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helpfulsnowman's review
1.0
Two books here, Bee Vixens and...damn it...oh, space prison for ladies. Jesus, I couldn't even remember it, and I read it last night.
Bee Vixens:
Somewhat grindhouse-y and fun. But for me, it gets a little off track when our female hero, who is a Latina cop with an eyepatch, a great grindhouse badass type who is like Clint Eastwood with a giant rack, gets into a racism argument with a giant bee from Mars? Apparently, the bee doesn't want to make her a drone because her "skin is too dark." The character calls out this racist bullshit.
But let's put on the brakes for a second.
How would an ALIEN BEE have an interpretation of race that's parallel to what humans have? If race is a construct, why would an ALIEN BEE have any concept of race, and if so, why would that concept have developed to be the same as that of humans from Earth?
I know a little something about bees because we attempted a bee rescue. We were hoping for a wonderful success story like you see on The Dodo. Instead, the bee lasted about a day, then we watched it die in terrible agony for a few seconds before I crushed it and put it out of its misery. You wouldn't think it'd be a big deal to watch a bee die, but it's a weird feeling. It's very different to have a bee splatter on your windshield versus trying to nurse one back to health and then it shoots out a bunch of liquid, its tongue extends way too far out of its mouth, and it staggers around in obvious pain, obvious even though it's a completely different species.
Ahem.
Anyway, bees, as they approach the end of their lives, lose most of their fuzz, and they appear darker. The darker the bee appears, the more likely its close to the end of its life.
Therefore, a more logical explanation for the Mars Bee's dislike of dark skin is because, in bee physiology, darker colors indicate closeness to the end of life.
Now, my thesis here isn't that this is what the bee was saying in this book. My point with all this bee shit is that the addition of a "racist" Martian bee into this story makes no fucking sense, and not in a fun way that things make no sense. It's throwing in some racism so that we can see "Geez, this bee really IS a villain!" I accuse this book of using racism as a character trait in order to create stakes, completely unnecessarily. Bee women are killing everyone left and right. You don't need to convince me that this queen bee's gotta die.
Anyway, it's a little weird, to me. It's like the book wants to have its cake (make a wacky grindhouse tale) while also eating it, too (making an IMPORTANT point!). And that mix ain't so effective for me, like mixing Archie and The Predator, which is also something writer Alex de Campi attempted.
Space Prison Ladies Story
Okay, writers of things, let me say it one more time for everyone in the cheap seats: We've seen the sci-fi prison as metaphor for the injustice of the justice system. We've seen it a lot. So unless you're going to do something interesting with it, skip it.
There's a bunch of chicks on a prison spaceship headed to somehwere so they can be imprisoned in that place instead of on the ship.
Already: dumb. With the expense of sending people into space, I guarantee you, if the government ever started a "prison planet," it'd be a fake thing made with movie magic that never exists, and the "prisoners" would be shot and dumped in a big, deep hole right here on good ol' Earth.
But let's not critique the plot holes of something that's not intended to be airtight. Though I am beginning to suspect this "Grindhouse" series is a cheap way to be able to tell terribly-plotted stories because that's "part of the aesthetic."
Forget all that. Let me come up with, right now, 10 alternative prison scenarios more interesting than most of the ones I've seen lately:
1. White People Prison: All the white people create prisons and put themselves in voluntarily. Because it's easier to put walls up around YOU than it is to put walls around everyone else. It's easier to keep everyone else OUT than it is to keep them IN. And we also get a parallel story: What does the rest of the world think about this, and do they attempt to destroy this system?
2. All-Gender Prison: If the prison system is no longer gendered, what happens? How does it work? What becomes of the babies that are born into this system, literally?
3. Relationship Prison: Convicted criminals are punished by being put into relationships with total assholes. They cohabitate, have to do date nights, all that bad shit, at the non-prisoner's direction. Is there a worse prison than being forced into a 5-hour Christmas dinner?
4. Appalachin Trail Prison: A long, forest-y path that constitutes a "prison." Convicts start at the beginning, and if they survive, walk out at the end free people.
5. Couples' Prison: Couples who just can't get along are put into what's basically a studio apartment. They can leave when one of them dies, either naturally or not.
6. Helen Keller Prison: Depending on the offense, your hearing, sight, touch, or any combination of senses is temporarily disabled.
7. Body Horror Prison: In a future where we've got the technology to remove and re-grow limbs, convicts lose limbs for periods of time.
8. Dad Prison: Shitty dads have to sit through a pop concert that never ends. They are charged with protecting a pre-teen girl and waiting in line to buy her merch.
9. Cult Prison: over time, the members of a cult all get imprisoned, intentionally, and rule the prisons from the inside.
10. Inexplicable Experiments Prison: Prisoners are subjected to varied, ever-changing, nonsensical experiments. Prisoner A is fed only milk. Prisoner B has to fix typewriters that are sunk at the bottom of a pool. Prisoner C has to construct a logical timeline that provides continuity for all iterations of Batman, including all the films, TV shows, and comics.
Okay? That's 10 mostly-crappy ideas, but that was like 10 minutes of my time. So let's see something wortwhile with these future prisons, eh?
The concept of a prison that's unfairly putting people in a jail with no rehabilition efforts is barely even a fiction. It's like writing about a mega fast food corporation that's not really concerned with the health of the people who eat there. Wow, where did you come up with such a creative idea!?
Bee Vixens:
Somewhat grindhouse-y and fun. But for me, it gets a little off track when our female hero, who is a Latina cop with an eyepatch, a great grindhouse badass type who is like Clint Eastwood with a giant rack, gets into a racism argument with a giant bee from Mars? Apparently, the bee doesn't want to make her a drone because her "skin is too dark." The character calls out this racist bullshit.
But let's put on the brakes for a second.
How would an ALIEN BEE have an interpretation of race that's parallel to what humans have? If race is a construct, why would an ALIEN BEE have any concept of race, and if so, why would that concept have developed to be the same as that of humans from Earth?
I know a little something about bees because we attempted a bee rescue. We were hoping for a wonderful success story like you see on The Dodo. Instead, the bee lasted about a day, then we watched it die in terrible agony for a few seconds before I crushed it and put it out of its misery. You wouldn't think it'd be a big deal to watch a bee die, but it's a weird feeling. It's very different to have a bee splatter on your windshield versus trying to nurse one back to health and then it shoots out a bunch of liquid, its tongue extends way too far out of its mouth, and it staggers around in obvious pain, obvious even though it's a completely different species.
Ahem.
Anyway, bees, as they approach the end of their lives, lose most of their fuzz, and they appear darker. The darker the bee appears, the more likely its close to the end of its life.
Therefore, a more logical explanation for the Mars Bee's dislike of dark skin is because, in bee physiology, darker colors indicate closeness to the end of life.
Now, my thesis here isn't that this is what the bee was saying in this book. My point with all this bee shit is that the addition of a "racist" Martian bee into this story makes no fucking sense, and not in a fun way that things make no sense. It's throwing in some racism so that we can see "Geez, this bee really IS a villain!" I accuse this book of using racism as a character trait in order to create stakes, completely unnecessarily. Bee women are killing everyone left and right. You don't need to convince me that this queen bee's gotta die.
Anyway, it's a little weird, to me. It's like the book wants to have its cake (make a wacky grindhouse tale) while also eating it, too (making an IMPORTANT point!). And that mix ain't so effective for me, like mixing Archie and The Predator, which is also something writer Alex de Campi attempted.
Space Prison Ladies Story
Okay, writers of things, let me say it one more time for everyone in the cheap seats: We've seen the sci-fi prison as metaphor for the injustice of the justice system. We've seen it a lot. So unless you're going to do something interesting with it, skip it.
There's a bunch of chicks on a prison spaceship headed to somehwere so they can be imprisoned in that place instead of on the ship.
Already: dumb. With the expense of sending people into space, I guarantee you, if the government ever started a "prison planet," it'd be a fake thing made with movie magic that never exists, and the "prisoners" would be shot and dumped in a big, deep hole right here on good ol' Earth.
But let's not critique the plot holes of something that's not intended to be airtight. Though I am beginning to suspect this "Grindhouse" series is a cheap way to be able to tell terribly-plotted stories because that's "part of the aesthetic."
Forget all that. Let me come up with, right now, 10 alternative prison scenarios more interesting than most of the ones I've seen lately:
1. White People Prison: All the white people create prisons and put themselves in voluntarily. Because it's easier to put walls up around YOU than it is to put walls around everyone else. It's easier to keep everyone else OUT than it is to keep them IN. And we also get a parallel story: What does the rest of the world think about this, and do they attempt to destroy this system?
2. All-Gender Prison: If the prison system is no longer gendered, what happens? How does it work? What becomes of the babies that are born into this system, literally?
3. Relationship Prison: Convicted criminals are punished by being put into relationships with total assholes. They cohabitate, have to do date nights, all that bad shit, at the non-prisoner's direction. Is there a worse prison than being forced into a 5-hour Christmas dinner?
4. Appalachin Trail Prison: A long, forest-y path that constitutes a "prison." Convicts start at the beginning, and if they survive, walk out at the end free people.
5. Couples' Prison: Couples who just can't get along are put into what's basically a studio apartment. They can leave when one of them dies, either naturally or not.
6. Helen Keller Prison: Depending on the offense, your hearing, sight, touch, or any combination of senses is temporarily disabled.
7. Body Horror Prison: In a future where we've got the technology to remove and re-grow limbs, convicts lose limbs for periods of time.
8. Dad Prison: Shitty dads have to sit through a pop concert that never ends. They are charged with protecting a pre-teen girl and waiting in line to buy her merch.
9. Cult Prison: over time, the members of a cult all get imprisoned, intentionally, and rule the prisons from the inside.
10. Inexplicable Experiments Prison: Prisoners are subjected to varied, ever-changing, nonsensical experiments. Prisoner A is fed only milk. Prisoner B has to fix typewriters that are sunk at the bottom of a pool. Prisoner C has to construct a logical timeline that provides continuity for all iterations of Batman, including all the films, TV shows, and comics.
Okay? That's 10 mostly-crappy ideas, but that was like 10 minutes of my time. So let's see something wortwhile with these future prisons, eh?
The concept of a prison that's unfairly putting people in a jail with no rehabilition efforts is barely even a fiction. It's like writing about a mega fast food corporation that's not really concerned with the health of the people who eat there. Wow, where did you come up with such a creative idea!?
shri_ace13's review
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
giantjackalopes's review
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
james7634's review
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Really fun pulp noir story. Off the walls bonkers while hailing back to cult fiction. Loved it
jeffreyp's review
4.0
What a great bunch of stories--and fun art. This is what happens when a woman writes Grindhouse comics, and knocks it out of the park.
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