Closet Sci-Fi Geek

Here, There Be Dragons by James A. Owen

This young adult fantasy novel is so charming and so ready to be made into yet another loveable series that it did not surprise me in the slightest to find it has already been optioned as a screenplay.

Unlike most of the kiddie-fantasy being published today,  this is more adult and has adult protagonists varying in age from 18-26; one who is married and has a child and has been to war. Set during the time of World War I, the novel is a page-turner deluxe that has you gasping right up until the final page. I won’t spoil the ending and please I beg you do not read up on the book at Amazon, for they give away one of the best parts of the novel.

Three Oxford scholars come together because of a book called The Imaginarium Geographica, which is essentially an atlas to the lands of magick and high fantasy. Being a caretaker of this tome is no easy task and right away, the three friends have to deal with a murder in London (of the last caretaker) and then being whisked off to the Archipelago of Dreams, which is the land where all fantasy lives (basically another dimension).

Each scholar has his story. Charles is very level-headed but a bit retiring. Jack is young and trying to prove himself plus he has a dark-side. Lastly John, who is the new caretaker, is a man shattered by his experiences as a soldier in World War I and very unsure of his abilities to handle such an extreme situation. The reader will grow side by side through the story as their guide Bert and his daughter lead them through the Archipelago of Dreams on a dragon-ship.

There are a thousand possiblities already in just the creation of the Imaginarium Geographica. It’s quite brilliant really and I cannot wait for the actual tome to be published. Author James A. Owen is also a talented artist and his illustrations that begin each chapter are stunning.

This first story in the “Chronicles” as it is being called is filled with high-level excitement and much familiarity that will be revealed at the end of the book. It is worth every page to get there and just have that final moment of OH. MY. GOD. Just go with it, don’t try to think too hard because you will probably figure it out, which I would have if I had not been so tired while reading it. Ultimately I was glad because rarely do I get a great surprise like this!

Orson Scott Card had the following to say about the book - “Is there anyone who wouldn’t enjoy reading Here, There Be Dragons? If there is such a person, I haven’t met him, and I doubt that I would like him if I did. I am only disappointed that, because this book is so new, I’ll have to wait too long to read the sequels.”

I agree completely. I hope the author can write fast!

 

Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton

Hailed as the “DaVinci book for kids” I picked up Endymion Spring at Wal-mart a few days ago just to have a light quick fantasy read. I was right on two counts, it was light and it was quick. 

I actually enjoyed the book though I admit I was much more ramped up to a spectacular ending than the book offered. As a bibliophile myself I was quite entranced by the plot which consisted of a 12 year old (or around that) boy finding a blank book in the Oxford library that is the key to a much larger mystery that includes Johann Gutenberg and Faust. Some pretty weight material for fifth graders! 

The book is well-written no matter what age is reading and that is always a pleasure. I can see clearly by the open ending that Mr. Skelton plans an entire series and why not? Those Harry-Snicket-Fowl-Materials books have made their authors millions (and even in JK Rowling’s case billions!), so who wouldn’t be interested in diving in? 

On some levels that bothers me as they are all so commercial. In fact I just read a fantasy book (part of my Wal-mart buy) that actually included ADVERTISEMENTS for CoverGirl make-up and tampons in the book itself. I am serious. CoverGirl was listed in the credits and certain shades of lipstick and nail-polish were mentioned in the fairly vacuous book and the Tampax website was also listed in the credits. For me, that is going to far. 

Fortunately Endymion Spring had no in your face advertisements though it would (like Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series) make a compelling tourist enticement to visit Oxford. Oxford being the real-world equivalent of the fantasy Hogwart’s. 

This is a fairly smart story with very little character development. It is an excellent debut novel however and I am sure as the story continues it will grow in its depth. 

 

Dune - David Lynch original theatric release version 1984

What can you say about a film that Director David Lynch says is the only real failure of his career. (I would nominate Wild at Heart for that honor!) Lynch claims that revisiting the film through the DVD edition would be too painful an experience to endure.

I revisited it this past weekend and it was indeed a painful experience. I remember reading the books in high school and thinking they were ok, nothing earth-shattering, just typical sci-fi, some prophesy being fulfilled thing by a young man who is great at everything and has no clue why. Ho-hum.

Some of it was bizarre and I could not get my head around it. Like the sand-worms. What’s up with that? And the women all being subordinate but having the power of telepathy. Oh, that makes sense. And the Fremen and their liquid blue eyes? Then there is the folding of space and the creatures eating the spice to actually fold space. People eat it too and its like an enlightenment drug if you are not using it to fold space and it makes you live forever or something. But the people are addicted to it and have Hershey’s syrup stains all around their mouths.  Nice.

Then there are these beings called the Navigators that live in giant fish-tanks and they smoke when you cook ‘em, I mean, smoke comes out of their mouths which look very much like enormous um…anuses with tiny tentacles. Trying - so - hard -  to -  get -  the -  image -  out - of -  my - mind. 

The Baron Harkonnen has a thing for the flower-boy who wears little more than a hospital gown and hospital paper booties and apparentally how the Baron gets off is by undoing the uh…”heart-valve” in the guys chest which causes him to bleed to death very quickly. Though the blood looks somewhat like motor oil. Which almost makes sense as the Harkonnens are kind of like not nearly as clean or groovy looking Borg. They are into merging biology with metal parts and sewing up mouths, ears and eyes etc. Oh, bad dream, bad dream!

And the eyebrows that look like living squirrels? Hunh? And yet Kyle MacLachlan looks pretty good in or out of his stillsuit (which the Fremen use to survive on Dune since there is no water). Why are there all these ridiculous looking people then the occasional super-babe like a  young Virginia Madsen playing the Emperor’s daughter?

What all of this clearly establishes is that David Lynch is utterly insane. I don’t mean that in a bad way since his being insane has worked very well for his career. Yet being insane didn’t work well for Dune. It just made the whole thing look like - someone utterly insane had written and directed it.

Some fans (yes, there are four on the planet currently) praised the acting (Captain Jean-Luc Picard aka Patrick Stewart has a small part - turns out he was always kind of old and bald, but really a much better actor than most of the people in this film), others ooed and ahhed about the sets and costumes, which were ludicrous in an over the top, punk-baroque way. Still others claim that the muddled screenplay and absurd dialouge is actually brilliant and only makes sense to those of us who might actually be the Kwatch Hatrack. Yeah, whatever. It made as much sense to me as Paris Hilton’s music career.

I only went to see it in the theatre in 1984 because Sting was in it and boy howdy he was HOT back then!

When I sat down to watch it yesterday I was determined to really pay attention, now that I am smarter than I was at 15 and see what I could get out of it.

Bad idea.

I may be smarter but this movie is like a nightmare after eating too much Mexican food and a McDonalds strawberry thickshake. It’s like it should have come with a primer explaining - well, everything! Like the book had! (Note to self: Beware of books with 100 page glossaries and notes.)

Honestly though, what I liked about the books (I read a bunch of them but not the entire series) was too confusing in the film. It wasn’t at all how I had imagined it. (Except for the almost naked Sting part.) 

Why do other planets and outer space have to be so fetishistic (The Harkonnens) and dreary and depressing looking (the planet the Atreides are from)? Why do sci-fi and fantasy authors have to mix up normal English names like Paul and Jessica and Duncan Idaho, with names like Feyd Rautha and Kwisatz Haderach. I mean what the hell? That just makes my head swim.

Why is everything militaristic and space-faring, yet the Atreides live in a medieval castle? Um, hello? No one has heard of plastic? No one has a computer? What about those old microphone looking things the Harkonnens use as  translators - ok, nice and stylized but ya know, these people can FOLD SPACE. And they can’t make a decent pocket-sized translator?

The computer graphics are so laughable it is actually jarring to see them. Someone should cut them out. Or re-do them, like Lucas did. No, don’t bother, it will still not be a watchable film.

On IMDB, I just read about 30 of the worst reviews ever on this film. No wonder Lynch doesn’t want to recall it. One of my personal favorites is this from Mr. Cranky: “Let’s face it: People who drink their own urine bond fast.”

That sums it up, believe me. It is a huge, warm, chug-a-lug of desert pee!

Star Trek: The Original Series - “The Menagerie Parts 1 & 2″

The Menagerie is an interesting two-part episode because it is the first episode in Star Trek that alludes to the Enterprise ever belonging to another Captain, as well as helps create a rich back-story for the series. It is also the only two-partner in the three seasons.

That Gene Roddenberry did this with the failed original pilot, “The Cage,” is even more impressive. The events in this episode are supposed to be 13 years prior, and it really does seem this way; when in fact it was only a couple of years in real time. Even the overly-emotional Spock from the original pilot seems appropriately youthfully exhuberant. Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series - “The Menagerie Parts 1 & 2″…

Star Trek: The Original Series - “The Enemy Within”

What’s better than one Captain Kirk? Two! And how about if one of them is totally horndog? Woo-hoo! Thus the episode, “The Enemy Within” begins with a transporter malfunction that splits kirk into the Good Kirk and the Bad Kirk.

How can you tell which is which? Well, the Bad Kirk wants Saurian brandy and to molest Yeoman Rand. Oh and he has on dark eye-liner that makes him look…well…hot.

The Good Kirk is a little paler than usual and very reticent as the Bad Kirk is the one who got the cojones. Fortunately the Good Kirk keeps his intellect otherwise fusing and merging them back into one whole appropriately frisky Kirk would not be a possibility.

This episode is well-regarded as some of Bill Shatner’s best acting in the series. The Good Kirk is brilliantly understated - as if the air has been let out of his tires (or his balls are missing since the Bad Kirk has them). The Bad Kirk in contrast is over the top - hysterical, violent, filled with ego and rage and lust. In all not a half-bad guy (half, get it?).

This is also a great episode for Spock and McCoy, who are very sensitive to the Captain’s needs as well as being strong support for the ship and the crew during this crisis. They shoulder the responsibility well and work terrific as a team. Spock has a few great lines too, such as speaking of being half-human and half-Vulcan:

Spock: “Being split into two halves is no theory with me, doctor. I have a human half, you see, as well as an alien half…submerged, constantly at war with each other. I survive it because my intelligence wins out over both, makes them live together.”

Once again, Yeoman Rand (who fortunately will not be around on the Enterprise much longer) is the object of someone’s lust. I mean DEAR GOD, has anyone noticed that her hairdo actually contains an enormous beehive? Or a small alien civilization? Or the Who’s from Horton Hears a Who? I mean, seriously. Would Captain Kirk have to unweave the basket that is on top of her head before he even got down to the funky stuff? Could take a while.

Meanwhile on Alfa 177 poor Sulu and the landing party are freezing to death, so something has to happen to get Kirk back together with his shadow-self and the transporter needs to be repaired.

I love these internal ship/character episodes. Brilliant. Take something as inocuous as the geologist who cuts his hand sliding down an ore-filled cliff and look what happens - two Kirks and a frozen landing party. Oh, and don’t forget the peach dyed unicorn dog. Every episode needs one of those.

This episode is the first time Bones says, “He’s dead, Jim” referring to the unicorn dog. And it is the first time Spock uses the Vulcan Nerve Pinch (on the Bad Kirk).

The Kirk Factor: This is all Kirk and double the pleasure at that. I can’t decide which I like better. The Bad Kirk is hotter certainly and I love the snarling and throaty way he asks for the brandy and then walks around drinking from the bottle. But then the Good Kirk is so compassionate. So kind. So dreamy. Ah, well put ‘em together, make one good one.

Star Trek: The Original Series - “The Man Trap”

One of the early episodes, this one lays the groundwork for a romantic interest out of McCoy’s past. It’s a highly creative episode, with a message (don’t destroy all the buffalo, that kind of thing - hinting at the fact that as humans spread like a virus into the galaxy and start colonizing planets one of those risks is what happens to the creatures native to those planets.).

The salt-sucker creature was fairly scary to me as a kid. I can remember having bad dreams about it.

Now it looks slightly absurd. Although if I look too closely I could have bad dreams again. Shiver. However, the morphing effect when Nancy would take on (Nancy was McCoy’s ex-girlfriend who is really the creature) a new guise was neat even for then.

The acting is somewhat stilted and a little over the top in this one (imagine that - over the top!). Captain Kirk goes off on one of his moralistic tirades too at poor lonely Professor Crater:

Kirk: You bleed too much, Crater. You’re too pure and noble. Are you saving the last of its kind…or has this become Crater’s private heaven here? This thing becomes wife, lover, best friend…wise man, fool, idol, slave. It isn’t bad to have everyone in the universe…at your beck and call. You win all the arguments.

Jeez, Jim, whatever happened to walking a mile in a man’s moccasins before you condemn him?

Also in the climatic scene McCoy hesitates badly while the salt-sucker is trying to suck the salt out of Captain Kirk and Spock nearly goes hysterical telling him to shoot it but doesn’t even try to pull it off him, which is kind of bizarre, considering that he’s already told everyone that it doesn’t have a taste for him. The whole thing is a little awkward. Eventually Spock intercedes and tries to beat the stuffing out of Nancy. This is very humorous, watching Spock beat up this rather petite woman who is actually the salt-sucker creature.

Of course it all comes down to McCoy pulling the trigger on his ex-girlfriend which is a bit horrendous to watch. But she fortunately turns into the salt-sucker creature in her death throes, so he doesn’t feel so bad, though I bet he needed a nice big glass of Saurian brandy. I know I sure did.

The Kirk Factor: Is there anything my Captain can’t do? Though here he is not really a sensitive ecologist. I did feel a little bad about them killing the creature. They could have just sent her back to the planet with a five year supply of salt tablets. She did kill crew members but only by instinct and only to feed. They could have had a better plan. But I forgive you Captain Kirk.

The Shelters of Stone (Earth’s Children, Book 5) by Jean M. Auel

I have read some duds in my day (basically everything Terry Goodkind has ever written), books that made me practically give up all hope that there is a single author/editor/publisher on earth dedicated to anything but mediocrity - but this…this…catalog of repetitive, slogging, meandering, sixth-grade writing level piece of mammoth dung is one of the absolutely WORST books I have ever not finished. I couldn’t finish it, honestly - I just couldn’t - not after five hundred some odd pages of wanting to go directly to FRANCE and spray paint graffiti all over the cave walls that were Ms. Auel’s inspiration for this mess. Continue reading The Shelters of Stone (Earth’s Children, Book 5) by Jean M. Auel…

The Seeress of Kell (The Malloreon, Book 5) by David Eddings

I read and enjoyed the Belgariad - in fact; it really shook me up, emotionally. I even cried. But this tripe - this Mallorean - five books of vacuous-ness of utterly wasted words on paper that poor trees were cut down to deliver! The horror, the horror! To say it was bad is an insult to things that are truly bad. This was beyond awful. I have created more plausible storylines on cocktail napkins. I have read more entertaining and witty prose on the bathroom wall at the port authority.

This series should have never happened - it was as if - the big monumental saving of the world in the first series didn’t “count,” like - oh, that - we weren’t serious - NOW you really get to save the world. Continue reading The Seeress of Kell (The Malloreon, Book 5) by David Eddings…

Son of Avonar (The Bridge of D’Arnath, Book 1) by Carol Berg

I’ve read all of Carol Berg’s novels and Son of Avonar is by far her best. She has evolved as a writer and storyteller and has managed to create something refreshing and new in the field of Fantasy - believable, fallible and human characters.Her character work has always been her strong suit, in that even minor characters are usually fairly well fleshed out. But this book (the first in a trilogy) is a self-contained masterpiece. You could read this book and go no further. I was sure she would hang me out on a cliff like most Fantasy authors do in a multi-book collection, but she wrapped it up nicely at the end, left me wanting so much more but not suffering using tired devices to keep my interest. Continue reading Son of Avonar (The Bridge of D’Arnath, Book 1) by Carol Berg…

Lord of the Isles by David Drake

I cannot tell you how sick to death I am of derivative epic fantasy novels. But I will. Why don’t people have original thoughts any more? Isn’t there something different you could do to your epic that doesn’t hearken back to Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time or Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth (my most hated ever) series?

I often randomly choose fantasy series to read because I like to discover a good yarn. But these books don’t develop anything close to it. Continue reading Lord of the Isles by David Drake…