MY MARK LAWRENCE/RED SISTER/PRINCE OF FOOLS CONUNDRUM

Where novels are concerned, tastes and preferences are always changing. I did not realize how true this was until I attempted to read ‘Prince of Fools’ and ‘Red Sister’ by Mark Lawrence.

I loved ‘The Broken Empire’ series. The books were grimdark. Jorg was a teenager with psychopathic tendencies. And yet he was the protagonist the novels expected you to root for because Mark Lawrence had constructed a dark and demented world filled with far worse antagonists.

‘Prince of Thorns’ was fast-paced and exciting. ‘King of Thorns’ expanded the setting. It introduced the hidden players pulling the strings behind the scenes, expounding on the magic system, and providing insight into the events that destroyed 21^st Century civilization.

 ‘Emperor of Thorns’ finally brought the entire saga to a head by throwing Jorg into an impossible conflict with the undead. The series was brutal and everyone was highly unlikable. Yet I couldn’t get enough of the trilogy because the individual stories were so clever, unpredictable, and fun.

So, what happened? I don’t know. I was so excited to read ‘The Red Queen’s War’ series because it was set in the same universe as the Broken Empire.

This time, Prince Jalan took center stage. The spoiled, cowardly son of a merciless monarch, Jalan was supposed to spend ‘Prince of Fools’, his first adventure, traveling the land, finding his courage, and ultimately facing a mysterious foe known only as the Silent sister.

The novel had everything I could possibly want in a Mark Lawrence story. But it couldn’t hold my interest.

So, I abandoned ‘Prince of Fools’ for ‘Red Sister’, the first novel in the ‘Book of the Ancestors’ series. It wasn’t that difficult to understand the hype surrounding ‘Red Sister’.

The story was concerned with the exploits of Nona Grey, a fiery girl that had to find her bearings in a convent designed to turn girls like her into assassins.

I couldn’t have asked for a better plot. I’ve yet to encounter killer nuns in fantasy fiction. Nona was great as far as protagonists go: feisty, murderous, and sad.

But again, the novel completely failed to hold my interest, and I couldn’t figure out why, not at first.

But now I think I get it. The Broken Empire gave me such a concentrated dose of Mark Lawrence’s style that I feel like I know what to expect from him, and that makes the rest of his work less enticing.

Does that make sense? Look at it this way. Imagine drinking so many bottles of coca-cola that you lose the taste for it. The drink isn’t necessarily bad. You just don’t care for it, not anymore because you know what to expect. The fizzy sensation at the back of your throat doesn’t induce the same pleasurable sensation you remember.

‘Prince of Fools’ is well-written. But I read roughly a third of the novel before I realized that the world Prince Jalan inhabited had nothing new to offer me. Jalan’s cowardly ways became tiresome after a while and I didn’t care enough about the looming threat of the dead king to anticipate his eventual conflict with Jalan because we already know what happens to him in ‘Empire of Thorns’.

‘Red Sister’ felt almost fresh because it was essentially Harry Potter but with assassin nuns at a convent rather than wizards at a school. The notion of exploring every stage of young Nona’s training was honestly intriguing. And once the classes began in earnest, my curiosity was piqued.

I enjoyed watching Nona as she bumbled her way through her new social landscape. But Lawrence’s overall style, the dank atmosphere of the world he had constructed, the tragedy of his characters, none of it could keep me engaged.

I won’t say that I’ve outgrown the author’s style. It would be more accurate to say that I’ve experienced Lawrence’s greatness and I have had my fill. That isn’t a bad thing.

GRIMDARK: FINDING THE BALANCE

SNAKEWOOD BY ADRIAN SELBY

If you read fantasy on a regular basis, then you are probably familiar with Grimdark, and you either love it or hate it.

Fantasy is a bright, inspirational genre. Most people do not know this. Older individuals, in particular, see demons and witches and the undead, and their minds immediately jump to the worst conclusions.

Remember when Harry Potter was lambasted for promoting witchcraft and devil worship?

But I have nothing bad to say about anyone who promotes those misconceptions because they are born of ignorance.

Fantasy fiction is one of the most hopeful entertainment genres ever created, a literary landscape within which heroes are just and honor-bound, where the best of humanity strives against all odds to vanquish ultimate evil.

The best fantasy novels will leave your spirit soaring on wings of elation and optimism.

No writer personified the positive aspect of fantasy fiction quite like J.R.R. Tolkien. It is hardly surprising that Tolkien is often touted as the father of fantasy fiction.

As such, one wonders what the author of The Lord of the Rings would think of the prevailing popularity of grimdark.

The grimdark subgenre is fantasy fiction with a dark edge. George R.R. Martin breathed new life into it when he wrote the first Game of Thrones novel and instantly became the new father of fantasy fiction.

Martin sought to subvert every trope that the Lord of the Rings ever championed, and he more than succeeded in his efforts, paving the way for a new wave of fantasy fiction authors driven by a desire to bury the genre’s previously whimsical nature.

Today, the fantasy landscape is ruled by the likes of Mark Lawrence and Steven Erikson, and the question is, why?

Grimdark is easy enough to spot. Expect far more profanity, plenty of graphic sex, and an outpouring of violence and gore.

The villains are so horrible as to turn your stomach but the heroes are never equally heroic. Rather, they lean into murky gray waters, more often than not skirting and even crossing the line into villainy.

Good does not always triumph and even those victories that the protagonist eventually ekes out when it is all said and done are made bitter by the painful sacrifices that were suffered along the way.

As the name suggests, grimdark is grim. The world authors like Scott Bakker and Joe Abercrombie paint is harsh and merciless.

And yet the popularity of grimdark only grows with each passing year. Why is this?

Here’s what i have surmised. People don’t read grimdark because they are sadistic creeps that enjoy swimming in the misery of fictional characters.

Readers today love grimdark because the subgenre is so grounded. Once upon a time, people reveled in the idea of noble men and women of perfect character traversing the land and righting wrongs wherever they went.

But after decades of the same old stories, the fantasy genre grew stale. So authors began to pepper their fantasy heroes with a few more flaws, shading them in less heroic colors.

And readers responded to these changes with considerable enthusiasm. So the publishing industry started leaning in that direction, nurturing new talent that wasn’t afraid to push the boundaries and cross all the lines, until the grimdark genre finally secured its hold.

Grimdark is expected to continue along its trajectory of growth because people love the idea of stories that more accurately reflect reality.

They want heroes who fall, men and women that are more likely to do wrong than they are to pursue justice. Readers want sex and gore and villains that reign victorious because that storytelling approach more accurately mirrors the real world and the lives they lead.

Once upon a time, people looked to fantasy fiction to escape the darkness of their realities. Now they want fantasy fiction that embraces that darkness.

+FINDING THE BALANCE

Personally, i don’t know what i think of Grimdark. On the one hand, i love stories that aren’t afraid to get dark and gritty.

But i also hate books that spend too much time relishing in the misery of their characters.

You need a balance. I don’t think there’s a place today for fantasy fiction that’s all sunshine and rainbows. But you don’t have to so thoroughly beat your heroes down that, even as the reader, i’m incapable of seeing any light at the end of the tunnel.

There has to be a space for books with serious stakes, where bad things happen to good people and evil sometimes triumphs, but where hope also thrives.

The best example i can think of, strangely enough, is Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.

No one in their right mind would ever associate Sanderson with Grimdark. But Mistborn gets quite dark. Terrible things happen. The good guys stumble, a lot.

And yet, there’s an element of optimism that keeps the despair at bay, and i like that.

Mistborn is the future of Grimdark, or at least books like it. Sure, the popularity of Grimdark as it stands today only seems to grow with each passing year.

But that trend can’t last. At some point, people are going to start yearning for that escapist aspect of fantasy fiction that first drew them to the genre.

HOGWARTS LEGACY: OH MY GOD! SQUEEEEAL!

‘Hogwarts Legacy’ is the best game of 2022. Better than ‘Horizon Forbidden West,’ ‘Elden Ring,’ ‘Ghostwire: Tokyo’ and every other major release coming in the next few months.

But how could I possibly know that? Obviously, I don’t. The game isn’t out yet. But I’m a Potterhead, and I can’t help but show my bias where this franchise is concerned.

Interestingly enough, I don’t classify myself as a Potterhead on most days because I rarely think about Harry Potter. I haven’t touched the books in over fifteen years.

In fact, on most days, I’m convinced that I’ve moved on from Harry Potter. This happens with most franchises. Your love tends to fade once you stop engaging them.

However, in this case, every time I see anything even remotely related to Harry Potter, my adoration for this franchise returns with a bang. Look at Fantastic Beasts. I HATED Fantastic Beasts 2. I don’t know what went wrong with the film, but it was hot garbage.

And yet, the moment I watched the trailer for ‘Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,’ I was back in. I can’t wait to watch it.

That brings us to ‘Hogwarts Legacy,’ an action role-playing video game from Warner Bros and Avalanche Software that has done more to revitalize my interest in Harry Potter than any other piece of media I’ve consumed in years.

Here’s the thing. I hated ‘Shadow of Mordor.’ Yes, yes, I know. To most people, ‘Shadow of Mordor’ is a stunning triumph. But I lost interest after just an hour of gameplay.

Why? Because I went in expecting a Lord of the Rings masterpiece akin to those older LOTR titles from the PS2 days. I wanted to explore Middle Earth, to live and breathe the world Peter Jackson painted so masterfully in the early 2000s.

But instead, I got the Tolkien version of ‘Assassin’s Creed.’ Don’t get me wrong. ‘Shadow of Mordor’ is terrific. If you took the Lord of the Rings connection away, I would enjoy the heck out of it.

Unfortunately, my expectations are a stumbling block. ‘Shadow of Mordor’ is not the Lord of the Rings game I want. And when I first saw the teaser for ‘Hogwarts Legacy,’ I expected the same disappointment.

I was prepared for an entertaining but ultimately hollow game with nothing to offer diehard Potter fans like myself. However, to my surprise, the footage Warner Bros released a few days ago was everything I wanted and more.

This is it. If you spent as many years obsessing over J.K. Rowling’s work as I did, this game was made for you.

The story is set in the late 1800s. Players must walk in the shoes of a student in his fifth year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as he unravels a dark conspiracy.

‘Hogwarts Legacy’ provides the most immersive gaming experience Potterheads will ever get. That isn’t an exaggeration. Warner Bros. has promised us a magical setting we can inhabit and explore to our heart’s content.

You can attend classes, walk the grounds, and traverse Rowling’s universe on the back of a broomstick. The entirety of Hogwarts is yours to tour, interacting with all the charming aspects that made the books a joy, from the talking paintings and ghosts to the moving staircases and secret rooms.

Like the best RPGs, this one uses a morality system that relies on your decisions, the relationships you forge, and the actions you take to shape your path.

You can either remain in the light or descend into villainy. The combat system has a level of depth I did not expect. You can delve into each of the primary fields of study at Hogwarts, using potions to enhance your attributes, magical animals to level the playing field, herbs to give yourself an edge in combat, etc.

The game won’t restrict us to Hogwarts. We can leave the grounds, venturing into the haunting landscapes in the vicinity, an avenue that creates opportunities for exciting quests and plot threads.

This…I have no words. This is everything I wanted and so much more. Warner Bros. is trying to kill me. My heart can’t take this excitement.

THE VAGRANT – ALMOST GOOD/WASTED POTENTIAL

The Vagrant is his name. He has no other. Friendless and alone, he walks across a desolate, war-torn landscape, carrying nothing but a kit bag, a legendary sword, and a baby.

That sounds awesome. If you have any interest in fantasy, those words lit a fire in your imagination.

All sorts of thoughts assailed you as you wondered who The Vagrant was, where he came from, what he wanted, where he got that baby, and what made that sword so legendary.

And you would be right to respond to the synopsis with excitement because I was the same. I could barely control myself as I leafed through those first few pages, watching as The Vagrant leaped into action, baby in hand, sending his mutated foes to an early grave with a few well-placed sword strokes.

And then Peter Newman pulled the curtain back and revealed the true nature of the world The Vagrant had to cross, a festering wound populated by the dead and the dying.

The Vagrant was one bright spot in a sea of enemies determined to claim the untainted life he had vowed to protect. I couldn’t wait to immerse myself in his adventures.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I read the final page, closed the book, sat back, sighed, and thought, “Wow! So Disappointing.’

I can’t describe this novel’s weakness without explaining its strengths. ‘The Vagrant’ has a great concept.

You have a post-apocalyptic setting where paranormal entities invaded the mortal realm, crushed humanity’s best and brightest, and then perverted civilization, creating a grotesque hellscape.

The Vagrant is one human among a multitude of survivors that occupy a world they no longer own, forced to choose between the monstrous entities vying for control over the fate of their race.

Newman’s protagonists are a mute, a baby, and a goat. The Vagrant is a fascinating choice for a hero because he doesn’t speak, and we have to rely on his companions’ reactions to his facial expressions to interpret The Vagrant’s thoughts.

The concept is oozing with potential. So, what went wrong? Peter Newman’s writing style is the biggest flaw. Remember when I said that you had to understand the novel’s strengths to appreciate its weakness?

This is what I meant. Newman’s writing is incredible. However, he has a very sparse approach that initially entranced me. ‘The Vagrant’ is just 400 pages long, yet quite a bit happens because the author says so much with so little.

He can paint the most elaborate pictures in your mind with one or two sentences. And for a time, Newman had me hooked. The story was practically sprinting from scene to scene, fight to fight, location to location. And yet, it never felt rushed.

I knew who the characters were, what they wanted, and how far they would go to achieve their objectives. I also understood the world, what it had become over the years, the dangers it posed, and why The Vagrant’s mission was so important.

But then, after a dozen or so chapters, something odd happened. I felt strangely detached from the story, and that sensation grew with each page. It took me a few days to realize that Newman was the problem.

His writing was too brief. The setting was basically a wallpaper in the background, nice to look at and think about, but hardly the rich, living, breathing world you see in the works of authors like Sanderson and Martin.

His characters were equally hollow. They spoke and fought and reacted. But they felt like puppets on a stage as opposed to real people because Newman couldn’t be bothered to explore them to the appropriate depth.

We did not sit with them long enough to care for them. As such, I felt nothing when bad things happened to them. I did not care whether they succeeded or failed.

I wasn’t invested in their trials at all. The Vagrant looked cool. You can see him on the book’s cover. But at the end of the day, his struggles meant nothing to me.

I have seen reviews that praise Newman specifically because of his sparse prose. But I had the opposite reaction. ‘The Vagrant’ felt like fluff even though it had the potential to be so much more.

I wanted to like this book. It started so well. But the characterization was practically non-existent, which is problematic because I need great characters to anchor me to a story. Cool fight scenes are not enough.

If I had to assign the novel a rating (out of 10), I would probably give it four stars.  

THE GOLDFISH PROBLEM: BEST MARVEL PILOT EVER

Moon Knight is finally here. And to everyone’s surprise, this show is really good. Marvel got the hype train rolling a few weeks ago when it sent the first four episodes out to critics. Early reviews commended the show for breaking the Marvel formula.

Apparently, Moon Knight was the most distinct MCU project to date, a compliment some of us dismissed as an exaggeration. But then we saw the pilot episode, and it exceeded every expectation.

We should start by discussing the show’s strengths. First of all, Oscar Isaac is amazing as Steven Grant, a bumbling fellow that refuses to sleep because he doesn’t trust his subconscious. Steven has blackouts, moments where another personality takes control and misbehaves, which is why the character is chained to his bed when we first meet him.

You can see the exhaustion in his eyes as he wades into the light of each new day, determined to perform the menial tasks assigned to him, tasks that ignore his considerable intellect.

The protagonist has a sadness that attracts sympathy. However, you can also see the fear in his eyes when his mind betrays him, conjuring frightening images that continuously challenge his perception of reality. Oscar Isaac is killing it in this role.

But the character is only compelling to watch because the show has an intriguing mystery. We know that Steven is not alone in his body. Every time he falls asleep, a new man marches out of his apartment.

But who is this Marc Spector, and what connection does he have to that mysterious entity that haunts Steven’s daydreams?

That first scene with Arthur Harrow sent chills down my spine. I wasn’t sure what I was watching or why I should care until Arthur poured broken shards of glass into his shoes and then pulled them on.

Some reviewers have criticized the numerous cuts that punctuate the pilot episode’s action scenes. But you couldn’t ask for a better representation of Steven’s fractured psyche, his inability to maintain control of his mind for more than a few moments.

This show just works. The horror elements won’t keep me up at night. But let’s be honest. This was a solid attempt at horror. I barely flinched at the scene in the elevator because I knew Khonshu wasn’t a threat to Steven.

Without that certainty, that scene would have delivered the best scare I’ve ever seen in the MCU. This is the strongest start to a series the MCU has given us thus far. That final scene was surprisingly vicious despite the absence of blood.

And the early reviews are not wrong. This is unlike anything the MCU has shown us to date. But that isn’t surprising. After a decade of record-breaking success, they have to switch things up to maintain their momentum.

I have one concern. In the comics, Marc Spector is a vigilante who uses the extraordinary abilities Khonshu has gifted him to fight injustice. But that wasn’t always the case.

During the character’s earliest days, Marc was just a guy with a dissociative identity disorder. Khonshu was a figment of his imagination. Most comics did not directly dismiss Marc’s visions.

Rather, they planted seeds of doubt, forcing audiences to question the validity of the character’s claims. Later on, Marvel turned Khonshu into an actual deity.

Some people want this show to take inspiration from Moon Knight’s first few issues. They want the show to explore the trials of an ordinary man struggling with mental illness.

But if this show reveals at the end that all these supernatural shenanigans were hallucinations, I will lose it. I hate that trope. I despise stories that hint at paranormal threats only to reveal that all the ghouls and demons we saw were representations of the hero’s emotional and psychological struggles.

That nonsense has to stop. For now, I will remain hopeful. I will give the writers the benefit of the doubt.

BLUE LOCK MANGA: SPINE TINGLING

I felt chills when Chapter 163 of Blue Lock came to an end. Yoichi Isagi was finally stepping onto the field. This was it, his one chance to prove to his coach, favorite soccer star, and the world at large that he deserved a place on the most prolific team in modern history.

But my excitement was immediately tempered by a new sensation. What if he failed? What if he fumbled? For all his talent, Isagi was an ant among gods, an enthusiastic teen still struggling to perfect his craft. He could not afford to lose because defeat in Blue Lock meant the end of his dreams.

And then, I turned the page and fought the urge to flip the table. Chapter 164 was not yet out. I had to wait another week to discover Isagi’s fate. What am I trying to say?

Soccer is boring. No, let me amend that statement. I don’t like sports in general. Yes, yes, I know. My attitude is insulting because most of you like sports.

But you have to understand my opinion of soccer to appreciate my excitement over this manga. I don’t like sports. And yet, if I made a list of my favorite anime of all time, sports shows would secure prominent positions in the top ten.

Why? Because anime makes sports entertaining. Take Blue Lock as an example. The manga follows Ego Jinpachi, a coach Japan has tasked with building the perfect soccer team.

The national team finished 16^th in the FIFA World Cup. Tired of accumulating losses, the Japanese Football Union wants Ego to create a new training regimen to transform Japanese Football.

Ego responds with Blue Lock, a program designed to catapult the country to global success. People are already touting Blue Lock as the best sports manga ever written, and for a good reason.

First of all, unlike shows like Kuroko no Basuke and Haikyu that nurture camaraderie and teamwork among the characters, Blue Lock’s Jinpachi has one goal: to create the ultimate striker.

Therefore, his students are rewarded for prioritizing their individual victories over the team’s success. In fact, in the first chapter, Isagi’s team loses because he chose to pass the ball to a teammate rather than take a shot at the goal. To get ahead, he must shed his charitable nature.

You wouldn’t expect the concept to work, but Blue Lock exceeds expectations in every sector. Isagi and his companions have a vicious drive to essentially devour one another.

The protagonist spends as much time fighting his own teammates as he does the opposing team. And the art adapts to match his mindset. Again, I don’t like soccer, and I don’t watch it.

But with this manga, I could follow every dribble, every pass, every furious kick. Yusuke Nomura, the illustrator, depicts the fighting spirit of the characters as jungle animals ripping each other apart on the field.

Whenever a character awakens a new skill, the art becomes sharp and crisp. You can see the passion of the players on display in the black streaks and trails radiating from their bodies, not to mention the crackling sparks that encase the players during particularly heated games.

A Blue Lock anime is coming out later this year. But I urge you to read the manga beforehand. I don’t know if the anime can faithfully recreate the intensity of these matches.

The black and white pictures do a better job of rendering the blend of agony and ecstasy that explodes when an athlete executes a fantastic play.

YEAR OF SANDERSON: ENVY, ENVY, AND MORE ENVY

Brandon Sanderson is still doing what he does best: making his fellow authors feel like crap. On the 1^st of March, the bestseller released a YouTube video titled ‘It’s Time to Come Clean – Brandon Sanderson.’

Most of you saw the announcement and immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusions. I saw suggestions of a potential cheating scandal, addictions, financial impropriety, etc.

For longtime Sanderson fans, this was it, the admission they had spent the last decade dreading. If you don’t know Sanderson, his production rate puts most fantasy authors to shame.

Some voices in the industry have frequently questioned Sanderson’s ability to maintain his ridiculous pace. We have seen authors with less impressive release schedules abandon their publishing careers due to burnout.

And yet, Sanderson has shown no signs of slowing down, promising us Skyward, Alcatraz, and Stormlight Archive sequels all within a span of two years.

Like most people, writing takes its toll on Sanderson, especially when he tackles massive projects like the Stormlight Archive. But unlike most people, Sanderson de-stresses by stepping away from those gigantic books and writing smaller novels set in different corners of his Cosmere universe.

But even with his incredible work ethic, readers expected Sanderson’s video to reveal some sort of mental breakdown, followed by the announcement of an extended vacation and significant delays in the author’s upcoming releases.

But no. Apparently, Sanderson isn’t human because he wrote FIVE FULL-LENGTH NOVELS in secret, hence the so-called Year of Sanderson, starting in 2023.

The author’s video on March 1^st launched a Kickstarter campaign that would finance the undertaking. The goal was to raise $1 million. Backers were promised four novels in 2023 and monthly subscription boxes with items related to his work.

Today, Sanderson has the highest-funded project in Kickstarter history, having raised a whopping $20.8 million in three days. Now, people are losing their minds.

No one expected this level of success. Some experts have applauded the author for highlighting a new publishing avenue that is bound to raise concerns among traditional publishing firms.

But it isn’t all sunshine and roses. A certain section of readers is unhappy with Sanderson’s triumph. They hate the idea of people throwing money at a prosperous author like Sanderson.

They want audiences to disseminate some of that financial support among struggling authors that don’t have the backing of a traditional publisher.

More to the point, they don’t understand why Sanderson is resorting to Kickstarter when he has a traditional publisher that has served him well for years.

They want him to leave these new opportunities to aspiring writers who need the boost. I suppose those sentiments have some merit. But let’s be honest. Most of them are rooted in envy and bitterness.

Even more nauseating are the individuals condemning this achievement because of Sanderson’s identity as a ‘Straight White Mormon Man.’

Slate.com published a Twitter post from critic Alex Brown who said the following: ‘There is so much excellent diverse SFF out there, and y’all are intent on giving that man millions of dollars.’

How is that anything other than envy? So what if there’s ‘excellent diverse SFF’ out there? What does that have to do with anything? Sanderson did not steal $20.8 million from the pockets of consumers. They gave that money to him because they appreciated his work.

Readers are not obligated to give money to authors of any particular ethnicity. Remember when Ridley Scott criticized millennials because they refused to watch ‘The Duel?’ This is just as insane.

Keep the following in mind. 1). Brandon Sanderson wrote FIVE FULL-LENGTH NOVELS. Do you know how hard that is? That doesn’t happen every day. Some of you follow YA or romance authors who release 4 or 5 books a year, every year. But most of those books are 200-300 pages long. Sanderson writes 1000-page monsters.

I suppose James Patterson deserves a mention. Some of his books are pretty substantial in size. But he uses ghostwriters. He doesn’t count.

2). Sanderson’s success comes after YEARS of toil. Like most authors, he worked his ass off, accumulating rejections from publishers but persevering all the same until he got his big break. Stop looking at Sanderson’s success like it happened overnight. That $20.8 million is the result of 15+ years of hard work.

3). Penguin Random House paid Barack and Michelle Obama $65 million in a two-book deal back in 2017. Barack Obama is a former president of the United States. Michelle lands lucrative speaking engagements every other month.  The Obamas have plenty of money. Did they deserve that $65 million?

Sanderson deserves every penny he’s made thus far. You don’t have to support him. And envy is fine, sort. From what I’ve seen, a person’s reaction to external stimuli is instinctual. If you felt envy when you heard Sanderson’s announcement, you did not choose to feel that way. It just happened.

But that envy becomes a problem if you nurture it to a point where you take to Twitter to denounce or downplay his achievements. Let the man enjoy his moment in the sun.

IS RINGS OF POWER POISONING TOLKIEN?

Sigh. I guess we can’t have nice things. I know what you’re thinking. We discussed the Rings of Power a little while ago. What else is there to say? Well, nothing much, not about the show.

But the conversation surrounding the first teaser has become an issue. Words like ‘Toxic’ annoy me because people use them carelessly, along with ‘Racist’ and ‘Sexist.’

The easiest way to dismiss an argument without properly refuting it is to call the person making that argument a word that makes them radioactive. You can take the debate about the dark-skinned dwarf queen from the Rings of Power teaser as an example.

If you’re not in the loop, passionate Lord of the Rings fans hate the character. Well, no. They don’t hate the character. We don’t know enough about her at this point to form an opinion. They hate her appearance, specifically the fact that she doesn’t have a beard.

‘The Two Towers’ has a scene in which Gimli tells Eowyn that dwarf women are not only bearded, but they are so similar in appearance to men that some people think dwarf women don’t exist.

Some viewers have disregarded the line as a joke, and the movie definitely presented the information with a humorous tone. But Tolkien said the same thing in a letter. According to the creator of Middle Earth, dwarf women have beards.

Therefore, you can probably understand why fans of the books are so unhappy. This is the first dwarf woman we’ve seen on screen. And rather than respecting Tolkien’s description of the race, Amazon has chosen to diverge from the source material for…reasons.

Do I have a strong opinion on this debate? No, I don’t. I want them to stick to the source material. Give the female dwarfs their beards. However, the absence of a beard on the dwarf queen doesn’t bother me. More importantly, this is one female dwarf among many.

For all we know, every other female dwarf is bearded except for the queen, whose elevated position affords her the right to forego the beard. Do I want to see debates of this sort in LOTR discussions?

Yes, I do. Some people hate the zeal this conversation has aroused. But this is an aspect of nerd/geek culture that I like. I enjoy watching grown men and women have fiery arguments about fictional characters.

We love franchises like The Lord of the Rings because of the immersion they deliver. Every time I read a Sanderson novel, I feel like I can reach out and touch the Cosmere universe. These stories are fiction, but they have a tangibility that can occasionally supplant reality.

So yes, I like it when LOTR nerds debate the viability of beards on dwarf women. But those debates are one small corner of an argument that is slowly poisoning the fandom.

Some Tolkien enthusiasts have laid the responsibility for this toxicity at the feet of outsiders, people with no interest in this franchise who have only entered the beard debate because they think every bit of criticism thrown at the dwarf queen is rooted in racism. Though, race is obviously a significant component for a section of viewers. 

Years ago, I scoffed with derision as the Star Wars fandom tore itself apart over the sequels. The Game of Thrones crowd fell to the same disease in the years that followed, taking a beloved franchise and turning it into a battleground for the culture war unfolding in the US.

Again, I scoffed. Why? Because we were better than that. If Star Wars was checkers, then Lord of the Rings was chess. We were too cultured to debase Tolkien’s universe with tiresome disputes about gender and race.

Fast forward to 2022, and…well, you’ve seen the videos.  We could try to assign blame, but that would introduce a larger, more complex discussion about diversity. And at this point, I don’t care.

Do you know what I want? I want to talk about the lore of the Second Age, the mythology the show will mine, the characters we may see, the concepts we can expect the Amazon adaptation to explore.

But you’ll be hard-pressed to find those discussions online. People have already drawn lines and taken sides. You cannot criticize or complement the show without inadvertently attacking one side.

Clearly, I was wrong. We are not better than this. Honestly, I expected the noise to die down after the first few days. But these arguments are growing with each passing day.

Hopefully, The Rings of Power is great. News regarding the production of Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy raised some concerns. But the movies exceeded every expectation, and most of the complaints fizzled out. If Amazon can deliver an exceptional show, the current uproar will fade.

2022: THE YEAR OF DC?

Is 2022 the year of DC? Warner Bros. released a minute-long video a few days ago that revealed tantalizing footage of its upcoming slate of movies. Fans of the DCEU are losing their minds, but I don’t share their enthusiasm.

After a litany of disappointments, my opinion of the DCEU is quite sour at the moment. ‘Man of Steel’ and ‘Wonder Woman 2017’ stand out as the best films in the DCEU. In fact, they can probably secure a spot on any list of the best comic book adaptations of all time.

But every other DCEU title has been either lackluster (BVS, Aquaman, Suicide Squad) or downright terrible (Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman 84). Shazam is probably the worst comic book film I’ve ever seen.

Therefore, it will take more than a few snippets of footage to win me over. That being said, I cannot deny that DC’s 1-minute teaser was encouraging. You can tell that Warner Bros. is pivoting away from the grim aesthetic Zach Snyder introduced with Man of Steel (which I liked).

Clearly, they’ve decided to recreate the hopeful tones avid comic book readers want to see in these adaptations. We cannot judge DC’s future until we watch these movies. But their 2022 release schedule looks promising.

‘The Batman’ will kick things off on March 4, taking viewers back to Bruce Wayne’s earliest days as Batman. Matt Reeves (Planet of the Apes trilogy) will highlight the cape’s crusader’s role as a detective, which other adaptations have largely ignored. ‘The Batman’ is definitely the most promising project of the bunch. The trailers have promised us a hard-hitting take on DC’s most famous hero.

I don’t have the same enthusiasm about ‘DC League of Super-Pets.’ But the animated film, which follows a team of superpowered animals, including Krypto, Superman’s dog, is obviously aimed at younger viewers, so I can’t complain.

‘Black Adam,’ which debuts in July, makes no sense. The character is a godlike being that awakens to a world he doesn’t recognize. A unit of heroes (Pierce Brosnan’s Doctor Fate, Aldis Hodge’s Hawkman, Quintessa Swindell’s Cyclone, and Noah Centineo’s Atom Smasher) is tasked with either reforming Adam or putting him down before he brings the world to ruin.

‘Black Adam’ stands out because The Rock looks incredible. And for once, it seems like he’s disappeared into the role. Dwayne Johnson tends to play himself in every movie. No matter what he does, you cannot see past The Rock’s personality to appreciate the character he’s trying to manifest. That doesn’t appear to be the case this time around.

But Black Adam is a villain, Shazam’s arch-nemesis. Why would they debut the character in a solo movie, one wholly divorced from ‘Shazam: Fury of the Gods’ (2023).

This isn’t a criticism. Venom is a spiderman villain, yet Sony has produced two highly successful films about the character that have nothing to do with Spiderman. Is this the approach DC will take? Or will they chronicle Black Adam’s transformation from honorable hero to dastardly villain? Whatever they do, my curiosity will drag me to the cinema.

I thought ‘Aquaman 2018’ was okay. As such, I have very little interest in ‘Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom.’ ‘The Flash,’ on the other hand, has my money.

We have to wait until November 4 to watch it. The MCU is doing wonders with the multiverse concept. But DC was the first studio to dip its toes into these waters, and I want to see what they do with it on the big screen. ‘The Flash’ will officially bid the DCEU goodbye, paving the way for a brand-new iteration of DC’s live-action adaptations.

If every single one of these movies exceeds expectations, DC might actually dominate 2022. I still expect ‘Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness’ and ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ to win the day. But you never know.  

The Rings of Power: Why You Have To Watch It

‘Therefore, Morgoth came, climbing slowly from his subterranean throne, and the rumor of his feet was like thunder underground. And he issued forth clad in black armor; and he stood before the King like a tower, iron-crowed, and his vast shield, sable unblazoned, cast a shadow over him like a storm cloud.’

The War of Wrath was AWESOME. You know how normal people appreciate The Lord of the Rings Trilogy because it feels so grounded? Well, that’s because Tolkien drenched the First Age of Middle Earth in so much fantastical insanity that he had nothing left to give to the Third Age, the period we saw in the movies.

Don’t get me wrong. The original trilogy has plenty of fantasy. You have Nazgul, phantom armies, radiant elves, and more. But the First Age dwarfs the Third Age, both in scope and breadth.

Tolkien used the First Age to orchestrate a clash between deities on a scale Middle Earth hasn’t seen since those early days. The quote above comes from The Silmarillion, and it attempts to describe the might of Morgoth shortly before he fights Fingolfin, an elf the book describes as a figure gleaming like a star beneath the giant form of Morgoth, his mail ‘overlaid with silver,’ ‘Blue shield set with crystals,’ ‘sword glittering like ice.’

I can’t remember if this happened before or after the other gods descended, and Morgoth created the first dragons to fight them. It doesn’t really matter. You can’t recreate The War of Wrath on the small screen.

You need another trilogy of films, and a massive budget, which is why The Second Age is a better option for a TV show. Though, considering how much they intend to spend on this adaptation, I think Amazon has the money to adapt The War of Wrath.

The studio released a trailer a few days ago that revealed the title of their upcoming Lord of the Rings show. I don’t like the title (The Rings of Power), but it fits because the show will explore the creation of the rings of power, which happened in The Second Age.

Interestingly enough, most of you have already seen The Second Age. If you watched The Fellowship of the Ring, you know that its starts with a monologue from Galadriel, who narrates the events that led to Sauron’s rise and fall.

Those first three minutes of the movie are basically a summary of The Second Age. Though, they neglected to mention the drama that led to that final clash between the armies of Middle Earth and Sauron’s forces.

The Second Age is long and intricate. It chronicles the formation of Numenor, the greatest Kingdom of Men the world has ever seen, the rise of Gondor and Anor, the events that turned the dwarfs against the elves, and more.

We even see Sauron change from Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, a beautiful and enigmatic figure, to the dark lord people know today. Unless I’m mistaken, The Witch-King of Angmar plays a significant role during this era.

Basically, I’ve seen people dismiss this show as a cash grab, a shameless attempt by Amazon to extend a franchise that has nothing left to give. Some people have compared the adaptation to The Hobbit, which supposedly fell apart because the studio took a tiny book fit for a single movie and stretched it out across three films.

But those comparisons are silly. And this isn’t a cash grab. Why? Because the stories in ‘The Rings of Power’ are not filler or padding emanating from the imaginations of Amazon’s writers.

These are Tolkien’s stories. They are based on an actual book, one you can buy today and read, and those stories are incredibly imaginative and engaging.

Unlike the Third Age, where the world’s major powers had receded into history, the kingdoms of Men, Elves, and Dwarves were thriving during The Second Age. Moria (called Khazad-dum in those days) was a bustling hub of Dwarven industry. Rivendell was young, a blooming flower of Elven power.

Armenelos the Golden, City of the Kings, the Capital of Numenor would have put even Gondor to shame had it survived Sauron’s shenanigans.

If your knowledge of Middle Earth is limited to what you saw in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogies, like Jon Snow, you know nothing. ‘The Rings of Power’ will show a side of Middle Earth you’ve never seen. And I, for one, cannot wait to see some of my favorite moments from The Silmarillion adapted for TV.

HOW APPLE+ CAN FIX GODZILLA

‘In Godzilla 2014, Godzilla fought the Titans, leveling most of San Francisco. With the existence of Monsters made undeniably clear, the TV series will explore one family’s journey to uncover its buried secrets and a legacy linking them to the organization known as Monarch.’

This is the synopsis of the upcoming Godzilla TV show on Apple+. Websites like Den of Geek and Inverse announced the project a few days ago. And all I’ve done since then is sigh with disappointment.

Two thoughts come to mind. First of all, one cannot deny the fact that we have well and truly entered the golden age of television. Think about it. A decade ago, the notion of a Godzilla TV show would have been unthinkable.

Why destroy the legacy of this franchise by wasting its potential on a TV show that cannot fully realize the majesty of Godzilla on the small screen when you can excite and entertain avid moviegoers with a loud, bombastic blockbuster that stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office

Cinemas thrive because people want to watch spectacles like Godzilla VS Kong on the big screen. And yet, Apple+ is working to bring Godzilla to the small screen because the landscape has changed.

Game of Thrones began the trend, splashing a whopping $15 million on each episode ($150 million per season) and essentially treating viewers to a 10-hour movie each year.

Marvel raised that figure to $25 million per episode, which means that every episode of ‘Hawkeye’ is a big-budget indie movie. Amazon has already put them both to shame. If the rumors are true, the company is spending $55 million on each episode of ‘The Rings of Power.’

Amazon has thrown more money at one season of The Lord of the Rings than the combined budget of all three movies in the original trilogy.

Therefore, before you scoff at them, Apple is more than capable of delivering a decent television adaptation of Godzilla. And to be fair, we’ve seen Godzilla on TV before. The character made several appearances on ‘Zone Fighter,’ a 1973 live-action TV show from Japan.

Keeping in mind that ‘Zone Fighter’ was the 1970s equivalent of power rangers, you can probably guess what they did with the character. Giant monsters in those shows are people in suits stomping through miniature cities.

VFX technology has advanced by leaps and bounds since those early days. You can trust Apple’s TV show to match the visual quality Godzilla VS Kong gave us.

So why the sigh? Why is this news so disappointing? Because Hollywood doesn’t learn. What happened with Godzilla 2014? They buried Godzilla under a mountain of human drama.

Viewers complained, and Legendary Pictures responded with ‘Godzilla: King of Monsters’ in 2019, a film that saturated the screen with Kaiju action. Did we celebrate?

No, because Godzilla 2019 multiplied the cast of human characters, which diluted the Kaiju action. Godzilla VS Kong was amazing. And yet, complaints about the sizeable cast of human characters kept arising.

And now, Apple+ is working on a new Godzilla TV show, and for reasons I cannot fathom, they’ve decided to place a family of humans at the center of the story. WHY?

Seriously, what am I missing? I went to the cinema in 2014 to watch that first film in the new franchise because I wanted to see GODZILLA. I tuned in several years later when ‘King of Monsters’ came out because of Godzilla, Ghidora, and Rhodan.

Godzilla VS Kong stands out to me as the greatest Kaiju film ever made because it finally delivered on the wasted potential of its predecessors. It finally told a story that placed the Kaiju center stage.

And yes, I’ve heard all the arguments. People think that the human element is critical because it gives viewers a relatable protagonist to root for. They’ve also suggested that a Godzilla-focused movie/show would become monotonous and boring. Apparently, sane human beings cannot watch two solid hours of a giant reptilian creature stomping across the globe, alone, without human contact.

But I disagree. Have you seen nature documentaries? The best nature documentaries focus solely on the animals. And yet, people cannot help but ooh and aah because a skillful storyteller like David Attenborough can squeeze compelling narratives out of the actions and adventures of penguins.

Make the next Godzilla movie something akin to a nature documentary. Take the Kaiju to hollow earth and give us a glimpse at the life he typically lives when he separates himself from civilization. Simply put, do something new.

Mando Buries The Book of Boba Fett

The Book of Boba Fett has been a disappointment. But I don’t think we understood how disappointing it truly was until we saw Episode 5 (Return of the Mandalorian).

Boba Fett has several shortcomings. The character had a surprisingly violent debut in The Mandalorian.

This raised expectations. The Book of Boba Fett was supposed to explore the seedy underbelly of the Star Wars Universe, and I suppose it has done so. But the tone doesn’t fit.

People wanted Breaking Bad. Boba Fett gave us The Phantom Menace. The protagonist is partly to blame. This is not the Boba Fett people met decades ago.

The series has gone to great lengths to show how and why he changed. This Boba Fett is a man of peace. He doesn’t want to rule with an iron fist.

Boba is determined to carve out a new legacy for himself, one that isn’t drenched in blood. And that sounds like compelling television, but it isn’t. I’ve heard some people complain that very little happens in the individual episodes.

That is not true. A lot happens in this show. The Book of Boba Fett jumps back and forth through time, showing Boba’s adventures in the past after his escape from the Sarlacc pit, and his present trials as he attempts to wrangle Tatooine’s various warlords.

But even with all the car chases, train heists, gunfights, the show is dull. At no point are you tempted to jump out of your seat in excitement or to lean forward in anticipation.

The show feels flat. The decision to stall the storyline in the present while advancing the plot in the past was a mistake. Also, we have to consider the fact that Boba Fett is not as interesting as people think.

This brings us to ‘Return of the Mandalorian,’ which was incredibly entertaining. Most TV shows would kill to air an episode as awesome as ‘Return of the Mandalorian.’

And yet, I think episode 5 hurt The Book of Boba Fett. If you haven’t seen it, ‘Return of the Mandalorian’ is a Din Djarin-centric episode. Boba doesn’t make a single appearance.

People are lauding this episode as one of the best hours to come out of any Star Wars property because it gave us everything The Book of Boba Fett should have been. Most of us cheered when Din walked through that doorway in the first scene.

Everything felt right, not just the tone, which had the appropriate amount of grit, but Din himself; the way he walked, the threats he made, the brutality of his actions.

The bounty hunter cut a man in half. Let that sink in. And then we reunited Din with the Armorer, and suddenly, it felt like we had abandoned the science fiction genre for fantasy, what with all that talk of prophecies and the power of the dark saber.

Then we made the trip back to Tatooine, and the episode did something amazing. I said earlier that people criticize Boba Fett because very little happens.

Well, Din spends the last 20 minutes of this episode building his ship. On paper, that sounds like pointless filler, and anyone who read that script could have argued that very little happens in the final third of the episode.

But those 20 minutes were better than the first four episodes of Boba Fett put together. They worked because Din and Peli are charismatic characters, and their dynamic is shockingly engaging.

By the time this episode ended, viewers were speculating about Din’s journey, the potential reunion with Grogu, and what would happen in The Mandalorian Season 3.

Boba Fett, the character, was barely a thought. You couldn’t ask for a more damning outcome. Din is everything we want in Boba. His adventures are more compelling.

I showed more emotion when the Armorer melted the Beskar Spear than I did when Boba’s new family was slaughtered, and I wasn’t the only one. We have a stronger attachment to an inanimate object than we do to the living, breathing people who saved Boba’s life.

That settles it. We don’t need a second season of The Book of Boba Fett. Just fold the character into The Mandalorian.