bookshelves of doom

I'm sure you've seen that...

...Michael Crichton died.

Until now, I had no idea that he wrote and directed Westworld:

We watched it not all that long ago, and it was amazingly amazing, if you go in for that sort of stuff. 

I'm sorry, Scott Westerfeld!!!

Josh:  This isn't really a great place to leave a glass of water.

Me:  Dammit.  Did it hit anything?

Josh:  Well, there wasn't much left.  But you should probably apologize to Scott Westerfeld.

Catching up on my RSS feeds.

This article prompted an awesome discussion at the circ desk this morning:

Does YA sell so well simply because teens have more free time? "Certainly teens have more time to read, but they also are less genre-identified," New York Times best-selling YA and SF author Scott Westerfeld says in an e-mail interview. "I've met adults who read only Tom Clancy knockoffs, for example. But teens haven't specialized nearly as much as adults, in reading as in everything else. Quite simply, this means that SF for a YA audience is going to get a larger slice of the population, not just the 10 percent of us who don't mind having a spaceship on the cover at age 30.

"This brings me to another point about sales comparisons: Teens are more networked than adults," Westerfeld adds. "When they really like a book, they make their friends read it and ostracize those who don't. Yay, them."

We at the circ desk heart you, Scott Westerfeld!!

I hope all pictures of my fourth grade Romana I Halloween costume (complete with homemade Tracer!) have been lost.

Because Io9 is collecting pictures of Best (or Most Humiliating) Halloween costumes.

It never occurred to poor little deluded fourth-grade me that not a single person would know who I was... 

 

...and that when I explained, I would experience either heavy mocking or the dreaded "...oh" response.  Growing up geeky.  Sigh. 

Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan and Tim Robbins on the City of Ember movie.

From SciFi.com:

The city of Ember itself was built practically for this film. In this era of computer imagery and green screens, what was it like to be immersed in a real world like that?

Ronan: We didn't actually have a lot of green-screen scenes. It was an amazing set that [production designer] Martin Laing had designed. And it was in Belfast. It was in the Titanic quarters: It was actually where the Titanic was built and painted. Or was it where it was painted? No, it wasn't. It was just where it was built. But, so, it was huge. And the whole city ... was actually like a little mini-city. So there wasn't that much green screen at all. ... We didn't really have to imagine what the city would look like.

Murray: Yeah, well, when you walk in and there's a street and an underground city that's 55 or 60 feet high with tunnels underneath it, and there's decaying doors and windows and bricks built as a street and concrete and plaster that's made its walls, real doors that open, real glass and beautiful design work, too, the emblems of the city built into the street and into the fountains in the street, fountains that work, ... it's not so hard to say, "I'm living in a crumbling society" when you walk in for work and there it is. It was so simple. And the costumes as well, ... the best costumes I've ever worn. The most beautiful I've ever seen in any film, by far.

(via SF Signal)

It's good to be Eoin Colfer.

Not only has he signed a contract to write a new Hitchhiker's book*, Airman is going to be made into a movie.

___________________________________

*Insert Marge Simpson-ish "hrrrmh" here.

My feelings are mixed, to say the least.

From the Guardian:

Douglas Adams's increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy is to be extended to six titles, after Adams's widow Jane Belson sanctioned a project which will see children's author Eoin Colfer taking up the story.

Okay, so on the one hand:  I hated Artemis Fowl and I generally don't like it when people continue the work of much-beloved-but-sadly-deceased authors (see Anne of Green Gables, Harriet the Spy, John Bellairs, etc.).

But on the OTHER hand:  Douglas Adams wanted another book in the series, I was totally devastated by the end of Mostly Harmless (I was also, like, twelve), that new-ish Eoin Colfer book does sound pretty awesome so I've been meaning to give him another chance anyway, and Eoin Colfer is so popular that this book will introduce the work Douglas Adams to a whole ton of teens.  Also, he seems very humbled by the idea.

And then there are the things that end up on both hands, like the fact that he's not trying to emulate Douglas Adams.  So, on the one hand, what's the point?  But on the other, I could see that as a good thing, too.

It is way too early in the morning for me to be dealing with something this large.  I might have to go back to bed.

Zoe's Tale -- John Scalzi

While I do keep an eye on his blog, this was my first John Scalzi novel.  From what I understand, Zoe's Tale is a retelling of The Last Colony, the third book in his Old Man's War trilogy*.  The narrator is Zoe Boutin-Perry, the adopted daughter of John Perry, the hero of the OMW trilogy.  Her parents, John and Jane Perry, have been offered -- and have accepted -- the positions of colony leaders of a new colony.  Though Zoe loves her home well enough, she's eager to pack up the rest of the family (her dog Babar and her two alien bodyguards) and GO.

While she seemed a whole lot younger than seventeen (especially considering her past), and while her narration does suffer from Someone-Else-Is-Totally-Writing-My-Dialogue Syndrome (a la Juno), I loved Zoe and I loved her voice.  Her experiences include space travel, colonization, culture clash, interstellar battles and politics, aliens and war, but her narration makes it feel close, real, and believable.  

A lot of the SF I've read has felt like it held me at arm's length.  Distance like that prevents me from ever fully connecting with a story or the characters in it.  This one felt so real and so close that it was almost like Zoe was in the room with me.  She made me cry.  Like, three times.  She also made me laugh out loud while I was crying**.  With the right narrator, this book will made one hell of an audio.

Zoe's Tale is being published as an adult novel, but it should very definitely be cross-shelved in the YA section -- her story and her voice have the potential not just to bring a slew of new teen readers into the sci-fi fold, but to bring a whole slew of female teen readers into the sci-fi fold. 

___________________________________________________________

*It should be noted that when Josh looked at this one, he was curious enough that he went and dug through our books until he found a copy of Old Man's War.  He's about halfway through now and he's really liking it.

**While I suppose it could be possible that hormones had something to do with my reaction, it still got me, and got me good.

Frankenstein gorgeousity.

Sounds like an oxymoron, I know.  So go and look.  You'll see that I'm right.

(via Newsarama)

Invisibility cloaks, for REAL!!

Sadly, they're not quite people sized yet -- we're talking more on the nano level.  But someday...

From the BBC:

Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley have developed a material that can bend light around 3D objects making them "disappear".

(via Forbidden Planet)

Lois Lowry on yet another challenge to The Giver.

The Nashua Board of Education recently voted 7-1 to require parental notification if elementary school teachers plan to use The Giver in classrooms.  They also voted 5-3 against removing it from the elementary school libraries.  The challenge came about after a teacher read the book to a fourth grade class and a parent objected.

Fourth grade does seem a bit young to me for that one, especially as a classroom book -- I would think that the students who would be mature enough for it would be in the minority.  Obviously, I'm glad it stayed in the library -- that way the kids who're up for it will have easy access, too. 

Lois Lowry is of the same opinion:

When asked about the school board's decision Tuesday, Lowry said she agreed with it. She recommends the book for children in sixth grade and up and said she has a grandson in fourth grade and couldn't picture him reading it."I do think fourth grade is too young," said Lowry, in a phone interview from her barn in Maine.

...

Lowry said she would never support removing the book from the elementary school libraries.

"Every parent has the right to monitor what their own child reads, but I don't think any parent has the right to supervise the reading of other peoples' children," she said.

Help her out!

From my inbox:

I just found out that I'll be teaching a third grade science fiction literature unit next year.  I'm really excited, but most of the books I can think of are for an older audience.  (I did this unit 2 years ago and the books need a serious upgrade.  But to give you an idea of the level, the one that I'm going to keep is Fat Men From Space).

I'm sure you're busy, but if you have a moment, could you recommend some titles or some resources to me?

Yikes.  That's on the young end for me.  Guys?  Thoughts?

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey -- Trenton Lee Stewart

It's been six months since the conclusion of the first adventure of the Mysterious Benedict Society.  Six long months since Reynie Muldoon, Kate Wetherall, Sticky Washington and Constance Contraire have all been together.  Now, Mr. Benedict has asked them to reassemble:  not for a danger-filled investigation, but for a celebration.

Unfortunately, evil Mr. Curtain has other plans...  which involve kidnapping Mr. Benedict!

Reynie's intuition, Kate's red bucket of tricks, Sticky's huge brain and Constance's stubbornness* are all formidable -- but will their talents be enough to find Mr. Benedict, rescue him AND save the world?

I was a pretty big fan of the first book, though I felt the pacing was a little strange in that it felt like two completely different books duct-taped together -- at about the halfway point, the story went from a puzzle/mystery to a sci-fi thriller.  Don't get me wrong -- I liked both halves very much!  It was just a strange transition. 

As for this installment:  I absolutely loved The Perilous Journey.  There was no strange transition -- the story flowed.  Reading it made me realize how much I've grown to enjoy the world and the characters -- these kids are just plain good kids.  They squabble, argue and occasionally disobey** the adults they love, trust and respect, but there's absolutely no malice in them, they'd do anything for each other and they just try to do what's right.  They're kids that you'd want to be friends with and that you'd probably want your kids to be friends with -- if you didn't mind your kids regularly getting into life-threatening situations, that is... 

The pace is quick, the characters have continued to develop, I love the narration (these would make great read-alouds) and, as in the first book, I especially enjoyed the puzzles and brain-teasers.  It makes me so happy to read books that celebrate smarts.  The illustrations at the beginning of each chapter are super, but I do hope that Little, Brown darkened up Sticky's skin color on the finished cover -- because he's whiter-than-white on the ARC that I'm looking at right now.

Very highly recommended to fans of Dahl, Rowling and Snicket.

*It's starting to look like she's got another talent -- but I won't spoil it for you!

**Though even that is something that they wrestle with.

Wow.

The City of Ember movie looks pretty awesome:

But does anyone else think it's weird that they give away the twist in the first three seconds of the trailer?

Generation Dead -- Daniel Waters

Odd cover art.  I don't remember any of the differently biotic girls being a cheerleader -- one of the boys goes out for football, but...  well, that's probably just me being too literal minded.  It's eye-catching, regardless, and I like how it wraps around.

Throughout the United States, the dead aren't staying dead.  It's only a recent phenomenon, it only happens to teens, it only (so far) has happened in the U.S., and it doesn't happen to every teen who dies.  There is, so far, no explanation.  The politically correct terms are "living impaired" and "differently biotic".  The less sensitive throw around words like "corpsicle" and (of course) "zombie".

Phoebe realizes that her goth look has taken on a whole new meaning, but she likes it and she's stuck with it.  At her high school, Tommy Williams, a living impaired student, goes out for the football team.  Phoebe finds herself fascinated by him, maybe even attracted to him.  Her best friend, football player and karate student Adam, is secretly in love with her, and he'll do what he can to make her happy -- including support her in this new friendship-that-may-become-more.  But not everyone feels the same way.

Generation Dead has a really fun premise.  I mean, c'mon -- ZOMBIES IN HIGH SCHOOL!  But while I loved the idea behind it, the book itself didn't really work for me.  The story felt (this is going to sound weird, because, HELLO, ZOMBIES IN HIGH SCHOOL) flat and long.     

There were brief moments when I felt the characters become real people -- the scene between Karen and Pete in the woods is the one that immediately comes to mind, because in that moment I suddenly realized how she had died, though the author didn't let me know for sure until quite a bit later -- but for the most part, not so much.  I felt very little chemistry between the characters (except between, oddly, Tommy Williams and Pete, the (possibly literally) psychotic football player and between Adam and Karen), and I was told again and again that Adam was in love with Phoebe but I never felt it.  It's interesting that the most successful, believable interactions in the book were between the living impaired and the living.

Of course, the differently biotic kids can easily be read as a metaphor for any minority group.  It's a story about prejudice, about breaking boundaries and about pretty much any sort of -ism you care to mention.  I do think that will appeal to a lot of readers.  To me, it felt obvious and a little preachy.  I appreciated the attempt to show different kinds of and reasons for prejudice, but because the characters never felt real to me, they all felt like representations of different views rather than, you know, people.  Overall, lots of it was very clever -- the Skip Slydell Transforming The Culture Through Commercialism scene was especially good -- but I didn't feel much heart.

The most interesting storyline in the book (to me) was the one surrounding the (very possibly sketchy) Hunter Foundation, but there were only hints.  That makes me suspect that there may be a sequel in the works.  I also wouldn't be surprised to see it get turned into a movie.  I'll be interested to see how this one goes over.  While it wasn't my cuppa, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it gain a decent following -- it's had decent reviews elsewhere and at the moment, there are three 5-star ratings at Amazon.

Sold.

Yep.

I'm going to have to give Mr. Eoin Colfer another try.

Better late than never?

On my part, I mean*. 

The Andre Norton shortlist is:

The True Meaning of Smekday - Rex, Adam

The Lion Hunter - Wein, Elizabeth

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling, J. K.

The Shadow Speaker - Okorafor-Mbachu, Nnedi

Into the Wild - Durst, Sarah Beth

Vintage: A Ghost Story - Berman, Steve

Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass- Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog - Wilce, Ysabeau S.

The rest of the Nebula ballot is available as well.

(via Wands and Worlds)

*Sidenote:  From high school on through college I always subscribed to the Better Never Than Late philosophy -- if I was going to be late to class, I just wouldn't go.  So I believe that posting this list a week late shows that I've grown as a person.  Go me!

Perfect choice, but...

...the conspiracy theorist in me still finds the idea creepy:

Sci-fi novel "Ender's Game" to become video game

Eeep.

We continue to get closer and closer to the world of Feed.

the dead & the gone -- Susan Beth Pfeffer

Thirty-six pages into the dead & the gone, I called my sister to make a disaster plan.  'Cause, you know, if an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, cell phones will be completely useless and neither of us has a land line.  So pre-planning is key.

the dead & the gone is the companion novel to Life As We Knew It, which scared the bejeezus out of me over a year ago, and which has continued to scare the bejeezus out of me ever since.  I received the review copy some time ago, but I really had to work up the courage to read it.  And finally, yesterday, I did.

High school junior Alex Morales is working a shift at Joey's Pizza when the asteroid hits.  When he gets home, the power is out, the cable is out and there doesn't seem to be anything broadcasting on the radio.  He's informed by his younger sisters that their father -- who'd just flown home to Puerto Rico for his mother's funeral -- had called before the outages, to let them know he'd arrived safely, and that their mother had been called into work at the hospital. 

Days pass, and except for a static-filled phone call in which the caller might have said something about Puerto Rico, they hear nothing from their parents.

Like Life As We Knew It, the dead & the gone is a survival story about not only the physicality of the situation, but the emotional and mental as well.  Due to the setting -- New York City, rather than rural Pennsylvania -- it deals much more with class than the first book.  Alex and his sisters, though bright and resourceful, have no political or monetary clout -- and it becomes apparent as the story progresses that bright and resourceful might not be enough to get them through.

I had mixed feelings about the similarities between the two books -- on one hand, it made sense that the hardships and the emotions and even some of the situations would be similar.  On the other, sometimes the story lines matched up so well that it felt like re-reading the first book [SPOILERS AHEAD] -- an offer for one of the sisters to travel to a farm, where she'd be well-fed and comfortable, and later, the crippling flu that hits Alex the same way that it hit the older brother in the first book.  The story parallels made sense -- especially the flu -- but it still felt like a re-read in that way.  [END SPOILERS]

Aside from that, I found the dead & the gone to be just as compelling a read as Life As We Knew It.  As with the first book, I found myself checking our cupboards, yet unable to eat anything -- it would have made me feel too guilty. Alex's trip to Yankee Stadium to look for his mother's body, the food riot at Columbus and Eighty-second Street and his constantly shifting feelings about God and his own morality will be with me for a long time.

Ooo.

As I've said (again and again), I wasn't a huge Artemis Fowl fan*. 

This book, however, sounds like a lot of fun.

*Okay, I hated it.  But I know that I'm in the minority, and I regularly recommend it to kids who I know will love it, and blah diddy blah blah blah.

We're reaching the end of my part in the Cybils, but...

...I just realized, shocker of shocks, that I'm not feeling the least burned out on sci-fi or fantasy*. 

So, Sharon Shinn.  I've been meaning to try her books.  Where should I start?

Oh, and Lois McMaster Bujold as well.

And Connie Willis.  I've got to find my copy of The Doomsday Book.  I bought it almost a year ago, with every intention of reading it (of course) but it seems to have evaporated.

Suggestions, please.  Feel free to throw any other authors in there.

*Which is a good thing, because though we're close to the end, we're not at the end.

Incarceron -- Catherine Fisher

From Incarceron:

It was decided from the beginning that the location of Incarceron should be known only to the Warden.  All criminals, undesirables, political extremists, degenerates, lunatics would be transported there.  The Gate would be sealed and the Experiment commence.  It was vital that nothing should disturb the delicate balance of Incarceron's programming, which would provide everything needed - education, balanced diet, exercise, spiritual welfare and purposeful work - to create a paradise.

One hundred and fifty years have passed.  The Warden reports that progress is excellent.

Court Archives 4302/6

In reality, Incarceron is hell.  Gangs, some more violent than others, each with its own rules and traditions, wander the endless tunnels and hallways.  Kindnesses are repaid with betrayal, and the only way to ensure survival is to be faster, stronger, smarter and more devious than the next person.  The only thing more terrifying than the inmates is the Prison itself.

Finn, a member of the especially brutal Comitatus, woke up three years ago with no memory of his past.  Some of his fellow prisoners believe that Finn is 'cell-born', a child of Incarceron, created by Incarceron, while others believe he is simply half-mad.  What he believes is quite different:  He believes he came from Outside.  Though no one has left Incarceron in over a century (except one legendary man), Finn believes his flashbacks of a life Before, his knowledge of things he could never have known or experienced Inside, could have come from nowhere but Outside. 

On the Outside is Claudia.  The Warden's daughter, she has been raised to be the next Queen.  She lives in a world forced to adhere to the traditions, culture and technology of 17th-century life.  Finn's world is brutally violent, and Claudia's world is no less so -- it's just less obvious.  Violence, political machinations, blackmail and assassinations are hidden behind complex and formal etiquette.  Within Incarceron, there are fights to the death.  Outside, there are dangerous secret alliances, a secret society, even a secret religion. 

Though Claudia recognizes her position as the Warden's political pawn, she has been taught well by her tutor and, inadvertently on his part, by her father.  She is not helpless, friendless, or completely naive.  At the moment, she is as trapped as the people in Incarceron.  But she doesn't intend to live like that forever.

I didn't mean to go on and on about the set up, but I loved this book.  Catherine Fisher not only created a whole culture, complete with a belief system, traditions and subcultures within Incarceron, but she also created a whole separate culture outside of Incarceron.  The more Finn and his companions explore on the inside, the more vast they realize the place is, the more they realize they don't know about their environment -- and the other people who inhabit it. 

CF does a great job of weaving in bits and pieces of our stories and literature into their world -- images that the reader will recognize, but that mean nothing to people who have lived their whole lives Inside.  The poetry excerpts, pieces of legends, diary entries and report information that begin each chapter make the world she's created all the more real.

The heroes, Finn and Claudia, are both smart, determined and sympathetic.  The secondary characters are people in their own right, each with their own motivations and secrets.  There are chases, captures, questions of loyalty, escapes, battles, mysteries, and thrilling edge-of-your seat moments.  The conversations between Claudia and her father are especially tense -- every single time he walked into the room, I got worried.  It's a smart, complex, engrossing and emotionally involving read.

While the ending could very well be the ending of a stand alone novel, I'm hoping for more.  There are lots and lots of loose ends and there's just so much more that I want to know about their world. 

"Triggered by the unlikely encounter of a golden labrador, a Van der Graaf generator and an anti-gravity machine..."

I've been meaning to read the Linda Buckley-Archer books for some time now.

From the Guardian:

The books are inevitably packed full of historical detail, from Thomas Paine's reception in France to the arrival of kangaroos at the court of Queen Charlotte. But Buckley-Archer does not allow the research to swamp the narrative and they are also fast-paced reads, switching between multiple storylines, characters, and even whole centuries from chapter to chapter and each ending on a cliffhanger. With a description at the head of each chapter ("In which the Tar Man shows what he is made of and Kate and Mr Shock break the law in Middle Harpenden") it's a technique reminiscent of the serial writing of Dickens. It is born partly, says Buckley-Archer, of her background in screenwriting - "you go in late, you leave early and you end on some tension" - but also because as she wrote the manuscript she read it in stages to her family after Sunday dinner each week: "I always knew if I was being boring by the expression on my children's faces," she admits.

I really need to get on that. 

Looks like the series haven't picked up in the States yet -- they changed the title of the first book for the paperback release and gave it a totally new look, which has carried over to the sequel (also re-titled).  I prefer the new covers, actually.

The Name of this Book is Secret -- Pseudonymous Bosch

From the prologue:

But let's get something straight: if, despite my warning, you insist on reading the book, you can't hold me responsible for the consequences.

And, make no bones about it, this is a very dangerous book.

No, it won't blow up in your face.  Or bite your head off.  Or tear you limb from limb.

It probably won't injure you at all.  Unless somebody throws it at you, which is a possibility that should never be discounted.

Without giving too much away, The Name of This Book is Secret involves two eleven-year-old sleuths (one survivalist, one aspiring-but-not-very-good stand-up comedian), a pair of antique selling (though they can never bear to sell any, so antique hoarding would be more accurate) grandfathers, a secret room, the magic word, The Symphony of Smells, a magician, at least two mysterious fires, circus life, synesthesia, some shady glove-wearing characters and mint-chip ice cream.

It's an attractive book.  The moment I pulled it out of the mailer, the shiny (but not TOO shiny), die cut cover (the hole is small enough, and without angles, so it shouldn't be too much of a pain for booksellers) forced me to sit down and flip through.  Then there was the big "Warning:  Do not read beyond this page!" page.  And full-page illustrations at the beginning of every chapter -- and, speaking of chapters, chapter headings like, "Chapter Eight:  The Title of this Chapter is So Alarming I've Decided Not To Include It". 

Yes, it could all be described as gimmicky, but it could also be described as fun.  It worked on me*.  I bumped it to the top of my TBR pile.

You might want to try this one out on kids who are suffering from Series of Unfortunate Events withdrawal.  It's significantly longer (I did think that it, like The Mysterious Benedict Society, dragged a bit in the middle), but it also features a snarky narrator who speaks directly to the reader**:

Have you ever been locked in a room hours away from home by people you have every reason to believe are capable of murder or worse?

Neither have I.

Maybe that's why I can write about it without shedding a tear.

I should mention that although narrators like this can certainly be funny (and this one is, quite often), for me, reading them almost always results in a total emotional disconnect from the characters.  It definitely happened here.

Most of the Amazon reviewers compare the book to the Harry Potter series, which... doesn't really make any sense.  Other than the fact that they're both thick books geared towards tweens, they don't really have anything in common.  It did remind me of the books I've already mentioned (Unfortunate Events and Benedict Society), but also a bit of Ellen Raskin's books.  (Though the Raskin books are much tighter and, well, just... better.)  Though the book is enjoyable, the packaging and the advertising campaign are both more impressive.

If, at the end of the book, it hadn't been completely clear that this is the first in a series, I would have ended the book on a more positive note and I probably would have liked it more overall.  But, what with the draggy bits and the added knowledge that it's going to KEEP GOING...  my eyeballs started rolling around in my head.  It felt like it was put together by a committee of people, and not actually, you know, written.

(That said, the About the Author was really funny.)

It seems that the more I think about it, the grouchier I'm getting.  HOWEVER, like I said, I do think it would be worth a try on the Lemony Snicket kids.  (Because, heck!  I didn't really like the Snicket books either!  Crab crab crab crab crab***.)

*Damn shiny covers.  My magpie tendencies strike again.

**And who is constantly telling the reader to put the book down and walk away.  Oh, and who uses footnotes.  A lot.

***At least I made it all the way through this one.  I made it through, what?  One and a half Snickets?

Dexter in the Dark -- Jeff Lindsay

There are going to be some major spoilers after my synopsis, so if you're planning on reading the book, watch out for the big *SPOILERS* note.  Avoid at will.

As fans know, Dexter Morgan is a complicated guy.  In his life as Dear Devoted Dexter, he's preparing for his upcoming wedding with Rita.  In his life as Dazed Daddy Dexter, he's busy trying to explain to his almost-stepchildren Astor and Cody that they need to wait on the mayhem -- that they need to learn to blend in with everyone else before they can become his mini Dark Darlings. 

That would be enough for most people, right?  But we're talking about Dexter, so now for The Big One:  At a somewhat tame (from Dexter's point of view, of course -- blood spatter experts/vigilante serial killers have kind of seen it all, you know) crime scene, Dexter's Dark Passenger goes silent.  And shortly thereafter, it disappears.  Without his inner voice to guide him, he is unable to provide hints about the case to his sister, and he just feels... lost. 

And then there's The Watcher.

Okay, *SPOILERS*.

Got that?

*SPOILERS* below.

Dexter -- the book series -- has totally jumped the shark.  Remember the stupid midichlorians from the new, crappy Star Wars movies?  Yeah.  About halfway through Dexter in the Dark, I stomped into the living room and declared, "Arrrrgh!  Jeff Lindsay TOTALLY pulled a George Lucas!"  You know what?  Explaining The Force diminished it.  And the same goes for Dexter.  Changing his Dark Passenger from a metaphor into a literal being diminished it and diminished Dexter.

Dexter went from being something special -- someone who was, in my eyes, broken and, yeah, sick, but able to make it work for him -- to just... a poor schlub who went through major trauma and became host to (and dependent on) the bastard child of an Old God.  Yeah, you heard that right.

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I like the show a whole lot better.  I like the show a whole lot better.  How often do you hear that?

I'm pretty sure I'm done with the books.

All of this isn't to say that I didn't like anything about the book.  I loved the Astor and Cody storyline, and if anything convinces me to read the next book, it'll be my curiosity about them.  But, at the moment, my horror at the midichlorian parallel coupled with the really unsatisfying, slapped together, possibly-written-in-fifteen-minutes-action-packed ending has me feeling Deeply Disappointed.

Madeleine L'Engle, 1918-2007

I know that you all have probably heard by now.

I didn't hear until after my vacation.  I was kind of glad I didn't, because even though I haven't re-read her for a few years, it was a real blow.

I loved Meg Murry.  Still do.  But as an extremely awkward nine-year-old, I didn't just love her, I identified with her.  And a few years later, when I re-read it, I envied her ability to express her anger. 

(She didn't quite see it that way, as I remember, but I still envied her.  And, of course, I loved the rest of the Murry family.  And Calvin.  But my real connection was with Meg.)

Associated Press

Washington Post:

She once told National Public Radio that she was in a phase of searching for a better understanding of theology when "I just came across a phrase of Einstein's, which completely excited me. He said, 'Anyone who is not lost in rapturous awe at the power and glory of the mind behind the universe is as good as a burned-out candle.'

"And I thought, 'Oh! There's my theologian.' "

Washington Post (Appreciation):

It was a dark and stormy night, and we fell in love with Meg Murry.

She was a sour social misfit, an underachieving mathlete -- the improbable antihero of Madeleine L'Engle's "A Wrinkle in Time" in an era when most kid-lit heroines were wholesome Nan Bobbseys. Though L'Engle, who died on Thursday, wrote more than 50 novels, to those who loved the Murry family her other works seemed interesting side projects, the equivalent of discovering that Beethoven had also enjoyed cooking. "Wrinkle" and its four fantastical sequels were her masterpieces and our revelations.

Houston Chronicle (Tribute):

Madeleine regaled us with tales of her father, a newspaper foreign correspondent, who was once chased by pirates down the Yangtze River. We listened as she described the elegant Swiss boarding school she attended and how much she hated it. And she spoke of her early years in New York, when she acted occasionally and was an assistant to the once famous New York actress, Eva LaGallienne.

She had early success as a writer and published several books before meeting and marrying Hugh Franklin, a handsome young actor who became an accomplished stage actor and found fame as Dr. Charles Tyler on All My Children. After his death in 1986, she wrote about their seemingly idyllic marriage in The Two-Part Invention. Later, Josephine told me: "I read that book, and I don't know whose marriage she was writing about."

New York Times:

But it was in her vivid children’s characters that readers most clearly glimpsed her passionate search for answers to the questions that mattered most. She sometimes spoke of her writing as if she were taking dictation from her subconscious.

“Of course I’m Meg,” Ms. L’Engle said about the beloved protagonist of “A Wrinkle in Time.”

A much more complete round-up of links here.

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels -- Jasper Fforde

Thursday has retired from Specs-Ops (actually, her division was downsized) and Jurisfiction to spend her life with Landon and to raise their three kids.  He's still writing, and she's working as a carpet layer.

Except of course, she's not.  The carpet company is just a front for Spec-Ops, and she's still very much a part of Jurisfiction.  She just hasn't raised the courage to tell Landon... for the last fourteen years.

England has Big Problems due to a stupidity surplus, the Book World has Big Problems due to falling read rates, and Thursday has Big Problems with her slacker son, Friday.  Actually, the whole world has a Big Problem with her slacker son Friday -- he was supposed to have joined the ChronoGuard years ago, and if he doesn't soon, all of time will roll up on itself and disappear.

Sherlock Holmes, Lucy Pevensie, Thomas Hardy, and Cold Comfort Farm all get mentions, while Temperance Brennan and the cast of Pride and Prejudice have brief cameos. 

Sadly, I fell asleep twice while reading this.  As I've said before, Fforde's strength (for me, anyway) is in what he does with characters invented by other people -- I don't tend to find his own characters particularly interesting.  This book was pretty much all about Thursday and her issues, not so much about Thursday in the BookWorld. 

That isn't to say that there's No Funny at all -- there were plenty of one-liners and slightly-longer-than-one-liners:

The MAWk-15H virus has once again resurfaced in Dickens, particularly in the death of Little Nell, which is now so uncomfortably saccharine that even our own dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell complained.

...there just seemed to be far less than in the past.

His other strength is in his ideas.  But while I think that he has great ideas (the Danverclones were inspired (though they didn't get much play), I especially like how the BookWorld works, with its red-tape and politics, and I love-loved the idea of conflict between genres), I enjoy thinking about the ideas much more than actually reading the books.

I'm thinking this might be the last one for me.  Because as much as I like the ideas behind the books, I don't really enjoy reading them.  Sad.

Just found out about this.

Artemis Fowl -- The Graphic Novel.

I'm not an Artemis Fowl fan, but I imagine that it might translate really well to that format.

City of Ember: the movie.

Looks like they're changing the plot pretty significantly:

Plot Synopsis: When the planet's atmosphere grows too toxic, Earth's citizens move to underground cities. Two teenagers dominate the story, one who longs to be a messenger because the job will allow her to venture above ground, while the other dreams of working underground to repair a generator whose failure will doom the city's power supply.

So... Who is Bill Murray going to play?  Will he wear a fat suit to be the mayor?  That could be fun.

I have a new BFF.

But he doesn't know it, so I'm making a general announcement.

Brandon Sanderson, we are officially friends.

I'm guessing that you're wondering why.

It was this bit from Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians:

"Don't worry, my Oculator friend!" Charles called.  "We gave them a little extra kick!  We had Douglas eat the science fiction section!"

"Well," admitted Douglas the T. Rex, "I only ate the 'C' section.  Honestly -- claiming that Velociraptors were the smartest dinosaurs?  I knew a Velociraptor in college, and he failed chemistry.  Plus, resurrecting a character just because he didn't die in the movie?  Poppycock, I say!"

Rock.  On.  I've been irritated by that ever since the stupid book came out.  Glad to know I have a kindred spirit.

The 48HBC continues, and I'm decidedly punchy.

Hidden Talents -- David Lubar

Martin Anderson has been kicked out of every school he's ever attended, and he's just arrived at the end of the line:  Edgeview Alternative.  It's his last stop.  Get expelled from Edgeview, and there's nowhere left to go.

It isn't so much that Martin is a BAD kid -- he doesn't start fires, like his new roommate Torchie, or cheat on every single test, quiz & homework assignment like Cheater, or constantly throw things for no apparent reason like Trash...  Martin just has a tendency to mouth off a little, as he explains to Torchie:

"I'm here because I seem to have a bit of a problem respecting authority.  That's how they put it.  Well, that's how the polite ones put it.  I've also been called a major pain in the butt, a disturbing influence, a smart mouth, and a snotty-nosed little puke, among other things."  I didn't bother adding some of Dad's more colorful phrases.

Of course, every school has an obligatory psychotic jackass*.  Bloodbath is Edgeview's:

Bloodbath, passing by in the other direction, glanced back and grinned.  I guess the punch was his way of saying hello.  It would have been nice to return the greeting with a baseball bat, but there didn't seem to be one handy.   I waited until he was out of sight before I rubbed the sore spot.

But, you say, what does any of that have to do with the title?  Why is this book called Hidden Talents? 

Okay, so the jacket flap gives it away.  But as it doesn't overtly factor into the story until about halfway through the book, I don't want to just come out and say it.  Here's a big clue, though:  All of Martin's new friends -- Torchie, Cheater and the rest -- have consistently denied ANY wrongdoing.

Roll that one around in your brain for a while**.

At the end of each chapter, other documents are included -- a copy of a teacher's memo, a student's assignment, a letter, a transcript of a conversation, and a few times, a hilariously bad poem:

A single grain of mighty sand,
I hold it lovingly in my hand.
Gentle orb, so small and simple.
A single grain, oh wondrous sand
Who came, perhaps from a foreign land
A speck no bigger than a pimple.

I love David Lubar, even though I haven't read nearly enough of his books.  Everything that I have read has ranged from enjoyable to just plain excellent.  This one is lots of fun, not too dark or deep -- a solid pick for a reluctant reader. 

Spoiler-laden minor nitpicky whiny complaint in the comments.

Regardless of my minor nitpicky whiny complaint, I'll be reading the sequel, True Talents, as soon as I get my hands on it.

*Thank you, Veronica Mars.  I love that line.

**Yeah, okay.  It really isn't that difficult.  The title alone did it for me.  But I still didn't want to be HORRIBLY spoileriffic.  If you still haven't figured it out, though, here's another clue:  As a pre-teen, I was a huge, huge fan of The Girl With the Silver Eyes.

Zombies Rule! Unicorns, bah.

Zombies vs. Unicorns.

Okay, I admit it.  Mostly I'm anti-unicorn because of my anti-horse thing.  (You know, because horse stories usually make me cry.)  Zombies make me giggle.  And not just in Shaun of the Dead.

(via Cecil Castellucci, who will be receiving the very next Cult of Castellucci shirt that I make -- free of charge, obvs.)

Rash -- Pete Hautman

It's the mid-2070s, and the United States has changed.  It's not the USA anymore, for one thing.  It's the USSA -- United Safer States of America.  People are encouraged to wear helmets when they walk, beer is illegal, and football was banned for being too dangerous.  The Child Safety Act of 2033 made protective gear mandatory in the school sports.  And we're not just talking mouth guards in field hockey.  Here's what students of the time wear to run the 100-meter dash:

... AtherSafe shoes with lateral ankle support and four layers of memory gel in the thick soles, knee pads, elbow pads, and a FDHHSS*-certified sports helmet.  We raced on an Adzorbium track with its five centimeters of compacted gel-foam topped by a thick sheet of artificial latex.  It's like running on a sponge.

Jail has been abolished.  When people break the law, they are sent to work camps.  Almost a quarter of the adult population is serving time -- not surprising, as breaking the law is not very difficult:

"Littering is only a class-four misdemeanor--you don't get sent up for that."

"Mr. Stoltz did."

"That was for assault.  Melody Hynes got hurt."

"But all he did, really, was litter.  He dropped an apricot when he was unloading groceries from his suv."

"Yeah, then Melody slipped on it and got a concussion."

"She should have been wearing her helmet.  My point is, Bo, all the man did was drop an apricot and they sent him away for a whole year.  A year of hard labor on a prison farm.  For dropping an apricot!"

"But if he hadn't dropped it, Melody wouldn't have gotten bonked," I said.  Sometimes my grandfather could be kind of dense.

The men in Bo Marsten's family tend to be quick-tempered (his father is serving time for road rage and his older brother for getting into a fight) and Bo is no exception.  Though the Levulor he takes usually prevents violent outbreaks -- it slows his anger reflex (and, in an unfortunate side effect, every other reflex) by a tenth of a second -- but he occasionally "forgets" to take it.

Given his family history, it's not real surprise when sixteen-year-old Bo is sentenced to serve three years for a plethora of violations.  (Verbal assault, physical assault -- well, he tried to punch someone -- and causing the outbreak of an itchy rash at his school.**)  He is send to Canada (which was annexed to the USSA in 2055) to work in a gourmet pizza factory.

This arm of McDonald's Rehabilitation and Manufacturing Corporation is a terrifying place, full of sharp corners, non-padded clothing, and people who have no qualms about verbally assaulting (not to mention physically assaulting) others.  The factory is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a tall fence, beyond which are ravenous, man-eating polar bears.  The warden runs an illegal football team. 

If the team wins the Tundra Bowl, they will all be treated to early release.  If they lose, they'll be Polar Bear Chow.

AWESOME.  It's a sports story, a futuristic dystopia story, a juvie camp story and a story that mocks consumer culture.  It explores Big Ideas, about government and free will and safety vs. freedom, but without ever feeling like a Frying Pan***, and without ever feeling heavy.  It's rare for a book to be both thoughtful and thrilling.

Highly recommended.  I'm planning on trying it out on older fans of Holes, as well as teens into Uglies and So Yesterday, Feed and Jennifer Government.  Also fans of thoughtful sports stories -- I think there are a lot of Chris Crutcher fans who will enjoy it.

*Federal Department of Homeland Health, Safety and Security.  Also, that description totally made me want to re-read Harrison Bergeron.

**Good thing that Those In Charge don't know about the possibly-sentient AI entity that he (oops) accidentally created.  He could get twenty years for that, easy.

***Frying Pan Message Books:  Books that are so message-driven to such an extent that you feel you are being battered with a Message-Laden Frying Pan.  Duh.

Preliminary Nebula Ballots.

I've only read one of the nominated novels.  I'm going to root for it anyway, though, because IT WAS AWESOME.

Note that all of the books nominated for the Andre Norton Award are from Team Larbalestier/Westerfeld!  Rock on.

(Link)

Silent Echoes -- Carla Jablonski

It seems that Spiritualism is IN.  Fine by me.

1880s. New York City.  Backed by her confidence-man father, Lucy Phillips is posing as a medium, hoping to make some money off of the rich and gullible.

Imagine her surprise when she actually hears a disembodied voice.  One that begs for her help.

Present day.  New York City.  Lindsay Miller cowers in her closet, hiding from her drunk mother and her new (also drunk and (hey, bonus!) violent) stepfather. 

Imagine her surprise when she hears someone answer her.

In Lucy's time, hearing voices leads her to fame and fortune, but keeps her from being accepted into high society.  In Lindsay's, it leads to assumed madness and the psych ward at the hospital.  Can the girls find a way to help each other?

Okay.  I was torn about this one.  I loved the fun little factoids about the nineteenth century -- there was even a bit about the Oneida cult -- and I thoroughly enjoyed the sections about Lucy. 

Except for the hospital scenes, though, the Lindsay sections didn't really do it for me.  They seemed stilted and forced.  Not always, but more often than not.  At times, the dialogue between Lindsay and Lucy did too, but that I could live with -- it made sense that their dialogue would be a little off, what with the differences in language and general weirdness of the situation.

Possible spoilers ahead.

The other thing that bothered me is TOTALLY my own problem.  But me being me, I'm going to mention it anyway.  Talking across time, no problem.  I can buy that.  But sending objects back and forth in time behind an icebox that hadn't been moved once in the years separating Lucy and Lindsay...  it was just too much.  My suspension of disbelief only goes so far.  Like I said, though.  That isn't the book's fault.  I blame my own lack of imagination.  But also.  When Lindsay ran away from the hospital, wouldn't someone have traced her ATM card or blocked it or something?  Or do I watch way too much Veronica Mars?

Anyhoo.  Give it a try on non-ultra-picky fans of the Libba Bray books. 

Midnighters, Vol. One: The Secret Hour -- Scott Westerfeld

As a Scott Westerfeld fan, I'm not sure how I've managed to NOT read this series yet.  Odd.

There aren't twenty-four hours in a day.  There are actually twenty-five.  For most of us, the extra hour passes in an instant.  The secret time belongs to dark shadows, creepy-crawlies and the Midnighters.

The Midnighters are the very few people who experience that extra hour in real time -- and they prefer it to the other twenty-four hours a day.  And who wouldn't?  In the secret hour, they have superpower-like talents.

Although the dark creatures -- slithers and darklings -- can certainly be dangerous, the Midnighters have never had real problems outrunning or avoiding them. 

Everything changes when Jessica Day -- a new, seemingly talentless Midnighter -- moves to town.  Within days, the slither population has skyrocketed.  They've also become much more violent -- and Jessica Day is their primary target.

It's got suspense.  It's got romance.  It's got family drama.  It's got monsters and secrets and superpowers and mysteries and infighting and battles and lots and lots of tridecalogisms.  It's heavy on the action, reads very fast and has short chapters, so it'd be worth giving it to reluctant readers, despite its length.  I'd also try it on Darren Shan fans and teens who gravitate towards sci-fi/fantasy series fiction.  It might be a stretch, but I'm also going to try it on an older Diane Duane fan.