Bookopoly Review

I guess this is coming a little late, but in all honesty, I forgot about the Bookopoly Contest because it got to a point that I realized that I wouldn't be able to finish the contest. I had just ended up reading too many long books, ha ha.

But, man, I read so many good books. I may not have reviewed them all, but they were good. They made me experience so many emotions and they inspired me to write (even though I don't have much to show for that at the moment).

A lot of things have happened in my life over the summer—I finished the practicum I needed to do in order to graduate from college (I'm still chasing after my teacher in order to go over what I did for the practicum because he's so busy—he's a photographer for Franklin Graham so he's always following him overseas—and he can't talk to me when he's busy); I have been job hunting but haven't heard anything back from any of the places I sent my resume to; I've grown addicted to Lord of the Rings Online, which is kinda dangerous; I went to the church camp out at the end of August; and I got into cross stitching again. When I talk about it, it makes my summer seem kinda lazy :P

But that didn't stop me from reading up to ten books! That's a record for me, I think. Tallying up what I read, it seems that I read 2 historical novels (1 being historical romance), 2 science fiction novels (1 being a graphic novel), 5 fantasy novels (1 being a historical fantasy), and 1 collection of one-page comics.

Some of the books I ended up reading this summer were books I never realized I would ever read. Or bring myself to read. But the point of the bookopoly was to go and read books you wouldn't normally read in order to accomplish all the categories of the contest.

Total Books Read for Contest: 10

A Defense of Honor by Kristi Ann Hunter
When Katherine "Kit" FitzGilbert turned her back on London society more than a decade ago, she determined never to set foot in a ballroom again. But when business takes her to London and she's forced to run for her life, she stumbles upon not only a glamorous ballroom but also Graham, Lord Wharton. What should have been a chance encounter becomes more as Graham embarks on a search for his friend's missing sister and is convinced Kit knows more about the girl than she's telling.

After meeting Graham, Kit finds herself wishing things could have been different for the first time in her life, but what she wants can't matter. Long ago, she dedicated herself to helping women escape the same scorn that drove her from London and raising the innocent children caught in the crossfire. And as much as she desperately wishes to tell Graham everything, revealing the truth isn't worth putting him and everyone she loves in danger.


The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
Long ago, the wars of the ancient Evil ruined the world. In peaceful Shady Vale, half-elfin Shea Ohmsford knows little of such troubles. But the supposedly dead Warlock Lord is plotting to destroy everything in his wake. The sole weapon against this Power of Darkness is the Sword of Shannara, which can be used only by a true heir of Shannara. On Shea, last of the bloodline, rests the hope of all the races.






Quietus by Tristan Palmgren
Niccolucio, a young Florentine Carthusian monk, leads a devout life until the Black Death kills all of his brothers, leaving him alone and filled with doubt. Habidah, an anthropologist from another universe racked by plague, is overwhelmed by the suffering. Unable to maintain her observer neutrality, she saves Niccolucio from the brink of death.

Habidah discovers that neither her home's plague nor her assignment on Niccolucio's world are as she's been led to believe. Suddenly, the pair are drawn into a worlds-spanning conspiracy to topple an empire larger than the human imagination can contain.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an adventure. They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum.

Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
In the three kingdoms of Mytica, magic has long been forgotten. And while hard-won peace has reigned for centuries a deadly unrest now simmers below the surface.

As the rulers of each kingdom grapple for power, the lives of their subjects are brutally transformed... and four key players, royals and rebels alike, find their fates forever intertwined. Cleo, Jonas, Lucia, and Magnus are caught in a dizzying world of treacherous betrayals, shocking murders, secret alliances, and even unforeseen love.

The only outcome that's certain is that kingdoms will fall. Who will emerge triumphant when all they know has collapsed?

A Wrinkle in Time: the Graphic Novel by Madeleine L'Engle, adapted by Hope Larson
Late one night, three otherworldly creatures appear and sweep Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O'Keefe away on a mission to save Mr. Murry, who has gone missing while doing top-secret work for the government. They travel via tesseract — a wrinkle that transports one across space and time — to the planet Camazotz, where Mr. Murry is being held captive. There they discover a dark force that threatens not only Mr. Murry but the safety of the whole universe.

Mandie and the Medicine Man by Lois Gladys Leppard
A Cherokee superstition seems to have come back to haunt Mandie and her friends. The gold they discovered has been donated to build a new hospital, but something or someone is tearing down the walls as fast as they can be built. The guard posted to watch the site is knocked out, tied up and blindfolded.

Will Mandie be able to find her friend Joe? Will Mandie and Sallie be rescued from their kidnappers? Will Mandie learn her lesson about jumping to conclusions?

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899.

Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free.

Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection.

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.

It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. But when Laia's brother is arrest for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire's greatest military academy.

There, Laia meets Elias, the school's finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he's being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

Herding Cats by Sarah Andersen
With characteristic wit and charm, Sarah Andersen's third collection of comics and illustrated personal essays offers a survival guide for frantic modern life: from the importance of avoiding morning people, to internet troll defense 101, to the not-so-life-changing futility of tidying up. But when all else fails and the world around you is collapsing, make a hot chocolate, count the days until Halloween, and snuggle up next to your furry beacon of hope.






The experience of devouring book after book this summer was envigorating, and I look forward to doing it again! ^^

The Sword of Shannara: a book review

The Sword of Shannara. Terry Brooks. 1977. Del Rey Books. Pages: 726. [Source: Library]

§§§

Long ago, the wars of the ancient Evil ruined the world. In peaceful Shady Vale, half-elfin Shea Ohmsford knows little of such troubles. But the supposedly dead Warlock Lord is plotting to destroy everything in his wake. The sole weapon against this Power of Darkness is the Sword of Shannara, which can be used only by a true heir of Shannara. On Shea, last of the bloodline, rests the hope of all the races.

Thus begins the enthralling Shannara epic, a spellbinding tale of adventure, magic, and myth...

§§§

Rating: 3/5

When the librarian at my library suggested this book for the "library staff recommendation" category of the Bookopoly Reading Challenge my library is hosting, I was happy because my Dad had read it once so there was a bit of a legacy going on with how he read it and then I read it...

Maybe I'll make one or all of my kids read it when they're around my age, just so they can learn to appreciate well-written novels. I'm not saying that The Sword of Shannara was well-written, but it is something I've grown to expect from a majority of the novels from the era that in which was published.

So, while I wait for the forecasted thunderstorm to come barreling over my home, I'll discuss the pros and cons, and the things I liked and disliked about the story.

As the title of the novel suggests, The Sword of Shannara is about the Sword of Shannara—to an extent. It's mostly about Shea Ohmsford, and the fact that he's the only one left who can properly use the thing.

At the beginning of the novel, we're introduced to Flick Ohmsford—Shea's adoptive brother. He's walking along, on his way home from helping some of his fellow Man who live on the outside of the Shady Vale, the quiet and quaint Shire-like sanctuary protected by the Duln Forests that surround it on all sides. Suddenly, he comes across a stranger who seems to leap from the shadows of the trees to ask him for directions to a place to stay in nearby after nearly giving poor Flick a heart attack.

This is how Allanon, mysterious historian of the Four Lands, came to stay in the Inn of Curzad Ohmsford, the father of Flick and the man who took in Shea when his mother died. And that is how Allanon found Shea, and ultimately sent Shea and Flick on the adventure of their lives.

Now, this is the kind of story that leaves me feeling a bit disappointed when I finished it. Yes, I made it all the way through this 726-page MONSTROSITY (I say that because of its length, not because it was so bad as it could be considered monstrous), and I couldn't be more happy because now I can finally read something else.

But I didn't hate this book as much as some of my fellow Goodreads users. No, I think I was okay with it, but I feel it could have been stretched out a bit. The Sword of Shannara itself could have been stretched into its own trilogy in my opinion, with more details and more attention to each event as they happened. Then, The Elfstones of Shannara, and The Wishsong of Shannara could have continued on afterwards as consecutive instalments in a series.

There was too much crammed into this one book, in my opinion. Scenes were too generalized and I noticed that several important, probably pivotal conversations were glazed over and only described. Secondary characters were hardly introduced before they were thrown into battle where they were slaughtered (though I was kinda sad that Sheelon was killed by his fellow man because he had survived so long that it seemed he should have been allowed to die of old age and not in battle).

The main characters, too, kinda felt half-baked. Shea appeared and we weren't given much of a background other than he was the last living descendant of Jerl Shannara and he's the only hope for the whole world and his father was an elf and his mother was a human from Shady Vale and that when he was a kid Curzad adopted him. There was no mention of what he liked to do in the day, or much describing of what he did in his day to day life. What was his job? How did he help Curzad and Flick run the Inn? What were his dreams? hopes? passions?

Who Is Shea Ohmsford?

Who Is Flick Ohmsford?

Who Is Menion Leah?

Who Is Balinor Buckhannah?

Durin?

Dayel?

Hendel?

So many questions and no answers. That is one of the reasons why I'm disappointed about this book. I can only hope that The Elfstones of Shannara is better than The Sword of Shannara. I'm not holding out much hope though, and it will be a while before I pick up the next instalment of the trilogy.

I made the point of making a list of all the things that were similar between The Sword of Shannara and The Lord of the Rings because I wanted to know if the novel really was as bad as a lot of people on Goodreads proclaimed. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but I like to stray from the pack that tends to follow and agree with those who rant and rave about how bad something is.

Similarities:

• A wizened old man (Gandalf / Allanon) comes to the main character warning them of coming danger.
• Two characters (Frodo and Sam / Shea and Flick) flee their home from ghostly bad guys out to get the main character.
• They encounter an ally in the first town they come across (Strider in Bree / Menion Leah in Leah).
• Unearthly monsters chase them through the wilderness.
• They battle a tentacle monster in a swamp (at the door to the Mines of Moria / in the Mist Marsh).
• There was an epic battle between wizard-figure and servant of the evil overlord over endless pit (Gandalf versus Balrog / Allanon verses Skull Bearer).
• The evil overlord's land is shrouded with shadow (Moria / Skull Kingdom).
• An evil advisor has control over the ruler of a strategic kingdom (Grima Wormtongue and King Theoden / Stenmin and Prince Palance Buckhannah).
• The evil overlord's forces attack the last real defence of the lands of the Free People (Minas Tirith / Tyrsis).
• The evil overlord is defeated by a magical object.

I also made it a point to jot down any differences that I noticed, because there is enough of a difference that The Sword of Shannara is just able to stand on it's own. Just.

Differences:

• While Gandalf returns 17 years after Bilbo's Birthday Party and sends Frodo and Sam off on their adventure, Allanon warns Shea the day after he arrives at the Ohmsford's Inn.
• The two-character dynamic in The Lord of the Rings is friend with friend fleeing the Shire, while the two-character dynamic in The Sword of Shannara is brother–brother.
• Frodo and Sam are quickly joined by Merry and Pippin, while Shea and Flick remain alone until they reach Leah.
• Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are kind of ambushed by Aragorn while they were waiting for Gandalf at the Prancing Pony. Shea and Flick go to the town of Leah and seek out Menion on purpose. Allanon is nowhere to be seen, and the two don't expect to see him there.
• Only nine Ringwraiths are chasing Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. An undeterminable amount of Skull Bearers are searching for Shea.
• On that point, the Nazgûl are chasing Frodo because Frodo had the One Ring. They were chasing him for the ring and nothing else. The Skull Bearers were searching, not chasing, having no idea where Shea was, because Shea is the last of Shannara's descendants.
• The battle in the swamp in LotRO happens near the door to the Mines of Moria, while the battle in the swamp in The Sword of Shannara happens in the middle of literal nowhere. The monster caught Shea, Flick, and Menion while they were on the way to a certain river that would lead them to the dwarves in the forest. They knew of a danger in the swamp, which they knew as the "Mist Wraith", but they had no idea if it was real or what it was.
• Gandalf fights the Balrog in Khazad-dûm until he wins, then dies of exhaustion before being revived by the Valar as Gandalf the White. Allanon battles the Skull Bearer in the bowels of Paranor, over the deadly flames of the castle furnace. He defeats the Skull Bearer, but is dragged into the furnace and assumed dead by the sole witness of the fight, Flick. Fortunately, he manages to survive by catching himself before falling all the way in.
• The Northland is a mixture of Mordor, that one shadowed island from The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and that poppy field from The Wizard of Oz.

Of course, there were too many similarities between The Lord of the Rings and The Sword of Shannara for my liking, though I wouldn't classify it as a "Retelling" of Tolkien's work. I find it bold, though, that Terry Brooks thought he could write a story so similar to Tolkiens so soon to its publication. The Lord of the Rings was published in the span of two years—1954 to 1955—while The Silmarillion was published in 1977, the same year as The Sword of Shannara. Nevertheless, LotR was still fresh on everyone's minds, and publishing such a story at that time would only be akin to setting yourself on fire as a writer.

I have no idea how Terry Brooks managed to pull it off—to make his book so popular that he was able to go on and expand the world of Shannara with nothing standing in his way.

Shea (portrayed by
Steve Moakler)

Frodo (portrayed by
Elijah Wood)

There are some things that I liked about the book. Shea's personality was nothing like that of Frodo's, and I liked how Brooks managed to make a point of making Shea see how flawed he was, since Shea had never seen himself as flawed or that he harboured any stereotypes (which he did, of the Trolls). Brooks managed to make the main character different from Frodo, as a human/elf hybrid is as far from a hobbit/halfling as you can get.

I managed to find a picture online of a man who kind of looks like how I pictured Shea in my head, so that was a plus. Thankfully, I liked the story enough that I was able to finish it, because if I hadn't liked it enough I wouldn't have finished it and I would have had to go back to the library and ask the librarian for another recommendation. My favourite aspect of the story would have to be, though, is the fact that it takes place thousands of years after a nuclear holocaust which brought the world as we know it (basically "the ancient Evil" in the synopsis) to an end. There are remnants of that world littered about the place—like in the Wolfsktaag Mountains, in a valley, there's the ruins of a city with an ancient guardian made of flesh and metal, obviously something mutated by the radiation from the nukes. And the Gnomes didn't dare to step in there, which obviously meant that in their culture there was a legend about the place which probably warned them not to go there because it might have been irradiated. The world's background in The Sword of Shannara was what fascinated me the most in this book.

The plot twists when they came were welcome and unexpected, placed in just the right places. I don't know when I will ever read The Sword of the Shannara again, but when I have money to burn I will buy a copy so I can have the chance to place it in chronological order like it is suggested on Goodreads. It'll be interesting to read Terry Brooks' books in chronological order because then maybe the story will make more sense.

§§§

Read in order to complete a category for Bookopoly Reading Challenge.

Qualifies as the book read for the year 1977 for a Century of Books Reading Challenge.

Alfâm Kuduszodikh - A Study on Music Playlists

*alfâm kuduszodikh – "music list" (ahl-faam kuh-duhs-zaw-dike – approximate pronunciation)

~~~

As promised, I bring you a post on music playlists. I would have written "music playlists" or "lists of music" in dwarvish (Khuzdul), but my source (Dwarrow Scholar) didn't have the words for those translations, lol.

Playlists are an easy way to keep track of songs that you like. You can pile all your favourite songs from one genre, or list all the songs that inspire you in your writing (or drawing, or working out, or doing paperwork or house cleaning or –).

You can build playlists almost anywhere – on iTunes, Spotify, Youtube, etc!

For example, here's a playlist from my Spotify (which I just built :P)

{ Fantasy Inspirational }
https://open.spotify.com/user/mikaelaingram/playlist/2q0A3v5f7MdOsKRq175389

The list contains these songs:

Lúthien's Lament by Eurielle
Lost Girls by Lindsey Stirling
Misty Mountains by Peter Hollens
My Dear Frodo by Howard Shore
Viverti by Mattia Cupelli
Victory by Two Steps from Hell/Thomas Bergersen
Forbidden by Eurielle

Creating playlists might just turn out to be extremely addictive.

Here's another playlist:

{ Steampunk Inspirational – incomplete }
Filled With
Euphoria (album) by Revolt Production Music
Cosmos
Breaking Away
Darkness Falls
Contageous
Euphoria
Embrace
Drive
Persecution
Nightmare
Killshot
Beyond the Wall
and
Palladio by Karl Jenkins
The Submarine by James Newton Howard
Starfall by Driftmoon
Die Walkure, Act III: Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner
Schubert: Symphony No. 8 in B Minor, D. 759, 'Unfinished': I. Allegro moderato by Franz Schubert
Time by Hans Zimmerman

Music is a fun platform to mess with. These two playlists are just examples of what I might end up building on Spotify. I encourage you to build your own if you want to - you can get a free account on Spotify, though you'll have to contend with the occasional ad.

iTunes would be the only platform out there, other than Windows Media Player, that wouldn't force you to listen to adds between ever three or four songs, but you'd have to pay for the music before you can put them into playlists.

Spotify is rather easy to manipulate, though, and forces less adds on you than Youtube, which makes you have to sit through an add at the beginning of every video, with most saying your "video will play after add".

All you have to do on Spotify is find your song and click the three dots to the right of it. There, you click "add to playlist", and it will give you the option to choose which playlist. You just need to create the playlists before you go hunting so that it shows up.

Before I end this, though, I would like to give you a word of caution. Spotify doesn't support the artists who make the songs you listen to on it as much as you'd support the artists if you bought their songs on iTunes or on a CD.

I know this might not be such a big deal for artists who are extremely popular and have money rushing in because, no matter what, their fans will buy their stuff and pay to see them live. But many of the artists who have their music hosted by Spotify are more independent than the biggest superstars and rely on the money they receive when people by their songs. The Piano Guys released a message about this at the end of their Youtube music video of "Celloopa", and they have compensated for the pennies they receive for having their songs on Spotify.

So, yeah. Use Spotify to your heart's content, but consider buying the songs as well in order to support your favourite artists. After all, it doesn't hurt to have it on iTunes or on your MP3 player just in case you go camping where you can't get LTE service or you're running low on data and you just have to listen to those particular songs that are on that playlist of yours.

The world's music is at your fingertips, folks!

– Mikaela

A Natural History of Dragons

A Natural History of Dragons. Marie Brennan. 2013. Tor Books. Pages: 334. [Source: bought]

You, dear reader, continue at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart – no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon's presence, even for the briefest of moments – even at the risk of one's life – is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten....

~~~

All the world, from Scirland to the farthest reaches of Eriga, knows Isabella, Lady Trent, to be the world's preeminent dragon naturalist. She is the remarkable woman who brought the study of dragons out of the misty shadows of myth and misunderstanding into the clear light of modern science. But before she became the illustrious figure we know today, there was a bookish young woman whose passion for learning, natural history, and, yes, dragons defied the stifling conventions of her day.

...a gust of shockingly cold air pulled at my sleeves, and ice stung my face. Wondering if we were in danger of hail, I looked up.

 I have little recollection of the next several seconds. Just a moment of frozen staring, and then – with no transition – my voice shrieking "Get down!" as I wrapped my arms around my husband and dragged him forward, off the wagon bench.

~~~

Rating: ✭✭✭✭✭

(Warning! This post contains spoilers! I couldn't help myself!)

This is another book that has been sitting on my shelf for over a year, waiting for my to get through whatever books I have been reading so I could pick it up with a clear conscience (there's nothing like guilt from having too many books on the go at once to ruin the experiance of a perfectly good book).

I really wished I hadn't waited so long to get to this! It was so good, and definitely not the kind of book I should have picked up when I was supposed to be writing a research paper on C.S. Lewis!

This novel is totally unique, and so satisfactory that when I finished it this afternoon I felt a longing to continue reading about Lady Trent's life and exploits. (I can't just go order the next instalment of the series since it chocks up to being over $30 Canadian for the hardcovers, unfortunately, and I'm collecting them in hardcovers because they're so pretty. So I'll have to wait, blah).

I have never before have read a novel that was purposefully written so that it read like a memoir. I had a sneaking suspicion that it would when I cracked it open, but I wondered how the story would fare since – well... memoir + fiction? It's volatile stuff.

But it worked so perfectly for this story, and I could hardly tear my eyes away from the pages in order to write my paper!

The story opens in Lady Trent's youth, when she was young, seven year old Miss Isabella Hendemore. She went out to play one day and found a small, dragon-shaped creature lying in the grass, dead. When she tried to take it home with her, it disintegrated in her hands – later the family cook would teach her how to properly preserve one in vinegar, and when young Isabella manages to jar an intact specimen, she names it 'Greenie', after its colour.

That was the moment her dragon fever, of a sorts, was born. It continued to drive her crazy until she was involved in an incident that forced her to conform to society – until she entered into her "season", the period of every young lady of high standing's life where they have to parade around until they met a man of high standing and they come to an agreement.

Isabella, faced with a lifetime of having her interests an intelligence stifled by the society-driven assumptions of the man she may one day call her husband, agrees to go with her brother to the king's menagerie, and it is there she meets her husband: Jacob Camherst.

It isn't long after they're married that they set off on an adventure into the mountains of Vystrana, where the rest of the story unfolds.

I fell in love with all of the characters, and the form of storytelling. I love Isabella and Jacob, and Mr. Wilker reminds me of Rodney McKay from Stargate: Atlantis (same sarcastic, high-strung kind of guy).

There are a few swear words, but nothing harsher than what I've heard my mother say when she's in a right royal mood (which is rare, and since we're Christian, it's nothing above a Parental Guidance).

At the beginning, when Isabella married Jacob, I wondered why his last name was 'Camherst' and not 'Trent', since Isabella is known as 'Lady Trent' in the future and not 'Lady Camherst'. I distinctly remember thinking, He's going to die, isn't he?

Now, if you've ignored my initial warning about spoilers, I'm afraid I've spoiled some of the story for you already. But I'm going to warn you again – stop reading if you haven't read A Natural History of Dragons yet! I'm going to be discussing the end past this point and I don't want to ruin it for you!

Anyway, now that that's out of the way...

Well, my hunch ended up turning out to be right. Jacob died, and that quite upset me. I liked Jacob! I didn't want Jacob to die! And because of where he died, he couldn't even be buried at home where Isabella could visit him regularly. It kind of reminds me of how Grandpa's grave is in BC, all alone.

The dragons in the story were quite impressive, and I was mildly reminded of How to Train Your Dragon while I read. In a good way.

I love the distinction of the world in this story. Usually, in fantasy, the society and world in the story is distinctly medieval. In this novel, the world is set at a technology level comparable to what we were at from 1812 to 1900 – there were steamboats, but according to Lady Trent there were yet to be railways and steam engines, yet there were steamboats – though I think they were comparable to the ones with the large paddle-wheels on their sides instead of ones of the Titanic's caliber.

I love the illustrations in this book – there're so lifelike! One was creepy in a few aspects, the one depicting Zhagrit Mat, sent shivers up and down my spine. I half expected Zhagrit Mat to come leaping out somewhere in the story since, well, it's a fantasy! Anything could happen in a fantasy! That amped up the tension because so much was happening. It was delightful!

The story world of A Natural History of Dragons is one I would love to daydream about, and I honestly can't wait to get my hands on the sequel, The Tropic of Serpents. Maybe I can get my hands on it before I come back to college...

Ah! I love it when I come across a good book!

Oz the Great and Powerful

When this movie came out, I was mildly intrigued, but by the way they had the commercials laid out, I got the impression that three women in the commercial were fighting over Oz and that the whole movie was soaked with too much magic. It was one of those commercials that ended up being too vague, and I came to the conclusion that my family wouldn't ever be interested in watching it, so I went and forgot about it, since I didn't have the money to go and buy the DVD.

Yesterday, I stumbled across it on Netflix. I was bored and I wanted to watch something other than another episode of Forensic Files. So a click later, I found myself plummeting into Nostalgia Lake.

When I was younger, I had an insatiable appetite for anything meteorological or tornado-related. This was fuelled by The Wizard of Oz, due to the tornado at the beginning of the movie. Of course, every time the tornado was to come on screen, I would rush to my bedroom and gather up my blankies and my stuffies before I went back to the movie. I keep saying that my fascination with tornadoes is rather morbid, and it hasn't changed at all. I haven't watched The Wizard of Oz in years, not since I had to do a review on it in English class over the summer when my teacher sent me a link to it online. We used to have it on VHS, but our machine went and died when I was 13/14 years old and we had to clear out all our VHS tapes since we couldn't get our hands on another machine (I wish we hadn't).

Despite my apprehension on it, Oz the Great and Powerful turned out to be a lot better than I could have ever expected.

Netflix's synopsis, "He's an amateur magician and a con man, but all of Oz expects him to save the day. He should have booked Vegas", doesn't do the movie justice, leading me to believe if those at Netflix really know what they're doing when they write up the synopsi for their movies. Oz deserves a better synopsis, because it was so much more and the last sentence of the synopsis leads me to believe that the writer had inserted their own opinion into it.

Because Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmanuel Ambrose Diggs, or "Oz" as everyone knows him as, is a magician who was a part of a travelling circus, and he seemed to be doing pretty well despite the fact that he was playing with the hearts of several women at the same time, and that he was so skilled with his tricks that he made it look like he could perform miracles.

He was so convincing, he inadvertently duped a young, wheelchair-bound girl into thinking he could heal her so she could walk again.

Of course, that becomes the least of his worries when it turns out he flirted with the wrong woman and ended up enraging the circus' strongman. He vacates his mobile headquarters as fast as he can, managed to escape out a trapdoor in the floor moments before his head can be torn off by the strongman, and tears across the circus grounds until he comes across a hot air balloon, which he takes from its handler, claiming all the while that he owned 50% of it.

Making it into the air, he does a little jig before he notices that everyone in the circus, everyone who had come to watch him make his escape, is now running away, screaming at the top of their lungs. Confused, he turns around to look at what sent them running and is struck speechless. All he can manage to do is gasp as he takes in the massive twisting column of air writhing towards him. It only takes him a moment before he realizes that he's stuck in the air and that he's heading right towards certain death. In frustration, he screams as he is sucked in, his dreams of grandeur slipping from his fingers as death stares him in the face.

Inside the tornado, he's faced with death again and again as debris slams into the basket of the air balloon again and again. He faces off against the circus organ as it plays a haunting melody. But then it seems to all end as he reaches a point in the tornado that indicates that it's not what it seems. For a moment, Oz is totally weightless. It's gone strangely calm and debris has suddenly stopped trying to kill him.

But it's only calm for a moment, a moment that's only long enough for him to grab his top hat before he's sent reeling up the rest of the funnel cloud.

Beware of the tornadoes in Kansas, because there's a 50% chance that they're portals to another world.

This was a very well written movie. I got to know the main character rather well in the first five to ten minutes, well enough that I would get second-hand embarrassment whenever he flirted with women or did something that I had a feeling would cost him further down the road (the yellow brick road, haha). I usually don't come across movies written this well, and this was such a treat.

This movie was not predictable in the slightest, something I thought it would be since all I could remember from the trailer were three women in opposition of each other for some reason, a reason I assumed was because of Oz. I was proven wrong when the first person he meets in Oz is Theodora - who I assumed was the Good Witch who would wind up giving Dorothy her ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz. You can tell how long it's been since I watched that movie, since the good witch who gave Dorothy her ruby slippers was named Glinda, not Theodora.

I immediately began to suspect who Theodora was when Evanora, her older sister, made her believe that Oz had played her, and she began to cry and her cheeks burned when her tears touched them. My suspicions were soon confirmed when Evanora, who had revealed herself as the wicked witch who killed the sisters' father, turned her into the Wicked Witch of the West. Apparently, if deep down you are wicked and you cry, the hot water in your tears will burn you. Because that's what ultimately ends her in The Wizard of Oz. I thought it was a weakness all three sisters shared, but Glinda had tears gathering in the corners of her eyes, and she wasn't burning.

I guess the thing that thrilled me the most about this movie was they had me completely fooled on who exactly was the real bad guy until it they were revealed. I saw Evanora as guardian of Emerald City and concerned older sister who only wanted to protect Theodora when she saw that she was smitten with Oz. I fully believed that Glinda was the wicked witch who killed their father until it was revealed that it was actually Evanora who did it!

Then I thought Evanora was the one who would eventually transform into the Wicked Witch of the West, because her whole getup was green and black. But yet again I was proven wrong.

Oz was a cleverly written main character. I didn't like that he was a heartbreaker, but he was put through a rigorous Path to Redemption character arc that turned him into a kind-hearted man in the end. I thought there was a clever point of juxtaposition when he couldn't heal the girl's legs back in Kansas, but ended up being able to fix the China Doll's legs with glue in China Town. That occurred to me as I lay in bed last night, revelling in the excellent story telling the movie had.

One thing I don't get though - Evanora was killed at the end of the movie, so she's not the witch who was crushed under Dorothy's house when she came to Oz. So who was the witch who was crushed under the house? Who was the original owner of the Ruby Slippers? Did Glinda, Evanora, and Theodora have another sister? Or was it a cousin? According to the The Wizard of Oz the witch crushed under the house was, in fact, the Wicked Witch of the West's sister, the Wicked Witch of the East. So who exactly is this sister?

• The transition from black and white to colour when Oz goes to Oz was a nice touch.

I'll definitely want to show this to my kids when I have them and when they're old enough to understand the story. Because they're definitely going to grow up watching The Wizard of Oz. It's movies like these that make me look forward to the days where I'll be saddled with the responsibility of being a mom.

And this is a movie I definitely want to watch again.

My Thoughts on The Princess Bride

It's been a while since I've watched this movie, and suffice to say, I really wasn't in the mood to watch a romantic-comedy. I was more in the mood for just a romance. But oh well.

The main characters of this film are Buttercup and Wesley (the farm boy). How Wesley met Buttercup is simple: he met her when he signed up to be her farm hand (not shown in the film, obviously happened before the beginning of the film). Buttercup loved nothing more to order him around when she wasn't riding her horse around her property or doing whatever she did with her farm that she could do without Wesley's help.

The film is rather quite vague about the early events of their relationship, but what I do like is that it does make it clear that their attraction with one another wasn't instantaneous. Wesley was the first one to fall in love, and I guess that it was apparent enough that Buttercup knew, but I feel that she didn't immediately reciprocate. In fact, as it shows, Buttercup doesn't realized she's fallen for Wesley until Wesley leaves to go and "seek his fortune", since he had nothing for Buttercup. He wanted to marry her, but he needed the money.

Unfortunately, during his boat-ride to wherever he was going to find work, the ship he was on was attacked by the Dread Pirate Roberts, and he was seemingly lost at sea. Buttercup learned of this, and fell into a great depression.

Now, I know this doesn't sound like much of a comedy - yet - but this is because this movie, and the book it was adapted from, were very well done. In various writing curriculum I've gone through, The Princess Bride has been mentioned at least once due to its beautifully-done plot. If this movie started out as a comedy right from the get-go, I believe it wouldn't be as much of a cult-classic as it is regarded as today.

What I like most about this film is the fact that it is different from the average movie-adaption. Instead of dumping us right into the world of the story, it starts out in the "real world". There's a young boy (not named), and he's down with a bad cold or the flu. There's only so many comics or 8-bit video games one can play before they become utterly and all-consumingly bored. His grandfather comes over with an early-Christmas present in hand, knowing exactly how to break his grandson's boredom, even though the boy might not be so willing to sit and listen to what he might think is a "sappy love-story".

I loved how Wesley looked as the Dread Pirate Roberts/The Man in Black (I have something for men with British accents wearing bandit masks, apparently).

The only thing I didn't like about the movie is that the grandson used Jesus' name in vain (like, was that exactly necessary?!), and the fact that Inigo used the b-word while fighting the six-fingered count at the end of the film.

And why, oh why, did I keep hearing the word "indigo" instead of "Inigo"?? Their accents kept making me insert a "D" into the name!

Despite all that, these are my two most favourite quotes:

Shortly after Wesley saved Buttercup after she was kidnapped:

"Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something."

And when Inigo was fighting the six-fingered count:

"My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!"

Introducing: The Mysteries of Eldûr - Adelle Baker and the Missing Title

"The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day."

~ Albert Einstein

 

So, I come to you with the news of a new idea for a novel - one borne of my sudden re-obsession with The Hobbit, and Middle-Earth in general. Inspiration hit me like a tsunami while I was watching The Hobbit: the Unexpected Journey.

 

Suddenly, I found myself sucked into the deep recesses of my mind, where I was walking down the street of a town like Bree - but it was decidedly not Bree. I remember wondering what it would be like if there was a mystery to solve in a fantasy world, one without help from magic...

 

And just like that, I was back in reality with a new idea that's slowly been growing. Let me introduce you to a few characters that have come knocking to my mental door:

 

Adelle Baker - protagonist - age: 24 - denizen of Earth. Adelle somehow finds herself in the world of Eldûr, a world similar to Earth and bound by nearly all the same laws of physics. She has a Bachelor's Degree in creative writing and has training in office administration, and is down in her luck in her search for a job.

 

Côlter Dénéde - deuterotagonist - age: undetermined - denizen of Eldûr. Pronounciation: (call-ter day-nay-de). Occupation: undetermined, hovering over the choice of 'ranger'. Côlter is half elf, half man from a settlement called Eldain, which was somehow destroyed when he was twenty (still contemplating how it was destroyed).

 

Thorain Xildûrn - extra character - age: undetermined - denizen of Eldûr. Pronounciation: (Thor-rain Zeel-dern). Occupation: undetermined. Thorain is a dwarf from the dwarf kingdom of Unaline in the north, and the trusted welder of Moljnir, the hammer of the line of Xiline.

Note: Thorain popped into my head when I contemplated the silliness of what monkeywrench would be thrown into my story if a character with 'Thor' in his name had a hammer named 'Moljnir'. lol

 

King [name yet to be found] - extra character/unsure that he's going to be in book/might be mentioned - king of kingdom-yet-to-be-named, which is where the novel takes place. He may be mentioned... but for some reason he looks like Benedict Cumberbatch in my head.

 

The plot of the mystery is still under development, but it might have something to do with a large diamond roughly shaped like an apple, or maybe a crown that was stolen... yep. Still in development.

 

I'll provide frequent updates if this idea gets off the ground. And I hope it will because I really like the idea.