In honor of last week’s trip to Las Vegas with Liz, this week is Vegas Week, where we learn about the history, sexy and sleazy, of Sin City, and I share my personal experience and advice for a visit.

Opened in 1993, the Luxor was an early entry in Vegas’s 1990s mega-resort renaissance.  Built by Circus Circus enterprises, the same company that built Excalibur, Luxor shares Excalibur’s heavy-handed approach to theme. While Excalibur’s medieval theme has been carried to a ridiculously tacky exterior, however, Luxor’s ancient Egyptian theme, equally garish, manages to be sexy. From the exterior, Excalibur looks like a giant toy castle, owing probably to the “family attraction” concept Vegas resorts were pushing so hard in the 1990s. The white towers with brightly colored roofs look like something that would come in a box labeled Playmobil or Lego. Luxor, meanwhile, is a sleek obsidian pyramid, which would be invisible by night except for the white lights that dance up and down its vertices and the spotlight beam at its peak, reportedly the brightest in the world, that seems to be beckoning alien life to come drop a few hundred grand at the tables. Yes, there is also a giant tacky sphinx out front, but most people hardly notice it because the pyramid is so eye-catching.

Luxor’s pyramid shape makes for another interesting feature: the elevators inside the pyramid don’t go straight up and down, but move instead at a 35-degree angle, following the face of the pyramid. If part of your Vegas vacation involves drinking yourself to a near-stupor, this can present a difficulty – but if you’re (relatively) sober around 1 AM, it can be a little added treat to ride in an elevator and watch the drunk people fall over. Liz and I stayed in one of the two ziggurat-shaped towers that were added to expand the Luxor in the late 90s, so we only rode the crooked elevators once, by choice.

What I like about Luxor is that the whole casino feels like a nightclub. While casinos like Caesars and the Bellagio are wide-open and brightly decorated, Luxor is decorated in blacks, silvers, and blues, and feels smaller and more intimate. There’s no trace of that “family appeal” that a few casinos (like Excalibur next door) still try to cling to – with its sexy decor and the frequent ads for their sexy revue, Fantasy, and plush night clubs Cat House and LAX, Luxor is decidedly intended for adults. The one thing that really detracts from the sexy atmosphere is that you can’t walk 20 paces without seeing Carrot Top, one of the Luxor’s two headliner attractions. There’s nothing that will kill a sexy mood faster than Carrot Top, the answer to America’s great unasked question: “What would Michael Jackson have looked like if he were a ginger?”

The drawbacks to Luxor? First off, it’s quite dated, which almost everyone notices. While the pyramid looks sleek and sexy at night, by day it looks weathered, sun-faded, and badly in need of refurbishing. Luxor lacks an ultra pool entirely, and while the hotel pool is big, it’s basically a well-decorated hotel pool, with no waves or lazy river or any of the attractions other resorts offer. Combine all this with Luxor’s location near the southern extreme of the Strip (only Mandalay Bay, which boasts much nicer amenities, is further south) and Luxor’s tourist appeal is greatly reduced. Newer resorts like the Bellagio and the Wynn attract the beautiful people, while Luxor is the domain of the bargain hunter. On the bright side, this means an affordable trip – Liz and I paid $120 for four nights – but if your Vegas fantasy is watching the sexy people come out to play, spring for a room in (or nearer to) the Bellagio or the MGM Grand.

Liz and I spent most of our time hanging by the pool or taking in sights on the strip. We didn’t check out any of the Luxor’s shows, walk-through attractions, or LAX. The one night we visited Cat House, Luxor’s bordello-styled lounge, it was quite dead. We did enjoy the breakfast buffet, which is affordable if pretty standard for a Vegas buffet. The location so far down the strip is a pain, literally – with Liz wearing heels, going anywhere except Luxor meant taking a cab, which on the Strip can take up to an hour and cost more than the casino. On the evening we toured the north end of the Strip, I made the mistake of wearing new shoes that gave my blisters, and Liz wore heels, and the journey back to the Luxor was like the Trail of Tears. On our next trip, I think we’ll save up a bit more and spring for a room somewhere further up the Strip.

[Full disclosure: Dave is a personal friend.]

I wouldn’t exactly call myself an avid fantasy reader. While I greatly enjoy some entries in the genre, I’ve sampled many of the best-selling fantasy series and found them wanting. I only have so much patience for yet another repackaging of Tolkein: the unlikely hero, living a peaceful life in an idyllic region far removed from the world’s problems, finds a long-lost (or hidden) relic of great power, which attracts the wise old magician who sets the hero up with some motley companions and sends them on a long quest to challenge the rising power of the Big Bad. Along the way they fall into peril, they’re separated and nearly defeated, and the hero learns to wield a great power long forgotten in polite society. Ho hum.

Some of these are certainly tropes of the genre and relatively unavoidable, but good fantasy finds new and inventive ways of presenting the tropes. I’m pleased to say that The Shattergrave Knights, recently self-published by attorney and fellow Philadelphian David M. Haendler, does just that. The story follows Jack and Olive Merriwether, twins from the tiny hamlet of Muddy Hollow who are caught up in adventure when a simple act of kindness draws the ire of a paranoid and overreaching government. A quest to rescue their parents from extraordinary rendition leads to revelations about the history of the Protectorate and the Merriwether’s own sinister ancestry. 

Haendler is very aware of the tropes he’s using, and plays with them in creative ways that are often unexpected. At the center of the story is the clever (and new, to my understanding) idea of magic as a foreign language, in which incorrect conjugation can have disastrous results. Early on the benefits of magic seem limited to the powers of a good invisibility cloak, but as the story progresses the reader enters more novel territory, including a prison where the particularly disturbing (and somewhat allegorical) implications of such magic on incarceration are revealed.

In my opinion, good speculative fiction should always reveal something about the real world, and here The Shattergrave Knights does not disappoint. Along with its statements about incarceration and indoctrination, there are shades of Phillip Pullman in the Protectorate, the ruling body of Jack and Olive’s world, and of classic dystopian fiction in The Thirteenth Division, which applies the Bush Administration’s policy of Total Information Awareness to a sword-and-sorcery society. In the tradition of His Dark Materials, Jack and Olive find many clues that suggest their government is not what it appears to be, and by the end I was left questioning whether any of the supposed “good guys” – from the Protectorate to the twins’ patron deity – were really the good guys at all.

Haendler is a talented writer whose prose flows smoothly. Though he shows capable use of imagery, he is more storyteller than poet, which will suit most fantasy readers just fine. He has a particular knack for action sequences, writing them clear and exciting but not overly lengthy – though perhaps a bit over-reliant on the last-second reversal of fortune as a dramatic technique. His characters are interesting and well-drawn, a bit flat by E.M. Forster’s definition but deeper and more complex than many in the genre.

The story moves fast and becomes increasingly more original, playing to convention in the first act but gradually breaking free to explore exciting new territory. If I have any complaint, it’s with an ending that is a bit too abrupt and tidy. While The Shattergrave Knights is clearly intended as the first of several Merriwether novels, the book shifts quickly from its climax to a stopping point that feels a bit forced.

While I would not promote The Shattergrave Knights as a genre-buster, it is a robust and satisfying read for readers of epic fantasy. Fans of dystopian fiction, like myself, are likely to be more excited by the possibilities suggested for future novels than by the content of this first installment. A strong showing for a new author, The Shattergrave Knights is unlikely to be the last – or the most intriguing – Merriwether novel.

The Shattergrave Knights is available exclusively as an e-book, and may be purchased at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and as an Apple iBook.

Comic book movies can be broken into three categories: Watchable, Really Pretty Good, and Godawful. Fans of comic books and/or action movies will enjoy the Watchable ones, while Really Pretty Good movies can be enjoyed by almost anyone capable of suspending disbelief for two to three hours. Only the biggest die-hard fanboy in denial or brain-dead special effects addict can sit-through, let alone praise, films in the Godawful variety.

A few examples: Recent watchable comic book movies include the first Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Bryan Singer’s Superman, and the first two Spider-Man movies. Really Pretty Good selections include both Christopher Nolan Batman movies, the Bryan Singer X-Men movies, Iron Man 1 and maybe Iron Man 2. Ang Lee’s Hulk, X-Men 3, Spider-Man 3, Ghost Rider, and Fantastic Four 2 were Godawful.

I am pleased to say that X-Men: First Class is Really Pretty Good, though I can’t agree at all with the folks who are claiming it contends for “best comic book movie ever.”

What X:FC does well is to introduce a historic context and a retro-feel into the super-hero milieu, better than any movie except perhaps Brad Bird’s under-appreciated ”the Incredibles.” Comic books themselves are, after all, a bit of a holdover from a bygone era, and while most super-hero movies have planted a flag squarely in the “gritty hero” era of the late 20th Century, the Golden Age of comic book heroes was undeniably the decades following World War 2. Placing the origins of the X-Men against the backdrop of the Cuban Missile Crisis is inspired – it gives the franchise depth and history, allows the production to play with costuming and sets in a genre where costumes and sets have become hackneyed and boring, and permits the writers to blend bits of plot lines from X-Men comic books published 30 or 40 years apart. I award a few bonus points for managing to work in a couple of very brief cameos by former X-Men cast members Rebecca Romijn and Hugh Jackman that actually fit the narrative and make sense (provided, in Jackman’s case, that you know some background about the character). While my fanboy heart does break a little bit that they scrapped the original team according to comic book canon, they were able to pay tribute to some classic X-Men ignored by previous movies.

Does the movie make missteps? Yes, but they are mostly forgivable. There are a few major plot holes, and a number of small goofy moments that elicited laughs from the audience – like captioning a sprawling campus as “Secret CIA Base,” or Emma Stone walking into a meeting with a Russian military official dressed like an Austin Powers fem-bot. January Jones really seems to struggle with the whole “acting” thing, and once the X-Men ride into battle, even in the 1960s they still manage to dress in the genre-cliche black leather uniform, with a throwaway line about “g-forces” explaining the anachronistic costume choice.

Overall, though, the film represents very good choices on the parts of the filmmakers. The film’s greatest strength is that it takes its time and luxuriates a bit in the formation of the team. Often, super-hero origins occupy the first twenty minutes of the movie, moving out of the way quickly so we can get to the action faster. In this case, the movie really does occupy itself with the origin of the X-Men, managing to integrate a plot, action, and rising tension in between those origins instead of pushing them aside.  While the film is not revolutionary, it’s a solid effort, and one of the better movies you’re likely to see in the crowded super-hero genre.

I finally got to see John Hillcoat and Joe Penhall’s film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road this weekend, and I was not disappointed.  McCarthy’s bleak post-apocalyptic father-and-son story is one of my favorite books.  The film is extremely faithful, though sadly it leaves out the baby-eating, one of the most memorable scenes from the book.  Not that we needed baby-eating.  Laid out on the screen, the depravity and desperation of humans without a society are horrifying enough.  My friend Alex, who had not read the book, cringed visibly throughout.

The Road is not a story for those seeking a happy ending.  It follows the travels of an unnamed father (Viggo Mortensen) and son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) after an unspecified disaster has left the world scorched and almost every living thing dead.  The plot begins long after the two have taken to walking the highways, heading to “the coast,” where the father thinks they may find some solace.  Both book and film return via flashback to the time between the disaster and their departure, when the man’s wife/boy’s mother (Charlize Theron) was still alive.  The film lingers longer in these scenes, and while they were heavy in the novel, they are heartbreaking in the film.  Theron’s performance is passable, if rote, but Mortensen brings a true emotional depth to his character.  The overwhelming weakness and fear, the resistance to accept that his world has changed, are in sharp contrast with the hardened, do-what-is-needed man he becomes once his wife is gone.

The Road reveals brilliantly how thin is the veil of society that separates human from animal, and how readily many people will revert to their animal nature when that society is removed and stress applied.  The post-apocalyptic vision is at this point a cliche in Hollywood film, but where so many films use the apocalypse as a frame for a story of epic heroism, The Road lingers in the realm of actual humans.  We never know what the apocalypse was, presumably because with no television or radio, no one in the story has that information.  Their only cause is to survive, and their most heroic action is to resist descending into cannibalism.  There are no heroes here, only desperate people fighting to eke out an existence in a world that can barely support them.

Visually, the film is beautiful in an utterly oppressive way.  What’s even more impressive is that the scenes of a desolate, dying world were not crafted in a computer like Pandora.  These are images of our actual world, many of them places ravaged by actual disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens.  A large portion of the filming took place in Western Pennsylvania, along the Abandoned Pensylvania Turnpike and in a portion of a rural amusement park destroyed by fire.

When the movie ended, a guy behind me announced loudly, “that movie was a downer.”  That it certainly is, but it’s also beautiful and brilliant and poignant in a way few films are.  I certainly wouldn’t recommend it as a date movie, but it’s going near the top of my list of the best films of 2009.

The joke might seem kind of obvious to those of you who are not fans, but it is very out-of-type for PVP and I never saw it coming.