This should bring a smile to your face and lighten your day:
[vimeo 105545337 w=500 h=281]
Tag: fantasy
Book Review: Sword of Michael by Wynne (2.5 Stars)
The Sword of Michael by Marcus Wynne
Publisher’s Synopsis:
Marius Winter doesn’t walk the road of the shaman-warrior alone. He has powerful allies in the Other Realms and in ordinary reality. His spirit guides are a Lakota war-chief and medicine man, First In Front; Tigre, a powerful feminine spirit who appears as a white tiger; and Burt, a spirit raven who channels an old Jewish bookie from the Bronx.
Now Marius is targeted by a powerful sorcerer. In the battle for the souls of his friends and lover, he must storm the gates of the underworld and fight through the Seven Demi-Demons of Hell to the deepest dungeons to confront Belial himself.
My Thoughts:
I found myself skimming and skipping most of this book. The first two-thirds seemed your standard urban fantasy with a supernatural flare, demons and angels, the old Holy War, tied into or growing out of the Fall of Atlantis. The dialogue was forced and re-used one-liner clichés poorly. After about the sixth time I’d read a ‘one-liner’ I just about gave up. I forged on, but the ‘pay off’ didn’t pay as much as just felt off.
Continue reading “Book Review: Sword of Michael by Wynne (2.5 Stars)”
The 12 Weirdest Reasons For Banning Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
http://io9.com/the-12-weirdest-reasons-for-banning-science-fiction-and-1639136022
The Wizard of Oz? Really? I’m shocked … not. Some of the other ones listed are equally silly. I’ve read most of these and I turned out just fine. 😉
Posted from WordPress for Android via my Samsung smartphone. Please excuse any misspellings. Ciao, Jon
Picturing The Hobbit | Tor.com
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/12/picturing-the-hobbit
Happy birthday to Bilbo and Frodo!
I’ll link in a few of my favorite art pieces from the above article later this evening.
Book Review: Stormdancer by Kristoff (4 Stars)
Read in late August 2014
Synopsis from MacMillan’s site:
Stormdancer is the first in the epic new fantasy series The Lotus War, introducing an unforgettable heroine and a stunningly original dystopian steampunk world with a flavor of feudal Japan.
The Shima Imperium verges on the brink of environmental collapse; an island nation once rich in tradition and myth, now decimated by clockwork industrialization and the machine-worshipers of the Lotus Guild. When hunters of Shima’s imperial court are charged by their Shōgun to capture a legendary griffin, they fear their lives are over. Any fool knows the beasts have been extinct for more than a century, and the price of failing the Shōgun is death. Accompanying her father on the Shōgun’s hunt, the girl Yukiko finds herself stranded: a young woman alone in Shima’s last wilderness, with only a furious, crippled griffin for company. Even though she can hear his thoughts, even though she saved his life, all she knows for certain is he’d rather see her dead than help her. But together, the pair will form an indomitable friendship, and rise to challenge the might of an empire. Continue reading “Book Review: Stormdancer by Kristoff (4 Stars)”
Hugo Awards Voting Adventure Wrap-Up
My weekend got away from me and I didn’t make my final post of how I voted for the remainder of the 2014 Hugo Award categories I hadn’t previously discussed. I did carve out two hours on Sunday afternoon to watch the live streaming of the Hugo Awards ceremony (which streaming went off with hardly a hitch, especially as compared to the Retro Hugo Awards ceremony from last Thursday night).
Watching (but not Hearing) the Retro Hugo Awards Ceremony
Technical difficulties again plagued the Ustream live video of a Hugo Awards ceremony. Beautiful video, but no audio. Those of us in the audience were left with Tweet breadcrumbs from @LonCon3 on the hashtag #RetroHugos:
The winner of the 1939 #HugoAward for Best Fan Writer is Ray Bradbury. #RetroHugos #worldcon #Loncon3
— Loncon 3 (@loncon3) August 14, 2014
46 minutes into the ‘broadcast’ and still no sound . . .
Continue reading “Watching (but not Hearing) the Retro Hugo Awards Ceremony”
Hugo Awards Voting Adventure: Remainder of Retro Hugos
Tomorrow the winners will be announced for the 1939 Retro Hugo Awards.
The 1939 Retro Hugo Awards can be watched online via ustream. The stream will be located at http://www.ustream.tv/hugo-awards. The Retro Hugo Awards Ceremony starts at 8PM BST (or 2PM Central) on Thursday 14 August.
Retro Hugo Awards Ceremony, LonCon3
I’ve covered the main ‘big’ categories in previous posts. Today, I’ll summarize the remaining ones that are less, ‘sexy’, for lack of a better term. Continue reading “Hugo Awards Voting Adventure: Remainder of Retro Hugos”
Hugo Awards Voting Adventure: Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) aka Movies
After books, movies are my next ‘go to’ source for hours of uninterrupted entertainment. If I’m not happy with the book I’m currently reading, I will take an afternoon or evening off from reading to enjoy a good movie. New or old … it doesn’t matter. If the story is good, and the acting convincing, and the directing sublime … all else is irrelevant. Special effects may be indistinguishable from reality today, but if you don’t have a great story, you’re just a flash in a pan that fizzled, smoked and went boom.
Continue reading “Hugo Awards Voting Adventure: Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) aka Movies”
Hugo Awards Voting Adventure: Best Novellas 2014 and 1939
Last week I posted about my adventures in reading the books nominated for the Best Novel award (2014 and 1939). I had hoped to write my second and subsequent posts on the other categories on a daily or every other day pattern so that I could wrap up before the Hugo Award ceremonies on the 14th and 17th of this month. A distraction arrived over the weekend and then work returned on Monday and Tuesday. Here I am halfway to the next weekend and just now getting around to this post. Continue reading “Hugo Awards Voting Adventure: Best Novellas 2014 and 1939”