needs more demons? Literally, perhaps. Metaphorically, no way.

• When Pierson’s characters talk about bands, the made up names, e.g., The Boy Who Cried Sparrow, sound so believable I had to use Google to make sure they weren’t real.
• This book has the most realistic depiction ever of a high school friendship between two ubernerds. I say this as a “co-author” of a comic apocalyptic “novel” that shamelessly ripped off “Hitchhickers’ Guide” and Tolkein metal and whatever else my ubernerd pal and I were reading/listening to, and which was not utterly unlike Darren and Eric’s TimeBlaze project.
• Darren’s voice, holy crap. The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To is the first book I read beginning to end on an e-reader device, and I set bookmarks on pages with passages that made me really want to read them aloud to anyone in range, and there were, like, a dozen. Here’s one:
  

  When I get up to my room I take my shirt off and look into the mirror for a while, not in a vain way, just to see what the fuck is going on with my torso, scrawny and fat at the same time, has to be the worst torso for miles. Then I might turn on MTV, again not because I like what’s going on there but simply to gape in wonder at what the fuck is wrong with everybody, and occasionally there’ll be some stupidly hot girl on, writhing around on the top of a car.

  and here’s another:

  Basically something I think I believed without ever having thought about it is that part of being smart is not being able to start a sentence with a subject and then end that sentence by saying that subject is a good thing and actually mean it.

  Darren usually opts for flat, uncomplicated language like this, but if it’s low on frills, it possesses a distinctive rhythm, and it feels so completely authentic that I sometimes feel as if Pierson must have rooted around in my own high school-era cranium.

• The title of this blog alludes to the fact that strictly naturalistic fiction, with no speculative or fantastic elements, sometimes leaves me feeling like there’s something missing. The Boy Who Couldn’t Sleep and Never Had To does have speculative/fantastic aspects, but it’s a measure of how resonant that I found it that I almost wished it hadn’t. I was so interested in what was going on between Darren, Eric (and other characters I won’t mention to avoid spoilers) that sometimes the fantasy elements felt almost intrusive. Coming from me this is high, if a bit left-handed, praise. (I wouldn’t go so far as to say there’s textual evidence that Darren is delusional and that the novel’s fantastic events didn’t “really” happen, but it’s at least hinted at that fantasy worlds are one of Darren’s coping mechanisms for dealing with the messy emotional business of the real world and real people; once or twice I even had the sense that it might have been a distancing technique for Pierson — that maybe he didn’t think he could make the story compelling without the sci-fi twist. The irony here is that I think would have found it compelling, but I might never have thought to pick it up without that hook to draw me in.)

One thing I didn’t love quite so much — the ending works thematically, but it seemed a bit rushed. It leads into the prologue –but that prologue feels almost like it belongs to a different novel entirely. Maybe a sequel is in the offing. But whether Pierson revisits Darren, Eric, et al in future fiction or not, I eagerly await his next book, no matter what genre labels might apply to it.

needs more demons? Absolutely not.

needs more demons? worked fine for me, despite being not particularly demon-y

When Franz finally departed for a place he referred to mysteriously a the Halfway Club, I resolved to confront Professor Krak as soon as I saw him again, & was he planning to use me & Fru Schleswig as guinea-pigs? And if so, he had no right to make assumptions of any sort about what we would & would not do, unless a very tempting financial offer was involved! And then for the first time in my life, I enacted what I later learned was a strong tradition amongst the inhabitants of that country & and time in which I now found myself: I trained my eyes on the silent flickering televiison screen, across which passed a stream of images, by turns boring, sugary, violent, & plain incomprehensible, & fell asleep.

Aside from its fantastic premise, My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time is a novel which refuses to commit itself fully to any of the genres in which it could perhaps be placed: it’s not twisty nor dramatic enough for adventure, not uproarious enough for broad comedy, not incisive enough for satire, not bawdy enough (despite its title) for erotica, nor sentimental enough for romance (though it comes nearest the mark on this last; Charlotte’s heart is, inevitably, electro-plated). Instead it’s a little bit of all these things, which I found formed an enjoyable, if not exactly compelling, muddle.

needs more demons? perhaps.

This time around, what impressed me most was the density of repurposing elements from other recent media: the (powerful young) zombie settler/Settler’s Affairs back drop is very Buffy the vampire slayer/Watcher’s Council. The pom squad/cheerleader social conflict is straight out of Glee. In the second book I was more conscious of tiresome Twilight-ish romantic mooning (and I suspect if I had ever read a “Sweet Valley High” book I might have found points of comparison there, as well). Last time I thought it was a bit unfair of me to brand people yelling vaguely Latin-ish spells like “Reverto!” as derivative of Harry Potter, but this book adds a distinctly Potter-y element to the evolving plot thread as well.

Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments books draw on much of the same source material, but far more successfully. Undead Much leans very, very hard on tall coincidence, and its conclusion is far too much like that of You’re So Undead to Me — both feature a late revelation of the villain’s identity that abandons character consistency, and a big improbable fight scene.

As an adult male I’m admittedly way outside the target demographic for this novel. But there are a plenty of young adult books I have no trouble enjoying. This was not one of them.

I was also a bit creeped out by Undead Much’s treatment of adolescent sexuality. Megan Berry spends a lot of time wondering whether she should become sexually active or not — but because there’s black magic afoot and the blood of virgins has ritual uses, in her situation her life would literally become less complicated if she started having sex. I hate to sound like an old prude, but that seems like a misleading message to send teens.

needs more demons? yeah.

Lewis continues to exploit the devices that distinguished his first novel: twin first-person vampire anti-hero narrators: Eric and his sometime-girlfriend Tabitha. Eric is a reluctantly unreliable narrator to boot; he has a capricious memory. (I like this notion; it seems very logical that storing centuries of memories in a human-like brain would get problematic — although Eric isn’t actually particularly old.)

On the plus side, Lewis (and Eric) don’t seem to take themselves as seriously as Hamilton (and Blake) do. Eric introduces himself by explaining that

In ice cream terms, vampires come in three flavors: chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla. I’m grape sherbet — hard to come by and much more likely to give you brain freeze.

and utters lines like:

“My magic ice sword! I left it in the closet. If some damn fireman stole my magic sword, I’m going to be so fucking pissed off!”

And those aren’t the silliest things in Revamped.

If I’m comparing Revamped to Hamilton’s Blake novels, it’s only fair to specify that it resembles the earlier books, where the plot is more substantial than thin connective tissue between fight and/or sex scenes.

On the minus side, the the entrenched sexism of Revamped was hard for me to overlook. Somehow it’s a little easier for me to swallow female characters who act like players in a stereotypical male fantasy when the author is female. I suppose it also might help to envision most of the characters in the book as participants on a VH1 reality show.

needs more demons? just not my cup of tea

Suspending my disbelief in Mansfield’s reactions to the modern world took some effort. I think, for instance, that an LED display reading “808″ would first be interpreted as an abstract geometric pattern rather than as numbers. I’m inclined to think (although this may be partly my own prejudice) that when confronted with technology such as cars, iPods, cell phones, etc., that a 19th-century person might not be easily convinced that the technology is natural and human, rather than unnatural and infernal. But of course, if Mansfield were completely unable to engage with the modern world, Rigler wouldn’t have much of a book. So I’m willing to make allowances, and Rigler certainly establishes that Mansfield is strong-willed, intelligent, and unconventional — like most of Austen’s heroines; like Austen herself.

Rigler makes a more-or-less credible attempt to describe the modern world as a Regency-era person might see it. Even at its silliest, the novel often displays Rigler’s 19th-century knowledge, as when Mansfield explores Stone’s refrigerator:

…At last I have discovered a larder, bare though it may be.

Ah. There is an upper door as well. Frigid air issues from the interior, refreshing upon my skin. A giant, frosty bottle of something called Absolut. A jar, pliable as paper, of something called Cherry Garcia. I open it, dip in a finger and taste. It is a delightful variety of ices, sweet with chewy cherries and bits of what tastes like chocolate except that it is solid and much sweeter. Must find a spoon.

Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict is none too deep a book, so perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but it could perhaps be considered an extended metaphor bridging the gap between Austen and her present-day readers.

I’ve spent enough time reading Austen’s fiction and biographies of the authoress to have formed a one-way emotional connection. But I’m keenly aware that if some time anomaly afforded me an opportunity to meet her, that she would find me dreadfully uncouth and unfit for conversation. Despite all the pleasure her words have afforded me, I’m certain she would find my paltry scribblings deeply appalling.

To a limited degree we can put ourselves in Austen’s shoes: reading her work, histories, even watching PBS’s Regency House Party. Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict, with a character who shares many characteristics with Austen and her protagonists, and whose name blends Austen’s given name with the title of one of her novels, attempts the reverse. It suggests that, among other allowances, Austen could conceivably conclude that, at least in the climate of southern California, it might be appropriate for ladies to be seen bare-limbed.

I thought it was charming, and although mostly fluffy, not without a few insightful moments. I’d recommend it to anyone who finds the basic premise intriguing and isn’t completely allergic to anything that could be filed under “romance.”

An extended battle scene near the end, however, forcibly recalled my issues with the first novel — the descriptions of the participants seemed a little lazy and formulaic, and the confusing, somewhat contradictory, descriptions of the environs interfered with my suspension of disbelief. But if the finale was a little disappointing, it certainly wasn’t enough so to blunt my interest in the concluding volume.

needs more demons? mmmmmmaybe.

For better or worse, in the wake of Twilight’s success (not to mention Harry Potter’s, Buffy’s and the more explicit books of Hamilton’s, Harris’s, et al) there’s a lot of supernaturally-themed young adult fiction being published these days that shares many common attributes. These books generally use supernatural abilities as a metaphor for ordinary adolescent alienation. Many of them employ themes of humans consorting with the not-quite-human to deliver mildly illicit thrills (whether or not the characters actual consort). The overall vibe is generally escapist, with plot more prominent than theme or character development. (In fact, I think some of these books — although not the best of them — deliberately skimp on development of the viewpoint characters to increase the degree to which the intended audience can identify with the protagonists).

If you judge Generation Dead by its cover, I think you could be excused for thinking it’s one of these books:

However, despite some common plot elements Generation Dead is a completely different sort of novel — more serious and more ambitious — and it’s hard to imagine someone looking for a Twilight-esque experience is going to be very satisfied. In fact, it’s a little hard for me to imagine many readers being completely satisfied by Generation Dead — its symbolism seems muddled, although that’s arguably deliberate, and the abrupt ending leaves many elements unresolved. The dénouement makes thematic sense, but it also feels a little as if it was chosen as an alternative to answering or addressing some of the questions the narrative raises.

But I definitely give Waters credit for trying something different, and I found his book interesting, if not completely successful. In Generation Dead some deceased teens rise again as zombies unlike virtually any other treatment of the undead I can think of. They shamble around, but they don’t rot or eat brains, and one of them even goes out for the football team. Waters plays a little with zombieness as metaphor for alienation, but he’s more interested in contrasting the zombies’ externally imposed alienation with the internally imposed alienation of teens in the goth/punk subculture. The social treatment of the undead (or in the novel’s politically correct phrase, “the differently biotic”) is also an extended metaphor for real world bigotry (and one perhaps best not too closely examined). Waters’ third-person omniscient voice delves deeply into the motivations of his human characters, including the nastiest, a memorably self-aware bully, while leaving the zombies oblique and mysterious.

Quibble: I think writing about counter-culture music credibly is something that writers from outside the culture can often best deal with by making up band names. Waters mostly acquits himself well, but the number of times Michale Graves (a.k.a. the singer for The Misfits who was neither Glenn Danzig nor Jerry Only) is mentioned suggests that Waters’ source on Graves’ prominence in the goth/horrorpunk/metal scene might have been an interview with Graves himself.

needs more demons? just a few.

Since Peterfreund’s unicorns are fierce predators inclined to maim and/or devour any but a maiden pure, she posits a secret society of unicorn slayers. For a little while it seemed like Rampant was going to be more-or-less a rip off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Seasons 7 and 8* in particular, with narrator Astrid as the Buffy-figure helping to train a cadre of young warrior women to combat unicorns instead of vampires ). I would have been fine with that; the sheer novelty of fierce and deadly unicorns was sweeping me along.

But ultimately, Rampant, to its credit, has a lot more going on. It deals with feminist issues a little more explicitly than Buffy, and it’s angrier. I can imagine that if some teenage boys could bring themselves to read a (dark, gory) book about (fighting) unicorns they could possibly have their consciousnesses raised in ways that might prevent some real-world damage to human beings.

I was a little worried as the remaining page-count dwindled that Rampant was going to be one of those “novels” that turned out to be first-in-series and not a complete story. I was pleasantly surprised that while Rampant doesn’t exactly preclude a sequel, it certainly doesn’t require one. I thought the dénouement was a little rushed, but that may have been partly because I was turning the pages so fast.

Peeve: “hissed” as the verb describing the utterance of several sibilant-free bits of dialogue. Multiple times, yet.

*yes, Season 8. It’s currently unspooling in comic book form.

needs more demons? nope.