Mmmm. This is the book I'm reading at the moment. I got through a good 30 or so pages tonight and I can already tell that bad things are in store for the four American tourists on vacation in Mexico. They met a German guy named Mathias while hanging out on the beach, and Mathias tells them about his hothead brother and how he ran off to meet some chick on an archaeological site even though the two of them are scheduled to leave the country in just a couple days. (Regulars to this blog already know what evil can befall a person on an archaeological dig). The leader of our quartet of young white 20-somethings decide they will all go into the jungle to these ruins, help Mathias find his brother, and in so doing have a "real" experience, as opposed to merely a "tourist" experience. A Greek dude who speaks not a lick of English is also along for the ride. (My guess is he dies first -- sorry, Paul.) Anyway, they're on the way to the ruins, they've already seen enough ominous foreshadowing to send a high-school English teacher running for civilization, and at the moment, they've uncovered what should be the final leg of the trail leading to the ruins, and it's been deliberately covered up by palm fronds. I feel compelled to read on, and probably will past my bedtime. Stephen King raved about The Ruins on Amazon.com about a month back and so far he's dead on. I feel dread wondering what lays ahead, and I'm glad about that. It's about time I got into a book that's hard to put down.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Mexican Jungles Are Scary. Scott Smith Thinks So Too
Mmmm. This is the book I'm reading at the moment. I got through a good 30 or so pages tonight and I can already tell that bad things are in store for the four American tourists on vacation in Mexico. They met a German guy named Mathias while hanging out on the beach, and Mathias tells them about his hothead brother and how he ran off to meet some chick on an archaeological site even though the two of them are scheduled to leave the country in just a couple days. (Regulars to this blog already know what evil can befall a person on an archaeological dig). The leader of our quartet of young white 20-somethings decide they will all go into the jungle to these ruins, help Mathias find his brother, and in so doing have a "real" experience, as opposed to merely a "tourist" experience. A Greek dude who speaks not a lick of English is also along for the ride. (My guess is he dies first -- sorry, Paul.) Anyway, they're on the way to the ruins, they've already seen enough ominous foreshadowing to send a high-school English teacher running for civilization, and at the moment, they've uncovered what should be the final leg of the trail leading to the ruins, and it's been deliberately covered up by palm fronds. I feel compelled to read on, and probably will past my bedtime. Stephen King raved about The Ruins on Amazon.com about a month back and so far he's dead on. I feel dread wondering what lays ahead, and I'm glad about that. It's about time I got into a book that's hard to put down.
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I KNEW FROm the first lines of this blog that I felt dread and from reading it on to this here post I was right.
Let me know how that thing turns out. I read a review of this recently and it sounded MOST intriguing...
Sort of sounds like Alex Garland's THE BEACH, too. Just more proof that the rest of the world (esp. Taiwan) is severely screwed up and sucks.
I'm a 100 pages in now and things have gone south for the characters in a big way. It was hard to set it aside last night and get to sleep. It's not shaping up to be a Simple Plan kind of story -- you know, human greed exploiting human frailties and all of that -- which is a good thing, I think, not because that sort of plot isn't good, but because I have no idea what to expect in this novel.
What if, in the next chapter, a monster that has been sleeping for 100 years suddenly wakes up and realizes it's hungry? 100 years hungry? Will you be mad?
'Mad' wouldn't do justice to my rage.
At this point, I feel like all 3 of the ideas I've had in my life have been pretty well pilfered -- grabbed out of the ether by others more motivated than I. The benefit for me to all of this unintended idea theft is, for example, I get to play Hitman, who is essentially Mr. Blinky -- right down to the longish bald head, the sharp suit, the killer instinct, the cloning backstory, and the 4 tattooed on his head (albeit it is joined with a seven and a barcode). Probably the best home for him I could imagine is a series of video games (though the Blinky movie I wrote would have kicked some serious ass).
I think there's something to what Craig said. Every idea you have has a shelf life. If you don't put it out into the world in the best possible way as soon as you can, someone else will.
I thought this quote was somewhat appropriate.
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.
Carl Jung
Carl Larson from the local Walmart had this to say:
Art is pretty neat when it gots color.
I love your website. It has a lot of great pictures and is very informative.
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Looks nice! Awesome content. Good job guys.
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