Matthew Hunter

Set in a richly realized world roughly analogous to the 1930s, Hard Magic diverges from known history with the discovery of many forms of magic accessible to relatively ordinary humans. The main character is known as a “Heavy”, someone with the capability to alter gravity and mass. Heavies are stereotyped as slow and stupid, if physically capable – but despite the book’s opening scenes in a prison for the supernaturally inclined, it rapidly becomes obvious that appearance isn’t everything and we’re dealing with a very smart cookie indeed.

Hellsing is a fairly unique take on the vampire mythos in anime. The art is done in an unusual style, more abstract than I would normally prefer, and somewhat repetitive. The characters are intriguing if occasionally hackneyed. Although it’s hard to pack much plot into individual episodes, due to time constraints and the need for cool visuals, there is a metaplot that develops throughout the episodes that looks to be going somewhere interesting.

I would not classify this as an adaptation of “I, Robot” for Asimov purists. Rather, it’s an action-adventure set in Asimov’s universe that happens to draw upon some of the characters from the stories. But as a stand-alone story, it’s remarkably well done, better than most of what Hollywood produces by leaps and bounds. If the success of Lord of the Rings inspired this movie to cash in on the perceived new market, it worked and it worked well.

Innocence is a sequel to the popular anime Ghost in the Shell. And it’s a sequel that gives the lie to sequelitis: Innocence may even surpass it’s predecessor. Fans of Ghost in the Shell will recognize Batou, who returns in the sequel as the solemn, philosophical cyborg cop. Since the disappearance of the Major, his partner, he has withdrawn further and further into himself. He’s assigned a new partner and put on a case involving robots that are killing their human owners and committing suicide.

The one-line review is that Interstellar is the movie that 2001 should have been. It has a mysterious anomaly orbiting Saturn, a realistic depiction of a space mission to investigate and explore. But it also has so much more: incredible, moving performances from the leading actors and actresses, an emotional investment on both the personal and the species level, strange and wonderful and terrible things to find, and a powerful human drama that plays out across that background.

Having crossed the Sea of Aboqua, Etjole Ehomba and his companions must find passage west across the Semordria Ocean somewhere in the Thinking Kingdoms. Though these kingdoms are supposed to be (and in some ways are) bastions of civilization, they harbor their own unique man-made hazards. Surmounting obstacle after obstacle, the story remains fresh only in the strangeness of the situations; Etjole’s seeming invulnerability lends a faery tale quality to the writing that some might term ‘shallow’.

The best way to understand the world of Vlad Taltos, assassin, is to begin with the knowledge that he works almost exclusively for the elvish mafia. Yes, there are elves in the mafia. There’s also magical pollution, talking lizards, and lots of good swashbuckling fun.

Told in a particularly dry and witty voice, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel chronicles a brief resurgence in English magic, thanks to the queer friendship and rivalry between the two most prominent English magicians of the Napoleonic Era. Fiction is woven so well into the rich tapestry of legend, myth, and poetry that it is impossible to discern where one leaves off and the next begins. Exquisitely footnoted with tidbits of tangential information, this is a fantasy novel for historians, and a history book for fantasists.

The creative exercise in this book is the cheap and easy creation of human ‘dittos’, copies of one’s mind complete with a body, albiet one that only lasts 24 hours. Once the life of a ditto is nearly over, its creator can inload its memories, effectively allowing people to experience multiple lifespans. Even the poorest people can create at least one ditto a day to earn a wage as an unskilled laborer.

Kindred: The Embraced is something I think was fairly unique in its time… a television series (or, arguably, soap opera) based on a roleplaying game. Specifically, based on White Wolf’s Storyteller system, the first game in which was Vampire: The Masquerade. As you might expect from such a humble beginning, this series wasn’t exactly the best thing on TV. Even so, it wasn’t awful. The series lasted for 6 episodes and was not renewed.