Book Review: The Land of Painted Caves

Alright, not what I have been planning to write about, but still something that needs to be written. Finally got through the last book in the Earth's Children series. And I've spent the day trying to figure out how to put it into words.

Jean Auel's Earth's Children has been a favourite series of mine since I first read "Clan of the Cave Bear" in 8th grade. That was a while back. The concept captured my imagination, and the storytelling was beautiful. Ayla was a wonderful character, the Clan was amazing, Jondalar was a role model, and the Mamutoi were fascinating. I loved pretty much everything about the first 3 books. The 4th book was enjoyable, but retraced the steps of the 2nd book. And then it really started going downhill. The 5th book finally had Ayla with Jondalar's people, and it was such a letdown. Conflicts weren't fulfilled, tension wasn't built, and it was generally a boring book.

The latest book, "The Land of Painted Caves" continued the downhill trend. And I really hate to say that. There were some really amazing ideas that got completely lost in the rambling of the first half of the book. Characters that were half remembered got more time and random thoughts than the main characters, flashes of tension were simply glazed over and some completely forgotten about, and the first 300 pages took me a month to get through. Yes, I was doing other things too, but stil, if it had been entertaining, then I would have read more and faster.

The second half of the book was a bit better. I really loved the descriptions of some of the cave paintings, especially Chaveaux, but even some of those seemed halfway done and not fully fleshed out. When the novel actually starts to have conflict that is cared about, things happen so quickly especially compared to how slow the first half of the book was. There were parts where I was on edge, nail biting because of how wonderfully written parts were. If the whole book had been like this, then I would have been raving about this book as opposed to pointing out its weaknesses.

The ending though felt rushed and incomplete. I had thought that this would be the last book, but if it isn't, then I do hope the wait for the next isn't as long and it isn't as much of a letdown.

Coming up will be a blog about the news stories of the past few weeks. I'm prepared to be hated.

Movie Review: Thor

Alright, after some time for it to sink in, and a couple of cakes made in the mean time, I'm going to try a spoiler free review of Thor. First off, let me say, best comic book movie since Iron Man, at least. Maybe even Batman Begins. It was that good. Rest of the review will be attempting to put a finger on what it was that made it so good.

First off, it felt completely epic. Kenneth Branaugh brought his Shakespearean touch to the super hero movie. It felt like a great dramatic story, with all the highs and lows and feel of a great work of art. Yes, other people could have directed this, but I don't know if they would have captured the scale of it the way that Branaugh did. It felt classy yet didn't lose the fact that is was based on a comic book, so was funny and light at times. It was just beautiful to watch. Asgard was amazing to look at. And unlike so many other movies, sets were built which added a feeling of realism to the movie. It was nice to see actors interacting with a set instead of just having it projected behind them. Yes, there was a lot of blue screen work as well, but the actual set work was amazing.

Further along those lines, the costumes were absolutely amazing. Thor's armor was beautiful, and Loki's armor even more so. The rest almost matched those two. Except for Odin's. There were some things that I really loved about it, but other parts just didn't seem to work for me. But that was the only one that had that problem. And everything else about Odin made up for the not as cool armor. Heimdahl's armor still gives me chills thinking about it.

Thirdly, the acting was top notch. When Anthony Hopkin's arguably turns in the weakest performance, that's saying something. And his performance just had times where it didn't work. Most of the time he was an amazing Odin. But Loki was the scene stealer. The actor was just amazing, conveyed both the good and bad in his character. Truly Loki Silver tongue. Natalie Portman was fantastic as always, as was Stellan Skarsgard. The cast chemistry was just amazing and they all seemed to play off each other really well.

Then comes the story itself. It give something that isn't found in too many movies, shows, or books even. A dual Hero's Journey is so rarely done well, especially in what most people would consider a light fun movie. But I can't think of any off the top of the head that do it as well as this one follows both Thor and Loki. The only thing that comes close is the Dark Knight and Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent. I think that Thor did it much better.

I don't feel like I can say much more without giving too much of the story away, but it was totally amazing and I would recommend everyone go see it.