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Something to Read: Discworld

I know that lots of sites are doing April Fools gags today, but I would rather talk about Terry Pratchett’s wonderful creation Discworld which overall is funnier than most of the pranks going on. In all it comes to about 40 books these days, with hopefully at least a few more waiting to make it into our hands. From the first story The Color Of Magic to the most recent release Raising Steam, they are every one of them poking fun at all aspects of small mindedness, bureaucracy, prejudice, and superstition. There are a large number of wonderful recurring characters that you will find yourself relating to, often because they make up the limited number of sane people (and sane not-people) to be found in a given tale. They tend to come in groups, like the City Watch, the Witches, Ahnk-Morpork, the Wizards, and Death (yes, Death is both an individual and a group; see Soul Music, or perhaps The Death Of Rats).

The Discworld universe is in a steampunk/fantasy branch of the Multiverse, where wizards and engineers have an equal hand in creating the future, and humans share the land with a full range of other races, including Golems, Vampires, Dwarves, and Igors (the last very handy if you are suddenly in need of transplanted organs and limbs). Figuring out which order you should read the books in can be difficult, I recommend using the group approach. Go to the Novels chart on Wikipedia to find the earliest story instance of each group. Read each one of them, and I feel confident one of them will become an instant favorite, even if you don’t particularly care for the others. Then read through all of the novels in that group; by the time you finish that set, you will have met enough of the characters and picked up enough of the background for the other groups that you will know which one you want to read next. You can also read them in story-line chronological order for each group, either method will do nicely.

Sooner or later you will have read everything he has written about Discworld, but do not despair! He has written other stuff, including an excellent collaboration with Neil Gaiman. And there are four Discworld TV miniseries released on DVD, 15 stage plays have been published, two feature length animations have been created, a number of fan productions from around the world have been released into the wild, and a ton of radio plays of the stories have been recorded by the BBC and others for you to enjoy as well. There are several projects in production, including a 13 episode TV series about The Watch, a miniseries of Unseen Academicals, and the fan production of Troll Bridge. Once upon a time Sam Raimi was going to do a feature film from The Wee Free Men for Sony, but that fell through. All is not lost though, because Rhianna Pratchett announced she was going to pick up the project instead.

Something to Watch: DVDs

The top of the movie list this week is the Keanu Reeves remake of 47 Ronin, the latest in a long line of films, TV shows, plays and operas based on this historic true story. This is the first time I am aware of that it expanded this deep into the realm of Fantasy, but I thought the dragons were a wonderful choice. If you are more in the mood for an indi production, Knights of Badassdom is about a bunch of LARPers who accidentally summon a succubus from hell while playing in the woods. As you might expect from the description, this is a comedy/horror film, with several of my favorite actors in it.

I couldn’t find any real genre in TV except for re-releases, but Psych: Season 8 certainly comes close, considering the massive number of pop culture references the show manages to cram into every episode. This was the final season for the show, so it includes the series finale.

In western animation we have The Pirate Fairy, another adventure in Never Never Land from the gang at Disney.

In Anime, Ebiten: Complete Collection pokes fun at the art form itself, with a rabid group of anime fan girls with tenuous grips on reality, a maid on a secret mission, a Neko faculty adviser, an ass-tronomy club full of robots, aliens, and telepaths (and one poor guy who actually thinks it is a serious astronomy club), and more twisted anime parodies and allusions than you have probably ever seen collected in one place before. Expect to see the barrier between fantasy and reality shattered every 5 minutes or so. Then in Happiness: Complete Collection, the classes for magic users and non-magic users are kept completely separate until a gas explosion destroys the magical building and they have to combine the classes. Rest assured chaos and comedy ensue, as the two groups try to adjust to each other.

Something to Read: Vorkosigan Saga

Written by award winning author Lois McMaster Bujold, Miles Vorkosigan is one of the best characters in space opera, and the universe she created for him to inhabit is a real treat to visit. The background starts with a planet cut off from the rest of the human inhabited planets due to a disastrous nuclear war, then reunited within the lifetime of the protagonist’s grandfather. After hundreds of years of isolation, it is difficult for most of the population to understand the changes this means for society. Starting with the fact that contact with outside worlds brings with it major medical advances to a population who has spent dozens of generations practicing infanticide as their only way to avoid major mutation and extinction. Miles earliest memory is being lifted from his crib as his grandfather tries to murder him as a mutant (he isn’t, but the old man does not comprehend what made him as he is; he only knows anything different must be killed if humanity on his planet is to survive). The gun his parent held to the back of his grandfather’s head was the only reason he made it to his first birthday, let alone beyond.

There is some debate about the correct order to read the books, but I vote for going for the author listed chronological order, rather than the published order. The Vorkosiverse will make a lot more sense that way, starting at the point his parents met (and more than most universes, you NEED to understand how we got to this point if you are going to understand where we go from here, and why). This is quite a complex collection of societies covering a major percentage of the galaxy, and like Asimov before her, Bujold does not clutter up her universe with non-human intelligent species. There is only us people driving all these situations, each group fighting for their own interests and desires.

And as with any excellent series of stories, the protagonist throws a monkey wrench into the proceedings that no one in that world sees coming, and changes everything in ways no one ever expected. My own personal connection into this universe is the fact that Miles is a frail, breakable, and damaged physical specimen who can never win a battle by strength of arms. So his only option is to use wit, intelligence, heart, and desire to force his enemy to defeat themselves. There are already a goodly number of novels and a double handful of short stories embedded in this universe; I can’t wait to get more!

BTW, did I mention the author won some awards? She has won six Hugo Awards and two Nebula Awards. In fact, only Robert A. Heinlein has won as many Hugo Awards for Best Novel, although a few other authors have won 5.

Something to Do: Movies, 21Mar14

We get two wonderful selections this week, in two totally different flavors. Divergent is based on the excellent YA fantasy novels of Veronica Roth, and as far as action/adventure goes, it is the choice for this time around. If you crave something with a noticeably larger humor quotient then Muppets Most Wanted is the way to go. You really can’t go wrong whichever one you decide to see, so I am thinking both might be the correct option.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 18Mar14

In movies, I have to vote for Frozen first and foremost, because it is such a wonderful story, with characters I love (and love to hate), music I sing along with, and incredible animation. It also won a boatload of awards, as I suspect you may have heard; if you haven’t seen it yet, now is your chance! Also this week, the lesser known but still important Kill Your Darlings brings together a very young Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and Jack Kerouac, the three people who would go on to invent the Beat Generation which spawned everything that came after. I have no idea what percentage of this story bears any resemblance to reality, but it is nice someone is exploring the possibilities within it.

In TV, the new series Atlantis makes it to disc, and while I was not as excited by it as I was hoping to be, they have created an interesting premise with some good actors who have some decent production work behind them. To be fair, I have only seen the first 3 episodes so far, I need to return to it and try it again.

In Anime, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Part 2 has Aladdin and Alibaba teamed up to take over dungeons and become very rich in the beginning. But somehow that changes into them trying to protect their country from its own ruler, and protect that ruler from a childhood friend turned Djinn. This box set includes episodes 13 through 25, bringing you to the end of the tale. Shakugan no Shana has released season 1 in a S.A.V.E. edition, which means if you shop around you can pick the first 26 episodes up for right around $20. Shana lives on the border between our world and the spirit realm, her purpose to fight demons who eat humans. When Yuji dies and meets her on that border, they discover he can increase her power, so they team up to protect the living. Finally, Upotte!!: Complete Collection includes all 10 episodes plus the OVA, about a homeroom teacher and his weapons-grade coeds. When your student’s are living weapons, the classroom gets even more dangerous than usual, as the new teacher finds out by winding up in the hospital.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 11Mar13

The only genre movie this week is a parody, The Hungover Games, making fun of The Hunger Games, The Hangover, and Ted, to name just a few. I also have to mention Lost in Thailand, which came out on DVD a week or two back, and is pretty much the Chinese version of The Hangover.

In TV, while there is no genre releases, the BBC series Vikings is a look at what was really driving the repeated Viking raids on the British Isles over the course of several centuries (800 to 1150, give or take 30 years at each end).

In Anime Accel World: Set 2, the combat continues as the Brain Burst Linker’s vie to see who gets to rule the Accelerated World. If Arita can not defeat the new menace he could lose everything and everyone that he cares about.This ox set includes the 12 episodes of the second set, plus 8 mini-episodes of associated silliness. Ikki Tousen: Xtreme Xecutor is the 4th round of battle-induced clothing malfunctions as the Dragon’s Powers determines who wins and who loses. This series gives a whole new meaning to school rivalries, as the street brawlers meet for some reincarnated mayhem.

Justice in Psycho Pass is based on the Dominator, a futuristic weapon that can read minds and assess the probability that a citizen will turn criminal. This tool is wielded by the Enforcers and Inspectors who have replaced police, judges, and jury with heavy caliber instant justice of the extreme prejudice kind. At the other end of the social spectrum, The Pet Girl of Sakurasou: Collection 2 is all about the care and feeding of the terminally unworldly.