(1) SAFETY LAST. I didn’t know it was this dangerous to work for J.J. Abrams. Or to be J.J. Abrams.
In his interview on the Howard Stern show, Abrams tells stories about (1) how a hydraulic door on the “Force Awakens” set slammed down on Harrison Ford’s ankle, (2) how Abrams broke his back trying to lift the door, and on an earlier occasion, (3) Leonard Nimoy broke his nose while working on the Star Trek reboot.
“He fell, he hit his nose… he had a gash on his nose,” J.J. revealed. “I thought, ‘holy crap, this is a disaster.’ I felt horrible. I wanted to kill myself at this point.
(2) GENERAL LEIA. Louis Virtel of Hitflix decrees: “Carrie Fisher just scorched ‘Good Morning America’ and you’re not worthy” .
The most intense and thrilling part of this universe is the real-life Carrie Fisher, whose self-possessed wooziness makes her one of pop culture’s most sublime entities. She was just on “Good Morning America” chatting about losing weight to play the part of General Leia. She brought her dog. She was electric. She was rad, weird as hell, and right. She awakened America.
I love everything about this interview, namely Carrie’s one-liner about resuming her role in the “Star Wars” universe. “I got in character and I’ve never gotten out again – and really, I’ve tried everything.”
(3) FORBIDDEN BOOM. That highly scientific party-pooper Adam Korenman (When the Stars Fade) pulls back the curtain on “Dramatizing Space Battles in Film and Fiction” at SF Signal.
[First of three points.]
…Star Wars, like pretty much every space drama of the past 40 years, is more in the realm of fantasy than science-fiction. Though our understanding of arriving and surviving outside the atmosphere has grown tremendously, our representations of such acts in film and literature remains steadfastly in the realm of fiction. In my series The Gray Wars Saga, I am equally guilty of playing space battles more for the drama than the science. Why is it that every auteur from Heinlein to Abrams showcases a false image of the dark void above? Let’s take a look at the realities of space combat and see if we can find out.
1) Explosions are Pretty, Space-splosions are not.
In any space opera worth its salt, a massive ship is bound to explode. As an audience, we anticipate it the same way we expect anyone in a dark hat to be a bad guy. To paraphrase Anton Chekhov, if you show a spaceship in Act 1, you’d better be blowing it up by Act 3. But explosions, and fire in general require three elements to exist: Heat, Fuel, and Oxygen. You’ll notice I bolded the last word, as it is fairly important. Space is famously lacking in O2—to the point where people think you explode if you’re ever exposed to the vacuum (also not true, but Cracked already covered that, so let’s move on). Space explosions look more like the time you dropped your LEGOs on the kitchen floor than when you dumped a pack of Mentos into a 3 liter of Diet Coke. The rapid expansion of heat (literally the definition of an explosion) will rend your big ol’ ship into pieces, and those shards will head in every direction until acted upon by another force (thanks, Newton). No fireball, no awesome ring-shaped shockwave. Just scrap….
Real space may not be able to carry sound (no oxygen, so nothing to carry the vibrations) but a movie theater with a THX monster system can. If we’re going to allow musical cues in our cinematic experiences to pull our emotional strings, we can surely forgive a few foley artists getting creative with the sound design. It allows the truth of the drama to reach the audience on more levels. And if playing to one of our senses for the sake of drama makes the cut, then allow us science-fiction writers the joy of delivering fiery ends to our marvelous creations.
(4) BOSKONE GUESTS. At the Boskone Blog, “Mini-Interview: Robert J Sawyer and Cerece Rennie Murphy.
How would you describe your work to people who might be unfamiliar with you? [Robert J Sawyer:] I’m a hard-SF writer, heavily influenced by the best of Frederik Pohl (I consider his Gateway to be the finest novel our field has ever produced). I’m also liberal, even by Canadian standards, and a rationalist, a secularist, and a humanist (Humanism Canada gave me their first ever “Humanism in the Arts” award) — and my work embraces all those things. I mostly do near-future or present day stories, usually set on Earth, with a strong philosophical bent. My prose is pellucid (much more Arthur C. Clarke than Gene Wolfe) and my tone usually upbeat….
What is your favorite Star Wars memory, scene, or line? What is it that that memory, scene or line that continues to stick with you today? [Cerece Rennie Murphy:] (It could be a moment from within any of the films, a moment associated with the films, or something inspired by the films. – My favorite scenes from Star Wars are all the scenes between Luke Skywalker and Yoda from Empire Strikes Back. I remember watching theses scenes in the theatre when I was 7 years old. They literally changed my perception of God, my place in the world and my potential. I realized then, as I still believe now, that we’re all Jedi, we just don’t know it. Watching Luke’s fear and doubt keep him from fully accessing his own potential was powerful for me, even then. I don’t think you can sum up the human condition any better than that. “Luminous beings are we….not this crude matter,” I really believe that the healing of our entire world could begin with this statement.
(5) HELP ANN TOTUSEK. “I’ve started a GoFundMe to help with my family’s housing situation,” Ann Totusek told me. Her complete narrative about her situation is here.
As a short overview, Ann recommended Steven H Silver’s comment at Whatever.
Through a change in circumstances, Minneapolis fan Ann Totusek has found herself in a situation where she either needs to buy her house or find herself homeless. Ann is currently the caregiver for her mother, suffering dementia, and her teenage son, who suffers SPD. Ann, who helps run conventions throughout the upper Midwest in Iowa, Minneapolis, and Chicago, is running a GoFundMe to raise money for the down payment on their home.
Ann has run Green Room and Program Ops for me at several Windycons as well as the hospitality suite at the Nebula Award Weekend in Chicago in 2015 (and plans to again in 2016). Her hospitality has always been wonderful and now we have the opportunity to repay some of that hospitality by ensuring that Ann and her family can live and thrive.
In the first 11 hours, the appeal brought in $8,463 of its $150,000 goal, including a $2,000 boost from Ctein and another $5,000 anonymous donation.
(6) MARKETING TIP. Fynbospress makes a compelling argument for placing more of the “front matter” in the back of your self-published ebook, in “What’s the matter with front matter?” at Mad Genius Club.
Why? Well, a sample is 10% of your entire file, not 10 percent of your story. When you get a reader interested enough that they downloaded a sample, or are clicking “look inside” on a web page, you really don’t want them to scroll past all of that stuff only to find three paragraphs of story! You want a couple pages to hook them in, draw them deep, and make them immediately click “buy the book” so they can keep reading.
Some very savvy authors actually set up the amount of front matter and their story so the 10% cutoff falls directly after a cliffhanger. This is sneaky and wonderful, because you can immediately deliver the payoff with the rest of the book.
(7) Today In History
- December 4, 1985: Barry Levinson’s Young Sherlock Holmes makes its theatrical debut.
- December 4, 2008: Forrest J Ackerman passes away.
(8) DOES SIZE MATTER?
Two Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers stand with three vehicles, providing a size comparison of three generations of Mars rovers. Front and center is the flight spare for the first Mars rover, Sojourner, which landed on Mars in 1997 as part of the Mars Pathfinder Project. On the left is a Mars Exploration Rover test vehicle, a working sibling to Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on Mars in 2004. On the right is a test rover for the Mars Science Laboratory, which landed Curiosity on Mars in 2012.
(9) THEATER HISTORY. Alex Ross’ profile “The Magnificent Memory of Norman Lloyd” at The New Yorker shows the 101-year-old actor still has the power to bring history to life.
Through the Group Theatre, Lloyd came in contact with the Stanislavsky method, and he applied it to his character in “Caesar.” In Act III of Shakespeare’s play, Cinna the Poet ventures out to attend Caesar’s funeral; a mob mistakes him for another Cinna, a member of the conspiracy, and drags him off. Welles had realized that the scene could stand in for contemporary Germany, where even non-Jews were persecuted for having Jewish-sounding names. Initially, Welles thought of the character as a Byronic figure, wearing a beret. But Lloyd wanted to pattern Cinna on someone he knew: the Greenwich Village poet Maxwell Bodenheim, who used to sit on the stoops around Washington Square, offering to write poems for twenty-five cents. Lloyd pictured Cinna as a bum in a suit, foolscap spilling out of his pockets. Welles said, “O.K., do it your way.”
(10) LOGGIA OBIT. The actor who played the President’s military advisor in Independence Day, and the toy company mogul who danced on the piano with Tom Hanks in Big, Robert Loggia, died December 4at the age of 85. He had been battling Alzheimer’s Disease for the past five years.
He was best known for his roles in the movie Scarface and in the TV series Mancuso FBI
During a long career he worked a lot, in the beginning often playing ethnic characters, usually Hispanic or Middle Eastern, and at the end frequently cast as a mobster.
His genre appearances in television included episodes of One Step Beyond (“The Hand,” 1959), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (“Graveyard of Fear,” 1966), The Wild Wild West (“Suspicion,” 1967), Wonder Woman (“Wonder Woman vs Gargantua,” 1976), The Bionic Woman (“Jaime and the King,” 1977), The Six Million Dollar Man (1976), Tales of the Unexpected (1984), and The Outer Limits (2000).
(10) REDISCOVERED TALKIE. High Treason (1929), not only one of the earliest sound movies but an sf movie to boot, will be shown December 6 at the Anchorage International Film Festival. The sound version of the film was long thought lost until it was rediscovered in 2005 in a group of old films in Washington State. Kevin Tripp, a moving image archivist in Alaska, arranged transfer of the nitrate films to Library of Congress for salvage – having first completed a hazardous materials training program.
The film was taken from a play by Noel Pemberton-Billing. He was an aviator, politician and inventor who founded the Supermarine aviation company, which would produce the Spitfire fighter plane in World War II.A declared pacifist, the playwright nonetheless advocated aerial bombing of civilian targets in wartime, two topics that weight heavily in the script.
Read an in-depth study of High Treason illustrated with many stills at And You Call Yourself A Scientist!
File 770 reader Steve Johnson says, “I will be in the Bear Tooth Theatre for the show on Sunday–my wife snapped up two reserved seats.”
(11) DESTROYED AGAIN. Funded as a stretch goal of Lightspeed’s “Queers Destroy Science Fiction!” Kickstarter campaign, a companion publication “Queers Destroy Fantasy!” is now available from Amazon.
…This month we’re presenting a special one-off issue of our otherwise discontinued sister-magazine, FANTASY, called Queers Destroy Fantasy!: an all-fantasy extravaganza entirely written—and edited!—by queer creators. Here’s what we’ve got lined up for you in this special issue: Original fantasy—edited by Christopher Barzak—by Catherynne M. Valente, Kai Ashante Wilson, Carlea Holl-Jensen, and Richard Bowes. Reprints—selected by Liz Gorinsky—by Caitlin R. Kiernan, Austin Bunn, Shweta Narayan, and Nicola Griffith. Nonfiction articles—edited by Matthew Cheney—by merritt kopas, Matthew Cheney, Keguro Macharia, Ekaterina Sedia, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and Ellen Kushner. Plus an original cover illustration by Priscilla Kim and original interior illustrations by Goñi Montes, Odera Igbokwe, Sam Schechter, Elizabeth Leggett, and Vlada Monakhova.
(12) LOAFING AROUND. Will R. sent along the link to “Make This Awesome Dune-Inspired Sandworm Bread” with a skeptical comment: “I have to agree with the person I saw this via, who said ‘delicious-looking is not the description I would have used.’” Will had a valid point, and that is why I didn’t gank the picture to go with the excerpt.
Fans of the novel and movie Dune will appreciate this spice-filled sandworm bread recipe from geek baker extraordinaire Chris-Rachael Oseland….
The sandworm bread consists of a basic sweet bread with a spice filling and a sugar glaze. Yum. Blanched almonds are added to create the sandworm’s intimidating, toothsome maw. I can smell its melange breath from here!
(13) S.H.I.E.L.D. S.P.O.I.L.E.D. Those who know say that spoilers abound in this trailer for Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD 3×10 “Maveth” (Winter Finale).
S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra go head-to-head in a battle that will change Coulson’s world forever.
[Thanks to Steve Johnson, John King Tarpinian, and Will R. for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
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Paul: Not to mention his little 16 year stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company!
Mike: If memory serves, there’s a line in Heinlein’s “Double Star” about some actor being so good at disappearing into roles that his “true face” was as difficult to picture as that of “the immortal Alec Guinness.” And, yeah, I also think of “The Man in the White Suit” as it’s one of my favorite Guinness performances.
Alec Guinness will always be Herbert Pocket to me.
Alec Guinness was remarkably good at not being Alec Guinness; it is much harder than it seems. Lawrence Olivier was very bad at not being Lawrence Olivier, which is probably why he went for such extreme stage makeup; unfortunately, all that did was remind you that it was Olivier. He was indisputably a great actor, but in a different school, and a different tradition.
I’m looking forward to Star Wars: The Next But One Generation; it will provide many hours of fun arguing about it, irrespective of whether it’s any good, or not.
The film I always think of when I think of Guinness is “Kind Hearts and Coronets”.
Favorite Non Star Wars Guinness? Probably Marcus Aurelius in FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
There are a few moments in Episode 4 where Guinness shifts his eyes about as if he is comedically up to something that if you watch for it makes the Ealing comedy Guinness appear from underneath – a little twinkle of him having fun.
I think Smiley stands out partly in my memory because the early 80’s level of peak Guinness on chat shows (which was pretty rare) he naturally looked more like Smiley in real life.
Oh just found this Letterman interview. About 8 minutes in Letterman starts complimenting Guinness’s eyeballs:
I don’t know about that – but Herbert Pocket will always be Guinness for me, if that makes sense.
Cally on December 5, 2015 at 8:21 am said:
(5) HELP ANN TOTUSEK.
Ann is a good person; I’ve worked with her to a greater or lesser degree on a few conventions and I hope the gofundme works out.
Just to remind people, this is still a thing as well.
https://www.gofundme.com/liscarey
@ Simon Bisson on December 5, 2015 at 8:35 am said:
I have a t-shirt with the litany, but for caffeine, which I picked up in Dealer’s Row at some convention.
Kind Hearts and Coronet
Our Man in Havana
The Man in the White Suit
Last Holiday
But really, Kind Hearts and Coronets.
My favorite Loggia moment is in Lost Highway, which I think I’m willing to defend as a kind of sf/f movie. He plays a gangster boss, here out for a drive with the young mechanic who takes special care of his car. A tailgater intrudes. What follows is organized crime the way only David Lynch can write it, but it takes someone like Loggia to bring to life.
Rev Bob: It was a real surprise to Bruce Boxleitner when I asked him about The Scarecrow and Mrs King at a fan con instead of the Bab 5 or Tron questions as he was otherwise inundated with.
Camestros: Alec Guinness was great in the Smiley series which is a testament to his skill since he is written very differently in the Le Career novels.
I the two roles I think of his most memorable are Colonel Nicholson from Bridge on the River Kwai, and pretty much everyone in Kind Hearts and Coronets.
I was surprised to see a much younger Guinness as Herbert Pocket in the ’46 version of Great Expectations. Unsurprisingly he stood out in that as well.
re:Aaronovich vs London Falling
First, thanks Kyra, for the rec and mini review. I’ve just spent a couple of hours reading the first part of the book. I’m not fond of grimdark or extremely explicit torture/bloodshed/etc, but, so far, am really enjoying this story – the flawed characters, the police procedural style, the atmosphere, the mystery. (Have always read some mysteries, detective stories, police and court procedurals, etc, so that’s why your description caught my attention in particular.)
Second, I read the first Aaronovich book because of Filer raves. I’m pretty much with Kyra on this one. It was a well done story and I enjoyed it to some extent, but it just didn’t click for me. I probably won’t get any more of the series.
Third, it’s really weird how differences in tastes work out. I’ve been able to cipher which Filers my tastes most closely align with, for the most part, but there are still times when one of my ‘bellwethers’ recs something that I end up going “meh” at. Midnight Riot was one of those latter reactions.
Fourth, for a vaguely related point, I read Weber’s latest Safehold entry and I’m done with this series. I almost quit after the last book, but hoped he’d just slumped and would return to his usual style, which I can tolerate and enjoy for certain storylines – original Honor Harrington, Bahzel the Hradani, and, until now, Safehold. They are light adventure reading. But this last Safehold book, Hell’s Foundations Quiver, proved to me that Weber is just calling it in. The already cardboardy characterizations have become petrified wood, the plot is not really moving anywhere, the humor is just retreads of barely funny lines/ideas from the first 4 or 5 times he trotted them out, the overly detailed descriptions of combat and, even worse, sailing jargon need an editing axe, and on and on. Anyway, I quit. Not recommended.
Stewart’s Lucius Aelius Sejanus is in that category of “Young Patrick Stewart does great acting whilst wearing hideous rug.” Perhaps the exemplar of the type.
Most of his role in Tinker Tailor is him giving the ancestor of the Picard death stare to Alec Guinness the whole time. It works well.
Unfortunately, I don’t understand the title of this Scroll. Is it a take on Fiddler on the Roof?
I think so, yes, and the classic old short story (was it Asimov’s?) “Nightfall”.
There was a Canadian anthology-style F&SF radio show called “Nightfall” which as far as I can tell had absolutely nothing to do with the Asimov story. Suspect they’d never heard of it….
Anyone who’s seen Akira knows that it’s possible to make a space explosion both silent and really dramatic! Just make sure you cut back and forth with a noisy scene, then suddenly…dead silence and brilliant visuals for the explosion! The startlement of abrupt silence can be every bit as attention grabbing as the startlement of a loud “boom!”
Of course, if you’re trying to show hundreds of space explosions, this may not work as well, but for one really big, important explosion, it can work amazingly well.
OK people, tell me what I’m reading next. Long Way to a Small Angry Planet vs Planetfall.
Alec Guiness was never as good as when he played “Professor Marcus” in Ladykillers. Brilliant movie.
Oh, and visited swedens SciFi fair today for the first time in 10 years or so. As boring as I remember it, most of it about toys or movies. Got back home with a plastic model of the house from Addams Family and two signed horror books. And 10-15 magazines of the swedish version of Astounding.
@nickpheas: they’re both good. LWtaSAP is much more cheerful, Planetfall has a much tighter plot. So I guess it depends what you’re in the mood for, I guess.
(Me, I’m reading a book called God Stalk, which I think I heard mentioned once somewhere around these parts.)
@nickpheas: Long Way, etc. Particularly if you want the antithesis of grimdark.
Is there a story called “Nightrise”? Ought to be.
Once more into the Hugo-eligible TBR pile.
I quit before the last book. From book one the series was not working for me due to writing style. The amount of info dumps is way higher in Safeholds with things that interest me even less & I’m into sailing. One of my other complaints is he’s putting dialogue and other things in with the info dumps so skipping them is harder.
My mother claims that she laughed so hard watching an Alec Guinness movie on the late late show that she went into labor with my brother.
Tintinaus
There are few better ways to actors’ hearts than recognising that they are actors, and not the people they play onstage or onscreen; that greatly increases if the actor has one or two high profile parts and you comment about a completely different role. It’s not Nirvana but it’s at that end of the spectrum; you made Bruce’s day.
In other news I have finished and thoroughly enjoyed Genevieve Cogman’s
a worthy successor in the The Invisible Library series, and highly recommended.
Just stumbled across this page during a goolge image search. Lots of nice SF/Fantasy/Comics related fake “pulp novel” covers.
http://talkstarwarstome.blogspot.com/2013_06_01_archive.html
I am the victim of fiendish persons seeking to stand between me and 2015 works; I just couldn’t resist
It’s reduced in the UK Kindle Xmas sale to the equivalent of $2, and judging from the blurbs it’s pretty amazing, but it’s a long way past its sell-by date when it comes to the Hugos.
I worry that I am failing in my duty: Hello, Protestant Work Ethic! On the other hand, I never really agreed with the concept of the PWE so I feel little guilt, particularly when I’ve just had a cocktail or three…
@ redheadedfemme: Here you go.
I quit before the last book. From book one the series was not working for me due to writing style. The amount of info dumps is way higher in Safeholds with things that interest me even less & I’m into sailing. One of my other complaints is he’s putting dialogue and other things in with the info dumps so skipping them is harder.
Yeah, I did a lot more skimming with these books than usual, but I’m fairly good at it when motivated. 😉 The sailing jargon/scenes were just soooo tedious and unnecessary. I’m an absolute sucker for Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen type stories and like a certain amount of MilSF, so I persevered and actually enjoyed the plot and characters for the first four books or so.
The religious messaging had also become irritating. Not because it was religion, but because it was rather unsophisticated religious philosophy (imo), it had become a monotonous drone restating the same message, and Weber completely missed some actual fascinating religious ideas/questions which could be explored given the situation. (Just like he has ignored the implications of a hetero woman’s mind in a functionally male body and what that might mean to her psychology, after only touching on it at the beginning and then seeming to go off into her sort of becoming 2 split male personalities, again without much explanation or examination.) Instead he’s spending pages and pages describing in minute detail a ship sailing up a river.
No more. I quit.
Junego
Excellent action plan! We need more of them!
Weber and Jordan were authors that taught me how to skim hundreds of pages of books. I’ve met many fans who do the same although we disagree on which parts could be cut. In my pre-Weber/Jordan days I thought needing to skip 1/4+ of a book meant it was unreadable and bad writing. Now it depends on how much of the rest of the book I can enjoy and can I skip large sections without missing anything important related to character/plot.
I still believe if I’m to become a good writer I shouldn’t have massive info dumps unless they are appendices at the back or companion guides for the truly committed. But my opinion could change over time as I continue to struggle with my Jewish Vampire series. 😉
@tintinaus: “It was a real surprise to Bruce Boxleitner when I asked him about The Scarecrow and Mrs King at a fan con instead of the Bab 5 or Tron questions as he was otherwise inundated with.”
I’ve got a couple of those stories, too. I try not to be Standard Fan #47 when I’m in an autograph line. I know how much they must hate hearing the same half-dozen lines over and over, so I actively look for something different to say.
John Barrowman lit up when I asked him what it was like to work with Mel Brooks, and he said the sound guy hated it. It seems that they’d be recording ADR, and in comes Mel to tell some stories about the old days. You can’t run him off, because he’s the boss, but time and money are wasting…
I own the first DVD that Nicholas Brendon ever signed of a little movie called Unholy, a weird horror story involving time-traveling Nazis. (Also starred Adrienne Barbeau. This is one of those movies that demands one’s full attention; if you’re doing other things and only half-listening, as I’m frequently guilty of doing, it won’t make any sense. In fact, the true impact of it really comes through the radio broadcast audio that plays over the credits.) To the best of my knowledge, this was before his recent problems started.
James Marsters got a kick out of hearing that I’d been forbidden from wearing one of the classic Buffy/Spike T-shirts to work. The front of the shirt’s pretty standard – vamp-face Spike behind Buffy, about to bite – so the prohibition confused me. When I got home after the adminishment and took the shirt off, though, I saw a small detail for the first time. On the back, right under the collar, were two words: “Bite me.” Since I worked at a computer station in an open-plan room, that was the only part of the design that was casually visible…
Terry Farrell was another fun person to meet. I got her to sign my copy of Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School – a very early role for her, as his son’s love interest – and mentioned that I thought she would’ve been an excellent Wonder Woman around the time she left DS9. She said she would’ve loved to do it, and now I want to find my way to the timeline where that happened.
Then there’s the story of my mother going total fangirl on Richard Hatch… over his role on All My Children in the early 1970s. 🙂
Stevie—
I find it gets easier with practice; there are times when I suddenly realise I haven’t been Alec Guinness for days or even weeks!
Slightly more seriously: I rewatched the BBC Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy again a little while ago, and in the scene where Control is briefing Prideaux on his mission, where he assigns the codenames to the suspects, on his board he has the photos of the suspects, all of them in their TTSS characters taken as production shots — except Smiley, where he has a black and white picture of Guinness seemingly from his Ealing Comedy days, looking most un-Smiley with his trilby hat and dogtooth jacket.
Also, on the subject of Guinness not taking Star Wars 100% seriously, I always liked the twinkly look he gives Ford right as Ford delivers the Kessel Run line; it could be Guinness letting his own thoughts out, but I liked the idea that it was Kenobi giving Solo a “Don’t kid a kidder” look.
Wow, I can’t believe you guys made it even that far into “Safehold”. I just went through Wikipedia summaries and the extraneous “y” and “h” in all the charycter nhaymes hurt mhy eyehs. Right up there with the stereotypical x and apostrophes.
Here in 6392, we don’t do that anymore.
I just went through Wikipedia summaries and the extraneous “y” and “h” in all the charycter nhaymes hurt mhy eyehs. Right up there with the stereotypical x and apostrophes.
Here in 8829, we’ve read enough Weber to know it’s wisest to nope out when the first Clinton analogue (“Grand Inquisitor Zaspahr Clyntahn”) appears.
@nickpheas: I loved Planetfall but haven’t bought The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet yet, so I recommend the former, of course. 😉
A few books deals in the U.S. that interest me, so I thought I’d share in case someone else was interested in these! Most thanks to SF Signal, where I frequently find out about these things. I meant to post them last night, so hopefully they’re still good. Any comments on the Tomlinson, Moore, Brown, or Lukyanenko?
Cold Iron by Stina Leicht – $1.99 (Saga; no DRM) – 99% sure will buy
The Bees by Laline Paull- $1.99 (HarperCollins; DRM) – bought!
The Buried Life by Carrie Patel – $2.99 (Angry Robot; DRM*) – Filer rec
The Ark by Patrick S. Tomlinson – $2.99 (Angry Robot; DRM*) – anyone read it?
Seven Forges by James A. Moore – $2.99 (Angry Robot; DRM*) – anyone read it?
The Darkside War by Zachary Brown – $1.99 (Saga; no DRM) – anyone read it?
“Night Watch” series books 1-3 by Sergei Lukyanenko – $2.99 (HarperColins; DRM, but wow, $.99 each!) – are these any good?
* Angry Robot’s only DRM-free direct; these deals are only from etailers (where AR uses DRM), FYI.
I’m not really into MilSF, but The Darkside War sounds a little different and thus intrigues me. I’m not into horror, but the “Night Watch” movie was good, plus hey, only a back apiece for the set! The rest, well, $2.99 is above my DRM-okay treshhold, but I’m still quite tempted by them! 😉
ObReading: City of Stairs is very, very good! Yes, I’m still reading it; too much work-related distraction this weekend, so I don’t know how much reading I’ll get in, but I’m enjoying it a lot. 😀
I quite enjoyed the Safehold books I read, but after about 3 or 4, when Weber went into his “there is going to be a big, oh so big, conflict coming up, real soon, and everyone knows and it’s coming, oh yes it is” thing that I honestly can’t remember if it was 3 or 4, which in turn makes picking them up again difficult. They all feel exactly the same, so skim reading to the unfamiliar bit doesn’t really help.
The Night Watch series is very good. It’s urban fantasy. The supernatural forces of the Dark and the Light have a tenuous truce, which is enforced by having groups from each side keep an eye on the other, with elaborate protocols. Complications ensue, of course. I enjoy them.
There’s a movie of the first novella part of the first novel, and it’s a pretty good adaptation, including the very funny stuff as well as the drama. I’ve not seen the sequel, so have no opinion on it. 🙂
Kendall: City of Stairs is very, very good! Yes, I’m still reading it; too much work-related distraction this weekend, so I don’t know how much reading I’ll get in, but I’m enjoying it a lot.
It’s one of those books that, for several days after I finished reading it, I kept thinking about it and saying, “Wow, that was really a good book!” — not something I frequently do, but almost always a hallmark of a book that makes awards shortlists or longlists. I’m looking forward to City of Blades, which comes out in about 7 weeks.
Aside from Obi Wan, the most iconic Alec Guiness role for me is the Earl of Dorincourt in the 1980 adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy. The movie is a Christmas classic here in Germany, so I’ve seen it more often than Star Wars I suppose. Sir Patrick Stewart is also in it, BTW, in a small part as a Earl’s stablemaster. The titular Little Lord is played by Ricky Schroeder, adorable blond kid in many 1970s films.
But of course, I also love him in King Hearts and Coronets, Ladykillers and To Paris With Love.
Here in 4187, the 1980 adaptation of Little Lord Fauntleroy is still on TV every Christmas. Meanwhile, It’s a Wonderful Life is almost completely forgotten after an EMP pulse wiped out every existing copy back in 2577.
Bruce Baugh,
I really enjoyed both films although I haven’t read the books so can’t say how closely they match the books. I think Day Watch may veer off towards the end as there was supposed to be a Hollywood deal for a later film. Then Wall Street collapsed and nothing ever came of it.
@Bruce Baugh: Thanks – as I said, I felt the movie was good. I haven’t seen the sequel either (it’s on my shelf, blush). I remembered them as horror, but I guess they’re more like dark urban fantasy? At least I remember the movie was pretty dark and grim. Anyway, it sounds like I should snap up the trio while they’re priced to move. Hmm, there are 6 of these books total, it looks like – eek.
@JJ: I’d better be done with “Stairs” before “Blades” comes out! 😉 I’m very impressed with the author’s worldbuilding, and it’s very much a page-turner for me. V whfg uvg gur “bu fuvg” cbvag ynfg avtug, jura gur thl va gur cbyvpr fgngvba pbzohfgrq (naq nyy gur cebgntnavfg sbhaq bhg nf cneg bs gung). BZT! 😀
I like how the prices on Timothy Anderson’s fake “Star Wars” pulps were 77¢, 80¢, and 83¢, a reference to the slow nickel-and-diming upward of book and comic prices in that era, but also to the years the movies came out.
@ tintinaus: Thanks. 🙂
@ lurkertype
Wow, I can’t believe you guys made it even that far into “Safehold”. I just went through Wikipedia summaries and the extraneous “y” and “h” in all the charycter nhaymes hurt mhy eyehs.
Hey, some of us are tougher than others of us! (or less smart :-]
Or stuck in “must read entire series mode” 😉
Yeah, all those added h’s and y’s slow my reading speed down at least 50%, and make it harder for me to remember hwhoh is ywhyo. And they make absolutely no internal sense, either.
@Peace Is My Middle Name:
Heck, Mark Hamill’s first movie was Ralph Bakshi’s ‘Wizards’, wasn’t it? (Where he voiced the elf king.) Minor is an understatement.
As for nothing measured up… well, I know people to this day who consider Mark Hamill to have been THE definitive Joker, even if only in voice.
/god-stalk!