Scott Westerfeld's So Yesterday is a nifty little piece of subversion: a sort of junior culture jammer's handbook with a hefty dose of Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, somewhat thinly disguised as a young-adult mystery. Seventeen-year-old Hunter Braque is a professional cool hunter — a consultant paid by an ad agency to report on rapidly evolving fashion trends. His boss Mandy vanishes after setting up a secretive meeting, and he searches for her with the aid of his enigmatic new friend Jen James. The mystery probably won't even compel teen audiences — Hunter's a little dense about picking up on clues, the story arc is obviously foreshadowed, and the book's biggest real puzzle is why Jen is attracted to Hunter.

But that's okay, because So Yesterday's pleasures aren't dependent on the mystery plot.

Westerfeld drops gleeful, entertaining, unlikely sounding (but easily verifiable) science on nearly every page, bouncing from the history of the color purple to the seizures inspired by Pokemon episode 38 ("Computer Warrior Polygon") in 1997. It all goes down easily because Hunter's narrative voice is consistent and credible: he's a crypto-geeky overachieving wise-ass student of pop culture. He's so obviously enthused about all the weird stuff he knows that he's bursting with the desire to share — it never feels forced, so the novel never seems scare-quotes-educational. He's also so giddily eclectic that virtually any reader is likely to learn something new.

Hunter isn't So Yesterday's only fresh, interesting voice either — he's well matched by Jen James, and their awkward/sweet courtship dance provides the plot impetus that Mandy's disappearance doesn't. I especially liked Jen's take on NYC geography:

"This is the Crème Brulée district."

"Pardon me?"

My sister identifies neighborhoods by the dominant dessert served there," Jen said. "We're west of green tea ice cream and south of tiramisu."

But it's the meta-textual level of So Yesterday that got me really excited. When Hunter meets Jen, he immediately notices her footwear:

The shoes were off-brand black runners, the logo marking erased with a black laundry pen.

Definitely an Innovator, I thought. They tend to specialize, looking like Logo Exiles until you get close.

It's no coincidence that "Logo Exile" is capitalized. The mark of respect accorded to brand names is instead given to a conscious decision not to wear advertising. When Jen in turn remarks on Hunter's snazzy high-tech cell phone, he pretends surprise:

"My phone?" The list of features was on my tongue, but this was the part of the job I didn't like (which is why you will read no product placement in these pages, if I can possibly help it).

He caves scarcely a chapter later:

Lexa Legault had been tapping at her wireless notebook and said, "I got nothing. Zero relevant hits on . . ." she named a certain Web search tool whose name means a very large number. (Oh, forget it. I'm not going to get very far telling this story if I can't say "Google.")

But Hunter goes to great lengths to avoid referring directly to "Apple," "Nike," or "Starbucks." It's so obvious (and it feels so artificial) that it sends a powerful message about the pervasiveness of product placement. And although it adopts some of the language of Gladwell's The Tipping Point, its fundamental subtext is very different. It's not about how you can spread messages more effectively; it's about being aware of the tactics used to deliver messages to you — including the tactics that So Yesterday uses to deliver its message.

Peeps, Westerfeld's newest novel, is even better. Like So Yesterday, it operates on multiple levels. Peeps is more upfront about its objectives. The odd-numbered chapters are fiction and move the plot forward. The even-numbered chapters share the narrative voice of Cal, but they present factual information about a wide assortment of parasites. They're brief, not very technical, colorful and frequently grotesque, and thought-provoking. Westerfeld provides a bibliography for the skeptical and the curious.

In the odd chapters, Peeps presents one of the cleverest and most original angles on non-supernatural vampires that I've ever encountered: vampirism is an infection by a rare and extremely specialized parasite. Other writers have explored vampirism-as-disease (and porphyria provides some real-world inspiration), but Westerfeld does a remarkably good job of suggesting how evolutionary forces could produce his parasite. (He even explains vampires' legendary distaste for mirrors and crosses, something I can't remember any other vampirism-as-a-disease story tackling successfully.) Meanwhile, the factual chapters make a surprisingly compelling case that Westerfeld's fictional parasite is not qualitatively weirder than parasites that actually exist. The meta-message is also clear: this isn't a book that promotes "Intelligent Design"; it's a book that sails on the Beagle with Darwin.

Peeps has a smidgen of So Yesterday's second-biggest weakness: Cal is pretty bright, except when the plot structure requires that he fail to piece something together — then he sprouts a convenient mental blind spot. But Peeps delivers genuine suspenseful creepy action aplenty. It's very unlike Buffy the Vampire Slayer in important respects: there's no supernatural mumbo-jumbo, and it's not primarily about inverting traditional male-female roles in action stories (though there are strong female characters). But like Buffy, it moves quickly and mixes funny/scary/sexy into an intoxicating blend; I could see Buffy fans liking Peeps a lot, and I think it could make an excellent movie if it could be filmed without dumbing it down.

Peeps has a satisfying resolution, but it's definitely open-ended. I closed the book eager for a sequel, and was delighted to learn recently from Westerfeld's website that he's already working on it.

Everybody seems to love Serenity but me. I only like it, and I'm left wondering what I'm missing, or if maybe the emporer's suit isn't tailored as finely as one might wish.

I do think it's a big improvement over Firefly, the Joss (Buffy) Whedon-created Western-in-space TV show that begat it.

Firefly had its moments, but it suffered from inconsistent writing/acting and shallow characterization. I was willing to overlook some of that — it took at least a season for Buffy the Vampire Slayer's characters to acquire depth, and longer than that for me to acclimatize myself to David Boreanaz's acting. But more seriously, almost the only thing distinctive about Firefly's train heists and cattle-rustling tales was that they took place on distant planets. Other than the exotic settings, there wasn't much to differentiate them from the average Gunsmoke rerun. And — especially coming from a guy who enthusiastically celebrated female power in Buffy — the role of women in Whedon's Westernverse bugged me. Inara (Morena Baccarin)'s character was a sort of space geisha, and although her position was repeatedly described as highly esteemed by society, the claim wasn't borne out. She was frequently referred to her as a "whore" and treated with a marked lack of respect. The mechanically inclined Kaylee (Jewel Staite) had to spend most of her time panting over the nearest pair of cheekbones (Sean Maher) so viewers knew she wasn't gay, but she was far too passive to do anything about it.

Serenity wisely downplays the space hooker slurs and concentrates on Firefly's most promising story arc, that of renegade military telepath and sister-to-the-cheekbones River Tam (Summer Glau). Serenity is also much more swashbuckler-in-space than Western-in-space, with space swordfights and space pirates instead of space lariats and space horse thieves, which adds a different flavor. (I'll try to sidestep spoilers, but Serenity's Captain Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) actually attempts one of the same credibility-stretching gambits that Captain Aubrey used in Master and Commander.) Serenity also benefits from more thematic heft than the TV show. I wouldn't exactly call it pointed political satire, but I don't think it leaves much ambiguity as to how Whedon feels about the current national security mania.

Also fortunately, the acting — particularly that of Fillion and Glau — makes a quantum leap forward. The script doesn't have the tossed-off feel of some of the TV episodes; it barrels along without pause, and it bristles with Whedon's trademark quips and penchant for flouting genre conventions. In one near-perfect moment, Reynolds fires on a foe the instant the man claims he's unarmed. It further not only further defines his character, but it's exactly the sort of pragmatic decision that cinema protagonists — even antiheroes — seldom make. Serenity also has some very creative and effective sequences, particularly the opening. It painlessly supplies the necessary exposition with a flashback structure that's simultaneously complex, startling, easily followed, and visually rich.

But even though the story is action-packed and often surprising, it just doesn't make sense. The plot obstacles and the gimmicks that defeat them seem equally arbitrary. I overheard audience members debating afterward whether the action took place in one solar system or several; their confusion was understandable. The three-dimensional nature of space wasn't convenient for the narrative, so it was ignored: a trip from point A to point B had to follow a straight line between the points. (Serenity's spaceships act much more like 18th- or 19th-century sailing vessels than anything else.) Despite the presence of "magic" technologies like instant interstellar communication, nobody seems to have computers significantly more advanced than our own. Throughout the TV series I gave the creators the benefit of the doubt on that point. Several sci-fi writers have posited futures in which artificial intelligences won't permit humans to "enslave" computers much smarter than what we've got now. I was half-expecting that an aside might offer a similar explanation for Serenity's lack of advanced computers — that is, until the artificially intelligent sex robot showed up.

I frequently have objections to the credibility of sci-fi films, and maybe I'm a viewer who's anomalous enough that my reactions aren't particularly useful. I've been accused of not having a sense of fun (or taking films too seriously). I'm told that the precepts of drama and/or the conventions of genre require that sci-fi movies ignore logic and physical laws.

The thing is, plenty of sci-fi movies do a much better job of not blowing my suspension of disbelief. I'm basically favorably inclined toward the genre, and all I ask from a film is that it think through the problems a little bit. If a spaceship has to fly through a dangerous area to make a plot point work, the movie just needs to create a logical reason why the ship can't fly around it. Alien and Blade Runner were far more believable, but it didn't make them less exciting or dramatically satisfying.

I get the impression that Whedon isn't very concerned about making his stories plausible. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was mostly internally consistent throughout its run, but not only was it the product of several authorial voices, it also violated almost all of its ground rules at least once. Whedon's script for Alien Resurrection, the fourth entry in the Alien franchise, had a far less credible take on alien biology than did its predecessors.

It may be unfair of me to criticize Whedon for failing to achieve a standard he's not interested in meeting. But Serenity frustrates me because I feel like it could have been much better — a film I could have unabashedly loved, instead of liking with strong reservations.

At first glance, The Fever's mostly monochromatic packaging -- a photo collage by singer Geremy Jasper, it turns out -- and 19th-century typefaces suggest a Decemberists rip-off. The Fever's songs often seem to be set in unspecified past decades, and they're peopled with vampires, grifters, and circus freaks, but any resemblance ends there. The Fever's influences are obvious enough -- the high octane blues of The Reverend Horton Heat, some of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' vocal histrionics, the clattery percussion (and prominent marimbas) of Tom Waits, a touch of Nick Cave's gravelly delivery and fondness for grotesqueries, and a booze-soaked aura common to all of the foregoing. City of Sleep requires some tolerance for kitsch, but fortunately the Fever usually put their songcraft ahead of the schtick. Songs like "Gypsy Cab/Down on Dog Street" are rocking and hooky no matter where or when they take place, and Jasper proves himself a strong and versatile vocalist. Some of the lyrics, like those of "Circus Girl," are slight and derivative, but City of Sleep also offers some vivid phrases like "a mouthful of moths sailing through the dark like a prison dart" (from "Eyes on the Road"). Keith Stapleton's guitar leads -- brief, with no wasted notes and several different viciously nasty tones -- are also particularly noteworthy.

This review originally appeared at Avoid Peril.

My predominant impression of Two Thousand is space. The considerable reverb on the recording evokes a physical space in which the music unfolds. It sounds to me like a large room with solid walls. The arrangements tend to be sparse. The guitar parts are constructed mostly of single-note runs or chords that fade out before the next is struck. Nick Stumpf's drumming is lively but never busy, marked by brief, tasteful fills. No single instrument -- not even the vocals -- carries the main thread of the song. The hooks aren't in catchy choruses; they're in the surprising way the songs fit together. My favorite track is "Keep It Amazed," which quotes Jane's Addiction's "Been Caught Stealing" to intriguing effect, but throughout Two Thousand French Kicks demonstrate that indie rock doesn't need to rely on volume or freneticism to generate interest.

This review originally appeared at Avoid Peril.

Peeping Tom's mastermind is Mike Patton (of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle), aided and abetted by a cast of guest stars including Dan the Automator, Kool Keith, and Norah Jones. Anyone who's followed Patton's career will know not to expect a typical rock/rap crossover, and "typical" is exactly what Peeping Tom doesn't deliver. It's more trip-hop than anything else (although loud guitars do season a few tracks), but it's deeply weird, and scarcely dancefloor-friendly. Just when you think you've got a handle on a groove, it's likely to lurch into a different tempo. A song may suddenly dissolve into a wash of harp strings, or the drums might grind to a halt and start running backwards. Peeping Tom may not offer consistent rump-shaking or head-banging pleasures, but it definitely rewards close listening -- it's packed with sonic details and surprises. "Your Neighborhood Spaceman" and "Don't Even Trip" (chorus: "Don't even trip/Don't get too big for/Your britches") are a little goofy, and even the darkest songs usually have humorous touches. Highlights include the trip-hop/nu-metal collision of "Five Seconds" (listen to the chorus on headphones at least once), Kool Keith's laid-back narrative/rap on "Getaway," and Norah Jones' snide, "R"-rated "Sucker."

This review originally appeared at Avoid Peril.

Eyes Open may not technically be a "concept album," but it's very closely knit, with recurring images of hands, hearts, and eyes, both open and closed. Gary Lightbody sings in the voice of a man who refuses to acknowledge the inevitability of an impending breakup. Many of the lyrics are banal and unspecific ("I've gotta see you one last night," "I don't quite know how to say how I feel," "It's so clear now that you are all that I have") which is a shame, since other lines ("It's hard to argue when you won't stop making sense," "Put Sufjan Stevens on, and we'll play your favorite song,") suggest that the Snow Patrol is capable of writing with more personality than the indie rock equivalent of Dan Fogelberg -- which is how they sometimes come off. Most of Eyes Open's songs are slow to mid-tempo. Several of them start quietly, with just voice and a single guitar or piano, and build toward a cathartic crescendo. The glossy, big-budget production doesn't always serve these songs well; it smooths out the dynamics and robs them of some of the impact they might otherwise possess. My own favorite is the closing "Finish Line," which opens with the narrator lying on the ground outside at night, perhaps drunk, listening to insect sounds. It's less bombastic than the rest of the album, and it feels more personal and authentic.

This review originally appeared at Avoid Peril.