Edward Lorn's Blog, page 94

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 22

Day 22 – A book that makes you cry.

I read Of Mice and Men when I was fifteen. I cried. I reread it when I was twenty-two. I cried again. I read it for a third time when I hit thirty. Once more, I wept. Lennie’s entire life story is a tragedy, but, in the end, I felt the strongest for George. George is the one who must live without Lennie, as well as live with the fact that he had to kill his best friend. It was the first time I read about a mercy killing. Some argue with me about that. Lennie’s murder is a kindness. Remember what happened to Frankenstein when they found the blind girl’s body? Exactly. I’ll read this little treasure again, and I’ll probably bawl for a fourth time, but right now, I don’t need the tears.

 

 

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 21

Day 21 – The first novel you remember reading.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day, by Randall Frakes. My mother assures me I read plenty of “novels” before this, but I don’t remember them. Since the title of today’s challenge mentions being able to recall said novel, I’m going with the novelization of James Cameron’s ultimate thrill ride.

Long story short, I was eleven, the film was PG-13, and my mother was a stickler for MPAA ratings.

“If they wanted kids under thirteen to watch the movie, they’d have made it PG.”

You see, in 1989 (two years before Arnold swapped roles from villainous machine to John Conner’s teachable-savior), my wonderful sisters (who’re twelve and fourteen years older than me) took me to see Robocop. Afterward, the only thing I remembered about that movie was the flash of boob during a walk-through of the locker rooms. It was so quick that my oldest sister didn’t have time to cover my eyes. Unfortunately, I went home and told my father about the titty shot. My father, being the dick that he was, told my mother. From then on out, I was a slave to the MPAA.

So, one fateful afternoon, I was walking home from school and had to use the bathroom. I ducked into a convenience store to drain my ween. After leaving the restrooms, I stumbled upon a paperback copy of Terminator 2: Judgement Day, by Randall Frakes that was being sold in a display case beside the cash register. If I couldn’t see the epicosity which was T2, I would read of it. Needless to say, the book rocked. We get a much better view of the characters and their motivations, as we do more insight into the future war. I think I love the book and the movie in equal amounts. I also believe that one story told in two separate mediums started a love for film and literature that would follow me into adulthood and beyond.

Author’s note: These past 21 days have opened up a lot about my past that I didn’t remember until prompted. For the longest time, I thought the first novel I recalled reading was Delores Claiborne, by Stephen King. But it was actually second to Frakes’s terminator novelization. My lapse in memory probably stems from the two years that passed between T2: the novel in 1991 and when King released Delores in 1993. Or maybe it’s because King’s story of a woman who got away with a murder she actually committed but then charged for one she didn’t commit is still as fresh in my mind as when I first read it. I can still hear her husband scratching at the well’s walls…

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 20

Day 20 – Favorite romance book.

I don’t like romance, so today was kinda easy. All I had to do was pick the only romance novel I’ve ever actually finished. And that would be, Thought I Knew You, by Kate Moretti.

Full disclaimer: Yeah, Kate and I share the same publisher, but, aside from that, we have nothing in common. And no, I don’t get a kickback of her sales, so pull your head out of your ass.

I did not finish Kate’s book because I felt obligated to. I don’t even think she knew I was reading it. The synopsis piqued my interest, as did the excerpt, so I gave it a go (I was also lied to, just a smidgen, by someone working for Red Adept Publishing who’d gotten their hands on the novel before publication; they’d said the book was more thriller than romance). Did I keep reading with hopes that it would become more thriller-y? Nope. I kept reading because I was entertained. Something I can’t say for any other romance I’ve ever opened.

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 19

Day 19 – Favorite book turned into movie.

Today is kind of a no-brainer for me. Fight Club is the only movie in the history of films-adapted-from-books which surpasses the source material. If you read Fight Club then watch the film, you’ll think the book was like reading a spoiler-heavy review before seeing the movie. If you read the book after watching the movie, it’s like perusing the film’s script. The movie does everything better, turning a great book into an amazing film. I think this is because of the performances we get from Norton and Pitt. For specific reasons, Fight Club’s narrator (sorry for being obtuse, but there might be a couple of you that have not seen the movie or read the book) is a blank canvas. An avatar if you will. The reader gets to fill in the description. Yet in the movie, we get Edward Norton’s less-than-ugly mug to gawk over. Then you have shirtless Brad Pitt, and the panties, they be dropping. I keed, I keed… Where was I? Oh yeah, a movie that was better than the book. Okay, so the book is good, the movie’s great, and literary-fuckwads are screaming their distaste of me at their computer screens. But when even the author admits the movie’s better, you kinda have to listen… right? It takes an awesome individual to admit such a thing. Chuck Palahniuk, I’m looking at you, good sir. Carry on being cool like that.

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 18

Day 18 – A book that disappointed you.

Forever Odd, what can I say about you? Dean Koontz was riding high after the success of Odd Thomas, and fans were clamoring for more. Why wouldn’t we? Odd Thomas was the best story/character Koontz had come up with in a decade (other than the Christopher Snow novels, but they don’t count either because Koontz has yet to give us book three, so fuck ‘im). Because none of us would shut up about Pico Mundo’s extraordinary fry cook, Koontz dribbled out a lackluster-as-hell sequel, tea-bagged the puddle, then published the aftermath. Gone is Odd’s sarcastic wit, disappeared is his charm, and vanished is his ability to explain things succinctly. We get Oddie bumbling through city streets, sewers, and then a burned out casino. If those seem like great locations, you’ve been sniffing glue. My point is, every location is gone over in such redundant detail as to make the reader want to shoot the author of said prose with a damned RPG (that’s a rocket propelled grenade to those of you who haven’t played Call of Duty, watched a war movie, or, you know, served in the military). We understand that sewers look like mo’ frakkin’ sewers! We dig the concept of a fire-gutted casino! It’s a casino… that’s been fire-gutted. For fuck’s sake, we know what a row of houses look like! My point is this, Dean Koontz gets away with detail for detail’s sake like no other author. He will spend an entire five-sentence paragraph describing a puddle of water only for the character to step over the puddle and never return to it. Nothing drives me bat-shit like description that doesn’t move the plot forward. And Forever Odd is full to the brim of superfluous gallivanting. (See what I did there?)

The villain is lame. She’s meant to be scary/seductive but she just comes off pretentious and boring, like a Bond villain written by Truman Capote. The two pseudo-zombie henchmen are inane. The damsel-in-distress is a little boy with the same disease Sam Jackson had in Unbreakable. Odd doesn’t really do shit, aside from getting in trouble and being saved by nature. Seriously. It happens. Twice.

Final proof that this book is an affront to the series: Dean Koontz has written seven Odd Thomas books (one split into three parts – Odd Interlude – which is, in my opinion, the best of the series) and several comics based on Odd’s antics. I’ve read them all. The happenings of book two (Forever Odd) are never mentioned again, aside from a quick sentence in Odd Apocalypse about something that occurred in a casino a while back. In every other book in the series, the previous books’ happenings are gone over. Not here. It’s like Koontz is apologizing, wordlessly, for this pile of literary excrement. I’ve seen reviewers call this book “touching” and “moving” and “groundbreaking” but that could only be the case if someone hit you about the head with the hardcover and, when you finally collapsed, you cracked the concrete with your thick skull. 

Not many novels make me angry to the point of physical violence, but Forever Odd is one of them. A novel written with the purpose of appeasing the fans until Koontz could write an Odd tale actually worth a fuck (Brother Odd), Forever Odd disappointed me so entirely that I reviewed it twice… Sonuvabitch, did I really?

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 17

Day 17 – Favorite quote from your favorite book.

I don’t have a favorite quote from my favorite book. Well, unless I quote the entire book, so I’ll pick my favorite quote of all time. I dig it so much, I put it as the pretentious author quote at the beginning of my debut novel.

“Monsters are real. Ghosts are real, too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” 

~Stephen King

 

 

Calling All Book Reviewers!

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

In case you haven’t figured this out by now, my name is Edward Lorn. I’m a horror author who’s been both independently and traditionally published. As boring as that introduction is, I assure you my stories are far from banal. I am currently looking for reviewers for both audio and ebook versions of my entire catalog. If you’d be interested in giving one of my books a try, I would be glad to provide you with a free copy in return for an honest review. Let me make myself perfectly clear, if you do not like my work, I do not expect, nor do I want, positive reviews. I simply want your unbiased critique.

To view my catalog, please visit my Amazon author’s page here: http://www.amazon.com/Edward-Lorn/e/B0073M9ILU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

If you would like an audiobook copy, click here: http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_hp_tseft?advsearchKeywords=edward+lorn&filterby=field-keywords&x=-1117&y=-163

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you!

E.

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 16

Day 16 – Favorite female character.

For the longest time, the answer to this question was Delores Claiborne. Then I read NOS4A2, by Joe Hill. The Brat (aka Victoria Mcqueen, aka Vic) is one of the more dynamic female leads I’ve ever read about. You’ll love her, hate her, root for her, want to slap her, laugh with her, and cry for her. Strip away the supernatural elements of Hill’s tour-de-force, and you’re left with a striking character study about one woman’s struggle with accepting affection. On top of everything else, Vic is a badass, yet she’s far from invincible. Vic’s a caring mother, a lover, a fighter, a hard-nosed biker, a children’s book author/illustrator, and totally uncomfortable in her own skin. She’s every woman and utterly unique. In other words, the perfect storm. Because of all this, The Brat rests high atop my pile of favorite female leads. Sorry, Delores, you’ve been ousted by a lady with an even stronger will than your own. I didn’t think it was possible, but there it is.

(Author’s note: NOS4A2 pops up again two more times during this challenge. It’s currently my favorite book of all time. Care to guess which two forthcoming questions I’m going to answer using Hill’s masterpiece? If you choose right, I’ll gift you a copy of one of my novels/collections in ebook or audiobook format. Already have all my books? Fine, I’ll send you a gift card/coupon for someone else’s book. The answers might surprise you, so choose wisely.)

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 15

Day 15 – Favorite male character.

That ol’ tried and true harbinger of chaos Randle Patrick McMurphy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He was the first literary character to actually teach me something I could use in life. If you don’t think highly of yourself neither will anyone else. He’s funny, foul-mouthed, crazier than a barn owl in a hurricane, and overflowing with ego. Kinda like me.

30 Day Book Challenge – Day 14

Day 14 – A book turned into a movie and completely desecrated.

I like the way today’s prompt is worded. Desecrated. Not ruined, but desecrated. One of desecrated‘s definitions is: to treat with sacrilege; profane. A film adaptation never ruins the book. It doesn’t affect the book at all. No matter how shoddily the source material is treated, the book is just as good as it ever was. With that lesson in semantics out the way, I think the most profane adaptation would have to be How the Grinch Stole Christmas: The Jim Carey Edition. The old cartoon is magical, whimsical, leaving one with a wistful feeling, at least for those of us belonging to Generation Why (as in WHY does Hollywood keep molesting my childhood?). Ron Howard’s seizure inducing Carey-Vehicle is funny and boisterous, but overlong. I dig Old Rubber Face’s performance as the titular character, and the film is overall enjoyable, but the tone is much different. You never actually dislike Carey’s Grinch because you know that loveable-ass Jim Carey is behind the makeup. The added material didn’t do anything for me. I wasn’t sitting there going, “Ah! So that’s why he was such an asshat!” because I was wondering the whole time where the writer’s got their information. Dr. Suess’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas didn’t have any appendixes to work off. In my opinion, Howard’s team jammed a turkey baster up the source material’s ass and injected it with needless filler. Stop artificially inseminating my childhood, cock pandas!

(Author’s Note: If you so much as mention the name of that Mike Myers/Alec Baldwin film based on a Dr. Suess book about two kids left in the care of one amazing feline, I will hunt you down and fist you into oblivion. Are we understood? The Film That Shall Not Be Named should be allowed to disappear from our collective consciousness. And, yes, I understand it’s both an affront to cinema as well as the book. It is not mentioned here because, for this fan, it does not exist.)