TV and Books

No movies, due to the time constraints I mentioned yesterday. However we do have some TV of note—EAST OF EDEN was a 1981 adaptation of the Steinbeck novel (which I read recently) chronicling the story of the Trask family from patriarch Warren Oates in 1860s Connecticutt through the younger generation in the 19-teens (the part the James Dean movie covers) and their relationship with sociopathic prostitute Jane Seymour. The miniseries format works well for adapting such a sprawling story (though they left out Seymour’s final fate), and the cast is good, including Bruce Boxleitner, Lloyd Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Soon Teck Oh and a pre-Raiders Karen Allen (when they overlap the Kazan film, though, the superior talents of James Dean and Raymond Massie easily outstrip their counterparts). Well done and worth seeing. “Timshael!”

THE AMERICAN was Mark Verheiden’s fictional response to Oliver North getting away with his crimes in Iran-Contra (a Reagan administration scandal). The story concerns the American, a legendary Captain America-esque super-hero, and an alcoholic reporter who accidentally stumbles onto the discovery the American is a propaganda scam run by the U.S. government (which fakes most of his powers) and that the men behind the mask are motivated as much by profit as principle. Starts well, but the follow-up material to the original series wanders rather ineffectively.
JENNY FINN: Doom Messiah by Mike Mignola, Troy Nixey and Fabel Dalrymple is a Hellboy-esque tale of a young prostitute spreading terrifying mutations with those who lie with her—but as the title suggests, is she here on a mission of destruction or redemption? I’m planning to start rereading the whole Hellboy mythos in chronological order (which is not how they’ve come out); while this isn’t part of the series, it’s close enough I decided to kick off with it. Good, but a headscratcher of an ending.

(cover art by Chrissie Zullo, rights remain with current holder)
CINDERELLA: Fables are Forever by Chris Roberson and Shawn McManus is a big improvement over the first Cinderella TPB (Cinderella is a spinoff from the Fables series, a covert agent for Fabletown) cutting out the comic elements. The plot concerns decades of battle between Cindy and the assassin-for-hire Dorothy Gale (“Think of me as the Wicked Bitch of the West.”) who does black-op jobs for the “Shadow Fabletown” (a separate community of Fables I wish we’d learned more about). Lively, but so flashback-fueled it’s hard to keep track of which time period we’re in.
PALE HECATE’S TEAM: An Examination of the Beliefs About Witchcraft and Magic Among Shakespeare’s Contemporaries and His Successors is Katherine Briggs’ companion to Anatomy of Puck. Briggs does better this one, balancing the literary material with actual folk stuff as she looks at debates of the era such as whether witchcraft was real, a delusion of witches or a delusion of the accusers. Along with that are other topics such as the difference between witches and mages (mostly whether they pacted with devils or merely bound them), the practice of amateur folk magic and whether Robin Hood should be considered as some kind of mage/witch figure (her conclusion: No). Better, though still not a classic.
THE KINGDOM BEYOND THE WAVES is Stephen Hunt’s follow-up to the steampunk Court of the Air, a very Vernean tale of lost civilizations and imaginary voyages (I’m sure it’s no coincidence that one character is “Jules Robur”). The protagonist is a female archeologist unable to get backing for her quest for the lost city of “Camlantis” (some of Hunt’s names could use work). A multimillionaire British industrialist backs her new expedition, which has to face tribes of robot savages and sapient trees to succeed—plus it turns out the millionaire’s agenda is not what it appears (who’d have seen that coming?). Good entertainment.