Book review--The Beast and the Bethany books (1-3)

The Beast and the Bethany books (1-3) are books for pre-teens that don't disappoint in terms of their subject matter. Vainglorious egoist Ebenezer Tweezer has taken care of and served the huge beast in his attic with different kinds of food for over five hundred years. The beast has rewarded him with all of the material comforts one can think of as well with an elixir that keeps him young. But when the beast decides it wants to eat a child, Ebenezer finds himself in a bind, both morally and practically. Ebenezer goes on a search for a suitable child, and when he meets the bad-tempered orphan Bethany (that not even the orphanage wants), his dilemma is solved, or so he thinks. But when she comes to live with him, all hell breaks loose. A rude, destructive Bethany and an evil beast in the attic of Ebenezer's house can only lead to trouble. A lot of trouble. 

The author Jack Meggitt-Phillips has quite the imagination, and the books are easy to read, much as were JK Rowling's Harry Potter series of books. The pages just fly by. They are also surprising books given the world we live in at present; the beast decides it wants to eat a child after having developed a taste for humans. And before it gets around to Bethany, there are several humans that disappear down its gullet. But Bethany has other plans, once she finds out what's in store for her. Books 1-3 are a fun roller coaster ride into a strange world, where people (and parrots) travel via puddle portals, where rare parrots sing beautifully and lay eggs that contain all kinds of food, where material items vomited out by the beast have minds of their own. The author has been compared to Roald Dahl, which is apt, but I also found myself thinking of Neil Gaiman's books for children/young adults (The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Coraline). Book 4 remains, and from what I can judge of the ending for Book 3, we are moving toward a beast that has begun to develop a conscience after having spent time in prison and having its memory erased; it has begun to want to be a good beast. That will be an interesting ride. 

Some thoughts about the film The Burrowers

Apropos Kristen Stewart—her recent film, Snow White and the Huntsman, was not a movie I liked very much and I really don’t understand the hype surrounding it. This film got a wide release and generated big box office; I cannot imagine why. I think all involved did passable jobs, but no more than that. The film is forgettable once you’re out of the theater. Charlize Theron overacted/over-reacted and Kristen Stewart under acted/under-reacted (few to no facial expressions in key scenes and so little to say; it was sometimes painful to watch, especially the final scene. It almost seemed as if she was struggling to get some words out, but they never came). Chris Hemsworth did the best acting job if you ask me, within the limited emotional range of the film. The entire film had a wooden feel to it. One can hope that there will be no sequel. I cannot see how it would be feasible, realistic or even necessary. What more is there to say about this story that hasn’t already been said?

The other night I watched a film on Showtime called The Burrowers, from 2008. This film was apparently never released to the movie public and instead went straight to DVD. I don’t understand the rationale for that move, since I thought it was a much better film than big budget Snow White and the Huntsman. Who makes these decisions? The Burrowers was actually quite a creepy little horror film, albeit a very unusual horror film since it was set in the American Wild West during 1879. It is a bit slow-moving, but the characters are interesting and well-developed, as is the storyline. A family living out on the lonely prairie disappears without a trace, and a posse is formed to try and find them/rescue them from the Native American Indians whom they are sure have abducted them. How wrong they are. Their discovery that entities other than Indians are stalking them, waiting for them in the dark, is as I said, creepy, because they, like us, find it hard to believe that such monsters could exist out on the plains. But they do. And they are not just any monsters, they are burrowers, creatures that live underground and who have a penchant for tracking and eating humans. But their mode for doing this is quite unique, and I won’t spoil the film by giving this information away, except to say that it is exploited in an effort to kill them off. The creatures, which are CGI creations, are scary enough such that the film works. The Burrowers is a clever film, and while some people on IMDB have complained about the film’s ending, I found it to be realistic, though unsatisfying. All the loose ends are not tied up. The monsters are not completely wiped out. What the film manages to convey very well is a sense of dread; imagine you are out on the prairie at night, sitting around a fire at your campsite. Your vision is limited, the dark envelopes you, you hear noises. Even if there were no monsters, the reality of spending the night out under the open skies, exposed and vulnerable, could be anxiety-inducing for many people. I am one of them. The film never plays for laughs; it takes itself seriously, and that is one of its strengths. Additionally, you get a real feel for what life must have been like in 1879—long periods of isolation, no internet, no phones, little communication, mostly rumors and innuendoes, and the constant threat of attack. I found myself thinking of the X-Files, always a good sign in my book, because some of the X-Files episodes were quite scary. The Burrowers brought to mind the X-Files episode Detour from 1997. Both the film and the TV episode are well-worth watching. 

My list of favorite fantasy/science fiction/horror authors and books

I have been a fan of fantasy/science fiction/horror literature for years, as I have mentioned in previous posts. There is something about this genre of literature that never ceases to fascinate me. I know many people who are completely uninterested in it, who find it boring because they say these types of stories are not real or logical. I have come to the conclusion that you are either a fan or you are not. There is no middle ground. I am a staunch fan. My mind was always stimulated by this type of literature; I had an active imagination as a child and could scare myself silly just thinking about the deformed creatures that were waiting for me behind the bedroom door or in the bathroom mirror. You would think that this fear would have stopped me from reading these types of books about alien worlds or strange creatures and the like. But it didn’t. And it was cool to imagine what other planets and worlds might look like, or how it would be to travel there and communicate with their inhabitants, even if it proved to be quite dangerous.

Some of the first books I can remember reading were fantasy novels for children, e.g. books by Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; James and the Giant Peach) and CS Lewis. We read Edgar Allan Poe’s morbid tales of horror in grammar school and would discuss them at home around the dinner table in the evenings. Our teachers even organized movie sessions for us where we would watch films based on his books—Murders in the Rue Morgue comes to mind as a particularly violent story, although I believe we saw this in high school if memory serves me well.  As a teenager I became fascinated with the books by Ira Levin and JRR Tolkien as well as by Ray Bradbury.  I was drawn more and more to the idea that there are alternative worlds that we do not understand much about or that we cannot inhabit for one reason or another, or that there is alien life. That is the appeal of science fiction/fantasy to me. I don’t need to have this proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt. I am not really interested in proof at all, although I think it is cool that much of science fiction is based on real facts. It is sufficient to me that these strange worlds and creatures exist in one form or another in the minds of their creators. I am interested in how the science fiction/horror/fantasy writers dreamed up the worlds they did; the fantastic stories about space and time travel, or how they managed to describe on paper the monsters that lived in the deep recesses of their brains. It is the creative process that interests me yet again. We are profoundly influenced as children by what we read, and I know that this is true for me. My parents never discouraged us from reading these kinds of books, hence the continued interest in them so many years later. I am including a list of favorite fantasy/science fiction/horror authors and their books that I have read and enjoyed during the past years.

1.       Aldous Huxley—Brave New World

2.       Bram Stoker—Dracula

3.       Cormac McCarthy—The Road

4.       CS Lewis—The Screwtape Letters; The Chronicles of Narnia; Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra; That Hideous Strength

5.       Doris Lessing—The Fifth Child

6.       Douglas Adams—The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

7.       Edgar Allan Poe—The Fall of the House of Usher; Murders in the Rue Morgue; The Pit and the Pendulum; The Premature Burial; The Tell-tale Heart

8.       George Orwell—Nineteen Eighty-four; Animal Farm

9.       H G Wells—War of the Worlds

10.   Ira Levin—Rosemary’s Baby; This Perfect Day; The Stepford Wives; The Boys From Brazil

11.   Isaac Asimov—Fantastic Voyage

12.   JRR Tolkien—The Hobbit; Lord of the Rings Trilogy

13.   Madeleine L’Engle--A Wrinkle in Time

14.   Mary Shelley--Frankenstein

15.   Michael Crichton—The Andromeda Strain; The Terminal Man; Timeline; Prey

16.   Neil Gaiman—Coraline; The Wolves in the Walls; The Graveyard Book; Stardust

17.   Ray Bradbury—Fahrenheit 451; The Martian Chronicles; Something Wicked This Way Comes; The Illustrated Man

18.   Richard Matheson—I Am Legend

19.   Scarlett Thomas--The End of Mr. Y

20.   Stanislaw Lem--Solaris

21.   Stephen King—Salem’s Lot; The Shining; Cujo

22.   Tim Powers--The Stress of Her Regard