Tiana's great and all, but what about Kida?

:)
Sure, I guess Tiana from Disney's The Princess and the Frog is the first African-American Disney princess... considering the fact that she and Pocahontas are the only ones who are American at all!

But Kida (Kidagakash) from Atlantis: The Lost Empire is a black princess, too - just not one that Disney likes to promote, for one reason or another. (Is it because of the resmblances to the anime Nadia the Secret of Blue Water?)

Personally, I consider Atlantis a highly underrated film. Then again, I do have a soft spot for steampunk, ensemble casts, Michael J. Fox, dorky linguists, conlangs and Mike Mignola. It's like a Disney animated version of Stargate, and for that I love it.

But for all the good PR Disney received for having a black princess in Princess & the Frog, you would think they would want to play up the characters of color that they already have!

Granted, Disney have a very questionable past as far as race is concerned, from Peter Pan's 'What Makes the Red Man Red?' to Lady and the Tramp's cringe-inducing Siamese cats. But Atlantis has a surprisingly diverse cast, including several well-rounded and entertaining female characters. It's definitely a forgotten gem in the Disney canon, to my mind.

Mockingjay Hypocrisy - Reading 'The Hunger Games'... from the Capital

Yes, it's true... Hunger Games mania is in full roar. And it's all a bit silly.

Don't get me wrong - when I read The Hunger Games, I fell in love with it too. Suzanne Collins hit upon a winner with it. It's a real page-turner, a quick read and I'm all for getting teens into reading - especially reading books with a kick-ass female protagonist in a not-so-distant-future dystopian United States.

The film came out, and it was remarkably faithful, but with it comes all manner of the problems that occur whenever something blows up into the mainstream -- including merchandizing, screaming fangirls, and hundreds upon hundreds of 'TEAM PEETA' Facebook statuses.

I'm in the middle of Catching Fire at the moment, and when I ran across this passage I couldn't help but laugh. We are the Capital, and most of us don't even realize it.

K.A. Applegate answers questions on Reddit

So Sean at the Intergalactic Academy is still doing his cracking Animorphs re-read series, and I've been catching up from them. In one of his posts he mentions something that I can't believe I missed out on - last April, Applegate posted an Ask Me Anything thread on Reddit - check it out. Ms. Applegate being something of a childhood hero of mine, this is an absolutely fascinating read.

It turns out Ms. Applegate's son is a Reddit user. The author answers many questions on a variety of topics relating to the Animorphs series, from pronouncing alien names ("Hork Buh-jeer") to the topic of ghostwriting (books 25-52 were all ghostwritten, but not the last two of the series nor any of the long 'Chronicles' companion books). There's also a flood of stories and thank-yous, from people my age just like me who became Readers (not just people who read, but people who love to read, 'Readers' with a capital 'R') because of the Animorphs. I have to say, reading these made me quite emotional, because I feel the exact same way. When I went into the bookstore and picked up the book with the funny cover because it looked cool, I had not the slightest idea what I was getting into, that I would be able to watch movies in my head with real, living characters, and soon enough I caught up with the series and dutifully went to the bookstore to pick up the new adventure each month, as if I were buying comic books.

It feels good to read that the influence that Katherine Applegate had on my life is similar to that of many other people, and it's also so nice to know that she treasures us, still to this day. I can remember when she would how Q&As on the Scholastic website while the series was still running, people would ask her about plot points and she would give answers -- 'What happens if a nothlit used the blue box a second time?' 'If you use the blue box a second time, you turn into Velveeta'. It's so lovely when an author is willing to interact with fans in that way.

Anyway, if you were ever into that series, or Applegate's other books (including Remnants and Everworld), the thread is well well worth a look.

Animorphs Re-read - going down memory lane

Sean at the Intergalactic Academy is doing a fantastic series of posts on an Animorphs Re-read - that's right, he's reading all of the Animorphs series by KA Applegate, one by one, and posting synopses and reviews. If you're of the same generation we are, and of a nerdy inclination, chances are you used to read these books. In the eyes of an adolescent sci-fi fan, they were awesome. Do they stand up to the test of time? Maybe...

Oh, you didn't know they were released with new covers? How awful...

Review: Perdido Street Station, China Mieville

I've been feeling weary of genre fiction lately. I used to be a huge sci-fi and fantasy buff, but the past few years I've been more in the mood for something more literary and... cerebral? I guess I just prefer nice writing over heroes and rocket ships. But, if you look hard enough, turns out I don't have to pick one over the other.

Perdido Street Station is, in a nutshell, about an overweight scientist in a fantastic city. But it's a thousand times more than that.

It has a million different plots and subplots, some of which get unsatisfactorily dropped partway through, some which disappear and then resurface long after you've forgotten about them. But it is the world and the characters that really shine in this work.

I'm inclined to describe it as fantasy, or urban fantasy at first, because it has magic and fantastic creatures, but it has shades of steampunk and science fiction as well. The universe of New Crobuzon is as vivid, expansive, and colorful as anything by Tolkien or C. S. Lewis, but even more interesting because technology mixes with magic and half a dozen alien races mingle together within one extraordinary city.

Most of the main characters aren't particularly likeable; they're all flawed in some ways and it adds an interesting dynamic to the story. Even though there are more 'alien' (in the book they're referred to as 'xenian' and it's not clear whether they're extraterrestrial or native) characters than human, they're all written with lifelike qualities and it's not until Mieville mentions wings or antennae that you remember the person speaking is not actually a 'person' after all.

I got out of Perdido Street Station exactly what I wanted from it - an enjoyable read, the way I used to enjoy science fiction and fantasy when I was younger. My tastes may have evolved from Orson Scott Card to Margaret Atwood, but I can still enjoy a good story with magic and monsters and fantastic elements. I'm relieved!

"I am compelled to worship this extraordinary presence that has silted into existence at the conjunction of two rivers. It is a vast pollutant, a stench, a klaxon sounding. Fat chimneys retch dirt to the sky even now in the deep night. It is not the current which pulls us, but the city itself, its weight sucks us in. Faint shouts, here and there the calls of beasts, the obscene clash and pounding from the factories as huge machines rut. Railways trace urban anatomy like protruding veins. Red brick and dark walls, squat churches like troglodytic things, ragged awnings flickering, cobbled mazes in the old town, culs-de-sac, sewers riddling the earth like secular sepulchures, a new landscape of wasteground, crushed stone, libraries fat with forgotten volumes, old hospitals, towerblocks, ships and metal claws that lift cargos from the water."

Length: 7/10 It's quite a thick volume, but it doesn't drag at all once you get into it. You just keep wanting more.
Grade: 95. Perdido Street Station is a gripping read, a beautiful world, and best of all just downright fun to read.

~Joy

Movie Review: The Time Traveler's Wife

Doing something a little different today because I recently went and saw the new film The Time Traveler's Wife. The film, starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams, is based on the novel of the same name by Audrey Niffenegger.

A few summers ago, over the course of three days, I devoured this monster 560-page romance-cum-SF novel, the very first novel of the author and only one to date. Her next novel, a ghost story by the name of Her Fearful Symmetry, is set to be released at the end of September.

The film version of The Time Traveler's Wife just came out, with a mostly starry cast and a bit of fanfare. How does it stack up to the novel that left me with summer reading whiplash?

The Time Traveler's Wife is, in a nutshell, a time travel story and a love story like nothing you've ever seen. It's a classic story of true love with a very large twist. It's incredibly hard to explain -- Every time I try to explain the plot of this novel to someone, I am met with blank stares. Sorry. Basically, my advice is to read the book, then you'll understand.

The movie version of The Time Traveler's Wife manages to remain more faithful than most movie adaptations I have seen. Much is cut, but little is changed and the soul of the story remains intact. The emotional impact is somewhat lessened on the screen, but... well, I still cried.

Reading the book The Time Traveler's Wife, I spent three days spending 40 years (give or take) with the characters, feeling the love between them and living their lives with them. The movie manages to fit the plot into a scant 100 minutes, leaving me feeling rushed and like something was missing. You can't do a massive book like this justice in just an hour and a half.

The acting was wonderful, particularly the adorable child actor portraying Alba. The only time I felt pulled out of the world of the movie was seeing Ron Livingston (of Office Space fame) in the role of Gomez - an important character in the novel, reduced to a face and a name in the movie. All characters who are not Eric Bana or Rachel McAdams get precious little screen time in the movie, because the movie has no room for anything but the main couple's relationship.

Length: Too short. There's a lot to the book that made it such a gripping read, that stuck with me long after I had finished reading it. The film was very enjoyable, and very good, but somewhat forgettable. I don't think people will be talking about it years later.
Grade: 89/100. Scores better than most adaptations of novels. The filmmakers committed no mortal sins. However, it really should have been longer.

~Joy