Revenge of the Short Reviews, Episode II

Because why would I ever get tired of rambling on about my opinions instead of doing actual work?

She’s Not There: A Poppy Rice Mystery by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (2003) – Tough-as-nails FBI agent Poppy Rice gets caught up in a series of murders when teenage girls at the diet camp near her boyfriend’s vacation home turn up dead.

I liked the main character, who manages to be funny and strong at the same time, and I liked the way she interacted with her boyfriend (also a Fed) and the local detective to solve the case. I’ll definitely pick up another book from this series just to hang out with these characters again, but this time I won’t carry any expectations of hard-core realism. The plot is fun (well, for a plot that involves murders, anyway), but about halfway through, some of the twists and turns seem to throw logic right out the window. Nobody would notice the murderer doing that? The murderer’s motive is what? I mean, I’m used to crazy unrealistic FBI antics (thanks, X Files), but this ending sort of faked me out. It’s not much weirder than your typical Agatha Christie, but it took me a while to realize that it wasn’t going to try to fake the police stuff to the same level as CSI or the Dexter series.

Anyway, engaging book: check it out if you like mysteries with strong female characters and don’t mind non-procedurals.

Smoke and Ashes by Tanya Huff (2006) – I haven’t read much of Tanya Huff’s work, but what I have read is awesome. Even when I don’t particularly enjoy one of her books or stories, it leaves me one or two steps more positive than “meh”, which is saying something. A lot of her books take place in a single “universe”, with a bunch of familiar characters. It’s sort of like a Star Trek TV series in that there are about seven or eight “leads”, but it’s different in that different characters become the protagonist depending on the installment.

This book, the limelight is on Tony, an ex-street-kid who juggles being crew on a Canadian TV show with being a wizard. It’s the second in a series that focusses on Tony, but you don’t have to have read either that book or the sister series with the other characters to understand what’s going on. Tony runs into an immortal woman whose body is inhabited by a demon-lord. If she dies, then the gates to demon-land open, and the world ends. Tony must help her avoid whatever-it-is that’s trying kill her.

Lots of fun Canadian content and snappy, fast-paced action and dialogue make this a great read. I have to admit that another of my favourite things about Tanya Huff is the way I feel like I can read her with my guard down: okay, I may not share all of her views on life (like, mainly, for me, sex isn’t as ubiquitous or big a deal as it is for her characters), but I’m not going to encounter sexist, racist, or homophobic tropes that make me cringe.

If non-explicit but casual and recurring sexual stuff is a deal-breaker for you, find something else to read; otherwise, this is a great dark fantasy adventure.

Star Trek (2009) – This was an awesome, fun, and engaging movie, and yet… I don’t know. I feel the same way about it as I do about a really well written fanfic. These are the characters I love, this is some fantastic storytelling, and I’ll recommend my little head off to anyone who’ll listen. In this installment: pretty, pretty James T. Kirk meets pretty, pretty Mr. Spock and pretty, pretty [entire bridge crew of the Enterprise] for the first time when they must do battle with the nefarious villain Nero, who is also pretty but whom everyone knows is evil because he has forehead ridges and weird tattoos and because his ship is lit in a dim and mysterious fashion.

This has pretty much everything I have come to love about Star Trek movies: funny moments between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy; ridiculous million-to-one chance plans that just might succeed; villains who for really stupid reasons have their hate on for our boys; time travel that barely makes enough sense to be believable. It also has thing people have come to love about non-Star Trek movies: wicked action scenes; believable romance scenes; pretty people in their underwear; developing homoerotic male friendships (whoops, I guess that sort of belongs in the previous category…) It’s also chock-full of references from previous movies and series for Star Trek maniacs like me to pick up on, although some of them are so deliciously cheesy that they might make you (like me) burst out laughing.

I liked this movie a lot and will turn out on opening days for any sequels with which the producers choose to grace us, but at the same time, I can’t help but compare it to Star Trek: Phase II and find it… not wanting, but less Star-Trek-y, if that makes any sense. Sure, in terms of special effects, acting, and overall coolness, the movie wins hands-down. But Phase II has what the movie is uneasily missing: a good old dose of that sometimes obnoxious but always optimistic Star Trek philosophy. Star Trek, in its various incarnations, has always looked to a future that’s better than the present, where that means Kirk can kiss Uhura or Dax can kiss another woman, and it’s always at least tried to ask the tough questions: when is it moral to impose one’s own values on another culture? How do you make peace with a lifelong enemy? Even if its answers have been on the trite side, I still miss them.

“Both Sides Now” (House 5×24, 2009) – Okay, this isn’t actually a review, but can I just say that this episode definitely worked? I found the ending really sad in a melancholy sort of way. Like, Frank Sinatra sitting in my ear crooning, “Isn’t it ri-chuh? Are we… a pairrrr ?” Okay, so maybe not so much “sad” as “reminding me of songs on my iPod”. But still.

Also, I can’t be the only one secretly wishing that the patient’s “evil” hand would turn out to be possessed by demons and need to be cut off with and replaced by a chainsaw. Backslash Evil Dead reference.

Also, who else thinks an X Files/House crossover would be hilarious? Think about it: Mulder believes in crazy, supernatural things and House believes in logical/Occam’s razor explanations, yet the “rules” of their respective stories say each of them is always right. Also, as of this writing, both see dead people. Hilarity ensues!

That wasn’t a review. I’m sorry… wait, no I’m not.

The Remains of the Dead (A Ghost Dusters Mystery) by Wendy Roberts (2007) – I like this book. Even if there weren’t actually a mystery, I think I’d be hooked by the premise alone. Sadie, the owner of a small business, sees ghosts. Only, the small business she owns is a crime scene cleanup company, and half the ghosts she sees are victims of crimes that, natch, didn’t quite play out the way the police think. In this book, Sadie’s dealing with a supposed husband-wife murder-suicide.

Everything’s fast-paced. There’s just enough (for me) of Sadie’s personal life to make me like her and to underscore the tension of the action/murder/suicide/crime plot. I once read another “mystery” with a similar atmosphere that was more like “female protagonist goes about her day, and oh, by the way, amurderhappenedinasinglesentencekthxbye”; this one delivers the goods. The scenes range between fun and romantic, tense and mysterious, and just plain hilarious. It’s a fun and easy read – I managed to get through almost the whole thing on the subway, for crying out loud – and the thing I like best is the way it deals with various serious themes (dealing with a family member’s suicide, seeing restless spirits, finding a significant other, etc.) in a way that doesn’t flippantly toss them aside but also doesn’t feel like OMG SRS BSNS.

This seems to be the first in a series, and I’m definitely checking out the next one(s?). (@Toronto Public Libraries: even if I do have to trek all the way to the Merrill Science Fiction reference collection to do it. Why? Why do you hate me?)

Amphigorey Again by Edward Gorey (2006) – Not actually written in 2006, just compiled.

I pretty much love everything Edward Gorey has ever written/illustrated, ever, so it should come as no surprise that I love this anthology, too. It’s the fourth one, so it’s perhaps not as good as the first- or second-string stories (gotta adore those Gashlycrumb Tinies, and The Unstrung Harp; or, Mr. Earbrass Writes a Novel is my favourite account of writing ever), but there’s still plenty of ghoulishness and dry faux-Edwardian humour to relish.

Among the choice pieces are an absurdly macabre and nonsensical choose-your-own adventure; a short story about a woman who is haunted by the words “Fly at once! All is discovered!”; and a(n unfinished) collection of illustrations of words beginning with the letter Z. My favourite section so far is a murder mystery in twenty-six words, in a sort of alphabet acrostic; my favourite quote is the very Gorey, “It’s well we cannot hear the screams/We make in other people’s dreams.”

Indeed.