Forty-Two

The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy: Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny and the Dead, and Johnny and the Bomb by Terry Pratchett are three great young-adult novels. They are getting a little dated, but I still handed them over to my godson A.J. when I was done because I’m so sure he’ll like them. It has it all from adventure and excitement to kids knowing more than adults to the supernatural. What more could you want?

The first novel, Only You Can Save Mankind, is about the protagonist Johnny Maxwell who is eleven or twelve, and he gets a video game from his computer-hacker-wannabe friend and starts playing it. It’s the classic kill-em-all game against space invaders and he’s doing ok until the aliens say they want to surrender. Then it all gets a little weird. It’s a great story and a great message. I liked it a lot.

Johnny and the Dead, the second novel in the series, is also great. After the story of the first book has ended and some time has passed, Johnny frequently walks home past the cemetery that is going to be displaced by some modern buildings and starts to see ghosts… err… post-alive persons. When they find out what is going to happen to the cemetery, all kinds of things start to occur. Not quite zombies, but still a lot of good stuff!

The third novel, Johnny and the Bomb, involves some time travel to Johnny’s town in England during WWII. His interest in what happened there back then seems to have helped influence the time travel path his friends and himself find themselves on, but then when they make a mistake and one of their friends can’t make it back to their time, what do they do? It’s a great take on the time travel paradox and a really entertaining read.

Terry Pratchett, as usual, is awesome in his story-telling and he adds a lot of great lessons on the way, such as race and gender issues from the past to the present, crime and prejudice issues, and the psychology of “winning” as a goal as well. The first novel’s period take on computers and video games is a fun retrospective as well. Although the novels are well written and make a great story, they read a little young for the average adult reader. For a young adult, age 10 to 13 or so, I would think they would be awesome. The kids are really in charge, can pretty much do anything they want, and they make a lot of good choices although not always necessarily on purpose, and they are a lot of fun. Still highly recommended. It is Pratchett after all.

I love zombies.

For me it all started the first time I saw the original “Night of the Living Dead” by George A. Romero. A black-and-white film from 1968.

The whole ending was awesome where the good guy was victimized by the military that were supposedly there to “save” him. Ha. Zombies were neutral, just trying to get a brain to feed their hungry tummies, whereas mankind was truly a malicious evil. Wow. Blew my mind. Of course I was like 12. Still, I totally dug it. It was social commentary, race-issue commentary, and entertainment all wrapped up in one gripping drama-comedy-horror flick. What wasn’t there to enjoy?

Then came Romero’s follow-ups, “Dawn of the Dead” (shopping malls are awesome ways to escape the re-animated dead! Who knew? Loved it!) and “Day of the Dead” (not my favorite – too much military, ugh), followed by Dan O’Bannon’s 1985 “Return of the Living Dead” written by John Russo who co-wrote the original “Night of the Living Dead” and also the first Zombie film to use the now-ubiquitous “Brainnnnnsssss…..” line. Yay!

Now of course we have the modern films, “Resident Evil” and sequels – there is just something so cool about chicks that kick butt and save the day. Woo Hoo! (All awesome – I totally want to buy an Umbrella umbrella – available at ThinkGeek!) and the parody “Shaun of the Dead” which I still love even though it doesn’t take itself seriously. Still. Wicked fun.

But tied up in all of it is all the other stuff, too, like the video games “Evil Dead” and of course “Resident Evil”, and the popular culture references like the one in web comic xkcd (www.xkcd.com):

the cool t-shirts like this one that was featured on BoingBoing (www.boingboing.net) 

- yes, a Vegan Zombie who wants “GRAINNNS!”
Ha ha ha. Cracks me up every time.

Of course you also have Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video which is a classic and is even repeated as a “get everyone involved” dance in the cute retro “13 Going on 30” film which I loved.

And then there is the Zombie Survival Guide book by Max Brooks and of course the new Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith that I wrote about earlier. Fun fun fun!

All in all, it started with the fact that it was social commentary and went on to become fun and entertaining and a subculture all its own. Love it! More Zombies! Yay!

XKCD webcomic by Randall Munroe (www.xkcd.com)

The best web comic I’ve ever seen is actually going to be releasing a book! Woo Hoo! Not until June, though. I can’t wait! See the article at the New York Times here.

Just finished Terry Pratchett’s latest novel, Nation, one of his fewer non-Discworld novels and one that’s said to be for “Young Adults”. I loved it! It’s basically a story that tells about the human condition and how it handles loss, the story is touching and cute but also deep and revealing at the same time. And of course it’s Terry Pratchett so it’s intelligent and humorous as well. There are some dark themes and explorations of religion and philosophy and science and how they influence us that really give the story some depth.

Set in British Empire-era South Pacific islands in a slightly-different parallel universe, it follows several characters after a volcano-created tsunami comes through and changes their lives forever. My favorite idea from the book is that when “something big is taken, much is returned”. I highly recommend this book. It’s a quick and fun read with a good story and great message. It was everything I wanted it to be and so much more.

Finally read The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. I’ve loved the film of the same name that’s based on this book for over two decades but never picked up the book. Well, I’ve been missing out! The book is awesome! It reads almost exactly like the film plays with the same witty banter between Nick and Nora Charles that made the film one of my all-time favorites. I was pleasantly surprised to find some scenes translated almost word-for-word to the film and there really weren’t that many differences in the story  between the two despite the platform requirements of the film.

Set in end-of-prohibition-era New York at Christmastime, the Thin Man from the title is actually a man named Clyde Wynant, a scientist, that has gone missing. The dynamic duo of Nick and Nora are the most charming married couple I’ve ever seen and the film’s Nora played by Myrna Loy has been my female ideal since I originally saw the film and although the book’s Nora is a little less fleshed out, her wit and humor are still there. And William Powell’s Nick is a handsome and extremely intelligent character that the book’s Nick doesn’t quite match, but the intelligence is still there.

The story follows the rich and perpetually-drunk couple Nick and Nora as they return to Nick’s old stomping ground of New York for the holidays to get away from Nora’s oppressive family in California. Nick was formerly a well-known private-eye in New York until he met wealthy socialite Nora and they married, allowing him to quit his job and become a “gentleman” which mostly means spending the day “tight” (drunk) which is even funnier when you take it in the prohibition-era time period.

Nick runs into Clyde Wynant’s daughter Dorothy in a speak-easy while he’s waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping and he gets immediately thrust into the search for the girl’s father against his will just as the murder of the man’s long-time secretary/mistress is discovered by the man’s divorced and re-married wife (Dorothy’s mother).

The whodunnit murder mystery unravels slowly between social visits to the Charles’ hotel suite and visits to speakeasies where everyone is drinking (even the cops). The humor and wit is rich and entertaining, and the story is told quickly and flows across the page. The characters are all more fully developed in the book (as expected) and there is a lot more to the story in the book that didn’t make it to the film (also as expected). All-in-all I found the book to be amazing and no wonder that it was made into such a successful film and five fun sequels that even now are still relevant and entertaining. Both are classics!

Just finished reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore and I loved it! It was a great idea, that of Jesus’ imaginary life story told through the eyes of a fictitious best friend. Christopher Moore is known more for his monster and vampire comedy stories and this actually fits into that canon rather well, believe it or not. He even had a recurring character from one of his other books show up (or is it the other way around? I’m not reading them in any order, and I didn’t look it up).

The story is remarkably well researched (he admits to fudging many details for the benefit of the story) but all-in-all he tried to keep things historically accurate while adding as much as he could from his imagination that would fit. The tale is told as if the main character, Biff, was resurrected in modern times and asked by an angel to tell the story of Christ’s life as he lived it. It’s an irreverent tale insomuch as Biff is a rather modern soul, inventing sarcasm, loving the ladies, and not really being all that interested in Jesus’ mission as the saviour except that he would do anything for his best friend. The tale follows their lives from a youthful age through to Jesus’ death through invented tales of travels to India, China, and elsewhere as Jesus tries to find the Wise Men that brought him gifts at his birth and study under them.