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Billy the Kid Week 2011: Review of The Illegal Rebirth of Billy the Kid

Posted in Billy the Kid, books, pop culture, reviews with tags Billy the Kid, Billy the Kid Week, books, pop culture, reviews on July 12, 2011 by Paxton

This week I am celebrating the 130th anniversary of the killing of Billy the Kid by Pat Garrett. I’m reading books that feature either the historical Billy the Kid or a fictional version of Billy the Kid. Yesterday I looked at a comic series featuring the character of Billy the Kid. Today we look at a science fiction story involving A clone of Billy.

Today’s book is called The Illegal Rebirth of Billy the Kid by Rebecca Ore. I found it during my search for Billy the Kid books and I’d never heard of it. The basic story line seemed interesting enough so I got it off paperbackswap.com and read it a few months ago.

On the surface it sounds awesome. The story takes place in the future. Cloning is legal but heavily policed. A government scientist creates an illegal Billy the Kid clone which escapes, and wrecks havok. Because the clone is illegal, the government sends out assassins to capture or kill it and find out who made it. The clone goes on the run like the real Billy the Kid, receiving help from a clone activist group, until Billy finally confronts his pursuers. But the book doesn’t completely go that route. For starters, we find out pretty early that this clone isn’t actually a clone of Billy the Kid. The clone was grown from generic government clone DNA and given flash memories based partly on historical record and partly on pop culture myth. Immediately that disconnected me. This clone could literally have been anyone and that hindered my enjoyment of the story.

These clones would have worked better.

Two, nothing really happens. “Billy” does get help from an activist group, then he has to get a fake id and a job. He is constantly lamenting the fact he’s just a clone and not the actual Billy the Kid. He’s not really “on the run”. He’s in hiding. Notice the difference. One implies action, the other doesn’t. Guess which. Also, the story does imply that the government will, in fact, send out clone assassins (assassins who are themselves clones) to eliminate potential risks. Awesome. But this story only mentions it. The bad ass subplot of the clone assassin hunting down one of his own kind who happens to be a created copy of one of the most notorious outlaws in American history never happens. It’s just left to dangle there. We then get the clone “Billy” working a deal with the government to reveal the scientist that made him in return for protection. Just not enough there to actually make me care about the characters or what was going on.

I think I see where Ore was trying to go, though. Maybe using this story as an analogue for societal classes or maybe even racism. Clones are thought of as not really even human. They are called meat dogs or meat pigs. Some even consider them pets. You also have the clone activist group helping clones get away from abusive owners, much like the Underground Railroad back during the Civil War did for blacks. A lot of this is just barely under the surface in the story, but I didn’t care because the story was so goddam boring I just wanted it to end.

That pretty much wraps up the longest 210 pages I’ve ever read in my entire life. This story would probably have worked better in 100 pages. And maybe a re-write of the ending. But I can’t recommend it. I was bored to tears through the majority of the book.

Girding my loins for Twilight 4. It’s coming…

Posted in books, movies, pop culture, Twilight with tags books, movies, pop culture, trailers, Twilight on June 9, 2011 by Paxton

The Twilight series and I have a…complicated history. I think of us as adversaries, coldly staring at each other over the battlefield of pop culture. We’ve each taken (and given) our wounds, but we rise up to fight again. And again.

And again.

I first tried to stop the EMO-ification of badass vampires in the first Twilight movie here.

Not content with completely ruining vampires, Twilight: New Moon set it’s sights on raping awesome werewolves. See that here.

Twilight: Eclipse at least promised a vampire vs werewolf war, but instead ripped off our sack and stomped it into the pavement. You can read that loveliness here.

Now, the long road is coming to an end. There is only one more book left in the saga. And to make it last as long as f**king possible, Summit Films is splitting the last book into TWO movies (a la Harry Potter).

And we finally have an official trailer for Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part I.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have until November 18 to prepare for battle.

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Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire released 20 years ago

Posted in books, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags anniversary, Book Report, books, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on June 1, 2011 by Paxton

Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire was released at the end of May 1991 which makes it 20 years old. Heir to the Empire was the first “expanded universe” Star Wars novel since the Lando Calrissian solo novels in the 80s. It would become immensely popular and spark an avalanche of Star Wars novels that continues to this day.

The next two books in Zahn’s “Thrawn Trilogy”, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command, were released in 1992 and 1993 respectively.

The characters Zahn created in his trilogy became extremely popular and would be used by other authors for years afterward. Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Empire’s strategic military genius, would be one of the more popular. However Thrawn as a character would not really be written by anyone other than Zahn. Mara Jade would be used by many authors up until the current day. She would go on to marry Luke and have his children. Talon Karrde, smuggler extraordinaire would also prove popular and show up in novels from time to time, as would the New Republic’s military strategist, General Garm Bel Iblis. Zahn’s three books would also popularize the idea of clones in the Star Wars Universe as well as be the first to use the formal name of the Imperial homeworld (and current Republic homeworld); Coruscant.

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Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire turns 15 years old

Posted in books, comic books, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags anniversary, books, comic books, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on April 26, 2011 by Paxton

This month is the 15th anniversary of the release of the Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire multimedia event.

Shadows of the Empire was a huge undertaking by LucasFilm and LucasArts in the Summer 1996. It was essentially the release of a new Star Wars movie, but without the actual movie. The events of Shadows of the Empire take place in the years between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Up to this point, no other expanded universe material had ever taken place within the timeline of the original movies. This event would also serve as a springboard into the release of the Special Edition trilogy in theaters the following February. To give the whole event a more “theatrical” feel, LucasFilm released a trailer featuring footage from the movies and a voiceover. It was played in front of audiences at comic conventions across the US. LucasFilm decided to pull the trailer, however, fearing that people would think there was an actual movie being released.

The trailer was added to the official Star Wars website for the Shadows of the Empire 10th anniversary. Click here to watch the trailer on StarWars.com.

The Shadows event consisted of the release of a novel, a comic book, a video game and a symphonic soundtrack. You could get one or more of these things and get a complete story, but you had to get everything to get the full Shadows of the Empire story.

Released first and foremost was the Shadows of the Empire novel by Steve Perry. You would get most of the story from this book. All other media in the Shadows event was based in some way off this book. The events take place several months after The Empire Strikes Back. I bought and read this book when it was released in 1996. I then bought the paperback and read it again a few years after that. I think I even read it a third time after that. The book is good. REALLY good. I read it again last summer and it still holds up. The story is solid, the characters are written fantastically and it’s just a lot of fun. Prince Xizor is a fun villain and great foil for Vader. It’s really fun to see Vader being vexed by Xizor in their constant tug-of-war for Palpatine’s approval. It’s also fun to read the budding Jedi Luke before he becomes the supremely confident Jedi. Han is out, obviously, because he’s in carbonite on Boba’s ship, but we get a new character, Dash Rendar, to supposedly take the smuggler role. However, I hate Rendar as a character. He serves little to no purpose. First of all, he isn’t in Return of the Jedi so you know he can’t stick around. Second, he’s ridiculously immature and and a braggart. Thirdly, the novel also includes Lando Calrissian. Rather effectively, I might add. There was no need whatsoever to even have Dash. I think Perry was forced to use Dash because they needed a new character for the video game. That one gripe aside, I love this book and really wish Perry could have expanded the story a little bit more in a prequel or sequel novel.

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Year End Book Report: The best books I read in 2010

Posted in books, reviews, Star Trek, Star Wars with tags Book Report, books, reviews, Star Trek, Star Wars, Year End Books on January 19, 2011 by Paxton

Okay, time to “wrap up” my end-of-the-year “wrap up”. Last week I posted my annual Movie Board articles featuring the best and worst movies of 2010. I’ve been doing those lists since 2007. Starting last year, I added The Book Report reviewing all the best books I read throughout the year. Today is the 2010 Book Report.

During the year, I keep a Google Spreadsheet logging all the books I read. Here’s a screenshot and link to the spreadsheet.

Google Spreadsheet containing my book log.

The spreadsheet tells me I read 62 books this past year. That’s about 10 more books than the year before. I read a lot more graphic novels this year as opposed to last year which accounts for the increase in books. Those graphic novels can be read in an afternoon, so it pumps up my book totals. Plus I read several Young Adult books that took only a few days to read.

I also did a lot of re-reads this past year. I re-read 6 or 7 Star Wars novels I hadn’t read since the 90s. I also re-read the final Harry Potter book. Every once in a while I get in a kick of re-reading books I loved but haven’t read in years. After two or three years, you’d be surprised how much you forget about the story. It’s like reading the books again for the first time. But I will not include any books I re-read in this list. Only books I read in 2010 for the first time will be included.

Anyway, on to the list. Here’s the best books I read in 2010 in no particular order.

Jack West, Jr series by Matthew Reilly – I found the second book, Six Sacred Stones, in a box of books my buddy Dr Mike was getting rid of a year or two ago. I read the back and it sounded good, so I took it. Mike mentioned he thought there may be a book before it because he felt he was missing some of the story when he read it. I searched Paperbackswap.com and found out he was right. So I ordered the first book, Seven Deadly Wonders and read both books back to back. And I loved them. The story is very much part Indiana Jones, part Da Vinci Code and part National Treasure. The action is very fast paced. I had read two other Reilly books, Area 7 and The Contest, before this and they were equally as awesome. Reilly really can write fun action books. The story centers around Jack West Jr, an Australian military solider and his international and eclectic team who discover that a supernatural event will soon cause the end of the world and set out across the globe, uncovering clues to find out how to stop it. That’s a really high level explanation, but you get the idea. The third book in this series, Five Greatest Warriors, was just released in paperback on Dec 28. I read it last week. Unbelievable. I love each one of these books. The first one, Seven Deadly Wonders, is the best, followed closely by Six Sacred Stones and Five Greatest Warriors which are tied. Such good reads. I am concerned though. The final page in FGW actually says THE END. I don’t know why you’d start a series counting down from 7 and then not finish it because the story in Book 3 ends with no cliff hanger. However, Reilly has stated he has other ideas and if he continues Jack West’s story, it’ll count down to 1. I’m glad, because I adore these books and want more. I may have to continue Reilly’s other book series about a special forces soldier code named Scarecrow while I wait.

Demonata series by Darren Shan – I was recommended this series by my brother-in-law’s brother-in-law (brother-in-law once removed?) Anyway, he knew I liked Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak series so he told me to give this series a try. And I did. And it’s awesome. Very dark and sinister, Shan is building up a very interesting world of magic and demons. The story is kind of in depth and builds over the entire series so it’s tough to nail down a synopsis for you without ruining anything. But the world is dark and the demons are horrific. Know that so far I’ve read books 1 – 3 in this series and I plan on reading more. So far the series sits at 10 books.