n00tes

After quite a break again some words from me. Some days ago I have seen Clash of the Titans in 3D.

All in all I would say, that you get what you expect: some decent animations, nonsense story, sometimes bad acting and a little bit disapointing 3D effects.

I was positively surprised to see Sam Worthington in the main role, because I liked him in Avatar. However, for this movie everybody (more or less) could have performed the role Some of the other Greek warriors are ok as well. Liam Neeson is underperforming in my opinion, but I must admit, that his role was quite dumb.

Animations were ok, but I had hoped for a little more. Especially the Kraken part was a bit short. I would have liked to see the monster at least once complete.

3D was ok – it did not disturb, but did not improve either. If you compare it with the trailers before (Toy Story 3, Legend of the Guardians) it was inferior. Probably due to the fact, that the 3D was implemented after the movie was done.

If you intend to watch the movie, I advice you to go there with the right or low expectations. I did it and was content with the result. Some friends of mine really expected something good and they were totally disappointed afterwards.

A typical case of too high expectations on my side. I saw just one trailer or more half of it. The trailer was weird and it’s Tim Burton, so I concluded it has to be perfect.

Alice in Wonderland, source: wikipedia.org

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case. One major problem is that I did not really expect a kid’s movie, but it totally is one. Sometimes you feel and see the humor and style of Tim Burton, but somehow it does not totally fit. Since I usually like Tim Burton (at least the ones I remember: Nightmare before Christmas, Corpse Bride) I had quite some expectations. The animations I spotted in the trailer further supported this.

When we finally watched the movie in the Princeton Garden Theatre, there were just too many situations, when I literally fell out of the movie and was asking myself: Why should she do this? Why does it work? That does not make sense at all. I assume if I would be much younger then I would not have had these problems. I have to admit, that I have no clue about the novel. Maybe the movie is very close to the original text and everything is like it should be.

Nevertheless, I had hoped for more influence by Tim Burton. I had often the feeling that how the morale was presented in the movie it was too much like the typical Disney movie. All in all, it is a solid movie, but nothing special…

On March 8, I had the honor to see Orphaned Land live at B.B. Kings in New York City.
I discovered the band just recently by searching for upcoming events in the New York area. Orphaned Land is a progressive metal band from Israel, which mixes Middle Eastern folk and Arabic traditions to something called Oriental Metal by wikipedia. They released their newest album Never Ending Way of Orwarrior this year and they will show up at Wacken Open Air.

Nostalgia, album by Gwynbleidd, source: www.gwynbleidd.com

The show started around 7:15 pm with Gwynbleidd a progressive metal band from Poland. They played for half an hour and were very well appreciated by the audience. It was a good start for what the singer called a great lineup for the night. I had a good feeling at that time and now I can totally agree to this statement He also reminded everybody that the show happened to be on the “International Women’s Day”, which was maybe a reason for having quite some girls in the crowed.

Crogacht, album by Suidakra, source: www.suidakra.com

The next band, SuidAkrA from Germany, was able to get the crowed moving seriously. Actually, too seriously for the taste of the bouncer. He stopped it immediately (approximately 300lbs in action) and had a nice talk afterwards with the initiator of the pogo dance. SuidAkra is a celtic metal band, which was advertising it’s latest album Crogacht. I was missing a bit the celtic part, because I learned from wikipedia, that they are using folk instruments, like bagpipe, banjo, and tin whistle, but unfortunately not this evening. All in all, we enjoyed a lot of head banging and had fun.

source: www.orphaned-land.com

Orphaned Land was the third band last night playing in front of a happy crowd. They showed up in the same outfit as shown above. Unfortunately two band members were missing (including the songstress). For the band it was like a home game, because approximately half of the audience was Jewish. Hence, the atmosphere was awesome and we all could enjoy almost 2 hours of oriental metal (under the surveillance of the gimlet-eyed bouncer).
Unfortunately, I was unable to find the play list of the show and also no pictures. I saw several people with good gear, but google could not help me so far. I did made some pics with my iPhone, but they are by far too worse to even consider to upload them …

Today I finished the last book of the The Tears of Artamon by Sarah Ash.

Children of the Serpent Gate, source: www.coverbrowser.com

All in all, the last book is the weakest one of the three. It is not bad, not at all, but compared to the others it is not as plausible. Ash develops some story lines out of nowhere and a lot of questions remain in the end. I really liked how she built up the tension over the whole book, but in my opinion she did not stop at the right moment. She gave some facts about what happens with some of the characters in the future, but neglects other (for me very important) ones. I would have prefered either to have a complete picture or no information at all…

Overall, I enjoyed reading the Tears of Artamon, but I will probably not read it again. My favorite is the second book.

In 2008, the first installment of the prequel series The Alchymist’s Legacy was published, which is called Tracing the Shadow and is set primarily in Francia. Perhaps I will start reading it, if the series is complete.

My next reading target will be Shadowmarch by Tad Williams.

Quite some time elapsed since my last post. So what happened in the last days and weeks?

Together with some friends, I watched Sherlock Holmes. The opinions about the movie in our group were diverse. They ranged from “I did not like it at all” to “I liked it very much”. I was exactly in the middle . I’m not thrilled by the story. I somehow expected more, but I liked the actors. It had some funny scenes and once in a while excellent effects. All in all, it was ok, but I do not need to see it again and I will think twice before watching the sequel.

Sherlock Holmes, 2009, Source: wikipedia.org

A bit later, to be exact this Thursday, I saw together with friends Up in the air. It was totally different and much better than the above movie. If you need more encouragement to see it, I advise you to read this post.

Yesterday, I widened my musical horizon, by attending a Brandi Carlile concert. I was positively surprised and enjoyed it very much. It is not really the type of music I am usually listening to, but the concert was brilliant. Some more infos and pictures are available here.

Prisoner of the Iron Tower, Source: www.sarah-ash.com

Following The Lightning Thief I started reading the second book of the Tears of Artamon by Sarah Ash. The Prisoner of the Iron Tower is similar to the first book of the series. I liked reading it, but I must admit, that it is not always fun. Sarah Ash has a tendency (like most fantasy writers) to let the main characters suffer. Nevertheless, I think it is a good book, mainly because the story is not very predictable. Ok, some of the characters aren’t very surprising, but overall it is a good tale with a dramatic act at the end.

iPaid vs. Kindle, Source: www.engadget.com

I tend to write a lot about Brandon Sanderson in my blog. This post won’t be different, even if this time it’s a bit more complicated. Lately I watched the apple keynote about the iPad. I liked what I saw, but I am not thrilled. The iPad may be used as an ebook reader. Therefore apple integrated the so-called iBook store, where you can by books like songs in the iTunes store. To make this useful, apple needed to get some books into the store. Consequently they made contracts with the big publishers. In contrast to amazon, apple allows the publishers to define the price of a book (apple just takes a fixed percentage). As a consequence, ebooks in the iBook store can be much more expensive or cheaper than in the amazon.com store. Somehow amazon.com did not like this agreement very much and for some time you could not buy books (hardcover and ebooks) of some of these publishers at amazon.com including the Brandon Sanderson books. Some more details about this “Amazonfail” can be found in the blog of Brandon Sanderson.

The Lightning Thief is the first novel of Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. It’s a tale about a 12-year-old New Yorker with a lot of trouble at school and special parents. In order to find his destiny and finally get to know his father he and his best friends have to undertake a quest suitable for heroes.

The Lightning Thief, source: wikipedia.org

All in all I liked the idea of taking the Greek gods with all their squabbles and unforgiving rivalries into the 21st century. Apart from that I did not enjoy the book too much. So long I read quite a bunch of children’s books like Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, Bartimaeus and Artmis Fowl. I enjoyed these ones, because of their fantastic ideas, how they are connected to the real world and their characters.

In The Lightning Thief I could not connect to the main actors. In my opinion they display too many clichés. What also bothered me a lot was that the book rushes through the story. This yields in a lot of open questions and made it often implausible for me.

On the other hand, I just might have been too old for the book or expected too much. I more or less criticized only things, which I assume are not that relevant for a younger reader or somebody who is in a better reading mood than me. It is targeted for 5-9 year olds, which clearly sorts me out.

Logicomix by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriouis really is something different. It’s a graphic novel with the content of a textbook. I learned quite a lot about the development of logic in the last century and the main characters involved. Since Karin already summarized the content quite well, I will just state that I enjoyed reading it.

Logicomix, source: wikipedia.org

Nevertheless, the book leaves a bitter aftertaste, because the authors support the conclusion that too much interest in logic will spoil your social skills and is often accompanied by difficult character traits and an unnatural death…

Last weekend I finally finished Warbreaker. The book is online available at the website of Brandon Sanderson (pdf). Nevertheless, I would encourage everyone who does not own an ebook reader to buy the book. I read the book on my notebook, which wasn’t fun at all. Especially in the evenings I would have liked to lie down with a real book.

Warbreaker book cover, source: wikipedia.org

Similar to Elantris, Warbreaker exploits a new idea how gods can be integrated into a fantasy story, especially very human-like gods. In both works, gods are not unreal or mystical divine creatures, but walk among the people. Not just one or a small group, but many of them. In addition, Sanderson introduces a novel kind of magic system. Everyone has the possibility to be a “magician”, because it is not based on talent or special characteristics, but on “breath”. Everybody starts with one breath. You can buy or sell it. Consequently, you are able to buy the ability to do magic. Nevertheless, some skills are necessary to really use this ability.

The plot itself was kind of slow and not very captivating in the beginning. This might be due to the reading conditions as well. Later on the story surprised me with some nice turnarounds. I did not want to stop reading and felt kind of empty after I had finished.

What makes the book better than an average fantasy novel is the ability of Sanderson to create some special characters. The book has a bunch of main characters, including two brilliant ones. Vasher and Lightsong the bold are the main reason for me to say that I enjoyed the book. Especially Lightsong was one of the best characters I have experienced lately! Who wouldn’t like a god, who does not believe in his divineness and try’s to convince his high priest that he should stop treating him as a god.

Some last words to Brandon Sanderson and his website. I really like that he gives the reader the possibility to read the first and sometimes the second chapter of his books. Since I mostly buy books online I have to rely on comments by other readers. This usually helps a lot, but often is misleading as well. I hope that more and more writers will pick this up in the future (and/or get the authorization of their publishers) .

Breaking Benjamin is an alternative metal band from Pennsylvania. Dear Agony is their fourth studio album. Similar to 30 Seconds to Mars I first heard about them listening to Jacky Bam Bam on WMMR.

In contrast to 30 Seconds to Mars, Breaking Benjamin as a metal band fits better in my usual listening pattern. To my ears they are similar to Nickelback, Staind, Stone Temple Pilots and Creed. I will probably have a look at the older albums as well.

Dear Agony album cover, source: wikipedia.org

I did not find a song, which I would call awesome, but the whole album is on a high level, nothing exceptional, but very enjoyable listening to. It is perfect as background music for working or reading. If I would have to name favorites I would name I will not bow, Hopeless and Fade Away. All in all a very good album, which I will enjoy a lot in the time to come.