!! SPOILER WARNING !!

It starts out simply: a farm girl is bought and enslaved into a kingdom for a centuries-old prince. Chalk it up to Memoirs of a Geisha in a fantasy world, she breaks out and becomes the savior of the entire kingdom. And that’s only halfway through the book. I found myself – as would anyone – wondering just what was going to happen next.

// END SPOILERS

Through the many adventures we follow her on throughout the rest of the book, there is a strong tone of sexuality, of violence and lust, throughout the book. I often chuckled at the pages, wondering if all the women in this world were lesbians, and just how that would come about. Maybe it was the Avatar craze coupled with a ‘cat-like woman’ in this book, but I found myself noticing and rooting for cross-breed romances, at least in fiction, and wondered at that. Was it a purpose of Lake’s to spark the mind with humans and animal-beings romancing or was it simply writer’s curiosity?

Asking questions or wondering about those things aloud seems presumptuous to me, but I do wonder. I wonder what it might be like if we humans had other races around us. Would we adopt them as equal beings, to be wined and dined, or would it be the age-old race conflict? I guess I’d like to think that with the proliferation of science-fiction into the mainstream and stories and ideas like Avatar’s romantic storyline becoming widely accepted – at least as fiction – that just maybe it’d bleed over into reality someday. If we were ever confronted with that reality. Who knows? Maybe there’s some cat-species or monkey-breed out there on the brink of discovering safe spaceflight technologies. What would you do?

In large part, this book is about just that: the coexistence of different species, gods and spirits, humans and other humanoids. Not to mention the various magical and mystical beings. While not delving much into the social issues, they are certainly present, and more than a few times surface as Green makes her way through the hardships of freed slave life.

Green herself is an easily-lovable character. She’s full of spunk and fight, angst and attitude. She’s calculating and hard, but can be soft and gentle, sensual. But we’re always brought back to the heart of the tale: revenge. Revenge and violence permeate the book as if they were the meat and the rest side dishes. She struggles simply to survive in a world rife with fear and control, power struggles and flawed, perfectly believable creatures.

Full of insights into hard life, adolescence, the mind-games of rulers and academics and lovers alike, Green is an entertaining read for fantasy fans looking for something different.

Total: 4/5 stars

Catheryne M Valente sets her writing pattern right away. Using simple typography, she sets apart the real world and the other, but the writing style is what makes the real difference. It’s almost as if two people wrote the two worlds of this book. There is such a sense of depth and realism – surrealism – in each, likely so noticeable because of the stark contrast, that you can’t help noticing just how real the real parts are, and just how surreal the surreal parts are.

She plays knowingly with descriptions in both worlds, and lets your mind race and wander, varying the pace. Always, though, we return to the two worlds, the two mindsets, of the core characters. She paints a solid portrait of desperation and loss and trying to interpret and process grief by the end of the book. It’s supremely easy to get lost in the words and the images as she hurdles through the dream and real worlds of human need and desperation.

Nearing the end pages, my mind was fixed on finishing. I wanted it done so I could call it done, so I could move on, so I could understand. Having finished it, I’m not sure I fully understand, but I think what this book does best is it transcends the boundaries of logic and understanding and gets to be a book about feelings. I’m not talking chick-flick feelings; I mean what each world makes the characters, and by extension the readers, feel that communicates what each world means and why it’s so important. Despairing in the dizzying drain that is loss and uncertainty, these characters find some feeling they need in order to survive – to thrive – and their need for it becomes pure and painful. Somehow these people were lost in reality and found Palimpsest, and that belonging makes them whole.

A few days after finishing the book and setting it on a shelf, I feel twinges of nostalgia; I miss the world a little bit. As if it were a dream I wish I’d have again, I find myself thinking fondly of the city, the characters, as if I yearned to go back to Palimpsest myself.

Total: 3.5/5 stars
Addendum: I’ll probably re-read this later in life and love it, I’m sure.

Now, I haven’t read the book in years, but I’ll do my best to remember… The plot was different from the book, but it needed to be; there wouldn’t have been enough story or development to adapt it straight from book to screen. So some changes were made. The monsters though were great, just how I remembered them, and Max, while obviously a child actor’s version of Max, was pretty darn close to what I remember from the books. Maybe a little more sad or angry than I’d expected, but then again, changes needed to be made for the film.

When it comes down to it, it wasn’t exactly what I’d expected, but it hit the spot. It’s a mature look at what it means to be a kid, and sure, the emotion’s shared and loved by everyone, but it’s damn good to be reminded every now and then. Basically I went in for a reminder of childhood, of imagination and innocence, and I got teary enough times to be satisfied that the movie was doing its job. I remember sitting in my room playing with Legos for hours and hours, building bigger and bigger castles, ninja fortresses, even a cowboy ghost town at one point. Oh yea… and the pirate ships…oh, did I love my pirates. There was no reason not to play, no reason not to explore and imagine and create things, and I feel that’s something I’ve lost a bit of now, growing up. Things need to be justified, planned, organized. Sometimes I think we all need to take a few steps back, chill, and let the wild rumpus start.

Official release date is November 25, so head out to the theaters then and git yer butt in gear for some fun!

The Eclipse

I haven’t seen a cross between a pretty serious drama and a jumpy horror film before, so in that respect this was cool to watch. Also, horror’s usually a living-room deal for me, so the audience reactions were fun, even if the scares weren’t too serious. Just some jump moments, and I suppose the heavier, slower-paced, serious drama bits and the somewhat-quirky comedic bits made the scary jumps more jumpy. What first drew me to this was hearing Aidan Quinn in the cast list, ‘I haven’t seen him in anything for ages,’ I thought, so I went along for the ride. He, along with the rest of cast (male lead, Ciarán Hinds, and female lead, Iben Hjejle) gave good performances in what’s essentially an entertainment piece that dabbles in emotion and fear, loss, grief and a bit of humor. Another film about life (adding to the day’s previous movies), this ended on a good note, a realistic one I thought, better than the usual romantic fare we get in mainstream cinema. Final word(s): good stuff :D.

Links:

VIFF Listing
IMDB

Been attending VIFF today, saw two films so far and thought I’d share my..thoughts.

The Anchorage

As far as a barebones indie first feature film effort goes, not bad. As far as an engaging, energetic, complex or intriguing film – visually or story-wise – not so much. Given the fact their goal was to make ‘something you wouldn’t normally see in Hollywood theaters’, it was alright. They said in a Q&A afterward, responding to a question about the acting we’re used to as being very expressive of emotion all the time, ‘but you don’t always express emotion, do you?’ More interesting than the questions were the answers, their seemingly interested-in-their-art while disinterested-if-you-didn’t-understand-it attitudes made for somewhat amusing back-and-forths between the filmmakers and the audience. There was a time when I’d have enjoyed this more, just not my type of movie really anymore.

Links:

VIFF Listing

Cooking History

This was a bit more my style: European history – specifically war stories – told by military cooks from Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Serbia, Algiers, Croatia and France. It was interesting and sadistically amusing to see the contrast between these jovial cooks and their stories about the brutalities of war and watch their methods of killing and slaughtering animals (yes, multiple times) and preparing meals. A constant awareness is kept, however, of each of these people’s struggles during and after the wars. They’re very human, very worn and experienced, very real. Ultimately a portrait of people in war, food and moving on, it’s entertaining, touching, humorous, honest and pretty solid.

Links:

VIFF Listing
Film Website

There’s another coming up tonight, so I’ll letcha know about that ‘un too at some point. It’s an Irish thriller-romance…so yea, I’m lookin’ forward to it :P.

The visual effects were very well done, but what else would you really expect from a place like ILM, especially when shops like Digital Domain, Lola and Svengali FX are backing them up.

My only complaint is the fact that there is at least one lens flare in virtually every single shot of the entire movie. Even the lights inside the Enterprise cause the lens to sparkle up, and on top of all those, there are these weird light/color reflection patterns that shimmer across the lens whenever the camera moves inside the ship. Cool idea, yea; cool look, yea; practical, hell no. When you start to think the plastic/glass of your spectacles (what, you don’t call them spectacles?) is malfunctioning, something’s gone wrong.

Apart from that, the film is a good watch, good fun, with plenty of eye-candy for basically everyone. Worth the watch this weekend when you get the chance.

It seems every chapter there’s a new turn thrown at the reader, something new that maybe you sort of saw coming, but it still throws into sharp relief what a predicament Yorick is really in, and it just constantly builds the tension until, near the end, I was literally asking the book “What the fuck is going to happen now!?” It was a tense, fully stimulating experience that I’d recommend to anyone and everyone into reading fiction in general, just to take a day and read through this thing, ‘cuz it rocked this series into one of my top slots for future comic-buying trips.

Rating: 9.5/10

I’ve yet to read the next DMZ, but I’m currently in the middle of Y: The Last Man, book 3, and it’s pretty sweet. Lots of high-tension, sort of a pulling-in-different-directions of the male’s storyline. Cool effect, and the art and narrative go together quite well.

To check out more of my reading interests, see my GoodReads profile.