I’m sensing a pattern here

I enjoy fiction. A lot. Some of my more outspoken colleagues openly question my love of fiction, and others just kind of give me sidelong looks, but I don’t care. I can sit down and enjoy a good non-fiction book just as much as the next nerd, but fiction is where my heart lives.

I have several stacks of “To be read” books in my room, but when I’m at work, I usually wander over to the New Book section to see what piques my interest. One of the books that I found this way was The Sleeping Beauty Proposal by Sarah Strohmeyer. This book is obviously marketed to women, and specifically those who have an interest in chick lit. I have absolutely nothing against the genre. Sometimes what you want is a book with some humor, romance, and vicarious fun that is not ONLY about romance.

I thought the book was funny, but I was bothered by how the main character tells a lie to save face, and then spends the rest of the novel telling larger and less justifiable lies to maintain her initial fiction. I definitely understand wanting to preserve your pride or trying to avoid looking foolish, but pretty early on, the deception crosses over into something else. I think that a lot of people can understand why Genie, the protagonist, would pretend that she is the person to whom her boyfriend proposed (over the phone) on live television, but then she gets more and more ridiculous as the book goes on. She buys a fake engagement ring, registers for stuff, and instead of trying to make some sort of graceful extrication, merely digs herself deeper and deeper into a mess.

I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy books lately (such as novels by Rachel Vincent, Mercedes Lackey, C. E. Murphy, and Sharon Shinn), so maybe I’m not just used to some of the conventions of other fiction anymore, but I really hate how reliant Strohmeyer’s protagonists are on dishonesty. I just started another of her novels, The Cinderella Pact. This novel also features a protagonist, Nola, who orchestrates a fiction that she then spends the rest of the rest of the book (so far) lying to maintain.

I don’t lie in order to get promotions, or to impress men, or really much at all (except to my nephew, and who doesn’t love lying to little kids??), and it disturbs me to see that dishonesty is sort of portrayed in these books as a functional way of life. I know, I know that the ends of these books have the heroines, their friends, and the fabulously wealthy romantic partners they’ve managed to snag along the way all chuckling and shaking their heads over the lies that were so recently such a large part of their lives, but this doesn’t ring true to me at all. I like my fiction to have a sort of internal consistency. And if it all ends up with everybody being understanding (after they’ve cooled off) and even admiring (However did you manage to maintain such a ruse for so long!), then why all the subterfuge to begin with?

I guess I’m probably thinking too much about these books, but I do think it’s kind of ridiculous how much effort both protagonists put into creating and maintaining an ever-growing amount of lies, all in the name of (financial, professional, romantic, personal) progress.

Blood Noir Review

I recently finished Blood Noir, the latest book by Laurell K. Hamilton. Last week, I discussed my impressions of the series and my fears about how this book would be. Blood Noir was a lot like what I expected, but also somewhat better. There was a lot of sex. Sex sex sex. Anita has sex. With men. And weres. And vampires. Did you know? Anita has sex. Good for her! But sometimes you wonder what else she has in her life except for hot guys and lots of sex (NTTAWWT). There was also the repetition of phrases and concepts that I am convinced Hamilton has trademarked, such as:

• “Pretty to think so”
• “…things low and tight in my body”
• moving in human form with muscles that are not found in the human body

This time, though, there was also some genuine character development to go along with all that sex. Most of it was reserved for the character of Jason, but even Nathaniel, who wasn’t around for a lot of the book, was shown to have grown up. Even Anita seemed more likely to think her actions through. I like that she doesn’t take anybody’s crap, but that she is also able to understand how certain situations require a level of diplomacy and compromise that do not come naturally to her. Also, I like that she still sometimes mucks up really important situations. It keeps her interesting.

I hated that so much exposition and calling people by their full names. I know that we’re about fourteen books into this series at this point, but these instances were glaring and really detracted from the story. I would prefer a brief character index or something, because these kinds of insertions are never seamless. Or maybe the newcomers should step away from this book and look at at least half of the preceding books. If you come into a series late and make no effort to catch yourself up, you deserve whatever confusion you feel. Also: congratulations on discovering the internet. You win a Google.

I have to say that I kind of hate Richard now. He seems really unable to focus on anything other than Anita and her sex life, and the fact that he hasn’t been able to accept how she’s changed over the last gazillion novels really makes me think poorly of him. He either needs to accept how Anita’s life is going to be and participate or remove himself as much as their triumvirate bond will allow. He’s tiresome. Being hot and angry will only get you so far, and then you’re going to need something to fall back on. A crushing sense of guilt and self-loathing are probably not the crutch you want to reach for. Jean-Claude, the third and most powerful member of the triumvirate (so far, Anita’s gaining power pretty rapidly), didn’t play much of a role in this novel, either, but the news that Anita’s actions had far-reaching consequences for him at least set the stage nicely for future installments of this series. I’d also like to know why Marmee Noire is all up in Anita’s (dream) grill. It would be great to find out eventually why Anita is so special, and that her accumulation of all these powers is leading somewhere interesting (other than a bedroom).

I haven’t given up on Ms. Blake & Co., even though each glimpse of their lives seems a lot like the episode before it. Is Hamilton sick of this character? Has she had trouble writing Anita lately? Something’s off, but I’m hanging on for at least one more installment. I’ll have to read the next book in the Meredith Gentry series, because I’m not actually sure whether those books are any more convincing than these.

Tuesday night

In book news, I picked up Laurell K. Hamilton’s newest Anita Blake book today at the library. I haven’t started to read it yet, but I hope it’s good. Lately, the books in this series have seemed like nothing other than  exercises to see how many sexual partners Anita can have at once (I thought that was Merry‘s thing!), and I’m hoping there’s more plot to this one. I haven’t read about a repeat of the blog incident, so maybe this one will be good (or maybe Hamilton has just learned to step away from the keyboard).

Seriously?

There is not, in this day and age, any good excuse for not understanding the theory of evolution. Even if you don’t believe that evolution is a satisfactory explanation for how we came to be here, you should at least know what it is that you oppose. I thought that misunderstanding or misrepresenting evolution was a particularly American thing to do, but I guess that’s not true. I was reading an article in England’s Daily Express about several actors (Paul Bettany, Jennifer Connelly, Rosamund Pike, and Joseph Fiennes) who are gearing up to do films about Charles Darwin’s life, and I was horrified to read this sentence: All four Hollywood stars are lining up to appear in films about Darwin, who developed the controversial theory of evolution, which argued that humans descended from apes.

Really? That’s it? Evolution is a rich, complex theory based on observation of the natural world, living species, and the fossil record, and all they can boil it down to is that it says humans descended from apes? AND THAT’S NOT EVEN WHAT EVOLUTION SAYS. So I’m disappointed. By the way, the theory of evolution states that humans and apes descended from a common ancestor, but in no way says that humans came from apes. If we had, why would apes still exist? Stupidity like this is frightening.

I wrote the editor an email about the story, not that I think it will help. I’m familiar with the Daily Mail, which is roundly mocked because it is rather right-wing and not usually terribly concerned with the accuracy of the articles it publishes, but I didn’t know that the Daily Express was the same way. I guess I learned something today, even if it’s not what the Daily Express thought it was teaching me.

Where I’ve been

I disappeared for a bit, mostly due to the fact that I wanted to finish up the pair of socks I was knitting (for me!). I realized that I’ve really been knitting a lot in September. I’ve only read four books this whole month, and usually I read that many books in a week. So yeah, I’ve been knitting a lot, which means that I’ve also been watching a lot of tv on dvd. I still can’t believe how much I’d forgotten about Veronica Mars and Grey’s Anatomy. I’m not just talking about specific events in individual episodes. I’d forgotten love interests, major plot points, and really important instances of character development. If you’d given me a pop quiz on Veronica Mars two weeks ago, I would have failed miserably. Troy? Forgot him. Piz? How could I have forgotten Piz? Plus, I’d actually forgotten who had planted the bomb on the bus, although I did remember that that character was a bad guy.

So far, I’m not finding that I forgot the same amount of stuff in relation to Grey’s Anatomy. I wonder why this is. Perhaps it’s because Grey’s is much more present in general pop culture, so I had a better chance of being reminded of things that might otherwise be forgotten. I started with season two, since that’s what I had, and am now going back through season one. I liked Meredith better when she had some bite, and I think that the return of her spark is what made me enjoy the second half of season four as much as I did.

I went to the Andiamo Motorcycle Run this past Sunday, September 14, and I will be posting pictures of that tomorrow.

Then they came for the librarians

I don’t normally end up laughing in actual amusement when I read editorials in the New York Times. Mostly, I’m laughing in disbelief, like “Did s/he really just say that?” So I was pretty shocked today to find what Gail Collins had to say to be both salient and amusing. The salience was already the icing on the cake, so the amusement factor was wholly unexpected, yet appreciated. Here’s the column.

Apparently, my nausea last night meant that I missed the part where Palin bragged about threatening to fire the town librarian for refusing to censor books. Sorry, but even if the rest of your speech didn’t make me feel ill, I would never have cheered at the thought of using mayoral power to threaten a librarian. It’s not the job of librarians to censor books. If you’re concerned with your children’s reading habits, or what they may be exposed to, visit the library with them and talk about what you do or do not want them to read. This is another part of parenting. I think enough people have piled onto Palin’s parental fitness with not nearly enough evidence, so I don’t say that expecting the library to do this is bad parenting. I will, however, say that it is passing off important family decisions that people probably should not expect strangers to make for them.