Remarkably Short Book Reviews: Halloween-ish Edition

When hearing that a book is written by Max Brooks, the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, your first instinct might be to expect humor. That's certainly where you'd find The Zombie Survival Guide filed in the bookstore, though it lacks even a single line that can truly be characterized as a joke. Instead, the humor is found in the duplication of the serious tone found in other worst-case scenario guides. Brooks assures the reader that this is a problem for which he must prepare, and that preparation must start now. Going beyond the send up of survival guides, the book is an impressive piece of world building. Brooks lays out the ground rules for his zombies-what causes them (a virus called Solanum), what can hurt them (only destroying the brain), how best to protect yourself from them-and attempts to dispel the myths that have been spread by Hollywood. After giving us the list of absolutely essential supplies and telling us what weapons work best (machetes, M1 carbines, and absolutely not a flamethrower), he gives a brief account of some of the recorded zombie attacks in history. It's certainly not much like any other book I've read recently, but I enjoyed it. In fact I especially enjoyed it as an accompaniment to the next book I wanted to talk about.

 

Building on the ground work from The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z tells the story of zombie outbreaks that turn into a pandemic. The book is presented as a collection of interviews performed by the unnamed narrator revealing life at the beginning of the outbreak, during "The Great Panic" and throughout the war. The very long war. Make no mistake about it, this is not a war that we win, at least not for a long time. Unlike most zombie stories, this is not limited to a single town or even a single country. Most of the world is overrun with zombies. No official death toll is ever given, but with 200 million infected in North America along with over half of China, the number would be in the billions. Each interview gives us a new perspective on the war. We hear from people all over the world who were involved in finding outbreaks, planning, military operations, from politicians or even from just regular people who tried to go far enough north that the zombies would freeze during winter. Brooks does an impressive job of giving each person their own distinctive voice and building the characters despite the limited space for each section. While the book uses these vignettes to point out mistakes we've made in the past and those we might make in the future (as well as those things we get right), Brooks usually allows the story and the character to be the true star (one interview does stand out as being somewhat less than subtle, but it was the exception rather than the rule). In all, it is impressive that Brooks is able to get as much emotional impact out of so many of these sections. I definitely recommend this one as a very unique and worthwhile read. In fact, I also recommend the audiobook which, while abridged, has some talented actors playing the parts of the various interviewees including Alan Alda, Rob and Carl Reiner, John Tuturro and Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill, as a veteran of the disastrous Battle of Yonkers. 

Doctor, Doctor

It seems that the Tenth Doctor has indeed given us the news. David Tennant has confirmed that he will remain the titular character on Doctor Who for the specials in 2009, but will not be back in 2010. I realize that three seasons, plus a few specials is pretty much a standard duration for an actor in the role (at least for any after Tom Baker), but I can't help wishing that Tennant would stay on a little longer. No matter who fills the role next, it will be hard to match his ability to alternate between the child who is filled with wonder at the simplest of things and weary traveller who has witnessed the death of everything he loves.

Now of course, comes the speculation. Who will be the next Doctor? What's going to happen?There have been all sorts of suggestions, and I really can't say that I know if any of them would be good or bad. In my opinion, however, if you're looking for a new Doctor, I feel like you can't go wrong with Andre Young. (Too obvious? Should I have said Dwight Gooden?)

You Can Feel It In The Air

I get a word of the day email sent to me every day. I've thought in the past that it would be nice if more of the words were ones that were new to me rather than 5 of the 7 in any given week being reasonably common words. Well, they must have listened because today's word was something entirely new and different.

I'm not sure which surprised me more, that October 30 is pronounced \PAL-puh-bul\ or that it has a meaning other than "the day before Halloween."

Hope your \PAL-pub-bul\ is enjoyable.

All Right. It's Saturday Night, I Have No Date, A Two Liter Of Shasta And My All-Rush Mixtape. Let's Rock.

On tonight's episode of Chuck, the key to beating Missile Command (and saving the world) is listening to and playing along with "Tom Sawyer" by Rush. A reference to Fry vs. the invaders (possibly from space) or just coincidence caused by the fact that Tom Sawyer is a rocking song for when one is playing video games?

People Who've Appeared in Bestsellers? People Who Make Others' Lives Miserable?

I was originally planning to write something completely different, but then this came to mind and just kind of took over. In the end, I figured the world needs more $25,000 Pyramid style posts. Feel free to take a shot at figuring out the answer.

1. Death, from the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.

2. Shai'tan, also known as The Dark One or Great Lord of the Dark. The big bad guy that no one ever sees in the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.

3. People who still get confused by the internet.

The Hot Air Is Strong With This One

A couple of weeks ago, we went out to New Mexico for a few days to visit some of Melissa's family. In addition to insisting on having green chile on everything¹, we went to the Balloon Fiesta, where we learned several things. First, you have to get up really early in the morning if you want to get there for the mass ascension. Second, even if you call it a shuttle bus, there's not nearly enough leg room for someone my height on a school bus. Third, and probably most importantly, while there are balloons of all shapes and sizes there are a few that will make me insist on rushing across the field to get a better look².

¹Ok, not everything. We didn't put it on waffles or anything like that...though that might be good.

²Thanks to Melissa, who assembled this video and added the music, since I had no clue what I was doing.

Hate Myself for Watching You?

I'm beginning to feel a bit like Joan Jett on Monday nights¹. Is anyone else out there still watching Heroes (addendum: Ok, I know Danielle and Marni are watching--unless they've given up recently--but anyone else)? I just don't know what to think any more. Do I really want to spend time watching this when all I'm really going to do is pick it apart as soon as it's over? I just can't help feeling that they have forgotten to have anyone proofread their scripts. Just a quick rundown of some of the things that have gone wrong:

-We're on potential/alternate future number 5 or so now. Whenever the writers are in need of a new threat, they just send someone back from the future to tell us all about the danger that is coming. With all the different versions of Peter and Hiro (as well as other characters) we've encountered, the show is rapidly approaching pre-Crisis DC comics level².

-Mohinder and Peter seem to operate simply by doing the first thing that comes to mind, no matter how stupid (or at least they seem to be the two biggest offenders). For example, Peter determines that his brother revealing his abilities causes dystopian future B and he must use his time travel abilities to prevent this. Rather than going back to any point prior to the revelation and rationalizing with Nathan, he goes to the press conference where the secret is revealed and shoots his brother. I realize that sometime characters do things because they need to for the plot to progress, but the writers seem to be taking it to extremes. I think Mohinder tends to be the more annoying of the two, because while Peter is projecting his spittle everywhere with his screaming, Mohinder shows up for long winded speeches. 

-Dead people don't stay dead. Whether they died on screen or before the start of the show, dead people keep popping back up.

-Mohinder's scientist dialogue seems to have been written via Mad-Lib. It's as if there were blanks in his lines that just said (science noun) or (science verb). It's one thing if the science is silly and unrealistic³, that's to be expected in a not even remotely based on fact sci-fi show. The words they put in Mohinder's mouth don't even go together and when they do, they contradict things that he (or everyone else) said in previous episodes.

-As if having Ali Later on her 4th character/personality isn't bad enough, the explanation she was recently given doesn't even help. She was one of three superpowered identical triplets, Niki, Tracy and Barbara. What about Jessica? She wasn't just an alternate personality (like Gina), she was Niki's twin who was killed by their abusive father. Was she the fourth triplet or just an adopted sibling who looked an awful lot like her? Her entire plotline makes my head hurt.

-Nathan had a wife right? The one who was in a wheelchair but then was healed by Linderman? Where'd she go? And shouldn't she be upset that her husband is sleeping with every version of Ali Larter that walks by?

-We've only had two true villains who have had any development (unless you want to count people working for the Company, but we really don't know where they fall on the sliding scale of evil-doers yet). One of these villains has been seen in the future living a peaceful life and making waffles for his kid⁴. The other (ignoring for now that he was a Japanese legend despite being British) is motivated by the fact that someone thought he was dead and stole his girlfriend...400 years ago. Is this Pearl Harbor? At least Ben Affleck didn't hold a grudge that long and even when he was angry he didn't think it reason enough to try to destroy the world.

-My favorite scene in recent episodes was Noah Bennet telling the Hatian (you know, the guy who makes everyone else's powers useless) that he was keeping Sylar around only to find his weakness and then he'd kill him. At this point, Sylar was standing in a cell, trapped with a man who negated all his powers and an armed man who wanted him dead. Yeah, can't find his weakness. Did no one question this when it was written? (Which is not to say that I wanted him to kill Sylar. At this point, he is one of the few interesting characters.)

-Now it seems that not only do the writers not seem to be paying attention, but they clearly are not talking to each other. We have writers saying that Sylar lost all his powers from season 1 and had to start again from scratch, followed shortly by him demonstrating multiple powers that he had learned in season 1. Then we had Mohinder doing a scene-by-scene re-enactment of The Fly, which the writers said was intentional. Shortly after this, another writer complained that just because it was similar doesn't mean it was taken from The Fly and that there was no intent to replicate it. If the writers can't even agree on things, it's no wonder that the show seems to be a mess.

So, why am I still watching, you ask? Well, I'm asking myself the same thing. There are two competing reasons I keep coming back. First, I know that there is potential there. I want this show to get better and to use the ideas to build the show to what it should be. the second reason is that I'm waiting to see what idiotic thing they do next. The problem is that with each passing week I'm moving away from the former reason and more toward the latter. Either way, I can't get myself to just give up and stop watching.

¹ Actually, Ennis del Mar would probably be more accurate, but that quote has beaten to death don't you think?

² For those of you who don't know. DC comics had so many alternate worlds and alternate versions of characters that in 1985, they had Crisis on Infinite Earths which destroyed many alternate worlds and made things as least a little less confusing.

³ Fringe, I'm looking at you.

⁴ Which was pretty out of left field and didn't make much sense, even if it was kind of fun.

Bad Hair Day

There is a long history of comic book characters looking silly. In an attempt to make characters distinguishable and memorable, they have had outlandish clothing, hairstyles and body types. Sometimes it seems as if a character really drew the short straw. Looking back, there have been all sorts of bad hair-dos¹, but few stand out as being as bad for as long as Guy Gardner (one of the Green Lanterns²).

Here, we see Gardner exhibiting both a bad haircut and bad attitude as a member of Justice League International.

Over the years, his character has changed, but his hairstylist apparently hasn't.

Here, we can see him sporting a style I like to call the 1UP.

Unfortunately for Gardner, his hair issues have followed him from the printed page all the way to the toy store. There's just no escape for him.

¹ One that obviously stands out is Storm's Mr. T mohawk, but that was at least a temporary thing.

² Yeah, one of the Green Lanterns not the Green Lantern. Since we're talking about comics, it's a lot more complicated than even that, but I'm trying to keep it fairly simple (or at least not too confusing) here.

Long, Rambling and Probably Not Worth Reading

I haven't posted in a while, and I'll try to get back to regular posting (for all none of you who notice or care), but for now I just wanted to put down a couple of things that have been in my head for a while.¹

Not long ago, a coworker was telling me about how her feelings on the financial crisis² had changed and had done so practically overnight. One day, she was watching the news and discussions of government bailouts of various financial organizations and was vehemently opposed to it. They made the bad choices, not her. They should foot the bill, not her. It's hard to fault the logic at that level. Why should she, or anyone else, pay for the mistakes of others? The next day, things turned around. One of the organizations that was failing was hers. She's almost ready to retire and much of her retirement money was invested through this organization. Now it was time to panic. The government needed to do something to protect people like her. It wasn't her fault. She wasn't the person who made bad choices, but now she was going to be punished as if she had. It's remarkable how much things change in such a short period of time. We all make snap judgements all the time on every subject--This person is wrong, that person is right--but we rarely stop to consider why it is that the other person has an opposing viewpoint, only how their viewpoint would impact us or how it differs from our own. Sometimes, a little time taken to understand what someone else is dealing with is all it takes to make a big difference in our perception. The point is that empathy, for lack of a better word, is good. Empathy is right, empathy works. I'm not saying it's the answer to all of life's problems, but I am saying that it can make it a lot easier to deal with each other as we deal with those problems.

A few days before I had that conversation with my coworker, reports came out about the death of author David Foster Wallace. Among the many articles and tributes, I found an article that referenced (and linked to a copy of) a commencement address he had given in 2005. Like the earlier conversation, the things said in that address have stuck in my head ever since. He pointed out that we choose what we think and what we think about (including our refusal to acknowledge that anyone else could have reasons for not doing exactly what we want), and that perhaps by choosing to consider that our assumptions about other people are not the only reality that we set ourselves free³. That's exactly what was demonstrated in the conversation I'd had with my coworker. Initially, her decisions were based on what she saw as reality. The problem was that it wasn't everything. It took putting her in the place of someone else to see that reality is much bigger than she realized--much bigger than any of us realize.

I am not the center of the universe. Maybe if my thought process reflected that and was not simply how does this affect me or how will this person's actions inconvenience me, I could be a little happier, a little more free, a little more understanding. Maybe. I don't know. All I do know is that it can't hurt⁴.



¹ And this might end up sounding soapboxy, but it's not intended to (and hopefully it's not too soapboxy).

² I'm not about to try to tackle the issue itself, for several reasons. First, it's not the point of this post. Second, it's entirely too complex to try to discuss here. Finally, this is a silly blog full of pop culture, trivia, ill-advised attempts at humor and the occasional trite observation (like today). To discuss something this important here would trivialize it, be insulting and not solve anything anyway (also why you will never see a grand discussion of religion, politics or other things people hold dear...it's absolutely the wrong forum).

³ I'm not going to try to explain or quote the entire thing here, but here is a remarkable passage: "It just depends what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. " The rest you can read for yourself and let his words say things far better than I ever could. Typing David Foster Wallace Commencement into google returns almost a hundred thousand hits, so it's not hard to find: Here is a link to one transcript.

⁴I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I can change, and you can change...sorry got a little carried away there, but you get the point⁵.

⁵ That "If I can change, and you can change" thing is from Rocky IV, by the way. Just thought I'd help you figure out where you'd heard it before.