Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Prince and the Pauper [Book Review]

"The Prince and the Pauper" is a novel written by Mark Twain. It was published in 1881. One of the best books I have ever read. I was really struggling with what I should cover in the review.

The basic story is very well-known by this point. You have a Prince and a Pauper who trade places and learn the ups and downs of both realities. I knew this well enough, but there is so much to the story then just that. This is a story filled with adventure and even some swashbuckling action. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.

Once the two characters get split up, the author takes his time with each of their adventures. It takes a lot of chapters before he switches perspectives, and this is really for the best. It gives you time to feel like you understand their respective situations. Although jarring at first, it is actually genius to do this and actually less jarring than the alternative. The Prince gets plenty of time to see how difficult life is in his kingdom, and the Pauper gets to see what it's like to be treated like royalty.

One of the crazy things about this story is how so many people just can't imagine the truth of the situation. I say this because both characters are being open and honest about who they are throughout the story. They are not trying to pretend at all. Eventually, they kind of have no choice but to pretend because nobody would believe them anyways.

My favorite character is Miles Hendon, who takes care of the Prince for a lot of the story. He is the absolute image of a paragon hero. This cannot be overstated. He was so flawless in his goodness, and I really wanted things to work out for him. He deserved so many good things, but unfortunately a lot of bad things happen to him anyhow. I enjoyed him so much that I wanted there to be a continuing series of books about him. That did not happen, though.

The story does not have an overarching villain, but there are a few villainous characters who you will hate. One of them is a psychopath, but he still had extremely selfish motives despite being delusional. All the villains in the book are encountered by the Prince, although I should say that the King was not really a good person either, but he doesn't really molest the Pauper while he is in the castle. He is more of an terrible person to other people than the one he thinks is his son.

Honestly, I was surprised at there not being a main villain. My only exposure to this story was the Disney short with Mickey Mouse. They had Pete trying to usurp the throne by crowning the Pauper Mickey. That was actually a cool plot, but the original story just doesn't do that.

"The Prince and the Pauper" is a very exciting story, but it can be hard to read at times. The narrative is fine to read, but the dialog is basically Shakespeare. Where it is difficult at first, it does get easier to understand fairly quickly. I didn't have a problem with it. Honestly, it made everything anybody said sound beautiful no matter how mundane the remark. That said, however, children won't be able to read this for these same reasons.

I really, really enjoyed this story. My favorite book of all time was "The Never-Ending Story," but this book comes really close to beating it. It may actually have. I spent a lot of time yelling at the pages when something amazing or exciting happened. A lot of my pleasure and grief happened in the Miles Hendon scenes. He is just such a wonderful man. If I haven't made it clear yet, I do so extremely recommend this book. It is a classic that should be required reading for everyone, and I don't normally say that.

This blog was written on May 28, 2025.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Whipping Boy [Book Review]

"The Whipping Boy" is a book written by Sid Fleischman. It was published in 1986. This book was made into a TV Disney movie, and I am pretty sure I saw it. Because of my random memory, I decided to read this book.

Ironically, I am busy reading Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper" right now. "The Whipping Boy" seems to be very much inspired by that classic story, but it is it's own thing. There was a whipping boy in Mark Twain's book, but he was not as an important a character as he was in this one. It feels like the author just got inspired and wanted to make a bigger todo with the idea of a whipping boy.

A whipping boy is a rarely used person who would be punished when a prince acted out. It was done because no one should lay hands on the prince's person. The concept does favor the idea that the prince would be a brat and never have to worry about consequences, because he had a whipping boy to take those consequences for him. That's the general idea of this book.

Although the prince in this story has a name, he is more often called "Prince Brat" and for good reason. He was entitled and did whatever he wanted. In this case, he decides to go on an adventure, bringing the whipping boy with him. This ends up leading them into quite a lot of danger when they are captured by villains who wish to hold them for ransom.

From here, something similar to "The Prince and the Pauper" happens. They switch places. The brigands actually believe the whipping boy is the prince. This deception leads to a lot of silly entertainment, but most of the story has more to do with how their relationship fluctuates as they learn from one another. I won't say more than that.

"The Whipping Boy" is an award-winning children's book. It is actually a good read, and I do recommend it. It did make me smile, and I enjoyed how the characters were represented. Also, I just think the whole idea of the whipping boy in general. It is a concept rife with literary opportunities.

This blog was written on May 21, 2025.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Nuts [Video Game Review]

"Nuts" is a video game created by Bernard De Windt. It was released in 2001. It is a single map for classic Doom II. It is also probably one of the most intimidating Doom maps of all time. Most people take a look at the opening sight and just quit.

There is no story to "Nuts." In fact, the name implies that the entire concept of the game is insane. You start off in a room with more enemies than your mind can possibly calculate. I mean, just look at the image I included. That's pretty much the first thing you see. But you might also notice that all the demons are looking away from you. They don't know you are even there. If this game did have a story, I imagine it would be about Doom Guy infiltrating where the demon military was stationed... only to find himself in something of an awkward position. At the very least, they don't see him... yet.

Despite seeing all these enemies at the first of it, there is a second room past that far wall that opens up when you hit a switch. That room is even worse. It contains nothing but Doom's heavy hitters and bosses. It also has an absolute ton of Arch-viles that can begin resurrecting downed enemies as well as setting you on fire. When you realize what you have to deal with, the task of even finishing this map seems much too daunting. This is why most people just quit.

No joke, this is a very small map with well over 10,000 enemies in it. It is a fight, to be sure. But if you take the time to plan things out a little, it is really not that bad. The name of the game is "infighting." You have to heavily rely on trying to get the demons to fight themselves in order to dwindle down their numbers. You also have to worry about not getting stuck between all those bodies. Ammo won't be too much of an issue. You also have a BFG9000, a plasma gun, and whatever guns the enemies drop. It's entirely doable, but it does take time. You really need to work on that first room before you open the second. It's just too much trouble to deal with both at once.

I was able to clear out the first room in about 20 minutes, but I have never killed everything in the second. To me, it was more about just getting out. I still have to infight them for a while before I make the run. They are also really badly blocking my entrance in there too which is the main concern. I have to sort of herd them away from the entrance just to give me a thin enough path to BFG9000 my way into an opening, then it is a helter skelter run to the map's exit. Just finishing this map feels great, but I always feel a little bad that I don't try and kill everything. I only manage to kill just over 9000 of the enemies before I nope out.

"Nuts" is all about overcoming what appears to be impossible odds. It is, by definition, a slaughter map. You are showing up to slaughter as much as you can and then get the hell out of there. "Nuts" is a fantastic map, and I absolutely recommend it. It can be acquired for free in the excellent Doom+Doom II Remaster by NightDive Studios.

This blog was written on May 14, 2025.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Doom Eternal [Video Game Review]

My thumbs hurt so much. Mainly my right thumb. Wow. The pain lingers on. This happened once before, and I forgot the pain. Now, it's back, and the memory is back too. My poor thumbs.

"Doom Eternal" is a video game developed by Id. It was released in 2020. It destroyed my thumbs.

This game is the sequel to "Doom (2016)." The connection between the two stories is really rough and hard to follow. Basically you now have your own floating base out in space which doubles as the most metal man cave ever imagined. You are fighting the demons which have invaded earth. Although this game takes place after Doom II, it is also a reimagining of it. That said, the game actually takes place in a bunch of different places and planets.

The gameplay here is similar to the previous: keep moving and kill everything. It is not hard to figure out, but it is hard to master. Your character is extremely agile to the point of silliness. You are bouncing all around like crazy, while trying to kill the demons. It is way more kinetic than the previous game.

The main additions here are the weak points on the enemies. Every enemy has one. You can either just waste ammo trying to kill it, or go for the weak point to make it easier. It's insane, and never ends. It is a constant battle of both movement and accuracy. My poor thumbs.

The collectathon is back, but it is better managed this time around. There is also an "extra lives" system that will revive you if you have them to spend. I actually did like this system. It was useful for the situations that just overwhelmed me too much.

Also this game brings back the Unmaykr from "Doom 64." Once again, it is extremely hard to obtain, and once again it is much more devastating than the BFG9000. I like how it balances out it's deadly power with how hard it is to obtain. Nice!

Like in Doom II, the game ends with a fight with the Icon of Sin, but this time it is not just a silly wall texture. It's there, and it is one of the most insane bosses you will ever have to fight. Well done.

The game's story is very odd and adds a lot that many people might not like. It steers sharply away from Christianity and creates lore with angel-like aliens from another dimension. It's not actually bad, per se. It is really just kind of a strange decision. People want to play Doom more than learn about the story. It's fine.

"Doom Eternal" is a bloody, gory, and nonetheless exciting game in the Doom series. It probably could be called the most beautiful, ambitious, and fun Doom ever made up to this point. It took what they started in "Doom (2016)" and dialed up to 1000. Bravo. I recommend it so much. And yet, I still have one very serious complaint... My poor... poor... thumbs.

This blog was written on May 9, 2025.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Mere Christianity [Book Review]

A friend of mine got me into a guy named Dr. Frank Turek a while back. He was really good at debating people on the side of Christianity. I read one of his books, but I still continued to listen to him speak. One of the books he would often cite was the one I am reviewing today.

"Mere Christianity" is a book by C. S. Lewis. It was published in 1952. The entire concept of the book was supposed to be the very bare facts of what Christianity is and what was expected from someone that wanted to be a Christian. It is one of the most focused Christian books you can possibly read for this reason.

This is a difficult book to review because the point is more about what the book is rather than what it says. You have to really be interested in the basics of Christianity in order for you to even care about what's in there. In fact, the author even often warns people that there may be reasons you would not want to read it. There may be, after all, a lot of stuff in there that you may not want to see. And after reading it myself, I agree.

"Mere Christianity" is not a feel-good book, per se. It certainly could make you feel good. There were several passages from it that made me smile, but there were others that made me feel pretty bad. The latter happens mainly because this book tends to make you look back at yourself at things you probably don't think about very often. Whether some of those things are perfectly true are uncertain, but you can tell that C. S. Lewis had decided to take this path. He also chose to share it with the world.

The first and foremost thing that really helped me appreciate this book was the fact that C. S. Lewis stripped the entire book of denomination. He does mention that he was a member of the Church of England, but he went out of his way to point out that he was not going to go into the specifics of his own church or any other. He only wanted to give us Christianity at its very basic.

To someone that might be interested, Christian or otherwise, this is a good book to have the whole thing spelled out with out all the noise. It explains it fully, talks about expected behaviors, and then promptly ends. For that reason, it is a very solid read, but, like I said, there will almost no one in the world, including the author, that will find one or many things in the book that they will dislike. The reason for this is that Christianity is all about transformation.

The end result of Christianity is to become something different. This isn't about sinning or not sinning. This is just about going from being a human being into whatever the next stage is after that. I won't go into the details. The book does that well enough, and I think the book will deliver the material better than I could. I recommend it for anyone who is actually interested in Christianity for what it truly is.

This blog was written on May 8, 2025.

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Fairy Tale Spotlight: Doom (2016) [Video Game Review]

"Doom" is a video game developed by Id software. It was released in 2016. It is often referred to as "Doom (2016)" so it isn't confused with the original game that came out in 1993. I usually don't like it when franchises do this, but in this case it worked out. There is nothing cooler than seeing DOOM appear in big letters at the start of the game. I honestly did not want to see anything else with it.

Many people just see this as a re-do of the original story but with some significant twists. But I can assure you that this is absolutely the same Doom Guy from Doom 1, Doom 2, Final Doom, and Doom 64. (Doom 3 has nothing to do with this at all.) It came to a point where he just could not go on living a normal life, so he ends up staying in hell to just keep killing. He ends up being trapped in a sarcophagus and "rescued" by a group on Mars trying again to use Hell's energy for all the wrong reasons. Yeah, the same old story.

Only this time, Doom Guy seems to be a part of an ancient lineage. That is the major change to the lore. They don't go into it too much, but it seems that Doom Guy is actually an ancient being called the Doom Slayer. He is a man destined to fight the forces of Hell and is really good at doing so.

Where the gameplay is more advanced than the previous games, it sort of has the same feel. When you are in a fight, you cannot stop moving. You have to run and shoot on the fly like a mad man. But you also have to jump around and use your weapon upgrades as well. It's absolutely nuts.

Speaking of upgrades, there are so many. You are constantly looking for them to give you and your weapons more abilities and perks. I guess this is okay. I like that I have options, but I never once had fun trying to find them all. Some are them are so well hidden that you might miss them. I just want to fight.

I do like how you can stun enemies, giving you an opportunity to leap towards them and rip them apart with your bare hands. That never got old. It's something you will be doing a lot, and it's great every time.

The bosses are few in this game, but when they happen, it is an experience! They show up, and a huge health bar appears across the top of the screen. It's all done in a way to let you know that this will not be an easy fight. And that reminds me to point out how wonderful the presentation of this game is. It's brilliant!

The whole world is beautiful. And the Hell maps are the best. They are sculpted to resemble the covers of heavy metal albums. They outdid themselves here. "Doom 3" did a good job too, but this game wins the award between them. Great job.

"Doom (2016)" changed the way Doom is played, but they found a way to blend modern gaming with a classic feel. It's good. It is exceptional. They called this game "Doom" for a reason: that's all it was, and it was all it needed to be. Bravo.

This blog was written on April 23, 2025.

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