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.

A Feast is Finished...A Dark Lord rises

George R. R. Martin has completed A Feast for Crows, the novel is now in production. Without a doubt, a great many fantasy geeks like me are rejoicing.

About an hour or two ago, I returned from the movie theater. Was I satisified? Yes. Was it as bad as I thought it would be? No, I was actually surprised, perhaps setting the expectations lower was the way to go on this particular film. Was it a perfect film? By no means, I was beginning to wonder if the film wanted to end. Of course the film in question is Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. On the whole, I left the theater feeling satisfied. Not completely, but satisfied nonetheless. Hayden Christiansen pulled of the part much better this time around and Ian McDiarmid was great and I can imagine he had quite a bit of fun.

Of course, almost no film is without flaws and there were a few glaring ones here. Padme was nothing more than a birthing chamber, she was almost a nonentity. I told Mrs. Blog o' Stuff Padme got a helluva lot dumber since the first film. There weren't enough Wookies and not enough of the planet Kashyyyk. As I said, the film's ending dragged quite a bit, much like Return of the King. It kept feeling as if it was ending, but another scene played out. I would have liked to have seen a young Han Solo somewhere in the film.

This was one of the most visually stunning films I've ever seen. By far, it was the best of the prequels, better than Return of the Jedi, and almost as good as the original Star Wars.

Hammerjack

I posted my review of Hammerjack by Marc D. Giller. I enjoyed the novel, with mild reservations. I couldn't help but be reminded of Snow Crash, Blade Runner, Richard K. Morgan's work and The Matrix (the first film, not so much the two sequels that should have either been one movie or not made at all) as I was reading the book. Overall, very impressive and a promising debut novel.

The weekly stash consisted of Green Lantern #1, Flash #212, Batman #640, JLA #114, OMAC #2 and The Incredible Hulk #81. All solid superhero stories. The more I read of Greg Rucka, the more I like, I think I'm going to have to get my hands on some of his novels and his Queen & Country stuff from Oni Press. I also really like what Judd Winick is doing with Batman, Peter David brought his return to the Hulk to a nice close, but of course left some unanswered questions. Green Lantern was very good, even though it was a more quick read than I would have liked.

I'm hoping to see Revenge of the Sith tomorrow, and hopefully, the crowd won't be too large.

Signings, leavings, startings, endings

Karen Traviss just signed with HarperCollins/Eos for three more books in the sequence that began with City of Pearl one of the best novels I read last year. This is great news, Traviss is writing some really exceptional novels and getting the deserved acclaim (Finalist for Locus Best First Novel and the Philip K. Dick Award). I still need to get my hands on her Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact novel though.

Alan Moore has severed ties with DC Comics and is getting married - a very interesting article by Rich Johnston at Comic Book Resources.

Gabe has started up another forum.

Lastly, tonight is the 2-hour season finale of Lost, just about the best show on TV right now. The last show I was this excited to watch every week was FarScape.

Make up your own title

Geoff Johns is leaving as writer of The Flash in a couple of months. For the most part, I've been really enjoying his handling of the character, it was hard to top and probably daunting to fill the shoes of Mark Waid on the title, but Geoff offered a bit of a different take, but no less true to the character and legacy Wally West represented. Geoff did as good a job as sanely possible in bringing Hal Jordan back as Green Lantern, and I'm looking forward to the ongoing title now that Rebirth is finished up. But I will miss his storytelling on one of my favorite, if not very favorite comic book heroes.

Scott uses photoshop to let us know how he thinks Episode III stacks up against Episode I & II.

The below was nicked from Karen Traviss.

Star Wars Horoscope for Scorpio

You are a powerful character. You tend to be possessive and lusty - which explains your greedy nature. You feel threatened when people try to order you around or control you. You are prone to suspicion and jealousy - but your resilience and passion get you what you want. Star wars character you are most like: Han Solo

What is Your Star Wars Horoscope?

Books & Comics

There are two books, well actually probably more, but two right now that are really piquing my interest. One of the books is on the shelves in the US right now, the other will hit UK shelves in August, with a US release late '05 or early '06. The first is Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. The book is generating good buzz and some positive reviews. It is an Epic Fantasy in one volume, something relatively rare in the Epic Fantasy market nowadays. The requisite book blurbs are from writers like Orson Scott Card and David Farland, and good reviews from Publisher's Weekly and the usually anti-fantasy Kirkus. Here's a breif blurb of what the book is about:

Elantris was the capital of Arelon: gigantic, beautiful, literally radiant, filled with benevolent beings who used their powerful magical abilities for the benefit of all. Yet each of these demigods was once an ordinary person until touched by the mysterious transforming power of the Shaod. Ten years ago, without warning, the magic failed. Elantrians became wizened, leper-like, powerless creatures, and Elantris itself dark, filthy, and crumbling.

The other book is Vellum, by Hal Duncan. On his Night Shade Books Message Board he describes the book thusly:

It's 2017 and angels walk the earth, beings that were human once, now unkin, remade by the ancient machine-code language of reality itself. Now, with the very book in which reality is written lost somewhere in the Vellum - the vast realm of eternity on which our world is just a scratch - the unkin are gathering for war.

On one side there's Metatron and his Covenant of angels, out to create Heaven on Earth even if it means an apocalypse to clear the way. On the other, there's the splinter-groups of ancient gods still hungry for the power that was once theirs, bitter enough to destroy the world if they can't rule it. And caught in the middle of it all are a handful of refuseniks still young enough to remember what it's like to be human... and to want to stay that way.

Again, Rick Kleffel has interesting things to say about the book. Squid enthusiast and fantastic writer Jeff VanDerMeer thinks highly of the book as well. Vellum is the first of a duology, available now in the UK through PanMacmillan and sometime in the future from Del Rey.

It is the middle of the month, so as always, DC Comics lets the world know what they are offering in a few months, specifically in August and some later. CBR has the full rundown and cover images. Aside from my normal pull, here's what caught my eye:

• I am mildly interested in the inter-Bat crossover between Detective Comics and Batman, I liked what Andersen Gabrych was doing in Detective Comics before the War Games mess. However, this is strange since it cuts David Lapham's 12 part saga in Detective 3/4 into the story. This makes very little sense to me, and I haven't seen any kind of explanation from DC.
• DC's Greatest Imaginary Stories looks like a bunch of Silver-Age fun. I've got the original Superman Red/Superman Blue in a Superman compilation.
• At one point, I was interested in the Alex Ross/Jim Kreuger Justice mini-series, but my interest has waned. I thought their Earth X series for Marvel was OK, if overrated. Justice, on one hand, looks like Super Friends fan fiction, on the other, it could by plain old superhero fun.
• Great Ozymandius! Watchmen: The Absolute Edition ain't cheap at $75, but I'll probably still pick it up. This is actually not shipping until October
• A hardcover of V for Vendetta is also being solicited now for sale in September, with a couple of extras.
• DC Direct gives another excuse for uber-hype machine Mark Millar to espouse how great he is and how much better he could make Superman by putting out a Elseworlds/Red Son figure.

On the Marvel side of things, Peter David and Mike Wieringo really seem to get Spider-man, something that may not be said of the other people handling his comic book adventures as of late.

Last, but not least, I'm probably one of the last people to post this one, Darth Vader's Blog. I actually got caught up in the thing for too much time yesterday.

The Traveler

A review copy of The Traveler arrived yestereday, written by the unconventially named John Twelve Hawks. His breif author bio simply states: "John Twelve Hawks lives off the grid." Intriguing. This book sounds pretty cool, too. The premise, from the publisher:

Gabriel and Michael Corrigan are two young men living just beneath the glittering surface of life in Los Angeles. Since childhood, the brothers have been shaped by stories that their father was a Traveler–one of an elite group of prophets able to attain pure enlightenment. The Corrigans, who may have inherited their father’s gifts, have always lived “off the grid”—that is, invisible to the intricate surveillance networks that monitor people in our modern world.

...When Maya is summoned to Prague by her ailing father, she learns that Gabriel and Michael have just been located in California. The brothers may represent the last surviving Travelers, and are in desperate need of protection....a colossal battle looms that will reveal a secret history of our time.

This sounds almost Matrix-like, and Science Fictional with the "hidden world," but it is not being published by Random House's SF imprints (Bantam or Del Rey). Rather, Random House is publishing it under their general fiction Doubleday imprint. I'm sure there is a whole rant about that, regardless, the story of a behind the scenes faction controlling our world seems pretty cool. I'm looking forward to reading this one, the on sale date is June 28th, but as I said, I've got an advance reading copy, so I don't have to wait.

With the publisher stating "this stunningly suspenseful first novel, reminiscent of George Orwell and Philip Pullman," I've got some pretty high hopes, as 1984 is a book I consider one of the best 5 or 10 ever written (that I've read), and I absolutely loved Pullman's His Dark Materials. Doubleday is expecting some really good things, too, with a dedicated Web site www.traveler-book.com and supplemental Web sites of the characters or places in the novel:

http://www.hollismartialarts.com/
http://www.geocities.com/judithstrand/
http://judithstrand.blogspot.com
http://www.evergreen-foundation.com/
http://www.resurrectionautoparts.com/


SciFi.com now has a page of trailers for forthcoming movies. It's probably been there a while, I just realized it today, and linked there is The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which looks to be very good.

Music & Gods

In general, music, like many other things, is 90% crap. I tend to fluctuate with my musical preferences and degree with which I seek out new music. With the summer coming up, and the big concerts coming around, now is as good a time as any for me to "get back into" music as it were. Next month I'll be seeing Judas Priest and Queensryche and later in the summer I'm going to Ozzfest. I've never seen Priest or Queensryche, but I've been a fan of both bands for a while. I happen to think Priest's Painkiller is one of the best metal albums of the 90s, one of those rare albums without a clunker of a song. And I listened to Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime so many times on tape, my tape wore out. Mindcrime was one of the very first CDs I purchased when I finally got a CD-player.

As for Ozzfest, even though the guys in Black Sabbath are pretty old, they are probably one of my top 5 bands, ever. Metal and Hard Rock started with Sabbath and I don't think that type of music would sound the way it does without the early music of Sabbath. I've seen Iron Maiden twice and again, an older bunch of guys, but still one of the 2 or 3 best live acts I have seen. I've been getting into Shadows Fall and I'm looking forward to seeing Jersey native Zakk Wylde and his Black Label Society. BLS's newest song, Suicide Messiah has a great riff. The other band on the first stage I like is Mudvayne. The second stage is headlined by Rob Zombie, who I saw with Ozzy a couple of years ago. Most of the other bands on the second stage I've heard once or twice and haven't really formed an opinion, positive or negative.

A band I've been hearing a few times the past week on local hard rock/metal station 89.5 WSOU is Nightwish, and I am really liking them. I think I need to acquire some of their music.

Two bands I would really like to see tour together are Shinedown and Godsmack. I've seen Godsmack twice, and I'm kicking myself for NOT seeing Shinedown this past Christmas at the Starland Ballroom.

On a non-music note, I have to say, Mrs. Blog o' Stuff is the best. She has always supported and indulged just about every hobby, fancy and form of geekery I get myself worked up about. Anyway, Monday marked, cumulatively speaking, 10 years together for us. As I've blogged before, I've been really looking forward to the PS2 game, God of War. Well, super-cool-hottie wife that she is, she got the game for me. It is absolutely amazing. It is fun, amazingly rendered and the difficulty is just about right, at least for now. All told, a very cool game.

Watch out for the stairs Mrs. Lockhart!

Another great episode of Family Guy last night, what Peter changes himself into as a Wonder Twin is ...wow. After two episodes, it seems as if Seth MacFarlane and crew are picking up right where they left off with the quick and sometimes crass humor. American Dad on the other hand was forced and not really funny at all.

DC Comics has a new logo. I guess I can understand why, that whole "marketing synergy" thing.

On a good note, DC is strongly promoting the Starman series. The series ran 80 issues, with a couple of side miniseries and a crossover miniseries with Batman & Hellboy. The series finished up a few years ago, and DC finally just published the final trade in the series very recently. I have the first trade and and really enjoyed it. Writer James Robinson created one of the more enduring superheros of the 90s with this series and a lot of people feel his Starman is the only good thing to come out of Zero Hour, the sort of sequel/clean up of Crisis on Infinite Earths . I want to get the rest of the series but I'm not sure if I want the easy trade route or if I want to purchase the individual issues. The main reason for the individual issues are the fantastic covers by Tony Harris who is of course, is the artist on one of the best series on the shelves right now, Ex Machina. I've seen people selling the 80-run issue on eBay a couple of times, heck I've been outbid on at least one occasion.

The Yankees finally won a couple of games, two shutouts. What is most surprising is Kevin Brown pitched one of those games. There's talk of a possible payout to get rid of Giambi, which would make me, and any other smart Yankee fan happy. The Chicago White Sox continue to be the suprise team/story of the year. This is a good thing as one of their best pitchers, Mark Buehrle, along with Mark Mulder and Matt Morris of the Cardinals have been my best pitchers, helping me sustain 2nd place in my Fantasy Baseball league. Outside of Ichiro, I think most of my offense is performing a bit above their average, though a couple of guys like JD Drew and Mike Lowell haven't picked up their slack yet. If all continues as is, I'll be a happy owner for the better part of this season.

I finished up Walter Hunt's second Dark Wing novel over the weekend, The Dark Path and jumped right into the third, The Dark Ascent. On the whole this is entertaining, epic space opera. Hunt set the world about 300 years in the future, mankind has come into contact with a couple of alien races, most notably the Zor, a winged people who are similarly advanced. As a People, the Zor are strongly informed on living their lives by a Mythic religion. The first book was very good as it was discussed in the SFFWorld SF Book Club in June 2003 , the second, The Dark Path, picked up the ball almost a hundred years later, with the humans and Zor living with each other, some more begrudgingly than others, and ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, so I am very happy I acquired the 2nd and 3rd books at the same time. This series, after two books, leaves me wanting to find out what happens next. I like the future setting, and Hunt has created a very interesting race in the Zor. Though this has all the trappings of Space Opera/Science Fiction, there is a nice Epic feel to it as well. Good reading, all told.

Interview with E.E. Knight

Not much to say right now, except for posting my interview with E.E. Knight, author of The Vampire Earth novels - Way of the Wolf, Choice of the Cat, and Tale of the Thunderbolt. The fourth book, Valentine's Rising publishes at the end of the year, as does his Dragon Champion novel, first in the Age of Fire sequence.