8 posts tagged “books”

In previous posts (I'm now tagging all of these posts with heroes-historian), I gave a long list of parallels between the NBC television show Heroes and the novel The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Here are a few more.

First, no post from last week's episode because nothing jumped out at me. There was a nice Wargames moment however: in Heroes, Mohinder needs to guess his deceased father's computer password and figures out it is "Shanti", the name of his daughter who died at five years old. This echoes Wargames, where David eventually figures out the password to the backdoor account the (not really) deceased Professor Falken left on the WOPR computer is "JOSHUA", the name of his son who was killed at five years old.

On to this week's episode, which brought us six months into the past to see how some of the Heroes first discovered their powers. Here we learn how Sylar, the character who has been killing people by slicing their skulls open and freezing the bodies while removing (and presumably freezing) their brains got started on his little hobby. It turns out Sylar's power is somehow being able to read/understand the brain (his pre-murderous self had this focused on fixing watches), then use this knowledge to gain the power for himself. So, his first victim is a telekinetic, and after he kills him and takes a look at his brain, he is telekinetic. Presumably he also killed someone who could freeze things.

In The Historian, Dracula is fixated on collecting books and knowledge of the occult and other such things. As with Sylar, he focuses on things that will increase his power - military history, etc.

In Heroes, Sylar attempts to kill the cheerleader Claire. Now knowing that he gains the powers of those he kills and studies, had he been successful he would have been able to shrug off a lot of attacks/come back to life in the same way vampires in The Historian do.

All the jumping around in time Hiro does and this six month flashback both reflect the constant time-period jumping that is the core of The Historian.

Only one more episode before Heroes breaks until the new year (what, no Christmas Special?). I'm not sure what other parallels will surface, but I would bet on a beheading crossover, and it seems that Claire's dad's role and motives are up in the air at this point.

A couple of NYC-centric entries to my gift book collection tonight:

Know someone heading to NYC this Christmas? Know someone who misses NYC at Christmas? Know someone who would like a momento of their trip to NYC at Christmas? Try Christmas in New York: A Pop-Up Book.

This book came out last year, so everyone doesn't have it already :)

For a more general pop-up view of NYC try The New York Pop-Up Book. Along with "19 pop-up masterpieces" you have contributions by city favorites such as: E. L. Doctorow, Tom Wolfe, Wendy Wasserstein, Ric Burns, Herbert Muschamp, Nora Ephron, Carol Willis, David Levering Lewis, Red Grooms, Calvin Trillin, Alex Katz, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Sam Roberts, Vartan Gregorian, Frank Rich, Al Hirschfeld, Alan Alda, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Rob Gibson, Wynton Marsalis, Peter Martins, Grace Glueck, Ken Burns, Philippe de Montebello, Bill Cunningham, Jules Feiffer, Oscar Hijuelos, Edward Sorel

In a long earlier post, I talked about parallels between the novel The Historian and the television show Heroes. I have an update based on last night's episode. As before, there are spoilers ahead so consider yourself alerted.

I have finished the book, and things really got moving there in the last 100 pages! I don't know how you get a 600+ book published as your debut novel, but I think some editing may have been in order (then again I suppose the original manuscript might have been 800 pages).

Anyway, in last night's episode of Heroes, two of the affected characters (mind-reader guy and radiation guy) are together, trying to figure out where their abilities came from. The discover they were both abducted, lost a couple of days, and each has scars on their neck in the form of two short lines spaced closely together.

In The Historian, some of the main characters working to find Dracula are attacked (by Dracula or his minions)  and of course end up with the classic vampire bite marks in the neck.

In Heroes, there are hints that there is a secret organization tracking people with hero-like abilities.

In The Historian, there is a secret organization dedicated to tracking (and hunting) the vampires.

I'll update next week with any more plot convergences!

[update: I'm now tagging all of these posts with heroes-historian]      

Or are you into some other position? Find out with the sleep test, based on the critically-acclaimed book, The Secret Language of Sleep by Evany Thomas.

It's a good gift book, which inspired me to add a gift book collection to my sporadic books area. This will mostly be off-beat or specialized titles, not the latest bestsellers or timeless classics.

Warning: this post may contain spoilers for the NBC television show Heroes and the novel The Historian. Read at your own risk.

I added the new series Heroes to my lineup this fall. I like the actors, the production values are good and the plot is just intriguing enough to make me look forward to the next episode, yet not too intriguing that I feel I have to follow seven Internet forums about the show to keep up. Plus, superpowers! Fun!

I'm also reading The Historian which is a somewhat dense but entertaining romp through eastern Europe in a hunt for vampires, their lore, and dusty libraries. Today I realized there are a surprising amount of parallels between them:

• In Heroes, after people around the world (ok, the US and Japan) discover they have some sort of funky power, their lives soon begin intersecting. Destiny? Something else? We don't know yet. In The Historian, the same thing happens to people who (mysteriously) come into posession of a book that are blank save for a dragon woodcut print on the center pages.
• In The Historian, once you get about 200 pages in (oh yeah, this book is 600+ pages by the way), you realize the main plot point is now going to be "save the girl". In Heroes, the theme "save the cheerleader, save the world" emerged in the second or third episode.
• In Heroes, the central investigator of "just what the hell is going on anyway" character, is drawn in after the death (murder) of his father. In The Historian, the investigator character is drawn in primarily by the disappearnce (abduction) of his mentor.
• At the end of Monday's episode of Heroes, a tattoo of a symbol (which previews hint will be expanded on) is revealed on one of the characters' shoulders. In The Historian, one of the characters reveals she has a tattoo of a dragon (an important symbol in the book) on her shoulder.
  
• In both cases there is a lone "evil" figure who seems to be at the center of everything and is always a step ahead of folks.

Those are the main common themes I've come across so far. There are also some other, minor, interesting similarities. For example, in both cases characters are piecing together visual information in an attempt to figure out what is going on. In Heroes, they are working with paintings/drawings/comic books in an attempt to figure out the future. In the Historian, they are working with old maps and woodcuts to piece together past events.

There are plenty of differences so far. For example, there is nothing threatening to blow up a city in The Historian. Then again, I'm only on page 378.

I'll post any updates as the show progresses and I finish the book.

[update: I'm now tagging all of these posts with heroes-historian]

Today in 1900, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was born. He is best known for writing The Little Prince. A few years ago I came across the following quote by him, and it comes to mind whenever I hear of a new social networking/blogging/instant messaging/whatever service:

"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures -- in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together."

-- Terre des Hommes (translated into English as Wind, Sand, and Stars) (1939)

We have a lot of tools bringing a lot of people together these days. It is quite the adventure seeing what accomplishments will come of it.

My Katamari/The Little Prince mashup. Kind of obvious, but haven't seen it done before. (click image for full size).

I am playing the Katamari games on extreme timeshift. Got the original just this last Christmas, and will be getting the next one next month for my birthday. Enjoying them, but it is odd being out of step with the waves of popularity.