Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Kaleb Nation: THE Twilight Guy

I got the itch to blog last night, but I obviously didn't. The truth was, I wanted to ramble about the whole 'Bella's an anti-feminist character' argument, but I didn't want to do the work. I would have to research why people thought that, and I'd have to go through all four books to support and disprove that claim. Frankly, I wasn't up for the work last night. I was in kind of a funk.
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So, I bring you my rant about Kaleb Nation.



Kaleb WHO? Yes, that seems to be his real name. Maybe. I'm not sure. For all I know, he could be John Garfunkle, but that's not the point. You probably know his as the Twilight Guy from... Well, TwilightGuy.com. (If this sounds like an interesting website, there's a link to the right. I'm too lazy to do the HTML.)

Kaleb certainly isn't the first boy/guy/man to read Twilight, but he's probably the first to go public about it. With a website. And a photograph. That takes some serious guts, considering there are a lot of GIRLS who wouldn't even be caught dead checking out the series. (I was one of these two years back...)

I first came across his website probably a few months ago, but it wasn't until recently that I started following the updates. The material didn't tickle my fancy at the time -- I wanted Twilight news, not an interpretation of Twilight from the male sex. Oh, how I missed out.

As a man, Kaleb just naturally has a different insight into the novels than most of the readers, who are female. That's kind of obvious, isn't it? But it really isn't what he thought about the chapters as a man that sucked me in to his little cult and never let go. Kaleb has a quirkiness about him; he's hilarious. I mean, did you even watch the video I posted? Kaleb salt 'n' peppers his chapter-by-chapter discussions with bouts of comedy, including inserting dialogue that never happened into scenes of interest from the current chapter and random images on which his face is plastered. The only thing that would make his discussion better would be a podcast.

Which is what I really thought he had. I was a bit disappointed that his hilarity was confined to a mere few paragraphs each chapter. I would love listening to him just as much as I love listening to the sisters over at Twilight Series Theories. That's a lot, by the way.

If the video confused you a bit, don't worry. Until I dug a little deeper, I didn't know that Kaleb was writing a book, either. It's called Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse, which sounds absolutely amazing just from the title. I was insantly curious about the names it offered -- Who is Bran Hambrick and what the HECK is the Farfield Curse? Is Farfield a place? A family? A practice? Well, the website says:

"Bran Hambric was found locked in a bank vault at six years old, with no memory of his past. For years, he has lived with one of the bankers, wondering why he was left behind- until one night, when he is fourteen, he is suddenly confronted by a maddened creature, speaking of Bran’s true past and trying to kidnap him. Bran finds that he is at the center of a plot which started years before he was even born: the plot of a deadly curse his mother created…and one that her former masters are hunting for him to complete. Haunted by the spirit of his mother’s master and living in a city where magic is illegal, Bran must undo the crimes of his past...before it is too late."


That sounds a little Harry Potter-ish, which I think is a VERY good sign. It's original, but it has that mysterious, alluring quality about it. I'm looking forward to purchasing it when it comes out this year; maybe I'll even e-mail Kaleb to see if I can pry a few chapters from him.

Kaleb certainly has a lot of ambition -- his website is HUGE, he started writing Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse when he was fourteen, and he's even composed music for the series. I heavily admire that. I'm an aspiring author myself. I've spent two years on the same book so far, but have only managed to get to the second chapter. I'm hoping that I can acquire some of his perseverance for myself and finish my book within the year. Congratulations, Kaleb, and good luck to me!

(On a side note, I was present for the live blogTV or whatever, when he was announcing the prize for his YouTube Contest of Awesome. I was under the name HippieNerd, and was incredibly excited when he commented on something I said -- that being something along the lines of 'You mean you DON'T own YouTube?' It's funny how even normal-ish people can achieve an almost celebrity-like status.)

I reccomend TwilightGuy.com to all Twilight fans. If you'd like more information on Kaleb himself, however, just head on over to KalebNation.com. :)

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