It was with the July, 1939 edition of Astounding Science Fiction that the golden age of science fiction was born. Or, at least, so it is generally agreed. John Campbell took full editorial control with that issue and insisted on (comparatively) better characterization and more emphasis on, if not hard science, more plausible science. Sci fi greats Isaac Asimov and A.E. Van Vogt were published in this issue.
I had to kind of slug it out with this book, because, after a good beginning, it turned into a big slog in the middle. Sanderson loves him some magical systems. A lot. That’s really his thing: creating a system and logical framework for how magic might work in a fantasy world. In this case, it’s a world with these occasional magical storms called ‘Highstorms’ and energy from them is held in gems and a very few number of people can draw on that energy and there are also magical devices called fabrials that can turn gemstones into food or other forms and transmutations and there ancient swords called shardblades and ancient plate armor called shardplate that give super strength and agility. And the ecosystem is deeply affected by the fact of the earlier mentioned Highstorms, because plants have hard shells or else sink into the ground and cities are built among protective rock formations.
See how complicated that was? It’s too much. And it’s too much to ask of the reader, to both see the characters and situations as real and adapt to a radically different environment, magic, etc. Gandalf wielding his staff and fighting dragons is magic I understand instinctively because it’s ingrained in our culture. Sanderson don’t do that. Which is fine, I guess, but it makes for a lengthy adjustment process on the reader.
Also, one of the main characters (there are too many, but not George R.R. Martin nor Robert Jordan levels of too many) is named Kaladin. Too close to ‘paladin,’ especially with the way that character is developing. But he’s a decent character, which is more than I can say for an assassin character, who starts out cool and awesome in a well done set piece near the book’s beginning, but eventually becomes kind of whiny. The other characters are cool: a lord/knight type of fellow named Dalinar and a sneaky scholar named Shallan are fun to follow. There were also a couple of red herrings (at least in this book; I assume they become important threads in future novels) characters with chapters focused on them. The organization is like what George R.R. Martin uses: sections written in third person limited, focusing on a particular character.
But, the book, god bless it, picks up steam.
It’s got some nice action set pieces and things do pick up and get significantly better. Of course, this the first of a bloated, projected ten volume series called The Stormlight Archive, so I assume things will get very bad, very quickly for everyone soon.
In the meantime, I was hooked. Hooked enough to immediately go looking for the second book in the series, Words of Radiance. But not enough to buy it in hardback. I’ll wait for the paperback.
I saw Godzilla (in Imax and in 3D), but I’m not going to write about it right now except to say, pretty freaking awesome.
Godzilla: 2000 is one of the Toho films from the ‘Millenium Period.’ There is some human tension between those who want to study Godzilla and those who want to kill him (and perhaps harness his near indestructible to… I don’t know, grow new spleens or an army of super soldiers – I can’t remember which). Whatever.
A alien flying saucer on the bottom of the ocean rises, floats over Tokyo and transforms into a monster. The monster steals some of Godzilla’s Wolverine-like healing abilities, but that doesn’t really help when the big guy unleashes his atomic breath. End of alien monster. Godzilla has saved the earth, right? Right, but he hasn’t saved Tokyo. Godzilla is force of nature and does not answer to our individual needs (including our need not to be destroyed). The movie ends with Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo. He is king of the monsters and the defender of earth from aliens (a recurring theme in the Toho movies of the last fifteen years or so), but is different from defending humanity. A force of nature, he defends nature, but, like nature, is pretty indifferent to us.
Spoiler alert: to some extent, that is the vision of Godzilla we see in the most recent movie (minus the aliens).
It’s true – it’s hard to like Cyclops.
You can deny workers raises and give that money to CEOs instead, but in Cali, that could cost you.
Fools! Children do not need to know poetry!
In case you had no idea what I did for a living, I worked on these two organizing campaigns.
Paper is still the best (for in depth comprehension, anyway).
I like Comixology. And I read comic books. Three to be precise (Aquaman, Action Comics, and Batman, to be precise). If you’re not familiar with Comixology, the are basically a great platform for reading comic books on a tablet or computer (but especially on tablet).
When I first went back to comics, I used Comixology to catch up on the first half dozen issues of what DC Comics has called the ‘New 52,’ essentially, a reboot of its universe, before buying new copies at the comic book store or book store, as they came out.
Even better, I went back and read some famous story arcs from back in the day (actually, not that far back; mostly from the 80s and 90s): X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Infinity Gauntlet, Civil War, and the first couple story arcs of Alan Moore’s time writing for Swamp Thing, to name a few (to name a few more, that story arc where Wolverine goes to Japan, which I still love).
But I won’t buy anything from them now that they are part of the Amazon evil empire. And it’ll probably mean that I’ll buy a lot fewer comic books. Especially since they’ve already started their evil empire thing, but closing up the eco-system and making it impossible to make in-app purchases (which is a fancy way of saying the ability, while reading a comic on my iPad Comixology app, to simply press a button and purchase the next issue after I’ve finished the previous issue).
For example, I was super excited when Marvel rebooted Moon Knight. I used to seek out his comics as a child and it seemed like a great opportunity to see a new take on him that would not require catching up on five years of back story. But the first issue sold out quickly and my local comic book stores haven’t been able to restock it. Before, I might have gotten it on Comixology and then bought the later issues at the comic book store. Ain’t gonna happen now.
Probably for the best. If I were only thirty-eight, it would be different, but I’m about to turn forty and I think that reading three monthly comic book titles is enough.
Addendum: Since writing the above, I bought a (traditional) copy of Moon Knight #1. It’s pretty cool. That is all.
Coincidentally, the last three movies have all featured Scarlett Johansson (or at least her voice) and have all been pretty good. Neither of those are statements I ever expected to write.
First of was Her. Johansson played the voice of the OS (operating system) that Joaquin Phoenix’s character fell in love with. She was very good in that, I have to admit. Having her performance separated from her famous body enabled one to get a better appreciation of her qualities as an actor. And speaking of acting, the movie also drove home the fact that while Phoenix was going through his crazy period, we were missing out on all the great movie performances we could have had during that time. He really is that good. And the movie, at its best, was a moving and realistic depiction of how a relationship grows, develops, and the breaks apart as two people find themselves drifting further away their shared spaces and experiences. That being said… I’m not sure what the point of the movie was. I mean, I know… relationships, technology, singularity, blah, blah, blah. But… I don’t know. It wasn’t that it was cold or passionless, but the passion came from the great acting. Why did director Spike Jonze make this film? I don’t know, because I felt no passion from behind the camera and it left me feeling a little let down and betrayed. It made the whole less than the sum of its parts.
Spoiler alerts coming, by the way.
Captain America: Winter Soldier was, as the reviews have often noted, the best of the recent spate of Marvel universe films (which is to say, excluding the Spiderman movies). I’m also biased because I liked the first Captain America movie better than any but the first Iron Man movie. The unironic, straightforwardness of it appealed to me.
This one is more convoluted but solves, or at least, works around, what has always been the character’s conundrum. Captain America was created during World War II and makes the most sense in the (relative) black and white world of that conflict. Like most of the best comic book story arc around the Captain, this one plays on the boy scout being thrust into a complex situation and trying to still be a boy scout. Chris Evans is suitably boyish and charismatic. Scarlett Johansson looks good in Diana Riggs’ old skin tight catsuit from her Avengers days (not the Marvel Avengers, but the old British tv show). And Robert Redford should play more villains. Never one to overact, he drips menace, without raising his voice and with boyish, rakish twinkle in eye.
I have some qualms (the Winter Soldier looks too boyishly handsome not menacing enough when he’s not wearing a mask), but it’s got a nice, though imperfect combo of action and conspiracy flick.
Under the Skin is deeply alien. In an awesome way. Johansson plays an alien wearing the ‘skin’ of a human being to lure other humans to her lair for… some kind of harvesting. The harvesting isn’t Cronenberg-seque, really, but there’s a definite element of body horror.
The movie is from Johansson’s (she’s never given a name) point of view. How to make relatable an alien who is deeply alienated in her reactions to and understanding of our world? Easy. The movie takes place in Scotland and the other characters (Johansson speaks with a decent, but not great, generic British accent) have heavy, sometimes nearly incomprehensible Glaswegian accents. The landscapes are deliberately alien looking. They’re clearly earth landscapes, but it would no surprise to learn that everyone of them had been used as stand in for an alien planet in a long ago episode of Doctor Who.
When she’s scared, we feel and empathize with her fear, even though, in another movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be hunting her down before she kills again.
And yes, there’s nudity. She gets naked. But if that’s your reason for seeing it, you’ll be a little disappointed. Not just because her body is good, but not great, but also because there are far more shots of unobstructed full front nudity by men in various stages of tumescence. She draws them onto a reflective black floor, leading them on by slowly taking off her clothes (most of the time, just bra and panties are enough to get them men to drop their pants) and once the men are full naked, the floor turns into thick black sludge that they blithely walk into and finally under, while it remains firm beneath her feet. It’s very yonic (when they walk into the place where that black floor exists – the room and building changing over the course of the movie – the walk into a lightless black opening), but the alien lacks a true vagina. Her sex organs are literally only skin deep (as she finds out when trying to have sex).
The whole thing is mysterious and strange and resists easy meaning or interpretation, but it’s an amazing piece of film making and Johansson does very, very well. Partly, she is called upon to be a siren, who leads men happily to their death via the irresistible lure of the promise of her body, but she’s also a cipher, trying to figure out what it means to be human. She is never human, but wearing the skin affects her and she does embark on an exploration of what the human skin means.
Go see it.
The party are met at the Amran docks by a refugee from the empire and guided to meet with two invididuals: an elf named Elimelech and a gnome named Nadab. Elimelech explains that he has been in Amran as an intelligence officer for the Sunward Emperor for five years and Nadab has been working as a merchant, but also passing information to the imperial navy.
A lead takes them to a proto-industrial slum outside the city walls, near the river which, along with the sea port, is the other half Amran’s mercantile dominance. After a few days of surveillance, where they also learn that other, interested parties are also watching them, the party makes their move.
They’re a little late, though. Someone had been minting currency in the name of non-existent empire and using that currency to hide involvement in paying for the invasion of the Sunward Empire. Oh, and the ringleaders transform into humanoid snakes. So, there’s that.
the coffee philosopher 