Yes, I am still alive

Where have I been lately? A number of factors have resulted in me not posting since December. One of which was that over the past few months I’ve been chipping away at The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke. At just shy of 1,000 pages, it has been my lunch time reading for a while now. There are a couple short stories that I plan on reviewing, as soon as I can remember to bring the book home from work. I’ve also been filling most of my free time, 177 hours now, with playing Battlefield 3 (my stats).

I’ve watched a few movies, but I didn’t get around to reviewing those. One was Gamer, which I didn’t expect much from. The other was Battle: Los Angeles, a cookie cutter “aliens attack, let’s fight back” movie. I didn’t really “watch” these as much as listened to them as I cleaned out my office. After going through my recent posts, I noticed that I never reviewed 28 Weeks Later. This was actually one of the sequels I’ve seen that I liked more than the original. I might have to re-watch, then write up a review. I watched a decent movie last night though, The Adjustment Bureau, which I plan on reviewing in the next few days, if not tonight. My goal for myself is to have it done before the end of the month. Thank goodness for leap years!

OK, enough excuses. Thanks to all of you that still have me in your newsreader. I’ll try to be better about posting updates in the future.

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2016 year in review2016 year in review

Ok, so as I posted earlier, I didn’t do any reviews this year, but I consumed a ton of content. Some may be from 2015, but it is hard to remember. I’m going to provide a list with some highlights and recommendations

  • Audiobooks
    • Elantris – Brandon Sanderson: Good stanalone book, one of his earlier works. Interesting premise – people get a disease and are forced to live in the remnants of a once great city. They cannot be killed, but also cannot heal. Each injury never heals, and never stops hurting.
    • Mistborn Trilogy (1-3) – Brandon Sanderson: One of my favorites this year, very unique set of magic systems
    • Alloy of Law / Shadows of Self / The Bands of Mourning (Mistborn novels)- Brandon Sanderson: continuation in a different time period, also very good
    • The Rithmatist – Brandon Sanderson: Another unique magic system, aimed more at the YA audience, but I enjoyed it.
    • Pandora’s Star / Judas Unchained – Peter F. Hamilton: Second favorite series of the year, be warned, some explicit adult situations
    • Lock In (Amber Besson’s narration) – John Scalzi: unique premise, police procedural
    • Android’s Dream – John Scalzi: another unique premise, enjoyable
    • Redshirts – John Scalzi: must read for any Star Trek fan! won 2013 Hugo Award for Best Novel
    • Agent to the Stars – John Scalzi: I didn’t really care for this one, too much focus on talent agency politics, interesting premise though.
    • Fuzzy Nation – John Scalzi: Good book, reboot of “Little Fuzzy”
    • The Dispatcher – John Scalzi: Novella, another interesting premise by Scalzi
    • Ready Player One – Earnest Cline: One of my favorite standalone novels of the year – must read for anyone that grew up in the 80’s
    • Armada – Earnest Cline: Lackluster followup, skip it. Cline doesn’t dodge the fact that he ripped the premise off of “The Last Starfighter” movie from the 80’s.
    • Undying Mercenaries Book 1-4 – B.V. Larson: Sci-Fi Military fiction. Lots of violence, a little sex. I got these super cheap at $1.99 a pop, would not recommend spending a full Audible credit on them.
    • Year Zero – Rob Reid: I read this in book format back in 2012. Premise is that aliens unwittingly pirate enough music from Earth to bankrupt the galaxy. The solution? Destroy Earth! Remeinds me a bit of The Hitchhicker’s Guide to the Galaxy
    • Altered Carbon / Broken Angels – Richard K. Morgan: Great audiobooks, a couple of my favorite from this year. Lots of violence and a little sex, so be warned. I’m finishing up reading the 3rd book Woken Furies as the narrator changed and didn’t bother to read up on how to pronounce the main character’s last name.
    • Alien: Out of the Shadows (An Audible Original Drama – Full Cast) – Tim Lebbon & Dirk Maggs: Free from Audible, OK if you like the Alien universe
    • American Gods (Full Cast) – Neil Gaiman: Maybe the best standalone audiobook of the year. The performances were perfect and the story engaging. This is soon to be made into aTV series on Showtime I think.
    • Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman: Decent book, narrated by Gaiman himself
    • Hyperion (full cast) / The Fall of Hyperion / Endymion / The Rise of Endymion – Dan Simmons – ABSOLUTE FAVORITE SERIES OF THE YEAR. I cannot count how many times I caught myself thinking back on the stories. I’ll definitely be listening to these again in the future. A good amount of violence and some sex as well, so be warned.
    • The Fountains of Paradise – Arthur C. Clarke: decent book that introduced the idea of the space elevator
    • Childhood’s End – Arthur C. Clarke: ending literally gave me shivers up my spine – The Syfy TV miniseries was just loosely related to the book. Skip that and read this!
  • Books
    • Old Man’s War series (Book 1-6) – John Scalzi: Very interesting premise. Each book seemed to have a new perspective, not like a continuation of the previous ones. I’ll try to explain it a bit more if I have time to go back and review the books individually.
    • Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue – Hugh Howey: YA related, checked it out and it really wasn’t for me
    • Beacon 23: The Complete Novel – Hugh Howey: guy stuck on the edge of the galaxy, a bit of a psychological thriller toward the end
    • Stories of Your Life and Others – Ted Chiang: good collection of stories
  • Short Story
    • Paper Menagerie – Ken Liu – ending gave me shivers up my spine as well, very good story

That’s it for now. I don’t think I have time to list TV. maybe next year!

Isaac Asimov’s Utopia by Roger MacBride AllenIsaac Asimov’s Utopia by Roger MacBride Allen

Utopia book cover

About five years has passed since the New Law robots were put to work at Purgatory to assist with the terraforming effort for Inferno. Alvar Kresh won the election for governor and ended up choosing a dual terraforming system combining a positronics with a super computer. In an unexpected turn, Kresh ended up marrying Fredda Leving. Initially I thought that they made a rather odd couple, but I think Allen did a good job of handling their relationship throughout this book. The main plot Utopia revolves around a plan by a scientist to harness a comet and blow it apart to dig a huge channel from the southern ocean to the frozen northern ice cap which would otherwise be impossible by conventional means. (more…)

Monsters (2010) Directed by Gareth EdwardsMonsters (2010) Directed by Gareth Edwards

Book Cover

A friend of mine recommended that I watch Monsters. It was available on Netflix streaming, so I added it to my queue.  The premise is that a survey mission to investigate extraterrestrial life burned up on reentry to Earth over Latin America. The “Monsters” appear later on, for what seems to be a seasonal basis. They terrorize the locals, and the main character is visiting to try and capture some photographs of the destruction. There is an invasion coming and Andrew, the photographer, is anxious to get some pictures so he can cash in. His plans get interrupted by a demand from the publisher to escort his daughter out of the country. She’s engaged to be married, but the fiancé has already made hit home. Why? Probably some type of fight. The movie came across as being a suspense, romance, and science fiction flick all at the same time. I usually like it when I see genres mixed, but Monsters was spread too thin. Nothing made me think, “this is a good movie.” The action scenes were rather intense, but I didn’t really get scared or startled. The awkward romance that blossomed between the photographer and the girl was predictable. The mystery behind the nature of the Monster invasions was interesting, but not enough to carry the rest of the movie. It wasn’t a bad movie, but not one that I’d recommend someone spend money on to see.