Girl in a Cage

Last Exit To Tromaville

So Suzanne and I were planning a kid-free weekend in New York.
 "Let's take in a show, honey," I said.
"Sounds great," she replied. "What shall we see?"
"Well, I was thinking we could see the Toxic Avenger musical," I said.
 "Uh, okay," she replied, gamely. "What's that?"
"You mean you're from New Jersey, and you don't know the Toxic Avenger?"
"Nope."
"Hop in the car. Let's go to Tromaville town square and picnic beneath the statue of Lloyd Kaufman, and I shall tell you a tale."
"Tromaville? I think we used to play them in football," my wife, Jersey to the bone, answered. "That place stinks." "Yes," I said, "And it's also a hotbed of independent film." Though we did not actually go to Tromaville so as to avoid the famous odor, I told a heartwarming tale of a man with a vision, of independent film the way it was meant to be--on a zero budget with lots of gore and breasts. Though she was inspired by a tale of a Jersey film studio made good, she still viewed the musical with a certain amount of skepticism.
 Fast forward to Sunday afternoon, when we emerged, dazed but elated, from the matinee of The Toxic Avenger Musical. "That," she said without irony, "was the best play I have ever seen. Okay, the part about Tromaville town square, and, indeed, the existence of Tromaville I made up, but she really did say it was the best play she'd ever seen, and I have to agree. I will probably not be able to convince those of you who are skeptical, but this is an amazing theatrical experience, thrilling and hilarious and thoroughly enjoyable. I expected to love this; what I didn't expect was that it would actually be excellent. Standing ovations are overused, but when the audience leapt to their feet at the end of this one, I was right there, standing and cheering.
Okay, so what's wonderful about this--the music, composed by the keyboard player from Bon Jovi, is awesome. Say what you will about the music of Bon Jovi (and I've said plenty over the years), they know their way around a catchy hook. Not evident in Bon Jovi's music but all over the place here is really clever wordplay. Nearly all the songs were catchy, smart, and funny.
The performances: the cast of five is fantastic. Nick Cordero and Sara Chase are excellent as Toxie and his blind love interest Sarah. Matthew Saldivar and Demond Green, as "White Dude" and "Black Dude" respectively, really make the show work. Each of them plays at least five characters credibly, and their cops, thugs, hairstylists, sleazy businessmen, old ladies, and chick singers help Tromaville come to life. Special props to Nancy Opel, who plays the evil mayor of Tromaville as well as Toxie's mom. Late in the show her duet with herself on a song called "Bitch/Slut/Liar/Whore" is a thrilling showstopper.
The musical has this fun, DIY, let's-put-on-a-show vibe that I suspect took a ton of work to create and maintain, but it really connects it with the Troma original, though it does not have the same plot and is ultimately more tasteful. (there's no little kid's head exploding like a melon onstage as there is in the movie.) My only quibble is that they go to the well on the blind jokes too many times, though, again, the blind jokes on display here are far more tasteful than what you'd find in an actual Troma movie. (Blind lady unintentionally whacks bad guys in the groin with cane is comedy gold, though!) So, yeah, we loved it. The time flew by and we felt like we'd gotten a bargain. If you are in New York or going to New York, go see this show and thank me afterward.

Update:  My father's ghost appeared on the battlements last night, complaining that I wrote a review of a play without mentioning the set design.  He, a professional scene designer in life, was mightily displeased that I did not mention Beowulf Boritt's awesome set design, in which 55-gallon drums of toxic waste are put to spectacularly versatile use.  It looks great and manages to credibly transform into a whole bunch of different locations.  Sorry, Pop.

Faux Populism vs. Faux Liberalism

As I've probably made clear, I'm kind of obsessed with Twitter these days, which probably accounts for my decreased posting on this here blog.  I've found if I can find a way to say something like "Wow, that song "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" is the biggest White Stripes ripoff ever" on twitter, I don't really feel the need to create a blog post about it because I've pretty much said all that I need to say about that particular issue.  (Wow, though--at first I thought it was Jack White's new band, and I was like "why did he need to start a new band to sound exactly like the White Stripes?")(Biggest White Stripes ripoff since "Joker and the Thief")  (Biggest ripoff of another band's sound since "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress")  (Okay, that was probably at least 3 tweets' worth, but you get the point.)

Also, people I follow on Twitter post links to stuff that I find interesting. Sometimes.  Like this little controversy, which I will attempt to sum up as briefly and coherently as possible.  There is this website, stopstarbucks.com which takes Starbucks to task for their union-busting ways.  I suppose that Starbucks is a juicy target because they have kind of positioned themselves as part of the liberal, college-educated professional lifestyle, so the fact that their corporate behavior is not at all liberal or worker-friendly shows a disconnect, and much of their customer base might be motivated by liberal guilt to push Starbucks to change their evil ways. 

So far so good--having worked as part of the "Charter School Movement," which is at least half about union-busting (oh yes it certainly is, and I will dispute at length and in excruciating detail anyone who says otherwise), I appreciate the value of unions and have a special dislike for union-busting companies. 

But then there's this.  Starbucks was trying to run some kind of contest on Twitter.  Post a picture of yourself with one of their new ads and get a free coffee or something.  So the Stop Starbucks people sent the word out to their vast network of supporters asking them to hack the contest and post photos like this:



Starbucks quickly ended the contest and Stop Starbucks was trumpeting their success all over twitter, except here's the thing:  almost all the anti-Starbucks photos that were posted were taken in the same exact place as the photo above, which is lit really funny--it looks for all the world like an outdoor scene shot inside.  It looks like they hung a Starbucks ad on Sesame Street. A bunch of the photos seemed to come from Twitter accounts created for the express purpose of posting an anti-Starbucks on Sesame Street shot.  (if you have any interest in finding this out for yourself, go to search.twitter.com and search for #top3percent.)

So yeah, I guess this is the little guy taking down the big guy, but it's not some big populist uprising.  In fact, Stop Starbucks' attempt to get the angry masses to rise up on Twitter was clearly a bust.  The masses are, as usual, apathetic. 

So, on one side we have the union-busting corporation that pretends to be liberal, and on the other-side, we have the ersatz rabble-rousing organization that can't manage to rouse the rabble.  Conclusion:  everybody sucks.

My Favorite Novels

So the other day, via the magic of twitter, I came across this article, in which the author complains about this list of the best 100 novels of the last 100 years, or something.

I think the author of the LA Times blog didn't quite get that the whole point of listmaking is to start arguments.  It's, like, why it's fun.  So rather than argue with the NPR guy's rather boring list, I thought I'd make my own list of my favorite books I've ever read.  These will be in alphabetical order, not ranked according to quality or how much I like them. 

For the purposes of not appearing to be a complete tool, I have eliminated my own novels from consideration, but I do hope they'll make your list.  What?  Haven't read one of my novels yet?  Click over there to the left and buy buy buy!

Already Dead--Charlie Huston

Beloved--Toni Morrisson

The Blue Girl--Charles DeLint

The Church of Dead Girls--Stephen Dobyns

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time--Mark Haddon

Dark Cities Underground--Lisa Goldstein

Desperation--Stephen King

Doomsday Book--Connie Willis

Down The Rabbit Hole--Peter Abrahams

Every Last Drop--Charlie Huston

Fall of Hyperion--Dan Simmons

Fool--Christopher Moore

Foucault's Pendulum--Umberto Eco

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler--E.L. Konigsburg

Ghost Story--Peter Straub

The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters--Gordon Dahlquist

Gospel--Wilton Barnhardt

The Graveyard Book--Neil Gaiman

Green Mars--Kim Stanley Robinson

The Grim Grotto--Lemony Snicket

Gun, With Occasional Music--Jonathan Lethem

Harmless--Dana Reinhardt

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix--J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban--J.K. Rowling

High Fidelity--Nick Hornby

The House With a Clock in Its Walls--John Bellairs

How To Be Good--Nick Hornby

Hyperion--Dan Simmons

I Love You, Beth Cooper--Larry Doyle

James and the Giant Peach--Roald Dahl

Junie B. Jones, First Grader at Last!--Barbara Park

King Dork--Frank Portman

Lamb--Christopher Moore

The Left Hand of Darkness--Ursula K. LeGuin

Lord of the Rings--J.R.R. Tolkein

Lunatics--Bradley Denton

Lying Awake--Mark Saltzman

The Mansion in the Mist--John Bellairs

Mystery--Peter Straub

The Name of the Rose--Umberto Eco

Never Mind the Pollacks--Neal Pollack

Neverwhere--Neil Gaiman

No Dominion--Charlie Huston

Pale Fire--Vladimir Nabokov

Perdido Street Station--China Mieville

Pet Sematary--Stephen King

Possession-- A.S. Byatt

A Prayer for Owen Meany--John Irving

Proxies--Laura Mixon

Ramona and her Father--Beverly Cleary

Ramona and her Mother--Beverly Cleary

Ramona The Brave--Beverly Cleary

Red Mars--Kim Stanley Robinson

Ripley's Game--Patricia Highsmith

Room Temperature--Nicholson Baker

Rosemary's Baby--Ira Levin

Salem's Lot--Stephen King

The Scar--China Mieville

The Slippery Slope-Lemony Snicket

Something Wicked This Way Comes--Ray Bradbury

The Stepford Wives--Ira Levin

The Tale of Despereaux--Kate DiCamillo

The Talented Mr. Ripley--Patricia Highsmith

The Terror--Dan Simmons

To Kill a Mockingbird--Harper Lee

To Say Nothing of the Dog--Connie Willis

Un Lun Dun--China Mieville

Valis--Philip K. Dick

Valley of the Dolls--Jaqueline Susann

We Can Build You--Philip K. Dick

World War Z--Max Brooks

Youth in Revolt- C.D. Payne

Looking over this list,(there's only 72.  Couldn't make it to 100) I could probably draw some conclusions, but frankly, I'm too tired.  Enjoy, debate, call me a misogynist, praise my brilliance, upbraid me for my oversights, and generally have fun.

To Boldy Go

Saturday Night, one of my daughters was hosting a sleepover for two of her friends.  As these tend to invovle a lot of shrieking, it took very little convincing to get the two other kids to flee the house with me to see Star Trek.

While I would never characterize myself as a Trekkie or Trekker, I did grow up watching and loving the original Star Trek.  I watched the odd episode of Next Generation but never really got into it.

So, okay, as someone who grew up steeped in the mythology of the original Star Trek, I have to say I freakin' loved this movie.  It completely kicked my ass. 

I do have to say that while the reviews have stressed that anyone can enjoy this movie, Trek fan or not, it is definitely more fun if you're familiar with the original series. The kids, Star Trek novices, did not get the same jolt I did with the first appearance of every character, or when Spock first said "fascinating" or when Scotty shouted that his engines were already at full capacity.  (Simon Pegg, by the way, rules.  Awesome performance.)

Overall, I would say this movie is not quite as good as Wrath of Khan, but probably better than The Journey Home.  I guess I'd put it on the same level as Star Trek III: The Search For Spock.

SPOILER ALERT: READ NO FURTHER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE!!. 

Perhaps the cleverest thing about this movie is the whole time-travel alternate reality thing the writers have created.  (Written by the blockbuster team of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. One of whom expressed interest in optioning one of my books and then claimed not to have any money to pay for an option.  Yeah, because you probably didn't make any money writing Transformers or Star Trek or Mission Impossible 3, you cheap-ass bitch!)  This allows them to totally monkey with the Star Trek continuity in this and future movies while having the excuse that it's an alternate reality created when Nero came through the black hole!  Clever!  (Also--Spock/Uhura romance: hott!)

Anyway, my advice is, go see this movie now if you haven't already. It's a ton of fun!

Interview with Seamus Cooper

Many years ago, in a dark basement in Philadelphia, I staggered into the dorm lounge (yes, it was in the basement, and, appropriately, there was a Dig Dug game there) at about 1 in the morning.  This was when one of my favorite shows of the 80's, Saturday Night Dead, came on. 

Saturday Night Dead featured an over-the-top female host in the Elvira mode who performed really corny skits featuring various monsters and ghouls.  Her name was Stella ("The maneater from Manyunk"), and she would introduce commercials that were occasionally interrupted by a few minutes of an almost unbearably bad horror movie.

So there, already watching Saturday Night Dead, was Seamus Cooper.  Over the course of many horrible movies. We became friends, though we fell out of touch after graduation, only to reconnect after "I saw your picture in People Magazine at the doctor's office."  (Yeah, sure.  It's amazing how many people just happen to have seen People at the doctor's office).

Last summer, I praised Seamus' debut novel, The Mall of Cthulhu, thinking it was on the verge of publication.  Nearly a year later, it's still supposedly on the verge of publication, and rather than running my rave review again, I thought I'd interview him.  Since Seamus is somewhat of a misanthrope (moreso even than myself), he doesn't maintain a web page, blog, twitter account, facebook, anything, so this may be your only glimpse of him online. 

I called Seamus the other night.  Here are the cleaner parts of our conversation.

BH: So what's the story with Mall of Cthulhu? Will it ever see the light of day?

SC: I only know what I read on the Nightshade website. Like most of the hot RISD students who come into my shop, they don't talk to me.

BH: Do you think that your book is being suppressed by a cabal of Cthulhu cultists determined to keep the true nature of their organization secret?

SC: Um, no.  I think it's a hard time for publishing, and small publishers are having an especially hard time.  If you look at their website, a lot of books are delayed.  At least they've got my cover up now.

BH:Why are you an online recluse? Are you trying to build a mystique?
SC: (laughs).  No, I'm just busy. I've got stuff to do. And I'm not as much of an egotist as you are.  I'm not going to send out updates every time I take a crap.  And nobody cares what I think about LOST or whatever.  Pretty much everything I have to say that's worth hearing is in the book.

BH:But don't you think some of this social media stuff can help you reach an audience?
SC: I don't know. Does it help you?

BH:I have no idea.
SC: There you go.  But I don't think people are interested in whether I cut five hundred words out of a first draft today, and I don't think people will want to read my books because they feel like they know me online.  As you can vouch, I'm kind of an asshole!  How is that a selling point?

BH:It seems to work for Harlan Ellison.
SC: (Laughs.) Good point.   But he's such an asshole that it's entertaining.  I don't think I'm that good at it yet.

BH: So Mall of Cthulhu is kind of a comic horror novel, or maybe a comic adventure novel with a horror background.  Why did you do that instead of a straight horror novel?
SC: I just read the kind of thing I wanted to read.  I wanted to read a fun story and I couldn't find any I hadn't already read, so I wrote one.

BH: Your take on the Cthulhu mythos is sort of tongue-in-cheek and irreverent.  Are you worried that Lovecraft fans are going to be mad at you?
SC: I hope so. I hope they'll fill their blogs with venom about how much I suck.  Assuming the book ever comes out, that would be good publicity.  But I mean, look, I read all of Lovecraft probalby four or five times. There's obviously something special about his work.  But a lot of the stuff is overwritten to an almost laughable degree, and the guy was an appalling racist!  Talk about an asshole--nobody really mentions, oh, these stories are great except for the racism.  I don't know how you can look at Lovecraft's work today without dealing with the racism.

BH: Well, so your audience for this book is people who are familiar with Lovecraft but don't revere him. That's got to be a pretty small group.  I think maybe it's you and me.
SC: Well, you'll buy a bunch of copies, right?

BH: Like hell! I already read it! You'll be lucky if I buy one!  How many copies of I Can See Clearly Now did you buy?
SC: You sent me a copy.  Why would I buy it?

BH:Exactly.  Which reminds me, what do you think about the whole ebook piracy issue?
SC: Well, it's not much of an issue for me. I'm more worried about actually getting my book out.

 BH: But assuming it ever is published, how would you feel about people trading free electronic copies?
SC: Well, people are always going to want something for nothing, and there's really no way to prevent dishonest people from stealing.  I mean, if you want to read the book for free, go to the library.  At least I get paid once.  And, your library looks like it's being used and gets a budget to maintain free access to books for everyone.  If you're going to illegally trade free electronic copies of my book, you're a thieving douchebag.  Which is fine, I mean, I can't stop you, I'm certainly not going to sue you or anything, but just don't run around talking about how information wants to be free, or you're only stealing because the evil publishing industry won't give you what you want the way you want it.  If you are asked to pay for something and you take it for free, you're a thief.  You're not some kind of freedom fighter.

BH: But Cory Doctorow says that for most writers, the problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity.
SC: Who the hell is Cory Doctorow? Is he related to the guy who wrote Ragtime?

BH: I don't think so.  He's a science fiction writer and edits one of the most popular blogs on the internet.
SC: Why do you know shit like this?

BH: I kind of consider it a professional duty to stay on top of stuff that's--
SC: You just like to stay on top of what you think is cool because you think it makes you cool.  Whereas I am totally uncool and totally fine with it. 

BH: I'm in awe of your ideological purity.  But what about piracy versus obscurity?
SC: Well, why can't they both be problems?  I mean, I get the point--most books disappear without a trace and nobody reads them.  But, I mean, at least for musicians maybe the people who steal the albums might pay for a concert ticket or a t-shirt or something.  But writers don't have any other product. 

BH: So what are you writing right now?
SC: None of your business.

BH:(laughs) Fair enough. When will your adoring public hear from you next?
SC: I guess when I accept whatever award they give out for best debut horror novel.  Somebody must give out an award like that, right?  The Edgars or something?

BH: Those are for mystery writers.
SC: I guess I'm screwed then. Back into my cave.

Gettin' Back to Fun Again

For years, I was a big baseball fan.  This was largely a result, I think, of growing up in Cincinnati.  During those summers when I was in college, there were few entertainment options:  1.)go to high school parties and feel like a loser 2.)Procure fake ID and go to bars to hang out with people I didn't hang out with in high school, 3.) go to the movies and 4.)go to a Reds game.  I chose 3 and 4 and found myself a movie geek and a baseball fan.

I'm still a movie geek (Good Lord, but Sweeney Todd on Blu Ray was frickin' fantastic.  Fantastic, I say!), but the baseball fandom fell away sometime around 2003.  This was because I conflated baseball and real life in a way that was really unhealthy.  When I look at the stuff I wrote about during the last few weeks of my late wife's life, a lot of it had to do with the Sox playing the Yankees. What should have been a distraction from the horror of life ended up getting all wrapped up in the horror of life. 

And after that, I had a hard time caring about sports for a while. Since then, I've supported Boston teams in a kind of halfhearted fashion, but I'm also incredibly busy all the time and only rarely have three uninterrupted hours to do anything.  Recently, though, due to my son's obession, I've been getting into soccer--finding myself very excited about the prospect of seeing AC Milan play Inter Milan at Gillette Stadium this summer.  (We will be supporting Inter, as the boy worships Ibrahimovic, though it will be difficult for me to root against a team with a player named after poop (or Kaka, if you will)).

But there are things I miss about being a baseball fan--mostly, I think, the way in which baseball was comfort food for my brain for a long time.  And yeah, there's some nostalgia for those days sitting in the $3.50 Top 6 seats at Riverfront Stadium with Eric, Steve, and assorted others, wearing my Reds hat with the card of Ron "True Creature" Robinson tucked into it, speculating on how Dave Parker's colossal butt was impacting his batting. So anyway, in hopes of rekindling my love of baseball, I shelled out 10 bucks for the MLB At Bat '09 app for the old iphone.

Whoa.  This app is amazing.  Live streaming audio of any game, lots of stats I will never care about or look at, and video highlights as the game is in progress.  Everything loads quickly and works the way it's supposed to. (o, New York Times, why can't you produce an app that actually works the way it's supposed to?  You're not streaming video or audio or providing live stats, and your app is a steaming pile of Kaka, or it would be if it would ever load successfully.)  And now

For the baseball fanatic, this is an indispensible, incredible bargain.  For somebody like me, it's still worth the cash--I can get highlights from the Sox and Reds games without having to wade through the dross of the local news or SportsCenter, and on rare nights when neither the Sox or the Reds are playing, I can catch a broadcast of some other game and enjoy the soothing sound of baseball announcers.  They all sound exactly alike, and this, like most of baseball, is strangely comforting.  Best of all, I can now enjoy baseball in a more, uh, dispassionate fashion, which is good for me and everyone around me.

Finally, the Red Sox are now 5-0 against the hated Yankees this season.  Doesn't this diminish the rivalry somewhat?  When, they ask, will Sox fans be satisfied?  Here is the only scenario that will satisfy Sox fans vis-a-vis the Yankees, courtesy of George Orwell:  If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.

Boston Authors Club Lunch

On Thursday, I went for lunch at the Boston Public Library.  My second trip to the beautiful McKim building in less than a month!

My awesome YA novel, Forever Changes, was a finalist for the Boston Authors Club's Young Readers Award.

It was, of course, a great honor to have people recognize this book, which I still think is the best I've ever written.  People from the club's reading committee came up and told me about how much they enjoyed the book, which was a real thrill.  Really--I feel like most of what I believe about life and death is in this book, and, as I've said before, it's the only one of my books that contains no sentences that make me cringe.

But what was really cool about this whole thing was meeting all the other authors.  The only problem:  I spent loads of cash buying books so I could get cool signed copies. 

So, while I haven't read any of these yet, I can highly recommend all of them as the works of awesome people who signed my copies!

YA Books:

Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman.  15-year-old Vitya, who lives in 1940's India, thinks she's getting an education till she goes to live with her grandfather who says no way.  So she has to sneak upstairs to read books.  Padma was very cool and a super interesting person to boot:  she did a crocodile census!  Why can't you do that?

Quest by Kathleen Duble. Historical adventure novel about teens surrounding Henry Hudson on his fruitless quest to find the Northwest Passage.  Like a Slinky, it's fun for a girl and a boy!

Masterpiece by Elise Broach. James, an 11-year-old boy, and Marvin, a beetle with extraordinary artistic talent, team up to foil an art heist!  I really can't wait to dive into this one.

Non-YA books:

Dear Darkness by Kevin Young: Kevin read one of his poems at the event and it was accessible, funny, and elegant.  Like pretty much the total opposite of the impenitrable poems they run in The New Yorker.  So this is a collection of poems about family, food, and grief.  So basically it's right up my alley.  When it's not bending over backwards to be difficult and academic, poetry is the most powerful form of literature. I've dipped into this a bit, and it is awesome.

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane.  Yeah, that Dennis Lehane.  This book is a historical novel set in the early decades of the 20th century in Boston, the Boston of molasses floods and anarchist bombings.  I have to admit that despite knowing that writers are just people, I was kinda star struck at meeting this guy and having him ask me to sign a book for him.  We talked about Franklin Park.

So a good time was had by all, and I got a bunch of signed books to read. I recommend buying all of these books, especially mine.

Free Comic Book Day Roundup!

So I was busy as hell on Saturday, but not so busy that I couldn't find time to snag some free comic books!

Yes, Saturday was Free Comic Book Day, the annual event that comic book publishers and stores put on in an attempt to lure the unsuspecting into a comic book habit.  ("Come on.  The first one's free...")

I picked up 5 comics.  Here are my thoughts.

Archie presents The Mighty Archie Art Players.  I don't know what I expected from an Archie comic, but this is way lame.  Except for Veronica in Cleopatra garb and Betty in mermaid garb.  Pathetic cartoon crushes are the only reason to read this.

The Avengers.  Now extra tiny!  The comic book, not the superheroes.  There was nary a Wasp or Ant Man in sight.  This is the kind of thing I like--it's a self-contained story about, um, fighting a frost giant with a magic sword, or something.  And while you'd probably appreciate it more if you understood what was going on with the supervillain faux-Avengers starring the Green Goblin in an Iron Man suit, if you have no idea what's going on with the post-Civil War fallout, you can still enjoy the story.  Sort of. 

Bongo Comics Free For All!  Bongo comes with a whole lot of free comic here.  Two Simpsons stories and a Futurama story, and they're all pretty good.  Thumbs up!  Made me consider actually picking up a few Simpsons comics in the future.

Atomic Robo. This one features a fun Atomic Robo story (I've been solidly pro-Atomic Robo since meeting the artist and having him be very nice to my son at Boston Comic Con) that features all the action and humor you've come to expect from Atomic Robo.  Previewed are two new series:  Proxy, about hackers who, um, hack into the control system for robot combat drones--looks like it could be interesting, but what's on display here is just kind of puzzling.  Not puzzling and absolutely kick ass is the preview for We Kill Monsters!  Which is exactly as cool as something called We Kill Monsters! should be.

Aliens/Predator.  The Aliens story is kind of good--it's got some human-chompin' action and a decent fake scare. The Predator story is not so great, but then I've never seen that movie and never got into it.  I might pick up a copy of the Aliens comic.  Don't think I'll be doing that with the Predator comic.

Question:  why can't book publishers and bookstores do "Free Book Day?"  Wouldn't that possibly help the beleaguered publishing industry?  Might we not hook in some new readers?  I'm just saying.

Don't Fund Domestic Terrorists

One of my big frustrations in the wake of 9/11 was that we did nothing to curb our consumption of the oil that was funding the terrorists, effectively buying bullets for the gun aimed at us.

Many of us are now doing the same by buying the fiction of Orson Scott Card. 

I know this is going to make me sound like an insane crank, but, I've linked to this before and will repeat: Card has proclaimed his intention to "act to destroy that government and bring it down" if that government, that is, ours, were to legalize gay marriage. 

I don't know what your definition of "destroy that government" is, but it certainly sounds violent to me.  Remember, he doesn't want to "replace the elected officials"; he says he will act to destroy the government.  He seems to have a particular beef with the judiciary, so he seems to be suggesting replacing our tripartite system of government with something else, probably a theocratic dictatorship.

Card is, in the most profound sense of the word, anti-American.  He does not believe in secular democracy.  He has made this clear. 

Now listen--I'm not saying you should boycott his work because he's an asshole.  If we were to boycott the work of writers who are assholes, our bookshelves would be barren and lonely places indeed.  I'm not saying you should boycott Card because of his endless milking of a story line that jumped the shark after Speaker For the Dead. 

I'm not even saying you should boycott Card's work because he will use your money to fund anti-gay initiatives. Or because he just joined the board of some wingnut organization claiming to defend marriage. (I live in a state where gay marriage has been legal for years, and my marriage is in good shape) I don't know about you, but I'm far too lazy to research the political donations of every author whose work I purchase, and given the fact that most writers lean liberal, I figure it all balances out eventually.

No, I'm saying you should boycott Card's work because he may use the money to fund his attempted overthrow of the United States Government. 

I know that in some sense we must try to divorce art from the personalities of the people who create it (not least of which because those of us who make any kind of art tend to be maladjusted in some way--unsatisfied with reality, we create our own), but in this case I feel like there's a direct corrolation between buying the art of Orson Scott Card and funding whatever nefarious plans he has to bring down the United States government.

I don't really get why nobody is taking Card at his word and acting accordingly.