strange and random happenstance

Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
Published by: HarperTeen
Publication Date: September 1st, 2015
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Lord Ballister Blackheart has always felt he's doing his best as a villain considering he never intended to be one. Back when he was training with the kingdom's fated hero and his dearest friend, Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, everything seemed so simple. But the loss of his arm changed his destiny. His destiny is about to change again when a shapeshifter, Nimona, shows up on his doorstep and informs him that she is to be his new sidekick; and yes he doesn't have a say in the matter. Nimona has radical ideas about what a villain should do, all of which seem drastic to Blackheart. Who even heard of a villain succeeding in their plots? Or leaving death and destruction in their wake? His name could actually be feared! But as Ambrosius points out to Blackheart, is this what he really wants? Nimona is changing everything. She's impulsive and her powers defy explanation, yet as she's breaking down doors in Blackheart's home, sigh, she's breaking down walls around his heart; and for the first time, in a very long time, he has someone to care for. Though it's information that Blackheart and Nimona uncover on one of their raids against the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics that really changes the game. The Institute, the upholders of good and the banishers of evil are up to no good! They are experimenting with the dangerous jaderoot and putting the entire kingdom in danger. It is up to Blackheart and Nimona to bring this deceit to light! Using plans with phases and science!  

We all grow up listening to fairy tales. They are the first stories we hear. Told over and over again when we are little they become a part of our DNA. We learn valuable lessons about listening to our parents and never taking candy from strangers, especially if they look like they might be a witch in disguise with a suspiciously large oven. We grow up believing that the line between good and evil is clear-cut. That the knight will always save the maiden fair from the evil dragon and win her hand. We grow up expecting to get out happily ever after. And as we get older we still love these tales, we read re-interpretations and re-tellings. We devour YA books that are just repackaging the old stories in new ways, all the while waiting for the prince to come for us, because someday he will come. Yet deep down the message hasn't really changed. We are just getting the same lesson in a different way. And you know what? For the most part what fairy tales teach us is wrong. They were written to keep children in line and teach women to know their place, which is mainly in the kitchen. I'm sorry, but my happily ever after doesn't involve a sink, thank you very much. This is where Nimona comes in. This book might be fairy tales turned upside down and inside out, but this inversion is closer to the truth than you get in the traditional tales.

Because the truth is the distinction between good and evil is never clear cut. People don't usually have the honorific "evil" placed before their name, because that would make things so much easier. Life is countless shades of grey, and there's no getting around this fact. Just look to politics or the police, they are supposed to be here for the good of us but can you think of a more concentrated source of corruption? The police in fact pose far more of a threat to citizens than murderers. But of course this again isn't a blanket statement, even within these groups supposed to protect us there are those who do their jobs just as there are those who don't. Shades of grey people. This muddying of the waters is where Nimona really forges a connection between the narrative and the reader. Despite being about shapeshifters and one-armed science loving villains, there is this relatable truth at the center. The villain doesn't want to be a villain, not really, and the hero really thinks that he is doing good while oblivious to what is going on around him. While the Institution of Law Enforcement and Heroics, while they do enforce the laws, there experimentation isn't so much heroic and horrific. They aim to keep the peace through subjugation, something none of their citizens want. Is it therefore any surprise that slowly Blackheart becomes heroic to the oppressed? Shades of grey can lead to the most unlikely of heroes.

But are heroes made or born? Blackheart thought he would be a hero but one accident forever derailed his life. He defeated the golden boy, but with the loss of a limb he was typecast as the villain, despite the fact that it was the "hero" who took said limb. Nimona explores preconceptions on so many levels. Names and physiognomy and preconceptions and prejudice and fear make a hero or villain, more so than actions. The easiest way I can explain this is how it relates to me personally. I try to be upbeat and content as much as I can, but let's face it, I can be grumpy and grumbly. There is nothing that annoys me more than when I'm in this dour mood to have someone say "why are you angry?" They aren't asking IF I'm angry, they are stating that I AM, when I'm not! This in fact MAKES me angry. I wasn't angry before but being assumed to be makes it so. I become what people say I am. If I'm told this enough it becomes a part of me because I start to see myself through their eyes. I become an angry person when I never set out to be one. Now imagine if you are told you are a villain. Would you become one if you were constantly told you were? Or what about Nimona? How many times did she have to be told she was a monster before she decided to be one? Preconceptions and statements can turn you into something you never wanted to be. Words can hurt and make you do actions that you regret and trying to change back, to make people forget their preconceptions, can be the hardest thing ever.

The weighty topics aren't the only success of this book, though technically this could be a weighty topic too... What surprised me most was the successful combination of science and sorcery, or modern in the medieval if you would. Who would have ever thought that these two could cohabitate peacefully together? Yes, there's a certain amount of potions and herbalism that is associated with the days of yore and armor and King Arthur, but advanced science? Oh no. Look even to Harry Potter, electricity, computers, modern medicine like stitches are a world apart. These two disciplines are usually like oil and water, never the twain shall meet. But here they meet and clash and form something new and awesome. Robotic arms, special armor, experiments with deadly poisons to make super soldiers work with those robotic arms actually wielding swords! And then there's Nimona at the heart of it. If this wasn't a world that combined science and sorcery she would have been stoned as a witch and that would have been the end of her life and we would have missed out because we wouldn't have gotten to hear her story. Instead, because science exists, she is experimented on, she is a lab rat to further this science and therefore has hidden depths and emotions and reasons that Blackheart could never have ever guessed at. Seriously, science!

Though none of this awesomeness would have entered my life if not for Rainbow Rowell. The only reason I picked up Fangirl in the first place, prior to all the buzz, was because I loved the cover. A cover done by Noelle Stevenson. A few months back I was at my local comic store picking up my backlog of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and Faith comics when I spied Lumberjanes Volume 1: The Kitty Holy. I instantly recognized Noelle Stevenson's style and wanted to buy it. Being on a very tight budget I instead went home and reserved it through the library where I saw she had another book called Nimona, so I reserved that as well. After quite a long time, Noelle's books had some serious wait lists yo, I got my two books and got snugly in my reading chair and set to. Lumberjanes was a serious disappointment. I had all manner of dislike almost bordering on hate for that comic. Yes, I know I'm in the minority here, but I don't like it and nothing you can say will change my mind. At least the second volume was better with less typos and I'll leave it at that. Because of this setback I really didn't expect much from Nimona and it blew me away. How could these two books be done by the same author? Is it the coauthors fault? And it wasn't a case of "last worst book I read" wherein anything you read next will be awesome, because I re-read Nimona once I bought my own copy back to back with two other awesome books and it might actually have been even better. So just go out and buy it already, it will save you having a long wait to get it from the library and then having to buy your own copy anyway.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Angel, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fairy Tales, Faith, Fangirl, Harry Potter, HEA, Heroes, King Arthur, Lumberjanes, Medieval, Nimona, Noelle Stevenson, Preconceptions, Rainbow Rowell, Science, Shapeshifter, Villains

Timeline
Based on the book by Michael Crichton
Starring: Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Anna Friel, Billy Connolly, David Thewlis, Neal McDonough, Matt Craven, Ethan Embry, Michael Sheen, Lambert Wilsone, Marton Csokasr, Rossif Sutherland, Patrick Sabongui, and Steve Kahan
Release Date: November 26th, 2003
Rating: ★
To Buy

Professor Edward Johnston is teaching at Castlegard in France while excavating the site. The tech company ITC is funding the excavation and this has Johnston wary. ITC keeps suggesting places to dig and they are a little too spot on. Suspicious of their involvement and accuracy he decides to head to New Mexico and confront Robert Doniger, ITC's president, leaving the site in the capable hands of his assistants, André Marek, Kate Ericson, and Josh Stern. A few days after the professor's departure there is a cave in at the monastery site which leads to the discovering of a note from the Professor saying that he is in 1357 and needs help. The carbon dating proves the legitimacy of the note and Johnston's son Chris calls ITC and confronts them about the disappearance of his father. They promise a full explanation if they come to their headquarters in New Mexico.

Arriving in New Mexico the team is told that ITC's interest in their work and in Castlegard is because while trying to figure out how to transport three dimensional objects ITC discovered a wormhole to Castlegard in 1357. The Professor went back to 1357 and is now trapped there. ITC plans to send his team to bring him back because they are the most knowledgeable about the time and place and have a higher chance of success then they do. Of course ITC doesn't bother to warn them of the dangers of the time period they are entering or even the dangers of the technology used to get there. ITC has one goal, protect their ass and assets. If that means stranding people in 1357, so be it. But the Professor and his rag tag crew have more heart and determination then ITC gives them credit for and they're not going down without a fight.

Despite my continual disappointment with Michael Crichton adaptations I was willing to give the Timeline movie a shot. I mean, I didn't really like the book to begin with so how could they make it worse? Oh how naive I was. I should have realized that a mediocre book made into a movie with one of my most hated actresses ever, hello Frances O'Connor, would be nothing but a failed attempt at a blockbuster. Riddled with cliches, hello new character François, you shall be playing our Redshirt today, the movie actually dumbs down a fairly dumbed down book. The plot was streamlined, the women were sidelined, if it wasn't for the the pure visual appeal of trebuchets in action there is nothing worth remembering in this movie. The only joy I got out of re-watching Timeline all these years later was realizing that the despot Lord Oliver was played by a then unknown Michael Sheen, who obviously got that he was in the movie equivalent of Medieval Times and camped it up accordingly.

What shocked me most about this adaptation was the dumbing down, the softening of everything across the board, from plot to characters to hearts to women. Taking each aspect in turn, the plot was striped bare of anything redeemable. Instead of having ITC actually creating this interesting technology, it's just something they stumbled upon. There's a wormhole, we don't know how we found it, we don't know why it works, we don't know what we'll use it for, we don't know if there's a purpose to it, and we won't give you an answer after two hours, just go with it OK? So you have taken the sole interesting aspect of the book, technology that as time goes on looks actually plausible with the research being done at CERN and made it a MacGuffin. Thanks a lot. That's sarcasm. I'm sure the people behind this movie surely aren't able to grasp this, hence me spelling it out. Wormholes creating love stories and two hour battles and chances since 2003!

If dumbing down the plot wasn't enough, all the characters were made into idiots! They are literally stupider, as if their minds have been softened into jelly. Firstly, Paul Walker as Chris isn't even an archaeologist, just Professor Johnston's drifter son trying to get into Kate's pants. As for Kate, she's just a general archaeologist, who doesn't have an eidetic memory for architecture and a passion for climbing. Marek isn't the Medieval scholar who has mastered all past languages, that's what we now need Redshirt François for, instead André can wield a sword and shoot an arrow and rescue fair maidens. And the newly renamed Josh as played by Ethan Embry? He's just there for his frosted tips, his 90s goatee, and to try to get his friends home gosh darnit! Plus, by having Doniger stumble on the wormhole our one guaranteed smart person has been replaced by a bumbling David Thewlis, the go-to bumbler.

As their minds all melted into no existence apparently their hearts took on new properties, much like a certain character from Seuss, "Well, in Whoville they say – that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day." Because the characters don't have the mental capacity anymore to understand the harsh realities of France during the Hundred Years' War, well obviously they're going to cry at every freaking death. In the book they personally lay waste to a lot of French and English troops, because it was a fact of life, a fact that scholars would understand, especially Marek. Instead all the characters are weepy. Understandably they'd get upset over the loss of their friends, but to go into full convulsive shock on killing someone? If it's you or them, I think survival instinct should be kicking in, not the instinct to cry. They seriously have red rimmed eyes for the whole movie! And then they even soften the heart of De Kere. Instead of being a complete and total psychopath who loves to kill, here he's totally not evil or a danger at all really, he'll even kindly tell you his tale of being misused by ITC instead of killing everything in sight like an enraged kitten.

But nothing pissed me off more then the softening of the women. I know a lot people go on and on about how books and movies don't give us strong female role models, and while I'm aware of this fact, well, I've never been that bothered by it. If it doesn't have something for me, obviously I won't read or watch it so it's not like I'm supporting this trope. Re-watching Timeline so close upon re-reading the book I was struck by how they had stripped out the female empowerment and made it almost painful to watch if you are in any way a feminist. The objectification was extreme, they were literally objects for the manly men to protect! Firstly two of the strong female roles, that of Gomez and Kramer, well, they became guys! While I had my issues with Kate in the book, she at least wasn't a helpless woman and a weepy mess. But the true kicker is Claire. Lady Claire isn't a pawn in the book, someone for Marek to rescue, she would be insulted. In fact Marek loves her in the book because she is playing every single angle, she's scheming, manipulative, and always looking out for herself! She's not a banner flown from the highest tower as a rallying point! She's looking out for herself any way she can!

Though this softening of females and hearts is a two edged sword because the result of this mushiness is that instead of being pragmatic the film is able to add a little romantic love, a little chivalry. But chivalry as we see and as was depicted by the Pre-Raphaelites, not chivalry as it existed then, which was about honor and protection, not giving your life for true love. And this romanticism of the past leads to the only redeeming feature of the entire movie, and that is Gerard Butler. He brings so much passion to the role of Marek that the romance of living and dying in another time for true love just makes the tear ducts a little moist. Earlier in the movie when he is describing the unique love depicted in a sarcophagus they found on the site and later when he realizes it's himself, you see the one true thing in this film, the everlasting quality of true love. It might not have been what Crichton wanted, but it raised the film out of the trope-tastic mire it had bogged itself down in for a minute and made me watch a few too many Gerard Butler films... hint, avoid Shooters, even with Ioan Gruffudd it's unbearably bad, and check out Dracula 2000 instead.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: CERN, Chivalry, Dr. Suess, Dracula 2000, France, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Grinch, Ioan Gruffudd, Medieval, Michael Crichton, Michael Sheen, Objectification, Pre-Raphaelite, Shooters, Timeline, Wormholes

Timeline by Michael Crichton
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: November 16th, 1999
Format: Hardcover, 444 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Robert Doniger and his company ITC make components for MRI machines. Or at least that's what everyone thinks. ITC though has a vast portfolio of different investments, one of them is an archaeological site in the south of France on the Dordogne River. The site is lead by Professor Edward Johnston and his team; André Marek, a man who wishes he lived in the period he studies, Chris Hughes, who is like a son to Johnston and specializes in studying mills, Kate Erickson, an architect student who has transferred to the study of history, and David Stern, their resident geek. The site is thrown into uproar when a representative from ITC comes to do the yearly inspection of the site and makes references to things that the researchers themselves don't even know about. Johnston demands an audience with Doniger and returns with the representative to New Mexico.

Days go by and Professor Johnston isn't in communication with his team when in the ruins of the monastery they find a note from him saying that he is in 1357 and needs help. Everyone thinks it's a joke until all the tests prove that it is legit. Marek contacts ITC to question them about this development and he is told to pack his bags and pick three other team members, they are to be on a plane to New Mexico in the next hour. With Chris, Kate, and David all onboard, they are let into the big secret that ITC has been carefully guarding. ITC has developed time travel, of a sort. Really it's traveling to different times in parallel dimensions, but that is how they knew so much about the site in southern France, they'd been there when the castles weren't ruins; and due to a little accident, Professor Johnston is there now and has no way back. ITC thought it prudent to send back the only people who know the site and know what the Professor would be doing, aka his team. ITC convinces them to go on this rescue mission, but they cleverly omit the dangers and risks that the team will face and the fact that not everyone might come back alive or at all.

By 1999 I was a true Michael Crichton junky. I had powered through his whole back catalog and aside from a few blips here and there I adored every single volume. Sadly, having read all his books I could do nothing but re-read my favorites while waiting for the next book to come out. And when Timeline came out in November of 1999 I didn't see it for what it was; the beginning of the end. While two of his future books would come to be my most hated of all Crichton's books, Timeline was the one that started the slide in quality. By all accounts I should have loved this book. It's time travel, it's knights, it's amazing new technology, it's a snooze. I remember struggling through this book. Over a month after I had bought it as I unwrapped my Christmas presents I asked my parents to be excused from going to the relatives for our traditional holiday festivities. I was damned if I would waste more time on this book so I resolved to power through it all Christmas day so that at the end of it I could revel in my new books and move on. I curled up on my couch and before my parents even got home I had finally finished Timeline. And in 2004 before the movie came out I struggled through it again. And now, despite my history with this book, I braved it's pages once more and can say that yes, it doesn't improve. Even a decade didn't improve it one little bit, aside from reaffirming my desire to never be transported via beams or lasers. In fact, I think I found Timeline even more annoying this time around.

The overall problem with this book is that it hinges on a faulty premise. There is NO REASON for the grad students to rescue their professor. What's in it for them? Up until his disappearance into the past he's had a total of about two lines and we're supposed to believe that these four students are willing to sacrifice their lives for him? Why? Is he really that awesome? Chris, who views him as a father figure might have some reason, and he's the most hesitant! But other then that there is NO REASON. Stern made the right choice. Stay behind, survive. But the lack of character development isn't just in Professor Johnston, though he is the most obvious. None of the characters are developed in any tangible way. They are astonishingly ignorant and two dimensional, so much so that I have no idea how they even got into grad school. Here's the evil English warlord, here's the female grad student who can be independent, but when a man rescues her she'll swoon and think about marriage and happily ever afters. There is no depth, no development, no reason to root for these characters and hope they make it back to their own time.

The two dimensionality extends into the worldbuilding, as in, here's a cookie cutter Medieval World, go play in it. For all the trash talk of Disney and immersive experiences, I gotta say, I think Disney would do a better job then Doniger and ITC. Disney would at least have a PROPER MAP! I mean, I thought that I had misremembered and that my compass disorientation was because I wasn't paying attention to the included map, but I was wrong! It's the book, not me! At one point the Green Chapel is in the woods to the east about two miles, later it's only a quarter mile to the north? Geographic orientation be damned! Plus how are they getting so easily across the river when there aren't that many boats? Plus all the knights and lords are so basic you can't tell one apart from the other. Plus which castle is which? Their names are bandied about and switched so much that not only is this novel really really flat, but also confusing as hell. It's just adding problems one on top of the other for readers, plus, plus, plus. Plus for the first hundred or so pages, it just made my head hurt.

Re-reading this book after so long I realized it's like a really bad episode of Doctor Who without The Doctor; but not cool like "Blink" but lame like "Love and Monsters." Oh, and give him the worst companions ever, lets say Mickey, Adric, and Peri. So, it's Mickey, Adric, and Peri wandering around and killing people left and right and getting no closer to saving The Doctor because their combined stupidity is so staggering you are blown away. But even if The Doctor wasn't present look at the name of the show, Doctor Who! He is the driving force, much like Professor Johnston should be but isn't. Yes, this book came out in 1999, but the thing is time travel and science fiction already had set expectations for a narrative that had nothing to do with re-launching Doctor Who. The readers of this genre are smart and savvy. We expect the best out of a book we're expending our time on. The thing that struck me most is that this is really time travel for dummies. It's like The Da Vinci Code, written with the masses in mind, not bothering with those readers who might actually have an intellect.

Which brings me to the fact that I am capable of independent thought and therefore I will now poke holes in Crichton's theory of time travel. Can we really call it time travel? He even says it's more like space travel, because you are not going back along your own timeline, but you're crossing over into a parallel dimension that is almost but not quite the same. Which means we get into a paradox of parallel universes. How do they know that they can effect their timeline? If they aren't in their universe how can they A) be sure it's historically accurate and B) get the note from the professor. To tackle A, let's look at the mill. Chris is surprised to see the mill has four not three wheels as he thought. What if the difference between our universe and the one they go to is just that there's one more water wheel? Chris, hard as it may be to believe, might be right. As for B, how exactly did the professor know they were going to find his note for help? He's in another freakin' universe! The fact is small differences in dimensions would really add up which in turn makes the book not add up. Yes, I am probably over thinking this, but I just want it to be better, to be so much more, not Medieval Dan Brown! But I think I have proven beyond a doubt that re-reading Timeline can't magically change what's written.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Archeology, Castles, Christmas, Crichton Celebration, Dan Brown, Disney, Doctor Who, France, Knights, Medieval, Michael Crichton, Paradox, The Da Vinci Code, The Doctor, Time Travel, Timeline, Worldbuilding