Although my back injury prevents me from engaging in vigorous exercise I do try to keep abreast of what's going on in the world of strength and fitness training. I recently stumbled across a Dragon Door book called Convict Conditioning. Written by an ex-con it details the system he developed to become scary strong and fit inside the joint. Utilising nothing but bodyweight exercises, the book can trace its heritage back to old-school strongman The Mighty Atom.
What's refreshing about this book is that not only does the author explain the reasoning and history behind his system, he also lays out a foolproof guide of how to progress from absolute beginner to master athlete. I've read a lot of exercise books and while many offer explanations of certain techniques and some sample routines, few- if any- lay it out in such a clear, simple way as Convict Conditioning. Based around six main exercises, it takes you step-by-step through the program. Take press ups, for example. This section starts with standing, wall press ups for those with little conditioning, and then builds gradually- level by level- towards the peak movement: the one handed, handstand press up. It's as simple as that. Get the book, follow the routine- with clearly pictured and described guides to each of the exercises- and get strong. And the best part is that you don't need to buy any expensive or fancy equipment; or even go to the gym for that matter.
Quite simply this is one of the best exercise guides I've ever seen.
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Friday, June 25, 2010
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
A Real Loss
I've just learned that Michael Crichton has passed away. He has been battling cancer.
Popular sci-fi author Michael Crichton died Tuesday of cancer. He was 66 and was battling the illness privately, according to his family.
Popular sci-fi author Michael Crichton died Tuesday of cancer. He was 66 and was battling the illness privately, according to his family.
Crichton was author of several blockbuster novels, including The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, and also created the hit TV series ER.
"Through his books, Michael Crichton served as an inspiration to students of all ages, challenged scientists in many fields, and illuminated the mysteries of the world in a way we could all understand," his family said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
In addition to his prolific and successful career as a writer, his works were translated into a number of wildly popular movies including The 13th Warrior, Westworld and, of course, Jurassic Park. The breadth of his work is an indication of the incredible talent he possessed. He also deserves credit for his well reasoned attack on global warming. More important than any of that though, is this-
"While the world knew him as a great story teller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us - and entertained us all while doing so - his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each of us to strive to see the wonders of our world through new eyes."
A man couldn't ask for finer words than those. May he rest in peace.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Fact Checking
I'm a little more than halfway through Matthew Reilly's book Ice Station, a military adventure featuring a tough US Marine called Shane "Scarecrow" Schofield. Reilly has a clear writing style and there are some terrific set-pieces which would work wonderfully on film. The action's a tad Hollywood rather than being grounded in cold, hard realism but that's a feature not a bug. It's a fun read and if you're into military-themed action-adventure then you'll probably like it.
So far my biggest complaint is with the lousy weaponry mistakes- he writes of US Special Forces using a Ruger pump action shotgun, a character carries a Colt Desert Eagle and at one point someone fires an M-60 grenade launcher.
It's silly stuff- the kind of thing that a few minutes on-line by the author would correct, or that an editor (you would think) would be able to fix. Still, it bugs me- if Reilly wants to create new weapons systems I'm all for it. By all means, equip Scarecrow's Recon team with the latest M23 Carbine in 8mm KA-BLAM, but if you're going to use real world weapons, at least have the courtesy to have a look at what you're writing about so that you don't confuse this for that.
Here endeth the rant.
So far my biggest complaint is with the lousy weaponry mistakes- he writes of US Special Forces using a Ruger pump action shotgun, a character carries a Colt Desert Eagle and at one point someone fires an M-60 grenade launcher.
It's silly stuff- the kind of thing that a few minutes on-line by the author would correct, or that an editor (you would think) would be able to fix. Still, it bugs me- if Reilly wants to create new weapons systems I'm all for it. By all means, equip Scarecrow's Recon team with the latest M23 Carbine in 8mm KA-BLAM, but if you're going to use real world weapons, at least have the courtesy to have a look at what you're writing about so that you don't confuse this for that.
Here endeth the rant.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Half-Blood Prince Trailer
Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince is certainly the darkest of the books that has been filmed so far. The Death Eaters are at large- affecting the Muggle world as well as the magical one- and danger stalks the corridors of Hogwarts. If you're a fan of the films but haven't yet read the books you'll definitely want to avoid hearing what happens in this one before you go to see it- avoid all talk and spoilers as best you can.
It's the penultimate book in the series although the last book, The Deathly Hallows, is apparently to be broken into two parts for its appearance on the big screen.
I didn't take to the Potter tales when they first came out, and I ignored the films for some time too. In a way I'm glad that I did- I was able to read them all basically one after the other. They really are nicely written, the world is well developed and Harry, Ron, Hermione are great characters- along with a brilliant supporting cast. I've got to say that I'm pleased with the film adaptations too- and I'm very much looking forward to seeing this one on the big screen. So, after all that, here's the first trailer for Half-Blood Prince.
It's the penultimate book in the series although the last book, The Deathly Hallows, is apparently to be broken into two parts for its appearance on the big screen.
I didn't take to the Potter tales when they first came out, and I ignored the films for some time too. In a way I'm glad that I did- I was able to read them all basically one after the other. They really are nicely written, the world is well developed and Harry, Ron, Hermione are great characters- along with a brilliant supporting cast. I've got to say that I'm pleased with the film adaptations too- and I'm very much looking forward to seeing this one on the big screen. So, after all that, here's the first trailer for Half-Blood Prince.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Dave Stevens RIP
I've just discovered that comic book artist Dave Stevens, the man behind The Rocketeer, passed away on March 10th after a battle with leukaemia. He was only 52 years old. His work has a classic look to it, not only in the retro stylings of The Rocketeer, but in recalling the likes of the golden age greats like Frank Frazetta. His good girl artwork was also an inspiration to Adam Hughes. At the time of his death he was working on a retrospective book of his own work. I hope it's released.
I've featured his work here before- a wonderful portrait of Betty Page- and it seems fitting to pay tribute to him by showcasing a little more of his work. To get things going here's The Rocketeer himself.
I've featured his work here before- a wonderful portrait of Betty Page- and it seems fitting to pay tribute to him by showcasing a little more of his work. To get things going here's The Rocketeer himself.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Flight of Fantasy
Some more Frank Cho for you- here's Jungle Girl dispatching what appears to be a prehistoric cave bear on the cover of issue 4.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Let The Wild Rumpus Start!
Max and the wild things- on the big screen! I love this book- read it as a child and now read it to my two girls- and I can't wait to see this on film. I just hope that they do it justice- a Grinch rather than a Cat in the Hat.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Jongor
The Grand Master, Frank Frazetta, and his cover art for the first Jongor book- an item I've just snapped up on Amazon. The plot revolves around a mysterious area in Australia where aircraft are pulled out of the air. A small group heads into the lost land looking for the heroine's father and there meet Jongor- a Tarzan-type character who saves them from the assorted monsters present. Sounds like a good old fashioned adventure just like Mr. Burroughs would have written.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Harry Potter
Posting has been pretty light lately - been taking the kids out now and then as the end of their holidays approach, spent some time too sore to sit in front of the computer and been dedicating a bit of free time to reading the Harry Potter books. It was only in the run up to the release of the movie of Order of the Phoenix that I decided to watch the first four films- and instantly became a huge fan of the series. Then I had to read the books, all the way up to the last one- Deathly Hallows- and I just love them. It's a wonderful world to immerse yourself in and the books are a complete pleasure to read. I'd recommend them to everyone, whatever your age. I've got to say that I'm strongly tempted to start reading them all over again. I enjoyed them that much- and I'm going to miss following the adventures of Harry, Ron and Hermione. At least there are still two more films to come.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Setting The Record Straight
Ray Bradbury takes the time to set countless English teachers right about what he actually intended Fahrenheit 451 to be about.
Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.
This, despite the fact that reviews, critiques and essays over the decades say that is precisely what it is all about. Even Bradbury’s authorized biographer, Sam Weller, in The Bradbury Chronicles, refers to Fahrenheit 451 as a book about censorship.
You have to wonder how hard it is to actually contact a living author and ask him about one of his most important works?
Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.
“Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen.
The record has officially been set straight- but I wonder just how much longer all those teachers and university lecturers will continue to dish out the censorship/McCarthyism line?
Bradbury imagined a democratic society whose diverse population turns against books: Whites reject Uncle Tom’s Cabin and blacks disapprove of Little Black Sambo. He imagined not just political correctness, but a society so diverse that all groups were “minorities.” He wrote that at first they condensed the books, stripping out more and more offending passages until ultimately all that remained were footnotes, which hardly anyone read. Only after people stopped reading did the state employ firemen to burn books.
For a book published way back in '53 it seems eerily prescient. And Mr. Bradbury, 87 this year and confined to a wheelchair, continues to write-
Beginning in Arizona when his parents bought him a toy typewriter, Bradbury has written a short story a week since the 1930s. Now he dictates his tales over the phone, each weekday between 9 a.m. and noon, to his daughter Alexandria.
It's high time a lot of that material was published!
Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.
This, despite the fact that reviews, critiques and essays over the decades say that is precisely what it is all about. Even Bradbury’s authorized biographer, Sam Weller, in The Bradbury Chronicles, refers to Fahrenheit 451 as a book about censorship.
You have to wonder how hard it is to actually contact a living author and ask him about one of his most important works?
Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.
“Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen.
The record has officially been set straight- but I wonder just how much longer all those teachers and university lecturers will continue to dish out the censorship/McCarthyism line?
Bradbury imagined a democratic society whose diverse population turns against books: Whites reject Uncle Tom’s Cabin and blacks disapprove of Little Black Sambo. He imagined not just political correctness, but a society so diverse that all groups were “minorities.” He wrote that at first they condensed the books, stripping out more and more offending passages until ultimately all that remained were footnotes, which hardly anyone read. Only after people stopped reading did the state employ firemen to burn books.
For a book published way back in '53 it seems eerily prescient. And Mr. Bradbury, 87 this year and confined to a wheelchair, continues to write-
Beginning in Arizona when his parents bought him a toy typewriter, Bradbury has written a short story a week since the 1930s. Now he dictates his tales over the phone, each weekday between 9 a.m. and noon, to his daughter Alexandria.
It's high time a lot of that material was published!
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Savage Pellucidar!
At last some scientific research that I can really get behind!
A U.S. scientist and a small band of believers are planning a journey to the Canadian Arctic for what they call "the greatest geological expedition in history."
I hope to goodness that they're well armed for the travails that await them in the land of perpetual noon.
They're looking for a fog-shrouded hole in the Arctic Ocean that leads -- they say -- to the centre of the Earth, where an unknown civilization is lurking inside the hollow core of the planet.
That's right- Pellucidar. Only I think they left out the bit about the wide variety of prehistoric life from all eras that still survives in there.
Mr. Agnew is the latest in a long line of people to peddle the nutty, yet persistent, theory that humans live on the surface of a hollow planet, in which two undiscovered openings, near the North and South poles, connect the outer Earth with an interior realm.
Nutty, yeah right, hasn't this so-called journalist done his homework? Not only have David Innes and Abner Perry explored there but so too has Tarzan and a few others. Jeez, it's called research!
While he insists the journey has a genuine scientific purpose, Mr. Agnew also says the expedition will include several experts in meditation, mythology and UFOs, as well as a team of documentary filmmakers.
I'm actually a tad concerned- no big game hunters or military men are mentioned. And UFOs are the least of their concerns- don't they know about the Mahars? I believe they might be walking into a situation they aren't prepared for.
“Pellucidar, as every schoolboy knows, is a world within a world, lying as it does, upon the inner surface of the hollow sphere, which is the Earth.”
The maps are here and you can read of the Innes and Perry adventure here for free.
A U.S. scientist and a small band of believers are planning a journey to the Canadian Arctic for what they call "the greatest geological expedition in history."
I hope to goodness that they're well armed for the travails that await them in the land of perpetual noon.
They're looking for a fog-shrouded hole in the Arctic Ocean that leads -- they say -- to the centre of the Earth, where an unknown civilization is lurking inside the hollow core of the planet.
That's right- Pellucidar. Only I think they left out the bit about the wide variety of prehistoric life from all eras that still survives in there.
Mr. Agnew is the latest in a long line of people to peddle the nutty, yet persistent, theory that humans live on the surface of a hollow planet, in which two undiscovered openings, near the North and South poles, connect the outer Earth with an interior realm.
Nutty, yeah right, hasn't this so-called journalist done his homework? Not only have David Innes and Abner Perry explored there but so too has Tarzan and a few others. Jeez, it's called research!
While he insists the journey has a genuine scientific purpose, Mr. Agnew also says the expedition will include several experts in meditation, mythology and UFOs, as well as a team of documentary filmmakers.
I'm actually a tad concerned- no big game hunters or military men are mentioned. And UFOs are the least of their concerns- don't they know about the Mahars? I believe they might be walking into a situation they aren't prepared for.
“Pellucidar, as every schoolboy knows, is a world within a world, lying as it does, upon the inner surface of the hollow sphere, which is the Earth.”
The maps are here and you can read of the Innes and Perry adventure here for free.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Updating
Okay, so blogging has been glacially slow lately- several reasons for that, not least of which has been some crippling back pain. One of these days I really will buy a laptop so that I can blog whenever I'm lying down! Anyway, I've been doing a bit of reading, trying to learn some new things and generally been taking it easy. Strong medication and motivation do not go hand in hand.
I'm all but done with the Lewis and Clark book Undaunted Courage (it really does take me this long to read a book these days- any time I pick it up I generally end up with one of my kids in my lap asking questions and wanting to look at the pictures) and I've ordered a few more exploration tomes- Nathaniel Philbrick's In The Heart of the Sea and Sea of Glory (if I like these then I'll most certainly be getting his book Mayflower too) and a history book- The Oxford History of the American People: Prehistory to 1789. I'm growing increasingly interested in very early American history- the first settlers and explorers (next up will probably be a book on Coronado) and then back to about 12,000 years before; North America had an incredible range of megafauna. Jefferson actually believed that the Lewis and Clark expedition might discover giant ground sloths and mammoths in the interior. In addition to that there used to be dire wolves, rhinos, cheetahs, camels, giant beavers (about 8 feet long) and sabre-tooth cats. Problem is I'm having a hard time finding a decent book on this topic. I'm interested in what the environment was like then, what the newly arrived humans were like and, of course, how the creatures present fared. Suggestions please!
If you happen to have read A Savage Kingdom by Benjamin Woolley let me know if you liked it.
Imagine following the du Toit trail in 12,000BC!
I'm all but done with the Lewis and Clark book Undaunted Courage (it really does take me this long to read a book these days- any time I pick it up I generally end up with one of my kids in my lap asking questions and wanting to look at the pictures) and I've ordered a few more exploration tomes- Nathaniel Philbrick's In The Heart of the Sea and Sea of Glory (if I like these then I'll most certainly be getting his book Mayflower too) and a history book- The Oxford History of the American People: Prehistory to 1789. I'm growing increasingly interested in very early American history- the first settlers and explorers (next up will probably be a book on Coronado) and then back to about 12,000 years before; North America had an incredible range of megafauna. Jefferson actually believed that the Lewis and Clark expedition might discover giant ground sloths and mammoths in the interior. In addition to that there used to be dire wolves, rhinos, cheetahs, camels, giant beavers (about 8 feet long) and sabre-tooth cats. Problem is I'm having a hard time finding a decent book on this topic. I'm interested in what the environment was like then, what the newly arrived humans were like and, of course, how the creatures present fared. Suggestions please!
If you happen to have read A Savage Kingdom by Benjamin Woolley let me know if you liked it.
Imagine following the du Toit trail in 12,000BC!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Captain America
Cap was my favourite comic book hero when I was a kid- my Dad even made me a shield once- but I haven't read any of his tales in a long, long time. As you know by now, Marvel decided to kill him off as part of their highly political Civil War series. Leftist, liberal politics infests Marvel- and a good deal of other comic book publishers- these days; odd when you think about it. What draws people who see the world through the rose-tinted lenses of moral equivalence to the realm of the black and white and good and evil?
There are a few comic writers left who don't agree with the way that comics are going (Frank Miller for one with his announced Batman vs Al Qaeda). Beau Smith's Busted Knuckles page features guest commentary by Graham Nolan, a comic writer/artist of some renown-
One of the greatest story arcs ever done in comics, IMHO, is the MANGOG saga which appeared in MIGHTY THOR 154-157. A virtual, how-to, on pacing a great dramatic action story. I won’t go into the story for those who haven’t read it, but there is a great scene in which Thor, trying to find Loki runs into a bunch of hippies. They start to bust on Thor because he’s such a “square”, and they don’t care about his needs because they “tuned in, and dropped out”. Thor, being the noble character he is, sympathizes with their free spirit and innocence (ie: ignorance) and gently reprimands them for being misguided. “’Tis not by dropping out-but by plunging into the maelstrom of life---that thou shall find thy wisdom”! He goes on to tell them there are battles to be won and causes to espouse, and that they can “drop out” when death is at their door but as long as life endures they must live to the fullest…”Else, thou be unworthy of the title---MAN!”
Can you imagine this scene in ANY mainstream comic today?
Absolutely not- today's crop of comic writers seem to be more interested in putting their own politics into the mouths of their heroes.
Super-heroes are supposed to inspire us past our own fears and limitations and remind us that sometimes we have to take the high road and not do what is easy, but do what is right. Through super-heroes we should see ourselves…only better, not mirror images.
What we have now in current comics is ourselves. We live in a media controlled, me first world of self-absorption and this is now reflected in our heroes who are talking and behaving like frat boys instead of inspiring us though their words and actions.
Nolan's summed up the situation better than I ever could. How did we get from a world where superheroes actually stood for something to the world of today- when the makers of a Superman movie can't even say "Truth, Justice and the American Way"?
There are a few comic writers left who don't agree with the way that comics are going (Frank Miller for one with his announced Batman vs Al Qaeda). Beau Smith's Busted Knuckles page features guest commentary by Graham Nolan, a comic writer/artist of some renown-
One of the greatest story arcs ever done in comics, IMHO, is the MANGOG saga which appeared in MIGHTY THOR 154-157. A virtual, how-to, on pacing a great dramatic action story. I won’t go into the story for those who haven’t read it, but there is a great scene in which Thor, trying to find Loki runs into a bunch of hippies. They start to bust on Thor because he’s such a “square”, and they don’t care about his needs because they “tuned in, and dropped out”. Thor, being the noble character he is, sympathizes with their free spirit and innocence (ie: ignorance) and gently reprimands them for being misguided. “’Tis not by dropping out-but by plunging into the maelstrom of life---that thou shall find thy wisdom”! He goes on to tell them there are battles to be won and causes to espouse, and that they can “drop out” when death is at their door but as long as life endures they must live to the fullest…”Else, thou be unworthy of the title---MAN!”
Can you imagine this scene in ANY mainstream comic today?
Absolutely not- today's crop of comic writers seem to be more interested in putting their own politics into the mouths of their heroes.
Super-heroes are supposed to inspire us past our own fears and limitations and remind us that sometimes we have to take the high road and not do what is easy, but do what is right. Through super-heroes we should see ourselves…only better, not mirror images.
What we have now in current comics is ourselves. We live in a media controlled, me first world of self-absorption and this is now reflected in our heroes who are talking and behaving like frat boys instead of inspiring us though their words and actions.
Nolan's summed up the situation better than I ever could. How did we get from a world where superheroes actually stood for something to the world of today- when the makers of a Superman movie can't even say "Truth, Justice and the American Way"?
Friday, February 23, 2007
Jungle Girl
Frank Cho, probably best known for his Liberty Meadows strip, is bringing out a new comic- a Jungle Girl story for Dynamite Comics. He's already well versed in the genre having drawn Shanna The She-Devil for Marvel. Here's some teaser art of his own Jungle Girl character-
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Flight of Fantasy
This one is for Cowboy Blob. The model depicts a character from the Simon Bisley graphic novel A Fistful of Blood; a mature tale about a female gunfighter coming up against vampires and zombies in the Wild West. I haven't read it yet but it's on my "to do" list. There were rumours of a possible movie some years ago but nothing seems to have come of it. Perhaps with the current popularity of zombie films (a whole slew of them are in production) this may yet see the light of day.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Dead West
I came across the Dead West graphic novel quite by accident, not really knowing what to expect. The back cover blurb is as follows-
"I'm going to kill him."
"You can try, but in this town nothing stays dead for long."
"Well then...in that case I'll just have to hurt him real bad."
As the title suggests, it's a Western complete with a Clint Eastwood "man with no name" character- with poncho- a bounty killer on the trail of a "fat man". Unluckily for him, his quarry leads him into a town overrun by zombies, the undead brought to life by an Indian's lust for vengence on the white men who killed his tribe.
The art work is uneven- some of the characters look so much alike that it's sometimes hard to recognise one from the other- but it's better than a lot of what passes for comic book art these days. It's average, nothing special, save for the odd frame here and there. The zombies do look good though.
The story itself is patchy- there's not a whole lot of character development and many of the characters are little more than blanks. In no time at all the town is overrun by zombies and some of the townsfolk are holed up, waiting patiently for their own end. One nice touch is that the zombies are slow during the day, but faster at night. A fair bit of six gun action then ensues, not all of it illustrated as well as it might have been. At times it felt like I was plodding through the book, not carried along by it.
Having said that, there is something likeable about it. Something I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps it's the setting and the unusual zombie mythos, but despite its failings, I do like this book. In any event, Dead West is certainly no worse than many of the mainstream offerings coming from Marvel or DC these days.
It could do with being a little longer, stretching the story out over two or even three books to give the characters more time to grow on the reader; as it stands, there's little there to empathise with. None of the characters are that engaging. We all know the Clint Eastwood character from the movies and this one is not really different at all but there's little there to make him remotely likeable. It seems to me that the story needed to be bigger in scope, to give him a chance to prove himself, and to give the reader more time to get involved. A bit more action would have been nice too. If it had been up to me, the bounty killer and his prey would have conducted a few chases/gunfights through the zombie-infested town.
I'd give it a solid 3 out of 5. If you're a fan of zombies though it's certainly one to check out.
"I'm going to kill him."
"You can try, but in this town nothing stays dead for long."
"Well then...in that case I'll just have to hurt him real bad."
As the title suggests, it's a Western complete with a Clint Eastwood "man with no name" character- with poncho- a bounty killer on the trail of a "fat man". Unluckily for him, his quarry leads him into a town overrun by zombies, the undead brought to life by an Indian's lust for vengence on the white men who killed his tribe.
The art work is uneven- some of the characters look so much alike that it's sometimes hard to recognise one from the other- but it's better than a lot of what passes for comic book art these days. It's average, nothing special, save for the odd frame here and there. The zombies do look good though.
The story itself is patchy- there's not a whole lot of character development and many of the characters are little more than blanks. In no time at all the town is overrun by zombies and some of the townsfolk are holed up, waiting patiently for their own end. One nice touch is that the zombies are slow during the day, but faster at night. A fair bit of six gun action then ensues, not all of it illustrated as well as it might have been. At times it felt like I was plodding through the book, not carried along by it.
Having said that, there is something likeable about it. Something I can't quite put my finger on. Perhaps it's the setting and the unusual zombie mythos, but despite its failings, I do like this book. In any event, Dead West is certainly no worse than many of the mainstream offerings coming from Marvel or DC these days.
It could do with being a little longer, stretching the story out over two or even three books to give the characters more time to grow on the reader; as it stands, there's little there to empathise with. None of the characters are that engaging. We all know the Clint Eastwood character from the movies and this one is not really different at all but there's little there to make him remotely likeable. It seems to me that the story needed to be bigger in scope, to give him a chance to prove himself, and to give the reader more time to get involved. A bit more action would have been nice too. If it had been up to me, the bounty killer and his prey would have conducted a few chases/gunfights through the zombie-infested town.
I'd give it a solid 3 out of 5. If you're a fan of zombies though it's certainly one to check out.
Thursday, April 06, 2006
The Century War
An incredibly powerful work of fiction by author Dan Simmons discusses the coming terrifying future of the world.
Here is a sample-
“How are we supposed to know who our enemies are?” I turned and growled at him. “The world is a complex place. Morality is a complex thing.”
Here is a sample-
“How are we supposed to know who our enemies are?” I turned and growled at him. “The world is a complex place. Morality is a complex thing.”
“Your enemy is he who will give his life to kill you,” said the Time Traveler. “Your enemies are they that wish you and your children and your grandchildren dead and who are willing to sacrifice themselves, or support those fanatics who will sacrifice themselves, to see you and your institutions destroyed. You haven’t figured that out yet – the majority of you fat, sleeping, smug, infinitely stupid Americans and Europeans.”
He stood and set the Scotch glass back in its place on my sideboard. “How, we wonder in my time,” he said softly, “can you ignore the better part of a billion people who say aloud that they are willing to kill your children . . . or condone and celebrate the killing of them? And ignore them as they act on what they say? We do not understand you.”
This is something that should be disseminated far and wide. LGF calls it "the must read of the week, possibly the year". I'll second that- Go read it now. And then sent it to everyone you know.Sunday, March 19, 2006
Lists
I'm a sucker for lists, so here are a couple for you to browse through-
Top 100 Overlooked Films of the Nineties
Some really good movies here- Hudsucker Proxy, Ghost Dog, great detective movie Zero Effect, Takeshi Kitano's superb Hana-Bi and the violent Sonatine, the oddball LA Story, and Bill Murray's fantastic heist movie Quick Change.
Top 100 Science Fiction Books You Just Have To Read
Bradbury only comes in at 61? Edgar Rice Burroughs only makes 100? And no mention of Edgar Allan Poe, the man who virtually invented science fiction? That's just not right at all.
Top 100 Overlooked Films of the Nineties
Some really good movies here- Hudsucker Proxy, Ghost Dog, great detective movie Zero Effect, Takeshi Kitano's superb Hana-Bi and the violent Sonatine, the oddball LA Story, and Bill Murray's fantastic heist movie Quick Change.
Top 100 Science Fiction Books You Just Have To Read
Bradbury only comes in at 61? Edgar Rice Burroughs only makes 100? And no mention of Edgar Allan Poe, the man who virtually invented science fiction? That's just not right at all.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
V For Vendetta
Excellent comics blog Photon Torpedoes has details of an interview with Alan Moore- the creator of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Watchmen, From Hell and V for Vendetta. The latter is just about to be released here in the UK.
Alan Moore has severed his ties with DC Comics, infuriated by the way his work has been mangled in its translation to the big screen. LXG, for example, bears very little similarity to the incredible work he created.
I had my qualms about seeing V for Vendetta, knowing that Hollywood would try to make it have something to say about the state of the world today- seems like I was right. This is what Moore had to say when he say the script;
"...This was one of the things I objected to in the recent film, where it seems to be, from the script that I read, sort of recasting it as current American neo-conservatism vs. current American liberalism. There wasn't a mention of anarchy as far as I could see. The fascism had been completely defanged. I mean, I think that any references to racial purity had been excised, whereas actually, fascists are quite big on racial purity."
It seems like Hollywood fails to understand that fascism is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from conservatism- or they just don't care.
Alan Moore has severed his ties with DC Comics, infuriated by the way his work has been mangled in its translation to the big screen. LXG, for example, bears very little similarity to the incredible work he created.
I had my qualms about seeing V for Vendetta, knowing that Hollywood would try to make it have something to say about the state of the world today- seems like I was right. This is what Moore had to say when he say the script;
"...This was one of the things I objected to in the recent film, where it seems to be, from the script that I read, sort of recasting it as current American neo-conservatism vs. current American liberalism. There wasn't a mention of anarchy as far as I could see. The fascism had been completely defanged. I mean, I think that any references to racial purity had been excised, whereas actually, fascists are quite big on racial purity."
It seems like Hollywood fails to understand that fascism is on the opposite side of the political spectrum from conservatism- or they just don't care.
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