Let’s see if this plot sounds familiar. A young boy being raised by people who aren’t his parents is told by someone he’s never met that he possesses extraordinary powers. The man takes the boy away from his home and shows him that there are others just like him with magical powers and that he has a destiny to defeat a powerful group of people who want to control the world. If you guessed Harry Potter, well you’d be right, but I’m talking about Brandon Sanderson’s book Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians, a hilarious send-up of the young-adult fantasy genre.
In this short but entertaining book, the reader is introduced to Alcatraz Smedry who receives a package in the mail on his thirteenth birthday. It’s from his supposedly dead parents who have given him…a bag of sand. Soon a man claiming to be his grandfather shows up and tells him that he has magical powers called Talents and that the world is actually controlled by evil librarians. Alcatraz also meets several of his hitherto unknown relatives who also have special abilities. Instead of what you might expect, Sanderson gives his characters rather unexpected abilities, including the ability to break things, the ability to always be late for everything and the ability to trip and fall down. These talents are put to clever uses as our heroes infiltrate the librarians’ headquarters…the downtown branch of the public library.
Interspersed with the humorous adventures of Alcatraz and his friends are Sanderson’s (through Alcatraz’s narration) funny comments on writing in general and fantasy novels in particular. I liked the part about how authors love it when people stay up too late reading their books because the authors keep ending chapters with cliffhangers. While this book isn’t as fully developed as the other novel I’ve read by him, Elantris, it’s not supposed to be since it’s aimed at younger readers. I had a great time with it and look forward to reading the second volume.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
2008 Academy Award Nominees for Best Animated Short Film
Yesterday I went to the Magnolia theater in Dallas to watch a program of animated short films that are nominated for an Academy Award. I love animation and it’s rare to see short films of this type outside of the ones Pixar releases in front of their movies. In fact, one of the nominees is Presto, the short that was presented with WALL-E. Presto tells the story of a magician and his put-upon rabbit who refuses to be pulled out of a hat until he gets to eat a carrot. The rabbit puts the magician through all sorts of slapstick torture in the style of a Warner Brothers cartoon, kind of like what Bugs Bunny would do to Yosemite Sam. As with all of Pixar’s efforts, Presto is clever and very funny.
The first short of the program is Lavatory Lovestory from Russia. It’s a simple story about a lonely woman who attends a generic public restroom. My mom is living in Europe right now and she wrote about how different the restrooms are over there and even mentioned going to one that had an attendant that you are supposed to give money to when you enter. The animation in Lavatory Lovestory is mostly simple line drawings in black and white with a few splashes of color. The animators got a lot of expression from their characters even with the bare-bones style they used.
Oktapodi came next. Two octopi are in love but one of them is taken away by a chef to be served for dinner. The other octopus goes after his lover in a hilarious CGI adventure that is non-stop fun for all of its three minute running time. Obviously inspired by both Warner Bros. and Pixar cartoons, it was my favorite with lots of sight gags and a frenetic pace.
I initially had a hard time figuring out what was going on in La Maison en Petits Cubes. It’s about an old man whose house is slowly flooding. As he swims to the lower levels of his house, he remembers details of his life, especially memories of his late wife. I found myself quite moved by this surreal story of memory and loss.
This Way Up is a short with a distinctly British sense of black humor. Two serious looking undertakers try to take a casket to a cemetery and things go horribly wrong as all sorts of accidents happen to both the casket and the dead woman inside including a bizarre descent into hell itself. Morbid but hilarious.
After the five nominees, the program continued with several other shorts, which I presume were on the short-list but didn’t receive a nomination. The first was Varmints, a 24-minute short that I’m not sure I can accurately describe. It involves an anthropomorphic animal of indeterminate species who loves nature and being in the outdoors. His world soon turns nightmarish as other creatures drag a giant city into a meadow and the creature finds himself living in this bland, mechanical world. It reminded me of Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil. He hangs on to a plant seedling he rescued before the city arrived and meets a female member of his species. The CGI animation is outstanding with lots of surreal imagery and special effects.
Another fascinating short was Schizein from France. This one is a Twilight Zone type story about a man who is hit by a meteorite and perceives himself to be located exactly 91 centimeters from his actual body. I know, it s hard to describe in words but it works very well in the animation medium. This is one of the few films that has dialogue.
The program was rounded out by a few more shorts, the best of which is one by well-known animator Bill Plympton called Hot Dog about an overeager firehouse dog who tries to help fight a fire with disastrous and hilarious results.
The first short of the program is Lavatory Lovestory from Russia. It’s a simple story about a lonely woman who attends a generic public restroom. My mom is living in Europe right now and she wrote about how different the restrooms are over there and even mentioned going to one that had an attendant that you are supposed to give money to when you enter. The animation in Lavatory Lovestory is mostly simple line drawings in black and white with a few splashes of color. The animators got a lot of expression from their characters even with the bare-bones style they used.
Oktapodi came next. Two octopi are in love but one of them is taken away by a chef to be served for dinner. The other octopus goes after his lover in a hilarious CGI adventure that is non-stop fun for all of its three minute running time. Obviously inspired by both Warner Bros. and Pixar cartoons, it was my favorite with lots of sight gags and a frenetic pace.
I initially had a hard time figuring out what was going on in La Maison en Petits Cubes. It’s about an old man whose house is slowly flooding. As he swims to the lower levels of his house, he remembers details of his life, especially memories of his late wife. I found myself quite moved by this surreal story of memory and loss.
This Way Up is a short with a distinctly British sense of black humor. Two serious looking undertakers try to take a casket to a cemetery and things go horribly wrong as all sorts of accidents happen to both the casket and the dead woman inside including a bizarre descent into hell itself. Morbid but hilarious.
After the five nominees, the program continued with several other shorts, which I presume were on the short-list but didn’t receive a nomination. The first was Varmints, a 24-minute short that I’m not sure I can accurately describe. It involves an anthropomorphic animal of indeterminate species who loves nature and being in the outdoors. His world soon turns nightmarish as other creatures drag a giant city into a meadow and the creature finds himself living in this bland, mechanical world. It reminded me of Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil. He hangs on to a plant seedling he rescued before the city arrived and meets a female member of his species. The CGI animation is outstanding with lots of surreal imagery and special effects.
Another fascinating short was Schizein from France. This one is a Twilight Zone type story about a man who is hit by a meteorite and perceives himself to be located exactly 91 centimeters from his actual body. I know, it s hard to describe in words but it works very well in the animation medium. This is one of the few films that has dialogue.
The program was rounded out by a few more shorts, the best of which is one by well-known animator Bill Plympton called Hot Dog about an overeager firehouse dog who tries to help fight a fire with disastrous and hilarious results.
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