Robert Rodi

Loki is my favorite Marvel character, followed by Thor. Indeed, he is my favorite villain in literature or film. He's a complex character who goes beyond simple "bad-guy." He needs to cause chaos, but has also switched sides. Moreover, his backstory is tragic, allowing readers to sympathize with him even as they root for Thor. So, I was eager to read "Blood Brothers" in which Loki, from his own POV, succeeds in taking Asgard.

The book opens with Thor in chains before Loki, now king of Asgard. show more He loves seeing Thor brought so low, but finds himself burdened with the actual work of ruling. When Loki is alone, Hela appears to convince him to execute Thor. What commences is Loki's struggle with the decision as his history unfolds. At one point, Balder reveals to Loki that there are many universes, many Lokis, many Thors, all locked in the same cycle. And in all of them, Loki is defeated. What is disturbing is that the Asgardians excuse their cruelty toward Loki as part of a this cycle. Yet, they do not excuse Loki's action on the same principle. He is held accountable; which further reinforces his tragic nature. Loki has no choice in his destiny, but is condemned for it none-the-less.

Loki slowly comes to the realization that, as light needs darkness, Loki needs Thor. But, like all other Lokis, he will not be allowed to escape his destiny. Only this time, the taste of Thor's victory is bitter - for Loki and for readers. I am not certain if the authors intended it to be so, but this story not only makes Loki especially sympathetic, it portrays our usual heroes (Sif, Balder, Thor) as cruel bullies who tormented and ridiculed Loki all his life; dividing brother from brother. When Loki reveals why he will kill Thor and not the others, it is heartbreaking. For the first time, I did not like Thor and I did not want him to triumph.

Usually, I do not comment on art since it is so subjective. However, in this instance I must because it seriously impacted my enjoyment of the story. I HATED it. Primarily, I did not like how the artist drew Loki as a shriveled, ugly old man with missing teeth. It's so cliché for a villain to be ugly in any case, but here it was jolting because Loki is not the typical villain. Plus, he's a shapeshifter. Why would he choose to look that way? It just didn't work.

The book is filled out with two of Loki and Thor's original encounters by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and an excerpt of Loki from the Siege saga. The Lee/Kirby stories were a nice addition, though the Siege bit is an odd choice since it doesn't stand alone. There is also unused art from the main story and the creators' "pitch" for the storyline.

Overall, though I hated the art work, the story was so compelling and emotional I will still give it 4 stars. Highly recommended. One thing readers should note is that though this book includes "Loki #1-4", it should not be confused with Thor: The Trials of Loki, which also includes a completely different "Loki #1-4"!! I almost didn't buy this because I thought it was the same material. show less

I finished the first volume of Bitch in a Bonnet, covering Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll pick up the second on Kindle when we get back to the states. There's one reason I wish I had it in hard copy, which is to give you more of his wonderful, funny quotes, like his description of Bingley and Jane: "Mr. Bingley, who's basically a man-sized plush toy, has fallen for Jane, the vanilla ice cream cone of the Bennett sisters. show more There's not enough erotic spark there to charge an AA battery."

I thought he was right on the money with S & S and P& P, but not so much with Mansfield Park.

I agree that MP is generally the least-liked of her six novels, and it's certainly my least favorite. And I agree that Fanny Price is the most difficult of Austen's heroines to warm up to. (A spoilery discussion of his take on MP follows).

MANSFIELD PARK SPOILER: But his theory is that in MP she is trying to stretch herself with more complex characters and more subtle shadings than what has come before in S& S and P &P. The novel fails, in his view (although full of all sorts of good Austenian stuff), but it allows her to triumph with all she's learned in Emma. The problem for me is the characters are not more complex and the shadings are not more subtle. Mrs. Norris and Lady Bertram - please! It's just she's chosen a very reserved and reticent heroine (who's been taken from poverty to high society, so her caution seems reasonable), and she has the sibling Crawfords, who are a little reminiscent of Wickham - able to seem awfully good, but unable to overcome their baser instincts. (Well, Henry Crawford can't; Mary Crawford just wants to live in a high style and makes no bones about it).

Rodi also thinks that Edmund should have married Mary, and Fanny should have married Henry, because reserved and somewhat dull Edmund and Fanny would have benefited from the Crawfords' liveliness, and the Crawfords would have been led to lead more kind, moral, sensitive of others lives. What he misses, from my POV, is that those relationships are about constancy vs. inconstancy. There's no way Mary could have lived the life of a clergyman's wife (as she well knew), and a life together with Edmund would have been a misery of entrapment and dissatisfaction. If Fanny had married Henry, there's no way he would've remained faithful, and even Mary acknowledged, while trying to put a happy face on the idea, that he would continue flirting with other women. Fanny would have been miserable, and she didn't even respect him in the first place. END OF SPOILER

Anyway, it was great fun to read. Rodi's deeply steeped in Austen, wonderfully non-stuffy, like he's sitting and chatting with you, and quite insightful. He picked up on all sorts of things I missed, even though I've read the books multiple times.

He believes Austen is widely mis-viewed as "a woman's writer . . . quaint and darling, doe-eyed and demure, parochial if not pastoral, and dizzyingly, swooningly romantic, the inventor and goddess of chick lit." Au contraire. She's "a sly subversive, a clear-eyed social Darwinist, and the most unsparing satirist of her century." She is "wicked, arch, and utterly merciless. She skewers the pompous, the pious, and the libidinous." He'd seat her with Voltaire, Twain and Swift.

Yes! It is her dazzling wit, her eloquent way with the subtle but devastating skewer, that keeps so many coming back again and again. I think he goes too far and generalizes too much, though, in distancing her from romance novels and chick lit. We also come back because we care about Lizzie and Jane and Darcy, and Anne Eliot and Captain Wentworth and so on. But I like very much that he ranks her up there with Shakespeare. Me, too. show less

I needed to read some prose snarkier, bitchier, and more cruelly insulting than my email. I found a whole shelf of Rodi's novels in my local liberry...mother lode!

Who cares what books like this are "about"? The plot's an excuse to travel through the meanest, nastiest corners of your psyche guilt-free! And what a catharsis it is. Not one of Rodi's characters could remotely be called a "hero" except in the lit-crit sense. Everyone, but everyone, is a self-seeking scumbag with multi-level show more agendas of unkindness and power-seeking and ego gratification.

*aaahhh*

Honesty is the best policy? Ha! Honesty needs the best insurance policy, more like! The crashing of dream-castles and the fracturing of hopes and the flattening of the well-intentioned is sheer, vicious, Dorothy-Parker-esque Schadenfreude.

Pop a cork. Sip slowly. Savor the wine, inhale the fumes, and remember not to snort the stuff out your nose laughing. show less

I remember reading Drag Queen sometime in the early 00s, freshly out of the closet; it was a cute little satire that vaguely resembled real life at the time. Re-reading it as a queer adult, one who is now comfortable in who and what he is, I found this both a refreshing reminder of the fun of my early gay days and a more sobering reminder of the inherent danger we all felt back then. Not that there isn't some level of inherent danger today, especially given the current political climate in show more the country, but I do like to think we've come some way since Drag Queen was originally published, and I generally don't think twice about holding my boyfriend's hand out in public.

Drag Queen is a comedy of errors as Mitchell Sayer, an attorney at an established law firm, discovers he has a long lost twin brother. However, Donald is everything that Mitchell is not: he's flamboyant, in-your-face, and a drag queen. As each brother tries to reconcile their feelings about the other, circumstances bring them to an unexpected finale that challenges each brother's very core and brings them ever closer together.

Rodi captures each brother's personalities perfectly; Mitchell is so scared of being too gay, Donald is terrified of being normal. These may be read more as stereotypes now, but there is some definite truth in what each brother is feeling - and this is where Rodi shines as a writer. He gives an honest voice to the fears that many gay men, then and now, feel about who and what they are, and while he covers everything in the laughable shine of satire so that it doesn't seem so terribly bad, these are truths we have all at one time or another faced or are currently facing now. The fear of being found out, the fear of being harassed both physically and emotionally; these are all things that have been at the root of so many men not coming to terms with who they are or letting their friends or family get too close.

After I re-read Drag Queen, I discovered that Rodi wrote several novels chronicling the trials and tribulations of being gay in the 90s and I'm going to go back and start at the beginning of these stories and read my way thru them, both for a chuckle but also as a reminder of how far we've come and how far we still have to go. show less