Month: August 2012
Traveling the Star Wars Universe with Lando Calrissian
I’ve had a Star Wars itch lately. It might be because I was listening to Professor Fears talk about the fall of the Old Roman Republic, giving way to the Empire. The parallels, in terms and sometimes beyond that, are pretty obvious. Or it might be because Asimov’s Foundation books made me nostalgic for another galaxy with humans on every planet and an enormous empire spanning the systems.
I’ve also had a bit of a memory itch. Some time very long ago I read a book about Lando Calrissian. There was a robot in it, they were in the ruins of an ancient civilization, and at some point they got separated and time started moving at different speeds for each of them. And that’s pretty much all I remembered.
My Star Wars itch made me decide it was a good time to try to hunt down this vague book memory, and fortunately it wasn’t nearly as hard as you’d expect. L. Neil Smith wrote a trilogy, The Lando Calrissian Adventures, and the first one, Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu, involves a search for an ancient artifact. I decided to gamble that was the one I remembered, and sure enough–there’s Vuffi Raa as his android sidekick, and that bit about time moving at different speeds was exactly the way I remembered it.
This was a really fun idea for a book series. I can only comment on the first one, but it starts well. Lando is not really in the original movies all that much, and I haven’t seen him in other books a lot either. But he’s got that charming rogue thing going on that Han Solo has working for him too. He clearly has plenty of adventures in his past, so why not some books about them? This trilogy (or at least the first book) is set well before the original movies. Lando recently won the Millenium Falcon in a game of chance, and if he’s met Han yet, it hasn’t come up.
Other than the ship, and of course Lando himself, there’s minimal connection to anything recognizable from Star Wars. The technology and the universe structure is right, but there are hardly any references to the Empire and I can’t remember a single one to the Jedi (which makes sense, as during this period they were wiped out). For a Star Wars fan, this is an interesting delving into a supporting character, and for a non-Star Wars fan, I think this could easily be read as an independent sci fi book. Apparently this was written very early on, which explains a lot.
I really enjoyed the characters here. Lando is a gambler, not a fighter. He’s a rogue and a conman and he can fight if he needs to, but he’d rather avoid trouble when he can. Vuffi Raa, as frequently happens with Star Wars droids, is the most endearing character. He’s a mix of programming and independent thought–for instance, he’s programmed to be unable to commit violence, but he occasionally finds a work-around when the situation calls for it. He’s very loyal, has a sense of humor, and has deep compassion for other machines (which baffles Lando, prompting a stern and insightful lecture).
The plot, as mentioned, is about a search for an ancient artifact belonging to a lost race. It’s a decent quest, though the characters, the ruins (which are on an impossibly large scale) and the mystery of the lost race were what grabbed me. In a funny way, this felt more like a Star Trek book than a Star Wars one. I’ve always thought it was all about that last word for each of them, and this book is more about the journey than the battles–and, like Trek, about the characters and the alien races. That doesn’t mean there aren’t fight sequences, and there’s good tension and climactic moments. It wrapped up a little quickly, but that’s a minor criticism.
All in all, a very good book I think I could recommend to a wide variety of sci fi fans–the dedicated Star Wars fan, the tentative Star Wars fan, a Star Trek fan, or anyone who’s feeling a bit of a Star Wars itch!
Other reviews (by more dedicated Star Wars fans than me!):
Expanded Universe Project
MiB Reviews
Rancors Love to Read
Anyone else?
Enter Three Witches
I finally managed to read the first proper Witches novel in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, Wyrd Sisters
Duke Felmet killed a king to gain the throne of Lancre, and now has a few problems. For one thing, he can’t seem to get the blood off his hands. And for another, there are three witches in the neighborhood. Magrat is a well-meaning witch who thought it would be a good idea to form a coven with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. They don’t quite understand her interest in talismans and rituals (because it’s really headology that counts), but they join anyway. The dead king’s baby son falls into their hands and they promptly pack him off with adoptive parents in a traveling theatre company. Meanwhile the dead king is still hanging around as a ghost, there’s a Fool remarkably interested in Magrat, and the land doesn’t like its new ruler.
The witches are in fine form here. This is the first with all three of them, but they’re already fully-defined. Granny wasn’t quite there yet in her earlier book, Equal Rites, but she’s excellent here, with a will of iron–or harder. Nanny is garrulous, irreverent and fun-loving, but don’t ever cross her (or invite her to sing). Magrat, well…she tries so hard. She wants to be a proper witch, with all the ceremony and theatrics, and doesn’t quite seem to realize it’s just not meant to be.
It may be the little touches I like best here. The ghost king is thoroughly annoyed by all the other ghosts floating through his castle–it’s so crowded, and some are just blobs who have really let themselves go. There’s a mystic stone out on a hill that’s so bashful it hides if anyone comes by. There are frequent Macbeth quotes, as well as other Shakespeare references; the theatre company puts on a wide variety of identifiable albeit re-named plays.
And Death of course has a cameo, and he’s wonderful. He’s much better at the role than the actor assigned to be Death in the play, and he’s very disturbed when a living character goes mad and decides to become a ghost (because…that’s just not allowed).
There’s a cartoon miniseries, which naturally is going straight into my Netflix queue. Has anyone seen it? Is it any good?
I think this would be a great place for someone to start the Discworld series. It’s independent of earlier ones, introduces major characters, and is brilliantly funny. It begins the Witches plotline, which spans several books that are more interconnected than most of Discworld. It worked out for me, even though I read them in reverse order…but you might be better off going front-to-back!
Author’s Site: http://terrypratchettbooks.com/
Other reviews:
Books Writing Tea
Drown My Books
Sabrina’s Bookshelf
Anyone else?
Saturday Snapshot: Phantom Fashion
I had a fun package arrive this week. I realized that I was missing a vital resource for my upcoming trip–a shirt to wear when I attend Phantom of the Opera. I had one that I wore to the last, er, six performances I saw, but it got a stain on it. So I went on CafePress to solve this problem…
I wanted something a little more unique than just the logo, and this looked fun. Tip if you ever buy from CafePress though–they cut large!
And now I need your opinion on something. So I definitely wear the shirt to the play–do I also wear it to the Paris Opera House? Is it a fun conversation-starter, or does it brand me as the crazy fangirl who’ll be the 1,000th person to ask about Box Five?
Decisions, decisions. Let me know what you think 🙂 and of course, check out more Saturday Snapshots on At Home with Books.
Favorites Friday: Dramatic Musicals
I was thinking about doing a post on favorite musicals, and realized I have too many. And also that there seems to be two types of musicals. The division is clear to me but hard to define. The best I can say is that there are the dramatic ones, and the light-hearted ones.
Or maybe I’d do well here to quote Andrew Lloyd Webber, who I heard say something in an interview (I think talking about Phantom) to the effect that musicals must be about the big emotions, the passions and the desires and the tragedies. The emotions are so intense that the characters have to sing, because words simply aren’t enough.
That may be the case in Webber’s musicals, but there are others that just don’t seem quite that, well, intense. So today, I’m talking about the intense ones, the big emotion ones–the dramatic ones, which may nevertheless be very funny at times. Some other week I’ll talk about the light-hearted ones, which may still touch on deep emotions and have dramatic moments. It’s a complicated division… But anyway–on to the musicals.
Phantom of the Opera has to be mentioned first here, which will surprise absolutely no one. I’ve waxed on here and here, so I won’t do it again today…
Les Miserables is my favorite musical that I’ve never seen; I’ve just listened to the soundtrack. I love loud emotional songs, and Valjean gets some really good ones. There’s all the despair and the tragedy and the yearning…and then there’s the revolutionaries and all their songs, and Eponine’s tragic unrequited love, and Gavroche comes in with his funny songs and…big emotions. Beautiful music.
Sweeney Todd…well, it’s almost strange how much I like this one. I mean, it’s about a barber who kills people, and his partner who bakes them into pies. Really not my kind of story. And yes, I saw the movie to begin with because it was starring Johnny Depp, but I ended up genuinely loving the music…and sort of the story, horrible though parts of it are. But there’s the tragedy and the romance and the really funny song about cannibalism and lots of loud emotional songs and…it’s a cathartic experience. Honestly. It makes me feel the entire range of emotions.
Wicked is giving me the most trouble with my divisions, because in some ways it feels more like a light-hearted one. Certainly large portions of it are light and funny. But…I love it mostly for “The Wizard and I” and “Defying Gravity” and the complicated relationship between Elphaba and Glinda, and all of those parts seem like they belong in the dramatic musical list. I actively dislike the book, but I love the musical. I love Elphaba’s yearning to prove herself, and Glinda’s somewhat haphazard growth as a person, and I just love that it’s a musical with two strong female characters. And now I have real trouble listening to “Ding-Dong, the Witch Is Dead” because it seems so heartless.
Jesus Christ Superstar is my go-to musical every Lent. It’s definitely a big emotion one, and I love the portrayal of the characters. It’s not always quite Biblical, but you can tell Webber knew what he was doing and that he’d read the Gospels (he practically quotes John in places). The semi-modern context makes it all so much more accessible, and is a good reminder–these people weren’t ancient figures at the time. I love how human everyone is. And the music sticks in my head like you wouldn’t believe.
What are your favorite musicals? 🙂
Tales of the Marvelous 