Christopher Tracy (1)

I haven't seen the movie in ages, and even then I suspect I never saw all of it in one go. However, this book gave me plenty of flashbacks and I almost watched the movie again.

Like the movie, the book is corny, but also a light, fun adventure. The archaeology-adventurer genre punches through even though the main character is a Librarian. Both of these cliches are cliches I love and appreciate. However, the stereotypical objectifying of the female lead and falling in love over night (and surely break up by the next movie because they never had an long term prospects) romance is a cliche I never liked. It doesn't make much of a difference that the girl is the brawn in this one. It's still a vehicle to create a black and white secondary character.

To create a corny, lighthearted adventure, writers often create an overall shallow work. While this book has been a slightly better than OK experience, I would never get into the habit of reading movie and TV adaptions because they tend to lack the emotional and environmental depth that I expect of a book. Meanwhile, it's always interesting how poorly likeable movies don't translate well into book form because of the depth issue. I suppose because movies and TV shows play faster than we read and supply visual environments and emotional music they don't seem near as cheesy as they are when the script moves to a novel format.

On another note, I appreciate how well the story ties in everything from beginning to end. There are no details left to exist in of themselves. I don't particularly mind that--sometimes a chair is just a chair, or rain happens to come regardless what a person is up to--but it is nice to see initially innocent details tie together by the end. Assuming you don't think too hard about geography, logistics, or general between-the-lines logic, of course.

Overall, The Adventures of the Librarian: Quest for the Spear, was good in terms of a nostalgia trip and seeing how an adventure movie could be written as a book, but ultimately most adventures first written as novels have better depth in their characters and atmosphere.… (altro)

Well, I bought this optimistically because I enjoyed the movie so much. The movie was campy and fun with some perfectly hilarious moments and gorgeous scenes...but I'm afraid the book was just a movie book. On the upside, it was a fast read, but it didn't go any farther than the movie. It gave you exactly what the movie did, but in brief. I can say that the writing was adequate, which often doesn't seem to be the case in movies made into books. Unfortunately, the book attempted to carry on the same spirit as the movie--while I'd applaud that tendancy normally, what was campy and fun in the movie became cheesy and sometimes cliche'd in the book, so it really just didn't work. It did make me go running back to see the movie again--and yep, it was just as much fun as before. If nothing else, I suppose the book was a revisiting of the movie and characters. I'd say it's a decent time-waster, and fun at points, but I'd recommend the movie instead if this seems to be your cup of tea.… (altro)