Number6's Journal

Instead of starting with Book Foo as usual, I'll start with TV/movies...
There's not been a lot going on in recent weeks... heck, even recent months have been dry, but since traditionally the last week of the year you look back and choose best/worsts, what the hell, I'll go ahead and do the same.

For 2011:
Best New Series: Of the fall season, Grimm, I guess, although none wowed me. Of 2011 in general... Game of Thrones, I think. Started off a little slow, but I got really into it. Falling Skies gets an honorable mention.
Best Returning Series: ... Walking Dead, I guess. Again, not a whole lot of returning series' that I care about anymore.
Biggest Downslide of a Returning Series: Probably Doctor Who. It was still solidly enjoyable, but missing something. But again, with few returning series I even watch, even that stood out.
Most Regretted Cancellation: Probably Stargate Universe, even though it was actually cancelled the year before, it ran out its run of new episodes in 2011.
Best Movie: X-Men: First Class, I guess. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was surprisingly good considering it should have been a thoughtless cash-in to a long-running and long-played out series.
Most Disappointing Movie: I only saw "The Last Airbender" in 2011, and I so WANT to name that, but if I do that, I also have to name Inception for 2011. So, I'll go with Green Lantern. Okay, but could have been much better.

For 2012:
Most Anticipated New Series: You know what, I think it might just be Avatar: The Legend of Korra (and it looks like they may actually be using that as the title, instead of the awkward 'Last Airbender: Legend of Korra' one). Of non-animated shows, I guess Alcatraz.
Most Anticipated TV Return: Doctor Who, just because it'll take so LONG. It had BETTER be good with that long a wait, Moffat. Oh, and Game of Thrones, season 2.
Most Anticipated Movies: Avengers, Hunger Games, Prometheus, World War Z, Amazing Spider-Man are all high on my anticipation list. If I had to choose one... Avengers, just because a) Whedon, and b) seeing how they'll manage all the big stars (by which mean the characters) in one movie.
Most Dreaded Movies: I somehow don't care a bit about The Dark Knight Rises based on what I've seen so far, but I won't go so far as to say I dread it. John Carter is probably my choice... I think a great movie could be made by adapating (even if somewhat loosely) the Mars books, but somehow I'm getting train-wreck vibes from it.

And now onto books... first, the last Book Foo of 2011...

Finished: Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge

So, I've now read all of Vinge's novel length work. And, while I was reading before, I always wondered... when was it he became awesome? I mean, his earlier work certainly had some good ideas, but was a little clunky and didn't quite click. So, I'd wondered, was my first exposure to him, A Fire Upon The Deep, where he hit awesome? A bit depressing, but okay.

Luckily, I have solved the question in a happy way. He hit awesome with Marooned in Realtime. The Peace War was almost awesome with a really good idea, but it was this sequel that he really hit his stride and wrote a kickass novel. In fact, I'd almost suggest skipping the Peace War entirely - it's not really necessary to the plot of the book, some of the political situations and the very few continuing characters can probably work just as well if introduced to you as they were in the book, and the story, although hinging on the same technological gimmick, is completely independent. Of course, I'm not the type to take that advice from other people.

(back of the book-type synopsis of the overall concept behind the cut, along with more detailed thoughts, but no big spoilers) ( Read more... )

Finished: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling

I'm a little late to the party, but I finally finished it, and I have to say... meh.
A bit more spoilers behind the cut, but nothing really serious.
( Read more... )

All in all, I never quite bought into HP-love, it was a mildly enjoyable kids series but never the kind of thing I thought should be the phenomenon it's become. And this is, well, an ending. Ironically, I think the series actually WOULD be best served by Rowling giving up control, letting it exist as an environment rather than a story, so say, having comics/cartoons set at Hogwarts after Voldemort's era would actually be a GOOD thing, rather than diluting the story... here, the story wasn't all that impressive, what was impressive was the setting Rowling created, and the setting needs to be used by others to live up to its full potential. So, get over yourself, Rowling, and sell out for the good of your creation! Well, I suspect she already has sold out in many ways (so many licensing deals out there for products), but sell out in a way that lets others be creative with what you've built, rather than purely commercially.

For 2012, my first books will be...
Started: Spin State by Chris Moriarty
Started: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

That makes my book list for 2011, more or less in order, the following...
1. Song of Susannah (Dark Tower Book VI), by Stephen King (reread)
( Read more... )
42. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by JK Rowling

So, 42 books, last year was 47, the year before was 44, so falling behind a bit, but a few of them were big books, and also haven't had as much dead time as work. Still, must try to pick up for next year, and I have plenty of new books on my 'to read (and already purchased)' pile.

And, we'll end off more or less with a traditional meme...

( Read more... )

I don't really celebrate New Years, and although I usually stay up past midnight just because, this year I really think I'll just sleep through it.

But, before I go... the mnemonic device I use to instantly calculate the day of the week any day of the year falls on, this year will be:

Sunlight Wakes The Surf Too Furiously...
Surf Will Still Move The Sand

It doesn't have to make sense, it just has to be something I can remember...
(For those that don't know, the start of each word in the phrase points to a day of the week. The month at the Nth position in the phrase starts with that day of the week. The 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th of the month also start on that day of the week, so the rest is easy calculation. So for March 24th, my birthday, it goes like this: March is the third month, you go to the third word, To. The word "The" starts with Th, which stands for Thursday, so the 22nd is a Thursday. That means the 24th is a Saturday.)

And there's a bunch of books to take care of at once, fell a bit behind in reporting:
Finished: Tesseracts 5 (short stories)

Same general mix of okay and not so great. This time, unlike previous ones, the one by Elisabeth Vonarburg
left me pretty well completely cold. My favorite was probably "All Good Things Come From Away", by James Alan
Gardner. I actually thought at first it was a bit cheesy, what with their blatant metaphors (seriously, one alien race was Americans, and pretty well most of the Canadian stereotypes about Americans... I think the humans were Canadians, and the alien race that was the focus of the story were... well, I don't know if the metaphor continues that far), but they faded away, and the story itself was quite well done. Peter Watts and Karl Schroeder's works were also pretty good.

Finished: Pirate Sun (Book 3 of Virga), by Karl Schroeder

Quite liked this one. I'm not sure if it's the best of the series, but I certainly liked it much more than the second book (which I also enjoyed, just thought it was a bit weaker). Lots of fun with gravity, compelling, believable characters who, even when they're antagonists, are usually relatable and even decent (one of Schroeder's strong suits), and just a lot of fun. I hope at least some of the revelations about Artificial Nature and elements of the first book turn out to be not entirely as they seemed, but still, I'll be sticking with this series.

Finished: The Ghost Brigades, by John Scalzi

Pretty good. I'll go into spoilers for this one because there was one plot point that I figured out easily and thought the characters really should have considered, but generally, about the same level of quality as Old Man's War, and like that at least there's some questioning going on over elements of the first book that I found unappealing or implausible. Anyway, that plot point ( Read more... )

Finished: The Wolves of the Calla, (Dark Tower V), by Stephen King (reread)
Well, this is a reread, so what do I need to say. It's enjoyable, although we're well into the area of the series where 'Ka' starts to be annoying as hell. Not in terms of what happens, but because it feels like every step the characters take is predestined in advance, to the point where if they DECIDED to go walking off a cliff, eyes closed, a magic carpet would magically arrive just as they stepped off the edge, because it's Ka.

Started for 2011:
Mainspring, by Jay Lake
Song of Susannah (Dark Tower VI), by Stephen King (reread)
2010 Book List

My complete reading list of the year, in roughly chronological order:

1. Nebula Award Winners 27 (short story collection)
( Read more... )
47. The Wolves of the Calla: Dark Tower V, by Stephen King (reread)

47 is more than last year (44), but not as much as the year before (broke 50).
So, not bad.

Anyway, as I was checking my book list for last year, I came across this Year-In-Review Meme, so I figured I'd do it again with the dates changed. If you want to copy and do it, go ahead.

Most of my answers are the same as last year, but a couple are different,
1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?
( Read more... )

Anyway, last night I had a dream. Basically, it was a dream that I was reading or just read a short story (although at times, for no reason I can think of, it was an episode of Babylon 5 instead). I won't go into details, but in the dream and the few seconds after waking I was thinking, "Hmmm, there are a couple cool ideas here, but the turn at the end was a little manipulative and kind of cheap. Then a few minutes later, when I realized it was a dream, that nobody had actually written it, I thought, "Hey, I can steal that!" I'm not above stealing the manipulative and cheap given the opportunity! :). Anyway, I might change that part. Or maybe not. I don't know. Still, it's an idea at least.

Finally, the mnemonic device I use to instantly calculate the day of the week any day of the year falls on, this year will be:
Sages Turned To Face Superior Warriors.
For Minutes, The Samurai Tutor Thoroughly

(For those that don't know, the start of each word in the phrase points to a day of the week. The month at the Nth position in the phrase starts with that day of the week. The 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th of the month also start on that day of the week, so the rest is easy calculation. So for March 24th, my birthday, it goes like this: March is the third month, you go to the third word, To. The word "To" is the start of Tuesday, so the 22nd is a Tuesday. That means the 24th is a Thursday.)

It's not the best of them, but I can't think of any better right away. I may keep working on it. Last year's was "Few Metals Match The Sandworm's Tooth. They'll surely work for MY water." which was memorable because I could associate it with Dune.

It's October, and in three weeks it'll be a very special day. And I'm not just talking about Halloween! That's right, that means it's time once again for...

One Hundred Words of Horror.
In the spirit of upcoming Halloween, and as sort of a last minute whet-the-appetite for Nano, I present "One Hundred Words of Horror for Halloween". Nano's about writing big, this is about writing small.

The rules:
1. Write short horror stories, and post them on Halloween.
2. Each story must be exactly 100 words. No more, no less (you can choose to count arguable symbols important to the story either as words or not as you wish). The story's title is not included in the count.
3. The stories must be in some way horror-related. This doesn't necessarily mean they have to be scary - you can deal with horror themes in a humorous way - but it's Halloween, so these should be in a Halloween spirit.
4. Post as many stories as you like.


It's a tradition. By which I mean something I've done for the last couple years and only a couple others have decide to try too, but I don't care, I'm doing it again, or, at least, trying. My enthusiasm and energy for writing have been very low for the last couple months. It's possible I won't be able to complete any. But I'll try anyway.

(Actually, it is a special day today due to numerical coincidences, it's 10-10-10. Tomorrow is also another special day, Thanksgiving (if you think Thanksgiving is in November, I'm afraid you're incorrect).

Stolen from calliopespen...

I have a list of 15 characters whom you will not see until the answers are posted. Give me wacky questions in the form of "3 and 8 are trapped in a cave-in; how do they survive?" and I'll try come up with wacky answers.

First, happy birthday fenrishero!!!

Also, new comic day today. This week I got one book, my only comic left:

New Mutants #10 (not bad for a standalone issue)

Full reviews as usual at my comic reviews site for anyone interested.

Also picked up The Year's Best SF 13 at the used bookstore.

And, a meme...
The Meme: Comment and I'll pick one (unless you want more) of your fandoms, post the answers to your journal and so on and so forth.

donna_c_punk asked about:

Heroes
Not so much fannish anymore, but I do sort of watch.
( Read more... )

Well, New Years Eve is upon us, and as New Years is the holiday I do not celebrate, I'm not doing anything of course. In fact, although I talk about it every year, this may be the year I actually do it... just sleep entirely through it. I have to work early tomorrow morning anyway, so I might hit the sack around 10ish.

There's a 2009 year-in-review meme going around, so I might as well do it, although it's pretty depressing...
( Read more... )

And, here's my complete reading list, the books I read in 2009, in rough chronological order:
1. Wild Cards, Vol 6: Ace in the Hole, edited by George R. R. Martin (reread)
( Read more... )
44. The 1978 Annual World's Best SF (short stories)

44, a little less than last year (I broke 50 then). But then I've had less in the way of long waits at work, and long walks to the comic store this year.

I think my favorite of them would have to be... hmm... tough one. Normally I pick out standout new books more than rereads, but there were a lot of rereads and not so many new wild books that captured my imagination. There were some, but I think my favorite this year was my reread of Blindsight, by Peter Watts. Best of the new (to me) was probably between Old Man's War and Queen of Candesce.

Moving on, one last bit of business...

For 2010, I have chosen the mneumonic that lets me quickly calculate the day of the week any particular date in 2010 falls in (12 word phrase, the Nth word represents the Nth month, and the first letter/two letters of the word is a cue to the day of the week the 1st day, 8th day, 15th day, 22nd day, and 29th day of the month all fall on). It's Dune-themed, for some reason, which is odd because 2010 is Clarke's year, not Herbert's. But what the hell. The mneumonic is:
Few Metals Match The Sandworm's Tooth. They'd Surely Work For *My* Water.

I imagine it as a fremen fighting off a bunch of armed robbers on Arrakis, using his crysknife. It'll help me to remember.

(2009's was: The sunburned sultan wants fanastic medicine. Warlocks saw to the Sultan today.)

Here's my yearly entry for One Hundred Words of Horror... only a few, sort of ran out of time and didn't have much inspiration so they're not my best, but I do like the tradition and wanted to come up with something.

Prognosis

The surgery went very well. Your husband is responsive, and the new organs are functioning better than the old ones.

Prognosis is good. I had to remove more tissue than I anticipated, but the organs need room to grow. I just want to warn you he may not look much like the man you knew.

But he’ll live. That’s the important thing. Assuming rejection doesn’t set in, he can look forward to many, many years.

With a result like that, why worry over the little details, like that I didn’t get his consent.

Or that I’m not really a doctor.

-

Inoperable

They say hallucinations are a side effect of the tumor. But I know these aren’t hallucinations. Hallucinations don’t leave a trail of dead bodies.

They’re not just dead. Mutilated, like something exploded inside them.

You’re probably thinking like the police do, that I killed them, in a delusional state. But it’s not hallucination. I don’t see anything except the carnage, and they saw that too, just a little later.

I’ve figured it out. It’s not a tumor. It’s a transmitter. To some other dimension. Telling them to come. And they’ll be coming for you soon, unless you cut it out.

-

Little Bundles of Joy

Nobody noticed the loss of the children. The thing had devoured their souls, but they kept eating, sleeping, and even playing. You don’t really need a soul to play. It’s as biologically hardwired as hunger. Children’s souls are undeveloped, barely there. Replaceable.

So the thing lent them its motives, to lure others to that spot in the woods. Parents made better meals but poor tools. Their bodies were too accustomed to their souls, and without them, ran down, and soon died in squalor.

But the children would still play, and could always be adopted, smiling automatons waiting for new thoughts.

-

(Last year's entries can be found here).

If you do the One Hundred Words of Horror meme, feel free to post a link in the comments so people who are interested can follow up on people not on their flist.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Haven't done one of these in a while, and don't remember ever doing these particular questions, so what the hell. Stolen from angelophile...

What's the last thing you did, where you technically broke the law? ( Read more... )
Edit: Whoops, forgot to cut. Sorry about that.

Happy Easter to all of you that celebrate it. I don't celebrate it religiously (that is, as a religious event), but I do enjoy the familyness... however, for me, Easter is _next_ weekend, the awesomeness that is Greek Easter, and so this weekend I didn't do much different than what I normally do, and so this is a fairly normal update.

So, today I finished Fallout 3. Mildly fun, althoguh I was somehow expecting more from the reviews I'd heard and hype about it being the best game of the year. (minor spoilers behind the cut, but mostly just discussions of specific issues, and good points)
( Read more... )

TV. Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead was on last night, and... ehh, it was okay. Felt like an average episode (and really, with normal episodes being something like 50 minutes, and this one being a whopping 58, lets stop calling these 'extra long specials'. It barely qualifies. When they said instead of a full season we were getting 4 extra long specials I would have hoped that they were at least 1.5 times a regular ep), and nothing really all that special. On the other hand, it didn't make me want to throw things at the screen, so for a RTD-written episode, that's a success. (Minor spoilery comments behind cut) ( Read more... )

And the other big TV is the last 2nd season episode of Terminator, the Sarah Connor Chronciles, and possibly the end of the series entirely. And if the last part is true, then DAMN YOU. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL. I so want to see where they go from here. Good ep, and giving me a lot of what I wanted to see when the series was announced. (spoilers) ( Read more... )

Dollhouse was also pretty good. Only other thing I've been watching lately besides Heroes (which is still lame, but getting a _tiny_ bit better at least in the general writing category) and a few "whatever's on" shows is Lost, and it's pretty good this season but I don't find myself with a need to talk about episodes in my updates. I dunno why. *shrug*. So that's it for TV.

Finally, a meme, several installments worth. I've put off these for a long time, usually because I didn't want to post _just_ them, or a post I was already posting just got too long. But, it's about time, so here we go...

Interview Me Meme
1) Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me!"
2) I will respond by asking you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3) You will post the answers to the questions (and the questions themselves) on your blog or journal.
4) You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5) When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. And thus the endless cycle of the meme goes on and on and on and on...


Btw, if I asked for questions from you and you gave them but they're not here, it might have been one of those instances where LJ didn't send me the comment notification. If you're really interested you'll have to reply to this and either ask them again or link to them. So, here we go...

From thebitterguy...

1. Were there any comics of note in the '90s? I mean, was the entire decade not a wasteland of graphic novel mediocrity? ( Read more... )
2. If I shot Ben Browder in the face, would you cry? ( Read more... )
3. Do you consciously not use tags on your LJ? Or is it just something you never got around to doing? ( Read more... )
4. I see you just re-read the Wild Cards books. Have they aged well? ( Read more... )
5. Is runaways readable in floppies? I've only read the first run as hardcovers, and got the Whedon series as floppies. I found the Whedon's not very engaging until I read them as a single story. ( Read more... )
From soleta_nf...

1. What do you love about Toronto? ( Read more... )
2. What do you dislike about Toronto? ( Read more... )
3. Is the current economic situation affecting you personally very much? ( Read more... )
4. What's your favourite comic book movie? ( Read more... )
5. Who is the next Canadian Barack Obama? ( Read more... )

From calliopes_pen...
1. If you had the chance to travel with the Doctor, which Doctor would you want to travel with? And where would you want to go first? ( Read more... )
2. Are you superstitious at all? If so, about what, in particular? ( Read more... )
3. If vampires were real, what would you do? ( Read more... )
4. What is the one job you would never want to have? ( Read more... )
5. If you were trapped on a deserted island, what one book would you want
to have with you? ( Read more... )

And that's it. See you all out there in Post-Apocalyptica, people.

Edit: Oh, and this seems to have exploded everywhere since I originally posted this post, but I figure it deserves spreading even more since I'm against censorship and bigotry and this has elements of both: Amazon.com is censoring it rankings and search results, specifically targetting non-pornographic GBLT books as 'adult' content (while leaving things like Playboy fully searchable).

Here's my entries for the One Hundred Words of Horror thing.

Savage Beast

"You misunderstand us, Hunter," said the man in black. "We’re not monsters. We have a deep, sacred reverence for life.

"Just... not human life. Why should we? You pollute our world, and at every opportunity you shove wood in our hearts."

His fangs gleamed and I struggled against my bonds, thinking of Mina. As if sensing that, he added, "Relax, there’ll be no bloodless corpse for your darling wife to find. That would be crass and as wasteful as you." He raised a saw, its handle made of polished bone. "We make sure to use every part of the animal."

Caveat Emptor

The occult bookstore owner promised it would completely rid the house of spirits, and offered a money-back guarantee.

After months of strange, unsettling noises since moving in, Mr. Bradley was desperate. It sounded like a good deal.

At midnight, amidst horrific moans and unexplainable knockings, the family linked hands and performed the ritual.

At last the house fell silent.

Two days later, neighbors broke through the door and found their limp, dehydrated bodies still in the circle. Only Mr. Bradley survived, and has been in a hospital since then, listless and staring vacantly, no spark of life in his eyes.

Meme

This is a short but absolutely true story, a story about the future.

The last person to read this story will die.

The fate will be inescapable.

That might seem like a grim prospect. Of course, anyone can avoid being the last reader by ensuring somebody else is. You could post the story as your own. It’s been done before, and if spreads widely enough, the last reader might be a stranger to you. Is it fair to inflict that fate on them? More importantly, was it any fairer to inflict it on you? Make your decision. Pass it on?

Long-Term Relationship

She appeared every week in Nate’s apartment to re-enact her last night. She entered, showered, changed, then sat in front of the TV for three hours before she went to the door, and was strangled by whoever was on the other side. It was the same every week, yet Nate couldn’t resist watching. He considered trying to catch the killer, to put her spirit to rest… but then he might never see her again. She was the only one in his life, sad as that was. On their tenth anniversary, Nate shot himself, having waited long enough to meet her.

(Copyright/Creative Commons info can be found here).


(Last year's entries can be found here).

If you do the One Hundred Words of Horror meme, feel free to post a link in the comments so people who are interested can follow up on people not on their flist.

So, there we go. Not the best. Would have spent yesterday working on a few more and improving these but had computer problems to deal with. More on that in a later post. Happy Halloween everyone!