Monday, August 28, 2006

The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint

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People have been recommending this book to me for quite a while. They've been saying that given my taste in authors I'm sure so to love Charles de Lint, and that this is his best book to date. I'm about 200 pages (of 500) in already. I didn't realize that it was part of a series, but I don't think that's detracting from it at all. There are allusions to other books, maybe little bits of plots that if i had read others I'd understand better, but I don't feel lost without having read the previous novels.

Here's the publishers blurb.

"Charles de Lint has brought an entire imaginary North American city to vivid life, Newford: where magic lights dark streets; where myths walk clothed in modern shapes; where humans and older beings must work to keep the whole world turning." "He has peopled this city with extraordinary characters - people like Joseph Crazy Dog, also known as Bones, the trickster who walks in two worlds at once; Sophie, born with magic in the blood, whose boyfriend dwells in the otherworld of dreams; Angel, who runs a center for street people and lives up to her name; Geordie, creating enchantment with his fiddle; Christy, collecting stories in the streets; the Crow Girls, wild and elusive; and many, many more." "At the center of these entwined lives stands a young artist named Jilly Coppercorn, whose paintings capture the hidden beings that dwell in Newford's shadows. Jilly has been a central part of the street scene since de Lint's very first stories. With her tangled hair, her paint-splattered jeans, a smile perpetually on her lips, she's darted in and out of the Newford tales. Now, at last, we have Jilly's own story, and it's a powerful one indeed...for behind the painter's fey charm there's a dark secret, and a past she's labored to forget. And that past is coming to claim her now, threatening all she loves." "I'm the onion girl," Jilly Coppercorn says. "Pull back the layers of my life, and you won't find anything at the core. Just a broken child. A hollow girl." She's run from the past and the truth for so long. She's very good at running. But life has just forced Jilly to stop.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Marvel Civil Wars

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I haven't read any comic books in a while. There haven't been any series that get my attention . And the stories in most comic series either frustrate or bore me. I still look for good graphic novels, but I've pretty much given up on comics.

Then Blair Butler on G4 TV recommended the Marvel Civil war series. She has always steered me right in the past, so I got the first comic. It was good. So i got a bunch more.

The "Civil War" event has 2 core short series. "Civil War", and "Civil War Frontline". The first is sort of an overview of events as they unfold, and the second is the story told through the eyes of two reporters, one a liberal, one a conservative. These two series have done a good job of summing everything up. They tell a good story, and the dialogue is smart and peppered with current culture references.

There's one part from "Civil War Frontline" where the two reporters, Sally and Ben, are sitting in a bar. Though they work for papers on the opposite end of the political spectrum they are friends.

Sally: I don't want to beleive it just yet Ben. But i don't think anyone at the White House could have scripted this Nitro thing any better. A school full of kids wiped out in a punch-up involving untrained, unsupervised, underaged super heroes. How's Jonah taking it?

Ben: Like he won the lottery.

Sally: Oh, God... I can just imagine: "Laydeez and gentlemen... In the red corner, the United States Constitution." "In the blue corner, the unstoppable tag-team of disinformation and paranoia, winner by two falls and a submission."

Ben: Hehh... That's the Bugle, all right. What did they give you at the Alternative?

Sally: Carte Blanche to write about the erosion of civil liberties in America. And can I link it to the wiretapping thing, if I would be so kind?

That sort of sums up the premise as well. That there was an incident, innocents were killed, and the government takes action. This action that the government takes splits the heroes we know down the middle. You end up with heroes like Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, Daredevil, and the Fantastic Four lining up on opposite sides of the line.

Since this is an event that touches on almost all aspects of the Marvel universe, there are single, or sets of issues in the other series that you need to read to get the whole story.

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Here's a checklist that helps.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

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I'm also reading this book currently. It's on my headboard and I read a bit of it every night before going to sleep. I'm not sure I should willingly admit this about a literary classic, but it does help me fall to asleep.

Critic Vivian Mercier said of the book "Nothing happens, twice."

Saturday, August 05, 2006

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

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Joan Didion's book put me in the mood to reread this. "Slouchin Towards Bethlehem" will make a nice compare and contrast. That and I've heard a rumour that they are going to republish Jack's book with the original names. I'd like to reread the versions I'm used to one more time before they do.

Here's the publishers blurb
"Essential Edition handsomely packaged with french flaps, rough fronts, high-quality paper, and a distinctive cover look

On the Road chronicles Jack Kerouac's years traveling the North American continent with his friend Neal Cassady, "a sideburned hero of the snowy West." As "Sal Paradise" and "Dean Moriarty," the two roam the country in a quest for self-knowledge and experience. Kerouac's love of America, his compassion for humanity, and his sense of language as jazz combine to make On the Road an inspirational work of lasting importance.

Kerouac's classic novel of freedom and longing defined what it meant to be "Beat" and has inspired every generation since its initial publication more than forty years ago.

I've gotten behind

I've gotten very far behind in posting what book I'm curently reading. So I'm going to try to catch up with super short summaries.

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Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
Just finished this one. It is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Collected essays from the late 60s. The one from which the book takes its title is simply amazing.



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Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson

Gibson has such a viscious grasp on this genre. This book takes place in the same world that his other books do. It's a world that is a bit further down the road than ours (I can't remember if he puts any dates in it) but at sometime int he past developed just a hair differently. The thing is, the difference is so little, but the "future" part is so prophetic. He nails so many things about the internet and the culture that develops around it. His divergence is in the notion that there would need to be some interface (he calls them "decks") to get someone into the internet (or cyberspace, a term Gibson coined). But he gets the cyber culture and the dangers and possibilities that the web (or Matrix in his books) brings. If you are interested in Gibson, and either don't want to start with Neuromance, or you've read it and want to try another one, I would reccomend Mona Lisa Overdrive.

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2006 Best American Short Stories

Still working on it.

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Aother installment in the Hellboy Saga. I've said it before, I'll say it again, as graphic novels go, this series is good. There's a good, well grounded story. Even though the characters are supernatural, they are have personalities that are not cliche.

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I've been waiting to read this one for years. I haven't seen the movie, and I'm not sure I want to now. I'm afraid it will ruin the graphic novel. I can't imagine they did it justice.

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Bad Twin by Gary Troupe
Ya fine, I'll fell for the marketing. But you know what.... it wasn't bad. Of course I was expecting crap that I'd have to endure to pick out a few clues for the TV show (the book is a tie in with the TV show LOST. There is no Gary Troupe). I don't read mystery novels, so maybe they are better than I give them credit for. But this one didn't suck.

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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
I've seen the movie, this was the first that I've read the book. The more Phillip K. Dick i read the more i like him. I highly recommend this, though with the warning that it is very different than the movie. The characters are different, the plot is different, and the ending is different.

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Unnatural Selection by Tim Lebbon
Of all the Hellboy books I've read, this was the worst. The Hellboy novels have been my "fluff read" that I've always been able to count on. Just good fun brainless reading. A little mytholoy thrown in to set the hook, a big red guy with a heart of gold that likes to smash things, a little religious mysticism.... But this one.... this one i didn't enjoy so much.

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Pirates Angus Konstam
Oddly enough, even though this was about pirates, it wasn't an easy read. I ended up taking away a decent bit of information (nothing anyone who know's spit about pirates wouldn't have know already, but i'm still trying to earn my junior eyepatch) but it was research reading it, not enjoyment.

About Me

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I'm just a guy... pretty boring over all. Nothing all that special. Frustrated and growing older (I've hit 30, but i think i'm in denial). I work a job, middle management I guess. We are always broke though. Got a wife, and a daughter, love them both more than i've ever found the words to express. I go to church, sometimes. I bike to work, if i get up on time. I like the rain, always. But I have this nagging feeling that there should be more to life than this...