DRIVE by Cristina Henríquez

My wife and I have talked about kids. We think that at some point in the near-distant future, when we aren’t as selfish with our time, we will have one child. We think that we can handle one, two not so much. However, right now, we are both to crazy and screwed up. We, or at least I, can’t see myself as a father that could put up with the neediness of an infant.

The main character in this story is in a Juno like situation, but chooses a different path. She loves her boyfriend. She lives at home and works a fulltime job selling appliances at the local store. She supports herself and her mother.

Her boyfriend does not work a traditional job. He is a drug dealer. So, naturally her mother does not like him. However, they love each other and he would do anything in the world for her. Aside from his job, they seem to have a good relationship.

Add to the mix a pregnancy. A pregnancy that the mother, one night leap from her spot in front of the television and asks, “What has happened to you?” The daughter does not know that she is pregnant until her mother’s uncanny ability to ‘know things’ predicts it.

She does not want the baby. She is not ready. She and her boyfriend have talked about it and they agree no kids. The mother is upset. The mother will not talk. It is as if she does not exist to her mother anymore.

The scary segment of this story is not an unwanted pregnancy (however, that is a very powerful life changing experience), but how she terminates. Instead of seeing a doctor, she fasts, a diet of crackers and water. Then, one sad night, her unaware boyfriend has unloaded a big stash and has a hard roll of money to spend takes her out on the town. She drinks hard liquor on an empty stomach all night. Between the lack of food and the hard liquor, she miscarries in the club’s bathroom.

Wow, what a story, what women have to do. I’m not sure that this story is trying to make an argument about anything. I will not speak for the author. I will just say as a reader that it really makes me sad to read about women who have to go to extremes in order to remain in control of their own bodies. The taboo that still surrounds abortion is unfortunate. Women need to have the right to take control of their bodies. Birth control and birth control education is the first line of defense. However, if the unexpected happens, there should still be a choice.

An important story, I think. You should check it out.

Henríquez, Cristina. “Drive.” Come Together, Fall Apart. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006. p 57 - 82

NO OIL PAINTING by Gary Fry

This is one of those stories that I’m going to end up thinking about for a long time. You know, there are just some stories out there that effortlessly hit home runs, all cylinders are firing, and it completely works. These stories haunt my own writing and make me question the effort that I put forth.

“No Oil Painting” is at its base a ghost story, a haunted hotel story. A family, a father, mother, and son, are traveling and end up at a particular hotel (I don’t think that it was named, now that I’m writing this), and the son ends up in a room with a picture of a scared girl above the mantel.

Okay, to understand the significance of the scared girl, you need to know why this family is on vacation. It seems that the father, a psychologist, has encouraged his, now 40 year old wife to undergo a facelift. In his wisdom, he knew that she would looks beaten up after the reconstruction. So, they all went on a vacation so that no one would have to see her black and blue face while she healed.

The narrator, the son, is at that age where he is wondering if he is attractive. This question seems to stem from his fathers obsession with how the mother looks. He doesn’t understand why his mother needed the surgery. He admits she does look happier now, which he confuses with younger.

The son likes to take pictures. He then likes to doctor them, add color, reformat the size, and even apply an oil paining option that antiques the pictures. The first night he says in the room with the girl’s photo, a ghost appears. The ghost is the girl in the photo. She wants to know who she really is, she wants to be shown. She asks it over and over. The son takes the ghosts picture and begin to doctor it, make it looks like the oil paintings that fill the set of the house. He buys a frame the next day. He believes that by removing her scar and turning her photo into an oil painting that he can show her who she is.

What I really love about Fry’s story is that it tackles vanity through the eyes of the son and through his experience with an angry spirit. By the end of the story, the reader knows what is up, but unfortunately the son is just beginning to learn. You just got to feel for the kid. He wants to be attractive. He wants to be told he good looking. He wants the approval of his father. Unfortunately, it seems that good looks and approval are one in the same in this family. I just hope that the son does not join the ghost, but it might already be too late.

Fry, Gary. “No Oil Painting.” PS Showcase #1: Sanity and Other. Hornsen, Great Britain: PS Publishing, 2007. p 47 - 67

The Suicide Collectors by David Oppegaard

The official The Suicide Collectors website: HERE.

This is very exciting news. Way back in the fall of 2003 I started my MFA in Writing at Hamline University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. In my Core (the first required course), there was this guy. He was funny and just a little off. He was also 10 times more motivated than the rest of us.

He claimed to have already written two or three complete novels and caught the attention of an agent. We all held our breath for him as he told us that one of his novels was being shopped. However, it was rejected.

Now, he has a book deal with St. Martin’s Press and his first book, The Suicide Collectors, now has the all coveted ISBN (0-312-38110-7) and will is forthcoming (I hope this yet year).

He is now working through the galley copy.

I hope to be able to read his book soon. If his novels are anything like the short stories that I read in program, it will be a great read!

If you would like to know more about The Suicide Collectors or David Oppegaard, just follow the links.

Oppegaard, David. The Suicide Collectors. New York: St Martin’s Press, 12/2008

REGENCY SPRITE by Dave Freer

Okay! So, this story could start out like a bad joke that goes like this: A drunken guy walks out of bar. He needs to release the pressure that has been building up in his bladder. He doesn’t make it very far out of the bar before he starts to hear something from the alley. He can’t really tell if it’s the strong drink talking or what.

I’m bad at the jokes. Anyway, I had a hard time following this story. It had some strange point of view shifts alternating between first person drunk and first person sprite.

The sprite is in trouble and to her rescue, a drunk who almost take a leak on her. After much convincing, he helps her out from under a can. See, a cat had chased her and then everything went crazy-go-nuts.

I think, because I’m not sure, that the plot of the story is about this sprite how was chasing her lover into the human world. She just happens to bump into a human (who ends up being a very special human) who helps her. Being a good chap, he wants to take very good care of her. She needs to splint her arm and rest her wings. So, he takes her to the only person that he trusts.

This person, the medic, the person that he trusts, she turns out to be not so nice. She has cast some bad magic on him and his house. The sprite undoes all her bad magic. Then, enter a real bad guy with a sword.

This story started out good and then got strange. I was in for a nice urban tale about sprites and magic (which this is). However, it was just not my cup of tea.

It might be your flavor though, so don’t let me keep you from reading it. Also, there are some other really great stories in this collection. Here’s two: THE FLOOD WAS FIXED by Eric Flint and WINDS OF CHANGE by Linda A. B. Davis.

Freer, Dave. “Regency Sprite.” Something Magic This Way Comes. Ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Sarah A. Hoyt. New York: DAW, 2008.

THE RUINS by Scott Smith (Finished)

The Ruins is such a good beginning of spring book. Up here in Minnesota it is still really cold. Yes, cold. So, it was nice to read a book set in the heat of Mexico, with beaches, cocktails, and tropical rains.

Wait! What novel am I talking about? The Ruins is thrill fest of desperation. The first good half of the book was slow, sometimes painfully slow as we learn about each of the characters, where they are from, why they are in Mexico, who is sleeping with who, etc. The character development was good, intertwined with the action and plot. However, it was a little too heavy for me. I kind of knew that they were all going to die from page one. I was anxious for the deaths to start.

Death one, of the main character group, was on pages 378 – 386. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of other great stuff happened before someone we are supposed to care about dies. I’m just saying that waiting 378 pages for the killing to happen was a long time.

The monster, if you don’t all ready know, I’m going to spoil it for you here, is a plant, Little Shop of Horrors style. I love this plant. It is the perfect villain. Not only is the plan filled with extremely acidic sap that can burn though cloths and skin, but it moves and thinks like a predatory animal. Its flowers can mimic anything it hears, like speech, birds, and then somehow reorganize what it hears to horrific effect. These flowers can also produce any aroma that it has encountered, pie, fresh bread, and grilled meat, to make starving stomachs tighten and grumble.

In most horror stories, I find myself cheering on the monster. I want everyone to die, die, die. However, in this story, I was hopping that someone got away; someone helped the plant escape its confinement to the ruins. You know, a sequel of grand proportions: The Plant versus New York. However, The Ruins does not go down that gimmicky road. Instead it reaffirms that there are some things left in this world that you can’t escape from.

The sequel, however, is staged at the end of the book as a new group of hot young people march unknowingly up the hill to their doom. Also, there is the opportunity for the parents of all these young people to fall pray to the plant as the desperately try to discover what has happened to their sons and daughters.

I will just have to wait and see.

I sure hope that the movie lives up to the book. I know that this rarely happens, but the book is perfect for a movie. Don’t change a thing and it will be perfect!

Smith, Scott. The Ruins. New York: Vintage, 2007.

FERRET AND RED by Josepha Sherman

Work is work, right? It is the thing that we get up and do everyday in order to fund (pay for) the fun. Some are more successful and funding the fun than others. I think that I have a pretty good time, but the human nature is always wanting, and saking, “could I be earning my way to more fun if…”

Anyway, Space Inc is all about work in space, the jobs that being in space will create. “Ferret and Red” is a story about two Mechs, mechanics, which have an unfortunate run in with the Ateil, an avian race that think of themselves at the True People.

Red is your classic red haired Anglo-Saxon with an over achieving work ethic. He is partnered with the narrator of the story, Ferret. Ferret is a humanoid that looks like the Earth mammal. She has another name, her real name, but it is never said because humans cannot appreciate it anyway.

Red and Ferret take a job fixing an Ateil ship that is docked at the space station. Red is very reluctant having a bad past experience with the so called True People. As it turns out the Ateil are very sensitive to color and are superstitious of the color red.

One thing leads to the next and Ferret and Red are arguing with one of the Ateil about their work. It turns bad. However, Red and Ferret finish the job. Mech’s have a deep sense of honor about the quality of their work.

The rest of the story is about how Red and Ferret get out of pretty big jam. It seems that the work they did on the Ateil ship was faulty causing an explosion and killing one of the True People. You will have to read the story to find out more.

I’m normally not a fan of talking and walking critters, ferrets and birds or what have you. Yet, this story did not feel fuzzy at all. I really liked the characters and the plot kept me reading. It had a real Star Wars feel to it.

I hope that you take the time to read this little mystery.

Sherman, Josepha. “Ferret and Red.” Space Inc. Ed. Julie E. Czerneda. New York: DAW, 2003. p 63 - 80

Golden Gryphon Press

Every once in a while I like to Google the title of my blog to see what Google Analytics and Technorati are missing. To my surprise, I found that Golden Gryphon Press has mentioned one of my reviews in two places on their website. The reason that my reporting tools missed these mentions is because there is not a link back to my site on either of them. I'm not picky, but in the age of blogs and web pages, it would have been polite to have had a hyperlink back to my site or to the review. However, I'm not picky, and I'm just glad that my name is out there in the world doing some good for a fellow Nebraskan writer and one of my writing heroes, Robert Reed.

Here are the links:

http://www.goldengryphon.com/cuckoo-frame.html (see the bullet points)

http://www.goldengryphon.com/update.html (see the "Reviews" section or the image posted above)

Here is the review that is referenced: THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE by Robert Reed

Wow! I'm honored.

Thank you!

Attack of the Movie Watchers

Okay. So my wife has challenge us and a group of friends to blog review the movies we watch. We watch so damn many that it seems like a shame not to.

Check it out! Attack of the Movie Watchers

THE RUINS by Scott Smith pt 1

I’m half way through. Yes, I’m a very slow reader. I hope to finish it very soon. I’ve gone and gotten myself addicted to a new video game (bad Aaron). However, I think that after three weeks of game time, I’m ready to come back to the blogsiphere.

I have to say that I’m in love with this horror novel. It is has just the right amount of cheese for this horror fan. What do I mean buy that? Well, the characters are likable, but only enough that you somewhat care about how they die. No one has died yet. There is only a broken back, slicked up knee, and dehydration.

What I really like is the monster. I hope that I’m not giving much a way with this, but the big-bad is a plant, this red flowering vine that feeds off anything that it can touch. It also leans. You can’t fool it twice.

My favorite sections so far have to do with a handjob. Yup, there is handjob, a well written one. However, the next morning, well, the vine feed off the loosed sperm that spilled all over the floor of the tent and followed it right to the source.

I’m very much looking for ward to disconnecting from my video game obsession and getting back into short stories and this novel. With foreshowing complete after 200 plus pages, people will start to die painful horrible deaths, I just know it.

I will get back to short stories very soon. Until then, get a copy of The Ruins, it is going to change the way you think about horror.

Smith, Scott. The Ruins. New York: Vintage, 2007.

Doomsday (Movie 2008)

So, I’ve still been wrapped up in The Ruins by Scott Smith in anticipation of the movie, The Ruins in theaters April 8th. I’ve also been working a lot on my thesis. Thus no short story reviews.

I still find time to see a lot, I mean a lot of movies. I love movies. I really love bad movies. This weekend Doomsday opened in theaters. I’ve been looking forward to this movie since seeing previews a few months ago.

Doomsday is a bad movie. If you want high class entertainment, don’t see this one. Go see smoothing else. However, if you like bad movies, remakes, hot strong female characters, and pointing out flaws in the story, Doomsday is the movie for you.

The lead character is a strong heroine named Eden Sinclair played by ever beautifully buff Rhona Mitra. Sinclair is Special Forces agent that ends up leading a team into the hot zone to look for the cure for the Reaper Virus. Eden Sinclair is an updated sexier version of Escape from New York’s Snake Plissken complete with eye patch. However, Sinclair’s eye has been replaced with a removable recording device that plays a key role in the plot, which I might add was heavily borrowed from great movies like Escape from New York and Mad Max: Road Warrior and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

There is a lot wrong with the movie, a lot of questions that anyone with a mind would ask. Where did the gas come from to power Sol’s fleet of banged up cars? Why was there a mountain storage felicity full of supplies that were untouched? Why would a city full of people digress to cannibalism when there is heard of cows that stretches as far as the eye of the camera can see? The list goes on and on and on.

What I really liked in the movie were the characters and the costumes. My favorite was very short lived, the character of Viper played by the accomplished stunt woman Lee-Anne Liebenberg (pictured here on my blog). I mean wow.

Anyway, I have procrastinated long enough and should get back to writing. But before I go, see Doomsday at your own risk. It is fun, but only if go expecting very little and noting more than a drunken sexy mind numbingly violent apocalypse.

THE BOY IN ZAQUITOS by Bruce McAllister

I’m slowing down, which is due to reading The Ruins by Scott Smith in anticipation of the movie, The Ruins in theaters April 8th.

Anyway, my loving wife bought The Best American Short Stories 2007 for me last month for my birthday. I was hoping that because the collection was edited by the master of horror himself, Stephen King, that he would have the courage and the pull to select from outside the mainstream. The one story that does not come from the big fiction guns is McAllister’s, which was originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction. So, I guess that I should count my lucky stars and believe that one out of twenty isn’t bad.

McAllister’s story is a timely one. The main character is an American patriot. He is the son of a retired military leader. He wants nothing more in the world than to serve his country in one of the big civilian intelligence agencies. However, his grades are not the best. He is not outstanding in anyway. While in college, he makes an important connection with one of his professors and is soon granted an interview.

The agency eventually finds a place for him. He is one of the rarest individuals on the planet. He is a carrier. He can contract the plague and spread it without himself getting sick, a Typhoid Mary. The United States then begins to use him to spread the plague and destabilize foreign governments. He is, however it is never said, an American terrorist.

What is brilliant about his story is the way in which it is told. It is a first person account of the adventures of a plague carrier told to a classroom of students. Through his account to the students, the reader comes to understand how he got himself into the plague carrier line of work and how he eventually is released from service.

In today’s political climate, I feel that this story is all too real. It rings of a corrupt government that is willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives to ensure that the political experiment can continue.

This is an excellent story that is well worth your time.

McAllister, Bruce. The Boy in Zaquitos. The Best American Short Stories 2007 (The Best American Series) Ed. Stephen King. Series Ed. Heidi Pitlor. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2007. p. 248 – 267.

BLANKENSHIP & DAWES IN THE ISLAND OF IGNOMINY by Jens Rushing

This is the story of two English gentlemen on a cruse. The cruse liner sinks and they find themselves stranded on an island. On this island they encounter strange spider like beings with human heads.

Wow, really, spiders with human heads. Okay, so the spider things with human heads believe that humanity is vile and corrupt. The source of human evil is the human body, hungers and lusts. They believe that they have found perfection. This perfection is the preservation of the human mind through severing the head from the evil body and transplanting it onto one of these spider bodies. Okay, it sounds weird, but the way that they explain it, perhaps not.

What impresses me most about Rushing’s writing is his ability to write with in a genre and turn it on its head making it his own. In this example, Rushing is using the Victorian travel log. It reminds me a little of the Heart of Darkness, discovering strange and new tribes.

At any rate, Pantechnicon, Issue 6 is free to down load as a PDF. So, if you have a few minutes and would like something weird, strange, and entertaining, check out this story (and Rushing’s website: http://www.jensrushing.com/).

Rushing, Jens. Blankenship & Dawes in The Island of Ignominy. Pantechnicon, Issue 6 p 21 - 47

The Art of Series Challenge: The Art of Attention: A Poet's Eye

Okay, I’m a few days late. I hope that you had a good time with The Art of Attention: A Poet's Eye by Donald Revell, I did.

So here is how I would like this to work. I’m going to post a few questions and then we can have a discussion in the comments of this post. Feel free to expound about your over all experience with the book on your own blog and send me the link. I will add links to your posts below.

Questions for discussion in comments:

1. Will having read Revell’s book change the way you observe the world around you? How?

2. How can you include more visual detail in your writing?

3. How did you feel about Part 2, specifically, what Revell had to say about translation?

4. What did you find most helpful for your writing (please quote something)?

5. If you were asked to write a book that would be apart of the Art of Series, what would it be? What element of craft matters so much to you that you could write 166 pages about it?

Links to Posts from participants:

Next up!

The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot by Charles Baxter (Read by April. 30, 2008)
The Art of the Poetic Line by James Longenbach (Read by June. 30, 2008)
The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again by Sven Birkerts (Read by Aug. 30, 2008)

I hope to see you all back in April.

Until then,

The Soulless Machine

THE SOULLESS MACHINE REVIEW February 2008

WINDS OF CHANGE by Linda A. B. Davis
THE SCHOOL by Donald Barthelme (round 2)
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH by Edgar Allan Poe
THE NIGHT WATCHMAN’S OCCURRENCE BOOK by V. S. Naipaul
SINKING HOUSE by T. C. Boyle
THE OUTSIDER by H. P. Lovecraft


Extra
THE 13TH REALITY by James Dasher (part 3)
THE 13TH REALITY by James Dasher (part 4)