...becomes a Legend

June 15 - You wouldn't be interested in that.

DAMN YOU ALL!

As a kid, I always seemed to read at least one Superman comic a month, and over the years my interest in the character has had ups and downs. The folks over at the Superman Home Page; however, have an obvious love for the character. They've just posted an amazing interview with Greg Rucka, writer of Adventures of Superman. Rucka is also, in my opinion, doing a great job on Wonder Woman. Either way, the interview covers alot of stuff about Superman, obviously, and the writer's perspective of comics. A very interesting interview, I have to say.

Funny, very funny.

Freakin' Sweet! I've been looking forward to this for a long, long time.

Link-a-dink

Not much today, but just a few interesting links I've come across in the past couple of days

Just realized DC Comics has a Grant Morrison mini-site. Cool.

Peter David will be writing a new Spidey title: Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, (CBR, Newsarama) with art by Mike Wieringo. This is bad and good news, I love David's writing, but Mark Waid was originally set to write this, and I would have liked to seen his take on Peter Parker. Either way, this gives me an opportunity to read, hopefully, good Spidey stories again, I droped JMS's Amazing just when it was revealed Norman Osborne buggered Gwen Stacy, not so much because JMS dishonored the memory of Gwen, but because the storytelling was just not very good.

Another sample chapter from George R.R. Martin. I'm hoping this recent flurry of teases from him is an indication the book is almost complete. It's been about 5 years since A Storm of Swords was published, so I will most likely re-read the other three books. Not that re-reading these books is a bad thing, mind you.

Terry NoGoodkind continues to come across foolishly and "distanced from the reality based community."*

Rick Kleffel has a cool interview witih Pyr SF Editorial Director Lou Anders.

*Ever since Neil Gaiman said as much about Todd McFarlane, I've been using every chance I get to use/paraphrase the quote. I just like the way it sounds, sue me.

Disease!

Sure I may be the last person in the comic book reading world to read it, but I finally got around to reading all of The Ultimates, Volume 1 by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch. I'm not really the biggest Millar fan in the world, I liked Red Son, thought Wanted was good until the last issue and the other comics I've read by him were just kind of there. On the whole, The Ultimates was entertaining, with some great artwork by Bryan Hitch. I thought some of Millar's dialogue was a bit forced, and a lot the scenes of felt VERY derivative, but I kind of like Millar's take on Captain America. Even though I liked the art, it seemed as if there were too many pages with less than four panels of artwork, which gave the feeling of less going on in some issues. Reading the entire story in one sitting was good, and I can imagine being frustrated if I had read this as each issue published. So on the whole an entertaining story, but there was a big feeling of writing-for-the trade on this one.

Posted my review of The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, a very fun book.

Added some more links to the sidebar, more blogs and archived my SFFWorld book reviews and interviews, so I at least have one location where I can access all of them.

This gave me a chuckle, via Keyoke/Mike/Paedeur or whatever the hell he's calling himself these days: The Evil Overlord List

Geekery, thy name

Star Wars fever is really getting to me, I feel like devouring as many of the SW books as possible. Aside from reading Zahn's Thrawn trilogy years ago, I was resistant to reading Star Wars novels for a while. But after writers like Matthew Stover and Greg Keyes got involved in The New Jedi Order, I warmed to reading the novels. And you know what, they are pretty good and quite entertaining. I've got the last two books of The New Jedi Order on my "to read" pile, and I would like to pick up the Sean Stewart's Yoda: Dark Rendezvous as well as James Luceno's Labyrinth of Evil. But goddamit! I've already got a "to read" pile at least 20 books thick; with one book from last Christmas (2003) I haven't read yet. Not to mention the bi-weekly stash of comics I pick up as well as the occasional graphic novel (still need to pick up the recently released deluxe edition of Batman: Year One and the Legend of GrimJack: Volume 2).

Another character/universe continually popping up in front of me is R.A. Salvatore's Dark Elf, Drizzt Do’Urden and I find myself wanting to read the novels. A handful of years ago I read The Icewind Dale Trilogy and it was a really entertaining story, with exciting action sequences. While the characters were somewhat clichéd, they were still characters I enjoyed reading about. Yes, yes another media/franchise character/world, what are you thinking Rob? Aren't you the same guy who, in the SFFWorld Forums always recommends writers like Jeffrey Ford, Gene Wolfe, Michael Moorcock, China Mieville and Steven Brust - writers who more often than not are the exact opposite of the more generic stuff like Drizzt and his Forgotten Realms pals? Yes I am. But when a writer I like Matthew Stover, whom I consider one of the 4 or 5 very best FSF writers publishing today, has said he enjoys Salvatore's work, and has written the introduction to the recently re-released Exile (book 2 of The Dark Elf Trilogy), well, I am further convinced I need to read these books. I also consider the fact that my best friend who isn't really a reader and my brother-in-law, was so captivated by Salvatore's Drizzt, I am again, further convinced I need to read these books. Good entertaining story is still good story.

I think these are all symptoms of my biblioholica - an addiction to books.

On to the world of comics, the Brian Azzarello/Jim Lee 12-issue storyline finally wrapped this week. I didn't pick it up, but skimmed through it in the store. I dropped the storyline about 8 issues in due to the WTF factor and it doesn't look like I missed much, other than more WTF-ness. I do have to say the guy coming aboard as the new writer, Mark Verheiden, looks like he has some interesting things coming along with Ed Benes. Just from the few preview pages, it looks like Verheidn has a good handle on what can be cool about Superman. Only time will tell, but between this and Morrison/Quietly's All Star Superman, Big Blue could be having some interesting adventures in the near future.

Ugh

Disney's official Narnia Web site

I read all of the books a couple of years ago and considering a number of the people who helped to create the Lord of the Rings films are aboard for this one, I'm expecting good things. I assume Disney is as well, since this could be the beginning of a very lucrative film franchise.

These last few weeks have been extremely hectic, with me saying to myself by about Tuesday or Wednesday, I can't wait until this week is over. Then the weekend flies by and I'm back in the same rut the following week. The consequences of all that are less writing, reading, and blogging than I would like.

The best thing this week, though, was going to the Yankees game on Monday night. Friends had four free tickets right ON TOP OF THE YANKEES DUGOUT! I could have shaken Jeter or Mattingly's hand I was so close. It was one of the few wins the Yanks have had so far this year, and it was just a great time all around.

I will hopefully have more to reading, writing and posting time soon.

Rise Lord Vader

I just posted my review of Mathew Stover’s amazing Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith novel. Here’s a snippet:

As a fan of the Star Wars universe, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith was as perfect a novel as one could ask. More importantly, as a fan of great storytelling, Stover succeeded supremely, balancing the characters, storyline, internal/external struggles and maintaining the pace and dramatic tension throughout the entirety of the novel. In addition to the success of this novel on a storytelling level, Stover also succeed in adding perhaps the strongest addition to the literary canon of Star Wars. This novel may be considered a companion to the film, but after reading it, I would consider it required reading. Fans of Star Wars, or simply great, entertaining storytelling that questions our assumptions, should read this book. I can’t see how anybody would be disappointed.

George R.R. Martin posted another sample chapter from A Feast for Crows

http://www.postsecret.blogspot.com/ via Mastadge

Give in...to the Dark Side

Thinking up titles for these blog entries is often the most annoying thing about blogging. More often than not, they are pretty cheesy, and I fully admit this fact.

Life has been more than hectic, just when you think you can get a breather, you get pulled under for just a little bit more. Such was last week’s case, a very busy work week with two strong deadline oriented projects flavoring the whole week. Thankfully, things were completed on time and I enjoyed the beautiful weather here in New Jersey over the past weekend.

My wife and I are in the process of house hunting, a very frustrating thing indeed. Anybody who has been in the market knows what it is like. My wife and I bought/opened up a mortgage on our townhouse just before getting married and we both shudder at the thought of what it would have been like five years ago if the prices were as outrageous as they are now. Suffice it to say, we probably would have been living in cardboard boxes.

Over the weekend picked up the novelization of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover and I’m 1/3 into it already. If the novelization is any indication, Revenge of the Sith will be an action-packed film and will be at least as good as Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, my personal favorite Star Wars movie. I also picked up the third Vampire Earth novel by E.E. Knight – Tale of the Thunderbolt. Knight's books are highly entertaining.

After one week, my fantasy baseball team is of course, going through some ups and downs, I’m in the middle of the pack right now, and that’s with two starters on the DL. I may not continue in this league next year, but we shall see.

Not much else to blog about right now.

PS2, Baseball & Books

I beat Champions of Norrath yesterday. Well, at least the beginner level. There are two more levels I can play, Advanced and Courageous. The game is a lot of fun and the advanced levels make it well worth the money, and give you a lot of playing time. I will hold off on replaying for a while, though. I've still got a nice handful of games to play and hopefully beat, not the least of which is Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. Though I have to admit, the lure of three or four games I want to buy is very strong: EA MVP 2005 Baseball, Prince of Persia 2, Shadow of Rome and most of all, God of War.

The Baseball season is officially underway, an impressive win last night for the Yankees. Many sports writers and sports reporters are picking Hideki Matsui to win the MVP. I will be surprised if one Yankee distinguishes himself enough to win the MVP this year, the argument always being the Yankees would likely be in the same position without the player. I think this is one of the reasons Albert Pujols didn't win the NL MVP award last year.

I'm in the midst of reading two very good books right now The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld and Gemquest: The Awakening by Gary Wassner. More often than not, I only read one book at a time, but I wanted to try and read multiple books at the same time. Its proving interesting, trying to determine which book to grab, fortunately, they are both very entertaining, but I think I'm giving the edge to Gemquest: The Awakening.