Number6's Journal

Let's see, what of note is there to say? Fan Expo's in about a month, and I'm tentatively planning on going right now (to get Jewel Staite's autograph for my Firefly collection). I might even bring baked goods for in-line snacking and (if I work up the nerve) offering to others. I've got a plan to make "Fruity Oaty Bars" from Firefly/Serenity (well, I think they were only in Serenity), and since Blue Sun is the corporation behind the bars, I may try to do a blueberry-starfruity filling (Blue-Star is as close as I can get to Blue Sun). Yay, for obscure geekiness that only I will get. But, it depends on it being in season and in a store that I can get it (in previous years I've seen starfruits in my grocery store but I don't know when they start showing up). Also, I still haven't done a test batch and time's running out. So we'll see.

TV? It's been a long time since I've talked about TV that almost everything I have to say is old news. But let's see... Stranger Things is on Netflix (or you could get it magically another way)... and I quite liked it, it's like 80s Stephen King and 80s Steven Spielberg teamed up to make a movie set in the 80s but using today's effects. Not perfect, and I had an unreasonable amount of nerd rage at them getting D&D wrong (ask me in comments if you're curious), but overall quite well done, even if it is a bit nostalgia-baity.

Killing Joke cartoon came out and, just, ugh. I mean, the original story was iffy enough, but I sort of forgive it because Oracle came out of it (even if it was indirectly). But they added a 30 minute prologue focusing on Batgirl and... I WANTED a prologue focusing on Batgirl, but what they actually gave me was just awful, stupid ideas that if possible made the iffier elements of Killing Joke even WORSE. Why, DC, why?

I've been kind of on a rewatch binge lately, rewatched all of Stargate SG1 and Atlantis, and now moving on to Sliders. The Stargates were more or less as good as I remember it, Sliders... well, I knew it turned to suck eventually, but I'd forgotten how much wasn't that great even in the "good" seasons. Not all-around awful, and I'm still enjoying watching it, but just full of random cringey moments where I viscerally notice bad writing or acting (or the results of executive tampering). It was always a show that I loved more for potential than for what they did with it, and I still want to see a reboot done well. Oh, and it's fun spotting people in it. I was watching an episode and I thought, "Wait, is that Jeffrey Dean Morgan?" (the brother's father in Supernatural, Negan in The Walking Dead, Comedian in Watchmen), and... yup, it was! It took to the opening credits to be sure because he looked so young. He played a tough guy from a "civilization-has-collapsed" world who, chasing after his girlfriend, follows the Sliders to a world where SanFran is a penal colony.

I think that's all I remember for TV, so we'll move onto the bimonthly book roundup. As usual, Goodreads reviews copy-pasted here.

Finished: A World Out of Time by Larry Niven

A man with a terminal illness in the modern day has himself frozen as a last-ditch attempt to survive. He awakens hundreds of years in the future, in a completely new body and told that he must be in service to the State... or else. Soon, though, he gets a chance to escape and flee into Earth's far far future where many things have changed and survival is even more complicated.( Read more... )All in all, I've seen much better "trips into the far far future" tales than this.

About the only thing I took away from this book was the description of a far distant genetically altered version of a cat that looked pretty much just a head and tail with no limbs, which proved to me that I would still "awww" at a kitty even if you made it into something like a snake.

Finished: Nemesis Games by James S.A. Corey (Expanse #5)

( Read more... )In a series like this, you're not really advising people who aren't already invested in the books, so really reviews tend to boil down to "How does this compare to the rest of the series? Is it getting better? Is it getting worse? Is it still worth reading?" And so really all I probably needed to say is that this is one of the better books in the series and I'll absolutely be reading the next.

Finished: Packing Fraction and Other Stories of Science and Imagination (short stories)

A short book of even shorter short stories. This one I believe is targetted towards teens, with the goal of getting them into science fiction. The stories are interesting enough and deal with a few real issues alongside cool SF ideas, but both are made somewhat milder... not so much to match the sensibilities of teens, but so that parents might not complain. ( Read more... )I got this for about a buck at an online store. I'm not sure it'd be worth paying much more than that (more because of the short page count than quality reasons). But at that price, I'm not disappointed at least.

Finished: Echopraxia by Peter Watts (reread)

Reread, so I'll just say I think I liked it more the second time around, not as much effort needed to understand what's happening so the subtler charms are easier to enjoy.

Finished: Too Like The Lightning by Ada Palmer

Mycroft is a convicted criminal, sentenced to be a Servicer... forbidden to own property, and in exchange for food and shelter must work for whoever requires his services. Because he has a particular set of skills, this often means working for the upper echelon of 25th century society. And in the course of his work, Mycroft has encountered what seems like a miracle, a young boy who can bring art to life... literally.

This is a particularly hard book for me to review. There's so much going on here, and while much of it is good, and some I'd call very good, some of it rubs me the wrong way in terms of personal tastes. ( Read more... )So although I can certainly see talent here, and understand why this book is being highly praised in many circles, it's proving not so much tuned to my personal tastes. I'd probably rate it a 2, albeit a high one, but since it's a first novel where I'm traditionally more forgiving, and because it was on the high end of 2 anyway, I'll make it a three. I might still like to explore more of Ada Palmer's work in the future... but, at this point, I'm not sure I want to continue reading the rest of this story. I might, but it may be the sort of thing where, a few years down the line I may spontaneously decide that I wonder how it turned out, rather than buying it when it comes out. Or, perhaps, if I hear a lot of reviews where they talk about having addressed some of my personal difficulties with the book.

Finished: Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder (reread)

I've already read this several times and talked about it here even before I started doing Goodreads reviews.

Finished: The Passage by Justin Cronin

The US government, after obtaining samples of a virus that resembles classical vampirism, begins an ultra-secret project to refine and weaponize this discovery, by injecting variations on the virus into test subjects recruited from Death Row, and also a little girl who's not in the system. Naturally, everything goes according to plan and nothing goes wrong at all with this totally reasonable idea, but you might want to avoid the planet Earth for the next few centuries as it may be overrun with monsters.

This book's gotten a lot of hype... the author got apparently a huge advance for it, it was on the NYT bestseller list for a while, and there's talk of a movie adaptation, it's one of those books I've heard about for years since it came out.

And I wanted to like it so much. But I really didn't, at least not in total. (Warning, I will be a little bit more spoilery than usual...)( Read more... )So yeah, I ranted a lot about the book, and probably made it seem like I enjoyed it less than I did. I gave it two stars. I enjoyed it mildly, but... too much annoyed me, and I wanted it to be so much better, to even a little bit live up to the hype. Instead, it disappointed me. There are two other books in the series for those who don't have my issues with it... maybe they get better, maybe they even specifically address some of my problems in ways that would make me retract my position on the first book. But I don't think I'm ever going to find out.

Finished: Queen of Candesce by Karl Schroeder (reread)

Another multiple-time reread, nothing more to say.

Finished: Scratch Monkey by Charles Stross

Oshi Adjani works for an inconceivably advanced artificial intelligence, doing various jobs like taking out planetary dictatorships and mass-murderers. She believes what she's doing, even though it may require some despicable actions of her own, is for the good of humanity as a whole. And it may well be, but when Oshi discovers a secret about her boss, she can't let it lie. In punishment for questioning, she's given one last dangerous assignment, one that, if she completes it, she can go free. But it's an assignment so dangerous that the odds of surviving it are slim. The boss needs a scratch monkey, an agent that is fundamentally disposable. And that agent is Oshi.

Charles Stross has written some of my favorite books, books that spew novelty from every page and leave readers reeling with the feeling that they've really seen a potential future, past the Singularity where it's impossible to predict or even understand... and maybe you still don't entirely understand it, but you feel as close as someone's liable to come. Unfortunately, a lot of his recent output has been decidedly more grounded, as he's simply not interested in some of the same themes that he used to be. There's nothing wrong with this, but I am still interested, and I was craving something more like the old Stross. Then I discovered Scratch Monkey, an unpublished (but nearly published) novel that he posted for free on his website.( Read more... )Still, if you're like me and hoping for something to scratch a similar itch as Accelerando, and have read all his published work, this might be the thing for you. If Goodreads allowed finer-grain ratings, I'd probably put it somewhere in the high three stars, but since it doesn't, I'll round it up to four.

Finished: Company Town by Madeline Ashby
Hwa is a bodyguard working for a town built around an oil rig, off the coast of Newfoundland. Unlike virtually everyone else in town, she has no cybernetic attachments. She's hired to be the bodyguard to the son of the billionaire who just bought the whole town, who has been receiving very specific unusual death threats. Meanwhile, Hwa's old clients and friends are being targetted by a serial killer.

There's a lot of good in this book, and a few off-notes that don't entirely dampen my enthusiasm for it, but just keep it from being that much better.( Read more... )I think part of the problem was that it was a fairly short novel, it could have been filled out in ways where some of these swings didn't seem so dramatic. I liked it though, and I'd read more with these characters if the author chose to write more in this universe. I think it's another book that I might only give a 3.5 if I could give half stars, but if I have to choose, I think I'd round upward in this case.

Finished: Battle Royale Slam Book (Essays on the Cult Classic) (essay collection

That's right, I read a book of essays.

The Battle Royale Slam Book is a book of essays on the book, movie, and manga versions of Battle Royale.

Honestly, I'm not really sure why it needs a special book of essays. I mean, I love the book, but it's not the deepest work in the world. I wouldn't have read this at all, except that it happened to be part of a bundle of ebooks I bought, and I happened to already be rereading Battle Royale. So, I figured I'd keep an ereader open on my computer and read an essay now and then when I had some free time, maybe learn some additional context that I'd missed in the original. ( Read more... )I'm glad I got it for free (or rather as part of a bundle which already contained other books that were worth the full price I paid for said bundle), since I wouldn't have bought it alone, but I didn't hate it, I just mostly found it unnecessary. I guess two stars seems appropriate.

Finished: Battle Royale Remastered by Koushun Takami

42 students (average age roughly 15) are gassed on a school field trip and awaken on an island, where they're told they've been chosen for this year's Program. Everyone knows what that means... one class is chosen every year, and they will have to kill each other until only one survives. Some will team up, some will try to escape, and some are willing to kill people they've grown up with.

Battle Royale Remastered is a new translation of Koushun Takami's cult classic Battle Royale. I've already read the previous translation, and even reviewed it. The fact that I'm reading a retranslation should tell you already that I like the story a lot. So, although my rating is going to be the same (because I'm rating the book itself), in this review I will be talking specifically about the translation.( Read more... )

Started (or finished but haven't yet reviewed): Waypoint Kangaroo by Curtis C. Chen (received for free from a giveaway), The Future Is Japanese (short story collection), The Sudden Appearance of Hope by Claire North, The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler (received for free from a giveaway)

Okay, last time we dealt with the general universe outlay and how to handle announcing the reboot, now, finally, here's my interpretation of the 52 launch titles. I won't get into the creative teams, that's not my strong suit.( Read more... )

So, there we go, 52 books for my reboot. I thought about attempting the Reboot exercise on Marvel, but well, they already have the Ultimate Line, and I expect hardly anybody will read _this_ much less would be interested in What I'd Do With a rebooted Marvel universe (but if you are, let me know and I may change my mind). And of course, as always, any comments/your own ideas on the same general topic are always welcome.

Yes, I said I'd only reveal the answers if somebody got them all right. But I said that on April Fools Day, so I don't hold myself to it. Really, not enough people guessed to give it a reasonable chance of success. And let's face it, if I didn't have certain attention-craving tendencies I wouldn't be here on LJ in the first place. So I'm revealing the answers anyway.

So, take it statement by statement:

1. As a child, I spent 3 week at a summer day camp themed around paleontology, where we got to dig up (fake) dino bones and learn dinosaur facts. False!

Although it does seem like a cool idea, and I was into dinosaurs a lot as a kid (I know, shocker? A kid that's into dinosaurs? But that was me!), but I never went to that camp (my Mom did once take me to a lecture from a paleontologist at the zoo once though). And, speaking of the zoo, I did do two years of a different, but also rather cool, summer day camp - Zoo Camp. I spent a week or two (can't really remember) at the zoo for the day, going to all the exhibits, learning about animals, and playing different animal games. I loved animals back then (well, I guess I still do, but back then it was my 'thing', I loved animals, wanted to be a zoologist, etc), so it was right up my alley. Aside from a couple mildly-socially-traumatic memories that are still with me, I do look back on it with a certain fondness.

2. I can list off over a hundred countries in roughly 2 minutes without looking anything up. True!

This one is actually VERY recent, though. Over the past few weeks I've made a project of memorizing the complete list of countries from Yakko Warner's "The Nations of the World" song from Animaniacs (I say 'list of countries' because although I do it, in order, to the tune and rhythm of the song, there's no way I'm going to get all the "ands" and other little words of the song in exactly the right place.) At this point, I can do the whole song, although I do have to pause occasionally to remember what comes next, only about the first half of it or so it can I do completely unconsciously.

Why did I do this?

Well, I have a large amount of time on my hands. And I figured, it would be a useful party trick if I ever went to parties or that were the kind of thing that were impressive at them in the first place.

Plus, on the off chance somebody offers me money or three wishes or something, but only if I can name 50 different countries in a minute, well, I'm prepared.

3. I tried to stay awake a full 36 hours on a week long school trip because I heard it makes you high and hallucinate. True!

Yes, we did a school trip to Washington DC, and I figured I'd experiment. I don't drink or do any kind of drugs, but I was taken by the idea that it was sort of an 'all natural' type way to hallucinate that I couldn't get addicted to (because it would take 36 hours to do it again). Anyway, it failed. I think I got about 30 hours before I was dozing frequently without wanting to. All in all, although I kind of am glad I tried staying up just to see what it would do to me, I regret doing it then.. in particular, because there was a social event/cruise/dinner/dance among the people on the trip that I was only semi-conscious for... and really, I needed every social opportunity I could get, and all my faculties available for it. I mean, theoretically, if I'd been well-rested, I might have had a pleasant conversation with a female classmate, seen each other in new ways, maybe even have gotten a girlfriend in Jr. High that would have changed the course of my whole life. But instead, I spent the time barely managing to keep myself awake.

4. Given only the stardate stated in an episode of Star Trek (TNG or DS9 only), I can probably (80%) tell you the episode name. False!

I thought maybe I'd throw people off with the uncertainty factor, but it was never even close. At one point, I could probably tell you the SEASON the episode was in (because it followed a regular pattern), but I'm not sure I could even do that, now. Also at one point, I could tell you the name of any episode (of any series, probably up until Enterprise), just by watching the first 30 seconds or so of it. I'm probably decent at that still, but I haven't had daily reruns to watch and help reinforce the skill in quite a while. That's about the extent of my Star Trek memory tricks though.

5. I once played the Skipper (from Gilligan's Island) on stage in front of a large number of people. Surprisingly true!

Yes. I don't remember the full context, but it was at Disney-MGM studios (back when it was called that) in Orlando Florida. One of their little things was a show using park-goers in the attraction. Because I was a little chubby at that age, I was chosen to be the Skipper. All I can remember was that I was supposed to hit Gilligan with my hat.

For those of you who are surprised by this for someone as shy as me... well, yes, it's true, I am shy, always have been but it's actually built up a lot as time went on and failures to connect piled on failure to connect, combined with frequent moves and being thrust into the new-outsider role again, and I withdrew more and more into my shell. For a time, I actually was able to perform and enjoyed doing so (I suppose it was because I could tell myself it wasn't ME they were judging, it was who I was pretending to be), even taking Drama as an elective one year after it was mandatory. I still got horrific stage fright (I remember faking sick to get out of a school play where I played french fries, which should give you an idea of what age range that was), but if you could manage to get me out there, I enjoyed it (and some people have told me I did well. In my last year of high school, after seeing me in an in-class skit, a teacher recommended me to another student I didn't really know who was trying to make a deep, serious independent movie, because she thought I could do anger well... but that was another 'I chickened out' moment and I turned down the offer... also, I didn't much like the script and it'd have required me to swear... those who've read this a long time may recall that I have an issue with swearing. I don't have a problem with other people doing it, but it's very hard to force myself to out loud, or in text, unless I'm directly quoting something... in my head, I swear like a sailor, but most people who know me have never heard me swear).

6. I at one point owned and read every single Dragonlance novel, no matter how tangentially connected to the core plot and characters, up until the Fifth Age stuff started coming out. I still have most of them. False

But nearly true. I owned VIRTUALLY all of them (I think there might be one or two I didn't, like the second or third parts of the Dwarven Nations one, but even then I might have). And I read MOST of them at least once, but there were probably about 10-20 that I know I never got around to reading.

Which also brings me to the 'lie I was going to use but then it turned out to possibly be true'. I was going to say "I owned every single "Complete Handbook" for 2nd Edition AD&D... the ones with the brown(mostly, but occasionally grey or other colors) softcover... they had one for each class, like a "Complete Fighters handbook", and one for different races, "The Complete Book of Dwarves", and contained useful rules for them, cultural things, and different 'kits' you could use which make your character into a specific TYPE of fighter, dwarf, etc, almost an early-prototype of prestige-classes I guess (although starting from character creation, not something you grew into). I went to look for a list to figure out which I was missing and realized that, although there were a couple I'm not 100% SURE if I bought, there were none that I knew I didn't buy. And I still have most of them too, just a little scattered about and some in not-easily-accessible places. And I got lots of other of those softcover ones even when they weren't "Complete Handbooks" (the historical supplement ones, the monster religion ones, etc)... and that's not even mentioning all the other assorted book, magical item compendiums, hardcovers, boxed campaign settings and supplements that I bought and still have, gathering dust.

Man, TSR sure got a lot of my money in the 80s and 90s. How did they ever go bankrupt?

Okay, so here's a continuation of my last WIDW, which was what I'd do with if I was writing Runaways

Vol 3 (in outline form, rather than full script or anything. Read the first post for my general rules of play and explanations for this, and of course for the first batch of issues. We'll start here with the next 12 issues, #12-24 (spread over two posts)
( Read more... )
Continued here.

As the other father of D&D, Dave Arneson, succumbs to cancer at the age of 61. RIP, Dave.

My thumb's sore. And not quite as opposable as usual. Am I devolving down the evolutionary chain? Or perhaps I just hurt it playing Ultimate Spider-Man. Probably the latter.

This year, I'm going to try really hard not to post a depressed, ranty, V-Day post. Because really, it's all been said.

Features I wish LJ had (or if they already do, I wish I knew how to do it):
1) Browse posts to a community written by a specific person. Mostly this is so I can track down some of my old posts, but sometimes I might want to see what someone else has posted before.

2) Apply tags to your friends list. A lot of times I watch, say, Supernatural a couple days later than everyone else, and lots of my flist post about it that first night. I don't want to backtrack 3 pages to find the posts about it, or go to everyone's individual journal and read back (as I ususall do), I'd rather just say 'okay, let's look at 'tag supernatural' on my friends lists. Though I realize it'd probably be a lot more complicated to code than basic tagging (depending a little on how the flist is implemented), it would still really improve my LJ experience.

Book Foo:

Finished: Big Planet, by Jack Vance
A Fire in the Sun, by George Alec Effinger

Some thoughts, minimal spoilers, behind the cut.
( Read more... )

Started: Hyperion, by Dan Simmons (Thursdays and Sundays) (reread)
Stardoc, by S.L. Viehl (Wednesdays)

Random cracky crossover idea. Yet another thing I'm not going to write, and I'd be surprised if nobody else has come up with it yet, but I've been playing around with it in my head a little. One of them is Supernatural.
( Read more... )

One of my minor goals in life is to have the adjective 'intrepid' prefixed to whatever description of me someone gives. I mean, sure, intrepid explorer would be great, or intrepid astronaut, or intrepid post-apocalyptic drifter would be awesome. But I'd settle for 'intrepid manual labourer'. Or 'interpid slacker' or 'intrepid layabout'. I think I've just typed intrepid way too much.

Some TV thoughts. Spoiler-Free.
( Read more... )

Oh, speaking of TV, here's a quick list of the SF-related pilots for next year's TV. My thoughts:
( Read more... )

Life update: Apartment hunt continues. No luck yet. I hate moving.

Here's a heaping helping of randomness.

One of my fingers has been bothering me lately. ( Read more... )

Monday was Thanksgiving. ( Read more... )

Recently found on BoingBoing this bit about a CBC radio program where they discuss the idea that certain things classified as 'disorders', including autism and psychopathy aren't really such, but in fact 'different ways of being human', and particularly as (perhaps first steps towards) human speciation. I'm mainly just including this here to store the link so I don't have to dig through BoingBoing's archives to find the links when I have time to actually listen. But there is something in the BoingBoing article itself that appeals to me. ( Read more... )

Some TV thoughts. Lost, Jericho, Heroes, Veronica Mars, Grey's Anatomy, Battlestar Galactica, LOST. All talking about recent episodes, but I'm going to be relatively spoiler lite (by which I mean no 'big' revelations, but some incidental minor things, though), so it should be safe even if you haven't seen them, since I'm mostly talking about my own impressions. Oh, wait, there is _one_ icon from Veronica Mars behind the cut, and it's a little spoilery for S3, episode 2. But it was just too funny not to do. ( Read more... )

And now onto Book foo!
Finished: Dies the Fire, by S.M. Stirling (reread)
Thoughts and quote behind cut: ( Read more... )

Also finished: Swan Songs: The complete Hooded Swan Collection, by Brian Stableford (reread)

Since this is really five books in one, I'm going to do a quote or two from each. And there will be some spoilers, but let's face it... I've only talked to one person online who's even heard of it, and no one who's read it, so I'm not under any delusions any of you are going to read it. Hell, I doubt most people'll even be reading the quotes. So I'm just amusing myself with bits of it I liked. But hell, I'm still leaving out any big spoilers, just in case.( Read more... )

Started: The Protector's War, by S.M. Stirling (Fridays and Sundays)
Appleseed, by John Clute (Wednesdays)

TPW is the sequel to DTF, and the reason I reread DTF. Appleseed is a book I got for $2 in the 'last call' bin at a bookstore. Haven't really gotten far enough into them to give any more thoughts than that. Oh and I was wandering through the bookstore and looked again at Ilium, by Dan Simmons. Anyone on my flist read it and have any (non-spoilery) thoughts? I liked the Hyperion series by the same author, but too much mythological content (particularly when it's 'indistinguishable from fantasy') sometimes turns me off for some reason, and I fear Ilium might tread on that.

Anyway, this concludes another edition of HUGE RANDOM POST.

Just this morning I was saying how it was pretty much impossible.

Well, they fooled me.

JOSS WHEDON WILL BE TAKING OVER RUNAWAYS.

Okay, my last post on Runaways was my joking impression of how other famous comic creators might handle them. Now it's my turn to tell how I'd do it. Normally I'd never do a WIDW with Runaways as I was enjoying it so much as it is... I'd have some ideas of what might be cool storylines, but they were always in isolationg rather than as part of a big 'plan'. Felt it was sort of a little disrespectful to the series. (And I don't generally do WIDWs for things I'm enjoying, only things I'm not enjoying or things that are long gone).

Now that BKV and Alphona are announced at leaving though, I feel I can do one for Runaways. In particular this was sparked by a thread on the BKV forums "What's your pitch for Runaways?". It got me thinking, and sometimes when I get thinking I can't stop until I've got something all set together in a 'plan'.

( The Rules )
So, here we go. Spoilers for issues through #19 and Civil War: Young Avengers & Runaways.
( Read more... )

You can get to all my WIDWs here.

Well, I finally decided to split up my icons into separate posts, one for comics icons (this one) and one for non-comics.

My policy is always that the ones in this post are free to gank by anyone who wants one, commenting or crediting are optional (but certainly appreciated). And really, feel free to use any of them in any way you want. Textless icon you want to use as a base for something fancier? By all means. Have the means to edit animated gifs and want to tweak the timing or change a frame? Go nuts. All I ask for is basic honesty - don't take credit for the parts of it you didn't do. But you don't need to credit me for a base that you've heavily modified, either. Use your discretion, it's more an 'if anybody asks' type thing. Oh, and speaking of not taking credit, I don't have a scanner of my own so most of the comic icons come from scans posted somewhere or another. So thanks to all of you who do that. :)

From now on I'll edit this post to add icons as I make them (though I'll still post them to comicbook_icons or whereever appropriate while they're 'new', or separately in my journal if I'm particularly proud of them)

Potential spoilers for different comics, look at your own risk.

( Read more... )