Newsflash: Hugo Awards Swamped by Crap

This once again boils down to a, "If anyone still cares about the Hugos anymore" story.

Their pathetic list of nominations came out this year. Is anyone surprised that it's all Tor, all the time?

I'll go into detail in a minute, but let's look at one thing in particular.

Six nominees for best editor. See anything missing?

I'll give you a hint: we were all told that This Person would have almost certainly have won the Hugo award for best editor, but she lost because she was a Puppy Pick.

If you said, "Who is Toni Weisskopf, Alex?" you'd be right.

But strangely enough, Toni isn't here. But she's not a Puppy Pick this year. We were all told that she would have *won* if she weren't a Puppy Pick.

Guess what: she wouldn't have even been NOMINATED if she weren't a Puppy Pick.

They lied. Shocking, isn't it?

Yeah, I know it's not a surprise, but I can't convey the depth of my sarcasm without indulging in a dump truck's worth of hyperbole right now.

I mean, where do you want to start?

How about Best series?

The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
The Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone (Tor Books)
The Expanse by James S.A. Corey (Orbit US / Orbit UK)
The October Daye Books by Seanan McGuire (DAW / Corsair)
The Peter Grant / Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch (Gollancz / Del Rey / DAW / Subterranean)
The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik (Del Rey / Harper Voyager UK)

Okay. Bujold is good. Novik is ... okay, I guess. I gave up after she rewrote Waterloo.

Everyone else ... should I have heard of these people? I'm almost surprised that they're just this obscure. Then again, I wouldn't have heard of Jemisin without the whole Hugo mess, so I'm not surprised.

But where's Honor Harrington?

Where's Black Tide Rising?

Where's Terry Goodkind?

Where is any of a half dozen other, good, BETTER writers? You know, the people who sell ten times the books than these folks? If these represent all of fandom, shouldn't we be expecting more best sellers on the list? After all, you become a bestseller by selling more books than other people. So ... where are the big names? There are six nominees here, but only two are people I can pick out of a lineup? Really?

But of course, this doesn't represent all of fandom, this just represents an ever shrinking niche that is WorldCon.

Best fan writer is interesting, if only because it's Mike Glyer (770), Jeffro Johnson (Castalia), Chuck Tingle (anarchist), and Foz Meadows, who I'm sure I should know of offhand, but danged if I know who it is. There's also a Natalie Luhrs and Abigail Nussbaum.

But best dramatic presentation, long form .... look at this

• Arrival -- okay. Sure. I've heard good things.
• Deadpool -- not surprised
• Hidden Figures -- Who? What? Huh?
• Rogue One -- Eh. Okay. It was entertaining.
• Stranger Things, Season One-- I've also heard good things about this.
• Ghostbusters, -- AAARRRRGGGHHH. Expect this to win. Because the Hugos

Argh, this is depressing me. Let's see if I can plow through the rest of this without getting an ulcer.

Best Related work: "Geek Feminist"? Really? Ugh. Carrie Fisher's "The Princess Diarist."  "The Women of Harry Potter." There's an Ursula Le Guin project, and a Neil Gaiman. I guess someone decided that "womyn" were the "in" thing this year. (Again, expect crap Ghostbusters to win)

Best Novel .... again, who?

Best Fanzine: Oh, Jeffro and the Castalia blog. Congrats again, man.

And, as someone just pointed out to me: all but one of the John W. Campbell Award nominees are women. What are the odds of that, considering they are "clearly an oppressed and underrepresented member of literary society?"

I guess "womyn" really were on the bullet points this year.

[EDIT.] Keep in mind, this is a list where the most votes went to Best Novel .... with a little over 2,000 votes. Jon del Arroz did a great job of showing just how bad a drop this is. A 44% drop in some cases. This has to hurt revenue.

You can see the whole list here.

But why bother? Go vote in the Dragon Awards.  Here are some suggestions.

If you want books by someone you've never heard of before, 

Here, have some of mine.

Starting with the Love at First Bite series. 

    

New reviews for Love at First Bite

Apparently, today is review day, starting with Robert Kroese's book, Aye, Robot, and continuing ... now, really.

To start with, there's Lori Bird, who wrote the original review for Honor at Stake on The Catholic Geek blog. She has her own website now, and reviewed Live and Let Bite there.

Seriously, go buy the book. It’s more than fun. I’ll give this one another 4.9 out of 5, and that minor point off the full five is just because some descriptions are a touch risque. I’d call it a heavy PG-13, but not R rating in that sense.

Speaking of the Catholic Geeks, Margot St. Aubin decided to review Murphy's Law of Vampires over on TCG site. 

As she put it.

Just when you think you are prepared for vampires— it’s not bleeping vampires but something else entirely.

Heh.

And, of course, we have the review by Jim McCoy, over at his own site.

I did a post awhile back about Hollywood and some books that need to be turned into movies. In this case though, I'm going to suggest that maybe this series gets the Game of Thrones treatment. There's a television series here. I mean that. We may need to give Finn a bit of time to get a little further ahead before it gets started but this makes sense as a series. It's written that way and it works that way. I have zero pull in Hollywood but if I ever get some (about as likely as my getting hit by lightning twice on the same day as I hit the lottery) I'm going to make Finn an offer for this one.

So .... that happened. And it's awesome.

If you're wondering why I think that this will make a great Dragon Award nomination ... you know why. Click here and nominate it if you agree. And if you don't, I have an argument for you right here.

And if you've read them already, you'll know what I mean.

And if you haven't, what are you waiting for?

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

Review: Aye, Robot, by Robert Kroese

The sequel to the insanity that was Starship Grifters (click here for my review) brings us the continuing adventures of Rex Nihilo.

And boy, is the crazy still with us in Aye, Robot.

After interstellar con man Rex Nihilo hijacks a cargo freighter on a whim, he decides that he and his long-suffering robot sidekick Sasha have found their calling as space pirates. But when the ship's cargo turns out to be a cryogenically frozen religious fanatic who holds the secret to a vast galactic conspiracy, Rex and Sasha find themselves on the run from real pirates--as well as agents of the oppressive Malarchy, crazy space cultists and the Ursa Minor mafia. If Rex is going to get out of this jam alive, he might just have to save the galaxy... again.

Believe it or not, this is the more straightforward plot of the two novels. While Starship Grifters was covered a a surface layer of choas, with everything as a jumble until the magician showed us the con.

Now, the story is more of a straight line.

.... Except we open perhaps a week into the events of the novel, spend half of the book with 76-hours earlier (estimated). Our heroes have lost their memory, trip over a pirate ship, cargo, and a weapon to control the universe.

Why, yes, Aye, Robot is just as insane as Starship Grifters, why do you ask?

In Starship Grifters, memory and the twist at the end were constants throughout the novel. Now, we're going to play more games with each, following up on both of them far more.  I'm not going to say I was cheated out of anything, but after Starship Grifters, I was not going to trust Aye, Robot as far as I could throw it. There wasn't a massive twist at the end like I expected, but I didn't miss it. I was happy with a relatively straightforward line.

It was interesting to see that Rex might have a bit of character development in this one. Instead of the insane, random firing of neurons that ended up in a successful conclusion of the novel, Rex has reasons for doing what he does. Most of his reasons even make sense.

Rex's faithful robot companion, Sasha, is also getting more of a character. It's fascinating.

And we also have the return of the bounty hunter Pepper Melange ... yes, really ... who I always saw as Scarlet Johansson. She all but stole the last one, but was gracious enough to not seal this novel from Rex and Sasha.

Four and a half out of five star stars for Aye, Robot.

And if you want more snarky humor, check out the Love At First Bite Series

 

The Catholic Geek radio show: The world of Science Fiction and Fantasy with Jim McCoy 03/29

The Catholic Geek: The world of Science Fiction and Fantasy with Jim McCoy 03/29 by We Built That Network | Books Podcasts: Blogger Jim McCoy joins host Declan Finn to discuss how the world of SFF shouldn't be limited to just books, and open up to video games, card games, and more.



This was a fun show.  Yes, it happened last Wednesday. Sorry.

But it's up. And we're live.

Enjoy.

More Disasters to Marvel At, a Fisk

Marvel doesn't learn. In fact, they've doubled down on their stupid.

Many moons ago, I wrote up an evaluation of everything wrong with Marvel comics, where I concluded that Disney should have Joe Quesada walk the plank off the top of Marvel's office building. 

They have since doubled down on the stupid by adding POLITICS to the mess.

And now, the VP of Marvel is declaring ..... that the problem is the readers.

Yup, you read that correctly: the problem isn't that the writing sucks, the characters, premises, politics, and situations are forced, or that gender and pallet swapping heroes in the name of "diversity" is an unoriginal and stupid idea. No, the problem is YOU. YOU, dear reader, have been proclaimed by Marvel to be the problem. YOU are the racist / sexist / homophobe who just can't understand all of their brilliant concepts and ideas.

..... So, obviously, we are so stupid, they're obviously too smart for us, and can't be tainted by our money.

Yeah, seriously, I was out of the Marvel market after One More Day, and they only got dumber from there. Since then, they've only made things more and more idiotic since then.

And, yes, for the record, I have serious problems with the new Ms. Marvel. Not because she's Muslim. Not because they've replaced one Ms. Marvel with another (Carol Danvers got promoted to Captain Marvel, which makes a certain level of sense), but ... Well, I'll give you a hint.

Fans of the film The Incredibles will see my problem immediately.

If you thought that capes were a problem, look at this design. It's supposed to be some sort of headscarf variant, but good God, if it gets caught on anything, it's going to take her head off. Forget flying through the air, or getting caught on wreckage, she'd be decapitated riding on a roller coaster. 

Oh, and speaking of Captain Marvel, apparently, Miss Marvel decided to become a fascist in Civil War II.

And one cover of Mockingbird was literally "Ask me about my feminist politics."

Yes, really. In a comic book where I want to see Spider Man beat up Venom, or vice versa, they want to stuff politics in there. 

You know, Marvel guys, it was really bad enough that the original Civil War was a piss-poor analogy on the War on Terror -- with conflicting plotlines, story ideas, concepts of what the original Superhero Registration act even had, and sticking heroes in a prison that made real life GITMO look like day care -- but going into full on, real world politics? Are you stupid over at 666 5th Avenue?

Yes. Yes you are.

Let's look at this interview with Marvel VP of Sales David Gabriel, shall we?

What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity. They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not. 

Okay, I already have to stop. Hey, dummy, you're the VP of SALES. Have you NOT NOTICED that Marvel doesn't have many (or any, depending on the month) titles in the bestseller's column? So that means that EVERYBODY is getting screwed -- Daredevil, Spider Man, Hulk, Captain America, etc.

Seriously, Gabriel, you're VP of sales. Do you even math, bro? Seriously, are the sales of Captain America UP since he said "Hail Hydra," and your people treated the readers like idiots until the next issue came out and they retracted nearly everything they said?

Oh, and "That's what we heard, whether we believe it or not?" Hey, dummy, your sales are tanking. Believe in the power of the purse. People have voted with their feet, and they are moving.

In fact, his next sentence is:

I don’t know that that’s really true, but that’s what we saw in sales. 

Shocking, huh? Math. It's a thing. Use it.

We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against.

So, Hydra-Cap? Was that working? Or maybe making a MODOK supervillain that was Trump? Really? Those were working?

That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked.

YOU DIDN'T HAVE FRESH, NEW OR EXCITING IDEAS! You brought in a black female, threw her in Iron Man armor, and declared her something new. You gave Jane Foster Thor's hammer. They brought in another Spider-man who was black, and made another Miss Marvel as Muslim, and then made Spider-Gwen and "Moon Girl." 

These idiots stuffed the Falcon into the Captain America suit, and somehow turned Sam Wilson into more Black Panther party propaganda than the actual character NAMED BLACK PANTHER. And guess what, people like Sam Wilson. He was one of the stars of the Captain America films. He was awesome. But no, Marvel's writing sucked, and suddenly people don't like him because he's "diverse"? Really? 

Marvel has not used one "fresh, new or exciting idea" in a decade! They're giving old branding to new people, and praying that the popularity will transfer over. It's basically a pallet and / or gender swap.

EVEN IO9 KNOWS THIS IS BS. And io9 screw up is Beth Elderkin, the creature from the black lagoon that suggested killing or castrating Puppies. Even she's not stupid enough to fall for this.

Gabriel’s point is bull****, because it shelves blame onto the readers and blatantly ignores a lot of other reasons Marvel Comics are doing terribly. For example, the crazy over-abundance of events and crossovers....They also can completely screw over beloved characters for the sake of drama, like turning Captain America into a fascist as Sam Wilson has taken his mantle.

And of course, they upped the price, and they don't have anyone in the talent pool anymore worth a damn.

I wonder if those could have anything to do with it? Hmmmmm.

When io9 comes close to the voice of sanity, we know it's time to start firing people at Marvel.

Here, have some books that are more superhero focused than Marvel yesterday.

And they're cheaper than come comic book.

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

Hollywood Screw Ups

When Hollywood adapts a novel to a film, the average is to bet on the adaptation SUCKING. Lord of the Rings is an outlier, and Harry Potter was mostly faithful because they didn't want to get torn apart by a legion of angry ten year olds.

But mostly, you're better off just running. The Relic, Shooter (the film), The Bourne Identity (the films were so two dimensional) and the list goes on.

Now what fresh hell has been unleashed on us?

I give you.... Disney.

There's Cars 3 .... because everyone loved one and two so much (hint: It's the only Pixar film I can't find anyone to say a nice word about)

Because they're bringing back the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Really? The abomination of the second and third films weren't enough for you? And no, you couldn't drag me to see any of the films after that. You would literally have to pay me to review that drek. I mean literally. If I can get an offer, I'll start a kickstarter. I'll do a review.  And, apparently, Orlando Bloom's career sucks so badly right now, he's been dragged back into this film. Either that, or the franchise has been going downhill so badly that they had to back up the dump truck filled with money to pay his salary.

Next, they're doing a live action Mulan....

Yes. Because every review of Beauty and the Beast I've seen from people I trust has been less than positive -- or, at best, showed me that, yes, this was a totally unnecessary remake. They even made it with A LEAD ACTRESS WHO CAN'T SING. So now we're going to have yet another unnecessary remake.

Yay.

And then we're going to have a sequel .... to Mary Poppins. Yes, you heard, Mary, flipping, Poppins. The genius title? Mary Poppins Returns.  Really? It took fifty years to think up this title?

And who do you get to replace Julie Andrews?

The film stars Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins,

Yeah. This is Emily Blunt

I suspect that her choice was based on the type of drugs the casting guy was on.

And the plot? Oh, you're going to love this one. Remember Mary Poppins right? A distant father hires a nanny to deal with his troublesome kids. Hilarity ensues.

This one?

Set 25 years after the original film, and taking inspiration from later books in the Mary Poppins series, the film will see Mary Poppins revisiting the Banks family after they suffer a family tragedy.

The film opens Christmas Day 2018.

Family tragedy! A surefire Christmas film.

"Oh, but it's based off of later books!"

If you'll turn your attention to this corner, you will see a brief synopsis of each book in the series. You will note that there is nothing that even remotely resembles a tragedy.

So, shut up, Disney.


Finally, worst of all, they are making (read: they will screw up) A Wrinkle in Time. 

A Wrinkle ... in Time.

A WRINKLE IN TIME!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

SCREW YOU DISNEY! MAY YOUR PARKS BE SWALLOWED UP AND FALL INTO THE NINTH LEVEL OF HELL.

Why do I say that? Because the author, Madeleine L'Engle basically wrote a YA novel that is essentially Christian...

Remember the last time they did one of those? Oh yeah, Narnia.

This is going to suck.

Seriously. Go to Hell, Disney. Straight to Hell.

Here, have some books that are more cinematic than most Hollywood films lately.

And they're cheaper than a movie ticket.

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

Love at First Bite, part 4, is Coming

Book 4 of my Love at First Bite series is coming. It might be titled Good to the Last Drop, but I have a few other suggestions going the rounds. 

Here's the only problem I have.

I need a title.

I've already started a survey in my group on Facebook, as well as on my Facebook page, asking for suggestions. And I've gotten a lot of feedback.

I'm actually surprised, especially with some of the ones suggested for me.

Good to the Last Drop is currently winning, and I didn't even suggest this one. It's pulled ahead, and I can't believe it didn't occur to me. My family has been making this joke AT blood banks for years.

Greenwich Village of the Damned -- one of mine, and suggested by a chapter title.

Final Blood -- Book 4 will be the end to the main arc of the series. So "final" in the title has a good ring to it. Also, it's a take on First Blood -- you know, the novel that started John Rambo on his career.

Shadow of Murphy -- I originally suggested this because there are elements of Murphy's Law of Vampires that resonate in this novel. I won't say what, because that might spoil the surprise.

Certain Parts of Brooklyn -- This is actually taken from an exchange in the film Casablanca.

Major Strasser to Rick: Are you one of those people who cannot imagine the Germans in their beloved Paris? ....How about New York?

Rick to Strasser: "Well there are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade."

Bloody Love -- a original title, suggested by on of my acquaintances.

Murphy's Shadow -- another suggestion, and probably better than "Shadow of Murphy," if only so the cover artist can have most of the cover dedicated to the image.

Army of Light -- I've always liked the imagery of the term, used in Babylon 5. No one else does, apparently.

Shadows of Day -- This works for reasons.

At the end of the day, I suspect most of the titles will be used. Why? Because I'll stop needing titles after I run out of novels.

If you've missed any of my novels, click some below.

And if you haven't, ask yourself, have you reviewed them?

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

15 Movies Where the Guy DOESN'T Get the Girl

My family makes lists. We've done it for a very long time. After watching one of the following movies, we started assembling THIS list.

Easily 95% of Hollywood stories end with boy get girl, and vice versa. Personally, I'm a fan of this ending. I'm a romantic, somewhere under all this cynicism. So shoot me.

But how often have you seen a film where the man and woman meet, fall in love, and DON'T go home in the end?

There be spoilers ahead, so you've been warned.

These are listed in no particular order, by the way. I will not discuss Romeo and Juliet / West Side Story, because 1) it's the same bloody story, and 2) it's been talked to death.

Shall we begin?

Casablanca

If you don't know this one by now ... where the Hell have you been? It's a classic.

Chronologically, the events are -- Boy meets girl, girl leaves boy because she discovers that she's NOT a widow, girl wanders into boy's gin joint with not-dead husband. Husband happens to be hunted by Nazis because he is THE propaganda arm of the resistance, a true leader. Boy let's girl and husband go off into the sunset, despite that he still loves her, but it's for the greater good, because the husband is needed in World War II, and he needs her. Boy walks off into the fog with his best friend.

It was a great execution, and a classic film. And if you haven't seen it ... what the bleep are you waiting for?

Gone with the Wind
Another classic film, this one is more convoluted. Girl is a whiny little brat who becomes a manipulative woman. In order to keep the family farm within the family, she goes through several men, landing, finally, on a Han Solo prototype. After putting up with years of abuse from this woman, their daughter is killed in a horse riding accident. He has no reason to stay and put up with his wife's crap anymore, and leaves her -- at pretty much the moment where she realizes that she actually loves the guy she married for his money.

Yeah, this was one screwed up dynamic from minute one. Every time I turn into this film, I tune in for Rhett Butler's scenes, and the burning of Atlanta.

When they made a sequel, several decades later, the two finally ended up together, only after she leaves the family farm behind her, deciding that her home was with the family she had created.

But the original was truly an exemplary portrayal of Dorothy Parker's line: For every bitch there is a son of a bitch.

The Bodyguard

Do I even need to bring this one up? Won a few academy awards. Girl hires boy as bodyguard -- boy is a stiff, OCD security specialist. Boy and girl take a while to warm up to each other. SPend one night together. Boy is screwed up in that he didn't maintain perfect control. Yelling ensues. Boy saves girl. Boy moves onto his next job, letting girl fly off into the sunset.

This film was carried by style as much as anything else. A great many elements of this film still hold up, strangely enough. It's odd, but it mostly works.

Dr. Kildare

An entire series of films revolved around this character, but at the end of the day, in the penultimate film, the title doctor loses his wife to -- I believe -- a traffic accident. It was out of nowhere, and surprisingly heart wrenching for a series that is largely light and breezy.

If you trip over it on TCM, I do recommend the series, if only for Lionel Barrymore.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Louis Armstrong's piece, "We have all the time in the world has ominous overtones in our household because of this film. It is cruel irony for this film. A new James Bond had just taken over, and married the best Bond girl ever -- Diana "Emma Peel" Rigg.

Bond gets married. Leaves the Secret Service. Drives off on his honeymoon ....

And his wife is murdered in a drive by shooting by Enst Stavro Blofeld.

.... It is possibly the only Bond film that has a real emotional ending.

The Great Gatsby

Talk about a train wreck.

Boy meets girl. Boy is from the wrong side of the tracks. Boy grows up, gets his fortune, and dedicates his entire life to getting enough cash to make the Silver Spoon girl happy. Girl is married. Boy tries to woo girl away from husband. Girl drives boy's car, and runs over a local woman. Girl's husband talks the dead woman's husband into killing boy. Boy dies. Girl wanders off with husband as though nothing happened.

This feels like the prototype of every screwed up love story ever. Why is this guy chasing this girl? He could have any woman he wants, and he focuses all of his attention on married woman who is ultimately a vapid shell of a human being. I don't understand any "romance" where a guy is treated like a doormat by the object of his affections, and he takes it until she comes around -- only in this case, she doesn't come around.

Ugh.

The Manchurian Candidate (Original)

Boy meets girl. Boy and girl are broken up by schmuck parents. Boy goes off to Vietnam. Boy is brainwashed to be an assassin when the right commands are sent. Boy is sent to murder girl's father, girl gets in the way and is killed. Boy is deprogrammed, kills his handlers, and then himself, without ever knowing that he had killed the girl he loved.

... Just ouch.

And this was  Frank Sinatra film, sans Rat Pack. Oy.

Comic Book Films

Yes, they get their own category. Why? Because you generally don't expect comic books to have Romeo and Juliet syndrome, where everything goes bad. Unless the girlfriend is murdered because the writer has no idea what to do with her.

Captain America

Boy meets girl. Boy is frozen under the ice for decades --JUST AFTER finally making a date with her.

This doesn't help when you get to part two. Girl is still alive when he comes back.  Girl has Alzheimer's... damn that was heartbreaking.

Wolverine: Origin

Stop right there, and keep reading. I see you reaching for the comments section to complain. Yes. this is a film where the boy and girl don't end up together, even if you hated the film. And it's also sort of hard when you realize that not only does she die trying to protect him, he doesn't even remember her doing it.

The Dark Knight

Talk about your train wrecks. Boy meets girl, boy loses parents. Boy dresses up like giant bat. Girl finds a nice guy. Boy decides that the nice guy means he doesn't HAVE to dress up like a giant bat. Girl is blown up by killer clown. Boy thinks she would have waited for him, even though she was going to run off with the nice guy.

Ouch.

Amazing Spider Man 2

I haven't seen this one yet, mostly because I know what happens. I was never really a fan of Gwen Stacy in the comics, but Emma Stone made me like her. I was rooting for them. And then she gets dropped off of a clock tower. Really? Couldn't have waited until film #3?

Questionable Content

These are films and setups where you look at them and go ... "Was that a romance?"


The Dain Curse

Okay, this one is screwed up.

A Dashiell Hammett book made into a film, The Dain Curse centers around a rich girl who is hip deep in problems: there's a simple murder, to start with, and then a cult (and a murder), then another murder, and a bombing, AND she's got a major drug problem. Our main character is a PI hired by the family, who is dragged down the rabbit hole.

I"m not even sure if this one even counts, really. If there's really a romantic connection between the two, or what.

Big

10 year old becomes an adult Tom Hanks. Meets adult woman. At the end of the film, he becomes a 10 year old again.

..... This one just makes my head hurt.

Count of Monte Cristo

Boy meets girl. Boy is thrown in jail. Boy comes back for revenge and finds that one of his targets married the girl. Boy destroys all of them. Girl informs boy that burning all of his bridges on a quest for revenge isn't cute or endearing, and leaves.

This one is questionable because the original love story isn't the focus of the film, or the novel -- it's the revenge. So does it count? No idea.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Yikes. What do you do with this one? Boy meets girl. We discover girl is a Nazi. Girl also slept with boy's father. Girl goes crazy and dies when she screws with the wrong artifact.

.... I won't even touch this one.

Zorba the Greek

Again, the love story here is secondary, and perhaps even tertiary.  Boy is setting up a business. Boy meets other boy. Both boys get girls. Boy #1 loses girl because a DIFFERENT boy killed himself because she wouldn't love him, and his family murders her. Boy #2 loses girl to disease. Business falls apart in epic failure.

I'm .... not even sure where to start. So I won't.

So, what did I miss? Anything in particular? 

For books where the boy will -- most likely -- get the girl ... eventually

Try some of these

The Love at First Bite series. 

    

TONIGHT, ON The Catholic Geek: Dragon Award Winner Nick Cole 03/26

The Catholic Geek: Dragon Award Winner Nick Cole 03/26 by We Built That Network | Books Podcasts:



Dragon Award Nick Cole joins host Declan Finn to discuss his works.

Nick Cole is a former soldier and working actor living in Southern California. When he is not auditioning for commercials, going out for sitcoms or being shot, kicked, stabbed or beaten by the students of various film schools for their projects, he can be found writing books. Nick's Book The Old Man and the Wasteland was an Amazon Bestseller and #1 in Science Fiction. In 2016 Nick's book CTRL ALT Revolt won the Dragon Award for Best Apocalyptic novel. 

Try the Love at First Bite series.
Which should also be up for a Dragon Award.