Book Review – Dragons of Autumn Twilight

My little brain started wandering in the direction of fantasy novels just now, so I thought I’d tell you all about the book that, after The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, really got me hooked, lined and sunk into the genre.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Volume 1 of the Dragonlance Chronicles, was one of the first novels produced by TSR, that roughly paralleled the plot of an epic series of AD&D adventures that came out about the same time, in the mid-1980s.

(And yes, in answer to your unspoken question, not only do I have all 14 adventures, but the sequels, the sourcebooks, the atlas, the boxed set, the art book. . . .)

The book’s gone through a couple of editions over the years. Here’s a couple of the cover paintings, by Larry Elmore:

Deuced mean-looking dragons, wot?

Written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the book followed a group of adventurers in a standard quasi-mediaeval fantasy setting, with a nifty twist – while there had been dragons in the world in the past, no-one had seen hide nor hair of them for some 356 years (Yes, I remembered exactly how many years and I haven’t read the book for a long time).

Then, all of a sudden, they were back, along with lots and lots Really Nasty Evil Guys. The chief Nasty Evil Guy is named “Verminaard,” by the way. Now that’s a name to conjure with!

There were the hell of a lot of protagonists to keep track of in this book, including the Melancholy Half-Elf, the Crusty Dwarf, the Barbarian, the High Priestess, the Gronk Warrior, the Sinister Mage (twin brother of the Gronk, just to make things interesting), the Knight and the Kender.

What’s a kender? Sort of a kleptomaniac hobbit.

Anyway, they all get pitched headfirst into this mess and charge off into the thick of things. Mayhem ensues.

If you think this sounds like hackenyed genre fiction, you’d be partly right. It’s no LOTR, but it’s nowhere near the realms of guilty pleasure either. The characters are snapshots, but they’re well-drawn, sympathetic snapshots, with enough quirks and foibles to make them interesting. The writing is well-done and the dragons are introduced sparingly enough to keep them interesting. The dragons are the same ones as recorded in a Previous Missive of this digital diary.

Here’s how the first dragon we meet introduces herself (Elmore, again):

Her name’s Khisanth (Onyx to mere mortals). Nasty-looking, isn’t she?

There are dungeons explored, elven cities visited, dragons fought (and slain) prisoners rescued, loves lost (and won) and much fun had by all.

So clasped within the covers of this tome you’ll find exotic locations, interesting people, good rousing fights and giant flying lizards with really bad halitosis. There’s even a unicorn and a bar brawl, although not at the same time.

All in all, this is a great introduction to genre fantasy and the fact that it’s still in print after over twenty years says something. I’ll let you figure out what.

Snowshoes and sleigh rides

This past Sunday, Katherine and I got out for a little wander through the local winter wonderland.

a quickr pickr post

It was a mixture of the old and new……Katherine rode in the sleigh that my folks pulled me around in and I wore the brand-new snowshoes I got for my birthday.

These shoes are great things. They’re made locally by Bear Paw Snowshoes from inner tubes and fishing twine. They’re bright orange, which is cool, and keep you up out of the snowdrifts, which is important.  They’re easy to walk in and narrow enough that you don’t develop that bowlegged stance that makes everyone think you’re AWOL from the local cavalry platoon (do they even have cavalry platoons anymore in this country?).

The sleigh is an old wooden one, with steam-bent runners and a little cradle at the back to keep the young’uns safe. Katherine loved it.

There’s a delightful peace in the winter woods, with the only noise being the tramp of your feet and the shrush of the sleigh runners over the snow.

We had a snack, made snow angels, and came home again for hot chocolate.  Yum.

Working at home

We had a snow day today, so I was working at home, on something involving fish and the catching thereof.  I heard a little Katherine voice say, “Look, John!”

I look up and there, scattered over the file, is a whole school of plastic piscines.

Lawyers know a file’s hot when their documents spontaneously attract their subject matter.

This can have unpleasant side effects, though.  Consider, with an ounce of pity, those  poor souls who have to deal with hot files about landfills and hog-farm waste.

AND IN OTHER NEWS. . . . .

Said He to She – “Finished work.  I’m going out to shovel now.”

Said She to He – “Can’t get enough of it, can you?”

Of Dragons and such

Of all the critters dreamed up by the D&D designers, the various dragon species are by far the most fascinating. They’re surprisingly close to us (demi)human folks. Who among your family, co-workers, etc. can you see in the beasties listed below (complete with the Latin binomials from the First Edition Monster Manual!):

First the good boys. . . .the Metallics.

Brass Dragon (Draco Impudentus Gallus). Lives in the desert, hides from blue dragons, breathes sleep gas and fear gas. Talkative, officious and will follow you around, talking to you.

Bronze Dragon (Draco Gerus Bronzo). Lives in sea caves, loves treasure, likes to swim , tease whales and people-watch. Likes a good fight. Breathes lightning and a repulsion gas.

Copper Dragon (Draco Comes Stabuli): Lives in rocky barren regions. Loves to talk, must be the centre of attention and loves riddles. Practical jokers. Breathes acid and slow gas.  Irritating, but they mean well.

Gold Dragon (Draco Orientalis Sino Dux): Wise, judicious, benevolent. Loves fair play. Crusading do-gooders. Breathes fire and chlorine gas. Lives in stone caves, castles, etc.  Tiresome, like that great-aunt who’s always giving out reams of good advice and is usually right.

Silver Dragon (Draco Nobilis Argentum): Cheerful, helpful, perky. Likes people (not to eat). Non-violent except when pushed (think Kwai Chang Kane). Breathes frost and paralysation gas. Lives on mountaintops or in cloud castles.

And the bad ones, the Chromatics (they’re more fun):

Black Dragon (Draco Causticus Sputum): Nasty, short-tempered, quick to take offence (and give it) Not too bright, but sharp teeth make up for that. Breathes acid. Lives in swamps, marshes, etc.

Blue Dragon (Draco Electricus):  Very territorial.  Always hungry.  Likes planning ambushes for herd animals and travellers.  Strategists, logicians and trophy collectors (don’t ask what sort).  Lives in hot deserts.  Breathes lightning.

Green Dragon (Draco Chlorinus Nauseous Respiratorus):  Nasty, brutish and not at all short.  Rude, cruel and sadistic.  Likes to pick fights, poison and/or enslave people.  Back-stabbers.  Breathes chlorine gas, but will NOT sanitise swimming pools on request.  Lives in the deep dark woods.  Refuses to play fair.

Red Dragon (Draco Conflagratio Horriblis):  Smaug, basically.  Greedy, thoroughly evil, very powerful.  Loves wholesale slaughter and destruction, but will lay waste to the retail market as well.  Breathes fire and have been known to hold aerosol cans in front of their mouths before exhaling.  Prefers to munch on maidens, but will eat rocks if pressed.  Lives in caves, mountains, etc.

White Dragon (Draco Rigidus Frigidus):  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  Mean-tempered, though, in a vicious, lowbrow mob-enforcer kind of way.  Breathes frost and lives in arctic environs.  Likes frozen food, like factory-freezer trawlers.

Well that’s it. Do you know any of these people?  If you do, chances are, they get home at the end of a long day and change into something a little scalier.

The Outside of my Inner Elf

Remember the AD&D quiz where I turned out to be a Chaotic Good Elven Ranger/Cleric?  Well, I was wandering through the art galleries at the Wizards of the Coast website (they’re the good folks behind D&D) when I happened across this fellow.

Meet my OuterElf.  He pretty much what I have in mind when I think of my ideal elven adventurer.  He’s a utilitarian, down-to-earth sort, with all the necessaries to leave his mark on the fantasy landscape.  His gear is well-worn, and well-suited to his lot in life.  Understated traveling clothes, nothing fancy that invites murder, good plain sword and dagger and enough armor to give him decent protection, but not enough to slow him down.  Elves, are, after all, agile little buggers.  That composite recurve bow is obviously his pride and joy, and if it’s a little overdrawn, it’s foregivable.  After all, we’re talking about a people who can “hit a bird’s eye in the dark.” (Five points if you can remember the source of that quote.  Bonus:  What chapter?)

My favourite is the quiver with the flap to keep the arrows dry and secure.  That’s such a great idea that if it didn’t exist historically, it should have.

What do the outsides of your inner selves look like?

In memoriam – Reg Brown, Q.C. 1951-2007

I learned this morning that last night, Reg Brown, a senior lawyer here in St. John’s, had passed away quite suddenly.  I did not know Reg very well personally, but he and I had been on opposite ends of quite a few files since my call to the Bar in 2003.  In all my dealings with him, he was courteous, direct and aboveboard.  He always treated me, a very junior lawyer, with absolutely no condescension or patronisation, but as a equal.  Reg was in practice for thirty years and working with him on the other side of a file was a challenging and rewarding experience.  In short, he was that rarest of birds in this day and age – a gentleman.

He will be greatly missed.

Bad Moviegoers – Meet the gang!

Thought I’d let you have an inside peek at the Men of Bad Movie Night, my stalwart comrades-in-arms, the D-grade cinema-seekers, who band together sort of regularly in search of ever-new lows examples of the cinematic art.

Plus, as an added feature, a behind-the-scenes featurette of the inevitable prelude to the Bad Movie itself – The Fixing of Larry’s House.

But First! The Dramatis Personae. . . . .(names have not been changed to protect the innocent. There are no innocents here).

There’s me. You already know all about me.

Larry – a really tall, really thin guy who hosts our meetings. He’s a long-time film-fan/freak with an astounding collection of movies. Those I’ve reviewed here are but a small portion. . . . He does something involving the energising of synergies or synergising of analogies at one of our Esteemed Bastions of Higher Learning.

Bob – my brother-in-law. Pretty tall and immensely strong, he’s usually the Brute Force when it comes time to Fix Things at Larry’s House. He also knows lots about rocks and climbing up things.

Dave – a mild-mannered bearded sort whose day job involves helping people not blow their eyebrows off at the aforementioned Bastion. Like Larry, he has both a broad and deep knowledge of celluloid sludge.

Ken – Currently re-training to do something with wires, buttons, and machines that go “Ping!”, Ken is often in the first line of attack at Fixing Things at Larry’s House. He is an excellent chef, has often already seen many of the films we screen and frequently offers in-depth, Technicolour commentary. We’re all a little worried. . . .

And now. . . .Why we Fix Things at Larry’s House.

Larry knows how to fix things and has almost every tool known to man. There’s little he doesn’t know about in the way of home repairs, but sometimes even Larry needs a Beautiful Assistant.

Unfortunately for Larry, he gets us.

Many’s the time, when we show up at Larry’s house, there’s a little something that needs doing before we get to the actual movie part. It works well for everyone – Larry gets something done that he needs a hand with and we all have a chance to swing hammers, pound on things and crack off-colour jokes.

What more is there to life?

Anyway, the prelude to the last movie (see previous post), was fairly typical. Larry calls me up and asks “Is Bob afraid of heights? I’ve got a hole in my roof and someone needs to go up a ladder and squish some goo into it.” I knew right away that this was going to be something special.

I called Bob and told him what was to be done. “Right!” he said. “I’ll bring my headlamp and my painting pants.”

So we arrive. It’s -6 Celsius and there’s a nice little wind blowing. It’s fucking freezing, to be honest. Ken and Larry are already there, with an extension ladder and a caulking gun, standing in Larry’s driveway and looking knowledgeable. In reality, all they’re doing is waiting for the only guy brave enough to climb two storeys up the side of a house in the middle of winter at night.

The first thing to be done was for me to unlimber the kick-ass flashlight I’d gotten for Christmas and shed some light on the issue.

I did mention that a large part of the fun of this is getting to use cool stuff, right?

Then, the offending areas scoped out, we scooped away the pile of jagged-pointed firewood that Larry had heaped against the garage door and was in the way of the ladder’s feet. If Bob noticed that we were heaping it higher under the spot where he’d land if he fell off, he was obviously appreciative of the efforts we were making to have his fall broken by something other than cold, hard pavement, because he didn’t SAY anything.

The ladder went up and up went Bob. “Bouncy,” he said. Larry started to pass up the caulking gun, but paused as Ken shouted in alarm, “Hang on! It’s oozing. Let off the
pressure, Larry!”

Dead silence, followed by much snickering.

The rest of the conversation during this job was in a similar vein, with much reference to the actress and the bishop. If you don’t know what that means, I’m not going to tell you.

At any rate, Bob squoze Larry’s goo into the crack and then paused while Larry manufactured a crevice-tool applicator tip for the caulking gun with a hacksaw, a ballpeen hammer, a piece of copper pipe and some duct tape (Red Green, are you reading this?).

More goo was squoze, and as then we waited for it to rain to see if the job held.

That paled after a while, so we went inside, and as we climbed the steps, Larry observed, “Thanks, guys. If it had to be me climbing up there, I would’ve been holding onto the roof with both hands in a death grip, trying to operate the caulking gun with my mouth.”

Gentlemen that we were, we did not forebear comment .

Blood-sucking nostril-gazers

For the first Bad Movie Night of 2007, we picked a real winner. We knew it had to be worth it, just by the title alone.

Last night, for two straight hours, we laughed. We snickered. We yelled rude things at the screen. Our cinematic gem this time round was none other than The Vampires’ Night Orgy.

This is a little Spanish vampire movie from the 1970s, weirdly dubbed into English. The plot, such as it was, involved a busload of tourists travelling the European countryside somewhere (we’re never told exactly where) when their driver has a heart attack at the wheel. Rather than press on to their destination, our intrepid band decides to stick the corpse in the back and take a detour to a tiny, out-of-the-way hamlet.

Bad idea. Don’t they know what kind of a movie they’re in? Oddly enough, the driver does not spontaneously wake up and start killing people, but that’s about the only cliche that this movie avoids. Sure enough, the village is inhabited by a whole lotta bloodsuckers who start picking off the hapless idiots one by one.

Just goes to show that you should never judge a movie by its title.  There are vampires, I grant you.  But most of the film’s action takes place in the daytime and there’s damn few orgies happening.

This movie does, however, have a large number of good points. In no particular order:

One:  There’s a Charles Bronson lookalike. He’s the first one to bite it. Must’ve had a death wish.

Two:  The vampires walk around during the day.  In a movie like this, you don’t quibble with little things like the filmmakers’ not adhering to the classic vampire folklore.  But at the very end of the movie, as the Rugged Hero and the Sexy Babe escape the village (during the daytime) they burst out from the town borders into brilliant sunlight.  They look back into a pall of cloud hanging over the village and one comments to the other, “That’s how those creatures could move around during the day!  There was never any direct sunlight!”

Oh.  That’s interesting.  First time we’ve heard that the characters thought it was odd the bad guys were out during the day.  Never knew it was a problem.  Continuity is not this movie’s strong suit.

Three: The Rugged Hero is not a square-jawed virtuous leading man; he’s a pudgy leering voyeur who watches the Sexy Babe through a hole in her bedroom wall.  That’s about as close as we get to an orgy, but it’s a refreshing change.

Four: The village is full of vampires, but it’s never clear who is one and who isn’t one.  Some are mortal.  Some are not.  Do we know who’s who?  No.  Do we care?  Not really.

Five:  You know in all good vampire movies, there’s a shot where the vampire moves in menacingly at the camera until all you can see is a close-up of some truly impressive dentition?  In this movie, the vampire moves menacingly in at the camera, until all you can see is a close-up of his nose.  Then the screen goes blank for a second, presumably because the vampire’s walked right into the cameraman and knocked him over.  But you do get to see some detailed schozzolas in this flick.  The wonderful thing is that the director obviously thought this was an effective technique for generating tension because he repeated it three or four times.

Rural European peasant vampires have really ugly noses.  Not scary.  Just ugly.

Six:  The greatest thing about this movie has to be the soundtrack.  Nowhere else will you find a scene of vampires feasting on their victims with light jazz accompaniment.  It’s something special.

If you haven’t got this one in your collection, go get it!  You’ll be glad.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Best fishes to all in 2007!!