Cameron Recommends: Avatar The Last Airbender

Hey everyone, I have another recommendation for you, it's Avatar: The Last Airbender. No, not the terrible, terrible, awful movie by M. Knight Shamylan (or however you spell that guys name). The horror of that movie makes me shudder, brrr, so bad. No, I'm talking about the original TV show.

Simply put, Avatar; The Last Airbender is one of the greatest television series of all time. It has everything a great series needs: humor, action, deep characterization, a touch of romance, an interesting setting, satire, the list goes on and on. The story is about a mythical world where some people are born with the ability to bend one of the elements, either earth, air, water or fire. People bend these elements by using martial arts. The writers and creators of the show enlisted the help of martial arts experts in order to create fighting that was realistic, despite the fact that they are flinging fire or water at each other. Each element is given a distinct type of martial arts fighting style that they felt encompassed the idea and feeling of each element. It's pretty interesting to see.

YES!

In order to keep balance in the world there is one person who can bend all four elements, the Avatar. In addition to being the person who can bend all the elements, he is the bridge between the spirit world and mankind. Upon his death, the Avatar is born into one of the four nations, always rotating fire, air, water, earth, fire and so on.

The world is split into four nations, one for each element. However, the fire nation invaded, wiping out the air nomads and all the airbenders in the hopes of killing the Avatar, who was a child in the air nation at the time. However he survived. One hundred years later, he wakes to find the world in chaos, the fire nation is close to conquering the water and earth kingdoms. Even though he still just a teenager, he must learn to master all four elements and bring balance to the world.

This show is incredible guys. Now, before you go judging a book by its cover I have a few things to say. I was very hesitant to watch this show. I was introduced to it by a friend of mine, Dave Loomis. It looked an awful lot like anime to me, which I do not enjoy (despite my younger brother's several attempts to convince me otherwise). Well I was wrong to be suspicious. While The Last Airbender may look like an anime series, it isn't. It is completely American made. The creators simply chose Chinese culture as a basis for the show. While the animation may look like anime, it is far from it. Also, the whole thing was originally done in English, so no weird lip syncing or subtitles. And though it may seem to be directed at kids, it covers several very adult themes and concepts.

I love this show, it is perfect. The first season it's a tad slow, but it gets better as the show goes on. This series also has one of the most interesting and compelling character development arcs I've ever seen or read, I literally cried. Just go watch it. If you live near me, I have the whole series on DVD and I'd love to watch it with you.

Have you seen Avatar? What do like about it? Let me know in the comments below.

Cameron Recommends: The Name of the Wind

Oh man, it's time for another blog post, and surprise, surprise it's another book review. So let's get down to it.

My little brother Chandler is great, he is a bookworm like me (though he doesn't read as much as me). He read this book (not sure who recommended it to him) and he loved it. He talked it up for a while and then two years back he got the paperback for me for my birthday. I was in the middle of another book so it took me a while to get to this one. The first 50 pages or so I was skeptical, I wasn't really sure what was going on. Then it took off and Oh how I LOVE this book.

One of the things that makes this book so fantastic is the writing style. There are essentially two stories going on, the present day and the past. In the present day an innkeeper is living with is assistant in a little town. Weird stuff is going down in the world but nobody really knows why. A biographer, known simply as "The Chronicler" shows up and reveals that he has figured out that this innocent innkeeper is actually Kvothe, hero, lover and kingkiller. He begs for the chance to tell his story and Kvothe agrees to tell it to him over the next three days. This section of the book is all told from 3rd person limited point of view.

Then we get Kvothe's story. Book one, The Name of the Wind, is the first day of Kvothe relating his tale. Man is it interesting. This section of the book is told from a first person point of view. He tells of his parents and how he grew up as essentially part of a mobile theater group that would pass from town to town and perform. Then tragedy hits and he spends time as a street vagabond in a large city, then he goes to "The University" where artisans and magicians learn their craft. This is NOT at all like Harry Potter though, this school is very different, not everyone can perform "magic" and magic is very limited in its abilities (essentially it's all about transfer of heat and energy, which appealed to my scientific mind).

The book is mostly this past story, but it is broken up a bit, with the third person limited point of view in the present being inserted here and there, like during the lunch rush at the inn or when a stranger comes knocking. The breaks make you excited to get back to the next section of the book, whether it be craving to know what is going on in the present or wanting to know what is going to happen to Kvothe in the past.

The book is beautiful, the writing is superb, and the story is compelling. I LOVED THIS BOOK. I would probably put it (along with its sequel, A Wise Man's Fear) in my top 5 favorites of all time. I'm eagerly (and yes impatiently) waiting for the third day to come out. So go pick this one up, it's well worth your time.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think in the comments. Are these recommendations useful? Have you read this book? If so, what did you think?

Lots o' Love