Tag Archives: fantasy

Review: Disenchantment, Part One

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When I watched the first couple of episodes of Matt Groening’s Disenchantment, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. Being a massive fan of The Simpsons and Futurama, and a huge fantasy nerd, my expectations were very high. It seemed like the perfect series for me.

A shot from Netflix's DisenchantmentMy expectations were sky high, so maybe it’s not surprising they weren’t met.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed it. There are good gags, and the characters grabbed me pretty quickly. I also loved the animation. While the characters are of the same cartoony Matt Groening style we recognize, the environments are very detailed, with a unique style clearly meant to emulate Medieval artwork. Disenchantment is a feast for the eyes.

So it was good, but it wasn’t the Second Coming of Futurama I hoped for. However, as I got farther into the season, it did start to grow on me. It got a bit funnier, with some of the later episodes being genuinely hilarious, though it did maintain a certain inconsistency through to the end.

A real strength of Disenchantment, as alluded to above, is its characters. Though there’s a diverse background cast, as you might expect from a Groening show, the focus of the story is pretty heavily placed on Princess Tiabeanie (or “Bean” as she prefers to be known) of Dreamland and her companions, Elfo the renegade Elf and a self-appointed “personal demon” named Luci.

Luci doesn’t add much beyond the occasional one-liner, but Bean and Elfo are, for such a silly show, surprisingly real and endearing characters. At times they feel like a bit of a retread of Fry and Leela, but their arc progresses more quickly, and I think it may be headed in a different direction.

I especially want to highlight Abbi Jacobson as doing a fantastic job voicing Bean. She feels very comfortable in the role right of the gate, and she infuses Bean with a great deal of personality, perfectly nailing both serious and comedic moments. Despite her many bad habits, Bean is an intensely lovable character.

A promotional image for Netflix's DisenchantmentThe characters help carry the series, even during the slower moments when there aren’t as many jokes.

One other thing that makes Disenchantment unique compared to Groening’s other shows is that it is much more serialized. Some episodes are still standalone, but it’s clearly following a continuous arc. The writers have a plan, and it shows.

Events start to come to a head in the final episodes of the season, and things actually get pretty serious and intense, all things considered. Some of the twists are a bit predictable, but I enjoy them for the effect they have on the characters, and I’m really curious where things are going to go in the long run.

In the end, it might not be quite as good as Futurama at its best, but Disenchantment is definitely worth your time.

Overall rating: 8/10

Tales of the Apt Thoughts

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When Adrian Tchaikovsky’s massive Shadows of the Apt saga at last came to an end, I left it with very mixed feelings, having disagreed with some of the story-telling choices he had made toward the end. Nonetheless, I cannot deny he is an objectively good writer, and that Shadows of the Apt boasts one of the most intricate and impressive settings in the entire fantasy genre.

Cover art for Tales of the Apt: Spoils of War by Adrian TchaikovskyThus, I did eventually find myself compelled to look into the short fiction collections set in that universe he has released since the end of the main series, titled Tales of the Apt. So far, there are three installments in this series: Spoils of War, A Time for Grief, and For Love of Distant Shores.

The first collection somewhat disappointed me. It mainly dealt with locations, cultures, and themes that were already well-explored in the main series, which seemed a waste of potential. We get it; Wasps are dicks.

The only highlight was the story of a disgraced Mantis-kinden Weaponmaster searching for her warrior’s death, a story perfectly calculated to appeal to my interests.

A Time for Grief was more impressive, though. It features a lot of new material surrounding settings and concepts that were not explored by the novels, including a very interesting delve into pre-history and the true origins of the insect-kinden. The title story also delves into the birth of the city-state of Princep Salmae, and feels important enough that I think it really should have been included in the main books somehow.

The third book, For Love of Distant Shores, was my favourite. It feels more like a full new novel, because while it is still technically a short story collection, it follows the same characters throughout.

For Love of Distant Shores tells of the travels of the absent-minded Beetle explorer Doctor Ludweg Phinagler (seriously) as he uncovers new knowledge, and mortal peril. Mostly peril. This serves as an opportunity to visit a number of areas and stories mostly or entirely new to the series, some of it truly fascinating.

However, Phinagler himself isn’t necessarily the focus. The stories are told via the notes of Fosse, his assistant, an acerbic and debaucherous Fly-kinden woman. More than anything else, Fosse is what makes For Love of Distant Shores worth reading. Her wry, cutting commentary is an absolute delight from beginning to end.

All of these stories seemed to be written with the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the setting, so unfortunately I’m not sure I’d recommend the collections to those who haven’t already read Shadows of the Apt.

For those who have read the novels, I definitely recommend A Time for Grief and For Love of Distant Shores. Spoils of War is less memorable and probably only worth it for super fans, if that.