Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

ReReadable Books

August 2008

"Pluto: Melodrama Unleashed Part II"

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

I was out trimming rose bushes this morning and couldn’t help thinking about renewal, rebirth, destruction that spurs growth – and a rose by any other name.

An interesting melodrama played out recently when an international symposium decreed that Pluto is not a planet. Their opinion does not seem to have altered the impact of the astrological cycles timed to Pluto’s movement.

Pluto was discovered in 1930, a time keyed to World War. Pluto circles the Sun in 248 years, so what we know of Pluto’s effect is either current or from historical records.

We do know that individuals and civilizations feel the slow, deep drumbeat of Pluto. Pluto represents life’s insistent need to change, to grow, to proliferate, and to die. It is the key to the cycle of birth and death.

It’s a more profound version of Mars and so associated with Iron, and power metals such as Uranium. In May, 2008, with Pluto at 0 Degrees of Capricorn, a film came out from Marvel Studios titled Iron Man and grossed over 100 million dollars in the first weekend, not quite what Spiderman, another Marvel property, earned, but up there.

In Iron Man, driven by mid-life crisis (Pluto’s urge to discard and renew) Tony Stark, a billionaire magnate (that level of financial prominence usually involves Pluto) invents a high-tech battle armor. Now he has a new "power" (also Pluto) must decide to use or abuse it. He chooses the path of the superhero.

The Superhero may be an archetype based on the Greek Hero who was part god and endowed with paranormal abilities. Maybe archetypes are ruled by Pluto?

Superman, and other superheros who emerged from comics to radio, film and TV, generally stand against death and change. They put themselves between us ordinary people and massive threats, striving to maintain decency in the world or restore our ethics and morals.

Thus our mythic superheroes arise from our group psyche to resist change, to restore order, to avert disasters, and to stand for the oldest of values, Honor.

The mass psyche of humanity seems to spawn Superheros to combat the huge, impersonal forces for change we examined in the July 2008 column. The individual is overwhelmed by world change, because nothing the individual can do will affect the tsunami of change.

There are two choices, -- surf that tsunami to the beach, or get dumped. If you’re too young, too old or too weak at the time change hits, you get dumped. Our Superheros defend and protect the young, old, and weak.

Pluto has been in Sagittarius (9^th House, philosophy, justice) since 1996 (Clinton Admin; Buffy The Vampire Slayer film 1992, series 1997). Congress made it illegal for banks to "red-line" neighborhoods, so banks made sub-prime loans and securitized them. Now, Pluto in Capricorn (10^th House, Saturn, bones, structure) overwhelms the banking structure. Pluto’s subtle and unseen change like an earthquake on the ocean floor creates a tsunami.

The past twelve years, Pluto has had the world obsessing on philosophy, and some have taken to forcing others to accept their philosophy, religion, dress code.

Pluto rules Death. The death Initiation, the death archetype, is the basic story of The Superhero – a person transformed by Power into a new order of human being.

But have you considered how Pluto rules The Vampire?

From the 1980’s to today, we have seen a massive shift, transformation and rebirth of the Vampire story. It has gone from Dracula’s dark, hopeless-helpless terror ridden nights and desperate combat to slay the vampire and all its spawn to the Vampire as Superhero and supreme Lover.

I do have a soft spot for Vampire Romance, but I also love the Vampire Cop (Forever Knight) and two new cable TV series Moonlight, and Blood Ties (based on Tanya Huff’s "The Blood Books" about the Vampire Henry Fitzroy and the human cop/ private eye Vicki Nelson)

Huff has a final collection of stories about Fitzroy and Nelson, titled Blood Bank, featuring the title Blood Ties on the cover. And this anthology is a treasure indeed, for it also contains the story of how Huff wrote episode 9 of the TV series, plus a draft of the shooting script finally resulting from her efforts, blended with the staff writers’ rewrites.

Huff insists that she will write no more of Henry Fitzroy. If you haven’t read these novels, they are out in omnibus paperback. I’ve reviewed them individually as they came out. This is a truly splendid series. If you think you dislike Vampire novels, this could be where to start.

Not all Vampire Romance is cut from the same cloth. Some is more about the dark, darker or darkest side of sexuality. Some Vampire Romance depicts a flicker of hope for love amidst a universe seething with the complex mixture of underworld species – metaphors for the vicious facets of the human psyche. Such novels tend to read more like horror than romance.

Karen Chance is doing the Cassie Palmer series for RoC and has managed to blend the darkest of the dark visions of the world with that bright, tender spark of true Love. Embrace the Night, third in the series, can be read as a stand-alone, but the prior novels are still available.

The message of the Palmer series is that there is hope in the darkness. But the background, characters, vision and art are all showcasing the true darkness that composes most of the world. This is the opposite of my own world view, so when I find such a novel readable, it’s because of the strength and skill of the writer.

Cassie Palmer comes from an abusive childhood, her parents killed at an early age, her Power of Clairvoyance used to further the interests of Vampires. Maturing, she rebels, and finds lots of people and vampires trying to kill her, trap her, use her, and one sexy vampire assigned to manipulate her. Her view of the world is from the dark bottom of a well, and it seems she just sinks deeper and deeper. The books are rife with Plutonian imagery.

Yet Cassie’s spirit is true Superhero spirit. She’s among the "strong" female heroes who have become so popular as a new generation sees nothing wrong with a woman who kicks ass, even sexy Vampire ass.

I recommend all 3 of Karen Chance’s Cassie Palmer novels if you like a dark view of reality. But read them anyway if you like time-travel puzzles. This one has a really clever magical hiding place for a powerful spell that involves time travel loops. This is mind-candy to me, and I loved the book just for the puzzle. Oh, and Pluto is all about hidden things being revealed. This book is just soooo Pluto ruled.

Charlaine Harris’s new Sookie Stackhouse novel, From Dead To Worse, not only has a Plutonian title, but is chuck full of Plutonian events. Sookie is a telepath, and in this book begins to discover why that is.

Pluto is the planet of generations, of great-grandfathers and secrets hidden under foundations. In this novel, the vast inter-dimensional and supernatural forces unleashed in previous novels wrench the supernatural political landscape asunder.

Some people die in savage attacks, some survive forever changed, and some, like Sookie herself, come to realizations that change their entire definition of Self.

With all the blood flying, magic spells, dark secrets revealed, revolutions plotted, and friends true and false appearing and disappearing, this novel is not "dark."

Sookie is a character who is in the situation discussed in the July column – being wholly overwhelmed by the huge forces of change in the world. She’s a waitress in a bar. She has no power – her telepathy is more a handicap than a help most of the time.

Sookie shows us how to cope with living in a crumbling world filled with big bad nasties. A) Keep your head down. B) Hew true to your principles. C) Be loyal to your friends – if you can figure out which of them isn’t trying to kill you today. D) Let the chips fall where they may – just don’t stand under the cascade. E) Always say your prayers before going to sleep.

Sookie doesn’t wrestle with angst. She cries, and grieves, and gasps with terror when necessary, but she doesn’t strive to impose her agenda on the world. She just wants to get by. To get through this. To help those with worse problems than hers.

What makes her happy is to make others happy. She counts those moments as her life’s achievements. And that’s why men and vampires fall for her. She’s not the kick-ass heroine who’s a competitor of men. But she doesn’t need taking care of, either. However dark the world, near Sookie there’s light.

In a Pluto-trammeled world, we could all take a lesson from Sookie. Be a lamp.