Review: The King's Daughter

 Almost two and half years ago, I ended a review of Vonda N. McIntyre's The Moon and the Sun, writing about the "lost" movie:

"The movie, starring Pierce Brosnan, has been filmed but remains unreleased pending special effects, four years later.

Maybe something went wrong elsewhere, but you'd think they'd try to recoup some financial losses by releasing it as straight-to-video, or have a limited release first. Surely, book fans would flock."

 The movie is now released and has grossed about a million so far in the first week (#10). 

Here's a clip of a scene paired with the trailer:

The trailer doesn't give a good sense of the story, which is mirrored in this strange review from The Guardian, which says the movie's good--I would agree--but obsesses over the problem of the title. However, the reviewer may not have pondered long enough. The title is rather thematically potent, and in a few other regards.

The problem of the trailer and the review may be the movie's failing to nail its identity at the start. The movie opens as a story book, which would be useful as a children's story, a comedy, or a fairy tale. The closest the movie approaches is the lattermost, but the focus isn't on a fairy tale nature. Perhaps it would have been better done without the storybook and skipped straight to the daughter's arrival in the castle. Or perhaps better still, would be to establish the previous life and her desire to exit that life. A leisurely opening would have worked fine--or at least better. Perhaps they hadn't enough film footage for it to flow.

The main body of the film is solid, tightly woven and seems quite aware that it is a historical fantasy with strong elements of romance--perhaps "love" is the better operative word, in a broader sense than romance that only concerns a couple. 

Without the opening, I'd have said the movie deserved an 8 or so out of 10. Solid entertainment with some thought.

The opening should only drop the movie to a seven, not to a five, which is where it is at the moment, unfortunately, but people were probably confused about what kind of movie they were seeing. I had the advantage, having read the book first. Hopefully, the numbers go up as it progresses. 

It should be popular with the female type holding some measure of history, court, and adventure. A good date or family movie? Maybe go buy popcorn while the storybook unfolds.

The director, Sean McNamara, talks about the movie here:

Celebrating the life and works of David Farland / Dave Wolverton (links to writing advice, reviews, and a tribute)

This video tribute broke me up:

  

* * *

When Dave Wolverton passed away, I read every tribute every writer wrote. So many felt personally touched by this nearly omnipresent mentor. It wasn't just a handful that he befriended to appear magnanimous, but everyone who chose to learn from him.

I must have quoted Dave or directed traffic to his blog at least three dozen times. Most of those links appear to be dead. There are probably two or three books to be made out of the abundant advice he gave writers. Here are a few of my favorite books of his on writing that seem invaluable to me:

Drawing on the Power of Resonance in Writing 

and 

Million Dollar Outlines

When it comes to writing, the man was a mad genius who not only honed his own craft but catapulted others to the bestseller lists.

* * *

Although the main links are gone, you can get the gist to a few of these that I wrestled with (on reviews and blurbs -- I still need to ponder blurbs further. I should be more useful to writers who have done well.)

Here I wrestled with his ideas on editing. I should have included the video back then, so I'll do so here:

* * *

Here's a list of literary works of his I reviewed (I still haven't read Runelords, an error I must correct. I was hoping to interview him here when his last book came out):

MUST READS (works that enchanted me)

"After a Lean Winter" (If you read nothing else by Wolverton, read this--a classic.)

The Golden Queen

GOOD BOOKS (I loved the narrator's voice in Ravenspell):

Ravenspell Book 1: Of Mice and Magic 

Nightingale (Recommended for those who loved Steven Gould's Jumper) 

22 Tales (an overdue collection of his short work although it disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared)

* * *

We met a few times in person, and I took a few online classes with him. I forget all that he said, but whatever you see in videos, that's what we saw. His kindness seemed not to be a public performance but the real thing.

He came in and sat with John Campbell and I as we ate sloppy, animal-style fries and burgers at In 'N' Out. We were discussing other cultures.

Later, Dave and I talked and walked to another restaurant and we discussed how he wanted to take his time to get his last Runelords novel right. He mentioned Tolkien and the importance of taking your time: Do we want fast books or books that readers will remember us by?

Bon voyage, Mr. Wolverton. May the latest Runelords be your crowning achievements. Whatever happens, you were one of the greats, in so many ways. Thank you for sharing your life and wisdom.

The Art of Golden Queen by David Farland / Dave Wolverton

Dave Wolverton passed away on January 14, 2022. This is just a tribute to one of my favorite novels of his. 

I recently commented on what I think was one my favorite stories, "After a Lean Winter," and what made it so brilliant.

The Golden Queen is a science fantasy. It would be easy for a long-time reader of fantasy just to accept this as a somewhat traditional fantasy with some of the usual oddities such as a talking bear, but then we have two moons. The novel opens this way

"Veriasse could taste the scent of vanquishers in the crsip mountain air. Beneath the sweaty odor of the horses, lying deep below the aroma of pine needles and leaf mold, he could barely detect the acrid scent of dronon vanquisher's stomach acids. This was the third time he had caught that scent in as many days, but this time it was closer than in the past."

Really, this could go either way in reading it: fantasy or science fiction. But the heavy emphasis on scents has a distinct odor of biology. Straddling the divide between science and fantasy creates a beautiful friction, a paradox of sorts, a broad palette of samples to taste. We inhabit two genres simultaneously. Just when you settle into the fantasy of it, the text will either imply or call up the science of what's happening.

But the most powerful aspect is the characters themselves. And the story takes off in the inn in Clere, the characters giving one another a hard time in a playful manner (notice how the barbs fly off at everyone, sometimes multiple people at once):

"Nooo, no!" Father Heany threw up his hands as if to ward off a blow. "You can't go trying to unload your ugly niece onto the boy," the priest said. "That would be a sin. She's a nice enough girl, but with those buck teeth--"

"You don't say!" Seamus frowned in mock horror. "You daren't talk about my niece that way."

"I will," the priest said. "God agrees with me on this point, I'm sure. The girl has tusks as dangerous as any wild boar's. Now, if Gallen is looking for a nice young woman, I'm sure others could  be found."

Maggie got up from her churn. The cream had hardened to butter, and she could no longer turn the crank. Her face and arms were covered with perspiration. Gallen figured it must be midnight, yet she'd been working since before sunrise. She stood wearily, put a heavy log into the fire, then sat at a nearby table with a sigh that said, "Ah, to hell with it."

"Well, there is Maggie here," Seamus said with a wink, and Gallen saw that he'd been planning this all along. With Gallen and Maggie sitting so close together, it was a perfect opportunity to torment them both. No one in town could have missed the glances they exchanged, and Gallen had just about decided that Maggie was the one for him. "Now, Maggie has it all--she has her wit, she's a charmer, and she works as hard as three people."

Maggie also gives Gallen a hard time of it, too. However, the playfulness gets challenged when the beautiful Golden Queen herself arrives to send our heroes off on a journey, looking for a guide or an armed escort who can also defend. However, though Gallen shows himself worthy as a guide, he's rebuffed when he inquires about her name. An act not lost on Maggie.

Forgive me. I love Orrick the bear, too, but I can be less specific about that. Perhaps it is just our innate desire to befriend animals, but Farland does seem to capture some of the beariness of Orrick in a few deft gestures such as his voracious appetite, lapping milk from a bowl, and mysterious behavior like this: 

"God be with you, for I shall not," the bear said.... Gallen shivered at the sound of Orick's cryptic farewell.

There's much to love. It's almost as wonderful as knowing the man himself.

Cultural Ephemera: Xanadu

 A friend recommended this movie as of possible interest though the story, he admitted, was bad. I do like weird stories, true--making sense of strange things in life, no matter how odd--but less fond of bad weird stories.

I didn't see the whole but whatever clips I could find. However, I was interested, interested that this was made at all (and how). 

For clarity, by "ephemera" I mean things that take the world by storm for a brief period of time then evaporate, almost without trace.

Xanadu would seems to both fit and fail that definition. As a movie, it barely broke even. As a soundtrack, though, it had five songs chart on the Top 40 and the album went platinum. The stars were huge: Gene Kelly was a major star to pull in the older generations while Olivia Newton-John and Michael Beck had just come off major successes. On other other hand, it pretty much stunted their acting careers. Meanwhile, the musicians and much of the film crew had major careers that continued beyond the film, which wouldn't fit. But the writers and director really never hit it out of the park, afterwards, although the director found more success when he focused on stories with a nonfictional frame. 

Perhaps it could classify as a cult film as it spawned a hit Broadway musical a quarter century later (this Wiki article makes it sound like they were able to make a plausibly good story out of the raw materials), and a killer who thought.he was guided by it.

The main reason I'm calling it ephemera, though, is the treatment: roller skates and rainbow color schemes. It mashes up classical Greek culture with Romantic Xanadu but without understanding either culture, so that it's alien to both. Yes, we have Gene Kelly but not in a way that utilizes him well. We have two generations represented here, but neither seem realistically depicted.  

It's as if aliens (or someone from the present or future with no understanding of the past) were given a time machine to kidnap talented music and dance and music video people from the past and told them to update the musical with a laundry list of things that once was popular from two different eras, to shake well and pour into a story. "Okay," the alien movie moguls said, "we want modernized versions of older clothing styles with dancing from Gene Kelly, music and weirdness for the younger Star-Wars set, cowboy outfits for those whose home is on the range, and cartoons for the kiddies. Famous music makers will help us sell the accompanying soundtrack. A recipe for million dollar industry!" 

This is what you'd get. Here's the identifying clip that sort of outlines the movie's presumed modus operanadi:

It's almost a parody of the eras it's trying to reach, past and present--and parody of basic storytelling. It doesn't seem to belong to any time period.

 

Yet there is so something visually and auditorily fascinating--not to mention the other-woldly perspective. The only way to interpret the movie that makes sense is as a music video that isn't trying to make sense of the story but of the music. The logical flow resolves as a music video would. 

 

Proof? See the last moments of the film, which would only work in a music video. Music videos often have compressed moments at the beginning and end which try to make sense of the music. This works just like one of those (cued up for you although you can rewind to watch the glitzy cowboy routine to get how it tried to rope in the rural and country crowd):

The only problem with this theory is the film occurred just before MTV. But maybe it was trying to ride the same cusp that MTV was riding. It sounds like music videos got their start in 1970s Australia (where Newton-John is from), and this has the same feel.

 

As such, the music-video movie is somewhat innovative--perhaps too innovative, Yet it had a huge musical impact and perhaps inspired the musical video industry. If you consider the project as having multiple revenue streams including Broadway musical parody (you can sense the mockery in the promotional poster above), it's hard to say it's a failure. No doubt, all of the above, the murders, and the Golden Raspberries (started in part because of the film) helped create the film's cult status.

 

However, you would have to pay me handsomely to watch the whole thing.

"After a Lean Winter" by Dave Wolverton / David Farland

 

First appeared in Kristine Rusch's F&SF and in Kevin J. Anderson Global Dispatches, reprinted by David Hartwell in his annual retrospective. It was up for the Locus and Nebula awards.

What would have happened had Jack London experienced H. G. Wells's Martian invasion in Alaska?

NOTE: Indirect Spoilers.

Jack London and H. G. Wells might have shared some political visions, but they'd have likely parted ways on where Wells treads here, a surprisingly contemporary perspective on invasion.

But Wolverton finds the path where the two might have met in a kind of survival of the fittest. In a brilliant move, Wolverton extends Wells's speculative ideas and stretches them to their limits at the edge of wilderness and wildness of men, microbes, aliens, and beasts.

Wolverton contrasts the two writerly perspectives with a thesis and antithesis, and steps outside to come up with a neat synthesis. Perhaps "synthesis" is the exactly wrong word for where this story goes. This may be Farland's masterwork of SF. It probably would have or should have won awards had it landed the ending. Still, an impressive tale.