Please don't let it suck

 I keep seeing trailers for something called The Watch on BBC America.

During one of which what looks like a Goth girl says "Welcome to Ankh-Morpork."

Carp, it's a Discworld series. 

IMDB lacks these facts,  but from Wikipedia we learn that the original concept was approved by Terry Pratchett before his death, that after DEATH came for Sir Terry his daughter was listed as producer, but that now she says she has no connection with the project at all, and apparently says it has little to do with Discworld or Sir Terry's work.

s*i*g*h

Mrs. Drang might enjoy it, but she admits she's never read any of the Discworld books. 

I've read, and re-read, them all. 

Sam Vimes is my spirit animal. 

So... I'll watch the first episode. But I'm not optimistic. 

Well, this is... interesting...

Incest, suicide, and murder: What we can expect from Tolkien's dark new story. Published 8/20/2015. World.

"Oh, that wizard and hobbit stuff is for kids!"

Which is right down there with the attitude of a former co-worker that "It's all just demonic crap."

Question Of The Day?

Why aren't more works of Roger Zelazny available as ebooks?

Amazon's Roger Zelazny Author Page lists 124 titles*, of which a grand total of eight are available for Kindle.

Some of which, typically, are reviewed as "horrible OCR travesties." and one of which is the novelization of Damnation Alley, predating the cinematic travesty, but Zelazny said he preferred the short story.

And none of which are Amber novels, or Creatures of Light And Darkness,  or Lord of Light, or Shadowjack, or A Rose for Ecclesiastes, or...

Well, I guess we'd better get hitting the "I Want To Read This on Kindle!" button.





*Many redundant, as is common on these, with multiple editions of the same title being offered by some used book seller.

QOTD, 3/16/15

Seen on Michael Z. Williamson's Facebook page:

Time travel is a 4-Edged Sword
Bill Dunbar

Wotcher, Sir Terry

Damnit.

Random thoughts

Remember: The guy who said "A more elegant weapon for a more civilized era" was impressed by Imperial Stormtrooper precision.
— Drang (@DWDrang) September 6, 2014

The Desecration of Smaug

Mrs. Drang and I went to see the second Hobbit movie Friday night.  I was going to write up the experience, but Daddy Bear saved me the trouble.



A note on the title of the post:  It's a device.  Despite having written a few term papers on The Lord Of The Rings for English classes in High School, I do not consider myself a die-hard Tolkein fan.  I quite enjoy reading Harvard Lampoon's Bored Of The Rings, and laugh at people who consider it or the "Secret Diary" websites that came out after the original LOTR movies to be some sort of heresy.

HUZZAH!!!

Just scared the crap out of the cats yelling "YES, YES, YES!!!!

Amazon has Kindle editions of John Meyers Meyers' books!  Silverlock!  The Moon's Fire-Eating Daughter: A Sequel to Silverlock!  (The claim that this is a sequel to Silverlock is misleading.) Historical novels Dead Warrior and I, Jack Swilling and The Wild Yazoo!  and western history The Saga of Hugh Glass! Historicals Out on Any Limb: An Elizabethan Adventure and  Harp And The Blade: A Medieval Adventure!

Now they need to digitize The Alamo and Deaths of the Bravos (AKA Bravos of the West.) 

Note that the Amazon.com John Myers Myers Page does not show most of these. And there does not seem to be an Amazon.com John Meyers Meyers Kindle page.

Update: Publisher is Prologue Books.  At this time, their web pages do not show ANY of the John Meyers Meyers books. They have a lot of other stuff, including A Bertram Chandler and E.E. "Doc" Smith.

NOTE: Today, Silverlock is a Kindle Daily Deal, ninety-nine cents.(Expired, but the books are still available) 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RAH!

I have no doubt that Robert A. Heinlein had more to do with the man I grew up to become than any other non-blood relation.

The Heinlein Society
The Heinlein Biography
The Heinlein Archives
And, for "Heinlein's Kids" with money than I, the Virginia Edition of RAH's works includes all his works, including unpublished fiction and non-fiction, letters, and screenplays. 
Yes, that's screenplayS, plural...

An Unexpected Sequel

I'm not going to write a review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, because I figure that just about anyone who reads this blog will be familiar with the story, will have seen Peter Jackson's movie adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien's  Lord of the Rings, and have a pretty good idea of what to expect.

So, yeah, it's Peter Jackson, filmed in New Zealand, visually stunning, good f/x, blah, blah, blah.  Many actors in the LOTR movies reprise their roles in this one, including several who do not appear in The Hobbit at all; this movie is far more a prequel of LOTR than the book was. 

One thing I did not realize was that this is part one of a two-parter.  (Part Two:  The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, release date December 13 2013.)  We agreed that, with the way all sorts of back-story was added, it was fairly necessary.

Mrs. Drang:  "I wonder if Part II is where Saruman goes over to 'The Dark Side.'"
Me: "I dunno.  He was sure talking like a Democrat..."

Kinda like profits from all the Green Jobs subsidys...

Wondermark: #875; The Passion Project, Year 10

He sings!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Joss Whedon:

Thought For The Day, B00b T00b Edition

I am aware of two television shows which are not only based on a series of novels, but which feature a main character based on the novelist.  In Bones, the heroine has a different name than the novelist (Katherine Reichs?) (and I suspect that Mrs. Drang would argue that David "Angel" Boreanaz' charecter FBI Special Agent Something-or-other is the  main character...) but in Castle, Nathan Fillion's character is named Richard Castle, for the novelist.

Out of nowhere today, I thought of that and wondered what the series would be called, and what it would be about, if the hero was John Ringo...

1% OF HOLIDAYS GET 99% OF EGG NOG!

Larry "Monster Hunter" Correia delivers the annual Christmas Noun:
 THE CHRISTMAS NOUN « Monster Hunter Nation
THE CHRISTMAS (NOUN) 2: THE (NOUN)ENING « Monster Hunter Nation
The Christmas (Noun) 3D: The Gritty Reboot « Monster Hunter Nation
CHRISTMAS NOUN 4: OCCUPY CHRISTMAS NOUN « Monster Hunter Nation

Part One « The Veil War

Y'know that "Marines v. Roman Empire" thing? Okay, we got Marines v. real goblins and dragons and stuff here: Part One « The Veil War

h/t:  Book Review: The Veil War

RIP

R.I.P. Anne McCaffrey, Creator of Pern and The Ship Who Sang

New LOLs

The I Can Haz Cheesedudes have a new site:  Set Phasers To LOL: Sci Fi and Fantasy LOLs.

Internal soundtrack

I don't know how I let this one slide.  Good thing I stumbled on Tam's response.

So, anyway, Phil @ Random Nuclear Strikes asks the musical question:

You’re about to get eaten by the zombie hordes. You’ve prepared, but there are more than you every possibly imagined. Sorry.
As you load your last mag into your chosen weapon, what song comes up your MP3 player/IPOD?

 Ignoring the fact that I have no MP3 player/Ipod--technically, the Droid can serve, but I have yet to drain the battery that way--the normal soundtrack for my "Bandits* in the wire" fantasys tends to include Golden Earring's "Twilight Zone" and The Ted's "Stranglehold."

However.

Zombies, people...

Too obvious?

***

*I came of age in the 70s.  All my Drill Sergeants were 'Nam vets, as were most of the senior NCOs and Field Grade officers I served under for about the first half of my Army career.  I had to re-write that phrase a dozen times to try and make it slightly PC...

I'd like to buy...

...the guy or guys (and/or gal or gals) responsible for this a Guiness or three:

What is best in life?: [h/t to The Weasel King]

TRINITY COLLEGE Dublin says it is taking seriously an incident in which a profile page, complete with image, was inserted on its website for a fake staff member named "Dr Conan T Barbarian".

His full title and academic qualifications were given as: "Dr Conan T Barbarian, BA (Cimmeria) PhD. (UCD). FTCD (Long Room Hub Associate Professor in Hyborian Studies and Tyrant Slaying)."

His profile indicated he had been "ripped from his mother’s womb on the corpse-strewn battlefields of his war-torn homeland, Cimmeria, and has been preparing for academic life ever since.

"A firm believer in the dictum that 'that which does not kill us makes us stronger', he took time out to avenge the death of his parents following a sojourn pursuing his strong interest in post-colonial theory at the Sorbonne."

The profile went on to say Dr Barbarian completed his PhD, entitled "To Hear The Lamentation of Their Women: Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Zamoran Literature" at UCD and was appointed to the school of English in 2006, "after successfully decapitating his predecessor during a bloody battle which will long be remembered in legend and song".

The Latest Thing in Memes

So, we're back from the show--and more about it later--and Mrs. Drang is tucked in with 2/3 of the Feline American contingent, and I now see that Everybody's Doin' It. 

Apparently, "it" was originally National Public Radio's list of the Top 100 Science Fiction and/or Fantasy books/series EVAR!  (Haven't found a link yet to NPR declaring that these are THE BEST, though.)

Perusing the list, I have to consider the source, as there are many I don't consider SF/F, and many others so new I never even heard of the author, let alone the title...
Highlighted titles I've read. I gave myself credit for reading one of more titles in a series.  There may be a few of these I started and didn't finish, but felt like I should get paid by the author for the time I wasted...
I've italicized authors I never heard of, and underlined those I think shouldn't have been on the list.
1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert
5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin
6. 1984, by George Orwell
7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov
9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
12. The Wheel Of Time Series, by Robert Jordan
13. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
14. Neuromancer, by William Gibson
15. Watchmen, by Alan Moore  (IMHO, comic book don't count)
16. I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov
17. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
18. The Kingkiller Chronicles, by Patrick Rothfuss
19. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
21. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
22. The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
23. The Dark Tower Series, by Stephen King
24. 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke
25. The Stand, by Stephen King
26. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
27. The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
28. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Sandman Series, by Neil Gaiman  (Graphic novels)
30. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
31. Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein
32. Watership Down, by Richard Adams
33. Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey
34. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
35. A Canticle For Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller
36. The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells
37. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, by Jules Verne
38. Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keys
39. The War Of The Worlds, by H.G. Wells
40. The Chronicles Of Amber, by Roger Zelazny
41. The Belgariad, by David Eddings
42. The Mists Of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley
43. The Mistborn Series, by Brandon Sanderson
44. Ringworld, by Larry Niven
45. The Left Hand Of Darkness, by Ursula K. LeGuin
46. The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Once And Future King, by T.H. White
48. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
49. Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke
50. Contact, by Carl Sagan  (And I believe you mean Connie Willis)
51. The Hyperion Cantos, by Dan Simmons
52. Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
53. Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson
54. World War Z, by Max Brooks  (Oh, puh-lease...)
55. The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
56. The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman
57. Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett
58. The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, The Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson
59. The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
60. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett
61. The Mote In God's Eye, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
62. The Sword Of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
63. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy  (BARF!)
64. Jonathan Strange, Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
65. I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson
66. The Riftwar Saga, by Raymond E. Feist
67. The Shannara Trilogy, by Terry Brooks
68. The Conan The Barbarian Series, by R.E. Howard
69. The Farseer Trilogy, by Robin Hobb
70. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
71. The Way Of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson
72. A Journey To The Center Of The Earth, by Jules Verne
73. The Legend Of Drizzt Series, by R.A. Salvatore
74. Old Man's War, by John Scalzi
75. The Diamond Age, by Neil Stephenson
76. Rendezvous With Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
77. The Kushiel's Legacy Series, by Jacqueline Carey
78. The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin
79. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
80. Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
81. The Malazan Book Of The Fallen Series, by Steven Erikson
82. The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde  (Mrs. Drang read some of these, don't think they belong)
83. The Culture Series, by Iain M. Banks
84. The Crystal Cave, by Mary Stewart  (Nothing fantastic about it...)
85. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson
86. The Codex Alera Series, by Jim Butcher
87. The Book Of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe
88. The Thrawn Trilogy, by Timothy Zahn
89. The Outlander Series, by Diana Gabaldan (Doesn't she write Celtic bodice rippers?)
90. The Elric Saga, by Michael Moorcock
91. The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
92. Sunshine, by Robin McKinley
93. A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
94. The Caves Of Steel, by Isaac Asimov
95. The Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson
96. Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
97. Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
98. Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville 
99. The Xanth Series, by Piers Anthony
100. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis

So I think that's 65+/- out of 100.  Some of the "Who?" items, I may have seen on the shelves, and didn't pick up.  More importantly, of course, "That isn't even SF/F!" is subjective, and YMMV.  At a con once I wandered into a debate which had essentially devolved into a question of "Fannish Purity"--who had read more of whom, knew the lyrics to more filk, and other pointless crap--just before it reached the "Chrys knives at Dawn" stage; I beat a hasty retreat.