Current Reviews

DVD The Two Towers- Extended reviewed in Salon "Crime-fighting Ents, the Iggy Pop-Gollum connection, Aragorn's love for a transvestite, and other delights lurk within this ragged, messy extended-edition DVD."

Four Alien Movies on Nine Discs in NYT -- Played end to end, the package runs more than 62 hours.

On the Far Side of Credibility -- Master and Commander - The Far Side of the World is massively historically inaccurate but looks good and wet.

My reviews Sir Apropos on Nothing and The Wold To Wuin. A massive fantasy with more on the way. Peter David, mainly known for his Star Trek novels, creates a cynical anti-hero anti-fantasy fantasy series. Peter tells a good story but the anti-hero main character and length drag the first book down. Surprisingly, he has a very good ending that makes up for a lot in my view. Then he tops it off with a 5 star 20 page epilogue that is a bawdy sendoff of the Lord of the Rings.

Eagerly launching into the sequel The Wold to Wuin you will be disappointed to learn there are only about five additional pages of what happens when Sir Apropos accidentally kills a misshapen dwarf with very large and hairy feet. While searching for any valuables he discovers a large ring magically engraved with "One thing to rule them all" on the inside. Too large to fit on his finger, a detail I noticed from the movie, he soon discovers it is a magical cock ring. The bawdy quest to destroy the ring quickly follows. While this episode is over quickly and is almost a throwaway parody the consequences of being possessed by the ring continue for all of this book and likely the others to follow. What I would call part two combines ownership of a tavern and a long chase leading to him being near death in a desert. Part three resumes with him missing months of memory. He is now an all-powerful barbarian warlord with a magical jewel embedded in his chest and many pages detail his struggle to understand what he has become. The ending did not seem as affective as the first book. The last paragraph is particularly bad and reflects the lack of the depth of David's world.

I am not a big fantasy reader and I judge this series not worth me continuing. Other people may like it better. The character is a typical cynical anti-hero often moving the plot along by losing his temper. The books do score some witty and true remarks about fantasies, but the background lacks depth.

Who might like this series - Peter David fans from Star Trek novels who like fantasies but are cynical about them. Read the first book which includes the parody and you have the best. Ratings SAofN - 3 1/2 stars, TWtW - 2 stars.