The Reason To Get Into The Groove

Once, I was invited to a really big birthday party. I’ll pause while you shake your head in disbelief, but hey, on occasion I slip past the deflector shields and make it onto a guest list. It was a big crowd, a surprise party, and I didn’t know most of the people there. I arrived alone and a little early (NERD ALERT), and the people that I did know that were attending hadn’t gotten there yet. So, rather than stare at the wall or eat all the tiny stuffed peppers out of anxious boredom, I struck up a conversation with a guy standing near me who also seemed a bit at loose ends (but it’s possible he was just eyeing the peppers too). After a quick exchange confirming exactly when we were supposed to yell ‘SURPRISE’ at the guest of honor, he started telling me how he spent his day, which had been a glorious stretch of hours during which he’d put some new parts on his motorcycle. He was really excited. He pulled out some pictures. Several pictures, in fact, of the bike before he’d put the new parts on, pictures of the parts themselves, and pictures of the bike after the parts had been added. As he warmed to his topic, he described the motorcycle parts in detail and why they mattered so much to his overall motorcycle experience. I tried to ask meaningful questions about what he was sharing, but my motorcycle knowledge is limited to the words “motorcycle” and “crotch rocket”, so I didn’t have much to contribute. Seventeen minutes after I’d started talking to this person, he didn’t know my name, but I knew every detail about his motorcycle transformation arc. Also, by this point, most of the tiny stuffed peppers were gone because the other people at the party knew a good appetizer when they saw it. We finally wrapped it up when we had to hide, a critical step in staging a surprise.

While it’s true that I don’t speak motorcycle, I didn’t need to in order to see that my party partner was sharing his passion. Everyone has their own thing, a thing that makes us so excited and eager that people will run if they see you getting fired up about it. Nobody in their right mind will talk to me about books, for instance. I’ve never gone as far as pulling out pictures of books when I talk about them but I’m not saying that won’t ever happen. (Unrelated note: follow Bookreasons on Instagram to see some dreamy pictures of books!) It’s one thing to verbally firehose everyone in your immediate vicinity with all of the ways you enjoy your favorite thing. It’s another thing entirely to make it a condition of any human interaction. There’s a thin line between enthusiasm and obsession, but you’d never prove that by the immersive Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline.

Ready Player One is Ernest Cline’s love letter to 80s geek and pop culture. Wait-strike that. Ready Player One is Ernest Cline’s ticker tape parade celebrating 80s geek and pop culture, complete with Tshirt guns and confetti cannons. Set in a grim future on an overpopulated Earth depleted of natural resources, Ready Player One tells the story of a society that has moved from the exterior to the interior. Virtual reality is the standard, with people spending as much time as possible strapped into full body suits logged into in a fantasy universe called OASIS. When the reclusive inventor of OASIS, James Halliday, dies and invites the whole world to compete to inherit his fortune in an elaborate 80s themed video game, the stage is set for some awesome 80s-style scrappy-underdogs-vs-evil-corporate-goliath competition.

You don’t have to be an 80s kid to enjoy this story. Ernest Cline has you covered even if you didn’t spend part of your childhood begging for an ATARI console or getting chased by PacMan ghosts. James Halliday is modeled on America’s Silicon Valley trajectory, a gifted programmer parlaying time spent tinkering with computers in his parents’ basement into a wildly successful industry and stratospheric personal wealth. In the three dimesional world, James is shy and awkward, finding interpersonal interaction painful. Inventing OASIS allows him to make his perfect reality over and over, as he programs planet after planet that recreate the late 70s and and 80s that he grew up in (my personal favorite being an entire planet consisting of video game arcade/pizza joints, and I want to go there because I hate waiting in line to play Tempest). Retreating into OASIS solves all of James’s social problems, but in his isolation, he’s unable to do the one thing that makes a personal passion so fun – share it with people that share his same devotions.  Upon his death, he’s finally able to get everyone to come to his playground. What would any of us do if we had the leverage to create the exact world we want, to engage with people in the way that makes us the most comfortable? James Halliday uses his money and influence to share everything he loves on the grandest scale possible.

Ready Player One is currently being turned into a movie by Steven Spielberg. I don’t usually get excited about movie versions of books I love, but OMG. I need Steven Spielberg to direct this 80s themed movie like I need air and regularly scheduled hair color appointments. I NEED it. I need all those 80s references filtered through the guy that gave us so much 80s culture. Interestingly, Steven Speilberg has said in interviews that he will not be referencing his own movies in Ready Player One. I don’t like telling Steven Spielberg how to do his job but he needs to change his mind on that. STAT. He’s going to leave Indiana Jones at the door? The Goonies? Whaaaat?

I suppose while I’m quibbling with Steven Spielberg on his directorial choices, I may as air my one tiny grievance with Ernest Cline. In the avalanche of dazzling 80s references in Ready Player One, there is not one appearance by the Material Girl. No Madonna. At all. I am calling a flag on that play and in the sequel I’d better see a Planet Madonna.

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Represent.

#livinginamaterialworld

Action Items
My personal Thanksgiving tradition is to re-read MFK Fisher’s The Gastronomical Me. I hope you get to enjoy your traditions this year. Have a safe & happy Thanksgiving Day!

Photo credit: Richard Corman for Rock Paper Photo

The Reason For A Lot Of Reasons

Bookreasons launched one year ago. I’m a little shocked. I didn’t think I had three months worth of book-babbling opinions, much less a whole year, but here we are. Thanks for indulging me. As it turns out, I’m just a fountain of ever-flowing book babble. Who knew?
You: Everyone
Me: No way! I’m not that obvious
You: Look! A book!
Me: WHERE I’VE READ IT IT’S GREAT LET’S DISCUSS IT
You: The prosecution rests

Today I am throwing back to one of the first Bookreasons posts about one of my all-time favorites, A Wrinkle In Time. You can click here to read it. Madeline L’Engle had a lot to say about tolerance and fear. This book is now getting the film it deserves from the amazing director Ana DuVernay.

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Teaser.

#happybookaversarytome

Action Items
Read all about the A Wrinkle In Time production here.

The Reason It’s An Emergency

Have you seen me? I will save you some time. No, you have not seen me, because I have recently been taken hostage. Not that any of you have noticed my crisis literary situation. What, exactly, does it take to create a sense of urgency here? I need to be rescued before it’s too late. Since nobody understands how dangerous this situation is, I am taking matters into my own hands and executing a really flashy rescue operation. Like, Kiefer Sutherland combined with Agent Carter levels of flashy. FLASHY.

Why is all this necessary? Well, a few weeks ago, I obtained the book The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters. I bought it accidentally (and lest you think I am repeating myself, I am. I also told this story here. Pipe down. This is MY rescue operation and it requires exposition.) The Last Policeman, as I soon discovered, is both a science fiction book and the first book in a trilogy. Seriously, I was pissed. I don’t SciFi and I didn’t have time to indulge my book OCD with a trilogy because I am very busy and important. I figured I had a hateread on my hands because I always know everything. Like Grace Kelly pumping her own gas, I decided to rise to the occasion, plaster a smile on my face and read it.

I could not put down The Last Policeman. I hid from people so I could finish it uninterrupted. Subsequently, I picked up the next book in the trilogy…then the third book…and I was through the looking glass, people. It is Bookreason’s policy to never negotiate with novelists, but I have no choice. I’m never getting out of here otherwise. Here is a rundown of my Ben H. Winters takeover.

The Last Policeman  The gateway book. Police officer Henry Palace is promoted to detective in his small New Hampshire town at the same time it’s determined an asteroid is on a direct collision path with Earth.

Countdown City The asteroid gets closer. There’s less time on everyone’s clock. Henry Palace agrees to help a friend search for her missing husband.

World Of Trouble Time has almost run out. Henry Palace attempts to hold on to his only family by trying to save his headstrong, reckless sister from herself.

One of the enjoyable, almost comfortable aspects of reading a series – crime series in particular – is getting to know a particular set of characters as they navigate through different circumstances. The settings for the character roster change; the behavior of the characters does not. There is always a definite cast of folks you expect popping up in each book. The wise, world-weary mentor, the hot mess best friend, the crazy but insightful neighbor…you get the idea. Ben H. Winters, however, does not. Ben H. Winters gives no fucks about making you feel comfortable or familiar with recurring characters in The Last Policeman series. Instead, he threads this series together by asking the same question of the main character over and over: How do you live your life when the apocalypse is no longer abstract, but has a precise date and time? Henry Palace is left to navigate his new world in surprising, subtle, subversive ways. These books just flat refuse to be predictable.

After finishing  The Last Policeman series, I figured I was done with Ben H. Winters and moved on to my next book. Turns out it wasn’t my decision any more. Not even reading Elena Ferrante (My Brilliant Friend, for the record) could knock World Of Trouble out of my head. I had checked into the Hotel Ben-ifornia. I can check out anytime I like, but I can’t never leave.

Underground Airlines What if the United States never fought the Civil War? What if slavery were legal today, right now? This book imagines that grim alternate outcome in an America hard divided by a Mason-Dixon line that’s a border with checkpoints. Underground Airlines is a gut punch. Ben H. Winter’s worldbuilding is frighteningly specific, laying out a whole history that begins with the Lincoln administration, Supreme Court rulings that cement slavery into the identity of the U.S., and a present-day culture of complacency, enforcement, and protest. The Underground Airline is the escape route out of states where slavery is legal, and the story centers around a US Marshals agent,Victor, whose job it is to track down and return escaped slaves. The reason Victor has this job, and how he goes about doing it, makes for a riveting, thoughtful, revolutionary look at the soul-killing compromises we as humans accept to make the unthinkable normal.

Bedbugs After I finished Underground Airlines, I grabbed Bedbugs. Because at this point, I have Stockholm Syndrome, and if it’s not a Ben H. Winters book I don’t know how to read it. The moral of the Bedbugs story is, if you find an amazingly great apartment in Brooklyn, it’s only because those Rosemary’s Baby people couldn’t afford Manhattan anymore and had to set up in an outer borough. It’s a trap, people. Settle for the 1BR basement place that smells like cabbage. You will be better off. This book is seriously creepy and a perfect read for Halloween season. Also, if you don’t like bug stuff, stay the hell away from this book. I don’t like bug stuff, but Ben H. Winters doesn’t care. I had to read it anyway. Because that is how it goes when you’re a literary hostage.

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You know what, y’all? He’s not really that sorry.

 

Using all my copies of Ben H. Winters books, I have managed to spell out S O S so when the search planes fly over, they’ll be able to spot me. I’ve also managed to untie my hands so I can tap out a signal on the window in hopes someone will hear me (which is an actual thing that happens in one of the books listed here. EASTER EGG, BITCHES)

#sos

Action Items
Read Underground Airlines. Seriously. Like right now.

The Reason You Can Stop Looking

Major, important scientific research has been done to examine why people fall in and out of love. Committed relationships are complicated. What makes people choose each other and stay together? Science tells us that the reasons people split apart are layered and complex. Adultery. Financial infidelity. Values incompatibility. I’m not a trained researcher with expertise in data analysis, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that science is dead wrong about why people break up. You know why couples break up? Because one person in the couple will give directions using the words “east, west, north, south” and the other person will give directions using “left and right”. That shit right there will DOOM a relationship. You’d think the ubiquitousness of navigational technology would level out this problem, but it doesn’t, something I am reminded of every time I fire up my smartphone to make it tell me how to get places. That damn woman who lives in there always starts by telling me to go southeast or west and it’s infuriating because I can’t break up with HER.

The point here is, words matter. Choosing the wrong words dooms your attempt at communication, or at least your attempt to get directions to the nearest liquor store. Choosing the correct words opens doors and opens minds, building bridges between you and your goal, important bridges that keep you from falling into a chasm and being eaten by dragons. And, really, it’s dragons that we are here to talk about today. More precisely, my indifference to books about dragons that live in the bottom of chasms. Or robots. Or complex fictional worlds that cross planets or are accessed through tunnels. I am here to confess: I have tried, I really have, but I don’t read science fiction.

 

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Like a Bat Signal, but opposite.

 

I like the word science. I like the word fiction. I like both of those things a whole damn bunch but when you put them together you get a genre that I avoid like it’s going to sting me and I don’t have my EpiPen. Merriam-Webster says science fiction is “fiction dealing principally with the impact of actual or imagined science on society or individuals or having a scientific factor as an essential orienting component”. Seems simple enough and appealing in theory. In practice, it is a mighty struggle. I think I can count on one hand the number of science fiction books I’ve read. I got through The Hobbit, but I didn’t make it ten pages into The Fellowship of The Ring and really it was more like five pages. Um…let’s see. The Time Traveler’s Wife? Does that count? (Especially if I didn’t like it?) Slaughterhouse Five. Yup…still on one hand, even if I eventually remember I accidentally read anything by Isaac Asimov. Which I can assure you, I haven’t. No Phillip K. Dick. No Ursula K. LeGuin. I’m admitting it right now, there is a lot of great writing that I’m leaving on the table. I have no good reason for it. Let’s all agree that I’m deficient in some way.
Science Fiction: Agreed
Me: Thanks for the pile-on

Whenever anyone talks about their deep and abiding love for The Game Of Thrones or Lord Of The Rings, I feel a little twinge that combines bafflement, jealousy, and sadness. People LOVE these books, and I want to love them too because loving books is my favorite. J.R.R. Tolkein and George R.R. Martin have legions of fans (and a love for the letter R) who embrace the full absorption into the worldbuilding that science fiction and fantasy offer. I’m so left out. It feels like a big party that I am invited to, but can’t muster the interest in attending, so instead of going to the big fun party I’m just going to stay at home and not read any books that require I memorize made-up world names. Or made-up dragon species names. Or made-up languages.
Science Fiction: so you’re just lazy
Me: No I just don’t want to work hard to read those books
Science Fiction: …..
Me: Oh ok. YES.

It’s not possible to like everything, I guess, but how I continually walk away from clearly well-written, epic stuff just makes me roll my eyes at myself. I suppose I’m a more frivolous reader than I’d like to admit, but every once in a while I’ll try. The book Outlander was suggested to me for the first time a few years back. The person recommending told me it was about time travel through magic stones. She lost me at “time travel” and I fled the room at “magic stones” because the only thing that makes time travel less interesting to me is when it’s not done in a spaceship or a tesseract. (A Wrinkle In Time! That’s science fiction right??? Make that list FOUR books!) And magic stones? Just, NO. Her enthusiasm for the book was evident but couldn’t overcome magic stones. Hard pass.

Fast forward to a few years later and my social media newsfeeds are filled with people discussing a book about time travel through magic stones. It rang a dim, distant bell, and I eventually unearth the memory of rejecting this same book. In the intervening time, Outlander built a passionate, dedicated fan base and the author had written eleventy-billion more books. Yup-another science fiction/fantasy epic series that I wasn’t reading. This time, though, I was going to figure out what people were talking about. I was not going to leave myself out in the cold, clutching my tattered copy of In Cold Blood. I got a copy of Outlander and read it, cover to cover. (Wait! FIVE sci-fi books!)
Science Fiction: So you loved Outlander?
Me: I did not say that. I said I read it and tried not to be a dick about it.
Science Fiction: Well, at least you tried
Me: I really did
Science Fiction: Let’s keep this open dialogue going
Me: as long as we don’t have to open it with magic stones
Science Fiction: we’ll just google directions

I guess you can stop looking for me to recap science fiction, but, if I ever run into an actual dragon, I will let you know about it immediately.

#heretherebenodragons

Action Items
Does Watership Down count as science fiction?