The Instructions by Adam Levin

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The one book that Adam Levin’s book The Instructions is always compared to is David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Unfortunately I haven’t read Infinite Jest (honest, it’s on my to do list, I just haven’t gotten to it yet), so I can’t tell you how accurate it is. But, if it is half the book that The Instructions is, then it must be amazing. This is Adam Levin’s first book and it took him 9 years to write it. Partially because it is over 1000 pages and partially because it is a very, very dense book. So, what is The Instructions?

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Older Movies to Watch – War Games

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Among many movies that focus on computers, there are a lot of groans when Hollywood tries to get computer use correct. From the “It’s Unix!” cry in Jurassic Park when a random graphical interface is shown, to hacking an alien spaceship with an Apple laptop in Independence Day, the use of computers in Hollywood movies is usually laughable. But when you ask computer people what movie did the best job of showing computers and hackers, they usually agree on War Games. Made in the early 80s, it was a lot of people’s first introduction to hacker culture and it’s never been as accurately potrayed.

But the movie was also a thriller and played into people’s fear about automation and nuclear war. While the basic plot was somewhat unrealistic (with an amazing AI that hasn’t been equaled since), the basic questions are still around, just in different forms. So, who was playing War Games?

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Batman Year 100 by Paul Pope

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Paul Pope seemed to come out of nowhere in the early 1990s with his self-published series THB. THB was part science fiction, part noir, part romance and all Paul Pope. Influence by European comics and manga, Pope was brought an excitement to all his comic work. Pope alternated between self-publishing, smaller comic publishers and the occasional mainstream superhero work for the next decade before his first mainstream superhero mini series, Batman: Year 100.

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Fredrick Pohl on publishing Samuel Delany’s Dhalgren

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Over on his blog, Fredrick Pohl talks about buying and publishing Samuel (Chip) Delany’s masterwork Dhalgren (which I am embarrassed to say I have never read):

But I wanted to be there for two reasons. First, because Dhalgren was a very unusual book. I thought it would sell well enough, but I didn’t think that your average route salesman would be able to figure out why that was likely by reading it — as though they would — or by having one of the higher-up editors tell them its plot. I thought I could tell them what to say to get the orders, and I thought I needed to tell them that myself, in person. 

Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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After watching the Sherlock BBC Miniseries (my review), I decided to re-read the original Sherlock Holmes stories. And what better one to start with than Hound of the Baskervilles. It’s an interesting book because of not only the style that it was written in, but also because Sherlock Holmes is not even in the majority of the book. That’s a challenge to any author who has a popular character, that the public is clamoring to see, and to get a hugely popular book that hides the character for large swathes of the book.

In addition, this was a missing Sherlock Holmes story. Doyle killed off Holmes in 1893 at the end of the story “The Final Problem” (collected in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes), and this was the first Holmes story since his death. But this story was set at a time before his death and then published in 1902. Doyle had wanted to write other things, but felt that Holmes was keeping him from doing so. This book was Doyle’s return to Sherlock Holmes and led to Holmes actually returning the following couple of years.

So, what is the mystery to be solved?

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The Cape Pilot Review

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As superhero movies burn up the box office, it’s not surprising that entertainment companies try to move it to the small screen as well. Heroes had a good first season and then fell off a cliff very quickly. No Ordinary Family isn’t good enough to be considered ordinary. So, now we are on to the newest entry, The Cape. With a bunch of mostly unknowns and Summer Glau, it’s the midseason entry from NBC. While the other TV superhero shows have mostly done away with costumes, The Cape embraces its comic book heritage. So, is it any good?

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Bill Sienkiewicz speaks on Big Numbers

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As many of you remember, Alan Moore broke from mainstream comics in the late 80s after getting fed up with the mainstream comic industry for quite a number of reasons. Having started his own publishing company (Mad Love), Moore decided his next book would be his best ever and started on Big Numbers. The story was going to be the effect of an American shopping center on a small English town. Of course, it would be much more complicated than that (this being Alan Moore after all). And away we went.

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Stray Bullets by David Lapham

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While many people have strong opinions on Jim Shooter, David Lapham owes his career to him. Shooter burned bridges almost everywhere he went, but he always had an eye for talent.  After he blazed his way out at Marvel, he resurfaced a few years later and led Valiant to a number of high profile series including Harbinger, Solar, XO Manowar and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (which later became a popular video game). Along with some industry veterans, Shooter discovered some promising new artists including David Lapham, who did the art on the popular Harbinger series. When Shooter was forced out at Valiant, he went on to help found Defiant comics and Lapham followed him over and helped him create Warriors of Plasm. Unfortunately a legal fight with Marvel comics and a dropoff in sales over the entire comic book business killed Defiant.

Lapham, sick of the getting shafted by companies left and right, decided to self-publish and came out with Stray Bullets. The initial storyline (named Innocence of Nihilism) was published to rave reviews, not only for the art, but also for the wonderful storytelling. The story follows a cast of losers and small time hoods and does an amazing job capturing the characters and the atmosphere. So, what is Stray Bullets?

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Scott PIlgrim Movie Review

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Having read the Scott Pilgrim books, I was slightly worried about Michael Cera playing our hero in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The movie makers were compressing all 6 books into a 90 minute movie. How would slacker king Cera do in the role of a fighter. It was obvious that Cera could handle the rest of the role (music, slacking, pining for women, stuttering, etc), but could he make the fight scenes come to life. And could the 90 minutes for the movie bring the world to life with all 7 fights, plus Knives, Ramona and the whole gang?

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