David Newgreen (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
4thofeleven) wrote2008-12-03 04:32 pm
4thofeleven) wrote2008-12-03 04:32 pm
New Moon is More Entertaining than Twilight, Less Entertaining than Most Things
Yeah, I’m a masochist. If there’s a book in my house, I’m going to read it, regardless of my expectations of quality.
Anyway, New Moon’s a hell of a lot better than Twilight – if nothing else, there’s a lot more story here, and we get some vampires actually acting like vampires. In the first couple of chapters, we get a room full of ‘friendly’ vampires be overwhelmed by bloodlust as Isabella accidently cuts herself, followed by a conversation about souls, and whether the vampires still have them. That’s pretty much my two largest complaints about Twilight taken care of right there.
Now, that’s not to say the story’s perfect; Edward Cullen, our romantic lead, still has no discernable personality traits. Every other vampire character comes across as far more interesting that him. It doesn’t help that what personality traits he has are increasingly creepy – and I’m still not entirely over the whole “He’s 100+ years old, but fakes being a high school student” thing. Sure, he looks seventeen, but surely he could fake being nineteen or something, and could have avoided having to go to school over and over again if he wanted to… then again, that brings us right back to “Why would a group of immortal un-aging vampires decide to hide out in a small town where everyone knows everyone, rather than in the anonymity of a large city?”
As for Isabella, our heroine – I find myself liking her despite myself. See, here’s the thing: She’s supposedly head-over-heels in love with Ed. But Edward doesn’t have any real personality – so the impression I get can’t be “She loves him because he’s charming/funny/whatever.” Instead, the impression I get is “She loves him because he’s the key to her achieving immortality.” The first few chapters, every time they’re together, she’s badgering him to agree to vampify her. She’s horrified at her birthday that another year has passed and she’s still aging. During the climax of the novel, her and another vampire are racing to Italy to rescue Edward from his poorly thought out suicide attempt – and on the plane, she’s trying to turn the conversation away from “How do we rescue my beloved without drawing the wrath of the vampire elders?” and towards “Say, you’re a vampire too – how about letting me on that action?” And then, having finally gotten the vampires to agree to vampify her, she seems far more excited by that outcome than by her being reunited with her one true love who has, by the way, just proposed to her.
It’s an unusual – and probably not entirely intentional – choice of characterisation, but as I mentioned in my Twilight review, it’s not like there seem to be any actual downsides to being a Twilight vampire. Why wouldn’t you make every possible effort to gain immortality once you learned of the possibility? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sparkly vampire boyfriend, who cares about that when I’m still subject to the forces of entropy and decay? In her position, I'd be just as determined to achieve immortality.
Granted, there’s the whole section where Isabella becomes suicidally depressed because her vampire buddies have decided to go into hiding (and stolen her car stereo), but again, since there’s nothing specific about Edward himself she’s missing, I think it’s a defensible interpretation that she’s not too concerned about him, she just doesn’t see the point in continuing her life now she’s doomed once again to inevitable decay and death.
Of course, it also occurred to me during this section that the reason she’s so depressed once the vampires leave is that they don’t feed on blood after all – they feed on human emotions or souls; she’d been in a state of heightened emotion and ecstasy while she was around them because they were drawing out her emotions in order to feed on them. Now they’ve used her up, cast her aside, and she’s left a soul-less husk, her ability to feel true joy or happiness entirely consumed by them. So, yeah, maybe I’m just trying to come up with a more interesting interpretation of events than the book is actually offering me…
Still, at least this volume actually has enough happening to spark the imagination somewhat, whereas Twilight had literally nothing happening for the majority of the book. I’m actually vaguely interested to see where the story’s going next, so that’s a big improvement.
Other quibbles:
- Isabella’s non-supernatural friends still don’t seem to have any actual role to play in things. Why do they keep getting so much attention directed at them? They don’t even qualify as “comic relief’. (I don’t mean they’re not funny – I mean they’re not even meant to be funny. They’re just bland – even blander than the protagonists, if such a thing is possible.)
- The werewolf plotline really didn’t seem to go anywhere. What’s the origin of the ‘vampires and werewolves are mortal enemies’ idea, anyway? At this point, it’s practically a cliché. I want to see a setting where they work together for once…
- I like that vampires are apparently loners in this setting. The vampire elders in Italy are the biggest vampire organisation in the world; they’ve got almost a dozen vampires living with them! Explains why vampires have never taken over; they don’t work together well enough to organise anything large-scale. Plus, it’s a good contrast with the werewolf pack structure.
- Is Stephenie Meyer a mechanic in real life or something? These books seem to have far more details about different types of cars and auto repairs than I’d expect from the genre or audience.
- Alright, so Edward’s going to commit suicide by elder vampire. He’s going to wander into the sunlight at midday in their capital city, because he knows they’ll kill him first lest he ruin their secret. Here’s the thing – Twilight vampires don’t combust in sunlight. They’re not hideous Nosferatu monsters either. If they step into sunlight, they sparkle. I’m not entirely sure anyone seeing a sparkly figure emerge in a city square on the feast day of that city’s patron saint is really going to think “Holy shit, vampires are real!”. It might draw in more pilgrims than the vampire elders want to deal with on a regular basis, but since their food supply appears to be ‘clueless tourists’ anyway, it doesn’t seem like Edward’s really causing them much of a problem…
Anyway, New Moon’s a hell of a lot better than Twilight – if nothing else, there’s a lot more story here, and we get some vampires actually acting like vampires. In the first couple of chapters, we get a room full of ‘friendly’ vampires be overwhelmed by bloodlust as Isabella accidently cuts herself, followed by a conversation about souls, and whether the vampires still have them. That’s pretty much my two largest complaints about Twilight taken care of right there.
Now, that’s not to say the story’s perfect; Edward Cullen, our romantic lead, still has no discernable personality traits. Every other vampire character comes across as far more interesting that him. It doesn’t help that what personality traits he has are increasingly creepy – and I’m still not entirely over the whole “He’s 100+ years old, but fakes being a high school student” thing. Sure, he looks seventeen, but surely he could fake being nineteen or something, and could have avoided having to go to school over and over again if he wanted to… then again, that brings us right back to “Why would a group of immortal un-aging vampires decide to hide out in a small town where everyone knows everyone, rather than in the anonymity of a large city?”
As for Isabella, our heroine – I find myself liking her despite myself. See, here’s the thing: She’s supposedly head-over-heels in love with Ed. But Edward doesn’t have any real personality – so the impression I get can’t be “She loves him because he’s charming/funny/whatever.” Instead, the impression I get is “She loves him because he’s the key to her achieving immortality.” The first few chapters, every time they’re together, she’s badgering him to agree to vampify her. She’s horrified at her birthday that another year has passed and she’s still aging. During the climax of the novel, her and another vampire are racing to Italy to rescue Edward from his poorly thought out suicide attempt – and on the plane, she’s trying to turn the conversation away from “How do we rescue my beloved without drawing the wrath of the vampire elders?” and towards “Say, you’re a vampire too – how about letting me on that action?” And then, having finally gotten the vampires to agree to vampify her, she seems far more excited by that outcome than by her being reunited with her one true love who has, by the way, just proposed to her.
It’s an unusual – and probably not entirely intentional – choice of characterisation, but as I mentioned in my Twilight review, it’s not like there seem to be any actual downsides to being a Twilight vampire. Why wouldn’t you make every possible effort to gain immortality once you learned of the possibility? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sparkly vampire boyfriend, who cares about that when I’m still subject to the forces of entropy and decay? In her position, I'd be just as determined to achieve immortality.
Granted, there’s the whole section where Isabella becomes suicidally depressed because her vampire buddies have decided to go into hiding (and stolen her car stereo), but again, since there’s nothing specific about Edward himself she’s missing, I think it’s a defensible interpretation that she’s not too concerned about him, she just doesn’t see the point in continuing her life now she’s doomed once again to inevitable decay and death.
Of course, it also occurred to me during this section that the reason she’s so depressed once the vampires leave is that they don’t feed on blood after all – they feed on human emotions or souls; she’d been in a state of heightened emotion and ecstasy while she was around them because they were drawing out her emotions in order to feed on them. Now they’ve used her up, cast her aside, and she’s left a soul-less husk, her ability to feel true joy or happiness entirely consumed by them. So, yeah, maybe I’m just trying to come up with a more interesting interpretation of events than the book is actually offering me…
Still, at least this volume actually has enough happening to spark the imagination somewhat, whereas Twilight had literally nothing happening for the majority of the book. I’m actually vaguely interested to see where the story’s going next, so that’s a big improvement.
Other quibbles:
- Isabella’s non-supernatural friends still don’t seem to have any actual role to play in things. Why do they keep getting so much attention directed at them? They don’t even qualify as “comic relief’. (I don’t mean they’re not funny – I mean they’re not even meant to be funny. They’re just bland – even blander than the protagonists, if such a thing is possible.)
- The werewolf plotline really didn’t seem to go anywhere. What’s the origin of the ‘vampires and werewolves are mortal enemies’ idea, anyway? At this point, it’s practically a cliché. I want to see a setting where they work together for once…
- I like that vampires are apparently loners in this setting. The vampire elders in Italy are the biggest vampire organisation in the world; they’ve got almost a dozen vampires living with them! Explains why vampires have never taken over; they don’t work together well enough to organise anything large-scale. Plus, it’s a good contrast with the werewolf pack structure.
- Is Stephenie Meyer a mechanic in real life or something? These books seem to have far more details about different types of cars and auto repairs than I’d expect from the genre or audience.
- Alright, so Edward’s going to commit suicide by elder vampire. He’s going to wander into the sunlight at midday in their capital city, because he knows they’ll kill him first lest he ruin their secret. Here’s the thing – Twilight vampires don’t combust in sunlight. They’re not hideous Nosferatu monsters either. If they step into sunlight, they sparkle. I’m not entirely sure anyone seeing a sparkly figure emerge in a city square on the feast day of that city’s patron saint is really going to think “Holy shit, vampires are real!”. It might draw in more pilgrims than the vampire elders want to deal with on a regular basis, but since their food supply appears to be ‘clueless tourists’ anyway, it doesn’t seem like Edward’s really causing them much of a problem…