“Just, like, a crazy zombie-hating moose impaling hundreds of zombies.”

I am not a John Green fan. I have so many friends that are (15 that have given TFioS at least 4 stars), but…I don’t like sappy sentimental crap, and I don’t want to read books by someone who’s constantly making girls cry. Blech.

So, anyway, last night I got this email from goodreads that said “Since you LOVED The Fault in our Stars, why not try…”

1. I have the pimpage emails turned off, so this was enough to send me into a frothy rage.
2. I have not READ that book, nor have I put it on my To Read shelf and now that goodreads thinks it knows me so well, I won’t EVER be reading it.
3. I get childish like that when shit annoys me. This annoyed me.

So, after ranting to myself that I’ve never even READ a John Green book for half an hour, I remembered that I HAD read Zombicorns last year.

I guess I jumped the gun a little. But I didn’t love it. It was okay, but it mostly just pissed me off because there weren’t any zombie unicorns like the cover led me to believe.

First Zombies vs Unicorns tricked me by not having any ZOMBIES VS UNICORNS, then Zombicorns tricked me by not having any zombie unicorns.  I’m still bitter.

BUT at least I remembered that going into The War for Banks Island, which is the sequel to Zombicorns.

No zombie unicorns?  Check.

So, even though I know some people think I’m weird (yes, I totally snoop on conversations when someone links to my blog in a public forum, wouldn’t you?) for harping on this, I don’t think it would be too difficult for someone to cave and just GIVE ME THE ZOMBIE UNICORN BATTLES THAT I WANT.

[ahem]

What was I talking about?

Right, this book.

Well, it was just as not-so-special as its predecessor.  I mean, it wasn’t terrible – I actually kind of liked some parts of it, but I’m not going to complain too heavily since it was free.

The War for Banks Island takes place ~25 years after the events of Zombicorns.  Humanity has been fighting the corn obsessed zombies for a quarter of a century, and has made some decent progress.  There’s a commune of sorts on Banks Island (it’s way up in the NorthWest Territories, where it rarely makes it above freezing, even in the summer), with nary a zombie attack for a number of years.

Of course there’s an attack on voting day.  Of course there’s a call to arms for all young people to try to reclaim the land that belongs to them.  And of course the government is full of duplicitous asshats that don’t actually care about their constituents as long as PROGRESS IS MADE.

So, yeah – it was all rather predictable.  I’m glad it was free, and I’m glad it was short.

[shrug]

Also, I totally made a Zombie Unicorn magnet – I’m buying one for myself as soon as I finish writing this.  If you want one for yourself, you can find them here.

Tentative Executive Decision

I made this!

As the title suggests, I’ve gone ahead and made what I’m choosing to call a tentative executive decision.

• Monty Python and the Holy Grail
• September 21, 2012
• Same bat time as the previous drinkalongs (10:15pm EDT)
• We will be making our own rules, so leave them in the comments for me to pick and choose!
• Since this isn’t technically a #PtBiB event, I feel like we need a new hashtag for our livetweet.  Any suggestions?

Now, I know you all can see that this is three weeks from today.  I figure this is PLENTY OF TIME to allow those of you who don’t already own this movie (um…what the hell is wrong with you?) to procure a copy.

I’m hoping that the majority of our #PtBiB crew will join in, as well as some new faces.  If you don’t have a twitter account, SET ONE UP JUST FOR THIS!

Hope to see you all there!

Post Script:  There is now a ZOMBIE UNICORN tee shirt in our shop!  You can click here to check it out.

Post Script 2:  Had I mentioned that I’m now a contributor over at Insatiable Booksluts?  My first post in a series of Mix Tapes for literary characters went up yesterday.  Please check it out and comment!

Top Five+Mix Tape:  What Really Matters is What You Like, Not What You ARE Like

She Doesn’t Look Like a Monkey and I’m Sure She Smells Quite Nice

It’s Meghan’s birthday.

I was going to write a sappy post about how incredibly glad I am that she’s my friend, how happy I am to know her and how lucky I am that she decided she wants to work with me,  but decided instead to just post a bunch of things I know will make her laugh.

• Every time something awesome happens, Meg sends me this picture.  High five from Andy Samberg for your birthday, Meg.

  

• Meg is obsessed with LotR (obvs, since we’re friends).  We have had entire discussions using only memes.  Oh, and there was that one time where we were discussing the show Weeds and she got all excited and said “I LOVE WEED!” so now I tease her about it mercilessly.  We never let each other forget typos.  So, Meg, look – Gandalf loves weed too!

• No explanation necessary for this one, I don’t think?

  

• When this came out, we could not stop laughing at the dancing Ood.  Dancing Ood for you on your special day, Meghan.
  
  
• Finally, Meghan – I can think of anyone I’d rather ride off into the wilds of Mars on the back of a unicorn with than you.  Happy Birthday, my friend.  <3
  

Dodisharkicorn: The Legend Behind the ‘Corn

We know, we know…you’ve all got questions about the Dodisharkicorn.  It’s only natural.  Few of you were here at the time of its first inception, and it has regenerated so many times by now that we’d be frightened to know what it saw when peering into the Untempered Schism.

The truth is – the Dodisharkicorn is quite secretive in nature.  He doesn’t really want you to know much about him at all, but we’ve received permission to give you a few hints.

Where does the Dodisharkicorn live?  Ah, an astute question right off the bat.  You’re absolutely correct to wonder this, Questioner.  Given his – er - specialness, the Dodisharkicorn isn’t one to just hang out on Earth, right?  I mean, really.  Where is he going to live?  In a pond outside your back door?  How threatening is that?  No.  Of course the Dodisharkicorn is not an Earthly Creature.  He actually lives on one of the moons of Jupiter in Dodisharkitropolis, whose location we are not at liberty to divulge.

What does the Dodisharkicorn eat?  Faeriecakes.  And Faeries.  Look, the Dodisharkicorn needs huge quantities of protein to survive, but he’s not about to eat humans.  We’re gross.  Also, he has a problem with sugar.  Hello, early onset diabetes!  But, really – MommaDodi took him to McFaeries too often when he was little, so it’s not like he’s actually to blame or anything, right?  He has recently changed his diet to only include free-range faeries and faeriecakes, so…he’s trying, okay?

How does the Dodisharkicorn clean itself?  Um.  It bathes in glitter.  Dur.

Elvis or the Beatles?  Dude.  Take a good look at the Dodisharkicorn.  Tell me you can’t imagine sideburns and a bedazzled leather suit.

Are there female Dodisharkicorns?  Of course there are!  You can tell them apart because the women have braids.  For realsies.

Does the Dodisharkicorn read?  Only if he thinks he can insert himself into the story.  He’s like a trashy version of Archeron Hades.  You can find him in many VC Andrews books, and the work of Jean M Auel.

Hobbies?  In his spare time, the dodisharkicorn enjoys golfing, reading, jet skiing, training dogs, performing in circuses and writing multilinear calculus theorems.

Hey, will there ever be baby dodisharkicorns? Right now, the dodi is enjoying the single life, though his mother hopes that he’ll settle down soon and give her some grandodis.

Yeah, that’s all great, but how did you guys end up using it as your mascot?  Well, technically it started with this comment:

…and then it caught on fire.  Bravo, Ms Andrews – bravo.  I’m a little sad she forgot the whole ‘attacked by a shark and struck by lightning AND THEN pushed off a cliff by a dodo riding a unicorn’ bit, but what’re you gonna do?

And this is the first recorded instance of the dodisharkicorn in picture form:

And here’s the Dodicorn (we’re not sure what the shark was up to at this time, this is obviously a different regeneration):

Now, since he can apparently time travel, here he is during his rebellious teen phase, which is why he’s dyed pink and missing the dodo:

In case you were wondering, Meg and I can attest to the fact that the Dodisharkicorn makes a superior mattress experience:

And our good pal the Byronic Man just recently won a ride!

And finally, he is hugely interested in history…since he’s been there, done that most of the time.

Hopefully, this little tutorial on our favourite beast, the Dodisharkicorn, has given you the answers you’ve been seeking.  If not…pose your question in the comments, and he may see fit to allow us to answer it at some point in the future.

Trashy Tuesday – My Sweet Audrina

Yeah, that’s right.  We’re back with another installment from the Queen of Gothic Trash, VC Andrews.  To quote my lovely friend Kate (when she saw what I was reading):  ”Blast from the trashy past. In middle school we passed those around like 60s housewives with Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Oh so ridiculous, thank you!”

The truth is that I am usually 2-4 weeks ahead on my Trashy Tuesday reading, but this time I kind of slacked and had to figure out what I was going to write about at the last minute.  Sunday, actually.  I knew I needed a fast – guaranteed trashy – read, so Ms Andrews is kind of the go-to-gal for that.

Audrina Adare is seven years old with  a memory like a sieve.  She lives in a crumbling southern mansion with her parents (Lucky and Damien), her aunt (and her illegitimate cousin) and the memory of the First Audrina.  She’s Audrina #2, her older sister shared the same birthday and was killed on her ninth birthday after not listening to their parents warnings about walking through the woods.  Because the First Audrina was so good and perfect in every way (except for disobeying her parents that one time – a mistake she paid for with her life), our Audrina is constantly forced to sit in her rocking chair, singing so she can let the First Audrina fill her like a pitcher.

Sounds weird, right?  Wait, it gets weirder.

Momma and Aunt Ellsbeth have Tuesday Teatimes every week with Aunt Mercy Marie.  Mercy Marie disappeared several years ago on a mission trip to Africa, and is presumed dead and eaten by cannibals.  Death hasn’t stopped the Whitefern girls from trotting out her photo each week and pretending she’s sitting there having tea and sandwiches with them.  The sisters take turns making voices for Aunt Mercy Marie and use her to say all of the scathing things about each other they wouldn’t say otherwise.  Audrina is forced to sit there with them  and cousin Vera will sneak home from school to watch her mother and aunt drink their bourbon tea, get drunk and spill family secrets.

Vera is…kind of a bitch.  She knows Audrina has a bad memory, so she’s constantly teasing her about things Audrina can’t remember.  She says she knew the First Audrina, and that this new Audrina will obviously never compare.  Vera is described as having apricot coloured hair and “Arab eyes,” which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  But then…Audrina apparently has Chameleon hair and violet eyes (if you didn’t know, VC Andrews women often have violet eyes).

Vera has brittle bones, so she’s home frequently in casts and just lounging around tormenting her little cousin.  Oh, and to save her the shame of being an illegitimate child, Audrina’s parents pretend that she’s their other daughter.

One spring day, Audrina blatantly disobeys the ‘don’t ever go into the woods’ stricture and meets a boy a few years older than her working in the yard of a nearby cottage.  They become fast friends, even though Arden (really, could the foreshadowing be more obvious?) has haunted eyes whenever Audrina talks about how she can’t really remember her childhood.  Arden’s mom is Billie.  Billie is gorgeous (like almost all VC Andrews women are – they’re all beautiful on the outside, anyway), but has secrets of her own.  She was once an Olympic figure skater, but someone left a bobby pin on the ice and she fell and cut herself on a skate blade.  She didn’t heal and was apparently diabetic, so lost her legs to gangrene.  Meg and I figured out who left that pin there, though.  Hint:  it’s the same villain we’ve used for all of these books.

Audrina, Arden and Vera are fishing one day.  Audrina goes behind some bushes to change out of her bathing suit, but discovers that her clothes are missing.  When she turns around to put her bathing suit back on, she sees Vera’s hand grabbing that, too.  Arden offers to give her his shirt, but then discovers that his clothes are also missing.  At that moment, Audrina’s father comes rushing out of the woods to see his naked daughter and a shirtless boy and he FREAKS OUT, starts shaking Arden and yelling about how boys are all the same and they only want one thing and blahblahblah.  He gives Audrina his suit jacket, then takes her home.  On the way, he tells her that there’s a witchy-woman at the house to determine the sex of Audrina’s unborn sibling.  The witch can’t get a read on it, and tells them that what Mrs Adare is carrying is neither male nor female.  Eep.

Even though she doesn’t remember turning 8, one day her father tells her that she’s turning 9 in the morning.  She wakes up to find that her mother has gone into labour early, and that her parents have been at the hospital all night.  Her mother dies during childbirth, and her father does not bring the baby home for almost three years.  During that time, Audrina demands piano lessons and then to get to go to school like a regular girl.  She gets both wishes.

Vera has an affair with the music teacher (and possibly Arden), the day that Papa brings home Sylvia we learn that she is “severely retarded” and that it will be Audrina’s new job to take care of her.  Wait, what?  She’s, like, 12.  You’re going to give the care of a disabled child completely over to someone who is also a child?  Top notch parenting there, dude.

Vera runs off to New York with the music teacher and Aunt Ellsbeth starts sharing Papa’s bed.

Years pass.  Sylvia only likes Audrina and playing with these little glass prisms that Audrina found in the first Audrina’s room.  She’s constantly flashing lights in the eyes of people she doesn’t like.  Aunt Ellsbeth is about to take off to find her daughter in New York, but the morning she’s to leave, Audrina finds her dead at the bottom of the stairs.  Damien decides to make it look like she wasn’t leaving, and Audrina runs off with Sylvia to tell Arden to marry her THAT DAY.

They head off to North Carolina for a quickie ceremony, and on their wedding night, all Audrina can think of are the dreams she’s had of her older sister being violated under a tree.  She starts screaming, but Arden thinks she’s into it.  They head back home a few days later to find that Audrina’s father has moved Arden’s mother into the mansion and that they’re all going to live together as a big happy family.

Vera returns from New York before Thanksgiving and Damien yells at her to leave.  She falls, breaks her leg (again), so has to stay.

Legless Billie takes a tumble down the same stairs, and everyone assumes it was Sylvia who shone light in her eyes to make her fall.  Two people dead at the foot of the stairs, this doesn’t look good for the Adares.

Audrina finds out that because of her frigid ways, Arden has been messing around with Vera.  If she doesn’t start opening up (literally), he’s going to leave her.  Apparently, this is exactly the impetus she needed to arouse her passions, and they get all hot and heavy in the garden.  That night, she hears crying, so she goes to check on Sylvia and is blinded by prisms everywhere, then PUSHED down the stairs.

She wakes up a few weeks later from a coma, to hear Vera trying to convince Arden to pull the plug on her.  Oi.  For a few days, she makes no attempts to let them know she’s awake, just listens to them plotting.  The day she’s to be disconnected, Sylvia puts her on Billie’s little wheeled cart and hauls her off to hide her under the First Audrina’s bed.  Vera gets all ragey, but then everyone else realizes that Audrina #2 will be okay again.  HUZZAH!  But wait, there are still somethings she doesn’t understand.  She starts questioning her father about why she could never remember anything about her past and it comes out that SHE WAS THE FIRST AUDRINA!

Yes, there was never more than one Audrina.  She was gang raped on her ninth birthday, and her mother made her feel so ashamed about it that she was ready to kill herself.  They put her through electroshock therapy to make her forget and then used sly tricks to make her think she was younger than she actually was.  Days would pass and be months to her.  She realizes that Arden was there to witness the entire thing (hence, the haunted eyes), but still doesn’t believe it wasn’t her sister, so she runs down to the cemetery to DIG UP THE BODY and prove it to everyone.  Arden follows her and they fight, then have more steamy sex IN THE GRAVEYARD.  So, guys – in case you were wondering, I figured it out.  The penis is obviously the cause of – and answer to – all of life’s problems.

Oh, and Vera set the whole thing up because she’s actually Damien’s daughter (yeah, he did both sisters) and she was jealous that her daddy didn’t love her enough.  She figured if Audrina got raped, that would be enough for NO ONE TO LOVE HER EVER AGAIN.  Thank god she fell down the stairs and died too, am I right?