Robin Parrish has accomplished something in his latest novel, Nightmare, that I have yet to see anywhere else. He almost perfectly intertwines two genres, horror and mystery, in two parallel storylines. The reader gets to jump back and forth in alternating chapters between the adventures of Maia Peters as she searches for a missing friend, Jordin Cole, and the thrilling, yet somewhat terrifying, exploits of the world of the paranormal as Maia and Jordin explore some of America's most haunted locations. With each haunt, more of the mystery is uncovered for the reader. However, the clues come at the risk of experiencing the all too realistic scenes of horror as ghosts creep through the walls and skeletons crawl out of the closet. Nightmare is a literary entree that mixes in a pinch of Agatha Christie, a dash of Stephen King, and just a bit of Dan Brown for controversy. Although it is categorized as Christian Fiction, Nightmare will be enjoyed by Christians and secular audiences alike.
That's that for my official review. Now for my personal one. Ever since picking up his debut novel, Relentless, on a whim to review for college, I have been a fan of his Robin Parrish's work. I gave the book the good review it so rightly deserved (I'll post it later), requested an interview with him, and decided that I would read just about anything he writes. So far I have been true to my word. I enjoyed the rest of the Dominion Trilogy (of which Relentless was the beginning), but thought his first stand alone novel, Offworld, was only okay at best. After hearing about Nightmare, I told myself I would read it, but stay objective as I wasn't sure if Parrish lacked the skill for a stand alone novel, if he was going to be a one-hit wonder (the trilogy as a whole counting as one), or if he would knock my socks off. Well, I'm not wearing socks, but that's because my feet hurt. The fact is that Nightmare is a really good novel. It isn't quite a great novel, though, and that is through no fault of the author's. In a recent post on his blog (there's a link to it on the right), Parrish ponders whether he is in the right category, having been pigeon-holed into Christian Fiction. Let me first note that he also said he loves the people he has had the opportunity of working with at Bethany House and every opinion in this piece is mine and does not reflect the author's personal beliefs. I honestly think Parrish is stuck in a limbo. His work doesn't seem to be "Christian enough" to be taken seriously by the people who stride to the Christian Fiction section of their local Borders or Barnes and Noble, but it also seems "too Christian" to be accepted by the secular culture, especially since he's already breached the label of Christian Fiction. The other problem with his work is that it needs a better editor. Once again, this is no fault of Parrish's. Every author needs an editor (as I type this I keep asking my wonderful fiancee for help with words and whatnot) to take a piece that is really good, as is Nightmare and make it great, which is just the beginning of Parrish's potential. I enjoyed Nightmare thoroughly and will continue to read anything Robin Parrish's publishers deem worthy to publish. I just wish for his sake that readers would take him more seriously. I know I do.
I'm just saying is all.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Natalie Maines and Stephen King have something in common
I am sitting here with my fiancee watching the documentary about the singing group The Dixie Chicks called "Shut Up and Sing." For those of you who do not know, in 2003, Natalie Maines of The Dixie Chicks made a side comment about the then president of the United States, George W. Bush. What she said got blown out of proportion. Soon after, a lot of Bush supporters suddenly boycotted the all-girl band. This included their sponsors for that tour, Lipton, backing out of the sponsorship. A lot of Americans started calling them names, treating them like dirt because Natalie said something slightly negative about their dear president. The worse part was that the comments the Bush fans made portrayed them as being slightly stupid and not at all informed about The Dixie Chicks, their music, or what was said.
Fast forward to the year 2010. Bestselling author Stephen King, in comparing her to J.K. Rowling, said, "The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good." I am sure you all could imagine how intelligently the fans of Meyer responded. They wanted to know just who hell does Stehpen King think he is. They wanted to point out that Stephenie Meyer is more popular now than he is or ever was. I even stumbled across this gem: "i mean, how many hits on one of stephen kings books? how many on, well whatever random book by [Stephenie Meyer]? who's got most succes? who's best? well, probably the one with most succes. and who is he to decide anyway?"
I am not a fan of the Twilight books. I gave the first one a shot, did not like what I read, and put it down. This is after reading in the USA Today's bestseller list that Meyer wrote books like The Host, a story about a woman caught in a love triangle with a man and, I am not making this up, the alien possessing her. I closed the paper, flopped it on the table, and vowed never to read anything she wrote. Still, I was curious what all the rave was about. After all, that was how I started reading Harry Potter and became an addict of that great piece of literature. I respect Stephenie Meyer for being able to enter a market as uncertain as fiction writing and making a name for herself. I also respect that, so far as I can tell, she has not "retaliated" against Stephen King the way her fans, who really need to be put on a leash, have. It is unfortunate for her that now, because of this uproar due to the comment made by Stephen King (who is no stranger to controversy, so this does not really affect him), people are seeing her fans for what they are: ignorant, uninformed, closed-minded people whose reading histories probably do not stray very far from what can be found in Cosmo or Seventeen. I plan to be a published author one day. I hope to be able to take criticism from whomever and say, "well, that is okay because I am still a writer." I hope to be able to handle whatever anyone says to me or about me, positive or negative, with the same lack of emotional backlash that Meyer has displayed. Most importanly, though, is that I hope my fans are not as, pardon me but, utterly dumb as her fans.
Just saying, is all.
Fast forward to the year 2010. Bestselling author Stephen King, in comparing her to J.K. Rowling, said, "The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good." I am sure you all could imagine how intelligently the fans of Meyer responded. They wanted to know just who hell does Stehpen King think he is. They wanted to point out that Stephenie Meyer is more popular now than he is or ever was. I even stumbled across this gem: "i mean, how many hits on one of stephen kings books? how many on, well whatever random book by [Stephenie Meyer]? who's got most succes? who's best? well, probably the one with most succes. and who is he to decide anyway?"
I am not a fan of the Twilight books. I gave the first one a shot, did not like what I read, and put it down. This is after reading in the USA Today's bestseller list that Meyer wrote books like The Host, a story about a woman caught in a love triangle with a man and, I am not making this up, the alien possessing her. I closed the paper, flopped it on the table, and vowed never to read anything she wrote. Still, I was curious what all the rave was about. After all, that was how I started reading Harry Potter and became an addict of that great piece of literature. I respect Stephenie Meyer for being able to enter a market as uncertain as fiction writing and making a name for herself. I also respect that, so far as I can tell, she has not "retaliated" against Stephen King the way her fans, who really need to be put on a leash, have. It is unfortunate for her that now, because of this uproar due to the comment made by Stephen King (who is no stranger to controversy, so this does not really affect him), people are seeing her fans for what they are: ignorant, uninformed, closed-minded people whose reading histories probably do not stray very far from what can be found in Cosmo or Seventeen. I plan to be a published author one day. I hope to be able to take criticism from whomever and say, "well, that is okay because I am still a writer." I hope to be able to handle whatever anyone says to me or about me, positive or negative, with the same lack of emotional backlash that Meyer has displayed. Most importanly, though, is that I hope my fans are not as, pardon me but, utterly dumb as her fans.
Just saying, is all.
What I Alone Can Say
I knew from starting this blog that I wanted my first real entry (not my introduction) to be about how I "became" a writer. I had been a writer most of my life, but it took a while for me to discover myself. This is an essay I wrote about that experience of self-discovery and I would like to share it with you, my readers. It is titled "What I Alone Can Say".
It was Monday and I was a sophomore.
I walked into my SRT (Student Resource Time) class for what was homeroom under a different name. Another school day was underway, yet I only had eyes for fifth period Creative Writing. It seemed as if my writing career began in that fifth period class, but it didn’t. It didn’t begin in SRT either, even though that was where I discovered it. It didn’t even begin with Mrs. Liechty, the teacher who led me to that discovery.
It all began in second grade.
November 1992. The Webster Elementary second grade class had to write about Thanksgiving. I chose to write a very poorly edited story about how Thanksgiving came about. It was my first story, and it was only 99 words long. In April of 1993, still in second grade I wrote two more stories for school, one about toads and one about frogs. They were my first stories in cursive and they both displayed my apparent love for amphibians.
October 18, 1993. Three days before my ninth birthday. I wrote a story with a moral (we were learning about Aesop) for my third grade teacher, Mrs. Houin, titled “Wolf and Dog.” My spelling was getting better, but my grammar still needed work and my punctuation skills were atrocious. Five months later, I created a fictional story to inform why termites ate wood and a story based (not loosely) off the character of Pink Panther. Again, my spelling was improving, even if my grammar and punctuation weren't. To top it off, I was the most optimistic of all my classmates, making sure to add a nice “Happily Ever After” to the end of each story.
October, 1994. I may have been nine or ten, but I was in the fourth grade either way. I wrote a story called “Adventures in Basketball,” which may have been what the movie Space Jam was based after. April and May brought two more pieces of writing, still with terrible grammar and punctuation skills (not to mention sloppy handwriting that never truly left me). However, these two pieces were slightly different. The first, simply titled “Reading,” was a personal opinion piece on, that's right, reading. It showed a desire that not many other kids that age showed. The other piece, which I conveniently “borrowed” from a popular video game back then, showed my attention to detail, and ultimately myself as a writer, begin to grow.
November, 1995. It was my only story from fifth grade. The story was 23 words long, showed my lack of capitalizing a single letter, and only used two punctuation marks, both of which were periods. It was not my fiction this time that was enthralling. The fifth grade class had to fill out four pieces of paper, all having to do with what we liked to read and write, what we wanted to read and write, and what we thought of our writing, which included my answer to that question that I thought my writing was “unspeakably dispicable.”
The Plymouth High School sophomore class had been handed portfolios of their writing from second grade on. It was in Mrs. Liechty's SRT that I received mine, and it was then that I realized who I was. It was something that was handed to me but will never be taken away.
It was Monday and I was a writer.
It was Monday and I was a sophomore.
I walked into my SRT (Student Resource Time) class for what was homeroom under a different name. Another school day was underway, yet I only had eyes for fifth period Creative Writing. It seemed as if my writing career began in that fifth period class, but it didn’t. It didn’t begin in SRT either, even though that was where I discovered it. It didn’t even begin with Mrs. Liechty, the teacher who led me to that discovery.
It all began in second grade.
November 1992. The Webster Elementary second grade class had to write about Thanksgiving. I chose to write a very poorly edited story about how Thanksgiving came about. It was my first story, and it was only 99 words long. In April of 1993, still in second grade I wrote two more stories for school, one about toads and one about frogs. They were my first stories in cursive and they both displayed my apparent love for amphibians.
October 18, 1993. Three days before my ninth birthday. I wrote a story with a moral (we were learning about Aesop) for my third grade teacher, Mrs. Houin, titled “Wolf and Dog.” My spelling was getting better, but my grammar still needed work and my punctuation skills were atrocious. Five months later, I created a fictional story to inform why termites ate wood and a story based (not loosely) off the character of Pink Panther. Again, my spelling was improving, even if my grammar and punctuation weren't. To top it off, I was the most optimistic of all my classmates, making sure to add a nice “Happily Ever After” to the end of each story.
October, 1994. I may have been nine or ten, but I was in the fourth grade either way. I wrote a story called “Adventures in Basketball,” which may have been what the movie Space Jam was based after. April and May brought two more pieces of writing, still with terrible grammar and punctuation skills (not to mention sloppy handwriting that never truly left me). However, these two pieces were slightly different. The first, simply titled “Reading,” was a personal opinion piece on, that's right, reading. It showed a desire that not many other kids that age showed. The other piece, which I conveniently “borrowed” from a popular video game back then, showed my attention to detail, and ultimately myself as a writer, begin to grow.
November, 1995. It was my only story from fifth grade. The story was 23 words long, showed my lack of capitalizing a single letter, and only used two punctuation marks, both of which were periods. It was not my fiction this time that was enthralling. The fifth grade class had to fill out four pieces of paper, all having to do with what we liked to read and write, what we wanted to read and write, and what we thought of our writing, which included my answer to that question that I thought my writing was “unspeakably dispicable.”
The Plymouth High School sophomore class had been handed portfolios of their writing from second grade on. It was in Mrs. Liechty's SRT that I received mine, and it was then that I realized who I was. It was something that was handed to me but will never be taken away.
It was Monday and I was a writer.
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