Good Omens (Amazon 2019)

The Good Omens miniseries from Amazon navigates the tricky waters of book-to-video adaptation in a largely successful fashion.

I first read Good Omens 20+ years ago, and several times since. Considering the authors, it's unsurprising that I liked it so much. Both Pratchett and Gaiman have written plenty of good stuff, most of which I've read. Their collaboration is as good as one might expect, and from all accounts they enjoyed writing it as much as we've enjoyed reading it.

I have no complaints with the production quality or the casting of the video series. The visuals are beautiful, and the costumes and special effects bring some of the more exotic descriptions in the book to life. Both Michael Sheen and David Tennant are excellent as the two leads, and I thought the kids playing the Them did a great job also. (OK, maybe one minor complaint, I wasn't terribly impressed with the special effects of the Bentley-on-fire-across-M25 scene. So much more potential there.)

Film adaptation has to strike a balance between getting the details right for fans of the original book, and keeping things simple enough for those unfamiliar with it to understand. Good Omens is somewhat heavy on the side of the details, in my opinion. I think it's difficult to get the very understated humor of the book to come across on screen or in narration without leaving unfamiliar viewers feeling confused or even bored. Plus it would simply take up a whole lot of screen time to fully explain everything so a viewer can reach the same level of understanding that one gets from the book. So the creators of the series decided to stay largely faithful to the book, even if it meant that those who hadn't read the book would be a bit lost at time.

That's not to say that everything is exactly like the book, of course. There are quite a few minor characters and plot points left out. Slightly disappointing to some of us who read the book, but not surprising and not a major problem. I would have loved to see the Other Four Horsemen, for instance, but I can certainly understand why that bit was left out. Not essential to the storyline and would have taken a good amount of screen time.

All told, I loved the Good Omens series as a long-time fan of the book. I'd recommend reading the book first for anyone planning to watch the series, or at least give it a second watch after you've had a chance to get through the book. You'll likely pick up on quite a few things that weren't completely clear to a non-reader viewer.

David Drake's Books of the Elements

David Drake's Books of the Elements series is not historical fiction, but the setting is based heavily on historical elements with fantasy elements added - nature spirits, magic, etc. It's historical fantasy in the same sense that something like Harry Potter is modern fantasy.

There are four books in the series, each based on an element: Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. The story follows a small group who are pulled into a major world-threatening conflict of magical forces: two young men and two young women, a learned elder, and various allies they meet along the way - both human and magical. At first they're largely ignorant of the big picture, and have to struggle both to stay alive and learn enough to make the right decisions.

If you've read Drake's books before and think that sounds familiar, it's because his Isles series could be described much the same way. As I read this series, I regularly had moments of near deja vu, when Hedia acted just like Ilna, or one of the characters was pulled through some magical portal and had to adventure their way back. There are a lot of similarities, enough so that anyone who didn't like the Isles series can safely skip this one too. But if you did like Isles and wanted more of the same, good news - this is it. (With one caveat - there's more sex in this series than I remember from Isles.)

Drake's writing style is descriptive and easy to read. He keeps the plot moving, constantly sending the main characters off to new places and dangers. I never felt the story bogged down. The characters are decently well developed, with plenty of time devoted to each. My only complaint is that they seem a bit too heroic and/or lucky at times, pulling victory out of some pretty crazy situations, but then this is a heroic fantasy so that's par for the course.

The historical elements of the setting are based on the Roman empire circa 30 AD, as stated in the author's note. The fantastic elements are more varied - there are Norse elements, shamanism, nature magic, and I'm sure plenty of other things I didn't specifically identify. Drake makes use of many sources to pull together his world, not least of which is his own imagination to weave them all together.

The Books of the Elements are a solid read for fans of Drake's work. They're not likely to convert anyone who didn't like his other fantasy titles, though.

City of Heroes: Homecoming

It's good to be home.

For the better part of 8 years - beta in 2004, launch in 2005, until the servers shut down in 2012 - my single most extensive leisure activity was City of Heroes. Not just my favorite game, or most-frequented online community, or programming project (via the HeroStats addon). It was all of those things at once, and when you put it all together I spent more time in the game and related activities over those 8 years than I did watching TV shows, reading books, or just about anything else other than work and sleep.

After the shutdown in 2012, there were rumors of fans keeping the game alive, but I was never involved in any of it. They kept information under wraps to avoid any legal issues with the owner of the intellectual property rights, and to avoid a big crowd on their servers. But about a month ago, that all changed.

The Homecoming project is a fan-run organization that has set up City of Heroes servers for anyone to freely play on. They had some growing pains initially as the demand was overwhelming, but over the last few weeks have done a fine job stabilizing the system so the 20k+ players (around 9000 concurrent at peak) have a place to be super. That takes some money, of course, so they had a donation drive to raise about $6600 for server costs. It took 20 minutes - that's the kind of hunger the community has to keep this game available.

The game itself is changed somewhat from the old days. Quite a few quality of life changes, some new content that was in the works when the shutdown happened, and it's a lot easier to level up a character and obtain the end-game items and powers. The incentive to keep progression to a slow pace is gone when the game is being run for fun rather than profit.

I've really enjoyed getting back into the game and revisiting all the old haunts that I used to know so well. And more importantly, the characters. The first thing I did was recreate several of the characters I had on the old servers, looking as close to the same as I could remember. I'm far from alone in that, almost everyone who used to play the game has done the same thing. This is a major nostalgia trip for thousands of us, as well as being a fun game that we still enjoy playing. If anyone wants to find me in-game, PST to @ineffablebob!

The future of the Homecoming servers is uncertain. It depends on the core Homecoming team continuing to be willing to volunteer their support, and avoiding legal issues. For now, though, I'm not worried about the future, just enjoying being home.

The Accursed Kings series by Maurice Druon

I put Maurice Druon's series The Accursed Kings on my reading list several years ago, largely because I saw that George R. R. Martin referenced it as a major influence in his creation of A Song of Ice and Fire. Then I promptly forgot about it, until my recent binge on historical fiction (The Ivy Crown, A Very English Scandal) brought it to mind.

The series takes place mostly during the 14th century in France, from the last of Phillip the Fair's reign until the time of John the Good. The characters are many and varied, from royalty and courtiers to merchants and peasants. There are six books, which sounds long but really went quickly, as each book is fairly short and there's no lack of interesting activity to keep the reader turning the page. (There's a seventh book as well, but it was written many years later and doesn't quite fit with the rest. The library didn't have it, so I stopped at six.) Credit to both Druon and translator Humphrey Hare for well-crafted writing that maintains the reader's interest!

There's no lack of action and intrigue in the series, which I'm sure is part of why Druon chose to wrote about this particular time period. Love affairs, embezzlement, blackmail, secret plots against the powerful, torture and executions, conflict internal to France and externally with England...plenty of material to work with! Much of it centers around Robert of Artois, either directly or indirectly, who is clearly the author's favorite figure from the time. And with good reason, as his actions had huge impact on the direction of both France and England during his life. Robert wasn't a good man, but was certainly a very influential one, and his story is incredibly interesting.

Occasionally the author steps outside the story and speaks directly to the reader about medieval society and events of the time, which I thought added to the feeling of listening to a great storyteller. Unfortunately, this also occasionally spoils some of the suspense for any reader who doesn't already know the fate of the various monarchs and nobles. I think Druon assumes that most of his readers have studied history in enough detail to already know who became king/died/was imprisoned/etc, and so doesn't worry about occasionally talking about future events.

I can definitely see the influence on Martin's work. The various factions playing the "game of thrones" have plenty of similarities to those in The Accursed Kings books. The intrigues and plots of 14th century France would fit right into the world of Westeros and Essos. Inspiration for individual characters can be seen on a regular basis: Enguerrand de Marigny reflected in Eddard Stark, or Marie of Hungary in Olenna Tyrell. Martin added magic and dragons, of course, but even there you see some reflection in Druon's writing when lack of understanding leads people to interpret poison as magic or the suffering of a stroke as the fulfillment of a curse.

For any historical fiction fan, The Accursed Kings series is a must-read. If you're not yet such a fan, read it anyway, you might become one.

A Very English Scandal (TV series)

Amazon's algorithms have been recommending A Very English Scandal to me for a while now to watch on Prime Video. This seemed like a good time to check it out, after my recent reading of The Ivy Crown rekindled my interest in historical fiction.

A Very English Scandal is a three-part miniseries about the Jeremy Thorpe scandal in the 1970s. Thorpe was a British MP who had a homosexual relationship with a man called Normal Scott. It was secret, as homosexuality was still illegal at the time, and over the years Thorpe made quite an effort to cover it up. Eventually that led to a murder attempt on Scott, and a public trial. The series covers the better part of 20 years, from the affair in the early 1960s until Thorpe's trial in the late 1970s.

The series spends a good amount of time following the lives of both Thorpe, living the life of the rich and powerful; and of Scott, who was neither. I appreciated the background, since I had zero knowledge of the events around the scandal. From a quick web search, it looks like the series was fairly accurate to the real events.

Of course, historical fiction is only as good as the ability to make the events come to life. I was impressed with A Very English Scandal on this front, and much of the credit for that goes to the actors. Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw were great as the two leads, and several of the supporting characters gave memorable performances as well. I particularly liked Alex Jennings as Peter Bessell. Judging from all the awards that the series won, it appears I'm not alone in enjoying the performance.

An easy theme to identify in this series is how the criminalization of homosexuality caused major problems in people's lives as they were forced to hide their true selves. While the criminal aspect is gone in most places these days, there are still significant social issues for LGBT people that can have a significant impact. I think a deeper theme here is that living a lie, whether it's hiding from the law or your neighbors, rarely stops with just the lie. It leads to more extreme measures to cover yourself; most people won't go as far as conspiracy to murder, but there's still an impact. Whether you approve of a person's lifestyle or not, they're still human beings and deserve the chance to be themselves.

A Very English Scandal is entertaining, teaches a bit of history, and is short enough that it won't take much of your time. Recommended.

The Mueller Report - Who Will Fix The System?

After the better part of two years, the "Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference Into The 2016 Presidential Election" (better known as the Mueller report) has finally been made public. Most of it, anyway...roughly a third of the pages had something redacted. There's been a ton of reaction from people all over the political spectrum, but it's amazing to me how little is being said about preventing it from happening again.

The report came in two parts: volume one talks about impact on the 2016 election by Russian agents, and volume two is about attempted obstruction of justice by President Trump and his allies. That's an oversimplification but close enough for my purposes. A lot of what's in there is not new...a lot of the Russian interference stuff was already released in previous indictments, and you'd have to be hiding under a rock not to know of the many ways that Trump had been pushing back against the investigation. In both areas, the investigating team basically says that evidence exists but isn't enough to bring criminal charges against the President.

The reaction that I've seen, both in the media and anecdotally, has been largely split down party lines: Republicans are happy that Trump isn't going to court or (at least for now) being impeached; Democrats are upset about the exact same thing, complaining about those redacted sections and promising to continue to investigate. For his part, the President is, as usual, making grand exaggerations about how good this is for him.

Let's forget President Trump for a minute, difficult as that may be no matter which side of the aisle you happen to inhabit. Look at what the report is saying without coloring it with your feelings about the current administration, good or bad. A foreign power was able to impact a United States Presidential Election, in a significant enough way that criminal charges were brought against the foreign perpetrators. Then a President was able to place obstacles in the way of the investigation into that election interference, with enough evidence that the investigators could not exonerate him but not enough to lead to criminal charges.

Where is the great outcry from every United States citizen against a system which allows this to happen? Where are the lawmakers putting forward reform packages to combat the problem? I hear a lot of complaining - Trump supporters that he's being unfairly targeted, Trump opponents pushing for more investigation and possibly impeachment - but very little about fixing the system.

I suspect we're going to hear a lot about the Mueller report during the 2020 Presidential and Congressional elections over the next 18 months. I'm going to be much more inclined to listen when candidates leave aside the partisan rhetoric for or against Trump, and instead focus on how we prevent this travesty from happening again.

The Ivy Crown by Mary M. Luke

The Ivy Crown by Mary M. Luke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

English royalty isn't something I'm particularly interested in. Most of what I know comes from the occasional Jeopardy category about the various Henrys and Richards and Edwards (which I almost always get wrong). But I was looking for something from the 1500-1800 timeframe and The Ivy Crown caught my eye, about Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII. And I was somewhat surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

The Ivy Crown is historical fiction, as opposed to an academic biography, which certainly helped make it entertaining. In the author's note, Mary Luke says that she enjoyed being free from the restrictions of direct quotes and citations, and I think it shows in the writing style. Having said all that, I still think the "historical" part of this book is the primary focus, not the "fiction" part. Luke may have imagined some of the happenings in Parr's life, but it's all in a framework of true history.

The Katherine Parr in this book is an intelligent woman who devoted herself to family and friends. She asked very little from life for herself; only her eventual final marriage to Thomas Seymour really came from her own desires. By all accounts she was well-loved by almost everyone she met, making few enemies and many friends. Even when she fell out with various people over political and religious issues, she did her best to reconcile when the situation changed. When reading historical fiction, I always wonder how much the person's life and reputation has been burnished by the author; in this case, I don't think Parr's life needed much help to stand out.

Parr lived through some very interesting times, with Henry VIII running around on his various wives and declaring himself head of the Church. She wasn't directly involved in most of it, but since she was friendly with many of those involved, all that upheaval played a large role in her life. And then, of course, she ended up right in the middle of it all when she became Henry's sixth queen. That lasted only a few years before the king died, and then Parr herself had only a few more years before dying after her daughter was born.

I knew in a general sense that people's lives in those times had much different norms than we do today, but Luke's writing really brings it to life. Children used as pawns in power games, the casual misogyny that women suffered, people dying from "the sweats" on a regular basis, teenagers married and having children, the nobility living richly while commoners barely survived...it was a very different time and mostly not in a good sense.

There are a bunch of intriguing characters in The Ivy Crown besides Katherine herself. Anne Askew, who became a martyr in the power struggle between Catholics, the Church of England, and Protestant reforms. The Princess Mary, Parr's childhood friend and eventual stepdaughter. Thomas Seymour, who would become Parr's fourth husband. And many more, from the famous to the common.

I highly recommend The Ivy Crown to anyone who enjoys a good story of a life with plenty of drama and intrigue. Even better if you're interested in the specifics of 16th century English royalty, but I don't think you need to care about the historical period to enjoy the book.