The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Fiction

  • Biblioholic's Manifesto

    To Be Read

    This is my to-be-read pile.

    It is large. There are 18* books of one type or another in it. One is three books in one (“Confusion” by Neal Stephenson), two are compilations of short stories (Best of Lovecraft and Collected Stories of Arthur Clarke), one is self-help (“7 Habits of Highly Effective People”)one is an autobioagraphy (Ben Franklin’s) and one is a manifesto (“Common Sense”). The rest are novels.

    Most every confirmed bibliophile has one of these stack. It doesn’t seem like much until you run around the dwelling and collect all unread books into a pile. Then it seems a bit daunting.

    Here is my Manifesto to go with this stack:

    “I will not buy more than 18 books before finishing this stack.”

    This works out to 1 book from the stack per 1 purchased book. Note that books I check out of the library do not count against this. I can read as many of those as I want. I’m just not allowed to buy any more books than I read in this stack.

    Now, if I stick to plan, I’ll read at least a few of these before I make my next run to Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com. Unfortunately, a few of these are pretty cumbersome. “Common Sense,” “The Confusion,” and the Autobiography of Ben Franklin may take me a while. However, I’ve also been know to ready three or more books at once…

    *Alert readers will note only 17 books in the image. I found one more afterward.

  • Down with Klausner!

    I was alerted to the Infamous Harriet Klausner by SFSignal.com last fall. I posted once or twice about her.

    Now there’s developments. Check out the SFSignal post for details

  • Harry Potter Outreach Program

    One of my favorite blogs is SFSignal.com. You know this if you read this blog as I link there frequently.

    They have a new challenge! The Harry Potter Outreach Program, intended to convince all those people lined up at bookstores on July 21st (advent of the last Harry Potter novel) that HP is not the end-all and be-all of fantasy or science fiction. Check out the link, and make your own contributions.

  • Jane Austen, Dr. Who, Jack Aubrey, Buffy…

    This would be the best literary mashup of all time.

  • SF Movies I Need to See (again): SF Movie Series Part One

    I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a list of “classic” films that they’ve never seen. It wasn’t until about two years ago that I watched Casablanca, I’ve never seen The Graduate which some people assure me is a crime, and I’ve never watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High which I know is a crime.

    Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the desire to watch every movie I “need” to see, so I’d rather specialize a bit. Here’s a list of Science Fiction* films that either I haven’t seen, or haven’t watched in so long I barely remember what happened. I’m going to make an effort to knock these out by the end of the summer 2007. I hear Netflix calling my name…

    If there’s something not on here that you think I should add, please note it in the comments. The List, in no particular order:

    • Gattaca
    • Blade Runner**
    • Digitally scragged Return of the Jedi (I was so fed up with Lucas after his “improvement” of episode IV and V that I never went to see VI)
    • Akira
    • The Last Mimzy
    • The Animatrix
    • Time Bandits**
    • King Kong (the original)
    • The Day the Earth Stood Still**
    • THX 1138
    • Soylent Green (is people!)
    • The Terminal Man
    • Robocop** (I saw this at a very impressionable age and it gave me nightmares. I’d probably enjoy it more, now)
    • Bicentennial Man (we briefly saw the filming of this as we drove on 101 Hwy 1 in CA)
    • The Thirteenth Floor
    • Red Planet
    • 28 Days Later
    • The Butterfly Effect
    • Thunderbirds
    • Children of Men (after I finish the book)
    • The Fountain
    • Ultraviolet

    I’m sure there are movies I’m forgetting at the moment. I’ll add them later. As I count up the list (22) I realize that if I watch one a week, I’ll be done in late August. That’s iffishly doable; I do have other things on my plate (wife, yard, vacation, work, hiking, other hobbies) so I may not be “successful”.

    *There may be some films on this list that don’t qualify as “science fiction” in some fans’ minds. That’s ok. Make your own list! And keep in mind this is not some Top 10 or Top 100 list, an exercise I find is a bit meaningless on the hugely interactive web because no two people will ever agree on the contents of those lists.

    **Seen it at least once. Barely recall the plot

    ***Astute readers will note that most of this is a chronological/alphabetical list taken piecemeal from wikipedia

  • J.K. Rowling Set to Cash In

    It’s no surprise to anyone that J.K. Rowling is positioned to make a great deal of money from the 7th installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. USA Today had an article concerning the initial print run of 12 million copies for HPaDH, which is freaking huge! The same article says that the sixth book (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) had an initial run of 10.8 million and sold 6.9 million in the first 24 hours. I’m going to go out on a limb and project that HPaDH will sell 10 million copies on the first weekend, which conservatively means she’ll rake in $30M by Monday.

    That’s a damn good pay rate.

    Two months ago, author Brandon Sanderson had some thoughts about the publishing industry and why most authors don’t make much money.

    But back to Ms. Rowling. I wish her all the best with the proceeds from her franchise. I hope that it does not quell the creative spirit that she has displayed with Harry Potter et al and that she manages to write more novels of equal quality for us all to enjoy.

  • Harry Potter and the Unread Book

    Apparently, a large percentage of 4,000 Britons (32%) couldn’t finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

    I suppose I can understand that; it’s a large book.

    But what really prompts my post is the following quote from the linked article.

    The figure was 32% for the fourth instalment [sic] in the Harry Potter series, while 28% said the same for James Joyce’s Ulysses, third on the list.

    More people finished Ulysses than Goblet? Did they poll only Oxford literature professors? That is a screwy statistic. Goblet might be long, but it’s not a mental struggle like Ulysses.

  • Baen Free Library

    Have I plugged the Baen Free Library recently?

    No, I do not believe that I have. This is a wonderful resource for those of us who enjoy the fiction that is published by Baen Books. Do take advantage of it by reading these novels entirely for free! No strings!

    And, once you’re used to reading electronic books, start buying from Baen Webscriptions, the least expensive way I know to acquire a novel, other than stealing it. There are four publishers represented now: Baen, Tor, Del Ray, and Meisha Merlin (who I’ve never heard of). I own at least 20 novels by now that I’ve never touched on paper. I heartily recommend it. If nothing else, they don’t take up space on our overflowing bookshelves.

  • 50 Most Significant SF & Fantasy Novels (of the past 50 years)

    This particular meme has been spreading through the blogging community I frequent, especially scienceblogs (of which I read about 1/3), and I thought I would chime in.

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  • Peter Hamilton; Void Trilogy

    For anyone who cares, Peter Hamilton is supposed to be publishing the first novel of the Void Trilogy in summer ’07. Yay for us.

    Hopefully, he will have scaled back a bit from the grand overarching craziness that was Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained. They were both wayyyyy too long and complex. I believe that people who complain about world building have Peter Hamilton in mind.

    Don’t get me wrong, I like his writing. It is original and interesting, but sometimes you just have to cut to the chase. Tad Williams has the same problem. And don’t get me started about Terry Goodkind and his inability to finish a story.

    If you want to read some good stuff by Hamilton, stick with the Night’s Dawn Triology, and the first two Greg Mandel books.