The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Fiction

  • Harry Potter Update!

    From the horse’s mouth!

  • Biology of Homo Sapiens Vampiris

    Anyone interested in the biology and evolutionary development of the vampire (Homo Sapiens Vampiris) should watch this link.

    This popped up on Pharygula, SFSignal, and at least one other blog I read. It’s making the rounds very quickly.

    Be aware that it is about 20 minutes long, but well worth your time.

  • Poetry

    I’ve never been a fan of reading poetry. I’m too impatient to enjoy it. I want my fiction delivered up free of simile, metaphor, or symbol. I can handle it if these items are secondary to the story, but if they are presented in a manner which requires me to comprehend to appreciate the book, I just can’t do it.

    But, that’s not to say I don’t enjoy live, oral poetry. For example, The Trouble with Poetry, by Billy Collins, the poet laureate of NY State, which I heard last weekend on A Prairie Home Companion. The poem has a line which encapsulates why I like it:

    the trouble with poetry is
    that it encourages the writing of more poetry,

    And, it gets better from there. Remarks about stealing other authors’ work and tongue-in-cheek comments about the end of poetry entirely. It was particularly good because it was read by the author.

    I should look for poetry books-on-tape. That might get me hooked.

  • Battlestar vs. Star Destroyer

    Another mashup found on Youtube, this one is well done. It perfectly illustrates why deep space combat as done (mostly) in Battlestar and (almost entirely) in Star Wars is silly. Self respecting admirals would not place their main combatants (i.e. Battlestars and/or Star Destroyers) in such close proximity to each other unless there was no other alternative. With the jump drive for battlestars and the light-speed option for star destroyers, I can’t think of any deep space possibilities where one side or another would be entirely without options for withdrawal.

    But it makes for good cinema. Having an Honor Harrington-esque battle would be rather boring on screen.

    Also found on Youtube, next to the previously mentioned mashup, is this vast overarching space battle with every fictional spaceship ever put on TV or cinema. It is amusing, and especially so when the Leonov from 2010 makes an appearance.

    I’m thinking I need a new tag: “fanboy!”

  • The Art of the Saber

    [Gacked from SF Signal]

    The Art of the Saber, an excellent short movie I recommend to anyone who likes Star Wars.

  • Peter Jackson = LotR? Maybe…

    Three times in 12 hours, I’ve been spammed by a Save The Lord of the Rings post relating that only Peter Jackson could possibly do a movie based on The Hobbit.

    Obviously this took a bit of time to ramp up, because, as you can see from this website it’s been a week since The Announcement Of Impending Doom, that Peter Jackson will not be directing The Hobbit, according to New Line Cinema.

    Now, frankly, I don’t care about the spat between Jackson and New Line. They’ll figure it out, I’m sure. What I’m more concerned with is the assumption that only Peter Jackson has the vision, skill, knowledge, chutzpah, to do another Tolkien-based film. The underlying base to that assumption is that Jackson had the vision, skill, knowledge, chutzpah to do the first set of films. I personally don’t think he did that great a job holding to the vision of Tolkien.

    Oh, I’ll be one of the first to stand up and say that he produced three epic awe-inspiring, legend-setting, fan-base-swooning movies. They were cinematographic triumphs! As long as you don’t care about the various travesties he rendered unto J. R. R. Tolkien and his masterwork.

    As an avowed Tolkien afficionado, I liked The Fellowship of the Ring; I disliked The Two Towers; I despised The Return of the King. I acknowledge that there are corners that must be cut to turn LotR into a movie that is watchable in less than 15 parts, but some of the libertys taken were over the top. Peter Jackson entirely slew the character of Faramir, a crime that is unforgivable. The intransigence of Elrond was all wrong and the appearance of the elves at Helm’s Deep nearly killed me. Then of course, there was the entire Return of the King which had so little resemblance to the actual story, it doesn’t even bear mentioning.

    [sigh] Deep breaths…

    Back to the Question that everyone seems to be assuming the answer to: Is Peter Jackson the only person who could direct The Hobbit? I don’t think so. He did a ground-breaking series of movies, but The Hobbit won’t be the same, and studios won’t need to be shown that it will make money. So, if it doesn’t work out between New Line and Peter Jackson, I’m not going to wail. I’m going to expect them to go out and find someone who loves the books as much as Peter Jackson does, with their own vision, and make a great movie.

  • Excellent Website

    Cleaning out the “to be posted” file…

    I’ve spent the past week or so perusing the pages on this website. Most are strangely amusing. My favorite quote, found on the page of Astronomically Unlikely is:

    …if all-natural organic free-range babies are the perfect ingredient for tentacle lotion…

    Originally, I was punted over by way of SFSignal and I ended up on the SF Chronophysics page which details exhaustively the types of time travel you run into whilst reading Science Fiction and watching Star Trek (Bleha! on Star Trek’s time travel!).

    A good time sink. I approve.

  • Lost? How Lost are you?

    I suspect that the number of comments I received on this post about Lost was due to the juxtaposition of “Lost” and “Shit” in the same googleable sentence. Somebody even popped up just last week to drop a comment. I’m quite proud of my most popular post. [sniff]

    But, I digress. If anyone pops over to this post who still watches Lost, I’m curious what you think about the show now that it is in the third season. Some people I work with swear that it jumped the shark last season and that it’s not worth the air to blow it out the lock. Rumor has it that there’s a second island now, and that frightens me.

    So, what do you think? Does it suck? Does it rock? Does it sock?

    I’m now under the strange compulsion to watch Bones and Heroes, and I do not miss an episode of Battlestar Galactica, practically the only good show on the SciFi channel. Rumor has it that the new SciFi show based on the Dresden Files will be good, so I’m looking forward to that.

    Update: 28 Nov 2006
    I should have waited to post this. Then I could comment about the Lost action figures!

  • Forsooth! It is Book!

    As only a ten-question quiz can do, it has summarized my life down to the last string of vestigal DNA. I feel complete and without any more purpose.

    What Kind of Reader Are You?

    Your Result: Dedicated Reader

    You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
    Literate Good Citizen
    Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
    Book Snob
    Fad Reader
    Non-Reader
    What Kind of Reader Are You?
    Create Your Own Quiz

  • Logical Conclusion to Heroes

    Warning: Spoilers, if you haven’t watched this week’s Heroes yet…

    We know that Claire can survive all sorts of devastating physical trauma. She can be smashed, burned, sliced, diced, and julienned without long-lasting consequences. We have observed her to be dead with a sharp stick in her brain. She can apparently recover from any wound as long as she is physically together in one place, e.g. when the stick was removed, she came back to life on the autopsy table.

    Using various story arcs, and the stupidest tagline in history (“Save the Cheerleader; save the world” ARRRGH!), they have been leading us toward this climactic battle between brain-stealer Sylar and everyone else.

    So, here’s my predicted conclusion:

  • Sylar gets Claire. Rips open her head. Steals her brain. Claire dies (for now).
  • Ensemble chases Sylar for various reasons and eventually recaptures Claire’s Brain (I shudder to recall the Star Trek episode Spock’s Brain).
  • Brain is reinserted into (dead) Claire and [poof] Claire reawakens to applause and eventual deflowerment by legions of football players.

    Alternate Ending:

  • Sylar gets Claire. Rips open her head. Steals her brain. Eats or otherwise processes said brain in a way that does orgasmic things for his superpower. Claire dies (for now).
  • Ensemble chases Sylar for various reasons and eventually recaptures Claire’s Brain in its form as stomach contents of Sylar or as otherwise processed.
  • Brain is dumped in the vicinity of Claire’s vacant skull and [foop] back comes Claire.

    Questions:

  • What does the body of Claire do while the brain isn’t present/operating. I guess she’s got a super fantasmographic immune system. She can have unsafe sex whenever she wants.
  • What does Sylar do with his brain fetish? Seems arbitrary to be eating/processing only brains of superpeople.
  • What are the limits of Claire’s regenerative powers? If we pureed her but kept her all together in a vat, would she recover? How about if we decapitated her and placed her head a smidgeon away from her neck? Is she the ultimate blood and organ donor? No need for anasthetic, even. Hopefully she’s type O Negative. Would transplanted tissue exhibit the same tendencies as her all-together body? Will she ever age now that she can repair any damage? What if we took off her arms and switched them? I can think of endless possibilities with this.

    • That is the end of my ramble. Please, feel free to email NBC and tell them their tagline is awwwwwful…