Amy C. Shaw

Martian Child: An Awesome Adaptation

July 3, 2013 • 6 Comments

When I saw that this week’s topic for “Awesome Adaptations” (hosted by Picture Me Reading) was “An Awesome Adaptation of Your Choice,” I knew I might as well pick one that was fresh on my mind due to a recent re-watch, Martian Child.

The movie, released in 2007, is somewhat based on the novelette (later expanded into a novel) The Martian Child by science fiction author David Gerrold. In the film, David (last name changed to Gordon) has been a widower for two years when he finally has the chance to adopt a child, as he and his wife were trying to do before her death. The child is Dennis, a boy who believes he’s from Mars, a reaction to how alienated he feels and how he copes with having lost his parents. Since I have not read the book, I once again do not know much about the differences between the two, but I do believe that the heart of the story must largely be the same.

One thing in the film that stands out to me is the beginning, where David Gordon is being interviewed about his books. He explains how it’s true that authors often times do insert themselves into a character in their story. But for him in one of his books, it’s not who you would expect, because he identifies the most with the creature. This interview sets the tone of the film, of how alike David and Dennis truly are and how much they can learn from loving each other.

It’s real and raw and sad and funny and heartwarming all at once. Check it out sometime if you haven’t already, and here’s a clip that might wet your appetite:

If you’ve seen Martian Child, what were your thoughts? Or is there a movie you saw recently that was an adaptation of a book?

Review: Till We Have Faces

June 29, 2013 • 10 Comments

Sorry, but this review will be a little different due to the fact that this was a hard book to review. I bought Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis in college after a recommendation from a friend, but it has taken me this long to finally get around to reading it. There were a couple of times that I tried to start, but it’s not the sort of story that grabs you from the beginning. In fact, the whole story is pretty slow-paced, though the book is not all that long. It’s “a myth retold” of Psyche and Cupid, who I knew nothing of going into this. It might have helped to know beforehand, but knowing after did not help me feel an absolute resolution from the end. Nor did it help me fully understand all the things I know C.S. Lewis was probably trying to say and I feel I did not quite understand. This book could be slow, confusing, captivating, clear, mysterious, or thoughtful, and who knows, maybe that’s the point.

The ending did not feel very resolute for me. At some point, I found myself connecting with the main character, Orual. I wanted the answers to her questions just as she did. Why did the gods demand her sister? Or did they? What happened to her on the evening she last saw her? Why would they make her suffer? The ending that I felt was supposed to reveal all this did not give me all the answers I hoped for. Maybe I missed the point. Or maybe the point was we can’t know all of God’s mysterious ways.

While reading reviews of the book on Goodreads while still trying to process it all, I learned that C.S. Lewis started writing this book when he was an atheist, but at some point stopped, and then picked it up years later when he was a Christian. I didn’t see any clear parallels to Christianity or theology, which again, makes me wonder if I missed something. I saw a couple of theories and ideas in reviews, but I didn’t want to read too many of them because I wanted to figure it out myself. Well, over a week later I haven’t. Maybe years from now, I’ll try re-reading it.

Here’s what I will say. This book is based on a myth, and mythology does not really interest me much. C.S. Lewis was a much smarter man than I am, so I believe there is a message in here I am missing. Though it was slow in parts and not always exciting, there were parts that piqued my interest and kept me turning the page.

I’ve had an extremely hard time deciding on a rating for this, and nothing feels right. 3 stars feels like a slap to Lewis since this was his favorite work, and four stars makes it seem like I was just a little bit more into it than I was. I don’t want to do a half rating, and I can’t for my Goodreads rating, but I’m giving it a 3.5 anyway. I liked it. I almost really liked it. It was just a hard read in the sense that I just don’t completely understand it and that frustrates me.

If you’ve read Till We Have Faces, please let me know your thoughts! And if you haven’t read it but are considering it, I would recommend you check out multiple reviews before deciding if it’s your cup of tea, unless you really love Lewis and just want to read it for that purpose alone. I don’t believe it would be a waste of your time.

What book was hard for you to process?

Double (Review) Feature: I Spy Season 1 and Man of Steel

June 23, 2013 • 4 Comments

Today I wanted to share two reviews for two completely unrelated things… the 1960’s show I Spy (season 1) and the new Man of Steel movie.

I Spy, Season One (1965-1966)

I received Season One of I Spy one birthday or Christmas in conjunction with some Cosby Show DVDs I asked for. After my husband and I finally got through all The Cosby Show DVDs, we decided to try this out. It’s an action show from the 60’s starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, who star as American agents Alexander “Scotty” Scott and Kelly Robinson, respectively. Kelly’s cover is a “tennis bum,” essentially a semi-professional tennis player who plays tournaments and gets to hang out with rich people, and Scotty’s cover is his trainer. Kelly is more of a James Bond type, who enjoys a good drink and seems to find a new girl to kiss in every episode, and Scotty is more straight-laced: he doesn’t drink, he rarely gets a girl, and he’s always writing letters to his mom back home.

I have to admit, it took me a little while to warm up to the show. The fact that it’s from the 60’s means it’s not as flashy as modern-day shows, obviously, but it also means that the show is written differently. There is less action and more talking than I anticipated, which would not necessarily bother me, but in one episode there was, what felt like, a ten minute conversation with a drug addict about how she could choose a better life. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz………………

But it got better as the season progressed. I think the biggest shift occurred when the show was moved from Asia to Mexico (more about the locations later), as the stories became more interesting and the two main characters (especially Scotty) developed more. I think the comrade between the two developed as well, and I especially loved how their relationship plays out in the last few minutes of the season finale.

One thing that I really liked about the show from the start is that every episode is shot on location in a foreign country (except in season 3 apparently there are episodes set in California), and some of the B-roll shots they include I found beautiful and groundbreaking for the time. This season included episodes set in Hong Kong, Japan, one in Vietnam, and Mexico. One other great thing about the show is that there is literally no mention of race relations in it. Here it is, the 1960’s, with a black and a white man working equally as partners, and no one says a words, because there’s no reason to.

After we finished the season, I found I was sad we didn’t have the next two seasons to continue the series, but we plan to get them before too long. I’d give I Spy Season One three out of five stars.

Favorite episode: “Bet Me a Dollar“: Scotty sportingly bets Kelly a dollar that he is capable of tracking down his friend anywhere in Mexico within a week. But the hide n’ seek game becomes desperately urgent after Scott learns Kelly has unknowingly been infected with anthrax that will kill him if not treated within 24 hours. (Synopsis from IMDB)

Man of Steel (2013)

Superman does not interest me much, based largely on my experience with the mediocre Superman Returns movie in 2006. But I had to see this movie, as it was produced by Christopher Nolan. And thankfully, the more story that was revealed in the trailers, the more interested I actually became in it. And I have to say, I was pretty surprised by how much I did like it.

I think the number one thing that sold this Superman story for me was the flashbacks to his growing up years. This truly showed Clark’s humanity. You saw him struggling with his abilities growing up, his parents doing their best to guide him. It is after an incident where Clark is able to save a bus full of kids by pushing it out of the water when his father reveals to him where he came from.

As much as I got out of seeing the struggles Clark faced growing up, I loved seeing how that shaped him as a person, and I also really enjoyed the dynamic between his Earth parents and him. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner did such a fabulous job as Martha and Jonathan Kent, as well as the scriptwriters, in terms of what they did for Clark’s parents. They are loving and supportive in every scene, though their family is not always perfect. Jonathan Kent was portrayed as wise and discerning when it came to how Clark should use or not use his abilities, and Martha Kent was always supportive and strong. I strive to be a parent like that one day. Hands down, these little snippets of their lives as a family were my favorite.

His Krypton parents, played by Russell Crowe as Jor-El and Ayelet Zurer as Lara (not a very alien name but whateves…) were also loving and strong parents, choosing to send their son Kal-El to Earth that he may do good there, as their planet is dying without hope. We get to see a representation of Jor-El’s consciousness throughout the film and I really liked him. My husband said he feels this is probably his favorite role he has seen Russell Crowe in.

I liked other aspects of the story as well. Amy Adams did well as Lois Lane, and Henry Cavill was a perfect fit for this Superman role. Instead of being a boring, vanilla “good guy” like Brandon Routh’s Superman in 2006 (which I blame more on the writing than on his performance), he was an interesting and complex “good guy.” The idea of the villain, General Zod from Krypton, was also fascinating.

But there were some problems with the movie. First off, Clark seems awfully trusting. He has been spending his young adult life roaming, trying to blend in, and one day he finds a Krypton craft, meets Jor-El who tells him he is his father and explains where he came from. I suppose I might believe him too, all things considered, but then it literally takes Clark five seconds to decide to put on the suit Jor-El is giving him and use it to fly around and save people. After he’s been trying to hide his powers. Hmmm… OK. It just felt really rushed.

It also takes him very little time to trust Lois Lane, a nosey reporter, who could have easily done things differently than she did. But luckily for Clark, she decided to keep her story about him more secret than originally intended.

Thankfully, he listens to his dad and does not trust General Zod, though he does willingly surrender to him when asked. Speaking of General Zod…

I liked the idea of him. On Krypton, he was born specifically for the task of protecting his planet at any cost, and it is with that in mind that he comes after Kal-El, who possess the power to bring back the people of Krypton. I think Michael Shannon did well in his performance, and I did not dislike him as the villain, but it also did not ring 100% true for me, and I am not sure if I can place my finger on why. His motive made complete sense, but… Maybe it did not help that both Jor-El and the Krypton council failed to kill him when they really should have, so the whole idea of him being alive seemed absurd. (Side note: According to a comic I believe, General Zod was banished from his planet well before the planet was dying. This makes sense. In the movie, it’s while the planet is dying. So as soon as the planet dies, which is basically the next day, he’s set free. It’s an amazingly illogical plot hole.)

And the fighting in this movie came down to practically invincible people throwing each other into dozens and dozens of buildings, over and over again. I cringed at the amount of destruction. I mean, yes, it’s obviously going to be a messy affair, but it got to a point of ridiculousness. All I could think of were how many people were dying thanks to all the crashing buildings. Couldn’t Clark try to find a way to move the fight to corn field or outer space?

I did like the ending pretty well, with Clark going to work at The Daily Planet (which was destroyed I’m pretty sure, so somehow they found an identical new office building…). But there was that whole thing of him putting on the glasses and suddenly people who got a good look at him earlier don’t recognize him, except Lois of course and hopefully the boss Perry White (played by Laurence Fishborne), which I thought was a little silly. But the idea was a nice way to cap off the introductory story.

Despite its flaws, that was something to remember while watching the film, that it was an introduction to a character: the way his world works, and the people in it. And honestly, as an introduction super hero movie, this might be among the best, with such a strong characterization of Clark coming to know himself as Kal-El and then transforming to Superman. It seems that these introductory superhero stories are getting stronger and stronger since Christopher Nolan released Batman Begins. How this franchise will continue, if it continues, remains to be seen, but it was certainly a strong back story and beginning to a character I honestly did not know much about.

The emotions of this film and the feeling of hope certainly ring true. I got misty-eyed a few times in the movie, I came to love Clark’s character and his parents, and I cared about the world he lived in. I wanted to see it all end well. That connection is what Superman Returns lacked. But this Superman feels real, as does his family and his story. With that in mind, I give Man of Steel four out of five stars.

If you’ve seen I Spy or Man Of Steel, let me know your thoughts!

Other Man of Steel reviews worth checking out:

House of Geekery’s Review

The Viewer’s Commentary’s Review

Matthew Rushing’s Review (Contains Spoilers)

Book Covers and Marketing

June 21, 2013 • 16 Comments

As an aspiring writer I have to confess, I can have a half-baked idea stewing in my brain and already have the cover for the story in my mind. This doesn’t always happen, but it does happen. Something I never really considered until reading various blog posts on the subject (unfortunately I didn’t take note of which ones they were so I don’t have links), was how important the book’s cover is for marketing your target audience. I have certainly taken notice of covers I like and covers I don’t, but a lot of the covers I like are girly, and I never considered the obvious: that a guy is most likely not going to want to pick a book that looks like these:

And even though these

are also dystopias told from a female POV, the covers are a lot more gender neutral. And while I have to admit the first three book covers catch my eye in the bookstore more than the latter three, what matters is the story inside. And if it’s a good story that guys and girls alike would enjoy, I think marketing it as such is important.

I have to admit though, I can’t imagine a better cover for Cinder. And honestly, guys probably don’t want to read Matched or The Selection anyway. And that’s OK, not every book has to be for everyone. But it made me think of think back to one of my girly cover ideas for one of my dystopia stories, and how sometimes I tend to dominate plots with romance (which I have seen bloggers complain about), and what kind of stories I truly want to tell. And I want to tell stories that can resonate with anyone; I don’t want to market to only one sex. But I know that all my stories have quite a lot of reworking and rewriting ahead of them before they see the light of day anyway, so story can be worked on. And a cover is certainly far, far away. Still, it’s important to consider the audience I would want to market to, and it’s fun to think about covers.

I don’t really LOVE the covers for The Hunger Games, Divergent, or The Testing. They’re fine, but as I said before, they don’t make me want to reach for the book off the shelf when I have no knowledge of the story. I tend to prefer people, a la these covers:

But as I was considering what actually makes a cover gender neutral I wondered, What kind of books do guys actually gravitate towards?

So I asked my husband if he was browsing in a bookstore for fun, not looking for anything in particular, what kind of cover would catch his eye?

He said something with a cool spaceship on it. I assume this qualifies. So while he might not be repelled against some of these gender-neutral book covers, they probably wouldn’t draw him in. Several of them don’t draw me in either. So I wondered… can pretty dresses and spaceships be combined for maximum draw to a book cover?

This was the best real-life example I could find; sci-fi look plus romance but not too swoony for the guys. But let’s face it, no one cover is going to speak to us all. And not all books can put spaceships on their covers. But I do think it’s important to consider the target audience when creating a cover. What can you say about the story with the cover, that you might not even have to read the story to at least somewhat understand? Or at the very least, what emotion can your cover evoke just by its picture and coloring? I think the psychology behind creating a cover for a story can be fascinating!

What do you think? What covers do you gravitate towards? What covers do you feel are properly marketed towards their target audience?

Review: The Book Thief

June 13, 2013 • 17 Comments

Where do I even begin?

First, I am going to steal like Liesel and post the beginning of Goodreads’ user Tamara‘s review of The Book Thief (Is it stealing if I credit her? I mean, I don’t actually want to steal her words and her be mad at me should she ever see this!): “I give this 5 stars, BUT there is a disclaimer: If you want a fast read, this book is not for you. If you only like happy endings this book is not for you. If you don’t like experimental fiction, this book is not for you. If you love to read and if you love to care about the characters you read about and if you love to eat words like they’re ice cream and if you love to have your heart broken and mended on the same page, this book is for you.”

I have to say, if I had read those words before reading the book, I might have been more hesitant to read it. But the choice to read this was actually a whim, based solely on the fact that I found I could borrow it as an e-book from my library without having to wait, so I thought, Why not?

But… Not a fast read? Maybe I’ll read it later when I have more time. Not a happy ending? I definitely don’t want to check that out. Experimental fiction? Well, I don’t know how I feel about that.

But wow, the words… the way Markus Zusak crafts words in this story is truly magical, and as an aspiring writer, that alone makes this book a worthwhile read. But then there are the people inside, whose story is so simple and tragic and believable and you cannot help but root for them.

I could quote so much of this book, because the book permeates beautiful imagery that you experience with all five senses, but I will let you discover the words yourself when you read them. What you need to know is that the narrator of the book is Death, and despite what you might think, he’s not all bad. In fact, he’s fascinated by colors in the sky and by the spirit of humans who are living and dying. And he is particularly taken by the story of Liesel, a young girl sent to live with a foster family while living in Nazi Germany.

Her brother has died, she has been separated from her mother, she never knew her father, and she feels all alone in the strangers’ house with an empty bed beside her. But she grows to love her new Papa, she makes a best friend named Rudy that the people in town find strange, and she makes it her personal mission to learn to read the book that she stole at her brother’s grave site.

I won’t delve any further into the story, except to say that books, reading, and words all play an important part in Liesel’s life throughout the story. This is what carries her through hard times and what bonds her with certain people. I love when a book focuses so much on words.

I will say, however, that The Book Thief is not a perfect book. I actually found the pacing slow at first, because the story is so simple (and the first chapter or two is confusing I think because of Death’s narrative), but the more you read, the more you care about the people. Also, about halfway through the book Death gives you a major spoiler alert for the end. I guess in a way this was good, to soften the blow as he even says (plus he hates suspense!), and it made it less hard later. Yet, it also made it maybe a little less emotional as well. But don’t get me wrong, I still cried at the end.

And then there’s the language. There’s a lot of it, a lot more than I prefer. I considered knocking off a star for it, but it felt wrong to give this book the same number of stars as other books I did not feel nearly as inspired by, so I give it five stars with that caution of language. There were not any f-bombs, but there was a large amount of “moderate” language.

This book is very stylistic. If you can’t get on board with what the author is doing, you won’t like it. But I hope you give it a chance if you haven’t yet. And while the book is incredibly sad, there is some hope in the epilogue (without it, this may have been a four star review instead). Though it’s small and I wish there was more, it was poignant and was probably just the right amount for proper closure.

Stephen King once said: “There are books full of great writing that don’t have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story… don’t be like the book-snobs who won’t do that. Read sometimes for the words–the language. Don’t be like the play-it-safers who won’t do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book.” I believe this book is both good story and good words, a book to treasure.

Content Advisory

Language: A large amount of moderate language, as mentioned above. You can also read more about it at Rated Reads.

Sexual: None, except a mention of imagining someone naked, but there is no description.

Violence: Mild/moderate. There is death in this book, but it’s not described in too much detail. There is also some other violent incidents, some which are mentioned with some detail, but nothing too graphic.

I know this is a favorite for many. If you’ve read The Book Thief, what were your thoughts?

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