Sunday, January 01, 2012

Twilight (spoilers)

Read the Twilight books recently (haven't seen any of the movies). Can't really understand the hype, neither the positive nor the negative one.

The books have some interesting premises (such as the vampire character having a fairly normal and supportive family), but are fairly badly written. The author appears to have learned something by book 3, and books 3 and 4 are considerably better than 1 and 2.

She has for example learned that in a romance story there should probably be some sex, or at least some thoughts about sex, at least if the romance story is written in the first person, and by the middle of the third book Bella actually starts thinking about having sex with Edward. That's about a year and a half into their relationship. Considering how attractive she finds him at the first glance, it would have taken me about what, 300 milliseconds or so to start having impure thoughts?

They don't get to have sex until book 4.

As fantasy the books are readable, as romance they suck. OK, I am not a very experienced romance reader, but I should get at least some idea why the protagonist likes the guy she likes.

That said, I don't quite understand all the critique based on the fact that Bella is not a fighter unlike Buffy's characters. How could she be a fighter in that world? Vampires in the Twilight series are a lot harder to destroy than in Buffy, and Bella does not have any supernatural skills.

And one thing that surprises me in all the vampire fiction: how come none of them ever work for the Red Cross?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everyone!

Will I ever get all the glitter out of my... well, everything?