When I got sick, I figured the best way that my kids could help me out was by lending me books. The only rule was that they had to include an index card inside the book to tell me why they thought I would enjoy the book.
Knowing that I enjoy the occasional fantasy/sci-fi, a student lent me THE ANGEL EXPERIMENT, SCHOOL'S OUT FOREVER, and SAVING THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS, Young Adult novels by popular best-selling author James Patterson. There is one other book out in the series, another book to come, and a movie in the works. Also, there's a huge web presence for this series and its heroine, the 14 year old Maximum Ride, anchored by the epic and frequently updated blog belonging to Max's friend Fang and the rest of her "flock."
Honestly, YA books are always a tough sell for me, even when they're written by experienced authors and authors of books that I love. Both Michael Chabon (SUMMERLAND) and Carl Hiaasen (FLUSH and HOOT) have let me down even though they rank up there in my top ten living writers.
The Maximum Ride books are similarly thin. I say similarly because, in general, all of these writers share the same fatal flaw and that's that one has to wonder how much time they spend with actual young adults.
I devoured the three books in less than two days. They were zippy reads and the plot (baddies in the science world have created and abused a series of mutant human beings) was compelling albeit deeply lacking in originality: mutant hybrid children with special abilities often derived from animals living in a School with some adults wanting to "use" them for good and others wanting to "use" them for evil. Has Patterson never seen/read/been exposed to X-MEN and TEEN TITANS?? More importantly, does his editor not have truck with this enormous comic and film phenom?
Can James Patterson write anything (and poorly at that) and get it sold? Yes. Yes he can. And he can because every single one of these books hit #1 on the Times Best Seller List.
I just can't believe that teens aren't insulted by these books, or at the very least by the protagonist Max Ride. Other characters fare better; her friend/possible love interest Fang, for example, is more nuanced and charming. Even the talking dog is infinitely more lovable than Max. Max makes me wonder if Patterson likes teen girls or merely finds them snarky and sarcastic. Max acts far older than her 14 years and she can't let three lines pass without throwing in a bitchy zinger.
It's pretty telling that Patterson appears to only have a single child, a son named Jack. Max represents the worst of teenaged girls blown out to stereotype. She's selfish; albeit the "mother" to her "flock"-- Max mothers her flock because it feeds Max's own need to be needed. She's short-sighted. She's incredibly easily irritated and moody. She's finicky and her allegiences change with the breeze. I'm not a mom of a teen girl, but I taught teen girls exclusively for 5 years and taught teen girls and boys for three additional years-- and heck, I WAS a teen girl for seven years-- and I'm terribly put off by Max (and to a certain extent the other female characters Nudge and Angel).
I was also pretty shocked by the extreme level of violence in these books. There's a great deal of blood and smashed bones and wanton murder.
But yes, I read all three books. The student who loaned me the book is an excellent kid. I just hope she saw through Max's thin persona as the creation of a man who needs a few more (young) women in his life.
Showing posts with label sci-fi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sci-fi. Show all posts
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
Back in January, I vowed to not read any more books that were compared to Catcher in the Rye. Well, Catcher in the Rye is just about the only book that The Raw Shark Texts has not been compared to. I left my copy of the book at home tonight, but the cover and the inside first few pages is awash with praise, most of it by way of comparisons to (from memory alone): The Matrix, Memento, Borges, Auster, Melville, Jaws, Douglas Adams, the Da Vinci Code, Murakami, Lewis Carroll… the list, truly, is almost to the point of the absurd.
But while the comparisons between Bad Monkeys/Prep and Catcher are clumsy at best and a farce at worst, nearly all of the above comparisons to the Raw Shark Texts are, at least, plausible.
A better reviewer might be able to pinpoint where the genre emerged—the genre of “main character wakes up and has no idea who he/she is and appears to be suffering from nearly complete amnesia.” I cannot. I trace my exposure to said genre to the film Memento, the 2000 psychological thriller featuring an underrated Guy Pearce. Amnesia is not a requirement of this genre; the protagonist must only have a tenuous grasp on reality, a sense that what he or she knows of his or her life may or may not be the “truth” (hence the comparisons to The Matrix, and even to the recent Sci Fi Channel production, Tin Man).
Eric Sanderson wakes in an apartment that he soon finds is his own. He knows his name only from the driver’s license in his pocket. Leaning against the front door is an envelope addressed to him; he opens it and finds a letter directing him to call a Dr. Randle. Dr. Randle explains that Eric is experiencing a dissociative disorder. This is, according to Randle, the eleventh time Eric has completely lost his memory. It all began three years ago when he and his girlfriend, Clio Ames, were vacationing in the Greek Islands. Clio died in a mysterious accident and these episodes are how Eric has been dealing with his grief.
Simple enough, perhaps, until the protagonist Eric begins to receive cryptic daily correspondence from “the First Eric Sanderson,” correspondence that hints to the current Eric’s lack of safety and to a much deeper plot involving “conceptual fish”—creatures that inhabit a surreal alternate existence—the largest and most menacing of which, the Ludovician, has repeatedly devoured Eric’s memories.
I’m still processing my reaction to this book. I read it voraciously in a matter of two days, despite its length. That’s a good sign. As I read it, I thought “I’ve read this before and I’ve read it better,” but I honestly can’t say where or how. I do know that the tragic end of the book hit me like a stiletto to the gut. I read and reread the last two pages to try to find something hopeful or peaceful to cling to. I didn’t find it. And still, two days later, I still feel a bit despondent about it.
It was the snippets of flashback that really got to me. The current Eric Sanderson’s life didn’t affect me to the same degree that the shadows of his true life shook me. Likewise the real-time love story that emerges is far less moving and passionate than the slivers of the love story between the lost Eric and the doomed Clio.
Apparently The Raw Shark Texts was huge in England (whenever I say something like that I am reminded of Matt Dillon in the 1992 movie Singles, talking about his pathetic Seattle grunge band, Citizen Dick, “We’re huge in Belgium, man.”). But my jury is still out on this book. I can say without a doubt that I liked it but that it wasn’t quite worthy of the gushing blurby praise on its cover. It wasn’t as groundbreaking as the critics professed it was, but it broke a little tiny something inside of me. I miss the book, and that’s something.
But while the comparisons between Bad Monkeys/Prep and Catcher are clumsy at best and a farce at worst, nearly all of the above comparisons to the Raw Shark Texts are, at least, plausible.
A better reviewer might be able to pinpoint where the genre emerged—the genre of “main character wakes up and has no idea who he/she is and appears to be suffering from nearly complete amnesia.” I cannot. I trace my exposure to said genre to the film Memento, the 2000 psychological thriller featuring an underrated Guy Pearce. Amnesia is not a requirement of this genre; the protagonist must only have a tenuous grasp on reality, a sense that what he or she knows of his or her life may or may not be the “truth” (hence the comparisons to The Matrix, and even to the recent Sci Fi Channel production, Tin Man).
Eric Sanderson wakes in an apartment that he soon finds is his own. He knows his name only from the driver’s license in his pocket. Leaning against the front door is an envelope addressed to him; he opens it and finds a letter directing him to call a Dr. Randle. Dr. Randle explains that Eric is experiencing a dissociative disorder. This is, according to Randle, the eleventh time Eric has completely lost his memory. It all began three years ago when he and his girlfriend, Clio Ames, were vacationing in the Greek Islands. Clio died in a mysterious accident and these episodes are how Eric has been dealing with his grief.
Simple enough, perhaps, until the protagonist Eric begins to receive cryptic daily correspondence from “the First Eric Sanderson,” correspondence that hints to the current Eric’s lack of safety and to a much deeper plot involving “conceptual fish”—creatures that inhabit a surreal alternate existence—the largest and most menacing of which, the Ludovician, has repeatedly devoured Eric’s memories.
I’m still processing my reaction to this book. I read it voraciously in a matter of two days, despite its length. That’s a good sign. As I read it, I thought “I’ve read this before and I’ve read it better,” but I honestly can’t say where or how. I do know that the tragic end of the book hit me like a stiletto to the gut. I read and reread the last two pages to try to find something hopeful or peaceful to cling to. I didn’t find it. And still, two days later, I still feel a bit despondent about it.
It was the snippets of flashback that really got to me. The current Eric Sanderson’s life didn’t affect me to the same degree that the shadows of his true life shook me. Likewise the real-time love story that emerges is far less moving and passionate than the slivers of the love story between the lost Eric and the doomed Clio.
Apparently The Raw Shark Texts was huge in England (whenever I say something like that I am reminded of Matt Dillon in the 1992 movie Singles, talking about his pathetic Seattle grunge band, Citizen Dick, “We’re huge in Belgium, man.”). But my jury is still out on this book. I can say without a doubt that I liked it but that it wasn’t quite worthy of the gushing blurby praise on its cover. It wasn’t as groundbreaking as the critics professed it was, but it broke a little tiny something inside of me. I miss the book, and that’s something.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
Jonathan Ames of the New York Times Book Review called this: "something of a science fiction Catcher in the Rye" and maybe my problems with the genius author Matt Ruff's latest book starts there. (Maybe henceforth I should avoid all books that are compared to Salinger's classic, as I'm about to review and likewise grumble about Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld which was similarly lauded).
Ruff's Fool on the Hill may be my favorite book of all time. Let me qualify that: there are books that I adore that are "better" books, classics or more likely to become classics. But no book speaks to my sensibilities as a reader more than Ruff's debut novel, Fool. It's magical. It's hilarious. And it's superbly written. Oozes charm. It's like a better-written (sorry mega-fans) Douglas Adams' book only rooted in fantasy rather than sci-fi. In my opinion, though, Ruff's subsequent three books have been increasingly disappointing, and Bad Monkeys, although well-reviewed and prize-winning (2008 PBNA and 2008 Alex winner), felt a little insulting.
This sci-fi thriller mystery is told during a series of therapy sessions while Jane Charlotte is locked up in the Las Vegas County Jail. It traces her journey from her troubled youth to her recruitment and subsequent (maybe) betrayal by the "Bad Monkeys," a code name for a department of a top-secret organization bent on leveling out the playing field between good and evil. Is Jane sane? Is she a mercenary who murders with a gun whose "ammunition" is meant to mimic death by natural causes? Is she absolutely out of her gourd? How could a lunatic craft such a detailed and elaborate life fiction? Why does so little of her story check out? All these questions are presented to Dr Vale, her psychotherapist. But are the answered satisfactorily by the end?
The end. Hmph. The most common complaint on the book's Amazon reviews site (I'm a curmudgeon clearly, the book is averaging 4-stars) is the end. And I admit, while I was disappointed in the whole book, it was the end that made me nuts. I could handle the Shutter Island/Life of Pi level "what's really going on here" type questions. In fact, I love books that leave you wondering. But Monkeys dumps you in the middle of that quandary right away and instead of leaving us wondering, it wrapped things up in, what was in my mind, a ludicrous and unpredictable (in a bad way) way.
It's easier to be disappointed by a writer that you love than a writer you're ambivalent about. One of the things that really burned my buns is that the book is chock-full of the Ruff-ness that I love; the ludicrously clever ideas, the real-as-life dialogue, the Big Thoughts tossed around so casually. But the plot, for me, just didn't hold up.
Read Fool on the Hill instead. I do, about once every two or three years.
Ruff's Fool on the Hill may be my favorite book of all time. Let me qualify that: there are books that I adore that are "better" books, classics or more likely to become classics. But no book speaks to my sensibilities as a reader more than Ruff's debut novel, Fool. It's magical. It's hilarious. And it's superbly written. Oozes charm. It's like a better-written (sorry mega-fans) Douglas Adams' book only rooted in fantasy rather than sci-fi. In my opinion, though, Ruff's subsequent three books have been increasingly disappointing, and Bad Monkeys, although well-reviewed and prize-winning (2008 PBNA and 2008 Alex winner), felt a little insulting.
This sci-fi thriller mystery is told during a series of therapy sessions while Jane Charlotte is locked up in the Las Vegas County Jail. It traces her journey from her troubled youth to her recruitment and subsequent (maybe) betrayal by the "Bad Monkeys," a code name for a department of a top-secret organization bent on leveling out the playing field between good and evil. Is Jane sane? Is she a mercenary who murders with a gun whose "ammunition" is meant to mimic death by natural causes? Is she absolutely out of her gourd? How could a lunatic craft such a detailed and elaborate life fiction? Why does so little of her story check out? All these questions are presented to Dr Vale, her psychotherapist. But are the answered satisfactorily by the end?
The end. Hmph. The most common complaint on the book's Amazon reviews site (I'm a curmudgeon clearly, the book is averaging 4-stars) is the end. And I admit, while I was disappointed in the whole book, it was the end that made me nuts. I could handle the Shutter Island/Life of Pi level "what's really going on here" type questions. In fact, I love books that leave you wondering. But Monkeys dumps you in the middle of that quandary right away and instead of leaving us wondering, it wrapped things up in, what was in my mind, a ludicrous and unpredictable (in a bad way) way.
It's easier to be disappointed by a writer that you love than a writer you're ambivalent about. One of the things that really burned my buns is that the book is chock-full of the Ruff-ness that I love; the ludicrously clever ideas, the real-as-life dialogue, the Big Thoughts tossed around so casually. But the plot, for me, just didn't hold up.
Read Fool on the Hill instead. I do, about once every two or three years.
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