Book Review: Monsters from the Id by E. Michael Jones

Monsters from the Id by E. Michael Jones

In Monsters from the Id, E. Michael Jones argues that the horror genre originated with Mary Shelly's Frankenstein as a reaction to the Enlightenment, and in particular, to the French Revolution and the sexual morality leading up to it. The revolutionaries began with high ideals (liberte, egalite, fraternite) but also embraced the sexual freedom that resulted from the rejection of Christianity. The revolution rather quickly devolved into the publicly sanctioned mass murder of the guillotine and the Reign of Terror. Shelly's mother had gone from London to Paris to experience the sexual part of the revolution though she had at best a mixed experience. Shelly herself lived a rather chaotic and ultimately unsatisfying life with her husband Percy Shelly, who was a deep devotee of Enlightenment thought and morals. Jones argues that Mary Shelly poured her guilt and unease into Frankenstein, making it a powerful indictment of the Enlightenment's adherence to loose morals and unfettered scientific exploration. For Jones, sexual liberation leads ultimately to violence and death.

Jones traces this trajectory from Dracula (where sexual promiscuity leads to the poisoning of one's blood by vampirism) to Weimar Republic Germany (where sexual decadence, among other factors, led to the rise of Hitler and his racial (i.e. blood) purity obsession) to 1930s-1950s Hollywood (to which many German film artists fled) and up to the modern day (with discussions of the Alien franchise as a cultural revolt against fertility, i.e. sexual responsibility). His argument is thorough and well-documented.

Unfortunately, his argument is also not convincing. He claims Frankenstein as the origin of horror, but what about the stories of the Golem or of Faust, which predate Shelly by centuries? Jones ties his theory of horror so closely to sexual liberation (which indeed is central to many horror tropes, themes, and stories) that the book reads more like searching for examples to validate his theory rather than discovering an insight that explains the history of horror. He delves too pruriently into his examples, often assuming details that can't be confirmed, for example what Mary Shelly thought about her husband or his first wife's suicide. His writing style is mostly scholarly but too often crosses a line into unnecessary details or speculative assumptions. The book winds up being unpersuasive.

While I agree that sexual liberation brings a host of problems, I hardly agree that it is the cause and the core inspiration for the horror genre. The book has a lot of interesting little bits here and there, but taken as a whole, it is unsatisfying.

TV Review: Stranger Things Season One

Stranger Things Season One created by the Duffer Brothers

In small town Indiana Will Byers lives the normal life of a pre-teen geek. He plays Dungeons and Dragons with his three friends, all of whom are members of the middle school A/V club. It's 1983, so that means they mostly use ham radios and hand-held counterparts. The boys are bullied by the school jocks, too. The boys ride their bikes all over town. Will's mom is divorced, so home life is a little run down.

The typical life ends when Will vanishes one evening. His friends and the local police search for him in the woods surrounding the town. Meanwhile, a young, crew-cut girl shows up. She doesn't talk much and has telekinetic powers. The boys befriend her, hoping she has some clues as to where Will has gone. She indicates there's a monster (which the viewers get shadowy glimpses of) responsible for the disappearance. A shadowy government agency is trying to hush things up and to recover the girl, so the stakes get high very early.

The show is a fairly interesting sci-fi conspiracy. It is jam-packed with cliches, tropes, stereotypes, images, and music from 1980s science fiction and fantasy television and movies. The creators are clearly inspired by Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Stephen King, James Cameron, George Lucas, et al. I found all that a bit distracting and unnecessary--the best parts of the show are the original ones, like when the girl goes into a sort of psychic nether-space where the only things visible are she and her reflection in the water she's standing in (and the objects or persons the shadowy agency wants her to spy on).

The actors all do a great job, making the story believable and compelling. The story moves along quickly without feeling rushed. I enjoyed it but wasn't as wowed as I was expecting from all the reviews. It's a good show and I will give season two a try when it comes out this year.

Stranger Things is available for streaming through Netflix.

Book Review: Fairy Tail Vol. 4 by Hiro Mashima

Fairy Tail Volume 4 by Hiro Mashima

After dealing the destructive consequences of their last mission (the Fairy Tail team took out a lot of buildings and railroad tracks resolving the Lullaby plot line), Natsu, Gray, and Lucy try to relax back at the guild hall. Natsu sends Happy the flying cat up to the second floor to steal an S-class assignment from the upstairs workboard. Those missions (and indeed, the second floor itself) are only for S-class wizards in the guild, a status to which Natsu aspires. How can you gain S-class ranking without performing an S-class job? Also, the guild is known for its looseness about following rules, so he should be okay, right? Natsu drags Lucy into the mission and Gray tags along. The task is to end the curse on Galuna Island. The natives turn into horrible creatures at night, especially under the moonlight. They assume their curse is related to the moon (which looks purple from the island), so their request is that the Fairy Tail team destroy the moon. The team wisely decides to investigate the rest of the island first, in case some other cause is responsible or another solution is available (i.e. possible).

The story is an interesting mystery that opens up some of Gray's history. The ultimate cause of the problem turns out to be more than just the moon's weird color. The manga is still very faithful to the television series with some fun supplemental material at the end.

Recommended.

Wine Tasting

For Christmas, we received a wine rating and set of bottles gift. We put in our promotion code on line at Tasting Room's web site. They mailed us a sampler set of wine bottles to determine our tastes.

Fancy box

Inside the box

I should mention the mailing package had an interesting disclaimer:

Hmmm...

We followed the handy instructions included in the lid of the box.

Go online, drink, and rate, what could be easier?

We tried the whites and weren't too impressed with them. We moved on quickly to the reds. The sampling reds were Trilus Pinot Noir (California), Chateau de Win Bordeaux (France), Le Ruse Renard Cotes du Rhone (France), and Bull's Head Red Wine (California). We used the handy mat to mark which wine was in which glass.

Rating the four reds

This picture looks a little weird to me, have I been drinking too much?

Our favorite of the bunch was the Pinot Noir (though we did like the other ones), which gave us some interesting feedback...

Wait, what are you saying about our tastes?!?

After submitting our reviews, the web site generated a list of bottles to send us based on our feedback. Feeling bad about the white wines, we substituted in a Riesling for one of their recommendations. The shipment came quite quickly and with a similar disclaimer on the box...

More thorough instructions

First level of the box

Second level of the box

The box they sent to us included Nohemi Cotes du Rhone (France, 2014), Mythmaker Sangiovese (Italy, 2015), Chulengo Cabernet Reserva (Chile, 2015) Lustra Semi-Sweet Reisling (California, 2014),  La Foret Pinot Noir (France, 2015), and Carrete Cabernet Sauvignon (Chile, 2015).

The usual suspects

Of course, we do have to finish our open wine before we dive into the new wines. We are sure to start in on them very soon.

Is this why our tastes lack "subtlety or nuance"?

Thanks Nate and Helen for a wonderful gift that we will keep enjoying for quite a while!

Movie Review: Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)

Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) written and directed by Taika Waititi

Foster child Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) has come to his last opportunity to live in a home--the New Zealand bush farm of Hec (Sam Neil) and Bella (Rima Te Wiata). Bella is very enthusiastic; Hec is there. Ricky is unsure but he's been through a lot of homes and his caseworker is glad to be rid of him. She's supposed to inspect the home to make sure it's appropriate. She gives a quick glance and approves it. She jokingly tells Bella that there are no returns. Ricky moves in and awkwardly gets to know and like his foster parents. Things don't go perfectly smoothly, though, leading to a long trek through the bush. I don't want to give away too much of the plot because the discovery of what's going on and what's happening next is quite delightful.

The film is a warm-hearted and enjoyable comedy. The cast does a great job and the script is smart enough to pull some surprises. Some of the twists and bits are quirky in the best possible way. The New Zealand countryside is also quite beautiful and lovingly photographed.

Highly recommended!

Game Review: T.I.M.E Stories

T.I.M.E Stories designed by Manuel Rozoy, art by Pascal Quidault, and published by Space Cowboys

T.I.M.E Stories is a narrative-driven cooperative game with a role-playing element. The system is designed to be reused with multiple scenarios, or missions, that are sold separately and have been published every four to six months since the game's 2015 publication. The setting is a fun bit of science fiction:

People from the future have discovered not only time travel, but inter-dimensional travel as well. They've also detected various times and places where temporal disturbances threaten to cause irreparable damage to reality. The T.I.M.E. Agency (Tachyon Insertion in Major Events) is funded by the world's governments to prevent those disasters. Players are sent into others' bodies (called "receptacles" by the agency) in the past or in other dimensions. The players are agents who investigate and (hopefully) stop the disturbances. Players only have a certain amount of time, called a run, in which to complete the mission before they are pulled back to Agency Headquarters. Often, multiple runs are required in order to solve the problem. Everything resets at the start of a new run (or most everything--players still remember what happened and certain items with a special icon will remain in place). The more times players run, the lower their rank will be at the end of the game.

The game board (click to enlarge)

The game system is well-crafted. Each mission is driven by a deck of cards. The cards represent the various locations to be explored, a map of the area, a set of items, and the "receptacles" available to each player. When the players make a second run (which I think is probably inevitable) they can switch receptacles. The art is beautiful and the iconography is easy to understand.

Players have to discuss what they want to do at a location (the backs of the location cards tell what happens as the players interact with the environment or the characters there). They also have to agree on when to leave a location and where they will go. Playing in character is more fun but not necessary.

The first mission (which comes with the base game) takes the players to Paris in AD 1921. Unfortunately, they are not sipping coffee on the banks of the Seine, they are in an insane asylum. The receptacles are the inmates, meaning each player has some special power but also some problem that could impede progress. For example, one character is a drug addict and can use cocaine (represented in the game by blue disks) to improve chances at a skill check. But if he runs out of cocaine, he'll permanently lose a life point. Lose too many life points, and a character will die.

Some of the possible inmates to choose from

This particular mission has three skills--agility (used to pick locks, etc.), glibness (used to persuade other people), and fighting (used to attack other people). The number next to the skill represents how many dice to roll. Each die has a blank face, some faces with stars, and one with a skull. The stars help to overcome the checks; the skull means the character might take damage during the check.  So there's definitely some "roll" in the role playing.

Dice and card abilities

The story is intriguing, with plenty of help and red herrings from the staff and the other inmates at the asylum. The art is very evocative and fits the psychological horror theme well. The story is a bit dark and some of the puzzles are hard to solve, so I'd recommend it for teenagers and up.

The game plays two to four players. We played with three though four is probably a better number (at least for this mission). The game also has a way to "save" the game in the middle if players need a break. We completed the entire game in just under three hours. Usually we don't have that big a block of time for playing but we planned ahead.
The big draw back is that once you've played a mission, you can't replay it a second time. You already know the secrets and solutions. Maybe in a couple of years we will have forgotten and be able to enjoy it again. And we can certainly loan it to friends so they can have the experience.

We enjoyed the game very much and will be getting the next mission, The Marcy Case, which is  a modern day thriller. There's also an Ancient Egypt mission and another with dragons, so the system has good thematic variety.

Highly recommended!

Book Review: Doctor Strange: The Way of the Weird by J. Aaron et al.

Doctor Strange: The Way of the Weird written by Jason Aaron, penciled and colored by Chris Bachalo

After a brief (one page) review of Doctor Strange's back story, this book leaps into his life as Sorcerer Supreme living in New York City. He has plenty of odd psychic jobs to do. He helps out a librarian from the Bronx who has mind maggots coming out her skull; she is willing to repay him by organizing his (rather dangerous) library. Meanwhile, a big mission is looming, threatening both magicians and Sorcerers Supreme in many different dimension, and that threat is on its way to Earth.

The book has a good blend of comedy, drama, and magic. Stephen Strange is still somewhat full of himself, leading to comic dialogue. The big threat, magical death and destruction in other dimensions, is slowly revealed, building up the dramatic stakes. The depiction of the magical in our world (what Strange sees through his third eye) is well done and easy to understand--nothing too weird or incomprehensible ever happens. The story is enjoyably written and drawn.