Genre Character of the week, Prince Yarvi

Looking back over the last few month's worth of posts, I realized that I'd dropped one of my favourite entries on this blog, my "Genre Character of the Week" posts.  So today I decided to make good on a promise I made a little over three years ago and check out Joe Abercrombie's novel Half a King.

The novel focuses on prince Yarvi, the second son of a King and destined to become a Minister (sort of a priest/adviser/healer), when the sudden deaths of both his father and older brother lead him to the throne.

The book is a pretty great story of a young boy becoming a man and although it definitely felt a little pulp-y (which is fine as I like pulp fiction), the intriguing thing for me was the intriguing grey scale of morality and ethics in the book - no one is entirely good or evil and as we see the world through Yarvi's eyes, it is an exceptional education that we are taken through.

The book is the first of a trilogy, and it works to both guarantee I'll finish the rest as well as checking out the other books by the author.

I guess listening to a random guy on a bench a couple years ago can pay off.

Genre Character of the Week: Major Clive Folliott

The Dungeon was a series conceived of by author Phillip José Farmer, and written by Richard A. Lupoff (vol. 1 & 6), Bruce Coville (vol. 2), Charles de Lint (vol 3 & 5), and Robin W. Bailey (vol. 4). As I’ve been working my way through the works of de Lint, and had come across used copies of various volumes for years, I finally decided to give the series a try this month, which was a pretty good decision as I was introduced to it’s protagonist (and this week’s genre character) Major Clive Folliott.

In the first book of the series, Clive travels from his home in 1869 England to find the location of his missing brother, the explorer Neville Folliott - his journey ends up taking him to another place entirely, a location (World, Level, Dimension?) called "The Dungeon".

What I like best about Clive is both his sense of honour (he searches for his brother mostly on principle - they were not close), and his willingness to step back and look at each new situation with a calm eye (a pretty great attribute for any leader to have).  The story is filled with all sorts of characters out of place and time, and I'm really quite interest to see where the various authors will take it next.

Genre Character of the Week: Robocop

As someone always interested in media studies, I was pretty excited earlier this week to get the 2013 film Robocop from my local library earlier this week, as I was interested in how it would measure up to the original.  Then I realized, my kids haven't seen the original yet, so tonight we addressed this and watched the 1987 original, Robocop.

A quick side note - the original film (even 17 years later) is one of the most violent films I've ever come across, and I watch a lot of horror and war films, so even through I'm saying I showed my kids this movie, it's important to note that my kids are 17 and 21, and both of them have been raised with the goal of increasing media literacy since they were very young, looking at not only any given story, but how it works and why.  Although I feel the film has a lot to offer it's audience, don't show this movie to the younger crowd as the violence is intentionally shocking and pretty horrifying.

I first saw this movie at the age of eleven, and at the time I simply thought it was pretty awesome.  I loved the action and was entranced by both the point of view segments and the great performance done by Peter Weller as the main character.  It wasn't until repeated viewings at an older age when I started to connect the film to Frankenstein and began to see it as the satire on corporate culture and the war on crime it was.

What I like best about the character (in the first film) was the great sense of loss that he carried; having been overwritten by new programming, police officer Alex Murphy was supposed to no longer exist except as the basic biological foundation of Robocop.  The story follows his existence from man to machine and back to man again (sorry for the mild seventeen-year-old spoiler), and that character arc is one of the greatest things about the film - and also the stop motion animation for ED-209, which was pretty darn great.

I'm nervous to see what the reboot will bring to the concept, but am open to what it has to offer.

Genre Character of the week: Nathan Byrn

So recently I've been enjoying reading a lot of the books my youngest daughter is reading, including the Divergent series (one more to go!) and all sorts of others, but a pretty cool one I just finished was the novel Half Bad, by Sally Green.

This Dark Fantasy novel follows a sixteen-year-old boy called Nathan Byrn, who happens to be a son of both a white witch and a black witch.  In the world of the novel, this appears to be one of the worst situations you could find yourself in.

Growing up in a world ow White Witches who rule every aspect of his life with Draconian Measures, Nathan becomes a pretty angry young teen (which, to be fair, is how most people would turn out if raised by people who disliked them in a society that barely tolerates them).

In the world of the novel, there is a massive preoccupation with the possibility that Nathan may grow up into a Black Witch, who would then have to be hunted down and killed by society at large.

As a guy who grew up half native and half white, there's a lot I can relate to in Nathan, a feeling of not quite fitting in and a fear that I wouldn't really be accepted by either side.

The story moves at a very quick pace, and although there were some sections that required a little suspension of disbelief, Nathan is a very relatable young man and I am definitely interested in seeing how his life turns out over the rest of the series as it comes out.

Although the book may be too dark for Elementary or Junior High aged kids, I think High School readers might get a lot out of it.

Genre Character of the Week: Mr. Hublot

Last night I went out with friends and family to see the live action and animated short film nominations for this years Oscars.  The films are all pretty great and well worth watching, but the standout for me was the animated short, Mr. Hublot. 

The film focuses on a robotic citizen of a future city, who clearly has a few issues, (OCD being one of them), and his attempts to live a quiet life.

As the film was only 11 minutes long, I don't really want to spoil it past that, but the animation was great, the film created a wonderful world for its characters and I couldn't stop smiling all the way through.

Genre Character of the Week: Mitkey Mouse

The hero of exactly two short stories (Star Mouse (1942), Mitkey Rides Again (1950), respectively), and one children’s book (Mitkey Astromouse (1973), Frederic Brown’s Mitkey Mouse begins his life as a simple lab mouse (pictured left) and eventually ends his journey as this week’s genre character (er…genre mouse).

Named for the famous mouse by a German doctor working in the States, Mitkey went on a journey to the moon in his first story (1942), and while there he was granted a massively increased intelligence by the beings who lived there and was sent home. Upon his return and speaking heavily accented English (the only kind of English he had ever heard), Mitkey attempts to find a new place on Earth for his kind, a place humans may give up to mice and together the two sentient races could work towards building a grand civilization (Mitkey plans to rename the new mouse homeland Moustralia).

Without spoiling the first story, Mitkey returns in a second story eight years later where he finds that not all hyper-intelligent mice are as kind as he had hoped…

What I like best about Mitkey is his sort of everymouse appeal, trying to work best to better his life, and that of all mousekind, Mitkey is truly a hero of small proportions.

Genre Character of the week: Gizmo

Over the month of December this year, my family has been enjoying some of our fondest Christmas movies, first up was Elf, then came Love Actually, and last week was one of my personal favourites, Joe Dante’s 1984 film Gremlins. For those of you who have never seen the film – stop reading now, and go check it out (maybe make sure your kids are old enough to see it though, as Gremlins (along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) was the reason for the creation of the PG-13 rating in the United States, although it isn’t as violent as some films, certain sequences are pretty darn terrifying).

Are you back? Great – let’s talk about this week’s genre character, that adorable little Mogwai, Gizmo.

In the film, the main character, Billy is given Gizmo as a pet by his father for Christmas. Gizmo may be one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen on screen – seriously, his facial expressions, movements and voice (performed by Howie Mandel) work together to make him incredibly engaging and sympathetic to the viewer. He’s spunky, heroic and genuinely loves his friend Billy.

In many ways the film is sort of a reverse of the standard “Boy and His Dog” story, as it works a little better as a “Pet and his Boy” story – Billy watches and reacts to a lot of what is happening, but Gizmo is one who (mild thirty-year-old spoiler) saves the day and spends the whole film concerned about what evils may come about due to the introduction of the Mogwai called Stripe.

The film is really fun, but kids should probably be out of elementary before they watch it as the scenes do tend to be a little more intense than expected. Otherwise, this is a pretty great Alternative Christmas film.

Genre Character of the week: Aiden

Over the last week I’ve been working my way through the PS3 game Beyond: Two Souls, wherein you play two characters, a girl named Jodie Holmes (played by Ellen Page) or an astral being named Aiden (pronounced Eye-den, and not having a physical form, isn’t played by anyone). The game follows the two characters over maybe fifteen years in a non-linear format; wherein the player can choose to play either Jodie or Aiden interchangeably. As I don’t think I’ve ever come across an astral being as a player character in a video game before, I thought it might be neat to look at Aiden as this week’s genre character.

Aiden is never (up to the point in the game I’m at) shown as a complete entity – from the player’s point of view he is a kind of purply-blue cloud of light with a tether attaching him to Jodie – when she is younger the tether is quite short (maybe 10 feet or so) but in the stages where she is an adult Aiden can travel quite far before he hits the end of his tether. When you hit the end of the tether the screen goes dark and the sound goes low, except for Jodie saying something like “Not so far Aiden – it hurts” or the like.

What I really like about the character is that you can play him any way you like – he is not just a manifestation of Jodie’s psychic abilities, he is a person all his own and has the opportunity to act for or against Jodie as he wishes, although most characters in the game assume Aiden’s actions are actually being done by Jodie. This makes for a really interesting dynamic in the game as you can decide scene-by-scene whether you want to be helpful, harmful, or indifferent to Jodie depending on mood (usually I picked helpful, but found I defended Jodie against those who have wronged her much more severely than I would have if I were playing a human character).

Although the game does have some limitations – it’s a narrative rather than a sandbox style game, so you are pretty limited to the plot and don’t have as much option to explore as you do in other games, the graphics and sound are pretty amazing. I can definitely see why they hired known actors for the various parts as the images are much more lifelike than in earlier games I’ve played.

So for the game is definitely worth trying out, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it ends.

Genre Character of the week: Barr of Wreath

Being a father of two girls who can best be described as young adults (21 and 16) I’ve found my Dad skill set has had to change over the years. When they were very little, I had to put up with a lot of fidgeting, yelling, laughing and the occasional hospital trip, as they got older I had to worry about homework, making sure they did their chores and acted nice in front of company.

These days it’s more about letting them do their own thing, and being supportive where I can, which is why I recently found such a great comic book character, I wanted to share him with you – may I introduce this week’s genre character, Barr of Wreath, from the comic book series Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples.

Barr is an armorer, and the father of Marko (one of the series leads), he first appears in the sixth issue of the series after coming to the aid of his son. It is here he meets Marko’s new wife, Alana, and his first grandchild, Hazel.

In the world of Saga, Marko and Alana’s people have been at war for centuries, and the two leads are army deserters who found love with each other and then skipped out on the war altogether. In the first issue Alana gives birth to their daughter Hazel (the series is narrated by an adult Hazel speaking in past tense), and the majority of the series focuses either on the new family on the run from both sides of the conflict, or on back story elements for the characters. When Barr and his wife Kiara first appear in the series (sorry for the mild 16-month old spoiler here) he accepts his new in-laws with a great sense of decency and immediately begins to work to better their lives, which in the end, is how I hope I’ll react to the future spouses of my kids (although it might be nice to meet them before I get any grandkids – hint hint!)

If you’ve never read Saga before, it is totally worth a look, as it is an excellent example of great Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Genre Character of the Week: Anya

I'm currently enrolled in a course called "LIS 518: Comic Books and Graphic Novels in School and Public Libraries" which means I get to combine my love of comics with my current academic studies.

Also I get to read a lot of new comics I had never heard of before; case in point, Anya's Ghost, by Vera Brosgol.

The story follows a young girl (and our genre character of the week) Anya, a young Russian Immigrant living in the United States who is trying to make sense of school, her family and life, and then she falls into an abandoned well.

In the well she meets a ghost named Emily, who has been trapped in the well for decades and might be just the friend that Anya needs.

What I really loved about the book was just how relatable Anya is as a character, her life is very recognizable (and I'm saying this as a non-immigrant guy in his thirties) and you can't help but feel for her the whole way through the story as she works to better her life and help her new friend.

The artwork is also pretty incredible; it's straight-forward and does have a sort of Disney-esque feel, which in a coming of age story, fits very nicely.

If you haven't read the book yet, it is definitely worth a look.

Genre Character of the Week: Chris Weiner

Back in May I was lent a copy of the Dead Gentlemen Productions film The Gamers by a friend and was treated to a delightful little story about role-playing games and why you would never want a realistic look at how rpg characters actually act in their various worlds.

Following up on my viewing of the film, and noting my love of the horror genre, my friend then lent me two of the earliest films made by the production company: Demon Hunters, and Demon Hunters: Dead Camper Lake (Luckily both contained on the same DVD).

The two films focus on a young man (and our genre character of the week) Chris Wiener.

Played by Steve Wolbrecht, Chris is an accounting student at a small university who gets swept up the battle between an Earthwalker demon called Duamerthrax the Indestructible and The Brotherhood of the Celestial Torch.  What’s great about Chris is that he’s basically a punch line in the first film, a character designed to ask questions so the other characters can give expository dialogue about their backgrounds, but in the second film, he actually gets to shine as a full fledged character (with a story-arc and everything!)

Although the original Demon Hunters is the weaker of the two films, it does an awful lot of set up, and many of the jokes started in the first film pay off in the second.  My favourite bit (trying to spoil as little as possible)? How the end credits of the first film play out in the second film.

Although there were a lot of great characters in both films (Demon Hunters Gabriel, Silent Jim, and Tree were standouts for me), I love how Chris moves from being a one line character (his catchphrase is to stare directly in the camera and exclaim “Damn!”), through some pretty hilarious training sequences and ends up as a pretty functional Demon Hunter in his own right.

How can you not love the underdog?

Genre Character of the week: Prince Colwyn

For my birthday this year my friend Ron got me one of my favourite genre films from my childhood - Krull.  Directed by Peter Yates and featuring music by James Horner, I would have first seen this film on our local subscription movie channel - Superchannel, when I was about nine-years-old.  Although I can look back at it now as an intriguing mix of the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, at the time I was mostly drawn to the main character (and this week's genre character) Prince Colwyn, played by Ken Marshall.

The film begins at this wedding, and would you know it (mild thirty-year-old spoiler here), things go horribly wrong, aliens attack, Colwyn's family is killed and his bride is kidnapped.

The rest of the movie focuses on his attempt to find and rescue her.

At age nine, I was impressed by his single-minded need to find his love, his amazing magical weapon, and the many friends he gathers, including thieves, wizards, shape shifters and cyclops(es?), to aid him in his quest.  Basically this was one of my first experiences with the heroic quest on film.

Of course I had already seen Star Wars, and although Willow would end up having a bigger effect on me throughout my life, Krull has always sat proudly as one of my favourite early experiences with Science Fantasy.

If you've never given it a try, it is definitely worth a viewing, and I promise if you find it isn't your cup of tea I will forgive you (eventually).

Genre Character of the Week: John Russell

As a Canadian and a Genre fan, I'm always happy to talk about books and movies that show my fellow countrymen (and women) can tell great stories in the Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction genres.  Today I'm actually going to look at the film that won the first Genie Award (the Canadian Oscars - actually, to be fair, this didn't win the first one, but it did win the first one after the award changed it's name from the Canadian Film Award), Peter Medak's The Changeling, which stared George C. Scott as this week's genre character, John Russell.

In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, John moves into an old mansion in Seattle and attempts to put his life back together.  Unfortunately for John, the house isn't exactly empty.

What I really like about John is the fact that he didn't simply run away screaming as soon as things went strange in the house, instead he worked to understand the how and the why of the situation.

The movie is pretty great, also for those of you who have seen The Conjuring earlier this year, it's pretty obvious that at least two key scenes are heavily influenced by the earlier film.

It's definitely worth a watch.

Genre Character of the Week: Cole MacGrath

So I'm currently working my way through the 2011 PS3 game Infamous 2, and I just realized I've never really talked about the main character of the series, Cole MacGrath before.

Originally a bike messenger from the fiction Empire City, Cole begins the first game by getting caught up in a massive explosion, which has granted him electrical-based superpowers.

Throughout the two games Cole works to increase his use of these powers to aid him in his mission.

...and that's where we get into what I really love about both the character and this game series overall.

Cole can be played as either good or evil.

This means that as the player, you can decide whether Cole helps out the citizens of Empire City (and New Marais - clearly a New Orleans-inspired city in Infamous 2) or simply dominate them on his way to defeat those who would stand against him.

It makes for one of the more interesting game experiences I've had in my experience with video games - basically letting me decide whether I want to do my best to help those around me or simply get the job done and let God sort it out.

Yes, Cole has some pretty good one-liners and his parkour moves are pretty exciting, but unlike a traditional book, movie, or television series, the format of the game allows you, the player, to decide how things will run.

Also Electrical powers are awesome!

Genre Character of the Week: Scud the Disposable Assassin

Although I like to feel I’m on top of my favourite genres (Fantasy/Horror/Science Fiction) in terms of the classics, the popular, and the upcoming, sometimes stuff does manage to get past me; case in point (and the week’s genre character), Rob Schrab’s Scud: the Disposable Assassin.

First appearing in 1994 (so yes, I’m nearly twenty years out of date), Scud follows the story of a vending machine assassin robot with one simple rule - it self-destructs after it terminates its primary target.  The first story (which includes a nearly 20 page fight sequence) twists the robot’s original programming when the robot (Scud) happens to see a reflection in a bathroom mirror which states:

ATTENTION!

SCUD DISPOSABLE ROBOT ASSASSIN:

HEARTBREAKER SERIES 1373

THIS UNIT WILL SELF-DESTRUCT

UPON TERMINATION OF TARGET

At which point he changes his tactics and (mild, twenty-year-old spoiler) puts his target into a coma, then takes her to the hospital and spends the rest of the series working as a freelance assassin earning money to pay her hospital bills so she won’t die (and therefore, neither will he).

The stories are pretty crazy (not quite Fun With Milk and Cheese crazy, but really close) and although sometimes the writing is tiny (I will admit to using a magnifying glass more than a few times), and some of the monsters defy description, I found I really enjoyed the heart at the centre of the story, and as more characters get introduced (this was almost a post focusing on Scud’s sidekick, Drywall), the story just gets more and more fun.

Genre Character of the Week: Ig Parrish

So I literally just finished Joe Hill's second novel, Horns about five minutes ago.  Although it was his second novel, and I'm usually quite big about readings an author's work in publishing order, I was introduced to the author with his first novel, Heart-Shaped Box (excellent, by the way), and then moved on to his comic book series, Locke & Key.

Horns follows our Genre Character of the week: Ig Parrish, a young man who has just woken up from a really bad drinking binge and finds he now has horns growing out of his head.

Ig has spent the last year of his life being a "person of interest" in the rape and murder of his long time girlfriend, so it's safe to say he is pretty much hit bottom at the point the novel begins.  The interesting thing about the horns, however, is that people seem to act differently around Ig now, telling him secrets they would never share with anyone else, and asking for his permission to act on their darkest impulses.

What I really like about Ig is that through this entire strange, hellish novel, he always comes across as a real person, a three dimensional human being doing his best to understand a world that no longer makes any sense at all.

A film adaptation of the novel will be coming out later this year, and I'm definitely interested in seeing how it turns out.

Genre Character of the Week: Alvin Maker

So here I am, not even fully through the first novel in the series, and I'm really loving the character of young Alvin Maker in Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son.

The series takes place in an alternate history version of America, in the early 1800s.  It follows the childhood of a young man called Alvin, who happens to be the seventh son of a seventh son, which in his world makes him pretty special indeed.

Unlike the author's other main protagonist (Andrew "Ender" Wiggins), Alvin comes across as a pretty great little kid (and later young man), he's honest, works to make the world around him a little better, and has the knack to make just about anything.

To be fair there are some pretty obvious parallels between Alvin and the real world historical figure Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints (also known as the Mormons), but seeing that the author is a practicing member of that faith, parallels can be expected.

So far the story is pretty great, there's a great sense of both wonder and danger throughout, and even though I'm Canadian, stories set in the history of my continent (even an alternate history), are pretty fun for me to check out.

Although I can't recommend the series as I'm only on book one, the first book is pretty great and definitely worth a look if you enjoy fantasy fiction.

Genre Character of the Week: Dirk Gently

Earlier this week I got a copy of the 2010 BBC series Dirk Gently from my library, which features a detective called Dirk Gently who bases his detection method on the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things" mostly meaning that his methods seem (to the outside observer) as insane, or like he isn't actually doing any work at all.

Interestingly, I read the original two Dirk Gently novels back in the sixth grade, when, after having finshed the author's more famous novels, I was exploring his other works, which lead me to crime and mystery novels which are one of my current favourite genres (especially mystery novels involving time travel - which are rarer than you think.) 

The television series, which starred Stephen Mangan (pictured left) as Dirk, only lasted for four episodes but really captured the bizarre and strange cases which appeared in the original novels, as well as Dirk's strangely mercenary view on changing his clients (and sometimes taking payment after they have died, from their wallets, before the police arrive).

Overall, a very fun show based on two great books and I wish it had lasted longer than four episodes.

Genre Character of the week: Greg Preston

As much as I love a good show about zombies (why won't October come sooner The Walking Dead?) I  am a fan of all sorts of post-apocayptic set ups, and today I'm thinking specifically of the pandemic scenario, wherein a fast moving disease drops the world's population by a huge amount.  In books like The Stand and Earth Abides, or television shows like Survivors.

Which brings me to this week's genre character, Greg Preston.

Before the influenza virus wipes out most of the world in the story, Greg was a systems analyst, not necessarily what you would expect when you think of post-apocalyptic survivor, but what sets Greg apart almost immediately is his initial quick thinking, leaving a city filled with the dead but making sure to stop at a Camping supply store first.

Played by Paterson Joseph Greg comes across as a man doing his best under extreme circumstances.  Initially he plans to go it on his own, but after meeting with a woman named Abby Grant, he joins a small band of survivors, trying to make their way in this strange new world.

If you haven't checked out the show yet (which itself is a reboot of a series of the same name from the 70s), it's well worth the watch, very intense, and leading to a lot of self examination, if almost everyone around you had died, what would you do?

Genre Character of the Week: The Gamemaster

Last week one of my coworkers lent me a DVD of the 2002 Role Playing Game-themed film The Gamers, produced by Dead Gentlemen Productions.

The film alternately switches between two storylines; the first, a group of gamers playing a tabletop role playing game (RPG) that is obviously meant to be Dungeons & Dragons, and the second, a fantasy story which is an enactment of the game being played out.  The film is very low budget, the acting and writing is passionate but clearly at a beginners level, and the sound is sometimes less than perfect (although still significantly better than in Ghost Chase), but as someone who played tabletop RPGs through my teens and twenties, this film really understands exactly how the gameplay for a standard session works.

For me personally, I related most to the Gamemaster, the character who sets up the game, describes the world the characters inhabit and puts up with then nonsense that players spew at him every time he sits down to entertain them.

An example wherein the playing group is meeting a new character:

The Gamemaster: Guys, please! I want you to roleplay this.  Remember you've never met this guy before, the last guys you met tried to kill you, and you're standing in the ruins of an evil, cursed castle, Just act appropriately.

Magellan: Hello, I'm Magellon, a travelling mage. I notice your group has no wizard.

Rogar, the Barbarian:  You seem trustworthy.  Would you care to join us in our noble quest?

Magellan: Yes. Yes I would.

Gamemaster (pictured above) I feel your pain.  If you’ve never really played any RPGs, there are probably a number of better ways you can spend 48 minutes of your day, but for gamers, past-gamers, and people who have lived with gamers, this is a pretty fun movie.