New Blu-rays

The new Blu-rays of the entire Star Wars saga are coming out soon, with some nice changes/updates to them.

AND... there will be about 40 hours' worth of bonus material!  yipeeeeeeeeeeeee!


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One of Our Thursdays is Missing

I can't remember exactly when I first came across Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, but I do remember that I read it out of order, reading Lost in a Good Book before I came across The Eyre Affair.  I immediately fell in love with the series, and have read every one of the books almost upon their release since I got started on it.

I didn't do a good job keeping up with things over the last few months, though, and only knew of the release of One of Our Thursdays is Missing when a friend (one whom I introduced to the series) pointed it out to me in the library.  We borrowed it and 3 of us made our way through it before the due date.

The first two books in the series are still my favorite (and I really liked his first in what seems to be another series, Shades of Grey), but this one is a good read too.  There are some really funny sections, and I really liked the character Sprockett.  I thought the little commentary on the RealWorld at the end of the book was nicely done too.

Overall, it's hard to beat a good Jasper Fforde read... at least, in my book.


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X-Men: First Class

I just got back from a rather late showing of X-Men:  First Class.  It was not my favorite of the X-Men movies, but that's OK, because I like the X-Men movies a whole lot better than a lot of the other stuff that is out there for viewing.

It was fun to see the beginnings of the Xavier and Magneto characters.  Seeing the development of the various characters and their powers has always been one of the most fun aspects of the X-Men movies.  I liked the character of Charles, and thought Erik interesting.   I didn't quite like seeing the young Mystique because, well, she lost her mystique.  Instead, she was all just teenage angst and insecurities.  Ugh.  I like the full-grown Mystique of the earlier movies.

The very brief appearance by Wolverine was fun, but of course, I missed him greatly in the rest of the movie.  Even so, it was a fun show to catch.


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Batman Begins

I caught Batman Begins on TV the other day.  It seems that it's one that I missed when it was in the cinema.  It was not too bad, though I liked The Dark Knight better.  (It was on after Batman Begins, actually, but it was getting late and I didn't want to stay up and watch it again.)  It was, however, better than some of the earlier Batman films that kind of turned me off of the series for a while.  I thought Liam Neeson was a pretty good choice for casting, and enjoyed watching his character.

With Green Lantern and X-Men out this summer, this channel on StarHub is showing a lot of "comic book movies" over the next few weeks.  I don't know if I'll have much time to catch many more of them, but I did enjoy this one.



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Super 8

I saw Super 8 today, the first sci-fi movie I've gotten to see in a while.  Funny thing was that, though I liked it, it wasn't so much for the sci-fi elements that I enjoyed it.  I liked the picture it presented of small town USA in the late 70s.  It was fun watching that, getting transported back to my childhood, I guess you could say — well, except for the alien who invaded that small town, of course.

Still, it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours this afternoon.  I was pretty amused by it all.  I thought it tapped into something about that time and place in history and, for what it's worth, I think the alien and zombies formed an important part of tapping into it.



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Bionic Man

Oh wow.  The first bionic man to become so as the result of voluntary amputation.  Amazing stuff!

And, on another note, three new impressive hires for The Hobbit.



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Existential Star Wars

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Xenia 2011

Imprint

slivers of you

mirror

pieces of me

     impressions

     imperfectly made

of faces

not clearly seen

Watch for Xenia in Shanghai this summer....





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Chinese Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing

I found a site with a nice run-down of the science fiction and fantasy scene in China here.  It's good to see the English-language introduction to the Chinese science fiction scene.  I'm not sure why I've never come across this site before!

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Atlas Shrugged

I just got home from a long train trip.  I was thinking during part of the ride on the express rail service about Atlas Shrugged, especially thinking about it from the perspective of science fiction.  When I got home, I searched and found this article on the same topic.  It's a pretty good read, so I thought it worth linking here.

I like the comments there about Rand's own views on sci-fi, and the idea of considering her masterpiece as a work within the genre.  Fun stuff.


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Splice

I recently picked up a cheap DVD of the movie Splice.  It's not amongst the greatest shows I've ever seen, but still, it made for an interesting way to pass an evening, and left me with some things to think about.

The film is that sci-fi/horror mix that seems to work well for provoking some thought, especially when it comes to questions surrounding the ethical issues of contemporary technology.  If you think Frankenstein, you'll not be far off here.   A whole lot of the elements in Splice will bring that old classic to mind — everything from the idea of hubris to the parent-child relationship that develops between a scientist and his/her "creation."  And of course, central to both tales, there's the whole horrible situation of men creating monsters, not only by their tampering with science, but through their not knowing how to properly nurture the beings brought to life.

If you like engaging these kind of issues, you'll probably like Splice.  It's a little cheesy in some parts, and I'm not crazy about the ending, but there's enough there to provoke thought to make it worth the couple of hours it takes to watch.


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A Couple of Short Stories

Over at my China-related blog, Tai Shan, I've recently posted some thoughts on a couple of Chinese sci-fi short stories.  You can take a look at my responses to Yang Ping's "Wizard World" and Han Song's "The Wheel of Samsara."

The two pieces are quite different from one another, but they give you a bit of an idea of the sort of work coming out of China's growing sci-fi scene today. Both stories are available online — links to them can be found at the posts linked above.

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Tomorrow When the War Began

While not exactly the sort of speculative book that I usually review here, John Marsden's Tomorrow When the War Began does address a sort of interesting "what if" question that somehow mirrors the possibilities for what the world could become in the foreseeable future, even as it reflects on the hard questions that we should be asking ourselves today.

Set in Australia, the tale of the teenagers who find themselves in very unexpected, very unpleasant circumstances after a week camping in the bush is one that is pretty engaging.  The characters are, for the most part, fairly believable young adults.  There were places here and there where I thought the young female narrator didn't quite sound like a girl of her age, but it wasn't as troubling as it is in some books.  Instead, it made me feel that she was an extraordinary girl — or, more appropriately, a pretty normal girl who rose to the challenges of the extraordinary circumstances in which she found herself.

The book is pretty much a page-turner.  I read through it much more quickly than I expected too, and found myself thinking about it when I had to put it down and go to attend to real life.  I liked the way some hard questions were addressed by Ellie.  The narrative style drew me in almost from the beginning.

It's easy to see why Tomorrow When the War Began won so many awards over the years.  I've not read any of the subsequent books in the series, but it seems they have garnered their share of recognition too.  Makes me think it's probably worth picking them up as well, when I see them.



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Use the Force

Funny stuff...




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ChemICKal Reactions

Karen L. Newman is a chemist and a poet.  In her poetry, she specializes in the writing of horror poetry.  ChemICKal Reactions brings these two roles together, presenting a whole alphabet of chemistry gone wrong.

The poems are fun to read through.  I found myself smiling at the gruesomeness of some of the possibilities presented, and cringing at others.  To get both reactions within a book that has a fairly narrow range to the premises of each poem is quite a feat.  When I started reading, I first thought, "Isn't this going to get monotonous, dealing with one chemical after another?"  So I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book didn't generate that feel at all.  It's a good indicator of the extent of Newman's imagination that she can make the device work over and over in the collection without it getting into something of a rut.  I am impressed.

As a sort of a side note, I read the volume in its Kindle edition.  Sometimes poetry doesn't look very nice on the Kindle, but ChemICKal Reactions is formatted to handle the device pretty well.   It is one of the better jobs I've seen done with poetry books formatted for the device.  I'm pleased to see it, and hope it means good things are coming in poetry for the ebook reader.


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What do you get if you mix a little of On the Road with The Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore and Symbols?  I think American Gods does a pretty good job of exploring that possibility.

It took me a while to get into the reading of American Gods, but that might have had more to do with me than with Gaiman's writing.  Gaiman always tells a good tale, and he is always funny and entertaining.  American Gods is certainly no exception.

The story is fairly convoluted, and you never seem to be able to be 100% sure that you know quite what's going on.  In that way, the book allows you to sympathize with the protagonist, Shadow, because he's forever being led to places and into situations that he can't be quite sure he gets.  He just does what he has to do anyway, and things sort of fall into place in his mind as he goes along.  That's something of a metaphor for the reading experience with this book.  Do things seem a little confusing?  Well, just keep on reading and it will fall into place.

I really enjoyed Gaiman's telling of travels across the US.  The way the travels were woven into the narrative, and the sense of place was built up, was a fun way to make the story work.

The version of the book that I read is Gaiman's preferred version of the text, as per an author's note at the beginning of the book.  I don't know how it compares to other versions out there, but I think you can see signs in the one I read of a sort of careful — maybe even obsessive — attention to the little things that bring the land and the characters to life.  I don't know if I would've been quite as aware of it without that note at the beginning, but the effect of that careful plotting out of all the little things is a good one.

As with any Gaiman novel, this one is worth getting your hands on.





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Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

I went to see Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader when it opened here. It was not bad as a movie, and I guess I liked it better than the others in the series so far. But... I sure didn't like the changes that were made to the original story. The book is so good, and I really hated seeing the departure from that story line.

I can't imagine what they're going to do to The Last Battle.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1)

I finally got to see the first half of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows film, and thought i was pretty good. Not only did it follow the book pretty closely, but it did a great job of adapting the tale to the medium of film. Not all of the movies in the series have been as nicely adapted as this one. But, generally speaking, I thought the later films have been better than the earlier ones.

I'm really looking forward to the last installment of the films. I would've preferred that this one not be split into two sections, but then, it seems the only way to fit everything in. They did a pretty nice job of splitting it up, and if the final piece turns out as good as this one, then I think it will be a big success.


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The Last Hope

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At the Back of the North Wind

I finished reading George MacDonald's classic tale At the Back of the North Wind earlier this week, and reviewed it at the Christian Fiction website.  For those less interested in the Christian perspective in the novel, I thought a note here might be warranted.

George MacDonald is a great story-teller.  He can be really funny, and he draws up a past age through his writing.  In his day, children's literature was really just coming into its own, and MacDonald was a big part of that process.

At the Back of the North Wind is addressed to the child reader, but I think it certainly has a much broader appeal than that.  It is a well-constructed piece, fully of whimsy and imagination.  The places the novel takes us are well put together, with images that draw you in to want to read more.

There are many people who might like to lay claim to the title of father of the modern fantasy genre, but I think it is arguable that MacDonald forms at least a good bit of the root system of that whole branch of literature.  At the Back of the North Wind is one of the classic pieces that establishes him in the genre, written back in the days when no one really thought of such a genre existing at all.  He was admired by many writers who came after him, and his fiction left an indelible mark on this whole field of writing that has grown to be so huge in today's book market.



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