Things I've Noticed: I've just entered 2007

So last week I finally decided to do what 3.3 million people did in 2007 and get myself a smartphone, specifically an iPhone4S – for those technical-minded readers among you. Although I held out for many a year, (since before my birth if you look at the original cell phones released in 1973), an instructor I had in one of my library school courses finally convinced me that I should join the modern era and get myself connected to all the texting, phoning and app-using people out there in the world who want me to join them.

The reason, you ask?  Pretty simple actually, he said that I should be handing out business cards at the many networking opportunities I will have over the course of my library school experience and that the number on those cards should still be a viable number if I move, change jobs or graduate – which means a home, school or work number would give my cards an expiry date – something you never want a business card to have.

For those of you I don’t know personally, I’ve had quite the reputation since the mid-90s regarding cell phones, mostly that they have little value, they make cell phone users into incredibly rude people to visit with and I’ll get one as soon as anyone can explain why cell phones need to be in the hands of anyone who isn’t in a job that requires emergency contact capability.

My kids have both had cell phones for years, and in their cases I can see lots of reasons why they should have cell phones, but for me?  I’m the kind of guy who still sends handwritten thank you notes through the mail, so the impersonal nature of cell phones freaks me out a little.

But never let it be said that I can’t admit when I’m wrong, and also that I can’t spruce up my new phone to make it look a little more book-ish.

Genre Character of the Week: Douglas Quaid

For my birthday last weekend, my wife and kids took me out to see the new Colin Farrell film Total Recall, a remake of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film of the same name.  The movie was pretty cool, there were a lot fun action sequences and the scope of many of the sets did work better on the big screen than they might have on my television at home.  Unfortunately, I just kept thinking how much I preferred the original.

So today let’s look at one of my favorite genre characters, Douglas Quaid.  (Pictured left, and right)

Quaid (as played by Schwarzenegger) is a construction worker living on Mars (yes - I know he starts on Earth and then goes to Mars but I didn't want to do too many spoilers), or (as played by Colin Farrell) is a factory worker living in Australia (called The Colony in the film).  Basically he’s a regular Joe doing a hard days work for little pay and is married to a lovely wife who is subtly stressed by the filmmakers (of both versions) as being a little too good for him.

Quaid wishes his life had more to it, whether that be more excitement, more adventure or honestly, more anything.  So he takes advantage of the services of a local company called Rekall, which allows false memories to be transplanted into the mind therefore allowing the user to feel as if he or she had done everything or anything they can dream up.

Then, because it wouldn’t be a good story if everything went well, everything goes wrong.

Both films follow Quaid as he desperately attempts to understand why everyone around him (including his wife) seems to want to kill him and why he suddenly has the ability to kill with his bare hands.

What I love about the character is his journey of self discovery, and although this arc is done well in both films, I prefer the earlier one as the idea seemed fresh at the time and it was set on Mars.

In the new film, Quaid even mentions at one point that it would be nice if he were on Mars and I couldn’t help but lean over to my wife and say “I couldn’t agree more.”

Book Review: The Year of the Quiet Sun

Time travel stories are some of my favourites in the Science Fiction genre; From Back to the Future to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (which in itself travels from 1985 to 1955 and then one year forward for the movie-goer travels from 2286 to 1986 which totals a 331 year trip (unless you count the bit at the end of Back to the Future where they travel with Doc back to the future)… but I digress), Bring the Jubilee to The Time Machine I’ve always enjoyed time travel stories in film, prose and games.

And last week I found a new time travel story (well, new to me, actually the book is 42-years-oldm, but still, it’s new to me) in the 1970 novel The Year of the Quiet Sun by Wilson Tucker.

The novel follows a demographer and biblical scholar named Brian Chaney who, after releasing a controversial translation of the Book of Revelation, is taking an enforced vacation from work and is promptly hired by an American government agency to take part in a time-travel experiment.

For those of you who don’t know (and that counted me before I read the book), demography is the study of demographics, being populations and sub-populations, and Chaney had released a document earlier in his career which suggested potential future trends in these statistics.

Chaney joins a small team of a naval office and an Air Force officer who, as a team are shown all of the possibilities for where time travel could possibly take them.  Then after making a decision they are overruled by the current administration and sent two years into the future to see if the current President of the United States will win his upcoming election.

Yes indeed, this is a time travel story stomped on by administrative requests.

Without going into too many spoilers, the book is definitely worth the read, it was nominated in the best novel category for both the 1971 Hugo and 1971 Nebula awards, and I found it to be a really plausible look at how time travel could go if it became a reality.

Things I've Noticed: When I was 35, It was a very good year...

I’m turning thirty-six on Saturday, so as I sit here typing I’m thinking of all the stuff I’ve done in the last 367 days, and overall I’ve done pretty well.

 

I’ve kept up with my blogging; three posts a week every week (over three years now) and although some of them could have been pretty short, they have all continued to let me gush about my favourite genres, and reading and life in general.

 

I’ve completed my first third of Library School (which I bragged about here)

 

I examined the trend of re-imagining in Horror cinema

 

I got to go to the Alberta Library Conference.

 

I found my favourite Horror Comedy of the last seven years (since Shawn of the Dead)

 

I got to spend the day before their birthday with both of my kids for the first time in six years.

 

I found my favourite Horror video-game since Resident Evil 2 back in 1998

 

And most importantly I got to spend another year married to the nicest lady I’ve ever met.

 

Man, if 35 was this awesome – I can’t wait to see 36!

Genre Character of the Week: Kristi Rey

Our genre character this week is a little tricky, because although the character is well developed over the two films she appears in, I found the horror of each of these films diminished as the series progressed.

 

Oh yeah, sorry – Kristi Rey is the main character of the film Paranormal Activity 2, and is also a main character (as a child) in the prequel film Paranormal Activity 3.

 

So (spoilers included) lets go back the fall of 2009 and the phenomenon of the Paranormal Activity franchise.  It was a found footage style film (clearly influence by The Blair Witch Project) which followed the lives of a young couple, Katie and Micah who dealt with some kind of creepy activity in their home.

 

The movie was a huge success, horror audiences loved it and as the Saw franchise was winding down it appeared thatParanormal Activity may be the new look of horror fims.

 

I didn’t see it until 2010, for free, from my local library.

 

Having been a dedicated fan of horror from my youngest years, this movie just seemed to be more of the same style of horror I had been seeing since The Blair Witch Project ten years earlier.  My personal opinion was that “…the first film was a lot of fun in a sort of Blair Witch Project vein, and there were more than a few scares throughout – without going into spoilers I will say that the movie is worth a watch, but maybe only if you can watch it on TV or get it cheap.”

 

Then, just like the Saw franchise, Paranormal Activity 2 came out in October of the next year (2010) and we were treated to an interesting prequel/sequel (which I reviewed here)

 

Now a few weeks back I watched Paranormal Activity 3, which follows the female leads from both previous films in a definite prequel, taking place nearly 20 years before the events of the first two films.

 

Again, I saw these free from my local library (which is how I recommend anyone should watch them), but it’s fair to say my favourite character in the franchise is Kristi, played in the second film by Sprague Grayden and as a child in the three-quel by Jessica Tyler Brown.

 

What I like about Kristi in both films is just how real she comes across – in a lot of ways the more down-to-earth a character is in a horror story, the more scary the story becomes, because the character is so easy to relate to for the audience.

 

My problem with the films as a whole, is that they start out showing you one thing, then saying it’s another (clever), and then the second film, although using a recognizable actress for its lead (bad choice in a found-footage style film, even if the actress is great), plays with both the format of prequels and sequels in general (more clever), the third film basically explains exactly what was going on and also seems to have a problem with grandmothers.

 

Yup – in the end the message received is “Don’t trust friendly Grandmothers.”

 

Now I know that a fourth film is on its way, and when it’s free I’ll probably check it out, but honestly, horror works best when there is an unknown to be afraid of – not when every possible back-story is examined for potential shock moments.

Book Review: Amped

Last June I read the Daniel H. Wilson novel Robopocalypse and absolutely loved it.  It was fast paced, had a great cast of characters, and left me with some pretty haunting (and terrifying) images of a robot-assited world after the robots turn against humanity.

A couple weeks ago while wandering around downtown Edmonton during a lunch break at my new job, I came across Amped in a bookstore.  I liked the logo (see left), and figured my wife and both of my daughters had enjoyed Robopocalypse, so why not check it out?

Since I got it from the library two weeks ago, my wife and both of my daughters have read Amped and assured me that it's exactly the kind of book they think I'd like.

And after starting the book at 6:00 this morning?  They were totally right.

The book takes place in a near future where a significant minority of the world's population have been "Amped," meaning they've had their brains augmented with a Brain Implant designed to help them get around mental and physical disabilities they have - (the program started by helping kids with learning and physical disabilities and moved on to veterans and others with physical disabilities), the problem is that the people who get the implants don't just get to be normal - they are smarter, faster and more efficient than regular people.

The book begins with a court case which ends with Amped people loosing their status as protected citizens in the United States.  Everything goes downhill from there.

Structurally the book is similar to Robopocalypse in that it mixes chapters with news clippings, but as there is one main character and it is told from a first-person perspective, the novel is a little tighter and moves very quickly.

Without giving away too many spoilers - it was fun, if the stuff I've said makes it sound like a book you'd like to read, I'd suggest picking it up.

Things I've noticed: I'm a third of the way through Grad School

So last year at this time I was getting pretty excited about going to Library School - the program is designed for a two-year span if you're a full time student and right now, after taking both spring and summer classes, I'm actually a third of the way through as a part-time student.

Am I still excited?

Heck ya!

To be fair there have been assignments that really wore me out and somedays I've felt crazy for going back to school in my mid-30s, but overall I'm loving it here.

Looking ahead to the 2012/2013 school year I'm taking on a bit of a heavier load due to a scholarship I recently got, but right now I can still feel the excitement I had back on that first day when I didn't have any idea about the amount of time/work/fun/exhaustion I was about to let myself into.

A quick list of some of my other favourie thirds

3. The Empire Strikes Back - okay, I'll admit this is the second third, but holy cats was this movie awesome, and when I first saw it I could not get over how creepy it would be to be stored in froze carbonite.

2. The first Reese Peanut cup in the package - just knowing that I still have two more awesome little bites of peanut-butter and chocolate make that first cup the sweetest.

and finally,

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - now for those of you too young to remember (you know, those of you who are still in Elementary school - or are adult-looking clones who are actually only a few years old) this movie was amazing!  From beginning to end it was pretty much a fantastic fantasy/quest film... and the best part?  We had two more of them to look forward to over the next couple of years, yes two-thirds of a whole which added up to complete awesomeness!

Like I think the next two years will be for me!

Bookmonkey
P.S. My first thought for excellent first thrid of something was The Matrix, but considering how the second and the (ugh) third ended up, I didn't even want to tempt fate with the analogy.

Genre Character of the Week: Charlie Bucket

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl sits pretty high on my list of favourite fantasy novels, favourite young adult novels, and possibly favourite novels.

The reason is two-fold; first,  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the very first book I can remember reading and re-reading at my elementary school library, specifically the chapter where (mild 48-year-old spoiler) Charlie finds the golden ticket and is able to visit the Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.  In terms of showing a young bookmonkey exactly how affecting a book can be, this one sits pretty much on top of the list (right up there with The Hobbit and Charlotte's Web - but it'll be a while before I talk about either of those as the first has a convenient movie coming out I can tie a post to and the second still gets me a little weepy when I think about it), and second, Charlie Bucket is such a nice kid, I'm making him our Genre Character of the Week.

Here's what I like about Charlie, he's honest, giving and sincere.

Seriously, that's pretty much it - he's a nice kid who takes the feelings of others into account and in the end of the book those qualities help him to pass Wonka's various tests and ends up being trained to take over the factory after Wonka retires.

Sometimes it's nice when the good kids finish first.

Animethon 19 Review

On Saturday my youngest daughter and I went down to Animethon - Edmonton's annual Anime convention (which also happens to be the longest running anime convention in Canada - next year they'll be up to 20), and had a really great time.

The cosplayers (convention attendees who showed up in costume) were amazing - Kaia's favourite was this fellow (or lady, or perhaps six small aliens pretending to be one person) dressed up as "No Face" from the film Spirited Away.

We wandered around the convention for a few hours, took in a panel called Steampunk 101 where two nice ladies explained this subculture and how to get involved, and then caught the first episode of Irresponsible Captain Tyler - a personal favourite of my daughters.

Was it fun?  Absolutely - the staff and volunteers were great, the people were incredibly friendly and everyone was happy to let you take a picture if you asked.

My daughter is definitely interested in going next year, and in all honestly - that's about the best statement of a conventions success you can make.

Things I've noticed: My Summer is 18 Days Long

Over the spring and summer of 2012 I’ve been taking evening classes to continue my work towards my Masters of Library Science Degree. The Spring had me focused on a budgeting course and the summer is focused on a course called The History of the Book. Both of these classes have been fun and informative in different ways (one of them will probably have a bigger effect on my future in the library world, and the other on my understanding of the library world).

One side-effect of the two courses however, is that once I’m all finished, I will have exactly 18 days before I hit the Fall 2012 term and begin again.

So… what to do with those 18 days.

Bookmonkey’s Top Priorities for his (almost) three weeks of course-free Summer 2012

1. Start working on stuff for my 15^th Wedding Anniversary: mostly I know I’m going to be busy in September and October with school and the new job, so this is my big opportunity to do some grunt-work involving the big event

2. Get on to my reading list for August: As I’ve said in previous posts, I try to read 7 books a month for my own pleasure. This month I’ve been reading an awful lot of books on the Mass Market Paperback format for my class – interesting reading but I still have six books to go this month and so far have only got to Warm Bodies.

3. Write Thank You / Update Letters to my Grad School References: At this time last year I was waiting and waiting to hear whether I would be accepted into Grad School or not – little known fact, you actually need letters of reference from previous teachers and others in your profession to apply. As I sent my four references the news last year that I got it, I figure this year I should send them an update on what their letters have got me so far in my continuing education

4. Begin to weed my home book/music/movie collection: August is a perfect time to follow the instructions from one of my earlier posts and begin to see if I can make some room on the many shelves I have throughout my house. As my birthday is near the end of the month, I’m pretty sure I am going to need the space.

5. Take a vacation maybe? For years my family has done summer camping trips, usually sticking to mid-week camping as the crowds are thinner, but if I want to get out at all this year I only have two available weekends in which to try (we don’t even bother trying on long weekends), so if we want to get out there this year I’ve actually only got two small windows in which to make the attempt.

And after all those things are done, maybe I’ll take a nap! Or start planning for Christmas.

Genre Character of the Week: R

Taking a short break from school-related texts, I spent the long weekend (Gee I love living in Alberta!) checking out the Young Adult (YA) novel Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion. Going into the book here is what I knew – it was supposed to be some sort of zombie love story, it is being turned into a film that will be released in 2013, and it is clearly being marketed as something of interest for fans of the Twilight books and film franchise. Now you know why I might not have been excited to check it out.

On the positive side, I’d already had a really great experience of Zombie-themed YA fiction in Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth series, so I knew the topic could be covered in an effective way for younger readers and as I spend each day looking at my zombie calendar whenever I want to remember the date, I’ve had zombies on my brain (pun intended). But after reading the book I’ve got to say it’s success comes down to its main character, and our genre character of the week, R.

Structured in a lot of ways like YA animal based fiction (think The Incredible Journey or Warhorse), the novel is narrated and told from the point of view of a zombie named R. Like all zombies he can no longer remember his name, but the initial has stuck, although he doesn’t speak, it is through his strangely eloquent prose that we see a zombie apocalypse from the other side.

R’s world is a grim one indeed, but he does have occasional flashes of memory, hints of what his life may have been before. One thing I loved about the book is that as we are seeing everything through his eyes, we don’t actually know how old he is, he could be anywhere from a teen through to a man in his fifties so the character is easy to empathize with from my 35-year-old point of view. In a way it’ll be a shame that his age and appearance will be locked down in the upcoming film to that of 22-year-old actor Nicholas Hoult (who I liked in X-Men First Class and loved in the BBC series Skins) as it may distance the emotional connection for older readers like me.

The strange thing about zombies has often been how much they look like us, and sometimes even act like us, when it is also clear that there really isn’t anyone home, just echoes of a previous existence. R made me think differently about that – and that’s about the best comment I can make about the character and the book.

Definitely worth checking out.

Book Review: 7 Steps to Midnight

Continuing along my reading of the works of Richard Matheson, we come to the 1993 novel, 7 Steps to Midnight.  One of the things I've enjoyed most about reading his works is that he doesn't limit himself to one genre; I've come across crime novels (Fury on Sunday), Supernatural Thrillers (A Sitr of Echoes), Science Fiction (The Shrinking Man) and my personal favourite three, I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, and Hell House.


This novel is a thriller, in a lot of ways close to the classic 1959 Hitchcock movie North by Northwest in that we follow an everyman through a terrifying chase across the globe as all sorts of creepy and threatening people seem to be hunting him down for different agendas.


The story's protagonist, Chris Barton, is a mathematician working for the United States government who comes home one day to find there is another man in his house claiming to also be Chris Barton, and believes that our main character is some sort of impostor.


The rest of the novel follows Chris as he evades police, government agents, and all sorts of shady folk who seem to want to kill him, capture him or help him.


In the end I enjoyed the book - it wasn't a game changer like my favourite three Matheson novels, but it was a solid thriller and I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the genre.

Things I've noticed: I'm kind of a nerd

Without going into too much detail (blogging about your workplace can lead to many unforseen consequences), a significant part of my new library job is being the budget tracker for my new department. 


What does that actually mean you ask? (you being the folks who didn't immediately hit the "next blog" button as soon as you read the word "budget" or I suppose the people who stuck around after I promised a lack of detail...)


It means I look over a lot of invoices, receipts, claims and forms - basically a lot of stacks of paper with their own rules which, although I had the help of a wonderful person in terms of training, all start to look pretty terrifying to me as soon as the numbers stopped adding up.


Taking a small break to solve my Rubick's Cube it suddenly struck me - I might be looking at the wrong stack of papers!  Slamming my cube down with two algorithms (sets of patterned moves I need to do to get my cube on) remaining, I dashed to the budget backlogs and indeed found what I was looking for - numbers that added up with the reports I was dealing with!


After double and triple checking my numbers and found they worked I jumped up from my seat and looked around the library for someone to share my realization with and then I saw the clock.


I realized I had stayed over 15 minutes late at work.


Then I realized I had stayed over 15 minutes late working on math problems.


Then I realized I had stayed over 15 mintues late working on math problems and I was currently looking for someone so I could brag about that fact.


So yeah - I think I'm becoming a nerd, and you know what?  It's pretty awesome.