Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

This book was somewhat on my radar for the last few years when it was a best-seller, and when I saw that Tim Burton was directing an adaptation that will be released this fall, I decided to read the source material. Although Burton's output has not been lately what it used to be, the gothic weirdness of this story seems right up his alley.

Jake is an ordinary high school kid with a part-time retail job until he witnesses his grandfather Abraham die. Jake is convinced the perpetrator was a monster but this claim gets him marked as insane. Abraham had spoken of a Home for Peculiar Children that he had stayed at when he was younger, showing Jake some photos (which within the book are actual vintage photography) and leaving a cryptic message behind when he dies. This prompts Jake to travel to Wales to find the titular house.

He finds his way to September 3, 1940, the time loop that the children and their caretaker Miss Peregrine live in. They've lived through the same day for several decades, and the day resets when bombs are dropped on the town. Then there's the fact that these "peculiar" children have abilities such as levitation, invisibility, pyrokinesis, and um, bees coming out of one's mouth. These elements bear a lot of exposition, and I felt like the plot took a while to get going. For much of the book, Jake is hanging out with his new friends and getting to know their world. He struggles with his attraction to Emma, who his grandfather loved while he was there, and Jake isn't sure if he wants to remain in the time loop or return to live with his parents in the 21st century.

It takes about three quarters of the novel for the strange circumstances of Abraham's death to become significant to the story again, and for a major conflict and antagonist to rear its ugly head. The climax is the rollicking adventure that I'd been hoping for the whole time, and then it ends on a sequel teasing cliffhanger. Since at times it's a dialogue-heavy book and relies on the photographs to give visual credence to the story, it may actually work better as a film than as a novel. But then if the movie doesn't make enough at the box office for Hollow City to be adapted, it will become unsatisfying.

For more about this book and the author, check out ransomriggs.com.

Racism and pop culture

In the wake of this week's tragic events involving police officers, this entry is going to be a little different than usual. Instead of a review, I'm taking a look at how race and racism have been explored in some recent films and TV.

If Quentin Tarantino has been consistently criticized for anything over the course of his career other than gratuitous violence, it would be his gratuitous use of the "n-word". In his on-screen appearance in Pulp Fiction, he speaks lines written by his own hand in which he uses the word repeatedly, and in the more recent films Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight, there are so many instances of the slur used against one main black character, it becomes uncomfortable to most viewers. In those examples, Tarantino would cite historical accuracy as the reason to include it so many times, but the frequency honestly could have been cut down. However, the use of language can never be considered as vicious as the use of physical force.

Just like Django, Samuel L. Jackson's character in The Hateful Eight, Major Marquis Warren is a bounty hunter who takes pleasure in getting money for "killing white folk." Throughout the film, he's called a nigger by other characters who refuse him any respect. One shocking moment in The Hateful Eight involves race, but not just that particular word.  Warren describes in detail how he forced a white soldier to strip naked, walk miles in the cold, then perform a sex act in exchange for a blanket. Warren tells this story solely to stoke anger in the racist father of the soldier so he can have an excuse to shoot the old man. In both Django and Eight we're led to sympathize with the black characters when they have the chance to gun down their oppressors, but this method of retaliation against racism shouldn't be encouraged in anything but fiction.

Like Tarantino, Michael Moore is a liberal white director who sympathizes with downtrodden minorities, but he might not always have the right answers. In his most recent documentary Where to Invade Next, he travels to foreign countries to speak to citizens about policies that he thinks the United States should borrow. For the most part, I agree with the points he brings up. France has gourmet school lunches, several parts of Europe have universal health care, and Italian employers offer eight weeks of vacation time per year; all of these could help make America a more pleasant place to live. Moore also visits a couple prisons in Norway and finds they focus more on preparing inmates for the real world rather than punishment, and he points out that Portugal has all drugs legalized and regulated, with positive effects. This leads him to express one theory that I can't wholeheartedly agree with.

Moore posits that the United States began the war on drugs to oppress black people, primarily men, who had historically been using hard drugs more than whites. He says the ability to throw people in jail for drug offenses allowed the country to use these prisoners for their labor and essentially bring slavery back in vogue without anyone raising an eyebrow. I think this is a conspiracy theory that doesn't hold water and that the outlawing of drugs was a well-intentioned but perhaps misguided attempt at eradicating a threat to public health. It's more likely that more drug arrests are made in urban areas because that's where police focus their efforts.

This leads me to think about the depiction of modern prison life and race relations in Netflix's Orange is the New Black. The show was originally based on the book by Piper Kerman and was focused on the fictionalized Piper Chapman, but expanded to include numerous diverse points of view within the womens' prison. It's shown that the inmates of Litchfield gravitate to groupings of their own race with few exceptions, which tends to happen in real prisons. The following two paragraphs contain major spoilers for the fourth season.

Chapman inadvertently gathers a group of white supremacists when she tries to oppose the competition to her business threatened by a Hispanic group. Piper tattles that Maria is starting a gang, and considering her background with gang activity, extra years are added to Maria's sentence. This was another unintended consequence of Piper trying to assert herself as a leader. With nothing to lose, Maria turns to selling drugs in the prison salon, though it's worth noting that the most frequent buyer is white "Nicky" Nichols.

The newly formed white power group takes umbrage any time that someone of another race seems to be given a privilege, like Taystee getting to work in Warden Caputo's office, but of course the neo-Nazis raise no objections when white celebrity Judy King gets a private cell. Judy herself has been accused of racism, and at first this seems to be a stereotype based on her Southern heritage, but an embarrassingly racist puppet show is brought up from her past. When Taystee and Cindy have the idea to sell a photo of Judy to a tabloid, Judy takes the opportunity to give Cindy a kiss for the photo to prove her lack of prejudice. She then seems to get along with the black women but this may be just for appearances. Soon the racial groups come to blows at the encouragement of one of the guards, and a later attempt at authority results in a preventable death. The parallels to the real world couldn't be clearer.

I hope that anyone reading this doesn't have to be reminded of this, but nobody should be judged based on the color of their skin. Period. It's an unforgivable pattern that African Americans get shot by police much more often than any other race. Some misunderstand the Black Lives Matter movement to be racist against white people or hateful toward cops, but its original intent was to focus on the disproportionate loss of life within that minority. It's supposed to be about awareness, not revenge. Those that take it as an excuse to attack police, like the reprehensible shooter in Dallas, are no better than a racist officer misusing his position of authority.

Return to Labyrinth by Jake T. Forbes

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the theatrical release of Jim Henson's Labyrinth, so what better time to experience the manga sequel Return to Labyrinth. It was published by Tokyopop as four volumes between 2006 and 2010, written by Jake T. Forbes, and illustrated by Chris Lie.

In the movie, Sarah Williams had to rescue her infant brother Toby from the Goblin King, Jareth. Over a decade later, Toby becomes the main character, and neither he nor Sarah seem to remember that they've been to the Labyrinth before. Jareth lures Toby into coming back to the otherworldly maze by having a goblin steal his homework, and reveals that he wants Toby to succeed him as King and save the Labyrinth from falling apart. At first, Toby and Jareth are the only returning characters from the film, but they're eventually joined by some familiar faces, as well as new characters.

The main antagonist is a sorceress and queen of a nearby land named Mizumi, who has been wanting to take control of Jareth and his labyrinth ever since he spurned her advances. She creates for him an "ablation" named Moppet, who is servant to Mayor Spittledrum and whose true nature is revealed later on. Mizumi is assisted by her daughters Moulin and Drumlin as well as demons comprised of water, and she fulfills the task of teaching magic to Toby before his coronation as King.

Toby's new friends include a wingless fairy called Hana, her companion Stank, and a goblin named Skub who reminded me of Dobby the house elf who helps Harry Potter. The characters that fans of the movie will recognize include Sir Didymus and Hoggle, as well as (spoiler alert) the return of Toby's heroic but forgetful sister Sarah.

This story was originally planned to be told in three volumes but halfway through the writing process it was expanded to four to give things more room to breathe. I was impressed when I learned this was the debut fiction writing that Forbes had done; up to that point he was an editor and adapter of other writers' manga. This is a worthy followup to a cult classic film, and Forbes couldn't resist dropping in references to other Jim Henson works. He also has Henson's sense of fantasy adventure storytelling mixed with humor; these goblins are big fans of puns. The story can still be understood if you've never seen the movie as there are a number of flashbacks showing what happened.

Usually at this point I'd direct you to the author's website, but he doesn't seem to have one. These books were also difficult to find in nearby libraries. If you're interested in purchasing the series, Amazon is probably the best bet.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow

I've done a lot of reading about Walt Disney World while planning to go there for our honeymoon, and came across a few pieces of fiction that take place there. Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom takes place in a far off future where technology has made immortality possible and some people have chosen to live their extended lives inside the famous theme park.

The main character Julius has died four times, and has been restored to life by means of a backup consciousness being loaded into an accelerated-growth clone. It seems similar to the idea of starting a video game from your last save point. This is also a world in which all money is obsolete because resources are plentiful, so the only form of currency is a type of quantified social media popularity called Whuffie. Julius works as part of an ad-hoc group who are busy refining the attractions in the Magic Kingdom's Liberty Square area, and his specific interest lies with the Haunted Mansion.

This struck a chord with me, as I've been fascinated with the inner workings of the Haunted Mansion ever since I saw a special about Imagineering on the Disney Channel as a kid. Unfortunately, the one time I went to Disney World with my family about ten years ago, the Mansion was closed for refurbishment! Imagine (no pun intended) my disappointment. At least I take comfort in knowing I'll be returning for a visit next year. But I digress.

Julius's fourth death has been a murder taking place in Adventureland, and he suspects the hit was ordered by Debra, who is in charge of the changes being made at the Hall of Presidents. Her revolutionary idea involves broadcasting the personalities and experiences of the Presidents directly into the brains of the guests, as everyone is constantly connected to the future version of the web. Julius himself has been sporadically losing his connection to the mental implants, and finds himself obsessively plotting revenge against Debra and her ad hoc.

In a relatively short book, Doctorow establishes his fictional technology in an understandable way and extrapolates on the new frontiers of theme park wizardry in fascinating ways. However, the through-line of the plot isn't very deep, and Julius is rather petty with his relationships and motivation. He also stays friends with his colleague Dan through way more betrayals than I can see anyone putting up with. This books futuristic concepts will stay with me, but the story could perhaps have used some expanding.

Check out more about Doctorow's books at his website Craphound.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Post-apocalyptic fiction seems to fascinate us as a society, from The Walking Dead to the Fallout games, to the sitcom "The Last Man on Earth". In Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel gives us a future world that is realistic enough that she objects to it being called science fiction, since it doesn't depict any advanced technology.

There has been a pandemic called the Georgia Flu that has wiped out most of the world's population. The novel jumps around in time, showing moments both before and after the fall of civilization, and follows a number of different characters in Toronto, Chicago, and beyond. Despite the changing perspectives, it's always made very clear at what time a chapter is taking place. We first meet Kirsten Raymonde when she's in a production of King Lear, and at eight years old she witnesses the on-stage death of her castmate Arthur Leander. This signals the beginning of the pandemic, and twenty years later she still remembers Arthur and the graphic novel written by Arthur's first wife titled "Station Eleven."

Scattered throughout the book are excerpts from an interview of Kirsten conducted by a librarian in the town of New Petoskey, fifteen years after the flu hit. These give more insight into what she has been up to in the intervening time since the collapse, including her joining the traveling group of musicians known as the Symphony. She barely remembers the conveniences of technology that the world is now without, such as air conditioning and airplanes, and children younger than her never experienced them at all. Kirsten and her friend August end up seeking the Museum of Civilization in the Severn City airport that they've heard rumors about.

On Day One of the pandemic, when Arthur died playing King Lear, entertainment journalist Jeevan Chaudary was there to write a story about the play, and attempted futile CPR on the actor. Jeevan had covered Arthur's film career and personal life for years, and serves as a secondary protagonist in this novel. It's through Jeevan's eyes that we experience what things were like within the first few months of the Georgia Flu.

Station Eleven was an engrossing read. All the transitions between past, present, and future were integrated into the story so they weren't jarring, and the characters experiencing the worldwide disaster felt realistic in their relationships and concerns.

To buy the book or get more information, visit the author's website.