DAY OF DESCENT by Garfield Reeves-Stevens

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Alien Nation: Day of Descent is a fan-fiction writer’s dream, not because there are Mary Sues or interspecies sex (in fact, it’s blissfully short on both), but because the authors do an incredible job of capturing the characters.

I should say that I’m a big fan of the show and recently rewatched the entire series. It was better than I remembered, so much more than a cop drama with racial allegories. The development of the Tenctonese species is more than enough to satisfy any armchair xenologist. While on the surface, these aliens seemed very close to (bald) humans, in building their culture show-runner Kenneth Johnson shined. His attention to biological and anthropological detail, paired with extraordinary characterization (though early episodes paint George comedically, you learn over the course of just one season what an incredibly complex, nauanced character he is, particularly in his interactions with his son), made it exemplary sci-fi. Though a little dated, I’d still recommend the core series to any science fiction or television fan.

And apparently, I can recommend the first follow-up novel with the same confidence. Set largely well before the movie, television series, and follow up TV films, Day of Descent is a prequel story, largely set five years before the events of the first film. Human Matt’s tale is developed in parallel to George Francisco’s and describes his very first case as a detective. Meanwhile, we’re given ample and compelling backstory on the Newcomers lives in space and their eventual shipwreck on Earth. I always felt that this was a promising area left painfully unexplored during the series, and (true to my expectations), the alien plot is the stronger of the two. It describes the slow-building, and absolutely riveting rebellion of the Tenctonese against the Overseers, members of their own race who torture and enslave their cohorts. There are nice cultural and historic details about the Tenctonese sprinkled throughout–the novel does a good job of providing context for the aliens, and this context enriches the source material, rather than detracting or distracting from it.

What’s more, even removed from their more familiar Terran situations, the Francisco family is perfectly recognizable. In fact all of the characters were. I had the uncanny feeling that I was actually watching an episode of the series as I was reading this book, something I’ve never before felt while reading a licensed novel. The Reese-Stevenses obviously approached the composition of this story with a great deal of affection and care. The only drawbacks here were some very minor issues with Matt Sikes’ characterizations–he’s a bit overly romantic in his internal narration at times, which (in just one scene) felt off. Also, the police drama dragged a little compared to the shipboard tale. However, their excruciating attention to the other detail of the series–the writers even resolve the most glaring continuity error of the franchise in a single line–easily redeem those minor issues. I’d definitely recommend this book for any fans of the series, perhaps even before I’d recommend any of the TV movies that followed several years later.

In short, this is a terrific science fiction tome. Reading it was instructive–this is what licensed work should be.

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I have essentially graduated from graduate school and spring–well, summer, really, here in Gainesville–has sprung. This is what’s been happening:

Sammy got sick a few weeks ago–vomiting! not eating! not pooping either!–and had to be hospitalized. He had an IV put in him and was rehydrated and on medicines. He’s fine now (it was probably, of all things, a huge hairball), but (in addition to the thousand dollar pet bill), the experience resulted in this:

1. Cat with a poodle arm.

2. Crass greeting cards from my mother.

I painted my toenails. As you can see, I’m not very good at it.

And my closet is now a walk-in closet. You just can’t walk very far into it.

I was introduced to the Wine and Cheese Gallery which is only a block from my house and serves both wine and cheese. It’s a lovely place, but maybe it was the wine and the company that made me feel that way.

(I have been so socially happy lately. Thanks guys–you mean the world to me.)

I have been going on job interviews. Here is my favorite interview outfit. I look like a school marm, or a stereotypical librarian (not the sassy kind).

Finally, I’ve been arting. Below are some sketches–one, of my cat (drawn from life!), the other a drawing of myself (drawn from life!) which I drew after getting into an argument with Pat about drawing from life.

Note to self: hands look like oven mitts. Practice drawing hands.

I just discovered that my site looked totally borked in IE due to a typo in my blogger template, probably for months now.

Gee, guys, thanks for telling me!

The Luckiest Girl by Beverly Cleary

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Luckiest Girl by Beverly Cleary (yes, of Ramona-fame), is the absolutely adorable tale of sixteen-year-old Shelley, a young Oregonian who spends a year in California with friends of her family. Normally, I would approach any “adorable” YA novel with hesitation–sixteen-year-olds are so rarely cute. But Shelley is an incredibly endearing character–sweet, but not saccharine; inquisitive, but not naive. This makes her journey in California, and her trials in early dating, surprisingly readable.

Written in 1958, this is certainly a quaint book, written in a time when contractions, or more than a chaste kiss at the novel’s conclusion, were apparently taboo. But Cleary paints a very vivid landscape, and populates it with equally vivid people. A few sections featuring Katie, the daughter of Shelley’s host parents, feel a bit like the slapstick of the Ramona books; while I love those, wearing vegetables on one’s head is more believable in an eight-year-old than a thirteen-year-old. Otherwise, the supporting cast feels startlingly real. There are a surprising number of layers to Shelley’s story, despite its apparent simplicity–Cleary tackles school, ambition, homesickness, mother-daughter relationships, and most of all boys, with confidence. All in all, The Luckiest Girl is an utterly charming read.

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