Chaos & Clarkesworld Books

Work has been extremely busy, as is often the case just before a holiday. Life has been busy with family and friend-related engagements every weekend in between work on the new house.

In the midst of all this chaos, I'm thankful for great books like John Marco's newest, The Sword of Angels, to take me away and still engage my thoughts and stimulate my imagination. I finished it up a couple of days ago and I'm finalizing my review, which will be posted in a couple of days. As my sidebar indicates, I'm smack-dab in the middle of the thoughtful and cool collection edited by Gardner Dozois, Galileo's Children.

I've mentioned before the great online FSF bookstore, Clarkesworld Books, run by Neil Clarke. He has a wonderful selection of 'Zines, signed books, used books and small press books you just can't find in Barnes and Noble or Borders. Every so often, Neil runs a contest and the one he's starting up is pretty cool. Tobias Buckell, a writer whose short stories I've enjoyed will see his debut novel, Crystal Rain, publish with Tor (not that you would know from perusing Tor's Web site) in January/February of 2006. If you preorder a signed copy, you win a chance to be a character in one of his future novels. Again, as I've said, Neil is a fellow NJ-guy, so I always try to support the locals, especially when the product/services offered are superior to the big competition. Regardless of whether or not you are going to get Buckell's novel, Clarkesworld offers a plentitude of books.

I'm Pure...

Although I don't completely agree with everything the writer, Rick Remender, says about science fiction, he has a pretty interesting looking comic book series coming out in October from Image Comics, entitled Fear Agent. Comic Book Resources speaks to him here, artists Tony Moore and Cory Walker.

I also expanded on my post about Gary's 3rd GemQuest novel and posted it as an official SFFWorld review..

Got this one from Scott

Pure Geek 47 % Nerd, 73% Geek, 26% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Geek, earning you the title of: Pure Geek. It's not that you're a school junkie, like the nerd, and you don't really stand out in a crowd, like the dork, you just have some interests that aren't quite mainstream. Perhaps it's anime, perhaps it's computers, perhaps it's bottlecaps, perhaps it's all of those and more. Your interests take you to events and gatherings that are filled with people you find unusual and beyond-the-pale, but you don't quite consider yourself "of that crowd." Instead, you consider yourself to be fairly normal. Which, you are. Congratulations!

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 27% on nerdiness You scored higher than 92% on geekosity You scored higher than 29% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on Ok Cupid

Fall Readings, Viewings, & Listenings

There are quite a bit of good things coming out this fall, in terms of books, movies and music. I figured I'd give a rundown of some things I'm looking forward to distracting me from reality...

September will see the release of Son of a Witch, Gregory Maguire's sequel to the wonderful Wicked. Robert Buettner's second novel, Orphan's Destiny will be publishing as well. I really enjoyed his debut, Orphanage, which reminded me of Ender's Game. Joss Whedon's Serenity hits the big screen in September. Disturbed's new album, Ten Thousand Fists, hits shelves at the end of September. Mrs. Blog o' Stuff will probably be pleased that Bon Jovi's new album, Have a Nice Day, comes out in September too. DC publishes an Absolute edition of the year-long Hush storyline from 2003.

In October, the NHL resumes play and BantamSpectra publishesa re-issue of M. John Harrison's seminal Viriconium, something I've been wanting to read for a long time. Alexander Irvine's new novel, In the Narrows, comes out in October, too. Mrs. Blog 'o Stuff will be pleased again since the new, as of yet untitled, Lemony Snicket book comes out in October. Batman Begins comes to DVD on October 18th, and DC is publishing Watchmen: The Absolute Edition in October, as well. DC's huge "earth-shattering-mega-super-duper-balls-out-for-glory" crossover kicks off - Infinite Crisis. In music, Shinedown's second album, Us and Them comes out October 4th. Their first album, Leave a Whisper, is amazing and the songs I've heard from this one are very good. I wasn't sure what to make of the cast of Elizabethtown, but once I discovered Cameron Crow was helming it, I mentally added to the list. Two sequels will probably wait until cable, though: Saw II and The Legend of Zorro. Also in October, Robert Jordan's 11th Wheel of Time novel, Knife of Dreams, publishes. The last WOT book I read was probably Winter's Heart. I will likely eventually finish out the series, but that is becoming a lower and lower reading priority with each passing day.

November, of course, is when George R. R. Martin's A Feast for Crows comes out. Stephen Erikson's third Malazan novel, Memories of Ice, comes to the US in November, too. Some little indepent film about a guy who gets burned and starts wearing black armor comes out on DVD in November. The film Zathura looks interesting if only because Jon Favreau is directing it. The fourth Potter movie comes out in November, too.

I've likely forgotten at least a book or two, a movie and some other stuff, but these are the ones that piqued my interest the most.

GemQuest 3

I finished up The Shards, Gary's third GemQuest novel yesterday. Over the course of the three books, Gary's skills as a writer are catching up to his skills as a storyteller. While on the surface the saga is your typical "good guys rally to thwart the destructive plans of the evil overlord," there is more to it than that, and Gary's skills as a storyteller proves it. Part of the fun of that trope is seeing how many ways it can be spun, and in Gary's case, I like what he is doing.

Colton, the evil overlord, while not seen very much, is handled very well both in the scenes he is featured, as well as the scenes when other characters try to understand the nature of his "evil." There were a couple of instances where a copyedit would have helped, but on the whole, I like where the series is going, that is to say, there are a few different directions it could go. I also liked some of the new creatures and monsters introduced and fleshed out in The Shards, I'm seeing hints of a couple of different myths here. Suffice it to say, I'm looking forward to where Gary takes the story in the next volume, Revenge of the Elves.

Shaman's Crossing - review posted

Much partying Saturday night at my friend's wedding. I was feeling much better Sunday morning than I thought I was going to feel.

I just posted my official review of Shaman's Crossing by Robin Hobb. Easily one of the best books I've read of this year's releases. Until next time..

A contest with thrones and swords can only be seen with the aid of a Shaman's Conjurings

Just in case anybody reading this blog is living under a rock, George R. R. Martin has a new book in that little, mediocre (he types with a laugh) A Song of Ice and Fire saga coming out in November entitled A Feast for Crows. To celebrate and promote the release, his US Publisher, BantamSpectra is running an online contest entitled A Quest of Thrones, where you can win cool stuff, like copies of the book, a signed bookplate, etc. Even cooler, from my perspective, is that SFFWorld is one of the participant Web sites. On one hand, I can't join the Quest since I'm so heavily involved with SFFWorld, but on the other, I'm thrilled our Web site is partaking in, arguably, the release of the most anticpated fantay novel of the year (or maybe last couple of years). This should kick up the traffic and improve the visibility of one of the genre's largest and best on-line Web sites/communities, which is of course SFFWorld. So go register for this thing right now!

Here's something really cool, you can bid for a chance to be in your favorite writer's next work. Direct links to specific author auctions:

Michael Chabon
Stephen King
Lemony Snicket
Peter Straub

All the proceeds will go to the First Amendment Project, organized by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon.

I just received an advance of John Marco's Sword of Angels. This thing is a beast of a book at over 900 pages, and I mean that as a compliment. I really enjoy John's writing and storytelling, so having this much of it under a nice shiny cover will be good. Once I finish Gary's third GemQuest book, The Shards, I'll move on to John's book, followed up with a review and an e-mail interview for SFFWorld. I finished Robin Hobb's wonderful Shaman's Crossing two nights ago and was completely entranced. I'll not spill anything until my review is written and posted, and I'm hoping to conduct an e-mail interview with her as well. I'm really looking forward to the second novel in the Soldier Son Trilogy Forest Mage, hopefully in about a year.

Of course all of the above are distractions from the frustations of real life, which constantly throws spit balls at you, decieves you into thinking you've turned a good corner for once, and leaves you complacent with everything else.

Gas!

$2.47 a friggn' gallon! Gas prices escalate as it is being put into your car. This is goddamned ridiculous. Instead of worrying about baseball players on steriods, or what people listen to on the radio and in their homes, the government should do something that has a DIRECT IMPACT on people EVERY DAY. I'm no economics guy, but there has got to be something the government can do about this, especially if they feel the need to increase their grasp on our personal freedoms and put their hands in professional sports.

That is all for today, I just needed to rant.

Long Weekend and Awards

The impending doom of bills to come seems to mount after buying a house, I'm learning. This past weekend was a long, entertaining weekend. Saturday night into Sunday morning was a bachelor party, I didn't pull up to my driveway until 5AM. It has been a long time since I pulled one of those. Slept for a few hours before going to the NY Renaissance Festival on Sunday with Mrs. Blog o' Stuff my brother-in-law and friend. I had a good time, ate some good food and I was sleep walking for the latter parts of it, since I barely had 3 hours sleep.

This coming weekend is the wedding of the groom for the aforementioned bachelor party, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Less than 2 months until the NHL season begins, and there have been a flurry of interesting moves. Khabibulin, unfortunately, signs with Chicago, Forsberg signs with the Flyers and my Devils haven't done much. It will be interesting and fun to see how things play out with the rule changes and new faces on new teams.

The Hugo Awards were given out this past weekend, and the book I felt to be the most over-rated novel in some time walked away with the Award for best novel. I really thought China Miéville's Iron Council would get the nod. I only read two of the novels on the ballot, so I can't judge either Iron Council, which I enjoyed, if less so than his other novels, and Clarke's against the others. However, a good deal of buzz had been surrounding Ian MacDonald's River of Gods, and I thought perhaps, it would have won. I'll find out about that book early next year as Pyr brings the book to US readers.

In November, it will be interesting to see if Clarke goes two for two in the genre awards. Once again, she is up against China Miéville, with three different works on the list: Stephen R. Donaldson's The Runes of the Earth, Sean Stewart's Perfect Circle and Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight. Of the remaining three (or four) I've only read The Wizard Knight, and since reading it early in the year, it is still probably the best thing I've read this year. While I love Donaldson, I haven't tackled the new Covenant book for a couple of reasons. I re-read the first Chronicles of Thomas Covenant last year and while I enjoyed them, something about them didn't hold up over time. I think it was a case of the wrong book at the wrong time, but I really do want to see what Donaldson has in store for the Land. I've seen very mixed things about the book. The only book I read by Stewart was Galveston, again earlier this year, and I absolutely loved it. I've seen people say Perfect Circle is an even stronger novel. Stewart won the World Fantasy for Galveston, so I wouldn't be surprised if he gets it again. Aside from Clarke, I think I'd be satisfied with any of these wining the award, though Wolfe is whom I am rooting for.

In telling my brother-in-law about the bachelor party, he referred to me a better name for said event. He heard this from comedian Adam Corolla, and it is pretty funny: a Penis Funeral. I will leave on that note.

Rob Burns Easily

A week ago was the hottest day of the year and I was at Ozzfest. Even though I lathered SPF 45 sunblock on my face, I still came home with my face looking like a Macintosh Apple. At one point, I was walking past the concession stands and I felt something large fall on my toe. Thinking nothing of it, I continued for scant seconds when I realized it was the head of a kid who had passed out.

As for the concert itself, the second stage was pretty good, what I saw of it. It was too damn hot and there were too many shirtless guys for me to want to get closer. Killswitch Engage was pretty good, but the headliner of the 2nd stage, Rob Zombie was flat out awesome, the guy is a great performer.

On the main stage, Black Label Society was awesome, and Shadows Fall was phenominal. After being in the hot, oppressive sun for over 8 hours, I was just about done and tired as hell. Then Iron Maiden hit the stage and I was rejuvinated. This was the 3rd time I've seen them and they were just as great as each previous concert. The most recent song they played was The Trooper. I love their older stuff, but I still would have liked to have heard something from Seventh Son or maybe Fear of the Dark. Lastly, of course, Black Sabbath hit the stage. Ozzy looked alot more spry than I thought he would, but by the end of their set, his voice was going and he was beginning to look more and more like Emperor Palpatine. They of course played Iron Man, and War Pigs. I was really happy to hear Fairies Wear Boots and Sympton of the Universe, but the best was the song Black Sabbath.

Overall, it was a good, if very long day. I don't know that I'd do the whole day of Ozzfest again, unless Godsmack is one of the top bands.

An ARC of Robin Hobb's Shaman's Crossing arrived yesterday, one of the books I've been most looking forward to this year. I rank her Farseer/Liveship/Tawny Man saga in my upper echelon of fantasy sequences, so I'm really interested to see what she does in a completely new world. I'll be getting to it ina day or two, since I'm almost done with The Blackgod, the second part of Greg Keyes' Chosen of the Changeling duology. I've liked the story thus far, Greg plays with a bunch of different myths in the story and the world he's created is rich, interesting and peopled with fairly believable characters. Actually, I think where he's grown the most since the Changeling books is in his characterizations. I don't think these two books are on the same level as his unique Age of Unreason saga, or his superb Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone, but they are still quite enjoyable.

On to Greg Keyes' Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone Saga - the next volume, The Blood Knight, is publishing April 2006. Not quite 2 years since The Charnel Prince, though about the same amount of tie between The Briar King and The Charnel Prince. I was hoping to see the book this October, but I'd rather Greg take the time than rush. Stephen Youll recently posted the cover art on his Web site.

In comics, I've been following Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers mega-saga (with the exception of Klarion). The art on The Shining Knight is handled by Simone Bianchi and is really beautiful and visually stunning, he plays with darkness and shadows really well. There's something about this story that reminds me a bit of Moorcocks Hawkmoon.

I've mentioned before how much I'm enjoying Busiek's take on Conan. The most recent issue featured a small back-up drawn by Bruce Timm (co-architect of DC Comics' animated universe). I have to say this - get Bruce Timm on a Conan animated series NOW. I wasn't sure how I'd like an animated style/interpretation of Conan, but I really shouldn't be suprised that Timm did a great job with it.

Back in the 21st Century Baby!

Finally, after almost 3 goddamned weeks I have Internet access at home. In this day and age, for a technology company to take more than one week, let alone three weeks to turn on DSL service is beyond my comprehension. Anyway, I'm connected at the new house and I feel like a kid with a new toy. Moving is a pretty damned stressful thing in and of itself. I mean for Christ's sake, I've got this blog to keep up with and a Fantasy Baseball team to manage, both of which involve the interet. I felt almost like I was in an uncharted land. Enough of that for now.

John Marco, a writer who's books I've really enjoyed, just re-launched his Web site at http://www.johnmarco.com. He was maintaining a Web site a few years ago, then stopped. Anyway, he's got a new book coming out in September, The Sword of Angels, which concludes the story he began in The Eyes of God. I'll be reviewing The Sword of Angels and conducting an e-mail interview with John shortly thereafter.

Via the Johnny Bacardi Show, I came across this great overview by Paul Dini, genius architect of the animatd DC Universe, illustrating many reasons why I never wanted to and will not see Tim Burton's abyssmal looking Wonka film. I loved the original (and the original of Planet of the Apes, another butcher re-make by Burton) and really saw no reason to remake the film(s).

Now that things are settling down more in the new home*, I feel comfortable with resuming my novel writing.



*still need to do some work on the kitchen and unbox all of our books

Exhaustion

is the name of the game lately. Going from owning and living in a townhouse to owning a home on a decent sized piece of property with a pool is a pretty big change. In a townhouse, no outside work really needs to be done, you can just go to the pool and not worry about cleaning it, the management company for the townhouse complex handles all of it. When you own a house, if you want the grass to look nice, go out and buy a lawnmower and cut it yourself. If you want to swim in your pool, vacuum it at the very least every other day. The house isn't/wasn't in bad condition, it just wasn't really maintained, so Mrs. Blog o' Stuff and I have been basically cleaning it and getting into a condition we consider a bit more liveable. It is all worth it though, when I look out my front window and see a nice patch of grass between my house and the street, settle down into my new living room with a cold Yeungling after a long day and say, holy shit, this is all ours.

In the midst of all the moving back and forth (after five years together, my wife and I have a lot more crap than I initially assumed), I missed two shows I really enjoy two weeks ago: Justice League Unlimited and Family Guy. However, I did catch new episodes of both shows this past weekend. As always, FG was laugh-out-loud funny. The references this show makes are so hilarous due to their obscurity and how they come from seemingly no-where. At the start of the episode, Chris gets pulled into the a-ha video "Take on Me," but the one that got me the most was Peter reading The Neverending Story and riding the big white luck dragon, and the dragon summarily crashing. Odd timing with that one, since the film was on HBO in the morning. The Neverending Story is one of the movies I had to watch every now and again growing up and one I still enjoy. I keep intending to get the Michael Ende novel, which differs from the film.

JLU, though it was a two-parter and I missed the first part, was wonderful. Like others have said, Dwayne McDuffie, the writer of the series, should really be writing more of the comics. In addition to being a well told story, that brought elements from the previous episodes (as well as the earlier Batman and Superman Animated series) together, the resolution of the story was brought about by my favorite comic book character, The Flash. In essence, this episode could have been a Flash highlight show. At one point, Lex/Braniac send out Doppelgängers of the big 7, and the Flash's opposite number was in yellow, just like the Reverse Flash. The first JL member to dispose of their Doppelgänger was the Flash. After Lex/Braniac takes out the other 6, he taunts the Flash and in his hubris, Lex thinks Flash has run away. Well, he did, he just happened to run aroun the globe at top speed to only come back and bash Lex. Flash continues this and eventually defeats the supervillian, by disassembling the Braniac armor at high speed. Most of the episodes play Wally/Flash as a clown, but every couple of episodes, McDuffie and company remind viewers why the Flash is one of the big 7 and just how powerful he can be.

On the reading front, it took me a while, but I got through the second Del Rey Conan offering by the great Robert E. Howard, The Bloody Crown of Conan. Excellent stuff here. The stories are great fun and Conan is more than the perceived dumb barbrian who only uses his brawn to achieve his goals. Don't get me wrong, Conan often does employ his physical strength and power, but he also uses his brain, too. The highight of the book was The Hour of the Dragon, Howard's only novel-length Conan story. Conan leaps off the page, but conversely, Howard does a great job giving off a dark, and eldritch mood in the stories and really setting the reader in Conan's world. Even if I'm preaching to the choir here, it is worth mentioning these books both because of the wonderful reading experience they impart and importance to the Fantasy and Science Fiction genre. Anybody reading today's fantasy should run out or click to amazon and order either this or the first Conan volume, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian.

However, I'm very hesitant about the new Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. On one hand, they could be seen simply as pastiches, but on the other, it looks as if the writers and Conan properties are both trying to create new characters. I know very little of the writers, save that Richard Knaak wrote some of the early DragonLance novels and that Jeff Mariotte has had his hands in a lot of FSF media properties. Its tough to say what these books will do, but on the surface they seem like yet another media/franchised property a la Forgotton Realms or Star Wars. I have seen little response to these books anywhere, aside from the amazon reviews and this less than favorable review at Swordandsorcery.org.

So, in summation, even though I just moved into a bigger house and have more adult responsibilities, I'm still just a 13-year old who likes to watch cartoons.

Obligatory absentee post

Thankfully, the Olympics will not be in New York, I didn't want to see my state turned into a parking lot for the world.

Thoughts and prayers go out to those in London who passed away, those hurt and those close to the two groups.

Blogging will be at a bare minimum for the next week, and probably more. Tomorrow, Mrs. Blog o' Stuff and I are closing on our new home and in keeping our Internet Provider service, will likely not have Web access from home from anywhere between one week and four weeks. Hopefully we will have full service by the 18th.

Frustration

I finished up Peter David's second Apropos book, The Woad to Wuin a couple of days ago. There were a few instances where the narrative was a bit repetitive, and the characters rehashed scenes, though on the whole, I really enjoyed the novel and David took the story in an unexpected direction. There were some laugh out loud moments and I generally had fun reading the book, much like I did with the first, Sir Apropos of Nothing. I will be picking up the third, Tong Lashing.

Today I'll be starting Echoes of the Great Song by David Gemmell, which will be my second encounter with his writing. I read the first two Rigante books a couple of years ago and really enjoyed them, so hopefully this will be as enjoyable.

Picked up my stash of comics, or rather Mrs. Blog o' Stuff picked up my stash at my local shop yesterday. The comic shop near work was running a 25% off sale on all their Batbooks so I picked up the new printing of Batman: Tales of the Demon with the spiffy new Neal Adams cover at the shop near work. As for the monthly Batman, I think I'm in the minorty of people who are actually enjoying Judd Winick's take on Batman. I also think Doug Mahnke's art is well-suited to Batman.

In a better world, I wouldn't have posted this today, I would have been signing a lot of paperwork for the closing on my new house. But in a move akin to waking up Christmas Morning, excited to see what Santa brought under the brightly lit Christmas tree, we are told, basically, "Sorry Christmas won't happen today, maybe middle to end of next week you can have your Christmas morning."

The Traveler & Batman Begins

I posted my review of The Traveler last night. A gripping, frightening novel that eerily mirrors our own society. This book is going to be big. The Web sites associated with the book are receiving continual updates, too:
http://www.evergreen-foundation.com
http://www.geocities.com/judithstrand
http://www.resurrectionautoparts.com
http://www.hollismartialarts.com
http://judithstrand.blogspot.com/

I saw Batman Begins yesterday and the movie lived up to the hype. At the time, I thought Michael Keaton was a pretty good Batman, but Christian Bale IS Bruce Wayne/Batman. A lot has been said of how well the character of Bruce Wayne was built up before he donned the cape and cowl and it's true. I really think the little early scenes with Bruce and Thomas (Bruce's dad) Wayne were great and showed how good a relationship there was between father and son, which lent greater impact to Bruce's loss. Bruce's frustration with where his life was or wasn't going and his world travels and training in the League of Shadows all helped to build up Bruce Wayne as he grew into the role of Batman. This film did a lot of things right in capturing what makes Batman such a mythic icon.

The early instances of Batman on screen are handled superbly well, he is in the shadows and you don't get a complete image of him. As the film moves on, the image of Batman becomes more clear, a nice parallel between Bruce's vision of himself and what the audience sees. The strongest influence on this story, from the comics, is without a doubt, Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's definitive origin story, Batman: Year One. Nolan and screenwriter Goyer lifted scenes directly from the pages and as in BYO, Batman is not perfect, he bounces around walls and gets banged up. The scene with the bats in Arkham was just about lifted from BYO as well, it was effective on the comic page and even more so on the screen. The feel of parts of the story of this movie also had a lot in common with Loeb/Sale's The Long Halloween.

The animated series did much to capture the essence of Batman, and in the series, Kevin Conroy voiced Wayne/Batman for many years, and still does on Justice League Unlimited. Before seeing Batman Begins, his was the voice I heard in my head when reading the comics, now it will be Bale's voice. Bale was delightfully insane in American Psycho, and the intensity he showed in that role carried through here, though there were no scenes of him runing nude with a chainsaw.

The remaining cast members were absolutely perfect and like a lot have already said, Gary Oldman is Comissioner Gordon. Morgan Freeman seemed like he had a lot of fun playing Lucius Fox, he had the best one liners. Michael Caine was very good as Alfred. The people who played Bruce's Parents, especially his father were very good, Liam Neeson was excellent as well and the Ra's al Ghul scenes were great. Katie Holmes looked good and I thought the relationship between her and Bruce was handled very well, especially the end.

If I can raise any complaint it was that the film was a bit too long, but I find that to be the case with most films nowadays. Comparing this to other recent comic-book films is almost like comparing apples and oranges. The Spider-Man films were excellent, but a bit more bright. As much as loved the Spider-Man films, I have to say Batman Begins topped them. This is probably the best movie I've seen since The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

As did Spider-Man 1 & 2, Batman Begins ended on an almost perfect note with Batman leaping from a top a building. As in BYO, the foundation for Gordon and Batman's relationship is set and I cannot wait until the sequel. Additionally, a lot of groundwork was laid for future sequels and the last exchange between Gordon and Batman hit me with a huge amount of fanboy glee, though to be honest the whole film really did. This wasn't just a great superhero/comic adaptation, it was a great film period. Dramatic tension, superbly acted characters, great action and overall, a wildly entertaining film. I want to go and see it again, something I haven't done in theaters since Empire Strikes Back.

I think Lou Anders agrees, too.

Links and musings

Very interesting blog post about America in Science Fiction, via Tobias Buckell.

Grant Morrison is taking over the DC Universe, with some help from Geoff Johns. This is a good thing, not only because both guys have the fanboy knowledge of the DCU necessary for the takeover, but because, more importantly, they also write good stories. A sense of cohesion throughout the DCU will be a good thing, and in many ways, was one of the appealing factors of Marvel's early days. With the whole Infinite Crisis thing looming, having these two guys act as "consultants" or whatever the Hell DC is calling them is something I'm looking forward to.

On the reading front, I'm halfway through Jeffrey Ford's wonderful collection, The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories, I may post up an official review of this one when I finish it. Over the weekend I read Batman: The Long Halloween by Loeb and Sale. This came out during one of my comic-book hiatuses and I finally caught up with it. Sale's art is very good, though I admit to being surprised at the amount of splash pages he used. On the whole, at least in collected format, the story was very enjoyable and I'll eventually get my hands on some of the other Loeb/Sale collaborations. I saw a lot of storytelling elements in Halloween reappear in Loeb's Hush storyline, I hope this doesn't bode for a recycling act for Loeb's other stories..

I'm still trying to put together my review of The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks, I really liked the book and I want to write a review that will, in some part I hope, do justice to the book and its effect on me. I've got another few days before I need to post it, so I hope to have something finished up by the weekend.

On the life front, Mrs. Blog o' Stuff and I are getting ready for the big move. We are in the process of buying a house and selling our townhouse, so life has been and will continue to be quite hectic over the next few weeks. We are both very excited about the new house. Within a couple of weeks, we should be all moved into the new digs, I just hope getting the internet connection won't be too problematic.

This weekend my wife and I are celebrating 5 years of marriage and we are heading down to Washington DC to catch a Nationals game, in our quest to hit all the ballparks in the US. Hopefully, we'll be able to make a trip to the Smithsonian on Saturday.

Back to life and books for now.

Tale of the Thunderbolt

Posted my review of E.E. Knight's Tale of the Thunderbolt today, another fine addition to Mr. Knight's highly entertaining Vampire Earth saga.

In sports news, the Yankees actually won three in a row! and 4 out of the last 5! Could be they finally grabbed their balls and started playing what their worth. Still, baseball is a long season and there are just under 100 games left, so almost anything can happen. I think Lee Mazzilli is doing a great job with the Orioles, but I don't see their pitching holding up the whole year.

Not much else going right now. I doubt I will get a chance to see Batman Begins this weekend, probably catch it next Sunday. In the meantime, I'll probably re-read Year One, The Killing Joke, and The Dark Knight Returns to whet my Bat-apetite for now.

SFFWorld Short Story Contest

This may be old news to some but we at SFFWorld are running a short story contest:

Entry is open to anyone. We don’t care if we’ve never met you before, or if we can’t get away from you for a second - we want to see what you can do!

We’re looking for all and any previously unpublished short stories on a speculative fiction theme. To help preserve the sight of the poor souls who have ‘volunteered’ to read all your fab entries, we ask that you keep to a maximum of 3000 words. In order to help preserve their souls, we ask that you steer away from gratuitous violence, or too much erotic content.

Our favourite three stories will be published on the site, with big shiny links letting everyone know where to find them, and telling everyone how great you are. The overall winner will also be sent a signed copy of ‘The Twins’, the first book in the fantastic new GemQuest series by Gary Wassner, kindly donated by Gary himself.

Closing date is August 31, 2005
Winners announced September 30, 2005.

The Full release and rules are here

Last week I finished my ARC of John Twelve Hawks's The Traveler, a fascinating novel that, like the best FSF, begged me to look at the world around me and question the reality I live in. Good stuff here, it kept me awake beyond my normal sleep time when I finished it on Thursday night. This is not to say the book was perfect, but still a very engaging novel. The book will be publishing on June 28th and I'll post a formal review closer to that date. Until then, check out the book's Web site: http://www.traveler-book.com or my previous blog entry about the book.

I read C.L. Moore's pulp classic Jirel of Joiry over the past weekend and, for the most part enjoyed them. Moore has a descriptive style that doesn't ramble too much and pits her heroine against seemingly insurmountable odds. Jirel braves depths of hellish caverns and tunnels, confronts demons and sorceresses, in attempts to avenge past wrongings by evil wizards and generals. Fun stuff I have to say.

Right now I'm reading Tale of the Thunderbolt, the third of EE Knight's Vampire Earth novels. I'm really enjoying this one at about 2/3 of the way through. Knight has managed to weave enough of the backstory of the previous two novels into the story so new readers will not be put off by the fact that this is the third book in the saga - new readers can pick this up without having read the other two. It has been a year since I read the previous book, Choice of the Cat, so it works pretty well as a refresher, too. I think the earlier two were a tad bit stronger on the whole, but this is still an entertaining read. A good sign is that it is a book I don't like putting down when my lunch break ends and when I need to retire for the night. My interview from last month with Mr. Knight is over on my sidebar.

I'm sleuthing

I saw Judas Priest on Friday, with Queensrÿche as the opening band. I've been a fan of both bands for a while, though I was never as die-hard a Priest fan as I was for Maiden and Metallica. Queensrÿche's Operation: Mindcrime still holds up as one of my favorite Metal albums. As a young metal-geek in middle-school and High school, I listened to my tape so much, I wore it out. When I upgraded from tapes to CDs, Mindcrime was one of the first I purchased. So, that leads me to Queensrÿche's performance on Friday. Geoff Tate still has an amazing voice and on the whole, the band sounded great. Unfortunately, they only played Needle Lies from Mindcrime, though they did play a bunch of their older pre-Mindcrime stuff like Take Hold of the Flame and Queen of the Reich. Thankfully they DIDN'T play Silent Lucidity. The best news from them, though I admit I'm a bit nervous, is the news of Operation: Mindcrime II.

On to the Metal Gods. At one point during the show, Halford mentioned that Priest has been playing their form of metal for 40 years. Holy Shit. His voice was amazing even though he wasn't exactly spry going around the stage. He didn't need to be, his pipes made everything work. They opened with Electric Eye, after that, Halford changed his jacket for the first of about 10 times. The second song was Touch of Evil from the Painkiller album. Amazing and powerful. For my money, Painkiller is one of the very best metal albums from the 90s one of those rare albums without a bad song. Priest went through a bunch of their classics, Diamonds and Rust, Turbo Lover, with an encore of Hell Bent for Leather. The two best songs, I thought, were Painkiller and Exciter. Like I said, I love the album Painkiller and the title song is great. On the whole, a very good concert.

I went with my brother-in-law and there were only two problems with the whoe concert experience in general. (1) The group of people next to us kept bitching and complaining about Priest and almost making fun of the band. (2) A really fat guy, I'd say at least 280 pounds decided he was going to enjoy the concert without a shirt. Don't worry, though he didn't have a shirt, he made sure he had a beach ball.

Family Guy was, again, very, very funny last night with a couple of OH MY GOD moments. From Brian propositioning Meg, to the AIDS song, to Stewie wanting to touch Cleveland's hair, the line between offensiveness and humor was straddled very well. However, the two instances where I couldn't stop laughing, and thinking about it again as I type this I'm laughing, was when Peter put on the Quagmire mask and put the Loretta mask on Brian and they kept rolling around on floor simulating sex. Right after that, Popeye music cued up and Clevelend popped open the can of spinach and I was done.

I beat God of War last weekend. Even though I was on the Easy level (Mortal) It was still not the easiest game in the world, but it was a helluva lot of fun. The storyline was great and the graphics were probably the best I've seen on a PS2 game. This game is a great combination of hack'n'slash action with enough puzzle-solving quagmires to keep things.

Words, Music & Verse

Here's an interesting post/rant about series books. Sounds like a minor case of idiocy on the part of publishers, but they know best, right? The point Wen Spencer raises is confounding, to both writers of these books and potential readers of these books. Readers of Fantasy and Science fiction often like their books in series, and when a writer publishes book 3 in a series, new readers who are considering trying the writer would naturally like to start with book 1, logical right? Speaking from my limited publishing experience and with print-on-demand technology, I don't think it would be too difficult to reprint, say 1 or 2 copies of book 1 for every 5 to 7 copies of book three, when the proverbial book three publishes. Then again, what the hell do I really know. This is something I've bitched about before.

As for Wen Spencer herself, I know of her books, and I've seen some relatively favorable things about them. I think she won the John W. Campbell award a couple of years ago. Her books look interesting, aside from the somewhat garish cover for Tinker. I keep meaning to give her writing a shot. I should really keep a running list of books and writers I want to try in my wallet.

On musical related note, I know I'm one of the few people in New Jersey that doesn't really care for Springsteen and his newest song is just painful to my ears. I actually prefer Bon Jovi, at least their more recent music. Again, I think I'm in the minority on this one, too, but why is everybody loving Green Day's latest musical effort? I never cared for them very much, but every song I've heard from this new album is really, really annoying and is like an ice pick in my ears. Not to mention the fact that the local rock station seems to play them at least once an hour. Ugh. At least, musically speaking, I have Friday to look forward to, I will be seeing Judas Priest.

Yet again, production on a movie of Watchmen ceases, which is a good thing.

The Flash movie looks to be based on the Golden Age character. I don't know if this is a good thing, though I suppose if successful, the Flash is a very generational character with several men as the Flash, and could be a franchise. This also makes some sense since script-writer David Goyer wrote the early issues of the relaunch of JSA a few years ago, so he does have a familiarity with the character.

More good press for Pal Scott.

Lastly, a little dark bit of verse I conjured up today:

Life in Darkness
We create fictions
To assuage the reality that bombards us
A veil of unreality
More comforting than the harsh truth
Below the surface
A life simmers unsuspected
Shadows belie the truth of darkness
Amorphous and oblong
Are the shapes of reality
Not the clear lines of fiction
We seek truth and understanding
Of something we can never completely comprehend
Lives and understanding are placed in clean lines of context
The lies we convince ourselves are the truth
These are the realities we choose to live in
Who do we seek for the real truth?
What is the real truth?
Belief is subjective
Faith is powerful
Absolutes though sought
Are ultimately are unwanted
The best of both worlds
Is the amalgamation we create
To live in solace everyday
- (c) 2005 R.H. Bedford

Images

Imagery in Fantasy and Science Fiction fascinates me almost as much as reading the stuff. Some artists capture the sense of wonder or wow-ness very nicely, and some of these folks' art adorns the covers of some of my favorite FSF books. Michael Whelan is a master, his depiction of Roland of Gilead is the finest of any of the artists who have brought the Gunslinger to life. Whelan also provided covers for some of my favorite writers like Tad Williams and CS Friedman, his style is instantly recognizable, at least to me, and captures the moments of the book very well. Whelan also provided many of the most iconic images of Michael Moorcock's most famous creation, Elric of Melnibone.

A guy who has been getting some flack for his US covers of Erikson's novels is Stephen Youll. However, his mix of techniques often conjures up nearly photo-realistic images, he provided many covers for Robin Hobb, the first covers for George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire saga, and the covers for what I consider one of the best of the unfinished fantasy sagas, The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone by Greg Keyes. His brother Paul Youll is very good, too.

I also like Matt Stawicki's art, whose art adorns the covers of Karin Lowachee's novels, as well as the omnibus edition of R.A. Salvatore's Icewind Dale Trilogy is pretty impressive, too.

Speaking of R.A. Salvatore, specifically his most famous creation, Drizzt Do'Urden. A number of artists have created images of the Dark Elf, but I think Todd Lockwood's is the defining vision of this iconic character. Mr. Lockwood also created a stunning piece for Tobias Buckel's debut novel, Crystal Rain, a book I'm really looking forward to reading.

Keith Parkinson is another good artist, though I haven't seen much from him, in terms of book covers lately. For a while there, he did the covers for a lot of writers, Terry Brooks, Terry NoGoodkind, Orson Scott Card (Homecoming), David Eddings. Something about his cover for Brooks's Talisman's of Shannara really catches my fancy, even though I think Parkinson’s covers are a clear case of the art/cover being better than what's inside.

John Picacio is creating some great, eye-catching covers for PYR books, he's done a good number of the recent Gemmell books, and did a great cover for Jeffrey Ford's first collection, The Fantasy Writer's Assistant.

Dave McKean is amazingly talented, his cover of Stover's Blade of Tyshalle, for me, captures the spirit of protagonist Caine perfectly. Of course, McKean also illustrated a volume of King's Dark Tower and is probably besst known for his Sandman covers.

Of course there are legends like Frazetta, the Brothers Hildebrant, whose images of Conan and Tolkien's work, respectively, go hand in hand with each other.

I know there are some artist I am neglecting, so if any of my millions...and millions of visitors have any additional artist, I'd be happt to take a look.

A book meme from Karen Traviss...

1. Total number of books I own:
An ass-load.* Hundreds in boxes, a couple hundred piled about. Plus a growing collection of Graphic Novels.

2. The last book I bought:
Matthew Stover's Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith and E.E. Knight's Tale of the Thunderbolt, picked them up on the same day.

3. The last book I read:
Hammerjack by Marc D. Giller and The Final Prophecy by Greg Keyes, the 2nd to last book in the Star Wars: New Jedi Order saga.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me:
1984 - George Orwell. Read it a few times in college and the more I read it, the more I realize how scary and perfect a novel it is.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain. THE great American Novel.

The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay - Michael Chabon - Read it in one sitting on the train from Pittsburgh to NJ. For my money, the Great American novel of the 20/21st Centuries.

The Talisman - by Stephen King & Peter Straub - Read it a handful of times growing up, and remains one of my fondest reading memories.

The Coldfire Trilogy - CS Friedman. Very well written and enjoyable books, but the primary reason they mean so much to me is because I read these books on the plane to and from Hawaii and on the beach in Hawaii, during my Honeymoon.

5. Tag three people and have them do this on their blogs:
Mastage, the banzai cat, & Scott Lynch.

* in this case an ass load is defined as more than Rob has time to count, so much that they’ve taken over a room in his soon to be moved out of townhouse.