Book review: Assassination!

Assassination! by Brendan Powell Smith, 2013, Skyhorse Publishing

Please note that I'm posting this same review across all my blogs, but I'm appending some blog-specific information at the end of each one.



For many years now I've beein reviewing Brendan Powell Smith's work, and up till now it has all been about his LEGO take on biblical material. When I heard his newest book was on a different topic altogether, I have to admit I was disappointed. For some time now I've been hoping he would do a version of the Psalms and the Prophets - I think those texts would provide a great opportunity for imaginitive LEGO interpretations. I have to say, though, that I was very pleasantly surprised. Assassination! is, in a word, terrific. This 272 page hardcover book is filled with over 400 LEGO illustrations, detailing the history of US president assassinations and assassination attempts.



The illustrations are top-notch. Back in the early days of Brendan's Brick Testament project his landscapes were often flat and the photos fairly sparse, but a decade of LEGO illustration has changed all of that. The images are all 100% LEGO from edge to edge, and they are richly detailed. He has taken full advantage of the wide range of LEGO elements that have come out in recent years, as well as custom accessories by third party AFOL dealers (SaberScorpion's custom decals of the presidents' faces are particularly good). Brendan's building has steadily progressed over the years, and he has a keen eye for composing scenes.



But, unlike some LEGO books, this isn't just about the pictures. The text is also really good. Brendan covers the four presidential assassinations and a great number of the attempts that have happened over the past two hundred years of US history. He takes great delight into going into some of the quirky facts around these cases, often delving into the odd backstories of the perpetrators. I felt that I knew a fair amount about some of these - Licoln, due to his importance to US history, Kennedy, because you can hardly turn on the History channel without some new documentary on him, and the attempt on Reagan's life, because I remember it quite well - but I still learned quite a lot on these, not to mention some of the less prominent attempts that I didn't know anything about. I was fascinated, and sat and read it cover to cover in about three hours, pausing to pore over the pictures.



I can't recommend this book highly enough. I still have several LEGO books to read through from this recent set of offerings, but I am fairly certain that the combination of great images and compelling text will make this my favorite LEGO book of 2013. Certainly all US AFOLs should get this, but I think that even non-Americans with an interest in history would find this quite enjoyable.

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Blog-specific content - There is none.

Doctor Who

I missed the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who this weekend, but Mariann Asanuma didn't.

Vic Viper

It's Novvember, and Pascal built a Vic Viper for Miniland-Gary.

LEGO Adventure Book, Volume 2

LEGO Adventure Book, Volume 2 by Megan Rothrock, 2013, No Starch Press

Please note that I'm posting this same review across my blogs, but I'm appending some blog-specific information at the end of each review.



'Tis the season for new LEGO books. I've got a stack of new LEGO books to review, so over the next couple of weeks I'll be posting these reviews every couple of days. Last year, Megan Rothrock's LEGO Adventure book was among those that received my highest praise, and I'm so happy that she has continued her series with a second volume (and the book ends with "The adventure continues...", so we're promised at least a third volume, presumably this time next year). This book is very much in the same style as last year's volume. Meg's sig-fig travels around, meeting AFOLs from around the world, and along the way we get to see their great builds and get instructions and tips as to how to build our own versions.



Once again, Meg has assembled a great line-up of builders - three repeats from last year, and seven newcomers. Specifically she includes builds by herself, Mark Stafford, Are Heiseldal, Arjan Oude Kotte, Barney Main, Birgitte Jonsgard, Tommy Williamson, Tyler Clites, Marco den Besten, Yvonne Doyle, and retired LEGO designer (and the guy who designed the Yellow Castle!) Daniel August Krentz. Building styles include space, pirate, town, Friends, micro, post-apoc, among others.



I did see some differences between volume 1 and volume 2. It seems that the building directions are more detailed in this volume, which is nice. All of the builds have lists of what bricks you will need, which were missing from some of the directions in volume 1. There are fewer builders for the same number of pages, and I think this can be explained by the greater number of pages devoted to detailed building instructions, and also more additional models for those builders who were included. Also, this book has more of a story than volume 1. In the previous book Meg was simply visiting other builders. Here she is chasing the "Destructor" through these different LEGO lands. Whereever he goes, the Destructor destroys MOCs. This, then, gives Meg's sig fig the opportunity to help rebuild them. It's a nice device that then gives the excuse to include building instructions as part of the narrative. One suggestion would be to have shown the original MOCs before the Destructor came along, and then show the rebuilding. Since in a couple of places they note that the rebuild was not exactly the same as the original, this might be a good way to show that you can use LEGO to build in different ways. I liked that there was some inclusion of microscale, though the one model was still in a fig-scale world as a movie prop.



As I noted in my review of volume 1, this series is a celebration of the AFOL community. There are some nice inclusions that you pick up on if you know the community references or the people involved. For instance, Meg and Mark come across as partners in the book, reflecting their real-life relationship. Meg also includes a MOC of their dog, Bandit, who passed away this year (probably after the book went to print, now that I think of it). Tommy's MOCs are based around a movie set, reflecting his real-life profession. We get a reference to the Guilds of Historica project on Eurobricks. I was wondering if the reference to the CCC, the Council of Creative Constructionists, was a veiled reference to the Colossal Castle Contest or just a coincidence of acronyms. Other nods include the inclusion of post-apoc as a fan theme, a reference to online contests, and a micro rendition of the fan-favorite Galaxy Explorer. The community reference that most warmed my heart, though, was the inclusion of Vic Vipers. I know that Mark has previously worked a reference to the late Nnenn into an official set, and it was great to see these included, particularly in a book that came out during Novvember. I love these little peeks into the AFOL community, which are still subtle enough that people from outside the community can equally enjoy the book without feeling somehow out of the loop.



As with volume 1, I would give my highest recommendation for LEGO Adventure Book, Volume 2. The audience could range from a kid on up to a long-time AFOL; model difficulties range from intermediate to challenging; the variety of themes will have something for everyone. I'm very much looking forward to volume 3. One suggestion, if Meg happens to read this, is that in future volumes we should see Western and Ancient, two building areas that haven't been covered yet, and also some more exploration of scale, such as additional micro building and also things like miniland scale. I'd also love to see some licensed themes (Star Wars, DC, Marvel, Tolkien), but I completely understand how that might run into additional IP headaches when producing a book like this.

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Blog-specific content: There is none.

Avocado, Baby

Dave Kaleta built Avocado, Baby, a scene from a new music video by Los Campesinos!.

LEGO, the Final Frontier

RionZ built this great rendition of the original Star Trek crew. Via the Brothers-Brick.

Dumb ways to die

Pif500 reminds us that smoking is bad for you, particularly around flammable liquids.

Magnum P.I. Ferrari 308 GTS

Ralph extends his series of TV cars with Magnum P.I. Ferrari 308 GTS.

Book review: Beautiful LEGO

Beautiful LEGO by Mike Doyle, 2013, No Starch Press

Please note that I'm posting this same review across my blogs, but I'm appending some blog-specific information at the end of each review.



A little while ago, Huw on Brickset noted the explosion of LEGO books in recent years. Some of those books are little more than catalogues of LEGO products (the 'here are all of the figures in the Harry Potter sets' type books), the really great thing about this trend is the great number of those books that are by, for, and about the AFOL community. The most recent addition to the growing bibliography is Mike Doyle's Beautiful LEGO, published by No Starch Press.

Beautiful LEGO is exactly what the title implies, a celebration of LEGO MOCs that are particularly gorgeous. The emphasis here is on the pictures - of the 266 pages in the book, only 17 of them have text. These text pages include a one page intro by Doyle about inspiring artistic MOCs and the creativity of the AFOL community, and a series of one to three page interviews with some of the builders. By my count 81 different builders contributed over 360 different MOCs. The subject matter is completely varied, from microscale buildings to full scale sculptures of everyday objects. The arrangement of MOCs is varied - in places Doyle gives several different builders' takes on the same subject matter, and in other places he places the spotlight on individuals, grouping a series of MOCs by the same person. The creations themselves run from humorous MOCs like some of Angus MacLane's Cube Dudes to some that are bright and fun like Thomas Poulsom's birds, to others that are dark and foreboding, like Doyle's own abandoned homes. As you can see from just those three examples, the builders include a lot of names that would be familiar to anyone who is active in the AFOL community - indeed most of the MOCs are ones I've seen featured on the various LEGO blogs. But just because I've seen them before, and by virtue of being someone reading my blogs you probably have as well, doesn't mean this isn't a wonderful book to own. It's a great collection of some of the best of the best, and perfect to peruse for inspiration, or just leave on your coffee table to amaze your non-LEGO friends. Indeed, I think this would be a great gift for a non-AFOL who just likes cool things (and it may even convert them into an AFOL).

Beautiful LEGO has one really nice thing that I think may be a unique innovation in this book. There is an index of contributors at the back, and for almost all of them Doyle provides a URL of where to find their work online (Flickr stream, personal site, a couple of MOCpages), and he includes the nickname they use on LEGO forums. This is great in a hobby where sometimes I only know people by their forum handles (indeed, since I've never been to a major AFOL convention, I still half believe that people look like their sig figures). I think this resource is a great tribute to the true heroes of the book, the community of awesome builders.

So are there any problems with this book? Sure. There's the unavoidable problem of selection. In the potentially infinite creativity of a worldwide community you'll always be able to ask "why not include this, or that?", a problem that Doyle recognizes in the preface. I'm a castle guy, and I would have loved to have seen more castles. I've been judging castle contests for a decade and could point to hundreds of castle MOCs that could easily sit alongside the other creations here. One critique that goes to No Starch rather than Doyle is that this really should be a hard cover book, in keeping with other coffee table books focused on beautiful pictures. A very minor critique is that two of the photos on the back cover are cut off at the top of the page. I think they were going for the effect of it looking like an endless collage of photos that keeps going, but if this were so they should have photos leading off all four sides of the page. My main critique, though, is with the presentation of the MOCs. Don't get me wrong, they are all high quality photos. Almost all of the photos are clear shots of the whole MOC in good lighting taken from the front, or with the MOC turned slightly to one side, with the camera looking slightly down. I guess in a book that was all about the creativity of the MOCs, I would have appreciated some more creativity of the photography - maybe some with different lighting effects, in silhouette, or with different filters on the camera, or some closeup details, or looking up at the moc from the base, that sort of thing.

On my blog ArtisticBricks I have several times asked the question "Is LEGO art?" or at least "Can LEGO be art?" Doyle answers that question with a resounding yes. One interesting thing I note is that while the minifig is ubiquitous in the world of AFOLs, there are almost no figs in this book. I wonder what that means? Is this just a reflection of Doyle's choices, or an indication that the fig is the distinction between playing and creating? That's something to think about, and I'd love to hear people's thoughts. Regardless, though, in this book Doyle has assembled a great portfolio of evidence that show that this thing we love is no mere toy, but a true medium for expression.

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Blog-specific content: Several minilanders find their way into this book, including several of Lino Martins' cars, Iain Heath's Monty Python, and MisaQa's dress-up dolls.

H.rr Ikûso Concept Car

Legoalbert designed the H.rr Ikûso Concept Car.

EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle

Matt Bace made the iconic EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle.

Happy birthday, Classic-Castle!

In addition to maintaining my little family of LEGO blogs, I'm also actively involved in Classic-Castle.com, the source for all your LEGO Castle needs. Classic-Castle just turned ten years old! In recognition of that, let's feature something appropriately themed. Here is Edinburgh Castle, from Legoland Windsor.

Fools and Horses

Sorry about the lack of blog posts for three weeks, life has been hectic. In the meantime I've bookmarked a lot of MOCs to put here. For instance, Ralph S built this Reliant Regal Supervan from the British sitcom Only Fools and Horses.

Who?

Anthony Forsberg built the 11th Doctor.

Mesoamerican Warlord

The Falworth brothers came up with this Mesoamerican Warlord in the current Iron Builder.

Gangnam style

Tim Inman brought Psy to Bricks by the Bay.

Hot cars and hot women

Lego911 has made all kinds of great cars. It's hard to keep up, so I'll just show a few.

Iain

Steve Poulsen made this model of Iain from the Living Brick.

To Kill A Mockingbird

Dave Kaleta built this wonderful version of To Kill A Mockingbird. It actually went up on his site briefly a week or so ago, and I bookmarked it, but when I went back it had been set to private. It turns out it was a surprise birthday gift - several members of VirtuaLUG each built vignettes for Dennis Price. Looks like this was a pretty good birthday.

Mad Tea Party

Pasukaru76 made the Mad Tea Party as part of his recent Iron Builder face-off.