Nia's Book #8: Hey, haven't I read this review already?

And the answer is a resounding "yes, now stop bitching about it!" Tommy's Tale by Alan Cumming was originally reviewed by WWB&B's own extreme reader Skippity Dee-bop about a month ago, and after finding out the my one true love, Alan Cumming (shut up about me and the gay boys), has written a book, I was so enthralled that she brought it in so I could share in the drug addled joy of it all.

As I just stated, most of this book is pure, drug-induced glee. It also includes a lot of good and amusing snogging and shagging. I really enjoyed the bond that our dear, confused Tommy shared with his flatmates. It made me long for the days of living with great friends and sharing in traditions and jokes that nobody else can possibly understand, because they probably wouldn't want to. Not to mention the annotated photographs and magazine ads covering our bathroom walls and elaborate written and practical tests that we put eachother's boyfriends through.

But I digress.


Tommy's fairy tale laced descent into drugs and sex is a fantastic read, but it really did seem like the ending was a total cop-out. Like he had just made everything more and more complicated, overwhelming, and horrible, and then he couldn't figure out how to write Tommy out of this hole in a proper fashion, so he just skipped over all that stuff and made everything better. A very disappointing ending to an otherwise worthwhile book.

Perhaps we should try writing "The true ending to Tommy's Tale"? It would probably help restore my faith in vice.

Nia's Book #7: Fairy Tales for the Over Disney-fied

I finally got my hands on Black Swan, White Raven edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, so I am very, very happy! They have edited 4 (at least) other collections of fairy tales like this, and I was delighted to find that this one measured up to my memories of the other 4 (especially considering some recent disappointments with sequels).

Basically, the idea for these books was to have current fantasy writers reimagine fairy tales, which have been sanitized and Disney-fied for hundreds of years. There are occasional stories contained in the book that are friendly to everyone, but the majority of these fairy tales are not for kids, whether due to violence, sex, or general "adult themes."

This particular collection seems to have more modern versions of the tales than I recalled from the other collections, but it has been years since I read them (this one is out of print, and I had a hard time finding a copy). There were only a couple of poems included, which was good, because those usually are disappointments.

Among my favorite stories were:

"Three Dwarves and 2000 Maniacs" - A version of Cinderella involving a somewhat unstable high school geek turned millionaire psychotropic drug creator, his slightly masochistic lady love, an asylum full of the last 2000 crazy people in the world, gorey movies, and a treatment to end all treatments. Pure, demented awesomeness.

"The Reverend's Wife" - Based on a folk tale that I don't know, but very amusing. A couple of neglected wives back in the times of yore (sometime in the past, I don't know when) scheme to get what they want from eachother's husbands. Kinda sexy. The funny bits are due to the total ignorance these guys have in relation to the female reproductive system and the kind of BS they will believe to rationalize cheating on their wives.

"True Thomas" - Based on a poem I don't know and an account of a 13th century girl being taken away by fairies. Very interesting. Thomas happens upon some fairies and is taken in by their queen after his body has been subjected to a number of procedures to enhance his ability to understand their non-verbal Language. Whe he returns to the human world (150 years later), he has amazing abilities to see the truth of people. It has interesting paralells to modern-day alien abduction stories.

"The True Story" - The truth of the Snow White story, from the perspective of the evil stepmother. Vastly different from any version I have heard before, but I really liked it. Probably because there is finally a mother figure in a fairy tale who seems to have a child's best interests in mind. It is a nice change of pace.

That's all for this one. Vacation time is good, I can read again. I will plan to bring this in for Skippity on Thursday, I hope you like it, too! And if you do, I have the other 4 books on my shelf.

Nia's Book #6 - It's a work thing

Thanks to the kindness of Skippity, Nattie, and Stinky, I am allowed to count the 68 page document of Acceptance Test Cases written by our 3rd party programmers that I had to read on Friday as a book. Whee!

My review: It sucked. I nodded off at least 3 times that morning, and I would never ever read this for any other reason. The really sad thing is that this is at least the second time that I have had to read this crap. Yeah. I had to review these specifications for a project, because it is being transferred to a new version of the technology, and I have to make sure the specifications are accurate to how the site actually works. Argh!!

Please, for your own sake, don't read the Acceptance Test Cases for NAI!! They are crap.

I am also reading a good book of reimagined fairy tales. I hope to be able to report on those soon.

Nia's book #5: Elphaba should be allowed to rest in peace

It took me over 2 weeks to read this book (I actually started it before I read The Glass Castle), but as you may be able to guess, I had a hard time reading it. And no, it wasn't because of the big words. So, I read Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire, after having read his other 4 books, and I was sorely disappointed.

Liir was raised by Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West, to those unfamiliar with Wicked, his earlier novel), but throughout the book, he is not sure if he is actually her son or not. Generally, I found him to be an unlikable character, whining that he can't be of any use because he lost her flying broom. He is generally lame and ineffectual and I had no sympathy for him.

Even Liir's savior, Candle, was boring and entirely unsympathetic. Towards the end, she was hugely pregnant, had been abandoned in a run-down barn for 6 months, and was endlessly imposed upon by a tribe that suddenly appeared in the farmyard, and it was still written in a way that I really didn't feel bad for her. I guess I just couldn't care about these characters at all.

Despite the fact that Elphaba met her final bucket of water before this book even began, she played a significant role in this book. The poor, poor girl, hadn't she suffered enough? And the final reveal, the secret of her connection to the bland Liir (couldn't even be spiced up by a gay relationship, jeez) simply elicited a "well, duh" from me. Very big disappointment, since I enjoyed the story of her life so much.

I think that at least a portion of the problem I had with this book was due to the fact that it had been so long since I had read the original Wicked, having come out 10 years ago. In so many ways, I felt like I was totally missing something.

By the way, the anti-dragon message in the book hurt me deeply. It is just wrong. Some of my best friends are dragons, and none of them behave in any way like the way they are portrayed in the book.

Disappointment all around.