under the (dust) covers

This is not the initial blog entry I was going to write.  My intention was to talk about the books I read while on hols in October, as well as mentioning the UK-specific books I bought at the time.  But.  I’ve just finished The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas, and it is more than worthy of my first entry.

This is not a book on how belief in God(s) is wrong, and how we, as rational thinking adults, should make sure to point that out all the time, especially during the winter holiday season.  This is a collection of personal essays and anecdotes (and in one memorable instance, a short story that recalls Wodehouse to pinpoint accuracy), all of which are written by atheists or humanists, and deal with the Christmas season.  Some chapters are about the beauty of the universe, and how, at Christmas, we can celebrate that – that we, and the amazing natural world around us, were all created by the most intricate of scientific processes.  And isn’t that just the coolest thing ever?

Other chapters are more about personal experiences – “I, myself, as an atheist, have found x is a great way to deal with overly y people at Christmas.”  Or, “this is how my humanist household celebrates Christmas.”  Two chapters in particular I found both useful as well as bitingly funny were Lucy Porter’s chapter on the best comedy for Christmas (Human Remains, anyone?), and Emily Hill’s entry on the best non-fiction to read over the winter season.

As is pretty much immediately obvious when looking at this book, it’s from the same people that brought you the atheist bus campaign.  Remember that one?  “There’s probably no God.  Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”  Fantastic campaign, and I’m so glad it actually made it here to Cowtown.  Anyway.  This book is from the UK, so while those of us that are sort of, um, immersed in British culture will recognise a great many contributor names, others may not (though there are some instantly identifiable contributors, such as Richard Dawkins).  But it’s not necessary to know who’s writing, really.  It is important to remember that this book is meant to be taken as a fun, and often satirical, look at the goings-on of our winter festivus.  It’s okay to be an atheist and still celebrate Christmas, and to even call it Christmas.  So have fun, give great presents, and for pity’s sake, stay out of the rum punch!

Fever Pitch
by Nick Hornby

Fever Pitch is both an autobiography and a footballing bible rolled into one. Nick Hornby pinpoints 1968 as his formative year–the year he turned 11, the year his parents separated, and the year his father first took him to watch Arsenal play. The author quickly moved “way beyond fandom” into an extreme obsession that has dominated his life, loves, and relationships.

I’ve been meaning to read Fever Pitch for years, ever since I saw the movie based on it (the British one with Colin Firth, not the American remake), but last week fairclough and I went to see The Damned United and I decided that I absolutely needed to read it right away. Strangely enough considering that sentence, I couldn’t care less about football… but I am fascinated by the football fans.  It was really fun to be reading about Hornby’s outlook on fandom and find endless parallels with my kind of fandom (tv shows, movies, books.)

From all the things I’ve heard from other people about Fever Pitch, it seems to be one of those books you either love or hate.  And the line doesn’t seem to be drawn between those who love football and those who’ve never seen a game, or those who love Hornby’s novels and those who’ve never read any of them.  But I am solidly in the “love” category, and have already started reading another of his books (Juliet, Naked.)

Suggested, semi-related reads: How Soccer Explains The World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization

ETA: Completely unrelated to the review, but… I have this distinct image in my head of what Nick Hornby should look like.  I don’t know why, but I’ve always pictured him as a kind of Neil Gaiman type.  Possibly a cross between all the actors who have played his main characters (because, really, they’re all pretty much him), so this weird amalgam of Colin Firth, John Cusack, and Hugh Grant.  But I finally saw a picture of him and was completely surprised to find that he’s balding and looks like my uncle!  *grin*

Extreme Vinyl Cafe
by Stuart McLean
Release Date: Sept 29, 2009

I firmly believe that the Vinyl Cafe stories are part of the collective consciousness here in Canada, but for those of you not from this fair land (and for those of you who are but somehow have avoided hearing Dave Cooks the Turkey on CBC radio every Christmas), let me introduce you to the wonders of the Vinyl Cafe.

Stuart McLean is a fantastic storyteller (and, incidentally, a really nice guy) who has a radio show on CBC radio every Saturday morning.  His shows include some fabulous Canadian music, but the highlight are his stories about a perfectly normal Canadian family: Dave and Morley, their kids Stephanie and Sam, and their neighbors and extended family.  The books, not surprisingly, contain these stories.

I adored the latest book, as I have pretty much all of them.  There were a few stories I’d heard before — Sam Goes Green and A Trip to Quebec — and a lot more that I hadn’t.  I got to read all about Stephanie’s trip to London to visit Aunt Dorothy and her porcelain hedgehog collection, the funeral that sets Dave off on a quest to plan this own, and the summer of the epic waterslide. I laughed (long and hard) and I cried (literally.)  I highly recommend it to pretty much anyone (also, all of his books make excellent Christmas gifts.)

“But TTC,” you say, “you’ve flipped out before, what’s different about this time?”

What’s different is that I’m supremely angry and I almost just threw my book across the room… I love books… I revere them and would never treat them that way, so I restrained myself… but I was damn close!

Back to Olympos… and I know a lot of you are saying: “After the purple headed penis incident why did you continue to read this book?”  And I will tell you this: It’s REALLY hard for me NOT to finish a book… I just need to know what happens… and if it’s an author that I LOVE I have faith that they will somehow pull the horrible book out of the nosedive it’s taken and make it right again… but I do believe I have officially lost all faith in Dan Simmons…

Harman is one of the main characters from the three branching storylines in Ilium and Ilium’s sequel: Olympos.  Harman has been taken away from his wife and unborn child just when they need him most by the “magus” Prospero.  Prospero is called a magus because everything he does with technology is magical to Harman because Harman was raised in a society where everything was done for him, and he didn’t know anything about technology until his world began to fall apart.  Prospero is a holographic man walking around and waving his arms at things to make them move or open…

So Prospero takes Harman on a ride to the top of Mt. Everest to a temple that was built atop the summit CENTURIES before (this is in our distant future).  They go inside the temple and there’s a HUGE library that goes on forever like a maze inside this building (which, by the way, is an enlarged replica of the Taj Mahal that’s been mounted on top of Mt. Everest).  Prospero leads Harman down into this glass floored room that holds a Snow White style glass sarcophogus with a beautiful young naked woman inside.

Harman’s like: “Dude, just tell me how to get home to my wife… she’s in trouble and preggers and I just want to be with her, and protect her…”

Prospero says: “Sorry buddy… you’ve gotta stick around here… you need to wake up this young naked chick who’s been in hibernation for thousands of years and talk to her.  She will answer ALL of your questions…”

“There’s obviously been people here since she was put to sleep… why didn’t they wake her up?  Why didn’t you for that matter?”  Harman asks…

“They could never wake her,” Prospero replies, “Nor could I… Only one thing will wake her up….”

The suspense builds… I’m expecting something really cool…

“What’s that?”  Harman asks, wanting nothing more than to go home to his wife…

“For her original husband, or someone descended from her original husband to….”

“FUCK HER WHILE SHE SLEEPS!!!!!”  ARE YOU JOKING DAN SIMMONS?!

And it just so happens that Harman is descended from this original hubby of naked chick’s… and he has to have sex with this comatose 1500 year old naked hot chick…  with a creepy old man hologram lookin’ on… SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!  FIRST THE PURPLE HEADED STAFF AND NOW THIS?!  GAH!!!!

But alas… I keep reading… because I’ve invested a LOT of my time in these books… I’ll be damned if Dan Simmons is gonna beat me!  But I swear to the gods of science fiction that if I come across ONE more ridiculous sexual reference… or if he decides to describe the sex scene where Harman screws the coma chick… I’ll vomit all over the book and throw it out the window…

Twilight, frankly, makes me sick. I don’t understand why this series has become such a HUGE phenomenon… I guess the same way Gossip Girl became huge… too many teenage girls (and their mother’s apparently) have stopped using their brains…

Here is my synopsis of Twilight (yes I actually read the book I’m ranting about this time… it happens occasionally): Edward sparkles like diamonds in the sun, and Bella smells like steak… basically that’s it! It’s a relationship that is solely based on physical attraction… WHICH DRIVES ME INSANE!!!! Edward decides to break all the rules for her… and what’s his reasoning? She smells like the best thing EVER to eat… in the book he compares her to creme brulee or something… she just smells SO good that he is constantly holding himself back from gnawing off her head and sucking all the blood from her body… that sounds like a healthy relationship… they have no personal connection whatsoever! They don’t talk about liking the same music or books really… And Bella thinks he’s SO pretty that even when she finds out he’s a monster… she’s like: “That’s ok… you look like a Calvin Klein model!” Let’s be clear here… I’m talking about Edward from the book who is described as being EVERY girl’s GREATEST fantasy he’s SOOOOO totally dreamy, ok? I’m am NOT… I repeat NOT talking about Robert Pattinson who is probably one of the ugliest people I’ve ever had the discomfort of laying eyes on… The only saving grace for the person who cast that movie is that they cast Bella… she was perfect… anyway… I digress… Twilight sucks… don’t read it…

I’m better Edward and Bella’s marriage lasts maybe two years after the end of Book 4 before they want a divorce…
Merry Labor Day to all and to all a goodnight!

I have come to my official decision that, although Ilium was an amazing book… I will not suffer Olympos to live… It’s ok… but compared to Ilium it’s not all that great…

Let me give you the run down… so you have a good idea of what I’m talking about…

Ilium and Olympos are a duology (I like that word tee hee) of Science Fiction books written by Dan Simmons…  Ilium takes place on Mars where God like beings (with tons of tech that makes them able to fly and transport and cool stuff like that) are recreating the Trojan war according to Homer’s book… this is WAY far in the future… The only God who actually knows what’s going on is Zeus… all the other gods are just playing themselves with no idea of the outcome of the war… The God have ressurected scholars from all time periods on Earth who were Homer scholars… somehow they’ve managed, through DNA and some such to bring people back from the dead who’ve been dead thousands of years… The objective of these “scholics” is to go down to Ilium (Troy) using their cool morphing outfits and watch the war… they then report back to a muse and tell her whether anything strayed from the writings of Homer.  But they are NOT allowed to tell the muse or anyone other than the other scholics what happens at the end of the war.

The main character is Hockenberry (a scholic) who decides one day that he’s going to fuck shit up, pardon the expression.  He’s sick and tired of everything going the way it’s going and he’s developed friends in Troy that he knows are going to die… so he decides he’s going to alter the timeline… he decides he wants to ensure that the Greeks and Trojans ally and go to war against the gods.  So what does he do?  Well first he boinks Helen of Troy… I mean… c’mon wouldn’t you?  Then he kills the love of Achilles life, Patroclus…  He kills Patroclus while he’s mophed into Athena so that Achilles will go: “Hey!  You bitch I want my boy toy back!!!”  and go to war with the gods…  which he does… THEN he decides that the only way to make Hector get angry at the gods is to steal his son Scamandrius… but he can’t bring himself to do it… so he allies himself with some of the women of Troy, including Helen, and they kill the baby for him… and so the Greeks and Trojans get together and declare war on Olympos…

So ends book one… I was very excited… sounds cool eh?  So I moved on to Olympos RIGHT away… and guess what…  like 100 pages in there is a GOD AWFUL sex scene between Hera and Zeus that basically ruined the rest of the book for me… Words and phrases were used that only have one place: a really ranchy romance book…  “But TTC,” you say, “how can that be true?  You MUST be exagerating like you ALWAYS do…”  But alas dear reader… I am not… I will give you ONE example to shut your little argumentative mouths… At one point during the sex scene Zeus’ penis is referred to as his “throbbing purple staff.”  Hera says after this description that it’s the only tool he would ever need to instill fear and awe in anyone, mortal or god alike…

You’ll never doubt me again will you?

Read Ilium though… it was AMAZING!