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100 Books in 2011: Definitely Dead

Dec25
The sixth in the Sookie Stackhouse series, Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris, is a bit of a return to form.

Sookie is left an inheritance by her cousin Hadley, former ghoul of the Queen of Louisiana. She has to go to New Orleans to collect.

At the same time, Eric Northman wants her to go to the Queen’s wedding to use her telepathic powers for him. She’s dating the were-tiger Quinn and they are attacked by werewolves.

So, there’s quite a bit of plot here, which has been lacking in the last couple of Sookie stories. The Queen’s marriage is a political one and her fiance is looking for an excuse to kill her. Such an excuse might be provided if a jewellery gift if missing – and the Queen asks Sookie to find it for her. Hadley stole it in a fit of pique and it’s hidden amongst her belongings. Meanwhile the werewolf attacks turn out to be the revenge of relatives of Debbie Pelt, killed by Sookie in a previous book. It was nice to have some action going on and Definitely Dead is a return to the style of the first two books.

The sexual tension between Sookie and Quinn is pretty hot, which I liked. The relationships between Sookie and the other characters has developed a bit and they were more real. In previous books the supporting characters have been a bit flat, with Sookie the only one with real personality. This has been addressed a little and so the book was a bit more satisfying.

100 Books in 2011 review: Dead as a Doornail

Mar13
Dead as a Doornail is the fifth in Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series. In honour of the fact that there’s a review for each one on this blog I’ve created a new category just for these. (Having just done that, it appears I missed one. There’s no review for Dead to the World, which I’m sure I read, but I don’t keep books so can’t go back to it. Annoying.)

Anyway, moving on. When I started reading the Sookie Stackhouse series it was because I was really enjoying True Blood and I was curious to see how the TV series would be different to the book. With season 2, True Blood diverged quite a bit so it was not really possible to compare it with Living Dead in Dallas. There is one point that is still worth picking up.

That point is about character. Almost all of the supporting characters have greater depth in True Blood. I said that I thought this was a combination of first person POV in the books and the greater space for character development in the TV series. By book five, I’m beginning to wonder if that’s really what’s going on. The characters that have been in the books from the beginning are still quite thin, with the exception of Eric who is more real. It was notable in this book that the characters that are here for just this story are a name, a brief physical description and a tic or two. While the writing is noticeably more competent than it was in the first book, characterisation isn’t much better. Having read lots of first person POV books in the last couple of years (and having been paying attention to the writing) I don’t think that this POV necessarily leads to poor characterisation. Some writers manage to do it well.

What really rankled was the poverty of female characters. There was a lot about Sookie that made her a great female character to start with and I felt that some of this is becoming lost. Tara is Sookie’s best friend but she has barely any impact on the story. In this novel, it felt like she was only there as a plot device. The best friend relationship is never established except for Sookie telling us this. The two of them don’t seem to spend time together and Tara is not who Sookie goes to for emotional support. She is certainly not the intriguing, complex character that she is in True Blood. The same is true for Arlene. In Dead as a Doornail, Sookie is surrounded by various supernatural men who are desperate to get with her. They are literally lining up. Which basically makes this a book about a hot chick who has all the dudes after her and no meaningful relationships with anyone. Disappointing. And much less feminist than it was because it reduces Sookie to an object to be possessed.

Sookie’s feminist credentials also slip in terms of the plot of Dead as a Doornail. In Dead until Dark, Sookie investigates, takes action, and eventually saves herself and I loved that. In Dead as a Doornail, stuff is done to Sookie, she’s manipulated into participating into things, and other people save her. The plot is that someone is shooting shifters and her brother is implicated. Or at least, it says he is on the back of the book but I didn’t feel that came across particularly well. In fact, the culprit is a minor character who appears to have the red shirt role. At the end, I felt a bit cheated by the resolution of the plot.

In spite of these major problems, I did still enjoy Dead as a Doornail. It’s an easy read and not very long. It’s fun and undemanding.

Thoughts on reading: Club Dead

Jun17

The Book People come to where I work and sometimes you can gets lots of books for little money. The last time they had eight Sookie Stackhouse novels for a tenner. Even taking off the two I’ve already bought, it was still a bargain, so here I am, reading more pulp fiction.

Club Dead by Charlaine Harris is the third in the series. Like the others there is something compelling about it but I can’t put my finger on what. The writing is ok; it’s not great but worse gets published.

Sookie’s overwhelming attraction for the supernatural men around her is tiresome. She’s so special and different (undefinably, because it’s not about her telepathy for all them) that they just have to have her. Of course she says regular men find her unattractive but there aren’t actually any in the books. In Club Dead, Sookie is angry with Bill for cheating on her, but she doesn’t know that for sure, and she goes off to rescue him anyway. Along the way, she smooches with Eric and a werewolf without managing to pick up any understanding for Bill. Reversing the double standard doesn’t make it better.

I don’t think I can even read it as sex positive, because Sookie doesn’t have agency. She is at the mercy of passion, swept along by the force of male desire, unable to help herself. And that’s why it’s not sex positive. Sookie isn’t having these encounters because she is choosing them, she’s having them because she is unable to resist. Which just reinforces negative stereotypes about women and sex.

Of course, for all its many faults, it is a great story that is an easy read. And there is no doubt I will read the rest, probably soon. I’m not sure why I like them, and I feel slightly soiled, but I do like them. Can anyone explain it to me?

Non-fiction titles I’ve been reading are The Gods of the Celts by Miranda Green and Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body by Susan Bordo. Gods of the Celts was really interesting, if a little dry. The evidence is largely archaeological and the Celts didn’t leave behind any written explanation of their own, so inferences must be carefully done. It was fascinating and represented a take on religion that is different to the current dominant paradigm. Unbearable Weight was awesome. It is a collection of Bordo’s essays on feminism and the cultural aspects of eating disorders. Highly recommended and for a serious academic work, very accessible.

Living Dead in Dallas

Apr27

I was going to leave Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris, the second Sookie Stackhouse novel, until True Blood Season 2 was on but I forgot until I was actually reading it. No matter, from what I’ve read about season 2 I think True Blood is going in a different direction.

Which is good because Living Dead in Dallas starts with the death of Lafayette and it would be terrible if True Blood lost that character.

Anyway, on to the book. It was as readable as the first book and I actually thought the writing showed improvement. On the other hand, I didn’t think the voice of Sookie Stackhouse was as strong as it had been in Dead until Dark. It is still in first person POV and the supporting cast still has a cardboard cut out feel.

Sookie’s relationships with the vampires Bill and Eric are deeply problematic. The trope of male desire being dangerous and uncontrollable is front and centre. Indeed it is male desire that kills Lafayette. Sookie spends a lot of time thinking about how her appearance affects the men around her and what they like to see her in. The feminism that was evident in Dead until Dark has been dropped for this second book.

It was ok. Better than the first one in some respects, not as good in others. I’m looking forward to True Blood in the summer.

Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton is about principled negotiation. It’s about applying fairness and ethics in negotiations, gives advice about how to deal with aggressive negotiation and is full of handy examples. It’s an old book and has been quite influential, so while reading it, I had a sense of having heard it all before. There’s no harm in repetition with these things though and the Q&A section at the back was very useful in illustrating application. Highly recommended.

True Blood Season 1 vs. Dead until Dark

Dec28

A few posts ago I promised a comparison of the first series of True Blood and the first novel of Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse series, Dead until Dark. The UK airing of True Blood has now finished and I thought I’d better get on with it before I forgot entirely.

The purpose of the comparison is, as with any of my reviews, to look at the elements of writing and how they were handled differently in each case. It is not to make a value judgement about the content. Disclaimer over, let’s do it.

It’s interesting to compare a single short novel with a TV series of 12 episodes. There is a lot more space for character development of minor characters and world building. Plus, the first tv series benefitted from several of the books in the series already being written. If anyone has read the later books, perhaps they can comment on whether developments in the novels were taken advantage of?

POV. Dead until Dark is written in first person, from the point of view of Sookie Stackhouse. True Blood has other povs. In this case I think it is good to have some insight into Bill’s story – what’s happening to him away from Sookie. This wasn’t covered in the novel and while that didn’t detract from the novel, it definitely added to the series. However, it appears that Bill didn’t become a vampire official (I want to say sheriff, but I’m not sure that’s right) in True Blood.

The additional pov characters also helped deliver deeper, more solid characters for True Blood. This is particularly true for Jason Stackhouse who is really quite flimsy in the book. His relationship to his sister seems to be kept the same but because we can see what’s going on in his life that Sookie is not party to, he becomes a more sympathetic character.

There are several additional and enhanced characters in the TV series. Tara, who is my favourite, is completely absent from the book. (I don’t know whether she appears in later books??) Lafayette, who I also like very much, is barely mentioned in the book and gets a fully developed role in the series. This is very much an improvement and gives the series a vehicle to explore social themes notably absent from the novel. Note to self: this highlights the limitations of first person pov in certain types of story. Also, I really hope that’s not Lafayette’s body in the back of Andy Bellefleur’s car at the end of True Blood.

Sadly, my hopes that the reveal of the killer would be more effectively foreshadowed in True Blood have been dashed. Episode 11 has a couple of clues and there was one clue a little earlier on, so it’s not come totally out of the blue as it did in the book. What I want from a whodunnit is to not be able to guess who the villain is, but to know that I could have worked it out when I’m given the answer. That really didn’t happen in Dead until Dark; Sookie was being chased through the woods and I was all ‘Rene? Really?’ However, the lead up to Rene’s attempt on Sookie’s life was much better handled in the TV series.

I loved that Sookie got the kill. This happened in both the book and the tv series. Throughout both, Sookie is presented as a strong woman who can look after herself. In the last episode of True Blood both Sam and Bill try to come to her rescue and fail epically. Brilliant. Sookie Stackhouse, most unlikely feminist icon.

What the novel did better than the series though, was to put Bill, Jason and Sam much more convincingly in the frame for the murders. There was a point about three-quarters of the way through the book where I was thinking it really could turn out to be Sam. Bill and Jason were both serious contenders up until half way through. In True Blood, there was never any real suggestion that either Bill or Sam could have been the culprit. Andy Bellefleur’s character/role was the only one that was downgraded for the series and I think that was a shame. His probing at Sam in particular never seemed very convincing.

Jason was clearly implicated at the beginning of the series but it never really came to anything. I do think that this was because he got to be a pov character and the trade off for his character development meant that he couldn’t be convincingly implicated. I think it was worth it. Jason is far more entertaining in True Blood.

I feel I should say that I couldn’t put Dead until Dark down. Whatever its many limitations, it was a compelling plot. And a worthwhile read; throughout I found myself thinking about how I would rewrite scenes to release their potential. Good for my development as a writer but there was always a sense of unrealised potential. I’m delighted that it was brought out so well in the tv series.

So, I can’t wait for True Blood Season 2 in 2010 and in the meantime I’ll slake my thirst with a couple more of the books.