Review: The Hundred and One Dalmatians (novel)

July and Camp NaNo are almost here. Which means this will probably be the last review until after it's over. So I might as well choose a relatively light-hearted novel to review now. (Goodness knows I'll need as much light-heartedness as I can get to survive NaNo!)

The Hundred and One Dalmatians is a 1956 children's novel by Dodie Smith. It's her best-known work, even though most people think of the Disney film(s) rather than the book itself. A truly bizarre sequel, The Starlight Barking, followed in 1967 and was forgotten almost at once -- for very good reason.

In some ways the plot is the same as the more famous Disney adaptation. Cruella de Vil kidnaps fifteen Dalmatian puppies, and their parents set out to rescue them. But there are enough differences to surprise me when I first read it. Pongo's wife is called Missis; Perdita is a different dog entirely. The Radcliffs are called the Dearlys and their first names are never mentioned. There are two nannies instead of one. Cruella is married. The Badduns aren't the ones who kidnap the puppies. And instead of ninety-nine puppies plus two adults, there are ninety-seven puppies and four adults.

Not only is the book as funny as the animated film, it's even darker. Cruella and her henchmen are implied to be actual demons. As well as the "skin puppies for coats" plan, she's drowned over forty of her poor cat's kittens. (The cat gets her revenge in my favourite scene in the whole novel.)

Yes, the book's aimed at children. But I first read it as an adult, and I enjoyed every minute of it. The details about how the dogs communicate, how they see the world, and how they view humans as their pets make them incredibly, well, human while never forgetting they're dogs.

If you haven't read this book yet, you should find a copy as soon as possible. Even if you're no longer a child.

Is it available online?: Not as far as I know.

Rating: 9/10.

Review: Kingdom Season 2

I finished this series last week. If I tried to review it then the post would have been nothing but incoherent screaming. So I left it until now, when there's a chance of more coherency and less screaming.

The opening credits and title card are exactly the same as the first season's. Quite disappointing. I thought there might be a few changes at least.

Far, far too many series experience a dramatic decrease in quality in their second season. I braced myself for that to happen in this case. The most I hoped for was something of similar quality to Return to Cranford: just average, somewhat disappointing, but not atrocious.

Turns out I was wrong. It's every bit as good as the first season. In some ways it might even be better.

The first episode picks up where the last one left off: with Lee Chang, Mu Yeong and Yeong Shin facing a horde of zombies in one place, while Seo Bi and Beom Pal are trapped by more zombies somewhere else. From then on the plot follows their attempts to end the plague and confront the people whose actions created the zombies.

Each episode found new and exciting ways to terrify or nauseate me. I thought nothing could be more reprehensible than Yeong Shin tricking dozens of people into cannibalism, until Queen Consort Cho came along and proved me wrong. I also thought nothing could be more gruesome than the zombie attacks in the first season. That tongue-eating scene proved me wrong. Just thinking about it still makes me shudder 😰

Never has any series given me as many near-heart-attacks as the last episode does 😱 I spent most of the second half torn between wanting to watch it and wanting to hide behind the sofa. The epilogue is the most chilling part of all. Once again it ends on a cliffhanger. Unfortunately there's no third season yet. So we're left to wonder if another king is going to become a zombie, and why in the world anyone would deliberately unleash the plague.

I think the best way to describe my feelings about this series is by saying I desperately want season three and I'll be furious if we don't get it. Sure, Kingdom scares the hell out of me, but I still want more!

Is it available online?: On Netflix, probably.

Rating: 8/10.

(Not Really a) Review: The Five Most Overrated Novels

After many weeks of struggling I've finally given up on War and Peace. I made it to chapter forty-seven. Honestly I shouldn't have bothered reading forty-seven sentences of it, let alone chapters. So, inspired by that disaster, I've made a list of the five most overrated novels I've suffered through.

Already reviewed here. From what I've seen, Leo Tolstoy either wasn't a good author, or the English translations of his novels do him a disservice. After being bored to tears by both Anna Karenina and War and Peace, I'm inclined to think it's the former.

Already reviewed here. Unlike the other examples on this list, Great Expectations is actually a good novel. It's just not as good as some people claim. And it's certainly not the best of Dickens' works.

Already reviewed here. The Turn of the Screw is the least frightening, most boring horror novel I've ever read. And it drags on for aaaaaaaaaaaages. It can't decide if it wants to be a novel or a short story, and only succeeds in being too short for one and too long for the other.

I can sum The Great Gatsby up in one word: Yawn. Heavy-handed symbolism, threadbare plot, revolting characters, interminable dullness... In short it has everything I don't want in a novel. Of course, those flaws are probably the reason it's considered a classic, because some people believe only the most boring books ever written should become classics.

Middlemarch was one of the books I read out of morbid curiosity rather than interest. The miniseries adaptation was so bad that I thought the book had to be better. It isn't. If anything it's worse. Nothing ever happens in the entire sorry saga. Chapter after chapter it stumbles along without even trying to keep the reader's attention. Eventually I gave up in despair.

(Of course there are many more novels I consider overrated, but these are the five that immediately spring to mind.)

(Not Really a) Review: My Top Three Writing Sites

July is approaching, which means I'm preparing for the next installment of Camp NaNoWriMo. So here are my personal favourite sites for writing.

1. Wattpad

This is one of the best-known writing websites. When I first started using it, it had a reputation for terribly-written fanfiction about whatever band was currently popular. Since then the amount of fanfiction has lessened and it's become better-known for original fiction. Unlike FictionPress and Critique Circle it allows users to write on the website itself, instead of having to write on Word/Office or copy and paste stories onto it.

Its main drawbacks are how difficult it is to get readers, and covers are required. If you're like me and aren't able to make your own covers, you have to go to the forums and ask someone else to make one for you. Getting people to read your story is even more difficult. Again you'll have to go to the forums and look for people who offer to read and give feedback.

2. FictionPress

This was the first writing website I used for original fiction. Compared to Wattpad it's easier for readers to find stories here. But it has no tags, so if you're looking for a specific sort of story you're on your own. You have a much higher chance of getting readers and reviews, though.

3. Critique Circle

This website is especially for writers who want to get published and are looking for feedback on what needs to be changed in their stories. Users aren't able to submit stories without credits, which you get by critiquing other people's works, so every story submitted is certain to get at least one critique. Of course, the quality of the critique depends mainly on the person who writes it. Almost every crit I've received has been very helpful and polite, but there are one or two that stick out as being at best useless and at worst downright rude. I've received literally hundreds of crits, though, so the unhelpful ones are a tiny minority.

If you're a writer looking for websites to use, hopefully this is helpful to you 😃 And if you aren't a writer, you can always check out the sites anyway and find some new stories to read 😉

Review: Mozart L'Opera Rock (2010)

What is it about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that makes people think, "His life needs to be turned into an embarrassingly bad musical"? First Mozart! das Musical, now this... thing.

Mozart L'Opera Rock (French for Mozart the Rock Opera) is a 2009 musical very loosely based on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. While Mozart! das Musical focused on his clashes with Colloredo, this one focuses instead on his life in general and his (fictional) rivalry with Antonio Salieri.

I didn't recognise any of the cast, so let's move on to what I thought while I was watching the show.

The opening scene looks like something out of a horror movie. Red costumes, red lights, red background, incredibly ominous Latin(?) chanting... is this musical inspired by Mozart or Dante's Inferno?

Some of the extras' costumes look relatively accurate. (From a distance. In poor lighting. As long as you don't look too hard.) All the other costumes give Mozart! das Musical a run for its money. Seriously? Eighteenth-century clothes and hairstyles could be incredibly beautiful and elaborate. (Of course they could also be incredibly tacky; there have been fashion victims in every era.) Historically accurate costumes would not only be more logical; from an aesthetic standpoint I'd vastly prefer them to those modern eyesores.

For that matter, the real Mozart's life was dramatic enough without adding completely fictional rivalries. The real Colloredo did nothing to deserve his portrayal in MdM. The real Salieri did even less to deserve his portrayal here.

The way the camera zooms around in front of the stage is better suited to filming a concert than a musical. It's very distracting. Speaking of the filming, why the sudden cuts to the, er, musicians playing off-stage? (I hesitate to call them an orchestra; they appear to be a few drums, an electric guitar, and not much else. Less an orchestra, more a rock band who somehow ended up playing at the same time as a musical.)

Leopold Mozart sounds like he has a sore throat. The whole time he was "singing" my only thought was, "Someone give that man a throat lozenge!"

Just because it's a musical doesn't mean there has to be a song in every other scene. That tavern song is one of the most pointless musical numbers I've ever seen.

One minute the story is an underwhelming pseudo-historical "biography", the next it takes a bizarre detour into science fiction. I rolled my eyes so hard it's a miracle they didn't fall out. "Bim bam bim boum" is unexpectedly terrifying. Aloysia's alternatively blank and deranged expressions, the demented ballet sequence, the (lack of) lighting... I have to wonder if it was originally written for some sci-fi/horror musical.

The brief excerpts of historically-accurate music and opera only make the rest of the show much more jarring. It should be either entirely modern or entirely historical, not some Frankenstein-esque combination!

Some of the costumes are so crazy there's only one proper response: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. This snail hat and pink hair, for instance.

Is it a snail's shell? Is it an ice cream cone? No, it's something dreamed up by a misguided milliner.

Even by musical standards the relationship between Constanze and Wolfgang is absurdly abrupt. She sees him once, when he's infatuated with her sister and barely even notices her, and immediately falls in love with him 🙄

The choreography is a mess. Half the time it's nothing but the actors and actresses wandering around the stage and waving their arms.

What the hell is that clown doing dancing around the stage? Did the director think he was adapting It? On the same note, why is Anna Maria Mozart's death witnessed by people in plague doctor and Venice carnival masks? Make it make sense, someone. Please.

Act 1 ends with another crazy ballet sequence. Will things be any saner in act 2? Hell no. The clown reappears within minutes. It's all downhill from there.

The only historically accurate part of the entire musical is the Webers running a boarding house. Honestly I'm amazed they bothered. The rest of the show bears as much resemblance to history as a dilapidated cottage does to Buckingham Palace.

Leopold Mozart's funeral would be sad if it wasn't for the dancers with horned headdresses(?) leaping around behind Nannerl. Similarly, the mysterious man who tells Wolfgang to write a requiem would be much more sinister without that ridiculous mask and weird voice.

The part where the actors run through the audience in "Victime de ma victoire" is so chaotic and poorly-lit it's impossible to actually see them. And Wolfgang's death is a chaotic mess of flashing lights and people running around.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I actually prefer Mozart! das Musical to this show. Partly it's because of the languages. I know I'm in the minority, but to me French looks and sounds incredibly ugly. On the other hand German looks intimidating yet sounds much more pleasant. And on a more practical note, I know more German than French. But to get back to the musicals, the other reason I prefer MDM is the music itself. That version actually sounds like a musical. This one sounds like a rock concert with a threadbare plot strung between the songs.

Is it available online?: Yes, on YouTube with English subtitles, in case you feel like being hopelessly confused for two hours.

Rating: 1/10.

Review: Kingdom (2019) Season 1

Lately I'm watching and reading an unusual amount of horror. Some so-called horror films and books aren't scary at all. Others are. This is one of the ones that are.

Kingdom (킹덤 or Kingdeom in Korean) is a 2019 period drama/horror K-drama based on the webcomic The Kingdom of the Gods. I haven't read the webcomic so I don't know how accurate an adaptation it is.

I didn't recognise any of the actors, so on to the plot.

No one is allowed to see the king. The queen claims he has smallpox. Crown Prince Lee Chang suspects something more sinister is happening. He goes to find a physician who may be able to tell him what's really wrong. Unfortunately he arrives just in time to be caught up in the zombie apocalypse -- and his father has already become a zombie.

This is the shortest Asian drama I've ever seen. It has only six episodes, each one less than an hour long. Yet so much happens in it that it feels much longer. And unlike some series the characters' bad decisions actually make sense. Far too often I see characters in horror stories doing the worst possible thing for the stupidest reasons. Here, Beom-pal thought removing the corpses was the best thing to do for obvious reasons. In any other story he'd have been right. It's just a pity he didn't know he was dealing with zombies. Same goes for most of the other characters. (Except that imbecile who brought a zombie onto the boat. That's near the top of the "worst decisions ever made in horror stories" list 😒)

Only two things irk me about it. One, the plague is caused by a plant. As I've said before, I prefer horror stories that don't explain where the monsters come from and don't have mundane explanations when supernatural ones would do. Two, the first season ends with a cliffhanger. Our heroes are facing a horde of zombies, their plan has failed, they're in mortal danger... and that's where the last episode ends. It was frustrating enough for me, and I started the first episode of season two almost immediately after finishing it. I can only imagine how awful that must have been for people who watched it before the second season aired.

Overall, though, this is one of the best -- and most terrifying -- horror series I've ever seen.

Is it available online?: I'm pretty sure it's on Netflix.

Rating: 8/10.

Review: The Turn of the Screw (novel)

Sometimes elaborate prose in Victorian novels is very well done. Other times it's a meandering mess that leaves you wondering "What's that supposed to mean?" This book doesn't just fall into the latter category, it dives headlong into it.

The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 novella by Henry James. It's been adapted into an opera, two ballets, and several films and miniseries.

The story begins when our nameless heroine accepts a job as a governess. Her employer asks her to take care of his niece and nephew, and to never contact him again. That should set alarm bells ringing at once. She takes the job anyway, only to quickly realise there's something sinister lurking in the house and targeting the children.

For some reason many readers think the story is very ambiguous. I can understand their confusion, since much of the writing is as clear as mud. But the actual plot is simple enough: ghosts are haunting the children. It baffles me to see academics trying to prove it's actually about the governess going insane. Why would anyone want to find a mundane explanation for a horror story when there's a perfectly good supernatural one?

What's even more confusing is the writing itself. Henry James was either paid by the word, or believed he should always use eighty words where one would do. (I haven't read any of his other works, so I don't know if he did this regularly.) If you took away all the digressions and needlessly-complicated passages you'd shorten the story to about two chapters -- and it would be all the better for it. The novella isn't very long, but wading through yet more dull passages that have nothing to do with the plot makes reading it a chore. After a while I gave up and skipped ahead to the parts that were actually about the ghosts.

By far the weakest parts are the characters and the ending. The characters have no personalities and are practically interchangeable. As for the ending, the governess drives one of the ghosts away and then Miles dies. For no reason. It ends there and you're left to wonder what the hell you just read.

This book is slow, plodding, and more than twice as long as it should be. As horror stories go I didn't even find it particularly scary. It's just plain dull.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 2/10.

Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)

I forgot to post on Sunday, then meant to post on Monday and forgot again 😑

My reaction when I first heard of this film's existence was one word: "What." It's the sort of thing that makes you wonder if an asylum inmate thought it up. This singularly unfunny parody is one of the worst films I've ever watched. Yet somehow it's still better than the 2005 version.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is a 2016 film based on someone's Frankenstein-esque butchery of Jane Austen's masterpiece. I've never read the, ahem, "novel" of the same name. I have no intentions of ever reading it. The film was quite enough.

I recognised several of the cast:
Lily James (Ella in Cinderella 2015) as Elizabeth
Douglas Booth (Pip in Great Expectations 2011) as Bingley
Charles Dance (Mr. Tulkinghorn in Bleak House 2005) as Mr. Bennet (?!)
Matt Smith (the Eleventh Doctor in Doctor Who) as Mr. Collins

As for the "plot", I don't know how to describe it. I made a list of comments while watching it, so they'll have to do.

The morbid twist on the novel's famous opening lines made me giggle while rolling my eyes.

For some reason Mr. Darcy is now a colonel. Honestly, my first thought was, "Why not use Colonel Fitzwilliam instead?"

I'm sorry to say this Darcy is one of the least convincing. It's painfully obvious he was trying to imitate Colin Firth and instead is imitating a brick wall. And his untidy hairstyle is just embarrassing.

On the one hand the zombie scene is honestly scary. On the other, it falls into the same trap as this film's very existence: WHAT IS IT DOING IN AN AUSTEN ADAPTATION?

The exposition over the opening credits is frankly boring. (I prefer when horror films don't try to explain where the horror comes from. It becomes so much more frightening when it's an unexplained mystery.)

On the subject of terrible casting, the Bennet parents are atrocious. Like the 2005 abomination, Mrs. Bennet is a perfectly normal woman when she shouldn't be. As for Mr. Bennet, I'd like to know who thought Charles Dance of all people was a good choice for the role.

Also like the 2005 abomination, the first ball bears a striking resemblance to a barn dance. The Bennets aren't peasants! They wouldn't go to such a crowded, undignified event! And it's utterly ludicrous to think Bingley's sisters, Darcy, or even Bingley himself would ever darken the doors of that place.

At least they remembered both of Bingley's sisters. I wasn't expecting that much accuracy.

In this version Lizzie deliberately eavesdrops on Darcy and Bingley, while Darcy is even more insulting towards her than in the novel. This makes both Darcy and Lizzie less sympathetic.

Oh, for goodness' sake. They expect us to believe Jane could cut off a zombie's arm with a knife? A knife. Not a sword. Not even a very large knife. As anyone knows if they've done any research on weapons at all, you need a very sharp, preferably long blade swung with a lot of force to cut through bone. (Why yes, I do research a lot of disturbing things for my writing. Why do you ask?) I know, I know. It's a trivial detail. Yet I find trivial implausibilities are more distracting than blatant inaccuracies.

The film decides to increase the drama by having everyone worry Jane's been bitten instead of just catching a cold. Darcy goes into her room (breaking a dozen rules of propriety!) and is prepared to kill her (???!!!!!). I didn't know if I've ever seen something so utterly ridiculous that still somehow makes sense... as much as anything in this film ever makes sense.

Apparently most zombie fighters train in Japan. At a time when Japan was closed to the outside world. And Darcy mispronounces Kyoto. It's "kyo-to", not "kee-o-to". (Okay, so this is an understandable mistake for people who know nothing about Japanese pronunciation. Yet it drives me up the wall.)

This film follows the 2005 one's lead in the "Miss Bennet, Miss Bennet and Miss Bennet" nonsense. That's so utterly wrong it makes me cringe. Only the oldest daughter present -- Mary, in this case -- would be called Miss Bennet! The others would be addressed as Miss Catherine Bennet and Miss Lydia Bennet! Learn a time period's basic etiquette before setting a film during that time!

Like many film adaptations and "adaptations" of classic novels, this mess charges ahead like a runaway train, frantically cramming as much as it can into less than two hours. That doesn't work well with straightforward versions. It works even less well with a film that's trying to add the zombie apocalypse to the already-lengthy source material.

Matt Smith's Mr. Collins -- renamed Parson Collins, for reasons known only to whoever dreamed up this madness -- is almost as oily as David Bamber's. Certainly he's better than Tom Hollander. (Which is damning by faint praise. My cat could be a better Mr. Collins than Tom Hollander was.)

Mr. Collins, about the zombies: "Before we know it they'll be running for Parliament." It says a great deal about all our politicians and every single party in existence that a Parliament full of zombies would be an improvement on the dictatorship we have now. At least the zombies would make no bones about wanting to kill us all and wouldn't pretend they care about us and want us to be safe.

This Wickham very nearly reaches the smug vileness of 1995!Wickham. My metre for judging Wickhams is "does he make me want to reach into the screen and wring his neck the minute he appears?" In this case the answer is yes, so for once the casting department did a good job.

Bizarrely Wickham does turn up at Bingley's party. Why? Darcy would have him thrown out if he came anywhere near the place!

It doesn't take a genius to guess who the zombies' "new friend" is. That just makes it even more stupid of Wickham to go there. Why go to a place he just sent zombies to attack?

Darcy shoving a zombie into the oven should be a grim scene, but all I could think of was the end of Sweeney Todd. ♫And life is for the alive, my dear...♫

Like in the 2005 version, Mr. Collins decides the middle of a meal is the perfect time to propose to Lizzie. *facepalm* Then it turns out Mrs. Bennet was listening at the door. *facepalms again* Mr. Bennet's "an unhappy alternative lies before you" speech lacks all the humour of the book and 1995 series. *facepalms yet again*

Wickham and Lizzie ride off together. Unchaperoned. Not only is this enough to ruin Lizzie's reputation, it's the height of stupidity for her to run off like that in the middle of a zombie apocalypse!

Lady Catherine is much too young. And not nearly as Lady Catherine-ish as she should be.

Wickham continues to pop up in the most unlikely places. There's no way in hell he'd ever be allowed near Rosings. Ever. And in this version he's the one who tells Lizzie about Darcy separating Bingley and Jane. That noise you just heard was me screaming in rage.

Darcy's proposal is one of the least convincing things I've ever seen. And that's before they break out the fisticuffs. Of course they had to shoehorn in a scene of Darcy jumping in a lake.

Wickham manages to be even more despicable here than in the book. I really didn't think that was possible! Yet Darcy becomes just as bad when he feeds human brains to the zombies. Seriously?! He turned them into a bloodthirsty horde that nearly killed him, Lydia, and Elizabeth -- not to mention any other unfortunate people who got in their way -- just to stop Wickham?

The final battle is -- incredibly -- the most ridiculous thing in the whole film. A battle of any sort has no business being in anything that claims to be based on an Austen novel. The "blow up the bridge" part is impossible to take seriously. Unfortunately they play it seriously. It's never a good sign when a parody doesn't let you laugh with it. You're left with no choice but to laugh at it, and then it stops being a parody and becomes a travesty.

That bizarre mid-credits scene ruins the otherwise relatively acceptable wedding and happy ending.

Literally the only good thing about it is that the premise is so insane that I started it without high expectations -- or any expectations at all. And unlike the 2005 film, it doesn't pretend to be a faithful adaptation. One of the worst parts about it is how the cast play it completely seriously. As a result I'm left wondering if they failed to realise it's a parody, and the entire film comes over as a joke at their expense.

Is it available online?: I hope not.

Rating: 1/10.