by Jane | Apr 27, 2015 | Write Here Write Now
From a Buick 8 by Stephen King opens with an abandoned classic car at a gas station. The thing is, once examined, it doesn’t look like an old car at all, more like an approximation of one. Impounded by a group of Pennsylvania State Troopers, the Buick begins to act in very strange ways: emitting bursts of lights, making people vanish, and producing some otherworldly creatures. Told as a story to 18-year-old Ned Wilcox, son of a trooper killed in the line of duty, From a Buick 8 reveals facts about the boy’s father, and the thing that almost surely led to his death.
I really enjoyed this book. A fan of King’s since the beginning, I read all of his books in the ’70s and ’80s, then fell off in the 1990s. Occasionally, I would go back and read some of his books from the late ’90s or 2000s, but didn’t enjoy them nearly as much as his earlier work. From a Buick 8 is the exception. It has to be my favorite book of his from this century.
Suspenseful in parts, but not a horrifyingly scary as some of his other works, like The Shining, this book would be good for people who like tension, but don’t want to be scared out of their pants. I highly recommend From a Buick 8.
by Jane | Apr 20, 2015 | Write Here Write Now
It’s interesting to go back through an actor’s career and compare his or her roles. I found myself doing that recently with Scott Bakula. I have been a fan of his three TV shows and have recently been watching them concurrently due to the magic of Netflix. Dr. Sam Beckett, Capt. Jonathan Archer, and Agent Dwayne Pride. How are these characters the same, and how are they different?
Sam Beckett is a character Scott Bakula played on Quantum Leap. Beckett is a scientist who develops a way to travel in time; however, he finds himself stuck “leaping” from one person’s life to another “setting right what once went wrong”, presumably by the hand of a higher power. Sam is smart, inventive, and always goes the extra mile for the people whose lives he has leapt into. That being said, he is also a bit naïve. He needs Al, his friend from the future (who appears to him as a hologram) to keep him focused. However, for good or bad, Sam usually wins out.
Captain Archer is from the last TV installment of the Star Trek franchise, entitled Enterprise. Bakula plays the leader of the Earth’s first deep space mission. At the beginning of the series, Archer is a lot like Sam Beckett, but after a while, he learns that he can’t always be “good” and do what his fine moral sense would dictate. Sometimes, for the greater good (e.g., his ship or the Earth), he has to do things that are unseemly and don’t fit his image of what a starship captain should be.
Dwayne Pride, supervising agent on NCIS: New Orleans, is still a bit of a mystery since the show it only in its first season. However, there are parts of both of the other characters in him. Pride definitely wants to help people. He feels for the victims in his cases and for the people who work for him. Yet, he does have a history which is not entirely clean, and he has a bit of a renegade in him. (Like when he runs off to take care of something on his own without telling his team.)
Pride appears to be the most complex of the characters, especially at the beginning of the series. Beckett remained pretty much the same throughout, while Archer grew the most. Time will tell what happens with Pride.
So, Bakula has done a great job in creating three memorable characters. It seems he may have used his experience with other roles to define his current one, a thing which good actors do a lot. And yet, he has also managed to maintain the differences, and give us a great viewing experience no matter what role he takes. Let’s hope NCIS:NO lasts a long time and that Bakula will be acting for a long time after that.
by Jane | Apr 13, 2015 | Write Here Write Now
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer , the first in the Southern Reach Trilogy, concerns an part of the world cut off from the rest, known only as Area X. Eleven expeditions have been sent to uncover its mysteries, but have had varying results. One reported it as idealistic. Others killed themselves or each other, and the latest expedition members returned changed, only to die soon thereafter.
The twelfth expedition consists of four women known only as the psychologist, the anthropologist, the surveyor, and the biologist. Told through the biologist’s eyes, mysteries beget more mysteries, as she makes her way past dangers from the environment, as well as her own team members.
Annihilation is an intriguing little book of less than 200 pages. Some mysteries are solved or at least hinted at, but nothing is totally resolved. I can only imagine that that is what the next two books are for.
I enjoyed the book, but not so much that I will continue with the series. The biologist has made her own conclusions and decisions, and I would just as soon leave it at that. I give this book a B+.
by Jane | Apr 3, 2015 | Write Here Write Now
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill is the story of a little girl named Vic who has a magical passageway to whatever she needs to find. This passageway is The Shorter Way Bridge and she rides across it on her Raleigh bicycle, long after the actual bridge has crumbled and fallen.
Finding things you need is nice and fun, but going across the bridge affects Vic physically — and these effects are cumulative. Plus, she doesn’t realize that one day the bridge will lead her to a very evil man called Charlie Manx. He has his own special ride — a Rolls Royce with license plate NOS4A2. Manx uses this vehicle to transport children to Christmasland, his own messed-up version of fun, while his assistant deals with the parents in any way he wishes.
Vic narrowly escapes Manx as a teenager, but will meet up with him again as an adult. Due to the effects of crossing the bridge, everyone thinks she’s crazy, but she must push forward because she is the only one who can stop him.
NOS4A2 is an amazing book. It will grab your attention at the beginning and keep it all the way to the end. Joe Hill is the pen name of Joseph Hillstrom King, son of the legendary Stephen King. Although his writing has many similarities to his father’s, Hill is a great story-teller on his own. NOS4A2 is his third novel, and I hope he has many more.
by Jane | Mar 28, 2015 | Write Here Write Now
As you might have seen from my post on bingeing, I have recently gotten into the tv series Grimm. What I didn’t do in that post was tell you anything about the show itself. I’ll do that now.
Grimm is a take-off on Grimm’s Fairy Tales. In the opener, Detective Nick Burkhardt starts seeing strange things in people’s faces, things he can’t explain. He is then visited by an aunt, who explains to him about his heritage. She tells him that all the fairy tale creatures are real, but they appear human most of the time. They only show their true selves when under stress. But the only humans who can see them are those descended from the Grimm brothers, like Nick and his aunt (unless the creatures want to show themselves). These people are known as Grimms, and the creatures are called wesen (pronounced “vessen”).
Historically, Grimms have chased down and killed wesen, but as a police officer, Nick doesn’t want to do that unless absolutely necessary. He chases wesen when they break the law, but tries to stay within the law himself. Luckily, he has information and weapons left by his aunt to help him identify and stop the various wesen types.
The tv show contains a lot of different languages, mostly German, but also French and Spanish. If you’ve taken any of these languages, it’s fun to try and understand them without use of the subtitles. But what I enjoy even more is the pseudo-German used in the names of the wesen. Since I studied German in school, I like to try and understand the basis for their names. (For instance, “blutbad” means blood bath and “jaegerhund” is hunting hound.)
I like all the characters: Nick, his girlfriend Juliette, his partner Hank, but my favorite is Monroe, Nick’s wesen friend who helps him find his way in the wesen world. Monroe is kind of a geeky blutbad (sort of a werewolf), who Nick relies on heavily. At first, Monroe didn’t want to be bothered, but over time has accepted his role, and he and Nick have become friends. Of course, Hank and Juliette know none of this (at least at first), but that just contributes to the fun of the show.
I love this show. It’s kind of a quirky Supernatural, full of suspense and whimsy. It’s just a lot of fun. Don’t take it too seriously, but enjoy what it has to offer. I’m sure you won’t regret it.
