My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

I’m going to go ahead and guess that my review of Twilight is going to sway neither the book’s legion of fans, nor its serious detractors. In all honesty, I’m kind of torn about reviewing the book at all. Its first-person protagonist is a seventeen year-old girl, and the book is very clearly angled at girls in their early-to-mid teens. I am a thirty-two year-old man, and thus am not exactly what one would call the target demographic.

I read the book because my wife advised me to, because I am author who is trying to get his vampire novel published, and she rightly figured that it couldn’t hurt to check out the book, and see what it does well. There ARE things that it does well, despite what some negative reviews might say. There are also many things that didn’t work for me, but may be right for the target audience. Then there are a few things that I think it does legitimately poorly … we’ll get to those.

So. What I liked:

I think — and again, I was never a girl, so I can’t be sure — that it does a good job of expressing the all-consuming strength of a young woman’s first love. Bella’s absolute obsession with Edward is driven home over and over (to the point of tedium for me). Less well-explained is why Edward feels so strongly for her, other than that she smells good, but you still at least get a strong sense of his desire both to love her and to chomp down on her neck, which creates some fun dramatic tension.

I also liked that each vampire had a special little power of their own, something they brought with them from their human lives. I thought the book got stronger as it went along, with the last sixty pages or so of the book, not counting the epilogue, being legitimately exciting and fun to read.

What I didn’t like:

The first 350 pages of the book are nearly a straight teen romance novel, and the first 100 pages or so are brutal even accepting that fact. There’s absolutely nothing happening, action-wise. Bella comes off as bitchy and unlikable. The writing is stilted and hasn’t yet found any sort of voice other than said bitchiness (few sentences have anything resembling stylistic flair). Again, this improves as the book goes on, almost as if Meyer is becoming more comfortable with her characters and the world she’s creating.

I also felt that Edward was too perfect. I realize the novel is more a romance than it is anything else, and this is a common approach to romance novels, but it makes him a less-likable character because basically his only flaw is that he can’t accept that he’s in love and just deal with it. I don’t mind him being gorgeous, or powerful, or intelligent, or charming, or witty, or sensual, or telepathic, or even some combination of these things, but all of them together create a character so flawless he’s hard to relate to.

The epilogue is hard to believe. I find it midly improbable that Bella’s dad would be easily forgiving of either She or Edward after what he had to go through. Also, Bella returns right back to being oblivious and kind of bitchy, as if she’s learned essentially nothing from her experience. I was hoping for a bit of character growth for both of the leads, but there’s little to be seen.

Overall, I think the book does a decent if unspectacular job of conveying a fairly typical first love story with a rather important twist. The last sixty pages or so, where the real meat of the action is, are better than the rest of the book. I have no plans to read the other three in the series, so I went ahead and read their synopses on the internet, and doing so basically reconfirmed that I’m not interested enough to read more. It seems, though, like Meyer understands her audience and has put together a series which they clearly enjoy.

If you’re old enough to drink — and not an aspiring author of vampire novels who likes to keep abreast of what’s happening in that genre — Twilight’s not terrible … but it’s probably not the right book for you.

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My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

While not quite as brimming with homoerotic undertones as the first in the series, Throne of Jade nonetheless presents the reader with plenty of repressed man-dragon love to go along with a few aerial battles, a murder plot, and an interesting encounter with a sea serpent. Also, there are some Chinese people.

Ok, that’s a bit of a glib summary, but I’ve never been a huge fan of spending my entire review giving plot details. It’s worth noting, however, that the book is somewhat less action-oriented than the first. It spends a good deal of time focusing on the infuriating nature of diplomatic relations with wildly disparate cultures, and does some interesting and applicable pontificating on the treatment of dragons and its comparison to the slave trade. Some of the latter is spelled out a little too obviously, especially near the end, but one doesn’t typically read fantasy series for their subtle political metaphor.

Novik seems to have done her research on the era she’s set her books in, and the story is peppered with references to the actual politics of the time, including England’s struggle to establish strong diplomatic ties with China, and to prevent the French from doing the same. The slavery comparison is also tied nicely into the book as the dragon Temeraire and his captain Will Laurence travel to China and witness the level of freedom given to Chinese dragons, comparing it against the treatment of European breeds.

I enjoyed the book enough to give it three stars, although I thought the first one was better. I found the sea voyage section of Throne of Jade a bit interminable, and I was surprised by how little of the book was actually set in China (well less than one third). I did enjoy the further revelations about dragon breeding and the interesting ways in which Novik interweaves dragons into every-day Chinese life. I found myself wishing that more of the book had been set in China, not so much because of the foreign setting as because I’m interested in the back-story and breed specifics of Novik’s dragons, and it’s in China that the most information about them is known.

Overall the book is an interesting, if somewhat less action-oriented, successor to the first novel. It’s a good “airplane novel” with a unique setting, solid plotting, and enjoyable dialog. I look forward to picking up the third installment in the series.

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We visited many apartments and houses … mostly houses, actually. I think Charlotte and I are a little tired of living in buildings with tons of people. We focused especially on the village of Broad Ripple, which lies about fifteen minutes north of downtown Indianapolis (only about eight miles). It’s actually sort of similar to Park Slope in Brooklyn, where we live now, although smaller in scale (and with a lower skyline). It has a nice central area with restaurants, bars, and shops. Also a million, billion hair/nail salons, which also makes it seem very similar to brooklyn. The difference is that it’s immediately surrounded by quiet suburban neighborhoods, which is where we found the house that we’ve decided to move to. We’re an easy walk from groceries, food, shops and more … but without the crazy street noise that we endure in Brooklyn.

It’s a two-family, but it’s a real house, not a building. The front yard is tree-filled and shady, with a concrete walkway leading from the street to the front door. The back yard contains an old-school, barn-door-style one car garage, a huge brick patio, and various small gardens. There’s very little actual lawn, in the front yard or back, which makes me quite happy … lawn mowing is my second most-hated chore after washing the dishes!

Coming in through the front door, the house puts its best foot forward, offering a slate-floored sun room with a wall of built-in bookcases (above which there’s a nifty skylight and sleeping loft) and a bunch of large windows. Charlotte is already making plans to put her desk and computer in this area!

Attached, but separated by a half-height divider, is the living room. It’s very long and quite wide, big enough to fit all of our living room furniture and still have plenty of space for a dining room table with at least four chairs. I’ve never had an eating table, in my entire adult life, so this is a big step for me. Charlotte is ecstatic.

The kitchen in the back is … meh. It’s servicable and has lots of shelf space, but the cabinets are cheap wood and it lacks a dishwasher. In all, it kind of reminds me of a summer home kitchen, but it should be plenty enough for our needs, especially since I’m probably just going to nuke a lean cuisine for lunch, most days. The entrance to the basement is also found back there — it’s not finished, but it IS sealed and painted concrete, with a washer and dryer, so it’s both usable and not creepy. Always a plus.

Upstairs there’s a mediocre bathroom … but the landlady says she’s going to have some work done on it that should improve it significantly, totally changing out the ceiling and repairing some water damage on the wall. The two bedrooms are spacious and have a ton of closet space, not to mention plenty of windows. The light in the house, overall, is great … the only dim area is the living room, right where you’d put a TV, so even that’s pretty reasonable.

Overall we’re excited about the house. It’s got plenty of charm and character, without being delapidated the way many “charming” houses with “character” are. You can see all of the pics at my Flickr page.

Now we just have to manage to pack up all our stuff and move by the last weekend in June!

Status Updates

The Fatass Project: Unsure. Need to weigh myself. Probably not good.

The Asimov Project: Making me laugh every time I look in the mirror … which was pretty much the goal!

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ankur Shah is not like me.

I don’t mean the fact that he’s of Indian descent and I’m of Anglo-Saxon descent, though that’s true. I also don’t mean that he’s studied the teachings of Gandhi and I haven’t, though that is also true. I’m sure there are many other ways in which we are not alike, and many ways in which we are, but the specific difference that I am choosing to focus on lies more in our spiritual and philosophical approaches to life, because it best illustrates the dichotomous nature of my experience reading his book.

Ankur Shah is vegan (when he can be), deeply spiritual though as far as I can tell not dedicated to any one religion, and deeply fascinated by the interconnections between all life, especially those between his fellow human beings. I am a dedicated omnivore, nearly devoid of spirituality of any kind, and not particularly inclined to revel in oneness with my fellow man.

So it was somewhat perplexing to me that I enjoyed reading this book quite a bit, considering that a good portion of it was dedicated toward contemplating the spiritual and emotional connections to other people that Shah values so highly. But then, one thing we do have quite in common seems to be a fascination with the workings of society, an interest in both history, modern times, and the contrast between the two. It was this aspect of the book that I most enjoyed.

Initially, the text was hard for me to get into. I had to adapt somewhat to the writing style which, while not difficult to read, was fairly dense and mildly rambling. I also had to resign myself to the fact that many, many Indian names would be mentioned, some in rapid succession, and I would not be able to remember all of the “characters” being introduced. This is not a fiction novel … we’re not going to spend any more time with these people than Shah did, and for the most part that means a matter of hours, or a few days at the most. We are seeing a foreign land through the eyes of someone only partially versed in the cultures and languages of that land, and many things will be mildly incomprehensible.

Once you get past this fact, the rest of the book presents a fascinating look into modern Indian society. Shah is American, though better-traveled than most, and is thus able to contrast what he is seeing as he follows Gandhi’s famous march to the salt flats with what he has seen during his life in the US. The differences between Indian and American society run much deeper than simple ideas like rich vs. poor, or vegetarian vs. meat-eater, or Hindu/Sikh/Muslim vs. Christian/Jewish. Shah spends a great deal of time chronicling Indian culture, in between his philosophical reflections, it was this part of the book which I enjoyed the most.

I don’t mean to sound like the rest of it was an unenjoyable slog … I found the book as a whole compelling even if I don’t share all of Shah’s beliefs and opinions. While it is not flawlessly written or edited, it is engaging, the prose relatively skilled, and the author’s observations valuable.

I can’t say whether I believe in the one Love that Shah espouses, but I can say that the glimpse into India and its culture was fascinating, and I recommend it highly to those who enjoy such studies.

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And it’s pretty cool, if I do say so myself. The site looks a lot better, and the underlying structure is a million, billion, billion, trillion times better than it was. I took the CSS file down from over 6000 lines to under 2000, reduced the size of the JavaScript, dramatically reduced the page weight in both graphics and HTML, and widgetized the living hell out of the site, so creating new pages with lots of dynamic chunks is super-easy.

I lost a lot of nights and weekends to this project (I’m typing this at the office, in fact), but thankfully my lovely wife has been super-supportive, taking care of the house and the cats, and even swinging by the office to provide moral support and/or Starbucks runs as necessary. She rocks. :)

So anyway, check out the site and let me know what you think. Or join our forums and let us know there. Either way, go go go!

Here now are some progress reports:

Lose 25 lbs. Project

Starting weight – 213.5

Current Weight – 213.5

Difference: 0 lbs. Son of a bitch!

Long Hair and Outrageous Muttonchops Project

Hair: Steadily growing out of control

Muttonchops: Mildly outrageous, as you can see!

Reactions from our friends have been fairly uniform thus far: they’re mostly baffled and minorly horrified. Everyone in New York seems to think that Indy is somewhere in the deep south, populated entirely by gay-hating, bible-thumping racists who speak in a hickish drawl and won’t eat anything that hasn’t been deep-fried. I keep trying to tell them that they’re thinking of Texas, but they won’t listen!

(Just kidding, Texans … please don’t shoot me with the many, many guns you no doubt own)

In truth, it’s likely that Indianapolis is very similar to Syracuse, and all of the other medium-sized cities in between Chicago and New York (such as Albany, Buffalo, Cleveland, etc) — it’s probably got some nice areas, and some not-so-nice areas. It’s probably got a decent amount of culture available. It’s probably got a pretty-enough downtown area that turns into a ghost town after 6pm … it’s just a city. Like many other cities.

It’s not New York, but there are only two, maybe three other cities in this country that can even claim to be close to New York in terms of how much they offer and how huge the city area is. I’ve visited all of the contenders and … they’re not New York either. Nowhere is like New York, which is probably why it’s so expensive here.

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to explaining why we’re moving. It’s not purely the expense … people can and do live in this city making less than I make alone, let alone what Charlotte and I make combined (when she has a job). However, she’s having a hard time finding a job, has an awesome lead in Indy, and even if that lead doesn’t pan out, we can live much more easily on my salary alone there, than we can here. It’s less than half as expensive to rent a free-standing, three-bedroom house there, than it is to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn.

But even that’s not the main thing. The main thing is that my friend and I are really right on the cusp of launching some pretty cool websites and getting our business up and running. He already lives in Indy, where he telecommutes for Crispy Gamer. If I move there, then we can both work for Crispy during the day, and give our evenings and weekends to getting this thing off the ground. When you combine the ability to do that, with the significant reduction in financial burden that moving to Indy will provide, and it began to look like a no-brainer.

When you combine both those things with the fact that Charlotte is probably going  to grad school in fall 2010 and wants lots of time to spend reading, writing, applying, and working on a BA in french lit for the next year. This will be a lot easier without the distractions that New York provides. Basically we’re both kind of planning on hunkering down for a year, putting our noses to the grindstone, and really pushing hard on a couple of projects. Also, hopefully, we’ll be saving quite a bit of money for when she does go back to school, at which point it’s unlikely she’ll be drawing a steady salary.

So that’s the deal. We’re sorry to be leaving Brooklyn, especially our friends here, but it just makes too much sense not to do it. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Status Updates

Lose 25 Lbs Project: Current weight: 211 ( -2.5lbs)

Long Hair and Outrageous Muttonchops Project: Still growing the foundation!

Outrageous Sideburns - Week 2

I’ve taken it upon myself to enact two projects involving my personal appearance. The first, and most important, is the LOSE 25 POUNDS PROJECT. I weigh 213, which is the most I’ve weighed since I met my wife. We successfully dieted in 2006-2007, and I dropped down to below 180. At my wedding, I weighed 193 which was ok but not great. I really like how I look at 185-ish, so that’s what I’m angling for here. I’ve actually been pretty good about hitting the gym for the past six months (this crazy busy month where I’ve rarely left work before 7pm excepted), but since the honeymoon I’ve been super bad about my eating habits and have climbed rapidly back up.

THAT DOG WON’T FLY!

So that’s it. The 25 LBS Project. I will be updating this blog with status updates regularly, not so much because anyone reading this cares, but because I am trying to force myself to publically acknowledge that I’m a fatass.

Fatassitude: acknowledged.

The second, and more amusing project, is the Long Hair and Outrageous Muttonchops project, which is endorsed by my wife. I’m letting my hair grow (it’s currently longer than it’s been since at least 2004 … which still isn’t very long), and I’m growing a pair of ridiculous sideburns. Why am I doing this? Sheer boredom!

The picture above shows Week 2 of the project. I will update weekly with new pics until I get tired of this absurdity and shave.

That’s it for now!

25 Lbs Project: Weight – 213.5 lbs

Long Hair and Outrageous Muttonchops Project: Still looking pretty tame

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like many Americans, I saw the movie version of Let the Right One In before reading the book, and enjoyed it quite a bit. This led me to pursue the book and, as is almost always the case for me, I liked it even more than the film. For the most part, I think the film made good cuts, and it retains the overall plot/theme very well, but it’s hard to put as much depth into a two hour movie as one can put into a five-hundred page book.

Many of the more minor characters (and one central one – Hakan) are much more fleshed out than they were in the film. There are more sub-plots and we learn a great deal more about Eli’s past, though great chunks of it are still left in the dark. We also learn the full truth about Eli’s sexuality and some rather disturbing information about the vampire mechanism works (turns out there’s good reason to destroy the heart).

I’ve read a great many vampire novels and short stories in my life, and this is one of the better ones. It finds interesting twists on old legends and presents us with believable, morally ambiguous characters. No one in this book is exactly good, or exactly evil. They’re all flawed, like real humans, and like real humans, they’re all trying to survive.

Two things kept this from being a five-star book for me. First, while I thought it was enjoyable and extremely readable (I tore through it over the course of two days), I found it in some ways less moving than the film. This was probably due in part to the film’s two child leads, who were incredible, but also partly because of the other reason I knocked off a star: the book seems to fizzle at the end just a bit. Things are wrapped up a little too quickly, especially amongst some of the minor characters. Additionally, there seems to be less of a sense of love between Oskar and Eli than there was in the film, which I felt was important in establishing why the story ends as it does.

Overall, though, a very enjoyable book. Lindqvist’s book is more interesting, more atmospheric, and more original than the vast majority of commercial vampire fiction. Give it a read.

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I wanted to produce something which was bold but not overpowering, not too sweet, and could be made by the glass or by the pitcher. I decided on a whiskey-based concoction which used Cherry Heering for sweetness, lemon juice for a bit of tang, and dry vermouth to smooth things out. Here’s the recipe:

The Bossman

2 parts Canadian Whiskey (I used Seagrams VO)
2 parts OJ (glass) or 3 parts OJ (pitcher)
.75 parts Dry Vermouth
.75 parts Cherry Heering
.5 parts Lemon Juice
Generous dash of Angostura Bitters

Shake or stir with ice, and serve over ice in a rocks glass. Goes very well with birthday cake!

Hope you enjoy the drink. Incidentally, this is the 100th post to this blog (since I redesigned and switched over to wordpress). Hooray!

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hubert Selbey Jr.’s Requiem for a Dream is a hard book to read … not due so much to its sensitive subject matter, which is frankly riveting, as to Selby’s unconventional, stream-of-consciousness prose. The guy barely believes in basic punctuation marks, let alone quotes, paragraph breaks, or dialog attribution. It takes a while to get into it.

Once you do, however, you’re rewarded with one of the more honest (and bleak) looks at addiction and the downward spiral it causes in people’s lives. This is not simply a book about junkies, or about people who have no options in life and thus turn to drugs. Selby’s characters are young, enterprising … some are well-educated, cultured, experienced. By no means do they all fit into the stereotypical expectations one might have of a heavy drug user. Yet all of them find themselves inevitably pulled into similar situations.

I’d seen the movie version before reading the novel, which certainly reduces the suspense while reading the book. However, my main complaint with the film was that I didn’t feel like it spent enough time letting us get to know and like the characters, which in turn made the downward spiral less powerful than it could’ve been. This is much less a problem with the book — Selby spends a good deal of time on characterization, and it helps keep the novel interesting and compelling throughout.

I strongly recommend Requiem for a Dream. It may be disturbing to some, but you’re not going to find a better depiction of dangers of substance abuse and addiction.

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