the mermaid cafe

Wednesday reading!

What I've just finished
Since last we spoke - and it was less than a week ago - I finished both Zero Sum Game and Half Life by S.L. Huang, as well as the short story set in that universe where Rio adopts a puppy: A Neurological Study on the Effects of Canine Appeal on Psychopathy, or, RIO ADOPTS A PUPPY: A Russell's Attic Interstitial.

I enjoyed all three, though the short story might require a strong stomach, as it has some pretty descriptive gore, though not to the puppy. The puppy is slightly injured when Rio finds it, and he takes it in and takes care of it, but he also has some graphic fantasies of harming it, though he doesn't. I repeat, the dog is fine! So, you know, judge your own ability to read stuff like that.

As a whole, I enjoyed both books and the world Huang is creating - I was afraid the first book was going to be Lone Wolf Russell Doesn't Need No Help From No One at the beginning, but it quickly got out of that mode and into Russell Is Bad at People But They Help Her Anyway, with a side of These People Are Terrible At Teamwork But They're Trying, which was much more enjoyable. (The older I get, the less I enjoy the solitary lead brooding their way through a story with only themselves to talk to, and I never enjoyed it much in the first place - I mean, unless you're Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, it's just not as fun as a detective with a sidekick. I am just saying. This is why my favorite Batman stories are ones where he partners with someone, or works with a team, whether it's the JLA or his own family.)

These books strongly remind me of Andrew Vachss' Burke books, but without the constant rape/child molestation angle (Burke goes after criminals who hurt children, almost exclusively, and it ratchets up the creep factor pretty high), and these books haven't been around long enough to disappear completely up their own ass the way Burke did somewhere after the sixth book or so.

Plus, the main character is a woman of color, and her team includes a black PI and a disabled hacker dude whose geeky references ring truer (to me) than they often do in other stories like this.

What I'm reading now
Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris finally became available from NYPL, so that's technically next, since I just finished the Russell books this morning on the train, but I'm calling it now (I'll begin reading at lunch!), since I actually have a book I'm planning to read after that!

What I'm reading next
Hold the phone! I actually have an answer this week: The House That BJ Built by Anuja Chauhan, which came out recently and which I discovered is available as a kindle book! It's a sequel to Those Pricey Thakur Girls, which I LOVED, so I was so excited to discover it was out and available here! As are Chauhan's other books - I got paperbacks via a third party seller, iirc, and I read them on the cruise and enjoyed them tremendously, so I definitely recommend picking them up if you're looking for fun romcom-type reads with excellent supporting casts and familial/friend/non-romantic relationships (in fact, I'd have liked Battle for Bittora even more if it hadn't been a romance, I think).

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In other news, it's hard being a Jason Todd fan. So The Case appears in the Dawn of Justice trailer, though like everything about these movies, it's GRIM'N'GRITTY'd up, and there's speculation that Jason Todd Could Be Main Villain In Ben Affleck's Standalone Batman Movie, which, ugh. JASON IS NOT A VILLAIN. I mean, he's not an unambiguous hero (he's very much an antihero vigilante), but he's not a villain. Also he doesn't blame Batman for his death, he blames him for not avenging him by killing the Joker. I realize that's a fine distinction, but it matters a lot, if you want to understand Jason at all.

And then there's this absolutely awful and hopefully COMPLETELY WRONG fan theory that Jason is the Joker in the Suicide Squad movie. NOPE. Yes, okay, Jason does adopt the Red Hood moniker for reasons having to do with the Joker once using it (to thumb his nose at him? or at Batman? likely both), but he also wears a mask under his mask, because he was Robin. Like, Jason is (or can be, when well-written) an embodiment and exploration of all sorts of comics tropes (e.g., dead heroes being resurrected; heel-face turns; the ethics of killing vs. not-killing bad guys; sidekicks striking out on their own; legacy heroes; antiheroes; the ethics of using children in your crusade for justice, Bruce; etc.) but the one thing he would NEVER DO is BECOME THE JOKER. HE HATES THE JOKER FOR KILLING HIM.

Also, that story HAS ALREADY BEEN TOLD, and TOLD AMAZINGLY WELL in Return of the Joker, albeit with the DCAU Tim Drake, who's really a Jason/Tim amalgam in characterization/backstory. Snyder et al. are not going to top that (though I can totally imagine them wanting to try). Ugh. DC LOOK AT YOUR LIFE. LOOK AT YOUR CHOICES. (I realize that's premature, but I just had to get it out.)

At least the heat has broken and it's beautiful out today?

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