Substitute DE for a New Decade

[sdelmonte]

Everyone knows about Sherlock Holmes and Avatar and Doctor Who and Supernatural and Harry Potter. But what about the things that you love and that everyone else hasn't read or seen (or even heard of), but should?

I'll start off with Marvel Comics' Nova, the story of a space-faring super-hero who is the last member of the storied Nova Corps (Marvel's surprisingly interesting version of the Green Lantern Corps). It's a little continuity-heavy at times - it grew out of one crossover event and gets sucked into several others - but the stories seem to work on their own, the writing by Abnett and Lanning is crisp and witty, the art is very good, and the hero himself is likeable and about as heroic as anyone I've encountered in a super-hero comic in ages.

ETA: I should probably also mention that DC Comics has reprinted the first 30 issues of The Question in five trade paperbacks, with the last coming this year. It's not just prime canon for my pup, but it's also one of the most influential and highly regarded comics of the 80s, written by Denny O'Neil at his peak.

Your turn.

Comments

[dynastessa]

Do I really need to say it?

I think I throw my fandom rec around like a nagging mother, but everyone should totally give Percy Jackson and the Olympians a try.

Seriously! There is very little wrong with it, and it's loads of fun. AND THERE IS A MOVIE coming out in February!

[agonistes]

THE GOLDEN GIRLS.

If you live in the United States, you are not seeing anything like this on TV right now. Yes, it's cheesy, yes, it's campy, yes, continuity is mostly pastede on yay

(how many colleges did Rose Nylund go to? three, according to the series: an agricultural college, a different agricultural college, and one where she majored in Pig Latin, and then there's the episode where she reveals she never graduated from high school and takes a night school history class from Dorothy, despite having said in season two that she was the valedictorian of St. Olaf High School, having graduated fourth in her class (they drew straws to see who got valedictorian))

yes, it has a tendency to make every episode A Very Special Episode, but you know what? I'm having a hard time thinking of another show that portrayed sexually active older women as a normal, healthy phenomenon. Or that was willing to come out and say, "you know what? AIDS is an everybody disease, so haters to the left." Or any number of other social issues the show took on while being -- fifteen years later -- entirely hilarious. Every episode passes the Bechdel Test. And you can tell that the actresses were having the time of their lives. I love my show a lot.

[minkhollow]

Villains By Necessity, totally. It's a tough rec to throw around, as the book's out of print, but I do it anyway because the book is so... so amazing.
Also, some days I don't feel like Warehouse 13 gets enough love. The concept leaves all kinds of interesting doors open, and the characters are a lot of fun (even the crazy bastard, in his way).

[gorgonfondness]

Video games by the now-defunct translation company Working Designs, in particular Mia's canon Lunar, which I never find many fans for but know they must exist since the first game has been remade four times, and Arc the Lad. And I really need to replay Arc the Lad myself since, while I remember it being awesome with great characters, lovely music, and a combat system I don't often see in video games, I can't site any truly specific examples of why you guys need to go play it. D=

I also highly recommend Psychonauts, as does the infamously hard to please Yahtzee in his Zero Punctuation review of the game. The story has elements we all know and recognize, but with plenty of interesting twists and surreal imagery to make it anything but boring. And while it is a very humorous, cartoon-style game, a closer look at its darker points makes the game deeper and, at some parts, even a tear-jerker. More often than not, Psychonauts ranks high in lists of The Greatest Games You've Never Played.

Rec for the new decade

[yakalskovich]

Watch 'The 13th Warrior' (or read the novel by Michael Crichton, 'Eaters Of The Dead'). This is not a canon involved in Milliways, and I don't mean to make it one; I just take some icons for Urquhart from there and re-watched it for screencapping, after having originally seen it in 2000 or thereabouts.

It gave me a harsh reality check because the POV character through whose eyes we see the uncouth Northmen (and slowly learn to respect them even though they are utter barbarians with revolting customs) is an Arabic Muslim from Bagdad. Played by Antonio Banderas. Yep, he's the good guy and the one we are to identify with. Even though he is a good, devout Muslim. Arabic writing, kneeling down to pray to Allah, no pork and no alcohol: - he does it all. In 1999, when the movie was made, there was no doubt that a general common or garden American cinema audience would be ready to identify with him and just enjoy the movie as a good adventure yarn based off Beowulf. Now, ten years later, I doubt that any studio would make the film any more. Muslims have become suspect and othered. The last decade did more damage in our minds than we realised -- or at least in mine. Watch the movie or read the book, enjoy how handsome Vladimir Kulich is (movie only), and identify with the bewildered little Arab on his pretty little white horse among the ginormous bear-like Vikings, thereby getting some of the damage from the constant media barrage of the last decade out of your system.

At least that's what I did.-

Sorry for being so political today!

[sdelmonte]

Think it would help the cause to say "this is where Joss Whedon started?"

I never got into this show - it just didn't do it for me - but the cast was always outstanding. Bea Arthur and Betty White are among the great sitcom actresses (I know them from their work in the 70s on All in the Family/Maude and Mary Tyler Moore respectively).

Re: Rec for the new decade

[sdelmonte]

Politics are allowed.

And I was this close to saying "Doctor Who finale - discuss?" so politics is mild compared to the fanstorm I chose not to unleash. (DW fans are welcome to visit my own blog for my reactions and to post there instead.)

[sdelmonte]

Any thoughts about how good the movie will be? After the failures of so many adaptations of YA fantasy novels that aren't named Harry Potter, I don't expect much.

[spooky-lemur.livejournal.com]

A couple of my recent book favorites are The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flemel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alchemyst), Elantris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elantris) and Flora Segunda (http://www.amazon.com/Flora-Segunda-Magickal-Glass-Gazing-Sidekick/dp/0152054332).

I would have to second your recommendation of Nova and add the recent Guardians of the Galaxy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_%28modern%29), Secret Warriors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_warriors), Iron Fist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Fist_%28comics%29) and the Immortal Weapons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immortal_Weapons) mini series which is just about wrapped up now.

Webcomics of awesome are Order of the Stick (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0697.html) (a D&D parody), Brathalla (http://brat-halla.com/) (the Norse Gods as kids) and Dr. McNinja (http://drmcninja.com/newreaders.php) (How can there not be anyone from this series in Milliways?).

And lastly, I must advise Jane and the Dragon (http://www.qubo.com/jane_show.asp) for lighthearted fun.

[agonistes]

Didn't Joss get his start on Roseanne? His father Tom was an executive producer, though!

The cast was phenomenal and the guest stars are pretty epic, too.

[spooky-lemur.livejournal.com]

I have some pretty high hopes as the director of the first Harry Potter is directing this one. = ]

Re: Rec for the new decade

[yakalskovich]

Politics are allowed -- oh dear, don't encourage me! I can go on about politics until everybody else is blue in the face, but normally only do that with carolinw in IM, when we pitch our breakfast online newspaper reading at each other.

As for this year's Christmas Doctor Who, I haven't seen it yet. My hard disk is on the edge of its limits, and I have to ditch a few things before I can put anything big on it, or better yet, get a new computer straight away, which I am going to do in the course of January. I just wait for the 17 inch Asus gamer laptop I have cast a beady eye on to be sold with Windows 7 instead of Vista. Then, hi 500 GB hard disk, and hi more episodes of anything. Without making a mess of my music by shoving 5 gigs on the external HD temporarily.

[shinyhappygoth]

Dunno whether I'll bother with the movie, but I am just now giving the books a try and enjoying them greatly!

[sdelmonte]

You are right. I guess I got mixed up between father and son. (The Whedon family is everywhere!)

[djcati.livejournal.com]

We had a Dr McNinja in one of my other games and he was AWESOME. We definitely need one in the bar, haha.

[sdelmonte]

GoftG is fun, but the cast is just a little hard to take sometimes. Order of the Stick is something I don't keep up with, but it's surprisingly heartfelt.

[alpha-orionis-v.livejournal.com]

Hot Fuzz. We have some Fuzz!Pups listed in the cast list, but I've not seen them actually in the bar (sad Zed is sad). It's a sort of back-handed Wicker Man remake where the city supercop gets transferred out to the middle-of-nowhere Gloucestershire, and discovers that country folk are NUTS. Also, this movie is so gay that the guy who wrote and directed it has posted slash fiction for it to the internet. Seriously.


ETA: On the comic book front, I was very surprised by The Umbrella Academy. It's by Gerard Way (Yes. THAT Gerard Way), but it has police monkeys! And a monkey butler. It's about a group of children who were all immaculately conceived and born at the same instant, and now have super powers. Only now they're all mostly grown up, and more than a little damaged. Except for one, who is still a child, and knows how the world will end.

Re: Rec for the new decade

[mmexlibris]

I'm gonna second the rec for 13th Warrior. The fact that it's based on a real person is even cooler: Ahmad ibn Fadlan.

But I'm going to have to disagree on the whole political point. Case in point: Sayid on LOST. I'm not saying that America has the best track record for accurately representing Muslims or Arabs/Near Eastern people, but Crichton's ibn Fadlan was hardly the only heroic representation.

[djcati.livejournal.com]

CHERUB (http://www.cherubcampus.com/), natch. It starts out a little dubiously, but over the series the author's writing improves a lot, and people other than Gary Stu James get some of the spotlight, and also bonus points for having characters who are spies and kick ass and oh yeah they also happen to be gay. AND STILL ALIVE, SHOCK HORROR. (Well, two main characters and a few one-shots. But I maintain that Lauren -- James' little sister -- is in the closet.)

And in a totally different genre (and not written for twelve year old boys), Heroes Die (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_Die) (and its sequels). Just, there are not words to describe how much I love Matthew Stover's writing, so if you like sci fi or fantasy and don't mind some gratuitous violence (though I'd argue it's not gratuitous as such, but there is a lot of it), check the books out. I'm not entirely sure the first two are still in print, but they're definitely available as e-books. Plus here is a short prequel story (http://www.desertwords.com/fiction/inthesorrows.html) to try first!

Picture it...

[ladyiapetus]

Yes, yes, yes, oh and did I mention yes?

Re: Rec for the new decade

[yakalskovich]

Wow -- at the end of the 'Fiction' section of the Wikipedia article, he becomes again so friggin' relevant in just the way I mean here. And yep, I have a version of the book from shortly before the movie, with Crichton's afterword where he explains everything. Also, I was recced the book by an archaeologist working as a posh tour guide in and around Naples who was asked which historical novels in general were Doing It Right, in spring 1998. And was really interested in how my own perception of Ahmad changed in the years since.

I didn't mean to say there are no Muslim or Arab heroes in mainstream entertainment. Perhaps I meant that in 1999, we could identify with Ahmad more easily because his being a muslim was a non-issue. It was all about being civilised vs. being savages, perhaps even (another trope!) Noble Savages. We are civilised people in a cinema seat with popcorn and coke (or were in 1999 when the movie ran in cinemas) and not savages that all spit into the same water bowl, hence would identify with the civilised man. That was the given, in 1999. Sayid on LOST being a Muslim from Baghdad wasn't a non-issue; his backstory is very much not a common or garden one, and we probably don't identify with him. Well, so is the backstory of anybody on LOST, but then, it is LOST...

Re: Rec for the new decade

[mmexlibris]

I would still like to believe that Sayid is a heroic representation. For all the horrible things he did, he was still trying to do what he thought was right.

As for Muslic/Arabic/Near Eastern characters we the reader/audience are intended to identify, perhaps you're right, as there are no other characters I can think of (short of Disney's Aladdin) that fit that bill. (Does Saladin from Kingdom of Heaven count? Was I the only one who really liked his portrayal in that movie?)

I do wish we could see more accurate representations of the Near East as a font of reason and civilisation during the Dark Ages. They had so much going on, and I'm honestly not sure even THEY know it. Nobody teaches solid Middle Age history anymore, or gives it any credence, which is a crying shame.

Re: Rec for the new decade

[yakalskovich]

I liked Saladin's portrayal a lot, even though the entire movie was (for me) dominated by Edward Norton doing the Leper King without anybody ever seeing his face. Kingdom of Heaven is a seriously underestimated movie, though. Not just a blockbuster; it has fantastic acting, and lots of relevant things to say. But suffers the fate or Too Much Orly.

As for your last paragraph -- I have been made aware of that again recently because I am apping a character who derives his technological and mental advantage in canon from having spent an indistinct but sizeable amount of time in the Near East during the crusades, and not as a crusader. We never find out in canon what exactly he did, but I already found in Mixed Muses that he is infinitely less impressed with modern technology than, say, Teja is, because he saw where human inventiveness, reason and research can go while in the Near East. He knows about civilisation and progress. All the shiny stuff is just an extrapolation. Perhaps that will be part of what his journey in Milliways will be about -- just as much as Teja's was about the end of civilisation, conflicting values, culture clash, and finding one's priorities among these.

[camwyn]

When you say 'Abnett', is that as in Dan Abnett, the novelist who writes a boatload of Warhammer 40K stuff?

[venusadept_2]

Need I say anything? Oh, all right, I will.

Golden Sun

Golden Sun's fandom is quite weird, in that it isn't weird. I don't know how else to summarize it. Consider the numbers: Nintendo's three big lines are generally agreed to be Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. Over at the Pit, Zelda has an insane number of fics, but Mario and Metroid combined have less than one and a half times as many fics as Golden Sun. My only explanation is that nobody's heard of it, but everybody who has, contributes. As far as the fans themselves... Well. The shipping page on the Golden Sun wiki links directly to both the TVTropes pages on shipping and crack pairings. Sometimes it seems that there's an ongoing competition to write the crackiest pairing and make it believable. Despite that, though, there's next to no killing off characters to make room for preferred pairings. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of fandom tropes that Golden Sun conspicuously lacks - no memetic mutation, no Chuck Norris comparisons...

I know for a fact that there have been at least three GS-specific RPs here on Livejournal. All of them have gone defunct, possibly due to the utter lack of any updates from the companies behind it all. Well, that's not completely true; at E3 '09 a sequel was announced... and then apparently forgotten; there's been approximately one added piece of information in the intervening 215 days.

But yes. Golden Sun. Everyone needs to know it and give my Felix some canonmates.

OH AND: Some of you may have heard of limyaael, most famous for her "rants" on fantasy and fanfiction. One of these rants is on quests. While Golden Sun is ineligible for the last half of Limyaael's points, on the grounds that it doesn't really have a "quest object" as she uses the term, it absolutely nails the first three. (Or, well, there's some discussion about the first one. But definitely 2 and 3!)

(Come to that, early Final Fantasies need love, too, but not as blatantly as GS.)