REPOST: Skulduggery Pleasant: Playing With Fire by Derek Landy

"Valkyrie Cain looked down at her own dead body, cold and unmoving. She kept expecting to see it breathe. But it just lay in the boot, a thing, a corpse with her face..."

With Serpine dead, the world is safe once more. At least, that's what Valkyrie and Skulduggery think, until the notorious Baron Vengeous makes a bloody escape from prison, and dead bodies and vampires start showing up all over Ireland. With Baron Vengeous after the deadly armour of Lord Vile and pretty much everyone out to kill Valkyrie, the daring detective duo face their biggest challenge yet. But what if the greatest threat to Valkyrie is just a little close to home...?

So what's the story: Valkyrie Cain (Apparantly Stephanie has given up using her own name entirely, which makes me a little sad because it's just going to get muddling when I start writing fic) had almost entirely given up her normal life, leaving her reflection to live it for her while she trains with Skuduggery and Tanith and fights evil. However, life gets a little more complicated when the new leader of the Council charges Skulduggery and Valkyrie with arresting the newly escaped Baron Vengeous before he can a) recover a suit of armour containing the powers of a necromancer, to b) revive the monster equivalent of Frankenstein's monster, which he plans to use to c) open up a portal and bring back the Faceless Ones. Especially when you factor in the vampires and the man who can walk through walls, all of whom appear to be after Valkyrie.

Reaction shot: I probably should let this stir around my brain a little more, but as I've just finished it, I might as well get it done now. My knee-jerk reaction to this is "It's brilliant, but." The prose is still clunky - in action sequences especially; sometimes it feels rather like a list, which isn't really a good thing - and the names are going to make scream in fury. Stephanie's heritage makes a reappearance as Super Important To The Villians, but it's not that big a deal within the book so I'm willing to let that and Stephanie having to bear the brunt of stopping the Grotesquery slide. Stephanie's family appear mainly as caricature's and clichés than anything else, but they appear so infrequently that it's not as noticable as it might be.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT though, I do like this book! The dialogue is, as in the last book, absolutely fabulous (although in some cases, the adult characters sound a little too young), and both Tanith and China Sorrows appear more often than in the first book (Tanith kicking ass and taking names! Tanith being a Gordon Edgely fangirl! China Sorrows kicking ass an unbelievable amount! ... Yes I completely fangirled over China sorrows in this book do not judge me.) Perhaps it's just me being a complete idiot about this sort of dynamic, but I have to say I love the moments when Skulduggery fusses over Stephanie - and there are a lot, which makes me happy - and Stephanie compares him and Tanith (Stephanie's apparantly told Skulduggery he should get a motorbike, and his reported reply to that made me grin; Stephanie comparing how he and Tanith fight or use magic/mundane means makes me ♥♥♥ a lot.), and Skulduggery being just a little out of touch with reality. There's just - so many little things in this - characters, or conversations, or Skulduggery fussing, or the doctor, or Springheeled Jack (Okay, I have a think for homicidal gentlemen with tophats, especially when they're from London. Stop giving me that look.) or the fact that "Huh, there may be consequences for Stephanie letting her reflection live her life for her - just not completely in this book" - that fill me with glee.

... I've just realised I haven't mentioned the story. Huh. It's less linear than the last book, which is always a good thing, and I couldn't guess the ending beyond the general "Everyone dies" or "Happy Ever After" thing, although it does repeat some elements - Stephanie's dislike of contact with her family, for example, or her Ancient heritage, and untrustworthy Council members. Some parts of it (Like the entire section that the blurb makes a big deal of) are predictable, others are original; generally those, it's paced well and a good read. I love this series, and all it needs now is for Landy to learn what he's doing.

Verdict: Fun, and good within reason.

REPOST: Points Game!: Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

Okay, I've been reading Twilight. Today, I gave up in disgust. I just couldn't take it anymore. So, instead of a review, and to maintain my quota, I give you the point-scoring I did to make sure I remained passably objective after hearing a zillion and four bad reviews of it. It didn't work, but I tried.

The rules were: Meyer started with 100 points, and I knocked them off when she did it wrong, and added them on when she did it right.

Chapter by chapter breakdown of points:
TWILIGHT CHAPTER ONE: 100 POINTS

Family dynamics: bemusing. Maturity of main character: greater than that of mother. Sense that this is a seventeen year old girl as opposed to a middle-aged housewife: non-existant. [-1]

Inexplicable sadness! Stating that she just "doesn't fit in" - even though EVERYONE unconditionally appears to love her, despite her continual contempt of the people helping her. Her appearance sounds pretty standard to me, but is described as "unusual" and a barrier between her and other people. And everyone knows who she is. I realise this is justified as "It's a small town so everyone knows everyone," but you'd think there'd be more of a "Have I seen you around?" reaction. [-1]

I swear to god, the book has suddenly become as dull as the lessons. =_= [-1]

Bella really sounds like a stereotypical emo. "I will hate it so I won't even tryyyyyyyy!" And yet everyone ignores this and is nice to her. [-1]

The Mysterious Boys and Girls are described exactly as I'd describe original characters - brief suggestion of build, hair and eye colour. FUCK I knew I wasn't as good at this stuff as I thought. [-10]

HM. COINCIDENTAL NOTICING OF MYSTERIOUS AND UNUSUAL PEOPLE. [-1]

Oh god, backstory dump. [-10]

Extreme antisocialism! Edward acting like he hates her AND she smells! Guys, even if I hadn't had these books spoiled to buggery for me, I'd be able to tell they were getting together by the end.

So she only likes the CUTE boys. And she's pretty mean about them even then. God, kill me now. [-1]

OUCH. He'd rather switch all his classes around than sit next to her. I - I actually feel sorry for Bella! [+10]

Something about this BOTHERS me. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's the general sense of inexplicable woe, or the clinical way Bella appears to view the world. Maybe it's just that I have no idea who the character is. It's in first person POV, but there's - no sense of who she is, nothing I can identify with. When it's in first person and it's like that, I get really uneasy. It's not a concrete feeling, so I can't score it, but. It's there.

TWILIGHT CHAPTER TWO: 84 POINTS.

Oh, so she DOESN'T like the cute guys and is flattered by strife when she's the cause. FOR FUCK'S SAKE. [-1]

Well, at least this school day is less dull than the last one. :\ [+1/2]

Why in god's name did she whine about WOE UNPOPULARITY when EVERYONE HERE unconditionally loves her, regardless of how she treats them. Inconsistant tell-not-showing. =_= [-10]

I'm trying to work out if braining someone with a volleyball is clumsiness or just a normal symptom of being a human being. I suppose, if I'm being fair, I have to give her a point for not being OMG AMAZING at everything... >_> [+1]

Oh Bella, what a housewife you'll make. Or you are. And GOD you sound like someone's MUM, I swear to god. I know, I know, not everyone likes snow, but god. KILLJOY.

... Hot guy talking to her for no reason. The hell.

Stalker!Bella reappears, although YAY for the Cullens being more than waxworks.

So he is amazingly polite, she is no good at this working-in-pairs business, he has electric fingers (Meyer, why don't you just come out and SAY you're going to be pairing these too up and save me having to read this crap?), gold eyes that change colour (...), and is apparantly as bad at the working in pairs thing as she is. They're just MADE for each other aren't they? And I wish I could say that and NOT BE 100% SERIOUS. [-1]

So she explains her past and motivations to just ANYONE? And someone she thought didn't like her? And she sacrificed her home for her mum's happiness? [-10 for being a fooking MARY SUE and backstory dump]

"You put on a good show (...) but I'd be willing to bet you're suffering more than you let anyone else see." [-10 FOR BAD FANFIC DIALOGUE!]

(After this, the story doesn't get better: I just lose interest and stop scoring it properly.)

TWILIGHT CHAPTER THREE: 53.5 POINTS

"I had enough trouble not falling down when the ground was dry." Really? I never noticed! And basically, this is the chapter where I have to take off eleven points for inconsistency and show-don't tell characterisation. [-11]

The car thing's been done, but hey, at least it's effective. [+10]

Again, the scene at the hospital bothers me but I can't think why. Dammit.

Is that an actual depiction of clumsiness on Bella's part I see? My god, I think I shall faint! [+1]

TWILIGHT CHAPTER FOUR: 53.5 (.........................)

Dreaming about future boyfriend in mysterious place. "....................." says I. [-10]

The first step is to admit you have a problem! Bella admits her stalking is OTT. [+1]

Edward's eyes are changing colour. Do I mark down for this? ... YES DAMMIT. I'M FEELING VINDICTIVE. [-1]

For those who don't know: I'm studying Psychology at A-level. Currently, we're studying mental illnesses. I look at Bella's conclusion ("He wished he hadn't pulled me from the path of Tyler's van - there was no other conclusion I could come to."), and all I can say is "WAY TO GIVE YOUR CHARACTER SYMPTOMS OF A MENTAL ILLNESS (I forget the exact terms but disasterism and extreme views - everything is perfect or it's a disaster, as well as irrational thinking and conclusions; ALL THIS STUFF IS GROUNDS FOR SOMEONE TO GET THERAPY) AND NOT ACKNOWLEDGE IT, MEYER." [-10]

Eyes changing colour, Bella dreaming about him, more stalking - FOR GOD'S SAKE, THIS IS PUBLISHED BADFIC. [-1]

I have to say I'm GLAD she mentions her irrational ideas to Edward. Then he KNOWS she's crazy and can't think straight.

WHY IN GOD'S NAME DOES EVERYONE WANT TO GO TO THE SPRING DANCE WITH HER? [-10 FOR PISSING ME OFF WITH HOW MUCH EVERYONE WANTS HER.]

Edward's characterisation. FIRST he'd rather switch classes than sit with her, THEN he's offering her a ride to Seattle. WHAT THE HELL, MEYER. [-10]

TWILIGHT CHAPTER FIVE: 12.5

I repeat my complaint about Edward's characterisation, but don't knock off anymore points.

Bella is DENSE. If he's telling her he's ignoring her for her own safety, wouldn't she think "dangerous?"

Okay, so how does he know that they're doing blood samples?

Heroine of a vampire book who faints at the sight of blood! Well, that's novel. [+1]

FOR GOD'S SAKE. EDWARD START MAKING SENSE. ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES TO DRIVING HER HOME AND THEN SENDING HIS SISTER TO MAGIC BELLA'S CAR HOME SOUNDLESSLY DESPITE THE FACT THAT IT'S A RUSTBUCKET. [-10 out of SHEER SPITE.]

More Bella being middle-aged and talking about her past too much. [-1]

See, he avoids her at first, and then FLIRTS with her. What the HELL. Teasing I approve of, because DAMMIT she needs it, but sdkglhsdkhgdf. MAKE SOME SENSE MAN. [-1]

TWILIGHT CHAPTER SIX: 1.5

FINALLY, someone who doesn't worship the ground Bella walks on. Even if she's portrayed as a bitch, I appreciate the effort. [+1]

UGH, manipulating Jacob. For god's sake. [-10]

... This is the chapter that really just DISGUSTED THE HELL out of me. Bella is a BITCH. A manipulative bitch and I am really sick of her. I managed to get a bit of the way through Chapter Seven, but I'm just bored of what the story's about, and I can't stand Bella. I tried, I did my best, but I can't read any further. I'll go crazy.

TOTAL SCORE: -7.5

REPOST: Ceres: Celestial Legend by Wutase Yuu

Aya and her twin brother Aki thought they were going to a celebration of their sixteenth birthday at their grandfather's home, but the funeral-like atmosphere tips them off that something's not right. Their 'birthday present' turns out to be a mummified hand - the power of which forces an awakening within Aya, and painful wounds all over Aki's body. Grandfather Mikage announces that Aki will be heir to the Mikage fortune, and Aya must die! But Aya has allies in the athletic cook and martial artist Yuuhi, and the attractive, mysterious Toya. But can even two handsome and resourceful guys save Aya when it's her own power that's out of control?

So what's the story?: Around Aya's sixteenth birthday, things start getting a little... Strange. She falls off a bridge, and floats down to safety. She gets saved from being run over by a mysterious man. A dark aura shows up on photos of her. And when she and her twin brother go to their grandfather's house on their birthday, they're shown a mummified hand, and after the chaos that results, Aya is told she'll have to be killed for the good of her family.

I managed to type that with a straight face, I DEMAND CREDIT.

Reaction shot: For the record, immediately after I finished this, I went to check the list of retarded shoujo clichés. This one hits... A lot of them. And some of them were created specifically for this series.

I tell you this so you're aware, okay?

Basically, this is one of those manga series where if you're happy to go along with the eye candy and not think about it too hard, everything is wonderful. If you try to think about it, then it can get very annoying very fast. The main character, Aya, alternates between crazy, annoyingly crazy, and a tolerable character, although some of her actions just beggar belief. Such as: She's just been attacked and nearly killed by members of her own family, and it's her first kiss that she freaks out over.

Most of the characters fill out cliché roles that I haven't seen in - oh god, ages. There's Mysterious Amnesiac, Grumpy Hardworking Not-Gonna-Get-The-Girl!Guy, the secretive girl with powers, the energetic and violent-to-her-brother main girl -

The art and story in and of themselves aren't that bad. It's just the way it's handled that makes me roll my eyes so much.

Verdict: Earth logic need not apply.

REPOST: The Firework Maker's Daughter

Lila wants to be a firework maker just like her father, but before she can even start she has to make a hazardous, life-threatening journey to the den of the evil Fire-Fiend, battling her way through strange lands and nightmarish scenarios with elephants and pirates and strange beasts a-plenty tempting her from her path.

So what's the story: Lila is the daughter of a firework maker, and has been brought up concocting her own special kinds of fireworks and helping her father. She is quite happy with this life, at least until the day when she realises that her father wants her to grow up and get married, and her father realises she wants to become a firework maker like him. Soon after, Lila sets off to get Royal Sulpher from Razvani the Fire Fiend, closely followed by her friend, the slave of the emperor's white elephant, and Hamlet - the white elephant himself - because she doesn't know one crucial fact: that she needs protection from the Fire-Fiend's flames, or she won't survive to get the Sulpher at all.

Reaction Shot: I know I'm too old for this book, but hey, someone brought it back to the library, so I figured I might as well read it. I'm glad I did read it though - it was warm and fuzzy predictability all over, funny side characters and situations, and happy endings all round. It's as short and shallow as expected, your average happy-ever-after fairytale, but it's not a bad read by any means.

REPOST: The Aenied by Virgil

Virgil's Aeneid, inspired by Homer and inspiration for Dante and Milton, is an immortal poem at the heart of Western life and culture. Virgil took as his hero Aeneas, legendary survivor of the fall of Troy and father of the Roman race, and in telling a story of dispossession and defeat, love and war, he portrayed human life in all its nobility and suffering.

So What's the Story?: After Troy is destroyed, the Trojan people are lead to another land by Aeneas, who is destined to reach Italy and found Rome. However Juno fights this destiny every step of the way, determined to if not prevent Aeneas' destiny, then to make him wish he had stayed to die in Troy.

Reaction Shot: I hate this poem.

Don't give me that look. I'm studying this at A-level, so I've looked at it in enough depth to be allowed a few moments of irrational hatred. If you're giving me the look because of anything that runs along the lines of "...Poem?" then yes, the Aenied is an epic poem, written by Virgil and shamelessly ripping off Homer's epic poems The Oddysey and The Iliad. In that order. Unfortunately, looking at the Amazon reviews has made me realise I'm apparantly in the minority among sensible adults, so I turn instead to my book journal, where my vitriol will make me feel better.

Please bear in mind, that I don't actually have my copy of the book on me, so I'm using notes that all seem to have "BITCH CAN'T WRITE" scrawled across the top. Hopefully, this won't affect the accuracy of this too much.

The translation, I've been reliably informed, is one of the better ones. The poem doesn't rely on phrases such as "white armed Hera" to fill out the meter, which is one of the few matters on which I'm willing to give Virgil a little credit - Homer, bless him, actually paid enough attention to the meter he was using to do that. Most of the wandering the narrative does is actually part of the genre, so I can't criticise it too much, even though I wouldn't mind it. Most of my complaints though are actually very lengthy, so I'm going to cut it here, with the warning that if you actually liked the Aenied, Virgil's treatment of Dido, don't want spoilers for it, or don't like extensive comparisons of Virgil to an annoying, Mary Sue writing fanboy of Homer's, you might want to ignore this post.



5. He's a sellout. You think I'm joking? The Aenied was propaganda commissioned by the Emperor Augustus, and it serves to give his background - and his adopted father, Julius Caeser - a little touch of divinity. And believe me, Virgil lays it on with a bloody spade. In one book of the Aenied, Aeneas goes down into the underworld - regretably, only visiting his father as oppsed to actually staying there. While he's there, his father shows him a pagent of heroes - all Aeneas' decendants, who will rule Rome and the Roman empire after him. The description of Augustus and a little later his nephew (who apparantly died when he was in his twenties, which induces much wailing and nashing of teeth from Aeneas' father) are longer than the descriptions of about three quarters of the other kings and emperors, and it's so full of bootlicking -

When I say someone lays it on with a spade, guys, I am not exaggerating.

4. He's a plagiarist. Well, perhaps that's a little unfair. He merely pays homage to Homer, using his work to create a roman epic that was intended to rival both of Homer's. The fact that Virgil lifts situations, people, scenes, and hell the whole damn format of his poem

(The first six books detail Aeneas' wanderings, related back to a charming audience, and various scenes throughout, are from The Odyssey, right down the the telling the story in flashback. Hell, Virgil even goes to far as to add in a Greek on the Cyclop's island so that he can use the damn story of the Cyclops from the Odyssey. *FLAILS* The last six books, which I'm pretending don't exist at this point before I lose the will to bloody live, detailing the battle between Turnus' and Aeneas' - who are compared by most scholars to Hector and Achilles respectively although if Aeneas had a "best friend" who was secretly his wife *coughpatrocluscough* then damn I missed it. - armies are based on The Iliad.)

from Homer don't change the fact that it's merely homage! Yes, even though he's stolen scenes from it.

3. He's a badfic writer. ... I swear, he's like the worst kind of fanfic writer in the world. He takes all his situations from other, better writers - well, I know there's another writer the Aenied was based on, but as I can't remember his name I can't actually look him up and decide whether he is a better writer. Pretend that he is for the sake of the argument - and sticks a bloody Mary Sue in there to make the whole mess so much better. His mother's a goddess (Venus), people fall over themselves to either help him or kill him, he walks out of situations that would have - and usually did - kill anyone else, he's an excellent fighter, he's well known for his piety, his archnemesis is a goddess (Juno), and somehow, even though he was never mentioned in the Iliad, everyone in the world knows who he is! ghsn;dhjfdh.

And he presumably got paid for it, which makes me flail harder. GODDAMMIT WHY CAN'T I GET PAID TO WRITE THE ILIAD FANFIC!

2. Book Four. For those of you fortunate enough not to know about Book Four, it's the book in the Aenied that centres on Dido. She's the queen of Carthage (Did I mention that Aeneas is not only king of his people and has a SUPER IMPORTANT DESTINY, he also had a thing with the queen of Carthage?), and when she's first described, she's beautiful, brave (she escaped her brother Pygmalion, who killed her husband - the one she swore she would never betray, even after his death), cunning (She won the land to build her city on through trickery - she was told she could have all the land she could cover with one ox-skin, and managed to get enough land by cutting the hide into strip and using it to surround the land she wanted.) and spends her days helping her people to build their city. She is described as "Like the goddess Diana."

... And then Aeneas comes along, and with his SUPER MARY SUE POWERS, along with a little help from his mother, the goddess of love who decides that "welcoming" is not a good enough attitude and decides that "madly in love" is better, he succeeds where hundreds of other suitors have failed and is "married" to Dido in a supernatural wedding ceremony organised and presided over by Juno.

Everything is wonderful for Aeneas after this, until the gods send a message to him telling him to return to his journey, whereupon he becomes the biggest dick to ever mess over a woman (He tells his men to get the boats ready, and not to let Dido know, he'll find a way to break it to her gently; he then gets found out because the entire city heard the rumours before Dido did. Dido points out that he married her and promised to love her; Aeneas denies doing any such thing.) and Dido becomes a ravening harpy who ends up killing herself because she can't live without him.

Yes, it was during this book that BITCH CAN'T WRITE started appearing on my notes. However did you guess.

Basically my problems with this book are:

If they had any variation of the "Show, don't tell" rule in ancient Rome, Vigil never heard it. We are told Aeneas and Dido are madly in love - or at least that she is; how Aeneas feels is never mentioned until he's leaving and he claims to be feeling pain about it - but we never actually see it. We never see them interacting. Book One, she speaks to his men, not him, until finally she asks him to tell her about his wanderings which leads to a two-book monologue; book four she speaks about him to her sister, but we don't see her speaking to him until they're breaking up. They go straight from meeting to the wedding to the break-up, and we see them talking to each other exactly once. Jesus. Certainly Dido's ravening harpy stage is never accounted for.

Virgil couldn't characterise a decent woman if her characterisation came up and bit his balls off. Dido starts off perfect and ends up insane and dead with no real explanation in between. Lavinia is a sheep. The closest he gets is Camilla, and she's introduced and killed off almost immediately - and believe me, the build up and destruction of her reminds me of comic writers who get featured on "Girls Read Comics" who go "Look! Strong woman! I can write a strong woman! Call off the fangirls - oops, too late she's dead." Bastard.

If Virgil wanted to write a romance, then he should have done the goddamn work for it. If he wanted Dido to fall in love with Aeneas, then he should have shown them interacting, should have been willing to actually put a little effort into making it believable instead of having Venus go "O HAY LETS MAKE HER FALL 4 MY SON, LOLZ," after Jupiter assured her that Aeneas would be happy in Italy. If he couldn't be bothered or didn't have the space for that, then he shouldn't have put it in.

... Look, I have to study this with a teacher who thought Aeneas was the greatest guy she'd ever read about, even in book four, and won't hear a word said against him. This has been building for months.

If you really want to know why I can't stand Virgil and Aeneas, book four is the only one you really need to read. It's annoying, it destroys the characterisation he's already set up, it makes Aeneas look like a bitchy Mary Sue, it reduces Dido from a strong, competent woman to one who stabs herself and throws herself onto a fire because she's being left by a man who refuses to even he admits he loves her on the page. It's my example of how not to write a romance, and definitely how not to write one that's you want to end badly and have the man come out looking anywhere near good.

I just. ARGH. It's terrible and horrible and I hate it with the fire of a thousand suns.¹

1. DEAR VIRGIL: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

Okay. I'm calm now. I think that's enough bile and victriol to keep me smiling and sunny about anything else I read for months. So long as I don't think about, y'know, actually having an exam on this, I'll be fine.

The Verdict: Credit where it's due. Virgil did try to have it burned. I only wish he'd succeeded.

¹: I apologise for the rant on romance - for some people it's Stephanie Meyer's Twilight, for me it's Virgil's book four of the Aenied.

Edit: Fun fact! This rant is almost two thousand words long, and that's more than I've written for anything else since the start of December last year. Jesus Bloody Christ.

REPOST: The Psychology of the Internet by Patricia Wallace

This timely volume explores the psychological aspects of cyberspace, a virtual world in which people from around the globe are acting and interacting in many new, unusual, and occasionally alarming ways. Drawing on research in the social sciences, communications, business, and other fields, the book examines how the online environment can influence the way we behave, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Our own on-line behavior then becomes part of the Internet's psychological environment for others, creating opportunities for shaping the way this new territory for human interaction is unfolding. Because the Internet - and our experience within it - is still young, we have a rare window of opportunity to influence the course of its development.

First, a disclaimer: I started this book in July last year,¹ and I picked it up again last week so I can finally take it back to the school library before my librarian voodoo gets noticed. What this means is that I have little-to-no memory of the first six chapters of this book, apart from the fact that the introduction is very, very slow, she starts by looking at communities and personas (although her definiton of communities is rather narrow) and moving into more detail (she looks at flame wars, addiction, altriuism...) and the author ended up using something called LambdaMOO as an example of how online communities are run.

Second: This book was published in 1999.

... I think everyone understands why I'm pointing that out.

I guess, as the book's about the people using the internet, it might not date as quickly, but damn am I leery about it. I'm also going to guess that the age of the book is why it focuses on direct communication (email, mailing lists, chat rooms, MUDs, mmorpgs, Usenet) with only a brief mention of personal webpages (in that really slow introduction) and blogs. It bothered me when I was reading it, before I actually checked the publication date, because she was talking about anonymity and how people share intimate details with people they met on the internet, and I kept waiting for something linked to "What about people who share intimate details with an audience?"

Apart from that (look, it bothered me, okay), I suppose it's not bad. It's bland, certainly, but it reads like it was written by someone who actually knows what the internet it, even if they don't venture too far into it. No sensationalisation here! Lots of case studies (and maybe this is me being being a psychology/anecdote geek, but I like that in a book.), and they are, for the most part, worked into the text instead of just thrown in, and generally the book does pretty well at keeping it in plain english. It takes a brief look at both porn and gender issues, and this is where the lack of sensationalisation is most obvious, but both are brief. Neither looks very deeply into what they're discussing, and dammit, she could. Then again, I read the chapter on gender fresh from a) an English exam about the features of gendered speech she covers, and b) the Organisation of Transformative Works discussion on how they're being accused of elitism because they're not actively courting men for the OTW, so I was probably being demanding about how much I wanted.

And that's my main problem with it. It's bland, and if you spend any time on the internet, you'll probably come across all the points she makes here, done in more detail and in a more entertaining style. If you want something that'll give you an overview, or if you like reading about psychology studies, then go for it. Otherwise... There are better things out there, and most of them are actually on the internet, as well as about it.

¹: I got the book out in July after my psychology teacher tried to teach us library skills and I got offended by her assuming I could be one of the librarians without them. Then she saw what I'd actually got out and borrowed it so she could use it for the notes when she got round to teaching us about "mediated relationships." I didn't see the book again for a month. :S

REPOST: The Handmaiden's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs...

I... I honestly can't say much one way or another about this book. Partly because it's been a good few weeks since I finished it, and my memory for my own opinions is surprisingly terrible. I liked some parts of it - I have illegal amounts of love for the word use in this. There are things like "the shape money takes when it freezes," and "I feel like the word shatter," and they fill me with ridiculous amounts of glee. I like the way past and present and actual present all mix up together and I wish I could do that half as well as Margaret Atwood does. I love the Historical Notes at the end, because they fill me with ridiculous amounts of it. I love the world that's been built because it pisses me off and kinda scares me a little, and I love that it's effective.

The thing is, I just... Looking back, I don't give a damn one way or another about the characters. The characters Offred remembers are amazing - Moira for example, is remembered and built up in Offred's mind and ours, and the deflation near the end is fabulous. But the characters she's with, and sometimes Offred herself, I don't care about. Some I like a little, some I don't, but once I turn the page I forget them, and that makes me sad. I want to care about them - and I actually want to have studied this book at school, because a) my life would have been more interesting, and b) I have the feeling that I've missed things I would have seen if someone else had pointed them out to me, like the suggestion for Offred's real name - but I don't, and no matter how much I love the writing and the worldbuilding, if I don't care about the characters then the book's missed the mark.

I'll have to read it again to catch everything, and maybe I'll give a damn this time round, but now... Eh.

REPOST: Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

Meet Skulduggery Pleasant: wise-cracking detective, powerful magician, sworn enemy of evil.

Oh yes. And dead.

So what's the story?: Gordon Edgley, a famous horror writer, dies suddenly and leaves his entire estate to his favourite twelve-year-old niece, Stephanie. She sees A Mysterious Man with questionable choice in hairpieces and appropriate clothing for summer at both the funeral and the reading of the will - where the only thing he recieves is rather cryptic advice, while Stephanie is given her Uncle's estate. When Stephanie is attacked while spending the night at her new house, The Mysterious Man is the one who charges in and rescues her, revealing three things about himself: 1) He can set people on fire, 2) He's quite matter-of-fact when faced with people who can smash down doors and are apparantly quite fine with being set on fire, and 3) He's a skeleton. From there, Stephanie manages to convince him to take her with him on his Quest Against Evil - or at least, against the man who killed him, who seems to be trying to get his hands on an unbeatable weapon that is purely mythical and bring back a race that may or may not have ever existed.

Reaction Shot: I really, really like this book. The story moves at a great pace, some of the dialogue is truly brilliant, and the characters are wonderful - even the ones that are only mentioned as a one off, like Stephanie's dad's secretary. Some of more important characters - well quite a few - are complete over-the-top stereotypes (Why hello Stephanie's odious moneygrubbing aunt, uncle and cousins!), some are enigmas (China Sorrow is one of these; she won't work for either side, and is willing to hinder the protaganists if she thinks that their actions are going to cause trouble for her, then turn around later to help them.), some aren't as fleshed out as I'd like (Tanith Low, for example), but what we see of them is good. And the entire Stephanie-and-Skulduggery dynamic is incredible. There's banter, sarcasm, Skulduggery genuinely worrying about Stephanie and Stephanie genuinely pwning Skulduggery. The plot itself has been done before, but Landy handles it really well, and even when he seems to be pulling things out of nowhere (Well, it's like a magician pulling things from thin air; you know he's got them up his sleeves when you think about it, but when he actually does the trick you don't see it.), it doesn't seem as jarring as you might expect.

... And if you get the same copy as I did, the book looks like someone took an orange highlighter to the edges of the pages. I recommend it just to add some colour to your reading pile.

It's not perfect: But as all my problems with the book - the story's kinda... Well, "linear" is the only word that's coming to me, some of the dialogue and exposition is clunky as hell or not what you'd expect for someone of that age, the writing is very... Well, Landy's a script writer, so however awesome the dialogue is the action can't keep up, the ending felt a little rushed to me (although considering the POV at that point, I can understand it) and I want to know how some of the characters manage to walk out of things as well as they do (Skulduggery, after the torture thing I am looking at you.) - can be excused as "It's a child's book, what did you expect?" and the quality of the story even with them, so it's pretty damn close.

The Verdict: Has a few problems, but it's generally a really good read!

For those who are interested, there's sample chapter (in PDF format) on the Skulduggery Pleasant website.

She is too fond of books and it has turned her brain

Hello! My name's Susan, and I have this horrible tendancy to blog about books!

... On livejournal.

Apparently very few people are silly enough to do this, and so I have done my usual sheepish trick of following people to Wherever There Is Most Talking About Books! (Albeit not without GREAT CONCERN, expressed best through cowboy analogies.)

I tend to give a reaction shot rather than actually review a book! This is a blog that will be filled with keysmash and lists of impressions rather than actual reviews. It may also contain necroreviews of books I read during 2008, in which case it may me more a test of how memorable the book is than how GOOD it is. (I also have a tendancy to compile them into Reading Digests. This is intended for the SHORT posts, which... Only really works if I DON'T explode in tl;dr everywhere, which doesn't happen often.)

I started bookblogging as a New Year's resolution for 2008 - I was going to read seventy-five books and post at least a sentence about all of them! I ended up reading about a hundred and forty and blogging about the last ten I needed five minutes before midnight on December 31st, but pfft...

I am extremely Not Picky about what I read - I prefer fantasy novels to other kinds, and I would rather read the back of a cereal box from the other side of a room without my glasses than read a romance novel, but if it has words I will probably give it a try!

I LOVE comic books. I am a complete Marvel fangirl! This is unfortunate because my local library was stocked by DC fans, which means I will have a lot of reaction shots prefaced by I HAVE NOT READ A LOT OF STUFF IN THIS UNIVERSE, MY REACTION IS BIASED AND ALSO CONFUSED. Manga, I am completely unpicky about in that I will pick up anything and at least have a look at it - however, my patience for sugary series and standard shoujo tropes is steadily decreasing.

A lot of books reviewed here (and the fact that this blog exists at all!) are COMPLETELY the fault of Renay (the shiny awesome force behind YA Fabulous!), please feel free to blame her entirely! :D

I am trying to learn Japanese and relearn French for the sole reason of increasing the number of books I can read. Feel free to suggest books or mock, whichever you wish.

Now, I'll be transferring a lot of my reviews over here and trying to figure out what the hell the equivalent of an LJ-cut is on this thing! See you soon!