Colonies and Vampires, oh my!

As my sidebar indicates, I posted my review of John Scalzi's The Last Colony. I've read all four of the books Scalzi has published through Tor and I've enjoyed each one of them. His SF has a great balance of tension, humor, sf-nal trappings and just damned entertaining storytelling. You could do much worse than pick up any of his books.

The same can be said of E.E. Knight's Vampire Earth sequence. I just finished the most recent, Valentine's Exile, yesterday and enjoyed it just as much as the other books in the series. He threw a nice little curveball at the end giving a not-quite-cliffhanger feel to the story. This was Knight's first hardcover release and I think it is pretty well deserved. I'm a big fan of the apocalyptic setting and these books have that feel in spades. I interviewed him a couple of years ago and reviewed the first, second, third, and fourth books in the series.

Last and certainly not least, this Friday I will be seeing one of my favorite bands for the fourth time: Godsmack.

Lucky Day

Yes it is snowing here in New Jersey. But today is something of a lucky day. On my way home from work, driving on the barely plowed roads (thanks NJDOT, although the roads were much worse during the February storm), I was listening to the only terrestrial radio station that plays the music I really like, 89.5 WSOU. I've been listening to the station for almost 20 years know, since my middle school and high school years when I really began to enjoy Heavy Metal. As is typical with the station, they announced they would be giving concert tickets to a caller within the hour. I kept the radio tuned to the station, hoping the giveaway would occur before the signal crapped out, which often happens as I get closer to home. When they played the latest song by Shadows Fall, I realized the contest would be next. After a couple of unsuccessful attemps (they often give tickets to caller #89) I won! So, in April I'll be seeing Shadows Fall and Lacuna Coil at the Roseland in NYC, probably my favorite small-scale concert hall in the area. However, it has been about 10 years since I saw a concert there.

I also had tickets ordered for Godsmack today, they'll be at the Hammerstein in May.

When I checked my e-mail, I was told I'd be receiving a copy of Scott Lynch's forthcoming Red Seas Under Red Skies - W00T!

And to top off the day, Mrs. Blog o' Stuff baked a batch of home-made Chocolate Chip cookies.

After an insane week at work, Friday turned out to be a nice little surprise of a day.

Elemental Review

I posted my review for Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology edited by Steven Savile and Alethea Kontis. Call it coincidence, but a Web site for the book was launched yesterday by co-editor Alethea Kontis. There are some very strong stories in the book and I would recommend it to most readers of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The proceeds from the book go to the Save the Children Tsunami Fund.

Point being, go out and buy a book with good stories for a good cause.

I am VERY happy with Godsmack’s new album, IV.

A Meme from Andrew Wheeler:


1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet and current street name)
Boots Whiton

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your dad's side, your favorite candy)
Clyde Chili

3. YOUR "FLY GIRL/GUY" NAME: (first initial of first name, first two or three letters of your last name)
R-Be

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite animal, favorite color)
Wolf Black

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Harold Elizabeth
(Sounds more like a romance-writer, no?)

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (first 3 letters of your last name, last 3 letters of mother's maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet's name)
Bednce Pac

7. JEDI NAME: (middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards) Dlorah Aicronid
(Like Andrew, I used her mom's maiden name, just to foil identity thieves with way too much time on their hands.)

8. PORN STAR NAME: (middle name, street you grew up on)
Harold Elm

9. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, the automobile you drive)
The Black Alero

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!