Review: Critical Failures, by Robert Bevan

November 20, 2013 in General Topics

Minor profanity blurred on this image of the cover.

Minor profanity blurred on this image of the cover.

If the other books I’ve reviewed are polite visitors, then Robert Bevan’s “Critical Failures” is the guy in the GWAR T-shirt that cussed out a neighbor, drank all the vodka, and passed out in the bathroom.

This book spends a lot of time in said bathroom. Bevan answers the truly burning questions in the fantasy genre, such as “How badly does an orc’s feculence stink?” and “What god does a Dwarven cleric pray to when he forgot to designate one?” As you might guess, this one’s not for kids by any stretch of the imagination–the profanity comes early and often.

Tim, Julian, Dave and Cooper are four friends that seek to assuage their day of boredom working at a local chicken restaurant with a game of “Caverns and Creatures”, the book’s stand-in for the pen-and-paper RPG we all know and love. Said game will be run by a “Cavern Master” named Mordred, who has a fragile ego, only a loose connection to reality, and a bag of magical dice. Having him meet the exceedingly-caustic Cooper creates a situation as stable as a Soviet nuclear reactor. Read the rest of this entry →

Review: A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin

November 6, 2013 in General Topics

A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin

A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin

I’ve always been leery of the time investment asked by epic fantasy series authors. There is just something about being propositioned to sign on for, say, fifteen books, that asks more of my gut than any wandering knight or misbegotten king ever could. “Here there be a dragons,” they say. “Come with us on our epic quest.” My heroic response: “Here there be Bo. She is on the go!”

I have kids. Expecting to complete an epic fantasy series requiring such so much free time–to put it mildly–requires more than a little hopeful optimism.

So A Game of Thrones had me skeptical from the first crack of its pages, and I fully thought I might not make it through. This first book in George R.R. Martin’s series isn’t much smaller than that most-mammoth example of fiction I’ve read, Stephen King’s unabridged version of The Stand. And there are four other books in line behind this one, with a slated two more to still be written. Egad.

But I’d been gifted my copy, and if there is one thing I love in my fiction, it’s intrigue (which the series has a reputation for), so I thought: why not? And we were off to the joust. Read the rest of this entry →

#DS91sttime: Looking back via Season Three Episodes

April 17, 2013 in #DS91sttime, General Topics

Twitter hastag: #DS91sttimeI just finished “Meridian“, “Defiant“, and “Fascination“.If you take these three episodes, break them over the rock of analysis like some caveman cracking open an egg, you’ll see in the yoke everything Deep Space Nine has been about until this mid-season three point.

This is a show defined by what it wants to be almost as much as what it is. What I most respect about DS9, so far, is it is always pushing itself to be bigger than it was two or three episodes prior. It exudes gusto. By season three, it’s just about gotten a sense of itself, but the journey has been rough.

Deep Space Nine was a bit of a wild beast when released into the Star Trek pantheon. You get the impression that—prior to filming the pilot—the show’s producers and writers were sitting around on-fire to take a different tract, not just on Trek but its approach to storytelling. It became obvious to me during the first season that no one, not even the show’s writers, seemed to know quite what they wanted to do with it after it debuted. The results (in said first season) are like someone decided to chuck some cage-kept animal into the wild, and just see what it tore into first.
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Deep Space Nine: The First Time (#DS91sttime)

April 10, 2013 in #DS91sttime, General Topics, Slideshow Topic

#DS91stttimeIn 1993, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine left the dock, and I missed it. Seagulls in its wake buzzed my ears while I held a ticket I’d never get to use. I caught the show’s pilot, was fairly impressed, and saw a few episodes over the next few years, but my experience was the same for many viewers at the time: the show lost me, because it was remarkably different in format. Or, more to the point, brave.
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Review: Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

January 16, 2013 in General Topics

Into The Wild, by Jon KrakauerWhat would make a young man turn from everything he knows, and set off to Alaska, only to die in the reaches of its tundra? Among the many questions John Krakauer asks over the course of his outstanding book, Into the Wild, this one gets the most attention. You won’t get that impression looking at the paperback’s cover, however. The cover is all about an unexpected death.

Christopher McCandless was a kid, a boy, a youth (as we are almost relentlessly reminded by the book) who seemed to have everything to live for. He graduated from Emory University, right here in Atlanta, and possessed a runner’s determination in virtually everything he attempted. McCandless was one of these rare people that has the “live” meter dialed all the way up to 11. He also felt a substantial measure of friction with his parents–particularly his father–and that’s where the trouble may have started.
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