Here in Chicago at ALA 2013

So here I am in The Windy City for my first American Library Association Annual Meeting.  Although I'm from Canada, our library schools still need to be accredited by the ALA if we want to find work throughout North America, so it's a pretty cool thing to come down here and check it all out.  This trip is also a part of my Spectrum Scholarship, which has made for a great year so far, and means I've been able to meet the other Spectrum scholars in person, a really great group of people.

The photo above is the view out my hotel room window, which is a pretty nice thing to wake up to - although I am missing the wife and kids a lot.

So far I've been here fore a day and a half and I'm pretty impressed with both the city and the event.  Today is my first day where I have a pretty open schedule, so I'm going to try and get around to seeing some sights as well as checking out the exhibitor's hall at the conference; both intimidate me a little, but as I'm here for a limited time I'm just going to try diving in and see what happens.

R.I.P. Richard Matheson

For those of you who have reading my blog for a while now, you know that I've actually spent the last few years reading the works of Richard Matheson at the rate of one book a month since July of 2011 - I finished earlier this year and one of my favourite aspects of his work was just how varied it was - everything from Science Fiction to Westerns, Mysteries and Crime Fiction to Horror and his own views on the afterlife, Matheson's work always impressed me, from both the basic ways in which his stories worked, to the incredible ideas he came up with.

I couldn't possibly give a list of my favourite novels written by the author as they are so different from each other it's virtually impossible to compare and contrast them.

The stories are great - whether you like WWII stories, straight up Horror or romance, he has stuff that would appeal to you, (My BFF Mike will happily point out that he wrote the original series Star Trek episode The Enemy Within), and I've barely even mentioned his work in television.

In my adult life I've worked my way through the complete fiction of maybe a dozen authors; everyone from Robert B. Parker (Thrillers), to Pierre Berton (Canadian Non-Fiction and History), to Elmore Leonard (pretty much everything), but I can honestly say that Matheson is one of my favourites of the whole bunch - his work was massively influential (Stephen King is quoted as calling Matheson "...the author who influenced me most as a writer"), filled with interesting and intriguing ideas and great characters, and most importantly, a whole lot of great reads.

Things I've Noticed: Bookmonkey Banner Post!

Since 2010 I've spent every October on this blog focusing on one horror related concept (Twilight, Saw, etc.) and my amazingly talented BFF Mike has kindly supplied me with great banner art to display each time.

Today I realized that those neat little pieces of art aren't easily available anywhere, so I'm putting them all up here:

October 2012 - Bookmonkey Saw

 

October 2011 - The Reimagining of Bookmonkey

 

October 2010 - Twilight of Bookmonkey

 

Thanks Mr. Mike!

Book Review: The Fifth Head of Cerberus

Over the years I’ve read a few books by Gene Wolfe (notably his Book of the New Sun series and his Latro of the Mist series), and have found them all to be great reads.  Last week, while continuing through the list of Science Fiction: the 100 Best Books published in English from 1945 to 1985 I got to his 1972 short story collection, The Fifth Head of Cerberus.

First of all, this is more a novel with three connected parts than it is three separate short stories (although they would all do fine on their own), and in a lot of ways it made me think of Isaac Asimov’s The Gods Themselves, in that the structure is three stories, with the second one being from an entirely alien point of view and the first and last ones being told by two different humans.

The stories in The Fifth Head of Cerberus pulled me right in – they take place on twin planets that have been colonized by humans and although the stories are forty-years-old, I don’t really want to give away any more than that, because they’re pretty great.

I will say that rarely have I read science fiction that so clearly touched on themes of post-colonial theory before, and I was glad I had a little background on the concepts from my oldest daughter (who took a class on post colonialism in University last year) even if it was second hand, as I thought I got a little more out of the story because of it.

A really intriguing read.

Movie Review: World War Z

Last night my wife and I were lucky enough to attend an advanced screening of the upcoming zombie apocalypse film, World War Z.  Going into the movie I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, I was a little unsure of the visuals from the trailer showing high speed zombies creating makeshift towers of themselves to scale buildings, and I have to admit the idea of a film rated with a PG-13 (or 14A rating here in Canada) showing zombies had me a little nervous; after all, what is a zombie movie without the blood and gore?

As it turns out, the movie was pretty fun!  It had a lot of great scares, more than a few really intense sequences and it worked well as both a global overview and as a personal story involving one family.  I’m currently reading the original novel, so I’ll have to hold off on how the film compares to the original book, but I think it’s safe to say they are two different things – with the movie potentially being the first in a potential trilogy.

The viewing we saw was in 3D, and although it didn’t give me a headache like last year’s John Carter, I didn’t feel the 3D was in any way necessary.  What I did really enjoy however was the music, much of it performed by the band MUSE.

All in all, a lot of the frightening sequences in the film involved the collapse of modern society, rather than the monsters (which were quite frightening in their own right), which I think was a pretty smart move.  Although the book has no specific main character, I think the audience needed someone to follow as they move through this story, and honestly I really liked Brad Pitt’s portrayal of a man doing the best he can to save his family.

If the sequels get greenlit, I would definitely be interested in checking them out.

Happy Father's Day to Me!!

So for Father's Day this year my daughters put together an adorable Bookmonkey Sculpture.

Really nothing more to say - but check it out!

Things I've Noticed: My June Movie Dilemma is Solved!

Technically speaking a Dilemma is a problem with two solutions, neither of which is practically acceptable, and my movie going problem this month was a Tri-lemma, which isn't a word, since I was attempting to decide which two of three possible movies I should see in theatres and would not be satisfied with any of the three options.

 

Then today I found out I had won a double-guest pass to an advanced screening of the movie World War Z on Monday, and my problem has solved itself - because now I can see all three movies while still only paying for two!

 

Now If only I could find a solution to my next dilemma...