The Final Countdown.

Well.. not really all that dramatic but it is getting close to the end of the year and I just got my grades for my Finals from school.

A+, A, A, and C+.

I'm really pleased with the C+ as it is Math, and being as Its been 8 years since I've used any of that stuff to say I was rusty would be an understatement. I went into the class fully expecting to bomb it, and while I didn't make a great grade.. I'm happy it wasn't any lower.


I'm hoping with my schedule for next year being more streamlined, I'll have more time to get back to work on the Hyborean Apocrypha project.

In other news, due either to Holiday hiring or an upswing in the local economy 5 members of my D&D group have managed to get jobs so that's some what putting a crimp on their availability. Will the group survive? will have to roll a Fortitude save to find out I suppose.

I'm going to be posting up my end of the year Tally for books I've read in 2011 in about 2 weeks time, I mentioned earlier in the week on Brian Murphey's blog The Silver Key that I wasn't sure I was going to meet my goal of 150 books, but due to hastily reading a few slim volumes (I.E. Cheating) I think I'm going to bag it this year. I'm going to set myself a smaller reading goal next year also to cope with the class work, since next year I'll be taking classes all year rather than just in the fall. But when you have a To be Read pile of nearly a thousand books, that despite how many you read never seems to go down, it doesn't take long to feel snowed under if I'm not constantly pushing myself.

I am planning on starting Stephen Erickson's massive Malazan series in January, and filling in a few more gaps in my classic Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery catalog with Andre Norton's Witch World and Phillip Jose Farmer's World of Tiers. I'm going to try and finish up the last 6 of the Shannara novels I've got to read too. We will see.

My Theory on B.O.T (a.k.a. the single worst episode of transformers ever)

The episode is notoriously bad. It is so bad it dethrones season 3's Carnage in C-Minor for the title of worst episode ever. It's really, really, mind numbingly bad. All is not lost however.

Over the last several years, inspired by such diverse products as Apocalypse Now! Redux! and Star Trek: Remastered, I have been working on a new episode list for the 1980's Transformers cartoon that will not only make the series some what more serialized and coherent but also hopefully eliminate some of the obnoxious flaws.. hopefully without having to physically alter any of the episodes. Impossible? Maybe.

For the most part it is simply using the already present chronology of season 1 and then building on it so as to create a logical introduction to new characters. As the episodes stand now, new people show up in Season 2 with no real reason for them being there, only to promptly vanish for the next episode which inexplicably only features characters from season 1. In other words, its hardly rocket science.

But then you come to the obvious point of this, what do with the worst episode ever? Well it falls production wise as the last episode of Season 2. Meaning it is the last episode before Transformers: The Movie. This is, to me, unacceptable, and since it's a free country I'm going to do something about it. I started to look around for ideas of what could be done with it. It's so bad, and contains so many animation errors that the idea of re-editing it some how using bits of other episodes (beyond the obvious that this would be breaking my own rules) was a bit too technical for me to undertake.

I hit on a solution one evening while researching the Chronology of Super Dimensional Fortress: Macross. SDF: Macross was a huge hit in Japan. They made a movie, SDF: Macross Do you remember love?, it was a huge hit also. But it fundamentally changed extremely important aspects of the TV Show, and more or less made the relatively human looking Zentradi into very much more monstrous beings. The reason for that is, Chronologically speaking, SDF: Macross DYRL?, is itself a movie within the SDF: Macross Universe. Released in theatres some time around the Macross Plus era, while there are Descendants of Zentradi living on earth! It was followed by a sequel, Macross II the Movie. Genius. How to include something that completely screws up the canon, while not completely screwing up the canon.

It dawned on me then, B.O.T. could be a Transformers Movie, inside the Transformers universe. It explains why most of the characters are from season 1 (the ones who would have been seen on the real news more frequently) it also explains why the kids act so preposterously precocious.. and all the flaws in the episode can then be chalked up to "Well, Hollywood got it wrong, as usual". There is even evidence from the episode "Hoist Goes Hollywood" that there are directors in that universe who want to cast transformers as actors, why not characters?

However, I figure the Sunbow Universe's equivalent of Michael Bay still directed it, which would also go a long way to explain why the episode is so bad.

Geography, Learn it, Use it, Understand it.

Having just got done reading Dodai Stewart's otherwise well thought out article on Jezabel about why modern reinterpretations of fairy tales have such an aversion to casting non white cast members.. This quote really annoyed me, I mean beyond the obvious notion of why would a dark skinned lady be called "Snow White"...

"Last year around this time, an actress went to a casting call and was told she was too brown to be a Hobbit. It's infuriating to think that a world that includes orcs, elves and dragons cannot include brown-skinned people."

First of all, just to get this out there. Middle-earth has "Brown-skinned people". However, here is the rub. Racial groups do not just randomly spring up in various proportions on the globe without human agency being involved. Even if you have only seen the Peter Jackson films, you know Middle Earth has a variety of skin tones amongst its human population. The problem is that they are geographically isolated from 'The west' by Mordor and a couple of big darn deserts. You don't just get Hobbits with a bunch of different 'races'.. because Hobbits are a 'Race' unto themselves. Its highly unlikely there are a bunch of white people roaming around in Rhun or Far Harad either, and if they are they are almost certainly evil men who sided with Mordor and have simply been living their ever since the fall of Numenor.

If you look at Howard's Hyboria, there is far greater transit between the various ethnic groups present. You might find a Kushite in Shem, and you might find a Cimmerian in Shem, But you wouldn't find a Black Cimmerian anymore than you would find a White Kushite. Unless there is some human agency at work to shift people from one place to another, or an enterprising person decides to up and move themselves, manages to fit in and become part of a pre-existing community.. I suppose it could happen.. its just not very likely.

When this is done, like it was in Willow, Though this isn't to say that some where there isn't an entire group of black Nelwyns or a close relative of them. Or the BBC's recent Robin Hood series, it tends to look extremely forced and done simply to avoid the PC police's notice. They make fun of it on South Park by actually naming the one black kid at the school 'Token'. Let us be honest with ourselves here. If it weren't for the transatlantic slave trade it's very likely the very idea of having a massive multi-cultural milieu would be considered the norm. Japan, China, and the various eastern countries where there was no African slave trade are for the most part homogenous, or at least homogenous to western eyes. And were it not for human agency (empire, immigration, commonwealth) England,would just as Homogenous as Japan is. So why would you expect their to be a variety of colours of hobbits when their is no evidence of their ever being hobbits in a climate where having dark skin would make evolutionary sense?

Is it seriously coming down to this, that despite all we know of evolution and anthropology we are simply supposed to believe that dark skinned people would just naturally appear in Norway? Why would evolution do that? What possible reason would it have?

Yes, its annoying and frustrating and I'm sure infuriating that Hollywood doesn't produce more fantasy fair with non white casts. Even when they adapt a property such as Earthsea or the last Airbender they tend to white-wash the cast, this is unacceptable and I think morally repugnant. I'd just about kill to see Imaro on the big screen. But the answer for this injustice is not forcing middle earth to have a random "brown" hobbit. Fantasy as a genre is more than capable of having heroes, heroines, villains, villagers, or city dwellers of any culture or colour imaginable. But if the Geography as laid out in the story precludes it, then accept it and move on.

Sounds to take you back.

There are two ways for Movies to go. They either have a Score or a Soundtrack, or sometimes both. Usually the scores are forgettable and the soundtracks filled with either 40 year old Thin Lizzy and AC/DC songs or new songs from bands no one will remember in 10 years let alone 40.

Occasionally however a movie will make tremendous use of a song. Every time you hear it from then on you will remember it. My own example of this is the way that Nine Inch Nail's The Mark has been made, was used in Man on Fire. Every time the percussion starts in the song I can picture Denzel Washington going and picking out all the supplies he needs to wage a one man war on the Mexican cartel that has kidnapped the little girl he was supposed to protect.

It is an ominous and haunting song on its own. But when you add in the pathos of the scene where a still bleeding John Creasy is preparing to get revenge, it becomes almost depraved through its anguish. The music accentuates it to a near feverish pitch.

Of course, this is just my opinion, so your mileage will vary.

Monkeying around.

Phillipa Boyens (one of the writers of the Peter Jackson Tolkien Adaptions) made the comment that a Tolkien Purist is some one who is a self proclaimed guardian of the material.. I would argue that a Purist is a person who simply doesn't like her monkeying with the material... for her own shallow social engineering/politically correct reasons.

Don't get me wrong, I realize that certain changes must be made to adapt any novel to film or television. For the most part the changes to the Rings films were mild. This isn't some rant about Tom Bombadil being left out. The films also could have been much worse, after all the Hollywood financiers wanted them to kill one of the Hobbits! Make no mistake, bullets were dodged. But it was clearly the screenwriters choice to so drastically alter the entirety of Faramir's character. It was their choice to alter Theoden's character. It's there choice to add characters when they don't really need to be added. All of these things can and should be laid at their feet.

5 weeks down, 2 years and 12 weeks to go.

I've just completed my 5th week back at school. So far it's not been nearly as daunting as I expected, though I'm struggling to get through my Math Class.

I'm hoping to come up with something more entertaining to post soon, but for the moment I'm just still concentrating on studying and making sure all my homework is done right.

Books read in the first nine months of 2011.

1. The Sword and the Satchel - Elizabeth Boyer
2. The Sea of Trolls - Nancy Farmer
3. Treasures of Led Zeppelin - Chris Welch
4. How to Train your Dragon - Cressida Cowell
5. The Warded Man - Peter V. Brett
6. The Desert Spear - Peter V. Brett
7. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone - J.K. Rowling
8. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J.K. Rowling
9. Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian
10. The Land of the Silver Apples - Nancy Farmer
11. Rifleman Dodd - C.S. Forrester
12. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban - J.K. Rowling
13. The Crisis of Islam - Bernard Lewis
14. King's Dragon - Kate Elliot
15. Post Captain - Patrick O'brian
16. The Elves and the Otterskin - Elizabeth Boyer
17. The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
18. Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks - Ethan Gilsdorf
19. The Elfish Gene - Mark Barrowcliffe
20. Conan the Fearless - Steve Perry
21. H.M.S. Surprise - Patrick O'brian
22. The Wiseman's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
23. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling
24. The Ironlords - Andrew J. Offutt
25. Shadows out of Hell - Andrew J. Offutt
26. Lady of the Snowmist - Andrew J. Offutt
27. Historiagraphy - Ernst Breisach
28. The Thrall and the Dragon's Heart - Elizabeth Boyer
29. The Islands of the Blessed - Nancy Farmer
30. The Dying Earth - Jack Vance
31. Harry Potter and the Order of of the phoenix - J.K. Rowling
32. The Mauritius Command - Patrick O'brian
33. Harry potter and the Half Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
34. Conan the Warlord - Leonard Carpenter
35. Prince of Dogs - Kate Elliot
36. The Eyes of the Overworld - Jack Vance
37. Wizard and the Warlord - Elizabeth Boyer
38. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
39. The Jewel in the Skull - Michael Moorcock
40. Cugel's Saga - Jack Vance
41. Shadowmarch - Tad Williams
42. Rhialto the Marvelous - Jack Vance
43. Kyrik: Warlock Warrior - Gardner Fox
44. Kyrik: Fights the Demon World - Gardner Fox
45. Guys write for Guys Read - Ed. Jon Sciezka
46. The Burning Stone - Kate Elliot
47. Kyrik and the Wizard's Sword - Gardner Fox
48. Kyrik and the lost queen - Gardner Fox
49. Baudolino - Umberto Eco
50. The Mad God's Amulet - Michael Moorcock
51. The Sword of the Dawn - Michael Moorcock
52. Conan the Victorious - Robert Jordan
53. Cry Havoc! - Beverley Nichols
54. The Runestaff - Michael Moorock
55. I hope they serve beer in hell - Tucker Max
56. Kick Me - Paul Feig
57. The Talisman - Stephen King
58. Desolation Island - Patrick O'brian
59. The Reader - Bernard Schlink
60. Shadowplay - Tad Williams
61. The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown
62. The War Against Boys - Christina Hoff Sommers
63. The Hero and the Crown - Robin Mckinly
64. The Fortunes of War - Patrick O'brian
65. The Tower, the zoo and the tortoise - Julia Stuart
66. Subterranean - James Rollins
67. The Surgeon's Mate - Patrick O'brian
68. Excavation - James Rollins
69. Transformers: Vault - Pablo Hidalgo
70. The Ionian Mission - Patrick O'brian
71. Conan the Unconquered - Robert Jordan
72. Treason's Harbour - Patrick O'brian
73. Conan the Barbarian - Michael Stackpole
74. Shadowrise - Tad Williams
75. The Blue Sword - Robin Mckinley
76. Conan the Hero - Leonard Carpenter
77. The Far Side of the world - Patrick O'brian
78. The Year of the Hare - Arto Paasalinna
79. Lies my Teacher Told me - James W. Loewen
80. The World Swappers - John Brunner
81. The Last Magicians - John Jakes
82. Albion's Seed - David Hackett Fischer
83. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove - Chris Moore
84. Crazy - Benjamin Lebert
85. Fingerprints of the Gods - Graham Hancock
86. Sandstorm - James Rollins
87. Nine Princes of Amber - Roger Zelazny
88. The Guns of Avalon - Roger Zelazny
89. The Sign of the Unicorn - Roger Zelazny
90. The Hand of Oberon - Roger Zelazny
91. The Courts of Chaos - Roger Zelazny
91. Shadowheart - Tad Williams
92. Darkwalker on moonshae - Douglas Niles
93. Black Wizards - Douglas Niles
94. Darkwell - Douglas Niles
95. The Lost Kingdom of Burgundy - Christopher Cope
96. Conan the Valiant - Roland J. Green
97. India: What can it Teach us? - F. Max Muller
98. The Battle that Stopped Rome - Peter S. Wells
99. The Prophet of Lamath - Robert Don Hughs
100. Barbarians to Angels - Peter S. Wells
101. Trumps of Doom - Roger Zelazny
102. Blood of Amber - Roger Zelazny
103. Sign of Chaos - Roger Zelazny
104. Knight of Shadows - Roger Zelazny
105. Prince of Chaos - Roger Zelazny
106. Conan the Valorous - John Maddox Roberts
107. Fighting for Christendom - Christopher Tyerman
108. The Legacy - R.A. Salvatore
109. Starless Night - R.A. Salvatore
110. Secrets of the Hittites - C.W. Ceram
111. The Conqueror's Shadow - Ari Marmell
112. The Lord of the Isles - David Drake
113. The Barbarians Speak - Peter S. Wells
114. Clash of Civilizations - Samuel P. Huntington