Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card

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Over 30 years ago, Orson Scott Card wrote a wonderful short story called Ender’s Game. The story won numerous awards and was much beloved. Almost a decade later, while working on a new novel, Card realized that the protagonist from the short story (Ender Wiggins) would be the perfect lead character for this novel. But, for this new novel to work, he needed to expand the short story. So Ender’s Game was expanded to be a novel, so that Card could then write Speaker for the Dead. The two books won Hugo and Nebula awards in consecutive years and were widely loved. Card then wrote about 600 (approximately) more novels in the series with new characters, old characters, and filling in time gaps. As expected, the general quality of these books have gone down the further along Card went. Ender in Exile is the latest of these books and starts a new series to cover the time between Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. So, what is new about this series?

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The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz

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The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz is not an easy book to read. The first half of the book is all I got through before I realized that this isn’t a book for me. It’s constructed as part anthropology, part history and part Gulliver’s Travels. The narrator starts off describing an island where he spent many years. Each chapter is a look into a different aspect of the island and the natives who live there. The history (or as much as the narrator can determine) of the island starts popping up. The narrator (currently living in Europe) is not only reminiscing about his time on the island and also starts out with events from Europe.

It’s an interesting story, but a bit too much meta narrative for me. The book starts off interesting, but I found myself caring less and less about it as I dove deeper in.

Bubba Ho-Tep movie review

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Joe R Lansdale is a award winning writer who loves writing about horror, mystery and martial arts. So when he wrote an award winning novel that dealt with all of these, a movie had to be made. The result, Bubba Ho-Tep, is a weird, horrific and hilarious duel between famous senior citizens and an Egyptian spirit for the souls of the nursing home residents. The result is touching, funny and well worth your time. So, how did Elvis and JFK get into a fight with an Egyptian Soul Sucker?

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Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks

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Use of Weapons is the third Culture novel by Iain M Banks and is essentially a rewrite of an earlier manuscript. Originally the book had the Culture in it, but was written before the other Culture universe was really created. What I like about the Culture novels so far is that they are very decentralized. All three books I’ve read so far can be read as standalone without any knowledge of the Culture, but the added Culture layer does add to the enjoyment.

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Kirby vs Marvel the latest news

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Bleeding Cool has a good overview of the Kirby vs Marvel lawsuit. For those not familiar, in accordance with copyright laws, Kirby’s heirs have filed a notice of termination to Marvel for a list of characters they claimed were created or co-created by Jack Kirby. If successful, all or part ownership of those characters will revert to Kirby’s heirs.

  1. Noting that the matter hinges on Kirby’s work for hire status while creating the properties in question, the court is allowing the Kirby Family’s quest to terminate Marvel’s copyrights to proceed.

Basically what this means is that the judge is allowing the trial to continue in order to determine whether or not Kirby’s heirs have a valid claim. The ownership will hinge on any written or oral contracts between Kirby and Marvel in the 1950s and 1960s.

Stay tuned to see how this plays out.

Airplane movie review

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RIP Leslie Nielsen. As I heard about the passing of the beloved comic actor, I found myself thinking about Airplane. It was Nielsen’s first comedic role and what made that movie so special. When Airplane came out, it was like nothing people had seen before (well, mostly), it wasn’t clever or visually interesting. It was a bunch of dumb jokes barely hanging on a plot that was stolen from an earlier movie and pulling it bits from otherrecentmovies. But, it caught on and became much more popular and influential then anyone expected.

Surely, this little stupid movie can’t be that influential?
Yes it is and stop calling me Shirley, so I can tell you why.

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American Gods by Neil Gaiman

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Neil Gaiman has made his career out of writing about Gods. His Sandman dealt with Gods in varying forms and to varying degrees. In the Sandman storyline Seasons of the Mists, Gaiman dealt with varying Gods. Many of whom had lost power and were still trying to recapture it. The idea of ancient Gods losing powers and desperately trying to recapture them is one of Gaiman’s favorite themes and he deals with that here. In American Gods, Gaiman mostly works with the ancient Norse Gods, but they could be any other ones as well.. So, what are these American Gods?

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Graphic Novels you must own: The Dark Knight Returns

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The other books this week are all literary. Maus is allegorical, Understanding Comics is educational, Sandman is literary and Watchmen is full of literary references. The Dark Knight Returns is the world’s greatest balls to the wall action comic. From the car race at the beginning to the superhero slugfest everyone wanted to see at the end, it’s an all-out adrenaline rush. Frank Miller’s comics translate better to film (300, Sin City) because the visuals Miller uses are more screen like then other comics. So, what happens when the Dark Knight returns?

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