Legend of the Silver Screen: Douglas Fairbanks

Douglas Fairbanks is not a name that most people today will recognize. Neither the original, nor Doug Fairbanks Jr., who followed in his father's footsteps into the movie industry as both an actor and producer. But he is easily one of the most important and most influential movie stars of all time. He was a founding member of United Artists in 1919, and the following year effectively introduced a whole new genre of movie to the audiences of America: The swashbuckling action/adventure movie, with the magnificent The Mark of Zorro. Yeah, I'm on a theme right now. Bear with me.

Fairbanks started out as a comedic actor, but that field was full of extraordinary talents such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Still, Fairbanks, who debuted on screen in 1915, had an athletic prowess that made him stand out among his peers. He specialized in romantic comedies, rather than the highbrow slapstick (now there's a contradiction in terms) of Chaplin and Keaton. He met Mary Pickford, then the most popular actress on the planet, in 1917, and their long-standing affair (both were married to other people) was something of an open secret in the Hollywood scene. They eventually divorced their partners and married each other, and were considered Hollywood royalty among fans of the silver screen all over the world. In 1919, Pickford, Fairbanks, Chaplin, and director D.W. Griffith formed their own production studio, United Artists, in defiance of the studios that were monopolizing distribution and exhibitors across the nation.

By 1920, Fairbanks was one of the most popular actors in the world, and had starred in 29 pictures, most of them of a comic nature. But then he read Johnston McCulley's The Curse of Capistrano, and immediately knew he had to make that story into a movie. And so he did, with the aforementioned Mark of Zorro movie. It was such a big hit that Fairbanks immediately went to work on other adventure-costume movies such as The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Thief of Baghdad (1924), The Black Pirate (1926 and the first color swashbuckling movie), The Gaucho (1927), and The Iron Mask (1929). These were all silent movies; Fairbanks didn't do as well with audiences when talkies came along, and his health was declining at the same time; his athleticism wasn't what it used to be. By 1934, he was retired from movies altogether, and passed away in 1939 at the age of 56.

Fairbanks' legacy is monumental. He was the first president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the guys who hand out the Oscars), the first (along with Pickford) to put hand and footprints into the wet cement in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the first to receive a posthumous Honorary Oscar in 1939. And of course, he was the blueprint for stars like Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power, who would both reprise roles made famous by Fairbanks (Robin Hood and Zorro, respectively).

So, when you watch an action movie, especially one with acrobatics and swordplay, take a moment to remember the man who started it all just over a century ago. And maybe check out his body of work; most of it is in the public domain now, even in the United States. All the movies I listed above are in that category, so you can see them for free online.

An Ultimate Collection

Oh, yeah...

I completed this collection today; I have all four boxed sets of the James Bond Ultimate Edition with all 20 pre-Craig movies. I might add Casino Royale to the collection, but that's the only Craig movie I'm interested in. But this...this is a sweet, sweet set. Yes, they're DVDs, not Blu-Rays, but they're still great to have in hardcopy.

The only real issue with the set is that they aren't in chronological order; each set is a mixed bag with at least three different Bonds in it. I can see the logic; get one box, get a taste of multiple actors in the role. But since it's my collection now, I'm going to sort them out in the proper viewing order, because that is how I roll.

All four sets have the full set of discs and booklets, which is nice. They're all in good shape, so now it's just a matter of putting them up on the shelf all pretty-like.

And yes, Dalton is still my favorite Bond, and if you disagree with me, you're wrong. Connery was cool, Moore was urbane, Lazenby was...well, he was there, and Brosnan was the modern, suave Bond. But Dalton's Bond was a beast, a no-nonsense guy who truly made me believe that he was as deadly as a man could be, and while all of the Bonds were badasses when they needed to be, if Dalton's Bond came up to me and informed me in a quiet voice that I had overdue library books, I would not only pay the fine on the spot and apologize profusely, I would return a couple of other books along with them just to be safe. Because I don't ever want that man to be mad at me.

Christmas Treasures

This year, I told everyone I just wanted Amazon gift cards. Why? Because books, obviously. My boss gives all her employees $150 to order on Amazon every Christmas. Weirdly, I'm the only one who actually orders books from the world's biggest bookstore. Everyone else orders other stuff. Go figure. At least she knows who ordered the books.

In addition, I got a bunch of gift cards in my stocking, so I had a great Amazon Christmas. Naturally, I ordered a bunch of fantasy books. Inspirational reading, after all. Some of the stuff I got include an H.G. Wells collection of six novels, two Oz books for Garrett, a twelve-book volume of Lord Dunsany, a short omnibus of Fritz Leiber, the Planetary series of short stories by Stanley Weinbaum, and a collection of Clark Ashton Smith short stories. I also picked up the fourth and fifth books of the Early Church Fathers series, and a couple of books for my Latin course. All in all, it was quite the haul for literary goodness. And, of course, Wells, Dunsany, Lieber, Weinbaum and Smith are all pulp writers. Well, Dunsany and Wells were published outside of the pulps first, but they were incredibly influential on the pulps, and many of their writings were reprinted in the pulps anyway.

And yes, I'm reading these books. I'm putting the Latin to good use right now, and I'm slowly making my way through the Church fathers. They are a treasure trove for any Christian reader, with insights from many different men who all held to the same set of beliefs, and many of whom were declared saints later on. Most of them, in fact.

That's something I need to put on my next list: A book of saints. Learning about them is more important than learning about rock stars and athletes. After all, we don't get to be ballplayers in the afterlife, but we might be saints. It would be a good thing to aspire to be.

Now, I just need to build the bookshelves to hold all of these treasures...

Collecting the Classics

Old books get a raw deal from a lot of people today. 'Racist, misogynist, homophobic...' The litany is well-known to all. Old books aren't 'relevant' to modern society, we are told. Old writers are out of touch. Readers can't relate to the characters. Not enough diversity or inclusion. Blah, blah, blah.

One doesn't need to read about a character identical to themselves to relate to them. I certainly don't; I can't remember the last time I read a book with an introverted half-French, half-English Canadian protagonist with Asperger's. But I relate to a lot of characters that I've read. Most readers do, regardless of what the character looks like in description. The classics, however, transcend such nonsense altogether. Anyone can relate to them, if they so choose. Anyone can read them and learn from them, if they so choose.

I find the older books simply more entertaining than modern stuff. There are always exceptions to that, of course; there are some great modern books that I enjoy. But they don't qualify as 'classics' just yet.

So, what classics am I talking about collecting? Children's classics, mostly. Things younger boys and girls can read and relate to. Why younger readers? For a couple of reasons. First, they have more time to read than most adults do. Second, they don't worry about 'relatability' or other such modern ideas; they just want to read a fun story. Third, these are fun stories. Adventures that take place all around the world, or even outside of the world. Alice in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz are two great examples of books that kids still love today. The characters are memorable and fun, the stories are exciting and easy to read, and their impact on culture to this day can't be ignored.

I've got a nice list of older kids' books that I've given to my boys to read during the homeschooling years. I'm hoping to get Garrett reading more as he gets older and comes out of his autism. He already loves listening to Alice and Dorothy's adventures. He doesn't care that they're girls; the stories are great. And that's why they are classics.

There are fourteen Oz books written by the original author, L. Frank Baum. Everyone knows about the first one thanks to the Judy Garland movie. But I actually preferred the second book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, when I was a kid. Others in the series include Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, and The Road to Oz, to name a few. With each book, Baum expanded Oz and its environs, adding new characters while retaining the favorites like the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman (who appear in almost all the Baum Oz books). Today, there are online communities of Oz fans and lots of information, including maps, flags, dynastic lineages, history books, etc. Oz is more real than some places here on Earth.

I'm starting the third book with Garrett; I'd like to do some reviews on the Oz books as we go through; I'll do the first couple at some point this week, then as we continue through the books. Physical copies, not ebooks. Paper is better.

Recommended Reading List

I don't think I've done this before, so this should be interesting. I'm going to list a few books that I (hopefully) haven't written about before, books that mean a lot to me and that I highly recommend. Some are very well-known, some...not so much.

I'm going to start with the first fantasy series I read, and still my favorite fantasy series to this day: The Belgariad, by David Eddings. It's a five-book epic fantasy series about a boy who has a great destiny. It's not exactly an original idea, and it's been called all kinds of clichés, but I love it. I was twelve when I first read it. I got the first two books, Pawn of Prophecy and Queen of Sorcery for my birthday along with Asimov's Foundation. I think I read Foundation first, but I really wasn't a big fan of it. But once I was done the first two Belgariad books, I was hooked. I couldn't wait for the next books to come out (they were still not all published yet), and I devoured each one as it was released. These were probably the first books I ever bought for myself.

The series is written for younger readers, but not stupid ones. Eddings had a good vocabulary, and he wasn't afraid to use it. And his world-building was amazing; Each nation is distinct, but believable. There are merchant-princes, Vikings, knights, plains nomads, Mongol hordes, and many others. Eddings spent a lot of time on his world-building before he ever wrote a word of the series, and it shows in the writing.

There is also a sequel series, The Malloreon, which is an admittedly inferior copy of the Belgariad, and two follow-up books after that, Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress that fill in a lot of backstory to the first series. There's also another book called the Rivan Codex, which is his background notes and a treatise on how to write epic fantasy, with an emphasis on world-building that really stirs the imagination. None of these are needed to enjoy the original five-book series, but they're good reads as well.

Okay, next up, let's go to less-epic fantasy. D&D gamers are familiar with Appendix N, the list of books that inspired Gygax when he was creating the game. People are now reading those old authors a lot more than they did when I was younger, when you just couldn't find them on the shelves anymore. Thanks to the internet, they're much easier to find. One of those authors is a woman by the name of André Norton, and one of the books she wrote is Quag Keep. This is a notable book because it is the very first-ever D&D book. Now, is it great literature? Hell, no. Norton can and has written much, much better books. But this is a book about a D&D adventure. And it is the very first book that uses the now-common trope of 'gamers sucked into the world they are gaming in'. I mean, it was written in 1978; the Dungeon Masters Guide wasn't even released yet. I'm not sure the Players Handbook was out for that matter. So this is based on the earlier version of D&D, the white-box version.

Quag Keep has a typical assortment of fantasy characters; there are clerics, fighters, mages, elves, and...a lizard man? Well, I never saw that in the supplements to the game. But, that was back in the days when D&D really was a set of guidelines rather than rules. And lizard men were just as popular in fantasy literature as elves were, going back to Burroughs' Pellucidar stories. So, it makes sense to include such a character in a book about the game.

The worst aspect of Quag Keep is probably the ending, which is really, really rushed and breaks the crap out of the fourth wall with an army of sledgehammers. I won't spoil it, but trust me, it's a hell of a letdown after the rest of the adventure. Still, I will recommend the book for its historical value, as well as because the book between the first and last chapters is a fun romp in the spirit of the game.

Okay, so instead of giving reasons why I like these next few books, I'll just list them and let the reader find out why I enjoy them so much.

G.A. Henty, The Cat of Bubastes

H.R. Haggard, She

L. Frank Baum, The Marvelous Land of Oz

David Weber, On Basilisk Station

E.E. "Doc" Smith, The Skylark of Space

Garrett P. Serviss, A Columbus of Space

And, finally, I'll recommend my newest book, Apprentice, available now on Amazon.

Alternate History

The most asked question in history is, "What if?"

"What if the South had won the Civil War?"

"What if Hitler had won?"

"What if the Spanish Armada conquered England?"

"What if the Soviets kept missiles in Cuba?"

"What if the American Revolution had failed?"

"What if France defeated England in North America?"

There are literally millions of possible questions of this sort; what if this particular historical event had gone a different way? What would be the result?

This is the field of alternate history, a sub-set of science fiction. Basically, there is a PoD, a Point of Departure, where one, possibly very small, event turns out differently than it did in our actual history. One of the most well-known examples of this is Harry Turtledove's 'American Empire' series, where the Union never gets hold of Lee's plans for Gettysburg thanks to a sharp-eyed Confederate soldier who rescues the dropped orders. Not able to anticipate Lee's intentions, the Union is hopelessly outclassed at the battle, and the American Civil War is effectively over, with two countries now occupying the land where one once stood united. Turtledove wrote a lengthy series of eleven books in which he explores the aftermath of this single action, with the action beginning with another war between the North and South in 1881 and ending with the end of World War II in 1944. It's justly known as one of the most intricate and detailed alternate history stories out there, and Turtledove himself is the acknowledged master of the genre. So much so, in fact, that there is an award named after him on the Alternate History forums.

Yes, that's a thing; a web forum where people toss out ideas and write lengthy timelines exploring various facets of 'what if' in history. There are pre-Christian timelines, Fall of Rome stories, medieval alternates, and of course, Civil War and World War II explorations; those two are the most popular topics for alternate history speculations.

Right now, I'm reading a very lengthy and detailed timeline about what might have happened at the beginning of World War I, if the Germans had a couple of cruisers near the Canadian west coast at the time war was declared. Due to political wrangling and a focus on the east coast, Canada had but one functioning warship on the west coast at that time, the Rainbow, which would have been outclassed by either of the likely German cruisers in the region. It's a fantastic read, very well-researched, and while it only covers a brief span of time (the writer stated that it would only cover roughly the month of August, 1914), it's filled with incredible possibilities for a future in which Canada almost certainly develops a strong Navy in the aftermath of what would devastating coastal raids in British Columbia.

Alternate history has subgenres as well. There's fantastic alternate history, where magic makes an appearance in some historical period, such as the Crusades or the Roman Empire; there's sci-fi alternate history, such as an alien invasion in World War II (another Turtledove series). One recent addition to the alternate history genre is 'steampunk'. This is a genre in which fantastic technologies imagined by 19th-century writers such as Jules Verne and H.G. Wells become a reality; a particularly popular point is Charles Babbage's attempt to build a functioning computer (The Difference Engine), which could do complex calculations. His designs were recovered decades later, and a working model of the Difference Engine has been built. Imagine Victorian England with computers. Where would we be today?

Some alternate history focuses on the actual PoD, where the immediate aftereffects of the change are explored. Others look further into the future, looking at how society would have developed differently in the intervening years between the PoD and the setting of the story. Both provide interesting and exciting possibilities. And there's another branch of this genre in which our timeline is somehow mixed with an alternate one, usually through time travel or some other such device, where people from our familiar history are transported to a different world with a parallel history.

While Turtledove is the master of the genre, he wasn't its originator. The oldest known example of alternate history comes from Ancient Rome; the historian Livy speculated on what would have happened had Alexander the Great lived to invade Europe as he had planned, and how Rome would have fared against his forces. That was written in the late 1st century BC.

I'm going to recommend a few alternate history books that deal with a variety of historical periods and how history could have been changed with just a twist of fate. All of these are rightly regarded as classic works of the genre.

L. Sprague de Camp, Lest Darkness Fall (a time traveler goes to Classical Rome and tries to prevent the fall of the Empire)

Eric Flint, 1632 (West Virginian miners are transplanted to the Thirty Years' War in Germany)

Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle (The Nazis won World War II, splitting North America with Japan)

Keith Roberts, Pavane (Spanish conquer England, no Industrial Revolution but there are fairies)

William Gibson & Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine (Babbage succeeds in building the first computer in Victorian England)

Harry Turtledove, pretty much anything

These are a good start for the reader interested that most mysterious of questions, "What if?" Enjoy, and learn some history.

Desecration

I've been struggling with things to write about for my blog, which is why I keep taking these long breaks in between posts. But tonight, I got me a topic, and I'm going to rant.

Now, understand that I no longer watch TV. Nothing current, anyway, unless it's a documentary about history or farming or something like that. TV shows these days? They're largely garbage. I know, there are people who disagree with me, and that's fine; everyone is entitled to their opinion, even when they're wrong.

My wife and son watch Survivor, which I've never been able to understand. I mean, people act shocked when they get stabbed in the back by someone they trusted. Why is anyone surprised by backstabbing in Survivor? These are people fighting to win a million dollars. I've seen people do worse to each other to get a corner office.

Anyway, tonight they were watching a show called 'Bel-Air.' Here, I'll quote from Wikipedia:

"Bel-Air is an American drama streaming television series developed by Morgan Cooper, Malcolm Spellman, TJ Brady, and Rasheed Newson. It is a reimagined version of the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and is based on Cooper's short fan film of the same name."

Fresh Prince, reimagined into a drama. Again, I don't watch TV, so while I had heard my son talk about the show, I had no clue what it was about. I do remember the sitcom; I wasn't a regular watcher of Fresh Prince back in the day, although I did see it once in a while, and there are some very good episodes that mix drama and comedy very, very well. The show was never really that edgy, certainly not by today's standards, but it touched on important themes, including the importance of family.

As I'm walking through the living room, I catch sight of the scene they're watching. I see a young black man snorting cocaine off a desk and cursing at the other young black man about some girl. Okay...? That's really not appropriate material for my son to be watching, so why is my wife all--THAT WAS CARLTON?!?!?!?!!!!

CARLTON?!

Carlton is a coke-snorting headcase in this version of Fresh Prince?

This Carlton?

What in the actual bloody hell?

Is this what passes for entertainment today? I realize I'm getting older, but that has nothing to do with the fact that this is a horrible concept. And what makes it worse is that Will Smith loves this 'reconceptualization' of his break-out series. I wonder what Alfonso Ribiero (the original Carlton) thinks of what's been done to his character. I can't imagine he's too thrilled that he's become a cliché, and a pretty awful one, at that.

Maybe I'm way off-base here, but when I see this sort of thing, I weep for society. This is pure garbage. I'm picking my words carefully, because I would rather not start using the same words new-Carlton uses. Call me old-fashioned or whatever, but I would much rather see a more wholesome form of entertainment than what I just saw. I'm not going to post a clip of the new show, because it really isn't appropriate for kids. I don't care that it's 'relevant,' or 'updated.' I care that the show's creator, and the star of the original, just took a massive leak on his legacy.

Fresh Prince was a show that showed positive role-models for young people of any race; sure, Carlton was a rich dweeb, but he had a lot of depth. Uncle Phil was a great father, tough and stern when he needed to be with the kids (including Will), but an absolute bear when he was standing up for them. There was a real sense of family in the show, which is what made it a classic.

Reading the Bel-Air episode descriptions on Wikipedia, the pilot episode manages to include drug dealers, guns, racism, drug use, innuendo and fighting. And I'll bet no one was laughing. And this is what passes for entertainment today?

Maybe I'm just yelling at kids to get off my lawn, but this is what our 'entertainment' has ben reduced to. And I want nothing to do with it. I'll stick to the classics, the shows with a positive message, the stuff that is actually entertaining. In the meantime, I'll keep the cable cut and the networks off.

Star Trek: Enterprise Retrospective

I know it's not the most popular take, but I love Enterprise. It's the only Star Trek series that I have watched in its entirety, much of it when it first aired from 2001-2005. I love the raw, 'low-tech' ship with the submarine interior, the function-before-form bridge, the cramped quarters where everyone has to duck to avoid banging their heads... yeah, that's the era of Star Trek I would want to live in.

I've been rewatching the series with my son, who has a unique perspective on the show: It's the only Star Trek he's ever seen. I just asked him if he knows who Mr. Spock is, and I got a blank look. So, it's really fun to watch this show with him, as everything is fresh and new to him, while for me I'm always picking out the callbacks to previous series. It's going to be interesting as we go through the series to see how he reacts to some of the more jarring callbacks (the Ferengi episode and the Borg in particular). He likely won't even notice them. Much like his first run-through of the Star Wars movies, which he watched in chronological order (so the big reveal of Empire wasn't so big to him), seeing Star Trek from this fresh perspective should be an interesting experience.

The only episodes I don't plan to watch with him on this run-through are the Mirror Universe episodes (In a Mirror Darkly) and the series finale (which, let's face it, totally sucks as an Enterprise episode). I'm going to save the Mirror episodes until we watch the two pertinent TOS episodes (Mirror, Mirror and the Tholian Web), so he has the necessary context to understand them. I might watch 'These are the Voyages' when we get to TNG season 5. Otherwise, we're going to watch the whole series in chronological order.

So far, we're most of the way through the first season. We've seen some great episodes (Andorian Incident, Dear Doctor) and some not-so-great episodes (Unexpected, Terra Nova). I think the first-season quality is higher than a lot of people give it credit for. Especially for someone new to the Trek universe. I'm considering asking Tanner to give his thoughts on the episodes as we go through the series. Even just a capsule review of each episode would be nice. For now, though, I'm going to give my thoughts on the best Star Trek pilot episode ever, Broken Bow.

Broken Bow establishes the embryonic Star Trek universe very well. Ninety years after First Contact, the Vulcans are the elder statesmen and 'big brother' of the humans, keeping them mostly confined to their own neighborhood of space because of all the big nasty dangers out there (and because humans are impulsive and dangerous themselves). When a chance encounter with a Klingon courier threatens to delay the launch of the first Warp 5 starship, Enterprise, new captain Jonathan Archer takes on the mission of returning the Klingon to his people alive, giving humanity its first taste of real deep space adventure.

The crew are well-established from the beginning, and there are some callbacks to the original series; this time around, the helmsman is black and the comm officer is Asian, a switch from the Sulu-Uhura situation. There's a full-blooded Vulcan science officer, but she isn't good friends with the crew; she's basically a chaperone who thinks the humans are wasting their time and incapable of handling any real dangers in deep space. The armory officer (tactical and security, so he's Worf) is a stiff-upper-lip Englishman, and the Chief Engineer is a good-ol' boy from the south, much like a certain doctor. The Denobulan doctor Phlox rounds out our main crew.

There are a few moments in the pilot where the humans are clearly out of their depth; their trip to Rigel is a good example of this, as T'Pol, the Vulcan, has to give them basic etiquette instructions on how to deal with the myriad cultures there. The new enemy, the Suliban, seriously outmatch the Enterprise in their tech, with cloaking devices on their little ships and genetic engineering that makes them into supervillains. But human perseverance pays off, and the crew not only disrupt the Suliban plot to destabilize the Klingon empire, but also convince Starfleet to let them continue on their mission of exploration.

After years of watching 24th-century Trek, with holodecks, luxury-liner ships, technobabble galore, and all kinds of aliens, watching Enterprise felt like a breath of fresh air. It's human-centric; the Federation doesn't exist yet, and humans haven't even met two of the other founding races yet (Andorians and Tellarites). There's tension, even conflict, between the human crew and the Vulcans, particularly the ones back on Earth whispering into Starfleet admirals' ears about how much of a screwup Archer is. The tech is laughably weak compared to what we saw over twenty-one seasons of TNG, DS9 and Voyager; no deflector shields, no phasers, lame little torpedoes, and a transporter that nobody trusts. The crew member with the most space experience is the helmsman, who grew up on a cargo transport that spent years between ports. The comm officer is jumpy and uncomfortable, the doctor uses animals and slugs as homeopathic medicine, and there's a definite sense of wonder to go along with the trepidation. This feels like a show about exploring the unknown, at least in this first season.

So, maybe Tanner will give his thoughts on the series. If so, I'll definitely share them here; otherwise, I've still got some thoughts to write up. And yes, I even like the theme song.

Top 10 Heroes

Everyone has heroes. Heroes are a part of our lives from the moment we're old enough to recognize other people. For many of us, our parents are our first heroes. Dad is the strongest guy in the world, and Mom is the most beautiful woman who ever lived. They are our icons, the people who inspire us to be more than a crawling infant. As we get older, our view of heroes expands. Maybe it's a sports star, or a movie character, or a comic book. Heroes continue to inspire us as we grow up.

And as we grow, our heroes change. Sometimes for the better, sometimes...not so much. We can often fall into the trap of admiring and emulating someone who we think is heroic, but ends up having feet of clay, or worse, their heroism was only in our minds, because we thought they were cool, and 'cool' equaled 'hero' to us.

But throughout our lives, whether we recognize them or not, we all have our heroes. I'm going to list ten of mine, heroes who have inspired me as a writer and as a person. Some of them are heroes from my childhood; some are heroes from later in life, and some are recent acquaintances. But they all have one thing in common: They are heroes.

But, what is a hero? Well, that depends on each of us. We all have our different views on what a hero is. And tastes change over time; what was once considered heroic becomes problematic as society views these older heroes as racist, sexist, etc. But they are who they are, and they still have those heroic qualities that made people admire them throughout history.

In my case, my heroic tastes run to the noble and great, the mighty who protect the weak. When I played D&D, my favorite class was always the paladin. The knight in shining armor, the epitome of the medieval hero, the man who would stand unflinching before the very hordes of hell and hold the line. Stories of King Arthur and his knights always fascinated me, even to this day. But knights come in different forms, sometimes in a way we don't expect.

So, here are ten of my favorite heroes from movies, literature, comics...and real life.

10. Sir Richard Burton. The only historical figure on my list, Sir Richard Burton is one of the most incredible men who ever lived. He was a soldier, a spy, a polyglot, and a diplomat. He explored the world; he spoke over two dozen languages; he wrote prodigiously about his travels, and gave us two of the most famous (and notorious) collections of writing in English history: The first complete translation of the Arabian Nights, and the Kama Sutra. He is a titan in history, and while the number of people who remember him or his activities is dwindling, he casts a massive shadow over not only history, but literature. For more on that, check out this link at DMR Books' blog: The Literary Afterlife and Legacy of Sir Richard Burton. If a writer were to invent Burton, he would be ridiculed for creating such an over-the-top, larger-than-life character. But he was real, and he was definitely a hero.

9. Luke Skywalker. I've written about Luke before. While everyone I knew was into Han Solo, Luke was my guy. He was a paladin, even though it was called a Jedi Knight. He did what was right, he didn't fall into temptation, and he did something extremely Christian: He redeemed a fallen soul, his father, before he died. Luke Skywalker is a fantastic hero, in more than one sense. We will ignore the fake Luke Skywalker that appeared in the new sequel trilogy, because that was not Luke Skywalker.

8. Honor Harrington. The only woman on my list, she is the star of David Weber's Honorverse series of books. I know that she's a ridiculous Mary Sue, but I still like her. True, you could switch her out with a male character and, other than the romance parts of the story, you'd see nothing different. The thing that I appreciate is her absolute devotion to duty and her determination to uphold the traditions of the Navy and the Queen she serves. She's obviously and blatantly modeled on Horatio Hornblower, with not a little bit of Admiral Nelson thrown in. But there's nothing wrong with that. I've been reading her books since the first one came out, On Basilisk Station, many years ago, and I never get tired of them. Sure, I'll skim over the technical exposition to get to the action. Action is the point, anyway. And the Honor Harrington books have a whole hell of a lot of action. Space battles galore! And sword fights, just because! It's fun, and she is a great hero.

7. Conan. I'm a newcomer to the pulps; I've read a few Conan stories, and yes, I've seen the two Arnold movies (but not the Jason Momoa one). But let's face it: Conan is as larger-than-life as it gets. He's Richard Burton, minus the civilization. He gets around, he explores the world, but he always remains true to himself and his own code. I'm looking forward to reading more of Howard's greatest creation as I progress through my Appendix N list; what I've read so far makes me want to read more. As for the movie version, I prefer the second movie to the first one, which I know makes me insane. But the first one was plodding and as soulless as one of Thulsa Doom's thralls. Plus, I'm not a big fan of the R-rated stuff. The second one was more of a romp, light-hearted and silly at times, but I found it had more action.

6. Spider-Man. I always looked at Peter Parker with a sympathetic eye, because I could most definitely identify with him. Smaller, shy, bookish...Peter's trials and tribulations throughout high school resonated with me. And he was someone that, through extraordinary fortune, because extraordinary himself. But he still acted and felt like a typical high school kid, one who didn't have all the glory and the girls, like so many of us. And the thing I liked about his adventures was that he didn't always win. In fact, he often got his butt kicked the first time around. But he never gave up, he always came back and found a way to come through when it mattered. No wonder he became the most popular comic book hero on the planet for a good chunk of time.

5. King Belgarion. This one is a sentimental favorite. I didn't read Lord of the Rings until I was in high school, and while I enjoyed it (I was among the many who assumed that LotR was the ur-text for Dungeons & Dragons), I found it to be a bit of a slog to get through. The long descriptive passages turned me off, and I found my eyes glazing over as I skimmed ahead looking for some action. But David Eddings' Belgariad was my real introduction to epic fantasy. I got the first two books for my twelfth birthday (along with the first Foundation book, which made LotR look like an Edgar Rice Burroughs book). It took me a couple of tries to get into the story, since it started off rather slow, but once I got into it, I was hooked. I read the entire series as each book came out, and I reread them regularly. Garion, like Peter Parker, was a character I could identify with. Hey, he was roughly my age. And he was on this incredible journey of discovery, not only of the world around him, but of his own heritage and power. To this day, it's still my favorite fantasy series, largely because of Garion and his earnest heroism. He didn't always know what to do, but he did it sincerely.

4. Madmartigan. I wrote about this recently, too, although I focused more on the movie in general and not as much on Madmartigan. But despite his single appearance in this movie, Madmartigan was one of my favorite characters, ever. He wasn't much at the beginning; a thief, a liar and a swindler, but by the end of the movie, he had more than redeemed himself. The moment where he swears himself to Willow's service still gets to me, and his heroic one-man stand against an army (and a dragon) had me riveted. Plus, he got the girl in the end, which is always important.

3. John Carter. The foundation of fantasy and science fiction literature in the twentieth century, John Carter's shadow looms over everything. He debuted in 1912 in All-Story Magazine, and turned a whole generation of boys into readers. Without him, there's no Star Wars, no Superman, and no Dungeons & Dragons. He changed it all, creating a whole new genre of planetary romance, and setting a new standard for a superman with his fighting prowess and incredible leaping. His indomitable spirit and indefatigable endurance make him one of the deadliest warriors ever. And that was E.R. Burroughs' first written work! I've read four Barsoom books so far, and they're all fantastic. In every sense of the word.

2. Captain James T. Kirk. I was actually torn between Kirk and Cpt. Archer, his predecessor as captain of the first Enterprise. Archer's Enterprise is still my favorite of the Star Trek series, with its relatively-primitive technology and that sense of exploration and wonder that was missing from the 24th-century shows. But Kirk is still the man, and will continue to be so. His willingness to do what was right, even in defiance of the almighty Prime Directive, is one of the most important qualities of a hero. And while sometimes his stories got a bit preachy, you could always count on him to jump into the action and save the day. He was the ultimate leader, a man who could inspire everyone around him to greater heights, and he deserves every accolade the Federation ever gave him.

1. Superman. Of course it's Superman. Just as I preferred Luke to Han, there was never a question in my mind of 'Superman or Batman.' Superman just exceeds Batman in every significant way. Sure, Bruce has more money than Fort Knox, has the cool villain gallery and the great toys, but let's face it: Superman would take out Batman in about three seconds. I don't care how much prep time Bats has; Superman moves at near-light speeds, can heat-vision you from a mile away, can hear you coming from even further, and can bounce pretty much anything you throw at him.

But that's not what makes him a hero. He's the greatest hero because although he has the ability to do all that, he holds back. He's the ultimate example of how far we can go as a race, but he's still grounded with his friends, his career, his family, and his humanity. Yes, the most powerful being on the planet is still human where it counts. He's the shining, noble knight who will fly in to save the day, never hesitating to put himself in harm's way to protect the weak. He could rule the world, and no one could prevent it. But that's not what he's all about; he's about inspiring us to be greater than we are. And in the end, that is the most heroic action of them all.

If these are the kinds of heroes you like as well, you might be interested in checking out my first fantasy novel, Arrival, the first book of the Chronicles of Meterra. It's got literal knights in armor doing the right thing, carving their way in a strange new world. Check it out, and support indie publishing.

Paradigm Shift

It's incredible to think of how much our lives have changed in the past fourteen months. And I'm not talking about COVID. No, I'm talking about how our attitudes toward certain things have completely changed. Things like sports. And movies. Pop culture in general, really.

I mean, the Oscars were last night. I'm not really a movie buff, but I love lists. And I can name just about every Best Picture winner of the 20th century. Including the ones that really didn't deserve to win. But I couldn't even name a single nominated movie from the past year. More importantly, I don't care; I watched maybe two movies that came out last year, and both of them sucked. I can't even name them now; they made no positive impression on my mind whatsoever.

And I'm not an isolated case; the Oscars set a new futility record for apathy, producing the lowest rated show they've ever had. Nobody was watching. And this is in a time when people are being forced to stay home, with nothing to do but watch TV. Hollywood hasn't just lost its glitter, it's been tarnished to an ugly green mess.

Sports is another example of this. The sports leagues are trying to explain away the loss of viewers, but every major sports league is plummeting in the ratings. Again, this is at a time when people have been stuck at home for over a year. It's the most captive audience in television history...and nobody is watching. The Super Bowl's ratings were dreadful, the lowest they've been in fifteen years. The NBA Finals were the lowest rated Finals EVER. They were getting more people to tune in during the 1970s. Baseball is also seeing lower ratings, though not as bad as the other two leagues.

Why is this happening? In a time when the vast majority of people are desperate for something to do to escape the boredom of being locked in their homes by governmental decree, why aren't people watching movies and sports? It's not even that they're not gaining new viewers who previously had better things to do; they've lost a lot of people who DIDN'T have better things to do in the past.

Well, a lot of people have found better things to do. Spending more time with their families, for one thing. I used to follow football religiously on Sundays, but I haven't for quite some time now. And my family is better for it. And I've cut way back on my movie watching as we get ready for the planting season, not to mention tax season at work is reaching crunch time.

People are looking for better things to do, and a lot have found them. Frankly, I think it's for the better. Ironically, in a time where we are separated from our loved ones and friends, people are getting closer as a result. It's as if we've started to realize what we've been missing for so long as we chased bigger and better things, things that didn't provide us with the happiness we wanted so badly.

It's a very significant shift, a reversal of a trend that has been growing for decades. It will be interesting to see the end result of this shift. People are rediscovering old values. I just hope it's not too late for society.

Album Review: Jesus Christ Superstar

I'm going to do a few reviews of the Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera, in three different formats: The original concept album from 1970, the 1973 film, and the 2012 arena tour version. All are excellent in their own way, so I'll take them one at a time.

First, the album. Webber and Tim Rice wrote the music and lyrics for JCS in their early twenties; it was their second collaboration of importance (the first being Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat). Unable to get backing to stage it, they instead recorded it as a concept album, getting Ian Gillan of Deep Purple to sing the lead role of Jesus, and Murray Head as Judas. Yvonne Elliman was tapped to sing the role of Mary Magdalene, a role she would later play on stage and in the 1973 movie.

The music is familiar to just about everyone; the famous intro to "Superstar" has been used for TV shows, for example, and anyone who hears the opening three notes can instantly complete the musical phrase. "I Don't Know How to Love Him" was the other single from the album, although it wasn't released until 1971 when Helen Reddy did her own version of it; both versions charted at the same time, which was a rare thing in those days.

This is a rock opera; the music is very much of its time, and yet a good chunk of the music is timeless. The repetitive riff of the opening number, "Heaven on their Minds", is a standout, as that riff just keeps going and going from the first measure until Judas is well into his soliloquy. And the riff is repeated later on during the "Trial Before Pilate", as Jesus is flogged by a Roman soldier keeping excellent time while Pilate counts off the thirty-nine lashes. The odd 5/4 rhythm of "Everything's Alright" sticks in your head for a while afterward, with Mary, Judas and Jesus playing off of each other in a scene that is tense even in music-only format.

But the standout song, and one of my candidates for Best Song Ever, is "Gethsemane". To be honest, though, I'm not a huge fan of Gillan's original version. The improvised high falsetto note that has become the song's signature moment is all Gillan, but the rest of the song just doesn't have the emotional impact that it should. Maybe I'm just missing something in his interpretation, but after he hits the high note, Jesus sounds completely dispassionate about what's about to happen. It's still a fantastic song, but I can see why Gillan's version wasn't ever released as a single despite the song's awesomeness. His version has the high note, but not a lot more than that.

I'm sure that any Deep Purple fans who read this will take me to task, but I'm tough enough to take it. It's music, it's subjective, and since this is my blog, my opinion is the one that matters.

The album is a bit shorter than the movie, which doesn't surprise me. However, the difference involves some quick cuts from song to song, as well as the removal of some non-musical scenes from the movie. One thing I noted was that a familiar line from the "Trial Before Pilate" doesn't actually appear in the original version. The songs "Then We Are Decided" and "Could We Start Again Please" aren't on the original album, either; they appeared in later versions.

Overall, I like the original album. Gillan does an excellent job, and he did set the standard for future performances (especially with "Gethsemane"). I'm not familiar with Murray Head's work outside of this, but he portrays Judas as a man torn by internal conflict and fears very well. Yvonne Elliman and Barry Dennen (Pilate) will appear in the film as well.

Book Review: The Moon Pool, Abraham Merritt

This review is not of the 1919 published novel called The Moon Pool. This is actually a review of the original novelette that Merritt published in the June 22, 1918 edition of All-Story Weekly. This was his third published story, following Through the Dragon Glass and The People of the Pit, also published in All-Story Weekly. But this one was the breakthrough, the one that got everyone to sit up and take notice. It was so popular that the publisher asked Merritt to write a sequel. That was published in six parts in early 1919, as Conquest of the Moon Pool. The two stories were then mashed together and edited to create the version that most people who are familiar with the story at all remember the best.

That last part was a convoluted way of saying 'not too many people know about this guy anymore.' But man, he can write a ripping yarn. Merritt's total output is not very heavy; nine novels and nine short stories during his lifetime, with a few fragments published years later. But the influence he laid on the fantasy/weird/horror genres cannot be underestimated.

The Moon Pool is framed as a 'someone told me this' story, wrapped in the conceit of a 'scientific' organization to lend the tale authenticity. The story takes place on a ship in the South Pacific, where Dr. Goodwin encounters an old colleague, Dr. Throckmartin, who is not the man he used to be. The story is told from Throckmartin's perspective as he relates the horrifying tale of what befell himself and his small group of scientists who meddled with things they should have left alone.

According to Throckmartin, his wife, her maid, and his assistant went to the island of Ponape in the Carolines, where the natives warned them to stay away from the island on the nights of the full moon because bad things would happen. Naturally, being scientists, they disregarded the native superstition and determined to study the ruined city of Nan-Matal by the light of the full moon. Oops.

The story seems cliché to modern eyes, but that's because it's men like Merritt and Burroughs who created those clichés in the first place with their incredible stories that truly took popular fiction to places people had never imagined before. They were fresh ideas at the time, and need to be read in that vein. Merritt uses the newness of those clichés to write a tale that drips with weird menace on every page. As Throckmartin tells the tale, the sense of unknowable terrors continues to grow, even as the reader's mind reels at the impossibility of the story. By the end, Throckmartin's fate is sealed, and Goodwin is left with knowledge that would shatter a lesser man.

"Good God!" breathed Throckmartin, and if ever the words were a prayer and an invocation they were. And then, for the first time—I saw—it!

Nearer and nearer it came, borne on the sparkling waves, and less and less grew the protecting wall of shadow between it and us. The crystalline sounds were louder—rhythmic as music from another planet. Now I saw that within the mistiness was a core, a nucleus of intenser light—veined, opaline, effulgent, intensely alive. And above it, tangled in the plumes and spirals that throbbed and whirled were seven glowing lights.

Through all the incessant but strangely ordered movement of the—thing—these lights held firm and steady. They were seven—like seven little moons. One was of a pearly pink, one of delicate nacreous blue, one of lambent saffron, one of the emerald you see in the shallow waters of tropic isles; a deathly white; a ghostly amethyst; and one of the silver that is seen only when the flying fish leap beneath the moon. There they shone—these seven little varicolored orbs within the opaline mistiness of whatever it was that, poised and expectant, waited to be drawn to us on the light filled waves.

Intense, isn't it? And very descriptive. Merritt could turn on the vocabulary when he wanted to, and it shows. And as the story progresses, we know what is going to happen to each member of Throckmartin's party; it's as inevitable as the rising of the moon. But even so, the tale keeps drawing the reader in, making these old clichés seem fresh after all. Just wrap your head around the imagination required to write this:

"As I turned again to call to Stanton, my eyes swept the head of the steps and stopped, fascinated. For the moonlight had thickened more. It seemed to be—curdled—there; and through it ran little gleams and veins of shimmering white fire. A languor passed through me. It was not the ineffable drowsiness of the preceding night. It was a sapping of all will to move. I tore my eyes away and forced them upon Stanton. I tried to call out to him. I had not the will to make my lips move! I had struggled against this paralysis and as I did so I felt through me a sharp shock. It was like a blow. And with it came utter inability to make a single motion. Goodwin, I could not even move my eyes!

"I saw Stanton leap upon the steps and move toward the gateway. As he did so the light in the courtyard grew dazzlingly brilliant. Through it rained tiny tinklings that set the heart to racing with pure joy and stilled it with terror.

"And now for the first time I heard that cry 'Av-o-lo-ha! Av-o-lo-ha!' the cry you heard on deck. It murmured with the strange effect of a sound only partly in our own space—as though it were part of a fuller phrase passing through from another dimension and losing much as it came; infinitely caressing, infinitely cruel!

"On Stanton's face I saw come the look I dreaded—and yet knew would appear; that mingled expression of delight and fear. The two lay side by side as they had on Thora, but were intensified. He walked on up the stairs; disappeared beyond the range of my fixed gaze. Again I heard the murmur—'Av-o-lo-hal' There was triumph in it now and triumph in the storm of tinklings that swept over it. "For another heart-beat there was silence. Then a louder burst of sound and ringing through it Stanton's voice from the courtyard—a great cry—a scream—filled with ecstasy insupportable and horror unimaginable! And again there was silence. I strove to burst the invisible bonds that held me. I could not. Even my eyelids were fixed. Within them my eyes, dry and aching, burned."

Readers voted The Moon Pool the most popular story that All-Story Weekly published in the first half of the twentieth century. Reading it, it's obvious why; Burroughs wrote great adventure stories, and Dunsany wrote fantasy like no one before him or since. Doyle and Haggard created the 'lost world' stories, but Merritt synthesized it all together into a tale so powerful it inspired H.P. Lovecraft himself, the master of weird horror fiction.

So, why doesn't anyone know about this book? How is the man who wrote something like this so obscure today?

Frankly, the answer is Terry Brooks. Fantasy fiction prior to 1977 was a mixed bag, a field where literally anything could happen; Conan knock-offs could fight eldritch horrors on an alien starship and nobody blinked at the weird mix. Pulp fantasy authors from 1920 to the early 1970s were influenced by Dunsany, Burroughs and Merritt, and there were no limits to what they could imagine. Earth so far in the distant future that the sun was red and wizards schemed to steal ancient spells from their rivals; an alternate world where elves and faerie creatures fought a war against the Christian men; a tide-locked Earth where magic and science waged a war; and small hobbits could save the world from ancient evils through their compassion and determination.

All of these were familiar tales to the fantasy readers in the early 1970s. But in 1977, Terry Brooks changed all that with his Sword of Shannara, a book that many people have said is nothing more than a pastiche of the Lord of the Rings. And they would be right; while it is an entertaining read, one I have enjoyed in the past, it really is the herald of the future of fantasy. It's been said that almost all fantasy today is nothing more than people writing Tolkien-style books, epic trilogies with massive worldbuilding and grand quests. I disagree with that assessment; it would be more accurate to say that the majority of fantasy authors today aren't mimicking Tolkien; they just aren't good enough to do that. No, they are mimicking Terry Brooks in their attempts to mimic Tolkien. And that is why there isn't anything new on the shelves anymore; it's all just footnotes to Tolkien and Brooks.

It's a tragic situation, and one that needs to change. And the best way to change that is to bring back the writings of the old masters, the ones who started it all and made fantasy truly fantastic. The sooner we do that, the better. Abraham Merritt being obscure should be an absurd thought to any reasonable fan of science fiction and fantasy. It's no different than fans of vampire romances not knowing about Bram Stoker and Dracula. That's how seminal Merritt is to the fantasy genre.

So, do yourself a favor and check out The Moon Pool. You can find it in its original form at the Internet Archive. Believe me, you won't regret it. Although you might not ever look at the full moon the same way again.

And when you're done with that, you might want to check out my own contribution to pulp fantasy, starting with The Chronicles of Meterra: Arrival.

Utterly Fantastic

For a lot of people my age and younger, fantasy literature began with Tolkien and Lord of the Rings. For the significant number of us who got into fantasy through role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, LotR was the most influential book we read. Sure, there were recommended reading lists in the back of the rulebooks (the legendary Appendix N, or the list in the back of the Moldvay Basic book), but Lord of the Rings and its many imitators, such as the Shannara series, were the biggest influences on our gaming and, for some, our writing. Yes, there were those who enjoyed Lovecraft and Howard as well, but unless you were actually using Cthulhu in your games, those influences were comparatively minor.

It's a tragedy, to be honest. There was so much other fantastic stuff out there that we just weren't paying attention to. I've spoken of Edgar Rice Burroughs before, of course; he's the dominant force in pop culture, even if the vast majority of us don't know it. The John Carter movie that Disney put out a few years ago was a pale imitation of the original, but I find it amazing that a lot of people actually thought it was a pale imitation of more recent science-fiction and fantasy movies. Are you kidding me?

John Carter, Burroughs' first great creation (predating Tarzan by a few months in publication) stands at the beginning of pop culture as we know it. Yes, there were heroes like Hercules and Sigurd and King Arthur before him; those are of a different breed. Their influence, while important, pales today compared to John Carter and Burroughs. Without Edgar Rice Burroughs, we would be bereft of Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, and Superman, among others.

That's a bold statement, isn't it? But it's true, nonetheless. George Lucas has stated that when developing Star Wars, he couldn't get the rights to Flash Gordon, so he turned back to that character's inspiration: John Carter of Mars. Jerry Seigel, the creator of Superman, stated that he "had Tarzan and John Carter in mind" when he created the Man of Steel. And the original boxed set of D&D booklets had far more references to Barsoom than Middle-Earth; they had to be removed because of issues with the Burroughs estate, and this was well before the publicized problems with the Tolkien estate.

But Burroughs isn't the only one. Inspired by Jeffro Johnson's epic read-through of the books of Appendix N, I've been slowly working my way through the same authors, starting with Dunsany, Burroughs, and Abraham Merritt (the Lord of Fantasy before he was memory-holed in the 1980s). Life has slowed down my reading (and I'm working my way through the Arabian Nights right now), but the stuff I've read so far has been incredible. I'm working on Conquest of the Moon Pool, the original serialized version, and it's so different from everything I grew up reading. But it's recognizably fantasy, too. The kind that we used to read regularly, before we threw out our pop-cultural heritage and replaced it with Game of Thrones. That was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an improvement.

Burroughs didn't just influence D&D, though; Traveller also has some ties to John Carter's stories. In the back of the first Traveller supplement, 1,001 characters, the publisher added nine nameless characters drawn from classic science fiction. The first one? Unquestionably John Carter. And you would not want to get your character on his bad side; he will end you.

Reading these old books may turn some people off, but as I mentioned in my 'About Me,' what's new isn't necessarily an improvement. And when it comes to reading these giants of science-fantasy, they have yet to be improved on.

And while I don't pretend that my own efforts at this sort of writing come up to the lofty standards set by these masters, I'm doing my best to follow in their footsteps, one book at a time. I've even written a book set in the time of these early champions of the genre; it's The Awakening, the first book of the Gilded Age series.

Heroes

Welcome to 2021! May it be more enjoyable than 2020 was. I know, that's like saying I hope that not getting kicked in the tenderloins on a daily basis is an improvement. 2020 was a rough one, wasn't it? But, the future is now, so let's look forward. And to do that, we're going to look backward for a moment.

Warning: This post will contain spoilers for Star Wars: The Mandalorian. So, if you haven't watched it, or haven't finished it yet, STOP READING. Come back after you have watched the finale of Season 2. Trust me, you don't want to be spoiled on this one.

You're done watching it? Cool. How about that ending? Were you expecting it? Nobody was, were they? Or if they were, it was in a 'wouldn't it be awesome if...' kind of a way, without any real expectations that it would actually happen. Because we never see our childhood heroes like that on TV anymore, do we? Not even close.

I confess, I did not watch the entirety of The Last Jedi. I couldn't, which was the first time I could ever say that about a Star Wars movie. I even watched The Phantom Menace multiple times, and that was some seriously crappy and disappointing Star Wars. But The Last Jedi? That was the aforementioned high-speed collision between foot and groin. Luke Skywalker had become a bitter, worthless old fool who believed his entire life was a waste, who was hiding from the entire galaxy because of his failures, a galaxy that looked pretty much as bleak as it did when he first stepped out on the Tatooine desert to buy droids from some Jawas. And he wasn't the only one; despite the heroic efforts of the Rebellion, despite destroying two Death Stars and killing the Emperor, Luke and his friends had, somehow, made absolutely no difference in the galaxy.

Say what?

Was that the message we were supposed to take from the new trilogy of Star Wars movies? That life sucks, and no matter how much you work to change things, it's still going to suck? Even worse than that, the message we got was: "The people you looked up to when you were young? They all failed. Miserably. And they all know it. And now, so do you. Your heroes suck."

And they were heroes to us. Luke Skywalker, in particular, was my favorite. A lot of people I knew were big into Han Solo. He was cocky, cool, he got the girl and the great starship, not to mention a bunch of sweet lines. And he shot first. Everyone wanted to be Han.

But not me; I wanted to be Luke, not Han. Han was Clint Eastwood, but Luke was Clark Kent. A farm boy who grew up knowing he was meant for something bigger, then finding out his true parentage and being thrust into a role that only he could perform. He was the superhero for an entire generation of kids who watched him face the biggest evil imaginable...and step away from the temptations of the Dark Side, redeeming his father's soul in the process. THAT is a hero: Noble, self-sacrificing, steadfast and true, unflinching in the most epic dangers imaginable. And that is what we were all bouncing in our seats waiting to see when the new movies came out.

The Force Awakens was bad enough; Luke appears in a silent cameo at the very end of the movie. No lines, no actions, nothing. He was just there, like that was supposed to make us happy. But the warning signs were there all through the movie: He was in hiding, he had changed...he wasn't really Luke Skywalker anymore. But we still wanted to believe in our hero.

But then The Last Jedi came out, and it was a nightmare. Even Mark Hamill admitted that he hated playing the role as the story demanded, because he knew, just as we all did, that he wasn't playing Luke Skywalker; he was playing a warped, twisted version that he derisively called 'Jake Skywalker.' I stopped watching halfway through the movie, because it was unbearable. And I never even watched a trailer for the last movie. What would have been the point? I wasn't going to watch it anyway.

And so, for two years, our hero, the hero of a generation, was gone. And make no mistake, that was the intent of the producers of those abominable movies. They wanted us to reject the heroes of our youth an embrace new 'heroes' that showed no heroic qualities whatsoever, heroes who did nothing to earn our approbation or admiration, heroes that demanded to be recognized just 'cause. And we refused.

Oh, sure, a lot of people went to see the last movie, but almost nobody went more than once. It was more a case of 'let's just finish the story and get it over with' for a lot of fans who did sit through The Rise of Skywalker. The heartbreak was real, and it felt more like a mercy-killing than a satisfactory conclusion to an epic, thrilling, generational saga.

And that was it; Star Wars was dead to a lot of people.

Fast-forward to 2019, and the Mandalorian series. I've watched most of the first season with my son now, and it's pretty good. It's got a strong Western vibe, and the Mandalorian seems like a typically good Western hero. I like it. But three weeks ago, the only thing I knew about the series was Baby Yoda. And I didn't care.

So, what changed my mind? The last fifteen minutes of the last episode, Chapter 16: The Rescue. I truly wish I hadn't seen the spoilers, because I would have dearly loved to have been surprised. But I'm doing my best to give my son the chance to feel that surprise; maybe I'll videotape it when we get to that episode.

I'm not going to break down the entire episode; I haven't actually seen it, yet. But I do know that when the story's heroes are at the bleakest point, the point of certain death...a hero arrived. THE hero, the one we'd been waiting for since 1983 and Return of the Jedi. Yes, Luke Skywalker was back. But the way it was handled...it was epic.

The heroes are trapped in a room, with several robotic Dark Troopers (one of which is almost too much for the Mandalorian and his friends to fight) punching their way through the reinforced blast doors. It's a hopeless situation, and they all know it. But then, a lone fighter, an X-wing, flies in. The heroes watch as the ship's pilot, in Jedi robes, starts cutting through the Dark Troopers like a buzzsaw. Throughout the entire battle, we never see the Jedi's face, but almost everyone watching it knew, immediately or gradually, what was happening. Finally, we do see his face, and it's him. Luke Skywalker, a Jedi Master the likes of which we had been begging to see in the new trilogy.

As I said, I haven't watched the episode, and I don't know what leads up to it, other than what I can infer. But what got me wasn't that Luke showed up; it was how people reacted to it. On my YouTube feed, I saw a few recommendations about people's reactions to the last episode of the Mandalorian, and Luke Skywalker's return. I couldn't believe it. But I checked them out, because I had to know if it was real.

Here's what I saw in every single video: Shock, disbelief, terror that it was an illusion...and then, sheer joy. Screams of rapture, and tears of pure happiness. It was incredible. The hero of an entire generation finally got the return he deserved. One of the common comments people made about that scene was that 'this is what I wanted to see in The Last Jedi.' Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master at the peak of his powers, tearing through thirty Terminator-like robots like they were little more than an inconvenience. That is the hero we needed back, especially after the year we just went through.

These reaction videos were so powerful that Mark Hamill retweeted them, thanking everyone for the love and support. Because he knew. Without a doubt, he understood exactly what we were feeling. And he felt it, too.

Because we have a primal need for heroes in our lives. Real heroes, not the manufactured ones that Hollywood pushes on us today as if to say 'heroism is what we say it is'. It isn't, and it never was. We decide who the heroes are. That's why stories of Hercules, King Arthur, Tarzan, and Superman still resonate today, because they represent what we want in our heroes. And yes, that includes the girls, too. We all want our heroes to be masculine and stalwart, not mincing and miserable. There's nothing heroic about mincing and miserable, and there never will be.

So, I'm not expecting Disney to take the right lesson from this; their history shows otherwise. But at least for the moment, we can sit back and savor this truly beautiful and epic moment that gave us back, even for just those few short minutes, the chance to believe in heroes once again.

Indie vs. Traditional

I used to be like most writers, wanting desperately to be published by a real publisher and make money as a best-selling author. But it wasn't until last year that I realized that wasn't the way to go to succeed. Now, if I was being published by a 'real publisher' like Tor or Baen, I'd have more sales, but I wouldn't be making very much money, because traditional publishing doesn't pay very well unless you're one of the big-name authors. Which I am most definitely not.

So, I went indie instead, self-publishing through Amazon (for now; there are other platforms for me to use). Sure, my sales aren't exactly setting records, but it's pretty cool to look at my page on Amazon and see nine books (soon to be ten) staring back at me.

At work, I get to listen (quietly) to music. Since it's available, I use YouTube. Usually I'm playing classical music or video game soundtracks (Icewind Dale's music is just awesome). But over the past couple of weeks, I started playing some indie artists, people who were rejected by the establishment at first, but who made great careers on their own. In particular, I've been listening to Postmodern Jukebox, Haley Reinhart, and Lindsey Stirling.

PMJ is one of my favorites; they take modern pop tunes and remake them in older styles. Trust me, you only think your favorite songs are cool. Until you've heard Bruno Mars' Grenade in a 60s surf rock style, or a slow-burn jazz version of Creep, you haven't heard music. And their version of the Titanic song, My Heart Will Go On, is brilliant and awesome in their upbeat, Jackie Wilson 50s' style. Seriously, check them out. You will have a whole new perspective on music.

Haley Reinhart is linked to PMJ, but I first saw her, as many people did, on American Idol. My wife teases me and refers to her as my girlfriend, but it's not her smoldering good looks that impressed me; there are plenty of beautiful women. No, it was her passion, her voice, and her willingness to take chances and be her own person that made her stand out, and it's an absolute crime that she didn't win. She's the best singer in Idol's history, end of sentence.

I suppose part of the appeal was that the judges were unusually harsh on her, as if they were deliberately trying to sabotage her and get eliminated. But she stuck around until the very end, finishing third. Since then, she's gone on to work with PMJ for several songs, but also carved out a successful indie career in jazz-infused pop music that's her own style, and works beautifully for her. She even had a big hit with her remake of Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling in Love that was in a pretty well-known gum commercial. Trust me, her voice is absolutely amazing.

Then there's Lindsey Stirling. I'm sure that me mentioning her isn't exactly going to make much of a difference on her Youtube channel; she just passed three billion views on her channel. But still, her story is truly inspiring. She went on America's Got Talent almost ten years ago. While she did get through the audition, the judges' criticism after her quarter-finals performance is the stuff of legend. She is a hip-hop violinist, by which I mean she plays the violin but also dances at the same time. Well, the judges didn't think she could pull it off, or fill an arena, or do much of anything with her talent.

Today, she's got five albums, has toured the world several times, has over a hundred videos on her channel, mostly original music but a lot of gaming-related covers, as well. Oh, and she's been invited back to AGT as a guest performer, did a season of Dancing with the Stars, finishing second, and even got an invite to be in AGT: The Champions. She turned them down, of course, and who could blame her? She doesn't need them; in fact, she used their criticism to launch her career in an effort to prove that they were wrong. And did she ever.

My point in this post is that the traditional way of doing things is starting to fall apart, and not just in writing. Music, thanks to YouTube and other streaming options, is a hotbed of indie goodness. The mainstream music scene is just boring now; there's nothing new, nothing exciting, and nothing that you haven't seen a thousand times before, and done better. Indie is where it's at, regardless of your tastes in music.

Movies are a bit tougher, since it takes a lot more work to put one together. But it can be done. Star Wars and Star Trek fan films are legion. Perhaps we'll see some indie movie productions soon; with the current state-of-the-art in computer graphics, it might be possible to rival some of the bigger studios. Making their money isn't going to happen, but unless you're one of the rare few, even in indie, you're not going to make that kind of money anyway. You can still make a decent living from it, and you can certainly have a lot more fun with creative control.

So, check out indie publishing, indie music, and other things indie. It's a brave new world, people, and now is the time. For a good example of indie publishing, check out Best Served Cold, one of the Cameron Vail mysteries, available on Amazon right now.

Back to the Past

So, yesterday I talked about the worst time for Hollywood in terms of making movies parents can let their kids watch, the early 1970s. Alright, I admit I forgot one of the kid-friendly movies from that time: Charlotte's Web. So, there's two. The rest of the half-decade...not so much.

Now, on to the flip side of the equation: The best decade Hollywood ever had. Obviously, it's the 1980s. I mean, there are so many great movies from that decade that it's hard to narrow it down even to a top twenty-five. But I'll give it a try.

1980: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

          Superman II

1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark

          The Great Muppet Caper

1982: E.T.

          Tron

          Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

          Annie

1983: A Christmas Story

          Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

1984: The Last Starfighter

          Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

          Ghostbusters

          The Karate Kid

1985: Back to the Future

          The Goonies

1986: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

          Spacecamp

          An American Tail

1987: The Princess Bride

1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

          Big

1989: Batman

          The Little Mermaid

          Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

There you go: twenty-five great movies that you can let your kids watch without squirming. And there are others, as well. The 1980s just simply rocked. Sure, I was a teenager during the majority of the decade, so there's some nostalgia involved, but I didn't go to a lot of movies back then. I mean, I did see Batman in the theatres about a dozen times, but who didn't back then?

Now, there are language issues in some of these movies, absolutely. But these movies aren't rated 'R'. And there's not much in the way of violence, and virtually no sex. No pornos making big at the box office, either. That alone makes the 1980s vastly superior to the 1970s.

I'm not saying that other decades had no good family movies; most movies prior to 1960 were family-friendly, period. But the 1980s produced some of the most innovative, clever, creative movies of all time, where the special effects enhanced the movie but rarely, if ever, dominated it. Even Star Wars, Star Trek and Superman focused on story more than special effects, which is why they were superior to their modern iterations. We'll never get another decade like this in movies, I'm afraid. But we've still got these ones, so enjoy them with your kids. And when they grow up, they'll share them with their kids, too. Pass it on, pay it forward, whatever your cliché of choice may be.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

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Originals or Remakes?

Hollywood is notorious for remaking older movies and 'updating' them. I'm not talking about sequels, I'm talking about redoing the original story for a modern audience, usually with better special effects and more sex. And sometimes, it's hard to fathom just what they were thinking when they decided to remake them. I mean, if the original is good enough for someone to decide to remake it, why not just watch the original in the first place?

A couple of weeks ago I read an article discussing a 'remake' of The Princess Bride. Notwithstanding the concept of the remake (which I hadn't read about yet), where actors would basically redo the exact same scenes separately (different actors playing the same roles in different scenes, for example), the whole notion struck me as utterly stupid. I mean, aside from the low-budget aspects of this 'remake,' what's the bloody point? That movie is as close to perfect as you can ask for. It's got fantastic fencing, romance, Andre the Giant in a role that was literally written for him, 'My name is Inigo Montoya...', Miracle Max, the six-fingered man, and a pompous ass of a Prince who gets what's coming to him in the end.

Seriously, there are some things that should never even be contemplated, let alone actually done. There are plenty of examples of this in recent history, as well. Did anyone actually watch that new Ghostbusters movie that came out a couple of years ago? Because I've never met any one who admitted to doing so. Same with the new Charlie's Angels movie; it doesn't look at all interesting, and I actually liked the first two movies.

And now, Disney is in the process of remaking all their old animated classics as live-action films. We've already seen The Jungle Book, Aladdin, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty (as Maleficent), Lady and the Tramp, and The Lion King. Mulan is on its way if they ever open the theaters again, and there are even more in the pipeline for down the road. Again, one has to ask, 'Why?' After all, the originals are classics for a reason.

The problem is, there's a serious dearth of creative thinking in Hollywood now. All their creativity goes into bigger and better CGI effects; story and plot, characterization and originality are just tossed by the wayside. And it's not getting any better. Of the thirty or so announced movies Hollywood is releasing over the next year, every one of them is either a sequel or a remake. Nobody is willing to take a chance, and so we're stuck in a time loop of watching the same things we watched before, just with more flash and spectacle.

Now, some movies can certainly survive being remade, especially ones built on classic properties like fairy tales or old books. There have been, for example, four different versions of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days, including the 1956 version, which won Best Picture. The Jackie Chan version (2004) is also fun, but not as good as the previous one. And the 1940 version of The Mark of Zorro has to be considered superior to the 1920 version, primarily because the latter is silent. It's not a bad movie, but it suffers by comparison.

But overall, the trend toward remaking movies is one that will hurt the movie industry, both in the short-term and in the long run. With the exception of some truly timeless tales, you can't watch the same story over and over and get much out of it. Hopefully, someone in Hollywood realizes this before it's too late.

If you want some original material to read, which may someday end up as a movie, check out Arrival, the first book of the Chronicles of Meterra. It's available in both paperback and e-book, so take a look.

Why Modern Cartoons Suck

I've been collecting some older cartoons that are in the public domain, including some Warner Bros. and Disney stuff. I'm doing this because my son needs to understand that the stuff that is being spewed out of the Cartoon Network and other channels is pure and utter garbage. Seriously, it's vomit-inducing crap. There isn't a single redeeming feature about any of them. The art is abysmally bad, the 'jokes' are cringe-inducing nonsense, and the reliance on toilet humor makes them utterly unworthy of a moment's attention.

Now, I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, when Saturday Morning Cartoons were a ritual for all kids. We didn't have dedicated cartoon networks; we got what the Big Three networks deigned to offer us, and we lapped it up. But back then, the lack of stations meant that they were only going to put out quality material, or at least material that didn't totally suck. Today...yeah, we've seen what they do today.

I'll give a simple example. Here are two images of the same character. One is from the 1980s; the other is from the current incarnation of the character. I'll leave it up to you to guess which is which.

Anyone who grew up in the 1980s knows the Thundercats. They were sleek, cat-like superheroes who could handle themselves in a fight and who looked damn fine. I mean, look at Lion-O up top; that's a heroic figure. He looks competent, trained, and well-muscled. Compare that to the bottom image. That version of Lion-O wouldn't be a threat to anything more dangerous than a cheeseburger. The art is just atrocious, something that even I could draw. And I failed stick-people in second grade. Seriously, that is the worst possible look they could give him. He doesn't even have a nose! Or any definition on his limbs whatsoever! Who in God's name thought this was a good idea?

There are plenty of other examples, too. The Teen Titans Go! show is a mockery of beloved characters from my youth; Robin vacillates between pining for an oblivious Starfire and trying to out-bro the other two male characters, Beast Boy and Cyborg. And, of course, the art sucks. There's no definition, no style...it's just scribbling.

I realize that I'm ranting about something as unimportant as a children's TV show. But it's not that unimportant when so many kids are watching this stuff. After all, what we watch on TV has a powerful influence on us. And what the modern shows are doing is something profoundly dangerous: They are eliminating the concepts of nobility and heroism. Nobody is going to look up to the modern version of Lion-O, or Robin; they are jokes, designed to ridicule the concepts those characters used to embody. And it's leaving a huge gap in our society as kids who watch this stuff grow up to become adults. What will they emulate? The fart jokes and manic-depressive mood swings of Robin and his buddies? The shapeless and soulless emptiness of Lion-O?

So, I'm doing what I can to fix that. My kids will get to see heroes, and cartoons that are actually funny, sometimes in the same show. But my boys will not grow up unknowing of what man can aspire to at his best. And they won't grow up watching mindless garbage that not only insults their intelligence, but works hard to eliminate it.