A while ago I stumbled upon this trailer video of an upcoming movie, The Host, which turned out to be the film adaptation of the same titled novel by the very same author responsible for the hugely popular (in terms of box office, not critic) Twilight series.
Yes, I know a lot of people think Twilight is stupid and suitable for teenage girls only. I agree with that, after making a fatal mistake of actually buying a ticket to watch the first one in a movie theatre in Seattle during a raining evening. The weather and location turned out to be the main motivator, because the story backdrop happens in Seattle, in the thesis that lack of sunlight provides natural camouflage for the vampires. (I really want to advocate Beijing as a far better locale due to its heavy pollution, but let me not derail.)
The thing is, I really wanted to know why stories written by the author, Stephenie Meyer, tend to be so popular. There is no way I am even going to get near the Twilight books, but fortunately, The Host contains two major themes that I tend to enjoy, sci-fi, and conquering humans. So I read the book during a long distance flight.
I like the book tremendously, not just for the sci-fi and (conquering) human components. A theme that is really special behind many of these Stephenie Meyer stories is the study of relationships among entities that have quasi-human souls embedded in quasi-human forms. Like vampires + werewolves + humans (Twilight), or brain snatchers from outer space (The Host). So, essentially, these are romances embedded in an expanded sci-fi universe with extra dimensions for all the love, hate, and intrigue.
This being said, I still plan to allocate more my novel quota for Neal Stephenson. Brain snatchers are intriguing, but less so than brain computers who can alter the past and the future.
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