“You are a man. You are a Whole Man. You are lord. You are captain. You are King, too, and you are Dog Soldier. They are all words.”
“They are all in one word. All these things are in my name, as they will be in yours.”
“Oh,” said the Wolf Boy, understanding.
“I got me a deer problem, y’know. They come right up to the fence and they eat my garden.”
“So Rex isn’t doing his job?”
“Well, he got neutered last week–last week, was it?”
(“Yes, it was last Wednesday.”)
“Oh, so he’s on strike then?”
“Yeah! He’s on strike.”
[My vehicle horn beeped]
[Frozen, wide-eyed]”Oh please tell me you have your keys on you.”
“…yes?”
” ‘Cause I don’t want to have to hang out with you here the rest of the day.”
I Not my best side, I'm afraid. The artist didn't give me a chance to Pose properly, and as you can see, Poor chap, he had this obsession with Triangles, so he left off two of my Feet. I didn't comment at the time (What, after all, are two feet To a monster?) but afterwards I was sorry for the bad publicity. Why, I said to myself, should my conqueror Be so ostentatiously beardless, and ride A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs? Why should my victim be so Unattractive as to be inedible, And why should she have me literally On a string? I don't mind dying Ritually, since I always rise again, But I should have liked a little more blood To show they were taking me seriously. II It's hard for a girl to be sure if She wants to be rescued. I mean, I quite Took to the dragon. It's nice to be Liked, if you know what I mean. He was So nicely physical, with his claws And lovely green skin, and that sexy tail, And the way he looked at me, He made me feel he was all ready to Eat me. And any girl enjoys that. So when this boy turned up, wearing machinery, On a really dangerous horse, to be honest I didn't much fancy him. I mean, What was he like underneath the hardware? He might have acne, blackheads or even Bad breath for all I could tell, but the dragon-- Well, you could see all his equipment At a glance. Still, what could I do? The dragon got himself beaten by the boy, And a girl's got to think of her future. III I have diplomas in Dragon Management and Virgin Reclamation. My horse is the latest model, with Automatic transmission and built-in Obsolescence. My spear is custom-built, And my prototype armour Still on the secret list. You can't Do better than me at the moment. I'm qualified and equipped to the Eyebrow. So why be difficult? Don't you want to be killed and/or rescued In the most contemporary way? Don't You want to carry out the roles That sociology and myth have designed for you? Don't you realize that, by being choosy, You are endangering job prospects In the spear- and horse-building industries? What, in any case, does it matter what You want? You're in my way. - Ursula Askam Fanthorpe, apparently
Children of Time (Adrian Tchaikovsky) was something of a bust, because I resent being required to empathize with spiders. Yes, there are humans in it. But, with the exception of the insane mad scientist, they were boring, small-minded, and not spaceworthy. And the freaking spiders were better space heroes than them. Gah.
Doors of Eden (same) started out with enough of a #CurrentYear buzzwords bingo that I checked the inside cover, to find that, yep, it was published last year. But once it gets rolling, there’s a decent enough thriller underneath to keep my attention so far. I have a feeling it’s not going to last, either (who cares about saving the world? Really? When you get right down to it?)
Last Stand of the Tin Can Soldiers (somebody or other) remains resolutely unopened.
A Princess of Mars (Edgar Rice Burroughs) seems to have partially cured my writers block, with the realization that, no matter *what* the princess is or has done, the prince has got to be able to rescue her…
Elf Defense is a 1988 novel by Esther Friesner that…technically…counts as Urban Fantasy. Or more precisely, Suburban Fantasy.
Amanda Taylor, the mortal lover of the King of Elfhame Ultramar (aka America), has fled from him along with his son, Prince Cassiodoron (and Cass’s talking assassin cat) and concealed herself in a sleepy Connecticut small town. Godwin’s Corners, home of quite a few Mayflower-descended snobs, a really fearsome PTA association, and more lawyers than you can shake a stick at, is surely the last place on Earth anyone would dream of looking…
Yeah, he finds them in about three chapters.
But that’s where it gets interesting for Kelerison, King of Elfhame Ultramar, because Amanda Taylor has availed herself of this new mortal thing called a divorce lawyer…
Pros:
– This book is really funny.
– This book is really well-written.
– This book is not YA. This book contains, instead of hormonal teenagers written by a hormonal twenty-something, actually sentient beings acting in a rational manner. And, my God, was it refreshing to read.
– Slight spoiler: the characters are interesting and the novel is cleverly structured to a) slowly diminish the presumed threat, and b) subtly build up the ultimate villain with clever foreshadowing. (well…I thought it was clever, since I didn’t see it coming, anyway.)
– Shut Up Elves! This being a novel of the 80s-90s Fantasy Boom, the elves hit all the basic elf checkboxes: handsome, inhuman, glamorous, enchanting, powerful, manipulative…but, refreshingly, they aren’t worshipped by anyone, least of all the author. Cass is unflinchingly called on his bullshit by everyone involved, including the talking cat and the girl wholeheartedly in love with him; Syndovar is recognized as a cold-hearted fanatic (even if people are rather too scared of him to, y’know, tell him off about it); and the entire freaking plot, to repeat, is suing the King of the Elves for a CC Dissolution W/Out Children.
And yet, at the same time, elves are credible as fantastic beings of knowledge and ancient power….and, yeah, are kinda sexy. Even if Cass hasn’t gotten any since 1843. (SNERK)
– And then there are just some bits that are downright funny. I mean, appart from the premise of suing the elf king for a divorce. Dracophobia gravis and all its diagnosed permutations. “Elfhame Ultramar is not paradise, but it does have a balanced ecology. Fools are always at the bottom of the food chain.” The sentient hedge-maze deciding that an unplanned trimming is not worth keeping the party separated….
– Cesare the artistic assassin cat is worth a star all unto himself.
– The fact that the freaking king of the elves was a hair metal rock star…with a single that was number thirty-seven for two whole weeks…called “Demon Lover”…had me in stitches.
Cons:
– Elves in America is always kind of a tricky one. These aren’t bound by the old compacts; they are by (SPOILER!) the Latin Law….meh. EF should have gone whole hog, and, as they are as much American immigrants as the Mayflower families, have based their society on, wait for it, the Constitution. Give me some freaking Second Amendment elves with a tacticool obsession. Give me Federalist-obsessed elves who quote Cato. Say their whole society has based itself on human society, circa 1790. Say they contrast themselves haughtily with the old-guard stratified courts back home. What about Confederate elves?? COME ON YOU KNOW stuck-up aristocrats would have totally identified with the Confederates. How’s that for problematic?
Anyhow, this is all a bit heavy for a suburban fantasy starring a married, Jewish lawyer with a five year old daughter and a history professor husband, but the fact remains that the elf society isn’t very fleshed out, and the shocking reveals that are, uh, revealed, are kind of…empty and underwhelming.
– I really liked the villain, even though he was in the wrong, and was upset that he went down like a chump. He was kinda badass and deserved a better end.
-…um….that seems to be just about all of the cons to it.
Rated: simply because few things are perfect, nine poisoned mice out of ten.
If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged.
When a fan of a book series decides to publically take offense, in a forum comprised of other fans, at a single line depicting a character’s thoughts, the chumming has already begun. And this is just the one place that I know about. Undoubtedly there are other cesspits where the discussion is proceeding likewise. I predict that he’s going to get avalanched if he so much as sticks a toe out of line whenever the next blowup happens. He’s too big of a public figure–a known figure–to allow him to not bend the knee.
Reading through the rest of the thread is kind of eerie. There’s one (1) call for sanity; there’s a lot more casting around for other topics to be offended at. Once upon a time, I would have said, for other topics to mock. (remembering being able to spork terrible and even semi-terrible novels? Those things were vicious, but I don’t recall anyone getting cancelled because of them). The most notable character of melanin being an honest-to-possibly-God Paladin, that’s something to be offended by. Police being depicted as mostly well-intentioned and hard-working at the street level, with a generous sprinkling of rotten bad apples and incompetent leadership? Very much not Current Year-acceptable.
The line in question is from Side Jobs. Murphy’s monologue reflects:
“Stop arresting Marcone’s most profitable pimps.” Instead, we get a long speech about racial and socioeconomic profiling. We get screams from political action committees.
The slightly longer quote is (yeah, I went and dug out my copy to transcribe it):
THE POLICE KNOW where Marcone can be reached. Finding him doesn’t do diddly to let us nail him. The fact that he has his fingers in so many pies means that not only do we have to work against Marcone and his shadowy empire, but we have our own superiors and politicians breathing down our necks as well. Oh, they never say anything directly, like, “Stop arresting Marcone’s most profitable pimps.” Instead, we get a long speech about racial and socioeconomic profiling. We get screams from political action committees. We get vicious editorial pieces in the newspapers and on TV.
We mostly stay quiet and keep plugging away at our jobs. Experience has taught us that hardly anyone ever cares what we think or have to say. They demand answers, but they don’t want to listen.
Or Harry’s bird sanctuary speech from Cold Days.
“Uh,” I said, feeling somewhat off balance. “What do I think of gay guys?”
“Yes.”
“Boink and let boink, more or less.”
Enough to hang a man for?
You decide.
Previously on: our heroine was rescued after having been kidnapped by a group wanting vengeance against her husband (who had destroyed their land and villages.) These guys were kind of losers, but they were also being backed up by unknown sources from the capital, which made rescuing her difficult until a “freak training accident” involving grenades to the face manages to get rid of the imperial representative. Also, it turns out that the heroine’s loyal maidservant Jin’er is actually in love with Prince #3 (A’Wu’s childhood romance) and has just been manipulated into putting on A’Wu’s clothes and perfumes and going over to pay the drunken Prince a comforting visit. Yeahhhhhhh….
So anyhow, Jin’er is dressed up like A’Wu and perfumed up (with A’Wu’s perfumes) and sent in to see Prince #3. Who has been drinking and staring at his pictures of A’Wu. Fade to black.
Back at the court, the Emperor is not paying much attention things, the Grand Vizier is standing around smirking a lot, and the Crown Prince is starting to be the one saying “approve” to courtly proposals when news rushes in that A’Wu is found and okay, and that XQ has survived well. Prince #2 and Lord Huan exchange alarmed glances. The Crown Prince is overjoyed, bless his little heart. But the Emperor, who has been just sitting slumped over, laughs and then breaks down in tears. News also comes to Aunty Empress. She’s honestly relieved about this also, as are Mom and Brother.
A’Wu, meanwhile, is learning about the travails of frontier life, such as only bathing once a month or having to hike ten miles to bathe in the rivers. Worse, this applies to her husband, too. Worse still, no one at the fort has any sense of style AT ALL. A’Wu, however, is missing Jin’er and hopes she’s okay.
(She is, but Prince #3 is having a bit of a brood anyway). Aaaaand that’s when news of A’Wu being found arrives.
A’Wu has also started asking questions about her husband. Apparently, he has no hobbies other than being busy, reading books, and practicing swordsmanship. (Boring). A’Wu also gets into a spat with one of the head maidservants, Xing’er, who makes the mistake of being too much of a stuck-up smartass and also annoying.
Jin’er, meanwhile, hears the other maids gossiping about her.
A’Wu, meanwhile, is about to have to deal with Xing’er’s older, fatter, bossier counterpart, Mrs. Lu. A’Wu orders that they go and kneel in the courtyard, regardless of their rank. I have a feeling that the court versus country discipline/manners thing is going to cause problems pretty soon.
Not to be suppressed, Mrs Lu heads over to XQ to complain about things….not that it actually does any good. XQ backs up his wife immediately and goes back to discussing politics. He and his men are monitoring the royal family’s activity.
Oh, the current crisis is: the Emperor’s brother, under pretext of a friendly visit, has shown up with 150,000 soldiers. Hah. All the ministers are milling around and flapping their sleeves a bunch, as they tend to do. Prince #2 is hanging around in the background, not at all suspiciously. The Crown Prince has sent for the Grand Vizier, but he and his smirk haven’t shown up yet at all. This guy, King J, was the runner-up for the throne back in the day and now is probably coming back for his revenge and just dues. Whats worse, he’s a skilled soldier and has veteran troops and then have none. None at all.
(Prince #2 sends a looooong, considering look at Lord Huan).
Possibly because their main general is kind of busy trying to get his wife to look him in the face. But the boy does got game, though, and has soon convinced her to go for a walk with him. (All the troops cheer, when they see her, lol, and XQ tells her just to roll with it.)
So. XQ hasn’t been around much because he’s been over at the border…sending Liupan Guy (okay, fine, Helan Zhen) back home. Miraculously, he survived one arm being cut off and falling into a bottomless chasm, although I’m going to guess not by turning himself into a mechanical spider-legged hybrid sustained by the Dark Side of the Force and hatred. HZ is the only remaining son (albeit illegitemate) of the king of Hulan and the heir. However, he also has a cousin-rival for that position, who was the one who actually destroyed Liupan in an attempt to displace HZ from the throne and lay the blame on XQ.
XQ let HZ go back to fight his cousin so they can squabble amongst themselves–which works out for his benefit and the safety of the realm. A’Wu is impressed by his planning skills. But then she points out that XQ is using her as a pawn in his plans as well, and that she doesn’t like it.
He tries to change the subject, but she calls him a coward for it. He replies that she does not want to hear the truth, but if she’s strong enough and willing, he will.
XQ says: There was a border emergency. On our wedding night. It was absolutely no coincidence. I did not want to marry you and I was also forced into it. Your father set this all up because he wants my army. I have absolutely no desire to be involved in capitol plots and didn’t want to get between you and your true love. The so-called border emergency was just me getting the hell out of Dodge because I’m scared of your psycho grand vizier father.
A’Wu is mostly impressed that he’s not actually in cahoots with her father. Unfortunately, this means she realizes that her father is behind most of what’s been happening. She breaks down and asks for some privacy, but then calls him back.
Hey, a hug! That’s definitely progress on both their parts!
Xiao Qi tells her that she is his princess now and his woman. She’s not allowed to be weak. The camera then wanders discreetly off, so I’m going to assume that this is our official fade-to-sex.
Back at the capital, Grand Vizier Lord Wang Dad is taking some night air when he sees his son coming in through the back gate….and orders him to go back home and pretend to be a happy couple with Huan Mi since her father’s at home. Also, if your concubine has a boy, he’s going out to a farm and by farm, I mean we’re going to expose him on a rock. We need the Huan Family’s support, OK? So I need a legitimate male grandchild.
Brother Su points out that: the Xie Family is no more, the Crown Prince is in a stable position, and the Empress is in power. Shouldn’t that be enough? (No.)
Prince #2, meanwhile, is cuddling up with his concubine….wait. Wait. Wait. Is his girlfriend also Brother Su’s wife, Huan Mi? HOOOOoooo BOY.
Back at the fort, the two snooty girls A’Wu press-ganged into being her junior handmaids, are begging for help from Mrs. Lu (the fort’s steward and also their aunty). A’Wu susses out that they actually hope to catch XQ’s eye and become concubines. A’Wu says: I don’t mean to punish them. Just throw them out of the house. NOW.
So…I’m not exactly sure where the switch flipped, but somewhere along the line, I stopped watching this movie to critique and review it and just started watching to enjoy it. Here’s my review: It’s…it’s quite good, actually.
Now, I don’t know how well it will hold up to repeat viewings. I agree that it has its flaws and excesses. It had moments that fell flat or didn’t really hold up.
But overall and I think the thing that redeems it, is that: Zack Snyder aimed for greatness with this movie. He wanted this to be an epic, yet meaningful story. He wanted this to be a story about larger-than-life heroes fighting a larger-than-life foe for the highest of stakes against a backdrop of the world in chaos. And if anyone had suggested 1,000 elephants to him, he’d have put them in, too.
The thing about aiming for greatness, is that sometimes you’ll hit it.
Plus, there are lots of little bitty moments that just work, like Diana shooting Barry Allen a tiny, reassuring smile (whilst obviously worried about the Bruce/Cyborg situation currently going down); or Cyborg’s mental image of the stock market manipulations being a bull and bear fighting. Or AquaMomoa angrily pointing at Flash after the latter has knocked them both to the ground. At super speed.
And, the fights in this one are a lot more epic. Like, a lot more. And it’s really awesome. Like, by the time all the heroes + Superman are done whaling on Spikywolf you feel kind of sorry for the guy. And something I never thought possible became possible: Soyboy Flash manages to have a scene where he is serious and commits to it, is heroic and goes beyond his limits–and it is touching and meaningful and it’s properly set up and builds on what came before and as the action climax of the movie, it’s marvelous.
Are the four epilogues completely unnecessary and even counterproductive? Yeah. Turn the movie off after Flash visits his dad in jail. Are there jarringly unnecessary and aggravating salutes to the holy flag of political correctness? Yes, but only a couple. You can hard-reset your brain back to enjoy mode by smacking it against a wall or something. I only needed to do that twice and I enjoyed the whole rest of the movie!
Or maybe I was watching the microwave. Anyhow.
Rated: I watched it. I quite liked it.
Riders of Skaith 
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