May 2020 – Page 2 – Political theory and practice

Geekerella (2017) by Ashley Poston

GoodReads meta-data is 320 pages, rated 4.00 by 37,381 litizens.

Genre: Chick Lit.

Verdict: Ignite!

Introverted, harassed, unloved, acned, beset teenage girl dreams of the stars while her wicked stepmother and cruel step sisters torment her in a tag team. If and when she finally snaps they will get the inheritance from the deceased father and be rid of her once and for all to live unhappily ever after. (It’s pretty clear these people do not have the happiness gene.)

The evil step mother is certainly decanal material. No argument, no loyalty, no evidence, no reason, no services rendered, no compassion sways her from the KPI of seeing off Introv. That way lies promotion. Sending Introv up on the roof in a thunderstorm to fix a leak is all in a day’s meanness for her. Nothing special. Overdrawn just a tad, one might say. On the other hand, speaking of deans….[some stories are not fit to print].

Introv works in a food truck with Stud Girl, a reference to the many piercings the latter sports. They communicate in grunts. Don’t underestimate this Newtown wannabe.

Long ago and far away Introv had parents who loved her and took her (metaphorically) to the stars, as founding fans of StarField, a brief television series that subsequently won a following in syndication.The odes to the dead parents and the stars are humbling, moving, and spectacular to read. If this is Chick Lit, let there be more of it.

Meanwhile, in another world the StarField franchise is getting a re-boot these years later with a teenage Jason Bieber in the lead.* Yuck! Nothing could be more wrong which Introv boldly declares on her blog which gets taken up far and wide simply because by some quirk of time zones she was the first to voice this opinion.

We learn that despite appearances and expectations, this teen idol has a soul, one that yearns to be free of being Jason Bieber 24/7. The iron cage of celebrity is very nicely realised in these pages. Though again perhaps a tiny bit overdrawn just for fun. Still I liked the ever distracted manager and monosyllabic bodyguard. Likewise the co-star who tells the boy wonder that if he doesn’t stand up for himself now, he never will.

He wants out so bad he calls an old number he found for help to wiggle out of a commitment without a confrontation, which old number once belonged to Introv’s deceased dad, and so he makes unintended contact with her. Through this mischance they communicate, and find that they can communicate more, and more easily with texts to a stranger than with anyone around them. He is surrounded by cannibalistic fans and hangers-on; she by the equally ravenous evil step family.

We just know that somehow these two worlds are going to meet, perhaps with a jolt, and that only these two can save each other.

Along the way they learn (as do some others) that they are not alone. Introv also learns that she does have friends and does not have to push the rock up the hill everyday alone. Bieber learns to act like the hero he plays in film, just a little bit, and discovers he likes it and it works.

Did I mention the food truck that specialised in pumpkin fries with a giant pumpkin painted on the side. Did I mention that? Shoulda. Did I mention Stud Girl’s cry at the gate: ‘Today we fight!’ Shoulda.

Loved it.

First is a series of Geek Girl books.

*No it is not really Justin Bieber but I wanted name from the popular culture and so little do I know that I took this one to represent the ephemera, vacuity, and fatuousness thereof. While I am sure many others fill that bill, Jason is a good fit.

Eolomea (1972)

IMDb meta-data is 1 hour and 22 minutes of run time, rated 5.7 by 470 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy

Verdict: Bland leading the bland.

The chic fashions of Eastern Europe1972 abound, whence space flight is routine as far out as the Third Ring. (I took that to be a reference to Asteroids, but I’ll never know.) Then a number of space ships bound for a space station disappear. (The actors say ‘acht‘ but the subtitles say ‘ten.’) No distress calls, no nothing. Well, a lot of nothing. Then the space station itself goes dark.

Back on Earth high command ponders in a plenary session where Asians and Africans are conspicuously numbered among the socialist siblings. On the one side is Belle who wants to stop all flights and send a rescue mission. On the other is Tubby who prefers to continue as usual and wait and see. She prevails. Stress that: the head of operations is a woman and in 1972 she prevails against a male colleague.

The rescue mission sets off with Belle on board. By luck en route they encounter one the missing ships and try to board it, but it rockets off; apparently it is not a ghost ship. They continue on to the vast space station, part refinery, part parking garage, part YM/WSA (Young Men’s/Women’s Socialist Association), part science lab. It is about the size of the IKEA store in Tempe, vast and largely uncharted.

They find only starving laboratory animals, but then half of the station is sealed off, that is, the parking garage. Belle and the rescue crew show no interest in what is behind that green door.

There occurs a comic interlude with a tin man that is completely superfluous and annoying.

There has been a sidebar with a bored space miner on asteroid who misses Belle. (Who wouldn’t.). Many flashback to the good old days on Earth. Many. Too many.

Among the flash backs are some with Tubby who muses about Eolomena, which is the name acolytes have given to a point of light that appears every twenty-four years in the starry night sky. Is it a signal? He wishfully thinks so for no discernible reason. Why that name and rather than, say, Light in Sky was not explained within my attention span.

Now back to the space station for the denouement replete with SPOILERS. Tubby has by unknown means convinced the ten missing space ship crews and all the space station personnel to take one-way tickets to Eolomea. They have been sanding the wheels on their space ship wagons in the garage getting ready to blast off, while their ostensible rescuers wander about in Space Station IKEA. When the bored miner is offered a one-way ticket, he forsakes Belle and goes along. (‘What an idijit,’ cried the fraternity brothers! ). So the numerous, lengthy flashbacks to their courtship come to naught. End.

It is mercifully free of any AgitProp, beyond that implied by the composition of the plenary session where the Third World members sit quietly waiting for the assistant director’s cue to vote for Belle.

Points of interest…are two. In 1972 it portrays two things unusual for the time. First and foremost is that Belle is in charge and stays that way. There are no demeaning asides from the chaps as there were in innumerable 1972 films. Nor is she riven by self doubts – scientist versus woman – that mar so much Hollywood and Pinewood tosh from the day. Full Ost Marks for that.

Second, asteroid mining is dreary, dull, and boring blue collar work. There is no glamour in space. When Ridley Scott made space flight industrial in Alien (1979) he hailed himself a genius, but it was old news.

But overall, there is zero tension in Eolomea. There are no equipment failures, but then there were probably no low-bid contractors in the script, to generate some tension. Meteors seem to have taken the day off because there are none of them either. The debate between Belle and Tubby is oh-hum. That Tubby has suborned all those people into a one-way mission is taken as Red without explanation. Bland is the word.

Hope Never Dies (2018) by Andrew Shaffer

GoodReads meta-data is 304 pages rated 3.51 by 9272 litizens.

Genre: krimi, pastiche.

Verdict: Bromance.

Confession: I gulped it down a day.

In retirement Joe Biden is restless and bored, and more than a little miffed that his through-thick-and-thin buddy Barry has cut him loose. Then one night out walking with the dog, Joe sees a dark figure in the gloaming. That’s Barry, who is always dark!

Barack has broken his long silence to deliver in person some bad news. Gulp.

Aside, Joe Biden’s only claim to fame is that he rode the Amtrak back and forth to DC from Wilmington Delaware most days for thirty-six years while has was a US Senator. Joe knows Amtrak, and all who work the early and late trains he used to take. Turns out one of those workers is dead, a conductor who always had a good word, and in his pocket was a print from online telephone book of Joe’s home address. Was that the start of a call for help?

The emotional, impulsive Joe is a whirlpool of reactions. He is glad to see his BFF Barry and pissed off he hasn’t seen him a lot sooner and in better circumstances. He is stunned by the death of his nodding acquaintance and perplexed, even more than usual, as he acknowledges, by the address.

A good Irish Catholic Union man is dead in strange circumstances, and Joe does what Joe always does – the instincts of a democratic politician run deep – he dusts off the black suit and goes to the funeral. Brief discussions there with mourners and family compound the mystery.

Joe does what Joe always does and plunges ahead…into trouble and more trouble. However, before it gets too deep that black man in black reappears with his pet Secret Service agent to bail Joe out. By now Joe is in too deep to get out and Barry, well Barry, is curious about what is going on, and Joe always stood by him when the going got tough, so he joins in, albeit on his own inscrutable terms. Yoda is a transparent blabber mouth compared to this guy.

What follows is a rollicking ride involving the DEA, corrupt men in blue (good Italian Catholics though they may be), incorruptible and uncommunicative cops, mad and bad bikers, Little Beast, Navy Seal Team 4 (sorta), Steve the unflappable one-man Secret Service detail grudgingly allowed by the Thief-in-Chief, a largely absent but still influential Jill, Champ the wonder dog, a wily insurance investigator, and assorted First Staters.

The plotting is ingenious and slowly ties everything up. Maybe the tying is more attenuated than some readers might like but it is complete (down to the wig [whew!]) and there is after all no rush to the finish line.

While Joe does what Joe does and rushes about, well, as a senior citizen he hobbles about mostly, without a plan, Barry is the chess player who is seldom seen but always ten moves ahead of the game. The characterisations of these two is nicely done by the author, a journalist, who had the chance to observe them for years and did so, rather than simply react the way most mediaistas do. Biden wears his heart on his sleeve, while Obama is detached and analytic. Biden is obvious and a terrible liar. Obama is aloof and distant.

There is a lot about Wilmington and Amtrak and amid all the hurly-burly a certain amount of unexpected but effective pathos, too.

Needless to say, Pox News has attacked the book with blazing incoherence.

I could not deny myself the pleasure of reading some of troll droppings on GoodReads. My, my how the anger grows out of nothing. Lear had that wrong. Well, I assume it is anger but that is guessing from the incoherent tweeting. Though there were some letters from the alphabet.