The Fault in Our Stars

The best stories are about memory, 

I read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green in two settings but in the same place.  On an airplane thousands of feet in the air sitting above one of the wings and wondering how fast angels can fly.  In most of my reviews I spoil the story.  I will not be (entirely) doing that this time, nor will I do so unless I deem the tale unworthy of your time and I wish to spare you the trouble since I was not so fortunate.

The Fault in Our Stars is quite possibly the best standalone novel I have ever read and is certainly the best book I've had the privilege to experience this year.  I place it in the very prestigious position as my second favorite story and favorite non-fantasy novel,  The title comes from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and it sets the perfect tone for this story written in the first person by Hazel, a sixteen year old girl in the regressive stage of lung cancer who nevertheless is required to cart around an oxygen tank because (as she so perfectly puts it ) her "lungs suck at being lungs."  Her mother forces her to go to a cancer patient/survivor group where she proceeds to exercise her considerable teenage snark and wit along with her friend Isaac who is suffering from a type of cancer that required the removal of an eye.

One day Hazel catches the attention of a boy named Augustus and their romance is as breathtaking and expedient as it is completely genuine and uncontrived.  Augustus has recovered from bone cancer that left him with a prosthetic leg, but did nothing to diminish his attractiveness.  She can scarcely believe he's as perfect as he projects and indeed feels as though she's found his hamartia or fatal flaw when he puts a cigarette in his mouth.  Hazel is of course livid that anyone who survived cancer would willingly place themselves into its way again, but Augustus never lights them using the act as a metaphor of having "the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."

Both of them together have enough wit and snark to drown the world in metaphors and sarcasm with just the barest dash of bitterness for their plight.  Hazel whom Augustus calls "Hazel Grace" for most of the novel feels incredibly guilty that she's allowed Augustus to fall for her as she and her family expect her cancer to return full force at any moment, and yet their relationship parallels the ever moving train of her mortality.  So much so that Hazel shares with him that her favorite book is a story by the reclusive author Peter Van Houten called An Imperial Affliction, and I understood immediately that she loved this novel the way that I love FFVII. 

"My favorite book, by a wide margin, was An Imperial Affliction, but I didn't like to tell people about it.  Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.  And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising that affections feels like a betrayal."

Van Houten's work is very meta to the larger story at hand being about a girl named Anna who suffers from cancer and her one-eyed mother who grows tulips.  But Hazel makes it very clear that this is NOT a cancer book in the same way that The Fault in Our Stars is not a cancer book.  Anna grows progressively sicker and her mother falls in love with a Dutch Tulip Man who has a great deal of money and exotic ideas about how to treat Anna's cancer, but just when the DTM and Anna's mom are about to possibly get married and Anna is about to start a new treatment, the book ends right in the middle of a

Exactly. And this drives Hazel and eventually Augustus insane to not know what happened to everyone from Anna's hamster Sisyphus to Anna herself.  Hazel assumes that Anna became too sick to continue to write (the assumption being that Anna's story was first person just as Hazel's is), but for Van Houten to not have finished it seems like the ultimate literary betrayal.

As terrified as Hazel was to share this joy with Augustus (and god knows I understand THAT feel) it was the best thing she could've done because they now share the obsession and the insistence that the characters deserve an ending, 

The conversations of Hazel and Augustus are not typical teenage conversations, but they're not typical teenagers.  Mortality flavors all of their discussions and leads to elegance such as "The tales of our exploits will survive as long as the human voice itself.  And even after that, when the robots recall the human absurdities of sacrifice and compassion, they will remember us."  They speak of memory and calculate how there are fourteen dead people for everyone alive and realize that remembering fourteen people isn't that difficult.  We could all do that if we tried that way no one has to be forgotten.  But will we then fight over who we are allowed to remember?  Or will the fourteen just be added to those we can never forget?  They read each other the poetry of T.S Eliot, the haunting lines of Prufrock "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea/By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown/Til human voices wake us, and we drown"," and as Augustus reads Hazel her favorite book she "fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."

When I finished this I thought to myself How am I going to read anything else?  How will I find something to match this?  How can I pick up another book and not expect it to resonate with this haunting beauty, this tragedy ringed with comic teenage snark and tones that are themselves tragic in their sarcasm like whistling in the ninth circle of hell or laughing uproariously at the monster?  I realized I was lost.  I could think of no negative critique unless you count the fact that the two main characters have Dawson's Creek Syndrome (a term I just made up) where they're teenagers who speak as if they were philosophers, but then again Bill Watterson did the same thing with a boy and a stuff tiger.  You realize the story's hamartia doesn't matter.  That the fact that the plot may be cliched is unimportant and that dwelling on such trivialities is in and of itself a fatal flaw.  This story is so much more than the letters and words on each page.  It's the triumph of morning over night when the night grows ever longer.  It's the dream of hope when you've done nothing but dine on despair.  It is sad?  Yes.  It is heartbreaking?  More so.  Is it worth reading?  Has anything sad and heartbreaking not been worth reading?  The story of Hazel and Augusts deserves to be read just as the story of Anna, her mother, and dear hamster Sisyphus deserves an ending, and that becomes their exploit to seek out reclusive Peter Van Houten so that the characters can be properly laid to rest and remembered.

The best stories are about memory.

Start Trek Into Darkness: On the Squee

Be warned this is less of a review of the movie and more of me fangirling over Benedict Cumberbatcch.  There are also spoilers.  You have been warned. 

With that being said OH MY GOD.  Words cannot express what that man has done to me just by looking at him.  I can't explain what is happening to my body.  Benedict plays the gorgeous villain John Harrison who is actually revealed to be the infamous Khan, the pinnacle of perfection in humanity so profound that he has transcended the bonds of that mundane state to become something so much better.  That pale, flawless skin, those endless green eyes, that otherwordly beauty, that insane strength, that unwavering purpose and need for vengeance against those who did him wrong ahhhh *shivers* Let it be known that everything I just stated describes every fangirl crush I have ever had.  I just...can't even deal with this. 

Following discussions with my husband (who is VERY understanding of all of my fictional crushes) it was determined that Khan was just bad from the beginning, which I find it difficult to accept, because true beauty and true evil just do not mesh.  There is ALWAYS an excuse.  Be that as it may, I believe he was utterly entitled to his wrath, but not his actions.  He was created only to be used by humanity, and when they found out he was "broken," they banished him and others like him, cryogenically freezing them because they didn't want to be burdened with the responsibility of their actions.  When Admiral Marcus wakes him up in order to help him develop weapons of war by using his own crew/family as hostages, Khan understandably responds in kind because he's ruthless, calculating, and doesn't give a shit about humanity.  Yes, he's manipulative, but he was also manipulated...he's just far better at in than humankind, which as usual does something to further their own interests and then acts surprised when it turns on them.  You reap what you sow, and if you reap in lust for power and hatred, you will sow in pain.

I don't wish this to turn into a rant about how much I hate humanity, so I will go on to say I am very happy I have a fellow fangirl to swoon over Benedict with.  I've never seen anyone real so gorgeous.  He does almost look alien he's that beauteous like nothing on this earth could ever be that lovely.  Those eyes with their long catty corners, those insanely high cheekbones, ahhh, I'm finished.  If you ever have the ill luck to be in the theater with me during Into Darkness I apologize in advance, but I'm not really sorry.

Added bonus.

How to Be a Badass Supervillain:

1.  Be unbelievably gorgeous.  Your beauty needs to be otherwordly and like nothing common mortals have ever seen.  Your skin needs to be flawless; your features should be the epitome of perfection, and  your eyes and eye color should be not of this world.  Something that people will never forget; something that will make them freeze in place when you look at them.  This leads into...

2.  Be godlike.  You can be a god, an angel, or a human plus.  Something better than man (not that that's saying much).  It really doesn't matter so long as you have the ability to back up...

3.  Be arrogant and confident beyond anything humanely possible.  Perfect the art of the intense stare. Learn how not to blink.  It will confirm that you are "something else," something better than a mere human.  Know that whatever comes out of your mouth will be obeyed instantly without question, because you are just that boss.  Also...

4.  Have a voice that will make all the pathetic commoners tremble where they stand.  It should be low, baritone, and commanding of purpose.  Supervillains with high squeaky voices do not go very far in the world and are generally considered laughing stocks or at best common villains.  You must sound the part and look the part, therefore...

5.  Obtain a long coat if you do not have one immediately.  There is nothing hotter than all of the above standing in utter arrogance and self-assurance with a long coat blowing in the wind.  Humanity will know that finally someone worthy has come to conquer them.

Also note that all of the above rules will also work if you want women to rip of their clothes and throw their panties at you.  Supervillain and irresistible sex symbol are essentially the same thing in the world of being a fangirl.

Things I Learned from FFVII

I had an awesome amazing FFVII dream last night...one that would leave me covering my face and giggling in the corner, and before you pervs start thinking your pervy thoughts, I'm a fangirl and it doesn't take much for me to cover my face and giggle in the corner.  It's not surprising really though.  I spent a good portion of the night posting FFVII memes and looking through my Pinterest boards.  In less than a month I've discovered that as much of a fangirl as I am, I am nowhere NEAR as crazy as some of the people on the interwebs.  I also read a few pages of my book on the Qabalah, which is all about the Tree of Life and Holy Sephiroth, etc.  Besides the simple fact of I think about FFVII ALL THE TIME.  It's the inspiration for my life and writing, and as such, it's always in my head to some degree.  After I woke up I starting compiling a mental list of all the things I learned from that game, and realized I'd have to write this down before it was forgotten.  I am almost positive that there will be more; my thoughts just haven't become cohesive around all of them yet.

1.  Don't screw with the planet - Years ago before really bad shit happened I used to care a LOT about the environment, animal rights, etc.  Then I stopped, then I played FFVII and holy shit I cared again.  It was a revival/awakening in my brain.  This stuff REALLY matters so today I am an avid and outspoken activist.  I (attempt to) lay the verbal smackdown on people who deny global warming and I have a general disdain cum hatred of humanity.  Honestly, playing FFVII when you hate humanity is a terrible idea.  You want everyone to fucking burn.  The thought of it just increases my loathing.  Humans fuckiing suck and if some kind of cataclysm wiped us all out, I can't really say we didn't deserve it.  There is no goddamn excuse for our terrible behavior, no saving grace for why we can't get our heads out of our asses.  The information is there, but no one wants to face it or listen to it because it forces us to change out of our comfort zone, do something we don't want to do, be transformed by the truth...but the consequences of inaction or too dire and too terrible to conceive.  However, the MUST be not only be conceived, but expected and anticipated, because there is no amount of denial or blindness that will make the inevitable go away.  If the earth just decided to say "Fuck all of you, I'm done," I would not blame it for one instant.

2.  Look below the surface; take nothing at face value - Things are rarely what they seem and seldom what you expect them to be.  The dark tragedy of the game is that nearly everyone is a victim of greed and corruption perpetuated by fucking humanity.  I studied psychology and literature in college and grad school and have always had an eye for the abstract, but FFVII really showed me you have to look beyond the seeming because things are rarely as straightforward as they appear, and there are so many hidden levels and nuances that play a role in all happenstance.  Nor should you ever trust what people say without knowing the reason why they're saying it and knowing the source of their knowledge.  It taught me to (literally) be the devil's advocate, to try to find a reason behind the terrible things that people do, because I truly think that only by understand how and why an individual arrives at a particular place will you ever be able to possibly stop terrible things from happening.  Again, turning a blind eye is not going to aid us, and all of those saying they don't care why people do evil just that they do evil are hiding themselves from the truth.  It's easy to say that someone is evil; it is much harder to say why they are.  The general consensus is that they just are, but I find that unacceptable.  FFVII made me not just accept the Word of God, but rather revel in the Death of the Author , because once a work has been released to the public, it is fair game, and nothing the creator really says/does can dissuade or dismiss what is there, even if they don't see it themselves (Yes...I as a writer am also subject to this.  Quite an annoyance, but that doesn't make it any less true).

3. You reap what you sow - You cannot expect something good to come out of horror, corruption, and abuse.  I have read stories that subvert this trope (Sword of Truth for example), but I find this to be generally miraculous and even so the character usually fights against some inner demon of darkness that was sown at their birth.

4.  Mommy issues will really fuck you up - Again not something that I didn't already know, but holy wow microcosm/macrocosm since the creator of FFVII lost his mother in the midst of the game's production, and uh, that certain trickled down into the story.  Nothing is conceived in a vacuum.  I took a class called New Historicism that insisted upon this fact.  In it we looked at works along side what era the author was writing in in addition to what their station in life/state of mind was at the time.  It matters...it most certainly matters, and while the author may be dead at the stories entrance into the public discourse his or her environment at the inception and creation never ceases to resonate.  All of the mommy issues.  ALL OF THEM.  But to be serious...this verified and validated that you can take something absolutely terrible and use it to make something influential, something amazing, something that will endure.  A story that people are still talking about, still arguing about, still writing about, still fame warring about and still being inspired by after more than a decade and a half.  In this world where websites and memes endure nearly as long as the life of a mayfly, that span of time is likened to eternity.  Pain not only makes us all kin, but I have found no better inspiration or driving force for any making.  The most beautiful songs are always the saddest and the most brooding part of Gothic culture rests on the notion that sad things can be beautiful.  People who don't understand this always want the happy ending even when the sad or the bittersweet would be a far better fit.

Sword Fight Win or Fail

I do have quick dreams/visions about being impaled fairly often, more so depending on what I've been watching, but I was in the full blown dreamscape with this one.  I was sword-fighting someone, a guy, nondescript.  I won the battle, but took a stab wound to the stomach, deep enough that it would've killed me in real life, but in the dreamworld I didn't feel a thing.  What was odd was the sword/knife I was stabbed with had a smooth edge, but the wound was serrated horizontal across my stomach.  There was also no blood.  I could walk, but I had to constantly hold it together.  Medical authorities were called, and I remember I was in one of my friend's houses, though it didn't look like it being altogether much larger and we wandered around looking for these doctors so that they could stitch me back up.  When we finally found them, they were busy doing something or other, and when I grew tired of waiting and said something, the "head" doctor said that it wasn't his job and directed me to the next in line who initially looked appalled at the wound, but then decided I didn't need to be sewn up after all.  The last thing I remember is running my hand along the bumpy edge of the wound and when I woke up I clutched my stomach, feeling far more nauseated on the other side than I did in the dream.  The best part is I do have a scar on my stomach from my gallbladder surgery, horizontal, but smooth, but I've felt pretty sick all day thinking about this.  I usually avoid watching scenes were people get impaled, because I can literally feel it.  It's awful.  I guess my recent avoidance of some such scenes might have called this potential nightmare up.

I had one a while ago where I was watching two women sword-fighting around an old style carriage.  They were dressed in Victorian or steampunk outfits.  Then they began to chase each other around the carriage, but the one suddenly stopped and turned around with sword facing her opponent...you can guess what happened next.  I wrote a scene in my story of just such a thing prior to this one happening.  That wasn't the worst one though...the worst are the ones that feel real.  Where I'm falling and falling, and what stops me is getting impaled. Front or back it makes no matter.  These dreams usually end the same, so the one described above was a different sort.  I didn't wake up after it happened and I learned to heal myself.

The Devil's Alphabet

A few years ago I was in the Chester County Book and Music Store (which I sadly believe is now defunct going the way of many brick and mortar bookstores) just browsing/wandering as I often do in such places.  Bookstores have fantastic energies that feed my writerly soul so if I'm feeling drained or listless I'll often venture there to recharge.  It's free energy.  In that particular venture I thought a key line of dialogue near the end of my story and I also ended up picking up a book by a hitherto unknown author by the name of Daryl Gregory called The Devil's Alphabet.  Pretty much any title having to do with angels, demons, devils, or gods will catch my attention and deserve at least a quick glance.  Most of the time they're usually metaphors, which I am also fine with, and sometimes I get really lucky and I find a story that's actually about such religious figures.  This book fell into the former category, but the blurb piqued my interest enough and I was in no hurry so I was able to read a few pages of the first chapter.  It was interesting, but I was either contemplating my current funds or already had too much to read/edit on my plate and I choose to abstain from purchases the paperback that day.  I thought about that book a LOT in the time between then and now, enough where I sort of regretted not buying it.  So when I signed up for Goodreads, I put it on my list of books to look for so I wouldn't forget and just a few days ago I downloaded for my Kindle so I could finally find out how the story unfolded.  I finished it in two days.

The Devil's Alphabet takes place in a backwater Tennessee town called Switchcreek where something both disastrous and extraordinary has occurred.  What was thought to be a disease swept through the rural town.  A condition called Transcription Divergent Syndrome (TDS) and it either killed, changed, or passed over the occupants, and when I say change I mean CHANGE.  The first wave left argos, giant 11-12 foot tall people with white/grey skin regardless of what your race or coloring had been before; the second produced betas, hairless, dark red skinned people who resemble seals; and the final changed people into grotesquely obese charlies (though nowadays I'm pretty sure I've seen people larger than what Gregory was going for with his charlies).

The main character Paxton Martin is what they call a "skip," one of the few that both survived and remained unchanged.  He left the town 13 or 14 years ago after the changes happened and the quarantine was finally lifted, fleeing to Chicago to escape the legacy of a dead mother and charlie turned preacher father. The story opens with him returning to attend the funeral of his once best friend Jo Lynn Whitehall who turned beta, had twin girls, and purportedly committed suicide.  Only expecting to remain through the funeral and aftermath before returning to Chicago and his pretty crappy life as a restaurant server, Pax is pulled into the mystery and intrigue of the town where the "clades" as they call them have in many ways segregated themselves, but still coexist and are held together by Aunt Rhonda, a charlie woman and self-proclaimed mayor.

The clades are as different from each other as they are from the rest of humanity, because TDS essentially rewrote their genetic code and DNA structuring.  Argos, betas, and charlies are not technically human, and there is some speculation about the condition being an invader from an alternative universe.  Betas can become spontaneously pregnant and always produce girls, often two.  This is both a relief and despair to Pax when he realizes that neither he nor Deke are the father of Jo's twin girls, since the three of them had a very strange/interesting sexual relationship after the changes.  Argos for the most part appear to be sterile, which is discovered with Deke and Donna, his argo wife, who are going through expensive fertility treatments in order to prove this isn't so.  As for charlies, once the men of that clade reach a certain age they start producing what's known as "vintage," a secretion from their skins that is high demand from younger charlie males since it makes women sexually attracted to them, but it also makes Pax insanely empathetic and addicted to the substance.  That...was definitely one of the weirder almost incestuous parts of the story where the reverend's son is essentially getting high off of his bodily secretions.  Kinda gross.  And through all of this is Rhonda who has a home for the older charlie men where she collects the vintage.

The running plot of the story is Pax trying to figure out what really happened to Jo.  Whether or not she actually committed suicide or if she actually murdered.  He's able to find her laptop, but it's password locked, and a good portion of the book is spent with her twin daughters trying to figure out a way into it.  Honestly, Pax really sucked a s main character.  He spent most of his time being strung out or getting beaten up by the huge younger charlie males for trying to sneak his dad out of Rhonda's home.  The vintage made him very empathetic, but it was hard to empathize with him.  He was also not very intelligent, which I hate in main characters.  Jo, who spends the entire of the story dead, is much more interesting.

What I did like is all of the issues this novel brings up.  Because betas become pregnant asexually, there was a huge question of pro-choice vs. pro-life.  This was ultimately what lead to Jo Lynn's demise.  She was kicked out of the beta co-op for having an abortion and then getting a hysterectomy.  There was a faction within there of girls wearing white scarves on their heads who believed themselves to be "purer" betas since they went through the change before puberty, had never had sex with a man, and where therefore having virgin births.  Jo's daughters were the first of the second generation betas who look "more beta" than humans changed to beta, as if the invading cells grow stronger in later generations.  They were revered because of this, but also hated because of what their mother did.  I felt this was a huge statement because to betas, an abortion was the worst possible thing anyone could do.  It was as if their bodies were wired to produce children and nothing else and they wholeheartedly believed this like a cult. The issue of drug use and abuse was brought up, but I feel more glossed over whereas the whole abortion thing was very heavily drilled.  Paxton is little more than a junkie who almost gets abducted himself in a plot to kidnap his father (who produces the best vintage) by a couple of younger charlie males who are annoyed that Rhonda is reaping all of the profits from this.

I really wish the novel had come to some resolution as to what really did cause the changes, deaths, or lack thereof in the people of Switchcreek.  It felt like Gregory was building up to it.  Each chapter/section was written in such a way to keep you reading more and more because you were waiting for that big reveal, but the novel falls flat in this.  We never find out WHAT caused TDS or why certain people changed, why certain people didn't, why certain people died.  If the answer was supposed to remain obscure, I feel that the author could've done a better job of keeping it that way.  Don't introduce all of these ideas and then leave them to blow away in the wind.  It feels like he presented a ton of ideas to get your mind racing, but then left you in top gear with nowhere to go.  I would've even been satisfied with a rumor or a clue of resolution.  Nothing big or conclusive.  Many scientific mystery novels do such a thing.  Throw something in that is possibly the answer, but that's never confirmed.  I don't think Gregory wanted to commit to anything, but when you have such a marked change in human physiology and biology, you need to.  I was more than willing to accept the parallel universe idea; that honestly was fascinating.  I think that would've worked very well for this story.  Cells from one universe competing with the others for survival taking the ultimate change/sacrifice and throwing themselves into another universe our universe and taking over human bodies.  This novel could've drawn on an almost Cthulhu like mythos, while still keeping its steady, southern slow tempo.  That would've been amazing to see such a thing from that lens of view.

I'd say 3 stars for this one for the ability to hold my attention for the length.  I'm not entirely disappointed because as I mentioned above the pro-life/pro-choice issue was very well done (though I definitely see preference for one side), but the main angle of the novel was never resolved.

Stardust

There are some words that will ever haunt you.

"They say that each night, when the duties of state permit, she climbs on foot, and limps, alone, to the highest peak of the palace, where she stands for hour after hour, seeming not to notice the cold peak winds.  She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.

I picked up Neil Gaiman's American Gods years ago, because I heard nothing but wonderful things about him as an author.  Could not get into it.  His writing was too rough around the edges for the girls who loves all things lyrical and flowing.  I ran headlong into the same conundrum when I looked through Neverwhere so I wrote off Gaiman as one of those authors that other people loved and cherished, but that I would never really like.  Obviously, he is very brilliant and successful (hell he's co-written a few Doctor Who episodes), but there was just a stylistic discrepancy that I couldn't reconciled, kind of how I'm viewing Cassandra Clare.

Stardust is different.  Here was that magical, flowing, fairytale language that I crave with a few harsh patches to keep things interesting.  It follows the adventures of young Tristran (for the first half the tale, I thought it was Tristan, which is waaaay easier to pronounce) Thorn in his quest through the land of Faerie to find a fallen star in order to fulfill a promise made to the lovely Victoria Forester whom Tristran (along with every other young man in the village of Wall) is enamored of.  Victoria promises to give Tristan his heart's desire if he brings this back to her, but when she says it, she's only indulging the fantasies of silly shop boy, never dreaming that he would seriously seek to complete such a quest.  The village of Wall sits on the edge of the Faerie world and once every nine years a magical market takes place in the meadow just beyond.  The story begins prior to Tristran being born and actually *spoiler alert* ends after his death, which I found very clever, because it showed that while he is a major player in the turnings of the world, he was not the end all and be all of the world itself.  While Tristran is out on his quest to find this star for love, a witch-queen is also seeking it for the burning heart of a star will bestow eternal youth on her and her sisters, and along side of this there is also a family blood fuel occurring involving three once seven brothers for the right of succession to the mountainous Stormhold. 

The star, Tristran discovers, is not a lump of cold, lifeless metal as he had thought to find, but a beautiful girl with a blue dress, white blonde hair, and a broken leg from where she'd fallen out of the sky.  He binds her with a silver chain made out of materials meant to hold magical/mystical things, and she, of course, hates him for this, but as the journey continues they both change.  By the time they return to Wall after thwarting the witch-queen and resolving the issue of the succession, Tristran realizes that his heart's desire was found in the quest itself, and Vicky Forester was actually betrothed to another prior to their conversation about the star, hence her indulgence of his fantasies.

That bugged me to no end and I was hoping the tale would end as it did, because frankly I thought Victoria Forester was a vindictive twit, and that Tristran could do much better.  I was also bothered by the fact that he was willing to drag this poor star along with him with her broken leg in order to fulfill a promise to a woman who clearly was playing him for a fool.  It made me think less of the character, but ingeniously, this was Gaiman's intent.  The hope that he would turn things around kept me reading, and I'm very happy I was not disappointed. The language and world building in this story are phenomenal.  As I said it's fairytale with rough edges, but polishing such would ruin the effect.  You are left with the idea that much more could be said about the world of Faerie where Tristran dares to venture. Gaiman also incorporates common myths and legends into his world to give you a sense of familiarity.  Things such as the battle between the lion and the unicorn along with the hidden loopholes and obligations in all magical things.  I really can find no fault with this story, and I believe I will be reading his Coraline next.

Four and half stars and now I need to watch the movie.

All of the Fandoms. ALL OF THEM.

I know. I know...I haven't updated in a while.  I've just been BURIED in paperwork.  Really though, I've honestly been so tangled in editing, swapping, and beta-ing along with all of the other insanity in my life that I've neglected my little ol' blog, and this isn't really the post I wanted to do.  I have a list of things I want to writeabout.  Reviews, rants, MFKs, comparisons (yeah yeah, I'm meta-blogging; leave me alone), but alas that will not be done today. Today I'm going to make a list of all of the fandoms I am in.  ALL OF THEM.  FYI they're stacked.  So for example, I'm not only a fan of Doctor Who, but a fan of the 10th doctor.  Please feel free to leave comments talking about all of the fandoms you are in if you so wish.  We can geek out and squee together.  I'm always down for that.

Chances are I'm not going to name every single fandom I participate in because my memory is shit and I'm going to forget at least one.

Final Fantasy
-Final Fantasy VII
-Sephiroth
-Sephiroth & Aeris fanfic parings

Avengers
-Loki
-Tom Hiddleston

Sherlock
-Benedict Cumberbatch

Family Guy
-Stewie
-Seth McFarlane

American Dad
-Roger

Doctor Who
-10th Doctor
-David Tennant
-The Daleks

Community
-Abed
-Troy and Abed
-Joel McHale
-Alison Brie

Dexter

Lord of the Rings

Grumpy Cat

Star Trek
-Captain Picard
-Patrick Stewart