Category: Stories, Packaged and Sold

Category covering assorted forms of narrative media; books, comics, movies, TV shows, and video games.

Sticks and string (and probably bloodthirsty radioactive mutants).

I am fond of post-apocalyptic settings. I’m particularly fond of ones with a retro-futuristic styling[1]; god knows why I keep coming back to that, since it’s not as if there haven’t been some beautifully detailed and realized post-apocalyptic settings which don’t conform to that aesthetic.  I imagine it hooks into that part of my brain that always argues for finding a diner[2] if one is looking for a restaurant.

I also knit.

These two things meet in my brain not infrequently, and apparently I’m not alone. Alex Tinsley is editing a book called Doomsday Knits, which also includes lovely photos and amusing flow charts to assist you in identifying your apocalypse, and I am so there. (I think that of the patterns I’ve seen on the blog tour so far, I am particularly fond of the Fennec shrug. Am just sorry I missed the Kickstarter.)

It’ll be coming out next month. Something to look forward to.
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[1] For those who don’t know me: why yes, this covers the excellent game settings Deadlands and Fallout, particularly Fallout: New Vegas. For those who do: yes, I’ve got my brain in Deadlands and Fallout again.  Hush. It’s just one of those things that happens every now and then.
[2] This is occasionally overruled by other parts of my brain. My brain is large; it contains multitudes. Still, I acknowledge the impulse. Tangentially: diners are apparently called coney islands in Detroit. (Also, would totally accept Detroit as a future Fallout setting. Michigan has been sadly underused. Also Ronto.)

I had somehow missed this.

There’s an article in the Balder & Dash section over on Roger Ebert’s site. Written by Laura Bogart, it’s called The Trouble With Carrie. It’s thought-provoking, to say the least, and I’m still processing it.

Short version of the article, which you should go read: Carrie is remarkable because she does not kick ass for anyone else. She does it for herself. Sarah Connor–oh, my god, please understand this isn’t an indictment of Sarah Connor, who by the second movie has become a brilliant and much-beloved-by-me character in what is assuredly one of my favourite albeit not watched-to-tatters movies–does what she does for her son. Ripley is unremarkably motivated by survival (does not count; this is about doing more than what you need to do to survive), but goes above and beyond that, moving from rescuing cats to the iconic “Get away from her, you bitch.” Laurie Strode is babysitting children she needs to take care of. Kick-Ass does what she does because her father tells her to. When Nancy Thompson is done being motivated by survival, she comes back to help the other children.

But Carrie, as of the latest version, does it because this should not have happened to her, and it was not fair, and she has fucking had it.[1]

This sounds selfish.

And kind of glorious.

Scott Lynch once quoted H.L. Mencken as saying “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” Not for someone else’s sake. Not because it’s easy to afford. Not because other responsibilities demand it. But because sometimes, dammit, you just want to say that it’s not okay to need to eat so much shit.

I am working a lot harder to make time for this movie, now.
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[1] To be clear: this “it is not fair” motivation is not unique. It happens a lot in the rape/revenge subgenre if the victimized woman survives. I generally don’t watch that genre, because Reasons I Do Not Feel Like Unpacking Now; I just wanted to note that Carrie is not something utterly new (and no, I’m not saying her movies are an example of r/r either, and now I’m getting back to the main post).

Catching up.

I have been stress-inducingly behind on a few things lately. The last couple of days have resulted in my managing to clear up some of them; hope to continue to make progress (touch wood, smile, move along to other topics before something comes up to throw a wrench into the works).

I’ve found I do fairly mechanical things (knitting, sorting, or repetitive coding) much better when there’s a familiar movie in the background, so I was able to make fairly good progress on a day which involved two run-throughs of Trick ‘r Treat (mentioned back here), a playing of Coraline, and a playing of The Shining. (I may not use The Shining for this purpose again; the soundtrack is too prone to blaring.) The length of a movie also provides an excellent cue for when it’s definitely time to get up and take a break.

I’ve drinking a mix of teas from David’s Tea lately–a place that sells fairly normal blends, and interesting herbal blends, and then blends which have little gold sugar confection decorations or pieces of popcorn or candy sprinkles. This is quite lovely, except for the bit where a fair number of the blends are tea, which is not a caffeine-free substance, and thus is not conducive to drinking in great quantities a few hours before bed. (I’ve recovered. I’m sure someone with a less ragged sleep schedule than me could come up with something quite pithy to say about (1) tea and (2) the sun never setting on the British Empire.)

I read Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep in three days, and yes that is an unusually long time for me to take at it. Pleased overall, looking thoughtfully at a couple of details, more thoughts in a bit.

I read Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s This Strange Way of Dying and really quite loved it, just saying. Dreamy, dark, sharp, and oh dear god I need to get back to writing proper reviews again because this one so deserves it. (It’s here on GoodReads, for those so moved to add it to their shelves.)

Several more things I am hoping to get done today; am going to take a short break (possibly until the tealight in my cute bat holder finishes burning down; it’s chilly and rainy and dark and wet out here, and candles do improve the mood), and then get back to it.

Coping strategies.

I have had a kind of upsetting day, and am finally getting a chance to relax. Part of this is putting a familiar movie on, specifically Trick ‘r Treat, a sort of adorable little Hallowe’en portmanteau[1] movie which I am just now feeling really weird about calling adorable because I started adding up the number of people who die in this thing (after getting lines, even!) and it is in the double digits, even if you only count ones who get lines.

Trick 'r Treat movie poster

(I have included a picture of the movie’s mascot in my post!  Look how cute he is.)

I mentioned this to the light of my life, in terms of how it struck me as odd that this kind of movie would be relaxing. Part of it is the familiarity, sure, but it’s not like I’m putting on Threads[2] to relax. Or even Splinter, which is actually a really good movie. Either of those would be weird.  And he pointed out a couple of things:

First, I like short stories. I like anthologies. This usually only comes up with books, possibly because there is a sort of terrible lack of movies that do this (I can think of a handful, sure, but they are in a definite minority), and no TV shows that do it to my knowledge.  Getting different distinct stories with the same presenter is not the same; you only get one story per episode, still, and then the media slice is over and you are done for the nonce.  Tales from the Crypt is adorable in its way, and it’s an anthology series, but the individual episodes are not anthologies.

Second (speaking of TftC), short stories within movies are overwhelmingly of the “bad things happen to bad people” genre, and given what I’ve been dealing with today, that connotes a universe with a moral framework and an active justice that it is kind of reassuring to see.  I think it was Eric Burns who, speaking of the classic pulp protagonists–the Shadow and the Spider?–said that he wanted to see horror turned against evil instead of for evil.

It’s a very comforting kind of story, and that is nice right now.
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[1] I was going to say “frame story”, but I really don’t think there’s a single surrounding frame story.  Instead, there are at least four stories (I usually count five) weaving in and out of each other.
[2] A BBC movie about the aftermath of nuclear war which is about the most appallingly bleak thing I have seen in… uhm, actually, in ever.  There are more depressing or upsetting movies, but I have not seen any others which leave me feeling so throughly that the universe does not care and humans are just clinging sadly to a worldful of tired gritty dust that will not care one whit when we are gone.

Breaking it down. (for SCIENCE!)

Missed this when it came out a year and a half ago – a new superglue that bonds at the molecular level, prompted by analysis of flesh-eating bacteria.

It contrasts particularly with some of the chemical screening assessments I’ve been looking at lately. The most upsetting of those cited an experiment testing a chemical compound’s toxicity, in which one of the dogs being steadily poisoned lasted for for nine hundred and ninety days before dying.

Please accept my assertion that those were not a healthy, pain-free nine hundred and ninety days, and let us move on.  (If possessed of pets, you may wish to have a small time-out in which to cuddle one or pet one of them for comfort. I am doing this thing.  I am also rambling all over the place.)

Continue reading “Breaking it down. (for SCIENCE!)”

Mixing it up, colour-wise.

The stuff I tend to read has certain common qualities, and that’s fine. (I occasionally make deliberate efforts to mix it up, which I suspect helps. Although I do continue to bemoan the lack of an anti-recommendation button on any sites I frequent–you know, “absolutely no-one who has read the stuff you read has also read this popular book” or something.)

The stuff I read also has a certain common look, which occasionally perplexes me. I mean, if you look at my Goodreads widget, down in the lower right-hand corner (which I have for the moment switched from “currently reading” to “read”), there’s a bit of visual sameness. Black, red, and grey or blue-grey, mostly, with the occasional touches of yellow (hi, Elmore Leonard) or sickly green (either Scottish crime or Cthulhu). Killshot and Joyland are the brightest things I’ve finished lately, and they’re both pitched in a very classic-pulp-pop-crime style. (Joyland isn’t that at all – I would call it literary adventure ghost story if I had to call it something – but that’s not what the cover says.)

In the absence of a particular craving, am sorely tempted to determine the next book I pick up out of the ones I have on hand by colour of cover. Something bright or cheerful or at least atypical. (Possibilities include the nigh-solid lilac of Provender Gleed[1], the cheerfully bright green of The Manual of Detection, or the Northern Lights-evoking blue-and-purple-and-white of Tales from Earthsea.)

Do you read in patterns? How do you break out of them?
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[1] By James Lovegrove; at this point, I feel compelled to once again mention that his novel Days is a brilliant work, absolutely worth reading.

Dear Boss…

I got my copy of Tales of Jack the Ripper today. I stopped by the mailbox on my way out to grab a fluffy coffee, and there was a giant padded envelope in it, and I was gleeful (what with recognizing the return address, and knowing what it was).  So I took it along with me, thinking I would sit down with it over the aforementioned fluffy coffee[1] and read a little.

I ordered my coffee, and opened up the envelope, and discovered there was a small lump in it, in addition to the book.  I was standing up against the serving counter to stay out of people’s way, so rather than step back to have room to peer down into the envelope, I just reached in and pulled it out.

I kind of wish I’d had a camera to catch the look on my own face. Continue reading “Dear Boss…”

Burning Girls

I suspect this may be a little redundant; the story came out over a month ago, after all, and I suspect that there is possibly some slight overlap between the people who read these posts and the people who follow Tor.com.

That said: the story “Burning Girls” by Veronica Schanoes is up. It is lovely and brave and sad and fine, and you could likely do much, much worse than take the time to read it.