Tag Archive | "Books/Comics"

Review: SECONDHAND SPIRITS Brews Up a Decent Mystery

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Four Torches (Out of Five)

Imagine that you try to save someone’s life, but she ends up dying anyway. Making matters worse, the police think it may be murder, and consider you a person of interest.

Lily Ivory finds herself in this nightmare situation in Secondhand Spirits by Juliet Blackwell. This is the first book in a new mystery series called Witchcraft Mystery.

Lily is a witch, and magic is heavily woven into the plot of the book. The added bonus — the “gimmick,” if you will — is that part of the magic is, according to an author’s note, based on interviews with “real life witches.”

Lily feels like an outsider, the result of being a witch. She’s drifted around the world for years, ever since being forced to leave her home town. Now she’s in San Francisco, where she hopes to establish roots. This gets threatened by the mysterious death, particularly when the police start checking her past.

In addition to the mysterious death, she gets involved in investigating the mysterious disappearance of a young girl, apparently the latest in a long line of children who’ve vanished from one neighborhood and never been seen again.

The plot is good. It’s not as neatly-crafted a puzzle as an Agatha Christie novel — although, let’s face it, very few writers reach that standard. But the plot is always interesting, and there is genuine suspense as to how it will turn out.

But what really makes this book, I think, is the character development of Lily. She’s an interesting character, and there’s a sense of depth and history. By the end of the book, I felt I’d only barely gotten to know her (unlike some books that make me feel like I know everything I’ll ever know about their oh-so-simple main character by the end of page two!).

Supporting characters don’t strike me as being quite as deep as Lily, but they are believable and have some depth. The secondary characters who impress me the most are the men. Often, mystery series that star a woman have men who are one dimensional cardboard cutouts who do little more than show up in time to bash the murderer over the head as he threatens the heroine’s life.

The highest compliment I can pay this book is this: I got this book as “light reading” for when I commute on the bus. I started reading it on my way home. When I got home, instead of setting it aside for the next day, I kept reading.

Pick it up. It’s a magically good mystery.

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Review: THE POISON EATERS: AND OTHER STORIES

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Four Torches (Out of Five)

Every time Holly Black’s short stories show up in an anthology, critics always say the same thing: grim, lush, deeply-imagined fantasy.

The Poison Eaters: and Other Stories is her first solo collection, and because it only includes two new tales — “Going Ironside” and “The Land of Heart’s Desire” — I wasn’t expecting to be entirely overwhelmed by it. But I read/reread all 12 stories in one sitting because Black is a skilled wordsmith and her stories are even better piled together in a heap of dark magic.

Black’s short stories are billed as Modern Faeire Tales, which as an apt description because of the vampires and elves and unicorns and anthropomorphism. Yet, even though the themes are consistent, every story is delicious on its own.

(Warning: Mild spoilers below.)

“The Coldest Girl in Cold Town” introduces a homeless, alcoholic teenager who has to stay liquored up so she doesn’t give into her vampire cravings — a total bummer for the guys who want to roofie her at the beginning of the story. (”Let me spell it out: if you don’t get me some alcohol, I am going to bite you.”).

The teenagers in “A Reversal of Fortune” and “The Night Market” take a cue from The Charlie Daniel’s Band and makes actual deals with the devil. Instead of golden fiddles, though, it’s saving pets by an eating competition. And saving lives by entering into pacts with faeires.

“The Dog King” is an age-old quest that will have you rooting for the villain.

“Virgin” tells the complex and tragic story of a teenage junkie who is the kind of handsome that “girls draw obsessively in the corners of their notebooks.” And “The Coat of Stars” is a whole other kind of tragedy that explores the life of a closeted gay fashion designer.

“In Vodka Veritas” is light-hearted and a winner, simply because of the truth of the title.

In “Going Ironside” faeires try to get humans to impregnate them.

“The Poison Eaters” is about three sisters who are poisonous to the touch.

My favorite story in the collection is “Paper Cuts Scissors,” because it’s one of those rare love stories to both readers and writers, and it has the unique gift of not being overly-indulgent. (It’s easy territory to fall into when magical authors are writing about magical readers.) The main character in “Paper Cuts Scissors” has the gift of putting stuff into (and taking stuff out of) books, so that the plot is custom-fitted for whoever is reading it.

After a fight, the main character’s girlfriend thrusts herself into a Russian novel and he has to find the exact book she used to get her out again. There’s a definite Inkheart feel to it, but it’s different enough to be exciting.

The only complaint I have about Black’s stories is that they don’t really have the timeless feel of some other modern fairy retellings (like Malinda Lo’s Ash, for example). The stories are marketed toward teenagers, and while I think actual adults will enjoy the texture and depth, they probably will resonate more with younger audience (unlike Malinda Lo’s Ash, which is written for a young adult audience, but is a goer for all ages.) (Btw, I think you should read Ash. Can you tell?)

Holly Black is a gift to the fantasy genre. She makes reading fun for young people. And she makes sleeping a little harder for everyone.

Look to buy The Poison Eaters (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

From the Palantir! All Sorts of AVATAR News, and a New LOTR Fan Film!

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  • Best of both worlds? The Spider-man team met with the Avatar team to discuss filming the next episode of the webslinger saga in 3-D.
  • Speaking of Avatar, here’s a fun little story about how the power of love changed the ending of one particular screening of the movie on Valentine’s Day.
  • And in case this just wasn’t enough Avatar news for you blue-cat-monkey-people lovers, James Cameron is planning to write a prequel to the blockbuster … in the form of a novel.
  • In the never-ending avalanche of both remakes and franchises, this article speaks of the efforts to turn Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein novels into a series of films. Anyone excited about this? Hands?
  • I know everyone out there is just dying for more vampire stories, something our culture is almost completely deprived of, so thank the powers that be that The Vampire Diaries has been picked up for another season. The article is informative, but I found calling the CW the “C-Dub” and the show’s performance its “perf” to be just on this side of obnoxious.
  • And while we’re on the subject of vampires (don’t you love these segues?), here’s another potential 3-D story for you. Turns out that the masterminds behind the Twilight saga are trying to figure out if they want to project Taylor Lautner’s glorious six-pack abs into the third dimension.
  • What’s that, you say? Can’t get enough of Megan Fox’s bust? Well, neither can a lot of people, but fortunately, you can soon own it when these busts are released as a tie-in to the Jonah Hex movie. Horndogs everywhere, you’re welcome.
  • I’ll just own this: Lord of the Rings is my favorite fantasy story of all time, and I own all the various incarnations of DVD’s, including the pretty craptastic Ralph Bakshi cartoon. LOTR was the book/movie/video game series that made me a fantasy fanboy, and it will always have a special place in my heart. Therefore, I get majorly psyched when someone with the same love in their hearts busts out the elbow grease and makes a fan film such as Born of Hope. May I suggest a trip to their website? The trailer is below:

Review: Robin Hobb’s DRAGON KEEPER Will Please Fans (But May Disappoint Newcomers)

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Three and a Half Torches (Out of Five)

In 2003, Robin Hobb ended her third Realm of the Elderlings trilogy with Fool’s Fate. Six years later, the bestselling author has returned to Bingtown with Dragon Keeper, the first of two books in the “Rain Wild Chronicles.”

According to the provisions of their negotiation at the end of Fool’s Fate, Tintaglia has shepherded her serpents up Rain Wild River, but when the tangle begins to cocoon, it becomes apparent that something is dreadfully wrong. The baby dragons can’t fly or fend for themselves, and since Tintaglia took off with her new mate at the end of “The Tawny Man Trilogy,” the task of maintaining the infants falls to the townspeople in Cassarick.

When the financial and physical burden becomes too much to bear, the Cassarickians recruit Thymara and Alise Finbok as dragon keepers to escort the tangle to the Elderling city of Kelsingra.

Thymara is essentially an outcast because of her physical limitations. She is mesmerized by the dragons after watching them hatch, and feels a kinship with them because of her own deformities. Alise Finbok, on the other hand, is a bored housewife with a head full of dragon lore and a nose for adventure.

Hobb is deft at writing strong, complex, authentic female protagonists, and she’s created two highly relatable ones in Thymara and Alise. The Dragon Keeper is as richly-imagined as her other stories, though it reads a little more like her earlier trilogies (with the story being told through four different narrators).

Long-time fans will sink back into Hobbs’ luscious prose with abandon, but newcomers — or anyone looking for a standalone novel — might have a hard time schlepping through the obscenely long setup. The ending is also uncharacteristically abrupt.

Hobbs originally wrote the “Rain Wild Chronicles” as one book, but her publishers decided to split it in two, which explains the bizarre pacing. If you can hang in for the exposition, you’ll reap the payoff in old friends from previous trilogies.

Dragon Keeper was released in the UK and Australia last summer, but only hit shelves in America on Tuesday. The follow-up novel, Dragon Haven, will be released in 2011.

I’ve been a Hobb fan for a long time, and will pick up Dragon Haven with the same eagerness as Dragon Keeper. I have a feeling they will read much better when paired together.

Looking to buy this book (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

Review: With NAAMAH’S KISS, Jacqueline Carey is Back on Track

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Four Torches (Out of Five)

I am a huge fan of the original three Kushiel books (which began with Kushiel’s Dart), written by Jacqueline Carey (who we interviewed last year).

Not only were the books an enormous amount of campy, melodramatic fun, Carey did something bold: she brought full-fledged erotic writing — even S&M! — into the sometimes-staid world of fantasy fiction.

Talk about shaking up a genre! As an experiment, I thought it was an unparalleled success.

I admit I was a little less impressed by her follow-up trilogy (that began with Kushiel’s Scion and that focused on the teenage boy character of Imiriel — Carey’s always been a wordy writer, but this seemed to meander too much, and for some reason, I just didn’t get into the main character). And while I appreciate her trying something very different, her two-part series The Sundering didn’t really speak to me either.

So I approached Naamah’s Kiss, the first in a new trilogy set in the world of “Kushiel,” with a little trepidation.

I needn’t have worried. The book is a wonderful return to the triumph that was her first trilogy.

Seventeen-year-old Moirin was raised in the wild, the latest in a dwindling line of magical people. Like Phedre, she is also stunningly beautiful and hyper-sexual — and everyone she meets soon falls madly in love with her.

But Moirin is shown by her bear “god” that she has a big role to play in the fate of the world, so she sets off on a quest, to Terre d’Ange to look for her father, a D’Angeline priest serving Naamah, the goddess of desire (naturally). Soon she’s traveling to even more distant lands: the empire of Ch’in.

It’s all a very heady, readable journey.

So why not a higher “torch” rating? Truthfully, I was tempted, because I really did enjoy the book. But it must be said: the story reads very similar to the story of Phedre in the Kushiel books.

It’s not just that, like Phedre, Moirin is stunningly beautiful, and that everyone, from the queen to the daughter of the Chinese emperor (or at least the spirit of a dragon trapped inside of her), immediately falls madly in love with her, and has explicit, sometimes kinky sex with her.

It’s that the structure of the book is very similar too: she’s “adopted” by a rich noble, scandalizes the city (despite being “above” it all), then sets off for foreign, but historically familiar lands. And despite superficial differences, the “voice” of the character is very similar to Phedre too.

In short, there is a sense of “been there, done that.” Rather than try to completely reinvent herself (again), she’s clearly returning to the font of her greatest success.

No shame in that: it’s still a terrific read. If you enjoyed any of the previous Kushiel books, I guarantee you’ll like this one too.

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Ask the Oracle: Whose Voice is That in Fangorn Forest? What IS Fantasy? And What’s the Best Fantasy Series?

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Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: Settle an argument: in The Two Towers movie when Gandalf the White appears to Aragon, Gimli, and Legolas in Fangorn Forest, he is at first mistaken for Saruman — and, in fact, he looks and sounds a lot like Christopher Lee, the actor who portrays the other white wizard. But Ian McKellen has said that that’s entirely his voice and his face. Can that be true? — MAGPIE, Toronto, Canada

A: McKellen definitely maintains that it’s his voice and face — he still says that it’s “All my own work in Fangorn” on his website.

But he is misremembering. In the DVD commentary, Peter Jackson calls the scene a “visual trick,” pointing out that, “Very briefly, Christopher Lee’s eyes are actually glued onto Ian McKellen’s face…You also hear Christopher Lee’s voice — it’s blended in with Ian’s. We did want people, at least the uninitiated, to think that this possibly was Saruman.”

Co-screenwriter writer Philippa Boyers confirms this version of events: “They both tried to sound like each other” in the looping, she says, but “Christopher Lee could imitate Ian McKellen more than Ian could imitate Chris Lee.”

Q: I’m curious what you and your readers think are the top fantasy book series. Motivation is selfish, too — I want to know what to read. I’m also interested it what people specifically don’t like, and why — e.g., the Narnia series is too religious, and the anthropomorphic animals don’t work for me.  Also not liking Stephen Donaldson. With that, I’ll list mine: The Lord of the Rings, A Wizard of Earthsea, and Harry Potter. — Robert

A: The Oracle would strongly agree with The Lord of the Rings and Earthsea, but would also enthusiastically add A Song of Fire and Ice by George R. R. Marin, the first Kushiel trilogy by Jaqueline Carey, and (yes) The Chronicles of Narnia and The First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (but not the third trilogy, which is almost unreadable).

Among kids’ books (of which I’m a fan), I’d also add almost anything by Roald Dahl, but especially Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (although not the terrible sequel, Charlie and Great Glass Elevator). The Oracle also loved Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story and Momo, The Chronicles of Pyrdain by Lloyd Alexander, Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy, the Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud, and Kenneth Oppel’s Airborn books.

Harry Potter? Truthfully, the Oracle enjoyed them, but found most of the books badly in need of editing, and many of plot-lines forced, especially the conclusion. The Oracle also always thought the following books or series were over-rated, in order from least to most over-praised: A Wrinkle in Time, Inkheart, The Sword of Truth, The Wheel of Time, The Sword of Shannara, and Twilight. (Full disclosure: The Oracle doesn’t read all the books in series he doesn’t like, so perhaps these books improved over time.)

But the Oracle is far more interested in hearing what readers think!

Q: Another question: what is fantasy? For me, it’s not just supernatural. Magic has to be part of that reality. For example, The Dragonriders of Pern series isn’t strictly “fantasy” to me — the planet has spaceflight. Though the dragons can traverse space and even time, my memory is that this ability is never framed as magical, and no other magic seems to exist. — Robert

A: With something as complicated as literature, descriptive genres are, of course, mostly arbitrary, and made that much more so by all the writers who are defiantly (and wonderfully) blurring the boundaries. Labels are just labels, after all.

Here at TheTorchOnline.com, we define “fantasy” broadly. In general, if it involves magic, we cover it, but we’d throw in the dragons of Pern too, even without magic, just because they’re mythical creatures. We also cover some paranormal and “otherworld”-themed projects, as well as some projects involving history-based adventure and/or palace intrigue. Most superheroes also fall under our rubric.

As I said, it’s all pretty arbitrary, and “speculative fiction” is rapidly becoming a catch-all term — although it also includes hard science fiction, outright horror and slasher, and other genres that we almost never focus on here.

Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously said about hard-core pornography that it was hard to define, but “I know it when I see it.”

I think the same is true of fantasy. But like hard-core pornography, what’s “fantasy” for me may not be that for someone else. Viva la difference!

Q: In 1976, I read a vast number of science fiction anthologies, and read a story about an outpost planet that only ever had one human inhabitant, but they kept going mad with the loneliness. The story was about the latest man, who was promised a solution from earth. Eventually the ship arrived, but it appeared to disappear.  The closing line of the story was the “sound of a seagull”. Any idea who wrote this, and where it could still be obtained? — Errol

A: Sadly, this is beyond even the All-Knowing, Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracle’s near-omniscience. But perhaps a reader can help us both out.

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They’re Adapting Your Favorite Fantasy Book or Comic for the Movies. How Much Change is Too Much?

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Many beloved fantasy films (and these days, television series as well) are adapted from novels and comic books, and it’s almost unheard of that a story will be reflected on the screen precisely as it’s described on the page.

There are several reasons for these changes, but the broadest one is this: novels and movies are simply different animals. For example, while pacing in the written word can afford to take its time, a movie has a time limit, usually around 2 hours (or 3, for epic fantasy like Lord of the Rings.) The number of characters is as limitless in a novel as the author’s imagination, while in film and television, for each new character you face the very real issues of casting, salaries, agents, actors’ egos, etc.

Ultimately, for those charged with the thankless task of adapting a story for the large or small screen, the job becomes about remaining true to the spirit of the story, rather than making a literal translation.

And wouldn’t it be nice if it were always as cut-and-dry as that?

The problem adapters often face is the cruel and vicious reaction from the fanboy community. No matter what, no adaptation is ever good enough to appease everybody, and fantasy fans are a particularly fanatical bunch. (In fact, by sheer coincidence, someone wrote in this week to the Oracle to discuss this very topic.)

When Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens set out on the monumental task of adapting The Lord of the Rings for the screen, they knew there would be much that had to be changed in order to streamline the events into a cohesive trilogy of films. Large sections were cut or simplified. Whole characters, like the enigmatic Tom Bombadil, were excised completely. For Frodo, who was 50 years old in the book, they cast the teen-aged Elijah Wood. The love story of Arwen and Aragorn was significantly beefed up.

Did the writers go too far? The reaction is split, and while almost everyone can agree that the films were a success, there still remains a faction of rabid fanboys who have turned their back on the movies (often after watching them many times to find out just why they hate them.)

The first two Harry Potter films were very true to the books, and as a result, while enjoyable, they felt a little long and leisurely paced. The third film, Prisoner of Azkaban (the best of all the films thus far, in my opinion), departed both in style from its predecessors, and in the way it streamlined major plot points. Every film since then has begun to play like a reader’s digest version of the books, which grew to mammoth lengths.

When Watchmen came out earlier this year, the director Zach Snyder brought to the screen what many people considered an “unfilmable” story, and it worked splendidly. But because of some plot-tweaking in the end which included the omission of a giant squid, a whole slew of devotees of the graphic novel thought the film was ruined.

Is there an obvious answer, a litmus test to determine how much change made in adaptations is too much? Unfortunately, no. Adapting a story is an art, and like all art, whether the artist achieved their goal is entirely subjective. What one would hope is that those in the fan community maintain a level of civilized and polite discourse when bringing up their opinions via the internet.

What a world that would be, huh?

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Ask the Oracle: Fanatical Fantasy Fans, Exploding Eyeballs in Deep Space, and Cair Paravel!

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Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: Why do you think some fantasy and sci-fi authors collect such rabid and aggressive fans? I’ve been involved in internet-based communities centered around various fantasy authors (who shall remain nameless) for a long time now. Some of these authors attract really rabid fans who are hostile to newbies posting on the boards, are incredibly nit-picky about minor details, and who are dare we say it, obsessive, about the minutiae of the world the author writes about. Is it just that people are freer to be nasty when there is no face-to-face contact and therefore no social awkwardness? Or is there something else? I have to stress not *all* fantasy writers have those kinds of fans. — Ralph, Christchurch, NZ

A: Ralph, I think every fantasy or sci-fi author does have some fans like this — at least once he or she reaches a certain level of fame. And the reason why, as you suggest, has to do, in part, with the anonymous nature of the internet, but also just the nature of geekdom. As much as the Oracle (a geek to my core) hates to admit it, there might be some truth to the stereotype that a small sub-set of geeks has, well, social problems. We’re all best off ignoring them, because all they really want is attention — since, obviously, they have no friends.

As James Cameron says of his Avatar critics, in the latest issue of EW: “Look, most of these people are the kind of person that will say [in a nerdy, nasal voice] ‘The 14th time I saw this movie, I saw something I didn’t like, and so I hate this film.’ That’s the kind of hate I can live with.”

Then again, does this have anything to do with fantasy (or sci-fi)? The Oracle wonders. I suspect every genre has its share of infuriating jerks. Maybe it’s just the fact that fantasy and sci-fi aficionados are more likely to turn to the internet — a place that, unfortunately, allows jerks to have freer reign.

For a longer perspective, the Oracle asked Piers Anthony — a true fantasy-writing legend for many decades now — for his take.

“I have seen the kind of behavior you describe in organized science fiction and fantasy fandom,” he tells the Oracle. “Being dedicated, I can appreciate; being in-group clubby strikes me as something else, and I have never supported it. My contempt for it has been open and perhaps as a result I have been tacitly blacklisted in some areas, with false stories spread about me, and no positive reviews allowed.

“But the old fandom is passing, being replaced by Internet Fandom, which is a new game,” Piers says. “It does not seem hostile to me, and I seldom receive negative emails. It may be that I don’t frequent the right sites to pick up on the negatives. I do get specific questions, and appreciate them, I mark corrections on my file copies of novels so that they can be corrected when there are new editions. Writers do make mistakes; I hate getting fouled up, but how can I correct errors if no one points them out to me? So I see it as a service, not as nastiness.”

This is such a fascinating topic the Oracle suspects he may have more to say on it next week!

Q: Exactly how much time passed between The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian? It doesn’t seem like enough time for Cair Paravel to have become an island! — MAGPIE, Toronto, Canada

A: Interestingly, while most of the events in The Chronicles of Narnia do not have exact years and dates, author C.S. Lewis did create a “time-line” of Narnian history before he died in 1963; it was published in 1979.

From this time-line, we know that exactly 1289 years pass between the time the Pevensies (as adult kings and queens chasing the White Stag) leave Narnia for the first time and their return in Prince Caspian (as children again — how weird must it have been for them to go through puberty twice!).

Is that enough time for the peninsula on which Cair Paravel sits to turn into an island? Maybe not, but keep in mind that the castle sits on the mouth of the Great River of Narnia, and if any piece of land was going to change that dramatically that quickly, it would be the delta of a great river.

In all, again according to Lewis’ time-line, Narnia existed a mere 2555 years.

Q: Your article that mentioned the mynock in The Empire Strikes Back got me thinking about how ridiculous that scene is where they put on those flimsy breathing masks and basically go out into deep space (albeit in the belly of a space slug). Or am I missing something? Would the fact that the space-slug is reportedly a silicon-based life form make a difference?  — Tom, Seattle, WA

A: None whatsoever. They’re basically stepping into the vacuum of deep space, so they’d be overcome by painful hemorrhaging and they would not be able to maintain enough pressure in their lungs to get oxygen into their blood. Depending on how close they are to a star, they probably wouldn’t have been able to survive the temperature either. And I’m not even getting into the issue of the asteroid’s much lower gravity.

That said, the worm itself somehow survives in deep space — eating what, I don’t know — so I suppose you could build some kind of rationale for their survival around that.

And I guess it’s possible that those “flimsy” face-masks could have created some kind of instant, invisible whole-body force-field that surrounded them (perhaps it “surrounded them and penetrated them, binding Han and Leia together”).

Since we’re talking about the asteroid scene in The Empire Strikes Back, it’s worth nothing that several of the asteroids are supposedly not “asteroids” at all. One is supposed to be a shoe — a payback at George Lucas, who the effects department considered to be too demanding.

Hey, we’ve already established that scientific accuracy was not a big part of the Star Wars films!

Here’s the “shoe,” but I’m not sure I see it:

Other “asteroids” are said to be both potatoes (which the effects department thought looked like asteroids — remember, the original effects were all pre-CGI) and popcorn, as when the first Empire fighter is destroyed while pursuing the Millenium Falcon:

Maybe. But the Oracle suspects they might be putting us all on.

Q: Just putting in a plug for Edwards Scissorshands as a great Christmas-themed fantasy film! – Ed, Newport News, VI

A: Duly noted — and the Oracle agrees!

Looking to buy something mentioned in this column (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

The Tinder Box (This Fantastic Week, Dec. 11, 2009)

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Back again for another highly opinionated — some might even say downright cranky — look at the week in fantasy. You’ve been warned!

WHY IS FANTASY LITERATURE SO POPULAR (AND WHY IS SCI-FI FADING FAST)?

Earlier in the week, I linked to a writer who had come up with some explanations for why fantasy is exploding in popularity as a literary genre while science fiction seems to be fading.

(Depressingly, a lot of people in the comments are taking issue with his premise that sci-fi is dying as a literary genre, which is just stupid. The trends are obvious and clear, as we’ve written about ourselves; fantasy literature outsells science fiction by a factor of at least ten, and probably more).

Anyway, I wasn’t too impressed with most of his reasons for the popularity of fantasy: because the future has caught up to sci-fi, because we’ve grown up on fantasy films, and because “literary” writers like Margaret Atwood are cannibalizing sci-fi sales with their own speculative fiction.

But I liked his first reason a lot:

More women than men read books.

I would amend this to say, “More women than men read fiction” (because men read a lot of non-fiction), and then I’d say he’s put his finger right on it. The more I work in publishing and the more I publish novels myself, the more obvious this is to me. As more and more men are drawn to the bells and whistles (and violence) of computer gaming, I think women dominating the publishing industry is becoming even more true.

And women readers seem to be drawn more to fantasy than science fiction.

No, I don’t think it’s that women don’t like or can’t understand “science” (or, as Talking Barbie used to say, “Math is hard!”). I think the explanation is even simpler: the fantasy genre has catered to female readers in a way that science fiction has not.

Traditionally, of course, both science fiction and fantasy gave women only ridiculously passive and stereotypical characters. (Depressingly, even some female writers still do this today **cough** Stephanie Meyer **cough**).

But in the 1970s, the industry began to change, as more and more female authors began writing books themselves. For whatever reason, more women were drawn to fantasy, or — chicken or the egg — maybe fantasy editors and publishers were simply more receptive to them, especially in the children’s and young adult field.

In response, it was like science fiction doubled down, becoming more insular and more seemingly male-dominated. But given the changing demographics, this was a massive strategic disaster.

And I think it’s the reason for where we are today.

So why is science fiction still so popular as a movie and TV genre? Well, that’s the subject of another column!

A SCI-FI OR FANTASY-THEMED OSCAR NOMINEE?

Speaking of sci-fi movies, earlier this year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced that they’re increasing the number of Best Picture Nominees from five to ten — which has some folks speculating that a genre movie could potentially get a nod.

The movies that seem to be in serious contention are Star Trek, Up, and District 9, which is too bad, because I think only District 9 truly deserves consideration (along with Drag Me to Hell, which, of course, doesn’t stand a chance in hell, no pun intended, because it’s a horror movie, and a very “B-movie” one at that).

Here’s my list of fantasy-themed movies I saw this year that I think mostly “work,” from best to worst:

  • District 9
  • Drag Me to Hell
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
  • Watchmen
  • Coraline
  • Up

Here are the movies I saw that don’t really work (or flat-our stink), from best to worst:

  • A Haunting in Connecticut
  • Monsters Vs. Aliens
  • Ponyo
  • Underworld: Rise of the Lychans
  • G-Force
  • Dragonball: Evolution (flat-out stinks)
  • Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian (flat-out stinks)
  • Where the Wild Things Are (flat-out stinks)
  • Inkheart (flat-out stinks)
  • The Vampire’s Assistant (flat-out stinks)
  • The Box (really flat-out stinks)
  • Year One (really flat-out stinks)

Full disclosure: there are still a few movies I haven’t seen yet (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Zombieland), movies I refuse to see out of principle (New Moon), and movies that haven’t opened yet (The Princess and the Frog, Avatar, Sherlock Holmes).

Still, whenever I compile lists like this, I’m always shocked by how many truly stink-o-rama movies I see in a year. And yet I keep going back. Why is that? Answer: because when a movie is truly great, like District 9 or Drag Me to Hell, it makes putting up with all the crap worthwhile. Which I really believe, until I have to sit through another movie like Where the Wild Things Are or The Box.

THE IDIOT BOX

The closer we get to the holiday break, the more likely shows are to go into reruns (don’t ask my why — that’s simply the “rule”), but this week brings new episodes of Sanctuary (Friday, 10 PM, SyFy) and Legend of the Seeker (syndicated, check local listings).

Also, check out Spike TV’s Video Game Awards on Saturday (8 PM, Spike TV).

THE BOX OFFICE

So Transylmania got a 0% rating at RottenTomatoes.com — not a single critic liked it. Didn’t I warn you it would suck? Didn’t I?

Well, this week’s flame has sputtered out, but join me again next week when I promise I won’t be nearly so cranky.

Oh, who am I kidding?!

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From the Palantir! Annoying Scorcerers, HOBBIT Casting, a Gory Wolfman

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  • Okay, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice isn’t what I expected at all. The first trailer is out, but can I just say? How in the hell did Nicolas Cage get to be a superstar? He’s annoyed me ever since Peggy Sue Got Married.
  • Fringe has cast Peter’s mother (Walter’s wife). But what’s the deal with her age? (Spoiler alert) Incidentally, what happened to Theresa Russell anyway? I thought she was supposed to be a love interest for Walter.
  • Maybe new media isn’t quite the king yet after all. Nielsen says 99% of video viewing is done on a traditional TV — and out of 31 hours of weekly TV viewing, only 31 minutes is in DVR/playback mode. Meanwhile, studio executives say that the death of the DVD market is wildly overstated — that it’s mostly due to the recession, and that, regardless, Blu-Ray is making them a bundle.
  • A producer of speculative fiction magazines is paying 1/5 of one cent per word — a shockingly low rate. An editor says that obscure credits in magazines no one has heard of won’t help you break through. What do professional writers get paid? Here’s another writer’s more pessimistic take. (This is all complicated by the fact that there is basically no real professional market for short stories anymore, but both writers’ experiences are consistent with my own experience: pay rates for short stories vary wildly, which is why pay is only one of the things you should take into consideration when writing short stories. I’ll write em as a favor to a friend putting together an anthology, but that’s about all.)
  • Hmmmm. Universal is bragging via email that The Wolfman, coming in February, received an “R,” for “bloody horror, violence and gore.”
  • Despite all the rumors, casting for The Hobbit is just beginning (except for Ian McKellen, returning as Gandalf). Meanwhile, Peter Jackson says disregard those rumors that the film has been delayed.
  • Why is sci-fi literature dying while fantasy is flourishing? One writer gives some good reasons.
  • Sigourney Weaver really, really likes Avatar:  “It will pick you up and shake you like a little rag doll. I’m not too much of an emotional creature, but I was weeping by the end. I remember reading the script and thinking, I love this but how can he ever do this. Nothing like this has been done before – floating mountains! I think for a certain generation it will change what they want to happen in the cinema. It is as big as sound. I hope it won’t impact every movie, but for the big movies it raises the bar – it throws the bar away.”
  • Will a sci-fi picture get a Best Picture nod now that the category will now have ten nominees? Conventional wisdom is that the movie with the strongest shot is Star Trek (which is ridiculous, IMHO), although I think it would be an outrage if District 9 was not a contender, since I thought it was easily one of the best pictures of the year. Where the Wild Things Are is also sometimes mentioned as a possibility, but I think that’s extremely unlikely (if you read this site, you know I think that was one of the worst movies of the year, hands down). The Road and Moon are also mentioned as possibilities.
  • Terry Gilliam is interested in Robert Duvall for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, but as usual, Duvall is all “show me the money!”
  • Author Joel Shepherd explains the power of the female protagonist, especially in fantasy: “Given that male leadership is the norm in most societies even today, putting a woman in the role of primary protagonist automatically creates a series of tensions that I don’t get with a male character. In a medieval-level society even more so.”

Looking to buy any of the projects mentioned in this article (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

And Another Thing! Angel, Spike, and Edward are Just Filthy Old Men!

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Last week I pointed out the rather disgusting sexual appetites of certain fantasy heroines, namely Buffy Summers, Sookie Stackhouse, and Bella Swan.

But when you take a second look at these vampire/human couples, there’s another disturbing trend: an age gap.

Specifically, an age gap that in some cases spans several centuries.

And these are couples that in some cases involve a teenage girl. So why are we okay with this?

(Bill Compton of True Blood, you get a pass this week. Sure, you’re scandalously older than you’re girlfriend Sookie — you were in the Civil War, after all — but at least Sookie’s an adult.)

Let’s start with you, Edward Cullen, with your big dreamy eyes and your dirty, dirty hair. Sure, you may have that young, boy-next-door, Cedric Diggory-kind of appeal, but lurking behind that underdeveloped chest is the cold, dead heart of an old geezer. Does anyone else think it’s insanely creepy that an old man just keeps going back to high school?

It reminds me of that moment in Dazed and Confused when Matthew McConaughey says, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” That was unsettling to hear from him, and he was a hot dude in his 20s!

And then you not only go after this girl, you fill her head with nonsense about how all you want to do is kill her, but you’re such a gentleman that you’ll behave and let her live. And somehow you get her to love you for it!

Do they not have Megan’s Law in Forks, Washington?

But of course, that’s merely Twilight, which came well after the couple that started it all: Buffy and Angel. Before they got all freaky with each other, it was relatively unheard of for humans to sleep with vampires. What did you unleash, Joss Whedon?

He was 247. She was 16. He kept telling her how much he loved her, and waited, patiently, until finally having sex with her on the night of her 17th birthday. You got that? He slept with her the moment she became legal. That’s just as creepy as all of those websites counting down to the day the Olsen twins turned 17.

And sure, she was technically legal when she started having crazy house-shattering sex with the punky Spike, but he was still over the hundred year mark, while she was a mere 21. And furthermore, he had been in her life since she was 16 — albeit as a mortal enemy — so he had known her in the context of being a child. What’s the deal, William the Bloody?

Aside from the fact that these are beautiful girls, one has to wonder just what someone who’s been alive that long would really have to talk about with a 16-year-old girl. Here’s a sample conversation:

Vampire: Hey, you.

Girl: Hey, you. You know what I was just thinking about? The ’90s. Man, the ’90s were kick-ass.

Vampire: The ’90s? Oh, please. They had nothing on the Roaring ’20s. Man, those days were the tops.

Girl: The top of what?

Vampire: No, the tops. The cat’s meow.

Girl: You have a cat? Aw, I love cats!

Vampire: Why don’t you listen to your i-Plod?

Girl: iPod.

Vampire: I miss speakeasies.

Yeah, not a lot in common. And yet in story after emo story, we see girls getting suckered in by these debonair vamps (and interestingly, almost never do we see these stories with the genders reversed).

So let this be a cautionary tale to concerned parents out there: if you see your daughter hanging around a boy with pale skin, an anguished expression, and an unusually vast knowledge of antiquated colloquialisms, get those crucifixes and garlic ready pronto. You’ll thank me when you don’t have any unexpected grandchildren with fangs.

Looking to buy any of the projects mentioned in this article (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

Ask the Oracle (Fantasy Questions Answered)

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Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)

Q: How is it that a spell or potion of invisibility can make clothing invisible too — but only as long as it’s on the person who is invisible? — Aaron, Pasadena, CA

A: It’s called magic for a reason.

Q: I hated Dollhouse for a lot of different reasons, but one thing that creeped me out was the idea that the “dolls” were programmed for sex, which they had no control over. How is this entertaining? It bugs me that Joss Whedon also romanticized prostitution in Firefly. Given his reputation for writing strong females, does he not understand that most women see this “fantasy” very differently? — Margot, Chicago, IL

A: Whedon definitely intended the show to explore a certain kind of sexual fantasies, but says he immediately ran into studio interference surrounding those themes.

“Fox sort of has that reputation for sexy or edgy or blah, blah, blah, but they don’t actually want that and it frustrates me,” Whedon told the Chicago Tribune. “It’s the classic American double standard — torture, ‘Great.’ Sex, ‘Oh, that’s so bad.’”

At the same time, Whedon admitted that their objections weren’t quite so cut-and-dried.

“This was also more complicated because people responded to this [by saying], ‘This is trafficking. This is sex for money,’” he said. “It wasn’t just sex. It was also the other implications of what was originally supposed to be somewhat more of a fantasy. The real world version of [this kind of activity] was I think what made the network really twitchy and I can’t really fault them for that.”

In the end, Whedon sort of acknowledges the ethical problem with the central concept, but he seems to imply that it’s mostly the result of some kind of sexual hang-up.

“The idea was always, how much of the fantasy will [viewers] accept and how much will they go, ‘You know what, this just is too much like real-world situations that are truly appalling and so I can’t let the fantasy happen.’”

In the end, the Oracle sides with you, Margot, and thinks that Joss might have a bit of blind spot on this particular issue.

Q: How can Santa, one person, visit all those houses in a single night? There are billions of people in the world! — Mehran, St. Louis, MO

A: Because Santa isn’t real.

Q: If gladiators all fought to the death, wouldn’t that mean they’d run out of gladiators? — Logan, Rochester, NY

A: The ranks of gladiators were filled with captured enemy soldiers, criminals, and even paid “volunteers.” Except for the volunteers, all these people were officially laboring under a sentence of “death.”

Even so, due to the popularity of the sport, Rome did soon start to run out of gladiators, and the practice of often killing the loser at the end of every combat (if he wasn’t already dead) was officially banned. It didn’t seem to make much difference, however, as the odds of dying in any given gladiatorial combat actually rose from the beginning to the end of the empire. Rome, like Quentin Tarantino, was big on giving the audience what it wanted.

In any event, it was an extremely bloody sport. Few gladiators survived more than 10 bouts (although there are recordings of gladiators who won more than 150 fights). And almost no gladiator lived past the age of 30 — most died far younger than that.

Speaking of gladiators, the Oracle just received preview copies of the first four episodes of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, the new Lucy Lawless show coming on Starz in January. The Oracle is psyched!

Q: How can you say that Narnia doesn’t really exist! It exists in the imagination of every person who reads those books! — Roberta, Fayetteville, AK

A: Under that reasoning, everything that anyone has ever imagined “really” exists, which is a nonsensical argument that turns words into sentimental mush.

Q: Someone told me that the characters in The Year Without a Santa Claus were puppets and that you could see the strings. So I guess I want to know if they were indeed puppets or is it just lines on the screen from the film being too old? – Barb

A: They’re definitely a kind of puppet, but they’re not moved using strings, but rather a process called “stop-motion,” where the movable models are position in a certain way, and a several frames of film are shot; then the camera is turned off, and model is moved slightly, and more frames are shot, and so on; when the frames of film are shown all together, it creates the illusion that the model is actually moving.

In the case of Rankin/Bass, which created The Year Without a Santa Claus and many other Christmas classics, they sometimes later added hand-drawn animation as well, for falling snow and other elements.

Any “strings” you see are probably imperfections in the film itself, although perhaps your eagle-eyed friend has also caught a glimpse of a string or stick that the filmmakers used to position a model in a certain way in an individual “shot” — suspended in the air, perhaps.

Q: Is it my imagination or is the All-Knowing Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracle in kind of a bad mood this week? Why gives? — Brent, Seattle, WA

A: Pre-Christmas let-down. Even All-Knowing Fantasy-Question-Answering Oracles get the blues.

Looking to buy something mentioned in this column (or any other media)? Support TheTorchOnline.com by purchasing it through this link.

Have a question about something fantasy-related? Ask the Oracle! (Be sure to include your first name and the city, state, and/or country you are writing from.)