The World Before

Cold's starting to go away slowly, but it's still a pain in the ass-- and head.

I forgot one book when I put up the list of notable upcoming ones, something that I can't believe that I did.

It's Karen Traviss's The World Before, which is definently going to be the best one of the fall. The last two have been outstanding, and I'm really looking forwards to this one.

Three strikingly different alien races greeted the military mission from Earth when it reached the planet called Bezer'ej. Now one of the sentient species has been exterminated -- and two others are poised on the brink of war.

The fragile Bezeri are no more, due to the ignorant, desperate actions of human interlopers. The powerful wess'har protectors have failed in their sworn obligation to the destroyed native population -- and the outrage must be redressed.
But those who are coming to judge from the World Before -- the home planet, now distant and alien to the Wess'har, whose ancestors left there generations ago -- will not restrict their justice to the individual humans responsible for the slaughter. Earth itself must answer for the genocide. And its ultimate fate may depend on a dead woman: former police officer Shan Frankland, who became something far greater than human before destroying herself in the vast airless depths of space.

Karen's definently my favorite novelist of contemperary scifi. If you haven't check out City of Pearl and Crossing the Line. Both amazing novels.

Serenity #1 - #3

So I finally have the complete run of the Serenity comics now, I might as well review them as one, how it should be. First, I think that I should mention how successful the entire run has been. Despite the fact that there are only three issues, that it's based off of the little show that was cancelled, every single run has been sold out. They've sent them back for reprints and all that fun stuff, and they've been a huge success. Hopefully, they'll be continuing after the movie with another short miniseries or even a full on series.
The comic format is something that Serenity took to fairly well, which surprised me a little. It shouldn't have though, considering that a TV show is an overarcing storyline joined by smaller stories. Comics are essentially the same way, from what I've seen over the summer and my own launch into comicdom.
So the comics... first of all, Joss Whedon wrote each issue. Each issue has a comparable style of dialog to that of the series, with some fun lines and themes that we've seen in the series. The stories themselves take off after Objects in Space, the last episode of the series, and just before the movie takes place. All in all, it's a great lead in to the movies, mentioning a couple of the movie characters and actually introducing a couple.
Characterwise, we see the return of a couple of characters, Dobson, who was shot by Mal in the first episode, and Badger, a small time crime boss. Dobson was supposed to have been killed, and I'm divided on how I feel about his return. I think that it kinda detracts from the first episode a little, and I'm not a big fan of seeing previously thought dead bad guys return (Mainly from Stargate) although he does play an interesting role in the trilogy. Badger was done pretty well, and it was pretty funny to see him get stranded somewhere, as well as seeing Mal and his crew finally get a little backbone around his group of thugs. The pair of creepy guys, the ones with the Blue Hands return, which was very cool. They do their dirty work, and we learn some interesting things about them, like that they've got blue suits under their clothing, which makes me want to learn more about them. It's not explained who the hell they are though.
The crew. This is a really good transition for the crew, especially coming to the movie. We see them bicker more, we see Inara and Mal have their own problems, Jayne and Mal have problems, Kaylee and Simon, and everything else. Basically, everyone's getting a little more annoyed with Mal.The major things that happen are with Inara leaving, which finally happens here, and Book, who also leaves the ship, to where he is in the movie.
Mainly though, the trilogy is Mal's story. We really see how dark he is, much like some of the episodes, and how much of a rut he's in. That he's just moving forwards, no destination in mind, as he goes from one job to another, with worse and worse luck. Artwise, the trilogy is amazing. The penciling, colors and shading is fantastic, some of the best stuff that I've seen in a very long time. There are just some beautifully drawn scenes in here, and the art along makes the books worth picking up. I was lucky to have gotten all the covers that I had anticipating getting, Inara's, Kaylee's and Wash's. (No, that's a lie, I tried to find the copy with Jayne on the cover, but no luck...) I was divided on the cover art, with there being some really good covers, and some not so good covers, as well as some in the middle.
The main thing is that these issues have to be read together. It's hard to read just one, because you're only getting a third of the story. The entire run is essentially one or two episodes of the series, had it been running, and overall, there's a fairly solid plot and arc that leads right up to the movie.
So, if you happen to see these in stores, do yourself a favor and pick them up.

Leaf Tea and Carbon Wood

Carbon Leaf was up last night, so I went up to see them again for the second time. I left after school and drove up to Church Street. Bought a couple of new comics- Astonishing X-Men #12, the end of Joss Whedon's run with them, in which I really need to pick up the first nine issues, because what I've read is amazing. I also got the Amazing Spiderman 523, which completely blew my socks off. Amazing art and story. I then went over to Quiznos where I hung out with a couple of friends working there. On the way back to my car, I ran into a band that I've listened to for as long as I can remember, the Wood's Tea Co. which my parents listened to a lot when I was young, and a band that I've always liked. Because I had time, I sat and listened to them for a while. Great folk band with some great songs.
From there, I went to the main event of the evening, the Steve Kellogg and the Sixers and Carbon Leaf. I arrived at about 8:30 and there was already a huge line. I got in line, got my tickets and hung around for a while. Steve Kellogg's band came on, and they were a very fun band to listen to. I'm definently going to look into their stuff further. They looked like they were having an incredible time up on stage, and had a huge amount of energy to boot.
There was a stage switch that probably lasted around twenty or so minutes, then Carbon Leaf came on stage to a lot of applause. I had chills down my spine, as they started Changeless, Let Your Troubles Roll By, The Boxer, One Prarie Outpost, Screen Door, Life Less Ordinary. They talked for a couple more minutes, then continued with Ordinary Eyes, I Know the Reason, Desperation Song, This is My Song, Happy Birthday (for someone in the audiance), A new song called Porpoise, Torn to Tattered, Paloma. They then left, came back on for a very long ovation, then did a random song, then finished up with What About Everything?. They were amazing, did some awesome numbers of songs, loved their new song and just being there. With the Steve Kellogg Band, people sang along with some of the songs that they covered, but with Carbon Leaf, the audiance, me included, sang just about every song that they did. It was a very cool feeling. They didn't play Mary Mac, which was a little disapointing.
They ended at about midnight, and I got back home at one, my ears ringing something bad. I wasn't standing next to a speaker or anything, but I was so tired that it didn't matter. I flopped into bed and was out in a couple seconds. It was an awesome night.

Book Watch

I was poking around some of my usual online haunts, author webpages, amazon.com and some new sites, and I realized that there's a number of books that are coming out that I'm going to be checking out soon.

First up, SciFi and Michael Stanwick did a cool little project a while back called the Periodic Table of Science Fiction, where Stanwick wrote a short story for every element in the Periodic Table of Elements. Each story related to each element, and a cool series of short stories emerged. This was just posted on the SciFiWire:

Swanwick's Table Is A Book
Michael Swanwick, author of The Periodic Table of Science Fiction, told SCI FI Wire that the collection of stories that originally appeared on SCIFI.COM's SCI Fiction site is being released in book form. Swanwick added that he considers Mendeleev, who designed the periodic tale of elements, a genius and that he found it challenging to write short-short SF stories about each of the 118 elements.
"The periodic table is one of the great achievements of the human race: descriptive, predictive and endlessly useful," Swanwick said in an interview. "Shakespeare never wrote a sonnet half so beautifully constructed. … Although I knew some of it would be easy (who couldn't write a story about gold?), there were elements that would be a serious challenge to dramatize. It's like watching a tightrope walker. Nobody wants him to fall. But it's the possibility that he could that makes it so exciting."
To create a story for each element, from hydrogen to ununoctium, Swanwick tried everything. If there was an obvious association, he used it: The story about hydrogen is about time travelers meeting at the site of the Hindenburg explosion. Potassium is about bananas and how you can live forever by eating them every day, though a side effect is that you turn into a monkey.
Other elements required Swanwick to do research. Osmium is named after its smell ("osme" is Greek for "odor"); Swanwick humorously pointed out the importance of personal hygiene. Praseodymium responds to magnetism by getting colder; Swanwick found it a small step to write a story about cryogenic research.
Swanwick called vanadium the most boring element, since all he could uncover about it is that it is essential to a chicken's diet. "I made the mistake of writing it up as 'the couch potato of the periodic table,'" he said. "Did I get letters? Hoo boy. It turns out that a lot of people out there care passionately about vanadium and don't like to see [it] dissed."
Swanwick said that he always wanted to be a scientist; that is, until he discovered his inability to replicate the easiest laboratory experiments. "So I became a science-fiction writer as a next-best thing," he said.

On the links section, there's a link to the original stories online. I'd highly recommend checking them out, they're exremely fun to read, and it'll be a really good book to pick up when it is released.

The second one that I found when I was browsing around Max Barry's webpage to see if he had any news. He did, and I found the cover and information about his next book, called Company. I loved Jennifer Government, which is a very cool satire about capitalism, and I'm sure that his next will be just as good.

Here's what Amazon.com has to say about it: Nestled among Seattle’s skyscrapers, The Zephyr Holdings Building is a bleak rectangle topped by an orange-and-black logo that gives no hint of Zephyr’s business. Lack of clarity, it turns out, is Zephyr’s defining characteristic. The floors are numbered in reverse. No one has ever seen the CEO or glimpsed his office on the first (i.e., top) floor. Yet every day people clip on their ID tags, file into the building, sit at their desks, and hope that they’re not about to be outsourced.
Stephen Jones, a young recruit with shoes so new they squeak, reports for his first day in the Training Sales Department and finds it gripped by a crisis involving the theft of a donut. In short order, the guilty party is identified and banished from the premises and Stephen is promoted from assistant to sales rep. He does his best to fit in with his fellow workers–among them a gorgeous receptionist who earns more than anyone else, and a sales rep who’s so emotionally involved with her job that she uses relationship books as sales manuals–but Stephen is nagged by a feeling that the company is hiding something. Something that explains why when people are fired, they are never heard from again; why every manager has a copy of the Omega Management System; and most of all, why nobody in the company knows what it does.

Book Three is Archer Mayor's latest, coming later this year, entitled St. Alban's Fire, which has something to do with Barn Burnings in VT. If you like Mysteries or live in Vermont, Mayor is an excellent author to check out. His stories have gotten slightly weaker in the past years, but they are still fairly well written and thought out. All but one are about Vermont, take place here, and he's got some of the coolest characters out thus far.

Finally, Allen M. Steele is finishing up his Coyote Arc with a final Coyote novel, titled Coyote Frontier, which takes place nearly twenty years after the first novel. Coyote, for those of you who don't know, is a kind of American Revolution in space. A colonization effort is formed under an oppressive remnant of the United State, and the colonization ship is hijacked by a group of Dissitent Intellectuals who have been blacklisted by the Government. They set out for a moon called Coyote, which is thought to be livable. It is, and they form a small colony, and the rest of the book is about their life there, from the dangerous native lifeforms, to political problems and exploration. It's an amazing book. The second one, like the first was Serialized in Asimov's, and is just as good. Where the first book was about the colonization, the second book is about the moon's occupation when travellers from Earth come to the moon and try and take over. Think the American Revolution there. From the plot of the third one, it looks decent, but I'm a little wary that it's not going to be as good as the first or second.

A couple of things to keep one's eyes on, among others...

American Civil War

Okay, once a week, I have a class on the American Civil War, from 7-10, three hours. Some of my friends made some funny faces when I tell them this, but it's not too bad. The book that we're reading out of, Ordeal By Fire, by James McPherson, is amazing, really well done. It's kinda ironic that we haven't even gotten to the Civil War yet- the class is exploring every aspect of the war, it's causes, ramifacations, politically, socially, economically and morally. Thus far, we've had a detailed look at slavery, it's root causes and effects on the American Culture at the time. Tonight's class was about the politics leading up to the war, and how the institution of slavery effected everything. There were a number of things that I really learned tonight, and last class. The main thing was how bad it got, and some of the things that both sides did. The South, for example, passed a number of state level laws that prohibited anti-slavery talk or promotion. And because they had the majority in the House of Representatives, they passed what's called the Gag Rule, in which any abolitionist motion was promptly taled and not paid attention to at all. Really bad stuff, against the Constitution and the 1st Amendment.
Now, with that scary thought off my mind, I have homework to finish before the AM.

Walk On

Happy Labor Day everyone- hope everyone's enjoying their day off if they got one.
I took a walk today, a loop that was about eight miles. It was pretty relaxing, something that I've wanted to do for a while now. Where I live, it's pretty rural, and anyone who's lived in New England knows that there are a ton of dirt roads all over the place, and are travelled fairly lightly depending on where you go. I walked up about a half mile to one class four road, known as the Devil's Washbowl, then hiked down that for about two miles. I ran across two men who were fishing. They asked me if I had any pot. I was a little surprised, but given that I was wearing a bandana, have a beard and long hair, I guess I shouldn't have. I told them I didn't and suggested going up to the University of Vermont. From Devil's Washbowl, I hit a slightly more travelled dirt road, stopped for lunch, then hit a paved road, Union Brook. Here, I wasn't sure which road to take. I ended up guessing which road would take me north to Cox Brook Road, which runs by my house. I guessed correctly and finished the loop. Looking back at a map after I completed my walk, I'm guessing that I went about eight miles, in about three hours, not a bad pace at all. It was a beautiful walk, especially on the dirt roads. There was little traffic until Union Brook, and it was nice to not see anyone for a while. The light in the trees was very relaxing. All in all, I found the paved roads to be more annoying than the dirt ones. They had less character, more traffic and more people. Plus, they tended to be a little warmer. Now, to rest.

Current Music: Best of You, The Foo Fighters

7 Clips from Serenity!

Here are seven clips from Serenity: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7

Holy crap, these are amazing!

On the Water

Over the summer, my father and brother bought a pair of Kayaks. Having finished his Master's program, I think that dad wanted to get a new hobby, something that he had picked up a couple summers ago. They've been out on them a couple of times, as have I, over the past couple summers, taking kids out on Kayaking trips as cabin groups or classes. It's a fun sport.
Dad and I went out in ours today, on the Winooski river. We put in near one of the main roads, and paddled down to Lake Champlain and back, about four miles in all. It was a good little trip. Dad commented that it was interesting to go down a river, and it makes one realize how much of Vermont is not built over. When you're driving on the roads, you see a number of signs that people are there. Here, however, there were entire streatches of forest that was untouched, even right in the city of Burlington. It was very relaxing. We saw a couple birds, Herons and Kingfishers, ones that we hadn't seen in a while, and a couple of turtles basking on floating logs.
At the mouth of the river, there's a bike bridge that links the Colchester and Burlington bike paths. A couple of kids were jumping off of it. Looked like a lot of fun. I'll have to do that sometime...
I think that the main thing that struck me is how at peace everything was. The water was calm, and the only thing that could be heard was the bubbling of my paddle in the water. I wasn't even really thinking of the world outside, politics or anything. Just of my friend Hillary, various songs that related to water, and the thrill of being outside, with almost nothing to worry about. The conclusion to my thoughts: I think that it hit me then- We are so lucky to live the way we do, to do the things that we do, without worry of getting shot, killed, attacked, blown to pieces or something like that. Out on the water, everything is calm.

My friends Jen and Sean were married tonight. They had intended to have a regular wedding here in Vermont, on the Norwich Campus, but because their families kept trying to interfere, they decided to go out to Las Vegas to get married. So, over webcam, me, my mother, father and sister watched as they got married at 9:00 pm EST. Congradulations!

And, it was my cousin Carlie's first birthday earlier this week. We had a bit of a get together with the family, which was good. She's now walking, and doing many weird things, like walking up to someone, stating BAH and walking away. She's getting weird, and that's good.

This is why we need better Education...

George Bush, in a recent speech to a group of military personnel, compared the current fight in Iraq and Afgahnistan to World War II.

President Bush, in perhaps his starkest and most contentious depiction of the stakes in Iraq, characterized the war there as a battle over the fate of democracy, just like World War II, and suggested that the only alternative was a dangerous retreat that would embolden terrorists.
He likened the wars he launched in Afghanistan and Iraq to the war launched by President Franklin Roosevelt, and he suggested that those urging a withdrawal from Iraq were dishonoring the sacrifices made by U.S. sailors and soldiers in World War II.
"This is the choice we face: Do we return to the pre-September the 11th mind-set of isolation and retreat, or do we continue to take the fight to the enemy and support our allies in the broader Middle East?" Bush said, standing before a fog-bound harbor, the docked aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan only dimly visible through the mist.

Full Article

Sorry, but that's 100% Grade A bullshit right there. This war has never been about protecting democracy, on either side. Terrorists aren't trying to attack our type of government, they're attacking US, as a culture, as a group. In addition, the US was already involved, to some degree with World War II prior to Pearl Harbor, by supplying materials and weapons to Britian and France a year and a half before we were ever attacked. I would also hardly characterize our Pre-September 11 mindset as one of isolation. And on a technical level, there are almost no comparisons. The enemies are not clear, the rules of engagement are different. Finally, World War Two was a war fought to stop the German, Italian and Japanese advances and territory grabbing. This war has nothing to do with gaining more territory. Hell, the terrorists don't even have a state to start with.
Bush is only using the modern appeal of World War II as a booster. People remember the second World War favorably here- it's a war of honor, nobility and is thought of as the last honorable fight that we really fought, especially after Korea and Vietnam. Quite frankly, I think that it's dishonorable to use the memory of World War II to try and boost this war.
The only comparison that I see is that we have American soldiers on a foreign war zone, where they are doing some good, but at what cost? While pulling out might encourage terrorists, what's the point in continuing a war that we will probably end up pulling out of in the future, AS IN VIETNAM?

Okay, that's my political rant for the time being.

Serenity

Someone kill me now, my life is ... well, almost complete. I just finished the novelization for Serenity.

Oh, my fucking lord. The story is amazing. Completely amazing. This movie is going to be my 100% top favorite movie.

Where to begin? The story is as I've heard it described: Epic, like an entire season of television episodes, but it flows in a way that it doesn't feel like you're watching a couple episodes in a row. It's fast, gritty and extremely dark. The trailers, in a sense, are a little misleading on the tone of the entire movie. I'm going to summarize the story briefly.

SPOILERS:

The story starts off with the crew doing a heist, using River to watch out for trouble. Simon's pissed off at this, and they threaten to leave the ship, which Mal is only too happy to do. While they're doing this heist, the Reavers attack them. Meanwhile, a man called the Operative is after them, following a secret that River learned during her stay at the Academy, which could have extremely poor results for the Alliance. Over the course of the story, they learn what the secret is, and are basically on the run from the Operative. Everything builds into an extremely dramatic conclusion that is just amazing.

END

I'm not going to say any more than that. It'd take too long to explain, and ruin the movie a bit. I'm slightly regretting reading this, as I've been warned, but nonetheless, I'm just amazed at the story that's presented here. The crew dynamics are fairly dark, but it picks up well after the series, and with what was probably going to happen if the series had been continued.
The main thing that I love about the book is just the sheer differentness of the plot and the characterizations. It's all the same as the series. It was happy, light, heavy, sad, incredible and scary. I cannot imagine how well it will translate onto the bit screen, and I absolutely cannot wait.

The main downer is the novelization part. It's extremely simple, and fairly disapointing. Kieth R.A. DeCandido does his job, and translates the screenplay into a novel form, but almost nothing beyond that. It's a little bit of a letdown really. His language is too loose and casual, and while it's really easy to read, it leaves a lot to be desired. I'm sure that he did his best though. The story of the book outweighs this though, so I'd definently recommend picking up a copy. (Or two, forafriendwhosneverheardoffireflyorserenityandwhoneedstoseehtemovie.) Ahem.

30 more days. Cannot wait.

New Orleans and an Oil Crisis

First, my thoughts to all those in New Orleans. The death toll is expected to rise into the thousands, and the city may be abandoned. It's terrible, thinking that this couple be one of the biggest natural disasters in a good long while. Hopefully, people will be able to rebuild their lives after this.

Gas prices broke $3 today, jumping almost 40 cents in a day. My dad came home, told me that somewhere down south, a vital pipeline broke, and several oil pump stations in the ocean were damaged. Gas prices are going to skyrocket in the next couple days. My advice: If you don't have to drive, don't. Stock up on gas tonight, before the prices start going up. My guess is that bus and air fares will go up a little, and that we'll start seeing some more SUVs on the used market in about a month or so.

Burlington and The Transporter

Second day of classes went well. I have Topics in Global History: Nation Building, and then Glacial Geology, both of which are pretty interesting thus far. Also dropped about 200 for 6 of my books, still needing to purchase my math and a history one.
Went over to Burlington today to visit some friends. Stopped by and visited Sarah for a couple hours, chatted about a great number of things, then went down and hung out with a group of friends from Camp who are still in the area. That was a lot of fun, hanging out with them, at wing night, a very popular venue for most Abnaki Staff. It was good to talk with them too, out of camp.
Picked up a couple of things from Borders and Barnes & Nobel. First, I bought the Transporter, a pretty cool movie, which I'll talk about in a second. Second, the Serenity novelization just came out, which I have yet to read, but will very shortly.
The Transporter follows a man, former Military, who makes a living driving things around, no questions asked. So when a girl ends up in his trunk, he doesn't really ask why, until the person he delivers it to tries to blow him up. From there, it's mainly him getting to the bottom of the problem, involving a slave ring and the girl. It's a pretty streight forwards plot, but it's quite a bit of fun to watch. It's a fun action movie. It's fast moving, action packed film. Storyline, there were a couple of twists in the middle which made it watchable, which make it somewhat interesting. Actionwise, there's quite a few good camera angles and shots during the filming as well. I'm also a fan of the main actor, Jason Statham, from the Italian Job, in which he also played a wheelman. Seems to be his popular role. I believe that he was also in Collateral, briefly. I can also see where he's been compared to Vin Disel, for they look and sound somewhat similar, as well as play similar roles. It'd be interesting to see them work together sometime, although I think that Jason is a much better actor.
The main problems are that the action gets ahead of itself at times, going over the top and unbelievable at times, which is a little bit of a disapointment. It's interesting enough that I'll go out and see the second one when it's released this friday.

1st Day of Junior Year

Started classes today at Norwich. I can't believe that I'm a Junior now, meaning that time really flies. I've been running into various classmates and friends from prior years, spending a lot of time catching up on summer vacations and lives. I've also been spending most of the day trying to figure out what my classes are for the semester. Added two history courses, attended another one that I'll have to add tomorrow, added a geology and dropped my independant project. On top of that, I purchased a meal plan, and now have to look into getting books. Joy.

Car Maintainence

So when I was out driving my car the other day, the brakes starting making funny noises. Finished what I was doing, then my dad took the tire off and we found that the brake pads had worn down to nothing, leaving me with a loud grinding noise. So while we were fixing that, we found that a couple of other random things were wrong. The rotors had to be taken off, and we ended up bending a socket wrench trying to get one bolt off. So my car's out of commission for a little while. Joy.

Classes start tomorrow, and I'm still only signed up for two out of the six or so that I need. Grr... Most of my friends are in though, hung out with them for a little while tonight. It was good to reconnect.

Oh yeah, Gateworld just opened up a new Serenity site!: http://www.gateworld.net/firefly/index.shtml

And, because I'm bored:

The Meme - WITHOUT LOOKING PAST THIS FIRST LIST, choose 12 characters from fandoms you know and love. (Taken from James)

1- Mal Reynolds (Firefly)
2- Lee Apollo Adama (Battlestar Galactica)
3- Hellboy (Hellboy Comics)
4- Spiderman (Spiderman Comics)
5- Han Solo (Star Wars)
6- Kaylee (Firefly)
7- Jayne (Firefly)
8- Frodo Baggins (Lord of the Rings)
9- Lyra (His Dark Materials)
10- Robert E. Lee (Coyote)
11- Luke Skywalker (Star Wars)
12- Kara Starbuck Thraice (Battlestar Galactica)

Deportation & Comics

My brother Dan went off to college today, the second kid in our family to do so. Dan was accepted to The University of Hartford down in Conn. where he's going to be double majoring in Music Education and I think Music Theory. It's going to be weird without him in the house, although I think that it's going to make things easier all around, at least for me, for a while. I'll have freer use of the car, and I found that when I went to Norwich, even though I was living in the house, I got along better with my sibblings. Probably the same thing will happen here. I gave him my contact information, AIM, E-mail and web addresses, so we'll talk during the year, that's for sure. I think that he'll enjoy college.

Over the summer, I've become more of a comic fan. I've begun to read more than just Star Wars Republic/Empire, broadening my horizons a little. The Amazing Spiderman was the first comic that I picked up, I love the author, J. Michael Straczynski, who also wrote the entire Babylon 5 series. Love Spiderman, then picked up the Fantastic Four, also by JMS, which has proven to be an interesting read as well. I've also picked up some random back issues of Iron Man, who's been a long time favorite, as well as Hellboy(Love the artwork) and Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men. I've also accumulated random issues of other Spidermans, Sin City and Freaks of the Heartland, among others.
I was never really into comics as a kid. I know that I owned some, although I have no idea where they ended up, but the one or two X-Men comics that I did own confused me a great deal. I didn't really know what was going on at all during the stories, and really didn't know anything about comic art and storytelling to pay much attention anyway. I was more into the Marvel Trading cards. Third through Fifth grades in primary school, man, I loved those cards, and still have them, in a box. Those were more interesting to collect and just look at, at least at my age. Me and my friends would talk about them all the time, and during Recess, we'd play X-Men on the playground.
Star Wars Republic and Empire really got me more into comics. Working with the Unofficial Clone Wars Site (www.clonewarz.com), I worked at reviewing the Clone Wars comics as they came out. Looking back over the older reviews that I wrote, I can see that I had almost no idea what I was talking about, and as I wrote more reviews, I learned more about comic art and writing. Along the way, I've since talked to quite a few comic authors, artists and editors, all really cool people.

So, anyone have any recommendations for new books and series?

Over There, back here.

My friend Kyle got back today from Washington. I went to the airport to pick him up this morning. It was good to see him again, after a couple weeks. We spent most of the ride back catching up on various things that happened over the summer. He apparently didn't do much, worked around a little, but relaxed most of the time. He was pretty tired today, but we got him moved into his new apartment for the year.
While we were in Burlington, I picked up the pilot episode for a new FX show called Over There. It's the first show that I know about the war in Iraq. It's only 40 or so minutes, not too long. Thus far, it's kinda impressive, and has a lot of potential. The camera work and coloring is very well done, although I think that they overdo the handheld camera work a little, but with this type of show, it works really well. Storywise, it's a little cliqued, but as far as I know, right on the books for combat procedures, equipment and other things like that. Has a decent soundtrack as well.
I did a little bit of poking around about the show, with a couple of articles here and here. It looks like the show's not too popular with the soldiers who've seen the show and who have been in Iraq and in combat. The common complaints are basic things, like combat procedures. For example, a couple land mines are marked with flags, whereas in reality, they're hidden in something. Or as one truck driver said, they don't pull the trucks over on the side of the road. They park them in the middle, for the very reasons of what happens in the pilot. Things like dialogue and other things stuck out as well. It's all detail stuff, but it's really the details that matter. I think that the main problem is that it's a little too dramatic, and ordinary things, or things that happen out there just wouldn't cross over to the American public. So, with anything in Hollywood, dumb it down a bit, and you get a slightly more inaccurate version. I really don't know, not having been out there.
I think that the show will be a fairly big success, but I really hope that it doesn't become too political. Too right or left, that probably wouldn't help things at all. I'll definently try and track down more episodes here and there to follow up on it a bit. I'm pretty sure that this will be popular here at Norwich though.

The Cast of Over There

And finally, cool song that's pretty descriptive:

Aqueous Transmission
Incubus

I'm floating down a river
Oars freed from their holes long ago
Lying face up on the floor
Of my vessel
I marvel at the stars
And feel my heart overflow

Further down the river

Two weeks without my lover
I'm in this boat alone
Floating down a river named emotion
Will I make it back to shore?
Or drift into the unknown?

Further down the river

I'm building an antenna
Transmissions will be sent
When I am through
Maybe we can meet again
Further down the river
And share what we both discovered
Then revel in the view

Further down the river

I'm floating down a river

World Domination to Hippy Music

Just passing the time right now. My brother's off to a lesson, so I can't really go anywhere at the moment. Yesterday, I went into school to try and fix up some of my class schedule, got a couple of new classes that I can sign up for, bringing me back up to full time student status. I'll now have insurance. I guess that means I can get injured again. I also sought out one of my professors and asked him about the study abroad program, and he was very encouraging. I'm really hoping that this will happen.
I also ran into a couple of friends and people that I know. Good to see that I know some people already. The freshmen arrived on campus yesterday, and the Corps of Cadets freshmen (Rooks) arrived last Saturday, the 20th.
World Domination: I learned how to play Risk this summer, finally. I'd been meaning to learn how to play for a couple years now, and when my friends Sam and Dave bought a set, I finally figured it out. It's a very fun game, and I taught my sister how to play this afternoon. She's a good player, expecially for her first time, even though I took out a couple of her continents in a couple of turns. Now I'll need to get my brother to play, before he leaves for college.
The time that Keelia and I were playing, Phish, Rane, Carbon Leaf and Led Zeppelin came on my playlist while playing. Ironic.
Keelia also got her Driver's permit yesterday, acing the drivers test. She's the last one in our family to start driving, and she's pretty excited about it. Vermont's laws are kinda weird when it comes to driving. At 15, you can get a permit, and you have to drive with someone 20 or over with a valid driver's license. At 16 or 17 you can get your license, but you can't drive with anyone but family members, and only adults to begin with. 3 months later you can drive with sibblings, and after a year, you can get your regular operator's license. It's weird.

Now, back to scanning my computer for viruses and other annoyances.

Blogwarz

I've joined another blog, one run by the people at Starwarz.com - where my webpage is located. Check it out: www.blogwarz.com

The Phoenix Phenomenon

Who heard about a little show called Firefly three years ago? How about recently?

Okay, for those of you who don’t know anything about this, listen up: Firefly was a short lived show that FOX aired during the fall of 2002, and quickly cancelled it after 11 episodes. The show, created by Joss Whedon, who was also the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, centered upon a group of misfits in space, on board a little pile of scrap called Serenity. In the first episode, the crew picks up a pair of siblings, Simon, a naïve doctor and River, his psychic and sometimes insane sister. They also pick up a guy named Dobson and a preacher named Book. Dobson’s later shot in the face, but he wasn’t important. Rounding out the rest of the crew is Mal, the captain, Wash, the pilot, Inara, the ‘Companion’ (A high class prostitute), Kaylee, the ship’s mechanic, Zoë, Mal’s second mate and Jayne, the ship’s gun expert. Together, they have their various adventures, although now, the interstellar government is now after River and Simon. Sound like fun? FOX didn’t seem to think so.

So why has Firefly died, and now coming back as a feature film called Serenity?

The main and simple answer: The fan community, who call themselves Browncoats.

While Firefly was still on the air, it gathered a fairly small but extremely devoted group of fans, who a) knew what a good show was, and b) knew how to tell people. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep the show online due to poor ratings. However, it was when the DVD was released that the show really took off. The DVD Boxed set, available at Amazon.com and anywhere you can buy movies, became gold and quickly sold out in some places, taking some people by surprise.

It was also enough to spurn Joss and crew to begin looking for a new home for Firefly, and a feature film, called Serenity, went into the works, this time under Universal Films, which owns the SciFi channel. Great news. The fan community went nuts, and support for the film and series grew. When the first trailer hit, the Firefly boxed set jumped from about 200 on the amazon.com charts to the top twenty for science fiction DVDs. Two out of three comics have been released to stores, which have also sold out and gone to reprints due to demand. Actors in the movie and series have gone on film and told us that it was our support that brought the movie to life. For once, it pays to be a fan of something. And now, we have something cool to watch again.

This is probably the first time that a movie has been made out of a TV series that was cancelled due to poor ratings. But it’s not the first time that outcry from a fan community has brought back their special show.
During the winter of 2004, Farscape came back in spectacular fashion as a SciFi channel miniseries. Farscape was another TV show, this one run by the SciFi channel, which was cancelled due to lower than desired ratings. Farscape had a more successful run than Firefly did, burning through four full seasons before it was pulled. Once again, the fan community pulled itself together and websites formed that brought the show back to life in a similar, but new form.

This doesn’t seem to work all the time though. Anyone watch Enterprise? That show was on for several full seasons as well, and despite being on a broad access channel, it was pulling in lower ratings than the SciFi channel’s new Battlestar Galactica. (SciFi doesn’t reach as many people) We saw the same thing here; a small, dedicated group of fans came together, made webpages, went to conventions, wrote letters and all the usual things, even went to the point of trying to finance the show themselves, but only to have the show cut completely.

Why did Firefly and Farscape succeed where Enterprise failed? Surely not because Firefly and Farscape both begin with the letter F, where Enterprise begins with an E. There’s a number of other reasons and influences that probably caused those to continue whereas Enterprise did not.

First, Enterprise is a Star Trek show. They’ve been around forever, and have been one of the main influences on how Science Fiction TV is perceived. It’s huge, and when something like that starts to go wrong, people realize it, and back off. This happened with Enterprise, which started off strong, but lost a huge part of its audience quickly. Firefly and Farscape, on the other hand, were fairly new. The main reasons that they succeeded were mainly because they both had to work extremely hard to expand the audience AFTER they went off the air. This can probably be attributed to the quality of both shows, which are well written and acted. Enterprise was still on the air, had been on for longer and already had enough bad press against it that it was becoming hard to find a bigger audience.
Second, Star Trek has been around for a very long time, and has gone through a number of incarnations in the form of TV shows, movies, books and computer games. It’s essentially flooded the market. People are looking for something else, something new. This is probably one of the reasons why shows such as Stargate and Battlestar have surpassed Enterprise in the ratings game. In addition, it’s also fairly easy for Paramount to begin work on yet another incarnation of Star Trek, in hopes that this one will be better for the fan community. I wouldn’t hold my breath yet, but you never know…

Finally, Firefly and Farscape were highly original shows. They broke a number of the rules in science fiction up to that point and backed it up with some incredible stories, acting and set work that was completely different than Star Trek. The same goes for Battlestar Galactica, which seems to show that the networks have finally realized what a good thing is.

So, while you go to watch Serenity in theaters later in September, remember that it was a huge uphill battle that was mainly fueled by the fan’s enthusiasm and sheer energy that brought it to the big screen. As they said in the show: We’ve done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.
Well said.

Post-Camp Recuperation

I always hate the transition to real-life after camp. My sleep schedule is still out of whack, as is my food intake and daily schedule. It's tough trying to find ways to occupy my time. At camp, there are over a hundred people in fairly close proximety, where I'm able to talk with someone about something. Not so much here. However, I've been doing okay to be occupied. I took a good walk in the woods the other day, got some thinking cleared in my head and was treated to a beautiful view of the forest and a rain storm. It was refreashing. Went out with Blackwell, Sam and Eric last night to Pizza Putt, a pizza joint with miniature golf and lazer tag in the building. Together, Sam, Blackwell and I are known as the Geek Squad on camp. Eric is our off site member, and we all got together before we all go off to college for the year. Blackwell's leaving today and I'm off next week, as is Sam. Eric's going to work as a working stiff. (Sucker:-p ) . We ended up playing against another team of four guys who were there. We really screwed up the first time that we played, but did slightly better the second time around. I rode home with Eric, and we did some catching up on everything that happened over the summer.
I'm now working on an essay for Lexia, a study abroad option that my school is offering. I'm seriously thinking of studying in London, England for the Spring semester, if my finances allow for it. Let's hope...