BOOK: The Glass Hotel (2020)

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The Glass HotelYear: 2020Author: Emily St. John MandelLength: 628 minutes / 10.47 hours After having read Sea of Tranquility and loving the non-linear storytelling in that book, I picked up one of the author’s previous works, The Glass Hotel. While not nearly as fantastical as the time travel infused Sea of Tranquility, there’s a lot of personality in the characters in The Glass Hotel. These people and events feel real. Even if their circumstances are fictional, albeit based on real-life events, the interconnection of these individuals makes the world feel small—as if dwarfed by the enormous invisible mechanisms that keep the world running on autopilot. The one thing with The Glass Hotel’s fractured storytelling is that it takes quite a while to figure out what’s going on. Of course, once things click into place, it feels like the setting shrinks down to be exclusively about the eponymous hotel. And then, that’s it. There’s no bigger mystery. There’s no supernatural explanation. Tragedy happens...
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MOVIE: How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

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How to Train Your Dragon 2Year: 2014Rating: PGLength: 102 minutes / 1.70 hours Sequels can be a tough transition for a franchise. There's always a struggle of keeping the magic of the first movie, but exploring the world in new directions. Lean too far in one direction, and the sequel feels stale; too far in the other direction and there's nothing to connect it to the original. The best sequels are the ones that use the fact that the first movie dealt with the "origin story" and now they can use a confident main character to advance the franchise. How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) is a better sequel than most, but it raises more questions. While How to Train Your Dragon (2010) was a coming-of-age story, its sequel also carries a similar plot structure. Instead of figuring out who he is, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) needs to build enough confidence in who he is to take over being chief from his...
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VIDEO GAME: SteamWorld Dig (2013)

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SteamWorld DigYear: 2013Rating: E10+Time Played: 366 minutes / 6.10 hours I was loosely aware of the SteamWorld games, having picked up several for free over the years on various platforms like the Epic Games Store. Fittingly enough, the first game from the series I ended up playing was SteamWorld Dig via Steam on my SteamDeck. This robot western Metroidvania was limited in its scope, but executed its exploration aspect well. I always appreciate games that are short but not too short, and this one certainly scratched that itch. Still, it retains the visual feel of a game that came out over a decade ago. The base gameplay loop in SteamWorld Dig revolves around finding gems to pay for upgrades to your mining equipment, which allows you to find more gems and dig deeper into the ground. One thing I learned early on was to dig in a way that allowed me to go back up if I needed to. Far too often,...
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MOVIE: Enchanted (2007)

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EnchantedYear: 2007Rating: PGLength: 107 minutes / 1.78 hours For 70 years, Disney released movies that built up this fantastical notion of what a “princess” was. From Snow White (1937) to Cinderella (1950) to Sleeping Beauty (1959), and all other princess movies since then, Disney built up an amount of lore around these characters that would look ridiculous if transposed into reality. And while the princesses scene in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) understands the tongue-in-cheek nature of these fantasy stories, nothing ever quite beats Enchanted (2007) as the best self-aware commentary of the princess genre. Starting off in the animated world of Andalusia, Enchanted introduces Giselle (Amy Adams) as a princess yearning for “true love’s kiss.” Luckily, she falls right into the lap of Prince Edward (James Marsden) who proclaims that they will be wed the following day. Of course, this does not sit well with Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), who banishes Giselle to the real world. Here, Giselle’s “princess powers” still...
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BOOK: Jackrabbit (2014)

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JackrabbitYear: 2014Author: Ian Thomas HealyLength: 256 pages I’ve watched a lot of superhero movies and read at least a few superhero comics, but I haven’t read any superhero books before. This changed when I picked up Jackrabbit, a book in the Just Cause universe of superheroes. The idea of a 6-foot-tall superhero rabbit was amusing enough for me to give it a try. What I came away with was a smartly written superhero story that was as much fun as it was funny. Sure, it might have been a little too horny for the standard superhero fare, but you can get away with more in a book than in more visual mediums. While somewhat formulaic, Jackrabbit is an origin story for the titular superhero—although you can’t really call them that as these characters are technically “heralds” of obscure gods like the god of rabbits. This transformation results in a super-powered rabbit man who feels like the antics of Bugs Bunny combined with...
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MOVIE: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

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Snow White and the Seven DwarfsYear: 1937Rating: ApprovedLength: 83 minutes / 1.38 hours The more classic Disney movies I watch with my kids, the more I pick up on the animation breakthroughs each film brought forth. They're mostly hidden to the untrained eye, but realizing things like how colorful Sleeping Beauty (1959) looks or noticing early CGI use in The Little Mermaid (1989) highlights how innovative Disney was in their Golden and Renaissance eras. And the movie that kicked everything off was none other than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Story-wise, Snow White is your basic Grimm fairy tale put through the Disney filter to make it not quite as terrifying to young kids (although it still has its moments). Nothing extraordinary, but it lends itself to a few interesting animation techniques—some of which I still scratch my head trying to figure out how they pulled it off. Mainly, the human characters look a little weird compared to the more...
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VIDEO GAME: Honkai – Star Rail (2023)

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Honkai: Star RailYear: 2023Rating: TTime Played: ~4,700 minutes / ~78.33 hours Having played Genshin Impact by MiHoYo, I thought I’d give their next game—a sci-fi based adventure—Honkai: Star Rail a try. While Genshin Impact is more of an open-world adventure akin to Breath of the Wild, Honkai: Star Rail is a turn-based RPG similar to early Final Fantasy games. Both follow the “gatcha” mechanic for obtaining new characters, so a lot of the consumables had similar uses for powering up the characters, just with different names in each game. Surprisingly, while I liked the exploration in Genshin Impact, the ability for Honkai: Star Rail to run automatically made me like it more. Since most gatcha games try to get you to spend money to get good characters and spend even more time grinding materials to upgrade these characters, I can appreciate how I only needed to get one set of the traditional RPG roles to max build out before I could let...
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MOVIE: Beauty and the Beast (1991)

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Beauty and the BeastYear: 1991Rating: GLength: 84 minutes / 1.40 hours If one movie were to cement the Disney Renaissance in the 1990s, it would have to be Beauty and the Beast (1991). While The Little Mermaid (1989) kicked this era of Disney off, Beauty and the Beast had a deeper and more meaningful moral based in contrasting reactions to masculinity that was powerful enough to earn it a nomination for Best Picture that year (the first time an animated movie had done so). Disney had figured out their formula here and used it to great effect for the next few years. As with all these modern classics, Alan Menken's songs make this movie quite memorable. The visual style that accompanied everything was bold and distinct, using even more CGI than The Little Mermaid did to even better effect. The variety of character designs and personalities also made the cast feel diverse and well-rounded. It may be a little dark for small...
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