Wildest Things (scifi,horror,& fantasy)

I've seen sprinkles of Neil Gaiman's work in television and movies. I've tried watching Coraline several times (not really a fan). I devoured season one of American Gods over the summer. He even has roots in the show Lucifer, which is something I put on from time to time.  But before this week I'd never read one of his books.   For this week I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It's always been a title that's appealed to me.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this book wasn't it.  It's an adult novel told through a child's perspective for most of it. The events that happen are all extremely dark and something that reading as an adult we instantly understand, but through the eyes of a kid struggling to comprehend it all. The monster, his evil nanny, is terrifying and disgusting. She feels like the sort of thing a kid would nightmare up--the monster under the bed--and the frustration we feel when he tries to tell everyone and is con...

As an artist, I can sort of relate to Frankenstein. I, too, have dedicated nights and days to working on a project I was excited about it, only to be horrified and disgusted with the outcome. Only so far, my abandoned creations haven't come back to kill my family (yet). It's no surprise to see that this book is also very different, and much better, than the movies. Each time I read it I find a new reason why it's one of my favorite classical novels. The first time was simply because the book that started an entire genre was written by a teenage girl. The most recent time has given me the clarity to respect the character building. There is no stronger character in history than Frankenstein's monster. How many do you know of that develop from a stumbling, groaning mass to a book educated person on a well-justified mission for vengeance and/or acceptance? She shows just how, even though he's abandoned and was not made in the traditional manner, the monster is still a...

Back in middle school, during the Twilight fever, I read a lot of vampire novels. It was the thing. I was a middle-grade reader transitioning into young adult books, and Twilight catapulted me into that while simultaneously starting the vampire trend that echoed over the genre. Vampire Academy, Eighth Grade Bites, The Morganville Vampires are just a few to name. Oh, the angst. For this week I revisited this era by rereading some of Vampire Academy. I've always loved the unique world of this book. The main character, Rose, shares a distinct psychic bond with her best friend, Lisa, who is also a vampire. AKA Moroi. Rose is a dhampir--a half breed, of sorts. They act like relatively normal teenagers, considering their circumstances. There are creatures in this book that are more familiar to us, thought: the Strigoi, which are immortal, soulless, bloodthirsty undead who are allergic to sunlight. They are every Moroi and Dhampir's greatest fear. Though the series is a romance, th...

For this week I read The Magicians by Lev Grossman. It's about a high school senior named Quentin who is full of angst and disappointment about his average life until one day he finds himself on the lawn of a magic school called Brakebills. Suddenly the magic and adventure he's craved his entire life is within reach. He's no longer bored with life, and no longer just another average nerd. Throughout the first chapter, we see Quentin moping over his mediocrity nonstop--even through finding a dead body. His biggest concern is himself and what people might think of him.  The story takes place during one of the biggest transitional stages in his life: moving from high school to college. While I was reading this I kept thinking about something I read in a psychology class. I can't remember exactly what theory it's from, or who wrote it, but it was about developmental psychology. There's a stage in human life where we feel like we're the hero of our stories waiti...

For this week, I picked up Aunt Maria by Diana Wynne Jones*. I don't want to say that I was "pleasantly surprised". Pleasantly is not a strong enough word. And surprised isn't quite right either, because I already knew somewhere deep down that DWJ books were good, I just had never really seized an opportunity to read one. Aunt Maria is a story told through our main character, Mig, writing in her journal. It's an interesting way to read the story, because just when you start to forget that you're reading someone else's account of what happened and not as it happened, she pulls you back out, switching to a new scene or event that was relevant to Mig's day. It's a technique that I haven't seen very often, and I think it works well for this character. It lets us see her inner thoughts and emotions while she's in situations where she's constantly being made to repress her true feelings. There's a lot of mystery in the story, little bi...

Before this topic, I don't think I'd ever heard the term "new weird". It's basically a blended subgenre that comes from old pulp magazines, where horror/scifi/fantasy and the supernatural could all be blended interchangeably to tell a unique flavor of stories. I had my first introductions to H.P. Lovecraft with What the Moon Brings, and Angela Carter, with some of her short stories. In What the Moon Brings, I was at first a little too distracted by the purple-y voice to really get into the narrative. Although I did really like the first line, "I hate the moon--I am afraid of it--for when it shines on certain scenes familiar and loved it sometimes makes them unfamiliar and hideous." That's a great hook, and it works to summarize the whole story in a way. The rest of the writing feels a little too ornate (ahem--pretentious?) for me to truly enjoy the story, but I guess it does help to enforce the dream-state of the narrative. It's about a man ...