Dracula: The Series

by

If there’s some kind of drug treatment for people who like cheesy vampire stories, than I surely need it, because yesterday while I was working I went through an entire disc of Dracula: The Series on DVD. Now, an entire disc may not sound bad to those of you accustomed to getting four hours of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on a disc, but you will understand why a disc of Drac is bad when I tell you that, because it’s a half-hour show, one disc = eleven episodes.

Eleven.

Now do you sense the wrongness?

Back in the very very early 1990’s, there was a channel in the NJ/NY area known as “Universal 9” – I’m not sure if it was some precursor to UPN or not, but among the funky syndicated shows they ran were this one, and another called She-Wolf of London that was about an American university student who is bitten by a werewolf while she’s visiting England. Adventure and romance ensue.

Dracula however, is at least partly a sit-com. It features extremely tall Canadian actor Geordie Johnson as “Alexander Lucard” – who lives in a modern castle and conquers the world by conglomerating it. Pitted against him is Bernard Behrens as “Gustav Helsing” – Uncle Gustav to the two American (who are really Canadian) kids who are sent to live with him in Belgium (except it’s really Luxembourg) while their mother wanders around Europe in her job for a bank. The boys are Max (10) and Chris (16), and they are cheerfully geeky in that “still have eighties hair” sort of way. Also staying with Gustav is Sophie Metternich (played by The L Word‘s Mia Kirschner), and of course she and Chris end up flirting with each other, a lot, while Max and Uncle G run off to try and kill Dracula.

There is a lot of wielding of crosses and splashing of holy water, big swirly capes, and near-vaudevillian gesturing, especially when Drac is about to sink his ridiculously long fangs into the neck of the week.

Guest stars are campy in a “If I wasn’t Canadian and it wasn’t thirty years too late I’d be on Gilligan’s Island” sort of way, and most of the 41 Canadian actors who showed up in EVERY US/CAN joint production of the era show up here as well, including, in a recurring role as Klaus “I’m a psychotic giggling loon with fangs” Helsing, Gustav’s son, turned Dracula’s minion, Geraint Wyn Davies. Followers of Vamp TV know that Geraint Wyn Davies would show up wearing fangs (and a better hair style) a few years later as the lead in the “Crime time after prime time” show, Forever Knight.

If I’m mocking this show so much, you may wonder why I bought the discs. Well, for one thing, the entire first season of 21 episodes (there was no second season, which is too bad, because had they chosen to tone down the cheese some interesting plot points were coming out) was a whopping $8.49 at a certain online megabookstore.

Also, sometimes, you just need to laugh.

A Dangerous Dress

by

by Julia Holden

I bought A Dangerous Dress after reading Julia Holden’s other novel One Dance in Paris a couple weeks ago, and exchanging comments via her MySpace page. She’s kindly consented to do an emailed interview for me, when she has a few free moments, and I’m sure you’ll all enjoy it.

Anyway, this book shares with the other a trip to Paris, and is still a chick-lit coming of age story, but there are no trips to anything like Caesars Palace this time, though there is a movie set, a news set, and a bank involved.

The lead character, Jane, is working in her uncle’s bank, and feeling a bit humdrum, when she gets a call from a French movie director (who happens to be her college roommate’s father), asking her to please come to Paris and find the perfect 1928 dress for the star of his film. Her expertise, he says, comes from the college paper she wrote years before, about her late grandmother’s very own flapper dress – a dress so exotic, so unique, that it is literally dangerous. Dangerous in that edgy, seductive sort of way.

The dress is, of course, merely a catalyst. Jane jets off to find love, adventure, new skills, more adventure, and a lot of self-awareness, in an entertaining read that goes by way too fast.

Mystery in the Mojave

by

The few times I’ve been to Arizona, it was literally flying through Phoenix, or driving through the portion of it that has Route 66, and while I did think it was much more lush than I imagined (because even though I know better my imagination wants to see an Arizona that is nothing more than sand and cactus), it didn’t strike me as a place that inspired mysteries.

In fact, the few times I’ve read novels about Arizona at all, they were either about Arizona luxury real estate, with characters lounging by the pool and spraying themselves with plant misters, or they’ve involved bad grammar and cheese enchiladas.

Because who can refuse a good book about cheese enchiladas?

Tonight I learned about Nite Owl Books, which apparently features the work of Sylvia Nobel, and feature her reporter-cum-detective Kendall O’Dell, and take place in Arizona. I’m a sucker for a good mystery, and these look like an entertaining read, so I’m adding them to my future purchase list.

Booking Through Thursday: Decorum

by

From Booking Through Thursday:
Do you have “issues” with too much profanity or overly explicit (ahem) “romantic” scenes in books? Or do you take them in stride? Have issues like these ever caused you to close a book? Or do you go looking for more exactly like them?

If language or sex are important to the plot of a book I’m reading, I don’t have an issue with them. In some cases, it’s more jarring when authors back away from strong language – it comes off as phony, and strange. With sex, I don’t really sit at the bookstore and go, “well, I’m desperate for a book that has actual penetration described,” but if it comes up, I’m cool with it.

I will admit that a couple of Laurell K. Hamilton’s books have been off-putting for me, not because I mind the sex (I mean, her male characters are HOT) but because there was more sex than plot, and while I may refer to her work as “Monster Porn” or “Faerie Porn” in jest, the reality is that I do read these for the story, first.

That being said, I have to add that while explicit porn may not float my boat most of the time, censorship is wrong. Just as we all have the power to change channels or turn off a television, we have the power to choose what we read without external forces helping us. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it.

Language has power. You should wield it wisely, but you shouldn’t ever be afraid of it.

A Bookish Meme

by

CJ over at My Year of Reading Seriously did this meme, which she snagged elsewhere, as one does. I liked it, so I’m snagging it as well. If YOU want to play along (and I encourage this), the questions are listed without answers interspersed below the fold.

Hardcover or paperback? Why?
Hardcovers last longer; paperbacks are easier to tuck in a purse, but my favorite size and shape is the trade paperback because they’re lighter than the first, and not as thick as a standard paperback – I have small hands, so this is an issue.

If I were to own a book shop I would call it…
You know, I’ve never named a book shop, only a coffee shop. Ex Libris would be one option though it might seem a little too toney. Maybe just Stacks.

My favorite quote from a book (name it) is…
Oh, this changes, often, but for the moment: I’d gotten better lately at simply refusing to let my imagination run away with me. Maybe it had something to do with being a sociopath; if so, let’s hear it for dementia. From Narcissus in Chains by Laurell K. Hamilton.

The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be…
Madeleine L’Engle or Mark Twain.

If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except from the SAS survival guide, it would be…
Oh, I want to pick something lofty like The Complete Shakespeare, but the reality is that I’d bring along The Eight by Katherine Neville, and not just because it’s 825 pages long, either.

I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that
…would allow me to read in the tub – actually READ, not listen to an audio book – without any chance of the book getting wet.

The smell of an old book reminds me of…
Poking around old bookshops in the Haight on a rainy day, and then curling up in front of a fireplace with espresso, quilt, and dog, to read.

If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…
I wanted to be Harriet from Harriet the Spy when I was little, and then Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables when I was older. I like the Anita Blake series, but I wouldn’t want to BE Anita – it’s exhausting. The lead character from Madeleine L’Engle’s Certain Women appeals to me even though her name escapes me, or the researcher in the Pink Carnation series. It all changes depending on my mood and the weather and what I’ve read recently.

The most overestimated book of all time is…
The DaVinci Code. It was a nice couple hours of entertaining reading, but folks, it was just a novel, and similar stories have been told far more artfully (*cough*Foucault’s Pendulum*cough*).

I hate it when a book…
Ends prematurely. When you’ve been sucked into the story and you’re invested in the characters, and then it just sort of fizzles out. It’s so disappointing.

Continue reading →

Emily the Strange

by

Emily the Strange

I first saw her quirky goth image on stationery and desk do-dads on the first shelf as you walk into the Lone Star Comics in Arlington (the one at I-20 and Green Oaks, not the big one). I don’t usually like cutesy things, but something about this little inked girl spoke to the part of my soul that likes vampires and coffee houses.Her name is Emily the Strange and while she was originally created to call attention to a line of skate gear and apparel designed by Rob Reger, she’s become her own fictional person, featuring in graphic novels by Chronicle Books and Dark Horse (which also publishes the Buffy comics), and soon to have her very own movie.

I picked up volume three of the Dark Horse books, “The Dark Book.” It warns you that the subject matter is dark, that the attitudes are dark, and even that book itself is dark, “we use a lot of black ink.” It’s a quirky, sort of surreal story about Emily having a battle of wits with a hell goddess, and includes wonderfully twisted attacks on humanity like raining coffee over the world.

Emily herself is a sort of modern, and much more twisted, version of Wednesday Addams, with a caffeine addiction and four cats. Perpetually thirteen, she dances through her gothic life to the beat of her own private club mix, and while she should be disturbing, somehow, she is not.

Or maybe she is, and I’m just twisted enough to appreciate her. She says it herself, after all, “We’re all strange here.”

Booking Through Thursday: Buy a Friend a Book

by

Buy a Friend a Book Week is October 1-7 (as well as the first weeks of January, April, and July). During this week, you’re encouraged to buy a friend a book for no good reason. Not for their birthday, not because it’s a holiday, not to cheer them up–just because it’s a book.

What book would you choose to give to a friend and why?

The book I’d choose to fling at a friend would depend on the friend. A shabby-chic decorating guide might go to a friend with a new apartment, a vampire story to a friend who loves them as much as I do. For other friends, I’d probably pick something from their wishlists at places like Amazon.com.

One book that I recommend to everyone is The Eight by Katherine Neville. It’s not new. In fact, I first read it during spring break of my freshman year in college (April, 1989), but it’s thick, compelling, and fun – and every so often I love to revisit it.

Another favorite is Alexandra Stoddard’s Gift of a Letter a tiny little book that really makes you appreciate snailmail.

Either of those would be good random gift books, I think.

You can join the Booking Through Thursday fun, too.

The Small Rain

by

by Madeleine L’Engle

It seems fitting, with her death still so very recent, that my next book for the 11 Decades challenge is Madeleine L’Engle’s first published novel.

It takes place in a slightly romanticized New York, and traces the story of Katherine, a brilliant pianist, and Sarah, and aspiring actress, friends of a sort, though the latter is painted rather unsympathetically.

L’Engle delves in to all sorts of subjects: sex, religion, love, growing up, and the artistic personality – as she shares with us Katherine’s journey from teen to young adult.

The story does not end with all romances happily tied up, but it does continue in the sequel, A Severed Wasp, which holds resolutions that are satisfying, if not perfectly tidy.

Ticket to Ride

by

Fuzzy and I were turned on to the Days of Wonder games by some friends, who mentioned a “train game” while we were playing something completely different. I love trains, so when we saw the game – Ticket to Ride – in our local comic book store, we took home a copy.

The object of the game is to claim railroad routes across the country, making the longest route, or stopping in the most cities (not necessarily the same thing) or scoring the most point for completing the most point-to-point connections. There’s a 1916 expansion pack that adds some cards and routes, and then there’s a special Marklin version that adds human characters. As well, there’s a version using a European map instead of the US map.

Geography purists should be cautioned: the maps are not accurate, and are intended as representations and modified for ease of play.

Still, the game is fun.
And I’m not just saying that because I usually win.

(For 2-5 players)