I Fantasy-Cast Dan Brown's 'Deception Point'

The latest book I listened to on CD was Deception Point by Dan Brown. From the pre-Robert Langdon era, it was Brown's second published novel (after Digital Fortress).

Frankly, Deception Point isn't as interesting as the Langdon novels. It lacks the world art, architecture, and history references that help make the Harvard "symbologist's" adventures so entertaining. Deception Point is still entertaining as a fast-paced thriller, though.

The other day I shared some of my "casting" choices for my mental "movie" of Deception Point. For the main protagonist, Rachel Sexton, I like Kristen Stewart. Rachel is young, intelligent, capable, ballsy when she needs to be, and a bit vulnerable at times. She's the prototypical Dan Brown heroine, a Sophie Neveu in the making (minus the divine bloodline).

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/46936021090341757/

Rachel Sexton's love interest is the oceanographer Michael Tolland. I can't imagine anyone else but George Clooney as Tolland. Michael Tolland is supposed to be a good-looking, photogenic guy with brown eyes. Maybe he's not right-now George Clooney - age 53 - but The Perfect Storm-era George Clooney certainly would work.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/46936021093404462/

Are they too mismatched in age to be a couple? Stewart is only 24, a whole 12 years younger than the newly-minted Mrs. Clooney, the brilliant, gorgeous humanitarian lawyer Amal Ramzi formerly-Alamuddin-now-emphatically-Clooney. (Guys, I love her.) This is supposed to be Mike's second-chance romance. He lost his wife to cancer right before he threw himself wholeheartedly into a career of bringing science education about the world's oceans to the public through documentary filmmaking, like a Jacques Cousteau for the 2000s.

Eh, maybe it's a bit of a male fantasy--the much-younger woman--but I'm going to let it slide. It's pretty much par for the course in a Dan Brown novel.

For Dr. Corky Marlinson, the astronomer and expert on meteor composition, I favor Jeffrey Wright. He's brilliant as Beetee in the Hunger Games series; is it bad to typecast him as "smart guy?"

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/46936021093404618/

Thank you, Dan Brown, for not killing Corky. I was pretty worried for a moment, especially when Corky's leg was bleeding and he didn't put a tourniquet on it.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/46936021093404966/

He's a fairly minor character, but Dr. Weilee Ming could be played by Ken Leung. To be honest, though, Dr. Ming is much less of a troublemaker than the typical Ken Leung character.

While we're on the subject of actors from Lost and Person of Interest, I could see William Pickering as Michael Emerson.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/46936021093405045/

It's a given from the text that Gabrielle Ashe looks like Halle Berry.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/46936021093405082/

But who should play her boss - and Rachel's estranged father - Senator Thomas Sedgwick Sexton? I can only think of Richard Gere.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/46936021093405097/

I borrowed this audiobook from my local library and was not obligated in any way to review it. Now that I've finished it, I've begun listening to The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman, read by the author himself. It'll be the first Neil Gaiman book I've read.

If you're a Simpsons fan like me, you remember Neil Gaiman from "The Book Job." It's my second-favorite episode, after the classic "Lisa's Rival."

Coffee Talk #6, the one with tattoos

Nat and I had quite an interesting discussion of reality TV star/Kardashian baby daddy Scott Disick last night.

Scott Disick is one of the asshole guys who I absolutely should not think is hot, but I still think he's hot. Scott Disick is a style favorite of Writer's Retreat, a U.K. Tumblr blogger who enjoys books and men's fashion.

Now, on to Nat's weekly Coffee Talk questions, this time co-hosted by Lovely Life of Leah.

1. Let's talk about ink: Do you have tattoos? How many?? 

I have no tattoos and no immediate plans to get one - hubby is not a big fan. If I ever got a tattoo, it would be "I love words" in 14-point Times New Roman around my wrist like a bracelet. 

I've also contemplated getting a wrist tattoo that says Isaac Nathan Bloom (a tragically doomed character in From Here to Eternity) in Hebrew letters. It would look like this:

ןדששב משאישמ נךםםצ

My parents are thinking about getting their first tattoos. Dad wants the Jack Daniel's logo to go with his Jack-themed man cave. I've previously written about my mom's vampire fixation, and she's contemplating a vampire bat tattoo.

Mom's all excited because I went to the library yesterday and checked her out a copy of The Twelve by Justin Cronin. Cronin's vampires are the post-apocalyptic horror variety. 

Please excuse The Big Book of Porn in the background. I use it for research, I swear. 

2. Let's talk about hair styles: Bangs, do you have them, want them, or trying to grow them out? What about side bangs? 

No bangs at the moment.

3. Let's talk about work: Without getting specific with a company name, what do you do? What did you want to be when you grew up when you were young? 

I'm fortunate enough to get steady freelance editing work, so I edit and write full-time. I do what I've always wanted to do for a living - read, write and research.

But if anyone wants to pay me to read the kind of fiction I like to read for pleasure, just let me know.

4. Let's talk about friends: Do you find it easier or more difficult to meet new friends as an adult? Do you have what you'd consider 'blog friends'? What about IRL (in real life) friends?

Making friends is hard when you work from home; most of the time, it's just me, hubby and the cat. I'm grateful for the "blog friends" I like to stalk interact with. 

5. Let's talk about Social media: Android or iPhone? Twitter or Facebook?

I don't have a smartphone, but my laptop and I are complete social media addicts. You pretty much have to be when you have books to promote. I'm on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest...all over the place. 

https://amzn.to/467d0Kj - this is an affiliate link

Summer Tastes and Smells Like Lake Michigan in My Hair

Stream of Consciousness (SOC) Sunday has migrated from AllThingsFadra (which you should still follow by e-mail, because it's a great blog) to Jana's Thinking Place. Find the prompt there, blog your 5-minute stream of consciousness, then link up! Today's prompt is, "What does summer smell or taste like to you, and why?"

Summer smells like Lake Michigan in my hair. I just got back from an anniversary trip to Silver Beach (St. Joseph, Michigan) with my husband, Tit Elingtin. We've been married ten years now. I wanted to try paddleboarding, and there's a sporting goods shop on the beach that rents paddleboards. They're also called sups, short for stand-ups.

You know what the worst thing about paddleboarding is? That, at some point, you have to stop paddleboarding. Otherwise, it's pretty awesome. They're wider than a standard surfboard, pretty stable, and the paddle helps you keep your balance when you're standing up. I only wiped out once. Well, I fell off twice, but the first time was on purpose. I got too close to the swim buoys and couldn't turn myself around fast enough. Fast turns will take a little more practice.

Now I'm a surfer wannabe, and I wish I could be a beach bum and just paddleboard, lay on the beach and read books the rest of the summer. If I can stand up on a sup, I can totally stand up on an actual longboard, right? I think I could.

I'd like to go to Hawaii and find out. Of course, since I'm obsessed with From Here to Eternity right now, I wanted to go to Hawaii anyway. Y'know, more than I usually want to go to Hawaii, which is already a lot.
__________________________

On another note, for the next few hours, I am caught up on watching Season 5 of True Blood. Last night I tweeted:

Finally caught up on 'True Blood,' and I would like to smack the shit out of Pam for being a racist bitch to Tara.
— Erin O'Riordan (@ErinORiordan) July 14, 2012

...and Pam answered me:

@ErinORiordan Bring it on cupcake.
— Pam De Beaufort (@KillerPumps) July 14, 2012

Gawd, I love Twitter. Y'all know I stalk the living shit out of TheDorkMistress on Tumblr, and this morning the fabulous Kala L. (via EyesOfWitt, another chick whose fictional boyfriend is Pvt. Bob Witt) reblogged this gem:

Highlight of the day. Jim Caviezel doing a dead on Homer Simpson impersonation after seeing my Simpson's t-shirt. Michael Emerson laughed!
— WFB Supernatural (@WinFamBusiness) July 15, 2012

Jim Caviezel does an impression of Homer Simpson...and I die. As if I didn't already have a ridiculous Catholic schoolgirl crush on him. (Jim Caviezel surfs, but then, he was born on the West Coast and not near a Great Lake that makes a rather poor excuse for an ocean. Whatever. I love being Midwestern.) 

[2024 Update: The video is no longer available on YouTube.]

I wonder if he knows about the episode wherein Homer dresses as Jesus and gets struck by lightning? 

Source: eyesofwitt.tumblr.com via Erin on Pinterest

Mockingjay? Read It. Adored It. Declared It the Best of the Trilogy.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If I ever hear someone say that a female novelist can't write a war story, I am going to chuck this book at his or her head. So much pain and passion generated by the folly of war and nation-building is contained in its too-brief 390 pages, Mockingjay is as good an introduction to the grim paradox of war as Slaughterhouse-Five was a generation ago. Yes, it's even darker than the first two books (already quite dark), and yes, young people should read it anyway. Parts of it make the reader yell out, "What?!" but that's precisely the point. Katniss learns to question everything, and so must we. Brava to you, Ms. Collins, for even though a piece of my psyche has been vicariously wounded, I see the reason and the hope behind it. 

View all my reviews on Goodreads

Mockingjay is the best book in the Hunger Games trilogy. It's the best-written, the darkest, the scariest and the most true. Now excuse me while I grieve over the death of two particularly beloved fictional characters. 

Last night, I watched the Person of Interest rerun. It was the episode that introduced the hacker known as Root (dis bitch!!), and it involved a stakeout. I read Mockingjay for a while afterward. Then I went to bed and dreamed about a stakeout conducted by members of PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. You know, the ones who got Taraji P. Henson to pose naked to protest fur fashions - although, in all honesty, Ms. Henson seems to rather enjoy posing naked.

It took me a while to figure out that I dreamed about PETA because I was reading about Peeta Mellark. 

The blog Books and Movies discussed who should play Finnick Odair in Catching Fire recently. I don't have much of an opinion about that - I haven't even seen the Hunger Games movie yet. At this point I care much more about the books than the movies. (P.S. I'm utterly terrified at the idea of a Fifty Shades of Grey movie - I lean toward rooting for Michael Fassbender to get the role, but I also know no actor will ever measure up to my image of Christian Grey.) I don't really like any of the author's, Carrie K.'s, choices. 

I do, however, completely agree with the YouTube commenter who gave me the idea that Michael Emerson could play Beetee. That needs to happen.

https://amzn.to/4cBthfu