Click here to find out who it is.  You may or may not be surprised.

The title of this novel is an ancient Greek word meaning “the best,” and refers to a title the Greeks used for their noblemen.  In the words of Wikipedia, “The term was used to describe the noblemen in ancient Greece, those of a status above the common people. Aristoi were members of the aristocracy and regarded as possessing the trait of Arete; a ‘right nature’.”  Wikipedia goes on to describe the Socratic idea of the “philosopher-king”: “the wise person who accepts the power thrust upon him by the people who are wise enough to choose a good master. This is the main thesis of Socrates in the Republic, that the most wisdom the masses can muster is the wise choice of a ruler.”

It is from this concept that Williams takes his premise for Aristoi.  In the far future (circa 4200 AD), Earth is no more, having been destroyed in a horrific flood of advanced technology gone awry, and the human race has been forced to drastically rethink the structure of its civilization in order to survive.  Deciding that the use of advanced technology (particularly nanotechnology) should be limited to an elite few, the survivors of Earth create a new society that places intelligence and moral character above all else.  The citizens of this new society therefore willing grant absolute authority to the Aristoi, the best of them, and allow them to rule over humanity as their ultimate sovereigns.  Becoming an Aristos is a simple matter of passing a series of tests — tests that would easily defeat even the most outstanding examples of human intelligence and character alive today.  Anyone can apply, but only the ultra-elite extreme few pass.

Williams’ idea is that at this point in its history, humans have discovered how to augment their intelligence with a combination of technology and psychological conditioning.  With computer assistance, humans are able to compartmentalize their personalities, effectively breaking their minds into multiple personalities that can handle multiple tasks — and even be in multiple places, thanks to virtual reality — simultaneously.  As such the Aristoi are, in a very real way, true posthumans: they no longer have the weaknesses or flaws of ordinary people, and are capable of planning, governing, and protecting entire solar systems.  Faster-than-light communications allow for a pan-galactic virtual reality network to exist, which they call the oneirochronon, through which the Aristoi can meet and discuss the governance and future of humanity.  The Hyperlogos, a connected galactic network, contains the sum total of human knowledge up that point.  Everything done or said by an Aristos is recorded for posterity.  What could disrupt such a visionary future?  As the book jacket blurb says, a mad Aristoi, of course.  What happens when someone with absolute power does something absolutely sane?

That forms the core of Williams’ plot in this novel, which is a rich, detailed, original story filled with technology, art, and adventure.  The tone of Aristoi is ultimately hopeful, particularly given that it was written at a time when dystopian SF was the going trend.  It tells of a future for humanity that includes advancement and maturation and growing wisdom, though still tinged by the inevitable human flaws of arrogance, greed, and lust for power.

His characters discover, in a way, that being posthuman still means being human.  Although human life has been extended, particular for the Aristoi, to a median lifespan of hundreds of years, humans must still face their mortality.  Breakdown, or Dorian Gray’s disease, refers to the eventual and inevitable entropic degradation of the artificial systems which extend their lives: eventually, everyone dies.  Gabriel finds that his hitherto luxurious lifestyle of sophistry and pleasure merely conceals the often perilous burden of being a leader of a species.  He is eventually forced into a situation where his very advanced faculties are compromised, and he is left to discover whether his potential is dependent on his demi-god powers, or whether he can achieve his goals as a mere man.  His companion is forced to decide whether she wants to become an Aristos herself, making the ultimate decision between humanity and posthumanity.

The plot is riveting and moves at a quick pace.  Those with a taste for imaginative, original SF will love Aristos.  I recommend it with no reservations.

ST: One of the dominant themes in the first five books, in fact probably the tagline for the whole series so far, has been that winter is coming. By the end of A Dance with Dragons, winter is no longer coming, it’s finally here. What can you tell us about the book you’re writing now, The Winds of Winter?

GRRM: Well, I’ve posted a preview on my website, so you can read one chapter there, and there will be another chapter in the paperback of A Dance with Dragons when that comes out in the summer. So, you’ll get two free chapters. After that, it’s going to be awhile.

Obviously, I’m going to continue the story. There were a lot of cliffhangers at the end of A Dance with Dragons. Those will be resolved very early. I’m going to open with the two big battles that I was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle at Meereen—the battle of Slaver’s Bay. And then take it from there.

Martin also told the interviewer a little about what he knew of certain main characters’ fates before writing the novels, and some more about what to expect in the next book:

ST: After what happened to Ned in A Game of Thrones and then Robb in A Storm of Swords, I find myself reading your books with this sort of pleasant pit of dread in my stomach.

GRRM: (Laughs)

ST: And yet, if Ned hadn’t died it becomes an entirely different series. The same with Robb. How early on did you know what was going to happen to those two characters in particular? Or were their deaths something that developed as you went along?

GRRM: I knew almost right from the beginning. I know the major beats of the story and who’s going to live and who’s going to die—the ultimate end of all the major characters. There’s a lot of fine detail that I discover along the way in the writing. For some minor characters I may make it up as I’m writing. So, if a major character is going to battle with his six friends, I don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen to all six friends when I sit down to write it. But the major players and the major lives or deaths or life-changing events have all been planned from the beginning.

ST: Along those same lines, a lot of people think you killed Jon at the end of A Dance with Dragons. You do have a history of doing terrible things to the Starks, but my gut says he probably survived. Would you care to comment on that?

GRRM: (Laughs) I will not comment on that.

ST: With Jon effectively out of the picture as Lord Commander, though—even if he lives—I’m not sure I like the Wall’s chances of holding back the Others now that winter has come. Is it safe to assume that we’ll be seeing them move south of the wall in The Winds of Winter?

GRRM: Well, I don’t want to give too much away, but you’re definitely going to see more of the Others in The Winds of Winter.

Dark Elves have actually been around in mythology almost as long as Elves themselves – Celtic folklore in particular is full of tales of the Dark or Unseelie Court, causing mischief and mayhem for both humans and their Light or Seelie Court counterparts. They are also referenced as Dokkalfar or Svart Alfar in the Norse myths. In the Eddas Dark Elves were not truly evil as such, they could mainly be distinguished from Lios Alfar (or ‘Light Elves’) by the fact that they dwelt within the earth and were mostly swarthy, while their cousins lived in Alfheim, located in heaven, and were said to be fairer than the sun to look at. There also seems to have been some overlap between Svart Alfar and Dwarves, although this is done away with by Tolkien in his legendarium, which refers to them as two different races. Tolkien’s Moriquendi seem to be the origin of Dark Elves in fantasy fiction because it is in them that the term ‘Dark’ is first given a specifically negative connotation. In Tolkien’s world, from the beginning there was a division between the Elves who desired the light of the Undying Lands versus Elves who did not wish to leave Middle Earth, implying that these ‘Dark’ Elves willingly tolerated the shadows that the Dark Lord Morgoth had put upon Middle Earth.

The setting of Metropolitan is a world city (a planet entirely covered in cityscape) that may or may not be a future/alternate Earth, that functions almost entirely on the production and retrieval of plasm, a magical “geomantic” energy source drawn from the planet through the geometric placement of manmade structures.  In other words, the structure of the world city itself, the way its buildings are designed and laid out, converts latent energy into power.  The world economy (both white markets and black) is based on its purchase and sale, and plasm is expensive.  Though everyone has access to it, only the very rich can afford the fees.  Plasm can be channeled by mages to telepathically project their minds to other places, create, alter, or destroy physical matter, and even to teleport.  It is tapped like electricity and governed by the Plasm Authority, essentially a utility company that also enforces penalties for plasm theft.  The book is written from one main character’s point of view, that of Aiah, a Barkazil woman who works a dead-end job at the Plasm Authority and often wonders what her life would be like if she had the resources to get a degree in plasm use.  Aiah is a clever, adventurous character, one who is pleasantly honest and comfortable with moral ambiguity, particularly if the ends justify the means.  The book begins when she finds a hidden plasm source that opens a door into a larger world than she ever dreamed of.

The world city is divided into nation-like city-states called metropolises, each of which is governed by its own apparently autocratic ruler, the titular Metropolitan.  Aiah’s growing desire to profit from her discovery leads her to Constantine, an infamous revolutionary who once tried, unsuccessfully, to execute a coup d’etat in his home metropolis.  He is now an ideological inspiration for contrarians the world over, with dreams of achieving a vaguely communist state where equality and the ascension of humanity are paramount.  Constantine is another well-drawn character, whose revolutionary fire and Machiavellian principles make him both exciting and dangerous.

Walter Jon Williams draws you in with this book through sheer creativity: the world is a unique one, a mixture of science fiction and fantasy (which would arguably make it science fantasy).  The planet itself is enclosed in a force field called the Shield, which was erected as some kind of vague punishment by a more advanced civilization known only as the Ascended Ones.  As such there is no sun or moon.  The planet is lit by the light of the shield, and given the fact that barely a square mile of it is left unbuilt means that the setting has a very urban, noir feel to it.  The technology level of the world is vaguely 1940s, with a dieselpunk vibe: there’s electricity, phones and computers, but people also use pneumatic tubes for communication and the computers are metal contraptions with monochromatic lens screens that read data off of belts.

He keeps you in with his characters, though.  Both Aiah and the secondary characters feel like real people, their problems, big and small, seem like real problems, and Williams emphasizes the importance and impact of everyday life on even the most fantastical of plots.  Aiah might be teleprojecting her anima across the city one moment, but the next she is worrying about paying her bills and agonizing over whether she wants to end her relationship.  The book’s plot is self-contained, but leaves ample room for a sequel, City on Fire, which I look forward to reading.  I’ve since read that Williams has yet to write a third novel in this world due to complications with publishers, but I can only hope that he’ll return to it, particularly if the second book proves to leave a larger story unfinished.

Metropolitan is William Gibson meets China Mieville, and I loved every minute of it.  Those of you who crave the weird and fantastical, particularly when written with style, need to pick up a copy.  I feel like Williams mined my brain for ideas of things I like and then wrote a novel about them.  But then, I don’t get out much.

The final destruction of Hershel’s farm was vivid and entertaining, and the loss of a couple of extraneous characters made it impactful.  The real season finale, however, was Episode 12, in which Shane meets his end, not this episode.  This episode just sets the series up for its next season, by introducing two major new character subplots and hinting at the group’s destination from here out.

Andrea meets an awesome katana-wielding someone after being separated from the others who will clearly be somehow important in Season 3, and Lorrie’s disgusted response to Rick’s revelation that he killed Shane destroys whatever peace and stability we might have expected after Shane’s disruptive influence was removed.  Rick also seems to be growing harder and more authoritarian, which should prove interesting.  The last shot of the episode zooms out to show a prison, where the characters will presumably end up next season.  I remember hearing that there was a prison involved in the graphic novel, so they’re clearly drawing from the source material, but it makes me nervous.  The farm was in the comics too, but the show’s writers and producers took what should have been about six episodes worth of material and stretched it out to cover the entire second season.  As good as parts of this season were, the fact that the group remained almost entirely stationary at one location meant that the plot dragged more often than it had to.  Leading the characters into another holdfast, especially one as (presumably) defensible as a prison facility, portends more of the same.  Will season 3 be 13 episodes of deep conversation while the characters watch zombies hurl themselves at the prison fence?  They’d better come up with some compelling damn plot if they plan on leaving everyone in one place again for another season.

In all, while I enjoyed Season 2 quite a bit, I thought the pacing needed a jump start and the plot needed more substance.

“His name is Logen Ninefingers. And he’s back for one more adventure…

Joe Abercrombie is the most successful genre novelist of his generation, with a remarkable, cynical and powerful voice cutting through the clichés of the fantasy genre to create something compelling and exceptionally commercial. A Red Country is his most powerful novel yet.”

If this is true, it would make a lot of sense: Abercrombie has been very close-mouthed about Logen’s fate in every interview I’ve read.  What better reason to play it coy than that the Bloody-Nine has a major role in his forthcoming novel?  My interest in reading this book just tripled in a matter of seconds.

http://latinoreview.springboardplatform.com/mediaplayer/springboard/video/ltrv001/955/454845/

I liked that over the past few episodes the writers built a false sense of security in the Shane/Rick relationship: after the fistfight in Episode 10, “Eighteen Miles Out,” we thought there might be a possibility of reconciliation.  Even when Shane started agitating for a harder line about security, we thought that at most there might be a leadership struggle, maybe an outright mutiny.  But Shane’s decision to arrange the cold-blooded murder of his best friend was a surprise, despite the fact that in hindsight it makes sense.  I figured Shane would get killed off at some point, since in the comics he dies relatively early on.  It’s sad to see a favorite character go, but this also means that the themes and plot devices of this season have been fully played out, and the story will have to evolve and continue in a different way now.  New conflict will need to be established.  And with the tide of walkers approaching the farm (rather arbitrarily, don’t you think?), we’ll see whether they group ends up staying or going.

SPOILERS BELOW.

As Dale, the voice of compassion, reason, and civil rights, the only one to speak out passionately and consistently against the execution of Randall, ends up dead.  Eaten, no less, by the same zombie who Carl failed to kill in the woods.  The question that the episode implies is how does the group function now, without Dale’s voice of dissent?  Will they fall down the slippery slope of safety over civility?  With only two episodes of the season left, we can expect to see the tension between Rick and Shane develop further.  My question is, how will it wrap up?  Will the group shatter?  Will they move on?  Who else won’t make it?

I’m not sure I completely understand the ongoing confusion (up until this video came out) about whether or not Prometheus is directly connected to the Alien universe/films.  It obviously is.  The Space Jockey, seen in the first trailer, is straight out of Alien.  The derelict ship is straight out Alien.  How is this movie not connected to Alien?

Set a few hundred years in the future when humanity has colonized the solar system (but not the stars), the story follows two viewpoint characters (not counting those in the prologue and epilogue), Miller, a down at the heels detective from Ceres station (an asteroid space station in the asteroid belt), and Holden, the executive officer of a space freighter.  Corey wisely steals from George Martin (who stole in turn from William Faulkner) the narrative technique of structuring the novel in alternating viewpoint chapters titled with the corresponding viewpoint character’s name.

The book opens with the capture of what at first appears to be a throw-away character named Julie, whose ship is hijacked by an anonymous group of professional tough guys.  Julie resists, gets stuffed in a locker for her trouble while the rest of her crew is apparently tortured, eventually breaks out after being apparently left for dead, only to discover a gory Lovecraftian horror scene that will stay with you right up until the book makes clear that this was, quite literally, just a prologue.  Holden’s freighter spots a distress beacon from the ship and stops to give aid and find salvage, resulting in a discovery that sets off an interplanetary war.  At around the same time, Miller’s boss assigns him the dubious case of a missing young woman named Julie Mao, last known address Ceres, whose rich and powerful moon-dwelling parents want her found and returned to Luna as soon as possible.  Holden and Miller’s paths eventually converge, and the discoveries they make about the truth of what happened to Julie Mao turns out to be relevant information for every last human in the solar system.

The characters are unforgettable: Miller as the beaten down, alcoholic gumshoe who allows a case to become an obsessive personal search for meaning, Holden the younger, idealistic officer who finds his firmly held personal values tested by dire ethical dilemmas of galactic proportions.  When the characters meet and interact, Corey plays well with the reader’s expectations.  You want them to like each other, to get on together, to become crew and family and kick the bad guys’ ass as an unstoppable buddy cop team, despite the fact that it would diminish the literary value of the story.  But they don’t.  And Miller and Holden themselves want this too, but find it impossible, and their mutual disappointment and regret further develops them as characters.

This tension is an echo of the greater tension that exists in the solar system of the Expanse.  Those humans who live in the Belt, as the asteroid belt is called, are the rednecks of the solar system, the underappreciated work force that delivers resources down the gravity well to the inner planets of Earth, Mars, and their moons, whose own inhabitants are the system elite.  Each faction discriminates against each, though it is the Belter prejudice against Earthers that gets center stage.  Corey makes of it a new racism: Belters, after all, are physically different enough from Earth humans, due to the unavoidable effects of growing up in microgravity, that some seriously question whether they can still be considered the same species.  The prospect of war in the Belt inflames the already significant anti-inner planet movement, and in the machinations of the Outer Planets Alliance we see echoes of bolshevism and terrorism, all on top of the legitimate feeling of isolation and rejection that defines the Belt.

The conclusion of the story is all noir: we get an ending without closure, left with more questions than answers, despite the fact that the mysteries are explained and the plot resolved.  And this is perfect, because it makes Leviathan Wakes a complete novel in its own right while leaving the reader wanting more.  It sets up an overarching plot for the series, but in a subtle way, without cliffhangers or loose ends.  The reader understands that the characters’ stories aren’t complete, but that this story is, and one could walk away from this book completely satisfied even if there were never a sequel.  This is the way to write a series.

I’ve been referring to the author in the singular both because it’s simpler that way and because the writing is seamless and impressive.  The style is so consistent that one would be entirely forgiven for thinking James S.A. Corey was a real person with a real background and real, individual artistic sensibilities.

The fact that as complex and real a world as the solar system of the Expanse apparently derived from an RPG setting designed by Ty Franck is astounding.  In interviews, Abraham and Franck modestly deride the accuracy of the science and the plausibility of the whole idea, but whatever the truth is about the science and the economics and the sociology of the Expanse, it all seems streamlined and realistic and possible to the reader.

Finally, without giving too much away, the manner in which the authors deal with the theme of posthumanism is the most intriguing I’ve yet come across.  Leviathan Wakes, both in this regard and as a whole, makes, for instance, John C. Wright’s Count to a Trillion seem sloppy and overwrought, and lays the foundation for what has the potential to be the last and best word on the current wave of posthumanism in science fiction.

Put down whatever other space opera you’re reading and read this instead.

My first impression was that I’m not sure I like the new costume better than the costume from the 1995 Sylvester Stallone film Judge Dredd.  I was 13 when the Stallone movie came out.  I loved it, critics be damned.  Looking back, I have a nostalgic, campy appreciation for it, but Karl Urban and company will be hard-pressed not to improve upon it.  On a totally superficial level, though, I can’t decide whether I like the new, more “realistic,” quasi-tactical look they’re going for with Dredd’s armor.  Stallone’s costume is hardly practical, but it seems truer to the character from the comics.  Also, is it just me or does Urban’s helmet make his head look too big in proportion to his body?

What do you think?  Which Dredd is cooler?

[Via io9]

Details on the trilogy have been thin, in no small part because Abercrombie himself doesn’t seem to know exactly where he’s going with the story, but the author game some details to Fantasy Faction in the podcast interview that I hadn’t heard before.

Abercrombie told Aplin and Wiseall that the new trilogy will probably feature a “next generation of characters” taking the major roles.  A Red Country apparently picks up about fifteen years after the end of The First Law, and the new trilogy will start five or ten years after A Red Country, meaning we can expect the new trilogy to begin at least 20 years after the end of The First Law.  The main characters from The First Law will therefore become the older generation, and will most likely appear as secondary characters (though Abercrombie notes that this is subject to change).  Jezal Luthar, for example, will likely remain in the background as “the old king,” probably much as he has done in Best Served Cold and The Heroes.

The main plot will probably be a “political civil war style plot based around the Union.”

Aplin and Wiseall tried to push him a little bit toward revealing how likely it was that characters from The First Law would return in major roles, and Abercrombie took the opportunity to discuss the “fine line,” as an author, “between giving people what they want and being bored.”  He seemed in general ready to move on from focusing primarily on the First Law characters, ready to take the series in a new direction.  But he was also definitely aware of fans’ desire to see a return to characters they know and love.

When discussion finally turned to the elephant in the room — the question of when we will find out what happened to Logen Ninefingers and if and when we will see the Bloody-Nine again — Abercrombie responded predictably (and understandably; it’s not as if we really want him to spoil the surprise): he said that he really “can’t ever answer that question [in an interview]” and that fans who want to find out should keep buying his books.  There’s an implicit promise there, and one thing I think we can be certain about is that, one way or another, Logen’s story isn’t finished.  Otherwise it would be cruel and unusual punishment for Mr. Abercrombie to keep playing coy.

There’s a lot of good story there, particularly with the Rick versus Shane tension coming to a head, but the pacing is just too slow to be completely engaging.

The stationary setting of the farm has only contributed to this plot stagnation.  Something has to happen, really happen, and soon.  Something big.  I have a feeling the producers saw an opportunity to expand an important but comparatively short portion of the original comics with this second season, drawing out something that was never intended to fill ten hours of television, even with the changes they’ve made (Shane’s continued existence at this point in the story is the biggest diversion from the comics).  The group should have been long gone from the farm by now, and on to their next adventure.

The same voice actors who defined the characters of Batman and the Joker (Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill, respectively) in the Animated Series return for this game, and visually the game designers struck the perfect balance between Christopher Nolan realism and classic comic book camp.

The setting of Arkham City is almost a character unto itself, the darkest, most twisted ruins of Gotham with the newer city in the distance over the moonlit water.

But what makes it a great game is the gameplay: playing Batman in Arkham City is the closest thing to actually being Batman made so far.  The gadgets are awesome, the fighting system is fluid and dangerous and ninja awesome, and then, of course, there are the gliding and the grapneling.  The grapnel gun and, since Batman Begins integrated the idea of a Bat-hang glider into the batcloak itself, the ability to glide through the air are two of the most defining aspects of Batman for me.  Traveling through Arkham City as Batman is incredible and entertaining all on its own.  The ability to hide in the shadows and on rooftops and silently dispatch terrified thugs is a fanboy wetdream.  ”Detective Mode” is surprisingly useful and addictive, and makes complete sense.

The main storyline, which involves Dr. Hugo Strange and his psychotic intentions behind the creation of Arkham City itself, is full of twists and turns, and the open world of the game means that you can progress through the main story pretty much at your own pace.  Between each main mission you can engage in a huge number of side missions, ranging from merely protecting the innocent political prisoners who were thrown in there along with the psychos to more in-depth subplots involving some of the lesser-known of Batman’s supervillains.  The only real criticism I have of the game is that the main storyline itself, if you play it straight through, is fairly concise.  I would have been happy to be playing it longer.

But the open world concept means that you can keep playing after the main questline ends, and for the first time ever I’ve found myself doing exactly that.  When I finished the main story, I had completed around 42 percent of the game without even having touched most of the major sidequests, never mind the collection missions.  I’ve been having a lot of fun maxing out my Batman, after which point I have every intention of trying out the New Game Plus mode, which lets you play the game over again with all of your upgrades from the first time through.  Of course, all of the enemies are more difficult to compensate….  A couple of DLC packages let you play shorter missions as Catwoman, Robin, and Nightwing.  With the exception of a few Catwoman episodes, I haven’t really checked them out yet, but they only add to the playability of the game.

I have no doubt Rocksteady Studies is planning a sequel (though no such announcement has been made).  I’d love to see them continue with the open world concept, but move it into the larger arena of Gotham City proper.

The only other criticism?  The ability to repair your Batsuit at the end of the main storyline without buying the skins pack.  I got my ass beat up in Arkham City, man, and Bats didn’t look so hot by the end.  Can’t have the Caped Crusader looking like a bum.  Where’s my change of clothes, Alfred?

[...][P]art of the reason that we backed off talking so much about what was happening in the future is that when we’ve done that in the past, you know, with Half Life 1 it was a year after we originally said it would be, Half Life 2 basically if you go and read the forum posts apparently took us fifty or sixty years to get done so we’re trying to be careful not to get people too excited and then have to go and disappoint them. So we’re sort of reacting in the other direction and saying “okay, well let’s have things a little more baked before we start getting people all excited about it.

Half-Life 3 aside, this interview seems to imply that Valve is more focused on the big picture — on delivering something new and game-changing — than on producing a Half-Life follow-up, which might be a great thing.  The Penny Arcade Report also has a photo tour of Valve’s offices, which will make you hate your guidance counselor/college adviser for not explaining that working for a video game company was a viable, lucrative, satisfying career.

The fact that all of Sanderson’s fantasy series share a universe is based on the existence of common characters, concepts, and statements by the author himself.  Sanderson’s meticulous planning combined with the fact that his planned legendarium is far from finished has created a lot of fodder for the theorists.

If you’re a Sanderson devout and want to know more about the Cosmere, the Shardworlds, or the more esoteric shards, check out the Coppermind, the Sanderson wiki.

As much as I want to (finally) found out how the Wheel of Time ends, I’m more excited to see where Sanderson goes with his own work.  He’s unmatched in secondary worldbuilding and the development of magic systems, and The Way of Kings was a good read.

Via io9.

When I finally picked up The Warded Man, I had no preconceptions of it, which meant I had accomplished my goal of avoiding hype.  What I found was a strong, if flawed debut novel that strikes a refreshing balance between the classic elements of fantasy and the newer, darker trend the subgenre is currently riding.

The world Brett introduces us to with this first novel in a series of as-yet-undetermined length (the sequel, The Desert Spear, was published in 2010) is, like the work as a whole, a balance between the new and the familiar.  Every night, as darkness falls, demons rise up from the Core to infest the world and attack humankind.  People live behind warded homes and within warded circles, relying on ancient glyphs of power they do not fully understand to protect them.  It has been centuries since humanity fought the demons with any numbers, and their increasing fear of demonkind has resulted in a sort of dark age where people huddle in warded hamlets and walled cities.  Few travel abroad or are even caught outdoors at night.  Peasants and dukes alike are helpless against the demons, and the wards and secrets their distant ancestors used to fight them are lost to myth.

The narrative of The Warded Man is tightly structured, split between three viewpoint characters: Rojer, a Jongleur, Leesha, an Herb Gatherer, and Arlen, who becomes the titular Warded Man.  (This is admittedly a minor spoiler, but it’s fairly obvious from very early in the book that Arlen will go on to rediscover old knowledge and abilities, and a discussion of the book’s plot without it is difficult).  The first half of the book follows the youth and adolescence of the three main characters, each of whom endure tragedy at the hands of demons and humans alike.  The characters are well-drawn and well-developed, and restricting the narrative to three well-defined points of view creates a good balance between focused characterization and breadth of plot.

Content-wise, Brett manages to find an equilibrium between the PG tone of most classic epic fantasy and the decidedly adult stuff of contemporary writers like George R. R. Martin and Joe Abercrombie.  The bad guys are monsters, so the majority of the book’s violence is fantasy violence, spattered in demon goo rather than blood.  Unlike the artificial prudishness of work by Brandon Sanderson or Terry Brooks, however, there is sex, described concisely and well, and the characters use real swears occasionally, though like so many other epic fantasies the cursewords are made-up: “To the Core with it!”

The book benefits from the author’s decision to divide the story into chronological sections.  Brett is adept at zooming in on relevant periods while skipping over the innocuous.  While other authors get caught up in “building” periods, allowing the story to drag through developmental scenes and dwelling on the build-up to the real story, Brett cuts to the chase.  This is a rare gift in a subgenre filled with novels that are allowed all too often to run overlong.  While some might argue that the first half of the book is in fact one big build-up, I disagree.  The introduction and rising action allows the author to develop his characters organically, following them through the most formative years of their lives and making the reader familiar with their unique motivations for deciding to lead the fight against an enemy that all others fear.  The characters’ individual journeys are the story here.  They satisfy in and of themselves, rather than serving a climax.

Which brings us to the flaws of The Warded Man.  The climax of the book is predictable and cliched.  There’s no other way to put it.  Daring, uncompromising man of action inspires stubborn villagers to conquer their fears and overcome their parochial limitations to do battle against a terrible enemy despite overwhelming odds.  Villagers turn out to be resilient, capable opponents to the enemy and win a great victory.  Villagers begin to view the man of action as their leader and savior.  Change Arlen’s name to Perrin and Cutter’s Hollow to The Two Rivers, and you could insert the Battle of Cutter’s Hollow directly into The Shadow Rising, Book Four of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time.

Despite the solidity of the characters, the dialogue is mediocre at best.  Good dialogue seems to be the last thing to come to burgeoning writers.  Here, Brett more often tells than shows: characters are apt to describe their feelings and intentions outright, an unrealistic trait and ultimately just another type of expository lump.  The writing itself is competent but forgettable.  Brett gets no points for style.

These flaws do not hold the novel back too much, however, and I found the reading experience positive on the whole.  To appreciate The Warded Man is to appreciate its balance: half classic adventure epic, half newfangled character-driven romp.  I was entertained, and I look forward to reading the sequel.  As a debut, in particular, The Warded Man is very strong.  Should Brett continue to improve as a writer, and should his world continue to prove as unique and engaging as his characters, he will be a force to be reckoned with in fantasy.

Criticism has changed.  Today no one dares set out the differences between master and amateur, between good and bad literature.  Publishers don’t want to get involved; they are almost guaranteed to lose money on a good writer, and make money on a bad one.  Critics hold their fire, scared of being accused of elitism.  Critics have had the rug pulled out from under them in any case.  No longer bound by ethics or competence, they don’t even know what they’re supposed to talk about anymore.  University literature departments don’t set out the differences – literature has turned into cultural studies in any case.  Literary theorists have little to say on the subject – literary theory is on its deathbed, and the offshoot that tried to establish “aesthetic” values long in the grave.  Critics writing for daily newspapers don’t set out the differences – they’re poorly paid, and literature doesn’t get much column space in newspapers full-stop.  Literary magazines are so few as to be of no use, and when and where they do exist, they are so expensive that bookshops don’t want to stock them.  Tracy Emin’s bratty retort – What if I am illiterate?  I still have the right to a voice! – is the revolutionary slogan of a new literary age.  The only thing that reminds us that literature was once a complex system with in-built institutions – of appraisal, classification, and hierarchy, a system that incorporated literary history, literary theory, literary criticism, schools of literary thought, literary genres, genders, and epochs – are the blurbs that try and place works of contemporary literature alongside the greats of the canon.  Vladimir Nabokov is the most blurbable of names.  But if so many contemporary books and their authors are Nabokov-like, it just means that literature has become karaoke-like.

More than ever before, the publishing establishment is struggling to remain relevant.  Publishers take fewer risks on new authors and the public spends less time reading fiction that isn’t approved by either the mainstream media establishment or, alternatively, the unsophisticated groupthink of social media.  Many have heralded the death of literature, but comparatively few have commented on the consequent death rattle of literary criticism.

I came close to completing a double major in English in college (the Government classes were just never as interesting).  I spent a significant amount of time exposed to people who still believed in Literature with a capital ‘L’, as well as those who actually worked within the academic literary establishment.  I cared enough about literature myself to invest sincere effort in the study of it.  What my studies lacked in breadth they made up for in depth.  So I graduated with a sense that literature, and the humanities in general, were important.  That an education in the liberal arts was not merely a diversion, that it was just as vital as the sciences and business and the professions.  Then I went to law school, and since then my intellectual focus has been much narrower and more “practical” — less curious.  More and more lately I’m coming to realize that this is not something that pleases me.

I thought that the serious appreciation of literature would intersect naturally with my life — be it from the influence of newspapers or online sources — but I’ve found that not only do I have to seek it out, there’s less of it there, and it’s harder to find.

Ugresic’s point is well taken: it’s not enough to compare something new to something old.  That isn’t criticism.  It’s not enough to throw around buzz words and lingo; how often do you hear something described as “postmodern” or “deconstructed”?  How frequently do you see the word “hermeneutics” thrown into an article?  It often seems desperate, a lazy attempt to add sophistication to something that offers no real analysis.  And that’s the real lesson, here: shallow is still shallow.  Allusion and quick turn of phrase do not literary criticism make.

Star Wars has the books, games, merchandising, and so on, but at the end of the day the movies are at the heart of the universe, and Lucas is smart enough to know he has to engage each new generation with them. In that respect, the theatrical re-releases aren’t aimed at the people who saw the films when they were originally in the theaters; they’re aimed at the ones who have never seen them there — or indeed possibly have not seen them at all. Lucas is explicitly taking a page from Disney, which before the age of home video would re-release its classic movies every seven years or so in order to bring in a new crop of fans to Snow White and Pinocchio and Dumbo (and which is also using 3D right now to do the same trick — note the recent releases of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast).

To be blunt about it, if you’re an older Star Wars fan, your exasperation at the 3D release of The Phantom Menace – and the future 3D versions of the other five films in the series — is almost totally irrelevant, because you’re not really the intended audience. Your kid is. And, speaking as the father of a 13-year-old girl, I can assure you that your child finds your exasperation quaint and adorable. The good news here is that in 10 to 12 years, when a new Star Wars release is out, you’ll smile when your child has his or her own nerd rage about how the films have been changed. It’s the nerd circle of life.

The production team obviously has some chops, but I agree with io9: this makes me nervous.  This is an important book.  Too important to screw up (much like the long-rumored, long-dreaded adaptation of William Gibson’s Neuromancer).  If the producers are willing to make a movie with a hard ‘R’ rating, then they will be on the right track, but turn this into a PG-13 effects fest and the spirit of the novel will be lost.

10.  The Dying Earth Series by Jack Vance

Vance created the Dying Earth subgenre with his eponymous 1950 short story collection.  In so doing, he also introduced a memorable (pun intended) system of magic.  In the far future world of the Dying Earth, magicians use spells, but only 100 spells remain to human knowledge.  These spells are complex and very difficult to commit to memory, so a magic user can only carry so many around in his memory at one time, and they are immediately forgotten upon use.  Wizards like Turjan of Miir and Mazirian the Magician, therefore, face the interesting challenge of having to predict what obstacles they might face on any given adventure and memorize the appropriate spells accordingly — and when they use up the ones they’ve remembered for each trip out into the wilderness of the dying earth, they’re out of luck, which makes for entertaining dilemmas.

9.  The Shannara Series by Terry Brooks

There’s nothing terribly original about the magic system Brooks uses in his Shannara novels: it’s elemental, a natural feature of the world that is workable primarily by those with some Elven blood in them.  I include it mostly because the Shannara series is one of the classic epic fantasies that features magical items.  Unlike some other series which treat magic as an entirely organic energy, something that inhabits only living things, in Brooks’s series the characters often seek out artifacts that are magical in and of themselves.  This is hardly unique to Shannara, but magical artifacts in this series are particularly memorable: the Sword of Shannara, the blue “seeker” elfstones, the black elfstone, the Loden, the Stiehl, and more.  Brooks also gets points for sheer showmanship: there’s something satisfying about black-cloaked druids launching streams of blue fire from their fingertips.  It’s like watching a summer blockbuster: it may not be high art, but it’s entertaining.  This series also has  a measure of sentimental value for me personally, as it was the first epic fantasy I read following my discovery of Tolkien, and I whiled away not a few sunny afternoons running around my backyard in a homemade cloak, blasting my friends with “druid fire.”

8.  The Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams

If I’m being honest, I’m probably including this one because it’s one of my all-time favorite epic fantasies.  What struck me when I first read this book was the relative restraint Williams had when it came to magic, particularly compared to his contemporaries.  “The Art,” as it’s called in Osten Ard, is a secretive, scientific ability the use of which is limited to a very select, very educated few — and using it generally causes more problems than it solves.  The story of magic in this trilogy is a cautionary tale, the story of a powerful tool that is too dangerous for any but the most disciplined to study.  And when those who for one reason or another have lost self-control abuse its power, bad things happen that affect not only themselves but the world at large.

7.  The Belgariad and The Malloreon by David Eddings

It’s been a long time since I read Eddings.  In these days of edgy, creative fantasy, his books are often relegated to the dusty back bin of genre cliches.  But the magic system of his most popular ten-book saga (broken into two five-book series, the Belgariad and the Malloreon) sticks in my mind.  The Will and the Word is a gift of the gods.  It’s an innate ability — you either have it or you don’t — and using it couldn’t be simpler.  You gather the will to do something, and you speak a word to carry that will into action.  Sorcerors in Eddings’ work can create objects out of thin air, change the world around them, and do pretty much anything else they can think of.  The one thing they can’t do (or rather, that which they’re not allowed to do by their deity) is to cause something not to exist.  This produces bad results for the caster, in the form of instant vaporization by a higher power.  This is magic as wish fulfillment: think of something, anything, want it bad enough, say a word, and make it appear.  Simple but powerful: the stuff of childhood dreams.

6.  The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter needs no introduction.  Rowling reintroduced the masses to magic.  Her books had children and adults alike swishing and flicking from Boston to Bangladesh.  They deserve inclusion on a list like this for that alone, but there’s more to Harry Potter than mere popularity.  The bildungsroman structure of the books allows the reader to learn magic as Harry learns it, and the rules of magic in Rowling’s novels represent a perfect balance of knowledge and mystery.  She also managed to make wands cool again, which is no mean feat.  And despite the importance of magic to the story, it never becomes a crutch or provides an easy solution.  The main characters suffer what trials they face because of magic rather than in spite of it, and their own youth and relative inexperience force them to rely more on their wit and character than magical ability.

5.  Star Wars

Star Wars is fantasy, as far as I’m concerned, and the Force is just another magic system.  But it’s also one of the coolest.  Despite the fact that at the end of the day, the Force is really just a combination of telekinetic ability and prophetic foresight, it somehow manages to become more than the sum of its parts: the Jedi order manage to seem more mystical and powerful in the Star Wars fan’s imagination than any three lesser fantasy wizards.  Maybe it’s because it plays to a collective unconscious, but somehow the Force just hits close to home.  Humans have believed in telekinesis and telepathy and fortune telling for ages, and the Force is simply a distillation of all that, a powerfully simple idea.  Or maybe it’s the lightsabers.  But either way, there’s something that feels real about the Force, like it’s something we should be able to tap into but can’t.  Everyone has at one point or another (every geek, at least) sat at their desk or on their couch, arm raised, fingers spread, muscles tensed, willing that pen or soda bottle to fly across the room and into their waiting palm.  It’s the kind of fantasy that is so ingrained in us that we probably wouldn’t be very surprised if, one day, it actually worked.

4.  The Earthsea Series by Ursula K. LeGuin

The magic system in the Earthsea series might be one of the most ripped-off ideas in fantasy.  In Earthsea, everyone and everything has two names: an everyday, descriptive name, and a true name, in the Old Speech, the ancient language of dragons, which, if revealed, provides skilled wizards the ability to control the person or thing so named.  To protect oneself against magic, one must conceal one’s true name at all costs; consequently, divulging your true name to another is the sincerest sign of trust.  The idea that names have power is as old as language, but LeGuin was arguably the first to introduce it to popular fiction.  She was not the last, however.  Christopher Paolini purloined the Earthsea magic system wholesale for his Inheritance series.  Like in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, LeGuin’s classic series places a lot of emphasis on the relationship between power and responsibility.

3.  The Long Price Quartet, by Daniel Abraham

Probably the most original of all the magical systems in this list, in Daniel Abraham’s vaguely Asian-inspired tetralogy, “Poets” can snare gods with verse.  The Poets are sorcerors who, through magical poetic description, can bind to themselves godlike powers called andat.  One, called Seedless, is the personification of a natural force controlling the destruction or removal of that which makes things grow — and as such has the power to cause abortions, or, more usefully, to remove the seeds from cotton with absolutely no labor, allowing it to be sold at a much more competitive price and consequently greatly increasing the economic and political power of Saraykeht, its influential host city-state.

2.  The Mistborn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson

When it comes to magic systems, Brandon Sanderson is undeniably a resident master.  His work can be polarizing, but even his critics agree that his creativity with magic does his work credit.  Although all of Sanderson’s books feature innovative magic systems, Mistborn is undoubtedly the best and most memorable.  It has not one magic system, but three: allomancy, the magical ability to “burn” ingested metals, granting the allomancer a variety of abilities; feruchemy, the ability to enhance one’s natural abilities with “metalminds”; and hemalurgy, the ability to steal allomantic powers by driving metal through the body of another.  These systems are easily the most complicated I’ve ever encountered, and as such I’ve provided Wikipedia links rather than try to describe them fully herein.  Mistborn is a good example of a flawed series that was buoyed by an incredible magic system.  The story, while full of potential, was obtuse and suffered from problems of execution, but the allomancy kept the pages turning.  The three books of the Mistborn trilogy contain some of the most entertaining magical fight scenes I’ve ever read.

1.  The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

Try to forget the latter half of the series for a minute and think about the first time you read about the Aes Sedai, the One Power, the taint on saidin, the Age of Legends, and the Dragon Reborn.  Think about Callandor, balefire, Traveling, and the Choedan Kal.  Think about the ter’angreal in Rhuidean, and the red doorways to the lands of the Snakes and Foxes.  Think about that incredible prologue, when Ishamael gave his old friend a brief moment of tortuous clarity before Lews Therin broke the world.  Think about knife-wielding images crawling out of playing cards and eyeless Myrdraal.  Think about Rand fighting Ishamael in the sky above Falme.  Now try to tell me with a straight face that the Wheel of Time isn’t one of the most influential sagas in modern fantasy.  And all of those things are part of Robert Jordan’s enormous, creative magic system.  There’s a whole host of modern fantasy authors whose work wouldn’t exist without Robert Jordan, the aforementioned Mr. Sanderson first among them.  When people talk about genre cliches, they’re talking about the Wheel of Time, and that, albeit in a negative way, proves the power of this series.  The care and time that Jordan spent in crafting the One Power, the methods of its use, the artifacts that aid and control its use, and the history of its use are unparalleled.  Love or hate the books, this is the magic system by which all others in epic fantasy are measured.  Jordan managed to combine sheer massiveness with intuitive structure: not only is the magic system big, but it works, and it works in a logical way, and you’re never confused by it (unless he wants you to be).  The One Power is so well-crafted a system of magic that the reader doesn’t even think of it as magic.  Jordan managed to create a magic system that took the place of real world physics, and became as natural to the reader as it was to the characters that wielded it.  And for that, WoT deserves the #1 spot.

These are my top ten.  What are yours?  What did I miss?  What shouldn’t be on here, and why not?

I’ll give you the midseason opener.  You wrapped up the major story arc of the first half of the season, and it ended with Rick pulling some badass cowboy shit.  I’m not sure I would have started the second half of the season right where the first half left off, but you felt you had to explore the emotional responses of the characters to their time searching for the little girl.  Fine.  Now get the story going before those aforementioned good plot elements get so dragged out that their resolutions lose impact.

…[A]t his core every man and woman is an animal and every beast is an echo of the human soul. This may not seem so apparent now but perhaps there was once a time in the dim mists of history when the division between man and beast was so blurred that it was non-existent and all beings shifted easily between forms that were both humanoid and animalistic. Even today, the signs of the beast within are everywhere, if you look carefully at your friends and neighbours. Spot that cat-like gleam in your lover’s eye? The bullish tilt of a rival’s head? The feathered shadows cast behind that homeless person in the park? Did you, perhaps, even see them in the mirror that one time?

The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.
Via io9 and slashfilm.

Right, George.  Riiiight.  Even if this is true, it just proves that Lucas’s conception of the Han Solo character isn’t as interesting as what actually appeared on screen in the original cut of the film.  It’s not that Solo’s a “cold-blooded killer,” it’s that he’s a criminal who has only survived this long by not taking any chances with other criminals.  It was clear from the original cut that Solo knew Greedo had every intention of shooting him, and when Greedo confirmed it (“Over my dead body.” “That’s the idea.”), Solo shot first.  A pre-emptive attack.  Bush style.  It cemented his status as a rogue, a daring spacer who was not to be trifled with.  Changing the scene and making it out like Solo always had a perfect heart of gold and only acted purely defensively just dumbs down the character arc.  Not to mention the fact that if Han wasn’t the type to shoot first, he almost certainly would have been dead before the story opened.  You can’t always count on your opponent missing.

I’m a big fan of the Matt Damon Bourne films, so this makes me nervous, despite the fact that I like a lot of the actors involved.  The Damon trilogy played as real to me; for some reason this teaser has a superhero movie feel.

The front page includes a tabbed featured posts widget that will highlight the most recent posts in several categories.  You can still view all the latest posts chronologically at the bottom of the page, too, and our Twitter feed is now more front and center.

Producer Jon Landau was quoted in January as saying that we shouldn’t expect to see another Avatar movie for around four years.

More recently, star Sigourney Weaver told /Film that the relatively long wait will be partially due to special equipment Cameron feels he needs to create his vision:

Cameron will only begin filming the new Avatars after having gone underwater in a specially built submarine. It is thought that he would like to go to the Mariana Trench. Re-beginning work on Titanic for the 3D version has also given him many inspirations for Avatar.

I couldn’t think of something as quintessentially James Cameron as this even if I were deliberately trying to write a parody sketch.  You can’t make this up.  Dude needs a custom submersible, built to his own personal specifications, before he can make another movie.  And sharks.  Sharks with frikkin’ lasers on their heads.

You can view the fans’ “Call for Communication,” which they presented in a direct message to Valve on the Steam Community forums, here.

This is the absolute last movie I expected to be excited about, but this trailer kicks ass.  I thought the reboot was a horrible, greedy, redundant idea, but now I’m into it.  I particularly like that they apparently changed the origin story somewhat: that bit about Parker’s father is brand new, to my knowledge.

Andrew Garfield is also much better casting for Peter Parker than Tobey Maguire ever was: he looks like Spiderman from the comics, thinner, lither.  The bulked up look they gave Maguire in the trilogy always looked a little silly.  And hardcore fans are doubtless thrilled about the mechanical web-shooters.

“You seriously think I’m a cop, in a skin-tight red and blue suit?”

Despite the commercial success of the reboot, some have criticized the overall quality of the comics themselves.  I’ve been reading Batman primarily, and while it’s true that it’s hardly Frank Miller, the art is good and the experience of reading comics on the iPad is stellar.  The benefit of the reboot is that it allows people like me to start reading again, by providing a jumping off point.  The plotlines of comics being the notoriously twisted labyrinths that they are, the idea of simply picking up a book and reading can be intimidating.  I’ve always been an X-Men fan, for instance, but X-Men stories are nigh on incomprehensible if you don’t read every issue, and every tie-in series, religiously.  Sometimes they’re incomprehensible even if you do.  Which is why I’ve often preferred the simpler, distilled versions of superhero stories presented in movies.

The general premise of The New 52 is a new beginning: younger heroes, set in a world new to the idea of costumed superheroes, redesigned for modern readers.  I’m unclear as to how much of the pre-reboot canon has survived, and despite several attempts to find a primer on this subject online, I’ve come up with zilch.  I guess I’ll just have to keep reading and find out.  Expect to see the occasional comic book review here in the future.

Max Landis is the writer of the film Chronicle, out now, and son of writer-director John Landis.  Aside from being well-made and fucking hilarious, this video hits close to home, as I remember the Death of Superman saga well, and I’ve been getting back into comics lately via my iPad.

Seriously, where can I get a set of these rocks glasses?

Twitch reports today on the sequel to Blade Runner:

In March of 2011 word broke that Alcon Entertainment and Warner Brothers had teamed up to return to the world of Ridley Scott’s classic scifi Blade Runner. In following weeks Scott himself would sign on to direct the project – it is widely expected to be Scott’s next project after Prometheus, though he’s got a number in the works so scheduling could always change – but the official line has always been that Scott would be the only returning alumni, that the plan was a completely fresh reboot.

I hadn’t heard Scott was making a sequel, but it’s great to see that he’s moving from the Alien universe directly into another science fiction film.  Whether the new Blade Runner will be worth our while is another question entirely, however.  The bigger news today is that Harrison Ford is rumored to be talking about returning as Rick Deckard:

Twitch has learned that Harrison Ford has entered into early talks to join the new Blade Runner. While this is still very early stages and it is quite possible that things won’t work out the obvious implication is that what we are looking at is nota reboot but a direct sequel to the original.

What seems to be the point of his article is to narrow down the terms of what constitutes “fantasy” to something that is: 1) set in a fictional locale, 2) does not utilize certain narrative techniques that would make it “literary,” whatever that might mean.  Although I likely am distorting Landon’s argument somewhat, on the whole such a schematic for outlining what is and what isn’t “fantasy” is flawed.  It is flawed because there are so many exceptions (where do you classify the likes of an M. John Harrison, China Miéville, Jeff VanderMeer, or Ursula Le Guin on occasion?) that can be made that it becomes difficult to justify trying to define anything outside of how it is marketed to readers.  Want something that is odd and tentacled?  There’s some weirdness in Aisle 5.  Want shapeshifting female fighters who battle werewolves and other creatures?  Patricia Briggs can be found two aisles down.  Want a complex narrative about self-identity set in a mostly-deserted town with mysterious fog creeping about?  That’s Samuel Delany and he’s found…uh….well….fuck!  I don’t know, but he’s somewhere!