(no subject)
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 10:15 amMuscle relaxants are love (and good sleep) but they do leave you going blinkety blink when you see lines like 'I was just hoping that anyone could tell me how tall Hong Kong is?' on lj. Then you realize it's a hetalia community.
Reading Cherie Priest's Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Bemused and amused by the fact that though this deals with supernatural Thingies, ghosts, nasty-type (dead) (male) witches, murder, secrets from the past, and what all, it's almost completely devoid of a sense of menace. (Unlike everything else I've read this month.) 'Oh yeah, there's these three grey ghosts of murdered women who keep looking at me-- and giving me sensible advice from the back seat of my car. Am I scared? No. Why would I be?' See, *this* is how 100 Demons reads in English. Ghosts, infanticide, homicidal cousins-- all in a day's work.
The unidentified white blob in the mirror in the camp lavatory OTOH.... Terrifying because unidentifiable. The thing that always gets me in southern gothics are the unspeakable secrets, unknown and terrible and half-buried, whose rotting stink poisons the book's atmosphere. You could have that here too if you wanted, but Priest doesn't want. Her Eden is a perfect Ritsu. So far, because I'm wondering where the tension in the book is supposed to come from if neither crazy cousins nor dead great aunts hold any terors for her.
Reading Cherie Priest's Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Bemused and amused by the fact that though this deals with supernatural Thingies, ghosts, nasty-type (dead) (male) witches, murder, secrets from the past, and what all, it's almost completely devoid of a sense of menace. (Unlike everything else I've read this month.) 'Oh yeah, there's these three grey ghosts of murdered women who keep looking at me-- and giving me sensible advice from the back seat of my car. Am I scared? No. Why would I be?' See, *this* is how 100 Demons reads in English. Ghosts, infanticide, homicidal cousins-- all in a day's work.
The unidentified white blob in the mirror in the camp lavatory OTOH.... Terrifying because unidentifiable. The thing that always gets me in southern gothics are the unspeakable secrets, unknown and terrible and half-buried, whose rotting stink poisons the book's atmosphere. You could have that here too if you wanted, but Priest doesn't want. Her Eden is a perfect Ritsu. So far, because I'm wondering where the tension in the book is supposed to come from if neither crazy cousins nor dead great aunts hold any terors for her.
