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).

Top five albums I listen to while reading

A while back I wrote a post talking about setting up for a good reading session, and I mentioned the idea of having a theme song to read to - this got a lot of responses from friends and readers who asked me what kind of CDs I listen to while reading, so to satisfy your curiosity, here you go:

Bookmonkey's top five current albums to listen to while reading

5. Ride the Lightning - Metallica

Or specifically the instrumental tune "Call of Ktulu," which I can listen to exactly 5 times in a row on repeat while I'm walking home (yes, I do read while walking - something that has lead to uncomfortable contact with lamp posts, other people and once an uncomfortably personal contact with a fire hydrant). Usually I keep the song specifically for horror reads.

4. Away We Go: Original Motion PIcture Soundtrack by Alexi Murdoch

This one is really new for me, I've only been listening to it for a few weeks, but I really love all the songs and even though they have lyrics, I don't find that they get in the way of my reading at all - they just comfortably groove with whatever is going on in my book - currently my favourite tune is All My Days.

3. The Neverending Story: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Klaus Doldinger

This soundtrack is really fun, doesn't fill my head with lyrics (which can be distracting while reading), and most importantly reminds me of a story about a kid reading a story, so if I'm listening to it while I'm reading I'm getting all Meta. Favourite track - Swamps of Sadness.

2. Legend: Original Motion picture Soundtrack by Tangerine Dream

I'm actually a pretty big fan of Tangerine Dream, a lot of the music is instrumental, and while I worked at a video store in the late '90s I watched a videocassette of theirs that showed images from the Grand Canyon over and over again because I liked the tunes. My favourite song on the Legend soundtrack is called Cottage - it works very well for reading high fantasy stories.

1. Virtually anything by James Horner

Over the years I've probably purchased at least a dozen James Horner (pictured left) Soundtracks, from Star Trek III, to Legends of the Fall, Aliens and Titanic, I've just really loved what this guy can do with music - here's a quck taste of one of my favourites, the One Last Wish theme from Casper.