The Color of Magic is the first book of the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett.
It is a wonderfully light, comedic style of writing and I absolutely love it. It’s not slapstick writing, but neither does it put itself in the same room with high comedy. So far I have only read up to four books in the series – which is around thirty books long – but I have enjoyed every book to the hilt. Don’t let the length of the series intimidate you, though! These are fairly lightweight books, and the entire series does not revolve around a specific character or two, but rather many different characters at different times and places in the same world.
A world which is, in fact, completely flat and riding through the universe atop four giant elephants who are, in turn, standing on the back of the giant space turtle, A’Tuin – who moves and thinks his (or her) way though the universe. It is a world in which everything is predictably unpredictable. Sunlight on the Disc is not quite light sunlight on Earth, nor is weather the same. And, when ships in the distance seem to be sailing off the edge of the world, they really are!
In The Color of Magic, we meet the Discworld’s first, and possibly last, tourist. He’s a fellow from the great counterweight continent, which is said to be made almost entirely of gold (and therefore counterweights the larger continents on the other side of the world, which would keep it from sliding off into the nothingness of space). His name is Twoflower. Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for June, 2008
For these books, vampires aren’t quite vampires…except they totally are. Let me explain. The traditional idea is that vampires are cursed, soulless, and drink blood. That’s true. With me so far? The addendum that we don’t realize is that they have an out-clause. They are cursed, not by God or some benevolent high power, but by a demon. They are not evil, and they have a chance to get their soul back. An out-clause, or in all truth, an out-person.
All vampires( who prefer, by the way, to be called Dark Ones) have a Beloved. A woman who, through a series of steps, can save his soul. Someone who he is destined to spend his life with. Until he finds her, his existence is something daunting and prospects are bleak.
If, that is, he can find her.
Enter Christian Dante, a Dark One in search of his soulmate…aka Beloved. Read the rest of this entry »
*reposted from my blog
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This movie was complete trash.
If you ever wondered if you could come up with a plot that would completely take a dump on all the Indiana Jones movies, you’ve been outdone. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was, yes, marginally enjoyable. There was plenty of action, and some nice Indiana-Jones-rocks moments, but there were a few things the movie was seriously lacking, the first of which was an actual plot.
Secondly, character motivation, villain credibility, and background. The list goes on: rational thought, being true to the spirit of the Indiana Jones saga and characters, credibility, creative thought, and I repeat: a plot.
I kept grasping desperately for logic and reason, as that is what makes the Indiana Jones fiction “real†and enjoyable, but it was absent. I kept trying the divine the mystery of character allegiances and goals, but that yielded no fruit. Turns out the characters were all very, very flat. Indi was the most rounded out character, and that was largely because I’ve seen Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in all the previous movies – therefore his “roundness†as a character depended entirely on my prior knowledge.
And just to muck it up a bit more, they filmmakers felt the need to add some pointless comedy in the form of cute little monkeys and prairie dogs, while adding in a few scenes that could’ve actually led to something important and interesting rather than the utterly craptastic ending that I saw in the theater.
I’m not giving away the story just in case someone out there is determined to see it, but my recommendation is this:
If you have the chance to go see Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull…DON’T.