Dunsany’s writing habits were often eccentric. He used quill pens he’d made himself, and almost never rewrote anything. His wife Lady Beatrice claimed that he wrote sitting on a crumpled hat and when the hat was stolen by a visitor, a crisis was precipitated. He would often direct servants and family members to carry out the actions of a story, so he could see them before writing it.
In this elegant collection of stories Eugie Foster bridges the gap between the traditional fairytale and historical fantasy. Throughout the collection she alternates between re-tellings of Chinese and Japanese legends and original stories with elements drawn from the same deep wells. There is a formality to the writing that suits the traditional strain, giving a timeless authority to all the stories without making them unapproachable. On the contrary, they are charming to read.
The first story, one of the strongest, called “Daughter of Botu,” opens with a rabbit giving us a lesson in Buddhism: Buddha teaches us that this existence is one of suffering. And of all the Middle Kingdom, my people, the Clan of Botu, bears the greatest burden of suffering. We are fodder for all — tiger and owl, fox and man — and only those with fleet limbs, strong hearts, and good fortune survive. This is practically a template for all the stories and legends in the book: “Life is hard, but with a bit of quick action and good luck you might pull through.” In this story, the young rabbit finds her way into the human world in order to save her mother and grandmother from starvation. She finds love, betrayal, sacrifice, and redemption at a cost — all of them themes that recur in Foster’s stories. Likewise recurring are the characters whose courage, loyalty, and trust in the teachings of Buddha, gods, grandmothers and ghosts sees them through to the sometimes bitter end.
Casting makes a movie. Sometimes, casting makes a movie fall apart. Whether the producers owed a college friend a favor, the actor lost the bet, or ill-fated stars aligned, a lot of movies end up with an albatross of an actor who ruined the whole party for everyone. Below are ten of the worst, wildest, and weirdest miscastings in recent fantasy history, ranked by level of damage done.
10. Scarlett Johansson in The PrestigeThe Prestige was a dark, twisting story of revenge. Christopher Nolan beautifully adapted the air of dark and gritty magic from the novel. Unfortunately, he must have been busy on script revisions when Scarlett Johansson was cast as Olivia Wenscombe, the fetching assistant who becomes the key link between Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale’s warring magicians. While she’s not as offensive here as she has been in…almost everything else she’s done, it’s hard to convince us you’re the apex of a love triangle if you look like the only thing you’re assisting is the laudanum trade.
Suggested replacement: Christina Hendricks. She’s got the turn-of-the-century hourglass that looks good on a corset, and could have brought a welcome intelligence to the role.
