Pop Culture Nerd – Page 31 – Pop Culture Nerd

First Impressions 5.18.12

I had a hard time this week finding three really strong openers, even in the books I enjoyed. These were among the better ones (I haven’t read any of them).

Guilt by Degrees by Marcia Clark, Mulholland Books, available now

He listened as the car pulled out of the driveway. When the sound of the engine faded into the distance, Zack looked at his watch: 9:36 a.m. Perfect. Three solid hours of “me” time. He eagerly trotted down the thinly carpeted stairs to the basement, the heavy thud of his work boots echoing through the empty house. Clutched in his hand was the magazine photograph of the canopy he intended to make. It would probably cost a small fortune at one of those fancy designer stores, but the copy he’d make would be just as good, if not better—and for less than a tenth of the price. A smile curled on Zack’s lips as he enjoyed the mental image of Lilah’s naked body framed by gauzy curtains hanging from the canopy, wafting seductively around the bed. He inhaled, imagining her perfume as he savored the fantasy.

Dead Scared by S.J. Bolton, Minotaur, out June 5

Prologue

Tuesday 22 January (a few minutes before midnight)

When a large object falls from a great height, the speed at which it travels accelerates until the upward force of air resistance becomes equal to the downward propulsion of gravity. At that point, whatever is falling reaches what is known as terminal velocity, a constant speed that will be maintained until it encounters a more powerful force, most commonly the ground.

Suzy’s Case by Andy Siegel, Scribner, out July 10

Little Suzy is lying in a Brooklyn hospital bed fevered and weakened. If her temperature were heating a pot you’d hear the high-pitched tone of a whistling teakettle. That’s why her six-year-old frame is on top of the dingy white sheets and not under them.

If her lungs were a train engine you’d hear puff, puff…chug, chug with the internal dialogue of her autonomic nervous system repeating, I think I can…I think I can.

Any of these grab you? Can the Suzy’s Case cover BE any creepier? It makes my skin crawl, but it’s also rather clever. In a creepy way.

Happy Friday!

5 Comments

All Holmes, All the Time

As many of you know, I’m a bit of a Holmesian nut, so I thought I’d point out a few upcoming Sherlock Holmes-related things.

CBS announced last Sunday that it had picked up the pilot Elementary, about a modern-day Holmes and Watson in New York City. It stars Jonny Lee Miller as the famous detective and Lucy Liu as his partner, Joan Watson. Below is a first look at the show.

Miller is a decent actor (I enjoyed him on Eli Stone), but I can’t help hearing Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice (Cumberbatch plays Holmes in the current hit BBC version) spouting some of the lines in this clip. The difference is that Cumberbatch’s detective is much more gleeful when he gets to show others how brilliant he is. Solving crimes is entertainment to him and he loves having an audience. Miller’s version seems to be more serious, having just come out of rehab.

Over on Criminal Element, author Lyndsay Faye has a post about what CBS needs to do with this show to keep fans happy. She knows what she’s talking about because she’s not only an expert on the canon, she has seen the pilot.

This Sunday is the final episode in season 2 of BBC’s Sherlock. It’s titled “The Reichenbach Fall,” which should give you an idea of what happens if you’re familiar with the stories. If not, the only thing you need to know is that this series is exceptional and possibly even makes you smarter after watching it. Check your local PBS listings.

On May 22, as my friend Debbie D. informed me (thanks, Deb!), the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is hosting an event called “Some Favorite Writers: An Evening with Sherlock Holmes and Friends,” featuring Holmes scholar Leslie Klinger, writer/director Nicholas Meyer, crime novelist Denise Hamilton, and real-life P.I. Sarah Alcorn. More information here if you’re in the area and would like to attend the free program.

What do you think of the Elementary clip? Will you watch? Are you excited, or slightly distrustful like Faye?

6 Comments

Book Review: OVERSEAS by Beatriz Williams

After four disappointing crime fic novels in a row, I decided I needed a change of pace, and was happy to fall into Overseas, an engrossing fairy tale by debut author Beatriz Williams.

Twenty-five-year-old investment banker Kate meets billionaire hedge fund manager Julian Laurence when he attends a meeting where she works on Wall Street. The two have an instant connection and embark on a tenuous friendship, but he suddenly disappears from her life, saying it’s not appropriate for them to continue. He surfaces several months later, and soon Julian and Kate are inseparable, deeply in love.

But Julian becomes overprotective, hinting at a danger that threatens their happiness. As the darkness approaches, Kate realizes she’ll have to take extreme measures to save his life, if not her own.

This novel is a time-traveling fantasy, with a prince doing dashing things for his princess. Julian is a powerful billionaire, a gentleman, poet, and hero, so he can pretty much give Kate anything: his heart, devotion, jewelry, use of a private jet, etc. It’s all very seductive, though Kate keeps saying she doesn’t want the material things. She won’t take his money, doesn’t want to be a kept woman, is determined to make her own way in the world, etc.

The problem is, after a major career setback at the beginning of the book, she doesn’t do anything toward that goal. She frets about not “paying my own way,” but she never even looks for a job. She becomes a damsel who’s entirely reliant on her man for most of the story.

It seems that Julian, when he meets her at different moments in time, is always immediately drawn to her simply because she’s beautiful and “not like other women.” As Kate points out, “You came out of the blue, my missing half. In love with me.” She also says, “And now I suddenly have this perfect life, and I didn’t have to do anything. I didn’t earn you.”

And that’s how I felt, too—the relationship wasn’t earned. Sure, attraction can happen instantaneously, but true love takes time and requires both people to know the complexities and depths of the other. Kate asks Julian, “I’m nice enough, aren’t I?” and the answer is yes, but to have this larger-than-life man be instantly, completely smitten with her—“over time” and “over distance,” as the cover says—her niceness and good looks don’t seem enough. She should match him in magnificence.

Julian’s vocal fervor toward Kate, while swoon-inducing at first, was too much for me, but I don’t read romance (though I loved Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife). He constantly tells her how utterly devoted he is to her, how he’d be “a mere soulless husk of a chap” without her. After many, many declarations like that, they started to lose their value as I became immune to them. When language contains that much ardor—and I did enjoy the old-fashioned way Julian talks—a little goes a long way. (In fiction, anyway; in real life, express your love freely!)

These issues aside, I liked the book quite a bit, and stayed up until four a.m. three nights in a row to finish it. Williams’s prose flows easily and she keeps the action moving forward. Overseas transported me to a glamorous life in New York City, a northern French town during World War I, and…well, another dreamy place at the end of the novel. It’s escapist and romantic and grand and that is nice enough.

Nerd verdict: Appealing Overseas

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

2 Comments

Stalker Awards Nominations 2012

Since May is Mystery Month, it’s time for the second annual Stalker Awards! I created these last year so that crime fiction readers at large can nominate and vote for their favorite novels and authors without having to be on special panels or belong to certain organizations. They’re like People’s Choice Awards except none will be given to Robert Pattinson or Justin Bieber. (See last year’s winners here.)

The kind of rabid fandom those actors experience, though, is encouraged, because there can never be too much fainting around writers. The only requirement for you to nominate and vote is that you’re passionate about crime fiction. These are called Stalker Awards because they’ll be given to books you’re obsessed about and the authors who write them. They’re not called It-Was-Kinda-Interesting Awards.

How it’ll work: I’ll take nominations until 9 p.m. PST, Thursday, May 24, via the form below. Nominees must have been originally published in 2011. Please nominate THREE in each category, with #1 being your favorite, #2 your second favorite, and so on. This is to reduce the chances of a tie. If 50 respondents place 50 different titles in their #1 slot for favorite novel, for example, I’ll look to see which titles also show up as #2 and #3 on people’s lists to determine the highest vote getters.

You don’t have to fill out all categories but if some are tough for you, perhaps you can discuss ideas with fellow genre fans. I hope the process will help you revisit the outstanding crime fiction you read last year or discover books and authors you overlooked. Any questions, leave them in the comments.

I’ll announce the nominees on or around Tuesday, May 29, at which time you can vote on them and winners will be revealed first week in June. Spread the word, get your friends to participate, and let the stalking begin!

*Submissions are closed. See the nominees here.*

8 Comments

First Impressions 5.11.12

Time for another sampling of opening passages from the books in my TBR pile, a regular Friday feature here at PCN. As some of you know, I go straight to the first page of the ARCs I receive before reading any accompanying press materials because the book itself needs to draw me in. If it’s a long description of weather or scenery, I’m usually done with it before I even start.

Here are this week’s openers for your perusal:

Heart of a Killer by David Rosenfelt, Minotaur, out now

Prologue

Detective John Novack knew something was wrong even before he stepped in the blood. Though he was a fourteen-year veteran of the force, in this instance his sense of foreboding did not come from an instinct finely honed by experience, nor was it a result of piecing clues together. The voice on the 911 call, as played back to him while he drove to the scene, had said it all.

“I killed Charlie Harrison.”

The Little Red Guard by Wenguang Huang, Riverhead, out now

At the age of nine, I slept next to a coffin that Father had made for Grandma’s seventy-third birthday. He forbade us from calling it a “coffin” and insisted that we refer to it as shou mu, which means something like “longevity wood.” To me, it seemed a strange name for the box in which we’d bury Grandma, but it served a practical purpose. It was less spooky to share my room with a “longevity wood” than with a big black coffin.

The 500 by Matthew Quirk, Reagan Arthur Books, out June 5

Prologue

Miroslav and Aleksandar filled the front seats of the Range Rover across the street. They wore their customary diplomatic uniforms—dark Brionis tailored close—but the two Serbs looked angrier than usual. Aleksandar lifted his right hand high enough to flash me a glint of his Sig Sauer. A master of subtlety, that Alex. I wasn’t particularly worried about the two bruisers sitting up front, however. The worst thing they could do was kill me, and right now that looked like one of my better options.

Which one(s) struck your fancy? Where do you think these books go from here?

Happy Friday and happy reading!

14 Comments

Book Review: BLACKBIRDS by Chuck Wendig

This originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers, and is republished here with permission.

Miriam Black, the protagonist of Blackbirds, has the Dead Zone-ish ability to see a person’s future when she touches him or her, but Chuck Wendig takes it one step further by having her foresee only how and when the person dies. She becomes a grifter, paying visits to people she knows will kick the bucket and then taking their money so she can pay for food and shelter until her next target dies. Things get complicated when she runs into Ashley, a punk who wants in on her game, and meets Louis, a kindhearted truck driver whom she sees murdered in the near future while he utters her name. Does she somehow bring about his murder? And how can she stop it when the last time she tried preventing one of her visions, she ended up causing the death?

Wendig’s dark and twisty adventure is filled with misfit characters who defy easy stereotypes. Miriam is self-destructive, but she’s doing the best she can to survive the difficult hand life has dealt her. Louis, big as Frankenstein, shows Miriam more sweetness than she’s ever experienced. Stone-cold killer Harriet has a scene that makes readers understand her first kill; her story is even funny the first time it’s told.

Wendig inserts surprising moments of humanity among all the profanity. There’s a tale of a little boy and his balloon that should crack readers’ hearts. And despite fate being hell-bent on keeping her down, Miriam’s stubborn struggle to change it makes Blackbirds take flight.

Nerd verdict: Black, twisty tale with as much humanity as profanity

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy from an indie bookstore

4 Comments

Fashion Roundup: The Met Gala 2012

On Monday night, some of the biggest stars in Hollywood and the fashion world attended the annual Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute gala in their fanciest duds. Some of the outfits were duds in another sense of the word, but there were also beautiful, edgy gowns on display. Check out my slide show below for a few highlights, then let me know what you think in the comments!

[cincopa AsOAq4qH3caS]

4 Comments

First Impressions 5.4.12

May the Fourth be with you! You know I had to get that out of the way.

Now, for this week’s First Impressions, let’s add something new. After reading the following opening passages, leave a comment saying which ones would compel you to read more, but also guess where you think the stories are headed. I love seeing people’s different interpretations, and how we pick up on different details. I don’t have any idea what the real plots are because I’ve read only these openers, so we’re all in this game together.

Here goes:

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, Hyperion, out May 15

I AM A COWARD.

I wanted to be heroic and I pretended I was. I have always been good at pretending. I spent the first twelve years of my life playing at the Battle of Stirling Bridge with my five big brothers—and even though I am a girl they let me be William Wallace, who is supposed to be one of our ancestors, because I did the most rousing battle speeches. God, I tried hard last week. My God, I tried. But now I know I am a coward. After the ridiculous deal I made with SS-Hauptsturmführer von Loewe, I know I am a coward. And I’m going to give you anything you ask, everything I can remember. Absolutely Every Last Detail.

The Demands by Mark Billingham, Mulholland Books, June 12

Chewing gum and chocolate, maybe a bottle of water on those hen’s teeth days when the sun was shining. A paper for the journey into work and half a minute of meaningless chat while she was waiting for her change.

Nothing there worth dying for.

Helen Weeks would tell herself much the same thing many times before it was over. In the hours spent staring at the small black hole from which death could emerge in less time than it took for her heart to beat. Or stop beating. In those slow-motion moments of terror that measured out each day and in the sleepless nights that followed. While the man who might kill her at any moment was shouting at himself just a few feet away, or crying in the next room.

It is not my time to die.

Or my baby’s time to lose his mother…

The Kings of Cool by Don Winslow, Simon & Schuster, June 19

[The numbers denote chapters.]

1.

Fuck me.

2. Laguna Beach, California

2005

Is what O is thinking as she sits between Chon and Ben on a bench at Main Beach and picks out potential mates for them.

“That one?” she asks, pointing at a classic BB (Basically Baywatch) strolling down the boardwalk.

Chon shakes his head.

A little dismissively, O thinks. Chon is pretty choosy for a guy who spends most of his time in Afghanistan or Iraq and doesn’t see much in the way of anything outside cammies or a burqa.

Actually, she can see how the burqa thing could be pretty hot if you played it right.

Did, you know, the harem thing.

Yeah, no.

OK, have at ’em!

6 Comments

Movie Review: THE AVENGERS

My greatest concern about having so many superheroes crammed into one movie was that it’d be a disjointed mess, but Joss Whedon has managed to justify—for the most part—each character’s presence in The Avengers, and create a reasonably coherent summer blockbuster.

I’m not sure how important the plot is to you with this type of big action movie, but it involves Thor’s brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), being hellbent on ruling Earth and stripping earthlings of free will. He’s helped by a powerful energy cube called the Tesseract—also seen in last year’s Captain America: The First Avenger—and the alien race called Chitauri. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), agent of S.H.I.E.L.D, manages to convince Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and eventually Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to band together as The Avengers to fight the evil invasion. Much action ensues, with lots of special effects, especially if you see it in 3D.

One of the best things the movie has going for it is Whedon’s trademark witty dialogue, with Downey Jr. getting the bulk of the funny lines, even though after a while, he does start to sound one-note with his endless snarky remarks. Ruffalo is my favorite movie Bruce Banner/Hulk yet. His soft-spoken manner contrasts nicely with his giant green angry guy, who has some funny scenes when he just won’t take any more bullsh*t. And thanks to motion capture technology, Ruffalo actually got to play the Hulk, who resembles the actor in facial expressions and hair.

Johansson has one badass fighting scene (you’ve probably seen it in one of the trailers) and is quite effective despite being the most petite team member with no actual superpowers or fancy costume. Hawkeye doesn’t get to do much, but Whedon does take him in an unexpected direction for the first half of the movie.

At two and a half hours, Avengers takes a little long to build up to the climactic battle, with a few pissing contests between the dudes before they agree to come together. And the finale looks a little like something from a Transformers movie, but these superheroes are a lot more interesting than robots, and with Whedon as their leader, they manage to save people’s brain cells from exploding by delivering an entertaining popcorn movie that doesn’t make you feel stupid.

Nerd verdict: Entertaining Avengers

6 Comments

Inside Classic Films

Late last night, Deadline.com reported that Warner Bros. Digital Publishing will be releasing a series of eBooks that contain shooting scripts for classic films, with loads of extra content about each movie. The four announced titles are North by Northwest, Casablanca, Ben-Hur, and An American in Paris.

The extras on N by NW include the storyboards for that famous crop-duster scene, Hitchcock’s notes, costume sketches, and post-production memos. The Ben-Hur tome has excerpts from the journal Charlton Heston kept while shooting, makeup and wardrobe tests, and patent designs for MGM’s new widescreen camera. The Casablanca book details the origins of some of the film’s most famous lines, and contains memos from studio president Jack Warner. An American in Paris takes a look at the paintings that inspired the film’s dream ballet sequence and includes lyrics for the musical numbers. They all contain galleries of behind-the-scenes photos and glossaries of film terms.

The books are available for Kindle, Nook, and iBooks. (I’ve linked to the various booksellers above; click on “the editors of Warner Bros. Digital Publishing” to access the other titles from the same bookseller.) I’m aware this is beginning to sound like an infomercial, but no, I’m not getting paid to write this—I never get paid to write anything here—and am only an Amazon affiliate, meaning they’ll give me about thirty cents if you buy it from there.

I’m just excited about these books because they’re treasure troves for movie fans like me. I studied film in college but didn’t have access to this kind of behind-the-scenes information. I can’t wait to see what other titles will get the same treatment.

Are you as excited about these books as I am? Which titles would you like to see Warner Bros. release?

11 Comments

First Impressions 4.27.12

Another Friday, another sampler of opening passages from books in my TBR pile to see which ones grab your attention right away.

For your perusal this week:

Long Gone by Alafair Burke, Harper, out June 19

Second Acts: Confessions of a Former Victim and Current Survivor

“3:14 IN THE MORNING”

It has been twenty years, but at three-fourteen this morning I screamed in my sleep. I probably would not have known I had screamed were it not for the nudge from my husband—my patient, sleep-starved husband, who suspects but can never really know the reasons for his wife’s night terrors, because his wife has never truly explained them.

I could see the uncertainty coloring his face this morning as he sipped his coffee, already going cold, while I poured a fresh cup for myself at the counter, carrying the carafe to the breakfast table to top off his cup. Not uncertainty about my reasons for screaming—that was ever-present—but uncertainty about whether even to raise the subject. Should I ask her? Are some subjects better left in the subconscious?

The Nightmare by Lars Kepler (translated by Laura A. Wideburg), Sarah Crichton Books, July 3

In the light of the long June night, on becalmed waters, a large pleasure craft is discovered adrift on Jungfrufjärden Bay in the southern Stockholm archipelago. The water, a sleepy blue-gray in color, moves as softly as the fog. The old man rowing in his wooden skiff calls out a few times, even though he’s starting to suspect no one is going to answer. He’s been watching the yacht from shore for almost an hour, as it’s been drifting backward, pushed by the lazy current away from land.

The man guides his boat until it bumps against the larger craft. Pulling in his oars and tying up to the swimming platform, he climbs the metal ladder and over the railing. There’s nothing to see on the afterdeck except for a pink recliner. The old man stands still and listens. Hearing nothing, he opens the glass door and steps down into the salon.

Criminal by Karin Slaughter, Delacorte, July 10

August 15, 1974

Lucy Bennett

A cinnamon brown Oldsmobile Cutlass crawled up Edgewood Avenue, the windows lowered, the driver hunched down in his seat. The lights from the console showed narrow, beady eyes tracing along the line of girls standing under the street sign. Jane. Mary. Lydia. The car stopped. Predictably, the man tilted up his chin toward Kitty. She trotted over, adjusting her miniskirt as she navigated her spiked heels across the uneven asphalt. Two weeks ago, when Juice had first brought Kitty onto the corner, she’d told the other girls she was sixteen, which probably meant fifteen, though she looked no older than twelve.

They had all hated her on sight.

Which opener(s) just made you add the book(s) to your TBR pile? (To see past samplers, click here and here.)

10 Comments

Book Review: LET’S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED by Jenny Lawson

If you walk through the memoir section in bookstores, chances are you’ll find books by people who have no business writing a memoir, such as a twentysomething reality-show star whose biggest life struggle so far is being dumped by a vapid boy.

Jenny Lawson, also known as The Bloggess, is the opposite of that. She’s experienced enough wackiness in her thirty-eight years to fill Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) with hilarious stories, and might even have some left over for a few more tomes.

Lawson’s book tracks her childhood in rural Texas, having pet raccoons and a taxidermist father who likes roadkill and armadillo racing; through meeting her husband Victor and working in HR for fifteen years; to having her daughter Hailey and finding female friends for the first time after she starts blogging.

If you’re a fan of Lawson’s blog, you don’t need to read any further because you’ve probably rushed out and bought the book already. If you’ve never read Lawson’s writing, be ready to laugh out loud at outrageous stories that seem almost too wacky to believe—her dog getting her stabbed by chicken, her dad throwing live bobcats on Victor at their first meeting—until she shows you photos. She has a singular way of viewing the world, and such an engaging way of drawing readers into her world, that you, too, might start mentioning vampire cougars and the zombie apocalypse in casual conversations with friends after reading this.

Lawson can be digressive in her storytelling, venturing down tangents that take you far from the starting point, but her detours are entertaining and she eventually comes back to her point. The fact she has a point is a plus (she can even find a lesson in being mauled by dogs), because I’ve read memoirs with anecdotes that go nowhere and have no discernible purpose. She does overuse the word “vagina,” which makes it lose its humor and shock value after a while, and don’t we want to preserve the value of “vagina”?

But it’s not all witticisms and irreverence. Lawson takes you into some dark corners, too—her miscarriages, panic attacks, the devastating pain from rheumatoid arthritis. It’s impressive how she manages to face life with her sense of humor intact. The title aside, she seems to embrace everything that’s happened to her, knowing it has made her who she is. She may be self-deprecating and call herself mentally unstable, but to her fans, she’s an inspiration.

Nerd verdict: Pretend is the real deal—hilarious and full of heart

Buy it now from Amazon| Buy it from an indie bookstore

5 Comments

Older Posts

Newer Posts