For reference, if I were a TOS character, I’d be this one.

Spoilers, okay?

So I think the JJ Abrams reboot is a mixed bag, not in the least because we won’t get a TV show while he’s at the helm and the kind of Trek I like–the exact kind most people hate, with scenes of people at board meetings talking about diplomacy and shiz–isn’t going to happen while we have Trek on the big screen. That’s okay. I’m okay with Trek being an actiony popcorn flick, and I thought this movie was very fun, just as the first film was fun, just as the better Star Wars movies are fun, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get my nerdrage panties (which are science blue) in a bundle, just a little.

Most of my big complaints are covered by this io9 FAQ. The coy, insulting dance around Cumberbatch’s identity, the unearned ending lifted from a better film with a better-scripted and developed relationship between two characters who had fifteen years to grow to love one another, the fact that Bones finds the secret to eternal life and then . . . forgets it? I don’t even know.

The film has its strengths: Simon Pegg as Scotty is awesome, I love love love the aesthetic of future Earth, this Enterprise is perhaps as pretty as the Enterprise E, a feat I never thought possible. Cumberbatch wasn’t quite playing Khan, but he was cool, and I liked the new Klingons and Uhura had several chances to be bad-ass and Sulu in the captain’s chair is always a pleasure (oh my!).

But narratively, I’m not so sure about the film’s structure. It’s breathlessly paced–but that’s not quite the same as well-paced. Again and again, the writing team inserts meaningless and unnecessary countdowns just to artificially up the ante, but the problem is that they do this so many times that it loses its meaning. And it also destroys their ability to have other plot elements develop organically.

There were several plot points which were awkwardly shoe-horned in. Take, for example, the Jesus tribble. Never mind that the whole tribble thing was sort of oddly forced, the moment that Bones turns around and declares that he’s injecting a tribble with Khan’s apparently immortal blood was just inappropriate given what was going on around them and it doesn’t really make sense–why is Bones doing this, and more importantly, why now? Had it not occurred at a point in the narrative when the stakes and the action were rapidly rising it would have made a ton more sense but because the plotting was pretty much chase scene chase scene explosions fighting bombs with timers and more explosions I suspect that there was nowhere else for this plot point to go. But still: awkward. That’s why gradually rising tension where you put in place all your narrative threads to be used later is better, I think. It lets you get down to business when you need to.

Similarly, the character relationships were woefully underdeveloped (except, perhaps, surprisingly, the one between Scotty and Kirk). The “debate” between Spock and Kirk at the beginning felt flimsy, and the relationship between Spock and Uhura mostly brushed to the side and then brought up at the worst time. Look, I’m pretty old school about Vulcan relationships. My favorite Trek novel is Sarek by AC Crispin (it’s one of my favorite love stories, too), and so I’ve always found Spock and Uhura’s relationship a little implausible, particularly given the fact that in this universe, Uhura is shown as hyper-competent and awesome at her job and then, because there’s really no other time for it, you have her and Spock hashing out their romantic problems while on an important military mission until–oh poop–they’re surprised by an attack and this is exactly the problem with having military officers be in a relationship with each other. I actually liked the content of the debate, but the timing made them both look pretty crappy at their jobs, and this is Starfleet, and they are supposed to be the best of the best.

(Except for Worf, but we’ll make an exception for him.)

This is where we get stuff like the Carol Marcus gratuitous fanservice, too. At least Enterprise used skivvy scenes for exposition; they fit in, otherwise, but why was Marcus suiting up then and there and why with Kirk and why not McCoy, who actually goes on the mission with her? I’m guessing it was because 1. The actress is pretty and they wanted to show her in her underwear 2. We need to suggest that Kirk and Marcus are going to make a baby someday. But there was no place else to put the sexual tension in the movie, so they put it there, logic be damned.

I mean, part of the reason that snappy pacing is good is because it can be used to distract. Before you can wonder what happened to that girl injected with Khan’s blood (really, did something get cut?) we’re watching all the captains get shot at. But a lot of this stuff is just gobbledygook if you think about it. It’s entertaining, but it’s not good writing. Relationships don’t grow organically but rather for the sake of hitting certain plot points (some of which are from the original franchise, and not this one) and scenes are shoe-horned in because they’re needed for twists but none of it really forms a cohesive whole. This film isn’t the first Star Trek film to say, “Don’t think too hard about it and you’ll have fun” but I’m pretty bad at the not-thinking, even when I’m all for fun.

And it is fun, I guess. Stupid fun. Just so long as you don’t worry your pretty little head about it.

Just don’t get me started on the aliens.

If there’s one thing I enjoyed doing in the years 2006 and 2007, it was starting poem sequences and never finishing them. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting pieces from one of these sequences, called the “Neverwood poems.”

Peter Gnashes His Pretty White Teeth with Joy

He was solitude, squatting on the red
enamel tricycle, squinting into

the searing morning sun. A tow-headed
boy. The only living creature. Digging

swollen boy-hands into clay soil. Building
trenches with a blue plastic spade. Black flies

were drawn to him. And white stars. As
he orbited the bright galaxy of

dandelion stalks, saw grass, bound only
by a forcefield of honeysuckle vines

tangled into a chain link fence. Precious,
he was the jewel-toned beetle that pushed the

sun and even the ball of burning dung,
scorching the pink heels of his own fat hands.

Exegesis

This poem was written during my first year of graduate school, and it began a sequence of several poems inspired by JM Barrie’s work. I grew up watching the Mary Martin version of Peter Pan and had, several years before, read some interesting (and somewhat shocking) biographies of Barrie himself. In my first semester of graduate school, I took a course on the golden age of children’s literature, and we started with Peter.

The boy in the poem is not named Peter, though the title is taken directly from Barrie’s text–as were many of the titles in this sequence. This is most simply a poem about a charismatic child. Later poems in the sequence, as you’ll see over the next few weeks, go in a radically different direction. Think Steven Stayner meets Pan’s Labyrinth.

This poem also contains a Pelevin reference. If you catch it, hugs to you. I really loved The Life of Insects when I was eighteen, and it would continue to echo through my work for the better part of a decade.

Trade reviews for Starglass have begun to roll in, and Monday brought with it some lovely news: my first novel has received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly! You can read the whole thing here, but my favorite bit was this:

This richly textured first novel deserves to be widely read.

Aww . . . you guys, I am just so over the moon!

My little book has also been reviewed by Kirkus. It’s only available to subscribers right now (you’ll eventually be able to read it here), but they said of Starglass:

 . . . for Jewishness and gay characters in space, a poignantly lovely frame story about leaving Earth and a lonely kid seeking something to invest in, this is it.

But as much as I’m floored by these kind words, what I’ve loved most has been hearing reactions from readers. I’ve been on the review scene long enough to know that reviews aren’t for me (and I do hope they’re helpful for you, Gentle Reader), but nevertheless it is a completely awesome feeling to know that people you don’t even know are chewing over your words. More awesome, even, when they take the time to write about it.  Here are a few of my favorites.

Goodreads reviewer Jo writes that “North does a fantastic job of showing the loss of a parent and the impact it can have on a child.”

Mrs. S writes of Terra, ” I love this girl”

and reviewer karen assures us that Starglass contains “jewwwwwws in spaaaaace!!” and then includes a picture of one of my favorite Jews in Space, Leonard Nimoy, as Spock. The fact that this image is now one of the top image results for my book makes my heart unspeakably happy.

Thank you to all who have taken the time to write about Starglass. So much love for each and every one of you!

Happy mother’s day!

My Mother’s First Boyfriend, Who Rode a Motorcycle

It cost him two dollars twenty seven
cents to fill her up; two dollars twenty seven
cents to ride the length of old highway nine in
August with the wind tucked into his leather
jacket. She held on with manicured hands,
and at stoplights pressed her red mouth to rough
cheeks.

(He was always the Indian when
he was a kid-now he wore a high noon
shadow and oil, like the smell of horses,
was never washed out.)

they shared cigarettes
like secrets, built galaxies with smoke in
starless sullen skies. Inhaled, exhaled in
to one another. (Let us be true). First
love was “easy”–soft as cold clay in
warm hands
and as forgiving.

Exegesis

I wrote this poem during my freshman year at college; it was one of the first semi-decent poems I ever wrote. I could have sworn, at the time, that my mother told me her first boyfriend rode a motorcycle. She’s since told me that wasn’t the case. So I guess we can file this away as “mostly fictional poetry.”

I’ve always enjoyed imagining the lives of my parents before they were born. Is that strange? Some people seem uncomfortable with it. But they were people, too, interesting, and also young once. My mother was about the same age when she had her first relationship as I was when I wrote this poem.

It feels like a lifetime ago. For one thing, the allusion to cowboys-and-Indians makes me cringe a little now, whereas, when I was eighteen, it felt like a natural component of the poem. I’d spent my summers at girl scout camp singing “Running Bear.” How culturally insensitive we were, in 1990s suburban New Jersey!

It makes more sense if you read it aloud.

The Tinkerer in Terra Incognito

Tumbling tippler kitchen nights with the warmonger and the barooming
barrister whom fistpoun down on the tabletop political harumphing and tipples
tumblers: tink tink

while I head-lost drug-plump drawl pencilfine subway maps, scape routes
and hatches loveblind sing-a-songs swaying Well well met my true true
love cry saltsea nosedoun

to form Firmica. One night will crawl way from warm hunger’s mouth
for midnight pisspause—will see-thru propt door barrister bomb baking, stitching
redwires welding black

then looking up grinsinister sneering: Welcome. While the kitchen
faucet sings out rusting drips down to dishes dirty-caked: tinktink tinktink
tinktank tockt.

Exegesis

Sometime after college, I became interested in not just drawing from autobiography but also writing poetry that doubled as fiction. I began a loose series of poems about an architect who became involved in a revolution which helped to destroy the world (and thereafter lived as a recluse in a suburban house with a robot, as one does). This poem, written during grad school and inspired, in style and form, by John Berryman’s The Dream Songs is set in the same universe.

Which isn’t to say there aren’t autobiographical elements. The “warmonger” is roughly based on my future-husband, who, at the time, was studying military history in college; the “barooming barrister” is undoubtedly my college friend J, who both went to law school and is fairly barooming. I think it was inspired, too, by the Weathermen. Sometimes I wondered what would have happened if my college friends hadn’t just been dorks but had been truly dangerous. Dangerous people often seem merely charismatic at first. And my friends were very charismatic.

(J turns 29 again this week; please wish him a happy birthday!)

Blame the ladies of YA Highway for this madness!

Several months ago, I set out to create a book trailer for Starglass. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but I knew several things: that I couldn’t afford a full-service videographer, and that I wanted a trailer that was cool. My first attempt (which we shall never speak of again) was pretty bad. So I searched high and low for other options, ways to keep costs down while simultaneously creating something distinctive–and representative of my novel’s voice.

Through working on the Starglass trailer (which will be debuting soon!), I discovered that I really, really liked making book trailers. Who knew?! It makes sense: I spent the first twenty years of my life a visual artist, not a word-girl. All of my professional jobs included some design component. It was just so satisfying, moving pixels around on-screen, selecting just the right music for maximum impact. I made some trailers for friends, pro bono. Including this trailer, for my good friend Jen Castle’s first novel, The Beginning of After, out today in paperback:

My first pro trailer launched today, for fellow Lucky 13 Chelsea Pitcher’s The S-Word, and I thought it would be a good time to share my new endeavor with the world. Here’s a brief–goofy!–commercial I made advertising my services.

Since I’m a busy gal with my own deadlines, I’m taking work on quite selectively for the time being, but if you’re an author looking for a budget book trailer alternative, please do get in touch! And if you’re a reader interested in seeing what I’m up to, keep an eye on northstarrbooktrailers.tumblr.com. I’ll be cross-posting all my work there for your enjoyment.