His Dark Materials Episode 03: The Spies

November 18, 2019 by Ronan Wills in TV, Polar Bear Month

Blogger note: Apologies about the short post last time folks, I was having a major flare-up of my neurological symptoms. That’s thankfully passed now.

As I’ve said multiple times previously, the opening parts of Northern Lights were always going to be the hardest to adapt. The first two episode of the BBC’s His Dark Materials series did a good jump of overcoming the hurdles, albeit with some stumbles on the way. Now that the set-up is out of the way the third episode dives headfirst into the adventure, and the results are very positive indeed.

His Dark Materials Episode 02: The Idea of North

November 12, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Polar Bear Month, TV

After a first episode that stuck mostly to the source material, it’s time to get a little wild in an exciting but uneven follow-up.

His Dark Materials Episode 01: Lyra's Oxford

November 05, 2019 by Ronan Wills in TV, Polar Bear Month

IT'S POLAR BEAR TIME Y'ALL

Well, not quite. First we need to head to Oxford.

The first episode of The Beeb's big-budget His Dark Materials adaptation is finally out. I'm going to be covering every episode, with each post consisting of a review (for normal people), followed by a more in-depth analysis (for awesome people). The analysis sections will contain spoilers for both the episode in question, future episodes, and all of the books (and thus potentially the entire rest of the series, depending on how closely it follows the source material), but the reviews won't spoil anything besides the current and previous episodes.

With that out of the way: what did I think of the first episode?

The Book of Dust Volume One: La Belle Sauvage

November 02, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Books, Polar Bear Month

As outlined in the epic-length His Dark Materials post I wrote years ago, after the publication of the His Dark Materials trilogy Phillip Pullman planned to put out three additional books. The first two—Lyra’s Oxford and Once Upon A Time In The North—were short stories (very short, in the case of the former), published in neat little hardbacks and with supplamentary material that gave some little insights into the HDM setting. The third book, The Book of Dust, was intended to be a more substantial collection of short stories focusing on various characters and time periods.

Fans waited patiently for it. And waited. And waited. After well over a decade of waiting (and following the failure of the Golden Compass movie), most people had resigned themselves to the fact that it was never coming out, despite Pullman talking about it fairly regularly in interviews. Then something happened to reinvigorate the HDM fandom: the new BBC TV series was announced.

I don’t have any evidence that the show’s green-lighting had anything to do with The Book of Dust finally emerging from hibernation, but I find it interesting that the first volume was released a few months before the first wave of concrete details—like a cast—was announced.

Regardless of how it happened, The Book of Dust is finally making its way to us as a trilogy that takes place both before and after the first three His Dark Materials novels. As we all know, prequels and sequels to beloved franchises are always a sure bet, pleasing both the ardent fanbase and the pop-cultural landscape at large. Let’s see what the first one is like.

Introducing Polar Bear Month

October 29, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Admin, Polar Bear Month

Now that my self-indulgent October series is finished, it’s time…for another self-indulgent blog series!

A certain TV show I’ve been anticipating for a long time is beginning on the 4th of November. Starting a few days later (I’m away from internet access on the day of the premiere), I’ll be reviewing every episode in far more depth than any sensible person could ever possibly want or enjoy. Since there’ll be eight episodes, that should take us right up to the end of the year (with polar bear month, you get two months for the price of one).

But wait, there’s more! I’m also going to be posting reviews of La Belle Sauvage and The Secret Commonwealth, the two currently-available volumes of The Book of Dust.

But wait, there’s even more!

Actually no, that’s all I have planned for November and December. Anything else you get is going to be off the cuff.

Who Killed Missy Bevers?

October 25, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Spooky or Not

Here's a case that's popular with online sleuths, but has somehow not become more well known in mainstream circles, which is frankly astonishing since it includes some of the creepiest video footage I've ever seen. We're talking about a murder mystery where we have extensive footage of the perpetrator at the scene of the crime, and yet the case remains unsolved more than three years later. If police have any leads, they have yet to inform the public.

Spooky or Not: The Dissapearance of Asha Degree

October 20, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Spooky or Not

Among weirdos who spend a lot of time online theorizing over unsolved mysteries, most have a “pet case” that we they come back to again and again. One such case that some people keep coming back to is the disappearance of nine year old Asha Degree in 2000. It is, in my opinion, easily among the most baffling in the annals of American missing persons cases and deserves far more attention than it gets.

Spooky or Not: The Abduction of Betty and Barney Hill

October 15, 2019 by Ronan Wills

Here's a story you've heard before: a person or persons is driving along a remote highway in America late at night. They haven't seen another car in quite some time. A mysterious light appears in the sky and follows them. They're struck with a sense of terror and dread, which only increases when the light gets nearer and they realize it's some sort of craft. Then they suddenly wake up, their car stationary by the side of the road, with no recollection of stopping the car or falling asleep. Several hours have passed unaccounted for. Vague, unsettling memories circulate in our hapless protagonists' heads and they go home with a lingering sense that something bad has happened.

As I said, you've heard all of this before. What you may not know is that this story didn't percolate out of the collective unconsciousness in bits in pieces. The archetypical alien abduction story has a defined origin point: the abduction of Betty and Barney Hill.

A Quiet Place

October 12, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Movies

If you’ve been paying attention to the horror scene lately, you’ll know that A Quiet Place ushered in a bold new creative direction for the genre: movies about monsters that kill you if you do a certain thing. This is an idea that’s just rife with potential. So far we have A Quiet Place, which is about monsters that kill you if you make noise, Bird Box which is about monsters that kill you if you look at them, and The Silence which is about monsters that kill you if you, uh...make noise.

Maybe it doesn’t have that much potential after all.

Spooky or Not: The Yuba County Five

October 09, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Spooky or Not

You’ll frequently find this story referred to as the “American Dyatlov Pass”, named after the infamous Dyatlov Pass incident where a bunch of people in Russia were killed in an avalanche and then the story got embellished into something unnecessarily sinister. Unlike Dyatlov Pass, the tale of the Yuba County Five is actually mysterious and has a lot of genuinely eerie details.

The Fisherman by John Langan

October 06, 2019 by Ronan Wills

Despite making fun of the guy several times on both this and my previous blog (and on twitter, and about once or twice a month in real life), I have nothing against Stephen King. I even like some of his work. It’s just that he’s one of the most famous and most popular authors in modern history, and he has a collection of quirks and recurring foibles that are very easy to mock.

This is all preamble in order to explain why the idea of a competent Stephen King imitation is something I’m drawn towards, rather than recoiling from.

Spooky or Not: Kenny Veach's Mystery Cave

October 04, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Spooky or Not

I swear this story is better than the title makes it sound.

Introducing: Spooky or Not

September 30, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Spooky or Not

As humans who exist in the universe, we all face a constant problem: identifying whether situations are spooky or not spooky.

What’s that strange rattling sound in the woods? Was that a person walking past the window? What’s up with that small figure you keep seeing way off in the distance, always watching but never approaching? How worried should you be? Is this stuff spooky, or not? Man, you don’t know! You’ve got other things to think about!

Don’t worry, friends. I’m here to help.

Over the course of October, I’ll be presenting you with a number of strange and mysterious true stories. Together, we’ll take them apart, examine them in detail and render a verdict: is today’s mystery…

Or…

What does it mean to be Certified Spooky?

Here, we’re delving into a great mystery. All of us can instinctively identify spookiness due to a sixth sense that evolved in the time of our ancestors, when we fought vampires and trolls or whatever. We know it when we see it. But how do we define it?

For the purpose of this blog series, spookiness is any part of a mystery that’s unusually strange, doesn’t seem to fit with the accepted explanation, has no explanation at all, seems to legitimately lead to a supernatural conclusion, or just generally makes you sit back in your seat and go “damn, that’s spooky.” It’s all very scientific.

In the comments, you can weigh in on whether you agree with my expert analysis. If you want, you can even present your own stories and mysteries, whether they happened to you personally or not. Just don’t make anything up. I’m watching you. Yes, all of you, simultaneously.

Forest photo by Rosie Fraser on Unsplash

Office photo by Nastuh Abootalebi on Unsplash (office)

Let’s Read World War Z pt. 10: Featuring Special Guest Appearance by Nelson Mandela

August 25, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Let's Read

Here it is, our final World War Z post!

For reasons outlined previously (the rest of the book doesn’t have a whole lot to discuss, basically), we’re going to end our look at Max Brooks zombie opus here. Don’t worry though, because we’re going out on easily the strangest and most ridiculous chapter of the book, as well as frankly one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen in a published novel. If you think I’m hyping it up too much, just wait.

Let's Read World War Z Pt. 9: Hoorah

August 18, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Let's Read, Books

I’m skipping quickly over another chapter that doesn’t have much of interest besides revealing that post-zombie Russia is now a “Holy Empire”, this being one of three things countries can be in the near future along with Federations and New Republics. The chapter after that opens in Barbados and talks more about how the carribean is an economic hot zone because the various island nations were able to mostly avoid zombies…somehow. We were told before that they can cross oceans and that infected ships were a vector to transport them around the world, but apparently none of that was a threat to small island countries with lots of hard to defend coastline.

Let's Read World War Z Pt. 8: Modern Times

August 06, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Let's Read, Books

Remember World War Z? It's back! In blog form!

Have I used that joke before? No one tell me if I have.

Play my Mario Maker 2 levels

July 31, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Video Games

I’ve been playing a lot of Mario Maker 2 for the Nintendo Switch. Here are some levels I made.

Airship Infestation - YLK-8W6-5HF

A fleet of airships has been infested with dangerous spiky bois! Can you survive to the end? Short and slightly tricky.

Mysterious Pipe World - MCV-9K3-WJG

Enter the mysterious world of pipes and uncover the many wonder contained therein.

One small step for a plumber - 0MW-TPQ-XGF

A hitorically accurate recreation of the Apollo 11 mission. Defeat the low-orbit space turtles that guard the upper atmosphere and dodge lunar squid to plant your flag.

Have you been making Mario levels? Leave your level codes in the comments if you have!

His Dark Materials trailer polar bearnalysis pt. 2

July 20, 2019 by Ronan Wills in Books, TV

New trailer! Longer than the first one! Let’s get into it!

Summer Anime 2019: Granbelm

July 16, 2019 by Ronan Wills in TV

If you’ve done more than glance at anime over the last thirty years, you’ve probably noticed two prominent genres: magical girl, represented in the west by Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura (released in English as “Cardcaptors” in an extremely ill-fated attempt to turn this into a show that would appeal to boys) and mecha or giant robot shows, known to westerners due to…a whole lot of things, but if you were watching anime during the late 90s/early 2000s boom years then you probably saw Gundam Wing before anything else.

These genres have been around for a very long time. They’ve become codified and stocked with tropes and cliches. They’re been deconstructed and reconstructed multiple times over. But what happens if you slam them together??? Well, you get Granbelm.

Summer Anime 2019: To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts & Dr. Stone

July 12, 2019 by Ronan Wills in TV

Part two of our summer anime extravaganze looks at To The Abandoned Sacred Beasts and Dr. Stone.