[from the stabenow.com vaults, 7/12/10, and in honor of the publication of the last Sookie Stackhouse novel tomorrow, Dead Ever After.]
An awful lot of books with vampires in them out there nowadays, I agree, but before you roll your eyes and groan let me steer you to some really good ones.
Sookie Stackhouse's clairvoyance made her an outcast long before she started dating Bill the vampire. Sookie tends bar in present-day Bon Temps, Louisiana, where due to the invention of synthetic blood by the Japanese the vampires have decided to come out of their underworld closet, and that's just the beginning. Over so far ten books in the series, Sookie is introduced to vampires, werewolves, werepanthers, weretigers, witches, fairies, maenads, and she takes them all in her stride. Beautiful, spunky, brave, Sookie is the calm eye of the supernatural hurricane swirling around her, and standing at her shoulder as she leans into this paranormal wind makes this world seem all the more real. Yes, this is the series that HBO's True Blood is based on, but read Charlaine Harris's books, too, because they're a lot of fun.
Harry Dresden is a wizard living in present-day Chicago, where he advertises his services under "W" in the Yellow Pages. He's got a good heart, a smart mouth, and a skull for a sidekick, and he goes up against some of the Biggest Bads ever to scare the socks off you. Among these are the vampires, organized into the Black Court, the White Court and the Red Court. The twelfth book in Jim Butcher's series, Changes, features a finale smackdown with the Red Court that will have you on the edge of your seat, and the best hook I've seen set in the denouement of a work of popular fiction in a long, long time.
A new entry into the vampire oeuvre is Blood Oath, the first book in a planned series by Christopher Farnsworth about a 163-year old vampire who under a voluntary voodoo spell (work with me here) has been working as a secret agent for the presidents of the United States since Andrew Johnson, and who sublimates his lust for blood by going to AA meetings, whenever he can fit one in between fouling dastardly assassination plots by zombie Frankenstein soldiers. His sidekick and our way into this world is the ambitious and cynical Zach Burrows, a young White House staffer caught in flagrante delicto with the president's daughter, which explains his current assignment. A promising start for a buddy series.
# Permanent link to Sookie is the calm eye of this supernatural hurricane.
And let's not forget the book that started it all, Bram Stoker's Dracula. I read it a long time ago but I remember wondering even then how Stoker in 1897 got away with all that unspoken but nevertheless smoldering sexuality that underlays every line of the text. And Renfield still gives me the creeps.
“Easy interbreeding between humans and aliens.”
Bad Movie Physics. See also here. “Stop the Movie! Stop the Movie! Explosions don’t go ‘BOOM!’ in a vacuum!” —Gary Larsen, The Far Side
The Four to Eights
[from the stabenow.com vaults, 2007] April 28 Chances are you go to work in the morning at 8am and knock off at 5pm, with an hour off for lunch. The Coast Guard stands watches. We stand watches on the bridge as OOD (Officer of the Deck), QMOW (Quartermaster of the Watch), BMOW (Bosun Mate of…
The Reversal by Michael Connelly
It usually was the best moment of a case. The drive downtown with a suspect handcuffed in the backseat. There was nothing better. Sure there was the eventual payoff of a conviction down the line. Being in the courtroom when the verdict is read--watching the reality shock and then deaden the eyes of the convicted. But the drive in was always better, more immediate and personal. It was always the moment Bosch savored. The chase was over and the case was about to morph from the relentless momentum of the investigation to the measured pace of the prosecution.
This is why we read Connelly, this kind of observation that gives us the sense that we're a part of the murder investigation Harry Bosch is currently on. Of course, you'll notice the word "usually" in the first sentence, which all by itself tells us that all the rules are about to be broken.
Twenty-four years before, Jason Jessup was convicted of kidnapping and murdering a little girl. New DNA techniques have caused the courts to throw that conviction out and to bring him to trial again. Because of suspicions of conflict of interest in the Los Angeles DA's office, the DA names defense attorney Mickey Haller as special prosecutor. Mickey picks his ex-wife Maggie McPherson (aka Maggie McFierce, love that nickname) as his co-chair and his half-brother Harry Bosche as lead investigator. The fact that the three of them share two daughters adds a serious degree of personal urgency to the investigation and make it a seriously family affair.
Good plotting, good characters, a villain who should never be taken at face value, and courtroom scenes like this one
"I want jury selection completed by the end of the day Friday. If you slow me down, then I will slow you down. I will hold the panel and every lawyer in here until Friday night if I have to. I want opening statements first thing Monday. Any objection to that?"
Both sides seemed properly cowed by the judge.
make The Reversal a fun read.
# Permanent link to “Both sides seemed properly cowed by the judge.”
“…danger lurks round every corner…”
What may be Jeremy Irons’ best work.
Ask the Chiefs
[from the stabenow.com vaults, 2007] April 27 Yesterday I had lunch in the Chiefs’ Mess, and for the first time in two patrols learned that the Chiefs’ have their own motto: Ask the Chiefs. One of the first things the Captain told me was that the Coast Guard lives and dies with its Chiefs, and…
Third in the saga of teleport David, his wife Milly, and now their daughter Cent. Steven Gould is the direct descendant of Robert A. Heinlein and Joe Haldeman--he writes so sensibly and practically of impossible things that he makes you believe, well, the impossible. He's really given serious, extended thought in these novels (Jumper, Reflex) to just what it would be like to be able to teleport, and to just how attractive that would make you to the powers that be. If you live in daily fear of being kidnapped by forces determined to exploit your ability, what do you do with your life? How do you stay out of their reach? Do you decide to try to do good in the world anyway, at the risk of losing your freedom and self-determination? How do you raise a child in this world to be aware and responsible? (FYI, Milly and David do a pretty good job.)
I read Impulse in one sitting. Watching Cent, a very atypical rebellious teenager, learning to cope with her world's privileges and its dangers and even to extend its boundaries is riveting stuff. Cent is a marvelous addition to this world and is now my favorite character in it. I hope we get to go there again.
# Permanent link to What would life be like if you could teleport?
Sex. And violence. But mostly sex.
[from the stabenow.com vaults, 7/16/2010. Reposting, just because.] I’m just saying. I was on a local radio show recently, me and host Aaron talking about good summer reads, when someone called in to say that he’d read a couple of my books and called them soft porn. I admitted that, yes, there was sex in…
Repair Locker 3
[from the stabenow.com vaults, 2007] April 26 Wednesday after lunch LTJG Josh DiPietro’s voice came over the pipe to announce General Quarters Condition 1 on station training. “Do not set material condition Zebra. Everyone report to your GQ billet and dress out.” This drill marked the last drill where the training teams can offer instruction.…
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch -- Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods by Jennifer Reese
A few caveats before we get started, Reese writes in the introduction. First, although, like most people, I think about money, I've always been able to clothe my children and pay the mortgage and if I couldn't whether I bought or made creme fraiche--or bread, to use a less absurd example--would make no difference. It is frivolous and deluded to think it would. I just wanted to address and answer some middle-class home economics questions that nagged my Michael Pollan-reading, price-checking, overthinking self. This is not a book about how to scrape by on a budget and it is not a book about how to go off the grid.
Well, thank god for that. I, too, read The Omnivore's Dilemma and when I finished it I said out loud, "Well, what the hell can I eat then?"
Here instead is an examination of the art of the possible in the kitchen, with recipes graded by three scales: Make it or buy it?, Hassle, and Cost comparison. She starts with peanut butter (Make it or buy it?: Make it.) and goes on to truffles (Hassle: Actucally, yes. These are a hassle.) to mozzarella (Cost comparison: If you have a good source for the proper milk (like a couple of goats) this is a bargain...).
Smart and funny, and worth reading for the chapter on raising chickens alone. I'm going to try her bread recipe.
# Permanent link to The Art of the Possible in the Kitchen