Extras – Scott Westerfeld

If you’ve already read Specials, the “last” book in the Uglies trilogy, you may have been…disappointed…with the less-than-happy ending. Personally, I was saddened by it, but I was pleased by how unconventional it was. But, for those of you who have yet to forgive Westerfeld for what happened to Zane and how Tally ends up, here’s Extras to solve your problems.

Taking place a few years after the events of Specials, Extras is set in Japan, as the Asian features of the girl on the cover should tip you off (compare to the other covers), as well as the -sama, -sensei, and -chan titles, and the group of pretties called manga-heads, who style themselves after…manga-style characters, I guess.

The plot: Because of the mind-rain, which freed all the enslaved minds of humanity in Specials, people have been freed to think and thus to pursue hobbies and their own paths, meaning that resources are being used up quickly. To try to control that rapid consumption, one city in Japan has adopted a reputation economy, in which merits (earned by, e.g., going to school) and face rank (earned by getting hits on your feed) give you the status to get nice things, like nice apartments and clothes, not to mention bask in fame (which is only earned by face rank). The main character is 15-year-old Aya Fuse, a kicker, which means she’s kind of like a journalist except she posts news stories on her feed. Her main concern is boosting her face rank, especially since she’s lived in the shadow of her famous older brother Hiro for so long. Her opportunity comes when she discovers a secret clique called the Sly Girls; they surf on mag-lev trains at 300 km/h at night. If she can kick the story about the Sly Girls, she’ll be famous, but in her adventures with them, as an undercover kicker, she finds out more about what’s going on outside her city than she’d imagined – indeed, it seems she and the Girls have discovered something that could destroy the world.

Like the other books in the series, Extras deals with popularity, relationships, and aspects of modern-day culture (online fame and celebrity). It also, as always, does not hesitate to say the truth about our world and how we’re destroying the environment, though it never offers much of a way out except advancing our technology and seeking compromise. I’d elaborate more, but it’s worth reading the book to see how the characters come up with a solution to over-consumption.

For Tally fans… SPOILERS Tally makes an appearance, along with several other characters from the previous books. We also get some kind of resolution for her that’s a bit more satisfying than what Specials offered, and of course it’s interesting to see how retaining her Specials wiring in her brain has affected her. Really, getting another view of her not only from another character’s perspective (Aya’s) but from another culture’s perspective (Japan’s) puts Tally in a different light that complements what we’ve learned from her first-hand throughout the first three books. END SPOILERS The point is, if you missed Tally, this book won’t disappoint you.

And as always, the futuristic slang is all over the place, with tech-heads, kickers, manga-heads, surge monkeys, etc. Once you finish, you’ll have a hard time extracting those words from your vocabulary.

By the end, it’s hard to understand what point Westerfeld wants to make about fame, unless you realize that fame means something different to different characters, and it can matter either a lot or a little depending on who you are and what your priorities are.

In comparison to the earlier books, Extras is a lighter read, with less tragedy, but an ensnaring plot, with Westerfeld’s characteristic reversal of meanings (you know, when everyone believes one thing, and then it turns out to be something totally different). I read it in one sitting, though I ended up with a twitchy eye afterward.

I highly recommend this book for those who’ve made it through Uglies, Pretties, and Specials. BUT, if you haven’t read the first three, please do NOT pick up this book; you’ll miss out on so much. It’s better to read the first three, and then read Extras to get the full enjoyment out of it. =D

 

Stephen King – The Gunslinger

I have only a limited background on Stephen King’s books. I’ve read Carrie, Pet Sematary, and Salem’s Lot, and seen The Shining, It, and Christine. Not much there, huh? I would have read more, except as King once said, “If I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify; and if I cannot horrify I will go for the gross-out.” Carrie of course didn’t much scare me, although I enjoyed it (though it was strange to feel that the narrator both liked and hated Carrie). Salem’s Lot had some chilling moments, as when the vampire is floating outside the window, or when the basement staircase is cut away so visitors fall on the knives laid out below. Pet Sematary was creepy, but the climax wasn’t scary, and I got so bored reading the whole sequence where the father goes to dig up his son at the graveyard. What I really want to read is It, though I’ve seen most of the movie and read quite a bit about it. Still, what intrigues me about It is the way King refers to other books he’d written up to that point and the turtles. The turtles sound so creepy…

Anyway, I don’t know what prompted me to do it exactly, especially since I don’t like reading anything longer than a trilogy (which is why I never finished the Narnia books), but I picked up The Gunslinger over the weekend and just finished it. Needless to say, I had various feelings while I read it, not the least of which was, Wow, why doesn’t Stephen King always write fantasy? And then it came to me that this wasn’t quite fantasy – it was a western and horror and sci-fi. I ended up both loving the book and hating it. And now come the lists, since paragraphing makes me bored, hehe.

Loved:
1.) The Man With No Name. Err, I mean, the gunslinger. I admit I imagined Clint Eastwood’s face for most of the book, although it was jarring to learn that the gunslinger had black hair.

2.) The names. Alain, Rhea, Roland…then Jake, Steven, Cuthbert. So much variety, you know…and the first three names I listed there were names I had used in stories I wrote. Was Stephen King using babynames.com, too? Hehe. Probably not.

3.) The language. It took some getting used to. I expected some wild west slang, but then ran up against words like “yar” and “thee”, which threw me off until I figured out that this world wasn’t quite this, wasn’t quite that. The prose was nice and tightly constructed. Very clean, I thought, with just the right amount of detail. The kind of detail that makes me feel like I’m eating the words. Very filling. But: The repeated descriptions got annoying sometimes, such as the references to the sandalwood of the gunslinger’s guns, and the fact that Allie was the woman from Tull. I suppose it reminds me of epics like The Aeneid, when epithets often accompanied the names, but still. This is English, not Latin or Greek, and it’s prose, not poetry. I could have done without some of that.

4.) How real Roland’s world seemed. Of course, there were the obvious ties to LOTR, with Mid-World, but the world also had its own density. The descriptions of In-World contrasted with Mid-World nicely, and again, that edible detail everywhere was immersive.

5.) “The man in black”? Come on. Somebody’s been reading The Princess Bride.

Hated (okay, not quite that extreme):
1.) It eventually sickened me that every female character was shown in some sexual way. I assume it has something to do with all the Bible references and that the women are Eve (or Lilith) and living in some sort of sin or something… But it got old pretty fast. First we have Allie, who asks for sex in exchange for information, then can’t control herself and requests to know what the afterlife is like, which drives her crazy (a classic horror device, I suspect, but also a comment on the weak will of women, perhaps?). There was the preacher-woman pregnant with some demon baby – and did Roland put a gun up her…? I read that scene over and over and I’m not sure I want to believe what actually happened… Then there’s Roland’s mother, who cheats on his father; I think Roland kills her for it, but I’m only 98% sure. Then Susan, who I suppose was the pure one, but Roland still slept with her. Then the succubus. Then all the whores that fill up the background scenery from In-World to Mid-World. WTF? I hope we get some more positive representations of women in the next books, because that was about enough to turn me off from the rest of the series.

2.) The death of Tull. I could just imagine a shoot-’em-up video game during that scene. Not that I’m against violence, but something about killing everyone in some godforsaken town just isn’t fun to read – it’s just repetitive.

3.) The journey. I know it’s classic. I know Tolkien did it, and King greatly appreciates LOTR. But I’m getting sick of it. It isn’t just The Gunslinger, it’s all these fantasy books I’ve been reading lately that involve moving from point A to point B and the endless description of the environment on the way. Though, of course, King has some great description, that doesn’t stop me from just knowing how the book is going to end up.

4.) The Dark Tower. Love it and hate it. I sincerely hope there’s more to the tower than what the man in black gives away at the end. Why? Because this is Book I out of seven. Remember the Da Vinci Code, how we found out what the Grail was halfway through? At least for me, that ruined the book.

5.) The Bible. The Bible. I know The Gunslinger was published back in the ’80s, so this Bible annoyance is just on my part, not on the book’s. First Narnia, then the Golden Compass, now The Dark Tower…and probably so many other fantasy books. I can’t think of any based on, say, the Koran, or the Torah. Something else besides the Bible… At least it’ll be interesting to see how King looks at this. I did find it interesting that Roland wasn’t an expert on the Bible at all. But I hope the final boss (lol) isn’t some red devil like in Legend.

So will I read the rest of the series? That’s the big question. The ending to The Gunslinger was conclusive enough for me to not want to read more (not like Uglies, that left me railing because it was a cliff-hanger). And I’m starting to remember the common themes in what few things of Stephen King’s that I’ve read/seen – his likes and dislikes seem to shine through, which is great because it defines his writing in a way, but also it’s a bit of a turn-off if you’re not in agreement. (I guess if you didn’t see Sergio Leone’s great trilogy, you’d be in the dark about what was going on with the gunslinger. And I still feel disgusted by the representation of women in this book.) Anyway, if I read more, you will know (what, thought I wouldn’t blog about it?). If you’ve read The Gunslinger, I’d love to hear your thoughts (but not spoilers! lol).

Update: Uh, yeah, I’m not finishing the Dark Tower. Partly because of what the commenter said below but also partly because of strong curiosity, I went on Wikipedia and read the summaries for the books in the series. I couldn’t make much of it – just that I know I’ll hate the ending and I’d rather not go through all that to end up with that as an ending. So feel free to post spoilers if you like!

 

The Golden Compass

The trailer…

First of all, I’m not crazy about the font used to write the movie’s title. That G looks too odd and the letters are thin rather than elegant. Still, New Line Cinema makes a smart move, I think, tying in The Lord of the Rings and saying, Yes, we made LOTR, so we can make His Dark Materials. I sure as hell hope so. I love the trailer (it blew me away at the theater), but I can’t help but feel it falls into the standard trailer format for this kind of thing (prophecy, villains, fighting – oh, and the awesome CGI animals!). The last clip of Iorek and Lyra has music reminiscent of (or actually of?) Gladiator. But the rendition of the alethiometer is just as I hoped it would be. Really, I feel like this preview doesn’t give too much away, and of course I can’t wait for this film…

As for the cast, Nicole Kidman is perfect to play Marisa Coulter. Shrewd, conniving, clever, and cold – I think Kidman could pull that off. I don’t know about Daniel Craig as Lord Asriel, since I didn’t see Casino Royale or any of his other films, but reviewers seemed to like him, and I’m glad some big names will come with the movie, since the girl playing Lyra (yet another angel named Dakota) is a newcomer. For the sake of…my sanity, I hope she’s better than Daniel Radcliffe was in the first Harry Potter. Oh, I shall cry if Lyra isn’t as fun as she was in the books! (Even though she was my least favorite character. I much preferred Pantalaimon.)

As for the director, Chris Weitz, he’s done a hell of a lot more producing than he has directing. According to IMDB he produced In Good Company (which I liked) and directed About a Boy…and is uncredited for director work in American Pie. Hmm – well, I guess Peter Jackson can’t be expected to direct every fantasy book adaption, but still… Maybe that’s why New Line Cinema reminds us of LOTR during the trailer, even though Jackson isn’t involved in this one. But I have faith!

I’m so excited about seeing what the daemons look like. Coulter’s golden monkey always scared the crap out of me, and I loved poor Pantalaimon, that sweetheart. In fact, I read this book back when I was…really little…and I started carrying around a stuffed animal and calling it my daemon (of course then I didn’t know you could pronounce the word as DEMON).

The website for the Golden Compass is amazing and must-visit. It took very little time to load on my computer, even though it usually takes a while for interactive menus to load for me.

What is amazing about this website? Well, as a reader of the Golden Compass, I always wanted to a) have a daemon b) use the alethiometer. And now I can! Granted, it’s all for promotional purposes, but the website, after a 20 question session, assigns you a daemon (and you can re-test to get a different one, though that sounds silly to me) and gives it a name. In case you’re wondering, I got a crow. Eew… You can also ask the alethiometer a question, though every time I have done so, the compass has moved aside to reveal concept art for the movie. Alas, no answers to my pressing questions (lol).

Recently, I was thinking about how people have tried to ban Harry Potter. Far-fetched as that sounds, they had their so-called reasons. Of course, I don’t agree with this at all, and agree with the linked article’s last statement – as much as I think everyone should read HP, it’s up to each family to decide what’s right for itself. When it comes to something like HP, that is so universally loved and as a movie wouldn’t rate anything higher than PG-13, I actually think it’s the kids who should decide whether or not they read it, but whatever.

Anyway, seeing as how The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe came out back in 2005, I was intensely curious about what people would think of The Golden Compass coming out now. Of course, the TLTWATW was a Christian allegory, and Philip Pullman hates C.S. Lewis, so much so that His Dark Materials is like the anti-Narnia. My question, in bringing up Harry Potter and the contrast between Lewis’s and Pullman’s works is two-fold:

1) Will the Golden Compass boost book sales? (I want to say yes, but you never know. The movie might tank. Although I hope not.)
2) Will the wrong sort of people pay more attention to His Dark Materials? And by the “wrong sort” I mean people who would want to ban it. I hope not. Honestly, The Golden Compass, and even the Narnia books, ought to be required reading in school, I think. (And maybe that might boost sales for fantasy books in general…)

Well, here’s looking forward to the Golden Compass! I can’t wait for the movie, and now I really feel like re-reading the book. Although I’ve read so many books since GC, it’s still one of the most amazing things I’ve ever read (of course I enjoyed The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, but GC left me the most full of wonder and dread).

Other neat-o sites that load nicely:
Advent Children
Rahxephon