The Kids’ thoughts on the Hobbit

We finished reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit this week – the first full-length book I’ve read to the kids.  It was a the obvious choice, as this was also the first book my Mom read to me.  It’s been a while since I’ve read that book and several things stand out after so many years.  Tolkien wrote in  long, descriptive, balanced sentences.  Very nice to read aloud.  The sense of place and history, the sheer amount of description is palpable in The Hobbit.  Of course this has become one of the prevailing themes of fantasy fiction, so no surprise there.  Finally, Bilbo is just a great character.  And now onto the girls’ thoughts as recorded be me with a few questions here and there…

One favorite part is when Bilbo went to talk to Smaug.  He saw the weak spot by getting Smaug to roll over by telling riddles.  Bilbo was pretty brave there.  I was afraid Bilbo might be found by Smaug, and he’d attack him and eat him.  I thought this was the scariest part.  Instead he just got a little burnt.

October Good for Lovecraft

Any month is a good month for the fiction of horror master H.P. Lovecraft, but October provides an added aura of foreboding.  Not that many of Lovecraft’s stories are particularly Halloweenish, and he was more apt to include ageless alien demi-gods in his fiction than ghosts or witches or the like, but there’s something about a gray stormy evening with a cold autumn wind blowing that makes passages of nameless horror especially tasty.  For this reason I’ve been re-reading at least one classic Lovecraft story each October the last few years.  (Having read virtually all of them the first time back in college.)

Video Pick: Donnie Darko

Written and directed by Richard Kelly, starring Jake Gyllenhall, Mary McDonnell, Maggie Gyllenhall, Jena Malone, Patrick Swayze.  For years, people whose opinions I value have recommended the 2001 film Donnie Darko highly.  Last weekend we finally sat down and watched it, so now I understand why.  This is one of those movies that defies convention:  Is it sci-fi?  Is it psychological thriller?  Teen drama?  You can tell the studio was having a tough time pinning Donnie Darko down as well – the trailers and on the DVD were just awkwardly awful.  (Note the dueling themes of the promo materials below.)

Pseudo-Horror Promo

The movie starts with young Donnie (Gyllenhall) waking up on the side of the road beside his bike.  He smiles to himself and pedals for town, and your immediately asking yourself what’s going on with this kid.  Writer/director Kelly quickly proves adept at holding back certain details of character and plot points until just the right moment, which adds to the mystery and suspense.  It turns out, Donnie has been taking psych meds to deal with his emotional and mental problems as well as seeing a shrink.  The Darko family is otherwise a fairly standard suburban crew.  Older sister Liz (M. Gyllenhall) is taking a year off before going to college, younger sister Samantha seems a decent kid, and Mom and Pop are supportive and perfectly normal.

So when Donnie gets into an argument with Liz, curses at the dinner table, and acts like a total dick to his mom, you have a tough time reading him.  Is he a spoiled kid or does he really have issues?  Turns out, it’s the issues.  That night a voice rouses him to a trance-like state and entices him from his room, telling him he needs to get out of the house.  Donnie follows, sees the source of the voice in the distance (a mysterious yet sinister figure in a bunny-suit), who tells him the end is nigh, about three weeks from now.  Donnie wanders off and ends up sleeping at the golf course.

Books: Moving Pictures

…by the indomitable Terry Pratchett

In Moving Pictures, the denizens of Pratchett’s Discworld inadvertently find themselves awash in movie madness.  Yes, those scatterbrained alchemists have figured out how to transfer captured pictures (painted very quickly by captive demons in small camera-like boxes) to film.  They quickly find it necessary to move from the city of Ankh-Morpork to an arid outpost without much going for it but the everpresent sunshine (to avoid the wrath of the wizards at Unseen University).  That outpost’s name: Holy Wood.

Very soon people (and trolls and dwarves and talking animals) find themselves drawn to Holy Wood for unexplainable reasons.  It seems right.  They know they can make it.  And they want to be in the moving pictures. Among them are perennial student-wizard, Victor Tugelbend, a dude who can’t sing, can’t dance, but can handle a sword OK and looks great in front of the camera, Ginger, former milkmaid from the-little-town-you-never-heard-of, who looks great in an evening gown, and Gaspode the talking wonder-dog.  Soon Cut-me-own-throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork’s most celebrated salesman of sausages-0f-dubious-origin, arrives and proceeds to set himself up as the mogul.  A group of dwarves suddenly discover an overwhelming urge to sing the hi-ho-hi-ho song.  A troll changes his name to ‘Rock’ and whittles off bits of his nose to increase his appeal and versatility.  These folks literally find they have stars in their eyes.

Books: Shadow’s Edge

…by Brent Weeks

Shadow’s Edge is the second book in the Night Angel trilogy, which chronicles the struggles of Kylar Stern, assassin, Logan Gyre, aspirant-King, Vi, another assassin, and others against the sadistic Godking, Garoth.  The Godking’s forces successfully invaded Cenaria at the close of Book 1, Into the Shadows (see review), bringing a lot death (and presumed death), mayhem, and misunderstanding to the major characters.  Kylar’s mentor, master assassin (or ‘wetboy’ as Weeks has unfortunately designated killers with magical talents) Durzo Blint is gone, and Kylar soon swears off killing to pursue his childhood love, Elene.  This means leaving the city and fleeing in search of a more normal life.

Unbeknownst to Kylar, his best friend Logan is not dead but rather imprisoned in the Hole, which is the most brutal dungeon in the land, filled with the rapists and cannibals.  Logan has to survive down there without revealing his identity and completely losing his humanity.

When the Sa’kage (the city’s vast underworld crime syndicate) soon learn they can’t bargain with the brutal Godking, they begin to oppose him and help form the resistance.   For that they need Kylar, who has now absorbed an ancient magical forces called the ka’kari and has become nearly immortal, and they need an heir to the throne – Logan.  A fairly straightforward plot that still manages to get bogged down for nearly half the book.  Some of the subplots turn out to be far more interesting – at least until the book’s climax.

Books: Gaudeamus

…by John Barnes

In Gaudeamus, the reader gets a rare combination of authenticity and weirdness that combines science fiction, detective fiction, and a good dose of self-deprecating humor.  John Barnes uses the technique of casting himself as the 1st person narrator and his buddy Travis Bismarck as the protagonist.  This allows Travis, a private detective with a storyteller’s mentality, to pop in and expand upon his increasingly strange tale of secret government research and extraterrestrial game wardens.  Meanwhile, the author/narrator frees himself to tell character-revealing back stories, comment on society, and scoff at his buddy’s story while secretly hoping it’s all true.

You can cast it as metafiction or an ironic and over-the-top nod to creative non-fiction.  Barnes use of the p.o.v. shifts between himself and Travis illustrates the allure of different types of storytelling, and it stands up to inspection also.  In other words, Barnes could (and does seem to) claim that hey, this is all true – it’s what my friend told me, and here’s the back story from my perspective.  It’s the kind of narrative technique that would spark a lively debate at your college writers’ workshop – if, that is, they could be bothered with something that has sci-fi overtones.  I suspect Mr. Barnes would find this amusing.

Imagine Greater?

Did you notice this over the last week?

The Sci-Fi Channel decided to rebrand to ‘SyFy’ in an attempt to capture the ever-elusive “broader audience”.  In the process they have, naturally, pissed off the majority of Geek Nation.  Their marketing shclubs have issued statements  like this:

“We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi.  It’s somewhat cooler and better than the name ‘Science Fiction.’ But even the name Sci Fi is limiting.”

Or…

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular.”

Ouchie.  Talk about your blatant negative stereotyping.

I guess the suits at NBC/Universal (show us the U.S.-Mexico game on a channel we can watch!) in all their sagacity know programming better than the average dysfunctional geek.  They are flush with success coming off their best ratings year ever, and like a big bank loan exec. circa 2006, they feel invincible.

Books: The Way of Shadows

…by Brent Weeks

Sometimes you just want some good old fashioned sword-hacking, shadow-stalking, mage-fire hurling type fantasy.  Plenty of action, high-school level romance, badass villains, and , familiar archetypes…  In The Way of Shadows (Book 1 in the Night Angel trilogy),  this is precisely what you get.

The novel starts with young Azoth, an orphaned street beggar, eavesdropping on the troubles of one Durzo Blint, the best and baddest magically enhanced assassin (weeks uses the term, ‘wetboy’ – a questionable choice) in all of Cenaria.  This scene leads to Azoth’s attempt to apprentice himself to Durzo as a way out of the gutter.  Azoth has enough challenges what with scraping enough pennies together to eat and pay his guild dues to a Fagin-like outfit, and he’s watching out for his friends Jarl and Doll Girl to boot.  To make matters worse, Azoth, like all orphan heroes, is inexplicably brave, and stands up for his friends in the face of the bigger older bullying Rat.  Rat responds by buggering Jarl and cutting Doll Girl (this book pulls few punches), and Azoth seeks out Durzo in an attempt to help his friends out of their predicament and take some vengeance.

Of course Durzo agrees to take on this new apprentice, but only if Azoth can prove himself by killing Rat.  Then it’s on.

Books: In the Eye of Heaven

…by David Keck

In the Eye of Heaven is high fantasy with a good dose of grit and grime.  Set in a mythical medieval Europeanish land, where the oaths of kings and dukes really do tie them to the land, the book recounts the tale of Durand of the Col, a young squire and second son set to inherit a small backwoods holding where he will serve as his father’s bannerman.  But then that holding’s true heir shows up after fifteen years missing, and Durand finds himself without prospects.  To make matters worse, he’s being stalked by an otherworldly power who seems insistent on offering advice and marking Durand for a different path.

You really can’t blame Durand for panicking and riding off without his sword.  He soon falls in with a wandering bard and embarks upon a plan to attach himself to some noble as a knight-in-arms and earn his keep with honor.  Of course it’s never quite that easy.

Review: Star Trek

Star Trek…  Directed by J.J. Abrams, written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, and Leonard Nimoy.

The Trek is back.  Big opening weekend, great buzz.  What a fun movie…

Is it the timing? Almost 40 years(!) after the original series, 20 afte the Next Generation, with few enough successful big screen space adventures of late.  Battlestar Galactica and to some extent Star Wars, have shown you can keep going back to the sci-fi franchise, even when the original cast has moved on.  Is it the team? J.J. Abrams has had some success with ensemble pieces; the writers obviously know and revere the original material but have also taken to heart lessons learned from other recent reboots.   Is it the casting? If you’re a Trek fan, you had to be a little nervous when the actors were all named.  Zach Quinto?  Shaun of the Dead?  And who’s this Chris Pine dude?  Yeah, I sort of wish John Cho could match George Takei’s melodious baritone as Sulu, but if that’s all I have to complain about…

Some spoliers after the bump.