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John Ottinger Reviews Bury Elminster Deep

John Ottinger Reviews Bury Elminster Deep

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bury-elminster-deep-by-ed-greenwoodBury Elminster Deep
Ed Greenwood
Wizards of the Coast (340pp, $25.95, 1st edition August 2011)
Reviewed by John Ottinger III

Sometimes an author can write a little too much about a character. Like a child who loves a stuffed animal, the repeated play can wear the fabric and loosen the stuffing so much that the very toy that was once so loved is rendered unrecognizable. Sentimentality keeps the stuffed animal by the child’s side, but to outside observers, the toy has lost all value.

So it is, I think, with Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood’s latest story of Elminster of Shadowdale. In Bury Elminster Deep the story opens where Elminster Must Die ended. The spellplague that has ravaged the realms has killed Mystra and killed, scattered, or rendered powerless her Chosen, including Elminster. Storm, one of the seven Chosen sisters and Elminster’s constant companion, has lost all magical power other than a head of living hair. Elminster, the most ancient and powerful of Mystra’s Chosen, who has lived through not one, but two incarnations of the goddess, is bodiless, riding the mind of his granddaughter, the dancer Rune, and is unable to perform magic without also enduring bouts of madness.

But then Mystra reappears and asks her favored Chosen to re-enter the kingdom of Cormyr to save it from yet another takeover by Lord Manshoon, the vampire archmage nemesis of Elminster. Manshoon thinks Elminster’s seeming disappearance is an opportunity to seize power in one of the Realms’ oldest human kingdoms. Though severely hobbled by his lack of magic, Storm’s normality and the jealousy of Rune’s boyfriend, Lord Arclath Delcastle, Elminster and company must stop Manshoon before his coup succeeds.

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Drinking Atlantis, No Chaser: Conan the Barbarian (2011) Blow-by-Blow & Play-by-Play

Drinking Atlantis, No Chaser: Conan the Barbarian (2011) Blow-by-Blow & Play-by-Play

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conan-poster-1I have a week-long break between summer movie reviews, the gap between Prometheus and Brave, so I have chosen to return to Ghosts of Summer Pasts. Not long past. Just last year. Ladies and gentlemen, Hyborians and Hyrkanians, the 2011 Conan the Barbarian! [Insert tepid Monty Python and the Holy Grail “yeah!” here.]

Many movie websites do play-by-play reviews, essentially a one-post blog-thru of a film, providing comments along with time stamps. I’ve wanted to try my hand at this for years, and this short summer break opened up the opportunity to exercise this review format on an awful film that sword-and-sorcery fans don’t want to talk about. But if I can find a way to wrench some entertainment from the Blu-ray of this movie (yes, I bought it — but used at a bargain price), then let it be so.

It was August of ’11 that saw the release and immediate flop of the Marcus Nispel-directed Conan the Barbarian. Critics savaged the movie, but most fans of Robert E. Howard saw the dire writing in the ancient language of Acheron on the wall long before the release. I gave up hope for the movie when I heard that Nispel was attached to it. Nothing I had seen of the man’s previous work indicated he had any notion of theme or subtlety — or even how to stitch together a comprehensible action scene. The guy came across as a refugee from an awful ’80s metal band who decided to get into directing so he could show “awesome!” stuff on screen. In other words, he was picked for the job because of a superficial resemblance to sword-and-sorcery, not because the man has any affinity for filmmaking or Robert E. Howard.

The casting of Jason Momoa met skepticism when first announced, but among all else that went awry with Conan the Barbarian, Momoa was one thing that went right. More about that on the play-by-play.

I enjoyed the movie more this second time viewing it, but that isn’t because I found any new appreciation for it. Conan ’11 works simply better on home video, where its limited scope and poor VFX feel more appropriate. Also, watching at home meant I could take breaks to go get a drink or read Shakespeare or call my sister in Munich. I could live my life around the film, and the film benefits from my ability to ignore it whenever I want to. The only downside to home video is that the 3D in the theater, terrible as it was, did hide some of visual flaws and clunky special effects.

Okay, queue up your disc or streaming or whatever, and let’s drink Atlantis….

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Andrea Grennan reviews The Infernals

Andrea Grennan reviews The Infernals

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the-infernalsThe Infernals
John Connolly
Atria Books (309 pp, $22.00, 1st Hardcover Edition, October 2011)
Reviewed by Andrea Grennan

Almost-Armageddon books are a marvelous niche in the fantasy market, ranging from serious examinations and thrillers to horror and gore. One of this reviewer’s favorites is the lighter side of Armageddon, as seen in Neil Gamain and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens or Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series.

John Connolly’s approach fits right into this niche, with a marvelous blend of suburban London quirk and the Large Hadron Supercollider in Cerne, Switzerland.

Sound a bit on the these-two-things-don’t-go-together side? Relax, set aside your concerns, and go for ride with Samuel Johnson and his faithful dog Boswell through the looking glass and straight to Hell.

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Steampunk Spotlight: Cherie Priest’s Ganymede

Steampunk Spotlight: Cherie Priest’s Ganymede

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Ganymede by Cherie PriestGanymede (Amazon | B&N)
Cherie Priest
Tor (350 pp., $14.99, October 2011)
Reviewed by Jackson Kuhl

On the eve of the fall and subsequent occupation of New Orleans by the Union in 1862, lawyer and amateur engineer Horace L. Hunley, along with his two investment partners, scuttled their submarine Pioneer in a canal to prevent its seizure by the Federals. They may, or may not, have likewise scuttled a second submarine near Lake Pontchartrain; there are no records for this sub and its design departs from Hunley’s other efforts. The trio fled to Mobile, Alabama, to build another sub, which sank, and yet another, the H.L. Hunley, which drowned its namesake, then successfully torpedoed the Union blockade ship Housatonic before itself swamping in Charleston Harbor during its return.

In the alternate history of Cherie Priest’s latest Clockwork Century novel, Hunley and his partners constructed a fifth submersible, the titular Ganymede, which sank near New Orleans. The Civil War has stretched into the late nineteenth-century and the city is occupied by the Confederate-allied Republic of Texas. Now a team of pro-Union guerrillas has recovered Ganymede and, hopeful the machine can end the war in the Union’s favor, intends to transport it down the Mississippi River — past the Texians searching for it — to a waiting U.S. battleship in the Gulf. All of this is orchestrated by freedom fighter Josephine Early, a black whorehouse madam and Union agent. With no one experienced enough to pilot the sub, Early hires airship captain Andan Cly (who also happens to be her ex-lover, natch) to “fly” Ganymede under the river and the Texians’ noses to the rendezvous.

Priest has cooked together espionage, a rich setting, intriguing characters, and a plot that could have been stolen from Alistair Maclean. It’s a great gumbo — providing you ignore there’s not an ounce of suspense to be tasted. Spoilers ahoy!

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Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Prometheus

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Prometheus

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prometheus-posterIf you plan to see Prometheus this weekend, know that you are in for an endless buffet of visual astonishment, especially if you spring to see it in IMAX 3D. Ridley Scott belongs to the breed of filmmaker who can justify the use of the 3D gimmick. He poured everything at his disposal to make his new science-fiction film worth the extra dollars, euros, pound notes needed to watch it in an immersive environment. Prometheus is visual and aural splendor for the cinema.

Know also that you will meet flat characters who often do idiotic things (“Don’t pet the freaky alien snake-thingy! You call yourself a scientist?”) and more idiotic things (“Don’t take off your helmets, you morons! You call yourselves space-explorers?”) and more idiotic things (“Don’t go down into the basement alone!” Well, that doesn’t specifically happen, but many equivalent things do.); a script that turns its initial concept into a shapeless mess by the halfway point; and the general disappointment of watching what promised to be an amazing return for Ridley Scott to the Alien universe he helped create ending up as standard science-fiction thriller pulp.

Does this add up to a good film? Uh, I’m willing to say it does. And whether “good” is enough for you when it comes to Prometheus will depend on how much you anticipated its release and how much you devoured of its brilliant promotional and viral campaigns.

Prometheus presents a puzzle for me personally: It is far below what I wanted as a dramatic experience, yet the cinematic experience of it is stupendous. The tension here offers plenty to ponder, but in a meta-critical sense that has little to do with the story that Prometheus offers. What makes a good film? What makes a good story? What makes a good film story? How much do expectations alter those questions? Are they all the same questions? Yes? No? Buy a vowel?

I guess what I am trying to say is that you should go see Prometheus for yourself, no matter what the critical consensus says, simply because it engages in questions about filmmaking and will no doubt begin tons of debate.

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Chris Braak Reviews The Last Four Things

Chris Braak Reviews The Last Four Things

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the-last-four-thingsThe Last Four Things
Paul Hoffman
Dutton Books (384 pp, $26.96, hardcover August 2011)
Reviewed by Chris Braak

The Last Four Things is the sequel to Paul Hoffman’s runaway hit The Left Hand of God – a droll, sword-and-more-swords epic set in a kind of topsy-turvy analog for Europe during the Hundred Years War. Like all second books in a trilogy, the proof of this one will lie in how the third book ties these loosened strings altogether.

The signature elements of Hoffman’s first novel are here in abundance: the dry wit, the simple but cleanly drawn characters, the tense and stirring depictions of large-scale military conflict; as well are some of the more troublesome elements, like Hoffman’s tendency to distractingly remix and incorporate recognizable bits of history and literature into the narrative.

After the events of The Left Hand of God, Thomas Cale (the eponymous Left Hand) and his friends — Kleist, Vague Henri, and IdrisPukke — find themselves separated by the machinations of the Lord Militant Redeemer Bosco. While Thomas Cale begins waging a series of campaigns on behalf of the imperialistic and puritanical Redeemers, Kleist the archer ends up making a home for himself in a tribe of cowardly, philosophical bandits called the Klephts. Cale’s hunger for escape and the Redeemers’ bloody-mindedness drive the two of them apart at first, and then slowly back together; the stage is set for a climax in the upcoming third book.

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Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Snow White and the Huntsman

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Snow White and the Huntsman

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snow_white_and_the_huntsman_posterSummer movies, like boxes of Crackerjacks (does anyone still eat those? I never see them for sale any more), come packed with surprises. And, like Crackerjacks toys, often they are lame surprises. Let-downs. Occasionally — and it usually happens only once per summer — the toy you dig out of the same-old same-old caramel and peanut glop is a Hot Wheels car with flame details and killer sci-fi spoilers that somebody in the Crackerjack plant accidentally dropped into the box while leaving hastily for a smoke break.

Snow White and the Huntsmen is one of those positive summer surprises. I hope it isn’t the last “Hot Wheels” shock of the season, but in the month-long lull that followed the boffo fun of The Avengers, I’ll take it and cling to it.

A high-fantasy film like Snow White and the Huntsman (the ampersand only appears on publicity material) should not be a hard-sell to Black Gate readers. But the marketing and trailers pushed hard to get the Twilight fan-base to show up, so fantasy lovers pegged it early on as “not for us.” But it is! The Twilight viewers will love it, but they’ll like it for the same reasons other viewers will: it’s a broad-appealing, well-constructed, marvelous-looking, fun fantasy romp.

And, if it were not for a major casting blunder, I could easily see myself adding Snow White and the Huntsman to my Blu-ray shelf the week it comes out. I still will purchase it, but a few months after its street-date when I can get a bargain on it used.

The unpleasant truth is the piece of miscasting is monumental: the first of the two title characters, the figure who gives her name to the legend. My dear Snow White. Played in a perpetual coma by Kristen Stewart.

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Fall From Earth: A Review

Fall From Earth: A Review

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Fall From EarthFall From Earth
Matthew Johnson
Bundoran Press (236 pp, $19.95, 2010)

It’s been suggested that Canadian fiction often features a collective protagonist rather than a single dominant personality: a group of interlocking characters who drive the narrative forward. I don’t know how accurate that is; but it’s interesting to consider in the context of Ottawa writer Matthew Johnson’s 2010 novel, Fall From Earth. In addition to following a group of characters, it’s also a story of colonisation in the face of an unfriendly natural environment, and of the interaction of different cultures; both typically Canadian themes. Is this significant?

Fall From Earth tells the story of a group of convicts sentenced by a far-future imperial state, the Borderless Empire, to colonise a new planet. They’ve committed all manner of crimes: murder, heresy … and rebellion. We follow them as they land on the planet, and find that all is not as they had been led to expect. Complications arise and are dealt with, only for more complications to arrive; mysteries are piled upon mysteries; and the sense of scale grows as the novel goes along.

It’s a very strong book. The writing’s exceptionally tight, with no wasted words. The story’s told in short, well-chosen scenes; point-of-view shifts easily and naturally from character to character. The various conundra the colonists find on the planet develop, show strange ramifications, and then begin to resolve themselves. By the end of the book, it’s all been neatly explained, and the plot’s neatly worked through to a satisfactory ending.

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Sean Stiennon Reviews Dark Jenny

Sean Stiennon Reviews Dark Jenny

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darkjennyDark Jenny
Alex Bledsoe
Tor ($14.99, trade paperback, 352 pages, April 2011)
Reviewed by Sean T. M. Stiennon

Readers new to Alex Bledsoe’s Eddie LaCrosse series should brace themselves for culture shock, because while the book is set in a medieval world, all the characters have distinctly un-medieval names and mannerisms.  Be prepared for Gary, Eddie, Liz, and Angie to appear in the first few pages.  In keeping with their anachronistic names, all the characters speak in a modern conversational style.  Swords are referred to by make and model, like cars.

It’s a dramatic choice on Bledsoe’s part that will leave many readers feeling alienated, but I think it works.  The novels are hard-boiled crime fiction just as much as they are fantasy, and the casual style means that Bledsoe can give his hero Eddie a dry wit that requires no translation to be funny.  It also gives the story a freshness that the setting, which is your stand low-fantasy budget medieval, tends to lack.

For my part, I found that once I got past the anachronisms (first in The Sword-Edged Blonde, now in Dark Jenny), I was thoroughly captivated by the raw strength of Bledsoe’s writing and story-telling, and found myself with a book that seemed to stick to my fingers.

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Beth Dawkins Reviews Black Blade Blues

Beth Dawkins Reviews Black Blade Blues

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black-blade-bluesBlack Blade Blues
J.A. Pitts
TOR (384pp, $7.99, April 2011 Mass Market)
Reviewed by Beth Dawkins

Sarah, the protagonist of J.A. Pitts’ Black Blade Blues, is a twenty something blacksmith and props manager for a movie set. She works two jobs to pay her bills and student loans. On the movie set the lead man breaks her one-of-a-kind sword, and she decides to fix it. A man who claims to be a dwarf decides to help, and so the blade is reforged. The dwarf also insists that she must use it to kill a dragon, who is also an investment banker. After the blade it put back together, things start to fall apart for Sarah. Firstly, when things get serious with her girlfriend Katie, and then with her working relationships, everything dips out of control until Sarah is forced to acknowledge — and deal with — the paranormal aspects that are going on around her.

Sarah is a multi-layered character. She has anger problems, and is dealing with her sexuality. She doesn’t want to be openly gay with her girlfriend Katie, but she wants to be in a relationship with her. She doesn’t acknowledge the paranormal things that happen around her until she is forced to, and by that time her process of dealing with them is violent. After the sword is reforged, earthquakes start, and a homeless man who could be Odin starts babbling to Sarah. Instead of paying attention, her mind is more on Katie. After she has an argument with Katie, she sees a dragon for the first time and is so wrapped up in what might be going on around her (the paranormal), she doesn’t make time to talk things out. There are some scenes towards the end where friends make a few jokes, and though danger is immediate, and the reader is told that Sarah only wants to kill, she still laughs. I wanted her either friendly or brooding; instead she is a middle ground character that was hard to identify with.

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