over the cliff

A few months ago I came across a review for the Twilight movie and in the comments, someone referred to the main character as a special snowflake. I showed the post to some of my friends and we’ve been using the word as a verb ever since. Then, in a beautiful moment of blizzard serendipity, my friend came across a YA Vampire Boarding School series (House of Night by P.C. and Kristin Cast).

Vampires. In boarding school. In Tulsa, Oklahoma. It’s Twilight meets Harry Potter meets a Kenny Chesney concert (on a related note, in this series Kenny Chesney is a vampire which I suppose explains all those latent homosexual vibes he exudes). The main character, Zoey Redbird is the quintessential Mary Sue: Oh so special pedigree (part Cherokee! That makers her exotic!), Oh so special powers (NO ONE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD HAS EVER HAD POWERS LIKE YOU ZOMGZ!!112!!one!), has the burden of NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME ON THE INSIDE!!! Syndrome (her mother and the “steploser” (clever teenspeak for a stepfather who is so unfair, like geez) are psycho religious nuts), and THECOOLKIDSHATEMEitis.

Oh, and for a little extra icing on the cake, they spell vampire with a y. For the extra authenticity.

I, naturally, read all four books in a weekend and can’t WAIT for the next installment (comes out in March).

As I was telling my brother about this series earlier, I realized that it’s entirely possible that the Squeeing Teen Audience for this book doesn’t actually exist. Rather the real readers of these books are people like me: those who find the squeeicity so incredibly amusing that we chug them down like pixie sticks. It’s like satire, or post-post-irony where everything becomes sincere again.

Speaking of sincerity, there’s some unnaturally awful poetry sprinkled in. I suggest skipping those sections in case they cause cancer.

The Batman preview was pretty good, and the end credits used a font I really liked.

I could try to explain why there’s been a 7 month lapse in posting, or I could launch into a review of the movie I saw last night.

I read His Dark Materials trilogy after seeing the preview for what looked, judging by all the pretty colors and the relative cuteness of polar bears, to be an excellent fantasy movie of the first installment. Surely this would surpass The Chronicles of Narnia which I found, despite the relative cuteness of talking woodland creatures, to be rather costumey and short on logic. And while I had complaints with the book (mostly with POV) I thought there was enough stuff–namely talking polar bears–to warrant an excellent film. Lyra, the main character, was not particularly well rendered in the novel, but I believed a good director would be able to smooth her out–or at least make her consistent. Mystery and bad guys and witches and flying mechanical contraptions abounded. And when you didn’t have a talking polar bear on screen, there would be more than enough talking other critters.

Hopeful, and dare I say enthusiastic, my friends and I went to the 10:10 PM showing of The Golden Compass. The best way to put our experience is with a quote from one Alex Lumans who said, “I don’t need an alethiometer to know that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.”

Another way to put it would be to say that in the great ranking of fantasy films, Eragon is no longer at the bottom.

Nor are the Star Wars prequels.

First off, the story had no pacing. In essence it felt like one really long trailer. Scene after scene of ominous foretelling and exposition. But the reason we go to movies and not trailers is so that we can, occasionally, and if it’s not too much trouble, get some development. Sections from the book that offered the best chance for this were skimmed. Characters appeared out of thin air–literally–to give crucial information that wasn’t that crucial just so that when the same character randomly showed up in the nick of time, we wouldn’t be too surprised.

Second, the script. How these actors managed to say their lines with straight faces, I’ll never understand. According to the trivia page from IMDB Tom Stoppard wrote a draft which Weitz, the director, rejected so he could adapt it himself. Idiot. I think the worst line was, “You mean to ride me?” But it was mostly bad in context.

Third, the logic. Or lack thereof. At one point in the film the giant talking polar bear claims that his armor is his “soul”. He becomes an alcoholic when the people of a certain town trick him and steal it from him. So what does he do as soon as he gets it back? Leaves it behind every chance he gets in order to carry Lyra to some random location. Right. And if Lyra is this ultra-special child for whom lots of bad guys are hunting, why is she left on her own so often? Apparently every adult character graduated from the Britney Spears House of Daycare.

Oh well, maybe the sequel will be better.

“In the religion of flame, heaven comes when all the world is ash.” -James Maxey, Bitterwood.

Bant Bitterwood is not a hero. For 20 years he has wandered the world slaying dragons fueled only by his hate and lust for revenge. He has no higher purpose, no lofty aspirations and when he tells people his name, they don’t believe him.

When Bitterwood kills the dragon prince, King Albekizan orders the slaughter of all humans. In any typical fantasy, this would be the point where Bitterwood rallies all of mankind in a fight for survival. There would be great battles and speeches. There would be an old man who gives guidance and is eventually killed off in order to harden the hero to his task and tell the reader This is really serious. And the dragons would be standard winged lizards who all look, sound, and act pretty much the same.

Fortunately for us, James Maxey is not a typical fantasy writer. Bitterwood is not a hero. Albekizan is not just a blood thirsty evil doer. And most of the novel is told from the point of view of other characters. The dragons themselves are artfully rendered and given specific characteristics to explain their function within dragon society. And Mr. Maxey is also not afraid to include biological specific effects of an individual’s death.

Mr. Maxey also has a singular talent for creating characters that are not perfect, nor does he try the old trick of making a mostly perfect person with one tragic flaw. They’re human, or in some cases, dragon. They make choices, some bad, some good and deal with the consequences. But they are always interesting and captivating and, even when they’re ordering the genocide of an entire species, sympathetic.

Unfortunately for you, this book won’t be published until July. But when it is, you should buy it and, if you’re like me, you’ll finish it in one sitting. Because to be quite honest, I think James Maxey could write a grocery list and I’d still want to read it.

To find out more (and read the first chapter), visit http://bitterwoodnovel.blogspot.com/

Sometimes the movie is better than the book. The Godfather, The Princess Bride, The Neverending Story, and, dare I say it, Lord of the Rings.

And so it is for Eragon.

First off, the dragon is just about the cutest damn thing ever created with computer graphics. Seriously. If you see her, you will want her. Trust me.

Jeremy Irons is the best Obi-Wan since Alec Guiness, and the boys who play Eragon and Eragon’s cousin (whose name is odd and therefore I can’t remember) could be Heath Ledger’s younger brothers.

The first half hour of this movie was shaping into a damn fine film. Then they ran into a little bit of a logistical problem. The plot from the book.

In the novel, Christopher Paloneyfancypants (as I have renamed him), sends his D&D group down the river of self-discovery and necessary swordsmanship lessons, has them stop in some random city on a quest for accounting books on trade routes (or something else equally boring), and then some stuff happens. They rescue an elven princess. Some more stuff happens. Obi-Wan dies. They reach some the rebel base, and there’s a big battle. The end.

There were a lot of things in the book the writers needed to cut because the book was stupid but that doesn’t mean that they needed to rush to end of the film like Peter Jackson and George Lucas were chasing them with fiery lightsabers. 30 more minutes of development establishing the characters of Murtagh and Gallbatorix (a name, which as one reviewer put it, sounds more like a drain cleaner than an evil King), the plight of the Varden, and other general world building matters would have gone a long way.

The movie and the book relied on the same basic premise: once a dragon enters the room, you don’t give a flying rat’s ass about anything else. While this may be true, it doesn’t make for a memorable film.

So instead of a really, really great movie… we’re left with pretty good one. It’s entertaining and fun and did I mention how cute the dragon is yet? Hopefully it’ll make enough money to justify the two sequels and the director and writers will remember that thanks to Peter Jackson, fantasy films can run longer than 90 minutes.