I’ve written before of my love for George R.R. Martin’s epic A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. And two exciting things lie on the horizon for the series. First, Martin is aiming to have the fifth book in the series—A Dance With Dragons—finished and in the hands of readers by year’s end. And second, HBO is moving forward with their adaptation of the series’ first book, A Game of Thrones.

HBO has just announced that Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent, The Visitor) will be directing, and Peter Dinklage will be playing Tyrion Lannister. Now casting Dinklage as Tyrion is an obvious choice in my book. But I’m a little surprised by the choice of McCarthy.

I never would’ve pegged him as a director of dark, violent, adult-oriented fantasy. But one of the book’s greatest strengths is its complex, deeply written characters, and McCarthy has proven more than capable of dealing with such characters in his films. (Seriously, if you haven’t seen The Station Agent, rent it this weekend.)

I’m as big a fan of Hayao Miyazaki as they come, not only because he’s one of the world’s greatest directors and storytellers, but also because of his fierce dedication to his craft. And so, I’m quite excited by not just one, but two treats coming soon from the master.

The first is the domestic release of his latest film, Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, which has been described as a return to the simpler storytelling of Miyazaki’s earlier films, such as My Neighbor Totoro. Ponyo will be released in the States on August 14, 2009, and if Pixar’s John Lasseter has anything to say about it, it’ll be the biggest domestic Miyazaki release to date. Which is fine by me.

The second is Starting Point: 1979 - 1996, a collection of Miyazaki’s columns and essays that cover his views on animation, Studio Ghibli, and the creation of such masterpieces as Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki’s Delivery Service. The English version of Starting Point: 1979 - 1996 will be released by Viz on July 7, 2009 (you can preorder now at Amazon). More info can be found at the mighty Twitch.

Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about Neil Gaiman’s books being adapted into movies. On the one hand, I always get excited by the news; Gaiman is one of the my favorite authors, and his literary brand of fantasy, with its pitch-perfect blend of humor, suspense, horror, and mythology, seems perfect for the big screen. But on the other hand, I’ve been underwhelmed by the adaptations that I’ve seen to date, and in some cases (e.g., Stardust), I’ve been profoundly disappointed.

And so, I approach the news that Gaiman’s latest—the Newbery Medal recipient The Graveyard Book—is being made into a film directed by Neil Jordan. I’m somewhat comforted at the choice of Jordan for director, as he’s worked with fantasy before (e.g., The Company Of Wolves). But even so, given the history of Gaiman adaptations, I’m still worried, and especially so with The Graveyard Book, which is one of Gaiman’s lightest and sweetest works.

The book follows the life of Nobody Owens, who, as a very young child, survives his family’s assassination and is adopted by the ghosts living in a graveyard near his home. Told episodically, each chapter follows “Bod” as he grows up to be a young man under the watchful eye of his ghostly guardians and tries to find his place in the world of the living despite living amongst the dead. In other words, the book is basically Gaiman doing what he does best: taking traditional fantasy elements (ghosts, witches, goblins, etc.) and placing them in a “real world” context, with a pinch of secret societies, ancient evils, and mystical devices thrown in for good measure.

Like Stardust, it’s fairly light reading—you can easily make it through the entire book in a single day. But there are parts of it that continue to stick with you long after the final page has been turned, such as the true nature and allegiance of Silas, Bod’s enigmatic guardian; the scenes of the Grey Lady leading the living and the dead in a stately dance; or the city of the ghouls that Bod foolishly visits in a fit of childish rage. And like Stardust, I don’t necessarily think it’s one of Gaiman’s “deepest” works, but it is one that I find myself returning to, and thinking about, more often than the others.

All of which is to say that I hope it fares better than Stardust, and that we’ll finally be able to enjoy a truly decent Gaiman movie.

While getting more info for my recent post concerning the 2009 L’Abri conference, I came across Jerram Barrs’ bio page on Covenant Seminary’s website, and noticed that he has three books that are due out in 2009:

• Through His Eyes: God’s Perspective on Women in the Bible
• The Evangelism of Jesus
• Echoes of Eden: Reflections on Christianity and the Arts

Having attended his sessions at past L’Abri conferences and listened to some of his lectures and sermons at Covenant, I’ve no doubt that the above books will be full of Biblical wisdom, discernment, thoughtfulness, and a spirit of grace.

When she’s not attending to the needs of a certain someone, she carves out some time to work as an editor. Most of the books she works on are academic titles that deal with such fascinating topics as 19th century land rights in Puerto Rico—the sort of stuff that professors write so as to prove that their university didn’t err in giving them tenure. But every so often, a book appears, out of the blue, that promises to be something a little more interesting.

That’s right, my wife’s next project is a book on the good Doctor himself.

I’ve been a fan of Michael Moorcock’s Elric saga for quite some time, ever since high school when I came across those exotically covered paperbacks in the library.

The Elric books are incredibly imaginative, full of ancient civilizations, wicked sorcerors, mighty magics, and the eternal struggle between Order and Chaos. And above all else, they feature arguably one of the most tragic heroes in all of fantasy literature, the albino warrior Elric of Melniboné, who is fated to destroy everything close to him and is inextricably tied to his soul-eating sword Stormbringer. And who doesn’t love a tragic hero?

However, when I’ve picked up the novels lately, I’ve found the unrelenting gloom and despair rather tedious, regardless of how skillfully and fantastically Moorcock writes.

For example, there’s this passage from the end of The Sailor On The Seas Of Fate:

Outside in the middle of the square, at noon, still lay the lonely body of the last Vilmirian crewman. Nobody had known his name. Nobody felt grief for him or tried to compose an epitaph for him. The dead Vilmirian had died for no high purpose, followed no fabulous dream. Even in death his body would fulfill no function. On this island there was no carrion to feed. In the dust of the city there was no earth to fertilize.

Elric came back into the square and saw the body. For a moment, to Elric it symbolized everything that had transpired here and would transpire later.

“There is no purpose,” he murmured.

Perhaps his remote ancestors had, after all, realized that, but had not cared. It had taken the Jade Man to make them care and then go mad in their anguish. The knowledge had caused them to close their minds to much.

Or this passage from the end of Stormbringer, which brings Elric’s adventures to a close:

“But what is the meaning of it all?” Elric said. “That I have never fully understood.”

“Who can? Who can know why the Cosmic Balance exists, why Fate exists and the Lords of the Higher Worlds? There seems to be an infinity of space and time and possibilities. There may be an infinite number of beings, one above the other, who see the final purpose, though, in infinity, there can be no final purpose. Perhaps all is cyclic and this same event will occur again and again until the universe is run down and fades away as the world we knew has faded. Meaning, Elric? Do not seek that, for madness lies in such a course.”

“No meaning, no patten. Then why have I suffered all this?”

“Perhaps even the gods seek meaning and pattern and this is merely one attempt. Look—” he waved his hands to indicate the newly-formed earth. “All this is fresh and moulded by logic. Perhaps the logic will control the newcomers, perhaps a factor will occur to destroy that logic. The gods experiment, the Cosmic Balance guides the destiny of the earth, men struggle and credit the gods with knowing why they struggle—but do the gods know?”

“You disturb me further when I had hoped to be comforted,” he sighed. “I have lost wife and world—and do not know why.”

Both of these passages typify the existential gloom that permeates the novels. On the one hand, such gloom lends the novels a hard, sometimes cynical edge that is refreshing when compared to much of fantasy literature, which seems devoted to repeating the same Tolkien derivations again and again. Indeed, Moorcock wrote the series partly as a rejoinder to the works of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. However, that same gloom and despair makes it difficult for me to find much ultimate value in the novels.

While I certainly appreciate and enjoy elements of Moorcock’s style, and the world in the novels is certainly creative and has few peers, there’s something rather soul-crushing about them, the cynicism and existential doom ultimately draining one, much as if they’d been stabbed by Stormbringer itself.

Somehow, I completely missed this, but last month, Random House announced that A Dance with Dragons, the latest novel in George R. R. Martin’s epic A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series, will go on sale on September 30, 2008.

Here’s a brief synopsis:

In the aftermath of a colossal battle, the future of the Seven Kingdoms hangs in the balance once again—beset by newly emerging threats from every direction. In the east, Daenerys Targaryen, the last scion of House Targaryen, rules with her three dragons as queen of a city built on dust and death. But Daenerys has three times three thousand enemies, and many have set out to find her. Yet, as they gather, one young man embarks upon his own quest for the queen, with an entirely different goal in mind.

To the north lies the mammoth Wall of ice and stone—a structure only as strong as those guarding it. There, Jon Snow, 998th Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, will face his greatest challenge yet. For he has powerful foes not only within the Watch but also beyond, in the land of the creatures of ice.

And from all corners, bitter conflicts soon reignite, intimate betrayals are perpetrated, and a grand cast of outlaws and priests, soldiers and skinchangers, nobles and slaves, will face seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Some will fail, others will grow in the strength of darkness. But in a time of rising restlessness, the tides of destiny and politics will lead inevitably to the greatest dance of all…

 

The whopping 1,008 page novel will pick up where 2005’s A Feast for Crows left off. A Feast for Crows threw some folks for a loop because it only contained about half of the characters and plotlines that had appeared in previous novels. Missing were such notables as Jon Snow, Tyrion Lannister, Davos, and Daenerys Targaryen.

Martin explained that, due to difficulties with the increasingly complex stories, it would’ve been too much to cram everything into a single novel, hence the split into A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons—and the three year wait.

Actually, it’ll have been about an eight month wait for me. I only started reading Martin’s series last year, when I picked up A Game Of Thrones while on vacation, and became so enraptured that I blew through the 800+ pages in about 4 days. Whatever the case, if A Dance with Dragons is anything like the previous novels, it’ll be well worth the wait.

The following is my favorite passage from Shusaku Endo’s The Samurai:

“I’ve always believed that I became a Christian as a mere formality. That feeling hasn’t changed at all. But since I’ve learned something about Government, sometimes I find myself thinking about that man. I think I understand why every house in those countries has a pathetic statue of that man. I suppose that somewhere in the hearts of men, there’s a yearning for someone who will be with you throughout your life, someone who will never betray you, never leave you—even if that someone is just a sick, mangy dog. That man became just such a miserable dog for the sake of mankind.” The samurai repeated the words almost to himself. “Yes, that man became a dog who remains beside us. That’s what that Japanese fellow at the Tecali swamp wrote. That when he was on the earth, he said to his disciples that he came into the world to minister unto men.”