Author: Rebecca Demarest

Problems with Characterization

/ Rebecca Demarest / 2 Comments

So, a good friend of mine encouraged me to read the Divergent and Insurgent books by Veronica Roth. I was a bit skeptical at first, considering they were touted as being the next Hunger Games and I had only barely managed to enjoy the first of those, but I was game and borrowed the first one.

This is the story of a girl shoe-horned into an artificially restrictive human collective where the population is divided strictly along moralistic lines, depending on what you value most highly, be it courage, or truthfulness, or selflessness, or amicability, or intelligence. And each faction values these selected virtues to a ridiculous degree.

Therein lies the problem. The world building is fantastic, the characters are believable enough for a YA novel, but the society…as a psych major I cannot in good conscience recommend these books. They feel like one of those philosophy mind games that they call ‘experiments’ wherein humans are given choices that no sane human would ever choose between; options that aren’t even a possibility with human nature such as it is. I wasn’t going to pick up Insurgent after finishing Divergent but my friend insisted that it all made sense by the end of the second book and I gave in and read it.

It did not get better.

There is absolutely no way a human society would be able to function in such a fragmented way. It would crumble much faster than a single generation. Hitler’s Nazi Germany lasted for less than a generation, Roth should have taken that as a lesson in human tolerance to stupidity. So, regardless of how well it might actually be written, or how strong the characters an world building actually are, I just could not stomach one more moment in that distastefully false universe. Needless to say, I will not be picking up the third book, Allegiant, when it hits shelves next year.

Pre-order your copy of Undeliverable!

/ Rebecca Demarest / Leave a comment

So, this weekend, I launched the pre-order campaign for my novel, Undeliverable! It is nerve-wracking to be sure, but I promise to keep the updates to a minimum and only let you know when the truly exciting things are happening. As for the five people who have already donated (Chris, Joanna, Susan, Fritz, and Noah), thank you so, so much!

The goal of this campaign is to raise enough money mainly to market the book. Spots in the Kirkus Review are not cheap, nor is professional conversion to e-book formats. Thus, I come to you, dear readers, hoping that you can chip and help defray those costs!

The campaign is running for the next month, so, even if you can’t place your order now, maybe you can place it as a birthday present to me on November 21st!

Reimagined Fairy Tales

/ Rebecca Demarest / Leave a comment

A while ago I heard about the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, a series of science fiction books geared for young adults that take and twist a few of the common fairy tales on their head. The first is Cinder which follows a young earth cyborg who lost a few limbs in a car accident when she was young. She lives with her foster mother and foster sisters and generally has a crappy life, until the prince shows up in her workshop one day with an android for her to fix. The second book is Scarlet, which follows a young woman from the farmlands as she’s catapulted from her normal sleepy life to rebel by the disappearance of her grandmother. 

If you can’t tell, these two books twist the Cinderella and Red Riding Hood fairy tales onto their heads and create a new, and fun, environment for these characters to play in. I was pleasantly surprised when I cracked these open to find that the writing is actually excellent. After Twilight and some of the other pieces of trash writing that have become popular, the Lunar Chronicles are witty, well structured, and definitely designed to lure a younger audience into a fun reading adventure. When Cinder ends, you cannot wait to get your hands on Scarlet. And when Scarlet ends, its just not fair because Cress, the third installment, doesn’t come out for a long time yet.

The only drawback I find to these stories, at all, was the fact that it feels like Meyer had this great idea for reinterpreting fairy tales, but then when she actually got started on the project, the story got away from her and become something much more, and very different from, these fairytales. I kind of wish she had done away entirely with the overt references to the tales in the name and everything, and had let the fairy tale element become background, subtle details that only an observant reader would catch. It would have made the influence of the tales a flavor rather than an identity that just doesn’t quite fit them anymore.

Overall though, I would highly recommend these to anyone who enjoys a fast-paced science fiction/fantasy with strong female characters. This is one series I am glad it is selling as well as it is and am happy to throw my support behind.

A Unique Journal

/ Rebecca Demarest / Leave a comment

Today I want to tell you guys about one of my new favorite journals: One-Story. I had found that however much journal publishing is good for building a writer’s reputation, I struggled to read through an entire journal myself. It was tiresome to me to have all these tiny encapsulated worlds and I would never get to the stories at the end of the volume. Then came along One Story and my life got much happier.

One-Story Cover

One Story is a publication that comes out every three weeks and is exactly what it sounds like: a single story in a small volume. As their website states: Each issue of One Story is artfully designed, lightweight, easy to carry, and ready to entertain on buses, in bed, in subways, in cars, in the park, in the bath, in the waiting rooms of doctors, on the couch in the afternoon or on line at the supermarket. And its so true. I actually read these, and they are wonderful. It presents a broad range of writing, from magically real, borderline fairy tales, and even a graphic novella last time. I began my subscription back during AWP and I was reserving judgement on them until I had gotten to read a few of them. I can now say, I enjoy their selections and it is a form of literary journal that I can actually stand to read.

So, if you’re like me and find the larger journals tiresome, take a look at this one. I think you’ll find yourself pleasantly entertained every three weeks.

The Real Man Behind the Curtain

/ Rebecca Demarest / Leave a comment

After I finished reading all the Oz novels, I decided I wanted to learn more about the man who had written such fanciful tales. It was harder than I thought it would be to find a decent biography about L. Frank Baum, but eventually I found Finding Oz by Evan I. Schwartz.

 It follows Baum through his life, from childhood through to his death, through myriad failed careers, through the birth of this children, and moves back and forth across the country. He failed at a lot of things before he finally struck a home run with the Oz series, and he never did manage his money all that well, but no one could accuse him of not trying. This man lived a very full life.

Schwartz does a wonderful job painting a full and robust picture of this man behind the pages, but it also draws some conclusions, which, if accurate, are quite fun, but I’m not entirely sure there is the research to support them: conclusions about the inspiration for things like the yellow brick road, the Wizard, and the various other figures in his books. Like I said, if he’s right about the conclusions, its quite fun to see where the inspiration is coming from, but I’m not sure how entirely valid they are. And this comes from an author who isn’t sure where in heck some of the stories she writes come from.

But one other thing the biography talked about was the spiritual life of Mr. and Mrs. Baum. It introduced me to two very interesting characters from that time of American history: Madame Blavatsky with her Theosophy and Swami Vivekananda. Both of these religious figures espoused a certain unity to religion and make for fascinating reading in their own right. Who knows, maybe they’ll inspire characters of my own…