A story of one girl’s obsession with books, movies and TV shows

The tale of two unfortunate book adaptations. Plus one less so. 3 March

Now and then some TV boss decides to try to make another fantasy show. The majority of such creations are either completely unremarkable in every aspect or go all the way into Cheesyland. Due to that or despite it the aforementioned TV boss greenlights the adaptation of a popular book series. Well, we all know what a rarity good adaptations are. I for one can only recall the LotR and Harry Potter franchise. Narnia wasn’t all that, and Golden Compass — plain awful.

There are three recent TV shows that appeared on my radar as I’ve read the book series they were adapted from.

Twilight the movie: good cast, wrong sparkle 4 January

Twilight poster

I haven’t read the Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series nor do I have any inclination to, but still I was interested in all the ‘new Harry Potter’ hype so I’ve read several reviews instead. They mostly agreed on how excruciatingly bad the books were yet some shamefully admitted the weird appeal.

Well, I said to myself, let’s watch the movie. Forbidden love, cute teenagers – what’s not to like? The premise for the story is quite simple – the divorcee’s daughter Bella Swan (ouch!) comes to live with her dad, a chief of police in a small town of Forks. Surprisingly she becomes rather popular in new school and several nice guys are always around her but Bella falls for the pale-faced and distant Edward Cullen. The guy seems to be avoiding our heroine yet he is omnipresent wherever she goes. Cold hands, supernatural speed and strength, allergy to the sun – WOW, he is a VAMPIRE.

Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind book review (sort of) 3 November

Legend of the Seeker

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read the last book (at the moment) in Sword of Truth (SoT) series. It was the 7th or even 8th, I think.

My feelings about the book were mixed. I loved me some fantasy back then. And it appeared to push all the right buttons. Behold:

  1. Cute guy living in a forest who is destined to get the sword out of the stone and become a king for great things — check.
  2. A seemingly harmless old man who is a mighty wizard in disguise — check.
  3. A magic sword that is meant only for one person (guess who?) — check.
  4. A pure evil that is a major peril to the kittens, dolphins and vicunas along with democracy and human rights all living things — check.
  5. A pretty girl whose fate is intertwined with our hero’s and a miserable fate it is — check.
  6. Dragons — what, only #6? How could I forget the dragons? — check.
  7. Many other traditional things such as witches, trip to the underworld, evil kings and queens (or duchesses, I don’t remember exactly), curses, other magical artifacts, etc. — check.