Brandyé Dui-Erâth was born under a low red moon to awful circumstances. Mere moments after his birth, the house in which he was born was engulfed in flame and burned to the ground around him. The men and women of the village flocked to the scene and looked on helplessly, knowing with sadness that the family who lived there had perished.
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I’ve been in a productive mood lately. It’s a good thing, really – it keeps me busy, allows me to work through my creativity, and stops me from feeling terribly depressed in these dark, cold winter months.
Over the holidays I really was doing a lot of music work; in particular, I started writing a requiem, which is something I’ve wanted to accomplish for a very long time. (It’s not for anyone in particular – no one has died!) And whilst its been coming along pretty well – four and half movements complete as of right now – it’s nonetheless fairly slow, tedious work as I plug in every single note, one by one, for an entire orchestra.
So I’m taking a break from that just for the moment, and in the past couple of weeks I’ve come back to The Redemption of Erâth. For those of you who don’t know or don’t remember, this blog started out originally, back in 2011, as a way of publishing chapters from my ongoing fantasy series for people to read. It soon expanded from there as I shared any random thoughts that crossed my mind, and then, of course, deteriorated into a once-in-a-blue-moon posting about how I lament not posting more frequently (see last week’s post).
The Redemption of Erâth is the story of a young man who is banished from his home after a terrible tragedy, and spends the rest of his life (so far) wandering the world, trying to save it from impending destruction at the hands of Darkness (yes, with a capital ‘D’). So far I’ve published the first three books in the series, entitled Consolation, Exile, and Ancients & Death (all available on Amazon and Apple Books if you want to support a starving artist!). Each book is really a direct continuation of the last, so do make sure you tackle them in order (very à la Lord of the Rings), and I will say they grow in scope and excitement with each new book.
I’m currently about halfway through the fourth book, which will be called The Fall of Thaeìn. In it, we see our hero struggle deeply with his own inner darkness as he races to warn the great kingdoms of men about the advances of Darkness. We’re up to a chapter now called The Siege Begins, and it promises to house one of the largest battle scenes the series has seen so far (outside of flashbacks). I’m excited!
As I push myself to complete the fourth book over the next few months, I think I’d like to try something I’ve done in the past (without any great success): I will post a chapter from The Redemption of Erâth, starting with the first book, every few days for you all to read for free! After all, my great desire is not to make millions off my writing, but simply to enrich people’s lives with stories of darkness and fantasy that might help them escape into a world they’ve never seen before. If slower-paced, dark fantasy is your thing, then stay tuned – I’m going to start this week!
If you just can’t wait to know what happens next, then you can do one of two things: if you really, really like me you can purchase these books on Amazon (both digital and print) and Apple Books (digital-only), and enjoy your very own copy; or, send me a message or comment below and I’ll happily provide you with digital copies absolutely free for you to enjoy in your own time.
It’s a great feeling to be writing again, and I truly can’t wait for the fourth book to be finished so I can share it with you all!
I actually purchased this movie on iTunes a long time ago (I think because it was on sale for under $5), but never really got around to watching it until just the other night (for Halloween, actually!). I was initially attracted to the premise because of the success of the earlier Hellboy movies starring Ron Perlman, and the promise of gore and violence to excess. I didn’t really know who David Harbour was (still don’t, if I’m being honest), and I knew it wasn’t well-received, but I thought perhaps it would be one of those entertainingly bad movies, at least.
It turned out to be the first movie in a very, very long time that I actually stopped watching halfway through, and have absolutely no desire to finish. Violence and gore is about all it has going for it – and even then, it’s tainted by poor CGI and prop/sets that appear to outright defy the laws of physics.
Essentially – from what I gathered in the first thirty minutes or so – Hellboy is on earth, part of some society of folks that go around dealing with monsters and demons and preventing them from wreaking havoc in the world. We’re treated to a dreadful opening flashback in which Milla Jovovich is gorily skewered and decapitated because she’s some kind of evil blood queen (this doesn’t appear to kill her, interestingly enough), before returning to present-day in which Hellboy fights an old friend-turned-vampire in a Mexican boxing ring, before being despatched to England to deal with some giants. (Yes – this is the opening of the film.)
From here, he is swiftly betrayed by the giant hunters in England, though we don’t learn why as they are themselves swiftly decimated by the giants themselves. Hellboy wakes up some time later only to take on the giants and destroy them with what seems like reckless ease, only to then pass out (I guess from the exertion of destroying giants?) and wakes up in some girl’s flat and that’s when I was just like nope – this is making zero sense whatsoever. (All the while, Jovovich’s character is being reassembled from her severed body parts found across the land by her demon-slaves, or something.) Again, this is the first thirty minutes of a two-hour movie.
This movie is literally a disaster. From the pacing to the dialogue to the shoddy CGI and ham-fisted plot, there is just … just no redeeming this abomination of cinema. At one point Hellboy swings a sword four times his own height into a giant’s skull, parting it almost completely and showering the viewer in CGI blood that looks like nothing more than melted plastic, or the blood effects of a 2005-era video game. In the same sequence, he skewers another giant with a tree. A literal tree. And yet tasers seem to incapacitate him fairly easily.
I don’t know. I think it’s a shame, really, because there was potential here; the opening boxing ring sequence wasn’t bad, and it wastes great talent such as Ian McShane (Winston from John Wick, or Blackbeard from Pirates of the Caribbean) on ancillary roles with absolutely no meaningful dialogue. It’s boring, predictable, and worst of all, has zero structure that sets up conflict. It’s rushed, too; along with everything else described, we also learn (in the same first thirty minutes) that Hellboy was raised from hell as a child demon, and taken in by Ian McShane’s character to raise as a son … because that also just makes so much sense.
Anyway, there’s really not much else to say about this film, other than save yourself the rental fee – or at least the time out of your life – and watch something better. Almost any other movie on earth is more worth your time than this disaster.
★☆☆☆☆
Satis Writes 