THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

  • 19 September 2012

reviwed by Glenda Johnson.

Lyn loaned me a copy of the first of this trilogy at the start of the year and I found it quite good. Ihis week I borrowed the set now that she has the others, reread book one, followed immediately by the other two, and sad to say, while I still quite liked book one, I didn’t enjoy the other two and the entire trilogy has gone back to Lyn and I won’t be buying my own. I see why it appeals to teenagers. It’s all angst, blame the parent, how misunderstood the teenager is. Yes, Katniss is competent, courageous, hard-working and responsible. She’s no worse than most would be in her situation. But I couldn’t like her. I suspect that if most of those reading this book and loving it, actually met Katniss, they’d find her a surly pain in the neck.

Like Lyn, I enjoy a good post-holocaust book, or a good distopia, but I like a better ending, and this trilogy doesn’t have it. I found the ending vague, unsatisfying, and unpleasant. I do read other books classified as YA so it isn’t that. I have the Harry Potter series and love it. I have some of Diana Wynne Jones’ YA books and reread them regularly. Ditto Andre Norton, Margaret Mahy, The “Tomorrow When The War began’ series, and a number of YA books by other authors. But there was something about this trilogy that turned me off. Not the brutality of background, the realism, the unlikable characters, no, I think in the end I felt that no matter what was done, no matter how heroically anyone tried, the characters or their descendants were condemned to go around in the same miserable circles forever, endlessly recreating their predecessor’s mistakes. That not only was there no genuine light at the end of the tunnel, but that eventually the tunnel would collapse and bury them. In view of which I won’t bother to see the film because no matter how well that ends, I know what comes next. and that spoils it for me. I know a lot of people enjoyed these books, but I didn’t and I don’t recommend them.

 

 

 

“Yours Truly, Disgusted.

  • 19 September 2012

I was watching the news last night, saw the item on the French magazine’s photos of Kate Middleton and I was disgusted. It’s bad enough when people are intrusively photographed in public places on the pretext that it’s ‘in the public interest’. But when you’re on the deck of a private home, 500 yards from the nearest public access, and you still aren’t safe, it’s disgusting. There is no genuine ‘interest’ in these photos. The interest is in the money the photographer and magazine will make. “In the public interest’ is when photographs appear of a ‘good christian candidate for public office’ with his hand up a child’s skirt. Or photos of a financier luxuriating on his deck with dinner – partridges in aspic with $250 a bottle wine – served by a butler, while the investors he defrauded lose their homes. That sort of thing is in the public interest. It exposes a private face at great odds with the public one and may suggest criminal acts. A view of Kate’s chest is not ‘in the public interest.’ It may have the public interested, but that’s not the same thing.

I believe that a law should be enacted to prevent this kind of breach of privacy. A person, royal, celebrity or ordinatry Jane Doe, should have a reasonable expectation of privacy on private property. Alternately, some public-spirited person should reverse this – take a powerful long-lens camera, and follow a photographer responsible for this type of intrusion for several months while they take photos of his every private moment. Have a forensic accountant hack into the photographer’s banking account and see if everything is kosher. Steal his rubbish and double check everything that’s found in it. Why, it could be discovered that he’s cheating on his wife, the Inland Revenue, has hidden bank accounts – and he drinks like a fish. All of which proof could then be posted on line for hisfriends and neighbour to goggle at – and sent to his wife and the IRD. It would be amusing to hear the screams of outrage, the cries of “unfair!” The complaints of breach of privacy. But why is he any less a fair target? Money? Oh, yes, it’s probable that no magazine would pay for him to be exposed. Although I believe that the Inland Revenue in some countries does pay a percentage of recovery on unpaid taxes, and the wife might well pay for a set of the photos and the bank account numbers too. But best of all, it would give the paparazzi a taste of their own medicine. If they didn’t get the message, it could continue until they too are afraid to do anything at all in public or private that could be misconstrued. Sometimes a dose of someone’s own medicine cures a problem, and if not, then up the dosage!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happily Aging

  • 19 September 2012

Lately I’ve been seeing seminars offered in our area. They’re on Positive Aging, and it amused me. I don’t think that people change much over the years. I am and always have been an optimist, happy or at least contented for the past thirty years, busy with my writing since 1990, always something to do locally, and enjoying it all. So when a friend asked if I’d like to go to one of the seminars I said “thanks very much, but no.” She went and enjoyed it, came back with suggestions that – ah, she should involve herself in local events, find something that she enjoys doing and do it, and try to be optimistic. I think I saved myself a seminar. I do all that now, and I didn’t even need a seminar to tell me.

HAVE YOU OVERLOOKED – DIANA MOORHEAD

  • 19 September 2012

Diana Moorhead seems to have little information available about her and so far as I am aware has never attended SF conventions in New Zealand, which is a pity as her work is excellent. Born in 1940 in Woking, England, she moved to New Zealand at twelve, where she attended Waihi College and Auckland University. She married a teacher, has two children, and later became Community Librarian at Glenfield. Her first children’s book, In Search of Magic (1971), was set solidly in New Zealand although it was published by Brockhampton Press in the UK. It followed the adventures of an English fairy family who travel north from Wellington, seeking the indigenous fairy folk.

The book of Moorhead’s that I have is The Green and the White. A first edition hardcover which I purchased around the mid-70s from Whitcoulls in Lambton Quay. This was probably sold as YA, but the story stands up well for an adult, and even after 35+ years the work remains very readable.

Jochim is King of Verdantis, he has been thrust into the position early by the accidental death of his predecessor, and it’s unfortunate that he’s been landed not only with the crown and vast responsibility, but also with a possible wife he would have been happy to wait for as well, and now, to add to it all, there is trouble in the kingdom and he’s expected to fix that too. Princess Elise isn’t pleased about it either. Not initially anyhow, until she finds that there’s a place for her and work that she can do. Not the usual work, not when she’s sneaking about dressed as a boy, with her hair chopped off, travelling across Verdantis with Jochim to meet the terrible Shrinn and find out why Verdantis is being ruined by blight. This book says a lot about taught or unconscious prejudice and the danger of making assumptions from them. It’s short, I’d estimate around 30,000 words, but it contains an attractive map, (and frontispiece) by the renowned Victor Ambrus who illustrated so many wonderful children’s and YA books over the second half of the 1900s.

Moorhead’s third book, Gull Man’s Glory (1976), illustrated by Sam Thompson, is also set in a fantasy world where the characters must challenge a corrupt power that threatens to destroy the land. Gull Man’s Glory has been described as strikingly original in its setting after a future nuclear disaster has produced strange forms of life, particularly gull people with wings.Sadly after the publication of her third book Moorhead seems to have stopped writing fiction but copies of her three books are still available on various sites such as Book Depository. The first book was for younger children but I would recommend The Green and the White and I hope to obtain a copy of Gull Man’s Glory sometime soon.

THE WHALE’S TALE by Edwina Harvey

  • 3 September 2012

softcover, published by Peggy Bright Books 2009, classified YA.

I bought this in June while I was in Australia at Continuum 8, their Natcon. And up front let me say that while it may be classified as YA (“young adult” for anyone who doesn’t know) this adult found it more than readable. In fact it’s going to my permanent shelves as soon as I finish this review. I hope to read it many more times over the years and I believe that I’ll enjoy it each time I do.

Uki is a Japanese teenager. Targe is a whale. Under normal circumstances they’d never meet, but when Uki steals a proprietary file Targe has created and she is caught by the authorities, Targe somehow finds that he’s agreed to have her join him on his spaceship and tour with him as he and his friend Charlie the dolphin take whale songs to the galaxy that is enchanted by them. This is the story of how two very different creatures find that they have things in common, discover that they can work together, and that two beings can produce something that is far more than the sum of one plus one.

But don’t be fooled, this isn’t always a sweet story. Uki’s parents, while not deliberately cruel to her, have no time, and less interest in the child they produced. At the time of the events Uki is fourteen, emotionally malnourished, and without direction. Some of the things she and Targe do to each other are brutal. neither intend to be quite so savage, but both at various times fail to understand the depth of hurt in the other. This is a good solid work. The characters are clearly written, well-rounded, and – even when being throughly bratty or unpleasant – understandable as to motive and ultimately likeable. I’d enjoy another book using them and hope one may eventuate sometime. Recommended.

 

 

 

 

 

We Like the Story

  • 3 September 2012

and, happily, the end result has been that The Book has sold to the Crooked Cat Press anthology Fear, which will be out this year in two volumes. (Also for anyone who buys Lucky Break magazine, yes, that was my story on the letter page of the September 3rd issue. And it’s quite true. Yet another reason to stay smiling.)

On having a Story Rejected

  • 3 September 2012

I had a friend on the phone over the weekend. She’d written a great story, offered it to a market, and had it rejected with a few rather unkind remarks. She was considering writing them an email pointing out how wrong they were. I emitted alarmed cries of protest. As I said to her, two old sayings apply here. One is that ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune,” and an editor is entitled to pick what stories they want to accept no matter how silly you think that their rejection of your wonderful work may be. The other saying is my version of “don’t get mad, get even.” I say, “don’t get mad, sell the story to a better paying market – and smile.”

Does that work? Well, it does if you do. As in… last year a charity anthology was open for submission. I offered a story I considered a quality work. I wouldn’t have been paid, but I thought that the named charity was a very good cause I’d be happy to support. The work was tossed back at me in a way that certainly made me feel that the editors had not considered it as up to scratch. I shrugged and offered the work to a magazine that took it on the spot and paid me $100 plus. The work is an official entrant for the International Cat Writers Muse Medallion (judged towards the end of this year) and I already have a query from an editor who saw it and is interested in it for an an anthology. I’ve said I’ll decide on that once I know about the Muse.

So as I said “don’t get mad, sell the story to a better paying market – and smile.”  Well, I’m smiling. Widely. Go thou and do likewise.

 

 

 

 

 

New Story Out.

  • 26 August 2012

This one isn’t fictional, it’s quite true. It’s out in the SPCA’s latest issue of Animals” Voice and is titled Hare-Raising. One of the advantages of having a small farm and working from home is that I get to see the activities, not only of my farm animals, but also of some of the wildlife that exists on and around my farmlet.  This was one of those occasions when I watched the interaction of wildlife here and found it interesting at the time and something to ponder later on.

Spring is here

  • 26 August 2012

If I had any doubt of that it was resolved two days back when I went to count spare fence posts – a friend is collecting a number from my stack of them to build a shed – and I wanted to see how many I’d have remaining once she had all she needed. From behind the posts a great commotion arose. Flapping, screams, shrieks, and more flapping. Senior goose then emerged, feathers fluffed up, beak open as she continued to shriek. The ganders, Stroppy and Sonny came racing down the lawn. I spoke firmly and some of the excitement died down. Oh, it’s her. “Her” investigated, to discover that the gaggle have started nesting. Four eggs to date and more to come. They very rarely manage to hatch anything, but I’ll let the girls sit on maybe three eggs each to see if we get goslings. I’ll be surprised if we do, but I can find homes for them if goslings are achieved, and a few more burglar alarms in the area won’t be a bad thing either. So I await events and will report at the start of October when either we’ll have goslings – or some very addled eggs.

SF TRAILS 9 – ALL MARTIAN SPECTACULAR

  • 26 August 2012

large size anthology, 9 stories, edited by David B. Riley, weird western theme. Reviewed by Steve Johnson.

I got back from a week in Wellington to find that this anthology had been dropped off for me to review, and I’ve had some amusement doing that. I like a good WW story and this anthology has some excellent tales – and none that weren’t good. Commodities of Nature by David Lee Summers manages to combine canals, Martian influences, Tesla, and the art of compromise, in one solid story. It is a little-used aspect of westerns that this tale featured a man able to accept that someone else’s POV might also be valid and I liked that. Then, not to be influenced, but I thought that Lyn’s A Day Out Shopping really fitted the ‘Weird” part of the anthology. It’s difficult to describe because it’s a very odd story, but quite fascinating to read because you have no idea where this plot is going until you arrive.

Go West, Young Martian, Go West by Laura Givens made me laugh. I could just see the Martian trying to establish telepathic rapport with a wagon team and finding that the horses simply didn’t want to hurry up. But it’s a very pleasant tale about prejudice, and finding that those who are really different may still have a lot to contribute. Sam Kepfield’s The Treasure of Vallis Marinaris is a riff on the old theme that ‘a treasure isn’t always gold and jewels,’ and is none the worse for that. A well-written variation.

I enjoyed the remainder of the stories but don’t have anything more specific to say about them.I can add that I liked the large size format, by which I mean that this anthology isn’t thicker, it’s several sizes up from a normal softcover, closer to large comic book dimensions. But with that size and the vivid attractive cover, it catches the reader’s eye, and that’s always a good thing.