As the first month of 2007 comes to a close, come wander the internet with me for awhile.
First stop: Estella’s Revenge.
Estella’s Revenge is the webzine of Andi Miller. ER is currently on hiatus while they they change their focus to the one thing that many of us adore: books. Currently Andi is putting out a call for contributors. If you posses the desire to put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard in this instance, then this might just be an opportunity for you to wax poetic. Estella’s Revenge is looking for “… reviews (of your own books. We get books from publishers occasionally, but it’ll take some growing to make it a full-time endeavor), features, columns, and fiction if you have it. We’d like to tell people about bookish goodies, bookish websites, bookish gathering places, and you can even take our readers on a reading tour of your town if you’d like! All things bookish are welcome.” For more information, including how to contact Andi, please visit here.
Next stop: Space!
(Found on SF Signal) For those of you who are or were Trekkies…or Trekkers…Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy, will be hosting a documentary on The History Channel entitled Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier. It is scheduled to air for the first time on February 19th at 9 p.m. Eastern time, 8 p.m. for those of us in the middle of the US. I don’t know about you, but I’m geeked about this one.
_________________________
Our next destination: the imagination!
Friday Favorites often features artists whose work grace various science fiction, fantasy, and young adult titles. We have also talked here before about book cover art and its impact on whether or not you pick up a certain book, etc. If you’ve ever wondered what the artist’s perspective was on doing cover work for book series, wonder no longer! Irene Gallo has posted a fascinating glimpse into the minds of some of the most imaginative illustrators working in the book industry today. Trip on over there and give it a read! And there are pretty pictures as well!
_________________________
On to Faerie Land:
As Elaine points out on her site, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust now has a functional website up and running. It includes some wallpapers and some fantastic art samples of Charles Vess’ art, plus other goodies. The more I see about this film the more I worry. We recently had a discussion about book to film issues over at Neth Space that was quite interesting. Although my worries are that Stardust will not even come close to the wonder of the story (early pics indicate some massive departures from the story in my opinion) that does not change the fact that I believe the movie will lead even more people to discover this enchanting novel. I hope the movie succeeds despite my fears because I would love Charles Vess to get increased exposure, his art is magical, and I would like to have more of the many rumored Gaiman film projects see the light of day.
_________________________
Hopefully these side trips will help you get through the rest of Hump Day. The snow is falling gently here, it is comic shop night, Season Two of Black Books has come in the mail via Netflix, and all is right with the world!
I love that image of Michelle Pfeiffer. As I said on my blog – I’m leaning towards optimism for the film, but that may just be a case of really wanting it to be good, and trying to wish that outcome into being. We’ll see. Perhaps the film will be different in a good way, sometimes that happens.
Got to agree on the hope for Charles Vess to enjoy increased exposure. More people should have that magic in their lives.
Season Two of Black Books? Yay! Love Black Books. 🙂
I won’t mind at all if it is different in a good way Quix. I expect changes and as long as the film is enjoyable and well done that won’t matter so much. What will make those changes matter is if the film is a disappointment. Then every little minor change to the story will be magnified.
You may have been the person who mentioned Black Books Quix. Someone on the internet did. We got the first series a week ago and loved it so I’m excited about these new (to me) episodes.
I know what you mean, Carl. Here’s hoping!
I just love Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey, too funny. Have you watched Spaced at all? That’s another good one.
No, I’ve never seen that one. I’ll have to check it out.
If you’ve seen Shaun of the Dead it’s the same guys that did that. If you haven’t seen Shaun of the Dead – see it – ‘s funny!
I have heard, I have it on my Netflix list but it keeps getting bumped for other things.
Our snow, such as it is, must be interfering. Everything I clicked on came up blank. Did you do a Friday favorite on Isabelle Carmody? Her name sounds so familiar.
Thanks, Carl! You’re a sweetheart for passing along the word about ER.
And see Shaun of the Dead immediately! It’s insanely funny.
I will also encourage you to move up Shaun of the Dead on your que. Very funny flick.
I also will try to catch the Trek special. I keep my love of Trek going by reading some great novels continuing the stories on today. The Deep Space Nine novels in particular are great.
Lastly Carl, you know my feelings on the Stardust movie. I very nervous but I’ll keep my hopes up that the changes they make are in the spirit of the book and even if I end up not likely the movie it won’t deminish my love of the book at all. I truely hope Charles Vess gets more recognition for his work because of this movie. He’s truely a comics legend.
I ADORE Black Books. One of the best comedies out there. I have the first two seasons, must get around to watching the third. For weeks all it needed saying in my family was mentioning cookers, and cooking parts of cookers and we’d all burst out laughing.
As for films based on books, I always try to ignore the book when I see the film, because if I don’t I end up comparing the two and they are such different mediums that what works in one won’t in the other. Sometimes though i just can’t help it, the first time I saw The Two Towers I was a little annoyed at Faramir’s characterisation. But after seeing that film a second time I came to appreciate that the differences were necessary for the film to work.
I haven’t read Stardust in ages, so the details are hazy in my mind, and I’m going to keep it that way until after this film is released.
Just watched that episode last night Fence. The show is so funny and I really like all 3 characters so much.
If changes work like they did in Two Towers, I will be very happy!
I have some ST original series novels that I really enjoyed Jeff and enough time has passed that I really should read them again as I remember very little about them.
I’ve done a review on Obernewtyn, Pat, with that cover pictured above as the picture that accompanied the post and I also mentioned Isobelle Carmody in last week’s FF as Donato Giancola does the art for the adult versions of these books…you can see his covers in that post on Irene Gallo’s site.
The internet has been acting very wacky here Pat and I had alot of trouble getting on yesterday evening.
You’re welcome Andi, I hope you get some takers. I would’nt mind doing some stuff for you as well if you want me to, just let me know.
Crossing my fingers about Stardust! I let my coworker read it to, and she loved it. Though she’s reading another of Gaiman’s right now, and thinks it’s too weird. LOL
Each of his novels is definitely different than the last, even if its just in subtle ways.