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AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: The Wolf’s Hour by Robert McCammon

Posted in books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, werewolf, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, books, holiday. Halloween, monsters, pop culture, reviews, werewolf, werewolves on October 12, 2010 by Paxton

Welcome to Day 10 of AWESOME-tober-fest. We are in the middle of werewolf book week. Yesterday I looked at Howling Mad by Peter David. Today, I will review The Wolf’s Hour by Robert McCammon.

(Via RobertMcCammon.com)

This is an interesting novel. I originally read it back in high school. My dad used to take my brother and I to the “big” library in downtown Birmingham at least once a month for a special treat. It offered a wider choice of books than our local library. I’d pick out a bunch of books about comic books or werewolves or gunfighters and we could return them at any of our local libraries (or back to the original downtown location if we went back in time). It was pretty awesome. During one of my trips I was looking for werewolf fiction and stumbled across this book. It seemed a little long for me at the time at nearly 500 pages, plus it took place during World War II, which doesn’t interest me very much, but the lure of a new werewolf novel was too much to resist. So I checked it out.

(Via RobertMcCammon.com)

The story is definitely interesting. It combines two very different genres; the World War II spy adventure and the werewolf adventure. The main character, Michael Gallatin, was born into a wealthy Russian family. At an early age Michael was changed and then taken in by a pack of werewolves. He was taught by the pack how to live as a man and a wolf and properly use his newly discovered supernatural abilities. After years of learning and maturing with the pack of werewolves, Michael leaves them to see the world and create a life of his own. He offers his “skills” to the Allies during World War II and becomes a secret weapon in the fight against Hitler and his Third Reich. Michael goes on several missions and uncovers a secret conspiracy called Iron Fist that threatens to derail the Allies’ invasion of Europe and turn the tides of the war in favor of the Axis powers.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2010: Howling Mad by Peter David

Posted in books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, werewolf, werewolves with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2010, books, Halloween, holiday, monsters, review, werewolf, werewolves on October 11, 2010 by Paxton

Welcome to the first day of werewolf book week. I am continuing with my theme of werewolves by talking about werewolf novels all week. The first book I want to talk about is Howling Mad by Peter David.

Peter David is one of my favorite authors. David is a sometime novel author, sometime comic book author and has written volumes of books and comic books throughout the years. His most famous comic book work is with The Incredible Hulk and his most famous novel work is with Star Trek. Some of my favorite Peter David books include Sir Apropos of Nothing, Incredible Hulk: What Savage Beast, Star Trek: Q-Squared and Star Trek: Q-in-law. David is also busy writing movie novelizations, including the ones for Spider-man 1-3, Fantastic Four 1-2, Iron Man, both Hulk movies and Batman Forever (don’t judge, it’s great). David has also written several original novels like his King Arthur trilogy. And yes, I read every single book I just listed above.

So naturally, in the late ’90s, while digging around the Internet, when I found out that David wrote a werewolf story in 1988 called Howling Mad, I was thrust into a quest. I decided I must have that book as I loved both werewolves and Peter David. At this time, finding old books wasn’t as easy as logging onto Amazon or eBay and just buying it. If your local bookstore didn’t have it, odds are, Amazon would list it, but not have it in stock and eBay was still hit or miss for most things. So I went looking for it by pounding the pavement. For several years. Luckily, around 1999, the book was re-published along with another older David book, Knight Life, the first in his Arthur trilogy. I bought both books and read them. And loved them. Howling Mad, especially.

David’s take on the classic werewolf story is intriguing. A werewolf hunts in the Canadian woods. During one of his hunts, a regular gray wolf stumbles upon the werewolf and his kill. The werewolf attacks and nearly kills the wolf. The regular wolf barely escapes after being scratched and bitten. During the next full moon, the wolf turns into a man. The book follows this “man-wolf” on his adventures into an insane asylum, getting shipped to a NY city zoo, being found by a single woman who tries to ignore her feelings towards the mysterious man and helps him find the werewolf that originally turned him. Through all this the wolf tries to adjust to his changing into a human man and interacting with the human world.

Like I said, it’s a fun and clever story that takes the werewolf tale and turns it on its ear. The book is short, just barely reaching 200 pages thanks to a page and a half epilogue at the end and it’s funny. While not being as uproariously good as I remember, it’s definitely worth a read.

However, as for David’s entire oeuvre, I would still recommend his original novel Sir Apropos of Nothing before this as well as his Star Trek books Q-Squared, Q-In-Law and Imzadi.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

Flipping through the Back to the Future Official Book of the Complete Trilogy

Posted in Back to the Future, books, movies, pop culture with tags Back to the Future, books, movies, pop culture, Time Travelogues on June 30, 2010 by Paxton

Back to the Future turns 25 years old this week. It was released on July 3, 1985. This week on the Cavalcade of Awesome we are celebrating this anniversary with several Back to the Future related articles. On Monday I discussed the Back to the Future Official Souvenir Magazine. Today we are looking at the Back to the Future Official Book of the Complete Trilogy.

The cover for the official book of the trilogy is above. It was published in 1990 to coincide with the release of Back to the Future Part III (which celebrated its 20th anniversary this past May). As far as I know, Part II and Part III did not receive an official souvenir magazine like the original Back to the Future. The closest we got would probably be the Back to the Future Fan Club newsletter which I discussed back in May. So, with the release of the final movie in the trilogy, Universal compiled this “souvenir book” and had it cover all three Back to the Future movies. The articles and pictures in this book are what you would normally find in a souvenir magazine, but here it’s on a nicer paper stock and bound in hardback.

The book is chock full of on-set pictures and details about the making of one of the greatest trilogies of all time. The book has a lot of the photos from the Back to the Future souvenir magazine but it also includes lots of pictures from the other movies. One of the cooler articles in the book is a two page spread on the Mattel Hoverboard (click the image to make it bigger and easier to read).

This page is a great resource for one of the trilogies most memorable, and controversial, props. The text describes how they filmed the famed hoverboard chase in downtown Hill Valley 2015. The chase was filmed in at least five different ways and no two consecutive takes were done the same way. Some takes were done with the actors suspended from wires with the board attached to their feet, other takes required the actor to stand on a board that was suspended from wires. Still other takes required a crane rig with a steering wheel to be piloted by a crew member while the actors were suspended from a harness. This last one was used to execute turns and spins while on the hoverboard. It’s amazing the amount of work that went into this one sequence. The page even makes a mention of the infamous Zemekis interview in which he stated that hoverboards were real and the only reason we didn’t have them was because parent groups were blocking their distribution. This, of course, resulted in kids all over the world to lose their damn minds over the idea that parents were actually keeping something as awesome as a hoverboard from becoming a reality. For years afterwards kids wondered, “Why? Why, if my parents loved me, would they not want me to be happy. Because clearly, I won’t be happy until I have a f’n HOVERBOARD!!!” Zemekis eventually had to crush all the kids’ hopes and dreams of a happy life by telling them that he was, in fact, lying and hoverboards are not real. And neither is the Easter Bunny. Or Santa. Now get a job.

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The 10 Strangest and Most AWESOME Choose Your Own Adventure books

Posted in books, pop culture with tags books, Choose Your Own Adventure, pop culture on March 31, 2010 by Paxton

At the end of last week I talked about the genesis of the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Doing that research I stumbled across a bunch of my old books as well as a bunch of other books from Demian’s Gamebook Website that were, to say the least, wacky. I had forgotten some of the books even existed. It is amazing all of the different zany and offbeat stories and book covers you can find in all of these books.

Today, let’s take a look at 10 of the strangest and most awesome Choose Your Own Adventure books.

(via Demian’s Gamebooks)
#63 Mystery of the Secret Room (1986) – Could they have come up with a more boring or generic name? How about Secret of the Mystery Room? Room of the Mystery Secret? And is it just me or does this cover look familiar? Maybe JK Rowling borrowed this title for her second Potter book and the artwork for her third Potter book. Generic mystery/secret + noun titles abound in this series. Check out #141 The Secret of Mystery Hill.

#155 Ninja Cyborg (1995) – Yes, AWESOME! I don’t see how the story could live up to the bad ass title and cover but I give Jay Leibold credit for totally going there. A cyborg that is also a ninja. This exists and it is bad ass. Question: Am I the ninja cyborg or am I fighting the ninja cyborg? Points taken away if I’m fighting the ninja cyborg, but points given back if I’m also a bad ass ninja master. Who’s the dude in the blue tights in the background?

(via Demian’s Gamebooks)
#41 Search for Mountain Gorillas (1985) – When I’m grabbing a book for a choose your own adventure, the last thing I want to read about is the majestic mountain gorilla. Unless, of course, said gorilla is a super strong mutant gorilla that has gone insane and started murdering a bunch of campers and/or scientists. THAT is a gorilla I want to read about. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. This is, essentially, the novelization to the movie Gorillas in the Mist starring Sigourney Weaver. And I cannot fathom ever wanting to read that. EVER.

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The Origin of the Choose Your Own Adventure books

Posted in books, nostalgia, pop culture with tags books, Choose Your Own Adventure, nostalgia, pop culture, reviews on March 25, 2010 by Paxton

(via Something Awful)

I grew up loving Choose Your Own Adventure books. All of the different series were fun; Find Your Fate, Time Machine, Which Way. They all had interesting stories, some of them completely insane, and were fun to read. Shawn over at Branded in the ’80s has been reviewing a bunch of his off the wall, zany Find Your Fate books and it got me excited to finish this article I started over a year ago. Let’s take a look at how the whole “Choose Your Own Adventure” genre started. And, surprisingly, it started with one man, Edward Packard.

While telling stories to his kids, author Edward Packard came up with the idea of writing a book that the reader chooses how the story progresses. In 1969 he would take this idea and write Sugarcane Island. Packard, at first, could not find a publisher who would print the book. However, in 1976, Vermont Crossroads Press bought it and printed the book which is now considered one of the first gamebooks ever published.

(via Demian’s Gamebook Page)

For the first printing, Sugarcane Island was released under the banner, The Adventures of You (on left). Its plot has you, the reader, aboard a ship that is wrecked by a huge wave and you must survive on an isolated and very dangerous island. After being published in the Adventures of You series, Sugarcane Island was published under the Which Way banner (middle) in 1982. Then, in 1986, it would finally come under the popular Choose Your Own Adventure banner (right), which was created by Packard.

After Sugarcane Island, Packard published two more stand-alone gamebooks called Third Planet From Altair and Deadwood City. The first was a Sci-Fi adventure giving the reader the task of determining the origin of extraterrestrial messages. The second was a western casting the reader as a drifter into the town of Deadwood City looking for a job and finding adventure. Neither of these stand alone gamebooks were as popular as Sugarcane Island. Even though these two books were stand-alone, they both contain the phrase “choose your own adventure” on their covers and are considered the “unofficial” beginning of Packard’s Choose Your Own Adventure series. Both Deadwood City and Third Planet from Altair would be reprinted under the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) banner years later.

(via Demian’s Gamebook Page)

A separate writer, RA Montgomery, wrote a second book in the Adventures of You series called A Journey Under the Sea in 1977. Subsequently, this was to be the last book in the series, however it would also be reprinted under the CYOA banner.

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