Woody and the Hatter: Separated at Birth?

In honor of the wide release of Alice in Wonderland, we bring you this post from last month ... 

 Images of Tim Burton's take on Alice in Wonderland have been leaking out for quite a while now, and yes, there has been something disturbingly ... familiar about the art direction.  Sure, sure, obviously the Queen of Hearts is a grotesque rendering of early Queen Elizabeth I with a dash of  Bette Davis, the White Queen looks like a marceled silent film star, and the March Hare resembles a pop-eyed, brain-challenged Senator from Sath Ca'lina.  We just couldn't figure out who Johnny Depp's Hatter most resembled ... until Rotten Tomatoes made the mistake of putting these two pictures next to each other:

Need we say more?  And -- wait, is that Pixar's attorney calling?  Hellewww....?

 

Neil Gaiman vs. Stephen Colbert ... and Gaiman Wins!!

Incredible but true!!

It was, without a doubt, one of the oddest interviews this season, part of a show which consistently has the oddest interviews on TV.  Stephen Colbert, in full fulmination, grilled Neil (Sandman, Neverwhere, Coraline) Gaiman about his newest YA novel, The Graveyard Book.  Gaiman actually held his own, didn't try too hard to out-weird Stephen, and actually seemed to be enjoying himself.  And who'd have thought that Colbert would not only know who Tom Bombadil was, but could actually recite a whole Tolkien ditty about the man?  As previously reported: weird...

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Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself: Now THAT'S Fantasy!

Let's face it: most sword and sorcery books are pretty crappy.  Or at least repetitive.  Or treacly.  All those fairies and elves and boggies and such.

But once in a while, an author comes along with a story that brings the thud and blunder back to thud and blunder: real characters, great action, a convincing take on magic, even a little realpolitk.

We won't even attempt to summarize the plot -- or plots, really.  Suffice to say there are a variety of fascinating folks, from a barbarian named Nine Fingers to a spoiled-rotten swordsman, from an ill-tempered wizard to a sad, mad, cruel ex-swordsman turned torturer ... and they all come together in a complex but hugely satisfying story of intrigue and adventure.

Pyr, a division of the British publisher Prometheus, has released all three books of "The First Law" series at once -- and even the cover designs are cool! -- making for an easy and easy-to-access read.

Last time we saw this kind of enjoyable realism wih a sense of humor was Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series ... and that was fifteen years ago.  If you like that -- and haven't care for a hell o a lot since -- then The First Law, beginning with The Blade Itself, just might be for you.