Noble Smith is a cool guy. He’s an award-winning playwright, video-game writer, documentary-film executive producer, and the former media director of an international human rights foundation. AND he’s also the author the brand new action/adventure novel Sons of Zeus.
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Turbulence by Samit Basu is a tale of normal folks discovering their new super powers. In India. Turbulence has just made its way to the US, and — I’m not kidding here — if you like superhero stories and are looking for some truly unique powers AND a completely new locale, you MUST read Turbulence.
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When most geeks think of crossing superheroes with zombies, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Marvel’s zombie universe. In that universe, however, most of the Marvel superheroes are zombies themselves, not fighting the good fight any longer. It made for an interesting twist, but I quickly lost interest after the first few story arcs. I prefer my heroes to be just that… heroes. In a world filled with zombies, I’m more interested in seeing how superheroes would survive and deal with the aftermath of a worldwide infection and the small number of survivors they would be protecting. And that’s exactly what has been delivered in Peter Clines EX-series of books.
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I’m always on the lookout for new educational content and tools for my two sons. They are curious kids, and I’m always happy to help fuel their inquisitive nature with games, books, videos, and anything else I believe has something of value to offer. I try to keep up with the debates on kids and technology, and I firmly believe there is a happy medium for parents looking to find a way to use technology as a learning tool.
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I’m just back from the Rush show in Hamilton, Ontario, courtesy of my wife who picked me up some pretty sweet tickets for my birthday. The Canadian prog rock trio and geek favorite has been feeling the mainstream love over the past few years — capped by the band’s long-awaited induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few months ago (they’re also headlining some Candian postage stamps) — and the concert was one of the best I’ve seen. Rush pulled out all the stops, playing nearly 30 songs over the course of three hours with a steampunk-themed set, a string section for a chunk of the show, plenty of pyro, and three Neal Peart drum solos that sparked thousands of spontaneous air drumming incidents. If you happen to live in or around Portland, Denver, Kansas City, Halifax or any of the cities that remain on the Clockwork Angels tour, buy a ticket. You’re not going to find an arena concert that’s more entertaining and polished than this one and you won’t regret the purchase.
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So few science fiction stories these days attempt to provide a story in a single volume — everything’s gotta be a trilogy. Why? The Silver Sickle not only provides a stand-alone science fiction story, but it mixes together three great themes — aliens, steampunk, and a love story. It’s well done and deserving of applause.
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Actively going to where a story is set opens a fantastic starting point for discussing a book: Why here? Location can become an integral part of a story, as important as the characters themselves. Harry Potter simply wouldn’t be Harry Potter without Hogwarts. (And yes, you can go to Scotland and ride the Hogwarts Express right now!) Eloise couldn’t be Eloise anywhere other than New York. And yes, you can even sort of visit Middle Earth if your goal is to get inside Tolkien’s head and see how environment can influence the plot line (even if… uh… Mr. Tolkien wrote those books in Oxford, England and not New Zealand).
Continue Readinghave generally found that novelizations are the exception to the general rule that novels are better than movies. Where a movie screenplay is the original source material, the novel can feel thin and hurried–lacking in the depth of thought and characterization that goes into good original novels. Thus when I was asked to review the Man of Steel novelization, I agreed with low expectations. I was pleasantly surprised.
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I think what I find most fascinating about these books is the glimpse into the creator’s mind that they afford us–watching how a mere idea progresses through character building, world building, story-boarding, and ultimately into the reality of film. Sure, I know that most of it is CG these days, but that doesn’t detract from the artistic talent and vision that went into creating it.
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Toddlers are at an age where they want to classify everything, and teaching them to classify typefaces has the built in advantage of teaching them to read at the same time: the word literally means what it looks like.
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It’s been over fifteen years since I’ve last read one of The Bard’s plays, but I have to tell you that Ian Doescher’s successful retelling of Star Wars Episode IV is true to the style and pacing of so many of Shakespeare’s plays. Quirk Books has just released William Shakespeare’s Star Wars: Verily A New Hope, and it’s outstanding.
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Well, Matt Forbeck’s done it again… releasing the second book in his Dangerous Games trilogy set at Gen Con. It’s a whirlwind story… I read the entire 200 pages within hours of getting my digital copy. Matt’s thrown a great little mystery into the mix along with some fun name drops, more behind-the-scenes details of the game publishing world, and a very likable lead character and a despicable villain.
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After paging through Keri Smith’s latest journal offering, The Pocket Scavenger, my kids and their friends conducted an alphabet scavenger hunt. You have a chance to win a copy of Smith’s book and matching smartphone app by conducting a scavenger hunt of your own.
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First off… a big spoiler warning here. This book review will be covering the new World War Z movie. I can’t really talk about some of the elements in the book without discussing a few of the plot points in the movie, so feel free to finish this paragraph if you haven’t yet seen the film, but read no further.
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So while I’ve been attending bits and pieces of LeakyCon in Portland, some other big Harry Potter news happened in Chicago. The new cover of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, illustrated by Kazu Kibuishi, was revealed at the American Library Association convention.
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I have a three year old who has learned his ABCs and now expects me to point out everything in this great big world of his using the “S is for Stoplight” and “F is for Fire Hydrant” method. We’ve exhausted many of the objects around the house, so I’m very happy to have in my hands a copy of Steampunk Alphabet that offers up a new collection of items along a sufficiently geeky rhyme for my son and a more adult-friendly paragraph for how each item fits into a steamy’s world.
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Palmer began to run less than scientific stories that tended more towards the sensational. Although these helped to promote and expand sales of the struggling magazine, the so-called “Shaver mysteries” posited that there was a secret civilization of degenerates living just below the Earth’s surface.
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Cheryl Klein, Executive Editor at Scholastic’s Arthur A. Levine imprint, revealed the third new Harry Potter cover at LeakyCon 2013 in Portland, Oregon.
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Ender’s Game appears on every serious list of the best science fiction novels ever written, and with good reason. It is a deeply personal coming of age story that somehow puts you believably in the mind of a child chosen to be Earth’s greatest hope against a seemingly unstoppable alien menace. With the upcoming Ender’s Game movie I have a renewed interest in the Enderverse, and was excited to pick up Earth Unaware and Earth Afire, the first two books in a prequel trilogy that finally tells the story of the first Formic War. Spoilers follow.
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Attention, Muggles: LeakyCon, a Harry Potter fan convention, starts tomorrow in Portland, Oregon.
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77 days. That’s all the Earth has left until the asteroid designated 2011GV1 hits the Indian Ocean and life as we know it ends. Those who haven’t checked out have few choices. Many have left their homes and families to finish out their Bucket Lists. Others have joined volunteer organizations. And some, like Henry Palace, are just trying to hold it together by doing the only thing that can help keep their minds off of the asteroid — their jobs.
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For those that would like to revisit their roots there is some great news. Wizards of the Coast has gone back to the digital vaults and is now offering reprinted copies of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition rule books.
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Lenard Sikophsky is a 13-year-old who has just celebrated Bar Mitzvah, so why is he now standing in the middle of a railway bridge with his Scot father, Fearghas Murdoch Sikophsky, standing above him and yelling at him to run from an oncoming train? Believe it or not, this is nothing. Fearghas has it in his head that his son is destined for greatness because he’s a (secret) follower of the Manaton, an ancient book with some amazingly odd teachings about how the world really works and how real men should conduct themselves. Fearghas is doing his best to try and bring forth the hero from his son by placing him in situations that defy logic. To make matters worse (or maybe to accelerate the process), Fearghas has been injecting Lenard with small doses of plutonium for years, affecting the boy’s growth in some unusual ways.
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There are so few good dads in science fiction and fantasy. Fathers in so many stories are absent for one reason or another (death being fairly common), and sometimes they even turn out to be the villain! So where are the Mike Bradys of science fiction and fantasy? The Cliff Huxtables? You do happen upon dads of those stripes, or roughly equivalent ones, every now and then. Here’s our list of the top 10.
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What’s small and red and can take over the world in three years? The story of Rovio and its tiny little juggernauts is the subject of Angry Birds: Hatching a Universe, a new art book by Danny Graydon.
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The trailer for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the second of Peter Jackson’s planned trilogy of Hobbit movies, is out. The movie itself comes Dec. 13. But here’s what secrets the trailer seems to reveal.
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The brilliant children’s book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, who passed away in May of last year, would have celebrated his 85th birthday today. In tribute to Sendak, Google has created a wonderful new entry its Doodle series.
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It’s no secret that I’ve become a real fan of e-readers over the past few years. There’s a lot to like about the switch to digital books — no ruined covers, no misplaced novels, no worries about beach damage and new books on demand thanks to Wi-Fi and online bookstores. I was running out of room for bookshelves, too. I used to write about the e-reader industry extensively, and besides testing dozens of models, I count six among my personal collection, including units from Kobo, Sony, Amazon and B&N. But tablets have slowly been taking over from the old school E Ink e-reader in my life. I do much of my reading at night, and since e-reader lighting has ranged from bad (clip-on lights) to iffy (built-in lights that tend to be uneven and spotty), an iPad and Nook Color have largely taken over around here. However, I just wrapped up testing on a new device that’s completely changed that equation. The Kobo Aura HD is the e-reader that will make you think twice about using a tablet for consuming digital books. This is the best device you can buy today for reading e-books.
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Join 24-Hour Bookclub on Sunday, June 9, to discuss These Days by Jack Cheng.
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Interested in two superhero/super-villain books, going head-to-head, in a fight to the death? It’s twenty-two villainous short stories taking on sixteen heroic short tales where the reader is the real winner.
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