Category: Musings

Watching the Hugos … Live and in Color … on My Nook

I have been so busy with home remodeling projects I completely forgot about the Hugo Awards ceremony Saturday night.  Not that I could have attended in person, since I was safely in Kansas and not attending WorldCon in Reno, Nevada.  After a long day of window and swatch shopping and incremental steps forward on a couple of renovation projects, I stumbled into bed.  Before nodding off, my nightly routine includes a quick check of four mobile sites via my Nook Color – my e-mail, RSS news feed reader, Facebook and finally Twitter (and sometimes the weather if it’s thunderstorm season).   Several people I follow (authors mostly) were simultaneously posting about the Hugo Award ceremony, occurring at that exact moment and some of my bookworm Twitter friends posted they were watching the ceremony live via the WorldCom Ustream video feed.  I clicked on the link in one of the Tweets and connected to the live video stream.

And for the next ninety minutes (and into Sunday morning), I watched somewhat choppy video (probably my fault since my master bedroom is as far away as I can get from my wireless access point without leaving the house) and listened to the presenters (Robert Silverberg was hilarious!) and acceptance speeches (some of these folks need professional help or less partying and more sleep) from my Nook Color.  If you’d asked me twenty years ago when I embarked on a career in Information Technology if I’d be watching something like the Hugos (or any live event) on a small color touchscreen tablet, I would have probably snorted in disbelief.  Such technological wonders came from the minds of Star Trek writers.  Oh me of little faith.

Below are the results from my four favorite categories:

Best Novel (Presented by TimPowers)

I read 3/5 of the Best Novel nominees (click on the title links to peruse my reviews).  I’m glad Connie won (again … this is her eleventh Hugo) for her massive and excellent novel.

Winner: Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)
Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald (Gollancz; Pyr)
Feed by Mira Grant (Orbit)
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin (Orbit)

Best Short Story (Presented by David D. Levine)

Each of the title links below take you to a discussion thread at the Beyond Reality GoodReads group that also includes a link to the story.

Winner: “For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)
“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010)
“Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010)
“The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form (Presented by Bill Willingham)

The only film I did not watch this past year was “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” which I’d never heard of until I saw the trailer via the awards ceremony stream.  I’m satisfied with the winner, as Inception definitely made me think and wonder for days after watching it.

Winner: Inception, written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, screenplay by Steve Kloves; directed by David Yates (Warner)
How to Train Your Dragon, screenplay by William Davies, Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders; directed by Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders (DreamWorks)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, screenplay by Michael Bacall & Edgar Wright; directed by Edgar Wright (Universal)
Toy Story 3, screenplay by Michael Arndt; story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton & Lee Unkrich; directed by Lee Unkrich (Pixar/Disney)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form (Presented by George R. R. Martin)

I watched all the Doctor Who episodes listed, and would have had a devilsh time deciding which was the best.  I’m partial to the ‘A Christmas Carol’ episode from last December,  but the other two were equally well done.  I apologize for the crude language below, it’s the actual title of the work.

Winner: Doctor Who: “The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang,” written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who: “A Christmas Carol,” written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes (BBC Wales)
Doctor Who: “Vincent and the Doctor,” written by Richard Curtis; directed by Jonny Campbell (BBC Wales)
Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury, written by Rachel Bloom; directed by Paul Briganti
The Lost Thing, written by Shaun Tan; directed by Andrew Ruhemann and Shaun Tan (Passion Pictures)

 

And for the true math geeks (myself include) who want the nitty-gritty number-crunchiness stats, here’s a link to the Hugo voting overview.

Book Review: Consider Phlebas by Banks

Consider PhlebasConsider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

2.5 stars

My first attempt to read Consider Phlebas began a couple of years ago. I made it to the fifth chapter and abandoned the book. This past June, the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club selected Consider Phlebas as the science fiction group read. The discussion leader provided two avenues for discourse: by topic or by chapter. I opted for the chapter course, hoping that by only absorbing one chapter per day I might actually finish the novel. Some chapters made better lunch reading than others (for example, if you’re squeamish, you might avoid the sixth chapter, or at least avoid masticating and digesting dinner while reading it).

With my support and therapy groups ready and willing to urge me on, I reluctantly consumed a chapter a day and finished my first (and perhaps last) Culture novel. Many of my thoughts and comments can be found in the discussion threads here.

Banks’ writing style lent itself to rich cinematic visualizations, especially of some of the action sequences (escaping from space ships, orbital rings, runaway trains). Those images, created by Banks’ prose and my own imagination, are forever seared into my memories, some of them as vivid and visceral as a strobe light flash in a Halloween haunted horror house.

My most intriguing find resulted from the epigraph which quoted two lines from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and directly relate to the title and the tone of the novel. My research lead me to further contextual reading in The Waste Land to include the entire section surrounding the epigraph quote:

IV. DEATH BY WATER

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

I found few likable or relateable characters, with the exception of the robots and Minds (Banks’ AI permutation). Knowing nothing of the Culture prior to reading Consider Phlebas, and in light of the quote above, I can understand and appreciate the author’s endeavor. Just not my cup of tea.

View all my reviews

Space Opera Showdown without the Corral

September is Space Opera month at the five thousand strong (and growing) SciFi and Fantasy Book Club on GoodReads.  Wikipedia offers this definition of Space Opera:

Space opera is a subgenre of speculative fiction that emphasizes romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space, generally involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced technologies and abilities. The term has no relation to music and it is analogous to “soap opera” (see below). Perhaps the most significant trait of space opera is that settings, characters, battles, powers, and themes tend to be very large-scale.

Sometimes the term space opera is used pejoratively to denote bad quality science fiction, but its meaning can differ, often describing a particular science fiction genre without any value judgement.

So help us choose from among these excellent contenders and make our September space opera adventure glorious!

Pandora's Star by Hamilton
Pandora's Star by Hamilton
The Tar-Aiym Krang by Foster
The Tar-Aiym Krang by Foster
Heir of Empire by Zahn
Heir of Empire by Zahn

A Deepness in the Sky by Vinge
A Deepness in the Sky by Vinge
Downbelow Station by Cherryh
Downbelow Station by Cherryh
Leviathan Wakes by Corey
Leviathan Wakes by Corey

NPR’s Fun Summer Popularity Contest for Science Fiction/Fantasy Fans

NPR Books: Top 100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Books
NPR Books: Top 100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Books

Sixty thousand of us (and by us I mean fans of science fiction and fantasy novels) helped NPR in a completely unscientific endeavor this summer.  We nominated our favorite science fiction and fantasy novels, then we voted, and now the results are in.

Follow this link for a printable version of NPR’s Top 100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Books and this link for the less printable, but more eye friendly list, including book covers.

I also enjoyed reading an article at NPR written by Glen Weldon about parsing the results.  The most gratifying tidbit reinforced my belief in all things Tolkien.

Who among us can read a list like this one and not, on some level, chafe against it? But that’s okay. Lists like this one are not meant to be definitive, but to spark discussion and debate.

— Glen Weldon

As if I needed an excuse to add more books to my already toppling to-read pile!  Still, I encourage everyone to review this list and read one, some or all of them.

Ad astra per aspera!

Off with the Old, On with the New … Roof That Is

The great escape (or is that escapade) began this week, auspiciously on Monday, August 1, 2011.  Our home remodeling project kicked off (finally) when the roofers arrived to strip off our old roof and replace it with a new one.  We waited in the roofing queue for several weeks, while the roofers kept busy basking in the balmy sunshine of the prairie cauldron that culminated in record temperatures Monday and Tuesday of this week.

But first, a stroll down memory lane, with a couple of cool before photos:

Rachelle (1st day of Freshman year at Lansing High - Aug 2003)
Rachelle (1st day of Freshman year at Lansing High - Aug 2003)

If you look past my daughter (and the ugly Ford pickup) you can see the six year old roof (new in 1997).

Groundhog Day (Feb 2011 Blizzard)
Groundhog Day (Feb 2011 Blizzard)

Snow covered the roof (for most of January and February this year), but at least this is a ‘cool’ picture. And I’ll duplicate these photos tonight or Saturday (when I have favorable light from the east):

Moss Home (looking northwest) Feb 2011
Moss Home (looking northwest) Feb 2011
Moss Home (looking northwest) Mar 2011
Moss Home (looking northwest) Mar 2011

But back to the project of the week:  Stripping off the old roof (click on the photo below to see the rest of the album)

Stripping Off Old Roof (First Day)
Stripping Off Old Roof (First Day)

And by sunset of the first day, the roofers reached the halfway point (click on the photo below to view the rest of the album):

Halfway Point by Sunset (01 Aug 2011)
Halfway Point by Sunset (01 Aug 2011)

And by the time I returned home from work Tuesday evening, I saw a completed roof and all traces of the old roof (and the roofers) gone.  Terry managed to convince the crew to adopt Rachelle’s old bicycle, which escaped our earlier spring cleaning dump run a couple of months ago.

New Roof Done (Tues 02 Aug 2011)
New Roof Done (Tues 02 Aug 2011)

Next step in the renovation:  Driveway replacement

So remind me to get the Firebird out of the garage before the crew tears out the old concrete.  Terry promised he would call the contractor today.

Tau-Day (yesterday)

Tau-Da!

I completely missed the celebration of tau yesterday as well as being completely ignorant of a movement among mathematicians to replace my favorite constant, pi.  I have spoken previously (once) here about pi and even use the first few digits of it as part of my username here at WordPress.   At least once a year, on Pi Day, which corresponds to March 14th (or as close to 3.14 as you can get on our calendars), I celebrate the never-repeating, endlessly enlightening expression of the ratio between a circle’s circumference and it’s diameter … or wait, is that it’s radius.

I received a Tweet that intrigued me, entitled ‘Mathematicians Want to Say Goodbye to Pi‘ with an accompanying link.  I read the article, but what really held my attention was an inserted YouTube video from someone named Kevin Houston (with a British, not Texan, accent).  If you enjoy math, take a few minutes to watch his video.

So, since Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th, and 2π is roughly 6.28, it follows that celebrating tau should occur on June 28th.   Or so the tau enthusiasts hope.

I’m still on the fence, preferring pi for the moment; although, I agree the use of tau has its merits in simplicity and beauty.

Book Review: A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets by Pasachoff/Menzel

A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets (Peterson Field Guides)A Field Guide to the Stars and Planets by Jay M. Pasachoff

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I checked this dense compact field guide out from my local library in the hopes of using it in the field with my telescope. Due to its size and weight, I found it nearly useless to use in the dark with my red flashlight at my telescope. The atlases were too small, requiring my reading glasses, and the binding too stiff and tight to allow the field guide to be laid flat and free up a hand to adjust the telescope.

The information provided in the guide appears current as of a dozen years ago (circa 1998). I’ll run through the table of contents with some observations below:

1. A First Look at the Sky – How to differentiate between a star and a planet. Includes a pair of sky maps showing the brightest stars with arrows showing the pathways that help observers find them.

2. A Tour of the Sky – Highlights of the seasonal skies for both hemispheres and a bit on solar observing.

3. The Monthly Sky Maps – Maps are drawn to minimize distortions in regions of the sky most studied, using 45 degrees altitude (halway up the sky to the zenith).

4. The Constellations – History and origins of the constellations and where they can be found in the night sky.

5. Stars, Nebulae and Galaxies – Descriptions of stars, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies (including our own) and quasars. Includes color photographs of the most familiar objects.

6. Double and Variable Stars – Includes graphs and charts.

7. Atlas of the Sky – Fifty-two charts, each accompanied by a half-page (three or four paragraphs) detailing the best tourist destinations for the observer (like a travelogue for your vacation to the stars). This was the main reason I checked out this field guide but, as I mentioned above, the binding prevented me from effectively using this guide while out on my star safari.

8. The Moon – I read this chapter several times and used the excellent maps of the moon during an extended observing period (over several days) in April 2011.

9. Finding the Planets – Tips and timetables for tracking the planets (mostly the easily observed planets like Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).

10. Observing the Planets – A tour of all the planets (including the recently demoted Pluto), with lots of color photos.

11. Comets – Description, observing and photographing tips.

12. Asteroids – Only two pages long, includes a table of the brightest asteroids.

13. Meteors and Meteor Showers – Table of major meteor showers and how to observe them.

14. Observing the Sun – Concise breakdown of the sun’s composition, but the majority of the chapter deals with solar eclipses and how to observe them.

15. Coordinates, Time and Calendars – Definitions of right ascension and declination and an analemma graph and photograph.

After reading this field guide, and being disappointed in its field usefulness, I decided upon the Sky & Telescope’s Pocket Sky Atlas for use on my observing nights. While the Pocket Sky Atlas lacks the travelogue features of this Field Guide, it makes up for that in ease-of-use and weightlessness.

View all my reviews