Thoughts on Continuity, Tone, and Beetlejuice

This video was inspired by an episode of The Wordy Pair Podcast where Justin told me about "Beetlejuice" and its sequel, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice."

Now, I've never seen either of those movies, so Justin ends up explaining how the fun, playful tone of the first movie was completely absent from the second movie. It's honestly kind of fun when I ask a basic question or put forward a rudimentary suggestion and Justin is like, "They didn't do that."

Anyway, based on this, I made a video talking about the importance of continuity (including continuity of tone), as well as thinking up some circumstances where you can get away with paying less attention to previous works.

Peak Rex Stout? A Look at The Doorbell Rang

I kind of shot this review from the hip after reading my favorite Nero Wolfe book, The Doorbell Rang.

So, I don't have a detailed written review to put here. Uh... just enjoy the video, I guess?

Here's what I can say: The Doorbell Rang is so much fun. It has one of the coolest plots of any of the Nero Wolfe books, with a lot of engaging twists and turns. It has colorful and interesting characters. It has a lot of wry humor. It also teaches you a couple of good ways to shake off a tail.

The murder is almost incidental to the story!

There are some great scenes (look for Archie "waving his legs around"), some great commentary from Archie, and an amazing scheme by Wolfe to ensure they can finish their job.

It has no illusions about law enforcement and it has a clever solution and famous ending. A lot of questions are left unanswered, yet the book is thoroughly satisfying.

It's basically Nero Wolfe vs. the FBI. As a Nero Wolfe fan who also happens to dislike government surveillance and overreach and corruption, it's like a... ...uh... a really amazing pizza in book form. I devour it whenever I get a chance, and you might like it too.

Disjointed by Design? Review of Slaughterhouse Five

Finally got around to reading some Kurt Vonnegut, and figured I'd start with the classic Slaughterhouse Five.

It's a weird book, to be honest. Not necessarily in a bad way, but as much as Vonnegut explicitly states it's an anti-war piece, the rest of the book that isn't explicitly stating its purpose... doesn't really serve that purpose very well.