Shmee.Me

March 19, 2013March 19, 2013

Get Lost in Strange Places

Strange Places is a fantasy book written by Jefferson Smith. If you haven’t heard of him, you are probably not alone since he seems like a fairly new author, and I got the book by buying an indie book package deal, so that for ten dollars I got twelve books, and three dollars went to help young authors. So is my eighty three cent book any good? I think so.

The book is about a young orphan named Tayna (not Tanya like my head kept translating it). She is in a horrible orphanage, and told that she is unlovable, so she does her best to take care of her fellow orphans until she meets an evil looking Lord, and a creepy guy in pink rain coat and pants, and is transported to a magical forest.

I know an orphan that finds out she might be magical and is kind of a big deal is not the most original story ever told, but it is different enough from that other magical orphan so that you are not always drawing comparisons. Jefferson Smith shows his talent here too. He makes the world and the characters believable, and it is a fun read. Tayna specifically is really well written and is a great protagonist.

Like many fantasy books this is just the first one in a series, so a lot of this book is just introducing the characters, building the world, and showing how the magic systems works, but it still manages to be entertaining. It does leave on a cliff hanger, and I usually prefer to have books at least have some feel of wholeness, or at least have the rest of the books ready to go.

Stange Places isn’t perfect but it is a good read, and I have seen it around for a dollar or less. If you are looking for a good fantasy book, then this just might be your ticket. It can be found on Amazon.

March 8, 2013March 8, 2013

Is the Shadow of Freedom worth reading?

Shardow of Freedom is book written by David Webber, and is the fourteenth of series (or third or twentieth depending on how you look at it), so if you haven’t read the previous thirteen there probably isn’t a lot of this review you will understand. The only reason I am writing this review is to vent on the internet.

This book was originally part of A Rising Thunder, but because of length they made it its own book, and because of that I was hoping it would make a good second half to A Rising Thunder. It does not. It turns out is more like the third Saganami Island book about Admiral Michelle Henke and the Talbott Cluster. It does have a better ending then A Rising Thunder, but that is not difficult.

This book commits the same sins as a lot of the more resent Honorverse books in that it introduces a lot more new characters that you don’t care about, and most of the action takes place around a conference table then in giant space battles, and I am a big fan of giant space battles, less so conference tables. The bad guys in this book are also uninteresting, they are either evil and dumb, The Solarian League, or evil and twirling their mustaches in the background, The Mesan Alignment. Plus the Solarians are so out classed as far as tech and firepower goes, that the strategy is how to win with killing the least amount of bad guys, so The Star Empire of Maticore isn’t even threatened in this book, so there is nothing to get worried about except that maybe the Mesan’s will do something, they don’t, but I assume they have a great maniacal laugh.

I keep reading these books hoping they will get back to what made them great in the first eight books. With exciting action and Machiavellian strategy, but instead they have taken a turn for more characters and more conference tables then I can count. I would like to say this is the last Honor Harrington book that I am going to read, but they used to be so good that I know I will keep reading and hoping for their return to glory.

March 6, 2013March 6, 2013

Where is Batman?

My last rant about the future of DC mostly turned in to a rant about the future of the Justice League, so I decided to turn my sights to the Dark Knight himself. DC has several options available to them as where to take the Batman series and I am going to explore a few of them.

The first option and probably the worst option is the reboot the franchise. I think everyone knows how Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, and I don’t think many people want to see that again, so whatever they do they should keep Batman’s past in the past, mostly anyway.

The option they seem to be trying now, if the rumors are accurate, is pay Christopher Nolan a ton of money and hope he brings Christian Bale with him. This would make a lot of movie fans happy, and I am sure they would make a lot of cash, but we have kind of done their Batman, and it is all mopey and sad, very good, but I am not sure how much more realistic bleakness we can all handle. They should pay Nolan a lot of money stay around Warner Bros though. It would be a good investment.

The next option is to make a movie with Morgan Freeman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and make almost a Batman Incorporated movie with Lucius Fox sort of running Batman franchises to try and keep crime at bay throughout America. It would be fun and they already have the pieces in place to make it happen.

The last major option that I am going to put forward is to do a Batman Beyond movie with an aging Bruce Wayne handing over the reigns to a young protégé, and guiding him every step of the way. This lets Warner have a new Batman, but without the need for a reboot plus you can incorporate all sorts of fun Sci-Fi elements because it would be the near future.

Of the options that I put forward I like the last two the most. They both take the Bat in new directions and allow the studio to show us something exciting, and since I like Sci-Fi a Batman Beyond movie sounds amazing, but I am pretty sure they will try their hardest just to give Nolan tons of money, which will be good, but just not super original, but we will see, and this post is on the internet, so maybe I will change some minds (it won’t).

March 4, 2013March 4, 2013

What is Next for DC Movies?

DC/Warner Bros is having a hard time moving forward with its super hero movies. They don’t want to let Marvel/Disney soak up all the profits, but at the same time they have no clear vision on what to do, and like all geeks on the internet I am going to give them my unsolicited advice.

Disney when they bought Marvel they also bought got Kevin Feige. He is the man with the plan as far as the roll out for Marvel based films. DC has no such person. They were hoping the Christopher Nolen would be that person after the success of his Batman movies, but after The Man of Steel comes out he is putting dudes in tights behind him.

DC is longing to do a Justice League movie, but unlike Marvel they have not been following a path to get them there, and establishing their characters, and Batman is at the end of his trilogy, so he will need to be rebooted, or at least recast, so they are hoping that Superman does well in his next outing so they can base the League around him. I think this is a horrible idea. They should be proactive. They should do a Justice League movie with some of the lesser known Heroes in their catalog.

They have tons of people to choose from. Cyclops, Plastic Man, Martian Manhunter, a new Green Lantern, and of course Princess Diana of Themyscira herself Wonder Woman. I think they could make a great JLA movie with Wonder Woman as the lead. DC has done a great job with the new Wonder Woman comics, and she is a fun character, and what is best is that Marvel doesn’t have a great female hero out now to counter her. They could even start the League with her warning the world about some awesome classic monsters attacking the human world and her enlisting some help to deal with them. I think they could also bring in the Green Arrow from the TV show. He is doing a good job, and would be a fun crossover. Plus they would have at least one established hero.

Whatever DC does they should not be sitting back and praying that The Man of Steel does well to build around him. Superman is a hard hero to pull off, and if it does not do well then they are years behind schedule and Marvel will have had five super hero movies out by then.

DC needs to buck up and take a risk on their lesser known cast and let them bring home the bacon for once. Wonder Woman for the head of the Justice League. I am breaking glass ceilings everywhere.

February 28, 2013February 28, 2013

Judge Dredd is on the Case! #2

You should probably read my review of Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 01 before reading this review, not that their are any spoilers, but because of the progression of the character.

Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 02 is split up between to main stories, Judge Dredd’s journey over the cursed earth to deliver a medicine to cure a plague ravaging Mega City 2, and Judge Dredd leading the rebellion against the crazy Chief Judge Cal (short for Caligula).

The first story is great, and provides a lot of background in to the reasons for the Mega Cities. The Cursed Earth is the irradiated landmass between the Mega Cities left after the nuclear war, and it is inhabited by crazy hillbillies, mutants, murderess crazy army robots, and a few dinosaurs left over from the cloned dinosaur park (the comic came out in 1977 and the book Jurassic Park came out in 1990, just saying). It is great to see why everyone lives in the walled cities, but there are still some good people living in the wasteland and Dredd does his best to make the Cursed Earth a better place on the drive through.

The rebellion against Judge Cal is good, but gets a little long in the tooth towards the end. Judge Cal takes over and is crazy and the people of Mega City 1 are paying the price, and only Judge Dredd and a few other loyal Judges can stop the mad man.

Unlike the first Complete Case Files, Judge Dredd is much more defined in this book. He is more stoic with a dry sense of humor, and he upholds the law above all else. The comedic relief Walter the Robot is not in this book as much considering Judge Dredd as a series has started to take a much more serious tone. Not that it is all hard core action and carnage, there are still some laughs to be had but the humor is a little darker.

I liked this book much more then the first one, and I am sure that I will be buying more in the future. Judge Dredd is a cool character and being able read through his history is has been fun.