Bitter Karella's Hot Fresh Slurry 49
Enjoy another Midnight Pals teaser; this one has Robert Louis Stevenson! We’re getting close to the big premiere, so remember that the series starts on Halloween! How appropriately spooky! We’ll be posting one trailer a week until the first episode drops, so I hope you’ll join us for that!
***
I’ve been morbidly hate-reading the latest JK Rowling doorstopper The Running Grave (a pirated copy, natch!) to get more material for Midnight Pals, and I have to say… it’s astoundingly bad. It’s astonishing to think this was written by the RICHEST WRITER IN THE WORLD, which, if you believe in the “who cares, I’m rich” meritocracy that Rowling herself espouses anytime she receives any criticism, should mean that it’s THE BEST BOOK IN THE WORLD. Or at least, you know, half-way decent. It may be one of the worst books I’ve ever read and I’ve read Piers Anthony’s Isle of View.
Like a lot of millennials, I enjoyed Harry Potter. I was way too old for those books when I read them, sure, but they were entertaining, quick reads and, even when the later books ballooned up to over 700 pages, they were still brisk page-turners. Characters did stuff, events happened, the plot moved forward. That stands in stark contrast to the Cormorant Strike books, which are bloated with irrelevant details and dawdle on the minutia of running a detective agency for up to 20 chapters before even introducing the main plot. What happened? It’s fascinating.
The obvious answer is that, while her publisher gave its star writer more leeway to meander in later Harry Potter books, they were still exercising relatively strict editorial control behind the scenes. They knew Harry Potter was the golden goose and they needed to deliver a readable book. But in the case of Cormorant Strike, no one is minding the store. It’s a vanity project, published purely as a sop to Rowling so that she’ll allow her publisher to continue profiting off of Potter, and no one at Hachette Book Group really cares if it’s a mess. It’s not like anyone’s actually reading these!
And it must be said: Without an editor, it becomes obvious that Rowling has abysmal instincts as a writer. Important plot and character moments are glossed over with a single paragraph summary from the narrator, but the story slows to a crawl to deliver blow-by-blow details whenever something “funny” happens — like a long digression about Robin’s father’s work as a sheep inseminator (???) or a chapter where Robin interviews a senile old woman who constantly repeats herself. Rowling reveals new information in massive data dumps, full of comically implausible names. “We rarely see Strike or Robin engage in real detective work — they’re the heads of the agency, so most of that is done by a rotating cadre of freelancers. (This may be more true to how an actual real-life detective agency works, but it’s dull reading) On the rare occasion that they do detective work, it happens off screen so that they can meet afterwards, in a fancy pub or restaurant, to tell each other (and the reader) what happened. People print out Internet conversations or blog posts on long reams of paper (Has no one in the Strike universe ever heard of a flash drive?) and spend chapters sitting in fancy pubs or restaurants and reading them. Everyone is constantly going to fancy pubs and restaurants. Rowling lards up the narrative with pointless details about random things in the room. A man in the fancy restaurant (or pub) keeps looking over at Robin without her noticing. Is he important? Will he figure into the plot? No, he’s just there so that the reader will know that Robin is hot.
That’s not to say anything of the elephant in the room, the fact that Rowling uses these books as manifestos to drag people that she doesn’t like — which generally turns out to be people that argue with her online. In The Silk Worm, Strike threatened a trans woman perp with prison rape if she didn’t cooperate. In Troubled Blood, she focuses on a transvestite serial killer — though transvestite is clearly a fig leaf so that she can counter critics with a “Uh uh uh, I never SAID trans!” (And personally, as a transvestite, I don’t much care for transvestite demonization either) She branched out in The Ink Black Heart with long diatribes against disabled and autistic people and really expands on her disdain for autistic people in The Running Grave. A young autistic man joins a cult because, his father tells Strike, he simply can’t be trusted to make his own decisions; Strike nods along approvingly as the father explains his attempts to get his adult autistic son declared mentally incompetent for his own good. A good writer could put detestable words into her characters’ mouths and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the author agrees, of course, but all of these sentiments line up exactly with Rowling’s real life views as expressed on Twitter. So it’s extremely fair, I think, to assume Rowling agrees.
In fact, JK Rowling speaks with the voice of a woman who has given up writing and taken up tweeting. If you want to be a bigot in public but still retain the good will of “fair-minded” people, then you have to be sly. Rowling’s tweets are full of dog whistles, weasel words, and vague innuendo. The savvy reader can easily read between the lines to find her true meaning, but it gives the cover of plausible deniability to her defenders who can endlessly demand to know “When has JK Rowling ever actually said anything transphobic??” It’s the exact same trick that Bob the Angry Flower uses to get out of a real jam in this classic comic:
In The Ink Black Heart, Edie Ledwell approaches Strike’s associate Robin, because she’s received death threats from an anonymous stalker. Robin rejects the case and, while she doesn’t say it outright, Rowling dwells endlessly on Edie’s disheveled appearance and vaguely goth fashion sense. By the end of the scene, the true meaning is clear: Edie simply isn’t The Right Sort of People. In the next scene, Edie is murdered — arguably because of Robin’s inaction — and her former agent — polished, articulate, wearing a suit — approaches the Strike agency with an even more bizarre ask. He wants them to uncover the identity of an Internet troll who was harassing the now deceased Edie (the troll may or may not be the murderer, it’s unknown at this point) so that he can dox the troll. This time, Strike eagerly accepts the case.
This is par for the course for the famously curmudgeonly Strike. Rowling obviously intends Strike to be part of the tradition of rumpled detectives like Horace Rumpole or Columbo. He shares a lot of their blue collar affectations, like a love of good beer, smoking, and shitty food. But part of what makes this type of character such an enduring archetype is his surprising flashes of humanity, where his sympathy for the underdog and his passion for justice break through his hard, cynical shell. How many times has a hard-boiled gumshoe reluctantly accepted an unpaying case because he can’t stand to see a dame in a fix? Strike does not seem to be driven by anything other than, well… he’s in a detective story so I guess he’s a detective. But he doesn’t really seem to enjoy or care about the work.
Strike oozes with barely disguised contempt for everyone in his life. His employees at the detective agency are just that — employees — and, by the way that Strike complains about them, they’re not very dedicated to their work. There’s no sense of friendship or comradery among Strike’s underlings nor do they seem to have any particular trust or affection for their boss. Strike meets a growing list of half-siblings (his dad was a famously promiscuous rock star, the narrator constantly informs us) but he seems to resent having to spend time with them. He hates Robin’s boyfriend with the seething passion of a friend-zoned high school dork. Women are constantly throwing themselves at Strike’s feet — despite the fact that Rowling likes to remind us that he’s ugly, rude, reeks of cigarettes, and has chronic flatulence from his diet of take-away curry — but Strike can barely think of them as human even as he’s fucking them. Yes, Strike will use them for sex, but he doesn’t respect them because they’re dumb sluts. Rowling seems to think that this casual misogyny makes him a lovable curmudgeon, but it really just makes him seems like a dour, unpleasant asshole. When Strike can find the energy to be civil, it’s generally only to his high-paying clients, almost exclusively polished, clean, upper-class men who don’t speak in comical regional accents. (Pick up a book from 1890 and you’ll see that transcribing a country bumpkin’s drawl was once considered the height of hilarity, but modern readers will probably find Rowling’s constant “‘ere now, wot i fink” dialogue distracting). He’s the opposite of a Rumpole or a Columbo, a man obsequious to power and openly disdainful of the underdog. “Why would anyone join a cult?” he snorts when Robin tells him about her research into the cult in The Running Grave. He doesn’t ask because he’s curious, he only asks to show his contempt for those more weak-minded than himself.
Speaking of dumb sluts, every woman, with the exception of the virginal unattainable Robin, is characterized as a dumb slut. One such slut even goes so far as to impregnate herself with semen out of a used condom she found in the trash in order to trap a man into marriage, a move so ridiculous it’s hard to believe that an ostensibly feminist writer wrote it and not an angry 14-year old chud from Wizard chan. Rowling likes to style herself a feminist but she oozes even more contempt for women than does Strike and the average “she breasted boobily” horny dude bro author has more nuance in his female characters than Rowling.
Ultimately, the Cormorant Strike books aren’t fun. They’re about unpleasant people forced to spend time together but who are too British to ever articulate their boiling resentment. Strike always feels like he’s mad that someone somewhere might be having fun, and that’s really the most British vibe ever, isn’t it?
Anyway, I do not recommend them.
***
Speaking of Rowling, here’s some Midnight Pals!
JK Rowling: hello children
Rowling: i want you to sssay hello to
Rowling: graham lineham
Lineham: [wearing foil hat] free masons run the country
Rowling: he'sss got sssome great ideasss you should hear
Poe: joanne you don't need to bring him here
Poe: like, you really don't
Rowling: he hass thingsss to sssay and you're ALL going to hear them
Poe: this is really kind of off topic for us here
Rowling: EVERYONE will hear them
Rowling: ssssee, yearsss ago i disssmisssed graham lineham'ssss babble as the bad opticsss ravingsss of a lunatic
Rowling: but now that the overton window hass sshifted
Rowling: i'm proud to sssay thessse bad opticsss ravingsss are quite good actually!
Rowling: go ahead, graham, tell them what you told me
Lineham: trans people produce no great films, no music, no art
Lineham: they're incapable of doing this basic human thing because they're subhuman
Lineham: untermensch, if you will
Rowling: isssn't he great?
Lineham: trans books are always universally panned because of their incoherence
Billy Martin:
Hailey Piper:
Eve Harms:
Gretchen Felker-Martin:
Joe Koch:
M. Lopes da Silva:
Arden Powell:
Lor Gislason:
Julya Oui:
LC von Hessen:
GE Woods:
Michelle Belanger:
Rain Corbyn:
SA Chant:
FT Catulla:
Viktor Athelstan:
Meagan Hotz:
Ziggy Schutz:
Rose Sable:
WN Derring-Judith:
Charles Maria Tor:
Devaki Devay:
Dayna Ingram:
Ori Jay:
Ai Burton:
Gabriel Valentine:
Cosmin-Mihai Birsan:
Jei D Marcade:
Rhiannon Rasmussen:
Max Turner:
Taylor J Pitts:
Vincent Endwell:
Bri Crozier:
Theo Hendrie:
Derek Des Anges:
Briar Ripley Page:
Winter Holmes:
gaast:
Maya Deane:
Charles-Elizabeth Boyles:
Layne van Rensburg:
Amanda M Blake:
May Leitz:
Alison Rumfitt:
Rivers Solomon:
Lillian Boyd:
Torrey Peters:
Taliesin Neith:
Daniel M. Lavery:
Joss Lake:
Aubrey Wood:
Jonah Wu:
Daphne du Maurier:
Patricia Highsmith:
Franz Kafka:
Kafka: wait
Kafka: why did the camera pan to me
Barker: oh you know why haha
Poe: clive
Kafka: why
Kafka: [hugging blåhaj] i don't know what you mean
***
Panos Cosmatos: Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this the tale of the retro 70s sci fi horror pastiche
Cosmatos: just to warn you, it's gonna be pretty slow and boring
Cosmatos: so this might be better if you're high
Fitz James O'Brien: oh yeah way ahead of you man
Cosmatos: ok so imagine it's the 80s
Cosmatos: and imagine all the colors are really blown out
Cosmatos: and lights all look kinda smeary
Cosmatos: like you were high on a psychedelic drug
O'Brien: oh man i don't gotta imagine
Cosmatos: do you guys like stories with droning synth scores?
King: do we ever!
Cosmatos: do you guys like stories that are ONLY droning synth scores?
King:
Cosmatos: [playing synthesizer]
King:
Koontz:
Lovecraft:
Barker:
Poe:
King: so
Cosmatos: sh i'm not done
Cosmatos: [droning synth score continues]
Cosmatos: [droning synth score continues]
King:
Koontz:
Lovecraft:
Barker:
Poe:
Barker: so do you have any more of
Barker: whatever it is you're on
O'Brien: right on dude
King: wow this ponderous 80s sci fi synth music is great!
John Carpenter: what the
Carpenter: i did a ponderous 80s sci fi synth music last time and you guys all hated it!
King: yeah well
King: now we've decided it's good!
Carpenter:
Carpenter: goddamnit
Carpenter: you sons of bitches
***
Stephen Graham Jones: Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this the tale of the girl who’s obsessed with slashers
Jones: there’s this girl who just constantly talks about slashers
Barker: oh that sounds really annoying
Jones:
Barker: like that sounds SO annoying
Jones: so one day she thinks she might be in the middle of her own slasher movie
Jones: and she thinks oh shit this rules
Jones: people are just gonna get murdered left and right
Jones: this fucking rocks
King: so why’s she think she’s in a slasher movie? is there a killer on the loose?
Jones: oh it’s cuz this hot virginal girl moves into town
King:
King: wait so not because anyone gets murdered?
Jones: no just cuz this hot girl moves in
Jones: i mean that’s usually the first indication that a slasher is around right?
King: to be honest, it’s not usually the first thing I’d think of
Poe: yeah that could indicate a lot of different things
Jones: so this hot but very pure girl moves into town
King: and somehow that makes the slasher-obsessed girl think that she’s in a slasher movie come to life?
King: but why would tha-
Joss Whedon: [shrieking] SHE’S THE FINAL GIRL!!!
Whedon: LET ME TELL THE STORY!
Whedon: I KNOW ALL THE TROPES!
Jones: see, this girl knows the rules of a slasher movie
Jones: so she knows how to-
Joss Whedon: OH! OH!!!
Whedon: OH!!!!!!
Whedon: PICK ME!! PICK ME!! I have thoughts on this!!
Jones:
Jones: no
Whedon: b-b-b
Whedon: [weakly] b-but the tropes
Whedon: [weakly] i-i need the tropes to live
Whedon: [weakly] p-please
Whedon: [weakly] the tropes
Whedon: [pathetic cough]
Jones: also in the midst of this a whole herd of elk mysteriously dies
Jones: possibly from overexertion during a pick up basketball game
King:
Poe:
Jones: It could happen
Jones: so this girl sees some classmates going to a party
Jones: so she puts on her michael myers mask and kind of stalks around in the background
Jones: as you do
Jones: there’s a summer camp that was once the site of a slasher-type massacre. It was on the other side of the lake, up the road with the gas station, you know, the one old man McGee ran? He used to sell sodas in cans, not with the pop tops. With the pull tabs. They don’t make those anymore, you can’t even get them.
King: so about that massacre
Jones: this is what we call local color
Jones: so i had to take the ferry over to terra nova. so i tied an onion to my belt, as was the style at the time. we didn’t have white onions on account of the war
Koontz: [crying] when are we gonna get to the massacre
***
Stephen King: happy birthday clive!!!
King: we all got together and-
Clive Barker: my birthday was yesterday
King:
King: what
King: your birthday was yesterday?
Barker: yes
King:
King: oh ha ha ha
King: i get it!
King: he's fucking with us!
King: you're fucking with us right?
King: well jeez i feel really terrible about this
Barker: that's ok steve
Barker: i don't blame you
Barker: i only blame one person
Barker: one very lazy, stupid person
Barker: a person who was too busy doing online furry dick inflation RP to remember
Barker: [stares at camera]
King: we got you a cake and everything
Barker: what kind of cake?
King: vulcanized rubber
Barker: oh man, my favorite!
King: so we were asking ourselves
King: what would be the best birthday present for clive?
King: and we decided
King: what if we just let clive stir the shit
King: any shit that he wants
King: and edgar won't say a thing?
Barker: oh my god guys really??
Poe: i didn't agree to this
Barker: well the first thing i'd say is
Barker:
Barker: well shit now i have choice paralysis