Book Reviews
New Reviews
| Stranger in a Strange Land | BtVS: Go Ask Malice | Lord of the Rings Trilogy | What Ifs? Of American History (Coming Soon) |
Old Reviews
| Big Fish | Gunslinger | No Spin Zone | Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe |
Little Fish, but Big Fight
With the film Big Fish being filmed all around this area; some in Montgomery, a little bit in Wetumpka, and a bit pretty much next door at Jackson Lake, it was a given that eventually I would have to gander through the pages of this book and see what was going on. Well, after seeing the great trailer earlier in the week, I saw the book in a local bookstore and decided to pick it up. Then, only a couple of days later I had the chance to crack the cover.
Big Fish was written by Daniel Wallace and is now becoming a known book thanks to the attention of the film of the same name. Big Fish is the story of a man, William Bloom, who is trying to cope with the fact that his father, Edward, is dying. He has been doing so for a long time, but he repeatedly tries to get small things out of his father. He wishes to know what his father was really like, what his thoughts are on deep and interesting subjects. However all he ever gets are stories and jokes from his old man and is getting tired of it.
These stories about his father take up a majority of the book. Some of the major ones that are told are as follows. Edward tames the giant who comes to town and eats all of the crops and even a few dogs. Edward saves a young girl who was bathing in a stream from a snake. The girl ends up being magical and saves him later when he is in the navy and their ship is struck by a torpedo. Edward goes to Auburn where he helps an old lady who had her fake eye stolen by a fraternity. He meets his wife there and is forced into a fight by the leader of the fraternity that he got the eye back from, since he was the girl’s boyfriend. Later, he buys a town, takes the outkast and makes her a part of the community, sleeps with her repeatedly, and then upsets her when he doesn’t return for months.
After a few almost death scenes when everyone thinks that he will die, the reader begins to question whether or not Edward will ever really die. So, in the final chapter we have Edward, finally in a hospital and in a coma. William comes in to see his father, to tell him goodbye when his father wakes up a bit and tells him to get his wheelchair and get him out of there. William pushes him out to the car and gives him the water that he had brought along. Edward pours this one himself and wraps up with a blanket. They drive out of town until Edward finally tells William to pull over and pick him up. William carries him down to the river where his father beings to spasm and pushes himself into the water. When he breaks the surface, he has become a giant fish.
Big fish was a fun little tale with a good bit of hidden meaning that can catch up with you when you are done. On the surface it is a light grouping of tales attributed to a single man. They could have easily been multiple people as well, but works well contained by one man. These stories are tied together with the close to death scenes which help to add the depth. In these scenes, we get the question of which is better? Should you remember someone for what they did or the great stories and jokes? You also get the question as to how to judge someone’s life.
Big Fish was a good book and although it appears to be allot different from the movie I am very glad that I sat down and read it. The under two hundred page story is a bit slack for the twelve to fourteen dollars that you will pay for it, but find it any way you can. Big Fish is a good overall book that should be enjoyed by many.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Come with me and you’ll be in a land of pure imagination… or are you?
With the upcoming movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe coming out in theaters this holiday season, I figured it was about time to travel back to the land of Narnia.
At first I wasn’t all that interested after having no contact with Narnia in many years and having only seen the covers of the television movies in the interim. However, after seeing the first trailer for the film, I knew that it was time to go back. The trailer was amazing, the best looking fantasy film since Lord of the Rings and very similar looking in appearance. It was only later that I found out that in fact WETA, the group that did the effects for LOTR was in fact the group doing effects for the film.
I was very pleased and my interest was peaked a bit more. I was very happy with this since this series may have very well been the one to originally interest me with the fantasy genre, even though I could not remember anything about the story after I had heard it. My first introduction to the series was probably fifteen or so years ago when I was a child and had went to Florida to spend a few days with my aunt, which we rarely saw. I actually got a love for fantasy from a few different venues there. We saw the first two Short Circuit films while we were there as well as my first viewing of the Princess Bride. Then, one magical afternoon, we sat on her covered back porch while she read to us the tales of Narnia.
So, after not having read a book in a while, I figured that it was high time I should pick one up. I knew that I was interested in the story and wanted to remember what it was about and after looking over the books with my brother, I decided to jump right in. It took less than 24 hours before I was done with the first book: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
The book begins with four young children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. The children were sent to live with a relative while they were on holiday from school and were not very happy about it at first. However, before long they decide to explore the huge castle of a house and found many marvelous things, the greatest of which was discovered in the initial exploration. In the many rooms they had entered, none was probably more bare than the room in question. One of the few things in it, however, was a wardrobe. Everyone decided to move on to the next room immediately except for Lucy, who was the youngest. Lucy decided to examine the wardrobe to find out what may be inside. She stepped into it and while looking at the multiple rows of coats began to realize that things were not as they should have been. It began to get cold and she could feel that she was walking on a different substance. All of a sudden she was not in a wardrobe at all, but rather in a wood. She walked through this wood until she met the most remarkable of creatures, a Faun. Even more surprising was that the creature spoke, she could understand it and it was nice to her.
The creature fretted over her warmth and she followed it back to a secluded cave which it called home. Once there, the creature admitted to her that he worked for the worst of all of the things in Narnia, for that is the land that she was now in, the wicked White Witch. She did not like the sound of this at all and it was soon admitted to her that the creature was supposed to turn in any little girls or boys, Sons of Adam or Daughters of Eve as they were know in Narnia, to the White Witch. This was his only job, however, now that he had met a Daughter of Eve he refused to do it. Therefore, he helped her back to the wardrobe and hoped that he would not be caught.
Once back in the world of men, Lucy immediately raced to find the others and was surprised to find them barely outside of the door. She told them of her visit to Narnia, however, when they went back to the wardrobe it appeared fully normal and none of them believed her. However not long after this the children decided to play hide and go seek in the castle and even though she did not mean to go to the room, she ended up there anyway and of course before long was back in the wardrobe. However, she quickly realized that she was not alone and it was her brother Edmund, who had given her the worst of chidings about her stories that was in it with her. The pair of them quickly found themselves in Narnia, however, they did not see each other. Therefore, Lucy head back towards her friend and Edmund, no knowing what to do, began to look around on his own. Before long, he came upon a strange site, it was a sledge pulled by pure white reindeer, steered by a dwarf, on which rode who could have only been the White Witch. She was able to trick Edmund into liking her after making him warm and letting him take his fill of his favorite of treats, Turkish Delight. He was quickly sent away and told only to return for more of the treat if he brought his brothers and sisters with him to her castle and not to tell them who she was or that it was her castle.
Edmund made his way back to the lamppost, which was just ahead of the opening to get back to the wardrobe and there he found Lucy and they both went back together. When they had arrived back, they quickly found Peter and Susan, however, Edmund lied to them and told them that Lucy was making it all up.
Therefore they did not believe Lucy and she was in a horribly foul mood until one day when the staff were showing around some tourists and they were forced to take refuge in the room to stay out of the way of the tour. As they drew nearer to the children, then knew that they must hide and jumped into the wardrobe to stay out of site. However, before long they were all standing in snow in the middle of the wood.
Before long, they came upon the cave of Lucy’s friend, however, it was ransacked and he was nowhere to be seen. Luckily, though, they soon me up with the Beaver couple who allowed them to stay the night with them, fed them, and told them of Narnia. However, Edmund wanted nothing more than to bring his brothers and sisters to the Witch so that he could get more Turkish Delight and during the telling of the stories left the home and began his journey to her.
Once there, he met a wolf, who protected her and told her that he was there. When she saw that he was alone, she was very upset, but decided not to punish him since he had such good information, but would not reward him either. So, she set out to head off his brother and sisters and any of the talking creatures before they could make their destination. She also sent two of her meanest wolves after them to kill them if they should find them first. By this point Edmund knew that he had made a big mistake and was sorry that he did, but there was nothing that he could do.
Meanwhile, the little party at the Beaver’s home had realized that Edmund had flown and the Beavers announced that they were already aware of his intentions and had to make it to the Stone Table before the Witch did. They traveled for a long while that night, but eventually had to rest in a secret Beaver hole until morning. When they awoke, it was to the sound of bells on a sledge and believed it to surely be the Witch. However, they were soon called out by the Beaver and he told them that it was someone with whom they were familiar, Father Christmas.
The Witch had done a ghastly thing in Narnia. She had used her power to make it so that it was always winter, yet it was never Christmas. However, here he was, Father Christmas and he had presents for them all. Peter received a sword and a shield, Susan a bow with arrows along with a horn that could be blown at the worst of times and help would arrive, and Lucy a diamond container that held a liquid that could cure wounds. After this visit, they were all much more happy and realized that what they hoped most of all must be true… Aslan was coming. Aslan was a great talking lion who was the guardian of the land of Narnia. He had only been there a couple of times, but always when it was in its greatest need and always saved the day.
Before he would have liked, Peter was forced into action with his sword when they discovered that they were being followed by the wolves. After nearly being eaten, he was able to get in a fatal blow against the wolf and took it down. At this the other fled.
By this time Aslan had arrived, however, things were not all joyous. The White Witch found out about his existence and brought Edmund with her to a meeting. She told him that since Edmund had lied to the others that he was to be punished and by the old laws of Narnia, it was to her that he would be sent to die. Nobody wanted this, therefore Aslan met with her in secret and in the end Edmund was released. That night Aslan crept away in the night. He journeyed back to where the meeting had been, but Lucy and Susan followed him. There, they found out what the terms of Edmund’s return had been, Aslan giving himself to them. He allowed them to tie his paws, muzzle him, and shave his fur. They then did what the girls could not imagine, they killed him.
After the evil creatures left, they went to Aslan and removed his muzzle, before long, small mice arrived and bit through his bindings. The girls were sad, however, when they went to leave, then noticed that the body was now nowhere to be seen and then there was a loud cracking. It was the stone table and above it was Aslan, good as new. He told them that an even older Narnia law and magic was that someone who gives himself to take the place of another for a crime cannot be killed and therefore he was allowed to return.
He quickly had the girls jump on his back and he raced to the Witch’s castle. Once there, he used his magic to turn all of the creatures the Witch had turned into stone back to normal. He then rallied the troops and took off towards the battle.
Once Aslan was dead, the Witch hit at the good creatures hard and fast. They were basically at a stalemate, but the good was beginning to loose more and more as the Witch turned creatures to stone. So, seeing this, Edmund struck at her staff instead of at her and broke it, keeping her from turning others to stone. After this, the stalemate resumed. Eventually, Aslan showed up with the reinforcements and there was soon a route. Many of the evil creatures died and the others ran to dark holes as the Witch was defeated and killed.
Aslan then led the children to their new home as the kings and queens of Narnia and they embarked on many adventures together until they were older. Then, one day, they heard the rumor of a great white stag, which if caught would give the captor three wishes. So, they hunted the beast, but it did something they did not expect. It took them back to something that they had almost forgotten, the lamppost. Once there, they began to remember and before long they were back in the wardrobe.
They found out that although many years had passed while they were in Narnia only seconds had passed in their world. They could still hear the voices of the tour outside of the door, but they never came in the room and before long it was safe for them to exit. They told their relative about what had happened and he believed them, but warned them not to talk about it around others and only sparingly amongst themselves. So, they continued their normal lives outside of the realms of Narnia. It would be sad to say that this was their last adventure in Narnia and alas, it was not.
The first book of the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was a fun little book written by C. S. Lewis. The book is much different from the children’s stories of today such as Harry Potter and Limony Snicket, and much more resembles the original novels about the world of Oz by Frank L. Baum. This story was not written on the same level as the Harry Potter books, but more on the level of Limony Snicket where it really does appeal more to younger children and therefore is not as accessible by adults. The thing that really sets it apart from the books of today is that the book seems like it really should not be read to oneself, but to others. This is a story that is meant to be told in a similar way that Shakespeare is meant to be performed.
Even though the story was not written up to the fantasy level that I am used to, I still enjoyed the read. It was quick at only 200 pages and enjoyable. It was more of a majestic tale that rejuvenated my love of the genre. It is very different from the fantasy that I normally read, but I am enjoying the quick change of pace. I will definitely finish the seven book series and as I type this I am already on the third book. It is very difficult to pin a 1-10 rating on this book, but I shall do my best. It was a grand book to get someone back into the genre and would be a marvelous book to read to a child of the right age, however, having read it for myself, it was lacking many of the things that I expect out of a fantasy book today. However, due to the level of enjoyment that I had while thinking about this book, I give Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe an 8.
You Got to have Faith and her Background Story
Go Ask Malice was an interesting little Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel based on the journal of the Slayer Faith. Faith was a great character that was introduced to the show in the third episode of the third Season: Faith, Hope, and Trick. She was a slayer that was a different from Buffy as Kendra was in the second season. Where Kendra was a strict, by the rules slayer who had lived the responsibility since she was young, Faith was a wild and reckless slayer who had discovered parts of her calling well before she found out from her watcher what it meant. This combined with a difficult upbringing for the young girl led her down a dark path which even had her turn evil for a few seasons, before Angel was finally able to reign her in and bring her back to the good side in time for the showdown with the First Evil in the final season of Buffy.
I found out about this book at a very opportune time. I had just finished reading the Wicked Willow trilogy, which I had thoroughly enjoyed when I found out that one of the podcasts that I was listening to would be doing a section of the book each episode. The book sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a read.
Go Ask Malice begins with a young teenager, Faith, as she is trying to make since out of her life and her decisions. She is the only daughter of an alcoholic and self-destructive mother who is seldom there to give her the parenting that she needs. Faith has had numerous run ins with the law over her juvenile life which has led her to mandatory sessions with a counselor who gets her to begin writing down her thoughts in a journal. The book is her journal. It begins with a friend of hers who she assists in a bad situation by beating up on some bullies, to the friend skipping town, which leaves her all alone. She then has her mother get arrested and sent to jail, which forces her into foster care. Throughout this we find little bits and pieces about how she is able to keep going and most importantly we learn about her dreams. We get a glimpse into a scene where she is trying to help a little girl escape from a ghastly situation and each time we get a bit further into the event.
However, once she moves in with the foster parents, this begins to be her focus for a while as she tries to adapt to life with a handful of other foster brothers and sisters, the overbearing Christian influence that her foster parents place on her, and the difficulty of changing her life to adapt. One night, while attempting to sleep, she hears something running in the attic. At first, she thinks it is a rat and eventually tells her foster mother about it after she sees blood dripping from the ceiling. However, this doesn’t help her at all as she is basically told to mind her own business. However, the intrigue of it is too much for her to bear and she eventually steals the keys to the attic and ascends with a friend that she had made of her foster sister. However, she gets much more than she bargained for when she finds out the source of the commotion. It is the couple’s son who they had been told dies a few decades ago. However, the boy looks just like he did in the old photos and quickly tries to convince Faith to let him go. However, the foster mother quickly arrives and tries to keep this from happening. However, the boy is quickly able to free himself and Faith accidentally breaks a window, which lets in the sunlight and kills him. The mother is furious at this and sends Faith away to an asylum.
Here, Faith is heavily medicated and doesn’t dream for a while, but eventually, the meds are lessened and she recognizes one of her fellow people at the asylum. She knows that he is a member of her favorite band, but tries to keep this to herself, so that the others don’t try to mob him about it. However, she eventually lets on and finds out the reason for his attendance. He had checked himself in for some time off and he confides in her that he can see the dead around people. He notices a very strong presence around Faith of the child from her dreams. Faith confides a bit of the story in him and they continue to be good friends until one day he starts ignoring her. She is upset by this, but doesn’t worry too much as she is soon rescued. She is told that someone is taking her home and she will live with them. Faith believes this to be another Foster parent, but had no idea of what is in store for her next.
The woman brings her home to what appears to Faith to be a castle and she is shocked not only by this, but by what she quickly finds out. The woman is no normal foster parent; she is a Watcher that has been tasked with training the potential slayer Faith. She is very strict and set in her ways, but she gives Faith the things that he has always wanted, but never had, a true parental figure, limits and restrictions, and the feeling that she is wanted, needed, and has a purpose in life. This causes a great change in Faith, but with everything that she is still dealing with emotionally; she can’t become the person that she truly wants to be. Her Watcher quickly trains her in combat and in the knowledge she will need. However, she is still hung up on her mother and dreams. The dreams are back and getting clearer and further along than ever before. She seems to be now living the life of the girl that she was trying to protect and can’t ever figure out the entirety of what is going on.
Eventually, something happens that shatters the good that had been created between the watcher and potential slayer. Faith learns of the coming of age ritual that would have the watcher take away all slayer powers from Faith and have her face a vampire with her own natural gifts. Faith cannot believe the treachery of this and rebels for a while before finding out that her watcher had been able to setup a meeting with her father in prison. Faith had always been told by her mother that her father was dead, but in her research on Faith before claiming her, the watcher found out the truth. Faith was torn about the meeting but eventually went for closure. She found out that her father was truly sorry for what had happened, but this was a situation that could not be remedied for either. This meeting left her emotionally jagged and uneven as a whole. Then, she met her friend from the asylum again. They started to reconcile until she found him with another woman. This continued the story of loss for Faith who was extremely hurt. However, she eventually found out that the girl she found him with was a girl from his past who had died. She followed him in numerous forms and he still loved her. The meeting that she actually saw was a manifestation of a night that replays itself over and over again.
However, the boy was able to try to help her with the problem of her dreams. She eventually told her watcher about them and with the help of her friend, they were able to send Faith fully into her dreams to confront the child and find out what was really going on. She found out that the person in her head was actually a former slayer who had been granted the ability not to die until a vampire Kakistos was dead, to seek her revenge for him killing her mother. However, she was not corporeal and lived in Faiths head to give her the strength and knowledge required to hill him when the time came.
This event came sooner than later. Faith and her watcher had been able to finally get over the problems of their past and became close again. The watcher had called her to ask her to pick up dinner and had left the message of her capture by Kakistos. Faith did her best to prepare for the confrontation, but when she arrived, she was captured and watched her watcher die at his hands. She was trapped, but the hardness that she had gained at such a young age allowed her to keep her wits enough to trick her captors and injure Kakistos so that she could get away.
Knowing that she must leave town, Faith takes all that she can carry with her and heads to the bus station where she finds out that the next bus doesn’t leave for a few hours. She then finds the man that had led her mother into going to jail and using her for anything that he wanted. So, she beat him mercilessly. This was an ode of things to come for the young Slayer.
We find out later in the show that she runs to Sunnydale to find the other Slayer and has reverted back to her wild ways. We see in her interactions with rogue watcher Gwendolyn Post and then Wesley Wyndam-Price that she still longs for someone to give her limits and make her feel like she matters. However, we also find out that the bad early life has left deep scars that will follow her and affect her decisions for years. Also, more quickly, she finds that she can’t run from her problems forever, as Kakistos quickly finds her in Sunnydale and forces a final confrontation.
Go Ask Malice was an interesting and entertaining little piece of the Buffyverse. Many, including myself had wondered during the show what had made Faith who she was, but it was never explained much more than the first couple of episodes that she was in. This gives a look into that past and what made her who she was when she came to Sunnydale. However, there isn’t much depth to it. The book is only a little over 200 pages and then with large type. So, it was a nice fix to fill in the gap, but not as much as I had hoped for. I did like the style that they chose to use, though, by making this her journal of the events. The drawback to that, though, was that this formatting also took space away and made it shorter. The information that was there, though, was interesting and left me feeling at the end that I had gotten enough information to be satisfied. The main thought that I had upon its conclusion is the disbelief that they hadn’t done this for other characters. Maybe in the future, they will.
For a Buffy fanatic or a fan of the character Faith, this is a must read, but for casual fans of the show or of the books, it is probably a take it or leave it book. I’m glad that I took, though; it is good background and gives further understanding of the character.
Gunslinger shoots to wound, not to kill
Stephen King’s first book in the anticipated 5-6 book series entitled The Dark Tower was The Gunslinger. The book begins with the last remaining Gunslinger, Roland, who is chasing a wizard across rugged terrain. He begins to recall his days growing up, training as a gunslinger and the day when he challenged his teacher for the right to become an official gunslinger. He used a falcon that he had trained to attack his instructor in a move that had been unexpected and effective. He then goes through a town in which he is forced to battle an entire town in the end, to get out. They had been pushed by the wizard into this. Roland then travels to the edge of the desert where he stays the night before heading into a quest, knowing how unlikely it is that he will ever return. A bit over halfway through, he comes upon an abandoned house. It was once a stopping point for people heading through the area. It is not as abandoned as it seemed, though, and he soon comes across a young boy who helps him to recover from his exhaustion from the desert. They then head out together after the wizard through the rest of the desert. They eventually reach the mountains at the edge of the dessert and begin the upward hike. Not long into their hike, the first come across the wizard who taunts them from a high cliff. They continue up the mountain until they find a tunnel in the side of the mountain. Once in side, they follow a stream through the dark until they run into a hand-cart. They then use this to speed along their trip. They begin to pass mutant people who try to grab onto them and eat them. However, Roland still has his guns, and the mutants they can’t escape from with speed, he blows through with his guns. They eventually find a station where we find out that there were numerous trains rolling through. However, it appears that the whole place was gassed before customers came in one day due to the pristine condition of the track and goods, but the lifeless corpses that blow away with the slightest wind. The quickly get back on the track and keep going until they finally begin to see light up ahead. However, they also notice that at this point the track has begun to deteriorate and that they will no longer be able to use the hand-cart. So, they hoof it for a while until they see the wizard appear on the other side of the tracks. The young boy becomes frightened, looses his balance, and begins to fall. He begs Roland for help, but Roland would rather catch up to the wizard and allows the young boy to fall into the depths.
Once outside, Roland comes face-to-face with the wizard who tells him that it is not his job to kill him and that the wizard is not his enemy at all, he is Roland’s guide. He tells Roland that his journey to the tower will be very perilous and that it will take others to make it possible. Others from the world that the young boy was from. This is the drawing of the three. (Continued next book)
This was a fairly good book of a fairly small size. It went by quickly in a few hours a night for three straight days. However, the book seemed to float a bit at times during the journey. The strong parts of the book were in the flashbacks. The story of his growing up and especially of his time in Tull were really good. The best scene was probably his battle with Cort when he used the bird. The ending was also fairly good, which led me to want to pick up the next book in the series, The Drawing of the Three.
Books + Movies = Incredible Overall Experience
I won’t go too in depth on this one as most have either read the books, watched the movies, or both and the movies are some of the best adaptations of books that I have ever seen. Instead, I will quickly discuss the differences between the two forms and how they worked together to make a great overall story.
In the Fellowship of the Ring, we quickly see the differences between the book and movies. In the book, you get more background into Hobbits in general and to the Baggins family specifically. You know from the Hobbit that upon Bilbo’s return to the Shire after his journey, his relatives had attempted to auction off the contents of the house so that they could the move in themselves. Bilbo arrives in time to salvage most of the place and buy back the items that he wanted back. He also was able to reclaim his home. It was not long after when he took in a nephew of his, his favorite, Frodo. This is a major point in the story as it leads to the relationship between them that later leads Bilbo to leave the ring for Frodo when he decides to journey to Rivendale on his one hundred eleventieth birthday.
The stories here parallel until after this event when Gandalf returns to tell Frodo that he must be ready to leave with the ring. Frodo must get his things in order for this and takes in the help of an overhearing Samwise Gamgee and come of his closest friends Merry and Pippin. He also is helped in this instance by another friend who will in the end stay behind. In the book, you get much more of the story of the Hobbit’s journey from Bagend to Tookland where Frodo will eventually depart from. You get the back story that Frodo has sold his home to his relatives that originally tried to take it from Bilbo and that he has moved to Tookland to spend time with this friends. However, you also get the “shortcut” and the great stories involved.
You find out that they leave the road after their first encounter with a Ring Wraith and travel through the countryside. Along the way they come upon their first real adventure when they come to an old part of the wood where a tree tries to eat Mary and Pippin. Luckily a godlike creature named Tom Bombadil shows up to save the friends and put them on the right path for their journey. Once they leave Tom, they end up in the Barrow Downs where they are captured by Barrow Wraiths. Again, Tom Bombadil comes to the rescue and not only saves them, but gives them the swords that were stored inside. These are the swords that the hobbits use thereafter in the story.
To my mind this was the big departure from the book that was made in the film. I can see why it was made as the story in the movie is able to flow completely without it, but it is a great piece of the story for those who enjoy the films.
The second movie does a great job in including the important events of the books. Some parts are longer with slightly different tellings of how things were done, but especially with the extended edition of the film, everything, seemed to be more or less covered.
In Return of the King, we get another couple of situations that were left out of the movies.
The first major plot point is the aftermath of the Ents. In the book, Gandalf rides to Orthanc with about 20 other riders to find out the fate of the castle after the victory at the other tower. Once they arrive, they find that Saruman has been trapped in his tower by Treebeard and Gandalf gives him the chance to come back to the good side. At this, Saruman refuses and hurls his scrying ball at the group. At this point, the surroundings are nearly all flooded and Merry and Pippin have plundered the lot. Later, Saruman and Wormtail are seen on the road like beggars.
However, the major difference was the ending of the books. In the movies, we have about 15 endings, all back to back, but nothing of the book ending is included. In the book, the four hobbits all decided after a time to leave the kingdom of Rohan to head home. They stop in Rivendale along the way and see Bilbo, who is worn and closer than ever to death. They tell him of their quests and stories and he begins to write them down whenever he is not sleeping, which is often. After a brief time, the four leave for the Shire. Their desire to be back is greater than ever. However, when they arrive, they find it to be a much different place than when they left it. They are immediately accosted as they enter by a new Hobbit police force that attempts to hold them captive. However, these new battle hardened Hobbits quickly take command and get rid of the new rules that they find posted everywhere. They continue back to Bag End making things right along the way. However, once they reach Bag End, they are confronted by a few of the new leader’s human goons. They quickly defeat the goons who run off to get reinforcements. During this time, the Hobbits are able to raise a small group of their own to combat the humans. Eventually, this leads to a battle of Bag End when most of the remaining goons come into town to see only the four battle hobbits there to fight them. They quickly push in for the kill until the other hobbits jump out of hiding spots on the side of the road and begin to slaughter them. All of this hurts Frodo greatly. He wants nothing more than for his people to be a peaceful, fun loving bunch. However, there is still one more act to be done. They must overthrow the ruler of the town. However, when they go to find him, they only find a few more goons, Saruman, and Wormtail. The hobbits have the few dead to rights, and Frodo tries to give Wormtail his freedom, but with this freedom, he quickly kills Saruman and the hobbits kill him just as quickly.
After this, the hobbits try to get back to the way things were while Frodo works on completing the story. However, eventually another major point in the story comes into play as Gandalf, Elrond, and Bilbo come near The Shire on their way to the West and to the sea. It is here that Frodo tells the rest that him time has done. The ring has taken allot out of him and he cannot be the same person that he was before. He must go with the others to the sea. Samwise is devastated, but he now has a wife and children to think of as well as the last chapter of the book to write.
Well, out of a trilogy of fairly good-sized books, three major pieces is not bad for the movies to leave out. There have been much shorter books that have had much more left out in movie form than this. However, it is not just what is left out in the movies, but what is added, that makes them great companion pieces.
For the greatness that is the Lord of the Rings, there are a few major flaws for myself as a reader. The biggest after having watched the movies is the seeming passive tendencies of the author. Although the books are full of what are probably hundreds of thousands of deaths, he really only discusses a few and doesn’t get into the battle details very much at all. Therefore, you are forced as a reader to try to input the details yourself and at times, try to come up with entire battles on your own. However, if you take the books along with the movie, you have this hole filled for you. Where Tolkien might gloss over the battle in a couple of paragraphs, the movie will spend a good 5-10 minutes on the battle making it better than you could have possibly imagined while reading.
Also, with the thought that was put into even the most minor details of the film, you are able to see so many things that may have never even grabbed your attention in the books. It immerses you into the story to a completely different level.
So, if you decide at some point to read the books or watch the movie, try doing them together. I would advise trying to take some time to read a book over a few days and then sit down and watch the corresponding film while the thoughts on it are still alive in your mind. It is an amazing fit.
Hardnosed journalist who doesn’t pull punches
Last night I sat down after a long day of not doing much and after watching allot of news on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN found myself watching the O’Reilly Factor again. I remembered how much I liked his first book The O’Reilly Factor, so I figured that since I had recently purchased his next book, The No Spin Zone that I should give it a read. I knew that it was a fairly thin oversized paperback, being less than 200 pages in length, so I knew it could be finished relatively quickly, so I began.
Unlike his first book where you get more about his life and the long explanations about his opinions and how he would fix things if he were in charge, here you get a much smaller and less powerful book about his show. This would be a good first book for someone who is interested in the show, the man, or the politics. Each chapter is separated into approximately ten page chapters where he talks about a specific thing that needs to be changed and some major figure that came on the show to talk to him about it.
This book reminds me of a book that my class had for Philosophy of Religion. It is one of those that propose that it is unbiased and equal on the subject but after reading it you are hard pressed to understand how. The sides are not equally drawn and he allows himself commentary pre and post interview. It was a good look into what is bad with America, but I get the same impression that I had after reading the first book. O’Reilly is a very political man, a very powerful man that is not scared to face the tough topics and has ideas ready that could work to change our country for the better. Why has this man not run for president? Since he could not get a major party nomination, he could run on a new party for the good of America. Instead he tries to do a little bit each day by trying to get those “bad guys” to slip up by asking tough questions and actually get the truth.
I believe that this is needed, but someone like him is needed much more in political office than sitting behind a desk trying to get the least bit of truth out of these people.
Finally, I will say that it was a good read and even though I see him as slightly tilted to the right, the book was pretty balanced with punches being thrown both ways from the Clintons, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to George W. Bush and Senator McCain with a little bit of Dan Rather thrown in for good measure. He also sprinkles in bits from his childhood to really help the issues to hit home, very effective.
The major drawback to this book which pointed out even more so what I believe the major flaw to his show is, time. Instead of taking the time to interview major players, he mostly puts them on a normal format, so they only get to go at a few questions. He should have more shows where they spend the entirety or near it talking to one person to really get to the bottom of a situation.
All in all I was glad I read the book and wish that there were more. I do think it was a bit lighter than the first and therefore not as good, but I believe that he has another book out as well, so I am really interested in getting it and possibly even going back and rereading the first book. He seems to have some really good ideas on the worst criminals, drugs, border control and the like. I give Bill O’Reilly’s The No Spin Zone: Confrontations with the Powerful and Famous in America an 8.
Two Books of Introspection
This is a book that I have wanted to read for about three years. After reading and loving the book I Will Fear No Evil by Heinlein, and also enjoying Starship Troopers, I knew that I would have to find more work from this master of science fiction. The next book seemed obvious. Even before I had read either of the other two books, I had heard people talking about Stranger in a Strange Land numerous times and with the love they held for it. This is probably the most read of all of his books and a few years ago, I had decided that I wanted to finally read it. However, it was one book that out of the 3,000 or so books that I have, I did not. So, a quick trip to the Internet and a week later, the book arrived. At this point, I was immersed in a Buffy trilogy, Deadlands, and then later Lord of the Rings. So, after finishing off a few books that I had started, I finally was able to sit down with this.
It was an odd way that I read this book. Normally, when I get into a book, I will read in 2-3 hour chunks if not more. However, I read about half of this book at the Laundromat. With the house that we are currently in, we have no working washer and dryer, so a weekly trip to the Laundromat is required. I had read 30-50 pages of whichever Lord of the Rings book I was on the first few times, but then after that, I needed something else to fill my time waiting for clothing to finish washing and drying. So, I grabbed Stranger in a Strange Land and had at it.
The book starts with a brief discussion of a trip to Mars in which nobody returned and then the follow up trip years later to find out what had happened. When the follow up group arrived, they found that all of the original crewmembers were dead, however, there was still one human on the planet left alive. This man was the offspring of two of the crew who had landed on Mars in the original mission. When the others had died, the Martians took him in as one of their own. He grew up learning the culture and experiences of a foreign world and when the current mission left to come back to Earth, the Martians had him go back to learn all that he could of their nearest neighbor.
So, The Man from Mars aka Michael Valentine Smith, returned to the home of his parents attempting to grok all that he could. (Grok is a word used often in the book. It is a Martian word that means among other things to fully comprehend something so that when a cusp or decision arrives, the correct action can be taken.)
Once he arrives, however, the government of Earth, which at this point is a global government, decides that they should lock him away from the rest of the population. They know that as the only surviving relative of the people in the original mission, he is an extremely rich man and also as the only human to have come from Mars, a past court decision makes him “owner” of Mars.
However, a journalist Ben Caxton, and a nurse, Gillian Boardman have other plans. Ben and Jill have an on and off light relationship and Ben quickly decides to take advantage of their friendship. He talks to Jill and tries to convince her to find a way to get information on the Man from Mars. She is able to at first by bugging the adjoining room, but then things begin to run dry. At this point, Ben decides to force the matter after the government gives a press conference with a fake man from Mars. Ben comes in with a lawyer and a Fair Witness demanding to see the Man from Mars, who he should be able to see unless the government decides to break their own laws. Ben is allowed to see the man, but immediately realizes from the descriptions given to him from Jill that this is a fake. After giving him a quick brush off, Ben is forced to leave the hospital and on the way home, his hover cab is taken under control.
Meanwhile, Jill is going crazy with worry, waiting to hear from Ben. She hasn’t seen him in a while and she knows that he had gone to see the Man from Mars earlier. After making some calls and waiting until she could not wait anymore, she tries to find out what is really going on with the Man from Mars. She checks out the room that he was formerly in and eventually finds out that they are hiding him in an adjoining room. They meet and share water, which is a major bonding action on Mars, which makes them immediate friends. After taking some clothes from a fellow nurse, she dresses Smith in them and absconds with him to the roof. Once there, they take a hover cab to Ben’s place, only to find it empty. She decides to give Mike a bath, but before long, they are interrupted by the Secret Police. They come in guns drawn and Mike finds great wrongness in this. Therefore, he touches the men with guns and they disappear. Soon, they are alone together again. Jill is freaked out by the event and Mike does the same do to her reaction. He goes into a self-imposed stasis to further think on his actions. This makes things even more difficult for Jill who must figure out what to do. She remembers that Ben had said that if he was ever able to get a hold of Smith, he would take him to a man named Jubal. So, this was the only thing she could think to do. She folded Mike up in a bag, drug him to a car, and took off to find Jubal.
When she arrived, she found the place to be nothing like she expected. It was a large estate with the eccentric, but extremely intelligent Jubal, his three secretaries, handyman, and assistant. He immediately takes the woman in and even though a bit bristled by what seems to be a corpse in a bag, she is allowed to stay and quickly becomes a part of the “family”. Once Mike comes out of his self-induced coma, he quickly becomes part of the family as well. In the beginning he is like an idiot savant, in the most extreme. He can read whole books from the encyclopedia and memorize them immediately, word for word, but basics of the human experience are new and odd to him and take much more time to understand. However, he is a quick learner and over time is able to learn much about what it is to be human. At the same time, Jubal tests the powers that he finds out about from Jill and soon discovers that Mike is able to move things with his mind, and make things disappear at will. Not only do they disappear, they cease to exist from that point on.
Eventually, the Secret Service come for Mike, like Jubal expected they would, so he has Mike hide in the bottom of the swimming pool, where he could stay indefinitely due to his stasis-like ability. Jubal tries to talk things out, but Mike is also able to “spirit walk” and use his powers in that state, so feeling the “wrongness” of the officers, their guns, and gunships, he goes around getting rid of them all. Eventually, nothing of their invasion of Jubal’s property remains. The group barricades themselves up in the house after this, knowing that a second group will arrive sooner than later and Jubal is finally able to get in touch with the leader of the global government, Mr. Douglas. Mr. Douglas is unaware of the attack on Jubal’s house, but is interested in a meeting that Jubal proposes between him and the Man from Mars. Mr. Douglas is able to send away the next wave of men that attack the house, and a date is set for the meeting. One condition of the meeting is that Ben Caxton must be produced to attend the meeting, or else they will not go. So, Ben is quickly produced the government, who states that they found him drunk and passed out on the street.
The group all know what really happened, but they got him back, with only minor injuries, which is better than any of the could have hoped. They all travel to the meeting together where Jubal continually changes things to work into his scheme and eventually has Mr. Douglas setup as Mike’s Attorney in Fact. He must handle Mikes, accounts, but not as ruler, as a friend. So, if anything should happen to him, the asset’s control would fall to Ben, and then later back to Mike himself if needed. This frees up Jubal and Mike as they no longer have to worry about the government or the wild passes at him to get the money. Instead, they are now barraged with thousands of letters a day for Mike asking for a multitude of things.
Eventually, Mike decides that it is time to see a bit of the world and he quickly leaves with Jill. They travel around the country for a while, stopping in cities that they find they like and letting Mike read up whole sections of the library. They also eventually take up with a circus where Mike uses his powers to become a magician. However, even though his magic is real, he is not a very good performer and the circus lets them go. However, they do make one very good friend along the way and before they leave, they take her in as a water brother and explain to her who Mike is, what his is capable of, and she loves them both.
Later, while journeying, Mike finally finds out what it is to be human. He finds this in laughter. He had never been able to laugh before and finally finds out why. Laughter isn’t about being funny; it is about facing evil and hardship in the only way we know how. This allows him to quickly progress and be able to fit in as a human. It is not long until he decides to move on to the next part of his life.
Mike becomes the leader of a church. This is a church unlike any other, for it is not religious and faith based, but fact based with the concept that everyone is God. The church had multiple layers with only those in the inner most layers knowing the full scope of the operation and what it entailed. However, to get to this point, the person had to learn the Martian language and concepts and would eventually unlock their own powers in the process. This was only allowed for the few that Mike hand picked as being good and therefore worthy of this knowledge. At first, they only had a few members, but their ranks quickly began to swell. Ben was invited to join them at one point, but was extremely uneasy at the casual style, especially in clothing and could not let his mind except the fact that Mike could do things that up to then were thought to be impossible. However, after discussing all of this with Jubal, he went back and joined for good.
Jubal, was eventually the only of the original group that did not come to the church. He did not like some of the ideas that were involved with it and still did not fully believe that Mike could do all that was claimed either. However, after seeing the main church get bombed, he knew he had to go. When he arrived, he found that the church owned an entire section of a hotel in the town and quickly began to see people that he hadn’t seen in a long time. After meeting with a few of them, he began to become more comfortable with the church, even though he still could not let his mind believe everything involved. However, he was the one, even among the original group that was allowed to be a member without learning Martian. He mind was so great and so open to all thoughts except for those few of his own that he refused to change that Mike believed him to be the only person that could understand Martian concepts with the human language. So, Jubal eventually shares water to become part of the church and eventually has a heart-to-heart with Mike who holds Jubal as the only person that he can speak about the truly difficult decisions with.
After their conversation, Mike decides to address the crowd that has gathered around the hotel. They scream for him to be killed and when he arrives, the crowd quickly begins to do so. Mike tells them that they are all loved and all God, and they tear him apart. Everyone seems to just keep moving on, but Jubal originally has a hard time with it. This is until Mike speaks with him in his mind. He assures him that he can do just as much from the ethereal as he could from the corporeal and things will move forward. New churches will be built and people will convert or eventually be weeded out by those who have “evolved”.
Stranger in a Strange Land was one of the better books that I have read. It works in two parts in my mind that each has their own strengths. The first half of the book is pretty much what you might expect from the title. A man from another planet is trying to learn and adjust to an entirely new environment. Overall, I saw this as an outsider’s tale. Most people should be able to identify symbolically with his plight. The most basic things to us are foreign to him and the responses are just as odd. Take, for one, cannibalism. In the Martian culture, it was an honor when it was decided it was time to discorporate (die by separating the soul from the physical body) for those who were friends to eat your body and therefore understand you that much more completely. Whereas in our culture this was thought barbaric and disgusting. They play this theme throughout the first part of the book in different ways to keep you interested.
The second half of the book, which I take to be when Jill and Mike leave Jubal’s house is more of a journey. It is a deep journey at that. If you are interested, this part of the book stokes the fire of such questions as: Is there a God? Are we all Gods? What would you do if you had similar powers? This part of the book I really enjoyed, things kept coming up that were good for thinking about after you put the book down. This fit into the book itself greatly in the groking.
There were only a few things about the book that I did not like and most of them came at the very end. It seems that once Jubal arrives at the hotel, things being to move very quickly. You know that there aren’t many pages left and allot will have to happen before the end and the author seems to know the same. Instead of expanding the book by an additional 20-40 pages or so, Heinlein, seems to know that he has to constrain the book to a range of pages and therefore, must hurry through some of the ending explanation. The next small gripe was that I thought that Jubal converted too easily. I think that it was obvious that he wanted to, he wanted to have a purpose, this was proven in what he did originally for Mike, but he also wanted to be the same old eccentric, gruff man. I don’t know if this would have ever allowed him to fully adapt like the others eventually did, as you had to give up much of you former self to evolve. The final and most important thing that I didn’t fully care for was the death of Mike and what follows. Mike was a character that I had become attached to during the story and I expected his death to be handled better. I fully expected him to die once he started the church, but thought that he would do it himself. I didn’t really see the reasoning behind letting himself physically die at the hands of the mob. I would have thought it much more in character to have him start making people not exist. There was obviously great wrongness there. Then, when it is inferred that he is the Archangel Michael, things are not explained at all. That entire little story of the book with the Angels briefly discussing life on Earth probably should have either been left out or expanded on a bit more so that we had a better understanding of what was happening.
That was about it though. I must say that I really enjoyed the book and the dislikes above weren’t strong dislikes, just a bit irksome with further groking. One thing that I am happy about is that I read it in small parts so that I could take in things and think about them more. It made the book much more enjoyable for me.
I must say that it is only a few days since I completed it, but this is one of the better books that I have read and will probably most pretty high up the list of my favorites.
Well, that’s all for now. I am now quickly starting a new book, a historical book that gets into the ideas of what if something would have happened in American history, what would have changed, and how would things have turned out differently. This book is appropriately calls What Ifs? Of American History.