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DRAGON_TATT


                                             October   24, 2009
                                             September 17, 2010
                                             January   26, 2014

Stieg Larsson, "The Girl with                        From material originally
the Dragon Tattoo" (2005)                            posted to alt.gothic.

Though this book was published in 2005, it has a young
heroine who would be well at home in an early cyberpunk
novel, though I think in this case she's a little better
characterized than the Neuromancer-era William Gibson
would've managed.

She's a small young woman covered with tattoos, somewhat
anti-social, a "difficult" person who is legally insane
on a technicality (or perhaps, a little more than a
technicality?), but for all that quite brilliant at the
profession she's fallen into, which is doing background
checks on people that a large corporation has become
interested in.

This is somewhere between a serious
character study and super-hero
fiction, I would say, but eminently
readable... and I'll probably get        And indeed I did, though I
around to reading the two following      took my time about the third,
novels in the series                     since it took it's time about
                                         doing a paperback appearence...
But those two is all that there are
going to be: the author apparently                 The later volumes get
turned in his three manuscripts and                increasingly pulpy, as
promptly died before any of them                   our heroine becomes
were published.                                    extremely rich
                                                   (stealing from a dead
   The author lived in,                            villain), and is
   and set his novel in                            depicted as an *extreme*
   Sweden:                                         genius, coming up with
                                                   a more elegant solution
   Local color is always at least half             to Fermats Last Theorem
   the point of mystery/suspense                   in her spare time (and
   fiction.  (Unlike Science Fiction,              then forgetting the
   where it's the whole point.)                    solution).


      I've seen one of the film           Two things
      versions based on this--            about this kind     CASTLE_SKULL
      the American one, which             of fiction:
      for once did a good job
      on casting the female               (1) The real trick is to
      actress: the Swedish                get the reader to *buy*
      version seems too cute to           these extreme absurdities.
      me, not serious enough.             Our heroine storms in the
                                          door with a boxing
                                          champion in tow to rescue
      The film version works              a damsel in distress, and
      well enough, but                    that *doesn't* seem
      elides too many                     completely ridiculous.
      personal details, and
      I think it may confuse              (2) I suspect that this kind of
      viewers who haven't                 thing improves greatly on
      read the book.                      re-reading once you know more
                                          or less what's going to
         Dangerbaby wondered why          happen-- the eye-rollers have
         the male main character          lost their power to nauseate,
         would go back to his             and you can look to enjoy what
         affair with his editor           there is to be enjoyed...
         and drop our heroine,
         who was obviously a              How does this square with
         better pick...  I                the doctrines of suspense
         realized she didn't get          and suprise twists?
         what was really going
         on: the heroine was                          CHEAP_SUSPENDERS
         taking that relationship
         more seriously than they
         do-- The editor has a
         husband who she has no
         plans on leaving.




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