Creepy books, and the beginning of my thesis.

I'm quite the little blogger lately! My thesis work has begun with the watching of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Really. It's a hard life. Given that my topic is death and the afterlife and their portrayal in science fiction, Buffy fits in quite nicely. Jon has pointed out that she reminds him a lot of me, which I'm taking in the most complementary of fashions, although he might feel differently if I were to start walking around with a wooden stake and some holy water. (Is smiling to herself about being able to bless water, but refraining from comment so as not to offend her Mommy)

I came across a children's book that looked like it might be good for thesis work called "Soul Taker" by Celia Rees, finished it this morning and am thoroughly spooked. It's about this overweight teenage boy named Lewis who gets picked on and is madly in love with the prettiest girl at school. He gets a job at a toystore, with a toymaker who makes eerily lifelike puppets, complete with human hair. The Toymaker gives him health and diet advice, and Lewis starts losing weight and dating the girl he has a crush on. Meanwhile, bodies are turning up in the city, completely hairless and with no sign of foul play except for a look of terror on their faces. Lewis finds the toymaker's secret room one day, and discovers that the toymaker is constructing a pair of lifesize puppets that look exactly like Lewis and his girlfriend, and they will be next in his mechanized puppet collection. VERY creepy, and I actually had to finish it in the morning rather than at night to prevent nightmares! It should prove useful in my thesis, though.

Enough of such pedantic chatter. Dinner calls, and with it, the question of truth in Ursula Le Guin. I accept thoughts on the matter if anyone is so inclined!