Chadzilla ROARS!!!

The Alpha Incident (1978)

"We can't go to sleep."

A Martian microbe infects a small group of people at an isolated train station.  Because sleep triggers a toxic reaction, the infected struggle to stay awake until a team of government scientists can formulate a cure.

The Alpha Incidentis one of those movies that I have avoided seeing because of poor word of mouth.  The general consensus on the film seems to be that it is boring as hell and will induce sleep long before one of the infected dozes off and provides the now comatose audience with a "rousing death scene."  But a sudden and inexplicable interest in the films of Bill Rebane (well, maybe not inexplicable - my son's repeated viewing of Mystery Science Theater 3000's hilarious Giant Spider Invasionepisode no doubt played a large part in my growing interest in all things Rebane) had me digging the film out of the dust bin and giving it a long overdue look see.

While it wasn't nearly as boring as I had been warned it to be, and it was competently put together, The Alpha Incident certainly will never be considered a "good" movie.

The film is a low budget rip-off of The Andromeda Strain, with a sizable dash of Night of the Living Dead mixed in, and a smidgen of Invasion of the Body Snatchers sprinkled on top.  The only element that director Bill Rebane and screenwriter Ingrid Neumayer left out of the mix was compelling drama.  Despite the concept's ample opportunity for suspense and paranoia, Rebane never manages to pull the strings tightly together...and the less said about his clumsily staged action scenes, the better.

The movie did provide some B-movie geek buzz.  Character actors John Goff and George "Buck" Flower both appear in the film.  The two also appeared together, and met similar fates, playing two of the doomed crew members of the Sea Grass in John Carpenter's The Fog.  Watching The Alpha Incident was like watching a Fog reunion, until I realized that the reverse was true.

I love it when B-movies come together like this.  It's just too bad that the movie itself didn't come together to deliver the chills and thrills it was clearly capable of.

The Happening (2008)

"There is an event happening..."

At 8:33 in the morning, the people inside Central Park begin killing themselves.  As the "happening" spreads to other cities and increasingly smaller towns, High School science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel), along with the daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez) of a friend (John Leguizamo), struggle to escape the deadly fallout...

I heard the Siren Song of Crap loud and clear long before all the hate for M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening started bubbling across the Internet.  Hell, seeing the film's teaser trailer for the very first time was more than enough to let me know to set my expectations very, very low for this movie.  But I love this kind of stuff, so my seeing it on the Big Screen was a foregone conclusion.  I also knew that going to see a movie that I expected to be bad could lead me to think/feel that the movie wasn't "all that bad" when it was over.  Well, that wasn't the case with The Happening, it is every bit as bad as you have heard it to be.  It is to trees what Maximum Overdrive was to trucks and Irwin Allen's Production of The Swarm was to killer bees.

Writer/Producer/Director M. Night Shyamalan has reportedly stated that The Happening is his attempt at making an old fashioned "B-movie."  A statement that sadly echoes writer/director Stephen King's description of his own Maximum Overdrive as a "Moron Movie."  Fans like me know this kind of movie, they cluttered up drive-in and grindhouse theaters until the middle to late seventies, when the burgeoning video market gave them an all new home.  Many of those very same movies are now on DVD and are currently taking up ample amounts of shelf space on my DVD rack.  The big difference is that those movies were not self-conscious about their B-movie moronity, they were just movies slapped together by people of varying degrees of talent.  Some worked, most didn't.  More often than not, they were movies ripping off other successful movies in order to fulfill market demand.  They were not the vanity projects of talented, or semi-talented, filmmakers trying to muffle the fact that they had made a bad movie by saying they did it on purpose.  Statements like that ring false because no one wants to make a bad movie and they are bad for business because no one wants to pay ten bucks to see a bad movie.  Just try and make the best, most entertaining movie that you can and don't try to hide your failure by stating you did it on purpose.  It makes me distrust you as an artist.

There were a few elements of The Happening that I did like.  Shyamalan the director still knows how to build an atmosphere of creeping dread (the character of Mrs. Jones is a textbook example of that talent) and, for a few minutes, he delivers on the far too overhyped R-rated apocalyptic mayhem.  Sad to say, but there wasn't anywhere near enough of that mayhem to create the horror necessary to drive the film's central events.

Now, did you notice that I wrote "central events" instead of story?  M. Night Shyamalan the writer fails to come up with a compelling story to anchor the events that follow the opening act.  We just get an hour or so of various underdeveloped characters running from Point A to Point B and on to Point C with absolutely nothing to do but fall victim to the suicide inducing neurotoxin.  There is a hint of a marriage problem between Elliot and Alma, but it is laughably contrite.  If Shyamalan thinks that a minor misunderstanding between a husband and wife makes for compelling drama, I don't see anything of interest happening in his future offerings.

True Story: Swear to God - by Tom Beland

Tom Beland, a page designer/illustrator from Vallejo, California, met Lily Garcia, a radio/television personality from Puerto Rico, at a bus top while to two were en route to the opening of Disneyworld's Animal Kingdom.  The two hit it off in a big way and, after a long distance relationship, Beland decided to move to Puerto Rico to live with Garcia.

These are their stories...

Okay, True Story: Swear To God is just too cute, too adorable, too sweet, too funny and way too addictive.  It perfectly captures those little, and sometimes not so little, goofy and sweet, and sometimes not so sweet, moments that happen in every romantic relationship.  That is no easy thing, but Beland makes it look and read as if it were.  His book is also a wonderful way in which to show someone how comic book genre is so much more than pictures of guys and gals in goofy costumes beating the snot out of each other; and it does an equally wonderful job of showing why comic books are so special to collectors/readers like Beland and myself.

I'm so going to keep reading this comic book series and can only recommend that you do the same.

On VACATION!!!

That's right...we're on vacation.  See y'all in eight or nine days.

Monster Zoo - by Doug TenNapel

The financially ailing Los Angeles Zoo hopes that its display of a recently unearthed stone idol, for an animal god named Ungabe, will generate some desperately needed revenue.  Ty, with his obnoxious friend Carpo in tow, visits the zoo and, while there, bumps into Rainy, the girl he currently has a crush on.  With Rainy is her obnoxious jock boyfriend, Rick Bird.  Shortly after Rick pulls a prank that lands Ty and Carpo in some serious trouble, the Ungabe idol awakens and begins turning the zoo animals into hideously deformed monsters.  The four become trapped in the zoo and find themselves in a battle against an evil god that is about begin an animal apocalypse.

Doug TenNapel's Monster Zoo is a fast-paced and fun little story - one that does not make the mistake of taking itself all that seriously - that is made all the better by its witty and credible cast of characters.  Ty, Carpo, Rainy, and Rick Bird all behave like teenagers should.  That they handle the bizarre situation they find themselves thrust into far better than the adults they encounter is probably part of the book's sometimes subtle but most times not humor.  Yeah, there's plenty of fart and crap jokes sprinkled across the panels for the younger readers that are into stuff like that.  I'm not, but, in a refreshing change, this time around the crude humor actually plays a semi-important part in the story.  Ty makes good hero material and his embarrassing relationship with his irritating friend Carpo is nicely mirrored by Rainy's embarrassing relationship with her obnoxious boyfriend Rick.  Both relationships are echoed for good comedic effect by Carpo's interactions with the "Witchy Lady."  I do not want to get into any greater detail than that, because I don't want to ruin the fun of reading the story.  Just know that I found it to be both a funny and suspense filled read.  Crack it open and see for yourself, I am certain that you will agree.

Rose - by Leigh Greenwood

Elizabeth "Rose" Thornton has fallen on particularly hard times in post Civil War Texas, for the citizens of the city of Austin refuse to forgive Rose of the "sin" of her father, who fought on the side of the Union.  Ex-Confederate soldier George Washington Randolph has returned to his family's ailing ranch to help his brothers pick up the pieces left behind by his abusive father and the ravages of the war.

Knowing that he is in over his head, George places an advertisement for a woman to come to the ranch to cook the meals and clean up the homestead.  When an act of chivalry by George results in Rose losing the only job she has managed to get, she applies for the housekeeping position.  George is reluctant to hire her, because he finds her almost irresistably attractive, but he cannot stop himself from giving her the job.  Rose is determined to show George that she is capable of more than just cooking and cleaning.  She wants him to see her turn the Randolph ranch into a home...

Leigh Greenwood's Seven Brides series gets off to a solid and entertaining start with Rose.  It's a heartwarming and exciting tale that is made all the stronger by its refusal to sugar coat or gloss over the many resentments and dangers Southern citizens had to struggle with during the Reconstruction.  But those rough edges only make the Fairy Tale ending all the sweeter.  (This is a romance novel, so the emotionally satisfying and upbeat ending is a forgone conclusion.)  While Rose is an interesting - if a tad too forgiving - character, it is George and his struggle to overcome a history of abuse and self-hatred that really make the novel worthwhile reading.  There is also plenty of Old West style action and adventure - gunfights, stampedes, etc. - to keep the excitement varied and maintain plenty of interest in finding out what happens next.

Being the starting point for a series, each of George's brothers (save for the missing and presumed dead Madison) get a little extra space to develop beyond the confines of the usual supporting cast.  Each has a distinct characteristic that will no doubt play an important role in the series future installments.  I look forward to reading each and every one of them.

Zombie Tales The Series #1

Three tales of zombie mayhem by three master storytellers.

The War at Home Part 1: The Dead Get Busy: Story by Joe R. Lansdale, art by Eduardo Barreto.  A legless veteran and a buxom nurse find themselves in a nightmarish battle against the walking dead.

People Person: Story by Steve Niles, art by Daniel Lafrance.  Zombie plague survivor Scott Ball finally takes on the unpleasant task of dealing with his zombie wife, who refuses to leave him alone.

Spring 2061: Story by Kim Krizan, art by Jon Reed.  It's the 25th anniversary of the rise of the Zombie Class and Zombie Dominance Day celebrations are being held across the globe.

It's nice that whenever I start to grow tired of the glut of zombie stories out there, along comes a book that offers up something that convinces me that there might still be some creative life left in them rotten bones.  Zombie Tales The Series doesn't waste too much time creating some epic story line filled with dozens of characters trying to not only survive a zombie plague, but each other as well.  Of the three stories contained in this premiere issue, only The War at Home will continue on in future issues.  I don't know if that is a good or bad thing.  Lansdale's opening is filled with his distinctive energy and humor, but the action looks to have less narrative legs than his limbless central character.  But I have been a Lansdale fan since 1983 and know that he is utterly fearless of going way over the top, so I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

The other two Zombie Tales are one shots that are far darker than Lansdale's slaptstick laden opener.  While I loved both, and the solid one/two punch they deliver is worth the cover price, Steve Niles' People Person edged out Spring 2061 for my Best of Issue vote by virtue of its potent final curtain call.  At least I am assuming that the words The End that appear on the final panel of the two yarns mean what they say.  (Lansdale's ends with a To Be Continued tag.)  But writers have been known to change their mind, either from seemingly idle "What if?" flights of fancy that insist they explore what happens next, or simple fan demand for "More!"  Must every fan channel Charles Dickens Oliver Twist and repeatedly ask for more?  Isn't enough ever enough?

Nah, give me more!

It's also mine!

Another day and another glorious addition to my collection.  This is a splash page from Widow #3 and, best of all, it's an ORIGINAL.  I have collected my very first piece of original comic book art.  Sweet rhapsody of life, at last I found you

It's mine!

Just bought me a healthy dose of Mike Wolfer style awesome for my wall.

Sweet.

The Trouble With Tribbles - by David Gerrold

Author David Gerrold describes how the classic second season Star Trek episode The Trouble With Tribbles, which he wrote, came into being.

When I purchased The Trouble with Tribbles at my local used bookstore the cashier was both eager and delighted to point out that Gerrold's book had once been used as a textbook for College/University television writing classes.  After finishing it the other day, I can see why.  Gerrold's narrative offers a blunt and unvarnished look at the nuts and bolts of writing for episodic television.  Judging from some of the commentary I have read on Lee Goldberg's blog over the years, I think I can say that Gerrold's book has not aged a day and is just as timely as when it was first published, back in 1973.  I will leave to your personal consideration on whether or not that is a good thing.

You do not have to be a fan of either Science-Fiction in general or Star Trek in particular to enjoy reading The Trouble with Tribbles, but it will certainly help.  Gerrold is clearly a fan of both and the early sections of his narrative read like every fan's fantasy of getting to work on his or her favorite show of all time.  (FYI - my Fan Fantasy would have to be me getting the chance to be a writer for Kolchak: The Night Stalker, although I was all of eight years old when the show debuted and actually getting that chance would involve some serious warping of the Space/Time Continuum.)   There were passages where Gerrold could have been describing me - reading a book a day, (although the list of authors I guzzled leaned heavily to dark fantasy and horror: Stephen King, Peter Straub, James Herbert, John Saul, Charles L. Grant, and Ramsey Campbell, to name but a few) dragging his father to see some of the worst genre dreck ever to be splayed across the silver screen, (I still have not been forgiven for "forcing" my family to sit through The Swarm and The Car) watching countless hours of television, (again, heavy on the genre offerings) and collecting all manner of comics, magazines, books, posters, and models (although he does not mention the binge and purge habit that I had - Oh, to have the stuff I so callously discarded so long ago).  Throughout the book there was a feeling of "That could be me!  I could do that!" that may or may not be shared by other readers.  But one thing I can assure you can and will be shared: Gerrold's joy in being able to create and, even more important in the great scheme of things, to be a part of one of the most popular episodes of what is most likely broadcast television's most popular science-fiction series of all time.

Spooks

"Ladies and gentlemen...we have a situation."

SPOOKS are what the warriors recruited, trained, armed and deployed by the United States Department of Supernatural Defense call themselves.  Their job is simple: defend the USA from its supernatural enemies, be they foreign, domestic, or otherworldly.

The most recent threat to the USA comes in the lovely form of Patience Van Anders, a powerful witch.  She has united the vampires and werewolves of the world to help in her plan to raise the dead to attack and subjugate the living.

Wait a minute, didn't invading aliens already try the whole raising the dead to overthrow the living gambit in Plan 9 from Outer Space?  Maybe they did, but they didn't have a creative team consisting of Larry (G.I. Joe) Hama, R.A. Salvatore, and Ryan (Abominable) Schifrin telling their story.  No, they had Edward D. Wood Jr. and we all know just how well that turned out, don't we?

But when a comic book story line has me comparing it to what has been described by many as the Worst Movie Ever Made (it really isn't, it's far too entertaining of a viewing experience to be) then that should be a clear signal the book is in danger.  Right?  Well, almost...because I was thinking Hellboy, Men in Black and the Masters of Horror episode Homecoming long before the Wood comparison came to mind.  Come to think of it, there was not a single moment in any of the four issue story arc that I was not thinking of something else.

Again, that could have been a bad thing.  A very bad thing.  But, for some odd reason, it wasn't.  Because SPOOKS was just so much damn fun to read.  Cracking open issue after issue and letting my eyes glide over panel after panel was an experience akin to slipping into my most comfortable pair of pajamas and slippers.  It was horror-action comfort food that more than made up for what it lacked in imagination with plenty of slam-bang action and a cast of likable and modestly colorful characters.  It scratched my horror geek itch and when Spooks Omega Team hits shelves this July, I'll be more than happy to snatch it up to find out what happens next.

80 Million Eyes - by Ed McBain

Detectives Meyer and Carella investigate the death of a popular television comedian, while Detective Bert Kling attempts to smoke out a violent stalker terrorizing a woman from his past.

It's just another week for the hard working cops at the 87th Precinct...

80 Million Eyes may not be one of the better 87th Precinct novels out there, it has some minor pacing problems and, with the exception of a few scenes, more on that in a moment, the narrative has a soft-boiled texture to it.  But there are enough special moments sprinkled throughout the novel's 165 pages to make it an enjoyable read for fans of the long running series.  Newcomers to the 87th Precinct, however, might do better by picking up a different book in the series.  Some of my favorites, and books I feel comfortable recommending, are Tricks, Ghosts, and Poison, but that's just me and my idiosyncratic taste in fiction.

This entry, like many others in the series, switches back and forth between two very different cases.  The copyright page even goes so far as to list two separate titles, The Dear Hunter and Eighty Million Eyes.  Perhaps they had originally been published individually as short novels elsewhere.  Of the two, I thought that Hunter was the better.  It had a rough and tumble feel to it that was missing from the more gimmicky Eyes portions.  The best parts of Eyes were the occasional moments of playful banter between Meyer and Carella as they released their gradually mounting stress, while Hunter had several scenes of intense violence and nail biting suspense to keep the reader enthralled and wondering what would happen next.  Those sections of the novel make it worth cracking open, but, as I said in the previous paragraph, only after you have another 87th Precinct mystery, or three, under you belt.

Wormwood Gentleman Corpse #8: Segue to Destruction

"And the horsemen did look upon the Earth, and see much in the way of entertainment, hookers, and blow.  And it was good."

It's just another pleasant evening at The Dark Alley for Wormwood and the gang.  Pleasant, that is, until the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse's line of credit runs out at the Revelation Towers...

I've become so used to multiple issue story arcs that reading this one shot over my breakfast this morning was a bit of an unpleasant jolt.  It is not that the story is bad, far from it.  It's nasty, witty fun.  My problem was that I did not want it to end as quickly as it did!  I wanted more dirty, nasty snarkiness than I got.  I have become addicted to this book and its colorful cast of characters.  Creator/writer/artist Ben Templesmith has done a wonderful job of not only creating that colorful cast of characters, both hero and villain alike, he has also made learning about them just as much fun as watching them in action.  It takes a lot of hard work and talent to make exposition not only interesting, but fun to read and Templesmith - with the assist of Lorelei Bunjes - not only has that talent, but he lets the reader know  just how much he suffers for his art.  Your suffering is greatly appreciated by me, Mr. Templesmith.  Keep up the great work.

The Incredible Hulk Vol. 2: Boiling Point - by Bruce Jones, Lee Weeks & Tom Palmer

The fugitive Dr. Bruce Banner, framed for a murder that he did not commit, arrives in the modest sized town of Miser, Colorado, just in time to become trapped in a hostage situation.  One of several organizations chasing after Banner hopes to use that tension to its advantage, so that they can capture the Hulk...

With (at the time I write this review) a brand new Hulk movie only a week or so away from smashing into movie theaters across the land, the time seemed right to start cracking open The Incredible Hulk comics again.

Those that have been reading this blog for awhile (hi Mom, hi Dad) should know/remember that I spent a good year or two reading The Incredible Hulk, starting with Peter David's Tempest Fugit and sticking with the series all the way through to the conclusion of Planet Hulk.  But fatigue set in and, couple that with my dislike of huge crossover events, I walked away from the Hulk for awhile.

But the dust of World War Hulk has finally settled and my love of the character (and my son's rabid devotion to it) has drawn me back.  Since the creative team behind the new Hulk movie have been quite open about the debt their movie not only owes to cult classic TV series, but to the Bruce Jones run of the comic book series as well, then what better way to jump back into world of HULK SMASH than with one of the stories from the very run that the new movie will be homaging.

I think I picked a pretty damn good one, too.  The characters are nicely drawn (both figuratively as well as literally) and Jones' story kept me enthralled from beginning to end.  The idea/revelation that cloak and dagger agencies operated by non-governmental interests are also attempting to chase down and capture Banner creates the opportunity for more than a few alternate directions for future stories to take.  Of course, my rave is contingent on Jones & Co. actually exploring said alternatives in the issues that followed this arc.  I have only read this particular story and Return of the Monster, so I have no idea if they did manage to keep it fresh and exciting, or if they slipped into a repetitive story cycle and it became a wonderful opportunity that was wasted.  I look forward to finding out which path wound up being the one taken.

Star Trek New Frontier: Book One: House of Cards - by Peter David

The Thallonian Empire has collapsed and the worlds it once ruled with an iron fist are in chaos.  Refugees from the former Empire flood the Federation outpost Deep Space Five and the U.S.S. Enterprise, under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, has been ordered into the region to both assist in the care of the refugees and to help facilitate the bare beginnings of peace neogiations.

With the situation rapidly deteriorating in the former Empire - tribal hatreds causing civil wars on some planets, confused leaders arguing to the point of deadlock on others, and numerous would be tyrants brutally attempting to seize control on the rest - the Federation representatives reluctantly agree that a starship, but only a single starship, should be sent into the wreckage of the former Empire to investigate, report, offer humanitarian aid where needed, and, if requested, assist in the rebuilding process via peaceful means.

The only question remaining is who will command this starship?  Captain Picard believes he knows the perfect man for the job...

The first book in Peter David's long running New Frontier series is all set-up and no payoff.  The book does not end, it just stops, tacking a somewhat irritating To Be Continued tag at the bottom of the closing cliffhanger.  It's also a book best suited for those with solid knowledge of the Star Trek universe; something I do not, so I felt lost for short stretches of time.  But none of those complaints can keep me from looking forward to cracking open the next book in the series.  Peter David is not only a gifted storyteller, but he also has the enviable gift of being able to bring characters that are not his own to three dimensional life.  I just wish that Pocket books had released the first few books in the series as one novel, rather than as a smash and grab serial.  It would have made for more satisfying reading, I think.

Taggart - by Louis L'Amour

Adam Stark (no relation to Tony) has ventured into the heart of Apache country in search of gold, and he finds it.  More than enough of it to buy the ranch somewhere near Tucson that he dreams of owning.  The only drawback, other than being discovered and killed by Apaches, is the towering death trap the gold is buried beneath.  Accompanying Stark on his expedition are his wife Consuelo and his sister Miriam, an unmarried twenty-nine year old on the verge of becoming a spinster.  Fear and doubt has overwhelmed Consuelo's trust in her husband and she is plotting to leave him for a "strong man."

Into this tense situation stumbles Swante Taggart.  A fugitive from vigilante style "justice," for killing a man in self defense, Taggart has no desire to add to the Stark's already considerable troubles.  But Miriam calls to his heart and Adam Stark is an honorable man in dire need of help, so Taggart stays, albeit reluctantly.  For Taggart has not forgotten that Pete Shoyer, a ruthless bounty hunter with a 100% success rate, is determinedly hunting him down...

A few weeks ago I finally bought that DVD of Once Upon a Time in the West (my personal choice for Best Western Movie ever made*) that I had been meaning to buy for awhile.  Now that my DVD collection is a tad more complete in the Awesome department, I found myself suddenly suffering from a bad case of "Western Itch" (i.e. the sudden, powerful urge to enjoy a western story) and what better way to scratch it than by enjoying a novel by the late, great Louis L'Amour.

Taggart is as direct and to the point as its title. A simple and straight forward tale of good guys fighting bad guys (or guy), L'Amour narrates his story in a smooth, visually powerful voice that conjures up characters and landscapes so vivid that reading the book is akin to watching a beautifully filmed and wonderfully acted motion picture unspool before your eyes.  Read a few paragraphs of L'Amour's prose and I am certain you'll agree that the cover blurb on many editions of his books describing him as "America's Favorite Storyteller" is not just marketing hyperbole.  I think the book's only serious drawback is the one dimensional (practically racist) nature of the Apache threat.  But L'Amour was of a different generation (Taggart was originally published in 1959) than I, and times and viewpoints have changed considerably in the last 50 years.  I know that will not forgive his treatment of Native Americans to some would be readers, but the best I can do is simply offer an explanation and a word of warning to those more culturally sensitive readers.  But if you can look past that, then I think you will find a great deal to enjoy in this beautifully told tale.

*Which means I should get around to reviewing it on this blog...some day.

A Moment of LOL

more cat pictures

The Destroyer #10: Terror Squad - by Richard Sapir & Warren Murphy

A strange, new breed of terrorist threat has arisen in the world; common thugs that nonetheless manage to act like the well trained soldiers they are not during their attacks.  Remo and Chiun are dispatched to eradicate the threat and race against the clock to do so before an Anti-terrorist Conference is held at the United Nations...

This early Destroyer adventure (America's Favorite Action Series!) is a far more gritty and grim outing than the tongue in cheek and over the top romps that I am used to reading.  The book almost lost me with the opening rape scene (note to the authors, women DO NOT find themselves reluctantly enjoying getting violated sexually) that culminates in the brutal murder of an infant.  Yuck.  Then there was the blatant racism during Remo's torture and murder of a trio of Black Militant hijackers.  The sequence is played far too straight for me to buy as satire and, yet again, I found myself questioning whether or not I should even bother finishing the damn book.

Well, I did manage to finish Terror Squadand I have to say that, despite my misgivings early on, I wound up enjoying the second half far more than the first.  By the novel's end I was glad that I decided to work my way through the rough spots, for there was just enough of the humor that got me hooked on the series to sweeten the book to the level of tolerable.  Another thing that made suffering the book's unpleasant sections a tad easier was the high quality of the bickering between Remo and Chiun.  Whenever these two begin snapping at each other, whatever is happening around them becomes irrelevant and the back and forth quickly turns into something that reads like an Abbott & Costello routine.  The father/son dynamic between Remo and Chiun is nicely handled as well.  It was more than a bit touching to see just how much the two cared for and about each other, although one would never dare admit it to the other.

I can only recommend this entry to the most dedicated of Destroyer fans.  Newcomers and/or any first time readers would be better off reading something along the lines of Bay City Blast or Profit Motive, two entries I enjoyed far more than this one.

The Second Summoning: The Keeper's Chronicles #2 - by Tanya Huff

Having closed the portal to Hell in the basement of the Elysian Fields Guest House, Claire Hansen, her talking cat Austin, and Dean McIssac are now free to follow Claire's summons to other rifts that are in need of closing.  Well, sort of.  Claire and Dean have yet to consummate their romantic relationship and that is distracting Claire to no end.  She is also none too comfortable with the whole Keeper/Bystander romance thing.  Fearing that she will only put Dean at risk, she sends him away.  Things get worse for Claire, however, because she cannot stop thinking about Dean!  She calls him back, literally, and the two waste no time burning off their pent up sexual energy.

Unfortunately the afterglow, thanks in large part to some tampering with the possibilities by Claire's teen aged sister Diana, leads to an unneeded manifestation of the Light that, thanks to a misunderstanding with a young lady's irate father, becomes trapped on Earth as a very real teen aged boy.

Making matters worse is the powers of Darkness.  Sensing an imbalance, a demon is sent to manifest as a human being to counteract the angel's bodily manifestation.  Good and evil being as different as night and day, the demon is a teen aged girl.

Oh, the possibilities...

As much as I adored reading Summon the Keeper, I dreaded cracking open The Second Summoning.  It was not that I expected the second book to be bad, it was more that I feared it would not be as good, or simply as much fun to read, as the first one.  I have been burned by enough shoddy sequels to expect diminished returns whenever a writer or filmmaker offers a second helping of something I enjoyed the first time around; and I loved both the characters in Summon the Keeper and the world they inhabited enough to simply content myself with revisiting them in that particular story, and just leave the question of "What happened next?" unanswered.

Well, I changed my mind and decided to finally have author Tanya Huff answer the "What next?" question.  I am happy to report that what does happen next is, at times, just as much laugh out loud fun as it was the first time around, and when it is not quite as much laugh out loud fun as the first time, it is still fun in that comfy and cozy "slipping on my favorite sweater" kind of way.  It was a fun read that, when it ended, left me eager to find out what happens in what looks to be the final book in the series, Long Hot Summoning.  (Say it isn't so!)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

After being abducted by Russian agents and then almost killed in a nuclear blast, Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones is blacklisted out of his teaching job by a suspicious federal government.  Almost immediately thereafter a motorcycle riding youth (Shia LaBeouf) approaches Jones with an encrypted message regarding yet another paranormal artifact and the lost city that it is hidden within.

As Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull rattled along from Plot Point A to Plot Point B it became painfully clear to me that Franchise Fatigue had finally set in.  While an entertaining enough movie on its own terms, the total sum of its many parts adds up to a series entry that has noticeably slipped from the A-list entertainments it is following and has become the very B-list programmer it is supposedly homaging.

While the magic that made the first three Indiana Jones adventures so much fun is there at times, it has faded to the point that it cannot distract completely from the mediocrity of the movie.  For large stretches of its running time Skull played more like an Indiana Jones rip-off made on a comparable budget than an actual film in its own series.  It's to the original trilogy what Jurassic Park III was to the films it followed, an entertaining follow-up that comes close, but still misses the mark by a visible margin.  (And I liked Jurassic Park III.)  Another thing that weakens the film is its constant visual references to Raiders of the Lost Ark, something that Temple of Doom and Last Crusade did not do.  It just drives home needless reminder after needless reminder that this is a bona-fide Indiana Jones movie rather than simply trying to be the action-adventure story it should have been.  I think that even director Steven Spielberg knew this while making the film, for the movie plays as if made on autopilot during its best moments and with complete and utter disinterest during its weakest.  The best example of this disinterest occurs near the end, when Jones and the gang are spat out of a tunnel by a geyser of water and immediately thereafter are not only completely dry, but their clothes are fresh out of the laundry clean.  To paraphrase an old Mystery Science Theater 3000 routine, "Spielberg just didn't care."

Baycon 2008

We got back from Baycon 2008 late last night.  I had to cut our planned three days/two nights convention binge down to two days/one night, thanks in large part to a homesick child (His first words to me Sunday morning were, "I really miss Smokie."  If you don't know, Smokie is our seventeen year old cat.), concerns for the total cost of a two night stay in a hotel (I was looking at around three hundred dollars for room and food alone), as well as the household chores and such that awaited me back at home.

Then again, the first panel on Monday doesn't start until ten o'clock and it's only eight (well, it was when I started writing this recap) and it is only an hour drive to the hotel, so I could still make it, and...but I have to go grocery shopping, I have to clean the kitchen (and bathrooms), and vacuum, and I did promise Christopher that we'd go see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull today...

But the panels are so cool and the ones listed for today sound so cool and...

It's hard being a nerd, you know?  And Memorial Day 2009 seems so far away.  A galaxy far, far away far away, you know?  I'm going to be feeling the siren call of my kindred all day.  But if you're a nerd and a con addict, then you already know what I mean.  If any of my readers (obviously not you Mom and Dad) were at Baycon and attended either the Comfort Reading, Alien Plagues, or Arthur C. Clarke panels, please let me know how they were.  Please.  I so wish I could be there, but I have responsibilities.  Excuse me while I kick my desk and pout over the injustice of it all.

And there is alway next year, right?

Hope to see you there.  You're all a great bunch.

Series Novels: Kage Baker, Mike Shepherd, Irene Radford, and others talked about the joys, irritations, and agonies of writing series novels.  Stand alone books that share characters and a collective backstory seem to be the best bet.  Writing a single story that is drawn out over several different books appears to be a disaster waiting to happen.

Plot Point Research: Kage Baker, Tim Powers, Irene Radford, Walter Hunt, and others (it's already becoming a blur) explained the utter necessity of research.  Even if you're story is set in a make believe universe, you still should know how certain things function.  If your characters ride horses, or even unicorns, then knowing how to ride and care for a horse is a given.  If your character is a farmer, or a cop, or even a cashier at a retail outlet, knowing the hows of their professions is a given.  All of the panelists appeared to be research junkies and I was happy that the name of David Morrell, an admitted research junkie, was invoked.

Pulp Bible - The Original 7 Plots: Kage Baker, Valerie Frankel, Howard Hendrix, and others tore apart the myth of there only being a certain amount of story arcs.  A story is far more than just its core events, it's how those events impact the characters.  The potential for different stories is only limited by the number of those with a story to tell.  I was also pleased with the discussion on the snobbery the literary circle has for the genre writer.

Ideas I Wish I Never Had: Jon DeCles, Deidre Saoirse Moen, Ian Grey and others talked about ideas that led to headaches, heartaches, and assorted writing disasters.  It got off topic and one panelist rambled a bit too long and a tad too pointlessly (and that is an entirely subjective point of view other attendees may or may not share), but it was entertaining and reassured me that I was not alone in my continued wandering onto the path of the False Start or Narrative Dead End.

When The Zombie Apocalypse Comes: Paula Butler, Paul Chafe, Kay Pannell, Michael Sarkisian and others showed me just how dead I would be in the event of a cataclysmic event.  Fun but depressing final panel of the day.

What do you mean the Masquerade is full and we can't get in?  Do you know how long we've been standing in line?

Do You Judge A Book By Its Cover?: Of course I do.  Bad covers have kept me away from good books, good cover art has lured me into buying and reading bad books, and I routinely give a pass to beefcake covered romance novels, but not beefcake covered Men's Adventure Novels.  Why is that?  Author Scott Sigler, artist Todd Lockwood, and others shared the hows, whys, and professional and personal misadventures of trying to find the "perfect" cover for a book.  This was one of my favorite panels and, I thought, a perfect way to start my Sunday panel binge.

Superheroes rule..Comic Books Drool: Comic book characters are extremely popular, but comics aren't.  Ed Green, Allison Lonsdale, and Jason Schacher attempt to understand and explain why.  Another great panel that really got to the grit of the matter.  Sexism (real and/or perceived), isolationism (why would non-comic book readers go to a comic book store), and bad editing choices were all discussed with intelligence and humor.

Mad Scientists...Working With YOU For A Better Tomorrow: Real scientists talking about the insanity of scientific theory and experimentation.  Science has never been my thing (I'm a fantasy kind of guy, it seems) and this was the only panel that had me questioning my nerdiness, but there was enough humor and real life examples of true science gone mad that it was time well spent.

Scott Sigler Interview: Okay, I'm back on familiar ground.  Sigler is funny and clearly writes the kind of books I live to read.  Monster stories!  I'm so going to buy a copy of Infected from my local, independent bookstore.  (Missed my chance to snag a copy in the dealers room.)

Trailer Park: A rousing close to my Baycon 2008 experience.  I finally saw Batman: Dead End and loved it.  Can't say the same for some of the other shorts (especially that cinematic turd about Emo and the Old Guy, what the fuck was that?) or the TV commercial about balls bouncing around San Francisco.  Hey, if I wanted to watch lame TV commercials, then I would be watching TV, okay?  But Imps was cute.  There were too many trailers for games, especially Team Fortress 2, and I had seen almost all of the move trailers before - except for the one for Igor, which also looks cute.  Not a great end, but a suitable one.

Good, good times this year.

The only Dealers Room swag I snagged this year were some used books: Earthwreck! by Thomas N. (The Glass Inferno) Scortia, Get Off The Unicorn by Anne McCaffrey, The Best Horror Stories from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Volume 2, and Shock II by Richard Matheson.  My only regret is that I didn't get any pictures of all the cosplayers.  Well, there is next year to do that...

Until then, or until SiliCon in October, or WonderCon in February...I'll be waiting.

Hunter's Moon - by Lori Handeland

Leigh Taylor is a hunter, a Jager-Sucher; a killer of werewolves, in the simplest of terms, and is one of the best there is.  She has been given an assignment to train Jessie McQuade, Sheriff of Crow Valley, Wisconsin, on how to hunt and kill werewolves and stay alive to be able to do so again.  Taylor is not happy with the assignment, she prefers to "work alone."  But that happiness turns to confusion when she meets the mysterious and moody Damien Fitzgerald.  Leigh is drawn to this man that is as sad and withdrawn as he is gentle and generous.  Although the nightmarish and painful memories of how her last affair ended (with a werewolf slaughtering her entire family and marking her as its mate) warn her against ever taking the risk of loss again, her growing feelings for Damien refuse to be denied...

With Lori Handeland's Nightcreature series I do believe that I have found a romance series capable of simultaneously scratching my incessant reader's itch for Happily Ever After love stories as well as for Go For The Throat thrills n' chills.  (Is it too much to ask that, after putting the characters through Hell, a horror story allow them a little taste of Heaven as a reward?  Evidently so.)  Hunter's Moon delivers ample - and almost equal - amounts of both thrills n' chills and warm n' fuzzies and, at this point, I can only assume/hope that the other novels in the Nightcreature series do the same.

The morose and clearly guilt plagued Damien Fitzgerald is a wonderful counterbalance for Leigh; his also being a werewolf (not really a spoiler, while the hints are blatant, a lot of dramatic tension is built from Leigh's denial of the obvious) that kills other werewolves makes him appear to be a kindred spirit.  Or his he?  For there is also a rogue werewolf that is eating other werewolves, absorbing their power for its own nefarious purpose.  Is Damien that werewolf, or is it the White Wolf that slaughtered Leigh's family and marked her as its mate?  Remember, wolves mate for life and werewolves live forever.

I loved almost every page of Hunter's Moon and can easily see myself reading it again at some point in the future.  If Romance Novels with monsters are your kind of thing, then this book should be one you will enjoy curling up with, especially if there is a full moon hanging in the sky above you.  Highly recommended.

Keith Olbermann tells it like it is, again.

Cold Whisper - by Rick Hautala

Sarah Lahikainen's imaginary friend Tully is far from imaginary.  Just ask any person that was ever unlucky enough to get Sarah good and angry.  You probably won't get an answer, though.  Because they are all dead.

Plagued by guilt and self-loathing, Sarah manages to successfully drive Tully away.  But a short time after doing so the man who raped and murdered Sarah's mother abducts Sarah so he can tie up some "loose ends."

Rick Hautala's Cold Whisper is the latest addition to my short and inglorious list of Novels-So-Incredibly-Awful-I-Could-Not-Finish-Reading-Them.  It joins literary debacles such as Clive Barker's Imajica and Richard Laymon's Island on my Bookshelf of Shame.  But while I found Imajica to be insufferably overwritten and dull, and Island to be insufferably overwritten, grotesquely sleazy and drawn out to the point of becoming dull, Cold Whisper was simply offensive and insulting to my intelligence. 

Hautala's book, like all his others, is plagued by a writing style that swings back and forth from poor to lazy.  There is no such thing as narrative subtlety in a Rick Hautala novel.  He delights in going needlessly overboard, always choosing to drive home each and every plot development with a sledgehammer made of soap opera styled melodrama.  Sarah Lahikainen is not only an unlikable character, she is almost impossible to relate to, as her inner turmoil and suffering is manifested as the worst kind of self-centered self-pity.  The supernatural "character" of Tully and his murderous exploits have almost nothing whatsoever to do with the real life terrors that Sarah faces in the book's final hundred pages.  This is where the book offended and insulted.  In the first half of the novel, Tully rips apart Sarah's pet cat, kills her baby brother, her pregnant stepmother, and some stupid drunk slob that attempts to sexually assault her at a graduation party.  Yet he is somehow incapable of coming to Sarah's aid when her mother is brutally raped and murdered right before her eyes.  The worst he can do is freak the guy out by giving him a gentle tap on the shoulder.

Yeah, right.

Then there is the matter of Sarah's abduction and sexual assault that kicks off the book's final hundred pages.  That was the point where I decided "no more" and closed the book without finishing it and, for personal reasons, I refuse to even discuss that disgustingly lazy attempt at inducing "horror."

But if you are ever in the mood for a scary story about a troubled teen and his murderous imaginary friend, then track down a copy of Charles L. Grant's novel The Pet instead.

Son of Rambow (2008)

Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), a young boy in a strict, fundamentalist religious sect, finds an outlet for his vivid imaginings and unvoiced emotional problems when he is befriended by Lee Carter (Will Poulter), a troubled youth that dreams of entering a short film in a BBC contest called "Screen Test."

Son of Rambow is so much more than that simple description, though.  It's an emotionally and psychologically complicated film that explores friendship, family, and growing up in a way that deftly manages to balance both the story's comedic and dramatic storylines - allowing them to unspool concurrently without becoming entangled or having one overwhelm the other - until the very end.  Son of Rambow not only had me giggling at the boys foolish antics, it also had me in tears as the touching aspects that aren't hinted at in the film's trailer are introduced and explored.  I tell you, if this movie isn't nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay come Oscar time, then there is simply no justice in the entertainment industry.

It would be very interesting to hear what those blinded by ideology will make of Will and his family's strict, isolationist religious background, although I don't really have the stomach to hear one group or another whining about their religion being maligned.  The Brethren are nothing more than a fictional construct that illustrates the futility of trying to hide from, rather than deal with, the unpleasant challenges of life, nothing more.  Will's emotional growth as he begins to question and challenge his way of life (and his mother's reaction to it) is not a condemnation of "religion," it is just one of the many levels that the film uses to examine and explore the traumas of "growing up."  Adding emotional and psychological power to Will's journey is the symbolic power in the story that he concocts for Lee Carter's project: the son of Rambo (yes, Sylvester Stallone's iconic action hero character) seeks to rescue his father from the enemy forces of the Scarecrow.  What makes Will's story significant is that his father is dead and Will is clearly dealing with his unresolved grief issues by creating a fantasy wherein he can rescue and return his father to his family.

Lee Carter's story arc doesn't have quite the same amount of psychological complexity that Will Proudfoot's does, but that doesn't make it any less powerful.  A great deal of that power comes from actor Will Poulter's performance.  He creates one of the most three dimensional and utterly realistic characterizations that it has been my pleasure to see in a film in a long time.  Although a conniving bully at first, Lee Carter eventually becomes a sympathetic focal point by the film's touching conclusion.  Although I would love to discuss exactly why that it is, I do not want to spoil the movie for you.  I'd rather you see it for yourself.