Hello again, this is Rebecca Fisher, here as promised last week to bring you a series of posts focusing on the enjoyment, creativity and imaginative power of fantasy/sci-fi film and television. Up first is Avatar: The Last Airbender, one of my very favourite animated shows. Because it’s such a rich and multifaceted program this post will concentrate mainly on season one, and the best way to introduce you to it is to describe how I was introduced to it.

Avatar, Season One

I was babysitting three boys aged seven to eleven when an animated show I’d never seen before came on the TV. Suddenly they all sat up straight and began pointing at the screen, telling me that this was a show they would happily watch for hours and hours if given the chance, all said with that earnest seriousness that every seven-to-eleven year old has when discussing something they enjoy. Obviously, I watched the episode with them. After returning home later that day, I switched on my computer and immediately ordered the complete DVD box set.

Yeah, all on the basis of one episode. It’s really that good.

Where To Start

It’s hard to know where to start with Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s packed so full of creativity and ingenuity in regards to story, character and world building that trying to describe it to another person usually just results in excited gibberish. So it’s just as well I have the advantage of writing everything down in an orderly manner. I think the strength of any successful fantasy drama lies in the aforementioned story, character and world building working together to create a well-rounded viewing experience, and Avatar provides these things in abundance.

World Building

Map of the Avatar world

This is the world where the story takes place, one divided into four distinct cultures: the Fire Nation, the Water Tribe, the Earth Kingdom and the Air Nomads. Unlike your usual medieval European-based fantasy world, this one is heavily influenced by Asian cultures, and the architecture, written language, philosophy, clothing, food, customs and physical appearance of the characters all have Eastern origins. That straight off indicates the unique nature of this series.

Even more original is the art of “bending”. Best described as a combination of martial arts and elemental magic, bending is the ability to manipulate air, water, earth or fire. Not everyone in the world has this innate gift, but those who possess it can use it for any number of things, from combat to household chores, hard labour to playing games. As the show goes on, it becomes apparent that this ability is linked to a person’s personality, community and spirituality, and that a person’s skill at bending can be improved with training. Also, it’s really cool to watch.

But that’s not all! Benders can only ever bend the element they are born to, leading to the terms earthbender, firebender and so on. But there is one individual who can master power over all four elements, and here’s where we get into the plot.

Premise:

The individual known as the Avatar is a soul reincarnated through thousands of years of history who can manipulate all four elements; who carries with him/her the wisdom of all his/her past lives; and who is charged with maintaining peace between the four nations. However, prior to the beginning of the show’s inception two drastic events occur. Hey, I’ll let the opening narration spell it out:

“Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements could stop them. But when the world needed him most – he vanished. A hundred years passed…”

From left: Appa, Sokka, Katara, Aang and Momo (the arrows make sense in context)

The person talking is Katara, a young Water Tribe girl (and waterbender) who is fishing in the icy regions of the South Pole when she, along with her brother Sokka, makes an extraordinary discovery: a young boy and his wind bison trapped in a huge block of ice. Having just re-read that sentence I realize how strange this whole thing sounds, but bear with me.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the boy they’ve uncovered is the Avatar, and Katara in particular is excited about the fact that hope has returned to the world after so long. But Aang is reluctant about his role as Avatar: not only is he just twelve years old, but his responsibilities to the world are daunting. He needs to learn water, earth and firebending in order to supplement his airbending skills so that he can defeat the Fire Lord Ozai. In other words, a tween has to go up against a grown man in order to save the world. And what’s worse? That there’s a time limit to Aang’s training.

Though the story begins in winter, the approaching summer heralds the return of Sozin’s Comet, a source of power for the firebenders that will render them twice as strong once it reaches the planet’s orbit. Currently the Fire Nation is still invading various parts of the world, and now they’re on the hunt for the long-lost Avatar.

Oh, and did I mention that during Aang’s sojourn within the iceberg, all of his fellow Air Nomads were wiped out of existence?

As you can see from this synopsis, a huge amount of time and detail is poured into this series, though the first season is relatively straightforward.

Storyline: Season One:

Called Book 1: Water, Season One involves Aang’s journey from the South Pole to the North in search of a waterbending teacher, passing through the Earth Kingdom, a couple of the Air Nomad temples, and even a Fire Nation island on the way. On his trail is Prince Zuko, a banished prince from the Fire Nation who is allowed to return from exile only if he captures the Avatar.

Perhaps the show’s most complex character, Zuko could have very easily been a one-dimensional villain out to thwart our heroes, but is instead rendered a complicated young man with a high code of honour who is torn between his duty to his nation, his desire to return home, and his deep-seated awareness of right and wrong. With him is his uncle Iroh, an ex-general gone to seed (at least a little bit) who provides encouragement and levity to his nephew as they pursue Aang.

The Characters

As the episodes go on, we learn more about each character’s backstory (particularly how and why Zuko got that nasty burn on his face) and watch them grow and develop as each new experience shapes them. Along with Aang, Katara and Sokka we get to meet other neat characters, such as Suki, a girl who leads a team of female warriors, or Jet, a freedom fighter with a dark streak, or Bumi, an elderly king who goes about ruling his kingdom in a highly unorthodox way. Plenty of people, concepts and locations are introduced in the first book that are brought back or given greater significance in the next two seasons.

It all comes to an epic conclusion once the trio (with Zuko close behind) reach the North Pole and the beautiful Northern Water Tribe city. Here Katara struggles with a sexist waterbending master and Sokka falls for a beautiful princess, all of which is put aside when the Fire Nation fleet arrives. Hopelessly outnumbered, Aang makes a bid for reinforcements by travelling into the spirit world in order to seek guidance from a terrifying creature that dwells there…

Why You Should Watch “Avatar: The Last Airbender”

Seriously, it’s awesome. I could rave about it for pages yet, but I’ll finish up with three final reasons why you should check out this show:

1. It has a beginning, middle and end.

This isn’t a show that’s cut short at its peak, or one that carries on long past its use-by date. Instead it’s a complete story, which starts out strong in its first part, becomes richer and deeper in its second, and comes to a definitive conclusion in its third. Though there are a few filler episodes, almost every single chapter of this story adds to the richness of the world and lays the seeds for things that can be explored later. The character development is wonderful, whether it be Zuko conflicted by his past, Aang struggling to accept his future, Katara reconciling her motherly qualities with her lost childhood, or Sokka getting over his chauvinism and becoming a leader in his own right.

2. There’s plenty of diversity in regards to gender and race.

Because this story is set in a world based on Eastern influences and in an Asian setting, the characters themselves reflect this heritage. Katara and Sokka are Inuit, Aang is Tibetan, and Zuko is Chinese – or at least fantasy world equivalents. Furthermore, there are plenty of great female characters who can be anything from hardened warriors to delicate princesses, and each one shows strength and vulnerability and three-dimensionality in their own way – and there’s plenty more of them to come in Book Two!

3. Beautiful Animation.

At times the artwork for this show reaches movie-level quality. Everything is gorgeously rendered, from the design of the characters to the locations that they visit to the manipulation of the four elements that benders can achieve. Between the creativity of the writers and the animators, the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender sucks you in with its beauty and makes you enthusiastic about exploring this world along with the characters.

So despite how elaborate I’ve made this show sound, it’s amazingly cohesive and consistent, revealing just enough exposition at just the right times to get you hooked and hungry for more. The world of Avatar has its own culture, history and mythology, and part of the joy in watching is the excitement of discovery, whether it’s the people, the places or the backstories that emerge with each new episode.

Conclusion:

On a final note, the worst thing you could do for yourself is to assume that this is strictly a children’s cartoon. Even from the first few episodes it’s clear that this is a show that deals with hefty issues such as sacrifice, loss and the cost of war, and each character (even those who initially seem like comic relief) have emotional depth and complex backstories.

So, in conclusion – watch it.

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Next time: a look at a New Zealand made fantasy series that incorporates magic, time-travel and circus performers in the midst of a dystopian world: Maddigan’s Quest.

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Rebecca Fisher

About The Reviewer:

Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her own LiveJournal blog.

To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, click on Big Worlds On Small Screens.

Mourn, O you Loves and Cupids
and such of you as love beauty:
my girl’s sparrow is dead,
sparrow, the girl’s delight,
whom she loved more than her eyes.
For he was sweet as honey, and knew her
as well as the girl her own mother,
he never moved from her lap,
but, hopping about here and there,
chirped to his mistress alone.
Now he goes down the shadowy road
from which they say no one returns.
Now let evil be yours, evil shadows of Orcus*,
that devour everything of beauty:
you’ve stolen lovely sparrow from me.
O evil deed! O poor little sparrow!
Now, by your efforts, my girl’s eyes
are swollen and red with weeping.

by Catullus, (ca. 84 – 54 BC)

*An alternate name for Pluto, Roman God of the Underworld, & also for the underworld itself.

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About The Poem:

I am currently doing a mini-series of poems on sparrows, which may morph to one on birds generally—I am not yet sure—and this poem by Catullus, the 3rd in the sequence of 116 remaining to us, is certainly one of the more famous. Enjoy!

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About The Poet:

Catullus was born in Verona, which was part of the Roman republic, and as a young man in Rome became a member of a circle of “new wave” poets. 116 of his poems survive and he is regarded as one of the great classical influences on western poetry, as well as being readily readable today.

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To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.

But in order to get BLOOD done and dusted and out to readers, quite a few of whom are writing to let me know they’re hanging out for WALL3 (thank you, all!), it’s quite clear that the beavering has to continue unabated.

And in order for that to happen, I have to clear the decks a bit more than I already have. I will still be posting here every day, but I’ll be in maintenance mode, which means that the posts will generally be shorter and of an update nature—and there ‘may’ be more photos of my cat.

I may re-post a few guest posts of yore as well, if I think they’re of particular interest

Anyway, I hope you’ll all bear with me, but I feel the priority has to be the books given I “am” a writer — so that’s why I shall be keeping the posts shorter and sweeter here ‘for the nonce.’

Ripley Patton

Ripley Patton is a friend and fellow speculative fiction author. We first met when Ripley was living in Christchurch and setting up SpecFicNZ. She was also busy writing her first novel, the YA paranormal-thriller, Ghost Hand—and although she and her family have since moved back to the United States, we have continued to correspond and I was pleased to support the release of Ghost Hand last year.

Today Ripley is back to share the cover reveal for her second-in-series: Ghost Hold.

Welcome, Ripley.

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THE GHOST HOLD COVER REVEAL

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Love Minus Eighty by Will McIntosh — Reviewed by Karen McMillan

This is an original love story set a hundred years in the future, in a world where the dead can be revived, but only the extremely rich can afford the procedure. This is a world where you can pay insurance to be stored on ice at minus eighty, in the hope someone will bring you back. It’s a world where technology is king, where people prefer to interact with each other through floating screens and you can choose to live your life on full public view. It’s also a world where dead beautiful woman are put on ice in dating centres in the hope that billionaires will revive these ‘Bridesicles’,  although the dating procedure is extremely cruel. Usually they only have five minutes with prospective grooms for each date in the centre – with only their faces activated – before being turned off again.

Mira has been on ice in the dating centre for more than 80 years, and the reader feels her despair each time she is woken by another perverted old man. She misses her partner, but yearns to be ‘revived’ rather than the nothingness of being on ice. But then she is visited by Lycan, a young man who seems genuinely kind, and he may be her opportunity for living again…

Meanwhile a tragic accident puts another young woman, Winter, in the dating centre. She was out jogging when she was hit by a car. Rob, the person who killed her, is filled with remorse.  His girlfriend Lorelei had just broken up with him in front of hundreds of people on screen and he hadn’t been concentrating when he was driving. He vows to make things right and gives up his dream of being a musician to do manual work so he can earn the $9,000 required for a five minute session. He wants to apologise to her – and after that, he promises to come back. Meanwhile Vernika works as a dating coach, but secretly has a crush on another dating coach, Nathan. All of these lives – the dead and the living – are soon to collide in surprising and thought-provoking ways, against a backdrop of protest about the ‘Bridescicle’ programme.

This is a riveting read. At first glance it’s a light book, but the further you delve into this world, the more interesting the themes that relate to our own time that question love, technology and mortality. Highly recommended for an innovative plot, a scarily imaginable world and wonderful characters.

Publisher: Orbit, 2013;  pp 432 [Paperback]

To find out more about the author, click on: Will McIntosh

To read Karen’s previous review for ‘…on Anything, Really’ click on: Citadel by Kate Mosse

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About the Reviewer:

Karen McMillan lives in New Zealand and is the author of both fiction and non-fiction. She has a Diploma in Professional Writing and an Advanced Diploma of Applied Arts (Writing). Her non fiction title,  Love in Aotearoa, was short-listed for the Ashton Wylie Book Award in 2005.

Previously an award-winning fashion designer, Karen has worked full-time for a leading book publisher based in New Zealand for the past twelve years. Karen has written articles for a variety of different publications and from time to time she takes on ghost-writing projects. She also volunteers for her local hospice and writes articles that promote the life-affirming work that they do.

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Note: Given “Love Minus Eighty” is an Orbit publication, I also note that Karen is an employee of Hachette New Zealand; the review was done for her private blog and represents her own opinion.

The Wall of Night Series map; design by Peter Fitzpatrick

The A Geography of Haarth series is traversing the full range of locales and places from The Wall of Night world of Haarth—and today’s entry is the last in “C.”  Next week—onwards to ‘D.’

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Crosshills:  a small village on the Northern March of Emer, in the Southern Realms

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“…the squires were going to have to rise well before dawn for their vigil. The castle’s chapel to Serrut had not yet been reconsecrated after Maister Gervon’s death, so the squires would be riding to the one in Crosshills village, four miles away.”

~ from ©  The Gathering of the Lost: The Wall of Night Book Two; Chapter 17 — Oak and Hill

The initial series will comprise seven features and run every second Wednesday over the next few months. It will be brought to you by Rebecca Fisher: writer, reviewer, all-round SFF fan, and in particular, lover of SFF and related shows and film. But initially, I thought the ideal introduction would be for Rebecca to tell you about  herself and her take on the TV/film series.

So without further ado…

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Rebecca Fisher

Introducing Rebecca Fisher, Having Fun With Speculative Fiction TV and Film

Though my full name is Rebecca Fisher, I’ve had my username ravenya03 for so many years now that the two aliases are virtually interchangeable. I’m a twenty-something writer who has yet to make any sort of living out of it, but having just finished my first novel, I’m enjoying the sensation of my brain not constantly nagging me to get back to work on it. For a little while at least, I plan to concentrate on less strenuous mental activities, and Helen is kind enough to let me do so on her blog.

My main interest is fantasy/sci-fi film and television, and in preparation for this short bio I’ve been absorbing a lot of articles from various writers who seek to defend and justify the popularity of the genre. They discuss how it provides analogies for real world problems, or how it can tap into archetypes that linger in our subconscious, and the way imaginary characters and their situations can provide cathartic grief or vicarious triumph in the reader/viewer.

Well, I won’t deny any of that, but these theories discount another far simpler reason for why (I think) fantasy and sci-fi is so appealing to so many people: the sheer enjoyment that is derived from creativity and imaginative power. This genre can be a source of inspiration to its consumers and a means of escapism from the hum-drum routine, but it’s also just plain fun.

This is what I hope to focus on in the forthcoming articles I’ll be writing for Helen’s blog: the enjoyment to be had in escaping the winter cold with a portable DVD player (best $50 ever spent) and whatever fantasy/sci-fi based media I can get my hands on. By writing about them afterwards, hopefully you’ll discover a show or film to enjoy that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

As for my qualifications… well, I have an MA in English Literature mainly because I was able to get away with writing my thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. More importantly, from where I’m sitting right this moment I can see a bookcase full of my other favourite authors: Patricia McKillip, Philip Reeve, Susanna Clarke, Garth Nix, Meredith Anne Pierce and Lloyd Alexander, a few of which have had their works adapted for the screen. Television-wise I’m currently making my way through Once Upon a Time and Xena Warrior Princess, but I remain a big fan of Avatar: the Last Airbender, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gargoyles, The Legend of the Seeker and (though this is a more love/hate relationship) Merlin and Robin Hood. For those interested, I contribute reviews to Fantasy.Lit, a large website that specializes in fantasy/sci-fi books as well as to Amazon.com and my own LiveJournal.

But my objective here is to have some fun, which shouldn’t be too hard considering my enthusiasm for this project.

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Are you looking forward to this series? I sure am!

Here’s Who: a short, first person introduction to the writer
Here’s Why: the writer writes speculative fiction
Here’s What: an example of the writer’s work
Here’s Where: you can find out more about the writer and their work

By way of a reminder for those of you who may not be familiar with the New Zealand speculative fiction/SFF scene, SpecFicNZ is the ” national association for creators, writers and editors of speculative fiction in or from New Zealand” and we have a lively local group here in Christchurch—so much so that I thought some of my blog readers might enjoy “‘meeting” the members.

So over the past seven weeks I have been delighted to feature:

April 24: Elizabeth Gatens

May 1: Kevin Berry

May 8: AJ Fitzwater

May 15: Cat Langford

May 22: Beaulah Pragg

May 29: Gareth Renowden

June 5: Tim Stead

I  hope you also enjoyed the series—and in the spirit of “Here’s Where”, if you have not done so already, then please do check out the speculative fiction these authors are creating.

from Venery

ix. A Host of Sparrows

© Joanna Preston

So what else is coming up this week–the Tuesday Poem’s ekphrastic poetry series is done and dusted, so I’ll be focusing on something else for this week–have been thinking about branching into a theme of ‘sparrows’ following on from last week’s final poem. Watch this space tomorrow…

Rebecca Fisher

On Wednesday I’ll wrap up the Here’s SpecFicNZ–Christchurch feature series, and on Thursday I’ll introduce Rebecca Fisher and a new series coming up–discussing speculative fiction (or closely related) film and television. I am really looking forward to seeing  this kick off, starting with introducing Rebecca, who will be bringing you this fascinating topic.

Also mid-week, I’ll be doing a guest post on the BookSworn site so will cross-post to that from here—I hope some of you will pop on over and support me there with a comment or three.

On Saturday, I’ll be welcoming Ripley Patton back to talk about her forthcoming second-in-series, Ghost Hold. I’m looking forward to finding out what comes next in Ripley’s exciting YA paranormal-thriller series.

I reckon I could just about claim, given all of this, that it’s all happening right here—but if not quite ‘all’, there’s plenty going down, at any rate.