Susan Hated Literature

• Vin Diesel …. Shane Wolfe
• Lauren Graham …. Principal Claire Fletcher
• Faith Ford …. Julie Plumm

Terrible, terrible film. But then again we already knew that from the poster didn’t we. And the premise was horrible. I blame Copper-copper for asking me did I want to go.

Shane Wolfe is a navy seal who ends up babysitting some kids as their mother heads off to Switzerland to try and gain access to a security deposit bank. In the process she meets a person with the worst French-type accent I have ever heard. Ever. Yes, it was that bad.

Most of the film revolves around the humourous escapades of Wolfe as he attempts to teach these children discipline, and they in turn try to escape, before, eventually, coming to realise how great he is. Wolfe learns that family and love are great things. Sounds fantastic doesn’t it.

I suppose it isn’t all bad. I mean there are one or two laughs in it. The girl asking about Wolfe’s boobs stands out It is aimed at children and there were a fair few in the cinema who seemed to enjoy it.

So a while it was truely horrendous, maybe it wasn’t all bad. If you’re 7 years old.

IMDb site

Do you know why I really hate labels^[1], especially genre labels?
Well it is because everyone has their own definition of what fits a certain label, and they are only aware of what they know. Yet this lack of knowledge doesn’t stop them from commenting on the rest of their genre, or their relation to a particular genre.

It is a common theme of Dave Langford’s, and often comes up in his opinion piece in SFX. In his piece this month^[2] he tells us that Stephen Fry believes that Douglas Adams didn’t write any sci-fi and that Battlestar Galactica isn’t sci-fi, at least according to the Boston Globe.

So you’ll be glad to hear then that, although she doesn’t like fantasy, J.K. Rowling thinks she has subverted the genre in the Harry Potter books. But at least she admits she writes fantasy. And according to the article^[3] today in the Sunday Times she didn’t even realise that the first book was fantasy until after it was written.

So despite the fact that she hasn’t actually read all that much in the fantasy genre Rowling still thinks that she was trying to subvert the genre. Well, see, you can’t subvert something unless you have a vague idea what it is actually all about. So many people seem to think of fantasy as mindless escapism, with fairies and elves and oh-so-obvious bad guys and good guys that always win. And while books like that certainly exist they aren’t the only examples of fantasy. And sci-fi is not just Star Wars and Star Trek!

Of course there are a lot of sci-fi and fantasy clichés. The fact that something is a cliché means that it exists and is overused. That doesn’t mean they are the only forms of sci-fi and fantasy. Anyone who has read a fair amount of these genres will know that there are authors already out there subverting the cliches, and that HP is as far from subversion as it is possible to be.

This doesn’t mean I don’t like Harry Potter, but I don’t think it is earthshatteringly good either, it is a very readable entertaining children’s book.

[1] - I don’t really hate labels, I just hate them when they are used in a limiting fashion, and when the attitude seems to be, “oh, but that’s only *insert label* and so not worthy of anything” (back)

[2] -See As Others See Us, a previous example of Langford’s SFX columns. (back)

[3] - This article was previously published in Time and can be read online here

From Luna Nina

1. Believing::
2. Invasion::
3. Boys::
4. Island::
5. Repeatedly::
6. Normal::
7. Hex::
8. Tuxedo::
9. Virgin::
10. Cereal::

Continue Reading »

Author: JK Rowling

ISBN: 0747581088

SPOILERS for book 5, NOT for this book.

Book six in the series and I really should have reread number 5 before this one but I didn’t. Ah well, I’d say I have plenty of time to read the entire series again before the final book in the series is written and published.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince starts off in the muggle world, with the Prime Minister getting a visit from the wizard world, maybe Tony Blair will get a chance to have a little cameo in the film version, if he stays in power long enough. This allows for a brief recap of the events so far, just to refresh your memory. It also allows the reader to realise that Voldemort and the Death Eaters are having an impact on the ordinary world.

I read it one day, and when it finished I was felt a little disappointed by it, I’m not quite sure. I’ve never thought the writing in any of the books exceptional, but normally the plot is more than entertaining and sweeps you along until the book finishes and you are forced to wait around for the next instalment. In this case however I felt that everything was a little predictable.

As for who dies, well I’m not going to spoil it, but I will say that I don’t think Rowling does a good job of writing death scenes. Sirius was one of my favourite characters, but his death in the last book didn’t really have an impact on me. It is almost skimmed over, and there is a similar feeling here.

Overall the book is readable and entertaining, there are some great touches here and there, but all things considered this is just an okay read.

Flourish and Botts: for discussing all the HP books |

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