Ironik

Someone speaking of Elizabeth Taylor recently proclaimed archly, "She was a real class act. She wouldn't have been caught dead in the kind of movies they make today, with all these aliens and comic book types."

Nevermind the "class act" bit -- 15 minutes reading about her dalliances will cure anyone of that impression -- I take umbrage at the "kind of movies they make today" comment. As if movies are somehow bad now and were great when she was at the height of her superstardom. Say what? Besides, the lady was in The Flintstones, for crying out loud.

But this got me to thinking: has there ever been a movie star of her stature who HASN'T been in a Science Fiction or Fantasy film? With the caveat that Musicals are Fantasy (I mean seriously, music comes out of the air and everyone suddenly knows choreography? That's as imaginary as anything Tolkien ever thought up), I'm having a hard time thinking of any. The only possibility I have is John Wayne, but he was in an awful lot of serial-type flicks in his early days, so maybe there's some sort of Buck Rogers-y kind of thing there. (I'm inclined to say that being in The Greatest Story Ever Told makes him eligible, but people are twitchy about that sort of thing.)

So what do you think? Are there any big movie stars who haven't been in a Sci-Fi or Fantasy movie? I'm sure there must be a couple, but heck if I can think of them.

Sneak peek of Vulcatron.

Dual Guns is fast. Crap damage, though.

Tangential to this discussion, I was thinking the other day there ought to be a badge called "Unconquered" or something. ("Undefeated" is already in the game.) Awarded to level 50s who have never been defeated. Maybe a super version if you've done it without playing it safe, such as facing off against regular-mission EBs and AVs rather than just bosses.

Feel better. Avoid the carriers. Rub hands together for at least 30 seconds or soap/hand sanitizer won't work.

Okay, that's three bad books in a row. I'm done seeking out superhero fiction until Peter Clines finishes the sequel to Ex-Heroes. (Seriously read that book!)

So let's turn back time to good superhero fiction. I'll start with John Ridley, comic book writer, author and screenwriter.



The set-up for this story is that a supervillain blew up San Francisco, leading to the outlawing of all metanormal humans. So the supers who don't leave or get deported are hunted down and killed by cops specifically assigned for that job. Not an original premise, but this story is so kinetic and relentless that it doesn't matter. This is not great literature -- it's a modern superhero pulp book that a geek like me considers a beach read. If there's a moral to the story at all, it's that fanaticism is bad. Also, not revelatory, but the conflicted heroine at the heart of the book is equal parts crazy and bad-***, which keeps it interesting. I'm not sure this is meant to be examined deeply; it's more like a Mike Hammer book with super-mutants.



At first, this sequel wasn't doing it for me. The writing felt lazier, almost stream-of-consciousness, with half-finished thoughts. But it was an easy enough read so I stuck with it for a while longer. I was just about to put it down when Ridley upped the ante in the extreme and really turned up the heat. I literally said out loud, "No you did NOT." But he had. Read it to find out what that was. He also doubles your fun by adding yet another bad-*** hot chick, who just so happens to have a bit of a conflict going with the existing bad-*** hot chick from the first book. As if the mutants and bureaucracy weren't enough, now they have to compete against each other.

I don't care if people think these are slight books, nothing more than souped-up crime fiction: I like 'em.

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis is astonishingly well written. This really is a very literary book. It's also excruciatingly slow. This is an alternate WW II story about Nazi Ubermenschen facing off against British warlocks. Great idea, really evocative set-up, and then... nothing. Well, almost nothing. The action scenes are few and far between. Tregillis' point is obviously that war is hell. In this instance it's literal, as the warlocks make deals with demons. Superior prose, inferior plot.

Apparently this is the first of a proposed trilogy. If the ratio of content to words continues, at some point someone could cut out all the plodding bits and cut together a snappy story. Won't be me, though - I'm out of this series.

To call Dull Boy by Sarah Cross a "dull book" is too easy a target. Plus it's not completely true -- it's more clumsy than anything else. This is very much a Young Adult novel in that the characters don't quite feel real and the dialogue and behavior of the teenagers doesn't come across as realistic. It's almost as if Cross doesn't remember what it was like to be a teenager herself, since the scenes among the teens feel so painfully forced in a "beginner writer" sort of way.

There are so many references to the X-Men (including one scene where the titular character says to the Wolverine-esque girl-with-an-attitude that they should do a "fastball special." If the book were more interesting, I'd be tempted to map the characters on their X-Men analogues because they're all there, including Emma Frost. There's so much angst that it weighs down the story tremendously. By the time they get to the big action scene, it's too little too late, and not really all that impressive.

1.5 stars.

The third book in the Quantum Prophecy series completely fizzled on me. It's a very lame ending to the series. There are a couple of decent set pieces, but the overall feeling I had at the end was one of being let down.