The Princess Bride by William Goldman

A Slightly Spoilery First Read but Kind of Reread Review

I have been a fan of The Princess Bride since I was about 12. It really is the perfect movie for a fantasy obsessed 12 year old. Had I known at the time that the movie was an adaptation, I definitely would have read The Princess Bride a lot sooner. That said, I’m also not a fan of wading through tacked-on introductions… so I just didn’t. Well, the 30th anniversary intro, I didn’t. The 25 anniversary intro was actually fun to read and contextualized the abridged bit of the book. I really wish Kindle had a “skip intro” button. Lol. I also did not read the Buttercup’s Baby portion at the end of the book. The rest of The Princess Bride was fantastic, though.

I was surprised how much of the book was just plopped into the movie, actually. I’m used to my adaptations being straight up bad or cutting whole swaths of the book to fit the movie’s runtime and/or revised story. There were a lot more similarities between The Princess Bride book and movie than there are differences.

The big difference I noticed was the Death Zoo Humperdink apparently had. I’m not surprised at its exclusion from the movie, really. It was largely unnecessary, in my opinion. After all, we didn’t see Humperdink actually do any of the supposed hunting he was so good at. Literally could have just had the level Westley was kept on and left it at that.

I enjoyed getting backstory on both Inigo and Fezzik. I’m largely unsurprised we got nothing on Vizzini. He shall forever remain the man felled by Iocane Powder and little else. My absolute favorite part of both book and movie is, like, 99% unchanged between them. I could hear Billy Crystal and Carol Kane’s voices in my head as I read the Miracle Max scene. It was prefect.

I’m really not sure there’s much else to say that’s not my gushing about how much I loved both book and movie. It’s interesting to do this adaptation thing backward. I’ve got several series in my backlog that I’m basically doing the same with, but I doubt any will come anywhere close to The Princess Bride. Definitely give these a read and a watch if you’ve somehow missed them. They’re fantastic.

Favorite Line

"The beef-witted featherbrained rattleskulled clodpated dim-domed noodle-noggined sapheaded lunk-knobbed boys." - Buttercup

In Other News

Currently Reading: Midnight's Daughter by Karen Chance and Beneath the Surface: Killer Whales, SeaWorld, and the Truth Beyond Blackfish by John Hargove

Currently Watching: Motherland and Project Runway

Netflix's The Sandman

 A Semi-Spoilery Series Overview

Overall, The Sandman is a fantastic show. The casting was spot on. The music is awesome. The story lines were engaging. Highly recommend watching if you are any kind of fantasy fan. Or heck, even if you're not. It's a fun ride.

I have been a fan of Neil Gaiman's work ever since I first read Neverwhere at some point in my teens. I haven't had a chance to read The Sandman comics, but they have been on my radar and my reading list for years. I'm not sure how good of an adaptation this show is, but it's definitely worth a watch on its own merits.

So, being a fan of Gaiman's and comics (mostly the shows and movies based on them, to be completely honest) in general, I had at least a passing familiarity with some of the characters going into The Sandman. I kind of vaguely knew about Dream and was far more familiar with Death from some cosplay stuff and images I'd seen floating around online. I had watched the first couple episodes of Lucifer when they first came out, but never got into the show. Honestly, I was most familiar with Constantine from the Keanu Reeves movie, the Constantine TV show, and a smattering of DC's animated content. I thought all these roles were filled wonderfully by the actors in The Sandman. My favorites were Constantine (I am a big fan of Jenna Coleman's) and Death. I thought Dream was actually kind of vampiric in the ways he was styled. Very much reminded me of Stephanie Meyer's Edward Cullen (specifically Robert Pattinson's portrayal) and, at one point, Anne Rice's Lestat. Probably his paleness and that popped collar coat he had going on.

Other characters I enjoyed were Lucienne, Gault, and Fiddler's Green. I pegged Fiddler's Green from the moment he showed up. After all, you can't just have Stephen Fry playing some eccentric recluse. I quite liked Unity Kincaid. Honestly, I could take or leave the BnB crew. They were all bits of eccentric flavor that mostly served to showcase Rose's powers. Patton Oswald as Matthew was a delight.

The first big story line was fun. I always enjoy the quests to find missing items of importance. That said, in comparison to the second story line of the season, it fades into the background. I very much enjoyed seeing Jenna Coleman play Constantine. That episode was pretty awesome, honestly. It was nice to see some of the power behind Dream's tools. David Thewlis' character really needed some actual therapy, in my opinion, rather than to just be locked up. I'm also not sure how that diner ended up in a semi-time loop sort of thing. I just didn't feel like it was well explained or really conveyed as to what was going on. Also not sure what I would have done better so... yeah. It was probably my personal low point.

I thought the Rose Walker story line was much more interesting. I liked the concept of the Dream Vortex, though the explanation as to "What's it for/Why's it happen" was definitely rushed and just kind of dumped on the viewer by Fiddler's Green. The serial killers were delightful characters, ya know, once you put aside the whole serial killer thing. The Corinthian was an interesting villain, even if I didn't find him at all terrifying. Honestly, Jed's foster care situation was much worse. That's probably due to my personal awareness of how true to life Jed's situation was. The foster care system in the US is VERY broken and this kind of thing actually happens to people so... yeah... Jed's whole thing with his foster parents was more terrifying than The Corinthian. On a brighter note, I hope we get to see what happens with Lyta's baby.

My favorite episode is definitely episode 6: The Sound of Her Wings. I enjoyed getting Death's perspective on humanity and the meetings with Hob. This was also the episode where Dream's look made me go "Lestat" at one point even though he resembles none of the actors who've played that character previously. My boyfriend really enjoyed episode 4: Hope in Hell. The battle of wits between Dream and Lucifer was definitely a highlight.

So yeah, definitely go give The Sandman a watch if you haven't already.

Artemis Fowl Series Overview

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

A Mostly Spoiler Free Overview of the Series

 

I find the Artemis Fowl series a bit hard to categorize. I remember enjoying the first four books as a teenager but never got around to reading the rest of the series until now. I honestly can't say that the series is amazing, though it is, at least original. Sci-fi-is fairies aren't a dime a dozen, after all. It was fun getting to know the characters and their world, for the most part. It is also quite clear that 30-something is not the intended age range for the Artemis Fowl series. I was rolling my eyes at some of the jokes and honestly felt talked down to at times. If I were to recommend an age-range for these, it would probably be the Junior High set.

The main batch of characters -- Artemis, Holly, Mulch, Butler, Foaly, and Opal -- were all fleshed out quite well. I enjoyed all of them at certain points, though, if you've read my reviews, you will know that I have a disdain for Butler's apparent body-guarding "skills." Artemis' character progression was believable and gradual enough to work for me. The less said about his alter ego in The Atlantis Complex, the better. Holly, Foaly, and Mulch were pretty steady throughout the series, which I expect considering they're in at least their 80s. Fairy aging might be different than human aging, but a well-adjusted adult is still not going to change that much over the course of a few years. Butler, as I've said before, is a crap bodyguard, but he's essential to the series. Artemis did need someone to do the physical stuff after all. And finally, Opal Koboi. Hooo boy does Opal need some serious, actual therapy. That said, I did enjoy having an uncomplicated, almost completely insane villain.

The secondary characters were alright, though honestly the rest of them were relegated to the background pretty quickly. I definitely did not enjoy most of the interim antagonists, can't even recall their names off the top of my head. I'm not really sure why we had to have them in the first place, but they exist. I did like Commander Julius Root, for the short time we had him. He was very stereotypical of a hard on the outside but a cinnamon roll in the middle police captain that seems to make their way into these things. I guess I would have liked him to stick around, but I feel like he would have been just a background character, like Kelp, there at the end so it's probably a good thing he was taken out early. Myles and Beckett Fowl were cute and largely served to soften Artemis some. Artemis Fowl Sr. and Angeline Fowl were just kind of there as very background guides for Artemis' continued growth through the series and, of course, motivation in those first three books. Lastly, Juliet Butler had some semi-complex character growth. She figured out what she actually wanted to do with her life (masked wrestling) and then promptly discards it to bodyguard the Fowl twins? I'm confused, but hey, if that's apparently what she wants, more power to her.

I did also enjoy the fairy upgrade we got. By that, I mean that the fairies are a borderline sci-fi alien species as opposed to the stereotypical stuck in medieval ways kind of species. I also liked the diversity of them. We've got elves, sprites, trolls, dwarfs, goblins, and centaurs, each with their own characteristics. It's not often we get more than just elves and dwarfs. Speaking of dwarfs, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about getting a new ability for them every book. They seem to be ever-evolving where the rest of the fairies are just kind of mini-humans with a tiny bit of magic. Not even sure what most of fairy society uses magic for. Holly always seems to be using it for healing and shielding, but most of fairy society is underground just going about their business so they don't need magic, really. Much shrugging. I'm still wondering how tall centaurs get, given that the other fairy species (aside from Trolls) seem to top out at around three feet.

Finally, I want to talk a bit about Colfer's environmental message. It's really obvious that Colfer is pro-environmentalism. I second that view, for what it's worth. However, I do think Colfer slams the reader over the head with it at least once a book. I get it, I do, get the kids onboard with the pro-environment message as soon as you can. Not sure how much in-depth detail really needed to be added, though. I know my brain kind of glazed over when Artemis' glider was described in The Last Guardian, for example. I'm also pretty sure I ranted about the Extinctionists in The Time Paradox, too. They were definitely "on stage" for a lot longer than I thought was needed. But yeah, Colfer definitely has a strong pro-environment message that's ridiculously hard to miss. To be clear, I'm not knocking the inclusion of the message, I'm just not feeling HOW it was included. That said, it's also clear that Colfer is hopeful for us. His path for humanity in The Last Guardian shows that.

Yeah, overall, I think Artemis Fowl is pretty good. Worth a read, at least. In my personal opinion, one could definitely skip over a few books. They pertinent plot points are summed up in the following books, so you don't have to kill any brain cells actually slogging through them. I would personally skip The Eternity Code, The Time Paradox, and The Atlantis Complex on reread... assuming I ever get the urge to reread this series.

Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer

A Spoiler Free Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: August 9, 2022

Well color me suitably impressed. Or as impressed as I can get with a young adult novel that is also the finale of a series. Artemis Fowl has been up and down, but the end is definitely up, for which I am immensely happy.

I’m still salty about The Atlantis Complex. Like, literally the dumbest mental illness/plot point. Pretty much waved away here at the beginning. Also not very happy to see Dr. Jerbil Argon back. Just… ugh. Didn’t like him in The Opal Deception, still don’t like him here. Luckily, it’s only in order to assure everyone that Artemis is indeed cured of the annoying plot device so he can continue on being the hero.

I was very glad to have Opal back in the villain chair. There was no way she was going to be locked in that Atlantis prison for the rest of the series. I am a tad torn as to the way she managed to escape, but that’s the version of me that is more into alternate timelines than exploding universes. That said, I did wonder how they were going to deal with two Opals in the same time and it was handled as best as one could hope. I’m also glad the Opal clone, Nopal, was dealt with. I’d honestly forgotten Nopal existed, so it was a bit of a surprise when she showed back up.

The way Colfer did Berserkers was interesting. Very few fantasy authors that I’ve read treat Berserkers as anything more than rage machines, so to see them more as a military unit was pleasant. It was also interesting to see how the Berserkers had to overcome the difficulty of disparate hosts. I liked it. It was amusing at times. Also, ya know, always fun to have that mind-controlled loved-ones trope show up.

I even enjoyed the aside focused on Foaly and Caballine. At the beginning of that, I was sure I was going to be annoyed with it, as the action had been following Artemis, Holly, and Butler up to that point. However, it was actually nice to have a little break from them to follow Foaly around and actually get to know Caballine a bit. I liked her a lot.

The story as a whole was mostly paced well. There were points where I was rolling my eyes a bit, but not enough to completely break my immersion. Everyone was also in character, which was very nice. Also, no mention of the Holly/Artemis romance. Good riddance. I don't think it's strictly necessary to have your male and female leads be in some kind of romantic relationship. It's often shoehorned in, as it was here. Getting rid of it in favor of the platonic relationship is much better and definitely more valid for these characters.

There is a point at which the world basically explodes. It’s more of a technology explodes kind of deal. For everyone, humans and fairies alike. Colfer is apparently convinced humans would have been rocked back to the stone age by this. He says as much. I disagree. I think there’s enough non-tech and tech that was developed before the five year cutoff that we would by no means be back in the stone age. Back to the 90s, maybe, but definitely not stone age. Also, have a very big beef with how he says humanity recovered from this catastrophe. Like, it’s nice to think we’d go all solar and wind powered, but we were mostly gas powered before any of the tech got going. Doubt we’d bounce back in environmentally friendly ways, to be honest. I don’t have that much faith in humanity. But hey, it’s Colfer’s universe.

I’m also honestly not sure how much more I can say without spoiling things. Part of the fun is the play-by-play of the adventure. I am glad it ended as it did, though I’m a tad tired of sacrifices being undone. That’s definitely all I’ll say on that, though, as giving away the ending is definitely a spoiler. Anyway, I am very, very glad the series ended on a high note.

In Other News

I will be doing a Series Overview for Artemis Fowl, but it will probably take me a little while to do so. This post will also be the last of my daily posts for a good long while. I've been posting all my reviews for 2022 (and 2021 due to when I started The Women of the Otherworld/The Otherworld) and we're now all caught up. All subsequent reviews will be posted when I finish reading and/or watching whatever I'll be reviewing.

Currently reading: The Princess Bride by William Goldman and Midnight's Daughter by Karen Chance

Currently watching: The Sandman and The Umbrella Academy

As a rather personal side note: Please, please, please be patient, polite, and flexible when dealing with your service professionals, no matter which service they're providing you. We're all overworked and understaffed and would really appreciate some understanding on the part of the consumer. We're also STILL dealing with product shortages and variable product availability, so please keep that in mind.

Embrace the Night by Karen Chance

A Spoiler Free Reread Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: August 6, 2022

I really quite enjoyed Embrace the Night. It was slower paced without so much action going on. Allowed the story, and Cassie, to breathe for once. She's not running around, or being forced to run around, at random. I think settling into her role as Pythia and getting to grips with her powers is really good for Cassie. That said, the tension is largely kept up by the time-sensitive issue lurking around in the background and largely driving the plot.

Speaking of... the geis is still gross. Do not like. Do not like its resolution. Not really sure why the resolution had to be exactly what it was aside from getting Mircea and Cassie to actually consummate whatever their relationship is. And that's all I'm gonna say about that due to spoilers.

So let's see... we got Pritkin backstory in both story and time-travel form. Appears he's always had trouble actually listening when people tell him things. Jumps to some lovely wrong conclusions and sticks to his guns to an annoying level, rejecting information that conflicts with his preconceived notions. I'm not a fan of this and hopefully he changes in this aspect. Cuz like, how're you gonna keep Cassie safe if you can't seem to parse what information is given to you about things you know little about?

Cassie knows how to use a weapon! I understand she has this reliance on guns due to their lovely speed factor, but she's really bad at aiming and doesn't seem to be getting any better... but surprise! She did have some training with swords when she was younger and actually manages to hold her won against Pritkin for a bit during training. Hope she keeps that up and maybe starts carrying one as a backup or something. Better than continually hiding behind or under things all the time while chaos rages around you. Plus, helpful for time traveling shenanigans. I really can't explain how happy I was to find out about this previously unknown skill. I want more.

I liked the background we got on Cassie's post/pre-Tony activities. Tammi and the kids serve as some nice world-building. After all, not everyone is born a Mage or a Vampire or whatever. I like to know what other types of magical being are out there and how they're dealt with by the magical community at large, even if it's rather horrible. Probably some setup for later down the line, too. Does not seem like that story-line is at all resolved.

Much like the Rosier/Saleh stuff. I really want to know what exactly crawled up Rosier's butt cuz we didn't really get an actual explanation. Saleh was interesting. Want to see more of him, I think. Djinn are pretty interesting creatures, so I'm also interested in seeing how Chance fleshes them out... hopefully, anyway. Apparently, despite semi-wide use in fantasy literature, djinn are a hot button topic for certain Muslims so... I dunno. I just found that out with the release of the Ms. Marvel show over on Disney+. Which you should totally watch, cuz it's fun, but I digress.

Apollo, Apollo, Apollo... I disliked his character pretty much from the get go. He did that thing where he's like "Yes, I shall teach you, but first, do this thing that requires use of things I'm not teaching you right now." Red flag. But also, he's a god so, par for the course, right? I thought so and then... spoilers happened. So that's fun. If you read Embrace the Night, you'll know.

Speaking of, there's a big Ouroboros thing going on in Embrace the Night. It's semi-interesting. Amazing how many things seem to use the Ouroboros as a logo but it's not obvious because it got simplified to an unrecognizable point... yeah. Kind of also has stuff to do with the geis due to the way it was placed. Or at least, that's what I thought was going to happen... but yeah, not quite.

Man, it's really hard to keep spoilers out of this review. There's so much that happens despite the lack of chaotic battles. It's really quite nice to settle down and just get to the overall story rather than having Cassie running for her life or someone else's every couple of pages.

Touch the Dark by Karen Chance

A Spoiler Free Reread Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: July 5, 2022

So Touch the Dark is quite good. It does have a lot of heavy-lifting to do in terms of world-building. I think it does that fairly well, though it is somewhat annoying at times *cough*Pritkin*cough*. There's also a good amount of setup for things that happen down the line because time travel[time travel (hide spoiler)] is definitely a thing in this series. Oh, did I mention this is a reread review? No? Oops. Anyway... I did enjoy Touch the Dark even if I did find certain bits frustrating and honestly, forgettable. What I mean by that is: I might not forget them as I go on to reread/finish reading the rest of the series, but I definitely forgot a good 99% of this book in the intervening years since my first read. Ultimately, info-dump-sexy-times is not my favorite thing and everything before that felt like just so much setup for other things.

As an avid reader of vampire books, I have to say I liked the bits of lore plunked down here. The scene in which Pritkin (and we as readers) get an education in how vampirism in this world works was somewhat annoying, if informative. I dislike characters who are ignorant and very couched in their ignorance to the point of calling everyone out about things they assume are going on as opposed to asking what's going on. I also find it interesting that mages apparently don't know jack about vampires despite apparently being large parts of the supernatural community. And finally, I'm not sure how I feel about all the famous historical vampires. I mean, I remembered Mircea and Cleopatra from my recent-ish reread of the Dorina books, but then there's the addition of Jack the Ripper, Rasputin, and Raphael... just kinda... okay, guess we're doing this now.

I found Cassie's overall non-knowledge of her powers and things to be interesting. Always fun when a character has to learn new gifts all by her lonesome. Her confusion matches our confusion, which isn't exactly reassuring as a reader... and that basically no one thinks to explain to her what could possibly be going on until rather late in the game is annoying. I wanted to shake everyone in the room, including Cassie. I felt she should have demanded to know what was going on immediately, but no, must get distracted by personal things that, again, don't pan out until info-dump time later. Of course I don't remember much about the rest of the series to know if that personal stuff ever pans out... other things do, I believe, but yeah... I don't remember a lot about what I'm getting into again...

Anyway, decent enough starter book for the series. Cassie's a good protagonist, I think. Her power set is interesting and not one that's seen often in fantasy novels. I'm definitely looking forward to rereading/finishing the rest of these.

The Third Magic by Molly Cochran

A Spoiler Free Review

Originally Posted on GoodReads: June 23, 2022

Well, that was definitely an ending... and kind of a beginning, I suppose. It's a cycle, after all. I think that's at least part of the point of The Third Magic. The cycle goes on and interrupting it in hopes of a continuation doesn't really have the best consequences for those involved. And then it goes and does that thing where we hit the reset button to basically undo everything... I mean, I choose to read it as an alternate timeline where Merlin didn't do "The Second Magic," but I gather from the other reviews I've read, I'm the only one.

The Third Magic features a pretty complete retelling of the Arthurian legend interspersed with the continuation of Arthur Blessing's story and Taliesin's education, apparently. It does contradict re-tellings and even events from the earlier books (mostly The Broken Sword); however, it's basically a retcon and doesn't actually affect the story that much. In fact, given that I personally disliked The Broken Sword and the retcons, one could probably just skip it. Everything's re-explained in a satisfactory enough manner, I think. There's also a complete swap of Morgan for Morgause in The Third Magic that just had me tilting my head every time she appeared. I kind of understand why, but at the same time I'm just like... those are two different people in Arthurian Legend and you've apparently decided to combine them and give them the lesser known one's name... because Orkney needed to be involved. Anyway, I digress.

Again in this trilogy, I wasn't super impressed with the "villain" of the piece. I think there probably should have just been focus on Arthur and his crisis of person-hood rather than throwing in Titus and Pinto, but apparently someone had to help restart the cycle so... "villains." However, Titus was at least more interesting than Aubrey and (view spoiler)[apparently Morgause reincarnated, wtf (hide spoiler)] so I'll forgive him being around. Pinto... Titus just needed someone to take care of him apparently. He didn't really do much other than cause a little chaos so... yeah.

My issue with the knights was still here. I understand they're from medieval times and it's fun to have them causing chaos because apparently medieval courts were just super rowdy all the time... but I'm still not convinced they would have been as annoyingly inept as they're portrayed. *shrug* Another just me thing, probably.

There's also a large focus on the whole Launcelot/Guenevere thing that annoys me every time I read it, whether it's supposedly true or else just rumors. I've never enjoyed this part of the story and revisiting it this time actually reminded me a lot of The Mists of Avalon so that's not great. I get it, it's the melodrama of it all, but that was actually something I liked about The Forever King and The Broken Sword. Mention it. Mention how it was basically the start of Arthur's downfall and move on. But no, gotta linger on it... a lot. *Insert rolling eyes here*

Anyway... overall The Third Magic was alright. I read it in basically three days, so it definitely had my attention and did clip along at a good pace. The ending wasn't exactly the best, but, like I said at the beginning of this review, gotta do the cycle thing. I completely understand why a bunch of people didn't think it was satisfying. Heck, I personally think this trilogy went through highs and lows and this one just happened to do both in one book. I just tend to talk about stuff that annoyed me because I don't want to spoil things for others.