Monday, November 05, 2007

It's Electric, Botched and a God Killer

My review of Jeff Somers's The Electric Church is now up at SFFWorld. I thought it was a pretty good book, an interesting look at a dark future. While not an uncommon story (all-controlling government, corrupt church) Somers did enough interesting things in the novel to make it stand out. As I say in my review, I kept hearing Queensrÿche’s Operation:Mindcrime as I read the book.

About a month ago, SFFWorld posted Pat's interview with Jeff Somers, which is worth checking out as well. Jeff also happens to be a fellow Jersey-boy.

I was unable to go to another World Fantasy Convention, but congratulations to the winners. I'm in the middle of one of the award winners right now, Botch Town in Jeffrey Ford's incredible (so far) collection, The Empire of Ice Cream. Everything I read by Ford is on a different level than almost every other writer. Whether in short for or long form, his stories really make the fantastic seem real, the dream-like seem lucid. I think this is because his does such an incredible job of capturing the reality of human pathos and interaction. Again, another writer from New Jersey.

Last week i finished another marathon of a Malazan book, House of Chains. I liked it better than the previous book, Memories of Ice. Karsa Orlong is probably my favorite character in the series right now and I love how Erikson is building up the legend and myth of the character.

Karsa's challenging of his gods reminds me a bit of Kratos's storyline from God of War. Is that a strange analogy? I don't know, but it works for me. I also happend to beat God of War II last week. I liked the game a lot, but the gameplay wasn't as balanced as the first game.

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