Number6's Journal

So, lots of stuff on a lot of different fronts, that... well, I don't know that I have a whole lot to say, but sometimes you just gotta talk even if it's just to say nothing. So, TV, comics, a bit of overdue book foo, and even a bit of life (not that I really have one).

Normally I start with Book foo, but let's change it up a little and end with it. Because I am "wacky" like that.

So, comics. I've been... drifting away from comics. Like I'm on a inflatable raft and the tide's dragging me away. Except, a lot of it is the comic companies pushing me away. I mean, what with DC rebooting everything, into crap, and removing my favorite characters/concepts in favor of "iconic" crap, and Marvel... just not being very good. Not 'drive me away' bad, but not 'getting me into the store' good, with no concepts or characters that make me want to pick up the book. The last ongoing I had been reading (New Mutants), just pretty well turned to crap when they shifted creative team and removed a bunch of cast members I liked and replaced them with ones I don't care about or dislike (not to mention some pretty bad art and a few stories that I just do not care for at all). So I dropped it, and haven't been in a comic store in months. In fact, this month, I actually LOST more comics than I gained - I decided to toss a few of the more forgettable issues of X-Men Unlimited, dropping them off on the 'free to take' table on the Laundry Room, maybe some kid will like them.


However, one recent development makes me just the teensiest bit excited about Marvel again... not right now, perhaps, but for the future (unfortunately, it's paired with another development that will quite possibly drive me further away). Spoilers for comics in the last 2-3 weeks I think, behind cut, and ones that are announced but not yet appearing.

So, at the end of the latest AvX (Avengers vs X-Men) event, one that seemed generally dumb and from what I've seen of most of the aftermath, not much better, but that have done ONE thing that I've wanted for a while. ( Read more... )

But at least there's some hope for the future... except, one of the stupid upcoming miniseries is "Avengers Arena", where Arcade abducts a bunch of super-powered teens and forces them to fight to the death, Battle Royale style (and they knocked-off Battle Royale's logo, too, so it's very deliberate). Normally, I'd think it's a dumb, bad idea, but I could ignore it, except for one thing. Two of the characters drafted into it are from Runaways, one of my favorite teams from the last decade of comics... Chase and Nico are abducted and presumably will be forced to kill or be killed.

Marvel, if you permanently kill off either of them in a stupid knockoff mini, I will mostly likely drop you. 90% of the reason I dropped DC was because they removed Oracle to make room for Batgirl, so don't think I won't do it. I already imagine my own stories to replace the horrible last runs of Runaways, if you make me imagine around the deaths of two of my favorite characters, I'll just stick to the Marvel Universe in my imagination.


On to TV, and sticking to comics theme, I checked out Arrow and... I'm whelmed. I'm not sold, it seems a little... heartless (not cruel, but just that it doesn't have the zing of a movie that the people in it really enjoy doing). The main character especially is a bit flat and his action moves a bit over-the-top. But, it was a pilot, so I'll give it a few episodes to get going before I make a final decision.

Also watched Doctor Horrible again, on TV when it aired on the CW on Tuesday... enjoyed it of course, but adding commercials really messes with the pacing. Between the act breaks is fine, but there's one more commercial per act and it just doesn't... flow right. Anyway, still was fun to catch up, although, with a few exceptions, my memory had faded on many of the lyrics.

Other shows, new, old, and upcoming...

WALKING DEAD THIS WEEK. That is all I have to say on that subject, but I hope my caps lock has conveyed my excitement properly.

Supernatural: I'm not sure if it gets worse every year these days, or if it's about the same level of badness, only I get used to it and then in the summer months off I lose my resistance, but it starts feeling stupid again. Watching on pure inertia (and a little, to mock).

Fringe: Oh, what has happened to you show? Although I wasn't quite as into it as other shows, or other people, but there were moments of brilliance and at least a real spark. But this season with your shift into the Observer plotline, it's just not the same show anymore.

And I'm okay with a show changing dramatically... heck, I always used to think that the West Wing should have, in its final year, gone all out and dealt with a alien first contact, or 24 deal with a zombie apocalypse in its last year. But it should at least be as good as what it was before. Instead, we're treated to the billionth iteration of "fighting against an evil dictatorship" when there were so many cooler stories dealing with multiple universes. I'll keep watching because I have an sbsurd loyalty to shows I used to enjoy (see above re: Supernatural), but I don't really care much anymore.

Last Resort: Giving it a try. Interesting premise, not entirely sure it works as a series, but I'm interested, at least.

Revolution: Started out okay. Not great, and with flaws in the premise (electricity doesn't work, fine, but if guns work, then at least some kind of steam-run technology should be possible... not steam powered electronics, but just simple "expanding hot air/water vapour moving things", and even some very simple vehicles). The main problem, in the latest episode (spoilers) ( Read more... )

Doctor Who: A bit weak this season, and with a lot more plotholes than I'd like. And I think... hey, I like Moffat. And in my world, he'd always be welcome to write an episode. But I think I'm ready for him to move on as a showrunner and get somebody else. Somebody who can write without plots either full of insanely complicated twisting time-branches, or hopelessly plot-hole-riddled things that look like he wrote in an afternoon. Just stories of average complexity that hold together well past a moment's though. And someone who can think of the consequences of what he puts together. Still, I'm interested in seeing how the show changes with the Christmas special and beyond.

Once Upon a Time: I haven't talked about this much because I was never that into it in the first year. A bit silly, and too much dillydallying, where you knew they were stretching out the plot and so
any time you THOUGHT there would be development, it would all be undone by a "surprise" revelation that the person you thought was getting their comeuppance was actually aware of what was going on all the time, stuff like that. I had a bad feeling that they were going to follow that pattern for the whole five years (or more) of the show. It just barely held my attention, mostly because there's just nothing else on Sunday nights (that doesn't come on another channel were I have to download it later).

But I've gotta give them credit. They made a big move in the season finale, a big change, and it's improved the prospects of the show dramatically, and the first couple episodes have actually got me more interested than I had been anywhere in the last year.

Grimm: Another show on the 'I don't love it, but I watch it' bubble. They made one big good change this year (letting the partner in on the secret), and one big bad change this year (the whole Juliet plot... just... just let her go, write her out. It's stupid and painful to watch (and not in a good way), and worst of all... you teased a DREAM SEQUENCE of her problem this year being resolved. Amnesia wasn't hacky enough, you have to pull the ultra-hacky "look, plot development... nope, dream!" in a teaser. If there's one person handling that plot, they should be gently let go.

I think that's it for TV... there are a few other shows I watch but they're usually more episodic formula and so, although there are a few ongoing plotlines, you could miss bunches of episodes and it not really matter much and so they're kind of immune to my being particularly disappointed by or excited by them, and as such, don't feel the need to talk about them.

So I think that's it for TV and comics... any movies? Well, I did watch the Dark Knight Returns, Part 1. That's the animated adaptation of the classic story. I enjoyed it for the most part. I always though the general ideas were good but I didn't much like Millar's presentation of it, but as an actual movie it looks and feels a lot better. Voices are good except Weller's a little flat as Batman. Don't know that it needed to be two parts, considering part one's only 45 minutes of actual runtime (and another half hour or so of Making-Of features it looks like), they could have put it together into one.

So I guess now it's time for Book Foo.

Finished: Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds

The third part in a space opera involving machines dedicated to wiping out all sentient life, this one much of the action centers on a small icy moon of a gas giant that has a religion sprung up around it, because the gas giant, occasionally, vanishes for a few split seconds. And the people from the last books continue on and stuff. Trying to be vaguey and non spoilery here, but there will be fairly big spoilers after the cut.

It was okay, except the ending really left me with a sense of "wait, that's IT?", and in the worst possible way.( Read more... )

Finished: Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan (Kovacs trilogy, #2) (reread)

Not much to say here, read it a couple times before and commented on it then.

Finished: 7th Sigma by Steven Gould
This novel centers on a teen living on his own in the Territory: an area of the southwestern US running on low technology... because of a race of self-reproducing robotic bugs that seek out all metal/electronics and devour it to make more of themselves (even if that means digging into your body to grab your pacemaker). The novel isn't really about the bugs, they're just an ever-present background (and it's sort of set up for a sequel where they take a bigger role), it's mostly just an excuse for a series of low-tech adventures, a little like a western. The series is highly inspired by the story Kim by Rudyard Kipling, and like that (supposedly) it's a bit of a picaresque... loosely connected series of events as the hero grows up. He also gets involved in undercover work for the law.

Now, the teen is uber-competent, which is okay I guess because this really kind of does feel like teen fiction, but it's a little grating after a while. The book didn't grab me like some of the author's other work, but I'd read a sequel if it came out.

In other news from this author, in a few months the third book in the Jumper series is due to be released, and I'm very excited, since I love that series.

Finished: Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan (Kovacs trilogy, #3) (reread)

Again, reread, nothing especially new to say.

Finished: Little Fuzzy by John Scalzi

A sort of "reboot"/reimagining of the Fuzzy books by H. Beam Piper. I've never read them, though I always had them on my 'look for' list in used bookstores. I probably will check out the original too. Anyway, the story concerns a prospector on an alien planet who strikes it rich with a discovery, and then makes another discovery... a race of primitive animals nobody's discovered there yet, which is interesting but nothing special... until he lets his ex-GF know and she starts to believe that they may actually be an intelligent species. That means the planet belongs to them and all commercial exploitation of the planet has to stop. And since people stand to make hundreds of billions of credits off the planet, it's in a lot of people's best interests, including the main character's, to not see them as people.

It's competently done, I guess. It feels more like a short story padded out rather than a novel, by which I mean a little simplistic and lean, but not in a bad way, just kind of a feelgood tale (with some decidedly not feelgood parts to get you there) tightly focused on exploring one particular idea and everything else being in service to that. Enjoyable without being particularly deep (even if some of the issues explored kind of call out for a little more deepness).

Started: Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (reread)
Started: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

And with books out of the way, what's left? Well, I guess I can do a life update, such as it is. Well, last weekend was Thanksgiving (in Canada)... just had a small one with my dad, stepmom, and grandmother (and of course, brother and sister-in-law who I live with anyway). Instead of the traditional turkey, they decided to do something different and have steak and spare ribs. Very good meal of course, though I felt a little disconnected from everything. Today we're actually having turkey, since I bought a small one in the pre-Thanksgiving sales just for me and the roommates because we figured, why miss out?

Otherwise... my life continues. That's about all I can say. I guess I'm depressed. I say I guess, because I feel rather numb about it all, disconnected as I mentioned above... I don't actually feel (or consciously feel) any 'oh my god I'm so sad' feelings, at least no more than I usually do, but there's other evidence. I've been sleeping more, with longer naps during the day. I haven't been doing much of what normally I enjoy, like writing... been about a week since I wrote more than a few words at a time. Don't think I'll be doing my "100 Words of Horror" thing this year, nothing's coming to me, and very few others ever took up the challenge anyway, so I doubt it'd be missed.

And as you can see I've been a bit blah on TV and books lately, which may be them, but also may be me. And I tend to wind up either doing nothing (or napping) instead because I'm just not interested enough to do anything, and I have nothing really to replace it with, either. Not like I really have friends to go out with or anything.

Other possible evidence... I don't know if this is related or not, since my eyes have always been a bit funky, but I've noticed a sort of... weirdness to my vision. Like, things are too bright and a little... off. And the thing is, it only happens when I'm somewhere other than home/work. Sometimes on the walk to/from work, but mostly on the rare times I deviate from the routine. It's a little uncomfortable and distracting, but hard to describe... the best I can come with is... there's a certain thing like it in dreams, where it's almost like my view is moving slightly independently from my eyes. Like, there's a screen projected right in front of my eyes, and normally I don't notice that it's a screen because everything moves like it's supposed to and reacts to my movements instantly, but every once in a while, it's a little laggy, and my eyes move more than my view and it's jarring. It's a little like that. Or maybe like my eyes have figured out that everything I'm seeing is fake and is trying to move a little too fast on purpose in order to catch the lag, which, even if it doesn't actually do that (and if it does, I can only hope it'd let me wake up), is still disorienting.

Or maybe I'm just going crazy(er). Regardless. It's not ever present, it's just every once in a while and just the possible evidence of depression. So yeah, I'm comfortable in declaring that I'm a lot more depressed than usual, even if I'm not actually feeling it much. I've been trying to combat it, trying to force myself into writing hoping that it'll just work over the bump, and limiting the unnecessary sleep (which I know can be corrosive) and even by deliberately making an effort to check Facebook regularly instead of only every few weeks. I'm honestly not sure if that last one's helping or hurting. But it's doing something.

And to leave it on random moments of happiness and things that make me smile, right now I'm watching The Incredible Hulk on TV, and they just had the scene where Bruce dumps all Betty's stuff on the bed and tells her "Basically we can't use any of this stuff without being tracked." And then she says "What about my lip gloss can we use that?" And then points out her glasses. And then he realizes, yes, most of the stuff THEY can use (including CASH), just a few things that they can't. It's such a little scene but it's probably my favorite one in the movie (which I feel is a little underrated overall).

(warning, self-pity ahoy, you are under no obligation to read)

So,finally screwed up the courage to send out a short story to another magazine. And 16 hours later (before I even had the chance to post that I'd done so), rejection. I guess it's good (implications that it was so terrible that it didn't even need to be considered for a full day aside) that I got the rejection right away. It would let me send it somewhere else, if I had somewhere else to send it or the energy to do so... and it allowed me to cut out much of the mildly pleasant but ultimately corrosive vice of hope. Why, all in all I only had a few minutes while drifting off to bed to really consider it possibly being accepted.

But that doesn't make it any less of a blow, or any less likely to have sent me into a spiral of sad. :P. Possibly not the best timing to have chosen to do it before the con this weekend, now chances are I'll be depressed in advance of it and that'll make it less easy to have fun, not to mention that even if it's enjoyable I tend to feel depressed afterwards due to the whole 'lonely even in a roomful of geeks' factor.

Probably won't get much writing done this week. Need a little wallowing time. But I will continue, after all, what choice do I have? It's the last dream I have left that might give my life any kind of meaning or satisfaction, that I haven't already accepted was impossible for me. And without dreams, what's to live for, aside from minimizing the pain I cause to those I care about?

I think I will possibly indulge in a gyro after the con, if I don't decide to back out of the con entirely.

Okay, maybe two dreams I haven't given up as impossible... writing and eating gyros. Not much to live for, but it's something.

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

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

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

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

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.

First, I might as well get it out of the way. No NaNo for me this year, not even my usual "I'll try to meet 50,000 words as a total of various short story writings). For the longest time I've been in a big writing slump with nothing really exciting me, storywise, and it'd just be painful to try to do NaNo with it. I will be trying to keep up with my normal slog of timed writing, of course. I have at least had a couple ideas recently that interest me enough to want to explore them, but I'm still not sure what I want to do with them and I don't want to burn myself out on them with NaNo style forced writing.

In life, nothing's happening.

So let's go to books.

Finished: The Waste Lands (Dark Tower Book III, by Stephen King (reread)
Started: Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower Book IV, by Stephen King (reread)

Still enjoying it, but not as much as first read. Of course, the Waste Lands is one of my favorites, because the scenes with Jake in New York call out to me. Especially this passage:
( Read more... )

Finished: The Temporal Void, by Peter Hamilton
Started: Tesseracts 4 (short story collection)

Temporal Void was okay. A sequel to The Dreaming Void, at least to some extent I'm satisfied one one of my problems from the last book. On the other hand, I'm still not really feeling attached to any of the characters. It's decent fun, some cool ideas, but I'm not invested really. Some spoilers. ( Read more... )

Now, moving away from books... What's been on TV?

I'm pretty much given up on The Event. I just don't care from episode to episode. I don't care about any of the characters. I don't even care about what the mission of the detainees was. Again, I'll watch it, but only because nothing else is worth watching at that time (on a channel I get).

No Ordinary Family, the other new show, I'm still watching, but... I don't know, it sort of rings hollow. Like, it's an ABC show, but it feels more like a Disney show where minor characters occasionally die. Everybody learns valuable life lessons from their powers and nothing really edgy ever happens. And, unfortunately, in many ways, that makes it really predictable. (Some spoilers for recent episodes). ( Read more... )

Again, I'm still watching it, but mostly I want Speedy-Mom's Geeky Kitty-Pryde-Fangirl-Sidekick to dose herself with whatever's causing the powers and then do her own superhero stuff without everybody else.

What else... well, in bad news, Caprica is officially cancelled. Supposedly Canada is airing the remaining episodes in the next few weeks, but thus far they have not shown up via... "magic" yet so I've been unable to watch it.

It really is a shame, because in many ways it's one of the very few really good attempts at a "pure" SF show that's not space-based. It plausibly invents a whole new society similar to our own but with enough differences to be fascinating, and deals with a lot of big SF concepts and yet where the story is still driven by the characters. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I'm really disappointed it's being axed and replaced with "BSG: Blood and Iron" (set during the first Cylon War, with a young Adama and Battlestar Galactica again, fighting cylons). More action-war-explodey stuff. Which is fine. I'll almost certainly watch it and enjoy it. But it's "more of the same". Caprica was something special and is going away. I almost think Caprica was hurt by the BSG association, because a) I'm not sure it REALLY fits with any of the canon (and for once, I don't care one bit, it works as a solo piece), and b) it gave people some false expectations. On the other hand, it probably would never be made without those associations. I tip my hat to you, Caprica. You're no Firefly, and I probably won't even miss you as much as Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but I think you could have done some great things if given the chance.

It's former sister show, Stargate Universe, is still ongoing, and still doing pretty well, in terms of enjoyability, although ratings-wise it's still struggling. The last episode "Trial and Error" was a little weaker than most, but it surprised me in a couple good ways, too. I will go into spoilers behind the cut, but mainly because it edged onto a story idea I had way back when I first heard of the concept. It didn't really do anything THAT similar, but it hit the point where I can't see them ever doing both what they did in this episode AND my idea, so I might as well reveal my story idea. So, spoilers and a plot-idea-I-might-have-done-if-I-wrote-for-Stargate (and I should totally write for Stargate!) behind the cut. ( Read more... )

The other big TV thing recently was "The Walking Dead"'s premiere. And it seems to have done very well in the ratings, beating even Mad Men for AMC, and that may be just because it was on Halloween and everyone was in a horror mood. And of course not all those viewers might stick around. But it's a good sign and gives me hope for a S2 with characters like Michonne (I totally nominate Gina Torres as Michonne). The episode itself? I actually got a look at the script many months ago. And the show episode matched the script, so really, there were no surprises for me in this episode. However, it was well-put together, well acted, and the zombies looked suitabley creepy. Very much looking forward to more.

And since we finished on zombies, that feels like a nice segue to dreams, because I had a couple zombie dreams in the past couple weeks. Except, they weren't traditional zombie dreams.

Basically, they were zombie ROLEPLAYING dreams.

I had one dream where I was playing a MUSH (with several old people from XET), that was basically a zombie apocalypse theme as a special limited run dream for Halloween. Which I'm sure has at least been suggested and probably done before, and I'm not all that sure I'd want to play it, but it was amusing. Specifically, the dream was a lot of text-based roleplaying. It was a big scene so I kept trying (and failing, because the text kept changing) to make sure what I was about to pose made sense with what was posed by other people.

The other one was different... it was sort of a LIVE ACTIONG Zombie RPG. Everybody was out in some closed-off town-looking area, and I guess we were all there to play a zombie RPG. ( Read more... ) Sadly most of my other dreams have just been dull or unmemorable, much like my life. Ah well.

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).

First one in a while, since I stopped buying the only comics I buy due to the crossover.

I got:
New Mutants #15 (interesting setup, although since I skipped the crossover a bunch of what they're talking about doesn't mean that much to me)

I also picked up some nice finds in the used bookstore:

Tatja Grimm's World, by Vernor Vinge (early novel)
The Dreaming Void, by Peter F. Hamilton
The Exile Kiss, by George Alec Effinger (Book 3 of the Budayeen/Marid Audran novels)
and
Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card (and a pretty good deal for used in hardcover too... I'd have preferred softcover but most used bookstores would even sell the softcover for more than that)

And, in video game news, I picked up Left 4 Dead 2. You know me and the zombies. I've been having a ball playing #1 online. I'll practice a bit on the levels for 2 solo (so I get a little familiar with the maps) before playing that on line.

And blah, mid-writing this, checked my e-mail, another rejection on a short story. I didn't really expect much, since it was one of the big ones (Asimov's), but still harshes my buzz from the purchases. So that particular one's going on in the trunk for a little while, maybe to try again if I get a printer or one of the current 'mail only' places opens up to e-mail submissions.

Finished: Saturn's Children, by Charles Stross
Started: Revelation Space, by Alastair Reynolds (reread)

Saturn's Children is supposedly a bit of a late Heinlein pastiche/homage. Which kinda worried me, because late Heinlein was not very good. But I've liked Stross before, so I wanted to give it a chance. Furthur thoughts and back-of-the-book style synopsis spoilers behind cut. ( Read more... )

Finished: Fisherman's Hope, by David Feintuch (reread)
Started: Voices of Hope, by David Feintuch (reread)

Reread, so nothing really much to say. Next book in the series is the kind of lame one, but then the series starts to pick up again and focus on the main character.

The latest Who was Victory of the Daleks. And it was a bit lame, but it felt like they were SO close to having a good Dalek story. The elements were there, but it didn't work together. (Thoughts, spoilers, ahoy).

( Read more... )

Anyway, Moffat... I know you didn't write this episodes, but you're the executive producer, you should be exerting a bit more quality control!

What else to talk about?

In comics, New Mutants Forever was finally solicited, though I think I forgot to mention it when it was announced. Claremont picking up from the original New mutants #50-something when he left the book, and continuing the plots he had in place. It may be that I'll only be buying two comics, and both of them will be New Mutants. Weird. Also, there's a new Young Justice cartoon coming, with Miss Martian (who was one of my favorite characters in Teen Titans One Year Later, but wasn't enough for me to not drop the book), and rumors of a new Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon) project, possibly a Book Four have been flowing around the last few days. Unfortunately, it looks like not only has Spectacular Spider-Man been cancelled (in favor of "Ultimate Spider-Man" on Disney in 2011), but so has Wolverine and the X-Men, despite it being previously announced that they were getting a second season. Financing fell through, I guess. It sucks, but I kind of hope they do the same thing as Spider-Man - immediately start an Ultimate X-Men cartoon in production, even one set in the same universe (so we could get Kitty Pryde crossover in like the second season, ideally!).

Writing wise I've been kind of slacking, ideas have been coming but I haven't been able to turn them into stories. In the last couple months I've only finished one thing (a semi-humorous story entitiled "Cthulhu is a Wimp"), and most of the others I've had to scrap in frustration, some chugging along and not going anywhere. I have recently at least made some progress editing the short story I had Karl Schroeder comment on. Not quite finished, but I think I integrated some of the themes a bit more explicitly, and I do think it's a little bit stronger for it... though not as much as I'd hoped. Still, I might be ready to try sending it out again in a little bit.

And, the X-Box. Still quite enjoying it. I finished the 72 hour mode of Dead Rising, now ready to tackle Overtime Mode. Quite a fun game overall, a few glitches and strange moments, but I like it and will probably play it again a second time, and any time I just get in the mood to slaughter some zombies I'm sure I'll be picking it up. Finally took a look at Fable 2, which looks rather pretty but so far at least has been pretty linear and the control scheme will take some getting used to. Still only a little bit into GTA4 and Halo, been really focusing on Dead Rising. And, I've been enjoying using the X-Box to let me watch things I download through... magic, on my TV instead of my computer screen. That's how I watched the new Who. I'm actually thinking of getting some old TV shows I enjoyed (or maybe even ones I heard were good but missed out on) and watching it there, although I'm not sure which one yet.

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).

Book Foo..

Finished: Accelerando, by Charles Stross (reread)
Started: Glasshouse, by Charles Stross (reread)

Accelerando's a reread of course, first time, but again, I really enjoyed it, and hope he does some more in this universe. There's just a whizzing of cool ideas, some of which go by too fast to grab. Moved on to Glasshouse which is not as good.

Finished: Old Twentieth, by Joe Haldeman
Started: The Year's Best SF 13, (short stories)

Old Twentieth was... mixed. Like unfortunately a lot of Haldeman's work, he starts telling an interesting, engaging story, which then suddenly goes off the rails at the end. Minor spoilers, but mostly back of the book stuff (with vague hints towards resolution), behind cut. ( Read more... )

Had a dream last night that people I hadn't talked to in a long time were messaging me online to tell me XET had returned. It wasn't a real return but sort of a "let's spin up the database for a night for old times sake and talk about old times" type deal. Still, nostalgia'd.

Another dream too that was pretty cool at the time but I've forgotten it, alas. Yesterday I did have a dream I later mistook for actually happening, but it was terribly mundane. A few days ago I bought some pie on sale. I forgot about it over the weekend (we have 2 freezers in our fridge, one of which I almost never go into, and it was in the other one). Anyway, I didn't know whether my roommates had any any left me my 1/3 or not. But yesterday I was absolutely sure there was 1/3 of it waiting for me to eat, because I'd actually seen it. Only to find when I went to look that it was untouched. Must have dreamed it. See, mundane.

In less mundane food stories, on Friday I had to get new shoes because my current ones were falling apart, and while I was doing so I saw something in a remainder bin... a sandwich maker. You know, one of those triangle shaped ones that heat both sides of the bread and press down and presto, hot sandwich, all sealed in. So yeah, it was pretty cheap and I bought one, and have been enjoying hot sandwiches on a regular basis the last few days. I've never had one before. A sandwich maker, I mean, not a hot sandwich.

Oh, and there should be another post on Thursday, although whether I'll be horribly depressed for it or horribly cheerful about it depends on what exactly happens on Thursday.