Browsed by
Category: Reviews

Weird of Oz Reviews Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies

Weird of Oz Reviews Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies

Comments 2 comments

showgirlsA non-fiction fad of the past decade has been for an author to do something outrageous for a year and then write a book detailing the experience. If you know someone who inexplicably stopped bathing for months, or who stopped shaving or cutting his hair, or who started eating all her food raw and communicating only with gestures and grunts, you may know someone who has embarked on living like a person in the Middle Ages, or like a caveman — with an eye, of course, to chronicling it all and cranking out a bestseller. Do them a favor and tell them it’s probably already been done. Writers like A.J. Jacobs (The Year of Living Biblically) have cornered the market on myself-as-the-story immersive or “stunt” journalism.

I’ve read a number of these “stunt books” by various authors; frequently they are entertaining page-turners, and they do offer interesting perspectives and provide some bizarre, oftentimes fascinating trivia. But I have also grown oversensitive to the tendency of some such writers to indulge in a bit of melodramatic self-pity: “For 200 days now I haven’t been able to [fill in the blank], and my wife is totally exasperated!” Yes, these folks put themselves through some crazy regimens of self-denial and eccentric behavior, but journalists have gone through far worse to get a story: try reporting from a war zone, for instance.

For his “stunt book,” Australian film critic Michael Adams undertook a task that puts him squarely on the radar of this blog: he decided to watch at least one bad film every day for a year in a quest to find the Worst. Film. Ever Made. Ever. As somewhat of a connoisseur of B- and Z-grade films, I eagerly picked up this comprehensive report from a fellow cinephile: Showgirls, Teen Wolves, and Astro Zombies (2010). So here, now, is a brief review of the bad-movie viewer…

…

Read More Read More

Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1951: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1951: A Retro-Review

Comments 5 comments

Galaxy Science Fiction January 1951-smallGalaxy Science Fiction’s fourth issue was published for January, 1951.  Now with 50% more illustrations, Galaxy was rolling along, ready to offer the best fiction on the market.

“Tyrann” by Isaac Asimov – This is the first part of a three-part serial of Asimov’s novel.  It was later reprinted under the title: The Stars, Like Dust.  Biron Farrill is a young nobleman visiting Earth when someone tries to kill him with a radiation bomb.  An acquaintance of Biron’s tells him that there’s a plot underway by the Tyranni.  The Tyranni, who control the galaxy by oppressing the various world leaders, killed Biron’s father and are now coming after him.

Biron flees to Rhodia in hopes of finding refuge under their leader, Hinrik V.  The Tyranni track Biron’s movement, allowing him to reach Rhodia in order to test Hinrik’s loyalty.  Soon after his arrival, however, Hinrik’s daughter and cousin confide in Biron that they are not loyal to the Tyranni and that the three of them must find a way to escape the planet without alerting the Tyranni.

I love this story so far.  The characters are great, especially Hinrik’s cousin who shows two personalities – one is a public façade in order to keep his work secretive.  Plus, their ships jump to hyperspace!

Asimov didn’t coin the term hyperspace, but he was one of its early adopters, and the way the jump is described will resonate well with Star Wars fans.  By the way, if FTL (Faster Than Light-speed) travel was good enough for Asimov and Galaxy, why is it shunned by some editors today?

…

Read More Read More

New Treasures: Dungeons of Dread

New Treasures: Dungeons of Dread

Comments 17 comments

Dungeons of DreadI continue to be impressed with Wizards of the Coast’s premium reprint program. It started with an inspired effort to get Gary Gygax’s original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules back into print in high-quality hardcovers. We’ve discussed it before — Scott Taylor looked at the original announcement back in August; I examined the corrected edition of Unearthed Arcana here, and we invited readers to win copies by sharing stories of their game characters here.

It’s a praise-worthy undertaking indeed. But like a lot of folks I still have copies of Gygax’s bestselling rulebooks, so while I’m glad modern gamers – especially OSR players – can easily get copies of the finest RPG ever written, to me it was chiefly of academic interest.

All that changed with the release of Dungeons of Dread, which collects four classic AD&D adventure modules written by Gary Gygax and Lawrence Schick, originally released between 1978 and 1982. Dungeons of Dread puts some of the genre’s most famous early adventures – which previously existed only in yellowing softcover pamphlets – in hardcover for the first time, complete with maps and all the original black-and-white interior art.

Dungeons of Dread gathers the first four S-series adventures: Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. I’ve discussed S1: Tomb of Horrors recently, and I admit I’m not much of a fan. A masterpiece of design, the module is a player-killer extraordinaire, and not a lot of fun. I’ve never read White Plume Mountain, but I’m certainly familiar with the gonzo Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, one of Gygax’s most esoteric creations, a module created to merge AD&D and Metamorphosis Alpha by placing adventurers at the crash site of an alien craft high on a desolate mountain peak.

But The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is one of the finest adventures ever created. Twice the size of Tomb of Horrors, Tsojcanth is an old-school dungeon crawl which introduced a host a new monsters (later collected in the Monster Manual II) and challenged the players to cross a dangerous wilderness and multiple levels of an ingeniously designed subterranean lair, before coming face-to-face with Drelzna, the vampiric daughter of long-deceased archmage Iggwilv. Gygax built on the plot threads he carefully laid here in its loose sequel, WG4: The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun.

All four adventures were collected in a slightly abridged form, revised to form a connected campaign, in the softcover Realms of Horror in 1987, which is now long out of print. But this is the first true permanent edition. For me, it is also the first must-have release in WotC’s premium reprint line, and I hope it is only the first of many to come. I’d love to see, for example, similar treatment for Gygax’s Against the Giants and Descent in the Depths adventures, and of course The Temple of Elemental Evil — copies of which demand outrageous prices on eBay.

Dungeons of Dread was published by Wizards of the Coast on March 19. It is 192 pages in hardcover, priced at $39.95. There is no digital edition.

Red Sonja: The Novels

Red Sonja: The Novels

Comments 13 comments

Red Sonja 1 - The Ring of IkribuIn late 1981, Red Sonja finished her orbit from Robert E. Howard character to Conan supporting cast member to comic book heroine and back to text. Writers David C. Smith and Richard L. Tierney were commissioned to write six Red Sonja novels. Their take on the character was uniquely their own, yet there’s enough of the character’s trademarks to leave no doubt these are Red Sonja novels and not just generic adventure tales with a recognizable name pasted over them.

The series began with The Ring of Ikribu, first published in December 1981. After a brief introduction by Roy Thomas (wherein the origins of the character are explained), the story opens with Asroth (an evil wizard) chewing out one of his lieutenants for failing to locate the titular ring. As punishment, he magically rearranges the lieutenant’s face into some sort of Lovecraftian unspeakable horror. Shifting locations, we learn that Asroth has seized the kingdom of Suthad with an army of ghosts. The ousted king, Olin, is gathering a mercenary army to take back Suthad and Red Sonja is one of those mercenaries. Also amongst the mercenaries is Duke Pelides, the aforementioned lieutenant who is now forced to wear a mask at all times. Olin wants the return of his kingdom, Pelides wants revenge, and Sonja just wants to get paid. Of course, as is the way with Sonja, she slowly becomes emotionally invested in those around her and eventually the money ceases to be her driving motivation. In less than two-hundred and fifty pages, the novel does a good job of conveying the sense of a long, grueling campaign without actually become monotonous.

…

Read More Read More

Torment: Tides of Numenera Breaks Kickstarter Records

Torment: Tides of Numenera Breaks Kickstarter Records

Comments 0 Comment

Torment Tides of NumeneraTorment: Tides of Numenera, inXile Entertainment’s isometric role-playing title, became the most funded game in Kickstarter history on Friday, raising nearly $4.2 million.

InXile was founded by Brian Fargo in 2002, after his departure from Interplay. It released an updated version of Interplay’s early computer RPG favorite The Bard’s Tale in 2004, and the popular Line Rider in 2008. It made history in April 2012, building on another original Interplay property, the much-loved post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland (1988), assembling most of the original team and launching a Kickstarter campaign to fund Wasteland 2. The goal set was the highest in Kickstarter history at that time, $900,000, and it raised more than triple that.

On March 6, InXile kicked off their next campaign, Torment: Tides of Numenera, which draws on the setting of Monte Cook’s earlier runaway success Numenera — and the beloved Interplay/Black Isle title Planescape: Torment, originally released in 1999. The Kickstarter campaign broke the record for fastest to reach $1 million (in just over seven hours) and ended with 74,405 backers and $4,188,927.

Torment: Tides of Numenera passed the previous record-holder, Obsidian Entertainment’s Project Eternity, at $3.99 million. It recently added Chris Avellone, designer for Planescape: Torment, and The Name of the Wind author Patrick Rothfuss has also joined the team. The game is set for release in 2015; learn more at the website.

Self-published Book Review: Broken Shell Island by Dalya Moon

Self-published Book Review: Broken Shell Island by Dalya Moon

Comments 1 comment

brokenshell_sm_name-p

I don’t make much effort to make these reviews spoiler-free, but I think this one may have more spoilers than usual. So be warned.

All Opal Button wanted for her birthday was a bike. Instead, her grandfather gave her his old suitcase and a one-way trip to live with his sister on Broken Shell Island. Opal had always assumed that the island was imaginary, as it was the setting of a series of children’s books written by her grandfather’s friend, Flora Fritz. On what real island could goats talk and could real stairs and doorways be drawn with chalk? It sure seems real enough when she arrives by magic suitcase, though.

She’s not the only one arriving at the island that day. The local taxman’s mail-order bride is also supposed to be coming, thus setting up what promises to be an amusing tale of mistaken identity, at least until the body of the murdered fiancée is found. But Broken Shell Island doesn’t turn into a murder mystery either (although the mystery of who killed Svetlana is an important part of the story).

At heart, Broken Shell Island is a coming of age story for Opal. It even includes a heroic quest. Of course, the original quest–to fetch bluebeeswax to polish her great aunt’s floor–gets sidetracked when her guide, a boy her age named Peter, is blinded by a snakebite. Then they’re thrown even further off course by the appearance of a daemon, a creature of the underworld summoned by the use of dark magic. This leads directly to a visit to the witches of West Shore, who aren’t really happy to see them. The witches aren’t evil (mostly), and some of them were friendly to Opal near the beginning of the book, but they do have some dark secrets, one of which sends Opal back to the beginning to try it all again. No, there’s no time loop, but Opal does end up pretty much retracing her steps, this time sans Peter, but with the help of the sheriff and the taxman, Edwin, until she manages to return to the West Shore and try again. One would think this redo would be annoying, but it actually works out fairly well. First, because the author picks up the pace and gets through the sites much more quickly, and second, because things have changed since the first time Opal visited, and more is revealed with each place revisited.

…

Read More Read More

Marvel Team-Up 79

Marvel Team-Up 79

Comments 3 comments

MTU 79 coverLet’s start with the cover. In the foreground is our reverse-silhouette antagonist, looking very much as if some meta-fictional demon took a pair of cosmic sheers and simply snipped him out of that four-color reality. In the background is Red Sonja, looking very much in her element as she chops the head off a giant snake. Standing beside her is Spider-Man, punching out a demon. If none of this convinces you to pick up the issue, a small blurb in the corner reminds you that it’s “Still Only 35¢.”

The first page reveals that this story will be set not in the Hyborian Age, but rather in the equally mythical 1978 New York. December 22, to be specific. And the team who will be working on this story? Chris Claremont (who wrote all those X-Men comics you loved as a kid), John Byrne (who wrote all those Fantastic Four comics you loved as a kid), and Terry Austin (who probably inked a few issues of every title you loved as a kid). This is what would commonly be referred to as a dream team. And seeing the casual beauty of something like Spider-Man swinging past a museum on a snowy evening gives only a hint of what’s to come.

Page two is the story of security guard Gus Hovannes going on his nightly patrol of the museum. And let me add once again that, yes, it is nice when someone as incidental as a random security guard gets a name and a little background. It makes the world feel lived in, the characters richer. So when Gus breaks through a glass display case and grabs the onyx necklace, his cut hands spilling blood on the ancient jewelry, he’s a little more than just a plot device.

The scene then cuts to an office Christmas party at the Daily Bugle. I’ve ranted before about the trend towards decompressed storytelling, but it’s truly amazing to see how quickly a great writer can present a string of characters and their major personality traits. If you don’t know who J. Jonah Jameson is, one panel tells you everything you need to know about him. Mary Jane Watson gets her one character-defining panel as well (Kirsten Dunst never did THAT). And then the editor gets a call about some sort of disturbance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He sends Peter Parker and Charlie Snow out to investigate by virtue of the fact that they’re the only two people at the party who aren’t falling down drunk.

…

Read More Read More

Adventure on Film: Why Hollywood Gets it Wrong

Adventure on Film: Why Hollywood Gets it Wrong

Comments 8 comments

star-trek-game-beams-up-in-april-2013.jpgAs I write this, April is just around the corner, and now that Hollywood’s best and brightest studios no longer know how to calculate the beginning of summer, I smell blockbuster season ripening fast on the vine. Just think, in mere weeks, we can all flock to see Star Trek: Into Darkness, Iron Man 3, Wolverine, Oblivion, Pacific Rim, Elysium, and Man of Steel.

What do nearly all of these movies have in common? I’ll tell you, spoiler-free: the fate of the world will hang in the balance.

Which is why I shall be staying home –– again –– for blockbuster season. If I have learned anything in all my forays into drama, it is this: cinema offers no more boring subject, no greater snoozefest, than global peril.

Heresy, I know.

But I’m right. Here’s why.

…

Read More Read More

Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Part 1: The Movie

Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, Part 1: The Movie

Comments 5 comments

Tarzan Valley of Gold MOD DVDTarzan and the Valley of Gold wastes no time telling viewers of the mid-1960s that this was not going to be their grandfather’s Tarzan. Or their father’s either. With swinging ‘60s big band jazz backed with bongos playing over a Warholian montage of pop art colors projecting scenes from the movie, it’s impossible not to think JAMES BOND! JAMES BOND! from the moment the opening titles start.

No doubt that was producer Sy Weintraub’s intention with this 1966 outing for Tarzan, the first of a trio starring Mike Henry. The credits sequence is a dead-on imitation of the style of Maurice Binder for Dr. No. After the director’s credit fades, the film hops into a Goldfinger-inspired sweep over a tropical resort city, concluding on a helicopter taking off from a luxury yacht in the harbor. Then, in another scene swiped from Dr. No, assassins shoot a limo driver outside the airport, and an imposter chauffeur awaits the arrival of our handsome hero in his impeccable suit and tie. Cue city montage with more swingin’ Latin big band rhythms! Smash into an action scene where a sunglass-wearing sniper tries to pick off our sharply dressed hero in an empty bullring. The crafty Ape Man turns the tables on the gunman and kills him by dropping a giant Coke Bottle advertising prop onto him. Ah, good times.

Sy Weintraub shows with this opening that he has taken the “New Look” Tarzan he introduced in 1959 in Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure one step further to imitate the stratospheric popularity of spy cinema of the decade. Tarzan not only speaks in complete sentences, but he is comfortable donning civilization’s trappings to travel the world to bring savage ape justice to turtleneck-wearing supervillains who adore exploding watches.

The temptation to go this direction must have been hard to resist: by the start of 1966, Bond-mania was approaching its delirious apex; Thunderball came out in December 1965 and was on its way to becoming one of the highest-grossing movies in history. Bandwagon films are often poor quality imitations, but Sy Weintraub already had a famous character available who could cut a dashing a dangerous figure to put at the center of his attempt to grab some Bond cash. It turned out well, better than you might initially think a “Tarzan goes ’60s spy” film would. Tarzan and the Valley of Gold, currently available as a manufacture-on-demand DVD from Warner Archive, lacks the excellent script, performances, and drama of Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, but it delivers in the breezy fun department.

…

Read More Read More

Master of Shadows

Master of Shadows

Comments 0 Comment

MoS 6As I mentioned last week, Red Sonja’s first series ended with issue fifteen. But cancellation often came quickly and without warning in the Bronze Age of Comics (look it up – it’s my favorite era). So there was already another Red Sonja story written and illustrated, no doubt ready for coloring, when the axe fell.

Well, nothing went to waste at the House of Ideas, so in October 1979, the story was published as a back-up feature in Savage Sword of Conan 45, in glorious black and white. Master of Shadows reads like a new direction for the series was seriously being considered before the whole thing got shut down. It’s one of the rare Red Sonja stories completely free of the supernatural and with a plot that’s far more coherent than what we’ve come to expect from the She-Devil with a Sword.

The new direction is likely due in large part to Roy Thomas being replaced as writer by Christy Marx. If that name sounds familiar, it might be because you heard an interview with her a couple months back. Maybe you’re a fan of her sword-and-sorcery limited series, Sisterhood of Steel. Maybe you’re following her current take on Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld in the pages of Sword of Sorcery.

But, more likely, you’ll remember her as the creator of Jem, the truly outrageous holographic pop singer from the 1980s. Jem would occasionally get transported back in time or shanghaied by yetis in her never-ending quest to keep the Starlight Home for Plot Device Girls open. So Marx certainly would seem to have the writing pedigree to follow-up giant clams and ancient green robots. But she instead chose a rather straight interpretation of the character.

Of course, there’s still room for fun in a straight version of Red Sonja. The story opens with our heroine trying to catch a nap in a public park. Draped out on a park bench in her chain mail bikini, she certainly draws her share of appreciative leers, but three men in particular decide to approach her with the standard “show you a good time” dialogue. Two of the three get tossed in a nearby pond, while the third, who only identifies himself as the Master of the House of Shadow, tells her that she was right to toss them, but now she should leave town as they’ll want revenge. It’s good advice, but Sonja won’t be driven off.

…

Read More Read More