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digitaldiscipline · 5 years

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Dan Simmons showed his ass, so I handed it to him.

[Review] Carrion Comfort

(Originally posted 27 Feb 13)

I'm going to say this right up front: Stephen King doesn't know shit about what makes a horror story great. His cover blurb, proclaiming Dan Simmons' sophomore effort, Carrion Comfort, "One of the three greatest horror novels of the 20th century," is frankly and flatly ignorant, in addition to being laughably inaccurate. This wouldn't even be a top-three book in King's own body of work, and nobody's going to mistake the guy for a grandmaster of anything but pulp (and I say this as someone who owns about five linear feet worth of King's books in hardcover and trade paperback; I read just about everything he wrote up through the turn of the century; I may be performing a hatchet job, but it's an informed hatchet job). Guillermo del Toro penned a similarly effusive and purple blurb, presumably in exchange for the other six shots of absinthe he'd been bribed with to write it. Even the meta for this novel, released as a 20th anniversary special, where Simmons details the novel's journey to publication, is a steaming pile of overwrought hubris. It weighs in at thirty-two pages, most of which is Simmons' assertion that he's smarter than the publishing industry and, specifically, an editor he takes pains not to name, but describes unflatteringly (both physically and intellectually) who, eventually, I came to sympathize with... her eventual assertion that he scrap everything but the title was an opinion I shared about five hundred or so pages in, too. So, to the text itself. There are, to its credit, very few typographical errors[1], though it's obvious Mr. Simmons (and whomever may or may not have edited this thing) doesn't know the first fucking thing about physics, firearms, sharks, or vampires. He's watched too many episodes of Starsky and Hutch to be able to write a decent action scene (frenetic, disjointed, implausible... it's almost painfully obvious that he wrote this book to end up as a movie, even including a Hollywood producer and a couple sexy starlets who serve almost no purpose but to be sexual objects). Leaving aside the story's specific shortcomings, there's the small matter of craft, which can be most easily and kindly be summarized by saying that the author bit off way, way more than he could chew. This book wants to be a psychological monster horror story wrapped around some plucky discrimination victims interwoven with a political potboiler. It manages this trick with all the grace and elegance of a truck full of cheap beer going over a guardrail and rolling down an embankment made of lawn jockeys, rejected Tom Clancy novels, and Bram Stoker's spinning corpse. The villains are supposed to be psychic vampires, and, early on, it's suggested that they draw power, sustenance, and longevity from using their power to compel people in their thrall to commit acts against their will, specifically murder and/or suicide. Unfortunately, the only one who appears to have resisted the ravages of time particularly well takes a mid-caliber bullet to the forehead before the end of the first act, and the author actively ignores the fact that one of the chief antagonists becomes exponentially more powerful, causing a substantial amount of sustenance-providing chaos, while remaining little more than a breathing corpse. Maybe this was Simmons' way of suggesting they don't draw power from exerting power.... or maybe it's just sloppy writing. But if this is the mechanism upon which the entire horror premise is built on, maybe you ought to think it through a little more comprehensively and pay attention to the rules of the world you build. (To this end, I'm currently giving the author of the book I'm editing a ration of shit over the logistics of her characters' commute and how a made-up drug might work with a made-up physiological condition, because they're introduced and need explaining to keep secondary things from unraveling.) When it's something as large and prominent as the mechanism by which your vampires vampire, you might want to not fuck that up or ignore it altogether. Likewise, there are broad hints that the bad guys are a shadowy, world-controlling behind-the-scenes force, ensconced in the halls of quiet power (because that's never been a cliche).... but without ever actually doing much more than pulling some strings to fatally harass friends and family of the protagonists, and the protags themselves. Illustrative of petty tyrants, or just a cheap swipe at Washington, carried out by someone who thinks that J. Edgar Hoover was actually the most powerful man in the world during his formative years? The topic of race, in a couple of dimensions, is slathered on this book so heavily that you'd think Al Jolson used it to wipe his face after a show. We have the young black woman whose father is killed teaming up with the Holocaust survivor, teaming up against a bunch of white people; all but two of which are old white guys in suits (one of whom is a former Nazi officer; another is a closeted televangelist); the other two are a young white guy who is a blatant sexual predator and an old white woman who is an overt, old-school Southern racist. Racial tensions were high in the late 70's, and there were plenty of cold war fears to go around, but, really, having the FBI used as puppets to go shooting up the Philadelphia slums, while not a finger is lifted by local police, and the Mossad being white-kinghted to aid the protagonists is laying it on a bit thick. What passes for moral ambiguity is almost immediately undermined by sermonizing on both sides, good and bad. Simmons admits in the foreword to more or less ripping off the collective gestalt of the child-monster horror trope that was big in theaters during the late 1970's. I'd love to say this is a complex and heady blend of body-snatcher paranoia with notes of victimization (two of the three main protagonists are preyed on ("Used" in the book's parlance) by the bad guys at various times, and the author isn't at all shy about calling it "mindrape" early and often, but that's a lot more credit than is due. This book has pretentions of moral philosophy, but it's flat and preachy and, frankly, Neal Stephenson does "here are several paragraphs of completely irrelevant and sanctimonious shit I think is interesting and am going to force you to read now" better. There's also the matter of what is simply bad writing. We have a scene where we're told, "Natalie awoke to the sound of an explosion." She spends one sentence disoriented and getting dressed, and two sentences looking for the other people she was sharing accommodations with. She then steps outside to admire how nice and blue the sky and how pleasant the weather is "Natalie went downstairs and out the front door, marveling at the blue sky and warm air" (page 487 in the TPB edition). Then she spends a sentence checking out the landscaping. Then she walks around the yard to see where the noise is coming from. JESUS CHRIST IT'S AN EXPLOSION LET'S CHECK OUT THE SCENERY. This kind of inept action is endemic, even without Checkhov's gun masquerading as a bandolier of C-4. In the book's favor, it kills off a love interest early and unapologetically, it doesn't flinch about depicting some touchy shit (even ineptly, at least Simmons is trying to make some social commentary), and is blissfully ignorant of the Bechdel test, which it skirts fairly thoroughly (since the aforementioned baddie is a mean old broad, she talks to both of the other main female characters, though they do spend most of this time discussing their plans, which generally revolve around doing harm to various men). [1] As anyone who lived at the time knows, the personable gentleman who hosted Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom was named Marlin Perkins, not Martin. At the time, fucking this guy's name up would be the contemporary equivalent of saying "Darryl O'Reilly" or "Bob Stewart"; the man was the host of one of the most popular shows on television, and there were a lot fewer fucking channels back then. Very little of the foregoing has probably gone unsaid by the folks at Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11286.Carrion_Comfort ; however, I'm not going to plow through all of those before hitting "post" and putting this thing behind me. I may, in fact, perform the act of near-sacrilege and tear out the page upon which the person who gave it to me penned an inscription before remaindering the book to my favorite used book store so that someone else can subject themselves to it. One half of a reheated Clancy/King slashfic out of five.

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corruptedspacecore · 6 years

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I'm gonna need a bigger shelf!

Over time, I’ve been slowly building up a collection of Titanic books. A few of them I’ve had for a long time. Once in a while, something about other ships or other subjects altogether would creep in, mainly science. Recently, I acquired a bunch of new books, expanding my “library” to 40 books and adding some new subjects as well as ships to the mix. Here’s my library so far:

From left to right, top to bottom shelf:

Inside the Titanic - Hugh Brewster & Ken Marschall A big, great book featuring cutaway paintings of Titanic, showing what was inside.

Titanic: The Ship Magnificent: Volume 1 - Bruce Beveridge A thick volume covering the construction and engineering of Titanic, such as engines, funnels, ventilation and heating, generators, boilers, the shipyard, hull and steelwork, and so on.

Titanic: The Ship Magnificent: Volume 2 - Bruce Beveridge A volume covering the fitting out stage of construction and Titanic’s interior design, going over many of the rooms and design elements. Both volumes are filled with hundreds of photos and plans.

Titanic: Triumph and Tragedy - Jack Eaton & Charles Haas (signed by Jack and Charles) A sizeable book detailing the life of the Titanic from construction to sinking and many of the details surrounding it.

Titanic: An Illustrated History - Don Lynch & Ken Marschall A nice coffee table book with lots of paintings illustrating Titanic’s voyage and sinking.

Exploring the Deep: The Titanic Expeditions - James Cameron A book detailing Cameron’s many dives to the wreck of Titanic, featuring tons of photos, renderings, accounts, and some extra goodies.

Ken Marschall's Art of the Titanic - Rick Archbold & Ken Marschall Another book featuring many of Ken’s Titanic paintings and his history and process for painting them. It also includes some of his other liner paintings.

Titanic in Photographs - Dan Klistorner & Steve Hall A good coffee table book of large reprints of many famous Titanic photos, detailing her journey from shipyard to sailing.

Report Into the Loss of the SS Titanic: A Centennial Reappraisal - Samuel Halpern A more technical volume going over the conclusions of the inquiries into Titanic’s sinking and many of the details and accounts.

On a Sea of Glass: The Life and Loss of the RMS Titanic - Tad Fitch, J. Kent Layton, & Bill Wormstedt (signed by Tad) A detailed and compelling read about Titanic’s life from her sea trials to her final plunge, with a number of interesting appendices, information, accounts, and photos.

RMS Titanic: A Modelmaker's Manual - Peter Davies-Garner A wonderful book to have for the Titanic modeler, if you can find it. IT’s chock full of detailed drawings and plans of many elements of the Titanic, including hull line plans and a profile view, as well as its text and photos documenting the construction of a huge scale model of the Titanic.

RMS Titanic: Owner's Workshop Manual - David Hutchings & Richard de Kerbrech A fun little book in the style of those car manuals you often see, with plans and diagrams and photos covering many aspects of Titanic.

Eyewitness: Titanic - Simon Adams A very simple and short book for the child or young person just getting into the Titanic. A favorite from when I was little, but not much to it.

882 1/2 Amazing Answers to your Questions about the Titanic - Hugh Brewster & Laurie Coulter A fun read for interesting little tidbits and facts about Titanic and pop culture surrounding it.

Draw the Titanic - Andrew Staiano & Jason Pederson A guide for drawing Titanic and related subjects.

Titanic: Triumph to Tragedy A magazine-type publication full of general information and a number of errors, but probably a decent read if you’re short on time and want to know a bit more about Titanic.

National Geographic: April 2012 An issue of National Geographic with an article for the Titanic centennial, featuring some wreck photos and a sinking simulation poster and some words from Cameron about his explorations.

Ocean Liners of the Past: Olympic & Titanic A book from the 70s featuring reprints of material from earlier period pieces about the Olympic Class Liners. It includes a bunch of great, high-quality drawings and plans of things like the engine and boiler rooms and other engineering elements, and lots of great information about the engineering of those ships.

On Board the Titanic - Shelley Tanaka & Ken Marschall A short little paperback for any child who wants to learn the basics of Titanic’s story, with some paintings by Ken.

Story of the Wreck of the Titanic This is my oldest book, an original printed in 1912, acquired for only $15. It’s full of first-hand, unfiltered accounts from the survivors and news of the time about the Titanic disaster and aftermath.

A Night to Remember - Walter Lord Written in the 50s, this exciting and compelling novel utilized what at the time was the best information available about Titanic’s sinking. Lord manages to use pure facts and accounts - nothing fictionalized and no fake characters - with a gripping writing style to tell Titanic’s story from the collision to the Carpathia. It’s still considered one of the best books about Titanic, and the move made from it one of the best films about Titanic.

RMS Olympic - Brian Hawley A small book telling the story of Titanic’s sister ship, Olympic, with tons of rare photos.

M.C. Escher: The Graphic Work A giant book of prints of Escher’s best work. I won it at an art show in high school.

Beau Voyage: Life Aboard the Last Great Ships - John Malcolm Brinnin A big book full of many photos of ships from the early to mid 20th century, the age of the last classic ocean liners.

Queen Mary - James Steele A wonderful and large book all about the Queen Mary in her heyday and beyond, full of period photos of how she looked pre and post Long Beach, and a set of deck plans.

Lost Liners - Robert Ballard & Ken Marschall A coffee table book about the sinkings and wrecks of several famous ocean liners, including the Titanic. Ken’s amazing artwork is again displayed, including detailed paintings of Titanic’s wreck.

The Story of the Unsinkable Titanic - Michael Wilkinson & Robert Hamilton A very general book about Titanic’s story with the usual photos and material, but still good for the person just getting into the subject.

Robert Ballard's Lusitania - Robert Ballard An amazing, must-have book for anybody interested in the Lusitania, the other great ocean liner disaster. The book tells the story of Lusitasnia’s final voyages and sinking, and details Ballard’s explorations of the wreck. It includes inromation and tons of photos of the ship’s interiors as well as the wreck, and Ken Marschall’s incredible paintings depicting the sailing, sinking, and wreck of Lusitania.

Hindenburg: An Illustrated History - Rick Archbold & Ken Marschall Another must-have, this book tells the story of the German (Nazi) airship Hindenburg, starting with the airships that came before her, the final voyage, and her fiery end. It includes more amazing paintings by Ken, with some of them being cutaway views showing the inner workings and layout of the Hindenburg.

Comet - Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan A detailed tome about the science and nature of comets.

Cosmos - Carl Sagan Like the related TV series, Cosmos delves into the history and nature of the universe, from galaxies and planets to relativity and Mars, and the human journey to discover more about the universe we find ourselves in, and our deep questions about it.

Anatomy of the Ship Hood - John Roberts A technical book about the British battlecruiser Hood, it features many, many super-detailed drawings, plans, and disagrams of the structure and workings of the Hood, including deck plans, hull plans, line plans, detailed structural views, and views and plans of many elements of the ship’s structure. If you plan on modeling the HMS Hood, this book is a must-have.

The Battleship Yamato - Janusz Skulski This one is of the exact same nature as the Hood book, only with the Imperial Japanese battleship Yamato. Al lthe ultra-detailed plans you’ll ever need to know the structure of Japan’s most imposing battleship and technological WWII marvel.

Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World - Bill Nye (signed by Bill) Bill Nye’s ideas and plans for how we can use science and engineering to help and solve many of the world’s problems, including climate change. I picked up my signed copy at an event in Philadelphia where I got to see him speak.

The Origin of Species - Charles Darwin The classic book laying out Darwin’s theory of evolution. Evolutionary theory has come a long, long way since this book was written, but it’s still a must-own for anybody interested in science or evolution.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan A wonderful and eye-opening book about science and skepticism, and how we can use those tools to cut through the nonsense and horrors and burning questions and fears of the world to improve the world and our own lives. Sagan discusses many things from a skeptical, scientific perspective, including UFOs, magic, religion, astrology and other new-age ideas and more.

The Klingon Dictionary - Marc Okrand Pretty self-explanatory. Want to know what a word is in Klingon: This book should help. Or Google, but a book is good, too.

The Martian - Andy Weir If you thought the movie was good, the book is better. Weird brings his intense attention to detail and science to tell a compelling and plausible story about an astronaut trapped on Mars. It’s full of science and humor, so what could be better?

Raise the Titanic - Clive Cussler A fun, action-packed thriller from the master of adventure novels, Cussler tells the story of a mission to raise the wreck of Titanic in a Cold War arms race that culminates in a showdown on the rotted decks of Titanic. Written before the wreck was found, it takes some liberties, but it’s a thoroughly fun read.

Contact - Carl Sagan A novel about an alien signal received by humanity with instructions to build a machine to send a group of humans to another part of space, and all the hardships and drama that come with such an event. It was, of course, made into a movie starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey.

That’s my library so far. I hope to expand on it in the future. You can never have enough Titanic books, or any books for that matter.

#personal #books #titanic #rms titanic #the titanic

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