The Tentacled Monkey

Life On Mars Season 2 was Fantastic!

MurfMan — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:30:17 +0000

Life On Mars Season Two was absolutely fucking amazing! It is not very often that I come across a series that brings such an emotional response from me, the list is short at least. This show was amazing overall, and the ending of season two was nothing short of brilliant. The most amazing thing is [...]

Life On Mars (UK) Season 1 Rocks

MurfMan — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:37:11 +0000

So a few weeks ago I learned that the crappy ABC cop show Life on Mars was actually a remake of a very good British Original. And being the anglophile that I am, I had to see it. Boy am I glad I did! In fact, the creepiest thing I have seen in years is [...]

Last Bus to Woodstock Finished

MurfMan — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 05:50:25 +0000

Sometimes it is better to read a series out of order. That isn't something I am wanton to do and in fact, I generally frown on the practice. But had I not read the worthwhile Death is Now My Neighbor before Last Bus to Woodstock, I might have never resolved to read more. Twenty-one years [...]

The State of the Art and Boneshaker Finished

MurfMan — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 19:44:30 +0000

I forgot to mention that I finally finished reading The State of the Art about a week ago. This is Iain M. Bank’s fourth book in the Culture series and is a collection of short stories that go further into explaining what it means to be Culture. The real meat of this story is a [...]

My First Inspector Morse Novel Finished

MurfMan — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 20:48:41 +0000

Over the Father’s Day weekend I was able to devour my first Inspector Morse novel by Colin Dexter. Death is Now My Neighbor is actually the 12th book of the series and would not have been my first choice when entering this esteemed British mystery series, but alas it was the only copy that was [...]

Soulless was an Absolute Joy

MurfMan — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:38:40 +0000

What can I say about Miss Alexia Tarabotti, the main character in Gail Carriger’s first novel Soulless? I’m really at a loss for words to be honest. This is one of the best characters I have come across this year. This book is best described as a Victorian-Urban Fantasy-Supernatural Romance with a dose of steampunk [...]

Windup Girl Wound me up

MurfMan — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:24:24 +0000

This past weekend I finished Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl from NightShade Books. I’ve waited a bit to write this because I wanted to let the story settle some and I didn’t want to write on that initial lump in my throat that might have made this a much more angry posting. So to the [...]

Watched The Book of (yawn) Eli

MurfMan — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:29:59 +0000

So I finally got around to seeing The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington this past week. It has some really good fight scenes in it. Seriously. They are awesome. They remind me of Resident Evil Extinction, but they were there. The story is somewhat good to start. Basically Eli, Denzel, gets a message from [...]

Rogue Trader Finished

MurfMan — Wed, 19 May 2010 16:42:04 +0000

I finished Rogue Trader by Andy Hoare on Monday. This was a nice filler book for the Warhammer 40k universe. I typically am not a big fan of the Space Marine books and think that other aspects of the setting prove far more interesting, blame the Eisenhorn Trilogy by Dan Abnett for that one. So [...]

Gaming with Skype

MurfMan — Tue, 11 May 2010 18:05:46 +0000

I am, at heart, a tabletop RPG’er. After some devastating personal calamities (Hurricane Ike) We decided to move further inland to escape potential hurricanes and flooding. In the process I left behind the majority of my friends and every tabletop gamer I knew. Instead for almost two years I have not gamed, I have dreamt [...]