Batgrl (Book Data Kept Elsewhere) > Recent Status Updates

'It was definitely a pike that killed that man?'
'Definitely. But not an ordinary pike, as we've already indicated. What we're up against is a giant, a freak...'
- And that's our scientist! You'd think he'd at least mention mutations, but no.

I like that no one's arguing the existence of the 12-13 ft long monster pike. Everyone is told to stay out of the water and the police and volunteers with boats (a boat posse!) get ready to go patrol the lake. Except there's no plan to kill the monster yet. You'd think someone would have a plan of attack...

"He didn't, for the moment, feel capable of doing anything but sit there. She had touched him very far down, where his responses were at their most sensitive, and the effect was still there."
- They met over coffee at a restaurant. So that's some very weird and special touching going on. And there's no way I can write that and not have it sound very wrong.

"In looks he reminded Mike of a gambler he had once known, steady-eyed, square mouthed, with an assertive chin that kept people at a distance."
- A chin that can do crowd control?!

"...We can say he displays just about every kind of injury. But we can't say how he died - and it's our job to do that. We have to find facts and lay blame wherever we can. So' - he put down his probe and torch - 'we'll need more data. That means looking at the boat, examining the place where death occurred, taking samples of water..."
- Um, Doc, shouldn't you actually cut into the body? Maybe run tests on it first?

And by "no internet" in that last quote, I mean "no internet full of forensic science of random giant fish attack info." Not that there wasn't any internet then, it just was a less helpful resource for giant monster attack questions.

Very tame autopsy scene - I keep wondering where Twemlow got the science-talk, since this was written around 1982 - no internet and not many police procedurals on tv like CSI. ...Also I don't think the tongue should be missing. Or the eye. Those wouldn't nibble off easily. Am now wondering what Jeremy Wade would say about this attack.

You know you're in the UK when: the rental car is a Cortina.

"A whine of dire pain and disbelief erupted in Benny's chest and wailed out across the lake."
- Sounds like an alien chestburster moment. (I had no idea those things actually had a name.)

Look Henry, it's really not a good time to put your face in the water. Why do these guys never listen to their nervous friends?!

"He had only to dwell on Anna, on the memory of their better times together, and the soggy impulse to mourn his lost place in the sun descended on Mike like syrup, cloying every thought and impulse."
- Somehow I can't remember the last time I had a soggy impulse...

"...to be relaxed was to be off-guard. To be off-guard in his line was to be wide open to failure, but somehow he had managed that anyway.
...To people with Mike's special antennae, it would be easy to assume he had gone up in the world."
- if I had my way this would mean that Mike is in reality a giant bugman.

'Jesus,' Joe said, 'It's great. It's all so - I don't know.' He glanced at Larry.
'English,' Larry said. Larry was the one who was clever with words.
- Americans, right? Heh.
(I have no idea why all the dialog in this book so far uses single ' rather than the usual " punctuation. Perhaps a UK thing?)

"His looks made people cautious of him, for he had the appearance of a talented brawler - broken nose, steady cold eyes, over-developed biceps straining his sweatshirt." - here I feel compelled to note that the author was once a nightclub bouncer.

Monster makes sort-of-appearance on second page of book - nice to know there's not going to be any dawdling before bloodshed occurs.

"He spat thoughtfully into the lake and smiled out over the water." - Have you ever noticed that whenever someone's writing about country folk there's often spitting going on? This happens a lot when people describe the rural South in the US, for instance. And I can't really correct that, having known multiple guys that chewed tobacco. But still - yuck. And also I bet killer fish won't like that spitting either.

"It was Sunday and still early enough for a man to feel the quietness touching his ears." - I swear, Quietness, you sneak up and try to touch my ears and there will be hell to pay...

Book is sitting near me being tempting, but safely inside a plastic bag in hopes that the baking soda/scented dryer sheet can remove the smell. Am going to start reading in a bit - but only after I eat. Because yes, the smell was that bad yesterday.

Pondering an alternative to the like link - for an update like "Batgrl is aghast that there are books containing nothing but reviews of another popular book" - because that is a weird concept. Or so I found when I searched GR for A World Lit Only By Fire. Because those 2 books don't even qualify as lit crit.

Listening to BBC 4 detective stories Tales of Max Carrados - and only now have I figured out that the reader/voice actor Arthur Darvill is a voice I know from Doctor Who. No wonder it sounded familiar.

If any of you found the Ken Burns series on Prohibition interesting - the ebook Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent is on sale for $2.99 at Amazon (kindle/mobi format). (If you don't have that format check your usual ebook seller for price matching sale, it sometimes happens.)

So I got a cheesy paperback about a pike that terrorizes a lakeside town. Am hoping it'll be like a SyFy movie in paperback form. Used Book Problem: it smells funny. I've wrapped it in a scented dryer sheet but may have to toss it when I'm done because bad smells will be absorbed by other books. Problem 2: how to read it without smelling it...

Jules Verne's Tomb: "Designed by sculptor Albert Roze, and using the actual death mask of the writer, the statue depicts the shrouded figure of Jules Verne breaking his own tombstone and emerging from the grave."

Canto XVI, 20-21 - Rodomonte:
...This spirited
warrior leapt the ditch and, in a burst
of energy, the inner wall to land
inside the fortifications. It was grand,
unless you were inside, in which sad case
it was terrifying - a guy in a lizard suit?
The citizens flee...

No,no idea what the lizard suit part is about. It sounds hysterical though.

Canto XVI, 1
It's just a story, but lety me explain to you
how stories are not mere inventions but
pieces of real life, some painfully true,
that we manipulate. You have to cut
and paste a little, but that doesn't mean what you do
is mere persiflage and rodomontade. It's not.

Comedy in fighting Orrilo - he can heal any wound he receives. After his head is cut off:
Canto XV, 71
"...He gropes around on the ground for a moment or so
and picks it up by the hair and with a small
neat gesture claps it back where it should go
on the open neck, from which it does not fall.
Fasteners? Glue? Nails? I couldn't begin
to guess. But it's there, and secure, and can even grin."

Canto XV, 61
He uses the giant then as a kind of valet
to carry his helmet and shield and other such
cumbersome paraphernalia (or do you say
valet, sounding the final T. It's much
preferred among those people who really may
have one, and it's a very classy touch).
At any rate, he carries stuff, and the crowd
express their awe and their admiration aloud.

Canto XV, 28
"...And he will have also
in his campaigns a very helpful friend,
Andrea Doria. He'll be a godsend."

You might not have heard of that 16th century captain - but the name is familiar thanks to the sinking of the Andrea Doria.

Section here about the glory of the Spanish - fairy/sorceress tells of the future - and so we suddenly hear about Hernando Cortez and New Spain. Which I definitely did not expect.

The wording on this one made me eyeroll, because how much more colloquial can we get:

Canto XV, 17
"They keep on keeping on until they reach
Cochin..."