Even by themselves, the terms “amateur,” “adult,” and “furry” can all give one pause when it comes to fiction; when all three apply to the same work, there can be even more reason for hesitation. Still, when it’s only a mere ten bucks to see whether someone’s debut novella is any good, it can be worth it to gamble from time to time, and in this case, for the most part, that gamble has paid off.

Basecraft Cirrostratus tells the story of Elor Kaya, an esteemed professor who is wanted for sedition and indoctrination against a totalitarian regime. Fleeing the country with the secret police hot on his tail, he escapes into self-imposed exile aboard the titular Basecraft Cirrostratus, a massive flying machine that operates in international airspace. Once there, he seeks out the only connection he has left: Vinz, his ex-lover from a decade prior.

Problem is, Vinz doesn’t want anything to do with Elor anymore, having moved on both personally as well as romantically. Instead, Elor is forced to turn to the organized crime syndicate that acts as the true power within the decks of the Basecraft Cirrostratus, which, as it turns out, is home to many a political refugee aside from Elor.

The plot itself is actually quite solid and very breezy. The pacing is good, with events never dragging and the story never going off the rails. Lamar clearly has a good handle on the setting, and the political backdrop and behind-the-scenes machinations play very well into the events of the book as they unfold. Things get a little heavy-handed at some points, but only very occasionally, and it’s never bad enough to induce eye-rolling. The ending lacks some emotional punch simply because the emotional framework didn’t have time to develop thoroughly enough during the course of the plot, but the plot itself does have an arc (as do the characters, to be fair). On two notable instances, dumb luck sees things through where it would have been preferable to have direct action on the characters’ part, but for the most part, the plot itself stays together fairly well.

When it comes to amateur writers, one of the biggest pitfalls one usually comes across is the author belaboring points too much, or taking too long to say what needs to be said. Here, though, I had the opposite problem: much of the time, I wanted the author to slow down and take some more time to build on things, especially as they related to the characters and their relationships. For example, there’s a love triangle that serves as an emotional focus for much of the story; I definitely bought into one of the relationships, but not the other—we’re told that they’re in love, but it never really comes across on the page. A bit of a textbook example for the caution of “show, don’t tell,” which might have been avoided if more time were taken to develop things.

This is also an adult story, with the erotic aspects being entirely male/male. Sex, though, happens on page as something that’s important between the characters, and (with one marked exception near the very end) it’s never gratuitous, and it serves itself as part of the story and not a goal of it. Most of the sex scenes are actually pretty tasteful, and, like much of the rest of the book, never slow things down at the expense of the plot.

The best thing I can say about the book is that it’s very cinematic. With the right special effects (and maybe a little less on-screen sex), this would actually make a fairly decent action thriller flick, the kind you watch with a big tub of popcorn without needing the story to shatter and rewrite your world.

In the end, Basecraft Cirrostratus bears some hallmarks of amateur writing, but when taken as a whole, it does more things right than it does wrong. It’s good—not great, but certainly not bad, and Lamar certainly shows promise for future offerings. If it were maybe half again as long, with some more time spent making some of the character relationships a little more believable, and if the point of view were a bit tighter (it gets kind of loose in some points), Basecraft Cirrostratus could have been better. Still, as-is, if you’re the kind of person looking for a dieselpunk action thriller and don’t mind some gay sex and relationship drama thrown in along the way, you could do worse than check this book out.

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“Race to the Moon” (which many of you may know better as “that Kyell Gold story with no sex in it”), was chosen as a finalist for the Washington Science Fiction Association’s Small Press Awards, in the category of Short Fiction. A total of eight stories were selected as finalists.

What makes WSFA’s awards different from their contemporaries is that the voters read the stories without knowing the author or publisher. The association claims this removes bias and makes the works stand on their own merit.

“Race to the Moon” was submitted to the club last year by the publisher, Sofawolf Press. The story appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of New Fables, the annual short story collection Sofawolf publishes.

Gold is using the nomination as an example of fandom writing making the leap into the professional realm.

“I’m deeply honored by this nomination,” Gold said. “I think it validates what many of us have been saying about the writing in the fandom: that it is getting better and has a place in mainstream SF.”

The winner of the award will be announced during an award ceremony at the science fiction convention Capclave in October.

The WSFA, founded in 1947, is the oldest science fiction club in the Washington DC area, and one of the oldest science fiction clubs in the country. For the past 60 years the club has hosted numerous annual science fiction conventions, like Capclave.

The WSAF has a full list of the nominees on their website.

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It was shockingly easy for Lovejoy to convince his entire staff to go see the new Cats & Dogs film. Convincing them all to do a full review for the film proved to be much harder. However, he did manage to squeeze a single sentence out of each of them. Think of this as your furry version of Rotten Tomatoes.

Malin
One of the few sequels to exceed the expectations set by the original.

Tube
If you’re crazy about calendars with photos of dogs and cats dressed up like little people, then boy have I got the movie for you!

Rikoshi
Make no mistakes: it’s bad—lame humor, awful writing, a beyond-contrived premise, and a voice cast of celebrities clearly dialing it in for a paycheck between “real” projects—but to be fair, it’s not the worst movie Chris O’Donnell has ever been in.

Lovejoy
I wanted to hate on this movie, but the fact is that the kid behind me laughed his ass off the entire time, so any complaints I have about the piss-poor plot seem null and void.

Rolo
If your expectations are low, and you’ve had a bottle of wine, and you’re a huge fan of German Shepherd Dogs, this movie is guaranteed to slightly exceed your expectations!

Jakebe
If you want to see Bette Midler with fewer wrinkles or Nick Nolte with a better haircut, then this is the movie for you; otherwise, it’s a pretty boring talking-animal movie — and it pains me to say that.

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The Peculiar Quandary of Simon Artyle is the second in FurPlanet’s line of Cupcakes novellas. The Cupcakes series are intended to be “short and sweet” novellas, and for better or worse, this fits the bill. Those familiar with Kevin Frane’s longer works are likely expecting a whirlwind of action, political machinations, subtle manipulations, and a healthy dose of sturm und drang, but if that’s what you’re looking for here, you’ll be disappointed. The stories contained within are both fluffy and sweet.

I say stories because the title of the novella is a bit of a misnomer; it’s not really a novella, but a binding together of two tangentially related short stories, the eponymous “Simon Artyle” being the headliner. The second story, “Changes for the Better,” was originally published in New Fables, but it shares the setting, so it’s included as a bonus, and presumably to pad out the book.

“Simon Artyle” is the story of a somewhat disconnected wizard and his attempt to maintain his relationships with, and eventually choose between, a young vixen he is courting, and his middle-aged raccoon apprentice. The story opens with a rather dense narrative style crammed chock-full of parentheses; it serves well to set the stage, but is a bit forced, and so when it disappeared into Frane’s more comfortable prose by the third page, I wasn’t sad to see it go. The tale dithers a bit in a kind of courtship romance until magical things begin to happen, and this is where the story really becomes interesting. Artyle is disconnected from everyday emotion, and largely unflappable, so his mild-mannered, disaffected way of dealing with extraordinary circumstances, and his attitude toward his two much more affected objects of interest, serve to keep the story whimsical, but also prevent it from having much weight. Nonetheless, the aforementioned quandary itself is interesting, and I found myself reading primarily to see how it would be solved. The story shines most when focusing on its more magical elements, and when Simon is drawn out of his comfort zone and forced to deal with the conflicts in his life.

“Changes for the Better” is set in the same world as the first story, and passing references are made to those characters, but otherwise it is its own beast, and deals with Vanessa, a haughty weasel sorceress living alone in a tower in a rural town. The story revolves around her interactions with a raccoon who asks her to create a companion for him. She apparently loathes him, and seems at first glance to be motivated to help him by boredom. I found resolution to this story a bit iffy; while on subsequent rereads the ending is seeded, it didn’t feel like the surprise at the end was entirely earned.

The two stories do suit each other well, similar in theme, subject, and tone. Frane tells them using his easy, comfortable style that allows you to slip right in. He knows the stories he is trying to tell, and tells them well. His characters are distinct, recognizable, and maintain clear and persistent voices throughout, and his plots compel you to read through to the ending to see how everything turns up. But this Cupcake is a bit too sweet and light for my tastes. It may be a nice follow-up to a meatier novel, but on its own, I found it a bit cloying.

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Amaterasu, star of the critically acclaimed and fan loved PS2 and Wii game Okami was officially revealed on Marvel’s website, and is being announced during Capcom’s MvC3 panel.

In Okami and the upcoming Nintendo DS game Okamiden, the wolf god uses the power of nature to defeat enemies. Capcom hasn’t shown Amaterasu in action yet, but we’re pretty psyched (can everybody say “Please be overpowered so I can kick everyone’s ass with a wolf”?)

Marvel also announced Thor, which brings the total character count so far to 16.

Known characters so far: Chun-Li, Trish, Doctor Doom, Super-Skrull, Chris Redfield, The Hulk, Dante, Captain America, Felicia, Wolverine, Morrigan, Deadpool, Iron Man, and Ryu.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 is set to release Q2 2011.

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Actually, it was.

Though Predators still felt like a “mixed bag” movie to me.  It did some things right, a lot of things just okay, but thankfully, it never really went in the wrong direction at any point in time.  And this is coming from a guy who was an Aliens and Predator fanatic when he was younger.

If anything, I should’ve been heavily critical after the debacle that was Alien vs Predator: Requiem.  Now I’ll admit, I didn’t have my hopes up walking into the theater Saturday night, but I was still pleasantly surprised and left feeling satisfied after I watched this movie.

First off, thank you, Robert Rodriguez, for finally putting some solid, decent actors on screen when it comes to one of these movies.  It isn’t the ’80s or the ’90s anymore, people.  The Predators (Aliens, it doesn’t really matter at this point) can not carry these movies by themselves.  They need a convincing human factor, which Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, and even that one dude from the upcoming Machete movie provide (come on, if Rodriquez produced it, you shouldn’t be surprised that one of his go to guys ends up being cast for a supporting role).  This definitely helped the movie along, which means we weren’t sitting around for twenty minutes saying, “I wish the Predators would hurry up and get on screen already.”

Another thing that impressed me was the cinematography.

Wait—what?

Yes, cinematography.  Bear with me on this one, because the movie was actually quite beautiful.  The director did a fantastic job choosing the locations, and he was able to make our world look convincingly alien without much effort.  I found myself many times just admiring the scenery while the plot developed and the human characters interacted.  Now insert a nice “jump straight to the action” opening, some cool, fresh ideas that added to the Predator mythology (alien hunting dogs for the win), and a Predator versus Predator fight sequence all helped to make for a pleasant movie experience when I was expecting another train wreck.

But then there’s the plot.  It didn’t add anything new, and most of the time, it felt like the first Predator movie just set on an alien planet.  In fact, the whole movie sort of came across like a homage to the original film.  There was a guy toting a mini gun, some obvious dialogue references, and even the “watch as each human gets picked off one by one” scenario which played out during the entire movie.  Then there’s Topher Grace, who just did not work for this film.  He was the odd ball of the group, and he never fit in convincingly with the rest of the cast.  Add in the ho hum, set up for a possible sequel ending, and you have a movie that just never quite clicked on all cylinders.

Was I happy I saw it?  Yes.  Was it a great movie?  No.

Predators was average, but it’s still something a fan of both the Aliens and the Predator movies should definitely go see.  It was entertaining, and at least Twentieth Century Fox took the time (and the money) to finally get one of these storied franchises headed back in the right direction.

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Lovejoy
I’m really starting to like Jay Baruchel. He’s quickly becoming the new Michael Cera, and I think we can all agree that we need some more adorable geeks to dilute the overpowering force of George-Michael Bluth. And it’s Baruchel’s awkward charm that makes films like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice more enjoyable.

The film is a by the books adventure film that doesn’t break new ground on any front. Of course it’s also a mid-Summer, PG-rated Disney film starring Nicolas Cage, so expecting it to progress cinema is silly. It’s certainly more style than substance, but it’s fun, romantic, and exciting.

I’m not saying the film is great, because it isn’t, but as a casual Summer flick it’s pretty good. Baruchel as the Apprentice to Cage’s Sorcerer is funny and endearing. Alfred Molina is creepy. There are a ton of fun special effect sequences and fight scenes (even a dragon transformation for you weirdos).

I think for most people it could stand to be a rental, or a cable movie, but for something to watch while decompressing and escaping the Summer heat, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice isn’t bad.

Corvi
I’ll go on the record and say that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a better film than Predators, but honestly not by much. And that’s the whole problem. This should be a much better film that isn’t just a predictable string of pretty special effects and one-liners.

There is way too much shit going on in the movie. Too many villains, too many fight scenes, too many unnecessary scenes. The homage to the original Fantasia piece is jammed in there awkwardly, and it grinds the story to a halt.

Maybe montages are considered passe in this day and age, but there’s a time to use them, and trying to convince an audience that Jay Baruchel is learning enough magic to defeat and evil 1000-year-old sorcerer is that time.

If the film had been trimmed down (take out the witch girl and the car chase) there would have been more time to develop the romance so that it wouldn’t come off so lame. By the way, this is the second film this year where Baruchel has scored a girl that is way out of his league.

If you’re like me and find it hard to regress your mind to that of a child so you can enjoy Summer Disney films, then you’ll likely be bored by The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

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It’s hard to believe that a movie about a teenage girl trying to bone half the cast of Universal Studios’ Monsters could be pretentious, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t try! From the first lines of Bella reading Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” to the numerous statements on morality, Eclipse manages to be preachy about a subject that is not an issue for 100% of the universe: fucking vampires.

The biggest problem with Eclipse as a film is, ironically, it’s faithfulness to the source material. Normally this would be a plus for a movie, but the fact is that Stephenie Meyer is an abysmal writer. Nobody in the town of Forks has cellphones since apparently both vampires and werewolves are telepathic, and that’s about half the population anyway.

Everything about this film is quite literally cocktease. There’s actually a “wait we can’t have sex yet” scene. And when all is said and done we’re at the exact same point as when the last movie ended. Bella chooses Edward, The Volturi are evil, and nobody actually seems happy about anything.

In the process of not doing much of anything, Bella gets to chatting with the other members of the Cullen family, and we get some backstories on the characters that were really just brooding scenery. Then we find out that Jackson Rathbone is a horrible actor and his character was so much better when he just stood around looking pained.

Can we all agree that Bella is a good for nothing bitch? What bothers me about these films more than anything else is how a dozen super beings go out of their way, risking their lives and going against their nature, to protect/win over some rabbit-toothed stutterer that has no personality whatsoever. I get that Edward was attracted to the fact that he couldn’t read her mind, but why didn’t he break it off when he found out that there is actually just nothing going on in that brain? And sure, Edward and Jacob want to marry her, but the families jump on board too? It’s a high school romance, and they already broke up once! Somebody sit these boys down and explain that infatuation is not love (or do vampires and werewolves not get infatuated? They just imprint on people, right?).

Now people are saying that Eclipse is the best of the Twilight films, and that is technically true. But to say it’s my favorite of the three is like getting to pick which medieval torture device will be used on me (it’s the iron maiden, for the record).

And honestly, the only reason this film stood out to me more than the others is because there are significantly more wolves in it. It’s a superficial and rather queer reason, but there it is.

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The Last Airbender is a pointless movie. Who remakes a TV series into a film? Plenty of people have used film to extend the stories of canceled shows. And other people use movies to adapt written word to a visual medium. But Avatar: The Last Airbender is already a visual medium, with a finished story that doesn’t benefit from a white kid with leukemia and that Indian guy from The Daily Show.

The Last Airbender is the story of a boy named Aang, who is the fabled Avatar, a reincarnated entity that can control all four elements. He’s also the last of the Airbending Nomads, after the Fire Nation killed them all in an attempt to destroy him. So Aang, with the help of his new friends has to learn the other three elements and use them to bring peace to the world. The film attempts to take the entire first season of the TV show and compress it into an hour and a half. “But that sounds impossible!” you say? That’s because it is impossible. The result is an incomprehensible mess that plays like a bad YouTube montage of the story.

Actually montages would have really helped this stupid movie because at least then there would be some semblance of time passing. The editing in this film is so bad that the multiple weeks of journeying and training look like it happens in three days. One of the characters has to awkwardly jam in a line about “these past few weeks” otherwise you’d have no way of knowing.

Seriously, I’ve seen the fucking show and I had no idea what was going on.

It’s hard to say which is worse: the writing or the acting. They crash against each other, building in power until it’s a perfect storm of shitty movie. Exposition is forced and unnatural, all of the humor falls flat, and the serious moments end up unintentionally funny. People in the theater actually laughed during a scene where someone sacrifices their life to save the kingdom. Every actor is completely wrong for the film. Dev Patel screams and broods a lot. And Aasif Mandvi is supposed to be believable as a god-killing warlord? Even the extras are so mismatched that they stick out like sore thumbs. It literally looks like they hired the background warriors from the attendees at Comic-Con. The only redeeming factor about the casting is that amazingly, M Night Shyamalan didn’t force himself into the movie.

It’s also very apparent that the 3D was tacked on last minute, as nearly ever special effect shot of fireballs and water jets is directed away from the camera.

You want to know the worst part of this stupid movie? It’s the fact that if it does well, there will be two more of them to suffer through.

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Rikoshi
Toy Story 3 tries to do something pretty brave: it attempts to age in real time, with as much time passing in-universe since the previous film as has passed in real life. Something similar was tried with the Harry Potter books, but while that mostly resulted in the books getting overlong and less well edited, with Toy Story 3, it actually succeeds. The result: a movie that’s good for kids, yet which is also very enjoyable for adults (whether they brought kids to see it or not).

All around, the voice performances are up to snuff. Newcomer Ned Beatty does a good job as a sympathetic-yet-not antagonist, and Timothy Dalton is particularly hilarious in his bit role as a stuffed hedgehog thespian (in lederhosen). On the whole, the humor is pretty fresh, and the movie only very sparingly looks to its previous installments to make its gags.

The core themes of the movie are actually very existential, focusing mainly on finding a purpose in life after one has lost it. While that sounds like something out of some pretentious literary novel, here it’s presented in the simplest and most relatable of terms: what good is a toy if nobody plays with it? This bleeds over into sub-themes, such as what it means to be loved, and how to let go of the past, but the movie is never a bleak and joyless look at these things—it remains a fun and active not-just-kid’s movie, but an intelligent one, one with depth.

There’s a real sense of closure to the trilogy, here, and the ending is legitimately heartfelt. My only honest complaint was with the 3D; after the (excellent) “Day & Night” short, I never noticed the 3D at all during the movie itself.

Lovejoy
I wasn’t really excited about Toy Story 3 prior to its release, but I trust Pixar enough to see the film without question, and my loyalty paid off.

It sounds super cheesy, but it’s nice to see old friends again. The first Toy Story came out when I was 10 years old, and was a large part of my childhood, so I have some major nostalgia for it. So it’s really cool to see the third film treated so well, and given the proper sendoff it deserves.

The writing is an amazingly well balanced mix. It’s part family comedy, part prison escape adventure, and part emotional journey about moving on. But in addition to that, Toy Story 3 is well balanced as a film that stands alone, and as a final chapter in a fantastic trilogy.

In the past Pixar has felt a little in your face with the emotions (in particular Wall-E and Up), but everything comes off as heartfelt and genuine here. These aren’t just Andy’s toys, they’re the writer’s toys, the director’s toys, our toys.

On top of everything I really enjoyed the new additions to the cast. Emily Hahn as the triceratops Bonnie and Michael Keaton as the way-past-metrosexual Ken doll give the film a much more modern and hilarious vibe.

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