The Host--Chapter 10

This chapter is concentrated dumb. It is stupidity distilled down into its most basic componants. It is the Everclear of senselessness. It makes Bella Swan look like Katness Everdeen. I thought the height of stupid was having a make-out session during a political charged mirror-magic conference call but boy was I proven wrong. This is, quite possibly, the single biggest instance of character stupidity I have ever read. INCLUDING Solan Gris's machinations in Mission Earth, INCLUDING Clary Sage running through a Magical Door of Mystery when she has no clue what the fuck is behind it, and INCLUDING every thought and feeling both Anita Blake and Merry Gentry ever have, combined.

It's not even offensively stupid. It's just plan...GAH let's just get on with this.  

Wanderer is going into the desert to go find Jared and Jamie.

Because she can't live without them.

Because Melanie's memories of them are driving her to this.

But you know what Melanie obviously has no memories of? Hiking through a desert and coming back alive.

Yesterday I mentioned what I like to call the Desert Island test. You make a list of all the things you'd need to survive when you are removed from the human group--you can't go for help--and your accustomed tech base. Every item you have to add to that list indicates a skillset that you do not have. A knife would be the most basic--you can't forge a knife on a deserted island fast enough for it to make a difference for you, even if it's just rocks and sticks. If you have to add firestarters (matches, lighters, and god forbid, lighter fluid) that means you don't know how to make fire. Food means you don't know how to find food. String, ditto. Water? And it's more than three day's worth? You're fucked.

Having read this chapter, I feel very confidant in saying that Melanie, and by extension Wanderer, would not pass the Desert Island Test. Or the "Not dying in the motherfucking desert because you're an idiot" test.

They go into a Soul run store to get supplies.

This is a list of things that I think I would have to bring with me on a desert hike, if I wanted to survive and I had no idea how long I'd be there, in order of importance:

-three days worth of water
-A piece of durable clear plastic and/or a box of ziplock plastic bags--part of making a water solar still
-Several weights of some kind, like nuts or a roll of quarters--ditto
-Rope and/or some kind of twine
-Salt
-A tarp made of heavy, opaque plastic
-a knife
-a coat
-a sleeping bag
-a roll of duct tape to repair all of the above
-a durable, strong hiking stick
-A backpack.
-firestarters.
-Food. At least four days worth.

Water, a way to get more water if none is immediately avaliable and/or the water I find is bad, a way to treat and prevent dehydration, a way to make shade if none is easily found, a thing to cut other things with, things to keep warm with, things to fix other things with, things to carry and/or tie other things to, and food. And with all of the above, ways to get more food when I run out. 

Let's see what Wanderer gets!

 Melanie says they should get three galleons of water, which would give them three days to find Jared and Jamie. Before I explore how fucking stupid that statement is, let's see if S. Meyer even got that right.

Google fu leads me to several sites. This one says the following:

Without water, dehydration can set in within an hour in severe heat. The combination of physical overexertion and extreme heat — without water — can lead to death in as little as several hours.

That does not include the whole "passing out from heat exhaustion" part of dying from heat and no water. Let's guestimate, then, that if it is really hot, and it will be, and if you are exerting yourself in the heat--and they will be, god help them--you have two to three hours to find more water. Pass out, the game is over and you make your final contribution to the planet's welfare. Wanderer will be taking the car for the first day of this journey, but even the text admits that eventually they're going to have to ditch the vehicle. So the "extreme heat and physical overexertion" part of that statement applies. It then goes on to say that a galleon is the fucking minimum.  So yes. There's a chance that S. Meyer has gotten the minimum amount of water Wanderer would need to get three days out into the desert.

This is assuming, of course, that she doesn't actually eat anything too carby or to salty.

According to this site, every gram of carbohydrate and salt you consume has to be compensated for by, you guessed it, more water.  So anything that Wanderer brings with her that isn't water is going to mean she'll need more water.

Here's the stupid part: THEY WOULD BE THREE DAYS INTO THE FUCKING DESERT WHEN THEY RAN OUT OF WATER. 

When you plan for a trip, you plan for all of the trip. Three days of water means you walk in for a day and a half, you take a break, and then you walk back for a day and a half. This is, of course, assuming that Melanie's body is in any kind of condition to make this treck.

Wanderer has been teaching history classes. WANDERER HAS BEEN TEACHING HISTORY. There is no mention of how much excercise she's getting, if she's used to extreme conditions, and lest we forget, she can barely handle the mental stress of dealing with Melanie. Wanderer can barely handle dealing with the little voice in her head. And she wants to go into the desert. I'm sorry, walk into the desert. With only three days worth of water and...let's see, what exactly does Melanie insist Wanderer get?

-A flat of water bottles. (...Not galleon jugs, but a fucking flat of bottled water. Something that you can't tie to your backpack with a leingth of rope. And the Darwin Award of the year goes to--)
-A box of granola bars
-a roll of doughnuts
-a bag of potato chips
-a topographical map.

And that's it.

First of all, you remember that part about every gram of carbs and sodium having to be compensated for by more water? This is gas station food. Those granola bars? Unless the Souls changed them, they're about as healthy as those chocolate bars sitting underneath them. The doughnuts? Not healthy. A fucking bag of salt laden potato chips? Fuck me. 

And then there's all the shit Wanderer isn't buying. No matches. No sleeping bag--remember, all Wanderer packed for was a casual trip to Tuson--no hiking boots. No coat. No tarp. No tent poles. No rope. She's going to wander out into the desert with barely enough food and water for three days. There's nonsense about how "water is more important than food" in the desert, and this is true, but I get the feeling S. Meyer was researching what you need for basic survival. What Wanderer and Melanie are about to do is NOT basic survival. They want to hike through the desert and find a place that neither of them has ever seen before, using only one landmark and some indistinct directions from an uncle who, prior to the invasion, was blatantly crazy. With a body that even Melanie admits is in no condition for this hike.

You know what else Wanderer is not bringing with her? Salt. It sounds like a contradiction, but you NEED salt to stay hydrated. Water is not optional. Salt is not optional. If you read the treatment for severe dehydration it recommends you mix salt and sugar with water before you give it to the person. So after a certain point--after the granola bars, doughnuts and potato chips are gone--it won't mater how much water Wanderer drinks, it's not going to be doing her any good. 

And then Melanie goes off on how it's going to be dark soon and they need to get going.

 This is where shit totally breaks down.

S. Meyer lives in the New Mexico/Arizona region.  The same site that says "Food can be a bad thing" says travel at night if possible, something I knew WITHOUT googling survival tips. And the other thing it insists on is clothing. Specifically on warm clothing, a windbreaker and a down-filled sleeping bag. Because it gets fucking cold in the desert. As in freezing tempretures. As in you can avoid heat stroke by the skin of your teeth in the afternoon only to die of hypothermia at night because you were dumb enough to strip down to your coolest layer and leave the warmer things behind.

Wanderer, a cultured and civilized person in a society that doesn't even have to pay for things because "Everyone is honest, what's the point of money?" (...to exchange value of labor for items of equal value.) is about to walk out into the desert and she hasn't once in the six months she's been a human even gone without air conditioning.

And Melanie is cheering her on the whole fucking way, even to the point of suggesting Wanderer go to sleep when it gets too dark.

Both these women are stupid. And it makes me question S. Meyer's capacity too, because she lives in this shit. That's why it's set here. That's why Bella Swan starts her cheerful little story in Phoenix and not Forks. And when you live in an area, even if it's not an area you're familiar with at first, you learn basic survival stuff. First thing I learned when I moved to South Texas? Where the hurricane evacuation routes were and not to go out into the afternoon sun in the middle of fucking summer.  I am about as civilization-addicted as you can get--I get pissy when my room gets too hot--and even I know you do not travel in the fucking desert during the day. I live by the coast, things are (sometimes) lush and green, and in the summer noon to four is uninhabitable. You do not go outside and do anything. You say inside. You drink water. If you're a good human being you consider donating window units to the elderly people in your neighborhood because if they don't have A/C they are going to die. YOU DO NOT FUCKING WALK THROUGH THE FUCKING DESERT DURING THE DAY.

If you're smart, at about eight to ten in the morning, you find a shady spot that hasn't hit "FUCK ME" level hot--don't start with a hot place because all you'll be doing is insulating heat, and that's bad--you spread the tarp you brought with you into a tent shape with most of the tarp pointed in the general west area, you tie it to trees/rocks/a cactus/the hiking stick you made the second you realized you had to hike through the desert, you spread your sleeping bag/wind breaker/coat over the rocky bits of the ground, and then you go to sleep. And even if you can't sleep because it's daytime and fuck it's hot, you STAY THERE. In the shade, with your water and your food and your other supplies. You don't leave your shelter until the sun is AT MINIMUM touching the horizon. And then you try to get as far as you possibly can before the sun comes back up and you have to find another shady spot to put your tarp.

Yes. You have to deal with rattlesnakes and coyotes and scorpions and spiders and about fifty other nasty things at night. You know what you don't have to deal with? The motherfucking sun. You *might* find a rattler and it *might* bite you (they're shy). You *might* find the wrong kind of scorpion or spider and that *might* kill you. You *might* have to fight off a hungry coyote if you're not good in the "make a lot of scary noise" department. But you know what you can't get away from that absolutely fucking will kill you? THE MOTHERFUCKING SUN. DO NOT GO OUT INTO THE MOTHERFUCKING SUN WHEN YOU ARE IN THE DESERT AND YOU ARE ONLY BRINGING THREE FUCKING DAYS WORTH OF WATER. THIS IS BASIC LIVING-IN-A-HOT-ZONE COMMON SENSE.

 The chapter ends with Wanderer going to sleep. And the title of the next chapter is "Dehydrated"

NO FUCKING SHIT.

 ...at least Wanderer isn't trying to fuck a tree. Because at this point, Merry Gentry would.  But please tell me she keeps the empty water bottles. Please tell me that even this woman has the sense to keep the empty fucking water bottles. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Let my faith in humanity and S. Meyer's common sense have that little tiny bit of light. Please oh please oh please.

The Host--Chapter 9

I need a break from LKH awfulness. How I managed to lazily read past a child simulcrum confined to a dog bed I will never know.

So we're back to Stephenie Meyer. A different kind of awful that is saving itself for the very end. What we are left with is boring.

Comfortable boring.

When we last left our "heroine" Wanderer was driving across New Mexico to avoid a perfect shiny silver soul who is also a stalking sociopathic lunatic. Melanie is upset because she realizes that she's going to die. Wanderer is upset because she's skipping bodies, and that would make her a quitter, and because she maybe kind of sort of feels sorry for the republican Human whose body she stole.

And then Melanie goes on the fucking war path.

Wanderer realizes that a landmark is triggering a major memory for Melanie. Melanie realizes that it would be bad juju if she gives away this memory with Wanderer about to sacrifice her body for the cause, so Melanie starts slamming Wanderer with every good and fuzzy memory she has. Jared and her brother Jamie, over and over and over, until finally Wanderer screams uncle and says she can't live without the two boys now either.

Yeah, if you look up "co-dependant" in the dictionary you'll find a picture of every S. Meyer female ever right beside it.

That's when Melanie drops a bombshell. Her uncle, aunt, and several relatives were all conspiracy nuts. Bigtime. And as all of them dropped off the face of the earth right around the time the Souls began taking people over, there's a real good chance they're still alive. In the process, we get a few memories of Melanie's uncle trying to talk her dad into believing that her mom is no longer her mom.

Yeah, we've totally skipped over the best part of this story. I know Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been done so much it's a trope in its own right, but the alternative is an endless drive through New Mexico. Fuck that shit, I'd rather read about how Melanie got away from Soul-Zombied Mom and Dad.

Wanderer now has to decide if she'll continue on to Tuson or follow the landmarks to humanity. We also get this internal concept:

This shouldn’t have felt like a betrayal, the idea of continuing on my right and proper course. My first language, the true language of the soul that was spoken only on our planet of origin, had no word for betrayal or traitor. Or even loyalty— because without the existence of an opposite, the concept had no meaning.

I don't like this. I don't like the idea that a concept requires an opposite for definition. It's like how people insist that yin-yang represents a good/evil dicatomy. Evil is not the opposite of good the way hot is the opposite of cold. Evil is the absence of Good. It's like quality. You don't know what it is, but you know when it's there and you know when it's not there. Loyalty would exist as a concept without the idea of betrayal. Life would exist as a concept without the idea of death. These things are made more obvious by the existance of their opposite, but they are not defined by that opposite. Saying that loyalty is defined by the existance of betrayal is like saying that romantic love is defined by the existance of rape.

If you can agree with that, do us all a favor and go away.

Finally Wanderer decides to do the only thing she can do: She goes shopping. 

End of chapter. 

...well, at least we haven't had to deal with non-con yet.  

The Host--Chapter 8

Wanderer finds out that Healer Fords (...is it bad that I'm thinking Harrison Ford every time his name is mentioned?) is in Tuson, not Chicago, and so she decides to drive.

The Seeker berates her, belittles her, teases her and is generally a...*sigh* horrible person.

I know I'm not supposed to use the B-word anymore, but GOD would it fit this woman. Old habits die hard.

Wanderer also calls the Seeker on being manipulative, and says she wants to have ALL the facts before she decides to have Melanie killed. See, this is the problem with talking to the little voices in your head, kids. You start liking them and listening to them, and that never really ends well.

I would like to point out the obvious here: The Seeker is stalking Wanderer. And not in the sort of uncomfortable way we can't legislate against because it's not illegal. Wanderer is glad when the Seeker decides to take a shuttle to Tuson instead of drive because otherwise Wanderer wouldn't even be allowed to go to the bathroom alone.

This brings up a question unaddressed in the text...if the souls are deeply affected by the host body's thoughts and feelings, what happens if a rapist becomes a host? How about a murderer? Somebody who gets their thrill through being bad? I assume eventually the host would be disposed of--and if we're talking predatory shitbag I'd be all for it--but what about in the in-between time? If Wanderer is covering this much for a host that, other than being snarky is pretty much an okay human being, what about a soul that gets somebody like Gary Ridgeway? I have seen his interrogation tapes. I do not think a soul would have trouble dominating his personality, so their problem would be more "Oh dear, I can't control these drives". And it would probably not end well.

Of course, this is never brought up because souls are shiny perfect, even when they are fucking stalkers. 

Wanderer packs up her apartment, tells the Seeker to go fuck herself without actually using those words, and drives to Tuson slowly. She checks every car that passes her to make sure that it isn't the Seeker changing her mind, and is in absolutely no hurry to get to where the Seeker's going to be. Don't souls have ways to complain about harassment? This is not a good thing, guys.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch Melanie's head, Melanie has accepted that she's going to die and is now daydreaming about memories. Wanderer looks in because the desert is, well, a desert.

So apparently there was this time when Melanie, Melanie's brother Jamie and Jared were all living in a house unafraid of the souls because this was a crazy survivalist's cabin and they don't know it's there. And Jamie was asleep and Melanie wanted to seduce Jared but Jared won't because he is twenty-six and Melanie is seventeen.

EW.

But hey, Jared's a standup guy. He's going to wait until Melanie turns eighteen. He's already head over heels in love with her, and he's taking care of her brother. All this affects Wanderer deeply, she starts crying and...end of chapter.

The Host--chapter 7

Wanderer is teaching a class on Worlds' History. This is different from World History because it is about every world the Liberal-Yeerks Souls have ever conquered.

And you know what? Most of my love for this book died a horrible fucking death when I figured out what S. Meyer was on about. Oh, don't get me wrong, Blog-readers. I am going to interprete the plot my own fucking way, which is Social Justice ALL THE WAY TO TOWN (nevermind that I am the LAST PERSON ON EARTH) qualified to preform SJ commentary) but I want to make it real clear: just like Sparklepyers=MORMONS in Twilight, souls=LIBERALS.

Anyhoo, today's subject is apparently the one world that Wanderer has not lived on. Apparenlty its primary inhabitants--the Fire Breathers AKA dragons--have to burn other sentient beings--the Walking Flowers--and ingest the smoke to survive. The Souls cannot stand this idea, espeically because several of their worlds have plant based organisms and many Souls remember plant-lives fondly, because apparently plant-lives are more peaceful than meat-lives.

...so. Is anybody else thinking of the Hork-Bajir?

Anyhoo, dragons. Fire breahting. Burning flowers, disgusted Souls, Wanderer attempting to explain that this is how biology on this planet works, while simultaneously trying to explain that the Souls are trying to "fix" it.

However, I have to give S. Meyer worldbuilding brownie points. In explaining about this world, she tells us a lot of things about how Souls operate. Apparently a world, once conquered and fully settled, becomes "closed", and souls looking for a new place to party have to go find somewhere else. Apparently they've never heard of population control (More on that later)

One soul becomes particularly stridant about how barbaric this alien world is, and how it should have been abandoned by the Souls as being too nasty to live on. Wanderer blames it on him being the Earth-born child of an earth-bound Mother. 

Just to let you know, guys? S. Meyer has serious issues with motherhood.

Meanwhile, Melanie is keeping up a pretty decent commentary on Wanderer's thoughts, and the Seeker is skulking about in the back of the class. Just another day in an Animorphs rip-off. Too bad nobody's turning into flies.

Wanderer closes the class and leaves, with the Seeker following behind her, asking truely obnoxious questions that quickly disintegrate into shouted accusations and harrassment:

She shrugged and smiled a tight smile. “I’m sure it is too late… for voluntary information. But if you don’t cooperate, she might just lead me to them yet.”

 “Lead you?” 

“When she takes full control, and you’re no better than that weakling, once Racing Song, now Kevin. Remember him? The one who attacked the Healer?”

This Seeker, boys and girls, is a fucking sociopath.

She tells Wanderer that eventually Melanie will control everything and Wanderer will be the one to disappear. Melanie and I are both rooting for that outcome right now, but then the Seeker crosses the line:

I saw in your file that you have the potential for Motherhood. If you gave yourself to be a Mother, at least all that would not be entirely wasted. Why throw yourself away? Have you considered Motherhood?”

At this point, even the Seeker knows she's made a mistake, but Wanderer takes great delight in telling her to go get fucked. The Seeker says "Inform me when I am to call you Melanie!" as Wanderer starts the long trip to Chicago to speak with the Healer.

And the chapter ends with Melanie rooting for Wanderer to kill the Seeker. Because why not?

The Host--chapter 6

Kathy the comforter suggests Wanderer start going out and making friends--if for no other reason than to bore Melanie to death.

Then she recommends Wanderer have sex. Melanie really doesn't like that idea, but neither does Wanderer, who accuses Kathy of loving her mate, Curt, because the host bodies loved each other. Kathy admits this is possible, and suggests Wanderer go find a boyfriend anyway.

Because being tied to a man solves everything. 

Kathy suggests that eventually the Seekers will find Melanie's Jared, and that pretty much ends the appointment because Melanie has a full on panic-attack at the thought and Wanderer runs out of the office. Yeah, if you want to prove that you can handle the host, lady, you're not doing a real good job. She runs home, leans on her doorframe, and contemplates vomiting into her bushes.

And that's when the Seeker shows up. She recommends--almost insists--that Wanderer go take care of her host, because "health care is so easy and effective".

...Oh. I GET IT NOW.

Souls are LIBERALS. WOW, Meyer. Just fucking WOW.

Anyhoo, the Seeker is confrontational and reactionary. And rude. And mean. And Wanderer doesn't like her at all. And she's the only brown person we've met so far. I really hope they whitewash this one for the movie.

Melanie tries to laugh off the e-mail Wanderer sent earlier. Wanderer goes along with her, in part because she doesn't want to let on how badly she controls the host. But I also think it's because Wanderer doesn't like the Seeker and letting Melanie drive for a sec means Wanderer doesn't have to deal with it. Melanie tries to push a little too hard, though, and Wanderer says "Knock it off, she'll know what we're doing and that would be bad".

Or something like that.

Yes. The confrontational nature of the Seeker is going to unify Wanderer and Melanie against a common enemy. Because we haven't already seen this trope nine million times. (Hell. I've even used it.)

The Seeker accuses Wanderer of not having Melanie under control, and then starts laughing at her. Wanderer tries to ignore her. She realizes that Melanie is distracted by the Seeker and finds a memory of lines, something that will lead her to Jared and Melanie's brother Jamie. The Seeker interrupts this memory-mining by saying she'd expected better of Wanderer, that she's very dissapointed, and at this point I want somebody to do a good old fashioned human beat-down on this woman, because she's horrible.

Wanderer reminds the Seeker that Seekers have fucked up settlements before, causing half a species to mass suicide due to being careless. You go, mass-suiciding plant life.

She asks the Seeker to leave, and implies that she means "This city" and not just her house. The Seeker replies that Melanie and Wanderer are her only assignment, and that she's sticking around until she gets lucky.

The Host--Chapter 5

Business first. Gray Fox is on schedule for its ETA, and Blue Ghosts is still free-with-coupon over on Smashwords. Here is the coupon code: TU68W Go get a copy

So. Where were we?

...Wanderer's going to her counselor's office. I'm sorry. Comforter. It sounds like a blanket. And her "comforter" is kind of a wet one, if you know what I mean.

We find out that Wanderer has been avoiding her counciling appointments and refuses to call her comforter by name. Which is Kathy. Because calling posessed humans by the human's name makes her uncomfortable. It's like the soul doesn't have full posession of the body that they stole. 

Wanderer is working as a history teacher. Teaching soul history. Her class is the most requested in the university.

Is it Brigham Young U? It's BYU, isn't it.

Wanderer asks Kathy why she keeps a human name. Kathy explains that when the Yeerks Souls  arrived on planet, they had to pretend to be human and mantain the human's connections and relationships, so she and her "husband" Curt got into the habit of being human. And they don't want to break it now.

Wanderer asks how much influience the host normally has on the soul. This moves into a discussion about how much Melanie--and by extension, Wanderer--misses Jared. Because of course it does. Life has no meaning outside of relationships and sex. Then they discuss apperances and peanut butter, and Kathy asks why Wanderer keeps cutting her hair.

Wanderer answers that it pisses Melanie off.

Kathy is horrified that Melanie is still that present. But you know what? For a perfect, pretty soul, that sure is some penny-ante shit on Wanderer's  part. Let's cut off our hair to spite our inner human, y'all.

Kathy offers to recommend a new host for Wanderer. Wanderer refuses because it's her fault Melanie won't go away. Wanderer just isn't strong enough to surpress the woman whose body she stole. Yes. Because self hate is critical to good drama.

And hey, Wanderer's starting to come off as a whiny Bella Swan clone with even more privelage issues. It's time for S. Meyer to set the record straight for us:

“Listen to me. You are strong. Surprisingly strong. Our kind are always so much the same, but you exceed the norm. You’re so brave it astonishes me. Your past lives are a testament to that.”

Too bad we don't actually get to see Wanderer being brave.

Wanderer says she can't hand the host off to another soul. Kathy says Melanie would obviously be destroyed because she's defective. Melaine says "fuck all of you" and points out that being a xenocidal pacifist is a manifest contradiction and that Souls are all mostly terrible people. Wanderer replies (mentally) that the body is hers now, she's not giving it up, and humans have done such terrible things. The skreed against humanity in this book is really, really, really long, and it's not the last one we're going to hit. Stephenie Meyer hates humans. That should probably be the subtitle of this book.

Wanderer dismisses Melanie as a displaced non-entity occupying a corner of Oklahoma the reservation her mind. This body is hers, she likes it, and she won't let it be destroyed.

End of chapter.

The Host--chapter 4

There are two chapters left Narcissus, and I don't want to do them back to back against the load of fail I did yesterday.

So. Host today, and we go back to regular schedules tomorrow.

Also? Tonight? Sample of Gray Fox goes up. I know, I know, hold down your excitement. There will also be several short stories released at random times this month, whenever I feel they are ready. So come back tonight to read things that hopefully don't suck.

After reading Laurel K. Hamilton's desperate scrambling for theme for the past two months, I find myself with renewed respect for Stephenie Meyer. Again: I feel dirty. But she is either the single most subtle writer I've ever read, no bullshit, or she is completely unconscious of theme and is just somehow doing it on her own without consious volition. I think it's the latter, given the way this book ends.

So the chapter opens with a hungry Wanderer hiding in the bushes. We figure out in very short order that this is a dream from Melanie, because no pretty perfect soul would ever be hungry and hiding in random bushes on a planet.

Melanie is raiding a house for food. She thinks about how perfectly the aliens mantain human lives and habits. They want the culture, folks, and the memories and the music and language and science, but they don't want any of that icky human stuff hanging around. You've heard of whitewashing? Well, kids, this is brainwashing.

Melanie takes her food and runs, only to bounce off another person. She panicks because it's probably an alien...except it isn't. He realizes that Melanie is still human-driven and in his joy and exhuberance he kisses her.

She knees him in the groin. By the way, this is Melanie's One True Wub for this episode, and since he's going to go unnamed for-fucking-ever I'm going to blow the suspense right now and tell you his name is Jared. 

Also. Dear authors of all sorts everywhere: STOP WITH THE NON-CON SHIT. IT IS GETTING VERY OLD.

And of course once Jared proves his humanity it is all sunshine and apocalyptic rainbows and unicorns in gas masks. He has a car, Melanie has a brother. They will survive the peaceful xenocidal aliens together.

Wanderer wakes up, curses at her human body for remaining so human, and immediately e-mails the Seeker with the name and last known location of Jared and Jamie.

Melanie promptly flips her shit.

Wanderer promptly flips her own shit because Melanie should not have any shit to be flipping. A surviving Host has never happened before, let alone one who has survived surpressed for MONTHS.

Melanie tells Wanderer she hates her. Wanderer tells Melanie to leave if she hates her so much. Wanderer also decides that she will have to visit her Comforter (councelor) and discuss her horrible inability to completely supress the human whose body she stole. Wanderer feels humiliated.

End of chapter.

And there's one thing I want to know: Did a Social Justice Warrior get hold of S. Meyer on a plane trip somewhere? Because you think that theme of repression and privelage are blatant now...kids, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

The Host--Chapter three

Wanderer is pissed. She thinks she's been given a defective host because the Seeker wants information from her. She's also not used to being pissed, and this pisses her off even more.

Have I raved enough about how much I love the concept of Xenocidal pacifists? Because it almost makes up for sparkling vampires. It also almost makes up for this being a Stephenie Meyer novel.

There is an aside about intuition being the sixth sense. Okay. Yeah. Whatever, Stephenie. The Seeker asks what could be wrong, and Wanderer says her memory is defective. She was trying to access the memory the Seeker wanted, and the memory isn't there.

Hey, Unnamed host chick? You go, girl.

There is babble about attachment points being correctly adhered to. For some reason this makes me think about The Human Centipede, which I have never seen and have no intention of watching ever, so my brain is kind of in this state of IDK WTF right now.

Then we have inner dialogue about Wanderer adapating to the body.

Again: I fucking love this. My numerous issues with S. Meyer aside, I love every part of this. Do not worry, my loyal blog readers. You will get much indignation from me. But for right now, everything about this concept is ringing all of my bells. Wanderer is not used to the human body, the human body is fighting her every inch of the way, and adaptation for the xenocidal Soul is not easy.

Kudos for making your Yeerks pacifists, Meyer. Also note: I am not letting you get out of this. My lingering love for K.A. Applegate will not allow it.

Wanderer starts freaking out about color. Aww, Meyer. Did somebody give your son the first book from the Andalite's perspective? That's soo sweet. I remember Ax freaking out about flavor something fierce, and then you had the time Cassie shapeshifted into a Yeerk to infiltrate and rescue the traitor yeerk whose name I can't remember. She was so happy to get to see again. Ah, good times, good times.

This is totally Animorphs fan fic, FYI.

 NOT THAT THERE'S ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

The Seeker explains about the memory defects. It's worth mentioning at this point, the Seeker is a brown person. Dark hair, olive skin. Wanderer is white. Every other major character in this book is white. The Seeker is the only antagonist worth writing about. And she's also the ONLY brown person in the ENTIRE BOOK. Actual race is also never mentioned, but "Olive completion" isn't something commonly applied to caucasian folk.

Way to go, S. Meyer. I feel dirty for liking  anything you write already.

(Also, brown loyal blog readers? Olive is a terrible descriptive term for skin tone. Olives, my dears, are green, and they are only an acceptable thing if they are either Kalamata or in a Hendricks Dirty Martini, Dry, with a twist. Or if they are black. Black olives are wonderful things. Is it too late to mention that I can only read this book slightly drunk? I'm slightly drunk right now. Imagine that.)


Wanderer has been inserted into this host because she prefers an Adult. Wanderer prefers to take over somebody else's body long after they've had time to develop their own Personhood. Wanderer does not consider this personhood an actual thing. Wanderer is a --

OH COME ON. SHE DESERVES IT.

*sigh* Fine. Fine.

Wanderer is a waste of alien glitter skin. There. Are you happy, Robot Susan B. Anthony?

Wanderer is then told about the resistance human Adults typically put up to being turned into prisoners in their own bodies Hosts for Souls.

Apparently a Soul took over an adult named Kevin. The Soul was a musician. Oh, I'm sorry, he had a Calling in Musicial Preformance. Because he was from the Blind World Planet of the Bats Singing World. Only Kevin was a mechanic. So the Soul becomes a Mechanic, which is a HUGE scandal. And then the Soul begins blacking out as Kevin takes his own body back, once in a while. Eventually Kevin the Host knocks a healer out and tries to cut the soul out of his own body. 

The souls react by removing the soul from Kevin and giving him a little kid to inhabit, while Kevin himself is destroyed.

Goodnight, sweet prince Kevin. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

(In case you haven't guessed, I don't like the Souls much.)

The Seeker assures Wanderer that she is not the average soul, while simultaneously guilt-tripping her for not choosing an immature host. Wanderer, meanwhile, feels ashamed that she isn't strong enough to supress our STILL unnamed human host.

Wanderer asks the Seeker why she was not implanted into this Host, as obviously the Seeker wants to know where the fuck the wild human came from. Seeker says that she's "No skipper", which means a body-jumper, which is apparently something that is frowned upon.

Wanderer then gives us the host's name. Melanie Stryder.

Melanie, for 90% of this book, will be my heroine. For the last 10% she will be the scum of the earth, but we're going to ignore that for the time being.

Melanie is also twenty years old. Finally, FINALLY, S. Meyer is writing about somebody who is not underage when the story starts.

Wanderer tries to remember why Melanie was trying to meet her cousin. She tells the Seeker where they can find Melanie's note, and then Melanie hijacks her own mouth to find out if they found Sharon. Melanie is hogtied in her own head and she is still fighting hard. Fuck you Wanderer. Melanie, have a beer.

Wanderer finds out its too late for the Seekers to find Melanie's buddies. Melanie feels relief. Wanderer just feels even more pissed at how present Melanie is in her own body. Well, again, Fuck you Wanderer. This ain't your house to begin with.

Melanie also remembers the pretty-faced boy's name" Jared. Wanderer turns this over to the Seeker, and the chapter ends. 

The Host--Chapter 3

So I've been reading for fun on the side, and I have found the best book ever. Warm Bodies. It is a zombie love story, and the zombie is one of the two lovers in question. The writing is fucking. awesome. The story itself has a point and a heart, and it's something that everybody everywhere should be reading.

Right. Back to The Host.

I kind of sort of like Twilight, in that trainwrecks don't happen every day and we have to take what we can get. But the one scene I hated more than anything else wasn't the scene where Edward eats the baby out of Bella's stomach, or the watching-her-while-she-sleeps-thing, or the abuse of native cultures, or the misogyny, or the massvie amount of Mormon propaganda in the book.

It was the fucking tent scene in Eclipse. To explain, S. Meyer decided that there wasn't enough tension, so she decided to have Edward, Bella and Jacob all sleep in the same tent, and had Bella overhear a conversation between Ed and Jake about who gets to keep Bella. Folks, I have pretended to be asleep before, and I have been actually asleep before, and the only time I really overhear a conversation is when I'm playacting.

But it's time to repeat the preformance of the Stupidest Scene Ever by having our STILL unnamed main character overhear a conversation between her doctor and the Seeker. Let me give you the bullet points:

-humans are violent nasties and humanity is an infection
-Souls have "callings" that determine their jobs.

Time out. If you're not raised borderline fundie, you probably don't get the overtones of that terminology. You do not decide to go into religious jobs. You are called. As I understand it, Mormons take it one step further. Your husband or wife is determined by angels up in heaven, if you are successful it is because you are obeying the hand of God, ect. ect. I'm not criticizing the belief system, but I DO want to point out that it leaves people open to massive amounts of exploitation. Back to book:

-Seekers are horrible people.
-Souls own the entire United States, and consider everything they overtake "civilized". Free humans are uncivilized.
-The Seeker and the Healer hate the everloving fuck out of each other
-Our STILL unnamed main character soul is about as active as Bella fucking Swan, and I already don't like her. This will change a little bit, but not that much.

And then, finally, FINALLY, our main character gets a name: Wanderer. Because she's been to so many worlds and refuses to settle down.

Wanderer uses her time lying frozen on this medical bed to think about the other planets she has been on. Apparently it was in the drip trap of HP Lovecraft's fridge. Telepathic, thousand-eyed plants. Wow.

Wanderer also decides that only the uncivilized soul would become a Seeker. Violence is just so far beneath the true soul.

However, because "Good citizenship was quintessential to every soul"  (oh Applebloom, I am so very, very sorry) Wanderer remembers every aspect of her body's last life that she thinks the Seeker might want. The body came to Chicago to find her cousin. But when Wanderer tries to remember more, she finds the information blocked out. The person is still in this body and she is fighting as hard as she can to spare her loved ones from becoming prisoners in their own body.

Finally, Wanderer sits up, the Seeker welcomes her to Earth...and the chapter ends.

...yeah. LKH and S. Meyer get their advice from the same damn chapter-breaking book.

The Host--Chapter Two

Time to meet our main character.

And I have to say it. Trust me. I don't like saying it. S. Meyer does a good job showing the "soul" adapt to her new body. The as-yet-unnamed soul slowly aquires memory and sensory imput from the body she is now inhabiting, and it is VERY well done.

Of course, this wouldn't be a Stephenie Meyer novel without a significant amount of self hate and a bias towards white America, and since Souls are oh, so perfect this translates into that anti-humanity stuff I was talking about last post:

The language I found myself using was odd, but it made sense. Choppy, boxy, blind, and linear. Impossibly crippled in comparison to many I’d used, yet still it managed to find fluidity and expression.

Also, you've got a fucking wonderful example of S. Meyer's bias. This is English, folks, but it's never identified and the existance of other languages is NEVER brought up. The existence of any continent other than the grand old US of A is never brought up either. So either Meyer forgot that anything other than American English Speaking People exist, the aliens have canceled world travel, or the host body never heard another language spoken. Because the souls are heavily influienced by the body they are in.

As in they basically become the person that owned the body before they got their shiny little tenticles on it.

The woman the soul now inhabits was a member of the human resistance. She was caught, she failed, she fought back--and violence is a totally alien concept to these things--and then she decided that since she'd rather die than have her body stolen from her, the girl threw herself out a window.

This is the peaceful, perfect soul's first experiance of humanity: battle and suicide.

On one hand, I find that to be a particularly offensive judgement on the part of S. Meyer, and I'm pretty sure she did it on purpose. On the other hand, I fucking love this unnamed human girl, because folks, I'd be right behind her. It's a powerful introduction to a character that is going to be very influiental in what is to come. This girl says, basically, "I would rather die and deny you monsters victory than surrender and be something worse than your slave."

But given S. Meyer's worship of self-sacrifice, liking it makes me feel more than a little dirty.

This is also the first time an e-book has been an improvement over the hard copy. In the paperback version I have, the human memories are indicated by a change in font--from a nice, readable serif font to a slightly larger, slightly smoother sans-serif font that reads like a migrane. In the e-book, they just change the size and shrink the paragraphs. Yay!


The elevator shaft the girl threw herself down wasn't high enough, and the Seekers were able to save her life and patch her back up. The soul--still no name for either soul or body yet--starts screaming at the memory, and the body explains what's going on. Which freaks the soul out further because the body isn't supposed to talk. The body doesn't say anything else and the remembering continues.

And now it's time to have the other defining trait of a S. Meyer novel: life revolves around guys. Specifically, one guy. The soul sees the face, the body says mine, and there is much waxing poetic about how pretty this remembered guy is. And I know that I am not one to talk, given that my main character in my primary novel series cannot get over her ex-husband, but folks? Guys define Stephenie Meyer's females.

And then voices interrupt the soul's new thoughts. And we don't get to find out if it is nurses, doctors, or the main character's body's schizophrenia, because the chapter ends.

Next Chapter: Raise your hand if you remember that fucking tent scene from Eclipse, because we're about to get a replay.

The Host--Overview and Chapter One

So I've decided, since we're so close to the end of NIC and ANYTHING, frankly, is a good pallate clenser at this point, that we're going to start doing The Host now.

I decided not to do Twilight on this blog, ever, because everything that I could possibly say about it has already been said, by people who are much better at it than I am. But The Host has not been bashed as thoroughly as Twilight because it's actually a good novel. For the most part.

The last little bit, though, makes everything worth it.

Stephenie Meyer and talent should never be mentioned in the same sentence. Stephen King has famously commented that the difference between S. Meyer and J.K. Rowling is "Rowling can write." He is not wrong. S. Meyer is the Micheal Bay of books. She has a good grasp of storytelling rules. No, no, don't roll your eyes. If she didn't understand what she was doing on an instinctive level you would not be able to finish the books. The problem is that her grasp IS entirely instinctive. Just like Micheal Bay, S. Meyer doesn't have a good filter on her brain. Her books are like the abstract artwork that sometimes shows up at local art shows. It's kind of interesting, but compared to somebody who actually knows how to paint it really is low-level garbage. She doesn't consider story theme, character development, or people who may not agree with her POV. In Twilight, marrige and sex are for life, choice is not a thing, gay people don't exist--it's not that she protests against them. They don't exist at all.--and brown people become white. This is not expressed in the movies, but it's definately there in the books. People want to call it a statement, but while I may not be the right person to go to for a perspective on People of Color or non-normative sexuality, I think I know what goes on in the mind of the privelaged white chick. S. Meyer doesn't discuss under-privelaged people in her work because under-privelaged people don't exist in her universe. She literally does not think about them at all.

Which is why The Host is very perplexing. There is a fucking gorgeous theme in it that I do not think Meyer intended to write at all, any more than she intended to make Twilight into Mormon propaganda. I've read it twice, and both times I found myself liking 75% of it. When Meyer sticks to her sci-fi universe, it's a good book. When she dips into gender roles, everything goes off the rails. I don't remember any gay people, which makes no sense for reasons that will soon become clear, but there are moments where the book becomes actively thoughtful and thought provoking and good.

But it all gets fucked over by the end of it. And don't worry. The text is often a trudge through uninspired paragraphs of pretty nasty human hate. S. Meyer calls herself an avowed "anti-humanist" writer and oh, dear GOD is that ever clear in her intentional writing. It makes me absolutely sure that the positive in this book is entirely unintentional, like discovering swill has turned into champagne.

This is also a bit of a branching out for me, to see if I can keep things entertaining when I'm not indulging in nerd rage. So. Shall we dive in?

We are immediately introduced to a Healer named Fords Deep Waters. And by "Immediately" I mean his name is the first sentence. That's how the names are in this book. You have "Gee, this is not a human" names like Fords Deep Waters, Wanderer, Petals Open to the Sky, and you have human names like Bob, Jane and Kate. It gets confusing, sometimes.

Fords is a "soul". Hey, you want to know how long it takes for S. Meyer to trigger Applebloom's gag reflex? This is half of the second sentence in the book:

by nature he was all things good: compassionate, patient, honest, virtuous, and full of love.

Gee, Stephenie, subtle much?

Fords is doing an "insertion" in front of a whole room full of medical students. He is irritated because he's in a human body and these emotion things are just SO HARD for a soul to deal with. The medical students are here because they're doing an insertion on a "wild human".

...please tell me S. Meyer's reading habits are better than I think they are. Please, oh please, oh, please don't hurt my childhood. Please...

The text calls "Wild humans" soulless. At no point does the text discuss WHY souls are calling themselves souls. And let me get this out of the way: I fucking love this concept. The antagonist force of the novel are creatures we would identify as morally good. The ONLY evil thing they do through the whole book is deny human beings a choice in things. It brings up many questions about the nature of choice, morality, and good and evil. Souls are world conquering pacifists, utterly against murder and yet capable of commiting mass xenocide. All because they deny the other creatures in space the right to choose their own fate.

This is written by Stephenie Meyer. I do not understand.

The girl was damaged somehow. Fords has healed her, and they are going to implant an exceptional soul in her body. Only now they refer to the body as the soul's body, not the host's. The soul has apparently traveled on almost every world the Souls have invaded. Fords hears the students gossiping about this and tells them all to shut up, and then he brings the soul out...and it's a glittery silver centipide, and I am going to just leave this here:

This was my childhood. Right here.

Fords spends time thinking about how he regrets what he's doing--apparently cutting open the neck to insert the soul "creates an injury" and he can't stand doing that. Folks, these guys must faint at the sight of blood--and how the "horror of this girl's end" will be the first thing the soul remembers.  He calls the new soul "wanderer", wishes her good luck, and the chapter ends.

Next chapter: We meet our main character, and we find out how xenocidal pacifists can actually be a thing.