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July 6th, 2008
04:28 pm - Consolodated Movie Reviews
My summary opinions of The Incredible Hulk, Charlie Wilson's War, and Hancock: Not as bad as I'd feared, not as good as the book (but still quite good), and vaguely enjoyable non-adapted superheroic fare.
( Slightly more spoilerish thoughts behind a cut... )
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June 26th, 2008
11:21 am - Read Books Meme
[Via ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kitsunealyc and ivan23.]
My comments on this list: No The Sound and the Fury, and it has a few books that cause me to shudder. That said, it, like any "canon," is a good talking-point.
According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on their list.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.
(4. Put parentheses around the ones you started but didn't finish.)
( list of books behind the cut )
I've clearly read less of this list than I would have liked, but a number of the classics aren't really my bag. Still, it's good to be at least vaguely completist about these things....
ETA: gollumgollum pointed out that this list seems to be a chimera. Check out this post that someone made exploring the topic more fully.
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February 19th, 2008
07:57 am - Castro, Musharraf, and Historical Fiction
So, Castro is stepping down as Cuba's president. Musharraf's party suffers a massive defeat at the polls, implying that he might go soon, as well. At roughly the same time, at the demand request of my lovely wife, I've been told to decided to blog my progress through Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles, which various people I trust claim to be the best historical fiction out there.
Consequently, if anyone wants to read my reactions to the series, they should reply here, and I'll add them to the filter.
...and this has nothing to do with Fidel or Pervez, really. I just wanted to note that in my blog somehow.
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August 1st, 2007
09:41 pm - Some Notes
First off, swan_tower has completed the first draft of her most recent novel, well ahead of schedule. Go over there and congratulate her; this'll be her third published novel.
Second, I point you to a fascinating post on the wives of presidents and vice-presidents by nhw. I find it somewhat ironic that, of the two people I've seen post interesting things about US history in the last year or so, one (nhw) is Irish and one (robotnik) is Canadian. Don't we have any domestic historians who can hold forth interestingly on this topic?
Also, I remind you that Strange Horizons's fund drive is running right now, as it has been extended through the 15th of August. You should go contribute! It's tax deductible, and there are a whole raft of nifty points about the magazine that coalescent, our Senior Reviews Editor, enumerates here. The short form is that it's free, high quality content that comes to you weekly. It's award-winning. It's shiny.
That's it for me for now. Back to wedding preparation.
Edit: Linked to correct post by nhw.
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July 17th, 2007
04:44 pm - Various Updates
As swan_tower bemoaned, "No one is coming to our wedding!" ...which is to say that the first wave of invitations to our wedding went out, and we started getting response cards today. The first four? "Sorry, we can't attend." Note that the list our parents provided us of "must invites" is sufficiently large that, were they all to accept (which, obviously, they're not), then we would barely have room for the wedding party. No joke. Consequently, if you don't receive an invitation to the wedding, it's not because we don't love you. It's because our parents are insane, and we don't have the leverage to say, "Tough noogies" to their lists of relations and family friends.
...and if you receive an invitation late, it's because we're lazy bastards who can't get our ducks in a row. Hell, I think the best man's invitation only went out at the end of last week.
Also, wedding cake tasting? Very cool. That said, I never thought I'd ever get sick of buttercream frosting, which I sort of was by the end of the day.
Most recently read books: the Temeraire trilogy by Naomi Novik. Short review: Enjoyable, light, quick reading. It's Patrick O'Brian meets Anne McCaffrey, or, in a less insular phrasing, the Napoleonic Wars with dragons. Some of the characterization of the various dragons is quite well done.
Also a good read, Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile. I went through it on audiobook, so I can specifically speak to the audiobook version read by Christopher Lane, which was thankfully captivating. Basically, this book details the progress of the CIA-funded Afghan war in the 1980s from the perspective of the bureaucrats and desk-jockeys in Langley. While the premise might seem dull, it honestly was really well-written, giving a very intimate (and, I fear, slightly skewed toward the dramatic) perspective on the backroom dealings that ultimately drove the Red Army from Afghanistan. I can only hope that the movie version that's coming out later this year is as good. (Then again, it has Mike Nichols, Aaron Sorkin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Hanks, and Julia Roberts and it's coming out in December, so it's clearly shooting for the Oscars. We'll see.)
Strange Horizons is having its (now yearly, rather than bi-yearly) fund drive! Contribute and get a crack at nifty prizes! It's also tax-deductible, for you home-owning / kid-having US residents out there.
Beyond that, I'm frantically working on wedding-preparation stuff, getting in shape, and not going insane. Sorry for the radio silence of late, though I fear that'll be par for the course until October or so.
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April 19th, 2007
10:17 am - Magical Tomes?
Via John Joseph Adams, here's a link to Jeremy Tolbert's blog, where he is looking for names of magical texts, both real and imagined. An interesting request, I figured, and something that friends of mine might like to toy with.
jeregenest, please note that I've already pillaged at least a few titles from the Aerie library. :)
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March 20th, 2007
10:45 pm - Hey! It's Spring!
Overall, a good day. My trainer kicked my ass repeatedly at the gym, I made a minor amount of progress on wedding preparation, swan_tower finally negotiated a next book with her editor, and I had a filling, high-quality Italian dinner. Now I attempt to be productive for an hour before I go to bed.
In celebration of all of these things, I'll point you at Big Media schadenfreude and a cool online map collection.
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February 18th, 2007
11:36 am - Review: Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay
A few weeks ago, swan_tower went to Vericon, and when she left, I asked her to get something signed by Guy Gavriel Kay, since he was the Guest of Honor. Since I'd forgotten to hand her a copy of any of his books that we owned before she left for the airport, I suggested that she might grab a copy of whatever book he had most recently written. She returned saying that she'd been too busy to manage this, but it turned out that she had purchased Ysabel and gotten him to sign it. ("For Kyle, All best wishes, Guy Kay.") The deception, in this case, was due to Valentine's Day and our week of anniversaries, first date and engagement being the most prominent. She presented it to me on Friday, extracting a promise from me to read it for at least a half hour while she was off at a game that I felt too exhausted to attend.
( I did. Here's what I thought. )
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January 16th, 2007
09:45 pm - Life Update
Progress with the car repairs is, apparently, going at least passing well. I received a check from my insurance agency in the mail today, so I suppose that I'm going to be required to write a rather grotesquely large check myself in the near future. That, I suppose, is good, as such things go.
Meanwhile, I've embarked on running what may be the most narcissistic game I have ever conceived. Blessedly, it is a very short-run game, and I shall speak no more of it here.
I have also embarked on Project Get Fit (also known as Project Make Kyle's Gut Less Obtrusive Before The Wedding) by getting a gym membership and being at least reasonably dedicated about going there. Hopefully, I'll be able to maintain my regimen.
Otherwise, I spent far too much time today watching videos of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry on Youtube. I suppose there are many worse things one could have done. It does, however, make me want to track down some Jeeves and Wooster ... or at least the first season of House, which I've seen none of.
I've also been re-reading parts of Daniel Robinson's An Intellectual History of Psychology, which I'd originally borrowed from jeregenest several years ago as - yes - gaming background research. I had forgotten how good it was. Highly recommended to those who might want to follow the thread of theories of the mind through (Western) intellectual history.
I'll try to post something more interesting in the near future; I appear to have found some sort of work ethic-like thing, though today's release of The Burning Crusade may destroy that shortly. Speaking of which, I have two 10-day guest passes for World of Warcraft (as does everyone who bought TBC today), which I'll happily send to people interested in the game. Of course, you could get the same, plus a DVD of the media at Best Buy for two dollars, but....
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November 16th, 2006
12:24 pm - That SpecFic Meme
( I kinda have to, I suppose.... )
I suppose this means that I should really read more specfic. It is a little odd to me, however. I generally don't think of myself as someone who starts a book and doesn't actually finish it, but looking over this list, I appear to fit that mold. Huh.
Also, this really just tells me that I really should grab Dhalgren and read through it. It's referenced enough by my friends that I feel out of the loop, really.
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October 24th, 2006
09:35 am - Bibliophilia!
Well, the books from Fields Book Store that I described obliquely before arrived yesterday, and thanks to softening her up a bit, swan_tower responded to their arrival with, "Yay! Books!" ...rather than the dreaded, "What did you get this time, Kyle?"
( For those who are interested.... )
Unfortunately, this means that we need to shelve these at some point. Damn bookcases (or rather, lack thereof).
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October 15th, 2006
07:09 pm - The Bad And The Good
What I did on my weekend in San Francisco (unexpectedly still in progress), by kniedzw, Grade 24
( Trimmed for length )
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September 27th, 2006
11:42 am - Of Librarians and Conscience
So, ratmmjess posted a surreal job posting that few librarians I know would ever actually apply for. It did, however, prompt me to respond, as I was somewhat distressed at the thought that the very act of applying for such a job would be a lasting stigma for someone who legitimately thought they might be able to make a direct and positive impact on the lives of people who were being oppressed.
What do others think? Am I being too open-minded here? ...or is such a job, while potentially soul-sucking, also a potential to do good for people?
Edit: I should make mention that ratmmjess is a research librarian with some significant experience, so he has a better-informed idea than I do of what it would mean to be a prison librarian.
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August 29th, 2006
12:08 am - LibraryThing
I, being a privacy-obsessed nutbar, poo-poohed swan_tower when she pointed me to LibraryThing a few months ago. I've since been pointed there again, and I figure that there is marginal problem with cataloging our library there. If you're at all bibliophilic, there's something awfully satisfying about inputting your books. If there were a way to integrate the process with a barcode scanner more completely, I'd probably be a happier person.
Then again, if I decided to, I'm sure I could have just bought Delicious Library, an iSight, and then exported my input via CSV files into LibraryThing. ...or kept it in Delicious Library. ...or not been nearly as much of a geek about our books.
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July 14th, 2006
12:52 pm - Books on Bastille Day!
For reasons that would take far too long to explain (largely having to do with the French-Canadian ancestry of my friend Aaron), I associate Bastille Day with grilling and large, hastily sewn-together French flags.
And miniature hot dogs.
Today, however, I associate it with books. One of the perks of my RHCE training was that the company through which I ordered the course gave away bribes of "Cool Stuff" to people who took courses through them, including an iPod Nano, various techie toys, or a $200 Amazon gift certificate. It was, perhaps, unethical of me to accept the gift, but my lack of raise for the last two years, the fact that I hadn't been seeking the gift -- it was sent to me after I ordered the course -- and my rampant bibliophilia convinced me that I could suffer the moral quandary in the cause of acquiring more books.
( Here, then, is my list of loot.... )
...and that list is the reason that I hope I shall now associate Bastille Day with grilling and books. Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!
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July 13th, 2006
02:14 pm - A Friend's Book
So, I was just made aware that the book that susansugarspun has been editing with David Moles has been released today! Go get a copy! From the book's web site:Epics have lost their charm. It takes ten or twenty years for a writer to finish a series, writing the same book over and over again, piling up the foreshadowing, wearing out characters' boots to no good purpose. By the time you're done -- whether you're the reader or the writer -— you can't remember why you started.
That's where Twenty Epics comes in. Like the neurological anomaly that sparks déjà vu, like the false memories implanted in Blade Runner's replicants, Twenty Epics shortcuts the repetition and the tedium of reality and goes straight to what we really care about: the subjective emotional and aesthetic experience.
There was a time when you finished an epic. When finishing an epic left you feeling not discontent and exhausted but joyous, melancholy, rejuvenated, satisfied -- left you feeling, even (at least for a little while), that you were a better and wiser person for the experience.
These twenty epics will bring back that feeling.
In ten thousand words or less. The writers in the book are also pretty impressive: Alan DeNiro, Christopher Barzak, Yoon Ha Lee, Tim Pratt, and Benjamin Rosenbaum, just to name a few. I've already placed my order ... and so should you!
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April 20th, 2006
08:51 am - ...And Now For Something Completely Different
I was reminded, unexpectedly, of Chesterton's The Ballad of the White Horse last night, and in order to convince all of you that that man could write, I will give you a sample of that work, which I believe to be among the greatest rallying speeches in English literature, right up there with the St. Crispin's Day soliloquy.
( Behind a cut for the spam-averse )
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April 5th, 2006
05:37 pm - Two Things
First off, via brisance, take a look at some professional library databases gratis, in honor of National Library Week. The databases will be free of charge until the end of the month. Interesting stuff.
Secondly, I forgot to mention that it's fund drive time at Strange Horizons again. Donate before the end of the month, and you too could get yourself one of these fabulous prizes. There's some good stuff in there.
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March 9th, 2006
12:54 pm - Legal Gaming PDF thoughts
From artbroken's post a few days ago, I found out that DriveThruRPG is giving away Hunter: The Reckoning PDFs for the next week and a half or so.
White Wolf has made most of their old World of Darkness stuff available through DTRPG, which has made me feel a little guilty about having a number of PDFs of their stuff on my computer from the days when it wasn't available at all. The standard price they charge is half the cover price of the original book. As a result of this confluence of events, I decided to take a gander at the Hunter book, partly to read a book I'd not read before and partly to see if I should go about buying "legitimate" PDFs.
I've come to the conclusion that I shouldn't buy from them.
If this book is any indication, a sizeable portion of the pages are exceedingly blurry. That is, "I can't really read this unless I magnify the image significantly" blurry. If that's the sort of quality I'd be getting, I'll stick to the secondary market, looking for physical books. It's a real shame, too, since I often prefer an electronic version. Ah well.
On the flip side, many of the smaller press folks go through print-on-demand shops, so their PDFs are effectively the masters from which their books are copied.
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February 24th, 2006
02:26 pm - Books and Ports
First off, my college roommate (a Pakistani expatriate who grew up in Dubai) has some interesting insights into the way the port furor has been portrayed in the UAE. The most significant comment, in my view:[E]very story written about this condemns America for essentially "racial profiling" and wanting to ban the ports because of a general distrust towards Muslims. The argument is that if a German was involved in a terrorist act in the US, then the US would not ban BMWs. Also, swan_tower has been guest blogging on Tobias Buckell's blog (though, as of this writing, I'm having problems getting to his site). The most significant piece of information she's dumped there is that the University of California Press is having a big sale. I'm currently drooling over a number of books there, and I haven't even gotten through a third of the "less than $10" books on their site. I despair.
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