Guys, I got teary when Katniss volunteered to take Primrose’s place. I love the book series, and while I’m always cautious when going into a movie adaptation [...]]]> I’ve been remiss in talking about the upcoming movie based on Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, but the full trailer is out, so let’s have a fangirl moment.

Guys, I got teary when Katniss volunteered to take Primrose’s place. I love the book series, and while I’m always cautious when going into a movie adaptation of a book I love, I’m pretty excited about this one. The cast looks amazing, especially Jennifer Lawrence. I thought she was brilliant in X-Men: First Class, and judging by this trailer, it looks like she’s going to be really good as Katniss.

Are you guys excited about The Hunger Games? What do you think of the trailer?

Series: Possibly, but no future books have been announced yet.
Genre(s): Young Adult, Fantasy, Mystery
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Release Date: 26 July 2011
Available Formats: Hardcover, E-book
Description: Oona Crate was born to be the Wizard’s apprentice, but [...]]]> The Wizard of Dark Street (An Oona Crate Mystery) by Shawn Thomas Odyssey

Series: Possibly, but no future books have been announced yet.
Genre(s): Young Adult, Fantasy, Mystery
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Release Date: 26 July 2011
Available Formats: Hardcover, E-book
Description: Oona Crate was born to be the Wizard’s apprentice, but she has another destiny in mind.

Despite possessing the rare gift of natural magic, Oona wants to be a detective. Eager for a case to prove herself, she wants to show her uncle—the Wizard of Dark Street—that logic is as powerful as magic. But when someone attacks the Wizard, Oona must delve even deeper into the world of magic to discover who wanted her uncle dead.

Full of magic, odd characters, evil henchmen, and a street where nothing is normal, The Wizard of Dark Street will have you guessing until the very end.

This review is based on a copy received from the publisher.

TDF Pamela’s Review:

I really have a thing for fantasies set in worlds that lay alongside ours. The blurring of the edges between what we think of as reality and those magical worlds fascinates me, which is probably why I love the Harry Potter series so much (and why I’m working on a couple of stories with those kinds of worlds myself). The Wizard of Dark Street takes place on Dark Street (oddly enough), a little neighborhood that’s linked to New York City, but is actually a bridge between the normal world and the Land of Faerie. It’s a highly entertaining blend of Harry Potter-esque magic and Holmesian detective work.

Oona Crate is the Dark Street Wizard’s apprentice and niece, but Oona doesn’t want to be the Wizard. She doesn’t even want to use magic anymore, not after the horrid accident. So she and her magical talking raven, Deacon (who’s more of a flying encyclopedia than a regular old bird), snoop around Dark Street, trying to solve mysteries. When a very big mystery involving stolen dresses, missing cobblestones, and her uncle’s apparent murder falls into her lap, Oona hopes she’s not in over her head. She must use all of her detective’s cunning to solve this mystery before she loses her uncle forever, and before the very fabric of Dark Street falls apart.

It’s easy to compare magical young adult literature to Harry Potter, but The Wizard of Dark Street mimics the feel of Rowling’s series, for lack of a more precise term. Odyssey’s way of describing the setting and the characters is very visual and whimsical, and I had no trouble at all picturing the strange world of Dark Street. I particularly like the Victorian setting, and that some of the denizens of Dark Street seem to be far ahead of their time when it comes to fashion (I’m looking at you, Samuligan the faerie who wears a cowboy hat).

Oona herself is a fine young heroine, full of confidence but also realistic enough to be taken down a notch when a snobby girl insults her. Her interactions with Deacon are fun, and I liked seeing her poke and prod her way into places where she’s not supposed to go. Her tenacity in trying to save her uncle and solve the mystery makes her into a really great young protagonist. She runs into many people who are trying to stop her from finding out the truth, but her quick wits and her pet encyclopedia raven help her along the way. I liked Oona immensely, and I really hope that Odyssey writes more books about this awesome young detective.

The other characters are quirky and fun, if not quite as well-rounded as Oona, but hopefully there will be future books that flesh out the others a little bit more. The mystery itself has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until the end, and a few red herrings are thrown in to keep you on your toes. I had figured out part of the mystery by the end, but I was nicely surprised by one of the final twists.

Overall, The Wizard of Dark Street is a fun, creatively imagined young adult book that has a lot going for it. I enjoyed it as an adult reader, and I can definitely see how kids would dig it, too.

Buy It Now:

Reviews Elsewhere
Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog
Slatebreakers

Finally, a step in the right direction. I am very happy to say, it is a vast improvement over both my previous DC comic experience and Catwoman #1.

This is my second year participating. Last year I made it to 50K by the skin of my teeth, so here’s hoping this year I can pull it off again. [...]]]> It’s November 1st, and that means it’s time to panic and try to write 50,000 words in a month. It’s National Novel Writing Month!

This is my second year participating. Last year I made it to 50K by the skin of my teeth, so here’s hoping this year I can pull it off again. I… actually haven’t even finished my outline yet, and it’s already November. Yikes! I have the first chapter or two planned, so that’s enough to start.

My problem is that I’m sorely lacking motivation. I really like my idea (a supernatural horror story), but I just can’t get excited about it right now. My brain keeps veering around all of the other story ideas that have been percolating in my head, and I can’t focus.

I’m also working part-time this year, so I’ll be doing my writing around my job shifts. I know, it’s only part time. I just don’t deal with stress well. ;)

It’s nearly 10am here in Oregon, and I have to work at 1. I guess I’d better stop blogging about writing and actually, you know, write. Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? I’m tdfangirl. Add me as a writing buddy, or leave your NaNo username in the comments! I know I’ll need all of the encouragement I can get. ;)

When I was fifteen years old, something rather strange happened to me.

I became obsessed with Freddy Krueger. I’m not sure what prompted it. I know [...]]]> Happy Halloween, fangirls and fanboys! Tis the season for spooky cinema, so let’s talk horror movies. What is your favorite creepy film to watch when Halloween rolls around?

Kerry

When I was fifteen years old, something rather strange happened to me.

I became obsessed with Freddy Krueger. I’m not sure what prompted it. I know I had a sleepover with about three friends and watched both the original Friday the 13th (unimpressive) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (flaw-free). I wasn’t the same after that.

Constant high school visits to Six Flags: Fright Fest involved wandering around with a friend, calling out for Freddy and then when a worker dressed in the fedora, red and green sweater and knifed gloves appeared, we giggled madly as if we had just run into a Backstreet Boy. We were weird teenagers.

But I didn’t care! I loved everything about this movie: the atmosphere, the teenagers, the Final Girl, the murders and of course, Freddy Krueger. It’s still my favorite slasher movie and therefore, a Halloween staple.

Freddy Krueger, at this point, is so ingrained in pop culture as a wisecracking smartass, it’s easy to forget that in his very first appearance, he was essentially a grim, decidedly unfunny, shadowy nightmare. There are no clear shots of Freddy and rather than being a straight slasher film, the murders occur in nightmarish dream sequences, the best of which is the reappearance of the first victim, Tina, in a body bag in a high school hallway.

Nancy, played by Heather Langenkamp, is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, Final Girl to ever outwit the killer in a slasher movie. According to Carol J. Clover, in her somewhat dated but still worth checking out book Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, the Final Girl is masculine (in an effort for the typically male audience to identify with her) and possesses an “active investigating gaze” (48). Nancy, though she does shun sexual activity (sex = death) and reads a survivalist book to beat Freddy, she is still feminine. She’s identifiable, intelligent and determined to win. She’s a great heroine and Langenkamp deserves a great deal of praise. She recently created the documentary, I Am Nancy, which explores why Freddy became a beloved character while Nancy, the hero, was thrust into the background. My theory? Simply sexism. The wisecracking male serial killer is more interesting to the general public than the intelligent, levelheaded female would-be victim. When I was fifteen, I was guilty of this too. Now, I have a newly found appreciation for Nancy and an intense desire to see this film.

Until I get a hold of it, I just have the first and third Nightmare on Elm Street films, the best of the series, for this Halloween. Don’t fall asleep!

TDF Pamela

I’m not much of a horror movie fan. I love creepy books and I really dig movies with a lot of psychological fear involved, but what puts me off of most horror film is the gore. To say I dislike gory movies is a terrible understatement. I frigging hate slasher flicks and torture porn. For me, being grossed out is not the same as being scared. I like to jump out of my skin, but I really don’t like having to cover my eyes because someone’s guts are being ripped out. (I can tolerate bloody movies, but the moment guts are involved, the deal is off.)

So when my fiancé and I combined our movie collections, I balked when I saw that he has a copy of The Descent. I didn’t know much about the movie, just that it involved a group of women, a cave, and all kinds of scary shit. I let him talk me into watching it, though, after getting his solemn oath that the movie was not a slasher gore-fest.

Imagine my surprise when I ended up really liking it. Beware spoilers for The Descent!

The Descent is about six women who reunite a year after a terrible car accident took the lives of one woman’s husband and daughter. They head into the Appalachian wilderness to go cave exploring, but things begin to go horribly wrong after a tunnel collapse traps them in a cave network that’s inhabited by something that’s decidedly not human.

One thing I liked about The Descent is how quiet it is. I don’t mean quiet as in volume, but rather the low-key way that the actors and the director approached the subject matter. I’m rather claustrophobic, so even the basic premise of this movie is nightmarish for me. When fear and claustrophobia start to affect the characters, I was right there with them, and I appreciate that their psychological breakdowns weren’t particularly melodramatic. Each woman slipped down that slope at her own pace, some of them holding onto sanity until the end while others started to freak out early on.

Another thing that I liked is that all of the major characters are women. In most of the horror movies I’ve watched, women tend to occupy a couple of well-defined roles: the slutty victim or the Final Girl (which Kerry discussed above). None of the characters in The Descent were sacrificial sluts or virginal heroines who escape thanks to their virtue. We admittedly don’t get much background on more than two or three characters in The Descent, but each character had her own particular feel and personality, and you get attached to them. It’s not a movie where you’re looking for the next creative way for someone to die. It’s a movie where you’re genuinely afraid for the characters and are affected by their deaths.

I don’t think The Descent is particularly gory, but it is bloody. There are some gory scenes, but it was within my tolerance level. The effing scariest parts for me were toward the beginning, just after they realize that they’re trapped and that Juno, their guide, has taken them into an unexplored cave instead of the nice, familiar, mapped cave system they thought they were going into. It’s dark and dangerous, and Sarah (the woman who lost her family and still hasn’t quite gotten over it yet) thinks she sees something out there in the dark. Between the paranoid fear and the physical danger they’re constantly in, I was a ball of nerves.

Which brings me to my main criticism of The Descent. I really wish they hadn’t shown the slimy, cannibalistic baddies so early in the film. Or better yet, I wish the slimy, cannibalistic baddies weren’t even in the film. I think it could have been so much scarier if it had veered away from the traditional horror monster route and had just played upon the psychological breakdown of the characters. Hallucinations and paranoia could have been more effective in creeping me the hell out. The cannibal creatures were gross and scary, to be certain, but this goes back to my preference for psychological horror. I’d rather see the women all slowly lose their minds and turn on each other (which happens to an extent) rather than fight against an actual monster.

But even with that complaint, I thought the movie was very creepy and really nicely made. The use of light was particularly good. Many movies that are supposed to take place in the dark look too well-lit. I know you have to see the actors, but at the same time, it’s just not as creepy when you can see everything around you in a cave. For the most part, The Descent is extremely dark, and you only see what the characters can see in their immediate surroundings. You can tell it’s on a shoestring budget, but it’s not bothersome. The simplicity of it actually works quite well.

Seriously, there are big spoilers for the end of the movie after this point.

And finally, let’s talk about my favorite part of the movie: the ending. When the movie was released in American theatres, the ending was trimmed, so if you’ve only seen the American theatrical version, you’re missing out. The unrated DVD version has the original British ending, and I think it was brilliant. In the American version, you see Sarah claw her way out of the cave after crippling and abandoning Juno to the monsters. She runs to her car and drives for a while, then pulls over to get sick and sits up to see a blood-streaked Juno sitting in the car at her side.

In the British ending, you find out that her escape is just a dream. At various points in the movie when Sarah is under extreme stress, she sees a birthday cake in the darkness, perhaps a memory of her dead daughter’s last party. After the shock of seeing Juno in the car, we’re back in the cave. Sarah is kneeling, reaching toward the hallucination of the birthday cake and her daughter, and the camera pulls back to show us that she’s still trapped underground. She’s lost her sanity, and you can pretty much bet that there’s no hope for her to escape the cave.

It’s bleak. But the bleakness is what I like so much about it. The American cut ending plays into our expectations. She’s escaped, and even though there are still nightmarish things going on, she’s at least out of the cave. I like having my expectations fucked with, though, and by having that escape as a dream or a hallucination, we get a little taste of what we expect to happen only to have it snatched away. I loved that. Absolutely loved it.

Even after reading the offensive, insulting, embarrassing and just plain poorly done Catwoman #1, I was willing to give this series another shot. I am always reluctant to give up on a series [...]]]>

Cover by Guillem March

Even after reading the offensive, insulting, embarrassing and just plain poorly done Catwoman #1, I was willing to give this series another shot. I am always reluctant to give up on a series after one issue (I’m willing to be painfully disappointed after at least five issues) so when I saw the cover for Catwoman #2, I took a deep breath, tried not to cringe and picked it up.

Then I read it.

I am just so, so very disappointed in this re-launch. It’s everything I could possibly hate in a comic book wrapped up in issues starring one of my absolute favorite characters. It hurts; it honestly hurts.

It’s like Winick just wants to see how long he can go crafting a Catwoman story that spits in the faces of all of her fans before someone at DC stops him on his mad quest. Has anyone at DC even read this before printing it? Are there seriously no women at DC who could read this and at least raise an eyebrow in polite disgust? It’s also upsetting because men are smart too and if the average guy I’ve talked to about this series also found it offensive and incredibly weak, then some dude at DC MUST have the cognitive thought process to see this as well. WHAT’S HAPPENING OVER THERE?!

Okay, so the front cover is just Batman and Catwoman kissing mid-air. Stupid, but not inherently bad. I let that slide. Then I turned to the front page. Batman and Catwoman sprawled half-naked post-coitus (as a co-worker politely described it). I cringed for about a minute straight. Have you ever, in your travels on the internet, accidentally wandered across some really graphic fanart depicting like beloved characters from childhood? Remember that shuddery feeling of disgust and incredible sadness? That’s how I felt reading Catwoman #2. The title should have just been Catwoman #2: Rule 34.

Following this post-sexual non-glow, Catwoman engages in some barely interesting thievery of a Russian painting purely to piss off the Russian mob and set the different factions against one another. The awful thing about this plot is that it could have been interesting. Winick could have perfectly illustrated the kleptomaniac-side of Catwoman and the fact that she simply steals for stealing’s sake. It could have been so great to see Catwoman as something other than a sexual object that just happens to steal because that’s how Batman notices her.

It could have been so much more. But instead I was given a flat, one-dimensional, uninteresting, embarrassing and frankly depressing Catwoman. Also, at one point, she dressed up like this:

I can’t. I JUST CAN’T.

Then there’s some graphic violence against women that occurs and it’s totally unnecessary and I just want to give up on this series. I go into reading a comic knowing I’m probably going to have to meet it halfway. Well I met this one halfway and it just decided to turn around and walk in the opposite direction, right after giving me the finger.

I know this post is in essence a fangirl rant but for a comic as awful and sexist as this one, I deserve a chance to just rail. I highly doubt I am going to pick up the next issue unless I really feel self-loathing that day. We’ll have to wait and see.

Description: A gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near-future where the sport of boxing has gone high-tech, Real Steel stars Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took [...]]]> Real Steel: Written by John Gantis, Directed by Shawn Levy

Description: A gritty, white-knuckle, action ride set in the near-future where the sport of boxing has gone high-tech, Real Steel stars Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton, a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000-pound, 8-foot-tall steel robots took over the ring. Now nothing but a small-time promoter, Charlie earns just enough money piecing together low-end bots from scrap metal to get from one underground boxing venue to the next. When Charlie hits rock bottom, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) to build and train a championship contender. As the stakes in the brutal, no-holds-barred arena are raised, Charlie and Max, against all odds, get one last shot at a comeback.

This review is based on a theatrical viewing I paid for myself

Lady-T’s review:
Put aside for a moment the fact that the concept is kind of like a dramatised version of an episode of Robot Wars, the problem with Real Steel is not that it’s bad, because it isn’t. It’s just that it’s not particularly good either.

But, and here’s the real crux of the matter… it’s sort of weirdly entertaining regardless.

I’ll be frank; I didn’t love it. It rather falls into that void of “Eh” in which I found myself not overly caring much about it either way. Which considering that Hugh Jackman and I have enjoyed a decade-long cinematic romance kind of hurts me to say, but there it is. Oh, sure, it’s amiable enough, and cheesy (Lord, is it ever cheesy) but it rolls along at a decent pace and even the most cynical of my viewing partners left the screening with a smile on their face.

Alright, they were probably smiling for all the wrong reasons (it was a bemused, slightly mocking smile, these are not people who enjoy morally uplifting plot-points on their own merit,) but the general audience seemed pretty happy and for round these parts that’s substantially better than other movies have fared. There’s nothing particularly special about Real Steel, but if you enjoy shiny robots beating into other shiny robots, served up along side a father-son redemption plot, all whisked in with some underdog Vs corporate greed and boomy loud rock music… well, it’ll help while away a wet Wednesday in a pleasant sort of manner.

More honestly, however, the whole thing really just felt… lazy.

I know, given the genre, the sporting underdog, you don’t expect a whole lot of originality. But with Real Steel you can pretty much count the beats –They’re in there between all the product placement– and I defy you to find any point at which you don’t know exactly what’s coming. Perhaps with the exception of a couple of facepalm-inducingly twee dance routines which were, coincidentally, the point at which my companions all agreed there is absolutely no way you can take any of this film even remotely seriously.

The only person who really fares well out of this bizarre genre soup is Dakota Goyo (playing Max) in one of those rare child-actor performances that remains mercifully free of the whiff of precocious stage-school brat. Hugh Jackman on the other hand, just needed a couple of slices of bread around him and he would have made a pretty substantial ham and cheese sandwich all on his own.

The extent of his contribution seems limited to propping up some scenery while phoning in the rest of his performance. It would not be a lie to say I was more disappointed by this peculiarly disengaged by-the-numbers appearance than by any particular weakness in the script. It is, shall we say, not his best work. In playing the charming-but-unreliable-jerk there’s not much here that you haven’t seen him do before in other, earlier films. His character of Charlie is almost awkwardly reminiscent of hacker Stanley Jobson in the action-thriller Swordfish, maybe with a little hint of Wolverine thrown on top for good measure. Holding it up against his performance in films like The Prestige or The Fountain, it feels like a regressive step backwards.

It has all the Jackman shorthand acting tics, up to and including the constipated turtle face that stands in for deep emotion when nothing more involved is forthcoming. This is, perhaps, what makes it so very frustrating for me when the rest of the audience seemed to quite happily enjoy themselves. I didn’t expect too much of Real Steel, it kind of is what it is, and I got exactly what I anticipated. It’s reasonably entertaining and ultimately disposable. The most disappointing thing is that almost everyone involved should have been capable of better.

Reviews Elsewhere

• Film4
• Empire
• The Guardian
• Time Out

Series: Yes; book 1 of a trilogy
Genre(s): Fantasy
Publisher: Spectra
Release Date: 4 October 2011
Available Formats: Trade Paperback, Ebook
Description: Here’s the beginning of a lush, epic, wholly original new trilogy that shines with magic, mystery, and captivating drama.

On the Veiled [...]]]> The Traitor’s Daughter by Paula Brandon

Series: Yes; book 1 of a trilogy
Genre(s): Fantasy
Publisher: Spectra
Release Date: 4 October 2011
Available Formats: Trade Paperback, Ebook
Description: Here’s the beginning of a lush, epic, wholly original new trilogy that shines with magic, mystery, and captivating drama.

On the Veiled Isles, ominous signs are apparent to those with the talent to read them. The polarity of magic is wavering at its source, heralding a vast upheaval poised to alter the very balance of nature. Blissfully unaware of the cataclysmic events to come, Jianna Belandor, the beautiful, privileged daughter of a powerful Faerlonnish overlord, has only one concern: the journey to meet her prospective husband. But revolution is stirring as her own conquered people rise up against their oppressors, and Jianna is kidnapped and held captive at a rebel stronghold, insurance against what are perceived as her father’s crimes.

The resistance movement opens Jianna’s eyes―and her heart. Despite her belief in her father’s innocence, she is fascinated by the bold and charming nomadic physician and rebel sympathizer, Falaste Rione—who offers Jianna her only sanctuary in a cold and calculating web of intrigue. As plague and chaos grip the land, Jianna is pushed to the limits of her courage and resourcefulness, while virulent enemies discover that alliance is their only hope to save the human race.

This review is based on a copy received from the publisher.

TDF Pamela’s Review:

The Traitor’s Daughter is built upon an interesting concept, but it has some unfortunate flaws that make it difficult for me to really like it. It felt far too long and, for the majority of the book, had a disappointing lack of likable characters. Overall, this book feels like an overly long setup for the next book in the series.

There are many plot threads in this book, and while they’re not that difficult to follow, I feel like a few of them could have been cut much, much shorter to make for a more enjoyable read. The book starts with Grix Orlazzu and his automaton, and this plot thread introduces the idea that the arcane powers threaded through the Veiled Isles is about to change drastically. And then Orlazzu disappears for a full half of the book. He only shows up twice more, in the middle and at the very end, and I was left scratching my head.

The majority of the book is devoted to Jianna Belandor, the daughter of Magnifico Aureste Belandor. Aureste is a lord, the leader of one of the occupied Faerlonnish families, but he is also a collaborator with the Taerleezi, who invaded the Faerlonnish home island years before. His daughter is kidnapped by someone with a bone to pick with Aureste, and most of the book deals with Jianna’s trials and Aureste’s plans to get his daughter back.

There is also a plot thread having to do with Aureste’s enemy, Vinz Corvestri, but it doesn’t have much page time either, like Orlazzu’s story. However, by the end of the book I could see that all of these threads are coming together to form a more cohesive whole. Unfortunately, that cohesive whole started to become apparent in the last fifty pages of the book. After reading the whole thing, I was left feeling like The Traitor’s Daughter has enough plot for maybe 200 pages, but it’s been stretched to fill over 400. It’s a very long setup for the next book in the series.

For the majority of the book, I found myself sympathizing with very few characters. Jianna Belandor is a spoiled young woman, and though she slowly learns that she can’t get her way by throwing around her father’s name, I spent most of the book wishing she would snap out of it. Aureste is not a good man, as his daughter believes, and the reader knows that from the very beginning. His only redeeming feature is his devotion to his daughter and his disabled brother, Innesq, but otherwise he is a conniving boot-licker devoted to benefitting himself at the expense of others.

I get the feeling we are supposed to feel sympathy for Jianna’s captors given their history, but they are written in such a way that you absolutely hate them. On one hand, I actually applaud the author for making her characters all inhabit a moral grey area. No one is all good and no one is all evil; each character has some sort of redeeming quality, but even the good ones have major flaws. It’s nice that there is no black and white.

On the other hand, it’s a little hard to get into a story when you want to slap all of the characters, or maybe even murder them in their sleep.

There are a few characters who are basically all good, like Falaste Rione, a young doctor who helps the Faerlonnish resistance. But after seeing so many shades of grey before he shows up in the story, I was left feeling like he was almost unrealistically good.

There is also a race of amphibious beings called the Sishmendri who appear as servants for the human characters. They felt important, and I get the feeling that they’re going to play a bigger role in the next book, but from this book alone, they feel incidental, like set dressing for a strange world.

The story definitely picks up in the last third of the book, and by the end, I was much, much more interested in it than I was during the first two-thirds. It’s just very unfortunate that I had to slog through so many pages devoted to very little plot.

Buy It Now: