Book Review: Blood of Requiem

This week I have returned to my books and I have had my head buried in Blood of Requiem: Song of Dragons 1, by Daniel Arenson. The story is a bloody tale about the last weredragons - people who can shape shift into the mythical beasts. The book starts ten years after the last resistance was wiped out. Kyrie, who was a child at the time and escaped suddenly finds himself on the run after the person who has been hiding him for the last decade is murdered. 

While on the run, Kyrie meets the weredragons lost king, Benedictus, who he implores to help him fight back, but the king refuses. Things change when their hunters - lead by Ben’s brother, Dies Irae, catch up with them and attack with their griffins. The rest of the story sees the two team up with other survivors as they flee for their lives before making a final stand. 

Blood of Requiem has a flowing style with a lot of great action. This is tempered with some very poetic parts in the narrative that make it an easily enjoyable read. The book however does focus a little too much on action and this does account for about ninety percent of the pages. It would have been nice to have seen more pacing in parts to let the reader digest what is going on. I also found the part of the dragons being able to talk a little silly. But this is not a child’s fantasy novel as there is rape and other graphic scenes within its covers.

Blood of Requiem gets 6/10.

TV Review: Vikings

Another TV review this week and I’ve struck gold! If you have not seen Vikings, I suggest you stop what you are doing, go home and put it on. 

Set in the eighth century, Vikings centres on the life of Ragnar Lothbrok, a poor farmer who challenges his village chief to start sailing west to get plunder in Viking raids. His lord refuses his suggestion and Ragnar heads west in spite - finding England and bountiful lands to raid. 

If you enjoy Game of Thrones or even historical dramas you should enjoy this. While there is no magic like the former, the series does skirt the fringes of fantasy - especially with former priest Aslaug, who often has visions of Gods and dark creatures. There is also the seer, a blind man in Ragnar’s village who is meant to be able to decipher the will of the Gods. 

Vikings is bloody, often fast paced and at times very grisly. There is a lot going on, a lot of characters and some interesting ideas. 

My only gripe with the show is that some of the Norse characters seem to have difficulty keeping their accents. Rollo - Ragnar’s brother - is one such example. Sometimes he sounds Norse, sometimes he sounds English. Other actors suffer from the same affliction. 

Vikings gets 9/10.

Black Sails Review

Black Sails is a Pirates of the Caribbean style romp following the adventures, or rather misadventure of Captain Flint and his crew as they hunt for the motherload of all Spanish gold cargoes. 

The series opens with a high-seas battle, where a crew is picked off one-by-one by an enemy they cannot see. However, once that is done with and we are introduced properly to the attacking crew - led by Captain Flint - the sailors turn out to be quite a boring bunch. 

Visually Black Sails is beautiful, with great sets and good camera work but the story gets bogged down very quickly with constant double-crossing between the characters. In the first episode this is quite confusing as you are introduced to a lot of characters. Then it just keeps going for the rest of the series. 

It also takes six episodes before Captain Flint sets sail in search of the ship carrying the Spanish gold haul - despite talking about it for so long. Once at sea though, the pace does pick up and there is a lot of action but I don’t understand why it took six episodes to get to that. 

Bland characters and constant faffing aside though, Black Sails does have some interesting side plots and funny moments. It also cuts quite close to the knuckle at times and can be quite grisly but these moments are few and far between like the action. It’s still a decent series though and I would recommend a watch if you have Amazon Prime. 

It gets 6/10. 

Film Review: Need for Speed

If you aren’t looking forward to seeing Fast and the Furious 7 starring Paul Walker’s ghost, then Need for Speed might be a suitable alternative if you are a woman and don’t like drooling over dead men. Adrenaline junkies and the male demographic probably will not care which of the two movies they see.

My expectations for Need for Speed were pretty low. For those who do not play video games, you will probably not be aware of the curse that haunts games which are given a movie adaptation. Basically the formula is this: Hit game series = shit movie. As thus it has been for years. But I was shocked by Need for Speed, (the movie that is) it was actually quite good.

Despite the first twenty minutes being slow (no pun intended) the film had a strong storyline. Yes, it had dumb moments and more plot holes than a sieve but I was willing to forgive all that because it was hugely entertaining and for 132 minutes made me feel half a kid again just wanting to race around in fast cars. 

Also Aaron Paul (AKA Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad) makes an excellent piece of eye candy. And for the guys there is Imogen Poots to gawk at. 

When it comes down to it, Need for Speed is basically a revenge film - with cars. It’s a formula that’s been done may times before but this movie’s take on the concept is very fresh. There are a lot of jokes, a lot of action and a lot of heart as well. There is also a Mustang, race tracks, flying cars, super cars, an office worker stripping off for no apparent reason, explosions, random cement mixers in the middle of the desert and an apache helicopter. The only thing this film didn’t have was a giraffe. 

Need for Speed gets 7/10.