The Return of An Obsession...

Awhile back, I signed up for this service called Loot Crate. For a monthly fee, Loot Crate sends you a bunch of stuff related to geek culture for a specific topic. Two years ago, I received (for the first time since I signed up) a novel. I have to admit, I looked at the cover and then just put it aside for a couple months. Then one day, I was bored and decided to give the book a shot. What followed was one of the most enjoyable reads of my life.

Favorite Books: Ender's Game

It's been a long while (over TWO YEARS) since I've written about a series of books that I love. Just recently, I was reminded of a book series that I still cherish to this day when I found out that the film based on the first book in the series had just released a trailer. The name of the series? The Ender Saga. I don't actually remember the first time I read "Ender's Game", but I do remember why it appealed to me. The story of the book is a simple one: In the far future, humanity has had two wars with an alien race known as "Buggers" and we barely survived. We know a third war is coming, and the Battle School was created to prepare a new class of soldiers and military leaders. The story follows Ender as he is drafted into Battle School and follows his career through both Battle School and the more advanced Command School. We see the emotional and physical consequences of Ender's going through the qualification process, the effect his drafting has on his family, and the role the adults surrounding Ender play in his development. And we get all this, almost the ENTIRE STORY,  through the mind of Ender himself.

Top Ten Book Movies....

So, there I was taking a 5 min mental health break at work and I decided to cruise some of the blogs my friends like reading and I came across the blog of a new author, Jennifer Hillier, who had a post about her top ten favorite movies based off novels and the idea caught fire in my mind! Come on, I'm a movie buff and I read a lot. Are you seriously surprised that I'm enthusiastic about this idea!!

But, being a movie buff, I can't just spit out a bunch of movie titles. After all, there are so many great (and not so great) movie versions of books. But the rules here are very simple: I can only include movies based on novels I've ACTUALLY READ. So, a great movie like, Shawshank Redemption, is out because I never read the story it was based on. Let's see if I can actually make it to ten!

10) Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling - While I did have some problems with the pacing of the film (it came across like a series of vignettes and not a school year in the life of Harry Potter), the movie managed to capture that sense of awe & wonder that is part & parcel of being a child and that the books had in spades. For me, it's what made the books so enjoyable to read.

09) Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams - Reading this series of books is taking a trip into a sci-fi wonderland built on complete and utter nonsense. A feat that I thought would be impossible to bring to live-action film. This movie proved me wrong. Now, I grant you the dry British style humor didn't really carry over to American audiences, but I still LOVED the movie.

08) Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton - In every book-to-movie translation, there are ideas that have to be dropped for many reasons. Watching the movie, I was amazed at how the filmmakers managed to retain so much of the core philosophy of the book with just a fossil (get it?) of the story line. And despite the media hype over the special effects of the movie, I was very relieved that the story had just as much importance as getting the dinosaurs as photo-realistic as possible.

07) LOTR: Fellowship of The Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien - Unlike the other two movies which mostly descended into a pattern of walking, fearfully waiting for major battle, inspired speech to dispel fear, major battle, and repeat, the first movie did exactly what the first book did: Make you fall in love with the Hobbits and their way of life. Pulling you into their world through kindness and affection and then gripping you with fear as that world is threatened. It was awesome!!!

06) The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown - This movie was basically a carbon copy of the book. Since the book was so awesome, the movie was therefore just as awesome. There's nothing like a good religious conspiracy to get the blood pumping!!!

 05) Noble House by James Clavell - This is probably the longest book I've ever read without it being assigned in some class. The incredible depth of detail that Clavell poured into that book was masterfully reproduced in the movie. (Granted it's a made for TV movie that was split over 3 nights, but it was such an amazing work I had to include it!!)

04) The Dark Half by Stephen King - As this blog proves, I like to write. And given my predisposition to the Sci-Fi & Fantasy genres, I had come up with the idea of writing something that becomes real, but Stephen King did an EXCEPTIONAL job with this book and the movie really captured that spirit. It's one of the few movies that EVER creeped me out.

03) American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis - When I heard that this book was being made into a movie, I thought it would suck. There was no way a human being could portray the multi-faceted psychological landscape of the main character. Then I watched the movie and it was like I was watching the book play out before my eyes. I was riveted. This was also my introduction to Christian Bale, who soon became one of my FAVORITE actors.

02) Interview With A Vampire by Anne Rice - This book was recommended to me by the chaplain at my college. Yes, that's right. A man of God recommended a vampire novel to me. And I was with Anne Rice when she made it publicly known that she disapproved of the movie and the casting. Then I WATCHED the movie & I was blown away. The movie captured the book so well it was startling. And, I still owe Tom Cruise an apology for doubting his ability to play Lestat. I just wish the other movie in this series had been done as well.

01) Silence of The Lambs by Thomas Harris - This movie introduced my all time favorite movie villain, Dr. Hannibal Lector, to the rest of the world. And while the movie modified certain details (as they all do), it did a fantastic job of capturing the soul of the book and the style of Hannibal himself. This movie is by far my all time favorite adaptation!





Honorable Mention:

A Stir of Echoes by Richard Matheson - While it couldn't find a spot on my top ten list, this movie definitely deserves an honorable mention. Again, the movie captured the creepiness of the novel, but it also managed to perfectly display the escalating frustration of the main character, a normal blue collar worker, who has to deal with an exceedingly bizarre series of events occurring in his life. This is probably my favorite Kevin Bacon movie!

Favorite Series: Belgariad/Mallorean

I'm an avid reader. So much so, in fact, that I usually can never remember how & when I found most of the books I've read for the first time. Despite that, I remember exactly when I found this series. It was the tail end of my sophomore year of high school. I was walking down an aisle in my high school's library, running my fingers across the spines of the books. It was a habit I picked up from another book I had read awhile before. About halfway down the aisle, a book pinched me. I jerked my hand back and knocked the book onto the floor. I picked it up and read the title: "Pawn Of Prophecy" by David Eddings. Thus I started to follow the adventures of Garion as he went from young scullery boy to sorcerer to king as written in the Belgariad.


What has indelibly marked this series in my heart & mind is the cast of characters in the story. They take a fairly typical storyline for a fantasy series and turn it into an incredibly unique experience filled with laughter, sadness, adventure, and love. Over the course of the five novels, each character manages to carve out his own niche in your heart. And while you'll definitely develop favorites, each and every one of them becomes a necessary link in the enjoyment of the story. Oh, and since I know you're wondering, dear readers, my favorite character in this series is Belgarath the Sorcerer. There's just something I find very appealing about the casual mischievousness Belgarath portrays throughout the entirety of the series, while at the same time being a strong force for good. When you read the series, you'll understand. But I love all of them.

There were real pangs of loss when I finished Enchanter's Endgame. It felt like I was leaving cherished friends behind. Sure, I could re-read the series, but that would only enhance the loss when I finished it again. And I spent about a month trying to find another series of books I could move on to, in order to get this series out of my head. Nothing really caught my eye until I noticed this black paperback in a stand near the town library's sci-fi & fantasy section. The back of the book was facing out and I started to read the description and stopped halfway through the first sentence. Garion was hunting Zandramas. My jaw hit the floor, there was MORE! Thus I found & continued to follow the adventures of Garion as he journeyed throughout a foreign land in search of his abducted son in the Mallorean.


Most authors would just re-hash the original story in a sequel series, but Eddings actually CONTINUED the storyline, adding a plethora of new characters, re-visiting others, and creating an even MORE compelling story adding even more emotional layers to his established characters, and fleshing out characters (and even entire societies) that weren't fully covered in the first quintet.

Finally, just because, he wanted to make this one of the most awesome series in fantasy genre, Eddings added two prequels telling the life stories of two of the "eternal" characters in the series Belgarath the sorcerer and his lovely daughter, Polgara.


With these two volumes, the history of the worlds created in the Belgariad & expanded upon in the Mallorean was told to completion, while explaining how two of the most beloved characters in the ten books came to be who they are.

This is a series of novels that I have no problem saying I love. And I'd recommend them to anyone looking for a good read. Reading these novels, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cheer, and you'll fall in love, just like I did. Read them, and tell me what you think!

Favorite Series: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Recently, someone asked me for a recommendation on a good fantasy series to read. The first series that came to mind was The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant written by Stephen R. Donaldson. The series is split up into three parts. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant which consists of the following books:







Lord Foul's Bane — The IllEarth War — The Power that Preserves



The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, which includes:

The Wounded Land — The One Tree — White Gold Wielder



and recently SRD started the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant which consists of

The Runes Of The Earth — The Fatal Revenant — Against All Things Ending(TBR) — The Last Dark(TBR)



The books follow the story of Thomas Covenant and his adventures in the mystical realm called "The Land". Thomas Covenant is a writer who contracts leprosy. The progress of the disease is arrested, but Covenant is shunned by the society around him. Embittered and with a deepening sense of cynicism, Covenant is transported to "The Land", a world whose basic, accepted realities prove to be an assault on everything Covenant knew to be true.

What makes this series so fucking awesome is the underlying psychology of the story. Any good series has an allegorical component to it. That's what makes a series relatable to so many people. With most epic fantasy series, though, the allegory is on a societal level. Things like whether or not societal progress can be halted and reversed, or whether the pursuit of scientific advancement is detrimental to a society. With the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the underlying allegory has to do with ONE PERSON.

And what's better is that the person whose psyche the author chose to explore is NOT a nice person. Due to years of enforced isolation due to the stigma attached to his disease, Covenant is (to a certain degree) mentally unbalanced. Add to the mix a healthy dose of self-hatred, anger, depression, a tendency to bottle up emotions, a loss of the sense of touch, and a sense of self-preservation honed to a nearly obsessive compulsive edge and you have a dangerous, dark persona to deal with. This doesn't make him necessarily evil, but it does make him a loose cannon and unpredictable.

A sentiment which is echoed, ironically enough, in the events of the First & Second Chronicles. (I'm still reading the Last Chronicles, so I can't say that it applies there, but its a VERY strong theme there as well.) Upon his arrival in the Land, Covenant is branded the re-incarnation of the hero Berek Half-hand, whose appearance will either "save or damn the Land" which essentially translates to saving or damning himself, given the similarities in the issues afflicting the Land and those affecting Covenant himself.

The events that occur in the Land mirror Covenant's internal psychological struggles with his self-hatred, his leprosy, loneliness, and despair. And as he has struggled to maintain a balance between himself and the disease in the world, he must now struggle to maintain a balance between the traits that allow him to survive in the world and the changes he has to make in order to survive in the Land.

This series of books, more than any other I've EVER read, truly reflects the awesome power within a single individual mind and the terrible consequences that can come from using that power AT ALL, let alone irresponsibly.

While this series holds a special place in my heart for reasons I won't go into here, I ended up not recommending this to the person who asked for my recommendation. Frankly, this isn't a series to be read when you're in a good mood. Covenant, to me, represents the quintessential anti-hero. But, I love this series and I'm eagerly awaiting the third book in the Last Chronicles. If you want to read this series, you'll definitely enjoy it, just know. The Land isn't Hogwarts, and Voldemort ain't got crap on Lord Foul The Despiser, or for that matter, on Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever.