Moneyball Film Review

I was very interested to see how the book Moneyball by Michael Lewis would turn out on film. So on opening night for those of us who aren’t in the media and don’t have friends, I went to see it. And…it was good.

For those who don’t know, Moneyball was an interesting book published in 2003 about the Oakland A’s and their General Manager Billy Beane. The book looked at the statistical tools that Beane and his colleagues brought to their selection of players and how those methods helped them compete with teams who had much larger budgets.

The movie, Moneyball, directed by Bennett Miller and starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill covers the same topic with Pitt playing the part of Billy Beane. I read the book several years ago and enjoyed it, but didn’t have all of the details fresh in my mind, so I can’t say if the movie is veers far from the material in the book. I do think the movie creates a story out of the underlying premise of the book and the dialogue and character interactions are often funny. You feel for this team and these people as they try to compete. You also get a sense of the demons that have hounded Beane throughout his career in baseball through the flashbacks that intersperse the main story.

I enjoyed the interplay between Pitt and Hill and everyone in the theatre laughed many times at Hill’s straight man responses. This is a fun movie, with tension, humor and some seriousness all wrapped up together. There is no reason that you couldn’t wait to see this on home theatre, but the big screen does make the stadium and game shots more impressive. It’s the story that makes this movie and the interesting characters. Overall, I give Moneyball 4 Mick Happies. Play ball.

Space Viking Review

Space Viking by H. Beam Piper was first published as a serial in Analog Science Fiction Magazine from November 1962 – February 1963. Since that was before I was born, my first exposure to the book came with the 1983 reprint by Ace Books. I enjoyed the book thoroughly when I first read it in my early teens and have re-read it (and re-purchased it) several times since that first read. The book is currently available in printed form through Amazon or for free through Project Gutenberg on iBooks or Kindle.

Space Viking is set in the distance future after man has populated the stars. At the point where Space Viking starts, mankind have seen galactic empires have rise and fall and a small number of planets and systems enjoy civilization while most of humanity has devolved back to various degrees of pre-space flight cultures – from barbaric to worlds similar to ours today. The story revolves around one man’s quest for revenge and where his trek across the stars takes him and those around him. I won’t give any other details about the plot since there are a couple good twists and turns along the way. What I like about this book is the action and world-building aspects of the story as the main character tries to rebuild himself and the world around him as time passes.

H. Beam Piper authored several books and many short stories before he ended his life in 1964. Of his stories and books, the Fuzzy Series is probably best known. Today, more and more authors are mining the worlds Piper left behind with John F. Carr publishing authorized sequels to Space Viking (The Last Space Viking and the forthcoming Prince of Tanith) and John Scalzi rebooting the Fuzzy Series with Fuzzy Nation.

There are a few aspects of Space Viking that don’t hold up today. Things like smoking by the main characters and people on spaceships picking up phones to speak with others aboard ship. The underlying commentary on man and our struggle to develop and/or devolve as a community are still relevant today. I give Space Viking five Mick Happies.

Quick Update

You can follow MickHappyReviews on twitter. Due to character limitations, the twitter name is MickHappyReview. Tweets are currently being limited only to notes about reviews posted on the site, which should reduce the chatter.

I am currently finishing a re-read of Space Viking by H. Beam Piper. A review should be up soon. After that, I have How Firm a Foundation by David Weber and The High King of Montival by S.M. Stirling in the queue. Who knows, maybe there will be a movie or tv show in there somewhere too.

Crimson: Steam Pirates Review

In June 2011, Bungie, the developers of HALO, announced a new venture to help small independent developers launch their social/mobile games. This past week saw the release of the first game from this venture, Crimson: Steam Pirates. Crimson was developed by Bungie Aerospace and Harebrained Schemes. Harebrained Schemes is the latest company from game industry veteran, Jordan Weisman (FASA, Wizkids).

Crimson is a free iPad (iOS) turn-based strategic naval battle game following the exploits of Thomas Blood as he begins his notorious career as a pirate. The world of Crimson is set in a steampunk version of the Caribbean of 1888. As Thomas Blood, you will work through 8 missions that make up the first chapter of his story. At launch, the game has an additional chapter of 8 missions available for download for $1.99. A third chapter is planned, but not yet available.

The game uses the iPad touch interface well, giving you the opportunity to choose each ship and move your finger to direct where the ship will move or to give specific instructions. Each ship has multiple special actions that can be taken each turn based on the abilities of your crew. Actions like full steam, increased speed and movement, or the lash, increased rate of fire. During a mission you can also select your ship to see more of its weapons and details on the specific crewmembers. The crew actions and the size and number of ships at your disposal vary from mission and can include both naval and sometimes air ships. The missions move you along the engaging plot of Thomas Blood’s journey to become a notorious pirate.

The game is beautiful and plays very well on an iPad 1. The first chapter of Thomas Blood’s saga will take you about 2 hours to play. There is some replay-ability through trying to improve your score on missions or playing one of the two “pass-and-play” multiplayer missions. You can also connect to Bungie.net for stats and leaderboards. The only minor downsides for the game are the relative ease of the missions in chapter 1 and the short amount of gameplay for each chapter. I assume chapter 2 will be harder and it does promise additional ships and actions to try. Hopefully it will be a little longer as well.

For an iOS game and a free one to start, Crimson: Steam Pirates is great. Beautiful, intuitive and with a good story as well. I highly recommend you pick it up and play even if you never download chapter 2. I give Crimson: Steam Pirates 4.5 Mick Happies. Arrr, download on iTunes, me matey.

Star Blazers: Quest for Iscandar Part I Review

If you are old like I am and were a kid in the late 1970s, your first introduction to Japanese anime may have been Star Blazers. The first season of the Star Blazers tv series was called The Quest for Iscandar and aired weekday mornings. I remember the series very fondly as it was the gateway drug for other shows like Voltron and, of course, Robotech.

The story of Star Blazers starts in 2199 with the Earth dying from radioactive pollution caused by bombing by an alien race, the Gamilons. Just as things seem most bleak for Earth, its last major space fleet defeated by the Gamilons near Pluto, a message is received from another alien culture from the planet Iscandar. The message states that if Earth can reach Iscandar, they will provide a cure for Earth. To help humans reach Iscandar, the message also provides details on a technologically advanced engine. Earth forces build the engine and place it in a sunken battleship from World War II, the Yamato. After rebuilding the Yamato for space, the newly formed Space Force takes off for Iscandar with only 1 year to get there and back to save Earth.

A year ago, my wife bought all three seasons of Star Blazers in DVD box sets and I hadn’t taken the plunge to watch them. However, the addition of season 1 on Netflix instant watch made it silly to wait any longer. The first season is split into six parts (DVDs) and the first part covers the first five episodes of the series. You can find a plot synopsis of each episode on Wikipedia or watch the shows on your own.

Star Blazers is an adaptation of a famous Japanese anime called Space Battleship Yamato. I have never watched Space Battleship Yamato, so I am unsure what, if anything, changed between the original anime and Star Blazers. However, on this re-watch after over 30 years, what stood out for me was how much more adult the show seems than most “children’s” shows. There are deaths, though mostly from a distance, and the characters in the story deal with those deaths emotionally. Characters have depth and everything isn’t just great and easy, there is tension and a little suspense. Additionally, the theme of a ravaged dying earth and some of the dialog seems more adult than Y-7 focused.

Watching the first five episodes, I noticed that some of the animation is dated and some of the visual effects are jarring compared to what we would find today. Overall, the plot and story are holding up and interesting and I am looking forward to revisiting the rest of the series. If you have Netflix instant watch, put it in the queue. If you don’t, the DVDs are a little steep at ~$135 for season 1 on Amazon or you can get the full season through Amazon instant video for ~$22. I give Part I of Star Blazers: The Quest for Iscandar 3.5 Mick Happies for the great nostalgia, more adult themes and decent plot. Only 361 days left for the Star Force to save Earth.

Nightside Series Books 1 & 2 Review

Something from the Nightside and Agents of Light and Darkness are the first two books in the Nightside series by British author, Simon R. Green. The books were published by Ace in 2003 and are collected in an omnibus edition in the UK called Into the Nightside from Solaris Books. The best way to describe these books would be a bit of a mixture of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden set in Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.

The Nightside series follows private investigator, John Taylor, as he takes on and solves cases in a hidden dark inner city part of London called Nightside. The Nightside mixes past and future with the strange and fantastical. It is possible to run into vampires, werewolves, sorcerers and aliens in the Nightside. The baser instincts are indulged there and you always have to watch your back. To help, most everyone in the Nightside has an ability.

John Taylor’s ability is that he can find anything. He uses this skill as a private investigator to locate missing items for his clients. The skill, when used, appears as a special power that John taps into to find what he is seeking. In Something from the Nightside, John is searching for a woman’s missing daughter. In Agents of Light and Darkness, he is looking for a mystical chalice. 

Throughout both of these books, the reader follows John as he moves through the Nightside running into friends and enemies from his past as he tries to solve the case he is working. The books are enjoyable and for me, combined some elements of stories I have liked in the past in a somewhat new way. As we follow John, he relies on his ability and resourcefulness as well as support from several of his friends to get the job done. The characters John works with are interesting, like one friend, a bounty hunter named Suzie Shooter. She likes to shoot things with shotguns.

As I read the first two Nightside books, I noticed several similarities between John Taylor and Harry Dresden. I also liked the setting of a hidden area within London that you might fall into if you made a wrong turn while taking the train. However, some of the elements seemed a little rushed and would have been nice to have them unfold with a slightly slower pace to build suspense. Additionally, a couple of the plot elements were clear very early on, which made their pay-off when revealed a little less satisfying than they could have been. That is likely due to these being the first two books in the series and I expect the intricacy of the story and characters to develop as the series continues.

In the end, I give the first two books of the Nightside series 3 Mick Happies each. They are a fun read, familiar if you like urban fantasy and combine several elements of the genre in unique ways. I read them books on the iBooks app and can recommend them in that format as well. If you happen to pick one of these books up, enjoy your trip to the Nightside.