Geek Stuff

As you can see, I've been doing some minor blog renovations.  I widened the columns and added some new widgets.  To the left is the Goodreads Reading Challenge progress.  I'm reading my 100th book of the year right now, and honestly there's no way I could have done it without reading Pratchett.  To the right is another Goodreads widget that shows my activity on that site.  It allows me to just track my books there and not have to work as hard to keep the current read updated.  I'm still tracking the list of read books below that though.

I've recently finished the latest from Christopher Moore, Secondhand Souls, which was a lot of fun.  It's also cool to read books that take place near where you live, and most of his books take place in San Francisco or down near Big Sur.

Two books recently completed are Peter Clines' 14 and The Fold.  Now, I had tried to read his Ex-Heroes series, but quickly got angry with it being another bunch of zombie books.  These ar3e so much better and more fun.  Of course, they're tied in slightly with the Cthulhu mythos, so if you're not into that, well, that's your fault.  The first is about a surreal apartment complex that was essentially built by the good version of Ivo Shandor from "Ghostbusters".  Then the second is about the... downsides of crossing into parallel worlds and what kind of attention you're likely to attract.  They're a shared universe kind of thing and are a great read.

A few months ago, I had the house to myself, and I needed something strange to watch.  John had told me about the book John Dies at the End by David Wong.  I happened to come across the movie version,l so I thought it might be good to have on while I played SimCity.  Well, SimCity didn't last, because the movie was fascinatingly surreal.  It has two of my favoriate actors for secondary characters Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown.  They're both the kind of actor that if I see they're in the movie, I almost have to watch it.  So, I had to try the book, and it was so much stranger that the movie.  The movie essentially took the beginning and most of end, and merged them.  It was done, I'm sure, to make a faster paced movie.  So now I'm onto This Book is Full of Spiders, and it's already moving fast.  Plus you have to like any book that has an Epiprologue.

And then there's my computer gaming going on,  We've had two rainy Sundays recently, and while Jennifer has been watching TCM, I've been playing Civilization: Beyond Earth.  I have to say, I wasn't a fan of the turn based gameplay at first, but I'd have been slaughtered by now otherwise.  It's a hell of a game.

Finally, there's Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  I had so much fun with this movie.  No spoilers.  And I so want to see it again.  Soon.

My Book Report

So let's see where we are.

I have recently read the latest Kate Daniels book, Magic Breaks, from Ilona Andrews.  In keeping with the theme, may I just say the the manure carts never stop hitting the windmill.  I was happy for the forward which states that while the book may seem like a last book, they are under contract for three more.  It is another wonderful continuation of the series, and I highly recommend it.

Then I tried to read a new series beginning with Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines.  I had scanned a recommendation from iO9, and it soon disappointed.  I had picked it up because it was described as a good story with super powers.  Since i had recently read Steelheart, I thought another in that vein might be good.  Then the zombies appeared.

I have to figure there is a geek somewhere in Japan that doesn't like anime.  On another island in the Land of the Rising Sun is another geek who is tired of Kaiju.  And sometimes I feel I'm the only geek in the US that doesn't like zombies.  I've read one zombie book (Death Troopers), and was kind of "meh..." about it.  I've only watched two full zombie movies, and those was "Sean of the Dead" and "Zombieland", and that's only because they were comedies.  Now it's not like I'm disparaging Doctor Who, but zombies are a big wedge of the geek pie chart.

(Oh wait, I also saw "28 Days Later", and then maybe 20 minutes of "28 Weeks Later".)

In Ex-Heroes (not really spoiling anything, this is revealed pretty quickly), a meteor falls to earth and seems to be the catalyst for some people getting super powers.  Then somehow (I stopped reading before this reveal) that also starts creating zombies.  I think I could have made it through, but then Clines started in on the graphic descriptions of the zombies.

Look, I get it.  There are dead-ish bodies walking around.  They're rotting and missing limbs, appendages, or digits.  And they're the full cross-section of the population.  We all have seen it.

So I moved on.

I read a few of the short stories in George R.R. Martin's Rogues.  The Neil Gaiman story was great as was Patrick Rothfuss'.  But they were each about supporting characters in a great book and a great series.  It just made me want more.

So this morning, I had a little time, so I started going through my library of e-books, for something else.

I moved over the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia, and the Huger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  But then I saw the Kage Baker folder.

I remember reading the Company series, having started it early on, and reading each book as it came out.  I quickly wondered how it would be to read it straight through.  And so that's what I'm doing now.