Bright Star

Bright Star ~John Keats~

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon in death.

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Hellboy: The Wild Hunt

Hellboy: The Wild Hunt ~Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo

–published 2010
–Dark Horse Comics
–192 pages
–4.75/5 stars

For more than a decade Mike Mignola has been crafting a solid mythology that rivals any of the ‘true’ folk tales and myths that he mines for his tales of the Big Red Guy, with his infamous Right Hand of Doom. For many, the only exposure you have had to Hellboy is through the cinematic eyes of Guillermo del Toro. And that is a real shame. Please don’t misunderstand. There is no other director I would rather have at the helm of one of my favorite characters, and I think he has done a masterful job with the series thus far. But as fun as both films are, they barely scratch the surface of the deep, rich mythos contained in the many volumes of Mike Mignola’s comic book series.

Hellboy’s stories have taken a back seat over the last several years as the excellent spin-off series, B.P.R.D., has seen more of the limelight. Yet Mignola knows his fan base and every so often he has come back to his most famous creation, giving us a story or two to tide us over. In this, the ninth graphic novel of the Hellboy series, Mignola comes back with a story telling vengeance that makes this one of the strongest story arcs to date.

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Alice in Wonderland: A Narcissist’s Review

As I left the IMAX theater tonight, pondering the tone of my review for the latest cinematic interpretation of Lewis Carroll’s enigmatic tale(s), I came to the rapid conclusion that there is a sure fire two-part litmus test for whether or not you will find this movie worthy of your entertainment dollars:

a) Are you a fan of Tim Burton films?

and/or

b) Do you enjoy the basic plot of the story of Alice in Wonderland?

My answers to those questions:

a) Most certainly. More often than not, Tim Burton satisfies.

b) Yes, but I did not come by my enjoyment in the conventional sense.

At this point I could give you an x out of 5 stars rating, brush my teeth, and drift off to sleep
dreaming of watch-bearing rabbits.

But you just know I’m not going to go quietly into this good night now, don’t you?

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Muse and Reverie ~Charles de Lint

Muse and Reverie ~Charles de Lint

–published 2009
–TOR Books
–350 pages
–4/5 stars

After last year’s disappointment with the Charles de Lint novel The Mystery of Grace I was unusually reticent to go back to his work. Which was, of course, quite silly because I consider Charles de Lint one of my favorites in the realm of mythic fiction (a term he coined with artist Terri Windling). Everything I had read from him up to that point I had enjoyed immensely. So when I saw that a new short story collection was being released late last year, set in the mythical town of Newford, I knew that, come March, I had the perfect springboard to get back into the delightful mind of Charles de Lint.

In spite of what the calendar reveals, weather here in the Kansas City area has been surprisingly spring-like and I jumped the Once Upon a Time Challenge gun and spent the weekend feasting on de Lint’s short stories. Whether they be light confectionery or more substantial fare, this collection is filled with satisfying morsels.

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Finch ~Jeff Vandermeer

Finch ~Jeff Vandermeer

–published 2009
–Underland Press
–334 pages
–Nominated for 2009 Nebula Award for Best Novel
–4/5 stars

Imagine a decaying, fungus-ridden seaport where humanity lives in varying degrees of subservience to sentient fungal-based creatures whose descriptions could easily be the stuff of nightmares. A wet, moldy, drab and dismal place. Not exactly an atmosphere that one would call home, but that is exactly what the city of Ambergris is to detective John Finch, who finds himself wrapped up in a seemingly impossible case when a mysterious human and a virtually unstoppable gray cap are found murdered in a run-down apartment. The case becomes even more mysterious when it appears that the cause of death just couldn’t be possible.

Finch is Jeff Vandermeer’s third stand alone novel in the Ambergris Cycle. The buzz surrounding the book, its awesome cover, and the recent Nebula nomination in the Best Novel category…combined with a strong urge to read some detective fiction after gorging myself on science fiction for the past two months…meant that I found myself in the local Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago, picking up a copy. I went home that afternoon and immediately started reading, and what I found was a unique and imaginative world in which Vandermeer unveils a solid, page-turning noir detective adventure.

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Eclectic Musings of a Renaissance Geek