Just Finished Reading…Daughter Of The Deep by Rick Riordan. Penguin Random House Children’s. 2021

 I discovered this novel on social media by accident. I’d only read Percy Jackson, Magnus Chase and the first volume of Heroes of Olympus. Unlike his other works, Daughter Of The Deep is a standalone, although the ending does give the option of more volumes if he chooses to do that, after scratching this itch. 

The author writes an introduction saying that basically, this is something he had always wanted to write, since his childhood passion for Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. 

So, what if that novel was based on fact? Captain Nemo, that brilliant scientist, has descendants, Dev and Ana, whose parents died while looking for the submarine Nautilus. There are two boarding schools, the Harding-Pencroft Academy and the Land Institute, founded by people in 20,000 Leagues and The Mysterious Island. Apparently, Jules Verne had based his novels on interviews with them. The two schools have been bitter enemies for 150 years. 

When the senior students of the Land Institute attack and destroy the Harding-Pencroft Academy, the freshman students(Year 9 in Australia or the U.K)are about to head off on the school’s ship Varuna for a weekend’s tests to see which of them will be allowed to continue and which will go home. The school has a record of producing the world’s finest scientists and naval officers, so these are not just any fourteen and fifteen year olds. 

Ana’s older brother has apparently been killed with the rest of the students, making Ana the last descendant of Captain Nemo. She finds herself leader of a small crew of very bright teenagers. Can they find their way to the secret base? And what about the sentient submarine Nautilus? Will it accept Ana? 

It’s certainly clear that the author loves his subject. The characters are likable and include a cheeky dolphin, an orangutan chef who is a mad fan of TV baker Mary Berry and constantly playing The Great British Bake Off and a lovesick giant octopus. The Nautilus is a character in her own right and you had better be polite! 

Despite the serious background issues, such as losing family, there is also a lot of Rick Riordan’s quirky humour.

If you haven’t read Rick Riordan’s other books, it doesn’t matter as there is no reference to any of the teenage demigods in those, but this one might interest you in checking out some of those. Rick Riordan’s work has certainly got children interested in mythology and perhaps this will get some interest in classic science fiction. It is also different in that it has a female protagonist, something the author wanted to do. He has created some very good female characters in the past, but they aren’t usually the viewpoint characters.

Highly recommended, whether you have read his other work or not.

Just Finished Reading… Dissolution by C.J. Sansom. London, Macmillan, 2003.

 

Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer in the service of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister. The time is during the dissolution of the monasteries, when all the monasteries were shut down and the money handed over to the crown. 

There were commissioners sent to check out the abbeys and find reasons for closing them. But Matthew is sent to find out who murdered the last commissioner, slicing his head off and leaving the body in the monastery kitchen early one morning.

As far as Matthew is concerned, the place is corrupt, like other monasteries, and pretty much everyone he interviews has a motive for murder. The thing is, if it’s just a murder, why resort to cutting the victim’s head off? Why not just stab him or use poison? It takes him most of the book to figure that out and meanwhile, there are more murders, including one monk Matthew suspects…

It’s a moody piece of writing, reflecting the moodiness of the atmosphere at the abbey, which faces the marshes, impassable except to smugglers who know certain paths. The monks eat well, the abbot goes hunting, but in the end, the heads of the abbey don’t like each other very much and that affects the mood. The townsfolk nearby dislike them too. 

And to be honest, Matthew is not very likable, though he cares. He has a disability, his hunch back, and that affects his way of thinking, as he thinks nobody could possibly care about him. 

I will be interested to read the next book, to see how our hero pans out. 

Meanwhile, I’m going to watch the mini series on Disney+, which is based on this first novel. I thought I should read it first, so binged over the weekend. It’s definitely worth a read, and should be easily available in print book with the series on, and a lot of fuss over that; I had it in ebook, bought a while ago and never got around to reading it till now.

Sadly, the author has died recently, just before the mini series came out. RIP C.J Sansom!

A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! - concluding Thoughts

 So, my A to Z challenge is over for another year. Not many responses this year, but some new visitors to this blog, so welcome! I hope you will visit again before next year. I review books and films, mostly children’s and YA fiction, if that’s of interest to you.

I stuck to villains I’m familiar with, but it took a lot of looking up to refresh my memory, quite a few from a Villains wiki. It was very handy when I couldn’t think of a letter. There were plenty of X names, but none I knew, so I went back to extras.

Here is a link to the only time I didn’t have to cheat with X:

https://suebursztynski.blogspot.com/2021/04/a-to-z-blogging-challenge-2021-x-is-for.html

That was my 2021 theme, Greek Mythology, and the X involved Achilles’ immortal horses Xanthus and Balius. Click through and check it out.

Was the theme of Villains a good one? I enjoyed it, and I hope you did too.

See you for next year’s Challenge, and hopefully before. I’m reading some good stuff, which I will review.

A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! - Z Is For Zod, Zola and Zeus

Zeus. Public domain.

And now for my last villains post! First, General Zod, a villain from the DC film universe. I’ve only seen him in one film, Superman 2, though I believe he has a much longer background, and appeared in Smallville, a TV series about Clark Kent’s teenage years. I have only seen a few episodes of that show, so missed him there.

However, I prefer to stick to films, shows and books I’m familiar with, hope you don’t mind. Z is not an easy letter; there was one year in which I used it as Zzz, the sound of sleeping! 

So, General Zod turns up in Superman 2, along with his girlfriend Ursa and a henchman, Non. Actually, they appear briefly in the first Superman movie, with Christopher Reeve, in which they are sentenced, by Jor-El, Superman’s father, to life imprisonment in the Phantom Zone for their crimes. They vow vengeance. Of course they do! Villains do that. The Phantom Zone is a glassy thing that can be sent into space. Some years later, when Superman has sent a nuclear bomb out into space, it breaks open the Phantom Zone, allowing the super villains to escape. Somehow, of all the planets they might reach, Earth is it. 

Ironically, these are the only other Kryptonians to survive their planet’s destruction, and, once on Earth, they have the same powers as Superman, which certainly does make things hard on him!  

Deciding to conquer Earth, they combine forces with local villain Lex Luthor. When asked what he wants in return for his help, he remarks that he has always liked beach front property and asks for Australia! I saw this film with friends on the opening night here and we voted for Lex Luthor as Prime Minister to replace Malcolm Fraser…

In my favourite scene, the US President is forced to kneel to Zod. 

He groans, “Oh, God!”

“Zod,” corrects that villain.

Needless to say, Superman defeats them, using his quick wits, not merely his brawn.

Arnim Zola is a villain in the MCU, as well as comics, though I haven’t read those. To give you a blurb, with all the information, here is a link to his Wikipedia entry. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnim_Zola

He appears in two Captain America films, The First Avenger and The Winter Soldier. He had worked with Red Skull and the evil organisation HYDRA during the war, and later placed his mind into a computer. 

He appears in a first season What If …? episode, “What if…Ultron Won?” Clint Barton, Hawkeye, and Natasha Romanoff, the last surviving Avengers, after Ultron has wiped out pretty much everyone, find him in his computer in Moscow, and make him help. As it happens, he can’t, for various reasons, leading to the final episode of Season 1. 

Finally, I’ll do a short entry on the Greek god Zeus. Okay, a god. The king of the gods, no less, and father to most of those on Olympus. But not a nice person.

Mostly, it’s rape, all those nymphs and mortal women he finds and rapes, some in the form of an animal or bird. The only woman he respected enough to appear to her as her husband was Alcmene, the mother of Heracles. 

Often, his wife Hera punishes his victims and he does nothing to help them.

And it’s not only women. He carries off Ganymede, a young Trojan prince, who becomes his cup bearer, but it’s not for his skill at handling a jug of wine that Zeus wants him. 

Zeus, upon hearing a prophecy that he will eventually be overthrown by a son  with his first wife, Metis, swallows his pregnant wife to make sure it doesn’t happen. (Her first baby is Athena, the son was supposed to be her second)

He also condemns Prometheus, who has stolen fire for humankind, to be chained forever on a mountaintop, having his liver torn out and eaten by an eagle daily. Because he is, after all, a god and an immortal, it grows back overnight so it can be eaten again.

Prometheus is eventually rescued by Heracles, the son of Zeus, but not before he has suffered a lot. 

No, definitely not a nice person, if not considered an outright villain.

And that’s it for 2024, except my thoughts on this year. Hope you have enjoyed it. 

 

A To Z Blogging Challenge 2024 - Villains! - Y Is For Yellowjacket

 Another sort-of-cheat, but not really. “Yellowjacket” refers to inventor Hank Pym, the original Ant Man, who wears a yellow suit to shrink. Hank appears in three live action Marvel films, in which he definitely isn’t a villain, but also in an animated episode of Season 1 of What If…? It’s the third episode, titled What If…The World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes? 

In this, Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, is planning to recruit superheroes for his Avengers Initiative, but … each and every one of them is murdered as he meets them. Tony Stark is killed by a syringe. Thor is shot and killed accidentally by Clint Barton, Hawkeye, who dies in custody. Hulk blows up. Natasha Romanoff is murdered when she figures it out.

So, who is behind all this? 

It’s a grieving father wanting revenge on SHIELD, especially Nick Fury. In this alternative universe, Hank Pym’s daughter Hope was a SHIELD agent on a mission overseas when she was killed, instead of falling for new Ant Man Scott Lang and joining him as the Wasp, formerly her mother’s role. Hank uses his Yellowjacket suit to shrink and carry out those murders of potential Avengers. 

Okay, we can understand why he is upset, but what did those heroes do to him? Or even to his daughter? 

Loki comes to Earth with an army, to avenge Thor, and defeats Hank. Fury rustles up a couple of recruits who haven’t been killed.

There is another Yellowjacket villain, Darren Cross, who had once worked for Hank Pym, but tried to sell the Pym Particle formula on the black market. He put on the Yellowjacket, but shrank down way too far and ended up in the “Quantum Realm”, with an oversized head, where he was working for real supervillain Kang the Conqueror(Ant Man And The Wasp: Quantumania). Everyone had thought he was dead. In the end, he is reconciled to Pym.

The Villains Wiki which I consulted for this also mentioned the Yondu Ravager clan, which pillaged around the galaxy and was commissioned to steal living planet Ego’s children, including Peter Quill, who eventually became leader of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Yondu didn’t know, at the time, that Ego was killing off his children if they weren’t what he needed them to be.

I personally don’t think either Yondu or his followers were too villainous. Klutzy, maybe - in What If… T’Challa Became A Star Lord? they picked up the wrong kid, T’Challa, but brought him up anyway, as he was only too pleased to get out of his father’s kingdom and see the galaxy. They could have returned him. Yondu himself was okay with his adopted son becoming the Ravagers’ leader and changing their ways. The live action Yondu sacrifices himself for Peter. At the end of the third  film, alternative universe Gamora is a member of the group, her found family. So they can’t be that bad.

But worth considering. After all, they are crooks! 

Tomorrow the final post in this year’s A to Z. Hope you have been enjoying! 

A To Z 2024 - Villains! - X Is for eXtras

 In all the, the years I’ve been doing the A to Z Challenge, I’ve only had one occasion when I got a real X word - during my Greek Mythology posts. That’s because there are X words in Greek. The X post was about the immortal horses of Achilles, Xanthus and Balius. 

Every other year I’ve cheated with “Extras” which gave me the chance to slip in things I didn’t do last time, as there are only so many I can use in each post. This year will be the same.

So, just a few…

M is for Medraut and Minotaur

Medraut, or Mordred, is the incestuously born son of King Arthur. In Malory his mother is Arthur’s sister Morgause, the Queen of Orkney, wife of King Lot. His half brothers are Gawain, Gareth, Gaheris and Agravaine. Morgause sleeps with her brother, who doesn’t know they are related. Medraut ends up fighting his father and they kill each other in battle. He is responsible for wiping out the Round Table fellowship. 

He is in pretty much all of the Arthurian legends and retellings, because he has to be, but there are plenty of novels in which he is not really a villain, it just works out badly. For example,  Mary Stewart, author of the Merlin series, said that she had read an account which just said that Arthur and Medraut had died in a battle, not that they had been fighting on different sides. She would have liked to go with that but she had already established that they would be on opposite sides. But her Medraut was basically okay and tried unsuccessfully to prevent the prophecy from being fulfilled. For the most part, though, he is the baddie, as in the film Excalibur, in which the role was played by Robert Addie, who went on to play another villain, Guy of Gisburne, in Robin Of Sherwood. Before going off to fight his father, this Medraut kills his mother(played by a very young Helen Mirren). 

By the way, even Guy of Gisburne had a couple of novels in which he was the goodie and Robin Hood was the villain! 

The Minotaur is a creature from Greek mythology, son of Cretan Queen Pasiphae, who was also the mother of Ariadne who helped Theseus in the Labyrinth. King Minos had kept a white bull sent him by Poseidon for sacrifice, so by way of godly vengeance Pasiphae was made to lust after the bull. She had the craftsman Daedalus build her a cow she could hide in and… Anyway, the result was a bull-headed man, which Minos sent to live in the Labyrinth designed also by Daedalus, and fed with teenagers taken as tribute, until the hero Theseus killed it.

In Mary Renault’s The King Must Die, Minotaur was simply the title of the heir to the throne of  Crete, like the Prince of Wales, and his father was a Hittite bull dancer.  Theseus killed him anyway, while he was about to be crowned; he was the villain of that book. The Labyrinth was the name of the palace, not a place under it, so he didn’t have to hide there. 

C is for Carcer

Carcer is the villain of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel, The Night Watch. Usually the Discworld books are hilarious. This one is more serious than the others though it has some humour in it. 

Sam Vimes, hero of the City Watch novels in the Discworld series, time travels while chasing Carcer, who is a serial killer, who just kills for the pleasure of it. They both end up in their city, Ankh Morpork, thirty years before the time in which the series is set. Ankh Morpork was not at that time the likable place it became. The City Watch was not nice. There is corruption. There is killing. Carcer fits right in. Vimes, who remembers a mentor, a John Keel, who had arrived in the city to join the Watch, only he doesn’t, because the first thing Carcer does is murder him, so Vimes has to become John Keel and mentor his younger self. And deal with Carcer. And get involved with a rebellion… 

Fortunately he has the assistance of the History Monks, who specialise in time travel. But he has three days to do what needs to be done and get history back where it needs to be. 

Carcer gets his comeuppance. 

T is For Mr Teatime

Mr Teatime is another Discworld villain, in the novel Hogfather. The Hogfather is the Discworld  version of Santa Claus. Mr Teatime, a member of the Assassins Guild, is commissioned to kill him. His method involves ensuring he doesn’t exist, by removing belief in him. He is utterly insane and worries even the head of the Assassins Guild, Lord Downey. 

Fortunately for the future of the world, he is beaten by Susan Sto Helit, the granddaughter of Death, who in this world is a likeable skeleton, and taking over the Hogfather’s round, in a desperate attempt to keep belief going until Susan can fix it. 

Susan, a governess, fights the monsters under her charges’ beds with a poker. A poker that only kills monsters, so right through Death and into Teatime. 

See you on Monday for Y!