About a year ago I stumbled across a tv-series called Legend of the Seeker, which I enjoy a lot. The series follow Richard Cypher, the seeker of truth, and his friends Zedd and Kahlan in an epic quest against the evil-incarnated Darken Rahl. During this quest all kinds of problems have to be solved and all sorts of evil creatures have to be fought, by brute force or by magic. Shot against a beautiful background of New Zealand scenery, the series are not only great fun to watch, but a joy to the eye. Apparently, these series were based on The Sword of Truth fantasy series of books written by Terry Goodkind, I set out to read some time ago. When I was visiting the namesake in the US I bought the first part, called “Wizard’s First Rule”, which I finished some time ago. Although, with over 800 pages its quite a big book, it doesn’t feel like that as from the very beginning you find yourself absorbed in the story. The story in the series contains similar parts to the book but also differs significantly in some parts, which in my opinion is nice because you can follow both without the one influencing the other. Anyway, if you are into fantasy like me, both the tv-series as the book are worth checking out. I’ll keep you posted about the second book “Stone of Tears” that is being sent to me as we speak.
Last Saturday, I really enjoyed watching this documentary on the history of Scotland, one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever visited. As it turns out, it’s a series, so I hope I can watch the next episodes too. The documentary explored the Scotland of the early middle ages, when it was still divided into four large parts, every part ruled by a different tribe: vikings, Picts, Gaels, and Angles. Most of all, the documentary was beautifully shot, showing off Scotland’s most beautiful scenery, the rough Highlands, the glenns, the lochs, and the ruins of old castles. It reminded me off our beautiful journey to the Isle of Skye and furthermore think of visiting the country again soon. The documentary is broadcasted on BBC 2, on Saturdays from 21:00-22:00 CET, and made in cooperation with the Open University UK. More information can be found here. Oh yeah, and check out the accent of the narrator/presenter: it’s just brilliant!
In the beginning of this week, I started reading the first book in the Discworld series of Terry Pratchet and I really really enjoy it. I knew discworld by the series of computer games that came out in the beginning of the 90s, and when I stumbled into the novels in a book shop in Aachen, on Stephan’s advice I bought the first book in the series. The computer games I really loved because they had this weird sense of humour. But of course this sense of dry über-English humour is even more apparent in the writing.
The story deals of a failed wizard called Rincewind which was expelled from Magic School, mostly because he learnt a forbidden spell, or as Pratchett says the spell learnt him. Moreover, it’s the only spell he knows. Now this failure of a wizard, by some unexpected series of events comes into contact with a tourist from the other side of the Discworld, called Twoflower, and becomes his guide in the city of Ankh Morpork. Obviously, this is a receipe for disaster and soon enough the entire city burns down. Anway, I’m really enjoying this book, even if I only read about 80 pages about now, but the style of writing, the humour and absurdness of the world Pratchett describes makes it a very easy read and nice way to relax after work. For people that like British humour like me, this book is definitely worth the read. Also you can find it around 10 euros, maybe even less, which makes it even more worth trying.
Yesterday, I finally started watching the second season of the tv series Robin of Sherwood, which all of you might remember if you’re about the same age as I am (or older of course). Ever since the 1980s, when the series was broadcasted on Dutch Television, I’ve been longing to see it again. A sweet sense of nostalgia you might say, and yes it is. Although sometimes nostalgia is better left nostalgia; some series you should not watch again and just keep in memory.
That I really wanted to see this series again maybe also illustrates how I was hooked at it from the very first beginning when I was a little boy. The darkish, sometimes approaching the scary, atmosphere of the series backed by the mysterious music of Clannad, the thrilling story and just the amount of work spent to get every detail right for the atmosphere of the series, just left me breathless back then. So it was also my curiosity of finding out if the series really have been as good as I remember that made me check it out again. Some couple of months ago, probably sparked by the popularity of the new BBC series, Robin of Sherwood was brought out on dvd and of course I bought the first season immediately.
And yes, the series was as good as I remembered it. The first season was already nice to see, although looking and sounding ancient because of the old soft focus recordings and sometimes amateuristic sound effect. However, the first season I finished already too fast, and it left me wondering more and more about the rest of the series, increasing my impatience for the next dvd boxes to arrive. Luckily, about a month ago I stumbled across the second season and started to watch that yesterday. And from the first episod, I already dare to say that I think that this second season was the one that impressed me so much. The acting of all of the actors greatly improved and also it seems that more detail has been spend on the decors, probably because of a bigger budget than the first season that only was 5 episodes long. Writing this post, I think I will again watch an episode this evening, getting that old rush and starting to roll into that old addiction again…
