Things I've Noticed: FREEDOM!

Finally! After weeks and weeks of confinment in my fibreglass prison I am free to wreck my vengeance upon humanity! Lock me away will you? Now nothing can come between me and my plans for... ummm... I dunno...

(Sound of embarrased Bookmonkey attempting to think of a quick plan)

All right, honestly my biggest plans right now involved taking a shower without wrapping my arm in a towel and stuffing it in a garbage bag for good measure, and also work, and blogging, and sleeping without accidently wacking my wife with my cast in my sleep.

A quick thanks to my BFF Mike for handling my anniversary post as I was in no position to write it myself.

Right now I'm feeling pretty great - looking forward to exercising and doing all the things I was unable to do while I was incapacitated, also looking forward to my family no longer bothering me about how much I complained about my enforced imprisonment.

I'm FREE!!!

Genre Character of the Week: Gwen Cooper

Yesterday I started watching Torchwood: Miracle Day with my youngest daughter and about halfway through I realized that I had never done a Genre character of the week for anyone from the series as of yet, so this week lets focus on my favourite character, Gwen Cooper.

As soon as I typed in her name I hit a pretty tricky dilemma; Torchwood is filled with plot-twisting goodness and just finished it's fourth season, and if you haven't ever seen the series before, I don't want to wreck anything for you (honestly, if you've never seen the series before, go on and check it out - it is significantly darker than its parent series, Doctor Who, but at the same time, rides the really hard to find line between Horror and Science Fiction with some of the most wondrous and creepy stories I've ever come across in television).

So, what to say about my favourite character from the show without giving away any spoilers, okay, here goes.

1) In 2006 Gwen entered the series as a police officer in the city of Cardiff

2) She is portrayed amazingly by actress Eve Myles

3) She ends up tied as (mild spoiler) my favourite character of the Doctor-Who-niverse (is that a real word?)

For those of you in the mood for a darker series, Torchwood is a great place to start, and after you check it out, I can tell you all why I like the character so much.

RIP Cliff Robertson

Here's the thing about Cliff Robertson, for me, even though I saw him most recently in the Spider-Man movies (in which he played Peter's Uncle Ben), he will always be best remembered as Charly Gordon in the film Charly (based on the story Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes).

For me, Charly was the first example of a science fiction film that didn't rely on action (laser guns, space ships, etc.), but instead on character to get its point across. The film (and if you haven't seeen it, stop reading and go request it from your local library now) sits as one of my favourite SF movies overall, and the biggest reason for that is the main character, as portrayed by Cliff Robertson.

Honestly, the guy helped lead me towards the more cerebral SF (and stories overall) I enjoy as an adult.

We'll miss you.

Things I've Noticed: Life with a short arm cast can be interesting

I've got a week left with my cast on - next Thursday they'll be taking it off and hopefully the x-rays they take will allow them to leave it off.

Having spent the last three weeks wearing a cast here is what I've learned:

1) No matter how cool you think casts are, they are not worth breaking a bone over.

2) As I broke a bone in the wrist of my dominant hand, my handwriting has suffered significantly

3) I can type, but I need to take my time and a number of breaks

4) I miss just being able to go for a walk without carrying an emergency garbage bag and elastic band in case of rain.

5) People are actually quite interested in casts, and will go out of their way to come and talk to you about it.

In the end, I'm really REALLY looking forward to being finished with my arm cast, but it hasn't been all bad - also getting people to sign my cast has been a real hoot.

Genre Character of the Week: Songbird

Have you ever felt like you were the sole voice of reason in a roomful of crazies? How about if those crazies were all super-powered? A couple weeks back I was loaned a copy of Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts: Faith in Monsters, which follows a team of super-powered folks in the post-Civil War Marvel Universe who spend their time tracking down unregistered heroes. The character that caught my attention the most, Melissa Joan Gold, aka Songbird.

All right, let me back up, Civil War (which I never read) was a massive Marvel comic crossover event back in 2006 which ruined not one, but two comics I was currently reading (Fantastic Four and Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man), and basically ended up with all the heroes in the Marvel Universe (Iron Man, Captain America, The X-Men, Spider-Man, etc.), taking sides on whether or not the government should be involved in their business.

In the end the decision was yes, and somehow a team of super-villains were put together to hunt down heroes who refused to register. The team included Spider-Man villain Venom, Daredevil villain Bullseye and as a boss they had Norman (The Green Goblin) Osborn. As the team existed before Osborn's reign, there were a couple holdovers, including the once-villain-now-conflicted-hero Songbird.

Songbird spends much of the story arc attempting to bring the extreme level of violence her new team-mates like to use down to merely terrible levels. Honestly, this series really looks at the idea of making the best of a terrible situation and takes it to superhuman levels. As a story it was very violent (I wouldn't let my 14-year-old read it), but as with all of Ellis' writing, it was very, very good.

Series Review: Falling Skies

Over the last week I’ve watched the 2011 SF series Falling Skies with my wife and youngest daughter. Two months ago I posted my impressions of the first couple episodes and now that we’ve finished the first season here’s what I’ve learned.

1) My youngest daughter likes bad boys (this does not bode well for her dating years)

2) The series is a pretty decent post-apocalyptic drama, which I’d rank slightly above Jericho (Aliens trump bombs), but slightly below Jeremiah, Survivors (2011) and my currently tied favourites The Walking Dead and the Battlestar Galactica reboot.

Throughout the ten episodes which made up the first season, the stories focused on the importance of sacrifice, family, teamwork and good communication. Also I really enjoyed the references to military history in terms of fighting an alien menace. The acting was strong, the story was engrossing, and although I wouldn’t have made all the same choices these survivors did, the fact that they focused on some pretty tough ones made for good drama.

As the series was renewed for a second ten-episode season to air next summer, I definitely look forward to it.

Things I've Noticed: Historical Fiction is pretty amazing

A few months back I did a “Genre Character of the Week” featuring Matthew Corbett, the protagonist of the Robert R. McCammon novel, Speaks the Nightbird. The story in question followed a magistrate’s clerk in 1699 America and his involvement with a witch trial. Earlier today I finished the third novel in the series, Mr. Slaughter.

These three novels (The second is titled The Queen of Bedlam) give a really interesting look at colonial life in the context of a mystery novel. Once a historical novel becomes a series the opportunity to world build starts showing up and these books definitely do not disappoint. Starting in the Carolina colonies and moving to New York well before it became NYC, the stories, which I would describe as a mix of action, mystery and horror, show a world I wasn’t terribly familiar with before. The closest example I can give of how much I like this series is to compare it to my two other favourite Historical Fiction mystery series, The Cadfael books by Ellis Peters and the Novels of Ancient Rome mysteries by Steven Saylor.

Although I’m mostly a Fantasy/Horror/SF guy myself, I have to say that the more I read of historical fiction, the more I’m digging it.