Undead Nightmare: Red Dead Redemption

Just wanted to post this piece of cross genre goodness. Red Dead Redemption is a classic Western video game by Rockstar games (great game by the way and a great story if you like Westerns).
Rockstar has just released a downloadable add-on for Red Dead Redemption entitled Undead Nightmare. It's a new standalone adventure that sees the erstwhile hero, John Marston, fighting an undead plague in the old west.
Sound like a GGE storyline? It sure does. As I may have mentioned a few hundred times, we love to write, read and watch cross genre stories. Looks like we're not the only ones.

Cross Genre

I was having an email discussion about "cross genre" a few days ago and it occurred to me that no everyone may love cross genre like I do...and I promptly decided it was because they didn't know what I meant.
Here are some of the best examples:

1. Firefly (the show) or Serenity (the movie): the best sci-fi western I have ever seen
2. Star Wars: full of science fiction, fantasy and western stuff (Han Solo is the coolest gunslinger around)
3. Alien: Science Fiction/Horror
4. Predator: Science Fiction/Horror
5. Ravenous: Western/Horror
6. Event Horizon: Science Fiction/Horror
7. The Valley of Gwangi (GREAT MOVIE): Western/Horror
8. The Matrix: Science Fiction/Superheroes
9. Green Lantern: Science Fiction/Superheroes
10. Outlander (the new movie): Science Fiction/Fantasy
11. Dune: Science Fiction/Fantasy
12. The League of Extraordinary Gentleman: Crosses a bunch (Fantasy/Western/Science Fiction)
13. Any of the HArry Dresden books by Jim Butcher: Fantasy/Detective
14. A little know book "Arthur Warlord" by Dafyd Ab Hugh: Great example of a fantasy/science fiction

A short list there, but some of my favorites. I would love for Greengates to eventually have some stories on that list!

Green Lantern: First Flight

Had the chance to check out Green Lantern: First Flight last night. It is a new movie from Warner Bros. I should stress it is an animated movie. Of course, at GGE, we have no problem with animation, anime, comics or whatever media it might take to convey a cool story. Some folks allow themselves to miss out on some excellent stories because they buy into the misconception that if it is "drawn" it must be "for kids".

Anyway...I digress! Green Lantern: First Flight is a must-see (and a must-own for you collectors out there). Of course the art is fantastic, but we expect no less from Warner Brothers, but the story is great!

Why is the story so good? Well, let me tell you...

Green Lantern has never had a great arch nemesis. Sure, everyone would point out Sinestro as GL's polar opposite, but it is with a half-hearted wave. Not the immediate recognition that you get with Lex Luthor (for Superman) or The Joker (for Batman).

Well, First Flight goes a long way towards remedying this. We have long known Sinestro is an ex-Green Lantern himself (more on this later) but this story shows his fall from grace. It is remniscient of "Training Day" with Denzel Washington in which the veteran Green Lantern (Sinestro) trains a rookie (Hal Jordan - our Green Lantern) before eventually ending up on the wrong side of the power ring. Very well done and Sinestro is very well presented and quickly becomes villain that viewers can love to hate.

Another great thing about Green Lantern is, as with many of GGE's top favorites, that Green Lantern is cross genre at its best. Green Lantern is not so much a super hero as he is a member of an elite military unit charged with protecting the galaxy. There are 3600 of them scattered across the galaxy (sort of like Jedi Knight). So, with any Green Lantern story, you get super hero action and a healthy dose of science fiction as well. First Flight pulls this off really well.

So...go watch this movie!

BloodRayne II: Deliverance

I seem to be contributing a few reviews to the blog lately. I think it is because during vacation I watched quite a few movies.
Anyway, I watched BloodRayne II: Deliverance and I wanted to say some things about it. First of all, I went into it with reasonable expectations. BloodRayne (the first movie) was based on a video game and video game movies are not always great. Resident Evil has been pretty good as a film franchise. I liked Doom. Anyway, BloodRayne was pulled off pretty well. It was done by Uwe Boll who gets a pretty bad rap, but I like his stuff. Kind of like early Roger Corman stuff. Some of it can be a bit B-rated, but the ideas are pretty original.
This brings me to BloodRayne II. As anyone reading this GGE blog knows, cross-genre stuff is our favorite playground. BloodRayne II mixes Vampires in the Wild West. GGE's first book "The Forsaken" was a horror novel set in the wild west and is a genre we term "Western Gothic". There are not a lot of examples of Western Gothic I can point to off the top of my head. "Ravenous" was a good one. The inclusion of a Texan in Bram Stoker's Dracula (Quincy P. Morris) makes Dracula have a bit of a Western Gothic flavor. The roleplaying game Deadlands captured the genre pretty well and had a series of "dime novels" in their setting that were done pretty well. So, I think BloodRayne II is a worthy addition and definitely worth seeing. Is it a bit B-rated? Sure, but I never let that stop me from enjoying a movie. If you haven't watched a good B-rated movie lately, let me know and I can recommend a few essentials.

Arthur War Lord

I am a bit of a King Arthur aficionado. My tastes seem to be for pretty classic...um...classics. I like King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes, Superman, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen - just to name a few.
Anyway, I ran across a book in a used book store (Pauper's Used Books in Clayton, NC) entitled "Arthur War Lord" by Dafydd Ab Hugh. Without even googling Dafydd Ab Hugh, I believe I have read a Star Trek novel by him but I can't swear to it so I couldn't say for certain how skilled he is as a writer (yet). The book though is a cross genre piece, which I enjoy. I enjoy crossing genres when it is done poorly (like Jason X) but I REALLY enjoy it when it is done well (Like the Valley of Gwangi). So, this book combines time travel and King Arthur in a way that is a bit more sci-fi than "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court".
For fans of time travel and/or King Arthur, it is probably worth a look.