Natalie Portman - Fantasy's next golden girl

Fantasy's next golden girl

It's no secret - Natalie Portman is my big celebrity crush, and it's pretty obvious why (any of you doubters just have to look at the picture to your left and you will see the light).

Portman has done a wide range of movie genres, but she is no stranger to the world of sci-fi and fantasy. She played Padme Amidala in the Star Wars  prequels (little bit of trivia here: in The Phantom Menace, the role was shared between her and Keira Knightley. They looked so alike that when they were both in costume their own mothers were unable to tell them apart), she played Evey in the movie adaptation of V For Vendetta and she was also in Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. So far so good.

Click the image to go to Hollywood Spy

This year, Portman is Nina Sayers in Black Swan, a psychological thriller about a ballet dancer with a dark fantasy edge to it. Not only that, Dez from Hollywood Spy has released some stills from her upcoming movie Your Highness, a fantasy comedy where she plays a warrior princess alongside Zooey Deschenal and James Franco.


Not only that, but next year she will play Jane Foster in the adaptation of Thor with Chris Hemsworth and Anthony Hopkins (I'm really looking forward to this one) and she will also play the lead in the movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, directed by David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees).

Also, Dark Horizons has reported that she has been offered the lead role in the upcoming 3D sci-fi thriller Gravity, about a woman who has to survive on an orbital shuttle after a satellite explodes and kills the rest of the crew.

All of these movies are happening within the next year or so, and most of her current choices are fantasy or sci-fi. By the sounds of it, Natalie Portman is going to be a mainstay in the genre, and I certainly hope so. She's an excellent actress who's capable of playing a multitude of characters, so I hope she'll stay with us fantasy fans for a while.

What do you think of her? Would there be anyone you think would be more fitting for these kinds of roles? Is there anyone else who you think seem to be on the rise in terms of fantasy and sci-fi movies?

Natalie Portman's official site

Book Trailer - Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson (Tor)

This trailer was just released from tor.com, for Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson's Towers of Midnight, Book 13 in the Wheel of Time series. This is by far the best book trailer I've seen in terms of production values, and hints at the epic scale of the novel. The acoustic guitar in the background is a little jarring, in my opinion, but it looks stunning.

What do you think? Is this the kind of thing you expect from a book trailer? What is it that you think every book trailer needs? You can view the video below:




Wheel of Time official site
Brandon Sanderson's official site

Review - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

A geek's dream that is both faithful to the source material and visually stunning, as well as so full of pop/geek culture references that you'll want to watch it again.


From the moment I saw the teaser tagline, 'An epic of epic epicness' I knew that I would love Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, the movie adaptation of the comic books created by Bryan Lee O'Malley. The movie is directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) and stars Michael Cera (Superbad, Year One) and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destination 3, Die Hard 4.0).

Scott Pilgrim (Cera) is a twenty-something year old slacker who plays bass for his band Sex Bob-Omb. He has a high school girlfriend, Knives Chou (Ellen Wong) and life seems pretty sweet. That is until he meets Ramona Flowers (Winstead). He starts dating her, but then soon finds out that he has to defeat her seven evil ex's (including Superman Returns' Brandon Routh and Fantastic Four's Chris Evans) in order to win her heart. Just your basic love story, really.

The effort that was made to keep the movie as close to the source material as possible is astounding. Watching it is like watching a comic book come to life. The audience is treated with a visual feast of POW!'s and WHOOSH's, as well as comic-style action lines and segments of back story presented in a panel by panel format in the style of the comic itself. There can be no doubt that you are watching a comic book movie here, and it is one of the most successful adaptations to do so.

The performances of the characters are difficult to judge. Since it's every inch a comic book,l performances need to be over the top. Michael Cera is the most underwhelming character of the cast in playing the exact same character that he plays in every movie. The parts of the evil ex's were very well cast, especially Chris Evans and Brandon Routh. They were very over the top and cartoon-like, fitting in with their comic counterparts. A surprise came in Kieran Culkin as Scott's room mate, which was a very well played character.

What may be a make or break for some people with this movie is the sheer amount of pop and geek culture references that are put into the movie. As is Edgar Wright's style (those of you who have watched his two other feature films, or watched his TV series SPACED will know what I'm talking about), little background objects, small sound effects and items of clothing are a reference to some semi-obscure pop culture item. Whilst I adore this about Wright's film making, it may be an annoyance for many who aren't fully integrated into the culture and won't understand what is going on. A particular favourite of mine is when Scott goes to the bathroom, and once he opens the door, the fairy fountain music from The Legend of Zelda starts playing. Fantastic.

Scott Pilgrom vs. the World won't be for everyone's taste. However, if you consider yourself in any way geeky, this is a movie you have to watch. At least twice. Stunning visuals, great characters and a comedic style that has become Edgar Wright's signature mark. Go see it now!

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Official Site
Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee O'Malley official site

A Month in Egypt Part 3: The Super Extreme Archaeologist

This is the final in a three part epic where I tell all of you fine people about my experiences spending a month in Egypt. As my first trip to Egypt as well as my first time working on an archaeological site, I was pretty damn excited. I've been studying Egyptology for 4 years, so I was a little worried about whether or not I'd actually enjoy being there. I was not disappointed. Read on...


Within a few days of being in Egypt, my two room mates and I developed a mutual love for drinking beer in the pool of our apartment, singing Sinatra and Tom Jones until the wee hours of the morning. Conversations would be long, eccentric and inebriated. Eventually we got onto the topic of trying to make archaeology more exciting. For those of us in the UK, the most exciting thing we have is Time Team - where a group of archaeologists have 72 hours to excavate a site and find something awesome. To us, that was not hardcore enough, so we developed The Super Extreme Archaeology Team!

The main components of our team were that we'd operate heavy machinery at all times, we'd always drink Egyptian Stella (the only beer we had access to whilst we were out there) and our excavation 'weapon of choice' would be the hand grenade. We'd go around 'fixing' historical monuments by blowing them up; we'd turn Stonehenge into a car park (parking lot), and the Greek Parthenon would become a 24 hour disco club. It was super extreme. I made up a bunch of vintage style photos that showed us throwing grenades into Luxor Temple and blowing up Petra, Jordan, and we got a good response from them.


We started up a Facebook group to see if anyone actually wanted this kind of idiotic pseudo-historical nonsense, and we're up to over 300 fans so far (and quite a few of them are known scholars in archaeology and history) so at least we weren't the only ones who wanted to jazz up the subject a bit.


As of now, there are plans to write up some stories and have them put out as a newspaper column, a made-for-Youtube amateur mockumentary series, or possibly as a podcast. In the meantime, I rigged up a teaser trailer for our 'series' (I am Tonka the Indestructible, by the way):





So that concludes my month in Egypt. An amazing experience that won't soon be forgotten, and hopefully I'll get to repeat next year (this time with Super Extreme Archaeology Team T shirts in tow!). I made some great friends, and made some great discoveries. I'm glad I chose this as my career, archaeology rocks! (pardon the pun).

Review - Lord of the Changing Winds by Rachel Neumeier (Orbit)

Lord of the Changing Winds by Rachel Neumeier
Published by Orbit
Paperback - 400 pages
Review copy given to Mithril Wisdom courtesy of Little Brown Books
Purchase on Amazon [US | UK]


Lord of the Changing Winds is the first of the Griffin Mage Trilogy. In this installment a young healer, Kes, is summoned to aid a powerful griffin mage, Kairaithin. Him and his people have made their homes in the mountains and pastures of Kes' land, turning the lush green into barren desert. Kes must abandon all she knows in order to become a fire mage and aid the griffins in their struggle against the sinister ambition of the people of Casmantium.

The main pull of this story is the griffins themselves. They are well thought out, and are full of character. There is a definite clan  feel to the way the griffins behave, and each member of the group has their own distinct personality. Neumeier has done a fantastic job in crafting a new mythos surrounding griffins, especially with regards to their elemental sympathies and antipathies. As creatures borne of fire, griffins are able to literally recreate the desert beneath them as they fly, which is a very nice touch.

As a consequence, the focus on the griffins means that there is little substance to the human element. Whereas the griffins are well developed (especially the character of Kairaithin), the non griffin characters seem a bit standard and lack much to enhance the story. Kes' dissatisfaction at life in general and the quiet surprise at finding out she has magical abilities is a tried and tested plot device, and so it seems a bit formulaic.

The story was fairly well paced, though since large amounts of time were spent in the massive expanse of the desert, things seemed to drag on a little. Neumeier gives the reader frequent breaks from this in showing the human king, Iaor, attempting to deal with the threats of both the griffins and the Casmantium army. It also felt that the pace was hurried along towards the end, especially with regards to action and character development. The battle scenes felt a bit underwhelming and a little rushed, and though there was a very satisfying conclusion, Kes' change of character seemed to have happened too suddenly.


The world that Neumeier has created is vast and filled with culture, and leaves open a lot of potential for the second and third novels. With three distinct cultures, each with their own forms of magical prowess, there is a wealth of story to be had in this world. However, since the majority of Lord of the Changing Winds was set in the desert surrounding Kes' village, there wasn't much in the way of exploring this world. The segments that were set outside the desert seemed a little self contained, but you still got a feel for them as part of the overall world and the expanse and complexity of the culture that Neumeier has created.

In conclusion, Lord of the Changing Winds is an enjoyable read, though the pacing is a bit jarred. Neuemier has opened up a new sub-genre of fantasy in her dealing of the griffin mythos, which is no mean feat. There is also massive potential for the second and third novels. A commendable beginning to the series.

A Month in Egypt Part 2 - The Tourist

This is the second in a three part epic where I tell all of you fine people about my experiences spending a month in Egypt. As my first trip to Egypt as well as my first time working on an archaeological site, I was pretty damn excited. I've been studying Egyptology for 4 years, so I was a little worried about whether or not I'd actually enjoy being there. I was not disappointed. Read on...

While the team worked 6 days a week on the site, we got every Friday off (in Islam tradition, Friday is their holy day). So we took the opportunity to go to the different sites in and around Luxor (of which there are many). The first place we visited was Luxor Temple. Literally just across the Nile from our hotel, it was an obvious first choice. The ambient lighting that has been installed in the temple means that an evening visit is spectacular. You're able to see extra details in the carvings on the temple walls and on the statues. I was mesmerised by the seated statues of Ramesses II that adorned the majority of the temple. An incredible first impression.

During the second week, one of the team and I went to Karnak Temple (we'd missed the first visit with the group earlier in the first week). This turned out to be a good thing, since we ended up having a personal escort to the temple by the Director. Karnak Temple is insanely big. You try to get a sense of its size from books, but thing can prepare you for the sheer amount of stuff that's there. We spent hours wandering around and still didn't get to see it all. Most impressive were the massive gateways, all inscribed with scenes of the king smiting his enemies. The only down side to Karnak is that it is so full of tourists.

Later that week, we went to three other sites: Deir el-Medina (an ancient worker's village), Deir el-Bahri (a funerary temple) and the Valley of the Kings. It was an awesome trek between sites through the desert, and the sites themselves were most impressive. The tombs inside Deir el-Medina were in an incredible state of preservation, and all the original colour was still there. Deir el-Bahri is excellently constructed, with a series of terraces on the side of the mountain. This was where we got a bit touristy and started messing about, hehe. Valley of the Kings was so damn hot!  We went into the tomb of Thutmose III, which is at the same time the highest and lowest tomb at the site (we had to climb a tall ladder to get to the entrance, and the tomb went deep down into the hills). The heat that far down was almost unbearable, but it was totally worth it to see the royal funeral texts and image on the walls, as well as the giant stone sarcophagus of Thutmose III.

Week 3 saw us taking a long drive south to the temples of Edfu and Esna. These were both very impressive, made more so by the sheer amount of weird stuff that can be found (these temples were built by the Egyptianized Greeks, so they kind of mixed bits of the two cultures together). My favourite feature were the depictions of griffins on the temple columns. What was also great about these temples were the labyrinthine corridors and passageways, so we ended up completely lost, only to turn a corner and be back where we started.

The final week of our trip meant another three sites were looked at - Medinet Habu, the Ramesseum and the temple of Seti I. These were all near to where we lived and worked, so we saw them from afar every day. Up close, however, it was amazing. Medinet Habu was basically a temple dedicated to showing how awesome Ramesses III was at kicking ass, so lots of smiting scenes were there. The Ramesseum has an extraordinarily massive stone head of Ramesses II; the shoulder alone was the size of two of us. The temple of Seti I was fantastic, mainly because we were the only ones there. It's one of those unsung gems in this part of Egypt that the tourists tend to not go to, but it was extremely well preserved and we had the place to ourselves!

As well as these sites, we made frequent trips to see the Colossi of Memnon (5 mins from our hotel) and to the markets on the other side of the river (where I really enjoyed the whole haggling and bartering thing). Our evening were usually spent in the hotel's jacuzzi, drinking copious amounts of Egyptian beer. This gave birth to our idea for a historical mockumentary - The Super Extreme Archaeology Team! (continued in part 3).

A Month in Egypt Part 1 - The Volunteer

This is the first in a three part epic where I tell all of you fine people about my experiences spending a month in Egypt. As my first trip to Egypt as well as my first time working on an archaeological site, I was pretty damn excited. I've been studying Egyptology for 4 years, so I was a little worried about whether or not I'd actually enjoy being there. I was not disappointed. Read on...

The Site
I worked at the Tomb of Karakhamun (Theban Tomb 223), which is on the west side of the Nile near Luxor, at a place called South Asasif. Karakhamun was a member of the elite at around the end of the 8th Century BC, when Egypt was ruled by Nubia (roughly modern day Sudan). His tomb is the largest of three at the site, and the one where most of the work is being carried out by the South Asasif Conservation Project, led by Dr. Elena Pischikova. They've been working on the site since 2006 and there doesn't seem to be any signs of stopping.


The Team

As well as our core Swansea team of volunteers, there were the team of conservators who were responsible for taking care of any damaged reliefs and for the restoration of the tomb decoration itself. They were also the guys who were most likely to prank you; lock you in a tomb, throw stones at you etc. They were hilarious, and you could guarantee they'd be up to no good.
The head of the workmen was called the Reis; he was the overseer of the Egyptian workforce and he enforced his rule with a nice long bit of bamboo (with which he liked to chase us volunteers every now and again). Talking to him for a few minutes and you find he's worked all over Egypt; the guy is one of the best at his job in all of Egypt. Last but not least was our Mudeera (Arabic for 'manager'), Elena and the assistant director Katherine. They made the whole thing work smoothly, and made sure that everyone and everything gelled to make the excavation run as it should. It was a difficult task, not least because of our presence at the site (we had a penchant for singing Christmas Carols on site - in Egypt, in July - and concocting plans to brick one of the volunteers up in a passageway, which we almost succeeded in doing).

The Volunteer
So what does all this mean for a volunteer? For starters it means 5am starts (4am once Ramadan begun). This wasn't really a problem; if anything it was a blessing since we worked until 1 in the afternoon. Once that sun gets past a certain point in the sky, the only thing you can think of is how nice that cold shower is going to be when you get back to the apartment.

The Swansea Team and I had a number of roles on site that we sometimes alternated. These included tomb supervision, which also included measuring architectural features and labeling finds; registration of finds and fragments (by far the coolest task on site - literally!), which included taking photographs of objects as well as measuring them and noting any damage and any noticeable decoration or writing. This was where I spent most of my time on site, since I loved working with the text and deciphering bits of carving into full hieroglyphs, which would reveal a name or a title. We all had a shot at data entry too. This involved us staying home one day a week and processing all of the registered stuff through a massive database to make things easier to find later on. This was the least favourite task of all of us, but probably the most necessary.

This was pretty much my life from 5am - 1pm, 6 days a week. The best thing about it is that id didn't seem like work, I loved every minute of it. Even when I was excavating and had the sun beating down my neck and caked in dirt from head to foot, it was awesome (actually, all that made it even more awesome). Every Friday (Islamic Holy day) we'd go off as a group and visit one of the many sites that Egypt has to offer (continued in Part 2).

Information and pictures used with permission by Dr. Elena Pischikova and the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Egypt.You can donate to the project or become a sponsor on the South Asasif Conservation Project website.