Stories / Al Sarrantonio & Neil Gaiman

Each story, reviewed in my "writer's perspective." Of course, since I listened on audiobook the narrators themselves are on trial here as well- sometimes they fit the story, other times they get it wrong in my opinion.

“Blood” by Roddy Doyle

Fantastically read, this a very short story with an interesting premise that stops just where it should- a bit open-ended, but not very, and satisfactory. I thought I was in for a whole tome of this. I was wrong.

“Fossil-Figures” by Joyce Carol Oates

I thought to myself, give it a chance. Just because you hated We Were the Mulvaneys doesn't mean you have to hate this. Nope. It meanders, its heavy-handed, and it has no payoff. At no point in time does it ever GO anywhere, even when it thinks it does. I hate Joyce Carol Oates officially.

“Wildfire in Manhattan” by Joanne Harris

Gods in the world of the humans- American Gods does it better. But it wasn't the story- it was the inconsistencies. Wildfire is the younger brother of hearth fire? The "our Thor/Arthur" pun was pitiful and instead of cheekily making it once it happened earnestly multiple times. And the bodiless villains were random and not fleshed out (THAT pun intended).

“The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains” by Neil Gaiman

He's a master storyteller. He wraps up all his threads and keeps even dark stories whimsical and fun.

“Unbelief” by Michael Marshall Smith

This is the perfect example of how to keep revealing information about who your character is. The perfect pace.

“The Stars are Falling” by Joe R. Lansdale

Kind of weird. Super into it at points, other times not so much. I thought when he got killed AGAIN at the end, there'd be him coming back, but... no answers. Good characterization but I need more rhyme and reason to my resurrections.

“Juvenal Nyx” by Walter Mosley

A juvenile name, but this was the time the narrator did his best reading. I wish it had tied in more from the beginning about the racial issues- they seemed to just be dropped by the wayside, even for a vampire story that's usually about the unwanted and downtrodden. Longer than it needed to be, and then shorter than it should have been. Could use some editing. Can't all vampire stories?

“The Knife” by Richard Adams

I didn't remember this one. I really had to try. It wasn't bad. But it was very short and kind of unsettling. It didn't make me care, let's just say that. An unremarkable plot with minimal characterization.

“Weights and Measures” by Jodi Picoult

I fucking bawled. I cried in the airplane. So sad. Wow.

“Goblin Lake” by Michael Swanwick

It's like he started writing a story, then decided to morph it into a meta-treatise on writing and storytelling, but never edited the beginning to make the promise to me, the reader, that he was going to go meta. So Miklas would love it but I very much did not.

“Mallon the Guru” by Peter Straub

"I'm gonna write a story! That was fun!" Yeah, fun, but utterly pointless. Nothing to say about humanity or society or religion or writing, or...

“Catch and Release” by Lawrence Block

Creepy. Could have been shorter, but the length made it more visceral for the type of story that it was. Meant to unsettle, it did. I can't say I want to read more of the writer, but he did what he set out to do very well.

“Polka Dots and Moonbeams” by Jeffrey Ford

I dug it. Very "San Junipero" from Black Mirror. Maybe they were inspired by it. Very lighthearted and fun, which I could appreciate. Too many of these stories are serious. Like the last one.

“Loser” by Chuck Palahniuk

Funny, but inaccurate. I was in a fraternity. We would have loved that guy. Didn't seem to fit this collection though.

“Samantha’s Diary” by Diana Wynne Jones

Listening to this one really messed up the ending of it. I had to listen to it four times to understand. In print, I could have figured it out, but the didn't use a man's voice for the man's voice, they just read out "a man's voice comes on" even though up until that point they had been reading it like an audio diary. Irksome.

“Land of the Lost” by Steward O’Nan

An interesting read- I see other people online hating on it, but I really liked it. I've never read anything like it before. But I found it accurate.

“Leif in the Wind” by Gene Wolfe

Fun science fiction. Unsympathetic characters. Yet I give it a thumbs up.

“Unwell” by Carolyn Parkhurst

What a bitch! I really liked this story. I sped up the narration to 1.25x to really capture the franticness of such a terrible woman, and I do believe it helped.

“A Life in Fictions” by Kat Howard

I think it got too self-important about the bleeding of identities, and I really don't think it would have been that hard for her- or this story could have been the last written story.

“Let the Past Begin” by Jonathan Carroll

Booooooo. It tries to leave you with chills, but it's stupid. It's concept is stupid, the characters are stupid, it could have gone in such a better direction- with "being just like his father" meaning the child will also have an absent father- but that's not where the writer goes with it. He tries to lead to mystery and magic and wonder but it just feels hokey. And again, my big complaint, there's no payoff.

“The Therapist” by Jeffrey Deaver

It really changed modes, a bit abruptly, so for a portion of the story I didn't care, but then it came back around (back again to the advice of keep the promises you make to the reader). I get wanting to put in a twist, but in a short story I don't think twists are all that great, I think. In the end though it won me over, even if "nemes" are a bit cheesy.

“Parallel Lines” by Tim Powers

Another forgettable one. I had to look it up even though it was recent. Basically part of the plot of the Steve Martin/Lily Tomlin movie I really like, but instead about old ladies with no redeeming characteristics. Blah.

“The Cult of the Nose” by Al Sarrantonio

Like the Therapist, but worse. The payoff wasn't there. Instead of leaving a question about a man's sanity, or the truth, he's clearly just crazy. And that's a big disappointing copout. We never even learn "the cult"'s secrets, even though that's what it tries to build too. Not even a lie.

“Human Intelligence” by Kurt Anderson

Now this one's Santa Claus reveal was unnecessary and foreshadowed poorly. And the story didn't need it! The story was great, uplifting, and full of hope. So he could have cut out the winking at the reader and just gone with the fun thinking science fiction.

“Stories” by Michael Moorcock

Strange. I don't know... Didn't really fit with the rest of the collection. A memoir, kind of. I'm glad I didn't live in the 60s. 

“The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” by Elizabeth Hand

Great characterization. The longest story, but it didn't drag like some of the others which weren't nearly its length. Mostly interesting, but definitely not classifiable in any "genre." Very realistic, even with its strange and eerie instances. I liked it, and I'll keep thinking about it, I'm sure.

“The Devil on the Staircase” by Joe Hill

In this case, the story would have been served better by a different narrator. Truly. A good yarn.

Andy Weir

You ever read that short story, "The Egg?" It's a pretty popular short story on the internet. Guy dies, finds out that he's living every life, and his little universe is just an egg? It seems to have been written solely for the passage:

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

And I mean, okay, I get it. Really, I do. Give everyone some perspective, man.

But you know what that also could have read?

"I'm Hitler?" You said, appalled.

"And you're the millions he killed."

"But I was still me?"

"Yes, and your wife."

"That I had sex with."

"Yes, you've been everyone you've ever had sex with. And you've been your father, so also you had sex with your mother, technically. Lots of sex. All of it."

Try taking that story as a profound meditation on the truth of being good to one another now. Can't, can ya? I ruined it.

And I'm okay with that. It's neat, but always sounded a bit pretentious. But now I feel bad.

Because Andy Weir wrote "The Martian!" That was a good book! Hilarious and crude, not serious and preachy. And in my opinion it had just as much philosophy. Have a sense of humor about the possibility of your own death, and always keep moving, to win.

Ned Stark (You're A Fine Man)

To the tune of "Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)" by The Looking Glass. Lyrics copyright Jimmy Davoren, about George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Do not read if you haven't read Dance With Dragons. SPOILERS

There's a war in Westeros
And it kills a hundred men a day
Lonely soldiers miss the Starks who were slain
And say how Winter Comes

And there's a girl in a harbor town
Across the sea, laying justice down
They say, Arya, kill another clown
But enough about her now

Because Stannis said "Davos! You're a fine man (such a fine man)
What a good knight you would be (Onion knight)
But you smuggled, so your fingers belong to me"
(dooda-dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit)

Davos wore a pouch and chain
Carrying his fingers, luck, and shame
He lost it, on Blackwater Bay
For King Stannis whom he loves

He went to Wyman Manderly
To beg for a king's fealty
Wyman made it clear Rickon lives
White Harbor was his home

Jojen said "Brandon! I'm a greenseer (creepy greenseer)
What a good warg you would be (straight wizard)
But Beyond-The-Wall is where we need to be"
(dooda-dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit)

Yeah, Brandon saw a crow with three eyes
Who told him magic stories
His dream were real, one day he would fly
With the Children of the Forest
But now he was connected to the trees, lord, he was a weirwood man
Brandon does his best to understand
(dooda-dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit)

Davos is sent to find Rickon on the sea
Brandon walks through history
Sansa wants lemon cakes
And Arya's a Faceless Man

Melisandre says "Azor! Ahai! (Lightbringer)
Stannis it should be (for the Red God)
But in these fires, it is Jon Snow who I see"
(dooda-dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit-dooda-dit)

Jon! You're Rhaegar's son! (and Lyanna)
A Targaryen you should be (Song of Ice and Fire)
The Prince that was Promised, not just the LC
(George-RR-George-RR-George-RR-Martin)

2005 O. Henry Prize Stories, In Order from "Best" to "Godawful Worst Holy Crap Sphinxes Almost Made Me Vomit"

I read all these short stories to try and get a feel for different writers, juxtaposed against each other. I wanted to see what I'd like, and what I wouldn't like. Hope is important. Shitty endings and feelings of isolation with no resolution- why would you write that story? Why would you enjoy it, and why would you expect anyone else to? Every ending doesn't have to be happy. Every ending should, however, make sense, and be satisfying or cathartic. A terribly sad ending can be the best ending if it's right, if it fits. It shouldn't just be blah. Here's my ranking. 1-5 are fantastic, 6-9 good reads, 10-13 okay, 14-16 acceptable, 17-19 not good, and 20 should be stayed away from on all fronts unless you want to want to punch Timothy Crouse in the face.

1. What You Pawn I Will Redeem: Sherman Alexie

2. Fantasy for Eleven Fingers: Ben Fountain

3. Mudlavia: Elizabeth Stuckey-French

4. Christie: Caitlin Macy

5. A Rich Man: Edward P. Jones

6. The Hurt Man: Wendell Berry

7. Tea: Nancy Reisman

8. The Tutor: Nell Freudenberger

9. Refuge in London: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

10. The Card Trick: Tessa Hadley

11. Speckle Trout: Ron Rash

12. The Drowned Woman: Frances de Pontes Peebles

13. The Brief History of the Dead: Kevin Brockmeier

14. Snowbound: Liza Ward

15. The High Divide: Charles D'Ambrosio

16. Grace: Paula Fox

17. Dues: Dale Peck

18. The Golden Era of Heartbreak: Michael Parker

19. Desolation: Gail Jones

20. Sphinxes: Timothy Crouse

Thoreau (Is the Worst)

I read another post off of Brain Pickings, which I love, about Henry David Thoreau, who I do not, and who I think is the original hipster. Thoreau is a hipster in the negative sense. I really couldn't stand him by the end of Walden. He wrote a whole book about living by himself in the woods when he was like a mile out of town and made his mom do his laundry for him. Anyone who looks up to Thoreau is mistaken. He's a fraud, not "one of the masters of the art of living," as Ms. Maria Popova put it. He's a pretentious hypocrite and I do not like him. I mean, what do you expect from someone with the worst facial hair neckbeard of all time. He is not a role model in any way. Except for hipsters.

Dandelion Wine vs. Blood Meridian

The last two books I read were each "classics" of their authors. Ray Bradbury's "Dandelion Wine" is a semi-autobiographical novel about a 12 year old boy in summer. Cormac McCarthy wrote "Blood Meridian" as a violent exploration of borderland outlaws in the late 1800s in the Southwest. Both authors express themselves incredibly poetically, with fanciful language and high metaphor use. The difference is, McCarthy's novel was a struggle. I breezed through "Dandelion Wine." I worked through "Blood Meridian."

And to me, that makes "Dandelion Wine" a much better book. It's filled with deaths, yes, but it's also filled with hope. It expresses a deep sadness that reflects reality, and only serves to make you glad at the end of it. "Dandelion Wine"'s tears are the kind that Butters cries in the one episode of South Park where his Raisins "girlfriend"ends it with him. Even when you lose something important to you, the knowledge exists that you had it in the first place. Tragedy comes from living. Without it, the tears don't come but neither does the smile.

"Blood Meridian" makes a point with its drudgery and repetition. War and violence keep on keepin' on, and the hearts of men lead to evil if they give in. The poetry was beautiful, the vocabulary perplexingly yet intriguingly arcane, but it never could hook me in. Plot? Not really. Just a lot of walking and riding and killing, and an author making it all seem mundane. I guess it's more depressing than shocking. It is true looking around the internet that it could never be a movie. It lives on its own as a book.

Both books, by the way, are linked to Moby Dick. Which is weird. I guess this is an example of how your brain always finds the connections when it's primed or already looking for them. It's like noticing how your iPod always seems to play the same artist in an hour even when you're on shuffle. Actually it's random, but your brain goes in for false pattern recognition.

Read "Dandelion Wine." Many times. Study "Blood Meridian" in a college course.

This quote from Dandelion Wine links in to both of them, but is really a good life lesson about throwing in the towel when it's the proper time:

"Tom, when the time comes that the same cowboys are shooting the same Indians on the same mountaintop, then it's best to fold back the seat and head for the door, with no regrets and no walking backwards up the aisle."

And then there's a quote I thought I had written down but I can't find so I'll try and recite from memory:

"She wasn't thin in the way that girls are when they're not loved at seventeen, or fat in the way that women are when they're not loved at fifty, but a firmness, a roundness, when women are at any age and there is no question."

Something like that. The proper Venus.

Wild Animus

Wild Animus, Rich Shapero's self-published artistic effort, has sat untouched on my bookshelf for about four years. It was handed to me for free freshman year, in the space between UCLA's Northern Lights and Campbell Hall, and I finally decided to give it a go last night. I read a chapter and restarted tonight. I stopped, just now, after the first book section because I don't have to keep reading. Believe me, I wanted to. I felt like I should.

But I don't have an obligation.

Wild Animus is bad. Very bad. Some of the songs on the accompanying CDs are okay. I'm listening to them now. They're disturbingly similar, but taken as a concept album could go well with drugs. Drugs, you see, are a main theme of Wild Animus. The main character does a shit-ton of LSD and apparently goes crazy, thinks he's a Dall ram, and dies. I say apparently because I only read the first book section, which details this guy's meeting of a girlfriend, them moving to Seattle, and then visiting Alaska. The ram imagery, however, has been shoved down my throat since the third page. They have a secret ram language, Sam and Lindy, by the second time they're hanging out- which is also when they do acid together. That's stupid.

I described the prose to myself last night, when I decided I would definitely tackle it (sorry, me) as ham-handed and heavy-fisted. Really, I think that it's ham-fisted and heavy-handed, but it's incessant metaphor and blatant hippy-speak really addles the brain. It's way too much way too quickly, like every line is supposed to be some revelation about the world and nature. There's no "a-ha!" epiphany moment, just endless LSD drivel that fellow Amazon users have described as coming from someone who has never taken LSD.

But that's not the problem. I could deal with poorly written sentences, or rather overly "well-written" sentences that gag you. The problem is that I don't give a single shit about the characters. Because they are terrible, and terribly written. Their physical features are described too specifically, and their emotions are spilled out every two seconds. Their emotions change too drastically though. These aren't real people. Amazon reviewers say they are interchangeable or cardboard. I'd disagree. Cookie-cutter characters at least make sense in the stories they dwell. This girl goes from in fear to enraged to lovey-dovey. On a page, with no real explanation or build up. I don't like the protagonist. he names himself Ransom Altman at some point. What the fuck kind of a name is Ransom Altman? He wants to be surrender's ransom, he says. What? Rich Shapero has heard of metaphor, definitely, he uses it too much. Yet he completely fails on using metaphors for symbolism. Everything is spelled out.

Now, I've been writing a novel. And I've put in some blatant symbolism and written references too out-in-the-open. But not like this. It can't possibly be like this. This is bad. I had to stop reading! This got published as-is. I'd want an editor for some of the stuff I spell out. It's there as a placeholder, to take up space and keep my mind going. Shapero doesn't hide anything. He rubs your nose in it. And it's shit.

The good takeaway from this is that I can use the bad example to get better with how I write. I don't want to be anywhere close to Shapero's example. It starts with the characters. They have to be consistent. Now, Matilda is consistently useless and not a strong female character, which is a shame but that's kind of her role. And Bill grows a bit, but stays a hipster half-douche. Ava is underwritten. I know this. That's why she's cool, but injured and stolen. That way I don't have to spend too much time on her. I want her to kick major ass but that's not where my life experience lies. Joe changed probably too much in the well, and Geoffrey could be more consistent and foolish, but does relatively well as a character.

Those are my characters. They grow the story. George R.R. Martin has his gardeners and architects of writers. I half-architect after gardening, and sometimes the gardening destroys the building I've designed. My characters do the things they're supposed to. It makes sense for them to perform actions, and I just fit those actions into the story. But Rich Shapero? Rich Shapero said fuck it. He said, I've got a story and I've got some acid. These characters are going to do everything and anything to get to this plot point. Because they suck and do nothing to inspire empathy.

Or maybe not. Like I said, I couldn't finish the book. I might be able to, as a cautionary tale. But do I really need to? There's no prize for finishing bad books. It's a pride thing. No. I can't do it.

Stranger In A Strange Land Review

I want to focus on the oddities of Stranger In A Strange Land. I don't mean the oddities that Robert Heinlein took as outlandish ideas for a future utopia, but rather the things that Heinlein took for granted that are particularly off to a modern audience. Heinlein sets out to expand the mind, to bring to the front our idiosyncrasies as humans. He takes down religion's hypocrisies while embracing spirituality, explains free love beyond what any hippy commune ever accomplished, and lets the world know the crooks are in government, not behind bars.

For wrong technology, Heinlein's got "stereovision" on the brain instead of television. Why should it have changed its name? It's quite baffling. He predicts video calls, yes, but affixes them solely to land lines and there is a nary a cell phone in sight. Flying cars exist, and even the electronic news tickers stop when the reader looks away. Computers, though, are nonexistent and there is no Internet. I'm not going to fault a writer in 1961 for not predicting the Internet, but Heinlein's future gets us to Mars and back, with colonies on the moon, and yet so much we DO have now isn't even in production.

That's not what has me in a tizzy, though. We're in an age where marijuana legalization is a large issue, and gay marriage is even larger. The debate about equality for sexualities and not just sexes is at the forefront of our national consciousness. And yet, even with Mike's Nest's partner sharing and the mental connections of everyone during coitus, no man-man or woman-woman sex is explicit. The whole point is that sex is not obscene, and is in fact lovely, unless it's made to be obscene, which is "wrongness." Still, only women are ever mentioned kissing men in the novel, even in passing. If it's all about growing together, Heinlein, just have some dudes kiss at some point. Homosexual sex is unnecessary with all the implied orgies. Instead, we get a mention or two of kisses between others being felt metaphysically. In my opinion, it's a lot stranger to have another man inside your mind than simply your mouth.

Jubal Harshaw, the old codger, even gets a taste of the times out of his own mouth. He states that he'd rather have Mike smoking marijuana than becoming a preacher of ill repute. Nowhere else does cannabis get a mention. It just comes out as a horrible outcome, that would still be a better alternative than preaching, which Jubal disagrees with. For a novel touting honest reevaluation of cultural norms and taboos, why doesn't Heinlein take a look at this one? Jubal Harshaw is my favorite character, and in a sense the one I identify with most. He espouses truth and love in a much different way, a way built by experience and a healthy amount of doubt. He judges. It's wonderful, since he knows he's right so he just doesn't give a damn. And here he is, written with a jab at THC that doesn't fit his character. It's like Mike's usage of "ain't." Heinlein always wrote that wrong. Jubal is a realist who would never agree that he's an idealist, and he takes a look at society's arbitrary rules and only agrees to play society's games outside his personal property. He earned his enclave. If he were written today, there is no doubt in my mind he'd support legalization, taxation, and personal choice.

All in all, I did like the book and it should be read by those who are too indoctrinated to read it, or listen to some of the points. Should we use it in accordance with its reputation as the Hippy Bible? God no. It's no manifesto or way to live a life. It is an educational read in the way that certain anthropological texts make the student question the stupidities of modern life. Don't be a jerk, don't complicate things, know your rights, and it's totally A-OK to be naked in your own damn house.