The Troupe (Twizzlefizzlepop's Book Recomenderizer)

Apologiesthatithasbeensolongsince(breath).... I'vedoneasegmentforthefinereadersofWAW(breath)... Ihavehadatrulyhardtimetryingtofindwork....

Sorry....

I forget to slow down when I'm talking to humans. As I was saying, the pay scales here at Writing About Writing cap out at "cripplingly destitute" and that's after you get about a dozen raises, so I've had to do some moonlighting. And being a feminist book recomenderizer is a very niche market, especially among my fellow gnomes, let me tell you. However, now that Chris is getting his shit back together time-wise and scheduling guest bloggers again, I have a great book I want to tell you about today. It's called The Troupe and it's by Robert Jackson Bennett.

George Carole is an incredible piano player who has joined a vaudeville show to try and find his father, Heironomo Silenus. However, George quickly comes to realize that this troupe is unusual even for a vaudeville act, and that nothing is what it seems. In fact, it goes well beyond such a tired cliche, and most things look like what they are not. The other members of the troupe hide secrets that go far beyond trouble pasts. From the exotic acrobat to the ventriloquist who defies plausibility to Selenus himself, each conceals a piece of a horrible puzzle.

George begins to realize three things about the troupe almost immediately upon joining: one, is that they are looking for something, two is that everywhere the troupe goes, a little bit of magic seems to go with them. But perhaps the most troubling thing George realizes is that something else is looking for them.

Bennet style may strike many as far to filled with adverbs to be enjoyable, and his predilection for "light vs. dark" imagery and some nice guy tropes might cause a few cringes, but he weaves an unconventional tale that twists both of these starting positions into places one might not expect them to go. Just like everything else in this novel, they are not what they seem.

In the tradition of vaudeville, American gothic, and magical realism, but with a dash of just-plain-ol-fantasy thrown in to keep you on your toes, The Troupe takes you on George Carole's journey to discover what is really going on with this motely crew, through encounters with powerful beings, ancient supernatural powers, and stakes that turn out to be the highest imaginable.

Twizzlefizzlepop's Book Pimp: World War Z Book Review

Hi all, Twizzlefizzlepop here and I promised you all that I would never recommend a book thathadbeenturnedintoamovie.  Wellthisisabookthat.....

~deep breath~

Sorry.  I got a little excited there.  I have to remember to talk slow to you non-gnomes.  Humans and your super slow metabolisms can't handle the speed of my unadulterated awesome.  Especially since I recently got some gold teeth bling and I can't quite talk right yet.

Today I want to pimp one really fine ass book: World War Z by Max Brooks.

I promised you all that I would never recommend a book that had been turned into a movie. That's why I want to recommend World War Z to you before Hollywood and William Bradley of the Pitt Clan has a chance to absolutely mangle every wonderful page of it.  I know it's under the wire, but it still counts.  The movie is pretty undoubtedly going to suck the fuzzy purple banana of Hollywood hackery.  It might have zombies, but so did 28 Weeks Later and that blew so much knob it made Jenna Jameson look like an amateur, so don't be fooled.  Production rumors for this film are like watching a train full of babies crash into a plane full of children's cancer ward transfers...who are all holding balloons filled with alternating chlorine or ammonia gas....in slow motion.  I mean I'd love to be wrong, but it looks like this movie is going to suck so hard that vampires (and I mean the old Bela Lugosi types, not these sparkly whack jobs or the angst ridden types) will say "Daaaaaaayuuuuuum!"

But the book....the book is awesome.  For the book, I definitely have to get my pimp on.  So if you'll excuse me for a moment while I don my purple-feathered fedora.

World War Z is listed as a novel, but it is probably better characterized as a set of contiguous short stories and vignettes from within the same setting--each a first person narration, and many from particularly dramatic moments in the war.  Though it is tied together through the motif of a journalist gathering "the personal stories" from the war, and though there is timeline continuity to the stories, none of the characters actually meet each other, nor are any of the stories related directly to any other.  From an officer aboard a Chinese nuclear sub, to a pilot downed behind the zombie-free zones, to a soldier on the front lines of the counter-offensive in the U.S., the reader gets to see the overarching history, but at the same time does so through a patchwork of separated first person narrations.  In terms of setting and some themes, it might work as a novel, but in regards to characterization, plot, and many of the individual thematic struggles, it really is a collection of short stories.

You can already see how the format wouldn't lend itself easily to a movie.  Vignette movies don't do very well unless they're very cleverly edited (like Love Actually--which might actually be a bad example since all those stories had tie ins with all the others).  The need for movies to condense stories is particularly brutal to short stories.  Likely, many of the World War Z vignettes would have to be scrapped, leaving fans disappointed, newcomers a bit confused and box office sales in a flushing toilet.  That or they would do what 20th Century Fox did to that abomination of a movie, I Robot, and just take the name of the title and like one character to generate buzz for a travesty of a movie that is (at best) vaguely related to the source material.  (I mean...it did have robots, I guess.)  Based on the IMBD description of the movie (due out in lateish June) it will be butchered--butchered worse than the last John I had who didn't pay his overdue fines.

Max Brooks's novel deserves better than to be passed over by untold legions of people thinking "Yeah, but the movie sucked King Kong's scroat man."  You owe yourself to read this book before the movie comes out so that the love is firmly ensconced in your heart and will weather the trial by fire.

These short stories are awesome.  They explore both ARMAGEDDON and PERSONAL HORROR of zombies and deal well with zombies as both a virus instead of a predator (like vampires or werewolves) but also as a symbol for the loss of individuality.  But mostly what he nails is the fact that zombies are never the real threat--we are.  These aren't the campy villains of a George Romero or Peter Jackson movie either--slipping and sliding on an ice rink or having sex and little zombie babies--they are genuinely terrifying creatures described by Brooks with one horrifying detail after another.   There are moments that sent chills up this little gnome's spine, and believe me that this little gnome has read his fair share of books.  KnowwhatImeanyesyoudo.

Is the book perfect?  No.  The voices of the narrators are a little too similar, so it's hard not to imagine Broooks as every one of his characters (kind of like Hannibal in The A-Team where you can totally tell that all his "disguises" are George Peppard).  Also there are a few details of the war that are a little too skimmed over.  Brooks usually does a good job with exposition--leaking details as if the imagined audience shouldn't be unaware--but some parts of the overarching plot are a little too vague.  It is easy to imagine that Brooks (or his editor) took a story or three out of the anthology and a bit of the important exposition went with it.

Still, Brooks's real genius throughout the book is his social and political commentary.  He really took the time to consider a realistic reaction from different countries, and you will most likely find yourself struck by just how plausible the stories feel.  From the corporations selling placebos in the U.S. while the government denies the scope of the problem to the complete walled isolationism of Israel, to the denial of anything wrong at all by China because that is where it started, every reaction to the zombies seems to have been actually considered by Brooks through a modern historical lens.  I stopped several times to think, "you know, if it ever did happen, it is not unreasonable to think that this is how it would unfold."  In a fully technological world, it is not the zombies that would be the biggest problems but our reaction (or lack of reaction) to them.

And I can personally attest to the fact that not one person tries to take their blood pressure while they're being chased.

You know it's a good book, or I wouldn't be pimping it, but this is still a fairly new segment, so I'm really going to be pimping only the best.  If you like zombies--or you just want to know why people like zombies so much--this book is a must.  Don't make me use my "Bust a Cap" power which is on cool-down and ready to rock.  If I weren't a staunch feminist, and if books were women, World War Z would be one of my very best hos.

You should read it.

Twizzlefizzlepop's Book Pimp: Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store

[Note from the head writer: Leela Bruce claims she has found a "trio" of new guest bloggers to join us here at Writing About Writing.  Unfortunately, she found them in upstate New York, and is having trouble booking a flight back to the W.A.W. compound because of the storm.  We should be able to introduce them soon.  In the meantime Twizzlefizzlepop is humping my leg (and I wish to hell I meant that figuratively) to pimp out a book before it becomes too well known to be worthy of honor or something.  So I'll give him the floor.]

Twiz here, and according to the wall clock I have around my neck, it's time for some serious book pimpage.  So if you can ignore my stylin new ear hair dreads for just a moment, and focus on my words, I'm going to tell you about a totally awesome book by Robin Sloan: Mr Penumbra's 24 Book Store.

Clay Jannon just got a new job at a bookstore owned by the charismatic Mr. Penumbra, which is good because he's just been wasting oxygen since he lost his job at the bagel place.  But something very strange is going on at his new job.  He rarely actually sells any books, and most of the store is actually filled with strange hand written texts that he's under the strictest of instructions never to look at.  With few exceptions, the only customers are strange characters with a curious fascination about those books.  They don't even buy them, but only check them out.  So Clay decides, against orders, to see what all the fuss is about.

An epic fantasy quest (and this gnome knows his epic fantasy quests, let me tell you) with a technological twist.  Clay ends up teaming up with a high ranking Google employee and a modern computer games mogul to try and crack the mystery, but he soon learns that the reach of implications goes far beyond the bookstore and it's quirky customers.

With incredibly compelling storytelling ability, Robin Sloan takes readers through the fascinating juxtaposition between old world secret societies, lost knowledge, and their juxtaposition against the incomprehensible power of modern day computers.  Conspiracies, secret societies, hidden knowledge, cryptography, typography, cutting edge technology, dark underground fortresses, the power of Google brought to bear on the oldest of human ambitions, and my personal favorite: a huge nerd fascination with books.

And not a single undead rogue saying "TEH" as it backstabs you.

Sloan will keep you turning pages even as you question the nature of human knowledge and where the limits are on putting our faith in technology to answer everything.  I read this book in two sittings over the course of one day.  And that's good for me evenwhenI'vehadalittletoomuchbreakfasttea.  Sorry.  Getting excited.  It's a good book.  You should check it out.

Oh yeah, and it's totally all about the human condition and stuff.

Twizzlefizzlepop: Book Recomendificationer Extraordinaire

Hello there you fine, fine readers of Writing About Writing.  My name is Twizzlefizzlepop and I'm a 85th level Gnome.  I once called myself a pimp but it turns out that's a little on the misogynistic side so now I'm a Recomendificationer.

You might be asking yourself what the hell I'm doing here on Writing About Writing.  Well, I'll tell you.

Somewhere around level thirteen, when I was spending talent points to reduce the cool-down on my "Backhand Slap" ability, I discovered a bit of a problem with my choice to be a book "pimp."  See, I'm a feminist.  (In fact, I've changed the name of that particular power to "Back Handed Compliment of Doom" because I don't like the linguistic patriarchal overtones that a woman can't even set reasonable boundaries in her life in a way that is considered bold or assertive for men or that any level of physical abuse is okay whether it is back handed or not.)  I have the radical assumption that women are equal.  I've been pwned by way too many pink pigtailed Necromancers in Warsing Gully not to know that.

So I decided to recomendificate books instead.  Don't worry, I won't recomendificate classic literature. I did that back when I was taking candles from Gnolls near my starting city. And pimping out a book that's all the rage or has been made into a movie is no more a challenge than killing 50 Young Tigerlings for That Ernest Hemingway Anagram dude. No, I need more of a challenge. I'm going to recomendify books you may not even have heard of.  New books.  Unsung books. Debut authors. Books that are worthy of my level 85 recomendificationizing skills.

Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store
World War Z
The Troupe