Video: Honest Trailers - Batman The Animated Series

Screen Junkies has made an honest trailer for a fantastic cartoon. Most of what I know about Batman came from watching this show. I'm kind of surprised they didn't point out that Mark Hamill voiced the Joker.

Book Review: The Bone Mother by David Demchuk

Pros: delightfully creepy and/or unsettling vignettes, real photographs, fascinating mythologies

Con: no frame story to bring the disparate bits together

The publisher describes the book better than I can, so I’m using their synopsis here:

Three neighbouring villages on the Ukrainian/Romanian border are the final refuge for the last of the mythical creatures of Eastern Europe. Now, on the eve of the war that may eradicate their kind—and with the ruthless Night Police descending upon their sanctuary—they tell their stories and confront their destinies:

• The Rusalka, the beautiful vengeful water spirit who lives in lakes and ponds and lures men and children to their deaths;

• The Vovkulaka, who changes from her human form into that of a wolf and hides with her kind deep in the densest forests;

• The Strigoi, a revenant who feasts on blood and twists the minds of those who love, serve and shelter him;

• The Dvoynik, an apparition that impersonates its victim and draws him into a web of evil in order to free itself;

• And the Bone Mother, a skeletal crone with iron teeth who lurks in her house in the heart of the woods, and cooks and eats those who fail her vexing challenges.

Eerie and unsettling like the best fairy tales, these incisor-sharp portraits of ghosts, witches, sirens, and seers—and the mortals who live at their side and in their thrall—will chill your marrow and tear at your heart.

This is a collection of vignettes by people who have had supernatural experiences of some sort or are themselves supernatural creatures. Each story shows a snippet of life. There’s little description or detail, but it’s not required. I enjoyed piecing some of the stories together as the collection went on, though there’s no frame story giving them the feeling of being a cohesive whole. The publisher’s synopsis for the book is basically the frame story the book itself lacks and needs in order to give a sense of cohesion to the collection. I read this in ebook format and hadn’t read the synopsis in months, so wasn’t able to benefit from the information it gave. At the very least there should have been a wrap up story that tied things together better.

Most of the stories are fronted by a real photograph from the Costica Acsinte Archive. A few stories have hand drawn illustrations instead.

While I was familiar with a few of the creatures described, most of them were new and quite fascinating. It would have been cool to get more details about them, but again, the stories are more about ambiance and the feeling of dread than about describing things in detail. In this way, not knowing what the creatures were in some ways enhanced the horror based on the limited descriptions that were given.

Several of the stories are by people who grew up and lived in the three Eastern European villages, the rest are by their descendants. At least one story took place in Canada, and another in the United States.

On the whole I enjoyed the collection. A few of the stories were genuinely terrifying, while most were joyfully creepy. I would have liked a proper conclusion or frame story tying everything together better, but it’s definitely worth picking up.

TV Show Review: Colony, Season 1

IMDb Listing

First aired: 2016

Pros: fascinating premise, interesting characters, difficult choices, fairly diverse supporting cast

Cons: 

No one was prepared for the Arrival, when aliens came and separated the US into small colonies. Now, dissidents are sent to the factories, never to be seen again. When Will Bowman’s attempt to cross into another colony to find his missing son fails, he’s forced to work for the occupation, hunting down a resistance group. He doesn’t realize his wife is part of that group, and he’s just become a huge source of inside information for them.

I love that the focus of the show is on a loving couple and their struggles to survive in this new and horrible world. They’re caring for their two children and both hurting from the fact that they are unable to even look for their missing third.

The show is full of difficult decisions, from finding insulin now that the aliens have decreed that  such medicines should no longer be made so only the strong survive, to who’s worth saving from a resistance standpoint.

Katie Bowman (Sarah Wayne Callies) has to be clever - and dishonest - in order to keep her husband from discovering she’s helping the resistance, which causes a lot of tension in the story, and in their relationship.

The supporting cast is excellent and wonderfully diverse. I was a bit sad that some characters disappear for a while as the focus remains firmly on the Bowman family, but it is nice seeing several POC actors in different roles.

Season 1 kept me guessing and I am really looking forward to jumping into season 2. 

Note, there are 3 seasons and the show has been cancelled.

Shout-Out: A Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland

Arrested on accusations of witchcraft and treason, Chant finds himself trapped in a cold, filthy jail cell in a foreign land. With only his advocate, the unhelpful and uninterested Consanza, he quickly finds himself cast as a bargaining chip in a brewing battle between the five rulers of this small, backwards, and petty nation.

Or, at least, that's how he would tell the story.

In truth, Chant has little idea of what is happening outside the walls of his cell, but he must quickly start to unravel the puzzle of his imprisonment before they execute him for his alleged crimes. But Chant is no witch—he is a member of a rare and obscure order of wandering storytellers. With no country to call his home, and no people to claim as his own, all Chant has is his wits and his apprentice, a lad more interested in wooing handsome shepherds than learning the ways of the world.

And yet, he has one great power: his stories in the ears of the rulers determined to prosecute him for betraying a nation he knows next to nothing about. The tales he tells will topple the Queens of Nuryevet and just maybe, save his life.

Video: Weta Workshop Sculptor's Talbletop Miniature World

Adam Savage visits Weta Workshop sculptor Johnny Fraser-Allen’s tabletop model labyrinth, swamp, forest, and village. Each piece is modular and so can be moved and built up to create new configurations. The kickstarter campaign for the first set of miniatures, Hagglethorn Hollow, is up and almost over.

Book Review: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

Pros: told through images and text, some tense moments, fun characters, fast read

Cons: most of the conflict is due to Hugo keeping secrets

Hugo Cabret lives in the Timekeeper’s room inside a Parisian train station. When an elderly toy maker catches him stealing a toy mouse, the man takes a notebook Hugo received from his deceased father. The notebook contains images of an automaton Hugo’s trying to fix, images that cause a startling reaction from the old man.

The book follows Hugo as he tries to get the notebook back and interacts with the man and his goddaughter, Isabelle. There are old movies, magic, clocks, thefts, and lies. The best part of the book is that the movies and automata discussed are all real.

This is a fun - and fast - read. Some sections are told through full page illustrations rather than text, giving the book the feeling of a movie. The immediacy of the action and Hugo’s point of view narrative enhance that feeling.

There are some tense moments, especially towards the end of the book.

While I can understand Hugo’s fear of being taken from his current home and his fear of what would happen to him, it has to be said that most of the problems he encounters throughout the book are due to his inability to trust others, even after they’ve been proved trustworthy and his compulsive need to keep secrets. Things would have resolved much faster had he told Georges why the notebook was so important to him.

Though it’s a thick book (due to the images) it really is an easy read, perfect for readers of all ages.

Shout-Out: Phoenix Unbound by Grace Draven

Every year, each village is required to send a young woman to the Empire's capital--her fate to be burned alive for the entertainment of the masses. For the last five years, one small village's tithe has been the same woman. Gilene's sacrifice protects all the other young women of her village, and her secret to staying alive lies with the magic only she possesses.

But this year is different.

Azarion, the Empire's most famous gladiator, has somehow seen through her illusion--and is set on blackmailing Gilene into using her abilities to help him escape his life of slavery. Unknown to Gilene, he also wants to reclaim the birthright of his clan.

To protect her family and village, she will abandon everything to return to the Empire--and burn once more.