Talia Gryphon-The Key Series Book 1 & 2

***Stolen Summaries***

Key to Conflict:
Meet Gillian Key-a paramortal psychologist who can treat the mental distress of nonhumans. And she's a Marine Special Forces operative who can get physical with them when the situation calls for it.

Gillian's two worlds collide when she travels to the Carpathian Mountains in Romania to counsel a dangerously attractive local master vampire-and becomes embroiled in a brewing turf war with the legendary Dracula.

Key to Conspiracy:
In northern Russia after a devastating earthquake, paramortal psychologist and Marine Special Forces operative Gillian Key helps break up a ring of child traffickers preying on newly orphaned children. But away from Count Aleksei Rachlav, the irresistible vampire she left behind, Gillian is vulnerable to the Dark Prince himself—Dracula—who would like nothing more than to use her as a pawn in his escalating war with Rachlav.
amazon

***Rant***

I made the mistake of buying Gryphon's first two books...mostly because the covers looked kinda cool.

They definitely smack of Laurell K. Hamilton (the later, crappier books)--which doesn't surprise me, as Gryphon has a quote from LKH on her books: "a unique idea in the paranormal genre." Yeah...the same quote on both books! That definitely says something. Something not good.

The Big Screamin' Comparisons to LKH's books:

-Almost every guy wants her.

-She has relationship/commitment hang-ups.

-Everybody is gorgeous (God, can I just have ONE average-looking vampire/elf/werewolf/were-whatever! And no, a half-scarred/half-gorgeous one doesn't count).

-She goes quickly from kick-ass to vulnerable. In a bipolar way.

-The secondary characters are also annoying, whiny, and sex-minded.

-The writing is sucky and jerky (yes, those are technical terms).

The main character is annoying, unprofessional...and quite frankly sucks as both a soldier (A commander?! Seriously?!) and a psychologist. Seems she doesn't know shit-all about either.

This is a "kitchen-sink" book. Gryphon throws in bits and pieces from her "research" (which I suspect was a 30 minute FOX docu-drama on some war) and from other paranormal romances that she's read in the past.

This is bad bad bad fan fiction.

Could this be one of LKH's secret aliases? I wonder...I just stumbled onto another review on another website. According to the scuttlebutt, Gryphon and LKH have a prior relationship.

"By BevQB: As I understand it, Talia Gryphon is a friend of LKH’s PA, Darla Cook, and that LKH was, to some extent, Talia’s mentor. I really don’t know the extent of the mentoring. I know Talia was supposed to accompany LKH to the RT Con in Daytona but couldn’t at the last minute because of work related issues (her PA had an accident at the last minute and also couldn’t accompany her)."
source

LKH has NO business in mentoring someone-she needs to focus on improving her own work.

***Judgement***

No thanks, Gryphon! I'm not buying the third and have plans to trade the books/give them to my dog to chew on.

Becoming a Bad Romance Author...

...takes a lot of hard, studious work and a serious dedication to...wait, that's not right...it takes a comfy bean-bag type chair and a big bag of Doritos. Just add an unhealthy gallon of root beer and you've got an instant bad romance.

And don't let little things like grammar, sentence structure, spelling, or plot get in your way. They are merely hurdles to leap over in the 100-meter dash of bad romance writing.

Sometimes I adhere to some of these rules, and sometimes to all at once. It's really up to you...just don't overexert yourself. An unhealthy mind equals unhealthy writing. And that's really the goal of this exercise.

My five basic rules to writing bad romances:

Basic Rule 1) Gender Stereotyping

Women are helpless, virginal, and emotional. They represent classic Disney herione types that are often waiting to be "saved" by a man.
On the other hand, we have the tomboy-ish prudish man-haters with a prickly personality that really conceals a fear of intimacy.

Men are scarred, revenge-minded, close-mouthed mystery-men. They often have secret, undercover, spy-hero jobs. Usually they had been burned by some horrible bitch of a wife/mistress/first love/mother in their past, and are now mistrustful of all womens' motives.

In more rare cases, the men in bad romances are bookish, nerdy and often distracted with some kind of weird scientific hobby (bugs, ancient history, breeding horses...). Sometimes these guys have hidden or suppressed bad boy tendencies. The women they attract end up admiring them for their logical minds and surprisingly hot bodies (though I think the latter has much to do with artistic license). Hot nerds? Is this possible? In a bad romance, anything is possible!

In whatever character type you choose, make sure they've both had something in their past that occurred to scar them for their present attitude--had a bad husband/wife, witnessed a murder/war, were left to bad/neglectful parents, stuck with gambling siblings who lose family fortune, or hold some kind of secret or coveted treasure.

The women, in particular, run across many similar themes: they were ugly (flat-chested and spotty) and became beautiful (bountiful and porcelain-like), were poor but made rich through eccentric relative/surprise financial success, work as governess/ladies' companion, or my personal favorite, end up being blackmailed into sex/marriage.

Coming up...Basic Rule 2): Setting a Romantic Rendezvous (or Finding Places to Hump)

This is a re-post from my old blog--I uploaded it again, 'cause I actually plan to finish it this time! : )

The Watchmen (2009)

***Stolen Summary***

An adaptation of Alan Moore's landmark comic book series, Watchmen is a story set in an alternative 1985, where the world is ticking closer to the brink of nuclear war, and a plot to eliminate a band of ex-crimefighters is instigated, but why? and by whom? It is up to two of those ex-crimefighters to investigate the plot that seems to go beyond the unthinkable. imdb

***Rant***

Great movie. I read the graphic novel a while back, so the exact details aren't sitting in my brain, but this movie was generally well-done. The editing, direction, visuals, cast...it was tight. Awesome opening credits showed the history of the heroes in freeze-frame style. Gory scenes and a disturbing/unsettling ending. Some philosophical debates will crop up amongst you and you friends about the whole "ends justifying the means" argument, I will promise you that. This movie has an intelligent story, thanks to Alan Moore and enough action scenes to get your motor running.

The only thing I'm annoyed about is some of the comments I've been reading on the message boards on imdb. There are quite a few fan-boys and girls booing this movie on Alan Moore's behalf. I think that's a load of crock.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Alan Moore himself sell the rights to his graphic novels? They way I'm reading some of his responses is that like he's making himself out to be some kind of victim, the artist who's been taken advantage of...

But if he was not satisfied with the contracts/negotiations and screenplay adaptations that the movie producers presented to him, he could've pulled out...isn't that the case? He could've said "Fuck you, this isn't my vision" and left. However, he decided to sell. If that was me, I'd be more pissed at myself more than anything. It's like closing the barn door after letting all the cows out. His umbrage is starting to wear thin on me.

I actually liked the movie quite a bit. It was well-done. And I liked The Watchmen novel. What is there to complain about? The nitpicky details comparing the movie to the novel? And they were minor, I believe. Look at adaptations like Max Payne (granted that was a video game, not a graphic novel adaptation). That was a train wreck. I thought I was watching Constantine. The errors were glaringly obvious.

The Watchmen movie was a very good modern adaptation of Alan Moore's creation. It was the type of movie that I actually had to go looking for errors and look HARD for them (if that makes any sense). I did the same with The Dark Knight. I find fanboys and girls do this quite a bit, but attach more importance to them as Errors and Mistakes. But for generally well-done movies, these things are of minor importance.

***Judgement***

Go see it now! And by the way, Dr. Manhattan's penis was perfectly acceptable. Though not as ginormous as some people are saying.