Puntabulous

Huzzah! I finished The Amber Spyglass! So now I’m officially done with His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman. The fact that these books were published in 1995, 1997 and 2000 and I didn’t know about them until The Golden Compass was made into a movie in 2007 is just terrible. Did I ever tell you I was never much of a reader until I got to college? I don’t think I ever read a single book in high school. Anyway, while the movie was enjoyable, I was so entranced by the world that it took place in, I just knew the books would be incredible. And I was right.

The Amber Spyglass was an awesome read. In fact, I’d rate it better than The Subtle Knife, but not as good as The Golden Compass. Everything having to do with the World of the Dead, and the Angels, and the final battle was just genius. Loved Balthamos and Baruch. Loved Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter. Loved Metatron (even though I kept wanting to call him Megatron). Mary Malone’s storyline with the Mulefa wasn’t as entertaining, but it was still enjoyable. Part of that might have to do with my disappointment that the Amber Spyglass itself wasn’t as essential to the storyline as the Alethiometer or the Subtle Knife were in their respective books. But that’s just a minor quibble I suppose.

Probably the aspect I liked least about it was the ending. Not the ending itself, just the fact that there was 100 or so pages after the major climax of the book. It reminded me so much of The Return of the King book in style, meaning that after the major climax, there was still a lot needing to be resolved, like the Scouring of the Shire, which — while essential — just isn’t as riveting as the rest of the book. The slow resolution of the dæmon storyline was particularly frustrating. But I understood the point of it, and I will probably be able to enjoy it more after multiple readings.

Moments that I just absolutely adored was in the World of the Dead where the children are talking about their dæmons, and all the things the dæmons did for them while they were alive. It was so incredibly touching I might have gotten a tad weepy. I also liked the Death characters and the whole “It’s time.” relationships they had with their owners. Lastly, I couldn’t have asked for a better resolution to the Lee Scoresby and John Parry storylines. It was perfect! And yes, I’m happy with the ending of the Lyra and Will storyline. I won’t go into details here, but we can talk about it in more spoilery detail in the comments section.

Okay, I finished The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) by Philip Pullman. While suffering a bit from middle book syndrome, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Part of me feels like it didn’t have its own story and only served as set up for the final book, but I suppose that’s the way these things work. What exactly was The Empire Strikes Back about, anyway?

I worried about the introduction of Will Parry and his interference with Lyra, who I loved, and was disappointed that she played a smaller role this time around. But as you assured me, I learned to love Will, and this book was really his story, and I could appreciate it. I wasn’t crazy about the way Will’s maturity made Lyra’s outgoingness (totally a word) seem almost bratty, but it did give Lyra a chance to grow as a character, and I look forward to seeing where they both go in the final book.

I was also disappointed with the small amount of page time dedicated to Mrs. Coulter. Again, this book was more about Will, but I was completely captivated by every scene involving her and her evil golden monkey, so I was just longing for more. But I guess that’s a good thing, right? Keep me wanting more, rather than giving me too much and getting overloaded.

I’m incredibly interested in seeing where the story goes. There are a lot of things going on (What role does the awesome Mary Malone figure into all this? What are the Spectres? What about the Angels?) and it’s hard to tell who’s good and who’s evil, but I suppose all will be revealed in due time. I’ve heard mixed reviews about the final book, The Amber Spyglass, so I hope I’m not disappointed. Although I have a tendency to like my stories wrapped up nice and neat (“What? You mean Jack and Ennis don’t live happily ever after? What a crappy movie!”) so I may have to lower my expectations going in, because if The Subtle Knife taught me anything, it’s that stories rarely get wrapped up with a nice cute bow around them.

Let’s discuss things in a bit more spoilery detail in the comment section, shall we? Just no spoilers for Book 3 please!

As you may remember, I’m working on a children’s fantasy book (some of which can be read HERE), which we will call ATOOC. Feel free to guess what ATOOC is an acronym for. HINT: All words are represented, even small ones like a, and, of, and the, but not necessarily all of them are used. I probably won’t tell you what the name of it is until it’s finished though, so your guesses are strictly for my amusement. Dance Monkeys Dance!

I just wanted to let you know that I finally finished the first chapter and am currently on page 15. I’m really happy with the progress I’ve been making in the last few days, and feel like I got over a hump (LOL: hump). I hope to keep moving at a steady pace and will keep you all abreast (LOL: breast) of my progress.

Okay, so I finally finished The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, Book 1) by Philip Pullman. What an incredible book! I was captivated by the world Philip created and was swept up into the story from cover to cover. I love the whole concept of the animal dæmons and the idea of them having the ability to morph into different animals while their humans are children, before settling on a single animal when they reach puberty, and the effects this ability has on the “establishment” and what drastic measures this causes them to take. It was such an interesting and unique take on a story we’re all familiar with.

Lyra is also an incredibly compelling heroine, who is both cunning and fierce. A more brash, but still likable version of Harry Potter. (How could I not compare the two?) And Mrs. Coulter and her golden monkey are awesomely eeeevil.

Having already seen the movie adaptation, and loving the stunning visuals, I had no problem carrying over those images and transferring them to the book. I especially loved reading Iorek’s lines with Ian McKellen’s majestic voice in my head. Now I knew the movie left out the last third of the book, but I was still completely shocked at the events that took place during the final act. How could that character be you-know-what! That was shocking!

I started The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, Book 2) yesterday, and it’s a bit jarring starting off with a new character, but I’m already starting to warm up with him, and of course, Lyra will still be the star of the show, so I hope I won’t be disappointed.

Let’s discuss The Golden Compass in a bit more spoilery detail in the comments, shall we? Please no spoilers for Books 2 and 3!

I’m up to page 72 of The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, and the thing I like most about it is the negative portrayal of the Catholic church. I’ll see you in Hell, you bastards!

Just kidding. We haven’t gotten to any of that business yet, which I fully expect to be blown out of proportion. There are so many stories that are anti-establishment, and they can be representative of so many historical institutions or events, I expect this to be no different.

The thing I really like most about it is the imperfect portrayal of both the kids and adults. The main character Lyra can be a bit of a brat. I’m not talking about the way Harry Potter was in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Just more of a natural immaturity that surrounds her character and her actions. We all know I love the Chronicles of Narnia books, but even I can get a bit tired of their “Good day to you fine sir! Yes, the weather is lovely. Don’t you just love that I am perfect in every way? Isn’t that Eustace such a terrible little boy?” act. Kids don’t behave that way.

Even the adults are a bit nasty at times. The good ones like Lord Azriel (the character portrayed by Daniel Craig in the movie) talk about smacking Lyra upside the head and telling her what a punk she is. But even through this, the characters are all likeable. I think they come across more real. Now you know I hate when people equate being an “asshole” with being “real” like the way everyone kept going on about how “real” the movie Crash was. But these characters aren’t assholes, they’re just not perfect and sometimes they can come across like assholes. But I like it.

I like assholes. Wait, what?

Star Wars: Legacy of the Force - Invincible came out yesterday. It’s the last book in the Star Wars: Legacy of the Force series which tells of the fall of Jacen Solo (Han and Leia’s son) to the dark side. I’m currently 2/3’s finished with Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal and I hate stopping a book in the middle (especially since I’m enjoying it so much) but I can’t resist reading this immediately. I mean, how could you not want to read something with this book jacket?

I honestly have no idea how they’re going to end this series. You see, Han and Leia had three children: Twins Jacen and Jaina, and the late younger brother Anakin (who I might have fallen in love with, it’s okay to fall in love with literary characters, right?). That’s Jaina fighting Jacen up above in the book jacket. She spent the last book training with Boba Fett (I know!) because who better to teach a Jedi how to kill another Jedi than Boba Fett: Super Jedi Killer Extraordinaire! I find it hard to believe they’ll kill off Jacen because then there’s only one more Solo left, and they’re kinda the main characters of the books these days. Plus killing your brother is pretty heavy stuff. But redeeming Jacen seems highly unlikely also. So I’m excited to see how this will end.

Anyway, these books are awesome and I don’t know why Lucas doesn’t make TV shows or movies concerning the Star Wars universe after the movies. Do we really need another Clone Wars cartoon? What is there left to tell? We already know how Count Dooku and General Grievous are gonna meet their end, so obviously they’ll survive. And chances are that Obi-Wan and Anakin will survive the Clone Wars so they can appear in Episode III which we already saw! Oh, and I bet that cute alien girl who doesn’t appear in Episode III won’t survive the Clone Wars. Just a hunch! Check out the trailer for the unnecessary and video-gamish movie HERE.

PS - You just know I’ll see it opening day.

Confession #1 - I aspire to be a children’s book author.

Confession #2 - I’m a terrible writer.

Sad, but true. These aren’t a good combination. I love to tell stories but I hate to write them down. That’s why most of my blog entries use pictures and minimal text to tell stories. But if I want to be a super famous children’s book author, I’m going to have to suck it up and start writing.

I’ve been plotting out a nine book series for the past few months. You know, because nine book book deals are totally easy to come by. I’ve been plotting and planning nine books carefully from start to end. When to introduce characters. When to begin and end story arcs. Names of characters. Names of places. And everything in between.

But you know, it’s getting a bit ridiculous. Lately I’ve just been shuffling around the same things over and over again. I need to start writing the damn thing. I wrote the first two pages months ago (which you can read here) but it came to a complete halt.

To remind and inspire me, I’ve added a page count in the sidebar of this blog. Your job, dear readers, is to keep an eye on this page count. And if too much time goes by and the number doesn’t increase, you need to send me an e-mail and give me a kick in the pants. Think you can do that? Great.

1. Is anyone else watching (and loving) Sarah Connor Chronicles? It’s so good! IO9’s article talking about how this show wants to be Battlestar Galactica got me thinking. What if Cameron is some sort of human/terminator hybrid? And what if the half human part of Cameron is really Sarah Connor DNA? Dun dun duuuuuun! Come on! You know it makes sense! And not just because they’re both brunettes! In the future, the evil terminators could have engineered a Sarah Connor hybrid-terminator to use against John Connor. Wouldn’t that be smart of them? Create a weapon that thinks and looks like the mother of your biggest enemy. And think about it: They’ve been keeping Cameron’s model number under wraps and said that she’s a completely new model to the franchise. This would take the show to a place the Terminator films haven’t gone before, and I think a lot of people’s gripes with the show is that it’s basically been a Terminator 2 and 3 redux. Why don’t I work in Hollywood again?

2. Definitely the highlight of the Oscars was being introduced to this song, which I completely adore now and have listened to it a gajillion times. For those of you who didn’t see the Oscars, it’s called “Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and it’s from the movie Once, which I immediately added to my Netflix queue.

3. I’m sorry NefariousCarrot, I know its your favorite book and all, but I’m sad to report that I’m giving up on Lilith for now. I say “for now” in the hopes that I will go back and finish it. But how many times have you actually finished a book after putting it down? Oh man, “putting it down” sounds awful, as if I took the book out back and shot it. In this case it’s more like I impaled it with a lightsaber since the new Star Wars book came out yesterday and I’ll be reading that instead while giving everyone that “don’t judge me!” look on the train.

Do you like Puntabulous Debates? Do you want to have your own pointless debates with your friends (imaginary or otherwise)? Have you been wanting to do one of my Guest Debates but can’t think of a good topic? Well then do I have the book for you! It’s called Barguments by Doug Hanks.

Bargument: A debate with no right or wrong answer that must be uncomplicated enough to discuss after three beers.

This book is full of great barguments (and potential Puntabulous Guest Debates!) including:

1. Name the best television theme song of all time.

2. Who would win in a war: Texas or California?

3. Who would win in a fight: A lion or a bear?

Check out the book’s official site HERE (books have websites now?) and Doug Hank’s blog HERE. It comes out on March 4, so preorder it now, and then you’ll forget about it by the time it comes so it’ll be a nice little surprise when it does!

While you’re at it, get Overheard in the Office: Conversations from Water Coolers, Conference Rooms, and Cubicles because the blog is awesome and you can’t afford an iPhone yet, so this is your best way of making the website portable and pocket-sized. Plus it’s hysterical.

I’m currently reading my first non-Star Wars book since Harry Potter and the Dealthy Hallows. I’m reading Lilith by George MacDonald. Apparently it’s a classic. Ugh. It’s awful a huge change from what I normally read, and Craig doesn’t deal with change very well. There hasn’t been a single spaceship battle yet! And no one carries around lightsabers! Like seriously! I don’t get to have a lightsaber in real life, the least I should be able to do is enjoy some hardcore lightsaber action in my reading material.

Oh, and here’s the kicker: It’s told in the first person! ACK! I hate hate HATE reading stuff in the first person. (Unless you’re David Sedaris and you’re telling me wacky stories, that I will swear you plucked out of my childhood.) One time I even stopped reading a Star Wars novel titled: I, Jedi (I shit you not) because it was told in the first person. But in my defense the story revolved around and was being told by Corran Horn who is the most boring Star Wars EU — Expanded Universe for the layman (read: cool person who doesn’t read Star Wars novels) — character ever created.

So the moral of this post, dear readers, is to never step outside your comfort zone. Ever. THE END.