I have been procrastinating on writing reviews, partially because I have had pneumonia this month, and partially because my Crohns has been very active and I've been having to struggle with all of that, which wears me out enough so that I am only able to do a couple of things a day. So this post is going to be long, fair warning. Below are some tidbits about movie and stage and TV adaptations of books that I would love to see.
Movies: Mary
Shelley
Elle Fanning
(Super 8, The Beguiled) "offers a new spin on the author of
Frankenstein in
the trailer for Mary Shelley
according to the
Hollywood Reporter. The film, directed by Haifaa
Al-Mansour, also
stars Douglas Booth (Noah) and Maisie Williams (Game of
Thrones).
"We wanted to
portray a strong woman who is willing to step out of line
and find her own
voice," said Al-Mansour, who is best known for her 2012
film Wadjda--the
first-ever feature from a female Saudi Arabian
director. IFC
Films' Mary Shelley hits theaters May 25.
On Stage: The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro
will collaborate with playwright and novelist Barney
Norris on a stage
adaptation of The Remains of the Day
the Guardian
reported. The production will tour the U.K. after its world
premiere at
Northampton's Royal & Derngate in February next year.
Anthony Hopkins
and Emma Thompson starred in a 1993 film version of
Ishiguro's Booker
Prize-winning novel.
"Norris has
exactly the right theatrical understanding and delicate
sensibility to
turn this engaging and highly political love story into a
moving and dynamic
piece of theatre," said Christopher Haydon, who will
direct. "One
of those stories that appear every now and again which
seem, almost as
soon as they're written, to belong to the world. It has
entered the
bloodstream of our culture. To work with such extraordinary
material is a
great gift."
TV: Gormenghast
Neil Gaiman and
Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind) will adapt the
"sprawling
novel series" Gormenghast
by Mervyn Peake as
a TV series, Deadline reported, adding that
FremantleMedia
North America "won a hotly contested battle to option the
five books in the
series.... It is the latest FremantleMedia project for
Gaiman, who
already exec produces Starz fantasy drama American Gods and
signed an
exclusive multi-year deal with the producer last year." Gaiman
will be a
non-writing executive producer on the project alongside
Oscar-winning
writer Goldsman.
"There is
nothing in literature like Mervyn Peake's remarkable
Gormenghast
novels," said Gaiman. "They were crafted by a master, who
was also an
artist, and they take us to an ancient castle as big as a
city, with heroes
and villains and people larger than life that are
impossible to
forget. There is a reason why there were two trilogies
that lovers of the
fantasy genre embraced in the Sixties: Lord of the
Rings, and the
Gormenghast books. It's an honor to have been given the
opportunity to
help shepherd Peake's brilliant and singular vision to
the screen."
Dante Di Loreto,
president of scripted entertainment, FremantleMedia
North America,
commented: "Nothing combines a dark atmosphere with humor
and intrigue the
way that Gormenghast does. It's one of the most
eccentric and
vividly imagined universes ever created. We're excited to
continue our
relationship with Neil and the producing team assembled for
this project is
ideal to explore the series' perfect mix of humor,
pathos and
tragedy."
Fabian Peake, son
of Mervyn and executor of the Peake estate, added: "We
are tremendously
excited by the prospect of seeing the Gormenghast books
realized for
television. This venture presents a unique opportunity to
explore the
imagination of a multi-faceted artist."
Head On by John Scalzi is the sequel to his fantastic speculative fiction book, Lock In, but it's also a stand alone novel set in the same world as Lock In. There's a great deal of mystery/thriller territory in this book, as well as some fantastic science fiction that doesn't seem too far away, time-wise. As with the first book in the series, it's a roller-coaster ride that you will not be able to put down once you start reading it. Here's the blurb:
John Scalzi returns with Head On, the standalone follow-up to the New York Times bestselling and critically acclaimed Lock In. Chilling near-future SF with the thrills of a gritty cop procedural, Head On brings Scalzi's trademark snappy dialogue and technological speculation to the future world of sports.Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent’s head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are “threeps,” robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden’s Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real and the crowds love it.
Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field.
Is it an accident or murder? FBI agents and Haden-related crime investigators, Chris Shane and Leslie Vann, are called in to uncover the truth—and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost, and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.
As usual, Scalzi's prose is saucy, witty and engaging,
while his plot moves along at lightening speed. And once again, I fell in love with Chris, the Haden protagonist who works for the FBI, though because he is from a wealthy and influential family, doesn't have to work at all if he doesn't want to. There's a crap ton of political machinations and plenty of money being used and misused, but for me, that's all peripheral to how well Chris and Vann work together like a well oiled machine to figure out who killed several people connected to the sport of Hilketa. I also loved Donut the cat's part in the mystery, and I enjoyed meeting up with Chris' roommates, who are quite the collection of weird people (and therefore much more interesting than your average person.) I'd give this enjoyable novel an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes social or political science fiction, but also enjoys a good mystery, solved by dogged detective work with a brilliant, disabled detective.
Taste of Wrath by Matt Wallace is the 7th and final book in the Sin Du Jour series (one for each of the 7 deadly sins) and I have to admit that while I was looking forward to reading the final book, I was also dreading it, because there will be no more slender volumes with these fantastic characters to read. Here's the blurb:
Bronko and his team of crack chefs and kitchen staff have been
serving the New York supernatural community for decades. But all that
could be about to change.The entity formerly known as Allensworth has been manipulating Bronko and his team from Day One, and the gang at Sin du Jour have had enough.
Old debts are called in, and an alliance is formed with the unlikeliest of comrades.
Publisher's Weekly: All-out war is nigh in the bittersweet, superb seventh and final installment (after Gluttony Bay) of Wallace’s series of novellas featuring Sin du Jour, caterers to the supernatural. Allensworth, Sin du Jour’s otherworldly former patron, has revealed his long game: using Sin du Jour as a cog in his plan to take over the world. With a heavy heart, head chef Bronko Luck gathers Lena Tarr, the newly recovered Darren, and the rest of the gang to ask them to fight for the tight-knit family they’ve built. They must summon every weapon in their motley magical arsenal to defeat a horde of presidential meat puppets, murderous gnomes, demon warriors, and more. Not everyone will survive, and some will prove that the greatest strength can come from the most unassuming souls. Humor, horror, absurdity, and a sharp eye for pop culture drive this series, and, in the midst of considerable chaos, Wallace brings emotional resonance to each of his singular characters. He opens his distinctly imaginative bag of tricks to deliver an epic finale that will break readers’ hearts while filling them with hope. Fans will be sad to see this series end and eager to learn what Wallace will come up with next.
So though we only lose 3 of the main characters, there's still more than a few good scenes that let fans of the series know that these deaths are not in vain. Wallaces prose is funky and fun, and his plots are unstoppable, fast and furious and often hilariously profane. I was glad to see Lena come into her own in this installment, and glad, too, to see the creator of the universe show up again for some scritches behind the ears at the end. There are about 60 more pages in this finale than there are in the previous books, but I still was left yearning for more. I can't really comment on much without providing huge spoilers, so I will just say that I loved the entire series. I'd give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who has gobbled up any of the other Sin Du Jour novels and is ready to see the crew kick some major supernatural butt.
The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert (managing editor of Barnes and Noble.com) is a "dark urban fantasy" aimed at the YA market. I found it to veer far enough into the horror genre to be uncomfortable to me, (I dislike horror novels), yet it was well written enough that I was compelled to finish it. The plot is somewhat labyrinthine, and it at times feels like a darker version of Alice in Wonderland, but the fairy-tale world is well drawn here and makes more sense, in the end, than most deconstructed and/or retold tales. Here's the blurb:
Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s
life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at
their heels. But when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a
cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate,
the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get: Her mother
is stolen away—by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the
cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set.
Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: “Stay away from
the Hazel Wood.”Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans. But now she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began—and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong. NYT Book Review: The Hazel Wood starts out strange and gets stranger, in the best way possible. (The fairy stories Finch relays, which Albert includes as their own chapters, are as creepy and evocative as you'd hope.) Albert seamlessly combines contemporary realism with fantasy, blurring the edges in a way that highlights that place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth and the world as it appears is false, where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a very good book. It's a captivating debut.
I have to say that I was very disappointed that Finch had an ulterior motive and that he basically used Alice to get to the Hinterland so he could explore it. I had assumed that there was a real romantic connection with Finch and Alice. I was also surprised about Alice's origin story, and her bravery in being determined to find her mother and lead a "normal" life. The grandmother was pure evil, I felt, and I was glad she was actually dead by the time they found her. Unrelenting and unforgiving, this was a fast read, but one I would not have read if I would have known how far into the horror genre it would go. Still, it deserves a B-, and a recommendation to anyone who loves the scary/spooky side of fairy tales.
The Queen of Hearts by Kimmery Martin (who is an ER Doctor in real life) was a huge surprise to me. I wasn't expecting to be so engaged in the life of a doctor and her best friend, (also a doctor) and I wasn't expecting the expert prose or fast-paced, heart-pounding plot that kept me turning pages long into the night. How Dr Martin found the time, being a wife, mother and physician, to add fiction author to her resume is beyond my understanding. She must never sleep. Here's the blurb:
A debut novel set against a background of hospital rounds and
life-or-death decisions that pulses with humor and empathy and explores
the heart's capacity for forgiveness...Zadie Anson and Emma Colley have been best friends since their early twenties, when they first began navigating serious romantic relationships amid the intensity of medical school. Now they're happily married wives and mothers with successful careers—Zadie as a pediatric cardiologist and Emma as a trauma surgeon. Their lives in Charlotte, North Carolina are chaotic but fulfilling, until the return of a former colleague unearths a secret one of them has been harboring for years.
As chief resident, Nick Xenokostas was the center of Zadie's life—both professionally and personally—throughout a tragic chain of events in her third year of medical school that she has long since put behind her. Nick's unexpected reappearance during a time of new professional crisis shocks both women into a deeper look at the difficult choices they made at the beginning of their careers. As it becomes evident that Emma must have known more than she revealed about circumstances that nearly derailed both their lives, Zadie starts to question everything she thought she knew about her closest friend.
I loved Zadie and loathed Emma pretty much from the third chapter on, because I could see that Emma was going to turn on her friend and then hide it, because she is one of those evil people who think that they somehow get a pass for shitty behavior because they were born to poor and abusive circumstances.(Sorry, I don't buy the "I've known hunger, therefore I can crap all over anyone who loves me in the future" shtick...there are plenty of people out there who grew up in poverty who managed to turn their lives around and not take out their childhood anger on others...my best friend was one of them). I also had no time for Nick, "Dr X" who uses his residents for sex and seems to have no qualms about doing so, or about lying to them. That said, Zadie is just a bit too kind and forgiving and pretty stupid when it comes to dealing with the people she loves, and her "klutzy" demeanor only adds to a somewhat immature vibe on her part. I felt Dr X should have faced major consequences for his actions (jail time would do him some good, smug asshat that he was) and Emma should have never been allowed to see or speak to Zadie ever again. She should have been more than ashamed of herself. She should have realized that her ugliness was her fault, (and the suicide of her boyfriend was also on her) and staying away from Zadie was the best thing to do, after telling her the truth, that is. At any rate, as you can see, the book sparked serious questions and made me think, which is what all good art does. It touches you in ways that you will never forget. Queen of Hearts deserves an A, and a recommendation to anyone who is interested in a behind the scenes peek at medicine and the training of physicians and surgeons.
Defy the Worlds by Claudia Gray is the sequel to Defy the Stars, which I read not too long ago. Gray's prose is sterling, and her plots are twisty and full of unexpected turns, but she still manages to tell a cohesive and fascinating story. Here's the blurb:
An outcast from her home — Shunned after a trip through the galaxy
with Abel, the most advanced cybernetic man ever created, Noemi Vidal
dreams of traveling through the stars one more time. And when a deadly
plague arrives on Genesis, Noemi gets her chance. As the only soldier to
have ever left the planet, it will be up to her to save its people...if
only she wasn't flying straight into a trap.
A fugitive from his
fate — On the run to avoid his depraved creator's clutches, Abel
believes he's said good-bye to Noemi for the last time. After all, the
entire universe stands between them...or so he thinks. When word reaches
him of Noemi's capture by the very person he's trying to escape, Abel
knows he must go to her, no matter the cost.But capturing Noemi was only part of Burton Mansfield's master plan. In a race against time, Abel and Noemi will come together once more to discover a secret that could save the known worlds, or destroy them all.
In this thrilling and romantic sequel to Defy the Stars, bestselling author Claudia Gray asks us all to consider where—and with whom—we truly belong.
This novel was a long 465 pages, and though I loved the characters, it seemed to be riddled with redundant scenarios in which Abel and Noemi were always trying to save one another by sacrificing their own lives. They seemed to come together, only to be ripped apart again and again. Now that the plague that was brought to Noemi's world by the evil forces on Earth (to subjugate those on Genesis, so Earth can take over) the hunt to find the cure and bring it to her planet becomes paramount, and Abel is tasked with uncovering the hidden planet conspiracy of his creator, who wants his mind and everyone else's transferred into cloned cybernetic beings who are part human, part machine. So there's plenty of the "evil scientists" vs "one good cyberbeing and his beloved soldier" stuff going on, while there's also the theme of the wealthy vs the vagabonds of society interwoven into the plot at the same time. I was entertained, though I felt the plot slowed down a couple of times, briefly, and since the book ends on a cliffhanger, I will anxiously await the third book in the series. I'd give this book a B+, and recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction/romance hybrids, or those who "shipped" Data and Tasha Yar on ST Next Generation, or Spock and any of the women he romanced in the original series.
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