!! SPOILER WARNING !!

It starts out simply: a farm girl is bought and enslaved into a kingdom for a centuries-old prince. Chalk it up to Memoirs of a Geisha in a fantasy world, she breaks out and becomes the savior of the entire kingdom. And that’s only halfway through the book. I found myself – as would anyone – wondering just what was going to happen next.

// END SPOILERS

Through the many adventures we follow her on throughout the rest of the book, there is a strong tone of sexuality, of violence and lust, throughout the book. I often chuckled at the pages, wondering if all the women in this world were lesbians, and just how that would come about. Maybe it was the Avatar craze coupled with a ‘cat-like woman’ in this book, but I found myself noticing and rooting for cross-breed romances, at least in fiction, and wondered at that. Was it a purpose of Lake’s to spark the mind with humans and animal-beings romancing or was it simply writer’s curiosity?

Asking questions or wondering about those things aloud seems presumptuous to me, but I do wonder. I wonder what it might be like if we humans had other races around us. Would we adopt them as equal beings, to be wined and dined, or would it be the age-old race conflict? I guess I’d like to think that with the proliferation of science-fiction into the mainstream and stories and ideas like Avatar’s romantic storyline becoming widely accepted – at least as fiction – that just maybe it’d bleed over into reality someday. If we were ever confronted with that reality. Who knows? Maybe there’s some cat-species or monkey-breed out there on the brink of discovering safe spaceflight technologies. What would you do?

In large part, this book is about just that: the coexistence of different species, gods and spirits, humans and other humanoids. Not to mention the various magical and mystical beings. While not delving much into the social issues, they are certainly present, and more than a few times surface as Green makes her way through the hardships of freed slave life.

Green herself is an easily-lovable character. She’s full of spunk and fight, angst and attitude. She’s calculating and hard, but can be soft and gentle, sensual. But we’re always brought back to the heart of the tale: revenge. Revenge and violence permeate the book as if they were the meat and the rest side dishes. She struggles simply to survive in a world rife with fear and control, power struggles and flawed, perfectly believable creatures.

Full of insights into hard life, adolescence, the mind-games of rulers and academics and lovers alike, Green is an entertaining read for fantasy fans looking for something different.

Total: 4/5 stars

Catheryne M Valente sets her writing pattern right away. Using simple typography, she sets apart the real world and the other, but the writing style is what makes the real difference. It’s almost as if two people wrote the two worlds of this book. There is such a sense of depth and realism – surrealism – in each, likely so noticeable because of the stark contrast, that you can’t help noticing just how real the real parts are, and just how surreal the surreal parts are.

She plays knowingly with descriptions in both worlds, and lets your mind race and wander, varying the pace. Always, though, we return to the two worlds, the two mindsets, of the core characters. She paints a solid portrait of desperation and loss and trying to interpret and process grief by the end of the book. It’s supremely easy to get lost in the words and the images as she hurdles through the dream and real worlds of human need and desperation.

Nearing the end pages, my mind was fixed on finishing. I wanted it done so I could call it done, so I could move on, so I could understand. Having finished it, I’m not sure I fully understand, but I think what this book does best is it transcends the boundaries of logic and understanding and gets to be a book about feelings. I’m not talking chick-flick feelings; I mean what each world makes the characters, and by extension the readers, feel that communicates what each world means and why it’s so important. Despairing in the dizzying drain that is loss and uncertainty, these characters find some feeling they need in order to survive – to thrive – and their need for it becomes pure and painful. Somehow these people were lost in reality and found Palimpsest, and that belonging makes them whole.

A few days after finishing the book and setting it on a shelf, I feel twinges of nostalgia; I miss the world a little bit. As if it were a dream I wish I’d have again, I find myself thinking fondly of the city, the characters, as if I yearned to go back to Palimpsest myself.

Total: 3.5/5 stars
Addendum: I’ll probably re-read this later in life and love it, I’m sure.

I’ve moved back to VT. For the holidays, but also for the foreseeable future. It’s vacation, then working, saving up, and if all goes as planned, film school starting in the Fall. I’ve taken a two-year detour from what was really my dream, and I’m back on track. So that’s good.

Before I left, I got to check out a MAKE IT! fair and was pretty impressed. I’d wanted to go last year in Vancouver but looked up the vendors that had websites and was pretty turned off. This year I just took the plunge and am sure glad I did. From Cocoa Nymph (awesome chocolates) to Thyrza Segal’s Plantscapes to Daughters of Bastards Warrior Wear (awesome chain mail jewelry, no website, sorry) there was plenty of awesome stuff to check out and to gawk at. Catalyst Reaction had some cool leather stuff and I picked up some great Christmas cards from Hug + Kiss Designs.

Other than that, not much else to report. T-day in Seattle with the bro, a week in NYC with an old friend, then getting settled in here, ready for Christmas, watching the last of my funds slip away.

Moved onto Season 2 of Fringe and giving Leverage a second chance. Finished Dexter Season 4 last night. I’m still traumatized. Fantastic show…they don’t pull any punches. Hoping to start in on Supernatural Season 2 soon. Being Human was a no-go for me; the emo vampire dude was waaay over the top annoying, I couldn’t even look at him. Watched Slither and Gremlins recently. Both were awesome. Definitely to-purchase. Great fun. Excited about Chuck’s Season 3 and Burn Notice’s continuation in January too. Workin’ away at my to-watch lists…

I’ve been on a pretty major Star Wars kick lately. Partly nostalgia (I found my first screenplay – a Star Wars fanfilm, almost 70 pages!), partly reading Death Troopers (fun!) and partly finally getting around to watching Star Wars Clone Wars from Cartoon Network. Pretty awesome series, I’m having a blast. You know it’s good when it gets you excited about watching the prequels. Yea. That’s serious.

Listening to lots of industrial and gothic, generally dark stuff lately…Rammstein mostly but Imperative Reaction, Assemblage 23, Zombie Girl a bit, I:Scintilla, Heimataerde, Icon of Coil and Birthday Massacre. Got Nightwish’s Dark Passion Play on in the background right now. Never a baddie :P. Awesome album.

Hope all’s well with everybody reading. And everybody not reading. And no I didn’t get you presents. Have great holidays! :)

Now then, I’ve been getting out a lot more recently, I’ve taken to daily walks down to the waterside, picking different sitting-and-watching-spots each time I go to the park by my house. It’s about 6 blocks away, down the hill and across the streets, and I go when the sun is almost setting, to soak in the last few rays and feel the breeze on my cheeks, to breathe the fresher air and remind myself that there are other people living and moving around me, no matter how I shut myself up in my apartment room.

On these walks, I bring a book – Dune, for you curious types, and I’m almost done with it…a review should follow, but that simple mention is not a promise – and a notebook for recording ideas and thoughts, describing the sun and the mountains, the waves that lap the rock-cement seawall, or for remembering the old couple who wander down the path at sunset. I’ve begun writing much more, much like I used to, endeavoring to rediscover that spark I had before, the endless flow of ideas and thoughts that formed themselves into words, phrases, the lyrics of my mind that came pouring out like fresh, cold milk, coating and soothing and solidifying into a sweet cream… letting me understand their substance and intent.

And even now, inspired by a podcast series from the Open University (hurrah! for open learning initiatives) on creative writing, I’ve decided to link said podcast and some new writing of my own.

Podcast

Since I’ve already mentioned it, I’ll get it out of the way. The podcast is entitled Creative Writing, a description of its accompanying course can be found here, and a description from iTunes of the podcast is provided below.

The tracks on this album offer an invaluable insight into a wide range of techniques and practices surrounding Creative Writing. Writers as diverse as Alan Ayckbourn, Ian MacMillan and Tanika Gupta talk openly about their approaches and attitudes to all aspects of writing from original concept to final drafts and productions. Writing for stage, print, television and radio is discussed in engaging and articulate detail.

News/Writing

I’ve been taking walks and writing of late, and sometimes, if a day or two after writing it, I still like a piece, I’ll add it to my DeviantArt account. But since that blog isn’t linked to anything, I figured I’d let people know through here. The first poem is called Cold & Battled, and can be read here. The second is shorter, more fantastical, and needs a bit of help, but can be read in the meantime here. There’s another short piece in my ‘scraps’ section there, so look for that as well if you’re interested.

Hmm…WoW’s not working on my Mac still, and none of the other games I’ve got are really worth getting into right now, so I’m left to…news…started running every day (well, every day it’s possible given my random schedule and Vancouver’s crazy weather patterns). That’s doing me some good for sure. That plus a bit of exercise in the morning and biking or walking for travel, I’m feeling good about it. It’s interesting because now, if I don’t get do physical activities during the day, I feel like I’m wasted – not tired, but like I wasted my body for a day, didn’t get the use out of it I should have. I love the feeling of being tired, exhausted, but knowing you worked hard and honest for a while, doesn’t matter what it was – running or moving, building stuff or working on a film set – it’s the wholly muscularly tired feeling you get at the end of the day. When I can gulp down a beer and not taste the bitterness, just feel the cold soothing and bubbling its way down my throat, that’s awesome. That’s the best.

Also…finished Y: The Last Man #4. Good book. 3 was the best so far, but it’s a fun series. Still on my list for sure. Also, I finished Walking Dead #3, great series, really cool character writing. You could replace zombie apocalypse with anything else with similar catastrophic consequences and the story would be the same. It’s human and emotional. Good stuff.

Gonna start looking for The Stuff of Legend, a darker Toy Story-like series about toys saving a young boy from the Boogeyman. I read the first chapter I got from FCBD and liked it much. Added to the list, heh. The Overman sounds cool too, really cool art in there, so I’m gonna check that out; gonna look into Brit, Battlepope and The Astounding Wolf-Man, all by Robert Kirkman, writer or Walking Dead. I like his stuff so far, and I’ve developed a liking for hardass, bitter ’80s British characters, and Brit sounds like it’ll do the trick.

And, of course, I’ve started Hellblazer #2, and I welcome John Constantine’s return to my consciousness. We tried watching the movie the other night and I couldn’t take it. I’d seen it before reading the books, but now I just can’t relate the two. Parts of the movie I remember and think are cool, but as an entity entirely separate from anything Hellblazer or John Constantine. It’s like they stripped it of its bitter, cynical, sarcastic, political, intelligent core and left whatever fluff was left in the movie. And believe me, there ain’t much fluff in this series.

Lastly – I guess – I started trying to writ again tonight. I’m picking up an old web comic idea where I left off with a friend about two years ago or so. We’d gotten two episodes written, but never got the art farther than a few concepts and then I moved and we dropped it for practical reasons. But I’ve been really missing writing lately, feeling something missing without it – kinda like those days without exercise I was talking about – and so it felt good to at least warm up a little bit, open the mind to the concept of writing more in the near future. I don’t know where I’m going with it or what I’m doing with it, for now it’s just an idea I like and want to give it a shot for a while, so I am.

Well, the roommates seems to have left. Thank god I’m not as tired as I was earlier, so it’ll take a while to get to bed now, and then I’ll be laying here and get hungry all of a sudden, and then I’ll eat and then it’ll be like 1:30am, and then I’ll watch whatever movie we’ve got in the player, and then I’ll drift to sleep. Late. Again. And wake up to the alarm at 8:30 reminding me of exercise and wish I could just stay on top of the schedule in the first place. Right. Well. That’s quite the update. Glad you read it? Good. Now go do something productive for me.

It seems every chapter there’s a new turn thrown at the reader, something new that maybe you sort of saw coming, but it still throws into sharp relief what a predicament Yorick is really in, and it just constantly builds the tension until, near the end, I was literally asking the book “What the fuck is going to happen now!?” It was a tense, fully stimulating experience that I’d recommend to anyone and everyone into reading fiction in general, just to take a day and read through this thing, ‘cuz it rocked this series into one of my top slots for future comic-buying trips.

Rating: 9.5/10

I’ve yet to read the next DMZ, but I’m currently in the middle of Y: The Last Man, book 3, and it’s pretty sweet. Lots of high-tension, sort of a pulling-in-different-directions of the male’s storyline. Cool effect, and the art and narrative go together quite well.

To check out more of my reading interests, see my GoodReads profile.

And Rodriguez to make another Predator!

And finally, del Toro to pen series of [real horror] vampire novels.

My roommate just got back from Toronto [religious holiday], and brought me back some goodies. His brother was [and I believe still is] a big comic junkie, so he lent me the first two issues of Walking Dead [in awesome condition, by the way], and I decided to reward myself for a whole lot of hard work the past week by self-gifting DMZ issue 3 ['Public Works'] and Simon Dark issue 2 ['Ashes']. Yess….the anticipation builds…

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