2 posts tagged “fantasy”
I read this book on a recommendation from a friend and I ended up loving the story. It's a story within a story (as told by the protagonist) about a young man name Kvothe (pronounced Quothe) who becomes orphaned after his family is murdered by the mysterious Chandrian. After spending many years begging on the streets, Kvothe decides he must make his way to the university as this was what his family would have wanted him to do. Using his quick wits and his penchant for mischief, he is accepted into the university where he makes both friends and enemies. Kvothe is a magician, a musician and a young man trying to solve the mysteries of his parent's murder - this story is set in a completely original world with all the fantasy elements a reader would want to see.
Combine the writers strike with my lack of satellite television (why does it take 2 weeks for them to get out to my new place and set it up?!) and you'll find me sitting at home watching all the tv shows that stream from the national networks. I got to catch up on Ugly Betty (oh how I love the campy gayness and dark sinister humor!) and Desperate Housewives (cattiness at its best) - two shows that I've been neglecting for some time. But anyway, whilst I was perusing the ABC website desperately looking for something to watch, I remembered that there had been some buzz about the show Pushing Daisies, so I clicked on it and started watching and I was immediately hooked!
So here's the show's premise: Ned has a special power...he can bring back the dead by touching them, but the catch is that he can only keep them alive for a minute before someone else nearby has to die. So what he does is he goes to the morgue, brings murder victims back to life, asked them who killed them and then collects the reward money. He's also the owner of a pie shop called "The Pie Hole" along side his employee Olive Snook (played by Kristin Chenoweth aka Galinda from Wicked!). Right, so when Ned finds out that his child sweetheart Charlotte aka Chuck has died, he decides to bring her back to life for good and so long as they don't touch each other, she'll stay alive (if they ever did touch, she'd be dead for good).
I think this show has a very whimsical and "Tim Burton-ish" feel to it. It's like a fun fantasy/dramedy show that really combines so many of the elements that I find entertaining: murder, mystery, love, and even a few places where the characters burst into song (Olive Snook sang "Hopelessly Devoted to You" after she closed the store one evening). The show is slated for a second season, which we probably won't get until fall, but I'll continue watching those reruns of it and wait eagerly for the season two return!
