Back on Ash Tree Lane: Revisiting House of Leaves

Art by Michelle Browne, 2023. Yep, I'm back on my bullshit.

An abbreviated version of this appears as a review for the book on my Amazon and Goodreads accounts, but I realised I had more to say. 

Beware, because 

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS 

for this 23-year-old book (jeez) abound.

 I first read House of Leaves years and years ago, and then some friends suggested reading it for a book club this year. Naturally, I figured it was a good time for a revisit; it's probably been fifteen years or more since I picked it up. Maybe closer to twenty. (Jeez, I'm old.) 

Vibe Check

As much as parts of the book do genuinely deliver a dizzying thrill ride, the beginning of the book actually didn't quite hold up for me. But I have to admit, this is a book you have to binge - try to read it in long sessions. Also there's a ton of content warnings for this book - child abuse, sexual assault mentions, sexual harassment, mental illness, animal harm and death, infanticide, attempted child murder...plus some good, old-fashioned gore and body horror. Lots of horrible, excellent, spooky stuff, and it's generally treated with some respect. 

Once you start to "get" the book, the labyrinthine page formatting and the distracting footnotes - they're there for vibes most of the time, and to instill a sense of authenticity and realism - it's amazing. 

Is this book the most accessible thing I've ever read? Probably not. I don't even know how it is from a disability perspective - I'm not even sure how you'd make an audiobook that captures the vibe. (Maybe with lots of sound effects and clever editing tricks? Actually, if that exists somewhere, someone send it to me.)

And yet, the overall story, about the mental health issues of Johnny Truant, and the possibility of the entire thing being his invention? Or the invention of his mental health? And the subtle nested story meta-structure thing - is really sad and really cool. There's something very visceral about this sad, sad guy's lonely wandering and search for answers. 

A lot of people are tempted to skim Johnny's segments for some reason, but if at all possible, don't do that. Johnny's mother's institutionalization when he was young, his persistent struggles with poverty, mental health issues, substance use, and intimacy, as well as possible ADHD (just to take a few wild guesses), and the death of his "godlike" pilot father and the subsequent abusive monstrousness of his stepfather Raymond, are all essential parts of the narrative. 

Some griping

Yeah, it's at least borderline "dick lit," i.e. a book about man-pain bordering on the fetishistic (i.e., your On the Road, most Hemingway books, Crime and Punishment, Catch-22, Fight Club, plenty of other literary fiction titles - those are just some I've read that fit the bill). But this is "dick lit" that actually shares something scared, vulnerable, and alone, and shows the holes in toxic masculinity - as well as the dangers of mythologizing male figures in one's life. 

The creepy Oedipal stuff with Johnny's mother, as revealed in her letters from the mental institution, and the meta-fictional portrayal of Karen, as well as all the hookup girls, definitely fit too well into that Madonna/whore dichotomy. And it's worth saying that the book is extremely white and quite straight - for someone in LA, Johnny never seems to even encounter a queer person or drag queen/king, and homosexuality is only mentioned in a context of denigrating Will Navidson's masculinity, and questioning the fidelity of his wife, Karen. Even the book metatextually commentating on the mother/whore dichotomy, and having Johnny speculate on the inner lives of his hookups, does not succeed in fishing the book out of basic sexism. 

I can only speculate about ableism a little bit, but the character Reston felt like pretty good representation, and the mental health stuff - well, at least for me, it worked. The visceral horror of developing a family member's mental illness and recapitulating the cycle of trauma? Compulsive lying or avoidance of personal history to hide the horrors within? Yeah, I get it. Not all representation has to be Perfect (TM), and the institutionalization horror of his mother probably has some problems to unpack with it, but the cloying and suffocating nature of her attachment, as well as her desperate hunger for connection with the outside world, also shone through. 

I'll be honest - this is also a book that benefits from skimreading certain sections. I'm just not sure all the physics stuff actually adds to the narrative. I'm not a crunchy enough scientist to take value from it, personally. A lot of people hate Johnny, who is definitely not a Good Person, but I felt sympathetic towards the scrappy young man. I'm surprised Tumblr isn't all over House of Leaves, because he has "scrungly" disaster vibes for sure. (And possibly, considering how much he idolizes his friend Lude, a hint of coded bisexuality? For a book with a central focus on Greek mythology, it's agonizingly straight.)

The good stuff

My favourite sections are definitely the actual explorations of the house. It's no surprise that these are the segments that have resonated the most in pop culture - fans of the SCP (Secure, Contain, Protect) universe and HP Lovecraft have almost certainly run into the main concepts of this book already. 

I guess I'm a sucker for a good gothic novel, because there is something decidedly gothic about this one - it's a House, and it's Spooky, and it's about a Family and their mental illnesses. But in this case, the house is something that travels with Johnny, not just the physical location on Ash Tree Lane. The problems with the house for the Navidsons are all part of the baggage they carry with them. 

I've been sitting with the whole structural thing about the Minotaur, Theseus, Minos, and the whole stepson/stepfather hate thing, for a bit. There's this thematic element about Johnny being emotionally and mentally ill, and his mother being ill as well - that does seem like an intentional parallel? But there's also a thing about Zampano as Daedalus and a father figure, and Johnny as Icarus, soaring too high on his father's creation, only to be killed by it.

Is the entire thing an elaborate delusion? Is Zampano real? Who is this mysterious genius, this Daedalus-like figure whose invention - the book - ensnares and entraps Johnny, our humble Icarus and Minotaur? We certainly don't get answers, but he appears to be lonely, remote, and ripe for idealization. 

Is the Navidson Record meant to be real, or all Johnny's invention? The "editor" character is particularly interesting, especially because at no point do they clarify the reality or unreality of the manuscript.

When, throughout his extended mental breakdown, did Johnny possibly have time to pen this missive? It certainly seems possible that he was doing little else. But when was it accepted and submitted to a publishing company? The book definitely wants to give the vibe of just "appearing" in print. It's very "done" nowadays, but at the time, it was particularly revolutionary. 

Why does House of Leaves still work?

Well - in my opinion, HoL commits to the gothic and keeps you invested, but it also goes deep into the mental health issues that make up the backbone of both cosmic horror and the gothic novel. 

This, then, is probably why military takes on Lovecraftian fiction and the SCPs all kind of suck. I've watched a couple of Youtube videos and listened to a few Actual Play podcasts of Call of Cthulhu games with a Delta Green focus (that's a special forces take on Call of Cthulhu), and all of them just left me absolutely cold. (Maybe other people will enjoy these live-action takes on SCPs more than I did.) In addition to the fact that I'm just not much into jingoism, and I'm kinda critical of that whole carceral-state structure and the military industrial complex, conservative politics really don't work with cosmic horror or gothic novels. 

Sure, military elements can work great - in Lovecraft's Monsters, there's a rather good take on the story of Innsmouth that involves a military intervention - but it's also inherently critical of the role of said military. I do have some fondness for the Warhammer 40K universe as well, but that's also morally complex. 

Any kind of military apologia in the face of cosmic horror just absolutely sucks the scare factor right out of stuff. It's too objective and impersonal, when it should be intimate and invasive. And above all - really good horror must come from empathy. 

If you crave more

T Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon's What Moves the Dead, the HP Lovecraft stories "The Color Out of Space" and "Dreams in the Witch House" as well as the Shirley Jackson book We Have Always Lived in the Castle are pretty excellent classic read-alikes; I haven't read Grady Hendrix's How to Sell a Haunted House yet, but I loved Horrorstor, and that's another decent read-alike for building-based horror. The "Endless Ikea" SCP is available on Youtube in multiple reading formats, as well as videos, and of course, there's always the original version on the website. 

The podcasts Welcome to Night Vale, TANIS, and the Rusty Quill Archives also all offer some good horror content if you want to savour the visceral fear of something breathing down your neck, too!

***

A writer and professional freelance editor, Michelle Browne lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partners-in-crime and their cats. She is currently working on the next books in her series, other people's manuscripts, knitting, jewelry-making, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: *Website * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * Amazon * Tumblr * Mastodon *Facebook * Medium * Twitter  * OG Blog* Instagram * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

Fran Bow: A Game Review

Hello hello!

I continue to fight depression and anxiety, but I'm still here--so I'm winning, I suppose you could say.  At any rate, it's been ages since I put up a new post, but not for lack of ideas or content. This idea, however, demanded to be discussed because it was so very timely. For once, I will try to avoid

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS 

...but there will still be a few. Also, major content warnings apply to the game, for gore, ghosts, scary women's health issues, a creepy pedo-type guard, and other various scary situations. If you're sensitive to stories about children in danger, or if Pan's Labyrinth upsets you, maybe give this game a pass. For the rest of you, follow me down this dark and strange path to the world of Ithersta.

Sometimes, Disarcade (aka Andrey, the partner in crime) plays something other than DOTA 2. I've been nagging him to put up another blog for non-DOTA things, but I'll alert you all when that actually happens. Anyway, when Dantalion sent us the code for Fran Bow, I had no idea what to expect.

What I got was an indie point and click adventure game game that's basically on par with, or better than Psychonauts. It's terrifying, but easily the most in-depth and well-written game about mental illness that I've ever seen. I've complained that games about asylums and such tend to other mentally ill people in the past, and I thought I was tired as hell of Creepy Child stories, but this game totally inverted my expectations.

When? Where? 

The game is set in the early 1940s, but avoids talking directly about WWII. That isn't to say the themes don't touch on it, but it's very indirect. I can't talk about the rich mythology and symbolism and themes in the game without some end-of-game spoilers, but suffice to say that if you are educated about history and you look for hints about what Jewish people endured, you might well see them.

The game seems to be set in Europe, but I saw suggestions online that it's set in America. Everyone speaks English and it's all captioned anyway, so it's hard to tell.

Who is Fran Bow? 

You can see more about the plot here. Fran is the eponymous character, and the game is delivered through her perspective. After her parents are brutally murdered under dubious circumstances, she is brought to an asylum for mentally ill children. By putting the game entirely in her perspective, the viewer is placed in an empathetic position rather than a fearful one. Fran jokes, is polite and friendly to everyone, and is spunky and brave even when things are hopeless. Even when she's followed by horrifying, demonic shadows, she keeps her chin up and remains devoted to finding her kitty, Mr. Midnight.

Fran might be mentally ill, with schizophrenia, or the world she's in might just be very strange. The entire game might be a metaphorical way of dealing with her struggles. Which of these is true? I'm not going to tell you, of course!

What does it look and sound like? 

If you're longing for a visual feast, Fran Bow delivers. The detailed, beautiful 2-D animation is a feast for the eyes, and the horror is fucking creepy. Skeletons, strange beasts, blood, and demons? All of the above, and then some. This is weird horror that dabbles in Lovecraftian styling but without aping old tropes. The music is simple, but the sound design is haunting and creepy. It's a very pared-down game, but does not feel limited or cheap in the least.

Source. This is a scene from pretty early on...and it only gets creepier. 

Why do you like it so much? 

Like I said, it's an empathetic portrayal of trauma, mental illness, and the things people endured in psychiatric facilities until the 1970s. Hints of violence against women, the metaphorical illustrations of demons (or non-metaphorical, depending on what you think about the game), the cruel experimentation...all of it is done in an empathetic but fair way, and it's still scary as hell. This is easily the scariest game Disarcade has ever played, and I've sat through both of the good Dead Space games. Fran Bow doesn't really rely on crappy jump scares, but uses atmosphere and scary ideas to get the scares across. The story is frightening on many levels, and boy does it work. The best part is that even with Fran's simple, brave point of view, the story retains its scariness. It's never stupid, childish, or condescending to either the audience or Fran, and Fran isn't overly sexualized in weird ways. 

Final Verdict

Play this game right now. I don't usually give games such emphatically positive reviews, but games are almost never as exceptional as this one. It took us around four or five hours to get through, so the game doesn't wear out its welcome. I'm still thinking about its implications, the worlds it offers, and the way it portrays both inner demons and Fran herself. 

What's next? 

I've been having trouble getting anything done, for reasons mentioned above, but I'm hoping to write a post about a game called "Don't Starve Together", one about JK Rowling's not-so-hidden fatphobia, and to catch up on some of the old idea posts that have been sitting in my queue for a while. What do you want me to write about? Leave a comment if you have questions or ideas!

***

Thanks for returning to the nest. Leave a comment and say hi! I want to hear from you. Keep up with the new releases by getting on the mailing list. Buy my books on Amazon, and keep up with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and the original blog. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out!

Podcasts and Horror Writing: Some Observations

Hello hello!

In the last six or eight months, I've fallen in love with podcasts. I started off just listening to Welcome to Night Vale, courtesy of Tumblr, and The Thrilling Adventure Hour soon followed after they ad a crossover. Following Mara Wilson's Twitter feed led me to I Don't Even Own a Television. From there, I started to poke around, and talked to a few friends, like Louisa (blog link). I got hooked on Sawbones and Oh No, Ross and Carrie. My Brother, My Brother, and Me became my nightly comfort, the McElroy brothers' voices lulling me safely to sleep. Listening to a happy, healthy family kibitz and bond over Yahoo answers and social niceties  has made dark times that much easier to endure, and helped me step back into the light.

Of course, I seek more than comfort and the joy of new information. These days, I often enjoy horror rather than fearfully avoiding it, and one of the best creepy podcasts around has to be Lore. As always, however, one can only binge-listen to a cast for so long before running out of episodes, and I sought alternatives and supplements to my fix. The HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast caught my attention as well, and after I'd run out of episodes of that--no mean feat, but I tend to listen obsessively to shows I enjoy, rather than just taking them in once a week or every two weeks--I had to find more horror and fiction podcasts.

Where did I go next?

I haven't finished them or listened to much of them, so I will not yet link Psuedopod, Drabblecast, or Knifepoint Horror, but they come well-recommended. TANIS and The Black Tapes are also moderately popular, though have mixed reviews. Perhaps one of the best known is the Reddit-sourced NoSleep podcast, based on the subreddit of the same name.

I have not yet completed the podcast's run of back episodes, but my favorite episodes of NoSleep, and the ones I consider the best, are the following. I have included notes about the entries.

Episode 1--the very first story is perfectly chilling and one of the most unnerving I've ever heard.
Episode 3--the first story is the best, once again.
Episode 7--only We Don't Talk about Sarah, though.
Episode 8--My Best Friend's Grandmother; again, the others are meh.
Penpal Part 1--generally, both parts are an interesting and suspenseful mystery, but see below.
Penpal Part 2
Episode 14--the whole thing is pretty great.
Episode 18--both stories are rather good, but the last one is remarkable.

Normally, I wouldn't include so many links, but I want readers to understand my sources and references before I shovel conclusions over them like so much grave dirt.

What is it about horror? 

I've come to like horror because it allowed me to frame my own demons in a more useful way, and to get in touch with the dark side of my imagination. Many authors have written about the appeal of horror, and I would be redundant to ask why the world of shadows and fear calls to so many.

I would suggest, however, that in addition to expressing personal darkness, the appeal of horror is partly in how it inverts some expectations. Most stories involve things ultimately going right; horror is about things going wrong. The Hero's Journey structure (see below) becomes inverted, and often foreshortened abruptly by disaster.

Source. This is allegedly what all stories come back to.

In a horror story, the hero's journey still occurs, but there's no guarantee of redemption, just further horror and loss. Readers, viewers, and listeners derive a weird comfort from facing their fears about the worst thing that could possibly happen.

Meet the new boss? 

The exciting thing about the NoSleep podcast is that it's a trove of unknown and developing writers, rather than old hands and established experts. Sometimes the writing is mediocre or amusingly inept, but the variety is a real pleasure.

These authors tend to use an X-Files sort of sensibility--setting mysteries in the local environs, even in office buildings, subdivisions, and backyards. Narrators/protagonists are often relatively innocent, rather than being guilty of violence before the narrative's events take place. Surprise encounters dominate most of the events, or narrators become the victims of more powerful and often abusive, stalking forces.

Unreliable narrators are common, and it is often difficult to determine whether the main characters have a loose grip on reality or are truly experiencing paranormal events. This is enhanced or exacerbated by circumstances of shyness and social isolation; protagonists are usually lonely, ordinary nebbish types--not just Everyman sorts, but updated ones, often labouring under the kinds of crappy jobs that so many Millennials and Gen Xers take.

But not everything is intriguingly updated. With many modern sensibilities come unwelcome old friends.

...Same as the old boss.

No, what I want to know is--why does horror reinforce so many old ideas? The NoSleep podcast is a particularly interesting example of this, because the writers are culled from Reddit. Reddit is mostly populated by young men, under the age of forty. 

One might not expect that so many younger men would reinforce gender stereotypes as strongly as these writers do, but an interesting thread through even my favorite stories tended to be gender essentialism. Female characters were usually mothers, were depicted as more fearful and physically weaker than male characters, and tended to be subjected to far more violence.

Female antagonists, however, are common, and usually tend to be lurking spectres or haunted children. They present menace but rarely enact the actual violence. Other antagonistic forces are often either genderless or somewhat male-coded, and tend to be far more violent.

This being said, lady writers do occasionally contribute, and often focus on issues of mental health and abandonment, or lack of physical safety. Stalking also crops up. These elements are really interesting, and I'd love to see more of them. Perhaps the next seasons will deliver that!

***

Thanks for returning to the nest. Leave a comment and say hi! I want to hear from you. Keep up with the new releases by getting on the mailing list. Buy my books on Amazon, and keep up with me on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and the original blog. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out!

Euphoria/Dysphoria

Now available on Amazon

Execution above or extinction below... 

“Please help me. I'm pregnant.” 
A chance encounter with a fugitive has turned Christine's life into a nightmare. 

Survival is hard enough in the poverty-stricken streets of the Lower Blocks, and this woman is far from the first to flee the Engineers who oversee the City. But now Christine's a target: hunted by the aristocracy, her future uncertain, and past laid bare. And a person with Christine's powers can't afford to be caught. 

Humanity built the Foundation to elevate themselves from the poisoned earth, but Christine and Ilsa must choose whether to descend to hell below, or remain in hell above. 

From post-apocalyptic authors Nicolas Wilson (Homeless), and Michelle Browne (The Underlighters) comes Euphoria/Dysphoria, a biopunk dystopia. 

Please note, Euphoria/Dysphoria contains a f/f romance, graphic violence, and some disturbing material. It is intended for mature readers.

Buy it here: 

Amazon

Cult Classics for the Modern Cult (series)

Now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Smashwords, and Kobo eBooks

Cult Classics for the Modern Cult 2 (Heartbreakers for the Modern Cult) (Amazon)

Nine insane short stories with a B-movie flair fill out this anthology. There's a little violence, some adult (18+) content, and some heartbreaking love stories. Polish your fangs, spray on some fresh formaldehyde, and clean the crypt before your date arrives--being a monster doesn't mean you can't fall in love, and a collection of sad, funny tales are coming to a Kindle near you.

Smashwords

Kobo

Barnes and Noble

Ten insane short stories from the B-movie realm fill out this anthology. There's a little violence, some adult (18+) content, and a lot of completely bizarre creatures. Straighten your altar to the dark gods, pop open a can of your favorite mutagen, and hold on tight--there are threats much bigger than Godzilla, and they're coming to a Kindle near you.

Buy it here: 

Amazon 
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Smashwords

Frost and Other Stories

Now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Smashwords, and Kobo eBooks

Containing a handful of short stories and the novelette 'Frost', this holiday anthology brings together stories about the dark side of the season. This blackly humorous and chilling collection explores aspects of the holidays you won't read about in Chicken Soup for the Soul. Get your whiskey; it's going to be a long night.

Buy it here: 

Amazon 
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Smashwords

Comparatively Analyse This: American Psycho vs American Psycho vs Banksters, Part 2

Hello hello!

This is a continuation of a three-way comparative analysis of American Psycho the movie vs the book vs an indie parody/standalone called Banksters by Nic Wilson. Obviously, there are some epic

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

ahead. Round one is here, but let's get to round two. This is a three-way fight--book vs book vs movie!

It's like the internet!

Portrayal of Characters

Banksters has more female characters, and the side characters feel more real than the ones in American Psycho. Obviously, this is intentional, because the human cost in Banksters actually feels higher. They both have a detached prose style, but you can still get a glimpse of humanity in the first one. Like Patrick Bateman, Mark Danes is a misogynist, but his casual objectification is less grating and repetitive, and like a shark, he just doesn't care about his victims. It makes the book a lot easier to read, but the characters also stand alone from the American Psycho cast quite well. Alice and Elizabeth, in particular, are great, and his secretary, Petra, and the head of security, Julee, were both memorable, too.

The thing about the characters in American Psycho is that the detachment comes back to haunt the author--Jeannette the secretary and Luis Carruthers were fairly human, and even Courtney and Evelyn were somewhat unintentionally sympathetic, but the other yuppies are just so interchangeable and dully horrible that you don't even mind much when bad things happen to them. Again, that's the point, but it's still annoying. And poor Bethany--I liked her so much for the brief time we spent with her. It was a damn shame.

In the movie, the detachment comes across too, but the characters are still a bit better and more carefully treated, and there are fewer, too, which makes for a less confusing flow. Of course, you can also see some of the points the book is trying to make--I mean that literally; Bateman's physical similarities to his friends are clearer. Christian Bale and Willem Dafoe and Reese Witherspoon all do a great job bringing the characters to life, and they lose none of the humour from the book. Well, it's a little blunter, maybe, but it works better, and it's a fair tradeoff for all the damn torture porn in the original.

Source. I feel like Bale had too much fun with this role. Seriously. Too much fun. It's scary.

Ending 

Banksters has an evil but satisfying...happy ending, I guess? I don't want to spoil that, actually, in spite of my warning, because it is the indie book and most people won't know about it. However, I will say that it was narratively satisfying.

My biggest problem with American Psycho, in contrast, was the ending--it was not narratively satisfying, it felt rushed and sloppy, and it didn't really have enough of a payoff after all the build-up. I literally threw down my phone (I tend to read on my Kindle app) and yelled, "WHAT THE PHUQUE?" when I was finished. Then I had to listen to Evil Dead: The Musical and read Charles Dickens until my soul felt cleaner. It was gross and infuriating and hopeless, and not in a way that was appreciable, either. Sure, madness narratives aren't really where you go for a happy ending, but they don't have to be letdowns either.

Now, the movie has to cut so much from the book that it's much more compact and tightly paced, and for the most part, that works to its advantage. There is a big change, though; Jean finds Bateman's crude scribbles in a dayplanner, and they don't really have a relationship. Also, Bateman's lack of resolution is left intact--but here, again, the metaphor for the corruption in Wall Street and the human cost of it, and the meaninglessness of a single person's attempts to reform all come across more clearly. It's the same, but it's better.

Final Verdict 

Over all, I think I liked the movie most, but Banksters bruised my soul a lot less, and that counts for something. Oh, they're all brutal, but I think it's a mark of style and panache if a book or movie can scare you more by doing less. The ultimate horror film, I think, would be rated PG for gore alone (Parental Guidance, for non-Canadians, is basically a G rating with a few swearwords) but leave you awake and shaking in bed for days. Banksters was disturbing in a way that lingered, and it had the least gore of all, though there is a graphic rape scene at the end of the book. I'd have to call this one a tie between the movie version of American Psycho and Banksters. 

Here's the breakdown:

American Psycho--book: 4/10
American Psycho--movie: 8/10
Banksters--book only: 9/10

Basically, I only enjoyed two thirds of the experience, but it was still worth it. So, on that note, I'm going to go watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic or some Jane Austen or something to cleanse my soul.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Comparatively Analyse This: American Psycho vs American Psycho vs Banksters, Part 1

Hello hello!

So, while I write and edit, I sneak in time to read for leisure, and I often play movies and shows in the background while I edit. In a way, this is technically a "Missed It" review, because I have the marvellous skill (?) of being ten years late to every party, and of somehow insulating myself from things I haven't seen or read, no matter how famous they are. Obviously, both the movie and book fit these perimeters.

But let's talk about the book and the movie. I just finished reading American Psycho, and the movie called to me--especially after a bunch of my friends confirmed that it's much better. Obviously, there are some epic

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

ahead. I'll also be mentioning an indie parody called Banksters by Nic Wilson because it's based on American Psycho. Now, with that out of the way, let's get down to business. This is a three-way fight--book vs book vs movie!

Banksters

I've mentioned it before, but I actually had the chance to read that first, before either the book or movie crossed the desk in my mind-palace. Banksters focuses on the machinations of a sociopath sexing, manipulating, and murdering his way to the top of a company. It's less metaphorical than American Psycho, and Mark Danes is both a more appealing protagonist and a more clear-minded one; it's more akin to the power porn I enjoy so much, things like Breaking Mad Game of Cards, for instance. (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire, and House of Cards--both the British and the American versions--are all basically "power porn".) Banksters, though, is darkly humorous, and that counts for something. The prose is sexy and clever, and it's a really fun ride. Go buy it here if you haven't already.

American Psycho

Both the book and the movie tell the story of Patrick Bateman, and honestly, I can't do much better than the Netflix description--"with chiseled good looks that belie his insanity, a businessman takes pathological pride in yuppie pursuits and indulges in sudden homicidal urges." It's basically a story about the symbolic exploitation and abuse of the working class by the people at the helm of the economy, and the madness induced by meaninglessness of consumer culture and lifestyles, as well as the worthlessness of the trappings of wealth. Also, there's sexual torture. Lots of it. Proceed with caution. 

I have no source and no justification. 

Prose, Style, Cinematography

The book...ugh.  It's a very polarizing work. I really love books about madness, and I'm quite a Palahniuk fan--I love Lovecraft, I like William Golding a lot, I enjoyed Joseph Heller's Catch-22...you get the idea. American Psycho was on my bucket list for a long-ass time. Of course, now that I've read it, I'm glad I did, but I still have mixed feelings. Some of the descriptions of madness were wonderful, and I really liked the concept. The descriptions of clothing entertained me and ended up informing me about various kinds of fabric in some detail, though, so I guess that's actually a point in their favour--but all the gourmet food and the other stuff got really irritating to read about because there was just so goddamn much of it. However, the thematically appropriate but annoyingly detailed album reviews, and the completely over-the-top descriptions of the violence against women really got to me. I am not going to mention rats, electric shock machine torture, eyeballs, or cannibalism, because your brain will fill in the details of what happens to the (mostly women and hookers) for me. And I can guarantee you, the descriptions were worse than whatever your brain just came up with. I like my violence tasteful--no pun intended--and there was just too much of it to be really effective.

I kept comparing it to Banksters, because while that book isn't perfect, the murders and violence are more clever and the sex is less repulsive. The female characters are also much better and more interesting--more on that later--and there's a larger cast to work with. There's also a nice theme of examining the cost of the glass ceiling for women, and violence on women in the workplace, which I really appreciated. The point of American Psycho is partly how utterly interchangeable the people at the top are, and that actually ended up being to its detriment because it was hard to care when bad things happened. Anyway, the descriptions and prose in Banksters drew me in a lot more, and the wealth and opulence still came across. It's knifeblade prose, and there was much less waste and repetition than in its source. Also, American Psycho put me off sex and Banksters made me want to have sex, so that has to be counted as a point in its favour.

I wanted to love it, but it was a book you endure, not one you enjoy, and the reason is partly the jerky pacing. As Kyle Kallgren, "Oancitizen" of Channel Awesome put it, "It cannot be watched, merely inflicted," and that describes the experience of reading this book. I understand the symbolism of Wall Street broker types abusing poorer people and committing violence against them, and I understand the giant time jumps at the end of the book, but the clever symbolism didn't make up for the truly frustrating experience of reading the book. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson was much less of a slog, and so was On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Those books aren't totally perfect, but they're a damn sight less annoying, and the protagonists are better. More on that in a minute.

Now, the movie is loyal and faithful to the book, but it cuts out the annoying descriptions and replaces them mostly with, well, visuals; I think that works a lot better. The voice-over was a little distracting, and close-ups on all the labels and a silent opening--or one with music--could have been better, but it's a really well-filmed and nicely framed movie. It's also seductively paced and witty from step one, but in a more engaging way, and the message still gets across. There's a lot of dead weight that's just cut, a couple of things--like the breakup speech with Courtney--are rearranged, and it just flows so much better. Also, I could look away during the gory scenes in the movie, and frankly, that was preferable to having to read about what happened in the original text. They cut a lot out, including plenty of animal cruelty and torture porn, and I am more than okay with that. In exchange, we got some amazingly goofy Christian Bale faces.

Source.

This is getting a bit on the long side, so we'll take a short commercial break before we get back to the second half later this week!

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Breaking News--Two Short Reviews

Hello hello!

So, I try not to review too many books apart from my top-ten list, but I was overflowing with enthusiasm and love, and I just had to post these.



Re: Rags & Bones by Neil Gaiman, Garth Nix, Kelly Armstrong, et alhttp://www.amazon.com/Rags-Bones-Twists-Timeless-Tales-ebook/dp/B00BAXFB46

"I don't even know how to talk about this book. I loved it, and it was so beautiful it hurt. I admit that I'm prejudiced--it was an anthology of some of my favorite authors, about retellings--one of my favorite things--and folklore--another favorite thing--and it was illustrated by Charles Vess. I don't think it would be physically possible for me not to love this book.

And I still loved it more than I expected to. In the interest of balance, I'll mention that the last story left me cold and the organizational structure of the stories didn't make too much sense to me, but enh.

I loved it, you should buy it, and this will be going onto the list of some of my favorite books, with an honoured place. I am going to seek out the authors, too; some of the stories really caught my attention. It's well-written, spooky, mournful, romantic, haunting, and still very simple. It crosses genres.

Long story short, I can't say enough good things about it. Buy it and see why for yourself."




Re: Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig http://www.amazon.com/Blackbirds-Chuck-Wendig-ebook/dp/B007B2D4DU

"I adore urban fantasy horror, and Wendig just nails it. I'm going to quote fanmail I sent the author:
"So I am pestering you again because I just finished Blackbirds. How could you do that to my heart?! How? And it is a series...I am so scared and so excited. It was marvellous and awful and...I don't even know, but I think I have a big throbbing crush on Miriam Black." Miriam is like a manic pixie dream girl rendered goth, if the MPDG was a human being with damage and scars and a sad but realistic history and a romantic streak, and if MPDGs were prone to beating the living shit out of the men they're supposed to save. Her story is the story of America, and I can't wait for the next one.
It's tight, it's gritty, it's sorrowful, and it's funny as phuque. Oh, sure, I'll admit that the interrupted narrative gives it a slightly choppy flavour, but that's far from a dealbreaker.
Buy it, love it, and for the love of the gods, don't be a wimp about the cursing. The swearing is part of the soul of this book, and Miriam is going to haunt my dreams--cigarettes, cheap hair dye, scars, and all."

Also, I desperately want Miriam Black to meet Shadow from Gaiman's American Gods just to see what would happen.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Eyes in the Night

Hello hello!

So a friend of mine challenged me to start doing a short story a week. Here's last week's! I may make this a regular feature if you like it. So, without further ado, here is Eyes in the Night!

***

Eyes in the Night

I rub the glass as best as I can. Ol' Petey eyes me with his one good peeper down at the end of the bar. The other one's glazed over with a cataract.

My job ain't easy, but it is what it is. I lick my teeth, avoiding the hurt one on the lower left, and go back for some stale water. Minnie's keepin' it pumped, but it ain't flowin' easy. Not everyone can afford the fixin's of the Grand Hotel a few cities away.

Still as a graveyard tonight. We been raided again. Damn fools comin' into town, thinking they'll just rob us folk and then go shoot some injuns and bag a reward. I'm half Hopi myself, though we're all the same colour of dust 'round these parts. But that half that ain't Hopi is smart enough to know you don't tamper with them people. There's things in the desert, things with gleamin' eyes and long teeth. Them things is older than any damn fool white man's camp and older than the Hopi. It don't take no half-breed fool like me to know you don't mess with the things in the shadows of the desert.

Heard 'em howlin' again last night. Men crowded into the bar. I kept a hand on the gun tucked into my lacies and waited for the usual. Always happens, at least once a month--some fool tourist or prospector or traveller will stagger in through them doors, unaware that he's been saved by the iron over the threshold, and say we oughta do somethin' about them things. They listen to the yowls and yips and one will say somethin' about coyotes. Ain't no damn coyote never sang like that, nor no wolf neither. The voices of despair, a deepness that comes from a place beyond the stars.

"Ain't nobody going after them things," I say, striding out from behind the bar. "Not tonight and not never. You don't like 'em, you should leave. But otherwise, you leave them iron charms around the doors and you ain't got nothing to worry about. We don't bother 'em and they don't bother us."

But people can't leave well enough alone. "It ain't nat'ral," the Damn Fool will say.

"Listen to the Belle," Ol' Petey will mumble. "I saw one 'a them things once. How you think I done lost this eye?"

"Ain't nothin' but age," the Damn Fool or his friend will say. My girls wash things or pour drinks or keep dealin' cards quietly. They know. They don't have to speak up to make sure I get heard.

The town doctor will say somethin', and so will the preacher--if he ain't been run out yet; we can't keep preachers 'round here. And the debate will go on, the Sherriff rollin' his eyes at me. We know. And when he comes to warm my bed at night later, we'll both grumble about another damn fool gettin' lost.

So that's my side 'a the story. You can take it or leave it. Or you can look at the pile 'a white, polished bones licked clean just outside 'a the Hopi camps. I guarantee you, it ain't because my people been eatin' white folk. It's them things. But if you wanna go raidin' or killin' Injuns for a lark, you're welcome to it. But don't come cryin' ta me when yer staggerin' back through them doors, eyes wild, yer tongue ripped outta yer mouth from the screams. You leave them things well enough alone, and the eyes in the night won't bother you none.

Probably.

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr, and find her work on Amazon. Check back on the blog to see when one of the irregular posts has careened onto your feed. This is the one and only SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

Missed It Reviews: Pandorum

Hello hello!

From time to time, I will post a quick review of movies and books I either a) miraculously missed, or b) just discovered, and c) definitely think you should not miss. Or, sometimes, d) think you need to miss as hard as possible, because it is e) embarassingly mediocre or f) soul-scarringly, chew-your-own-nuts-off-to-escape awful. Obviously, this means spoilers. 

Source. I wasn't afraid, just bored and mildly aggravated.

Tonight's feature is Pandorum (2009) featuring Dennis Quaid.

Summary

Two dudes wake up from hypersleep and phuquerie ensues. As scrolling text informed us, they are the last hope of humanity. They have lost their memories, and of course, as they go about figuring out why they've been woken up, hilarity ensues.

So, the in-depth version:  Just before we get action, we hear a message stating that Earth has blown up. Shortly after that, two blokes, Payton and Bower, wake up from hypersleep and wander around all confused-like. One of them goes down in the ship's innards and finds a dead body. He falls out headfirst onto the floor after unlatching a grate--miraculously managing to not break his neck--and finds a strange creature running around. I knew that would happen, and was equally unsurprised when he was then mugged by a standard Badass Female.

We soon discover that the creature--an orc-zombie thing in the requisite jagged armour--has friends. Knowing that Elysium was carrying 16 000 other passengers to Tanis, the Last Hope planet, I immediately figured out that it was some sort of mutated human. The characters, of course, did not. What ensued was depressingly derivative: people ran around, trying to get away from the ugly monsters. The female character--whose name escapes me--rasped and whispered in an unidentifiable accent. Clearly, having forgotten everything, she'd also forgotten where she was supposed to be from.

Wooden acting and the introduction of Dead Mea--I mean, other surviving crew members--occurs just as the characters decide they need to fire off the nuclear reactor at the core for...reasons. So we're treated to cannibalism by the orc-zombies, a mural sketched by the crazy cannibal chef (who was black...probably not the best casting choice, guys). While Our Heroes use the reactor core to kill the orc-zombies, the captain guy, Payton (hereafter known as 'Beardy') struggles with a random-ass attractive dude who shows up.

Of course, Beardy and Random Attractive Young Guy argue and we get hints that the voyage has been much longer than the advertised 3-hour tour. We learn that RAYG and his passengers may have had Pandorum, also known as a Magic Bullshit Virus, which makes you have nosebleeds and go on crazy powertrips. It's a result of deep space travel...I think? To be honest, I was doing dishes at this point, and leaving the TV to play in the backgrond. RAYG talks about pitting the crew members against each other in cannibal death-matches and convinces Beardy that he might have Pandorum, which Beardy, naturally, thinks that RAYG probably has. Of course, some idiot decided to inject all the passengers with an enzyme to make them evolve more quickly, so the death-matches resulted in the development of a cannibalistic, inhumane species and...*yawn* basically, Malthusian bullshit to justify having a bogeyman for the script. There were basic logic holes here that were depressing as phuque, and I remember yelling, "are you phuquing kidding me?" at the screen at least once.

Blah blah blah, RAYG is really Beardy, who has been alive for hundreds of years and practicing stuff on his crew. Also, somehow EVERYONE HAS BEEN ON TANIS THE WHOLE PHUQUING time. Someone finally turned on a light, and boom, we see pretty alien jellyfish outside. Also, apparently shooting a gun at a bulkhead designed to go into DEEP SPACE is enough to rupture it. I'm no engineer, but apparently the ones who worked on this ship--as well as the biologists--were all complete morons. I'll be right back. I think I need a drink to finish this review.

...

Okay, I'm back, and I have whiskey. I don't usually drink whiskey, but tonight, I'm making an exception. So, they rupture the bulkhead, and Bower and the BF with the mutating accent get all cozy in an escape pod. The water is pouring in, and they seal the coffin in and shoot to the surface. Of course, the confused Asian guy and the cannibal chef are both dead--no comment on whether it is because they are both ethnic characters, or because the writers were so lazy, we knew they were Redshirts from minute one. So Bower, who is conveniently divorced, and the BF shoot to the surface. We see an island Eden and a bunch of other pods shooting up in a slightly hilarious way. The closing screen tells us that it is 'Tanis, Year One', and we get end credits.

And now for the Special Guest commentary!

The Disarcade Version

Andrey figures that the Earth was subject to a population glut of engineers. Everyone became an engineer, with the exception of the 16,000 people on Elysium. They fired off the misfits into space, but because everyone still on Earth was an engineer, they soon blew the place up. Of course, the ship was also built only by engineers, so it was rife with problems and couldn't possibly detect that it had landed on Tanis. Therefore, engineers are to blame for everything that went wrong in the movie.

Source. I am still not sure whether this was supposed to be a small person or a child, but either way, what happened next was depressingly predictable.

Pros


Well, I'll give it this--it's mockable  and it's a good 'how not to' lesson. The biggest problem is that the movie is too dark in some places and...wait, I'm supposed to say something good about it here. Fine: it wasn't as bad as The Adventures of Pluto Nash, the worst and most unpleasant sci fi movie in history.

Cons

Normally, I would try to do some kind of analysis, but there's nothing to chew on. There's nothing intellectually challenging about the movie. I was hoping for a terse psychological horror where the two surviving crew members spend the whole movie figuring out what's going on and whether they can trust each other. That's how the movie is advertised. Instead, I got what was left over after Dead Space had evacuated its waste collection pouch. It's advertised as 'Lovecraftian horror'. I scare pretty easily, and I love B-movies, but this failed on both counts. It's not really self-aware enough to be fun, and it's almost mockable, but not quite.

Final Verdict

This was bad. This was...I don't even have words for how bad it was. It failed at basic fridge logic, it had a painfully predictable plot, the characters were boring and wooden, and it failed both basic racism and Beschdel tests. It's not quite Uwe Boll bad, and it did have some interesting ideas, but I'd skip this one if you value your sanity. A resounding 3 out of 10 for being bollocks.

*****

As always, I hope you enjoyed today's batch o' fresh thoughts. There will be more feminism, more funny, more writing updates, some missed-it reviews. Keep an eye on new releases by following on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr. This is your SciFiMagpie, over and out!

The Underlighters: Launch!

August 30^th: the Dust is here! Now available exclusively on Kindle and in print—The Underlighters!

Buy from Michelle Browne’s author page here: http://www.amazon.com/Michelle-Browne/e/B00BGWZRCW

The Underlighters

Nightmares are bleeding into her waking world. Children are going missing. To save them, she must overcome her wreck of a personal life and a closet full of skeletons. She doesn’t know if the horrors in the shadows are real...or if she is going mad. 

18-year-old Janelle Cohen is an electrician in an underground city. The world above has been swal-lowed by mind-destroying Dust. Her small life changes forever when a dragon attacks her on the way home from work. 

Her friends worry that she has the Fever, Dust-induced insanity. As more monsters strike down citizens, they change their minds. A terrifying trip to the surface of the world, the ancient and abandoned Up, deepens the nightmare. With no world left above, she and the other Crows cannot afford to fail… 

5 stars: “…You will be rewarded with a dive into the depths of imagination that may leave you questioning, breathless and inspired.” –www.TracingTheStars.com

5 stars: “… Engaging, ground breaking prose that is not afraid to test the reader’s boundaries. “—Sara Celi

5 stars: “…A wonderful read that is full of life, nightmares, fear, and dreams.” –Casey Peeler

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway for an exclusive chance to win a very exclusive prize pack! Three winners will be selected…don’t miss out!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Art by Kit Foster, © 2013. used with permission of the artist. http://www.kitfosterdesign.com/

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr. More interviews and witty commentaries are coming. Keep checking back to see those surprise posts, too. This is your darling SciFiMagpie, over and out! 

The Underlighters: Something Wicked This Way Comes

The Underlighters

Nightmares are bleeding into her waking world. Children are going missing. To save them, she must overcome her wreck of a personal life and a closet full of skeletons. She doesn’t know if the horrors in the shadows are real...or if she is going mad. 

18-year-old Janelle Cohen is an electrician in an underground city. The world above has been swal-lowed by mind-destroying Dust. Her small life changes forever when a dragon attacks her on the way home from work. 

Her friends worry that she has the Fever, Dust-induced insanity. As more monsters strike down citizens, they change their minds. A terrifying trip to the surface of the world, the ancient and abandoned Up, deepens the nightmare. With no world left above, she and the other Crows cannot afford to fail… 

5 stars: “…You will be rewarded with a dive into the depths of imagination that may leave you questioning, breathless and inspired.” –www.TracingTheStars.com

5 stars: “… Engaging, ground breaking prose that is not afraid to test the reader’s boundaries. “—Sara Celi

5 stars: “…A wonderful read that is full of life, nightmares, fear, and dreams.” –Casey Peeler

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Janelle’s world is about to get very, very dark. Are you ready? On August 30^th, nightmares are going to become a little too real for comfort.

Art by Bonnie Patton, © 2013. used with permission of the artist. http://bpwordeater.com/

*****

Thanks for dropping by the nest once again. Don't miss any of the phuquerie. Find Michelle on Twitter, Facebook, and on Tumblr. More interviews and witty commentaries are coming. Keep checking back to see those surprise posts, too. This is your darling SciFiMagpie, over and out!