Lloyd Alexander died today.  People know him best for his Chronicles of Prydain.  They fueled my imagination when I was a child, and I did love them.  But where he really captured my interest was with the Vesper Holly series.  I like to have a character with whom I strongly identify in a book, and Vesper Holly was that character.  Vesper Holly, Teen Archaeologist.  I don’t remember much about the series except that I loved it and I read it while my parents were at the gym.  I think I shall have to get it from the library in memoriam.  The internet has shockingly little information about the series.  It doesn’t have its own Wikipedia entry.  It’s just briefly mentioned in the entry for Lloyd Alexander.  We may have to set about fixing that.  Who’s with me?

…yesterday my life’s like, “Uh oh, pop quiz.” Today it’s “rain of toads.”

Thus spoke Xander Harris in part two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s pilot episode, “The Harvest.”  Even in its later seasons, Buffy didn’t have the special effects budget to create an on-screen rain of toads.  The advantage to books is you aren’t limited by those sorts of budget constraints.  In Out of the Madhouse, Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder bring the rain of toads, along with all the trolls, sea monsters, skyquakes, and nasty Cordelia-chasing demons you could ever hope for.  What’s that, you say?  Trouble in Sunnydale?  Must be Tuesday.  The difference is, this time, it’s all happening at once.  Also?  Giles is out of town.  It turns out there’s an interdimensional mansion in Boston that’s been keeping these monsters at bay, but now its caretaker, the “Gatekeeper,” is ailing and his magic is weakening.  Buffy, Xander, Cordelia and Giles head to Boston to put a stop to the monster leak, while Willow, Oz, and Angel hold down the fort against an invasion of evil monks who are out to get Buffy.  (Note: I said evil monks not evil monkeys.)

Like any tie-in, Out of the Madhouse suffers from the fact that you can’t kill off major characters.  What you can do, however, is injure them severely, and in every fight scene in Out of the Madhouse I expected someone - usually Cordelia - to end up in the hospital.  Out of the Madhouse has a structure somewhat like a multi-episode arc; you’ve got the main problem of new scary monsters, plus signs that the Watcher’s Council might be sketchy, subplots involving outside forces looking to hurt Buffy, and some new recurring characters who are quite likeable.  The dialogue is strong, though not Whedon-quality, and except for the wild special effects that would be necessary to pull it off and the unlikely requirement of on location filming in Boston, I completely believed that this was a story I might see on the show itself.  Add in a surprise ending and you’ve got a recipe for fun and nostalgia.  (Plus, Golden and Holder manage to avoid the Ethan Rayne trap!)

I’d recommend Out of the Madhouse to any Buffy fan looking for stories to tide them over between issues of the comic book or to take them back to the good old days.

Book: Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Gatekeeper Trilogy, Book One: Out of the Madhouse
Author: Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder
Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment
Original Publication Date: 1999
Pages: 384
Age Range: Young Adult
Source of Book: Library

Contact:
Tavia Stewart
510-628-0327
Tavia@ScriptFrenzy.org

FROM THE PEOPLE WHO BROUGHT YOU NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH . . .
SCRIPT FRENZY IS BORN!

The Office of Letters and Light is proud to announce a 20,000-word scriptwriting challenge

www.ScriptFrenzy.org – May 10, 2007 – There are some who say writing a script takes awesome talent, strong language skills, academic training, and years of dedication.

Not true. All it really takes is a deadline – a very, very tight deadline – and a whole lot of coffee.

For the last eight Novembers, we have been running National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org), a month-long 50,000-word “seat of your pants” noveling adventure. With over 75,000 participants and 12,000 winners in 2006, NaNoWriMo has officially become the largest writing contest in the world!

Because we felt that one deadline-driven event a year was not enough, we decided to add another: Script Frenzy, which launches this June! Script Frenzy is an international writing event in which participants attempt the creatively daring feat of writing an original, full-length screenplay—or stage play—in a single month.

As part of a donation-funded nonprofit, Script Frenzy charges no fee to participate; there are also no valuable prizes awarded or "best" scripts singled out. Every writer who completes the goal of 20,000 words is victorious and awe-inspiring and will get a Script Frenzy Winner's Certificate and web icon proclaiming this fact.

Since the Script Frenzy site launched on May 1, thousands of people have already signed up. Many of those people are right in your backyard. In June they will meet at local cafes and libraries for collective write-ins, because if you’re going to attempt something as crazy as a 20,000-word script in a month, you might as well have company.

Sign-ups are taking place now. Please contact Tavia Stewart if you’re interested in hearing more about Script Frenzy or visit the event website at www.ScriptFrenzy.org.

About the Office of Letters and Light

The Office of Letters and Light has its roots in National Novel Writing Month, an organization founded in Oakland, Calif., in 1999 by freelance writer Chris Baty. In 2006, Baty and staff created the Office of Letters and Light to run National Novel Writing Month and launch similar new events. In September, 2006, the Office of Letters and Light was officially granted nonprofit status. For more information about all of our programs, visit www.LettersandLight.org.

###

In June, I’ll be participating in the Summer Blog Blast Tour, organized by Colleen Mondor of Chasing Ray.  As I do my research on my assigned authors and prepare their questions, I think a lot about why we’re doing this.  Thus this week’s question:

How do readers benefit from author interviews?

Little Willow is a prolific author interviewer.  I always enjoy reading her interviews.  I also love the interviews at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  But I’m having trouble finding a way to explain exactly what I get out of these interviews.  Insight, of course, into the author’s process, but these interviews are always unique, asking new questions.  Everyone asks “Where do you get your ideas?” or “What advice do you have for aspiring authors?"  Little Willow asks questions like “As a reader, what is your favorite section of the bookstore?” while the ladies of 7-Imp ask “If you could have three (living) authors over for coffee or a glass of rich, red wine, whom would you choose?"  These questions show me the author as reader, which makes the author a person to me.

So what do you think?  What do you get out of author interviews?

Gelett Burgess. 1866– 36. 
The Purple Cow 
(Reflections on a Mythic Beast Who’s Quite Remarkable, at Least.) 

I NEVER saw a Purple Cow; 
I never hope to See One; 
But I can Tell you, Anyhow, 
I’d rather See than Be One.

Oh how I love this poem.  It is so silly.

This week’s question is brought to you by yesterday’s Free Comic Book Day, my pleasure in watching “Spiderman 3,” and my boyfriend’s birthday weekend.  Also my recent reading of Flight volumes 1 and 2, and my upcoming reading of Flight volume 3 and Kazu Kibuishi’s Daisy Kutter.

How can graphic novels bring unwilling readers into the literary world?

What I’m looking for here is a discussion of what makes graphic novels unique, what makes them literature, and what we can do to get reluctant readers to pick up a graphic novel.  For a long time, graphic novels and comics have been pooh-poohed as not “real books.”  This is a sentiment that advocates of kids and YA lit understand keenly, since children’s literature is also treated this way.  Graphic novels and comics are considered “kid stuff” by the uninitiated, and while those of us who are fans of graphic novels and comic books have fought against that for a long time, perhaps it’s time to embrace it a little and say “Okay.  These are for kids.  Let’s get them in the hands of kids!”  That’s not to say adult stories can’t be told in the graphic novel/comic book medium, but just that instead of kicking and screaming, “It’s not just for kids!” we should say, “It’s not just for kids, but it is an excellent way to draw kids into reading.”

What do you think?

Last Week’s Question: What is the purpose of a book review?

You can find answers at the original post and MotherReader.

My Area of Expertise: The Ancient Mediterranean.

The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan
The Sea of Monsters, Rick Riordan
The Titan's Curse, Rick Riordan
Iris, Messenger, Sarah Demming
The Last Girls of Pompeii, Kathryn Lasky
Ithaka, Adele Geras
Troy, Adele Geras 
Nobody's Princess, Esther Friesner
Corydon and the Island of Monsters, Tobias Druitt
Corydon and the Fall of Atlantis, Tobias Druitt
Goddess of Yesterday, Caroline B. Cooney
The Shadow Thieves, Anne Ursu
The Siren Song, Anne Ursu


Other suggestions please?

At the beginning of the school year, the school newspaper sent a kid around to interview all the new teachers.  He had lots of questions, boring ones like "Where'd you go to college?" (which he managed to misquote me on), and less boring ones such as, "What cartoons do you like?" but the question that nearly stumped me because my heart was torn in two was "Who's your favorite superhero?"

In the end, he quoted me as saying I liked the X-Men, I think.  But what I really said was, "Spiderman!  No, wait, the X-Men!  Well, I like all the X-Men but I like Kitty Pryde the best.  So.... AH!  This is such a hard question!  I guess I'll go with Kitty Pryde and Spiderman."

This brings me to tell you about tomorrow.

Tomorrow is an important day.  Cinco de Mayo.  My boyfriend's birthday.  Free Comic Book Day.

It's appropriate that Free Comic Book Day is my boyfriend's birthday, as he is the one who got me into comics.  It's also appropriate that Spiderman 3 is coming out today, the day before Free Comic Book Day and my boyfriend's birthday.  It's such a unique confluence of events that brought us here.

So, go get a free comic book.  You might run into MJ there, in which case she'll say this:

(They actually made that a line in Spiderman 2 and I about died of happiness.)

Still more Catullus.  Latin text from The Latin Library; translation/adaptation mine.

V. to Lesbia Let us live my Lesbia, and let us love, and let us assess the gossip of too severe old men at a single penny! Suns can fall and return: When our brief light has once gone out, We must sleep one perpetual night. Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then still another thousand, then a hundred. Then, when we will have made many thousands, we will mix them up, so that we do not know, nor will any bad person be able to envy us, when he knows there to be so many kisses. V. ad Lesbiam

VIVAMUS mea Lesbia, atque amemus, rumoresque senum seueriorum omnes unius aestimemus assis! soles occidere et redire possunt: nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum. dein, cum milia multa fecerimus, conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus, aut ne quis malus inuidere possit, cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.