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By Ellie, May 25, 2010 10:13 pm

Mm-mm, so good to have my baby back. All in working order, with everything right where I left it (as far as I know), and no nasty lines to impede my viewing pleasure. Plus, I can watch DVDs in bed again.

Okay, I could have done that with the PlayStation, but… y’know…

So with the continuation of the Disney Afternoon comics recaps will come a new layout for the blog. Because, seriously, this one just sucks sweaty balls. I’ve downloaded a few themes, but I’d like to provide my own image/header pic/whatever. Give me a week, and I’ll come up with something snazzy or half-decent.

All right, all right. On with the show. Post.

I love Goodreads. It’s like Amazon stripped down to reviews of books. But you know what I love the most about this site? All the one- and two-star reviews. When I’m researching a potential title for my incredibly bloated to-read bookcase, I go straight to the lowest ratings to find out what makes the dead tree candidate so brain-scratchingly horrible. I like to know what I’m in for–with as few spoilers as possible.

But if I’m just looking for giggles, I read the spoiler-infested reviews. There’s no way in hell I’m reading the PlayCromagnon Doorstop series, after all. (You might know it as the Earth’s Children series.)

What sucks about some of these reviews is that some readers don’t explain why they’re giving the book a low rating. Just tack on one or two stars and they’re done. Pfft. Fuckers. I want to be entertained and you’re not even putting a sliver of effort into it.

But for those who make me smile, chuckle, or guffaw until I spittle all over the computer screen… well, I just plain like ‘em. And here are a few that did just that:

Review for Valley of the Horses
Amber rated it: 1 of 5 stars

I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but this was only partially it. Clan of the Cave Bear certainly didn’t set the bar high, literarily speaking. However, I was taken aback by the shift in tone and emphasis. Whereas Cave Bear seemed genuinely interested in being taken seriously, Valley of the Horses is more interested in titillating housewives whose macrame plant holders still boast spider plants and ferns galore. The whole book smacks of repressed seventies feminism; politics and speculative anthropological fiction make for awkward bedfellows. Or should I say bedpersons? Or should I crouch submissively at the feet of someone whose diction I admire and wait for Er to make the decision for me while simultaneously awakening in me desires and capabilities I never knew I had? No, seriously. Cave Bear was hilarious, and Valley of Horses was gross porn for women who don’t want to seem like they’re reading porn.

The upshot is that my cat liked this book better than I did. Either someone at the library rubbed catnip into the binding, or the aforementioned macrame housewives managed to smear so much yearning, musk, and housepet dander onto the pages that my cat went completely feral whenever this book was in the room.

Review for Outlander
Holly rated it: 2 of 5 stars

How To Commit Adultery Without Being a Cheap Slutty Whore: A Q&A by Diana Gabaldon

Q: I love my husband but I’m feeling kind of restless. But adultery is wrong. So what do I do?
A: Easy! Go back in time!

Q: What do you mean, Ms. Gabaldon?
A: If you go back in time, your husband hasn’t been born yet. So you can have wild and crazy S&M sex with impunity.

Q: But won’t I still be married to him?
A: Aren’t you listening? He hasn’t been BORN yet. So you aren’t married! But if you are really being such a stickler, then just have someone force you to get married to someone else.

Q: But, but, no one can force me to get married against my will!
A: Okay, let me lay it out for you: You’re really hot for this sexy warrior barbarian guy, right? I know this, because you stop thinking about your husband about 24 hours after you’ve been dropped in this guy’s arms. So you get in this situation where some obscure tribal law insists you have to get married, make a little protest, sign some papers, and voila!

Q: But that doesn’t mean I have to sleep with him.
A: Oh but you do, because some random dude insists that you have to. Don’t worry, the sex will be great even though he’s a 23 year old virgin. So you see, you HAVE to do it, so it’s okay.

Q; But isn’t it a sin?
A: Fine, find a priest at the end of the book to absolve you, whatever. And anyway, it’s okay because your husband basically told you it was okay, right before you were whisked back in time. Seriously, go for it. When else will you get the chance? You’ve been married for years. You deserve a little hot and heavy barbarian action.

Q: So what’s this hot barbarian guy like?
A: Well, watch out, because he loves to reminisce about how his dad used to beat him and how wonderful that was. And he really gets off on beating you, but it’s just the once. Oh, and it seems that he wants you so badly he can’t restrain from ramming you repeatedly with his male member while telling you how much he can’t restrain himself and that gets seriously annoying after the twentieth time. But otherwise, it’s all good.

Q: Anything else I should be aware of?
A: Surprise! Buttsex! But not for you, so it’s okay.

Oddly, I’m going to read the next one in the series. Because I’m bizarrely fascinated. It’s like a train wreck.

Edit 1:
Someone in the comments said I should copy this into the review, so here you go:

Plot Summary

Claire: I love my husband! I love sex!
Frank: But it’s okay if you have sex with someone else, in certain circumstances.
Standing Stones: SUCK! Ha ha, you’re in another time!
The Anti-Frank: Ooooh, I think I will rape you.
Claire: Eeek!
Clansmen: Scots to the rescue! Here, meet Jamie and his manly manhood.
Jamie: Och, aye, I’m a tough laddie. And I’m going to kill the Anti-Frank for beating the shit outta of me and raping my sister.
Claire: Ooooh, he’s cute. Hey, wasn’t I married?
Dougal: Ye have to marry the laddie to get away from the Anti-Frank.
Claire: Okay.
Dougal: And ye have to have sex wit’ him.
Claire: Mmmmm…. but…. well, okay.
Jamie: I’m a virgin. Oooh, but I love sticking my manhood in ye. It’s like a sacrament and all.
Claire: I should get back to Frank, I think I will take this opportunity to run away… I guess… sort of… meh.
The Anti-Frank: Ha ha! Found you. Now to rape you!
Jamie: Och, that’s my wee lassie. First I’m going to rescue her, then I’m going to beat her for disobeying me. And then I’m going to tell her about how me Da beat me and how much I liked it.
Jealous wench: The village witch is looking for you.
Claire: Okay!
Villagers: She’s a witch! Burn her!
Jamie: Over my dead body!
Claire: Honey, I have something to tell you. I’m not a witch but…
Jamie: Ye must go back!
Claire: I can’t. I long for your manhood too much. It’s a manhood like no other.
The Anti-Frank: I too long for your manhood. I think I will bugger you right after I crush your hand with a hammer. But, I love you. You remind me of my dead brother. Here’s some grease.
Jamie: Ouch. Oooh, but that feels sort of good. Och, I’m so ashamed.
Claire: We must rescue Jamie! Send in the cows!
Jamie: OCH! Me hand! Just let me die!
Claire: Never! Let’s go to France.
Jamie: Och, aye lassie, I feel much better now.
Father Anselm: God says it’s okay that you’re a bigamist.
Claire: Awesome. Time to use my foreknowledge of past events for good!
Diana Gabaldon: The sequel will be 900 pages.

Finis

Review for Clan of the Cave Bear
Jonathan rated it: 2 of 5 stars

Mainly, I remember the sex scenes. There was a cave, too. I think there was sex in the cave.

Review for Twilight
Joe rated it: 1 of 5 stars
recommends it for: idiots, people who enjoy bad dialogue

Save your time: here’s the entirety of Twilight in 20 dialogue snippets & a wiggedy-wack intermission.

First 200 pages:
“I like you, Edward!”
“You shouldn’t! I’m dangerous!”
“I like you, Edward!”
“But I’m dangerous!”

Next 50 pages:
“I’m a vampire!”
“I like you, Edward!”
“But I’m a vampire! I’m dangerous!”
“I like you, Edward!”

Next 100 pages:
“I like you, Edward!”
“You smell good, Bella. I’m dangerous!”
“I like you, Edward!”
“Damn, you smell good.”
“I like you, Edward!”
“Also, I glow in sunlight.”

Next 50 pages:
A. VAMPIRE. BASEBALL. GAME.
(I wish I was kidding)

Last 100 pages:
“Help me, Edward! I’m being chased!”
“I’ll save you!”
“Help me, Edward! I’m scared!”
“I’ll save you!”
“Oh, Edward!”
“You smell good.”

(One half star for lack of quality, and one half star for being unintentionally hilarious… especially page 314.)

Good, good fun.

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By Ellie, May 18, 2010 10:50 pm

Golly, those ones-standing-in-for-exclamation-points never get old!

Welp, I’ve got no real update to speak of, folks. But next week–all deities willing–there will be. Because OMG GETTING MY LAPTOP REPAIRED AND BACK IN MY GREASY BONY HANDS SQUEE LUV ORGASM

No more waiting five minutes for Firefox and Verizon VZAccess to load. No more stalled applications. No more outdated software. And I’ll be reunited with all my dirty celebrity photos!

Well, I would be if I could undelete them from the hard drive.

Just kidding, I never had dirty celeb photos. I’m not nearly pervy enough to seek out lewd pictorial evidence of celebrities engaging in acts that normal, everyday people such as myself engage in.

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By Ellie, April 7, 2010 12:08 pm

Laptop still MIA, life still goes on. You’d think a delivery person would know better than to try to cram a box labeled “FRAGILE” through a mail slot. This makes it monitor three. If this one is delivered damaged, I think I’ll have a word with the post office. A very nasty word.

I debated updating yesterday because, well, with my work still inaccessible, I really don’t have anything except random babblings. By the time I came to a decision, it was well past midnight, I’d overloaded on Chris-Chan and Sonichu, and I needed to get to bed. (His video declaring his love and need for Kacey is quite a giggle-fest. All that hard squinting as if he’s trying to cry… *snicker*)

Even on my slow desktop, I’ve been getting a lot of writing done. Well, okay, it helps that I’m basically rewriting a previous draft. And by the looks of things, this is going to be one hell of a long story.

I’m not too worried. More and more YA and middle-grade–sorry, tween–novels are going past the 350-page mark these days. Kids are willing to stick with a long story, just as long as it’s interesting. Cripes, Eragon, in its mass market paperback form, is over 700 pages (and I’m not counting the glossary at the end).

That makes me feel good. The warm, flighty, squishy kind of good, because I’m a writer who loves details. I love to bring a room to life as much as possible, to bring in all the senses–though I haven’t done much of smell. Believe it or not, that’s one of the most neglected senses in writing. See for yourself the next time you pick up a book; how often does the author describe the way things smell? (Unless it’s a story about a blind person, or a fantasy novel where people use smell magic, then it obviously doesn’t count.)

I also love thick books, crammed with story and character development. I don’t mind going on a long journey with the characters. I don’t mind, as Diana Gabaldon once said, “moving into a book” for a week or two. (With her novels, it’s more like a few months. By the way, I stuck through Dragonfly in Amber and just started Voyager… and set it down around the 100-page mark.) It’s just got to hold my attention. The characters have to be interesting; they can’t be carbon copies of other, better characters, nor can they be totally nasty. Snotty people need a reason to be snotty. Jerks need to be jerks for a reason, and if they’ve got a tiny heart of gold lurking beneath the purpose, even better. I need to see characters grow and change, even in small ways.

But getting back to word count… The previous draft for this novel-in-progress was reaching 70K, and I was probably 3/4ths of the way through. Probably. It was almost scary to think that I could write something so long and involved and not feel that I was getting close to some sort of resolution. I knew how the story should end; I just didn’t feel that my characters went through enough. Yes, children’s novels are getting longer, but would a publisher really want to touch a 100K novel from a first-time author? Maybe if it’s interesting enough.

I guess I’ve been scared by all those how-to-write books. Most of them, I should have realized, were written by genre writers, people who confine themselves to certain formulas, rules, and page and word counts. Because their method has never failed them, they believe it’ll work for everyone else, and that no editor will look any anything else. “No editor is going to want to read a manuscript that’s over 350 pages long,” I remember one writing (I’m paraphrasing, of course, since I can’t remember who said it). “Cut out a big chunk of your story, and maybe then the editor will give you a chance.”

Of course, Christopher Paolini had connections–his parents who worked in the publishing industry–so he could get his doorstopper of a novel out there. But Stephenie Meyer got her thick Twilight published after a dozen or so rejections. (Okay, so the trade paperback is 544 pages.) Still, she could have cut out a huge, gaping chunk out of her story and just had a simple novella. (Seriously, the real action of the story probably isn’t more than 100 pages.)

I’m doing my best to keep only the details that matter: those that add to the plot, characterization, and realization of scenes. It’s hard, though, when I’m trying to paint a complete picture. I just have to remember that less is more, and to trust the reader to create the story in their minds; I’m just providing a blueprint of sorts.

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By Ellie, March 30, 2010 11:02 am

Well, it’s been two weeks since the last update, and my laptop is still unusable. Want to know why? Of course you do.

After a month of waiting for the replacement screen to arrive at the computer store, I took the laptop in to have it repaired. Now, replacing a screen shouldn’t take more than an hour if the person knows what he or she is doing. I’ve seen videos online. That was Tuesday that I took it in.

Saturday, I get a call from the guy, saying that the screen that came in was cracked and that they’ve ordered a new one.

I imagine it’ll be another two weeks before I hear anything. If this screen is messed up too, I think I’ll just demand my money back and call Geek Squad.

But I still have my desktop. My slow, slow desktop. At least it serves my basic needs, like writing and Internet browing. However, my TDA work was on my laptop, so I can’t work on that right now.

Still, I’ve been reading a lot, and I’m almost done with Dragonfly in Amber. Just over 150 pages to go. While this is just the second book, I’ve noticed a pattern between the books and me:

1. I’m always pulled into the beginning right away. I’m excited with the story, I can’t wait to find out what happens to the characters, and I can already imagine the world, down to the scents in the air and the hard-packed earth.

2. About 70-100 pages in, I start to get a little tired of the neverending description. There’s too much of it, and probably only a quarter truly contributes to the overall story. I start to think about writing my own doorstop novel where I’m free to write whatever the hell I wish.

3. I put the book down and read another one. Weeks or months pass until I pick up the book again.

4. Taking a deep breath and reminding myself of the money I spent on this book, I continue reading, skimming if I have to, and eventually I get to another part that gets my blood rushing.

5. Several hundred pages in, I’m still imagining the world Gabaldon has created. I still don’t get the fascination with Jamie. Even if he is a product of his times, I don’t care for his constant pawing and (at least once or twice) threats to beat Claire. Claire would have been safer back in her own time, even if she did have to deal with a dullard of a husband. At least Frank wouldn’t have raised a hand to her, and unlike a majority of female Jamie fanatics, I found Frank sweet and nice.

6. I hit another drag. It’s supposed to be exciting, what with the political intrigue and talk of war and conflict, but there are too many names, details, and subplots to keep track of. I find myself not caring. Strangely enough, I want to go back to the constant pawing (and there was a shitload of that in the first book), or scream at Claire, “If it’s so fucking dangerous, go back to your era! Christ!” (And don’t give me that crap about the ultimate love that ends all other love stories and transcends time. You know Claire and Jamie were in it for the hot sex in book one.) I’m also tired of the constant talk/threats of/actual rape.

7. In the first book, around page 700 or so, I put the book down again. I wondered how some fans can possibly read a single 800+ page book in a weekend, unless they have absolutely nothing else going on in their lives. I picked up another book. Weeks or months passed.

8. This also goes for the first book: I took another deep breath and jumped back in. At this point, I just didn’t care what the hell happened. I’d read reviews and learned what happened to Jamie. (Spoiler: ass rape by another male. And after all those other times when Claire was in danger. Was the 18th century rape-crazy or what?) I actually skipped several chapters–probably 50 pages–just so I could get to the last chapter. Frankly, I don’t think I missed much.

We’ll see if I have the stamina to endure the last 150 pages of DiA. At this point, I just might skip an entire chunk and go right to the ending…

And then go on to Voyager. Because for some damn reason, I can’t stay away from these books. *sigh*

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By Ellie, March 16, 2010 10:08 am

Part 4 or how many other times I’ve failed to update… I can’t keep track.

Yep, it’s another week without my biting commentary on the Marvel Disney Afternoon comics. After looking through pages of confusing troubleshooting and threatening the two inanimate objects like the crazy homeless guy downtown who screams at the fire hydrants, I’ve managed to make the scanner and laptop communicate… just in time to take my laptop to get repaired.

No, I didn’t break my laptop. Again. See, back in November, I made the mindbogglingly stupid mistake of leaving my iPod earbuds on my laptop. I left the screen up, went away for a while, and returned, having completely forgotten what was resting on my laptop and set the screen down. Noticing that it wasn’t going down all the way, I stepped back. Then my husband, even less aware of the situation, tried his hand at it…

I’ve been able to work on the machine. It’s just that I’ve had to contend with a black blob in the left bottom corner, a series of horizontal gray bars taking up the bottom two inches of the screen, and a series of colorful lines cutting through in a vertical fashion. Turquoise “icicles” also make an appearance, much like that annoying character that pops up every few episodes in your favorite sitcom. You know the one.

Last month, I called “the computer guy” to order a new screen. And I’m happy to say that after a month of waiting on the damn thing, it’s finally come in. So I’m taking my broken baby in today to get it fixed, and with luck, I’ll have it back tomorrow. (It shouldn’t even take a month to replace a screen.)

So while I have no new installment of a TDA comic, I do have three scans from the superior and more engaging Disney Adventures magazine. I couldn’t help but be impressed with this comic. It’s so in-character, and it’s just so awesome and sweet to see Launchpad ponder about the intricacies of the universe.

Enjoy! And with luck, I’ll see you guys next week with some comic fuckery, and maybe even a new layout, ’cause I am just sick of all this green.

And I apologize for the slight crookedness of the scans. I did my best to get them as straight as possible. But at least you can read them.