Step On Up for an 80s Revival

I never start out the year with a solid reading plan. I usually have a few books in mind I'd like to finish before the end of the year, but that's about as close as I get to any sort of plan. This is usually because my mood determines what book I'll pick next more than anything else.

As mentioned in the previous post, I'm currently reading the Changewind series (1987- 1988, and 1996) from Jack L. Chalker due to all the weirdness that came about its rediscovery. And I do plan to throw in Saberhagen's Swords trilogy (1983-1984) this summer. There is also a reread of The Elfstones of Shannara (1982) I wanted to read before the series began airing, but considering that it starts this evening, the goal has changed to rereading it before the television series comes to a close. I also like to reread at least one book of Tolkien's each year - The Simarillion is on tap this year. Wanna guess when I first read that book?

Sensing some common ground here?

Me too, which also got me thinking about other books I loved during that time, especially The Winds of Altair (1983) and Orion (1984) by Ben Bova (which, by the way, garnered some teasing while I was in school because of the unusual cover art), and Hubbard's Battlefield Earth (1982).

Yeah, that's a lot of 80s science fiction and fantasy for one year, some rereads, some not. But I also have a few classic literature books I'd like to include, and I've promised myself to read more non-fiction. I like to keep up on modern literary novels as well, so I have to throw two or three of them on the pile. Plus I want to keep to my goal of reading 52 short stories in one year because not only do I enjoy the short form, I want to continue to promote the form both in this blog and in other areas.

None of that includes a promised reread of "The First of Heaven" so I can refresh my memory of the Wheel of Time series before tackling the Brandon Sanderson books sometime in the next year or two. I originally read this series as each book was published over the course of the past fifteen years, but got behind around book ten, and I don't trust my memory with everything that's happened from the early and middle books, which means a reread is practically required.

Phew! I've got my year cut out for me.

But all that 80s stuff is also infused with the launch of Comet Television in my local market. In case you've never heard of it, it's a new science fiction channel that is currently showing a lot of cheesy science fiction films, including a ton of 80s films. If I'm not careful, I really will accidently slip back in time, and my younger self ain't going to be too encouraged when he sees how I've aged (or how he will age, whichever).

All that means is that it's time for me to logon and put a few more pages underneath my belt this evening - I've got a lot of 80s reading ahead of me. Wish me luck!

Until Next Time...
Radically Yours,
Michael

P.S. Having no idea where my brain patterns have been focused lately, The Boss coincidently enough pulled up some old episodes of ALF that we've been rewatching on Hulu. "Now...where's that cat Lucky hiding?"

Adventures with Misplaced Books

Tell me if this has ever happened to you...

You pick up the first book of some trilogy. You're cruisin' along and at least 150 pages deep when you suddenly lose it. Who knows? Maybe it fell into some blackhole or a magician whisked it away to an ethereal place between realities. Doesn't matter. It's gone and you can't find it anywhere. You know better than to go out and buy a new copy, because the moment you return from the bookstore it'll reemerge and be sitting in the middle of your dining room table smiling at you mockingly, as if to say, "Hi, I've been sitting here the whole time." And while you spend your spare time looking around for the blasted thing, you move onto other books, eventually forgetting about that lost novel. One day a memory of it is triggered though, and you realize it's been twenty years and nine home moves since you've thought about it. You decide to buy it and try again, only to learn it's been out of print for the past ten years. Aaarrggghh!

That's happened to you, right? Right? No?

Sadly, that's happened to me twice.

When the Changewinds Blow by Jack L. Chalker and The First Book of Swords by Fred Saberhagen both fell victim to this bad luck, although it's been so long ago, I don't remember which one got lost first.

Hey, don't blame me! I'm not responsible for the actions of some rogue wizard or errant blackhole, I'm just your average scifi/fantasy junkie.

Now here comes the weird part:
At a local library-sponsored bookfair in the recent past, not only did I run across the complete Changewinds trilogy, I also found the entire Books of Swords trilogy and its sequel, Book of Lost Swords trilogy. But wait! It gets stranger... Both trilogies had two copies of the first book!

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Yep, even though I live over 100 miles away from where they went missing, I'd be willing to bet that those extra copies of the first books were my original copies, whisked there through some wibbly wobbly timey wimey thing eagerly awaiting my arrival to reclaim them as their rightful owner. So in the middle of this gigantic book fair I'm totally geeking out at this point, and quickly throw all eleven books into my bag (Yes, eleven. I bought both copies of the first books - I'm not taking any chances).

Since my "To Read" pile is a queue that is about two years long, I'm just now getting around to reading the first book of the Changewinds series, and maybe this summer I'll start the Swords trilogies. But either way, I'll let you know when I complete them, and if anything "sideways" happens, trust me, I'll let you know.

Until Next Time...
Wobbly Yours,
Michael

Year End Short Form Review

It's the end of the year, and I've surpassed by goal of 52 short stories for the year (one per week). So I thought I'd take a few moments to mention some of the stories and authors I found memorable and worthy of seeking out longer works by.
 
"The Traveling Salesmen Solution" - David Erik Nelson
"Testimony of Samuel Frobisher" - Ian Tregillis
"Five Tales of the Aqueduct" - Spencer Ellsworth
"We Are Not Insured Against Murder" - Jay Carey
"Sir Pagan's Gift" - Tom Underberg
"The Culvert" - Dale Bailey
"The Wild Ones" - Albert E. Cowdrey
"Embrace of the Planets" - Brenda Carre
"Our Little Secret" - Barbara Nadel
"The Fox in the Water" - Richard Adams
"The Hole in the Sky" - Richard Adams
"I'll Follow the Sun" - Paul Di Filippo
"The Bomb-Thing" - KJ Kabza
 
The best story I read this year was "Yeshua's Dog" by Tim Sullivan and initially published in the November/December 2014 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
 
Next year, I hope to read more - of course, not the number that well-known editor Gardner Dozois reads in a year - but at least ten to twelve more.
 
Supporting short fiction by buying and reading short fiction works is good for the overall fiction publishing industry, especially the authors. So, set your own reading goals. It doesn't have to be as high as mine, but at least set one and honestly try to keep it. You'll be a better person because of it.
 
Until Next Time...
Shortly Yours,
Michael  

Who Wants Some Doritos?

Who can watch a late night B-movie without snacks? Doritos, Fritos, Ruffles with French Onion dip, or even the old stand-bys of pizza or popcorn. So with that in mind, I thought it would not be too far off theme to share a recent non-fiction book review about nutrition and modern food processing techniques that I've posted on Amazon, LibraryThing.com, and GoodReads:

"In The Dorito Effect Mark Schatzker details the cause of the health crisis today, including obesity and other preventable diseases, as being a direct result of what we as a society (and ultimately world economy) have done to our food. In simplest terms, the link between nutrition and true flavor, and how modern food is grown and processed may increase yield rates, but decreases a food's inherent flavor and nutritional value. In response, we have increased the use of artificial flavors disguised as "natural flavors" to satisfy our biological cravings for the real flavor and nutrition, therefore creating a cycle wherein we, as human beings, continue to eat these "faux" flavored foods in a futile attempt to satisfy our bodies' needs.

He explains that "natural flavors" aren't so natural, or on the off chance that these "natural flavors" really do come from natural sources, these flavors are used and placed within foods that they don't really belong, therefore fooling our tongues with manufactured deliciousness and creating "the snack equivalent of crystal meth." And not only is more manufactured flavor added to our food everyday, the number of availability of those foods is increasing simply due to cost reduction business decision where yield is more important than flavor because it is something that can actually be measured.

I was a little disappointed in the ending narrative when he details a dinner he planned based on a particular strain of tomatoes. It was cliched, not compelling, and predictable. Thankfully it only lasted about ten pages.

The Dorito Effect, quite simply, is what happens when food gets blander, flavor technology gets better, and its consequences to our health."

Note for my Cheesy Readers: The comment below does not appear on my posted review.

Despite all the informative and eye-opening information I read in this book, don't think for one minute that I'm going to stop eating these late night bags of goodness. In fact, I think I hear a bag or two calling to me from the local convenience store down the street.

Until Next Time...
Nutritionally Yours,
Michael

Thousands of Hercules

There have been thousands of television shows and movies devoted to Hercules. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but if it is, it's not much of one. A simple IMDB or Wikipedia search shows that Hercules has been the subject of the visual media since the early days of film, if not the protagonist at least an active character.

The other night I had the chance to watch two versions I hadn't seen since the 1980s. Lou Ferrigno starred as the demigod in these cheesy Italian-backed classics, Hercules (1983) and The Adventures of Hercules II (1985). All things considered, the special effects weren't too terribly bad considering the low budget and the tools were available at the time. If you get the chance, look those up and have a little fun. (Note: The next weekend, the same channel showed Hercules versus the Mongols (1964), which pitted Hercules versus Attila the Hun.)

Of course, as my highly educated Cheesy Readers know, the Ferrigno movies weren't the Italians' first foray in the annuls of Herculian lore. They pumped out a lot of myth-based films in the 1950s and 60s when they weren't busy filming Westerns, and many of these films are available super cheap in DVD box sets.

Pop quiz time: What was Arnold Schwarzenegger's first American film? Obviously, it was Hercules in New York (1969).

And who can forget the Hercules: The Legendary Journeys starring the skinniest of all Hercules Kevin Sorbo in the 1990s. It had such a large following that there was even two spin-offs, Xena: Warrior Princess, that ratings-wise did just as well as the Sorbo series, and Young Hercules.

Disney got in on the craze with their own movie and animated series, and in the most recent American version of the legend, Dwayne Johnson took a crack at the title role. Our half-man half-god is scheduled into the plotline of the ABC series Once Upon a Time, and has made multiple appearances in hundreds of cartoon, including Sailor Moon. He's been in outer space, in particular the planets Venus and Mars, and even spent time hanging with Superman. But of course, the most memorable of all Hercules appearances was when he starred with the three greatest comedians of all time in The Three Stooges Meet Hercules.

So why so many films involving Hercules? It's quite simple. Hercules is a half-god, half-man with the strength of a god, but mankind's foibles. Other than his twelve labors and a few mentions in a handful of other stories, 80% of his life has plenty of elbow room to elaborate on and give writers plenty of wiggle room to weave their own stories. What tale-teller can resist using this made-to-order and easy to recognize character for their own purposes? Quite simply, the character of Hercules has become the Go-To Guy for hero stories throughout the ages. But not only that, an action star with great muscularity but questionable acting abilities can star in a high-action film in which he can show off his muscles, wield a sword in cool on screen fights, and have a nearly naked damsel cling to him for protection. Only Conan can offer the same kind of on screen flexibility.

Until Next Time...
Herculianly Yours,
Michael

What's the Diff?

It's the age old question. Wise men throughout the years have debated this. Their long white beards, thick black spectacles, some even with pipes that they light with stick matches as the scent of cherry tobacco fills the air.

I even Googled it, searching among the mass knowledge available to modern researchers, hoping to stumble upon some collective knowledge of the matter. Answers came back from years ago. Posts that were dated as far back as 2005 and later (gasp).

The Answer: Nobody knows.

Oh, I nearly forgot to tell you the question, Cheesy Readers.

"What is the difference between Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine?"

I've read many issues of both and I certainly can't tell the difference, nor do I have any real preference. I like the tradition and history of Ellery Queen, while at the same time, I grew up listening to "Alfred Hitchcock Ghost Stories for Young People" available on 33 1/3 rpm records from my local library. So for me it's always been a debate of Tradition versus Nostalgia.

Further clouding the debate is that both magazines are owned by the same publisher (Penny Press, a division of Dell Publishing). From what I can tell, they are two separate entities, although their webpages link to each other. Ellery Queen has a plug from Stephen King at the top of its page; Alfred Hitchcock has no plug from anyone on its site. Both magazines follow the same basic format, and their webpage layouts are nearly identical. They have two separate editorial staffs, and writers concur that a submission to one is not a submission to the other. It's not usual for a budding writer to be rejected by one magazine only to be accepted by the other. Even to writers they've published the distinction isn't clear.

The Collective Wisdom on message boards and forums seem to have no consensus on the differences. One person says the EQMM has been quality writing, another says the quality has fallen off enough that in ten years it'll be out of business (that was posted in 2005, and so far, I haven't heard a peep about either publication folding). Another keeps his subscription to EQMM because he used to love receiving it in the mail when he was young. Some say one will take "blue" language while the other doesn't, but everyone seems confused about which is which. More than a handful of readers subscribe to both simply because they love reading and love reading mysteries.

All of which brings me around to my original dilemma. What's the Diff? Yet another universal enigma that shall always remain unanswered.

Until Next Time...
Perplexedly Yours,
Michael

How Times Flies When You Read a Lot of Books

Unpacking and reshelving books after a move revives the love of those books and also serves as a reminder as to why you kept them. Granted, some make you wonder why you bothered to keep and move them, but many make you look back at them with a sense of nostalgia.
I'm sure I've mentioned before that I keep an Excel sheet of everything I've read since the late 1990s. It's helpful for many reasons, including the observation of trends in my reading habits, but it's especially helpful for two distinct reasons.

For instance, the Arthur C. Clarke short-story collection The Other Side of the Sky. At first I couldn't remember if I had read it or not. Reading the table of contents didn't help, and neither did reading the first few sentences of some randomly picked stories. So I pulled out the ol' Excel sheet, went back through the ages, and sure enough, I had read it. I scanned the notes I made and the stories came flooding back to my memory. I can even remember reading them on my lunch break at work, but when I saw the date when I read them, the shock nearly ruined my morning.

2007!

Holy Crap! Eight years ago! My memory of reading them is so vivid, it hardly seems like eight years ago. If I had had to guess, I wouldn't have guessed any more than five, and I would have considered that a stretch. When I scroll through all the stuff I've read since then, I can clearly see that the timeframe is accurate, just hard to swallow. Once I calmed down, I felt the urge to go back and reread those stories since I enjoyed them so much the first time. But Alas! The pile of books I haven't read yet awaits. And while I will reread these stories one day, they will just have to sit quietly on the shelf. Oh! The Lament of the Constant Reader: So Many Books, So Little Time.

Until Next Time...
Nostalgiacly Yours,
Michael

p.s. If you do get a hold of that Clarke book, or have access to some of his short works, I highly recommend "The Star", "The Nine Billion Names of God", "The Wall of Darkness", and "The Songs of Distance Earth" (which later evolved into a novel of the same name that I've read twice).

Lovecraft Inspired by Melville? Maybe.

I haven't read Moby Dick (1851) by Herman Melville since an American Literature class I took at SIU-Carbondale about X-years ago. Many moons later, I set a goal to read every story written by H. P. Lovecraft. I know that Melville walked the edges of atheism, the man v. nature theme, and the definition of good and evil in this example of Romanticism from the American Renaissance. Then decades later Lovecraft (1890-1937) dealt with many of the same themes, focusing on man's relation and place in the vast, cold, uncaring universe through the avenues of horror and science fiction, but I never thought to include them in the same breath.

Until today...

I was sitting in hell the dentist's office reading Chapter 42 "The Whiteness of the Whale" from Moby Dick when the second paragraph so reminded me of Lovecraft that I actually stopped reading for a moment, reminded myself that I was in fact reading a book published nearly 40 years before Lovecraft was born. I reread that paragraph, and then continued to read the rest of the chapter as if I was reading Lovecraft. This gave me an entirely new perspective on the chapter, lending it a depth I had never appreciated before - serving yet as more proof that each of us should reread the classics and other books we love, because each time, we bring more life experience and wisdom to the pages, creating a new experience to cherish.

And while I usually don't like transcribing long passages in this blog, I'll make a exception this time because I think if you've ever read Lovecraft, you'll see what I saw:

"Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of putting it in comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be for naught."

Throw in a few more adverbs, and I bet your average reader couldn't tell who wrote that paragraph. All the elements of Lovecraft are there: the nameless horror, despair at relating those feelings into words, but compelled his experiences to mankind. So while Melville may never have been sited as an influence of Lovecraft, we can probably assume that at some point Lovecraft read Melville along with the other writers of the American Renaissance (including Melville's contemporary and friend Nathaniel Hawthorne), we could possibly argue that in some way, the tone and theme's of Moby Dick subconsciously infused their way into Lovecraft's writing.

I may be totally wrong here, or just a guy who reads too much, but I can now read Melville and Lovecraft in a whole new light, and learn to appreciate their work from a much deeper point of view.

Until Next Time...
Hermanly Yours,
Michael

(While my Lovecraft epitome was a coincidence this year, last year it wasn't. If you want to read more about my Lovecraft habit, you can read last year's blog 'Tis the Season.)  

UPDATES: I'm Back! and some other random stuff

In the spirit and vernacular of classic science fiction B-movies, I haven't kept the captain's log up to date lately because The Boss and I relocated Headquarters to a larger homebase that puts us in a better vantage point to carry out our future missions. (Translation: We moved into a  new house.) Our new Command Center is more spacious and allows for expansion into the realms of possibilities than the previous locale.

The immediate, short-term disadvantage though was that the first week or so we couldn't locate seasonally appropriate DVDs to watch; the box with all our fun Halloween movies was buried among a mountain of boxes. So the first night here, I found a copy of the cheesy 80s movie Elvira: Mistress of the Dark on a YouTube channel and, as appropriate, fell asleep late into the night.

We've found the movies now, and I plan to carry out my yearly traditional rewatching of both the Carpenter and Rob Zombie versions of Halloween, as well as a few other movies I reserve for this time of the year.

But all this really means though is that now that we are getting settled in our new Satellite of Love, I can once again devote time to bringing you my latest opinions, thoughts, and rants. So stay logged in.

*******

Since The Boss and I aren't as active outdoors now as we were this past spring and summer, my Twitter activity has declined as well. My followers know that I would occasionally post science stories if they seemed to lend themselves to something related to science fiction topics, or even something that had previously appeared in science fictions stories. I will continue to do this, but more frequently now and over a wider range of topics. At this time I don't envision myself having "Science Moments" blog postings like The Boss does, but I'm not ruling that out either. 

That should do it for now.

Until Next Time...
Orbittally Yours,
Michael

Shannara comes to MTV

A few moons ago I heard rumblings of the world of Shannara being brought to television. Unfortunately, I became so distracted by this recent rash of remakes, that not only did I lose track, I completely forgot this was in the works.

In July MTV released a three minute trailer with clips and interviews about the January 2016 premiere of the ten episodes that recently wrapped up shooting.

I had meant to reread the first few books of the series before its premiere, starting with The First King of Shannara, which chronologically in the first book of the entire series, but because of the high number of books still sitting on my "To Be Read" pile, I haven't quite gotten there yet. I've bumped it near the top though, so soon I'll be deep into the Four Lands again.

I didn't know where MTV was going to begin the story, but they those to start with the second book of the original series, The Elfstones of Shannara, the story of Wil Ohmsford who accompanies Amberle Elessedil on her quest to create a new Ellcrys, a magical tree that serves to banish all demons from the Four Lands. Oddly enough Elfstones was the first book I read of the series nearly twenty years ago. Unknowingly at the time, I read the first two books out of chronological order, but that is the great thing about the first few books of the Shannara series - they can be read independently and out of order, and the reader won't be lost or feel as if some backstory is missing.

Now as I watch the trailer, I'm excited to see this incarnation of a yet another fantasy series I grew up loving, so I thought I'd share the clip here for all my Cheesy Readers. Enjoy.

Until Next Time...
Magically Yours,
Michael