S.G. Browne

With a couple of airplane flights and several hours waiting in the airport and time spent relaxing in a hammock beneath palm trees or on the beach or at the hotel pool, I had plenty of time to read over the past couple of weeks. Of course, I also spent some of that time doing nothing but existing in a Zen like tranquility, but I did manage to get through most of three books, all of them markedly different. Although I’m still working on Book #3, I thought I’d share what I’ve read and a few thoughts.

Pressure by Jeff Strand

I picked up this book last June at the HWA Stoker Award’s weekend in Los Angeles during a mass book signing, having met Jeff previously at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City. Admittedly, I was dubious about whether or not I would enjoy it, as it wasn’t what I was in the mood for, but I soon found myself caught up in the tension and frustration of a prep school friendship that turns terrifyingly bad and haunts the main character into college and beyond. Jeff manages to create an empathy for the main character and a growing frustration and terror at his helplessness as the story spans across several time frames. A good, pressure-packed thriller that doesn’t hold anything back.

The Little Sleep by Paul Tremblay

I wanted to read this novel because it was one of the other three nominees for this year’s HWA Bram Stoker Awards for Best First Novel. I was further intrigued when I came across his second novel, No Sleep Till Wonderland, and read the back cover copy. It’s a darkly comic detective novel in the spirit of Raymond Chandler about a narcoleptic detective who struggles with sleep, hallucinations, and his relationship with his landlord mother. Although I wasn’t as emotionally invested in the main character as I would like to have been, I found the writing style and the humor engaging and entertaining. I had a hard time putting it down and looked forward to picking it back up.

City of Thieves by Paul Benioff

This novel by the author of The 25th Hour (I saw the film starring Edward Norton but never read the book) was recommended to me by Bill, one of the staff at my local Books Inc. I intend on going back to the store and thanking Bill for the recommendation, as this was one of my favorite reads of the past year. I finished it on the flight back to San Francisco and couldn’t put it down. It’s one of those books that makes you appreciate the joy of the written word and how much of a pleasure it is when you come across an author who can string together words to create a memorable, affecting story.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is just my opinion, so if you pick up one of these books and don’t enjoy it, don’t blame me. But if you do pick up one of these, let me know what you think.

Until next time…

That old saying: “It’s so bad, it’s good.” Well, when it comes to movies, I have to disagree. Bad acting, bad scripts, and bad direction only create one thing. Bad movies. Unwatchable movies. Movies that make me glad I’m watching them for $9.00 a month on Netflix and not for $9.00 a pop at the movie theaters.

And those are matinee prices.

Obviously, everyone has their own opinion on the artistic merit of movies. Personal preferences and perceptions come into play, which is what make movies and other form of art what they’re supposed to be. Subjectively enjoyed. As a friend once said, the moment you start to quantify art, it ceases to become art.

That said, I’ve recently watched several movies through Netflix that I’d always been told I had to see for one reason or another. Movies I’d somehow missed that were cult classics or must-see movies: MAD MAX, BUBBA HO-TEP, and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. While I found BUBBA HO-TEP more marginally watchable ( come to think of it, I don’ think I actually finished watching the film), I can’t ever imagine having a reason to watch MAD MAX or RETURN ever again.

Yes, I know MAD MAX was made in 1979. Yes, I know RETURN was supposed to be silly. And yes, I know there are worse movies. But ALIEN was made in 1979 and I can watch it every day. AIRPLANE and TOP SECRET were meant to be silly and they’re much smarter films with better writing. And I haven’t seen any movies that are worse than these in the past twelve months.

By the way, the worst film I think I ever saw was GYMKATA. Though HEARTBEEPS, HOUSE, and PRAYER OF THE ROLLERBOYS are in the running. As is almost every Sylvester Stallone film that came out in the 1980s.

So what do you think? What movies were you told you had to see that you thought were a waste of time and money? What are your unwatchable films?

First of all, I want to make one thing clear:

This is not a Best of List. A Best of List implies that I thought these were the best books of 2009. While to some extent that’s true, a Best of List is only my opinion, not a statement of fact, and has nothing to do with the value or the quality of the writing of the books I included. It’s just a reflection of my own personal tastes and perceptions.

I’m attempting to make this subtle clarification because people tend to take Best of Lists a little too personally and passionately, as if by leaving a particular book off the list I was somehow disparaging the author or showing my lack of taste or literary judgment. And I can show that just fine without being reminded of it, thank you.

So instead, these are simply my favorite books – the reads I enjoyed the most, for one reason or another. And before you say, “Hey, that book didn’t come out in 2009,” I never said these were my favorite books that hit the shelves last year. Just the favorite books I read.

1) Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)
Books capture my imagination for a number of reasons, but this one captured them for all of them. Narrative voice, structure, style, flow, and a story populated with characters that I felt I could reach out and touch. Who doesn’t love a good story about a circus? I recommend this book to everyone. It was my favorite read of 2009.

2) Beat the Reaper (Josh Bazell)
“So I’m on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow…” How can you top that for an opening line in a novel? A fun, unabashedly dark and imaginative debut novel, this one pushed all of my buttons. Darkly comic, entertaining, and a plot that never lets up. If you like your romance sprinkled with mafia hit men and hospital hi-jinks, then this is the book for you.

3) The Likeness (Tana French)
This is the follow up to Tana French’s debut In The Woods. Both novels are mysteries set in small towns on the outskirts of Dublin, Ireland. While I found the story and the mystery of her first novel more complex and compelling, The Likeness is one of those books where the characters seem so real that you can’t believe they’re not still hanging about once you’ve finished with the book. This one stayed with me for several days after I finished it.

4) Fool (Christopher Moore)
If you haven’t read any of Moore’s novels, you can’t go wrong starting off with this one. Richly detailed with research, Fool tells the story of King Lear from the viewpoint of Pocket, the King’s fool. Filled with trademark Christopher Moore humor and lots of tawdry Shakespearean antics, Fool is Christopher Moore at his best.

5) American Gods (Neil Gaiman)
Filled with beautiful prose and a dark, compelling, poignant story about the battle between the forgotten gods of the old world and the new gods who have sprung up to take their place, Gaiman manages to make the fantastic and magical seem possible. A rich, satisfying read.

Okay. Let’s just get this over with right now.

My name is Scott and I am a Waterworld fan.

That’s right. Waterworld. One of the most famous box office flops in the history of Hollywood, right up there with Heaven’s Gate, Ishtar, Hudson Hawk, Gigli, Battlefield Earth, Howard the Duck, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and Leonard Part 6.

It’s my favorite guilty pleasure film of all time. I can watch it over and over, from beginning to end, halfway into the film, two-thirds of the way in, doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I love the film so much. Maybe it’s because of the gills. Or the premise. Maybe it’s because it was such a ridiculous catastrophe. Or that I always get a kick out of Dennis Hopper. Or maybe it’s because I have a man-crush on Kevin Costner.

Okay, that’s admission number two. The Kevin Costner man-crush thing. Maybe it isn’t as deep as it was back in the 1980s when he was starring in films like The Untouchables, Bull Durham, and Field of Dreams, but it’s still there, lying dormant, ready to awaken whenever one of those films comes on TNT or TBS. I mean, come on, how could you not love him as Elliot Ness? What guy didn’t want to be Crash Davis? What guy didn’t cry when he asks his father if he wants to have a game of catch at the end of Field of Dreams? Admit it. Or live in denial. It’s your choice.

I even met him once, back in 1990 when I was working as a driver for a company that did post-production for the Disney Studios, finishing the television spots and theatrical trailers for all of their films. Costner was down the hall in another edit bay doing some work on what would turn out to be Dances With Wolves (which should have acceded it’s Best Picture Oscar to Goodfellas, but that’s another story).

We all knew he was at the editing facility (the Mustang he drove in Bull Durham was in the parking lot with a license plate that said CRASH D), so there was some buzz and I was thinking about what I would say if I had the chance to meet him. We were working on the Dick Tracy campaign (a catastrophe in its own right) and I was sitting on the couch, waiting for someone to tell me to take something somewhere, when a figure appeared in the doorway to my left. Before I glanced up, the figure said: “Is that Dick Tracy you’re working on in there?”

I turned to look and said “Yeah,” all at the same time. When I saw it was Kevin Costner, all of the lines I’d rehearsed had suddenly turned to static and I couldn’t think of anything else to say. So I just stood there and stared at him until he finally turned and walked away.

So that was how I met Kevin Costner. That was what I said. “Yeah.”

One word. Four letters. One syllable.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Waterworld is playing on TNT again.

I’ve been asked a lot about a sequel for Breathers.

Am I writing one? Did I plan on one? When will the next one come out?

To be honest, I never intended to write a sequel to Breathers or to turn it into a series. First, I already had ideas for several novels after this one. Second, I didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a zombie author (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and be limited to that genre for my writing life. And third, the original ending for Breathers was much darker than the one that made it into print. No ambiguity. No hope. No chance of a sequel.

So while I prescribe to the concept of never say never, at the moment I don’t have any plans for a sequel to Breathers. If I can come up with an original idea that isn’t derivative of the original material and doesn’t tread over a lot of common ground, then maybe. But I have a hard time believing that a sequel would be better than the original.

Which brings me to the topic of this post…

It’s been rare that I’ve enjoyed any sequel or any second or third installment of a series as much as I enjoyed the original. Most of the time, they failed miserably to live up to the expectations of the first installment.

The Matrix. Star Wars. Indiana Jones.

I can watch the original Matrix over and over, but the sequels? Yawn. I thought The Empire Strikes Back was a lot of fun, but it ended like a serial, which pissed me off, even as a teenager when I saw it at the theater. Return of the Jedi was a little silly and the three prequels lacked any heart. And while The Last Crusade rivaled Raiders of the Lost Ark, the other two Indiana Jones films, especially the last one, bordered on being unwatchable.

Some other random sequels:

Airplane II had some wonderful moments but wasn’t nearly as funny as the original. Goldmember helped to redeem the Austin Powers series after The Spy Who Shagged Me, but still couldn’t measure up to the first of the bunch. And Men in Black II was such a huge disappointment that I often forget it was ever made.

And don’t even get me started on the Rocky series. Clubber Lang? Dolph Lungren? Please.

On the flip side, I loved the Alien trilogy, (though I’m trying to expunge Alien Resurrection from my brain). Yes, I even enjoyed Alien 3. The Road Warrior was a worthy sequel to Mad Max, but Beyond the Thunderdome was a bit of a blight on the series. I thought The Dark Knight was an excellent film on its own, perhaps even better than Batman Begins (Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker is worth multiple viewings). The only problem was the fact that Christian Bale started growling halfway through the film. None of the children of Tim Burton’s Batman were as good as their father.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy was a fun ride all the way through, though admittedly I’d never read Tolkien’s version so when the first film ended without an ending, I let out a groan along with most of the rest of the theater audience. The Bourne Ultimatum was an improvement over The Bourne Supremacy and arguably better than The Bourne Identity. And while Godfather III was an average film, The Godfather II was a worthy, and some will say better, follow-up to The Godfather. I’d say “it’s hard to argue with a Best Picture Oscar,” but Titanic won out over L.A. Confidential in 1997 and Dances With Wolves beat out Goodfellas in 1990, so I can’t use that criteria as justification.

Oh, and my vote for the best sequel based on how much an improvement they were on their originals? It’s a tie. Evil Dead 2 and Terminator 2.

Obviously, I’m leaving out a lot of series and sequels, including Star Trek, the James Bond franchise, Rambo, Friday the 13th, American Pie (I thought American Wedding was the funniest of the bunch), Hellboy, Die Hard, and Pirates of the Caribbean (the second and third installments weren’t nearly as good as the first).

And yes, since we’re here, I can’t forget the Romero Films, but other than the original Dawn of the Dead, I don’t think the last three in the series hold up to NOTLD.

Admittedly, I haven’t read as many series or sequels as I’ve seen on film. I think part of this is that, when I do a search for the Best Book Series of All Time, most of the lists I come across are filled with YA titles like Lemony Snicket, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Golden Compass.

While I did read the first Harry Potter and the first installment of Twilight (I’m of the opinion that Edward’s a psychotic stalker and that vampires should never sparkle). Although I know a lot of adults loved both series, they’re YA novels and I’m not exactly the target audience, so I didn’t feel a desire to continue.

While I’m sure there are sequels and series out there for adult readers, the only series I have read all the way through is Stephen King’s The Dark Tower saga, which I thought peaked with the fourth installment, Wizard and Glass. After that, I felt it sort of wound its way down rather than building up to the end.

And in case you’re wondering, no, I still haven’t read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

So what the hell does all of this rambling and listing accomplish other than to share my own personal tastes? It says that I’m dubious of sequels to stand up to the originals. Most of the time, they just don’t cut it, so going back to the original question about a sequel, the only way I will write one is if I think it will hold up to Breathers.

So what are your thoughts? On a sequel to Breathers? On the films and books I’ve listed? On the films and books I haven’t listed? On sequels and series in general?