Acacia
November 25, 2008 by David Perry
Filed under Books
If you measure your literary purchases in pages per dollar, you can’t go wrong with modern fantasy. Most weigh in at roughly the size of a brick, and that’s just the paperback. Unfortunately, most are clichéd sword and sorcery, fight the dragon and save the girl fluff. David Anthony Durham’s Acacia weighs in at a solid 753 paperback pages, but, lucky for us, that’s where it leaves the clichés behind.
The comparison that comes immediately to mind is George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. Just as Martin’s epic A Song of Ice and Fire series (which he is welcome to finish any day now) builds on and reinvents Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings saga, Durham continues the conversation by building on Martin’s work. Acacia is a peaceful nation built on an ugly slave trade, and while the Akarans are the ruling family, they are powerless to change the order imposed by the commercial guild. In the north, the Meins seethe under Acacian rule and the exile they suffer as a result. In the first book of the novel, generations of planned vengeance unfold as King Leodan Akaran is assassinated by a Meinish infiltrator. The Mein and their savage allies, the Numrek, descend on the island and destroy it in short order. Thaddeus Clegg, Leodan’s councilor who has been supplied with just enough ugly truth to turn him against his king, repents of his treachery long enough to execute Leodan’s contingency plan to hide his four children, Aliver, Corinn, Mena, and Dariel, in the four corners of the Known World.
Here, we shift from beautiful, idyllic Acacia, now in Meinish hands, to follow Leodan’s four children. Dariel is protected by a palace worker and taken aboard a pirate vessel. Aliver is hidden in the south until he is ready to awaken the ancient sorcerers who can free Acacia from the Mein. Mena becomes the mouthpiece of an island bird goddess. Corinn is left behind to become the concubine of Hamish, and her hate grows more and more deadly each day. The four children grow into very different adults than they would have in the comfort of the palace, just as their father hoped when he devised the plan. Meanwhile, Hamish realization that true power never lay with the Acacian king but with the shipping guilds league; the trappings of the throne soften him just as their exile hardens the Akarans. But his plans continue, and just as Aliver is learning to awaken the ancient sleeping sorcerers, Hamish’s people are working to awaken their ancestors, angry spirits whose vengeance will make the body count left by the Numrek at the fall of Acacia seem like nothing.
Durham does a remarkable job of showing the flimsy structure beneath powerful governments, and how easily they can be destroyed through whispers and rumors. Fear of military force causes entire nations to destroy themselves - when such force is used in this novel, it is purely to mop up a victory that deceit and paranoia already accomplished. Trust, and lack thereof, form the foundation of empires, and the smallest slight, real or imagined, can linger for generations until it crushes everything. I can’t say I know where Durham is going with this series, but I’m more than happy to follow along.
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Dragonheart: Dragonriders of Pern
November 24, 2008 by Dorothy Emry
Filed under Books
Todd McCaffrey continues the saga of the Dragonriders of Pern in this lightweight coming of age story involving Fiona, a thirteen-year old lord holder’s daughter, who impresses a queen dragon.
Thread, the parasitical menace that devours all life on Pern when its orbit takes it into proximity of the Red Star, is once again about to fall. Dragons and riders have been training hard and are fully prepared to fight Thread until a mysterious sickness begins killing them off. As the numbers of their fighting dragons dwindle through injury and illness, the Weyrleaders decide to send the youngest weyrlings back in time so they can mature. After three years of literally living in the past, they will be fully trained and return ready to fight Thread.
Fiona, rider of Talenth who is Fort Weyr’s youngest queen dragon, must take over the responsibilities of Weyrwoman at the long-abandoned Igen Weyr for the interval the young and injured riders spend isolated there from the rest of Pern. She must draw on her years as a lord holder’s daughter to make Igen Weyr into a viable home. All Igen’s riders suffer from extreme fatigue and occasional bouts of irrational irritability, a drawback to existing twice in the same time. Not only must Fiona combat the same symptoms, but she also contends with the typical trials of a young girl’s development to womanhood.
Fiona’s youth serves as a vehicle to review the rules of weyr society, but her development takes many too-predictable turns and the novel’s ending, long expected, falls flat. The childhoods of some interesting secondary characters are explored, a necessity to keep the reader entertained due to the weakness of the books protagonist. Most notable are two of Fiona’s non-dragonrider friends: Xhinna, a young girl with special gifts who is an outcast among the weyrfolk until befriended by Fiona, and Terin, a girl of ten who, like the queen dragonrider, finds herself shouldering responsibilities far beyond her years.
One of the chief problems McCaffrey faces, as the blurb from Del Rey puts it as “the heir apparent to the Pern universe created by his mother, Anne McCaffrey” is that his story backtracks over ground already explored in depth in previous books. None of the situations the characters encounter are new to fans; no one but a fan of the Dragonrider series would know enough of Pern’s complex world to appreciate the book. Trapped within this writer’s paradox, McCaffrey incorporates the already established events of the Pern series in clever ways during the second half of his episodic time travel tale. However, in a slow first half, the drinking and eating habits of dragon riders seems to be the main theme; the most dramatic events often happen off-stage and talked about later by characters forcing themselves to eat buttered rolls and drink klah to keep up their energy and spirits.
Fans of the Dragonriders of Pern series, like fans of other series, will always long for more adventures set in Anne McCaffrey’s rich and colorful fantasy landscapes. Unless Todd McCaffrey can establish strong new characters and new situations within that world for future novels, better to devise his own fictional world than invest time writing new but paler tales that strip-mine the land of Pern.
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Hancock
November 24, 2008 by Sarah Tomick
Filed under DVD
When you think of a superhero, what comes to mind? Spider Man? Batman? Those are only a few of the infamous heroes who swoop in the save the day. They’re applauded, thanked, and fanned over by every leading lady in sight. They must be doing something right. So what the hell happened to Hancock? Superheroes are supposed to be heroic, brave, and fearless individuals who do anything to protect others, right? Well, Hancock (Will Smith) a superhero living in Los Angeles, is not exactly up to par. He’s rude, insensitive, harsh, and doesn’t care when he pisses people off. Plus, he’s a drunk. Hancock’s well-intentioned deeds save lives all the time, but he always seems to leave extreme damage behind. He has wrecked cars, trains, highways, even buildings in order to save the day and once cost the city nine million dollars in damages. And now the people of L.A are finally fed up. Hancock isn’t one to care what anyone thinks about him, but when he saves Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) from getting hit by a train, he thinks about changing his ways.
Ray, a PR consultant, makes it his duty to work with Hancock and persuades him to update his image in the hopes of winning over the people in his community and to really show them a superhero. The more time he spends with Ray and his wife Mary (Charlize Theron) the more compassion he starts to reveal. But, once Hancock realizes he’s not the only one of his kind, trouble turns his makeover into a meltdown.
Smith plays a believable bad-guy-gone-good and has good chemistry with Bateman on screen, but I found myself confused. I thought the film was about a drunk guy with super powers. Once they took out Hancock’s mean-streak, it just wasn’t as interesting. Charlize Theron’s character wasn’t anything to write home about, but she does reveal a surprise I wasn’t expecting. A lot of the special effects were dull and I felt a little ripped off on more than a few scenes. For example, Hancock picks up a car with one hand, but we only get to see the car being raised and not him actually holding onto it. He also throws an object at a criminal to chop his hand off, but we only hear the object hitting the hand and don’t get to see it. Lame.
It’s a good thing Jason Bateman is funny.
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Tuya’s Marriage
November 24, 2008 by Mandy Kilinskis
Filed under DVD
“Why is this woman breaking up a fight on her wedding day?” This is the first question that comes to mind when watching the opening sequence to Tuya’s Marriage, where two young boys are fighting. However, the award-wining Mongolian drama does not answer your question, only cuts to a shot of the same woman herding sheep.
We soon learn that this woman is Tuya, a young Mongolian woman with two children and a husband who crippled himself attempting to dig a well on their property. Now she is the only source of income for the family. As the family spirals more into poverty, and Tuya herself suffers an injury. It is then suggested that she divorce her husband, Bater, and look for a man who can support her.
After the divorce, dozens of suitors flock to Tuya, offering her a comfortable living for her and her children. But Tuya says she will only marry them if they promise to take care of Bater, her ex-husband, and then many retract their proposal. Eventually an old schoolmate of Tuya’s, an oil tycoon makes her an offer of marriage, and she takes it. Bater is sent to a nursing home, but grows depressed almost instantly, and attempts suicide. Tuya realizes that she can never have the best of both worlds, so she and her family return to their former life. Eventually, a suitor comes along that can offer her everything she wants, so despite wanting to marry a neighbor, Tuya agrees to the marriage: which brings us back to the beginning of the film.
Tuya’s Marriage provides an interesting look at the last of the Mongolian sheep herders, and the struggles that they face. The film was definitely shot on a modest budget in outdoor settings, which only added to poverty of the families. In fact, if you did not know any better, it could easily pass for a documentary.
The natural Mongolian landscapes are glorified in this film, creating the perfect canvas to paint the story. The sandy white deserts shot at wide angles give this feeling of beauty paired with utter hopelessness, especially since Tuya is a sheep herder, and it is a wonder how any sheep could be raised on this landscape.
Also gorgeous was the use of color. Tuya was consistently dressed in bold and bright colors that contrast the drab landscape, scenery, and people around her. These colors helped bring out her personality as well as emphasize her battle against her circumstances. This also made a shocking contrast between the white of the nursing home walls and the red of Bater’s blood.
The special features for the DVD consist solely of a gallery of still photography. The pictures are pretty enough, but the movie does not lend itself to the need of special features. When the film ends with Tuya hiding from the guests at her wedding, we are wondering, “What’s going to happen to Tuya and her family?” not, “I wonder if there is a gag reel?”
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The Living Dead
November 24, 2008 by Dorothy Emry
Filed under Books
Good news for those horror fans who already feel in danger of overdosing on happy jingle bell trimmed elves and candy canes: purchasing a copy of The Living Dead, John Joseph Adams’ latest anthology, will tide you over until the remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night hits the theatres.
In The Living Dead, Adams has pulled together so much supernatural horror and mayhem that even the Winchester brothers would turn tail and run. This mix of stories contains enough blood and gore to generate nightmares for readers for many evenings to come; however all the zombies aren’t non-thinking, flesh-eating types. As Adams says in his introduction, the thirty-four stories “include a wide range of zombie fiction…from the Romero-style zombie to the techno-zombie and everything in between.
Among the big name authors are Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Laurell K. Hamilton, Stephen King, and George R.R. Martin. It is the work of lesser known writers that take the reader on the most unexpected journeys through fictional landscapes of terror.
In “Death and Suffrage” Dale Bailey provides a twist on the consequences leaving the dead unappeased at election time. Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s “The Third Dead Body” shows that even a zombie can dish out law and order. “Followed” by Will McIntosh shows a world where zombies exist as a means for retribution and redemption. In Susan Palwick’s “Beautiful Stuff,” the living dead give the living a clue about the secret to a happy life. David Tallerman’s troubled protagonist in “Stockholm Syndrome” faces a hoard of memories equally as frightening as the zombie outside his door. Poppy Z. Brite shows how India might cope with a zombie plague in “Calcutta, Lord of Nerves.”
In Nancy Kilpatrick’s poignant and chilling “Age of Sorrow” the last living woman in New Zealand, and possibly the entire planet, shows that survival isn’t enough to sustain the human spirit. In “Dead Like Me” by Adam-Troy Castro, the protagonist becomes the ultimate method actor to stay alive. In “Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man,” Scott Edelman explores question: How would a writer cope with all the time in the world to write, but no one to read his work but the undead? He gives a new, gruesome twist to the age-old gripe “everyone’s a critic.”
The final story, written for the anthology, John Langan “How the Day Runs Down” meshes narratives with the aid of a Stage Manager/narrator ala Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town to show how a zombie plague might travel from the big cities to well-fortified small towns. Although not the strongest offering here, it serves well to round out the collection. The bonus of an original story among the thirty-three reprinted works once again proves John Joseph Adams’ passion as an anthologist, which seems as unstoppable as a hoard of the living dead — in a non-brain-eating way, of course.