newnumber6 | Entries tagged with zombies

Finished: Slum Online by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
A college student has a secret double life, playing in a multiplayer fighting game online. He wants to become the very best, and sometimes that quest means that school, his new girlfriend, and other concerns must fall by the wayside. Also catching his interest is the growing legend of a mysterious character challenging, and winning against, the best players in the game, in the unranked matches outside of the arena.

I'm not sure I'd consider this a science fiction novel. Yes, it deals with technology and how it impacts the world and people in it, but none of the technology is noticeably beyond anything we have now... or, for that matter, anything we've had for the past fifteen years, before the book was published. ( Read more... )The story's didn't blow me away or anything, and I'm not sure I'll even remember much about it in a year's time, but it was fun enough reading and better than I was expecting.

Finished: Necrotech by K.C. Alexander

A cybernetics-enhanced mercenary wakes up with no memory of the past few months, in an unknown facility, and as a dangerous situation is about to erupt that costs the
life of her girlfriend. While trying to piece things together, she finds that her own reputation is in the toilet and has to do her best to uncover what happened.

Disclaimer: I received this book for free through a giveaway on Goodreads. I don't think it affected my review.

Okay, this is a book in the subgenre of cyberpunk. And I should probably state up front that I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with Cyberpunk. I love the technological milieu, the general idea of it, but a few of the tropes I really don't care for at all. Some merely need to be done well, others I outright dislike.

It's also a genre that's well past its prime. But that actually gives me hope, because, my reasoning goes, a new book might avoid some of the pitfalls and overdone aspects of the genre. So, when I first heard about this book, I was excited to try it.

Unfortunately, it still hit a few too many of my cyberpunk "hates." ( Read more... )I'd almost give it a one star, but I think everything else is just good enough that I'd push it up to two. I won't hold it against the author for future books, but I probably won't read any more in this series either (which is a bit of a shame because it did leave in a place that I kinda wanted to see where it would go from there).

Finished: Dawn (Legends of the Galactic Heroes #1) by Yoshiki Tanaka

Mankind has spread out through space, but there's still war, conflicts involving thousands of ships and millions of lives. On one side is the Galactic Empire, an oppressive
regime that is milding in its old age. On the other, is the Free Planets Alliance, which has good intentions but often hampered by bureaucracy and the political machinations of those elected to power. Each side has one genius general, but they must work with what they're given.

This is apparently a rather famous Japanese SF military SF series, in no small part due to the fact that there's an anime adaptation. However, I should point out that I've never seen that adaptation, and it plays no role in my own perceptions.( Read more... )All in all, I didn't hate it, I didn't particularly like it, it was just okay. It doesn't end with much of a conclusion, because it's only volume 1 in a long series, but I doubt I'll continue with any more of it unless I happened to get it in a bundle of ebooks, like I got this one.

Finished: The Promise of the Child by Tom Toner

It's the 147th century and mankind has divided, or prismed, into many different subspecies, with radically different looks and cultures and, in many cases, in conflict with one another. At the top of the heap are the Aramanthine, near-immortals with almost unimaginable levels of technology that they use to rule over many of the others, although when a new challenger to their throne appears, they're thrown into conflict. Meanwhile an average citizen living his life gets into a situation where he may need to leave it behind and live as a fugitive. There's also a mysterious device that may change everything. Other stuff also happens.

This is an incredibly ambitious book, particularly for an author's first novel. And I really, really wanted to like it.( Read more... )it doesn't really measure up to any more than two stars. I doubt I'll be reading the sequel. But what the author did well impressed me enough that I am willing to try him again if he writes something unrelated. There's a lot of talent here, I think it just needs to be channeled a little better.

Finished: The Scar by China Mieville

Fleeing from political dangers in her home of New Crobuzon, Bellis Coldwine embarks on an ocean voyage... and her ship is soon taken by pirates, the passengers forced to join a floating pirate city with a daring agenda. For some of those aboard, it means freedom, for others it means exploring the frontiers of magic and science, but Bellis wants to go home, eventually, and that's the one thing denied to her.

This isn't quite a sequel to Perdido Street Station, although it takes place a few months after and the events in the book are mentioned briefly. The main character, Bellis, doesn't even rightly appear in the first book (although she is mentioned once as some backstory of one of the main characters is explored, and that connection is part of the reason for her journey). It's merely another book in the world.

And what a world. ( Read more... )I think that's a big part of why I'll give it four stars, even though there are some significant things I enjoyed more in the first book. I think Bas-Lag may actually be my favorite fantasy world (at least, leaving out things like superhero universes and sci-fi-where-the-science-is-pretty-unbelieveable-but-it's-fun-anyway).

Finished: Feedback by Mira Grant

Decades after zombies began rising from the dead and changing everything, there's a Presidential election, and one of the candidates hires a blog team to follow them, only they uncover a conspiracy involving zombies. No, not the Masons, that's Feed. This is another team, following another candidate, at the same time.

Sometimes when an author realizes they've got a world people enjoy, they'll do this thing, where they don't quite have it in them to do a sequel (which might involve answering questions about the fates of characters they don't want to commit to), but instead decide that some minor character or group in the first book (or occasionally just similar to the first book) has had their own amazing adventure, parallel to the original one.

It rarely works out, in my opinion. ( Read more... )So, yeah, enjoyed, just not super impressed. But my issues with the book are not nearly big enough to make me less interested in more stories set in this world (unless of course, the next book is called "Deadline Crunch!" and followed by "Blackout Drunk" each cynically following unnecessary side-stories that took place during the other novels in the original Newsflesh trilogy that we never heard about).

Finished: On Basilisk Station by David Weber

Honor Harrington is a competent new commanding officer... but sometimes that can work against you. When her performance in a training exercise embarrasses the brass, she's sent to Basilisk Station, the dumping ground for the officers the Navy wants to punish or needs out of sight. Worse, her commanding officer there leaves the entire system in her care. Understaffed for a job nobody else seems to care about, and with a crew that resents her for getting into this situation, not to mention plots by a neighboring civilization she's not even aware of, the odds are stacked against her, but Honor still must do her duty to the best of her ability.

This is fairly standard military SF, with a world tuned to make space battles more like naval battles were in the old days.( Read more... )Wasn't blown away, but I had some fun with it. The fact that I read it from the Baen Free Library (where Baen offers free ebook versions of many of the first installments of its titles, to try to attract new readers) made that even easier. I'm not rushing out to grab the next book in the series, but I might it check out at some point (especially since it, like this one, is also free on Baen's website).

Finished: Warchild by Karin Lowachee

After his parents are killed and he's taken by pirates, a young boy eventually manages to escape... right into the hands of sympathizers to the aliens at war with his people, who take him to the alien homeworld, where he grows up learning their culture. But once he's a teenager, he's sent on a spy mission to infiltrate a military ship from Earth, and finds that neither side might have the monopoly on truth and decency.

I've heard this novel described as being a bit in the mold of Ender's Game, and that's certainly accurate to a point, although the child in question is less super-genius and more average but put in situations he shouldn't be in. It's arguably YA, but it goes surprisingly dark at times ( Read more... )The book was a first novel, and for that it is quite impressive. I'd put this in the high 3-stars category already, but I do tend to be a bit more generous to first novels so I'll bump it up to a four. I'd read more of Lowachee's work.

Currently reading (or finished and haven't quite done a review yet): Red Rising by Pierce Brown, The Noise Within by Ian Whates, and Phantasm Japan (short stories). And, it's in transit but when it shows up, A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers.

So, let's see, what else is new?
Let's start with TV.

Fear The Walking Dead's over for the year and.. well, it's not great, there were plenty of stupid things, plotwise, and stupid people, but on the whole I'm still enjoying it, I just question some of the decisions. It's not as good as the Walking Dead, but if it comes back, I'll still watch it. And I'll say something that's probably controversial, at least among reactions I've read elsewhere on the net: I actually like most of the main cast, even the teens. Well, the youngest one's kind of an annoying snot at times, and they all have their stupid moments, but I think the family has good chemistry.

Doctor Who's back. So far it's... well, it's Doctor Who. I still would like to see Moffat go and be replaced with somebody who know how to craft a compelling coherent story rather than stringing together good moments that don't make any sense when you think about it (and often relying on the same old tropes over and over again). But it's enjoyable enough that I'll keep watching, and there's the sense of wonder that'll never completely go away.

Heroes Reborn? Meh. I watched the premiere. I have the third ep (1st ep after the 2 hours), but I haven't watched it yet. That says something, doesn't it? I was kind of hoping they'd go all out reboot with an explicit alternate universe. Instead, they seem to have just continued, and worse, they've not learned the lessons from last time, throwing too much stuff in it and not really considering how it all fits together or how consequences of what you include might mean down the road. And the video game nonsense just makes me want to shut it off.

That's alot of mixed reactions. Is there anything good?

Well, it's not quite TV, but I've gotten quite fond of Critical Role over the last several weeks, on Geek & Sundry. It might be the closest thing to a new TV-ish obsession. It's a bunch of somewhat famous voice actors from cartoons and video games playing a tabletop campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. It's actually a continuation of a campaign they did privately for fun for something like 2 years before, and they just decided to put it online, so if you start on the first ep you're actually starting in the middle of the adventure (which also means that you can pretty much start anywhere). It's turned out to be a big hit and is probably the biggest thing on G&S's twitch channel, live every Thursday night for something like 3 hours (occasionally more). It's just fun seeing a bunch of friends enjoying the game and, since they're all actors, they use voices and such for their characters (and the DM has a big assortment of voices himself), making me nostalgic for my own days of gaming and almost wanting to try and pick it up again, and sometimes they have fun guest stars (Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day have both guested for two weeks, but not at the same time... also, although it wasn't officially Critical Role, Vin Diesel just played a game with the DM and some of the members and really enjoyed it and supposedly there's talk of him playing a guest role too). I don't know how well it would translate to people unfamiliar with D&D tabletop, but it's a bit like a radio play with a lot of dice rolls determining things. So I'll recommend it anyway.

As for other new or returning shows, nothing's really started yet that I've gotten into. I checked out Blindspot because one of the secondary-character regulars is actually one of the players on Critical Role (she had to leave as a regular when she started working on the series, but she's open to returning for guest spots or hiatuses), but really, it doesn't do much for me. Castle, meh, the relationship tension/conspiracy of this year's just not working for me... the only thing that is, is Castle and his daughter's kind of doing a Veronica Mars vibe - but they need to at least acknowledge that with some kind of reference! Flash and Arrow restart this week, as does iZombie and Agents of SHIELD returned last week, which is solid but not exciting.

Speaking of Marvel, I finally watched Avengers: Age of Ultron. It wasn't as good as the first movie, but it was fun. I do have some complaints, which are a bit spoilery if I'm not the only one who hadn't seen it until recently. ( Read more... )So I guess you could say all the new Avengers were poorly handled.

Anyway, on to the Book Foo. Blah blah blah copied from my Goodreads blah blah blah mostly non-spoilery beyond back-of-the-book type stuff unless I warn.

Finished: The Red/First Light by Linda Nagata
In "The Red: First Light" (variously called solely by the part either before or after the colon, depending on edition and publisher... mine is simply The Red) tells of Lieutenant James Shelly, who leads a squadron of soldiers on a near future mission that he cynically believes is more about making money for defense contractors than it is about any actual purpose. But while he scoffs at the leadership decisions, he believes in the people and the brotherhood, even while knowing that some of that is manipulated by hi-tech equipment. Still, he does his best to keep his people alive using his skills and wits... and one thing extra. Somebody has been giving him warning when things aren't quite right, warnings that have saved the lives of his squad several times, warnings his leadership can't seem to stop. And it may be that an emergent, globe-spanning artificial intelligence exists, and has taken an interest in Shelly... but probably just as a tool to its own ends, to be discarded at its whim.

This may be my favorite Earthbound military SF ever.( Read more... )Overall, I really enjoyed this and will definitely be picking up the sequels. One final note that has nothing to do with the story, but I loved nonetheless. The publisher is releasing these books simultaneously, not just in hardcover and ebook form, but also in paperback (and not even the oversized trade paperback format, but the mass market kind that can fit into a large pocket). I love paperbacks, and having this choice right from the publication date, instead of having to wait six months to a year, makes me so happy that I just had to mention it. I've always wanted books to go this way, only to be told by those I trust to be more knowledgeable, that this wasn't feasible or profitable. I don't know if the people telling me these things were wrong, or things changed, or this publisher's making a crazy gamble that will lead them to ruin, but I love them for it all the same and it's making me more eager to get the second and third book.

Finished: Cinder by Marissa Meyer
A SF take on Cinderella, in which Linh Cinder is a cyborg living in New Beijing, and because cyborgs have limited rights, is technically the property of her stepmother. But she's also an extremely skilled mechanic, and in this capacity she meets the prince, who doesn't realize she's a cyborg and takes a liking to her. ( Read more... )It's not the kind of book that I'd make a regular habit of reading, but for once-in-a-while it does hit the spot, and it was skilled enough with its particular approach that I was impressed enough that I'm probably going to check out the rest of the series (where the author recasts other fairy tales in the same SF universe). I'd say it's almost certainly worth checking out if this is the kind of thing that already interests you, and if you're iffy on it... it still might be worth a try.

Finished: Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Erasmus lives a simple existence, owning few possessions by vow, and living in a monastic environment which only opens its doors to the outside world every ten years (other orders only open on longer periods). Inside, in addition to the usual interpersonal dramas with the rest of his order, he gets involved in logical debates and philosophical discussions. But there are things going on in the outside world, and member of his order are getting called by the government outside, a government his order is separate from but beholden too. For this is not a religious order (although individual members may believe in God), this is how scientists live, on a world that is not Earth. ( Read more... )I was almost always engaged and excited about what would happen next, despite the fact that not a lot was happening at any given part. Truly this is one of those books where the journey is more important than the destination, and, as stated before, a master class in building an alternate world.

Finished: The Deaths of Tao by Wesley Chu
(synopsis behind cut because it's the second book in a series)( Read more... )The last one I scored a three, and despite liking it less, numerically, this one I think I'd give the same... but it's a much lower three, possibly rounded up from a very high two. It does gets a bonus point for an obscure Alpha Flight reference, which would bring would theoretically bring it up to a four (see disclaimer).

Disclaimer: Said bonus point normally exists in a idyllic seeming alternate dimension and will only appear when the normal review is threatened... at all other times, the rating will be a plain unassuming-looking three.

Continued next post because apparently the post is too large for LJ.

Not much has been happening to me, in the middle of the winter blahs, made even blah-ier because of the Olympics. I'm doing my usual competitive "watch as little as possible of Olympic footage" (I'm still holding strong at 0 seconds, at least of actual footage... coverage I'm doing less well at!), and a lot of other shows are taking time off. I've also finished up watching Leverage, which I'd been getting into over the last several months. But now it's gone. Oh, Leverage, I'll miss you, Parker with your adorable awkwardness, Hardison with your age-of-the-geek, and Eliot with your improbably recognition of organizations (it's a very distinctive reference!). Plus random Doctor Who references (and other geek stuff).

Speaking of Doctor Who, I now apparently own a TARDIS hoodie. My stepmother went to the states and that was her gift for me. Which is nice of her, since I probably wouldn't have bought one myself.

Otherwise, TV's rather sucked with the exception of the return of the Walking Dead, and GoT is coming soon. So that's something to look forward to.

In movies, I watched Catching Fire, which I enjoyed, and it mostly kept to then novel, Ender's Game (don't worry, I got it through magic, rather than paying anything for it!), which aside from having a few all-too short scenes in the Battle Room really seemed to miss the point in a lot of ways. I was expecting some changes to make it a movie, but most of them were awful. It was okay, but if they're going to make a movie of that in the first place the least they could have done is a better one! Anyway, there are other books by better and less-problematic authors to ruin with a movie adaptation! Also watched Thor 2, which was decently enjoyable. Guardians of the Galaxy also looks pretty good from the trailer recently released (though I'll have Hooked on a Feeling running through my head for a while), and it gives me a bit of a Farscape vibe, in a good way.

And upcoming movies also includes the Veronica Mars movie, which will be released worldwide not just in select theatres but in various on demand services to everyone, not just backers, on March 14th. That's pretty unusual. I'll be getting a free copy because of my Kickstarter contribution and won't be going to theatres due to my hermit tendencies and not liking to be around people.

We'll end up with Book Foo. I read the whole Newsflesh series by Mira Grant, spoilers for the first book should really be avoided, so, what I'll do is review the first book in order and then save the other two, which contain spoilers for the first, at the end (even though I've read a couple books since), so anyone who may be reading these that doesn't want those spoilers can just skip that. As usual all book reviews will only contain very minor spoilers, usually on the level of back of the book descriptions, and sometimes the feel of a book/ending which might be indirectly spoilery, but unless stated otherwise, that's it. And mostly the reviews are copy-and-pasted from Goodreads. (As to comments, I can't speak to the level of spoilers that may come there...)

Finished: Briarpatch, by Tim Pratt

Darrin's life's been going downhill since his girlfriend Bridget left him for no reason. Six month later, he sees her again... right as she jumps to her death off a bridge. Trying to make sense of this tragedy, Darrin begins to discover there's more gong on... not just in his life, but in his relationship and the whole world. There are pathways people can learn to see that lead to other worlds, fantastic, improbable, and occasionally dangerous. Some people call it the Briarpatch. And what happened to Bridget is wrapped up in it... as is, potentially, a chance to find her again.

I'm generally more of a science fiction guy than a fantasy, but when I do like fantasy, this is one of the types I like. ( Read more... )

Finished: Feed, by Mira Grant (Newsflesh, Book 1)

It's been over 25 years since the zombies rose, and humanity has survived. So have the zombies. Large areas of the country are written off as unreclaimable due to zombie infestation. But the threat isn't just still out there... it's in every living person. When they die, they will rise, hungry for flesh and kick off a whole new apocalypse. But people can get used to almost anything, and, with stringent precautions and regular small-scale outbreaks, life goes on. Georgia and Shaun Mason, two orphans of the original Rising, were raised as adoptive brother and sister, and now medium-sized players in the new, post-Rising news media, largely dominated by independent bloggers. They, along with their technical expert nicknamed 'Buffy', have just been chosen for a great honor... to be the only bloggers on the campaign trail of leading young candidate Peter Ryman. But as they follow the campaign, tragedy begins to strike, and the group uncovers a conspiracy.

I'd heard good things about this series from others, and judging by this first book, I can see why. ( Read more... )Highly recommended for zombie fans, and maybe even if you're not.

Finished: vN: The First Machine Dynasty, by Madeline Ashby

Amy Peterson is a vN, an intelligent robotic life form that looks human, but isn't. They can't eat the same food, they are much stronger and faster, and, when they consume enough, they automatically reproduce. vN might be a terrifying plague, if not for one fact... they suffer extreme pain and even die if they even witness a human being hurt. It's a failsafe. Except, when Amy's grandmother appears, she's violent enough to kill a human child without remorse, and Amy has to eat her to save her mother. And then Amy realizes that she doesn't have a failsafe either, which means humanity wants to study or destroy her. And her evil grandmother is now living inside her head.

I instantly liked the book as I began. ( Read more... ) Flaws aside, I did really like it... it's probably on the low end of 4 stars, but it qualifies nonetheless, and I do want to see more, so I definitely plan to check out the sequel, iD.

Finished: Nexus, by Ramez Naam

It's 2040, and there's a new club drug making the rounds... it allows those who take it to share short-range telepathic experiences with other Nexus users. But it's not a chemical, it's nanotechnological. And technology can be hacked, improved on. That's what Kade Lane has been doing with some colleagues... he's found a way to make the Nexus effect permanently, and extend it, providing an interface to the human brain.

To the US government, such tinkering is highly illegal, because they're afraid of where the technology can go. But when they bust Lane, they offer him a deal... the charges against him and his friends can be reduced, if he helps them take down a Chinese scientist working in similar areas... with potentially much more catastrophic results. But things aren't so simple, and Kade must find his own path through a dangerous situation that could affect billions of lives. ( Read more... )I'll be rereading the book for the ideas, over the story or characters... but I'm sure I WILL be rereading it, because I really enjoyed it. I'll also be checking out the sequel, Crux.

Finished: Deception Well, by Linda Nagata
The city of Silk hangs in the sky 200 miles above the planet Deception Well, a planet full of biological complexity believed to be fatal to anybody who descends the space elevator. And yet the citizens of Silk can't got anywhere else, stranded there for generations.

Lot is the son of a charismatic prophet who went down to Deception Well, hoping to find communion there rather than death, and many of his followers still believe he's down there and will return. Lot doesn't know what he believes... but he does know that he has the same ability to influence minds and that something needs to be done.

This is set in the same universe as The Bohr Maker, although a significant amount of time later, and you can read it alone if you wish to, although it may help to understand a few of the concepts, and the ending has a little more resonance having read the earlier book. I also didn't like this as much as The Bohr Maker, so maybe it'd be a good idea to start there for that reason alone. ( Read more... ) I will be continuing to the next book in the series, Vast, eventually, which I've heard is much better.

Finished: Deadline, by Mira Grant (Newsflesh, Book 2)

Cut entirely for spoilers of previous book. Short version: Liked it a lot but not as much as the first.
( Read more... )

Finished: Blackout, by Mira Grant (Newsflesh, Book 3)

Cut entirely for spoilers of previous two books. Short version: Not as good as the previous two, but still worth reading.
( Read more... )

Started: Coyote, by Allen Steele
Started: Limit of Vision, by Linda Nagata

And that's all!

And not any good reason, just been sort of meh and not had much to say that felt worthy of a post on its own. But there have been a few things building up that, maybe collectively, work.

First, OMG Heat Wave of death these last couple days, but it's finally over. Not as cool as I might like, but at least it's reasonably comfortable. I suppose in the end it wasn't all that bad, I'd suffered through worse and longer (as have others), but it was at the point where I couldn't do much beyond lie back and blerg.

Secondly, I got my first smartphone! Which also happens to be my first cell phone. Except, aside from receiving a couple spam text messages, I haven't yet used as a cell phone, despite having to buy 3 months service to get the phone (it was discounted a fair bit though so, in the end, I came out ahead). Heck, nobody even asked for my number. But really, all I wanted it for was so that I could be out and about and access free wifi, and for the 13mp camera that I can use when going to Toronto Fan Expo. I'll get to that in a moment, but for the record, it's a Sony Xperia T, that they're selling as the James Bond phone because apparently he used it in Skyfall. So therefore I assume it can also be made to explode or let out a smokescreen or shoot tranquilizer darts, but I haven't pressed all the buttons yet. Otherwise, it's nice, takes a little getting used to the interface, and typing can be an annoying chore, but I'm getting better at it. I've already loaded a few free SF books on it so I have something to read on hand whenever I carry it, and a few free games and a police scanner so I can figure out if they're closing in on me! Well, actually, every time I've tried the scanner in my area, it doesn't seem to get anything (the transit police and fire department ones work), and I don't believe the police want me for anything, so I'm good. Actually, I haven't really taken it 'out in the wild' yet, since I first set it up, the farthest I've gone with it is the laundry room. That's because I want to ensure it survives, unwet and undamaged by the rigors of work, and unstolen, at least until the end of August. I'll take it out on baby steps (once I get some kind of waterproof container in case of rain), maybe when I visit my grandmother this week, but I'm taking it slow. I also plan to root my phone (for many reasons, but not the least of it is to delete the annoying bloatware apps I never plan to use but are by default undeleteable), but again, not until after August. Why then?

Toronto Fan Expo, of course. Yeah, I'm planning on going this year. After all, Nathan Fillion AND Gina Torres will be there. How could I not? (Morena Baccarin will also be there but I already have her signature on my Firefly boxed set, so, she's not enough, on her own, to go). A number of other cool people too, but I doubt I'll be collecting any other signatures... they cost so much these days, so I save it for the ones I really like. I do also hope to hook up with Adrian Alphona (err, not in the romantic sense, although I DO like his art an awful lot and it might be hard to say no if he asked! ;)), and see if I can get a commission done, because he's one of the few artists I would be willing to pay for. But I think the only way it'll work is if I can contact him in advance and just pick it up at the con.

I will not be wearing a costume (aside from my usual Blue Sun shirt)... still haven't thought of any I could pull off, much less assembled one. But I will enjoy seeing all the other costumes and, with my phone, hopefully will have a camera better able to capture some of them!

That's about all the big personal news I have (lame as it is), so let's move on to the 'discussing other media' portion of my post! This time I'll leave the Book Foo to the end. First, since it's relatively fresh news, let's talk Veronica Mars. At the SDCC, they released the first look at the movie footage! You can see it here! It's pretty much finished filming already, and really, I'm astounded not just at the fact that they managed to get it kickstarted, but also how many people from the original series they got back to make appearances. I mean, virtually everybody I wanted to see (who was still alive when the series ended), they got, with maybe one exception (and he was, though not dead, written out pretty definitively, and, with these people, might even still be coming as a surprise). And a lot of the actors seem super eager to be back, and have been recording thank you messages. The best of all of them, was indubitably Ryan Hansen (Dick Casablancas)'s awesome video where he clearly spent a lot of time and effort in it (and pulled in guest stars!). Seriously, you gotta watch. Well, you don't gotta, but it's fun.

Other news? Game of Thrones is over, good season... Falling Skies is ongoing, enjoying it, but not wowed. Defiance got a little better... also not wowed, but it was watchable, at least. Still waiting on Korra season 2, and beyond that, it's pretty much just the fall season I have to look forward to (well, I still gotta watch S2 of Continuum but I've been slacking). Oh, and Under the Dome, which was... disappointing. Not for the changes, I actually like MOST of them, but... I dunno, it feels too episodic (like 'ZOMG PLAGUE!' episode that gets comes up and gets resolved in that episode) and at times doesn't really treat the premise with the seriousness it deserves (for the most part everybody seems to be just going about their business as normal... and as I read somewhere else... they've been Domed for how many days now and they haven't had a big town meeting to discuss the issue and the possibilities?). It just makes for a big lack of tension. I'm still watching, but it hasn't met my hopes, and my hopes weren't all that high.

Movies? Nothing really new, though I did watch the Evil Dead remake (okay, bit too gory for my tastes, but even there I appreciate the effort that went into making that look good), Oz The Great and Powerful (reasonably cute), Superman Unbound (decent but kind of forgettable, except for one awesome Lois scene... really needed Nathan Fillion though, since it had two other Castle stars!), Jack the Giant Slayer (also decent-but-forgettable), John Dies at the End (funny at times, decent plot ideas, didn't think it came together completely, but I'd be willing to see a sequel). Oh, and Justice League, New Frontier... which I liked mostly (and I'm kinda surprised how occasionally explicit DC's willing to be in these animated movies... maybe not compared to other action movies, but at least far more than in TV cartoons. But I approve.)

And I guess that leaves us with books. As usual, mostly just cut and pasting my reviews from Goodreads.

Finished: The Living Dead, (short story collection)

A collection of zombie tales, with a variety of tones and even a variety of types of zombies. ( Read more... )

Finished: A Deepness in the Sky, by Vernor Vinge (reread)

( Read more... )

Finished: A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge (reread)
( Read more... )

Finished: Vortex, by Robert Charles Wilson

Vortex is the third book in the series that started with Spin. Spin was a great work of science fiction, seamlessly weaving incredible science fiction concepts with believable human drama, and it ended with a tease for wonder-inspiring stories to come. (More behind the cut, spoiler-free version: Okay, disappointing as a followup to Spin, but less so than the previous sequel)
( Read more... )

Finished: The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge, by Vernor Vinge

Short version: A few great stories, but the collection as a whole is probably worth it only for superfans.
( Read more... )

Finished: Crypto-Punk, by George Traikovich (received free!
A sinister force is changing some of the kids at Bixby Elementary school, but as a new fad called "Crypto-Punk" takes hold at the same time, only a few ten-year-olds notice any problem, and have to act to stop it.

Full disclosure: I received this book for free through Goodreads' First Reads program. When I signed up to receive the book, it wasn't entirely clear what age-group it was targeted towards... the fact that it was set at an Elementary school suggested it skewed young, but not every book about kids is geared towards them, and Elementary school covers a wide range of ages. But upon reading it, it's pretty clear this is targeted towards preteens and early teens, at about the same level as the first Harry Potter book. ( Read more... )

Finished: All You Need is Kill, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka
This is an acclaimed Japanese SF novel (read in translation), about a common soldier fighting on the front lines against alien invaders who've ravaged much of the Earth. It's his very first battle, and despite the technological Jacket he wears and the weaponry he carries, he dies... only to wake up 30 hours earlier, before the battle starts. And then it happens again.

It's basically a "Groundhog Day" plot, grafted on to an action SF plot about fighting a swarm of aggressive aliens with no personality. He uses his loops to get better but somehow can't avoid dying and returning back to the start. ( Read more... )
So, on the whole, I'm pleased. I have a feeling it's probably going to be more enjoyable than the inevitable Tom Cruise movie adaptation (that's not a random slam, there literally is one on the way).

Finished: Children of the Sky, by Vernor Vinge (reread)
This is the long-awaited sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, set about a dozen years later, with Ravna Bergsndot and what were once the children of a science lab that caused a galactic disaster, trapped on the world of the Tines, a species based on small hive-minds made up of four or more dog-like creatures that, only collectively, make up people. Ravna's doing her best to advance the world's technology level, for she fears that a monstrous evil is still on its way to destroy them all, decades in the future... only she discovers that the greatest threats might be closer to home.

The first time I read this, I was probably too excited about finally having it to really evaluate it objectively. On this, my second read through... I'm probably still too excited, but it's easier to notice and admit the flaws.( Read more... )

Started: The Rapture of the Nerds, by Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow
Started: Hyperion, by Dan Simmons (reread)

Okay, 6 out!

Just a roundup of some recent-ish TV-related thoughts I've been saving up.

Walking Dead ended... it was pretty good, but (major spoilers ahoy if you haven't seen it) ( Read more... )

Game of Thrones started... not much to say on it, but still really enjoying it.

Supernatural's still in the hack writing mockworthy stage, but I have to especially mock something in the latest new episode (spoilers... it's the Sam's second "trial" one) ( Read more... )

Doctor Who... I don't know. I like Clara so far, although I wish we got one of the other versions we saw rather than the one we did. First episode was okay, second started great but they blew the ending (more later), and third episode I mostly liked.

My main problem right now is with the writing for the character itself. And it's not a new problem, it's been going for a long time, it's just starting to grate on me more and more the more they continue it.

1) The Doctor as know-it-all tour guide.
I love that he's a smart character.

But a thousand years old is not enough to see a whole universe, particularly when you've got not just all of time, but time and space. Which means that for him to know everything about every race he comes across... he's gotta be revisiting the places he knows well a lot. And that bears it up, I looked up past episodes, and was hard pressed to find one where the Doctor and his companions visit somewhere he's never been, just for the hell of it. There were a few times where circumstances, accidents or distress calls have dragged them to places they've never been before (but usually with a familiar threat), but most of the time, they're trying to get to places he knows. There might have been two-three cases in the entire New Who era where he's got a goal other than that. They're always visiting places he's either been at some other time, or heard a lot about, and so the Doctor can point out all the alien races and know their particular quirks. And of course, Earth, but that's part of the show and you're never going to get rid of that, but I'd like the episodes where they're away from Earth to break that mold. That's my problem, the doctor is no longer an EXPLORER. He's a tour guide.

I want a companion, when asked where they want to go, to say, "I want to go someplace you've never been, a place you've barely even heard of, where you don't already know everything about what's going on." But mostly I want the Doctor to WANT to go to new places. Because as it is, he doesn't so much have to rely on being clever, he has to rely on already knowing the right thing. He doesn't have to figure out what an alien creature's motives and desires are, he just has to know that particular alien race so he can point it out to the audience and companion and explain what they want. And that's easier to write, because it's the LAZY way to do it.

This attitude seems to creep into writing in other ways, a sort of laziness I noticed, which brings me to Episode 2 of the new half-series, the Rings of Akhenaten. It started out okay, except of course, Doctor was playing know-it-all tour guide AGAIN, but the ending combined two of my least favorite and laziest endings. Spoilers, ahoy, both for it and "The Cold War", which I use to contrast. ( Read more... )

Anyway, that's enough of that, let's move on...

And the newest of the SF series to debut is "Defiance", created by Rockne S. O'Bannon, who was behind Farscape. And you can see some Farscape influences here... made-up swear words, a set of well-designed alien races, as humanoid ones go, anyway, (except the white haired ones look a little too much like bad costumes), a female heroine who isn't particularly "nice" and "approachable".. it's almost like they were trying to catch lightning in a bottle and create "Farscape set on a future Earth". And I do like the alien races (and the alien Doctor is kind of my favorite character so far, despite only having a handful of lines). But the whole thing feels a little... the word that keeps jumping to mind is "stilted". Awkward, artificial... it doesn't feel like a real world, like Farscape usually managed, it feel like... well, it feels like a video game world brought to life, which in some ways it is. Too many plot points I called in advance and dialogue that I too often cringed at. But, pilots are sometimes pretty weak, often the weakest outings of the series, and I'll give it a little time to find its legs. Right now, though, I'm not confident.

Syfy did announce recently a slate of new SF series, some of which sound like they have potential, but, with that channel, I don't have my expectations that high. (They also announced minis based on Ringworld and Childhood's End, which I'd love to see but have little confidence in)

Cartoons... now that Young Justice is cancelled, nothing really to look forward to until Korra S2 premieres, I guess. Are there any other good cartoons on that I'm missing?

Oh, and Continuum S2 starts this Sunday, so I guess that's worth a look.

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).

So, still playing Gotham City Impostors, but annoyed that they've recently gone the route of "pay more to get different weapons than you can acquire from the game alone". I don't mind selling the cosmetic things like costumes or calling cards or mascots. I don't even really mind selling weapons as long as you can acquire them in-game through completing feats or something. But when you start selling advantages, I want to play less and less. Every time someone uses one of the new weapons or advantages, I think "%!%!ing cheaters," because in my worldview, that's what they're doing.

I also decided to try out the Walking Dead video game. Well... it's more of an 'interactive story' than a game. Sure, there are game-like elements, but really... it's pretty simplistic and the plot is very, very linear (at least, the first chapter).

Game play's okay, I guess, a little like a point and click adventure, but sometimes it's not clear exactly where you're meant to click to do something, and some of the characters are almost comically stupid. (spoilers behind cut) ( Read more... )

I know it sounds like a lot of complaints, and it's certainly a very imperfect experience, but I kind of liked it just the same. It's fun to make certain tough choices and have it affect how they react to you, or have different dialog options to partly choose your way through the story. And it's surprisingly affecting to have your character having to take care of, and comfort through dialog, a kid he's found who's parents are almost certainly dead (but far away, so you have the option to lying to her).

It's a series of 5 chapters, each sold separately (on some platforms you might be able to subscribe to all of them in advance for a discount, but not on XBL apparently), and only the first has been released so far. Right now I think I might try the second, but unless it really wows me, I don't think I'll go beyond that (well, maybe I'll see if I can... acquire it, through... magic, somewhere down the line). Because $30 for the whole thing feels a bit steep for something that's, at this point, feeling a little like a railroad (I don't get the impression that anything you can do can get you to avoid ending up in the same locations in part one, for example, or fail to save certain characters who are in danger, because the plot just won't let you progress until you complete the task where ( Read more... )... and I'll be very surprised if #5 doesn't take place in the same locations no matter what you choose to do in any previous chapter, just maybe with some different people).

Anyway, in other news, I decided to order The Sunless Countries (book 4 of the Virga series), now that it's out in TPB format, and also Catching Fire because, well, I needed to get my order over $25 for free shipping, and that was the one I chose to do that. Also got a new computer chair... well, old one, but new to me, and for free. Had two choices... I think in retrospect I chose the wrong one. Oh well, it's still not bad, just I think the other one would have fit into my space better and been a little more comfortable.

Also today seems to be a weird one for meeting women from my building. Normally the most interaction I have is an occasional hallway nod, but today 3 different women in the laundry room with a hello, one woman who was locked outside and knocked on the laundry room window to ask if i could let her in, and, when I took the elevator up with my new chair, shared it with somebody I'd never met but who apparently lived on my floor on a bike (that is, she got on the elevator on a bike, I assume she doesn't live on my floor on a bike) and had a brief conversation with her (and exchanged apartment numbers, though not names). I'm not reading anything into it, it's just weird it all happening on the same day considering the otherwise relative anonymity of my apartment experience.

What else to talk about? Internet has been infuriatingly spotty these last couple weeks but especially in the last day or two. Somebody's coming in (again!) on Thursday, hope whatever's wrong gets fixed.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, I did not leave reality the other day.

Finished: Wireless, by Charles Stross (short story/novella collections).

Usually, when I buy a collection of short stories by one particular author, even one I've grown to really like, I wind up being pretty disappointed. There's maybe one or two memorable ones, but the rest are forgettable. But, I keep trying, and this time, I hit paydirt. Sure, there were duds, but overall it was one of the better collections I read. Part of this is because although it's a collection of shorter works, many of them are LONG shorter works, novellas really. And some of them were really great, things I'd love to see taken in longer format. In particular, ( Read more... )

Finished: Rage, by Stephen King (in the Bachman Books) (reread)
My copy of the Bachman Books is old. You can tell this because it still has Rage in it. Newer versions of the Bachman books don't have this story, because King asked to have it pulled from publication.

Because it deals with a teenager shooting some of his teachers and holding his class hostage.

Given similar things actually happened (and there were at least a couple incidents where people specifically claimed to be inspired by the story), it's understandable that he might not want it out there. I think it's a shame though. I think it speaks to certain adolescent fears and urges rather directly, and I don't think we should ban things based on what the most mentally unstable of us might do - they're liable to latch on to something, regardless, whether it's this, or D&D, or evil government conspiracy theories. I mean, sure, when I first read it, I had fantasies of taking my school hostage... ( Read more... )

Finished: The Long Walk, by Stephen King (in the Bachman Books) (reread)
My favorite of the Bachman Books. Alternate history with overtones of at least a semi-totalitarian gov't. Every year there's a Long Walk starting in Maine. 100 people are selected nation-wide, volunteers but chosen by lottery. Once it begins, the main rule is you walk. If you drop under 4 miles an hour too often in too short a span, you're shot. No breaks for rest, you walk until you die, or you're the last, the winner. If you win, you get an unbelievable amount of money and virtually any wish you want granted.

The premise is a little silly, but King really makes it work with the relationships that develop on the road, friendships former among people who know that their friends will have to die for them to live, and yet they're occasionally drawn to stick their necks out for each other. It's kind of an endurance run in just reading it, there's a certain monotony in reading about walking and conversation interspersed by the occasional violent death, but it's a pervesely enjoyable monotony.

Finished: Roadwork, by Stephen King (in the Bachman Books)
No, I didn't leave off the 'reread' tag. I've read the Bachman books uncounted number of times, and
although I've started it once or twice, I've always skipped out on Roadwork. But I decided this time, I'd
give it a try.

It's not bad. Not great, either. It doesn't really have any supernatural or SF elements. It's kind of closest to Rage in that, except the 'hook' of 'hostage situation in a school' isn't there. It's the story of one man's slow spiral because he can't cope with change. ( Read more... )

Finished: The Running Man, by Stephen King (in the Bachman Books) (reread)

If you've seen the Arnold Schwarzenegger (seriously? LJ spellchecks Schwarzenegger?) film, you know the plot... well, not really. Because the movie took a lot of liberties. In the book version, ( Read more... ) In many ways, it's very cinematic on its own, and it could be filmed into a much better movie (there are already so many remakes, and Reality TV is bigger than when the original movie came out, this should be a natural)... anyway, it's not especially deep (although deeper than the movie, there are class warfare and environmental issues that at crop up), but it is enjoyable, probably my second favorite part of the Bachman Books.
Finished: Cell, by Stephen King (reread)

I'm on a bit of a King kick lately, so I decided it was time to reread his latest non-Dark-Tower book (the latest that I've got, that is, I know he's published more), Cell. It's the one about a zombie (sorta) apocalypse kicked off by cell phones. Of course, what makes this one a little different is that the real horror begins when the zombies stop being mindless killers.

It really is a great book, actually, save for King's usual problem with endings... in particular because it sort of revolves around a theory for how it all happened that is a little unrealistic, but also (somewhat spoilery)( Read more... )before the ending anyway, it's quite an engaging little book.

It's also kind of very much a book of its time. I'm not sure it could really work as is, if you set it in 2011, for example. For one thing, texting overpaces actually talking on the cell phone now, and if cell phone networks still work, you'd have survivors using the texting capability to keep organized and keep in touch, maybe even spreading a "don't actually use the phone" message, not to mention all sorts of other mobile devices that have apps. I suppose you could handwave around it by saying fear keeps people away from it, but still, it would kind of be interesting to peek into an alternate world where King had the idea right now instead of then, and see if he could make it work.

Started: The Timeline Wars, by John Barnes (reread)
Started: City of Diamond, by Jane Emerson

Yes, it's that day again... the anniversary of the unveiling of the first general purpose computer, ENIAC! I mean, what else? As usual, that is the only holiday that falls on February 14th. (SHUT UP, IT IS SO! Some of us have given up all hope of ever finding love and don't need to be reminded!)

My computers've been pretty good to me, so I think I might celebrate by getting a new wallpaper. Something Science-Fictiony. Well, two, one for each. I haven't decided yet. But shhh, keep it under your hat. I want it to be a surprise.

Of course, in 2 days, February 16th, it'll be Monster Day which I celebrate in spirit if not always in actual tradition. But, I did have a cool zombie-dream to relate.

This one I wasn't participating, I was watching a zombie movie. The movie was just titled
"Run!" That's all it was. No hiding, no holding up in a secure location (except for
just long enough to catch your breath), just a group of people running from the zombie
hordes. The star was Macauly Culkin, or maybe one of his brothers or something. Also starring was the guy who plays Abed on Community. He sacrificed himself - the group was
scaling a fence to get away from the hordes (zombies can climb, but not as fast), and
Culkin and someone else was over, Abed was near the top, and there was a girl who was
near the bottom, and having trouble climbing, and the zombies were catching up to her. So, Abed decided he'd jump back down so they'd go after him, the closer, lower target, instead of her. I never actually saw him get eaten so I hope he got away.

Anyway, shortly after that, another horde got after them, and some guy right next to
Culkin got bit, and they had a brief conversation like, "You know what you gotta do, right?" "Yeah. We agreed," and he ran back into the remaining horde to try to take down
as many as he could and slow them down to give Culkin more of a head start.

Finally, it was down to Culkin, who had a had a whole bunch of them after him, and was
running, through buildings, but not staying in them (basically hoping to lose a few).
Then the military laid down some firebombs and everything was on fire, and Culkin
started running into the fire to shake zombies, (I guess I was channelling some Left 4 Dead in that part - in that game, if you walk into fire, you get a little hurt. A zombie walks into fire, they auto-die). He was trying to survive long enough to get to the
military outpost, where they'd contained the outbreak.

I didn't see how the movie ended, though, last I saw he was a little burned but still
running on adrenaline.

So, I try not to play too much Left 4 Dead 2 because I think when I do it eats a bit into my writing time/morale. However, this weekend I made an exception, and managed to get an achievement I never imagined I'd get. "Still Something to Prove", where you have to beat every (original) campaign on Expert difficulty. And expert difficulty is HARD, particularly when, like me, you play with the bots (who are very stupid. Seriously, if you're in the middle of a fire patch and go down, the bots will run in and try to revive you, burning off all their health and going down too). So how did I manage? I cheated! Well, not really. For those who are unaware, each week Valve schedules a "mutation" that you can play, which slightly alters the game rules in some fun way. I used the current one for the achievement. ( Read more... ) And yay, Achievement unlocked. That's 61 out of 65 achievements for the game done. One more remains likely very difficult (win an expert campaign in 'Realism Mode', mutations don't help with that), another which is very difficult because it involves talking to people to set it up (start a 4x4 team and win a game of scavenger or vs), and two others that require very specific circumstances (in versus, revive a dead survivor with a defib after entering and leaving the safe room, and, in The Passing, playing Versus, Charge a survivor through eight wedding chairs). The last two probably would work great if I could coordinate with somebody to get the achievement through somewhat 'cheap' ways of "I'll help you if you help me", in a private game of versus, but again, unless I have someone I already know well who wants to do that, I probably won't be able to ask.

Anyway, that's how I spent much of my Saturday morning/afternoon when I probably should have been writing. Oops. But I felt okay on making the exception because, on the writing angle.. I'm not back, per se, but I have, for the first time in quite a while, had a story idea that I really like. It's not 100% there yet in conception, but enough's there that I can start and see where it goes. Oddly, it was provoked by a dream, and when I was thinking about it afterwards I connected it to an idea I had a long time ago with no 'story' attached. The idea is sort of 'whimsy' SF (that is, something weird and inexplicable happens that changes everything, that really doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny on its own, but I try to treat it seriously), which is nice because it fits well with not only the fact that it came from the dream, but also the dream itself (which had sort of a romantic (not in the sense of a love story, but a romantic spirit), almost poetical quality rather than being a straight narrative). So I'll be working on that. I had other ideas I liked but haven't quite grabbed me, but at least it's a good sign, hopefully I'm crawling my way out of the idea desert.

Back to games for a moment, since I've been seeing a lot of commercials for Kinect, which I don't plan on buying in part because I really don't have room to jump around. However, I like the idea. I think MY main problem, other than the space issue, is that for most of the uses of it I've seen, it's best for sports or dance games. And I'm sure it'll do well for that type of thing in the marketplace, but for me, personally... BORING. I like adventure games, fighting games, zombies games, something that takes me out of the real world. For me to consider the Kinect, again, space aside, I'd need some seriously cool things you could do in these kinds of games. But in any of those types of games, 'movement' is going to be an issue. You might be able to punch out somebody on the screen by making a punching motion, or fire by making finger pistols, but how to you move? Walk in place? How do you turn? Those are the questions they'll have to solve in a way that feels organic and natural. (I should note that in this section of the post I'm talking ENTIRELY out of my ass. I've never even played with a Kinect. These may be relatively solved issues in practice. I'm just discussing the issues I see with the concept as a way to have fun and explore what I might do with the problems.) I don't like the idea of walking in place, it just always feels wrong, unless they add a treadmill, and turning is the big problem. I'd actually rather they regress a little, and add a simple controller that JUST controls your movement, and is held in one hand (or, you could do something where, say, one finger is monitored distinctly from everything else. If, say your pinky is extended, it means move forward, and other positions mean other movements like turning). Less immersive, but better at controlling, I'd think. Oddly enough, I could see a game involving climbing as the main movement element doable (climbing in place seems to be more natural than walking), some kind of Monkey-man game?

The other option is to make games designed around sitting down or standing in a fixed position. So some general thoughts on the matter, nothing really structured, just whatever comes to mind, I'm bored:
( Read more... )

Anyway, on to TV. Walking Dead is still moving well, probably the show I'm most excited about, even if there's only 3 episodes left this season (rassum-frassum). Stargate is second, and Caprica's last 2 episodes ever. Fringe is on the plus side still. Everything else is... pretty blah. At best, the kind of show I still enjoy as a diversion but don't care about enough to miss if it was suddenly gone, at worst I'm actively disappointed by.

I really need there to be some really cool TV shows again, something I can geek out and obsess over. This year was almost a total bust for that.

I've officially given up on The Event. For those that don't know, I don't have cable, I either get stuff through magic, or watch TV over an antenna signal. I get most network shows through one or another Canadian channel. However, when I change channels, I often have to adjust the antenna a little for a relatively clear picture and sound. It takes maybe 20-30 seconds unless my antenna's having a really bad day.

Last episode of the Event, I had a choice between watching the Event and gettimg up to adjust the antenna, or leaving the TV on the channel it was already on and watching whatever. I changed the channel, but did not adjust the antenna. Apparently, I would rather watch The Event on a blurry TV full of static sound. Or, rather, I'd prefer to hang around reading random things on the internet while it played in the background. This is not a ringing endorsement of the show by any means. I officially do not even care about the Event enough to adjust the antenna, so obviously, from now on I'm not even going to bother changing the channel. Sorry, show, you should have been better and stop trying to be Lost with all these flashbacks to the lives of boring characters.

Speaking of LOST, I watched "New Man In Charge", the DVD epilogue to the series and... well, it doesn't change much. I wish it had been left in the premiere, but only because that would have hopefully less time spent on the crap we got and at least given us a COUPLE of answers. But it didn't do enough to make me feel at all better about the series or to convince me to buy the DVDs ever. The show is still tainted for me by them having 2 years to wrap up a show, and giving us what they did. (But, if nothing else, unlike the Event, I actually gave a damn what happened and what the characters lives were like).

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.

The meme, in case you'd forgotten, was as follows:
I have a list of 15 characters whom you will not see until the answers are posted. Give me 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.

Only two people submitted questions, so to pad out the interest factor for me, I'm also including and answering the questions I asked other people. I either changed the numbers or made them when I didn't have my list (and ordered the list more or less randomly).

So, here's my list of characters:
( Read more... )

From

karenjeane... ( Read more... )

From

st_aurafina...( Read more... )

The questions I asked others:

( Read more... )

If anyone is interested, they're welcome to still submit wacky questions, but you're on the honor system to choose the numbers randomly! ;) Or you could cheat and just ask wacky questions of specific characters/pairings, that's okay too.

And what's more, a Canadian booksplosion!

But first, comics:

This week I got:
New Mutants #17 (still fairly enjoyable, and it had better be, being the only comic left I buy)

But in the used bookstore I found a nice selection in the really-discount bin and bought the following:

Northern Lights: The New Anthology of Canadian Science Fiction ($1), Tesseracts (Canadian Short story collection) ($1), Tesseracts 3 ($1), Tesseracts 4 ($1), Tesseracts 5 ($1), Tesseracts 6 ($1), Tesseracts 7 ($1), Tesseracts 8 ($1), A World Out of Time (Larry Niven) ($0.50), City of Diamond (Jane Emerson) ($1), and The Temporal Void, by Peter F. Hamilton ($4.99, so not out of the discount bin)

Edit: Holy crap, I just happened to open the first Tesseracts...

It's signed by the editor. Judith freaking Merrill. I suppose there's no way to prove it's not a fake signature by the late Merrill, but still, woot!

I also broke, since I was near a Future Shop, and bought some X-Box Live points so I could by Dead Rising: Case Zero, and also The Passing for L4D2. Will probably buy The Sacrifice for L4D2 when it comes out too, have some left over.

Since I had a heavy bagful of books, I decided to take the subway home and they were doing their "Buy a slice of pizza on the platform for $1, for charity," so I bought a couple of those too.
I think they made them smaller and less cheesy than in previous years. Economy hits everyone, I guess. Still, for $1 and charity, not bad.

Let's start with the books.

Finished: Ender in Exile, by Orson Scott Card

This story deals with Ender on his trip away from Earth and his first couple colony worlds. And what can I say about it? It's okay, but nowhere near the best of the Ender books. (slightly more spoilers behind the cut) ( Read more... ) Worth reading for Ender completists, probably, but for casual fans (or non fans), it's not really that necessary.

Started and Finished: Disapora, by Greg Egan
Started: Blindsight, by Peter Watts (reread)

Peter Watts finally won a Hugo last weekend, for his story The Island. I started rereading it during Fan Expo, while I was waiting in line, and will want to finish it.

Anyway, Diaspora. It's sort of a post-singularity fiction, dealing with humanity after some segment of it decided to exist only as software, and the efforts to explore the universe/ensure their immortality. There are some cool concepts there, and I enjoyed reading it, but it's not one of my favorites, even in the Singularity-fiction-type genre. While I like science, I think this one focused a bit too much on science at the expense of enjoyable plot. Not bad, though.

Finished: Tatja Grimm's World, by Vernor Vinge
Started: The Dreaming Void, by Peter Hamilton

Another disappointing one. I love Vernor Vinge, but, well, Tatja Grimm's World is one of his earliest novels, and it shows. It focuses on a super genius in a rather primitive, metal-poor world and her allies, who are occasionally her enemies, and really more the viewpoint characters. But most of the characters fall a little flat, and the plot jumps around too much between not-all-that-interesting sub-settings. I only began to be engaged towards the end of the book.

-

What about comics? Well, I'm still down to just New Mutants, and nothing I've seen lately coming up is convincing me to change my mind. I might give "Generation Hope" a chance, but I don't really like their new model of mutant (gaining their powers older, needing to be 'activated'), or even the characters themselves so far, as shown by the first glimpses we've seen of them in Uncanny X-Men.

So, enough about what I've read... what about watched?

Not much, it being summer. Most everything I'm interested in has been in reruns, and nothing new's started. But there are a couple of things.

Kick-Ass, the Movie: Was actually pretty enjoyable. I gave up on the comic after two or three issues, but I liked the movie. (Minor spoilers for both behind the cut)( Read more... )

I also dipped into a new cartoon, Generator Rex, by the same team that made Ben 10. It involves the world after an 'Event' spread nanites all over the place. Sometimes the nanites go crazy and turn people into monsters. The main character, Rex, controls his nanites and can both deactivate monsters by touching them, and create various machines out of his body.

It's mildly enjoyable. It started a little flat, and some of the characters are a little on the silly side (Six, badass secret agent who uses swords for some reason... you know, just running up and doing impossibly acrobatic stunts to slice at a monster with a sword), but it's watchable.

My only real complaints are 1) that I wish they respected science a little more. I know, I know, it's a cartoon, but... ( Read more... ). 2) Sort of touches like one. Generator Rex reminds me a LITTLE of another nanite-themed property that I always thought would make a kickass cartoon, and it would probably now never be possible. Not like it ever was, but still, every time I watch the show I think, "Man, I wish I was watching a Cybergeneration show.". Cybergeneration was a sequel to the RPG Cyberpunk 2020, sort of trying to combined Cyberpunk and teen-mutants. ( Read more... ). I would so LOVE to see a cartoon along these lines, with ( Read more... ) Anyway, I almost want Rex to, in future episodes, assemble a team of other people who have powers, like the Pack, but good, just because those people would seem to be more interesting than the monkey, the secret agent, the best friend, and the Doctor (who are all okay, but, I don't know, none really stand out yet).

Coming up in TV, I'll probably give No Ordinary Family a chance, maybe the first few episodes of The Event, just to see what the titular Event is, Walking Dead of course, but that's not till Halloween and... were there other new SF shows coming? If so, they haven't made much of an impression. Oh, the Cape, I guess, I'll give that a shot, but only because of Summer Glau.

In video games, still playing with zombies. What else?

So, Fan Expo. I will begin at the beginning. One March day in 1978, in a military base in BC, a young baby was born who... wait, that's too early. I'll just start with today. The preparation and journey: ( Read more... )

The Line: ( Read more... )

The Celebrities: Once in, I thought first I'd go for the celebrities. Maybe if I was lucky I'd catch someone early and not have to wait at all. I was half successful. The problem was, my mental map of the area was backwards, so I went to the exact wrong place to look for the celebrities, then did a tour of the edge and finally found them. Actually, the first celebrity I saw was on the-way, Tamoh Pennikett (Helo from BSG). He was giving an interview in one of the booths, and I actually walked basically right beside him before I noticed, but I didn't want to interrupt, and I wanted to find the autograph area, so I moved on. Summer Glau was already there, and here line was about 20 people deep, only a couple minutes in. Knowing my best opportunity when I saw one, I got in line. Had a mildly pleasant line-conversation with another Serenity fan (who was a multi-dayer and had gotten most of her autographs the day before). She mentioned that Dean Stockwell had very little line, which surprised me. Felicia Day and Tamoh Pennikett both showed up for theirs while I waited in line. Felicia walked right past me, though I didn't have my camera ready.

Summer Glau: ( Read more... )

Felicia Day (The Guild, Doctor Horrible's Sing-a-Long-Blog): ( Read more... )

Dean Stockwell (Al from Quantum Leap, Cavil from BSG, numerous genre guest-starring roles):( Read more... )

The others I didn't see, and didn't really plan to unless fate smiled upon me:( Read more... )

A Short Rant on Autograph Fees: ( Read more... )

After I was done with the autographs, I wandered the floor mostly for the next few hours. I did finally get up to meet Adrian Alphona, the main artist on Runaways (while it was awesome). So, let's do it celebrity style:
Adrian Alphona (Runaways): ( Read more... )

Most of the rest of the time I wandered around without much of note happening. I accidentally cut in line for the DC free stuff but then learned the line started way back away, and so I just abandoned it. The free comics and Green Lantern/Flash rings might have been cool, but only if the line was relatively short. I almost bumped into Tommy Tellerico (from Reviews on the Run and Electric playground in years past, though he's on his own stuff), talking to one of the other reviewers. At first I wasn't 100% sure it was him, then I heard him shout "TRON!"

I didn't make any of the panels this year. DC Universe panel started at 11, and the first time I asked what time it was, it was 11:06. The Marvel panels were Shadowland at 2pm, a Daredevil centric event I don't give a damn about, and "Pint of C.B." general questions panel at 3:30, and, well, I got home at about 3:30, so you can guess I didn't make that one. Was just too tired. Didn't get much in the way of swag, either, unfortunately, just the cardboard alien thing (which was an ad, but an inventive one and cool, so I'll count it, even if it did get damaged), and a whoopie cushion advertising G4 for some reason. Well, it was free. Kinda wish I noticed the DC swag earlier, I think I passed by there when there was very little line, I just didn't realize the stuff was free and not for sale stuff.

I met

liabrown briefly, as well as her husband, making her (I believe) the only person on my flist to have ever met the elusive

newnumber6. Anyway, she just appeared right in front of me and I had some idea of what she looked like so I took a chance and asked if she was she (after seeing her media badge which helped confirm it, since she does reporting for comiXfan).

I took a fair bit of pictures, and got one "Hey, Blue Sun! classic!" comment on my t-shirt. Talked very briefly with a few other people, either answering questions or asking them if I could take a picture. So on a social interaction level, although I didn't make any particular 'connections', I said a fair bit of what I wanted to, to celebrities, and had some small interactions so... I'd call it a win, and I'm not depressed on that score like I was the last two times I went (perhaps because I didn't have my hopes insanely high and went in expecting not to manage to talk to anybody at all). Sure, I didn't meet the geek girl of my dreams, either, but again, not expecting it. I was also able to be randomly nice - saw a person talking to friends pull something out of his pocket and as he did, a $5 bill came out and landed on the floor. None of them seemed to notice it so I pointed it out.

At about 2 was when I decided, Okay, I'm getting kind of tired, I'm just going to head home. I had a coupon for a free burger (when you buy fries and a drink) at Licks, and figured that would do for my meal on the way home. Twas a homeburger, with cheese, Guk sauce (their special sauce), ketchup, relish, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, hot peppers, and pickles. It was pretty big and very tasty, and I don't know if it was just eating all that much at once after not having eaten since the night before (and so consequently probably eating too fast), or a bunch of other stuff, but I felt all bloaty and uncomfortable on the way home when I wanted to just nap a bit and be refreshed. I did eventually get to nap, but it took a few hours of being tired first.

Behind the final cut... the photos! Not many, and I kinda suck as a photographer (but in my defense, it was my first day ever using the camera, I borrowed it from my brother). Also a bit of discussion about the costumes I saw but didn't photograph. (Photos fixed now. Had to reupload everything to a less sucky image server. Man, when did imagevenue start to SUCK SO MUCH? Seriously, it didn't used to be this bad).
( Read more... )

Finished: Year's Best SF 6, (short story collection) (reread)
Started: Ender in Exile, by Orson Scott Card

As a short story collection, YBSF is a mixed bag, but I usually find this particular series has a higher proportion of good ones. I still think my favorite story in the collection is David Langford's "Different Kinds of Darkness", although Ted Chiang's "Seventy-Two Letters", Michael F. Flynn's "Built Upon the Sands of Time", and Greg Egan's "Oracle" were also especially enjoyable (although I think Oracle would have been better if he actually explicitly made it about Alan Turing and C.S. Lewis, instead of people who were just meant to represent them... the story involves multiple universes, after all, so even if some details needed to be 'wrong', that's okay, and I just think it would have been a little more powerful, though I suppose there's the potential for disrespect and bad feelings when you use real people).

Finished: The Exile Kiss, by George Alec Effinger
Started: Tatja Grimm's World, by Vernor Vinge

Exile Kiss is the third (and final complete) novel in the Budayeen/Marid Audran universe, semi-cyberpunk set in the Middle East. It's also unfortunately I think the weakest. ( Read more... )I'll still probably track down the collection Budayeen Nights (short stories, many set in the same world) eventually though.

Still been playing a lot of L4D2. Still dealing with some annoying achievements that should be simple but are proving impossible for me to get in the right position and the right time AND pull off without screwing up. :P. Ah well. I did manage to get one I didn't expect... Tank Burger (kill a Tank using only a melee weapon), because it still counts if you only hit a tank once with a sword and then make it to the end of the mission without firing on it or killing it (I guess because it auto-dies at mission end).

And since Gyros shouldn't go without comment (even somewhat mediocre Gyros) last week was the Taste of the Danforth, and as was tradition, I went. However, I went somewhat later than the times I usually went, and I don't know if it was that or if it was just exceptionally busy this year, but it was crazy.

Waited 10 minutes in one line before I realized I had accidentally cut, that what I thought was the beginning of the line (and was about the same as where lines began when I went in previous years) was actually near the end, and the line was way way back. (It was hard to distinguish between the line and the group of people walking by it). So I abandoned that line and went on for another. Found another one, basically I was in a line between two places. One, I quickly learned, was even more messed up. The line began at a reasonable spot, but apparently you had to get TICKETS for the line, and the lineup for that was somewhere way somewhere else. Of course, there were no visible signs or anything and usually you'd had to be waiting for at least 10 minutes before you were informed of that fact. So I sort of casually tried to go to the other, which didn't seem to have a super long line but it moved super slow (because it was both wide and long). Wound up waiting in that line for about an hour to get 1 gyro. And it was a rush gyro, not even all that great, not a super amount of sauce or anything. Too many people for too few benefit (story of my life in the world). Anyway, it was enough to make a vow. Never again. Not for Gyros, or even Taste of the Danforth in spirit, but for going down there and doing it the hard way. See, there are actually places that sell Gyros on the street I walk down to GET to the Taste of the Danforth, and from now on, I'm just doing that and saying screw the crowds. I may have made a similar observation in previous years, but this time it's officially a vow.

In other news... I don't think there is any other news for me. Despite my distaste for crowds, right now I expect I'll be going to FanExpo Canada in 2 weeks, although it's possible my social anxiety issues will kill it at the last minute. Summer Glau, James Marsters, Tamoh Pennikett and Dean Stockwell. And Adrian Alphona, Runaways artist. I'm even a little tempted to see if I can get a sketch (maybe my long wanted Undead!Zombie!Chase!With!Lasers!), though shyness will probably prevent it - in previous years I've not managed to even talk to artists, which I know is ridiculous, but such is life, or mine, anyway.

Finished: A Fire in the Sun, by George Alec Effinger (reread)
Started: The Year's Best SF 6 (short story collection (reread)

A Fire in the Sun was enjoyable, but not quite as good as When Gravity Fails. Still, it made me eager to find the third book in the series.

Finished: Excession, by Iain M. Banks (reread)

Don't have much to say to it. Even though it's my second reread I found I didn't really know or want to pay attention to what was going on in a lot of places. Fun despite it, but I think I have to be in a particular frame of mind (and hyper-attentive) to appreciate this, even though, oddly, it's one of my favorite of the Culture books.

Started and Finished: The Fabulous Riverboat, by Philip Jose Farmer (Riverworld book 2) (reread)
Started: The Exile Kiss, by George Alec Effinger

Yeah, I didn't intend to read more than the first volume again, but I ran out of new books. As usual, good idea, kinda iffy execution. A couple notes though (with an eye towards adaptations). ( Read more... )

Video-gamewise, I've been playing L4D2 of course. Some general thoughts... ( Read more... )

What I want to see in L4D3 (eventually, aside from fixing a couple of the problems mentioned above): ( Read more... )

And for an amusing link of the day, though you may have already seen it: "Jane Austen's Fight Club"

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.

Anyway, let's move on to Book Foo.

Finished: Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross (reread)
Started: Excession, by Iain M. Banks (reread)

Iron Sunrise, aside from the slightly ridiculous Space Nazis (not quite but almost) works much better as a reread than the first book in the series, feeling more mature as a whole. But I don't have a lot to say on it. I would like to see more in the universe, but I don't think Stross plans on revisiting it anytime soon. Pity.

Finished: To Your Scattered Bodies Go... (Riverworld, Book One), by Philip Jose Farmer (reread)

Like I said last time, I think this book is one of the top ten Great Ideas in SF (although, perhaps I'd modify it to "The Top Ten Great Ideas Which Somehow Haven't Been Pounced On By Other Writers And Repeated Millions of Times"), and maybe one of the reasons for it is writingwise it's a little flat. It has some great characters as protagonists but it just doesn't come alive very much. Now, part of it is the book's age... SF books written in the past have a certain style that's different than more modern books (I'm not sure exactly where the split is, but I want to say it happened sometime in the 80s)... it's hard to define exactly, I suppose some of it's more of a focus on character than plot, so the books read a little like you're at a distance from the whole thing instead of immersing yourself in the wonder... and I usually like newer ones better.

It's not bad per se, it's just a weaker than it should be. Since I've given up on a good Riverworld TV adaptation, I'd almost settle for a Riverworld novel reboot (or, again, taking the same idea of everybody in humanity resurrected on the same alien world and being immortal, but dropping some of the specific elements that make Riverworld unique), written by somebody else... which is perhaps less likely.

Started and finished: When Graviy Fails, by George Alec Effinger (reread)
Started: A Fire in the Sun, by George Alec Effinger (reread)

I don't know why I felt a desire to read the Budayeen novels again, but I'm glad I did. Enough time has passed where I was unfamiliar with the specifics of the mystery, so it was still surprising and almost as enjoyable as the first time. Effinger DOES manage to do what Farmer does not, really immerse you in a radically different world and make you feel not only the differences but that somehow you belong, and, even though most of the characters are unsavory or downright despicable in one way or another, you feel a little sympathetic for them. So I moved on to the second, which as I recall wasn't as good, but I still enjoyed it.

-

So, other than books, what else is there? TV's almost completely dead now, just one last episode of Doctor Who (which has been mostly enjoyable, with a few exceptions, this year, an improvement over last).

So, there's video games. Or, rather, a video game. I've been playing Left 4 Dead, and doing so on X-Box Live. I splurged and bought a yearly membership but promised I wouldn't activate it until I'd met a few conditions... 1 being finishing my Runaways Alternate Volume 3 thing, the second being submitting a story off for possible publication (though I'm not getting my hopes up, this time it's to one of the biggies, Asimov's), and 3rd being a couple of achievements in the single player mode I wanted to unlock. All of them were done a couple days ago, so I activated it and got to playing.

Mostly I've been playing Versus mode... I just like playing as the Infected, lying in wait and trying to surprise/trap the unsuspecting other players. I kind of wish there were a few more different Versus modes (I'd like to see something like a normal campaign mode where you play all the way through as one or the other, and can switch at will if there are spaces free on the other side, so if you JUST like playing infected, you can do that), and a little more variety in what you can be, (maybe I'll have to move on to L4D2 so I can get Spitter and Jockey added to the mix).

Anyway, I unlocked all but one of the Versus Achievements by now (The one where you get a survivor to leave a saferoom to come after a friend, and kill him, is remarkably hard to get - mainly because too many players are selfish and just lock themselves in the room when they get to it and leave their friends to die. When I'm playing on the Survivor's side, I actually like to go rescue people), and most but not all of the Survivor Achievements (I'm not yet a Zombie Genocidist, and I haven't yet killed enough with a minigun... most of the others are the really hard ones, like suriving campaigns on expert or making it through without taking damage from the special infected types).

The game generally does a very nice trick of leading you along a fairly narrow, specific path, while not making it LOOK like it's doing so, particularly on the first playthrough. It's almost like you just follow the general policy, 'if it looks like you have a choice of multiple directions, just look for the most interesting thing you see that you haven't already been to'. Sometimes that's a stairway, sometimes that's a door with a little light coming through, sometimes it's a stairway. It is a bit simplistic at times and can be repetitive, but for now I'm really enjoying it.

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?

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The Unreachable Star

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Number6's Journal

Entries tagged with zombies

November Book Foo 2/2

October Book Foo! + General Stuff 1/2

First Substantive Post of 2014!

Been a while since I posted...

Some recent TV stuff...

Stream of what passes for consciousness

Gaming and Randomness

Long Overdue Book Foo!

Happy ENIAC day!

It's sad that most of my achievements lately are on XBOX360...

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That Meme

Booksplosion!

Media on my Mind...

The 2010 Fan Expo Experience!

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Book Foo, and Video Game Foo,

New Comic Day!

What I've been using lately to avoid was passes for my life...

The Top Ten Big Ideas in SF?