This is a comic series written by Scott Snyder, the man behind the recent Batman storyline that I loved so much. In this series, like with 40 Days of Night, the goal is to put the terror back into the vampire myth. He is aided in the first volume by none other than Stephen King. I hear he's pretty scary too, but I only have a sample size of Carrie, which is admittedly pretty awesome.
Vol. 1 - This story flashes back and forth between the 1870s and Hollywood in the roaring 20s. In the origin plot line we learn how infamous outlaw Skinner Sweet becomes the first of a new breed of vampire: the American Vampire. The basic idea is that, like in the X-men, every once in a while, the genetics of the vampire virus mutate and cause a new breed to emerge. Skinner Sweet is a vampire who is recharged by sunlight, but is weakest during the new moon. His other main weakness we will discover is gold. (It figures that the American Vampire would have a toxic relationship to gold.) Anyway, Skinner is a sadistic psychopath in the realm of Angelus or the Joker. And this is before he becomes an immortal killing machine. Once changed, he begins a slow systematic destruction of the lawmen that almost caught him. Fathers, wives, children, entire towns are massacred before he is stopped, temporarily of course. We pick up the story in the 1920s where we are introduced to some new major characters and well as the descendents of Skinner's previous reign of terror who are out for vengeance.
Vol. 2 & 3 continue the storyline, covering the 1930's and 1940's. The world is expanded and we learn that there are many breeds of vampires, but the common Carpathian (dracula) variety are by far the most numerous, having created a worldwide secret society bent of acquisition of power and the genocide of all other races of vampire. We also learn about the human society dedicated to the destruction of all vampires everywhere. It is into this framework that Skinner Sweet and his fellow American Vampires introduce an element of chaos. Skinner is a completely despicable character, but the world is bigger than he is so despite is massive power, he has to play the angles from time to time. Give him an opening though, and he'll probably murder your wife and infect your newborn baby just for kicks.
I really like this new twist on the vampire mythos. There is a brutality to this series that you would expect when dealing with monsters. Characters aren't safe, and could be killed off at any point. Amidst all the blood and gore, we do get some great human moments with our cast of characters that continually give a sense of stakes and weight to the carnage. It's a tricky balance to find, but this series has been mostly successful so far. The one thing I would say is that the character of Skinner Sweet can be to charismatic for his own good. Like any great villain, they run the risk of being too compelling to stay scary. He is your worst nightmare, but while he is safely contained in the pages of the book, you can't help but root for him to find a way to survive to the next issue. It's a good problem to have though, and Scott Snyder has done an admirable job so far of keeping mostly to the scary side of that line. If you are in the market for a really great horror series, and zombies aren't your thing, you need to check this out.
10/10
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
100 by 30: Book 25 - The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
So.....this book is super weird. It's written with the straightforward and simple tone of a children's story, but contains a lot of casual violence. The Tin Man kills a bunch of wolves and other beasts with his ax, the scarecrow murders a murder of crows, and the cowardly lion decapitates a giant spider. Another grisly detail left out of the movie is the origin of the Tin Man. He used to be a man, until his ax is bewitched and he accidently chops off his legs, then is arms, then his head, and finally he vivisects his own torso. each time, the tinsmith replaces the body part until he is completely made of tin. I can't believe they left that out of the movie! The biggest surprise for me was how little of Kansas is even in the book. The twister happens on like page 3, and the final chapter of Dorothy getting home is about 6 sentences long. The wicked witch has no Kansas counterpart, and neither to any of the other characters. We also get the death of the wicked witch about halfway through the book, without the help of Dorothy's friends. This event, along with most of the adventures, is very anticlimactic. The book follows a structure of problem, followed by a brief sense of danger, followed by a comically simple solution or Deus Ex Machina in the form of the flying monkeys, who act as a genie by committee in the books.
While the story may be simplistic, the shear amount of fantastical characters and worlds keep the story engaging. The book is also help by the amount of social commentary slipped into the pages. It is far more obvious that the characters, with the exception of Dorothy, already possess the things they think they need. The lion faces down many enemies, the scarecrow is always coming up with ideas, and the tin man cries when he steps on a bug. In the Emerald City, all of the people think they have a perfect city because the powers that be (The Wizard) have forced everyone to wear green colored glasses that they cannot take off.
While the book isn't amazing, it certainly has enough charm to make me curious to read some of the other Oz books. My favorite moment in this book is when the scarecrow is given his own private room in the Emerald city, but since he is a scarecrow and doesn't sleep, he simply stays exactly where he is placed and stares at the door until someone comes back for him the next day. It's a wonderfully silly image and if the other books have anything half as inspired, it will be well worth it.
8/10
While the story may be simplistic, the shear amount of fantastical characters and worlds keep the story engaging. The book is also help by the amount of social commentary slipped into the pages. It is far more obvious that the characters, with the exception of Dorothy, already possess the things they think they need. The lion faces down many enemies, the scarecrow is always coming up with ideas, and the tin man cries when he steps on a bug. In the Emerald City, all of the people think they have a perfect city because the powers that be (The Wizard) have forced everyone to wear green colored glasses that they cannot take off.
While the book isn't amazing, it certainly has enough charm to make me curious to read some of the other Oz books. My favorite moment in this book is when the scarecrow is given his own private room in the Emerald city, but since he is a scarecrow and doesn't sleep, he simply stays exactly where he is placed and stares at the door until someone comes back for him the next day. It's a wonderfully silly image and if the other books have anything half as inspired, it will be well worth it.
8/10
100 by 30: Book 24 - The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Wow! This is a great book, but I wish I'd read it before seeing Martin Scorsese's Masterpiece of an adaptation. I can now safely say that this is one of the rare instances where the movie is better than the book, and the book is really great to begin with. The book focuses much more on Hugo and less on building the characters and world of the train station. The subplot of the station inspector having a crush on the flower shop girl is totally invented for the movie. Otherwise, the two are almost identical story-wise. If you liked the movie, there's little need to read the book, although it moves very quickly and is quite enjoyable. The book contains hundreds of pages of amazing pencil artwork (many of which have been captured frame for frame in the film.)If you haven't watched the movie, read the book because it will make you want to watch the movie even more, and vice versa. I'm going to leave it there as this is a book related post and this book only makes me want to watch the movie, so I'm gonna go do that.
9/10
9/10
Thursday, August 15, 2013
100 by 30: Book 23 - Jack of Fables #1-3
I'm Back! So I had to go read the Fables spinoff Jack of Fables to figure out just what the heck is going on. Turns out the last Fables book had way more to do with this series than the one it was supposed to be a part of. This series covers the assorted misadventures of Jack, the one from all of the stories. He's an arrogant ass, who's just charming enough that you kind of like him.
Also, before we get to far into this, I just want to point out that I already wrote a book about Jack of beanstalk fame being a totally douche, and Mr. Bill "I've got 14 Eisner Awards" Willingham totally ripped of the children's book I wrote in 1997, when I was in 7th grade! It was for Language arts class and it was the trial of Jack after he ransacked the Giants castle, stole all his cool stuff, then straight up tried to murder the guy. It was inspired by the tone of the Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and it was awesome. The teacher read it in front of the whole class 'cuz it was so good and my mom helped me with the illustrations because she's awesome. (Hi Mom! I got your message and I'll totally call you back tomorrow!) Also, spoiler alert, I wasn't the coolest kid growing up. But I actually dug up that story recently, and it's still pretty darn good for a 13 year old. So there.
Anyway, After Bill drove to my tiny hometown in the midwest, broke into my room, and stole my book, he fleshed things out and created a Jack character of limitless ego and a complete inability to take responsibility for anything. He's kind of like Ash from the Evil Dead movies, specifically Army of Darkness. So, naturally, when your main character is all arrogance and bravado, it makes sense to put him into a world decidedly less serious than the main Fables story line. It also helps to remove a character who can only be the star from an ensemble drama. In the first volume, Jack is arrested and taken to a prison for fables who have risked exposure. This is where we get into the meta storytelling. The prison warden is run by Mr. Revise. He is the embodiment of Revision, and is always striving to bring order to the world. His goal is to keep the Fables locked up until their are forgotten by the mundys (that's you and me) and the world can be ruled by order and science. He is aided by three smoking hot librarians called the Page Sisters (I'm not totally sure why they would go out of their way to draw attention to how hot the librarians are. I mean what do the nerds who read this stuff care about....oh, I see what you did there. Well, played). Anyway, Jack, being a legendary fable and a legend in his own mind, devises an escape plan and organizes a jail break. It mostly works. Even Little Black Sambo escapes, and he'd been the wardens greatest success. (they just call him Sam in the book though. What with his name being a racial slur and all)
In Book 2, Jack almost takes over Las Vegas, until a nasty run in with Lady Luck, literally. Turns out she eats brains. This story has one of the few moments when we actually get to Jack Speechless and vulnerable. Someone he (sort of) cares about is brutally killed, and our non-stop rougue is speechless and still for almost two full pages. It's a great use of the visual part of this medium, and it even seems quieter when you read it. This plot is also juxtaposed with the story of how Jack seduced the Snow Queen, got her powers, and became Jack Frost. This doesn't end so bad. I mean, he only causes the Snow Queen to turn evil and become a major leader for the Adversaries armies, who find the her world after Jack sells them all out. Nice Guy.
In the third book, things start to get weird. Jack meet his 'evil' doppelganger Wicked John, and we start to learn that there are other, very powerful beings like Mr. Revise. For instance, Jack's sidekick Gary is the Pathetic Fallacy. Nothing like a reference to a term coined by a 19th century critic to give your little comic book nerd cred. For those of you who don't want to wikipedia Pathetic Fallacy, it's basically the same thing as Anthropomorphism. Of course, when you see Gary, you realize that Pathetic Fallacy seems to fit him better. We also get to meet the guy who created all of the Fables, and hear the story of how Jack became Jack O'Lantern. And Merlin shows up at one point, stabs Jack with Excalibur, and then dies. Like I said, these books are weird.
While I much prefer the main Fables storyline, I do like these books as a sort of palette cleanser from all of the seriousness. This series feels like Bill Willingham needed a place to store all of the silly ideas that wouldn't fit in the main plot. When the silliness is contained in it's own place, and not trying to be a crossover story, it's pretty charming.
7/10
Also, before we get to far into this, I just want to point out that I already wrote a book about Jack of beanstalk fame being a totally douche, and Mr. Bill "I've got 14 Eisner Awards" Willingham totally ripped of the children's book I wrote in 1997, when I was in 7th grade! It was for Language arts class and it was the trial of Jack after he ransacked the Giants castle, stole all his cool stuff, then straight up tried to murder the guy. It was inspired by the tone of the Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and it was awesome. The teacher read it in front of the whole class 'cuz it was so good and my mom helped me with the illustrations because she's awesome. (Hi Mom! I got your message and I'll totally call you back tomorrow!) Also, spoiler alert, I wasn't the coolest kid growing up. But I actually dug up that story recently, and it's still pretty darn good for a 13 year old. So there.
Anyway, After Bill drove to my tiny hometown in the midwest, broke into my room, and stole my book, he fleshed things out and created a Jack character of limitless ego and a complete inability to take responsibility for anything. He's kind of like Ash from the Evil Dead movies, specifically Army of Darkness. So, naturally, when your main character is all arrogance and bravado, it makes sense to put him into a world decidedly less serious than the main Fables story line. It also helps to remove a character who can only be the star from an ensemble drama. In the first volume, Jack is arrested and taken to a prison for fables who have risked exposure. This is where we get into the meta storytelling. The prison warden is run by Mr. Revise. He is the embodiment of Revision, and is always striving to bring order to the world. His goal is to keep the Fables locked up until their are forgotten by the mundys (that's you and me) and the world can be ruled by order and science. He is aided by three smoking hot librarians called the Page Sisters (I'm not totally sure why they would go out of their way to draw attention to how hot the librarians are. I mean what do the nerds who read this stuff care about....oh, I see what you did there. Well, played). Anyway, Jack, being a legendary fable and a legend in his own mind, devises an escape plan and organizes a jail break. It mostly works. Even Little Black Sambo escapes, and he'd been the wardens greatest success. (they just call him Sam in the book though. What with his name being a racial slur and all)
In Book 2, Jack almost takes over Las Vegas, until a nasty run in with Lady Luck, literally. Turns out she eats brains. This story has one of the few moments when we actually get to Jack Speechless and vulnerable. Someone he (sort of) cares about is brutally killed, and our non-stop rougue is speechless and still for almost two full pages. It's a great use of the visual part of this medium, and it even seems quieter when you read it. This plot is also juxtaposed with the story of how Jack seduced the Snow Queen, got her powers, and became Jack Frost. This doesn't end so bad. I mean, he only causes the Snow Queen to turn evil and become a major leader for the Adversaries armies, who find the her world after Jack sells them all out. Nice Guy.
In the third book, things start to get weird. Jack meet his 'evil' doppelganger Wicked John, and we start to learn that there are other, very powerful beings like Mr. Revise. For instance, Jack's sidekick Gary is the Pathetic Fallacy. Nothing like a reference to a term coined by a 19th century critic to give your little comic book nerd cred. For those of you who don't want to wikipedia Pathetic Fallacy, it's basically the same thing as Anthropomorphism. Of course, when you see Gary, you realize that Pathetic Fallacy seems to fit him better. We also get to meet the guy who created all of the Fables, and hear the story of how Jack became Jack O'Lantern. And Merlin shows up at one point, stabs Jack with Excalibur, and then dies. Like I said, these books are weird.
While I much prefer the main Fables storyline, I do like these books as a sort of palette cleanser from all of the seriousness. This series feels like Bill Willingham needed a place to store all of the silly ideas that wouldn't fit in the main plot. When the silliness is contained in it's own place, and not trying to be a crossover story, it's pretty charming.
7/10
Thursday, August 8, 2013
100 by 30: book 22 - Fables 11-13
Fables vol. 11 - War & Pieces - So after all the hippy lovey stuff of the last volume, Volume 11 covers the war to defeat the advarsary. So Prince Charming, Sinbad, and their super awesome sky ship fly around shooting the crap out of everything, because Guns have a longer range than spells. It's spectacularly violent, and the war goes pretty great. Turns out Sleeping Beauty is a pretty effective WMD. If you're confused by that last sentence, go watch the Disney movie and imagine someone getting her to prick her finger in a highly populated area filled with the leaders of your opposition.
10/10
Vol 12 - The Dark Ages - So for reasons I won't go into here, Gepetto is forced to become a member of Fabletown. He's still an asshole and every one hates him except Pinoccio. Also, the fables have greated a huge power vacuum be wiping out the empire and a couple of plunderers accidently unleash a new big bad you destroys Fabletown and kills a major character. It's pretty sad. All the Fables have to move up to the Farm in the country where the non-human fables live. And the animals lure Gepetto into the woods and bury the evil bastard alive. It's pretty great.
7/10
Vol 13 - The Great Fables Crossover - Holy Super Meta storytelling Batman! So Jack of the beanstalk fame was kicked out of fabletown a while ago and started his own comic book series, because who needs an ensemble, right? In this story, he comes back, bringing a lot of meta narrative silliness with him. Having not read any of the Jack of Fables books, I felt very, very lost. There was something about literals, and a guy with a magic pen who's twin brother is Writer's Block and at on point there was a shoot out between our heroes and the genres until the big bad wolf who was turned into a little girl snuck around and ripped all the genres heads off and Dex the embodiment of the Deus Ex Machina showed up but not until it was time for the denouement which happened after Rose Red has sex with Jack causing the animals to think he's a god and something about his bastard son being jack frost, you know, this is ridiculous, I'll be write back......
10/10
Vol 12 - The Dark Ages - So for reasons I won't go into here, Gepetto is forced to become a member of Fabletown. He's still an asshole and every one hates him except Pinoccio. Also, the fables have greated a huge power vacuum be wiping out the empire and a couple of plunderers accidently unleash a new big bad you destroys Fabletown and kills a major character. It's pretty sad. All the Fables have to move up to the Farm in the country where the non-human fables live. And the animals lure Gepetto into the woods and bury the evil bastard alive. It's pretty great.
7/10
Vol 13 - The Great Fables Crossover - Holy Super Meta storytelling Batman! So Jack of the beanstalk fame was kicked out of fabletown a while ago and started his own comic book series, because who needs an ensemble, right? In this story, he comes back, bringing a lot of meta narrative silliness with him. Having not read any of the Jack of Fables books, I felt very, very lost. There was something about literals, and a guy with a magic pen who's twin brother is Writer's Block and at on point there was a shoot out between our heroes and the genres until the big bad wolf who was turned into a little girl snuck around and ripped all the genres heads off and Dex the embodiment of the Deus Ex Machina showed up but not until it was time for the denouement which happened after Rose Red has sex with Jack causing the animals to think he's a god and something about his bastard son being jack frost, you know, this is ridiculous, I'll be write back......
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
100 by 30: Book 21 - Batman, Batwoman, Catwoman
More tales of Gotham City today
BATMAN: Black Mirrors - This book takes place in a different timeline in the Batman universe. Here, Bruce Wayne has gone off to train other vigilantes in other cities, creating Batman, INC. So original Robin, Dick Grayson is now the dark knight. This book follows some of his adventures in his first year as the new Batman. He's a very different Batman, and it's weird to hear Batman having a sense of humor. It's also nice to see a hero who is ready to take the lead but still has to make mistakes. Dick Grayson's Batman is not as good a detective and he gets himself into trouble a number of times. It's a decent enough book, but I miss Bruce Wayne.
6/10
CATWOMAN Vol. 1: The Game - I'm really enjoying what I've read of DC's New 52 so far. I love this version of Catwoman. I was pleasantly surprised at how human and empathetic Catwoman was. She's an antihero who is tough and can certainly take care of herself, but she also makes human mistakes. She's clearly been through a lot in her life, and uses her career as a thief to run away from her problems. That works out as well as you'd expect. What I really like about this portrayal is that we get to see someone who is constantly fighting between be smart, and being impulsive. She knows when she's doing something ill-advised, but she does it anyway, trusting that she's clever enough to figure it out later. Then she has to deal with the self-doubt and loathing that comes from screwing up big time. It would be easy to dismiss Catwoman and a sexist stereotype, but I found there to be a great consistency and logic to the character. You expect a certain amount of issues in a person who dresses as a cat and steals jewels. It also make sense that she and Batman have the occasional fling. It's the one time they can reverse their roles. Batman gets to feel impulsive, and Catwoman gets to feel safe, at least for a little while.
9/10
BATWOMAN: ELEGY - SO on the recommendation of one of my readers I want back and read this volume and boy did it answer a lot of my questions. This is the book where we get to see how Kate Kane got kicked out of the military. This is where you get to see the power of the comic medium. The still image of the moment she realizes that she is about to lose everything she's worked for is haunting. Daniel Choi, one of the Soldiers who helped in the fight to overturn Don't Ask, Don't Tell was one of the people who helped in the crafting of this story. When you have former military officers working with you on the story and Rachel Maddow writes the forward, you know this is more than just a superhero book. Kate Kane's sexual orientation is directly related to her becoming Batwoman. Because she isn't allowed to serve her country the way she wants to, she has to find another way. It helps that her father is a high ranking Colonal and get her some shiny toys. She is a very different sort of hero from Batman. Her methods have more in common with Black Ops training than Batman's detective and martial arts background. While Batman has developed a strict no killing rule, you know that Batwoman has been trained in lethal combat. Honestly, if you ran into either of them in a dark alley, you'd probably want to take your chances with Batman. The book ends with the major revalation that Batwoman's twin sister wasn't murdered by terrorists 20 years ago. It works as a reason to drive a wedge between her and her father, but otherwise I wasn't totally impressed. So far we have character that is far more complex and interesting than the adventures she takes part in, but I'm officially a fan.
8/10
BATMAN: Black Mirrors - This book takes place in a different timeline in the Batman universe. Here, Bruce Wayne has gone off to train other vigilantes in other cities, creating Batman, INC. So original Robin, Dick Grayson is now the dark knight. This book follows some of his adventures in his first year as the new Batman. He's a very different Batman, and it's weird to hear Batman having a sense of humor. It's also nice to see a hero who is ready to take the lead but still has to make mistakes. Dick Grayson's Batman is not as good a detective and he gets himself into trouble a number of times. It's a decent enough book, but I miss Bruce Wayne.
6/10
CATWOMAN Vol. 1: The Game - I'm really enjoying what I've read of DC's New 52 so far. I love this version of Catwoman. I was pleasantly surprised at how human and empathetic Catwoman was. She's an antihero who is tough and can certainly take care of herself, but she also makes human mistakes. She's clearly been through a lot in her life, and uses her career as a thief to run away from her problems. That works out as well as you'd expect. What I really like about this portrayal is that we get to see someone who is constantly fighting between be smart, and being impulsive. She knows when she's doing something ill-advised, but she does it anyway, trusting that she's clever enough to figure it out later. Then she has to deal with the self-doubt and loathing that comes from screwing up big time. It would be easy to dismiss Catwoman and a sexist stereotype, but I found there to be a great consistency and logic to the character. You expect a certain amount of issues in a person who dresses as a cat and steals jewels. It also make sense that she and Batman have the occasional fling. It's the one time they can reverse their roles. Batman gets to feel impulsive, and Catwoman gets to feel safe, at least for a little while.
9/10
BATWOMAN: ELEGY - SO on the recommendation of one of my readers I want back and read this volume and boy did it answer a lot of my questions. This is the book where we get to see how Kate Kane got kicked out of the military. This is where you get to see the power of the comic medium. The still image of the moment she realizes that she is about to lose everything she's worked for is haunting. Daniel Choi, one of the Soldiers who helped in the fight to overturn Don't Ask, Don't Tell was one of the people who helped in the crafting of this story. When you have former military officers working with you on the story and Rachel Maddow writes the forward, you know this is more than just a superhero book. Kate Kane's sexual orientation is directly related to her becoming Batwoman. Because she isn't allowed to serve her country the way she wants to, she has to find another way. It helps that her father is a high ranking Colonal and get her some shiny toys. She is a very different sort of hero from Batman. Her methods have more in common with Black Ops training than Batman's detective and martial arts background. While Batman has developed a strict no killing rule, you know that Batwoman has been trained in lethal combat. Honestly, if you ran into either of them in a dark alley, you'd probably want to take your chances with Batman. The book ends with the major revalation that Batwoman's twin sister wasn't murdered by terrorists 20 years ago. It works as a reason to drive a wedge between her and her father, but otherwise I wasn't totally impressed. So far we have character that is far more complex and interesting than the adventures she takes part in, but I'm officially a fan.
8/10
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
100 by 30: Book 20 - Two Towers, just the good parts
Can you imagine how awesome The Two Towers movie would have been if it was just Orcs and Ents and Rohan?! With no endless wondering of Frodo and Sam? It would be all awesome all the time. Well, that's exactly what we get in Book 3 of the Lord of the Rings. Frodo and Sam are not in a single sentence of this book. It opens with the death of Boromir, which, I gotta say, was done way better in the movie. I cry at that seen more often than I should. In the book, Boromir dies in like the 3rd paragraph and he's all like "oh no!" and Aragorn's all "Sucks to be you!" .... Well not exactly, but it's handled with a brevity and lack of significance that isn't really fair for such an interesting character.
Anyway, once they send Boromir over the falls in a canoe overflowing with the weapons of all the orcs he killed, Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli embark on an impromptu ulta marathon. They chase the orcs across Rohan and cover 120 MILES in 3 Days! I was exhausted just reading that. Then we break away to spend time with Merry and Pippin for a few chapters. This is all pretty close to what happens in the movie, with one major exception. The Ents in the book aren't clueless morons! Turns out, Creatures older than the elves tend to notice when people start burning and tearing down their trees. I don't care if Peter Jackson wanted more character growth for the hobbits, you can't justify the Ents not knowing whats going on! It would be as bad as making Aragorn not act like a King....
So we leave the Ents just as the begin their march on Isengard to check in with our 3 other heroes. Aragorn has followed the hobbits trail into the woods where they get reunited with Gandalf. Gandalf has been seriously leveled up since being sent back. You get the sense that the Maiar (basically angels) have noticed the some serious shit is going down and have decided to let Gandalf use much more of his true power. At one point, when he has been mistaken for Sauroman, he says, "You have no weapons that can harm me" So Gandalf is basically invincible, and he's also got a super fast horse to ride. I'd say dying was the best thing that could have happened to him.
Then we go rescue Theoden from wormtongue, and everybody rides to Helms Deep, because this is the smart thing to do, and Gandalf encourages it. Then we get the battle of Helms Deep. It's awesome! And the men fight off the orcs without any help from the elves. The biggest change is that there are many more men than in the movie, and Eomer is there the whole time. In the morning, when Gandalf returns with the cavalry, it's a different guy leading the Rohirrim. Anyway, it's one of the best battle scenes ever written.
The rest of the book covers the remaining fellowship members reuniting at a destroyed Isengard. Merry and Pippin relay the tale of the Ents killing and smashing everything, and Pippin touches the palantir (that crystal ball thing) and has to ride away with Gandalf, end book 3.
Book 3 has some of the best pacing in the whole story so far. The one thing I want to point out, that is really starting to bug me, is how much cooler Aragorn is in the book. He's not some whiny guy in exhile, hiding from his destiny. He grew up in hiding, knowing full well that it was his responsibility to return to Gondor and restore the race of men. For crying out loud, they reforge his sword in the first book, and he's not afraid to tell anybody that he's no one to trifle with because he's Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Kind of Gondor Dammit! And you better recognize before he stomps you in to the ground like a worm.
10/10
And now I get to look forward to 200 pages of Frodo and Sam on the longest camping trip ever...
Anyway, once they send Boromir over the falls in a canoe overflowing with the weapons of all the orcs he killed, Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli embark on an impromptu ulta marathon. They chase the orcs across Rohan and cover 120 MILES in 3 Days! I was exhausted just reading that. Then we break away to spend time with Merry and Pippin for a few chapters. This is all pretty close to what happens in the movie, with one major exception. The Ents in the book aren't clueless morons! Turns out, Creatures older than the elves tend to notice when people start burning and tearing down their trees. I don't care if Peter Jackson wanted more character growth for the hobbits, you can't justify the Ents not knowing whats going on! It would be as bad as making Aragorn not act like a King....
So we leave the Ents just as the begin their march on Isengard to check in with our 3 other heroes. Aragorn has followed the hobbits trail into the woods where they get reunited with Gandalf. Gandalf has been seriously leveled up since being sent back. You get the sense that the Maiar (basically angels) have noticed the some serious shit is going down and have decided to let Gandalf use much more of his true power. At one point, when he has been mistaken for Sauroman, he says, "You have no weapons that can harm me" So Gandalf is basically invincible, and he's also got a super fast horse to ride. I'd say dying was the best thing that could have happened to him.
Then we go rescue Theoden from wormtongue, and everybody rides to Helms Deep, because this is the smart thing to do, and Gandalf encourages it. Then we get the battle of Helms Deep. It's awesome! And the men fight off the orcs without any help from the elves. The biggest change is that there are many more men than in the movie, and Eomer is there the whole time. In the morning, when Gandalf returns with the cavalry, it's a different guy leading the Rohirrim. Anyway, it's one of the best battle scenes ever written.
The rest of the book covers the remaining fellowship members reuniting at a destroyed Isengard. Merry and Pippin relay the tale of the Ents killing and smashing everything, and Pippin touches the palantir (that crystal ball thing) and has to ride away with Gandalf, end book 3.
Book 3 has some of the best pacing in the whole story so far. The one thing I want to point out, that is really starting to bug me, is how much cooler Aragorn is in the book. He's not some whiny guy in exhile, hiding from his destiny. He grew up in hiding, knowing full well that it was his responsibility to return to Gondor and restore the race of men. For crying out loud, they reforge his sword in the first book, and he's not afraid to tell anybody that he's no one to trifle with because he's Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Kind of Gondor Dammit! And you better recognize before he stomps you in to the ground like a worm.
10/10
And now I get to look forward to 200 pages of Frodo and Sam on the longest camping trip ever...
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