The desire to soar like an angel was overwhelming. Driven to madness by continual failure to achieve the glory of divine flight extreme measures were needed. The faithful would see. The faithful would understand.
I shall soar in the light. I will bask in glory.
Love the purity of my being.
The longer I go, the more I accept that I enjoy doing many things on my own. I am clearly headed directly to the land of curmudgeon ~ however there can be something said for a shared experience. Having the musical Hamilton released on a streaming service lately brought that into focus for me. During these trying days of “shelter in place” and “social distance” to avoid the plague those shared experiences can be difficult to find. To enable that, some people have turned to technology. What did we do for Hamilton? A Watch Party.
You can’t have your friends over to watch a movie any more. So? Jump on your streaming service of choice and have a watch party… except.
I like the concept of the watch party for certain circumstances. Those circumstances are remarkably similar to when I’d actually like to go and see a movie with somebody… that is to say not very often. A watch party exacerbates the one thing I really hate about watching a movie with others. You’re listening intently in the middle of a deep and moving scene and the person next you says, “Wait. I thought she didn’t like that guy…” or “I think I missed something. What’s he doing that for?”.
Rage.
Just watch the movie. Nobody knows because we haven’t seen it before. Shut up and pay attention. Stop distracting me from my experience. NO, I don’t want to chat about it now, I’ll wait until the end thank you.
Now – If I’ve seen the movie in question before and we’d like to all watch it together to talk about various parts of the film, that’s fine. If it’s a goofy comedy and you’re tipping a couple of adult beverages back on a Saturday night and you want to share that with some friends, excellent plan.
Technology then becomes the barrier.
Are you all on the same streaming service? Are you all in the same region? Yes – services like Netflix change what they have to offer by region. Are you in the same time zone? My daughter is communicating with some students in other countries and they’re off our time by 6 hours. When can we all actually do this? Schedules are still a real thing, even if you can’t go out to do certain activities anymore. Technology is the main barrier here. What platform will you use for watching? Are you all on Discord? Oh, wait, I thought we were doing this through the Chrome app… But what about Facebook? Wait – I run my streaming service through a Roku, how does that work? I don’t want to sit at my computer screen when I have a large TV in a room with a comfy recliner. There are lots of folks out there making this work, but it is very dependent on shared tech and preferred method of consuming media. I suspect this shared preference will not be something that happens to me much as we go forward.
I am not opposed to the concept of the watch party. I don’t suspect I’ll find myself participating in many. I like to view a film and talk about it later, perhaps watching it again for a more nuanced view. Enjoy the entertainment for what it is. Get drawn in by a good story. Go along for the ride… tweet about it when you’re done. Your phone won’t miss you and ‘yousuckland’… I mean twitter, will be there when you’ve got time.
In the end, you could also try reading a good book and joining a group to chat about that. Those don’t seem to have changed as much as the movie going society.
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Book 1 of the Lady Astronaut series telling the story of the first lady astronaut deserves the praise it has garnered. Following Dr. Elma York’s journey in a post apocalyptic alternate history where a meteorite has slammed into the earth and wiped out most of the eastern US.
The story is set in a time when many cultural norms do not fit the views of our current society. This put me very much in mind of the movie Hidden Figures, set in something close to the same time period (off by a few years I believe). The author does not shy away from the norms of the day and her writing is such that the outrage is felt through the page. I was quite frequently angry with characters on the page – and that is a sign of damn good writing. They’re not real. It’s a made up story – and I was still irritated with these “people”.
I downloaded this book for free when it was offered by the publisher and I’m glad I did. I will be going out and getting the rest of the series (just as they hoped). This book is absolutely worth your time to read if you’re a fan of science fiction / alternate history. IF you’re not, I would also suggest reading some of the author’s other work. I am particularly a fan of ‘Shades of Milk and Honey’ in the magical / fantasy category. I love this author’s work and hope she continues to write for a very long time.
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The tipping point.
All the struggles, all the sacrifice to get here. Her past was as ruined as the temple where she stood facing the oracle. Now, in that moment she hesitated. There was no going back once the question was asked.
Could she go forward?
I actually finished reading this book within a couple of days of starting it. I’ve held off writing my review until I had time to give it some thought. I also wanted to put this review here on my own web site. There are a couple of reasons for this – but mainly because I’m going to own what I say and putting that here feels like it makes a difference to me.
This book was a gift to me – I was asked to give it a review.
There are going to be lots of spoilery parts in here – so if you don’t want to have the story spoiled for you, read it first then come back.
Let me start by saying that I also write. I don’t like to give reviews like this because I know how difficult it is to get a good book both finished and published. I also fully intend to be honest about how I feel about the books I read. It’s the only thing that gives a reviewer any credibility or integrity in their reviews. I know I’m not much of a reviewer, but I do try to be consistent about these things.
I gave this book one star. The one star setting in Goodreads is “Did not like it”. Clearly, I did not like it. It was very hard to read. I think I skimmed a lot toward the 2/3 mark. I did finish it. I could have walked away early, but it was a gift and a request so I didn’t.
So – first – the author generally has no control over cover art related things, but the character portrayed on the cover looks like an urban fantasy knock off, holds the wrong weapon and is dressed like she could have just walked off the street next to you. I think those things tie together with the world building things I had trouble with.
World building – there’s no clear definition of the world. There’s very little description of the in, the outfits, the stadium, or any of the atmosphere that would surround a world wide event. Consider something like the Olympics by comparison. When the Olympic games happen you hear about everything from the stadiums new and amazing features all the way down to the villages where the competitors are to be housed. There’s a little something about everything that goes on surrounding the games. In this book there’s one part that describes a paved road, but walking or wizardly teleportation are the only modes of transportation ever mentioned. Why would the road be specifically “paved” if not for automobile traffic? IF it is for autos of some kind – where are they? Where is the structure that supports them? There is literally no description for this. The main stadium where all the action takes place is described like this, “It was a beautiful stadium about the size of a large city within any kingdom. The outside was made from grey stone and was carved with the intricate details of battles that had taken place centuries ago.” That’s it. The main location for a large amount of the story and that’s the whole description. No other places in the story fare better. BUT for those people that have followed my other reviews you may know that I tend to be big into world building as part of a good story. Fair enough.
Characters – Melanie Atax (from the guild Inferno Serpents) has no adjectives. I don’t know what she looks like, perhaps beyond the cover. I went back and checked – after 4 chapters there’s still not any mention of hair length, skin color, eye color, scars, crooked teeth… nothing. There’s not much more about the other players in the wizard games either… but back to Mel. She states at the start of the book that it’s this super lofty goal to reach an elite guild. Awesome. Hard work and having your foes underestimate you based on a lower guild I get. She puts all this effort in to these battles, yet gives zero thoughts to what happens if she wins. Zero. When she does actually win a spot at an elite guild it’s an afterthought. The stated goal has NO impact on her. None. She doesn’t grow, she doesn’t change, she never loses. That is not a character (lack of) arc that works for me.
So it’s got to be about the action, right? I mean, wizard game would be just like the Tri-wizard tournament or something like that, right?
No.
It’s human wizard Pokemon. Fire-whip lady I choose you!
It took me a while to figure out the pattern. The fights, the tournament, the battles and duels are exactly the sort of thing you see in anime shows where the names and statistics of the brawlers in question get displayed on the screen. You know them in the same way you know or recognize the queen of spades. These wizards (and dragons!) hurl the devastation of lightning and tornadoes, fire and acid along with whippings, dagger slashes and sword cuts… to zero lasting effect. There’s not a single bit of danger to the competition here – or to Mel. Everything is healed when the “round” is over. Go team magic healer! The impact of these massive weapons amounted to a cool light show. No danger, nothing other than missing some points on the scoreboard.
Speaking of the scoreboard, there’s a mystery of two of the top players in the games being kidnapped for a day or two right in the middle of the tournament week, but that doesn’t seem to really impact their chances of winning and didn’t really grab my attention. It felt like a distraction. There’s a cult and another dragon and I don’t even remember her name.
The dragons really bother me the most of all this. There’s a seed of a great story there. Dragons were hunted to the point where they disguised themselves as humans, then lost the knowledge or ability to change back into dragons. That could be such a cool story – and it’s a side note… until the very end of the book. That’s when we suddenly switch from Mel to the second dragon and get “set up” for the next book. Ugh. NO.
Long sigh. In all, I struggled with this. I did not like it. I think that if you’re a fan of Pokemon or anime battle type shows that you might actually enjoy this. Maybe. It might also be something that could be turned into an anime to great effect. I’m not sure – but I am sure I’m not moving on with the series.
The Elite Wizard Games by Gina A. Watson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
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I started off earlier this year with a very gung-ho thought of rereading the entirety of the Dresden Files series, in order, before the publication of the next book. The next book is due out in July… and I am still back at Grave Peril.
There is an awful lot of Dresden out there at this point.
I will continue on this quest, but there is no way I’ll finish before the publication date of the new book. Likely I won’t finish before the publication of the second new book this year either, but I still intend to try. Looking at the series again, with other questions in mind has given me the opportunity to revisit the way I write my own work. It is certainly a worthy endeavor.
Onward to more random destruction (that is *clearly* not Harry’s fault)!
Time Tourist Outfitters, Ltd. by Christy Nicholas
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I picked this book up as part of a reading group list. It’s not a book that I would have picked up on my own I don’t think. A story about a retired time cop (yes, I’m stuck on old Jean Claude movies) that gets dragged back into active service and the mystery that ensues…
I understand why this book was recommended by the person that brought it to the group. There is an awful lot of talk about stitching, fabrics, research and practical application of clothing. This is decidedly not my thing. I get it. It’s important – I just don’t see it working long term for stories.
I found all the characters in this novel to be understandable and have a real feel to them. I was happy to see a protagonist that doesn’t fit neatly into a standard publishing pigeon hole. I was also happy to see secondary characters with thoughts and feelings that mattered to the line of the story.
The world building was a teeny bit problematic, but then I find any kind of time travel story to have issues relating to paradox and changing the past. The author took pains to add explanations about this to the story, but there still seemed to be holes in certain aspects for me. The action parts of the story were all but glossed over and I had a number of logistical issues with that.
In all, I get it ~ but it’s just not my thing.
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Killing Gravity by Corey J. White
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The story of a young girl given extensive and dangerous powers as part of an experimental weapons program – creating a void witch… I could have really been on board with this. There were a number of things that pulled me out of the story. This definitely fits into space opera territory and I could see this becoming a series on a network like Netflix.
There were holes and world building gaps that didn’t work for me. The main character’s power level seemed out of balance. The fact that the program is supposedly secret but everyone seems to know a void witch when they see one didn’t sit right with me. The character does have a well developed sense of not wanting to be close to people.
I’m very middle of the road on this title. It’s interesting, but I don’t know if I can actively recommend it.
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This post was originally published in Watch The Skies fanzine – June 2020
You Should Be Watching OR more precisely, you should watch again.
Netflix has recently made the Nickelodeon show Avatar – The Last Airbender available for viewing. Airbender is an animated series following the journey of Aang, the last of the air nomads as he travels a world where adepts have the ability to change the elements around them using a form of martial arts known as bending. Aang is the Avatar, a person who has the ability to blend all forms of bending (earth, water, air and fire) together. His quest? Save the world.
I originally watched the show with my daughter when it first aired back around 2008. As soon as the show became available we grabbed it up on DVD so we could revisit it when we wanted to. As happens with many discs, the show languished for us at the back of a dusty shelf. We did revisit an episode now and again, but less frequently than we might have. Since the show has popped up on Netflix we sat down and re-watched the entire series in order. It might be more than a decade old, but the show holds up.
This show is one of those rare animated series that combines so many parts that anyone in the family can enjoy it. The world building shows a fantasy world with a number of cultures. There are matters of daily life, holidays, politics and any other sort of thing you’d expect in a world. It’s a place that feels lived in. The characters are as varied as the cultures they visit. Diversity is on display without making a big deal about said diversity. Characters with physical differences and abilities were not treated as if they were somehow lacking, it was the spirit that mattered. As the heroes journeyed through three seasons of shows they dealt with corruption of those in power, sexism, love, loss vulnerability and the use of true power. Heroes can make mistakes. Villains can redeem themselves. Mistakes can be forgiven. I will even say that the ending was one of the most satisfying I’ve watched for any series.
If you’ve seen Avatar, it’s worth a re-watch. If you haven’t seen it you should seek it out.
“I’m not looking for anyone’s approval, I know who I am…” Toph Bei Fong (aka The Blind Bandit)
Like so many people I’ve spent a lot of time with YouTube (and many over streaming services) lately. Along the way I bumped into a list video. These videos are not uncommon. Most of the time I can either enjoy or ignore them. One caught my attention – the top ten sword and sorcery movies list.
This particular list made it difficult to tell if they were in a particular order or not. I chose to believe they were in random, jumble order. If they weren’t, it only made the list more challenging for me. I could only agree with a handful of them. As I thought about it I tried to assemble my own list and realized I needed to narrow down what I meant by sword and sorcery and then what my own top ten would be.
Sword and sorcery is a sub-genre of general fantasy films. They are mythic adventures involving a great deal of action and supernatural or magical entities. They can (and often do) involve romance, but it is not always the case. The story could be a world saving adventure but doesn’t have to be. It can just as easily be a single hero’s journey to achieve some goal.
That definition puts epic scale fantasy in a different category. I love the Lord of the Rings series but I would call that epic fantasy rather than sword and sorcery. I think Narnia falls into the epic category as well, though that one is also clearly a portal fantasy. It also eliminates a really wonderful movie – The 13th Warrior (1999) from contention. While it has swords and action it is very short on sorcery. There is the barest hint of prophecy at one point, but it’s really just a great adventure movie set in the time of the Vikings.
In narrowing the field I found it made the choices here much more clear. My list starts at number 10 and works up to my favorite. It’s entirely possible that this list shifts over time. I haven’t seen a lot of great sword and sorcery coming out recently, but there’s always the chance that something new will jump in here too. The list:
#10 The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982) This is a pure nostalgia pick. The story of a mercenary with a triple bladed sword who is recruited to help stop a tyrant and his sorcerer, this was the very first R rated movie I ever went to the theater to see. It’s a bit dark at times, a bit cringy at times, and I don’t think it holds up well, but it makes the list.
#9 Sword of the Valiant (1984) This movie does not get the credit it deserves. Sean Connery, John Rhys-Davies, Ronald Lacey and Peter Cushing are all in this movie. I’m genuinely shocked more people are not on board with it. The story is of Sir Gawain accepting the challenge of the the Green Knight and the journey he takes to meet that challenge. I am actually looking to pick this one up on DVD to add to the collection. It shocked me that I don’t already have it.
#8 The Beastmaster (1982) I went back and rewatched this one recently. The story of a warrior who could communicate with animals – an ability that those in power tried to eliminate from the world. He and his animal companions set out to track down his father’s killer and take revenge. There are a lot of parts that are very cringe worthy given today’s view of things. I still put this one in the top ten.
#7 Willow (1988) This movie is just a lot of fun. It is the heart of what I think a sword and sorcery film can be. A villager who would be a wizard sets off on a quest to return a lost child ends up protecting her from an evil queen. This wizrad is joined by the great warrior Mad Mardigan – a masterful swordsman with a delightful mercenary streak. I really enjoy this one.
#6 Excalibur (1981) A wonderful film version of the Arthurian legend. It’s soooo shiny! The sword work is all over the place and Merlin is just as nutty and dangerous as you would imagine. One of my favorite versions of this tale.
#5 Jason and the Argonauts (1963) My only real inclusion of the Greek mythos in this list. I clearly remember watching this one on Saturday afternoon television as a kid. The story telling is solid and the special effects are from the one and only Ray Harryhausen. Stop motion battles at an amazing level. Harpys, skeletons, a hydra… just fantastic stuff that is still watchable today.
#4 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) Everything I said for the previous entry applies here as well. The fantasy aspects combined with pirates racing to save a princess from a sorcerer who has holed up on an island filled with monsters. Just as with Jason – still totally watchable all these years later. Harryhausen’s stop motion is magic.
#3 Legend (1985) I love the visuals of this movie. I love the soundtrack(s) from this movie. I love the villain in this movie SO much. Legend is the story of a young man who must stop the Lord of Darkness from destroying the last unicorns and ending daylight forever. It is a legend.
#2 Ladyhawke (1985) Significantly more romance than most of my top picks, this is the story of a thief who is rescued by a warrior after escaping from a dungeon. The thief becomes involved with the warrior and his plan to destroy the bishop in the city the thief just escaped from. IF the bishop can not be faced, the warrior will lose his love forever. Some anachronistic parts, but still great sword and sorcery.
#1 Conan the Barbarian (1982) Conan must take the top spot here. The Arnold Schwarzenegger portrayal of Robert E. Howard’s iconic hero is hands down my favorite. It has everything. War, cultists, magic, partying, stealing and vengeance. It is violent and grim. It had one of the first villains that gave me something to measure other villains against. When James Earl Jones plays the cult leader Thulsa Doom and says, “now they will know why they fear the night…” it gives you shivers.
That’s the list. My top ten. Do you agree? Is the order all wrong? Are there any that are missing?