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

The Dresden Files

This Sci-Fi installment is the oldest of the stack and has survived one season only. The book series by Jim Butcher have 11 novels to the wiki knowledge and I’ve read eight of them so far.

The premise

Set in the world of magic realism, the story follows the adventures of Harry Dresden, the only wizard listed in Yellow Pages of Chicago, and a real one for that matter. Despite his attempts on quiet and unambitious way of living, Mr. Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden often finds himself dealing with rogue vampire lords, human mob bosses and each and every kind of demon/spook/death curse possible.

Book pros

The series is heavily stylized to resemble noir detective stories, only in magical setting: the lone hero in a long duster coat against a whole army of baddies, saving the world and the occasional damsel in distress. Humor and cheeky approach truly set the series apart (one of my favorite scenes is the animated museum T-Rex crushing the army of undead in downtown Chicago).

Book cons

Highly repetitive, as the genre requires.

TV adaptation pros

Harry Dresden, wizard

Casting Paul Blackthorne as Harry Dresden worked great for me — Paul’s got the looks and the attitude just right.

What went wrong

What usually does: oversimplification of the plot. Each book in the series has Harry working on a big case while also dealing with his complicated personal life, and certain distinctive threads link the books to each other.

While the decision to make each episode of the show a complete case is fully justified, I felt that the links and the attributes of what made Dresden Files fun were overlooked and lost in the process. And the cases presented on the show were not enough to hold interest on their own.

The Legend of the Seeker

This show is based on the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind. I have a post dedicated to the books, so long story short: a fantasy realm, a Chosen one armed with the Sword of Truth must save the world from the Dark Lord.

Book pros

SoT is one of the quirky-kinkiest fantasy stories out there.

Book cons

Should have been finished long ago — the latest books lost their charm for me and feel empty. The intricate card house of magic laws started falling apart too to provide the author with new plots.

TV adaptation pros

Hmm, lemme think… Joseph LoDuca score? Picturesque New Zealand landscapes? Female lead goodies on constant display? That might be it.

What went wrong

Basically everything. I don’t understand, why would somebody take a fully developed magical world, ditch all the stuff that makes it amusing and unique, add the most overused ingredients (the Massacre of the Innocents, anyone?), keep only the names of characters and places and call that an adaptation. The complicated and twisted story has been turned into ‘found bad stuff, must save people and eliminate evil, rinse, repeat’ episode type. The whole grand plot has been ruined and replaced with very basic and lousy subplots which lack intrigue, consistency and character development.

Say hello to Mistress

Considering all said, imagine my shock when I saw the episode ‘Denna’ when they suddenly switched to the torture-porn channel. I thought that maybe some SoT fans caught the writers, chained them in the basement and presented them the Mord’Sith way while sending directions for the episode via email. But that certainly did not last long, and somehow glimpses of the real book made it even worse. I wish somebody would put this show out of its misery.

True Blood

This one is a heavy-lifter from HBO. HBO is The Sopranos and Rome, and True Blood creator is the person behind Six Feet Under, so expectations were higher than usual. The books in question are the Southern Vampire chronicles by Charlaine Harris.

The premise

TruBlood ad

Here we’ve got another case of magic realism but contrary to #1 (where people are reluctant to acknowledge the existence of supernatural and turn a blind eye to its manifestations) in Harris’ world vampires made their presence public, they are fully legit; and it all was possible due to synthetic blood that can sustain the suckers.

The protagonist, Sookie Stackhouse is a waitress in a small (fictional) town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. She’s cute and otherwise ordinary girl if not for one thing: she’s a mind-reader. Now, everybody knows that being a mind-reading waitress in a small town is a recipe for trouble, and the troubles start towering when Sookie falls for the local vampire, one Mr. Bill Compton, with comfortably quiet mind and manners of a gentleman circa the Civil War.

Book pros

Rather solid series in its niche. I’ve read only the first two, and while not being anything remarkable they provided certain level of entertainment.

Book cons

Two much similarity to the Anita Blake series by Laurell Hamilton for my taste.

TV adaptation pros

Two words: OPENING CREDITS. Both the visuals and the song work together perfectly to create the required atmosphere of sizzling heat, misty swamps and woods hiding unimaginable monsters, and voodoo rituals followed by gospels, sending shivers down your spine. A true masterpiece in itself.

As far as I remember, the first season of the show (it has been renewed for a second 12-episode season) followed the course of the first book rather closely, extending and cutting here and there but staying on the same course.

Sookie and Bill

I’ve read several reviews that tore True Blood to pieces, being especially rancid about Anna Paquin’s performance as Sookie. That felt rather strange as I thought that both Sookie and Bill on the show were very similar to their book prototypes. I don’t remember Sookie’s brother being that big an idiot or the local vamp boss Eric being that glamorous and not at all menacing but other than that the adaptation seems flawless.

What went wrong

1. Fangs. Nobody does them right, I admit.
2. Accent. I’m not American, I can’t tell real Southern accent from the fake one, but the accents on the show felt forced and unnatural.

Why do I care?

Recently there was another fantasy show, BBC’s Merlin, and while, thankfully, it wasn’t a book adaptation in the strict sense, you can get from the title that it’s another take on the story of the king Arthur and Camelot. That one was BEYOND good and evil. Way beyond.

But: HBO is considering another adaptation, this time the biggie — A Song of Ice and Fire I’m so obsessed with. There’s one and only chance it might turn out good: if HBO people would forget the word fantasy and give it Rome- or Tudor-esque treatment it deserves.

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.

So, what it was like?

Boring and predictable. Well, predictability can be easily forgiven – in a love story we actually know how it is going to end every time. And it’s a teen romance story so none of the main characters could have died a horrible death anyway. Boredom is a heavier issue. In winter, when it’s cold and gloomy I like me some stupid romantic story if it has sweet moments at which that warm and fuzzy feeling tightens my chest promising that everything is going to be just fine. The movie lacked those moments BIG TIME. Not a drop of soul in this medicine, my winter condition prevailed.

Was the casting wrong?

Edward Cullen

Bella Swan

I think, not. Having not read the book, I cannot judge the likeness to the actual book characters, but Robert Pattinson as Edward is somewhat otherworldly and sinisterly beautiful at times, the outline of chiseled jaw, the evil curve of luscious lips; he has a face of a high school bully that would make you a friend only to mock you later with more cruelty or a Roman emperor that would sleep with his sister (Ed Westwick of Gossip Girl, I’m looking at you too!). They went too far with makeup though. Kristen Stewart’s Bella is pretty yet she conveys a perfect sense of awkwardness, of being alone in the crowd.

Why are the characters even attracted to each other?

Well, Bella, it seems, makes a point of being unhappy. Her mother is married for the second time, and from what we know, successfully. What does Bella do? Leaves for the Forks despite loathing the gloom and the cold and the constant rain. There are at least two guys in the town that show affection towards her. And Bella is interested in the one that cannot even sit with her during classes.

The reason why Edward, a hundred years old vampire, wants this otherwise quite ordinary girl, except for her sweet, sweet blood, is his talent to hear thoughts of others, or, to be precise, the failure of his talent with Bella. Edward’s ability to read faces seems to be long dead as he only relies on his mind-reading. So here she is, a black box of a girl. ‘I’ve been waiting for you for all my life’, he says. No matter how shallow Bella might happen to be, she is still a little wonder to Edward.

So, what was all the hysterics about?

Edward is stalker-ish and creepy if you’re mature and confident. But from the point of view of 13-to-17 girls (who appear to be the target audience) he might just be your perfect (if a little cold) Prince Charming: handsome, protective, always there, all he wants is to be with you, walk in the forest and hold hands. No matter that Edward is over hundred, he behaves how a teen girl, romantic and a tad infantile, would make her dream boyfriend act.

Despite the vampire theme being so over- and ill used, it still holds some charm for me. I watched True Blood this season, and I even liked it. In both Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire and Laurell Hamilton’s Anita Blake series there was an interesting subplot of vampires’ coming out and its consequences in modern society. It’s another story, my point here is that different authors create different vampire mythologies, while they all give their monsters speed and strength, and superficial abilities, yet they all agree on one thing: vampirism has certain disadvantages, like fear of the holy objects, being dead to the world during the day and hiding from the sun, but Stephenie’s vamps are not afraid of anything except for being discovered. There are no cons in being an undead, no downside, no vulnerabilities: people literally can do nothing against such creatures. That, and not the crazy stupid sparkling in the sun (behold: a bejeweled vampire! how glamorous!), was one of the things that made me itch.

There simply is no point in Bella’s being afraid: since the moment she met Edward, she exists solely and purely at his mercy, no matter what she thinks or does. She lives only because Edward and his family chose to be ‘vegetarians’ so they drink only animal blood (hello, PETA!).

Maybe, it was all a dream?

At some point (I believe, the sparkly one) the vampire plot husk fell aside, and the whole story turned upside down for me. Hey, I thought to myself, it’s a story of an insecure and unhappy girl, who is more plain in her head than on the outside so she dreams herself a vampire love.

See for yourself: Bella is so miserable with her newly happily married mom that she moves in with her dad who she doesn’t know what to talk about with; her new town is bleak and grey, which she hates but still it suits her more. The town is so wretched that Bella’s arrival is the next big thing: she becomes popular just because of being new.

The out-of-reach local stud Edward makes a scene of not wanting to sit with Bella so she makes up a whole story for his reasoning: he is a vampire, he craves her blood but he is not a monster by choice so he is avoiding her. She has two outstanding features (that usual people cannot be aware of): her blood scent is so sweet it makes vamps go nuts and her thoughts are hidden from Edward’s mind-reading.

With that even sparkling seems more normal – it’s only a daydream after all.

What’s next?

I’ve heard the sequel is in the works. I don’t know what happens in other books (three more, I believe), though I am sure there will be lots of other supernatural creatures which would want Bella inexplicably and at some point she would either turn into vampire or gain other superficial powers to keep up with Edward (they usually do).

P.S. I had to get some healthy dose of Richard B. Riddick, escaped convict, murderer as a cure for my winter depression.

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 7^th or even 8^th, 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.

But: the more I was into reading it the closer resemblance it seemed to bear to the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan (WoT). WoT got to me first so, I thought, maybe I was just being prejudiced.

The story and origins of the main character, the bipolar system of magic, the manipulative Sisters of Light (and Dark Sisters among them), discrimination of male wizardry, the avoidance of naming the evil god — these are the points I remember now but back then I had a whole table of similarities between those two.

Among other things these books have in common are huge armies of fans and the ability to capture and hold reader’s attention. But while WoT feels like a clean version, Sot is more like a wicked dream.

Some scenes are full of vividly described violence but the hardest things are only hinted at and the moment you think of them is the moment you start hating yourself for what you can come up with.

There is a whole army of Mord’ Sith, women who were taken from their parents at very young age, abused and tortured to become the torture masters themselves (also immune to magic). They are dominatrixes clad in skin tight red leather who can reduce even the strongest person into begging and weeping. Does not it count as porn already?

The magic sword (see cl.3 above) is a broken toy too: it only works if the sword bearer truly believes that his opponent is guilty, otherwise it’s useless.

The girl (cl.5) is a holy figure, Mother Confessor, with a power to perform non-surgical lobotomy on people to learn The Truth. The person is a vegetable afterwards though. Side effects of Truth are unpleasant.

With each story arc our hero gets a new enemy that wipes the floor with him in the beginning of the arc and is wiped in the end. No matter what wild powers the protagonist got in the process, the next arch-enemy will overthrow him easily.

I know that there are a few more books but I have no desire to indulge in this guilty pleasure.

Ah, the books also had some strong allusions to Soviet Union as the Empire of Evil. And the main character (who somehow turned sculptor) defeated it by carving a sculpture that by description was a dead ringer for the famous ‘Worker and Kolkhoz Woman‘ only naked.

So, what was that all about? Ah, yes. It was decided to be made into a TV show, Legend of the Seeker. And it’s Robert Tapert and Sam Raimi. It might be cheesy but I’m sold.

Links:

• official TV show site;
• imdb page;
• Terry Goodkind official site.