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Another interesting article about racist, RACIST Hollywood.

Hollywood's White Summer: Where's the Diversity?

The forecast is for a white summer -- at least at the movies.

With the notable exception of "Karate Kid," headlined by Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, most of the big-budget films hitting over the next few months star Caucasian actors.

Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Leonardo DiCaprio will all trot out new offerings. Their minority counterparts like Denzel Washington and Will Smith?

Missing.

Soulless by Gail Carriger

Miss Alexia Tarabotti was not enjoying her evening. Private balls were never more than middling amusements for spinsters, and Miss Tarabotti was not the kind of spinster who could garner even that much pleasure from the event. To put the pudding in the puff: she had retreated to the library, her favorite sancturary in any house, only to happen upon an unexpected vampire.

She glared at the vampire.

For his part, the vampire seemed to feel that their encounter had improved his ball experience immeasurably. For there she sat, without escort, in a low-necked ball gown.

In this particular case, what he did not know could hurt him. For Miss Alexia had been born without a soul, which, as any decent vampire of good blooding knew, made her a lady to avoid most assiduously.

So I picked up this one on a whim. You have to understand, even before the Twilight dreck hit, the vampire and werewolf scene was not really my thing. I don't see any inherently sexy appeal in the undead, for some reason or another.

But I do love Jane Austen, and reading the first chapter really gave me that vibe, with a crazy supernatural twist. The setting is not so much an alternate history but an alternate reason for history.

The writing isn't perfect (if you're going to jump from what one person is thinking to another, I think you should at least be kind enough to do a scene/paragraph break), but it's often very clever and quite funny.

The romance angle is a wee bit predictable, especially if you ascribe to the "I hate you I hate you I hate you I LOVE YOU" conflict equals chemistry school of thought, but the pairing itself is frequently charming and sometimes even naughty in a rather fun way.

I've ordered the sequel, Changeless, and we'll see how it goes without the UST in the equation. I'll let you know!