What Mark Read

Martyr by Rory Clements

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:18:30 PST

There have been a lot of historical mystery's lately, several of them include historical figures as the detective. In Rory Clements novel Martyr, he uses a historical figure's brother as the main character. John Shakespeare, older brother of William (yes William doesn't have an older brother in real life, this is a out of wedlock brother by another mother, but that isn't touched on too much). The

2012 Crawford Award Announced

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:10:23 PST

Locus announced the winner of the 2012 William L. Crawford Fantasy Award which "is designated for an exceptionally promising writer whose first fantasy book was published the preceding year". The winner is Genevieve Valentine for her novel Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti. I haven't read the book, it does sound interesting.

Moxyland by Lauren Beukes

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:05:14 PST

After reading Lauren Beukes debut novel Zoo City(my review), I decided to move onto her second novel Moxyland. The book is very different and it threw me a bit. Where Zoo City had a mystery plot as the main thread connecting the book together, Moxyland is more of a mish-mash of scenes containing the four main characters. I'm not sure I liked the book as much, so let's delve in and figure out why.

Patton Oswalt Interviews Harlan Ellison

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:10:44 PST

At Cinefamily, Patton Oswalt crashes in and interviews Harlan Ellison. H/T: SFSignal.com

Harvey Pekar's new book

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:10:00 PST

The Flashmob Fridays blog takes a look at the upcoming Harvey Pekar book: Harvey Pekar's Cleveland. What I believe is the final completed work by the late author Harvey Pekar is now available, an expansive memoir that also performs about half of the time as a history of Cleveland, Ohio. The so-called navel-gazing, emo, whiny autobiographical comics of the ‘80s and ‘90s were never as large in

Habibi by Craig Thompson

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:14:35 PST

Craig Thompson is one of the more celebrated graphic novelists around. Each of his books is lavishly praised and awarded. But, for some reason, I just never like them as much as everyone else seems to. I thought Good-bye Chunky Rice was forgettable and Blankets was merely decent. So it was some trepidation that I picked up Thompson's latest award winning novel Habibi. And, while I enjoyed it, I

Everything You Need To Know About Babylon 5

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:55:07 PST

IO9 has a great article for those of you who are interested in getting into Babylon 5. The article goes over the main characters, storylines and essential episodes. I loved seasons 2-4 (1 had some issues and the 5 was hurt due to questions about whether or not it was coming back). Hopefully I'll be able to review the series at some point, but if you're interested, go check out the article.

Batman/Hamlet

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:12:56 PST

In the 90s, the Elseworlds superhero stories were all the rage. Steve Englehart had an idea for Hamlet as Batman that was never published, but he shares a synopsis with IO9. Alone in a deserted turret of the castle, Hamlet calls himself a coward and berates himself. The Jester comes and talks with him, advising him to take his adoption of a false persona a step farther. If he, Hamlet, can't

BBC's Sherlock renewed for season 3

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:23:40 PST

Steven Moffat's other little series Sherlock has already concluded season 2 on BBC and is scheduled to arrive on US shores in May. I'm assuming season 2 must have been really good since the BBC has already confirmed a third season. NOTE: Do NOT click on the link if you are worried about spoilers and it also has a NSFW picture on the site.

2011 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award winner

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 11:25:56 PST

Congratulations to Connie Willis: The author of fifteen novels and over fifty short stories and novellas, Ms. Willis’s first novel, Water Witch, co-written with Cynthia Felice, was released in 1982. In 1992, Bantam Spectra released Willis’s Doomsday Book, which went on to win the Hugo, the Nebula and the Locus Awards for Best Novel. As of 2012, Ms. Willis has seven Nebula Awards, eleven

Spellbound by Larry Correia

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:10:28 PST

Larry Correia has created an interesting niche for himself in genre fiction. He has mashed up fantasy (magic or supernatural creatures) and a lot of really, really big weapons. He continues this with the latest installment of the Grimnoir Chronicles: Spellbound. The first book in the series, Hard Magic, introduced us to our magical supergroup set in the Depression. This book continues from the

2011 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:52:10 PST

Locus has announced the 2011 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees. The Company Man, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit) Deadline, Mira Grant (Orbit) The Other, Matthew Hughes (Underland) A Soldier’s Duty, Jean Johnson (Ace) The Postmortal, Drew Magary (Penguin) After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer) The Samuel Petrovich Trilogy, Simon Morden (Orbit) I haven't read any of these, so I'm

Red Tails Preview

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:02:33 PST

In addition to the Star Wars TV show, George Lucas and Rick McCallum have been working on the new movie (coming out next week) Red Tails. You can see a preview of the first seven minutes (and an interview with George Lucas as well) Directed by TV helmer Anthony Hemingway with some re-shoots by Lucas himself when Hemingway was busy with Treme (production started in 2009 and had a few breaks),

Star Wars Live Action TV Show

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:57:23 PST

Lucasfilms Producer Rick McCallum has started talking about the live action Star Wars TV show, tentatively named Star Wars: Underground. It's a look at the underside of the Star Wars galaxy. He confirmed earlier reports that the action will take place in the 20-year gap between the end of "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" and the beginning of "Episode IV: A New Hope." Set in

Tom Hanks' Electric City

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 09:59:01 PST

Tom Hanks is bringing a science fiction animated series to the web: “Electric City,” an animated futuristic series Hanks has been developing for years, will premiere on Yahoo this spring. The series includes 20 episodes, each three- or four-minutes long. For Hanks, the release of “Electric City” caps the actor’s efforts to find the right avenue for the project. He first tried to make the

Section Zero online

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:33:49 PST

A decade (or so) ago, a bunch of comic creators decided to create their own imprint and publish some creator-owned books through it. And Gorilla Comics was born. Unfortunately it died soon afterwards due to lack of funding and the planned internet portal never worked out. And some of the books were left half finished. Karl Kesel has decided to post the existing pages of Section Zero (created by

Morrisoncon

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:54:32 PST

Anyone interested in Morrisoncon? FALL 2012 A once in a lifetime opportunity to see Grant Morrison and 9 hand picked comic creator superstars, all together for one weekend, one time only. It sounds interesting, but I'd be interested to see a few more details (such as were, when, who else and how much).

Batman Arkham City review

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 14:38:38 PST

I loved the original Arkham Asylum game(my review). To me, it was the first game that really demonstrated what could be done with Batman. And now the developers have gone and made it bigger and better in Arkham City. They've left in the best parts of the game and improved a bunch of other pieces. It's a fun, exciting game on a much bigger scale than the original game and still as much fun. Let's

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:09:50 PST

I've been hearing great things about Lauren Beukes, so I decided to grab her two novels. The first one I read was Zoo City and can see why everyone was raving about it. Her work is original and, being set in Africa, a much different setting than most other science fiction. The setting alone would make the book an interesting read, but Beukes' writing makes the novel well worth reading. So, let's

Best TV, Movies, Video Games of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:09:30 PST

Ground Rules first. This is a list of the best TV shows, movies and video games that I saw (played) for the first time in 2011. The TV/movies/games didn't have to be distributed in 2011. And this is the best TV/movies/video games I saw(played) this year in no particular order. Super 8 - I absolutely hated the ending and think Abrams blew it with the monster and how he handled the dads.

Best Book/Comics of 2011

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 10:18:48 PST

Ground Rules first. This is a list of the best books that I read for the first time in 2011. The book/comics didn't have to be published in 2011. And this is the best books/comics I read this year in no particular order Alison's Bechdel Fun Home - Alison Bechdel is the creator of the comic Dykes to Watch Out For and the originator of the Bechdel Test for movies. This book is her memoir about

Are X-Men Human?

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:34:14 PST

A podcast covering a comic book question that leads to a real-life lawsuit: Reporter Ike Sriskandarajah tells Jad and Robert a story about two international trade lawyers, Sherry Singer and Indie Singh, who noticed something interesting while looking at a book of tariff classifications. "Dolls," which represent human beings, are taxed at almost twice the rate of "toys," which represent

Three Inches - A Failed Pilot Review

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 09:52:44 PST

With little to no promotion and pretty much no information about it, Syfy threw up a pilot for the show Three Inches. The show was originally ordered in early 2010, but it seemed to languish in development hell for awhile. Then, when Syfy moved forward with Alphas, they decided to see if they could make Three Inches seem more different. That failed and the show was shut down. But in the dead of

Captain Freedom by G. Xavier Robillard

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 09:25:05 PST

It's been a fad for awhile to make superhero novels into satires. The possibilities are endless for the satirical targets because of the ability of superheroes to morph into whatever niche is needed. There are some that were done well (such as Rick Veitch's The Maximortal and Bratpack) and then there is Captain Freedom. It's not that Captain Freedom is bad, since it does have some really good

The Immorality Engine by George Mann

noreply@blogger.com (schlesinm@gmail.com) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:15:42 PST

While I got tired of Mann's Ghost series with a steampunk superhero, his Newbury and Hobbes series of steampunk detectives is still going strong with the latest episode The Immorality Engine. The title is a play on words with an engine being used immoral purposes that could also be used for immortality. And we get some nice development in the relationships between Newbury, Hobbes and Bainbridge.