SFist Reads
Geez, the SF Public Library's site is sloooow today. We might not have the patience to make any online reserves, and might have to head straight to one of our fine local independent bookstores. Yes, folks, it's that kind of day.
SFist Cheshire is trying to get into Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude, but so far it's a little impenetrable. Too much writerly acrobatics for Chesh's taste in the first 40 pages or so. Disappointing considering his deep affection for Motherless Brooklyn, but he'll keep at it. He's also slogging his way through Doyle Brunson's Super/System, considered by many to be the absolute authority on how to take your intermediate pok3r game to an advanced level. It's an absolute disaster to look at for anyone who values nice (or even passable) typography, but the info of course is invaluable. Difficult to know when it's Doyle's voice or that of his expert collaborators, but that Texas Dolly attitude is all over the book.
SFist Derrick is trying to expand his bag of tricks by reading Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction, which was recommended to him by a writing coach. SFist Derrick's not an aspiring novelist--he's just hoping to add more narrative flow to his food and wine pieces--but the book has him thinking of short story ideas nonetheless. Real writers probably know everything the book covers, but he's finding it useful.
SFist Chuck is reading "DC Showcase Presents: Teen Titans Volume 1". It's merely the ginchiest, most gear collection of the Fabulous Foursome's way, way-out adventures as they go-go-go against the strictly uncool, four- corners creeps, crumbs, and cruds threatening the world's swingin' teens. It's a safe bet that writer Bob Haney got all his "authentic" lingo by watching early 60's beach movies, but it's a lot more fun to imagine that that's the way everybody talked back then, and the world really was filled with teenagers obsessed with surfing, Hondas, and doing the frug. Besides, where else are you going to see a bunch of junior super-heroes joining the Peace Corps and fighting a conquistador and his giant robot? Or using a hippie guru medium to help a runaway teen "drop-back-in?" Or helping DJ Deejay stop space aliens from stealing Mt. Rushmore and the Sphinx? Or fighting evil fashion designer The Mad Mod, who actually says "'aw 'aw 'aw" like a British version of a Jack Chick tract? Or helping high school drop-outs defeat Ding-Dong Daddy and his Demon Dragster? It's a little disappointing to see the late 60's mentality take over towards the end, especially knowing how the 70's would bring on increasingly humorless and self-important attempts to make comic books more "realistic," but most of the book is just a cheesy, fun, beach movie with super-heroes and alternate dimensions, and it's a gas gas gas.