Tristan Strong - Oct 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and no matter how hard you try to fix it, it just doesn’t get any better, you don’t know what do, where to go, and how to change it. The anticipation is often the worst, the future poisons the present, you have no idea as to how to escape it, or rather – to prevent it, and you feel your hatred chewing you from the inside out.

…Or you can do what the Kurds in Syria did: once POTUS the Donald sold them to Erdogan’s Turkey, they quickly did damage control by re-allying themselves with the Assad regime, which is backed by Putin’s Russia. Therefore, now they have new allies that got their backs, (because the RF and Turkey have different ideas regarding Syria and the Assad regime), Putin’s critics had to zip it again about his external policies, Erdogan and his proxies have lost the advantage again, and U.S. has shit and cineole to show for all that.

Listen, this isn’t surprising – all too often, even during the Cold War period, the U.S. just tried to pick-up any loose ends, and when it came into proper opposition, as in Vietnam, let alone North Korea, it faltered. Still, it usually faltered militarily, rather than diplomatically, as it did now, and that makes it worse for the U.S. For the governments of the other countries, in either Middle East or elsewhere, it is business as usual, live with it.

Throughout my youth, in the 1990s and especially the early 2000s, the Western governments liked to talk about the concept of a ‘global village’ where people of every race (use whatever noun you want here) are equal. Aside from the fact that the communists’ concept of internationalism was basically the same thing just wrapped in a different package, the truth is that something like this was being worked out by people – primarily westerners – pre WWI…though largely at the expense of the rest of the world, at least in theory. Then the WWI happened and the world changed completely, in fact, it changed several times throughout the 20^th century, until the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, when the USA won and the U.S.S.R. was no more. It was Pax Americana… and the U.S. blew it, but they also sold their concept of the ‘global village’ – see above. Only now that they are no longer in charge of the world officially – Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Turkey, and so on are showing to everyone that that is so – they no longer want a ‘global village’ and are trying to stop it. The result is pretty much the same as it was with the Kurds: the Yankees do a power play/temper tantrum and move out, expecting for everything to collapse and/or for everyone to come running back to them, begging the U.S. to come back. Once, this would have been the case. Now, there are other options on the table, and while they still may not be as attractive as the U.S., they are much more attainable and realistic, and once they’re realized, U.S. finds itself facing failure instead.

That said, there is an exception for every rule, and in this case, it might be the Brexit. Supposedly, on October 17, 2019, the U.K. and the EU made some sort of a preliminary arrangement… or at least a rough draft of one… yay? Not exactly, because not too long before that, Her Majesty the queen Elizabeth the II kind of tipped her hand by giving away that the royal family might be the main reason as to why the Brexit is happening in the first place, and not because of the public opinion or anything like this. So far it is being ignored and overlooked, Her Majesty made sure that the Royal Family stays well away from the Brexit mess per se…until her recent speech, when she gave away her pro-Brexit status clearly enough. Again, everyone is ignoring/overlooking it, but once the Brexit begins for real, it is anyone’s guess as to how the game will go. What next?

…Well, unlike Russians, who received shock treatments/therapy from their governments since the days before the yoke of the Golden Horde and got used to them and consider it a part of their daily lives, especially when it comes to politics, the Westerners have not. They do not like it, and because the U.K. in particular is a constitutional monarchy these days, it means that their kings, queens and dynasties can get executed and/or exiled, the divine right of kings be damned. Seriously, look at the English history, especially in the 17^th-18^th centuries… or, conversely, look at the biography of a man named Oliver Cromwell, the one and only Lord Protector of Britain, a symbol of a very particular time in that country’s history – the time when that land had no king…

The punchline is that Cromwell and his uncle, (or father, I do not remember), wanted to immigrate to the proto-U.S. at one point, but was unable to do so because of some royal law or another. Talk about karma! – but where does it leave us?

…With Mr. Kwame Mbalia’s novel, ‘Tristan Strong punches a hole in the sky’, published as part of Rick Riordan’s series of various authors who publish books set in the manner of RR’s novels… or at least they were supposed to. First, there was ‘Dragon Pearl’ written by Mr. Y.H. Lee, and now – the novel of Mr. Mbalia. The two novels do not have much in common with each other, but both break out of the mold set by RR. In his novels, the characters have to beat the clock, everything is structured around certain dates when various goals have to be reached, or else the characters’ world is doomed. Ms. Chokshi’s novels follow this structure, as do Ms. Cervantes’, and even Mr. Hernandez’ ‘Sal and Gabi’ do – sort of. However, Mr. Lee’s DP novel did not – it is fundamentally a Korean mythology meets Star Trek kind of a universe, when the titular character decided to clear-up her brother’s name, making her quest a much more personal issue than in case of the other novels, and also she is a kitsune, aka a completely non-human supernatural entity. In some cases, for example, in a Pathfinder™ RPG session, there’s no problem with a kitsune character, but apparently RR and his superiors at Disney™ thought differently regarding Mr. Lee’s DP novel, since he was the only author in those series who wasn’t making a sequel – until now. Mr. Mbalia’s novel ‘Tristan Strong’ is very different from DP, but again, it is not built as the RR novels are either.

RR novels are linear, with the characters running around in a metaphorical straight line, all but checking off various check boxes on their sheets: we have been there, there, and there, that, that, and that is done, only this, this, and this is left. DP also did something similar, but much more weakly, at a more leisurely pace. ‘Tristan Strong…’ doesn’t do that either, rather it’s more a dungeon crawl, as the titular hero and his team travel around Alke, an imaginary world, built around Afro-American and African mythologies, fighting, well, a semi-metaphorical depiction of slavery.

Now, let us be absolutely clear – of all the social inventions of humanity, slavery is one of the worst, period. Yet none of RR novels really deals with it, either. His novels depict a fairly glamorous and people-friendly version of the U.S., and neither do any novels of his current entourage. By dealing with such a real-life issue, Mr. Mbalia’s novel certainly has broken the series’ mold and changed something, but-

But here is when we return to the real world, again, and according to its’ data, Mr. Mbalia’s ‘Tristan Strong’, as well-written as it is, (and it really is, especially for a children’s/YA novel), should’ve come out next year, January 2020 or so, not now, October 2019, when a different novel from the series, one based on Navajo/Native American mythology, should’ve been released. Instead we go ‘Tristan Strong…’ and from what I’ve seen, his arrival to the book stores such as Chapters™ has been accompanied by far less fanfare than RR’s latest ‘Apollo’ novel (TTT), or Ms. Cervantes’ second novel, (‘Fire Keeper’) have. Why?

…Because there is something going on in the background of RR & Disney partnership. The first two novels of the ‘Apollo’ series were very progressive, especially in regards to LGBQ+ community, the third novel – ‘The Burning Maze’ – had none of those elements at all – and the latest work, ‘The Tyrant’s Tomb’, had a homosexual secondary character – Lavinia Asimov – whose homosexuality was mentioned but never seen, and often felt about as tacked-on as the secondary plotline in Ms. Cervantes’ first novel – ‘Storm Runner’ – did. And now we got Mr. Mbalia’ very impressive and well-written novel which is notably downplayed, and we get a break in the original progression of the novels, when each of them arrives on bookshelves. Again, there is probably a very reasonable and justified explanation for this change in strategy, but given that real life sucks, I would not bet on it. Ah well, best of luck to RR and his comrades in team Disney, they will probably need it. Anything else?

Well, the ‘Absolute Carnage’ mega-plot in Marvel’s comic books is ending, and it was much ado about nothing – not much is changing in the Marvel comics’ world, though I think that we are going to see Venom fighting a dark god named Knull at some future point, but that is neither here nor there.

Instead, this is it for now. See you all soon!

The Tyrant's Tomb - Sep 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Yes, them Americans try to be in the vanguard of the rest of Earth’s society – but this is not about them. …Okay, it is about one of them – Rick Riordan, and his latest YA novel, ‘THE TYRANT’S TOMB’, and we will be talking about it now.

What can be said about it? Unlike Ms. Cervantes’ series, or Ms. Chokshi’s for that matter, Mr. Riordan’s TTA series have brought back an LGBT character – a minor character named Lavinia, who is a legionnaire at the New Rome, and who’s in love (or in lust, it’s kind of hard to tell) with a dryad named Poison Oak.

…In real life, this is a close relative of the better-known poison ivy; another plant named poison sumac completes the infamous trio. Yes, real life is not clear-cut as people would like it to be; in reality, this plant genus – Toxicodendron – contains much more species than just three or four, (because ‘poison oak’ is actually a name of two plants of the above genus – one grows in the American west, the second – in the American south-west. They are relatives, and isn’t life just full of fun facts to learn about? God, I hate my life sometimes), but the point is, is just like the better-known poison ivy plant, (not the Poison Ivy character), poison oak sounds more like a villain’s name than a love interest’s… right, my bad. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive in literature, and frankly, Lavinia’s love interest is not really a character in TTT at all – yes, she gets to be mentioned several times, but this is largely the extent of her presence in the novel. After the first two novels of the ‘Apollo’ series, (and also the first two novels of the ‘Magnus Chase’ trilogy), this feels like a step down – but keep in mind that the third novel of ‘Apollo’ series has no LGBT/LGBTQ+ elements at all, so this may be some sort of a compromise instead.

…A compromise with whom, you may ask? Most likely – the House of Mouse, who is conspiring with RR himself, as it had been mentioned several times in the past. Yes, Disney in itself cares only for money, but they are very good at making it, (the SW miscalculation aside), and apparently they think that the abrupt dismissal of sexual minorities in the ‘Apollo’ series is one of those miscalculations after all. Therefore, now they are back in the person of Lavinia, even though she remains largely a secondary, episodic character in TTT after all. Anything else?

TTT does not feel rushed, unlike the last novel of the ‘Magnus Chase’ trilogy or its’ immediate predecessor. Looks like that in this instance, RR was able to recover from whatever mishap had affected those past two books, or his current ghostwriter did. It is hard to tell with authors sometimes; Patricia Briggs of the ‘Mercy Thompson and co.’ fame seems to have gone through a couple at least; this is part of the reason I have dropped her for good. Sometimes authors, English-speaking, Russian-speaking, or of other languages, of fiction and of non-fiction, allow their writings to reflect slash reveal too much of their personality, and in case of Ms. Briggs, that is not something that I can enjoy. Some of her later books had been decent, but these days? Not so much. What next?

Spider-Man is coming back to MCU, of course. Disney/Marvel have invested too much into him just to let him go, and so a new deal with Sony was made. Yay for him! Back to Mr. Riordan?

What about him? Yes, his own novels have a sense of personality, an identity that Mr. Lee’s ‘Dragon Pearl’ has lacked, that ‘Sal and Gabi’ certainly have, as do Ms. Cervantes’ series and Ms. Chokshi’s. It’s up to you to enjoy them – or not, but regardless, it certainly feels that the time of RR is coming past, his latest work – TTT – has sold for a flat-out 20 dollars, much less than his earlier novels were sold for. Yes, time waits for no man – or woman, for that matter, just ask J-Ro, whose own HP novels are sitting there alongside RR’s, not being bought and sold either. How will GM handle it now that HBO is done with his novels (for now) will be interesting to see.

Back to TTT? This time the focus was not just on Frank and Hazel, but also on Reyna, so this is good. Her role seemed to have been lost/removed/rebooted in the shuffle-pack of RR’s-verse, so bully for her, I say! RR’s novels also had been re-released again, this time with brand-new covers, but that is not the most successful marketing strategy.

…The same goes, of course, in real life for Ms. Greta and her backers slash allies – their timing is bad. The US government is concerned completely with the upcoming election and also the impeachment that will obviously affect it, so Ms. Greta’s proclamation, no matter how passionate, will be passed-over. ‘Across the pond’ it is the same thing with the upcoming Brexit, so there is that. In Canada, the society, all of its’ social strata, from top to bottom and back, can afford to be more interested/involved/invested in her proclamation, and so they put on a show, but, sadly, Canada does not play the primary fiddle in the world at this time.

Anything else? Yes, in TTT the novel Lavinia is supposed to be homosexual, but we never see actually be so, unlike, for example, Alex from the ‘Magnus Chase’ side of RR’s verso, who is openly gender-fluid, (even if his portrait does not reveal him as such). This… is not too different from Zara from the JW Fallen Kingdom film, who is also supposed to be homosexual, yet is never depicted as such – yet she is clearly friends with Franklin instead. Yes, Franklin is not as manly as Owen is, but still – he is a man, so just like the JW franchise, RR and Disney have figured out a way to keep a toe in the sexual minorities’ community safely… and that is it. Compared to the first two novels of the ‘Apollo’ series, as well as the ‘Magnus Chase’ trilogy, (yes, even the last novel), this is mild, lukewarm stuff. Ah well, Disney does not want to support a failing (or a fading) horse too much, but neither does it want to abandon a project completely, not when there is money still to be made from it. Case in point – SW, though now that GL has ‘uttered his word of gold’, it’s anyone guess again as to how it all will turn out – but that is a story for another time...

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

The Fire Keeper - Sep 18

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now let us talk about Ms. Cervantes’ latest YA novel, ‘the Fire Keeper’. A sequel to her earlier ‘Storm Runner’, ‘Fire Keeper’ is the Mesoamerican myths given the Riordan treatment, and-?

And here is the thing. ‘The Storm Runner’ had been a bad imitation of Riordan’s own ‘Lightning Thief’, his very first PJ novel ever. Ms. Cervantes’ novel replaced the mother with a dog, which made ‘Storm Runner’ a disturbing imitation of ‘the Lightning Thief’, as we have discussed it back in the past. The fact that Ms. Cervantes added some sort of a ‘shallow beautiful people are bad’ subplot only distorted her ‘Storm Runner’ further, making it an even more grotesque version of Riordan’s PJ novels at that time. And now it is the turn of ‘the Fire Keeper’. How is it holding up?

It is built less along the lines of Riordan’s PJ and friends novels, and more along the lines of his ‘Kane Chronicles’ trilogy. That trilogy is something of an odd duck in itself – somehow Riordan decided that Greco-Roman and Egyptian magics do not mix in a good way, and so the demigods of the former and the magicians of the latter must be kept separately; the only contact should be the Kane siblings themselves with Percy and Annabeth because of course it’s Percy and Annabeth. By contrast, the Greco-Roman crowd, (yes, primarily Percy and Annabeth again, but still), seems to be mixing freely with team Norse, (led by Magnus Chase and co) without any fallout. What gives?

One theory is that Mr. Riordan is running out of steam on a personal level and is relying on ghost writers to keep him going; as his own next novel – ‘the Tyrant’s Tomb’ – is supposed to hit the shelves later in fall 2019, we’ll have to look over and see. However, even if his own work is running out of steam, the ‘Rick Riordan Presents’ series is keeping on going. Yes, it is a more heterogeneous series than people, including Riordan himself, probably like – ‘Sal and Gabi Break the Universe’ is great, Ms. Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah’ series is something else, (and we’ve discussed them at length in the past), and Ms. Cervantes’ Mesoamerican – pardon me, Maya – series isn’t very good; ‘the Fire Keeper’ in particular seems to be rushed in a forced sort of things; it still imitates Riordan’s own novels, just in a less specific manner.

Of course, on the other hand, we had Mr. Lee’s ‘Dragon Pearl’ YA novel, which tried to conflate a ‘Star-Trek-like’ sci-fi world with Korean mythology, and the result was kind of meh, not very good, certainly Mr. Lee didn’t return to the ‘Rick Riordan Presents’ series, and more importantly, ‘Dragon Pearl’ seems to have broken something; the first novels of Ms. Chokshi and Ms. Cervantes, as well as the ‘Dragon Pearl’ itself were very much advertised; the following novels, starting with the first ‘Sal and Gabi’ novel – not so much. Officially, the ‘Rick Riordan Presents’ series is planned-out all the way into the year 2020; unofficially, we just have to wait and see what develops. So far, it is a mixed bag and how it will turn out in the future is anyone’s guess.

...Well, this is it for now; see you all soon!

The end of GoT? - May 21

Obligatory disclaimer: sometimes life sucks, sometimes it does not, but everything always comes to an end, not just your life, (as the book of Ecclesiastes says), but also all times, good and bad. Most likely, I will not be around to write anything, especially in my blog, next week (i.e. the very last week of May), so let us try to put something extra this week, ok?

Let us start with Ms. Chokshi’s next novel about Aru Shah – ‘the Song of Death’. In it, the titular heroine and her soul sister Yamini meet another one of their number, as well as Aru’s love interest, a boy from her town, one that lives across the street or down the street or something along those lines. And?

When compared to the first novel – ‘the End of Time’ – ‘the Song of Death’ feels more mainline as far as the promoted children’s books by RR go. In ‘End’, Chokshi was all over the metaphorical place, treating RR no different than she did J-Ro of the HP novels; in ‘Song’ there are no references to such novels, but there are some references to Disney movies, especially ‘the Little Mermaid’ and ‘Moana’. It should be noted that RR did something similar in his ‘Magnus Chase’ series, especially the first books. Ergo, it looks as if Ms. Chokshi got her gear in, well, gear, as ‘Song’ is now more similar to the mold of RR, less clumsy, and with far less specifically American-Hindu social stereotypes.

Yes, Ms. Chokshi herself is an American woman of Hindu origins who lives in the American state of Georgia, and yes, her mother is a Filipino, (hence Yamini, Aru’s first friend and closest Pandava sister in her series), but firstly, that culture never got as much spotlight in her Aru series (so far), so clearly, there’s some conflict of interest and culture that is going on in her background and in the background of her Aru novels. Yes, ‘Song’ does not offer any social stereotypes, not directly, as they happened in ‘End’; covertly – yes, about as much as you would expect in RR novels about Percy, Jason and Magnus, meaning that Ms. Chokshi got more help in writing ‘Song’ than she did with ‘End’ previously. So?

So, it is hard to say, but in ‘Song’, one of the main protagonists is ‘Lady M’, sister of Ravana, the greatest Maharajah of the Rakshasas, period, and of Kunkarna, their greatest champion, and ‘Song’ talks about how she wasn’t entirely evil, she was also partially misunderstood and abused. Sure, she was still evil, but-

But in truth, that story of which ‘Song’ talks about started before ‘Lady M’ encountered Rama, Sita and Laxmana in the forest; it began, when Ravana, by acting pious for centuries, tricked the Hindu gods into making him almost invulnerable; only a mortal could kill him. So, a certain Hindu god (no spoilers, you want to know more, Google it), reincarnated as a mortal man, Rama, and eventually killed Ravana; ‘Lady M’, yes, was treated beastly by Rama and his exiled family, but in the end? She was only a piece in a greater game of thrones: who would win, gods or Rakshasas (demons, essentially).

…Yes, this brings us to GoT and the series finale. The Internet is an uproar regarding the eighth and last season; some claim that the characters changed too much, others – that not enough or reverted to their initial selves (think the very opening episodes of the series). My take that the main problem here is that HBO and co. did a hatchet job by combining two versions of the final season into one: the first 3 episodes and the last 3 have two very different feels.

What says the Bible? Nothing is new under the sun? Right on – for me, this is reminiscent of the last ‘Jurassic World’ film, which also tried two combine two movies into one: the first where Claire, Owen and co. go to the dino isle one last time, and the second, where the evil E holds his dinosaur auction and it all goes south, thanks to our plucky heroes. Ditto here, where the Night King and the King’s Landing plots make two different stories that are only loosely connected to each other; and what’s more…

What’s more, not unlike what has gone down in AoS for a while, GoT’s S8 has the feeling of characters – and plot lines – getting reshuffled, especially with Jon and Dany having very strong Jaime and Cersei vibes. Of course, there is a perfectly valid point about how HBO handled GoT S8’s characters and plot just fine, with GoT’s characters remaining true to their nature: i.e., Jaime went back to Cersei because he always went back to Cersei; Arya went away because she was always on the run, and so forth. The problem with that statement is that GM spent the entirety of his novels having Jaime, Arya, Brienne, Sandor, Sansa, Gendry, and etc., etc., breaking free of their mold and becoming something new: character development, put otherwise. In S8, (and to lesser extent in S7), all of this went out the window…just because. The actors, probably, didn’t care, (their counterparts in AoS aren’t that unique, it seems), and neither did the crew, seeing how they rushed through S8 – forgotten Starbucks™ coffee cups and plastic water bottles? Really? That is just inattentive – and rushed. Guess they are now all-focused on the following GoT spinoff or something, yay. What next?

Well, GM is keeping his opinions to himself, mostly – he may not be the biggest fan of GoT fan works, but HBO has never been a ‘fan work’, but rather paid him some very handsome sums of his own, so he isn’t going to be widdling in a good thing, that’s number one.

And number two is last week’s episode of MLP: FIM, aka ‘Frenemies’, where the titular characters are beginning to resemble the Lannister siblings vaguely. Tirek is Jaime at his worst – not quite a musclehead or a jock, but close. Chrysalis is Cersei, a crazy queen who has lost of all of her subjects, with CG being an eviller, and crazier, version of Tyrion while Grogar is Tywin with…minimal personality changes and slightly different goals, true. Sombra’s Joffrey, though it should be pointed out that that shadow pony had had some reboots of his own – in the comics, he even got redeemed, so Hasbro here is trying to be Marvel, I suppose…

But as for the ‘Frenemies’ themselves – Sombra is gone now for good, looks like – they are slowly moving towards a crossroads, where they will have to accept friendship for real and stop being villains, (kind of like Discord, who’s more of an anti-hero these days than a villain these days), or not, in which case their friendship, (or the ersatz that they developed in its’ stead), is done and gone.

Yes, their relationship with Grogar complicates things somewhat: the ‘Frenemies’ episode openly showed that they will betray him, or vice versa, (since he is the biggest bad of this MLP season), but that does not change anything, generally speaking: either ‘Frenemies’ will stop being evil, or they stop being friends, and back to Tartarus they go, because otherwise? Tirek wants to drain all the magic, CG – all the friendship, and Chrysalis – all the love. On their own, every one of them had been a hoof-full for the Mane 6 and associates; together, the three of them would destroy Equestria, which is both resilient and fragile at the same time, period.

Back to GoT – if the ‘Frenemies’ are Lannisters, then the Mane 6 are Starks: Robb and Jon, (who is not a Targaryen, period), Bran and Rickon, Sansa and Arya, with Spike being Theon, and the sister princesses – the Stark parents. (Yes, Ned as a sparkly pony princess is ridiculous, but regardless). Everyone else – you make the equations; what we should keep in mind is that GoT may be gone from live TV (you can always stream, or download it, or something), but it can return in the most bizarre places, and hey, MLP – is just Starks vs. Lannisters these days, (which is GoT at the most basic, really).

Well, this is it for now: see you all soon!

Dragon Pearl - March 2

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks…and then you get sick on top of it, making it worse. Now where were we?

Oh yes, back in December 2018 we talked about Rick Riordan as well as some of his new friends/co-authors/etc./whoever. This time, let us talk about yet another suck person – Yoon Ha Lee and his YA novel, ‘Dragon Pearl’. Whereas Cervantes’ novel was on Mesoamerican myths and Chokshi’s – on Hindu, Lee’s is about Asian myths, Korean to be exact, only – not. Her take is different – it is a sci-fi pastiche.

Oh, certainly, there are Korean goblins, and fox spirits (i.e. kitsune) and dragons and ghosts in her novel, but also space ships and laser guns, for example. The great, late and lamented Terry Pratchett once commented how sci-fi is fantasy with literal nuts and bolts put on it, and Mr. Lee must agree with him, since this is what he did.

…What did we find out, back in December 2018, when we discussed Cervantes and Chokshi’s novels in relation to Riordan’s? That Cervantes’ novel feels like a distorted imitation of Riordan’s own ‘Lightning Thief’, whereas Chokshi’s feels like…an independent novel of her own, with just a few homages to Riordan – and to J. Ro. Lee’s novel feels even more so than Chokshi’s, as the ‘Dragon Pearl’ has nothing in common with Riordan’s, not at all. Yes, the main protagonist is a young kitsune woman, who goes on a quest to find her brother and finds much more than what she has bargained for, in a format that is reminiscent of Riordan’s, and of Chokshi’s, and of Cervantes’, but one main element – the gods – are missing. There are plenty of novels, YA and grown-up, that feature deities of one sort or another, and that brings us to Tanya Huff. These days she seems to be fairly obscure, but back in the 1990s, when she was writing and publishing her ‘Blood series’ about a vampire and his detective friend with benefits, cough, she was big, and she was famous, and as a Canadian she had no qualms about writing novels that featured sexual minorities as main characters, so Lee’s take on ‘Dragon Pearl’, with its’ gender equality and the like feels like an imitation of Ms. Huff here – Canadians were here first, (Lee is Korean American). What’s next?

As we said already, Lee’s ‘Dragon Pearl’ differs from Riordan’s, and Chokshi’s, and Cervantes’, period. It has sci-fi elements in it; it has no gods; it has plenty of gender equality elements in it and it does not follow the trend established by Riordan. …Yes, Riordan did begin to work with such elements as sexual and racial minorities in his second story arc, ‘The Heroes of Olympus’, but he seems to have abandoned them in his last ‘Apollo’ book because of reasons, upon which we have speculated in the past as well – but, regardless, Riordan’s logo – two Rs, one of them inverted, is on the jacket of ‘Dragon Pearl’, and…

In addition, Riordan himself is described, however briefly, inside the book jacket, and his introduction is there too, as it was in cases of the previous two novels. This makes ‘Dragon Pearl’ potentially into a shared intellectual property of the two men, and-

And in case of both Chokshi and Cervantes, there are indications…no, not indications, statements and promises, that sequels to ‘Storm Runner’ and ‘Aru Shah’ will be coming…this year, 2019. ‘Dragon Pearl’ doesn’t have it, making its’ future sequels – or is it the future of its’ sequels? – more dubious. Again, we do not know the relationship between Riordan and Lee as the ‘Dragon Pearl’ was written, but seeing how Riordan has abruptly changed his approach to minorities in his last novel (the next ‘Apollo’ novel is also coming out in 2019, BTW), and Lee, well, promptly didn’t and rather went Huff’s route, by making them obvious, odds are that they didn’t get along, hence no promise of Min’s future adventures. (I.e. the main character of ‘Dragon Pearl’, here). We will just have to wait and see.

In addition, is ‘Dragon Pearl’ good? It is certainly no worse than ‘The Storm Runner’ is, and can be enjoyable to read. However, even more so than a TV show or a movie, (cough, AoS, cough), a book is a property slash commodity, it has to appeal to its’ audience or it wouldn’t sell – but it also has to appeal to the sales’ people, and contrary to what many people think, not everything within the U.S. is about the money, it got its’ ideals too – but that is a talk for another time…

For now, though, this is it. If any of you out there have also read the ‘Dragon Pearl’, (or ‘Aru Shah’, or ‘Storm Runner’), feel free to respond and discuss. Otherwise, see you soon!

Rick Riordan and co. - Dec 12

Now what, you make ask, in regards to our last talk concerning Disney and TLK, about Rick Riordan? While his fellow R-author, J-Ro, is busy with her ‘Fantastic Beasts’ movies, what does he do?

Well, he has written an anthology set in the world of Magnus Chase, about the 9 worlds. And?

And, sadly, it is no cat’s meow, but rather a tangled bag. As I said, it is an anthology, and…

There is Odin’s story, as he tries to figure out what the Valkyries are up, and who is the leader that they need. It comes across as comic relief, with little content beyond humor. When Riordan does humor, it is good and light…but perhaps slightly too light.

Then there is the story of Samirah’s boyfriend/fiancé/etc., Amir. Sabirah and Alex have to rescue him from a necromancer and a pair of evil pants. (Seriously!) So?

Well, the problem is that when Riordan was designing his Magnus characters, he was trying to go for political acumen. In an excerpt from one of his proper Magnus novels, Sabirah flies from her meeting with Magnus as ‘a super Muslima’. Sigh. When Riordan was writing down those lines, he was probably thinking about this joke: ‘What do you call a Muslim woman who flies a plane? A pilot’. This sort of American/Canadian humor was supposed to ease interracial tensions in the North American communities. Here is a hint: it did not work. For as long as there is freedom of opinion, there will be North Americans who will not trust Muslims, and there will be Muslims who will reciprocate in kind, if not up the ante. The governments of Canada and USA as well as their Middle Eastern counterparts can, and should do their best to counter the rise of such negative feelings, but some groan- and cringe-worthy jokes should not be a part of the counter, for they are not helping anyone.

…As for Samirah and Alex’s stories, they are set in Jotunheim and Muspelheim; the latter gets an especially bad rep because apparently Riordan considers it to be sort of a Norse Hell, while Asgard’s Heaven. This not so, not exactly – when it came to life after death, the Norse had only two destinations: Asgard, and Hel. Asgard was the destination of all of those heroic warriors that fell in battle; Hel was where everyone else ended up at, regardless of their lifestyle during, well, their lifetime. Norse pagan values had nothing in common with Christian; the Norse were among the last of the Europeans to convert to Christianity, and Muspelheim was no Hell, but rather the embodiment of the destructive aspect of fire, period. The exact details are unknown, but as their myth of Ragnarok shows, the Norse believed that their world – actually, their entire universe – would be destroyed by fire and ice, but especially fire, as embodied by Muspelheim and its’ king, the first giant Surt or Surtur (Surtr). He would inspire Tolkien’s balrogs, which, in turn, would inspire Marvel’s version of Surtur, (as seen in the ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ movie) – but Muspelheim was no Hell.

In the ‘9 worlds’ anthology, Alex is the one who went down there, where he defeated and embarrassed Surtur, and-

And the thing is that Alex is the gender-fluid character of Riordan’s multiverse. That is very commendable, the problem is that gender-fluid people aren’t very overt and you don’t see them very often in real life, and if you do, you may not realize it, especially during a Canadian winter, when all people, regardless of their gender, tend to dress in thick and warm clothing, preferring practicality over gender-specific clothing. If they speak, it is another thing – to hear a man speak in a woman’s voice and vice versa can be startling and surprising, but again, these are not occurrences that happen very often in one’s life.

So, where does Alex fit into this?  In ‘9 worlds’ he is depicted as…a boy, with nothing specifically gender-fluid about him. In real life, this is not a problem – a person with sexually alternative lifestyle can look as regular or irregular as they want; in Riordan’s books, where Alex is a representative of sexual minorities this depiction feels like a letdown instead.

Speaking of sexual minorities, what is going on with Hearthstone and Blitzen? (Aside from the fact that Hearthstone got depicted as a variant Draco Malfoy for his part). Hearthstone in particular got to rescue Inga the Huldra (a Norse nature spirit, sort of intermediate between a rusalka and a troll) in a very old fashioned way in a very old fashioned story – the rescue of a damsel, (here from a troll, mostly). Couldn’t Riordan design a better adventure for the elf? Blitzen in particular got to rescue Thor from an evil (eviller?) dwarf named Andvari instead…

…Yes, in my opinion, those are the same symptoms that are developed further in Riordan’s Apollo series – either Riordan or Disney, (who is sponsoring Riordan or whatever) had had enough of political correctness, progress and etc., and are just trying to write regular YA novels without much sexual minorities, racial minorities and such similar political progressives. Samirah, (getting back to her), went to Jotunheim to check on an egg of a magical oversized chicken and had to outmaneuver a giant; to Helheim went TJ, who had to restrain Garm the Norse hell hound, and both of those adventures were ok, but kind of underwhelming, restricted. Riordan had some good ideas in ‘9 worlds’ the anthology, (the last ones are Halfborn in Vanaheim and Molly in Niflheim, built along similar lines as Samirah and TJ’s adventures), but due to the specifics of ‘9 worlds’ they never got fully developed, remaining more of a disappointment instead…

But then – on topic of Riordan – is Jennifer Cervantes’ ‘The Storm Runner’ novel. Just like Roshani Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah and the End of Time’ novel, this is a novel that is associated with Mr. Riordan and his universe and is built on the same lines that his YA novels are built: a teen – or a preteen – discovers that one of their parents is a god and hijinks follow. The two novels are different – Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah’ is very dialogue heavy and description heavy and while it has some references to Riordan, it has some Rowling references as well and comes across as somewhat silly. It is good for a laugh, but its’ humor is kind of immature, and in general Ms. Chokshi just tries to hard to shoehorn her YA novel as a teenage/pre-teenage girl read.

Ms. Cervantes and her novel are different; it is more mature, edgier, and it feels like two novels stitched into one – her own novel about acceptance, (here the differences are physical deficiencies rather than sexual or racial minorities), including Mesoamerican mythology, and a Riordan-imitation novel, also regarding Mesoamerican mythology. To compound matters further, she used Riordan’s ‘Lightning Thief’ novel for plot and plot points, with variations; i.e. it is not the hero’s mother who gets taken to the underworld, but his dog, (so the entire novel takes on a very weird tinge), Grover the satyr’s role is taken over by Zane’s – the titular character’s – wrestler-wannabe uncle, and the entire novel begins to feel like an imitation of the aforementioned ‘Lightning Thief’, with the injected story of team Zane confronting a pair of selfish twins, (Jordan and Bird). They are supposed to help Zane save the world from the god of death, Ah-Puch, (whose name serves as a recipient for some jokes that again come across as immature rather than funny), but just eat-up Zane’s time and pad-up Ms. Cervantes’ novel instead. While both novels promise sequels in spring and autumn of 2019, it is anyone’s guess as to whether this will happen.

And where’s Rick Riordan in all of this? He is the one writing the introductions to those novels. Why? Probably to show that both Ms. Chokshi and Ms. Cervantes have his stamp of approval and are a part of ‘his’ universe rather than independent works. Ms. Cervantes’ novel comes off as a professional imitation of ‘the Lightning Thief; it is professionally distorted – dog as opposed to mother, the issue of appearances, (good vs. ugly, inside vs. outside), but still, is it flattering? …And on the other hand, we have Ms. Chokshi’s ‘Aru Shah’, which succeeds – as an amateur – where Ms. Cervantes’ professionalism fails: ‘Aru Shah’ is a completely independent novel that has nothing to do with Mr. Riordan’s works as such Ms. Chokshi may have had to insert some concrete references to Mr. Riordan’s works, however oblique they were; as a consequence, they stick like sore thumbs in her novel.

Therefore, this is the current stage of Mr. Riordan’s input into the Western literature: the Apollo series, (that feels as if it is on hiatus while Mr. Riordan and co. hammer out the kinks), a couple of anthologies, (‘9 worlds’ and a ‘Kane Chronicles’ one that feels like a mix between an anthology and an activity book…with a throwaway to a semi-bisexual Setne, a villain – ouch!), and the above-mentioned novels of Ms. Chokshi, (an independent work, basically), and of Ms. Cervantes, (an on the nose imitation of ‘Lightning Thief’). Not something to be proud about, one suspects.

…And then there is J-Ro, who is not doing so hot either. Yes, by now she has three illustrated novels (re-editions, with Jim Kay), as opposed to Riordan’s only one, (Chad Rocco), but they all are selling the same way – badly. There is the release of the ‘Crimes of Grindelwald’ script released in a book form, but it is going the same way as ‘Cursed Child’ did – badly. Regardless of the movies’ success, and of the fact that ‘HPGF’ is being remade into a concert, the sun is setting upon J-Ro, as it does upon Rick Riordan.

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!