Bookish Thoughts

The Golden Compass is the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. While the trilogy in it's entirety is fairly controversial due to it's negative portrayal of the church, this theme doesn't really become apparent until the end of the first book. Instead, The Golden Compass is at heart an adventure tale. It follows eleven-year-old Lyra Belacqua as she journeys north to save her best friend, Roger, from the Gobblers. The Gobblers have been kidnapping children for their own nefarious purposes. The Golden Compass takes place in a world that is similar to ours, but also incredibly different. The first and most dramatic difference is that a person's soul actually manifests as an animal companion known as a daemon. There are more subtle etymological and historical differences. For example, in this book John Calvin became pope and then ultimately disbanded the papacy in favor of a board of officials known as The Magisterium. The church ...

I was so excited to start this book. I love Eric after he loses all his memories, not to mention the fact that he and Sookie finally get together. Charlaine Harris successfully weaves two separate plots together in a non-jarring way, by using Jason's disappearance as a red herring. Unfortunately, the cracks are starting to show. Though Harris is really good at coming up with an interesting story, she's not so great at remembering what she's already written. The reviews I've read about her new book complain that it's full of inconsistencies with the rest of the series and that she seems to flat out ignore her own previous writing. Or maybe it's just a really shabby attempt to retcon the series so she can take it where she wants it to go. Even this early in the series, it seems that she can't be bothered to maintain the details of the world she's created. Here's a nit-picky list of the facts that Charlaine Harris can't keep straight. ...

In which... Eric cuddles with Sookie We meet Alcide Sookie and Alcide have breakfast and play scrabble. There's sexual tension, but no sex Sookie and Alcide dispose of a corpse together Alcide's ex-girlfriend tries to kill Sookie Sookie gets staked Eric is hot Sookie and Eric have friendship and sexual tension. They almost have sex but Elvis Bubba interrupts them Seriously, why isn't Bubba in True Blood ? He's awesome Sookie stakes her first vampire Sookie rescues Bill from torture and imprisonment In return, Bill rapes and nearly kills Sookie Eric saves Sookie (again) Sookie and Bill break up! Eric pays to have Sookie's driveway re-graveled, because he's thoughtful like that Man I am so glad that relationship is over. I know I'm biased, but this is my blog. I can be whatever I want. Once again, this book is a lot of fun. True Blood takes this story to the extremes of ridiculous. But it basically boils down to a bunch of hot guys who w...

Living Dead in Dallas has an interesting structure. There are two basic plots, an A plot and a B plot. But instead of being interwoven, they get chopped up. The first two chapters deal with the first half of the B plot. This is then completely forgotten as the A plot takes over most of the book. After the A plot wraps up, we get a few chapters to segue back into the B plot and tie off some loose ends. I guess it works? It feels a little disjointed, though. In the main plot, Sookie is off to Dallas to try and discover the whereabouts of a missing vampire named Farrel. It turns out he has been kidnapped by the Fellowship of the Sun church who want to sacrifice him in order to show their congregation the power of Jesus. Another vampire, Godfrey, is in cahoots with the church. He wants to die, to atone for his sins. Apparently he believes that God will even forgive 1000 years of child molestation and murder if he just asks Him to. I guess, technically, that is how it works...

This is my second time through the Sookie Stackhouse books. I'm hoping to get through the first four before the 4th season of True Blood premieres. Given that the premiere is still several weeks away and it only takes a couple of days to read each of these books, that shouldn't be a problem. I got into these books because of the HBO series. I've been obsessed with vampires since I started watching Buffy in 6th grade. My mom fed this obsession with Anne Rice novels and old movies. The first silent film I ever saw was Nosferatu, which we rented because Eddie Izzard was in the modern spoof of it. Also classic vampires. So when True Blood premiered the summer after college when I was unemployed, I had to start watching. And when I found a box set of the first nine books on sale for $27 I couldn't not buy it. The first season of the show stays much closer to the books than any of the other seasons. I maintain that the books are far better. To be fair, I al...

Another Discworld novel! This one followed Captain Sam Vimes and The City Watch on a diplomatic mission to Uberwald where the werewolves are attempting to start a war among the dwarves. They steal the ceremonial throne just before the coronation of the new king with plans to hold it hostage unless the dwarves agree to elect a  different king, one who would deny dwarfdom to the more liberal dwarves with modern thoughts about gender and such. This was a fun detective novel with lots of twists and turns. I figured out the mystery fairly quickly, but it was still lots of fun to read. I've noticed this more and more with Terry Pratchett.  If I'm familiar with the source material (vampires, rock music, or fairy tales), then I catch on to a lot of the early clues and figure out the endgame pretty close to the beginning of the book. If I'm less familiar, then I miss the jokes and clues and the resolution of the novel comes as more of a surprise. But I like the ones ...

I first learned of John Green when I came across this quote "...because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. We don't have to be like, 'Oh yeah that purse is okay' or like, 'Yeah, I like that band's early stuff.' Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself-love it. Hank, when people call people nerds, mostly what they are saying is, 'You like stuff', which is just not a good insult at all, like 'You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness'." There's also this one: Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' How fantastically true are these quotes? (an...