Zappy Chappie

I have been familiar with the Gor series thought I haven't read any of them till this past week. 

I was surprised and delighted by this title. From what I herd about Gor, mostly from role-players on forums and in the virtual community of Second-Life  where there are player run areas, portraying the fictional universe of Gor.  

I knew about the lifestyle of people on GOR. It is a male driven society with a strong emphasis on hierarchy. I knew about the slave girls and that buying and selling of them as a common place activity on the planet of GOR. Even the finer details of serving paga (a common beverage on GOR) could be found out by visiting and interacting role-players living out their fantasies. 

What the role-play didn't address is the character of the protagonist being tested, whom comes from our very own planet, against the costumes and culture of a world foreign to him. 

After arriving on the planet of GOR, explained as a sort of counter earth, he is trained in the ways of a warrior and becomes a Tarnsman. These fighters known as tarnsmen take to the air on giant hawk like creatures. 

Tarl Cabot, the young warrior is given the task of stealing a near by cities Home stone. The home stone is an important object and by stealing a cities home stone is to steal it's identity, causing the city to fall into ruins.

This is what starts the young warrior's adventure.

On this adventure he captures the Uber's daughter (a ruler). He is confronted with his own humanity and the customs of this new planet. Gor is pretty cut and dry. Warriors of GOR either splatter or take their captives as slaves.  Tarl's kindness toward his captive is seen as weakness in the society he is now in.

Though through each encounter he sticks to his convictions and in the end is given respect for it. 

That is the heart of this story and I am wondering if it becomes a theme through out the rest of the series.    

I finished this awhile back and I was very much impressed by this graphic novel. It is a book for anyone whom would like to turn the world upside down and shake it of all its misgivings.

It is a book for people whom believe that human rights and freedom should come before regimental order. 

If your looking for a well executed graphic novel that will make you think. This is for you. 

I walked into a Game stop to pick up something. I was stumped at the counter when the young lady behind it asked if I knew any Dead pool quotes that didn't include swear words. She had a statuette of the super hero that was to be put in the window as a display. He had a little white sign that was blank.

I herd of Dead pool though never read anything with him in it. I couldn't help the woman. Though  I think now I will have to pick up a Dead pool comic and read it because I can say from life experience some one just might ask you for a Dead Pool quote.  

Currently I been on a kick for Vigilante.

Recently I picked up a PS4 and was happy to get the one bundled with the Arkham Knight game, which I was happy to play. I am a fan of the "predator" missions found in the Arkham games, giving you tons of options from smoke, bat-a-ran, and just swooping down from the rafters to take out the unsuspecting guard.

After beating the main story mission in that game I still had a wanting desire to read, play, engross myself in a world of shadows and right the wrongs. So I picked up V for Vendetta. 

V has a bone to pick with an over protective conservative society. From what I have read so far (about to the half way mark now) V sees his fellow humans as sheep, ready to go to the chopping block if it means they don't have to think for them selves. He is trying to wake them by staging some over the top demonstrations. 

Though I can't help but noticing my attraction to characters whom are larger then life and are very much selfless at the same time.

Well maybe not so much in V's case. He is getting even with those that done him wrong, though I get the sense he is doing it for something larger then himself. I can't pin point why I feel that way I just do. May be it is his relationship with the young lady, wanting to hear her story, sharing with her uncensored music.  V lives in the world of higher ideals. He will kill if he feels it will free humanity from its oppressors.  

In Batman's case it is the throw line of his whole ark, protecting Gotham because of the lose of his parents. He will take on super human ordeals to save not only those he loves but those that have swore to kill him. Unlike V his concern in his activity is to protect whom he can, one by one; day by day. Everything with Batman is logical. Heck even the bat suite is to strike fear in his enemies. V is much more about an emotional grand response to the evils in his world. 

These guys couldn't be different in their approaches yet aim to make the world a better place. 

 I ask myself the question; "why am I drawn into these stories so much"?.

The following is two possible reasons. 

Maybe its because i'm a thirty something guy with time on my hands with really not much else and a dark figure in the shadows helping to shape the world in meaningful ways makes me feel all good inside. Then again, it might be I dig a masked hero kicking butt?  

I read a few pages of this a few months ago. One of my nasty little habits, I get a taste of something say "oh that is good" then I go looking for something else. Why I don't know call it wonder lust.

Though I am glad I came back to this. The graphic novel builds on its self beautifully. Much like a onion there are layers that unravels it's self as you turn it's pages.

I am just starting book two and I'm excited to read more.  

The past couple of months have been eventful for me. Sadly not a lot of reading. I have been wrestling with my own real life demons and that took me away from what I love reading.

Don't worry these big bad demons have nothing to do with anything physical or life threatening. No red horned villains where knocking on my front door, I mean the things that getting in the way from what you really want to do. What I really want to do is read, write, create awesome collages (as seen above, for example), play video games, and chill out with all of you wonderful people on the internet discussing our favorite hobbies.

The reason for this post isn't to sound all apologetic.  I'm sure no one has done serious harm to themselves or others because I haven't updated my social media feeds. First and foremost I'm doing this for myself. A reminder to go forward into what you want to do, not what others or society might be pressing on you to do. 

On a reader/reviewer note: I just picked up H.P. Lovecraft. Never read anything by the man though I herd a lot of great things about his writing. I plan on giving updates on the stories I am reading. I got a complete edition to his works and want to go chronologically through it. 

It includes some of his very early short works and some of those are incomplete. I find myself glancing over these as nothing of real interest surfaces. A simple story about a mysterious cult and the terrible consequence that will happen on yourself if you call it by name might be interesting to a person whom read the authors best work and can see how this spurred him on to his later efforts. For me, this is just material to put in the back of my mind so that when I get to his main important period of writing  I can recall the early stories and see how he was playing with these themes of horror and helplessness. I think these posts where I take out themes and plot points of what I am reading are the most interesting at lest to me.  I'm sure I'll post reviews though I like the informal journal entries to be more inline with my personal flavor of presenting things.

Thank you for reading this update on how I am doing. All is good now, I assure you. I'll be getting back to my writing.  

 I wanted to enjoy this. I really did. Though for me its a much better movie then novel. Just trying to get through the long descriptive passages made this a very hard read for me. 

In its def-fence I came at this after seeing and loving the film. The jokes are very similar if not exact on as in the film. Seeing how the film came after this novel. The book acts as a earlier draft to the film. 

If you haven't seen the film, please go watch it. The jokes work much better when you see the fantastic cast act them out. 

I do advise you to read the prologue, the author tells a fantastic story about how the book came into being. It was fun to read about how he worked on the story, turning it into a script and getting Andrea the giant to be in the film. For me Goldman is a fantastic screen writer and would be an entertaining one man show. Though in the endless sea of pages in a novel I find myself getting lost. 

While reading Princess Bride I find myself being disengaged. While reading the part where the men in black has to fight the three kidnappers the narrative comes to a halt when the author puts in a whole other story explaining the back story of the kidnappers. This might be something that other readers are use to and enjoy.

It's great to get more information about the Spaniard's hunt for the six fingered man. To know the intense training for ten years where he squeezes rocks was exciting. I just wish it was it's own short story. By placing it in the main narrative took away from the main drama and waiting to see if the man would make it to the top of the cliff.

Old TV sitcoms  had episodes of the high-lights of that season. They where stringed along by a terrible narrative. The clips where out of place. With out context to back them up they just weren't funny.  I cringed every time a big star of the show said something like;

"ohh Cranmer your always getting into trouble. Remember the time.." this would be followed by a wave screen effect that brought in a ton of clips about Cranmer getting in trouble."

This might be because I am use to reading shorter works where the action is direct. Novels are much more complex and adds detail to flesh out the world it takes place in.  

As stated in my previous post, the forward by William Goldman was a fantastic way of introducing this story to the reading public. I am going to mark this post with a spoiler warning because I will talk about events with in this introduction. 

William Goldman wanted to create some mystery to his book so he created S. Morgenstern or possibly the man exists. (The internet is telling me that the original book that William's abridged story is based on) glad I checked. 

Though if he made up what I originally thought as true events in his life doesn't matter, it only show cases his literary talent for  weaving layers of narrative. 

If this was only a literary devise,much like Hawthorn finding the scarlet letter in an old chest, it is well implicated.

The movie, which how I was introduced to this story has the old man read to the Yong sick boy whom would rather play a fantasy inspired choose your own adventure game on a computer running basic DOS doesn't hold the attention of the reader. Yes it allows Goldman to interject with things like; don't worry she isn't eaten by sharks at this point, to alleviate the fears of the small boy he is reading to. Though it doesn't come across the same way in the book. In the book you have the impression he is talking directly to you. The asides are written like author notes trying to stir your mind to think one way or another about the material.

I am unsure the story would have the same weight behind it if  it was presented in less direct point of view like setting up the story with having an opening scene of a father or grand father reading to their child, like seen in the movie.

From the perspective of some one whom saw the movie, loved the movie, told all my friends they most see this film as I am playing around; saying the famous lines "you killed my farther, prepare to die"; what I'm getting from the book is the writers voice over the story. He treats the story not as something he conceived (which may or may not be the case) but something he is improving on. That is what makes the book engaging and what will keep me reading it. 

After a good amount away from this book; The Princess Bride which for some reason, unknown to me I keep thinking of as The Prince's Bride, I have come back to it once again. I completely read the book I previously reviewed between the time I read the beginning of this book to now. 

In fact it was last summer early fall. I remember sitting under a tree holding it on my tiny nook reader.  Bee's where buzzing and bird's where chirping. It is quite upsetting to myself how long I been slowly munching away at this story, little by little. 

It has nothing to do with the story, I am very much enjoying it. It more has to do with little things like; video games, life and movies. They just keep on getting in the way. 

In addition, I was never the biggest reader growing up, I have always loved books but reading has provided its own unique challenges to me. First, I suffer from dyslexia. Words run into one another and I need to recheck myself to make sure I read something clearly.

Second My arms are shorter then most people's. My physical condition is abbreviated as TAR, the scientific name is long and complicated. Ultimately I am missing my radius bone, that's the long bone in your arm, commonly refereed to as the funny bone. Even with out this bone I think I retain a sense of humor. 

"So what!" your probably thinking "what difference does that make to your reading?"

The length of my arms made sitting comfortably with a physical book to be tiring. Yes I had book holders though flipping pages became an ordeal. It was hard to turn one page with out having several sneak out and I ended up having to set up the book again, for each page. 

Things like computers and e-books opened the reading world up to me. It was actually comfortable to sit and read a book.

By changing the spacing between lines of text made it easier to follow the words on the page.

Needless to say I am new to the activity of leisure reading. I know there is no editor with a big stick asking me to finish this book to write something about it. This blog acts as a public/personal journal where I can share what ever I feel like around the world of reading.

 After seeing this post become some what long I will share my views on the forward to the Princess Bride as I spent most of my time reading about the story of how the book came to be more then actually reading the book it's self so far. It is in my opinion what makes this addition special and stand out from the movie that followed it.  

Nothing like a good book.

This collection of short stories is a nice addition to the overall franchise. Being a tie in book it is no surprise these tales of horror try to enhance the reader's connection to the world of Diablo three. Though it was an unexpected surprise to see the writers tackle much larger issues such as religion, mortality, and how humanity deals with a world falling in on its self; the ever present threat of demons ranging havoc. In many of the stories I felt like the main characters had a purpose and you felt bad for the crummy situations they had to face.

The collection has some lovely descriptive passages of rotting corpses and other disgusting things.

Though these descriptions only add poetic descriptions to the stories presented here. I never felt scared or had the need to find a corner of my bed room, rocking myself telling myself it will be alright because what I read was so horrifying.

Instead I enjoyed reading these action adventure stories with horrific elements.

Most of the stories focus on one of the main classes from the game it's based off. An exception to this was  Theater Macabre: The Dark Exile by James Waugh. Instead of focusing on a character from the game it presents  the overall arching story of  Diablo three in an unexpected way.It was a nice change after reading a bunch of stories where I kept on asking myself "so what character classes is this one about."I wish they told more stories in the style presented in Mr. Waugh's addition to the collection.

If you are a fan of Diablo three and need more of that haunting world Heroes rise, Darkness falls might be worth a read.