Spaceballs and My Life with Parody Film

My first exposure to Spaceballs was as a kid of around six years old sitting on the family room floor. It was on that floor that I also watched my father watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 and the Star Trek episode about tribbles, about how troublesome they were. On a similar floor in later years, I would come to watch my father watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Kung Pow, and a “Weird Al” Yankovic anthology. Spoofy things. Sci-fi things. In-joke things.

I say “I watched my father watch” deliberately, because I had no interest in these things.

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Harry Potter International Book Covers: Part 2 (or: Harry Potter and the Seventy Fifty Billion Trillion MORE Book Covers)

Pt. 6.75 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza

Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:

Book 1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions  ·  International (pt. 1 + 2)

All these book covers were supposed to be a single post, but there’s just…so…..so durned many. If you missed our first batch of covers from around the world, go here first. Well, here we go!

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Harry Potter International Book Covers (or: Harry Potter and the Kajillion Book Covers)

Pt. 6.5 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza

Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:

Book 1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions  ·  International (pt. 1 + 2)

Not too long ago, I ranked Harry Potter Collector’s Edition covers from across time and space. There are some amazing, sumptuous covers for these books. And some bland ones, but that’s okay.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Pt. 6 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza

Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:

Book 1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions  ·  International (pt. 1 + 2)

“That old man’s still not dead?”

Just one of my reactions to this epic tome.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harries to the rescue.

Pt. 5 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza

Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:

Book 1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions  ·  International (pt. 1 + 2)

It turns out that the first major consequence of Lord Voldemort’s return to power is the institution of the No Wizard Left Behind program.

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Harry Potter Special Edition Covers, Ranked

Harries, Harries, Harries.

Pt. 4.5 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza

Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:

Book 1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions  ·  International (pt. 1 + 2)

I’m still finishing Order of the Phoenix (it’s way too long). In the meantime, maybe this’ll wet your whistle.

It’s Harry time.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harries, Harries, Harries.

Pt. 4 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza

Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:

Book 1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions  ·  International (pt. 1 + 2)

If Prisoner of Azkaban was “darkness to light,” then Goblet is a search for balance.

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First Impressions: Pyrebound (A Web Novel)

A cartoony Pyrebound logo.

Since time before record, the worlds of Ki and Kur have been entangled. Every fourth day, the boundaries of space and time are disturbed, so that each world is seemingly transposed with the other, and an alien sun rises in its sky, with catastrophic results. The light of Kur’s star is deadly to the life of Ki, and vice versa; every contact between the creatures of the two worlds likewise produces only violence, corruption, and decay. Yet contact is frequent enough, on the fourth day when the barriers put up by nature are thin and porous. Over many years each world has been colonized by invaders born under its enemy’s sun, spreading disease and death.

Civilized life still exists on Ki, but only at great cost. For those who are unwilling or unable to pay that price, there are other ways to live as well—but they are far from pleasant.

This is a review of chapters 1-3 of Pyrebound, a fantasy novel originating as a web serial. When this post was first written in May 2019, it was still publishing

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Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Pt. 3 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza

Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:

Book 1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions  ·  International (pt. 1 + 2)

What a lumpy book.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Pt. 2 of The Harry Potter Readstravaganza

Intro (Pt. 0)
Reviews:

Book 1  ·  2  ·  3  ·  4  ·  5  ·  6  ·  7 (pt. 1 + 2)
Book Covers:
Special Editions  ·  International (pt. 1 + 2)

I was wrong. This isn’t Matilda: The Fantasy YA Series. It’s Rugrats: The Fantasy YA Series.

Think about it.

Continue reading “Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”