John Perlich

First off, this is a book of critical essays. As such, it's only of interest to a select few people.

Now, that said, not all the essays are very good. Some are written far too bland even for an essay. Some don't understand the subject material, or try to shoehorn in some thought that's not really belonging to the subject material.

As it is a collection of essays, some will be better written than others, but some of the subject matter may be better than others as well. An example would be someone who doesn't care about the Harry Potter franchise, they'd likely also not care about the essay in this book dealing with said franchise. Another may be of a story you enjoy, but the essay material isn't your thing.

Really, it's hard to recommend this book to the general populace. However, it would be of interest to a few people, and then it would likely be of great interest to them. For a casual fan of the genres or franchises it represents, I'd say if at least 3 essays in the book interest you, it would be worth a purchase.… (mais)

The idea of this book intrigued me. We know ourselves partly by who we hold as heroes and villians, after all. Each of the chapters was well researched and well written by people obviously interested and dedicated to the topic. However, I think that the articles were written looking in solitary pursuit of each individual topic and focus rather than with an eye towards creating one work. It was like reading a collection of primary essays used to create and overall work...Like, if one was going to write an essay on the topic, they could just use this one book and list the articles as their sources.

I'm guessing that some of this is from the fact that this is a second book and I haven't seen the first one. Perhaps they laid the groundwork for cohesiveness in the first and these articles fit together better with that in mind. Another thing that may be a result of it being a second book is the feeling that they missed some essential "myths" of the modern world...at least according to my opinion.

In short, this title is okay. Well written but better read as several seperate articles than as a whole work.… (mais)

While in college, I took as an elective a class on Scandinavia Folklore, and reading ths book I was reminded of some of the textbooks. Millenial Mythmaking is a collection of academic papers, some more academic than others, along with what you'd expect in references, footnotes, etc

While the essays themselves are fascinating, I did not realy get a sense of cohesion in them. I'd expect that of a textbook type work, though - essays for a professor to select from, rather than a complete treatment of the subject. Some of the essays appealed to me more than others, but there were some that seemed flawed - especially in the one making quite interesting comparisons and commentary one the Wicked Witch of Oz and her treatment on more modern works, the references to recent politics could likely be completely eliminated without harming the thesis.… (mais)

I enjoy critical essays on subjects I love, yet this book touched on several topics I wasn't all that familiar with. It starts off with an essay on Harry Potter. I read the first volume aloud to my children and found myself daydreaming often as the nights wore on. It's also a family joke about how I fall asleep during the Potter movies. But I found myself fascinated by the subject within this essay on color choices within the books. Now I will have to read the first book again, and go through the others. The authors definitely got me interested in the boy wizard.

I've always liked the Oz stories, and have read a few of the books, besides seeing the original movie and Return to Oz, which is a closer rendition of the written stories. But after reading the essay focusing on the Wicked Witch, as portrayed in the book and show "Wicked," I do feel I will stick with the original. Although the writers seemed to appreciate this deviation from the source material, I could tell I wouldn't like it. So this book at least kept me away from something I had been considering as a future read.

The next essay focused in on The Planet of the Apes. I'm an apes fan, and have been for many a decade. This essay was interesting and I'm glad I had the opportunity to read it.

Following that we get some in-depth detail on Spirited Away. This was worthwhile reading, as I'm also a fan of Miyazaki. Based on the Potter, Apes, and Spirited Away essays, this volume was worth it; not to mention the fact that I can gladly skip reading Wicked.

The Triplets of Belleville was a film completely unfamiliar to me, but the essay on it was interesting enough that I may have to catch it sometime. The article on Pan's Labyrinth was fascinating. It's one of those movies on my "must" list, and it moved up the chart after reading about it.

While the article on actors and their mythic heroes was entertaining at times, and infused some nice humor, I found myself let down with the portions on William Shatner. I don't really know what I was expecting, but I couldn't read it fast enough to get past it. On the other hand, this did make me interested in Doctor Who, which I've never viewed.

The last two essays, on Second Life and Ghost in the Shell, didn't mean much to me. I have experienced neither, and have no desire to. This helped confirm it. But for those who do love virtual reality in Second Life and fans of GITS, I'm sure they would appreciate these articles.

A book such as this will rarely have complete appeal for readers, as many of us haven't experienced all this contains. However, on the whole, this was a worthwhile reading experience and I look forward to reading more of these types of works that McFarland produces.… (mais)