The Silmarillion's cover.

The book itself is really a collection of intertwined stories depicting the beginning of Middle Earth (and life), and some of it’s major events. In other words, it’s the kind of story you’d get if you mixed the bible with history. A bible, because it clearly shows how life began, and who it’s creators were. A history book, because it retells the major events that shaped Middle Earth. Sounds pretty boring , huh?

Well, screw what it sounds like! This book is a work of art. I don’t care if you love fantasy or not, there would have to be something wrong with you to deny this book of being anything less than the masterpiece it is. The paperback may be small, but The Silmarillion is HUGE. Tolkien has really created something wonderful. There are vast generations and generations of names, places, and events. In fact, it’s so HUGE that there is an appendix in the back that lists all the names and places in the book (I swear, it must be a good 30 pages, or more). I constantly found myself keeping my bookmark in this appendix while reading. Don’t let that scare you, though. The only thing you need to worry about is if your imagination is big enough to take in Tolkien’s world.

Going back to The Silmarillion itself now. It does not have a single clear-cut story. It does not even have a single engaging plot. Instead it has many stories and many plots. And best of all, they all intermingle in some way or another. If you’re a Lord of The Rings fan, you’ll be interested in the coming of men, how the dwarves came to be, who Sauron was, and who the first dark lord was, to name a few. All of them are great. However, one of my favourite stories is that of between Lúthien and Beren. You want action? Adventure? And for the ladies, love? And I’m not just talking about any love. This is the kind of love story that will bring the burliest man to his knees weeping. Well, the story between Lúthien and Beren is all that, and more. However, this is just one of the many minor stories in The Silmarillion. Hah, I can’t believe I used the word minor. Every story just feels so damn huge and epic. It’s just that The Silmarillion revolves around Fëanor’s silmarills. Those are the three precious (more powerful than the One Ring, for you Lord of The Rings fans) jewels that Fëanor himself crafted. I don’t want to give away anymore, though. You can guess that someone probably either steals them or something else. I won’t give it away. I want you to experience The Silmarillion for yourself.

I could go on and on about this book, but I’ll stop here.

With that, I have a confession. I may have been a Tolkien fan, and a fantasy fan, and I may have gotten to this book eventually, but they aren’t my reasons for reading it. Blind Guardian, my favourite band, has an album entitled Nightfall In Middle Earth, and it’s entirely based on The Silmarillion. In an effort to understand the album’s lyrical content, I read this book. Every song is so much more beautiful now, thanks to that decision.

All in all, you’ll be doing yourself a favour by picking this book up. I don’t give linear reviews (4/5, 5/5, stuff like that), but if I did, there would be no scale to hold my score. Do not listen to anyone who says it’s a dry read. Their imaginations aren’t large enough. And there is a quite of bit of people who think this book is quite boring. Remember, don’t listen to them. I assure you, it’s not. I mean, I don’t often give praise for something unless it’s good. Really good. And I couldn’t have made up all the stuff I just said. In fact, I’ll prove it to you, with this closing sentence:

I look forward to the day that I begin reading it again.

Sunshine movie poster.

Let me say some nice things first. I love the gotta-save-humanity-before-time-runs-out theme. And this was exactly what Sunshine was about. Sunshine’s description even reminded me a lot about The Core. The only difference is that The Core was a wonderful movie. In The Core the hot spinning metal that surrounds the Earth’s core was slowing down, making the Earth’s magnetism weaker. All you physicists should know that spinning hot metal creates magnetism. As the magnetism became weaker, the atmosphere started giving away, little by little. Eventually, with no atmosphere the Earth would be scorched by the Sun’s radiation. To make a long story short, they dug a hole into the Earth and made the hot metal start spinning again. Not plausible, but certainly a very entertaining movie.

In Sunshine, there is a similar scenario. The sun is dying. And again, all you scientists should know that if the sun dies, we do too. First the sun shrinks to a very small size (a dwarf star), then it expands into a red giant, possibly engulfing the Earth. And if the Earth doesn’t become engulfed by the sun, it’ll certainly be burned to a crisp by it. The difference between The Core and Sunshine is that Sunshine’s story will happen. Yes, you heard right. The sun will die one day, and with it we will too. However, this is billions of years from now. All Sunshine did was fast-forward this doom-scenario to our time (maybe 2050, or something like that, I didn’t hear).

Humanity is doomed. A group of astronauts and scientists are sent aboard a ship called Icarus 2 to “restart” the sun. “Restarting” the sun consists of dropping a nuke with the mass of Manhatten into the sun. Apparently, the resulting explosion will give birth to a new star within the sun, thus saving humanity from extinction. Interesting, I must say. But again, not very plausible.

In any case, one by one, things start to go to hell on board. They lose their captain early on, and it just goes downhill from there. Oh, I didn’t tell you about Icarus 1. Apparently, the first attempt to restart the sun failed. The ship that made the first attempt was Icarus 1. Well, guess what? Icarus 2 finds Icarus 1! To make a long story short, they find the crew onboard the Icarus 1 dead. After 7 years, they would be. Everything makes sense so far. Then this is where the movie loses me. The captain aboard the Icarus 1 isn’t actually dead, but instead is some super-human zombie. The point is, he is still alive. And he sabotages Icarus 2’s voyage to deliver the nuke into the sun. Or at least, he tries to. Again, to make a long story short, the crew (actually one guy now, since everyone is dead) manages to successfuly restart the sun by sacrificing himself. Icarus 2 is no more. But! Humanity is saved thanks to his courages efforts. The nuke has restarted the sun, w00t! We get to live!

*sigh* I really didn’t like this movie. A lot of it didn’t make sense. Most of it, like my good friend Scott pointed out, was more artistic than anything. What really made me mad (the whole movie actually made me mad, but thats besides the point) was how the nuke exploded. It stopped right in front of the guy. Then Kappa (I think that was the guy’s name) stuck out his hand in front of the nuke. I get what they’re trying to do with this scene. It’s pretty powerful, but it makes no damn sense! When something explodes (especially a nuke), it EXPLODES! It doesn’t just magically stop half way because a human being is in front of it! Argh!

All in all, save yourself an hour and change, by NOT watching this movie. It really isn’t worth it. If you’re a sci-fi fan, you’ll be sorely disappointed. If you’re – no wait – if you’re a human being capable of rational thought, you’ll be sorely disappointed by this movie. I was kind of hoping that they wouldn’t succeed in “restarting” the sun so I can die along with the rest of humanity, and not see the rest of Sunshine. I’m not kidding folks, it was that bad. I wish I could forget I ever saw this movie, so I can have my streak back.

The Dark Tower cover.

Commala-come-come, sang The Dark Tower now just over the horizon. Commala-come-come, gunslinger may ya come. Commala-come-Roland, the journey’s nearly done.

After years and years of travelling with Roland, when I read that I think my heart skipped a beat. Roland was finally going to get to the tower! Oh man.

Unless you’ve read the other six books before this one, this book won’t make much sense to you, I’m afraid. And its a shame too. The characters feel as if though they are real people. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that Roland of Gilead is my favourite character of all time. Yes, thats how much I admire him. He is a real hero. Superman has nothing on him.

I remember when I finished reading The Gunslinger, the first book of the Dark Tower series, it seemed as if though Roland was on this quest of his to reach the Tower on his own. Boy, was I wrong. To make a long story short, Roland becomes dinh of a ka-tet of 5. He wasn’t going to reach the Tower on his own anymore…but with friends! W00t! Roland learns to love them, and becomes a different man altogether. I was really hoping they would come to the Dark Tower together.

So it came to me as a surprise when Eddie, Jake and Oy died. I hope you read the spoilers warning above. If you didn’t, too bad. Next time, read everything. My eyes almost welled up with tears; these characters have been with us since the second and first novels! And they die in the last one…damn. As for Susannah, she leaves Roland on his journey to the Tower by going to a parallel universe where Eddie and Jake exist.

I will skip over some plot points. Not that they aren’t important or anything, believe me, they are. But I want you to figure them out on your own. I want you to cheer for the ka-tet as they save the Beam. Or as they make a narrow escape from the Dixie Pig. Plus, I am too flabbergasted by the ending to write much about this novel anyway. For those of you who have read the Dark Tower series know exactly how I feel. How will his journey be different this time around? Sure, he has the Horn of Eld this time, and the Tower promised it would be different next time, but HOW WILL IT BE DIFFERENT!? IS HE DOOMED TO REPEAT HIS JOURNEY FOR ALL OF ETERNITY?! HOW LONG MUST A MAN STAND TRUE!? Give Roland a break! Who knows how many times he has reached the tower before? Probably hundreds of times! The next time better be the last.

It’s just a shame King won’t be writing about it anymore. I want Roland to enter the room at the top of the Tower (for the last time) and see the whole universe layed out before him. Every parallel world, every soul, everything just simply layed out before him. I want the sight of what he sees to be too powerful for words to describe. So powerful, that Roland begins to cry at the beauty of what he seeing. And as he enters, the door closes after him slowly, and stays closed forever.

That, my friends, would be my ending.

But other than that, this book is a grand read of epic proportions. I don’t like giving ratings like 5/5 or 10/10 stars. That sort of rating system is too linear. Words are much better. Just know that the Dark Tower series has become one of my favourite series of all time. And it’s with good reason too. This book is simply amazing, just like the others in the series. It truly is sai King’s opus maximus.