Well, I'm still working on the Microprose game, so nobody get too excited about a review happening imminently.  However, since it's the season for giving thanks (at least here in the States), I'd just like to thank two people (operating independently, I believe, but who knows?  It could be a vast Anne-themed conspiracy of two people) who took the time to send me emails wailing in histrionic distress over the fact that my reviews contain spoilers, and after reading several entire reviews they found that those materials had been spoiled for them.

So, cats and kitties, check it out--this website has spoilers on it!  Spoilers.  SPOILERS!  If you discover that you have read through several entire reviews and they have spoiled things for you, please, feel free to email me instead of, I don't know... not reading any more?  At what point does a reader say, "Well, yes, the LAST four reviews were full of spoilers, but maybe THIS one will be different!"?

All entertainment aside, however, I have put a spoiler notice up.  So I can make fewer visits to Whinertown in the future.  I've never liked it there; the food is shit, yet everyone keeps going to the same restaurant and bitching about the slow service.

(The really humorous part is that one of the materials that was "spoiled" for a reader was the 1925 Julian/Chaney film.  Shame on me, giving away the plot of a classic film from eighty-five years ago!  WAY TO ASSUME, ANNE.)

Oh, my god, how did I lose a month?  Stupid life making me do life things.  Anyway, the Lewis review is up--break out the wine!--and we'll see if I can't be faster on the next one.  A book a month will never do.  I'll be here until I die.

And bam, Weiss review!  I am awesome.  The next one may take a while, though, because I think I may have to read it with tongs or something.  Poor thing is so old it's falling apart.

The Crysys review is up!  Oh, man.  Craziness.  It was an awesome change of pace.

As will the Muppets be.  Because, damn, I love me some Muppets.

I'll go ahead and take a small break from the business of crafting a fine-tuned and pithy review of a pixellated video game from 1987, and make like a lemming and say, like every other Phantom-based website on the internet right now, hey, Webber's second musical is imminent!  The website, with various goodies and whatnot, has officially launched.

My opinions?  I think the logo is fantastic, in the original meaning of the word.  And I love Coney Island.  And I like things set in carnivals and at Coney Island, generally.

"Lloyd Weber [sic] said he wanted to produce a sequel because the original's ending, which sees Christine leave the brooding Phantom for his rival, Raoul, was unsatisfactory.

"Christine goes off with this boring guy, the Phantom disappears," Lloyd Webber said."

...I'm an OPTIMIST, I tell you.  It still might be great.  I refuse to judge until I see and hear it myself.  My only real question is how and why Webber's outlook on the story has apparently changed so much over the past two decades.  And that's really what the project is all about, isn't it--wondering why our outlooks change.  (Perhaps he has been reading the same books I have been reading.)

Thanks to all 14 people who emailed me to tell me, and all seven LiveJournal friends and communities that posted about it, and my real-life friends getting in on the action, too!  I am informed!

So the Murphy review is live.  Go me!  And I'm excited, because I got a shiny package in the mail yesterday with the Criswell, Weiss, and Zach books in it!

Now to track down even more... damn, it would be nice to have pocket money.  Oh, well.  I suffer for art.

And bam!  The Waggner/Karloff review is totally up, too!  I'm fantastic, I know.  We'll see if I can keep up with this once-a-week schedule, but for right now, there's a store full of Halloween candy calling my name.

The Bernadette review... is finally done.  Finished.  Over.  And posted.  And now I'm going to watch horror movies from the forties.

Yes.

Who? Where?  Yes, I'm still alive, and still reading.  Sadly, the current book is a monster and life hasn't exactly been unevenful lately.  Nevertheless, I persevere, and I should be finished with it today or tomorrow.  I can even cross my fingers and dream that I could then have a review written within a day or two!

I've added a new book or two to my list, thanks to the help of eagle-eyed readers.  :)  You guys rock!

I just (finally) found a copy of the 1978 Murphy musical version!  Eeeeeee!  That little rat bastard has been eluding me for over a year, appearing only as overpriced LP and 8-track recordings, but I finally found a cassette tape.  There is rejoicing in my house.

Not that I will review it for a while, because the Bernadette book still holds me captive, and it is both long and densely populated with words (what does she think I am, a reader?), and I have a film to do after that, but soon, my precious.  Soon.

In the interests of cleaning up my messy operation, I've done a (very, very minor) overhaul of the site.  The Chronology page is gone, because it's been combined with the Progress page to create something that is (hopefully) smoother, cleaner, and more streamlined.  I'm awesome.

The Skal review is up!   Ah, that was a nice refresher.  And now for another one--a self-published novel, because apparently I have all the radio shows excent for the one I thought I  was doing next!

Waves to all the peeps that wandered over from the radio show!

And the Meadows review is up.  I'm heading back to the world of nonfiction for a bit to enjoy a little film piece on the previous film versions, and then it'll be another foray into the world of radio!

Incidentally, I also added a paragraph or so to the end of the Pettengill review; a parallel to the Charnas short story that I hadn't thought of at the time I wrote it suggested itself, so I whipped off a few lines to make sure things were thorough.

The Meadows review is about 80% complete, and hopefully will be up tomorrow night.  In the meantime, I'd like to throw out a shout to Anstance Tamplin,  Sharon Cathcart and everyone else who's shown me a flood of goodwill in the form of new things to review lately.  You guys rock!

The Treu/Hutchman film review is up!  Now it's back into the wilds of self-published novelry for me again.  Wish me luck.

One month on the dot, but here it is, the Pettengill review finished.  Oof.  Never meant that hiatus to grow so monstrously out of proportion, but hopefully it won't recur.  I'm on to a film, which will hopefully go fast, and in the meantime, if any of you stuck around, I'm back and thanks for reading!  :)

Ack, it's been two weeks with no word.  Due to other things happening (apparently I have this "life" or something that keeps getting in the way of my reading time), the Pettengill review will be some time yet, still.  I know that all two of you that pay any attention to my updates are very upset, but you must be strong.

In other news, the fabulous Sharon Cathcart dropped by to say hello and pimp her book!  Everybody wave!

While the Pettengill review isn't ready to go yet, thanks to the kindness of composer Dave Reiser, there's an addendum added to the review of The Pinchpenny Phantom of the Opera.  Check it out!

And the Wood review, tiny little thing that it is, is up!  It's time to valiantly venture forth into the realm of self-published work again.  Wish me luck!  I'm excited to see what I might discover!

I apologize for the long delay; the Forsyth review is up.

Excellently, I can read a cute childrens' book now to cleanse my palate.

It's a fabulous week.  The Forsyth review should, ideally, be done tomorrow night sometimes (it's a long one; this is  my only defense).  But I'm overflowing with new materials.  I received the last of the Taylor trio yesterday, and the fabulous Oldphan over at the Philmography helped me find several elusive musical versions, much to my delight!  And my crowning moment of the week was an email from Dave Reiser, composer of The Pinchpenny Phantom of the Opera, who had read my review and kindly offered to send me a copy of the score so I could hear the music as well as read the script.

I never cease to be amazed by the fabulous, kind people who help me out with this project.  A huge thanks to all of you, and I'll be adding to the Reiser/Sharkey review as soon as I finish up my current flailing.

Sorry, I know, no Forsyth review yet.  I've finished reading it, but I'm low on time at home.  However, I just got two of the three Jones books, and a few other things are on order--yay!

The Thomas/Gillis review is up!  Woohoo!  I'm excited, because it's time for the Forsyth book, which is one of the more widespread and widely discussed books out there, not to mention being one of the very first of the "sequel" kind of model for the Phantom story.  Huzzah.

Something better, indeed.  The Riley review is up, and I'm taking a quite time machine trip back a decade for one more film that got out of the continuity.  They're slippery little bastards, always showing up when I'm trying to advance things.

Epic failure.  The Poff review is up, even though it's kind of not really a review.  On to something better!

The Sanford/Green review is up!  Do you know what this means?  It means I think I'm finally clear of most of my backlog of old stuff!  I can get back to the spot on the timeline that I'm supposed to be at!  1998, here we come!

...at least, until I get another old one in the mail tomorrow or something.  But until then, I'm celebrating.

Ergh.  So far, this problem hasn't come up for me, but I  guess it was inevitable: there's a Phantom-related book that's only available on the Amazon Kindle.  I  don't have a Kindle, nor was I really planning to get one any time soon--I don't have money to burn, and anyway, I like holding actual books in my hands, and I'm not a big fan of reading off of screens--but Amazon is really trying to push it, isn't it?  Jerks.  I'll add that to the list, and who knows--maybe it'll get popular enough for a print version to come out.  But it'll be on back-burner for a while, and I really don't know if I'll be able to convince John (or myself) that I need a Kindle, which I  will inevitably lose or break, because of this one book that frankly doesn't look like it's probably all that good.  At least it came out in 2008, so I don't have to worry about it until after I wade through a mess of other stuff.

Oh, and the Christian review is up.  One more kids' book, and then we can go back to me shouting in frustration and adult novels.

The Stine review is up, tiny thing that it is!  On to pillage!

Oh, the things that Webber's sequel musical does to perplex and vex his audience.  The first casting call has been printed in New York's Backstage Magazine, and you can read the full text here at Stefanie Bean's livejournal.  Predictably, the internets have exploded with outrage, confusion, excitement, and glee.

Man, I need to step up my game here with these reviews.  I need to at least get through the 2004 Webber-based film, so I can be prepared to go see and review this monster when it opens.

I love pleasant surprises.  The Kasey review is finished and up!  And I think I've found a good place to order some heretofore elusive materials!  Hallelujah!

Not only did I receive the Kasey today, but the Ashley review is done!  What splendid timing!  So off to another vintage romance I go, and I hope it's a good one.

It's hard to focus on this stuff with all this sunshine and birdsong shit going on around my house.  Might have to go read outside.

Yay!  Two new materials hit my doorstep today--the Taormina and the Gryphon.  They've been put away on the shelf, so that I may peruse their fabulousness in due time.

Ta da!  The Unicorn Publishing review (better known as the Hildebrandt book) is up.  I'm on fire!  On to a short story!

Well, the Japanese was a bust for now; I need a lot of time to try to translate that workably, and I don't want to go including some kind of half-assed analysis that might or might not be accurate, so the Yokohama Tuxedo Club books have been shelved for now.  Instead, I present the Flynn review bright and shiny, and any minute now some new materials should be hitting my doorstep.  Eeee!

Oh, and as you can see, PBwiki felt the need to upgrade and make itself look different, much to my annoyance.  I've got most of the formatting back and streamlined the sidebar a bit, but there are still pages with nasty, ugly titling that doesn't line up.  I'm working on it in between bouts of grumbling about change.

The second (and final, thank god) Kelly review is up, and it's time for me to take forever getting to the next one; that's because it's in Japanese and my Japanese is rusty, to say the least.  If I never re-emerge, you can assume I'm passed out somewhere in Tijuana, covered in hiragana and wondering where my kidney went.

This isn't a review update, but instead, check this out: the website of one Angel Taormina, who describes herself as a singer, writer, director, actress, et. al.  I first stopped by in my neverending quest to make sure I have a thorough range of sources for this project (and her novel, Eternal Love, has been added to the list as per all published forms of the story), but more interesting to me is her film page, where it blithely declares that the film version of the novel, which they expect to put into production any day now, will have an estimated budget of $20,000,000.  Okay.  Now I know this is fake.

But the novel, at least, is real, so it will go through the spectroscope like all the others.  In the meantime, I can only imagine the treat in store if she decides to sing in this production with the fantasy twenty million dollar budget, and try to avoid all future YouTube clips with vigilance and verve.

The Smith Babar review is up!  Ah, the mists of nostalgia and childlike innocence.  Okay, enough of that, off to read another play.

The McMullan review is up!  It's so nice to see a children's version that has some real depth to it.

Also, I fixed all the blog entries that said they were from January of 08.  Doh.

Okay, I can see again now, so the Sodaro/Villars review is up.  I'm nearing the end of the backlog of 1980s stuff that I got in recently from the wonderful Ms. Hernandez, so soon enough we'll be moving chronologically along again.

And a wee little Dickens review gets things off to a more speedy start!  Hurrah!  I look like a pirate in my disability eyepatch.  Awesome.

Has anyone noticed that when I say things like "hopefully the pace will continue to be pretty decent", everything goes to hell?  In this case, it's because I developed an ulcer on my left cornea, which understandably made squinting at itty bitty print and bright computer monitors somewhat difficult.  I'm managing, and finally got the Kenley/Noll/Gooding review up, but I can't make promises about the future.

I can make pipe dreams, though.  New review tomorrow!  Let's do it!

Ta-da!  The Reiser/Sharkey review has officially seen the light of day.  And hopefully, since I think I have another short play to go next, the pace will continue to be pretty decent.  Any by that I mean I'll... hurry up some.