Kevin's Watch

duchess of malfi wrote:I tried a couple of books by Heinlein but I hated them both so much I've never read anything by him since.

This amazes me. How can we both love TCTC, then be on opposite ends of the spectrum on Heinlein? You just can't predict anything about another person.

F&F -- the one book I read, which was urged on me by a college friend was OK. But the other one -- urged on by same person -- was awful and I've never picked up a book by him since. The first one was called something like The Past through Tomorow and had some interesting ideas, though I felt as if I'd stepped into the middle of a series or something when I read it? Mercifully, I've forgotten the name of the other, but it dealt with an old goat of a man who had a brain transplant with his young hottie female secretary and from there it degenerated into a lot of poorly written soft core sex. The guy had absolutely no idea of what he was writing about when it came to sex from a female point of view. The point where he lost me in disgust was when the old goat remembered his wife wanting to make love with him when he was taking her to the hospital while she was in labor!! Sorry, but that's just a really sick male fantasy!! If the author had ever spoken to a woman who had ever been in labor, he would have known how utterly ridiculous that whole bit was. Somehow I finished the book because my friend kept telling me how good it was. Yuck!
Luckily his other recommendation to me, the Frederick Pohl Heechee books went over much better with me.
I hope that Heinlein's other books are better than that old goat one!

Why has nobody mentioned "Hawk The Slayer" yet?

Sevothtarte wrote:

Sevothtarte wrote:9. The Dark Crystal

Can somebody tell me something about this movie? Never heard of it before.

Tis a George Lucas movie, using excellent-looking puppets instead of actors. It's a fairly standard fantasy tale - wee bloke (Gelfling) belongs to a race of small, quaint agrarian people (Gelflings), gets targetted by ultimate evil, goes through great dangers, finds friends along the path of his quest, confronts and defeats evil. Not tremendously novel, doesn't break much new ground in the genre, but it's extremely well done.

mmm .. never heard of Hawk Slayer .. is it one to be missed .. or not too bad?? and what is it about? Slaying hawks? or Vamps?

Michael Giantfriend wrote:Why has nobody mentioned "Hawk The Slayer" yet?

I thought I was the only person who ever saw it! It's been, literally, decades, and I don't remember much about it, but I enjoyed it. I remember the elf being fast like Middle-Earth elves. They needed to find some magic woman, so he took off, running through the woods until he found her. And he was an archer, iirc.

Was there a dwarf who was a jokester?

And who threw hatchets? Was it Hawk?

I really have to go rent it, if it's still out there anywhere. I hope I like it as much as I did when I was a kid.


Hey, would <I>Circle of Iron</I> qualify as fantasy? No fantasy creatures (maybe the monkey-men), super-human abilities, or magic, but it is a different kinda world.

Fist and Faith wrote:Hey, would <I>Circle of Iron</I> qualify as fantasy? No fantasy creatures (maybe the monkey-men), super-human abilities, or magic, but it is a different kinda world.

Ah, finally, the big question ... how is "Fantasy" defined?

For me, it's Fantasy if there's magic ... that's why Star Wars (the Force) and Matrix (Neo's special ability) are Fantasy, while Blade Runner is Sci-Fi ...

Opinions?

I recently saw Heavy Metal 2000 - anybody seen that?

duchess,
Ah, I see. I stopped reading part-way through the "old goat" book. I was sure it was going to become as bad as you say. I also stopped reading <U>The Number of the Beast</U>. I think these books both had great concepts, but he didn't develop them to my liking.

But if you ever find yourself having read EVERY book in the world except for Heinlein's, <U>Stranger in a Strange Land</U> is, imho, rightly considered a classic of the genre. Many even consider it a classic of literature in general. A ship to Mars crashes upon landing, killing everyone except an infant. The infant, Valentime Michael Smith, is raised by Martians. (They didn't even know there <I>were</I> Martians.) When he comes back to Earth, his view of EVERYTHING is quite different than every other human's.

<U>Time Enough for Love</U> is about an immortal(ish) guy named Lazarus Long. There are certainly some weird moments in it, but, for the most part, the story of his life is fun, and sometimes touching.



Sevothtarte,
I understand the way you divide sci-fi and fantasy. And there may be reasons for making such a division, but I don't personally have any. Whether Kirk raises the shields by pressing a button (OK, Kirk isn't the one who actually presses the button ) or Willow (Buffy) casts a spell to raise a shield, a shield that we in the "real world" cannot raise has been raised. The important part, for me, is how and why these nifty things are used.

And sci-fi is often so far out there, using science that is far less certain than any theory that anybody takes seriously, that it may as well be fantasy. I can see the fun of running with your thoughts until you arrive at such a "scientific" end, but sometimes they're <I>really</I> out there!

Fist and Faith wrote:Whether Kirk raises the shields by pressing a button (OK, Kirk isn't the one who actually presses the button ) or Willow (Buffy) casts a spell to raise a shield, a shield that we in the "real world" cannot raise has been raised.

Hmmm, considering which site I'm posting on, maybe I should have said "...or a Lord raises a Forbidding..." But I have Buffy on my mind, because it was on last night and Willow did that very thing.

And if anybody saw it, <B>didn't Buffy kick some ass?!?!</B> What a fight!!!

I've actually never seen Buffy. I've worked night shift for years. But it sounds pretty cool from what people say.
Maybe I'll give Heinlein another try someday. Apparently that second book that I read must be one of his lesser works.
I have trouble separating fantasy from science fiction in a lot of movies, too. To me Star Wars, with its Jedi knights with their mystical powers and its roots in mythology, is more fantasy than science fiction...it just happens to take place in another galaxy far far away...

Sky, my favorite character in the Starship Trooper movie would have to be Dizzie. I've always been a tomboy, and I can just relate to her...

we named our cat after Diz .. she's my fav too!!

Buffy is the coolest!! .. and kicks the best ass!!!!

I love to watch her kick ass!! Spike is pretty cool too!! So what series were you watching??

you got the latest season out yet in the States??

heard rumours that this was gonna be Buffy's last season .. and that Dawn was gonna continue .. so disappointed 'bout that!

Dawn's ok .. but she's no Bufster!! just can't imagine it ::shrugs::

Hail Buffy!!

Fist and Faith wrote:
(And now I have to hope you don't see it, and think, "What a dumb movie. That Fist and Faith guy must be some kinda idiot.")

If you like martial arts, you should like it. I don't normally like the gravity-defying type. But when there's a "legitimate" reason for it, as there is in <I>The Matrix</I> (same people did the martial arts), it's ok. Aside from martial arts, <I>Crouching Tiger</I> is <I>gorgeously</I> filmed. And it is also filled with spirituality.

OK. Now I've seen the movie I wasn't expecting sub-titles throughout though. It may also be lack of insight but I couldn't quite get the Fantasy aspect to the movie. I enjoyed the choreography though

Vain, I always put my DVD on dubbed instead of subtitles. Lots of people seem to think subtitles is better somehow. I figure a translation's a translation. (Fun to do both at the same time, and compare the translations.)

As for the fantasy aspect, I think the super-human abilities qualifies, no?

Vain, you're making me laugh my head off. The first time I saw that movie, it was with a girl friend who asked about twenty or so minutes into it, "But when are they going to bring the magic sword to America, so they can start talking English?"

bump...4 clearfrontier

I found the title of this thread a little deceiving. There was so much science fiction discussed that it never seemed to focus on the fantasy titles. I suppose I don’t think of Star Wars, The Matrix, Final Fantasy, Scooby Doo and the like as genuine ancient world genre films

well then I'll copy my post on to ur's...mines strictly fantasy, at least...

Fist and Faith wrote: If you like martial arts, you should like it. I don't normally like the gravity-defying type. But when there's a "legitimate" reason for it, as there is in <I>The Matrix</I> (same people did the martial arts), it's ok. Aside from martial arts, <I>Crouching Tiger</I> is <I>gorgeously</I> filmed. And it is also filled with spirituality.

It is a bit after the fact but I just have to put in a little answer to this one. (Roaming old threads today.)

To put it simply, the fantasy aspect of CTHD is the martial arts. I am not a particular fan of high-wire martial arts movies myself, but I have to say that in this instance I switch on my "suspension-of-disbelief" circuits. I admit that the first time I saw it CTHD looked strange to me too, but fortunately I have a few friends who were very glad to explain the virtues of the high-wire martial arts genre films. (Apparently there are several types of martial arts films, classified by what kind of approach they have to martial arts. CTHD is the fantastic kind, but there are others that are more down-to-earth and realistic (if you can use that word).

Harry Potter???

You people got to be kidding me. That thing matches up with the quality of Pokemon.

Hey, I like Pokemon (ambivalent about Potter). Digimon's better, though.