AHS: Hotel

My thoughts about the first few episodes of AHS: Hotel so far:

This is from "Episode 2--Chutes and Ladders"

1. Whenever I see a scene like the blonde getting a cloud of white powder fluffed on her once she died, I think, "Now there's a sinus infection waiting to happen."  That's how often I get those.

2. Kudos to Falchuck and Company for referencing House of Cards, which isn't a Fox show.

3. I'm guessing that once someone violates one of the Ten Commandments, they're stuck in the Hotel Cortez.  Again, "...prisoners of our own demise."

4. Of course, Holden and the other kids were kidnapped, not sinful.  (And a thousand kudos to the show for the Holden / Catcher in the Rye reference when he was kidnapped on top of the angry horse on the carousel.  That horse was straight from the book's cover.  As is the name Holden itself.)

5. The Shining reference #12 or so: Rotting bodies in the shower.  Same green and brown splotches.

6. Saw the chutes.  Where are the ladders?

7. Ah, there.  In the bar.

8. The little girl wanders off during the fashion show and takes a public bus alone.  Great parenting.

9. Little kids acting in a show this adult is a tiny bit unnerving.

10. Ah.  I was waiting for the Hotel Cortez origin story.


Extra: The guy who built the Hotel Cortez is modeled after the very real H.H. Holmes, the butcher of the 1893 Chicago Expedition / World's Fair.  He built a house there with hallways that went nowhere, rooms to nothing, torture chambers, furnaces.  If you're into serial killers and the creepy, Google him.

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin -- Book Review

Photo--Paperback copy, and the one I read, from its Wikipedia page.


A very good book, but not as good as its predecessors.  This has been much remarked upon, so I won't belabor what's already been said...

Except to say that Martin has to try something different, and focus on different characters, doesn't he?  Readers forget that the writers themselves also have to be entertained (as U2 reminded its fans when the band made techno-pop stuff the masses hated); I would imagine that after approximately 4,000 pages (which probably means up to 8K to 12K pages, edited and often deleted), Martin felt that, to stay sharp, he would have to focus on different characters--many of them not the major ones--and also do little things, like refer to characters by their new status, or tongue-in-cheek nicknames, in the chapter headings.  This doesn't always work, and is at times confusing, but you've made it this far, through 5K or so pages, so you'll get it before long.  He did this a bit in the previous book, perhaps less successfully and more irritatingly, but you got through that, right?  So will you here.

And you'll like this one more than the last, I think.  It really picks up in the second half--maybe the last third, if you're picky--and it goes by in a rush after that.  Like Stephen King and maybe a few others, Martin's writing is compulsively readable, even when its not at its best, so you'll find yourself sailing along, even if you're not completely thrilled with what's going on.  This is a must, if one is to read about seven thousand pages before it's all over, so it's a good thing he's able to do this.

By the end, you'll be far further along than the Game of Thrones series on HBO, so you'll have to be quiet about what happened.  (Notice the lack of a summary of any kind here.)  There won't be another book in 2015, or so said Martin recently in an interview, so we'll have to make do with the show for now.  I expect the show to drag out quite a bit of what happens here, unless they want to finish with the show before Martin finishes with the books.  (He'll share his outlines and notes of the last two books with the show's creators, I would assume.)  If so, this would be a rare event.  Normally the book(s) end first for the movies and shows (a la Harry Potter) to drum up even more interest in the movie and successive books.  That may not be the case here, as J.K. Rowling was a quicker writer than is Martin.  But who knows?

Game of Thrones -- A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

Photo: U.S. hardcover, from the book's Wikipedia page

Unbelievably entertaining and engrossing read, which--as I pointed out in my review of its predecessor--is really saying something, since I knew every major thing that was going to happen.  That in no way took away from the read, and may even have enhanced it.

As is necessary for high fantasy, and perhaps fantasy in general, the writing is so totally enveloping that it is like you're in that world.  World-building has to be perfect in books like this, but I'll bet that it's rarely this much so.  The Lord of the Rings books were less world-built than are these; I don't mean that as a negative towards Tolkien, as he paved the road and showed the way.  But Martin doesn't focus on over-description of grasses and trees.  Instead his writing is completely focused on completeness in every way: how everything looks, smells, etc., just as you're taught in writing classes, though not to this extent.  He doesn't just description from all of the senses: he focuses more on the sight and the sound, and less on the others.  And he does not describe to the detriment of the action, as Tolkien did.

Some scenes are better in the show, but to describe how and why would be to partly ruin the experience of reading the book, or watching the show.  So just a quick mention of what things are different, without mentioning how they're different:

--though the end of this book brings you up-to-date with this past season's end, the book ends with something not yet seen on the show.

--Brienne of Tarth does not do in the Hound.  I prefer the book's way.  It struck me as unrealistic that Brienne would run across Arya and the Hound, way out in the middle of nowhere, on an outcropping.

--Ygritte does not get killed by a little boy shooting an arrow.  I prefer the show's way, though I admit the book's way is much more realistic.  Martin does not go for the melodrama.

--Something major happens to Jon Snow on the Wall in the book and not in the show.  At least not yet.

--Littlefinger's dialogue before his push is much better in the show.  Essentially the same in both, but the show just nails it so much better.

--(Martin is better than the show's writers with the overall dialogue, and the everyday expressions, etc.  But at a climactic moment, the show's writers really nail it.  And this isn't because I saw it before I read it.  Trust me.)

--The book emphasizes how many guys Cersei sleeps with.  It's clearly a weapon for her.  The show does not...well, show this.

--The book makes it very clear who killed Joffrey.  Good to know I got it right from the show.  We know from the show that Littlefinger was behind the whole thing (which I wouldn't have figured out), but who exactly put the poison in the cup?  Oops...You did know it was the wine and not the cake, right?

--The book breaks the battle of the Wall into two or three distinct parts, over a few days.  The show gives it to us all at once, all in one episode.  I like the show's take better.

--The book does not show the giant's attack in the tunnel like the show does.  It was a good call of the show's to do so.

And there's more, but you get the idea.  I realized while reading that the show made some excellent decisions about what to emphasize (the scene between Tywin and Tyrien was better in the show, too, as is Tyrien's dialogue at that climactic moment) and what not to.  It is a rare thing that a show is better than its material, but it's a close call here.

But that's not why you should read the book.  The writing does something that the show, no matter how hard (or successfully) it tries, cannot duplicate: it envelops you into its world-building so completely that even a visual medium cannot match.

P.S.--This was the last book I read in 2014.  It was my 25th, for a total of 10,283 pages.  About 27% of those pages were just the three Game of Thrones books I read.

I Return, and with A Storm of Swords

Yes, it's been a long time since my last entry.  I never go a month between blogs, but it's been a trying time.  I won't bore you or whine about the details, except to say that I almost lost a loved one--but Jackson the Greyhound is doing much better and is still very enthusiastically with us.  But a week-plus worth of vet bills isn't cheap, and the predictable had to happen, made even worse by the time of year.  Of course, all the vet bills had to come after I finished my Christmas shopping--and finally spent a bit on myself and a few loved ones.  Isn't that always the way?  I've also hit a really tough insomnia time: three hours a night, or none at all, for about a month.  Sometimes I get five hours, but I get a couple of hours, can't go back to sleep, then I get a couple of more...Overall, not restful.  As might be expected, this has led me to get a bit run-down, and a little sick, though nothing really terrible.  So I'm very out-of-whack, and exhausted, and just overall feeling really out of it.

But, surprisingly, I'm also very energetic, and I've had a series of minor epiphanies (if there can be such things) and I have a new-found appreciation for my space in life and those who occupy it with me.  Always good to have, but even more so at this time of year.  And so I am grateful.  Perhaps there will be more about this to come.  And thank-you to those who emailed and voiced concerns.  I'm fine.

In the meantime, I will leave you with a very quick review of A Storm of Swords, as I have decided to read the books while the series takes its long intermission.  And so--

Photo: U.S. hardcover, from its Wikipedia page


Unbelievably entertaining and engrossing read, which--as I pointed out in my review of its predecessor--is really saying something, since I knew every major thing that was going to happen. 

That in no way took away from the read, and may even have enhanced it.

As is necessary for high fantasy, and perhaps fantasy in general, the writing is so totally enveloping that it is like you're in that world.  World-building has to be perfect in books like this, but I'll bet that it's rarely this much so.  The Lord of the Rings books were less world-built than are these; I don't mean that as a negative towards Tolkien, as he paved the road and showed the way.  But Martin doesn't focus on over-description of grasses and trees.  Instead his writing is completely focused on completeness in every way: how everything looks, smells, etc., just as you're taught in writing classes, though not to this extent.  He doesn't just description from all of the senses: he focuses more on the sight and the sound, and less on the others.  And he does not describe to the detriment of the action, as Tolkien did.

Some scenes are better in the show, but to describe how and why would be to partly ruin the experience of reading the book, or watching the show.  So just a quick mention of what things are different, without mentioning how they're different:

--though the end of this book brings you up-to-date with this past season's end, the book ends with something not yet seen on the show.

--Brienne of Tarth does not do in the Hound.  I prefer the book's way.  It struck me as unrealistic that Brienne would run across Arya and the Hound, way out in the middle of nowhere, on an outcropping.

--Ygritte does not get killed by a little boy shooting an arrow.  I prefer the show's way, though I admit the book's way is much more realistic.  Martin does not go for the melodrama.

--Something major happens to Jon Snow on the Wall in the book and not in the show.  At least not yet.

--Jeyne of Westerling does not attend the wedding, which is like getting to the airport late and missing your flight, which then crashes.

--Littlefinger's dialogue before his push is much better in the show.  Essentially the same in both, but the show just nails it so much better.

--(Martin is better than the show's writers with the overall dialogue, and the everyday expressions, etc.  But at a climactic moment, the show's writers really nail it.  And this isn't because I saw it before I read it.  Trust me.)

--The book emphasizes how many guys Cersei sleeps with.  It's clearly a weapon for her.  The show does not...well, show this.

--The book makes it very clear who killed Joffrey.  Good to know I got it right from the show.  We know from the show that Littlefinger was behind the whole thing (which I wouldn't have figured out), but who exactly put the poison in the cup?  Oops...You did know it was the wine and not the cake, right?

--The book breaks the battle of the Wall into two or three distinct parts, over a few days.  The show gives it to us all at once, all in one episode.  I like the show's take better.

--The book does not show the giant's attack in the tunnel like the show does.  It was a good call of the show's to do so.

And there's more, but you get the idea.  I realized while reading that the show made some excellent decisions about what to emphasize (the scene between Tywin and Tyrion was better in the show, too, as is Tyrion's dialogue at that climactic moment) and what not to.  It is a rare thing that a show is better than its material, but it's a close call here.

But that's not why you should read the book.  The writing does something that the show, no matter how hard (or successfully) it tries, cannot duplicate: it envelops you into its world-building so completely that even a visual medium cannot match.

Walking Dead, Game of Thrones and American Horror Story Blogs

 Photo: Pic of Walking Dead characters, in various sweaty and paranoid poses.  From this website.

--There's still a few days to enter my free contest, tied in with my most recent paid-for and published short story, "Everything's Connected."  It's a very, very short piece. Description: "Everything's Connected," is about a detective who catches a cheating spouse in the act (sort of), solves a kid's disappearance, and proves a little theoretical quantum physics--all in just a few minutes!

It can be read in about five minutes, too.  Please go to this link to enter the contest and to read the story.  Thanks to everyone who has done so already.

--Just a quick notice that I will have a blog dedicated to Season 5 of The Walking Dead.  I'll change the title of the tab above to Season 5 when the season starts.  Please watch for the change.  A blog will appear after the Sunday, October 12, 2014 premiere.  Thanks to those who suggested that I do this.

There will be more consistent blog entries about it, too.  I decree this because of the tremendous number of people reading my admittedly so-so entries about Season 4.

Or maybe I was just tired.

--I will be blogging about this season's American Horror Story.  I hope this season is better than last.  Having said that, Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates deserved their Emmys.  Especially Lange.  The irony of her wins is that, IMO, her best season--by far--was Season Two.  Which is the only season she hasn't won an Emmy on the show.  Go figure.  Her character was the ONLY reason to watch last season. If the season is as terrible as last year's was, I may cancel the blog as I did last year.  I just have to many things going on to watch a show that's not interesting anymore.  For example...

--I will also be blogging about the upcoming season of Game of Thrones.  Thanks to those who suggested I do this, as well.  Please watch for a new tab to appear, above.  This won't happen until 4.30.2015.  Unbelievable, but so.

Between Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and American Horror Story, which do you think is the best? What did you like, or NOT like, about that show's previous season? Click here to see why I thought last season's American Horror Story: Coven really, really sucked.

Click here to see my American Horror Story: Freak Show blog.  The entry for Episode 1, "Monsters Among Us," is up.  Let me know what you think!

My HWA Screw-up / Nice Authors

 Photo: HWA's Stoker Award for Specialty Press, won by Gray Friar Press from the UK.

Well, this is embarrassing, but here's my admission:

As a member of the Horror Writers Association of America, I thought I was eligible to vote for the HWA's Stoker Awards, but I'm not.  Unfortunately, I didn't know that until after I'd asked for some review copies of some nominated works.  In other words, I emailed a few writers and asked them for review copies (which voters are supposed to do) so I could consider voting for their works.

Except then I found out I wasn't eligible to vote.

And the books had already come.

So let that be a lesson to you: When you join a club, know its rules.

Immediately I knew I had to email all these writers back, admit my mistake, and ask them if they wanted me to pay for the book, or pay to send it back to them.  Books, especially hardcover books, are not cheap.  I'd received seven books overall.  The least costly: $14.00.  The most: $26.00.  Overall I'd received over $120.00 worth of stuff under incorrect pretenses.

Could this have gotten ugly?  I don't know.  But as a professional writer / novelist wannabe, I certainly didn't want to take that chance.  More importantly, bottom line: I had a writer's property that initially I shouldn't have had.  That's bad in of itself; for a professional writer / novelist wannabe like me, that's really, really bad.

I put off sending out the emails for a few hours, which is very unlike me.  But finally I sent them; each one began, "Well, this is embarrassing, but..."  It took me about seven hours to send out all of the emails.  Each one was painful.  Doing that really, really sucked.  What a professional they must think I am!

The writers were very nice, of course.  Some just asked that I post a review, which I was more than happy to do.  A few didn't ask me to do anything and said not to worry about it.  One of them even said that sending the emails was a classy thing to do.  (Having class is not something I'm often accused of.)

So one of the few good things to come out of this is that I can now review each of these books and collections.  Which I will do.  The voting has been done, too.  The results will be announced this summer during the World Horror Convention in Portland, Oregon.  I read these books and write these reviews now not for the Stoker Award, but for the books and the writers themselves, which I am more than happy to do.

And I'm happy to say that they are all nice people as well.  Each one could have given me a hard time, but didn't.  A few of them even said kind things.  So, here they are, in a list.  Please consider reading their books--the ones I'll review, or any other.

Eric J. Guignard, Editor: After Death... (short story collection)

Jonathan Moore: Redheads ("Part horror, part CSI, part revenge thriller..."--Jay Bonansinga, NYT Bestselling Author)

Michael Knost and Nancy Eden Siegel, Editors: Barbers and Beauties (short story collection)

S.P. Somtow: Bible Stories for Secular Humanists ("Skillfully combines the styles of Stephen King, William Burroughs, and the author of the Revelation to John!"--Robert Bloch, author of Psycho / "He can drive the chill bone deep."--Dean Koontz.)

Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson, Editors: Dark Visions, Vols. 1 & 2 (short story collections)

Christopher Rice: The Heavens Rise.  And check out the Internet radio show of this NYT bestselling author, too. 

American Horror Story: Asylum

Photo: A promo poster for the show, on its Wikipedia page

I've been trying forever to get to this series, which I'd DVR-ed.  Turns out, I somehow missed the first episode, and--since two episodes started later than they were supposed to--I missed fifteen minutes or so on those two episodes.

At any rate, I came into the house exhausted from working outside in the heat for five hours--I didn't take any breaks, and was often so lightheaded that I became dizzy and nauseous, but I did the day--and sat down and didn't want to get up.  Thinking I was now in my best position to at least start the series, I did so--and then watched them all, until about three in the morning.  That was about 11 1/2 straight episodes--fast-forwarded through all the commercials, of course.

So, since it's been nominated for a million Emmys, here's my two cents of it:

--Very compulsively watchable, despite the characters being in so many implausible situations.

--Jessica Lange was the best of the bunch, as she apparently was last year when she took home the Emmy. 

--I don't know what's so exactly American about American Horror Story.  Seems more French to me, in a very Sartre-like, "Hell is other people," kind of way.   But if you don't know that, and you thought it was a lot like Lost, well, then, there you go.  I got an Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None vibe while watching the series, too.

--(I'm reminded of the time I saw a few minutes of one of the first episodes of the first season of Lost.  I told someone the island was obviously a Sartre-like Hell, and that "Hell is other people," and I never had to watch a single episode again.  When it was all over, years later, the girl I said that to said I'd ruined it for her, that she wasn't surprised at the end, and that she'd been ticked that I'd been right about the whole thing in five minutes.  I admit that I'm a bit of a killjoy that way.  I did the same thing while sitting in the theatre, watching The Sixth Sense.  The Bruce Willis character was obviously dead, and the real tipping-point for me was when he was at dinner with his wife, and the waitress placed the bill on the table, facing her.  Waitresses purposely don't point the bill at the guy anymore, but they still did in 1999.)

--I got the Hell aspect of the show, and that Briarcliffe was supposed to be that, but it became suspension-of-disbelief impossible that they'd all get put back there by the State of Massachusetts so many times.  I mean, I went with it, but...it almost derailed my viewing between episodes six through nine, or so.

--The demon didn't seem to have a fully compelling agenda.  I know that the angelic sister was battling the demon the whole time, but, still...Demons normally have plans of destruction, or something, right?  This one seemed content to take part in a battle of wills with the Nazi doctor, the sister in charge, and the Monsignor--all battles that she was apparently content to lose most of the time, as well.  The demon in The Exorcist at least wanted to conquer some souls and kick some ass.

--Jessica Lange's Boston accent was both right-on, and too exaggerated, at the same time.  Odd.

--It also doesn't seem reasonable that the girl she ran over ended up living a productive, mobile life.

--Her thinking that she'd run her over, blaming herself her whole life, drinking again, and all for what?  I realize there's a lesson in there, somewhere.

--What're the chances of a fake nun, a demon, a possessed man, some aliens, some inhuman creatures, and a Nazi doctor all being in the same building at the same time?  Maybe that's the American part.

--There were many homages to Psycho, especially, but other American films as well.  One of the many notable Psycho homages was when a woman entered the behavorial therapist's (or whatever she was) office, and found the therapist sitting in her chair, hair to us, facing away.  I expected her to turn the chair around, and to hit a swinging light fixture as she screamed.

--I'm no prude, but...I don't know.  I have to admit to being a little uncomfortable knowing that so many crude sexual references, so much cursing, and so much nudity was on commercial television.  I'm surprisingly prudish for such a liberal-minded guy.

--I still watched it all, of course, hypocrite that I am.  Perhaps that's the American part as well.

--It's not every day that you see a nun forcing sex on a Monsignor.  While wearing black garters.

--The suicidal driver who picked up the reporter when she escaped must've been thinking, "Of all the suicidal guys' cars in all the state, she has to jump into mine."

--While watching, I must've said, "What?" two hundred times.  Usually after what someone said.

--Speaking of being such a prude, I couldn't get over the constantly-repeated massage gel commercial.  Times, they are a changin'.

--I didn't expect the Monsignor to throw the nun off the stairway.  But I did expect the Nazi doctor to become permanently bereft about it.

--Of course, he was already permanently bereft, in many other ways.

--I expected things to get easier for Lange's character after she was born again, but instead they got much harder.  I know the Lord works in mysterious ways, but after awhile He didn't seem to be working in Briarcliffe at all.

--Of course, the asylum was Hell on Earth, so that sort of makes sense, but still...

--The series wrapped up very well, showing what happened to all the characters.  It ended like a Stephen King book has ended lately, at least in the last ten years or so.  Very bittersweet, sad but not.  That speaks well of how the show (and King, I suppose) led us to care about the characters.

--The aliens seemed to also be very hands-off in the series, much like the demon.  It feels odd to have just typed that.  But it's true.  The aliens didn't try to save the two women at all.  And I can understand each of the women's POV, too.  One felt raped, the other raptured.  I would've felt like the first, too.

--I saw the rebooted Star Trek movies before this, so it was hard for me to see Spock doing those things.  Speaking of being a killjoy, I nailed him as Bloody Face right away.  Had to be him.  He was the only good character on the show at the time.

--Speaking of that, Jessica Lange has come a long way since King Kong.  That was in 1976, by the way, for those of you who didn't feel old enough already.

--That little girl perhaps disturbed me the most out of everyone.  I've read lots of nonfiction books that said that five-year-olds can indeed by evil psychopaths.  After killing her family, she's never referenced again, with quite a few episodes remaining.  Maybe in Season Three?  Though every season is a different story, she can find her way into the show again if the writers really want her to.

--Having a show's cast be like a repertory theatre troupe is a good idea.

--Very good show, overall.  I did watch it for about twelve straight hours, which perhaps says something unfortunate about me as well.  And, no, I didn't have to get up for work in the morning.

It's Been Awhile

photo: from the show's Wikipedia page



It's been ten days since the last post, and the reason for the absence, bottom line, is that I'm on vacation, so not spending too much time in front of the computer screen.  But now that I've had a moment, let's see what else has been going on:


--"Blade Runner" went from feel-good story to Batman villain faster than you can say, "Holy spring blades, Batman!"  I know that in America you're innocent until proven guilty, but, damn...and he's in South Africa, anyway.  I truly hate it when people you root for end up being like this.  Makes you cynical, and cynicism is not something I need more of.

--I was the host of a meeting with a few people and my councilman, of Ward 5.  Very interesting stuff, and I seem to be the de facto secretary of this group.  No problem.  Hey, at least I'm not the leader.  Nobody wants that.

--Lots of personal changes around here.  You'll just have to sit and wonder about that. Or not.

--I got another short story published, this one my first non-genre piece, which is really exciting.  It's not completely official, so more on this in a future post.  There was a very cool compliment given along the way, too, so more on that later, as well.

--It finally climbed above thirty-two degrees here, so the feet of snowdrifts can melt.  Can you say "coastal flooding?"  I knew you could.  But not here (knocks on wood).  I'm perched atop a hill.  And, no, it's not because I look down on everybody.

--Jackson, the Wonderdog, seems to have gotten a bit better.  We'll find out for sure during the appt. on Thursday.  (Knocks on wood again.)

--A sad note: a member of my former (?) writer's group very suddenly passed away in his sleep a few days ago, age 62.  A very good writer of nonfiction, a la Russell Baker, and a quiet-spoken guy who apparently had done a lot of things with his life.  I didn't know him extremely well, not well enough to know if he had any health issues, but still...You just never know.

--On the flip side, Spring Training started, and all players have now reported.  Soon the ballplayers will waste about a month of their time so that southern cities and towns can make mucho dollars off of them.  This time of year is only necessary for veterans to get back into shape (which they should've been in already), and for rookies and mid-level players to show their stuff in hopes of making the team.  For the established stars?  Not much to do.

--Of course, I'd drive down there right now to just play in an intra-squad game.

--Walking Dead has returned, and it has not disappointed thus far.  I'm still trying to figure out how they're getting away with so much language, violence and gore on a channel that's not a pay station.  And I'm looking forward to seeing it in black-and-white.

--The Following isn't bad, either, though the acting and directing probably make it better than it really is.  I mean, how many times can Ryan go back into the house of a witness as that person is being attacked by someone nobody knew was a follower while the entire police department mills around uselessly outside?  This show will decline rapidly if it doesn't start showing why some people become followers of such a person to begin with.  And it's not a good sign when the scariest villain is a young woman, who sorta looks like a guy, and who weighs maybe 70 pounds while holding a 50 pound weight.