fantasy

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 19 – The One About An Ocarina of Time Remake

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

To be honest, this one is going to be more about games than books or wrestling. More hits than misses, leaker Natthehate shared a lot of Nintendo’s 2026 plans with Video Games Chronicle, backing it up with confirmation from their own sources. One of those plans includes a remake of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and now that the info is spreading around, the people with sources seem to imply it is a robust remake far beyond what the 3DS version did.

Sources: Nintendo is planning a new Star Fox and a major Zelda remake this year, but no 3D Mario

Ocarina of Time isn’t even my favorite Zelda game (it’s my fourth), but it might be the most important Zelda game in my life. A Link to the Past introduced me to fantasy as a genre, and it was my first RPG, even if it was an Action RPG. Following that and getting a Nintendo 64 in 1996, Ocarina of Time was the first game that I ever followed the news about its release, both in magazines like Nintendo Power and on the internet in message boards on America Online. Back then, the idea of a game taking three years to come out was crazy, and each time Nintendo Power introduced a new delay to the game, it drove my childhood best friend and me crazy.

It was the first game I ever bought with my own saved-up money, not for my birthday, not for Christmas, or any other occasion. I don’t remember what kind of tree, it was either a Douglas Fir or a Norway Spruce, but we had it in our backyard near our pool, near my treehouse, so I’d often climb in it. The same year Ocarina of Time came out, the tree got very sick. It was already shading our pools, so my parents wanted to be rid of it anyway, but my dad didn’t want to hire someone to cut it down. When he did, he needed someone to help cut branches off it, and I needed the money for Zelda, so he generously offered me $10 for every hour I helped. I don’t think he expected me to make it very long, but I kept at it until I earned at least forty to fifty dollars. I got my dad to take me to Toy’R’Us and preorder the game, which involved grabbing a ticket off the wall where the title was and putting a payment of ten dollars down. If you pre-ordered the game, you’d get a special gold cartridge, but I had school the day it came out. Ocarina of Time was also the first time I can remember vocalizing being angry with my sister and my mother, who brought home a regular cartridge even though I had pre-ordered the game with my own money. I was the only one among my friends who didn’t have the gold cartridge. I can’t remember exactly what my mother said, but I remember she was exasperated with my disapointment as if I was lucky enough she had picked it up from the store for me because the store was swamped, and she didn’t think it was a big deal. I was lucky, but it was a big deal to me. I have more memories tied to Ocarina of Time, but I’ll save those for a later date. Here’s books and wrestling.

Books – Green and Deadly Things by Jenn Lyons

Green & Deadly Things by Jenn Lyons slipped through my fingers. For some reason, maybe it’s because most of the Advance Reader Copies of books I actually am super invested in all come out in May I had assumed this also came out in May, as Jenn Lyons is one of my favorite authors currently. Nope! This came out March 3rd, and I had barely read the first chapter. Now, I’m halfway through, and you can expect this book to be covered on No Page Unturned soon enough. When I started it, I was comparing Mathaiik to Kihrin from A Chorus of Dragons, but he’s really more of a Brother Qown-like. My one criticism of the books I’ll share here is that I wish it were a multi-POV book rather than just Math the whole time. Math’s inability to accept that not everything Idallik Knights have taught is true, still halfway through the book, is a little annoying, and Kaiataris’s point-of-view, who is from a thousand years ago and seeing a new world born from her own world, would have been a breath of fresh air. It’s still a great book so far, but that’s just my two cents.

Wrestling – AEW Bullet Points

Just some quick bullet points on my current thoughts going on in AEW

  • If Kenny Omega beats MJF at Dynasty to become AEW Men’s World Champion, and only if then will I buy tickets for Double or Nothing in New York.
  • I used to say if only MJF wrestled as much as he took up time talking in segments on AEW television, I would like him more, but I don’t even like his wrestling anymore. He does way too much goofy shit in every match of his when he used to, if rarely ever wrestling, actually try. I feel like I’m watching Triple H in his prime, and I hated the way Triple H wrestled, even when he was good. I feel like this entire championship run has been carried by AEW having the best roster on the planet as his opponents. Bandido, Brody King, Hangman Page, Kevin Knight, and Speedball Mike Bailey have all done tremendous jobs to make him look good. If he’s beating Kenny and someone like Darby Allin, who feels very stale right now, is going to be his Double or Nothing opponent, then let’s see how that goes because I’m not feeling confident.
  • This Jon Moxley v. Will Ospreay feud isn’t really working for me, mostly due to how aimless and pointless I feel the Mox and the Death Rider’s story has become, cemented by how dumb Moxley beating Takeshita was.
  • Jack Perry, being a white-meat babyface right now, is really working for me, and so is his current wrestling style.
  • Some of you are weird about Kenny Omega’s enthusiasm, projecting a lot of your own feelings on a dude you don’t actually know.
  • I thought I’d be more annoyed that Chris Jericho is back, but I actually don’t care all that much until he actually does something. I’d rather see Chris Jericho than Adam Copeland.
  • Speaking of him, if it wasn’t for Christian Cage, Cope would be entirely intolerable.

Games – What I would like to see in an Ocarina of Time remake.

When the news first broke on this remake, I wasn’t quite sure what I would change about the game, but I have had almost a week to stew on it, so I have some ideas. The big one is Hyrule Field. Often in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, you can see NPCs walking from one place to another, taking paths on foot or horseback to different places, making it feel more lived in despite the Calamity and Upheaval. That is something I’d like to see in Hyrule Field when you’re young Link. It would make a drastic change when you become Adult Link, and Hyrule Field is now not just Stalchilds attacking you at night, but soldiers and monsters aligned with Ganondorf attacking you, and even maybe hunting you down like guards loyal to Agahnim in A Link to the Past hunted you down in that overworld.

A lot of what else I’d add is just a little more details on a lot of information that is given in this game. After you finish the Forest Temple as Adult Link, the Deku Tree Sprout reveals Link’s mother escaping the chaos of the Hyrulean Civil War. She flees into the forest with Link as a baby and gives him to the Deku Tree to care for. Give me a face to that mother and more about the Hyrulean Civil War that Deku Tree Sprout mentions. Likewise, we see Ganondorf for the first time kneeling to the King of Hyrule as Zelda and Link spy on him through a window. Give me a face to that King of Hyrule and maybe even a name. The game is littered with things like that. I would like just a little more detail on. The Shadow Temple and the well in Kakariko Village are another example. The Shadow Temple served as a place for the Sheikah to torture enemies of the royal family of Hyrule for information, and one day Impa, one of the few remaining Sheikah, sealed the Shadow Temple boss, Bongo Bongo, beneath the well before it escaped in Ocarina of Time. Give me more details about what links the bottom of the well, which has its own undead and torture chambers with the Shadow Temple, and how Bongo Bongo relates to all this tortured history of Hyrule’s imprisoned enemies. Honestly, just give me more about the Sheikah in general. The bosses of the Spirit Temple, Kotake and Koume are said to be hundreds of years old and have been leading the Gerudo tribe in secret, and also served as the surrogate mothers to Gandondorf. Give me more details on that! That’s just the lore I can remember. Now, like I said, just give me a little more. Don’t go crazy with it. Oh, I just thought of a big one I’d like to see more details of: Ganondorf’s betrayal and attack. I missed it so many times as a kid, but when you head back to Hyrule Town after getting all the Sacred Stones, you get that wonderful scene of Zelda and Impa escaping, Zelda throwing the Ocarina of Time into the moat, and your first confrontation with Ganondorf. At this time, Ganondorf has presumably killed the King of Hyrule and the royal soldiers with his own force. The part I missed the first of many times I’ve played it is the soldier in the back alley of Hyrule Town who warns of Ganondorf’s treachery before succumbing to their injuries. I want more details on that, even if it means exploring Hyrule Castle again.

Speaking of lore, back when Ocarina of Time came out, the developers said this was to serve as the earliest point in the Zelda timeline at the time. Since then, Skyward Sword is now the earliest game in the timeline. Maybe give some nods to that, like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom did with the Master Sword healing itself, making the same noises Fi did. Just like a hint of Hylian once living above the clouds or something. One thing I believe they are one hundred percent going to lean into is the Goddess Hylia having a more prominent mention in the story, especially in the telling of Hyrule’s creation as told by the Deku Tree to Link, which details how the three golden goddesses created the world. Right after he tells Link how the Triforce was creted Nintendo can just add in the line about how the Goddess Hylia was entrusted to protect the Triforce, which was evil, and Zelda’s family line is connected to that.

Skyward Sword, you know, the origin story of the Master Sword, has me thinking, let’s finally give the Master Sword something more. It doesn’t have to shoot a beam at full hearts like it did in A Link to the Past, but there should be something special about the Master Sword when you get it, beyond just doing more damage. Even if it’s a new quest to add some kind of ability to it, let me do something extra cool with the sword that is evil’s bane. On the subject of gameplay, let me use the boomerang as an adult. You get the boomerang, defeat the boss in Jabu-Jabu’s belly, then if you follow the story, you’ll end up at the Temple of Time and an adult fairly shortly, giving you barely any time with the boomerang. Sure, you get the hookshot shortly after that, but let me use the boomerang as an adult. Also, since we’re remaking the game, give a more important role to some items, specifically the fire and ice arrows. Make them important to the game rather than just extra items of some convenience against enemies and certain puzzles.

I wonder if they’ll give Link some kind of parry ability like in the two Switch Zelda games. What if young Link can do the reaction attack like Link in Breath of the Wild, but adult Link, facing stronger enemies, can shield parry like Link from Breath of the Wild? If we’re adding things, I’d like there to be Sheik fight after you do three temples as adult Link, just for fun. Sheik comes on all like “I’m here to test what you’ve learned if you’re really worthy of being the Hero of Time, and maybe hint at the reveal that happens later, both the Zelda one and the Triforce of Courage one. If they want to expand upon Zelda/Sheik’s character and role in this game, I wouldn’t mind that at all. I’ve loved what they’ve done with Zelda as a character in Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom, so I welcome getting more Princess Zelda. I also wouldn’t mind Ganondorf getting different hair, maybe.

The biggest change I’d like to see to the game is a bigger impact to the areas Link brings hope back to as an adult when he rescues/reveals/revives the Sages in the different temples. Biggest of all, Zora’s Domain must finally melt and bring the Zoras back besides the king but do this in all the other regions also. I want to see these places in despair thanks to Ganondorf’s rule and then see the light, and hope brought back to the same places once Link is done with them. I want Mido to acknowledge that Adult Link is the Link that he knew and see the Kokiri change as a result of the birth of the Deku Tree Sprout. I want to see Daruna’s son Link take Daruna’s place as leader of the gorons and, like his father become a sworn brother to Link. Maybe introduce a new NPC in the Geurdo Tribe that becomes their leader, with Kotake, Koume, and Nabooru all gone. I’d like to see the carpenters that appear in the game slowly change Kakariko Village as the game progresses, even more so after you’ve completed the Shadow Temple, maybe even Gerudo’s Fortress too, as the carpenters eventually go that way.

I’m not sure what style the game should look like, but I’d know what the wrong choice was if I saw it. It shouldn’t look like any other Zelda game to be perfectly clear. I don’t think it necessarily needs a new style, but it should look beautiful with as many frames-per-second as the Switch 2 can do. The music has to be fully orchestrated as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has some of the most iconic music of all time in a video game. In a way, though, this is like fantasy booking wrestling. If you do too much of it and it doesn’t happen, you can end up disappointing yourself when you didn’t need to. With Ocarina of Time widely available on NSO, 3DS, and other means, it seems like a good opportunity if you’re going to remake it to give a little bit more beyond what the Nintendo 64 was capable of. One last thing, though.

It was just for a demo of what was called Zelda 64 at the time, but it shows Link opening a weird blue chest and the full Triforce being revealed. On the message board, it was rumored this would finally come to fruition in a quest after the main quest of the game for the 64DD, an add-on to the Nintendo 64 that came out in Japan, failed, and never came to the United States. In this new quest, you’d go to the Sacred Realm and take on new challenges that eventually led to seeing the full Triforce together. This later turned out to be nonsense and the Master Quest, a remixed, harder version of the game you’d get if you preordered The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, is what was originally planned for the 64DD. Now, however, is your chance Nintendo. I don’t care about a quest after the main quest of anything else I just want to be able to unlock in some way Link, the Hero of Time, finally getting a chance to make a wish on the full Triforce.

Maybe this is how you fix the timeline of Zelda. This brings up a good question of whether Nintendo will change the ending. Adult Zelda sends Adult Link back in time to when he was a kid again. Then that young Link, after supposedly meeting with young Zelda, saving Hyrule in the original time by revealing Ganondorf’s plot, grows up to find the Triforce and wishes for the timeline he is no longer in to be saved. There I go, fantasy booking again. I’ll just have to wait and see.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 10 – A Touching Reunion

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

It’s November, and to be honest, I’m terrible at doing end-of-the-year writing, but this year I’m determined to do some posts on here and GeeklyInc.com in the “…of the Year” variety. There are only eight weeks left of the year, but I’m not against talking about the best or favorites of 2025 into the first weeks of 2026. Wrestling is the easiest to talk about because most of my matches of the year have already happened, but with the Continental Classic, one Ring of Honor PPV, and two AEW PPVs I don’t want to write off the potential of those shows. I don’t think anything will top my number one book, game, or wrestling match of the year, but it’s everything underneath that is up for grabs.

Wrestling – Random AEW Musings

I don’t have one particular topic in mind, but I do have some thoughts. Between All Out and now, AEW has been relatively good to very good. I’m enjoying myself even if I have some criticism of the booking here and there. For example, and keep in mind this is someone who relatively enjoys the C-show that is Tony Khan’s Ring of Honor TV, but there is no reason for Yuka Sakazaki to be wrestling on ROH and not be appearing in AEW, especially with her new presentation and music. As a big fan of hers, at first I was just happy to see her back from injury and wrestling regularly, but her team-ups with Alex Windsor have been good enough that I am left scratching my head as to why they’re not on AEW TV or having Yuka in singles matches on Dynamite or Collision. I am hoping they’re just spinning their wheels with them before having them on TV, since Women’s Tag Championships will need contenders.

I miss Will Ospreay and Swerve Strickland, but Bandido has been filling that void they have left for me. It’s between Hangman and him, for me personally, for wrestler of the year, but I must admit I have been watching far less of other companies this year than in previous years. It’s one of my goals for next year to watch more CMLL, Stardom, and TJPW. Perhaps some NJPW as well, but it has not been hitting for me much this year except for Goto’s tite reign and Konosuke Takeshita.

Games – From Xbox 360 to PlayStation 4

If you’ve read enough of these entries and came back with the thought “Josh might have undiagnosed ADHD,” I would probably agree with you because I went from a theme of Xbox 360 games to PlayStation 4 games as I was sucked into God of War (2018) full throttle to the point that I beat every Valkyrie and completed the game. That somehow transitioned to me diving deep into another of my personal PS4 mainstays, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which I played to completion, but I find the having to choose different options in Chapter 9 to unlock different quests to complete every side quest in the game so tedious that I attempted it once, got annoyed, closed the game, and uninstalled. Completing both has left me excited to start God of War: Ragnarok and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on my new, fancy PC, but I might play more Silksong first, as well as replay Metaphor ReFantazio on PC, which I previously played on PS5.

Lastly, I’ve been delving briefly here and there into some DS Pokémon games such as SoulSilver, Platinum, and Black, with the latter being the first time I’ve ever played that generation. I think the release of Z-A and every gaming podcast discussing it to different degrees led me to have Pokémon on my mind.

While I was editing this, and since I’ve been playing Platinum, I was reminded that Piplup might be top five favorite Pokémon ever, and the YouTube algorithm decided to remind me of this.

Books – In Between Books

I am at the moment in between books, having finished both Blood for the Undying Throne by Sung-il, Born of an Iron Storm by Anthony Ryan, and a rereading of The Incandescent by Emily Tesh. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what I am going to read next, but I’ve definitely felt the pull of reading this autumn that I did not feel in the summer. It has been a while since I have reread The Lord of the Rings, which used to be an annual event before I started expanding my fantasy library, and there has been this illustrated edition that came out a few years ago that has been sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.

I also have some advanced reader copies for next year that maybe I should get the jump on, but I am unsure and would not be able to talk about them here, making this section very short and boring. We’ll see. The podcast will be reading Network Effect, the fifth Murderbot Diaries book, soon, which is the full-blown novel of the series rather than a novella. It is my favorite book in the series. Murderbot has to go off planet with Dr. Mensah’s teenage daughter, and hijinx ensue that force it to bond with a teenage girl on a deserted space station. It feels like a culmination of the first four novellas and the starting point of the rest of the series.

Books, Games, Wrestling Vol. 1 – Noodles, Knights, and NJPW

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

I’m not going to give a long explanation yet to what this is or why I’m writing, because before I know it, I’ll have a thousand words, and that’ll be this entire post before I get to the point of the thing. To sum it up, I want to write about what I like in a shorter format than my book reviews on Geeklyinc.com or on No Page Unturned. I love books, I love video games, and I love wrestling, hence Book, Games, Wrestling. I hear the Aesop Rock song Food, Clothes, Medicine when I say it, but here we go before I get off track again.

Book – Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

My review will be up soon enough, but I have to say, my reading habits this summer have been such a mess. My To-Be-Read pile has grown too tall this summer, yet my reading habits have been subpar. Fall and Winter are such better reading seasons for me as someone who doesn’t do well in the heat.

Automatic Noodle, though, has been a book I’ve been thinking about since I first heard about it. The premise is essentially set in an unidentified future, where robots want to, for once, serve good food to their patrons and are given an opportunity, out of sheer luck, to open their own noodle shop. It’s labelled as cozy, but there is definitely a cloud of desperation hanging over most of the plot, both from the bots, the humans, and the overall world that is in the vibe of a dystopian future run by megacorporations that we seem to be getting a lot of, gee, wonder why? The feeling of dread and oppression is not what I would call cozy, but I’d still recommend it regardless.

I mean, just because it’s marketed as cozy but doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting read. The oppression of sentient robots is a subject I’m sure will be explored more as technology advances and more rights get taken away in the United States and beyond. I will admit I’m holding back for my review, pretty sure, but I really enjoy how Newitz makes each of the bots distinct.

Game – Hollow Knight – Team Cherry

Silksong is real and will be out as of this post in a little over a week. I’ve done everything but the Godmaster DLC on the Switch edition of Hollow Knight because by the time it was out, I was already finished with Hollow Knight, at over 100%. Plus, in 2018, on the Nintendo Switch, I remember being kind of insane, as well as my life at the time being kind of insane. When I bought a Steam Deck last August, Hollow Knight was one of the first games I bought during the next Steam sale because, quite honestly, though it had been six years since I played it, I still felt it was one of the greatest games of all time or at least one of my greatest games of all time.

Now that Silksong is coming out, I felt it was time to play it on PC/Steam Deck. It was like riding a bike again to be honest, and I was aiming to get that achievement of beating the game at 100% under 20 hours. I got very close at about 20 hours and 23 minutes, so annoyingly close. I do not remember there being achievements on the Switch edition; it probably had in-game quests as the equivalent, but it’s not quite the same. Take or leave achievements, I do often find them fun, even if Steam achievements feel lesser than other platforms. I’ve left just enough time between Hollow Knight playthroughs that the challenge remains thrilling, yet not so much that the backtracking feels tedious, while retaining enough memory to avoid repetition. I’ve already beaten it, and once I did, I thought to myself, “Oh shit, it’s still not September 4th.” I started a new file, intending to hopefully get that achievement this time, and also to leave Zote to die, the ungrateful little shit that he is.

Wrestling – AEW x NJPW Forbidden Door 2025

The build to Forbidden Door was messy, it’s always messy, and to be quite honest, even with the mess I still do find it fun. However, a lot of MJF’s creative ideas I do not find fun, and it felt like, with the stipulations he had forced Hangman to agree to under the pretense that he was going to light Mark Briscoe on fire, that I’m being forced to watch Triple H from the early and mid 2000s reborn. In 2023, I was annoyed with MJF, but in 2025, I’m just tired of it. His promos to all his opponents feel the same; his nicknames for his opponents are all terrible, not in a fun way, but in a way that makes me want to look at my Steam Deck and continue playing Hollow Knight. It just feels all the same. But Josh, you might ask, isn’t that just what heels do? Well, I’m not sick of what Kyle Fletcher and the Don Callis family are doing, nor since All In am I sick of what Jon Moxley and the Death Riders are doing. Ricochet with the Gates of Agony is quite interesting, and Christian Cage, who often has the same edgelord shtick as MJF, quite frankly does it better because he’ll do enough to at least give me the illusion of changing it up. Except for Christian, the difference between a lot of those heels and MJF is that they actually wrestle quite frequently. Maybe if MJF took up so much TV time wrestling as well as promos and segments I might feel different but as of right now, I’m quite tired of MJF.

This isn’t about MJF, though; it’s about Forbidden Door, and despite Max’s terribly convoluted idea for a finish, yes, I am one hundred percent sure it was his idea because it reminded me of the era of WWE I know he loves. Hangman’s world title defense against him, I thought, was excellent before that. It’s how I felt about the pay-per-view overall, quite good overall. Hiromu Takahashi looked great against Kyle Fletcher. Toni Storm defeated Athena in what I thought was a very good match, but I thought they might be holding back for a future rematch. I took a break during the beginning of the tag title match and came back just in time to see some mysterious masked men drive the Hurt Syndicate back to the airport before Bandido could even get the pin on whichever member of FTR was pinned (I think Dax? Don’t correct me, I do not care.). Bozilla, Persephone, and Alex Windsor all showed out for the four-way against Mercedes Mone for the TBS Title, impressing me with ideas I don’t think I’ve seen in four-ways before, and it felt like Mercedes made sure to make them all look good in defeat. Swerve versus Okada might have bee my match of the night. Say what you want about Okada’s efforts I felt he really put his all or at the very least 90% into his defense of the Unified Title against Swerve. The main event lights-out cage match, was both fun and intense, and if this is the last we see from Ospreay and Swerve in a while, it was a great showing by both of them.

Was it my favorite Forbidden Door? No. Was it the best Forbidden Door? I don’t think so either but I felt happy watching it, and when it was over, I was more curious about what was going to happen next rather than worried about the direction AEW was going.

After Zelda, Superheroes Were My Gateway To Fantasy.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

After the news of celebrated writer and artist Darwyn Cooke’s passing, I picked my copy of Absolute DC: New Frontier and absorbed Cooke’s love letter to the Silver Age of the DC Universe.

It’s massive scale and the enormous cast of diverse characters combined with the lingering thoughts about Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World reminded me that after The Legend of Zelda it was superhero comics that opened the gateway for my love for fantasy.

The similarities between the two are surprisingly plentiful. Just to name a few:

  • Garish costumes.
  • Systems of magic.
  • Unusual names and codenames.
  • The use of symbology.
  • Enhanced or enchanted armor, weapons, and items.
  • Prophecy and legends influencing the protagonists.
  • History, mythology, and continuity that dates back before a current story but has a lingering effect.
  • Multi-faceted heroes and villains that walk the moral line.
  • Archetypal heroes and villains that serve as both characters and symbols for their cause.
  • Conflicts on the micro scale within close knits groups,
  • Macro scale conflicts that put universes in jeopardy,
  • and those in-group conflicts affecting the chance of success of resolving those universal threats.
  • War: The consequences of war, the threat of war, and the aftermath of war.
  • Death: Heroes, villains, love interests, and side characters all dying and in some cases, coming back.

Superhero comics do have the advantage of being broad enough in storytelling that it can encompass many genres including fantasy. A majority of DC’s magic users, including Etrigan, John Constantine, Dr. Fate, Swamp Thing, Alan Scott, and oh, I don’t know, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman all either dip their toes or fully submerge themselves into fantasy.

What it comes down to is world building. If you can understand the chaos that is the worlds of Marvel and DC then remembering the houses on Game of Thrones isn’t that difficult. What’s different is that for Marvel and DC the rules are always changing. What most fantasy tends to do is either established the rules early on or establish the rules and break them early on to create conflict. This is because eventually those fantasy stories are going to end. Comic book companies are in the business of keeping their stories running for as long as they sell. Thus their characters have to change overtime but not necessarily evolve.

Plus, most series of fantasy novels are written by one creator while superhero comics is a ever-spinning turnstile of different writers and artists. Their environment, purpose, supporting cast, powers, appearance, and even their history could change from one writer to another. Elements that stem from roots in fantasy could not longer be in fashion. Now, their powers, equipment, cast, or origin may not be science fiction in nature.

This can be frustrating to the reader which could not be more apparent with the recent developments in [spoilers] DC Universe Rebirth and the first issue of Captain America: Steve Rogers. Change is acceptable in a fantasy novel, especially a series with no previous history (real world history that is) but not so with most superhero comics considering their long history dating back to World War II. Even new superheroes have this struggle because by the time you establish a new character in an ongoing over a certain amount of issues any change you make is going to met with resistance from your readers.

That and the price is why I made the jump. I was frustrated by bad writing of characters I loved and the ever increasing price of comics versus the price of books made the switch easy. Fantasy novels have stayed relatively the same price, they have a more complete story, no other bad writer is coming in and fucking up what the good writer has done, there are no editorial mandates to fit within a big event happening in another series, and  the story is self-contained.

Still, I may never hace found fantasy without superhero comics.

Steel Is The Answer for Abercrombie’s Last Shattered Sea Novel.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Joe Abercrombie goes in swords and axes swinging in his third volume of the Shattered Sea series of Young Adult novels. War looms over Father Yarvi, Thorn Bathu, and Gettland through the eyes of three new point-of-view characters for a novel that is closest in tone to The First Law trilogy.  Only detraction is the non-stop action and abrupt ending leaves Half A War with less room for moments of character development but otherwise satisfying conclusion. Read more for spoilers.

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Changing the Dark Tower V: The Final Book and Modred: All Hype, No Substance.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 8 Comments

When those doors open to the Dark Tower at the end of Stephen King’s final volume the journey for Roland and his Ka-Tet will come to an end. The journey, however, is not without its hiccups and so here are some suggested changes for the “The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower.”

My posts on “The Wolves of the Calla” and “The Song of Susannah” focused more on criticism rather than changing those volumes. Most of the changes of “The Wolves of the Calla” are the result of changes in earlier novels, like introducing Father Don Callahan in an earlier book. With “The Song of Susannah” the changes suggested were cutting and pasting bits from “Wolves of the Calla” for the beginning, and the beginning of this final novel for the end. This would give the sixth book a more coherent story from beginning to end. Now let’s talk about the beginning of this novel. Obviously, there will be spoilers.

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Appreciating A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

Most people, when talking about the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, rank A Feast for Crows as the least interesting followed by A Dance with Dragons.

The first time through though. the second book in the series, A Clash of Kings, bored me in every chapter that wasn’t a Tyrion or Davos chapter. It’s not the book’s fault but a fault of my own.

You see, I have this problem when it comes to reading. Every time I try to read a series in succession I grow bored, no, restless during the second book. It becomes hard for me to concentrate and I always end up putting the book down, especially since I’ve figured out this flaw, and picking up a different one. I think it might stem from my A.D.D. (which I was diagnosed for, not just the many people claiming to have it) but I can’t be sure.

Besides A Clash of Kings other victims of this dilemma include the second Mistborn book, The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and even The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien. It’s just when Sam and Frodo are climbing down the elven rope that I put it down though unlike the others listed I picked it back up shortly after. Spoilers ahead. 

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The Battle of Pelennor Fields | Quote by J.R.R. Tolkien

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

“In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black shape against the fires beyond he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of despair. In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl, under the archway that no enemy ever yet had passed, and all fled before his face.

All save one. There waiting, silent and still in the space before the Gate, sat Gandalf upon Shadowfax: Shadowfax who alone among the free horses of the earth endured the terror, unmoving, steadfast as a graven image in Rath Dínen.

“You cannot enter here,” said Gandalf, and the huge shadow halted. “Go back to the abyss prepared for you! Go back! Fall into the nothingness that awaits you and your Master. Go!”

The Black Rider flung back his hood, and behold! he had a kingly crown; and yet upon no head visible was it set. The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen there came a deadly laughter.

“Old fool!” he said. “Old fool! This is my hour. Do you not know Death when you see it? Die now and curse in vain!” And with that he lifted high his sword and flames ran down the blade.

And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the city, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, recking nothing of war nor of wizardry, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.

And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns, in dark Mindolluin’s sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the north wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last.”

via Goodreads | Quote by J.R.R. Tolkien: “In rode the Lord of the Nazgûl. A great black s…”.

Gives me chills down my spine every time I read it. One of the few times Peter Jackson was able to evoke the same kind of emotions in the film version was Rohan’s charge into battle.

 

Hobbit sized editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / 9 Comments

Yesterday I received in the mail my pocket sized copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings pictured here:

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Also here:

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The outside feels like this faux leather that bends easily like rubber but seems like it could take a lot of abuse.

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Since they are pocket sized of course the writing is small but the type is equal to any hardcover or paperback edition. In fact, it looks almost exactly the same like they were originally larger and went through a shrink ray.

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In fact, I was surprised to find The Return of the King still included the appendices and the index.

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As far as fitting into my pocket is concerned, it fits about as well as an iPhone 6+. They’re definitely not meant for small pockets or tight jeans but fit nicely in the pockets of my coats, sports coats and blazers.

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They’re a nice edition to my collection and I plan on annotating them to death. If you’re buying these books for the first time though I don’t suggest them.

A Word on the Desolation of Smaug – Extended Edition Trailer

/ Joshua S. MacDougall / Leave a comment

The blu-ray for the extended edition of The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug comes out November 4th in the United States. My copy will hopefully arrive that day but in the meantime here’s a trailer that offer two major bits that got axed from the theatrical edition.

First of all, though he looks a little tall to me in the trailer, that is Thráin, Thorin’s father, confronting Gandalf in Dol Goldur and shouting that Thorin must never enter Erebor. Finally, after getting a name drop in the extended edition of An Unexpected Journey perhaps what has happened to the last dwarven ring of power will be explained. Also, with the jumbling of time Jackson has done I can’t wait to see how he explains Gandalf getting the key and map from Thorin’s father before they’ve actually met in Dol Goldur, that being originally how he got it in the books.

Second, there’s Beorn, barely even in the theatrical release it seem, and this is just my guess, most of what was cut from the film involves Beorn. Before the release of the film there was talks of Beorn hunting down orcs at night to corroborate Thorin and Gandalf’s story. The other part seen in this trailer involving Beorn is in his garden with him chopping wood, possibly for a scene of exposition between Gandalf and Beorn or perhaps the introduction of the dwarves and the telling of what has happened to them so far just as in the books. Also, it looks like a scene in the forest involving Beorn and Gandalf is included as well. It could be possible that Beorn escorts Gandalf part of the way to Dol Goldur considering that the wizard has one of his horses.

Also in the trailer, besides reiterating what was in the theatrical release are scenes involving a conversation between Thorin and Bilbo upon arriving in Laketown and one between the Master of Laketown and Alfred of what Thorin’s quest means to him.

Not included in the trailer but released earlier this summer is extended Mirkwood scene mirroring the one in the book where they have to cross the river and poor Bombur falls into the enchanted water and the company is forced to carry him. You can see most of that scene here:

In interview, Richard Armitage mentions Bilbo and Thorin seeing the white stag, just like in the books, but this stag is projection of Thranduil into the forest. Thorin will try to kill it of course, because dwarf king no like elf king.

It’ll be interesting to see what else was cut that are scenes from the book and what Peter Jackson, Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh made up for their version of The Hobbit.