Books, David-King, and Wiki-meme

I posted my review of Ian McDonald's River of Gods yesterday. Good, heady stuff here. I look forward to re-reading it. I finished Godslayer by Jacqueline Carey yesterday and really enjoyed it. It has been over a year since I read the first one, Banewreaker, but the story stuck with me so well, the time didn't hurt too much. Still, this one would have benefitted from being a single volume, as Carey originally intended.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, I finished up Newcomb's Savage Messiah a couple of days ago, thank God. Ouch, and double-ouch, my review will be posted next week. I'll be starting up Caitlin Sweet's A Telling of Stars, which is the May book at SFFWorld's Fantasy Book Club and the next book for review, Vellum by Hal Duncan. I'll also probably begin dipping into the Elemental anthology edited by Steve Savile and Alethia Kontis as well. In addition, I picked up a month's worth of backlogged comics yesterday, so I've got plenty of reading to do, although I may pick up the newest Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction if I see it at the bookstore. This month's issue has stories by Gene Wolfe, M. Rickert and Matthew Hughes. I've read enjoyed all three writers in the past.

I thought Lost was pretty good on Wednesday night, considering they finally explained why Hurley hasn't trimmed down. As soon as I saw Dave, two films came to mind: A Beautiful Mind and Identity. I'm not completely convinced that the explanation Dave offered isn't true. Time will tell, but at least the show seems to have hit its pace once again.

Another almost paint-by-numbers Smallville, but as with the previous episode, I thought the elements touching upon the seasonal story-arc were stronger than the episode-specific storyline. I really think that's what is keeping me tuning in every week.

Peter David will be scripting the comic-ization of King's Dark Tower. On one hand, I am happy for Peter, and I think he is the right guy for the job. On the other, Marvel has backpeddled a bit from STEPHEN KING IS COMING TO MARVEL to Robin Furth handling some of the chores, to King being the "Executive Editor and Creative Director"of the thing. I can almost guarantee the final product will be what King wants it to be and bringing in a seasoned, proven comic writer of David's high-caliber may be the right way to go. I see this as King admitting he may not be the right person to actually script the book. However, King has penned a decent number of screenplays and I don't imagine there is much of a difference between the two. Then again, many people have seen what happens when King puts on a different creative hat and directs. Regardless, I'll be buying this next year.

Lastly, because I am addicted to Wikipedia, and I love a meme as much as the next blogger/LJer, I pulled this one is from Gabe. If he thought he was scifi, he should check these out. Go to Wikipedia and look up your birth day (excluding the year). List three neat facts, two births and one death in your journal, including the year.

November 7th
Three Neat Facts
1811 - Tecumseh's War: The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought near present-day Battle Ground, Indiana , United States
1932 - Buck Rogers in the 25th Century airs on radio for the first time
1996 - NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor

Births
1927- Hiroshi Yamauchi, Japanese computer game executive, Ex Nintendo President
1867 - Maria Sklodowska-Curie, Polish-born chemist and physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics and in chemistry (d. 1934)

Deaths
1980 - Steve McQueen, American actor (b. 1930)