Vox Populi

Year Four

2011-11-19T00:00:00.027-07:00

Well folks, it's been one hell of a year! Honestly I cannot believe that this is my fourth year doing this, granted I'm not too terribly active these days, but still! I certainly read a lot this past year, for many reasons, but in the end it was a great year of reading. Lots of fantasy on this list (about 36% to be precise), but the other big hitter was non-fiction (27%) and damn were those interesting. There's a big chunk in there about chess, all of which I highly recommend for those interested in chess, but my favorite was definitely Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond; if you're interested in history, anthropology, psychology, evolution, biology, or sociology pick it up!

As always, hit me up if you're curious about any of the titles and I'll write a little review!

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Acacia by David Anthony Durham
The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham
You Do Not Talk About Fight Club Edited by Read Mercer Schuchardt
The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend by Joshua Blu Buhs
What the Night Knows by Dean Koontz
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Misery by Stephen King
Endgame by Frank Brady
Searching for Bobby Fischer by Fred Waitzkin
The Chess Artist by J. C. Hallman
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Wise Mans Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
The Line of Polity by Neal Asher
The Brass Man by Neal Asher
Wraeththu by Storm Constantine
Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
Seeing by Jose Saramago
A Kingdom Besieged by Raymond E. Feist
Bonk by Mary Roach
The Unremembered by Peter Orullian
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
Perfect Shadow by Brent Weeks
Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen
Skunk Works by Ben R. Rich & Leo Janos
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
Assassins Apprentice by Robin Hobb
Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb
Assassins Quest by Robin Hobb
Terminal World by Alastair Reynolds
Without Conscious by Robert Hare
The Steal by Rachel Shteir
The Magician King by Lev Grossman
Blowing My Cover by Lindsay Moran
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan
The Edge of Ruin by Melinda Snodgrass
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Stalking Darkness by Lynn Flewelling
Traitor's Moon by Lynn Flewelling
Cold Vengeance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
White King and Red Queen by Daniel Johnson

Total (Nov. 19th, 2010 - Nov. 19th, 2011): 53

Grand Total (Nov. 19th, 2007 - Nov. 19th, 2011): 198

Alastair Reynolds

2011-09-09T16:05:00.003-06:00

The man himself!

Alastair Reynolds: Author, Scientist, and one of the best science fiction authors writing today. Perhaps it is a bit premature to call him our generations' Clarke, Heinlein, or Asimov, but I have no doubt that 20 or 30 years down the line, that those are going to be the comparisons being made. Reynolds was born in Wales and earned his Ph.D. in Astronomy from St. Andrews, Scotland. From there he worked for the European Space Agency (Europe's NASA) for 12 years before he decided to pursue writing full time. When you read Reynolds it's certainly easy to think the science and technology of these distant futures is far-fetched or even impossible, but given his background and the amount of research he does for all of his books all of it is based on fact and is more than plausible.

What type of science fiction does he write you ask? Well, that's a rather difficult question to answer, for several reasons. First and foremost, I believe he is writing in a genre all his own, sure his style is firmly rooted in hard sci-fi, but it's more than that. He has amazing characterization and storytelling, two things that many hard sci-fi authors tend to lack. His books feature grand scope comparable to some of the best space opera out there. Cyberpunk? Absolutely! Steampunk? Damn straight! Both at once? You better believe it! If it sounds hard to believe and near impossible to pull off, you would be right..... except Reynolds does flawlessly. Perhaps now you're realizing the difficulty in using an almost arbitrary system to classify such an eclectic author.

Collection of Reynolds books only missing Terminal World

I discovered Reynolds back in 2007 shortly after I started working at Borders--may it rest in peace. His first book is called Revelation Space and is also the first book in the "Revelation Space Series" which spans thousands of years and includes a main trilogy, following Revelation Space, as well as several full length novels and many short stories. To say that I enjoyed them is an understatement, I read all three novels in the Revelation Space Trilogy, plus one of the full length novels set in the Universe. As I said before (and probably in several other blogs) Reynolds has the amazing ability to pull you into these far flung futures and make it so you cannot stop until suddenly its over. You not only fall in love with the characters, but your heart aches to live in these worlds to experience the next stage of humanity. The Revelation Space Universe is so rich and complex that it is barely a leap of the imagination to believe these places actually exist and even less of a leap to see the plausibility of their future existence. Reynolds is masterful in throwing hundreds of strands in different directions and then, amazingly, being able to tie them all up in a neat package that blows you away in the end. Interestingly, he also knows just which to leave dangling to leave you practically raving to know what happens next. This, I believe, is one of his best strengths as an author. Some authors believe that they need to tell you exactly what happens, how it happens, and what the future will hold for the characters, whereas Reynolds leaves his characters and his stories in a conclusion, yes, but also with a wide open door for what will happen next. This can be amazingly frustrating, naturally, but at the same time I find it almost more satisfying to not know play by play what the "final" end of the characters is. Don't get me wrong and think that he doesn't conclude his stories, because he does, but instead of "and Jack and Jill lived happily ever after to the end of their days" you find that after the story has ended, the rest of this characters life is ahead of them, with the possibility of adventure, tragedy, or even the mundane. The great part is that you don't know. Occasionally a thread from one story is picked up and toyed with in another, sometimes to an ultimate conclusion for that story, other times just to tease and to let the reader know things were happening in the interlude. Call it fan service, but I find it very satisfying to hear a tidbit about "character x" in a completely different story and time.

The Revelation Space Universe

Above are the covers of all seven books and short story collections that are within the Revelation Space Universe. Now, if you google "Revelation Space Reading Order" you'll find tons of different ways to read them, but honestly I would say the best way is to read them by publish date with the exception being Chasm City, which deals with some characters from the main trilogy, but does not make as much sense without having finished the trilogy. Think of it like C.S. Lewis's "Chronicles of Narnia". Sure Book 1 is The Magicians Nephew, but it doesn't make a damn bit of sense unless you've read the other 6! It's not quiet as bad as that, but I enjoyed it more after I had read the main trilogy. I personally recommend this reading order, but there is an actual chronological order that things can be read in, if you're into a stickler about that sorta thing:

Revelation Space (2000)
Redemption Ark (2002)
Absolution Gap (2003)
Chasm City (2001)
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003)
Galactic North (2006)
The Prefect (2007)

I do have to say that a lot of the short stories and novellas are harder to appreciate without having read the main trilogy, which is green above.

Other than the Revelation Space novels, Reynolds also has four non-related novels that are amazing. These I also read by publish date, cause that's just how I roll.

Century Rain (2004)
Pushing Ice (2005)
House of Suns (2008)
Terminal World (2010)

Century Rain has a really neat noir theme, but of course is set in the future.. and the past.. and I gotta say is one of the most unique stories I've ever read. Pushing Ice is some classic hard sci-fi with a great action/adventure twist, and a pinch of space opera that leaves you breathless upon finishing it. House of Suns is probably my favorite of the four and ends in such a way that I am still longing to know what else can/will happen. Again, it is another genre breaker that defies classification. Finally Terminal World, is that crazy mix of steampunk and cyberpunk, not to mention hard sci-fi, space opera, planetary romance, and excellent action and adventure. Hmm well it seems that all four are pretty much unique in terms of classification and I am doing a terrible job of actually making you wanna read them.

If you don't want to jump into the 7 novel universe, I highly recommend picking up one of the four stand-alone's, all of them have the power to blow you away and in all likely hood will interest you enough to picking up his other stuff!

A Bit About Science Fiction Sub-Genres

2011-06-07T15:32:00.003-06:00

This started out as an email and as I was writing it I saw the blog potential. I haven't changed too much from the actual email, but I have added this and that as well as got rid of the email tone. The science fiction by its very nature is a dynamic and ever changing genre, one of the major strengths that comes from this is the unique sub-genres that emerge within the overall science fiction category. There are many, many, many candidates for a list like this, both from the past and the newly emerging works, and this list is by no means complete, but it's a good overview of a few of the more prominent representatives.

Cyberpunk - The cyberpunk genre came about back in the eighties with an amazing book called Neuromancer by William Gibson and flourished until the early nineties before falling out of grace and becoming a more obscure calling. Essentially, Cyberpunk is a response to all of the glamorous science fiction being written at the time, but more importantly a foreshadowing of events to come. Gibson was well versed in the classics, Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein but he felt that the future would be darker and instead of the human heroes of old, the hacker would be our savior. Thus he created a world ruled by corporations instead of governments and in place of the hero there is the anti-hero, main characters that you almost hated, but loved at the same time. Cyberpunk, by definition, is gritty and very tech or as wiki puts it "High tech, low life". It is certainly one of my favorite genres, especially because of the author's foresight of how the world would end up. The heavy hitters of this little genre are as follows:

- Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)

- Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling (1985) - this one is a bit hard to track down, but it is one of the best there is.

- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (1992)

- Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (2002) -considered post-cyberpunk, Morgan showed amazing creativity and was a breath of fresh air in a genre that almost died with the popularity of computers.

There are a quite a few more, but those four show the diversity of cyberpunk and the brilliance of a (now) defining sub-genre of science fiction.

Hard Sci-Fi – I've discussed hard sci-fi before, but it is definitely one of the major sub-genres out there and at this point one my favorites. A long time ago Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke were on the forefront of this sub-genre even if they didn't know it. Now, though, I'm hard pressed to consider Asimov hard only because the science he was basing his novels on has been disproven or debunked, but at the time he was indeed a scientist writing fiction. Clarke, I think, fits more into the character driven styles than the hard sci-fi now, and Heinlein, well he's just all together difficult to place no matter what. In any case, some good ones today are:

- Alastair Reynolds ~ The one time astrophysicist for the European Space Agency, he retired in 2004 with the success of his first novel Revelation Space and is now pursuing writing full time. He was one of the first contemporary hard sci-fi-ists, and is by far my favorite of the group. His brilliance, though, comes not just from the hard science behind his writing, but also the character driven elements and indeed he straddles the line between Space Opera and Hard Science Fiction in a way that I've never seen before. This is amazing to me because, generally speaking, space opera tends to be on the softer side of the spectrum with its romantic and action/adventure elements. He mainly writes in the Revelation Space universe, but he also has a couple one shot novels which are fantastic.

- Kim Stanley Robinson ~ author of the Mars trilogy and probably the closest to the mark on what will eventually happen with Mars and the expansion of the human race. Robinson tackles everything from ecology to terraforming as well as some of the things many hard scientists ignore such as economy and interpersonal/international relations. I read the first book, Red Mars, while taking a 300 level Earth and Planetary Science course at UNM and was amazed at just how much I learned from reading the book, and indeed I learned a lot of things that the class completely disregarded. He has a couple other books based on the future of earth and the environment that I have yet to pick up, but I highly recommend the Mars trilogy.

Steampunk - I haven't explored the steampunk scene very much, but it is now one of the more popular sub-genres out there. While cyberpunk is high tech and low life, steampunk is almost the exact opposite flaunting low tech and high life. The main influences of steampunk, indeed the first to write in the then non-existent genre, were H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Authors today dive back to the Victorian age of steam power and make it so the tech never evolved from steam, only got more intricate. Personally, I like cyberpunk more, but steampunk is certainly entertaining at times. Like cyberpunk, steampunk is especially suited for other mediums, in particular film and art, but it thrives best as literature. Like I said, I haven't read much, but I have found that shorter stories are better suited for steampunk, though, there are many who would disagree with me. In any case, I'm gonna list a couple of fantastic anthologies below as well as some full novels.

- The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

- Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock (book 1 in a great little trilogy)

- Steampunk edited by Ann VanderMeer

- Steampunk Prime edited by Mike Ashley

Also, just google "steampunk" and check out the images, there are some amazingly intricate works of everything from jewelery to computers; steampunk has an intense following nowadays.

Others - While there are quite a few more sub-genres out there, I feel like the majority of them are merely slight spins off the normal science fiction genre, space westerns are ever prevalent in film and literature, but I find that it is just a more focused vision of a space opera. Others such as alternate history and military sci-fi while fairly large in scope hold little interest to me. Instead I think now is as good a time as any to jump into the future of science fiction by exploring some of the stuff that has yet to be labeled and is starting all sorts of ruckus in the field.

- The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi; Ribofunk by Paul Di Filippo; and the Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia E. Butler ~ These three are all follow in the footsteps of cyberpunk and are what is now being called biopunk. Instead of the cyber elements being the focus and because of the recent advancements in biotechnology, a new sub-genre is set to spring forth focusing on genetic modifications, biohackers, and what happens when we mess with our genes. Alastair Reynolds actually touches on this sort of modification in his universe, and while not the focus, his take is interesting. Bacigalupi, in particular is quite extraordinary in his vision.

- The Unincorporated Man by Dani and Eytan Kollin ~ This one is extremely interesting in that it deals more with the socio/political/economic future than the conventional sci-fi elements. It's quite a bit dystopia (or utopia depending on if you agree or not), and while not the best nor most well written or well structured book, I think the Kollins have started something that will lead down some unique paths. Indeed, I don't know what to "label" it as, but then again it's just one of those novels that years from now will be cited as the pebble that started the wave of "X" sub-genre.

- Wraeththu by Storm Constantine ~ God, I don't even know where to start with this one. I picked it up on a very high recommendation and if you only read one book on this list this may be the one to go with. It is the only book I haven't been able to fully classify as science fiction or fantasy because it is neither and it is both. It has so many different themes packed into it that it was easy to become absolutely entranced by it. The main theme, if I can indeed pin one down, is that of gender and gender roles which, as you know, is something very,very rarely touched upon in the male dominated science fiction genre. If I may be so bold, I would say that while reading this I must have felt as those who read Tolkien or Clark for the first time, it was so different than anything I had ever read, but yet absolutely amazing. Sadly, the first novel in this series (it's now sold in a large omnibus) was published in 1987 and yet 25 years later it is still one of the only books tackling this subject. I believe it may be one of those things that is almost too much to handle for most people and while we have progressed as a nation and a society, many people are still unable to read about the blurring of gender roles into one, but I think it will become huge when it does take off. For now I recommend it to everyone, just for the eye opening experience.

- Infoquake by David Louis Edelman ~ Another brand new idea, this time focusing on the future of business and corporations. Instead of the dark views of cyberpunk and biopunk, Edelman has a very different take on what the future will be and as time goes on I can actually see it. Instead of the corporations of today what emerges are called fiefcorps that only last several months at best before the CEO types switch to another product. Nanobots are the name of the game and using them to enhance/change the human body is the goal. While it almost sounds like biopunk, the focus is not just the changing, but he business behind it. Great character and plot development as well, the Infoquake future, while unlikely in certain regards, may have hit the bulls-eye in many ways, especially economically.

I believe without a doubt that while many of these will be around in the future, the greatest thing about science fiction is that it is ever changing; right when you think you've read all there is to read something new and unbelievable comes up and completely blows you away and reignites your desire to read. Certainly the best novels are those written with no specific format in mind, for those are the books that create the sub-genres everyone tries to fit themselves into.

Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick

2011-04-19T15:00:00.002-06:00

Damn, it's already nearly the end of April and I have yet to update my blog! Well I won't make any excuses and, well, here I am now! So as many of you know my work, which has silly policies in place making it a termination offense to mention their name at all, has filed for Chapter 11. Is this the end of the bookstore? Nah, not by a long shot. This just means that the heads of the company have not been doing their job and now are scrambling to get things back together which I think they may be able to do. In any case, I still have a job and will hopefully have a job for quite a while yet. Enough sillyness! Perhaps I should be writing a blog about the magnificent Patrick Rothfuss or about the mesmerizing stories of the Wraeththu, but to be perfectly honest, those are just too big right now so instead let's talk about the fun debut novel by Douglas Hulick Among Thieves:

Kickass cover isn't it? I've said this before, but that old saying "don't judge a book by its cover" is sometimes just flat out wrong. For example, I would never have picked up Brent Weeks or Alastair Reynolds if it wasn't for their amazing cover art. Although, sometimes there are books that have such atrocious cover that, even if the content is excellent inside, I just cannot bring myself to read it. Alas, that is a blog for another time. Part of the reason I randomly picked Among Thieves was because it looked like good old fashion fun and that is exactly what it was too! Before I go on let me quote Brent Weeks:

"Among Thieves is an unalloyed pleasure: a fast moving, funny, twisting tale in an evocative setting with great characters. The kind of story that reminds you why you love to read. This book may just give you that feeling you had the first time you read Rothfuss or Abercrombie: Oh hell yeah, there's new talent in the game. Read this book. No really, read this book."

I can't fully agree with this description because Patrick Rothfuss is on a whole different level than Hulick, but I will say that he does remind you of why you love to read. You see, it feels like the Fantasy realm has plenty of High Fantasy and Epic Fantasy and such, but where are the anti-hero's? Where are the Han Solos and Mal Reynolds in fantasy? Oh they're there, but they're usually poorly written or straight copies of Han. This was part of the reason I loved Brent Weeks so much, his Night Angel Trilogy showed us the dark side of fantasy, it showed us that not everything is elves prancing through the forest, but there is a rich, unexplored underworld that far too many authors ignore. Weeks focused on assassins, Hulick on just about everything else! We are introduced to Drothe just as he's finishing up torturing a rat and from there we learn he is one of the many Kin, aka the criminal underworld of the Empire. Each of the Kin belongs to a different boss and does different things from the simplest purse cutters to the elite Blade's who are the paid assassins of this particular world. Our man Drothe is what is called a Nose, he sifts through the rumors and separates fact from fiction from the masses on the street, the closest I can get to describe his particular occupation is that of a spy, but it doesn't quite cut it. Hulick introduces everything that's needed for a solid fantasy, a great magic system, distinctly believable characters, some of the most accurate sword and weapon play I've had the pleasure to read, and a world that is almost endless number of stories and ends perfectly, leaving you wanting more, but without the horrifying cliffhangers many authors seem to think is best when writing a series.

Certainly, Among Thieves is not a literary masterpiece the likes of Tolkien or Rothfuss, but at the same time I don't think a book focusing on the underworld should be written in such a way. Honestly, the reason I love science fiction and fantasy is because a book can be written in any style without having to be held to silly standards that were set a hundred years ago. Fantasy has that unique talent for being fun without having to analyze every single word and every single theme, you just read for the pure joy of reading and Hulick does this flawlessly. It does have its faults, as all debut books do, but the pace and action of the story leave you flying through pages well into the night like an addict. On the whole I truly believe that Hulick has written a refreshing addition to the fantasy world and I look forward to future tales.

Year Three

2010-11-19T00:00:00.042-07:00

I seriously cannot believe I've kept this list up for 3 years! Well actually, this blog period! I'm quite proud of myself! If you missed Year One and Year Two check 'em out!

It by Stephen King
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling
Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams
The Furies of Calderon by Jim Butcher
Academ's Fury by Jim Butcher
Cursor's Fury by Jim Butcher
Hidden Empire by Orson Scott Card
Capitan's Fury by Jim Butcher
Princeps Fury by Jim Butcher
Soul Runner by Jon Guenther
Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger
The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson
Spook by Mary Roach
First Lord's Fury by Jim Butcher
Broken Angels by Richard K. Morgan
Woken Furies by Richard K. Morgan
Geosynchron by David Louis Edelman
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz-Zafón
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons
The Stand by Stephen King
Fever Dream by Douglass Preston & Lincoln Child
The Passage by Justin Cronin
Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon
Rides a Dread Legion by Raymond E. Feist
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clark
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
At the Gates of Darkness by Raymond E. Feist
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
Gridlinked by Neal Asher
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks
Martian Outpost by Erik Seedhouse
Shogun by James Clavell
Gideon's Sword by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card
The Mall of Cthulhu by Seamus Cooper
Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner

Total (Nov. 19th, 2009 - Nov. 19th, 2010): 41

Grand Total (Nov. 19th, 2007 - Nov. 19th, 2010): 145

You know this has been an interesting year indeed. I had my little Cyberpunk stint over winter break, and from there it kinda went all over the board. For the first several months I was right on track with what I wanted to be reading, but ya know, shit happens, I got sick, I moved out, I've taken a bigger interest in school, and as such the amount of reading has gone down. Is this necessarily a bad thing? By no means it isn't, I mean I was reading more than a book a week back in year one, that's a lot.. and I mean other things suffered because of it. So, while it is kinda sad that I'm not reading as much, it's allowed me to do other things, and more importantly try and focus on my schoolwork more.

One thing that's been interesting this year is the amount of absolutely amazing books I've read. In my own little word doc on my computer I have a list going like this one, but with a 1-10 rating system employed. Before I go on, though, I don't put my ratings on here because there are so many factors that contribute to my ratings, things that shouldn't matter at all like mood and what I read prior. This I think invalidates some of the ratings, not to mention I've also changed some ratings after reading other books and comparing them. Reviewing and rating is a pretty interesting topic that I may address at some point, but in any cases I had more books rated "9" this year than any of the previous years. I may of just gotten lucky, but damn there were some amazing reads.

Another thing that is rather interesting is the evolution of what I think of thousand-plus page books. Back when I read Hubbard (my first thousand-plus page book) I firmly believed that a thousand pages was overkill. Now, after reading several Stephen King books over a thousand, as well as several others, most noticeably Shogun, I think there are authors that really do need that much room and make the most out of that room. Foolish of me to make such a huge judgment based on L. Ron Hubbard, when so many excellent authors have breached the 1k mark successfully!

In any case, this has been an amazing year both in reading and in general and while I don't write as much as I should on here, I plan on updating when I can. Thanks to those of you that do read, and for those of you who click over here from facebook from my whorish self promotion, thanks for the curiosity! If you need a book to read, this list is jam packed with good ones from every genre, and don't forget about my recommendation blogs: First and Second.

Ry Recommends II

2010-08-17T14:52:00.007-06:00

This blog as been on my mind for a while now, but until recently I haven't had the motivation to actually do it. I've kept a list of book's I wanted to put in here, but that's as far as I got. In my first recommendation blog, I listed them all alphabetically, which was a good tactic, but after giving it some thought I think it would be best to do it by genre and then alphabetically within each little group. This mainly spawns from the fact that there are a couple specific sub-genres I want to talk about. Without further ado:

Fantasy:

The Magicians by Lev Grossman ~ I already posted a review of this one some time ago, but I feel it is my duty to mention again just based on the level of badassness involved with this novel. Check out the review for more info, but this is one everyone needs to read.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss ~ I have been putting off doing any sort of review for this book for some time because I've had the hope that he'd actually put out the rest of the trilogy. Alas, since it's been nearly two years since this book came out, I think I'll do something small now. I will write a full review when I re-read it, but for now what I can say is that this is by far one of the best fantasy novels to come out in years. In fact, I cannot believe the pure luck that was involved when I picked up this book. It was the end of March, I had a Hastings gift certificate for $25 burning a hole in my pocket (this was pre-borders, I don't think I've bought a book from Hastings in ages), so I was wondering around, just kind of looking. I noticed the cover of this book first off, to hell with the old saying "don't judge a book by its cover", because had it not caught my eye I wouldn't have picked it up til much later. In any case, The Name of the Wind was on a display of featured, new hardbacks, the thing that caught me was the fact that it was the only fantasy book to have made it on this little display, which is rare in and of itself. So I picked it up and proceeded to read the cover slip. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, but I was intrigued and after having spent a good thirty minutes in there, I made the hasty decision to give it a shot. After all, it wasn't really my money anyway. Like I said, I am so freaking lucky I did because when I got home I entered a world of magic and intrigue the likes of which I have seen but rarely. Tolkien, Feist, and maybe one or two others write to this caliber, but Rothfuss is brand new! This was his first ever book and it was fantastic! I can't give too many details only because I read it quite a while back and they're becoming vague, but what I can say is that Kvothe (pronounced like quothe 'sept with the K) is one of the most fascinating characters I have encountered. Essentially, Kvothe has gone into hiding from his glorious past, but at the start of the book he is found by a man who reveals that he knows Kvothe and wishes to hear his story and from there begins the miraculous story of Kvothe's life. It has everything, romance, heartbreak, action, mystery, and every other emotion that can be described and on top of it all, it is one of the most well written books I've seen! Oh and the author is a complete badass! First go pick up The Name of the Wind, then read it from start to finish (it's that hard to put down), and then go to Patrick's Blog to get the latest news and updates concerning book two. I am absolutely serious, if you like fantasy at all, hell even if you don't, go read this book. Update: The release date has finally been announced and set in stone, March 1^st, 2011!

Fiction:

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
by Carson McCullers ~ Ah, I still remember walking through Borders with Kimberley just kind of looking around. I don't dislike Fiction/Literature per say, but it isn't something I read very much on my own. Indeed, the majority of the Fiction/Lit books I've read have been for school or recommended to me by friends. The same is true for McCullers book, as we were wandering, me with my big pile of sci-fi/fantasy, she remembers one of her friends really enjoying the book. I pick it up, scoff a little, but in the end I give in. Boy am I glad I did too! The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is one of those rare masterpieces that absolutely touch the heart and soul. The even more amazing thing about this novel is the fact that it was McCullers debut work and not only hit the best seller chart in 1940, but was named one of Time's greatest books 1923-2005. The story follows a deaf man named John Singer and the four seemingly average people he befriends. At first it seems like a story about Singer himself, and a good portion of the novel does follow him in particular, but you quickly get the sense that these average people each have their own demons and events that shape their lives. The characters each have so much depth and appeal that I am doing them a grave injustice in my descriptions, but trust me, they're each unique and utterly familiar: Mick Kelly the young, tom boyish girl; Biff Brannon the owner of Singers favorite restaurant; Doctor Benedict Copeland the idealistic, small town black doctor; and Jake Blount the alcoholic who can't seem to keep himself out of trouble. The story in and of itself is a so simple that there is now real way for me to give much detail without ruining it, but it is a masterful work of character study and hit's even the most cynical deep in the heart. Whether you read sci-fi/fantasy, mystery, or even non-fiction, I think The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a must read.
Dismantled by Jennifer McMahon ~ This book was one I didn't have much faith in at first, but not 20 pages in and I was hooked I have always noticed McMahon on the shelf because she has a habit of putting really, really creepy little girls on her covers, indeed I had picked up several of her books just out of curiosity. It wasn't until I read the back of Dismantled though that I decided to take the plunge. It seemed like a pretty interesting story, well written, and something both Kimberley and I would enjoy, little did I know that it was spectacular. Dismantled was haunting in a way that I've never experienced before. Even after thinking about the book for a few weeks, I still cannot put my finger on it adequately. It wasn't horror, no, far from it, but at the same time it was.. well, haunting is the perfect word for it. Unfortunately, due to the fairly mysterious nature of the book I can't say much, but I can say that Dismantled will take you on a roller coaster ride of emotion, chills, and finally you'll be blindsided by an ending that explains all, but leaves you wondering too.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón ~ Oh dear I can't stress this one enough, obviously, by far one of the best novels I have had the good graces to read. Definitely a top ten!

Horror:

It by Stephen King ~ This is probably the first and last time you'll hear me say this, but I was wrong back in August when I wrote about L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth. I quote:

"First and foremost I believe that you have to be very pompous and pretentious in order to write a book that is over a thousand pages. There is just too much story for one book. Period. No matter how good you are at writing, no matter how good you think you may be at storytelling, you cannot write a satisfactory story that is over a thousand pages. You just can't. There is just too much story and by not splitting it up into a sequel or trilogy, you lose valuable plot and world building options."

Stephen Kings It comes out to be a beastly 1104 pages long and I have to submit that it was damn good! Perhaps Hubbard really was really just a wretched storyteller or maybe it was the type of story, but in any case I had a blast reading It the whole way through. Not only was the story good, but it was horribly creepy! Scary may not be the right word, but damn did I have a hell of a time trying to read it in the wee hours of the night. I started the books with the movie adaptation floating around my head—if you're a horror junky the theatrical version of It is probably one of the best horror movies ever made (amazing I know)—and while the movie was indeed great, this book was amazing. The character development, the progression of the plot, and even the rather large time gap proved to me, once again, just how much of a master King is. Perhaps in a full-fledged post I can go into the amount of detail that this book really needs, but really if you're in the mood for something scary and have lots of time on your hands Stephen King's It is quite possibly one of the best horror novels I've yet to read.
The Stand by Stephen King ~ Now that I've read several books over a thousand pages in length I know for a fact that L. Ron Hubbard is just a terrible author. Sure his story was okay, but like I said in the full post, it could have been done in 300-500 pages at most. In any case, Stephen King has blown my mind again! As I read more of him, well his early stuff anyway, I've come to realize just how lucky we are to have such a prolific author writing in our generation. Not only does King address social issues in a way that's actually interesting to read about, but he wraps it all up into some of the creepiest stories ever. The Stand is only different in that regard, it is creepy, but for completely different reasons, this is more Nineteen Eighty Four creepy in the sense it could actually happen. Ringing in at 1168 pages, The Stand is the classic post-apocalyptic book, while the sub-genre has been around since the '40's, King is a must read! I suppose it would be more accurate to call this one a horror-fantasy, but at the same time the major theme of the book is the character study rather than the looming good versus evil battle. The characters are written in such a way that you cannot help but find yourself in all of them, the good and, horrifyingly, the evil. The only true downside I can see with The Stand is that it is somewhat dated, so some of the pop culture references were lost on me, but seeing as the story is about the end of the world as we know it, those pop references become vaguer and vaguer, and eventually lose all meaning as society tries to re-create itself. If you have even an inkling of interest in the post-apocalyptic sub-genre this is definitely a must read, especially since many of the later books in the field reference King heavily.

Mystery / Thriller

Soul Runner by Jon Guenther ~ Kimberley introduced me to this author who just so happens to be one of her coworkers and although there are some major flaws, they have nothing to do with his writing as a whole. In fact, one of the reasons I've decided to add this book to the list is because, while I'm definitely not religious, I was able to look past that and see a rather intriguing story. The story follows Dr. Abram "Bram" Aronsfeld an ex-Hasidic Jew who also happens to be what is called a "Soul Runner". Around the world there are still places that reject Christianity and the job of a "Soul Runner" is to travel to these hostile countries and literally save Christians being persecuted there. The story has some great action scenes and honestly the idea is one that is somewhat new to me. I've always looked at Christianity as the persecutor not the persecutee and it was really fascinating to see the roles reversed. A fair warning though, every page, at least, has some sort of quote from the bible or Bram praising the lord, plus it seems that every other character Bram meets he converts into Christianity and "saves their soul". Hence the reason I had some major trouble with this book. Religious themes aside, the idea behind Soul Runner is a unique and fascinating one full of adventure and thrills. Think of it as a kinda religious spy novel. Worth picking up if you can ignore (or if you're into) the religion part.
Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglass Preston ~ This is another one I have already written about, but one that I feel needs mentioning again!

Non-Fiction:
The Paranormal -
Over the last year I've read several paranormal books analyzed in the realm of science and journalism. I love myth and the whole metaphysical stuff, but the books I'm going to mention below will meet the approval of even the most skeptical. Plus, they were a good old fashion fun.

The Men Who Stare at Goats by Jon Ronson ~ Okay, well this one may not hold up to all the skeptics out there, but Jon Ronson did an excellent job with his investigations. The major problem with The Men Who Stare at Goats is the fact that it is damn hard to get any sort of useful information out of government and military personnel. Sure, many of the people Ronson interviewed were more than willing to talk, but they were all so... vague that many people probably have a hard time not dismissing such claims as mere conspiracy theories. It's true, many of the points Ronson was suggesting are... strange... but I can't quite dismiss it. Years and years ago I read a biography called Psychic Warrior written by David Morehouse detailed many of the same ideas presented by Ronson. It is really hard to say which side if the fence I fall on here because while I cannot dismiss the number of people who back up these claims, it's just hard for me to imagine a five star general trying, over and over, to walk through his office wall (only to smack his face in it time and time again). But at the same time if indeed such amazing feats were possible why wouldn't the military and government try and research it? It puts a whole new spin on war, if you have soldiers that can walk through any and all defensive structures and then proceed to drop you with just a look, who would mess with that army? Not to mention just the very application of remote viewing--meaning purposefully going out of body to real world, real time locations--in the spying world is tremendous. Whether or not they succeeded? Well that's up for debate. Even if they had, knowing our government, they wouldn't bother telling us no matter the civilian applications. All in all, though, Ronson does a damn good job breaking down a major claim, into more manageable and, at the same time, believable chunks. This one is definitely worth a read, but it should definitely be taken with a grain of salt and an open mind. Plus, of all the conspiracy type books out there, Ronson has an amazing sense of humor which makes The Men Who Stare at Goats amazingly readable.
The Science of Vampires by Katherine M. Ramsland ~ Oh my long lasting love of vampires has finally panned out to more than just the fiction/horror shelves. I, first and foremost, have to applaud Katherine Ramsland's sheer force of will, vampire myths and tales have been around since the Egyptians, and just plodding through all that information takes more sanity than I even have. Anyone who may question the actual science of this book need only to look at Ramslands credentials: a masters degree in Forensic Psychology, another masters degree in Clinical Psychology, and on top of that a PhD in Philosophy—yes, yes, it's not science, but what PhD biologist would lower their pompous selves down to study vampires or the supernatural?--plus she's worked with FBI profilers to boot. So armed with her already vast academic knowledge and an almost obsessive eye for research, Ramsland takes apart each of the main myths associated with vampires. For example, she theorizes just how an actual entity might be able to consume pure blood with no ill effects, explores conditions which might explain why vampires cannot come out during the day, as well as takes a stab at what profiling a vampire's personality, and, of course, explores the question of whether or not vampires use their reproductive organs--Sorry Cullen fans their junk is for show only--as well as vampire sexuality in general. On top of all this research she interviews forensic experts as well as people who associate with the so called vampire sub-culture. This may not be of interest to any of the new vampire fans (those that only like vampires because of Stephanie Meyer) both because it came out in 2002 as well as she stays with the more traditional vampiric roles. In fact I believe she would agree in saying that vampires do not glitter, sparkle, or go to high school over and over again. What she does do is introduce and attempt to explain the myths behind vampires in a logical, scientific manner, which in the realm of vampires is a breath of fresh air. Anyone who is interested in many of the traditional myths behind vampires and would like to explore a more scientific route than that of speculative metaphysics should check out Katherine Ramslands The Science of Vampires. For those that are interested in less "out there" concepts Ramsland also has a host of books in the True Crime CSI realm as well which I'll vouch for.
Spook by Mary Roach ~ Mary Roach, you will never cease to amaze me in your brilliance, you hooked me in with your wry humor and solid facts in Stiff, and now you appeal to my paranormal side with Spook, not to mention I have Bonk just waiting on my shelf. In Spook Mary Roach approaches the idea of the afterlife, not from the religious or theoretical point of view, but from the scientific "I need hard facts damn it" view. Roach approaches the vast field of the afterlife in several ways: Historically she looks at the major fascination with séances back in the early 1900s, culturally she dives into the different theories behind the afterlife including the Indian reincarnation (this is an excellent part of the book because she actually travels to India to follow a doctor studying reincarnated kids), she jumps across the pond and attends a psychic school in order to learn how to communicate with the dead, and then even goes on to explore medical doctors attempting to get evidence for near death experiences. She does all of this with a hilarious sense of humor and a hard headed determination for facts. Whether or not you are interested at all with the paranormal or you're an avid psychic looking for ways to prove yourself, Mary Roach hits the mark with Spook.
Witch in the Waiting Room by Robert Bobrow ~ This one was especially fun to read because I have a crazy goal of becoming a doctor someday, well a psychiatrist, but still. Basically what Dr. Bobrow did was go through hundreds and hundreds of academic journals for paranormal type stuff. We're talking ghosts, reincarnation, near death experiences, the whole lot! I was actually rather surprised with the sheer amount of material he found, especially seeing as this is coming from academic journals known to be very, well, academic and anti-paranormal. The other great thing about The Witch in the Waiting Room is the very fact that Robert Bobrow is an M.D. and has been practicing medicine for over thirty years, so he knows his shit! This is really, really important when it comes to the writing because, as most college students know, academic journals are generally written in a not very user friendly way, especially medical ones. Dr. Bobrow takes these journals and gives a nice summery in layman terms, but with enough professionalism for the reader to know he's experienced in the field. Dr. Bobrows book is excellent for those super skeptics out there because it uses only peer-reviewed journals and has all the citation information listed in the back. Not to mention, as is common knowledge, doctors are generally really well respected when it comes to facts and scientific credibility, so medical journals are some of the harder journals to get published in. You'll honestly be surprised at some of the fascinating material doctors have been writing about for years, and if they believe in this stuff, is it so hard for you to as well? I should stress, though, that this is merely a brief look into the paranormal; if you consider yourself an "expert" in this sort of stuff you may find things here that you already know. Plus, because there are so many different concepts looked at in this book it does not go as in depth as some out there would like, but it is a great introduction to the paranormal based on fact rather than Sylvia Browne / David Icke "fact".

Science Fiction:
Cyberpunk –
I discovered cyberpunk over two years ago when one of my managers introduced me to the book Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson and it didn't take long for me to become hooked. Essentially cyberpunk is described as combining "high tech and low life" (again thank you wiki) and more than likely the only exposure most people have had with it are through the Matrix Trilogy. Sadly, the Matrix can only be considered cyberpunk in the most general of ways, fringe cyberpunk if you will. You get the idea though, hackers have become the rulers of a somewhat post-apocalyptic somewhat dystopian future and the internet, well the internet has become a beastie all its own. Alas, it is horribly hard to describe in terms that make people actually want to check it out, so I'll just move on with the books and let you decide from there.

Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams ~ Of all the cyberpunk books I read over last winter break this was my least favorite, but just the fact that it is on this list means that it was still something special. Williams is, as I found out, a somewhat local author here in Albuquerque, indeed he is in a writing group with Melinda Snodgrass, George R. R. Martin, and S. M. Stirling so he has an amazing group to throw ideas at. The only thing I did not like about Hardwired was the southwest-ness of it, growing up here I have no love for cowboys or adobe or any of the stuff that many from the east find so alluring, but I can still recognize that many do. Hell, much of the American mythology is based upon the Cowboy and the frontier. Setting that aside, Hardwired was cyber-military-punk so a lot of the book focused on the military applications of the cybernetics. In the case of Hardwired, the main character, named Cowboy -.-, is an outlaw smuggling goods across the country which as divided into city states. This is done by piloting panzers, but not the panzers of our grandparents, but catlike vehicles that run across the landscape. The piloting is done by jacking into the panzer itself which gives you the ability to "see" what the panzer sees and "feel" what the panzer feels. There is a tremendously well written story behind this theme, a very anti-corporation/government story! Cyberpunk generally focuses around the personal applications of technology whereas Hardwired strays somewhat and focuses more on outlaw/military application. Definitely worth the read, especially if you've blown threw other cyberpunks and would like to see different applications of such technology.
Neuromancer by William Gibson ~ Wow, just trying to write about this book is daunting. It isn't very long, but holy shit! William Gibson is the inventor of cyberpunk and Neuromancer is the most quintessential cyberpunk novel ever written. Many science fiction books written after, many movies, and much of pop culture has been influenced by William Gibson, he almost singlehandedly invented what we think of as the internet today, and insanely he didn't know a thing about computers! Technically the Neuromancer is a trilogy, but even if you don't read the other two, but Neuromancer is essential to any sort of literary list. If you're just curious about what cyberpunk is, but don't want to have to sort through everything that's out there, or even the other books on this list, pick up Neuromancer because, really, everything that came after is heavily, heavily, influenced by this piece of work. If that doesn't sway you to read it then know this: it won the "triple crown" of sci-fi awards in its day, The Nebula Award, The Phillip K. Dick Award, and The Hugo Award. In other words, the top three science fiction honors a book can ever receive, most are lucky to even get one! The plot is complex and beyond my ability to summarize in the way this book deserves, so instead, just go buy it.
Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling ~ I picked up this book based solely on Alastair Reynolds insane props:
"I owe an equally obvious debt to Bruce Sterling, whose 'Shaper/Mechanist' sequence blew my mind on several levels. Sterling's future history, even though it consists of only a single novel and a handful of stories, still feels utterly plausible to me twenty years after I first encountered it. Part of me wishes Sterling would write more 'Shaper/Mechanist' stories; another part of me admires him precisely for not doing so. Read Schismatrix if you haven't already done so: it will melt your face."
That is exactly what it did too, melt my face. I still remember when I finished it, I honestly sat there for 30 minutes utterly stunned by what I had just read. This isn't typical cyberpunk either, but it was written a year after Nueromancer and was also one of the books that has heavily influenced and defined what cyberpunk has become. Schismatrix Plus is everything ever written about the 'Shaper/Mechanist' Universe. It includes every short story as well as the full length novel Schismatrix, what's more is that it is all arranged in the way the Sterling intended it to be read. It is difficult, abstract, and intense beyond anything I could have imagined, but when you finish, you will utterly agree with Reynolds description.
The Takashi Kovaks Novels by Richard K. Morgan ~ Ah, one of the only modern day authors to still write classic cyberpunk! I discovered Morgans' novels while reading a list of the best cyberpunk novels and anything that is listed alongside Gibson and Stephenson is worth checking out in my book. The 'first' book in the series is Altered Carbon. I put first in quotes because while all three novels are technically related (same main character, same universe, same tech), they have very little relation besides that. Indeed, each of the three novels explores three different types of cyberpunk. Altered Carbon, my favorite of the three, is the classic cyberpunk format, part mystery, part anti-government, part dystopian, but all intense. Broken Angels, the second book written, is of the more militaristic style of Hardwired and yet it also resembles modern day sci-fi, but still fundamentally cyberpunk. And the third, Woken Furies, is a mash up of everything, military, cyberpunk, hard sci-fi, soft sci-fi, and everything in-between! I found this approach amazing because you got to see the technology introduced in Altered Carbon in very diverse circumstances, whereas with books like Neuromancer and Snow Crash, you could see other uses than the novel outlines, but not clearly. The main tech found in this universe is the ability to store your entire personality within a cortical stack which allows you to "re-sleeve" into a new body with all your memories and personality intact. This alone has such intense connotations that I am amazed at just the pure possibilities of such a technology; studies on gender, identity, death, life, love, everything! Morgan explores all of these themes flawlessly in his three books and creates the classic cyberpunk antihero, Takashi Kovaks! You love him, you hate him, you wish you could be him! I feel like Morgan has picked up the mantle from the classics listed above and turned it on its head, exploring themes Gibson could only dream about, creating technology Stephenson would be in awe of, and military action that Williams would be proud of. While cyberpunk may be a niche genre liked by a few hardcore fans, Richard K. Morgan makes it accessible to every science fiction fan and introduces cyberpunk to a generation that may overlook it just based on the fact that cyberpunk was a huge movement in the '80s before slowly dying out in the '90s.

Overall though Cyberpunk is one of my absolute favorite genres, it combines amazing dystopian themes without being dated, it has just enough action to make it realistic without overdoing it, it rings true for the future, in some ways more than many other science fiction does, and creates characters that are realistic in a way that shows us that ideas such as "good" and "bad" are merely within the continuum of humanity.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

2010-04-02T16:24:00.005-06:00

I know readers, I know, I said I was going to be posting my recommendation blog up next plus a couple other projects, but I got distracted. Not by school or anything silly like that, but by a book, but not just any book, one of the best books I have yet to encounter called The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. What's even more surprising about this is the fact that this book isn't a science fiction or a fantasy, heck it isn't even a mystery/thriller, this is a Fiction! Not only that, but it's set in the 1940's! How can this be you ask? Well, even though I have my complaints about the fiction/literature as a whole, when a good--no scratch that--great novel comes out, it is my duty to acknowledge it. Indeed, even great may not do this book justice. No, The Shadow of the Wind is easily one of my top ten favorite books ever.

As usual, I was somewhat skeptical of this book when I heard of it, but after hearing recommendations not only from customers I trust, but from one of my coworkers that is as much of a bookworm as me, I relented and decided to but it. I've had The Shadow of the Wind on my 'to read' shelf since mid-December, but it wasn't until recently that I finally picked it up. Let me tell you, dear reader, that as much as I love my sci-fi/fantasy, this book blew me away! I don't know what it is with Spanish and Portuguese authors*, but they just have this poetic way with words that, not only makes reading their books a delight, but adds so much to the plot that it almost makes it hard to read poorly written American prose! Alas, it is actually rather difficult to even quantify this book as just "fiction" because it's so much more! Mystery, romance, tragedy, and suspense! All of them wrapped up into an amazingly poetic tale! The setting, as I mentioned earlier, is the 1940's Barcelona, Spain which adds a whole other dimension to this already epic novel! While reading The Shadow of the Wind, the reader is also taking a tour of historical Spain just after the Spanish Civil War, a time of bloody fighting and terror! The great thing, though, is that the reader need not be a Spanish historian to understand and enjoy the story--this should be obvious seeing as I am about as far from being considered a Spanish historian as I am from being a Olympic figure skater. Indeed, far from turning the average reader off from the historical significance, I believe that the book will intrigue and fascinate everyone to the point of doing a bit of research! I can honestly say that, though I've always wanted to go to Spain, it hasn't been very high up on my list until now. I would give anything right now to hit the streets of Barcelona with a copy of this book! Speaking of which, at the very end of the novel the author includes a walking tour of Barcelona so you can see all the sites described in the book. Though some are, of course, fabricated, I think it would be so cool to wander the streets and see these places that inspired the book! Indeed this type of thing has only recently become stupendously popular with Dan Brown's novels--you can take countless paid tours of The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons in Italy and rumor has it that there are The Lost Symbol Tours springing up in D.C. as well.

Alas, the very nature of The Shadow of the Wind makes it extremely difficult to talk much of the plot without giving away spoilers, but suffice to say there are things in this book that surprised even me! I hate to be cryptic, but I refuse to give away anything at all about this book! In any case, this is one of those books that absolutely everyone can and will enjoy from bookworms to the occasional reader, it has something for everyone! Actually I wish I was better read in some of the classic literature that is referenced in The Shadow of the Wind and actually it has inspired me to read my least favorite type of writing, poetry. Hell, this book is almost enough to make me want to learn to, at least, read Spanish so that I could fully absorb it the way it was written! Speaking of which, I have to give major props to the translator Lucia Graves whom without which The Shadow of the Wind would have been a lesser novel. She straddles that insane line of being able to both translate accurately and yet still keep the poetic and well written nature of the book intact! So my friends, please, for me, go to your local bookstore or library and pick up this novel, I promise that you will not be disappointed! And no worries, I'm still working on my other posts which should be out this month, hopefully!

*If you haven't read anything by one of these authors here's three excellent books to try out: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Blindness by José Saramago, and, of course, the one I've raved about in this post, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

Darwin Fish and Updates

2010-03-17T18:37:00.005-06:00

About a week and a half ago I saw one too many Jesus Fish around town. Now, generally I don't really give a hoot what you put on your car, but these stupid things have always bothered me, I don't know why. In any case I have also seen a few of the Darwin Fish floating around, one thing I've always found clever is turning someones own symbol against them, so I decided to order one. Unlike bumper stickers, car plaques are way more elegant looking and, hopefully, don't ruin your paint. All in all, it was a pretty simple procedure through a great website called Evolve Fish, and when all said and done it only cost me about 8 bucks with shipping! There's a whole host of other neat stuff on their website, so if you're interested check em out here: http://www.evolvefish.com/

I will not go into any of my religious beliefs or even slander anyone else's for that matter, especially since this is from my phone. That is for another blog all together. Suffice to say, I do not like organized religion--if you wanna believe do it on your own terms, not someone else's--and I really do believe in evolution over that whole creationism stuff. I am also somewhat outspoken about my opinions, so the Darwin Fish fits just fine. Hell, when it has turned belly up I found this sweet Alien head car plaque that I might buy. Take it as you will, but I think it looks pretty snazzy myself!

Now for the real meat of my post: updates. I said I was going to be posting more so never fear! I have several blogs in the works, all of which I hope are somewhat interesting anyway. The big kahuna of them all, though, is my second Ry Recommends post. It’s been a little less than a year and a half since I last did one of these, and damn do I have a lot to talk about! Sadly the blurbs about each book are not very short, but I think it’s turning out well. My other projects include a new series of posts looking into the various genres, sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, and the like which will then lead into a couple in depth looks at some of the sub-genres out there like cyberpunk and dystopian literature. On top of all that I have a few more full posts about some of the books and series I’ve read recently which’ll be fun to write up as well. Seeing as it’s my spring break I hope to get a least a couple blogs out before Monday, but we’ll see.

Until then, to infinity and beyond!

New Blog App

2010-03-04T11:36:00.002-07:00

As everyone knows I am rather sketchy about updates and I believe part of the reason stems from the fact that I tend to be horribly long winded. So, in an attempt to combat that, I have installed something called Blogaway onto my G1.

Essentially, it's a simple blogger application where you can post new blogs, work on drafts--although not drafts you started on the computer unfortunately--,and view other blogs you follow. It also looks like it allows you to post pictures, which I'm going to test out here in a few. So far I have no serious beef with set up or function, people seem to forget that even though their phone has Google's Android OS, it's still a phone. I would like to actually be able to work on posts started on the computer and view my previous posts, but for now that function seems to still be on the drawing board. Also, it looks as though my labels aren't integrated into the functionality, which really sucks. I'll post this and see what it looks like in the actual browser.

Hmm I don't know where the image is gonna show up either.. weird. Anyway, i may post more but my spelling will probably die.. I'll go back and edit stuff from the computer too, but i can see this being a really useful application for when an idea strikes me on the go! Plus, I hope this will teach me to be a little bit more concise since typing, even on a full QWERTY, is kinda hard. Thus begins the era of the microblog!

*edit* So it would appear that I haven't quite figured out how the pictures work. It says "forbidden" when I try, which is rather strange, but you know.. the maiden voyage always has some glitches. I think I'll tag all the posts I make from here with "microblog", not that anyone really reads these, so it's easy to sort for you and me.

More Publishing Complaints

2010-02-11T19:17:00.009-07:00

In my last post, E-Books as a Means to Revolution, I got into a mini rant about the corruption and bs tactics of publishing companies. It turns out that I had more to say than what actually fit with the content of that last post. So here's a few more things that came up.

The biggest thing, and actually the reason this post is coming into existence, is the dirty tricks publishers are now using to get our money. This has affected me directly as I've been reading the Codex Alera (very good by the way) series by Jim Butcher. Everyone knows that, in general, there are three types of printing sizes Mass Market (MM), Quality Paperback (QP), and Hardcover (CL)*. And generally the prices are as follows: MM $7.99, QP $14.99, and CL $24.99. There's some fluctuation depending on the genre as well as amount of pages--like Stephen Kings newest book Under the Dome which is retail $35.00 because it's a monster of a book--but on average that's about the price rundown. These prices are based on two factors: the materials used to print the book, essentially the MM's are cheaper because they're lower quality than that of the QP and CL, the other determinant factor is their size. MM's are 7 inches long by 4.5 inches wide; QP's are 8.3 inches long by 5.5 inches wide; and CL's are 9.3 inches long by 6.5 inches wide. Why have I told you all this random information? Well, my friends, it's because the publishing companies have decided to create another size, call it Mass Market, and charge two dollars more for it. Yes indeed, that's now $9.99 for your favorite books! That may not seem like much, but this new MM is 7.3 inches long and 4.5 inches wide and yet is still made from the same material as normal Mass Markets.

As you can see your two dollars goes to great use! If I'm going to pay more money I want better quality, not a larger size! The other thing that's retarded about this whole situation is the fact that these aren't meant to be in that larger size, so what do they do? They just change the spacing and the margins! A pretty dirty thing to do if you ask me. Most QP's actually have normal size fonts and spacings and so the book actually looks good, in these crappy things it annoys the hell out of you while you're reading because of all the extra room on the sides and between the lines! Lastly, but actually really important, is it completely destroys the look of your bookshelf. Sure maybe I have just a bit of OCD in me when it comes to books, but I like to have all the same editions otherwise it just irks me every time I look at my shelf. Yes that means if I buy a series starting with a hardcover I need to own the rest in hardcover. Even still, I don't know if this is Jim Butchers fault or if it was the publisher company who did this, but book number 5 is in this fucked up format.. why in gods name would you change the format of a SERIES on book FIVE?! At least they should offer up a normal sized MM for people like me, oh wait they can't BECAUSE NO ONE WILL BUY THE BIGGER ONE!

I haven't really written a ranty type blog in a while, it felt good. This one was particularly needed because of my recent reading of the Codex Alera books, but it has also been something that's always bugged me, especially about "popular fiction". It seems as though these publishers are doing this mainly with mystery/suspense books as well as sci-fi fantasy, which is even more sad because those are the ones I read more often! It also sucks because of the fact that generally popular fiction stuff like that are the only ones to go into MM, so if you just buy sci-fi/fantasy or mystery/suspense then you probably have a pretty sexy looking bookshelf, until now. I think perhaps I might send an emial or message to Jim Butcher, obviously a little less angry sounding, and ask if he knows whats up. Sometimes authors are as much of nerds about books as I am, maybe he has the same feeling, or he'll know if it'll ever come out as a true MM.

Anyway, two blogs in one day is pretty good for me, especially after so long without posting. I know I told everyone I was gonna do another Ry Recommends, it is coming, eventually, maybe I'll start throwing together a list of books to use. Ta ta for now.

*CL stands for Cloth which is what hardcover books were generally made from way back in the day. At least at borders they haven't bothered to change it to HC, but I've seen it done.

E-Books as a Means to Revolution

2010-02-11T15:02:00.002-07:00

In the past I've written about the E-Book Revolution as well as some of my thoughts on owning digital vs physical books. I'm still doing a lot of thinking on the subject and I think I may have come up with a pro for the Revolution.

The publishing industry, like most big businesses these days, is corrupt. There's no doubt about it. You have publishers swindling authors by paying them much less than they deserve, only to turn it around and charge way more than they should, then, on top of that, you have book sellers--both the so called "brick and mortar" as well as online retailers--upping the price again for profit. Of course, the publishing industry is not nearly as far gone as the music industry, or even that of the movie industry, but I feel like it's effects are far more devastating, both to the consumer as well as the author.

I am not an author myself, but working in a bookstore as well as reading author's blogs I feel like I have enough information to make a reasonable opinion of the situation. Authors spend months or years in a creative fever trying to write a book. They have to deal with their own criticisms, writers block, plot holes, and a whole host of other mentally challenging obstacles before the next step. Revision. They revise, revise, and revise again; tweaking, changing, adding before they have finally come up with something they're proud of, I've heard it likened to a child even. So they package it up and send it out to the world and wait, and wait, and wait before.. Rejection. As far as I can tell many authors to hit it big first off, but even if they pass that big hurtle, they're still stuck with "We at *insert publishing company here* are very interested in your book. We'll take a chance on you for $xxx.xx and a publishing run of xxxx copies..." and so on. Now sometimes the author will get the price they were expecting, but many times they're shortchanged, cheated, and robbed. I mean after they have spent so much time, money, and emotional well being on their work and yet the publishing company wants to offer you that much? This is where it can get shitty, if indeed they have put out a written a damn good book, they have been paid x amount of money to get it going, and only get x% of the profits as well, but because the author decided to settle for the publishing companies numbers they'll be getting all the profit. Now generally if the author hit it big they'll offer more for next book and so on, but this is where the major snag comes in because if the author does indeed keep writing those best sellers, publishers expect more books out of them. More than likely the author has to sign a contract stating that they'll write x number of books per year for x amount of money and this kills the creativity. Deadlines, stress, and nagging editors harass them at every turn, and generally the first book they wrote was with all their heart, now they just get things out on paper so they can meet the deadlines.

I've seen it happen, great authors like Nora Roberts, James Patterson, Danielle Steele, and Nelson DeMille just to name a few. Their first books were amazing, fantastic, one of a kind; the publishing company they signed up with saw this potential and dragged them into a binding contract. Now look at them, Patterson and Roberts alone put out 5-6 books a year and guess what? They are what I like to call "cookie cutter plots". Change the city, change the character names, and use the twist you had in your fourth book, and make this character fall in love with this one, and generally leave the plot as is. The reason these books continue to be popular is because consumers want to believe that because these authors were great at one time, then they must have it in them to be so again. Another reason is that once a publishing company finds something that "works" they do not want you to move away from it, the author may put in something more original, but instead of taking that chance again they edit it to look just like your last 8 books. Profit, profit, profit.

Naturally those authors I mentioned are successful and probably have a good deal of money, but do they have as much as they deserve? I don't think so honestly. It's all well and good that the publishing world is a business like any other, but I never have felt that businesses should screw over their employees. Books are especially touchy I think because, after all, none of the people who actually work at the publishing company can actually write worth a damn. So it would make sense to me that the author would be treated like a god, but no. Instead big wigs at the company make tons of money off authors' intellectual creativity and merely toss a sliver of that profit back to the author. They then decide pretty much everything about the book that isn't actual writing, they pick the cover artist, they pick what size to publish it in, they pick how many and how long to publish it, and then they merely ask what the author thinks--usually not so much. I believe that authors can escape this rat race with e-books.

As much as it pains me to see paper books are on their way out. Sure it won't be for a while, it might not even completely happen, but working at a bookstore I've noticed how much our sales have declined yet how much amazons e-book sales have jumped. There is a silver lining here, though, and that is for the authors which in turn will lead to the readers as well. Right now we have the Kindle, the Sony E-Reader, and the Nook out on the market with 50+ more already in development. Now is the time when authors can break away from the greed and the corruption of the publishing companies! So far Sony, Amazon, and B&N are arguing over prices of an e-book, they're also arguing with the publishers about those prices. If you haven't heard already, our dear friends over at Amazon want to monopolize e-books and e-book prices so much so that they pulled all of their books from the major publisher Macmillan over such a dispute. Check out the article over here. This whole incident has other publishers getting a little nervous; as well they should, because why exactly does an author even need a publisher for e-books? Amazons trying to market it so that authors sell their books directly to them, this is a baaaad idea though. What authors should realize from this little dispute is that the power is now in their hands again. Instead of going through a publisher or even an online retail like Amazon, Sony, or Borders, authors now have the chance to sell their own books! This may not seem like much right now, but shit, think about it! James Patterson is an international bestseller, if he were to say hey *insert publisher here* go fuck yourselves I'm going to sell my own books, what could they actually do? They'll probably beg and plead for him to stay, but anyone with business sense would realize that he'd make a much bigger profit from selling them on his own. I mean really, he could hire a freelance editor, and then when he finishes his book why even bother with taking only x amount of the profit when he could put it up on his website and make 100% of the profit. It wouldn't be hard, he'd still sell a ton of books because he could price them as low as he wants and still make a hearty profit, and because he is already a huge international author he wouldn't even need the advertising from the publishing companies--which I believe is their only real use these days.

I know the appeal of a solid book, but I can't help but see the possibility of completely changing the publishing world. Unfortunately, because in print books still make up the largest portion of sales for an author, one or two authors wouldn't be able to accomplish this it has to be a group effort, it has to a bunch of the big name authors coming together and sticking it to the man. You get James Patterson, Nora Roberts, Clive Cussler, Dan Brown, Orson Scott Card, Stephanie Meyer, Stephen King, and a few other big names and the publishing industry would be crippled! Now with that many big names going independent it wouldn't take long for younger more green authors to follow suit, and soon publishing companies will have two options: Completely gut and reorganize their industry or loose buckets and buckets of money, if not go out of business all together. Sure they might fight, but they would have no real cards in their hand, sure they might have the rights to certain books for a certain amount of time, but that won't be enough. People want new books by these authors not the same thing they've already read. How would the new publishing world look? Well for one authors would have complete rights to their books, no "we'll take a chance on you and buy your book from you for x number of years", the publishers get the privilege of putting their name on the book, that way authors can sell paper books in major retailers as well as put their e-books up on their own website for their pure profit. Next authors should get at least 50% of the profits, I know that publishing paper books is not cheap, but it is not so expensive that you can get away with an 80% : 20% publisher : author ratio. This in turn will mean that publishers will have to restructure their prices to be more reasonable in terms of what it costs them to print the book and what they charge for it. Somehow I don't think it costs even $20 a book for hardcovers and yet publishers list the price at $25+ per book. Sadly I can't seem to find any accurate information on how much publishers actually make because of this, but I feel like they can lower the prices of all of the books. This will also mean that instead of keeping a book under hardcover for a full year (or more) will fade away. Most books do not last a full year in hardcover with even decent sales, what they should do is put books up for 3 months, if sales are good, up it to a maximum of 6 months and then send the book to paperback.

The next thing this restructure will do is stop the rampant corruption that has filled the publishing world. Most people don't know, but the New York Times Bestseller List is a load of shit. Yes that's right, a load of shit. Why you ask? Because publishers contact Borders or Barnes and Nobel and say "hey for $xxxx I want you to get everyone in your company to market this book" this is all under the table by the way. I've seen it done. Just looking at the NYT Bestseller list this week 4 of the top 10 are best sellers because of Borders, which may not seem like a lot, but you have to take into account that 4 others are on the list because of their movies. That leaves 2 books that made the top ten because of being well written. 2% that's wretched. Of course it's not always through bookstores that they do this, many publishers send their books to Oprah, hmm I wonder why? Every Single One of her "recommendations" has been number one on the best seller list. Why is this important? Because many, many, many people only buy books if they have a NYT Bestseller stamps on them. They won't look at books that have won actual awards--which you might notice are hardly ever on the NYT list--they won't touch anything but these books because they think that if everyone else is buying it, it must be good. Nope, actually employees at Borders and B&N are told you have to sell this many of this book, and if they don't their hours get cut, which means the store loses money, which means that everyone working at these retailers has become sharks because without hours, no money, no money, no food, no food, death. Furthermore employees actually get in trouble with their management if they don't sell these books. It doesn't matter if the books actually suck, it doesn't matter who the customer is, you have to try your hardest to sell these books even if it's not something even related to what the customers purchase. You could be a big buff biker who only reads hunting books we will still recommend things like Twilight to you. You have to note as well that we booksellers and even the management do not know where the corporate offices pull these books out of their ass, and when we ask they say "oh we just liked it". Right. If they had actually even read the back of these books we're forced to sell they would know that they are not very good, nor do they actually appeal to a wide variety of people, this and the fact that they all hit the NYT list makes me believe publishers have money that isn't accounted for. If the structure was reset, though, publishing companies would have to consult with authors before they do anything with that author's book. Now sure, there are going to be some greedy authors out there, but generally I think authors want to make the List off their own skills, not because a thousand borders around the country are forcing it on hapless customers. Even if it's just a foolish fairytale that's what I believe.

I don't know if it will ever happen, but I think now is the time for something to happen if it will. Authors have to strike against the publishers before they all fall in line together and it becomes practically suicide to market your own books. You wrote the book. You put in the time for it. You sweat blood and tears for your books, take a stand, and take back what is actually yours! Publishers nor book retailers have no write to set the price of your e-book, they aren't doing anything with it in terms of supplies, they may market it a bit, but most authors have a huge following already on their website! It wouldn't even be hard; e-books are merely a text document that you can put up on your website with hardly any cost to yourself. Lastly, you don't want your fans to be screwed do you? We're your life blood, we only put up with publishing companies because of the huge monopoly they have over your works. Now is the time to take matters into your own hands!

Originality

2009-12-04T00:26:00.003-07:00

I entered the world of blogging back in 2007, at first with some faithful companions, and then on my own. It was my senior year and I honest to god wanted to become a better writer, express my thoughts more clearly, and put myself out there. It was a rough start to say the least and, honestly, I don't know if it's even gotten that much better for me. I've watched the progress of my friends and, like everything else in my life, they've improved miles while I've gone inches. Or so I think, one thing I've learned over these past few years is that you cannot judge your own writing, at least not so much that it prevents you from doing the thing you're here to do; write. I've had so many difficulties with this idea; in fact I don't believe I've overcome it yet. To date I have never finished a short story or any sort of fiction at all; I've ranted, I've raved, I've peered into my soul at times on this blog, but I still have yet to actually do what I set out to do. I know that very, very few people actually read this blog, and I know that I thrive on those readers, but honestly I'm actually quite terrified of certain kinds of criticism. Sure I don't really give one wit about what others think of me, but when it comes to fiction and short story stuff, I'm terrified. Perhaps it isn't just them I am afraid of; perhaps I'm afraid of what it is I will think. My first and last attempt at any sort of story was Untitled and I came to a very interesting conclusion: I may read too much. I know it sound weird and off—authors need to keep in touch with their genre after all—but I've been thinking about it for the past couple months and I don't know if I have any of my own ideas.

Originality is, after all, an authors best friend, it's what gives him his power, his allure, his greatness, but it's also one of those things that is becoming harder and harder to come by. If you think of great fantasy, Tolkien comes up without a second thought, but really how many other authors are really being as original as they should be? I mean sure a few come to mind, but many of the fantasy authors I can think of have striking similarities to Tolkien, some, like Terry Brooks, blatantly rip him off. Of course many authors are different too, but I find that when I write, or even think of stories playing out in my head, that they are horribly similar to things I've read or seen in the past. Some are completely subconscious to the extent that I don't even realize it isn't even my idea in the first place, others take a mere five minutes of thought for me to realize "shit.. this isn't mine". The easiest example is, of course, Untitled because one of my good friends first pointed it out to me. You see there's this graphic novel called Air Gear that was floating around the net back freshmen maybe sophomore year (it's now available here in the U.S. in hard print), this graphic novel was the inspiration—without my knowing it—of Untitled. From wiki:

"Itsuki "Ikki" Minami, is a student and a delinquent. Also known as the "Unbeatable Babyface", Ikki is the leader of the youth gang by the name of "East Side Gunz". Upon his return home, after being humiliated by a Storm Rider team called the Skull Saders, Ikki discovers a secret hidden from him by his benefactors, the Noyamano sisters. The sisters belong to a group of Storm Riders who go by the team name of Sleeping Forest. In the anime, learning the sisters' secret angers him and he steals a pair of Air Trecks, abbreviated as "AT". (In the manga, the sisters give a pair of ATs to him and invite him to skate with them.) Ikki eventually settles his grudge with the Skull Saders, but in the process he receives more than the simple satisfaction of revenge. Determined to experience the sensation of "flight" for as long as he can, Ikki is quickly engaged in the mysterious, irresistible world of Air Treks."

Yeah, you might not be able to tell too much how similar my story was, but trust me, it was. Sure I had different names, a different setting, and a slightly different premise, but at the heart it was Air Gear written poorly. This may be part of the reason I stopped, subconsciously I knew I was kind of ripping off this story, but who knows. Recently I have had a million ideas running through my head, stories to tell, characters to create, but I am afraid of ripping things off again. This is partly why you have an editor I'm sure, partly why you keep in touch with what others are doing, but honestly, can I really say that I have any of my own ideas? I look over at my bookcase and there are so many stories there, so many characters, plots, and worlds, can I really write something on my own? There are book I read back in middle school that I don't even remember, probably books from my childhood that are gone, but memory never really disappears, we just loose access to it. Already I scoff at professional, excellent writers because I see similarities to others, who am I to even judge? I know that people get inspiration from others, every author interview says as much, but where can you draw the line? Some, like Lev Grossman, make it obvious enough that they're writing satire that it's okay to use such fundamental ideas, but others, like Brooks, seem to not know or not care that their story is the same give or take a character name. I wonder if maybe I just need to write without thinking and get it out of my system. Perhaps I'm over reacting and just need to get my foot in the door because I have not written anything to completion. Maybe writing something, finishing it, even if I don't show anyone, is the way to go, I mean if it is blatantly ripped off from somewhere who cares? Yet I feel as though everyone else out there can write amazing, original, creative works on their first try. So many of my heroes wrote their first book or story, got it published, and were on their way. They had a well of ideas that never seemed to end, and yet the first thing I try and seriously write is plagiarized trash. Now look at me, I read, and then write about books, that is all this blog has turned into. Sure it's interesting, but it is not what I wanted after two years of this. Even if it was, I see no improvement between April 2007 and now. My vocabulary may be somewhat more sophisticated, but not much, and certainly not as a result of me writing about fucking books. I mean I don't even do that "right", I ramble and I jump around, and in the end I just have a big puddle of mush that probably turns people off from the books more than interests them. What do I do? I know I have ideas, but how can I know they're mine?

Maybe that's the thing; maybe everything really is just a copy of a copy of a copy. Is there even such thing as true originality? Or are things only original because we have yet to have encountered them before? Tolkien could have knicked some of his ideas off someone before him, and that person from someone before. Back in the early 1900's Carl Jung—one of Freud's disciples—was examining patients in a mental hospital when he encountered a severely schizophrenic man gazing out the window in a peculiar way. When he asked the man what he saw the patient told him that if he squinted his eyes and looked at the sun, he could then see the "sun's penis", and that if you moved your head to and fro you could see the penis moving and this, he said, was the origin of the wind. Pretty fucking weird eh? Well, it wasn't the first time that had been said. It turned out that when Jung was studying mythology he came across a recently translated Greek text that said nearly the same thing: a tube hanging from the sun, when moving, caused the winds. Penis aside, there was no possible way for this schizophrenic man to have even heard of the text since it wasn't even translated until after he had been committed, from that encounter Jung developed his idea of the collective unconscious. As the name implies, Jung believed that every human being had access to this vast store of knowledge and could not be explained by personal unconscious from ones memories. Things like God, the spirit, truth, justice, these things aren't learned even over an entire person's lifetime, yet even a young child knows when something is just "wrong", he may not know what that thing is, why it feels that way, or be able to explain it, but he just knows it. Certainly we learn things, from our parents, society, and many other things, but there's something else going on. This is one of the topics that was addressed in The Witch in the Waiting Room by Robert Bobrow M.D., and one of the things that I feel we have yet to truly unlock. Even Plato believed in this with his Forms which "asserts that non-material abstract (but substantial) forms (or ideas), and not the material world of change known to us through sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality". Essentially anyone can look at a chair, any chair, and know that it is a chair. I'm not a philosopher so I probably botched the metaphor a bit, but the idea is the same. Why is it that in fiction there is always a hero and always a villain? Even the oldest written human stories contain these ideas: in Homer's works and even in the ancient, ancient Epic of Gilgamesh contain these very same themes. Certainly there isn't The Lord of the Rings just floating up around, but the idea of it is there, Good over Evil, Light vs. Dark, Friendship and Loyalty, it's hard for me to believe that these things, which are all so prevalent in every culture, are just things we learn. They're too profound, they're too intense. Even just the idea of "friends" is too much for anyone to come up with on their own, and yet at the youngest of ages we group together, we are loyal to one another, we make these connections with other people that just cannot be explained. And then there's love. Countless songs, ballads, poems, and every other kind of expressive form have described this. Across generations, throughout the world, love is another one of those forces that every human just knows deep down.

Perhaps originality is merely taking these ideals and putting your own face on them, certainly we enjoy authors like Tolkien and Herbert not only for their ideas, but for their characterizations, their subtle twists and turns. It's a cliché by now, but it really isn't the destination that really counts, it's the journey to get there! That's kind of where I hit a rut, I'm so paranoid about ripping ideas off, that I can't appreciate my own unique ride. I do truly feel that reading is almost detrimental to my writing, but at the same time imitation is the highest form of flattery—unless you're a lawyer. I said back in the day that the only way to improve one's writing was to write, I think the same is true for fiction, your first few stories might be horribly familiar, but it might only be because you're most familiar with other peoples writing and haven't yet learned what your own style is. Write now I really do not know what my style is, at least not in a fictional sense. I know I ramble when I write, but that is because of my lack of proofreading or editing. It's horrible, but I have never proofread my stuff before, I generally write, and post (or turn in as the case may be). As such I've realized that proofreading is a skill, a skill that is hard, frustrating, and makes me want to shoot myself, but a skill none the less. As all skills go it's another one of those things that you just have to do over, and over, and over again before you can really do it decently. For someone such as myself it is also one of those skills that is absolutely essential, my grammar sucks, I ramble, my sentences are awkward, and I generally take forever to make a single point, so bear with me. This is one of those things that I am going to try and do from now on, on all of my posts. Except this one, it's 12:30, I'm tired, and I really don't want to look at this post ever again!

Year Two

2009-11-19T00:00:00.043-07:00

So I started keeping a log of how many books I've read since November 2007, and I kinda like the idea of keeping a list. Naturally I have a Word doc, but I think my readers like to see what I read too. (Don't burst my bubble, I know none of you care :P). Back in March I said I was going to start writing some thoughts down on the books I read, so I have linked all the books I've read--since March anyway--to the post that I wrote about them. Just click on the title of the book and it'll take you to that post. So this is Year 2:

Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks
Mistress of the Empire by Raymond E. Feist
First Meetings by Orson Scott Card
Denial of Death by Ernest Becker
The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout
The Road to Dune by Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson
Masterpieces Edited by Orson Scott Card
Descartes' Error by Antonio Damasio
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Green Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Mole People by Jennifer Toth
Shadow of a Dark Queen by Raymond E. Feist
Rise of a Merchant Prince by Raymond E. Feist
Rage of a Demon King by Raymond E. Feist
Shards of a Broken Crown by Raymond E. Feist
The Science of Vampires by Katherine M. Ramsland
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk
Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov
Cemetery Dance by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Scar Night by Alan Campbell
Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Iron Angel by Alan Campbell
The Edge of Reason by Melinda Snodgrass
Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Preston
God of Clocks by Alan Campbell
Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
Gut Feelings by Gurd Gigerenzer
The Magicians by Lev Grossman
The Prodigal Mage by Karen Miller
Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Forty Studies that Changed Psychology by Roger R. Hock
Infoquake by David Louis Edelman
Multireal by David Louis Edelman
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
The Case For Mars by Robert Zurbin
Flight of the Nighthawks by Raymond E. Feist
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin
Into a Dark Realm by Raymond E. Feist
Wrath of a Mad God by Raymond E. Fesit
Witch in the Waiting Room by Robert Bobrow M.D.

Total (Nov. 19th, 2008 - Nov. 19th, 2009): 49

Grand Total (Nov. 19th, 2007 - Nov. 19th, 2009): 104

Note: Titles in bold I own, the others were borrowed or read at work.

As you can see, I haven't linked all the books I've read since March (I wrote that introduction back in April) and though I've tried to keep up with it, it's been hard! I'm slowly working my way through them though, I have created posts with outlines of what to talk about, its just finding the time and motivation to write those up. Hopefully sometime in December, probably during winter break, I'll write up another Ry Recommends, but for now if you wanna know more about a book not talked about comment and I'll make it a priority!

Reading Dilemma

2009-11-13T15:06:00.007-07:00

It seems that I do my best thinking in the scant minutes before I a fall asleep; that in between place where you are neither awake nor asleep. Generally I find that I think of something amazing, but the next morning it's gone, but this past night I found that I actually remembered some of my thoughts. Actually it may just be that I've thought on this problem for a while now, either way, it comes down to whether or not it's worth the time to re-read books/series again or not.

There are a lot of pros and cons for each, but honestly I find myself stuck. I've read a lot of amazing books and series before, many of which are worth reading multiple times, but yet it comes down to being overwhelmed by the options. Working in a book store really opens your eyes to all thats out there, sure intellectually I always knew there were lots and lots of books, but seeing the thousands of titles that come out over the months really gets to you. So the choice is this, do I fall back and read what I know is good? Or do I take that risk, that leap of faith if you will, and try out these new books? It really is a risk in the sense that I could spend time reading and finishing a book only to realize that it was complete rubbish! That time spent on that book is gone forever after that, it's regret, sadness, and pure rage all at the same time, but yet to only read books I've read before would be stupid. It's what's killing the church, and what plagues every religion: stagnation. Indeed had I only read what I read before I would not be nearly as well read as I am now--this is why some people only read the bible they don't wanna risk reading good fiction--so its a balance. Sure. Easy to say, but I'm still stuck with the idea of if it's actually worth re-reading books I've fallen in love with before.

Since starting this blog, I haven't re-read any books, but in the past I have. I've read all the Harry Potter books twice except the last one, I've read Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master several times, as well as a few of the Anne Rice books, plus Tolkein, so it's not like I'm truly opposed to the idea, it's that I'm afraid of missing out on books I haven't read. This is really quite frustrating because with school and work I hardly have enough time to read in general, should I really be reading things again? But they're SO GOOD. *sigh* I've also put myself into a bit of a corner because before I used to only buy books when I needed a new one, so if I finished one and didn't have anything else I'd pick up one I'd read before, but now working at a bookstore I have a stack of freaking books to read on my shelf! Not to mention in my line of work I am practically bombared with suggestions and recommendations on what to read next! If only I was a vampire I would have so much more time, or hell if I didn't have to sleep, blast you body, you are so limiting! Okay, well, I feel that there are some series that are must reads, and as such, must re-reads. Generally speaking if the book is grand enough, you'll find new things with each time you read it, so there are benefits. But should I only re-read novels? Or should I re-read entire series? Well you can't just stop after reading The Fellowship of the Ring, so I'm going to say that I should go big or go home!

Now that that's cleared up, I think I'll make a list of some books/series I should re-read, because as much as I'd like to re-read every book I've ever enjoyed, there are just too many. So here's a list:

Science Fiction

The Dune Series by Frank Herbert
The "Enderverse" by Orson Scott Card -- This one is unique in regards to the fact that Card is still writing for this universe and since my memory isn't what it used to be (and of course the books are fucking amazing) I think it would be beneficial to go through these again.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson

Fantasy

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist -- Again this is another unique one because, like Card, Feist is still writing this saga. As of this year there are 26 books out with 4 forthcoming. 30 books, that's more than half a year in what I'm averaging so far so reading them would probably be a year long event. Yet.. Feist is honestly my favorite fantasy author, and ALL of his books are so good. Now I haven't read 6 of those 26 since they're side books, but my logic is to wait until the entire series is done and done and then just sit down for a Feist marathon. We'll see though.
The Tales of the Otori by Lian Hearn
Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss -- He just needs to finish this series, I'm already going to have to re-read the first book just to know wtf is going on with the second when it comes out.

Fiction

The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice -- Now I'm not sure if I'll read the entire series again because she went all religious and shitty the last couple books, but the first few for sure.
Chuck Palahniuk, mainly Fight Club, Survivor, and Choke
Dystopian favorites: 1984, Anthem, A Brave New World, and We
Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

For now I think that's good, I know I should put more of the classics up, Steinbeck and the like, but I feel like those are still too fresh in my mind, not to mention dry. I know I will eventually, but for the purposes of this blog I'll leave them out. I'd also like to say that if you need a good book in the three above genres you wouldn't be wrong to pick up one of the ones I mentioned. Speaking of which I think I'll write another Ry Recommends in the near future. Stay tuned!

Physical vs. Digital Books

2009-10-18T15:45:00.005-06:00

I remember back in February I made a post about the e-book revolution that is going on and I mentioned something to the nature of "I like to own my books". Well recently Sony came out with two new additions to the e-reader family: The Pocket edition, and the Touch edition. Both relatively cheap, I mean if $199 and $299 respectively is ever cheap and I am again examining my preferences. Certainly the e-readers are still too expensive, for me anyway, have too much other crap going on--I really don't want internet on my book, sorry guys--and the e-ink has this horribly obnoxious function where when you turn a page it flashes the entire screen black. Sure it's not very long, but on every e-reader I've tried I notice it. Now I've hear "oh you get used to it", but come on I can turn a page in a real book and not suffer any sort of annoying flash. We are at the point technologically that this should not be an issue. Old computers did this, but we can now sit at a computer for hours and not have any eye strain nor any flashes. When, and if, this ever gets fixed I might be more inclined to buy one, but until then it's just another thing that turns me off.

That was a bit of an aside, but back to what I was saying. I see these e-readers more and more and one of the big advertisements is that you can store XXX amount of books on the e-reader itself, and then store your other books right on your hard drive. Saves space, convenient, and takes the hassle out of moving books all around.. but I just don't like the idea. Technology is fallible and thus far I have over 300 books in my library, one lighting strike, one virus, one user error and all that would be gone.. Ouch.. I've heard that some places, Amazon?, let you redownload the book as many times as you'd like after you buy it, but I don't know how valid that is. It seems like a rather easy way to pirate books if that's the case, but I don't really know. But either way it's a scary thought. Whereas someone can break into my house, steal all sorts of stuff, but generally speaking they're not going to go for the books. The only thing I have to worry about when I'm not home is fire, water damage, and the occasional animal attack, and only fire will really kill off my collection. Sure you can back things up and copy things and save things, but really how secure are electronic things? For how much I love my books: Not enough. That's one reason I'd rather own a material copy. Another I think is perhaps how I grew up. Back when I was a kid we didn't have cell phones, computers, ipods, or much in the ways of electronics. Game Boys and walkmans were about all we had going on so, understandably, I never put much stock into electronics, but kids these days have cell phones, ipods, and complete internet access starting in elementary school or earlier at home! Maybe material objects aren't as important to younger generations as they are to me, I mean, I'm at the point where I think CDs are kinda a waste, I haven't bought one in years and years and years, so undoubtedly kids a mere 3 years younger might be okay with digital copies of things.

Two perfectly logical reasons right there, but those just don't seem to cut it either. I don't know why, but reading things on a computer screen just isn't satisfying, not to mention the pure raw sex appeal a loaded book case has. So honestly I don't know why I want books, they're expensive, they're heavy, they take up loads of space, but.. but.. I love them. I look over at my bookshelf and smile to myself thinking of all the adventures I've been on from the various spines, the color and the magic they add to my room, so I guess logically speaking it would be better not to own them. I'd save money, maybe--there's still the whole issue of just what you're paying for--save space, and it certainly is more environmentally friendly to not buy paper books, but.. I don't know.

I will say this though: I think e-readers do have a place in our society in the schools and in table top role playing. For schools, oh man, I wish upon every star that I could have a Kindle-DX loaded up with all my textbooks, and all my future textbooks! There would have to be some negotiation on price because while the content is obviously valuable, a large part of the cost of a text book comes from the actual publishing of the book, hard backs, full color, pictures, etc. etc. All books/textbooks start out in word (or some other program) and thus it's a few clicks of a button to put them up on the internet and seriously should not cost as much. What the value of someones book is, is much too hairy of a topic to cover. Some authors spend years and years perfecting their books, others spend a week writing it and then publishing it *cough Nora fucking Roberts cough*. Are those two books equal? Ehhhhh I don't even wanna touch that topic. The second thing was pointed out to me by my friend and coworker Diego, he's a classic gamer, not the type that uses consoles but the D&D table top gamer. Basically, if you've never looked into D&D or anything, you have to buy lots of heavy hardcover books filled with info about spells and stats and other intense things so putting something like that onto an e-reader would make sense. Instead of carting 20+ books over to play a game you can just have them all loaded onto your e-reader and even ctrl-f specifics. I'm sure there are other things that it would be useful for as a professional, the DMV-IV-TR, there's a book of building codes that's a beast, electrical codes that's also beastly, but for a casual non-traveling reader it doesn't fit.

*sigh* that was one of the most horribly rambling posts I've done in a while. But it kinda straightened things out in my mind, so thanks for bearing with me. If anyone owns an e-reader and wants to fill me in on some of the gaps in my knowledge feel free. Other uses and pros, cons, etc. Comments are appreciated!

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

2009-10-01T22:41:00.001-06:00

Oh Dan Brown what have you done? What oh what have you done? You were in the groove, Angels and Demons was new and unique, The Da Vinci Code then solidified your reputation, but you let the money and fame go to your head. I, by no means, disliked his new book The Lost Symbol, but it was horribly flawed, and honestly the worst of his books. Now if you're one of those people that has been living under a rock and don't know who Dan Brown is, well, get out of your rock and look around!

Dan Brown started out back in the '90s as a failed singer/songwriter. This in and of itself isn't too special, many, many people try and fail in the music world, what's important here is that he released a CD called "Angels and Demons" and used John Langdons ambigram:

John Langdon is, of course, the inspiration for the now world famous Robert Langdon in Browns books. After his stint in music, which he still dallies in now and then, he began writing Digital Fortress--which also happens to be my favorite of his books--followed by Deception Point (bleh), then Angels and Demons and then in 2003 The Da Vinci Code. From there it's history, with over 81 million copies sold, it's considered "one of the most popular books of all time". I am a firm believer that of the books Robert Langdon appears in--Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lost Symbol--Angels is by far the best. This is all water under the bridge of course, but I figured I should mention it before talking about The Lost Symbol. A mere three years after the release of Da Vinci, it was turned into a blockbuster movie, one that was decent, I guess, but didn't do the book justice. After that, Angels and Demons got eaten up and released in May and was, thankfully, much better, still no match for the book, but not as sickening as the first. Tom Hanks does a fantastic job in both movies, the problem was the complexity of the books, which make it hard to transfer into a movie. The movies, I believe, are Dan Browns downfall.

Unfortunately, they were great hits in the theaters, made him lots and lots of money, and as such... blew his head up. When The Lost Symbol was announced earlier this year I was more than skeptical, but vowed to read it when it came out. Sure enough the day comes, I'm stuck doing a midnight release "party" at my work (only two people showed up) and I begin reading. The first thing that struck me was how amazingly short the chapters were! I thought that maybe he was just dipping into a few places, getting the setting set up and such, but then it quickly dawned on me that he was, in fact, completely serious about writing half page chapters! Two pages, a page, sure, some authors can pull it off, but NOTHING useful can be said in half a page! Why is this? I thought, Ohhh he's making it easy to turn into a screen play! Wow Mr. Brown, wow. Not even Michael Crichton or Stephen King, both of whom have a pretty good track record of getting their books raped into movies, wrote in a screenplay-esque style. Not only were his chapters short, but more often than not he ended them in a mini cliffhanger, which sometimes developed the plot, but mostly made it impossible to find a stopping place. This, of course, is brilliant. I can't tell you how many people have told me that they read his book within a day and late night, you get lots and lots and lots of people reading your book really, really, really fast and you've done something that most books lack: made it so people can talk about it. Most people when they read, it takes them a couple weeks or a month or two to finish a book, but by writing The Lost Symbol in such a way as to not let people stop without severe anxiety makes it almost like a movie. It's true too, that was one book I had a hell of a time putting down! The other thing missing from his book was previous characters or any sort of mention of Langdons previous adventures. What happened with the Grail? With the Vatican? The women?!

The next thing I noticed which made me kind of sad was the blatant product placement. Every other chapter featured the "amazing, advanced, super useful iPhone" or someone is whipping out their blackberry. This isn't too terrible when kept to a minimum, it is nice to know little details such as the brand of soda the character is drinking or the laptop he or she may be using, but to blatantly us iphone and blackberry over and over, was horribly distracting. After the first couple chapters you know the character is using an iphone or blackberry, so then why must Brown feel the need to tell us again the phone they're using and how amazing it is? It calls into question as to whether or not Brown got a little under the table money for his book, naturally there's no word of such a thing, but when the movie comes out I won't be too surprised if iphone sales go up. Then again with Brown putting both the iphone and the blackberry into his book perhaps he was trying to play fair and mention the competitor. We will never know, but it is one of the things that distracted me from the overall smoothness--as smooth as short, choppy chapters can be--of the plot. As for product placement in general, I'm not a believer in its usefulness, especially not in books. Already as a nation we're bombarded with hours upon hours of commercials, I don't see how seeing a product on a television show will up my interest that much. With all the advertising done already, I doubt things can enter my awareness that much more, and no, just because I see House drinking a coke I won't drop everything to find one. When it comes to games, well, in some cases I think it might be okay, if the product is common enough and it fits the setting it's not a big deal, but when I'm playing a game set in the year 2500 and I see the aliens reaching for a coke.. well.. that's just a dumb distraction. And books, well like I said, if it's just mentioned to give us a better overall picture in our head then whatever, but anything more than just a mere mention is too much. I fear that Brown may have opened pandoras box and set loose agonizing distractions and placements for your favorite books. Imagine, sitting down to read your favorite novel, and low and behold the main character pulls out a Kay Jewelers box, the girl swoons, and written in black and white is "every kiss begins with Kay." Or an the characters running from zombies stop, pull out a couple bucks and buy a coke saying "you can't survive without a refreshing coke!". Shoot me now.*

For those of you that read Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code you'll remember how blatant Brown was in his bashing of the church and religion in general. Sadly it seems he may have been spooked by all those protesters because this book seems to put major value in religion. I won't go into the details of just how this is done (Lagndon does put his snarky opinion out there), but by the end of the book I was questioning just how Brown had gone from strongly opposing the Church to almost respecting it and its ideals. Along the same lines is the "science" of Noetics which one of the main characters researches. In fact, I really don't know what to think of the whole thing! I looked up the book she referenced and found it to be a metaphysical philosophy book along in the same section as L. Ron Hubbard. I haven't bothered to do any research of my own to see where or how he got his ideas, whether he believes in them or not, or if there is indeed true science behind it, that's a different topic for a another time. In regards to The Lost Symbol, though, it played a roll far larger than I believe it should have, it was interesting, sure, but in the novel--which is set roughly in our time--it was a bit beyond the scope of what he was trying to say. And the Masons, oh dear god the Masons! I know this is something I should have some sort of opinion about, I do, but honestly after reading a bit about it, watching one or two discovery, history channel, or national geographic specials, I really don't care. At all. Sure they influenced our founding fathers, sure they have a symbol on our dollar bill, and are horribly powerful people, I think people just enjoy conspiracies. More to the point, I think that because the Masons are a secretive group that no one truly understands they automatically put a negative/evil opinion on them. They may have some secrets, but so does the FED, CIA, FBI, and practically any government agency in the world. Do I think they hold the key to our "rebirth" or death? Nope.

I've mainly mentioned the negative aspects of Browns novel, but really it's not all bad. I thoroughly enjoyed it; the good, the bad, and the iphone. If one honest thing can be said about Dan Brown, it's this: he is a master of suspense. Sometimes he fumbles the delivery on a plot twist, but a page later you're sitting there amazed at the turn of events. Some of his twists are a bit predictable, but I don't care how many people out there say just how much they saw them coming, he would not be a bestselling author if he didn't surprise his readers. That's what mystery/thriller is! Props to Brown on his ability to throw spins and twists in there to make people shake their head, it's a difficult task, one which I doubt I will ever be able to do, and one that very few authors can do multiple times in a book. Not only that, but his overall style is enjoyable. I, at least, haven't read many authors who can accomplish what Brown does in a 24 hour time line, the emotion, the suspense, the action, some authors can't even manage those things in a setting that lasts a year! All and all, I honestly believe that if you can entertain your audience, make them squirm in anticipation, make them stay up late into the night just to find out what happens next, that you've written a good book. All those negatives aside, that's what every author should aim to do! Sure he may have distracted with the product placement, made the experience choppy with his short chapters, and almost completely reverse his view on religion, but overall he wrote a damn entertaining book! One that with its flaws, still manages to surprise and awe the reader!

Oh and if you're wondering if this is the last we hear from Langdon don't count on it! Just listen to this:

----"Do you have a lot of ideas for future books?
There is no shortage of secrets and adventures for Robert Langdon to take. I have ideas for about 12 books. I know I won't have time in my life to write them all. For a symbology professor, someone who understands iconography, ancient mysteries, there is no shortage of material for this character." ~ Entertainment Weekly 2003

I dunno how I feel about 12 books, but this is surely not the last!

**I've heard a god awful rumor that Amazon is considering putting ads into the ebooks they sell at some point in the near future! Not just little products authors put in, but visual ads IN the books as you're reading! You turn a page, and just like on the radio, an ad will come up for this product or that product before you can move on. Talk about horrible! I hope to god that that is only a rumor, but until confirmed or denied I'm gonna have to say the Kindle has dropped another spot on m list!

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

2009-09-18T00:42:00.007-06:00

Oh there is so much to say about this book! Where do I even start?!

There are, however, some prerequisites needed for you to fully enjoy this book. The first is you have to have read The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, if not in its entirety, then at the very least more than The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, and most assuredly NOT the movies. Second, you should be familiar with the Harry Potter franchise, in this case the movies or the books are fine. Third, you have to be an avid reader of fantasy, understand it's many cliches in and out, and be somewhat open minded about them. Fourth, I gotta say that you have to be at least over the age of 16 but I'd college experience is highly recommended.

Now before you get ahead of yourselves and go bitching to me about how I'm trying to censure you, read that first sentence again "...for you to fully enjoy this book". Hell, you could not know who CS Lewis or Harry Potter are, never read a fantasy book in your life , and be 12 and I'll bet you might still enjoy this book. You certainly won't catch a lot of the little things, but the writing is solid, and the story is well laid out.

Anyway, this book was unexpected for me. I have a list going of books that I see around my work that interest me and that eventually I need to read, usually I just pick the next book off that list and read that at work, but here I found myself drawn to it. Maybe it was the title--I'm a sucker for magicians anything--maybe it was the fact that one of our competitors broke the laydown date and got us to sell it three days early, or maybe it was the intense endorsement by Martin

"These days any novel about young sorcerers at wizard school inevitably invites comparison to Harry Potter. Lev Grossman meets the challenge head on ... and very successfully. The Magicians is to Harry Potter as a shot of Irish whiskey is to a glass of weak tea."

whatever the reason I read the jacket and dived in.

As I've said on more than one occasion I'm not a fan of book reports, I don't like spoilers, nor do am I very good at summarizing so I'm just gonna talk about what I felt about it. The old adage "Imitation is the highest form of flattery" is so extraordinarily accurate in this case that whoever came up with it must have known this book was coming out. What I mean is this: Grossman has essentially recreated Narnia, mated it with Hogwarts, and thrown in some Tolkien genes. He's said in several interviews that he was absolutely in love with Narnia as a child and wanted to recreate it as an adult with more adult themes, especially the idea of fantasy wearing away as you grow up. He did this with a masterful touch, his characters are nihilistic college kids who essentially have everything, brains, magic, love, etc. but want more. How real is that? We all grow up with these fantasies of changing the world, of how cool and amazing being an adult will be, the absolute kickass-ness of being in college, but what happens? We find out that it all actually kinda sucks. We end up going to college, but within a month the novelty wears off and we're once again in a class room learning about things that we don't care about. Being an adult? Yeah, no kid ever thinks of responsibility or if they do it's in a naive way. Paying bills, having relationships, school, work, social life, everything that goes along with being an adult seems neat, sure, but then it happens and it's just.. blah. We look around after 5 years, 10 years, 40 years, and what have we done with ourselves? Nothing. We work or go to school (both usually), we go home, we eat, we sleep, but there's no real magic to any of it. What happens to that feeling we all get in our stomach about the future? Those butterflies that say everything is going to be amazing tomorrow? They get blindsided by reality. They don't exist. We began to question why we're here, what we're doing with ourselves, whats the point of it all; fall into drugs, alcohol, sex, and depression. This is what being an adult is. It's not magical animals talking to you, fantastic voyages and adventures, it's not fair maidens or evil villains, life is just life. No more. No less. Lev Grossman takes this idea, this horrible realization and puts it in a world where some of those things actually exist. What happens? The characters STILL aren't happy, they're still depressed, they're still nihilistic, and essentially they're still unhappy. What Grossman accomplishes is perhaps one of the best social satires of our generation. The generation of tomorrow, the generation of selfishness, the generation of why.

He's right too. We read fantasy to escape the world, we read it to go some place where things are happy, full of adventure and meaning, but really, would we even be happy there? Is it even possible for us to be happy or even satisfied with anything? He takes Narnia, Hogwarts, and Middle Earth and shows us that, no, we won't ever be happy. Sure it sounds dark, it sounds awful, but it's realistic. It may be exaggerated, most things are after all, but he hit the nail on the head. Us 20 somethings are so dissatisfied with everything that we're losing sight of what really matters. The people we love, our friends, our family, husbands, wives, and kids. We spend so much time trying to be better, trying to find something more, escaping from our own worlds that we lose that which gives our lives the meaning they desperately need. The Magicians is quite the eye opener, at least it was for me. I'm exactly what he described with his book, I have the exact same mentality of these kids, and honestly.. it was both horrifying and hilarious all at the same time. Absurd even.

The best part about it, though, was the fact that unlike dusty old fiction books, The Magicians was stupendously entertaining. Even if you don't read for themes, for so called "deeper meanings", you'll have a hell of a time trying to put his down. The characters are fantastic, you love them, you hate them, and most importantly you connect with them. The world is familiar, both in the sense of the "real world" and that of a Narnia-esqe settings, and the plot is well thought out and well executed. Although some may feel that his almost blatant plagiarism is a turn off, I found that combined with his message it was done not out of malice, but out of love for those works he was so inspired by. Some may think he was just taking Narnia and adding to it for his own monetary gains, but I would have to disagree. Sure there are huge, HUGE similarities between Fillory and Narnia, things are fundamentally different. At times I was a little put off, sure, but looking back on it now after a few books and a month of pondering, I was put off by the realistic tones of the story. I picked up the book, looked at the fantasy label, and assumed it would be just another great happy-go-lucky piece of work, that was quickly shattered. He not only made fun of my mentality, as well he should have, but also that of every fantasy author out there, of every college student, of every person, he managed to criticize things we all have in common in such a way as to make us love and hate him. Some people just criticize, like myself, and people hate them.. but Lev Grossman does what every satirist dreams about, actually accomplishes his criticisms of live, love, and human nature, in a way that people LOVE. It's brilliant!

I'll say this though, it's not for those that are looking for the same old fantasy. It's not for those who like tame stories, or those looking for certain things, it's for those that are almost fed up with the Fantasy cliches, fed up with people, fed up with life. It'll bring you around, lemme tell ya, but like all things it has to be taken with a grain of salt, and an open mind.

On the Science Fiction / Fantasy Series

2009-09-16T22:37:00.003-06:00

In my last post I spoke briefly about too much story, but what does that mean exactly? Well I've been thinking about this for a while now and I've decided that generally speaking for an author to fully accomplish a sci-fi or fantasy story, it needs to be part of a series. What kind of series you say? Well that depends largely on the authors story, but I think as a very general--there are plenty of exceptions--rule it is safe to say a trilogy works best of all.

The Trilogy

The idea of a trilogy has been around ages and ages in the fantasy world, but it didn't really hit home until Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings is perhaps one of the best series in all of fiction, which includes the silly "Literature" category with Steinbeck, Hawthorn, and other such "Literature" authors. The reason a trilogy works far better in a science fiction or fantasy series is because the author must create an entire world with its very own unique histories, languages, kingdoms, and other such fascinating things. In a "literature" book the hardest part of writing is practically done for you! All you have to do is say "it was 1945, Germany had just fallen! Jake, the onetime Nazi hot shot, is on the run." BAM! That's the entire setting you need to talk about. Sure, you'll talk about the scenery, maybe a sunset here, a dog there, but really everyone knows what earth is like, everyone knows what happened in WWII, everyone knows Germany is in Europe and Europe is across the ocean from the United States. What exactly is there for you to create? A plot, sure, but that's all you're going to be doing; developing characters, developing a plot, and throwing a twist now and then. Sure there are some amazing novels out there that are like this, but my point is that it's easier than creating a whole world of different races, histories, and evil. This is one of the reasons classic literature, like Steinbeck, cannot be compared to any sort of science fiction or fantasy book. Not that they're both hard to write, which they are in their own ways, but the differences make it impossible to even look at the pros and cons of each style. No one will disagree if you say Tolkien was a fantastic author, but it's when you try and compare Tolkien and Steinbeck that you run into problems. This creation of a setting is what makes a trilogy the best for science fiction and fantasy.

Hubbards problem was he tried too hard to fit absolutely everything into one book. Some people can do it, Elantris by Brandon Sanderson is an excellent self contained novel, but others are just too ambitions. The first book in a trilogy sets the tone, it gives the reader a chance to stick his toes into the water, get acquainted with just where they are. The author generally introduces the setting by giving a history of the world/universe, introduces the main characters and their own personal histories within the major world history, and introduces the plot. It doesn't seem like much, but it's a lot more than you realize. Personally I love knowing the ins and outs of this fantasy world; its government, economics, wars, races, languages, and all that other stuff that is generally taken for granted in literature. In order to do this you cannot write it like a history book, people don't like to read textbooks, the best way is to do this in bits and pieces. I've found that a prologue does the job quite well, you're introduced to the land and its history, and then to the main character. From there the author will usually jump through time and into the present (for that character) and as the character goes on his journey/quest/voyage we learn more about the world as we go along. Sadly this makes for a perfect cliché because the easiest way to give the maximum amount of information through the characters journey is to have the character from a small town. Yeah, this has lead to the farm boy, fisherman, hobbit, or generally "innocent" character finding his way through the big, scary, complex world through interaction. It's really not a bad way to go in my opinion, but it certainly gets old after a while.

After the author has done all his introductions and sent his character on his quest it is time for the sequel. The sequel or middle book in a trilogy is generally, at least in my opinion, the driest of the three because it's all plot/character development.
LotR: The Two Towers,
Shadows Edge, The Ring, and
Redemption Ark
are but a few examples of sequel books that don't live up to the trilogies as a whole. The reason for this stems from the fact that as the middle book they have a lot to live up to and yet have less interesting things to talk about. From my experiences the middle child of a trilogy is mainly there to bulk up the plot, enhance the character and world histories, and lead up to a stunning conclusion. Because of this they never get the chance to really shine! By this point in writing an author generally knows it's going to be a trilogy and so immediately they're jumping to the conclusion in their heads, but are stopped by the fact they have a lot of plot and build up to do. Don't get me wrong, there are some absolutely amazing sequel books out there--Green Mars, and pretty much all of Raymond E. Feists trilogies are solid the whole way through--but a lot of times the author just gets ahead of themselves and doesn't put as much effort into the second book as they do in the first or third.

As for the third, well, that's where the magic happens.. usually. By this point in the series you're in love with the characters, the world, and the plot, you're just begging the author to finish up and tie up all those loose ends to form a fantastic ending. Well 9 times out of 10 they deliver. My theory is this; all the good books out there aren't written for the fans, for the author's wife, for anyone, all the very best works are written for the author. This usually means that the last book is a work of pure genius! As much as we the reader feel attached to the story and want it to go on, the author is a million times more into it and that translates right into the book. Where they were hesitant in the first, clearing up details in the second, they are letting loose with their creative talent in the final chapter of their trilogy. Just look at some of them out there, Return of the King (obviously), Absolution Gap, and Beyond the Shadows are all fantastic! Unfortunately, because the author is a lot of times writing for his or herself, the fans can be let down by this third novel. In as much as they want us to be happy, they want to be happy, and generally--especially with high profile undertakings--the conclusions sought by the fans, are not what the author delivers. Sure they'll deliver an epic, a masterpiece; a piece of art, but sometimes the execution isn't all that it should be. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows is, even though it's not a trilogy, a more than perfect example. In fact, I would wager to say that the ending to that book almost ruined the entire series for me. This is partly due to hype, popularity, and poor writing style. It's a sad fact that really shitty books tend to be best sellers, and let's face it J.K. Rowling is not the best author out there, so even though she created a cult phenomenon, she didn't have the experience to finish it off properly and the whole series suffered for it. This happens a lot with novice authors, but hey you have to get out there sometime, you gotta write that book, and you gotta just suck up the bad reviews because there's always a critic out there. In any case, the third and final book in a trilogy is where the real fireworks are; by this point the author has established enough of a setting that they can throw the reader on twists and turns and betrayals, which usually leads to epic books!

This is why, in my humble opinion, a trilogy is by far the best formula for a science fiction or fantasy story.

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A Side Note

Even as I wrote that last sentence I knew I wasn't done with this post. Indeed, I have to mention that although I do really think the trilogy is the best means to achieve a fantasies creative end, there are other ways. First of all it is possible, like I mentioned, to write a fully self contained fantasy novel, hey, you can write a damn good one even, but it takes a lot of skill some authors don't have. Along the same lines you can write a stunning duology, which also takes a great deal of skill, but allows for more room to play. Karen Miller's Kingmaker Kingbreaker duology is the best example I can come up with off the top of my head. I was a little worried at first, this was her first step into the non-licensed fantasy world (she's written a couple books in the Star Wars Universe) and as such I wasn't sure if she could pull it off. Oh how she did! It has just the right amount of world, religion, and character building for the reader to completely become immersed in and on top of that she has a damn good plot. Sadly the duology isn't a very popular media for authors, I think because they get so into it that they end up with a trilogy, but when it's done well I think it can rival that of a trilogy in some aspects. Those generally tend to be if you're writing a less complex world/story than that of LotR, smaller map, fewer characters/races, smaller timescale as a whole, which can be refreshing. As much as a love the appendices of LotR, sometimes it's nice to relax in a less complex world. Of course you can always go bigger with a quartet or even a quintet, but then you're moving into the realm of an epic.

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On Epics

So your story is too deep for a novel, duology, or a trilogy huh? Well then my friend, you're writing an epic! We've all seen them, we all love them, the epic series are those that flow through multiple volumes over multiple time frames. Think Frank Herbert, Raymond E. Feist, Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan, and George R.R. Martin, these are the big wigs. These are the ones that will blow your mind over and over and over again, that will keep people talking for years, these are the ones that go down in the history books! Naturally there is a higher degree of error here, Terry Goodkind lost it toward the end by injecting his story with Ayn Rands philosophy, Robert Jordan died, and Martin, well Martin just won't release the next book in the series. But hey, all that aside, and these are some of the best books out there. The interesting thing I find with these is that although the worlds are that much more detailed than trilogies and the other forms, they aren't as detailed as one would expect, usually these epics are super plot heavy or, on the contrary, follow several different plots all in the same universe. The Enderverse is an amazing combination of both, Orson Scott Card delivers an amazingly detailed complex plot over several books, and then flawlessly jumps thousands of years and yet still keeps the magic. Herbert did the same with the Dune series, writing a fantastic plot before jumping thousands of years and pulling out a new plot tied to the old. *sigh* Dune is just the definition of epic--not the silly gamer definition either--but the old school Odyssey epic!

Perhaps my favorite form of epic is that of an established universe with many branches. Think of it this way, you have a trilogy that makes up the trunk of a tree--we're talking redwood trunk here--that establishes this stunning universe with hundreds of thousands of story possibilities, and then the author ads some creative water and BAM! You have on your hands a tree so full of stories, characters, love, and grief that it almost brings a tear to your eye. This is my favorite style of fantasy/science fiction because you fall in love with the main trilogy, the main universe, the main characters, but instead of dragging on the plot *cough GOODKIND cough*, they end their trilogy and branch off in their newly formed realm. Isaac Asimov did this, though I've only read the Foundation trilogy, to an extent Tolkien did this with his follow up books The Silmarillion, The Unfinished Tales and other such works*, but the two authors that have done this the best are Raymond E. Feist and Alastair Reynolds.

Feist is an interesting case, his series is based off that of a single duology, though first published as one novel, and then proceeds to follow the main characters and the main characters children, and then their children. All the while keeping a few of what I like to call uber-characters throughout the entire time span. Pug, Tomas, and Marcos the Black all make appearances in the books even though they're set decades in the future. This may sound silly, but it's explained perfectly, don't trust me go read it! But the best part is how Feist incorporates the stories of his first books and turns them into legends in the later books. Battles you read in the first books all morph into something more as the years go by, mere mortal characters become god-like kings, and villains turn into the stories used to scare kids at night. I can't even give do justice to Feist, all I can say for sure is that you need to read it! Fantasy

Reynolds, on the other hand, is more of the tree-like epic writer I mentioned earlier. His Revelation Space Trilogy is by far one of the most amazing things I have ever read and it only gets better! Included in that one, because it falls under the same time-line ish, is Chasm City a standalone novel that introduced me to this style of writing; basically what Reynolds did was create this fantastic universe (and I do mean universe literally), write a jaw dropping trilogy in that universe, and then proceed to write other stories, novels, and novellas within that universe. All the while Reynolds is developing and changing and enhancing this universe to the point that if he wanted to, he could only write books set there for the rest of his life and never run out of stories. I really didn't even realize the scope of this until I picked up Galactic North which is a collection of eight short stories and novellas, all independent and utterly amazing within their own right. Shortly after that I picked up Diamond Dogs Turquoise Rain, two novellas that completely blew my mind! And since then I've read four or five of his short stories within sci-fi anthologies! The possibilities are endless for this series and like Feist, some of the things you witnessed in the original trilogy turn up again in fan pleasing ways!

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You know I set out to kind of outline my favorite style of sci-fi/fantasy, but it turns out I can't narrow it down. I adore Herbert, Feist, and Reynolds for their epic masterpieces, but at the same time Tolkien will always have a special place in my heart with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and even smaller than that I've read countless novels and short stories that will always be remembered as fantastic. It really all comes down to the story in the end. Some are just meant to be many books, others are meant to be a 20 page short story, but all of them—with a few exceptions of course—are amazing. It's true, just looking at my bookcase I obviously prefer longer story arcs than shorter ones, but I think part of the reason is because I've been lucky enough to read only the best of the best! I know people that have read a longer story arc, hated it, and will never pick up anything more than a trilogy, but I also know people that refuse to read anything other than the super long stories. Each style has its own pros and cons, its ups and downs, it's good and bad, but hey, that's what makes sci-fi/fantasy such a dynamic genre! Nowhere else can you find such a wide range of reading options as in the sci-fi/fantasy realm, indeed nowhere else will you find all in one place more worlds, universes, and characters than a trip into the sci-fi/fantasy section. I love literature, I love mystery/thriller, and I'm enjoying non-fiction more and more, but nothing will be as close to my heart as science fiction and fantasy are.

Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard

2009-08-26T15:00:00.003-06:00

Wow, I don't even know where to begin on this one. First let me say that I think Scientology is a load of crap, the same goes with Hubbard, but in any event, his book isn't terrible. It was entertaining, though a bit dry here and there, but overall worth the two bucks I paid for it used. I going to go ahead and avoid saying anything about Scientology and Hubbards non-science fiction life. There is more than enough to talk about with his whopping 1050 page book, so let's get to it.

First and foremost I believe that you have to be very pompous and pretentious in order to write a book that is over a thousand pages. There is just too much story for one book. Period. No matter how good you are at writing, no matter how good you think you may be at storytelling, you cannot write a satisfactory story that is over a thousand pages. You just can't. There is just too much story and by not splitting it up into a sequel or trilogy, you lose valuable plot and world building options. This is exactly what happened with Battlefield Earth. Hubbard is a decent author, he had an interesting concept, fairly well developed characters, and a plot that was readable, but he had too much! Because he thought he was such a great author and could fit all of his story into one volume he actually lost some of the most interesting parts. It might be that Hubbard just didn't have the skill to develop his universe as much as I imagined with the details he gave me, but I think had he sucked it up and split Battlefield Earth into three parts, hell even two, the whole thing would have been way better.

While I was reading I found his ideas, his history, and his overall setting fascinating, but, unfortunately, he didn't develop any of them nearly as well as he should have. His setting is that of Earth in the year 3000 who has been dominated by a vicious beings called Psychols. Who are these creatures? Why are they so horrible? What is their culture? Sadly Hubbard merely touches on these questions about 800 pages in. 800 pages before we know even a bit of these creatures. Sure it fit the plot, he probably couldn't have explained much about them earlier in the book, but the fact remains that he should have told us more! He introduces some 17 different universes, with hundreds of thousands of different races, all ruled over by these Psycholos. And of course he barely tells us about maybe 12 of those races, really he just mentions their name and what universe they're from. Unfortunately he doesn't really go into any real detail about anything! The entire book is just kinda brushing the histories of all these characters, a couple sentences here about the Russians, a few sentences there about the Scots, but never really much. Okay so the earth was practically wiped out a thousand years past, so perhaps the humans don't have much of a history, but if you're going make your setting as huge as 17 universes, you need to talk about them. The worst part of all this is that he was capable of telling such a compelling story, of including his audience in on what only he is privy to, but he didn't.

As I was reading a bit of my bias did bog down some of my enjoyment, mainly how hypocritical he is. A major plot that takes place in his book is that of money, corruption, and greed, yet when he died in 1986 he was worth 200 million dollars. Sure that may not be a huge sum today, what with Bill Gates and all the other tech, oil, and business giants out there, but 200 million back in 1986 is ridiculous! Really who am I to talk, I'm a hypocrite in many ways, as we all are whether we like it or not, but if you're going to create a "religion" based on money and then preach about how awful and horrible money is in your books, well, that's just too far for me!

The other feeling I got while reading Battlefield Earth was that of disbelief. I know, I know, sci-fi/fantasy stuff is suppose to be not real and what not. I know this intrinsically since these are my two favorite genres, but I do expect some realistic elements to be in a book. For example Hubbard made a big deal about how primitive and uneducated the humans were, but yet somehow they manage to learn all the nuclear technology that is left over from their past, electronics, chemistry, physics, ultra high level math, not to mention an alien language, alien math, and alien physics and chemistry. They then use all this information they masted in the space of months to annihilate an alien culture that has been ruling multiple universes for billions of years, where as millions if not billions of other, far more technologically advanced species, tried and failed to do just that. Oh yeah, and apparently they learned all there is to know about math, teleportation, and physics just watching one of the Psycholos do a series of equations for one device. As much as I love the surreal, this got annoying fast. I love strong, clever characters, but there comes a point where they stop being someone you can relate to and become super human plus seem to have the best luck in the world. I cant even count the number of times I've shaken my head at the improbable nature of some characters luck. "Jonnie bent down and at that moment the net flew right over his head" yeah, okay, no the world does not operate like that, at least not multiple times. Sure bad things happened to the characters, but supremely, unbelievable good things also happened that just scream THIS ISN'T REAL! Meh, none of it's real, but still, if you're going to go out on a limb and make up creatures at least have the decency to keep humans, and human nature the same unless you have the prowess to explain why they're so much better than we currently are. In Alastair Reynolds series he has a several human subgroups, all of which have their own unique advantages and disadvantages, not only that, but he tells us how and why his beings came to be that way. No such explanation from Hubbard. To be perfectly honest I don't think it would have been so bad had the book not been so long, I mean I can handle amazing luck and abilities for about 400-500 pages before it just gets old. I think the timescale also plays a big role, Hubbards book is all in maybe 4 years? If that. Not day by day either, skipping weeks, months, and season quite easily, so it was just like today this happened then a couple months later this happens, and then this, and on and on with the dumb luck and abilities.

Oh well, like I said earlier, if nothing else Battlefield Earth was well written, with a neat plot, and decent characters. Overall it was enjoyable, but I know for a fact had he split it up it could have been 10 times as successful as it was. As for recommending this, ehh, sci-fi nerds might get a kick out of it, but unless it's your genre of choice I'd steer clear. If you're looking to hit that 1000 page mark just to say you did, I would go with The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, or another literary classic. You'll get more out of it, you'll enjoy it more, and you won't have to deal with annoying characters.

Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglass Preston

2009-07-31T13:08:00.005-06:00

Every reader out there has their "guilty pleasures", the books that they read just for fun, for me those are mystery/thrillers. For sure I read sci-fi/fantasy far, far more, but that's because I enjoy it more, it occupies more of my mind, but with mysteries I can just kinda kick back with a nice easy read and let go. They aren't particularly difficult and a lot of the time the twists are rather predictable, but it's fun! Back in my junior year my physics teacher--who also happens to be my across the street neighbor--introduced me to a great pair of authors: Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. They both are distinguished solo authors, but they teamed up to write an absolutely fantastic series of mystery/thrillers. They also have a couple of novels that aren't part of the series that are amazing as well. I've read all but Riptide and after reading their latest Cemetery Dance I just had to get another one. It had also been a little while since I picked up a mystery and I needed a little break from the usual stuff. Unfortunately Page One, the local used book store here, was out of Riptide so I decided to get Tyrannosaur Canyon which is one of Preston's solo novels.

I don't know what it is about these guys, but even this solo novel had me hooked from page one! Generally I try and stay away from books set here in New Mexico, or even the Southwest, because I don't particularly like the culture that is overloaded in books about it. Not everyone here is a cowboy or an Indian, nor do we all love turquoise and silver jewelry. And no, I don't own any Indian pottery or rugs. So I was a bit hesitant to read it, but it turned out okay. For one the novel was set in Abiquiu, New Mexico, which is a small uber rural town up north. The characters were the usual innocent who witnesses a murder, the ex-con who's being used by a rich mastermind, and an ex CIA agent trying to redeem himself. One thing I think I should mention is that both Preston and Child are very into academia, in other words, they know their shit. One worked at the New York Natural History Museum, the other various other scientific places, so even though the story is fiction, a lot of the science is real. Which really helps when you have authors like Dan Brown out there fucking up their facts. This also helps with the fact that the majority of mystery books out there are kinda cookie cutter, different character names, different places, but overall the same plot. Although Tyrannosaur Canyon is similar to those others, it is also unique in its presentation.

The story follows the innocent cowboy who catches the ex-con killing a lone prospector in a remote canyon, the cowboy manages to revive the prospector long enough for him to hand over a notebook full of numbers and asks for that to be given to his daughter. Seeing as cowboys are very morally sound, he calls the police, but refuses to hand over the notebook and instead goes off on his own to try and figure out what happened. This leads him to the ex-CIA agent who, like most mystery supporting characters, is trying to hide from his past, this time by becoming a monk in a secluded dessert monastery. And so the hunt is on to unravel just what this notebook is for, why it's important enough to kill for, and all at the same time run from the ex-con who is trying to kill them. During the course of the book a side story emerges about the rich mastermind in which we are given more clues as to just what is going on. Since it is a mystery I won't bother with any more plot stuff, but instead I'm going to say that anyone in need of a good mystery that will throw you on it's masterful twists and turns, should pick up Tyrannosaur Canyon.

That's the other thing, unlike a lot of other mysteries, the actual mystery remains so until the very last minute, and even then your jaw will drop with the authors ingenuity. It had me staying up later than usual wanting to find out just what happened and thankfully it wasn't a let down at all! I don't know why, but I've found that when reading Preston and Child, and now just Preston, I always want to do the various careers featured in the book. After reading their first two books I was convinced I wanted to work in a museum, and then I wanted to work for the FBI, then the NYPD, then a journalist, the list goes on and on, but it always amazes me how they can make a rather dry, boring job seem really interesting. The same goes for this book, after reading it I really wanted to major in GEOLOGY and work for a lab analyzing rocks.. seriously. Geology is neat and all, but it is not a subject I particularly enjoyed in high school, nor in the various classes it's come up. For him to actually make me want to get a PhD in Geology is really something. I might just be easily swayed, but thankfully it doesn't last long, especially given the fact I look into the various fields and realize it's not that great. Major, major props to both Preston and Child though, because it takes a very good author to portray a boring-ish job in such a way to make the reader want to do that. It's one of the reasons I've read all of their books and now that I know Preston can write on his own, probably all his books. Next up I'll probably pick up a Child book and see how it stacks up. It was fascinating to see Preston's own style; it's easy to see where his own stuff comes through in their co-author books, but I must say, by himself he is not as good as with Child. I'm going to guess it's the same with the other one and that their own styles mate in such a way to make a fantastic book! If you don't do anything more than just go look at their books my mission has been accomplished. I yearn to introduce people to authors I like and hope that they will like them too, because really reading is magical and everyone should do it!

On Keeping a Journal

2009-07-29T14:24:00.000-06:00

I began my summer school at cnm not knowing what was ahead of me. Would my teachers be nice? Would they be worth the time, the effort, the money? Or would it be just another semester of uninspired professors and equally uninspired students. English 102 is one of those core classes that everyone must take. This often leads to a certain amount of blah, a lack luster class full of busy work on things you already know or things you don't really want to know. Even still it is also one of those classes that needs to be taken by everyone, like math, English is one of those subject you build up on, and until you have the basics down, you're nothing more than mediocre. Indeed, even after taking the class you are more than likely going to still be mediocre, but the things you learn in such a class are valuable. A review of grammar, spelling, and most importantly a higher level or writing. Higher expectations. A higher degree of analysis. Deeper, more complex stories and plots. Unfortunately this is something you need to be guided on. You need a good teacher in order to get the most out of a class, especially one like English. My 101 professor, for example, was pretty bored with the whole thing. He was being forced to teach the intro class because there weren't more than a few high level poetry classes available to teach. And it showed. I went through that class with a minimal amount of effort, I don't even remember the essays I wrote, much less the stories from them. Essentially the teacher didn't want to be there any more than the students.

This summer however I was put into a situation where the professor cared a lot about his class and his subject. He had a PhD in English, was a journalist for the majority of his career, and genuinely cared about his students. In other words, I actually had to put effort into the class. The very first day he did something unexpected, one of our major assignments was to keep a journal throughout the summer. In order to make sure that we were keeping it we would have to turn it in every time we did a rough draft of an essay in class. This surprised me because I hadn't ever encountered a professor that gave us an assignment not just for busy work, but for our own, 100%, improvement. I started this blog because I believe the more you write, the better you become at writing. It's been iffy, but I do feel like I've improved somewhat. I can express myself better than when I started, I think anyway, I can put my thoughts down onto paper--so to speak--with more ease, and if nothing else my brain isn't as cluttered as before. This ideal was his as well, but instead of a blog, it was a journal. There was no page requirement, no topics given, it was completely up to us to put whatever we wanted down. Now I've had my fair share of experiences with journals, none of them have lasted, so I was somewhat skeptical of the whole thing. This is because I have always had in my mind that a journal was a daily log of what you did, I'm sorry, but that is horribly boring to me. My life is nothing special, I don't do anything fascinating enough day-to-day to put down, nor am I introspective enough to be able to analyze my day-to-day existence in any sort of self improvement way. So I thought about it, and thought about it, and finally shrugged, I would write what I would write. I wasn't going to put the date, I wasn't going to put what I did, I was just going to write. It essentially became another blog, but with no standards. Even though I knew he was going to read it, I didn't feel the need to make it as polished and complete or even as coherent as my blog is. In fact, it was rather strange, but the reason I didn't keep up with my journals previously is because I find the idea of reading my own stuff boring, I need an audience, I am and always will be an attention whore. What is this blog? It is of no importance, I have few readers, but those that do read drive me to keep writing. It may be a sad reason to write, but it's true, I'm an attention whore. I need people to read my writing even if they don't agree, I need them to validate me and make it so I'm "worth" something, even when I know I am not. That is exactly what happened with this school journal. I wrote and wrote and wrote, not because I had any real interest in it, not because I believe I will ever go back and read it, but because deep down I knew that this professor was going to read it.

The sentences spilled out, the paragraphs formed, the entries added up, and the pages flew by and you know what? I enjoy it. I think that it has even become something of a habit, albeit a rather random one. I don't write in it every day, I never planned to, but about once a week I'll sit down with it and just write. I don't feel restrained by the idea that someone is going to read it, because really even if they do they can't really comment, even if they do it's just a note here or there, whereas here every word and entry is criticized and analyzed by people. I think its a good thing for someone's writing to be torn apart, it helps improve it, and gives the author an idea of what they need to do to become better. But I have found that with a journal I can write merely to write. I've said here in the past that I write only to write and I don't care what people think, and that's true, to an extent. With a journal I've found that I can put anything down, no matter how absurd, incomplete, or random. It's rather refreshing to be honest. An essay is written to be torn apart by your professor, just as this blog is written to express my opinion and let others respond, but a journal is just for me. It's a place I can write about the stupidest or most profound things, and it has actually inspired some of these blog entries. It's like a rough draft for here, and if it doesn't make the cut, what the hell I still got it on paper; I still got the experience from the very act of writing. It doesn't all have to make it here, indeed, a lot of it is just getting my thoughts straight about my ideas, and I think it may actually help my writing not be so jumpy. I tend to figure things out as I write and that makes it difficult to follow from a readers point of view, but with my journal, if I have an idea or thought about something I can write it, expand it, change it all I want and then when I come here to actually express my thoughts they're more thought out.

As you can probably tell this isn't one of those that came from my journal, but hell writing by hand is also really, really hard. I find that with my sloppy handwriting two pages is maybe a page typed up. It's a slow, tedious process, but it's actually enjoyable. I also have the selfish idea in my head that, like some great authors, in the distant future my journal may even be published. It's silly, I know that, but I also feel that this blog may even be published! We'll see what happens! Besides you never know, something like this may actually be popular, I don't know why, but people are strange creatures.

Failure

2009-07-10T13:34:00.003-06:00

I began this summer as a bright eyed optimist, having so many plans, so many goals, so much to do! Alas procrastination kicked in, followed by degradation brought on by my failures both physically and emotionally. Why is it that it is so easy for us to make these goals, have these plans, and aspirations if we know without a shadow of a doubt that we'll only fail? Why are we so enthralled by the idea of becoming better, but never actually following through? Is it just the idea of making something of yourself that gives your ego that extra boost to get you through whatever slump you're in? Or is it simply our nature to want to be better, promise ourselves to be better, and by doing so enable ourselves to put it off with idiotic excuses? "I want to get in shape, but school and work has just taken too much; it's too hot; I don't feel good." "I want to be a better student, but my teacher is an idiot and doesn't know what they're talking about; I have better things to do than stupid homework; oh I'll just do it tomorrow."

The worst part about the whole thing is how easy it is for us to say one thing and do nothing. In everything. Whether it is life, love, or anything in between. Not only that, but then it hits you and you actually realize that you're wasting your life. You're not doing what you want to do; you're avoiding situations that might actually make you a better person. That hurts. Waking up every day knowing that you're just another worker bee with hollow goals and moronic dreams. Is it possible to be too ambitious, but without the talent to make anything of those ambitions? For me this idea has struck home, hard, over the past few weeks. Although I'm doing well in my English class, I am once again confronted by my pure lack of math abilities. Perhaps I just have a mental block when it comes to math; psychologically it's proven that if you believe something long enough it becomes your reality, but do I want to put it off as easily as that? Am I really so controlled by my unconscious that I am mentally and physically at a standstill? I go off on how life isn't fair and how I hate this or that, but what am I really doing with my life? Nothing. At least that's how it feels to me. I have all these dreams, I have all these needs of being amazing, of doing something important, to be recognized, but yet I refuse to put any effort into my own life. How is it that someone can be so ambitious yet so unmotivated? It just doesn't work. The whole situations leads to failure and disappointment, common themes in my life, and yet, even with this knowledge I still do nothing. I don't pursue my dreams, I don't work at my classes, I don't try and better myself mentally much less physically, and top of that I'm a bitter wreck. I criticize people better than me, I'm surrounded by them. All of my friends are talented, smart, and actually making something of themselves. This should motivate me, this should make me strive to better myself, but I'm so bitter and jealous I find myself thinking it's not worth it. Why should I pursue this or that when my friends can all do it far better than I can? But this isn't a healthy way of thinking, I know that, I realize it, but how do I stop it?

I say old euphemism "acceptance is the first step to recovery" more often than not in an ironic almost sarcastic sort of way, but is it true? It may be relative, works for some people, but not for everyone perhaps. I find that knowing I'm a failure and even accepting it doesn't do jack for me. In fact, more often than not it just depresses me and forces me to seek comfort in another or in one of my books. I then forget my failures for hours, days, maybe a week, but sooner or later it hits me again and I'm just as depressed and bitter as I ever. Am I just masochistic? Do I need to cause myself heartache and pain in order to live? Maybe I'm just punishing myself for not doing what I hope to do. For not being the person I know I could be. I don't commit to the philosophical ideal of determinism. I do not believe that we're set for life the minute we're born, that some so called "God" has a plan for each and every one of us, I believe that if you work for it you can do anything you want. It is somewhat naive here in America where the rich can do whatever they want regardless of talent, skill, or work. But I really do believe that you can be whoever you want to be if you put your mind to it. So what do I want to be? I don't even know. I'm currently aiming for medical school for Psychiatry, but who am I kidding? Just like my idiotic ideas of being an astrophysicist that I stuck to throughout high school, I don't believe I have the talent to become the kind of psychiatrist I want to be. Perhaps I need to learn to settle on being mediocre, but in a country that spouts free will and stories of rags to riches how can anyone honestly be happy just being? I want to be something, I want to be someone.

Even still I know that I am not. I will never live up to the goals I have set for myself. I will never be a Martin Luther King Jr., a John F. Kennedy, a Ghandi, or even looking at it the other way a Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or any other hero or villain throughout history. Why am I so obsessed with being a one in a million, why do I have to be special in anyway? Why can't I just accept and be happy with who I am? I have my talents, sort of, I read a lot and have an amazing comprehension, I mean there are millions of people in the world that don't even know how to read. That should be something I can be proud of, yet I can't. It's not good enough. I'm not good enough. The saying "The grass is always greener on the other side" is so god damn true, and it's awful. I can juggle, I can navigate a computer and other such technology some people aren't comfortable with, I have great friends, an absolutely amazing girlfriend, but yet I want more. I want to be acknowledged for something. All of my "talents" are nothing more than slightly above average, all of my friends can rape me at juggling, I know several people that are better readers than I am, my writing is ghastly compared to my friends, and every other thing I might pride myself on I know someone who does it that much better than me. Even if I were to be better than my friends at something, anything, there is going to be someone out there who's even better at it than I am. Whether it is due to talent or unimaginable devotion it doesn't matter, they're out there. Sure I can become a psychiatrist, but I'll never be a Freud. I can become a physicist, but never an Einstein. A politician even, but never a JFK. Hell even my half assed attempts at being a radical are failures when it comes right down to it, I mean really, picketing for prairie dogs? No wonder no one gave a shit. All of my passions, chess, writing, juggling, reading, psychology, all of them are going to be utter disappointments because of my inability to settle for what I have. It's not fair. It just isn't! Why are some people gifted with the ability to be amazing authors or world class chess players? Why are some people just naturally better than others at things, but I'm not naturally good at ANYTHING. You would think that with almost 7 billion people on this earth that I would have a chance to be decent at something. I would be able to handle decent at something, to have a talent for something. But there isn't one thing in this world that I'm even remotely talented at. I have to work at everything, I have to work at my job to make the a living when people are born into shitloads of money; I have to work at school when plenty of people just coast through without a care and still pull all A's; I have to work at everything I do and even still I come up short of the average. I'm subpar on everything: math, English, writing, chess, athletics, even my god damn people skills suck. I alienate my friends, push away my family, and fight with my girlfriend all for ridiculous reasons. Just because I suck at life doesn't mean I should take it out on everyone else who'd actually succeeding, but I'm jealous. It's not fair, none of it.

So I sit here and instead of trying to do something with myself, anything at all, I complain. Just like I complain about everything else. Granted my complaints about religion, politics, and utter stupidity I think are actually justified, this is just plain and simple venting. I apologize to those that might actually read this, though they are few. I make myself out to be a strong willed, morally sound person in my posts, and if I let you down then I did. It's no big deal; I disappoint everyone I care about and most of all myself. Still I know I won't do anything, I won't actually pursue my random interests, but what does it matter? Once I become decent at whatever it is I get into in the future, I'll just find someone out there that's far superior than I am. Until I become something I don't know how to cope with myself. Maybe that's the reason I read so much, I'm living vicariously through the characters, and somewhat through the author. While I read the world disappears and I'm actually someone, I'm actually doing something with my life. I strongly believe that if I hadn't met Kimberley I would be a complete and utter recluse at this point. I more than likely would have dropped out, spent all my money on books, food, and other such material things, but luckily I found her. And amazingly she loves me as I love her! She's the most important thing in my life and I can't imagine a world without her at this point. When I read I may lose myself, but she's always the lighthouse guiding me home when I'm lost in the fog of my mind. She pulls me out of my slumps, makes me believe in myself, and I do believe that someday, with her help, I will become something. I no doubt will have to settle, because even statistically those one of a kind people are the rarest of rare: products of their time, their environment, their genes, and their genius. Slowly I'm trying to be a better person, I haven't missed one class this summer, I plan on doing the same this coming fall, and hopefully even with my poor math skills I will pull my ass outta this funk and pass, not only that understand. For now, thank you for bearing with me. I have no reason to post this, I should probably put it in my journal where only she and I can read, but I am an attention whore, and although I have no doubt some people will be mean about it. Whatever. I can handle a lot of criticism; I do actually, from everyone for everything, and myself. And honestly no matter what anyone thinks or says it's not as bad as my own inner voice.

The Edge of Reason by Melinda Snodgrass

2009-07-03T13:40:00.011-06:00

Since my "to read" bookshelf has 16 titles I don't honestly know why I keep buying books. It's an addiction, it has to be! In any case even though I knew I had all those titles on my shelf I still wondered into Page One with a couple bucks in cash. It's to the point that I know what I want to read, but don't want to start it because it's a series. I have all sorts of series to read already so I really don't want to start another one, well that's not true, I do want to start them all of them, but the fact is I don't have time to read them! So I go in, meander about for 20 minutes before heading to the little counter for help--I know me a worker at my own bookstore needing help. So I ask the guy there who was the person that knew the most about sci-fi/fantasy--it turns out it was him--and ask him the most difficult question I get asked: "I need a great fantasy or sci-fi that is a single novel, not a series, not stand alone in a universe, but a single fully contained novel." Trust me on this, this question is a whore and loaded to all hell because everyone knows the best aspects of sci-fi/fantasy are their epic series, see Tolkien, Goodkind, Herbert, and Feist just to name a few. His face betrays exactly what I said above in a grimace, I can't blame him, but then I added the fact that I've read a whole hell of a lot already so it might be tougher than usual. We headed over to the section and as we walked he tossed a couple no brainers at me: Crichton, Bradbury, Heinlein, and Dick. All the ones he mentioned I had read save for a Phillip K. Dick whom I was not in the mood for. Then he asked a question that threw me off "how do you feel about religion?" Whew that was one thing I didn't expect at all! I shrug and give him the most non-offensive answer I could while still being true with myself "Eh I'm not a fan, it's all kinda a joke to me." Again this guy throws me off and he laughs and says "I've got a book you have to read!" Here I was thinking he was gonna set me up with a religious themed fantasy--gag--instead he shows me a local author named Melinda Snodgrass who just came out with a new book called The Edge of Reason.

The quote on the cover from George R.R. Martin reads:
"Will delight thinkers--and outrage true believers--of all stripes"

He tells me, basically, that she bashes every major world religion AND governments. Say no more my friend, say no more! Unfortunately for them it was new so I decided to hold off and pick it up with my discount at my work, but in the meantime another guy overhears us who was on break and brings up L. Ron Hubbards book Battlefield Earth. Yikes, Hubbard, really? Whole load of crazy right there. They both assure me that this one was pre-psycho lets start a religion Hubbard and I also remembered that my uncle read most of his pre-crazy books as well and like them, so for 2 bucks I picked it up. I haven't started it yet, but it should be.. an interesting experience to say the least. Hopefully I can keep my bias out of it and just try and enjoy it as a good piece of sci-fi. I'll let you guys know.

So crazy cult leaders aside, this book was amazingly entertaining! Before I go into the plot and symbolism's of the book I have to get some dumb things out of the way. Now I have no right to criticize anyone on their writing, grammar, or mechanics since I suck horribly at all three, but as a reader I have certain expectations of the authors I read. I expect that, as a professional, you won't have too many silly typos/misspellings, I expect that if this isn't your first book that your plots aren't as see through as a third graders, and I expect that your sentence structure and syntax are much more complex than that of a middle schooler. Ms. Snodgrass does a good job with most of the stuff, but I felt myself getting distracted by a rather way of talking. It wasn't horribly confusing just a couple points needed to be re-read so I was comfortable with what I read, there were some silly mistakes here and there, probably due to her editor being lazy over her, and the biggest down to her book was the fact that she kinda gave everything away within the first 100 pages. The grammar and poor editing aside, seeing an author tell all about a plot and the characters so early in a book is a major turn off. There were a couple surprises in the end, and obviously this one is a start of a series so the end itself was rather eh. By the way I took this book because the rest of the series isn't out so I have time to read my other stuff! Generally though aside from some flattish characters--whom I expect will be developed more further in the series--and a plot given away like a drunk virgin, it was a good book.

Like I've said before I'm not going to write a book report for you guys, if you're intrigued by it go pick it up! The thing that made me the happiest was the fact that she grouped ALL of the religious together, she wasn't picking on one over the other, she came right out and said that the entire idea of religions is stupid. Not only that, she made religion and their "gods" into evil creatures using superstition and stagnation to enslave mankind. Indeed one of the major characters is named Cross and he's guess who? Jesus Christ! But really he's a powerful "old one" whom has been converted to the side of reason and logic. The kickass thing about Cross that Ms. Snodgrass uses to attack religions even more is this: He's a schizophrenic! That's right, he's been here since we evolved and based on the cultural view of wherever he is he becomes either Jesus for Christians, Yehoshua for the Jews, and Allah for the Muslims. So not only are these stupid religious people fighting each other under THE SAME GOD, but they're being controlled and enslaved by every "god" throughout human history. She addresses one of the major things I have a problem with in Christianity which is the fact that in the Old Testament God was an asshole. He killed us, punished us, made us suffer, and overall enjoyed it, this is, she explains, because that's how these creatures thrive ff human suffering. Until one of the other major characters comes in and changes the view of a spiteful angry god into that one of compassion these creatures used holy wars and all those awful things that happened to become stronger. Christians always tend to play off those atrocities as God "testing us", but in reality they were doing it for their own pleasure. Oh man she did it so eloquently and so masterfully that I totally let most of her almost poor writing go and gave her a 7/10 on my list. Another theme that played a smaller role in the book was that of corruption and how if you have enough money you could be the most evil, vile person on the world and get away with anything. It also addressed aspects of homophobia, race, and family.

If you're iffy on religion or hell even if you are religious I think it's a great book to pick up! She's a lot meaner than, say, Christopher Moore's Lamb, but there are things Snodgrass brings up that need to be addressed. Hell it got a good review by the great George R.R. Martin that alone should compel any fantasy fan to pick this up!

Passion: Tree Houses

2009-07-02T23:12:00.009-06:00

As I was cleaning up my store this evening I stumbled upon this amazing book in one of the home sections. It's called Treehouse Living and it brought up emotions in me that I haven't felt since I was a kid!
Naturally I stopped what I was doing and started flipping through it, and guys, this is one of the most gorgeous books I have ever seen! Perhaps it's just me, but I can't think of anything more amazing that being so.. intertwined with nature as a treehouse! Ever since I was a child I've wanted a treehouse, unfortunately living here in New Mexico makes it rather difficult to build one. I have seen a couple pretty neat ones around town, but it's almost impossible to find the proper tree for the designs I have floating in my head, it's just too dry! In any case this book made me think about them again and god damn I swear here and now that when I'm older and richer I will build myself one. I know what you're thinking, "Ryan you're the most not carpentry/building manly man ever" and it's true, but I will do whatever it takes to full fill this dream. I'll even overcome my mild fear of heights and dangle from a tree to build this. I know I'm probably going to need someone there who actually knows what the hell their doing, but I think it would be really gratifying to build my own! I suck at drawing so I haven't tried to draw one in a really long time, but maybe I'll start playing with sketches--hahaha doodles more likely--look at a few books like the one above and try and get an idea of what I want.

Like I said I've always loved the idea of treehouses even now I don't know why exactly. They've always seemed magical to me probably because my favorite mythical creature is the elf and in every amazing fantasy the elves live in forests and have cities in the trees. From Tolkiens Lothlórien to Feists Elvandor, fantasy has always blown my imagination away with it's elven cities.. the peacefulness, the calmness, the pure magic of it all has always captured my heart. Granted realistically I can't really expect to have a treehouse even comparable to those of Lothlórien or Elvandor, I think I can make something really cool!

Lothlórien

So naturally I came home and got online to check out what cool designs I could find and sadly there aren't any very good pictures out there. I did find a few that are really pretty, but I may just have to purchase that book at some point and upload the pics, or maybe I'll take some shots with my phone next time I'm working. For now, here's some cool treehouses I found! If you know of any please link them for me!

This one is the same as on the front of the book, except in winter obviously

This one I absolutely adore!

The same as above, from the front! Tell me that isn't AMAZING! Gah!

This one is kinda rickety, but it's still gorgeous

Another amazing one, I think I want mine higher though!

This is another really cool design!

Another thing I can say without a doubt is that I want it to have a spiral staircase up and around the trunk like the first one! This is more than likely because of the fantasy visuals I have in my head, but I also think it looks so freaking cool! I'll have to see what I can do about finding pics of some of the ones in that book. More than likely I'm already breaking some sort of copyright so whatever ya know? Not like I'm making money off 'em!

A Response to Cynics of Love

2009-06-29T16:23:00.002-06:00

After reading and discussing love and relationships in class I believe it is very easy to be horribly cynical about love if you've never actually been in love. Dorthy Parker is a prime example, sure I'm not 100% positive if she was married or not, but I can say with a high degree of certainty that she has never been in true love. When you're with someone that takes your breath away every time they walk into a room you can count to a million and not get bored. Besides she says "men delight in novelty" so do women! Just because you have to give some thought about being with your lover doesn't mean there's no novelty! People who are cynical about love and relationships are, at least in my opinion, lazy. Being single is easy; you only have one person to please. I can tell you, though, that pleasing both you and your significant others a million times more rewarding than it will ever be to just please yourself. Don't hat on lovers because you're too lazy to put any sort of effort into a relationship. That's what a relationship is: caring about someone SO much that you'll do everything and anything in your power to make them happy. That may mean giving something up for yourself, or not doing what your id tells you to do, but no matter what the amount of effort you put in will be paid back a million fold.

As for monogamy in general I believe it works. It may not work for everyone, but I've never been happier than when I am with Kimberley. When we're apart I feel so empty and.. alone.. I can't stand the thought of being without her. You may think that amazing new relationship sorta deal, but we've been together way past that stage. Sure it's not that sappy uber newness, but I feel that it's far better now than any new relationship can be. We know so much about each other, we're so.. compatible! One of the things that fuels a new relationship is that feeling of not knowing if it will work; you're both afraid so you try harder and do more for the relationship. In the end, though, it has the chance of ruining the whole thing because that's not who you really are. Or you fool yourself into thinking it's what you want and when it does work out you realize you don't.

So for me, I love her with every part of my being and I truly believe that it will only get better from here. As far as those naysayers, just wait til true loves comes and blows you away! When it does you'll look back on your cynicism and bitter poetry as an older person looks back on a young ones naivety. Trust me on this, true love is an out of the world experience and no crappy poet will change that. I seriously think that it's not peoples place to talk about things they don't know or understand, especially things that are truly magical. Love is one of those things! It's so easy to bitch and moan about how you don't have anyone and how love is stupid and how you despise the whole idea, but if you just took a quarter of that so called "passion" and energy and put it into finding another person you'll find out what it really means. Why is it that as humans we would much rather rant and rave about things that bother us, but yet never actually do anything to change those things; Even when it's in our best interests to go out and do something with our lives and find true love. I understand it's hard, I do, but why must you become a bitter person and try and burst everyone else's bubble? I'm sorry you don't have a love or you had a bad break up or whatever it is that's making you a bitter person, but I don't think you have any right to write shitty lyrics or poetry proclaiming how evil and wrong love is. It's an amazing thing and it makes people happy. That in and of itself should make a difference and make you open your eyes and find someone, or to actually work for your relationship because news flash, cheating on your partner is not the way to go. Sex is a very small part of a relationship, it's needed and one hell of a good time, but it is not the substance of your relationship. Just being with the other person should be more than enough to satisfy you, and guess what? If the sex has fallen out of your relationship and it all goes to hell the answer isn't to go fuck around, work through your problems, bring that spark back because if you don't it will all just come crashing down around you. When that happens and you lose not only your sex buddy, but possibly your one true love, it'll hit you the hardest. It's not worth it. Period.

Jerry and Molly and Sam

2009-06-23T14:47:00.003-06:00

This was one of the choices for my first essay in my English 102 class this summer. The prompt was:
"In Raymond Carver's "Jerry and Molly and Sam," Al sees the dog as a part, at least of what's wrong with his life. What do you see as what's wrong with his life and why?"

In Raymond Carver's "Jerry and Molly and Sam" the main character, Al, is having a wretched year. Unfortunately for Al, he does not approach his many problems in a healthy or even logical way. Instead, Al becomes not only self destructive, but goes on to ruin the lives of those who care for him. Al believes his major problem is Suzy, the family's dog, but in actuality, Al is merely displacing his anger and resentment from his seemingly out of control life onto the dog. From a psychological standpoint, Al classically demonstrates many of Sigmund Freud's various defense mechanisms, and from this point of view, it becomes easy to identify, and possibly fix, Al's problems.

From the beginning of the story the reader is introduced to Al's troubled life: Aerojet where he works is laying workers off, his wife forced him to move into an overpriced home, his fidelity wavers as he suddenly finds himself in an affair, his body is starting to show signs of old age, and, to top it all off, his wife's younger sister, Sandy, keeps popping in and adding financial burden to his life. On top of the financial burden, Sandy is the one responsible for giving Suzy to Al's family. All are classic signs of a midlife crisis with one minor problem: Al is only 31. What is a man to do in such a situation? Blame the dog of course! Carver eloquently opens the story proving this point: "As Al saw it, there was only one solution. He had to get rid of the dog without Betty or the kids finding out…He felt relieved making the decision" (690). In addition to all of Al's problems, it seems that he also has a minor issue with anger management. Carver illustrates this through the tone of the story and the graphic nature of Al's thoughts: "He wished he'd never seen that dog. Or Sandy, either, for that matter. That bitch! … The mere thought of all the twenty-five- or fifty-buck checks, and the one just a few months ago for eighty-five to make her car payment—her car payment, for God's Sake … made him want to kill the goddamn dog" (691). Here the reader gets a glimpse of Al's obsessive aggravation with Suzy that eventually leads him on a downward spiral of destruction and pain to himself and those around him.

Sigmund Freud, whom many consider the father of modern psychology, believed that the mind is made up of three conflicting personas: the id, pleasure based; the ego, self preservation; and the super-ego, values and beliefs. Simply put, the conflict between these three personas in an individual's sub-conscience produces anxiety. According to Freud, humans have what are called defense mechanisms to help deal with this anxiety. Two mechanisms that have become somewhat more common are denial and repression, both of which fall into a category referred to as the Level One Defense Mechanisms. In total there are four categories, each with its own various mechanisms, ranging from the least psychologically detrimental which are in Level One, to the most harmful in Level Four. There are upwards of 20 different mechanisms total, but Al's character best represents the following three: displacement, rationalization, and reaction formation. Sadly all of them come from the Level Three category and are commonly referred to as the neurotic defense mechanisms. Such mechanisms interfere mainly with a person's work and love life, both of which are problems for Al.

Displacement, in the simplest terms, is the act of displacing the aggression one feels for something or someone onto something less threatening. Al is subconsciously displacing all of his anger and resentment caused by his job, his wife, and his body onto the innocent dog. Because Al believes he is losing control of his life, he has to find a safe outlet in which to discharge his overwhelming anxiety. He cannot take it out on his boss for fear of losing his job, he cannot take it out on his wife for fear of breaking up his family, and he cannot he take it out on himself because he truly believes that none of the problems are his fault. In the end, Suzy is the perfect scapegoat, and she is the only thing he can safely release his frustrations on. After she misbehaves a few times Al suddenly justifies the irrational action of getting rid of her because "he had enough to contend with without having to worry about a stinking dog" (Carver 691). This in and of itself is another Level Three defense mechanism called rationalization. By convincing himself that Suzy is the root of all his stress, Al makes his extreme actions justifiable, which, in the end, only lead to heartbreak. In combination, displacement and rationalization can cause terrible heartbreak, and ultimately, cause more anxiety than they save, as the reader sees later in the story. When Al returns home after getting rid of Suzy, he finds his family in uproar; the children screaming for their lost dog, a hysterical wife, and a guilty conscience. Carver expresses the psychological horror as Al begins to realize the magnitude of what he has done: "He kicked the door shut. Everything was going to hell. While he was shaving, he stopped once and held the razor in his hand and looked at himself in the mirror: his face doughy, characterless—immoral, that was the word … I believe I have made the gravest mistake this time. I believe I have made the gravest mistake of all" (697). Actions that were once meant to lower Al's stress level suddenly multiply his anxiety to a point where he truly is out of control. This comprehension leads to an even more horrifying realization for Al and sets him up for reaction formation, the third defense mechanism.

Reaction formation is when a thought or belief causes so much anxiety that the person believes, in an almost manic way, the very opposite of the truth. A common example is with love: one person is flaunting her love in an extremely over the top manner, gushing over her partner, making emotionally intense claims, and, in most cases, smothering the relationship. This is because the person realizes that she actually does not care for her partner and even hates him, so instead of breaking up and moving on, she smothers him in fake affection. In Al's case, when he returns home to his distraught family, he realizes that without the dog he no longer has a scapegoat. In actuality, Al lost the only thing, at least in his mind, that might have actually cared for him. Al begins to see his whole life crashing down around him as he rushes to find Suzy again, "He saw his whole life a ruin from her on in. If he lived another fifty years—hardly likely—he felt he'd never get over it, abandoning the dog. He felt he was finished if he didn't find the dog. A man who would get rid of a little dog wasn't worth a damn. That kind of man would do anything, would stop at nothing" (Carver 697). Then Carver delivers the biggest bombshell of all for Al: Suzy no longer wants him, "Al got out of the car…calling, 'Suzy, Suzy, Suzy.' The dog stopped when she saw him. He sat down on his heels, reached out his arms, waiting. They looked at each other. She moved her tail in greeting. She lay down with her head between her front legs and regarded him. He waited. She got up. She went around the fence and out of sight" (699). Just when Al is about to overcome his reaction formation he falls victim to it again as he tries to cope with Suzy walking away: "The thought he didn't feel so bad, all things considered…Some dogs you just couldn't do anything with" (Carver 699). Instead of overcoming and accepting his love of Suzy Al, once again, traps himself in this psychological pitfall.

Although Al has many problems aside from the psychological, ones including a drinking problem, an anger problem, and marital problems the psychological distress only intensifies his problems and makes his life that much worse. Al foolishly believes that Suzy is to blame for all the wrong in his life and that if he gets rid of her, his problems will suddenly become manageable. Instead, however, by using the subconscious defense mechanisms of displacement, rationalization, and reaction formation, he makes an already bad situation that much worse. That is often the problem with relying upon defense mechanisms; in the end, they cause more harm than good.

Thoughts on the Deepgate Codex

2009-06-16T14:41:00.005-06:00

One of the things my English professor said we could write about in our journals--the journal being a class assignment due with each paper--was to keep a log of all the books read and some thoughts on each book. Alas, I already have a log of books, but looking back on some of them now I find myself unable to remember as much as I would like about each one. I remember back when I started keeping track of my books that it might be kinda cool to jot down this or that about each one, but ended up never doing so. I figured "eh I'll remember them well enough" and I guess I do, but sometimes you read a book and it unlocks this hidden emotion or lets loose this wild train of thought that is worth keeping on paper. I know this is true because I still look back on my Thoughts on Dune post with wonder and awe, because now I believe I would have lost some of the feelings I had after reading those books. Of course it's a rare book that evokes such emotion as Frank Herbert's Dune, but hey, I'm not brain dead when I'm reading and I am rather easily intrigued. So hence commences my mini review/thoughts on the various books I read. No worries my loyal readers, I will continue to post the entire list that I read, cause I know you care so much, but I think this will only supplement that list. Perhaps it will even give some of you out there a good book to read! Not to mention it will get me to post more than a couple times a month, now it'll be a few times a month!

The Deepgate Codex by Alan Campbell is a fantasy trilogy that a classmate recommended I read. Usually I don't go pick up every book someone recommends to me, I mean I work in a bookstore, I'd be even more broke than I am now if I did. Not to mention the fact that generally speaking when someone has told me to read this or that I'll pick it up only to find it's not quite what I'm into. I'm not being stingy, but I guess I do have somewhat particular tastes when it comes to books, especially sci-fi/fantasy. For whatever reason, though, I headed to Page One on my break and happened to spy the first book in the series entitled Scar Night. One of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to books is the price, this is a serious issue at my work since I get a full third off everything, and used books are even worse. So there I am, standing in Page one, looking at the back of Scar Night: My first thoughts were eh, it's about angels and hell not my cup of fantasy tea, but then I look down. $3.50. Honestly, how can I pass up a recommended book for three dollars and fifty sense. I mean that's half price! So I gave in partly because it was recommended, partly because of the price and partly because I was out of fantasy books at my house.

I'm not going to bother trying to explain the plot; I have found I fail miserably when I do so. Instead let me just say that it was... interesting. There's a bit of a hesitation there only because it was vastly different than any of my usual fantasy. I tend to steer clear of anything having to do with angels and I also avoid fantasy books set too far in history. I like my classic sword wielding no electricity or guns fantasies; I'll take elves with long bows over humans with any sort of technology any day. Scar Night was a little two close to comfort on both counts. The main character is an angel named Dill who lives in a strangely technological city, but not quite. The city is called Deepgate is suspended over, what I imagined anyway, a seemingly bottomless pit by chains and ropes. It took me a long time to fully visualize just what the city looked like, not Campbells fault he has an amazing way of describing things, but because the city itself was so vastly different than anything I've ever encountered. In any case I believe that was part of the reason I finished the book. The world itself is vast and complex with fully a fully developed, deliciously dark religion; a strong, vibrant history; and an amazing cast of well developed antiheroes; all of which made me eager to learn more. So I soldiered on even though I dislike angels and religion based plots and I'm glad I did.

Certainly the first book left a lot to the imagination, unfinished subplots, vanishing characters, and a rather anticlimactic climax. This is do, at least partly, to Scar Night being Campbells first book, but also because he has a very unique style. He manages to follow several different characters, but only partly, often times not talking about one set for chapters and chapter before jumping right back in. The other thing I think that held Scar Night back was the fact that it seemed to be written almost as a filler for the other books. The plot was good, the characters were great like I said, but it felt to me like the second book in a trilogy which tends to be the most dry, plot oriented. Which was why I was almost afraid to pick up his second book, Iron Angel, but did seeing as I got it for free with a coupon. Iron Angel is miles apart from its predecessor in almost all areas, but the thing that got me really interested in it was his ideas on hell, gods, and angels.

A lot of authors tend to stick to the Christian version of hell, a place of torment, pain, and fire, but Campbell totally recreated it and shattered my ideas on what hell could be. Basically what happened was, like Lucifer being cast from heaven, the main god threw her sons out of heaven barring the gates and entrapping them on earth. The most powerful one was torn to pieces and scattered across the maze, Campbells hell. So when you die your soul gets sent to the maze of blood. Once inside your soul takes up occupation in the form of a house, castle, fortress or whatever else lies hidden in there. You're conscience during all of it, and indeed you feel whatever your home feels: when you walk around you feel your own footsteps as if you were walking over yourself, you can also create anything and everything you wish by mere though. Though, he explains later, humans have a difficult time grasping this and often live in shacks of their own despair. Outside of these soul ghettos are rivers of blood, a sky of black, and demons controlled by a king. Since souls are so easily suggestible this self proclaimed king of hell sends his minions out to break apart the soul houses and forcibly extract the souls living there. From there he can create monstrous demons, buildings, walls, doors, and any other thing he wishes from these souls--I might add that the process of changing into one of this kings creations is horribly painful--through this he creates a vast army. Flash back to the land of the living and we learn that the fallen angels are no better than this king, they're corrupt, power hungry, vengeful angels who's goal is to enslave mankind to build an army in which to storm back into heaven.

This whole idea that the gods are evil and the devils are evil, but yet fighting each other with mankind in between is fascinating. On the one hand you have the deceitful angel demigods who trick mankind into serving them and later giving up their soul and blood for power, and on the other you have the cruel king of hell who forcibly, through pain and suffering, steals souls for his own selfish goals. So you have this war going on between these fallen angels and this vicious king both of which are trying to enslave the human race for their own good. Unfortunately for our human heroes they are unaware of these fallen gods darker purpose. I haven't finished the series yet, I just finished Iron Angel yesterday and will be reading God of Clocks at work, so I don't entirely know what's going to happen. In any case, though, I love the idea that if you go to hell you have complete control over your surroundings, seeing as it's just a manifestation of your soul, but yet still suffer. It's an interesting idea that I'd like to explore further, but for now I'm going to end this here and maybe edit in some more notes when I finish God of Clocks. Definitely some interesting insights on what hell could be, who are we to know after all? If you're interested in hell, heaven, angels, and human nature all wrapped up in one I would definitely pick up this trilogy.

Another thing I would like to note is that by writing about this I almost feel compelled to give it a higher rating in my personal list. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm reliving the better parts of each of the books as I think about them, or because in writing about them I somehow gain a higher regard for them. More on this when I finish another book though.

Owed to the Spell Chequer

2009-06-02T11:35:00.004-06:00

Owed to the Spell Chequer

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Man that was really hard to write even though I was just copying it over! My English professor gave that to us today, because he grew up in the time of dinosaurs and thinks spell check is utter fail and we shouldn't rely on it at all. I was pleased to note that Microsoft 2009 has a bit of a grammar check now, it's limited naturally, but if you, say, put weather where you needed whether it gives you a pretty blue squiggly. Too bad English is such a whore of a language and has grammar that will gladly bend you over and rape you in more ways than one.

As you all well know by now, I suck at grammar, punctuation, and spelling. It's one of the reasons that I have such a bitch of a time writing, because I'm always second guessing myself, and then I get all embarrassed cause I fail. I can't ever just sit down and write well. I can't even take the advice of great authors and just write a first draft, not care about spelling or grammar or punctuation because I'm like ocd about it. I always stop and go back, cross things out, add words, delete words, change words. For example my little "sci-fi" story thing I wrote a while back I wrote in a composition notebook, it was only like 4 or 5 pages in there cause my writing sucks, but by the time I actually went ahead and transferred it over to the computer I had such a hard time reading it cause of all the marks. I guess it's just a skill you have to learn with practice, but I don't know how to not go back. It's awful! In any case part of my English class I have right now, yeah I know summer school English fucking fail, we have to keep a journal because he says that the more you write the better you get. A theme I've mentioned here, indeed the whole purpose of this thingy, and so I'm going at it steadily. I'm thinking I might even transfer it on here at some point, not sure if I wanna put the whole thing at once or split it up into separate posts for separate entries. We'll see I guess.

I figured I'd share that little poem with everyone, because even though I suck at all that stuff, I still found it super amusing! And hey, I needed a "blog" post at some point, all the other blogs I read-not including Shem, Aaron, or Cory-are all short and kinda not intense? I can't think of the word right now, but they don't seem too content-y, just random thoughts and mini entries about daily lives. Not that mine is much better, but I think this is my first post that's just kinda eh and only took like 10 minutes to type up.

Wow so right before I posted this guess what I did, hit spell check. I'm hesitant to call that irony, but it made me shake my head at myself. I also must say I hate how FF doesn't really spell check stuff written in blogger, it catches some stuff, but hardly anything. I typo'd because earlier and it didn't even say anything.

Doctors and Athletes

2009-05-26T16:19:00.006-06:00

So I haven't written anything here in a while, I don't know why, plenty of good stuff has come up recently. Indeed, I actually have a couple things I want to put up on here like my protest experience and about vampires, but for now I'd like to rant a little.

So my English professor is rather odd, I don't know what it is about him, but he's just.. odd. I mean he's really smart, has a PhD blah blah blah been working for years yadda yadda yadda, but he's got that "old" mentality ya know? Everyone has a grandma or grandpa that says fucked up things perfectly naturally, like my grandma, she said "japs" and "chinos" and "negritos" with a straight face and by god she didn't care if it wasn't PC or not. Fact is I don't even think they know what PC is, they're old, we let them say things like that. Now the same goes with my English prof, kinda. He's not really that old, I don't know exactly how old actually--maybe, like, mid-sixties?--either way he just says things that are like.. What? It's not really as bad as my grandma was, but it kinda makes you scratch your head. For example he talks about race in an almost racist way, but not quite. As you all well know, race doesn't really bother me all that much, people can say what they want, it's all a load of crap anyway. Today though he said something that really did bother me.

We were discussing education and why we were in college and what not. I was only semi paying attention I mean I know what I'm going to school for and as entertaining as his stories are it's like meh. So there I was kinda listening, kinda doodling, when he says "I don't think doctors should get paid as much as they do." Uh, what? So he goes on to say that just because they went to school for longer than most people that doesn't mean they should be paid any more and he goes on to say "In fact I think doctors should be paid a lot less and someone working at, say, Albertsons should be paid more. Doctors don't really have to deal with people bitching [he did use bitching] about food or complaining about prices or even as many people as a clerk does." Before I go on let me point out that he doesn't think that a clerk should make more than a doctor, but he thinks that doctors shouldn't be paid nearly as much. He then goes on to say that it's both the doctors fault and the health care system here in America and he cites that "doctors here make more than any other country." Probably true, but still come on! I work retail, you all have seen my rants about how stupid and retarded people can be, but I seriously don't think I should make more just because of that. Especially if the difference means taking money from the people that keep me alive. Jesus H. Christ are you kidding me? I mean I don't understand at all how you can truly think that doctors should be paid less and then go on, with a straight face, that Albertsons employees go through more hardships and deserve to be paid more. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Another thing he said was that the only reason doctors do get paid as much as they do is because "they have to, how else would they pay back all their student loans." Excuse me no no no no. Doctors get paid so much because THEY HELP PEOPLE. Ughhhh

Shit if you think all us retail people need more money why don't you take money from the people that don't actually do anything for society. This, like most of my opinions, is arguable, but I think those people are athletes. Mainly "professional" athletes. What the fuck are these people doing to make millions and millions of dollars per game! If doctors made 2.2 million dollars per patient then okay, take some money from them, but until they do shut the fuck up. At least doctors actually help people, what does a football player do? Run around, grope at other men, toss a ball around, and then make an idiot of himself in the end zone? Cool. So glad you're getting paid the big bucks to not actually do anything. Eh, okay they provide entertainment, but I would by no means call that a service. To be fair I think this is true for actors, eh, they don't do much either, don't even come up with the stories or characters they act. Before people say that musicians are the same way, I'd like to point out that they actually come up with what they're doing, create it, and, this I'm not positive about, I don't think they make millions of dollars per song, they make a lot, but they put a lot of work into it too. Athletes can just shoot up some steroids and bam they're good, no matter what drugs you do, you either have a good voice or you don't. They probably get paid too much too at least in comparison to doctors, so my point still stands. Besides people, do you really want someone without any education prescribe you medication that could potentially kill you? Honestly? No I didn't think so. Just because you put up with idiots on a daily basis does not mean you should get paid way more because of it, it's not like hazard pay. So what if someone treats you like crap, get over it. Plus, doctors get treated like crap all the time, AND have to deal with druggies, hypochondriacs, and insurance companies.

If you want the average joe to get paid more, drop the pay for people that don't do shit. And I'm sorry, talent in a sport does isn't worth shit in the real world. Period.

Frustration

2009-04-02T21:33:00.002-06:00

So I had one of the most frustrating experiences today. It's a rather common experience to anyone who's read, nevertheless it's annoying! There I was, sitting comfortably on my bed, curled up under the covers reading—don't be jealous—and I was enjoying my book. Or so I thought…But then I reach a chapter and begin to get an odd sensation of déjà vu. I read a few more sentences and…GOD DAMN IT! I had already read that book. 86 pages in, which has to be a new record for me, but still. Such a waste of valuable reading time, and class time O:-) to be honest. Honestly, it made me so mad, because with school and work, and life in general my reading time is valuable! How on Earth did I forget a book SO much that I can read freaking 86 pages in before realizing? *Sigh* Like I said before, this is a very common thing, I can't tell you how many times I get people coming into my work and returning books because they've already read them without realizing. Lots of times this is the publishers fault, they'll reissue books under new covers and it throws people off. No such excuse for me, this was already on my shelf, while I was rearranging my shelves I saw it and went "hey wait I don't remember this book". So I read the back, flipped through it a bit, and put it on my "to read" shelf. I think this is partly Anne Rice's fault. By the way, since I didn't mention what book it was Blood Canticle, the last of the epic "Vampire Chronicles". In any case she's gone all super Christian on us—I know it's stupid, one of the greatest vampire authors "finding God"—after her husband died in 2002. Canticle was written in 2003, so its chalk full of religious crap, and she even goes as far as to try and "redeem" her greatest evil character, Lestat, and turn him into a Saint. A SAINT. Gah! Fucking shoot me! I'm not sure why I love her Chronicles so much, but I do, well I love the earlier ones. Partly cause the main character was vile, despicable, evil, selfish, and arrogant. He was the perfect "bad boy". I had kinda seen her going this way with the series after Memnoch the Devil, but I didn't think she'd ruin the character, or at least try. I'm really glad she failed, or at least she tried to stay true to his evilness, but it doesn't change the over the top amount of religious themes in her book. As such, I most likely skimmed over most of those parts making it so I couldn't remember them, at least not til a super memorable part 86 god damn pages in. Fuck. My. Life. I'm trying really, really hard not to rant about her turning all religious, but it still bugs. A lot. She no longer writes vampire books; instead she has a series about the life of Jesus. God, what a waste of such talent! She is, or was, one of my favorite authors, her skill at descriptions and gah just her style was amazing. I'm sure her Jesus books are well written, but the content is ugh! I should be okay for a little while with her yet, I still have her witch books to read, as well as the new tales of the vampires, and her mummy book, but after that *sigh*.

I think instead of ranting about her here, that I will write a Vampire post in the near future. No one really knows how much I'm into the whole vampire scene—not the goth/emo crap right now—but like literature wise. Obviously my favorite is Anne Rice, but I think I just love the concept of vampires. You'll see. Sorry about the mini rant here, I had to get this off my chest though!

Questions about Economics and Politics

2009-03-27T16:42:00.004-06:00

So recently I've found myself more and more interested in Politics and Economics. Alas I'm horribly hindered in my speculations by a tiny problem: I don't know shit about either. I mean I took Government and Economics back in high school, but come on. It was my senior year, both my teachers really didn't care, and quite frankly at that point neither did I. But now as my reading has increased, I've realized that many of my favorite books, such as Dune and others have major political and economic themes. This is quite distressing because, although I have pretty good reading comprehension, I know for a fact that I'm missing a lot. Very, very, distressing.

The other thing is the simple fact that I'm twenty years old, and to be perfectly honest I don't really fully understand the US, or other countries for that matter, government system. Sure I have my beliefs on major issues like Capital Punishment, and the other biggies, but what do those beliefs make me? Liberal? Conservative? Republican? Democrat? Green? Red? Blue? Yellow? I kind of understand the differences between them all, but not in a very substantial way. I also don't have strong idea on how the Congress works, nor the Senate. Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Marxism and Fascism; all terms I'm familiar with, but if you asked me to tell you the difference between Socialism and Communism, I wouldn't be able to. And now it's all come to a head! I'm currently reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, and it has a lot of talk about Communism, well maybe Marxism? Or is it Socialism? I'm not sure. In any case, what I'm reading sort of fits with some of my personal ideas on government and economics, as juvenile as they may be so does that mean I'm a commie bastard? Or socialist? I don't know. All I know is that this sounds right to me:

"And look what has happened to our freedom. The men who fought the American Revolution were no more like these D.A.R. dames than I'm a pot bellied, perfumed Pekingese dog. They meant what they said about freedom. They fought a real revolution. They fought so that this could be a country where every man would be free and equal. Huh! And that meant every man was equal in the sight of Nature--with an equal chance. This didn't mean that twenty per cent of the people were free to rob the other eighty per cent of the means to live. This didn't mean for one rich man to sweat the piss out of ten thousand poor men so that he can get richer. This didn't mean the tyrants were free to get this country in such a fix that millions of people are ready to do anything00cheat, lie, or whack off their right arm--just to work for three squares and a flop. They have made the word freedom a blasphemy. You hear me? They have made the word freedom stink like a skunk to all who know."
~Jake Blount page 158

And:

"Karl Marx was a wise man. He studied and worked and understood the world around him. He said that the world was divided into two classes, the poor and the rich. For every rich man there were a thousand poor people who worked for this rich man to make him richer. He did not divide the world into Negroes or white people or Chinese--to Karl Marx it seemed that being one of the millions of poor people or one of the few rich was more important to a man than the color of his skin. The life mission of Karl Marx was to make all human beings equal and to divide the great wealth of the world so that there would be no poor or rich and each person would have his share. This is one of the commandments Karl Marx left us: 'For each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.'"
~Dr. Benedict Copeland page 188

Excuse the not so PC language in that last one, the setting the 1930s in the South.

Fiction is a hard way to judge non-fiction ideas, so I'm not so sure how accurate the latter is to what Marx actually thought. I also know that in theory Communism works, but, as we've seen several times in history, it tends to fail in practice. I'm not sure why that is, perhaps the way the Soviets executed it wasn't actually how Marx intended it. In any case, I feel like I have a fairly complete view on what I think politics and economics should be, but because I don't know much about any of the different theories, I don't know where I stand. I would put what I think her, but I'm not nearly eloquent enough to put what I think into words without sounding convoluted and idiotic. I've discussed it with Kimberley a couple times, so I'm getting better at saying what I think, but I'm still not comfortable with my ideas.

I also don't want to be labeled, ha like it already hasn't happened, until I understand what the label is. The other problem I'm having is this: if I do feel more compatible with something such as Socialism, Communism, or kangorooism for that matter, I know how stupid we Americans are. Especially since my ideas are more theoretical than practical. I, like most Americans, have a very negative view on commies and socialist bastards and every other not capitalistic democratic system. We all do. But I want people to discriminate me for things I actually understand, like race or religion or people who think reading is dumb, not on failed political ideals. More than likely I'm not going to agree with what the political ideas have said in the past, I might want something new? But with old ideas from various political systems. Until I actually have a grasp on it I'm not willing to say I'm anything. For now, let's say I'm a Ryanist.

So in order to become "educated", if it's possible on such huge topics as politics and economics, I've decided to read some of the various books on them. Maybe take a class on econ and politics. Though I have a feeling that even though I'm excited now, I'm not going to follow through very well with this, because, shit both subjects are TERRIBLY boring. So we'll see. Maybe I'll read a bit of the Communist Manifesto and various others. For now though I'm gonna put some definitions in here:

Communism n. a political theory advocating a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person is paid and works according to his or her needs and abilities.

Marxism n. the political and economic theories of Karl Marx predicting the over throw of capitalism and the eventual attainment of a classless society with the state controlling the means of production.

Socialism n. a political and economic theory which advocates that the community as a whole should own and control the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

Hmm well its obvious Marx was wrong when he thought capitalism would be overthrown. I think this has to do with the fact that he said there were only two classes; it doesn't seem like the middle class played a role in his theory. But I'm not sure yet. As for communism, well, it seems easy to misconstrue what "publicly owned" means, cause didn't Russia make it so the State controlled those things? I do agree somewhat with the needs and abilities idea, I think. Of course all these definitions are way vague and simplified, but those are some of my thoughts on just those.

Feel free to comment with your ideas, thoughts, criticisms and such. I'm always interested in people's opinions. Also I think everyone should pick up a copy of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, its damn good!

Pascal’s Wager

2009-03-25T12:04:00.002-06:00

There is no God— at least not in the way Blaise Pascal believes. Pascal was a French philosopher who, if nothing else, had some very interesting ideas on God and why you should believe in his God. I'm sure during the time he was alive his arguments were as solid as a castle's defense, but if we merely look at his theory from another angel we'd find it is nothing more than a house of cards. Pascal believes that though God is incomprehensible it is still in our best interest to believe in him. I'm going to show how his argument is mortally flawed for several reasons.

Pascal gets right to the point by first telling us that "If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible…We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is" (93). I agree, if indeed there is a divine, almighty, super being out there, it doesn't give humans a second glance. Next Pascal goes on to simplify the notion of God into two categories: He exists or He doesn't. As human beings we have a choice, a wager, when it comes to our immortal existence, if indeed there is such a thing. According to him these are the only choices we have and we must put all our chips on the table when it comes to making this wager. As to what's on the line, Pascal explains "You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things at stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery" (94). To add to this already iffy claim Pascal leaves no third option, that being not to wager at all. His reasoning here is that if you choose not to live a life not choosing your actions will, as a default, lean toward the side of not believing.

There are four outcomes to this two choice wager; if you believe in God and he turns out to exist you'll live in eternal happiness, ie heaven, if you believe in God and he doesn't exist you don't lose anything and actually, according to Pascal, you'll be a better person because of it; on the other side if you don't believe in God and he turns out to exist you'll be in eternal misery, ie hell, or if he doesn't exist you don't gain anything anyway. Pascal then goes on to say that of the two options a reasonable man will choose to believe in this God because, in the long run, you have less to lose. His argument, "Now, what harm will befall you in taking this side [believing in God]? You will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, a sincere friend, [and] truthful" (Pascal 95). At first glance all these arguments seem solid and reasonable, but let's take a closer look at some of his assumptions.

First, though his logic is sound, something just doesn't feel right about his two options. You believe or you do not believe, but already I'm not even included in these categories because I choose not to choose. Before I elaborate, though, I want to address his major flaw, that being his assumption of a Christian God. Although he tries to take an unbiased outlook on his work as a whole, his basic argument rests on Christian doctrine. First he says that to take a third view your life will unwittingly follow a path of sin, and that by believing in God you'll live a life without sin. As everyone knows that is not the case. There are people out there that do wretched, horrible, despicable things and yet still follow the word of God. They go to Church every Sunday, they don't say the Lords name in vein, but yet do horrible, horrible things. As such, there are people out there that don't necessarily believe in God, but are moral, they live without sin, they're loyal friends, humble, honest, and all of the other qualities Pascal set to only those who believe. To spur his Christian point on, he brings up heaven and hell, the notion, of course, is familiar to all of us but it should not be clouding the mind of someone trying to find Truth. The other downfall of this assumption is we don't actually know which God is the God. Let's say we live out life to the t as a Christian, die, and find out that it was really the Hindu God that was the real God. Would that God not be unhappy with us? Would that God not punish us for not only not believe in him, but for living out life by the standards of a God that doesn't even exist? This assumption of a Christian God is Pascal's biggest flaw, one that damages his argument beyond repair.

Even if we're generous with Pascal and let the Christian God assumption slip by he still has some major flaws. Going back to the outcomes; do we really know what happens when we die? Pascal says that if one were to not believe in God and be right they would gain nothing. What if when we die we are still self-aware in some way, would we not be somewhat gratified to know that we lived out life how we wanted to live it? Though, this is a bit of a stretch, I believe it is still valid. Pascal also mentions practically tricking yourself into believing in God "Follow the way by which they began; by acting as if they believed, taking the holy water, having masses said, etc. Even this will naturally make you believe, and deaden your acuteness" (Pascal 94). Essentially brainwash yourself into believing in God, but wouldn't that doubt still nag the back of your mind? I believe it would and as such, though we don't know the nature of God, I surely doubt He would want us to fake believing in him. The outcomes themselves are a little too forced, seeing as we do not know what happens when we neither die, nor do we know the nature of God or if Heaven and Hell exist there's no way we could conclude as Pascal did that there are only four outcomes. If for instance there is a God, but he is wholly apathetic to us and decides that there is nothing after death, neither punishment nor happiness, Pascal's theory crumbles. Indeed, the choices and the outcomes don't quite match up either, seeing as the Christian God gave us free will, I then could choose not to choose but still live an absolutely moral and "good" life there is no way He could punish me for it. This is yet another crack in Pascal's theory.

In conclusion, though Blaise Pascal's theory has some, almost logical, basis looking a bit deeper reveals some major flaws. By assuming that God is the Christian God, Pascal alienates many other religious groups with just as much evidence for their God(s) as Christianity. Instead of trying to prove the existence of an organized religions', we as philosophers, indeed we seekers of Truth should try and find the nature of whatever god may be out there, if there is a God. We should also not limit ourselves to possible outcomes, especially in matters of death. No one will ever know what happens when we die, perhaps nothing, perhaps something, but there are limitless possibilities. We should also not assume that can even touch on Gods nature, as such we should not let things we want cloud our judgments and make us blind to negative aspects of Gods nature. Perhaps God is something that should not even be sought; after all we have many, many equally tough questions to ask

Talking About Books

2009-03-24T01:24:00.004-06:00

I find it increasingly difficult to actually compare books, or even just decide what my favorite is. In the long run this isn't a big deal, but seeing as I work at a bookstore and need to be able to make myself clear, it's a bit of an issue. I'm not sure why I'm having such trouble now, before it didn't take much thought at all, but now it’s actually hard! Partially, I think, it's because I've read so many more books recently than I have before. Indeed, it’s rather sad, but I tallied up the total number of books I've ever read, at least the ones I can remember, and I excluded almost all kids’ books, and it only came up to 211. This is way stupid, but I really thought I read more. Okay fine I'm only 20 years old so I guess that's a pretty good number, but considering I read a fourth of those this past year, it's really distressing to me. Maybe I'm having a more difficult time because in the past couple years I've read so many great books that it's now impossible for me to say. Or more likely I'm just thinking about things way too much.

I don't know why I do it, but I do. There are so many variables to consider, so many differences, such complexity, that I just find it almost stupid to even try. But what exactly am I suppose to do? A customer asks "What's your favorite book?" I can't start asking them about genres, moods, length, and complexity. I'm the one who’s supposed to be making their choice easier. How though? How on earth can anyone, no matter who they are or what they do, compare, in any legitimate way, science fiction and, say, mystery? Or even worse, sci-fi/fantasy to fiction? You can't, you really just cannot do it! Hell it's hard enough to compare books in the same genre! I mean I love Tolkien, but I also love Feist. The two are completely different in the themes and styles--okay so most fantasy authors take a little dip into the Tolkien style, but that's irrelevant here--and yet they are two of my favorite fantasy authors ever. Why? I love them both for different reasons, I can't say I like one more than the other because they're too different! And yet they're in the same genre! I want to make a list of my top ten favorite books, but I just can't! I suppose I could just write up a list of my top ten in each genre, but like I said earlier, picking one over the other is just.. wrong!

Don't get me wrong, I have very obvious favorites when it comes right down to it. For example, Dune is so much better than most sci-fi out there, but can I say it's my favorite sci-fi novel/series? No, I really can't. This is because the very nature of sci-fi, and arguably any genre, is the amount of creativity within the genre. Dune is great for so many reasons, but it's not great for the same reasons as Snow Crash. Indeed, what make them so amazing are those very differences, their originality, and their uniqueness. Another huge factor involved in how I rate books is the feelings I have about them. Now this is completely and utterly subjective, but it still makes a huge difference. I'm not very eloquent, so this is probably going to sound really confusing, but whatever. The mood I'm is what plays a role here. It’s hard to explain, but I can only read certain genres or even certain books at certain times. Tolkien for example, I love The Lord of the Rings, but it's one of those trilogies that I have to be in the "mood" for, ya know? I've heard this at my work before, "I just need a nice easy read" or "I feel like a good trashy romance right now". So maybe I'm not as dumb as I thought.

I find this plays a huge role in when I read what, especially when it comes to non-fiction and literature. Probably 85% of the time I want to read something entertaining or fun, in my case that's science fiction or fantasy. Not that I don't enjoy non-fiction or literature, but it's just not, fun. More and more I'm forcing myself to read literature even when I'm not in the mood for it. This tactic seems to work well because I do genuinely like literature, I just have to get started first. This isn't the case for non-fiction, for that I really have to be in the mood for it, or had to fiction myself out. Though I haven't really tried to force myself to read it, I'm sure if I did it would work somewhat, but I just have a bad attitude I think. I feel that if I don't "want" to read it I shouldn't waste my precious little time reading it, even if it's good or factual or whatever. I have the same problem when it comes to studying; I'm only living for a set number of years, why should I spend 8 hours studying for a test that doesn't matter? It's a bit of a problem, I know. Slowly but surely I think I'm making progress, most of it can be attributed to Kimberley. I find that I'm studying more now--on my own even--and I'm also trying really hard to read more literature stuff, even though most of the time it's rather dry. Although, I have no doubt that no matter my age or maturity level, I'm always going to prefer sci-fi/fantasy to any other genres.

Writing this out seems to have helped clear up my thinking. It really is amazing what the simple act of writing your thoughts down will do to put things in perspective. The brain is certainly a funny thing. I realize now that even if I can't arrange them in a numerical order, the fact I am so "in love" with certain books or series gives me a perfect place to start from. I have these favorites in pretty much every genre aside from non-fiction, which I haven't really read enough of to make them clear. Not only that, but I'm seriously passionate about some of these titles, enough so that with a little background on a customer, I can probably find something that they will like. In the meantime, it might be kinda fun to try and list some of my favorites, and group them by genre if only so I have a reasonable idea of how to answer "what's your favorite book?". Maybe I'll even try and work out some sort of numerical list, or if not a rating system. I've tried the rating stuff before; actually I have a word doc that is a replica of my Year of Reading that has ratings of all the books. It's a simple ten point system, but I find that after each book I read I end up altering many of the scores of the others. This seems to be a bit of a problem, so maybe I'll spend some time this summer and see if I can come up with a more accurate system. Oh and what I'll do is post up various ideas or thoughts on it to try and fine tune it with a little feedback, not that anyone really ever comments :(. I will be sure to start working on that list here shortly, it totally sounds like an interesting and fairly difficult project to wrap my head around, way better than school that's for sure!

Overcome

2009-03-19T00:36:00.005-06:00

I wander through the fiction section straightening books as I go. Face one out here; slide two over there, all the while my eyes glide over various titles and authors. I feel it coming, I always feel it coming, yet I feebly try to stop it. And then it's there, crushing me, suffocating me. I feel my heart thud in my chest, blood rush to my face, these names, these titles, I am nothing compared to them. The great names loom over me: Austin, Capote, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, Huxley, Orwell, Steinbeck, Tolstoy.. on and on until my vision fogs over and my head screams "You are nothing! What are you ever going to accomplish? You can't compare. Nothing you do will ever be worth even one of these books" I mange to shake it off, if only slightly, but the books still surround me. There are so many! So many stories. So many characters. So many voices calling out to me. It's too much! It's all too much, I want to throw down my badge and just read, read, read, read! But my vision expands and I see not only literature, but mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, history, politics! The subjects go on and on! Rows upon rows of books, wall to wall, floor to ceiling. My breath catches in my throat and my mind goes on, "Ha! Even if you spent every minute of every day for the rest of your life reading never will you get remotely close to reading what's out there." Then my paranoid side comes out, what if I choose wrong? What if it's bad? What if that time is gone forever? And my mind reels at the fact it's all passing by. What am I doing with my life? Why? How? I'm never going to have this minute again. NEVER. It's gone. Again and again, I'm losing time, I'm slowly dying, but what am I doing? Nothing. Life is slowly getting away from me, I've been here twenty years now and what do I have to show for it? I'm fat, I'm not educated at all when it comes right down to it, and it all just overcomes me. My eyes begin to water, but then, hope. I remember something, someone, somewhere and I smile. My heart slows, my breath comes easy, and I look around. I anxiety subsides and I realize how I relish being in the presences of these great ones. Her face flashes through my mind and I think to myself "It'll be okay. As long as I have her.."

Thoughts From a Bookstore Part 2: The Dumb and the Awkward

2009-03-10T11:39:00.004-06:00

So, I know I said I was going to do my next one of these on the religious people, but after a good 20 minute rant to my girlfriend I figured I had enough content for another topic. Everyone complains how the rest of the world thinks Americans are idiots; perhaps this section will shed some light as to why that is.

The Dumb

There are several assumptions one can make about people that shop at a bookstore. First and foremost is that they can read. Well I have discovered that is not always the case, in fact, I think it's safe to say many are flat out blind. For example, the question we get asked most doesn't have anything to do with books, nor music, nor movies, but where the bathroom is. Now this is a logical question seeing as we're a public facility and all, and hell even in some parts of the store, but most seem to enjoy standing right under the freaking sign, or even in a direct line of sight to it. Along the same line we get people who come up to the desk and ask for CDs or DVDs, which are conveniently pointed out by 5 foot black and white contrasting signs hanging from the God damn ceiling. To add insult to injury when I point the sign out, they still don't see it. Come on people. Big black and white sign. Not hard to miss. I'll give some people credit, though, older folks do have fairly bad sight, but anyone under 50 has no excuse. Next up we have the people who refuse to take "we don't have it" for an answer. These people come in all self righteous, refuse help saying they can look it up on their own. Which they can, it is a pretty easy program to use, and all the buttons are clearly labeled as are the results. The screen even says either "Likely in store" with the location of the item listed or in bold red font "ORDER" if we don't currently have it in. Seems pretty easy doesn't it? Even still these people will then yell at us and ask "Where is this, it doesn't say" of course the item they're looking for isn't there. I tell them such and they proceed to practically scream saying such and such is a "classic" why don't you have it blah blah blah this is outrageous. Then as if any of us care, they say "well *lifts nose up* Barnes and Nobel will has it". Uh, okay, cool, is that suppose to be an insult? Pretty sure we each carry different shit, big deal. And more than likely they don't have it seeing as Hastings, Borders, and B&N all get books from the same distributors. This next incident I couldn't make up if I wanted too: On multiple occasions we've had people all and ask "hi, Do you have books?" Whoa.. what? Okay sure calling a place like Hastings you could ask that, seeing as they mainly carry multimedia, but this is Borders BOOKSTORE. Come on. Though, sadly, we've had someone come in, walk through the front of the store--which I might add is full of all sorts of books--and ask if we carried paperbacks. Sigh shoot me seriously. The last example I have by far takes the cake on American stupidity. I was fixing the audiobooks and this couple next to me was looking at Homers The Odyssey. The man was scrutinizing it pretty intently; I thought maybe he was just hard of seeing, but nooo he comments to his wife: "So do you think this is read by the original author? This, uh, Homer guy? I think it might be." I stopped what I was doing and was just hoping and praying he was joking, but I looked over and they both looked puzzled. And the final blow came from the wife, "I hope so, I heard he has a wonderful voice!" Oh lord.. Just.. yeah... And we wonder why everyone thinks we're fucking idiots.

The Awkward

This section is somewhat worse than the one above, but for different reasons. As most of you should know, bookstores have an adult erotica section. As such we get all sorts of weirdos because of it, not to mention the 14 year old horny middle school students. First I should probably mention that we have some pretty fucked up books back there too--har har "fucked up"--such as The Fetish Book, which is conveniently made of rubber for even the most wacky sex. I should also mention that I'm pretty open when it comes what people do behind closed doors, but it's still.. awkward when people are super open about it. For example way too many times have I had an older couple, maybe in their 50s or 60s, come up and ask where the sex section was. That's cool, I mean, heck its natural, but these people are like teenagers! Again, that's cool, but I don't think I'll ever get used to the sight of an old man grabbing his old wife's bum and sucking on her saggy neck.

The other common awkward experience is those that deal with recovery. As many of you know, or should know anyway, people have problems, lots and lots of problems. It also goes without question there are plenty of people out there that are willing to help, or at least make money pretending to help. Many times I'll have guests come in, sadly a lot of parents and grandparents that are looking for ways to get their kids/grandkids off drugs, or through other addictions. It's so hard to know what to say when they ask for something like that, I mean usually I like to try and make conversation with my customers, but with something like abuse, or drugs, or many other topics in that area, it’s hard to know where the line is. There are people that are willing to share their entire life story with you and others that don't want you to talk at all. The ones I find especially difficult are those that deal with abuse. We have a whole section on it, and there are some really helpful books out there, but when it comes to talking about it, or helping someone it’s just so.. I don't know difficult. Cause I feel bad, but at the same time I'm supposed to be impartial and keep my nose out of things. Or before we used to order specific books for people and when they got in we'd give them a call telling them their book has arrived. A lot of the time people won't answer, for good reason too I mean it is a random number, but what am I suppose to say when the title is something like When Daddy Hurts Mommy or Love Shouldn't Hurt, or Get Out Now!, what if it’s a general mailbox and the child hears? Or the abuser listens? I don't know, this probably isn't the tone you were expecting after the first examples, but it's something worth noting I guess.

So I was planning on doing one other section, but I'm just going to cut it cause its kinda stupid anyway. Essentially it was just how half the people out there think they know how to run the store better than we do. Meh, people are freaking stupid anyway. I hope this little adventure gave you some laughs and maybe even got you thinking.

E-Book Revolution

2009-02-10T00:52:00.015-07:00

The digital reader scene first hit my radar back in December '07 when Sony partnered up with Borders to sell their brand new Reader Digital Book--don't look at me, I think it's a terrible name too--soon after I heard about the Kindle made by Amazon (this one is of the Kindle 2 since they took down the link to the first edition). I'm not going to lie, I've been avoiding the whole idea of e-books since I first heard about them. Usually I'm pretty open to new technologies, I had one of the original iPods, got the Nintendo Game Cube, Wii, and DS all when they first came out, not to mention the first Google phone, but electronic books? It just doesn't sit well with me.

As you all should know by now, I'm probably one of the biggest bookworms out there. So intuitively I should be excited for such a revolution to take place, I mean come on, combine technology and books, it should be heaven! At the same time, though, I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to certain things in my life, not many mind you, but a few. One of them, the biggest I'd say, is books. I love, love, love opening a new book, turning the pages, really experiencing the book. Where is that with one of these e-readers? Sure you can hold 20+ books at once all in the palm of your hand, but where's the actual interaction between you and the book? It's not even just new books I love, I absolutely adore the worn down, well read half falling apart of really old books. Some of my favorite novels I have are from before I was born! Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master by Raymond E. Feist are pretty much falling apart on me. Master's back cover has come off completely--this does make me quite dismayed to be honest--and both of the spines are so worn from handling that you can hardly read the spine. And the smell, ah the smell. It might be weird to you guys, but working at Borders combines two of my absolute favorite smells, coffee and new books. When I buy a brand new book I usually open it up, close my eyes, and just run my thumb over the pages so they fan right into my nose!

My weird fetishes aside, I feel that by making books completely digital we're going to lose something humans have had for hundreds of years! Now I can't really bag on the whole thing either. I like to think that I try to be environmentally friendly, but lets face it, I probably have trees worth of paper just sitting on my shelves. Not to mention, as much as I love seeing my books on display, they take up loads of room. Also, from what research I've done, digital books are cheaper than their paper brethren, this makes sense since, after all, there aren't really any materials being used, and with the amount of memory we now have on computers, even a 500 page novel doesn't take much space. Of course, if you know where to look, you can get e-books for free. This is where it gets kind of iffy for me; ethically speaking I have no problem downloading music and even the occasional movie or two, but I don't know how I'd feel downloading books. It might be hypocritical on my end, so sue me I think writing a book takes much more time, effort and passion than that of a pop song or movie. And, unlike movie stars or rock stars, authors don't make nearly as much money, nor does the majority of their profits go to greedy labels. The publishers do get a cut, it's true, but it's not rape like the music industry. And, as a matter of opinion, but authors are much more humble than their media cousins, there are of course exceptions--J.K. Rowling--but the majority I can think of that aren't Opera whores or publishing whores, are pretty cool. I'll be honest, I've downloaded two books in my life time, one was Snow Crash because I was reading it at work and could not wait to find out what happened, the other was Twilight. In my defense, after I finished Snow Crash I bought it, and honestly I couldn't get through 100 pages of Twilight. Besides Stephanie Meyer is now way richer than she should be so one fluke download probably didn't hurt her much.

Ha I just thought of something, with my wide reader base, I'm sure I'll somehow get screwed and have the bored FBI agent browse my blog. If you guys don't here from me in over a month you'll know what happened!

The other downside that I've seen from these digital readers is that they're becoming more than just readers. Okay, so we live in a digital age, and most people can't live without their email or internet connection, but reading is the last refuge against the technological onslaught! People are suppose to curl up in bed or by the fire with their book and just relax, take a break from the almost overly connected world, escape! Alas both the Kindle and the Sony Reader are connected synced to the net, which is okay if all it is is to buy books, but they also have browsers. This isn't so bad for those people out there that go and read blogs and such for their news, but I dunno it just feels.. wrong. Not to mention both readers come equipped with a whole host of other features, such as mp3 capabilities, image storage, even access to radio, and I'm sure it won't be long til both are sporting a camera. When I sit down to read I want to sit down and read, not listen to music, look at pictures, or browse the internet I mean come on! Because of all this extra baggage both the Kindle and the Sony Reader fucking expensive! The Kindle rings in at a whopping $359 and the Sony Reader at a cool $399! Fuck you guys, Ipods are cheaper than that AND have more storage good lord. Everyone says that they pay for themselves quickly, this may be true after a while. I have a hard time justifying burying a $25 brand new hardcover, this is just ridiculous since you'll be at $400 BEFORE you get any books. The other problem with the pricing is that the books really aren't that great of a deal.

Lets take a look, a new mass market paperback book--that's the small ones for all you non-booknerds--is $7.99 in the store. On the Kindle you can get the same book, for $6.19 if its new, if it's somewhat older, but not too old mind you, you can go down to around $3.15. Sounds like a good deal, but consider a used book. Shit you can get most new, bestsellers at a used book store for around $2-$3 easy.. with the advent of these e-books there will never be that cheap a book again! I guess the real savings come in for hardcovers, a brand new hardcover in store will run you anywhere from $20-$35 depending on the content, a fiction usually averages out at $25.99, young adult at $19.99, and non-fiction upwards of $30. On the Kindle, brand spanking new "hardcovers" are only $9.99 from what I can tell, going up or down from there depending on the price. Once again this seems like an amazing deal, but the reason you spend that extra $15-$20 bucks on a hardcover is because you're getting a hardcover, as an e-book there's no difference between a book that's 5 years old and a book that came out this week. It's all text! So what exactly are you paying for? The fact that it's new? Brand new music on iTunes costs the same as music from the 80's and they take up more space. So really are you saving money by buying e-books? Seems more like saving space, and even then, I don't know anyone who hates the way books look on shelves, it's just one of those things everyone inherently likes. It reminds us of old times, of piece and quite, of dare I say sophistication! Granted I think it would be damn cool to have all your books in a neat little folder on your computer, saves space, saves hassle, but wtf are you suppose to do when your computer crashes. I will bet money that neither Amazon nor Sony will let you re-download the book, there'd be way too much fraud. "Oh hey, I uh, my uh computer crashed, I had like, 1000 books, can you give them back to me?" No way pal. If you think about it, books are really hard to get rid of, they're hard to move around, take up a whole hell of a lot of space, and they're heavy, it's really unlikely that you'll lose your entire library.

Now one thing I do support is what Google is doing. They're scanning in, or at least trying to, every single book ever made. It'll take ages and ages, but they have the resources and the security to back up these books that are deteriorating. Whats more is that they're letting people have these books for free. A lot of them aren't the most brand new, or best sellers right now, but you can go to books.google.com and search for books and then download them. They even have a mobile site for you psychopaths that think reading a novel on a cell phone is a good idea: books.google.com/m.

So really I don't know what to think. I love to read, and I think it's a really cool idea to have multiple books on an e-reader or computer, but I don't think it's worth the price. On the one hand you don't have the hassle of carrying books onto planes or having them take up a bunch of space in your house, but on the other they're easily lost and the reader itself is damn expensive. Not to mention all the bells and whistles that are attached to these readers, a book is a book.. not an mp3 player or photo gallery.

For now, I think it's safe to say that I won't be investing in either the Kindle or the Sony Reader, maybe if something comes out that's cheaper and really basic I'll consider it. Even then, though, I don't know how into it I will be, it's always been my dream to have a whole room that's just a library in my house.. but if there really is an e-book revolution, print books may go extinct. We'll see what the future holds I suppose.

Linguistic Autobiography

2009-01-26T14:06:00.005-07:00

This was an assignment for my Linguistics 101 class that I found particularly enjoyable. Basically what we were suppose to do was map out our linguistic experience explaining the different languages we've been exposed to over the years. We were given a few areas that we had to address in the essay, but there are others I would like to add here so this will be a bit longer than the original.

Growing up here in New Mexico I was lucky enough to have more than my fair share of exposure to language. I experienced several different languages growing up including English, Spanish, and even bits of Polish. My experience with language further developed in high school when I first took my trip abroad, followed by a trip to Mexico, and most recently a around the world journey taking me from Europe to Asia. Language has always been fascinating to me, more so now as a Psychology major, the parts of the brain used, and even the function of language are all amazing to me, and hopefully someday I will learn another language fluently.

As far back as I can remember I was always somewhat exposed to Spanish, though not directly at home. I grew up here in Albuquerque, but my mom and I made weekend trips up to Las Vegas, New Mexico to visit my grandmother who could speak English well, spoke primarily Spanish. With that kind of exposure I did not so much learn Spanish, but more recognized the language itself. I was young enough that I started using words here and there that were Spanish, and indeed my whole family uses certain Spanish words for everyday items, including myself. As I grew older I realized that when asked if I knew Spanish I could not really say yes, but at the same time I could generally understand what my grandmother was saying to me and for the most part what my mother and grandmother were saying to each other. With this sort of naturally education I learned Spanish primarily as a spoken language, and yet not quite, I have always had difficulty speaking it, but understanding it comes much easier to me than either writing or speaking. The other part of growing up that I remember, though my memory is somewhat limited by how young I was, is my grandpa using some Polish phrases. This was not nearly as much as Spanish, seeing as he and my grandma spoke in Spanish, but it was enough that I recognize Polish over the other similar languages—like Russian or Czech. Now that I am older I learned that most of the phrases and words my grandfather used were curse words, but I suppose that’s better than using English curse words.

I have another very distinct memory of Spanish from my childhood, this one coming from a friend. When I was in second grade Cuban family moved in next door to me, amazingly they had a boy the same age as me. His name was Javier and we became fast friends. Him and his family fled Cuba, the year before landing in Florida, before moving to New Mexico, and to my knowledge his family was the first non-American family I had ever met. Earlier I said I could understand Spanish fairly well as a child, but I learned very quickly that the Spanish my family spoke was, though fundamentally the same, completely different from that of Cuban Spanish. Here my memory fails me, but I am told by family that for a large period of time I was using Cuban slang and developed a slight Cuban accent when speaking Spanish. I do not remember any of it now—the only thing I do remember is the absolutely amazing food Javier’s mother made for us—but I am sure if I heard Cuban Spanish again I would recognize it.

As far as my legitimate foreign language experience—meaning taught structurally in a classroom—I am sadly limited. I remember in fourth grade we were required to take Spanish at the magnet school I attended, but after moving to the North East Heights I did not take any language classes again until freshmen year of high school. As most students know, freshmen year is a joke, there are good students of course, but I was not one of them. I was still making the transition from being the “top dog” eighth grader to the bottom of the food chain freshmen and academics were not the top of my list. After that one year of Spanish 1 I did not take it again until I found out, a semester too late, that I needed another credit in language to attend UNM. So four years after my last language class, and frequently less visits with my grandma, I was in Spanish 101 at CNM. Now I plan on pursuing Spanish further here at UNM and hopefully do a semester abroad in Spain. The only immersion I have had in Spanish was a week in Mexico, though by the end of it I was using rediscovered phrases from my childhood again. The other language I would like to pursue in college is Italian, mainly because I have been to Italy twice.

When it comes to reading, writing, and, quite honestly, speaking I am most comfortable in English. That being said, after my limited experience with academic Spanish I am starting to grasp the sentence structure better, but still no match for even a first grade Spanish speaker. One of my goals language wise is to learn how to at least read Spanish fluently because I am an avid reader in English. From what I have heard, if you read a book in the language it was written in you will gain a whole lot more from it than a translation, so that would be amazing.

As far as my feelings for languages my thoughts are more conceptual than practical since I only speak English. I can say, though, that when it I have to speak Spanish I am always horribly embarrassed because despite my past Cuban accent, I now have a thoroughly white accent and completely fail at rolling my ‘r’s. One thing I am proud of, if one can truly be proud of such a thing, is my ability to recognize certain words in Italian and Spanish, though even this is very, very limited. Another, more silly thing I am proud of is that I know the word for ‘cat’ in 5 languages, certainly not going to get me far, but neat none-the-less. Language is truly an amazing thing, and hopefully someday I will learn multiple languages and have my kids learn foreign languages from a very young age.

On a side note I DESPISE Word, or maybe Blogger, one of the two. Pretty much if you write in the new word and cp over here the html fucks up. God damn it google fix this shit, or Microsoft stop making such shitty programs that are ONLY compatible with what you want them to be compatible with. Gah.

Primal Fear

2009-01-07T14:50:00.005-07:00

Usually I don't remember my dreams very much, maybe bits and pieces, but today was an amazingly vivid dream. Even when I do dream "vividly" I don't tend to really care much about them or even think about them all that much, today was different.

This was the last dream in a sequence, I'm not too sure what the previous ones were, you know how dreams are they flow and mesh and change rapidly. So in this particular dream I was out with my old best friend Richard and some other person I don't quite remember even now. We were on the road leading to my grandmas house in Las Vegas, New Mexico--this road is super hilly and very curvy-- and we were riding bikes and just talking. For some reason we spot a snow leopard attacking a big creature of some sort, it was either a cow or maybe a buffalo, across the barbed wire fence. Then a pair of cheetahs show up, and a couple lions (one was a juvenile male with a short mane, the other two were full grown female lionesses) and they all join in the action. For some reason Donita--Richards mother--shows up and is with a friend sitting right by the fence in gaudy pink lawn chairs watching all this.

Something else happens, I'm afraid I don't remember exactly what, but a group of people on a safari, hunters I'm guessing drives by in one of those safari jeeps and gets attacked. They drop a shot gun and a rifle and rush to town I think after being attacked. So then Richard, myself, and the other guy see the snow leopard and one of the cheetahs coming under the fence near us, but before we can do anything they trot over to where Donita and the other woman are. Donita is true to her personality in my dream, that being loud, obnoxious, angry, and super drunk, and starts screaming at the leopard to get away kicking the fence and her friend goes so far as to swing one of the chairs at it. Badddd move, the cheetah and the leopard both attack and shit.. It was scary. Every one has seen those discovery or animal planet shows where the big cats attack, it's vicarious! It's just tearing this woman apart and finally the three of us run over and start shooting trying to scare off the beasts, at this point they kinda run back but not too far and circle around. Richard is blubbering like a baby--his mom booked it the opposite way-- and me with the shotgun climb under the fence and drag this lady back to the road, while the third person is shooting and yelling keeping all the cats away. I accomplish this and lay the person over the basket attached to the front of my bike, I know weird right? And take off.

This is where it becomes even more weird. The lions and the other cats chase me parallel to the road roaring and calling, which is scary enough as it is, but then one of the cheetahs gets on Richards bike and comes after me on the road. I'm going as fast as I can up and down these hills and I guess in my dream cheetahs can go just as fast on a bike as they could running so I'm almost paralyzed with fear. Next thing I know I'm going as fast as I can toward the side of the road where there's a little ramp like ditch and launch myself over the fence and land still riding. And I do it two more times but on the last time I land wrong, on the side with the lions and leopards, and then I wake up in a cold sweat.

I honestly woke up with my whole body sore from being tense, my back and legs soaked with sweat, and my heart beating fast. I'm a horrible, horrible story teller so it probably doesn't seem too scary to anyone who reads this, but it was. After I had looked around and calmed down a bit I came to the realization that humans are weak weak creatures. If any of the carnivores in our world become self aware, we're screwed! Sure we're on top of the food chain now, but it's not because we're particularly strong, heck a two year old chimp can break us, nor are we particularly well adapted to our world. I mean we are, but hell if power went out half the human population would die from cold, hunger, all sorts of things these 'lesser creatures' fight off every day. Nor do we have any sort of defense or offensive skills, if a man doesn't have a gun or even a pointy stick, that bear or cat is gonna kill him. We don't have claws, or teeth suited to attack or even defend ourselves.. it's a scary thought. On the flip side, though, we have brains. That's about all we have actually, sure we now have our technology and our guns, but without the brain we'd be screwed. I guarantee that homo-sapians would have become extinct if we hadn't developed so quickly, but we all still have that deep down fear. I call it a primal fear, but I'm sure there's new and better terms for it now, but every one of us, I believe, has these ingrained very human fears. Falling, the dark, predators, probably many many more, but from time to time they show themselves in a dream or a hallucination and we realize just how worthless we are and how lucky we are.

It's interesting to look at these primal fears from a psychological point of view. First, though, I think it's worth pointing out just how much of an affect these fears have on us especially technologically. Take, for example, the human fear of the dark. The first thing that cavemen accomplished was how to control fire, thus banishing the darkest places. Perhaps this isn't so much a fear of the dark, but a fear of the unknown. Even now, with all the light we can handle, we're still afraid. Maybe this fear of the unknown can be combined with that of our fear of predators and again reduced, except this time to a much simpler fear of death. After all why do we fear beasts or even the dark? Dying is the ultimate unknown, and as such we're afraid of it, a cheetah or lion charging at you roaring and growling is terrifying perhaps not only for the pain, but the ultimate ending of death. I think that there is a degree of fear of death in all of us, but when you approach an individual I think you have to look at other factors.

Since this is my dream, trying to understand it I need to look at other things that may cause this terror in me. Even though I believe everyone is afraid of death, I think it might be lesser in some people, or maybe not even lesser, but just transferred away from death and onto another fear. For me, I'm not particularly afraid of dying, in fact I'm rather excited and curious about the whole ordeal. What's next? What exactly happens when you die? Is there a life beyond? Can you hang out here on earth or is there just oblivion? Before you go calling the cops I'm not suicidal, I realize how young I am and how much there is out there left to experience no matter how intriguing the idea of death is. So then why exactly was I so afraid? Looking at the contents of my dream maybe I can find an answer. The inclusion of Donita and Richard, both of whom I haven't seen in years now, says a lot. It was with them that I first broke my arm, which was terribly, terribly, traumatic for me. I never really considered it actually, but I think after I broke my arm I transferred my fear of death to the more specific fear of pain. In fact after my arm healed I stopped doing many things I once loved to do. Skating, climbing trees, and I even began limiting new experiences for fear of getting hurt. Sure my fracture wasn't terribly bad, I'm completely healed after all, but it was enough that I still hesitate, and even refuse to do certain things because of it. When I broke my arm that first time I was running in the middle of the street with Richard and fell--yeah it was really that simple I tripped over my own god damn legs--and landed on my left arm to a sickening CRACK. There wasn't any blood, but my arm was snapped down at like a 90 degree angle and hurt like all hell! He dragged me outta the street, screaming and crying and we both went the short distance back to his house where his mom piled us in the car--me still crying--and drove like a mad woman to the ER. Though I don't quite remember in detail the ER part because of the drugs they pumped into me, but I do know they set my arm and from eye witness testimony (haha I couldn't resist) that I screamed and thrashed around because of the pain. Maybe I projected this pain onto the image of Richard and Donita and now, almost ten years later, they reappear in my dream with the idea of getting torn open by wild animals thus causing the terror in my dream. I did see Donitas friend get torn apart and she didn't die so maybe it was the very idea of that amount of pain that scared me? The fact that the terror set in when I was on the road could also point to fact that I first broke my arm in the middle of the road.

I'm no psychiatrist so I'm probably missing a lot. I really don't know what the significance of my location was, nor the role of the other people aside from Donita and Richard, but it certainly seems like a reasonable explanation to me. I also think it's rather interesting that the beasts that showed up in my dream weren't things that I actually am afraid of. Big cats are actually my favorite wild animals out there, I'm much more afraid of wolves and bears for example than I am of a cheetah or a leopard. Actually the cheetah is my favorite animal followed closely by the snow leopard, both of which were in my dream. I'm not sure why I wrote this all up, but I will say that after writing up the dream and then "analyzing" it, the fear seems less intense and less troublesome. Maybe my subconscious wanted to give me a reminder for some reason, or it was particularly active and unable to be repressed.

Gah I sound like a dumb Psychoanalyst, then again what I just did was exactly that. I analyzed a dream I had, found a childhood root, and "confronted" it. I just read a book called The Denial of Death so maybe that whole schpeel is probably part of that, I mean the idea is really, really interesting to me and I'd like to look into this sort of thing more. Maybe now that I'm learning more about psychology and more about the world I can come up with some original ideas or even theorize in a less juvenile way. Any thoughts or comments or anything feel free.

Ry Recommends

2008-12-15T23:36:00.009-07:00

As per my beautiful girlfriend's suggestion in my post, A Year of Reading, I've decided to review, well more recommend, ten of my favorite books. So quite honestly the Dune series is probably one of the favorite things I read this past year, in my entire life actually, but seeing as I already wrote about back in July , I'll refrain from putting it in my list. I've also decided to only put them in alphabetical order because I can't put one over the other, it's too hard!

Anthem by Ayn Rand ~ This is a must read for anyone even slightly interested in dystopian fiction. It totally compares to Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Huxley's Brave New World, and actually does something different with the genre. I'm not sure when or even how it happened, but I became utterly enthralled with the whole dystopian scene, I re-read Orwell and Huxley, picked up the "grandfather of dystopian novels" We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, Atwood, and this literary crack eventually led me to which I talk about later on here. One of the great things about Anthem is the fact Rand hadn't yet fully developed her philosophy, which she stuffs into her later novels. The other fantastic aspect to her novel here is the style. Rand writes a book in essentially first person, but in a world where first person doesn't exist. It's crazy intense and honestly must have been amazingly difficult to accomplish, yet she does it with ease. I'm not going to try and summarize Anthem because it would be far too easy to spoil various aspects, I'll just say that if you liked Orwell and Huxley read Rand!
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk ~ Vile, wretched, disgusting, disturbing, classic Chuck! I picked up Choke I was still in a way a Palahniuk virgin -I had only read Fight Club at the time- which, as anyone who's read Palahniuk knows, is considerably "lighter" compared to his usual style. Chuck breaks all the rules on what "fiction" should be, this isn't Jane Austin or Steinbeck, he crosses every line there is, sex, morals, God, suicide, abortion, you name it and Chuck will open your eyes. This being said, he does it with a certain taste, as much taste as you can have, anyway, when your main character is a sociopathic con artist who just happens to be addicted to sex. Definitely a fun read, though, and especially refreshing for anyone who's used to the main stream book scene. Not for the squeamish, religious, morally sound, easily offended person. Once you go Chuck, you never go back.
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson ~ This was Sanderson's debut novel and also the novel that won over Robert Jordan's widow enough to choose him to write the final book in the Wheel of Time series. I've always been surprised when an author can actually pull off writing a fantasy book in only one book, but Sanderson does just that, and he does it well. was a very well written book and definitely gave a unique view on fantasy, one which, I for one, enjoyed immensely. Though, since it was Sandersons first book, it is a bit unpolished, which doesn't really take away from the story much, just something to note if you're a neurotic reader and can't stand even minor mistakes. Sanderson has an acclaimed series out now which I'll probably pick up when I have more time, but if you're looking for a nice light fantasy check out Elantris.
The J-Curve by Ian Bremmer ~ This was the first political science book I've ever read, and although there were several non-fiction books I enjoyed more--such as by MalcolmGladwell-- but Bremmers book was by far the most insightful. As I've said here, I have this weird obsession with dystopian societies and while reading The J-Curve I realized a few things. First of which is that North Korea is just a stones throw away from being a classic Orwellian society, the reason it isn't, though, is the very premise of Bremmers book. The more closed a society is, the harder it is for said society to stay stable, so the only way for closed societies to stay stable is to become more and more closed. This is exactly why the U.S. foreign policy is so wrong, by putting these sanctions on countries like Cuba and North Korea, we enable them to stay even more authoritarian and keep these dictators in power. We need to help these countries move to global openness, democracy will by its nature throw these dictators out of power. If only the people running our foreign policy would read this book, but maybe someone who goes into foreign policy will read this and keep it in mind and someday change the world! (Ha as if I'm that influential)
Lamb by Christopher Moore ~ Generally I haven't read a whole lot of comedy books, but Lamb was recommended to me by a friend so I thought I'd give it a shot. Strictly speaking, I suppose, it isn't really a comedy book, it's really a fiction with a good flare of comedy and satire. That being said, Moore is a fantastic author, his style is clean and strong, his descriptions are amazing, and he can write satire with the best of them. Basically Lamb is about Christs childhood all the way up to his crucifixion, and even though I'm not the most religiously educated person, this was hilarious! It's written by Christ's best friend Biff, who is resurrected by a ditsy angel to tell his story. Whether you're religious or not Lamb is a lighthearted good read, and will give anyone a good laugh. The hardcover is even printed as a Bible look-alike, all the way down to the little strip of ribbon used to mark your page!
Next by Michael Crichton ~ First let me start out by saying that Crichton was by far one of the best authors of our generation, and when he died on November 5h, 2008 we were all deeply dismayed. He will be missed. Next is a techno-thriller set in what could be the very near future--as the majority of his novels are--and follows several bioengineering plot lines. At first they all seem to be independent, but Crichton, as usual, ties up all the strings in the end magnificently. Though this isn't quite the genius that was Jurassic Park it is a fantastic look at the future of bioengineering and the possible ramifications of messing around with DNA. Anyone interested in science with a flair of mystery/thriller should check out Next, especially those interested in biology.
Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks ~ After you've read 6+ fantasy books you began to see a pattern. Indeed many themes reoccur in fantasy, young innocent character has secret power, found by a 'mentor' type and told to save the world from certain doom, goes on hero's quest to save world, gains companions to help share the load, fights evil with newly discovered powers, saves the day. It's actually really disappointing after awhile, you end up looking for books that do this the best. I picked up Brent Weeks first book on a whim, and too my delight, he did something I've never seen with a fantasy. That being he made it super dark, the main character not only in conflict with "evil" but part of the evil. This is one of my favorite new authors, he did something new and refreshing, and dark with a now overpopulated genre. Not only that he made a character you love to hate, as well as a whole cast of unique companions. This is by far a must read for anyone looking for something new in the fantasy world.
Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr. ~ I had seen the movie with Jared Leto a couple times before I read the book, but nothing could prepare me for just how intense the book was. I know better than anyone that books are far better than the movies based off them, but holy hell. This was like the difference between an amoeba and a human brain! Selby goes into some of the darkest aspects of humans nature; from addiction to obsession, and he does it in such a way you feel the characters pain. It's brilliant, but terribly depressing. By far one of the most depressing books I've ever read, up there with A Child Called It--which more than anything is depressing because it's a true story-- yet the same can probably be said about Requiem. Sure not the same characters or the exact same experiences but the human tragedy is all too real. Dark, depressing, morbid, graphic, but something I think that everyone should read if for nothing more to open their eyes to what can happen and most likely does happen in our country.
Revelation Space Trilogy by Alastair Reynolds ~Let me be clear here, the books I'm talking about are indeed Reynolds Trilogy (Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap), but also Chasm City which is part of the same universe. In any case, I picked up the first book just out of curiosity because I didn't really know what a Space Opera was. I was seriously glad I did. The crazy part is the fact that this is Reynolds first set of books! I have recently become fairly obsessive about colonization recently, and this trilogy is what colonization could do for the human race some day! Granted it's rather far fetched, but oh man how amazing would something like this be? Reynolds isn't the run of the mill sci-fi author, he writes what is called hard sci-fi, which basically everything in his books is possible. Indeed, Reynolds has a PhD in Astronomy and worked for the European Space Agency through last year, so it's certainly closer to being real than, say, The Matrix. Reynolds also writes in a fairly dark manner, especially when you think that his scenarios could very well be true.

Snow Crash by Neal Stevenson ~ This was the first cyberpunk I've ever read and good god it was amazing! Cyberpunk is a branch of Sci-Fi that combines "high tech with low life", (thanks wiki), which means hackers in almost dystopian futures. The story follows a hacker named Hiro Protagonist, I know real clever Stevenson, who is also a Japanese martial arts enthusiast. This is probably one of the other reasons I enjoyed Snow Crash so much, I have a strange obsession with Japanese history especially martial arts if you don't know me, Stevenson combines a fantastic dark, humorous, fun future with great fight scenes. Much of the book takes place in something called The Metaverse , which is essentially the Internet at it's most intense; think Matrix minus the killer machines. I really can't do Stevenson justice in his plotting because he masterfully combines several stories, that in the end somehow all wrap up in the end. Basically Hiro and his street punk friend Y.T. discover a drug called Snow Crash that not only kills your computer, but completely screws up hackers minds. That's the other thing I loved about this book, Stevenson is one of those authors that knows what he's talking about and does his research if he doesn't. Even though Snow Crash came out in '92 many of the psychological, anthropological, linguistical, and even technological ideas are still relevant and insightful today. I'd recommend Snow Crash to anyone interested in technology, sci-fi, even dystopian-esque books, really I think everyone should read it or at least give it a shot!

Wow I totally got carried away with this. I first intended this to be a couple sentences, maybe a couple days worth of work, but no.. I started this on the 6th! Okay part of the slowness is the fact that I'm lazy and wasn't doing many a day. Either way, I hope that someone finds joy in one of the books I've suggested. Maybe I'll do this again soon, well not soon, but at some point haha.

Some Art

2008-12-06T23:33:00.007-07:00

So I'm rather bored and I figured I'd share some of my art. It isn't too good, nor is it very recent, but feel free to comment and criticize if you wish. I'm not gonna post all of it just cause I have a lot but I'll certainly post some of my favorites.

I don't even remember how I made this, but it's one of my favorites.

I made this one in CG class back in high school about primary colors.

I took this in Paris, obviously. Click for full size!

There's tons more, but these were the ones on my deviantART. I especially like Eye of the Tiger, Eye of Agony, Handy, Ice Steps, and The Tower. Well I like a lot of my silly "art", in any case I hope you like it too! Stupid photobucket screwed the size of the picture sizes up, click on 'em for the full view.

Vocabulary

2008-11-27T17:35:00.006-07:00

First off I'd like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving, let the food be good, and the naps even better. As for you shoppers out there, get a good night's sleep and beware the crowds! I've only been out shopping once on Black Friday and it was pretty intense I'm not gonna lie. There's some damn good deals out there though, I might hit the stores so I can get a special someone a special something :)

Anyway, as all two readers out there have noticed, I have a wretched vocabulary. I also can't spell nor use grammar nearly the way I should. Alas I'm not terribly interested in the latter, Fire Fox and Word take care of spelling, and friends and teachers point out my grammar plenty. So that leaves me with my 3rd grade vocabulary. Now I know there's plenty of harebrained techniques out there, learn a new word every day and use it in as many sentences as you can, which probably work, but I'm lazy. A customer at my work came in a couple months ago looking for a nice hardbound dictionary. No joke some of those dictionaries are really nice, and I was stunned to find that he was going to highlight words he didn't know. He was about 60, a really nice, one of those cool old guys that I wanna be when I'm old. He explained that as he reads whenever he comes across a word he doesn't know he'll look it up and highlight it. I didn't really think much of it at the time, kinda a neat idea I'll admit, but nothing that captured my attention for long. I guess it stuck though, I've been almost compelled to buy a dictionary since I spoke with that guy. I thought it was just a novel idea seeing as I wanna write better, but it seems his little technique rooted itself into my subconscious and finally wormed it's way out. Naturally because I'm so cheap I never got around to buying a full price dictionary-- they're freaking expensive-- but on Sunday I found a Oxford Pocket American Dictionary of Current English for a steal of $2.99. Well really with my 33% discount it came to around $2.13 with tax :P. It took til just today, I dunno why now, to realize that old man was the reason I got the dictionary.

Granted I read a whole hell of a lot--clicky-- and I'm sure that there's plenty of words I don't know as well as I should. So I'm gonna try this highlighting thing out and maybe go through the dictionary like, what? At the end of every month? I'll work the kinks out I suppose. One thing I know I'll have trouble with is admitting I don't know a word and then sucking it up and looking it up. I've been trying it, its hard! I don't think people realize just how much they don't know until something like this, and indeed I know a lot of words through context but that isn't quite the same. Some authors I've been reading recently are rather clever with their word choice, I wouldn't have even known! I'm toying with the idea of even typing up the words and the definitions here in my blog, but I'm not so sure about it. The people I know for a fact that read my blog are all way smarter than I am and I'm not so sure I'm willing to show how utterly retarded I really am. Though, I know none of them will openly say how dumb I am, I know they'll think it! Maybe I'll type it up in word and when I feel a bit more confident post it here? We'll see haha. Now that I'm doing this I think it may actually help with spelling a little, maybe? I really don't know, but I'm optimistic.

Speaking of Word, I know a couple of my friends use Blogger and I had a question. Recently I have been writing some of my blog posts up in Word first and when I tried to post it Blogger freaked out. Apparently, Word 2007 has some weird HTML that copies over here and screws up Blogger. Has anyone else experienced this? I should probably just ask the Blogger people, but yeah.

A Year of Reading

2008-11-19T00:00:00.035-07:00

Since I began working at Borders I've kept a log of all the books I've read. Mind you, this log is only from November 19th 2007-- I've read probably triple if not more books in the course of my life-- so it’s rather short. Hopefully I'll keep this log up to date for the rest of my life, then when I'm 40 I'll be able to be like whoa! It'll also help with the nasty problem of not knowing if I've read a book or not. I've found this extremely irritating of late, I'll pick up a book, think it looks pretty good, buy it, only to get like a chapter in and realize I've read it. It’s not a huge hassle but when I'm the reading zone its shitty to go back and find another book. Anyway here it is, I figured posting it a year from when I started would be kinda neat.

A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk
Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk
Next by Michael Crichton
Monster by Frank Peretti
Empire by Orson Scott Card
Paranoia by Joseph Finder
Harsh Cry of the Heron by Lian Heor
Stiff by Mary Roach
Anthem by Ayn Rand
Brimstone by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Dance of Death by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Dune by Frank Herbert
Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
Children of Dune by Frank Herbert
God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer
Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood
Chapterhouse: Dune by Frank Herbert
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Robota by Orson Scott Card
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson
Rant by Chuck Palahniuk
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Innocent Mage by Karen Miller
Lamb by Christopher Moore
Awakened Mage by Karen Miller
Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby Jr.
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
Feed by M.T. Anderson
Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds
Click by Bill Tancer
Final Theory by Mark Alpert
The J-Curve by Ian Bremmer
The Sword by Deborah Chester
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
The Ring by Deborah Chester
The Chalice by Deborah Chester
Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds
The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks
Sway by Rom Brafman
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
Shadows Edge by Brent Weeks
Daughter of the Empire by Raymond E. Feist
Servant of the Empire by Raymond E. Feist
Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card

Total: 55

Note: The books in bold I own, the non-bolded books I read at work or borrowed from a friend. In my personal list I have each of the books rated from 1 to 10 but I decided to hold off on that simply because I'm probably pretty biased. Plus how can you rate a Fantasy against a Mystery or a Fiction?

Here in America reading has become one of those things that everyone wants to do but is "too busy" to do. Back in 2007 the Associated Press did a poll concerning just that, what they found is honestly saddening to me. "One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday [August 21, 2007]" This quote was taken from a Washington Post article that was written on the day the Ipsos poll was released. I don't know the details of the poll exactly but even if its somewhat true this country is in trouble. I did a little snooping around recently after I found the aforementioned article and found a somewhat 'better' set of figures. These numbers came from the Harris Poll:

TABLE 1

BOOKS READ PER YEAR

"How many books do you typically read in the average year?"

Base: All adults

	Total	Generation				Gender		Political Party
	Total	Echo Boomers (18-31)	Gen X (32-43)	Baby Boomers (44-62)	Matures (63+)	Men	Women	Rep.	Dem.	Ind.
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
None	9	6	7	9	12	11	7	10	8	7
1-3	23	28	24	23	15	27	18	23	24	18
4-6	19	18	22	20	15	22	17	22	17	20
7-10	13	12	11	14	11	11	14	13	15	11
More than 10	37	36	36	33	47	29	44	33	35	44

Note: Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding.

As you can see roughly 1/3 of Americans read more than 10 books a year, which is good. It’s hard to say which of the two polls is more accurate and indeed from what I found both seem fairly legit. In any case, I'd say that we should be reading more. Granted my opinion is a bit biased seeing as I've read 55 books this year but even still. 10 books aren’t really that many if you think of the amount of time Americans sit in front of the tv or even the computer. Sure some people really don't enjoy reading at all and sure many find a movie or a reality tv show more entertaining than their imagination.. still.. the human mind is a great thing. When I read it feels like I'm watching a movie with actors that put real people to shame, with views and imagery that an HD tv can only dream of making. If you think about it television and movies are just dumbed down books, and if ANYONE thinks there's a movie based on a book that’s better than said book they have a poor imagination indeed. Why would you settle for someone else's imagination? What you can do with your mind is so wonderful that it’s sad to think some people go their lives without reading. Authors not only give you all the tools to create a world in your head but they can also give you meaning. What are you gonna learn about the world by watching American Idol? Pick up 1984, A Red Sky at Morning, Dante's Inferno, East of Eden, or any other number of classics out there and you'll discover not only a fantastic story but symbolism, satire, and a touch of politics. All of which with such intensity that there's no way a tv show or even a 2 hour movie could put it all in. Hell, if you're not into the "dry" classic stuff they forced you to read in high school pick up Alastair Reynolds or Neal Stevenson and you'll learn something.

Well I suppose I'll stop preaching now, I hope this possibly interested some of you into reading or at least picking up one of the books I've mentioned. If not, well, all the power to you it’s your life after all. If there are any questions about the books above or any sort of recommendations I can make, feel free to hit me up.

Who Am I?

2008-11-13T20:21:00.002-07:00

This is a question that’s been haunting humans since the dawn of time. How it has been answered has varied over the years and though I am far from well educated in what people have said I have some ideas of my own. Perhaps they can’t even be called ideas so much as a response to a certain viewpoint I’ve encountered. Really I don’t know what the “I” is or even how I would respond if someone asked “who are you?”. Perhaps there is no answer, but I think there are things that dictate just who we are.

The psychological idea of “roles” has always seemed natural to me, even before I knew the term “roles” or what the idea behind it was. I guess I always had this sort of thought in my head. I am a son, a friend, a lover, a student, a worker, a stranger, a boy, a citizen--both of the world and my country -- a human, and a million other things that I can’t name right this moment. The thing I’m responding to I’ve encountered twice so far, it’s the thought that says “There are no roles. I’m the exact same person to everyone, everywhere.” Now I can almost understand not wanting to admit your personality is dictated by those around you, but this form of egotism is ridiculous to me. I realize that many of the roles that we live each day are almost one in the same, but even yet there are enough differences between any two that it’s impossible to say you’re the same person around everyone. For example, you chat and laugh and joke around with your friends, sure you can do all those things with your parents, but it’s significantly different. You won’t go telling your mom about the crazy sex you had with your girlfriend last night or your dad about how much you drank the previous night. Even the way you act around people changes depending on the role you’re in. It’s a happy little thought that you control how you act in any circumstances, but to those egotists out there, you don’t control your actions nearly as much as you so pompously think. The very nature of roles are so deeply ingrained in our heads that it’s just not something you can control. Sure you can have a certain degree of freedom in your actions, you can whisper sweet nothings into your friend’s ears if you wish, but you’ll be criticized for it. Now from what I understand of egotism, albeit not much, they take great offence to the above example. “You’re actions should be done for you and no one else” is the main idea I gather. I agree, what you do should be entirely on your own personal set of morals, but as much as you despise it the fact is humans are social creatures.

The worst form of punishment, no not death, but the form of punishment that will break anyone no matter their philosophy, their nationality, their race, their age, nor their gender is isolation. The human brain has evolved in such a way that it thrives on interaction; it works its best being presented with new ideas, new viewpoints, and new people. The very act of speaking to another human being stimulates the brain in many ways. To think that any human can be so self assured, so self centered, to bypass millions of years of evolutionary hardwiring is idiotic. Granted, there are social hermits out there, people that despise all form of interaction, but sadly for those egotists, it’s not them. I’ll even be generous and say that even if you’re the exception and treat everyone the exact same way in every situation you wouldn’t be looked on with any bit of admiration. Like it or not, even if you’re so all mighty and great, the rest of us aren’t. Being a functioning member of society means you have a certain set of obligations to people, those obligations dictate how you should act in certain instances. So if you go telling your parents how hard you fucked some girl last night, or tell your boss to go screw off like you would one of your friends, you’re going to be an outcast. Sure you’ll be self righteous and almighty knowing that you broke social code, but what will your life be like? A year of that and what job would you have? What friends? What lovers?

Now, even if you can accomplish this feat and keep any sort of social contact outside of yourself, you’re going to be one bland, wretchedly boring person. Perhaps you’ve read this far and said “I don’t tell my friends about the crazy sex I have, or any of the examples you’ve given Ryan. I’m confident in who I am and I don’t do anything to hurt anyone’s feelings.” Okay, perhaps you have accomplished this, but what kind of personality is that? Humans are meant to be different, are meant to have a will. There’s two ways the above can be accomplished. You can be a complete arrogant ass and truly say whatever you want to say to whoever you want, but keep it toned down enough that it doesn’t get you in trouble. Or you’re the most boring person in the world because if you treat a three year old the exact same way you treat your boss, your friends, and your lover, you have no personality. MacIntyre said our lives are the stories that we tell, what kind of story is going to be told that has not differences, no interactions. Part of what makes us human is all the characters we play, all slightly different, yet all wrapped up in this indivisible thing called “I”.

Who I am depends greatly on who I’m with, but yet I feel that there is indeed some deep down thing that links all of the different roles. Maybe they’re just fleeting similarities or even just something my human-ness needs in order to try and understand the world around me. Either way, to me, being the exact same person around everyone is impossible, no matter if you like it or not situation dictates who you are. Perhaps only in such a small way that you think you’re being the exact same, but really there’s something different. The vocabulary you use, the emotion you show—or don’t show for that matter—your body language, any number of things. It isn’t a bad thing, it’s a wonderful thing in my opinion. On the flip side, there is some truth to the egotistical argument. To be completely and utterly different solely based on who your with is hypocritical. To be a devout catholic in church and a horrible person on the street is just wrong. There exists, at least in my opinion, a balance of the two that make humans great.

Non-Fiction

2008-09-04T21:35:00.006-06:00

I've been keeping a list of books that I've read since November, to date I've read a lot. Just how much? That's classified for now, I have a list going that will be published on November 19th 2008. I know curiosity is just killing you all but as the old cliche goes "patience is a virtue". In any case, the majority of what I read falls under the Sci-fi/Fantasy realm with dashes of Mystery and Fiction. Very rarely do I read non-fiction stuff, in fact, I think there's only been one or two full books that I've read that's non-fiction just for fun. This brings me to the peculiar quandary I find myself in right now. So instead of doing my lovely philosophy homework I'm going to talk about reading.

When I started working at Borders back in November I began to realize just how much I read, I've always loved reading and, in fact, its the one thing I think I'm decent at. Actually aside from a certain person reading is about the only thing that makes me happy, I'm just lucky enough to have someone and not just my silly little books. So I started at Borders and naturally because its a bookstore my reading levels jumped! I now have access to millions more books and it definitely showed in my list. Perhaps I've always read a lot of books but it seemed to me that because I had more access to books suddenly I was reading even more, just how much will be shown come November. As I expected sci-fi/fantasy are the majority of my reads but I was surprised to see a few non-fictions creeping into my list. I'm thinking that because I'm now exposed to so many more non-fiction books I've slowly stopped thinking of them as super boring and lame and gradually began picking them up. I'm not sure where my bias came from exactly, but its been enough to keep me from reading a lot of excellent reads. Not only that, though, but I've actually learned a lot from the non-fictions I've read. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure everyone out there is thinking "no freaking duh Ry, they're based on reality" but come on my experience up til November was with text books.

In any case, I updated "what I'm reading" thing on a forum I participate on and to my surprise I'm reading not just one but two non-fiction books right now. This past year I've read non-fiction but its always been accompanied by a fiction of some sort. Now not only am I reading two, but they're fairly out of character for me. One of them is a fairly intense political book, alas not about either of our dear candidates or our current political situation cause those are all slander right now, and the other is a business-ish book. Indeed a mere two books ago I read another non-fiction book! This probably is rather boring to anyone that bothers to read this, but its rather fascinating to me. As a side note I just re-read this and good freaking god I'm not writing well at all! Oh well, this is far less formal than my usual stuff and because its not super controversial I don't have my usual flame. Another possible reason that I've come up with is rather weak: I've matured! Wow, it looks a whole hell of a lot worse in writing! I'm not gonna lie, I still love fantasy and space and not real stuff, but finally at almost twenty years old I can appreciate 'adult' things. Part of that is my own curiosity, I want to know more about the world around us. Once again I sound like an ass saying shit like that but oh well. There's actually a lot of really interesting stuff out there, you just gotta be able to find it I guess. It took me working at a bookstore to find some, but hell I know so many people that only read non-fiction which absolutely boggles my mind. I don't know about everyone else but one of the reasons I love to read is to escape and relax and give my head a break from the stresses of every day life non-fiction is a workout for the mind. It's nice every once and a while, but seriously? All the time? Nu-uh!

While I still don't think that non-fiction is worth more than the occasional read, it's nice to know there's some well written stuff out there. As for my reading list, like I said that'll be posted 12:01am November, 19th 2008 (thank you blogger for scheduled posting) if you're interested it should be kinda neat to see. Well Descartes calls.

First Impressions of Chrome

2008-09-03T14:19:00.006-06:00

So I downloaded Google Chrome as soon as I heard about it and after two days of messing around with it I have a couple thoughts I figured I'd share.

First off its a very pretty browser, I must say, neat layout and such. It'll take some time to get used to the tabs being at the very top of the page but I think I like it more than where the tabs are in FireFox. It was really nice to install it and have it import all my info, bookmarks, search history, and such, to Chrome and damn it's fast. I figured that it was just my computer that was rather slow on the net, or even my net connection but the first time I loaded up Chrome it was noticeably faster than both IE 7 and FF 3.0.1. It lags a bit, as is expected, when loading a new page, but when it gets the cookies its loads the pages lightning fast. I've also noticed that it doesn't use as much CPU as either IE or FF which, from what little I know, is really good. I haven't really run any other applications in the background other than aim so I haven't seen a noticeable difference in app speed as some people have. Also combining the search bar and the web-address bar is absolutely brilliant, even more so you can customize which search engine you want to use. I set it up for Wiki because I use it to reference a lot but there's tons of options which show that google isn't too much of a whore XD. Even with all its positives there's some annoyances I have with it.

First let me say this: I'm a complete FireFox whore. I admit it. I love the add-ons, themes, and all the customization FF provides. I have 4 different themes I switch out depending on my mood, addons like WeatherFox, FoxyTunes, YahooMailNotifier just make my life easier. If I only used those things though I wouldn't have such a problem with Chrome. I've been using FF now for 3 or 4 years and for pretty much the entire time I've had AdBlockPlus installed. I guess I didn't realize just how, hmm, pampered I am. I seriously cannot stand ads on pages anymore, it honestly bothers me! Just recently I installed NoScript as well, which got rid of some of the other annoying crap that AdBlock misses. Seriously though, I can't even check my email on Chrome because yahoo is an ad whore, some of my favorite sites have god awful ads that until I opened them in Chrome I didn't even know existed. It's quite depressing I must say. Perhaps I can reacquaint myself with the annoying ads IE users face every time they open the net but it'll be hard. I did some finger work (har har) and found out that most likely google will roll out add-ons in the future but not for a little while, seeing as they need to make a mac and linux Chrome. The other major issue I have with chrome is the scrolling. On my laptop there's a little scroll bar on the touch pad that you can go up and down with but Chrome only lets you go down. You don't realize just how much you use something until you can no longer use it. Honestly, I scroll on like every page and its infuriating going too far down but not being able to go up without actually clicking the bar thing. I can wait but Chrome will have to deal with not being my default browser for a while. I'm sure I'll use it more and more but yeah.. those will keep it from being my first choice for a while. I'm sure they'll fix the scroll problem soon enough and they'll add the extensions eventually til then I'll only play with it now and then. Maybe I'll post from here on it since blogger is clean of annoying adds and I like the speed for the blog.

If you use IE switch. Just do it, you'll only gain from doing it. If you use FireFox heavily give Chrome some time. Its definitely worth downloading and checking out though.

Questions of Colonization

2008-09-02T14:48:00.011-06:00

I've been toying around with the idea of colonization for a while now and I think its high time for me to focus my thoughts and actually write something down. Granted I'm a mere second semester freshmen in a non-science major but someone needs to be thinking of it. The most likely reason, I think, that I'm so curious about space is from all my sci-fi reading. Yeah, yeah I know that many, if not all, of the ideas, designs, theories, and so forth are fantasy but that doesn't mean there's a real way to achieve some of this. Recently I've gotten into an author name Alastair Reynolds who writes something called hard science fiction which stresses scientific accuracy. Though Reynolds world is much more advanced and, like most sci-fi, set in the distant future he has some interesting views of how space is colonized. One of the planets in his books is a recently colonized planet which may shed some ideas on how we may be able to make that jump. One of his ideas is terraforming, which, by definition, is the modification of another celestial body to make it similar to earth. Its still hypothetical, of course, but in my opinion its definitely feasible.

Mainly this post is meant to organize some of my thoughts and help me critically look at the whole concept of colonization. I'm no expert but I know I'm not the only person out there that has questions about this sort of thing so by asking I have a basis to start my search. Obviously wikipedia is one of my favorite things to use but I'd like to expand from there and if I have narrower more specific questions that will help me look at more "credible" sites like NASA and such. Mars is going to be my focus but I realize that the more probable place to start out is our very own moon, seeing as I don't know shit about vacuums or gravity or any of the main problems with the moon I'm just gonna avoid it for now.

How much time and fuel would it take to transport a manned ship to Mars?

Do we have the technology to even make a manned trip to Mars?

Is a closed ecosystem a possibility on Mars?

How many people, if any, would it take to maintain a closed ecosystem on Mars?

How much water would be needed to create a closed ecosystem on Mars?

What kind of engineering problems are associated with creating domes?

How violent are the storms on Mars?

What kind of materials would be needed to create a dome capable of withstanding dust storms on Mars?

What is the soil made up of on Mars?

How much less sunlight does Mars receive than Earth?

What is the temperature on Mars?
Around the equator during the summer Mars can reach 20 degrees Celsius (70 degrees F)

Does Mars have an atmosphere?
"Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed mostly of the tiny amount of remaining carbon dioxide (95.3%) plus nitrogen (2.7%), argon (1.6%) and traces of oxygen (0.15%) and water (0.03%). The average pressure on the surface of Mars is only about 7 millibars (less than 1% of Earth's)..." (NinePlanets.org) 1013 millibars is 1 atmosphere so 7 millibars is roughly 0.006908463 atm. The altitude that one would experience such a low pressure is 159,013 ft. or 30 miles up, if you go that far up you'll enter the Mesosphere (ace).

What does low pressure do to the human body?

Is it possible to depressurize slowly and safely?

Is it possible to increase the pressure of a planet?
Essentially what needs to be done here is injecting large amounts of gases into the atmosphere. This will serve a duel role of both increasing the surface temperature on Mars as well as the pressure. This is one of the many goals of terraforming.

What is the gravity on Mars?
Mars has approximately .38 the gravity of Earth (NASA) Essentially I weighing 130 pounds would be 49.4 pounds there. This is a whole lot less than I thought, and reading the article sited above gave some interesting questions I didn't have before. I'm gonna keep a close eye on the Mars Mice since they'll be able to answer questions I won't even be able to look into myself.

Would a human be able to function normally on Mars?

What is the escape velocity for Oxygen on Mars?

Does Mars even have the gravity to even hold onto Oxygen?

Some of these are very simple to find with google but I just want to put them down on paper, well in writing rather, to organize my thoughts. I'll edit this post as I find answers to some of these, others which are more speculative I'll just write up another post and link to it here. One thing I've learned from my academic career is the more questions you answer the more emerge, I'll most likely add to this list as I learn things but the point is not to find a solid answer but to critically look into such a feat. It will be years before we will even visit Mars but who's to say we can't start working on colonization now? Stephen Hawking recently stated "The human race has existed as a separate species for about two million years, If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before." He says that its possible to have a base on the moon in the next couple decades and a get to Mars by the middle of century (AIP). It's really great that we're just now trying to fix the climate but the climate isn't the only problem facing the future of humanity. Even if we completely clear up our massive carbon footprint there still remains the fact that we only have so much room, our population is growing exponentially. Nothing short of totalitarian rules on reproduction can we avoid outgrowing Earth in the next couple centuries, and still, eventually we'll grow out of it anyway. Of course, that is, if we don't all end up killing each other off. Nature may even do us that little favor by unleashing even more intense disasters and viruses . There's all sorts of horrible things that can happen that will kill off a couple billion people, but isn't that all the more reason we should spread out and increase our chances that much more? Lets face it, sooner or later some renegade asteroid will come along and not just prune our population but completely annihilate our species. Hop to it people, this is our future at stake.