Justice

Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels (which are great fun) feature a police force which can enter novels in order to prevent literary crimes, such as the kidnapping of Jane from Jane Eyre. It would be nice if books were also a punitive option. For example, these filthy (both literally and metaphorically) individuals should be sentenced to 20 years in a Chester Himes novel.

I'm pretty sure Albini wrote Pigeon Kill and Seth with people like these in mind.

I'm a shock trooper in a stupor, yes I am

Yesterday, while gathering my library selections, my eyes fell upon a book that seemed out of place. It looked quite like the pulpy volumes you used to find at five and dimes. Take a gander at the cover. Not only does the cover feature garish colors and explosive action, but the two esses in the author's last name are styled like that of the Schutzstaffel, Waffen no doubt. Now, Nazi imagery is often used in book marketing, but it is often used as a threating icon. In this case, the Nazis are associated with the author's name.

What makes that all the more peculiar is the the author, a Dane who claims Eastern front experience, may have been a member of the Gestapo! According to reviews, his books take a anti-Nazi, anti-war line (to a point, of course, people read them for the battle action) so I wonder if they are meant to atone for prior sins.

I remain amazed that there are people who take a murky approach to the Nazis. Here we have re-enactors of the first SS Panzer division, a unit of which perpetrated the Malmedy massacre. The we have books like Watch on the Rhine. In this book, aliens invade Germany, so the leadership decides to reanimate the Waffen SS, to fight the aliens. Personally I think reanimating Blucher or Moltkes the Elder's armies, since they actually won wars, without perpetrating mass atrocities across an entire continent. But that's just me.

Open up the seven seals, the beast has come

Neill told me not to watch Dominion, but I had it from Netflix so I gave it a chance. I shouldn't have. Lame lame lame. It isn't scary, it is anti-scary in places thanks to the use of really weak CGI. And hyenas always make me think of the Lion King. It isn't all that spooky either. It starts off somewhat interesting with an ancient Christian church found far outside the historical Christendom. Then it gets boring. There is some passably interesting stuff on the nature of evil and why God allows it to exist in the world. We get a Sophie's Choice like Nazi intro to help us get it.

The only interesting thing about the movie is that it was released twice, in forms by two different directors. The one called Exorcist the Beginning is action oriented while Dominion is the more thoughtful one. I say save your devil movie dollars for the upcoming Omen remake or better yet just watch Prince of Darkness.

By the way, were you aware that Saturn Awards existed? These are awards for sci-fi, fantasy and horror movies. I saw a mention on the Prince of Darkness page.