This one I read because (surprise!) of the TV series of the same name with Richard Chamberlain in the main role.

The novel takes place at the dawn of the 17th Century in Japan. Captain-Pilot John Blackthorne has landed/stranded with his ship, the Erasmus, there and now has to find a place within the Japanese Samurai society. And the few Europeans don’t make it any easier for he is a Protestant Englishman and they are Catholic Spaniards and Portuguese…

What surprised me the most was the fact that the series stayed very close to the book – most of the time these two drift apart. Still the book was way more detailed and can provide a view that a movie/series can only to a certain extend: To give a view directly into the heads of the characters and thus a better understanding what their motivation and drive is.

The book is relatively large with its 1226 pages (in German) but since I managed to read 350 pages on Saturday before last I can assure you that it’s very readable – even though you might need a list of the different characters, otherwise you might find yourself in the position of asking yourself “Who was Kiributso-san again?”.

To get a deeper understanding of the characters is also the reason why I read novelizations from time to time. Most often they are just a summarization of what you’ve already seen on the screen.
But they also contain scenes which weren’t shot after all or which were cut in the editing room. And by being a book they can use a narrative style that wouldn’t work on the screen.

That’s the reason I bought these four books: Total cost: 1.81€ (plus 12€ shipping) – I love Amazon Marketplace when it comes to English books.

(0.68€) (1.11€) (0.01€) (0.01€)

I’ve already read Smallville: Arrival which is based on the pilot episode and is way more detailed in the time between Clark’s landing and the start of the now-timeline. As it happens to have only 147 pages you can read it nearly as fast as you can watch the pilot…

Then I’ve read Batman Begins which is unfortunately very script-based. Granted the time between him leaving Gotham and the destruction of the Monastery is more detailed and they managed to explain Ra’s al Ghul’s motivation better, but as soon as the book covers movie scenes it’s only a narration of what happened on the screen.

For the bathtub it’s still OK.

A really good novelization is Babylon 5: In the Beginning, written by Peter David – who also wrote many Star Trek novels (which is the reason I have hope for the Spider-Man novelization written by him). And that’s the book I’m currently reading:

LOST 6×04 The Substitute
This episode was much better. It didn’t give us many answers (if you consider the association of numbers and names an answer at all) but it’s a start and the off-island story was much more interesting (especially with seeing Katey Sagal again). It’s funny to see how they all still manage to run into each other even though they never met.
Locke and Smokey-Locke were both great and I long to find out what this is all about.

Life Unexpected 1×05 Turtle Undefeated
Ended well again. What a surprise. Since this season has only 13 episodes I’m probably going to watch it completely – one has to give a show a chance after all – but so far I still don’t think this is a show I’m going to watch for years.

Human Target 1×06 Lockdown
It was nice too see Alias’s Marshall Flinkman again – and again in a role as tech-savvy developer. I also liked it that Chance’s back story is slowly becoming a part of the show. I suspect it will be a background-arc that pops up once in a while just like Beckett’s mum’s murder in Castle. We’ll see.

Leverage 2×15 The Maltese Falcon Job
Too bad the season is already over again. I liked Jeri/Tara on the team very much but now Gina/Sophie is back and that’s good too. At least I hope she is since I have no clue how the ratings were this year and whether the show will return. I certainly hope so. But I also hope they don’t pull this trick at the end of every year – the team falling apart I mean.

Burn Notice 3×14 Partners in Crime
It was nice to see the gang reconcile after the events from last week. It was also interesting because I can’t remember the last time Michael actually “lost” a client.
While Fi played her role as kidnapped girlfriend very good it was nothing against Sam’s “CSI: Caruso” impersonation and one-liners.

Smallville 9×13 Persuasion
I bet there are already some fan discussions out there about Clark being a terrorist who brings the Twin Towers down. While it looked funky, the moment you bring your logic part of the brain into this, ou realize there was no way he could make sure no one was getting hurt. Yes, there was a time component involved but by no means had he to destroy the build that instant in that fashion to save the day.
Still the episode managed it quite well to mix the serious Kandor storyline with the more funnier Valentine’s storyline.

Spartacus: Blood and Sand 1×05 Shadow Games
Slowly but steady something like a story is creeping into the show. But it is still mostly a blood fest with some titties thrown in for good measure. One could argue that the latter is an actual portrayal of these times but we all know why they do it in this show…

After I read that LOST’s Sawyer played in the Angel pilot, I had to look. Found him:

And Christian Kane also has changed quite a bit since these days:

CW 08-09

Synopsis: Stardate 64333.4 (2384). Federation ambassador Spock has been living on Romulus for 40 years now when he discovers a terrible threat to the planet and the entire galaxy: A star is about to become an uncontrollable supernova that will eat itself through the universe. But the romulan senate cannot be convinced and so Spock and the young mining captain Nero travel to Vulcan. They want to get the technology to stop the catastrophe from happening. But Spock isn’t welcome on Vulcan anymore but he has friends in high places: Federation ambassador Picard and Captain Data from the Enterprise. Can they prevent the catastrophe?

My Opinion: The comic is an easy read and is generally satisfactory. The characters are believable and that Data’s data was transferred into B-4’s body is acceptable. Nero’s hate towards everyone who signed the death sentence of his family is plausible. he was portrayed as a very emotional character from the start and he shows no mercy with the romulan Pretor, too.
Only the price of €14.80 is a bit steep if you consider that one can read the 100 pages in less than an hour.

Tomorrow I will go watch the movie in the theatre…

Synopsis: Rambo is a young man who wanders aimlessly over the land. He is a “drifter”. Rambo was in Vietnam, he enlisted to get to a better unit than he would have if he had been drafted. For his services over there he got the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Teasle is an older man who lives a quite life in his jerkwater town Madison, Kentucky. He is the Sheriff there. Teasle was in Korea. For his services over there he got the Distinguished Service Medal.
The Problem is: When these two clash into each other, neither will back down and a war starts in the heart of America.

My Opinion: The general story is known from the movie First Blood but the book (on which the movie is based – not vice versa) contains some important differences. For example: The story in the books takes place relatively shortly after John’s return from Nam. And in opposition to the movie Teasle isn’t the redneck, but both are very stubborn people who are embossed by their life’s experiences. The book always switches the perspective from Rambo to Teasle and again to Rambo und one isn’t as biased towards Rambo as one is in the movie. That also due to the fact that Rambo wreaks havoc in the book – none of the people who follow John to the ravine will return home alive.
The book is easy to read and it’s always clear what is happening and where it is happening. I liked it.

It’s a Long Road – Dan Hill

It’s a long road
When you’re on your own
And it hurts when
They tear your dreams apart
And every new town
Just seems to bring you down
Trying to find peace of mind
Can break your heart
It’s a real war
Right outside your front door I tell ya
Out where they’ll kill ya
You could use a friend
Where the road is
That’s the place for me
Where I’m me in my own space
Where I’m free that’s the place
I wanna be
‘Cause the road is long yeah
Each step is only the beginning
No breaks just heartaches
Oh man is anybody winning
It’s a long road
And it’s hard as hell
Tell me what do you do
To survive
When they draw first blood
That’s just the start of it
Day and night you gotta fight
To keep alive
It’s a long road …

So I decided to order a batch of new stuff.

These are the Buffy / Angel comics that I already have:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future For You

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wolves at the Gate

Angel: After the Fall

Angel: After the Fall: First Night

And now I continue with

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Time of Your Life

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Predator and Prey

Angel: After the Fall: Volume 3

Angel: After the Fall: Volume 4

And outside the Buffyverse I ordered

Star Trek: Countdown

This is the comic that sets up the new movie and since a few people have said one would understand Nero’s character better if one reads this first, I decided to do so.

Heroes: Volume One

Heroes: Volume Two

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns

Battlestar Galactica
by Jeffrey A. Carver

Synopsis: Adama is about to retire. The Galactica is about to be decommissioned. The Cylons are about to return. The Twelve Colonies of Kobol are about to destroyed. Mankind is about to be wiped out. Fortunately only two of those “about to”s will come true. Unfortunately those two will decimate mankind down to 50,000 people – and that’s it.

My Opinion: It’s the novelization of the mini series and it follows the script very closely, including the jumps between the several plot locations (Galactica, Caprica, Colonial One, …). I’ve read better and worse novelizations, a better one would be Babylon 5: In the Beginning and worse ones would be the original Star Wars trilogy.

The Cylons’ Secret
by Craig Shaw Gardner

Synopsis: 20 years since the Cylons have left the colonies and 20 years until they will come back. Adama has rejoined the forces and is now Colonel and the XO of the Battlestar Galactica. He has managed to get Tigh on the ship where he serves as Viper pilot instructor.
Tom Zarek on the other hand is a member of a scavenger ship. One day they stumble across a research station on a planet far away from the colonies. There they are still conducting research on and with (original) Cylons. Neither party knows that there are beings who closely follow that research and that they have a great interest to keep that station “off the radar”.

My Opinion: Not that interesting in my opinion. The text is easy to read and the story is pretty much straight-forward. Who the mysterious beings might be isn’t much of a guesswork when you know the series and the number of different lifeforms in the BSG universe. The author didn’t contradict the canonical history to the best of my knowledge. But that also means that he didn’t tell us anything new about them – at least not very much.

Sagittarius is Bleeding
by Peter David

Synopsis: The story of this book is set between the second season episodes Black Market (2×14) and Scar (2×15). President Roslin has weird hallucinations. She sees Sharon Valerii everywhere. Has this something to do with the fact that she’s got the blood of Sharon’s unborn child to heal her cancer? She can’t sleep and when she does – or even when she’s awake – she gets a message: “Sagittarius is bleeding”.
One of the ships in the fleet, the Bifrost, belongs to the Midguardians, a group of heathens who does not believe in the Lords of Kobol. They ask for permission to be recognized as 13th Colony of Kobol – or as 14th, if you count Earth. And they can offer something in exhange.

My Opinion: This was an interesting read. I like books from the author – Peter David – who has also written books in the Star Trek and Babylon 5 (and other) franchises. It didn’t became clear until the end what exactly the Midguardians were planning and all the characters behaved like they would in a TV episode. OK, we’ve never heard of these Midguardians before and probably never will again but in a fleet of 50,000 indivduals who can know them all?
While I liked the book in general, I have one problem with a certain character – especially at the end of the book.
Spoiler (mark to read):
Boxey – who played a key role in this book (but wasn’t seen on the show for quite some time now) – is suspected of being a Cylon. Of course it was Baltar who has put him in the spotlight. That itself is not a problem. But the end clearly indicated that he is actually a human model and unless he doesn’t become the twelveth human model in the show this was a plot hole. The book is non-canon but I honestly don’t see the reason why Peter David did this. It wasn’t even necessary for the story.

Unity
by Stephen Harper

Synopsis: After having repelled another Cylon attack on the fleet, Starbuck finds a colonial escape pod in the debris of the Basestar. The famous rock star Peter Attis who was held by the Cylons is in it.
But Attis is bringing two “gifts”. For one thing he is a trojan horse of the Cylons’s. He brings a disease to the fleet and it is spreading fast. First the people start to babble nonsense and then it becomes terminal. But Attis also believes that he is the “Unifier”, a religious leader who can protect mankind from becoming extinct.

My Opinion: I’ve been sceptical fro quite some time because the author developed a story around Caprica-Sharon that wouldn’t fit into the official storyline. But he managed to create a conclusive solution so that it hasn’t any ramifications on the show. I also like the characterization of Kara and Gaius – it felt genuine, like they would behave on the show.
The religious conflicts within the fleet also seemed realistic, even though they are only a side issue on the show. That some people could start to believe that the Cylon god is the better one is a reasonable assumption considerig they barely survived an Armageddon.