Film Review: Thor (Revisited)

Thor: Norse god of thunder, and one of Marvel's most formidable heroes. Coming from a universe that surpasses the scope and understanding of a mere Earthling, Thor has the power to command the elements and vanquish foes with his incredible hammer. After Marvel introduced us to Iron Man and the Hulk, a series of Thor movies was inevitable.

Thor throws us into a world where Norse myth collides with science-fiction in a surprisingly sublime fashion. In this unique universe, we are introduced to the title character, who battles giants and mortal men alike with thunderous force. There is plenty of action throughout this flick, and lots of beautiful special effects. Even when Thor isn’t bashing the hell out of things, there’s enough character-driven drama to keep it strong. And of course, nothing’s more amusing than watching an archaic deity walking among modern men, acting like a total Viking in the modern world. Action is not quite as huge of a standout as it is in other Marvel films, but there's enough spectacle, humor, and dramatic tension to satisfy.

The story’s a little predictable, especially if you’re already familiar with the comics or Norse myth. The story has the merit of introducing Thor as a bit of a brute, who has to learn humility and control in order to realize his full potential. He learns these things on Earth, before taking the fight back to Asgard to resolve a larger struggle. In the end, it's a fine and satisfying fantasy adventure with just enough character building to make it endearing.

The film has good photography for the most part. The frost-giant battle shows some rather jittery camera work and editing, but afterwards it’s all solid. Some shots have some really funky crooked angles, but I think it’s cool. Acting is great; I loved Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman in their roles, and Anthony Hopkins is a naturally good choice for Odin. Writing is not terribly sophisticated, but it gets the job done. Production value is phenomenal, with loads of excellent sets, props, costumes, and some very imaginative settings. It’s especially impressive how the designers have adopted Norse myth into the story and designs to fit into a sci-fi niche, and still make sense. Special effects look great, but they aren't always the best. The music score is not bad.

Thor's first feature film has its moments, both exciting and cute. It won't blow anybody away, but it is entertaining all the same.

3.5/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Okay | Film: Pretty Good)

Film Review: Iron Man 2

In the first Iron Man film, we saw an arms manufacturer develop a conscience and become a hero trying to clean up the mess his company left behind. A follow-up was inevitable, and Iron Man 2 would continue to track Tony Stark's moral journey through even more highs and lows.

Among the high points of the film, Iron Man confronts a new villain that pops up out of the blue, who trashes some race cars and sends them flying down the track. The film's climax pits Iron Man against a whole contingent of drones, before Iron Man and War Machine team up in an explosive all-out fighting sequence. All this action is really cool, but the film still dishes out plenty of amusing banter and interesting thematic material to keep everything even.

Unfortunately, the film suffers a few low points. In spite of the dramatic issues the film tackles, the pacing is not always perfect; scenes in-between the action can be a hit-or-a-miss. This is because the film juggles a lot of different things in its plot. It is notable how the film continues to track Tony Stark's growth, for even though he embraced a new identity as a hero, he still has his ego to contend with, and it gets him into all kinds of trouble in this film. These scenes do dig up significant levels of conflict, and ultimately, it presents a compelling account of how Tony's obsession with technology and fame gradually erodes his soul and isolates him from the people around him. However, the film also tosses in other random elements - including a Russian bad guy who has no real relevance to the story's main conflicts, and some random scenes with Black Widow and Nick Fury that only serve to whet audiences' appetites for 2012's Avengers. In spite of these haphazard plot points, the film doesn't necessarily congeal well, making for a rather uneven story.

Fortunately, the film looks good, with decent photography and editing. Robert Downey Jr. continues to excel as the main character, while Gweneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson are all fun to watch. Mickey Rourke has some cheesy parts (especially with his "I vant my boid" line), but I think he's good most of the time. Writing is okay, but probably could have used more refinement. This production features good-looking sets, props, costumes, and special effects. John Debney's music score is pretty awesome.

Iron Man 2 is decently-entertaining and its story has a few significant points to make, but it is rather mixed, and it has led many viewers to regard it as an inferior sequel. Regardless of its issues, I find the film perfectly enjoyable.

4/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Mixed | Film: Very Good)

Film Review: The Incredible Hulk (2008)

For some reason, The Hulk never had a great film of his very own, prior to this. The older films have not aged well. 2003's Hulk had its moments, but was inundated with style and storytelling choices that made it less palatable. Coming out at the very forefront of Marvel's Phase I wave, The Incredible Hulk follows the Hulk on his next logical step after fleeing the military and hiding out, only to have the past catch up to him again.

The bulk of this story revolves around Bruce Banner's continuing struggle to control his own power, which in turn correlates to his inner struggle with emotions and rage. Inevitably, he loses control a few times, resulting in several scenes of mass carnage. When the Hulk busts loose, he goes on to toss cars and bash buildings with impunity. The rampage in the university campus is probably the coolest scene, as the military pulls out sonic weapons while the Hulk bashes up hum-vees into tiny pieces. It all builds up to a lengthy city battle, where the Hulk clashes with a more monstrous opponent; their battle rips up the streets and causes so much carnage, it's incredible.

While there is definitely enough action to satiate action fans, the film evens itself out by occasionally focusing on the characters as they go on the run and connect the dots. Bruce Banner proves to be a compelling character that we can empathize with and root for; he's quite the sight when he hulks out and smashes things, but it's also touching to watch him temper the beast and try to set things right. His relationship with Betty is also touching, and the two form a very nice Beauty and the Beast type of relationship. All the bad guys are pretty one-dimensional. The plot breezes through several exotic locations before settling on the finale; it's not necessarily a great story, but the characters and action keep it fresh.

This film boasts splendid, colorful photography and solid editing. Acting seemed great at the time, for the cast is very notable. Edward Norton is a guy I enjoy watching; he looks rather scrawny when compared to other Hulk actors, but his performance isn't too terrible. I've always had a soft spot for Liv Tyler and William Hurt. Tim Roth is appropriately mean-spirited in his role. Writing is generally okay. This production uses good-looking locales, sets, props, and costumes. Special effects seemed really cool at the time, but haven't all aged well. Music is okay.

The Incredible Hulk is a perfectly enjoyable romp, but with quality characterization and a slick style that makes it one of the best by far.

4/5 (Entertainment: Good | Story: Pretty Good | Film: Pretty Good)

Film Review: Iron Man

By 2008, there were already a bunch of Marvel movies on the market, all presented as a big mixed cluster of varying quality and quantity. After pulling itself together as its own studio, Marvel kicked off Phase 1 of its new movie-making universe with Iron Man.

From start to finish, this is one cool film. It is very sharply-made, with a very slick and high-quality look and feel. It's evenly-paced, with equal parts color, comedy, and action. And when the action hits, it is really cool stuff, without going too far overboard. Among Iron Man's heroics, my favorite scene shows him rocketing to the other side of the world, to use his high-tech suit to beat up violent extremists to protect the innocent (blowing up a tank in the process, before being pursued by American jets in a great high-speed air chase scene). The film's climax features an all-out fight between two high-powered suits, during which there's plenty of mass destruction. Even when there aren't guns and rockets going off, the film is still a blast with its colorful inter-character exchanges, funny suit-testing scenes, tense inter-corporate conspiracies.

The story this film tells is a great one. The origins of Iron Man is inherently compelling, as it takes a greedy, narcissistic arms dealer and flips him on his head to turn him into a hero. The film does so by plunging the character into the heart of the very problems he's created (in a war-town part of the world nonetheless). Once Tony Stark dedicates himself to being Iron Man, the conflict shifts to him confronting everybody else around him. Through all the struggles he endures, the film lays out rich characterization and interesting thematic material worth exploring.

This film looks splendid, with quality photography and editing. Acting is quite spot-on: Robert Downey Jr. is perfectly cast as the title character, and he remains iconic through every other Marvel project he's in from here on out. Gweneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard, Shaun Toub, and everybody else is great to watch as well. Writing is pretty good and sharp. This production uses spectacular-looking sets, props, and costumes. Most special effects hold up well, and are awesome to behold. Ramin Djawadi's music score is pretty cool too.

The first Iron Man film has everything you can ask for in a superhero film: thrilling action, amusing humor, a decent story, and characters we can care about. Even after having numerous other Marvel films come out since, this is still the biggest must-see of the lot.

5/5 (Entertainment: Perfect | Story: Very Good | Film: Very Good)

Novel: Rider of the White Horse Now Available!

Rider of the White Horse was the first novel I've ever written.  It was published in 2002 by Authorhouse (formerly 1st Library), and is now being prepared in a new edition for CreateSpace.

It is now available and can be purchased on CreateSpace or Amazon.

Synopsis:
The Earth becomes a wasteland, following an onslaught of nuclear war and environmental disaster.  Most of the world is conquered by the mysterious Klokan Empire.  With advanced technology and an army of clone soldiers, they systematically exterminate all remaining human beings in a terrifying holocaust.

One clone soldier becomes gifted with an insight and spirit that sets him apart from the others, and he sees the Klokan Empire for the evil it is.  He defects and becomes Kurt Stone, a deadly agent for the last human nation on Earth.  He turns the tide of every battle, pushing the Klokan Empire back while confronting political schemes and civil unrest.

As Kurt's battles take him across the world and beyond, he follows in the prophecy of the Rider of the White Horse:  a warrior who will defeat evil and save the human race.

This account of post-apocalyptic war features big-scale battles, explosive action, suspenseful drama, endearing romance, and gripping emotions.  This grand tale is now presented in an all-new edition, with improved quality and new notes on the creation of this epic adventure.

Background:
In the 8th grade, I came up with my first truly original novel idea.  It came to me when the class went on a field trip to the Anne Frank exhibit in York.  I was (am) interested in WWII history, and I knew all about the holocaust.  In fact, I had the sobering experience of listening to holocaust survivors speaking at our school.  But it wasn’t until this field trip that I learned of the term “Aryan,” and realized that Nazi Germany was basically a huge-scale (and very scary) eugenics program. 

The biggest lesson about the holocaust was that it happened once, and history can always repeat itself.  Next time, it could be worse yet.  I had a scary notion I had that I was compelled to explore:  if Hitler had cloning technology, then he could have abused it to create his “perfect” race, and he could have truly taken over the world.  The genocide, and the purposeful reshaping of the human race, would have been terrible.  I suddenly had scary visions of a post-nuclear-war landscape, where clone armies were marching around and slaughtering every living thing.

My first few drafts for this story were pretty awkward; it’s hard to find the right starting point and the right voice sometimes.  In those first attempts, I approached my ideas in a straightforward fashion, using literal Nazis as the villains.  I took a lesson from existing science fiction, and made an attempt to veil Nazism with other names and concepts.  Thus, I made them into the Klokan Empire.  The term Klokan was originally a name I designated for a race of aliens, who would have had boney claws and spikes sticking out of their skin.  Since I abandoned those story ideas, however, I cannibalized the name “Klokan” for this story.

Something was still missing, however.  A certain theme, and plot structure, was lacking, and it got to the point where I didn’t know how to proceed with this story.  One Easter, I was reading the Book of Revelation, just out of interest, and that’s when I came across the passage regarding the Rider of the White Horse.  Many of the passages in Revelations interested me, for their metaphorical ideas and intense imagery.  When I read this specific chapter, I realized that it could align perfectly with my story, and I sought to marry them together.  I found ways to connect characters and ideas from the book in with Revelations, to the best of my ability.

From then on, the book pretty much wrote itself.  I barely even remember putting that much effort into it; you know something is good if you have fun doing it, and it all flies by without much struggle or second-guessing. 
It took about a year or two to draft this entire story, and it was all finished shortly after I graduated high school.

Publishing this story was another animal entirely, and I had absolutely no clue as to get any kind of professional writing career started.  When it came to querying or submitting works for commercial publishing, I was totally lost, I didn’t know where to start, and I never found the motivation to invest much research or effort into it.  After some brief research, however, I did come across some new Print-On-Demand companies, and felt they were easy and fairly risk-free.  I was sold on the concept of it, I went through the process, and I got this book published by 2002.

I made very few sales; probably 100 or so altogether.  Publishing was easy through these companies, but promoting these books was entirely up to the authors, and I was terrible at self-promotion.  I tried to host a book signing at the local library, but only had one person stop by.  In the end, it was just friends and family who invested in this book, and maybe a few random strangers.

What few readers I had before enjoyed the book, regardless of its issues.  Now that I’ve taken the time to fix up the wording and grammar, I expect that I’ll be happy and proud of this creation again, and can present it to willing readers with confidence.

Redux Edition:
Starting in 2012, I went through the whole text line-by-line to fix numerous issues with the text.  Most of the wording was re-arranged and re-written for better readability.  The text is no longer so plain and flat.  Redundancy is reduced, grammar mistakes are fixed, and the dialogue is sharper and flows better.  A few chapters were merged together, one scene was cut out, some scenes were made longer, and a few really cheesy parts were rewritten so they work better.  The whole thing is revamped so that it reads better and is more creditable.

In preparing for a new print edition of the book, some new notes were made outlining the book's creation and history (most of which is in this post anyway), and new cover art was made by artist Keyvan Ebrahimi.

Inspirations:
I was inspired by the various stories and films I was exploring at the time:  L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth, James Bond movies, and the film Soldier, have all inspired this story.  The name Kurt Stone was inspired by the actor Kurt Russell.  To help visualize and design the various forts and bases that are attacked throughout the book, I designed them with a level editor for the video game Star Wars:  Dark Forces II:  Jedi Knight; doing so allowed me to map out exactly where these characters go and what they experience when traversing through the high-tech Klokan facilities.

There was some music that helped inspire me during the drafting and designing process.  In those days, the film scores for 1997's The Saint and GoldenEye were the biggest things I listened to; they were both quite moody and had a mystique to them, and Eric Serra's music in particular was very appropriately modern.  I discovered that certain CD-ROM video games had music tracks on them, so I listened to the Mechwarrior 2 music all the time; a lot of that has been inspiring for finding the right tone and atmosphere.  As time went on, I acquired more James Bond soundtracks - Tomorrow Never Dies and The World is Not Enough - and select songs, including Rob Dougan's "Clubbed to Death," which I first heard on a Nissan commercial and might be the song that I associate the most with this book.  Other fine songs that have inspired me include Rob Dougan's "Furious Angels," Dave Matthew Band's "When the World Ends," Moby's "Everloving," Sting's "A Thousand Years," Apollo 440's cover of "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," Billy Joel's "Leningrad," Live's "Forever May Not Be Long Enough," PPK's "21st Century," and most recently, Imagine Dragon's "Radioactive." A collection of this music can be heard on 8tracks.

In Conclusion:
The first time I do most anything is usually the worst.  It feels like I've spent more time and effort on this book than any other, because it came out so flawed on the first try, and I had to go back and fix some things.  Now that I've cleaned the work up, I feel more confident in presenting it to readers as a grand piece of post-apocalyptic adventure.  If you do order my book, I hope you'll enjoy it as is.

The Garrison: Excerpt Chapter 6: The Strovnik Army Arrives

Below is a small part of my novel, The Garrison, a fantasy epic about a small castle struggling to hold out against a huge invasion force.  If you like what you see here, buy the entire book on Amazon!
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    Seth, Ghorman, Fastblade, and Leon were at the gatehouse, observing [the Strovnik army's] activity.  Seth had a torch ready at the gatehouse. He hoped that the oil he laid on the grass earlier in the week had not evaporated completely.  As the sky grew darker with gray clouds, he also hoped that it would not rain.
    Seth noticed Harmony standing at the walls.  He wondered if she could she command the skies and hold back the rain.
    His thoughts were interrupted by General Grumman’s approach. Reaching the base of the gatehouse, he shouted, “Defenders of Myriam! I am General Grumman of Strovnik! King Dorrel has sent us to claim what is rightfully ours, and if you hand it over now and surrender everything to us now, you will all be spared!”
    “You shall never have the greater half of the Dark Stone!” Seth taunted. “Nor will you ever see any of us surrender to you! This castle is the final line of defense for Tennence, and it will stand against your entire army!”
    “This is folly! Do you not understand that if you hand over a simple little rock, you will keep your lives, and ensure that you are treated well in Dorrel’s new kingdom! Do you all have a death wish?”
    “There shall be no new kingdom! This is where we draw the line!” Seth shouted back.
    “Be aware that this is your final chance–”
    “No! This is your final chance!”
    “So be it, defenders of Myriam! This castle shall fall!”
    Retreating to the ranks of his men, he raised the Strovnik flag.  As he did so, the entire Strovnik army erupted, clamoring for blood.
    The catapults were set into place, each one loaded with a giant boulder.  Seth knew that it would take many boulders to take down the walls of Myriam, but they were still the biggest concern.  He withdrew his longbow and nocked an arrow on the string.  Fastblade, Ghorman, and Leon did the same, all four of them dipping their arrowheads in oil and setting them ablaze.
    Seth sent an arrow soaring into the air, and it landed on the army below.  It fell on the oiled grass as he had planned, but failed to ignite the grass.
    Seth was perplexed.  Ghorman, Fastblade, and Leon followed suit, with perfect landings on the oil-soaked grass.  The flaming arrows lay burning on the ground, but the grass still failed to ignite.
    “This plan of yours is not working,” Ghorman complained.
    Without a response, Seth nocked another arrow, lit it afire, and released it.  As it plummeted to the ground, it was intercepted by the arm of an enemy soldier, setting him ablaze.  The Strovnik footman tried to flee from the flames, only making the burning worse.  He was forced to the ground by another soldier, who helped him extinguish his burning flesh.
    By that time, the two enemy catapults had fired their first rounds.  Their huge slings hurled the boulders soaring in the air like rockets.  The first boulder hit the base of the castle’s wall, producing an earsplitting crack, but the wall still held together.  The second boulder soared over the wall, clipping it and sending rock chips crashing down its side.
    Seth reloaded his longbow, lit it afire, and attempted to ignite the grass again.  The arrow flew wildly into the enemy formations and hit one of the catapults, lodging itself in the wooden frame.
    Fastblade and Leon unleashed a torrent of arrows onto a group of enemy footmen as they were lugging a battering ram towards the castle’s gates.  Two of were killed, but more men took their places and picked up the ram.
    Seth fired another arrow towards the catapults, killing one of the workers who was loading a boulder into the machine’s giant sling.  Crashing to the ground, it pinned another worker beneath it, killing him instantly.
    The boulder started to roll.  A few nearby footmen stood fast against the giant rock to keep it from rolling.  The stone gained momentum and flattened them as it sped through enemy lines.
    Most of the footmen were able to dodge it, clearing a path for the rolling boulder.  Several of them were still crushed by it.  Those carrying the battering ram were directly in the rock’s path.  Abandoning the ram, they darted out of the way as the boulder snapped it in half like a twig.
    The impact made the boulder stop.  Several footmen tried to salvage either the rock or the ram, but with the ram broken and the boulder so far away from the catapult, they didn’t bother to move them.
    Seth fired a flaming arrow at the fallen battering ram.  The arrow soared towards the log, but instead it ricocheted off of the boulder and it landed at an enemy soldier’s foot.  The Strovnik soldier stamped on the arrow, trying to beat out its flames.
    Suddenly, an explosion of flames burst from the arrow.  The oil had finally ignited.  Fire spread across the grass, encircling the castle.  Dozens of Strovniks were caught in the blaze.  Chaos ensued, as entire squadrons of soldiers were burned alive.
    Several footmen were trapped between the flames and the castle.  Fastblade and Leon showered them with arrows.  The rest of the Strovnik army retreated away from the fire, to their encampment nearby.
    Seth, Leon, Ghorman, and Fastblade joined the rest of the garrison on the wall walk.  A cry of victory resounded through the air as they witnessed their enemy’s demise.
    Seth’s victory cry was brief, however.  The dark sky threatened rain.  How long could the fires last, if dampened by a summer rain?

New Fantasy Novel: The Garrison Now Available!

One of my earliest fantasy novels, The Garrison, is now available to buy on Amazon and CreateSpace!

Synopsis
This short, breezy fantasy epic is all about one small castle with a small group of defenders, all struggling to hold off against massive waves of infantry and siege warfare from an invading nation.  Within the small castle is a relic - half of the mysterious Dark Stone - which the evil King Dorrel covets above all else.  After waiting for years, he launches an all-out invasion on the nation of Tennence, slaying their king and subjugating the kingdom.  One paladin - Seth Chamberlain - collaborates with the wizard Rellore and the garrison of Myriam Castle to muster a defense.  For weeks, the small garrison uses all their might, wit, magic, and strategy to ward off waves of enemies.  In the midst of the combat, Seth falls in love with a witch named Harmony, which strains the tension among the garrison even further.

This novel is briskly-paced with lots of combat and action, scenes of war, drama, romance, magic, and more.

This novel contains quite a bit of graphic violence.  Cursing is mild and there's one sex scene that doesn't go into too much detail.  I would think that teenagers and young adults can handle it, but for all intents and purposes, it's meant for mature audiences.

Background
This novel was originally drafted in 2002.  At the time, I visited Helmsley Castle in England, where they had a medieval reenactment to demonstrate how medieval life, combat, and warfare would have occurred.  This included some fighting demonstrations with daggers, swords, clubs, and bows.  Among the things I learned, it was mentioned that castle garrisons were not all that big at all:  small groups of men could fend off against huge odds using the natural defenses, strategy, terrain, weather, and resourcefulness of a castle.  Sieges could linger on for months like this, and history is full of cases where small groups of men had to fend off against attackers.

In high school, I learned about the different tactics used during siege warfare.  The objective was to force a surrender through attrition; attackers would surround a castle to block it off from the rest of the world.  They could raze all the surrounding farmlands and villages, further separating the castle from resources.  Attacking armies used to use all manner of siege weapons to take down a castle wall or gate.  Catapults and trebuchets would not only hurl stones, but could also toss filth and cadavers into a castle to spread disease.  Siege towers were built as moving towers on wheels, allowing infantry to gain access to the castle's ramparts and interior.  Siege ladders could do the same.  Battering rams could knock down gates.  However, defenders had the ability to throw anything they had at their enemies:  rocks, hot oil, etc.  Castles were often designed to deflect catapult bombardments, usually by making the towers rounded.  Gatehouses served as a highly effective killzone by trapping enemies in between gates and providing vantage points for archers to shoot down on them.  In any given battle, the weather and terrain can affect how armies approach a castle, or how effective the defenders are.

For the battle of Myriam Castle in the book, a whole plethora of these techniques are utilized, in addition to equipping the attacking army with grappling-hooks, and granting liberal use of magic among the defenders.  It took a year or two to draft this novel.  In 2004, I attempted to get the book published through an agent; it went so far as getting edited by a company called My Saint Is An Editor.  I backed out of a contract with the literary agency, after doing more research and finding that the agency didn't necessarily guarantee results.  The book remained in my files for the longest time while I kept busy with my day job and worked on various other projects; only within the past few months did I manage to put the finishing touches on the book by doing more editing passes and getting the graphics finalized.

I drew up maps on MS Paint originally, and they were always rather plain and dorky.  Last month, I posted a contest on Freelancer.com for graphic artists to take my maps and make them better.  After a number of great entries, I picked Sandra Sreckovic's entries as the winner.  Her work is featured in the first few pages of the book, showing in stylish detail how the lands of Tennence and the Realm of the Allied Kingdoms are laid out.

I published the book through Amazon and Createspace.  It took a matter of days to format the book properly, for both print and kindle.  Even though I could probably hire an artist for really good cover art, I opted to make my own cover using a photo I took a few years ago from a MacBeth play in Ripley Castle.  It was a picture of a man sitting by a tree, with a sword sticking up from the ground; I used Corel software to make it black-and-white, to blur out much of the background, and turn the photo into a type of pencil art.  Amazon's cover art software had a theme that cropped and framed the picture with black on the top and bottom of the cover.  This is probably not the best cover in the world, but I felt it was eye-catching, and I did it for free using my own files.

Inspirations
This was the first fantasy novel I attempted, but I had plenty of influences to draw upon at the time.

I've always been a fan of films like Braveheart, which may have subtly influenced my imagination to begin with.  The Lord of the Rings:  The Two Towers was newly-released at the time, so watching the Battle of Helms Deep was quite the inspiration for writing a book based entirely on a siege.  The film The Craft gave me the idea to include four witches in The Garrison, with each one representing a different natural element.  I tried to replicate the events of the novel using the level editor for the video game Warcraft III, but I could never get the scripts to work all that well.  I got to admit that King Dorrel may have been inspired by Arthas in the Warcraft series.

While writing, a few pop songs (primarily Seal's "Kiss From a Rose" and Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful") and a lot of orchestral music provided some ample inspiration (especially the film scores for The Lord of the Rings and Requiem For a Dream).  For some odd reason, Enya's brief track "Epona" is one of the tracks I attribute the most to the project; I think it's a very lovely melody and sound that matches up well with the book's setting.  You can listen to select tracks that inspired me on 8tracks.com.

That's just about all there is to the novel.  It's not the biggest or best thing I ever wrote, but I think it came out well and it is something I'm proud of.  I hope you'll give it a chance and enjoy it.