Watched Hamilton with my brother last weekend, after we finished The Mandalorian. My brother has been way into Hamilton, listening to the soundtrack on repeat. I’ve kind of randomly come across some of the songs from YouTube (mostly Annapantsu covers), but didn’t have much context for them. Turns out Hamilton doesn’t narrate every male-voiced song in the show. Who would have thought?

Spoilers for United States history. Oh, and also Hamilton: An American Musical.

Reviewing something that’s largely based on real people is a little weird . . . the main thing I want to rant about here is the two presentations of ambition in the show, Hamilton’s and Burr’s. Let me start by saying that I absolutely hate ambition, and I feel like it’s the main weakness of modern U.S. society: people wanting to get more than they need is how economic inequality begins. H:AAM presents both Hamilton and Burr as ambitious figures, which makes it difficult for me to relate to them. But I find myself respecting Hamilton more than Burr, even though I think Burr and I have similar personalities. We’re both very cautious and quiet, and willing to step back from the action. But whereas I do so because I recognize my own unimportance in the universe, Burr is instead waiting for an opportunity to seize, at a moment that poses the least risk to himself. His own survival is at the forefront of his thoughts. (Fun fact via my brother: about twenty-five years after the U.S. revolution against Britain, Burr conspired with the British to form his own country!) Meanwhile, Hamilton spends the early portion of the show very concerned about elevating his own status in the colonies. But after Burr warns him to “talk less, smile more,” he continues to try fighting on the front lines in the war, and to fight for radical changes in the developing government. He is self-interested, no question, but he frames that self-interest as his legacy; he is more interested in what comes after his own death than the fame or influence he attains while he’s still alive. And that’s a kind of ambition I can get behind, an ambition for the benefit of humanity that lasts longer than any one human. Oh, and Mr. Burr, sir, in answer to your question to Hamilton, “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” It’s because we’re all running out of time. We only have so much time to enact change and betterment in the world. If you wait for it too long, out of fear of your own well-being, then you do no good at all.

—doctorlit, looking ahead

♪Unimportant, there’s a million spoilers I haven’t done♪ ♪Unimportant, there’s a million spoilers I haven’t done♪ ♪Unimportant, there’s a million spoilers I haven’t done♪

Oh, wow. This is some Star Wars!

I watched The Mandalorian with my brother. Due to his flight training being hard to schedule around, there was a several-months gap between the two viewings, which may mess with my memory a bit, but . . . here goes review.

Spoilers for Return of the Jedi, The Mandalorian and The Rise of Skywalker.

I felt like this series did an excellent job of capturing the tone of the original trilogy. Everything is a bit dingy, there’s a constant undercurrent of crime, and the aliens and droids are so unique-looking, and act in ways that are simultaneously understandable, yet very clearly foreign from any culture on Earth. And yes, I appreciated how much practical effects were used over CGI (and the CGI was excellent, because there are some scenes that had to be, yet . . . it sure didn’t look like it?)

I was wondering how the series would square the continued existence of Mandalorians with the original trilogy’s assertion that Boba Fett had been the last one. Making them a secret society that hides underground works, especially since the Star Wars universe, despite spanning a galaxy and having all kinds of science fantasy technology, has always felt like a series of very enclosed environments to me. Ships may be able to transmit signals through space, but on a planet’s surface, it seems like little information travels from town to town. So it makes sense that the Mandalorian population has managed to hide itself from general knowledge. I love that the survivors have maintained so reverently the heavy focus on battlefield honor and the significance of their armor.

As much as I disliked the use of the First Order as an Empire knock-off in the sequel trilogy, I didn’t mind the presence of Imperial stragglers in this series. It makes sense that the entire power structure wouldn’t collapse immediately following Return of the Jedi, and local groups would impose power over whatever local areas they found themselves in. We also get further reinforcement from, uh, slow-talking British bad guy that the Empire is a highly fascistic sacrifice freedom-for-safety-and-peace sort of ideology, following up from the recruitment advertisement in Solo. The last episode’s opening was also a hilarious, but horrifying, look into the Empire’s structure from the grunts’ points of view, where the abuses and dangers of the leadership are literally life-threatening.

With how openly the Force was discussed throughout the sequel trilogy, I was surprised that everyone seemed shocked when the child started using Force powers. I guess they’re working off of the “superstition” and “ancient religion lines from the original trilogy. I was even more shocked that no one recognized Yoda’s species, as Yoda is such an iconic and recognizable character for us, and had such a major history in-universe, I figured his name, at least, would be well-known. My brother says Yoda was the last known member of his species, but I don’t recall hearing that anywhere before.

The Ugnaught’s death hit me pretty hard, I won’t lie. He was such a down-to-earth and dedicated person . . . I don’t really have more to say than that, I guess. One more example of the Empire destroying a life in the name of resources and power.

And speaking of resources and power . . . in light of Rise of Skywalker, it seems likely the Emperor is the one who ultimately wants the child? It’s hard to say at what point in his reconstruction process he would be, this close to end of RotJ, but I think it’s reasonable to assume he would be seeking out other Force-sensitive characters to “feed on,” the way he did to Rey and Ben. O the other hand, I don’t know if the show would feature a character quite that well known. And the fact that Moff Gideon appears to have a lightsaber or lightsaber-like weapon makes things interesting, too. Is he Force-sensitive as well? Is he the actual big bad of the series, or is he working for the Emperor or someone else?

Oh, one last fun observation from my brother: the knife-happy Twi’lek in the prison break-out episode is basically Harley Quinn reskinned for the SW universe!

—doctorlit has spoken

“You have earned your spoilers.” “You have earned your spoilers.” “You have earned your spoilers.” “You have earned your spoilers.” “You have earned your spoilers.”

(Apologies for tacking on, Thoth. Actually, I guess we're no longer knocking old threads into oblivion any more, are we? But old habits are hard to break. So tacking on.)

I attended a fancy all-male prep school for high school, mostly because Dad ran the bookstore there and didn’t have to pay tuition. But teenage boys in a fancy prep school are still teenage boys (EXCEPT ME OF COURSE), and at the end of each school year, myriad textbooks and novels from all different courses would kinda. Just. Be left behind in the lockers. Despite the fact that the textbooks could have been sold back to Dad for cash. Oh well. The rescued texts would get repaired (some by me!), while the fiction would be stored, in preparation for a traveling used book seller to visit and buy whatever was in enough demand to warranting resale.

But before he came, I would always go through and take my pick. lip smack

I’m, uh. Over the years, I've been slowly getting through the massive amount of books I “adopted” this way. I still have . . . well, I guess I’ll just count: 60 left. And I’m totally going to get to them all.

Eventually.

Yeah.

But I did just read one of them! And it was good. Like real good, like oh my gosh, is this a series? Because I’m immediately invested. The book strangely didn’t include an About-the-Author, so I’ll be looking her up once I finish this review.

Spoilers for A Time of Darkness by Sherryl Jordan. (Apparently, it’s titled Rocco outside of the United States.) I just realized how brilliant the U.S. title is, but that’s too much spoilers.

The basic setup in the beginning of this novel is that a teenage boy, Rocco Makepeace, keeps having an uncomfortably vivid nightmare about being a caveman in a cave, being attacked by a wolf, and falling down a cliff. Not a fun dream, to be sure, but the uncomfortable part comes from waking up with sand in his bed, the smell of stew in his bedroom, and the aching feeling of a wolf bite on his face, even though the rest of his family can’t seem to detect any of this evidence. We spend just enough time on this opening part (what you might call . . . Rocco’s modern life? >.> ) to meet Rocco’s immediate family and learn a bit of the family history—most importantly, that a lot of the people on his father’s side have a bit of ESP in them—before Rocco falls asleep one last time and wakes up in Anshur, a secluded oasis inhabited by a small group of primitive folks.

I’m inevitably comparing this novel to the Earth’s Children series. Whereas EC has a viewpoint character from the time period of its setting, AToD throws an 80s boy into the ancient time period. The cultural divide is shown quite clearly, as sixteen-year-old Rocco’s first action is to get the crap kicked out of him and nearly drowned by a bunch of six-to-eight-year-olds. Sounds legit. The difference in viewpoints is shown so many different ways, Jordan really put a lot of thought into the matter. Particularly fun is the villagers’ reaction to Rocco’s purple shirt, as most of the younger kids had never seen that color before. I also liked the two-way mismatch on medical matters: Rocco’s reaction to the initial distrust of Anshur’s people is to jokingly reassure them he doesn’t have the plague. Which they react very aggressively towards, because for them, the Bubonic plague is a very real and fatal concern. On the other hand, when Rocco gets hurt by a big cat later, he freaks out and tries to keep anyone from tending to the wound, because he assumes their medical care will involve leeches and amputation and contaminated instruments.

There’s also a twist! A big twist, and for once, I managed to sleuth it out ahead of time. But here’s the thing: it’s such a good twist, that I don’t even want to discuss it, because I would rather y’all go find a copy and read it yourselves! I will say that, upon arriving at the end, I appreciated how incredibly tightly woven the primary plot thread was. I realize reviewing, like, a third of a novel and saying “it’s good, go read” might feel a bit disingenuous, but really, saying too much would be a disservice to anyone who decides to pick this up.

—doctorlit, trying to get everyone on the YA bandwagon

“The spoiler bared its teeth and sprang. He felt the impact of its body, coarse and hard and warm.” “The spoiler bared its teeth and sprang. He felt the impact of its body, coarse and hard and warm.” “The spoiler bared its teeth and sprang. He felt the impact of its body, coarse and hard and warm.”

Being a short story anthology published either (depending on how you count it) two years after or one year before The Last Wish, it's reasonable to expect The Sword of Destiny to be more of the same, a sort of Last Wish Part 2, Electric Boogaloo.

Not so. In may respects, The Sword of Destiny is a very different book from its predecessor. Last Wish is a book, fundamentally, about a bunch of things that happened to Geralt of Rivia. Sword of Destiny is actually about Geralt himself. In a sense, you could think of it as a character study. Over the course of the books, we see Geralt deal with love, death, feelings, and fate. We see what he's willing to do... and more to the point what he isn't willing to do. What's against his code.

Of course, this is made all the more interesting because allegedly Geralt doesn't have emotions. After all, he isn't human. But despite their constant re-iteration by characters who don't know better, that's entirely untrue. By the end of the book, it's clear that Geralt is human. He's incredibly human. Which makes the dynamic between him and those who think that he's not more interesting. Racial tensions and prejudice were a theme in the Witcher from the start, and this book pushes that further to the fore, with multiple stories having it as the center of their conflict.

Also brought to a more prominent role in this book is Geralt's on-again-off-again love interest, Yennefer. They're absolutely perfect for each other and also (and I cannot emphasize this more) do not work. They're both idiosyncratic and dysfunctional and they both probably understand each other better than anyone else, but their relationship is a constant disaster that keeps starting and stopping, endlessly. I've never enountered a "will they or won't they" arc that provides such a clear and obvious reason why they don't yet. Or rather, they do, but that doesn't mean it works.

Finally, there's Ciri, who's introduced for the first time in this book. Well, sort of for the first time. But once again, Sapkowski's managed to setup another character that bounces off Geralt wonderfully well. But this time it's a kid, so... y'know. Adorable.

Apologies this write-up is a bit more scattershot than last time. But needless to say, I enjoyed this quite a lot. If you liked The Last Wish at all, I'd recommend it.

I mean sure, I've heard about the games and I bought the first one off of GOG but gave up after the tutorial because of the fricking camera and controls.

But back to the books. I love them, like they're one of three series that I'm reading at the moment (currently on Tower of the Swallow) and I'm kind of sad that there's only one more book left in the saga (and interested to see how it all closes). Would thoroughly recommend them to people, both those who've seen the Witcher in other forms or to those who like a gritty fantasy world.

I'd recommend reading both The Last Wish and the Sword of Destiny (the two books with short stories in) before starting on the Witcher Saga itself, they really help set the tone and introduce some of the key characters and events in the world.

Nova

I was already sort of intrigued due to having seen the Netflix series and hearing a bit about the book from my brother, but the Pratchett comparison clinched it. This sounds awesome, and the next time I have a gap in my reading list, I'm in!

Well-structured review, too. Gives key background information, discusses key characters and general flavor, establishes why this particular audience should care, doesn't ramble, is entertaining. Good job!

~Neshomeh