How Harry Potter (Finally) Stole My Heart
March 28, 2012
Long ago, in a time when trendy books never quite reached the fevered mania that they do today, there was a book called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or Philosopher’s Stone in the UK). It came out, a LOT of people read it, and the world pretty much changed forever.
I was not one of those people. In fact, I rebelled against the books, hard. If you ask me why now, I couldn’t tell you. I just know that at the time, a book that popular annoyed me so much that I wanted nothing to do with it. Maybe it was sheer nerd snobbiness, or maybe it was ignorance. Regardless, I didn’t pick up a single Harry Potter book until the summer after I graduated college in 2007. Yes, that’s a full 10 years after the first book was published, and after half the movies were out. It was at that point, right before the release of the final book, that I decided it was time to “jump on the bandwagon” and see what all the fuss was about. I borrowed Sorcerer’s Stone from a friend and dug in. Read on…
The Original Arena: Theseus and the Labyrinth
March 23, 2012
The Hungers Games movie finally hits theaters today, and while the buzz has reached a fever pitch (the Rotten Tomatoes score is a solid 86%) some of us feel a wintry chill, like a District 12 kid on Christmas without tessera. We seasoned fanboys and fangirls have been here before. Lord of the Rings fandom has shriveled. Potterdammerung is in full swing. After we walk out of the theaters, what do we do with ourselves until the next movie comes out? Read on…
The (Dis)United Districts of Panem
February 28, 2012
Besides being a great story, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a great way to get acquainted with geography. The trilogy is set in the country of Panem, a post-Apocalyptic land subtly (or not so subtly) revealed to be America (somewhere Charlton Heston is collapsing on a beach). Panem is divided into 13 Districts and while the relationships between these districts are important, their relative locations are never clearly specified. The following is my attempt to map out the districts in the Hunger Games. Click on the image below for a full map of Panem: Read on…
Hospital Beds and Angry Fairies: A Modern Take on a Shakespeare Classic
February 16, 2012
Messing with Shakespeare is hardly anything new. His universal themes can come alive and reveal even deeper depths when applied to a different place or time. Also, how many times do you want to watch Romeo climb up a trellis in Elizabethan pantaloons? From the serious-minded (Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth) to the ill-conceived (Julia Stiles in O) to the whackadoo (Hamlet 2), Shakespeare’s characters have wound up in all sorts of times and places.
Usually the attempts to mess with Shakespearian setting have to do with desperation to lure in jaded fans or new audiences that are uncomfortable with antequated speech. Someitmes you’ve gotta wonder if the producers were just getting high backstage. (“It’s Othello… in SPACE.”)*
For Chris Adrian, author of The Great Night, the choice seems much more personal. Read on…
Stevenson’s Lastest: A Sugar Buzz of a Novel
January 20, 2012
Neal Stephenson’s REAMDE, an action-packed roller coaster sparked by an MMORPG-based virus, has all the ingredients of a great thriller. Cunning hackers. A reclusive millionaire. Vengeful Russian mobsters. Heartless Terrorists. The book’s incredible pacing makes its 1000+ pages fly by, and many of the characters are compelling people—individuals we feel we know and care about. Read on…