Monday, April 30, 2018

Appendix N Review: Black Colossus

Margaret Brundage knew how to sell the hell out of a cover


Returning now to Hyborea, Robert E. Howard's Black Colossus was published in the June 1933 issue of Weird Tales.

It begins, not with Conan, but with Shevatas, master-thief of Zamora (the land where Tower of the Elephant took place) who is exploring a sand-buried ruin of a city called Kuthchemes in the deep deserts south of Koth. By accident he awakens the undead sorcerer-king Thugra Khotan. The Liche-like Thugra, who oversaw horrific blood sacrifices in the name of Set, goes right back to trying to conquer the world. Now assuming the disguise of Natohk, the Veiled One. First on his list of conquests is the small kingdom of Khoraja, and its nubile princess Yasmela.

Tormenting and taunting Yasmela at night through his sorcery, the princess seeks solace in Mitra, the god of her Hyborean ancestors. Guided by a disembodied voice, she is directed to go out into the streets of her city alone at night and put her trust in the first man she meets.

The instructions are bizarre, but desperate for help, Yasmela does so, and so finally Conan of Cimmeria enters the story, who is currently employed as a mercenary.

After a negotiation that was equal parts paranoia and sexual tension, Conan is made commander of Khoraja's army, which then marches forth to meet the hordes of Natohk on the edge of the desert.



What follows is a titanic battle sequence that remarkably fits perfectly within a short story. Its incredible. There is humor, humanizing details for random grunts, and actual tactics that Conan employs to take advantage of the terrain. And rivers of blood, of course, because this is Conan after all.

Through heroic effort, Conan is able to win the field, but Yasmela is taken by Natohk back to Kuthchemes where he intends to take her for himself. Conan gives chase and confronts the sorcerer in his lair, and the way the story ends deserves to be discussed, so here's the recommendation before the SPOILERS start: Its a straightforward story that is deceptive in its simplicity. Its also a rip-roaring good time. Absolutely recommended.



SPOILERS

The fight with Thugra Khotan at the end is hilariously one-sided. The undead sorcerer postures and threatens with a giant black scorpion, but Conan kills him with a single blow by throwing his sword into his chest.

From there, he rescues Yasmela and wants to take her away from this horrid place, but she's the one who initiates the romantic encounter. Thugra had obviously intended to ravish her, but now Yasmela, who has been the actual protagonist of the story who got things moving (Conan has been merely reacting to situations thrown at him), decides that Conan has earned her embrace.

No!” she gasped, clinging with convulsive strength as barbaric for the instant as he in her fear and passion. “I will not let you go! I am yours, by fire and steel and blood! You are mine! Back there, I belong to others – here I am mine – and yours! You shall not go!”

Here, in this ancient ruin, Yasmela is above any societal obligations befitting her rank and sex. Here, away from civilization, she is able to choose her sexual partners according to her own will, and she chooses Conan. A lot is conveyed about her character in these last few paragraphs when she is freed of the specter of Thugra's unholy lust.

The story caps off with Conan and Yasmela implied to have consensual sex in the chamber of the evil sorcerer-king that Conan just killed to prevent from raping her. That is the most Alpha Chad ending I think I've ever read. Its a wild ride. 

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Ranking the MCU



Since Infinity War hits very, very soon, the thing to do seems to be to make a survey of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole.

So yeah, time to rank the movies according to my own arcane standards. Do note that even if I drop a movie somewhere down at the bottom, that doesn't mean its not entertaining or competently made. I'd rather watch The Incredible Hulk again instead of Electra or X-Men Origins: Wolverine ever again.


Worst to Best


The Incredible Hulk (2008)
This one's a weird black sheep from the dawn of the MCU. It has some great moments but still features a lot of that 00s superhero checklist stuff (as opposed to the checklist being used this decade). Its also down here since just about everything this movie tries to set up hasn't had a payoff in over a decade, aside from the Hulk himself and General Ross.


Iron Man 2 (2010)
Growing pains. That's what this movie is. Robert Downey Jr could make the phone book entertaining, so he's immensely watchable here, but this is a highly disjointed movie that suffers from trying to shove in as much worldbuilding and obvious setup for the Avengers that its own plot suffers. Also, its retcons a plot point from Iron Man. Rolling Whiplash and Crimson Dynamo together into the same character was a mistake. We still got War Machine out of it, though.


Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
This is where I got off the Joss Whedon train. There's a lot of great dialogue and character bits, including a spot on Vision and it gives Hawkeye a bunch of stuff to do. But it screwed up Ultron so, so, so, so, so badly. Spader does a good job of delivering it, but the material he's given is terrible. The actual Ultron only shows up for a small, brilliant scene at the end where he and Vision have a moment. Also, making Quicksilver actually likable for the first time in 50 years only to kill him off pointlessly for a cheap emotional pop made it clear that that's all Whedon has in his bag of quips, er, tricks.



Thor: The Dark World (2013)
I just keep forgetting that this movie exists. The Dark Elves and Malekith are wasted potential. It dabbles in the Cosmic side of things but still hews to the “they're just really advanced aliens, brah, not gods” that the first movie set up. The Thor/Loki relationship grows exponentially here, which is good.



Iron Man 3 (2013)
I actually need to re-watch this, so that might lower the score a bit, but I remember enjoying it the first time around. I like Shane Black movies. This is a Shane Black movie to its core, and it does a lot to take Tony Stark out of his comfort zone by giving him a bunch of MacGuyver stuff to do outside the suit. The Mandarin stuff was a disappointment, but good luck convincing Hollywood to make a Yellow Peril villain in the modern era.


Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
A schizophrenic movie, for every thing it nails, it fails spectacularly at something else. Spider-Man's great, there's a lot of solid comedy, good use of cameos, and it made the Vulture into a legitimately great villain for the first time ever. I wouldn't mind seeing Donald Glover as the Prowler somewhere down the line. Needed more core Spidey tenets (Uncle Ben angst, the Power/Responsibility dynamic, Peter's immense guilt complex, etc), Herman Schultz got screwed (he's supposed to be the supervillain equivalent of Spidey's sad sack moments, not a guy too dumb to live) and it replaced Mary Jane Watson with the alpha build of Rose Tico, which is unforgivable.


Thor (2011)
When it goes William Shakespeare with Jack Kirby set dressing, its pretty great, but it pussies out of giving the Asgardians actual magic because they're Norse gods. “Sufficiently advanced technology” my ass. Still, it hits the core elements of the characters right, which is worthwhile.


Black Panther (2018)
Its quite entertaining and the cast is almost universally solid throughout, with Killmonger being both highly charismatic and completely psychopathic without being just the Joker. When it goes Shakespearian its solid, but it kind of devolves into generic Marvel Movie action sequences in the second half. Goes on a little too long. Good, but overhyped.


Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
I enjoyed it quite a lot, but like Homecoming, it nails a lot and screws up a lot in equal measure. Huge character developments for Thor & Loki, no Natalie Portman dragging things down, Stupid Hulk, Jeff Goldblum, and wild cosmic adventures are all good things. On the other hand, it specifically destroys everything about Asgard that worked in the last two movies, and they did the Warriors Three dirty. Tonally, this is what the Thor movies should've started with while the Branagh film should've been where Ragnarok happens.


Marvel's The Avengers (2012)
The initial payoff, and proof that Kevin Feige knew exactly what kind of ship he was steering. Great popcorn fun with everybody except Hawkeye having a lot to do (Using the Ultimate version of Hawkeye is a mistake, I'm telling you). The plot is pretty bare bones though. Just good entertainment, and a marvel that they were able to pull it off in the first place.


Doctor Strange (2016)
The reason why the Thor movies can go bugnuts with power now, since magic is no longer off-limits and we actually do get several Steve Ditko acid trip sequences. One of the better origin story movies since Strange's origin is so simple at its core. Where it falters is where it deviates from the source material. Splitting Baron Mordo up between movie Mordo and Kaecillius is a huge mistake in an otherwise great movie (especially since Ejiofor is such a good actor).


Ant-Man (2015)
Considering the development hell this went through, Ant-Man is a miracle. Crazy genius Hank Pym, Scott Lang as a constant screw up trying to do right by his daughter, the quirky scene-stealing sidekick crew. It has a surprising number of tokusatsu elements in it, which help. Its got comedy, its got heart, and its got a forgettable villain.


Captain America: Civil War (2016)
A better Avengers 2 than Age of Ultron in every possible way. Stakes, sacrifice, loss, and the fight at the airport is a thing of well-choreographed beauty. Infinitely better than the 2006 comic event of the same name.


Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)
Crazy space opera adventures grounded by an incredibly charismatic cast. When it goes dark, the emotional beats are exceptionally handled in an otherwise brilliant space spanning comedy. Rocket Raccoon being a dumbass in the beginning for no reason hurt it a little.


Iron Man (2008)
The one that started it all managed to do so by being a damn good movie first, and then teasing the broader plan at the end. RDJ is perfect casting. Stane is one of the best villains in the series. It ramps up at a perfect pace. Its great, and promises the great things that were to come.


Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
The movie that brings Cap fully into the greater MCU, and it does so by throwing a morally anchored man into a world of murky gray. That's a recipe for great character conflict right there, and the emotional beats of a good man who's the only one in the whole world trying to save his best friend are damn good. Also, it made the Falcon into the coolest he's ever been in 40 years. Also also: Batroc the Leaper.


Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
The best Star Wars movie made since 1983. I was a fan of the GoTG from the Annihilation event, and this delivered. Perfect casting, perfect comedy, perfect use of music, it gambled big on a bunch of c-listers (at best) and paid off big time.


Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
I don't think there's been a more perfect 1:1 realization of a superhero's origin story since Superman the Movie. This movie nails everything. Costume, feel, drama, romance, villains, action, soundtrack and pure unfiltered heroism. It gets the top spot because its the only movie in the entire MCU that made me tear up a little, and that was where Cap is saying goodbye to Peggy as he flies to his doom. The only reason why Winter Soldier is as good as it is comes from everything that this movie did.



This movie is perfect. FITE ME IRL

Friday, April 20, 2018

Legends Never Die: Marvel Star Wars Issue 02




Picking up with the Tusken Raider attack, there is a definite change in the quality of the art. Roy Thomas is still the writer and editor, Howard Chaykin remains the illustrator, but the addition of Steve Leialoha as the embellisher (inker) and colorist changes the entire texture of the issue. Leialoha would go on to have a long career, working at Marvel and DC on various titles.

Gone are Chaykin's sketchy in strokes, and the whole issue has a more photo accurate art style in general. I would assume that they received reference photos from Lucas as the movie came closer to release, but that's assumption. There are also more blues in the color palette, adding a cooling balance to the reds and oranges.



The plot follows along closely with the movie. Ben saves Luke and starts telling him about “The Force.” (Their quotes, not mine). Darth Vader interrogates Leia. Luke & Ben find the wrecked sandcrawler and then Luke's farm is burnt down. They go to Mos Eisley and hire Han Solo and Chewbacca. There is a firefight in the docking bay and they make the jump to lightspeed in the Millennium Falcon.



One point of difference is the deleted scene where Han meets Jabba that was restored in the Special Editions. This was well before Jabba's design was finalized as a giant slug, so here we have a random alien who would later be retconned as Mosep Binneed, Jabba's accountant and occasional face-man.




There's not much to say about the issue. Its a faithful adaptation of that section of the movie and the slight shift in art style is for the better.



Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Legends Never Die: Marvel Star Wars Issue 1




I've spent more time than I really needed to thinking about how to approach the old Marvel Star Wars ongoing from the 70s and 80s. It was one of the original tie-in materials and would end up being a constant thread throughout the Original Trilogy's theatrical run and even outlived it, ending in 1986 with issue 107. That's almost a decade of comics and taken as a whole, its an impressive body of work. Individually, though, it goes in fits and starts, so that's how I figured I wanted to go through the series: Individually, and in fits and starts.

Launching in 1977 right before Star Wars was released (remember, A New Hope was added later), the first issue features scripting and editing by Silver & Bronze Age comics luminary Roy Thomas with art (pencils and inks) by Howard Chaykin early in his career.

The issue covers the beginning of the movie up to the point where Luke is attacked by Sand People in the Jundland Wastes while looking for Artoo.


Like the novelization, the comic script follows an earlier draft of the script than what the final movie would have. There's a lot more Luke on Tatooine stuff, where he witnesses the space battle from the ground and has a farewell meeting with Biggs. Its not something really missing from the movie, but in a medium like comics, the scene adds some good characterization beats for Luke's desire to get off Tatooine.


The art is very 1970s. Vehicles are oddly proportioned and frequently off-model, Chaykin's inks are frequently thick over somewhat sketchy pencils and the colors by Marie Severin are heavy on the reds, oranges and pinks in places. The hyper-stylized color scheme holds together thanks to Chaykin's dynamic poses, but I wouldn't call the art especially great, even for its time. 

Recently, Marvel re-released the six original issues in a “remastered” form with modern coloring techniques and a film-accurate palette, and it just looks like badly proportioned art (It kind of is, but the original coloring helped it stand as a stylistic choice).

The Biggs stuff is nice, the art can be polarizing, but it does feature the best version of Vader choking Admiral Motti, where he casually uses the Force to bring him a cup of coffee while he tortures him.


Monday, April 16, 2018

Pulp Review: The Bronze Door




Oil-executive-turned-mystery-writer Raymond Chandler was a master of characterization and prose, and his cynical gumshoe Philip Marlowe stands in the rarefied air of outstanding fictional detective characters alongside Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. He is easily one of my favorite authors.

Coming onto the Detective pulp scene in 1933 with a string of stories for Black Mask and similar publications, he would switch gears to novels in 1939 with his breakout The Big Sleep, but right before that he published a short story in the ninth issue of John W. Campbell's nascent fantasy magazine Unknown. Published in November of the very same year as The Big Sleep, The Bronze Door is a marked departure from Chandler's murky California streets in that its a piece of fantasy (close in tone to a Weird Tales story) set in foggy ol' London.

I became aware of this story about a year ago thanks to Nathan over at The Pulp Archivist who digs up all kinds of interesting pulp-era information and analysis.

We open with the unhappy marriage of James and Louella Sutton-Cornish. James is something of a run-down aristocrat who likes to drink while his wife is an unpleasant battleaxe with a spiteful Pomeranian named Teddy, who torments Mr. Sutton-Cornish whenever he can.

After an argument that causes Mrs. Sutton-Cornish to storm out of the house, James goes out into the night and takes an outdated style of horse-drawn cab to Soho, where he finds an auction house and a mysterious bronze door that he supposes belonged to a harem thanks to the Arabic writing on it.

By chance he discovers that things that pass through the doorway simply disappear without any fuss or muss. Discussing the door with the auctioneer, the little man hops through and vanishes like everything else.

Now the proud owner of a magical bronze door that can apparently disintegrate anything that passes through it, he has it delivered to his home, and then the wife returns, demanding a divorce...


From there the crime story elements rise to the surface since several people have simply disappeared and the police are beginning to take notice. The prose is of Chandler's usual top quality, with the mood and setting well-established. The little dog Teddy is wonderfully realized as a hateful little bastard, but then he becomes sympathetic when Mr. Sutton-Cornish chases him around the room trying to goad him into the door. That's a hard switch to pull, and Chandler does it excellently.

The Sutton-Cornishes are both terrible people, and a there's really nobody in the story to root for aside from Detective-sergeant Thomas Lloyd, who's really only in two scenes and isn't given a whole lot of spotlight, so that's a flaw.

The horse-drawn cab that is seemingly from another time/place? That's never developed. Its just a weird moment for its own sake. Its a shame too, since its a neat little scene.

The centerpiece of the story is the door itself, which manages to be sinister and corrupting while still being an inanimate object. The manner in which it disappears things is great, too. No fancy special effects, no messy piles of ash, no noisy sounds. Just...nothing, which is even more unsettling.

The Bronze Door is a curio of a story. Something to read once for the novelty of Raymond Chandler stretching his wings into unfamiliar territory. You read it, go “huh, that was interesting,” and then largely forget about it, except you steal the idea of the bronze door itself for your D&D campaign because you want to troll the hell out of your players.

It would be interesting to see more Chandler fantasy stories, but with the success of his Marlowe books, I can't blame him for following the money. 

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Legends Never Die: The Truce At Bakura




Released at the end of 1993, The Truce at Bakura followed hot on the heels of the Thrawn Trilogy. The first standalone Star Wars novel since Splinter of the Mind's Eye, Bakura is often overlooked in the early Expanded Universe since a lot of the things it introduced weren't really touched upon later and would get swallowed up in the blitz of EU material that was to come in 1994.

Its author, Kathy Tyers, was relatively new at the time. Her first book, Firebird, was published in 1987, with three more novels published before Truce at Bakura, all through Bantam Spectra (which had the Star Wars rights in the 90s).


The book begins immediately after the Battle of Endor. The victorious Rebel Alliance is licking its wounds and taking stock of the situation. Luke is exhausted and badly injured from his confrontation with the Emperor (and his Dark Side lightning), but he's forced into action when an obsolete message pod arrives in the system from an Imperial-held world that has been invaded by aliens. Sensing an opportunity to win over “Hearts and Minds,” Alliance High Command decides to send a small force to rescue the planet, Bakura, and diplomatically sway them away from the now-headless Empire.

An escort carrier and several fighter squadrons are all that can be spared, but Leia Organa is in charge of the diplomatic mission (Han, Chewie & the droids are along for the ride too, of course) and Luke is put in overall military command.

That's right, eagle-eyes. Rebels re-used the Quasar Fire-class in NuCanon

Arriving in the Bakura system, they find a well-developed world that was originally settled by corporate interests and developed a thriving repulsorlift industry. The locals hate droids thanks to an old uprising in the past, but they've only been recently incorporated into the Empire and many don't have a problem with its rule over them. A tentative truce is established to fend off the aliens, the reptilian Ssi-Ruuvi Imperium from the Unknown Regions.

Then all hell breaks loose when the truce is broken.

There's a lot going on inside this book. Luke is badly in need of rest and healing, but the burdens of his obligations (and because Ben's Force ghost told him to go) push him forward. He struggles with command, resisting the temptation of using the Dark Side to make life easier, detecting a Force user among the alien force, and an attraction to a pretty young Imperial senator from Bakura.


Leia's conflicts are more direct. She's got to deal with the Bakuran government that is only partly Anti-Imperial. The local governor proves to be a capable and wily negotiator himself. She does get some great personal moments, like where she wrestles with the knowledge of being Darth Vader's daughter, even going so far as telling Anakin's Force ghost off when he appears asking for forgiveness. She's written a bit inconsistently, too. Part of the agreement of the truce is that the Rebels won't stir up seditious behavior, which is exactly what she does. There's little things like that that stand out.

The new characters end up being some of the most interesting.

Commander Pter Thanas, the man in charge of military defense with his small Carrack-class cruiser, is actually a Good Guy Imperial. So good that he refused to punish an alien planet under his control and was transferred to a sleepy backwater for the rest of his career. He struggles between his duty and his conscience throughout the book.

Governor Wilek Nereus isn't a cartoonishly evil dictator when he's introduced. He rules Bakura with a fairly open hand, while never letting them forget who really rules their Senate. As the fighting worsens, his darker side comes to the surface, and he's revealed as an inveterate schemer with a fondness for poisons and taking the teeth of game he has hunted.

Gaeriel Captison is the pretty young Senator and an Imperial loyalist who fears the reputation of the Jedi and their abilities. She's also deeply religious, and devoted to the Cosmic Balance, which holds that a good deed on one end of the galaxy will be balanced out by a bad deed on the other end. Part of her fear of the Jedi stems from the belief that they heavily upset that delicate balance. Tyers herself is openly Christian (and later in her career would focus on writing Christian Sci-Fi), and the facet of Gaeriel's character isn't treated as a joke or something that overpowers the character, which is nice.


She's also got heterochromia of the eyes and her presence in the Force drives Luke's hormones wild, but she's actually not a mary sue, since she's not good at everything. She's only good at diplomacy. Unfortunately the romance between her and Luke doesn't really work, so its probably for the best that it doesn't work out between them by the end of the book.

The Ssi-Ruuk are an interesting race. Derisively called “fluties” because of their high-pitched language, they're xenophobic, imperialist dinosaur-men who believe that only they have souls. They capture and enslave people to power their technology, forcibly sucking out the life energy and consciousness of living beings (humans are great for this) to power their electronics and droids. This is called “entechment” and it lasts until the machine is destroyed or the poor bastard inside goes completely insane and dies a second death.

Its really quite horrifying.


Among them is a fifteen-year-old human boy named Dev Sibwarra. He's a powerful Force sensitive with strong empathic abilities and he's deeply affected by Stockholm Syndrome in a galaxy that doesn't even have a Stockholm. Poor Dev is a true believer in the Ssi-Ruuk cause and longs to be enteched, despite being abused for even minor failings. He's the presence that Luke sensed, and is part of why Luke drives himself to the physical brink trying to save this kid.

Also, Dev is brown-skinned of the Indian subcontinent variety, but that's secondary because this is how you do diversity without forcing it and publicly patting yourself on the back for inclusivity.


The overall plot is interesting and hustles along briskly, and the space combat scenes are well done. The middle bogs down a bit where it turns into diplomatic posturing. Han doesn't have a whole lot to do, aside from shoving Threepio into Stormtrooper armor at one point and doing space stuff in the Falcon. Some of the side characters, like the crew of the carrier Flurry, are untapped potential.

Its a Luke and Leia focused story that explores bittersweet themes of failure and loss, and sits on the better end of the Expanded Universe spectrum. The Ssi-Ruuk are an interesting, if one-dimensional villain race, and I like them because they're weird.

Not on the top level with Heir to the Empire or Han Solo at Stars' End, but still recommended.

Sunday, April 08, 2018

Pink Slime: The Name of the Wind (Part 4)



Part the First
Part the Second
Part the Third

I ended up flipping through the rest of the book to see how my predictions ended up. Quite a lot of them were spot on, and verified by internet-friend and Dragon Award Winning Author Brian Niemeier. You can readit in the comments on Part 3. Brian has also written about my posts on his own blog here. So a big thank you to him for the signal boost. I reviewed his first novel, Nethereal, here. I've read the next two books in the series, but haven't reviewed them because I'm still weighing the ethical considerations of reviewing the works of people I consider friends. (I think Souldancer is the best of the three I've read, structurally speaking, but they're all quite good.)

Part 4 was going to be me going through my predictions, but Brian took care of that pretty thoroughly. There are two points I'd like to explore, though.

Kvothe's family is killed (off-screen, of course, because the book tells instead of shows) and he has a brief run-in with the killers, the fearsome Chandrian. They're cartoon villains. No, scratch that, anime villains. One of these edgelords is even named Cinder for Pete's sake. Despite being a squad of cartoonish goofs, they were a breath of fresh air. Naturally, they disappear from the rest of the book.

Comparing the Chandrian to the Ginyu Force is an insult to the Ginyu Force

The narrative ends with a disturbance in the tavern where the regulars come in for the night and one of the bandits that robbed Chronicler in Chapter 2 comes in a little later. Except the bandit is not right in the head. He's looking for something or someone, and talking in a language nobody understands. A fight breaks out and he kills one of the farmers before the blacksmith's apprentice beats him to death with an iron bar. It only took 700 pages to find an actual hero who steps up. Though in fairness to Kvothe, he did try and subtly work some sympathy to light the guy on fire. He just couldn't. Its okay. It happens to a lot of guys.

Honestly, though, its an actual, honest-to-Tehlu, good chapter. Things happen. There is tension. There is danger. There are stakes. There is mystery. There is conflict. There is resolution. Aaron, the apprentice, is an actual heroic character stepping up to help people in need because the designated protagonist can't do a damn thing. This is a the first chapter of a much better, and more engaging book. I actually read the entire chapter because it was the first time in the entire book I wasn't sure how it was going to end.

Of course after its over we go back to the same old same old and the book limps to the finish line before collapsing with a sigh and the commitment to the “Three Silences” that the prologue chapter introduces.



To wrap up this entire week with a pretty bow on it, I think that The Name of the Wind is indicative of just how sickly the Fantasy and Science Fiction genre is at the mainstream level. Anyone can write a bad book. I've got three that I've trunked for that specific reason.

A bad book garnering a tremendous amount of critical praise and mainstream exposure because the publisher has spent enough money on it? Because the author aligns with the opinions of the Ivory Tower's zeitgeist? That's the real problem.

That this awful book is held up as innovative or classic or even “epic” (it is the exact opposite of that) speaks to the essential need for SF/F to have a canon of Classic works. Something to hold up and say “These are the finest works in the genre that have stood the test of time and are the perfect entry point for new readers.” J. R. R. Tolkien, as excellent as he is, is often held up as the sole 800-lb Gorilla in the Fantasy Aisle in a post 80s market. And even now, with the video games and movies and supposed Amazon series, his prose and themes are being steadily diluted.

Consider this: You don't get into Metal without understanding the importance of Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. You don't get into Jazz without being aware of Coltrane, Ellington, Monk, and Armstrong. You don't get into Film without watching De Mille, Welles or Scorsese. You don't have to like the titans of a given genre, but to genuinely understand it, you need to understand the footprint they left on it.

So why would someone walking into Fantasy not be expected to at least be aware of the importance of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert E. Howard?

Well, the obvious answer is so that you can push a product that reinforces your worldview regardless of its quality and trumpet it as a classic so that people unfamiliar with actual classics won't know to call it the bullshit that it is. The response of the new reader is then to either A) Abandon the field because its a sea of boring garbage in favor of more entertaining pursuits or B) mentally convince themselves that this is actually good and that they just didn't try hard enough to enjoy it.


Wednesday, April 04, 2018

Pink Slime: The Name of the Wind (Part 3)





Based on Kvothe's existing characteristics I feel safe in predicting how the story goes. This was informed slightly from what I had heard from other people (the magic school, for instance) but mostly I'm going off of the modern cliches of mainstream fantasy writing.

IS THAT A JOJO REFERENCE??

His family is killed by an evil overlord that is evil because that's cruise control for hack writing. He runs around homeless for a while to build sympathy for him and give him a “hard knock life.” Despite this, he will run into several people who will do everything for him, minimizing his street urchin suffering. Despite all this, he will speak lovingly of urban life and how it is superior to country living among the bumpkins.

He will get into not-Hogwarts, a school allegedly with very high entrance qualifications, on an absurd technicality because there's something special about him. Women will throw themselves at him, but he will awkwardly reject them, instead focusing on one particular girl that he fixates on to an unhealthy amount. They will probably have awkward teenage sex. Kvothe will rise quickly in his class, despite frequently neglecting his studies because he is “brilliant but lazy.” He will make friends easily because he's ripping off Harry Potter.

He will have a rival at the school. That rival will be equally as sociopathic and insane as he is, only he's the bad guy because Kvothe is the designated protagonist. He probably has dark hair. Maybe he's a little taller than Kvothe. He will come from a comfortable upper/middle-class life to contrast with Kvothe's hardscrabble origins. The two will go back and forth and Kvothe will kill him at the end of the story with unnecessary cruelty.

Kvothe will be unnecessarily cruel to many, many people. He will kill several innocents in the course of his studies and extracurriculars. He will then spend the next chapters justifying it to himself and the audience. It will always be written like that poor nameless mayor. Legitimate motivations described as malice. He will always dodge responsibility and self-reflection.

There will be a magical library. This is where all of the wonder and exotic magic will go in the book. It will be lovingly described and ultimately have no bearing on the plot.

The only other fantasy elements will be Kvothe learning the names of things (like the wind) to get them to do stuff. It will be subtle instead of flashy, and achieved through some combination of schizophrenia and dissociative disorder.

Sympathetic magic will be explained further, and it will be nothing like actual real-world Sympathetic Magic, which is found in tribal societies (and appears in Voodoo). Instead, it will be something brainy and lame like math.

There will be no standard fantasy creatures. There will be K-Mart brand knock-offs. Kvothe's Chekhov's Gun sword in the framing chapters will not be explained, saved for a second book.

He will save the girl/school/world, yet still be expelled because he's made powerful enemies along the way and also because he's a sociopath. The second reason will not be acknowledged.

It will end by going back to the framing device. Chronicler will be gushing about how great Kvothe is. It will end on a preparation/teaser for the next book. Maybe there'll be a bar fight or something to try and breathe some life into the ending. It will be anticlimactic and unsatisfying, thematically tying into the rest of this dreadfully dull waste of dead trees.


Tuesday, April 03, 2018

Pink Slime: The Name of the Wind (Part 2)


Part the First



Chapter 6
Chronicler wakes up and comes down to talk to Kote. Chronicler's real name is Devan Lochees. He prefers Chronicler. This means nothing. He's a scholar of some note famous for writing a treatise on a big lizard and debunking dragons as a myth. Both characters lament that dragons aren't real.

Yeah. Wouldn't want to have those in a fantasy story.

Chronicler keeps needling Kote about sharing his history since there are people back home who are starting to talk shit about Kvothe as a villainous assassin. A woman is brought up and she's a touchy subject for the totally heterosexual Kvothe whose dialogue with his apprentice up to this point hasn't read like the two are in a stable, loving, long-term relationship. Kvothe apparently killed an angel, or something. This is apparently a big deal.

Chronicler only wants to bother Kvothe for an evening to get his story, and Kvothe snaps at him about how that's not enough time and not enough preparation. It'll take three days to recount his life. Chronicler interviewed an 80 year old retired adventurer and that only took 2 days. But no, Kvothe is adamant about needing three days and screw whatever appointments with a local earl he needs to keep because Kvothe is an inconsiderate asshole. Never mind that he's not even thirty years old. Kvothe says he will start talking the next day.

Chapter 7
Yet another morning at the inn and Chronicler demonstrates that he can write really fast because he's got this form of shorthand that he's developed that's really fast and is basically Chinese because its a set of vertical and horizontal lines representing sounds because we're being oh so clever.

This shit doesn't matter to the story being told aside from Chronicler marveling that Kvothe can pick it up quickly without any prior exposure to it. Because he's that kind of character and won't pass up an opportunity to humble brag about it.

Kvothe preambles some blah blah blah, jokingly starting at the beginning of the universe before mentioning the many names he's accumulated because he has SO MANY NAMES AND THEY ALL MEAN IMPORTANT STUFF BECAUSE HE'S SO IMPORTANT.

Once he gets going its not so bad for this chapter, but the fact that we've had a prologue and then six actual chapters that amount to nothing but an even longer prologue is maddening. Everything except the last three chapters of what I've read so far could've been excised without losing ANYTHING. Its just aimless filler that reinforces a melancholy mood that is already established in the prologue chapter. Instead we get busywork and a detailed description of Kvothe's surroundings, while the side characters get almost nothing to distinguish them from each other: names and minimal descriptions, and virtually no personalities that differ from each other. They might as well have blank faces. They're interchangeable and can't even be considered actual characters.

Chapter 8
The story actually starts now. Kvothe started out as a kid in a family of “Edema Ruh” which will hereafter be referred to as gypsies because there is no difference. The family troupe was called Lord Grayfallow's Men, because Kvothe can't be from some poor circus of randos operating in cow towns to get by. No, they're official court performers. Who are operating in cow towns to get by.

Dad's an actor and musician, mom's a poet/wordsmith. “They were Ruh down to their bones, and that, really, is all that needs to be said.”

Except mom's not really a gypsy. She ran off from her life as a noble to be with his father. So the above sentence is a lie. And Kvothe is secretly part-noble as a result. Because of course he is.

He rattles off a few of his mentors and how he learned stuff from them real quick because he was a curious child. He mentions Abenthy, his first “real” teacher.

Then he recounts a mayor giving the troupe a hard time about performing. When they say they're officially licensed, he responds with a legitimate concern that the last time performers came to town the townsfolk got drunk, rowdy, and smashed up the public house that the town owns and maintains. He offers them some money as a gesture of goodwill if they'll leave town without performing. He is treated as an antagonist because to the troupe its an insulting pittance because they're entitled little shits.

Dad namedrops his noble connections instead of actually negotiating, which gets the mayor to reverse position out of fear. Kvothe calls him an ignorant blatherskate because that's how eleven-year-olds talk when their author has seen an episode of DuckTales. Dad makes it a point of calling the villagers “god-fearing folk.” You're in a medieval-style world where a farming community's entire fate can be decided by a single disastrous season. No shit they're going to be superstitious.

Blathering blatherskite!

There's a bunch of padded conversation, and Kvothe discusses Trip, the juggler and jester who can get away with saying just about anything because he's a jester. I'd rather follow his story, to be honest.

So anyway, Kvothe sees a wagon rattle into town and the Mayor and a constable are talking to the guy, who's trying to pass himself off as a peddler and a tinker without a license. (Tinkers were established in the prologue chapters as a respectable profession). He identifies himself as an arcanist and calls the mayor an idiot. Again with the God-Fearing identifier, only this time from the mayor himself. He doesn't want any meddlers with the dark arts messing up his town.

A bossy old man rides into town lying about his identity and coming across as incredibly shady, then tries to intimidate the mayor into letting him stay. The mayor threatens to jail him overnight for vagrancy and threatening behavior and let him go on his way in the morning. The constable bravely tries to arrest this spellcaster of unknown power while armed with little more than a stout stick, then the arcanist does some wind magic and the mayor and constable run off terrified. We are meant to sympathize with the insane vagrant.

This pushy bully is Abenthy, and Kvothe invites him to join the troupe after immediately bonding with him. Despite being eleven years old.

Chapter 9
We now get a description of Abenthy, a chapter after he's introduced, and he looks nothing like the hard-traveling vagabond Chapter 8 made me picture. He's portly, for instance, which indicates a comfortable, regular supply of food. This is not how you introduce characters.

“He spoke gently, laughed often, and never exercised his wit at the expense of others.” Chapter 8 proves this to be a lie.

Abenthy talks about arcanists and magic and “sympathy.” Sympathy is part of the magic system, only its not really magic. But knowing sympathy isn't enough to be an arcanist, you need to go to Hogwar—err, the Arcanum.

Abenthy shows his Arcanum guilder, which is a lead medallion that feels numbingly cold to anyone who's not the owner. This is the badge of rank of an arcanist.

We learn that Trip probably has a magical knack because he always rolls sevens with dice. Any dice. I'd rather read a story about Trip hustling gamblers.

Abenthy takes Kvothe on as an apprentice, and within two months the Gary Stu has learned how to do all sorts of advanced things, like distilling liquor, setting broken bones, and learning how to make a bunch of apphrodisiacs, contraceptives, fantasy Viagra, and something to help women...down there.

Keep in mind that this is an eleven year old learning how to make sex potions.

That's not weird at all.

Chapter 10
Magic lesson time. Abenthy (I refuse to call him Kvothe's nickname of “Ben” because he's already too much of a Kenobi rip-off).

Abenthy teaches him Alar, which is key to being an arcanist. He tells Kvothe to believe that a rock will fall upwards when he drops it. It falls to the ground. Teaching himself to believe this is the hardest thing Kvothe has ever done, and it takes him all of an afternoon. 

Poor baby.

“Finally Ben was able to drop the rock and I retained my firm belief that it wouldn't fall despite evidence to the contrary.”

Having successfully learned schizophrenia, he learns Heart of Stone, which is a mental exercise that compartmentalizes your emotions and prejudices into a Zen or Stoic state where you can think clearly and objectively and go to your sister's funeral without crying (his example, not mine).

Having successfully learned sociopathy, he learns Seek the Stone, which is a mind game where one part of your mind hides an imaginary stone inside an imaginary room and another part of your mind plays hide-and-seek trying to find it. The goal seems to be a split personality.

So an old man meets, then forms a close mentor relationship with an eleven year old boy and then teaches him a bunch of information about sex and a “magic” system that leaves him sociopathic, schizophrenic, and dissociative (the latter two frequently appearing in victims of childhood abuse). I genuinely and truly hope that this is purely coincidental because the alternative is sinister. 

I'm beginning to understand why they burned arcanists.

This is where I tapped out. 

This is the worst thing I've read since The DaVinci Code, which I also abandoned early on, but at least that had action. Stupid, nonsensical action, but stuff happened. 10 chapters and nearly 100 pages over the course of a week, and the only impression that I get out of it was that Kvothe is a self-righteous asshole mary sue protagonist and that an editor should've hacked off entire chapters in the beginning to make it readable.

This is a terrible book. Its not interesting. Its not well written. Its not even iconoclastic. Even by 2008 when it was published, Modern Fantasy had already established all new clichés for the genre and this reads like its ticking off the boxes. 1) Protagonist from a podunk who's actually hugely powerful and everybody who's “good” loves him and hands him things unquestioningly. 2) Power comes easily to him. 3) Edgy atheism. 4) Idiot locals that don't even get descriptions. 5) A magic system that isn't nearly as clever as it thinks it is. 6) Subversion that is only subversive if your frame of reference for fantasy is The Lord of the Rings, which was first published in 1954. The Name of the Wind was published 54 years after The Fellowship of the Ring. Its already been subverted. You're not bringing anything to the table that isn't identical to everything else being published in mainstream SF/F.

George R. R. Martin writes long books popular with the Modernist set, but at least things happen in them. Characters, situations, settings are introduced and shaken up. People die. There's magic. There's talk of monsters. Its not great, but at least stuff happens. Tolkien wrote long works too, but at least he's a master worldbuilder and an actual wordsmith, channeling ancient epics to create his own. He's also got setups, introductions, and characters that are instantly likable that you invest in their struggles. There is weight behind every chapter, even the Infodump at Rivendell.

Rothfuss' prose is universally praised, and I don't see it. Most of the text is basic, functional sentences (this is fine, this is the brick and mortar of writing). Dialogue is circular, banal and clunky, wasting huge chunks of time and is only occasionally interesting. When he does try to get fancy, it turns into a cringe-fest of the worst kind of purple prose that the Modernist crowd supposedly hates. (See the quote about the sword I included yesterday). The only characters who are described with any kind of detail are Kvothe and Abenthy. Everyone else is a mannequin lacking in personality (at least up to the point where I stopped reading). They are set dressing for the Kvothe show.