• Subterranean Monsters with multiple, razor sharp, clawed appendages, super strength, telekinesis, and a thirsWhat makes an awesome sci-horror novel?
• Subterranean Monsters with multiple, razor sharp, clawed appendages, super strength, telekinesis, and a thirst for human blood, who just happen to be undergoing hyper-evolution. Yep! Awakened has got them.
• But you have to make sure those Subterranean Monsters have a couple of ridiculous weaknesses. Yep! Awakened is still on target.
• A Nazi-led conspiracy. Hell yes! Awakened gives us Nazis.
• A Rag-Tag assemblage of scrappy humans fighting the subterranean menace and the Nazi-led conspiracy at the same time. Of course Awakened has its assemblage! An ex-Navy SEAL President, an ex-Puerto Rican gangster, a couple of train driving slobs (not so loosely based on some of the author's friends), heroic cops and bodyguards, a bad ass Mayor of New York, and a whole bunch of Subterranean Monster fodder to spray their blood and guts all over the subway tracks. It's the Raggest-Tag assemblage you'll ever see.
• Damsels in serious distress. Zoinks! Awakened doesn't disappoint. All the pregnant damsels are in more distress than you can possibly imagine, but you won't find out why (at least not for sure) until the sequel.
• A Bond-Level mega villain. Check! Awakened has its very own crazy old man in a wheel chair, striving for global domination. And he is Nazi-level ruthless.
• Action ripped from multiple movies and tales that have come before. The derivative train is pulling out on its Awakened tracks and there's no turning back. It is action, action, and some more action. Flooding, explosions, spelunking, murder and mayhem. Oh yeah.
• Victory. Uh oh! is Awakened going to fail us? Will there be no victory? Nope. There is a victory, albeit a Pyrrhic victory, but wait ... that's okay too, because that means sequels. So it turns out Awakened is everything it is supposed to be.
But it is also crap. It is entertaining crap. I had a lot of fun (mostly cause I went in expecting crap that would make me smile, which is what I got), but it is definitely crap. And no, it is not an "awesome sci-horror novel" like a sorta hinted it could be, but I bet it would make one hell of a fun B-Movie.
It could be to the Alien films what Sharknado is to Jaws. And that's as good as bad gets. I am actually, and embarrasingly, looking forward to The Brink. I know. I'm an idiot. But I can't help myself.
Like the wind in Anguilla, Brian Horeck's Minnow Trap blows all the goats. All of those one star reviews you've seen are true, but oddly, I don't regrLike the wind in Anguilla, Brian Horeck's Minnow Trap blows all the goats. All of those one star reviews you've seen are true, but oddly, I don't regret having read this boil on the bum of Canadian Literature.
I came to this book in the best possible way. Over the summer, my son and I were driving across our fair Canada to join the women in our lives in our new home in Winnipeg. It was a glorious drive, filled with stops to visit friends (some of whom are now our chosen family), a day of theatre in Stratford, and long hours listening to Fleetwood Mac along the highway through Northern Ontario. And every couple of hundred kilometres or so, we saw a billboard for the best selling book, Minnow Trap.
After another sign and another and another, with our curiousity piqued, Miloš caved and pulled out his phone. We just had to know what the hell this Minnow Trap was. And once we knew, we decided we simply had to buy it and read it.
There are too many things wrong with Minnow Trap to cover everything, and some of the other reviewers Minnow Trap have already delivered plenty of coverage to make a reader chuckle or groan (check out David's review and Jessica Armstrong's review; they're two of my faves), but I feel I have to point out the utter ridiculousness of a major plot point.
Imagine, if you will, that you are a fifty-something Canadian redneck out in the woods surrounding your lovely cabin on a pristine Canadian lake. You head on down to your well appointed shooting platform the morning after you find a new species of crustacean in your lake. As you reach the bottom of the ladder, a stream of piss hits you from above. You discover it is a Russian soldier who slept on your platform the night before. You brush off the urine, invite the soldier for coffee -- even though he is packing his weaponry and is in full camouflage -- and in short order he reveals to you that your crustacean is an alien lifeform and that more classic, bug-eyed aliens (seemingly crustacean farmers) dropped him off down by the beaver dam. You don't question it. You don't even take a second of pause. Nope, you and your wife and all your friends go all in, then the Russian makes you his strike force because you "know the area"; he takes over the operation completely; he has you reporting to the Russian government over the internet using personal e-mail accounts; he tells you that he is liaising with the Canadian government, but he offers no proof of that; he brings you a crate full of high tech weaponry, which you use on the creatures to "save the planet"; and you do all of this on the word of this Russian guy you only just met. Neither you nor your friends think even once about verifying his identity; you don't contact your own government; you don't contact the local constabulary; you don't even stop to wonder if the Russian guy has ulterior motives; you meet him and do exactly what he tells you. Baffling. Yet Brian Horeck sees nothing wrong with this concept. It all makes sense to him. I gotta shrug and give the old boy a golf clap for arrogant authorial stupidity, if nothing else.
Yet I do have to say something nice about this book. Well, I suppose it is really only nice-ish. Horeck has struck upon a truth in these pages. He has captured a very specific niche of Canadian citizenry. His group of friends -- Steve and Mary, Mike and Carol, Bob and Janice, and Brenda (Nick's Ukranian love interest) -- really exist here in Canada. I know folks like them. Hell, I have some relatives like them. The entitlement, the selfishness, the mechanized outdoorsiness, the sexual innuendo that goes nowhere, the beer swilling, the treating of nature as an object, the disdain for anything that limits their ability to do whatever they want, it is all present in Canada, all true, and Horeck gets his characterizations just right.
Now that I say that, though, perhaps his characterizations are the soil that fills in the massive plot hole Horeck dug. They really are the sort of people who would blindly help Russian Nick to slaughter mega-crustaceans without blinking an eye. Naah! (or should I have said NyaNya?!) that's still not enough of an excuse. The hole remains unfilled.
As for Miloš ... he hasn't read it yet -- only I -- but I have a feeling he won't feel compelled to read Minnow Trap until he's on that long road from Winnipeg back to PEI. I just hope that now that Brian Horeck has passed his signs won't have disappeared. They should stay in perpetuity. What a great addition to the Trans-Canada Highway. A testament to Canadian hubris. ...more
The Big Sleep filled my yearly quota of misogyny and homophobia in one shocking shot.
I read this years and years ago, watching it somewhen around theThe Big Sleep filled my yearly quota of misogyny and homophobia in one shocking shot.
I read this years and years ago, watching it somewhen around the time I watched Bogie and Bacall in Howard Hawke's adaptation, although I can't remember in what order I read/watched the two versions. I do remember loving the book, though, and I have since seen the film a dozen times over thirty-some years. I remembered the hard-bitten cynicism of Philip Marlowe, I remembered Vivian Sternwood's languorous sexiness (although it turns out this is much more Bacall's performance as Vivian than Raymond Chandler's character). I also remembered the general nuts and bolts of the story. What I didn't remember, what I had no sense of at all, was just how normalized the disdain for women and homosexuals was in this book.
It is virulent.
Women are to be avoided at all costs. They are either the devil herself, or succubi there to tempt men into their own downfall. They are incapable. They are weak. They are irresponsible. They are foolish. They are objects in the worst ways. They are infantile. They are spoiled. And they are flat (which might not be saying much considering that every character in this story, including Philip Marlowe, is static and without a hint of growth). To read it now (or to listen to it, as I did) is to feel every moment of misogyny as a pinch to the nervous system. At least that's how it felt to me.
But then there is the homophobia, which isn't omnipresent like the misogyny (since women abound in the story) but is no less disgusting. The homophobia carries with it the stain of disgust that homosexuality carried with it in our general popular culture well into the nineties (and in so many places still today), and the gay characters in The Big Sleep are the worst kind of humanity. They are positioned as no better than vermin, and homosexuality is discussed in the book the way that child molestation is discussed today.
If the misogyny was a pinch to my nerves, the homophobia was a Vulcan nerve pinch to my bisexual mind (it's no wonder it took me so long to come to terms with my sexuality with such stories shaping my mind as a child).
Yet for all my anger and disgust over the misogyny and homophobia, I find myself guiltily admitting that I really enjoyed The Big Sleep all the same. I should probably be ashamed of myself, and I assure you part of me is ashamed, but Raymond Chandler could sure tell a tale. The dialogue was crisp, the pacing was taut, the story was compelling, the setting of 1930s' LA was everything my mind has come to imagine it to be, and The Big Sleep kept me so riveted I found myself setting aside the misogyny and homophobia as just a product of the time (yeah ... I know. I am guilty as charged).
I feel like there is more to say about all this, more I should say, and much self-criticism that I should ponder (and I will), but for now I will stop, and let you make of my guilt what you will.
One last thing, I listened to the Audible audio version, narrated by Ray Porter, and his performance was one of those uneven performances that drive me mad. His vocal feel for Marlowe and the other men in the book was spot on, and he really nailed the cadence of Chandler's dialogue, but his vocals for the female characters made Chandler's misogyny audibly tangible. He cannot do women's voices, so that every woman in the story sounds like the worst possible version of themselves. It is one of those cases where a shared narration with a woman performing the female dialogue would have elevated the production far beyond what it achieved. I will be avoiding Ray Porter narrations in the future....more
The first comic I ever bought was a Prince Namor. I was at the convenience store, long before I became a true comic collector, and found a beaten up NThe first comic I ever bought was a Prince Namor. I was at the convenience store, long before I became a true comic collector, and found a beaten up Namor comic that captured my imagination, making me, forever, a fan of Namor no matter where or when he appears.
I haven't read this sequence of Namor before, coming as it did after my retirment from comics, but now that I am exploring everything I missed, now that I am out of "retirement" as a collector, now that my son and I are geeking out on a regular basis, I couldn't possibly pass up a collection of John Byrne (my nostalgic favourite) scripted and penciled Namors.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner #1 -- "Purpose!" This is not an auspicious start to a series. It may actually be the single worst number one I have ever read. It uses two separate epilogues and two separate prologues to deliver the clunkiest and least helpful exposition possible, moving us from classicly mercurial Namor to a kinder, gentler, Namor, who has been suffering from oxygen imbalances throughout his life due to his mixed Atlantean and Human heritage, to a forward thinking Namor, who decides to pursue his "purpose" -- currently undisclosed -- through capitalism, to his Namor's future nemesis, the crazed, sixth richest man in the world, Desmond Marrs. It does, however, still contain John Byrne's killer illustrations, and I find myself very excited to see where all of this poor storytelling is taking us. Strange.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner #2 -- "Eagle's Wing and Lion's Claw" Not great but better than the opening issue. This one pits Namor against the Griffin in a battle in the air and water around the Statue of Liberty. Carrie Alexander is the damsel in distress, her Dad was frightened into a coronary by the, Griffin, Namorita, Namor's cousin, is back (quite unceremoniously), Headhunter is taking an interest in the half-naked, wing ankled guy streaking around the New York skyline, and the Marrs' twins are the antagonists at the action's heart. Does any of this matter? Not really. All that matters is that Byrne is busy doing what he does -- action. All that matters here is the fight, and it's a doozy that ends in a cliffhanger ....
Namor, The Sub-Mariner #3 -- "Meeting of the Board" ... But it wasn't much of a cliffhanger because there was no way Namor was going to lose a fight against the Griffin. Instead, Namor turns the Griffin into his flying steed, breaking him in one of the most ridiculous and oddly perfect bronco busting scenes I've ever witnessed, and then he flies his steed to Roxxon, the oil giant he mistakenly (?) blames for the Griffin's attack. He leaves the superbaddy with them, and flies off in a Namor-lite huff. His arrogance is beginning to peak out, but is it only blood poisoning or his natural state? I suppose only time will tell. And in case you're wondering, Caleb Alexander is okay for now. His heart is stable. Just don't get him excited.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner #4 -- "Black Water" The plot thickens until Namor finds himself trapped and suffocating in an oil spill, but none of that is important. What is important to me is a an occurrence of about six frames midway through the issue: Namor lounges in his salt water pool, talking to Namorita, then he sinks into the pool, drifting through bubbles, submerging himself. The conversation continues, though, because Namorita just pops her head beneath the water and keeps on chatting. This moment exemplifies what is great about John Byrne. More than any other comic creator of his generation, Byrne's imagination extended to the mundane and morphed the mundane into something exceptional. His artwork in this moment is gorgeous, actually conveying the feeling of specific gravity in water, conveying drift, and Glynis Oliver's colours gloriously match his pencils. His storytelling never reaches the level of the greats like Alan Moore or Chris Claremont, but damn can he do the little things well.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner #5 -- "All the Rivers Burning" The big oil spill is ablaze after an eco-Terrorist suicide bombs the slick. Iron Man wastes his time chasing a drone sent out as a diversion. Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl try to contain the spill. Sub-Mariner swims off to an underwater lava vent, bringing back some thermal-eating, giant manta rays, and the day is saved (mostly through the efforts of Namor) even though the heroes do nothing in concert. There is part of me that thinks the disjointed (pseudo-)heroics of the four super beings is something to be appreciated, and I suppose I do, but it is overshadowed by the disjointedness of the story itself. I can't get a handle on anything that Byrne is doing, apart from the overdetermined eco-critcism he's beating me over the head with. Subtle it is not. In other news, Namor is arrested as soon as the day is saved. Not sure why yet, but it's probably due to his uninvited visit to the Roxxon board.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner #6 -- "Out of Sight, Out of Mind." The shine of Byrne's art (though there is a super cute drawing of Namorita at one point. One point in how many frames? Too many) has warn off, and all I can muster for this issue is a yawn. The Marrs plot is coming to fruition. Namor has decided to shift his affections from the uninterested Carrie to the very interested Phoebe (although she's only interested as a ruse). Yawn. Scratch, scratch, scratch. And then there is a new villain, the embodiement of humanities offshore garbage dumping. It is a rot creature named Sluj(who happens to look an awful lot like the Swamp Thing). Snort. Sorry, my head bobbed there. I was resting me eyes.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner #7 -- "... That I Be Shunned by All..." Where the hell is Mothra when you need it? Not in New York fighting Sluj, that's for sure. That's up to Namor who just happens to hear about a giant beast in the ocean. He just happens to find the monster with no difficulty, then pops into the monster for a swim around, finds a shipload of passengers in a series of digestive cocoons and pulls a pretty girl in a bikini to safety to find out what happened, and he just happens to land -- amidst a thronging crowd -- right beside the scientist responsible for the monster, who just happens to have the antidote, and Namor just happens to be the perfect delivery system, and I just happened to stay awake long enough to see Headhunter swing by the Marrs Penthouse to collect a head. I suppose I will just happen to read the next issue soon too.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner #8 -- "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" We have here our first cusp issue where old storylines are closing out (so very unsatisfactorily) and new storylines are starting (some out of time Nazi baddies. Hooray!). At the moment Namor can't fly, a residual effect from his defeat of Sluj, so he's being driven around in the Marrs limousine (where it seems he shags Phoebe Marrs, or so we're led to believe), then winds up in a room of heads. Ten or twelve heads. Human heads. Mounted on the wall like a wild animal trophy room. Apparently the lovely Headhunter collects the heads of New York's best and brightest business men (and, yep, no one seems to have missed them), and her most recent addition is Desmond Marrs. Next up: Namor. So she pulls off her glasses, rolls her hypnotic eyes, and we're off to the next issue.
Namor, The Sub-Mariner #9 -- "Skull Orchard" Thank Poseidon it is over! Blah, blah, blah, the Headhunter never cut off any heads. She simply kept the men alive with their heads poking through the wall, sometimes for years. Yeah, that's believable (what the hell do you mean? It's a comic book, dumb ass. Yeah, I know. But still ....). Some other stuff happens too. So I am finished. I am relieved. I am disappointed. I'll probably read the next one, and I'll complain about that one too, knowing full well what I am getting myself into....more
The last time I read it, I wrote a top ten list of the Reasons to Avoid Twilight. This spring I decided to use Twilight in a first year class. My readThe last time I read it, I wrote a top ten list of the Reasons to Avoid Twilight. This spring I decided to use Twilight in a first year class. My reading list also included Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Batman The Killing Joke, A History of Violence, and a couple of movies. Many people asked me "Why?" A valid question, I think.
My answer is that we're stuck with Twilight. It's not going anywhere, and despite all the Twilight backlash, it is now a piece of pop culture that speaks to a huge portion of our society and probably always will. I understand those who refuse to analyze it, who refuse to dignify it with serious discussion, but I am not in their camp. To me, those stories that become pop culture touchstones -- be they Star Wars, Harry Potter or Twilight -- are precisely the texts we should be analyzing, quality be damned.
So I went into this reading trying to keep an open mind, trying to see things in a different way. I think I succeeded, and I was surprised to discover that I was occassionally surprised. My original #10 was The pathetic nature of Meyer's men., and I stand by that. They are about as vanilla as one can get, which is the last thing you want in a Vampire. Alabaster? Yes. Vanilla? No.
My #9 was that Mormon morality is not conducive to interesting Vampirism, and it's not, but I have to say that Mormon theology is a wonderful basis for the battle between the Vampires and Werewolves in Meyer's books. Recast the former as the Nephites and the latter as the Lamanites and you'll have Joseph Smith coughing up a marrow ball in his grave.
Perhaps I am going to piss some of my friends off with this, but I have increasingly noticed that my #8: Teenage girl angst from a thirty-something, middle class soccer mom isn't such an anomaly. I am not sure when this new breed of mom is going to grow up, but many of them haven't yet, and the fact that Meyer writes from a teenage perspective isn't surprising to me anymore (I hasten to add that I know no "soccer moms" here on goodreads, I am merely surrounded by them in my real life, so please don't take it as an insult if you are reading this).
Then there's #7. The total lack of meaningful conflict, the #6. Romance novel prose and #4. Movie of the week dialogue. I can't argue with those three observations. The first is bang on, and I've read a considerable amount of romance since my last reading of Twilight to know that my gut was correct on number six, and I was a screenwriter by trade, so you know what I think about my number four.
(Okay, I am boring myself while writing this. Are you bored yet?)
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that my #5. The unheroic, even laughable, heroism of Bella Swan isn't entirely fair. Bella does the best with what she's got, and I don't think Meyer intended her as a hero. She's no Ripley (Alien was one of my movies this semester), nor was she ever meant to be. She's a clumsy high school student driven by her hormones, but considering the supernatural forces arrayed against her, she's stands up pretty well. Not as well as Mina Harker or Sookie Stackhouse, but pretty well.
But now we come to my #3. Edward's inexplicable love for Bella and my #2. The insufferability of Bella. I was wrong about these two. First, Edward's love makes total sense. We get to hear every insipid thing flowing through Bella's brain, and when you can hear (or read) that stuff, it is almost impossible to fall in love with Bella (though I think you can have a positive response to her, even if you are a jaded cat like me), but Edward doesn't get any of that. The Bella he gets is decisive, mysterious, combative, confident, semi-intelligent and unreadable (the classic cat-nip for telepaths). If I didnn't hear her thoughts I would fall in love with Bella, and I missed that the first time through (go figure). On top of that, I didn't find Bella nearly as insufferable as I did the first time. Sure I grew annoyed with her mooning over Edward's beauty, btu I tried to put myself back to my own teenage years and imagine what it was like to be in love with curly-haired Christine in my Math class, and once I did that I could cut Bella plenty of slack. I learned no math in that class, but I can still see Christine's perfect eyelashes, long and naturaly dark, acting like eye-fireworks every time she blinked. It wasn't as bad as I remembered.
Finally, my #1. was That the movie WILL BE better than the book. Well, I've since seen the movie, and I think the book is marginally better, simply because the first person narrative cannot translate to the big screen, and it makes the job of Kristin Stewart, as Bella, an impossible task. I feel for her. I really do.
So there it is, my revision of what I thought the first time I tackled this book. Don't get me wrong, though. Twilight is far from great. It's okay at best. But I get why it is beloved, and I think I was a bit unfair the first time out. Will I teach it again? Maybe. But I think I'd rather teach One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for the twentieth time. It's better. Trust me.
And here's a final bit of fun for this painfully long, beast of a review -- some things asked or overheard while I was rereading this:
“You hate Anna Karenina but you’re defending Twilight?! How does that work?”
“Bella is perfect, except for her silly clumsiness. How convenient,” then the same person said later on, “She’s pathetic.”
"Fag!" whipered under someone's breath as I was buying wine, but it could have been because of my cut-offs rather than the book. I get that a lot.
“Bella doesn’t love her family correctly.”
“You’re rereading it? I’ve read it three times and I always find something I missed before. It is soooo good.”
I know. You're looking at those five stars and thinking, "What the #$%@!" And I completely understand. It would appear I have gone mental. So here's tI know. You're looking at those five stars and thinking, "What the #$%@!" And I completely understand. It would appear I have gone mental. So here's the breakdown of why the five stars. Just so we're all clear.
★: The nostalgia factor is overwhelming for me with this one. I was a little too young to watch these movies in the theatre, but they were massive when I was a little kid and the apes were everywhere. We've sort of rewritten film history a bit to believe that Star Wars started the summer blockbuster and merchandising explosion, but I had a Dr. Zaius doll and remember one of my friends having a Planet of the Apes t-shirt. I even played Battle for the Planet of the Apes with my friend Duane (the same one Thomas and I chatted about in the comment thread) after our all day summer tv marathon. So when I saw this at the local used book store and passed over my shekels, it had already earned that first star simply based on my childhood flashbacks.
+★: There are things to be said, positive things, about movie-tie-ins. I know the prevailing wisdom is that they are the trashiest of the trashy, and that may very well be true, but there are two things about them I love. First, as a longtime screenwriter, I appreciate the cinematic quality that can't be avoided. These sorts of books are almost always based on a screenplay for the film (occassionally, though, they'll be based on a treatment), so the pace, the action, the dialogue is driven by the movie, and while I would rather read the actual screenplay, a movie-tie-in is an enjoyable (though diminished) alternative. Second, directors can change the work of screenwriters however they want, so it's nice to see a different take on a screenwriter's work and feel a little closer (even if this is illusory) to what their work was all about.
+★: Sometimes, as in this case where the movie was pretty pathetic, a movie-tie-in can be better than its on-screen counterpart. The film was saddled with poor effects (even the ape costumes had become less impressive, with so many apes needed to fill Ape City only the costumes of the stars were well done), poor performances, and an excruciating pace. But the books has effects imagined by me, performances imagined by me and a pace that was as fast as I wanted to make it. I can see now, having read the book, why this particular script would have been given the greenlight. It could have been good. Really.
-★: That being said, the big battle between the Mutants and the Apes went on way too long, even here in the book.
+★: And since I mentioned them already: nuclear fallout Mutants! Again, much cooler here than on-screen.
+★★: Last but certainly not least is the author David Gerrold (one of the great Hackosaurids). He cracked me up, and this exchange between Mutant leader Mr. Kolp and his "love interest" Mutant Alma contains his best insertion into the story (I know it's long, but I think it is worth repeating in its entirety)
"Do you know what that is?"
"Of course, Mr. Kolp. it's our nuclear missile."
Kolp went up to it and stroked its shaft. "It's operational. Did you know that?" He gestured to her, and she approached timidly. He kept stroking the shaft of the missile as he reached out and took her hand. Her heart skipped a beat.
"Come closer, Alma," he whispered. She did so. "Touch it," he commanded. She extended her other hand and pressed her fingertips against the cold metal surface, then her whole palm. She began stroking the weapon in time with Kolp. The smooth steel felt so clean and strong.
"If the impossible should happen, Alma," Kolp said. "If we're defeated by the apes, I will not surrender to animals. He squeezed her hand and held it tighter. "Neither will my soldiers. If retreat seems necessary, I shall send you a coded radio signal. Fifteen minutes after you receive it, you will range this missile on Ape City and activate it."
Alma breathed throatily, "Yes, Mr. Kolp, I will. I can do it from the main control console. What will the signal be?"
Kolp looked at her carefully. "Alpha and Omega," he said slowly.
Alma repeated, "Alpha and Omega."
He nodded. "You're a good girl, Alma."
She looked at him adoringly.
And at last he noticed her. "And a pretty one too."
They were still stroking the missile. Their hands moved together across its steel skin. neither seemed to notice it any more, though. Kolp leaved forward, closer and closer, and kissed her. She kissed him back. Deeply. She stepped closer and slid her arms around his wide frame. "Alpha and Omega," she breathed. "I will be your tool."
Then and only then did Kolp take his slowly moving hand off his weapon. He pulled Alma close against him and kissed her again. And again.
It seriously called it "his weapon." Not "the weapon" but "his weapon." That has to be one of the silliest uses of a phallic symbol I've ever read. Just awesome!
So there you go. Is it crappy? Kind of, but crappy in all the ways I wanted it to be, and it was so much darn fun that I think I am going to start hunting down movie-tie-ins to all the movies I loved as a kid. Come to think of it, I think I have a copy of the original Battlestar Galactica tie-in lying around. That's moving to the top of my pile right now. ... There!
Start raiding your used book stores for trash like this, my friends. You won't regret it.
WARNING: This review contains the language of the book it discusses, including a couple of c-words. Please don't read this if you do not want to see tWARNING: This review contains the language of the book it discusses, including a couple of c-words. Please don't read this if you do not want to see the words spelled out or if sick and demented shit makes you want to throw up.
If H.R. Giger was a genetic meat puppet of David Lynch's, and the two of them shared a lovely dream about flesh altered fuck toys with multiple cocks and cunts, it would be something akin to Carlton Mellick III's bizarro-fest, Razor Wire Pubic Hair.
This is the story of a nameless genetically engineered fuck doll, used and abused by a horror show matron named Celsia with multiple cunts and razor wire pubic hair that cuts off penises if she fucks them too hard. Together they live in a surreal world of sexual torture, where sex toys are males genetically altered to carry all genital material (the better to fuck and be fucked with, it seems), where zombies drop rotting flesh from their faces while bathing in mud puddles, where roving bands of rapists threaten to burst through the walls of a flesh fortress and destroy the twisted metal utopia of Celsia, The Sister and the fuck doll, where God, resplendent with his white beard, comes to fuck the fuck doll, where mini, living, crucified Christs are buried deep in The Sister's multiple vaginas calling out their muffled torture, and the great debate of their lives is whether a fuck doll receptacle for birthing a repulsive, bloated baby of decaying cells can have a soul.
The story is full of dripping juices, tangy smells, appalling torture, creative blasphemy, poisonous fluids, and claustrophobic love/hate. It is disgusting, disjointed, filled with strange, pornographic works of art that seem to have no connection to the narrative and it is disdainful of all gender.
But there was no stopping once I'd begun. Like Giger and Lynch, Carlton Mellick III is good at what he does. The Creature/Author can write, make no mistake, and while the Creature/Author's product is about as accessible as a dinner at Titus' table, it is compelling. Worse still, I found it enjoyable. Maybe I shouldn't feel ashamed for finding something marvelous in Razor Wire Pubic Hair, but the indoctrination of my raising has me feeling dirty beyond cleansing for being fascinated by the Creature/Author's poetic use of language and the way my imagination worked Mellick III's world into a real space in my head.
I fear I have been scarred for life by my second foray into the world of Bizarro fiction; I will buy more and continue to sully my soul, shame be damned....more
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