Freddie and Me: A Coming of Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody
Written and drawn by Mike Dawson
Bloomsbury Publishing/Macmillan
Cover price: $19.99; Available now

Ever have a favorite band? You have all their albums and seen all their concerts? For this reviewer, it is the Wallflowers and for writer/artist it was and sill is Queen. The mega popular band, led by lead singer Freddie Mercury, was young Mike Dawson‘s favorite band and a huge influence in his life. Just how big of an influence is the subject of his autobiography, Freddie and Me.

Freddie and Me reads a lot like a love letter to the popular band, mostly known for their hit “Bohemian Rhapsody,” even though much of it showcases the life of Dawson. From his first encounter with the band when he was just a small child in England with the help of an cassette tape given to him by his brother, Dawson was hooked the minute he heard them. His love for them stayed with him later on in life, when he moved to the United States the love for the music and Mercury lasted even when Mercury died in the early nineties. Along the way, readers gets a chance to view and experience Dawson’s life, his hardships at school, dealing with feelings as an outsider, falling for his best mate’s girl, and the death of his grandmother. Most importantly, it showcases how Queen changed the life of one boy from Britain.

By ScarletScribe

Night Watch
Discworld series
Mass Market Paperback
By Terry Pratchett
HarperTorch
Published: September 30, 2003

Time travel, as a story premise, can be a slippery slope. While some creators go to great lengths to describe how the Grandfather Paradox can be overcome, others find themselves backed into a corner, waving a magic wand at logical thinking and asking the audience to take it on good faith that the hazards of time travel can be easily overcome.

Meanwhile, Terry Pratchett‘s comic fantasy Night Watch — the 29th novel within his Discworld series — takes it at face value and has everyone run with it. When Sam Vimes, commander of Ankh-Morpork’s police force, is thrown back through time while chasing a psychopathic killer, there’s hardly a moment to spare for either Vimes or the reader to ruminate upon the logistics of it all. Instead, Pratchett’s time-travel is a set-up for much larger questions — and we’re talking more than just, “What would happen if he killed his grandpa?”

That’s where the subtle strengths of Pratchett’s writing come in. Though written in the third-person, Night Watch‘s story unfolds more like a stream of consciousness. Rather than being bogged down in thoughtful monologues, the story actually takes off as Vimes spends his time observing other people and contemplating how he can play to their emotions and instincts. The novel is less about asking what one would do with time travel, and more about how you would have to do it. For his part, Vimes is forced to go through the motions of the past while still hunting down a notorious killer that no one in the past has even heard of — without upsetting the reality they’re used to or the future he came from.

Paramount has signed Marc Forster to direct their big-screen adaptation of World War Z, the novel by Mel Brooks’ son Max Brooks. Forster has quite the résumé, having directed Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland, Stranger Than Fiction, and most recently the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace.

World War Z is a zombie story, but not your typical zombie tale. It details the events of the zombie apocalypse about 10 years after they took place from the viewpoint of various survivors of the infection.

J. Michael Straczynski (Changeling, Ninja Assassin) is writing the screenplay for Brad Pitt‘s B Plan, which is producing the film for a hopeful 2010 release date.

A brand new trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has been released for all of us to oogle!

Watch it here below!

Unfortunately, as good as the trailer is it has difficulty being effective. See, the truth is, the movie should have been coming out next week. We should all be buzzing with Harry Potter glee right now, and we’re not. Instead, we still have 9 months left before that joy that we crave arrives on July 17th, so it’s tough times.

The trailer shows a good amount of footage we’ve already seen paired with a lot more new lighthearted moments. It definitely gives a strong idea of where this movie is going and the tone is will have — basically, the main story will be dark intersperses with some fluff (like Ron becoming lovesick). These more “silly” moments are nice to see, considering the previously released trailers made it a point to let us know that this sixth film installment will be dark.

As you may have heard, the first full Star Trek trailer and the new one for Watchmen are both attached this weekend to theatrical showings of the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. The only difference between the two is that an official version of the Watchmen trailer is already online, while the Star Trek trailer will not be officially available to view online until Monday.

Thankfully (and as expected) a not so official [at all] version has shown up online and you can check it here out below!

Hurry, as we don’t know how long it will be available or if/when it will be pulled. Worst case scenario we’ll get the good version on Monday, but for those who just can’t wait, here it is!