I'm Back (not to be confused with Bach)

I haven't posted in a while.  In that last post, I mentioned a few things I had on the go in 2015.  I'll address those topics shortly; first though, I had to get an idea out of my head that was generated while on my lunch time walk (which is the worst time for ideas - I can't write them down, and they compete for my attention against podcasts.  Unfair to the podcasts, because then I don't listen to them).

I have an ever-growing list of media I wish to consume, coupled with an ever-growing list of media I wish to produce.  To that end, I think I need to structure my weeks.  You see, I'm on my own for the summer (inquire further in the comments if interested in the full story), and it's been that way since May 25th.  I had all these grandiose plans to catch up on PVR recordings (movies & TV shows), get podcasts recorded, etc. etc. to fill my time between softball games.

I've watched some TV, but mostly have sucked my time with playing video games and not being very productive, aside from some household chores.  This is why I need structure.  The last couple of days, I actually accomplished some to-do list items because I actually made a to-do list and followed it.  So obviously, I need to tighten my schedule.  Here it is.

• Magazine Mondays - Something I've been meaning to start for a while.  I subscribe digitally to a bunch of magazines from the Ottawa Public Library via Zinio, and I have a backlog.
• Book Tuesdays - The alliteration stops at Mondays.  I will find time to read books outside of Tuesdays, but some weeks I find I don't read at all.  So at least once a week my evenings will be spent behind the pages (digital or analog) of a book.
• Comic Book Wednesdays - I have some comic books backlogged, plus a few older ones I wouldn't mind re-visiting.  Also, there is a specific purpose to this day - will get to that.
• Television Thursdays - Yay, alliteration is back!  Thursdays are for catching up on recorded items on my PVR, YouTube series (think: TitansGrave, RCVR, other stuff)
• Free Music Fridays - Because I needed more alliteration; specifically though I need to stay on top of Creative Commons music for Alternative Airwaves.
• The Weekend - The weekend is multi-purpose.  Record a podcast (or two), listen to music, read, whatever.

What is all of this for?  Why give titles for everything?  I'll answer the second question first: because I can.  As to what it's all for - and why the title of this post is, "I'm Back" - because I want to flex my writing muscles a bit more, and get more use out of this silly blog.  I'm going to try to get back into the swing of weekly writing over here, using any one of those days as a starting block.  Which day I'll post I haven't decided yet - but that's not important.

The other purpose is for the media I wish to produce, as I alluded to above.  I already have Alternative Airwaves to work on - hence the music listening on Fridays - but I'm trying to finish working on Star Trek: The "X" Generation and turn that into a podcast.  I recorded an "Episode 0" for it to get feedback (ask for it in the comments, if you like!), but I need to do more writing first.  It's a project where I can easily record episodes ahead of time and keep up with a consistent schedule, but if I get too far ahead recording, I won't have any material to work with anymore!

That ties in to the whole comic book Wednesdays - the new podcast idea will involve comic books as well, and I want to release it when comic books are released - Wednesdays.  I guess that's the only tie-in.  Carry on.

Alright, back to my 2015 Update post - here's where I am as of today...

- Podcasts / 2015 comeback: I'm doing...OK with this.  I've got updates coming mostly monthly.  I missed the month of April only, so that means for 2015 I've released an episode in Jan/Feb/Mar/May/June - that's much better than I thought!  Working with my friend Mike for the Futurama Podcast...we at least released a mini episode in May!

- TV Shows: I have too many shows to "catch up" with.  I think I may binge watch a bunch of things. Or I may not.

- Project 365/52/26 - I started this...and then stopped.  Not my cup of tea.

- Weight Loss - I have not yet lost 38 pounds, and in fact missed my goal for May.  But since the end of May, I've gotten back on track with things and the weight's going down.  Work in progress.

That's it!  Sorry for the length of the post, but that's my fault for not writing anything in a billion years.*

* by "a billion years" I mean 6 months.

A Brief Review of A Storm of Swords

I haven't written in a long time, but George R. R. Martin's A Storm of Swords inspired me to at least write something short about it as a review.  No need to shield yourself from spoilers - I'm not going into specifics with this review, but you'll get more out of it if you've read the novel.

I came into this novel after enjoying the first three seasons of HBO's Game of Thrones.  I read A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings, and felt generally underwhelmed with GRRM's writing.  The plot was great, but the execution involved a lot of eating.

However, there seemed to have been a switch when it came to "ASoS", as fans seem to enjoy calling it.  The same great plotting is there, but the writing is dramatically improved.  I can't identify exactly what is better about this novel, but part of it is the characterization.  The characters definitely have more identity to them than before, so that helped my enjoyment level.

There are still moments where I'm left wanting more from him, but overall there was enough here to warrant a five-star rating.  I haven't started reading the other books (I need a break!), but I'd easily call this one the best.

As far as surprises go, there was only one plot point I knew going in (thanks to season 3 of the TV series); there were three others that caught me completely off-guard, and I was appropriately impressed.

Review: Red Shirts (Novel, 2012)

Project 52: 9/52

I've been thinking for a long time about how to write this review without spoiling anything (which is now impossible because by writing this sentence, I'm indicating that there is something to spoil). This is one of those books where you should go in with a blank slate. All you need to know is the main premise: the story is one told from the point of view of "red shirts", those disposable characters who died a lot in Star Trek.

So, since I can't write this without spoiling, I've marked this article as "classified" and have removed any remarks that would give anything away.

Red Shirts, a 2012 novel by John Scalzi, is predominantly a comedy sci-fi novel - so pretty much what I've come to expect from Scalzi (see Agent to the Stars). As I mentioned, it's a story about crew members who come to realize that they're disposable when compared to the main crew (sort of like Kirk/Spock/McCoy) and want to do something about it.

That's where this book [REDACTED] and Scalzi writes some [REDACTED] scenes. You won't believe [REDACTED] and [REDACTED].

[REDACTED]

I definitely recommend this book and I'm sure you will enjoy it. Five out of five.

Sudden revelation about Ready Player One

Project 52: 8/52

I was watching Raiders of the Lost Ark this morning and came to a sudden realisation about Ernest Cline Ready Player One: it has a parallel plot.

Stay with me: in Cline's novel, the "Sixers", the ostensibly evil group trying to obtain Halliday's easter egg, at one point get information about a clue - but they only get half the information they need.

In Raiders, the Nazis mistakenly use the wrong length of staff, which gives Indiana a head start.

I don't know if that was done on purpose, or if anyone else caught that before me, but it just blew my mind.

DVD Survivor, Baseball, + Other Creative Stuff

Today's post isn't really meant to be thought-provoking, unless it provokes the thought of "why does he think we care?"  Anyway it's another "update" post of things I'm working on / will be working on.  Or you may want to call it, "Things I'm Writing That Aren't Actually Stories".  Or "This is What I Write Instead of Fiction".

DVD Survivor
I'm not actually working on this yet, but it's an idea I had while (of course) on my lunch time stroll around the block at work.  The basic premise is this: I have a bunch of DVDs that I bought a long time ago; in most cases these were movies I hadn't seen before, and rather than rent them, I bought them.  In most cases, I probably ended up liking the movie; but in some, I haven't watched since.

We recently got an HDTV; even more recently, a Blu-Ray player.  I'm going to want to be buying some new movies - some as replacements for movies I already own on DVD (Star Wars, Back to the Future, and a few others).  Obviously those DVD copies will be out the door once they're replaced.  But we'll also be picking up new copies of Blu-Ray movies we don't own, and we really don't want to run out of space.  This is where we get to "DVD Survivor".

This isn't going to be something where I pit inanimate objects on Britannia Beach or something.  "Survivor" is just a catchy name to me.  I will watch each movie that is on the chopping block, and decide on each viewing whether to keep or toss said movie.  I don't have a full list of what movies I'll be watching, but I can tell you it includes Hero(2002), The Last Samurai(2003), Lost in Translation(2003), Taxi Driver(1976), Good Night and Good Luck(2005), and Syriana(2005).  I can tell you I can picture myself keeping at least three of those movies (I won't tell you which!).  And of that list, there is only ONE which I haven't even watched yet.

I don't know when I'm starting this, but I do know these things: 1) It will be soon 2) I will be watching the movies in alphabetical order.

Baseball
Oh, baseball.  The pre-season matchups kick off next month as teams across the league try to figure out how their roster will shape up for the 2012 season while pretending that they're really not enjoying the beautiful weather in Arizona and Florida.

I am a "regular" writer at my brother's Blue Jays blog, Blue Jays Luddite.  Well, I was "regular" last year, but I think I'm going to make an effort to give him some more contributions.  So if you like baseball, or at the very least want to read about the Blue Jays, be sure to keep an eye out next month for what's sure to be exciting training camp stories.

Other Creative Stuff
I think I've been letting all of this stuff take over my work on Alternative Airwaves, but I feel like it's okay.  At the moment I don't feel overwhelmed, so I'm going to take that as a good thing.  You see, it wasn't too long ago I was complaining about wanting to do something creative but not knowing what to do.  I won't take it as a bad thing that now I have tons of ideas and they're all flowing.

I think the favourite thing I'm doing right now is my page-by-page review of Planet X, a Star Trek: The Next Generation / X-Men crossover novel written in 1998.  I found it in Value Village, and I had to buy it.  You can read it over at tngxmen.tumblr.com.  I have a friend, Xyloart, who is doing the illustrations.  And they are awesome; probably way better than my writing.

Speaking of Alternative Airwaves, as I said I've been stagnating a little.  I'm coming up to the 50th episode (that'll be in May), and I'd like to put a bit more work into it to get it sounding really great.  We'll see what I can come up with, but mostly the work will involve putting more time into finding music than anything else.  Too often lately I've been picking music last-minute and only from 1 or 2 sources.  Something I need to work on.

Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation: Dark Mirror

I finished this book a week ago (just in time to get Win Tie or Wrangle from the library), and I meant to write a review immediately after.  But then I forgot.  Woopsie!

Here are the basics: the USS Enterprise D, while exploring a really boring area of space in the outer reaches of the galaxy, gets pulled (sucked?) into the Mirror Universe.  If you're unfamiliar with the Mirror Universe at all, it would behoove you to do some reading before continuing on with this review.

To be honest, if you want to enjoy this book, be prepared to do a lot of waiting.  The beginning of the book takes a long time to get going, talking about nigh-uncomprehensible things like "hyperstrings" and some dolphin-like alien which makes very little sense whatsoever.  Seriously, Diane Duane, why not pick an alien species we're more familiar with?  All I could picture from the descriptions was a super-happy dolphin floating around in a space suit with robotic arms.  The scenes without him were much better.

Once we get into the meat of the story - which, to me, is when Picard beams over to the Mirror!Enterprise and help LaForge and Troi with their mission (which is to get them out of the mirror universe).  Once we get to this point, the plot moves around at a very good pace and the action is fun.  And then, where the novel should have ended, we get a chapter of the crew enjoying some sort of opera on the holodeck.  Uh...maybe that would work as a coda in the TV show, but it is utterly boring here (and I skipped it outright).

I only have two main beefs with this book.
1) The characterization seems a little off.  They talk completely different from how they would in the TV series.  This brought me out of the story a couple of times.*
2) The Mirror Universe is the same as we saw in the TOS episode Mirror, Mirror.  This is a beef for me, because the extrapolation of the MU's history seen in the Deep Space Nine episode Crossover is much more believable than what we get here.**

Other than that, I felt that the characters' actions were much more realistic than what we see on the TV show.  It feels like they're actually military officers (sorry, explorers) operating aboard a very complex starship.  I don't know how to describe it, but I guess it doesn't really feel like these guys are on the bridge 100% of the time.  Don't you find it odd in the TV show that we see the same bridge crew every episode?***

Anyway, it was an interesting enough read.  Three out of Five stars.  ALSO!  This ties in directly to a new creative project I'm working on.  Head over to http://tngxmen.tumblr.com/ for more details!

* - Granted, their personalities were almost bang-on for all the characters.  They just didn't talk properly.
** - I will grant that perhaps the mirror universe we see in this novel is a branch of the mirror universe we've seen on TV - where in this particular universe, Spock's efforts to bring civility to humans doesn't work and they remain as they were.  I think I'll take that explanation over the fact that they're the same universe as on TV.
*** - I think both TNG and Voyager have attempted to address this; the only episode that comes in mind is Data's Day and I think there's one episode on Voyager that puts Ensign Kim in command of the night watch or something. 

A Novel I will be reading through a web browser

The famous (infamous?) Ryan North linked to this tumblr: http://btothef.tumblr.com/

I can't imagine this project being anything other than awesome, and I will be following along.  Oh and this is actually written by Ryan North so it should be fun to read in that respect.

That is all.

Review: Heir to the Empire 20th Anniversary Edition

According to Goodreads, it took me 9 days to read Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire (20th Anniversary Edition); this is probably a considerably shorter time than when I first read the book, which was I believe 15 years ago or so when I was 12, and at the height of my Star Wars obsession.  Obviously, this was not a tough read.

This review is actually not concerning the book itself, but rather the presentation of the book and all of the elements associated with it being a 20th Anniversary Edition.  I figure that most people have read this already (or maybe not; I could be vastly overestimating the number of Star Wars fanatics that are reading this blog), so there's no point in going over the story.  Suffice it to say, it's about a new, smart villain and his attempts to bring the Empire back to glory five years after the huge loss suffered at Endor in Return of the Jedi.

To start with, the book looks absolutely beautiful.  Don't take my word for it - just look at the book jacket, and the hard cover concealed beneath.  A lot of care has gone into making this thing look really nice, something you don't often see (I mean really - do we ever see XX Anniversary Editions of classic works?  Not usually).  It's a hard cover book, obviously, and it displays rather nicely on a book shelf.  I almost don't want to display only the spine when I shelve it later, it's so nice.







On to what drew me to the book in the first place: the comments in the margin.  I mean, tons of books have different editions throughout the years with fancy covers; but what made this a must-have for me was that sprinkled throughout the text were little tidbits of information from Timothy Zahn.  Comments like how he decided to start the novel with a scene on a Star Destroyer, because that's what all three original movies had done.  And also various comments about how Thrawn (the villain) fits the qualities of a good leader, thought processes during original outlines, "Tuckerisms", and so forth.






There were also a small handful of comments from Zahn's editor for Heir, Betsy M?.  Let me just say that I drew no insight at all from her comments.  They make her sound like your standard middle-aged woman who doesn't know a thing about Star Wars, the way that an ignorant mom might say "Stop playing Nintendo!" when their kid is clearly playing an Xbox; she is the Ralph Wiggum to Zahn's Lisa Simpson, gleefully announcing "When I grow up, I want to be a principal or a caterpillar."  I think the most condescending comment comes at the end of Chapter 12, where Zahn presents somewhat of a cliffhanger ending:

"Bestselling writers often use the literary device of the cliffhanger to grip readers.  How many times have you stayed up far too late at night because something enthralling happens at the end of a chapter and you simply have to find out what happens next?  Tim brings the use of the cliffhanger to a high art in Heir.  I defy anyone to put this book down after a closing line like Leia's."

So I think you can guess from my comments that this book would have been better off without her margin notes.  It's too bad, because it's a huge missed opportunity to give us some extra insight into the editing process for this book.  In the end, she's also redundant, as the one insightful comment she does make is repeated by Zahn a little later.  Oh well - nothing's perfect, I suppose.

There's also the matter of an extra novella after the novel, written by Zahn exclusively for this book.  It's nothing special, and details one of Thrawn's exploits shortly before the events of Heir.  It was a neat enough read though, but I think also the book could have done without it.  The margin comments were draw enough - I don't think people were likely waiting for the promise of a new novella to buy the book.

Lastly though, the story still IS a fun read, and is quite possibly still the best piece of Extended Universe fiction for Star Wars out there.  It's not high class literature by any means, but it's paced extremely well and you can definitely get a "movie" feel while you read it. 

For Star Wars: Heir to the Empire 20th Anniversary Edition, I give 4 out of 5 stars.

The Lord of the Rings: A Review of a Piece of Classic Fantasy Literature

January 5, 2012: that is the day that I completed my first-ever reading of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I ate up Fellowship of the Ring, took a bit more time with The Two Towers, and slowed to a painful crawl with Return of the King.  In a way, I just about mirrored Frodo's journey with The One Ring.

Note that while I say I finished reading Return of the King, I didn't actually read the appendices - who the hell has time for that?  Mainly I wasn't interested in them, especially after the massive denouement that is Book Six.  Here, then, are my thoughts on each book, reduced to a single paragraph.

The Fellowship of the Ring (Books 1 and 2)
Technically, I read the first 11 chapters of Book 1 a few years back but got (understandably) frustrated with the writing and the dense subject matter.  I still skipped over many of the songs and lengthy history lessons, and quite frankly I didn't miss anything.  It would be one thing if Tolkein included some foreshadowing in the songs (he didn't; I looked it up in Coles Notes SO THERE), but these are largely there to provide depth to Middle-Earth.  Honestly, I got depth enough when I was imersed in his haunting descriptions of The Old Forest and the Barrow-Downs.  Other than the snoozefest that was The Council of Elrond, a lot was happening in this book and I felt the descriptions were super immersive and well I liked it okay?  Four stars.

The Two Towers (Books 3 and 4)
I went into this thinking that this would be my favourite of the three books, since it was my favourite of the three movies.  Not so - I'll ruin it now, Fellowship was my favourite, which shocks me considering so much more plot-wise was happening in Two Towers.  While I appreciated that Tolkein seemed to have sped up his narration and cut down on the songs, I didn't get as into this as I did with Fellowship.  I think I got really bogged down by the descriptions of the Battle of Helm's Deep - it was hard to follow, and I think that other than random elves showing up the movie handled it a lot better - but I think the best part of this book was Book 4, with Frodo/Sam/Smeagol.  Three and a half stars.

The Return of the King (Books 5 and 6)
This was just incredibly difficult for me to read in some parts, and I don't know why.  The battle scenes were epic and pretty well translated to screen so that I could more easily follow them than Helm's Deep, but when Tolkein got into some lengthy passages my eyes just glazed over more than a Tim Horton's doughnut.  For Book 6, the chapter describing Sam's heroic efforts to rescue Frodo was awesome, but the journey to Mount Doom was a chore to read.  I think it took me three hours to read two chapters.  And then - even once the chief task was completed and the Ring is destroyed - we spend a heck of a long time walking back through Middle-Earth in the most boring fashion.  The saving grace for this book was The Scouring of the Shire, which was an awesome chapter - even though Sarumon is a complete dick.  Three stars.

And there you have it, my brief review of The Lord of the Rings.  My next book to tackle is the 20th Anniversary Edition of Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn, which I am much looking forward to.  It's a hardcover beauty with author commentary in the margins.  So I will largely be reviewing the presentation of the book, rather than the book itself.  Heck, I can give you the review of the story right now: it's awesome, and you should read it.

Why Movies and Books are The Same

I am so bad at this Blogging Business - I was going to have three well-thought-out posts about movies/books and try and have something somewhat similar to an intelligent discussion.  Well, I got one post out of the bag, and got busy with work, podcasting, and life in general.  Oh and I got sick somewhere in there, too (and STILL released a podcast on New Year's Eve).

So now I'm scrapping my original plans, and giving you my reasoning (or at least, the best reasoning I can remember) for why film is essentially the same medium as print.  What a crazy notion!  I'm probably not even going to try framing this as an intelligent debate, either.

The main reason I came up with this argument in the first place was I was trying to classify film and books under different mediums: film is visual media, and books are intellectual.  But wait, we use our eyes in both, don't we?  And films can jumpstart our brains just the same as a book, right?  So they must both be visual media!  So then I thought some more (sometimes, a dangerous prospect).

It's my view that the movies are simply a forced perspective narration, just the same as books - and this is why film adaptations are almost always inherently different from the source material.  With books, authors have the luxury of picking any view point - our minds can paint the picture, so to speak.  Unfortunately for film, we're stuck with one unchanging perspective (with a few experimental exceptions, I'm sure): third person.  There are minor variations (sometimes, we are omnipotent and others not) but for the most part, this is how a movie must be presented.  Wait, did I say omnipotent?  I am pretty sure I meant omniscient.  If only we were omnipotent viewers, we could change some frustratingly bad movies.

As I said just last paragraph, this is the only reason (well, that's a lie, there are other reasons that don't prove/disprove my point) that books and their film adaptations are different.  The ones that closely match probably do so because the narrative in the original book is in the third person; often, I find that third person limited offers the easiest adaptations.

I think that was my general point, and I wish I had made it better the way I originally intended.  But I just needed to get it out there.

On Movie Adaptations of Books - Part 1

I'm currently reading Fellowship of the Ring (technically, re-reading the first 11 chapters since I tried reading the book before), and it's got me thinking about the movie adaptations of the Lord of the Rings franchise, and movie adaptations of books in general.  So I present to you a series of three posts about this very subject.

I don't know that I can say I've "always felt this way" about the relationship between film and books, but I've felt this way about it for a long enough time: they're different beasts. Yeah, I'm sure this is a newsflash for everyone out there. The weird thing - and this just occurred to me - is that while they are two different forms of media, they are both presented in a similar manner.

I bring this up because that's usually the go-to argument about the differences between film and print; film is a visual medium, they say, while print is not. Wait a second - I understand what point you're trying to convey, but how is reading a book not visual stimuli? You use your eyes to read the words, and that activates your imagination. I guess it would be better to say that books are an intellectual medium - but then, so too can film be intellectual (see: Tree of Life*).

To get to my point faster, here's the question: if books and movies can both be considered to be engaging the same stimuli - albeit in different ways - how come movie adaptations of books are often major departures from the original source?  Unfortunately the answer is a little complicated, so uh...I hope you have some time set aside to do a little bit of reading.  The first difference is obvious - how we physically consume the media; second, the physical limitations of either media; and lastly, the difference is that they're the same.  What?  Yes, they are the same.  Bear with me - in three weeks, you will understand what I'm talking about.
I thought I would start out with the most obvious, which is how we physically consume either media.  To drill down a bit further, it comes down to how much time we spend with each form of story-telling.  When reading a book, we have the leisure to read whenever we want, and virtually whereever we want.**  Some people read at blinding speeds, while others take their time and read when they can.***  Unless you've borrowed the book from the library, it's there, ready for your eyes, whenever you wish.

Conversely, movies have an average running time of anywhere from 1 and a half hours to 2 and a half hours (with the epic movies, like Lord of the Rings, stretching past the three hour mark).  One could argue that outside of the theatre we have the same luxury as we do with books in that we can watch at our leisure, pause and start as we please; the truth is that films are made to make money in theatres****, not at home or on the bus to work.

Because of the time constraint, writers and producers often have to cut extraneous portions of the source material in order to present it on-screen in a reasonable running time.  This is especially true with large tomes (there's a reason why A Game of Thrones went to TV, not theatres).  As a result, what we see on screen is usually not a 100% true adaptation of the book.  And, in what's going to be a common theme in this essay, that's OK, because filmmakers are trying to make a film - just because they don't have an original idea doesn't change anything.

Dealing with a time constraint is the primary reason why die-hard franchise fans are often disappointed in on-screen adaptations of their most beloved stories.  What they really need to do is critique the movies as films, not as adaptations.  Yes, the strength of the story depends largely on the original source, but it's my opinion that you can't objectively say, "This movie was bad because it didn't contain X element that was present in the original book."  Usually there's a reason it was omitted from the screen adaptation.  What you should evaluate is what you see on screen, and how everything fits together.

Next week, we'll explore the physical differences of each media.  And after that, I'll explain why neither of the first two essays matter because both formats are the same.

* - To be fair, I don't actually know anything about Tree of Life except that the critics over at Filmspotting had a field day with this one, and it all went way over my head.  So I think it's safe to say that this film generated intense intellectual debate.

** - I'll thank you to not read while you drive.

*** - I certainly don't take several months to read a book. *cough*

**** - That's why they report box office gross, not weekly DVD sales.  Of course this doesn't apply if your studio releases movies direct-to-DVD.

Harperland: The Politics of Control (2010)

Harperland: The Politics of Control, by Lawrence Martin: A Review in Haiku form

Steve Harper, PM
He likes to be in control
Book takes aim, misses.

Honestly, I don't think I need to expand much more on that. The book tries to come off as a scathing account of how Stephen Harper has abused his power and has taken control of everything, but it barely goes beyond the surface of events that happened between 2006 (when Harper first took office) and 2010. Interesting, sure, but hardly an in-depth analysis of the Harper government. As an example of how in-depth this book was (or how much it wasn't), the last chapter would tell you exactly what the rest of the book covers.

Little Brother (2008)

Today I just finished reading my electronic copy of Little Brother, a 2008 Young Adult novel by Cory Doctorow.  I decided that I'm going to do a five-minute review of this book in my Five Minutes On segment of the Alternative Airwaves podcast, so this blog post will basically serve as the copy for that.

Little Brother (2008, Tor Books) tells the story of Marcus Yallow - AKA W1n5ton - a 17-year old high school student in San Fransisco who delights in outsmarting his school's attempts to keep tabs on him.  After a terrorist bombing of the Bay Bridge, the Department of Homeland Security institutes sweeping measures in an effort to stop any future attacks.  When he finds that he no longer feels safe in his own city, Marcus decides to fight the DHS and restore freedom to the country that he loves.

I really liked this story.  It's classified as a Young Adult novel, but it has some fairly mature themes for the age level that it's targeting.  And let me re-emphasize that I like the story, but not so much all the sidebars about all the hacks Marcus is able to implement.  I understand that these explanations are quite relevant to move the plot along, but it feels like a text book about cryptography and network hacking dropped in between a pretty intense story.

That's why I gave the book three stars over at Goodreads.  The story was good, but it was bogged down by a few too many detailed explanations.  I suppose that's Little Brother's version of TNG's technobabble.  Still, despite these small problems, I thought the book had a lot of neat ideas and presented a fairly convincing picture of what our society might look like five to ten years in the future.

Just a few notes about Little Brother: As if the title wasn't a dead giveaway, Doctorow drew plenty of influences for this story from George Orwell's classic 1984...If you read this book and are interested in making any of the cool things Doctorow mentions, check out this page: http://www.instructables.com/member/w1n5t0n/...There are a couple of afterwords at the end of the book by Andrew Huang and Bruce Schneier, some pretty big names in the field of hacking and security...Doctorow included a very comprehensive bibliography with some interesting reading material and various links; well worth checking out if this book gives you big ideas...Speaking of interesting reading material, one work that specifically sticks out from that bibliography is Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, surely a compelling read...And lastly, this book contains several references to some pretty cool historic events that ocurred in San Fransisco and of the people that made up the counterculture; definitely worth checking out that rich history.

Piracy

I haven't written here in a while; so why not write about a controversial topic? I don't think anything is as controversial these days as piracy - the "scourge of the Internet". I don't know if that's an actual quote from somebody, but let's pretend that it is.

To clarify, I'm thinking of a specific branch of piracy.  I don't believe that music piracy - as rampant as it likely still is - is a hot-button issue anymore.  To put it simply, people are finding ways to legally support artists they like (something music fans have always said they are willing to do) in models that now work.  There's also a lot of music available legally for free online if you know where to look (and it's not hard to trip over all of it).  I'm not thinking of the piracy of films either - I think the movie industry has done a much "better" job locking down their content.

My target today is book piracy - specifically, e-books.  I don't think anyone can make their morning commute on the bus without seeing at least five people reading from their various e-readers.  They're everywhere, and have exploded probably a lot faster than the publishing industry ever anticipated (mostly thanks to the Amazon Kindle). Blah blah blah - this is old hat now in 2011.  Long story short: we now have the same technology that was introduced in Star Trek: The Next Generation: the PADD.  Moving along...

Wait, can I back-pedal for a second and point out that this isn't going to have any kind of reference to statistics?  This is largely an anecdotal piece.

Where was I?  Oh yeah, e-book piracy.  I'm indifferent to e-book piracy - that is to say, it's a gray area for me.  Would I download an epub version of a book I don't own?  Probably not (unless we're talking books by Cory Doctorow, which are freely given away); I consider that to be piracy.  But if I get an e-reader (which I might quite soon), what if I want to read one of the books I already own on my shelf?  I really don't think I should have to buy it in another format if I already have it on my shelf.

I suppose it's the same argument as music - if you own the CD, why re-buy it as an mp3?  But the difference there is that it's really trivial to put a disc in a CD tray, and rip the music to your computer's library.  Not so easy with books, unfortunately.

And, books are one of those things that friends and family usually give to us (or lend).  If I'm given a physical book to read, is it still piracy to download an ebook format if I don't feel like lugging around a physical copy?  That's a tough one, and the answer is both yes and no.  Probably I should read the physical version.

Anyway, I really don't know where I stand on this, as you can tell from this wishy-washy post.  Originally I was going to include some statistics on book piracy but I got lazy.  So uh...hooray for e-readers?

The Hobbit: A Possibly Spoiler-y Review

I changed my mind about reviewing The Hobbit.  More specifically, I was convinced by my buddy Zach to write a big spoiler-y review of the book.  Well, this probably won't live up to his expectations, but I'll do my best.

Before I begin, how about some news about the upcoming films?

A brief recap of the book: Bilbo is a Hobbit who really just likes to stay in his Hobbit-Hole and stick his thumb out to the world.  Gandalf pays him a visit, and Bilbo is really rude and tells him to piss off.  Gandalf has other plans, and leaves some markings on Bilbo's front door - markings that actually end up calling a party of thirteen dwarves to Bilbo's home for An Unexpected Party, which also leads to An Unexpected Journey - to recover stolen treasure from Smaug the Dragon, who lives in the Lonely Mountain beyond Mirkwood.

Deep breath - that was a bit of a mouthful.  Okay, continuing: along the way Bilbo and his friends run into several small bothers (including but not limited to Trolls, Goblins, weird elves, and Smaug himself.  Also, Bilbo just happens to find a magic ring that makes everything a heck of a lot easier for him.  He plays a riddle game with Gollum, which is probably about the most interesting part of the book.  Oh wait, I'm still summing it up.

Anyway, Bilbo has a long talk with Smaug, and discovers his weak spot - which is relayed to the men in Lake-Town (or whatever it's called), and Smaug ends up getting killed by the men.  They're not too happy with the Dwarves, because in the process, their entire village was destroyed.  So they march off to the Lonely Mountain with the intent of taking some sweet, sweet treasure.  Eventually the Goblins and their giant wolves (called "Wargs" here) come to kill everyone and there is a giant battle involving Five Armies.  Bilbo falls unconcious and does nothing of real consequence, and wakes up when it's all over so he can go back home.

As I was reading, I had heard about the Battle of the Five Armies, and was assuming it would be a Pretty Big Deal once I got to it.  But in the same sense that Bilbo barely aided in the defeat of Smaug, all he did was get knocked on the head and wake up.  The battle occurred without his help or hinderance.  Which leads to me saying that the riddle game with Gollum in the Goblin caves was probably the most interesting part of the book.

It was okay, and at least now I see where Peter Jackson is going to fill all his time in the movies.  Obviously, the Battle of the Five Armies will take up most of the second film; but also there's mention of the White Council in the end of the book (really, it's one sentence), and you can bet they'll expand upon that.  I think they could easily condense this book into 1 three-hour film, instead of two three-hour films.

The Hobbit

I'm currently reading The Hobbit (75% completed, according to Goodreads.com), a book I was concerned I might not be able to get through considering previous experiences with Tolkein.  Considering the fact that I am 75% of the way through, I'd say that those concerns have long been waylaid.  Though I'm still not overly fond of Tolkein's writing style, it's a little easier to read than I remember Fellowship of the Ring.

I'm not going to do a full review when I'm finished, but I just wanted to do a quick post about the upcoming movies (coming out as An Unexpected Journey and There and Back Again in 2012 and 2013, respectively).

How the heck do you split this book into two movies?  It boggles my mind.

Star Wars: Death Star Review

So I finished Star Wars: Death Star last weekend.  The book was okay - it had its moments, but ultimately feels like a novelty item, so to speak.  The characters were fun enough, but not exactly what I'd hoped.  And the writing wasn't the greatest - there was a lot of repetition going on, mostly to reinforce themes and ideas, but it came across to me more as, "Okay, I know what you're saying - you've said it five times now, maybe you could move the story along?"

It was things like the Death Star gunner questioning his morals before/after pulling the trigger on Alderaan.  It seemed like I was reading the same passage several different times across five different chapters.  I don't want to give it away, but if you read it, you'll know what I mean.

Anyway, I was entertained, but slightly disappointed; my expectations going in was that this was a book comprised of short stories.  That's not what I got, but I only feel half-cheated.

It's a fun enough read, so I'm not going to say "don't read it"; instead, I'll just say that if you don't read it, you're not missing out on anything important.

Bloggable Topics

Last night, I finished a complete draft of my nefarious "Pocket Watch" story!  And in actuality, it's not about a pocket watch anymore.  It's quite different.  It's also quite weak - but the point is that the story is on paper (well, computer) and just needs some editing.

Some other stuff:

• I finally got a hold of the last three episodes of Battlestar Galactica - look for some reviews, probably around March
• I finished watching Dexter!  I didn't know the last season was only 12 episodes.
• I have a review to type up of that Star Wars book that I finished less than a month ago
• I have some things to say about Kevin J. Anderson
• Currently I am reading John Scalzi's Agent to the Stars and am enjoying it.

So look for all that and more coming this month on my blog.

Quick Reviews

I recently read a couple of short stories, so I thought I'd give my thoughts on them.

First up, is Hunter, by Wil Wheaton.  I've obviously written about this story a short while ago, but unfortunately I couldn't read it the minute I downloaded it because I couldn't figure out how to get the story onto my Blackberry's e-reader app.  Thankfully I remembered that I have Stanza on my iPod Touch, and I reconfigured the settings on that thing and had the most amazing small-screen e-book experience in a long time.

Anyway, the story was good.  It starts off with a character in his element: a bounty hunter, I suppose you could call him, chasing prey in a futuristic world ruled by a mysterious alien race.  Mysterious only because we know very little about them other than that they are invaders.  And they invaded Earth.

The story quickly reveals that this hunter really ISN'T in his element, and, well - I don't want to spoil it, but his world does get flip-turned upside-down.  A very brief glimpse into a possible future by Wheaton, and it was good.  I want more.  So I give "Hunter" an A+.

Second story: I, Robot by Cory Doctorow.  This story originally appeared in a short story collection, so I'm not exactly sure how I downloaded JUST "I, Robot" and not that particular collection - but I did.  I started reading it a LONG time ago; it was sort of just something to fill time.  Unfortunately, I got a bit bored of it at the time because I didn't know where it was going.  Determined to finish it though, I opened it up again in Stanza and I remembered where I left off.

The story starts out simply enough: an experienced Detective in Toronto is on the chase for his daughter, who disappears following an explosion in a mall.  It's a futuristic world along the lines of the classic sci-fi novelists, so some of the descriptions might seem "familiar".  For instance, references to Eurasia and the Social Harmony remind me immediately of 1984 - but it's fairly apparent that this is a completely different world (which is a good thing).

I wasn't getting why it was titled "I, Robot" until the payoff at the very end.  I thought that was well-done.  However, for losing me a little at the beginning (I thought I was given a little too much information to handle), I'm going to have to give Cory a B+ on this one.

Wil Wheaton is (maybe) my muse

I think what got me excited about the whole aspect of self-publishing and getting something out there was always Wil Wheaton (yes, THAT Wil Wheaton) and his attitude about the Internet and just putting things out there because we can.  So of course leave it to Wil to inspire me AGAIN to get back to working on my writing project.

He's just released a new sci-fi short story (which I will read & review when I get the chance) called Hunter.  It's a pay-what-you-want type of release, meaning you can download it to your heart's content and pay nothing, or you can spread the good karma and donate.  This story is DRM-free in multiple formats, so you can do whatever you want with it - up to and including sharing it with others.

I'm currently struggling to figure out how I can load it onto my Blackberry Kobo app, but sadly I think that app is pretty well locked down.  I have a PDF saved on my Dropbox (sorry, not in my public folder - I donated to the Wil Wheaton fund to get my copy of Hunter), so I think I can at least read the PDF on my phone.

I personally donated $1.00, based on this little bit from the page for Hunter:

If I sold it to a magazine, I'd probably get around $125 or so (assuming I could get the SFWA professional rate of five cents a word. I figure that at least 125 people will want to read this, so if all of them donated a dollar, I'd feel really good about this, and I'd be able to do it again in the future.

Essentially, I've taken my fair share of free stuff from the web and I want to start giving something back.  In this case, it's a small donation for a short story.  I've since heard that people are donating $2.00 on average, but $1.00 is still a respectable contribution.

tl;dr - this is making me want to release my short story compilation as a pay-what-you-want thing.  I was considering it anyway, but this has finalized that decision.