Magic Lingers . . .

World War Z

02 Mar 2012 2 Comments

by Kate in Uncategorized

Monsters blog #7

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I want to write about this book.  There’s so much here that I’m convinced I’m going to forget things as I keep reading.  As such, I am writing this blog in two parts.  Yes, I could just draft and add, etc, but I think the point that this book is so intricate that I need to collect my thoughts as I go is important.  So, two parts it is.

PART ONE

My initial thought when I started reading this book was “Wow.”  Max Brooks had put together a novel with such detail and planning that I can’t possibly conceive of what went into drafting and polishing this book.  I know it would never work with my writing process.  Never.  It is absolutely remarkable how he’s put together each step.  It actually feels like a collection of first hand experiences, woven together in chronological order to tell the story as a whole.  He takes you through people’s first reactions to “patient zero,” the first outbreaks, smuggling of refugees, and initial government responses.  I loved how the backstory slipped in little by little.  A small reference to Japan here, an old war reference there.  It was just enough to give me an idea of what had happened, without stopping and giving me an entire history lesson.
However, as things went on I began to feel like I had a History test in two days.  A test I was going to be hard-pressed to pass, given all the information I couldn’t possibly easily retain.  The lack of back story began to be a hindrance–leaving me out of what I thought may be key details.  When it hit me the most was when an interviewed soldier kept referring to “Zack.”  I knew it was a term for zombie, that much was clear, but I didn’t know where it had come from, or why it was used.  Little things like that began to creep in more and more.
Not to say that I’m not enjoying the book.  I am.  But it’s beginning to take on the feel of a history text, and less that of a story.  I’m wishing I could turn on the History Channel to learn all of this, rather than read it.  I was never good with text books.  I prefer to learn by hearing when it comes to history and other subjects.  For me, reading is entertainment only.  And that is putting a bit of distance between me and this story which I so want to enjoy.

So far, the parts that held the most impact for me were the chapters with Sharon–the young woman who had been witness to an attack when she was 4– and the interview with the man who turned out to be Paul Redeker.  Sharon’s story just told what an absolute trauma a zombie attack could be at such a young age.  Her’s is only one story, but just imagine how many more there would be.  In this world, there would be entire generations of scarred childhoods, and that could have all sorts of ramifications.  Sharon alone is terrifying with her perfect recall, her imitations.  And the sight of  a grown woman, forever stuck , is chilling.
Paul Redeker was a great twist.  After hearing all about this heartless man who made plans concerning who should live and who should die, a man who felt emotion was a hindrance, and then to find out that the one telling the story is, in fact, him!  I actually sat up in my seat at that twist, my brain pulled back from it’s history class flashbacks to a place where I remembered I was reading a work of fiction–of entertainment.

Lastly (at least for my first part) I’m struck by how real this all seems.  I can’t help but think how if something like this actually happened, and someone compiled a collection of first hand accounts, it would sound so much the same.  Brooks seems to have captured the human response perfectly.  He brings us the cold, calculating politicians; the soldiers following, or disobeying orders; the civilians caught in the thick of it; the doctors; the smugglers.  The reactions are sometimes sad, but true.
I have no clue how this is going to become a movie.  There are so many small stories all coming together.  It will have to be an interpretation to the full extent of the word, I think.

PART TWO

I so want to know how long it took for Max Brooks to write this book.  Honestly.  It’s like he thought of EVERYTHING.  He even included happenings on the international space station!  Seriously, I don’t know if that would have even crossed my mind.

This book really picks up in the second half, taking on a completely different tone than the beginning.  I found much of the imagery here to be far more “horrific” than the beginning had been.  The interviews turn to retellings of facing down these zombies and the wreckage they leave behind.  But even among all the tales of carnage and military plans, I was still struck by the reality this book brings to life.  In fact, the zombies are more a backdrop than anything else.  Yes, they are the cause of everything, but really, they appear far less frequently in the book than other humans.  I found myself thinking that the monster in this book isn’t really the zombie outbreak at all, but the reactions it caused in every human, in every country all over the world.  Again, yes, the zombies are terrifying–one of my favorite monsters so far simply because of the absolute hopelessness they contaminate the world with–but what’s even more frightening are some of the first ways humanity deals with the crisis.  Who to leave behind?  Who is sacrificed?  Who is worth saving and how?  That’s terrifying.  That one human life could be weighed against another . . .  I shudder to think.  And yet, it happens.  All the time.  In our own, zombie free world.  The real horror here is what we as humans are capable of.

There were times that this book became too political or too military for me to really understand what was going on.  It’s a personal thing, I’m sure, but when I came to chapters where it was all procedure and talk about policies and whatnot, my eyes started to glaze over.  The chapters that drew me were the ones that were far more personal.  Like the story of the blind man surviving in Japan.  I read every word.  His story spoke to me.  I loved his attitude and his journey to finding his way to where he felt he belonged in this new, twisted world.  Those were the stories I’ll remember.  There are others, sadly, that I can barely recall even now, with the book still sitting beside me and the reading fresh in my head.  Most of those are the longer stories–they simply went on too long.  I couldn’t retain the information.  (Though, once again, I applaud Mr. Brooks on the thoroughness and the extent of his book.  I am reeling at how much he came up with.  Literally.)

But what I liked the best were the final stories in the book.  They were all short, to the point, building a picture of the world as it was left to exist in the aftermath.  The rebuilding, the study, the despair and the broken minds.  The minds that survived.  And what I think really drove the enormity of the changes and devastation home was the extinction of the whales.  A simple addition to a complex story, something tucked into the last few pages, but something that resonates.  It broke my heart.

As a study of monsters, I think this book does it best so far.  It exemplifies what can happen world wide.  Most monster stories devastate a town, or a country.  These zombies took out the whole world.  And in doing so, they turned many men and women into monsters themselves, and in the world of World War Z many couldn’t live with what they had done.
That’s a monster.  And, to me, that’s horror.

The Yattering and Jack

22 Feb 2012 2 Comments

by Kate in Uncategorized

Monsters Blog # 6  (Updated)

Oh, this poor creature.  And that stupid jerk knows!

This story is so, so different from the last story we read by Clive Barker–Rawhead Rex.  This story is  . . . tragically comical.  The Yattering is a lesser demon charge with the task of tormenting and creating madness in a very banal man who’s mother never followed through on her Hellish bargain.  But Jack just can’t be broken, and instead The Yattering is the one being tormented, and his master, Beelzebub, will not grant him an escape, not even death.  Poor thing.
And for Jack’s part, The Yattering’s intended victim, he knows, and he shrugs everything off, his knowledge turning into his protection, and The Yattering’s torture.
This is a Christmas story, of course, and all sorts of things happen in The Yattering’s desperation.  The Turkey is cooking alive, and comes flying out; the decorated tree attacks, and it’s these things–happening when Jack’s daughters are home–that finally drives Jack to action, rather than passive aggressive indifference.  With one daughter mad, and another arguing with him, Jack and The Yattering begin a battle in the doorway of the house.  The Yattering may not leave, and Jack knows it.
The Yattering ends up enslaved to Jack.

And I must say, I hate Jack.  And all I want to do is take The Yattering home and let him go back to tormenting people successfully.  I can’t help but think that Jack didn’t have to be such a jerk about the whole thing once he was done.  The Yattering was only doing his job, and it certainly wasn’t working, so have heart!  I think the real monster in this story is the pitiless and the compassion-less Jack.  If he were the “hero” of the story, then he wouldn’t have acted in such a manner at the end.  But, we’re not really looking for a hero here, are we?  I get the feeling that was not Barker’s intention.  Rather, I think he’s once again coming off as someone who certainly doesn’t bring laughter and sunshine to a room.  Your personality is showing, Mr. Barker, and I don’t much care for it.  I wonder, too, how likeable this story will be among the class for exactly this reason.  I certainly did not sympathize with Jack, and so his victory in the end is unsatisfying to me.  That said, I’ve been trying to think of an ending that would have given me the satisfaction I sought, without damaging the story Barker chose to tell.  Most endings I come up with alter the entire tone of the story.  If The Yattering wins, and Jack is finally thwarted in all his casual torment, then we lose the feeling of an inescapable doom.  If Jack is compassionate, then he becomes a truer hero; and if The Yattering was then changed by that compassion, and they became a sort of friends, then we’re left without that sense that this isn’t the end of the horror–the horror goes on, just in a much more mundane, lack of flying, house-working doing kind of way.  I could go on and on.  So, I suppose there is no other ending for the story, not without telling a completely new tale.  The horror of this story is in the inevitability of The Yattering’s torment, more so than the awful things he inflicts upon Jack.

As for the story itself; its well written for the most part.  Head-hopping happens, but I’ve learned to accept this in these short stories.  It certainly made me feel for both characters, and even for those poor daughters who got caught up in it all.  And really, that’s what a good story should do.

30 Days of Night

15 Feb 2012 3 Comments

by Kate in Uncategorized

Monsters blog #5

I remember when the movie came out, and I saw pieces of it, and I have heard of this graphic novel before this, but let me just say that when I saw the introduction from Mr. Clive Barker on the first page, I decided to alter my expectations.  (After seeing what Barker likes in his own writing, and learning a bit about him outside his writing…yeah.)

I also have to point out, that as an avid reader of manga, reading this graphic novel left to right was…disconcerting and odd.  (For those who don’t know, manga are Japanese graphic novels and read right to left.)  I kept having to stop myself from reading it wrong.  Oops.  ^_^

And as for the art style–not a fan.  Thought I was dealing with two men until page 10.  They looked exactly the same.  Not exactly good for character development in a highly visual story.  However, the color differences between New Orleans and Alaska were a nice touch.  Made scene changes easy to see.

Onto the vampires themselves.  They were pretty good, though perhaps a bit flat.  Nowadays, a lot of people are on such a crusade against the “sparkly vampires” that have supposedly invaded fiction.  Yes, we all know about Twilight, and yes the vampires sparkled, but they aren’t the only vampires out there right now.  Cassandra Clare, another YA writer, had vampires in her Mortal Instruments series, and they are a blood-sucking gang/mob, with a hierarchy and violence and all the things that make vampires dark and scary.  It’s amazing how one series of books can make an impression so large that all others just get lumped together with them.
These vampires were blood-thirsty animals, looking for nothing more than a quick and easy meal.  Which a long dark period in Alaska would certainly give them.  But they had no other development to them.  Where did they come from?  All over the world, I guess, but there was clearly some sort of vampire culture.  They were in contact with one another, looking for an opportunity like this.  The vampire I really liked was “V” who came in to stop it all for the purposes of protecting that vampire community.  He points out how long it took for them to fade into myth–and that that’s how they wanted things.  They were safe that way, and a massacre like this would jeopardize that.  While still being cruel, and ruthless, V had motive and character and some sense of right and wrong.  Twisted, yes, but that’s what we want in a monster.  I cheered when he finally stepped in and started to set things right, despite the order to find and kill the remaining survivors.

For me, what I think makes vampires so scary is the fact that they were once human.  And occasionally some writers seem to want to forget that aspect when trying to forge something not “sparkly.”  That loss of humanity is what makes a vampire what he/she is.  They’re not just blood-craving animals with no thought process, they are people who have undergone and change.  And maybe they don’t fight the new craving, maybe they give into it.  These vampires are often great to read about, showing us the fragility of human nature, and the darkness that may linger inside all of us.  Others may choose to fight the craving, but I don’t think that makes them any less a vampire.  That struggle can be just as horrifying.  The thought that you can fight and fight this dark instinct, but still it can overcome you.  Still, you need blood to survive.  What do you do?  How do you cope?  Choices arise, and decisions are made–and maybe you do something you later regret.  That’s horror.  At least to me.
Case in point, the main character, Eben.  He infects himself to save the town, to save his wife.  He turns into one of the very monsters at his doorstep.  He shows us that other side, that conflicted side.  And in the end he allows the sun to end his life as it rises on the life–the saved life–of his wife.  Between Eben and V I think we have the best of the vampire options.  As for the rest of them, I’m not discounting them. There are plenty of humans who think as selfishly and narrow-mindedly as they do, but as a group, I don’t think they fully appreciate the vampire as a character.
Vampires are complex, and should be complex.  Whittling them down to pure instinct is just . . . boring.

End thought–Having all three, the conflicted, the intelligent, and the base vampires all together in one story = a nice well-rounded look at the vampire.

Rawhead Rex

08 Feb 2012 5 Comments

by Kate in Uncategorized

So, this story is my introduction to Clive Barker, whose name I have heard thrown around ever since I entered the professional writing community.  And I must say, I like.

Down to this particular story.  I love the beginning.  I love the idea of the invasion of the tourists!  Run and hide!  As a native of Connecticut, where the New Yorkers come to breathe a bit of fresh air and occassionally drive very slowly down my country roads on Sunday, I know exactly what this feels like.  And, like the Zealots, we don’t spill blood.  At least, not yet. 

Barker paints this lovely image of country living.  Things are quiet, things are peaceful, and then–Oh god! A huge stone in the field!  Let’s dig it up!  (Note: this is not mockery.  A large stone in a field is a bad, bad thing.)  AND THEN–this grotesque monster rises from his grave below this stone, tears the man’s scalp from his head and drives him head first into the ground.
So lovely.

Already, this story was seeming much more my speed than the last one we read.
We get to see the story through the eyes of the creature, this Rawhead, The King.  We see his excitement, his joy, his life come pouring back into him.  This was all fantastic.

Oh my god! And Then!  This huge, hulking, massive, returned from the grave creature is repulsed by menstruating women!  (I’m flashing back to Breeding Ground, only this time the concept seems to be working!)
::sigh::  And then he eats the pony…which I am ignoring.  Can’t we just leave the animals out of it?
Oh, and it eats children.
Nothing is scarier than that.  Nothing.

So, even just half way through, I am convinced this creature works.  It eats animals and our children.  Nothing curls my toes more than that.  Rawhead feels like a monster straight out of an old fairy tale, or myth or legend, and I absolutely love that the town of Zeal has its own mythology for this creature.  Tales and warnings have been passed through history, but they’ve been forgotten, and isn’t that just how all the best stories start?  And because of the human forgetfulness, this undying creature who has been buried alive in the earth has now risen once again to terrorize them.
Yes, please.

The end, however, I have mixed feelings about.  And I wonder if the feelings would be there if it weren’t for Breeding Ground and some of the issues it raised last week.
Rawhead Rex is brought down by the image of the Venus.  I know the statue well; that round and ample women-figure that has become a symbol of fertility throughout time.  Barker describes it as “grosser than Mrs. Blatter,” a women he had just depicted as overweight, with sagging breasts and large belly.”  He makes it out as something disgusting, rather than something that is warm and comfortable and brings life.  For a moment there, Barker lost me.  What is so wrong with the image of a fertile and pregnant woman?  (Note that this story was written in the 80s…not that timing is an excuse, simply a marker of culture and acceptability.)
But, I can go this route and simply employ the notion of “girl power” as what brings down this horrific creature.  Hear women everywhere roar.
The symbolism is not lost, however.  This is a creature who brings death, who loves death and eating children.  Women are the opposite of that.  They bring life into the world, rather than take it out.  And Barker makes reference to the woman/the Venus as the hole that had imprisoned Rawhead for so long.   And it is this, that finally ends him for good.

All in all, a great story, with a great monster.  Rawhead is a creature whose image with stay with me, and I may be tempted to draw inspiration from him in the future.

But just one last query:  What is with the fascination with bowls and bladders emptying at the height of fear?  Yes, yes, fine, maybe it has some basis in reality, but it always crosses a line for me, breaks that “third wall.”   It’s like how in most fantasy fiction cultures the women probably aren’t shaving their legs.  But we don’t talk about it.  Because no one wants to be reminded of things like that. 

Breeding Ground

02 Feb 2012 2 Comments

by Kate in Uncategorized

Monsters blog #3

From page 105 to 106 of the kindle version, it made reference to Doctor Who.
That was my favorite part.

But now to the important stuff.
I’m going to keep my comments mostly to my thoughts about the “monster” of this book as its own entity, mostly because I don’t generally believe in saying negative things about books on the internet where all can see.  I’m sure there are people who greatly enjoyed this novel–Sara Pinborough certainly knows how to construct a sentence, and from what I can tell her command of gore and the male POV is well developed, but this book was simply just not my cup of tea.

And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Onto the monster–The Widows.

The basic premise of the book is that all the women of the world start putting on weight (the main character sees this as an extension of his girlfriend’s pregnancy at first, but it becomes apparent later that this was something affecting all women, not just those who were pregnant–I think.  I’m actually left unclear on this point), following this, they become moody, not themselves, and something begins moving within their stomachs until it finally bursts out in a grotesque semblance of birth.  All the while, the men suffer headaches, and become psychically pinned to the floor, waiting.  And just what are these women giving birth to?  Giant white spiders, which the few surviving men decide to call “widows” since they consume the men nearest after their birth.

At first, my thought about this entire situation was, “is this a man’s worst nightmare?”  Pregnancy.  The woman you share a bed with becomes moody, eats strange things, puts on weight, then brings into the world a creature that alters your very existence.  Sounds more or less like what happens with a human child.  This book just takes it far beyond normalcy to the edge of extreme.
I don’t know, maybe there is some of that there.  (Though, I note, this book is written by a woman, so maybe it is a woman’s worst nightmare.  Kids, right?)  But all kidding aside, there is a fear factor to pregnancy, even normal ones.  Mood swings do happen, morning sickness, strange cravings.  There are things that can go perfectly well, and things that can go wrong, and all the while I imagine there can be a feeling of being out of control.  For both parties involved.  (I make these observations as a woman who has not yet gone through any of this.)  A woman gives herself to another human life for 9 months, putting up with the small illnesses, the swollen ankles, the kicking, and later the labor.  Men have to stand by and watch.  They can run to the store, hold her hand, go to doctor appointments, etc, but I imagine the feeling of helplessness is there just the same.  So maybe my initial impression wasn’t so far off; like I said, this book just takes it to the extreme.  Parasites are always scary, no matter what they are.

As for “the widows” I didn’t find them all that scary, personally.  Spiders don’t freak me out.  I guess the idea of having one growing inside me would, but I think I was reading this book with a bit of detachment that let me just pass that over.  Calling them “widows” didn’t help much either.  As one character mentioned, they were more like mantises, eating the mate after they got what they wanted, but even then, it wasn’t an accurate description–these are parasitic children.  If anything, they should be called orphans, since they almost immediately have no parents, or at least no host parents.  That happens when you eat them.
The webs were a nice touch though.  Very Halloween.  I like Halloween.
And a white spider is way creepier than a black one.  I pictured it kinda papery, veiny, and ghostly looking.  (And if my details are off, I apologize.  I admit that the gore was occasionally so … gory that I turned my head and squinted my eyes at the page like a television screen.)
Um…and the taunting?  I guess that was creepy too.
The characters hole up in a military base, where tempers flare and hormones rage, blah blah blah.  And I couldn’t reconcile myself with the main character, Matt, claiming to be so in love with Chloe (his girlfriend at the beginning), telling her that she is the only woman for him, he’ll never love another, yet then in the aftermath he seems to be easily attracted to whatever living women remain.  Quite honestly, that moved him towards the “monster” side of the scale (if we’re going to discuss all the different ways something can be “other” and “not our comfort of normal”), and made him a bit unlikable.
And as far as the explanation of genetically engineered food being the culprit…I don’t know.  Again, I suppose I have to admit to having checked out, so to speak, by that point.  Neither my imagination, nor my fear, had been captivated.
I feel like I’m rambling at this point.

The desperation aspect works.  Women are bringing about the end of the world (seemingly), so what do you do?  Protect what’s left?  Kill what remains?
Either way, I think one thing would be rather clear, and yet the notion went ignored.
If pregnant women are bringing these widows into the world, and you have a perfectly good, young, healthy woman with you–don’t you think it might be a good idea to lay off the sex?  Just until things got sorted?  Maybe?  No?

Apparently not.

By the end…when the spiders started hatching from the men, is it bad that my thought was, “hell yes.”  ?  I mean, why should the women be the only ones?