Art/Photography

Yes Virginia, there will be a Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 3

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I’m a few weeks late in getting the word out, but that is in large part because I fainted dead away when it was announced on Facebook that Spectrum Fantastic Art Live would be returning to Kansas City, MO in May 2014!!! I promptly got online and changed my vacation plans–I kid you not–as I had made the assumption it would be the same weekend as previous years (if held) and this year it is one week earlier. So…I’ll be starting the week of my 25th wedding anniversary by hanging out with some of the coolest and most creative people in the world followed by a nice, relaxing vacation with Mary. Can’t wait!!!

So folks, you have PLENTY of notice this time. Be there! I want the third time to be a charm with this truly indescribable event. Save your pennies, make your travel plans, and let’s do a huge meet up at SFAL3! This is my home town (of 15 years). I promise I’ll show you a good time.

No word on who will be the special guests for SFAL3, but rest assured that they will be top notch, phenomenal artists. Be prepared for Spectrum art related posts to crop up throughout the next several months, especially once tickets go on sale, with those posts increasing the closer we get to May 9th, 2014.

You will see some of the best art in the world up close and personal. You will meet hundreds of incredibly creative people and learn that they are really nice and are fans themselves. And, I must warn you, you will want to empty your pocketbooks to take some of the treasures you will find home with you.

Hope to see you there…er, here!

Film

Elysium

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In the year 2154 the separation between those with wealth and privilege and those without is manifest in the form of an orbiting space station called Elysium, the place where the rich not only live in luxury but avail themselves of technology that can quickly diagnose and cure sickness and disease. Those without the financial means to qualify for life on Elysium remain on an Earth devastated by overpopulation, illness and crime. When an accident leaves Max in need of Elysium’s life-saving technology, he will stop at nothing to get it, despite the impregnable nature of the off-planet Paradise.

Writer/Director Neill Blomkamp’s (District 9) latest science fictional outing is a visual feast, providing many a sense-of-wonder moment in its rendering of the station that is Elysium. A heavy-handed message about the distribution of wealth, health care reform and immigration coupled with rated-R level language and violence threaten to overwhelm what is ultimately an enjoyable, if flawed, film. If you can leave your feelings about the political arguments at the door you will mostly likely find an entertaining science fiction/action experience with special effects worth seeing on the big screen and a story that is fair yet may not inspire the need for repeat viewings.

My rating: 7/10 stars

Continue reading Elysium →

Book Reviews, Fantasy

A Calendar of Tales ~Neil Gaiman

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On February 4th 2013 Neil Gaiman embarked on a fantastic art project in partnership with BlackBerry and millions of his fans. He tweeted twelve questions to the world, one for each month of the year. From the tens of thousands of responses he received, Neil picked his favourite answers and wrote twelve short stories inspired by them. Releasing these back to the world, Neil asked people to contribute art to illustrate the stories.

Yesterday morning I finally took the time to experience this wonderful project. The website for “A Calendar of Tales” is highly interactive, giving you the opportunity to read each story, listen to Neil Gaiman read each story, or do both, as I did. The site also has examples of fan artwork for each story and a few videos fans made to go with various stories.

It is a really creative project and was a delight to listen to. I got home last night and fired up the site again and listened to them with my wife Mary. She was also impressed.

I have a non-spoiler review of the project over on SF Signal today. I covet your comments over there if you have already experienced “A Calendar of Tales” or have any thoughts on it whatsoever.

Book Reviews, Mystery

Speaking From Among the Bones ~Alan Bradley

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With their financial woes and the ongoing mystery of their missing mother Harriet, the de Luce family is ripe for any kind of distraction and the 500th anniversary of the death of their beloved St. Tancred, coupled with the Easter holiday is just the distraction they need.

To a degree.

For nothing really distracts eleven-year-old chemist and amateur sleuth Flavia de Luce except a really good mystery. Fortunately for her, that comes along fairly quickly with her discovery of the missing church organist, Mr. Collicut, in the burial chamber of St. Tancred himself! Or fairly near it, at any rate. As is always the case in the life of Flavia de Luce, one mystery begets another and before the crime, or crimes, are solved she will acquire more knowledge about life, the human condition, her family relationships and herself than she ever bargained for.

This, the fifth novel in the Flavia de Luce series, is arguably the best yet, though to be fair the ongoing de Luce saga in each novel provided the foundation for the character growth in Speaking From Among the Bones. With a shocking set up for the next novel, due out in January 2014, this story arc is set to wow when The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches is released.

The mysteries in the Flavia de Luce series are always entertaining, but the real treasure of Alan Bradley’s novels is the de Luce family themselves, with Flavia in the forefront and faithful retainers Dogger and Mrs. Mullet along for good measure. I fell in love with this 1950’s world and all its characters with the release of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and that love has grown with each volume, enhanced over the course of these last two stories by experiencing them through their unabridged audio versions. Jane Entwhistle is a delight in her voicing of the characters. I cannot get enough of her reading, listen to the books like my life depends on it, then lament the fact that they are over when I am done in a matter of days.

Another 10/10 star effort for Alan Bradley

Continue reading Speaking From Among the Bones ~Alan Bradley →

Book Reviews, Fantasy

The Dragon’s Path ~Daniel Abraham

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Daniel Abraham’s first book in his newest epic fantasy series starts with a mysterious and intriguing prologue that sets up the reader’s expectations that this will not be your typical fantasy novel before moving on to lay a familiar foundation upon which to build. In so doing he creates a sense of heightened expectation that leaves you waiting with bated breath for everything to come tumbling down during the chapters in which he introduces the main characters.

The Dragon’s Path follows similar Abraham novels (including those written with Ty Franck under the name James S.A. Corey) in that each chapter is focused on a particular character’s point of view and throughout the novel various POV characters will cross paths while others give a sense of the scope of the world and bigger events which are taking place. This novel has a very heavy focus on the characters with much of the world building accomplished through their internal and external dialogue and interactions with the world. Daniel Abraham has a passion for economics and this shows through in one of the story threads which involves banking and sets up the world’s economy, something you don’t often see done in genre fiction.

The Dragon’s Path begins by presenting characters in a nonjudgmental light, leaving the reader to wonder who the heroes and villains of the piece will be and soon muddies the waters by revealing layers and complexities to characters, and their motivations, which ensure that the reader will be drawn in to a roller coaster of emotions.

For an opening novel in a series (there are three books currently on the shelves), The Dragon’s Path is heavy on characterization and story, giving the reader a page-turning experience from start to finish.

My rating: 8/10 stars.

Continue reading The Dragon’s Path ~Daniel Abraham →

Eclectic Musings of a Renaissance Geek