Title: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Director: Edgar Wright

Producer: Edgar Wright, Marc Platt

Genre: Action, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy

Distributor: Universal Studios

Series: N/A

Release Date: August 13, 2010

Format: Standard

Runtime: 112 Minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Brandon Routh, Chris Evans, Brie Larson.

Synopsis (Product Description):

Based on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Oni Press comic book of the same name, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World follows the eponymous slacker rocker on his colorful quest to defeat his dream girl’s seven evil ex-boyfriends. Twenty-two-year-old Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) may not have a job, but rocking the bass for his band, Sex Bob-omb, is a tough job unto itself. When Scott locks eyes with Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), he knows she’s the girl he wants to grow old with. But Ramona has some serious baggage; her supercharged exes rue the thought of her being with another man, and they’ll crush any guy who gives her a second glance. Now, in order to win Ramona’s heart, Scott will do battle with everyone from vegan-powered rock gods to sinister skateboarders, never losing sight of his gorgeous goal as he pummels his way to victory.

The Review:

I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World a couple nights ago, and it’s probably one of the best movies I’ll see in 2010.  It’s based on the indie comic of the same name, which I’ve yet to read, but surely will now that I’ve seen the movie.  Scott Pilgrim, played brilliantly by Michael Cera, is a member of the band Sex Bob-omb.  Scott is getting over a bad breakup when he meets the girl of his dreams.  The problem is Scott is already spoken for.  Well, that and to get the girl of his dreams he must defeat her 7 super powered exes.  What ensues is part Hong-Kong action movie, part cartoon, part video game, seizure inducing, indie comedy love story.  Suffice to say, this movie, like Mr. Pilgrim himself, rocks hard.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a visually stunning movie, topped off by incandescent flashes of comedic genius and some of the best fight choreography this side of The Matrix.  I suppose, if we were lame, we could just call it an action-comedy, but trying to hang such a ‘meh’ label onto such a genre defying movie is like trying to put a pair of skinny, hipster jeans onto a Bob-omb.  I suspect that there is a very high correlation of people for whom the words “up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, select, start” make perfect sense and those who will also love Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

While it works as a hilarious indie comedy, this movie also serves as a love letter to us somewhat nerdy children of the 80s and 90s, who spent hours hardly blinking in front of game consoles.  Scott Pilgrim is filled with gaming pop culture references.  And after scraping the bottom of a Donkey Kong sized barrel, that is the only criticism I have with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.  Its mile a minute pop culture references might make it a tad inaccessible to the generations that came of age before the rise of Japanese gaming consoles.  So if your parents didn’t own a television, forbade you from playing videogames (and you weren’t able to sneak over to friends’ houses to get your pop culture fix), then a substantial part of the movie might go right over your head.  But for those of us who wished that power up filled bricks floated in the sky and that enemies exploded into coins when defeated, then Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a pilgrimage well worth today’s inflated movie prices.

FTC Advisory: I purchased my own tickets.

Here is the new trailer for Radiance by Alyson Noel.  The book was just released on August 31, 2010 and this is the first in her Radiance series.

Synopsis Product Description):

Riley Bloom left her sister, Ever, in the world of the living and crossed the bridge into the afterlife—a place called Here, where time is always Now. Riley and her dog, Buttercup, have been reunited with her parents and are just settling into a nice, relaxing death when she’s summoned before The Council. They let her in on a secret—the afterlife isn’t just an eternity of leisure; Riley has to work. She’s been assigned a job, Soul Catcher, and a teacher, Bodhi, a curious boy she can’t quite figure out.

Riley, Bodhi, and Buttercup return to earth for her first assignment, a Radiant Boy who’s been haunting a castle in England for centuries. Many Soul Catchers have tried to get him to cross the bridge and failed. But he’s never met Riley.

I received this interesting bit of news a few days ago from HarperCollins.  I think this is certainly a bold move and it’s actually pretty interesting.  I’m sure it will be a complete success.  As a reader, I know I’m definitely looking forward to getting more exposure to some of their other writers. I’ve always loved their Eos imprint.  What do you guys think?

HARPERCOLLINS TO CREATE

GLOBAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY PROGRAM

UNDER VOYAGER IMPRINT

U.S., UK, and Australia Join Together to Form Global Imprint

NEW YORK, NY (September 3, 2010) – Announced today at Aussiecon IV (the 68th World Science Fiction Convention), Eos Books, a U.S. imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, will be rebranded as Harper Voyager, joining together with the celebrated Voyager imprints in Australia/New Zealand and the UK. The move is anticipated to create a global genre-fiction powerhouse.

“We are already globally publishing some of the biggest names in science fiction, fantasy, urban fantasy, and horror, including Raymond E. Feist, Robin Hobb, Kim Harrison, and Sara Douglass,” said Brian Murray, President and Chief Executive Officer of HarperCollins Worldwide.  “Uniting our sister companies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia/New Zealand allows readers globally unparalleled access to books and authors. This move enables us to offer authors a strong  global publishing platform when signing with HarperCollins – whether the acquiring editor is in New York, Sydney, or London.”

The Voyager/Harper Voyager editorial leaders are: Executive Editor Diana Gill in the U.S., Editorial Director Emma Coode in the UK (working with Publishing Director Jane Johnson), and Associate Publisher Stephanie Smith in Australia.

Each country has a vibrant, robust list of science fiction and fantasy icons; merging the lists under one imprint will bring readers around the world access to the masters of these fiction genres.

Two authors, Karen Azinger and David Wellington (writing as David Chandler), have recently been signed and are expected to publish with Harper Voyager and Voyager for a worldwide debut.

The Eos imprint will officially change to Harper Voyager starting with the January 2011 hardcover, trade, mass market, e-book, and audio publications.

With the help of Random.org the winners are as follows:

1. Christina W.

Who said…

• I love the fact that they will live forever, in saying that most have been around for a long time and know what they want and how to get it. I love how they court/persue relationships in most vampire stories as those kinds of things just dont happen in real life. To have lived a 100 years earlier.

I will contact the winner.  Hope you enjoy the book.

With the help of Random.org the winners are as follows:

1. Anna Dougherty

Who said…

• According to the interview, Steven falls for Lissa. I’ve heard good things about this book- thanks for the chance to win!

I will contact the winner.  Hope you enjoy the book.

Here is the new update for the Books to Watch list.  These all sound so good.  I’m really interested in reading Fissured and The Only Ones.  What about you?  You can view my previous Books to Watch posts here.

1. E. S. Moore’s TO WALK THE NIGHT, about an assassin and her deadly mission for revenge, to Kensington, in a two-book deal. (World)

2. Author of WE WERE HERE, Matt de la Pena’s THE ONLY ONES, pitched as Lord of the Flies meets Lost, about a group of teens whose summer job on a cruiseliner turns into a struggle for their lives after a devastating earthquake leaves them stranded on an island and cut off from civilization completely, to Delacorte, in a two-book deal.

3. Sophie Renwick’s IMMORTALS OF ANNWYN, in which Fallen Angels and the Fae meet and play with humans at a nightclub and the battle against evil escalates, to NAL.

4. Sandy Williams’s debut FISSURED, about a professional college student and a shadow-reader for the fae, who is forced to choose sides — and between the men she loves — in a fae war, to Ace,  at auction, in a two-book deal.

5. Zombie Combat Manual author Roger Ma’s THE VAMPIRE COMBAT MANUAL, from Ma’s Institute for Undead Combat Studies, again to Berkley.

6. Author of the upcoming novel DUST Joan Frances Turner’s FRAIL, which follows the lone human survivor of a small town as she must make her way across a land ravaged by the “feeding plague” and contend with dangerous humans and zombies alike, again to Ace.

The first season of The Walking Dead will debut during AMC’s Fearfest in October.  The Walking Dead will actually air on Halloween.  Unfortunately, there will only be six episodes.  This trailer is REALLY awesome.  I went to San Diego Comic-Con this year, so I was able to get a sneak peak.

]]> http://darkfaerietales.com/walking-dead-amc-series.html/feed/ 3 http://darkfaerietales.com/guest-author-dianne-sylvan-guest-post-giveaway.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=guest-author-dianne-sylvan-guest-post-giveaway http://darkfaerietales.com/guest-author-dianne-sylvan-guest-post-giveaway.html#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 05:26:37 +0000 Angela http://darkfaerietales.com/?p=6933

Please join me in welcoming author Dianne Sylvan here today to Dark Faerie Tales.  The first book in her Shadow World series, Queen of Shadows, was just released on August 31, 2010.  You can read an excerpt here.

One lucky commenter will have a chance to win a copy of Queen of Shadows.  As always, details are listed at the end of the post.

Welcome Dianne!

Lately the world seems chock full of vampires.  They’ve always been a fascination for a lot of people, but in the last decade or so, they’ve become…I shudder to say…trendy.

On the one hand, this is fantastic, because it brings us amazing television series like The Vampire Diaries and True Blood.  On the other, it does mean that a lot of what makes the vampire a compelling creature has been sucked out of the genre in order to make it palatable to more people with less sex and less violence.

Nowadays we seem to be stuck with a world full of Louis and few Lestats.  Vampire protagonists are so often portrayed as angst-ridden, brooding, self-loathing characters, almost always male, who reluctantly seduce a wide-eyed young woman while simultaneously trying to warn her away from his Obvious! Awful! Evil! OMG!  Typically said vampire refuses to feed on humans, as that would be so wrong, and sticks to rats and deer and rabbits, which may give him the moral high ground, but drains the sex appeal right out of him.

There’s just nothing attractive about a man sucking on a bunny.

Personally, I’m sick of this guy.

The character that has always fascinated me is the vampire who loves being a vampire, but isn’t necessarily a murdering monster.  I vastly prefer a confident, powerful vamp who accepts what he is and has learned to balance what he must do to survive with the desire to be strong and live his own immortality to the fullest.

When I began to create the protagonists for my first Shadow World novel, I knew I wanted the lead vampire character to be modeled after the second type.  In fact, I wanted to avoid the first type altogether.  I’ve always been interested in the idea of vampires as a society: Who rules over them?  How are they organized, if indeed they are?  I wanted to dig into the powerful vampire nobility, to see how they keep order, and how they interact with each other.

From those ideas came David Solomon, the principle male character in Queen of Shadows.  David is a Prime, one of the most powerful vampires on Earth; he rules over all the vampires in the Southern United States, and his warriors enforce the law as he lays it down.  He is both a powerful vampire and a brilliant computer programmer who has singlehandedly revolutionized the way Primes communicate, using technology to drag vampire kind into the 21^st century.  It would never occur to David to wish to be human again, any more than it would occur to a butterfly to pine for caterpillar-hood.

He is also sympathetic to the humans that his people feed on, and strictly forbids killing mortals in his territory, which makes him something of a rebel…and makes him a lot of enemies, because if there’s one thing the privileged and powerful don’t like, it’s change.

But given David’s talent for shaking up the established order, what, then, could shake his own?

Her name is Miranda Grey, and she’s an up-and-coming Austin musician…and a psychic…and she’s going insane.

When we meet our heroine, she’s slowly losing her mind to an uncontrolled psychic ability that drowns her in the emotions of other people.  The slow encroachment of madness brings her to the knife’s edge of destruction.

But Miranda is no delicate princess waiting in her tower to be rescued by a sexy man in a long black coat; it costs her dearly, but through her own strength and the drive we all have to find our place in the world, Miranda saves herself.  That, I think, sets her apart from a lot of the female characters in fiction; she has her own life, her own dreams, and her own power, and refuses to cast them aside for either grief or love.

Through destiny as well as violent chance, her world and David Solomon’s collide…and the aftershocks could blow the entire Shadow World apart at the seams.

Author Bio:

Dianne Sylvan lives, writes, and drinks copious amounts of coffee in Austin, Texas.  She is the author of two books on NeoPagan spirituality:  The Circle Within and The Body Sacred.  Queen of Shadows is her first novel, and begins the Shadow World series.

You can visit Dianne around the web here: Website | Twitter | Facebook

GIVEAWAY GUIDELINES:

One lucky commenter will have a chance to win a copy of Queen of Shadows.

To enter, leave a comment below answering the following question:

What’s your favorite kind of vampire?  The lonely brooder? The trench-coated badass? The scary Nosferatu type that’s more demon than man?  What’s a literary or media example of your favorite?

1. +1 entry for answering the question (required).

2. +2 entries for becoming a follower of this blog and Dark Faerie Tales on Twitter.

3. +3 entries for tweeting about this contest, blogging about it, linking via your sidebar etc…(please tell me where!).

4. Giveaway is open to everyone.

5. Please include your email address in your comment.

6. Giveaway ends Thursday, September 23rd at 11:59 PM EST.

7. The winner will be picked with the help of Random.org.

Here is the new book trailer for Halo by Alexandra Adornetto, which was just released on August 31, 2010.  I love this cover and the trailer is great.

Synopsis (Product Description):

Nothing much happens in the sleepy town of Venus Cove. But everything changes when three angels are sent from heaven to protect the town against the gathering forces of darkness: Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, a teenage girl who is the least experienced of the trio. They work hard to conceal their true identity and, most of all, their wings. But the mission is threatened when the youngest angel, Bethany, is sent to high school and falls in love with the handsome school captain, Xavier Woods. Will she defy the laws of Heaven by loving him? Things come to a head when the angels realize they are not the only supernatural power in Venus Cove. There’s a new kid in town and he’s charming, seductive and deadly. Worst of all, he’s after Beth.

Amazon | B&N | Borders

Title: The Walking Dead ~ Days Gone Bye

Creator/Writer: Robert Kirkman

Artist: Tony Moore

Penciler/Inker: Charlie Adlard

Gray Tones: Cliff Rathburn

Letters: Robert Kirkman

Genre: Zombies, Post-apocalyptic

Series: Ongoing

Schedule: Monthly

Publication Date: September 26, 2006

Format: Illustration, 144 Pages

ISBN-10: 1582406723

ISBN-13: 978-1582406725

Publisher: Image Comics

Synopsis (Product Description):

An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. In a matter of months, society has crumbled: There is no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, no cable TV. Rick Grimes finds himself one of the few survivors in this terrifying future. A couple months ago he was a small town cop who had never fired a shot and only ever saw one dead body. Separated from his family, he must now sort through all the death and confusion to try and find his wife and son. In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally begin living.

Quick & Dirty: This darkly dangerous tale pulls you into an apocalyptic world of zombies, mayhem, and cannibals.  You can run, but you can’t hide.  You are The Walking Dead…

Opening Sentence: This is not good.

The Review:

This October a new series on AMC, The Walking Dead, will premier.  Frank Darabont, director of The Mist, one of my favorite horror movies, is the new series’ writer, director and producer.  I knew The Walking Dead was based on the comic book of the same name, so I decided to check out the source material, and wow!  I’m glad I did.  The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman & Tony Moore (with help from Cliff Rathburn) is among the greats of the genre, comfortably sharing the stage with Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later and Max Brooks’ World War Z.  The Walking Dead is, if nothing else, certainly the best zombie comic to date.  Admittedly, as a sporadic comic reader, I had really low expectations before I sat down to read this series.  I’m pleased to say that Robert Kirkman shattered my expectations and that The Walking Dead is genuinely one of the most compelling stories I’ve ever read in any format.

Volume 1: Days Gone By covers issues 1-6, which follows Rick Grimes, a small-town sheriff.  Rick awakens in an abandoned hospital (evoking a little déjà vu for those of us familiar with 28 Days Later).  It isn’t long before Rick realizes something horrible has happened while he’s been in a coma because there are bodies everywhere.  Worse still, Rick soon discovers that these corpses don’t stay still.  They roam.  They lurk.  But worst of all, they bite. Rick and his family, along with other scattered survivors, struggle to survive in a world overrun by the walking dead.  Survivors are outnumbered and completely fu*@ed.  You’ll quickly get swept up in Rick’s story.  You’ll find yourself hoping for the best, but also dreading what might lurk around the corner, under every car, and behind every closed door.  Kirkman excels at conveying an almost palpable sense of dread and the result is no one EVER feels safe.

This is a character driven story and is as much about each character trying to cope with their new reality as it is about huge action scenes.  Quite naturally, this new reality takes its toll mentally and physically.  The constant threat of death from the walking dead is only part of the horror.  Indeed, the living are to be feared as much as the dead.  Sometimes more so.  Much of the story of The Walking Dead centers around whether people are fundamentally good or whether in times of crisis they will do anything to survive.  Are you willing to do anything, and I mean anything, to survive?  Will you leave a friend to die to save yourself? Would you kill to save yourself?  Would you kill to save your child?

The artwork for The Walking Dead is beautiful.  Every emotion is captured with great detail by Tony Moore and Cliff Rathburn.  It takes real talent to draw ordinary people.  An old man or a scrawny teenager is a lot harder to draw than a brawny spandex clad superhero.  The artists pay just as much attention to the decaying cityscapes and to the undead themselves.  It’s amazing that no two walking dead ever seem to look alike and quite a tribute to the ample artistic talents of Tony Moore and Cliff Rathburn.

The Walking Dead is a MUST read series.  It’s well written, finely detailed in black and white, and addictive.  Trust me; the only thing tougher than trying to survive the zombie apocalypse is having to wait for the next issue.

Notable Scene:

The Walking Dead Series:

1. Volume 1: Days Gone Bye

2. Volume 2: Miles Behind Us

3. Volume 3:Safety Behind Bars

4. Volume 4: The Heart’s Desire

5. Volume 5: The Best Defense

6. Volume 6: The Sorrowful Life

7. Volume 7: The Calm Before

8. Volume 8: Made to Suffer

9. Volume 9: Here We Remain

10. Volume 10: What We Become

11. Volume 11: Fear The Hunters

12. Volume 12

You can visit Robert around the web here: Website | Blog

FTC Advisory: I purchased my own copy.