SiriusXM Book Radio is like my best friend. It's always there for me. Sometimes it annoys me, but sometimes it brings me so much entertainment I can pretty much forgive it.
I think I missed the actual ending of Cujo, but I'm not bothered by that because the last passage I heard was awesome and the very last line of it was "and with that, Cujo was gone, too". That's all I need. It's perfect.
Know what else is perfect? Lorna Raver's performance. I love this woman and I want her to read more of my books. Her voices are absolutely superb! She had me near to tears at the end.
Now on to something completely different: The Christmas Train by David Baldacci. I've never read Baldacci, and if this book is any indication of his talents, I NEVER WILL. Every character we've met so far is a hokey cliche and it makes me seethe just to listen to it! The narrator is awful. I just found out that it's Tim Matheson, and now I'm horribly disappointed in Tim Matheson. Go study under Lorna Raver, Tim. You need some tips.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
LET'S TALK ABOUT THE EYRE AFFAIR!!!
The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
This is supposedly Fforde's first book, which I find suspect because it's astoundingly entertaining and so ambitious as the boggle your mind. Fforde rewrites history! He creates an alternate universe from scratch and it's just so great I can barely put it into words, but I'm going to try, because I'm home sick and I have nothing better to do in between sinus headaches and hacking up disgusting things.
Okay, first things first: it's set in 1985. The Crimean War has gone on for 130 years. For those Americans who pay no attention to other countries' history, the Crimean War was apparently fought between the English and the Russians over some land that both claimed they had a right to. So, yeah. War. The government is a little Orwellian. There are werewolves and vampires that just exist and Fforde sort of mentions them in a backhanded way BECAUSE GUESS WHAT THEY ARE NOT REALLY IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT. I love that, that he's just like OH HEY VAMPIRES but guess what, we're going to talk about Shakespeare for a few more chapters because vampires are just sort of blase here. Because there are supernatural elements about, the governments have created a special police/military force (I'm not sure which best describes them) to keep the order somewhat. These are called "Special Operations". There are 32 levels of SpecOps (pronounced speshops). 32 is the lowest and deals with horticulture. 27 deals with literature-related crimes. 12 or 14 deals with time-related crimes (called the ChronoGuard). Anything less than 12 is sort of a mystery, except for level 1--they police the SpecOps themselves. I forgot to mention the biggest thing of all here: books are king in this universe. People still watch tv, but I don't think movies are mentioned. People would rather go to plays. There are machines on street corners that play snippets of Shakespeare.
What's strange about the book-love in this book is that people are all up in old authors works, but there's little mention of new books, aside from the main character's old flame--he writes books, and is apparently doing well at it, but in a world where some written works are that revered it makes you wonder about new authors, and Fforde sort of doesn't mention that. It's like he couldn't satisfactorily explain it to himself, so he just decided to ignore it.
LIST OF CHARACTERS:
Thursday Next--SpecOps 27, known as the Literotec division (literary detectives). She's the main character. She's awesome, she's everything you wish you were: brave, smart, witty, and capable of mistakes but in a way that makes it impossible to fault her.
Other assorted people who's names I can't remember. There's Acheron Hades, the villain. He's the third most evil man on the planet, and he absolutely relishes that title. He's got some nice mystical tricks up his sleeve, but my favorite thing about him is how much he enjoys being evil, just for the sake of being evil. He makes it look civilized. He's not angry, or petulant about it. Here's who I think should play him in a movie: Ed Quinn. Seriously, put that guy in a top hat and he's perfect. (They never said that Hades wore a top hat, but in my imagination he did. Read the book and tell me I'm wrong!!!) OOOH, Mycroft, Thursday's uncle, is wonderful! He's such a brilliant and adorable character. It's hard not to like him. Mycroft plays a very important role: he invents a device to allow you to step in to any book! And Hades finds out and kidnaps him and uses the device for some evil-doings, culminating in stealing Miss Jane Eyre from her own book. Don't worry, Thursday finds a way to save everything. She's awesome like that.
Ok, let's talk about the names. I love them. There's a guy named Braxton Hicks. There's a Bowden Cable. There's Thursday Next! Acheron Hades is pretty clever. So is his brother, Styx. Victor Analogy, another good one. The bestest, though? Jack Schitt. And in the sequel that I am currently reading? Turns out Schitt had a half-brother, and his name is Schitt-Hawse. I FREAKING LOVE IT. And the love interest: Landon Parke-Laine, I can't remember exactly, but I think Mycroft makes fun of his name, says something like it sounds like a bloody hotel. Well, guess what London Park Lane is????
Another thing I like! Fforde mentions things in this book--things set in the future--but by the end doesn't wrap them up. That means he's going to visit them in later books. So, this is his first novel, and he's already setting up jokes and plot points for later works? Ballsy! But, obviously it worked out for him, seeing as how I have in my possession every book mentioning Thursday Next I could find on Amazon that one night a very long ago.
I have to give SiriusXM's book radio props for introducing me to the Eyre Affair. Listening to that wonderful woman read these words made it all the more imperative that I buy them.
Holy geeze I might have a fever.
This is supposedly Fforde's first book, which I find suspect because it's astoundingly entertaining and so ambitious as the boggle your mind. Fforde rewrites history! He creates an alternate universe from scratch and it's just so great I can barely put it into words, but I'm going to try, because I'm home sick and I have nothing better to do in between sinus headaches and hacking up disgusting things.
Okay, first things first: it's set in 1985. The Crimean War has gone on for 130 years. For those Americans who pay no attention to other countries' history, the Crimean War was apparently fought between the English and the Russians over some land that both claimed they had a right to. So, yeah. War. The government is a little Orwellian. There are werewolves and vampires that just exist and Fforde sort of mentions them in a backhanded way BECAUSE GUESS WHAT THEY ARE NOT REALLY IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT. I love that, that he's just like OH HEY VAMPIRES but guess what, we're going to talk about Shakespeare for a few more chapters because vampires are just sort of blase here. Because there are supernatural elements about, the governments have created a special police/military force (I'm not sure which best describes them) to keep the order somewhat. These are called "Special Operations". There are 32 levels of SpecOps (pronounced speshops). 32 is the lowest and deals with horticulture. 27 deals with literature-related crimes. 12 or 14 deals with time-related crimes (called the ChronoGuard). Anything less than 12 is sort of a mystery, except for level 1--they police the SpecOps themselves. I forgot to mention the biggest thing of all here: books are king in this universe. People still watch tv, but I don't think movies are mentioned. People would rather go to plays. There are machines on street corners that play snippets of Shakespeare.
What's strange about the book-love in this book is that people are all up in old authors works, but there's little mention of new books, aside from the main character's old flame--he writes books, and is apparently doing well at it, but in a world where some written works are that revered it makes you wonder about new authors, and Fforde sort of doesn't mention that. It's like he couldn't satisfactorily explain it to himself, so he just decided to ignore it.
LIST OF CHARACTERS:
Thursday Next--SpecOps 27, known as the Literotec division (literary detectives). She's the main character. She's awesome, she's everything you wish you were: brave, smart, witty, and capable of mistakes but in a way that makes it impossible to fault her.
Other assorted people who's names I can't remember. There's Acheron Hades, the villain. He's the third most evil man on the planet, and he absolutely relishes that title. He's got some nice mystical tricks up his sleeve, but my favorite thing about him is how much he enjoys being evil, just for the sake of being evil. He makes it look civilized. He's not angry, or petulant about it. Here's who I think should play him in a movie: Ed Quinn. Seriously, put that guy in a top hat and he's perfect. (They never said that Hades wore a top hat, but in my imagination he did. Read the book and tell me I'm wrong!!!) OOOH, Mycroft, Thursday's uncle, is wonderful! He's such a brilliant and adorable character. It's hard not to like him. Mycroft plays a very important role: he invents a device to allow you to step in to any book! And Hades finds out and kidnaps him and uses the device for some evil-doings, culminating in stealing Miss Jane Eyre from her own book. Don't worry, Thursday finds a way to save everything. She's awesome like that.
Ok, let's talk about the names. I love them. There's a guy named Braxton Hicks. There's a Bowden Cable. There's Thursday Next! Acheron Hades is pretty clever. So is his brother, Styx. Victor Analogy, another good one. The bestest, though? Jack Schitt. And in the sequel that I am currently reading? Turns out Schitt had a half-brother, and his name is Schitt-Hawse. I FREAKING LOVE IT. And the love interest: Landon Parke-Laine, I can't remember exactly, but I think Mycroft makes fun of his name, says something like it sounds like a bloody hotel. Well, guess what London Park Lane is????
Another thing I like! Fforde mentions things in this book--things set in the future--but by the end doesn't wrap them up. That means he's going to visit them in later books. So, this is his first novel, and he's already setting up jokes and plot points for later works? Ballsy! But, obviously it worked out for him, seeing as how I have in my possession every book mentioning Thursday Next I could find on Amazon that one night a very long ago.
I have to give SiriusXM's book radio props for introducing me to the Eyre Affair. Listening to that wonderful woman read these words made it all the more imperative that I buy them.
Holy geeze I might have a fever.
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