Chalion

The last few years I have a hard time finding interesting, non-cliche-ridden Fantasy novels. The only exception was George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. But since the author takes his time to finish the individual books rather slow (I'll grant him that: "Throughness before speed" I say), I'll have to look elsewhere for new reading material.

A couple of months ago while checking the Hugo/Nebula/.. awards lists for interesting books, I stumbled across the works of Lois McMaster Bujold. And behold, not a triology/triad/something-with-3 series, but rather standalone novels. So I started reading her Fantasy books, and I was not disappointed. Currently there are three books set in the "Chalion"-world.

• "The Curse of Chalion"
• "Paladin of Souls" (not yet finished)
• "The Hallowed Hunt" (yet to read)

So this list may look like a triology, I can assure you it is not. The two first books are loosely coupled and share a few common characters, but the stories are self-contained. The last book seems to be a prequel of the other two and non-related to them.

McMaster Bujold has a website containing information about the world of Chalion as well as sample chapters from the novels listed above.

Descent

"The Descent" is becoming one of my favourite movies. With (in my humble opinion) sparse means the film creates a real sense of horror and fear, something I haven't seen in any movie for years.

StarCraft Reenactment

In the light of the upcoming "StarCraft 2" and after an acquaintance told me that he had played the original "StarCraft" (from 1998!) again, I followed his example and installed & played the orginal game once more. Not entirely surprising, it is still -- after 9 years -- fun to play.

Am I mad? In a coma? Or back in time?

"My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and woke up in 1973. Am I mad? In a coma? Or back in time?"

This is the introduction of the BBC TV series "Life on Mars". Currently I am watching the second (and final) season of this fine police drama set in the 1970's era. Besides the retro style of the series, it has its appeal from the main character "Sam Tyler" who is detective inspector who awoke after an accident in 1973 and with the knowledge of the year 2006 now has to cope with the reality(?) of the 70's.

Other quotes:

• "You Great Soft Sissie Girlie Nancy French Bender Man United Supporting Poof."
• "Don't move! You are surrounded by armed bastards!"
  
• "Alright, Guv, we have nicked him!"

blinkenlights: /blink'@n·li:tz/, n

ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!

Alles touristen und non-technischen looken peepers!
Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben.
Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken
mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das
pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.

Copperboom

The "Copperboom" quote from the "Gilmore Girls" episode "The Lorelais' First Day At Yale":

Lorelai: Copperboom!
Rory: What?
Lorelai: What you said to me this morning when you were trying to speed me up.
Rory: But you missed a bunch of stuff inbetween.
Lorelai: I think it's catchy. Go, go, unpack!
Rory: Copperboom!
Lorelai: Copperboom!

Crysis, Crysis

On the last weekend I have downloaded and played the 1.8 GByte demo of "Crysis", an ego-shooter and successor of "Far Cry" made by german developer "Crytek".

Although due the limited resource my current computer is offering, I was only able to play it with the details set to low, but even then the game was spectuluarly good. The nano suit is as well adjustable as the guns you are using, the graphics are amazing, the AI seems to be quite clever, the environment (houses, trees, cars) is fully deformable.

This game, although (or just because) it has a USK-18 rating, is a must-have for an adult player, and is likely the reason for me to get a new computer with reasonable graphics card and CPU. My current computer is now 2.5+ years old and so it's time for an upgrade anyhow.

Rearview Mirror

Just starting this blog as my personal blog, as opposed to my VtES Blog which is dedicated to my favourite hobby. This blog is for the rest of the stuff I am interested in and I'd like to know world about. I have moved all the non-VtES stuff from the other blog to clean it all up a little bit (keeping the original post dates although).

Choosing a name for this blog was kind of hard, since my first choices like "Squeaky Clean", "Copperboom", "Blinkenlights", "Sheesh" and several others were already used, albeit by users who did no more than a test page or who abandoned the blog years ago. So sad, that these unique names weren't available anymore. Eventually I choose the name of an ancient Egyptian, whose statue can viewed at the Louvre, Paris. Accidentally he's also pictured as a vampire for the collectible card game VtES.

Aeria Gloris - Flying in Glory

In the past few weeks I managed to finish watching the second season of the Anime television series "Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex", which is based on the critically acclaimed motion picture "Ghost in the Shell". The series shows the work of a small japapanese anti-terrorist/-crime unit called "Public Security Section 9" in 2030 AD with a lot more depth and background information than in the motion picture.

What I like about the series beside the great artwork, is the fact the story is not entirely black-and-white, with the government essentially being the good guys and the terrorists being the bad guys, as in, for example, "24". There's a lot more backstabbing and scheming going on, although the philosophical side comes up a little short in comparison to the original movie. The only real short-coming of the series is that the individual episodes are rather short (about 22 minutes), which is made up by the fact, that there is a strong story arc throughout both seasons.

The TV series is IMHO definitely not suitable for kids, since the violence is quite graphic, expect some blood splattering here and there. If you want to get a first impression, you can check the article on Wikipedia or the american official site. If are hooked, do not buy the rather expensive individual DVDs (with up to four episodes), but the DVD collection, one for each of the two seasons. Hopefully there will be a 3rd season someday.

War, War Never Changes

I have been waiting for Fallout 3 for a looong time. Being an avid fan of the first two parts by Black Isle Studio (may the company rest in peace), I was somewhat excited when the news surfaced that Bethesda Softworks acquired the rights to develop a sequel to the series. Although information is pretty scarce, and the teaser movie is pretty non-descriptive, the promotional artwork on the Bethesda website looks quite promising.

Let's just hope the Bethesda guys do not make the game as generic as the last of the Elder Scrolls series, Oblivion, was, and preserve the unique setting and distinct black humor of this game.

To see with eyes unclouded by hate

One of my all-time-favourite movies, if not the favourite, is Princess Mononoke, a Japanese Anime movie directed Hayao Miyazaki. I can only recommended watching this movie, since it is really different than your standard Tolkien-like western fantasy epic. The story is rich, there is no black-and-white good guy vs. bad guy confrontation, and the animation is really amazing.

Here's the trailer of the English dubbed version.

Although it look likes as if it is a children's fairy tale like some other animes by Hayao Miyazaki like "Spirited Away" or "Howl's moving castle", I can tell you it is not. In my humble opinion, it is not even suitable for children, let's say below the age of fourteen, due to the graphic violence it contains.