The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Brandon Sanderson does some stuff very, very well: action filled fantasies starring main characters who question their purpose and motivations set in a world where religion is considered in unconventional ways.

For the most part, Sanderson managed to deliver again an incredible fantasy adventure filled with laugh out loud moments and pulse racing scenes. Somehow, his seemingly simple prose was always extremely effective in describing complicated action scenes that were practically his hallmark.

I was initially apprehensive about The Alloy of Law because I was major fan of the original Mistborn Trilogy. While the ending was not entirely satisfactory in my opinion, it was nevertheless an ending that I have come to grudgingly accept as a bittersweet conclusion to an extraordinary fantasy series. But I thought, what the heck, this is Brandon Sanderson! One of my favourite fantasy author and I have yet failed to read any book written by him (except for WoT).

The story was an interesting addition to the original Mistborn lore. The applications of Allomancy to semi-modern gunfight sequences and Wax-Wayne’s hilarious interactions kept me turning the pages as time flew away.

However on the negative side, the world building wasn't as extensive as other Sanderson books. Religions have always been a strong focus in his worlds, but they were only alluded to in this case. This was something I felt remiss and could have expanded upon to clue in readers who aren't familiar with the original characters or to bridge better with the original series.

When I finished the book, I had many lingering questions. What the heck was bendalloy??? How did they discover bendalloy? Did Sanderson decide they need 8 pairs of metals and since theres the absence of attium and malatium, created an additional metal out of the blue? What's the God Metals?

Why were the aristocrats so useless in the ballroom scene? Have the mistings been relegated to mere courier services? What happened to keeping strong men in your household? That seems like a 180degrees change from 350 years ago. And having an entire ballroom of Aristocrats of noble descent and all of them could only cower in fear? Elend is a not hereditary Mistborn, so the kidnap theory was extremely flaky on my part as the reader.

I was very annoyed that Elend is known posthumously as Lord Mistborn, when Vin was obviously the stronger Mistborn warrior and the main character in the Mistborn series. What each religion has come to represent was also too vaguely explained.

So you will understand my disappointment that towards the end, instead of addressing these issues, Mr Sanderson chose to leave major cliffhangers in the final chapters to preempt possible future entries in the series. It went like this: after the main conflict was concluded, it was revealed that the main villain was manipulated (for unknown ulterior motives) by a higher-order villain. And surprise, surprise, Marsh and Sazed (ie GOD) are still there having a hand influencing the proceedings. Effects of Marsh's actions are another cliffhanger. Sazed didn't sound like Sazed at all. why did he help Wax? Why were Miles's actions considered so wrong as to justify God's intervention? I thought Wax was the more evil one meting out capital punishment for crimes of theft & kidnap. The crew had no initial plans to kill anybody.

Then the story ends. WTF? W-T-F!!!????

Considering there were no clear plans (if any at all?) that this series will continue in the future, I felt the ending was very bad. I was left feeling bereft of a satisfying closure to what I expected to be a standalone novel but all I could do was pull my hair in frustration.

As much as I may love the rest of the novel, the final chapter made me feel that the book was incomplete and spoiled the entire thing for me. I apologise for the schizophrenic tone in this review, for the book has clear merits and deficiencies, which accounts for the 3 stars.

P.s. Brandon Sanderson wrote in the preface he wanted to do an urban fantasy trilogy on the Mistborn world. By usual definitions urban fantasy is different from the steampunk setting of this book, which makes me doubt the continuance of this storyline, hence my utter frustration at the ending.

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Captain America: The First Avenger Review

Rating: 2.5/5 Stars

Lets get the good thing over first, its faster that way. Chris Evans (Captain America) is very, very good looking:

Yah, got that?

Now the bad. 

No, I am serious. The chance to stare at Chris Evans in his dashing army uniform (however brief those scenes were) was probably the only redeeming quality this film has got. 

Alright, maybe Stanley Tucci's performance was quite interesting. Still, too brief.

The film felt like it was a 2 part miniseries. The first half was how he got to become Captain America, with a climax scene in which he rescued his best buddy (huh? where did he come from?) from behind enemy lines. The 2nd half was...

Damn, that's how forgettable the whole excursion was.

Thing is, Captain America is one of the most...ordinary superhero that I have ever seen. He hasn't got Thor's god-like powers, Stark's smartass-ness, Black Widow's sexiness, Batman's mysteriousness, Spiderman's coolness. He's just... a guy with 4x metabolism as the normal human being. I guess the problem was it was never fully explained what were the extent of his powers before he started chasing the bad guys around.

To quote Brandon Sanderson's First Law of writing fantasy, a good fantasy has to clearly define the magical rules and boundaries within which the characters can act. Captain American was clearly shortchanged in this aspect.

After Captain America become Captain America, I am still just seeing the extra buff guy who's got ample beef. And the whole sequence on him parading as a carnival performer (to get people to buy bonds, raise morale, however funny that might be) did not help.

Strangely enough, this buff guy is able to outswim submarines, out run (1930s) cars, block bullets with a shield the size of half his chest (what about his legs?), withstand WMD charges with a flick of his arm, and FLY planes without any training whatsoever. Say what?

The villian in the film is Red Skull, played by the often reliable Hugo Weaving (LoTR, The Matrix), who's got his hands on super power mystical artefact with god-like energy powers which has enabled him to develop weapons which can vaporise a human being instantaneously and cause explosions. I assume that these are powerful enough characteristics of a weapon for America to become VERY concerned. Right.

Which leads me to the point that this is one of the lousiest villians i have ever seen. You got a mystical artefact and all you can do is vaporise human beings? The movie did not even demonstrate the extent of destructive capabilities these weapon! This guy has got no back up plans, lays out his grand plans on a map for all to see, and only knows how to yell at his minions when Captain America starts destroying his weapons factories.

After the 1 hour mark, the rest of the film truly felt like an eternity. Knowing full well that Captain America will emerge victorious (how else is he going to be in the upcoming Avengers' film?), I kept waiting for Red Skull to do something shocking that might actually make the audience care about how he was vanquished. Alas, it was too much to hope for.

In the end, it was just a meh superhero film filled with cliches. Cool graphics, hot guy + girl (whose attraction only did truly blossom after Chris Evans returned to his normal shape. Now what does that say, i wonder?), guns, explosions, uber high-tech vehicles, motivational kiss before the final showdown.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz



I have seen many reviews talking about the disappointing qualities of the films leading up  to The Avengers (due 2012), and reviewers have expressed their hopes that they will finally do the characters justice by tying them all together in that film. As long as the Avengers isn't 5 hours long, I can't say I have got the same level of optimism.

步步惊心

Just spent the last week watching this drama and reading the original book. 

One of the saddest stories I ever read.

The beautiful cinematography of this scene in the last episode caught my eye.

I was struck by Number 14's devotion to the girl, despite the fact that the girl has never looked upon him with anything more than platonic love. 

Haiz, such a beautiful scene to send off the girl he loved.

This has got to be one of the best scenes in the whole show.
I think No 14's acting reached its apex in the show here.

I thought I had cried enough when I read the book. It took 1 hour of tears before I could finish the final few chapters. But the torrent continued as I watched the show.

What a 

beautiful,

depressing,

horrid, 

but lovely story.

Just like the main character, I am a masochist.

Miserere: An Autumn Tale by Teresa Frohock

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Original world building and action packed adventures. The world and magic system is very intricately linked with religion (no prize for guessing Ms Frohock's religion), specifically Christianity. This makes it very different from the usual high fantasy. As a non-religious person, it was surprising for me to find the system quite acceptable and that it somehow still works quite well in this series.

Interactions between the characters were well written. Miss Forhock has created distinctive and vivid characters - she does a fantastic job describing the inner worlds of characters' minds. However, some of the writing for action sequence do come across as jagged, impatient, lacking in rhythm.

My other complaint is the length of the novel. While it isn't exactly short, readers are left with a lot of unanswered questions (Can't the people have their own children? Where's the Gods of the other religions if there is only 1 heaven (Christian-centrism??)?) which could be attributed to either lack of comprehensive world-building, or this being the first book in a series.

Personally I feel the author could have provided more information about the world to draw the reader into the story. The cliff-hanger could also be more distinct to attract sustained readership.

Overall, it was still highly commendable for a debut effort.



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French Films & Gaspard Ulliel

My love affair with French films started out with the lovely and passionate La Princesse de Montpensier (The Princess of Montpensier).

Through that amazing periodic piece film, I fell headlong in love with the extraordinarily beautiful and dashing Gaspard Ulliel:

My obsession led me to a viewing spree of Gaspard Ulliel's works, and in the process discovered the astoundingly adventurous and creative French film industry. My favourites aside from La Princesse de Montpensier have been the moving Les Choristes and utterly charming A Very Long Engagement (in which Ulliel's parts were amazing but far too brief)

This fantastic scene from A Very Long Engagement played a crucial part telling the love story of Mathilde and Manech, but this image showcases mindblowing cinematography which earned the film an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography:

Justified (Timothy Olyphant)

You bet I'm glad Mags aint gotten Raylan dead with that poison-laced moonshine cup.

After 15 hours straight of Justified (around 1.5 seasons), I am beginning to talk like one 'o those hillbillies. heh

I also see that the major attraction of the show is Timothy Olyphant, who plays the title character of 'Marshal Raylan Givens'. Now Raylan is one truly unique character. He's charismatic, has deceptively laid-back mannerisms and doesn't give one inch when it comes to doing justice.

Timothy Olyphant simply defines the character, the hallmark of a truly great actor: making a character his very own and attracts the audience's love and devotion in spite of all the character's faults. Dexter, House and Don Draper had it, and Raylan had officially joined the serial-nominated-for-emmy club this year.

(Technically this isn't true since this is the first year he's nominated, but im predicting many, many more nominations to come)

The fact is, Timothy/Raylan just grows on you. He's not the typical handsome actor, but he's got style and charisma.

Such beautiful eyes. Sculpted features framed by salt-and-pepper whiskers and side burns, the perfect example of a man in his prime.

True Blood Season 4, Episode 5

True Blood has often been aptly described as 'slow-burn', largely due to the crawling storylines and utterly boring storylines revolving auxiliary characters.

Fortunately, this season has been proving its reputation wrong, with minor storylines winding down and all characters coalescing towards the vampires-witches showdown.

It also meant more time for Eric and Sookie's amazing on-screen chemistry.

This particular scene from the episode was seared on my mind the instant I saw it.

Eric and Sookie, holding each other passionately, hoping to find solace and security.