Archive
Book Review: Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
Summary:
In an alternate future as envisioned in the 1930s, Flora Poste loses both her parents and finds herself living on 100 pounds a year. In lieu of getting a job and an apartment in London as suggested by her friend Mrs. Smiling, she decides to live with relatives in order to tidy things up about them. She decides upon her farming cousins the Starkadders who are all under the whims of Great Aunt Ada Doom who saw something nasty in the woodshed when she was a child. Flora may have bit off more than she can chew between crazy Aunt Judith, cousin Seth who has more sultry appeal than he can handle, cousin Elfine who flits about the fields and writes poetry, hell-fire preaching Uncle Amos, and sundry other cousins, not to mention the sad bull in the barn.
Review:
Between the general more British style of writing and the accents of some of the relatives, it took me a bit to get into this book. Once I did though, I found myself lost in the delightful world Gibbons created and wishing the etiquette books Flora religiously uses as her references for life actually existed.
Reading of what was a near future for Gibbons, but actually an alternate past sometime in the 1940s or 1950s for modern readers gave the book a deliciously steampunk quality. People talk on videophones but they still must run to town to use a pay phone. Almost everyone seems to have their own airplane that are used for jaunts to London and Paris. On the other hand, the clothes and hairstyle call to mind the roaring 20s as do the social mores. This is an alternate history that saw no conservative backlash and yet one that also maintained marriage, beautiful clothing, and fancy parties as the norm. How could you not want to visit this world?
Each character is well-drawn and easily decipherable from each other, which is a significant achievement given the relatively short length of the book. Pretty much every character has some flaw, but they aren’t demonized for it. They simply learn to deal with their shortcomings either by embracing them and making them work for them or re-routing their energies into more worthwhile pursuits. I can’t recall the last time I saw a bunch of characters with so many short-comings and yet portrayed in such a sympathetic light.
What made me love the book the most though, I must admit, was the main character of Flora Poste. For the first time I loved a main character who is pretty much the exact opposite of my own personality. She is calm, even-minded, focused, and gentle, whereas I, I must admit, am much more like one of the Starkadders who she seeks to help. The Starkadders are the dramatic, emotional type, and Flora, while sympathetic to actual underlying issues, won’t put up with any overdramatizing. She doesn’t expect them to change the essence of who they are; she just expects them to tidy up a bit and be a bit more reasonable about everything. The whole concept of being reasonable about things is such a new idea to the Starkadders that it leads to some truly hilarious scenes.
Of course Flora is not without her own faults, which is good. Otherwise, the book would read as quite judgmental on the poetic types. Flora can be too quick to get herself in over her head and she can be a bit quick to judge people she’s just met, but these are just her own flaws and she does her best and really that’s all any person can ever really do.
Overall, I absolutely loved this book. It’s a world that is a pure delight to get lost in, and I foresee myself returning to it again and again as a comfort read. I highly recommend it to everyone. Between the character building, the steampunky feel, and the humorous slapstick scenes, there’s something for everyone to enjoy.
5 out of 5 stars
Source: PaperBackSwap
Movie Review: Slither (2006)
Summary:
When an asteroid comes to a small, southern US town, it brings with it alien slug-like creatures who infest a local man. His wife is the first to notice something askew, but not before the slugs manage to impregnante a local woman. Can she and the golden-hearted sherriff save the day?
Review:
The two most important things to know about this movie are: 1) It was written and directed by James Gunn Dawn of the Dead 
Probably the best part of this movie, besides watching Fillion, is the special effects. The slugs look totally believable, and as the husband becomes more taken over by the aliens, he looks increasingly like Brundle in The Fly
My main gripes with the film are that the husband is kind of miscast. It’s really not believable that his wife ever married him to start with. He at least needed a better looking face or something. Plus his acting prior to all the special effects taking place is kind of iffy. I also wished the slugs had wreaked a bit more havoc prior to entering the bodies whereupon we can’t see them anymore. They were cool to look at.
Overall, you’re going to enjoy this film if you enjoy B-level, gross-out horror. It’s not up the level of The Fly
3 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Book Review: World War Z by Max Brooks
Summary:
The world has survived the first zombie war, and the government sends out a young man to interview people in order to find statistics on the war. When he returns, he finds out they only want the cold, hard facts. This disappoints him, as he wants to show the world the human, emotional side of the war, so he prints the interviews, so we all can read and connect with them. What follows is the harrowing tale of how a virus starting in the countryside of China spreads via refugees and a general human refusal to believe that bodies are reanimating. All of this leads to the Great Panic, which brings humanity to the very brink of extinction.
Review:
Since I was a US History major in undergrad, I came at this book with a lot of experience wading through pages and pages of boring and irrelevant text in primary documents to find the hidden gems. The gems made it all worth it. I’ll never forget going through Samuel Sewall’s diary, which was largely a collection of his farming statistics, only to suddenly start seeing glimpses into the Salem Witch Trials. It was awesome. It is not, however, an experience that I think a fiction writer should attempt to replicate. Reading World War Z felt far too much like reading through actual primary historical documents. There was too much wading and not enough awesomeness.
The thing is, even though I’m suspending my disbelief enough to be in the future after a zombie war, I still know that I’m reading a fiction book, and I tend to get a bit irritated when the characters relating their experiences spend pages on useless dribble. I don’t want to hear about how you miss your father; I want to hear about the zombies climbing all over your submarine on the bottom of the ocean! Even in the fictional world of the book, there’s still an editor who collected these stories. Why didn’t he edit the ramblings out? Is that the human factor I was supposed to connect with? Because I didn’t.
However, when you get past the dull bits, there are some truly awesome scenes. Scenes such as a woman standing on the roof of a car and taking out over 100 zombies by herself. Or American soldiers reverting back to the Revolutionary-era tactic of two lines of soldiers facing the enemy with just rifles. Or a nun protecting her Sunday school class from a horde of zombies with just a 6 foot silver candlestick. These scenes, and many more, are fun to read because they are done so well. Brooks displays an innate understanding of not only how zombies should work, but how humans would respond to their presence on an individual basis.
Although I personally wouldn’t like a zombie war to be met with so much government and political power, the way Brooks lays it out, it actually is believable. What is quite possibly the most scary about the zombie war future he proposes isn’t the zombies, but is the fact that most of the governments of the world survive and come out with more power over the people than before. If freaking zombies can’t wrest the power from the government’s hands and give it back to the people, then I don’t know what could.
Overall, I’m glad I read World War Z for the epic scenes and condensed picture of the war I now have in my head. I’d recommend it to fans of zombies primarily, but also to people who enjoy analyzing global politics and military strategy. Be warned that it’s not your typical fast-paced horror read. You have to earn the scenes with zombies.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Harvard Book Store (used books basement)
Movie Review: A.I. Artifical Intelligence (2001)
Summary:
In the near future, robots, aka “mecha,” have become the norm. They exist to serve humanity, have self-protecting pain aversion, but they do not have emotion. One research team sets out to make a robot who can love. A child robot designed to always love the parents. Monica and Henry, whose son is in a coma, try out the first prototype named David. He winds up being more than they bargained for though, and unwilling to return him to the company to be destroyed, they abandon him on the roadside. He then begins a quest for the blue fairy to become a real boy.
Review:
This movie is long, nearly 2 1/2 hours, yet I was entranced with the story for every minute. It truly addresses one of the most basic questions–what makes us human? If it is intelligence, emotion, a sense of self, then David has all that. Is he therefore worthy of love? Worthy of being treated as more than a toaster? The film leaves us with no easy answers, but it explores the question in such a creative, intriguing manner.
In addition to being wonderfully thought-provoking, the film is also well-done. The special effects are stunning for the early 2000s. Of particular note is David’s toy robot bear, who walks and talks as an individual. The make-up is done subtly, providing just a few hints at who is mecha and who orga. A slight plastic sheen to the hair, perhaps, or a lack of hair on the arms.
The film boasts an all-star cast, most notably Haley Joel Osment in the leading role and Jude Law as a sex working robot. Osment brings a stunning combination of intense creepiness and vulnerability that gives the character of David exactly the right amount of relatability and disturbing moments. Jude Law similarly displays mechanical movements while simultaneously expressing just the right amount of possible emotion passing across his face.
Given all that, I’m not sure why I didn’t love this movie in lieu of really liking it. I suspect it has something to do with the ending, which rubbed me the wrong way a bit. It just seemed….odd. Particularly in comparison to the rest of the film.
However, don’t let that detract you from seeing this movie. It is highly enjoyable and leaves you with philosophical thoughts and queries for days. I highly recommend it to fans of scifi and philosophy alike.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Product Review: DeVant 4 Tier Mesh Shelf from CSN Stores
My lovely loyal readers will recall that I announced that CSN Stores offered me a free product in exchange for my honest review. Well, it arrived, and I’m excited to tell you all about it!
After pondering the possibilities for the price limit they set, I decided what I really needed was a shelf for my kitchen. Boston apartments are notorious for being cramped spaces, and much as I love mine, it seriously is lacking in cabinetry/places to put shit. My cookbooks were stacked up in messy piles under the microwave. Not the best for ready reference while cooking! Anyway, so I measured one of the narrow nooks in my kitchen, found a shelf that matched the proportions and was within budget, and ordered away. The delivery was faster than the spacing of my blog posts implies. It arrived a couple days or so after I placed the order.
It arrived in a nice, plain box. This is good because some companies have a tendency not to wrap the box in another box, and then it gets left on my porch for hours announcing to the world the free awesome stuff inside they could steal. So yay for plain packaging! Also, it was really easy to open. (My cat at this point in time was taking a brief break from rubbing her face all over the box. She REALLY loves boxes).
This is exactly how it looked right out of the box. Not too intimidating, eh? (To those wondering, at this point in time my cat was attempting to stuff her tubby self into the very narrow box. Hilarity ensued). I was a bit surprised that there was exactly one page of instructions for assembly, but it turned out to be quite easy. Anyone who has assembled Ikea furniture would find it to be a piece of cake. I had a few doubts at first that it would be at all stable, but actually once all the pieces are in place, it’s pretty darn stable. I wouldn’t go putting super-heavy things on it though. It’s not made for that.
Here it is all set-up! Later I moved it to be centered in that space. I don’t know why I had it in the corner for the picture. Who knows. Anyway, it fits the space well, and I now have two open shelves to do what I want with. I actually am enjoying using the top shelf as extra counter-top space when I’m cooking. It comes in handy.
And here’s a close-up of the cookbooks, because I know at least a few of you love shelf p*rn! It turns out I have a lot fewer cookbooks than I thought I did. I think this totally justifies me acquiring a few more when the budget allows it, don’t you? If you *must* know what books are on the shelf, from left to right:
America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, Perfect Vegetables, Vegetarian Bible, Adventures in Microwave Cooking (college), stir-fry cookbook, vegetarian cookbook (the actual names of those two elude me), Vegetarian Cooking for Dummies (from when I first went veg, it’s an *awesome* book!), Vegetables, The Little House Cookbook, Pumpkins, Vegetarian Italian Cooking, a vintage southern cooking cookbook (bday present from my dad), Nestle’s Best-Loved Cookies, and a family cookbook from my dad’s side of the family.
Hokay, back to the review! Overall, my interactions with CSN Stores were entirely pleasant. The site is easy to navigate with convenient left-bar search features such as price, size, color, etc… Many items on the site ship for free, and the shipping was *fast*. The item arrived well-packaged, and assembly was fairly easy. I do wish the shelf was a bit sturdier, but it does its job well enough, particularly for the price. Overall I would definitely recommend buying items from CSN Stores. Their prices are competitive, they have good customer service, and their products are items any home would need.
Book Review: Song of Susannah by Stephen King (Series, #6)
Summary:
The ka-tet faces three challenges: keep the chap from the Crimson King, save Susannah, and get Tower to sell them the rose. With the help of the Manni, they get the door to open two final times, and it sends Eddie and Roland to Maine to see Tower and Jake, Pere, and Oy to NYC in a final desperate attempt to save Susannah and the chap. Meanwhile, Susannah must face not only the foreign woman inside her, Mia, but also the figurative demons of her past and her personality in her mind.
Review:
There are elements of this book that are beautiful and quite literary, primarily everything to do with the title. There are of course two songs about Susannah. One is immediately evident. Each chapter ends with a stanza of a song, remarkably like the commala songs sung in the previous book, but of course the content of the stanza references what happened in that chapter. There’s also a song from Susannah’s past that winds up showing more about who she is and what her life has been than anything else in the books has done. What makes that beautiful is that it’s just a traditional folk song and wasn’t written by King for her at all.
Of course I’d consider this book a failure if all it did was develop Susannah’s character. The Dark Tower is about characters and the quest equally. Thankfully, this entry in the series addresses both. Various mysteries are addressed such as what the Low Men are, who Mia is, how Pere wound up in a book from another one of the worlds, and more. Plus a few new mysteries are added. But in the end the main questions remain: will the ka-tet make it to the Dark Tower and will the Dark Tower fall?
In spite of the well-written action sequences and character development, there is one aspect of this book that rubbed me the wrong way. King writes himself in as a character, but not just any character. He is the Crimson King’s opposite. In other words, he’s the essential good guy. For some reason when he writes his stories they have an impact on the worlds, so he must stay alive and keep writing the Dark Tower series if the ka-tet is to have any hope. The whole thing just reads as egotistical. Plus it forced me out of the story. I can suspend my disbelief for other worlds, but to suspend it enough to believe that the author is not only vaguely aware of these worlds but also his writing impacts them, well, it leaves you going “huh?” and kind of takes the escapism out of it. So I skimmed over the parts featuring King and tried to just focus on the ka-tet. It wasn’t that hard to do, so the King bits definitely didn’t ruin my experience; they just dulled it a bit.
Overall, this is a very good entry into the series. The characters and the plot move forward, and there are some wonderfully memorable scenes that will stick with you for a long time. If you’ve stuck with the series and enjoyed it this far, you’ll definitely enjoy this book.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Borrowed
Previous Books in Series:
The Gunslinger, review
The Drawing of the Three, review
The Waste Lands, review
Wizard and Glass, review
Wolves of the Calla, review
Book Review: The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Summary:
Late at night at a party, a gentleman offers to read a ghost story. He claims this story occurred to a woman he knows personally. The narrative then switches to the governess’s voice, and she tells of going to work at her first job as a governess caring for an absent uncle’s nephew and niece. Upon arriving there, she discovers that the property is haunted by the ghosts of the former governess and her lover….or is it?
Review:
I loved the prologue about the party. It’s full of clearly intelligent and world-wise people, which is rare of the Victorian era. I was then disappointed when it switched to the governess’s voice. She is painfully innocent and frankly annoying. She frequently waxes lyrical about how simply delightful and angelic the children are to an extent that it made me sick to my stomach. I frankly would have given up on the story if it wasn’t for the fact that it was my audiobook download, the reader had a pleasant voice, and it’s very short, so I figured, why not finish it? I now am glad I did.
Upon arriving at the end, I found myself wondering if I’d missed something, as I was a bit confused about what happened, and my mind does wander sometimes when listening to an audiobook. Since it’s a classic, I decided to look a bit at the literature guides online just as I would have gone into lecture in university excited to hear what a professor had to say about a work that I found confusing. Well, lo and behold, apparently critics have had two distinct opinions on what exactly happens in the story pretty much since the day it was published. I don’t think it’s a plot spoiler to say that James intentionally wrote it as ambiguous as to whether the ghosts actually exist or the governess is insane. It can either be read as a straight-up ghost story with some sexual innuendos or as a commentary on the ill effects of the tight-laced Victorian culture on women. That’s kind of cool, and for the record, I prefer the insane governess reading of the story, as I think that’s actually more creepy than the ghosts.
After reading the commentary and about James’ opinions in general, I realized that James probably found the governess as annoying as I did. I enjoyed the prologue, and the prologue was a reflection of James and his friends. This makes so much sense now! I am certain if I had approached this book with the knowledge of James’ criticisms of Victorian society that I would have enjoyed it much more than I did approaching it as a straight-up traditional ghost story.
Overall, this is a story that will be best enjoyed by readers who thrill to the challenge of ambiguous tales and who are critical of Victorian era mores and norms. It is not exactly the right fit for readers looking for a traditional ghost story, however. I also feel it necessary to add that I believe this story is not ideally suited to being an audiobook. Due to the ambiguity, certain passages lend themselves to a desire to be re-read that is not so easily pulled-off when being listened to.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Librivox recording via the Audiobooks app for the iTouch, iPhone, and iPad
Movie Review: Shrooms (2006)
Summary:
Five Americans–two straight couples and one single gal–go to Ireland with two sole purposes: take shrooms and land their Irish pal as a boyfriend for the single gal. Their friend takes them into the forest and aids them in gathering the shrooms. As they are making the tea, the Irishman tells them the tale of the Black Brother and the Lonely Twin, an evil priest and the boy he tortured at a now abandoned school for troubled youth nearby. As the night wears on the next day comes, the friends are left wondering if the horrors they are now seeing are the result of an open portal to the supernatural or just a bad trip.
Review:
This was a fun twist on the slasher flick norms, obviously not too heavy on characterizations as I can’t remember most of the character’s names. I do know the annoying jock guy was named Bluto, because that’s just a hilarious name. Anyway, the story is told from the perspective of the member of the group who ate a bad shroom and is now having premonitions about people’s deaths. That part is rather like Final Destination
The Black Brother is deliciously creepy. He alternates between moving on what appear to be broken feet, floating, and crawling down from the trees. His face is always obscured by his monk-like robe. The cinematography is pretty good for a B-level horror flick. The premonition and supernatural bits are just wobbly enough to give the viewer a bit of a high feeling themselves without being too distracting from the story.
The acting is typical of what you find in B level movies. The actors all have their shrieking down to a science. They’re good at being scared, which is all that really matters. Unfortunately, the actor who plays the Irish guy is completely incapable of an Irish accent and manages to just sound British the entire time. That’s a bit distracting, but oh well.
There is one scene early in the movie that sold it to me right away as a slightly laughable but still creepy slasher flick. It involves a hallucinated cow who warns Bluto that he’s about to become a “dead fucker.” I mean, a creepy talking cow? Total B-movie win!
What really moved Shrooms
If you enjoy B-level slasher flicks with a sense of humor, such as Final Destination
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Netflix
Book Review: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Summary:
Lauren is an empath. She feels other people’s pain as intensely as they do. She lives near Los Angeles in the near future in a walled community. The gap between rich and poor has increased to an extent that being street poor is the norm. Lauren’s community is one of the few “middle-class” ones left. In the confines of the walls, this preacher’s daughter starts to come up with her own religion that she calls Earthseed. She gets the chance to put it to the test when their walled community is destroyed, and she a few survivors strike north, hoping to find better land and jobs.
Review:
A lot of dystopian novels clearly establish a believable dystopian society, but struggle with characterization. This was interesting in that it was the opposite. Butler establishes multiple, easily distinguished characters, both sympathetic and non-sympathetic. Lauren in particular is believable and understandable in spite of the fact that she’s essentially starting a cult. Lauren’s inner life is eloquently drawn out in such a way that her actions are almost entirely understandable to the reader, even when they aren’t to the people around her.
On the other hand, the dystopian society was not well drawn-out. In spite of the fact that the older generations were all around when the shit hit the fan in American society, not a single one of them even attempts to explain why everything started to go wrong. We get one glimpse of the world between the early 1990s and the US 30 years later in which the book takes place, and that isn’t really enough to establish how the dystopia occurred. The how isn’t necessarily necessary for stories that take place far into the future, but 30 years isn’t very far off. It’s reasonable to expect a bit of an explanation for how society fell so drastically apart.
The sections where Lauren discusses her Earthseed beliefs are pleasant to read, but there’s nothing earth-shattering about them. They’re basically The Secret mixed with Buddhism mixed with Deism. There was nothing that made me stop and think about my own world-view. A character does address a similar criticism to Lauren about Earthseed, but she only admits to being “influenced” by eastern philosophy. Similarly, she won’t admit to creating her own religion. She insists she just found it. Whether Butler sides with the critical character or Lauren, I still would rather that the reader saw something appealing in Earthseed, since so many characters do end up clinging to it. It makes the whole situation a bit less believable.
There is a relationship in the book between a teenage girl and a man old enough to be her father. It is presented as a bit odd, yet positive. Honestly, the whole thing made me squeamish. It might not have if I hadn’t found the older male character creepy from the instant he was introduced. I’m really not sure why Butler chose to go there. It certainly has no point in this book, although it might in the sequel, Parable of the Talents
Overall, Parable of the Sower is a pleasant read, but not one that makes much of an impact. If character studies are more up your alley, and you don’t mind dystopian settings, you’ll probably enjoy this book. If you want a solidly established dystopia, you should look elsewhere, such as Brave New World
3 out of 5 stars
Source: SwapTree
Upcoming Review: CSN Stores Product
I’ve been seeing reviews of products from CSN Stores on many blogs, and I’ve been pretty damn impressed with them. They offer multiple stores such as their kitchen supply one, le creuset. Their prices are quite reasonable, and I’ve been browsing their website using the convenient left panel search feature periodically since I’ve discovered them. I was therefore quite pleased to be contacted by them offering a product for review.
I knew exactly what I needed–more storage space for my tiny Boston apartment-sized kitchen. In just a few minutes of browsing, I found the perfect shelving unit. I’ll be reviewing it, complete with pictures, when it comes, so be on the look-out for that! In the meantime, check out their site for yourselves!
Note to my Canadian readers, CSN Stores also ships to Canada!
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 