Review of The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

The Sandman series is probably Neil Gaiman's most talked about work, with it's dark fantasy and horror themes.

Volume One tells the tale of how Dream was captured by a mysterious cult, who meant to capture Death and gain immortality. When at last he breaks free, years after the fact, it is to discover that the tools of his trade--a helmet, an amulet, and a bag of sand, have gone missing. Weakened and vulnerable, he must get them back as soon as possible.

 The Dream/Morpheus character is only just being established in this volume, and it's quite obvious that there is more to him than this book let's you see. Equally obvious is the fact that the author had not quite settled on what tone he wanted to go for, and each chapter of the book has a very different feel to it--so it feels a bit disconnected.

Most of the book is a McGuffin Get sort of story, where Morpheus goes to various places and talks to various people in order to get his tools back. For me, the best sequence was when he traveled to hell, and we see demons of all shapes and sizes. Morpheus engages in a kind of duel of imagination with the demon who possesses his helmet, and it is as creative as it is unexpected. The weaker part of the story, for me, came in the sudden appearance of the Justice League characters. As a non-DC reader, they really don't mean much to me, and they're just kind of there. Who are they? I haven't the foggiest...

Overall, while not the strongest of stories by any means, it still stands apart from the usual comic book fair, and it's undeniably entertaining. I highly recommend it. 4 stars.

Misc. Monday: Goosebumps

The things you read as a child have a way of sticking with you forever. The original Goosebumps series was the first set of books that I ever read entirely on my own outside of school. My older brother had a decent sized collection that he passed to me, and I promptly whined to my parents until I filled in the gaps. All told, I ended up reading the first 45 books in the series over the course of a year or so (1st-2nd grade). Of course I later reread my favorite ones. So for today's Misc. Monday, I thought I'd go through a few of them and see what memories I could kick to life.

#1, Welcome to Dead House, sparks zero literary memories (I must not have liked it), but I do have memories of watching the TV episode. Oh, that's right, there was a TV series--a cheesetastic TV series with bad effects and bad acting. I was, I don't know, seven when I saw this and it still sticks in my brain as a quintessentially bad haunted house story.

#2, Stay Out of the Basement, is about a freaking plant monster. Plants are not scary, even to a seven year old, and even back then I remember thinking this one was funny. The protagonists, Margaret and Casey, go down as the stupidest children in the world for not immediately making the connection between their missing BOTONIST father and the plant monster.

#3, Monster Blood, OH GOD, I loved this little book. It's about a boy who buys some flubber that grows and grows and starts consuming things. I'm not sure why this excited my seven-year-old brain, but it did. I remember using my allowance to buy green Gak so I could rein-act the story.

#5, The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, was another one of my favorites. I remember fixating on it because it's about a boy who ends up wandering through an Egyptian tomb on his own. I also became fascinated with the intensely gross facts of how mummies were made.

#7, Night of the Living Dummy...Umm, Dummies are freaking scary, I don't care how old you are. This is the only one that I remember kind of scared me a little.

#14, The Werewolf of Fever Swamp--Again, I don't so much remember the book as the TV show. I remember that it made me suddenly aware that werewolves were cool and scary. I asked my brother about them, and like all good big brothers, he proceeded to try to terrify me by introducing me to "real" werewolf movies.

#19, Deep Trouble--I remember really liking that there was a mermaid in this. The details are fuzzy now, but I know this was a favorite because of the deep sea theme.

#21, Go Eat Worms--I remember this one because I found it gross. It didn't scare me, it just...creeped me. Worms show up in this kids food and...yeah, EWW. Years later, in college, there was a lab involving mealworms which were being held in pie plates. I had a flashback to THIS BOOK and mentally flipped out a little.

#24, The Phantom of the Auditorium--This was my introduction the The Phantom of the Opera. I read this, and then I watched the Wishbone episode about The Phantom of the Opera, and I was promptly obsessed. Of course, I didn't actually get to see a production of any kind until years later, but I owe the idea of seeing it to Goosebumps.

#34, Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes--This is the last one I can actually clearly remember reading. Gnomes are funny to me. My grandparents always had them, and I think it amused me to think of them as evil instead of adorable.

So that's my little trip down nostalgia lane for the week. Does anyone else remember these books? Do you remember finding them funny, cool, or scary?

Happy Reading!

Mental Illness and Horror: A Review of Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves

I read Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves several months ago. This book was recommended to me for a number of reasons. First, although I am an adult I occasionally enjoy a YA novel. There's a strange sort of nostalgia to reading about characters younger then myself. Secondly, I have an odd fascination with mental illness. And finally, because paranormal/fantasy is my favorite genre and the one I read most often.

WARNING: Minor Spoilers Ahead.

This book is surreal. Hanna is a bipolar sixteen year old who was living with her aunt, but for one reason and another ran away from home to live with the mother she has never met or had contact with. Her mother, Rosalee, doesn't seem to want her anymore then her aunt did, but Hanna is determined. Rosalee tells her that if she can manage to fit in and make friends she can stay. Hanna quickly finds that her new home is extremely unusual. The town is full of monsters and supernatural phenomena. Everyone treats Hanna like an outsider, and expect her to die or run away screaming at any minute. Hanna meets Wyatt, who is part of a group of monster fighters called Mortmaine. Hanna and Wyatt banter back and forth and quickly succum to their mutual attraction.

The best sub-genre to place this in is horror, without a doubt. It's plenty violent and gory, with moments that even a jaded reader may find disturbing. The gratuitous violence was not really a problem for me, because I frequently read horror and usually enjoy it. The bizarreness of it all is also not a problem, because at least it's imaginative. Because Hanna suffers from hallucinations, what is real and what is in her head is sometimes ambiguous. I thought that was a nice touch.

My issue is the characters. Hanna has all the characteristics of a problem teen: she acts out, is sexually promiscuous, doesn't have a problem with violence, does drugs, and never thinks about consequences. She's bipolar and doesn't always take her meds. She's so very desperate for someone to love her, it's pitiful. There is just something off about Hanna's character. I liked her, I even sympathized with her at times. But, whether because of her illness or the weirdness of the setting/scenery, she never seemed real to me. She seems more like a caricature then a real person. And because of this, it's difficult to become really invested in her story.

Wyatt is similarly unreal and twisted. I did like him, and I felt like he started to grow a lot in the story. As for their relationship, it was just ok. It gets physical really quickly, and that did nothing to help the realism. They do have some good dialogue and banter. But at no point did I believe they were falling in love, or would remain together long term.

Aside from Hanna and Wyatt, who at least have moments of likeability, I hated every single character. Hanna's mother is irredeemable. I know that on some level she loves Hanna, but not once does she show it in any way that counts. The other teens seem cold and generic, none standing out at all. Except Petra, of course, who is so whiny that you root for her to die horribly.

I also think it's necessary to discuss whether this book is really appropriate for teens. For younger teens, probably not. It's too full of violence and sex with no reference to consequences. But for any reasonably mature teen over the age of 16 or so, this book is perfectly fine. It doesn't go so far as to really condone the bad behavior, and I don't see many readers wanting to emulate a crazy character in any case.

The bottom line is, I didn't like this book because I didn't care for the characters. But I'm entirely in favor of horror and surrealness and all of those wonderful things. So I'd say if your a horror/fantasy, and you don't mind deeply flawed characters, maybe give it a try. 2 stars.