  have  chocolate  all  over  your  face.”

“Oh.  Really?”  Andrea  wiped  a  streak  of  chocolate  from  her  upper  lip, staining  the  sleeve  of  her  wedding  gown.  “After  I  stole  this  wedding  dress, I  stole  a  box  of  chocolate,  and  ate  the  whole  thing.”

6. Some Books Break The 4th Wall. Others Bulldoze It:

“This  extraterrestrial  novelty  item  has  an  anonymous  author,  with  a subjective   point   of  view,  somehow  programmed  into  the  molecular structure  of  the  book.  Again,  no  moving  parts.  We  think  the  book  came from  their  version  of  the  Humor  Section,  in  their  version  of  a  book store.”

7. Too On-The-Nose?  What is that?

“The  pineal  gland  behaves  much  like  an  old  vinyl  record  if  you  play it  backwards.”
“Is  that  what  that  strange  voice  is?  A  satanic  message?”
“There's  no  way  to  tell  without  the  Satan-o-scope,  yet  we  can  explore more  occult  terrain.”

8. There is Sophomoric Humor And Then There Is This…

“That's  the  Atomized  Synthiopathic  Synapse.”  Garry  stood  shoulder to  shoulder  with  Xeno  on  the  shore  of  artificial  grass,  admiring  the monstrous  technology  with  a  look  of  pride.  “Also  known  as  our  ASS.  The summit  of  mankind's  artificial  intelligence.”

Warning.  A whole book load of ASS references ahead.  And, as much as they should have gotten old, they didn't.  It still made me giggle.

9. And Why Does All This Work...:I... I don't know.  It just did.  Maybe I was in a weird mood.  Maybe my brain was just craving something intensely bizarre. Perhaps the combination of capitalist dystopia and snarky fun hit me right in the happy spot.  The biggest thing to take away is that sometimes I love a book because it tells a gripping story that comes together well and characters I love take me on a journey.  And sometimes I love a book just duct tapes me to a rocket and says ‘good luck!’ as it lights the fuse.

10. Words of ... let's call it Wisdom:

“Is  Blouse  really  gone  forever?”
“Hard   to   say,   Xeno.”   Garry   remained   upbeat.   “In   the   Nth Dimension,  it's  all  just  one  big  power  chord.”