Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

In an effort to do my bit to reduce my guilt over the effects of my recent zooming about in flying machines I've gone and forked out a load of cash to make my year (so far) carbon neutral. Observe my shiny green halo. *ting!*

But all the effort to decide whether I'd get someone to plant a small woodland glen, or just sponsor a wildfowl whanging windfarm has exhausted me. I am thus inspired to reach back into the dawn of time (or around October last year) and haul out a very old rant that I never got around to finishing or posting anywhere handy. These things happen. It never got posted because it was too damn long.

Paddling about in the primordial soup that is my "drafts" folder hasn't really helped much in the length department. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if it had grown. So I'm going to chop it up into manageable bits, edit them a tad and then post them up in chunks. Genius plan to keep blog entries up in a busy week, methinks. And now, without further ado, I bring you, the unholy tapeworm that is:

I don't like you much, but your friend's kinda hot… Part 1

(It's all about books, and it's long - be warned)

I've just finished reading a book. Shock. Horror. Was okay. Again, falling off seat with astonishment. Hero and heroine both suitably imbued with purportedly likeable qualities? Check. Lively action scenes? Check. Good dash of healthy animal spirits (no, not the Keynsian ones)? Check. Fiendishly evil villain? Che--.

Ahhh, well here's the rub: I didn't like the villain(ess) - too tame. I didn't even love the villain(ess) - she's a bad guy, right? But I loved her scenes. Don't get me wrong, I'd run off screaming into the night barefoot over broken glass at the possibility of an real-life encounter, however unlikely, cos y'know she was baaad. And scary. And a people-eating human-possessing monster from the depths of the underworld with claws, scales and freaky glowy eyes. So I doubt she'd be overly impressed by my fascination with her inner demons if she stumbled over me cowering in a darkened alley. She'd likely eat me for being annoying.

But dammit, she was interesting. She had internal conflicts a-go-go. Best of all, while she was eeeeeviiilllll, she was interesting eeevvvillllll. She wasn't some two-dimensional monster stalking the pages like a badly-produced publicity bookmark. Yes that's right, kids. A character I'm pretty confident I do not like, but still want to read about. It's not such a big step. After all, I read about real-life bad guys all the time. Others do as well. So what's the appeal?

(to be continued)