Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Here is a list of The Dresden Files books

Battlestar Galactica R.I.P.

The Last Super BSG Style.

It is a sad time for SciFi geeks everywhere, Battlestar Galactica on the SciFi channel has finished it's last season.

I liked the way they ended it, in true classic science fiction style.
I was slightly upset that it ran 11 minutes long, I missed that part, and had to wait and watch the last few minutes on the internet.

SPOILER ALERT: Don't read any farther if you have not seen the last episode:

I figured they had a few ways they would end the show, and finding the earth of our past was one of the ending I speculated they would pick. It was a much more satisfying ending than the original series {Which really didn't end} . And you could say it ties the original series into this one, if the original was in an earlier time/cycle period.

Some would argue that this is more fantasy than Science Fiction, But I have seen this theme in many old science fiction stories. Just because it is Science Fiction doesn't mean it can't have a religious aspect to it.

I enjoyed the very ending where they show present day, and show the different robots we currently have. I help maintain an industrial robot at work, and it is primitive compared to what we see in SciFi. The biggest barrier is computing power. The brain of an animal is extremely complex, and our current state of technology is far behind the simplest of animals. That complexity is what a robot will require.

I hope the success of this show will give the networks incentive to put out more space based science fiction. There is a new Stargate series coming out, hopefully it will be better than Stargate Atlantis, which I lost interest in fairly quickly.

Here are the Amazon links to the DVD's of the series:

Battlestar Galactica - Season 2.0 (Episodes 1-10)

Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5 (Episodes 11-20)

Battlestar Galactica - Razor (Unrated Extended Edition)

Battlestar Galactica (2003 Miniseries)

Battlestar Galactica - The Complete Epic Series

Caprica

Battlestar Galactica - Season 4.0

Battlestar Galactica - Season Three

Battlestar Galactica - Season One

Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, Small Favor

I Finished Reading "The Dresden Files, Small Favor, by Jim Butcher", the 10th book in the series, yesterday. It had been a while since I had read book number 9.

The Books are very good fantasy and I thoroughly enjoyed them. This book was an excellent addition to the series.

The Scifi channel did a short lived series of the books, which was pretty good, but alas, it did not last. I guess the audience for Wrestling and crappy ghost reality shows knocked it out. As you can tell by the name of my blog I enjoy scifi and fantasy, but now that Battlestar has ended, there is NOTHING on the scifi channel that I watch. And They are changing their name to SyFy.

Enough about the SyFy channel, back to Jim Butcher.

The series is about a Wizard Detective living in Chicago, and fighting Supernatural crime. The world he has weaved and very complex, and he does a good job of following a specific set of rules he has laid down for his stories.

He has a 11th book coming out in April,

Turn Coat (The Dresden Files, Book 11) (Hardcover)

Here is a link to Jim Butcher's Book on Amazon:

Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10)

Friday, March 6, 2009

The WATCHMAN

Went to see WATCHMAN today, it was great. Bad News Bear's

Jackie Earle Haley

plays

Walter Kovacs / Rorschach

and he did a great job. I Read the Graphic novel a few years
ago, draw to read it because it won the HUGO award in 1988. It also appeared
on Time magazine's 2005 list of
"the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present."

I rummaged through my books looking for the graphic novel a couple days ago, finally found it, and started skimming through it to refresh my memory of the story. Every now and then I'd come to a section and get hooked, and think to myself, damn that's good. I stopped a few pages from the end because I didn't remember the ending, and wanted some surprise at the movie. I came back home from the movie pulled out the book, and read the ending. They managed to totally change the ending in it's main plot climax aspects, yet the flow and most of the main action through the panels matched the movie.

Throughout the movie there is a slavish obsessive compulsive reproduction of the comic book panels. Whether you like the movie or not, it will in my opinion effect the future of comic book to movie adaptations. It brings to life the comic book panels that really compliments the comic book. This is one movie I would definitely say, READ the Book, Then see the movie. The movie may be very confusing to the audience members who have not read the comic.

From other reviews I have read, people either hated it or loved it. I give it 4 stars.

AND Pray we don't see this on YOUTUBE CLIP on Saturday morning. (Thanks Adam-Troy)

Also, This is NOT a movie for kids, It is rated R, and it earned it, with lots of gore, blood, and a little sex, and a rape. Leave the kiddies at home.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Philip José Farmer

I Just found out today, Philip José Farmer, one of my favorite authors, passed away on the 25th of February. I have read many of his books, and thoroughly enjoyed them. The Riverworld series and the World of Tiers series are Excellent series if you have not read any of his books. He will be missed. Here is a link to

The Official Philip José Farmer Home Page

and a link to his

Booklist

Many of his books had Boris's artwork on the cover {Click here to see cover on PJF's website}
which had some influence on purchases by young boys. {Like me - in the past}

Here is A Link to his Riverworld Book "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" on Amazon

To Your Scattered Bodies Go (Riverworld Saga, Book 1)

Philip José Farmer myspace page
http://www.myspace.com/pjfarmer

Dave Langford's Ansible

An excellent sf fan newsletter I have been reading for years is Dave Langford's Ansible, available at http://news.ansible.co.uk/Ansible.html . It has been published since 1979, and is a great souce of SF news. He has links on his page where you can subscribe to it.

mysticzzz Science Fiction & Fantasy Blog