Sharon Shinn, Dark Moon Defender

Sharon Shinn's Twelve Houses series, as well as her Samaria series have been pretty consistently among my favoritesd. Dark Moon Defender is the third installment in the Twelve Houses fantasy world. It stands on its own plot-wise, although I would recommend reading the books in order to get familiar with the characters and their history as well as the world.

Much as the previous two books, Mystic and Rider and The Thirteenth House, Darm Moon Defender isn't a literary masterwork to make its mark in history. It hovers on the border between fantasy romance and just fantasy, and certainly has a somewhat soft feel to it. It also falls victim to some mary-sue traits, and perhaps doesn't have the raw emotional energy that truly memorable fantasy works have.

That being said, the chemistry among the band of adventurers is excellent. If anything, it reminds me of an "X-Men in the age of sword and sorcery" setting. The writing is excellent, and well finished, and the world and setting are welcoming and fundamentally pleasant. I remained up until the wee hours on a few nights to finish a plot twist, which to me indicates that the story and pacing are really well done and I actually care for the protagonists.

This is an wonderful book in a series of feel-good fantasy, hours of great escapism into a better place with nice people where good prevails.

District 9

As the lights turned on in the theater, I was a bit choked up. Don't be surprised if a number of people can't give you an immediate answer to what they thought of this movie; I had to sleep on it and discuss it a bit before I dared to put anything useful down.

First off, the technical aspects: Beware reading reviews, as many contain spoilers -- if you're inclined to dislike that kind of thing. The movie was reportedly made on a modest budget, but this never shows. Perhaps it's the masterful use of CGI, perhaps wise use of money, but there never was a scene that I thought wasn't grand enough or where the explosion wasn't big enough. The aliens are great, the mechanical designs awesome, the alien weapons straight out of Half-Life 2. There's plenty of action in the movie, it really is a well-crafted action romp with tons of gore. In the intro and epilogue there are mockumentary techniques, which Cloverfield taught me to dislike a whole lot. However, District 9 only overdoes this a bit and uses the technique very effectively to ground you in its alternative history and to do away with your disbelief. So far, so clear.

Where things get complicated is the whole non-Hollywood aspect of it. The director, Neill Blomkamp, hails from Johannesburg, and wanted to show his hometown with all the grittiness it has. That he does, quite well. This is a dystopian tale, in the vein of Soylent Green, Aliens, and so forth, except set in the present day -- and can be mentioned in the same sentence with such work without any hesitation. District 9 makes Sci-Fi movie history without a doubt.

The plot doesn't feature a hero fighting against overwhelming odds. The protagonist is really a pretty loathsome loser, yet one easy to identify with (that is to say, a normal person), who never quite seems to have the heroic strength to do the right thing, but occasionally does it anyway, and is forced to confront difficult choices and situations against his will. I can't help but suspect that if this script had been above-radar, much of its edginess would've been edited away by production companies.

District 9 isn't a retelling of Apartheid history, but it is chock full of in-your-face questions regarding humanity, morality, power structures of our world, racism and totalitarianism. If you have the kind of worldview where this kind of reflection is welcome, I can not see how the movie won't raise serious questions and thoughts. Sure, there are plot holes, a lot of unanswered questions and some cheap tricks to tug on your heart strings, but overall the tale is imaginative and unorthodox, and it pulls it off. Most importantly, it not only raises the shiny "what if?" questions science fiction should, but also suggests some answers rooted in this world, answers which hopefully make us consider who we are and how we conduct ourselves in a bit more depth.