In addition to watching a metric butt-load of movies in the past few weeks, I’ve also done a fair amount of reading. So here’s what I’ve been looking at, interestingly these are all first novels:
The Traveler – The Traveler has a somewhat cool/unique premise, escaping the omnipresent surveillance of the modern age with secret societies and whatnot. However, I didn’t think it was all that well written; I didn’t really feel any connection with the female lead character, and the author felt the need to repeat the phrase “Vast Machine” about 7 million times (in fact there was a lot of small repetitions). Essentially, there are a secret society of mystical types (travelers) that shake up society and are therefore in opposition to the bad controller dudes (the Tabula) the Travelers are then protected by bad ass warriors (Harlequins). Of course, in recent times the Tabula have been winning and there are there are only like two Travelers left, last chance for freedom…blah blah. I dunno, it wasn’t bad for a beach-book type deal but there’s better stuff out there. It’s also the first part of a series, so it’s kind of frustrating to read a not particularly great book and still not get to find out what happens at the end.
Three Bags Full – With this and Black Sheep, there has been about a 20 billion percent increase in sheep-related material reviewed recently. Three Bags is a murder mystery, where the murder is investigated by sheep. Of course, this is basically right up my alley, sense of humor-wise, so I’m all about it. The sheep are sufficiently sheepy (as in not overly anthropomorphic) and pretty endearing, especially my personal favorite Mopple who was the shit. Unique premise + simple story + cuteness = pretty entertaining book. Plus there were cute little drawings of sheep in the corner of every page, which was I felt really added to the quality of the literature thereon. Definitely an author to watch.
Heart-shaped Box – Surprisingly, this book isn’t about one of my favorite songs of all time, but rather tells the story of a vengeful ghost pursuing an aging death metal rocker. While I felt that the book had some problems, the middle seemed a little rushed as if the author wanted to skip ahead to the climax and was just creating filler and the characters seem to accept all the paranormal stuff quite quickly, it was a pretty good read overall. The evil ghost is pretty damn creepy, with scratched out eyes and the ability to hypnotize his victims, and the twist at the end was rather effective. Virtually every character in the book is somehow wounded, either from abuse or just general fucked-upedness and I liked that the author, Hill, didn’t pull any punches, there was a lot of casual brutality over the course of the story. Apparently, the author has made quite a name for himself as a short horror fiction writer and I’m interested in checking out his other work.
I’ve also been re-reading some stuff and reading some older books. Here are my recomendations:
The Name of The Rose - By Umberto Eco. This is like the 3rd re-read. It’s one of my all time favorites.
Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman - Some pretty cool anecdotes from a brilliant dude.
Night Watch – By Pratchett. Almost everything he writes is good, this is no exception.
The Game - Neil Strauss. Reading this book is dangerous for me, as I now feel the need to go pick up babes.
Quick movie note: The Year of the Dog - Part of that indefinable quasi-funny indie movie genre that are a dime a dozen every year. Molly Shannon plays a dog-obsessed woman whose dog dies, and she basically goes nuts. Oh, and she can’t find love. All in all, meh. The best parts of the movie are John C. Reilly and Peter Sarsgaard and they’re in far, far too few scenes.
As I write this, the Saints just punted on 4th and inches in the 4th quarter, down by 17 (against the Colts, you know the best offense in the NFL). I’m predicting that they lose this game…what an idiotic move…and the Colts just scored to go up 24.
Further football predictions (based on football outsiders template). I guarantee all these picks will be wrong:
AFC: Pats, Cinci, Indy, Denver. WC: Chargers, Steelers
NFC: Eagles, Packers, Rams (god, this division sucks), the Saints (although they look like shit right now). WC: Bears, Redskins
Superbowl Champs: Eagles (note: this is wishful thinking)
Overrated: the Giants (by FO), the Saints (by the media)
Underrated: Indy (by FO) the Packers, Philly (by the media)
Sleeper picks: Tampa, Cleveland (hey why not? I vaguely like the Browns)
BCS: Oklahoma (again, why not? picking LSU or USC is boring and this way I could potentially look brilliant)
That was actually tougher than I thought.
Anyway, I’m going to see 3:10 to Yuma and Shoot-Em Up tomorrow, plus, I’m going to New York on Saturday So I should have bunch to write about soon, maybe a photo-blog type thing for my trip.
