Review of Christopher Rice's "The Heaven's Rise"

                                        Barnes and Nobles (Nook Edition) /Amazon (Kindle Edition)


(Ghost Writer: Zombie Iago)


     Wreathed in mystery, Christopher Rice's first supernatural foray into the territory his mother traverses the same phantasmagorical New Orleans world with his own deft, individualized authorial voice.  Now, the beginning of the novel was a bit of a challenge to read, since Christopher Rice calculatedly reveals the mystery that is the life-force of this novel slowly throughout the course of this very exciting novel that moves at breakneck speed at certain points of the novel. I'm not your atypical reader of this genre, mostly because I don't normally read thrillers. Being one of the first thrillers I've read in awhile though, I had to stifle any fleeting feelings of impatience, and settle myself down for a type of novel that stylistically is constructed to be a mystery in all facets: characters, setting, and plot. Each of the chapters are approximately five to eight pages, encouraging you to flip pages faster to reveal more tantalizing details that concern the mystery that is at the core of this novel.
   Amazingly, the unnamed villain (undisclosed in this review to safeguard the novel's complex plot) seems a bit reminiscent of  Iago from Shakespeare's Othello. Then again, aren't a lot of brilliant villains in novels mere facsimiles of brilliant Shakespeare villains. Anyways, this villain is sketched out in ambiguous detail, along with his particular preternatural abilities. Rather than have his abilities and motives be divulged from the first page as with Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, Christopher Rice perfidiously behaves as an Iago himself,  as he brilliantly sketches the villain with clear, decisive details that are revealed slowly, which paradoxically causes the readers to become even more intrigued by this villain.
   Since Christopher Rice writes with his own distinctive style, it is important to not compare his novels too closely with his mother's own novels. Both writers are technically very different in how they envisage a novel. With The Heaven's Rise, the setting works as a subtle homage being paid to his mother's works, but the rest of the novel is uniquely new territory. Most of his characters are clearly human, even though a few (such as the Iago villain) have questionable connections with the supernatural world. Rather than have the supernatural world be the predominant angle of the novel, The Heaven's Rise is very much entrenched in the affairs of the muggle (or mundane) world. Having the supernatural world be shadowy in this novel rather than clearly exhibited on center stage is really the pivotal element behind this novel's excellent sense of suspense.

   At times, Christopher Rice's prose can be a bit winding and muddled at first, until you realize that the fuzziness comes more from the layered mystery that Chris is trying to carefully reveal to the reader. Therefore, saying his prose is either "winding and muddled" is clearly very disingenuous. As I adapted to his style of writing though, I saw that his prose was very competent without being too verbose. It achieves a very careful happy medium between being detailed, but not being too gratuitous with its detail. Some of the long sentences are brilliant in the way that they lull you into a sense of false security before an unexpected event suddenly springs itself upon the reader, meaning Chris carefully juxtaposes his sentences with the mind of a brilliant schemer of suspense.

   While his mother might be more of a Mary Shelley, Christopher Rice is very much the Iago of the family with this novel in particular. Even though I was a bit disheartened by the fact that the novel was firmly settled in the human world as opposed to the supernatural world, I began to accept the novel's stylistic angle and ended up really enjoying it. It was never tedious to read at any points, and the measured way the suspense hurtles the novel along  with exacting alacrity keeps the reader's interest piqued throughout the entire novel. Even if you are not a fan of thrillers, I still highly recommend that you read this thrilling novel, and be prepared to be catapulted into a frenetic world of endless mystery and surprises.

25 Days of Werewolves Day 1: Teilhard de Chardin 101: Omega Point

For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/

Information About the Book. Preorder Your Copy in Advance of October 15, 2013  Via Amazon/Barnes &Nobles Summary Taken from Amazon Product Page

The tale of THE WOLF GIFT continues . . .In Anne Rice’s surprising and compelling best-selling novel, the first of her strange and mythic imagining of the world of wolfen powers (“I devoured these pages . . . As solid and engaging as anything she has written since her early vampire chronicle fiction” —Alan Cheuse, The Boston Globe; “A delectable cocktail of old-fashioned lost-race adventure, shape-shifting and suspense” —Elizabeth Hand, The Washington Post), readers were spellbound as Rice imagined a daring new world set against the wild and beckoning California coast.Now in her new novel, as lush and romantic in detail and atmosphere as it is sleek and steely in storytelling, Anne Rice brings us once again to the rugged coastline of Northern California, to the grand mansion at Nideck Point—to further explore the unearthly education of her transformed Man Wolf.The novel opens on a cold, gray landscape. It is the beginning of December. Oak fires are burning in the stately flickering hearths of Nideck Point. It is Yuletide. For Reuben Golding, now infused with the wolf gift and under the loving tutelage of the Morphenkinder, this Christmas promises to be like no other . . . as he soon becomes aware that the Morphenkinder, steeped in their own rituals, are also celebrating the Midwinter Yuletide festival deep within Nideck forest.From out of the shadows of the exquisite mansion comes a ghost—tormented, imploring, unable to speak yet able to embrace and desire with desperate affection . . . As Reuben finds himself caught up with the passions and yearnings of this spectral presence and the preparations for the Nideck town Christmas reach a fever pitch, astonishing secrets are revealed, secrets that tell of a strange netherworld, of spirits—centuries old—who possess their own fantastical ancient histories and taunt with their dark, magical powers . . .

25 Unrelenting Days of Wolfish Ferocity, Festive Music with Pagan Underpinnings, Supernatural yarns with Febrile Passion, and Everything concerning the Wolfish World of Anne Rice's Opulent Gothic Wonderland.......

Countdown to The Wolves of Midwinter





Teilhard de Chardin 101: The Omega Point & Its Relation to Anne Rice's Wolf Gift Chronicles


Reading Teilhard De Chardin's text can be brutally difficult for individuals like myself, unaccustomed to reading abstract philosophy. Whenever I try to read hardcore, abstract philosophy, my brain feels shuttered and nonfunctional, as though the scattered neurons in my brain are struggling with valor and unabated enthusiasm to comprehend the deep implications of Teilhard De Chardin's theories. Strangely enough, I don't really feel particularly religious at this point in my life, but Teilhard De Chardin's ideas still deeply enthrall me with his ingenious theories about our place in the universe. For those who may not have heard of this brilliant, unorthodox thinker, Teilhard De Chardin was a very smart, progressive thinker in the field of biology during the early portion of the twentieth century. He believed that the theory of evolution shed a much deeper, more sophisticated light on the nature of the universe and how it may have been brought into being. Unfortunately, the Vatican at the time in the early twentieth century condemned such forward-thinking as blasphemous. Teilhard de Chardin was pressured by the Vatican to not publish his rather subversive works about his theistic evolutionary ideas. As such, they were not published till the sixties during the time of Vatican II, when the Catholic Church grew more accepting of a theistic idea of evolution.

 Being raised in a Protestant Fundamentalist world that was stubbornly myopic about scientific matters, I never heard of Pierre Teilhard De Chardin until two years ago. Then again, I barely even knew about the existence of Philosophy, mysticism, or the notion that Biblical text could be read in the same way people read fantasy books or poetry. Then again, most people raised in the unenlightened, darkened world of secretariat religion or separatist fundamentalism tend to build their concept of God within a small, dark space that obdurately refuses to accept mystery, doubt, and paradox that are an essential part of the make-up of the universe. This type of restrictive fundamentalism believes the existence of all things is rudimentary, dry, and unsophisticated. Teilhard De Chardin's theories, including his concept of the Omega Point,  are the antithesis of the mainstay fundamentalist theories that dominate the current Christian way of thinking. Again, his theories are not exclusively for Christians or evangelists. Teilhard De Chardin really wrote his theories to a more universal audience that goes beyond the cloisters of labels, and concerns himself with much deeper questions that go beyond the scope of convention. In many ways, he is no different than Carl Sagan, who was chiefly interested in the same types of existential questions:Why are we here? What is our purpose? Why are we even consciously inhabiting this universe, if we are led to believe that this universe has a beginning and endpoint with no underlying purpose for "being?" It is the latter question that the theory of the Omega Point strives to understand.




Definition of Omega:(Definition taken from FreeDictionary.com)

"omega [ˈəʊmɪgə]

n1. (Linguistics / Letters of the Alphabet (Foreign)) the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet (Ω, ω), a long vowel, transliterated as oor ō2. the ending or last of a series"

    Unsurprisingly, this word "Omega" designates an ending point, either within the realm of the universe's existence or a certain phase within someone's life. Essentially, it is a very agnostic word, when it relates back to the unanswerable God question. Teilhard De Chardin was an ordained, Jesuit priest, so his omega point theory definitely has Christian connotations. For agnostics or even atheists though, the word,omega point,   can still cohere with our view of the universe being intrinsically mysterious or beyond our knowledge. Certainly, Teilhard De Chardin thought the same thing, as many other intelligent religious thinkers do. Sadly, some of the more boisterous religious thinkers are the often the more puerile, limited thinkers of this group, who would have made Teilhard De Chardin's theory of the omega point  yet another dogmatic theory that adherents merely believe without question, but never really strive to reconcile or accept the paradoxes inherent in this theory. I think religious thinkers like Teilhard de Chardin or Madeleine L'Engle thought exploring and accepting paradox was a crucial part of their more relaxed notion of the word, belief.  

     Anyways, I was taken aback that Teilhard De Chardin's theory, though, was still very agnostic in my understanding. According to his theory, Omega Point simply relates to his theory that as the universe evolves and unfolds, material and conscious life progressively becomes more complex.  Of course, his theory does relate back to the divine, when Teilhard de Chardin postulates that the omega point is the highest, predesignated stage of consciousness, where humanity or some other form of more evolved conscious life reaches the last phase of consciousness. Of course, my agnostic mind has no problem with this theory because it simply explicates the possible trajectory of conscious life, but it never provides any clear, determinant theories, as to when the omega point will be reached or any tangible sense of the factors that are constitutive of  beings that have reached the highest stage of consciousness.  
  Relating to Anne Rice's works, this theory was very influential in the theistic evolution that was presented in Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil, where Memnoch leads a reluctant, atheistic Lestat into the heavenly realms. This is where Anne Rice provides a much clearer illustration of Teilhard De Chardin's theory of the Omega point through her mastery of creating a complex, Faustian myth that presents a hero struggling with the meaning of existence and possibility that the whole construction of the universe was created through a form of theistic evolution. This form of theistic evolution is presented in Teilhard de Chardin-influenced way, where  all material life is progressively evolving to an indeterminate end-point, where the highest stage of consciousness and material complexity within life is reached. In terms of Lestat's own development, the immortal consciousness of a vampire is already proof enough that biological life itself has the capacity to evolve and change over time. In Blood Canticle,  Lestat strives to be a saint, as though to reach that higher level of consciousness as a vampire that will allow him to potentially transcend his more primal urges as a vampire. It is this insatiable primal urge, which St. Augustine would have phrased as concupiscence,  that is still frustratingly intrinsic to all material life.
 

   In Anne Rice's The Wolf Gift, the duality of the man-wolf is one of Anne Rice's most interesting mythological hybrids, which further emphasizes her continued exploration of the Teilhard de Chardin's notion of the omega point. During one particularly poignant scene when Reuben is seeking contrition from his Brother Jim, a priest, Reuben broodingly reflects upon whether God can really exist, when all material and conscious life seems to onerously struggle with the knowledge of one's own vices and paradoxical motivation within a theistic or even agnostic sense of the universe:

    "Do you think Teilhard de Chardin could have been right? That we fear God does not exist because we can't spatially grasp the immensity of the universe; we fear that personality is lost in it when maybe it is a superpersonality that holds it all together, a super-conscious God who planted evolving consciousness in each of us-"(The Wolf Gift 221)

This quote brilliantly encapsulates Anne Rice's own contention about Teilhard De Chardin's omega theory, which is a struggle to comprehend within a universe that seems as ineffably complex as our own selves or more evolved forms of biological life, such as werewolves or vampires.  Interestingly, Nideck Point (the mansion that Reuben Golding eventually purchases) and the woods that surround this majestic, divine oasis are coexistent, and they structurally mirror the interior of dual nature of Reuben's own psyche. Even with this greater psychological complexity, the omega point is still an elusive end-point for any of the Morphenkind (Anne Rice's clever monicker for werewolves).

    In The Wolves of Midwinter,  the forest plays an even more pivotal role, as Anne Rice reveals more forms of highly evolved species with preternatural senses that continue to present Anne Rice's creative way of experimenting with the implications of  the omega point within a world, where all biological life naturally has certain primal urges or limitations at all stages of evolution that sometimes can prevent a spices for a certain span of time from evolving to the next stage of existence until reaching the indeterminate Omega Point. Again, the omega point was never meant by Teilhard De Chardin to relate to New Age theories about the end of the world being caused by alien intervention. It was merely his theory of trying to understand the mechanics of evolution and a hypothetical look at where life will continue to evolve, according to his theistic understanding of the world.

Stormlight Archive Book#1: Way of Kings Read-Along

For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/

 



















Preorder your copy on either Amazon (Kindle)/ Barnes and Nobles (Nook)




Way of Kings Readathon Information:


   Yesterday, I managed to announce the impending "25 Days of Werewolves: Wolves of Midwinter Countdown" without much fanfare. Without much further ado, I am also divulging some details about an upcoming readathon of the first of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive  books that will take place at the start of this October. For anyone that knows of my history of failure on this blog, you are more than abundantly aware of my previous failed attempt to do both a Game of Thrones and Wheel of Time  Readathon that garnered no interest. With that in mind, you might be asking, " why the hell would you be trying again, when a Stormlight Archive Readathon  in the planning stages serves to remind you of how both previous readathon attempts failed in the end?"
(Goodness, the self-deprecatory tone of the above post does nothing to capture the overall epic nature of any readathon, involving a fantasy series with such a wide scope and myriad number of characters, like Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series.)
   Even if no one partakes in this readathon this time around, I plan on doing this readathon mainly for myself. See, the current job market has given ample time to be lazy and intellectually inactive, as though I have been lying in hibernation for months. Therefore, the planned Way of Kings  readathon is my attempt to reawaken my mind, and revitalize my excitement for the upcoming sequel to one of my favorite epic fantasy novels of 2010.

    Each week, I will be doing a very thorough post about 5 chapters of the book until the beginning of March, when the next book in the series is released. I am already having some acute doubts about this daunting plan, since my past readathon record is a statistical failure. Nonetheless, I want to try to do this readathon properly this time without confronting the problem of spontaneously losing interest or getting easily sidetracked by other things. Lately, my days have recently felt very interminable and long,; I am hoping this regimen of reading five chapters a week to help rebuild my energy reserves.

How can I participate in the readathon? 
   Later this week, I will be constructing an additional page at the top of my blog that will be ideally next to the one, entitled "Countdown to Wolves of Midwinter." This one will bear the title "Way of Kings  Readathon," which might not sound regal enough for such a majestic book title and appropriately large-scale promotional campaign for the release. Either way, I think "Way of Kings Readathon" supplies all my interested readers with a succinct, enticing summary that will hopefully interest them in joining with the readathon.
   Stop being so damnably discursive, how can I participate in this upcoming readathon, featuring such an epic novel??
    Starting on the first week of October and coinciding with the first of my weekly blog posts here, you can tweet your instant responses to areas of the text by using the hashtag   #WOKreadathon. I'll be following suite, and using the same hashtage for all my eloquent or non-eloquent responces to certain areas of the novel that excite, frustrate, or enlighten me. You can add questions, quotations, grievances, youtube links with power metal songs that seem to reflect the high-octane energy of a particuliar action sequence. Essentially, you are free to write anything you want, as long as it is under the Twitter character limit of 150 characters or less.

   More updates will be coming soon, Keep checking my Facebook fan page for more updates!!

   Also, you are allowed to start tweeting under "WOKreadathon," before the readathon officially starts, only if you are are metaphorically dying of impatience about the upcoming release of Brandon Sanderson's sequel to the Way of Kings.
 
  If you are not gleeful or feeling enough fervor about the release of Words of Radiance,  here are some pertinent and intensely exciting links that will surely make you extremely excited for the upcoming sequel:
**    TOR.Com Blog post About the Lavish Cover Reveal for Words of Radiance
**Download the cover as a variegated, expansive wallpaper that will pervade your mind with wandering nerd thoughts about the upcoming large-scale battles, new worlds, and comprehensive characters guaranteed to make you "geek out," come March 2014!!

   

25 Days of Werewolves: Coming Dangerously Soon!

For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/

25 Unrelenting Days of Wolfish Ferocity, Festive Music with Pagan Underpinnings, Supernatural yarns with Febrile Passion, and Everything concerning the Wolfish World of Anne Rice's Opulent Gothic Wonderland.......


In more succinct terms, this day shall be officially named "The 25 Days of Werewolves:" The Witching Hour before either the ghoulish daze of Halloween or the  nightmare that exists during the midwinter days that encapsulate the twelve days surrounding "Christmas"


Details About "The Twenty Five Days of Werewolves"
Start Date:9/21/2013

Frequency of Blog Posts: Every single day!!

    For fans of werewolves and Anne Rice's Wolf Gift Chronicles, I'm very excited to help assuage your impatience, and help sublimate the raging excitement for the The Wolves of Midwinter into something productive. Rather than wile away the hours in fretful anticipation until October 15th comes about, why not spend some parcel of your time here at A Bibliophile's Reverie,  pondering the literary history of werewolves, the ways that films and music in the past has represented this supernatural creature. I also have some posts planned that will provide an introduction to Teilhard De Chardin's theories called "Teilhard De Chardin 101." There will be a spate of posts that any seasoned werewolf/ Anne Rice fan will practically howl over!!

      Remember that Day 1 begins this Saturday, September 21, 2013? Also, there will be contests galore during the countdown period. I assure you that I will try to remember to post on all twenty-five days. If I do commit such a grave, unforgivable error, a stampede of werewolves will surely have my head!!


Be extra vigilant during these next 25 days, beginning this Saturday! If you miss one of the posts, you'll be incurring the wrath of the "Midwinter Wolf Vengeance Demons." (Rest assured that these wolves don't really exist!!)


Check out my Facebook Fan Page that will be keeping everyone up-to-date on the latest events for the "Twenty Five Days of Werewolves"

Day 2 of Five Smoldering Days of Cthulu

For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/

                   Amazon(Kindle Edition)/Amazon (Print Copy)


 Five Smoldering Days of "Cthulhu:" The Epic Review of the Lascivious Masterpiece, Dripping with romantic alien slime





    It appears that our regularly scheduled blog post for the last two days have gone inexplicably missing. Then again, it was the inappropriately named holiday, Labor Day, yesterday, thus there was no cause for posting anything new for today.  As promised, here is my gushing review of the year's best romantic story, paying homage to one of the great writers of supernatural fiction: Serra Elinsen. Serra Elinsen has set all our hearts aflame and aflutter with one of the


Warning: This review contains overwrought prose/purple prose. The writing style is apt, matching the precise vividness of Serra Elinsen's eye for detail. 


Review:
       Serra Elinsen has set all our hearts aflame and aflutter with one of the most romantic, poignant pieces of literature  ever since William Faulkner confused, but positively dazzled everyone with The Sound and the Fury.  Just as that masterpiece was William Faulkner's magnum opus, Serra Elinsen's brilliant expose of the nuances new-found love and instantaneous romance is her own magnum opus, and deserves literary accolades of all types. How is this story different from Twilight? It takes Stephenie Meyer's own purple prose, stilted dialogue to the next level; it makes purple prose that would have made Ernest Hemmingway shoot himself at the sight of the wholly complicated overuse of such powerfully dynamic adjectives. Shakespeare might have sighed dramatically, and drowned himself Ophelia style at Riley's preciously prosaic Shakespearean speech. The level of detail in the prose renders such a rich image in our heads that I felt my brain oozing in a viscous liquid that might have radiated like toxic ooze and inadvertently created the Teenage  Mutant ninja turtles.
    I apologize for not conducting any research for this review or carefully moderating my speech. Serra Elinsen's prose is written in free-form; it is a stream of conscious purple-prose that would put Virginia Woolf to shame.  The overcooked sentences are reminiscent of Sylvia Plath's poetry that portentously speaks of death by an oven. If Adromeda Slate does not have any gloriously hot man to fall deeply ad irrevocably in love with him, she would meet the same fate as Sylvia Plath, all due to her own self-abasing ways. The only difference is that Andromeda Slate has more insipid reasons, which will confuse any snobbish readers. Yet readers of superficial, yet strangely deep fiction (the purple prose has the power of rich duplicity) will somehow see depth in Andromeda Slate's romantic torment over whether or not Riley (the super smexy Chthulu monstrosity) reciprocates her feelings. When Andromeda Slate blankly describes her empty lifestyle, devoid of Riley's reciprocated feelings, the tumult of her sadness plucks at our feeble heart strings, as though our heart strings could be plucked to play sophisticated piano concertos.

     Dear Reader, I sobbed so much whilst reading this highly eloquent piece of literature. Unlike Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson might have no criticisms  for this fine work of art. It supersedes Hamlet  with sophisticated superficiality,its voluble love interest,  and exceedingly blank female heroine. Eventually, colleges will use this text for psychoanalytic studies that scrutinize the attraction of such shallow literature. Eventually, Serra Elinsen will write three more books that will hopefully extent this plot into infinity, and possible throw in a pedophile werewolf-alien into the mix that imprints on the half-alien, half-human infant that Riley and Andromeda conceive

    I really love Serra Elinsen's work, and I cannot wait to read more of her work! She is a mesmerizing talent and a luminary in a world of young-adult fiction that just isn't as preciously romantic. No one writes such great purple-prose, calculated to dispose us into believing in the existence of romance that requires no hardship.  After reading this, I'm definitely Team Riley because he is affable, intelligent, and speaks in an antiquated Shakespeare diction that is no longer in use.  For guys like myself, we can really take a lot of inspiration from him; why we'd even look as much as fools as the Brady Bunch did in that 1996 remake of
the show?



Links of Interest
Author's Website
Author's Twitter
Author's Facebook Page


      Be on the lookout for the insider's look at Serra's backstory on how her dream transfigured her life, and took her out of the doldrums of her "stay at home" mother lifestyle. Here at "A Bibliophile's Reverie," we are the place that will help bring Serra the needed attention that she deserves!!

Five Days of Awoken

For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/

                   Amazon(Kindle Edition)/Amazon (Print Copy)


 Five Smoldering Days of "Cthulhu"




   The greatest YA book has been unleashed into the world. I'm so excited to be featuring a five-day promotion of one of most innovative, deliciously romantic books on my book blog. Get ready for a tale laced with beautiful prose that boasts superfluous prose. It is bursting with more romance than your usual corset-ripper and Pantaloon dropper. It doesn't need to have a perpetual rattle of chains or handcuffs to make the romance scenes more titillating than they already are.

    Since, I have not read the whole heart-rendering romance just yet, I will grace your eyes with a teaser of my upcoming review

     "So far, Awoken is enrapturing, and the main squidllike creature ,named Riley, will definitely become as popular as Edward Cullen. Be prepared to see a HP Lovecraft monster be tamed by a clumsy heroine! The creature himself even speaks with an antiquated Shakespearean diction because all monsters speak with a lofty, expired manner of speech. I'm so excited to review this for my blog! It will definitely change the YA world with it's purple prose and classic romantic plot." 

   Peruse the excerpt below and feel free to click on the Amazon link, if you find that you are already instantaneously smitten with the sublime premise. Feel free to shamelessly read this book because it makes fantastic literary allusions to the legendary supernatural works, written by HP Lovecraft himself. There is no need to make any expiation for your sins of reading supposed drivel, for this specific book is neither frivolous or drivel.

"In his house at R’lyeh, great Cthulhu lies dreaming... of her.

What would you do if you discovered you were the only one in the world with the hidden power to keep it from being utterly annihilated?

What if you had no idea what that power might even be?

Andromeda Slate, the self-proclaimed most ordinary girl in America, can’t figure out why the gorgeous but mysterious new boy at high school seems to hate her so much. It couldn't have anything to do with the strange dream she had the night before he first showed up in class, could it? The dream where the very same boy rescued her from a giant, green, tentacled sea monster?

And it couldn’t have anything to do with that time she read aloud from that ancient tome of eldritch magic, the Necronomicon... could it?

Andi Slate never imagined she’d find herself in a situation where somehow she was the key to saving the world.

Her life is about to get a whole lot less ordinary."

Do you feel your heart aflutter already? Is it Calgon time? Remember this book was geared just for your supposed subversive, indulgent appetite for Harlequin "Monster" romance?








Links of Interest
Author's Website
Author's Twitter
Author's Facebook Page


      Be on the lookout for the insider's look at Serra's backstory on how her dream transfigured her life, and took her out of the doldrums of her "stay at home" mother lifestyle. Here at "A Bibliophile's Reverie," we are the place that will help bring Serra the needed attention that she deserves!!

Sony Classics Insinuates "Jane Austen" is Not for Men

For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence ad infinitum, but there seems to be numerous followers of this older blog.
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/

Why are these male creatures besmirching my male-exclusionary Jane Austen fantasy?

Tread Carefully: Snarkiness Abounds!!


 As many of you may not be aware of, Shannon Hale's hilariously smart "chick-lit" novel, Austenland, that rhapsodizes one woman's obsessive love with all things pertaining to Jane Austen  is becoming a film. It is slated to be released August 15th, 2013. Everything about the marketing of the book has always screamed "Excuse me sir, you might not want to emasculate yourself with this book that is ostensible chick-lit." Bravely, I read the book without writing abashed Facebook statuses that clarified that my masculinity was still preserved, after reading this book. I howled with laughter and loved every page of this clever, well-written book.  The book pays homage to an author, who has supplied endless amounts of witty pleasure, since the beginning of the nineteenth century.


 Acknowledging my bravery, I even attended a Shannon Hale book signing without any fear of gathering cooties (the modern colloquial phrase used to pejoratively describe "emasculation"). I remember telling her about how much I enjoyed the book, being someone that has always loved "Masterpiece Theater" productions of Jane Austen works. Even if the book featured  a female protagonist and a romantic plot line, the humor and witticism would be appreciated by any reader of well-written fiction, regardless of gender.    

Alas, Sony Classics felt the urge to implicitly inform me that no man would ever dare endeavor to see Austenland.

"Girlfriend, why would any gentlemen, including Mr. Darcy himself, want to attend this screening?"

Thanks to the wonderful writers for the Mary Sue for first enlightening me to this problem with Sony Classic's marketing of this entire thing. As evidenced by the banner advertising the upcoming Philly screening, they are essentially implicating that this movie is restrictively for females, in a sense. I've seen tons of ads for chick flicks before in the newspaper. One of my favorite of those films, Easy A,  relied on the film's evident cleverness and snarky attitude, rather than trying to propagate a gender exclusionary message. Again, the Mary Sue highlighted this problem with the marketing, by summing up in much better words than I can even muster myself:

"The way that the media surrounding the situation sounds, they mean “women-the-completely-homogenous-group-who-will-all-like-the-same-thing-because-they-are-women.” This marketing assumes that ALL women want to watch period reenactments and romantic stories and pretty dresses, that there is no variation in taste. This also, by extension, assumes that all men who are “real men” won’t be interested in those same things because that’s not “what men like.” Well written Quote taken from Mary Sue article, written by Brooke Jaffe

As exemplified by this quote from a very informative article about the marketing problems for this film, this kind of marketing may have a very prudent focus. At the same time, it makes cultural assumptions that men are inherently uninterested in this type of flick. While I may not like Michael Bay action films, the advertising behind a high-octane action film never has this type of gender-stereotyped advertising that has this strange subtext that remarks that "Women are inherently not interested in dude films like Transformers."


   The Mary Sue also makes a good point that it also stereotypes women by saying that period reenactments are supposedly something ALL women enjoy. Based on what many of my female friends watch, they watch the same shows that I enjoy such as Buffy:the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Doctor Who. None of these shows have such superficial marketing campaigns that represent the entire work, as a whole, as being a supposed frilly, shallow film adaptation of a book that was really clever (and reminded me of something written by Jasper Fforde).


More importantly, history attests to the male interest in Jane Austen's stories.  



One thing that our gender stereotyping society has never willfully acknowledged that there has been a spate of men throughout history that have made their admiration for Jane Austen an open secret. Let us read this post, by Rudyard Kipling, for example.  Many people are not wholly aware that Rudyard Kipling, the sturdy male author that seemingly represented ostentatious machismo, was a diehard Jane Austen fanboy himself. Courtesy of the following webpage, the Rudyard Kipling Society in England,  the following quote essentially shows his undying fervor for the early nineteenth century writer:

“the more I read the more I admire and respect and do reverence… When she looks straight at a man or a woman she is greater than those who were alive with her - by a whole head… with a more delicate hand and a keener scalpel.” (Rudyard Kiping, disclosing his diehard love of Jane Austen to a friend in not so strict confidence)

During the same time period, the horrors of World War I were barraging the minds of English citizens. Soldiers were particularly stricken with a slew of debilitating psychological disorders, as a result of some of the unpleasant and stomach-turning scenes of violence that they were witness to on a daily basis in the war. Not knowing of Sony Classic's belief that Jane Austen was only privy to woman-folk, Jane Austen books were actually prescribed as an antidote/psychological curative of the highest witty potency to help these war-weary men overcome their deep-seated melancholy. Thanks to this article from "The Telegraph,"  we have certifiable proof that Jane Austen not only helped women to escape the horrors that plagued reality sometimes.

     “Jane Austen was prescribed to shell shock victims after the First World War as an antidote to mental trouble. She was read in the trenches. She was a prescribed script for tortured, troubled souls." (Quote Taken from "The Telegraph" article, entitled "Jane Austen Prescribed as antidote to the Horrors of WW1)

Why did Sony Classics feel the need to market the film in such an inept way? I guess that is something left up to the bloggers to speculate and ponder about. In the meantime, I still plan on seeing the film. Hell, I feel like being a revolutionary, and attending the screening dressed as Mr. Darcy himself. Now, that would a hilarious subtle protest against this terrible marketing campaign that only reinforces the sexist idea that chick flicks are not generally more superficial somehow than action films (geared for men, though not explicitly), but that the realm of feminized entertainment somehow too puzzling and emasculating for men to watch. Why is it hard for more creative marketing forces to not focus on the merits of the film, and allow the audience to grow organically without implicitly informing people that this film somehow is socially unacceptable for men to watch?

Requisite Update!! Blog is still alive!

For all those still reading this post on the old blog, I will keep these posts up for the next six or seven months before closing out the blog. I feel like I am extending the deadline of this old blog's existence, but there seems to be numerous followers of the older blog on there!
Link to New Blog: http://www.bibliophilesreverie.com/


THIS BLOG STILL LIVES!!!!

Much like Tombstone pizza, this blog was frozen for some time, but now has been revived from it's frozen state..

 


 I've had to dutifully play the reverse role of a real coroner, informing everyone that this blog has not really died. Sometimes, the long hiatuses, like the dry spell of July 2013 on this blog, may have spawned some death hoaxes about this blog. I thank all my readers for not dashing off to Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr to misinform the masses that this blog were somehow dead. There was a drought, but not a death.
   Anyways, I apologize, once again, for not providing any updates, as planned, for most of the month of July. I've been re-reading the entire Harry Potter series, which I believe is a very good excuse for not being able to fulfill my usual blogging duties.
   Throughout this week, I will be updating the "Upcoming Books for Review" section and cleaning out the cobwebs that have accumulated there. August 2013 signifies requisite summer cleaning on this blog.
   As always, Check the Facebook Fan Page  for further updates about upcoming contests and other related updates about this blog.