The Hobbit: A fun and worthy film, warts and all

Confession: I like The Hobbit. The 1977 Rankin/Bass animated film, that is.

I'm interested to know if anyone else holds this film in high regard. I do, although I fully expect to have some tomatoes flung my way for admitting as much.

That is not to say that The Hobbit is flawless. It has its bad moments and a few warts, too. But for what it is--a children's film, limited by 1970's animation and the constraints of time--it's actually a pretty solid little movie.

The Hobbit screams 1970's period piece, from its Glenn Yarbrough warblings ("The greatest adventure, is what lies ahead") to its choppy and in some places creaky animation. It's also not so easy to follow: I came to The Hobbit as a youth having already read J.R.R. Tolkien's novel, but I would imagine that, from the perspective of a viewer with no exposure to the story, it could seem a bit confusing. Amazingly, it checks in at only 78 minutes, but in places it feels rushed.

I've compiled a list of likes and dislikes regarding this film, but as you will see the former list outweighs the latter.

Likes

The voicework. This is perhaps the film's greatest strength. Orson Bean (Bilbo), Hans Conreid (Thorin), Brother Theodore (Gollum), are very good, and Richard Boone (Smaug) and John Huston (Gandalf) are brilliant. As great as Ian McKellen is in Lord of the Rings, Huston's smoky, grandfatherly, and kind-yet-strong delivery is an absolutely perfect, spot-on representation of what I thought Gandalf should sound like.

Bilbo. Okay, he looks a bit weird (what's up with the perm?), but the movie does his character justice. We meet the stay-at-home, food and tobacco loving Bilbo at the film's outset, and over the course of the film something Tookish stirs in him. For the most part, the film is able to capture this critical awakening. Duty above comfort and acts of heroism by the small, unimportant folk is what The Hobbit and even The Lord of the Rings is really all about, after all.

Smaug. I hope the upcoming film does the same justice to Smaug as does Rankin/Bass. Smaug is still probably my favorite dragon ever put to film (Dragonslayer does a nice job as well) and, as a child at least, I found him to be truly terrifying. And The Hobbit gets bonus points for retaining the line, "My armor is like tenfold shields, my teeth are like swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath--death!" Good stuff.

The music (most of it). An admission I fully expect to be crucified over, but I'll come out and say it: I enjoy "Fifteen birds in five fir trees" "Roll them down the hole," and, God help me, even "The Greatest Adventure." And of course the dwarves singing "Far o'er the Misty Mountains old, to dungeons deep and caverns cold" at Bag End is pure awesomeness. In fact, I hope the forthcoming Del Toro version retains this song. But there are some duds: I freely admit that "Tra la la lally, here down in the valley, a-ha," is awful.

The bits of Tolkien. No surprise that all the great lines in the film are either straight from Tolkien or slightly modified from the book. "To go and see the great mountains, to hear the pine trees and waterfalls, to wear a sword instead of a walking stick," is one; "Child of the kindly West, I have come to know, if more of us valued your ways: food and cheer above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world," is another.

The maps. You can tell the writer/director loved Tolkien's maps, which is a good thing. The movie starts with a shot of Eriador, panning in on the Shire. Later Bilbo, Gandalf, and Thorin, pore over Thror's map in detail, and both maps appear to be exact reproduction from the books. The film also keeps Elrond's discovery of the moon letters on Thror's map.

Gollum. Andy Serkis was great in The Lord of the Rings, but the Rankin/Bass Gollum has a lot going for him. He's more menacing and even less hobbitish here, and his pale, orb-like eyes hew closer to the look described in the book than does the Serkis Gollum. Riddles in the Dark works pretty well, and the hateful look in Gollum's eyes after Bilbo makes off with his ring remains chilling, 70's animation and all.

Dislikes

The wood elves. These are absolutely hideous. Gray, ugly, with flat noses and spidery-thin limbs? Where did this art decision come from? This description is nowhere to be found in the book, and the end result is a race of woodland creatures who make the goblins seems downright comely in comparison. I have no idea why this choice was made, given that Elrond looks pretty good.

Most of the dwarves. Thorin was well-depicted, but what's up with Nori and Ori? Why are they wearing scarves that cover half their face, and why are they eerily silent? And the introduction of the dwarves is lame--we get a quick run-down of their names instead of great scene in the book, which has Gandalf cleverly introducing them all by twos and threes so as not to overwhelm Bilbo all at once.

No Beorn. Beorn suffered the same fate as Tom Bombadil did in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, written out of the script or left on the cutting room floor. I know that removing Beorn is an easy cut, but he's one of my favorite minor characters in the book and actually plays a very significant role in the Battle of the Five Armies. I truly hope he makes Del Toro's version.

The Battle of Five Armies. This is the film's biggest weakness, in my opinion. There is no sense of the scope of the massive, climactic event of the book as the animators resort to the cheap trick of using clouds of dust (with what looks like fleas struggling in their midst) to obscure the events of this memorable scene. When Bilbo receives his knock on the head, it's over, and we don't even get flashbacks or the events retold by Gandalf after the fact. This also robs Thorin of his moment on the battlefield. Poor, poor.

Still, flaws and all, overall I very much enjoy The Hobbit. It's comforting to know that, even if Del Toro's version flops, I'll have my old Rankin/Bass VHS tape to pop in the VCR.

You're one of us now

A review of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, by Jack Finney, read by Kristoffer Tabori

The image of Donald Sutherland at the end of the 1978 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers—mouth yawning open, eyes rolled back, finger stabbing at the screen—haunted me throughout my childhood. I stumbled onto the now iconic scene while watching television one day and it absolutely traumatized me. I found that alien shriek terrifying, and I still do.

It was with that chilling image gnawing at my mind that I began listening to the audiobook of 1955’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, upon which the Sutherland and as well as an earlier (1956) film are based. I found out early on that, while lacking the visceral fear of the 1978 film, the novel evokes a deeper sense of dread, and also packs some literary and historic heft, including a deft examination of the political landscape of 1950’s America.

While I went into Body Snatchers listening for pure story alone, its subtext was undeniable. Body Snatchers was written during the height of McCarthyism, and you don’t have to try to look for parallels—Body Snatchers is as much a reaction to the existential threat of Communist Russia as it is a book about battling alien invaders.

But Body Snatchers is no simple allegory of the Red Scare, either. Finney also provides a nostalgic snapshot of a simpler time, infusing the story with elements that are largely fond relics these days—soda jerks, doctors’ home visits, and shoe-shine men, for example. Finney sets the book in 1976, but perhaps he sensed that, even in the mid-50’s, those elements of small town America were already starting to fade away. You can’t help but feel a sense of sadness and loss amid the growing horror.

For those who are unfamiliar with the plot of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it’s a tale about an alien race of seed pods who drift through space, seeking out planets whose life they imitate with perfect simulacrums while the host body is absorbed. The invasion begins in the small California town of Santa Mira.

The book opens with the narrator, Miles Bennel, living a quiet, uneventful life as a doctor in town. But soon a creeping, icy fear begins that builds deliciously over the course of the book, rising to near-panic when we learn the magnitude of the invasion. Remember that this is 1950’s style horror, so there’s no overt bloodshed or gore. But who needs splatterpunk when you’re confronted with an alien, parasitic race intent on consuming all life on the planet? Try to imagine the suffocating paranoia and slowly awakening terror of discovering that people all around you that you thought you new—teachers and sales clerks, husbands and wives—are being replaced by emotionless clones. And no one believes you.

Kristoffer Tabori reads the audio version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and does a wonderful job. He also shares in an interview on the final disc that his father, Don Siegel, directed the original 1957 film by the same name.

This is not a book without some flaws, however. One weakness is the spread of the aliens. At the risk of divulging a minor spoiler, the seed pods absorb their hosts’ bodies by growing in close proximity to their victims, typically in the basement of their homes. The process can take hours or days (how long is never revealed), but it begs the question: If Bennel and his friends managed to stumble upon a clone before it came fully to life, how come more Santa Mira residents didn’t do the same? Are we supposed to believe that every home has a convenient hiding hole in its basement capable of concealing three-foot long green vegetable pods? Also, the ending of the book was a bit of a let-down. I won’t spoil it, but suffice to say it felt a bit tacked-on and unsatisfying.

But, overall, Invasion the Body Snatchers is well-written and thought-provoking sci-fi/suspense, and a fine way to pass the time while commuting amidst the rest of the soulless conformists “packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes” on their way to the office.

Edit: This review has also appeared on SFFaudio.com: http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=2606

Spamalot--the bright side of life

During a business trip to Las Vegas last week I managed to catch a showing of Spamalot. It was hilarious and worth every penny.

If you haven't seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail (and I can't imagine anyone reading this who hasn't), then you won't have nearly as much fun watching Spamalot as someone like me, who has the film nearly memorized. Half the good feeling I got from watching Spamalot was seeing all the classic skits replayed on stage, and enjoying the cheers in the audience when the black knight strode onto the stage, for example, or when Arthur and co. rolled out the wooden badger. Many in the audience recited the lines right along.

Spamalot does differ from Holy Grail in several ways. There's far more musical numbers--no surprise given that it's a musical--and there's also greatly expanded roles by a couple minor characters, including the Lady of the Lake and Herbert, the gay singing prince. Spamalot is also a send-up of Hollywood musicals in general, with a particularly funny lancing of Hollywood love songs ("The Song that Goes Like This").

But the audience is also treated to most of the best parts from the movie, including the French knights, the black knight, the "bring out your dead" scene, Launcelot slaying half the wedding party, Tim the Enchanter, the peasant who argues with Arthur's right to kingship ("Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony"), and of course the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. A couple omitted items I missed included the Knights of Nee/shrubbery scene (the Knights of Nee were in Spamalot, but there was no shrubbery, alas), and the two guards/"make sure he doesn't leave" scene was also left out. Ah well.

I also enjoyed the scenery and stage props--they rolled out a large-sized castle on stage for the scene with the French knights, and actually fired a large stuffed cow over the wall, for example. There was also a very funny effect when the rabbit beheads Bors--his head rolls around on stage and red streamers spill out of the neck. Playing the role of King Arthur was John O'Hurley of Seinfield fame (J. Peterman), and he was excellent.

If you get a chance to see it, I highly recommend Spamalot.

Exploring the wondrous myth of King Arthur

I’m not a monarchist, but on some level I find the prospect of being ruled by a kind and just king comforting. Living the life of a noble knight in which your mission is to be obedient to his word and protect the weak from tyranny is pretty appealing, frankly.

This wishful thinking is, of course, flawed, as its based on a childishly idealized portrayal of authentic medieval monarchies. In order for an actual monarchy to succeed, the king (or queen) must be the human ideal, a paragon of strength, wisdom, justness, and grace--in other words, someone who never was, and probably never will be. With an imperfect man on the throne, we'd see poor policy, unfair laws, or at worst a cruel dictatorship. Real history is rife with examples of corrupt kingdoms.

Nevertheless, this quest for perfection on earth is part of the reason why I find the Arthurian legend in all its forms so powerful and compelling. The other reason of course is that the best of these tales--Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, the film Excalibur, T.H. White's The Once and Future King--are amazing works of art which not only tell a great story, but convey deeper meaning about mankind, the roots of passion and conflict, social and spiritual ideals, and more. These, the best Arthurian stories, are worthy of study and repeated readings/viewings.

I've often wondered whether Le Morte Darthur is at some level an elaborate criticism of monarchies--after all, if ruin afflicts the kingdom of even the near-perfect Arthur, and was fated so from the start, then when can a monarchy ever succeed? But perhaps Malory's intent was to present in his work an honest portrayal of a king who is flawed because he's just a man, after all, but is nevertheless the shining ideal for past and future civilizations. After all, he is the once and future king, and according to Malory will return again at some time of dire need, presumably:

Hic Iacet Arthurus, Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus (Here lies Arthur, The Once and Future King)

Over the years the myth of King Arthur has taken on as many different forms as it has tellers. Each author, director, musician, and artist has his or her own version the Knights of the Round Table and Camelot, a shining, golden kingdom that illuminated a dark period in human history.

I've listed here my own criteria for tales of King Arthur. These elements should make their way into the story in some form:

Arthur (of course), a semi-divine king, a lawbringer, selfless, whose only fault is his love for his knights, which blinds him to Launcelot's indescretions with Guinevere.

Launcelot, the best knight and the stuff of legends, but flawed by his passion for Guinevere.

Guinevere/Launcelot betrayal. The story should in some way depict the love triangle, which played a part in the downfall of Camelot.

Foundation of Arthur’s kingdom/round table/chivalry/code of law. The foundation of right over might, representing a codification of order and peace and light as a bulwark against the chaos and tyranny of the Dark Ages.

• Merlin, who adopts Arthur and who represents the old guard of paganism and faerie giving way to Christianity.


• The Quest for the Holy Grail, the literal search for religion and Christ's cup at the last supper, but also the symbolic quest for a spiritual ideal, an internal search to elevate the soul beyond earthly ambitions. The myth of the Fisher King.


• Mordred, the ill-begotten son of Arthur and his half-sister Morgause. He delivers the fatal blow to his father on the battlefield, and prior, when his betrayal strikes a grievous blow to Arthur's heart.


• Camlann, the final battle, which must include Arthur’s wounding by Mordred, and his spiriting by boat to the mystical island of Avalon.

This next list are elements that frequently appear in the myth. While not required, I do enjoy them in my Arthurian fiction:

• Excalibur, which confers a divine right upon Arthur when he draws it from the stone, and is cast into the sea at the tale’s end. Like Arthur it too will be found and return in some shadowy, indetermine future time, a powerful weapon with the singular, paradoxical ability to unite.
• Camelot, the idealized kingdom of gold and silver spires.
• Anachronistic elements. While I like the idea of the 5th century “historic” Arthur, as best portrayed by Bernard Cornwell in his terrific Warlord Trilogy, I enjoy more the full plate armor, 14th and 15th century, classic version of the knights of the round table.
• Mythical beasts. If you like your Arthur with anachronisms, I figure that you might as well go full-bore and throw in serpents and giants and dragons, too.
• Galahad, the paragon of virtue who succeeds in finding the grail and ascending to heaven. Other versions have Percival finding the Grail.
• Morgan le Fay, the evil enchantress and foe of Arthur.
• Sir Gawain, one of Arthur's bravest and perhaps his most loyal knight, whose desire to revenge himself on Lancelot for the murder of his (mostly) wicked brothers helps lead to the downfall of Camelot.

Here are some of my favorite versions of the Arthur myth in book, movie, and music form:

Must reads

• Any version of Thomas Malory, the wellspring from which the tales flow (yes, I know there are older French sources, as well as Monmouths' History of the Kings of Britain, but these works contain scattered bits of the myth. Malory created the first complete narrative of the Arthur legend. I have a copy of Malory: The Complete Works, as edited by Eugene Vinaver, which retains the old English. But any version of Malory is acceptable.
• The Once and Future King , T.H. White. The best modern treatment of Malory available. It's simultaneously very readable and focuses on the philosophical and moral underpinnings of the tale.
• The Warlord Chronicles, Bernard Cornwell. Great three-part series which portrays the "historic" Arthur (who is believed to have existed in some form in the 5th century). Brutal and realistic to the period.
• Pendragon/The Great Pendragon Campaign, Greg Stafford. A meticulously researched role playing game by Greg Stafford. Unlike Dungeons and Dragons, which contains a mish-mash of elements from fantasy literature, Pendragon's game engine is designed specifically to recreate the spirit and events of Malory. It's a great read besides.

Must views

• Excalibur. By far the best version of the myth ever put to screen. This is unlikely to ever be surpassed.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Now a cliche, but it remains one of the funniest movies ever made and a great send-up of the tale of Arthur.

Must listens

• The soundtrack to Excalibur, as performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Terrific score that includes tracks borrowed from Richard Wagner's Ring cycle.
• Mordred's Song, Blind Guardian. Powerful, epic treatment of Mordred that captures the pathos of the villain of the Arthur myth and renders him sympathetic ("No one can heal me, nothing can save me, no one can heal me; I've gone beyond the truth, it's just another lie; wash away the blood on my hands, my father's blood, in agony we're unified")

Hrolf Kraki's Saga: A viking warlord in King Arthur's court

Though life is lost, one thing will outlive us: memory sinks not beneath the mould.

Till the Weird of the World stands, unforgotten, high under heaven, the hero's name.

--The Bjarkamaal

It is a glaring weakness of mine as a lover of fantasy literature that I haven't read deeply of the Norse sagas. For example, sitting on my shelf right now and staring at me like a thick challenge is The Sagas of Icelanders, a massive tome in the Penguin Classics line which has remained on my "to read" list for far too long. It's a shame because, in the few instances in which I've encountered the Sagas, either in translation or adaptation, I've enjoyed the heck out of them.

Hrolf Kraki's Saga by Poul Anderson falls into the latter camp. It's a terrific little novel (260 pages in paperback) that moves with the speed of lightning and hits with the impact of Thor's hammer. As I said in a past post about Anderson (see my review of The Broken Sword), he's an author that seems to be largely forgotten these days, and when his name is mentioned it's usually for his prolific career as a science fiction writer, or for Three Hearts and Three Lions. But Anderson loved the Viking Sagas too. While arguably a better book, The Broken Sword is Anderson's creation; Hrolf Kraki's Saga is a retelling of the life and times of an actual Danish king. From the foreward by Lin Carter:

He was a real man, he really lived; he was the greatest of the Kings of the Danes and his court was glittering and fabulous, like that of Arthur at Camelot; there gathered the foremost heroes and warriors, the champions of their age--Bjarki, who held the charmed longsword Lovi; Svipdag, the slayer of berserkers; young Hjalti, who owned the magic sword Goldhilt.

But the old myths and tales of Hrolf Kraki are scattered and piecemeal. Anderson brings them all together in Hrolf Kraki's Saga (he calls it a 'reconstruction'), spinning a wonderful, epic tale in the process. It's a tale that's not for the faint of heart, as Anderson admits in his own foreward:

Here is no Lord of the Rings, work of a civilized, Christian author--though probably it was one of Tolkien's many wellsprings. Hrolf Kraki lived in the midnight of the Dark Ages. Slaughter, slavery, robbery, rape, torture, heathen rites bloody or obscene, were parts of daily life ... Love, loyalty, honesty beyond the most niggling technicalities, were only for one's kindred, chieftain, and closest friends. The rest of mankind were foemen or prey. And often anger or treachery broke what bonds there had been.

Yet Hrolf Kraki transcends this time by carving out a shining kingdom reminiscent of Camelot, "a moment of sunshine during a storm which raged for centuries," according to Anderson, driving back the darkness and bringing a rough order to a savage, dark world. The basic story is as follows:

Kraki is the son of King Helgi and Yrsa. His father is slain by the treachery of King Adhils of the Swedes, whose lust for Yrsa leads to foul murder and Yrsa's capture. Kraki inherits the throne and gathers great heroes to his side, including Svipdag, the one-eyed slayer of berserkers, and Bjarki, the son of a shape-changer, who retains some of his father Bjorn's bear-like size and strength (hmm... name sounds familiar).

Together, the group reunite the Danish kingdom a-la the Knights of the Round Table, avenge themselves on Adhils, and begin a seven-year reign of peace and prosperity of such greatness that its legend survives the ages.

Of course, this is Icelandic Saga and no gold can stay. Ultimately all is undone by Skuld, Hrolf Kraki's jealous sister, who convinces her husband Hjorvardh to rise up against Hrolf Kraki. He brings with him an army of cutthroats and mercenaries, strengthened by trolls and demons summoned by Skuld, a practitioner of the black arts, and starts a final battle against Hrolf Kraki and his men Ragnarok-esque in proportion.

If this doesn't sound awesome, your blood must run cold.

I won't spoil any more, but will end by offering a simple encouragement to find a copy of Hrolf Kraki's Saga and read it. You can blow through it in two nights and it will leave you thirsting for more of the Northern myths. As for me, The Sagas of Icelanders is calling...

"The Unnatural City" finds a place in The Cimmerian

The latest issue of The Cimmerian (Vol. 5, No. 2, you can find a complete listing of the contents on The Cimmerian Web site ), contains an article I wrote, "The Unnatural City." It's my attempt at analyzing a Robert E. Howard short story, "Red Nails," easily one of my top five favorite Howard stories of all time.

For those unfamiliar with the story, here's a brief outline: Conan and Valeria of the Red Brotherhood enter the ancient, forgotten city of Xuchotl (actually--and in true Howardian form--they are more or less chased inside by a dragon). While at first the city appears deserted, soon they discover that the final stages of a centuries-old blood feud is playing out to its grim end. Adventure ensues as Conan and Valeria are thrust into the middle of the two warring tribes, and into this incendiary mix Howard tosses a crawling monster from the crypts, a mad sorcerer, and dark magic. The story culminates with a murderous orgy of violence in the labyrinthine halls of the city. Pretty cool stuff.

I chose the word "labyrinthine" because that's the feeling I received while reading Howard's descriptions of Xuchotl. As his readers know, Howard despised civilized man, whom he felt became soft and degraded due to living a life bereft of battle and survival and honest labor. Howard's antipathy was also directed toward that symbol of civilized man, the modern city, our own concrete jungles. Howard's fullest depiction of the city occurs in "Red Nails" and led to the inspiration for my essay. For the record, I'm no fan of city life, either, and seem to get lost every time I drive into Boston.

Thanks to editor Leo Grin for his patient work hammering my essay into publishable form and providing some helpful references to Howard's letters. I hope subscribers of The Cimmerian find it interesting, and perhaps take from it some food for thought the next time they wander the halls of Xuchotl in their mind's eye.

Edit: If you haven't been to The Cimmerian in a while, check out this great post on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion by blogger Steve Tompkins. Interesting, well-written, and well-researched posts like these are why I always find time to swing by that worthy website.

McKellen, Serkis sign on to reprise roles in The Hobbit

Hooray! In case you haven't seen the official announcement, this from Eonline today (read the full story here):

Sir Ian McKellen is going there and back again.

The acclaimed British thespian, who, as the wizard Gandalf the Grey, helped shepherd Frodo Baggins through a perilous journey in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, has announced he will reprise his Academy Award-nominated role for the hugely anticipated Hobbit prequels.

"Yes, it's true," McKellen told Britain's Empire movie magazine. "It's not a part that you turn down. I love playing Gandalf."

The twin films will be based on J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, which of course he published before his epic Lord of the Rings cycle.

Later on the article cites the return of Andy Serkis (Gollum) as well. Good news all around, as McKellen arguably played the most convincing role in all of LOTR (although Sean Bean as Boromir was great, and I'm partial to Sean Astin as Sam as well).

Fight On! has plenty of old-school spirit

The very first article in Fight On!--"A fanzine for the old-school renaissance"--details a method for quickly and randomly generating colorful details for fleshing out dwarf PCs. It's a fun little article and a pretty good indication of the contents to come, and refreshingly, there's no mechanics or feats to be found.

Fight On! is a new quarterly print magazine published and edited by Ignatius Umlaut. You have to order it through lulu.com , an on-line self-publishing outfit. It checks in at a slim 30 pages, but I can honestly say it feels like there's a lot of content between its covers. It costs $6.00 plus shipping and it took about a week to arrive in the mail after I ordered it--not bad for processing, printing, and shipping.

Although Fight On! caters to original three-book D&D (OD&D) players, its applicable to any of the older versions of the game. I would imagine that 3E players could also find lots of inspiration and ideas here as well. I myself never actually played OD&D, having cut my teeth on the excellent Tom Moldvay basic edition and later AD&D 1E, but I experienced an easy familiarity (and a strong bout of nostalgia) as soon I started reading.

Overall I found Fight On! to be a useful, fun publication. Although some articles falter a bit, throughout it remained very true to old-school campaigning in heart and spirit. The articles have imagination and depth to them, and it's easy to see why--they are taken from the contributors' own detailed campaign worlds, many of which are mentioned by name. The writing style of many of the articles has a Gygaxian ring, incorporating vivid descriptions and language and a Dungeon Master's air of authority and whimsy. For example, in "The Devil's in the Details," the author points out that players should add character to their PCs by using moderate bits of flavor, but no lengthy, complex backstories, lest the "weight of history collapse her into a scripted doom." I miss this style of writing in the 3E manuals, which are far too text-booky and staid for my tastes.

One notable change is that, presumably for copyright's sake, Fight On! does not use obvious D&Disms. Therefore, levels become "ranks," hit points "wounds," armor class "defense class," and so on. I found this slightly jarring at first read but barely noticed it thereafter.

The contents include:

• Dedication to Gary Gygax. A most appropriate way to kick off the publication.
• The Devil's in the Details. Adding detail to dwarven PCs. Includes tables (a staple of old-school RPGs) from which players can generate personality traits, unique equipment, and background details.
• The Swanmay. A new character class, the swan maiden. While this is a bit too high-fantasy for my tastes, I enjoyed the free-wheeling writing style of this article. Example: "I don't begrudge people who want to try an interesting character with a few extra abilities, but if balance is an issue for you or your players you might consider levying a 10% penalty to rank advancement." A perfect example of rules as suggestions, not a straightjacket.
• Flexible Sorcery. Probably my favorite article in Fight On!, this describes ways to make mages feel more magical, including spontaneous magic (granting mages the ability to summon small spells at will, more for flavor and creativity); counterspelling (a method for negating an opposing magic user's spell as your action); and magical duels (a fun, easy-to-use system for resolving mano-y-mano wizard duels). Includes another fun table that the loser has to roll on, with the results ranging from smoke pouring out of the losing wizard's ears to encasement in amber or outright annihilation. How cool is that? This piece was accompanied by a fun wizard-duel cartoon reminiscent of some of artwork in the 1E Dungeon Master's Guide.
• The Ruined Monastery. A fun little drop-and-play dungeon crawl that seems like a fun afternoon of gaming.
• The Tomb Complex of Ymmu M'Kursa. I didn't know what to make of this. It's a description of a tomb with tons of flavor and horror and weird touches, including deathtraps and sci-fi elements, but it's presented without any adventure hooks or level suggestions. This is old D&D at its most extreme--a simple location description at your disposal.
• Setting up your Sandbox. A great DMing advice article for novice/intermediate DM's about running a free-wheeling, player driven campaign. Ends with a great line that gets to the heart of old-school RPGing: "The stuff of pure gaming joy isn't always what you might encounter in a well-written novel." Amen.
• Puissant Priestly Powers. New spell-like abilities for clerics. Some cool ideas but some of these effects seem a bit unbalanced (yikes--the dreaded balance word).
• Enchanted Holy Symbols. Great little sidebar about magical holy symbols.
• Nature's Nasty Node. A mid-level adventure. I wasn't wowed by the adventure but there's some nice ideas to mine in here, including the Node itself, a corrupted dryad pool.
• The Space Wizards. A high-level campaign seed that was a bit too crazy for my tastes (space wizards, end of the world scenario, etc).
• Creepies & Crawlies. This article fell a bit flat for me, unfortunately. The monsters are nothing to write home about and I didn't find its tounge-in-cheek style all that funny. Oh well.
• In the Time of the Broken Kingdom. A very nice closing editorial by the editor that looks back with fondness on the old days, and discusses the future of old school gaming and its possibilities with optimism.
• Aftifacts, Adjuncts, and Oddments. A page of magic items. Wyrmdread--a sword forged in the elf-dragon wars--was particularly cool.

There were a few other small, nit-picky things I didn't like about Fight On! Most of the artwork was evocative, although some pieces didn't work for me. I also thought that layout could be improved (the headlines were too small, and a few articles break at odd places). But frankly, these criticisms are small. Fight On! was a blast to read and a refreshing infusion of creativity. Here's hoping that it continues to wave the standard of old-school gaming.

Uh-oh: del Toro hates heroic fantasy?

The bloom appears to be already off the rose of newly-signed The Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro--and the ink on his New Line Cinema contract isn't even dry. Del Toro, who has gained commercial fame and critical acceptance for films like Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth, and who seemed like a good fit for the project--although I haven't seen any of his films--apparently does not like nor has ever cared for J.R.R. Tolkien or classic fantasy, according to this Salon article. Here's the excerpt, taken from an interview between Salon and del Toro back in 2006:

I couldn't help thinking of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis in this film [Pan's Labyrinth]. Were you a fan of those books?

I was never into heroic fantasy. At all. I don't like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits -- I've never been into that at all. I don't like sword and sorcery, I hate all that stuff.

C.S. Lewis was another thing. I really enjoyed him as a kid, but he's too Catholic for me. It's not something as an adult I can feel comfortable relating to.

Needless to say this does not bode well for The Hobbit. My first reaction was, "That sucks, but maybe he'll just stick to a by-the-numbers adaptation of a nice script by LOTR screenwriters Philippa Boyens/Fran Walsh/Peter Jackson." But that hope quickly dissipated. A director has to be invested, body and soul, in a film for it to work. Especially a project like The Hobbit and its sequel, which according to published reports will take a hefty four years to complete from writing to filming. That's a lot of time to spend with a film whose source you don't much care for.

Perhaps del Toro will channel his dislike into his own vision of Middle Earth and create something unique and artistic with The Hobbit. But even if it succeeds artistically, it won't be Tolkien. And if it isn't Tolkien, or something reasonably close, I won't be happy. Say what you will about Peter Jackson's LOTR (and it has its share of detractors), but it hewed pretty closely to the books. Where it did deviate in plot or character, it remained true in spirit and intention. I can't see how someone who "[doesn't] like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, and hobbits" can direct The Hobbit with any passion, let alone faithfulness to the source material. Am I missing something here?

Born out of your time

I think about closing the door
And lately I think of it more
I'm living well out of my time
I feel like I'm losing my mind
I should be at the table round
A servant of the crown
The keeper of the sign
To sparkle and to shine

--"Falling off the Edge of the World," Black Sabbath

So here I am on a Friday night after another long, grueling week of work, feeling again like I may have born in the wrong time. Does anyone else believe that they may once have led a very different life: That of a viking raider on a longship, for instance, riding the wind-tossed waves to plunder and battle? Or a solitary knight in the service of King Arthur, wrapped in a wind-blown cloak and mounted on a grey horse, searching Britain for signs and portents of the Holy Grail?

Maybe I'm a little cracked, but there are times when I feel that, while I may currently reside in the body of a soft 21st century American office worker, my spirit is elsewhere--perhaps in a grim, grey-cloaked ranger patrolling the outskirts of The Shire, or a fortunate traveler listening to elven songs in the Hall of Fire, or a hard-bitten mercenary eyeing a tavern wench in the Maul of Shadizar.

In the sober light of day, if pressed, I would admit that this wistful line of thinking is silly, especially when it comes to conditions as they really were 1,000 years ago. Living in the middle ages (from everything I've read) was downright awful. Plague, sickness, and untimely death was commonplace. I certainly wouldn't have the luxury of sitting at a computer with a beer and typing out BS blog posts as I'm want to do. Hell, I'd probably be dead in a ditch with my head caved in by an axe blow.

But that doesn't mean I can't daydream about participating in the Ride of the Rohirrim. After a long, frustrating day in the office, slamming my spear and horse into a wall of orcs with abandon on the plains of the Pelennor sounds downright inviting:

And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

If you too feel trapped in a time and circumstance of dreary prosiness, well, I've got a barstool I'm saving for you at the Inn of the Welcome Wench. There's an old moathouse that I'd like to explore. Sharpen your longsword, grab a torch, and let's get started.

It's official: del Toro to direct The Hobbit

From Variety:

In a major step forward on “The Hobbit,” Guillermo del Toro has signed on to direct the New Line-MGM tentpole and its sequel.

The widely expected announcement -- which had been rumored for several weeks -- came Thursday afternoon jointly from exec producers Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, New Line president Toby Emmerich, and Mary Parent, newly named chief of MGM’s Worldwide Motion Picture Group.

Del Toro’s moving to New Zealand for the next four years to work with Jackson and his Wingnut and Weta production teams. He’ll direct the two films back to back, with the sequel dealing with the 60-year period between “The Hobbit” and “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the first of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

This is a bit puzzling to me as I still haven't heard news whether The Tolkien Estate's $150 million dollar lawsuit has been settled yet, but overall I'm very pleased to see The Hobbit back on track. Bring on the Battle of the Five Armies!

Quote of the day: Tolkien's vision of hope

"Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo's hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

Conan the Destroyer: Can I get some gravy for this turkey?

Last night I sat down and, without a gun to my head, watched Conan the Destroyer. This was an extraordinarily foolish decision. For all the negativity leveled at Conan the Barbarian--unfair criticism, in my opinion, for what I consider to be a terrific swords and sorcery film (albeit not Robert E. Howard's Conan)--there's not enough outrage directed at this obnoxious turkey. I saw Conan the Destroyer as a kid and remember it as being pretty cool at the time. But upon further and (somewhat) more mature review I found Conan the Destroyer so bad as to defy description. I rate it only slightly better than the D&D movie and in fact, in many ways it resembles a bad session of my favorite role-playing game.

I don't mind mindless action flicks as long as they're fun. Conan the Destroyer is not. To make matters worse, there isn't even any gratuitous sex and violence--Conan the Destroyer significantly drops the level of bloodshed I came to expect from CTB, and also eliminates any nudity in order to garner a coveted PG rating.

Remember the names of Richard Fleischer (director), Stanley Mann (screenplay), and sadly, comic book giant Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway (story). If you see their names associated with another movie, run screaming in the other direction.

Conan the Destroyer actually gets off to an okay start. The opening credits sequence keeps the great "Anvil of Crom" score from the CTB soundtrack. We see riders galloping across the Hyborian plains in slow-motion, cracking whips and wielding wicked maces and hammers, which is cool. Over this scene comes the familiar voice of Mako, who delivers his famous CTB intro speech. Strangely, Mako seems only half-interested, uttering the famous modified Howard lines "Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas," with a decided lack of enthusiasm. After seeing the mess to come, however, I can't blame him.

The first bad sign that we're in for an awful movie is they've given Conan a comic relief sidekick, a weasely thief named Malek. He's easily one of the most annoying characters ever put to film. Subotai the archer from CTB was pretty cool, a man who said little but had style. In Conan the Destroyer we get Malek, a whiny dude who spends half the movie swallowing gems and shying from danger while Conan fights. We also have Jenna, a whiny blonde princess; Zhula, an angry staff-wielding warrior-woman played by Grace Jones, who is definitely no Sandahl Bergman; and Bombatta, a warrior played by towering ex-NBA star Wilt Chamberlain, about as wooden as actor as they come.

As the movie starts Conan and Malek fight some guards who have pursued the pair from the city of Shadizar (the fact that Conan could let a bunch of mounted guards in clanking armor surprise and surround him in a canyon must have had Howard rolling over in his grave). The fighting takes on comic air as Conan has time to joke around with Malek and punch out a horse. Dumb, dumb. Unlike the epic fight at the end of CTB, which was genuinely desperate and dangerous and required Conan to set traps and use guile to win, this fight--like all the others in the film--is silly and utterly bereft of suspense. Never has death by broadsword seemed so banal. Conan kills 20 men with ease, as they conveniently come at him one at a time.

But the fight turns to out to be a set up by a female wizard named Taramis (presumably she sends in her guards to their deaths to see if Conan is up to the challenge. He is). She strikes a deal with the Cimmerian: In exchange for his help, she promises to bring Valeria back from the dead. Conan must retrieve a key called the heart of Arimel, which, as told in the scrolls of Skelos, will allow access to the jeweled horn of the god Dagoth. The key is located in a castle guarded by the wizard Thoth-Amon. Taramis sends along Bombatta to protect Jenna, but tells the hulking warrior to kill Conan as soon as the quest is completed. That double-crossing bitch!

If this sounds like a bad D&D adventure, you'd be right. We have our party of random character classes (fighters, thieves, a wizard), misfits thrown together as if players picked them out of a hat. We also have our linear quest to recover an ancient artifact (why Taramis doesn't just send her army of warriors off to get it is unknown, but then again you don't start poking at the plot of movies like Conan the Destroyer unless you want to see it burst like a balloon).

So Conan rides to Shadizar where everyone knows him and shouts his name. Merchants cover up their jewels as he approaches. Is he a thief, or a celebrity? A Cimmerian Robin Hood is never how I imagined Conan. Later we find out that, in fact, everyone knows him.

Next, our band rescues the wizard Akiro (Mako) from cannibals, which are little more than grunting neanderthals that look like they wandered off a Flintstones set. Says Conan: "I need you." Akiro--"I'm yours." This laughable exchange is another D&Dism--people who drop everything without reservation to join a quest in which they have no stake (From The Gamers: "You seem trustworthy. Would you care to join us in our noble quest?")

Our band next adds Zhula, played by Grace Jones, whose range as an actress runs from glowering anger to screaming rage. Tied to a post by the leg, Zhula is being attacked by an angry mob whose village she and some other raiders sacked. One man is actually saying (direct quote): "Hit her, get her/The others are dead/now it's her turn! /After we have our fun with her/Don't kill her too soon." Not that it needs repeating but this is beyond dumb. Conan rides in, cuts her free from the stake, and she proceeds to kick ass, smashing guys' balls and faces with a quarterstaff. 30 armed men are no match. She happens to know Conan too, and after fighting Bombatta in a half-assed wrestling match, swears to "give her life for him."

Next the party travels to the castle of Thoth-Amon, a great wizard who resembles a one-eyed wino fished off the streets of Washington, D.C., and about as menacing. He also knows Conan. We have some God-awful special effects as Thoth-Amon transforms into a smoke-bird and captures Jenna.

Thoth-Amon's castle is an awful set-piece that looks like it was built from cheaply painted styrofoam. As Conan and crew row across the lake surrounding his castle (a cheap blue screen effect), he watches and says: "Too late my friends, but come, come anyway." (Come anyway? Who wrote this dialogue?) Inside Jenna lies captive on a bed that but looks like a Sealy posturepedic.

Conan then has to battle a red-cloaked creature in a hall of mirrors, a blatant ripoff of Bruce Lee's final duel in Enter the Dragon (it's noteworthy that this scene draws inspiration from a real Howard story, Rogues in the House, which saw Conan fighting a red-cloaked ape named Thak. But that story is far, far superior). Here the creature is an actor in a stiff rubber mask that does not move, save for a tongue the man thrusts through its mouth-hole. Instead of biting or mauling Conan, the monster decides to wrestle him. The creature actually spins Conan around by his ankles before tossing him to the floor. We're talking bad 1970's/1980's pro wrestling here. More to the point of this absurdity: This was Thoth-Amon's plan? To lure the party in and wrestle them to death?

Conan's sword proves useless against the monster until he accidentally smashes a mirror. Wow, how clever--the only way to stop this beast is by smashing any of the 10,000 mirrors in a tightly-confined chamber. Conan charges around smashing mirrors, then hurls his sword through a mirror and into Thoth-Amon. Jenna takes the Heart of Arimel and--in another shocker--the castle begins to fall apart (can this tired Hollywood cliche please stop?) As the big styrofoam blocks fall you can actually see them bounce on the ground. After a narrow escape our heroes paddle away in front of another very obvious blue screen. "All an illusion," says Akiro. Huh, Akiro? That castle seemed pretty substantial to me (if only this movie was too).

The queen then sends her men to capture Jenna and kill Conan. This allows Schwartzenegger to literally flex his muscles in a fight like he's a bodybuilder posing in front of a mirror. In the melee Bombatta takes a swing at Conan: "Why?" says Conan. Bombatta replies, "I thought you were going to hurt the girl." To which Conan looks distrustful. Distrustful? The dude just tried to decapitate you with a spiked mace! Howard's Conan would have gutted Bombatta then and there, but what does the Fleischer/Mann Conan do? Gets stinking drunk with his would-be killer watching him. Sigh.

Next, Jenna tries to make a play for Conan, and (most unforgivably of all) attempts to become a tough women-warrior like Conan's old flame Valeria. We get a 10 minute sequence of Jenna talking to Zhula about how to seduce men. Not only is this an utter waste of film and a pointless time-filler, but why is it even necessary in a film aimed at a PG-audience? And why do I even care?

Next, the party enters an old tomb to retrieve the horn of Dagoth. We get 5 minutes of screen time of Conan and crew walking around in another blantly obvious time filler. Conan lights a torch (where's the 10-foot pole?) as Malek seemingly for the 100th time offers to "go back and stand guard." (Get the comedy? He's scared). Then we have Conan and Bombaata lifting a gate, with a lengthy shot of Arnold's back muscles ("bend bars-lift gates check. I can almost hear the d20 clattering). Then there's another fight as the keepers of the horn come out and fight. Even the leader, presumably living an isolated, monastic existence in a cave, has heard of Conan!

Finally, 3/4 through this awful film, Conan figures out that he has been duped and the Queen's promise is a lie. How did this clod ever become "king of the thieves?"

Now it's back to Shadizar. Jenna is being prepared for sacrifice as recycled music from CTB stolen from the orgy scene plays. Sadly, there's no orgy to be found in Destroyer. Conan and his gang foil the ceremony when Zhula throwns her quarterstaff from about a mile away, clear through the priest, which natually puts a damper on things. Dagoth changes from a handsome god into a creature--more specifically, an angry bipedal walrus (it's vaguely Cthulhu-esque). Dagoth kills the queen but Conan tears out the creature's horn and it dies in a pool of green liquid.

The end of the film is a blatant Star Wars ripoff--in a medal ceremony ripped from A New Hope, Jenna makes Zhula her captain of the guards, Malek her fool (which he accepts without hesitaton), Akiro her advisor. All first look to Conan, who gravely nods his acceptance (this is so BAD). Jenna asks Conan to rule Shadizar by her side, but he declines: "I will have my own kingdom, my own queen." They kiss, there's a crash of solemn music, and Conan turns and stalks away in silence as tears run down Jenna's face. This is tawdry paperback romance novel-bad.

Of note is that the film ends with a shot of an aging Conan on his own throne: "At last he found his own kingdom, and wore his crown upon a troubled brow." If someday the long-rumored King Conan gets made, I hope this piece of trash is mercifully written out of the storyline as if it never occurred. Unfortunately, this still won't be enough to wipe my memory clean of the mess that is Conan the Destroyer.

Tolkien and the Great War: A review

One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth in 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends was dead.

--J.R.R. Tolkien, foreward to The Lord of the Rings

In the years since the publication of The Lord of the Rings, numerous critical studies have followed in an attempt to decipher its meanings and origins. The most famous of these are Tom Shippey's acclaimed (and highly recommended) pair of works, The Road to Middle-earth and J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century.

But never have Tolkien's wartime years been so thoroughly excavated and illuminated as author John Garth did in his 2003 study Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth. Using letters written between Tolkien and his friends roughly from 1910-1917, as well as battlefield records and unit histories, Garth lays out a solid case that Tolkien's grim experiences during World War I played an enormous role in shaping his mythology of Middle-earth, delivering heft and emotional impact to the tale of the War of the Ring.

Although I knew going into Garth's book that Tolkien lost two of his best friends during the war--Rob Gilson and G.B. Smith, who along with Christopher Wiseman and Tolkien formed a quartet of bright Oxford undergraduates that dubbed themselves the Tea Club and Barrovian Society (TCBS), until Tolkien and the Great War I never understood how close this group was, or felt the profound sense of loss that Tolkien experienced when these two bright young lives were snuffed out in the senseless carnage of the Somme.

Central to LOTR is the departure of the elves for the Grey Havens and the sense that magic is leaving along with them, to be replaced by the prosaic age of men. In Tolkien and the Great War Garth says that this tenet parallels Tolkien's own experiences in 1915, when the Oxford campus was emptied of its undergraduates due to the call of war. Melancholy pervades LOTR, the sense that something has been lost: a simpler, more idyllic time. In Tolkien's own case there is nostaglia for his lost childhood (his parents were both dead by the time Tolkien was 12), and later, for his glorious days spent with the TCBS.

According to Garth the TCBS was more than a tight-knit group of friends with common interests of literature and spirited discussion. Rather, they shared an earnest belief that they could change the world for the better. After entering the service they continued to write to each other, believing that their wartime experiences would make them stronger and propel them to something greater. Wrote Wiseman, "Fortunately we are not entirely masters of our fate, so that what we do now will make us the better for uniting in the great work that is to come, whatever it may be."

But the reality of war greatly dimmed that optimism, leaving the TCBS wondering whether they would ever have that chance. Smith foresaw his end in the fields of France, as described in a poignant letter to Tolkien:

My God bless you, my dear John Ronald, and may you say the things I have tried to say long after I am not there to say them, if such be my lot.

It is heartbreaking to think what came next: Gilson died in one of the many suicidal advances across the mud-choked Somme battlefield, straight into German machine-gun fire; Smith suffered shrapnel wounds from an exploding artillery shell and later died of gangrene infection. That left only Wiseman and Tolkien to carry on the TCBS' promised great work. Tolkien developed trench fever and had to be evacuated back to England, which in all likelihood saved his life (his unit was later decimated in combat), but he and Wiseman held up their end of the bargain: Wiseman would go on to become a school headmaster, while Tolkien of course would go on to become an Oxford professor and write the greatest fantasy the world has ever known. Writes Garth: "The Lord of the Rings ... stands as the fruition of the TCBSian dream, a light drawn from ancient sources to illuminate a darkening world."

Unlike many of the famous WWI combat veterans whose experience resulted in poems and stories of disillusionment and disenchantment (Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth," Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms), Tolkien refused to believe that the sacrifice of brave young men was a waste. Says Garth: "In contrast, Tolkien's protagonists are heroes not because of their successes, which are often limited, but because of their courage and tenacity in trying. By implication, worth cannot be measured by results alone, but is intrinsic." This is Frodo's lot in a nutshell: Thrust into a larger war beyond his control, his selfless heroism in carrying the ring to Mount Doom--a tiny, insignificant role in the great sweep of combat at Minas Tirith and elsewhere--mirrors the great acts of unrecorded bravery on the battlefields of World War I. Even though Frodo "fails" in his quest (he gives in to the Ring's power, and "succeeds" only when Gollum tries to wrest it from his finger), his courage and tenacity in carrying the Ring to the lip of Mount Doom makes possible final victory.

Tolkien is no fool who believes that war is glorious--rather, LOTR "examines how the individual's experience of war relates to those grand old abstractions; for example, it puts glory, honour, majesty, as well as courage, under such stress that they often fracture, but are not utterly destroyed," Garth writes.

In summation, if you are a fan of Tolkiens' works and wish to achieve a greater appreciation of both the author and the real-world events that helped shape the making of Middle-earth, Garth's book is highly recommended.

Earl Ragnar says: Check out an audio book and listen, or I'll gut you and feed your innards to the dogs!

My passion for audio books is overflowing right now. Today on my usual semi-torturous hour-long commute to work (each way) I finished Bernard Cornwell's The Lords of the North. My God, if that wasn't the most enjoyable commute I've had in years, I don't know what was.

The Lords of the North and the rest of The Saxon Stories are amazingly entertaining tales on their own. But couple them with an amazing voice-over performance by UK actor Tom Sellwood, and, well, you've got yourself a hell of a fun car ride. I happened to glance around on Interstate 95 this morning (tearing myself away from the bloody tale of Danes and Saxons battling for control of 9th century England) to glance at the faces of the commuters around me. Some were pinched and angry, but most simply looked distracted or bored. Given what they were likely listening to--the wasteland that is AM/FM radio--I can't say I blame them.

To hell with radio. Give me a good audio book any day. While the sap in his gas-guzzling SUV next to me had NPR droning away on the dial, I was listening in on the conversation of Uhtred Ragnarson, true Lord of Bebbanburg, and Danish warlord Ragnar Ragnarsson, as they shouted the joys of "Women and War!" while riding on horseback through Northern England circa 881. While the 20-something chick to my front in her Honda was rotting her brain listening to the vapid Destiny's Child, I was "seeing" the clash of shield walls, bloodied axes and swords, and screaming men. In my mind's eye I was watching viking longships under sail in the open sea, the bright light of morning gleaming off shield bosses and helmets, and smelling and hearing great feasting halls flowing with ale and bursting with loud song and the poems of skalds.

And best of all this experience is "free" of charge. Audio books are expensive and the only ones I actually own are The Lord of the Rings (unabridged), as read by Rob Inglis. But you don't have to spend money: I get my audio books from my public library, which is part of a 10-town consortium from which I'm free to interlibrary loan a large number of audio titles. It's a great use of my tax dollars and I've certainly derived a lot of pleasure these last few years on my drive to work. I only wish I had discovered them sooner.

D&D: Suffering a slow death?

Having spent eight years in the newspaper industry working for a small, family-owned broadsheet (which are as commonplace nowadays as milkmen and encyclopedia salesmen, and about as wise a career choice), I know what it's like to see a business suffering from a slow death. Not a death that can be measured in months or even years, perhaps, but in decades, their life blood drained away by a series of innumerable nicks and cuts. The same fate I fear is in store for D&D.

Not that I expect newspapers or my favorite pastime to ever completely die, but rather, I fear they may cease to exist as profitable business lines. They will likely live on as pale shapes--wraiths, to draw a comparsion with the Lord of the Rings, another favorite subject of mine--neither alive nor dead, but living some undead existence, a dim shadow of their past greatness.

Newspaper circulations are indeed decreasing year-by-year as people turn towards the internet and other media outlets for news and information. But what about D&D? Aren't there claims from Wizards of the Coast that the hobby is as robust as ever? Some figures I've seen thrown around are $30 million a year in RPGs sold and roughly six million D&D players playing worldwide last year.

Frankly, I find the evidence that D&D and other RPGs are going strong less than compelling. And although my experiences are of course anecdotal, all indications--at least from my perspective--show an unhealthy trend for its long-term future.

When I was a pre-teen and teenager, the two local malls (Woburn and Burlington) each had a thriving hobby store that made their business selling RPGs and miniatures, along with the usual model trains, cars, etc. Both are now gone. My hometown had a bookstore that also sold RPGs and miniatures. It too is gone. I was shocked to find out that my current neighboring town of Amesbury actually supported two game/comic shops when I moved here four years ago. But in the past year one has gone out of business.

RPGs were everywhere in their heyday (late 1970's to mid-1980s). You could find ads on television, in the back of comic books, and in magazines. D&D had even had its own Saturday morning cartoon. When I was in seventh grade (circa 1985) my middle school had a Friday afternoon, seventh-period Dungeons and Dragons elective (yes, it rocked). And the game itself--I started with the classic Tom Moldvay-edited box set, with its 64-page ruleset and copy of B2 Keep on the Borderlands--was available in all the major outlet stores.

Now, you have to squint to find evidence that D&D is still played. The big bookstore chains (Barnes and Noble, Borders), at least in my area, might have a single, poorly stocked shelf of D&D in the hobbies section or science fiction section. Other games like Call of Cthulhu or Rifts are nowhere to be found. TSR and WOTC have tried to put basic versions of the game in the larger outlet stores, but largely without success. And when was the last time you saw an ad for D&D in any major news outlet?

D&D let slip what could have been a great opportunity for good exposure in 2000 with the release of the film Dungeons and Dragons. Unfortunately, what we got was one of the worst movies I've seen in 10 years. What should have been a nice marketing vehicle turned into two painful hours of my life flushed down the drain that I still want back.

But aside from a bomb of a movie, why are RPGs declining? Like a lot of others familiar with D&D, I blame computer games. World of Warcraft, Everquest, and their ilk--i.e., graphics-heavy, story-based, immersive, computer RPGs--offer experiences that satisfy the cravings of many potential (and former) pen-and-paper gamers. Why bother with the hassle of having to get together a group of 4-6 people with busy schedules, and doing all that pre-game prep work and post-game paperwork, when you can turn on your computer from the comfort of your own home and play whenever you feel like it? The siren song of computer games existed when I was younger with titles like Wizards Crown and Ultima, but the new breed are light-years more advanced, and much more effective at drawing potential players away.

For more great recent discussion on this topic, check out Whither D&D? at Trollsmyth and D&D in the News at Grognardia (great name for an RPG blog, by the way).

Wizards of the Coast is trying to fight back with an online version of D&D, which will reportedly allow players like me--30-something, with demanding jobs and busy family lives--to break down traditional barriers to play by providing a virtual tabletop. This Associated Press article sums up the issue a lot better than I can. It's a model that could work, but it's also fraught with danger. D&D simply cannot do some things as well as a computer, and trying to fit a round peg into a square hole could result in WOTC squandering millions, perhaps leading parent company Hasbro to drop the line.

A unique strength of D&D and tabletop RPGs in general has always been the face-to-face social component. In addition to fun and adventure in imaginary worlds, RPGs allow creative, like-minded folks to gather around a table and enjoy each other's company. While I know WOTC is touting that this face-to-face experience will remain a viable part of fourth edition, part of me has doubts. Remember that WOTC also maintained that 3E can be played without miniatures, but then rewrote the rules to all but cripple a game that doesn't have a tabletop grid and some type of figures.

So should D&D ignore the online space and continue to churn out hardbacks until the line eventually goes the way of the newspaper? That would be the safe route, but also the path of a long, slow, dance with death. I credit WOTC for trying a new approach, but I also fear that traditional RPGs, like newspapers, are by their nature destined to become relics of a forgotten age, played and debated about only by a small, dwindling fan base like me.

Zemeckis' modern adaptation of Beowulf misses the mark

I had high hopes for director Robert Zemeckis' 2007 adaption of Beowulf, the recent film based on the ancient epic poem. Although I'm not intimately familiar with Beowulf (the poem), I have read it years ago, and recently I listened to Seamus Heaney's brilliant audio rendition while driving to work. At worst, I figured a film that hewed close to the poem would provide some solid action and an epic tale to take me out of the usual dull routine for a couple hours.

While I certainly wasn't bored watching Beowulf--and how could I be, with its gory battle sequences and stunning computer generated imagery--in the end it was a bit of a disappointment. Co-writers Neil Gaiman (whose novel American Gods I greatly enjoyed) and Roger Avary put together a script at once too clever and too modern for its own good, greatly denuding the old poem of its epic feel and mythic elements. They made a number of changes to the original text in an attempt to modernize the character of Beowulf and create a new interpretation of the poem--an interpretation that doesn't come from the actual text, hence the need for wholesale changes. Directors have every right to make creative changes when they adapt the written word, and skillful adaptations are welcome, but for the most part the creative license taken by Zemeckis and crew with Beowulf mucked things up.

Despite my problems with it I did find a lot to like in the film, first and foremost the visual effects. Beowulf was shot using a technique called motion capture. I don't know much about it, other than its supposedly accomplished by computer animators digitially recreating the work of real actors, which gives the computer images a very realistic appearance. This works to some degree, capturing motion and sweeping action well, but facial expressions still seem plastic and artificial. Beowulf was an improvement over The Polar Express, which used the same technique, but motion capture still needs work. But I did enjoy the wonderful computer-generated landscape of ancient Denmark, Hrothgar's mead hall, and the entertaining battle sequences.

Beowulf starts strong. Hrothgar's hall is a raucous place of drinking and eating and lovemaking, loud with song and merriment and testosterone. It was fun, and the build up to Grendel's attack on the hall was well-done. Grendel was a striking monster and his vicious assault was suitably gory, with men ripped in half, heads bitten off, etc. I also liked the build-up to the character of Beowulf, who arrives from over the sea with a crew of warriors to kill Grendel and free Hrothgar's hall from its curse. "Played" by Ray Winstone, Beowulf is larger than life, a hero from folklore capable of superhuman feats of arms, and is singleminded of purpose--he is here to crush the enemy and win fame. All this is done with a bit of a tongue-in-cheek approach that works.

But after the epic fight between Beowulf and Grendel in Hrothgar's hall, in which Beowulf tears off the monster's arm and sends it crawling back to its mother with a mortal wound, the movie begins to veer off from the poem. Essentially, it introduces frailty into Beowulf's character. Our hero falls for Grendel's mother (herself a demon, but capable of taking on a beautiful female shape as played by Angelina Jolie). After sleeping with her, Beowulf returns to Hrothgar's hall and perpetuates a great lie that he slew the mother. She later gives birth to a second demon son. And thus, the ancient curse continues.

I found this twist to be unnecessary, and part of the first of what I thought were three failings of the film:

1. In an attempt to "humanize" Beowulf by giving him flaws and failings, I became less interested in the character and the film. Epic and fresh until that point, Beowulf suddenly became very familiar. Why do directors feel like every hero has to be flawed, and must undergo an internal struggle to overcome those flaws ? Why can't a hero just be a hero? Like all Hollywood blockbusters, Beowulf slipped into the well-worn path of a tale about the redemption of its central character. Beowulf is redeemed, but his return to glory feels like a cliche instead of a triumph. In fact, Gaiman and Avary more or less lifted a line straight from Excalibur, one of my favorite films: Beowulf apologizes to his wife, the queen, for his old indescetion with Beowulf's mother, uttering something to the effect of "When I can be just a man," etc. I can't remember the exact words, but it was very much a swiped scene from Excalibur when Arthur delivers near-identical lines to Guinevere in the nunnery (minus the feeling, unfortunately--the same scene in Excalibur is much more emotionally powerful, as it contrasts sharply with Arthur's kingly image of laws first, love second, built up over the duration of the film. There's none of that in Beowulf).

In short, the ancient sagas accomplished what they did with action, not introspection. Beowulf was not meant to be a modern story.

2. A whole bunch of silly and unnecessary phallic and vaginal imagery. I'm not one of these readers who inteprets every cigar as a penis symbol, but Beowulf was an onslaught of beat-you-over-the-head phallus-ness. For example, we have Beowulf, stark naked, holding a long sword perfectly positioned over his manhood. Or Beowulf entering Grendel's mother's cave, which is conscipuously slit-like with curly "shrubs" on both sides. I'm not sure where the writers were going with all this, other than perhaps an attempt to poke fun at the ultra-male warrior archetype whose potency is tied to the size of his sword. Overall it was an unnecessary bit of "wink-winking" to the audience.

3. The film ascribed all the reasons for the curse to a simplistic "sins of the father" explanation: Essentially, that men can't resist hot women. In this version of Beowulf, Hrothgar and later Beowulf both brought the curse of Grendel/Grendel's mother upon themselves because they couldn't keep it in their pants. Hrothgar's coupling with Grendel's mother birthed Grendel, and Beowulf's coupling with the mother results in another unholy son, the dragon. The great "evil" in the story is a beautiful, lustful she-demon who preys on men's weakness. We're left with a cliffhanger at the end of the film as Beowulf's friend and second in command Wiglaf confronts Grendel's mother rising up out of the sea. We don't know whether Wiglaf also succumbs to her beauty, but since the poem and the film end here we can assume that he may have staved off his lustful urges and ended the curse.

In contrast, Beowulf the poem is about the inevitability of fate, and Beowulf's faltering as a warrior through age, which are much stronger themes than sexual attraction.

Ultimately, Beowulf suffers from these elements, and because it didn't know what it wanted to be. You can't have an epic saga that also wants to be an anti-heroic, emasculation of the male warrior myth, all wrapped up in one film. I would have been much more happy with a straight adaptation of the poem itself, shorn of all the modern detritus that Zemeckis, Gaiman, and co. thought necessary in order to bring it to a modern audience.

Quote of the day--Lord Dunsany

"And you that sought for magic in your youth but desire it not in your age, know that there is a blindness of spirit which comes from age, more black than the blindness of eye, making a darkness about you across which nothing may be seen, or felt, or known, or in any way apprehended."

--Lord Dunsany, The King of Elfland's Daughter

Bernard Cornwell: A Man's writer

The cover blurbs on Bernard Cornwell’s books read “Perhaps the greatest writer of historical adventure novels today,” and frankly, you’ll get no arguments from me. I've come to love Cornwell, who is in every sense a Man's writer. There's no romance in these books and no literary pretension, so if you're looking for those elements, try something else. On the other hand, if you like bloody battles, cowardice and heroism, grim suffering and cruel murder, oath-making and breaking, hard drinking and mirth, and, most importantly, darned good storytelling, Cornwell's your man. His greatest strength is probably his ability to spin a compelling, fun tale, and he does it with a keen eye for historic accuracy.

Here are a couple of my favorite Cornwell works, both trilogies:

The Grail Quest trilogy is an ode to the might of the English longbow. Set during the Hundred Year’s War between France and England, the story follows Thomas of Hookton, an archer, through some of the great battles of the age, including Crecy, the sack of Caen, and the fall of Calais. The bows wielded by Thomas and the English archers are six feet in length with a draw weight of over a hundred pounds, more than double the weight of modern competition bows. And they’re terrifying, able to punch clean through mail, and sometimes plate, if fired close at a flat trajectory. Medieval warfare was changed forever by these big bows of yew, which rendered archaic the old knight on horseback. Captured English bowmen invariably had their draw fingers cut off by the French, who hated – and feared – the archers intensely.

Couple the great, historic battle sequences with the story of Thomas on his quest to find the Grail and restore honor to his family, and you’ve got yourself a terrifically entertaining, satisfying read.

The Warlord Chronicles (The Winter King, Enemy of God, Excalibur) are a three-part retelling of the Arthurian cycle. Unlike Malory’s Morte D’Arthur, with its dashing but anachronistic 14th-century knights in plate, Cornwell sets his tale in 5th century Britain, the age often ascribed to the “historic” Arthur.

Like the Grail Quest trilogy, the Warlord Chronicles is brutally realistic, and presents an unflinching, unromantic look at what really happens when spear and sword meet flesh. The filth and unsanitary conditions of the era are faithfully depicted, as are the clash of barbaric paganism and Christianity. Note that Cornwell is not sympathetic towards Christianity; while the pagans are depicted as coarse and willing to commit atrocities (human sacrifice, etc.) to honor their gods, Christians are portrayed as murderously intolerant and often pig-headedly stubborn.

Cornwell also tweaks (shatters might be a better term) some of the standard archetypes of the Arthur myth. Launcelot, for example, is a cowardly fraud. Merlin is a druid who draws his power from pagan gods. Cornwell also chooses to tell the tale through the eyes of Derfel, a character wholly of the author's creation who is nowhere to be found in Malory or T.H. White.

There’s not a single, overt show of magic in the series, and Cornwell’s deft hand as a writer makes its existence ambiguous--it could be real, or it could be mere belief. So strong was the power of faith in those times, that, when projected with someone of the charismatic force of Merlin, strong warriors could be rendered helpless, believing they were stricken blind or ill by a curse. But the undeniable magic is the courage of Arthur. You can’t help but marvel as he strives to bring order and some measure of peace to a savage, dark period of mankind’s history.

Overall The Warlord Chronicles are probably a best-bet for someone getting into Cornwell for the first time, particularly if you're a fantasy fan like me. I haven't read any of his Sharpe series, a long-running line of novels set during the Napoleonic wars for which Cornwell is probably the most famous, although they're supposedly fine books as well.

Currently I'm in the midst of The Saxon Stories, which recount the events of the rule of Alfred the Great and his struggle to free Britain from the grip of the raiding Danes, as told through the eyes of Uhtred, a young warrior born a Saxon but captured and raised by the Vikings. Uhtred is a fun character, as he's torn between hereditary love for his ancestral homeland and a passion for the Danes. Although they're murderous raiders, the Danes drink deep of life, scorn Christian "virtues" of humility and pity, and worship the pagan gods of Thor and Odin. These qualities appeal strongly to Uhtred, who grew to love the Danes during his capture and upbringing under Earl Ragnar. The battles in The Saxon Stories are damned bloody and very well-done, with men hacking and stabbing each other with swords, spears, and axes in great shield-walls.

Again, this series is highly recommended. Be a Man and read some Cornwell.

Some scenes I'm looking forward to in The Hobbit

The recent news that Ian McKellen definitely wants to reprise his role as Gandalf in The Hobbit got me all excited again about the possibilities for this film. And of course, a bit apprehensive as well.

While I'll admit that The Lord of the Rings is superior as a work of art (and I'll argue until I'm blue in the face that it's one of the finest novels ever written in the English language), The Hobbit holds a special place in my heart. My first exposure to it remains fresh in my mind: My fifth grade teacher had us listen to a reading of the book in class over a couple days, an experience for which I still owe him thanks. Afterwards we cut our favorite characters out of sheets of construction paper and created a huge mural on the wall of the classroom. There was probably 8-10 Bilbos and a dozen dwarves; I was the only one who made Beorn (and I gave him a giant double-bitted axe, as I recall). Anyways, that experience helped foster my love for the book and I probably have read it at least a half-dozen times since then.

The coming movie adaptation anticipated for 2009 intrigues me on a number of levels. For instance, I wonder what tone rumored director Guillermo Del Toro will take with it. Most likely it will be a serious epic and a clone in "feel" of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, due to the highly successful formula established by those films. And that isn't such a bad thing. I've read a number of critics at various web sites who are dreading this very thing and are hoping for a light-hearted children's film, but evidentally they aren't too well read. Although The Hobbit is certainly geared more towards children, especially at its outset, over the course of the tale it gradually changes tone, and by the Battle of Five Armies it morphs into a rather adult, grim story. If this wasn't enough, J.R.R. Tolkien himself expressed everlasting regret that he tried to write The Hobbit for a juvenile audience, and later chided himself for not having the foresight or the determination to buck the trend of fantasy at that time (which critics and publishers alike believed was a genre strictly for children). By the time he started work on The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien had already decided to write it as a full-blown adult fantasy.

Still, part of me wouldn't mind a slightly lighter version of The Hobbit, and I certainly wouldn't be averse to a few songs making their way into the script. For what it's worth, I'll be sorely disappointed if this doesn't make it into the finished product:

Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns cold

We must away ere break of day

To seek the pale enchanted gold

Following is a chapter-by-chapter rundown of my favorite scenes from the book and what I expect (and hope) to see make it to the big screen.

An unexpected party. I hope they film the whole bloody thing. I want to see Gandalf carving his mark on Bilbo's green door (Burglar wants a good job, plenty of Excitement and reasonable Reward), the dwarves drinking ale and eating cakes and singing, and Gandalf unrolling Thror's curled, yellowing map of the Lonely Mountain. I can picture Thorin telling a captivated Bilbo the tale of the coming of Smaug and the decimation of the dwarves, perhaps done as a voice-over with images of the attack, dwarves roasting in the dragon fire in the dark halls of the mountain. And at the end poor Bilbo hurrying out the door without his hat, walking-stick, or any money. Speaking of which, the casting of Bilbo will be critical, and as much as I loved Ian Holm in LOTR, he's certainly too old for the role.

A Short Rest. A return to Rivendell and the last homely house would be welcome sights, as I thought the Rivendell set-piece from LOTR was well-done. It would be great to see Elrond examining Orcrist and Glamdring, and watching the dwarves' faces light up in surprise as the moon-letters appear on Thror's map.

Over Hill and Under Hill. I'm envisoning a great scene of the dwarves slogging through the Misty Mountains in a driving thunderstorm, stooped over in the swirling winds, and a scene of stone giants hurling rocks into vast, bottomless chasms. The entire sequence with the goblins--the crack opening in the cave; goblins emerging and grabbing the sleeping dwarves; Gandalf to the rescue, rushing in with magic and sword to slay the great goblin; and the pursuit through the tunnels--should be great on film, and is cinematic enough to probably make it more or less intact.

Riddles in the Dark. Need I say more? This should be the centerpiece of the film. I fear it may lose some impact because the audience has been saturated with Gollum from the LOTR films, and I also wonder whether the riddle-game will translate well on the big screen. Some of the riddles are lengthy and could bog things down, so some cutting/revision will probably be necessary.

Queer Lodgings. I hope Jackson and crew don't cut Beorn from The Hobbit, but I can see him going the way of Tom Bombadil. While it seems like an easy cut--the diverson to Beorn's home isn't necessary to advance the plot, and it introduces another narrative-slowing character--cutting Beorn would rob him of his grand entrance into the Battle of the Five Armies, whereby he smashes the bodyguard of Blog in bear-form. For this alone, I hope he makes it in (or at least in the Director's Cut).

Flies and Spiders. Given Jackson's love of monstrous spiders and other nasties (witness Shelob, and the insect cave in King Kong), I fully expect to see a CGI feast in Mirkwood. My guess is they'll make the spiders more insect-like and remove their speaking voices to increase their menace, which would sadly rob Bilbo of his comical taunting ("Attercop, Lazy Lob," etc.). Regardless, it will be great to "see" an invisible Bilbo driving off the spiders with Sting.

Barrels out of bond. The barrel-riding scene is naturally cinematic and should add some nice comic relief.

A Warm Welcome. Seeing Thorin come into his own as the King Under the Mountain, revered by the awed populace of Laketown, would be cool to see on film. Cue epic music.

On the Doorstep. More opportunity for a CGI-fest as the dwarves pass the wreckage of old Dale and the Desolation of the Dragon on their way to the Lonely Mountain.

Inside Information. A chance for some horror as Bilbo makes his way down the dark tunnel into Smaug's cave. I can't wait to see what the CGI gurus do with Smaug during his converation with Bilbo, and I hope it's as terrifying to see him fly into a red rage on film and smash the secret door as it was when I first read The Hobbit. Smaug's treasure horde should be suitably awesome cinematic eye-candy as well.

Not at Home. I was impressed with the way Jackson handled Moria in LOTR and I expect a similar great tour of the halls of the mountain king here. It should be fun to see Bilbo and the Dwarves arm themselves with ancient gem-crusted weapons and mithril shirts of mail.

Fire and Water. The action of the film will pick up here as we get Smaug's attack on Dale. Again, let's hope Jackson and crew keep the character of Bard and let him slay Smaug with his black arrow. Sure, Dale is a minor character but it would be cheesy to rewrite the script to have Thorin or Bilbo playing the hero's role here.

A Thief in the Night. I hope we don't lose the cool little interlude of Bilbo handing over the Arkenstone to the elves and the men of Laketown in an attempt to bring Thorin to the bargaining table. But I fear we might.

The Clouds Burst. Get ready for an epic battle, at least on par with Helm's Deep and perhaps even Minas Tirith. I'm looking forward to seeing dwarves get their due as great axe-fighters, which is one of the criticisms I have of LOTR (Gimli was used too much as comic relief, largely ignoring the fact that he was also quite a grim fighter in the book). And what red-blooded fantasy fan isn't looking forward to seeing men and elves and dwarves of Dain fighting shoulder-to-shoulder against goblins and wargs? What insane individual doesn't want to see Thorin and co. wading out into the mass of fighting bodies like a wedge, driving their foes before them until they break on the bodyguard of Bolg? And as I stated before, I hope the battle climaxes with Beorn in bear shape crashing into the bodyguard and bringing down Bolg himself. All in all, this has the potential for Serious Awesome.

The Return Journey/The Last Stage. The last two chapters appear to require little to no modification, as they provide a perfect cinematic wrap-up to the tale. We get Thorin on his deathbed, repentent at last (and I hope to see his dying lines verbatim: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world"); gift-giving with the elven king; tearful farewells with the dwarves; and Bilbo's return to Hobbiton bearing his two small chests of gold, placing Sting over the mantelpiece. It's probably not necessary to include Bilbo's presumed death and the scene with the Sackville-Bagginses clearing out Bag-End. I can see the film ending on a portent-laden scene with Bilbo protectively tucking away the Ring, a possessive gleam in his eye as he does so.

If done right, this could be a phenomenal film.