Getting better all the time.
May 02Don’t walk, run.
I was always interested in seeing the Superman movie, but now I’m moving up to keen-status. The second trailer just came out and we get to see some Super-action, and thank God, it looks like Superman’s going to convey a sense of power this time around, instead of a sense of hanging from wires.
Victorian nerd
May 01That’s me! A bit. Mostly Sherlock Holmes – there’s a lot of good Holmes stuff going on and it seems to be reaching some sort of critical mass.
Caleb Carr, for example, wrote a pair of excellent novels about a psychiatrist that hunts down a serial killer in 19th Century New York, stories often compared to the Holmes canon, even though the characters are quite different. Mark Frost wrote a series of books about Arthur Conan Doyle, acting as a sort of Watson to a Holmes-like man of mystery.
Hell, even the last episode of Dr. Who had a slight Holmesian slate to it, at least to me. Firstly, there was a reference to Dr. Bell, who was a teacher to Doyle, and is credited as being the inspiration for Holmes’ style of detection. And secondly, there was Queen Victoria herself, and the point about how often someone had tried to assassinate her. See, here’s where it gets wierd.
Caleb Carr recently wrote (and I just finished reading) The Italian Secretary, which is a Sherlock Holmes novel, commissioned by the Doyle estate – and thankfully, it was pretty darn good (a lot of the pastiche books are so-so.) The whole story revolves around a mystery at a Scottish estate, one occasionally used by Queen Victoria when she travels to Aberdeen (as she was doing in the Dr. Who episode) and I can only hope the BBC will perhaps attempt a dramatization of it (just not with Rupert Everett, please.)
Just as I was finishing that one, I heard about Shadows Over Baker Street, a collection of short stories that mix Holmes with Lovecraftian horror (I guess our cultural overlords would insist on calling it a mash-up, but I refuse.)
And it gets even better – while seeking the Shadows book, I randomly spot on the shelf a new book entitled Holmes on the Range. I read the dust jacket and then bought it immediately. The story is essentially about two brothers in New Mexico, cowboys, who read of Holmes’ cases in Harpers magazine (Holmes is considered real in this book, unlike the Frost books, where he’s a work of fiction) and attempt some “deductifying” themselves. Awwweeesome. You can read the short story that lead to the novel, here.
But before I get to that, there’s The Locked Room, which is, I think, the eighth book in the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King. Essentially the stories pick up where Doyle always suggested Holmes would end up, retired in the countryside, tending bees. There, he meets the young Mary Russell, who’s very nearly Holmes’ equal. I say very nearly, as the character is more a mix between Homes’ logical thinking and Watson’s heart. In every respect she’s a good stand in for Irene Adler, The Woman. I haven’t heard the response of other fans to these books, but there are 8 of them, after all. The most recent of which I’m reading now.
Really, there’s never a good time to have a cold, as I have now, but if you have to stop and stay in bed, you might as well have a lot of good stuff to read.
WikiWikiWhack: Sherlock Holmes, Caleb Carr, Laurie R. King
Wiiiiiii!
Apr 28As happens on an almost daily basis–at least, it seems that way in my life, but maybe I just soak too much in the writhing cesspool of teh intarweb’s geek communities–some fairly substantial bit of geeky news has hit, and everyone is bitching.
Nintendo’s new Revolution console is now officially named Wii. Pronounced “we,” as in, “Wii play Mario Kart! Wii wave this strange remote device in front of our television to steer! Wii be playing with power!”
Honestly, it’s not THAT shitty a name. It’s kinda crazy. But I like that it underlines Nintendo’s approach with the console–to break out of the shark-infested waters of modern gaming and present a product that will appeal to gamers, sure, but also to Grandma and little Billy who has always loved Pokemon and your girlfriend who doesn’t know Link from Master Chief but will enjoy waving that strange remote device around to make fun things happen.
Plus, it has the trendy lower case “i.” TWICE. Take that, Apple!
In other gaming news, this Star Trek battle simulator looks like it has potential. I’d pay $50 to command the Enterprise (NCC-1701, please, NOT A or B or C or D or even E) in battle against some goateed Klingon scum.
Alien Nation's For The Rich
Apr 27Please forgive the awkward They Might Be Giants pun. Coachella is this weekend, and I’m just music-drenched.
This kid from Britain used security exploits in off-the-shelf Windows to HACK INTO THE U.S. MILITARY’S COMPUTER SYSTEMS. He cites WarGames as an inspiration. I guess the days of a giant greenish room with massive banks of processors are long gone, and those charged with protecting our nation are just making do with fucking off-the-shelf eMachines? Do they just scan the Best Buy and CompUSA ads every week to wait for the best deal? Maybe they buy used on Craigslist?
I mean, Jesus H.
Anyway, this kid claims he saw evidence that the government is harboring alien technology. I’m not quite sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, why would he lie? He’s in the news regardless cause he hacked into our computers and gained access to our military secrets through a FUCKING WINDOWS-BASED MACHINE I COULD PROBABLY BUY AT WAL-MART.
On the other hand, crazy enough to hack into the US military’s computers after 9/11 probably equals crazy enough to invent aliens.
I just don’t know what to think anymore.
WikiWikiWhack: WarGames, They Might Be Giants
Yummy
Apr 26BSG prequel in the works! Called Caprica! Excited! Talking in fragments!
WikiWikiWhack: Battlestar Galactica
