Book Review: Ghost Story (The Dresden Files #13) - Jim Butcher

It was probably sometime around when I was reading the 4^th or 5^th DRESDEN file book that I decided that Jim Butcher was my favourite author. A top spot he solidified when I read and completed his CODEX ALERA series a few years later.

If waiting a year between each new release presents me like a junkie wanting a hit, then finally getting my hands on the latest book is like feeding that addiction in full. It makes you feel giddy and light-headed. I’m a book addict, and that’s no lie. I go to the bookstore even when I don’t have anything in mind to buy to just walk around and BE THERE. So if regular books are an addiction, then a new Dresden file book by Butcher is like the finest of the fine. Bibliophilic nerdvana. (<---inventy phrases is my specialty!)

So that’s kind of my headspace as I go into reading the latest Dresdencrack (as we call it). Now before you go any further with this review, due to events in the last book CHANGES it would be next to impossible to review GHOST STORY without some rather major spoilers for the previous book. So if you haven’t’ read that book and don’t want to be spoiled for a few major events in it, don’t go further. I WON’T however be spoiling any major events from GHOST STORY so if you have read CHANGES then by all means read on.

GHOST STORY picks up the story thread where it last left off in CHANGES. The Red Court Vampires are all (or at least very close to all) dead after the war between them and the White Council of Wizards at Chichen Itza. Using a spell that the Red Court was going to use on Harry to kill his entire bloodline and reversing it on them has destroyed the court VIA their own blood link. Susan Rodriguez is dead, at Harry’s hand so she wouldn’t fully turn into a red court vampire and their young daughter Maggie Dresden is now safe. Harry however, is dead since he was shot in the waning pages of CHANGES by a sniper. Not the best place to have to start, but hey this is Harry Dresden right? 

As things begin Harry finds out he is a ghost and has no magic to speak of and there is seemingly an entire city worth of entities and ghostly beings he’s pissed off, and one of them is out to make sure he doesn’t even exist as a spirit. Rough odds, but with the help of Morty the Ectomancer Harry starts to try to piece together the events that lead up to his death and find out just who shot him. His old crew is really worse for the wear after his death and the creatures that stayed away before (having been scared of Harry) no longer have anything to fear. So the Chicago six months after Harry’s death is a much different place requiring his old friends to have become something new, something scarier and entirely more lethal. Not to mention colder of thought and cautious across the board. But just what then is the cost to their souls and who they are?

Butcher has assembled a VERY interesting book here. While it has a number of the trappings of the old-style casebooks entries in the series, albeit from the ghostly angle, it strides off in a fresh direction as well. One of transition and of fresh beginnings with new realizations and points of view. This is the book where everything that changed in CHANGES is shown in its new light. Harry’s enemies are harsher, and his friends are different. Harry himself has to adapt to life as a spirit and what he can and can’t do. Butcher does a significantly admirable job of explaining things like Why Harry doesn’t sink into the ground and go right through the earth, or how various spirits interact with the real world and why, or even how spirits themselves differ from one another and why. What Butcher does best is when he has these expository moments in the book Harry deals with them like a true pop-culture junkie...You'll see. ;)

Harry’s journey in this one is a bit of a character defining one for the most part. There are revelations that Harry comes to as a spirit (forcing him to not be able to act in certain situations) that he just couldn’t as a mortal simply because he’d normally go rushing in to every situation and screw the consequences. Well, we get a kind of birds eye view of what thoughts enter Harry’s head when he’s not able to do that. He comes to some very telling conclusions because of that, and I for one feel he’s better for it.

Murphy, Molly, the Wolves, and even Butters are different here than they had been before. Not in a bad way, but in a changed way as only they could be after the events in the last book. Harry’s death and the subsequent vacuum left in Chicago had certain effects and those characters have all been irreparably changed, Molly seemingly has gone to the deepest of deep ends while still essentially being Molly, and since she is one of my very favourite characters it’s really great to see her character deepen so much. Even people like Harry’s Fae godmother Leanansidhe have more of an introspective look at themselves in this one and I was pleased to see that. Lastly, we get three separate looks into Harry’s past all of which really give us our first glimpses of the teenager who eventually became the wizard we all know and love.

Butcher’s prose is as good as it ever has been (if not better in spots) and the pace is as relentless as it can be. And actually considering the story he’s telling in this one I’m kind of stunned the pace is just as relentless as it is. It is clearly a skill Butcher has honed over the years to make compulsively readable books, even at 13 books into the series  this one will keep you saying “Just one more chapter, just one more chapter….” before bed, and the all of the sudden it’s 3AM.

This book is pretty much everything you could want from a Dresden book, it has more awesome pop culture references (some subtle, some not so subtle) than you can shake a stick at (or a staff….see what I did there?). Choice lines like:

“Is he fast like Jackie Chan, or fast like The Flash?”

or

“How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?”

It has a riveting story where you really don’t know what’s going to happen next. It has Harry up against all odds and sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing and pretty much just being real. It has oodles of emotion, and I will freely admit to getting glossy eyed a few times early in the book when his old friends find out his spirit is around, and once later on I actually cried real tears. Like the kind of tears that sneak up on you and you don’t know you’re shedding them till they are running down your face. Manly tears, but tears nonetheless. For a book where Harry is a ghost it is also still action packed! Whether that be in the form of magical battles or gun battles, this one has everything. Of course nothing on the scale of the war in CHANGES, but if there’s one thing Butcher can really do is his action sequences. They are always above the board awesome.

Look, if you are reading this then you probably don’t need me to tell you how good Jim Butcher is and how his skill ranks up there with the best of authors. You also probably don’t need me to tell you how good the Dresden Files are. What I will tell you is that GHOST  STORY is absolutely a triumph and Butcher has created one of his best volumes in the series to date…not for awesome factors like Sue in DEAD BEAT, or the train sequence with Marcone and the Denarians in DEATH MASKS, but because this book is a little more introspective and a little more character driven. There are quiet moments in the book where I thought how deftly Butcher can handle conversations, and other moments when Harry’s internal monologue with himself is compelling. One of Butcher’s most accomplished works GHOST STORY will feed your book addiction and your Dresden addiction all in one go!

Now, only a year to wait for COLD DAYS.

Phew, a long wait, but like every year…it’ll be worth it.

TV Review: TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY – Episode 3 (Dead of Night)

The original incarnation of TORCHWOOD is a strange hybrid. As a spin-off for of DOCTOR WHO for mature viewers the show wore its American television influences with pride. Grown up themes, unflinching plot lines and plenty of explosions and gunplay gave TORCHWOOD the feel of a heavy drama masquerading as an action film. Perhaps that’s why the first two series produced such middling results. TORCHWOOD always felt like a show that knew where it wanted to end up, it just didn’t quite understand how to follow the path to get there. It wasn’t until the third series, TORCHWOOD: CHILDREN OF EARTH, that the creators discovered the right balance for the show, choosing to forgo the weaknesses of episodic television to focus on a single plotline.

In order to bring a fourth series the air the creators have collaborated with the American station Starz, hypothetically returning the show to its American inspirations.

Unfortunately the results to date have been uneven. The first episode floundered until it arrived at its big budget climax, while the second ep recovered brilliantly with a prototypical ‘locked room’ storyline that was suspenseful with a healthy dollop of black humour (the vein of storytelling that serves TORCHWOOD best).

And sadly the American additions to the cast have been underwhelming as well. Mekhi Phifer, as CIA agent Rex Matheson, has been reduced to a hyper-masculine American stereotype, snapping and snarling his lines out with a perpetual grimace on his face. I’ve seen more from Phifer during his time on ER so it’s disappointing to see his character so badly underwritten.

Even worse is Alexa Havins as the intelligence analyst Esther Drummond. For three episodes now she’s been tottering around on four inch stilettos and generally dressing like a 13 year old’s vision of a naughty librarian. Nestled amongst more gifted actors Havins’ bland performances stick out like a sore thumb, especially when compared to original TORCHWOOD-er Eve Myles, who manages to portray a tough, nuanced character without ever sacrificing her femininity in the process.

The only bright light among the new cast members has been Arlene Tur who plays an emergency doctor trying to cope with the challenges of Miracle Day. Although Tur is used primarily as an expositional plot device, observing how the MD changes affect those on the front line, she makes the most from her limited screen time.

Dead of Night, the third entry in this season, is as rocky as the season opener was.

When it comes to light that painkillers and other drugs will soon be made available to the public without a subscription the team begins to investigate PhiCorp, a major pharmaceutical company that seemingly began to stockpile drugs in preparation for Miracle Day.

Jack also begins to take an interest in convicted pedophile Oswald Danes after his many television appearances begin to earn him a sympathetic following from viewers and a mysterious meeting with PhiCorp.

There's a bit of running around, a well worn break and enter cliche is used (OMG, THEY'RE HIDING RIGHT BEHIND THE BOOKCASE) and nothing of substance really seems to happen.

This ep just dragged. Davies et al are clearly setting the table for bigger goings on in later episodes. In the meantime, that means force feeding the audience a bunch of background information on PhiCorp and shuffling the characters around like chess pieces in order to put everyone in the right place at the right time.

There was also one particularly painful scene where two characters nattered back and forth about how Britain and the U.S. use different words to describe the same thing. Once is funny, (a misunderstanding regarding pants and panties), but half a dozen times is overkill and just sucks all the momentum out of the scene.

(Is this still a thing, btw? Are people still so ignorant of the rest of the world that they need a translator to tell them that gas is called petrol in other places? Or are we just to assume that the writers think all North American are idiots?)

The few moments where the ep excelled was in the smaller character pieces, Jack exploring his mortality and reliving his failures, Gwen reconnecting with her husband and son and Rex and Vera struggling to find a romantic connection with each other despite their own self sabotage. When TORCHWOOD pauses long enough from its seemingly endless info dump and uses its characters to explore the changing nature of the world around it, the show becomes legitimately interesting.

If it really wants make a splash across the pond then TORCHWOOD needs to bring it’s A-game right now. After shedding 30 per cent of its viewing audience between the first and second ep it can’t afford to fart around and hope people keep watching. The show’s premise and its characters are clearly established and its fan base eager and ready. Its time to give them what they want.

Music: The State Of Music Today (AKA I Miss The 90's)

 

It’s curious, but when I was living/growing up in the 1990’s I thought it kind of sucked, and even looking back on it from the first few years of the new millennium I had thought that way. Now however, 10+ years on I find myself looking back fondly on a few things and at the very least the music.

As I sit here the top 5 songs on Canadian iTunes are as follows:

1.     Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) – Katy Perry

2.     Give Me Everything – Pitbull

3.     Party Rock Anthem – LMFAO

4.     Tonight Tonight – Hot Chelle Rae

5.     Where Dem Girls At – David Guetta (Feat. Nicki Minaj)

So let’s break that down shall we?

1.     A song about Perry being so wasted at a party that she ran through a park naked, and doesn’t remember it except bits and pieces. Classy.

2.     Party song about “living in the moment” whilst referencing many current media staples like Lindsay Lohan. Basically a rap that rhymes for the sake of rhyming and not a meaning.

3.     This is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a party anthem about getting wasted and having a good time with about seven lines of lyrics that are repeated over, and over, and over again. Oh and samples rips off the classic song TAINTED LOVE by Soft Cell. Yep.

4.     Oh hey, you know what this list needs? A song about partying and getting hammered! Wait…what? Yeah, this is ANOTHER song about that that cobbles together the most useless excuses for lyrics I have heard since the BEP’s. Lyrics like “La la la, whatever, la la la, it doesn’t matter, La la la, oh well, la la laa, we’re going at it tonight”…Seriously. REALLY?

5.     I’m gonna see if you can guess what this one is about. Take a second. Okay, if you guessed it’s about being slimey and trying to pick up girls in a club you’d be spot on correct. That Nicki Minaj is a featuring artist on the vocals should not fill you with any kind of expectations. You know that guy in the club who smells like a Drakkar-monster, he’s all sweaty and wears sunglasses indoors and has had one too many Bud’s BEFORE he got there? The one who walks up to girls and attempts to grind with their initially unknowing backside? Yeah, this song is about him. Where’s the damned Blogger “facepalm” when I need it?

 I'm not saying that these songs aren't catchy, or infectious, or make you want to dance. My rant is rather more than that...

My long and winding point here is that in the 1990’s, so called “alternative music” was the mainstream and you know what? Those songs actually had a point and a meaning beyond partying and getting wasted and behaving like a douche. Seriously. I’m not saying that every song on every top ten list each year was any better than those above but I AM saying that there was A LOT more substance back then. Even those songs by artists whose goal was making something catchy and infectious at least TRIED to put something decent into the meaning behind their songs. Today the radio airwaves, iTunes top lists, and CD shops are filled with music like the above mentioned tripe. Garbage, sugar sweet pop, or hard-edged rap with no soul. The people who don’t like this type of music have one respite. Emo music. Sad bastard, woe is me style stuff by the umpteen Indie artists out there. The lyrics of which are always either some pretentious twaddle about life sucking, or song about clapping and being silly. It’s like a walking through a wasteland of the most lazy, uninspired music ever these days. Not a lot of the current mainstream music can consciously be considered art, as it’s mostly overproduced poppy nonsense. Look at that Rebecca girl, she sings the worst song EVER, rich parents make a video…and she gets a record deal. That is a level of WTF-ery that I don’t want to touch with a ten-foot pole. Yeah, Lady Gaga writes infectious, catchy, beat-strewn music but her lyrics are ridiculous and almost meaningless 1^st world crap. So while your head bobs along to it, it may as well bob along to the sounds a garbage truck makes. As long as it’s got a beat right? We’ve reached this plateau on which things like Reality TV and Text-messaging and Internet sub-culture have made the world behave in a very lazy, right-now-or-I-don’t-want-it fashion. Music has fallen prey to this, and while we should be embracing technology and using it to further the art of music and using current events to fuel musical imagination no one does, because why bother as long as someone makes a beat. 

Those of you that are old enough, think back. Do you think people like Kurt Cobain, Shannon Hoon, Louise Post, Dave Grohl, Bjork, Eddie Vedder, Alanis Morisette, Billy Corgan, Zack De La Rocha, Trent Reznor, Thom Yorke, Damon Albarn, Michael Stipe, Maynard James Keenan, and China Moreno would walk across the current musical landscape and like what they see? Gods no, they’d be disgusted. They cleared the road so it could be paved with this? Those ones that are still around creating music and albums are not necessarily struggling or anything, but are they as popular as this other garbage out there? Yes, the critics still like their stuff, but it’s not like the movies where people listen to those critics. Most of the general throngs of music-listening teenage hordes listen to a lot of the above-mentioned crap because that’s what’s current and popular. It’s hard to go to a party where these tracks are played and not just feel the infectious beat and go along with the crowd.

Rewind to me as a teen. I went to a party and they played stuff like PEARL JAM’s TEN, NIRVANA’S NEVERMIND, BJORK’S DEBUT, SOUNDGARDEN’S SUPERUNKOWN, STONE TEMPLE PILOTS CORE, NIN’S PRETTY HATE MACHINE or RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE’S self-titled debut. Arguably some of the BEST albums released in that decade bar none. All of those bands had a message and their songs (for the most part) had meaningful lyrics, interesting melodies and harmonies. It wasn’t cobbled together to meet the status quo. It was thoughtfully produced music that I still know most of the lyrics to. Yeah, some of it was angry or angsty but that was just the message. This was a world that stood up to be angry at the injustice that had been raging for years. We were environmentally aware and forward thinking, we put on music festivals to bring fans together (aping 1960’s and 1970’s) and most of all we cared, even if we pretended we didn’t. 

As an aside about the environmental thing, I can’t believe we came out of a decade as aware as the 90’s and the entire world embraced something like a Swiffer where you use and throw out a cloth EVERY TIME YOU SWEEP in order to make your life easier…instead of a little elbow grease and a broom. Seriously?

I think that aside falls us back into line with my complaints about today’s music being mostly lazy, uninspired, and wasteful. This is a society that has embraced a singer who’s main song chorus is “Baby, baby, baby, oh, baby, baby, baby oh”, and embraced another band who’s chorus’s are “Boom Boom Pow” “Let’s get retarded” or “Hey Mama” repeated ad nauseum for 3 punishing minutes.

Let’s do some comparisons shall we? You know, for fun.

Bjork sang about (Hyperballad) love and how she would dream at night about horrible things so she could be refreshed every day and take on the world with her significant other.

Lady Gaga sings about the Paparazzi. ???

Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder sang about (Jeremy) a boy so distraught and lost that he kills himself in front of his entire class.

Katy Perry sings about kissing girls and liking it.

Blind Melon’s Shannon Hoon sang about (No Rain) confronting prejudice and finding those that can help your to empower yourself so that bullies and naysayers can never get to you.

Britney Spears sings about (Hold it Against Me) wanting to get it on with someone, whilst vaguely referencing love.

RATM’s Zack De La Rocha sings about (Bulls On Parade) the American military-industrial complex, a situation in which industry (the arms industry, primarily) urges government to take military action, with the intent of obtaining military contracts, to thereby increase its revenue.

Nicki Minaj sings about (Right Thru Me) how she can be cantankerous and nasty, but her boyfriend can see right through her shenanigans. Wow, thought-provoking stuff.

I know I am making a number of fairly broad strokes here and some might accuse me of reducto ad absurdam to prove my point but I don’t think this sampling of popular music is singling things out to make my statement. Every era is going to have its crap, and its greatness and I just think the ratio is really messed up right now. In the 90’s the ratio was 75% greatness to 25% crap, and I think now in 2011 it’s flipped around. So for all the bands and artists we have that are worthy of our time and interest like Adele, M.I.A., Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Eminem, U2 and Mumford & Sons, there is a slew of really awful stuff that has saturated the market and nearly drowned out that greatness. It’s lucky that amazing artist like Adele even CAN rise up to the top and create mainstream success with honest-to-gods TALENT because the market is such a playground for lazy, and boring and kids embrace that.

The reason this post came into my head at all is that Bjork has a new CD coming out in September titled BIOPHILIA. It is utilizing apps on the iPad, embracing technology but not losing what it was that made her so great in the 1990’s. The first single Crystalline has dropped and it’s a really interesting song, with interesting lyrics, and a melody reminiscent of her POST-era stuff, and finishes with a bit of drum and bass. It’s shown me that THIS is why she was so successful with DEBUT and POST especially in the 1990’s…because she wrote real music that meant something to her as well as us.  She’s totally strange, and her music is sometimes utterly bizarre but at least she is attempting to create something lasting…and not just produce something for now.

Another example is that Chris really enjoys Amanda Palmer and while she's not my cup of tea, at least she's doing something interesting! She's making music that MATTERS and is thought-provoking. She should be applauded for that.

I’m veering into the 80’s here a bit…but you know that feeling you got when you first watched the video for U2’s WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME, as Bono, The Edge and Co. stood on top of a Los Angeles corner liquor store and belted the song out to an astounded crowd below while the police did their level best to shut them down? Yeah that feeling. Where is that feeling in music today? Shit about the disco sticks and kissing girls JUST. DOESN’T. CUT. IT. I wish the industry could get back there, and I have hope of a resurgence but people need to start caring first and kids need to stop embracing lazy, tepid music.

/rant

Note: As to not leave this on a sour note. I give you the latest Bjork Single I spoke of above. Enjoy.

 

Book Review: Hounded (Iron Druid Chronicles #1) - Kevin Hearne

Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old—when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.

Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power—plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a sexy bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish—to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil. 

Urban Fantasy books are usually one breed or another but they all seem to subscribe the same basic premise. They usually concern someone fighting, loving, interacting with or being vampires/werewolves/faeries/ghosts/angels ect. So what is needed to set them apart from one another and help you decide which ones are worth your time? Well, they either have to be REALLY good at what they do and the story they tell you, or they have to introduce a new/rarely used faction into the Urban Fantasy arena...and ALSO be REALLY good at what they do and the story they tell you.

Thus, enter Kevin Hearne and his Iron Druid Chronicles. The first book is HOUNDED, and what an absolute blast to read!

Reasons this series is super cool and fresh (in a point form list…you know...just for fun)

-Atticus O’Sullivan is a 2,100 year old Druid who lives in Arizona, runs an occult bookshop/apothecary.

-Atticus has to fight some supernatural beasties, whilst being friends with others.

-Atticus has pissed off a few major Celtic gods including the main antagonist Aengus Og (God of Love..of all things and he's kind of a dick....pun I guess fully intended).

-Atticus sleeps with goddesses.

-Atticus stole a fabled sword many years ago on a battlefield that is coveted by a certain pissed off Celtic deity (See point form #3).

-Atticus has an Irish wolfhound named Oberon, with whom he can telepathically converse.

-Atticus has earth magic and as long as he can touch the actual earth with a part of his body he can summon power.

-Atticus is a completely sarcastic and hilarious narrator.

-Atticus and Thor (yes, THAT Thor) don’t apparently get along.

So basically you have the makings of not only a compelling protagonist with a number of different aspects to him, but he is also fun to read about. Hearne has made Atticus have an interesting set of scruples. He will kill any otherworldy things that come at him without compunction, but when it comes to real humans he hesitates. Even when said humans are clearly being used by otherworldly things he has cause to do so. So already there is a decided gray area in our hero’s mind and it seems like years of dealing with the fae, and gods ect. he has become rather cynical about them and what they can do (especially to him). Basically he takes a shoot first and ask questions later attitude that would come from living that long around said folk.

Atticus is surrounded by a slew of other interesting characters, including an ancient Viking Vampire lawyer, who works for a firm run by Werewolves, a coven of witches one of which appears as a college student with fluorescent half tops, shorts and sneakers, and even the goddesses of death and the hunt show up. Hearne knows Arizona well, and I found myself googling certain places (like the Papago Park Hills) to see where things are. Like Harry Dresden’s Chicago, Atticus’s Arizona is a well researched place that all helps to picture the setting as you read.

The prose is easy and flows with a significant speed and grace, and I found myself devouring page after page at a decent lope. Hearne suffers from zero pacing problems, as the book is fairly rocketship-shaped and zips along zigzagging from event to event with ease.

The main storyline follows Atticus’ need to keep his stolen sword safe from Aengus Og who tries increasingly clever avenues in which to try to snare it out of our hero’s hands, and all the while Atticus has to try to prevent his own horrible death at the hands of more than one shady character who’s true intentions are unclear. Atticus and Oberon’s banter throughout the book is on par with any great duo of humour and the fact that Oberon likes to glom onto things he’s heard stories about he spends a lot of time (in this book) wishing he was Ghengis Khan. I laughed so much at their back and forth, not to mention Atticus’ own internal and external monologues, most of which are a pop culture nerd’s paradise.

A really fun first entry in what I hope is a long series. It’s not perfect, but it is breathlessly paced and well plotted. It had a few issues with events and twists that I saw coming, but those are fairly minor complaints. An entertaining read from cover to cover, HOUNDED is well worth your time and if you think the genre sags a bit under the weight of a lot of the same sorts of generic plotlines out there, why not try something quite different for a change. I think you’ll find it refreshing!

Note: I plan to pick up the second soon (HEXED) and may just grab the third (HAMMERED) while I am at it. Hearne is currently at work on the 4th book in the series.

First Impressions: San Diego Comic Con 2011

So what are my impressions of my first San Diego Comic Con?

It was a lot of damn fun.

I don't often let myself geek out. I find hardcore devotion towards any creative type somewhat uncomfortable. Its supposed to be about the work, not the creator.

But it was nice for once to just give in to the spectacle of the whole thing in and chase sketches or attend a signing or sit in on a panel and meet some of the people who's work and talent I admire greatly, but will probably never get a chance to meet again.

Jim Lee, Geoff Johns and Grant Morrison are just people who’s names show up on the cover of my funny books, I never actually thought I’d get a chance to rub elbows with them. (Note: all elbow rubbing in this example was strictly metaphorical. That sentence should probably read, I never thought I’d get to wait in line for an hour to have them sign something. But still.)

I thought I knew what to expect out of SDCC from my Toronto FanExpo experiences, but that's like saying that since I paddled around in a dinghy once I should really be allowed to steer battleships.

First of all, they really should rename the damn thing the San Diego Film, Television, Publishing, Toys, Video Games, Genre Worship, Cosplay and Comic Con. The actual portion devoted of the convention devoted to any and all things comic books is surprisingly small. Hollywood appears to rule the roost here. Thousands of people line up for hours just to be in the same room as some of their favourite televisions stars. I tried one day to get into a couple of these bigger panels before abandoning the seemingly endless line to find something else I REALLY wanted to do.

The scope of the whole thing can take your breath away. I was heartily impressed (yo ho-ho) by the size of the main convention hall and that was before I even made my away around to check out the lines for the signings and panels.

The number of people in attendance at the Con was overwhelming. Walking the main floor was slow, but doable, on Thursday and Friday, but by the time Saturday rolled around the hall was so packed I was forced to flee to the relative quiet and sanity of a couple comic creator panels.

Even though I did so much at SDCC there was so much more I would have liked to have checked out. Despite having three whole days devoted to the event it was flat out impossible to do everything I wanted. But I certainly didn’t leave the West Coast feeling unfulfilled, so it all came out in the wash.

When I was planning this trip it was always billed around the house as being a once in a lifetime thing. But now that I’ve had a chance to experience the intoxicating nerdfest that is SDCC I’m starting to reconsider my options.

I went into San Diego without any pre-conceptions of what to expect and I left with one of the most memorable experiences of my lifetime.

If you want to check out some of my photos from SDCC 2011, head on over to the Iceberg Ink Facebook page.

Book Review: Allies (Star Wars: Fate Of The Jedi #5) - Christie Golden

The FATE OF THE JEDI series, the second 9-Book/3 Author series, (with events that mainly began in the previous 9-Book series LEGACY OF THE FORCE) has a few of the very same problems that the previous one suffered from, but thankfully has a few things that distinguish it from that one as well, improving the overall story.

What was great about Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy was the concentrated effort by one author (arguably one of the best in the SW: Expanded Universe of books) to write a sequel trilogy to the original films that had the spirit of those films, but strode into its own direction and blazed new paths and ideas. In that same vein the NEW JEDI ORDER series was 19 books long and had 13 authors all bringing something interesting to the table and that series, while quite long, didn’t flag and stall as much as the new 9-Book series do.

So here I am at the middle of the series, just having finished the 5^th book ALLIES by Christie Golden and just like in the previous series the middle is weighed down by repeated ideas and action, boring political side-plots that don’t really gel with the overall narrative. What it seems wasn’t learned from the LEGACY books was that Jacen Solo’s plotlines were damn near horrible when he was politicking instead of being Sith-like. Here we have the equivalent of that in the continuing presence of Natasi Daala as the Chief of state of the Galactic Alliance. She has a role, but here I start to see just how much padding she is. This combined with the still unresolved “Crazy Jedi” plotline, even though we know the source of the crazy makes for a slog of a read. Even the presence of her assistant Wynn Dorvan isn’t enough to make her plotline interesting. She makes stupid decisions, schemes, plots and does things that any normal politician would have been fired or lynched for long ago and nobody says boo. It’s become more than annoying at this point.

It’s not all bad though, as Golden’s skill lies in her ability to write a fun back and forth between Ben and Vestara. The romantic subplot between them is decently written and has the proper voice, so she definitely has that going for her.  My only issue with that though is that I think after what he dealt with concerning Jacen’s fall, Ben would be MUCH more leery of Vestara as a Sith than he appears to be, and I don’t think puppy love trumps Sith’s being Evil.  That’s a personal gripe though and not one with the author herself.

The plot moves along with similar devices for all involved as the previous volumes and only adding the team-up between Jedi and Sith pulls this book out of the repetitive hell it could have been.  Overall fairly written and executed, but at what point is it just more of the same? This is the issue with these 9-book series. I am POSITIVE that they could be told in 3 books and be REALLY good, 9 is just too many.

Everything continues to move towards a head on Coruscant. The inevitable confrontation between the parties involved is seen as forthcoming but it never reaches any kind of fruition. Therefore it feels like simply more pieces moving on the board with nothing big happening.

I’d like to mention something else. For some reason these three authors especially like to use Original Trilogy personalities for EVERYTHING.  Need a ship, or anything to do with seediness or smuggling? Call Lando. Seriously, when Lando showed up in this one I audibly groaned. This is an open note to the authors currently working in the SW:EU and the future authors who might do so: Stop feeling the need to add Original Trilogy characters to the fray just to connect things on a tongue-in-cheek level! If Luke and Ben are looking for a ship that can navigate the Maw and handle the damage it might take…why is Lando the one who automatically DEM’s the right ship? When everything connects on these levels it starts to become ridiculous. Why not take the time to introduce fresh characters with motivations we can’t guess? The reason Lando himself worked in EMPIRE was because even though he was a friend to Han his motivations were unclear and in the end he sort of had to betray them. That added an extra depth to EMPIRE that is refreshing in storytelling. If the main 6 Original Trilogy people show up in EVERY volume it begins to smack of uncreative. They don’t NEED to.  Like in Allston’s BACKLASH before it, there was no reason why Han, Leia et al. had to show up on Dathomir. They were DEM of the highest order IMHO. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun, but these EU authors need to realize that the point is to expand things and don’t be so utterly dependant on the veterans. Give us some new people to care about. To me this is the key reason that EU books like KNIGHT ERRANT, CROSSCURRENT, DARK ALLIANCE ect. get better reviews than the main FOTJ type series….it’s because there is more FRESH MEAT to be had. If you keep telling me stories that ALWAYS revolve around only Luke, Han, Leia, 3PO, R2 and Lando…things are going to get stagnant.

That said, I’ve heard that this series starts to pick back up at the end of the 6^th book Troy Denning’s VORTEX and that in the 7^th book CONVICTION things start to move forward again so I am looking forward to that, and the ultimate conclusion of the series.

The best news that recently surfaced is that the powers that be at Del Ray have taken fan and reviewer comments to heart. As such, the next series arc is going back to the duology/standalone/trilogy by various authors structure of the NEW JEDI ORDER series which isn’t a moment too soon as I feel the 9-Book series structure is not only tired but just doesn’t work as it requires too much padding and not nearly tight enough to make it worth the time.

ALLIES is a decent effort that I enjoyed bits of (mostly Luke and Ben’s plotline with the Sith), but overall came in at the mediocre level that will be one of my least fave efforts in the series.

Movie Review: Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part II

 

Since Chris is currently away at San Diego Comic Con embracing his Inner Comic Nerd Mecca, and since I am still working on my review for Brent Weeks THE BLACK PRISM I thought I’d put up my review for the latest HARRY POTTER film. That would be Part II of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, which I saw last Friday (and coincidentally which I am going to see tonight again).

The first part of HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, like the book it’s based on, is basically set-up for the ending. That’s not a bad thing at all mind you, as the first part (which came out last summer) was everything I wanted it to be. It was emotional, dramatic, action-packed and most of all completely enthralling for 2 ½ hours.

Well if Part I was the setup, Part II is the payoff. Everything about this film from the get-go just works. The heroes are beaten down, bedraggled and nearly broken. The villains are utterly triumphant and are basically running the wizarding world to their own ends. In fact to Voldemort himself and his cabal of generals he’s all but won. The magical world is war torn and under a basic Nazi-style rule where the heroes either have to conform or die. Harry, Ron and Hermione are still abroad as they begin looking for the next Horcrux in the quest to destroy all Voldemort’s soul pieces in an attempt to make him vulnerable. Their quest leads them through a series of scenes in the Goblin Bank in Diagon Alley (which I won’t spoil) where they find a goblet Horcrux, only to find out that the next Horcrux is something that belonged to Rowena Ravenclaw (founder of that house) and is very likely at Hogwarts. So finally, after hiding out and disaparating around the wilderness to avoid detection for months they set out to return home.

The Hogwarts they left behind is entirely changed. With Snape in charge and twin Death Eaters the Carrows in charge of discipline the magical school resembles a police state where ill behavior is punished swiftly and brutally. Thankfully, our three heroes upon trying to sneak into the school undetected, are met by a surprise.  The remnants of Dumbledore’s Army (seemingly led by Neville, Ginny and Luna Lovegood) have taken refuge in the Room Of Requirement and have been quietly waging a war of their own against their oppressors.  Snape gives a speech in the Great Hall where he says that he has heard that Harry and Co. are back and that anyone hiding them will be punished severely. So Harry walks right into the Great Hall (with Ron, Hermione and the remnants of the Order Of The Phoenix) and challenges Snape about Dumbledore’s death….to which Professor McGonagal duels with Snape (one of the most BADASS scenes in the movie, Maggie Smith FTW!) and Snape (outmatched) flees. Voldemort, using his link to Harry finds out they are at the school and speaks to everyone en masse saying that if they turn over Harry to him no one will be harmed.  The school responds in kind, with the help of the Order they cast protective shells about the school so the mass of thousands of Death Eaters, Giants and Trolls can’t get in.

Thus begins the second half of the movie. The famed Battle Of Hogwarts. I don’t want to talk about this at all as I want people to just be able to experience it for themselves. However, I want you to know that it rivals anything I’ve seen before in a fantasy battle sequence. It is EVERYTHING I wanted it to be, just utterly stunning to behold in every facet. The revelations that come in that second hour (for those who have read the book, you are aware) are staggering, well acted, and most of all entirely emotionally draining. I’ve always praised the scripts for these films, but I think the one for both parts of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS have entirely outdone themselves. Nothing is overdone and everything feels apt and homage to the source material. J.K. Rowling should be endlessly pleased that her book series was treated with such reverence over the last ten years, and was acted by some of the greatest thespians that Britain has EVER produced. The pedigree within these films is incredible. Think about it, in one film you have Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Helena Bonham Carter, John Hurt, Jason Issacs, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, David Thewlis, Julie Walters, Warwick Davis, and Cieran Hinds. Add to that all the kids that have grown up populating the students of this world, and that is an impressive list. And they all do their part to make this film such a fantastic achievement, not only in film (8 films in the series over ten years with the same stars), but in storytelling and human drama.

Consider me wholly satisfied by it (as a monstrous fan of the books) and the draw to see it again is strong. You would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t go out and see this film. Even casual fans can enjoy this.

I’d also like to note something about the box office. This film annihilated records over its opening weekend. It took the title for largest midnight screenings (both regular and IMAX), the largest take for opening day, and the largest opening weekend worldwide EVER. Seriously. It took in $476 Million over 3 days. That is probably nearly DOUBLE what it cost to make…in One WEEKEND. The logistics of that actually humble me.

…and it totally deserves every accolade. So do yourself a favour, take a few hours, get out of this ridiculous heat (In Toronto it is 48 degrees Celsius with the humidity!) and see this summers must see movie.

 

Review Requests (Indie Books/Authors)

My friend and fellow blogger Amanda over at Floor To Ceiling Books made a post similar to this the other day and as much as I wish I didn't have to, I feel like I should express these feelings to our readers as well since our inbox has seen its share as well.

When submitting an email to us asking if we'd like to review your book, put a little effort in. I'm not saying that we don't get emails that DO put effort in from Indie authors...we do get those, but a large amount put little to no effort in.

For example, when larger publishing companies send emails to ask us if we'd like to review a certain book (by a new or existing author) they usually preface their email by saying they have read the site or enjoyed our reviews. They call at least one of us by name (meaning they at least glanced at the about us page). They then go on to explain they have a book we (Chris or myself) might enjoy reading, they tell us who the author is, what the genre is and normally give a synopsis right there in the email of what the volume is about. They usually give a link to the authors website, and sometimes a little info about the author themselves. To top it off they normally throw a cover image in to whet the eye-whistles, and while this is not required or anything, you'll have to admit it's a nice touch. Thus does the email come across as well constructed, lucid and interesting. In fact, most of those emails we receive in said fashion get an immediate response with an "Okay, we'll read that!" (we got a great one the other day for an upcoming Hodder & Stoughton book that Chris jumped at the opportunity to read)

We get some funny ones that I like too, like one where the author said "Dear Chris or Scott (I refuse to say Dear Iceberg Ink cause that just sounds crazy)" and I had a good laugh at that, and the person was being entirely genuine.

We don't really think that the above is asking a lot. Publishers find a way to do it, so when we receive emails from random indie authors trying to break onto the scene who don't, it kind of boggles the mind.

We're also not trying to single anyone out, but we've received a number of emails from Indie authors that don't put that sort of effort in, and we wanted to perhaps help.

Three random sentences where they may or may not get your name right, tell you their book is fantasy or sci-fi and then provide a link where you can learn about it, is not going above and beyond. If you can't be bothered to put the synopsis of your book in the email text itself, why on earth should we be bothered to read it? You should be selling yourself to us, you're attempting to create a brand. You want us to one day look at book shelves and see your name and book title in a distinctive font and we should want to grab the title...but you don't want to do the leg work. You're meant to be an author, so sell us on reading your book by giving us the synopsis and telling us why you think we'd like it...using words. Treating your email like it's a classified ad is just not going to cut it with most sites.

Needed: One Book Reviewer. For Fantasy Book. Info please call.

Let me use an analogy. A few years back I went out to a restaurant (Alice Fazooli's in fact) with a number of friends, and when the waitress came to the table after getting us a round drinks she told us about the specials. She mentioned a rack of lamb and when asked how it was she talked about it melting in her mouth, that it was utterly luscious and she even made this motion with her hand on her neck as if it went down like butter. Of the seven of us dining that night, five ordered the lamb. Seriously. She also ended up (over the course of the evening) being the BEST server I have ever had at a restaurant and I tipped her $20 on top of the tip the table gave her. It didn't require oodles of her time and yet she spoke of what she was selling us like it was ambrosia. The lamb was delicious, but whether or not it was is totally besides the point as she'd done her job and we'd bought in.

We're not looking for your email to be amazing, but we are looking for it to be a bit personal (hopefully you've at least read the site) towards Chris or myself, and we are looking for you to sell us on it in the email...not elsewhere. You should be behaving like the big publishers when they sell us on a book, since you are self-publishing it is, in fact, expected of you.

Like I said above, if you think it takes too much time or effort to write an email that will make us want to read the book, then I can't see how reviewers are meant to take you seriously.

Book Review: PARAGAEA: A PLANETARY ROMANCE by Chris Roberson

Cosmonaut Akilina ‘Leena’ Chirkov has a problem. One moment she’s orbiting Earth in a Russian spacecraft and the next she’s crash landing on the planet Paragaea, filled with strange creatures and swashbuckling 19th century English sailors.

Not one to dwell on something as daunting as being trapped on a alien world Leena recruits Hieronymous Bonaventure of the Royal Navy and the exiled jaguar king Balam to help her return to Earth.

Leena’s quest to find Earth takes her across Paragaea, from the airships of Laxaria, to the lost caverns of the undying Benu and inside the forbidden citadel city of Atla.

And although Leena’s desire to return home never wavers she can’t help but get caught up in the mysteries and wonders of Paragaea.

Leena is forced to make a choice, do her duty by returning home to a cold, inhospitable country that would rather do without her or indulge herself by staying with the only people who have ever shown her friendship and warmth.

Chris Roberson clearly owed the world of FLASH GORDON a nod of thanks when conceiving this story. Riffing on the roguish heroes, bizarre animal-men, mad scientists and strange lands that populated the old comic book, radio and television serials Roberson creates a lush and vibrant world, spurned on apparently by an unfettered imagination and a childhood well spent consuming pulp sci-fi.

PARAGAEA is easily the kind of kind of book that I could get behind if I was twenty years younger. I’m not sure if a story nearly 400 pages long is meant to be marketed toward the YA audience, but then again I’ve seen tweens lugging around the ponderous tomes of HARRY POTTER and TWILIGHT so clearly size should never be used as a measurement of reader accessibility.

I was initially encouraged by Roberson’s choice to avoid having a lantern jawed Western hero as the lead character. Using a female Russian cosmonaut was a take on the genre that I don’t think I’ve seen replicated very often in this type of adventure fantasy.

Unfortunately PARAGAEA doesn’t always make good use of its promising premise. Its essential problem is that Roberson has simply packed the story with too many fantasy tropes and forgotten to spend enough time with the characters who inhabit this rich world. It’s like he packed 70 years of FLASH GORDON history into a blunderbuss and shot it onto a page. Every chapter either introduces us to some exotic locale, a unique character or a mystical object of power that should be explored.

But the problem is when everything and everyone you meet is amazing, spectacular and one-of-a-kind, it robs the story of its wow factor.

It’s like having ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Ice cream is pretty damn spectacular until it’s all you can eat. After awhile you might find yourself yearning for a bowl of Wheaties, or maybe even a vegetable or two*.

What frustrated me about this book is that so much emphasis was put on the sizzle that it seems like the steak was forgotten.**

In Leena, Bonaventure and Balam Roberson has created genuinely interested characters with provoking backstories but fails to effectively capitalize on all the potential drama at his fingertips. He contents himself with dropping them into a series of increasingly unlikely scenarios, which our main heroes always escape from unscathed, and hoping the conflicts therein will reveal more about his characters’ personalities.

Instead it makes the character feels like tourists on Paragaea, passing through it, but never truly enjoying the wonders the planet has to offer.

I wanted to know more about these three adventurers then just an obligatory chapter about their own personal histories. I wanted conflict, drama and to stop and explore some of the scenery that Roberson sets up, but instead I was treated to a repetitive diet of swashbuckling and bravado.

If you’re interested in action and adventure with a side of science fiction and romance then this book is for you. In fact, I’d highly recommend it for those aforementioned tweener types as Roberson does a great job in painting a picture of a strikingly beautiful and alien world.

But if what you’re looking for is something more adult and mature then I’d probably give this book a pass. PARAGAEA is definitely not fluff, but it also lacks the essential boldness to take us to places we can’t get to on our own.

*This is a damn dirty lie, but the point remains nonetheless.

** never write a review over lunch.

Book Review: A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin (Non-Spoiler Review)

 

Well it took me just under a week but I finished A DANCE WITH DRAGONS (5^th book in GEORGE R. R. MARTIN’S A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE SERIES) on Sunday morning and decided not to write my review till today since I wanted to spend a day thinking about it first.

It was requested that I try my best to avoid spoilers in this review and I fully plan to do that. So if you are concerned I will not be spoiling any major plot points, or even smaller plot points. I will however mention broader scope things and I am going on the assumption that if you are reading this review then you have read books 1-4. So, there you have been duly informed.

So how about the book. Did I enjoy it? Yes and no (AKA mixed feelings). Am I surprised that is my reaction to it? Not at all. In fact I fully expected to feel this way.

Let’s start with the structure and length. The book clocks in at around 950 pages hardcover (not including maps and house name list pages) and of that about 600 pages is spent bringing the POV’s that were absent from AFFC up to the same end-point. This equates to characters like Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister and Daenerys Targaryen killing time. The first 600 pages could be called “Holding Pattern Till We Catch Up”, and while Martin throws in some good solid stuff and a few major twists it really does feel like a bit of a slog for large chunks. It’s nice to have new or hidden-new POV’s like Reek, Varamyr Sixskins, and Melisandre in the book bringing a fresh view into the proceedings but people like Davos Seaworth who I never really cared much for (and who existed previously as a POV window onto Stannis Baratheon) are simply boring. He has one chapter where something interesting happens, but mostly it adds up to a lot of travelling and trying to get Northern lords to bend the knee to Stannis.

There is, it should be noted, one MAJOR development in the first half of the book that could be considered a game changer. Just an FYI.

For this first section the book spends time with our main characters doing things that CAN be interesting but get overdrawn. This book is largely about good people attempting to rule in good and honest ways whilst Martin shows us that even good can produce bad, and in some cases evil. That’s a great thing and a wonderful juxtaposition to the events in the South from AFFC with generally bad people doing bad things. It would be great…in another book. This is a book we were waiting six years for and while it’s nice to show us this I feel like it didn’t need 600 pages worth of material devoted to it. Certain things, especially in Tyrion and Daenerys’ storylines by page 500, feel like overkill. It had me thinking “Okay, I get it George…can we move along please?” Is this an awful thing? No, but it got a tad tedious and had the rest of the book not delivered I’d be upset.

That said, Bran's storyline throughout the entirety of those 600 pages IS totally interesting and enthralling and almost better than Jon Snow's chapters. So there's that. 

Thankfully, the final 350-ish pages are nearly completely win. In fact there is a discernable moment (a chapter of events in the Sunspear on Dorne) in the volume where we move on from AFFC and things move forward. Characters from AFFC (Cersei, Jaime, Arya ect.) show back up and this barge of a book turns into a speedboat, as Martin leaves the doldrums behind and gets to the goods.

The latter quarter of the book is full of setup for the next book and people move into positions where the tension is palpable and events happen that cannot seemingly be undone producing some surprising results. There are also events that staggered my brain with their revelations and those are always good. Are there cliffhangers you ask? GALORE. Nearly the entirety of the last 100 pages is cliffhangers, a few stronger than others, but enough to keep people guessing and coming back when the next book drops.

(Insert joke about how long that will take here)

The final 350 pages made the read satisfying but the first 600 can be a bit of a chore to slog through to get to the good stuff. It’s like having to eat a middling dinner with 3 items you dislike and one you do….to get to eat the luscious, yummy dessert. I think the main problem lies with two issues: Firstly,  splitting the book (AFFC and ADWD) VIA POV instead of mid-story was a HUGE mistake. I think I would have preferred it the other way round and the fact that he did that presented a logistics problem with time and progression. So by doing that he HAD to create 600 pages of “holding pattern” before he moved things on. IMHO that was a mistake. This brings me to the second issue:  You could actually have covered the events in both AFFC and ADWD in one book, easily. In fact, I used to say that as long as ADWD made the split in POV make sense then I would forgive it, but it just doesn’t. What actually happens in both AFFC and ADWD (first 600 pages) could have been totally covered in about 800-900 pages total…making a tighter narrative that got the same points across. I only hope that the Book4-5 fiasco does not continue to mar the series with long waits and humdrum filler.

I don't mean to sound as if I am being unnecessarily harsh here. That's not my intention, as I enjoyed visiting this world again and Martin's prose is as good as it ever was. I read it rather voraciously for like 5 days, I just don't find it perfect. It IS however, SCADS better than AFFC if only because it concerns more interesting characters and a lot of the action takes place outside Westeros and that made it have a really nice global flavour. Still a solid read, and it totally delivers in the end.

That said, with things now moving forward at a fast pace the next book THE WINDS Of WINTER can hopefully get back to the great style of the first 3 books which are still amazing. I can hope.

If you read this book it will be for those final 350 pages. The first 600 have some interesting info and a few good developments but overall it’s filler-ish with a rather disappointing Tyrion arc actually. The end of the book is all LIGHTNING….while the first half is all sound and fury signifying…well you get the picture.

It totally delivers in the end and makes the wait worth it, I'm just glad that the AFFC/ADWD timeline/holding pattern stuff is over now and hopefully it's going to be all cream from here on out.

Oh Lookie! A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is here!

Well, it’s here. 6 years waiting since A FEAST FOR CROWS and 11 years waiting to find out what happens to certain fan-favourite characters who didn’t show up in AFFC. How many cups of coffee, false alarms, GRRM hints, fan grumbles about the wait, winter and summer solstices was that? A lot.

Did I grumble? Yeah I did a bit. Not as much as some fans, but I admit I still did a bit. It’s tough to have to wait so long for a story that is one of your favourites.

I’m a little put out as to Toronto bookstores (mainly Chapters/Indigo) not having done a midnight release party for the book. Considering the HBO show, the fact that the other 4 books are all back in the NYT Bestseller top ten again, and the wait we’ve all had for this one. It would seem to me that the treatment that HARRY POTTER, TWILIGHT and MOCKINGJAY got at the Toronto stores with midnight release parties would not have been remiss. In fact, many stores across the US and UK did that very thing with fans all getting together and chit chatting and generally having a good time on the eve of the new volume’s release. For some reason Chapters/Indigo decided that it was not a good idea, though I can’t be certain why. Then again, I should be thankful that the book was even stocked on the shelves yesterday considering the chain’s history of not having books out on the shelves on release day, or not even having some in stock. I digress.

I’ve only cracked into the prologue and the first couple of chapters so far, but even that much feels like visiting with a long lost friend and I can’t help but smile.

So, I had some scotch and travelled back to North Westeros and across the Narrow Sea and found that the magic in GRRM’s writing is as alive as ever.

The book is a behemoth. Nearly 1000 pages hardcover! The dust jacket is gorgeous and the best of the revamped covers, including lovely embossing and foil stamping. The maps are also amazing, as we get not only maps of North and South Westeros, but also a close up of all the Watch Castles on the wall, one of (The Free Cities) Pentos, Braavos ect. across the Narrow Sea, and even one that shows Mereen and old Valyria (in ruins of course).

I’ll be dropping a proper review after I finish, so stay tuned for that. I assume Chris will also have his own review once he finishes as well so expect two viewpoints when those come down.

So, I assume that a lot of our readers are reading this book right now, or planning on it. Any rituals, or reading habits that you are instituting for this one, or will it be like every other book? I am personally having at least a glass of scotch every time I sit down with it at home, but that’s the Scotsman in me coming out. How about everyone else?

TV Review: Torchwood: Miracle Day Epsiode 1 (The New World)

Okay, let’s talk about TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY.

Am I excited that TW is back? Yes. Am I excited that there is an RTD and Julie Gardner production on the TV again? Hell yes.  Was the first episode of TW: MD great? Yes and no.

Overall it was a decent enough intro to a new season, but you can certainly tell that this is not going to be the pressure cooker of awesomeness that last seasons’ CHILDREN OF THE EARTH was from the outset. It’s a slower setup this time. That’s not a bad thing, but it just felt different. Jack, Gwen and Rhys are back in fine form and Harkness especially seems to be maintaining a rather surly disposition (likely due to what he had to do in the last season) that I liked. Picture Jack circa the series 2 episode titled ADRIFT when Jack is being secretive about a facility to Gwen who keeps pushing him on it. The pace is speedier in the second half and the first half has more of the random info about no one dying, but it does kind of beat that horse to death for a half hour. It’s hard to unify the two sides/stories of the Atlantic, as when Phifer shows up in Wales and confronts Gwen and Rhys I couldn’t help thinking that the Esther character would have worked better, in perhaps a way that had her not realizing just who she was going to see and why (on orders from Rex maybe). Rex Matheson on his personal one-man mission was...over-the-top to me. That’s a personal complaint though.

So, the episode is entertaining and though it doesn’t give us too much to work with plotwise beyond the main macguffin, it certainly gives us stuff to look forward to. It was nice to hear Murray Gold’s Torchwood score again and nice to see RTD-isms within the narrative. I should also note that watching this episode, even though it had some problems, was oodles better than most of this season of DOCTOR WHO…if that tells you anything.

The newbies:

Rex Matheson (CIA agent) - Played by Mekhi Phifer (see below for my thoughts on him)

Esther Drummond (CIA) - played by Alexa Havins was suitably interesting and kind of a version of Gwen pre-Torchwood, up to including Jack drugging her with a Retcon pill. Nice touch that.

Oswald Danes (criminal on death row) - played by Bill Pullman is totally creepy and messed up. I am fully of the belief that if there's one role trope Pullman can always pull off it's "creepy". 

Dr. Vera Juarez (doctor at a hospital where she notices no one dying) - played by Arlene Tur. Here is a new medical person to add to the team in the future methinks. Which is good since no one wants to see Martha Jones return. Tur was good in her small role in this first ep. Interested to see where she goes.

Now, onto some issues I had.

Problem #1: Mekhi Phifer. Dude…the overacting of this guy in the first episode was like watching an excited 12-year old in the school play attempting to portray Mercutio and only managing to pull off Paris Hilton. Seriously. His acting was AWFUL. Every other new character successfully did their level best to come into this new world but Phifer was just bad. He better up his acting game in the next few episodes if he’s going to win any fans. I’m going off thinking of his wound and pain making him overact (or seem like overacting) and once that calms down we might see more of Phifer circa E.R. as we KNOW he can act. I hope at any rate, cause I don't know how much more overacting Mekhi I can take.

Problem #2: So much time is spent on setting up and joining the various plotlines that when it all comes together in the final resolution, the scene comes out of nowhere and seems totally out of place. You have Matheson as CIA agent just getting on a plane and flying to Cardiff and finding Gwen easy peasy…Beyond that the entire point of that final scene hinges on the aforementioned Phifer delivering his lines well and since he doesn't it just comes off as strange and rushed. The Cardiff Police show up (3 cars)…Jack & Co. surrender. Not really that “Torchwood” of them (Ianto, Toshiko and Owen would probably be ashamed), but I digress.

While not the best season opener, it is still leaps and bounds better than a lot of the tripe that’s on TV right now and you’d be doing yourself a big favour to get into this show now so you don’t have to catch up later.

Enjoyed it mostly, but I am waiting for the show to WOW me like the 3^rd season did.

Coming Soon from Iceberg Ink – THE GIGGLE LOOP Podcast

Greetings Iceberg Ink-ians…Icebergers?

For nearly a year now we’ve been striving to bring you our take on what’s new and exciting in the world of books, comics, movies and more.

Now we’re looking to kick it up a notch. (BAM!)

Starting in August we’re going to be cobbling together THE GIGGLE LOOP, a podcast designed to bypass all that messy reading you have to do and inject our uninformed ramblings directly into your earholes.

But as we prepare for this epic achievement* we thought we’d poll our readership to see if there happens to be a burning topic that you’d like us to discuss.

So please, leave your two cents in the comments below and let us know what mysteries of the world you’d like to see us yak on about.

Stay tuned!

*warning, achievement may not be so much epic as it is rudimentary or even simple.

Book Review: DIVING INTO THE WRECK by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Boss loves wreck diving.

Whenever she discovers an abandoned space ship she prefers to explore the wreck herself, before passing it along to the authorities. Sometimes she turns the ships into a tourist spot, sometimes she salvages the wrecks for a little money and sometimes she keeps the wrecks off the books and all to herself. Fascinated in the lost history of these ancient vehicles the emotionally fragile and withdrawn Boss, along with a carefully picked crew, will spend weeks exploring every hull and bulkhead, teasing out the wreck’s hidden story.

One day Boss stumbles across a wreck that has no business being this far out in deep space, an ancient Earth ship known as a Dignity Vessel. These antiquated warships are so old that much of what has been written about them seems to be more myth and legend than actual fact. However, the stories all agree on one thing, Dignity Vessels are incredibly dangerous.

Fascinated by the find Boss puts together a small crew of divers to explore the wreck. Quickly the crew discovers why Dignity Vessels are so treacherous. The ships utilize stealth technology, knowledge so hazardous that its origins have been lost in time. Despite its continued efforts humanity has never been able to replicate stealth tech, though periodically it attempts to rediscover its origins.

Fuelled by a deadly combination of greed and wonderment Boss ignores her own misgivings and continues to explore the wreck. Even the discovery that Squishy, a member of her own crew, was part of a secret government program to resurrect stealth tech isn’t enough to dissuade Boss from satisfying her own curiosity.

But as Boss gets closer to unravelling the mystery behind stealth, tragedy strikes. After the death of two divers Squishy abandons the crew to alert the authorities about the existence of the Dignity Vessel. Forced by the goverment to give up the wreck and consumed by feelings of guilt Boss breaks up the crew.

Abandoned and forgotten, Boss must discover the secret behind stealth technology, even if it means exposing the tragedies of her own past.

DIVING INTO THE WRECK is an excellent book that manages to use sci-fi motifs as the backdrop to a great story without falling prey to the hoary pitfalls of the genre.

Mirroring the solitary and lonely pursuit of wreck diving itself, author Kristine Kathryn Rusch has created a very contained and insular book here as the entirety of the story is relayed through Boss’ internal monologuing,

This means the narration comes across as detached and reserved at times, presumably taking its cue from Boss’ own mental state.

There are some advantages to this approach, it gives the story an unreliable narrator which is a technique, when done well, that I particularly enjoy. All the character and scenery descriptions are filtered through Boss’ own experience and personal history (or her personal baggage, whichever description gives you more mileage) colouring her perceptions of people and events.

While this inward focused storytelling approach might slow down the pace of the narrative just a scooch, it entirely suits the mood and tone of the piece. Although the stakes of the story potentially have interstellar repercussions Rusch is more concerned with fleshing out the personal concerns and internal dilemmas of Boss instead.

WRECK is apparently cobbled together from three of Rusch’s earlier novellas and unfortunately it shows. Despite a clear narrative through line in the novel there are distinct stopping points where it’s clear a particular novella has come to an end. This ‘all stop’ felt a little jarring, more akin to the intermission between acts in a play, than the end of a chapter in an ongoing story. I would have liked to have seen more of an effort gone into blending these separate tales into a single cohesive narrative.

WRECK is a solidly laid out and plotted novel. Rusch has a good ear for dialogue and creates distinct characters without reverting to cliché stereotypes in order to set them apart from each other. She has fashioned a dark and inhospitable universe but somehow manages to inject it with hope and humanity at the same time.

Anime Wednesday: July!

 

Wednesday is a doldrums type day here at Iceberg Ink. I rarely finish a book on a Tuesday enabling me to construct a review on a Wednesday (I usually finish books on weekends), and unless there is some piece of news to impart Wednesday is fairly quiet.

So let’s start a new feature shall we?

Anime Wednesday! This will be a monthly entry and will be on a Wednesday each time. I hope you enjoy it.

I used to be into anime of all kinds, and in my late teens and early twenties I watched an awful lot of it with a friend who was also into it. I watched some decidedly powerful stuff, but I also watched some disastrously awful stuff, and even some blatantly offensive stuff. Anime is a craps shoot generally. Sometimes gorgeous animation doesn’t yield the best story, just as sometimes subpar animation can bring you an incredible story…and other times it’s completely the other way around. It really is like that. There is no definitive yardstick against which to measure anime and it mostly will come down to subjective choice. Though I keep telling folk that shun anime as childish or strange that there are diamonds in the rough that are not only works of art, but stunning pieces of storytelling. The problem is that for every Studio Ghibli film that comes out to wow us, there is also some ridiculous shows like (insert bad anime here) that tell awful stories and make you ashamed to have even put on the DVD. So it’s pretty much a minefield and sometimes you can’t tell just from a synopsis or covert art/screenshots/trailers what is good and what isn’t.

Today’s post will be two-fold.

One: I will make a list of anime that I feel is worthy of your time if you are new to the genre.

Two: I want to talk about the latest Miyazaki film from Studio Ghibli called ARRIETY.

So firstly, to the list. These are going to be either TV series or films that I feel are worthy of mention and I’ll give a short reason why. So, in no particular order:

NEON GENESIS EVANGELION (REBUILD): (Film series [4 total])

In the 21st century, humankind faces a threat from giant space creatures known as "Angels". To combat this threat, an organization known as Nerv is formed. They proceed to build giant robots called Evangelions and use 14 year-old children to pilot them.

 Now those who know this series might ask why I say films and not the TV show (or the previous films). Well the show had a bad ending, and though the films that followed it sort of fixed that ending, it’s still a tall order to go back and watch all 26 episodes and two feature films in what is a rather incoherent and incomplete story. The Rebuild films that have been slowly coming out (the 3rd just hit theatres in Japan) are completely new animation, new story points and a much more cohesive and easy to understand narrative. I don’t need to tell you getting to see Eva in theatres is a treat and a half. You will not find a series more filled with historical/philosophical/mysterious/apocalyptic undertones in anime at large. It is everything you can think of in one show and at times can be utterly mesmerizing. You can find both the first film EVANGELION 1.0: YOU ARE (NOT) ALONE and the second EVANGELION 2.0: YOU CAN (NOT) ADVANCE on DVD and Blu Ray in North America now.

 

 PRINCESS MONONOKE: (Film)

Inflicted with a deadly curse, a young warrior named Ashitaka sets out for the forests of the west in search of the cure that will save his life. Once there, he becomes inextricably entangled in a bitter battle that matches Lady Eboshi and a proud clan of humans against the forest's animal gods, who are led by the brave Princess Mononoke a young woman raised by wolves!

In what is probably my favourite Studio Ghibli film, the English language dub of MONONOKE has the voice talents of Claire Danes, Gillian Anderson, Minnie Driver and Billy Crudup. This is a very environmental story and literally jumps off the screen. It’s no wonder that this was the first of the Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki films that was shown widely outside Japan and though it didn’t fare all that well over here (in Japan it won numerous awards) I am fully of the belief it alerted the worldwide populous to the skill that Myazaki was bringing to the animation table, paving the way for his next feature SPIRITED AWAY to not only meet universal acclaim but win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2002. I personally find that MONONOKE is the superior film, but don’t take my word for it, give it a watch.

 

THE MELANCHOLY OF HARHUI SUZUMIYA: (Series)

This show centers on the title character Haruhi Suzumiya a young high school girl, and her strange antics with her friends in a club she formed called the SOS Brigade, although it is told from the perspective of the male lead, Kyon in nonlinear narrative.

If you are looking for anime that will make you laugh, be totally ridiculous and clever as hell at the same time then this is for you. If you watch the show as they have aired it (starting at episode 00 not 01) then you will be party to the first major joke of the series and it’s hilarious. The main character of Haruhi is so scattershot and insane at time that she is endlessly entertaining even when she’s just babbling about Espers and Ghosts and Dimensions.  Because the show is told VIA Kyon’s perspective there is an added level of WTF-ery that he adds to the proceedings as he reacts to her the way any sane person would leading to much fun and enjoyment. You can get the complete collection on DVD HERE.

 
GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX (Series)

Stand Alone Complex takes place in the year 2030, where many people are cyborgs with prosthetic bodies. Primarily set in the fictional Japanese city of New Port, the series follows the members of Public Security Section 9, a special-operations task-force made up of former military officers and police detectives. The series presents individual cases that Section 9 investigates, along with an ongoing, more serious investigation into the complex Laughing Man incidents.

Now the two films for GitS are great and all, and groundbreaking ect. but the series that followed it added so much more meat and depth to the idea behind the story that it can’t help but be amazing. Lushly animated (when it started airing in 2002 it had the biggest animation budget on TV in Japan ever), and vividly told, the stories from episode to episode (including an overall narrative arc concerning The Laughing Man) are as close as you can come to a LOST or FRINGE style of connected season arc mystery in the anime world. Looking for a police procedural anime? Look no further; you will get no better than this. You can get the first complete collection on DVD HERE.




 

 SUMMER WARS: (Film)

When timid eleventh-grader and math genius Kenji Koiso is asked by older student and secret crush Natsuki to come with her to her family’s Nagano home for a summer job, he agrees without hesitation. Natsuki’s family, the Jinnouchi clan, dates back to the Muromachi era, and they’ve all come together to celebrate the 90th birthday of the spunky matriarch of the family, Sakae. That’s when Kenji discovers his “summer job” is to pretend to be Natsuki’s fiancé and dance with her at the birthday celebration. As Kenji attempts to keep up with Natsuki’s act around her family, he receives a strange math problem on his cell phone which, being a math genius, he can’t resist solving. As it turns out, the solution to the mysterious equation causes a hijacking of the social networking site through which most of the world’s social and business traffic flows.

This actually is another one that got a small theatrical release over here, but it was the fact that it had a glorious Apple trailer that caught me. It sounded interesting and done by the people who did the amazingly heartfelt film THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME. Commenting on the current status of human machine connectivity (VIA the internet, Cell phones, digital accounts ect.) and how it could be detrimental, it also finds time to be a complex family drama with two young people thrown together in circumstances that will eventually lead to something more. It’s kind of a coming of age tale, mixed with an apocalyptic summer virus that wishes to destroy the world’s order. I don’t know how but this film manages to be utterly charming while being a cautionary tale at the same time. Well worth your time to watch! SUMMER WARS is available HERE.

 

 THE TOWER OF DRUAGA: THE AEGIS OF URUK: (Series)

In a summer once every five years, demons in the mysterious Tower of Druaga lose their powers due to the magic spell cast by a god named "Anu". King Gilgamesh, ruler of the kingdom Uruk, uses the appearance of demons as an excuse to invade the tower and find out the construct's secrets. As 80 years passed, the Uruk army managed to fight back the demons and built a fortress city and safe haven on the very first floor of Druaga - Metz Kier. Thus begins the story of a warrior named Jil who, finding companions along the way, embarks on a quest for the fabled Blue Crystal Rod, a powerful artifact rumored to be in the highest floor of Druaga. However, other competitors, including the kingdom of Uruk itself, want the treasure, all for their own reasons.

Looking for anime Fantasy style? This is the best. At least the best I’ve seen. It has all the trappings of classic fantasy, but with the added depth only a mysterious and emotional anime story can provide. One thing that you can notice by watching this is that anime pulls no punches. While it is animation, it is sometimes stories for adults and DRUAGA is one of those that doesn’t shy away from the more adult themes of loss, betrayal and sadness. I have just not found any other anime that reminds me as much of the fantasy books I read. Stunning animation, amazing spells and weapons and a quest that could humble the greatest warrior. DRUAGA complete series is HERE.

So that’s today’s list. That not all my favourites, but it’s a few of the very best. I know, I know, I didn’t mention stuff like AKIRA, and COWBOY BEEBOP or SAMURAI CHAMPLOO, well those are more mainstream approachable stuff that I love, but I wanted to make a list of the more backstage stuff that casual viewers may not have heard of.

Now onto the Ghibli news. Hayao Miyazaki has been called the Walt Disney of Japanese animation. Most of his films are made for family viewing and you will more often than not find nothing in them that kids won’t like.  I also feel like the messages in them are great for children as well as adults. Anime rarely talks down to children the way that Western animation can sometimes do. Miyazaki is all about the aspect of growing up and yet never stopping to believe in magic and wonder. A kid at heart (even for an old timer) I once heard him speak at a film screening at TIFF and he has this exuberance that can only be described as “childlike enthusiasm” and he brings that to his work. In a Studio Ghibli film, you can always expect the highest caliber of animation, the highest caliber of storytelling and most importantly the highest caliber of dazzling imagination. 





His latest work is an adaptation of Mary Norton’s THE BORROWERS. Titled after the main character it is called ARRIETTY, and looks to be every bit the Miyazaki we have come to enjoy in the last decade.  Strangely there is a different voice cast for the British release and the American release…and to be honest I hope we in Canada get the British one as it stars the likes of Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland and Mark strong. While the American version is the less impressive cast of Bridget Mendler, Amy Poehler and Will Arnett (which are really odd choices). It sounds like another winner since the story of THE BORROWERS lends itself very well to the style of narrative Miyazaki is not only used to telling but usually nails perfectly. Hopefully ARRIETTY represents the same type of family friendly film that can be enjoyed across the board like MONONOKE, SPRITIED AWAY, and MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO before it. Even more odd, the film is coming out in the UK this summer, and the American dub isn’t lout till January of 2012…meaning they did the British dub first and whoever bought it to release it in America wanted their own voice cast to do dubbing, though I can’t understand why with thespians such as Ronan and Strong in the leads. At any rate this likely means the chances I’ll get to see the British cut are higher, since computer DVD players can play PAL region discs.

So that’s Anime Wednesday for July. Hope you all enjoyed and look forward to hearing about more in the future. Till the August installment, I leave you with the English language trailer for ARRIETTY.