Number6's Journal

Okay, so I did wind up going to Fan Expo, but, to my surprise, I went on Friday rather than Saturday. Right up until the day before I wasn't sure which way I'd go, but ultimately I think I made the right decision. No photos, today, I actually didn't take many (or at least, my camera didn't, I thought I took at least a few more than it turns out I did). Maybe I'll add some in on a second post.

But I did accomplish my major mission. But, before I go into detail, I need to do a brief pre-con report. ( Read more... )

So, onto Fan Expo itself! ( Read more... )

Anyway, on balance I guess I'm glad I went, even though it was exhausting and I'm going through various "what I should have said/done" scenarios in my head now that it's far too late. And now I only have to meet two more members of the cast of Firefly in order to complete my signature collection (Adam Baldwin and Ron Glass... three if you count Joss Whedon for creating the series, which I would).

So, I guess life continues. Not much has changed for me personally, except for one piece that has gone firmly in the negative column: My job. Oh, it still exists, and objectively I can't complain compared to other people, but, they changed all the times around. So now instead of, on work days, waking up and going in early, then coming home and having the rest of the day (and not to mention hitting the grocery stores on the way home), I have one in the middle of the afternoon and the others are at night, which means having to go to work hangs over me the whole day, I usually can't do much grocery shopping on the way home, and, sometimes, I feel messed up the next day (whereas before sometimes I feel a bit messed up the day I work, but it's gone by the next day). And of course, it means any family events I have to schedule around, instead of being pretty much available any time anyone else is. Bleh. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to change much, due to everything from cost-cutting at the head office, our new mayor's parking laws, and some stupid sports games all colliding into a perfect storm.

I guess there is one other piece of mild news, I went to Wonderland for the first time in years (Canada's, not Alice's). My brother got me a season's pass for my birthday, and one for himself as well, so we went down to ride some of the roller coasters, and probably will go one or two times more during the summer (and possibly on some other trip with my dad, who separately got a pass with his wife, so he can take the step-grandkids). It was fun, especially the Leviathan, which had a huge drop.

Adventures in Food... still doing most of the cooking, and have gotten a bit more adventurous. I've done some baking experiments that have mostly turned out well... I've made peanut butter cookies a few times, and oatmeal peanut butter cookies once, and last week I did a cheesecake for the first time, including home-made graham cracker peanut butter crust (and topped with sliced fresh strawberries which were on sale the day I made it). The cheesecake wasn't as dense as I was hoping, I think I need more cheese in the mix, but I think the flavors were good. And I cooked ribs for the first time, which turned out awesome, fall off the bone tender (and, since I have a bag full of oatmeal from when I made the cookies, I tried something I read online and made a savory oatmeal side dish with onions and mushrooms that turned out really well and I'll probably be making again tonight). Not sure what I'll try next (that I haven't already done, I mean, tonight I'm making meatloaf).

TV stuffs:

I'm not going to try to recap most of TV. I will say that the new shows for the networks are dull dull dull. A few looked like they might be kind of interesting, SF concepts, except they tagged on "And helps the police solve crimes!" at the end and I lost all my interest. I'll probably watch Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl, and, perhaps surprisingly, I'm more excited about the latter (LoT has a lot of cast members I like, but I'm not sure how they're going to make it work and I think it's going to mess up some stuff I liked about Arrow and Flash).

I did watch a couple Binge-Watch shows. There's Netflix's Daredevil, which turned out to be pretty good. I mean, yeah, there were a few issues, but overall I liked it and the cast was well done (especially Foggy, who was perfect).

And I checked out Sony's Playstation-network-exclusive series Powers, based on the Bendis comic. There are... good parts and bad parts.
( Read more... )

There are a couple SF Netflix or Cable Channel series starting soon (or already started) that I plan on checking out, though: Sense8, Dark Matters, Killjoys, and The Expanse (though that's probably not for a few months).

And since the last one is based on a book series, that segues us nicely into Book Foo.

First, a word about the Hugo awards: Bleh.

Bleh's a word, right? Yeah, many words have been written about it already, but I am not happy, the Puppies campaigns were, in my mind, cheating, even if they were technically allowed by the rules (last year, they were a little closer to the line of "I think the choices are despicable but they went about it fairly"). I almost feel like I wasted the money to get a Worldcon membership so I could nominate and vote because of this stupid campaign. *I* played fairly, reading and choosing stories that made ME passionate, but most of the categories get dominated by people gaming the system. I will mostly be voting No Award against the slate-nominated works, because it's the only way to discourage such tactics (although I'll try to give the nominees a fair chance to impress me as "independently worthy of winning one").

But on to the books I HAVE read since my last post. As usual, reviews taken from my goodreads account, and spoilers should be generally minor and limited to back-of-the-book type descriptions (or I'll try to warn if anything greater), but I can't promise.

Finished: Recursion, by Tony Ballantyne
Recursion interweaves three stories set at different time periods in the future. ( Read more... )I'm willing to write off the problems as either a personal experience (I was reading them during the winter blues!) or the traditional first novel problems where authors hopefully improve, and I'm still interested in trying the second book in the series.

Finished: Behemoth, by Peter Watts (Rifters, #3)

( Read more... )

Finished: Light, by M. John Harrison
Light tells three stories... a serial killer in the modern day and, in the far future, a woman bonded to a starship and a man who's addicted to virtual reality scenarios. They wander about doing a variety of things more or less on whims but there are connections between them that supposedly makes it all something more than a pointless exercise.

I'm being a little harsh on this book, and it's unfair, especially because I only have myself to blame. I have a rule of thumb... if a book is described as being "literary," either in the synopsis, the blurbs they put there, or even recommendations from people I know, I usually take this as a big black and red sign saying "This Book Is Not For You!" But once in a while I choose to ignore that sign. Occasionally, it works out. But mostly, it's like this case. ( Read more... )I'm sure there will be plenty of fans of the sort of thing he does, but I am not one of them.

Finished: The Hydrogen Sonata, by Iain M. Banks
The Gzilt, a galactic civilization that was very nearly one of the founding members of the utopian Culture, is about to move on, to Sublime, to ascend, as an entire civilization, to another plane of existence, along with most of its population. But, as the days wind down before the big event, an ancient secret is discovered, and, fearing that it might cause some percentage of the population to have second thoughts about subliming, there's an attempt to cover it up, and other attempts to learn of it. One citizen is caught up in events because she once knew somebody who was alive when the events were unfolding, thousands of years earlier, a man who is still alive but in hiding. Meanwhile, members of the Culture learn about the secret and decide they should find out the truth, even if they're not sure whether it's a good idea to reveal that truth once they learn it. Wackiness ensues.

This is (sadly) the final book set in the Culture, the author himself having passed on. ( Read more... )And perhaps that is a good legacy for Banks... he wrote stories that shouldn't have worked, and he made them work. It's almost like he's been performing a Hydrogen Sonata of his own, with one key difference... even thought it have might be clunky at times, it's been a pleasure to experience it.

And I'm sad as hell that the last note has been played.

Finished: Collected Stories, by Hannu Rajaniemi (short story collection, received for free)

I received an ebook of this book for free through NetGalley. I don't think it affected my review.

This collects short stories by Hannu Rajaniemi, perhaps best known for the hard SF post-singularity series that starts with The Quantum Thief. ( Read more... ) I actually would buy this collection with my own money... at least if it gets released in paperback. The original print run is a hardcover and apparently limited only to 2000 copies... and, aside from preferring the paperback format in general, I'd rather somebody else get to enjoy the stories than get a separate copy for my own later rereading.

Finished: Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville
Perdido Street Station tells of a city of humans, insect-headed women, cactus people, toad people, and more. One of them is Isaac, a scientist, involved in a secret cross-species relationship, and hired to restore flight to a bird-man who was punished by his people with the removal of his wings. In the course of this assignment, something is accidentally unleashed that threatens the entire city.

Obviously, this is a fantasy novel, with elements of steampunk (although I personally wouldn't consider it pure steampunk). And I should probably start out by saying that I'm not a big fan of either genre, in terms of novel-reading (movies or TV, fine, and I like the steampunk aesthetic, I just typically don't enjoy reading either genre). However, Mieville has impressed me with some of his other work that I've read, so I decided I'd stretch outside of my comfort zone and give it a try, since it is, perhaps, his most famous work.

I'm glad I did, because this really is something interesting.( Read more... )Definitely worth a try, at least, even if you're like me, a science fiction reader who doesn't generally enjoy fantasy.

Finished: Apex, by Ramez Naam (Nexus #3, received for free)
I received an advanced review ebook of this for free through NetGalley. I don't think it affected my review. What may have affected the review was my enjoyment for the previous books, which is why I signed up to get the early look... I just couldn't wait until it came out in stores. ( Read more... )I still have the ebook, but I enjoyed it so much that I'm going to buy a physical copy, so the series will look nice together on my shelves, and, if our technological civilization ever totally collapses, I can read by candlelight and imagine a world that might have been.

Finished: A Song Called Youth, by John Shirley
War is gripping the world, but that's not the real danger. The real danger is that it's being used by secretive powers to promote a new wave of racist fascism, where 'undesirables' can be accused of being enemy agents, terrorist sympathizers, or security risk, and systematically eliminated from power... and, eventually, just eliminated. However, there are forces working for freedom, the New Resistance, often struggling just to stay alive and to expose the villains for who they are. But it's harder than ever, especially in a world where, if you fall into enemy hands, their machines can extract every secret and even turn them to their side.

A Song Called Youth is actually a collection of three late-80s, early-90s cyberpunk novels: Eclipse, Eclipse Penumbra, and Eclipse Corona, collected in an omnibus under a new title for the 21st century. ( Read more... )I'm rating it three stars, which means "I liked it", while the truth is I'd probably describe it as "ok"... it gets the extra star because it's one of those rare books that I'm glad I read despite it being a slog, despite not enjoying it on a pure pleasure, because I think it has some important ideas that'll stick with me.

Finished: The Lives of Tao, by Wesley Chu
An alien race has been with humanity, guiding us, since the beginning. They can only survive inside bodies and provide advice and insight to the people they're bonded to, until that person dies and they must quickly find a new body. They've guided some of the most well-known people in history. And they're at war with each other, two factions, one who want to provoke humanity into war and conflict, and another who want to guide them to being better. Tao is on the latter side, but when his last partner dies on a mission, he's forced to find another quickly or die, and the only choice available is Roen Tan, an out-of-shape computer geek going nowhere in life. Not agent material, but Tao has to make the best of it and train him for the conflicts ahead.

I don't really have a lot to say about this book. I enjoyed it, but it felt a little on the lightweight side. ( Read more... )it's the kind of middle-of-the-road SF book that is good enough that I can enjoy it, but not so good that I despair in my own ambitions because I'd never be able to write anything even close to as good... and that's an important niche in my reading life too. It's the kind of book where I'll probably decide to try the author again with another book if it had a good premise. And in this case, this is only the first book in a series (although you can read it as a stand-alone without problems), and I liked the world and premise and characters enough that I'm willing to commit to reading the next book in it, The Deaths of Tao, at least eventually... I'm not rushing out to buy it, but if I spot it on a book run and have some spare cash and space in my bookbag/order, I'll probably grab it.

Finished: Capacity, by Tony Ballantyne

In the future, humanity is watched over, arguably controlled by AIs, and only a small fraction of people live in what we think of as the "real" world... many citizens are digital copies, living in simulations of reality, albeit with a human lifespan. An agent of the government rescues one of these digital copies from an illegal simulation used for torture fantasies, and the two go on a quest to find the creator of the sim and bring him to justice. And in deep space, a human is sent to investigate a planet where super-intelligent AIs seem to be effectively killing themselves by reducing themselves to below human intelligence.

This is set in the same world as Recursion, although it's hard to call it a sequel, as really the only character in common seems to be the Watcher, an AI that guides humanity. I liked Recursion, although it had flaws. This one... I'm a lot more mixed on. ( Read more... )I rated it a three, but it's on the edge between two and three. I was hoping to like it more. There is a third book in the series/universe, and, right now, I'm not sure I'll follow through to it. Maybe if I'm browsing a used bookstore and see it I might try it, but I don't have a drive to seek it out.

Finished: Untaken, by J.E. Anckorn (ebook received for free)
Aliens ships appear in the sky, and, at first do nothing but wait, leading people to wonder what their goal is. But suddenly, they strike, and soon most of the population is gone, killed or taken up in one of their ships, which might amount to the same thing. Two teenagers are among those left behind, though, and they must struggle to survive and take care of a young child who was also left behind.

I was able to read this book free through NetGalley. It had a premise just intriguing enough to request it... it is, of course, a YA book, and while I enjoy these kinds of books when they've got a good plot, I've not yet read a YA alien invasion story, which is a staple of SF in general. (short version: enjoyed it a lot until a certain thing happened, tiny bit spoilery)( Read more... )As it is, I think I have to stick with my overall rating of a two, and maybe guess that, were I a YA, I'd have bumped it up to a three at least.

Finished: City of Savages, by Lee Kelly
In the future, all of New York City is a POW camp, although most of the survivors cluster near Central Park. Two sisters, Skye and Phee, are among the minority who spend only the cold months there, because their mother doesn't like to be under the rule of the camp leader, Rolladin any more than she has to. As the time comes to move back, the sisters share a special bond as they discover their mother's hidden journal, which dates back to the start of the war, a time she never talks about it, and secretly begin to read it. But also, forces from outside the city make a startling appearance that threatens Rolladin's power. Both of these events will cause the sisters to question everything they thought they knew about the city, their family, and world.

City of Savages is a YA book, but the premise really drew me. I mean, look at the first few words of my summary... all of New York City as a POW camp. It's immediately interesting. And the author does a good job of bringing you into that world right away. ( Read more... )I'll stick with 3 stars as my official rating. I'd still recommend it to teenagers who like adventure stories along the lines of the Hunger Games (but different).

Finished: Galactic North, by Alastair Reynolds
Galactic North is a series of short stories all set in the author's Revelation Space universe, spanning a time period from less than two hundred years in the future, to thousands and thousands of years beyond (and arranged in roughly chronological order). ( Read more... )To somebody who isn't familiar at all with the universe, I don't know how well these will land, but I think they're pretty accessible (to somebody who enjoys space opera with a lot of hard SF elements). If you're a fan of the novels, though (regardless of your thoughts on the ending) it's absolutely worth picking up.

Currently Reading (or finished but haven't put up reviews): Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, by Judd Trichter, The Blondes by Emily Schultz (received for free), The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, Shelter by Susan Palwick, River of Gods by Ian McDonald.

I'm considering reviving my Unreachable Star site, that I used to do comic reviews on, and remaking it as a general SF review site, since I'm doing these book reviews anyway. Even if they're just mirroring my Goodreads reviews, at the very least, it might get me more free review copies of upcoming SF novels. Anyway, not today, I'm lazy.

Hope everything's been good with y'all.

Yes, I survived Fan Expo 2014. Did I have fun? Honestly, no, there were a couple minor bright spots, but on the whole, it was depressing exhausting affair. I didn't even wind up taking many pictures.

I'll give a bit more detail behind the cut (feel free to ignore the whining and skip right to the pictures).

The Narrative:( Read more... )

Picture time! Not very many!( Read more... )

Oh, and the sketch I got from Adrian Alphona (Runaways artist): ( Read more... )

I think, in the future, unless there is a specific person I want to see and get an autograph from (or I ever figure out somebody I want to cosplay), I'm going to skip cons from now on. I always wind up depressed after, and it was even worse this time around. And I'm still feeling run-down and drained.

So I happened to be looking at some scans of the new X-Men Legacy book, to see, lo and behold, Chamber's back to the way he started out as.

Now, they've hinted he was a ticking time bomb for reverting back to that state before when he was all Apocalypse-faced, so maybe I just missed when the moment when he did, but we also just had the return of mutancy after AvsX, and it occurs to me, I've been out of the loop on new releases and so I don't really know an answer to a fairly basic question...

So let me put it to you:

After the restoration of mutants, did all the depowered mutants (those who are still alive, anyway) get their old powers back? Or was it just that new mutants started appearing? Or is it some halfassed combination of the two as any individual writers see fit (as was the case with how exactly depowerings worked when they happened, so maybe that's fitting)?

Finished: Spin Control by Chris Moriarty
So, I read the first book, Spin State, and I was... mixed on it. I liked a few of the characters and relationships and some of the tech/universe, but I felt it failed a bit on the hard science by including too much 'woo-woo' stuff and forcing a "19th century coal mining town" type situation.

Still, I figured I'd give the author another try, and I'm glad I did. I liked this one much more. Minor spoilers ahead, but nothing really dramatic. ( Read more... )

Anyway, quite an improvement and I look forward to the third book, Ghost Spin, due in 2013.


Finished: Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson (reread)

I kind of got a hankering to reread lately, but not just old favorites... instead, I wanted to reread novels that I read once long ago and had somewhat mixed feelings on. So, I chose Blind Lake.

The premise of Blind Lake... well, it centers on a small town that's the center of a big government research project into alien life, thanks to a telescope...ish thing that gives them views of an alien planet and its inhabitants. The town goes through a quarantine, both physical and informational, leaving them to wonder what's going on and their own place in it.

What Wilson tends to do really well is combine both a compelling human drama and a big SF idea, in ways that sort of reflect on each other, not always directly, but echoes each way, and that's one of the strongest parts of this. (some spoilers ahoy) ( Read more... )

All in all, worth the reread, I think. Enjoyed it more than Julian Comstock... not as much as Spin, but probably more than Chronoliths and Vortex.

Finished: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games #3)

So, it's hard to talk about this without spoiling either the first two books (which are probably more likely to be read, or watched as movies, than most of the stuff I comment on), not to mention this one here.

I'll try to keep it short. Same problems I found with the other books in the series. On the plus side: They went a couple different places (storytellingwise) in this one, and didn't make it as 'easy' as I'd feared. And yet... the ending doesn't really satisfy for a number of reasons I don't really want to go into. It's okay, but weaker than the first couple books (aside from a few moments which were strongly affecting, but might still have been misplaced).

Finished: House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
Another book from Alastair Reynolds, this one a stand-alone one set (mostly) millions of years in the future, and centering on a line of clones that are bigshots in galactic society, but suffer a sudden ambush that decimates (figuratively) their population, the survivors must gather together and try to figure out who attacked them and why, while dealing with where they go from there.

I really think Reynolds does better at stand-alone works. I've usually liked them quite more than his big universe stuff. It's a big book but proceeds along at a nice clip, although the big revelation is a little bit of a letdown, it doesn't matter much. The characters are supposedly clones of a single person but although they keep saying it's a special type of society, it never really sells it... they all pretty much feel like different people who happen to share memories in many cases (unlike the ones in Spin Control who also have slightly different personalities but it actually feels like that's the natural outgrowth instead of us just being told that they're clones even though they're all different people).

Solidly enjoyable, not likely to become one of my favorites, but I might reread someday.

Finished: Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan (reread)

Another in my 'second look' plan, this one by Egan is also set... well, at least millenia in the future, when an experiment expected to confirm fundamental physics creates a new region of space with unknown properties, that's expanding, consuming the galaxy as it does so. The people who come to study it tend to split into two camps, people who want to let it go, maybe even adapt themselves to the new void, because the potential for new knowledge is too great, and those who want to destroy it to preserve the homes of people it would inevitably destroy (but it's growing slowly enough that evacuation is a viable option). The arguments come to a head, obviously.

It's Egan, so the science sometimes gets pretty heavy, even for me, and it's sometimes difficult to visualize exactly what he thinks is happening and why, and the people are all humans who've abandoned many characteristics like, say, growing old, death, and gender (and some have abandoned bodies entirely). Part of the story's theme is on how we can call ourselves the same when we keep 'changing'. (One particular line waxes poetically about how we're all just our imperfect memories of the person we were yesterday, though I can't find the exact quote).

The story does read a little dry, although there are some nice character moments and explorations. Towards the end it does tend to drift off even more into 'too much science'.

However, I do want to highlight one quote I really liked, when somebody responds to a suggestion that they should do something controversial because it's the natural order of things. This is a common tactic (one I've occasionally used myself, even as deriding its use on things I don't agree with), but it's usually wrong and I liked the skewering it recieved here (note: the speaker is using sarcasm, oh and it may constitute some spoilers):( Read more... )

Started: Old Man's War by John Scalzi (reread)
Started: For the Win by Cory Doctorow

So, that's it for books... what else is there? Well, Comicon has been over with, so what's come out of it...? Not a whole lot, actually. A nice Firefly reunion panel. News that DC is going out of their way to screw over fans of Stephanie Brown AGAIN (and AGAIN in favor of Barbara Gordon. I've abandoned DC because they regressed Babs to Batgirl, and this does not make me regret my decision one bit). And, Legend of Korra was renewed for another 26 episodes, beyond the 12 in the first season and 14 in the second. Good. I've said this needs to be happened and I really hope this fixes many of the problems with the first book (which I did like, but it could have been SO MUCH BETTER, even without changing anything fundamental about the plot, but just having more time to play things out and exploring different characters, motivations, and themes).

Otherwise... a bit of news here and there that makes me mildly interested, but nothing that really makes me even remember it a couple days later.

Speaking of cons...

I guess I probably will be trying to make the Toronto Fan Expo this year. They added Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly) to the guest list, and I want to meet him and get his signature on my Firefly DVD boxed set box (already containing signatures from Sean Maher, Summer Glau, and Morena Baccarin). Also at that con (but I'll probably not wait in line for any/most of them unless they happen to be short lines): Stan Lee, Gillian Anderson, William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man), Patrick Stewart, John Barrowman (Cap'n Jack), Christopher Lloyd, Norman Reedus (Daryl from the Walking Dead), Jon Bernthal (Shane, the Walking Dead), James Marsters and Juliet Lloyd (Spike and Dru! I'd visit Marsters but at every other con here he's been at I think you needed a special ticket even to get an autograph), John Rhys-Davies (OMG I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE HIM UNTIL RIGHT NOW I HAVE TO MEET PROFESSOR ARTURO! if the line's not too big), Amanda Tapping (Carter from SG1), Jamie Bamber (Apollo from BSG), Joe Flanigan (Shepherd from Stargate Atlantis), Nana Visitor (Kira from DS9)

Had a dream where, for some reason, I was applying for a job (security-related, I think, which is even more bizarre) for the Afghanistan consulate. After the interview, which went very well, I was waiting for word at the home I lived in while going to university and living with my Dad, where to pass the time I was watching a new series of Marvel educational cartoons for children (Iceman taught a math segment, which I guess makes sense because he's an accountant, but then Jack Power of Power Pack did a segment on how to memorize large amounts of complicated information and I don't know how that's supposed to fit together). Then I got a letter saying I got the job and tried to figure out how I was going to tell my current job that I was leaving.

Yesterday I got:
New Mutants #32 (okay end to a crossover tie in, better than many crossover events, I guess, although I'm less enthused about the title than I used to be)

And at a used bookstore I finally picked up a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. So, I can eventually put that series to bed.

Speaking of used bookstores, I'm amused/annoyed. Isn't it always the way? I spend months looking for a copy of Hunger Games in used bookstores. Finally, because I ordered Children of the Sky anyway and needed something else to push it into 'free shipping' price range, I decide to order it online. Less than a week after I recieve it in the mail, and the very first time I go to the used bookstores after it... I find it there for less than half the price I paid. Grr, argh! Oh well, it's not really a big difference monetarily, but it would have been cool to have bought another book online instead and then got Hunger Games in the store as a surprise success.

Edit: And, depression ahoy, another rejection letter from short story submission. Not that I expected anything else, but it would have been nice to have at least one unambiguous win in a life full of mostly failures.

First, another belated happy birthday wish. Happy Birthday allegroconmolto (Aug 9)!!!

I really have to get more on top of this, been distracted from too long a gap without birthdays, gotten out of the habit of looking every day.

And, in on-time birthday wishes, happy birthday karenjeane!!!!!

Anyway, yesterday I took the trip to the bookstores and comic store. I got

New Mutants #28 (fun stand-alone issue involving a new human character I quite liked)
New Mutants #29 (part of a crossover, and one of my fears about the cast seemingly confirmed, but a decent start so far)

I gave up on Batman: Gates of Gotham mini, because... as much as I like Cass Cain and want to support her appearances, if it's a MINISERIES and you need a fill-in WRITER for an issue (because you want him to get started on whatever he's writing after the DCU reboot), you're obviously signalling it's not worth anything, and DC's history is about to turn to crap anyway, might as well save a few bucks before I swear off DC.

And, at bookstores, discounted, I picked up:
Under the Dome, by Stephen King (aka, Stephen King writes a serious book with the same plot as The Simpsons movie)
Helix, by Eric Brown

And in the rare category "books I did not buy and why I did not buy them"...

While at the (new) bookstore, my eye chanced upon a book I didn't recall noticing before. The Clockwork Rocket, book one in a new series called Orthogonal. I didn't expect much from the title, but I decided to read the back... and was fascinated.

It's a "universe with different physical laws" story, the 'high concept' premise described on the back being that (among presumably other changes), light's creation GENERATES energy (and so plants give off light for energy), and if you're a ship accelerating to high speeds, generations will pass for you while only minutes or days will pass for everyone else (and this property is part of what drives the plot, I assume, an effort to use the time in a generation ship to come up with science to fix the problem). The idea charmed and interested me so much (and Egan's a hard SF guy so the implications will probably be really thought out well... this link explores some of the details, which all apparently stem from flipping a sign from plus to minus in one equation, but it's a bit sciency and technical), that I was prepared to buy the book on the spot, paying full price... if it was a paperback.

But no, of course, it was new, therefore it was a hardcover. And I don't want to pay $30 for a book in a format I don't want. So, instead, I'll have to either find it used, or wait the 6 months to 2 years for a paperback version to come out (which will probably be the oversized, overexpensive one that I won't want to buy either), and risk forgetting about it or losing interest entirely in that time.

Seriously, I think there's got to be a better way than the current book distribution model. Especially with ebooks being so common, is it really that important to not give a new book a small, cheap version to read for years? Or get print-bookstore-quality-books-on-demand services running and operate out of kiosks.

After the bookstore, went to visit my grandmother, who I haven't seen in a while. My aunt was there, and she took us both out to lunch. Had a mushroom/cheese burger and some onion rings, plus the rice pudding that came with my grandmother's meal (she can't eat sugary things). Twas all pretty good. Also toured her garden, helped out a little, and stole some cucumbers (because she forced them on me... like apparently a dozen grew in this week).

A lot of walking, but, all in all, it was one last adventure for a pair of shoes I was retiring (I bought a new pair but forgot to put it on in the rush to leave the house).

Yesterday took the trip down to the comic store/tour of the bookstores.

Comicswise I got:
New Mutants #27 (not bad).

And at varying used bookstores, I got the following books:
Final Impact, by John Birmingham (book 3 of the Axis of Time trilogy)
A Thousand Words for a Stranger by Julie E. Czerneda
The Witling, by Vernor Vinge
Dark Light by Ken MacLeod
Redemption Ark, by Alastair Reynolds

On my way to the bookstore I saw somebody with a blue "The Angels have the Blue Box" shirt.

It made me smile a little, to see geeks still existing in the wild.

It's time for another edition of What I'd Do With...

This time, we (and by that I mean I, but I'm playing god in these things so we might as well get into the spirit by using the royal We) tackle the DC Reboot/Relaunch/Whatever.

So, DC's launching in September with 52 all new #1 issues. Is it a reboot? Partly, it seems, because characters like Superman are being changed back to the beginning, but others are seemingly untouched. It feels more like a continuity cluster!#$! to me.

But let's say *I* was in charge of that potential cluster&$@!. What would my 52 #1 titles be, and what would my vision for the new DCU as a whole be?

Keep in mind two things before we begin.
1) I started writing this when very little was known about what DC was doing continuitywise, aside from the list of books they were doing. There may be references to things that are already disproven.
2) A great deal of the magic of WIDW is, occasionally, talking almost entirely out of my ass. I'm not a huge DC fan. A lot of what I know, outside of my particular favorites, is just from reading wikis, scans, and just general knowledge and so may be inaccurate. Sometimes I take an idea just briefly mentioned on a wiki that's not really very important, and run with it. I might suggest things that have already been tried. I may completely miss the point of a character or concept. I make no apologies for that, I just point it out up front.
3) I don't always edit as well as I should, a lot of it's written off the top of my head and not meant to be super polished, and in fact, I like the energy of coming up with ideas on the fly and elaborating them as I type them. (See, I said two things and this is #3. Perfect example). With things like my Runaways Vol 3 outlines I try a little more structure and organization and pre-planning, but this is not one of those times.

First, let's talk briefly about some alternatives:

There are of course, always alternatives to a line-wide reboot. ( Leave It Alone! )

( Ultimate DC, or Battle of the Brands )

( DC Unleashed )


But all of those are just odd ideas of what to do instead of a reboot to generate buzz. Let's assume a full reboot - or let's call it universe shift - is what they're doing, as seems to be the case (right now it looks like they might not be starting everything from scratch, the early days of the universe, but they're certainly changing lots of things at once while leaving a few lines more or less alone). A Shift could range from a reboot to changing most of the origins and then jamming them awkwardly into the storylines that were ongoing, but this is the mandate from on high, we must do one or the other, and relaunch all books at #1. Also, digital comics. So before we get to the changes to the universe itself, let's discuss some of the outside issues of how I'd handle announcing it, and how I'd want to handle some of the associated details.

( Read more... )Designing a DC NU...( Read more... )

In the next part, we list the full roster of 52 launch titles, with more details on changes revealed inside.