Spike? It's you. It's really you! My therapist thought I was holding on to false hope, but…I knew you'd come back. You're like…you're like Gandalf the White, resurrected from the pit of the Balrog, more beautiful than ever. Oh…he's alive Frodo. He's alive.

Andrew ,'Damage'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


vw bug - May 09, 2007 10:44:51 am PDT #2652 of 28176
Mostly lurking...

but I have some vague sense that she was not merely humiliated, but possibly also humbled.

Yeah, I do get that now. He pointed out something that I "missed" at the end...that she sees Pointer "walk across water." Actually, that's not exactly how it's phrased ("she saw his blue figure struggling successfully over the green speckled lake."), but that's the picture. So, yeah, I think that's true.

I just saw it as her going in to trick him, then because she was so focused on the trickery, she got tricked herself. Maybe I need to re-read.


erikaj - May 09, 2007 10:51:55 am PDT #2653 of 28176
Always Anti-fascist!

Maybe I over-identified with Joy-Hulga in college...it's hard not to, if you're me, even down to the hovering relatives saying "Honey, if you'd just *smile* more." Because I thought I had a good grip on the analysis of that story, but the things Hecubus posted...I'm not sure I remember it that way, but I'm not sure if I have a real dispute with his views or if my analytic impulse got flooded under my thrill of "OMG...She Knows What It's Like." I should read it again, now that I'm(snicker) older and wiser. Maybe I should "modernize" that one someday...make Hulga a babygoth that wears a button that says "Don't Tell Me What Kind of Day To Have!"


vw bug - May 09, 2007 11:08:18 am PDT #2654 of 28176
Mostly lurking...

"OMG...She Knows What It's Like."

No doubt!

Maybe I should "modernize" that one someday...make Hulga a babygoth that wears a button that says "Don't Tell Me What Kind of Day To Have!"

Oh, that could be fun!


Atropa - May 18, 2007 11:06:12 am PDT #2655 of 28176
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

I'm currently reading World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, and I have to say that it is one of the most believable speculative fiction/future history books I have ever read. I'm about half-way through, and the book hasn't hit a false note yet.

I didn't think I was creeped out by anything in it; I didn't feel uneasy or wary while reading it last night. But as I was trying to fall asleep, I kept thinking about scenes from the book, and then would try and figure out how secure our place would be during a zombie uprising. (The answer was not very comforting, let me tell you.)


Jessica - May 18, 2007 11:09:02 am PDT #2656 of 28176
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset

Jilli, thanks for reminding me about that book! I meant to pick it up a while ago, but it slipped my mind.

Do you know if it's related to Zombie World News, or just a similar concept?


Atropa - May 18, 2007 11:14:59 am PDT #2657 of 28176
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

Do you know if it's related to Zombie World News, or just a similar concept?

I don't think WWZ is related to ZWN. But wow, I need to take more of a look around ZWN. Very cool!


amych - May 18, 2007 11:30:31 am PDT #2658 of 28176
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

But wow, I need to take more of a look around ZWN. Very cool!

Yes, this -- it's fabulous! I love consensual realities...

Re WWZ, I was just talking the other day with a historian friend about just how perfectly it works as an oral history.


Atropa - May 18, 2007 11:33:29 am PDT #2659 of 28176
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.

Re WWZ, I was just talking the other day with a historian friend about just how perfectly it works as an oral history.

Apparently the audio book is fantastic; there are different people for each report/history, so it really does come across as an oral history record. I'm probably going to get it to go along with the novel.


§ ita § - May 18, 2007 11:33:50 am PDT #2660 of 28176
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

There are 45 people in the LAPL area who've put a hold on the district's 20 copies of that book.

Darn.


amych - May 18, 2007 11:39:03 am PDT #2661 of 28176
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

Apparently the audio book is fantastic

I've heard that too. I normally don't like audiobooks, but the voices are such a big part of the book that if they got them right (and when Mel Brooks is your dad, you can make a few calls to good actors...), I can see it really adding something to the experience that just having a book read aloud doesn't usually do for me.