2011 Reading Challenge Results

Well in 2011 I set out to read 100 books. As can be seen below I only reached 60. A few things are responsible for missing the 100; work being very busy over the summer, reading too many magazines, spending more time writing, etc.

I will be starting a number of reading challenges in 2012. Hopefully I'll have better results.

BOOKS FOR 2011
=FINISHED=
Print
1) The Maker of the Universes: by Philip José Farmer (fiction/fantasy) [Third Sentence Review]
2) Legion of Gold expansion for D&D Gamma World: by Richard Baker & Bruce R. Cordell (Role-Playing Game)
3) The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction: by Philip Athans (non-fiction/writing)
4) The Gates of Creation: by Philip José Farmer; book two of the world of tiers series (fiction/fantasy)
5) A Private Cosmos: by Philip José Farmer; book 3 of the World of Tiers series (fiction/fantasy)
6) The Walls of Terra: by Philip José Farmer; book 4 of the World of Tiers series. Things keep developing and getting more interesting! (fiction/fantasy)
7) The Valley-Westside War: by Harry Turtledove (sci-fi/alternate history) [Third Sentence Review]
8) Short Trips and Side Steps: edited by Stephen Cole & Jacqueline Rayner. An anthology of Doctor Who stories.
9) The Wind Whales of Ishmael: by Philip José Farmer [Third Sentence review]
10) The Blue Max: by Jack D. Hunter [Third Sentence review]
11) The Bloody Red Baron: by Kim Newman
12) Squadron of the Scorpion: by Robert J. Hogan. Book #17 of the G-8 and His Battle Aces series. [Third Sentence review]
14) Libertarianism in One Lesson: by David Bergland (politics)
15) The Pity of War: by Niall Ferguson (history/world war one) [Third Sentence review]
16) The Red Baron: by Richard A. Boning; a brief biography of the Red Baron.
17) The Hussite Movement in Bohemia: by Josef Macek; a history of an uprising in 15th century Bohemia.
18) Armageddon - 2419 A.D.: by Philip Francis Nowlan [Third Sentence Review]; the original source of Buck Rogers!
19) Red Inferno 1945: by Robert Conroy; alternate history where the Soviet Union attacks the Allies in the days before Nazi Germany fell. [Third Sentence review]
20) 1942: by Robert Conroy (Alternate History)
21) The Lavalite World: by Philip José Farmer; part 5 of the World of Tiers series. [Third Sentence Thursday review]
22) Before Armageddon: edited by Michael Moorcock; stories by G.T. Chesney, Jules Verne, George Griffith, William LeQuex, W.J. Wintle, and E. Nesbit
23) A Princess of Mars: by Edgar Rice Burroughs
24) A Guide to Barsoom: compiled by John Flint Roy.A collection of important characters, locations, creatures, and other things from Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom.
25) Riders of the Purple Wage: by Philip José Farmer. My copy included a number of short stories as well; including St. Francis Kisses His Ass Goodbye and UFO Versus IRS.

Ebooks
26)The Desdamona Affair: by Clyde Allison
27)Gamefinger: by Clyde Allison
28)The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles: by Padraic Colum (mythology/fantasy)
29) Tarzan of the Apes: by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Audio
30) When Organizing isn’t Enough: by Julie Morgenstern (non-fiction/self-help)
31) The Next Decade: Where We've Been... ...and Where We're Going: by George Friedman; narrated by Bruce Turk (some interesting geo-political analysis)
32) Physics of the Future: by Michio Kaku. An amazing look into the technology of the next hundred years. (science)
33) Doctor Who: Tales from the TARDIS, Volume 1: by Brian Hayles, Terrance Dicks, Eric Saward and others. (science fiction)
34) Parallel Worlds: by Michio Kaku (science)
35) The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805: by Richard Zacks; A history of the First Barbary War.
36) America's Secret War: by George Friedman (geo-politics)
37) The Big Switch: by Harry Turtledove. Third book in 'The War That Came Early' series.
38) Into the Storm: by Taylor Anderson; book one of the Destroyermen series
39) Crusade: Destroyermen book 2: by Taylor Anderson.
40) Maelstrom: by Taylor Anderson; book three of the Destroyermen series
41) Distant Thunders: by Taylor Anderson; book four of the Destroyermen series
42) Rising Tides: by Taylor Anderson; book five of the Destroyermen series
43) The Three Musketeers: by Alexandre Dumas (fiction/classic)
44) The Automatic Detective: by A. Lee Martinez. (sci-fi/noir)
45) The First Three Minutes: by Steven Weinberg. (science)
46) Go the F**k to Sleep: by Adam Mansbach (read by Samuel L. Jackson)
47) Desperate Deception: by Thomas E. Mahl (narrated by William Sutherland)
48) Hominids: by Robert J. Sawyer. Part one of the Neanderthal Parallax series.

Graphic Novels
49) Planetary: All Over the World and Other Stories: by Warren Ellis,John Cassaday, and Laura DePuy.
50) Planetary: The Fourth Man: by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday
51) Century: 1910: by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
52) Planetary Vol. 3: Leaving the 20th Century: by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday
53) Planetary: Crossing Worlds: by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday
54) Planetary: Spacetime Archaeology: by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday
55) Marvel 1602: by Neil Gaiman
56) Marvel 1602: New World: by Greg Pak & Greg Tocchini
57) Marvel 1602: Spider-Man: by Jeff Parker & Ramon Rosanas
58) Java Joint: by Jolly R. Blackburn, Steve Johansson, David S. Kenzer, and Brian Jelke
59) John Carter of Mars: Weird Worlds: written by Marv Wolfman, art by Murphy Anderson, Sal Amedola, and Joe Orlando
60) John Carter of Mars: The Jesse Marsh Years: written by Paul S. Newman, illustrated by Jesse Marsh

Review – Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows

Last week I went to see Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. Overall the film was a disappointment. While there were times I laughed at the comedic elements of the film I later realized that this wasn't Sherlock Holmes.

While Robert Downey, Jr. has an interesting interpretation of the world's greatest detective the film too often fell into a campy feel. I can live with the camp.

The first real problem was the violence. The number of people killed by Holmes & Watson was staggering. At one point Watson is firing what looks similar to a BAR at German guards at a weapons plant. I lost track of how many people he slaughtered with a weapon that wouldn't be developed until the tail end of the First World War (about a quarter century after when this film takes place).

Inside the factory where that battle took place were enough artillery shells to last part of a weekend during the Great War. Some of these shells appear to have been capable of deploying chemical weapons..... another thing developed after the War was in full swing many years later.

In any case gun play was uncommon in Holmes canon. It seems to be the first course of action in this adventure. The explosions and shooting were very out of place.

There also seemed to be no real mystery involved in the story. Holmes knows that Moriarty is up to no good at the start. Most of the film is just to drive Holmes into confrontation with Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. Basically a bad retelling of “The Adventure of the Final Problem.”

On the plus side I did enjoy the musical score. So many movies these days have forgettable music, it's nice to have a movie with something more memorable. Earlier this year I saw the new Conan and was disappointed at the crappy music, nothing like the awesome score by Basil Poledouris. Musical scores these days leave much to be desired especially compared to what we had in movies twenty to thirty years ago.

So to summarize; if you liked the first film in this series you should at least enjoy this one. If you didn't like the first film you'll probably dislike this one even more. Overall I give it a 4 out of 10.

Pros:
*Nice music
*Good action flick if you forget it's a Sherlock Holmes film

Cons:
*Too much bloodshed by Holmes & Watson
*No mystery involved
*Moriarty's moronic plot
*A little too silly at times

Making good use of Atomic Blast in COH

I've had some luck advancing Technobabe in City of Heroes. A few months ago I picked up the Atomic Blast power from Radiation Blast. I wasn't impressed with it. The endurance drain and reduced endurance recovery made it less than useful for me. Many times minions would still be standing after the blast, admittedly in rough shape, but it didn't seem like a great power for a Defender.

Now it is one of my favorite attack powers. I just learned how to make up for the endurance drain with the use of inspirations and then activating Accelerate Metabolism or Power Sink to recover additional endurance. I can be back on the attack (or healing myself and teammates) before survivors of the Atomic Blast can recover. I had a friend a couple weeks ago notice how using Atomic Blast didn't seem to phase me.

Now as an added bonus I have the Burnout power from the Speed group. When activated this power recharges all the powers in my primary and secondary power sets.... including Atomic Blast.

I can now set off two Atomic Blasts in short order with minimal drawbacks to myself except using about a third of my inspirations and having a couple toggle powers turn off on me. Few things can survive the dual blasts.

It's gotten to the point now where I use a handful of defensive inspirations to buy me the time to draw multiple mobs together to really nuke the heck out of them all. Technobabe is turning into a real combat character; I have no trouble soloing with her like I did back in the day.

I'm just glad I stuck with Atomic Blast. As I've mentioned it did not impress me much when I first used it, but now it is awesome. I've got it slotted for six enhancements and in a few more levels I'll be ready to find just the right set of invention enhancements to make it even more deadly.

If you play City of Heroes I hope this helps you out some. Are there any other tricks anyone has picked up using this power?

December 2011 Update

It has been a bit since my last post. Life got very busy so posting took a back seat to other things.

One of the things that kept me busy was working on a short story for possible inclusion in an anthology. Problem is I don't like the current state of the story so I'll probably miss the deadline. That being the case I'll eventually post it online.

I'm also cleaning up my online presence. Last site I have to consider is MySpace. I would have deleted my profile there by now but I have a couple friends on there that won't do Facebook or other sites I'm on. I guess I should try to find something constructive to do with MySpace. Any suggestions?

Catching up on my reading is also taking up time. Needless to say I'm not going to reach 100 books for this year. I believe I'm up to 54 and I'm in the process of reading Tarzan of the Apes, Divide and Rule, and The First Three Minutes; that'll get me up to 57 and over Christmas I should be able to get one or two more in. It would be nice to reach 60... but when I was a kid a 60 was a failure, I'll need to get 65 for the 'D'.

This year has been a terrible one for table-top gaming. I have a once-a-month-or-so Mutants & Masterminds game I run and an occasional Pathfinder or Star Wars game. I really need to get some more gaming in soon. Hopefully 2012 will allow me to fit some extra games in.

The purge of old computer files, comic books, DVDs, and other crap continues. It's nice to have shelf space back. I'm getting more brutal in getting rid of DVDs. Since I quit Netflix over their price increase I've given Amazon Prime a spin. So far so good. No need for me to keep all the DVDs I had accumulated over a decade I'm selling them for what I can get through a couple avenues such as Swapadvd.

The comic books are becoming more difficult to get rid of. All the ones I had which had any value I've sold. The remaining ones are not worth the effort for what little cash I can get for them. I may have to come up with some sort of project to get rid of them, something artistic.

In any case since I've given up on that short story deadline I can now spend some more time updating my blogs. Perhaps with something more interesting than just a list of the reasons why I haven't been updating them....

Comic Book Binding

As I finish the purge of most of my comic book collection there are a few series which I intend to keep. The problem is that in the future pulling out all those dang plastic bags with individual issues and trying to read them I'd much rather just pull a single book off the self instead.

That's where comic book binding comes in. Now pretty much every comic book from the last thirty odd years is just about worthless. I've been to enough flea markets and toy shows to see the dozens of long boxes with comics marked down to a quarter or less. I don't own any old comics anymore, the ones with any value got sold.

Since they have no value now there is nothing wrong with having them bound. I know some collectors will shudder thinking of messing with comics like that, but luckily many more feel as I do.

So why should I spend twenty-odd dollars binding a bunch of worthless crap together? Well since these are the comics that survived my final purge I plan on reading them again in the future, possibly several times over the years. Binding them in hardcover format will help protect them and make it nice and easy to read. They will also look really spiffy on a shelf - no more comic boxes.

The first series I plan on having bound; the poor series that will get experimented on; is The Champions. My copies are in rough shape. They are old reading copies. Covers are still attached, all pages in good order. Hopefully there will be no problems in binding them.

I also plan a couple more experimental things to do with this first project. It'll take me a few weeks to prep these additional details. I'll also have to find a book binder with experience with binding comic books. Hopefully they will give me some pointers and help me with the additional things I'll want done with this book.

As this project gets closer to becoming a reality I'll post some more details. When it is finally completed by early 2012 I'll be sure to post some pictures.

For more information on Comic Book Binding check out the Comic Binding thread on The Comic Forums.

Have you ever had comic books bound? What were your experiences? Any regrets?

A funny thing happened on the way to my short story

Monday was a good day for me in terms of getting some writing done. The problem was I got inspired to write a short story instead of working on a 5,000 to 30,000 story I need to have written and polished by December 15th.

I did average about 1,000 words an hour and got the rough draft of the story done. The beginning needs a little work. I also have to make sure the foreshadowing in the story works as well as it seemed to as I was speeding along on Monday. I love the way the second half of the 5,000 words turned out..... it's just the first half that is giving me doubts.

The problem was research. Getting inspired late Sunday night as I was dozing off to having a finished draft 24 hours later didn't give me time to do proper research. I'll clean it up as well as I can this week. Hopefully at some point in the future I can interview someone with firsthand knowledge of some of the settings of the story to make it better.

A quick synopsis: A junior congressman gets assigned to the Ways and Means Committee and eventually uncovers a conspiracy. It has a good amount of action. I also personally like the climax and ending of the story.

If I can get it in really good shape I may even try to get it published. Failing that I'll be sure to post it to this blog - or at least post a link to wherever I end up uploading the story.

The Strange Thing About Inspiration
I wasn't planning on writing a short story. As I've said I have another writing project I have to finish over the next month. It's just the idea was so interesting to me and pieces seemed to fall into place I had to write it.

Some authors are asked where they get their ideas. I don't have a shoe box under my bed where I keep them. You just have to learn to recognize the idea for what it is and be willing to experiment.

The story I've finished does have a little bit more behind it. A friend of mine posted something on his Facebook page about some of the things he was planning to read. He mentioned a story by one of my favorite authors. I went to my self and pulled that book and then remembered there were other short stories in it.

I spent the night reading one of them. It was very creative and very well done. It got my mind wandering in some strange directions. Thrown into the mix was an odd concept from a Green Lantern comic I never read from 1985.

The quick bit of research I managed gave me some locations, ideas for interesting situations, and even the name for a supporting character. That same research forced me to change other things about the story. The main character is now from Colorado instead of Arizona.

Other bits came from writing dialog for the characters. You may have something planned when you start a scene but when the characters start talking and interacting with each other you realize something else should happen instead. It may sound silly, but when you are typing away at full speed you don't have time to plan out the dialog and consider the possible responses; your instinct takes over and your characters almost write themselves.

It's tough to get into that zone sometimes, but the results are usually very interesting. Typing away at a scene and not knowing how its going to end until your fingers stop clicking away on the keyboard.

Another Election Day

Since I've been eligible to vote I've voted in every election except for one. Even back in the old days when I owned some stock (before I had to sell them to get the money for the down payment on a car) I would try to vote for the Boards of Directors and on any other proposals if the mood struck me.

Today before work I went out and did my civic duty. It was not one of the better years for choice. There were many uncontested races. Luckily someone from the other party ran for town supervisor an another for town board. Don't know how they'll do, but at least there was an option.

No real third party candidates in my area. The only so-called third party lines with candidates were the Conservatives, Working Families, and Independence parties... but the almost never run their own candidates, they instead keep nominating a Democrat or Republican.

If all those who didn't vote started voting for actual third parties it wouldn't be long before we actually had a third party. There is no way a third part can be legislated into existence. Also don't make the mistake I have in past years of voting on this alleged third parties that just nominate the D or the R, if no one votes on their lines maybe they'll give some real options of their own or go away.

At least the contested races on the county level seem to be going my way right now. I'll have to see about the town in the morning.

Happy Halloween

I hope everyone has had a great Halloween. Mine has been a bit on the slow side. Work has been a little busy so I ended up just staying home tonight. Watched a couple of movies, played some City of Heroes, and took care of a some odds'n'ends.

The first movie was The Night Strangler starring Darren McGavin. That and the Nightstalker (and the whole Kolchak tv series) are part of my usual October viewing.

For the second movie I went for something I haven't seen in a number of years, Love at First Bite. While it is difficult to claim any movie is the best ever made given the number of different genres and styles out there I believe it is safe to say that his one is easily the best movies starring both George Hamilton and Richard Benjamin.

As for City of Heroes; the annual Halloween celebration is ending soon. I got in some last minute trick-r-treating and did some missions to begin moving Underpants Lad back to hero after his brief career as a vigilante.

I think for next year I'll have to come up with an elaborate costume. That gives me 365 days to come up with something cool.

That time of year again!

It's that time of year again! Time for the Halloween Event on City of Heroes. All of the cool stuff from previous years is still around plus great new content for 2011.

Over the last few days Underpants Lad, Technobabe, and a number of my other characters have been trick or treating, fighting zombie hordes, and defeating supernatural invasions of Paragon City. Tonight I hope to make my way to Dr. Kane's House of Horror.

I've also been collecting the Halloween salvage and spreading it out across all of my characters so that they can all eventually unlock their extra costume slots. Much of that salvage is very cheap at Wentworth's in game, now just costing a few hundred influence instead of 50,000 or more. A good example of how supply affects prices.

Just wanted to remind people this event was going on now, ending around November 2nd or so. Now that City of Heroes is free to play it might be a good time to check it out.

Third Sentence Thrusday #11

"So far as I can recollect I have always been a man, a man of about thirty." A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

These is more to John Carter than just astrally projecting to Mars/Barsoom. He doesn't seem to age and doesn't remember his childhood. This could possibly be influence from Edwin Lester Arnold's Phra the Phoenician, another un-aging character.

Here's how Third Sentence Thursday works:

1) Take the book you are reading now and post the third sentence
2) Review this sentence anyway you want (funny and silly reviews encouraged)
3) Post a link to your sentence to Sniffly Kitty's Third Sentence Post for this week.