Fiction

Shadows in Netflix’s Stranger Things

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Netflix has a winner in its new original Stranger Things, an eight-hour sci-fi/horror show with Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, and Millie Bobby Brown. I’d like to list all of actors, because everyone was fantastic. I want to talk about it here, but I can’t avoid spoilers.

For lovers of Stranger Things (no Spoilers) – Credit to u/pyrobob4


Yes, there’s a bit of an E.T. vibe because we have boys on bikes and bad government agents, agents so bad the public affairs guy at the U.S. Dept. of Energy felt compelled to say, “Whoa! I like Stranger Things like all you guys. It’s a great show, but we do not experiment on people and hunt down monsters, okay? That’s NSA, not us. And Dr. Brenner doesn’t work with us anymore.”

You could say Eggos replace Reese’s Pieces, but the Duffer Brothers aren’t trying to remake E.T. They’re telling a good paranormal story. (By the way, E.T. could have been munching M&Ms, but someone at Mars said, “We know for a fact aliens do not like M&Ms, so the premise of this movie is wildly unrealistic. Hot babes like M&Ms. Why don’t you make a movie about them?”)

When asked about the parallels between Stranger Things and other sci-fi movies, like The Goonies and Close Encounters, co-creator Matt Duffer said,

When you get into the writers’ room and you’re working on individual episodes, actually very little time is spent referencing other movies. Mostly you’re just trying to tell the story, letting the characters guide where everything’s going. Otherwise it would just be a jumble and a mess. Someone sent me that Vimeo video that had our images side-by-side with [‘70s and ‘80s movies] and some of it was purposeful and some of it was not, which was really cool. And some of it I haven’t even seen. Continue reading Shadows in Netflix’s Stranger Things →

Fiction, Reviews

‘Judgment Cometh (And That Right Soon),’ by Scott Pratt

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Judgment Cometh

It wasn’t until I’d finished Judgment Cometh (and That Right Soon) by Scott Pratt that I realized I’d read a previous book in this series. That was An Innocent Client, which introduced the continuing character of lawyer Joe Dillard of Tennessee. I clearly remember composing a review, but if it was ever posted, it’s disappeared altogether from the internet.

In this eighth installment, defense lawyer Joe Dillard takes the job of defending a young man accused of the murder of four judges. He was stopped for driving drunk, and a pair of coolers containing the disarticulated and frozen body parts of the latest victim were found in the back of his pickup. Joe believes the man innocent, and gets the case thrown out.

But that’s not enough for Joe. The real killer is out there, and is very bad news, so Joe starts looking for him himself. He uncovers a pair of the most monstrous murderers he’s ever encountered.

This is a compelling story, and Scott Pratt is a good author. He gives us interesting characters, good writing, and sharp dialogue. Joe’s dealings with his wife (who has been battling cancer) are presented with insight and empathy. His attitude toward religion, which comes up more than once, is hard to gauge – which is probably a good approach.

I disliked some elements of the first Joe Dillard mystery, and read no more. But I’ve picked the series up again with Book Number Two, which I’ll review soon. Scott Pratt has earned another chance with me. He’s good at what he does.

Cautions for language and intense cruelty and violence, though it isn’t overly graphic in presentation.

Authors

C.S. Lewis Did Not Say That

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William O’Flaherty runs the Essential C.S. Lewis website and has a first Saturday monthly feature on words misattributed to the great Jack Lewis. Yesterday he highlighted a quote that is actually from Lewis, but in isolation it reads contrary to its intended meaning in the story.

“Make your choice, adventurous Stranger.”

Seize the day, as it were. Take that hill. Do the thing.

O’Flaherty explains where these words are found in The Magician’s Nephew and what they mean. He has a long list of questionable quotations. See his list of the top five from 2015 here, including two that were spoken by Anthony Hopkins while playing Lewis, which doesn’t make them Lewis quotations.

Fiction, Reviews

‘A View to Die For,’ by Richard Houston

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A View to Die For

I was looking for something a little less intense than the books I’ve been reading recently, and A View to Die For, by Richard Houston, seemed to fit the bill. And it did, more or less. It was an amiable little mystery. A little too amiable, perhaps.

Jacob Martin is a recently divorced Coloradan, who lost his job in computer programming and has been getting with handyman work. When his mother calls and tells him his sister has been arrested for the murder of her husband, he sets out home for Missouri to help out, along with his golden retriever, Fred. His sister is a promising suspect, as her two previous husbands have both died suddenly. She is sure Jacob can help, because he always used to figure out the murderer when they used to watch “Murder, She Wrote”(!).

The story kept me reading to the end, but it seemed a little loose and meandering. The writing was generally OK, though artless, but occasionally words were misused (such as “prolong” for “postpone”).

There are a couple sequels out there, but A View to Die For didn’t grab me enough to persuade me to download them. Your mileage may vary. Cautions for adult themes and language.

Uncategorized

Friday Fight: I Drink Your Milkshake

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Vikings didn’t wear two-horned helmets, making themselves look like bulls, and they didn’t carry giant battle axes into war. They carried light-weight, fast-moving longaxes that could drink your milkshake from all the way across the room. Hurstwic offers some photos and description of the Viking axe.

Uncategorized

Calamitous day

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A day of woe. A day of calamity.

First of all, it was announced that the Dragon Harald Fairhair, the largest Viking ship replica in the world, which sailed all the way from Norway, is ending its American tour at Green Bay. It will not be coming to the Tall Ships Festival in Duluth, where I had hoped to see it.

The problem was that someone failed to plan for the cost of pilot’s fees in the Great Lakes. Funds were raised, much of them through the Sons of Norway organization, to pay for pilotage. But they couldn’t raise enough to get them to Duluth.

Second, when I got home I found that my air conditioning had failed. This isn’t supposed to happen — I pay a company to come out and inspect it every spring. And the unit isn’t very old. But so it is, and I sit here with the windows open. The service company, of course, was closed by the time I got home and discovered this. But I do have a message on their answering machine. Along, no doubt, with about 800 from other, equally deserving, people.

And to top it off, the republic appears to be doomed.

And how was your day?

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘The Viking Spirit,’ by Daniel McCoy

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The Viking Spirit

For that matter, these two poles [of friendly and hostile magic] were often two sides of the same coin; to help one person often meant to harm another. This was especially the case for the Vikings, who believed in an “economy of fortune:” there was a fixed amount of luck in the world, and when one person’s luck changed for the better, someone else’s luck must have changed for the worse.

A Facebook friend asked me about this book, and I was embarrassed to say I’d never heard of it. So I acquired The Viking Spirit, by Daniel McCoy, and read it. I was impressed.

Kevin Crossley-Holland’s The Norse Myths has long been a standard introduction to the subject, and it remains valuable, but I think The Viking Spirit might supersede it. The book is divided into two sections – first an overview of the sources, scholarly views of those sources, and the nature of the Norse world view. The second section provides short synopses of the myths that have been preserved to us. The author attempts to strip them down to something like their “original” essences, while making it clear that much has been lost, that it’s possible to have more than one “original” version, and that our critical editing is necessarily a matter of guesswork.

My chief fear when I started the book was that it would be full of New Agey spiritual fluff, but nothing could be further from the case. Author McCoy is very hard-headed about his scholarship. He makes some fresh contributions that will be surprising even to old Viking buffs – for instance his view that the Norsemen did not see history as a cyclical phenomenon, but as linear. That contradicts a lot of 20th Century scholarship, but he makes a good case.

I caught McCoy in a few small errors, I thought, especially in his descriptions of Viking life. But I’d be hesitant to challenge him, because he clearly knows his stuff (and I’ve been known to be wrong).

If you’re interested in Norse mythology, I highly recommend The Viking Spirit. Not for young kids, if you want to shield them from some of the earthier facts of life.

Reviews

Imminent Islam

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I have a vague idea I may have written on this subject here before. But the scenario looks even more likely to me today than it did then (whenever that was).

I consider it highly probable that the mainline Protestant churches will convert, en masse, to Islam. Very likely within my lifetime.

Here’s my reasoning. Continue reading Imminent Islam →

Religion

Deeply Flawed, But Becoming Beautiful

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From our earthly perspective, it may not seem to us that the motley assortment of deeply flawed humanity that makes up the church has much to commend it. What kind of a reward is this for Christ’s suffering? Yet Jesus does not hesitate to call us beautiful!

Iain Duguid writes about the hope and security found in Daniel 6. “My salvation rests not on my ability to ‘Dare to be a Daniel,’ but solely on Christ’s perfect obedience in my place.”

Fiction, Reviews

‘Murder Upstream,’ by Mark Hazard

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Murder Upstream

If you think a book is well written, but it still didn’t work for you, do you give it a positive or negative review?

I guess I’ll go negative, because I’m a small, vindictive man. But I’ll be honest about my reasons, so you can make adjustments for that.

Murder Upstream is set in a small fictional city called Harding. The rich people live upstream, on the high ground, and the poor people live downstream, where it’s flooding right now, after a period of heavy rains. A beautiful young woman, heir to one of the city’s top real estate developers, is found bludgeoned to death outside her family home. Detective Kyle Villante is sent to investigate, getting assistance from Det. Solomon Aduwo, on loan from the state police. Their investigation pokes into social tensions, environmental concerns, and local organized crime (with which Kyle has connections thanks to prolonged work as an undercover officer).

Murder Upstream was competently plotted and well written (though there were too many typographical errors). My only real objection was that I didn’t care much for the hero. Kyle Villante is metrosexual in his personal grooming, arrogant in his musical tastes, promiscuous in his sexual habits, and inclined to cut legal corners on the job. In real life, I think, a guy like this wouldn’t last long on an honest force, even if his motives were good.

I should mention in his defense, though, that the author inserted one or two of what I’d call “moments of grace,” where he showed real compassion and human empathy. But – for a stuffy moralist like me – it just wasn’t enough. Your mileage may… you know.

Cautions for language, violence, and sexual situations.

Book Reviews, Creative Culture