Number6's Journal

So, I haven't posted since the con, as it turns out. What have I been doing since then? Not much. First I got an annoying dose of Con Flu, but thankfully, that's worn off, I think. I rooted my phone, mostly to remove some of the annoying bloatware apps (I don't need a separate app for Google Magazine and Google Movies and Google whatever, especially since I can get all of them through the app store). I also changed the start screen, so instead of an ad for the phone carrier I got the phone from, I get a shot of the TARDIS flying through the Time Vortex while I boot up.

I considered doing some kind of stargate-gate-dialing animation but I couldn't find any I liked. I also had a crazy idea that I don't think's already implemented and too lazy to do myself, but... wouldn't it be awesome if, instead of entering a pin, you had to dial a gate address on the Stargate? Sure, you'd have to use more digits than most people use, but it'd just be cool. ;). In other phone news, I've started reading books on it more actively, but I still prefer paper books, so I do it in two circumstances: first, when I'm walking to work and it's too dark to read normally, it's easy to read on my phone. Eventually it'll probably get too cold to do that, but for a while, it means more reading time. And secondly, of course, when I finish a book but am still on-the-go, I automatically have a backup. Before I realized how easy it was to read in the dark with it, I spent a few too-dark-to-read walks listening to audioplays... the Neverwhere adaptation, and the adaptation of Iain M. Banks' "The State of the Art", both quite enjoyable. There are also some short stories I can get readings of online for free I'm going to load on them.

Anyway, beyond that, I'm still alive. Not much changes in my life, but I consume media, so let's see the results of my digestion... wait, that sounds inappropriately icky. Strike that. Something else.

Thanks to st_aurafina, I've discovered an amusing weekly webcomic, Monster of the Week, which is basically... a (usually) comedic take on every episode of X-Files, as a (usually) 12-panel comic, from the beginning, in order. They just did "War of the Coprophages" which is here, but if you want to start from the beginning, click here.

New TV season has started, but on the whole I'm not too excited about it. So far I've only checked out two, SHIELD, and Sleepy Hollow.

Let's start with the good.

How about you guess which one that is?

Did anybody guess Sleepy Hollow? Then you're not a good guesser. SHIELD was pretty good... a little rough, and, because of the ubiquitous promos, all the best bits fell a little flat, since we'd seen them so many times. As Whedon pilot episodes go, it's probably on the low end, but that still means a watchable show with some great moments, and I look forward to seeing where they go with it. Also, surprise Ron Glass! (Well, a surprise to me!) Hopefully he's recurring. Maybe now that he's got two big SFTV credits, he'll be more likely to be recruited for cons. :)

Now Sleepy Hollow... I guess it's not outrageously BAD, the actors have mostly been good, and once in a while there's an interesting moment of friction between attitudes of the past and present, but... it's not nearly good enough to get past the silliness of the premise of Ichabod Crane teaming up with a modern day police officer to solve crimes (magic crimes!). Every time they do something to make Ichabod surprisingly useful in the modern day, or find some way to allow him to continue to help, I feel the beams straining under the weight of the sillyness. Honestly, I can't imagine how it got approved to the pilot stage, much less a full series. But maybe it'll surprise me and be a success... apparently the first couple episodes got decent ratings, but.. meh, I might watch as long as nothing else airs at the same time, but I would not bother to download if I missed an episode or something else started airing in that space.

I have no faith in the quality of the long-term plot either... prepare to have nothing in the series mean anything or make any sense, because Sleepy Hollow is done by the same people that did the recent Trek Movies, so, I guess that's as good a time as any to Segue into talking about movies (I also need to talk about cartoons a bit, but it's a shame to waste a good segue, so let's do that a little later).

I saw Star Trek Into the Darkness. You may or may not recall that I was not at all impressed with the original remake, it was just full of stupid, and this... this is more of the same. The only thing these movies have going for it are some good actors and a good flashy look, it is practically completely brainless, plotholes up the wazoo. And, annoyingly, the writers treat Starfleet... well, they pretty much treat it like it's Hollywood: Where even if you haven't paid your dues or have in fact $!$@ed up spectacularly in the past, you can get control of a flagship based on a lucky success or somebody liking you personally. (Longer complaints below, some spoilers) ( Read more... )

I also watched World War Z, and... another meh. In this case, the movie itself's not bad... there are even a few good ideas here, some decent action moments. But it wasn't a World War Z movie. As I expected, it was a "Brad Pitt is awesome and fights zombies and beats impossible odds and saves the world" movie. And ANY movie could have done that, but a World War Z movie could at least have done something different that matched the book. I've mentioned this before, but I actually read (and have on my HD) what was allegedly an early script by J. Michael Straczynski where ( Read more... )

Now let's dart back to the small screen, for cartoons. Legend of Korra is back for season 2, finally, and it's good so far, although some of the manipulation is pretty obvious to everybody but Korra and I kind of want to take her aside and shake her by the shoulders to point out some of the stupidity. But it's nicely animated and got some funny moments.

Beware the Batman is the new Batman series, featuring a military-grade Alfred and Katana as a sidekick, all done in CGI. It's actually not too bad, mostly owing to the (frankly, brilliant) commitment to use obscure Bat villains instead of the classics, so we don't have to face the 30th Poison Ivy origin story, or the 30,000th Joker story. I just kind of wish they didn't go with Katana as a side kick and instead went with Cassandra Cain, or used a Stephanie Brown Robin or something. And, the animation... it's too clean and stiff. I feel like I'm watching plastic toys walking around in a plastic world. That's a risk in lots of CGI, but I've not only simply seen it done better as a whole, but it also stands out much more because Batman should be... grittier. But the stories are generally keeping my interest.

Now I have a bunch of Book Foo to get through, most of the reviews will be copypasted from Goodreads as usual, with maybe a few additional comments.

Finished: The Rapture of the Nerds by Cory Doctorow and Charlie Stross

It's after the singularity, and much of humanity has uploaded into digital consciousness out in the solar system, but there are plenty left on Earth, trying to live the old way. One of these is Huw, a technophobic Welshman who signs up for a special kind of jury duty, to evaluate a piece of new technology sent to Earth by the occasionally incomprehensible cloud, and decide whether it should be allowed among the public. Huw plans to vote no on general principle, and maybe use it as an excuse to rant about the cloud in general, but instead gets wrapped up in events that will not just change him, but potentially the whole world.

( Read more... )
Short version: It's a solid book, fast-paced, fun... probably not going to be one of my favorites, but worth-reading.

Finished: Hyperion by Dan Simmons (reread)

A war is brewing around the distant planet of Hyperion, between two factions of the descendents of old Earth, but what happens on the planet itself might affect the universe more. ( Read more... )

It was a pleasure coming back to the universe, even if it doesn't capture quite the sense of wonder as it gave me the first time I read it, and I notice a few more flaws, I still think it's a great book.

Throughout the Hyperion series there have been occasional quotes that strongly reflect my values, or I just really like, and I believe I've posted them before, but I feel like quoting again, so, I'll do that. It's non-spoilery so I'll leave it uncut:

Sol wanted to know how any ethical system--much less a religion so indomitable that it survived every evil mankind could throw at it--could flow from a command from God for a man to slaughter his son. It did not matter to Sol that the command had been rescinded at the last moment. It did not matter that the command was a test of obedience. In fact, the idea that it was the obedience of Abraham which allowed him to become the father of all the tribes of Israel was precisely what drove Sol into fits of fury.

After fifty-five years of dedicating his life and work to the study of ethical systems, Sol Weintraub had come to a single, unshakable conclusion: any allegience to a deity or concept or universal principle which put obedience above decent behavior towards an innocent human being was evil.

Finished: The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons (reread)

As interstellar war threatens the human Hegemony, a poet dreams of the planet of Hyperion and the quest of several pilgrims for the time-bending Shrike... events that are actually occurring, and may decide the fate of all of humanity. ( Read more... )

Finished: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie (received for free!)

Full disclosure, I read an Advanced Reader's Copy of this book through Goodreads' First Reads program.

The Justice of Toren was an artificially intelligent starship serving the Radch, a galactic empire, controlling both the ship itself and many ancillaries... soldier bodies that were once human, their minds replaced entirely by the AI. But that was before... now all that's left of the Justice is Breq, one of those Ancillaries, carrying on the ship's memories and a futile quest for revenge on the Radch Emperor.

( Read more... )

Short version: Quite good, I enjoyed it all the way and wanted more, has an interesting approach to gender for those who might not read the full review but are interested in such things.

Finished: I Am Legend (and other stories) by Richard Matheson (reread)

Robert Neville is possibly the last uninfected man on Earth after a plague has killed billions... and returned to life as monstrous beings that stalk the night looking for fresh blood. Every day he renews his supplies or researches the phenomenon, while by night all he can do is hole up in his home and hope the defenses hold.

This is it, the granddaddy of the zombie apocalypse tale, ( Read more... )

Finished: Endymion by Dan Simmons (reread)

Hundreds of years after the fall of the human Hegemony, a man named Endymion is rescued from execution and given a task... to intercept and protect a young girl named Aenea, expected to appear out of a portal from the past and walk into an army of soldiers controlled by the now corrupt and ruling Catholic Church, so that she may fulfill her destiny. ( Read more... )

As I recall, the last book has more problems, but this one is one of the better books in the series.

And a quote:
"Entropy is a bitch," I said.
"Now, now," said Aenea from where she was leaning on the terrace wall. "Entropy can be our friend."
"When?" I said.
She turned around so that she was leaning back on her elbows. The building behind her was a dark rectangle, serving to highlight the glow of her sunburned skin. "It wears down empires," she said. "And does in despotisms."

Finished: The Mothership by Stephen Renneberg (received for free!)

Full disclosure, I received a copy of this book through Goodreads' First Reads program.

The Mothership tells the tale of a spaceship craft in a remote part of Australian. A US military team is sent in to investigate and retrieve any alien technology they can find, and destroy it if it becomes a threat, and a few locals are also caught up in the alien crash.

This book unfortunately left me cold, (some more-than-usual spoilers ahoy)( Read more... )

Finished: The Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons (reread)

This novel concludes the Hyperion Cantos and the tale of Raul Endymion, as he stands by the messiah figure Aenea's side (or, occasionally, is forced to leave her) against the dangers of the corrupt Catholic Church who, in league with the parasitic AIs of the TechnoCore, not only want her dead, but are also about to launch a new crusade throughout the galaxy to destroy all of humanity who won't submit to their rule and the resurrection-providing cruciforms.

It serves as a pretty good conclusion, overall, ( Read more... )
Finished: Blindsight by Peter Watts (reread)

I've probably reviewed this book on LJ several times already so I won't even bother with an introduction before the cut. ( Read more... )

I'm not the kind of person to choose just one favorite book... but this would absolutely be in my top ten.

Started: The World's Best SF 4 (short story collection)
Started: Defining Diana by Hayden Trenholm (received for free!)

So, yeah, that's about all I think I have to say.

Random stuff, expect dramatic swerves of topic and no segues. (Edit: Added a few things I forgot on the rewrite)

Remembrance Day tomorrow, and so poppy-pins everywhere. Although I may have conflicted feelings about the military in general, you have to respect those who fought and died to secure or preserve our freedom.

Tried a new type of chips today from my favorite brand, the one that makes the awesome Greek chips (and a few other good varieties). This time they introduced: Maple Bacon flavor. And the verdict... it tastes like other bacon chips, basically. Sour Cream and Bacon, or Smokey Bacon/Bacon & Hickory, there are slight differences, but they taste close enough because the bacon predominates, the maple's barely there. It's good, but it lacks zazz. Now, "Bacon Jalapeno", THERE'S an idea they should try. I should totally invent chip flavors.

Stumbled across a trailer for a new movie that I'd never heard of but that might be interesting. It's a zombie movie... with a twist. Normally that's a bad sign for me. I'm a little bit of a purist when it comes to zombie movies, in some ways. I mean, I can grudgingly accept fast zombies (though slow is better, scarier), but I usually don't like concepts where they try to give the zombie personality or intelligence where they're the 'undead' but still people. This one has a bit of that twist. It's called Warm Bodies, and weirder of all, it's a ZomRomCom (Zombie Romantic Comedy), which, Shaun of the Dead aside, doesn't always work for me. And yet, this one charmed me. You can see the trailer here.

And, as though there's some magic Law of Conservation of Zombie Excitement, another trailer for a movie I WAS excited for turned me off it. That's World War Z, which I was looking forward to because I liked the book and even what I saw of an early screenplay seemed pretty good, but... then I saw the trailer. Why? ( Read more... ) I'll probably still watch it... not in the theatres, but eventually. But I'm now officially no longer excited about it.

While I'm typing this up (for the second time, a careless 'back' button deleted it the first time and apparently the auto-save didn't work) I'm watching an episode of Leverage on TV, a show with Christian Kane (who I'll always remember as lawyer from Wolfram & Hart in Angel) as one of the main cast, and this episode, Danny Strong (Jonathan on Buffy) and the guy who played one of the BIG Wolfram & Hart lawyers (can't remember his name) are in it as well, and Johnathan Frakes (Will Riker) was briefly in it as well. Never really watched the show before, at least more than a couple minutes, but it's mildly entertaining.

Lately I've been feeling a lot of... I don't know, I guess nervous energy, undirected, maybe undirectable. I feel like I want change, though I know it'll never happen, that I want to move, even though I've nowhere to go, that I want to talk, even though I've nothing to say. There's just a restlessness inside of me and unfortunately I can't seem to channel it into anything productive.

There's a SF con this weekend, more for written SF than TV stars and such, they have panels with various authors getting together discussing various things, along with traditional stuff like a dealer's room and costume contests, but no 'celebrities'. Anyway, I'm not going (and yes, I'm aware I just said I had nowhere to go, that isn't quite what I meant)... $40 for one day and I'm not feeling especially personable.

Earlier this week I went to check out bookstores. Picked up:
The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman
and
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi (if you're wondering, as I was, the name is apparently Finnish)

On the last one, bit of a (boring) story. Bought it new at a bookstore, in hardcover, but it was the deep discount so it wasn't too bad, and the book looked interesting. Later, in a used bookstore, I noticed the exact same book, in paperback, for $2 cheaper. Now, I don't really care about the money (although, ideally, yeah, I'd have preferred to pay $2 less), I just would have rather had paperback, I much prefer reading and storing paperback books, and now I'm stuck with the hardcover. I did manage to overcome my social anxiety for a moment (yay me!) and ask the bookstore owner if he'd be willing to consider a trade, the new hardcover for the somewhat beat up paperback, but (though he was polite and apologetic about it) he wasn't interested, apparently hardcover sf books don't sell very well. Oh well, it still looks interesting.

Also while I was down there saw what I thought was a new Silver Snail satellite store, but, after looking on line, it seemed that they actually moved there from their iconic location and storefront that I was so familiar with (but was so far out of my way that I almost never visit anymore). Kind of a shame, it's so much less distinctive at its new place, but it's so much more convenient for me. I didn't actually go inside this time, but I will take a look next time.

So, apparently the US had an election this week. I don't normally go into politics much, but I'll just say I think you guys there made the right choice... or at least, the least wrong choice of the two available to you. Both options certainly have big downsides, but I think you made the right call out of the two. (And that's not nothing... here in Canada we've got 4 parties, maybe 3 with a decent chance nationally, and somehow we keep electing the worst of the bunch!) Anyway, enough on that.

Random Thought: Heaven is just a fully customizable user interface to existence itself.

I've been thinking a bit on Halloween and cosplay lately. Specifically, I've been idly considering trying to assemble one (1) or more (+) costume over the course of a year or more, and try to do a really good job... even if I never actually get up the nerve to use it, just to have it, so if I ever get a decent opportunity it's one less hurdle I'd have to cross. The main problem, aside from not having any skill or experience in such or the nerve to wear it, is deciding who. Deciding on somebody I like enough to dress up as is just one step. Unlike many cosplayers who don't seem to have a problem with it (and more power to them for that, but it just doesn't work for me), I kind of have to feel like I actually look something like who/what I'm dressing up as already, otherwise I'd feel like I'm just dressing up in clothes like them, not dressing up AS someone. I mean, I'm not crazy, I know I'm nowhere near as good looking as anyone who's been on TV, but there has to be a certain amount of similarity for my mind to make the leap. And I can't really think of any good options. The only one who sort of comes close is, if I've got my hair long as I tend to over the winter, and leave myself unshaven, maybe, maybe, Jon Snow from Game of Thrones (again, nowhere near as attractive). But that's a pretty elaborate costume, particularly for a first attempt (complicated more by the fact that my hair isn't usually long enough by Halloween, and by summer con season I've cut it short). Anyway, just a thought.

And I believe that's the end of my random post. Da-da-da-da-da-da! (I don't know what that was, I think it was a musical flourish to end on).

At work somebody saw me reading the first Riverworld book and asked me about it, and when I was trying to describe what it was about, I mentioned that it's probably in the Top Ten "Big Ideas" in Science Fiction, although, unfortunately, the story doesn't quite live up to the idea.

Now, I sort of said that as a flippant way, not really knowing what the others were, but it got me thinking. What would you say are the Top Ten Big Ideas in Science Fiction?

I think the qualifiers must be: 1) It should have been either created or popularized by pretty much one person maybe two, through some kind of visionary leap (Space Travel doesn't count, since there were stories before we knew that Space was an airless, impassable void... Time Travel might because for all of human experience man has only gone one way). There might be other examples before or after, but you should be able to point to an originating source of the TREND with some sort of authority. 2) It has to have been widely imitated since (which MIGHT leave Riverworld out, but we might be able to slip it in under a wider category... or, maybe the top 5 would have to be, and from 5-10 might be specific ideas that are unique and specific enough that it's hard to imitate, or ripe for exploitation but yet hasn't happened yet). 3) It has to be a science fictional idea, as opposed to a fantasy one (for example, Time Travel through 'magic' might have been done before Wells, but to qualify for the list we're looking at the Science Fictional view of Time Travel).

Here's what I've come up with (this is an unordered top ten... or at least Top 5, because ordered "Top" lists always tend to annoy me)...

1) Time Travel (originator/popularizer: HG Wells)
2) Alternate Universes (Murray Leinster)
3) The Singularity (Vernor Vinge)
4) Zombie Apocalypse (George Romero and/or Richard Matheson... a bit iffy... I'd give it to Matheson, because his was more deliberately science fictional, I Am Legend's plague being caused by a virus... the big idea here being a a world-destroying virus that turns people into monsters and the victims of the monsters join the horde... really there's elements of both)
5) Artificial Intelligence/Robotics (Karel Capek)

We might be able to squeeze Riverworld either under the 6-10 rule, or as a general "Everybody In History Returns to Life together", though I'm not sure that's been especially widely imitated (Some Singularity fiction proposes the idea of everyone being simulated after their death, but other than that I can't think of any good examples... I do think it's RIPE for exploration).

Any other examples people on my flist can think of?

Finished: Glasshouse, by Charles Stross (reread)
Started: Sun of Suns (Book One of Virga), by Karl Schroeder (reread, but signed version!)

It's a reread, so I don't really have extended comments as usual. Some of the things that annoyed me the first time around didn't seem quite as bad, but like last time, I was less interested in the main plot than I was the world revealed through the flashbacks. I'd really like to see more in this future history universe. Particularly (minor spoilers) ( Read more... ).

Finished: The Year's Best SF #13 (short story collection)
Started: Shadows Bend, by David Barbour and Richard Raleigh

Another short story collection, but pretty good. I quite like this particular anthology series, on the whole. This one had a few less hits than the previous ones, but there was some nice work here. I particularly liked Artifice and Intelligence, by Tim Pratt, probably my pick of the book.

What else? Thanks for the congratulations on my last post, detailing my short story evaluation at the library. I didn't respond yet to most of them because I'm still trying to detox from the event... I'm getting there, but my brain STILL constantly tries to think up what I SHOULD have said. (That's actually one of the reasons social interactions is so hard. It's not just the time before of nervousness, it's the time AFTER, even when it went WELL, both that I'm slave to an event that, in any sane world, should last not much longer than the event itself). But I do plan to go back and comment on those that need commenting. Anyway, despite that, I am very tentatively considering actually going to that workshop later this month. It depends on finding out, probably without asking, a few things, though. (whether a signup is required, whether anything is required to be brought, like a laptop, which I don't have, or there's means to write there, and whether there are going to be any conflicting plans for my birthday on that day, by my family, which is possible).

Still quite enjoying Caprica, really look forward to it next week, and only a week or so to the new Who, so that's nice. Survivors ended, pretty good year, though perhaps not as good as last and a couple changes I'm not happy about, but ah well. Still hope it comes back next year.

Edit: Oh, and finally, the Olympics are over. I don't care about the medals or hockey or anything like that. I'm just glad it's on my TV. Every Olympic games, I have my own private competition with myself... I try to watch as little Olympic footage as possible (only counting actual olympic coverage, rather than after-the-fact news reports which I tend to have to suffer through if I want to watch news at all). My record is .5 seconds. This time, I didn't do so well, something like 5-10 seconds (I have fewer channels so there's more chance of stumbling across it accidentally, combined with my channel changer starting to get a little slow on me).

Yep. I'm done. 50,000 words, in 14 days. Almost 13 days, but I figured I'd save the last 350 or so for today. Not a full NaNoWriMo of course, because it wasn't one novel, but it was almost that. All but about 10k I worked on a single project, albeit it one I'd thought about for a while and written a tiny bit on before.

( General information on what I was writing )

As for some lessons learned from this go around... ( Read more... )

A more prosaic lesson I learned is that my keyboard is worse off than I thought. Every so often the Alt key seems to trigger on its own while I'm typing, sending me into the menus of my Word program, or, at best, making it so what I type doesn't shut up (because it's waiting for me to click back in the window that I somehow navigated out of). Very distracting. :P.

Apparently it's a Banksapalooza!

Finished: The State of the Art, by Iain M. Banks (short story collection)

Thoughts in the cut, not especially spoilery.
( Read more... )

Apparently Paul Cornell (Doctor Who writer and writer of the excellent but now cancelled Captain Britain and MI13 comic) did a radio adaptation of the title story. I might have to track it down just to see what he did with it.

Started and Finished: Feersum Endjinn, by Iain M. Banks.
Started: Inversions, by Iain M. Banks

Minor plot-outline related spoilers beyond the cuts, but nothing extensive. ( Read more... )
Those of you who've read some Banks may have noticed a particular tendency of his. He likes to construct elaborate, creative methods of execution and/or torture. For those of you who wonder if this is reflective of a certain sadistic streak of Banks himself may find their best evidence here. ( Read more... )

Finished: The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
Started: Against a Dark Background, by Iain M. Banks

Again, plot-outline-style spoilers behind cut. Short version: Bored at times, maybe a bit overlong, but some interesting ideas. Not my favorite of his, but worth a read if you like his other stuff.
( Read more... )

For me, that is.

So I was walking to work, about 6am, nearly there, and then what to my wandering eye did appear? A milkcrate on the curb with stuff in it. Now, normally I don't pay such things that much attention, but I glance over as I'm about to pass and I notice there's books inside it. And, I recognize one of the names on the books, it's Iain M. Banks. Now, this is fairly unusual for me, because normally when I find stuff on the curb people are getting rid of, a) it's very rarely books, and b) when it is, it's very rarely SF.

So I start looking through the box, and my excitement grows as I realize, hey, there are a lot of books in there by Iain M. Banks. Hell, it's practically his entire output of SF save for his newest one, and a few of his non-SF (which he writes without the M. initial). There were a few other non-Banks books but they were either not SF or were SF I already owned (To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis, Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven). Still, I wound up taking the following:

Against a Dark Background
Feersum Endjinn
Inversions
The Algebraist
The State of the Art

(For those wondering if maybe it wasn't intended to be given away, the box and books were still there hours later when I left work, so I have to assume it wasn't meant for keeps. And my rule is, if it's by the curb and nobody's around, it's free. That's how I got that new car.)

Let's start with Battlestar Galactica. I've come up with a theory about what's going on, and, since it will be spoilery for the newest eps, and theoretically if correct, might (but probably not) spoil upcoming stuff. Some of you may have heard some of this before.

( Read more... )

On to cartoons. Over the weekend, I watched several (mostly because my net was down sunday morning but I had them already).

Wolverine and the X-Men, ep 14. Another Wolverine centered episode. Some interesting choices, and a smile now and then, but as always, I don't much care when he's the focus. Introduction of an expected character, too.

Hulk vs. Thor. This actually seemed more like an episode of a hypothetical, lost, Thor series than a true crossover. (minimal spoilers) ( Read more... )

And, Hulk vs. Wolverine. This one is supposedly a prequel to the Wolverine and the X-Men series. I'm not 100% sure it works (a few potential continuity blips). But really, it's only okay. (Some minor spoilers, characters that appear). ( Read more... ) If you do watch this, be sure to watch past the end of the credits.

And, the first Book Foo of 2009!

Finished: Wild Cards, Vol 6: Ace in the Hole, edited by George R. R. Martin (reread)
Started: Wild Cards, Vol 7: Dead Man's Hand, by George R. R. Martin and John J. Miller (reread)

Some brief comments on AitH behind the cut, some spoilers.
( Read more... )
On to the last WC I'll probably be rereading (unless I happen to stumble across the next volume I haven't read, but that's unlikely)

Finished: Ilium, by Dan Simmons (reread)
Started: Olympos, by Dan Simmons (reread)

Minor spoilers (mostly back of the book stuff) in a few brief comments behind the cut. ( Read more... )

Oh, and an interesting trivia note you might not be aware of. Today, US President George W. Bush left office and President Barack Obama officially became the 44th President. "Former President George W. Bush"... that has a nice ring to it somehow.

Oh, and Marvel released its April Solicitations. Some quick thoughts:

Man, I know he's got a movie out, but 10 Wolverine books this month? That's just crazy.

Looks like the rumors of a new old-school New Mutants ongoing series is pretty much fact, because they're releasing "New Mutants Saga #1", one of those prose-recap-lets-get-you-up-to-speed-on-past-continuity-for-cheap issues that they often do right before a relaunch with some history. I might have to try that out, despite my lack of interest in mutant titles.

And really, the only surprise? A relaunched Exiles series, written by Jeff Parker. He's behind the First Class comics, and since I always liked Exiles basic idea, just couldn't stand to read it under certain authors, I might actually pick it up. The cast leaves a little to be desired, but in Exiles they can change quickly.

End of Ultimate Spider-Man... probably just for a relaunch. But really, the Ultimate universe died for me the day they assigned any of it to LOEB.

A new major event effecting every other title starting in the regular Spider-Man books? Please, I've had enough of your events. Unless it a) repowers mutants, or b) reverts the crap of BND, I'm not interested and am plugging my ears with my fingers and shouting la-la-la. (Okay, there's a c... adds oldschool New Universe characters to the MU proper. But that's like a million to one shot).

Dark Reign: The Cabal? Eegads, that means in my imaginary Runaways fanon universe I toy with from time to time I can't use the Cabal as the name of the new villain group that wants to take over the Pride's territory! Damn you Marvel for messing up with my imaginary runs. I suppose I'll have to ignore you!

Moore's last issue on Runaways, hope they announce a new creative team, and a good creative team, soon. Maybe Jeff Parker might be an idea, he seems capable of multiple titles and I've liked what I've seen of him short term in Scans of hisbooks.

First, a happy birthday to liabrown and izzat!!

Secondly, even though I don't celebrate New Years, I hope all of you have a happy one.

No comics today, even if they were delivered nothing was interesting. This has been a year that's killed most of my interest.

Work was okay.

And, getting it just under the wire, my final book foo of 2008.

Finished: Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman (reread)
Started: To be announced. Haven't decided yet. Will probably be a reread, though.

Thoughts on FP behind the cut. Spoilery a bit in terms of feelings and tone, but not really in terms of plot elements (except basic back-of-the-book type description). Short version: Pretty good on a mixed read, but starts better than it ends up, and YMMV a lot.
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And to close up, here is my 2008 Reading List! Cut for your sanity (includes some links to the full text of the books, made available online by the authors)! These are listed more or less in order of reading (any two books next to each other may or may not have been read in the proper order, but with rare exceptions any book on the list was read earlier than a book two numbers down. Not that anybody cares).

1. The Paradox of the Sets, by Brian Stableford
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59. Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman (reread)

Wow, 59 books. And I wasn't even really trying for the '50 books in a year', and pretty much (with the exception of a few books read online) just reading while walking, at work waiting for it to start, or in the laundry room. Not bad if I do say so myself. Interestingly, I didn't realize that I discovered Karl Schroeder and read through most of the Culture books all in this year. Also read a lot of books involving, in one way or another, the concept of the Singularity.

Finished: Camouflage, by Joe Haldeman (Nebula Award Winner)
Started: Probability Moon, by Nancy Kress

Thoughts behind cut, not especially spoilery but depends on tolerance. Short version: Mildly liked it.
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Finished: Lady of Mazes, by Karl Schroeder
Started: A Meeting At Corvallis, by S.M. Stirling

Detailed thoughts behind the cut, not terribly spoilery beyond plot thumbnail. Short version: Really enjoyed it.
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And, stolen from angelophile, reports on a guest star on next season's Sarah Jane Adventures... and I think I might have to download an ep. Photo here (spoilers, obviously)