Genre Character of the Week: Peter Watson

One of my favourite parts of being in two separate book clubs is the great stories I get recommended to me by my friends that I may not have heard of otherwise.

So there we were, sitting at our local Denny’s, enjoying coffee and 2000 calorie lunches (I lie, mine was probably 2500 calories – and I had desert… and a milkshake!) when the topic came up of our earliest memories of horror stories. For me it was Roald Dahl’s The Witches, a story involving a young boy, his grandmother, and some of the most evil characters I’ve ever come across in fiction. For my friend Dr. Teeth, it was another short story of Dahl’s, The Swan, from his fiction collection The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.

Having never even heard of the title, I requested it from my local library and finished the book yesterday. I am happy to add the hero of The Swan, Peter Watson to my genre characters of the week.

Seen through the eyes of the stories bullies/protagonists, Peter is described as:

“…the enemy. Ernie and Raymond detested him because he was nearly everything that they were not. He had a small, frail body. His face was freckled, and he wore spectacles with thick lenses. He was a brilliant pupil, already in the senior class at school although he was only thirteen. He loved music and played the piano well. He was no good at games. He was quiet and polite. His clothes, although patched and darned, were always clean. And his father did not drive a truck or work in a factory. He worked in the bank.”

The story follows these two sadistic bullies as they torment and nearly kill Peter. Peter himself comes across as both terrified and having one of those strong young minds I love coming across in YA fiction.

The story is great – chilling and terrifying and with well drawn characters – definitely worth checking out.

Movie Review: Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown

For the last few months I've had my eye on a documentary about the life of H.P. Lovecraft called Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown which came out in 2008. While checking out IMDb this morning, I found the film was available online here.

The movie is an overview of the life of the author as well as a look at his influence on modern genre fiction and film. Folks like Neil Gaiman, Ramsay Campbell, John Carptener and Guillermo Del Toro all talk about the author, favourite stories and his influence over all.

Although I don't think the film would be of much interest to people not at least vaguely familiar with the author, for anyone who has read any of his short stories, it was a pretty comprehensive view of the mans life.

Totally worth checking out.

Things I've noticed: I'm not too cool for school

Two weeks ago I got in a pretty nasty bicycle accident on my way home from work, putting me out of commission for a couple weeks and leaving me in a cast until halfway through September.

On the positive side however, I just found out that I got into Grad School, so as of next month I will be working towards getting my Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) degree.

This means (hopefully) that by the end of 2016 (as I'm working part-time) that I will be a librarian working in a future library (like the one based above - although hopefully not that one as it has no comfortable seating, obvious possibilities for suicidal patrons and nowhere for the staff to go).

Genre Characters of the Week: Ratchet and Clank

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my local library? As I'm working my way through classic PS3 games, usually through purchases at EB Games, there are a number of titles that are still currently too far above my price point to purchase - Red Dead Redemption, L.A.. Noire, etc.) so once I found out that my local library has video games, some of those pricier titles are now available to me. Case in point, the first title featuring this weeks genre characters: Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction.

Ratchet (pictured left) is an alien creature known as a lombax who, along with his servant/backpack/friend/robot Clank save the universe on a pretty regular basis. What I really enjoy about both characters is that they are pretty genuinely funny (humour and SF are always good friends of mine), and that by playing the game I'm seeing lots of neat settings, amazing and varied weapons and I can also play the game whether my kids are watching or not (there are a lot of horror-themed games where I have to play the game early in the morning with the sound off, and hiding under a blanket).

In the end, these guys are funny, effective and have a lot of heart. A solid game.

Movie Review: Fright Night (2011)

Hi everyone, I'm back!

Right now I've got a cast on my right arm but my fingers are free so I can type, slowly and with a lot of breaks, but I can do it!

On Saturday I went out with my youngest daughter and her friend to see the recent remake of the 1985 horror comedy film Fright Night.

Although I didn't see the original in theatres (I was nine-years-old at the time, so I had to wait to rent it), I definitely saw the film before finishing Elementary school and really liked it at the time. I guess the idea of a kid seeing monsters and having no adults believe him so he has to face the creature alone appealed to me.

Anyway, fast forward 27 years and I'm taking my 14-year-old daughter to see the new version. She had already seen the original, so we both knew what to expect overall.

Honestly - I found it to be a pretty entertaining film. Although it wasn't as graphic as the original, I liked the direction they took the film, Colin Farrell was great as the vampire and David Tennant stole the show as Peter Vincent.

I think the movie is a great gateway film to the horror genre, as it was scary, but more roller coaster-scary than get-under-your-skin-scary. It was a lot of fun and I'll definitely be adding it to my DVD collection in a few months.

My only advice? See it in 2D if you can as much of the film is set at night and the 3D glasses make the film difficult to see sometimes.

Two Year Anniversary Guest Post!

Hi, I'm Mike The Bold (File Photo Attached). You may remember me from such blogs as 'Mike's Best Blog Ever' & the forthcoming extended paean to Star Trek- 'Beyond The Farthest Blog'. Although, if you remember something from the future, that's precognition, Kyle!

Recently incapacitated while bravely battling the forces of the occult, Bookmonkey asked me to say a few words about his two years on the job.

So, here goes:

KLAATU! BARADA! NIKTO!

Aaaaand now a few more. What a magnificent blog it's been so far! I'm well aware of the demands on his time as father, provider, and ghostbuster (I assume) and yet Bookmonkey puts these out like clockwork, only more reliably and consistently. And I'm not just saying that because the man has excellent taste in BFFs.

Check out topics as diverse as diversity allows, with particular attention to the spooky and the infinite realms of the fantastic. Shove over, Roger Ebert, Bookmonkey knows how to provide truly USEFUL reviews for the geek on the go.

Delve into Genre Characters of the Week every Wednesday! Chilling creatures, mighty heroes, mice and much more. I liked the idea so much, I STOLE it and I only paid him chump change!

Finish out your workweek with Things He's Noticed. Not for nothing is this called 'Wisdom of Bookmonkey'. He's no slouch in the smarts department.

Thank you, blogspot, for hosting this guy. Thank you, dear followers, readers, and lurkers, for doing what you do. And thank you, Bookmonkey, for clever, insightful, and entertaining posts.

Bookmonkey may not spend as much time on TV cartoon fare for the under seven set (my mental peeps!) but you'll be amazed what you can get out of his Paper DVDs once in a while. Here's to the next two years!

Bookmonkey Update: OUCH!

Hello All,

I just thought I'd put a quick note here that I had a bicycle accident last Friday and having possibly fractured a bone in my wrist and definitely covered much of myself with bone bruises and road rash, I'm having a bit of trouble working on creating new posts right now.

Also the Tylenol 3 with codeine I'm taking is slowing me down pretty much completely.

Hopefully I'll be back to regular posting as of Friday.

Until them... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz