The Duplicate by Helen Fitzgerald
The Duplicate by Helen Fitzgerald was the last of my holiday reads and quite literally I read it in the Airport and on the flight home. It’s only a short story so it fitted in perfectly.
The story is split into two parts, firstly following Barbara, a young misfit orphan. Barbara lives with her rather eccentric, mad scientist type uncle in a large mansion. She assists him with his experiments on cloning. As we start the story Barbara is in the middle of her presentation for the school’s science project. To say her little experiment doesn’t go down to well is something of an understatement and the whole event only pushes Barbara further into the realms of oddity in the eyes of the other students.
As I started this book I wasn’t really sure what to expect. The first part of the story is told by Barbara. It starts off with her explaining how she intends to marry the object of her school girl crush. Barbara has very little experience, no friends and from the sounds of it almost borders on autistic. Reading her thoughts starts off fairly amusing if sometimes a little cringe-making. Barbara has bought a self help book and is quite literally taking the advice in there as gospel with more often than not quite disastrous results. The tension begins to build as the story unfolds and you are left with the horrible knowledge that something disastrous and life changing is about to happen for the ever unsuspecting and gullible Barbara.
This leads us to part two of the story. Told by Barbara’s daughter Rowena (who is in fact Barbara No.2). This makes for interesting reading – how will Rowena turn out after all? Will she be like her mother? Follow in her footsteps and make the same mistakes. Rowena, in fact, is only like her mother in looks. Her nature is different. She is care free and friendly and her easy going nature makes it easy for her to make friends. She has a good life style and seems to have enjoyed all the activities and privileges that her mother missed out on. And yet, something is happening. Her mother is acting odd (even for her) and events are about to take a turn for the worse.
I don’t really want to give anything further away with this because it would be very easy to just spoil the story for others. Like I said, it’s a short book, it’s very easy to read. The author has managed to capture the teenage voices of both Barbara and Rowena very well and to make them sound like individuals.
The book took me through a number of stages starting with humour, cringing embarrassment tinged with a little bit of horror through to relief (as a new episode seemed to start) back through to niggling doubt, horror and tension!
It was good and I really enjoyed it. Tinges of Frankenstein mixed with schoolgirl mean girls, coming of age and obsession and the dark road it can take you down.
This wasn’t the book I was originally going to purchase by Helen Fitzgerald, I was intending to pick up The Devil’s Staircase but I had to buy a book for kindle and the other book wasn’t available so I bought this one and I’m really pleased that I did. I will definitely read more of this author’s work. This was a YA book but there are a number of other stories not aimed at YA to choose from. So plenty to look forward to.
This book is classed as both sci-fi and horror and as such will be suitable to add to my RIP reading list. Check out the details here.
Prometheus
So, watched Prometheus and frankly didn’t enjoy it. Now, my hubby didn’t mind it and perhaps if you want a bit of sci-fi (but I do mean a bit) mingled with a bit of horror and a lot of special effects then this could be for you – did I just dis my hubby? Well, not really, you know we’re not joined at the hip after all and I might like the occasional soppy movie but he never does – so there you go!! Normality restored.
Back to Prometheus. What is that all about. I don’t really write a lot of negative reviews for anything and the reason is because if I’m not enjoying something I stop reading/watching and then, frankly, I don’t think it’s fair to review something that you haven’t completed. After all, it might have redeemed itself in the last half, then the last third, then the last quarter, then the last eighth… you see where I’m going with that?
I have so many objections to this movie that I can hardly begin to note them. Okay, the special effects are excellent – but frankly I’ve come to expect that special effects will be in this day and age. The problem is, I can’t enjoy a film that’s purely about special FX and very little else to recommend it. What about a bit of character development. We have a crew. There seems to be little love lost between any of them, they don’t know each other, there are no friendships (except between the two doctors). It just makes it difficult to like anyone really. Next, why on earth would a trillion pound expedition to outer space be funded on the flimsy evidence of a few cave drawings. You know, it’s like modern art, you can interpret it however the hell you want but it doesn’t mean you have to travel the universe or, more to the point, how did these two doctors manage to convince anyone of this expedition. They don’t seem to have a convincing argument at all.
Now, down to the really little niggles. What on earth was with that total mimicry of Alien all about (and, I am thinking of one particular scene which you will know what I’m referring to if you’ve seen this)? Yes, I know the connection thank you very much – but, I don’t want to see exactly the same type of scene repeated . The surgery – ridiculous in the extreme. The running about jumping, fighting, etc, after the surgery – even more ridiculous – okay, I see, it’s sci-fi so I’m not supposed to question that but frankly I just do. What, major surgery and then a few staples and off to the gym – you try it! And, what, no reaction from anybody else! Covered in blood, look like shit, yeah.
I was really thinking about it. I was thinking was there much of a story and then I was trying to compare it to Alien and see if there was much more of a story there – and maybe there isn’t. But, comparatively. Alien – not any major special effects really, and yet scary. You cared about the characters, you’d never really seen anything like it before, there were friendships that just were portrayed so easily, all the darkness and dripping water and just plain out creepy – not to mention when the alien makes it’s first appearance courtesy of John Hurt’s chest was phenomenal – I don’t know whether the acting was just brilliant in that scene or whether they genuinely didn’t know what was happening (which is what I’ve read about) but it was the business. Now, Prometheus. Feels like it’s just trying to live off the reputation of the original and the way we all love it. A bunch of characters who you couldn’t care less about. A bunch of scientists who seem to know less about science than a two year old child. I could go on.
The thing is, this review is so negative that I can’t believe it. I really didn’t hate the movie at all. I just thought it was incredibly disappointing. And, I had questions. For example, how did that geologist guy manage to get lost – other than it was a good plot device – after all he was the one who seemed to have big ideas and gadgets about plotting the place. Why was an expedition planned on the flimsy evidence of a couple of doctors. Why did Charlize Theron have the most ridiculous role in the entire history of film, why was Guy Pearce starring as an old man – I assumed there was going to be some sort of miraculous rolling back of the years otherwise why use him – but no – so why not just use an older actor??
I’m just going to stop now and step away, because, I think I should.
Now, you may like this movie, and my criticisms are not meant for you personally. I like lots of films that other people don’t and I stick by my own personal taste. However, this just didn’t do it for me and in fact sort of annoyed me.
Oh well,
Go and see it anyway. It’s not a bad film (I suppose). I didn’t hate it. It just didn’t live up to my expectations. And, also, even if I hadn’t had expectations I think it would have been lacking.
I’m including this as one of my RIP entries – get yourselves over to Stainless Steel Droppings and get involved with his RIP event.
Interview with the Vampire, No.1 of the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice
Interview with the Vampire is another of my holiday reads that I’m catching up with reviews on. I must say this is a beautifully written book, I wasn’t sure how I’d fare with this having seen the film years ago as I always prefer to read the book first but in this case it wasn’t a problem. Of course I had the faces and voices of Tom Cruise and Brad Pit flitting through my brain as I read which I guess was inevitable but it didn’t detract from the book. In fact, it was a surprise just how much the film has remained faithful to the book. Inevitably there were some changes, even the ending was different but the changes weren’t significant and it seemed to me that even some of the dialogue had been lifted straight from the book to the film.
The book of course starts with a young man interviewing a vampire! Pretty unusual as a concept and I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to watch the conversation prior to them both removing themselves to a private room with just a tape recorder between them. It’s such a great vehicle for a story as the storyteller, Louis, casts his mind back over the past 200 odd years of his existence. An existence that seems to have been passed in a search for the truth. Truth about the nature of the beast that he has become. How did vampires begin to exist, are they inherently evil? Are they the creation of the devil? If you thought Edward had teenage angst in Twilight well it doesn’t bare much comparison to the anguish borne by Louis. In this book, Louis is grieving for his recently departed brother. He seeks death and finds his wish about to be granted when he meets the character Lestat who instead of death gifts him with immortality. At first Louis is mesmerised by Lestat’s charm and fascinated by what he is, not to mention in awe of what he can teach him, but he soon starts to loathe his creator as he realises that he has very little wisdom to share. From then onwards Louis battles with his own demons. The humanity which he still clings to tempered against the anguish he feels for the victims he feeds on.
I wouldn’t think I really need to elaborate too much on the rest of the plot as the book and the film were written and produced quite some time ago and so are probably relatively well known. Not to mention the book seems to have something of a cult following which is understandable in terms of it being both fairly ground breaking, an intriguing story and well written.
Anne Rice has a beautiful style of writing. She describes the places and the times so well that you can picture them easily and yet the book doesn’t feel over burdened but flows in a natural and persuasive way. I loved the descriptions of New Orleans and Paris and also enjoyed watching as the years unfolded starting with Louis’ time on the plantation. As mentioned the film is fairly true to the book although there was an additional section within the book when Louis and Claudia are on their personal quest to find others of their kind and travel to the Carpathian mountains. That particular chapter vividly brought to mind the Hammer House of Horror films with Christopher Lee and his blood red eyes terrorising the superstitious peasants. I did love that particular part of the story, especially when they go under cover of dark to the abandoned ruins in search of vampires.
All that aside I think my favourite aspect, along with the writing style, has got to be the characterisation. The three main characters of Louis, Lestat and Claudia are so well drawn. You can’t help partly agreeing with Cruise at the end of the film when he says that Louis is ‘whining’ again. Because Louis can come across a little bit that way. Whilst he’s desperately seeking answers Lestat’s answers are somewhere along the lines of ‘get over yourself, you’re a killer now, go with it!’ Without a doubt Lestat is my favourite character – although I think I preferred Louis in the film! Lestat is just so blatantly and unabashedly a killer. He suffers no remorse, no feelings of doubt or last minute qualms or pity for his victims. He toys with them, much in the way a cat will play with it’s captured! You could say he’s just wonderfully evil and I love the way he follows Louis about taunting him to try and make him snap out of his humanness! Claudia is a great little vampire, she appears to be younger in the book than she’s cast in the film, and as with Lestat there’s this brilliant evilness to her where she uses her childlike exterior to trap victims. Victims that she would otherwise be unable to defeat given her size. I love the way she has similar demons to Louis. They’re both tortured. He can’t accept his nature and live with himself and she will never experience the full growth to womanhood although inside her tiny body is a 200 year old female.
The other thing that didn’t really occur to me whilst reading the book but sprang to mind when I was thinking about it after finishing is that there is very little human participation in this story. Obviously, we have the young man undertaking the interview but we only have snippets of involvement from him. And we have a brief involvement of other people when Louis is initially turned – particularly one female who he has mixed feelings about. But, other than that this really is the vampire show and it’s a good one. And, in spite of the fact that Rice has brought to us these fascinating and beautiful creatures (and may have been the first to do so) there are no elaborate love triangles involving humans.
I really enjoyed this. It’s completely different to Dracula (which I love) but it seems to be one of (if not the) book that brought us this new breed of predators.
And, as this is ALL about the vampires I think it qualifies for my RIP event! Check out Stainless Steel Droppings for the details and to join up.
Shadows by Ilsa Bick
Read Shadows recently whilst on holiday. Shadows takes over where Ashes left off (and believe me that really was a cliffhanger ending with what felt like a very long year’s wait!). Anyway, my review for Ashes is here. If you’re interested in reading this post apocalyptic zombie style book then read no further as this will certainly contain spoilers for book No.1
With this being the second in the series it’s difficult to give too much away about the plot without spoiling it even for people who haven’t picked No.2 up yet – basically we left the first book on such a note that pretty much anything could be considered a spoiler at this point. So, I’m going to steer away from the plot. Other than to say Alex is desperately trying to stay alive in a world where the boundaries are constantly changing, there are no rules and she seems to be fighting against inner demons of her own.
Well, I was looking for a gory zombie book a few weeks ago and here it is. This book and the last are action packed for sure and with plenty of twists and turns. Literally there is no let up. We seem to roll from one ‘oh my giddy aunt I cannot believe it’ moment directly to the next. Neither of these books are for the feint hearted and I will say that if you’re squeamish then just forget about picking these up. Really, just step away. I thought the same thing anyway after reading the first book but the second instalment is even more grisly. The thing with this author is she has no fear about killing people off, in quite vicious ways, which makes you feel afraid for everyone in the story – and really with good reason because it seems like anything can, and will, happen. Once again I think the level of detail manages to convey the world really well without being overly descriptive and I also like that way that events are constantly moving forward with numerous threads overlapping and eventually coming together and new characters being added along the way.
In terms of criticisms. Well, firstly, we have another cliffhanger – give me a break with the cliffhangers please!!! Secondly, it’s been a year since the first book. Frankly, I think I would have greatly benefited by having a reread of Ashes before I delved into this one – but no, I couldn’t wait. Consequently it did take me a bit to remember who everyone was and how they all relate to the story. The author isn’t treating us with kid gloves in this follow up – there is no recapping. If you’re a bit sketchy on any of the detail you really will probably need to have a bit of a refresh otherwise you might be floundering about a bit at first. Particularly as there is a lot going on and more than one POV.
That being said I have a lot of respect for the fact that we don’t have a book with loads of backstory constantly being dredged over. It didn’t take me long to get back into the flow of things and once I did I could barely put the book down. It’s fast, it’s scary it’s gory, it has story lines cleverly interwoven and it takes us to a place that is really terrifying to contemplate living in. Bleak and a bit desolate – in the way of The Road but instead of humans driven to the brink of madness and despair we have a new monster – one that is developing and learning a sort of sneaky intelligence – not to mention these zombies are not the slow shambling along zombies we’ve seen before – they’re fast. They work together and they have a sort of pack system that they obey. Pretty freaky really.
I enjoyed this dark and grisly book and even though I can’t abide waiting – I suppose I’ll have to – for book No.3
I will be including this in my R.I.P. event – I think it qualifies being full of blood and gore!!!
Envy by Elizabeth Miles
30 September 2012
Filed under Book Reviews
Tags: Elizabeth Miles, Envy, Greek Mythology, The Furies
Just finished reading Envy by Elizabeth Miles which is the second in the series the first book being Fury. Set in Ascension we again follow the story through Em with the alternating voice being taken up by a new girl to the school and neighbourhood – Skylar. If you haven’t read the first book and intend on doing so then you should probably avoid the rest of this review for fear of spoilers.
Skylar has secrets in her past. Secrets that she doesn’t want to reveal. She’s been taken under the wing of the most popular girl at school – Gabby (Em’s best friend) and she has her mind set on becoming very popular. Nothing is going to stand in her way – but her past mustn’t come out!
Em meanwhile has a number of things going on in her life – she’s changing, although she can’t quite pinpoint how. JD – her next door neighbour and the boy that she discovered she has strong feelings for – is not speaking to her and she is desperate to restore their friendship although this is made difficult by the pact of secrecy she made with the Furies at the end of book No.1 – a pact which means she must not talk of or reveal anything about them. She’s still best friends with Gaby but now also hangs with a different crowd, mainly Drea who helped her figure things out about the Fury’s in the first instalment and provides the same sort of role in this book, and Crow – a drop out from school who plays and writes his own music and is strangely attracted to Em. I must admit I liked Crow and thought he was a good addition.
As with the first book, I enjoyed Envy – but this doesn’t mean that I don’t have niggles!
I like the writing style of the author. She does a good job of conjuring up the place and of course being the second in the series we’re already familiar with some of the people and their motivations. I like the way she manages to build the suspense. You know that something simply awful is going to take place and you’re cringing with anticipation. I also think, as with the first book there are a number of points where the author manages to make you feel a bit ‘creeped out’. She has a way of making you feel that somebody is watching you, out of sight. It’s a bit of a freaky feeling really.
In terms of criticisms. Well, fairly similar to book number one. Again, it’s difficult to like the characters. Skylar is quite frankly a horrible and deceitful person with no redeeming features. I just really didn’t like her – and again, I don’t think you’re supposed to otherwise it would be difficult to accept any kind of punishment that the Furies will eventually mete out. Em also is difficult to like. She’s not a particularly good friend to either of the two girls who she claims to be friends with. She only really bothers with Drea because she needs her help and Gaby she barely sees. She seems to spend a lot of time thinking about JD or running around looking for the Furies but never really properly engaging with anyone. I think I also found it difficult to believe that Gaby would be so forgiving of her and still claim to be her best friend. At the end of the day I would be very hard pressed to still think of someone as my best friend if they slept with my boyfriend – and perhaps that makes me a bad person but I just don’t see how you would still have the same level of trust?
Criticisms aside – and it does look as though I have a few. I did enjoy the book. This series is very readable due to the writing style. The content is also fairly original – well, being set in high school and having all sorts of love triangles going on is not necessarily original. But, if you’re reading YA you have to expect that. What is original is the tale of the Furies. I like the use of Greek Mythology in the story and the Furies really don’t come across as the type of avenging goddesses who will be easily appeased. To be frank I think that the presence of the Furies in these books is underplayed and they should have more exposure. They definitely bring the horror element out a little more and manage to conjure a ‘Carrie-esque’ style ending to Envy.
I will definitely read No.3 – I need to know how this all ends now.
Greek myth/goddesses, horror and creepiness – I’m submitting this for my R.I.P. event. Check out the details here.
