New Location

Dear Readers,

This blog is moving to a new domain under a different name. From now on, you can find me at the following URL:

https://rostockgirl.wixsite.com/straightontilmorning

Thank you for your understanding.

Review: "My Little Pony - The Movie"

“I am so over the whole cute pony thing!” exclaims the Storm King, the antagonist of the story.

Some parents in the audience might feel the same way. But if there is one thing that sets Lauren Faust’s version of the My Little Pony franchise apart, it is self-awareness. This movie knows exactly how cheesy it is, and goes ahead anyway.

What the more cynical viewers might see as cheesiness is, actually, a deliberate moral message. The full title of the popular TV series, now in its seventh season, is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This means that the heroine, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and her five best friends can always find a peaceful solution to their problems, whether it’s a squabble between co-workers or an unleashed god of chaos.

In this movie, the characters’ values of trust, empathy and teamwork are put to the test like never before.

It begins when a flying warship crashes the ponies’ national holiday, and its commander, Tempest, demands their unconditional surrender.

“I’m sure we can talk this out,” says Twilight.

Tempest responds by setting an army loose on the city.

Having barely escaped, Twilight and her friends embark on a dangerous mission to find the Hippogriffs, a distantly related tribe they believe might help them. They quickly discover just how dangerous the world is outside their happy homeland of Equestria. Asking for help earns contempt, trusting a stranger leads them into a trap, and showing off their skills to impress a potential ally only draws the enemy soldiers’ attention. If doing the right thing doesn’t work, doing the wrong thing might be the only option.

“This isn’t Equestria,” an anxious Twilight snaps. “You can’t expect everything to work out!”

The question this movie asks is, do the ends justify the means? Is it all right to compromise your principles in order to survive a national crisis? Or should you hold on to them more than ever?

The Mane Six are not the only ones with ethical challenges to deal with. The Storm King, self-proclaimed “super-powerful bad guy”, may be a disappointingly flat character, but the effect he has on his subjects is surprisingly realistic for a children’s movie.

The various groups of characters the heroines run into represent the ways people cope with living in a dictatorship. Commander Tempest follows the Storm King to gain power and to channel a private anger. A flock of pirate parrots turned cargo haulers obey in order to survive. Still others, such as a charming feline con artist, are driven to crime by the harshness of their lives. 

Can a group of naïve young mares win the allegiance of creatures who gave up hope a long time ago?

In a time where each remake of a popular movie seems to be darker than the last, My Little Pony’s unashamed idealism makes for a refreshing change. 

Review: "Uprooted" by Naomi Novik

Cover Summary:

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

On the Goodreads page for this novel, I saw someone shouting in all caps about the implausibility of this story. The reviewer appeared to think that, as long as the wizard calling himself “the Dragon” doesn’t actually eat, rape, or torture the girls he takes, that makes everything all right and Agniezhka, his newest servant, should have nothing to worry about.

But I disagree. Being taken away from your home for ten years, forbidden all contact with your loved ones, living alone with a powerful, incomprehensible (and frankly quite rude) immortal, and gradually losing your identity so that you cannot connect with your family anymore when you do see them – that’s enough to frighten anyone. And it’s far from being the worst thing that happens to Agniezhka.

Still, the Dragon is not a villain. It’s more complicated than that. He is someone who’s been alone for so long, concentrating on nothing but his magic, that he’s almost forgotten how to deal with ordinary people. Especially an impulsive, messy young woman with power of her own, whom he’s duty-bound to train whether he wants to or not.

Also, Agniezhka is no traditional fairytale heroine. She may have the power to save the world, but she still can’t cook without getting dirty, and she drives the Dragon crazy with her slapdash approach to magic. (Think My Fair Lady meets The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.) Her peasant girl narration is pitch-perfect; by describing impossible things like magic in terms she can understand, she makes them almost real enough to believe in. For example, her only talent growing up was gathering useful things in the forest, so that’s the analogy she uses for learning a new spell – unlike the Dragon who, she says, always insists on using the road.

The arguments they have about each other’s working methods are some of my favorite scenes in the book. Their partnership challenges them both, intellectually as well as emotionally.

Another relationship I loved was Agniezhka’s with Kasia, the classic heroine everyone thought would be chosen instead. They should (and do) envy each other’s very different fates, but not for a moment do they let it ruin their friendship. Kasia, too, breaks free of the villagers’ (and the reader’s) expectations, becoming just as strong in her own way as Agniezhka in another.

Considering the title, it’s fitting that roots are so important to this story. Agniezhka’s strength comes from her heritage: her family, her best friend, and the land she lives on. The Dragon, a solitary man, has no roots. He spends his life holding back the forest because he is afraid it will overrun the world. He has a point – this is not a Disney forest – but the best way to handle these monsters is with compassion and an open mind.

By the way, this is one of only a few stories I’ve seen where reading aloud saves the world. I’m surprised there aren’t more.

Surely we bookworms must have known this all along. ;)

Review: Oh Yeah, Audrey!

Oh Yeah, Audrey! by Tucker Shaw has wild nightclubs, fabulous haute couture, sex, satire and betrayal. It’s also a classic morality tale. Not many 21^st-century writers can get away with that, but Shaw does – maybe because he knows exactly how strong the temptations are that he’s warning you to avoid.

Gemma Beasley, the narrator, is unhappy. Her mother has died, her father is overprotective, she has no friends at school, and like many teenage girls, she hates the way she looks. Her Audrey Hepburn blog is her only escape. That’s why she and her four fellow bloggers have planned a Breakfast at Tiffany’s-themed tour of New York, starting with a literal breakfast in front of the iconic jewelry store. And when five misfit teenagers from very different backgrounds run around the city unsupervised, there’s bound to be trouble.

The moral of the story, obviously, is that Gemma needs to stop pretending to be Hepburn and be herself instead. That being said, if you were a 16-year-old girl and a charming millionaire’s son bought you a gown from Hepburn’s private collection, could you say no? Honestly?

For a male author, Shaw is brilliant at describing the way a teenage girl feels about a glamorous female role model: despair that you’ll never live up to her, wistful hope that someday you might. If you only had the right dress, the right boyfriend, the right mannerisms – as if that had anything to do with real self-confidence.

As for the often repeated Tiffany’s quote about rich men giving Holly Golightly 50 dollars to go the powder room, it gathers unexpected force as the story goes on. No spoilers, but Gemma experiences the lowest points of Holly’s lifestyle as well as the highest.

By the way, if you don’t appreciate Hepburn, the amount of trivia will probably put you off. But if you understand what it’s like to be passionate about something, no matter how strange, you might forgive Gemma for squealing at the sight of a vintage gown.

It may not be realistic to have two gorgeous rich boys joining Gemma’s tour, even if one of them is gay. But realism isn’t the point. The point is to test Gemma’s integrity as far as it can go. The fact that all these party and restaurant scenes are dazzling to read about is just a bonus.

Special mention goes to Telly, the only Internet troll I’ve ever heard of who is also a well-rounded, likeable character. From the moment she interrupts Gemma’s and her friends’ raptures about Givenchy to talk about Hepburn’s work with UNICEF, I knew this book wasn’t going to be as shallow as it sounded.

Review: The Never-Ending Sacrifice (Star Trek: DS9)

A boy looks up. He sees a Cardassian's hand on his shoulder and knows that this is usually a prelude to a beating or, if he is fortunate enough, arrest. The boy knows how many disappeared during the Occupation of Bajor. So he does the one thing he can think of: he bites the Cardassian. Then the nightmare begins. 

He is ripped from the family that took him in as an orphan, clothed him, fed him, always loved him unconditionally. And no matter how earnest, how caring the commander of Deep Space 9 is, the boy knows this is all a horrible mistake. How can someone from Starfleet judge him by what he looks like, not by what he is? He prays to the Prophets; he is Bajoran. They all keep telling him that the test proves the large Cardassian man is his father, that the other Cardassian -- that oily gul -- took him away from his father. But the boy keeps telling them that he is Bajoran, he only wants to go home with his father. So they send Rugal home -- to Cardassia. 

On the homeworld of the Cardassian Union where sacrifice and devotion to the state are surpassed only by the government's need to keep its people in check, one very lonely boy discovers that if he doesn't resist, his life -- like those of so many others -- will be added to the tally of the never-ending sacrifice.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has one of the most complicated storylines of any TV series I know. It ran for seven seasons and involved, more or less, seven different political entities, with alliances that were constantly shifting back and forth. Today’s enemy might be tomorrow’s ally, or vice versa. It’s realistic, as any history student will tell you, but also somewhat confusing. 

That’s why The Never-Ending Sacrifice by Una McCormack is very helpful for putting all seven seasons in perspective.If you don’t know the series, you might not understand everything that’s going on, but there’s a glossary at the back of the book. Besides, the protagonist doesn’t understand it all either.

Rugal Pa’Dar is a one-off character from an episode called “Cardassians” in the second season of DS9. He was adopted by Bajorans, whose planet was once invaded by his own species, the Cardassians. Then his biological father found him and took him back. 

Needless to say, he’s got identity issues. He doesn’t fully belong to either culture. This makes him the perfect character through whom to tell the story of the Dominion War, because the war is being fought inside him as well as across the galaxy. This inner conflict almost tears him apart, but as he grows up, it also helps him make connections across all kinds of borders: class, species, sexuality and politics, to name a few.

Rugal is not much like the usual Star Trek heroes, brilliant diplomats, scientists and warriors who always save the day. He’s an ordinary person caught up in extraordinary circumstances, who mostly gets by on luck, resourcefulness, and a deep loyalty to his loved ones. He’s not trying to end the war or save his species. He just wants to go home, if he could only figure out where home is.  

McCormack does an excellent job of balancing the large and complicated plot lines of the original series with Rugal's individual story. He is clearly a product of a certain political landscape, but not a passive one. The older he gets, the more he refuses to let parents, commanding officers and governments make his choices for him. 

The Never-Ending Sacrifice is still a quintessential Star Trek story. It’s a story about war, and it does get very dark at times (Rugal’s time in the army is bleakly reminiscent of All Quiet On The Western Front), but more than that, it’s a story about love that transcends boundaries.

Review: Tin Star & Stone In The Sky

Cover Summary:

On their way to start a new life, Tula and her family travel on the Prairie Rose, a colony ship headed to a planet in the outer reaches of the galaxy. All is going well until the ship makes a stop at a remote space station, the Yertina Feray, and the colonist's leader, Brother Blue, beats Tula within an inch of her life. An alien, Heckleck, saves her and teaches her the ways of life on the space station. 

When three humans crash land onto the station, Tula's desire for escape becomes irresistible, and her desire for companionship becomes unavoidable. But just as Tula begins to concoct a plan to get off the space station and kill Brother Blue, everything goes awry, and suddenly romance is the farthest thing from her mind.

Warning: spoilers.

If you’re wondering what Firefly would be like with aliens, or Rogue One with a somewhat lower death toll, this duology is for you.

It subverts several important tropes that science fiction writers have come to rely on. Firstly, there is an interplanetary government, but humans are not the glue holding it together. They’re one unimportant species among many. The language spoken between different species, Universal Galactic, is clearly not English and Tula Bane has real trouble understanding it until someone equips her with translation technology.

Since humanity isn’t the standard, this leads to some wonderful world building on the author’s part, sometimes by what she doesn’t write, as much as what she does write. Casually referring to a character as a “biped” implies volumes about the different kinds of alien bodies on that space station (Stone, p. 29). When one of them stabs Tula with the sting in his tongue, she assumes it’s poison, but it turns out to be something quite different (Star, p. 33).

Secondly, the aliens are not stereotyped. Each species has its own distinct culture and biology, but the characters are still individuals: for example, the Hort are cunning, ruthless, and offended by the sound of human voices, but one of them becomes Tula’s mentor. The Loor are formal and hierarchical, but one of them bends the rules to help Tula while another of them is corrupted by power. Humans themselves are stereotyped by the other species as primitive nomads, but all Tula wants is a home of her own.

Speaking of stereotypes, I was a little disappointed that in Tin Star, the only female character besides Tula was a caricature straight out of the movie Mean Girls. Why do we still assume that women who wear lots of makeup and tight clothes are always selfish, promiscuous or both? However, the author fixed that issue quite thoroughly in Stone in the Sky. Hendala, Ednette, Elizabeth and Myfanwy are all strong, complex female characters, and even mean girl Els is shown in a different light.

Thirdly, Tula herself is not the average heroine. She’s strong and vulnerable in interesting ways. On the one hand, she’s a consummate survivor: beaten and left for dead, the only one of her species, with no money, no possessions, and a shaky grasp on the language, she still talks herself out of trouble. She has excellent social and business skills: she can mimic alien body language, keep track of a complicated network of trades, bend the truth, and even kiss someone she dislikes if it gives her an advantage.

But while she’s an expert at connecting to people on a surface level, deeper connections are a problem for her. When it comes to romance and friendship, she’s as confused as any other teenage girl; arguably more so, since she has no human mentor to ask for advice. Her strongest relationship is with her enemy, Brother Blue, and that trips her up as well; it takes her a long time to learn that hate should not be the reason you get up in the morning. These flaws make her more relatable, as well as driving the plot forward; most of her actions are fueled either by revenge or loneliness.

The only weak point in the series for me was Tula’s relationship with Tournour. All the hard work seems to be on his side: he saves her life many times, walks a delicate tightrope between loyalty to her and his duty as Chief Constable, watches her fall in love with another man, helps them be together, and makes considerable efforts to understand how her alien mind works. What does she do for him in return except cause trouble? That being said, I liked the subtle ways he finds to show her he’s on her side, even when he’s locking her in the brig or frisking her for weapons.

The two of them remind me of Constable Odo and Major Kira from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Although it’s the Andorians who have antennae …

Okay, someone stop me, before I start making Trek references all through the night.

Needless to say, Tin Star and Stone in the Sky are highly recommended for all science fiction fans.