The Short Second Life Of Bree Tanner: Introduction
Projection Room Voices: And the challenge continues. Are you prepared?
ZeldaQueen: Ohhhh yeah! *to viewers* Howdy-do folks! As you probably all know, Stephenie Meyer has recently released a novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. And even better news - it's available for free online! Which is great, because there's no way in hell I'd pay for it. In short, it tells the "untold" life of Bree Tanner, one of the many newborns recruited by Victoria in Eclipse to help in Operation: Kill Bella (a worthy cause, in my opinion). I'm sure this would be a wonderful writing project, if it weren't for the fact that (A) Meyer already showed that she fails epically at this sort of thing, via her Midnight Sun leakage and (B) we already know how this is going to end! Well anyone, let's just strap on and get going! Incidentally, I'm a little late to the party and das_mervin has begun her own review of the novella. Check it out!
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
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Dedication
Meyer kicks off by dedicating this novella to "Asya Muchnick" and "Meghan Hibbett". For those of you who are interested, Asya is the senior editor of Little, Brown, which I do believe is the publishing company Meyer uses for this God-forsaken series. Not entirely sure who Meghan is, although given the way she's credited in the Breaking Dawn acknowledgments, I'd guess she's some sort of long-distance friend or pen pal.
So in other words, Meyer has opted to dedicate a work of literature which seems to be very dear to her to her editor and pen pal rather than her husband or children or family.
You know, I think I'm going with Mervin on this one - Meyer's definitely seeing the whole Twilight series as some sort of ticket to her own fantasy Happyland. I mean, it makes total sense why her publishing company and editors and fan sites get more mention than her family.
Introduction
We start off the introduction...well actually I'll start off by pointing out that it technically is a preface and not an introduction. I suspect that Meyer thinks that a preface, a prologue, and an introduction are all interchangeable.
Anyway, Meyer starts off by telling us how no two authors go about doing things the same way, then immediately launches into a speech about how some characters just stick better with her than others and she has no idea why this is, thus implying that this is a writing style unique to her. Erm, it isn't. She then goes on to say how she's so happy when this happens, yadda yadda yadda, Meyer this isn't that special or unique. I'm sure most people who've done writing have favorite characters who take on lives of their own.
We're then told how Bree is the "chief" reason the story is being told and, given how her name is in the title and the damned book is about her, I certainly hope it is! Oh, and the other two reasons are Diego and Fred. So...the main reasons for the story are the Mary Sue protagonist and her boyfriends. No social commentary or messages or anything? Didn't Meyer say before that the real reason she wanted to write this story was to give some insight into the life of a newborn vampire? I...gah, never mind.
We then get a lot of stuff and nonsense about how Meyer started thinking about Bree's story during the editing process of Eclipse and this lead her to think about "living in the basement with the newborns and hunting traditional vampire-style". Oh Meyer, you already wrote horrific, revolting vampire characters. Just because they don't sleep in coffins or die via stakes to the heart doesn't make the Cullens and their allies any more Good. *nods pointedly to third section of Breaking Dawn* Meyer apparently got started by outlining a day in Bree's life, which we'll find out later is completely boring and skips several very potentially interesting plot possibilities. She also apparently tried looking through a newborn vampire's Evil Eyes they're watching you and "saw" how humans were weak, pathetic, tasty, nutritious, delicious, and so on.
So wait, question! Isn't that how Meyer's been justifying the whole Cullens-treat-humans-like-dirt thing for the entire series? So is she acknowledging that the Cullens are just as horrible as she's trying to paint the newborns? Didn't she already figure the vampire viewpoint on meals already? Is this just a butt pull to deflect previous accusations against the "humans suck" mentality vampires have shown? ("Oh look, I said right here that it's just a perspective thing! That makes it totally alright!")
And then we finish up with some mediocre teasing about how Bree's story is So Important to knowing the events of Eclipse, which I fail to see why. They figure out that it's Victoria behind it all (heck, a lobotomized chipmunk could probably have figured that out) and Edward knows the Volturi were hoping the Cullens would be offed. So what's left?
I also find myself laughing heartily at her closing statement that "no perspective is ever really trivial", given how all of her point of view changes seem to focus more or less on all of the same things, with almost identical word usage and plot points.
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On a slightly unrelated note, I recently saw The Spoony One's review of New Moon (the movie) and read his views on why he thinks Bella is a borderline sociopath. Couple that with the fact that Bella is clearly Meyer's self insert who is written to fulfill her various desires and I find myself recalling the words of das_mervin, specifically how badly this speaks of Ms Meyer.
To end a bit more lighthearted, it's also worth bringing up Spoony's comment on how New Moon's werewolf-ism seems to clearly be analogous to homosexuality, which lead him to consider that Meyer does in fact understand homosexuals. Which makes Shaolina's interpretations of this novella even funnier.
Onward to: Part 1
Back to: Table of Contents
ZeldaQueen: Ohhhh yeah! *to viewers* Howdy-do folks! As you probably all know, Stephenie Meyer has recently released a novella, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. And even better news - it's available for free online! Which is great, because there's no way in hell I'd pay for it. In short, it tells the "untold" life of Bree Tanner, one of the many newborns recruited by Victoria in Eclipse to help in Operation: Kill Bella (a worthy cause, in my opinion). I'm sure this would be a wonderful writing project, if it weren't for the fact that (A) Meyer already showed that she fails epically at this sort of thing, via her Midnight Sun leakage and (B) we already know how this is going to end! Well anyone, let's just strap on and get going! Incidentally, I'm a little late to the party and das_mervin has begun her own review of the novella. Check it out!
Projection Room Voices: Starting Media in 3...2...1...
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dedication
Meyer kicks off by dedicating this novella to "Asya Muchnick" and "Meghan Hibbett". For those of you who are interested, Asya is the senior editor of Little, Brown, which I do believe is the publishing company Meyer uses for this God-forsaken series. Not entirely sure who Meghan is, although given the way she's credited in the Breaking Dawn acknowledgments, I'd guess she's some sort of long-distance friend or pen pal.
So in other words, Meyer has opted to dedicate a work of literature which seems to be very dear to her to her editor and pen pal rather than her husband or children or family.
You know, I think I'm going with Mervin on this one - Meyer's definitely seeing the whole Twilight series as some sort of ticket to her own fantasy Happyland. I mean, it makes total sense why her publishing company and editors and fan sites get more mention than her family.
Introduction
We start off the introduction...well actually I'll start off by pointing out that it technically is a preface and not an introduction. I suspect that Meyer thinks that a preface, a prologue, and an introduction are all interchangeable.
Anyway, Meyer starts off by telling us how no two authors go about doing things the same way, then immediately launches into a speech about how some characters just stick better with her than others and she has no idea why this is, thus implying that this is a writing style unique to her. Erm, it isn't. She then goes on to say how she's so happy when this happens, yadda yadda yadda, Meyer this isn't that special or unique. I'm sure most people who've done writing have favorite characters who take on lives of their own.
We're then told how Bree is the "chief" reason the story is being told and, given how her name is in the title and the damned book is about her, I certainly hope it is! Oh, and the other two reasons are Diego and Fred. So...the main reasons for the story are the Mary Sue protagonist and her boyfriends. No social commentary or messages or anything? Didn't Meyer say before that the real reason she wanted to write this story was to give some insight into the life of a newborn vampire? I...gah, never mind.
We then get a lot of stuff and nonsense about how Meyer started thinking about Bree's story during the editing process of Eclipse and this lead her to think about "living in the basement with the newborns and hunting traditional vampire-style". Oh Meyer, you already wrote horrific, revolting vampire characters. Just because they don't sleep in coffins or die via stakes to the heart doesn't make the Cullens and their allies any more Good. *nods pointedly to third section of Breaking Dawn* Meyer apparently got started by outlining a day in Bree's life, which we'll find out later is completely boring and skips several very potentially interesting plot possibilities. She also apparently tried looking through a newborn vampire's Evil Eyes they're watching you and "saw" how humans were weak, pathetic, tasty, nutritious, delicious, and so on.
So wait, question! Isn't that how Meyer's been justifying the whole Cullens-treat-humans-like-dirt thing for the entire series? So is she acknowledging that the Cullens are just as horrible as she's trying to paint the newborns? Didn't she already figure the vampire viewpoint on meals already? Is this just a butt pull to deflect previous accusations against the "humans suck" mentality vampires have shown? ("Oh look, I said right here that it's just a perspective thing! That makes it totally alright!")
And then we finish up with some mediocre teasing about how Bree's story is So Important to knowing the events of Eclipse, which I fail to see why. They figure out that it's Victoria behind it all (heck, a lobotomized chipmunk could probably have figured that out) and Edward knows the Volturi were hoping the Cullens would be offed. So what's left?
I also find myself laughing heartily at her closing statement that "no perspective is ever really trivial", given how all of her point of view changes seem to focus more or less on all of the same things, with almost identical word usage and plot points.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On a slightly unrelated note, I recently saw The Spoony One's review of New Moon (the movie) and read his views on why he thinks Bella is a borderline sociopath. Couple that with the fact that Bella is clearly Meyer's self insert who is written to fulfill her various desires and I find myself recalling the words of das_mervin, specifically how badly this speaks of Ms Meyer.
To end a bit more lighthearted, it's also worth bringing up Spoony's comment on how New Moon's werewolf-ism seems to clearly be analogous to homosexuality, which lead him to consider that Meyer does in fact understand homosexuals. Which makes Shaolina's interpretations of this novella even funnier.
Onward to: Part 1
Back to: Table of Contents