Witchblade #131

It's taken me a couple of months, but I finally got to read Witchblade #131. This is the first post-war issue, and it's basically a recap of the status quo so that new readers feel comfortable picking up the series. However, Ron Marz is an old pro, and he does this with grace and flair and the reader never feels like he's being told stuff he already knows. Marz achieves this by having an ongoing conversation between Gleason and Julie throughout the whole issue, and even though we can "hear" them the whole time, we can only see them some of the time. When they are not featured in the panels, we see what Sara is up to, and her actions blend seamlessly with what Gleason and Julie are saying about her. This way, Marz gets to both show us and tell us what's going on in an original way that's neither talking heads nor captions explaining what you can already see on the page. Tricky to pull off, but that's why Marz is the man. Plus, he nicely sets up the Angelus miniseries that spins off Witchblade this month, and that will also be masterfully illustrated by Stjepan Sejic. Buy Witchblade already!

Awesome Sequel

A couple of days ago I told you about a book for young adults that wasn't all that great. Today we have the exact opposite case: a novel for young readers that I thought was fantastic.

Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star is the second book in the Fablehaven trilogy by Brandon Mull, and even though I liked the first one a lot, this one puts it to shame. Kendra and Seth are back in Fablehaven in a darker adventure that is full of danger, enemies, and near-death situations. And in the middle of it all, the mysterious Society of the Evening Star steps out from the shadows to try and find a magical artifact that will help them free some powerful demons.

When I put it like that, it sounds like the book has nothing new to offer to the fantasy genre, and that this mixture of modern-world reality, teenagers, and magic was already seen in Harry Potter and a dozen other knock-offs. However, this is far from the truth, and Fablehaven is immensely entertaining and ridiculously enjoyable, so whether or not you are impressed, I am going to rush to Barnes & Noble to buy the third volume!

Too Long, Too Repetitive

A couple of friends had fervently recommended Kushiel's Dart, the first book in a fantasy trilogy by Jacqueline Carey. I am not scared of long books, but at nine hundred pages even I found the prospect of reading it daunting. I started it, though, and when I was on page fifty or so and bored out of my mind, the guy who had recommended me the book said "Well, yes. It starts kind of slow, but once you get past the first 250 or 300 pages the pace picks up and it never slows down." Three hundred pages, if you ask me, is a lot of pages to get through before any story gets started. However, my friend was right… kind of.

The first 80 pages or so are boring and expository. The author is busy building her world, and she does this by drowning the reader in a sea of names, provinces, kings, queens, historical characters (historical in the reality of the book, that is), noble houses, royal families, and political intrigue. I love political intrigue, don't get me wrong, but it can be presented in a more dynamic and entertaining way, like Michael Stackpole does. Also, the deluge of information could have been more evenly distributed, each detail being brought up whenever it was relevant, instead of all at the beginning. As a result, by the time those plot threads came into play, I had forgotten who the characters where or why they were involved in this particular affair.

The story started to get a little more interesting from page 90 until page 250 or so, and then pages 300 to about 550 were really good. This is the part where Phèdre and Joscelin interact with the Skaldi, and it was hands down the best part of the story. I thought that at long last things were starting to happen, and I got all excited. However, the story went downhill from there, and the second half of the book felt very slow and repetitive, becoming a succession of travels and journeys to convince one lord or another to join the cause. (I know I'm being very vague, but you know I don't like to spoil anything in my reviews.) After a couple hundred pages of that, I was ready for the final battle, and the whole episode with the Master of the Straights that preceded it, I could have done without.

The final battle came, and it was followed by the longest epilogue ever, but at least it offered closure. Sure, there are two more books in the series, but the ending of this one (the author's debut novel) is closed enough that I don't feel the story is incomplete. As far as I'm concerned, the story is over, and whatever happens to the surviving characters in the following chapters of the saga is a different story. A story, I guarantee you, I will not be reading.

Fairy Tale

I bought What-the-Dickens because, weird as it was, I enjoyed Wicked, the best-known book by Gregory Maguire. I was in Books-a-Million, saw the book, I thought it looked interesting, and I purchased it. At 297 pages (and big print), What-the-Dickens is a quick read, and seeing it was in the Young Adults section, I shouldn't be surprised. Also, seeing it was in that section, I was ready for a story that wouldn't be as complex or adult as Wicked, and I was right.

What-the-Dickens tells the story of a rogue tooth fairy, or rather, it tells the story of a young English teacher telling the story of a rogue tooth fairy. Both narratives are intertwined, and both of them are reasonably interesting. Still, the book was merely okay, and even though it made me chuckle a couple of times, it wasn't as entertaining as I thought it was going to be. Therefore, I don't think I'm going to recommend you guys read it, but I don't regret having read it. Hopefully, the next one will be better!

Good Really Good

I had wanted to go see Gone Baby Gone when it opened back in 2007, but I ended up not doing it. Still, I hadn't forgotten about Ben Affleck's directorial debut, and I added it to my Netflix queue. I didn't know what to expect, other than it was supposed to be good. I remembered the good reviews and Amy Ryan's Oscar nomination for best-supporting actress, and I knew super cute Michelle Monaghan had a big part in the movie. So why did it take me so long? I don't know, but now that I've seen it, I can only say: go watch this movie. Right now.

Are you back? I'm going to go ahead and assume you really liked it, and as well you should. Casey Affleck does a great job as the young detective trying to find little Amanda, a three-year-old girl who has been kidnapped, and Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, and the aforementioned Amy Ryan are superb in their different supporting roles. The acting was phenomenal, and the writing was so good it made me remember that, a long time ago, Ben Affleck won an Oscar for writing Good Will Hunting. This time it's not an original story but rather an adaptation of a novel by Dennis Lehane, but it doesn't matter. The dialogue is crisp and fast and rings true to your ears, and the story keeps surprising you as it develops. It looks like Affleck should focus less on starring in big blockbusters (or big flops) and more on writing and directing small films. If this is any indication of what's to come, I, for one, can't wait to see what he comes up with next. Go watch this movie!

Harleys & Indians

Here you have a quick sketch I drew while playing Dungeons & Dragons last weekend. For some reason, my friends and I started talking about biker chicks, and next thing you know the Hell's Bitches had been born. And there's really nothing else to say about this picture, so I hope you like it!

El príncipe valiente

Como ya dije en otra entrada, recientemente he estado jugando a Prince of Persia, un juego que salió el año pasado y que me pareció visualmente glorioso en los vídeos y fotografías que en su día pude ver. Sin embargo, no estaba seguro de querer comprarlo, así que cuando me enteré de que un amigo lo tenía y ya no lo usaba, aproveché para pedirlo prestado y probarlo. El veredicto: me alegro de no haberlo comprado.

Es verdad que, visualmente, el juego es muy interesante, pero ésa es prácticamente su única virtud. POP es un juego de plataformas, y curiosamente el sistema de saltos es lo que más me hizo enfurecer mientras jugaba, por dos razones. Una, porque muchas veces tu personaje no salta cuando aprietas el botón, sino medio segundo después. Llamadme exigente, pero cuando tienes que ir saltando de plataforma en plataforma o de pared en pared y necesitas secuencias de movimientos precisos encadenados, este defecto es mortal. En la mayoría de casos, para cuando el principito tenía a bien saltar, yo ya había apretado otro botón para moverme en otra dirección, con lo que acababa saltando en esa segunda dirección y no la original. Como resultado, vuestro querido Fel acababa en el fondo del precipicio de turno.

La segunda razón es que muchos de los saltos requieren ayuda extra. Corriendo siempre detrás de ti hay una chica (Elika) a la que estás ayudando a restaurar las tierras del reino, y cuando un salto es demasiado largo, puedes apretar un botón y ella vuela, te coge en mitad salto, y te deja en la otra orilla o plataforma o borde o lo que sea. Esto es más subjetivo que mi primer problema, pero me parece que tener que usar el comodín de Elika para franquear un abismo que tal vez debería haber sido diseñado de otra manera es más un parche para arreglar un error que otra cosa.

Hablando de parches y de tu infatigable compañera de aventuras, Elika es tan formidable que jamás deja que mueras. Nunca. En Prince of Persia, sencillamente, no puedes morir. Cada vez que te caes por un precipicio (y son muchas, muchas, muchas veces), Elika te coge de la mano en una animación estándar y te regeneras en la plataforma en la que estabas antes de diñarla. Por un lado, es un buen recurso, ya que te evita repetir partes del juego que ya has superado. Por otro, sin embargo, no puedo sino pensar que esto no es más que otro parche, una forma de tratar de contrarrestar la frustración que el deficiente sistema de saltos provoca. Es como si hubieran dicho: "la gente va a estar contentita cuando vea lo mal que hemos diseñado los saltos en este juego, así que vamos a hacer que sea imposible morir para que no se quejen demasiado". Como ya he dicho antes, en vez de un comodín o una herramienta útil, me parece un intento barato de tratar de arreglar una tara fundamental en la arquitectura del juego.

Sorprendentemente, lo que más me ha gustado del juego ha sido los diálogos entre Elika y el príncipe, que son excelentes tanto por cómo están escritos como por las voces de los actores. Desgraciadamente, puedes saltarte la mayoría de los diálogos, dado que no son imprescindibles para avanzar en el juego, con lo que supongo que muchas personas se los habrán perdido.

Finalmente, debo confesar que sólo me he pasado la mitad del juego. Quería pasármelo entero, pero después de haberlo tenido abandonado durante un par de semanas, me di cuenta de que no tenía el más mínimo interés en continuar jugando, con lo que acabé devolviéndolo sin haberlo terminado. Supongo que eso es el testimonio más elocuente sobre la opinión que me merece este Prince of Persia.