Review - The Wolfen by Whitley Strieber

The Wolfen is one of the classics of werewolf literature and was turned into a movie sometime in the 1980's, if I recall correctly. I saw the movie, thought it pretty mediocre and was not interested in reading the book for a long time.

Review - The Wolf's Hour by Robert R. McCammon

While looking for the ever elusive "good" werewolf novel, I heard about McCammon's The Wolf's Hour. And, what I read of people's opinions of it, I was immediately intrigued. A sample soon led to a purchase and I was devouring the novel at a speed I rarely achieve these days.

Review - The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice

I have a weakness for werewolf stories, especially the ones where werewolves are not depicted as all-out evil monsters/killers. Therefore, I picked up Anne Rice's The Wolf Gift with somewhat elevated expectations, even though I had been warned that it was not that great a story.

Pérez-Reverte's Pirates of the Levant

The sixth book in Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Alatriste series continues the adventures of the "Spanish musketeers". After having found themselves in a position at the end of the previous installment of the series where they deem it best to stay away from Spain for a while, Alatriste and his companions travel to Naples and take part in some very exciting sea adventures.

Alexandre Dumas' The Vicomte de Bragelonne

Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers is one of those novels that everyone sees as a must-read – or if they are not readers, then they have seen at least one film version of this classic tale. But when it comes to the two sequels in the d’Artagnan Romances, Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, even most readers are relatively unaware of them. I’ve previously written about the two first novels, and they are the ones I was familiar with from the past as well. The third novel in the series is a new experience for me, although I’ve seen parts of it turned into movies before – The Man in the Iron Mask, that is.

J.D. Davies' Gentleman Captain

There are many authors writing about the Age of Sail, but most of them concentrate their attention to the 18th century. The master of the Age of Sail genre is naturally Patrick O'Brian who brings alive the friendship between Captain Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in a way that has been never-before-seen in Literature. The only failing of the novels from my perspective is that they are set in the wrong century.

Alexandre Dumas' Twenty Years After

Whereas Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers has been turned into a plethora of movies and is read far and wide, its sequel, Twenty Years After, seems to be far less known. This really is a pity, for the novel is actually far superior to The Three Musketeers for several small reasons. In the modern day, when darker, grittier stories are preferred, Twenty Years After should really be increasing in popularity.

Attending the Hakkapeliitta Fair

The first weekend of August was once again the time to visit the Hakkapeliitta Fair - an event commemorating the Finnish light cavalry that served in the Swedish army under King Gustavus Adolphus during the 30 Years War in the early 17th century. It is practically the only occasion when we can put on our cavalier costumes and not get strange looks when we walk outside our apartment.

How to turn a great fantasy series into an exercise in boredom?

There are great works of fantasy, mediocre works of fantasy and bad works of fantasy. The great naturally include authors like J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Howard and Guy Gavriel Kay, while the mediocre include worthwhile authors the likes of Dave Duncan and Raymond E. Feist. The bad (but still published) authors are many and I will not name them here for fear of detracting the reader from the topic of this short article. But even worse than being bad are the authors who start well, but drop the ball somewhere along the way, just like Robert Jordan did with "The Wheel of Fire" series that came to a screeching halt after about the third novel and only recovered after the death of the author when another author finished the story for him (from about novel ten onwards).

Review of The Three Musketeers (1948)

Having read several people praising the 1948 version of The Three Musketeers as the best film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel, I decided to dig it up and watch it for myself. I think I've seen it before once, but that was when I was still in my single digits and the memory was mixed with all other swashbuckling films that I saw at that age. Thus, I decided that I needed to refresh my memory to make my own judgement of the film adaptations of the Dumas' novel.