The Secret World of Arrietty

I went to see this film last night. As is usual for studio Ghibli films it was pretty much great. It was a cute kids movie without being cloying or leaving the lingering aftertaste of artificial sweeteners. At the same time it also kept from wandering into the soul crushing, entire box of kleenex affair, territory of some of the studio's other films.

Following their adaption of Diane Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle and Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea, we are treated to another foray of Studio Ghibli adapting western Fantasy fiction. This time, Mary Norton's The Borrowers, was the subject of the adaption. As with the previous adaptions it captures something of the spirit of the book. At the same time losing something due to shifting the setting to Japan, which to me, felt some what jarring. Though that likely was due more to the Dub (All animation is dubbed by the way, so don't tell me to watch the subtitled version) choosing extremely western names for a number of the characters. I just cannot see a Japanese boy having the name Sean, or his aunt being named Jessica. And at the same time the landscape was so unmistakably Japanese that I couldn't imagine the film being set anywhere else. These are minor quibbles, It wasn't distracting enough to keep me from enjoying the film.

This particular film was not directed by Studio head Hayao Miyazaki but it didn't suffer for it. It had all of the studio hallmarks, and was clearly part of a larger corpus of work stretching back to Nausica: Valley of the Wind. I really can't think of anything bad to say about the film. On the other hand I can't say that I liked it as well as I liked The Borrowers with Jim Broadbent, or the BBC television show with Ian Holm.

All in All, this being the first Studio Ghibli Film I've seen in Theaters since Princess Mononoke, I had a pretty good time. Disney for the most part does a really top notch job in the dubbing process and in bringing attention to these films. At the same time some of the localizations (such as the names) were jarring in ways that they wouldn't be if the entire movie had been localized (which it wasn't). If you haven't seen it, or if you have kids and want to show them a movie which has deep themes to it but won't leave them distraught or hyper active after they finish watching.. I recommend the movie.

Harry Potter, Movie Watch 2011. part 2

well that was.. Something.

Early on Thursday morning I woke up. Something about #5 just kept bugging me. Gnawing at my subconscious as I slept. I walked over to the book case and extricated the offending volume. I checked the page count. just shy of 900 pages. A truly huge tome. By far the biggest in the series. Eclipsing the first, by over 600 pages. With this knowledge I knew I was right in my ill feelings. I picked up the DVD cases and had it full confirmed. Harry potter and the Sorcerer's Stone has a run time of 142 minutes. For a 300 page book. Harry potter and the Order of the Phoenix has a run time of 139 minutes.. for a 900 page book. This is ridiculous in the extreme, Deathly Hallows is 200 pages shorter than Order of the Phoenix yet it got a 5 hour long film in two parts. To make matters worse, They kept nearly all the annoying and bothersome bits of #5. They left out stuff that would haunt #'s 6 and 7 and require backtracking, or simply hoping no one asked about those Yucatan sized plot holes left by their excision. One can only hope that there will be an eventual extended cut which will include a number of these very important elements.

Starting about 11am I watched Harry potter and the Halfblood Prince. What an improvement this was. It was just as complex as the the book, finally began tying up loose ends and making reference to objects found back as far as Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. Most importantly, it moved the story forward. It was an all around good film, except it has no ability to stand alone, something that the preceding 5 did have in some regard. It's too complicated to really summarize, or would spoil to much of the payoff for you watching the previous 13 hours of movies.

Skipping ahead to about 6pm. I left the house to get supper, then headed over to the theatre. I had tickets to see both parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows back to back starting at 9pm. 6 hours of potter mania where waiting for me a scant 16 miles down the road. I was not unimpressed.

Many people turned out in costume. Something I've not seen since The Return of the King came out. The demographics of the theatre were the most surprising. 6 out of 10 potterheads present were female. Had I known that, I probably wouldn't have put off reading/watching them so long. C'est la vie.

Movie #7.1 and .2 deftly continued the trend started with #6. Really the three movies could constitute a narrative build similar to a micro trilogy to cap off a series of standalone films. They did suffer slightly from the material left out of #5. Even to me, only an extremely casual reader of the series was able to point out a number of instances. Most of them revolved around the other orphaned boy residing at Hogwarts, Nevil Longbottom. The other thing the films did was try and soften the edges of Albus Dumbledore. To make him less of a Machiavellian schemer than he was in the last books.

The theatre cried over an animated elf, Cheered when Tim Burton's main squeeze bit the dust courtesy of Mrs. Weasley and booed audibly whenever Ralph Fiennes was on screen. The special effects were good enough to have me empathize with a particularly wretched dragon forced to work security in the depths of the goblin bank Gringotts. My dislike of David Thewlis, which stemmed from his character in Dragonheart, has been forgotten. But I'll say that even at a 5 hour run time, many many characters simply got fly-bys or were in group shots. I really can't say anymore than that without potentially spoiling the end. However I will say, I did find myself desperately wishing for Conan to run in from off screen and kill Nagini the giant snake.. after it having escaped death for the 4th or 5th time.

It was a good night. Consider me a Convert. But I'm glad I'm a convert on my own terms. Rather than having jumped on the bandwagon earlier, I chose to ignore it and let it pass me by. Only going to its last performance, slipping out before the final curtain call.

*Edit*

I forgot to add something else. It struck me as humorous that Ralph Feinnes plays Voldemort, while his brother Joseph portrays Merlin in the Starz show Camelot.

Harry Potter, Movie Watch 2011. part 1

In the last few days I've watched films 1-5 for the first time. Just as I earlier this year read the book series for the first time.

When I read the books back in the spring, I mostly enjoyed the earlier books in the series. I found them to be relatively light pseudo fantasy fare in the vein of Roald Dhal's whole body of work. They really do remind me of James and the Giant Peach and Big Friendly Giant and all those sorts of things.. Having Flying Cars reminded me a lot of Ian Flemming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. They are frightening, slightly demented.. but none of the villains approach the level of evil that the Child Snatcher or The Witches possess.

But starting with Book #4, this began to change. Almost from the very beginning when the death eaters attack the Quidditch World Cup. This is telling the reader/viewer that, the world is changing. Grab a helmet.

My feelings are that for the most part, I enjoy the films more than the books. Up to a point. That point is book/film #5. The Order of the Phoenix was by no means my least favorite of the series. That would be giving it too much credit. No I abjectly Hate, Order of the Phoenix. The book/films entire purpose is about the attempts of some individuals to reset the status quo. to put the genie that is Voldemort back into his bottle.

It forces characters to conform into molds they wouldn't conform too in any real life setting I've ever encountered. The character who really shines in the film is probably Alan Rickman's Snape. Who for the first time is really given a big part and we get a glimpse into his childhood and why he hates James Potter so much. On the other hand, the wonderful Gary Oldman is yet again wasted entirely in the 5th film. Having shown up in #3, and disappeared entirely during #4... it was nice having him back. But they just didn't do enough with the Black Residence or Kreacher or Sirius.. or frankly any of the Order of the Phoenix members. Choosing to almost entirely focus on the school.

It comes across in both places as excruciatingly stupid. It makes the characters themselves buffoons for drinking that koolaid. It denies us any knockdown dragout wizard magic fights for nearly 500 pages, or just about 2.5 hours. Along with that it at best plays down, and at worst outright ignores the momentous impact of what happened at the end of the last book/film. There is a distinct lack of feeling that, Though the world is different now. It's best if you keep calm and carry on. It's a seachange in the cultural undercurrent.

It didn't help that I really hate seeing Seigfried Farnon (Robert Hardy, who is an Expert at the Longbow in real life, having written two books about Agincourt and the Long Bow.. which makes him pretty bad ass in my book)as the worthless Cornelius Fudge either, or that I hate Helena Bonham Carter in just about anything she is in. It makes it difficult for me to even pay attention.

Tonight I'm going to watch #6, and tomorrow I'll be watching #7 & 8 in theatres.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Alrighty, so this is hopefully to be the last outing with helmer Michael Bay. You can sorta tell in the film. He wanted to go out with a bang. And he wanted to show up Christopher Nolan by trashing Chicago even worse than Nolan did in the Dark Knight. But really, Dark of the Moon shouldn't even be discussed in the same sentence as the Dark Knight.

It's not nearly as bad as Revenge of the Fallen. Not by half. On the other hand, its not half as good as 2007's Transformers. For one very important reason.

In 2007, when Transformers launched, and we were introduced to Optimus Prime and Bumblebee just a bit over the 1/3rd mark. You knew at least who they were. Their bodies were not the same, but their attitudes were. Bumblebee was the intensely brave, intensely loyal friend he was in both the Comic and the Cartoon, even though he didn't have his distinctive voice. Something I felt was a shame, as it would have been nice to hear Dan Gilvezan back just as much as it was to have Peter Cullen back as Prime.

Prime himself was, immediately recognizable as the same character who was quick to laugh and slow to anger. He would have done everything possible to protect his soldiers, everything that is except letting harm fall on the Humans. This is a character who chose death because he had accidentally killed computer game characters! Who let Megatron take a hostage and mortally wound him because he wanted to give the Decepticon Tyrant another chance.

Now, he just takes Faces, He's going to kill them all too. He butchers Decepticons like Hanibal lector butchers prison guards. Never once does prime mourn the lives hes taking. Apparently, Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.. unless they have red eyes.. then its butt kicking time.

Ok sure, in his defense, in the Films the Decepticons are almost unanimously shown as little more than mechanical beasts. Starscream and Megatron are basically the only ones who have any personality at all. This is something that actually improved in Revenge of the Fallen, and continued into Dark of the Moon. While the characters themselves were more correct in the first film, some of them have gotten far more dialog in the sequels.

Speaking of Megatron.. I feel his inclusion in this movie was more or less pointless. He didn't do anything except allegedly shoot Elephants in a scene that got cut out, and then get killed brutally by Optimus in the climax of the film. I feel it would have been far better to have scrapped him entirely, and given his dialog and screen time to Shockwave. An endlessly intriguing character who, they got my hopes up by Casting David Warner to voice in the Video Game.. I'd have bought 10 tickets if I got a conversation between Shockwave/Warner and Sentinel Prime/Nimoy.. it would have been like Star Trek VI all over again. Awesome. In other words.

Nimoy was the real standout of the film. His character was complex, but ultimately should have simply been Galvatron. I couldn't help but think of Galvatron every time Sentinal Prime spoke. That's how deeply Nimoy's portrayal of the upgraded Megatron was on me as a child. Even when I listen to Spock I think of Galvatron.


The Set pieces ranged from fantastic to bugf*ck insane. When I said they trashed Chicago I was not even remotely joking. Though they never really gave a reason why the Decepticons planned to take over Chicago.. It just happened.

The really unique thing though is that this is the first time that the plot was more or less copied from the Cartoon. Or rather, several episodes. It shared elements of The Ultimate Doom and of Megatron's Master Plan. But ultimately the Cartoons were far more fulfilling because both times they showcased complexity of many of the characters.

Oh well, I'd still rank this as the 2nd best in the series..

Mighty Morphin' Mondays.

Episode 4 "A Pressing engagement"

Jason (The Red Ranger) is having some personal quandaries due to his inability to best Bulk's Bench-pressing records. This creates a lot of self doubt, which Rita takes advantage of in order to try and split the team up. She sends the monstrous King Sphinx (different from Goldar) to attack Angel Grove while Jason is soul searching. The monsters manage to separate Jason from the rest of the team and proceed to wail on him. The rest of the team regroups and comes to the rescue before Jasons killed by Goldar and King Sphinx. They form Megazord and dispatch the beast, but again Goldar escapes.


Episode 5 "A Different Drum"

Rita comes up with a plan to use Music to defeat the power rangers, so she summons the Gnarly Gnome, a garden gnome who plays a magic accordion and sends him to earth. His powers hypnotize people leading them off, thankfully it dosen't affect Mellisa, the deaf girl who is in Kimberly's dance class. She follows the hypnotized girls then runs to find Kimberly who summons the power rangers. They defeat the Gnarly Gnome and save the hypnotized girls.

Episode 6 "Food Fight"

Inspired by a food fight at the juicebar, Rita summons Pudgy Pig. A monster which eats everything including the rangers weapons. Trini realizes that the monster cannot stand spicy foods so the rangers set out to feed him vast quantities of horseradish until he vomits their weapons back up. The form the Mega-Blaster and destroy the monster before he can consume the world's food supply.


As the episodes progress from Episode 1, they have already sort of hit their stride. We've had three Trini centric episodes, two Kimberly Centric episode and a Jason Centric Episode. So far that leaves Zack and Billy out, but I'm sure they will get their own episodes soon enough.

Conan the Barbarian, a review.

If you are interested, I've reviewed the novelization of the new Conan film over on Hyborean Apocrypha. And also written another post summarizing its apparent placement chronologically and how it relates to Robert E. Howard's original stories.

You can read the 6 parts at the following links. But be warned, massive spoilers are contained within.

Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.
Part Four.
Part Five.
Part Six.

Mighty Morphin' Mondays.

Alright, so my excitement for this outweighed my trepidation and I went and watched a few episodes of Power Rangers. It was not as bad as I feared, I actually found a good many things about it that I liked even now. It's amazing mostly since I didn't remember any of the positive messages of practice, teamwork, anti-bullying, health, nutrition.. none of it.. all I remembered was the Zords.

So Clearly even with all their efforts to produce a kids show with redeeming social qualities they didn't do it well enough to really make any of that stick out. But I give them credit for being far more subtle about it than another multi-coloured team of teenagers who combined their powers to fight evil. I'm looking at you Captain Planet.

This was another in a long line of Shuki Levy and Haim Saban productions. They have a history of sourcing material from Japan and reworking it to make it into relatively new product. It's another in a long line of such shows, But is relatively rare in that it dosen't just use the whole Japanese program, but has lots of new footage as well. It's some what of follow up to their Macron 1 program, also for Fox. Which was two totally unrelated Japanese anime edited together in the same vein as Voltron and Robotech. Like Robotech and Voltron, the stories are nearly totally re-worked and new music is added that makes the disparate pieces into a coherent whole. It's typically very memorable music, lots of people who haven't seen Robotech in 20 years will immediately recognize it as Robotech simply after hearing the background music, For me, it was exactly the same with Power Rangers.. It was extremely catchy.

I'm going to review several episodes each week, they are only 20 minutes long each, and there are at my count nearly 750 episodes. So expect about 3 per week for the next few years. Unless I forget, in which case.. I trust you to entertain yourselves.

Power Rangers ran on a 6 day schedule on local fox channel here. So every other weekend, when I went to visit my dad, I missed an episode. It didn't hurt power rangers, but really damaged my enjoyment of other shows from the era that were more serialized. Like X-men. So the first episode Day of the Dumpster, is oddly one I've never seen before.

It attempts in 20 minutes to set up the basic idea of the series. It introduces the main antagonist, Rita Repulsa. She's been trapped in a "Space Dumpster" on "The Moon" for 10,000 years. I've never seen the Super Sentai series that the Rita Repulsa segments are sourced from, but it clearly didn't take place on earth. The Planet that the "Dumpster" is on, clearly has two other bodies in his sky. But that quickly is glossed over and ignored. Rita it seemed tried to take over the universe in the past, and was trapped in the Dumpster as punishment. She responded by trapping Zordon in a time warp, which is the reason he is a floating face.

We are shown the kids, and their nemeses Bulk and Skull. at a health center (Something that even back in 1993 I considered some what ludicrous.. You see, to me, Health Center meant the place you went to see a doctor if you couldn't afford to go to a real doctor. I was positive no kids would want to hang out at a health center.)when an Earthquake hits. They are then summoned to Zordon's command center by Alpha the robot. Here they are given their morphers and power coins, and their communicators to allow them to talk to each other in case of an emergency, it is a kids show designed to sell toys after all. Before long they are putting their merchandize to work fighting one of Rita's minions. The sphinx like Goldar. When just the regular action figures fail to be enough, they call in the big guns, the Dino-Zords and Goldar retreats.

The second episode, High Five, Is the first of them with the random monsters, created by Finster, another of Rita's minions. It features the character of Trini attempting to overcome her fear of heights, and successfully doing so in order to save the team, and form the Megazord.

The third Episode, Team Work, features the girls attempting to get some environmental petition signed and the rest of the team going their own ways, The episode shows what comes of lack of team work, where Rita successfully divides the team to prevent them from the usage of the Zords. The team manages to regroup and summon the Zords but they aren't effective against the new monster. Zordon introduces the Power Weapons which gives the team enough of an edge with their respective mechanical help to defeat the monster. The episode of course ends with them learning how to work together as a team and defeating another of Finster's Monsters.

Limitless.

Went to the Dollar theatre last night and saw Limitless. It stars Bradley Cooper, who I'm informed started out on Sex and the City. We won't hold that against him. He also played Jack Bourdain in the hilarious and as usual short lived "Kitchen Confidential" on Fox. I knew he could do comedy. I'd never really guessed him for much of an action guy.

This movie isn't really an action movie though. Its got plenty. It's got plenty of just about whatever you could want. It's even got Bradley cooper calling Robert DeNiro his bitch. Something I didn't think you could do and continue to eat solid food.

Basic premise of the film is that Bradley's character, a struggling writer who is impossibly disorganized hooks up with his ex-wifes brother the drug dealer. The dealer sees he's struggling, throws a new product his way. NZT. You know how normally you only use 20% of your brain at any one time? This lets you use it all, all the time, full throttle. This turns your moped into a ferrari. It's also addictive. And the DT's from it make you worse than you were before you started taking it.

He proceeds to turn a 1000$ into $8000 through stocks. But this isn't enough capital. He gets in with a loan shark. He gets 100grand. Turns it into 2.3 million in 10 days. All the while noticing he's being followed by a disturbing man trying to kill him. You see his meteoric rise to the top, and he never really comes down from it, apart from the lowest point when he's totally out of drugs and has to drink another NZT users blood to prevent the crash from leaving him at the mercy of the loan shark's goons.

If you haven't seen this, if you are the least bit disorganized, scatterbrained, what ever. I totally recommend you see it.

I hope they Serve Beer in Hell.

I'm not sure whether I should be appalled or if flabbergasted is enough.

I don't even begin to know how to describe this "Book".

I feel like I need an Adult.

Review - Winter is coming.

Alright, so I just got home from a the house of a buddy with HBO. We watched the episode twice. Sitting through all the stupid commercials for true blood along the way.

Game of thrones the show, is a very starkly beautifully rendered production. The costumes seem designed for functionality rather than screen appearance. It generally was a nice looking program. It felt like a world thats been lived in.. rather than one that was thrown together with oddments found in the backlot's broom closet. I imagine a good bit of their budget went into those aspects.. because it didn't go into the CGI.

The Characters were well Acted, believable, the only ones who I considered distracting where Khal 'Ronan "Jason Momoa" Dex' Drago and Eddard 'Richard "Sean Bean" Sharpe' Stark. They are simply too identifiable and I can't help but thinking back to their other characters. Almost no one else in the show with the exception of Peter Dinklage is anyone I could place. I know Mark Addy was in the recent Robin Hood.. and he was in A Knight's Tale... but he isn't some one I really think of immediately as some defined character. None of the women in the program stood out to me for any of their previous roles. So the cast was very well assembled.

But thats not really important.

Already I can state, without any vacillation, there is no way I will be able to actually watch this program for years and years. I will not invest another minute of my time, another Iota of my effort into George R.R. Martin's program. I simply cannot countenance allowing him to rope me into it. Regardless of how well it is written as a show (or a novel), Regardless of how well the performers do. I cannot do it until I know the ending and KNOW without any doubt, that the Lannisters and Targaryens all die, much deserved, deaths. And since I cannot trust G.R.R.M to do that. I can't be certain going in that that is how it will end. I cannot take any more steps on this journey. I'm keeping my feet, and I'm heading back to my front door.

Quasi Medieval, Dragon-ridden Fantasy Crap, Uhh what?

So.. I'm taking it that Slate's TV reviewer dosen't like Game of thrones all that much.. and wants to take out his anger on someone.. He apparently already hates the Fantasy Genre before even going into it. Fair enough. But I'd expect some one who reviews TV shows to be objective in reviewing well.. a TV show..

It would be like if I reviewed 'Mad Men'. It's obviously a great program, well written, with lots of drama and all that jazz. Good costumes, sets, actors giving great performances. But it's also about Ad executives.. people who make it onto my top 5 lists of "Those who will not be allowed into the bunker when the end comes" along with Lawyers, Politicians, Insurance claims adjusters and people who say ' Thats what she said' ". I wouldn't be objective, my dislike of the manipulative act of selling people stuff they don't need, negatively colours my opinion of the program before anything else is even taken into account. The same is true of 'Walking Dead' I don't like zombies, 'Jersey Shore' I don't like stupid people. I could go on and on.. but I've explains my position.

I've not seen anymore of the show than anyone else at this point. That 10 minute preview, I've read the first 100 pages of the book. It didn't really do much for me. But I'm going to cheerfully give the show a chance. See thats something else the reviewer assumes. That just because it's fantasy, means that every fantasy fan will enjoy it. Thats simply not true. I certainly wouldn't enjoy a film based on the works of R. Scott Bakker.. any more than I enjoy films based on the works of Cormac Mcarthy. Just because the Road was Science Fiction dosen't mean I went to go see it. I imagine plenty of people who tuned into Krod Mandoon just as quickly tuned back out. Obviously the same is true of the recent Your Highness, which seems to have just as many supporters among Fantasy enthusiasts as detractors.

The problem is now however, that his review is the review of the series for that website. He is their TV reviewer and he obviously hated it. And at the same time wants you to know how dumb you are for liking it.


If you read that.. the whole thing kinda reminded me of this

Your Highness.

A raunchy fantasy romp brought to you by the same chaps who made Pineapple Express. It's done pretty poorly at the box office. I can understand why. It has very little appeal to your average viewer.. not nearly as much nudity as the trailers would have you believe and generally it requires that the audience be well versed in 80's fantasy films, D&D and other sorts of Fantasy oriented activities in order to truly get anything out of the movie.

It felt a hell of a lot like the sorts of things my friends would devolve a D&D game into. Wizards shooting colour spray out of their backsides. Barbarians blundering into boobytraps and having to re-roll 3-4 times a night. Jokes about copulating with dwarves or farm animals.. All of that sort of stuff.. it's all in this movie. Instead of getting high and watching Ator the Mighty, this is like getting Ator the Mighty high and then watching while completely sober.

Like Pineapple express the marketing is.. confused.. and confusing. They try to make it have as much mass market appeal as possible but its clearly not working.

The cast is, generally made up of quite good actors and actresses.. James Franco, Natalie Portman and Damien Lewis are all people I usually think of as being 'good' actors.. Danny Mcbride however you either love or hate, and having him star in the film was perhaps a mistake.. It's one thing to have him as a character in the movie.. but to be the star of the movie didn't really work... but he wrote it.. so he clearly loved it. At points in the film it was almost as if the character succeeded or failed based solely on Danny McBride throwing some saving throws behind his DM screen. He also wasn't lying when he likened it to serious movies like Dragonslayer and Krull.. It's simply a really really really raunchy Krull.

It didn't have the sex and violence of programs like Spartacus, but wasn't family friendly like a lot of those 80's movies were by any stretch of the imagination. Most of the jokes relied on the audience being aware of what was being lampooned. The film was rife with shots copied from Conan the Barbarian and others. But at the same time it didn't really come across as a spoof. It's more of just a really really screwy Fantasy world. Xanth on Acid.

So my guess is, if you are reading my review of it.. you will get a lot more out of it than if you are just some one who is reading a review of it on Yahoo. Don't trust the reviews from "normal" sources on this one.. if you like those 80's movies (some like Ator and Deathstalker are so bad they hurt to watch) You will find this lovable near Pastiche of those sorts of films quite enjoyable.

The Dying Earth.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first volume in this series, I won't however be reviewing it but rather the second book 'Eyes of the overworld'. Having now read it, it fills in some gaps in my understanding of where the current trend of seemingly sociopathic characters in fantasy originated.

Having enjoyed the first volume in the series, I decided to press on into volume two. I'm sorry I did now as the main character for this volume, alternatively titled 'Cugel the clever'. Sometimes described as "ambiguously appealing", I found he was perhaps the most aggravating character I've had the misfortune to see a story from the P.O.V. of since Steerpike in 'Titus Groan'.

As described by the author, Cugel is "a man of many capabilities, with a disposition at once flexible and pertinacious. He was long of leg, deft of hand, light of finger, soft of tongue ... His darting eye, long inquisitive nose and droll mouth gave his somewhat lean and bony face an expression of vivacity, candor, and affability. He had known many vicissitudes, gaining therefrom a suppleness, a fine discretion, a mastery of both bravado and stealth."

Once you translate that from bullcrap however, it reads as "Liar, Cheat, Thief, Murderer, Rapist, who shows no remorse for his actions whatsoever". In other words.. he has no redeeming qualities, and as such this book has no redeeming qualities except one. And that one is the only reason I didn't chuck it promptly into the Trade-A-Book pile. It is marvelously well written with truly evocative scenery and atmosphere. It's simply a shame that Jack Vance didn't construct a less obnoxious character to inhabit it.

This series was apparently very influential also in the creation of Dungeons & Dragons.. but if a player ever ran a character like Cugel in a game in which I was the Dungeon Master.. he'd find his character making a short drop and a sudden stop in the first town he passed through.

The Influence of this book's main character can definitely be felt today in the works of authors like Joe Abercrombie, Sam Sykes and the rest of the Grim n' Gritty brigade. So Perhaps since I don't like its imitators.. its no surprise I don't really care for the original either. It's truly a shame that such a character pollutes the landscape in such a way as to sometimes be distracting, this was Peake's major flaw as well. He redeemed this by having Steerpike get his comeuppance, Somehow I doubt Cugel will ever face a situation he can't weasel his way out of.

I'm not sure now if I will bother to read Cugel's Saga or simply skip it in favor of reading "Rhialto the Marvelous" instead... I certainly won't be seeking out Micheal Shea's Cugel Pastiche 'A Quest for Simbilis'.

Prince of Dogs, Crown of Stars #2 by Kate Elliot

Well after having struggled some what to finish up the first volume in this series I took a bit of a break before tackling the second volume. I really hoped that it would be better, after all the first book was mainly set up, world building, showing the reader what was what and who was who. My hopes proved unfounded however.

After another lengthy struggle through another lengthy book which acted as a car with bad petrol in it. Fits and Starts. Parts of it are great, but parts of it are not. Its extremely uneven, and this makes me afraid to continue with the rest of the series. Pages and Pages of stuff that dosen't do anything to further the plot. Good characters shunted aside so the author can focus on characters who are, for the most part, pointless at this time in the series. Which I'm not ruling out that they could be more important later, that happened in the Wheel of Time several times.

At this point I'm not sure I'm going to continue reading this series, as the third volume is longer than the first two buy nearly 200 pages. That is almost assured to be another 200 pages of introspection bulking up a plot that could be covered in half as many chapters. Unfortunately when an author builds a huge series of huge tomes, it can sometimes occur that they are huge simply because the author is self indulgent. I'm not sure if thats the case here, since the books all cover such short spans of time it could simply be that they can't be taken as individual books but rather as parts of a whole. But so far I've not gotten enough investment in any of the characters to make me want to keep reading to find out.

I still can't bring myself to call it a bad series. It's an incredibly complexly detailed series that feels like a real world with a vast history. There are still a number of things which I feel detract from this, and its stuff thats not likely to go away. Simply put, the chances of a real medieval world featuring this many women in levels of authority is rather baffling to me. I can't think of a single Indo-European culture that actually had this level of egalitarianism. Even if cultures like that existed during the European Bronze or early Iron Age as in the case of some Celtic tribes.. it was mostly relegated to history well before anyone made it to the castles and mounted chargers phase. It's not a bad thing, since it is a Fantasy series, but to me its a bit distracting. Since none of the female soldiers are described in terms that make them sound even the remotest bit like soldiers.. they ride hard all day in armor but then all the men still faun over them.

I'm going to have to think hard about whether I will continue or not. Until then, here's a few more Cover art shots that once more put the US edition to shame.


France:


United Kingdom:

The Castle

This is an interesting little movie. It was pretty low budget, even by australian standards, but boy did they buy a lot with their money. The laughs in this film never really stop, and I routinely quote lines from it. And it has a pretty interesting cast. Beyond the main stars, it features a very early Eric Bana, and an Anthony Simcoe with no Makeup on.. since the only thing most people would have seen him play in the U.S. is D'Argo on Farscape that should be fairly unique to any fan of that series.

The basic premise is that years ago, Darrel Karrigan (Micheal Caton) bought some cheap land at the bottom of a runway, near some high voltage lines and built a house on it. Over time he built a successful car towing business and raised a family. He turned his home into his Castle. But as Airports are wont to do, it now needs to expand. That means the Karrigan's and their neighbors have to go.

Compulsory Acquisition. In the U.S. it's called Eminent Domain. Same Principle. Government comes in either for their own ends or to further the ends of a business in some way.. and decides they want your land and will buy it from you whether you want to sell or not. Usually they offer below market value. But they never recoup you for sentimental attachment to the dwelling.

After everyone on the block refuses, a mysterious man begins showing up and making veiled threats to the homeowners. Darrel's son pulls a shotgun on him, but their neighbor Faroouq threatens back. He's from Beirut you see... and deals with the threatening man by saying "You know friend.. I know friend.. you're friend beat me up.. my friend blow you to fucking sky!" After this Dale, decides to fight.

At first its all just petty stuff, but eventually he decides to fight legally. He's unfortunately not the brightest fellow in the world, and dosen't really have a lot of money. So he hires the pretty low level solicitor who represented his son on a B&E charge.. a charge that was upheld by the court and that son is still in Jail.

When he goes for the court case, he happens to strike up a conversation with a man who has come to see his son's first case. The man, Lawrence (Charles 'Bud' Tingwell) happens to be a retired QC, or Queens Council. A QC who also happens to be a Constitutional Law specialist. They begin a friendship, and he agrees to represent the neighborhood in case, using the Malbo and the Tasmanian Damn's cases to build their own. Finally settling on the term "Just terms" in Australian Constitution.

Long story short, they win their case, it becomes precedent in Australian law, the airport will have to expand in a different direction and everything works out fine. It's a nice story.

For whatever reason this movie has been pretty hard to come by on DVD. As far as I know in fact its not even actually available in Australia for purchase. The US version has also been edited some what. They didn't really change the slang, but they changed the names of foods, TV shows that the characters watch, and replaced words like "Cladding" with "Siding" in reference to the building material. They also replaced all the music. So if your a purist then you will either have to suffer through the Americanized version or do without. But to me, It didn't bother me, and I've seen both versions.

King's Dragon, Crown of Stars Volume 1 - Kate Elliot

Released in 1997, this tells a tale of political intrigue in a some what unique and oddly egalitarian setting. It's definitely odd at first, and rather incongruous. The writing is quite good, and its obvious the author put a lot of effort into her research of the real dark and middle ages before writing this first volume of what, like all fantasy series that came out in the 90's, was supposed to be a trilogy. Soon this ballooned into a shelf sagging behemoth of 7 volumes.

I'd never really planned to read this series, but My sister had read it and left the books behind when she moved out. And instead of bunging them off straight to the trade-a-book I thought I'd give them a try first. Needless to say, I don't normally feel my sister has much in the way of taste when it comes to.. well.. anything actually.. so I was a bit surprised by this. It's not a bad novel, and if the series stays at least on par with this it won't be a bad series. It seems to me however that far more time is spent on back door political dealings and pages of characters navel gazing than anyone actually doing anything.

I've seen this series compared sometimes with George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, also occasionally with Tad Williams' Memory Sorrow and Thorn. I can some what see the resemblance, but they are all 3rd cousins at best. So far however, Elliot has stayed on the side of stark contrast closer to Williams rather than crossing to the dark side that is the various shades of grey approach that GRRM is so good at. This series has obvious good and evil characters. That isn't to say that sometime in the next 6 volumes their positions on various issues won't change.

The World building is top notch, but the modern gender ideas are sometimes very jarring when compared to what the actual time periods that inspired this series were like. That may be one of the books biggest flaws. This novel feels too much like a historical novel for me to really see it as a Fantasy..

Some of the characters are good, some aren't. Some are just bland, and those are the ones who seem to get a large amount of pages dedicated to them. I'm sure all the stuff they ramble on about, the history of the church, the history of the kingdoms.. It's all probably very important to the plot. But it tends to come in such boring segments it sometimes makes me feel as If I'm back in high school history class. In other words, this novel makes frequent use of the dreaded infodump. Sometimes its handled well.. some times less so.

Worse, the series is slow. Slow and Slow. You plod along, huffing and wheezing and groaning under the exertion of slogging through the navel gazing infodumps.. and suddenly you will hit an icy patch and skid for 3 or 4 chapters and feel exhilarated and think.. Finally, it's going to get started. But then you hit a gravel patch and slow down again and regain control, and then slow down some more as you come to a pedestrian crossing. The book didn't begin to really pick up plot wise until there were less than 100 pages left. It's definitely all set up. But it left me feeling rather tepid towards the rest of the series. If the rest are like the last 100 pages of this one, then it will be a snap to finish. If they are on the same format as this book with the first 500 pages being set up for very little reveal.. it will be a snoozefest. I suppose I'll see when I get to reading the second book. I hope it stays moving at a good clip, as I'd really like to like this series.




Though not in the least the authors fault, the cover art on this series is, in a word, horrible. It's not even just bland like a Darrel K. Sweet cover.. It's just downright bad. The UK Editions, and Especially the French Editions.. have vastly superior cover art.

The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rotfuss

Ok so I didn't make it through this volume as quickly as I did "The Name of the Wind". This isn't a bad book.. but its definitely suffering from "Middle chapter-itus" where the first book is to hook you so its got all the build up.. the second book's job is to get you some place.. to position you for the ending which will close up that setup stuff during the third book.

The other thing this book does that some what disappoints me is that the experiences that Kvothe is now sharing with the reader are perhaps leaking in to the second day's story and should have been included in the first days story.. what else is he omitting or choosing not to say? It's casting doubt on his whole story for me. It's difficult to measure how I feel about this.. I've seen lots of other reviews remark on Kvothe being an "Unreliable narrator" but I'd never really seen any indication of that in Name of the Wind. But its there in good quantity in Wise Man's Fear.

Furthermore the book is meandering, it uses up a lot of pages to not really tell us a whole lot.. the first half of the book is a lot more entertaining than the second half.. which basically contains a whole lot of Sex. Brandon Sanderson felt it was sufficient enough in quantity to include a disclaimer on his review of the book. I probably would do the same. Name of the Wind was a PG rated romp comparable to Dragonbone Chair. But Wise Mans's fear is pushing a PG13 rating.. it dosen't show you the sex, but its there going on behind the words.. sort implied like in TV sitcoms. Screen goes dark, next scene, two characters in bed giggling over something. that sort of thing. While part of this is important, it mostly just winds up feeling gratuitous.

And considering the main venue for fantasy novels.. I'm not sure if having your main character get laid something close to 50 times in one novel is a selling point or a detractor. I assume though since its #1 NYT bestseller.. it just proves.. sex sells.

Its really difficult to talk about the book without giving away loads of spoilers, and since this book just came out, rather than having had several years to be out.. I'm more cautious of spoilers with it.

I'm really anxious to read the last volume, whenever it manages to get released. So he's not lost me entirely. However, I am uncertain whether I would continue reading Rothfuss unless he stayed with at least the same world that these stories are set in. That was perhaps my only real complaint with Tad William's Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. Was that when the book ended, the door to Osten Ard closed. And while I've enjoyed some of his other short works, I've been hesitant to jump into either Otherland, and some what anxious to get into Shadowmarch now that its complete.

The Pacific

Got this DVD set for the holidays and over the last few nights I've watched through it. I don't have HBO so I'd not seen any of it previously, but bought it based solely on it being produced by the same team who produced Band of Brothers. I really really liked Band of Brothers when it came out. My relationship with the Pacific however is not as good.

I should probably take this time to own up to the fact that I really just don't find the Pacific theatre of World War II to be that interesting from a purely historical perspective. And having said that, it isn't because the stories of the men and women, Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, Civilians, etc who were involved aren't intriguing or worthy of being remembered. It's simply because they were fighting over small, inhospitable specks of land surrounded by hundreds of miles of ocean. They were strategically important, but not particularly historically important. This bias of course followed me into the film, just as it followed me into Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Windtalkers, The Thin Red Line, and basically every film I've ever watched about the Pacific War.

I can tell you Ira Hayes' name only because Johnny Cash wrote a song about him.

The Landscape can't make the story, the people have to make the story. And unfortunately if, as the saying goes, War is Hell, then I really don't know what to call the Pacific fighting.. since Hell really isn't strong enough. The Brutality and doggedness of the soldiers on both sides, disease, filth, reckless loss of life. Flamethrowers alone move it well beyond "Hell" being fitting. Some of the scenes in The Pacific were disturbing even, and rightly so. I can't begin to be conceited enough to think I have even an inkling of what it was really like. And to be truthful, I don't want to.


So, while the scenery didn't do anything for me, monotonous vistas of tropical paradises turned into blood soaked cinders of pain and misery.. The pacing of the episodes was good, it never became overbearing the way films such as Black Hawk Down do, where by the time your finished watching you feel worn out. As if you have been through an ordeal. None of the episodes felt that way, until they got to Okinawa, which made all of the horrific scenes from the previous 8 episodes pale in comparison, but it felt like what it was, the last gasp of the war, where the Japanese would rather be destroyed than surrender.

The actors in this film, they did a great job. They made you care, and filled you with revulsion. Often the same man fulfilling both roles. But even with this, even with these actors giving it such a tremendous effort, I still found myself not feeling the same thing for these men as I did for those of Easy Company. You saw easy company men looting Hitler's flatware. But you didn't see Easy Company men cutting the gold teeth out of still living German casualties.

Thats the big thing about this, is that war dosen't just rend bodies, but as one of the main man's father remarks, it rips out their souls. And thats why I'm so glad that at the end of the film, Episode 10, had an entire episode dealing with these men moving on from their ordeal, showing that they were still human, and Humane, and would slowly recover what they had lost.

I'm probably not giving this Miniseries justice in my review, just as the Miniseries dosen't give the actual events the gravitas they deserve.. but everything has its limits. And while I cannot rank it as highly as I do Band of Brothers, I still give it a solid 7 out of 10, based entirely on the strength of the actors.

Richard Rahl Raised my Taxes.

I'm going to try and explain my seemingly quixotic quest to finish the Sword of Truth series, despite it being mostly unpalatable.. After watching the Television show, and rather enjoying it for what it was.. I was some what dismayed that it was canceled just as it seemed to be finding its direction. I felt the first season was padded considerably, and that the idea of adapting 1 book per season for an 11 book series was insane as the actors would age considerably in 11 years time.. So when the second season was announced along with the notation it would be adapting books two, three and parts of 4.. I felt they would be making a much better show. The second season was better, but it was the last.

In researching this series, I kept coming across references to how bad it was.. surely not I thought to myself, since the TV show was alright. And besides, so many of the people attacking the series spent the rest of their time exalting books from authors I can't stand.. Maybe it's just a difference of Opinion I thought. With that I made my first mistake. I set out and relatively quickly read the first 5 books in the series. There were a lot of differences between the books and the show.. but over all it was a decent enough adaption. I've read a lot of not so good Genre fiction, and considering these to be fair to middling, epic fantasy I decided to continue. This was where I made my second mistake. When I got to Volume 6 of the series, Faith of the Fallen, I realized just how accurate all of the reviews on the internet were. This is a book which you either like or you don't. But, I'd started the series, and spent a good bit of money buying it before I realized how bad the series really was..

After taking a few weeks away from Richard and Kahlan, I picked up Volume 7, Pillars of Creation. This book was a marked and drastic improvement on the previous. It featured new characters, and unveiled a considerable amount of background information about the Sword of Truth world. It began to drag towards the end when Richard and Kahlan showed up, and lead immediately into Volume 8, Naked Empire, and thats when the squealing brakes, and thundering blast of a train's horn begin to penetrate your inner Ear. By the time Richard is on his 3rd soliloquy on the nobility of the human spirit (so long as you agree with him 100%, and aren't a pacifist) you start to hear the screams of the dieing inside the cattle cars being pulled by that train that just wrecked. And so at this point, it ceased being a "read them because you paid for them" type of mindset, and became more of a "Read them just to see HOW bad they actually get" sort of mindset. Volume #8 is also the one where Richard and his half sister have a rather lengthy discussion on the right of hair to live on your head... yeah, I still don't get it..

The books never really get better, they go from being a generically plotted fantasy series to simply having no plot. Richard repeatedly falls of logical traps, at one time explaining that a group of people shouldn't hold him responsible for his fathers deeds, and follows that up by blaming that entire group for the deeds of one of its members. In this process he becomes every bit the dark lord his father was at the beginning of the first book. Even if he's doing it for more noble reasons than his father, the outcome is still basically the same. He murders pacifists for refusing to fight his enemies, He dispatches kill teams of soldiers into the heart of his enemy's lands instructing them to inflict pain on the civilian population and disrupt the supplies of the enemy force. What follows is debauchery and depravity as his soldiers rape and torch at will.

At the end of the series we wind up with "Woods guide" Richard, married to Mother Confessor Kahlan, living in the People's Palace of D'Hara.. ruling high and mightily over his subject empire. The problem with this is, that the books from volume 6 onwards, are essentially one long anti-government screed. So how exactly can Richard rule this massive empire without some form of government interference in peoples lives? Surely he must have a police force, and we've seen repeatedly he has an enormous military. How does he pay these soldiers he dispatches to slash and burn the Old world? Clearly when one is dealing with the concept of an entirely hands off, free market system, one needs to be conscious of the fact that infrastructure costs money. Palaces don't upkeep themselves, roads don't build them selves, armies don't just magically have full bellies. All of these sorts of questions would have, had they not even been answered but at least brought up, dramatically improved these books. Instead they simply became a case of "Richard is right, everyone else is wrong 100% of the time" and that was annoying and grating and I fail to see what anyone sees in these books which makes them so popular.

All in all my conclusion is that the television series was a dramatic improvement over the books. It kept all of the fun interesting bits, and with a judicious use of a black sharpie, redacted all of the crap that Goodkind padded the books out with and then tried to con people into thinking was actually a story. So It really is a shame that the TV series went away, had it have stuck around I doubt I would have actually read the books. My only solace is, Goodkind didn't make any money off of me.

Books read in 2010, the Compleat List, Part 2

81. Viktor Rydberg, Tuetonic Mythology Volume1, Part 3, Non Fiction, ****
82. Ken Follett, Pillars of the Earth, Fiction, ***
83. Stephen King, The Drawing of the Three, Dark Tower #2, Fiction **
84. Edward Hausbruck, The Practical Nomad, Non Fiction, **
85. Robert Brown, Semetic Influence in Hellenic Mythology, Non Fiction, **
86. Stephen King, The Wastelands, Dark Tower #3, Fiction, ***
87. Terry Goodkind, Blood of the Fold, Sword of Truth #3, Fiction **
88. Eberhard Jackel, Hitler's World View, Non Fiction, **
89. Bernard Cornwell, Enemies of God, Arthur #2, Fiction, **
90. Frank Herbert, Children of Dune, Dune #3, Fiction, **
91. Viktor Rydberg, Tuetonic Mythology Volume 2, Part 1, Non Fiction ***
92. Stephen King, Wizard and Glass, Dark Tower #4, Fiction, **
93. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Sword, Sharpe #14, Fiction, ****
94. Joe Abercrombie, The Blade Itself, The First Law #1, Fiction, Did Not Finish
95. Nick Hornby, High Fidelity, Fiction, ****
96. Margeret Weis, Dragon's of the Autumn Twilight, Chronicles #1, Fiction, ***
97. Terry Goodkind, Temple of the Winds, Sword of Truth #4, Fiction, ***
98. Phillip Roth, The Plot Against America, Fiction, ****
99. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Skirmish, Sharpe #15, Fiction, ***
100. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Enemy, Sharpe #16, Fiction, ****
101, Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Honour, Sharpe #17, Fiction, ****
102, Nick Hornby, About a Boy, Fiction, ***
103. Leonard Carpenter, Conan the Outcast, Conan #24, *
104. Terry Goodkind, Soul of the Fire, Sword of Truth #5, Fiction, **
105. Nick Hornby, How to be Good, Fiction **
106. Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, TR #1, Non Fiction, *****
107. Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, Non Fiction, ***
108. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Regiment, Sharpe #18, Fiction, ****
109. Stephen King, The Wolves of Calla, Dark Tower #5, Fiction, ****
110, Thomas Evan, The War Lovers, Non Fiction, ***
111. Tre Tyckare, The Viking, Non Fiction, ****
112. Margeret Weis, Dragons of Winter Night, Chronicles #2, Fiction, ***
113. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Christmas, Sharpe #19, Fiction, ***
114. Nancy Marie Brown, The Far Traveler, Non Fiction, *****
115. Johnathan Strahan(ed.), Swords and Dark Magic, ***
116. Margeret Weis, Dragon's of Spring Dawning, Chronicles #3, Fiction, ***
117. Terry Goodkind, Faith of the Fallen, Sword of Truth #6, Fiction, *
118. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Seige, Sharpe #20, Fiction, ****
119. Stephen King, Song of Susannah, Dark Tower #6, Fiction, *
120. Viktor Rydberg, Tuetonic Mythology Volume 2, Part 2, Non Fiction, ****
121. Nicholas Basbanes, A Gentle Madness, Non Fiction, ****
122. Alfred P. Smythe, King Alfred the Great, Non Fiction, ***
123. Bernard Cornwell, Excaliber, Arthur #3, Fiction, **
124. Stephen King, The Dark Tower, Dark Tower #7, Fiction, **
125. Chris Wickham, The Inheritence of Rome, Penguin History of Europe #2, Non Fiction, ***
126. Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast, Gormenghast #2, Fiction, ***
127. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Revenge, Sharpe #21, Fiction, ****
128. Ben Croshaw, Mogworld, Fiction, **
129. Bernard Cornwell, Redcoat, Fiction, ****
130. C.W. Ceram, Gods, Graves and Scholars, Non Fiction, ***
131. Christini Rossetti, Goblin Market, Fiction, ***
132. Colin Thubron, Shadow of the Silk Road, Non Fiction, ****
133. Charle Penglase, Greek myths and Mesopotamia, Non Fiction, ***
134. John Marco, The Eyes of God, Inhumans #1, Fiction, ***
135. Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites, Discworld #3, Fiction, **
136. Robert Jordan, Conan the Magnificent, Conan #4, Fiction, ***
137. Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country, Non Fiction, ***
138. Leonard Cotrell, Life under the Pharohs, Non Fiction, ***
139. Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, TR #2, Non Fiction, *****
140. John Marco, The Devil's Armor, Inhumans #2, Fiction, ***
141. Terry Goodkind, The Pillars of Creation, Sword of Truth #7, Fiction ***
142. Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone, Gormenghast # 3, Fiction, **
143. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Waterloo, Sharpe #22, Fiction, ***
144. Stephen King, Different Seasons, Fiction, ***
145. Terry Brooks, Scions of Shannara, Heritage #1, Fiction, ***
146. Robert Jordan, Conan the Invincible, Conan #1, Fiction, **
147. Terry Goodkind, Naked Empire, Sword of Truth #8, Fiction (See Notation)
148. John Marco, Sword of Angels, Inhumans #3, Fiction, ***
149. Terry Brooks, Druid of Shannara, Heritage #2, Fiction, ***
150. Terry Brooks, The Elf Queen of Shannara, Heritage #3, Fiction ***
151. Terry Brooks, The Talismans of Shannara, Heritage #4, Fiction ***
152. Edmund Morris, Colonel Roosevelt, TR #3, Non Fiction, ****
153. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Devil, Sharpe #23, Fiction, ****
154. Terry Goodkind, Chainfire, Sword of Truth #9, Fiction (See Notation)
155. Bernard Cornwell, The Fort, Fiction, ****
156. Terry Goodkind, Phantom, Sword of Truth #10, Fiction (See Notation)
157. Terry Goodkind, Confessor, Sword of Truth #11, Fiction (see Notation)
158. R.F. Dederfeild, To serve them all my days, Fiction ***
159. Robert E. Howard, El Borak, Fiction ( Still reading )

As you can see, only 26 of these books were Non Fiction. It generally takes me longer to work my way through a Non Fiction book, for every question they answer they make me ask a dozen more and I wind up spending an inordinante amount of time on the Internet researching further information. I'll have to do better next year. I also padded out my count by reading stuff like the Brak books which only amount to about 100 pages.. but I like to think I made up for this with tomes like Rise and Fall which measured nearly 1200 pages. On a semi-relevant note, the Forgotten Realms books were read during the time period when I had some Dental work done and simply didn't feel like reading anything particularly challenging and wasting the effect of my (dentist prescribed) painkillers.

The only book of the year that I didn't finish was Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself, At the time I attempted to read it I think I just wasn't in the mood for the sort of book that it is. I thought the writing was good, I just couldn't get into the story which was taking far far to long to get going. Sometime over the next year I will attempt to re-read this book, and hopefully read the series fully. I try never to abandon a book without seeing it through, it is disrespectful to the author not even to see where he wants to take you. If nothing else, I'll skip to the end and have a look, and if it looks inviting go back and read the rest.

As for the notation on the Goodkinds, I'll be having a full post on those coming up in the next couple of days.