Unholy Warcry

Who knew that if you set a bad D&D campaign to music, the result would be something pretty good? It's not clear what the band Rhapsody had been drinking when they created Enchanted Lands, Vol. 2: The Dark Secret Album, but I'm glad they did. A hardy band of adventurers set out to kill "Nekron, the demon king" in a cycle of heavy metal songs:

It was a good time for all creatures of the earth,
But fate decreed that the dark prophecy of a demonknight
Could bring a tragic end to this peace
Scarring their lives forever!

If you can bring yourself to stop giggling, you might notice that the music is pretty good. It's got some nice heavy rhythms, good guitar riffs, a good vocalist. The photoshopped castle with the lightning effects in the music video is definitely a highlight. And is that ... is that ... Christopher Lee?

Course Numbers

Here's some of the English Department's offerings for next fall term.


110 English Literature I Yep, that sounds nice and basic.
112 Intro to American Literature So does this course. It's got the word "intro" in it.
114 Shakespeare I

Shakespeare's as difficult as you want him to be. You could be reading Midsummer Night's Dream or you could be reading King Lear. Moderate.

259 Advanced Essay Writing Advanced. Now we're talking.
272 A Journey into Journalism
313 The Faerie Queene Getting into the really meaty literary territory...
314 Paradise Lost

A grandmaster challenge. Paradise Lost is commonly regarded as an Everest of literature, second only in degree of difficulty to The Waste Land, the K2 of literature. So what English class could possibly get a higher course number than Paradise Lost? What is the very pinnacle of study, accessible only to highly trained senior-level majors?

395 Toni Morrison

Dang, lady. You write some challenging books.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Another disappointment.

Sometimes it's useful when you're halfway through a book to stop and ask yourself, "If an asteroid struck right now and all the characters died, would I care?" It was at that point in the book that I quit trying to read Perfume.

Jean-Baptiste Grenouille is a nose – he can distinguish the chemical compositions of thousands of scents just by smelling them, even pick up the scents of things like glass and water. He experiences the world primarily through his nose. And he's on a quest to create the perfect perfume. The only problem is that he has to murder beautiful women to obtain his special ingredient.

It sounds like a really cool premise, doesn't it? But I have a hard time slogging through a book when I can't relate to the main characters at all (cf Tigana). It's not merely that Grenouille is a bad guy. Putting an antihero at the center of your book is an excellent artistic choice and makes for some of the world's most celebrated literature (cf Frankenstein). Grenouille was like an alien to me while I read about him. The way he relates to the world and the way his mind works is so different that I kept jumping out of the story, going "Huh?" instead of getting lost in the narrative. Fantasy and science fiction writers have to write about some pretty weird individuals sometimes, and it's our responsibility to make them understandable enough that readers can connect with them.

New Arrivals at Benton Library

Our latest shipment of new books has just arrived!

• Queen of Candesce, by Karl Schroeder
• The Darkangel Trilogy, by Meredith Ann Pierce
  
• Twilight and New Moon, by Stephenie Meyer
• Count Scar, by C. Dale Brittain
• Sabriel, by Garth Nix
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Phillip K. Dick
• The Golem's Eye, by Jonathan Stroud

As always, feel free to drop by and check one out. We're on Winona St., one block away from the chapel.

Soup

Bit late about putting this up, sorry.