This is undoubtedly the shortest book I've yet reviewed, a children's picture book which has been a favorite of all my kids. The Paper Dragon, like another I will discuss at some point (Shibumi and the Kitemaker, by Mercer Mayer), tells a fictional tale in the style of older storytelling traditions of the Eastern countries such as China and Japan (or, at least, if this particular tale is a real folktale, I can't find reference to it other than this book). In the story, a painter by the name of Mi Fei is chosen by his [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: H. Beam Piper’s “Little Fuzzy”
May 20, 2013 By 8 Comments
H. Beam Piper was one of the unsung greats of science fiction in his era, producing the Paratime series, stories of Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen, and several others. Tragically, he ended his own life in despair, betrayed by his own agent, believing that his future was effectively nonexistent. Of all his works, however, one stands out to me as unique: Little Fuzzy. Little Fuzzy is a story of a first contact not quite like any other. Jack Holloway is a prospector on the planet of Zarathustra, mining sunstones and selling [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Gensomaden Saiyuki
May 15, 2013 By Leave a Comment
It's well-known that we're willing to take our cultural heritage and rewrite it in amusing ways; red-bearded, bearish, Norse warrior god Thor becomes a tall, blonde warrior speaking faux-Olde English in the comics; Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is remade as a gang war in modern times; the world of Greek Mythology is mixed up with Egyptian, Roman, and a bit of Wuxia film for Xena, Warrior Princess. The Japanese are no less willing to do this to our cultural heritage… or their own. Saint Seiya was a peculiar, to say the least, [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Jonny Quest
April 19, 2013 By 7 Comments
In 1964, Hanna-Barbera decided to try an action-adventure based animated television series, and asked comic-book writer and illustrator Doug Wyldie to give them a treatment of an animated version of Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy, a popular radio drama from the 30s through 1951. As it turned out, they couldn't get the rights to Armstrong and asked Wyldie if he could create a similar show treatment with original characters. Wyldie took the basic idea of the old Jack Armstrong adventures – a young boy and his friend or relative on [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Gladiator-At-Law, by C.M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl
April 17, 2013 By 2 Comments
Written in 1954, Gladiator-At-Law focuses on Charles Mundin, a criminal attorney barely making ends meet in a world where corporate influence has become more powerful than government (indeed, there is very little evidence of actual government operating at all) and where many professions, including those of corporate lawyer, have become hereditary and closed to outsiders. Mundin may survive as a criminal lawyer, but he'll never be rich… and he can never manage to rise into the world of corporate law, unless someone has an "in" for him. [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Naruto/Naruto Shippuden
March 25, 2013 By 2 Comments
It's almost unbearable, isn't it?… the pain of being all alone. I know that feeling, I've been there, in that dark and lonely place, but now there are others, other people who mean a lot to me. I care more about them than I do myself, and I won't let anyone hurt them. That's why I'll never give up, I will stop you, even if I have to kill you! They saved me from myself, they rescued me from my loneliness, they were the first to accept me as who I am. They're my friends. -- Uzumaki Naruto to Gaara of the Sand I [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: The Addams Family/Addams Family Values
March 20, 2013 By 4 Comments
Girl Scout: "Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?" Wednesday: "Are they made with real Girl Scouts?" I never watched the original TV series,and had only seen a few of the Charles Addams comics, but I saw The Addams Family on the recommendation of a few friends, and found it to be a tremendously entertaining film – and one with some rather unusual elements. The same was true of its sequel, Addams Family Values; I've watched both films several times. (NOTE: The link above goes to a combo deal for both movies on DVD, [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: Van Helsing (2004)
March 18, 2013 By 3 Comments
"To you, these are just monsters, waiting to be vanquished. I'm the one standing there when they die… and become the men they once were." --Gabriel Van Helsing As many readers have undoubtedly noted, I have sometimes unconventional tastes in my entertainment, and it will therefore perhaps be something less of a surprise to hear that I (and my wife) find 2004's Van Helsing, starring Hugh Jackman, to be one of our favorite films of the last ten years. This oft-mocked semi-steampunk horror movie from begins with a [ Continue reading... ]
[Not] On my Shelves: Mighty Max
March 13, 2013 By 3 Comments
Mighty Max was a short-lived cartoon (one year in the early 1990s) which deserved far more recognition than it got. It shares with ROM:Spaceknight the distinction of being inspired by a toy line, but the toy line in this case was rather more successful than the show. The basic plot of Mighty Max was relatively simple, if peculiar: the eponymous Max is a young boy – specific age not given but he appears to be maybe 13-14 – whose mother is an archaeologist. The latter is important as this is why he's able to read the [ Continue reading... ]
On My Shelves: ROM, Spaceknight
March 8, 2013 By 1 Comment
Once upon a time, Parker Brothers – best known for producing some of the most classic board and table games in history (Monopoly, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, etc.), decided it was time to branch out into the heady world of action figures; taking a cue from the recent surge of popularity in SF and fantasy (this was in 1979-1980), they decided to blend both and create a space-travelling knight in modern armor – a cyborg-robot kind of thing which they called COBOL, after the programming language; after some debate, the name was revised to [ Continue reading... ]
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