Review, stuff

I posted my review of Hurricane Moon by Alexis Glynn Latner the other day, but since sffworld.com was a little wonky yesterday, I couldn't retrieve the review to mention here. It was an interesting book, but didn't completely work for me.

Rutgers seems back on track after taking down the #2 team last Thursday. On one hand this is great, on the other this tells me they "should" be undefeated. Their two losses were to teams that were not of the same caliber as USF. Granted, Cincinatti is doing some pretty good things, butstill frustrating nonetheless.

I have to say, one of the cool things about doing these book reviews is getting early looks at some forthcoming books. Case in point, I received a nice big fat ARC from Del Rey of Peter F. Hamilton's next Epic Space Opera, The Dreaming Void. Another, equally cool, perk is receiving the same e-mail from Simon Spanton Pat did, with the synopsis of Richard K. Morgan's foray into Epic Fantasy, The Steel Remains.

A Feast of Books Continues

The latest review I’ve posted is today’s: Feast of Souls by C.S. Friedman, the first book in her new Magister Trilogy. Ms. Friedman is no stranger to fantasy and science fiction readers, but this book seems to have flown under the radar since it published in February. Shame really, because Friedman is an excellent writer.

I suppose her writing will always hold a special spot on my shelf because her Coldfire Trilogy was what I read on the beach in Hawaii, and the plane to and from the Island State when Mrs. Blog ‘o Stuff tied the knot over seven years ago.

The only books I haven’t read by her are The Wildling and This Madness Season. I remember liking This Alien Shore quite a bit when I read it.

That’s the long of it. The short of it is that I really enjoyed Feast of Souls, check out my review.

Over the weekend, I watched Pan’s Labyrinth, which was sitting on my TiVO for a few weeks. It was dark, both in the fantastical elements and real elements. The costumes/creatures were great, the acting worked for me, and I just really enjoyed the movie.

I don't see much talk about The 4400, which happens to be a pretty entertaining show. Part X-Men, part, Heroes, part conspiracy. The only surprisng thing is that it is on USA and not SciFi.

Rutgers is 2-0 and the Yankees have a healthy lead in the wild card. Sports are looking good from my vantage point.

Ascension

Another Monday* and another new review up at SFFWorld by yours truly. This time it’s Mistborn: Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson. I liked this one very much and can see why Tor is getting behind him in a big way. So far, he’s cranked out three books in three years, so he delivers regularly. More importantly he delivers quality in spades.

We also posted the David Anthony Durham interview I conducted alongside with Pat, Larry, and Ken. Pat posted a while ago, but SFFWorld put it up tonight. I read Durham’s Acacia Book I: War with the Mein earlier in the year and was really impressed with the book.

RU started off the season very nicely, beating the point spread. It was a bit “different,” shall I say, to see a completely packed stadium, as well as participating in crowd chants numerous times throughout the game. Granted, there were some games when I attended that had big crowds, but the atmosphere was odd: it felt like what a college football game should feel like. As one friend I ran into at the tailgate said, its kind of weird to see so many people at a Rutgers game wearing Rutgers attire.

If Rutgers want to maintain and/or move up, we need to see more of the same, in terms of offense. I was never a big proponent of teams running up the score; however, it seems to be an unfortunate means to an end of getting the top rankings.

*I know, sometimes I put up my new reviews on Tuesday.

Elves, Pandas, and Knights

I just posted my review of Gary Wassner’s latest GemQuest novel, The Revenge of the Elves. I continue to enjoy Gary’s writing and hope his audience increases with this book.

Although this is probably old news by now to the folks who read this blog as well as those on my side bar, but La Gringa is back to regular blogging. This is a good thing, especially with all daily genre updates she’s been doing.

Thursday Knight is Rutgers Football Kickoff and I’ll be in attendance. I haven’t been to too many games since I graduated, so this should be fun. With the team starting out in the Top 20 (#16) and Ray Rice as a potential Heisman Trophy candidate, it looks to be a great year. I don't recall expectations ever being so high for Rutgers; it is a weird place to be for this team, though one they will hopefully be in over the next big handful of years. Just a few years ago I had trouble finding Rutgers merchandise in stores and malls. Now it is everywhere. Regardless of how well the team ever did, there was never any excuse for not being able to find RU merchandise. Especially in the malls closest to the school. Enough of that bitching for now, the forthcoming season looks like it will be a ball.

Rothfuss Interview

Tonight, I posted the e-mail interview Pat and I conducted with Patrick Rothfuss. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out; I wasn't surprised that Mr. Rothfuss's responses were very much in the same tone as his protagonist Kvothe.

In sports news, I'm happy to see the Rutgers Women's basketball make it to their second Final Four under coach Stringer. Baseball season is less than a week away, though this will be the first season in many years I will not have a fantasy team to manage. Lastly, the NHL season is becoming very exciting - the Devils and Penguins are neck and neck for the Atlantic division lead. I've a feeling this is how the Atlantic division will play out for the next few years, or at least as long as a goalie named Brodeur is between the pipes in NJ and a kid named Crosby is wearing black and yellow.

Out with Old and Blue for '06, in with Red and New for '07

A New Year, a new review, and a anew blog template to kick off 2007. I’m not sure if I like this new backend set up for blogger, but I do like the color layouts and options for templates a bit more. Conversely, I enjoyed Martin Sketchley’s The Liberty Gun, the finale to his high-octane SF adventure Structure series. I posted the review today.

Santa was pretty good to me this year, I got plenty of NY Yankee stuff to fill my Yankee room, a healthy dose of books to add to the physical “to-read” pile, a nice handful of CDs and plenty of goodies from Mrs. O’ Stuff.

As for the Scarlet Knights, a most decisive victory in the inaugural Texas Bowl.

Anyway, 2006 came to a close with much fanfare throughout the world and much relaxation in the O’ Stuff household. It was a nice relaxing evening with Mrs. O’ Stuff as we both realized, by flipping between the various annoying New Years’ specials, just how out of touch I am with today’s “popular” music. Mr. O’ Stuff and I finished off the pre-Christmas week by catching Trans-Siberian Orchestra in concert – it was a blast. Part laser-show, part 80s hard rock/metal, it was truly a great experience.

On the whole, I read 71 books this year, most of which were pretty good with a few stinkers peppered in the mix. So, since most FSF pundits and bloggers worth their salt are doing it, I will present the books I enjoyed the most in 2006, regardless of the book’s year of release. Unlike other bloggers (and every other noodnick who posted a best of 2006 list, yes I’m looking at you amazon with your best of 2006 list posted in October/November!) thus far, I’ve waited until 2006.

Without further ado…

Nailing down my favorite book for 2006 is tough, and would probably vary from day to day as a number of books impressed me, moved me, and made me want not want to finish the book in question.

Without a doubt, the biggest debut of the year was probably Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora – and with good reason. It was easily the most fun I had reading any book this year, and probably the most fun I’ve had reading a debut novel. Though not an absolutely perfect novel, it came pretty close to delivering exactly what I want – fun, adventure, humor, and magic.

Another debut that really impressed me was David Louis Edelman’s Infoquake published by Pyr. What Lynch did for my fantasy reading taste-buds, Edleman did for my Science Fiction reading taste-buds. A believable protagonist in an all-too plausible extrapolated future with a Big Idea and backed by a future history was a lot of fun to read. Check out my review from earlier in the year.

Though not a debut, Sean Williams's The Crooked Letter made its US debut after receiving much acclaim in the author’s native Australia. This was another beautiful Pyr book; Williams blended elements from all the speculative fiction branches to create a stew of the fantastic and horrific. The second book, The Blood Debt, published in October and while different in some respects, it was a fantastic continuation of the over-reaching saga.

I would also be remiss if I neglected Chris Roberson’s genre-bending pulp novel, Paragaea. Part SF, part fantasy, part physics, and part pirate novel, Roberson pulled off a nice trick in this one. I’d love to read more about these people and the strange and familiar world.

I’ve been reading more anthologies and short story collections in recent years, and I was lucky enough to get a copy of Mike Resnick’s New Dreams for Old. I’ve heard and read of Resnick’s reputation, with all the awards he’s both won and for which he’d been nominated. This book showed me why.

In terms of older books I discovered this year, the top might have been Jim Butcher’s Storm Front, the first in his Dresden Files sequence. I’ve already read the second book this year, Fool Moon, and I don’t plan on stopping there. Like Lynch, Butcher throws in equal parts humor, magic and adventure in this mix of mystery and magic.

Scott Westerfeld’s Peeps initially published last year, was a very solid YA tale. To say Westerfeld has fun with traditional Vampire myth and legend is an understatement, luckily all of that fun translated to the page. The same can be said for Charlie Huston’s Already Dead, a mix of the Vampire myth and the detective novel. Westerfeld’s is aimed at the YA set, while Huston’s is definitely an adult tale, but both are equally enjoyable.

I also caught up with John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War sequence, enjoying both quite a bit. It is no surprise Mr. Scalzi won the Campbell award.

I also really enjoyed Caitlin Sweet’s debut novel from a couple years back, the lyrical and at times tragic, A Telling of Stars. This was published in Canada in 2004.

Of course it wasn’t all good stuff. Three books stood out as major disappointments, or rather books I really didn’t enjoy. James Luceno’s Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader was bad novel that could have been so much more. Scott Smith’s The Ruins was aptly named; the characters were terribly drawn, the plot was razor thin and the overall story was poorly executed. Lastly, C.J. Cherryh’s Downbelow Station came highly recommended but left me rather bored.

2007 looks promising, too with a lot of the authors I enjoyed in 2006 publishing more in the coming year.

This blog still sputters on in 2007 though hopefully I can get back to posting as much as I did before this past summer.

Letting the Blood Flow - Rutgers Loses and a Review & Interview with Sean Williams

All good things must come to an end, unfortunately. It was a disappointing loss for the Scarlet Knights on Saturday, but the season is still going better than anybody could have imagined.

Big Sean Williams postings on SFFWorld yesterday; my review of his most recent (US) book, The Blood Debt. This is the second in the Books of the Cataclysm series and I'm loving it; check out my review to get some of my more detailed thoughts.

Sean was also kind enough to take some time and participate in an e-mail interview with me. Really good stuff in there, which has me looking forward to the remaining Books of the Cataclysm and his upcoming Space Opera Astropolis.

Scarlet Fever!

Never, in my 15+ year association with Rutgers as an undergraduate and alumnus did I expect the football team to be ranked in the top 20, to be undefeated, or to defeat a top 10 team. Well, I suppose I know what the Red Sox fans were feeling in 2004 when their team won after so many years of not winning.

By no means is the season over. Now, it gets interesting. The football program has respect, something its been lacking ever since it went Division 1. Right now, I'm just enjoying the win and all the talk on ESPN and the radio about the Scarlet Knights.

The school has always had a nice academic reputation, but this is nice, too.

This is also my second "blogo-versary."

Shinedown The Wizard

Mrs. Blog O’ Stuff picked up Shinedown’s debut CD for us the other day, Leave a Whisper. I’d been hearing Shinedown on the local rock station WDHA for over a year now and was really impressed with what I heard: the powerful ballad showcasing lead singer Brent Smith’s stunning voice: .45, both the original and the acoustic, the faster Fly from the Inside and their acoustic cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man. This is an extremely impressive debut album, Smith’s vocals are an amazing compliment to guitarist Jasin Todd, bassist Brent Smith and Barry Kirch’s singular musical sound. I’d probably classify the group as hard rock and call them simply great. Leave a Whisper is a polished, great sounding album, not by just debut standards, but by hard rock standards overall. I am looking forward to more of their albums and hope to see them in concert, though now I am kicking myself for not going to see them at the Starland Ballroom over the holidays in 2004. Methinks they’d be a great opening act for Godsmack if and when Godsmack tours later this year.

Also finished up The Wizard by Gene Wolfe over the weekend. Even though this was really the second part of a novel, it started off a bit more weakly than The Knight. I think that is because Wolfe switched from Able’s first person narrative to Able referring the story of his companions after they separated. Once Able came onto the stage, though, the book returned to the level of excellence Wolfe accomplished with The Knight. This isn’t to say that the early portion of The Wizard was bad, just that by comparison, not as strong as the other portions of the story. And let's face it, those who have read Wolfe will agree that reading Wolfe when he is a notch below his strongest efforts is far superior to 99% of most writers at their absolute best.

The last 100 or so pages of the novel were absolutely wonderful. Packed with emotion, thought, choices and introspection, I think it will be difficult for anything I read for the remainder of this year to move me emotionally and entertain me as much as did Wolfe’s Wizard Knight. I don’t know if Mr. Wolfe plans on penning more stories of Sir Able or any of the characters from this rich novel, but the door is open. While any of Gene Wolfe’s work is worthy of excitement, more tales of these characters would be most welcome.

Mrs. Blog o' Stuff and I went to the Rutgers vs. Georgetown Basketball game on Saturday and both teams didn’t look good. Rutgers was sloppy at the end of the first half arrived, but did make a nice little comeback towards the end of the game, which was too late. Rutgers basketball does look to be getting a better profile now that Gary Waters is doing such a fine job. It would be real nice to see them in the NIT again this year, though I highly doubt they will be invited.

Good Superbowl last night, I was really hoping the Eagles would pull it off, and at the end of the game, they came pretty close, too.

A new Batman Begins trailer was shown during the game and the Web site for the movie has been pretty substantially updated. Interviews, Wallpapers & other downloads, (one of which is now on my computer). Have I geeked-out enough for this film on my blog yet? I think I'm looking forward to this even more than Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith even though super-cool writer Matthew Woodring Stover has written the Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith novelization. Though I think am more looking forward to the novlization than the movie, I think.

Lastly, less than two weeks until Pitchers and Catchers!