Things I've noticed: The oldest stories are still the best

When it comes to classic tales of horror, Frankenstein has pretty much everything you need in it: Guy creates a monster, monster chases man, man and monster destroy each other (sorry for the 110 year spoiler).

The 2010 South Korean horror film I Saw The Devil is a modern twist on this classic tale. In this version, the monster exists first, brutally killing a woman early in the film. The twist is that the cop going after hiim turns himself into another monster, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with this horrible killer.

The film is really, really intense and quite graphic, so I wouldn't recommend it for the newcomer to the genre. The monsters in the film are all human and there are a lot of very disturbing images throughout.

For me the most shocking thing about the film was how it took this classic story of a man creating something that should not be and having the thing that should not be turn a man into another thing like itself.

Although it was a harrowing experience the film was definitely worth checking out, story and character are so often under-used in horror.

Genre Character of the Week: Valentine the Juggler

Every time you read a book or watch a movie, you begin by putting together a basic understanding of who the characters are – like I said in my review of the YA book Twilight, the book begins by stating

“My Mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down.” As far as a first sentence goes, it does the job – I know the story will be from a first person perspective, that the narrator is going on a trip, probably without her mother, and that wherever she is leaving from has a nice enough climate to drive with the windows down.

The book I read this week actually begins much more like the film Memento, wherein the main character is also trying to figure out who he is from the context presented in his story so far. Valentine, the lead in Robert Silverberg’s “Lord Valentine’s Castle” begins the story outside of a small town, walking down the road. He feels as if he has walked for a while, but past that he doesn’t have the slightest idea where he came from or who he is.

The novel itself is one of self discovery, as Valentine puts together who exactly he is, the reader is shown the world of Majipoor, a planet which was colonized by “Old Earth” thousands of years ago. The story is an intriguing mix of Science Fiction and Fantasy and definitely works as both.

The first people Valentine meet are jugglers, and he takes up with them and begins to learn the trade himself. Also, kudos to the author for making me very interested in the mechanics of juggling, something to which I’ve only had a passing interest up until now.

The book is pretty cool, and although it does include a significant amount of world building (where the author spends a lot of time describing his setting), Valentine’s world comes off as a very interesting one.

Book Review: Who Made Stevie Crye?

Last week I read a 1984 horror novel called Who Made Stevie Crye? by Michael Bishop. The book begins as a horror novel, and then begins to move in a pretty surreal direction, ending up with a novel that works both as horror and as parody.

The story in a nutshell - Journalist Stevenson (Stevie) Crye is a mother of two and a recent widow. Her husband Ted, before dying of cancer left her a typewriter which she could use for her work as a freelance journalist. The book begins as the typewriter dies, leaving Stevie little choice but to get it repaired.

The repair, done by a suspicious young man named Seaton for $10 (the book was written in the '80s so the costs seemed a little small to me), begins acting strangely, first typing on its own and eventually transcribing Stevie's dreams. The strangest part about the writings however is they are given chapter numbers, numbers which match the chapters in the novel and are made up of the same text...

The book gets pretty strange but I've got to admit it was a fun ride and it definitely had me confused throughout (as was its aim) as to what was actually going on.

A fun read.

Things I’ve Noticed: The 2011 Remakes are tempting me

When it comes to genre films, reboots come with the territory. In fact, one of my favourite horror films The Thing (1982) was a remake of a 1951 movie, The Thing From Another World. This year there are not one or two, but five remakes I'm looking forward to seeing in theatres.

There are four in August; Conan The Barbarian, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Fright Night, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes and then in October a prequel for The Thing. Personally I'm a pretty big fan of the originals of all of these (except for Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which I've never seen but my BFF Mike has at least twice) so on paper the idea of remaking two films from the '70s and three films from the '80s seems a little stranger to me.

Personally I've always been a purist on classic versions of films (I'll go much deeper into this in my upcomming string of October posts - The Reimaging of Bookmonkery), so it would take a pretty big reason for me to even be considering checking these films out in theatres.

Here's why I'm probably going to check these movies out anyway:

Conan The Barbarian) I am really a huge fan of all things Conan (little known secret, my father's first choice for my name was Conan) so even though I was severely disappointed in the director's previous film Friday The Thirteenth (Which will become a post of its own in October), I honestly will have to check out the newest interpretation of my favourite barbarian.

Don't be Afraid of the Dark) is co-written by Guillermo Del Toro, author of The Strain series and director of any number of movies I love.

Fright Night) David Tennant is going to co-star, and darn it I loved him in Doctor Who.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes) looks really, really cool. Also after seeing pretty much every film starring James Franco from Freaks and Geeks forward, I'm interested to see how he does in a Science Fiction film.

The Thing) Honstly, when it comes to The Thing, it was already a remake, so a prequel is just continuing in the tradition of the 1982 film, and who am I to argue with tradition?

Genre Character of the Week: Mandy Stevenson

Last year my friend Ron leant me The Avengers (The '60s UK series) on DVD and introduced me to a sub-genre of the espionage story - Spy-Fi (Wherein Spy stories included Science Fiction Elements). The series was pretty amazing and got me interested in more '60s television. Next up for me was The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and after 24 pretty great episodes in season one, I got to see this week's genre character, Portuguese translator Mandy Stevenson (pictured at left) in episode 25.

Here's the key concept behind The Man From U.N.C.L.E., each episode follows the exploits of two key agents, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuriyakin who work for the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, in their struggles against THRUSH (no acronym given by the point I'm at in season one). Each episode follows their exploits from the point of view of an innocent, someone entirely unfamiliar to the dangers of Spy vs. Spy.

In my personal favourite episode of the first season, The Never-Never Affair, the innocent is a Portuguese translator for U.N.C.L.E. named Mandy Stevenson. Mandy is pretty bored with the hum-drum life of office work, and craves to do some actual fieldwork. Humouring her, Napoleon Solo sends her on a fake mission, leading her to believe that the risks are deadly (he's actually sending her to get a special brand of tobacco for the boss) and due to a misunderstanding at the office, sends her out with a real document of importance, which ensures the men after her will take extreme measures to get it back.

Played by Barbara Feldon (made famous as Agent 99 in Get Smart), Mandy come across as someone who is tired of the daily grind and really wants to get into something dangerous, and the epoisode does not disappoint: from a gunfight in a movie theatre (playing a war film) to one of the more exciting fight scenes of the season (in a mechanics garage and involving flying blades as well as fire), the episode is packed with misunderstandings and the simple bravery and initiative of this young woman.

Although the episode is number 25 in the season, The Never-Never Affair would be a great place for anyone interested in the series to get a taste for what the series can offer.

First Impressions: Falling Skies

Over the weekend I watched the first two episodes of the new SF series Falling Skies and so far I'm really liking it. The series stars Noah Wyle (from er and The Librarian series) as Tom Mason, a former history professor who is caught up in the aftermath of an alien invasion.

Unlike The Event, Falling Skies gives us aliens and an invasion directly from the beginning - instead of building up a mystery, we are given an action-drama set in the aftermath of an alien invasion.

The core of the show comes down to Tom and his three sons, an older teen, a middle teen and a little kid. The second son has been taken away by the aliens and put in a harness - a device the creatures use to control children and use them as manual labour. Tom and his other two children are part of a smaller group of rebels called the Second Massasuchetts, a group of 300 survivors looking to go to survive.

So far the series is pretty cool, and as a huge fan of post-apocalyptic stories, I've got to say it's right up my alley.

300 Posts

Today marks the three hundredth entry I’ve made on my blog, and although I won’t be celebrating my two-year blog-aversary for another couple weeks (August 19th), I thought it would be good to use today’s post to describe my favourite parts of being a blogger in a top five list. So here we go:

Bookmonkey’s Top Five favourite things about being a blogger

5) Blogging has actually got me way out of my comfort zone – before I started blogging if you asked me to come out to some strange new activity I’d probably say no. As I am now in constant need to have new stuff to talk about here, my answer is definitely a yes (most of the time).

4) Blogging has help me respect the blogs of others – before I started blogging I took a look at a few blogs that impressed me, but wasn’t a regular reader of any blog. Since I started blogging I’ve got much better about publically following other blogs and making sure to comment where I can (comments are special little bursts of awesome every time I come across them – or they are SPAM, but what the heck – a comment is a comment)

3) Blogging has helped ensure I keep up to date on movies, TV and books, as well as reading my classics. Knowing that I have an online book review due each week has definitely helped ensure that I keep up my reading speed; otherwise I’d have quickly begun to run out of things to say. I tend to average around ten books a month and I owe a big part of that to all of you.

2) Blogging helped me become an “A Student” – growing up I was really good at gettings 90s in the classes I loved (English and Drama) and 50s in everything else. A large part of this came down to my reluctance to write. I read a lot, but my out-put wasn’t great. After writing a mini-essay three times a week for a year, I started noticing that the 2000 word essays I needed to do for University didn’t seem to bug me as much, and eventually I began to enjoy writing them. Once this happened my grades started going up and all because I started giving myself some weekly homework.

1) Blogging led me to the Blogosphere. Before I started blogging I had one blog I regularly visited, the one run by my favourite author, Neil Gaiman. Since I started blogging the number has long since run into the dozens as I am more and more impressed and awed by the quality of material I find out in the blogosphere, from blogs on Horror and Nutrition through to blogs which keep me updated on what my BFF is watching, I just can’t stop being impressed by my fellow bloggers.

Thanks everyone!