I have this problem; I think the DSM-IV classification is “nerdrage.” I get so invested in a series—book, TV, film—and its wonderful setting, awesome characters, gut-churning plot-twists that as the inevitable conclusion looms, I look at the chaotic state of the series’ universe and panic. The ending can never be perfect enough! I’m not ready to say goodbye! I want more!

Well, ideally that’s why I’m stopped before the final act. Unfortunately, far too often, it’s because something or a huge accumulation of somethings has so jarred me from what I thought the series was all about that I throw my hands in the air and surrender.

Here is my embarrassing list of series that I really should have finished by now. This will be spoileriffic, but obviously I don’t know how it all ends so NO SPOILERS PLEASE:

The Wheel of Time: Book 1 was fun, in a “my first hero’s journey epic fantasy quest saga” sort of way. Books 2 and 3 were amazing, and seriously: BALEFIRE. How can you not get excited about balefire?! But then Books 4 and 5 passed, and I would be hard pressed to tell you a single thing that happened in them. Lanfear might have made a snippy remark. But I’m trudging along, because there are crazy artifacts around the world, and I want to see them mess people up, and can we get some more BALEFIRE?!?

Then pritty pritty desert princess Aviendha shows up and nearly gets hypothermia in Book 6 and can only be revived by Rand’s sweet, sweet lovin’? Really? REALLY?

That may have been the first time I ever threw a book at the wall in rage. It wasn’t the last, but it was definitely the end of that particular weave of the wheel for me. Sometimes I think I owe it to myself to know how it all ends, but then I realize I was only a third of the way through the series, if that, and would have to re-read the 6000+ pages I’d already invested just to recall what in all the hells is happening. Because all I remember? Balefire, too many demons to remember, secret wind tunnels of death, balefire. I think I’ll stick to those memories.

Battlestar Galactica: I hadn’t quite reached breaking point on this one, but I do remember planning our days around the delivery of each subsequent Netflix disc so we could gorge on four episodes at once. Netflix only had half of the final season available at the time, though, and that last disc with the half season finale was fairly treacherous. Congratulations, Starbuck, you found Earth. Too bad it’s probably located halfway inside our expanding, dying sun at this point, and frankly, even that’s less screwed up than your marriage.

We’ll finish this one, but I want to rewatch it from the beginning. Relish the early days of Adama/Roslin. Mostly I want to know if those crazy old kids make it out okay, and I want to find out who’s the final cylon (NO I DON’T KNOW PLEASE DON’T TELL ME OKAY).

Harry Potter: This one’s through no fault of Harry’s (or J.K.’s). I read the first five books; watched the first five movies. I even read Book 2 in Russian (Garry Potter and the Secrety Room). No, the only strike against HP is that Books 6 and 7 had the misfortune of being released while I was wading through a wizarding morality tale of my own called Lindsay Smith and the Deathly Online Gaming Addiction. I’ll finish this, but only once I find a nice box set of the books.

Dude, where’s my son?

LOST: I endured the circuitous dialogue. I forgave them for killing Juliette (because, really, no one dies on that show in any meaningful way). I accepted the time travel madness of season 5. I think what really did me in was the show’s tendency to use five characters where one would do. This led to the ever-growing hierarchies: ah, but it’s not the Tail Section, it’s the Others! Oh, it’s not the Others, it’s the Dharma Initiative! Oh, it’s not Dharma, it’s these crazy militants on a ship! Oh, it’s not the militants, it’s PHYSICISTS! No—MONKS ON AN ISLAND! But wait there’s ANOTHER conspiracy group who have spent thousands of dollars in airfare just to prove some guy who’s dead is really dead, except he’s alive except for when he’s not, and it’s not really him anyway, because really Locke is the Monster is the Jacob is the Richard is the Man in Black is the Man in White is a polar bear is Christian Shepard is dead but not really.

Mind you, I only saw snippets of the final season so I’m probably horribly wrong in all of these assumptions, but it’s just too much. Any time the show painted itself into a corner, the solution was to introduce twenty new characters who Knew Things but still provided no real answers as to the show’s greater truth.

I finally asked J to spoil the ending for me and tell me what happened in Season 6, but he said he couldn’t explain it if he wanted to. I guess I’ll either Netflix this one (agony!) or find a nice write-up online.

What series have filled you with the Wrath of Nerd? Do you regret not persevering, or do you consider yourself lucky to have escaped when you did?

Heeeey! Hey, you! You like free books, right? And you’re all about Twitter? Then make sure you enter my Summer Book Giveaway! I’ve just d-d-d-doubled the base prize pack!

Last night, J and I took part in a Firefly watch party on Chez Twit—something about celebrating Joss Whedon’s birthday, I don’t know, like we need an excuse to watch that show. I’ve been struggling with characterization lately, and Whedon—in conjunction with some absolutely brilliant books I’ve been reading lately—always knows how to curbstomp my tender writerly heart and laugh at my pitiful attempts at character depth and complexity. So I was overanalyzing the characters, as is my wont, and then … just … JAYNE.

(Oh, no, the fact that J resembles Adam Baldwin in no way entered my mind when he was first wooing me. Reeeally.) (I can hear you snerk from here, Mom.)

At first, Jayne can easily be read as a cross of Han Solo and Jean Tannen: yeah, he’d shoot Greedo first, but he’s a lovable oaf, and he’s got the heavy artillery to back it up. But Han and Jean both possess something that Jayne reaches for, but never quite grasps—loyalty. Han acts like it’s all for the money, but he can’t resist knocking Vader off Luke’s tail. Jean will let Locke act like an unbelievably miserable ass and still crack skulls to save him. Jayne … Jayne has no problem cashing a bounty on his friends, dumping his partner (and a box of money) to escape orbit, and swapping sides as long as they offer him a big room. Sometimes, he has the smarts to pull it off, but often, not.

But even that isn’t enough complexity for the hero of Canton. Jayne is always funny, often lovable, and generally ends up doing what he ought, even when he’d prefer not to. He’s not bright—but he knows just enough to be a threat.

“What alignment do you think Jayne is?” I asked J. (Yes, I’m a huge dork. In fairness, we’ve been playing a lot of Pathfinder and Baldur’s Gate recently. Alignment matters sometimes! And I will totally be writing a post about it soon.) “Chaotic Neutral, maybe? Unreliable, no concern for law, can easily go either way.”

“Oh, no. He’s Neutral Evil.”

Evil? One of the main “heroes” of the show is evil? That isn’t an easy pill. Of course, a show about law-breaking smugglers is going to be full of the grayscale, but to have a protagonist so solidly bad …

Neutral Evil is called the “Malefactor” alignment. Characters of this alignment are typically selfish and have no qualms about turning on their allies-of-the-moment. […] A villain of this alignment can be more dangerous than either Lawful or Chaotic Evil characters, since he is neither bound by any sort of honor or tradition nor disorganized and pointlessly violent.

Examples are […] a henchman who plots behind his superior’s back, or a mercenary who switches sides if made a better offer.

But it’s absolutely correct. In the show’s little mayfly life, they face plenty of antagonists, but even when Jayne aids the antagonists, he’s not the primary threat—but he always could be. Jayne is the unfired gun. Mal knows it, the crew knows it, but they just can’t face it with all these other threats closing in. The enemy is embedded, and right from the show’s start, that tension is always there:

Mal: How come you didn’t turn on me, Jayne?
Jayne: Money wasn’t good enough.
Mal: What happens when it is?
Jayne: Well… that’ll be an interesting day.
Mal: Imagine it will.

I wish we could have seen it.

They’re scoundrels, rapscallions, ne’er-do-wells, ex-cons, con artists, and crotchety. And those are the guys on the good side of the law. They are the scoundrel investigators, and even though I’m not a big fan of the mystery genre, these oafs always draw me in.

Jim Rockford & Thomas Magnum
The Rockford Files and Magnum PI

The eyebrows have it. Rockford’s an ex-con, and Magnum’s ex-Navy, but neither of them get any respect from the police until they show them up time and again. Perhaps my favorite example of Rockford’s character was an episode where he kept a letterpress machine in the passenger seat of his card, and forged IDs that he used to fool both the suspects and the investigators. As grumpy as he may be, he never looks so unpleasant next to his crotchety father; and as much iniquity as Magnum causes, we can’t help but feel a little sorry for him when Higgins scolds him for the smallest infractions.

Libby Day
Dark Places

She can’t get out of bed most days. She’s missing a finger and three toes. She lives off the charity of others, and whatever she can steal from restaurants, hotels, and other people’s homes. And she is the sole survivor of the Kinnakee Satanic Massacre that claimed her mother and two sisters. Only she’s not so certain her brother strangled, chopped, and shot them those 25 years ago. I loved watching Libby’s struggle against her own conscious insufferability as she tried to solve a decades-old multiple homicide.

Neal Caffrey and Shawn Spencer
White Collar and Psych

One’s a former con artist serving out the rest of his sentence by working for the FBI, and the other is actively conning the Santa Barbara Police Department by claiming psychic powers, when he’s really just extraordinarily perceptive. I love these guys because they’re always working an angle. Neal puts his own demons to bed on the back-end while he puts on a show for the FBI, and Shawn has to concoct ever more ludicrous psychic intuitions to justify his discoveries.

Cassie Maddox
Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad novels

She’s not really a scoundrel, per se—as a policewoman, she’s mostly by the book—but her choice in work-appropriate t-shirt slogans is admirable, if not advisable.

Who are your favorite law-bending scoundrels, who never let rules get in the way of a good time?



Aura’s mother has not been well, but this new episode drives the middle portion of the book. Grace’s tornadic behavior—trying to keep the world spinning with her feet, a frenzy of fire and paint and loud music—has a similar whirlwind effect on Aura’s life. She’s missing classes, trying to teach herself to drive, dodging adults’ questions, making excuses, shedding her friendships, all as she gets wrapped up in this constant battle to keep her mother safe.

The water imagery isn’t as prevalent, but Grace remains a force of nature; one of those ugly facts that appear with no rhyme or reason. Not unlike tornadoes, really. I’m from Oklahoma and have experienced countless tornadoes. To me, they are as typical as Grace’s madness is to Aura. When J first came to Oklahoma, he woke me up in the middle of the night, panicked. There were tornado sirens! The weathermen were on TV without commercial interruption! Doppler shows these scary swathes of red and orange!

I dragged myself from bed; studied the TV map; shrugged and went back to sleep. We aren’t in the path. It’s springtime. This happens. I know what it is to stand in a field under a black-green sky and see that angry freight train down the path. This is normal and I’m not afraid.

But just because we’re familiar with terrifying forces doesn’t make them any less destructive. Neighbors in Joplin and Moore—I am so sorry, and I am thinking/hoping/praying for you.

Aura, too, accepts her mother’s madness even as she searches for ways to end it; she refuses to turn to doctors, medication, family. She has opportunities to turn to her father and her grandmother and her friends but she turns them down. Her best friend, Janny, sees what’s happening; sees the way Aura pretends it’s okay; and refuses to take part in the charade.

How do you feel about Aura’s reaction to her mother’s episode? What about her mounting dread that this sickness (which she deems interchangeable with creativity) lies dormant in her, too?

P.S. If you want to help victims of this year’s tornadoes, the wonderful folks at Help Write Now held some awesome auctions, but those have all closed; they do, however, still have links to great places to donate directly.



I didn’t get as far as I’d like in A BLUE SO DARK for this week’s discussion due to a slew of other obligations, but I’m at around page 50 now. I’m really loving the writing and carefully crafted story—there is a lot going on, even though Ms. Schindler tells it in few words. My thoughts keep returning to the following aspects in particular:

Water

As I suspected, the water and, in particular, the ocean is a powerful theme already. We see the murky “chocolate milkshake” waters of post-storm Florida, the stylized waves on Aura’s crush’s necklace, poolside summers with her best friend Janny, and the beach photo of her mother and grandmother, waves crashing against their legs. A metaphorical sea washes over descriptions of her mother’s madness, too, sometimes as a tide but often as a force that pulls her under.

Schizophrenia

We have yet to see Aura’s mother Grace take a bad turn, but the physical manifestations are there, even when she’s seemingly fine. The unwashed, sick smell; her oily hair; her shaking hands and franticness in searching for a hair tie.

Denial

Aura’s dad wears an excellent mask of denial. We first see it in their Florida vacation, when he stubbornly tries to “prove” to Aura that they’re having a good time even though she hates it, and it continues into the present: covering up Grace’s sickness with medication, covering up his failed first marriage with a new one.

And everywhere, little signs of how Aura resembles her mother keep popping up, but I’m going to withhold comment on them until later.

What symbolism have you found in A BLUE SO DARK so far? Any interesting story elements that jump out at you?



This month, we’ll be reading our inaugural book club book, A BLUE SO DARK by Holly Schindler. The Offcentre Book Club is a no-pressure reading group. Once a week, I’ll be posting discussion points. If you’re reading the book as well, you’re invited to respond to the discussion either in comments or on your own blog (and kindly provide a link if you do, so I can reference it in the main post!); or you can write a discussion post of your own (and provide me a link for these as well). Enjoy!

May: A BLUE SO DARK by Holly Schindler

Fifteen-year-old Aura Ambrose has been hiding a secret. Her mother, a talented artist and art teacher, is slowly being consumed by schizophrenia, and Aura has been her sole caretaker ever since Aura’s dad left them. Convinced that “creative” equals crazy, Aura shuns her own artistic talent. But as her mother sinks deeper into the darkness of mental illness, the hunger for a creative outlet draws Aura toward the depths of her imagination. Just as desperation threatens to swallow her whole, Aura discovers that art, love, and family are profoundly linked—and together may offer an escape from her fears.

 

Thoughts Before Beginning

All the Flux books I’ve read have struck me with their delicate pacing, allowing a deeper look into characters’ psyches, and lush descriptions, and based on the synopsis, I expect our peek into Aura’s mother’s madness and Aura’s own struggles will be similar. I read Joyce Carol Oates’s BLONDE a few months back, and a decent portion of the story covered the very young Marilyn Monroe learning to live around her mother’s insanity—practiced rituals, affectations, acceptance of lies—that kept them in balance until it just wasn’t enough. I suspect A BLUE SO DARK will be similarly wrenching.

And who wouldn’t love that cover art? The girl adrift in unknown waters is a clear but powerful metaphor. There are two other books coming out very soon whose covers convey a similar sense of being lost in the currents:

IMAGINARY GIRLS by Nova Ren Suma

Chloe’s older sister, Ruby, is the girl everyone looks to and longs for, who can’t be captured or caged. When a night with Ruby’s friends goes horribly wrong and Chloe discovers the dead body of her classmate London Hayes left floating in the reservoir, Chloe is sent away from town and away from Ruby.

But Ruby will do anything to get her sister back, and when Chloe returns to town two years later, deadly surprises await. As Chloe flirts with the truth that Ruby has hidden deeply away, the fragile line between life and death is redrawn by the complex bonds of sisterhood.

With palpable drama and delicious craft, Nova Ren Suma bursts onto the YA scene with the story that everyone will be talking about.

I love the tagline: “Secrets never stay below the surface.” I think that applies to all three covers here—sooner or later, we must come up for breath, and face the consequences.

 THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER by Michelle Hodkin

Mara Dyer believes life can’t get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed.

There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.

She’s wrong.