MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Hope your day is merry and bright!





Best Wishes,



Gerb

Enough Spears Already!

I think we should declare a moratorium on all Spears-related "news" reporting in 2008. No matter what you think of Brittney and Jamie-Lynn's behavior, wouldn't it be nice to not have to hear about them every time you turn on the news or get on the Internet?

Yes, it is morbidly fascinating, Brittney's loooong, tragic, and very public train wreck of a life. And there's a certain amount of ew! factor in Jamie Lynn's announcement (specifically, the fact that her boyfriend and daddy of the baby could actually be charged with statutory rape in many states, that the Zoey 101 star already sold the first photo shoot of her poor, innocent kid for a million bucks and the laughable, but very sad idea of Mama Spears writing a parenting book...) but really? Do we have to plaster it all over the media?

Well not here. After this post, I hereby declare this blog a Spears-free zone!

The Golden Compass Movie... Thumbs Down

It was a Herculean task, bringing The Golden Compass to the big screen. The book from which the film was adapted was a complex and magical fantasy, and as such, capturing that magic is difficult at best. I knew that going in. And yet I had dared to hope...

Visually, The Golden Compass didn't disappoint. The CGI graphics were stunning. The set design, placement, costuming, makeup, etc. more than lived up to expectations. Beyond that, however, I'm sad to say that the rest of the movie fell short.

I'm a fan of the series, anti-religious soapbox notwithstanding, and maybe that was the toughest hurdle to jump. If I hadn't read the book, there's a good chance that I would have been merely confused by the disjointed and expository storytelling of the movie. As it was, though, I was repeatedly disappointed when a concept or scene was glossed over, changed, or forgotten altogether.

Case in point, I couldn't wait to see how they presented one of my favorite characters in the book, the panserbjorn Iorek Byrnison. Iorek was a true hero, an exiled king who held fast to his warrior's code no matter what it cost him. In fact (shameless plug warning,) I was so taken with Iorek that I chose to write about him in the Borders anthology, The World of the Golden Compass. Sadly, the character development of the Iorek in the film pales in comparison to the Iorek in the book.

The book character chose to exile himself for killing another bear out of anger - an act which goes against the panserbjorn code. The Iorek in the movie was cast out because he LOST a battle with another bear. That difference cast him in an entirely different light.

The book Iorek refused to leave his work when Lyra informs him where his armor is hidden because he gave his word to work until sundown. The movie Iorek runs off to the depot straight away - no mention of promises or honor.

Even the climactic armored bear fight scene is robbed of its significance since it is misplaced and never reveals that Iofur Raknison (name changed to Ragnar Sturlusson in the movie to prevent confusion because, you know, movie goers are stoopid and can't tell the difference between the names Iorek and Iofur) had orchestrated the first fight wherein Iorek killed the other bear, and this to steal the throne. When Iorek defeats Iofur in the book, he is righting a wrong, when Iorek defeats Ragnar in the movie, he gets to be king 'cause he's tougher. Big whoop.

And one has to wonder why, in this new version of events, the new king Iorek doesn't take his subjects with him to Bolvangar to fight the tartars and free the children.

In short, the movie had too many lapses of logic and was much too rushed to do the book justice. Even with some fabulous casting (Nicole Kidman was perfect as Mrs. Coulter and Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra practically carried every scene) and fabulous daemon effects (Mrs. Colter's golden monkey was suitably terrifying while Lyra's Pan made you wish you could have a daemon of your own) The Golden Compass movie turned out to be all style and no substance.

Yay, Helio!

I didn't mean to get sucked into Dancing with the Stars. Really. How cheesy can you get? Still, I found myself skimming through the beginning of the season (TIVO is a wonderful thing) and, of all the weird things, I started to care about those celeb dancers.

The dancing part was fun to watch, but the personalities are what grabbed me. And I have to tell you, Helio Castroneves stole the show right from the beginning. Charming, sincere, funny - he was just fun to watch. He may not have been the best technical dancer in the competition, but he projected such joy and energy that he was by far my favorite. And Julianne Hough? She's amazing.

Up until the last night, I had liked Marie Osmond as well. Her personality and style in each performance made me smile. But the doll dance was so variety-show that it really didn't belong in the finals. And it felt like she was grasping her last opportunity to promote herself on finals night, which was very off-putting. "I'm one of the world's top doll designers." "I have thousands of doll fans." "Come on! I'm a doll designer!" Loved Tom Bergeron's response, "Yeah, I think we got that."

Mel B. and Maks were honestly the best technical couple of the top three, but again, it was the personalities that grabbed me. Mel was at times... scary. I did like her, though. And Maks. Definitely Maks.

But Helio! Ah, the smiles, the struggle to overcome his fear of sequins and to master the style. The little boy joy he showed at the end of every performance when he knew they had nailed it. Could he have been any more charming?

Congratulations, Helio and Julianne, and thanks for an entertaining and endearing season.

Enchanted is Enchanting

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, everyone! I hope you were able to spend the day surrounded by the ones you love, thinking about all the things we have to be thankful for. On my long, long list is our annual Thanksgiving Movie Night. Our family tradition (besides eating waaaay too much and sitting around watching football) is to go out to the movies. This year's unanimous selection was ENCHANTED.

I laughed all the way through. It's about time Disney got on the parody bandwagon. Amy Adams was a perfect Disneyesque princess, right down to her gestures and facial expressions, Rachel Covey was the adorable kid star and Susan Sarandon made a wickedly wonderful evil queen, complete with really great makeup. Patrick Dempsey, of course, was McDreamy. The only disappointment was to look forward to seeing Idena Menzel in a musical production... and we don't get to hear her sing. Otherwise, ENCHANTED was magical and irreverent and a whole lot of fun. Just what a Thanksgiving movie should be.

My Daemon!

This is the coolest thing ever. Did you know that you can go to the Golden Compass website, answer a few questions, and see what your daemon would be? Mine's named Pereus, and is still changing before settling into his permanent shape.

If you want to check out your personal daemon, go to http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/ and clock on the daemon link.

Have fun!

Death by Bikini

It's coming... yes, DBB is done, done, done and in copyediting as we speak! Yay! I am very excited about the book and the follow up books that are in the works. Everyone at Puffin has been amazing to work with. The cover design is fabulous. The editorial team is fantastic. I feel like the luckiest author alive.

Watch this space in the coming months for some deadly fun contests and promotions!

Ode to Mint MMs

I'm an avowed chocoholic.

Not just any chocolate, though. Not me. I've done my time, honed my taste. I prefer European chocolate to American, dark but not bitter, and hazelnuts or almonds rather than peanuts. I like chocolate with an essence of orange or mint. I like it to melt in my mouth.

I'm not so much of a chocolate snob, however, that I don't appreciate a good M&M now and again. In fact, my family likes to sprinkle M&Ms in our popcorn for movie night, preferably when the popcorn is still warm so that the chocolate inside the M&M candy shell turns soft and gushy.

Once a year, M&M Mars offers the Mint M&Ms. Those are my absolute favorite. Since they're only available at Christmas time, I've been known to stock up on them and ration them out throughout the year. If I was lucky, I'd hit Target or a grocery store the day after Christmas and buy out their stock at half price. When we lived in Japan and I couldn't find them in the stores, a dear friend used to send a package to me, paying probably triple what it was worth - monitarily, at least. I treasured each bag I received and eked them out, a few minty mouthfuls at a time. This only partially illustrates my obsession with Mint M&Ms.

It was with great anticipation, then, that I waited for Halloween to come and go this year, and for the stores to start hauling out the Christmas goods. Sure enough, WalMart lead the pack, and festive green and red packages of M&Ms graced the shelves by November 1st. Excitedly, I scanned the labels until I found what I was looking for.

Mint! The packaging was different... last year they were shiny and foil-like, this year they look like any other Holiday M&Ms package, save for the label "peppermint" in the corner. That did give me some pause. Peppermint, huh? That's a little different from previous years' simple 'mint' label, but I figured it was probably the same thing. I grabbed two packages.

In the parking lot (yes, I actually made it to my car before dipping into the shopping bags), I tore open a little corner of the package and appreciatively breathed in the chocolate-mint aroma. I poured a few out into my hand. And stopped.

Rather than the classic M&M size and shape of previous years, these Mint M&Ms resembled Swedish Mints, or the huge Peanut Butter M&Ms, roundish and large. Well. Half the fun of the Mint M&M experience was popping a few in your mouth and savoring the crunch and the feel of the candy as well as the flavor. But, not being one who is typically resistant to change, I gave these new M&Ms a shot.

They taste the same. I still like them quite a lot. But... I don't love the things like I used to. All because of the size and shape? I must be crazy.

But at least that's a few less calories I'll have to worry about working off this season.

Classic Mint M&Ms, rest in peace.

The Fight Continues

Dark clouds hung over the Whistler ski area this weekend as rain pummeled British Columbia. Ski hills sat wet and vacant, awaiting champions to fly from their slopes come winter. These same hills will host the Olympic athletes in 2010... but only the male athletes. Or will they?

In Canada and throughout the women's ski jumping community, the fight continues to persuade the IOC to change their decree that women can't compete in the Olympics in the ski jumping event. Despite the fact that ski jumping has been am Olympic sport - for men - since 1924, the IOC maintains that the sport (for women) is too new to be included in the Olympic lineup. This, while snowboard cross was added for the Torino Olympics in 2006 and ski cross - a freestyle event that was conceived in the 1990's - was given the nod for the 2010 Vancouver games. Ski jumping and Nordic Combined, which includes ski jumping as well as cross country, remain the only Olympic events in which men are allowed to compete, but women are not. And the women aren't happy.

Appealing to the Human Rights Commission, Canadian skiers are challenging the committee's apparent gender bias. They are in the fight of their lives - many of these women athletes will reach their peak performance by the 2010 Olympics, so the committee's condescending pat on the head as they suggest that perhaps a women's ski jump event may be considered for 2014 effectively takes them out of the running.

It should be noted that not all IOC members are against women's ski jumping. In the words of Anita DeFrantz, an American member of the committee, “We’ve worked very hard to establish gender equity over these last 15 years, with great success,” she said. “It seems to me we should finish the work.”

Amen.

THE FINNISH LINE!!!!

It's here!!!! After much ado, I am happy to announce the release of my second book in the S.A.S.S. series, The Finnish Line. Here's the official Blurb:

When Nordic ski jumper Maureen “Mo” Clark set foot in Finland, she breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, escape from her famous skier father’s shadow and a chance to jump in the renowned Lahti Ski Games. But Mo quickly realizes that balancing practice and classes is more challenging than she expected. So when a gorgeous bad boy teammate offers coaching assistance—for a little publicity in return—how can she refuse? Surely she can work in a few extra practices somewhere between studying for calculus and sightseeing in Finland? Amid snowmobiling and dog-sledding, ice hotels and Northern lights, Mo begins to discover what strength and perseverance—the Finnish sisu—is all about. Now it’s up to her to take that final jump and cross the finish line in style.

Aerial Ski Gold Medalist Nikki Stone calls it "convincing, intimate, stimulating!"

I hope you'll enjoy reading Mo's story as much as I did writing it!

Cheers!

Gerb