In review
Marked: a new take on vampires
By Dee Maden
This month’s book is not only a different genre, it was written within the last ten years. Marked, part of the House of Night series, is the first of 12 books, not counting spin-offs and related books.
It was written in 2007, and follows a 16 year old girl named Zoey Redbird as she receives a blue crescent moon on her forehead, a mark that appears when adolescent hormones trigger DNA, starting a transformation into vampyre. Zoey, however, doesn’t receive just an outline, like fledgling vampyres are supposed to. She receives one already filled in, which only adult vampyres have, signifying the Goddess Nyx has blessed her with extraordinary gifts.
She is sent off to the special boarding school for fledglings, The House of Night. The first book follows Zoey as she meets new friends, learns her powers, and generally attempts to survive the change, as one in ten fledglings die horribly from their body’s rejecting it.
Marked is original, though taking from many other vampire stories before it, it manages to take a new look at it. There’s the school, and the heavy influence of both Paganism/Wicca, and Native American religions that play huge roles. The religions help with the amazing world building, and P.C. Cast and her daughter Kristin accurately represent the age group and teenage drama.
I recommend this series to fantasy lovers, vampire fans, and those who enjoyed Rainbow Rowell’s ‘ Carry On’. Some say the writing style is strange, but I myself have read the series twice already.
It was written in 2007, and follows a 16 year old girl named Zoey Redbird as she receives a blue crescent moon on her forehead, a mark that appears when adolescent hormones trigger DNA, starting a transformation into vampyre. Zoey, however, doesn’t receive just an outline, like fledgling vampyres are supposed to. She receives one already filled in, which only adult vampyres have, signifying the Goddess Nyx has blessed her with extraordinary gifts.
She is sent off to the special boarding school for fledglings, The House of Night. The first book follows Zoey as she meets new friends, learns her powers, and generally attempts to survive the change, as one in ten fledglings die horribly from their body’s rejecting it.
Marked is original, though taking from many other vampire stories before it, it manages to take a new look at it. There’s the school, and the heavy influence of both Paganism/Wicca, and Native American religions that play huge roles. The religions help with the amazing world building, and P.C. Cast and her daughter Kristin accurately represent the age group and teenage drama.
I recommend this series to fantasy lovers, vampire fans, and those who enjoyed Rainbow Rowell’s ‘ Carry On’. Some say the writing style is strange, but I myself have read the series twice already.
KRZ: Americana Ghost Theater
By Marty Forbeck
Last month, in the book review column, I made a promise to review something in a non-sci-fi genre for once.
That promise is now kept, but I inadvertently switched mediums in the process, so… yeah.
Give it some time. We’re all trying to shake up the formula a bit over here.
I had planned to review Dishonored 2 for this month but it turns out there’s not much interesting to say about a game that, while completely satisfying as a stealth gameplay experience, contains a plot so uninteresting and cliche that bottles of white paste are lining up to say that it could use a little flavor.
So instead, imagine if Johnny Cash and Shakespeare had a kid, and that kid was raised by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s a point and click adventure game set in a magic realist version of Kentucky that tells the story of an old delivery man named Conway, on a trip to make his final delivery before retirement to the mysterious 5 Dogwood Drive. Trouble is, the only way to get to 5 Dogwood Drive is to take the Zero, a strange “highway” that seems to comprise actual roads, boating trips, and several caverns.
Along the way Conway meets people and places that mystically exemplify many of the great and terrible aspects of American lives in the 20 and 21st centuries.You can talk with a glowing skeleton that’s just trying to make enough money to pay for food from the company store. Gameplay, rather than being about logic puzzles or quick reaction times, is almost entirely comprised of dialogue choices, not just for Conway but for every major character he meets along the way.
It evokes the feelings of both writing and participating in a great American play. In fact, the game is broken up into 5 “Acts” only 4 of which have been completed and released to date. It took the 3 person Dev-team 2 years to put out Act 4 last July, and unfortunately it’s likely that another year might go by before the finale. But even as it stands this thing is worth an order of magnitude more than its $25 price of admission.
That promise is now kept, but I inadvertently switched mediums in the process, so… yeah.
Give it some time. We’re all trying to shake up the formula a bit over here.
I had planned to review Dishonored 2 for this month but it turns out there’s not much interesting to say about a game that, while completely satisfying as a stealth gameplay experience, contains a plot so uninteresting and cliche that bottles of white paste are lining up to say that it could use a little flavor.
So instead, imagine if Johnny Cash and Shakespeare had a kid, and that kid was raised by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s a point and click adventure game set in a magic realist version of Kentucky that tells the story of an old delivery man named Conway, on a trip to make his final delivery before retirement to the mysterious 5 Dogwood Drive. Trouble is, the only way to get to 5 Dogwood Drive is to take the Zero, a strange “highway” that seems to comprise actual roads, boating trips, and several caverns.
Along the way Conway meets people and places that mystically exemplify many of the great and terrible aspects of American lives in the 20 and 21st centuries.You can talk with a glowing skeleton that’s just trying to make enough money to pay for food from the company store. Gameplay, rather than being about logic puzzles or quick reaction times, is almost entirely comprised of dialogue choices, not just for Conway but for every major character he meets along the way.
It evokes the feelings of both writing and participating in a great American play. In fact, the game is broken up into 5 “Acts” only 4 of which have been completed and released to date. It took the 3 person Dev-team 2 years to put out Act 4 last July, and unfortunately it’s likely that another year might go by before the finale. But even as it stands this thing is worth an order of magnitude more than its $25 price of admission.
ONe act of Madness
By Marty Forbeck
Right before Thanksgiving break, as in 3:45pm on the last day of school before break, a strange little production quietly went down in the Small Auditorium. This is not a review of that. This kind of event would typically be reported with some sort of critical review, but it’s almost impossible to evaluate this event as a work. It closer resembles a brief, mad grab bag of insanity. The untitled production was a one act WW2 tragedy, put on by a small company of 15 or so students and presented by Jason Ennis, who co-directed the production with Riley Ennocenti.
The production, beginning to end, only took about 10 minutes, and as a result the plot was pretty bare bones.It begins with a very small company of Allied soldiers being sent in to hold down a fort in a position that, their superiors assure them, will not be attacked by a large German force.It ends with the totally not foreshadowed death of almost every character.
The play featured loud pre-recorded noises of warfare, elaborate Nazi costumes, band stands wielded as weapons, as well as shouted vulgarities. Typically all of those things either outright prohibited or highly discouraged within the school, but artistic license has a way of getting around such things. Especially for a production which, all told, was only witnessed by 20 or so people and had only a single performance, all mocked up in only a couple of weeks.
The play was planned to take up 15 minutes, running to 4:00pm, but since it only took up 10 Jason Ennis came up on stage after the main event and announced that the rest of the time would be taken up by a, “modern art piece” of his called Nonsense, and that the audience was free to leave whenever they wanted.The cast came out from behind the curtain and proceeded to make random noises and do random actions all over the stage, most of which involved either throwing some prop or large plastic bin in a random direction, or doing the Worm.
Fascinated by the display on stage, almost no one in the audience left until, 4 minutes into the Nonsense, Jason Ennis just looked at the audience and said, “Nobody has anything better to do?”
The answer, apparently, was no.
The production, beginning to end, only took about 10 minutes, and as a result the plot was pretty bare bones.It begins with a very small company of Allied soldiers being sent in to hold down a fort in a position that, their superiors assure them, will not be attacked by a large German force.It ends with the totally not foreshadowed death of almost every character.
The play featured loud pre-recorded noises of warfare, elaborate Nazi costumes, band stands wielded as weapons, as well as shouted vulgarities. Typically all of those things either outright prohibited or highly discouraged within the school, but artistic license has a way of getting around such things. Especially for a production which, all told, was only witnessed by 20 or so people and had only a single performance, all mocked up in only a couple of weeks.
The play was planned to take up 15 minutes, running to 4:00pm, but since it only took up 10 Jason Ennis came up on stage after the main event and announced that the rest of the time would be taken up by a, “modern art piece” of his called Nonsense, and that the audience was free to leave whenever they wanted.The cast came out from behind the curtain and proceeded to make random noises and do random actions all over the stage, most of which involved either throwing some prop or large plastic bin in a random direction, or doing the Worm.
Fascinated by the display on stage, almost no one in the audience left until, 4 minutes into the Nonsense, Jason Ennis just looked at the audience and said, “Nobody has anything better to do?”
The answer, apparently, was no.
Book Review: Dune Remains a Sci-fi and fantasy Classic
By Marty Forbeck
Book Review: Hyperion, a Simmons classic
By Marty Forbeck
Craig variety show: The popular tradition continues
By Marty Forbeck