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by Ray Bradbury

by Neil Gaiman

All Together Dead
Charlene Harris
Finished: 04/05/09

Once again, we’re out of the land of mysteries, as Harris attempts to write a political thriller. The high point of which seems to be the confusion within the Queen of Louisiana’s own party. Harris really nailed the difficulty involved in successfully carrying out a conspiracy.

The subset to that, however, is Harris extends that lack of subtlety to all the conspiracies happening during the vampire summit, and as such, the Fellowship plot seems painfully obvious and intellectually lazy. It’s a shoe-bomb of a plot, one which never should have been implementable, especially not in a place so heavily guarded, so full of vampire VIPs.

I am appreciating Sookie’s realizations about those who would use her telepathic powers, but am surprised at it taking her seven books to start to learn this. I guess the idea is that in rural southern America, people are too scared of what they don’t understand to try to manipulate it. However, that’s a rosy colored view of fearful stupidity that I just don’t buy, as people often wish to control what they don’t understand. Sookie’s surpise, therefore, seems, well, a bit surprising, and Barry’s, the urbanite mindreader from Dallas, even more so.

Also? Watching dead flesh burn gives me the creeps (too many educational videos about nuclear bombs as a child). So that whole ending action sequence? Major yuck. Just putting that out there. Sometimes there is a thing as too much description. And therefore, on that subject, I shall say no more.

Definitely Dead
Charlene Harris
Finished: 04/03/09

Certainly a better put together novel than book five of the series. Only two plotlines weave through this particular novel, and are quite well put together into a singular story, especially when compared to Harris’ earlier attempt at two plotlines in the second novel.

What is most noticeable about this book, however, was the number of beating hearts. For a “vampire” series, all of the main vampire characters thus far (Eric, Bill, even Pam) were mostly absent, replaced with vampires who seemed cold-blooded more their political-mindedness than for their blood-sucking behaviors. Meanwhile, Sookie’s taken up with a live one in the were-tiger Quinn, and even makes a new friend with the witch who owned the apartment where Sookie’s cousin was living before her second death.

At least Harris is back to a good old fashioned mystery story, which is clearly where her strength is. Cousin Hadley is (like Scrooge’s business partner, Marley) “dead to begin with”, and, being an immortal vampire, it’s obviously been a matter of foul play. Meanwhile, there is also missing jewelry, and plenty of political intrigue to provide a number of reasonable subjects. A few red-herrings from the second plotline, and Definitely Dead carries itself well, even as the characters themselves grow tiresome.

The Government Manual for New Wizards
Matthew David Brozik
Jacob Sager Weinstein
Finished: 03/29/09

A Christmas present from Lulubell, I found it excellent bathroom reading of the sort that I hadn’t enjoyed since Word Freak. I recommend it highly for people with a familiarity with modern fantasy literature (Harry Potter knowledge is required, Lord of the Rings basics recommended) and a very high tolerance for horrible puns. Whether it is the discussion about how you get tickets to Witch Side Story or a reminder to never give trolls access to the internet, if there’s a cheap joke to be made, Brozik and Weinstein go for it. That said, they succeed, and nothing is more satisfying than emerging from the bathroom with a merry grin on your face and a wry chuckle in your heart. Makes the whole day better, I do believe, and that’s magic worth buying into.

The Moon Bridge
Marcia Savin
Finished: 03/27/09

One of the questions in children’s books is how we address tough subjects. Some people would suggest not doing it at all—that children should be protected and allowed to keep their innocence as long as possible, and that life as a child is scary enough without having to face those truths that make even adults feel sick or afraid. And while that viewpoint is easily countered by those who point out that true insulation is not possible, that knowledge is better than hushed-over mystery, and that, as much as we would wish otherwise, bad things do happen to children and innocence is no protection from terrifying events—there is still reluctance to present subjects too vividly to young children, especially at the middle grade reading level.

One of the ways, unfortunately, that writers have decided to deal with this squemishness is through the “happened to a friend” story. The Moon Bridge is a perfect example of this style—with all its usefulness and flaws. Rather than follow the story of Mitzi, the Japanese-American girl sent away with her family to live in an internment camp during world war II, the action centers on her friend Ruthie, who, with her parent’s understanding liberalism, has a hard time figuring out why anyone would want to send away her friend. And since there are no good answers to that question, Ruthie is left just to “get on with her life”, with the nagging doubt that her missing friend is having an awfully hard time doing the same thing in whatever camp they have taken her away to live. From the point of view of addressing the issue of Japanese-American internment, then, Savin’s book raises more questions than it answers. It creates awareness of the issue, but doesn’t share the experience of the situation. Mitzi, at the end, is left to explain “what it was like”—even as she tries to forget—and this glossing over is as much for the audience’s safety as it is true to Mitzi’s character as she attempts to readjust to life outside of the camp.

As a sidenote, I recently ran across a reference to The Moved-Outers by Florence C. Means. As a Newbery honor roll book from 1945 about Sumiko Ohara and her family’s forced moves during the internment, I am hoping to pick up a copy to compare against Savin’s more recent novel. When The Moved-Outers was published, perhaps there was no need yet for Ruthie’s story, as the children of the time had lived it themselves. But I do wonder where that account from the camp has gone, now that Florence C. Means’ book is out of print.

Dead as a Doornail
Charlene Harris
Finished: 03/20/09

You’d think, given my review of these books, that I would have just set them down as opposed to being just as addicted to them as any other mindless twentysomething on holiday. And yet, I went on holiday… and there, at the house where I was staying, Dead as a Doornail was sitting there in the living room, waiting to be thumbed through while sitting in the sun in March getting burned.

I love the review on goodreads that ends her plot summary with the sentence ”Sookie also learns quite a bit more about werewolf politics, learns how to file an insurance claim and what a gunshot wound feels like.” It seems to be an accurate summary. This book felt disjointed, like several different plots trying to weave themselves together, with an overall plot-arch being only incidentally tacked on through the sniper mystery. No real clear beginning, and stopping just because the right number of pages had been reached in order to send it off to the publisher. It flowed acceptably, but in terms of “the story”, this book felt more like a series of short stories that had been woven together than some sort of integrated whole novel.

• the sniper mystery—who’s shooting at weres?
• the unconnected death of the were pack leader
• the introduction of Quinn
• final wrap-up of drama from last book over Eric
• more drama with Bill’s new girlfriend
• Alcide using Debbie’s death to try to manipulate Sookie
• the organizational structure of electing a new were pack leader
• a strange pirate-vampire visit (because apparently just one stereotypical of fantasy creature at a time just isn’t enough anymore: just wait until the next book, when you meet the jackalopeacorn-troll that practices santeria)
• Bellefleur wedding drama
• Tara’s vampire troubles

What do any of these things have to do with each other? Only that they all happen in the same book. In terms of the story, there is no plot tying them together, just wrapping up old storylines, and introducing new dramas to be played out in future installments. A “gap” book—one that can’t be skipped, not because it’s interesting, but only so that the plotholes of the books post and previous aren’t quite so jarring.

Dead to the World
Charlene Harris
Finished: 03/14/09

People review this book well because of the hot Sookie/Eric love action going on after his is found naked and amnesiac by the side of the road. I’m not sure I understand. So the character that everyone loves because he’s a ruthless vampire capitalist politician looses his personality, sleeps with the heroine, and then goes back to normal, and people think this is the best book? It’s not even the same guy! At that point, Sookie could just as well sleep with any generic blond character-less vampire, and it would be the same story. In fact, let’s just skip the whole telepathy/vampire thing, and have a girl (who knows her word of the day) sleep with some all-but-nameless attractive man and presto bestseller. It’ll work, I tell you.

Meanwhile, I was interested in the world building of the witches versus the wiccans… I’ve read plenty of novels revolving around one group or the other, but I think Harris’ series has to be the first that I’ve seen that has dared tackle them as existing in the same world. (If I’m wrong on that, let me know. I would love to read another example of this, to have something to compare it to.) It seems, though, that Harris wants to try to dodge the issue as much as she can… that her attempt to include both in the same world was in order not to get angry letters from neo-pagans, but that, as far as actually doing the requisite world-building, Harris would just rather skip it in favor of a supernatural mêlée in an abandoned storefront. If she hadn’t spent so much time placating beefcake fantasies of sex with mindless (literally) men, she could have had time for both. A shame, really.

I liked this, although it sort of depressed me (and I found a squashed fly in chapter 13. The hazards of used books, I suppose). It was a satire on political thought: on governmental tyranny, political dissidents, those who want change, those who fight against change, those who believe modern youth are corrupt and those who let them just run around and have their way. In the end, I almost believed Burgess to be a nihilist: nobody can win, so why bother existing? Everybody is bad and evil in the end, and they spawn their bad and evil children and let the cycle continue. Oh my. I enjoyed it, though; it made me think, and I like that quality in a novel, even if this sort of reminded me a bit too much of other dystopian novels I’ve read.

Club Dead
Charlene Harris
Finished: 03/09/09

Jealousy! Infidelity! Harris’ third book breaks from the mystery novel conventions entirely, and turns instead into romance. Humorous romance, yes. But no more murders in the first chapter, just a missing Bill Compton, and continued tensions playing out over Sookie’s head as the vampires continue the power play of bored immortals with nothing better to waste their time on.

I think (although I could be misremembering) that Club Dead is the book where the “word of the day” calendar is introduced, a character point I really could rather have done without. Sookie, as it happens, is brighter than she acts, so that people won’t be so suspicious when she knows things from her telepathy that she shouldn’t. But she also, as she frequently and vehemently protests, “isn’t one of those intellectuals”… the big words she knows come entirely from her word-of-the-day calendar, and her understanding of how the world works comes entirely from the trite mystery and romance fiction she reads. The message here is clear, Harris is trying to defend her own work as being “good enough” for someone like Sookie, and piss on anyone who reads that crazy thing called “literature”.

More comic relief from Bubba, who follows Sookie around throughout the entire book, even when she’s not aware that he’s nearby. And Sookie gets her first taste of moral ambiguity when she commits her first murder. (Self defense, naturally. I mean, she is the heroine. But thankfully she has more self-reflection about her actions than the “I’m the good guy because everyone says I’m the good guy” Harry Potter.) Meanwhile, I agree with a lot of the negative reviews that point out that Sookie’s relationships with the men in her life is based around inequality… her servitude to Eric through brute force, her emotional devotion to Bill even when he’s unfaithful, even her friendship (or possibly more) to Alcide is based on his mystery-factor as a supernatural being. Meanwhile they read her “like a trashy genre book”—easy to understand, and thrown out when the next airport terminal is reached, without a thought more about what anything means.