Thursday, July 11, 2013

NOVEL REVIEW: Poison by Bridget Zinn

            NOTE: I figured I would write this one first, so you remember that I don’t always hate books. In fact, it’s not that I hate books at all. I simply see mistakes and continuity/editing/story/character/plot/etc. issues that could be fixed if writers would buckle down, suck it up, and actually set about writing the best story they possibly could without letting their pride get in the way. And I say that not with a spirit of judgment, but with a HUGE plate of experience in that area. I wrote eight manuscripts that got scrapped because they completely sucked. You know why? My pride got in the way of what was really supposed to happen, and I could only see where I wanted the story to go. Only when I let go of myself did God give me the story He wanted me to be telling. And I’m glad He waited until I got it through my head, because I would have messed up BIG TIME.
            Anyway.
            That being said, I want to tell you about a book that rocked me with so many emotions, I’m really not sure everything I want to say about it. I don’t know if you remember, but I said in a post awhile back that I learned a valuable lesson about libraries and why one should visit them before deciding to buy a book that happens to be very expensive (and very crappy). I’m looking at YOU, Life of Pi.
            (Also, a massive shout-out to my mom for reminding me that money is valuable, and so are libraries, and the two go hand in hand for a reason.)
            I frequently cruise Amazon looking for prospective books to check out, and I ran across Poison by Bridget Zinn on there in my suggestions. Now, step one in deciding a book for me includes research. My research stopped short here, though, because the author passed away before her book got published. (Which also happens to be the point where my emotional maelstrom starts for this book.) I thought, “What? She died before it was published??? No! That’s awful! I MUST READ THIS BOOK FOR HER SAKE.”
            The description also had a couple of effects on me. At first, I thought it would be some other fantasy story that really was all, “Oh, yeah, it’s fantasy. Great.” However, it’s rare that I’ve come across a female MC that’s a potions master exclusively before being all “I’m a princess,” or “I’m a magician,” or whatever. You know, the kind of plot point that makes it mushy and crap. *rolls eyes, sighs, and sits down for an annoying ride*
            Kyra, our FMC, is a normal girl. She’s a potions master. She’s strong, she’s smart, and she kicks serious rear.
            The other fantasy point that I liked about this is that it goes into the genre without being extremely over the top. Now, I’m not talking Tolkien or Lewis; they’re worlds are purposefully built where everything interconnects, everything has a purpose, everything makes sense while remaining wonderfully abstract and fantastical. I’m talking Avatars: So This is How It Ends by Tui T. Sutherland, or Dust by Arthur Slade, or The Time Travelers by Linda Buckley-Archer. All of which are  incredibly, presumptuously full of crap. Seriously. I deleted the review for the first one because it was too snarky, and I didn’t review the other two because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to do so.
            Poison sends them to the cleaners. Within the first chapter this book made me smile. Not an oh-hey-that’s-cute smile, but more of a this-is-terribly-promising smirk, showing teeth and all. The story moves really quickly, and while if paced incorrectly this could be bad, Poison has enough content to make everything important. Because everything is. When Kyra and Fred get caught by the witch, the scene not only clues us in to some very important points (without one, the plot never would have happened in the first place), and shows our characters to be worth their mettle.
            And speaking of characters, not only are the names fantasy-worthy and easy so as not to be ridiculous (lookin’ at YOU, The Hunger Games), the characterizations themselves stick to their trueness, even through all the growth that happens. For example, Kyra doesn’t want to be caught up in a relationship, so she ditches Fred (short for Frederick). She ditches him a lot. And every time they meet up again, you get the hint that maybe Fred’s caught on to her secret, but you can’t exactly be sure. He puts on a good show of “not knowing” when he needs to and when he finds out that ***SPOILER ALERT*** Kyra’s innocent and the princess isn’t dead, his reaction was genuinely funny. Fred’s genuinely a good guy, with a lot of great facets and nothing stereotypical. Kyra describes him as being beautiful, but that’s really the only descriptive word I found that would irritate me; not exclusively, mind you, but I recently read a book that was so clichéd I felt like I was gonna throw my Kindle across the room.
            Fred isn’t the only character that defies stereotypes. Kyra is strong and smart, and when she can take care of herself she’s not prideful to the point of being an immature little brat. She claims her independence with a bloodied flag and stands upon the hill, displaying her wounds as trophies. Rosie, her pig, is adorable beyond proper comparison, and Ariana took the tomboy princess stereotype and gave it attitude instead of trying to stand out by being aggravating and pushy.
            Sure, the villain was a bit typical, but overall I really can’t complain. The twists and turns did leave me doubling back over previous guesses, and the obvious clues I overlooked were huge hints that made me have the right guess one minute, then second-guess the next. The plot to overthrow the kingdom was expected; the way it was done wasn’t.
            Small details that needed polishing can be overlooked because this was Zinn’s first novel and the plot was really good. Her technicalities would have gotten better to the point of nonexistence had she lived to write another. I can’t in good conscience point my finger. And I can’t, anyway, because I liked this book so much, after reading it in a day and a half, the next week I bought my own copy, book-plated it, and stuck it on my shelf.
            Rarely do I find myself sitting back in satisfaction at the end of a book. If I do with restlessness, I attribute the itch not to poor writing, but to a story so compelling I yearn for the next book. (Divergent, that’s you.) However, few standalones cause me to sit back, grin, and sigh with satisfaction (like Julie Klassen’s The Tutor’s Daughter). Poison was one of these books. In fact, I haven’t even found any pictures to illustrate my points. I think the story, and the cover, speak for themselves in every way possible. I felt satisfaction and so much more.
            At the beginning of the post, I told you that this book caused me a maelstrom in my center. The center of gravity is that Bridget Zinn did not live to bring us anymore stories of such caliber. The fact that she left us so early is an ache I cannot fully describe and a grief I have encountered few times before. Her book immortalizes her, and if she was anything like her manuscript—funny at all the right moments, charming, out-of-the-box, adventurous—then the world has lost a dear and blessed soul. I want to send a thank you to everyone who helped pull this book together in her absence. You’ve done her an amazing justice. Thank you.

            Poison by Bridget Zinn gets 20 flipped pages out of 10.

TOP 10 IRRELEVANT GOOGLE IMAGES RESULTS: Heart of Flame

            Passing this up would be a crime.
            Tonight, while searching for a heart made of fire with the key words “heart of flame,” Google gave me some interesting and perplexing image results that part of me cannot fully comprehend. Seeing as the task of singling out only five became impossible, you can consider this post a bonus round. We have a Top 10!
RESULTS FOR “HEART OF FLAME”
10)       This conductor:

Perhaps the relevance came up not in text, but in passion.
This conductor has a heart filled with flaming passion for music!
9)         Someone burning at the pyre:

While I know this *technically* isn’t a pyre, it certainly looks
like neither someone burning at the stake nor some strange
sacrificial ritual. Therefore, I’m calling it a pyre.
8)         An Alpine Grim Reaper backed by a Viking face:

I’m thinking this Reaper is bringing the flame to his frozen home world
as a sort of reviving effect for the healthy people. A paradox, you say?
Well, when you live in the cold climates and you’re the only Reaper,
wouldn’t you get tired, too?
7)         A samurai helmet:

The only things I can think of are 1) I hope this isn’t real, 2) if
it isn’t, that’s an awesome custom job, and 3) Japan *is* the
Land of the Rising Sun.
6)         Ella Fitzgerald:

Explain this one to me, because I don’t know.
5)         This waterfall:

The waterfall, perhaps, symbolizes Yellowstone, and beneath Yellowstone
is the volcano, so…yes? No? (I think we’ll go with no.)
4)         The Not-Bad-Obama meme:

To explain this, I’m going to show you a Bad Translator screenshot I took myself.

Either way, I still don’t think it makes any sense.
3)         A Munsters portrait:

…?
2)         The Virgin Mary:

I don’t know if I find this result more funny or confusing. Mary’s heart
in this picture is neither a flame or on fire, so I can’t see any possible
relevance that could be taken from this in *any* way. Ever.
1)         A random banner:

So far as my research suggests, Hatfest is a music and culture festival.
That’s as far as the research goes, because I can’t see what this
has to do with my search input.
            Again, readers, I’m not sure why Google is so weird, and the Internet so labyrinthine, but I can’t honestly complain that it bothers me too much. In fact, though I run into a lot of “If it hadn’t been for my horse, I wouldn’t have made it through college” situations, more often than not they afford me a good deal of humor. Yes, there are moments when shaking my head is the only thing I can do besides weep, but in these moments a peculiar and inexplicable loveliness is found. People are weird; *I* am weird. Therefore, I am not alone.

            And neither are any of you. The ranks are open. Come join us!

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Top 5 Irrelevant Google Images Results: Pickled Pigs Feet

            In my post yesterday, I told you that I’d been mulling over an ongoing serial of posts to put up every now and again: Top 5 Irrelevant Google Images Results. Currently I’m doing some concept art for a short story I want to write, and some of my searches produced…less-than-relevant results. For instance, searching Google Images for “bright green eyes” gave me something like this:

            Yeah. I, uh…I don’t know. I really don’t.
            Then, the other week, I attempted to come up with something similar to that for my first Irrelevance post. I have a permanent mental Post-It saying, “WHEN YOU TRY ON PURPOSE, YOU GET NOTHING.” And it’s true, really. Tonight I searched Google Images for a Facebook profile picture I’d like, and when I typed in “p,” I got “pickle,” and one of the suggestions below that was “pickled pigs feet.” Well…I’ve never really seen one up close or out of a jar. Curiosity took over.
            Without trying, I got my first post.
            5) This mug shot:

I’m pretty sure there was an article about sausages linked (see what I did there?)
to this picture, but I didn’t go to the blog. I’m distracted easily enough
as it is. Roaming more than I planned is a good way for me to
forget anything I had planned to do until I’m half asleep.
Cake Wrecks, you’re amazingly distracting. And I love you all.
            4) A fried pig’s head:

Not sure what this has to do with pickled pigs’ feet, but sure, Google. Sure.
            3) Armour canned pork brains (BONUS: they're in milk and gravy):

This is real. I’m not joking. Yes, it is disgusting. Eating a brain is like
eating the thoughts and memories and feelings of the person/animal
from which the brain came. I don’t savor that thought.
            2) Cats sniffing a chess piece:

I honestly can’t think of anything to say about this.
1)      The Keebler Elves:

…I…just can’t…
Maybe the Keebler Elves have an underground butchering business...?

            I can’t really bring myself to think too hard for an explanation to some of these, and sometimes I think delving too deeply into mysteries like Google Irrelevance can bring about things we regret seeing or reading about. For posts like these, I’ll take the mystery at arms’ length, thank you.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Denmark, General Mills, and Beatrix Potter

            Welcome back, readers. I was going to start my reinstatement here at the newly-designed—and named—The Complector Coterie with the beginning of a series outlining irrelevant Google Images results. Instead, I had an amazing revelation I wanted to share with you.
            Currently, I’m ill and mostly bedridden, so as I fumed that I’m unable to get up and do…anything, I started thinking for possible rabbit-character names. I always find naming animals a pain, due to the overabundance of cliché pet names. (Still not sure how they derived the chopped-up-sounding “Fido” from the beautiful “fidelus.”)
            Anyway. The animal I have the pleasure of naming is a rabbit, as I’ve said, and I wanted to pay homage to a dear children’s author I read and loved growing up. Beatrix Potter. I was thinking to myself, “Bea? Mm, well maybe. Potter sounds too much like J.K. Rowling should sue me if I use that (plus all I’ll think of is Harry), and I’m not too fond of Trix…Trix. TRIX. A RABBIT NAMED…TRIX.”
            That’s when it hit me, dear readers.
            A RABBIT named TRIX. Ring a bell?

            Now, out of a huge love of Peter Rabbit, I’m not sure whether I should be offended that this cereal is so bland when Beatrix Potter’s stories are delicious, or more shocked at myself that I never saw this until now. Perhaps we should also look at the general media altogether that they don’t give the proper recognition Beatrix Potter deserves. At the General Mills Cereal page about Trix, there is no mention whatsoever that the rabbit mascot is in some way connected to Beatrix Potter. However, the first appearance of the rabbit was 1957. Beatrix Potter passed away in 1943. I wondered if there had been some connection that could be traced through obscure links in chronology, but the year gap blew me theory out of the water. Maybe the whole thing was a shady plagiarism dealt under the table that no one could pick up on due to its overtly covertness.

            What say you, readers? Is this a huge coincidence, or some gross understatement of subliminal copyright infringement? Perhaps my analytic mind is taking the conclusions too far…again. I haven’t found any articles relating the Trix Rabbit and Beatrix Potter, or any inspiration that could connect the two, but something is definitely rotten in the state of Denmark about this.