First Contact: Porco Rosso

It turns out, Alex would watch anime when pigs fly

I feel, at odd moments, that the fact that I haven’t watched all that much anime should get me my nerd card revoked, doubly so for only having watched so much of Hayao Miyazaki’s beloved films, and most of that as a child (similarly, I’ve never read The Lord of the Rings or seen any of the movies, nor have I watched all that much Star Trek, or any Doctor Who). I did watch The Boy and the Heron in theaters and enjoyed it. However, it took some time, and only by wrangling with a television that decided to have a tantrum that night after getting home from a long drive back from New York, did I eventually get around to watching Porco Rosso, which I finally did after being recommended it by my internet friend Nathan Goldwag, whose Journal on Civilization you should read.

In so many ways, Porco Rosso is precisely the sort of media that I lap up in droves. It has outlandish technology, roguish characters, and perhaps most importantly, the lushly rendered setting that ties itself directly into a real historical period. All this is combined with the beautiful artwork and that je ne sais quoi that even I can detect in Miyazaki’s oeuvre, an ethereality I associate, perhaps unfairly, with the Japanese.

The delicate dance between reality and unreality in this film is demonstrated most clearly by the namesake character, a daredevil pilot who fights pirates in the Adriatic Sea in an odd and distorted version of the 1930s. Italy is a real country here, in the throes of Mussolini’s reign of terror, but Porco himself resides in a fictional country that seems to replace, at least in part, our world’s Kingdom of Yugoslavia. He served in the Italian air force in World War I, but has fled his homeland out of opposition to fascism. Perhaps most notably, and definitely most obviously, he is an anthropomorphic pig, who had at one point been a human male. This change is never explained, but one can detect there an undertone of the man’s general disgust with humanity in perhaps ‘choosing,’ if that is even an accurate description thereof, to become an animal reviled by so many people as a riposte to our species’ vaunted pretensions and sordid realities.

During the film, I couldn’t help but regret that I didn’t watch it as a child; I had watched Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service, and it was released before I was born, so it would have been possible. I would have loved the gorgeously rendered aircraft of all types, even if I didn’t have the knowledge of aviation history that Miyazaki and company clearly did. This film activated the part of my brain, long dormant in most cases, that loved construction vehicles and tanks and sixteen-wheelers and helicopters as a child. It would have been a film I would watch again and again and again on a VCR whose basics I had memorized by three years old.

It’s a theme that comes to me as I write this, as the film clearly dwells on nostalgia, on the glorification and glamorization of pasts that in some ways were the greatest ever and in other ways never existed at all. From the way the film presents its setting, we are seeing a decline of a freewheeling, high-flying age of aviation that is being overtaken ever more by the industrialization of human slaughter. The Adriatic here is a chaotic place, a violent place, certainly, one where cruise liners are also aircraft carriers (a choice that delighted and confused me in equal measure—it implies so much). Here, it is the Italians who are threatening to clamp down on this age of romance, and the domestic politics of this country are doing their share, as there are fascists marching in the streets. I do not know if Miyazaki was aware of this, but knowing him he may well have been, but it is so fitting that it is Italy doing this, as it is the country that first used airplanes as a weapon of war, in 1911 as it wrested Libya from the Ottoman Empire. More obviously, it is the Italians who, after all, invented fascism. As the aerial zomia of the Adriatic fades, we are left with characters, Porco himself most of all, who don’t know what to do with themselves, or their place in this world more generally. To quote Matthew Stover’s novelization of The Revenge of the Sith (which, incidentally, is a beautifully written novel which is in some ways even better than the film it’s based on): it’s the end of an age of heroes, and it has saved its best for last.

This is a beautiful film, and much of that is in the portrayal of the environments, man-made and natural. The natural scenes are so lush, like those in all of the works of Miyazaki’s I’ve seen. Who wouldn’t want a secluded beach to oneself like Porco does here? I would, if only to read there. The architecture, too, is the stuff of the fantasies and dreams of those who do not live there, with cobblestone streets and houses that look almost otherworldly to an American like myself (of course, I suspect the effect isn’t nearly as strong for those who have lived there their whole lives). It’s just pretty all around, and it makes me want to visit Italy and Croatia and the countries of the Adriatic more broadly.

This is a film about what has been, what we wanted to have been, and what never could have been. It is a film about yearning, in all its myriad forms, and yet how temporary all of our desires and hopes necessarily are. It feels very Buddhist, in some way, about how nothing of this world will ever truly satisfy you. But all the same, it professes love for this world, for experience, for joy. To quote the philosopher Amod Lele, himself quoting a commenter on his blog (which I also encourage you to read), “we don’t cease to enjoy a song because it has an ending.” It’s ultimately an ambiguous message for a film with an ambiguous ending, and in some ways the only appropriate message for such a film. Life is short, and it is better to be a pig than a fascist, is it not?

Now if only he had finished his planned sequel set in the Spanish Civil War…

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POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy.

Review: The Boy and the Heron

 A strange, beautiful, melancholy study of grief and renewal filtered through a magical lens.

The Boy and the Heron is Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film for Studio Ghibli, the animation team behind classic films such as Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Ponyo. The Boy and the Heron is a strange, beautiful, melancholy film that feels like a study of grief filtered through the intentionally incoherent lens of Alice in Wonderland. The film has nods to prior Studio Ghibli films and connects with the audience through the unique animation style and emotionally evocative storytelling that are hallmarks of Miyazaki’s work. 

A school-aged boy Mahito loses his mother when the hospital where she works catches fire in wartime Tokyo. He sees the flames from a distance and races towards the building but, due to the distance and his young age, he is unable to save her. Mahito’s father, a factory owner, later marries his dead wife’s sister, Natsuko, and moves Mahito to Natsuko’s family’s country estate. Mahito is respectful of his pregnant stepmother but is emotionally distant from her as he navigates his ongoing grief and the strange old mansion in which he must now live. His busy father assures Mahito the local school children will be impressed when he arrives in an automobile (a rare luxury in that era). However, the other schoolboys bully Mahito and beat him severely. This is a tipping point for Mahito’s despondence and he engages in a dramatic act of self-harm to ensure he does not have to return to school. While recuperating at home, Mahito is haunted by a large bird who tells him his mother is still alive and tries to entice him to enter a mysterious, sealed-off tower that stands on the estate. When his stepmother goes missing, he decides to follow the heron into the strange tower in an attempt to unravel the mystery of his mother and her sister. This is where the story makes a dramatic turn into a fantastical quest narrative that harkens back to Chihiro in Spirited Away and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. In the course of his quest, he enters a spiritual realm / astral plane where spirits exist in different stages of being. The realm is run by his ancestor, who wants Mahito to remain in the realm but Mahito is concerned with finding his mother and saving his stepmother. 

The film’s emotional reach is anchored by the profoundly thoughtful animation. In an early scene, Mahito ascends the broad outdoor steps to his new home. With each step his knee bends with carefully detailed efforts conveying the physical weight and distance as well as the overwhelming grief that burdens him. The hand-drawn movements are a dramatic change from the sharp, loud, bright, fast visuals that dominate many recent animation blockbusters. As a result, the characters in The Boy and the Heron feel close to us emotionally. 

On the other hand, certain groups in the tale are drawn differently from the lead characters giving them a more fantastical element. The stepmother’s mansion is staffed by a group of older ladies with exaggerated, cartoonish aging features. The schoolboys who attack Mahito are all collectively designed with rounded features that distinguish them from Mahito’s more angular design. Both of these are interesting stylistic choices that sometimes feel a little too overt but also foreshadow the dreamlike state of the boy’s emotions. The visual distinctions continues when Mahito crosses over into the tower’s magical realm. 

The contrasting animation style emphasizes the film’s themes of death, grief, despondence, resilience, and self-determination. Many of Mahito’s encounters in the tower are both dreamlike and nightmarish. In one scene his entire body is gradually covered by a swarm of frogs, in another he is covered by strips of paper, and in another he is overcome by birds. In each situation, the gradual, suffocating accumulation of small obstacles creates an immersive connection to the grief and resilience being symbolized. 

You don’t have to be a Studio Ghibli expert to enjoy The Boy and The Heron. But if you are a fan, you will notice nods to the prior films. Mahito resembles a younger version of Prince Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke and he uses a homemade bow and arrow in his quest. The older women who take care of the estate are reminiscent of the senior center ladies in Ponyo and some have a design similar to Yubaba in Spirited Away. The mystical tower that “straddles worlds” and links to an alternate dimension is a reminder of the magical castle in Howl’s Moving Castle. Mahito’s ally Kiriko in the magical realm reminds us of Haku’s mentorship of Chihiro in Spirited Away. 

If you haven’t seen other Studio Ghibli films, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away are great introductions, but they are not necessary to enjoy the new story. Despite the gorgeous and thoughtful storytelling, the plot of The Boy and the Heron feels less linear than other Miyazaki films, especially in terms of the various motivations in the tower’s spirit realm. The other main discomfort of the film is its abrupt ending which doesn’t quite wrap up the expansive story in a truly satisfying way. However, that approach is consistent with the themes of the film which reminds us that sadness and loss are intrinsic to life and sometimes you just do your best and then try to move forward, even without a deep revelation or resolution. 

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Nerd Coefficient: 8/10

Highlights

• Gorgeous, emotionally evocative animation
• Interesting design and plot choices
• Powerful themes of death, grief, despondence, compassion, and self-determination.

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

Summer Reading List 2021: Phoebe

 Hi folks, even though I moved from the Southwest to the East Coast, it seems I can't escape the wildfire smoke or the constant reminder of the climate crisis--not that I'm particularly trying since I'm writing about ecological collapse and speculative fiction every day as part of my dissertation.

That said, I usually try to read a few books over the summer just for fun. In 2020, I was deep in the throws of reading a 200+ book list for my PhD comprehensive exams, so even though I'm working on my dissertation, this summer is a bit more relaxed reading-wise. The first half of the summer, I've spent reading a mix of dissertation novels (rereading Butler's Parable novels was a lot of feels), short story collections (still thinking about Brandon Taylor's Filthy Animals) to teach out of in the fall, and poetry (I'm late to the show but Kaveh Akbar's Calling a Wolf a Wolf is excellent).

What follows is a list of some books meant to distract me from the rest of my work. I hope, if you choose to read any of these, that they also distract you from what Joe Sherry called "the nineteenth month of 2020." Big mood.

1. The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham

The past few months just have had me craving epic fantasy. Perhaps it's a comfort genre since my favorite authors as a kid were Tolkien and Lewis. Regardless, I've been meaning to get to The Other Lands for years. The second book in Durham's Acacia: War with the Mein trilogy, The Other Lands is set to explore more the fascinating world that Durham sets up the first novel, Acacia. I'm particularly interested to see how Durham continues the social commentary of empire that he sets up in the first book, which becomes a turning point at the end of the novel. 

2. Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence

Another sequel in a trilogy, Grey Sister is not my typical read as I'm pretty hesitant to pick up a fantasy in the "blurbed by George R. R. Martin" variety. Setting that aside, a fellow fantasy fan gave me the first one as a belated Christmas gift, and after moving across the country into a new house, with most of my books still in boxes, I sat down to read it. I tore through the first one, totally engrossed in the best way. I'm hoping the second one, continuing the storyline of an assassin child with magical, invisible claws to protect her, keeps the same entertaining, fast-paced readability of the first novel.

3. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind: the Manga

Nausicaä instantly became my favorite Hayao Miyazaki film when I (finally) saw it last year. When I found out there was a manga that continues long past the film, I immediately put it on my reading list. The film follows Princess Nausicaä as she tries to protect her home from an invading empire while teaching others to adapt and live in harmony with the toxic forest. At the end of the film, she takes on her prophetic role of "the man in blue" who will help the remnants of humanity thrive rather than fade into extinction. At the end of the movie, there's plenty of story left to tell, so I'm excited to see how Miyazaki completes what I consider to be a perfect piece of environmental storytelling.

4. How Long 'til Black Future Month by N. K. Jemisin

As part of preparing to teaching creative writing at a small liberal arts school this fall, I've been catching up on my short story collections. At heart, I'm a reader and writer of novels, but as a teacher, I need to make sure my students have some sort of understanding of the short story form, which means giving lots and lots of examples. I'm a huge fan and wannabe scholar of Jemisin's work, so I'm excited to see how the larger themes and ideas I associate with her as a novelist boil down into short stories.

5. A Dream So Dark by L. L. McKinney

To me, nothing quite says summer like a stack of YA novels. A good YA book is almost always my beach read (or creek read, as things go in rural Pennsylvania). I read A Blade So Black last year and have been itching to dive back into McKinney's delightfully upturned wonderland retelling. With more of wonderland to explore and the main character gaining even cooler magical weapons, the sequel is set up to be a wild romp in this dream world. 

6. Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones 

While everyone loves Jones's horror novels and novella, they are, ahem, a little scary for me. He's been on my radar since his 2016 werewolf novel, so I finally picked up a copy to read so I can join in on the SGJ love but still sleep at night. I'm sure I'll still have to read this during the day, but this coming of age werewolf novel seems a bit more my speed as the main character learns about his werewolf family while waiting to discover if he carries the same traits. 

Posted By: Phoebe Wagner is a PhD candidate at University of Nevada, Reno. When not writing or reading, she can be found kayaking at the nearest lake. Follow her at phoebe-wagner.com or on Twitter @pheebs_w.

Summer Reading List 2018: brian

Last year's Summer of Harry Potter ended up being the Summer, Autumn, and Winter of Harry Potter. In an effort not to repeat that mistake, this year will be the Summer of Good Anime Movies, a task I could accomplish in a weekend if I wanted to. So far, I've got ten movies named, focusing on critically and popularly acclaimed anime movies I haven't seen. I've chosen this theme because I haven't seen anything Miyazaki and that's kind of a huge blindspot, right? But good anime movies won't absorb all of my free time, so I've added some of the novels and video games I'll be enjoying too.

1. My Neighbor Totoro, by Hayao Miyazaki (director)

Here we go, starting the show with the showstopper. I've never seen My Neighbor Totoro. I'm going to correct that. I understand I could fill a list of Good Anime Movies with nothing by Miyazaki, but if I have to name one that I've probably heard of the most, it's My Neighbor Totoro.

2. Paprika, by Satoshi Kon (director)

Another acclaimed anime director whose works I've never seen is Satoshi Kon, so his films are also part of my list. Paprika is a film that I remember making some real waves when it released in 2006, and I never got around to it. 

3. Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer

You may remember from my review that I absolutely loved the film Annihilation, but wasn't particularly hot on the novel Annihilation. Regardless, I'm continuing this series to see if maybe some of what made the film so enjoyable was pulled from the other books in the trilogy. Even if it wasn't, I still want to know what else happens in Area X.

4. All Systems Red, by Martha Wells

Wells is absolutely cranking these novels out, with this one having just released a year ago, the second in May of this year, and a third before the end of summer. All Systems Red was well received and I got it free from the Tor newsletter, so this summer is as good of a time as any to check it out. Space travel and robots really speak to me.

5. Final Fantasy XV, by Square Enix (developer)

Hi, I'm brian and I've never finished a Final Fantasy game. That's not entirely true because I did finish Final Fantasy Adventure, but that was technically a Secret of Mana game. None of that matters, though, because I've played almost every Final Fantasy and didn't really enjoy any of them except this one. I expect this is the game that's going to carry me through most of the summer with the DLC episodes. And I'm not too optimistic about this, but playing it has been making me feel like I should revisit FFVIII and FFXIII, the two that probably caught my attention the most before I stopped playing them.

6. Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, by Obsidian Entertainment (developer)

This is the entry for "PC RPG like a dozen others that I own but will never finish". It's not a short list and I added to it when I backed this game, like its predecessor, on Kickstarter. It just came out and I feel like I can't start it until I finish the first Pillars of Eternity, which will never happen. Why did I even list this? Let's call it aspirational thinking.

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POSTED BY: brian, sci-fi/fantasy/video game dork and contributor since 2014

SFF Essentials: Books you should totally be reading out loud to your kids

Lists like this are always a disaster: the books on them are either so obvious it hardly bears mentioning (The Hobbit, for instance) or "completely inappropriate for my sensitive/flighty/etc. kids". I'm sure many readers will disagree/object strenuously to some of these selections. And it's true, I've only read a few of them to my own kids so far (we're currently halfway through Taran Wanderer). But I remain convinced that, despite the sometimes archaic language and confusing situations in some of these books, they're doing my kids good. Do I have any evidence for that? Not a bit. But then, when has that ever stopped me before?

The below list is in ascending order of seriousness/target age (from 3 or so up to about 10, assuming my kids are still speaking to me then!)

Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak     

I don't really remember much about this book, to be honest, except the strange certainty that it was my favorite book as a preliterate kid. I loved having it read to me--like candy for my ears. The more serious question is, should we be showing the movie adaptation to our young kids? My answer is "probably not", because the only other thing I remember about the book was that it was a bit frightening, and the movie is bound to up the fright ante...

The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander

   The Book of Three

   The Black Cauldron  

         The Princess of Llyr

         Taran Wanderer (we’re halfway through right now!)

         The High King

I loved these tales as a child, enough to attempt reading them to my own little ones. They seem moderately taken with it, especially the almost-six year old, but I find myself changing the story a bit as a I read it, so needlessly archaic is the language at times. We'll see if their interest survives to the end of book five. The older kid has also seen the movie "adaptation", the Black Cauldron, which is thoroughly mediocre and even a bit scary at times, but seemed to think it was okay.

Hey, I never got a poster map! That would've been great...

 The Ice Dragon, by George R.R. Martin

I was pleasantly surprised by this for-kids book by GRRM, who after all is not known for his kid-friendly themes. I immediately began reading this to my kids, with mixed results: they loved it (because of the illustrations), and thus were spoiled for non-illustrated books for all time :(

The Earthsea Trilogy, by Ursula K. LeGuin 

A Wizard of Earthsea

The Tombs of Atuan

The Farthest Shore

This one's a no-brainer. Despite being rather sexist (a surprise considering LeGuin's later career!) all three of these books, especially the first, are excellent, if a bit dark (and thus their place in the ascending order of seriousness/target age is a bit higher). Tehanu I disliked as a child, but like now as an adult; the same goes for the fifth book. But should you show the movie adaptations (Earthsea, a live action adaptation, or Tales from Earthsea, the animated adaptation)? A firm "no" to the first, a "meh" to the second.

The Dark Is Rising Series, by Susan Cooper             

Over Sea, Under Stone

The Dark is Rising

Greenwitch

The Grey King

Silver on the Tree

I haven't started reading these to my kids yet, and thus haven't re-read them myself for decades, but I have high hopes that my rosy memory of this series is not a mere illusion: I loved them! The film version, on the other hand, is all kinds of awful, in my opinion. What's with the gratuitous blowing up of stuff scene?

 The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

"And not for the last time!" The periodic intonation of this line (or something like it) made a powerful impression on me, for some reason, and I loved having this read to me. So much so, my parents (unwisely?) just gave me the Lord of the Rings books and said "do your best." There's nothing objectionable in the content, really, aside from some rather comical violence. But then there's the schizophrenic movies, which can't decide whether to be for kids or some sort of weird LOTR 2.0 wannabes. Should you show your kids (any of) the movies? No.

The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley

As a child (and as an adult, come to think of it) I adored books about intrepid heroines (not that it was easy to find them!), and this was one of my favorites. I can't remember anything particularly problematic about it, so it should be fair game for reading to my kids once we get through all the material above!

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

Of course you should be reading your kids this book: it'll teach them the word 'tesseract'! True, I still don't understand what that is, but I sure liked reading about it as a kid! And unusually for this list, I actually have re-read this book as a quasi-adult (~20), and found it "still good", just like the Dead Sea Tupperware from Aladdin!

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll          

If you want to blow your kids' minds, a) read them this, but b) wait until they're a bit older (that's why this book is in the middle of this list, rather than at the light-and-fluffy top). Glowing eyes in the shadows, queens who chop off nigh everybody's heads--it's not for the faint of heart! Nor are the many movie adaptations, in general: screen them with care, if at all. Nightmares may logically result.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (but not the rest), by C.S. Lewis 

Note that I haven't included any of the six sequels in this list, and yes, that's intentional. I vividly remember many details from this book, and virtually nothing from the other six. I guess you could read them to your kids if you're desperately in search of something to fill up hundreds of hours of reading-time, but otherwise, I'd leave it at book one and tell them to read the rest themselves if they want. Not coincidentally, the same advice holds for the movies, which started rather mediocrely with LWW and then nosedived quickly. 

The Princess Bride, by William Goldman             

Holy crap, I think I've just found a book that's better than its movie adaptation! Can such a thing truly exist? But in all seriousness, the book is a lot better, mostly because of the awesome, sassy Princess Buttercup (as opposed to the Robin Wright push-over damsel-in-distress oxygen waster in the movie). Don't believe me? Go back and re-watch this film, then re-read the book, and you'll see what I mean. Yikes! How did I love this movie so much, when it's such a pale (not to mention sexist) echo of the book? On the plus side, content-wise both are totally okay for kids (in fact, they should probably be higher on this list, as below we get into some dark-ish stuff).

Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

This is one of the only books on this list that I never read as a child (I got around to it as an adult). I sure wish someone had loved me enough to read it to me, though. What a great story! The Ghibli adaptation is quite good also, though it takes the story in a decidedly darker, war-torn direction, and it's partly for this reason that the book appears so far down the list (indicating the seriousness of its topic). It's unfair to judge a book by its movie adaptation, you say? No, it's just practicality: your kids will totally wear you down into showing you the movie, and there's some rather haunting stuff in this film that might make it unsuitable for very young children.

The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende                 

And this book is in fact the only one on this list that I still haven't ever read. The movie made a deep (in fact, a terrifying) impression on me, and I guess I never dared read the source material for fear of deepening the scars. This is by way of saying that some might believe this book is less serious and should therefore be higher on the list, but my traumatic experience watching the movie at a very young age has convinced me that concepts like The Nothing are too much for a __-year old to handle...yet also quite memorable and fascinating stuff if the child is ready to hear it!

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling                 

"Why isn't this higher on the list? It's for kids!" Yes, the first three or so books are light-hearted enough, but good luck getting your kids to stop at book one. If you dare read this one to them, be prepared to suffer the consequences (not least, having a few solid years of reading material that grows increasingly more upsetting). Same goes for the movies, only more so. Actually, the first two movies are kind of crappy from a technical point of view (sloppy, Chris Columbus-esque sequential reaction shots of all the kids, poorly paced editing, etc.), but they're the only two that you can show your (young) kids without rocking the foundations of their world, and once you start reading book one, you're committing to having them hear/read/see the rest, in short order no less.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets            

Hah! If you're reading this, it means you ignored my advice and started reading Harry Potter to your kids when they were like six. Now they're catatonic on the floor at age 6.5, having watched all the movies already and suffering permanent damage in the process. You'll curse yourself for not having cast expelliarmus on your own hand when it was reaching for the Prisoner of Azkaban, so let me reiterate: read HP books to your kids at your own peril, and try mightily to 'pause' here, after book two (which, unlike #1, didn't have a patronizing dumbed-down title for the "Yanks"), to give your kids time to beef up their psychological defenses before the onslaught of the rest!

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (manga), by Miyazaki Hayao

The movie is awesome, and while shockingly violent in some ways, is still okay to show kids of a certain baseline age (maybe 10+?). But did you know that Miyazaki actually wrote the manga himself--and wrote it first, before his seminal film? Manga are actually a great choice for bedtime reading material, since they come with pictures, but most manga are way too sexualized/violent/adult-themed for pleasant dreams; Nausicaa is something of a (potential) exception. I can't promise the God Warriors won't cause a nightmare or two, of course!

Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card

In some ways this is a natural choice for a list like this, but in others its subtly though deeply disturbing subject matter might perhaps disqualify it altogether as bedtime reading material. Who wants to read their kids a story of inter-species genocide, after all? But on the other hand, it's one of the most intriguing novels of the last several decades (unlike its sequels, which I found underwhelming as a child), and as long as your kid(s) is(are) old enough to handle the content, might as well show them the solid movie adaptation while you're at it!

Magician, by Raymond Feist 

(but probably not the rest of them, as they get 'heavy' quickly)

This is a book that could easily be higher on the list, but I remember it as being rather long and more of an adolescent coming-of-age tale than a 'for kids' sort of story. Still, I used to ride my bike down to the local library in a tizzy over the chance to re-read it when I was like nine, so it can't have been all bad, right? (Judging from Feist's recent "novels", I'm inclined to think Magician might secretly be really bad, and I was just too young/dumb to notice it at the time, however.)

Coraline, by Neil Gaiman      

What a cool, creepy story! And the movie even more so, if anything! That's the good news. The bad news: do not, under any circumstances, show your five-year-olds or under any part of this terrifying movie, and for good measure, best steer clear of the book too until they're old enough to weather the emotional turmoil of imagining their Other Mommy as a spidery monster...but what an awesome bedtime story, if they can handle it!

Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Two Towers

The Return of the King

I've saved the best (?) but also the longest, most archaic, and downright most boring for last. Gasp--boring? Yeah, the whole Tom Bombadill digression in Fellowship of the Ring is uber-boring! I hate to trample on the bible of you Tolkien worshipers out there, but the series doesn't really get good until the very end of the FOTR, and more properly the beginning of TTT. That's why they're here at the end of the list: not because they're too scary (though there are certainly scary parts), but because they're too boring for younger kids to suffer through and not start to hate. And you can't raise a new generation of Nerds of a Feather if you ruin Tolkien for them by exposing them to it too early, now can you?

And thus, we have 24 books (actually over 30) that are indispensable reading materials when bedtime rolls around in your house. Your kids will probably love all these books, but take care about when to introduce them to this precious material, or your earnest efforts to proselytize your kids might backfire!

This list was constructed by Zhaoyun, Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2013, SFF lover since the snot-nosed age of five and fervent believer in a cautious approach to starting kids on a course of bedtime SFF.