Eclipse Chapter 1 - Ultimatum

Heeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuurggh....

Fine.

When I finished the first book in this series, I genuinely felt like I’d accomplished something big. I didn’t feel like that when I wrote my last review for New Moon. I complained about how it seemed like nothing was happening in Twilight, but boy did I have no idea how far down there was to go. New Moon makes Dragonball Z look well-paced (Twilight does too, but New Moon’s worse). While the other books have to a one failed to live up to their promises, New Moon was worse because it didn’t even bother to promise anything. It was about was Bella not being with Edward. If Meyer had bothered to portray the questionable stuff in their relationship as problems, we might have doubted they’d end up together. But she didn’t.

Fortunately, as I noted in the review of the illustrated guide, Eclipse is a little better. Mind you, I’m not saying it’s good. Anything would’ve been a step up after that. It’s less like Meyer starts getting it right, and gets it a little less wrong this time around. Perhaps due to the stakes being higher, or the fact that there’s just one more book in the series, it seems even more like Bella gets everything without having to do anything. As helpless and weepy as Bella is, that’s still a prime Mary Sue trait.

1. Instead of the moronic teaser for the climax, why don’t we start with the summary on the copyright page this time?

“Bella must choose between her friendship with Jacob and her relationship with Edward, but when Seattle is ravaged by a mysterious string of killings, the three of them need to decide whether their personal lives are more important than the well-being of an entire city.”

Would it be unfair of me to say that sounds like something our “heroes” would have to actually think about?

Didn’t think so.

2. As for said moronic teaser, as usual it’s about a period late in the book where Bella, and really all her allies, suck: “All our attempts at subterfuge had been in vain.” She’s distraught about some kind of battle.

I’m worried about that too. After all, the only people with names I remember dying up to this point were James (a villain), Laurent (another villain), and Harry Clearwater (a faceless side character who died to set up the most idiotic, unnecessary climax I may have ever seen).

You know why Rob’s character died in The Goblet of Fire? A big part of it was so we’d believe in the increasing danger facing the characters. He was a good guy, and he still got killed. A lot of time’s gone into (and will continue to go into) telling us how much so-and-so’s a threat, but how much do you really want to bet we might lose a Cullen or two by the end of the series? Can you really believe Stephenie Meyer’s the kind of author who’d be willing to let that happen?

I can’t. Not so much because no “good guys” have died yet, but simply because nothing’s happened to lend any of the menaces any weight or make me think the author’s willing to let something unpleasant happen to a favored character. James only trapped Bella because she’s a moron. Victoria spent the entire last book offscreen because she couldn’t get past Jacob and his buddies. And the Volturi…well damn, did you see anything proving how implacable they are in dealing with rule-breakers? Who also happen to be anything more than a no-development background character? Then again, how may major characters do these books really have?

That more anything is the problem with Meyer’s books: she seems to think that because she says someone’s scary, or that whoever’s a jerk to our narrator who doesn’t deserve it, they are. Without having to actually let us see that for ourselves.

SDT. Learn it. Use it.

3. Things open on a note from Jacob where a bunch of angry stuff he wrote and crossed out is still rather legible. Bella, of course, feels guilty about putting him through this, since “behind each angry beginning lurked a vast pool of hurt; Jacob’s pain cut me deeper than my own.” Pardon me for not finding her very empathic when she takes the blame for everything she can, no matter how much sense it doesn’t make. You’ve got to have some sense of self before you can be selfless.

4. Meanwhile, Charlie’s trying to cook and failing, and isn’t too happy. “I was mystified. Charlie cooking? And what was with the surly attitude?” Because he’s wondering what he did to be punished with being her farther? I spent the last two books inside her head, but Charlie has to live with her. I doubt he has it any easier.

 Then there’s some stuff for new readers about how Charlie’s a cop and Bella’s going out with a telepathic vampire and how Jacob deliberately got her in trouble to limit her contact with Edward. And how Charlie doesn’t like Edward much either.

“Of course, I still saw Edward at school, because there wasn’t anything Charlie could do about that.” Besides ship her off to live with her mom again or put a restraining order on Edward, so maybe it’s because he really does love his daughter somehow after all.

Confusing is this little thought, about Bella putting up with Charlie limiting her time with Edward: “I couldn’t bear to hurt my dad by moving out now, when a much more permanent separation hovered, invisible to Charlie, so close on my horizon. My dad sat down at the table with a grunt and unfolded the damp newspaper there…”

This is about the only time in the book she doesn’t think of Charlie as Charlie. Did something not get caught in copy editing?

Speaking of damp newspapers, “Seattle’s making a run for murder capital of the country. Five unsolved homicides in the last two weeks. Can you imagine living like that?” Can you imagine living in a world where the author doesn’t slap you in the face with the plot like that?

5. Bella’s reading her copy of Wuthering Heights when Charlie says he’s got something to ask her, but if you guessed that was setup so Meyer could make some more shaky comparisons between her sparkly vampire wank dream and a piece of classic literature, give yourself a cookie. And go read a less predictable book.

6. What’s Papa Swan got to talk about, you ask? He asks her not to be mad at Jacob, and try to have contact with people besides Edward. Although I have to politely disgree with the claim that “For a teenager, you’re amazingly non-whiney.” Maybe he doesn’t actually live with her.

Bella’s surprised that Charlie’s loosening his strictures on her going out with Edward as an incentive for his entreaties, since “Edward hadn’t picked up any wavering in Charlie’s thoughts”. Even if there’s no such thing as psychic powers, even if it’s not something he can really control, I’m pretty sure eavesdropping like that’s another crime. At the very least, it’s something nobody wants happening to them. I mean, Jacob’s talked about how embarrassing it is for the other wolves to know every single thing he thinks. And when one of those things is being attracted to Bella Swan, you’ve gotta feel for the guy.

As for Bella’s “friends,” well, “Before Edward’s return, my school friends had polarized into two groups. I liked to think of those groups as good vs. evil. Us vs. them worked too. The good guys were Angela, her steady boyfriend Ben Cheney, and Mike Newton; these three had all very generously forgiven me for going crazy when Edward left.” Very generously. Unhealthily so. “Lauren Mallory was the evil core of the them side, and almost everyone else, including my first friend in Forks, Jessica Stanley, seemed content to go along with her anti-Bella agenda.” Wow, sign me up, Lauren! Do we get team jackets and have a secret handshake? I’ll join up either way.

In all seriousness, am I really supposed to think Bella’s mature beyond her years? Good vs. evil, are you fncking kidding me? In any case, it’s a little late to say Bella cared about any of them as anything but an outlet for favors. Which includes an excuse to get Charlie off her back. As much as she may care about him deep down, I’ve yet to see that for anyone in her circle of “friends.” Saying something’s so doesn’t make it so.

Bella gently tries to explain that “Friendship doesn’t always seem to be enough for Jake.” Why, I don’t think I’ll ever understand.

7. The subject of where Bella’s going to college is mentioned, and Bella mentions “I’m shocked, Sheriff. That’s a federal crime” when she finds out Charlie opened one of her acceptance letters already. Like she’s one to talk, especially considering Charlie has no idea what she and Edward really do together. Like steal cars and immolate ballet studios. Although I can believe the author doesn’t realize that.

When Bella drags her feet, dad asks what Edward’s got planned after graduation. However, “Three quick raps on the door saved me.” Bella’s not smart. Otherwise she would’ve already asked Edward what his story is. That’s no guarantee she’d know it, though, since the perfect boyfriend still seems to enjoy watching his twu luv squirm.

Anyway, yeah, it’s Edward, and about two thirds of the following page go into talking about how “Time had not made me immune to the perfection of his face, and I was sure that I would never take any aspect of it for granted.” Yeah, that’s probably mostly for the newcomers (mostly, because Bella’s gushing over the Cullens’ pretty is only a little subdued compared to what it’s been), but sheesh. You can take praising someone’s hotness too far, even in a romance novel. Which I’m still not sure these are.

It’s not just his body, but his manners that are perfect. “Edward was always flawlessly polite, though Charlie didn’t deserve it.” Screw you. Imagine what he’d think of Edward if he knew what Edward was really like, or what the real reasons were behind Bella suddenly going to Phoenix or Italy. Charlie’s not the one who would’ve never recovered from their first time being dumped without a new perfect partner entering his life, either.

“He was taking the idea of parental supervision to extremes lately, indeed.” If you don’t want people to treat you like a baby, don’t act like one. Furthermore, didn’t Edward make a point of having parental supervision in his cover story of following Bella to Phoenix during their fracas with James?

8. But back to college, Bella’s amazed at how she gets accepted to so many places, especially so late in the year. Except not really. “I could just imagine the motivations behind such exceptions. And the dollar amounts involved.” Because rules are for poor mortal people.

Edward’s so awesome that when he says he’s been accepted to Syracuse, Harvard and Dartmouth, he probably means sixty years ago. Sorry, it’s going to take more than that to make me forget how he failed to anticipate an evil vampire wanting revenge after getting diplomas at every Ivy League school you can name.

9. Edward tries to run the idea of taking Bella to Seattle past her dad, and is flatly turned down because of the killing spree going on there (why does he even suggest it, what with how manically protective he is of Bella? He knows what’s really going on there, and he even forbids her to see Jacob). She tries to protest, “Dad, there’s a better chance that I’ll get struck by lightning than that the one day I’m in Seattle--” Stop right there. The books have endlessly tried to say all that shit happens to Bella because she’s some kind of “danger magnet.” She’s also taken every opportunity to say how worthless she is as a person. Don’t try to say how unlikely it is something bad will happen to her. Not even with vampire chaperones, since we've seen more than once that Bella can be prompted to ditch whichever supernatural bodyguards she has at the time and do something pointless and suicidal. Unless we’re dropping that charade and admitting she’s a magnet for trouble at least in (large) part to her own apocalyptically bad judgement.

Oh, and even though Bella’s not in the mood to apply to a bunch of hoity toity colleges since all she wants out of the future is to be grafted to Edward’s hip, it turns out he’s mastered forging her signature and has already written her admission essays for her. Oh yes, true love, when your partner’s signing you up for things without your consent or even knowledge. I want Bella to do things besides sit around and whine, of course, but they don’t mean anything if the only reason she’d be interested is to humor Edward so he’ll give her what she wants.

Edward tries to persuade her to try college under the pretense of enjoying “human experiences” while she’s still properly human, but the only thing on her mind are the dangers staying human poses, namely being at the mercy of Victoria and the Volturi. Neither of whom, as I pointed out, is at all intimidating. Bella’s still worried even with Alice keeping an eye on the both of them with her “uncannily accurate visions of the future”. What happened to “strange, imperfect” visions? Suited the story for her to be more reliable all of a sudden, huh?

10. Edward confirms that the murders going on in Seattle are being committed by a newborn vampire, but “it’s not our problem. We wouldn’t even pay attention to the situation if it wasn’t going on so close to home.” Nice hero. Also, this means that when the Cullens do get involved, you have to wonder if they really care about saving anyone besides Bella despite what they say. Not to mention how it puts the lie to Bella claiming that the Cullens were "all committed to protecting human life." What's even worse is the part before that is "He and his 'vegetarian' family," implying that by not eating people, they're protecting human life. Just because you're not making a point to kill people, that doesn't make you their protector.

Not that I really care if anybody else gets killed. When Bella reads the names of the victims, “People who’d had parents and children and friends and pets and jobs and hopes and plans and memories and futures…” well, I’m not saying I don’t care when I hear someone I don’t know dies. I’m saying I don’t care when a made-up person I don’t know dies.

Michelle O’Connell and Ronald Albrook aren’t people who had lives, they’re a couple letters Meyer typed on a page (although I could believe they're people Meyer's known in real life). That’s why I didn’t care when Harry Clearwater died. All I knew was he was one of Charlie’s friends. He has some relatives on the reservation, but they’re barely more than names floating in limbo themselves. You can use the death of unknowns to establish something/someone as dangerous, that said something/someone is a heartless killer. Because if they kill people without a qualm, it means they probably won’t have any scruples about killing a character we’ve gotten to know and, hopefully, care about. But it’s hard to use that to make something tragic. Not impossible, but hard.

Think about it like this: when the Death Star blew up Alderaan, what did you think? “Everyone on that planet’s dead, how sad,” or “uh oh, the bad guys can destroy a whole planet”? Star Wars was trying to make the same point Eclipse is, after all.

To draw another comparison to The Dresden Files, I just finished the fourth one, Summer Knight. The plot involved saving a young woman I didn’t think we ever got to know that well, but we did meet her family, saw how close they were and how far they’d go to protect each other. We saw that family and their memories and their devotion. It wasn’t a stellar example, but it was an example. Or Kim from Fool Moon. We didn’t learn much about her before she died, but she had an honest to God meaningful conversation with the main character before she did. We found after she died that she was tied into the plot as more than just a statistic. We didn’t see that with secondary characters in New Moon. We’re not going to see it in Eclipse either.

I will say this: while Meyer doesn’t seem to understand that it helps to give us reasons to care about a character before you try to tell us it’s sad they’re gone, Bella is at least bothered by the fact that rampant loss of human life is occurring. In the last book it sometimes sounded like she only cared if someone she personally was attached to was endangered.

11. Edward starts to talk to Bella about Wuthering Heights and how “it’s not a love story, it’s a hate story,” but since I’ve never seen a movie version of it and I’m not reading a whole book to respond to one point (which knowing the author is off-base anyway), I’m going to step back from this one (anyone who knows is welcome to fill me in). Except for the part where Edward says “I still think it would be a better story if either of them had one redeeming quality.” If people were saying the things about my writing that they do about Steph’s, I don’t think I’d leave myself open like that.

12. The conversation turns to the Quileutes and how Edward doesn’t want her hanging around them. “Werewolves are unstable. Sometimes, the people near them get hurt. Sometimes, they get killed.” He used to say the same things about vampires, making his family’s attempts to blend into human society a bit puzzling since we’re supposed to think of them as good people.

“You don’t know them,” Bella whispers, but he assures her he does. “I was here the last time.” “The last time?” she asks, meaning that I guess she’s forgotten about the story Jacob told her that mattered, about the Cullens being vampires and the werewolves brokering a truce with them.

This…damn. It’s hard to justify Bella not knowing what Edward means even for the benefit of new readers. She’s a total moron if she doesn’t know what he’s talking about by now, with everything she’s seen. Meyer could’ve avoided that by changing Bella’s question to “You mean when Carlisle made the treaty?” and then having her remind us about that.

Edward places the blame for the reemergence of the werewolves on Bella: “Your bad luck seems to get more potent every day. Do you realize that your insatiable pull for all things deadly was strong enough to recover a pack of mutant canines from extinction? If we could bottle your luck, we’d have a weapon of mass destruction on our hands.” I thought they reemerged to protect their land from a vampire (Victoria). Yeah, whose fault is it James's girlfriend is still around, again, dipshit?

In any case, Edward refuses to let Bella go anywhere near La Push because of his distrust of werewolves. “Do you really have any idea of how important you are to me? Any concept at all of how much I love you?” Show it sometime in a way that doesn't involve treating her like a brainless doll and I’ll consider it. Show it by them doing something besides risking their lives (which are defined by their relationship with the other). They compare how much they love each other, but that’s no substitute.

14. Considering the nature of the posts that prompt them, does anyone else think the Twilight ads on my blog are hilarious?

Super Awesome North Shore Ninjas

Before I moved to Texas, I sometimes made extra money pet sitting. One of my regular clients was a very nice Danish lady with a psychotic cat. She did know, though. The cat’s name was Hissy.

Anyway, one of the last times I watched her place it turned out she’d downgraded her cable package and among the few channels she still got was the one run by the local high school. This was mostly a continuous loop of informational videos on their sports teams, little movies showing the school mascot (Tommy the Titan) crushing enemies of school spirit, and telecomm projects.

What’s most amazing of all is some of them were even worth watching.

After our opening credits (and a sound byte that probably came from the old Ninja Turtles arcade game) the movie opens on hotshot reporter May O’Reilly reporting on a series of thefts thought to be run by some evilnik calling himself “the Dicer.” Her boss comes in looking for someone in the newsroom willing to look more closely into the thefts, and over the objections of her cameraman, May volunteers. Is that a picture of Ernie Kovacs over the boss’s door?

At the mall where the next robbery’s supposed to be going down, the camera’s still grousing over May having to volunteer for dangerous assignments. As she’s telling him not to be such a wimp, they run into a couple of toughs who see them, grab wiffle bats and chase May around the building.

She runs into an air conditioner and knocks herself out. As she’s fading in and out of consciousness, suddenly action music plays and four brightly-colored blobs beat up the thugs.

May comes around in a basement where four weirdoes in colorful pajamas are sitting around playing Goldeneye. They’re the Super Awesome North Shore Ninjas, it turns out (the North Shore meaning the north suburbs of Chicago), mentored by Master Sliver, who appears to be somebody’s kid brother.

He explains their origin from the beginning as we cut away to a darkened room where a guy with a distorted voice finds out a bunch of weirdoes in pajamas beat up his underlings. Gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised when our villain didn’t break into a coughing fit after his evil laugh.

We return to the basement, having missed the story of the ninjas’ secret origin. When May tries to leave, the red guy stops her, prompting an argument with the blue guy, prompting the red guy to declare he’s had enough and storm out. I love how they play this thing. The hothead storming out’s played exactly like the cliché it is, with almost laughably underplayed anger on the red guy’s part.

However, then the movie commits its only real stumble, in my opinion. As the remaining ninjas swear May to secrecy, Sliver hits a button that makes the old Ninja Turtles theme song play. Yeah, thanks, we got it.

The movie bounces back fast, though. After that we goofy little profiles of each of the ninjas. And for a high school telecomm project, the blue guy’s staff-twirling before his was actually pretty good.

After the ninjas drop May off at her place, she apologizes for freaking out on them. They shrug it off. “Yeah, I mean, look at us.”

As soon as they’re out of sight one of Dicer’s thugs shows up and grabs May, and the blue guy senses something’s wrong…he forgot to tell May when they’d be showing up so she could interview them. They find a note from the thugs, but realize it’s in Japanese and they don’t know Japanese, until the orange guy shows them it’s just in a cartoony Asian font. The thugs taped it upside down. Probably to troll the ninjas.

Anyway, the Dicer challenges them to a battle to the death on the parking garage of a mall. The blue guy tells the others to be ready for anything (“yes, anything!”) as they head up, and come face-to-face (or…mask) with the Dicer himself. And about a gabillion of his thugs.

Including a black-clad girl with a whip.

The battle begins, but blue guy’s staff doesn’t work on Dicer and the thugs’ superior numbers soon wear down the other two ninjas. All seems lost…until the red guy shows up to make a timely rescue, taking down the bad guys with his CD throwing stars.

Except for the femme fatale. She bats aside their projectiles with her whip, but she runs for her life when the orange guy uses the ancient ninja art of turning girls off.

Dicer breaks the blue guy’s staff, who flashes back to his mom warning him that if he breaks he’s ground, Grounded, GROUNDED!!! This proves to be his Super Saiyan moment, and his hair goes neon blue.

When Dicer refuses to surrender even in the face of this corny special effect, the blue guy shoots an energy ball at him that turns Dicer into a fire extinguisher.

And yeah, that’s pretty much it. They save May and we cruise out to the strains of Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap”.

Watch the silly spectacle yourself here.

Starchaser - The Legend of Orin

Once upon a time, there was a very stupid child. He thought there were clearly defined periods in every person’s life and stark boundaries on anything and everything. Girls liked My Little Pony, boys liked G.I. Joe. Once you hit a certain age you gave up things like comic books and cartoons. As you grew up you would automatically attain perfect knowledge of the world and how to live in it.

Then one day in 1985, his parents took him to see a movie that was his first step in breaking those nice little orderly lines, though they surely had no idea what they were getting into when they did.

That movie was Starchaser.

After opening credits on a star field backed by gloriously cheesy 80’s synth, the movie opens on a bleak underground mine where humans mine powerful crystals under the watchful eyes of robots. Zygon, the speaker for their pitiless gods, goads them on with threats of the furnace that powers their awful world going out if they don’t provide ever more crystals.

Until, that is, the miners discover a sword that projects an image of an old man who speaks of a magnificent universe beyond the mine, and exhorts them to “find the blade, and you will find your freedom.” The blade and the man fade away, leaving just the hilt and the promise of something better.

Most of the miners are dubious, except a boy named Orin who looks like an 80’s rock star and isn’t quite old enough to have had his spirit completely broken by the years of unceasing toil. He and girlfriend Elan make a plan to sneak into the next load of crystals to see what lies beyond, and learn it’s all a sham; there are no heartless gods, Zygon’s planning to use the crystals to launch a bid for galactic domination. We find out how serious he is when he strangles Elan. And she’s dead. Forever.

Elan’s grandfather had been killed previous to this trying to keep the robots from finding the sword, but he was old and infirm anyway. Considering the kind of life they lead it’s a miracle he lasted that long. The hero’s girlfriend didn’t get killed, anymore than the hero didn’t always win. It just didn’t happen.

Zygon seems to recognizes the bladeless sword Orin carries, and it suddenly starts to glow, giving him a chance to run for it. He flees into a tunnel, which promptly caves in. Like all would-be conquerors, Zygon presumes Orin died. Like all would-be heroes, Orin survives the disaster without a scratch.

A montage shows him digging upward for the first time in his life (“Never dig up. Up is hell”), until, his food exhausted and his hope almost spent as well, Orin emerges into a swamp. You and I wouldn’t be too excited by this, but Orin’s elated to find out the universe really is bigger than his people’s cave.

That is, until he runs into a pack of deranged “man-droids” who want to cut him up and use his body parts to replace their own. This was the moment when I started to realize cartoons were just another medium. These guys were scary, especially this one.

But once again the hilt saves Orin when it suddenly generates a blade of energy and kills two of his captors, letting Orin bluff the third into cutting him loose. While fleeing from the vivisected freaks’ vivisected freak buddies, Orin literally runs into a cigar-chomping space smuggler who he promptly saves from a giant swamp bug.

Orin tags along when they’re detected by the guard-bots of the crystal storage base Orin just escaped from. From there Orin learns he’s a chosen one destined to save the universe from robot enslavement, and along the way things are made interesting by a prissy ship’s computer, a sleazy gynoid, and a politician’s beautiful daughter (voiced by Noelle North!) who’s charmed by Orin’s macho headband.

Oh no!

Now, some of the movie’s influences are kind of obvious. Like the two main characters. Orin’s got a sword that only creates an energized blade when he’s going into combat. Dag (the cigar-chomping smuggler) is more than a little reminiscent of another hard-bitten space dog whose trilogy had wrapped up a couple years earlier.

But Starchaser's still a solid movie and it earns that PG rating, too. Besides the death, cursing, death, and scary patchwork robot people, it can be kind of crude. Like when Dag captures a secretarial robot in the process of escaping the crystal base, he later reprograms her by opening the access hatch on her butt. And looking at it with adult eyes, there’s one scene that sure looks like it takes place in an alien whorehouse.

Bite THAT shiny metal ass...

So not only for pushing the limits of what was and wasn’t done in animation back then, but also for telling a pretty good story and having some great animation, Starchaser’s a movie that easily earns my recommendation. This movie isn’t good in a silly way, it’s good in a good way. Even if the story’s a little predictable at times, the pacing’s solid, the characters are likable enough, and the villains are both credible and kind of scary. It’s also not afraid to take the occasional stab at levity, like with where Silica’s attitude adjustment takes place.

Even if it's not a good idea to look too close at the scenery sometimes.

Having listened to me heap praise on this movie, would you believe it was actually written by the same Jeffrey Scott who was my semi-regular whipping boy for his work on Dino Squad?

I’m not sure I do either.

Villains & Vigilantes - Attack on the Poseidon Line

***This review of an RPG adventure is for GMs’ eyes only***

An adventure that starts as a working vacation on a cruise ship. Have to agree, yeah, that’s a first for superhero role-playing. Things sort of started like that in For the Greater Good, but even Jack Herman admitted the whole reason that got published was thanks to its envelope-pushing villains.

Anyway, things get started with a Greek shipping magnate (is there any other kind?) appealing for help when his cruise lines keep getting raided by modern pirates. Seems Manta-Man hasn't been discouraging this kind of thing too effectively. What to do but send a bunch of superheroes undercover on the next cruise and hope they can do something about it next time.

Gotta say, that’s not quite investigating the disappearance of a supermodel after a bungee, but it’s one of the more unique hooks I’ve heard for this kind of thing. The chance to role-play against the rich and famous of your campaign world, or the handy list of thinly-veiled parodies of the rich and famous if you haven’t bothered to establish any, is a nice touch too. In my opinion, the best adventures always give you something more than just a new group of villains to pound.

Not the villains in this module are just another bunch of thugs with a couple of garish powers thrown in. I could definitely see involving most of the villains in further scenarios after wrapping this adventure, particularly the likes of Delphi with her mysterious awareness and Ajax with his power to melt and come back in a new body to menace our heroes anew. My favorite little tidbit about the villains was finding out they get more use out of Midas’s golden touch than just some interesting statuary. Nobody ever thinks of doing more with a power like that than just changing something into another substance, and then maybe throwing it at a character they don’t like because now it’s heavier.

I suppose this review’s shorter than other ones I’ve done for V&V material, but that’s mainly because so much space and effort’s devoted to laying out the floor plan of the cruise ship, plus the mansion that conceals a villain base, that the actual adventure sometimes seems a little brief. The floor plans are amazingly intricate, though, and could easily survive this adventure to see use in others. Plus, with all the role-playing possibilities between the PC’s while patrolling the ship and the celebrities and their varying degrees of sanity, though, a good GM can make rubbing shoulders with celebrities last as long as it’s entertaining.

If I have to complain about anything, it’s that it’s kind of trite that this happens around Greece, so the villains all have a Greek mythology motif.
 

Foe Files

As I noted back in my In Broad Daylight review, with the revival of Villains and Vigilantes, Jeff Dee and Jack Herman have been getting back into the game, as it were. Lately, by going ahead with a rather strange idea for a product line. That idea being that for a buck apiece, you can buy a villain for your superhero RPG.

So far the line consists of three villains, and the first to be released was Omni-Primus. He was the villain seen fighting the Indestructibles from In Broad Daylight on the cover of the revised rulebook for the old version of the game (the one Fantasy Games Unlimited’s still using).

He’s meant to be a galactic overlord capable of threatening the entire world and fighting entire teams of player characters, the kind every superhero campaign needs every once in a while. He’s properly powerful and leaves a lot of room open for a resourceful GM to use him, but given how the Foe Files clock in at five pages counting the cover, no space at all is given to detailing the resources at his command. I’m not sure that was really wise, seeing as how in my experience villains like Omni-Primus are ones the players might never actually fight, let alone be in any shape to fight after getting past all of his flunkies. I guess I’m mainly thinking of Island of Dr. Apocalypse, which suggests to the GM that the PC’s might need some kind of miraculous healing treatment to be in any shape for the adventure if it’s run after Death Duel With the Destroyers (as it’s meant to be). Mine did.

The second pack consists of Rune, an exiled alien meant to be something of an ultimate assassin. Rune’s formidable enough, I guess, but I didn’t find the meaning of the name and thought the bird-like long nose on the suit to be pretty stupid. Particularly for this terrifying master assassin. Worse, Rune has that most reprehensibly cliched of villain quirks: pausing in pursuit of their evil plans to chat with their enemies. I could never see myself using Rune, at least not as-is.

Last for now is easily the most bizarre idea to come of this product line, the Jackal Jester, sort of a cross between the Joker and the wolfman. Yes, he combines the lycanthrope schtick with the killer toys schtick. He even shows some of the silliness of the real names used by characters in Dee and Herman’s earlier work (like Dreamweaver’s name is Donna Weston, Bull is “Big” Bill Buckford) in that his real name’s Eric Gagnard. The more I think about him, though, the more I think the two gimmicks are just a little too weird to use when combined.

The Foe Files are something of an interesting idea, but while they’re certainly affordable, the characters they contain just aren’t as fun as I’ve gotten used to seeing in these guys’ older work. I don’t think they’ve lost it or anything. Like I said, I really liked In Broad Daylight. I just don’t know that the Foe Files are the best way they could be applying themselves. Assuming these characters haven't all been sitting around for ages.

By the way, if that's supposed to be a display of the Crusaders' computer, which Crusader's mask is that?

Just asking.

The Twilight Saga - The Official Illustrated Guide

Hey, it's the 120th post. Let's go completely ballistic on Twilight!

Heaven knows it could use one...

While I’m enjoying a reprieve from regular chapters of the love between two angsty fools, I got the idea into my head to do something of a review for the series handbook. You know, the one where the author more than indicates she does think the fantasy genre is carte blanche to do whatever she pleases. Seeing as I’m not actually going to be researching it to resolve problems unless dates are involved. Partly because reading the guidebook tends to cause more problems for the series than it solves anyway.

As long as I’m going over the definitive be-all, end-all repository of sparkly vampire knowledge, this seems as good a place as any to say I’m not planning to discuss the topic of vampire parenthood in too much detail. If I even live to make it that far. To be totally honest, I hate it when people waste their effort and my time trying to make fantasy sound scientifically feasible. I care more about consistency and coherence, so I might talk about that, but no in depth-examination of how the miracle of Renesmee came to be. Sorry if I’m letting anyone down. I will say that by “My scientific reasoning works for me,”* I get the feeling Meyer really meant the perfect romance wouldn’t be complete without the perfect child.

* (So what? You’re the one who came with up it. Maybe I’m not published yet, but I understand I’m connected to what I write in a way somebody reading it won’t be and might make assumptions about what people understand and what sounds good. As a result, it doesn’t hurt to have someone else around who isn’t afraid to tell you there are issues with your work. I kind of doubt Steph had anyone like that)

...and so I thought of giving Bella stuff for free, starting a grand tradition.

The book opens with 80 pages of interviews between Steph and fellow youth author Shannon Hale. Where she finds another way to duck criticism by saying she’s more amazed there are people who do get her books than there are people who don’t. And takes pride in writing for children (I think we underestimate what our kids can handle, but all the same I sure as hell don’t want my daughter relating to anything about Bella Swan), saying it keeps her humble and prevents her from becoming one of those “ ‘I am an author’ authors”. You know, if you’re smug about your humility, you’re not really being humble. I’m pretty sure Weird Al was making fun of that in “Amish Paradise”. Besides, considering what Bella tries to pull in the next book when she's alone with Edward, and with the little sparkly miracle they're given in the book after, I'm a little reluctant to say this series's target audience consists of "children".

To go off on a tangent (which might mark me as one of those “I am an author” authors in Steph’s mind, but I don’t care), while I find writing a wonderful creative outlet myself, I’d feel cheap if I didn’t try to do the best job I could and learn how to get better at it. Especially the stuff I plan to share with other people. Most of my stories are based on what I find interesting and thus would like to write about, but that doesn’t excuse me from making an effort. I’ve read non-Twilight stories with abysmal regard for spelling, grammar, clarity, pacing, and support for the story’s postulates (In Twilight's case, Edward spying on a girl without her knowledge and confining her because he doesn't like her friends proves how true his love is). I find it all extremely disrespectful of the writer to do that to the people that would read their stuff. That Steph’s so closed off to criticism she invented “the Rob Effect”* to brush off the outrage over the mess she made of the last book, well I can’t say I think much of the pride she takes in being a writer. If you’re going to share your work with the world, let alone brag about turning kids on to reading with it, don’t skimp on the effort.

* (Should you not have heard the term, “the Rob Effect” is Steph saying that people will be able to like Breaking Dawn [generally regarded as the most slapped-together of all the books] after a while, like how people originally didn’t like Robert Pattinson as the choice for Edward in the movies. Maybe part of the reason people warmed up to Rob is he seems like a pretty nice guy and really isn’t a bad actor despite the absolute shit he’s given to work with in the Twilight movies? I can tell you Breaking Dawn isn’t a misunderstood work of genius. Besides, the furor over anything will die down after a while. That’s why I keep dragging my feet on committing to reviews of another book. Most people don’t care anymore)

After the interviews, there’s a section on what exactly it means to be a vampire in the Meyerverse. What is and isn’t true, how the conversion works, the rules of being a vampire (well, the RULE), and how hybrid offspring work. It’s kind of funny to read all in one place like that, but I stand by my earlier beliefs that authors can explain themselves in the books and make good use of the space those books allot them. Meyer doesn’t do much of either.

As I noted in one of the last New Moon reviews, a heck of a lot of the guidebook's given over to profiles for every character, no matter how small their role in the larger series. First thing I feel I should mention is little sidebars of highlights from the main text. They’re all over the book, actually, but my favorite one’s in this part.

Hate to break it to you Steph, but there are names for those things Edward and the Cullens do: grand theft auto, arson, breaking and entering (or at the very least, trespassing), stalking, arguably coercion…They have names because they’re crimes. Yes, they are very much illegal. They're not any less illegal because he's somebody's dream guy. Although they might be less illegal because I have no trouble imagining the Cullens bribing a judge to look the other way if things ever did go to court...

As I've said before, it seems like the only thing they have any scruples against doing is taking a sentient life. That your heroine’s the daughter of someone in the law enforcement profession (and that he’s a lot more likable than her and Edward) does a little to remind us. Plus, as I’ve brought up several times, the fact is those acts are usually highly unnecessary based on what we know when they happen, so justifying them’s kind of hard. Imagine for a moment that Carlisle was summoned to testify before a jury who would keep it a secret that he’s a vampire and his family was fighting an evil vampire when they burned down the ballet studio. How would he explain having to torch the place after they already ripped James limb from limb*? Or stealing a car for the not-at-all-hurried trip home after Bella’s first meeting with the Volturi?

* (Just to prove I’m not a completely unfair asshole, the book does explain this. Sort of. Unless burnt, vampires can eventually “reconstitute” themselves after being ripped apart. It doesn’t say how that works, though [a legend we hear in Eclipse does, but it just goes further to show how Meyer's setting Bella up not to be a vampire, but some kind of goddess], and there were other ways they could’ve dealt with James permanently without having to torch an entire building)

The  profiles include categories on where they were born, hair and eye color, who changed them into a vampire, their special powers, their education and hobbies and physical description. Somehow this series gets even more shallow with Bella’s description, in that “Bella’s features were heightened and perfected by her transformation.”

In other words, on Bella.

I’d like to point out that when the book describes the enhancement of someone’s physical attractiveness by becoming a vampire, it doesn’t mention anything about its utility for capturing prey. Only that it has to do with their skin turning into a diamond-like substance. I can’t imagine being attracted to a woman more because she’s also a diamond. I look for different things in a rock than a member of the opposite sex. Especially since it would either make her sparkly or just pale depending on the weather, neither of which I find attractive. There's also the ridiculous implication that there's one universal standard for beauty. Remember, this isn't Bella talking. This is an impartial clinical description.

So we're admitting Edward and Carlisle picked romantic partners based on their looks?

The profiles even have “famous quotes” from the characters, which depending on who compiled them either show how bad Steph’s idea of immortal dialogue is, or how bad she is at writing it in the first place. “I think that boy is in love with you” is a memorable quote? In what universe? Not the one where this book was published.

Click 'em. You'll be glad you did.

After the profiles there are plot summaries, both by date and by chapter. They’re not only quicker, cheaper, but also a more entertaining way to go through the series. However, probably even more so than reading my reviews, you get a sense that very little of note actually happens in these books. Take, for example, the highlights of chapter 26 of Breaking Dawn: Charlie visits the family, Bella explains the sources of her daughter’s name (the summary even stops to explain it), Charlie approves of Bella’s new look, Bella gets angry about comments from Emmett, Bella beats Emmett at arm-wrestling. Can you STAND the excitement?!

Or how about something we’ve covered already, like chapter 11 of Twilight: Edward and Bella watch a movie in Biology, Bella’s “hyperaware” of Edward sitting next to her, Mike warns Bella about Edward, Edward asks Bella about her favorite things (which didn’t need to be relayed to the reader), Billy and Jacob see them together.

To show you I’m not deliberately picking the most boring possible chapters to attack, we’ll do a couple in sequence. Consider chapter 12: Bella’s afraid Billy will tell her dad about hanging out with Edward (nothing about convincing him not to), Bella sees Rosalie glaring at her at lunch, Edward explains this could destroy his family’s secrecy if things go wrong, Bella tells her “friends” she’s not going to Seattle, Edward meets Bella, they drive into the woods and hike five miles.

And chapter 13: Edward reveals his sparkling skin, there’s a large paragraph trying to make it sound like they don’t just spend most of the chapter talking about how yes, Edward’s a vampire, “Edward carries Bella back to the truck piggyback,” Edward kisses Bella.

Riveting.

So...Bella and Edward had sex.

There’s a section on the specifics of the cars the books’ major characters own (which was even a category in the profiles). Thing is, even though I have a Y chromosome I don’t usually care about the car a fictitious character drives unless it’s a major story element (like the Mach 5) or it says something about them. For instance, Harry Dresden’s car, the Jaime Reyes, says he cares more about making the world a little less dark than making big bucks. That magic doesn’t play well with advanced technology. That he’s kind of a nerd. I’ve already said what I think the Cullens’ wheels say about them, and in case you’re just tuning in it was nothing flattering.

Almost as pointless, to me anyway, is a section on inspirations and the official Twilight play list. And before you ask, yes, there’s a lot of Muse in there. I haven’t been able to connect with the story in anything but a derisory fashion, so playing the author’s recommended songs during certain parts hasn’t helped the experience any. Although it does make me a little uncomfortable considering I’ve toyed with the idea of something similar for my own works a time or two. Okay, actually gone ahead and done one a time or two.

Then there’s a section on international cover galleries and fanart. Which depresses me because evidently some very talented artists are fans of this series.

Although some of the pictures I just don’t get. Is that Edward in the bottom right, next to Bella’s Polaroid?

And this one…confuses me. It looks like it’s meant to be an artistic rendering of all the things Alice sees thanks to her visions. So why are there werewolves in there? That's one of the few things about her power Meyer sticks with.

After the art there’s a selection of “outtakes” which I’ve avoided so far, because I can’t quite work up the guts to see what wasn’t good enough to go in looks like. At least let me finish Kamen Rider Altis before I go totally insane, okay?

At the end there’s an FAQ in the back for general questions that don’t belong anywhere else. The most notable is the first, which is the significance of the various pieces of cover art. The apple on the first book is the forbidden fruit of pursuing Edward (as indicated by the Biblical epigraph). The wilting flower on New Moon is supposed to represent loss (which doesn’t last and only happens because of that “overthinking” thing Edward doesn’t do), and the not-quite severed ribbon on Eclipse is meant to symbolize Bella’s failure to make a clean break from her old life. It’s Bella, what’d you expect?

Most worthy of derision is the cover of Breaking Dawn. The chess pieces represent Bella. “They show her moving from the least significant player, the pawn, at the beginning of the Saga to the most important player, the queen, at the end of the series.” Because the universe didn’t revolve around Bella from day one. Also, aren’t the pawn and the queen “pieces,” while the people who use them are the “players”? I want to say Meyer thought she was going for a theatrical analogy there. And the queen is the most “useful” piece, but the “most important”? Losing which piece is an instant game over? And while it might have to do with Bella having her species removed, can I just point out there’s no way in hell for a red pawn to become a white queen? Let’s add “needs to avoid chess allusions” to Meyer’s little list, shall we?

“The chessboard also hints at Breaking Dawn’s resolution, where the battle with the Volturi is one of wits and strategy, not physical violence.” Or where Stephenie Meyer confirmed once and for all that she can’t show her characters willing to go all the way for their goals. The reason people were mad about the climax of Breaking Dawn is it’s set up like we’ll be looking forward to a big battle, what with the descriptions of all the vampires, all their fancy powers, and preparations for combat should it become necessary. Something truly epic to close out the series and show our leads standing firm against horrific odds in the name of love. But all they do is stand there. It’s a stupid copout, unless you’ve already had your hopes dashed like a stale graham cracker by how pitiful the conflict’s been leading up to that.

It even explains the meaning behind the puzzle pieces on this book and the emptying hourglass on The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. I’m hoping those were included for completeness, because the idea that the significance of those two pieces of cover art isn’t obvious from the name/concept of the work alone is kind of insulting.

And there you have it, my thoughts on the repository of all things Twilight in four pages. To close out what might be the last review on Steph’s work for a while, I’d like to counterpoint the Twilight series with another fantasy series. No, not Harry Potter. Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files, which I mentioned above. It’s not a romance, and it’s not really for young readers…

Yeah.

…but it manages to take a lot of the elements Meyer’s books are supposed to have and make them work. The main character, a wizard/P.I. by the name of Harry Dresden, is a genuinely good person, but he has a tragic past (an actual one), has demonstrable personality flaws like a short fuse and tendency to stick his neck out too far, and has made bad calls that have earned him powerful enemies even among the people who are supposedly on his side. He flouts the law sometimes in pursuit of the greater good, like by owning a gun. In Chicago. And because almost nobody believes in magic, he hardly ever gets any congratulations for a job well done. You believe it when he says his life sucks, instead of thinking it sounds like the whining of every overly dramatic teenager ever.

Harry never just cruises to victory. We all know the good guy always wins, but after the first couple books I found myself thinking “what will victory cost him?” Harry doesn’t get the girl. Any of them. In fact right when he’s about to she sacrifices all memory of him in order to save his life. In fact she gets a vampiric thirst for blood and has to basically give up all hope of a love life because she might slip and eat them. Why does that sound familiar? Even though I’ll admit Eclipse is a little better than the previous two books, I was never for a minute worried that the characters were in danger, that Bella and Edward’s relationship wouldn’t make it, or that they might receive anything less than total victory.

Harry has fantastic supernatural powers, but there are visible limits to his abilities and knowledge, and a clear feeling that there really is someone who’ll smack him down hard for violating the rules of his kind. In the first book we meet a guy who makes sure wizards obey the rules, Morgan, who’d just love for Harry to give him a reason to drop the blade on our hero. Unlike Alice’s “whatever works best at the moment” precognition, and the vampire police letting the kids go with a nebulous warning we know won’t become a believable problem.

Things happen in Butcher’s books. I don’t know that I could find five different things to mention about any given chapter like in the summaries in The Official Illustrated Guide, but I’m on the fourth book (fifth if you count Welcome to the Jungle) and not a single chapter’s passed without at least one fairly significant thing happening. The book’s going somewhere and every chapter is a step in that journey, instead of interminable pages of sitting around wallowing in all the nothing that’s happening.

And while it might seem like Butcher took “it’s fantasy” as a pass to include whatever he felt like (there’s wizards, faeries, demons, dragons, trolls, several varieties of werewolf and vampire…), the stuff by and large clicks together without being overwhelming. Not everything’s revealed at once, but enough groundwork is laid that you don’t feel like something wasn’t mentioned before because the author hadn’t thought of it before. In Twilight the author doesn’t reach as far into the fantastic as Butcher (at least that’s what I think as someone who hates sparkling vampires because it’s stupid more than because it’s contrary to the norm), but fails to make what she does focus on compelling. Plus, the characters and their world are so poorly-etched in Twilight, when something new comes up it feels like something that wasn’t mentioned before because the writer hadn’t thought of it yet. Even if the idea actually had been there since Steph started seriously thinking about sequels.

I genuinely get the feeling that Jim Butcher has some feminist leanings because of Harry’s closest confidante. She’s looked down by her superiors for heading up the department that looks into supernatural crimes, since none of them really buy into that stuff, but hell if she’ll let that stop her from being a good cop. Plus she could knock our hero’s teeth out if she felt like it despite being a regular old human, and damn if she doesn’t get the urge sometimes. (To explain why would require me to go off on a little tangent, but you see, Harry takes a while to tell her everything he knows that might help her fight supernatural menaces because the more she knows, the more likely she might go down with him if something gets out of hand. She resents this because it’s her job to face danger to protect innocent people. Her concern’s valid, but Harry’s is too. If Edward doesn’t tell Bella things that would be handy to know for someone who associates with the supernatural as much as she does, it seems to be because of the dubious idea that he thought he could protect her, because he enjoys being one step ahead of her, or because he just doesn’t because he’s a moron).

Pictured: bad grammar. Also pictured: actual inter-character conflict.

Karrin Murphy’s a good example of how to write an empowered female character who’s still relatable. As for Twilight in that regard…you know what, Meyer? I may dislike Alice less than your other characters, but she’s in no way proof that you’re not “anti-female.” She’s super-girly*, kind of hyper, only seems intimidating when compared to uber-loser Bella, and has a potentially cool power ruined by inconsistency. Try again.

* (Which isn’t in and of itself a bad thing, but with the narrowly-defined gender roles in these books and all the other things weighing her down…damn I’m all up on the footnotes in this post)

Following in that vein, you get a definite sense from The Dresden Files that characters and supernatural beings are badasses, yet they also have visible limits and weaknesses too. Even plain old humans; in the second book Murphy drives off a monster that takes the worst Harry has to throw at it. All I’ll say is one author being discussed here likes to do more than talk about how tough their characters are.

Lastly, for books that tend to have actual end-of-the-world stakes, The Dresden Files have something of a sense of humor about themselves. The ages-old spirit who Harry turns to for things he doesn’t know is a dirty old pervert, faeries will tell you anything for a pizza, the real reason wizards wear those big flowing robes is how cold it gets in their labs, and “flickum bicus” are the magic words to light candles. Harry's read the Evil Overlord List. It has him comparing little demons combining to make a big demon to Voltron. It has the phrase "I put the 'ick' in 'magic'."

And can you see Edward Cullen fighting off the bad guys in the grand climax of an adventure wearing nothing but a stolen pair of boxer shorts covered with yellow duckies? In an actual book Stephenie Meyer would actually share? If Twilight ever tried to poke fun at itself, the unintentional ridiculousness of everything else would make the whole series collapse in on itself.

I guess it comes down to this: being a vampire never seemed hard. Never in all the words Stephenie Meyer’s written. But I did believe this about being a wizard: “It’s scary as hell. You start learning the kinds of things that go bump in the night and you figure out that ‘ignorance is bliss’ is more than just a quotable quote. And it’s--It’s so damned frustrating. You see people getting hurt. Innocents. Friends. I try to make a difference, but I usually don’t know what the hell is going on until somebody is already dead. Doesn’t matter what kind of job I do--I can’t help those folks.” (Summer Knight, p. 252)

That’s one more thing Butcher did better, now that I think about it. Working the source of the damn title into the plot.

Jim, I really like your books. I’m sorry to have compared them to Twilight. But I do feel good having recommended something infinitely better than a 2000+ page Suefic.