strange and random happenstance

There Should Have Been Eight by Nalini Singh
Published by: Berkley Books
Publication Date: November 21st, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 416 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh, a remote estate in New Zealand's Southern Alps hosts a reunion no one will ever forget.

Seven friends.
One last weekend.
A mansion half in ruins.
No room for lies.
Someone is going to confess.
Because there should have been eight....

They met when they were teenagers. Now they're adults, and time has been kind to some and unkind to others - none more so than to Bea, the one they lost nine long years ago.

They've gathered to reminisce at Bea's family's estate, a once-glorious mansion straight out of a Gothic novel. Best friends, old flames, secret enemies, and new lovers are all under one roof. But when the weather turns and they're snowed in at the edge of eternity, there's nowhere left to hide from their shared history.

As the walls close in, the pretense of normality gives way to long-buried grief, bitterness, and rage. Underneath it all, there's the nagging feeling that Bea's shocking death wasn't what it was claimed to be. And before the weekend is through, the truth will be unleashed - no matter the cost...."

Yes yes, this is my jam.

Saevus Corax Captures the Castle by K.J. Parker
Published by: Orbit
Publication Date: November 21st, 2023
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From one of the most original voices in fantasy comes a heroic tale of honor, friendship, and battlefield salvage.

It's important to look after your crew when you're in the battlefield salvage business. It's stressful work at the best of times, and although your employees are unlikely to be happy it makes sense to keep them alive.

So when Saevus Corax finds himself having to capture a castle to stop his men from being killed, he has no choice but to give it a try. Needless to say, the conventional rules of siegecraft are unlikely to be followed."

A little Monty Python, a little Terry Pratchett, I'm here for all these vibes. 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Gothic, K.J. Parker, Monty Python, Murder, Nalini Singh, New Zealand, Saevus Corax Captures the Castle, Terry Pratchett, There Should Have Been Eight

Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: April 12th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

In one of the most secure places in London a man loses his heart by an invisible assailant. The London Silver Vaults rarely has anyone stupid enough to attempt a robbery, and yet that's just what David Moore more tried to do, and failed, when a giant hole appeared where his heart should have been. This case has Falcon written all over it, those "special" cases that the Folly comes in to handle. The victim was looking for a ring that his ex-wife supposedly sold. A ring that he desperately wanted back. A ring that his ex-wife was still in possession of. When Peter Grant and Danni Wickford, who's on the Basic Falcon Management Course, show up at her house to say Althea Moore is channeling Gollum would be an understatement. The ring is unique, it can expand to form an armillary sphere and has writing inside from more languages than they can recognize. Soon though that ring is stolen. When they stumble on another dead body with the same cause of death as David Moore, they start to form a picture of what's going on. Years ago up in Manchester, a man named Preston Carmichael, AKA the second body, ran a prayer group that David Moore was a part of. There were seven members of the group in total, seven rings for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone. And these rings were magical. They were also misfiled at a local library instead of with the Sons of Weyland, the magical blacksmiths whom Nightingale learned from. Which is how they got into the hands of the public. Obviously something magical happened at one of these meetings and since then the bearers of the rings have become overly attached to them. It is when they are questioning one of the other members of the group that Peter has to fight off what he is quite sure is the Angel of Death. Now is not the time for him to die, Bev is about to give birth to twins any day now and he's not going to leave his daughters fatherless. Plus the Folly hasn't really ever come across "angels." And anyhow what would an angel want with rings? Whatever it is there are obvious religious connotations, it's just figuring them out before another person dies, another person that hopefully isn't Peter, that is going to be tricky.

There are very few authors whose sense of humor is perfectly aligned with mine. Ben Aaronovitch happens to be one such author. I honed my humor at the feet of Monty Python. I watched the entire series and then rewatched it while bootlegging it. I know bits off completely by heart, enough to retroactively know that my friends in eighth grade really biffed up the "Dead Parrot" sketch for our talent show that year. Needless to say I, like many, especially the writers of the film Sliding Doors, have a strong reverence for "The Spanish Inquisition" sketches. So when I saw that the title of the next Rivers of London book was Amongst Our Weapons I instantly hoped beyond hope that it was in reference to said sketch. Needless to say, it was. Aaronovitch hasn't let me down yet. But what's more it's used as a structure for the book as well, creating a flow not seen since Whispers Under Ground. Plus, it's not just a a humorous veneer, though I did snort laugh when DCI Seawoll uttered a certain profanity before declaring he "wasn't expecting them," Aaronovitch has worked the Spanish Inquisition into the plot of the book making the reference so important and tying it into the ever expanding magical world. One of the reasons that "The Spanish Inquisition" sketches resonate with me is because I had eight years of Catholic school. Needless to say eight years made me pretty convinced that there isn't a God and there had to be something else that people got out of going to church. Whether it was a sense of community or safety or patronage, I felt that there was something other than God that had to be why thinking people kept going back. I am not alone in thinking this way, and one person who has spent quite a considerable about of time on it is Professor Harold Postmartin D.Phil, F.R.S. As the Folly's literary liaison he is convinced that mass is actually magic. A form of magic that allows one practitioner, the preacher, to use the gathering of the congregants to work a spell. Thus giving Postmartin some tangible reason as to why the congregants would believe, because they got something out of it despite having no magical ability themselves. And I buy this theory, but the more I learn about this world Aaronovitch has created the more I need to know. The Catholic Church might have their own version of the Folly!?! And there are just so many different magical traditions all over not just Britain, but the world. This series could be hundreds of books and it would never be enough. More!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Amongst Our Weapons, Ben Aaronovitch, Beverly Brook, Catholic, London Calling, Magic, Monty Python, Peter Grant, Professor Postmartin, Religion, Rivers of London, The Spanish Inquisition, Whispers Under Ground

If there's one thing that is certain in this life it's that we viewers love a good glimpse into royal life. And seeing as until recently Queen Victoria was the longest reigning monarch it makes sense that she's the one most often brought to the screen, especially in cameos in any film set during the Victorian era. In fact many of my favorite actresses, and a handful of actors, have portrayed Victoria in their time, Annette Crosbie, Miriam Margolyes, Anna Massey, Victoria Hamilton, Prunella Scales, Pauline Collins, Pam Ferris, Gayle Rankin, Imelda Staunton, Kathy Bates, and Gemma Jones are a few of my favorites, though a tip of the hat to certain members of Monty Python's Flying Circus is also due. You might notice I omitted Emily Blunt and The Young Victoria. I know it feels sacrilegious to say I don't like something written by Julian Fellowes, but the movie just felt like a subpar version of the Victoria and Albert miniseries staring Victoria Hamilton and the lesser Firth. Needles to say this meant I was very excited when I heard about the new Victoria series staring Jenna Coleman. She's a talented actress and they just destroyed her character on Doctor Who and I felt that this would be her redemption. Also the show just happened to be created by an author whose work I really like, Daisy Goodwin! Seriously, do yourself a favor and check out The American Heiress! In interviews prior to the show's release she talked about reading Victoria's diaries and really realizing what it would mean to elevate a teenager to absolute ruler. It's actually rather intimidating and scary giving someone that young that much power, but luckily there are advisors... in other words, there is Lord Melbourne. Lord M as portrayed by Rufus Sewell captured the hearts of everyone. Historical accuracy be damned! Lord M and Victoria forever! Who is this Albert person anyway? In fact that ravenous cult of Lord M and our lingering love for him makes every other series of this show pale in comparison. Season one had Lord M and Rufus, therefore season one is the best. Period.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Daisy Goodwin, Doctor Who, Fifty Years a Masterpiece, Jenna Coleman, Julian Fellowes, Lord M, Monty Python, Rufus Sewell, Teenager, The American Heiress, The Young Victoria, Victoria, Victorian, Victorian Hamilton

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Published by: Max Press
Publication Date: 1811
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Elinor is pragmatic about the death of their father. They have lost their home and they will find a new one and carry on. Her younger sister Marianne has opted for another approach, misery exponentially increased by any dear memory of her father and the beloved house they all shared. Their mother is perfectly happy wallowing with Marianne while watching her step-son and his odious wife Fanny destroy Norland Park, that is until that odious Fanny insinuates that Elinor isn't good enough for her brother Edward and Mrs. Dashwood can not remove them fast enough from Norland Park. Thanks to kind relations they are able to leave the odious behind and settle at Barton Cottage, part of Barton Park were Mrs. Dashwood's cousin Sir John Middleton resides. There they have a new social circle of relatives and friends and Marianne is drawn to one in particular, Willoughby. Willoughy is the same in all her sensibilities and they are soon as thick as thieves and their engagement is expected to be announced daily, much to Colonel Brandon's dismay. Yet the announcement never comes and Willoughby takes off to London and they hear no more from him. So when Sir John's mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, invites the two girls to accompany her to London Marianne jumps at the chance. But London will be a proving ground for the young girls hearts. Will either of them find a happily ever after or are their hearts destined to be forever broken by their first loves?

It seems odd to me that in a high school that actually had a good English department where I read many classics I never read any Jane Austen. By the friends I made through various bizarre and arcane clubs I was introduced to her via the Colin Firth miniseries in February of my senior year. This was on my level, being more into films than books at the tender age of seventeen, it was the perfect bridge from one art form to another. At that time I was adamant that I wasn't going to college in the fall, and I in fact didn't, but that doesn't mean I was averse to learning and reading and I took it upon myself that summer to acquaint myself with the classics, many of which had been made into films starring Emma Thompson. She was a powerful bridge to Austen and also to Forster, though the most powerful of all was anything to do with Monty Python. The summer of 1996 was spent on my side porch reading classics I never thought I would ever pick up. Though it was to Austen I felt the most visceral a connection. Sense and Sensibility was the first book of hers that I read and I remember towards the end reading it in my bedroom because of the copious sobbing that accompanied my reading. When Edward arrived at Barton cottage to declare his freedom and his desire to marry Elinor, I just sat in my window sobbing. I never knew a book could do this to me. I was forever converted to Austen and through her I found the love of classics that my family always wished for me.

Do to what is happening in my life at the moment I've been feeling old. Which might account for why I noticed the characters ages so much on this reading of Sense and Sensibility. When I first read this book I was the same age as Marianne is for most of the story so I could feel a kinship with her and totally identify to being that age, even if I like to think of myself more as Elinor. As I've grown older I've still felt that kinship, that connection, but never internalized the ages of the characters as a did on that first reading. Marianne and Elinor are young, Colonel Brandon and Mrs. Dashwood are old. Or so I've always thought. For the first time ever I noticed their ages. The flannel waistcoat wearing Colonel is 35 and Mrs. Dashwood is about 40. Which gave me an "oh dear" moment. I am OLDER than Colonel Brandon who was thought too old for love and closing in fast on Mrs. Dashwood. Yes, I could say that obviously people married younger in Regency times because the life expectancy was shorter, but I literally have friends I went to high school with with kids in college. If my life had taken an entirely different and unexpected route I am old enough to have an Elinor and Marianne and Margaret of my own! So needless to say I felt myself on this realization seeing things more from the "elderly" point of view. Oh, Colonel Brandon, you are a youngin...

Comparing Sense and Sensibility to Austen's other work is interesting in that despite having a plethora of female characters to root for she usually has one heroine, an Emma or a Lizzy, yet here she has two. Given that one is so reserved and the other so melodramatic it's as if she's split her heroine in half. Yes, we could analyze that her book originally necessitated two leads because it was written in epistolary fashion before being dramatically changed in the edits, but I think it's more fascinating to look at this in the classical sense, as in Plato's Symposium. Mary Shelley was strongly influenced by Aristophanes' myth of primal man being cut in two necessitating two beings that need each other because they originally were one when writing Frankenstein. Who's to say that Austen wasn't as well. Some reviewers note that as the book progresses Austen isn't sure which personality aspect she wants to win the day. Should Elinor and her logic or Marianne and her emotion get the HEA? I don't see this. I think that while yes, Elinor's ending might be more satisfying, they both get the endings that Austen intended all along. But what's more important is that each learns valuable lessons from the other, who they need. Marianne needs some of Elinor's grounding, while Elinor needs to not bury her emotions so deep. If they were one we'd have the perfect heroine. But perfect heroines are overrated, I need mine with some flaws so I can root for them.

But just having people to root for isn't nearly as fun as having someone to root against. Lucy Steele is that person. What's interesting is that each time I read this book I get a different take on Lucy. Obviously you can't NOT hate her, she's keeping Elinor and Edward from their HEA. But there's so many different faces to Lucy, the fake friend, the gold digger, the manipulator. She's ambitious and jealous and won't take no for an answer. I mean just the way she controls Elinor with her confession of her secret attachment to Edward! Gaw, she should die for that. Oh, let me destroy all your faith in the man you love AND make you suffer in silence because you're such a good person you'd never tell another soul! And then as a parting blow, let her think I married Edward and not his brother, ta! Yet for all that one thing that Edward and Elinor always remarked on didn't seem that much of an issue to me, and that is Lucy's lack of an education. Yes, it meant she was limited, but it wasn't until this reading that I really caught how stupid she is. Her speech is grammatically incorrect and her overuse of the word "was" is just annoying and wrong. I think the reason this had never struck me before is that if you haven't read Austen, well, it's kind of like Shakespeare in that you have to get into the groove of the writing style. So obviously when I first read it I wouldn't have picked up on it. All the other readings, well, I wasn't the grammar Nazi I am now. So this time? Oh Lucy, I hate you for a whole slew of new reasons.

Yet the character that I hate the most is Willoughby. And this is a hate that has grown over time. I remember when I first saw Emma Thompson's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility I felt cheated that she didn't keep the scene where he "redeems" himself. He really wasn't that bad in my mind. Now I can see why she didn't, he doesn't deserve ANY redemption. The reason is all in his seduction of Eliza. Reading this book for the first time at 17 an unwanted pregnancy didn't seem that horrific. In fact, they were kind of popularized by movies like For Keeps? Interesting fact, it was filmed here in Madison, Wisconsin. OK, Molly Ringwald and her ironically Darcy named heroine aside, I just didn't think it was a big deal having a baby. Because I didn't understand Regency England. Colonel Brandon's ward having a baby out of wedlock is the worst thing that could happen to any woman. To be seduced and left with a parting gift that would arrive nine months later is the most vile thing I man can do, especially to a well bred woman, and even more especially when he could have just paid a prostitute. It was the game of destroying her that made if more fun, no matter what he said after the fact about her TOTALLY having his address, because he could have made it right! Once discovered by his benefactress he could have married Eliza and made everything right in the world. Instead he marries an heiress and regrets not marrying Marianne and never gives another thought to Eliza. He deserves NO FORGIVENESS! NONE AT ALL! If this book has one flaw it's that Austen feels a little bad for him. She wrote him that way, she can't now apologize for it!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aging, Bicentenary Ball, Colin Firth, E.M. Forster, Emma Thompson, Frankenstein, Heroine, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Molly Ringwald, Monty Python, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Willoughby

Austenland
Based on the book by Shannon Hale
Release Date: August 16th, 2013
Starring: Keri Russell, J.J. Feild, Bret McKenzie, James Callis, Jennifer Coolidge, Georgia King, Ricky Whittle, Rupert Vansittart and Jane Seymour
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Jane Hayes has had it with her modern life of lewd men who lack manners. She wants to go back to the time of her favorite author, Jane Austen. Luckily for her, if not her bank account, there's Austenland, which caters to those who have a similar inclination, one might say fervor. She puts all her money on this last ditch attempt to find some happiness, or, as her friend Molly says, as a way to cure her of her obsession once and for all. She is greeted by the discovery that all her savings only bought her the copper package and her fellow female guests are given better rooms, better clothes, and better options. Jane becomes Miss Erstwhile and is soon turning away from the cold glances of Mr. Nobly and the other men whom are assigned to others and is cavorting with the servants, mainly the rather easy on the eyes Martin, who also has a taste in easy listening music. But Jane realizes that this "relationship" with Martin is just another way to step away from her life and she makes a decision. Austenland will cure her of happily ever afters and she is going to take control of her narrative. She decides that before she leaves she will become "engaged" to the man of her dreams, her own assigned Mr. Darcy, and move on. But what if her Mr. Darcy wasn't acting? What if she has bewitched Mr. Nobly and instead of a drastic cure she could come away from Austenland with her very own happily ever after?

If given half a chance I don't think there's any Janeite out there who wouldn't jump at the chance to vacation in the world of her novels. It's like Westworld but with parasols instead of pistols, unless you're watching the season seven Austen inspired episode of Red Dwarf "Beyond a Joke" and then it's both! Yet despite my love of Shannon Hale when I first read her book from which this movie is adapted I wasn't in love. Austenland was all right book wrong time and it just rubbed me the wrong way. I was like a dissatisfied cat. The joy at finding the book on my local Barnes and Noble shelves days before it's release was quickly overshadowed by my feelings after devouring it in one sitting. Like bad food it left an aftertaste I couldn't shake. I had been waiting so long for the book that I had certain expectations that couldn't possibly have been met and my dislike was almost a foregone conclusion. Luckily I was nudged into re-reading Austenland due to a well placed recommendation and the fact that a sequel was looming on the horizon. So I eventually embraced both Austenland and it's sequel Midnight in Austenland for what they were, chick lit that was subtly thumbing their noses at the Jane Austen Mafia, aka JASNA (an organization whom I have no doubt Jane wouldn't have just hated but is peopled by those she would have mercilessly parodied.)

With this new-found appreciation you can imagine that the announcement of a film adaptation was a pleasant surprise. Then when James Callis was announced, well, I started actually counting down the days to filming, then post production, then release. Once J.J. Feild was announced, I knew I was a goner. Ah J.J., you made me come to love Northanger Abbey. You and you alone! OK, the fact it's an awesome book making fun of the Gothic Genre is very important, but don't tell Jane it was really you. With each cast announcement and my mounting excitement you'd think that I was once again raising my expectations to have them shattered but that wasn't the case here! Austenland lived up to and exceeded my expectations. This movie is near perfection, but more than that it celebrates all that is Jane and is one of the funniest love letters to her you'll ever see. If Clueless and Bridget Jones's Diary had a baby who was then handed off to Monty Python for their education you'd arrive at Austenland. Even years later I can honestly say it's one of the funniest films I've ever seen and that first viewing in the theater was the hardest I'd laughed in a long time. The entire script is a goldmine of hilarious and memorable quotes. But it's not just the dialogue! The physical comedy, the subtle expressions of the actors, the sets, little things happening in every frame in the foreground and background that make repeat viewing not just a treat but a necessity to grasp the totality of not just James Callis and his constant murmurs, but of the love and talent that went into this production.

Let me break it down for you as to why this movie is just full of win. The perfect casting. Keri Russell is able to not only be the perfect surrogate, for me, the Austen loving audience member, but the chemistry with both the male leads makes for a believable and funny love triangle. Also, can we say genius casting with Bret 'Flight of the Conchords' McKenzie? But if it wasn't for the fact that every character was cast perfectly and every actor and actress seemed to be having so much fun, the three leads would not have been able to sustain the film. Then there's in-jokes of calling Bret a Hobbit reject, when everyone knows he's in ALL of The Lord of the Rings films, and Keri having hair Felicity hair in the opening flashback! As for Jennifer Coolidge, she is beyond charming, she is divine. In fact it's my firm belief that only she could be Miss Charming, and I have a sneaking suspicion that even in writing the book Shannon Hale was picturing her. And James Callis, what can I say, but I've always admired you, Bridget Jones, Battlestar, you made me want "evil" to win... you have some serious comedic talents, so while I love you in period pieces, do more movies like this! In fact, why aren't there more movies like this? With Georgia King skipping out of rooms or Ricky Whittle finding yet another way to strip off his clothing? But I must say, the casting of Mr. Wattlesbrook was by far the best. Because Mr. Wattlesbrook, aka Rupert Vansittart, aka Fatty Fat Buckle, is none other then Mr. Hurst from the 1995 Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice! Say what? Yes, he has cornered the market on laying about in unattractive positions proudly displaying his paunch.

Yet Mr. Wattlesbrook is also the one flaw of the film. The thing is he's a little to rapey. He's always drunk and more then handsy. He attempts to force himself on Jane thinking she's a little more lax in her morals due predominately to her piano performance and cavorting with the "staff." This is also an apparently recurring problem from what Colonel Andrews says. Yet nothing has been done about it!?! This is a thorn in the side of the movie. Why have this creepy aspect? You could say it's to get the two men to fight over Jane at the airport and to have her doubt Mr. Nobley's intentions when he shows up at her door, but I'm sure that all the people behind this clever production could have thought of a way around this. Because as it stands it trivializes a predator and for a film that is produced, written, and directed by women by not focusing on the danger this man poses it condones rape culture. Which, when you think more about it is so odd because Austenland is about female wish fulfillment, with all the men being beefcakes verging on male prostitutes, and yet there's a snake in the garden with Mr. Wattlesbrook. If there was some dire need to keep him in the narrative maybe make him a lesson in what life was like? A throwback to the times when men used their droit de seigneur? Because as it is if this aspect of him would somehow just disappear this could easily be up there with Clue and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Bridget Jones's Diary as one of my favorite films ever. I mean, as is it's so close. It's just the width of Mr. Wattlesbrook away... 

But what I found most interesting in this re-watching of Austenland was that until I was swept away by the happily ever after I found myself thinking how happy I would be just to be there in the clothes, staying in that house, and just pretending I was in Regency England. That would literally be enough for me. I don't need overly muscled men and fake fantasies, I just need the historical element. It's a lesser wish fulfillment, but a far more realistic one. In fact I'd say the stages of Jane Austen wish fulfillment would be reading all the books, then seeing all the movies, then visiting all the sights, then dressing up in costume, then finding your own Mr. Darcy would be the ultimate stage that I think many of us are grounded enough in reality to know that that is not very likely to happen. But when Jane is complaining to her friend Molly about how she thought it would be different... I think the non-deluded fan would say that Jane is getting just what they want. Which makes it interesting when Jane decides to view the whole experience as immersion therapy to get over her obsession. Yes, perhaps she did take it a little too far with the wooden letters over her bed, but what's wrong with some teacups? And I truly think a cut-out of Colin Firth could provide some much needed support in case of a burglary. I think anyone would think twice seeing his manly silhouette in a dark apartment. What all this comes down to is why hasn't someone made Austenland a real thing and how soon can I go? As you can see I, unlike some, have realistic expectations, I don't need a proposal at the ball! Though J.J. Feild would be nice...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Austenland, Bicentenary Ball, Bridget Jones's Diary, Clue, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, J.J. Feild, Jane Austen, Keri Russell, Monty Python, Pride and Prejudice, Rape, Red Dwarf, Rupert Vansittart, Shannon Hale

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Published by: Max Press
Publication Date: 1811
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Elinor is pragmatic about the death of their father. They have lost their home and they will find a new one and carry on. Her younger sister Marianne has opted for another approach, misery exponentially increased by any dear memory of her father and the beloved house they all shared. Their mother is perfectly happy wallowing with Marianne while watching her step-son and his odious wife Fanny destroy Norland Park, that is until that odious Fanny insinuates that Elinor isn't good enough for her brother Edward and Mrs. Dashwood can not remove them fast enough from Norland Park. Thanks to kind relations they are able to leave the odious behind and settle at Barton Cottage, part of Barton Park were Mrs. Dashwood's cousin Sir John Middleton resides. There they have a new social circle of relatives and friends and Marianne is drawn to one in particular, Willoughby. Willoughy is the same in all her sensibilities and they are soon as thick as thieves and their engagement is expected to be announced daily, much to Colonel Brandon's dismay. Yet the announcement never comes and Willoughby takes off to London and they hear no more from him. So when Sir John's mother-in-law, Mrs. Jennings, invites the two girls to accompany her to London Marianne jumps at the chance. But London will be a proving ground for the young girls hearts. Will either of them find a happily ever after or are their hearts destined to be forever broken by their first loves?

It seems odd to me that in a high school that actually had a good English department where I read many classics I never read any Jane Austen. By the friends I made through various bizarre and arcane clubs I was introduced to her via the Colin Firth miniseries in February of my senior year. This was on my level, being more into films than books at the tender age of seventeen, it was the perfect bridge from one art form to another. At that time I was adamant that I wasn't going to college in the fall, and I in fact didn't, but that doesn't mean I was averse to learning and reading and I took it upon myself that summer to acquaint myself with the classics, many of which had been made into films starring Emma Thompson. She was a powerful bridge to Austen and also to Forster, though the most powerful of all was anything to do with Monty Python. The summer of 1996 was spent on my side porch reading classics I never thought I would ever pick up. Though it was to Austen I felt the most visceral a connection. Sense and Sensibility was the first book of hers that I read and I remember towards the end reading it in my bedroom because of the copious sobbing that accompanied my reading. When Edward arrived at Barton cottage to declare his freedom and his desire to marry Elinor, I just sat in my window sobbing. I never knew a book could do this to me. I was forever converted to Austen and through her I found the love of classics that my family always wished for me.

Do to what is happening in my life at the moment I've been feeling old. Which might account for why I noticed the characters ages so much on this reading of Sense and Sensibility. When I first read this book I was the same age as Marianne is for most of the story so I could feel a kinship with her and totally identify to being that age, even if I like to think of myself more as Elinor. As I've grown older I've still felt that kinship, that connection, but never internalized the ages of the characters as a did on that first reading. Marianne and Elinor are young, Colonel Brandon and Mrs. Dashwood are old. Or so I've always thought. For the first time ever I noticed their ages. The flannel waistcoat wearing Colonel is 35 and Mrs. Dashwood is about 40. Which gave me an "oh dear" moment. I am OLDER than Colonel Brandon who was thought too old for love and closing in fast on Mrs. Dashwood. Yes, I could say that obviously people married younger in Regency times because the life expectancy was shorter, but I literally have friends I went to high school with with kids in college. If my life had taken an entirely different and unexpected route I am old enough to have an Elinor and Marianne and Margaret of my own! So needless to say I felt myself on this realization seeing things more from the "elderly" point of view. Oh, Colonel Brandon, you are a youngin...

Comparing Sense and Sensibility to Austen's other work is interesting in that despite having a plethora of female characters to root for she usually has one heroine, an Emma or a Lizzy, yet here she has two. Given that one is so reserved and the other so melodramatic it's as if she's split her heroine in half. Yes, we could analyze that her book originally necessitated two leads because it was written in epistolary fashion before being dramatically changed in the edits, but I think it's more fascinating to look at this in the classical sense, as in Plato's Symposium. Mary Shelley was strongly influenced by Aristophanes' myth of primal man being cut in two necessitating two beings that need each other because they originally were one when writing Frankenstein. Who's to say that Austen wasn't as well. Some reviewers note that as the book progresses Austen isn't sure which personality aspect she wants to win the day. Should Elinor and her logic or Marianne and her emotion get the HEA? I don't see this. I think that while yes, Elinor's ending might be more satisfying, they both get the endings that Austen intended all along. But what's more important is that each learns valuable lessons from the other, who they need. Marianne needs some of Elinor's grounding, while Elinor needs to not bury her emotions so deep. If they were one we'd have the perfect heroine. But perfect heroines are overrated, I need mine with some flaws so I can root for them.

But just having people to root for isn't nearly as fun as having someone to root against. Lucy Steele is that person. What's interesting is that each time I read this book I get a different take on Lucy. Obviously you can't NOT hate her, she's keeping Elinor and Edward from their HEA. But there's so many different faces to Lucy, the fake friend, the gold digger, the manipulator. She's ambitious and jealous and won't take no for an answer. I mean just the way she controls Elinor with her confession of her secret attachment to Edward! Gaw, she should die for that. Oh, let me destroy all your faith in the man you love AND make you suffer in silence because you're such a good person you'd never tell another soul! And then as a parting blow, let her think I married Edward and not his brother, ta! Yet for all that one thing that Edward and Elinor always remarked on didn't seem that much of an issue to me, and that is Lucy's lack of an education. Yes, it meant she was limited, but it wasn't until this reading that I really caught how stupid she is. Her speech is grammatically incorrect and her overuse of the word "was" is just annoying and wrong. I think the reason this had never struck me before is that if you haven't read Austen, well, it's kind of like Shakespeare in that you have to get into the groove of the writing style. So obviously when I first read it I wouldn't have picked up on it. All the other readings, well, I wasn't the grammar Nazi I am now. So this time? Oh Lucy, I hate you for a whole slew of new reasons.

Yet the character that I hate the most is Willoughby. And this is a hate that has grown over time. I remember when I first saw Emma Thompson's adaptation of Sense and Sensibility I felt cheated that she didn't keep the scene where he "redeems" himself. He really wasn't that bad in my mind. Now I can see why she didn't, he doesn't deserve ANY redemption. The reason is all in his seduction of Eliza. Reading this book for the first time at 17 an unwanted pregnancy didn't seem that horrific. In fact, they were kind of popularized by movies like For Keeps? Interesting fact, it was filmed here in Madison, Wisconsin. OK, Molly Ringwald and her ironically Darcy named heroine aside, I just didn't think it was a big deal having a baby. Because I didn't understand Regency England. Colonel Brandon's ward having a baby out of wedlock is the worst thing that could happen to any woman. To be seduced and left with a parting gift that would arrive nine months later is the most vile thing I man can do, especially to a well bred woman, and even more especially when he could have just paid a prostitute. It was the game of destroying her that made if more fun, no matter what he said after the fact about her TOTALLY having his address, because he could have made it right! Once discovered by his benefactress he could have married Eliza and made everything right in the world. Instead he marries an heiress and regrets not marrying Marianne and never gives another thought to Eliza. He deserves NO FORGIVENESS! NONE AT ALL! If this book has one flaw it's that Austen feels a little bad for him. She wrote him that way, she can't now apologize for it!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aging, Bicentenary Ball, Colin Firth, E.M. Forster, Emma Thompson, Frankenstein, Heroine, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Molly Ringwald, Monty Python, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Willoughby

The Pirates! In an Adventure with Ahab by Gideon Defoe
Published by: Pantheon
Publication Date: October 4th, 2005
Format: Hardcover, 160 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

After the main-mast falls over for the third time in a week the pirate with a scarf reluctantly and cautiously approaches the Pirate Captain about perhaps getting a new boat. After admitting to his number two that perhaps covering the holes in his quarters with dashing pictures of himself isn't the best way to keep a boat afloat, seeing as a stiff breeze could conceivably kill off half the pirate crew and the Pirate Captain himself has never bothered to learn to swim he agrees that they go to Nantucket and Cutlass Liz's boatyard. There they run into two interesting people. One is Ahab, a dour whaler who is searching the world for the great white whale who took his leg off with a big chomp, the other is the Pirate Captain's Nemesis, Black Bellamy. Black Bellamy eggs the Pirate Captain on to buying a boat, The Lovely Emma, which the crew can in no way afford. Desperate to quickly get the cash for fear of Cutlass Liz and her ways of dealing with those who don't pay the pirates go in search of treasure! When that fails they try gambling. When that fails they try putting on a Vegas show. When that fails the pirate in red suggests perhaps they try some piracy? When that fails they just might take up Ahab's quest, they keep running into him and he's now offering a reward equal to the cost of their new boat. But can the Pirate Captain and his crew really succeed where Ahab has failed? And if they do can they succeed before Cutlass Liz gets violent?

What seems like years ago now, probably because it was, I remember seeing a few of Gideon Defoe's Pirates! books at Half Price Books and thinking they looked rather fun. I promptly forgot about them because do you realize the number of books I look at on a daily basis? It's seriously staggering. But shortly thereafter Lauren Willig mentioned them in passing as being hilarious so this confluence of events led me to order the first two books, handily sold as one volume, and I put it on my bookshelf and promptly forgot about them again. Fast forward to 2012 and Aardman Animation has adapted the first book for the screen. David Tennant, Hugh Grant, Russell Tovey, no wait, not Russell Tovey in the US, grumble, grumble, but once again I thought of the books and again promptly forgot. For some reason all my encounters with Gideon Defoe's work was promptly forgotten until his third book, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists, was picked out of the hat for book club in 2016. Not being one to start in the middle of a series I picked up my copy of the first two books, promptly fell in love, ordered the next three books and plundered my way through them all.

The thing is, I've always had a soft spot for pirates. This started quite young with my parents reading Irene Haas's The Maggie B. to me. A young girl wishes for a boat to travel the world in with her little brother. I wanted a boat just like it for myself. A pirate ship in miniature with flora and fauna and the coziest rooms you could ever imagine that weathered all storms. As I grew up there were Lego pirate ships and Playmobil pirate ships that actually floated helmed by my Star Wars figures. There were hideouts down by the railway tracks and in my back yard with hammocks, just like on a real pirate ship. There were other books too like Peter Pan and The Princess Bride, and tons of movies from The Goonies to Muppet Treasure Island to Hook. Finally there was Pirates of the Caribbean, opening night at Point Cinema on the UltraScreen with my girlfriends. Some were there to see Johnny Depp, some to see Orlando Bloom, and some to see an anvil three stories tall. I was there for the pirates!

But these Pirates! by Gideon Defoe, they are a breed apart. They are the love children of Blackadder and the briny deep, with historical cameos thrown in just as much as historical accuracy is thrown out. With this lovability that makes you just want to take them home give them a big feast predominately of ham and tell them a good bedtime story before tucking them in for the night. Gideon Defoe's writing combines the wit and love of footnotes of Terry Pratchett with the absurdity of Monty Python. Yet it's so uniquely his own that while I can draw comparisons all day it will never do justice to a series of books that need to be read for their hats and their love of ham. And I'm not joking that once you start you won't be able to stop until you've read them all. From Darwin and Bobo, the "man-panzee," to Ahab and what hunting the great white whale does to the Pirate Captain's sanity, to Wagner trying to blacken the name of Communism, to beekeeping on St. Helena where Napoleon causes quite a ruckus, to Byron and the Pirate Captain forming a true bromance while the Pirate Captain tries to woo Mary Godwin away from Shelley, you will just pillage your way through Defoe's prose.

Yet what makes this series really unique is that, aside from them being kind of hopeless as pirates, is that the characters names aren't really names, instead being character descriptions. There's the Pirate Captain and his faithful number two, the pirate with a scarf, there's the pirate in green, the pirate with rickets, the albino pirate, Jennifer, and every one's least favorite pirate, the pirate in red. While this could be viewed as just a humorous joke at the readers expense, I mean, think how many times we as readers when faced with a new story with oodles of characters has picked up on a character trait to remember them all by? Instead I don't think it's about readers and the inability to remember names, instead I think it's a clever conceit. While yes, there is a bit of poking fun at stereotypes, I think it actually goes beyond this and is making the character archetypes. The Pirate Captain is THE DEFINITIVE pirate captain. He's the only one that matters, suck it Black Bellamy! Just like the pirate with a scarf is the perfect number two, and the pirate in red is the perfect red shirt for us to hate on. These are the lovable essence of all the pirates we wanted to sail the high seas with as a kid and therefore we gleefully go with them wherever that may be. Even if there might be ghosts. And we all know how scared pirates are of ghosts!

In fact I think that the film by Aardman Animation, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, is doing a disservice to the books. While these pirates are true characters by making them cartoonishly animated it has turned them into caricatures. This movie has lessened them. In the books they are larger than life fiendish friends, on the screen they are a kind of boring movie. Which is really odd when you consider that Gideon Defoe wrote the screenplay. When I think back to when I first saw the movie, it in no way made me want to rush out and read the books, which is such a shame. Think of all those people out in the world who are judging these books based on that movie? The movie has far more "presence" and it's overshadowing these lovely, sweet, and comical adventures. When reading the books I thought how much they reminded me of the TV series Galavant. There's an absurdity and a gallantry and a sense of humor that makes it similar to The Pirates! Plus done as live action, there's a basis in reality with having actors like the brilliant Timothy Omundson bring the characters to life. This humor works best with the dichotomy of the absurd versus the real. Which leads me into my next point, when is there going to be a live action movie with Timothy Omundson as the Pirate Captain?

As for why I chose to pick their adventure with Ahab as my favorite? Partly it's because I had yet to read them hanging out with the Romantics last year, but also it has to do with this balance of fantasy and reality that elevates the humor in these books. In taking The Pirates! and placing them in their natural setting you get to see how atrocious they actually are as pirates. The fact that when they desperately need money to pay for their new boat that actual piracy is their second to last resort shows where their priorities lie. They'd rather look at clouds and have feasts with ham. Again and again it's brought home how not at home they are on the sea. They know nothing about whales! As for mermaids... well, the Pirate Captain did date a rather attractive halibut for three months thinking the rather normal fish was something more... While Black Bellamy may be a successful pirate, he isn't that enjoyable a pirate to be around. He's too suave, too together. I actually like my pirates a little on the lost side. Perhaps that is the one thing that the movie got right? They are a band of misfits, and I love them so much for not conforming to any stereotype. They are archetypes and I love them!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ahab, Archetypes, Blackadder, Book Clubs, Galavant, Gideon Defoe, Irene Haas, Johnny Depp, Lauren Willig, Monty Python, Peter Pan, Pirates, The Maggie B., The Pirate Captain, The Pirates!, Timothy Omundson

Neverwhere is the beginning for me and Neil. An instance of just the right book at just the right time. In the fall of 2003 I was unceremoniously forced back into school. I say unceremoniously because back in May with full pomp and circumstance I had graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison only to find out a few months later that I was shy one class; my "ethnic requirement." Being adamant that I was fed up with all the different hoops I kept encountering I decided to take the course online and spent that fall reading many books from Southeast Asia. And then I spent January and February reading even more books from Southeast Asia and swotting up for my final. At the end of it all I was dying to read something different, something of my choosing. I chose Neverwhere.

One day I was at Barnes and Noble and the anglophile in my was drawn to the cover of Neverwhere. The pull-quote saying "[it] draws equally from George Lucas, Monty Python, Doctor Who, and John Milton..." instantly sold me. In particular the Monty Python/Doctor Who angle. So I finished my course work, bundled myself under my favorite blanket and dove into the 'London Below' of Richard Richard Mayhew Dick, Door, The Marquis de Carabas, and of course, the Angel Islington. What made this reading experience so special wasn't just the way the story flew off the page but by the fact that my cat, Spot, spent the entire time curled up on my lap. Now, this might not be weird to some people, but to me it was. Spot would gladly curl up on my lap for any reason unless I had a book. Something about me with a book made him shun me. So not only did this book reignite my love of reading but it gave me a sweet memory to remember my beloved Spotty by.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Books, Cats, Doctor Who, Door, Gaiman Gala, Gaiman Reminiscence, George Lucas, Islington, London Below, Monty Python, Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere, Richard Mayhew, School, Southeast Asia, Spot, The Marquis de Carabas

Days of Blood and Starlight (Daughter of Smoke and Bone Book 2) by Laini Taylor
Published by: William Morrow
Publication Date: November 6th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 528 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

"Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war. This is not that world."

Karou's homeland has been destroyed. The man she loved in another life, in another body, destroyed it because of her death. Akiva never thought, never even dared to hope that he would one day be with her again. His destruction of her people has sealed his fate and his chance at happiness. A happiness he never expected is lost yet again to him by his own hands. The monsters have all been destroyed by the Seraphim. There are only a few holdouts of Chimera hidden here and there in Eretz, and the Seraphim are flushing them out.

Yet there is hope... Karou. Her name literally means hope. Little did she realize that in spending two lives in the company of Brimstone she has been able to learn the art of resurrection, the secret to the Chimera's ability to thwart the enemy. Of course helping the Chimera means she must ally herself with the man who was her intended, Thiago. Oh, and he is the one who happened to have her executed the first time around. Going by the theory the enemy of my enemy is my friend, she agrees to be Thiago's resurrectionist, in the hope that this will save her people by creating a rebel band of Chimera.

But will a band of rebels be able to thwart the might of the empire? Or is it in Akiva and Karou's old dream of creating a new world that a future for Eretz might be found? Either way, the Seraphim and the Chimera must come together, must be willing to see past the war that has consumed their lives, or in the case of the Chimera, multiple lives, and look to what comes next.

For some time now I have had several friends who where verging on the insistence level of drug pushers to read Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I mean, every single time I talked to or emailed them, it would end with, "by the way... have you read it yet?" The day the second book came out the amount of texts I got might have been able to crash my data plan. Needless to say, as soon as I had the time I agreed I would finally read it. After the harsh semester of school I had I spent quite literally all of December sick and under a blanket somewhere. Now the "best" part about being sick is that you are literally incapable of doing anything other than lounging... which means reading! Ah December... I might not have been able to speak without hacking up a lung, but you passed in a haze of crisp fonts and snowy white pages. I devoured Daughter of Smoke and Bone quite quickly. I was intrigued by the world. There where things I loved, and there where things I raised my eyebrows at, angels, really? But I was sold enough to need to pick up the next volume immediately... or in this case, send someone forth to get me said volume because you aren't allowed to drive a car when on a codeine based cough syrup.

What the first book hadn't prepared me for was the awesomeness of the second book. By reading blurbs and snatches of reviews the second book seemed to veer very much into the war of otherworldy creatures category with Karou playing Frankenstein... which seemed, well, I'll say it, I thought it would be lame. I thought taking Karou out of this wonderful little world she lived in in Prague with her lovely diminutive if occasionally violent friend Zuzana was a mistake. No more sketchbooks and art school and evil exes. It was rewriting everything the first book was and giving us a map of another world. Side note, I usually love books with maps of other worlds, I just wasn't expecting this series to go that way. I think that's why I loved Days of Blood and Starlight, it went where I didn't think it would go and brought me along for an amazing ride, thankfully I didn't have to be in a beat up truck in Morocco for real.

Yet it is the believability of the world building that has made the narrative work. Laini has created a beautiful and brutal world, but it has humor in it. The surest way to get complicity is to make someone laugh. Zuzana was my entry into this world of monsters. She was so funny and her connection to Karou made a character who might not be completely relatable, I mean Karou is a monster resurrected into the body of a blue haired teenager with amazing drawing skills, real and likable. Their quippy emails and how Monty Python is used to bring levity yet also hint at the truths behind the words made me love this book all the more. Add in magic, a trio of mismatched angels, a mysterious island and some very wicked Guerilla tactics,  and I am not only beyond excited for the next installment, I want it now!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 2 comments  

Labels: Akiva, Chimera, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Days of Blood and Starlight, Eretz, Frankenstein, Karou, Laini Taylor, Monty Python, Prague, Seraphim, Summer Series, Zuzana

When I graduated high school, my very first decision was not to go to college, if you know me now, the perpetually in school, this is very ironic. But I didn't want anything further to do with education. What ended up happening is I took a gap year, I know, how very British for this little Midwestern teenager right? During my gap year I did many far ranging things. I took to grocery shopping and embroidery and watching daytime talk shows... yes, in essence, I became a little old lady, sitting at home with my cats talking to the tv, or to the cats, because to the day he died Spike never justified why he wouldn't watch Dallas beyond the death of Jock Ewing. That seems a very specific thing to take against and totally disrupted my three o'clock ritual.

Well, during this year I was also spending more time with my new friends. Well, I shouldn't really call them new. We knew each other all through high school, but it really wasn't till senior year we became good friends, and since then, well, they are the best friends anyone could ask for. No seriously, my best friends have been my best friends since the 90s! Anyway, as is the way, our interests all started to come together and blend. Therefore I started to learn about tv shows I'd never heard of, like Red Dwarf. Because I was not regularly employed, I would seriously do small jobs around the house for Red Dwarf VHS tapes from Suncoast video (cheers to you and a high five if you remember Suncoast). At this time I also started picking up Jane Austen and other British authors, in fact anything British became like crack to me. This expanded to The Avengers and Monty Python and yes, it all came back to Doctor Who.

There was a thrill in rediscovering The Doctor. I had always viewed him as kind of the goofy guy running around trying to escape the stuff of my nightmares, mainly Cybermen. Doctor Who had fallen off my radar since I was little. There was a blip in 1996 when one of my friends in Art Metal dressed up in honor of the 8th Doctor's movie, but that was about it. As it happened, my friend Sara, who also does "Art Metal" (aka is a kick ass metalsmith) was a Doctor Who addict because of her brother Paul. Now Paul quite literally had every episode you could get at that time on VHS. And we'd watch them at any chance we could get. We'd bring tapes with us when we'd go over to our other friends shitty student apartments in downtown Madison. Sure, we'd get together to watch this documentary on Nefertiti and there's even a themed cake, but now that it's over, how about a little "The Trial of a Time Lord?" The teenager in me started to have a real crush on the 5th Doctor, because seriously, until the new series, Peter Davidson was the "hot doctor." So, I tended to lean in that direction, because I hadn't ever seen those episode before being a 4th Doctor girl. Plus, I always had a soft spot for redheads, and well, there's Turlough. But there's also Adric. Oh, how I hate Adric. It has become a custom now, whenever we gather, to once again watch Adric's final episode to watch him die, and to laugh with tears of joy. In fact "Earthshock" might be the one episode of Doctor Who I've watched more then any other.

Of course, with this new found obsession, well, I realized I really liked hanging out with people with similar interests. Seriously, if you think about it, could you be friends with someone who didn't like Doctor Who in this day and age? It is the age of Who! In fact, my convention bug was started because of Doctor Who. Back in 1998 I went to my first science fiction and fantasy convention in Chicago, At Her Majesty's Pleasure. Oh, the dealer's room, the guests, the people dressed up as Tom Baker, and look, there's K-9! Thankfully I didn't have much money so I didn't go crazy. The aforementioned Paul, let's put it this way, he was down $1000 after about thirty minutes in the dealers room*, at least it wasn't all for him, he was purchasing for others as well.

*Photographic evidence of said spending spree, so many books and ephemera, they couldn't be stacked in one pile, try as he might. The T-Shirt over his face is a parody of the Fed-Ex Logo and the TARDIS, just saying cause I think it's cool, not as cool as my tin banks at the top of this post, but still wicked cool.

We spent the weekend in little dark rooms watching reconstructed episodes of Doctor Who, as well as The Vicar of Dibley, The Young Ones, Father Ted (Spider Baby!), all these glorious shows and all these glorious people! The 7th Doctor, Sylvester McCoy was there! As was my crush Mark Strickson, aka Turlough. But I think that's when I realized I loved Turlough and not Mark, much as I feel about David Tennant and the 10th. But this convention marked a turning point. There was no going back, I was truly a Whovian for life.

Stupid camera and stupid guys head... I swear that Slyvester McCoy, Mark Strickson, and Louise Jameson are in this picture!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adric, Convention, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Doctor Who 50th Anniversary, K-9, Louise Jameson, Mark Strickson, Monty Python, Red Dwarf, Sylvester McCoy, The 10th Doctor, The 7th Doctor, The Avengers, Turlough

Austenland
Based on the book by Shannon Hale
Release Date: August 16th, 2013
Starring: Keri Russell, J.J. Feild, Bret McKenzie, James Callis, Jennifer Coolidge, Georgia King, Ricky Whittle, Rupert Vansittart and Jane Seymour
Rating: ★★★★★
To See

This weekend is the start of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, not that I'm jealous I'm stuck at home and my friend Marie gets to go (damn you Marie, revenge will be mine!) But this does provide me with the opportunity to see Austenland (haha Marie, revenge is sweet!) Austenland and I have had a rocky road. As you may have noticed before, I adore the books of Shannon Hale, heck, I'm even excited about that Ever After High book which is based on a Mattel franchise, and me being a 35 year old I'm not the target market, but hey, books are for everyone. I've been lucky enough to meet Shannon twice, once while she was promoting Book of a Thousand Days, and the second time when she was promoting Calamity Jack. In fact, the first time I met her I was so nervous because I wanted to give her a print of my artwork that I did based on vintage Jane Austen book illustrations, but I couldn't work up the nerve till the second time I met her. It was fortuitous in that she was pregnant with twins at the time, which turned out to be two girls, and the print I ended up giving her was with Jane and Lizzie from Pride and Prejudice... but anyway, I digress. Back to Austenland and our contretemps. The first time I read the book it was all right book wrong time and it just rubbed me the wrong way. I was like a dissatisfied cat. Luckily my aforementioned Jane Austen partaking of Bath awesomeness friend Marie kind of pushed me a little to read it again. Her nudge along with the fact a sequel was coming out made me read the book again and truly appreciate it.

Austenland is about a plain Jane with Darcy dreams who gets to go to a themed resort in England (and confront her addiction) but really, who wouldn't want to go to there? Austenland and Midnight in Austenland are both fun reads and should be embraced if just for the fact they're subtly thumbing their noses at the Jane Austen Mafia, aka JASNA (I have no doubt the people who run this organization are those who Austen would mercilessly parody in her books if she were still around.) When I heard about the movie being in the works... well, all that needed to be said was James Callis and I was counting down the days till I could see it. Mind you, this is before the cameras were even rolling. Once J.J. Feild joined, I knew I was a goner. Ah J.J., you made me come to love Northanger Abbey. You and you alone, ok, and the fact it's an awesome book making fun of the Gothic Genre... but really, it was you. Marie and I had planned on seeing this movie for our August birthday fun time, seeing as Madison has a Sundance theater and it was opening three days after my birthday and ten days after Marie's we thought we were in with a chance... sadly though it wasn't to be. So I have been counting down the days and finally, FINALLY, the wait is over. Of course Marie is in real "Austenland" and I will be in virtual "Austenland"... but at least it's all about Jane. And thankfully, this movie lived up to and exceeded my expectations.

If Clueless and Bridget Jones's Diary combined and was then handed off to Monty Python to do some patter writing, Austenland is about what you'd end up with in a near perfect movie that might just be the best film I've seen in years, and easily the hardest I've laughed in a long time. With the entire script being a goldmine of hilarious quotes, James Callis and Jennifer Coolidge might have come out a little bit ahead in the awesome category. In particular Jennifer Coolidge's Miss Charming's facial beautification routine... we were already quoting it on the way to the bar after the movie. My advice is don't listen to those stupid reviewers over on Rotten Tomatoes, listen to me, GO SEE THIS FILM RIGHT THIS SECOND and take me with you! Each person I went to wanted to see it again, so what are you waiting for? There is just so much going on with background jokes, foreground jokes, James Callis never being silent, I need to see it over and over just to make sure I haven't missed a thing. At least I did spot Shannon in the ball scene!

Let me break it down for you as to why this movie is just full of win. Firstly, perfect casting. At first I was a little, Keri Russell, ok, she's fine, she's not as important as her two love interests in the form of J.J. and Bret 'Flight of the Conchords' McKenzie, but I underestimated her. Keri is able to not only be the perfect surrogate, for me, the Austen loving audience member, but the chemistry with both the male leads makes for a believable and funny love triangle. But if it wasn't for the fact that every character was cast perfectly and every actor and actress seemed to be having so much fun, the three leads would not have been able to sustain the funny. Add to that little jokes just for the actors, like Bret and his Hobbit/LOTRs connection, and layers upon layers of jokes that drives a serious need to see it again, I mean in the flashback Keri seriously had her old Felicity hair. Jennifer Coolidge was, as I have previously said, divine, and I really think that even back when I was reading the book, well, the role has always been hers. James Callis, what can I say, but I've always admired you, Bridget Jones, Battlestar, you made me want "evil" to win... you have some serious comedic talents, so while I love you in period pieces, do more movies like this! And there's just little things that make each scene perfect, the way Georgia King "secretly" skips out of a room, or Ricky Whittle finds yet another way to strip off his clothing... I couldn't stop laughing. But I must say, the casting of Mr. Wattlesbrook was by far the best. Because Mr. Wattlesbrook, aka Rupert Vansittart, aka Fatty Fat Buckle, is none other then Mr. Hurst from the 1995 Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice! Say what? Yes, and it really is just like in P and P when all he did was lay on a couch, giving him the nickname of Fatty Fat Buckle to me and my friends.

Now I must mention the sets. Oh dear lord, they were awesome. I mean, they were so over the top crammed with British kitsch and porcelain, it was optic overload, but it so fit the gaudy opulence of the resort that Mrs. Wattlesbrook was running. Can we have more floral wallpaper? YES PLEASE! Then there are the animals... or lack therefore of live animals, well, except those horses... whoever thought that it would be a good idea to replace every animal with a stuffed dead one, I'm talking, stroke of genius. It added a whole weird, incongruous, Monty Pythonesque humor to it that culminated in the shout out to the creepy taxidermist at the ball. And as a final aside, the house is gorgeous, but the fact that it is the historic seat of the Dashwood family, not Austen, but Hellfire... in that this house in West Wycombe is where the Hellfire Club comes from! The fact that a place of male debauchery has been repurposed for female debauchery... it just gives me a smile, and a great guffaw when reading the locations in the credits when I first realized it.

Speaking of the credits. I'm not going to ruin them for anyone, but seriously, stay for them. If the credits had been used as the marketing campaign, I think everyone would be rushing to the theatre right now. They take what would have been a scene derivative of Lost in Austen, which was sadly eliminated from the DVD because they couldn't get the rights to the song "Downtown," and takes it to whole new heights that have more then a little nod to Flight of the Conchords. And while I'm on the subject of music... well, the movie is full of cheesy wonderfulness that just works so perfectly that I wish the soundtrack included everything from "Lady in Red" to "Betty Davis Eyes!"

As for the movies flaws... I would say that there would only be two, and they fall into the necessary but unnecessarily creepy category. First is the cruelty of Jane's co-worker ex at the beginning of the movie and the fact that Fatty Fat Buckle is just a little too rapey. The first was her impetus to finally go to Austenland, which I get, but did he have to be so boorish? Just slightly demeaning, or even having him just break her teacup would have worked. As for Mr. Wattlesbrook... well, it's like he is in the book, and it is needed to question the motives of the love interests at the end, but, he was just a little too forceful and left a sour taste in my mouth. Just tone down those two scenes and, perfection would be attained. In other words, these two things are the only reason it's near perfect... oh, these and that should would get ride of that dollhouse! Sin! In fact, speaking of sins, I've been prattling on too long, why are you still reading this? You should go and see the movie already, it's make or break weekend!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 1 comments  

Labels: Austenland, Bret McKenzie, Bridget Jones's Diary, Clueless, Hellfire Club, J.J. Feild, James Callis, JASNA, Jennifer Coolidge, Keri Russell, Lost in Austen, Monty Python, Pride and Prejudice, Shannon Hale

Days of Blood and Starlight, Daughter of Smoke and Bone Book 2 by Laini Taylor
Published by: William Morrow
Publication Date: November 6th, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 528 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

"Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war. This is not that world."

Karou's homeland has been destroyed. The man she loved in another life, in another body, destroyed it because of her death. Akiva never thought, never even dared to hope that he would one day be with her again. His destruction of her people has sealed his fate and his chance at happiness. A happiness he never expected is lost yet again to him by his own hands. The monsters have all been destroyed by the Seraphim. There are only a few holdouts of Chimera hidden here and there in Eretz, and the Seraphim are flushing them out.

Yet there is hope... Karou. Her name literally means hope. Little did she realize that in spending two lives in the company of Brimstone she has been able to learn the art of resurrection, the secret to the Chimera's ability to thwart the enemy. Of course helping the Chimera means she must ally herself with the man who was her intended, Thiago. Oh, and he is the one who happened to have her executed the first time around. Going by the theory the enemy of my enemy is my friend, she agrees to be Thiago's resurrectionist, in the hope that this will save her people by creating a rebel band of Chimera.

But will a band of rebels be able to thwart the might of the empire? Or is it in Akiva and Karou's old dream of creating a new world that a future for Eretz might be found? Either way, the Seraphim and the Chimera must come together, must be willing to see past the war that has consumed their lives, or in the case of the Chimera, multiple lives, and look to what comes next.

For some time now I have had several friends who where verging on the insistence level of drug pushers to read Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I mean, every single time I talked to or emailed them, it would end with, "by the way... have you read it yet?" The day the second book came out the amount of texts I got might have been able to crash my data plan. Needless to say, as soon as I had the time I agreed I would finally read it. After the harsh semester of school I had I spent quite literally all of December sick and under a blanket somewhere. Now the "best" part about being sick is that you are literally incapable of doing anything other than lounging... which means reading! Ah December... I might not have been able to speak without hacking up a lung, but you passed in a haze of crisp fonts and snowy white pages. I devoured Daughter of Smoke and Bone quite quickly. I was intrigued by the world. There where things I loved, and there where things I raised my eyebrows at, angels, really? But I was sold enough to need to pick up the next volume immediately... or in this case, send someone forth to get me said volume because you aren't allowed to drive a car when on a codeine based cough syrup.

What the first book hadn't prepared me for was the awesomeness of the second book. By reading blurbs and snatches of reviews the second book seemed to veer very much into the war of otherworldy creatures category with Karou playing Frankenstein... which seemed, well, I'll say it, I thought it would be lame. I thought taking Karou out of this wonderful little world she lived in in Prague with her lovely diminutive if occasionally violent friend Zuzana was a mistake. No more sketchbooks and art school and evil exes. It was rewriting everything the first book was and giving us a map of another world. Side note, I usually love books with maps of other worlds, I just wasn't expecting this series to go that way. I think that's why I loved Days of Blood and Starlight, it went where I didn't think it would go and brought me along for an amazing ride, thankfully I didn't have to be in a beat up truck in Morocco for real.

Yet it is the believability of the world building that has made the narrative work. Laini has created a beautiful and brutal world, but it has humor in it. The surest way to get complicity is to make someone laugh. Zuzana was my entry into this world of monsters. She was so funny and her connection to Karou made a character who might not be completely relatable, I mean Karou is a monster resurrected into the body of a blue haired teenager with amazing drawing skills, real and likable. Their quippy emails and how Monty Python is used to bring levity yet also hint at the truths behind the words made me love this book all the more. Add in magic, a trio of mismatched angels, a mysterious island and some very wicked Guerilla tactics,  and I am not only beyond excited for the next installment, I want it now!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Akiva, Chimera, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Days of Blood and Starlight, Eretz, Frankenstein, Karou, Laini Taylor, Monty Python, Prague, Seraphim, Zuzana

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Published by: Broadway Books
Publication Date: August 16th, 2011
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

James Halliday is the creator of the OASIS. In all immersive MMO that allows everyone on Earth to escape the horrors of what has become of the world in the near future and go to school, party, or just explore and level their avatar. Halliday was the biggest geek there was and he wanted his passions to be your passions, and his main passion was the 1980s, the time when he was a teenager. When he died he left no heirs and created a treasure hunt within the OASIS to decide who would be worthy of being his successor. His Willy Wonka test was neigh on indecipherable with a little video he made which ended up being nicknamed Anorak's Invitation, after his Avatar, Anorak. Soon a culture of hunters, called gunters, form with the sole purpose of memorizing the minutiae of Halliday and the 80s and finding Halliday's fortune.

Wade Watts is a gunter with the handle Parzival. He has spent five years of his life learning everything there is to know about James Halliday. For five long years no one has made the least bit of headway with the quest until Parzival stumbles on the answer while sitting in his virtual classroom. Within hours two people have passed through the first of three gates that lead to Halliday's egg. It soon becomes clear to Parzival that this is going to end sooner then anyone thought, with more dangers then he could imagine. Now that the first hurtle is passed, it won't be long before things come to a head. While Parzival has troubles trusting the other gunters he's come to view as his friends, the real danger is IOI, a rival organization who wants to win the game, not to win, but to control the OASIS.

As many people have started their review with "this book was written just for my generation and me in particular," well, I figure, I will reiterate that sentiment. Yes, this book was written for me. I was born in 1978, so a little younger then Halliday, and Cline himself, but of the same generation, so to speak. I will not go on and then say that this book is just wonderful and marvelous and just spoke to me, because, well, it just didn't. You know, it actually kind of enrages me that this book is so well regarded and lauded. It isn't the book itself you can be in love with, it just can't be, with it's bland prose riddled with errors, and it's dry clinical writing style, making it almost like a history book, though written by someone with an ego who is very self impressed that they have all this knowledge at their fingertips.

You're in love with the memories this book evokes, the connection it forges using emotional cues from your past. You say "Pac-Man" and I'm a little kid again down at the Brat and Brau feeding quarters into their "Ms. Pac-Man" machine in the few spare minutes I had before the food arrived and my grandmother started piling the A-1 on her dinner. That dark and dingy little restaurant that had the cliched wooden panelling that my basement had and made the restaurant part rathskeller, part sports bar. Side note, I didn't need to read a whole chapter on every level of "Pac-Man" and how the final screen is only half there, I knew that, move on. Cline has taped into the zeitgeist of an era and has just info dumped on us, using touchstones like the Whedonverse to make little geeks and wannabes sqwee with joy. There is nothing that it makes me think of more then the episode of Community "Regional Holiday Music" which they did as a skewering of Glee. One of the songs, to entice Pierce to enter into the singing spirit, was called "Baby Boomer Santa." As Annie said in the episode "Pierce, they're just trying to pander to your demographics documented historical vanity. Resist!" The song is nothing more then a list of things that would appeal to Pierce, from Coca-Cola to The Beatles, Woodstock to Vietnam. This is what Ready Player One does! It just lists things from the 80s that we connect to from Galaga to WarGames and all the hipsters and 80s geeks and everyone is sucked in. To that I echo Annie Edison! RESIST!

This info dump mentality makes the book like the carrion of literature displaying the largest lack of imagination I have seen in a book. Ready Player One is part Willy Wonka, part Ender's Game with John Hughes doing the adaptation. I defy you to find something actually original in this book. All the humor and originality is directly lifted from other sources. Why is the final battle Parzival faces so funny? Because he's in Monty Python and the Holy Grail! The entire action, the entire everything is Monty Python's genius, NOT Ernest Cline's! This happens again and again throughout the book. And then there's Halliday and Morrow. Let's talk about James Halliday and Ogden Morrow, or as they really are, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Even if Cline hadn't laboriously pointed that the "fictitious characters" had been compared to these two real men, there is no grey area here. They are 100% these two men. Halliday even dies! Add to that the fact that Ready Player One goes into Phone Phreaking a lot, and Wozniak was part of this phenomenon, and they just get more and more similar. Then, in the, really, you really had to do that, bash my head against the wall, make me want to light the book on fire, there's the fact that the Wozniak character, Ogden, had the nickname Og, like Wozniak with Woz. Seriously? I mean seriously? It's not funny, it's a joke that is flat. Also, let's keep in mind that everyone knows that Woz is the one who was more, how shall I say, fun and relaxed of the two, so he wouldn't be litigious, even though he's spinning tunes as a DJ in a glass bubble before shooting lightning out of his fingers (yes, this seriously happens, and if it was me, I'd have my lawyer on speed dial). This is just degrading to me and in my mind to him, a man I very much admire. Sure he was on Dancing with the Stars, but you know what, he had a choice in that. I have a strong feeling, that while Halliday is never depicted negatively, if Jobs hadn't been on his deathbed, there might have been some serious legal action on this book.

If I where to just talk about Cline's writing, I would have to go back to the major flaw in this book in that Cline NEVER sticks to his own internal rules he has created. One minute there's never been a game like the WarGames simulation in the first gate, the next second Wade is on a date with Art3mis and they're in a Goonies rendition that is exactly like the simulation no one had ever thought of. When he's getting ready to clear the first gate, it's a Thursday night, clearly stated as Thursday, because he says he only has one more day of school before the weekend. Because of clearing the gate he sleeps through school, but then gets up bright and early the next day and goes to school... on a Saturday? Then the stupid Fyndoro whatever can only be used once in 24 hours, and then they use it like 6 hours later? Um, if you're going to phone in half your book by ripping other, better, people off, the least, the very very least you could do is get your own writing right. To step further away from all the things that are like or ripped off from other sources, let's talk about the part of the book that is Cline's. It's like he doesn't know what he wants his world to be. Is it dystopian, well yes, but then he drastically shifts away from this interesting study of the poor Wade and his living in "the stacks" and goes 180 and it becomes about this "affluent" kid that Wade has become, lured by the gadgets money has bought him. Which takes the soul out of the book. And then it just becomes the typical "Big Brother" story about a company trying to take control of the OASIS at any cost, deaths allowed. So, now the book is a thriller with corporate espionage? Really, Cline, you needed to keep a similar feel and a through line through this book. Instead you made Wade a douche and then I almost wanted the bad guys to win. And in the end, what was the moral? Stop playing games and get a real life? Because, Halliday just had these gunters waste SIX YEARS of their lives to learn that lesson. Douche Halliday. Also, you kind of made me never want to go near a computer again. And what fantasy world is this where a company would actually keep your information private, cause it's not ours? Now that is pure fiction.

To finalize what I refer to now as my ranty rant. There are just so many books and movies and music that Cline has mined, all of which are more original and better, so just go and give credit to the original, not the wannabe. Also, if you want something that actually captures the feeling I think Cline was aiming for, go read or watch Scott Pilgrim. As I read in another review among those fellow haters, I think Sissyneck on goodreads summed it up perfectly. "In a nice manifestation of the novel's lack of self-awareness, Cline at one point derides the villains of the book for simply using "Johnny 5" style robots from Short Circuit instead [of] coming up with their own design. This appropriation, he explains, demonstrates "a lack of imagination," a valid criticism that only too accurately applies to the ostensible heroes of the book, as well as to Cline himself." Right on Sissyneck! And here's a little Pierce Hawthrone to sing us out...

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: 80s, Apple, Community, Ernest Cline, Galadga, Glee, Goonies, MMORPGs, Monty Python, OASIS, Pac-Man, Ready Player One, Scott Pilgrim, Short Circuit, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, WarGames, Willy Wonka

As a kid, Easter was almost a bigger holiday than Christmas. My parents, being far more imaginative for this holiday than just the presents under a tree had jelly bean trails leading to candy throughout the house. So not only cool candy, but a fun time. Of course, now that I'm older, all I really associate with Easter is either Monty Python's Life of Brian, or Mallrats. I chose to share a moment of zen, as it were, with you from Mallrats. Have fun eating those Cadbury eggs!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 3 comments  

Labels: Easter, Holidays, Kevin Smith, Mallrats, Monty Python, Monty Python's Life of Brian

Today marks the day I've been away from my cat the longest, and in true macabre Charles Addams fashion, I thought I'd do a little something about the history of mourning. A few years ago I was in New York around the time of Halloween. I had always wanted to go to the Merchant House Museum, and yes, mainly to pretend I was in Upstairs Downstairs, seeing as the house still stands as it was back in the 19th century. But what was fortuitous was that for Halloween the house had an exhibit up on the traditions surrounding mourning in Victorian society. Because of Queen Victoria being in mourning for 40 years the Victorians developed some truly fascinating customs surrounding death, from proper behavior for women and men to clothing and even to bee keeping.

The behaviors that the bereaved were expected to participate in were delineated by your sex. Men only had to be in mourning a short amount of time, literally weeks with just a black crepe armband, so that they go off and marry again so their children wouldn't be motherless and they wouldn't be lonely. Whereas women were expected to be in mourning for two years! The first year and a day, they were in "full mourning" where you weren't allowed to mix in society and wore only black without ornamentation, the next nine months, called "second mourning," you were allowed some jewelry. The final three months you were in "half mourning" and could switch up your clothing with a little lavender and go round to your friends house and a few gatherings deemed socially appropriate. Of course this two years in mourning lead to a great demand for nice and fashionable widow's weeds, because if you are bereaved, at least look good. Also some women, like Victoria, chose to stay in mourning the rest of their lives, and what's the point of that if your clothes are hideous.

"Telling the Bees" is a tradition that is still practiced by some bee keeper's today. You had to tell your bees of the death immediately upon the passing of a family member. Sometimes there were elaborate bells you chimed as you walked out to the hives, but the important thing was that you went to them and whispered the name of the dead to them, and then tied a piece of black ribbon around the hive. If you did not do this the bees would swarm and leave. Also, oddly enough, this has been documented to happen.

Other random, bizarre and disturbing facts of the day:

There were professional mourners, those provided by the undertaker to stand about and add an air of dignity. I believe Monty Python parodied this quite well.

If you were a suicide you were to be buried at a cross roads with a stake through your heart, to stop your ghost from wondering, but smacks of vampirism to me.

Who people were depended on length of mourning, sister, brother or child. You had to mourn children the least, probably due to infant mortality of the day, because then you might be in constant mourning.

People had a great fear of being buried alive, due in fact to several real incidences. In supposedly comes the inventor Bateson. Bateson is said to have invented a belfry, that was a small bell on the top of a coffin which had a rope attached to the deceased hand, so if you were in fact still alive, just go a ring it and up you come. There is a funny scene in the movie The Great Train Robbery dealing with this.

Corpses for medical research did not legally exist at this time and the "Resurrection Men" came in to fill the void. For two guineas a cadaver of a recently deceased person could be "obtained". If you were caught exhuming a body the punishment was seven years transportation. But if the other person on your person didn't have any clothes on you were usually let off because they didn't think you'd dug them up or were apparently smart enough to just leave the clothes behind. The movie The Doctor and the Devils written by Dylan Thomas deals with this.

Oh and lets not forget photography of the day! People rarely had money to spend on pictures, so when a loved one died, they usually spent money on a picture to remember them by. So yes, those are dead people in the pictures with your ancestors. Occasionally called Post Mortum Photographs.


For more interesting information of this time period, check out the book What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist - The Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England by Daniel Pool

Posted by Miss Eliza at 2:17 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Charles Addams, Charles Dickens, Daniel Pool, Jane Austen, Merchant House Museum, Monty Python, Mourning, Queen Victoria, Spot, The Doctor and the Devils, The Great Train Robbery