Thoughts inspired by, cool things discovered in, or reviews of:
• Books I’ve read
• Movies I’ve seen
• TV I’ve watched
• Music I’ve listened to
• Games I’ve played
• Software I’ve used
Most of this is usually posts about science fiction & fantasy books & movies, though I also often enjoy history & historical fiction, and occasionally post about cool music, videos, geeky software or tech gadgets I’ve used.
More Stargate Spirituality, this time courtesy of Stargate Atlantis…
WEIR: Rodney … I still believe there’s a chance you can ascend if you put your mind to it.
McKAY: We both know that that is a waste of time. Maybe you could do it, but …
WEIR: I don’t know if I could, but you are certainly selling yourself short by not even trying.
McKAY: To be honest, I don’t have the first clue where to start.
WEIR: Stop thinking.
McKAY: See, I don’t understand that.
Hellboy, Vol. 1: Seed of Destruction by Mike Mignola, John Byrne
Hell Boy series #1
View book info on GoodReads
My Rating: 
4 out of 5 stars
First Published: 1994
Read from: Feb. 18-19, 2016
I liked the Hellboy movies, but had never read the comics from which they sprung. I decided I needed to correct that lapse. Read the Full Review
Zoë’s Tale by John Scalzi
Old Man’s War series #4
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My Rating: 
3.5 out of 5 stars
First Published: Jan. 30, 2016
Read from: Feb. 18, 2016
When I started this I didn’t realize it was basically a retelling of the previous book in the The Old Man’s War series, “The Last Colony”, only from the perspective of Zoë, the teenage daughter of the protagonist of most of the books. So I started off disappointed with this book. I checked some other people’s reviews just to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind and that, yes, I had indeed read this story before. There I discovered that besides the different perspective on the previous story there were some new things, and that much of it was… well, patching some of the parts of “The Last Colony” that had issues. So I took my time reading this, as I was not really “in” to it. I expected my disappointment would continue, and I considered giving the book the boot early on.
I’m REALLY glad I stuck with it. Read the Full Review
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
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My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
First Published: 1969
Read from: Jan. 24 to Jan. 28, 2016
I read Kurt Vonnegut‘s Slaughterhouse-Five at least once a long time ago. I remember that I liked it, but that it effected me in a negative way and left me of two minds on the experience: I liked the book but hated what it described and made me feel. It not so much described, as allowed you to experience and feel some thing that by nature we resist discussing, describing and by all means feeling if we can avoid it.
I reread the book this time around as there was a short story, Peace in Amber: The World of Kurt Vonnegut by Hugh Howey, that I wanted to read that was basically Howey’s tribute to, commentary on, and his literary attempt at describing and moving past some of the same issues exposed in Slaughterhouse-Five. Knowing this I wanted Vonnegut’s work to be fresh in my ever-more-forgetful mind. I’m glad I did, as the novel and short-story compliment each other. And I discovered in the middle of Howey’s story, he described his experience with reading Slaughterhouse-Five and in doing so described far better than I could what Vonnegut’s book did to me. Read the Reviews
Fantastic Four (2015)
0.5 out of 5 Stars 
A supposed “reboot” of the Fantastic Four franchise. To put it bluntly, this was crap through and through. The worst, unforgivable sin to my mind was the god-awful writing — the barest outline of a plot further destroyed by horribly dull dialog and lifeless characters. Even if any of the writing had been decent, the director, cinematography, actors, music and even the effects for the most part failed to bring any life to the creation. Only thing I thought mildly interesting and somewhat original is the different approach they took to how the group receives their powers, but even that was horribly miss-handled. Read the Full Review
I came home after a late work night last night with the urge to watch some action movie violence. Here’s my review of Mad Max: Fury Road and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. Two action movies whose titles both have colons in them, but beyond that are nothing alike. Read the Reveiws
When we share our stories with one another, that is when we truly connect and recognize ourselves and the Universe in one another. That is when we move beyond separation and opposition and into partnership and power and possibility.
The Republic of Thieves by Scott Lynch
Gentleman Bastard series #3
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My Rating: 
5 out of 5 stars
First Published: Oct 8th, 2013
Read from: Dec. 29, 2015 to Jan. 9, 2016
The Republic of Thieves is the 3rd book in Scott Lynch’s “Gentleman Bastard” series. I loved the previous books in this series but did not review them properly. I gave the first, The Lies of Locke Lamora, a very late, and very basic review. The second, Red Seas Under Red Skies, I reviewed not at all.
The reason for this was there was simply so much I wanted to say about both books. And every attempt I made to say any of it did not do the books justice in my mind. But I tried to show just how much these books entertained and moved me. I rated them both 5 out 5 stars.
Now that I have read the third book, I wish I had rated the earlier ones less, or that I could some how rate this one MORE than 5 stars. If I could I think the The Republic of Thieves would be 8 out of 5 stars. If not more! If I could scale the books in order of great to awesome it would be “Red Seas”, “Lies”, and at the top of this very excellent pile would be “Republic”. Read the Full Review
Of the 32 books I read this year, here is my Top Ten List.
Note that these are books I READ in 2015, and NOT necessarily books that were published in 2015. (Only one of the titles in my Top 10, “Seveneves”, came out in 2015). Continue reading Top 10 Reads of 2015
I’ve used GoodReads.com for a few years now to keep track of the books I want to read, am currently reading, and have read. Occasionally I’ll review books there and I usually post those reviews on this blog. For the most part I really like the site.
One of the things GoodReads does that I kind of like is a yearly “Reader Challenge”. Basically you record the number of books you think you’ll read for a year, and then as long as you are recording when you have finished a book, it shows you how far along you are to reaching your “goal”. Continue reading My 2015 Year in Books
