Ken Lizzi's Blog, page 20

Nothing to See Here, Folks. Move Along. Resurrected Post.

April 28, 2019Nothing to See Here, Folks. Move Along.

The web log is busy finishing up the third draft of ���Warlord��� and acting as Mr. Mom while MBW is out of the country. The regular nonsense will return next week.

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Science Fiction 101 Reading List. Resurrected Post.

April 21, 2019Science Fiction 101 Reading List

What are the fundamental books a newcomer to science fiction should read in order to achieve a basic conversance with the genre? To keep this practicable for this notional novice, what ten books would suffice?

I am unqualified to answer this question. My list would necessarily displease everyone. Only an unjustifiably self-confident jackanapes, a grinning idiot embodying the Dunning-Kruger Effect would even attempt such a thing.

Right, I���m your man then.

 

I���ll start with Jules Verne. I could go back earlier to Mary Shelley, or even back to Cyrano de Bergerac. But this isn���t list isn���t intended as a historical overview but as a practical guide to the field. I���m going to offer Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea for its mechanical inventiveness and its elevation of the scientific hero. Journey to the Center of the Earth is entertaining as an adventure story, but the science is, at this remove, rather laughable and functions as little more than a travelogue.

Second is H.G. Wells. I���d like to include both The Time Machine and War of the Worlds. But my goal is to include ten different authors. So, Time Machine it is, with the time travel trope taking precedence over alien invasion.

Moving on to Isaac Asimov. If you thought picking one Wells novel was hard, welcome to hell. A prolific author and influential author such as Asimov could possibly fill all ten slots himself. But I���m going with the first book of the Foundation trilogy. (Sorry, robotics fans.) Instead of a mechanical contrivance, time travel, or alien civilizations we have a unique concept as the centerpiece: Psychohistory. Asimov���s proposition that large scale events could be predicted through mathematical models is one I find truly disturbing. I think the idea fit well in the optimism of the times, the sort of thinking that powered the New Frontier and Camelot. The idea that science, guided by smart, well-meaning people, could lead us to a sort of utopia. Utter rot, of course, and dangerous. Frightening to those of us who aren���t too sanguine about these supposedly well-meaning people.

Robert A. Heinlein makes for another difficult choice. But I think Stranger in a Strange Land must take the spot. As much as I���d rather re-read Starship Troopers or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, the story of Valentine Michael Smith takes priority. The fish out of water examination of humanity from a supposedly objective outside observer is a subgenre in its own right and this is the prime exemplar. It even introduced the word ���grok��� into the vocabulary. How many science fiction books can make that claim?

Arthur C. Clarke is another writer who could lay claim to multiple spots on this list. Should it be 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Fountains of Paradise? Both good options, but I���m going with Rendezvous with Rama, the archetypal exploration of an alien artifact with no hand-holding from the author, no ultimate revelations spelling out exactly what it is. It���s alien, fundamentally unknowable. Why should humans be expected to understand something non-human?

Philip K. Dick has to make this list, right? Try to count up the number of films based on his works. The difficulty is that he was primarily a short story writer. So let���s go with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the novel adapted as Blade Runner. Dick brings the paranoia. His works trade in deeply layered revelations and nothing is necessarily what it seems. Every unexpected twist in a sci-fi novel owes something to PKD.

Next up is Larry Niven���s Ringworld. Ringworld is the big idea explored, the cool scientific ���what if��� taken off the shelf and examined from every angle. In this case it is truly a big idea, an annular word rotating about a central hub of a sun, with enough habitable space larger than millions of our little planet. Drop a bunch of different species and cultures there and enjoy. It���s adventure and travelogue (in some ways reminiscent of Jack Vance���s Big Planet) but the big idea is always central to the story. Ringworld also provides an introduction to the consistent future history concept. That is, an author���s books will be linked by a shared history stretching hundreds or thousand of years and spanning the galaxy. This gets you into Jerry Pournelle, A. Bertram Chandler, H. Beam Piper and others, one branch of this leading eventually to the role playing game Traveller.

Ursula K. Le Guin was the doyenne of sociological science fiction. The truth is I could probably pick any number of her novels to illustrate this subgenre. But we���ll go with The Dispossessed as it has the bonus of being the novel to introduce the ansible, a communications device that gets around lightspeed limitations. Other writers picked up the term and used it for narrative convenience. Dispossessed explores novel social systems, a theme that holds great currency in science fiction. The truth is, and I hesitate to say it, I���ve never been a great fan of Le Guin���s writing though I���ve been reading her stuff since the age of, oh, twelve. But this isn���t a survey of my favorites and Le Guin���s importance is undeniable.

Frank Herbert���s Dune is also an exploration of odd social structures. It also dives headfirst into ecological science, biosystems, theology, genetics, and philosophy. Dune is a major work, one to be taken both seriously and enjoyed.

Finally we come to William Gibson. Neuromancer may not have been the first cyberpunk novel but it is the most influential. Every book since that takes place at least in part within ���cyberspace��� owes a debt to Neuromancer. The banal reality of the internet seems to have let some of the steam out of cyberpunk, but it remains an important branch of science fiction.

And there you have the list. That wasn���t easy. So many names could have made the cut. Jerry Pournelle, A.E. Van Vogt, Greg Bear, John Varley, Ben Bova. The list goes on. But that���s the problem; a short curriculum can���t go on or it wouldn���t be short.

What about more contemporary writers, you may ask. Well, I���m not the best source. My tastes run to older fiction. But if you are asking, I���d recommend picking anything and everything written by Neal Stephenson. The man���s good and seems interested in everything, including most of the subgenres mentioned above.

So, how did I do? Do you agree with any of the above? Disagree? What would be on your list?

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Aftermath. Resurrected Post.

April 14, 2019Aftermath

I had a party at my house last night, a triple celebration: my fiftieth birthday, the tenth anniversary of my marriage to MBW, and MBW���s U.S. citizenship. The house echoed at times with the play of what seemed a hundred children, but couldn���t have been more than a half dozen. At the end of the night we discovered that a glutinous jar of pink slime, some sort of kid���s plaything, had been ground into the HA���s carpet. While a few remaining adults got down to cleaning that up (it turns out ice cubes are useful in that regard ��� helpful tip for you) I went back downstairs to pack up leftovers and load the dishwasher. The aftermath of the party.

Naturally, that got me thinking about war. Specifically the aftermath, the cleanup. And more specifically, how fantasy novels tend to deal with (or not deal with) the aftermath of the epic battles that fill their pages.

 

Tolkien certainly considered the aftermath. The orc bodies dealt with after the Battle of Helm���s Deep, the Huorns dealing with the remaining live ones. The various burial mounds. Treebeard cleaning up after the destruction of the Ring of Orthanc. The Scouring of the Shire. For Tolkien the aftermath is at least as important as the battle itself. How do the characters handle the devastation? How does it affect them?

Peter Jackson eschewed that narrative path. A bit shows up, at least in the extended cuts, but it amounts to little. The Scouring of the Shire didn���t make it into the film version of The Lord of the Rings. Why? I can imagine any number of reasons. Screen time spent on the clean up slows down the story. There is little action in such scenes. The films were already long enough. Of course, one could argue that had he not included extraneous material created for the movies he���d have had the time. But let���s not get into that again. The point is, the same source material, two different storytelling choices.

Narrative economy is an important consideration. A scene should accomplish more than one thing. If the aftermath contributes to character development, world building, and advances the story, then there is certainly a strong argument for including it. If it is merely that the author feels the need to explain what happened after, or feels uncomfortable that no time is spent putting out the fires, burying the dead, and rebuilding, then maybe not. Not if the reader is the primary consideration.

Cleaning up after a party isn���t a great deal of fun. Why would anyone want to read about it? It strikes me as superfluous in most fast paced, pulpy fiction. With an epic like LOTR, however, detailing the passing of an Age and the beginning of another, written by an author who lived through war and its aftermath, including the cleanup is not only understandable, it���s necessary.

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Manly Wade Wellman. The Bard of Appendix N? Resurrected Post.

April 7, 2019Manly Wade Wellman. The Bard of Appendix N?

My series on Appendix N of the Dungeon Masters Guide nears its conclusion. Two more entries remain after this. This one presents a bit of a challenge for me. I come to praise Manly Wade Wellman, but I���m finding it difficult. Not Margaret St. Clair difficult. Far from it. But challenging.

 

Wellman is primarily known for his Silver John, or John the Balladeer stories. I���ve read several of those. Silver John is a highly educated hillbilly, an Appalachian folktale character roaming the countryside and involving himself with supernatural doings. He might have influenced the Bard player character class, though I have my doubts. I liked the stories somewhat, though they didn���t leave a strong impression. I much preferred his character John Thunstone though I���ve only read one of the novels. Thunstone seems to follow in the tradition of the Occult Detective character. He���s urbane, witty, and devious when needed. I���d be happy to read more of his doings and can unreservedly recommend at the very least ���The School of Darkness.���

But I���m not writing today about Silver John or John Thunstone. Instead I���m writing about Hok the Mighty. I should enjoy ���Battle in the Dawn: The Complete Hok the Mighty.��� ��I mean, look at that cover. There���s some Swords and Sorcery for you.

The problem is that the stories following that cover aren���t S&S. Hok the Mighty is a Cro-Magnon caveman. The stories are stone age adventure. Sorcery doesn���t enter into it (though of course Hok interprets certain phenomena as supernatural in origin.) Wellman is clearly interested in the subject matter. The stories are replete with firsts: the first kiss, the first bow, etc. All of these experienced or invented by the intrepid Hok. And the stories are densely footnoted, as Wellman explains the scientific evidence, research, or speculation behind particular details of the story. (It isn���t his fault that later research has since discredited some of these.)

The problem is that, following the first rather straightforward caveman tale, Wellman follows it with Hok encountering Atlantis. While this makes for a reasonably good story, it completely undermines Wellman���s project of presenting firsts. Having injected a sort of ���deep time��� concept, Hok���s discoveries are robbed of their novelty since the Atlanteans have necessarily discovered some or all of these long since.

Now, this touch of fantasy does lead the Hok stories into more ��� from my viewpoint ��� enjoyable territory. Wellman begins to toy with the idea of Hok as the prototype Hercules. Various of Hercules twelve labors appear. I personally think this would have been a more productive road to travel, with footnotes regarding the later mythological ���retellings��� of Hok���s exploits. These sort of Ur-myths could have branched out to other characters and, perhaps, Wellman could have indulged himself with a touch of the numinous, the unexplained, the outright supernatural. I���d have enjoyed that, I think.

Instead we get rather rote adventure stories, limited by paleolithic technologies, limited settings, limited scope. I understand that pulp-era adventure stories often rely upon coincidence and luck rather heavily and it is ungracious of me to complain about Wellman doing the same. But some of the stories of the era work better than others. In fact, I did quite enjoy the last complete story in ���Battle in the Dawn.��� Perhaps tellingly, it didn���t include Hok at all. It is, rather, an old fashioned science fiction tale. It hits all the notes you���d expect, but does it ��� in my opinion ��� much better than any of the Hok stories.

So, I���m reluctant to state that I can���t really recommend Hok the Mighty. Perhaps some of you might enjoy his tales. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. Gygax may well have liked him. If John the Balladeer did not inform the Bard class, perhaps Hok the Mighty suggested the Caveman entry in the Monster Manual. I couldn���t say; it���s the rankest speculation.

If my opinion carries any weight, go pick up a John Thunstone story. Leave Hok the Mighty in his cave. [UPDATE: Or even better, read the superlative Kardios of Atlantis stories]

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The Web Log Takes a Sick Day. So Enjoy Two Savage Journal Entries.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 13.

The barbarian conceives of law in an entirely different fashion than the civilized man, dear diary. For the barbarian the model is nature. Nature’s law is that the strong rule; what is acceptable is what can be enforced; the right to possession is delimited solely by what can be both taken and defended.

Just try to tell the lion who has just chased lesser predators from their kill that the carcass is not lawfully his.

The civilized man ��� or so goes the general theory ��� imposes codes and institutes enforcement mechanisms for the good of society (the collective weak.) I have no objection to this in the abstract. Were I one of the weak, I’d want the comforting sword of the law protecting me and mine from the predations of the strong.

Of course, I am not one of the weak.

Upon nearing the walls of Bandahar some hours after sunset I espied the first guardians of civilized law: the gate sentries, their crossed spears and body armor glowing orange in the torchlight. There was no doubt as to their response if I’d approached them ��� a naked savage, with only a breech clout about his loins, demanding entry after dark. So, not feeling bound by Bandahar’s strictures on immigration, I skirted the city to a quarter far removed from a gate and scaled the wall, no challenge for a barbarian who’d been raiding birds’ nests high up sheer cliff faces since boyhood.

And, again, not constrained by civilized mores, I was no long a pauper. I soon supplemented my breech clout with a thin tunic of cheap weave, a sturdy dagger, and a small purse jingling with loose copper and a few tarnished silver coins.

You see, even in civilization there are some who adhere to the law of the jungle. But these men often forget that that law applies to them as well. A bravo returning to his lodgings after successfully relieving a drunk of his purse (jingling with loose copper and a few tarnished silver coins) and thinking himself a lion, abandoned skulking for strutting. Stepping fee from the concealing shadows I soon disabused him of his illusion that he was a lion. It is obvious who can claim that title in Bandahar now.

��As I sit in a low tavern, a squalid den of thieves and whores, spending my new won pelf, I look forward with pleasure, dear diary, to the morrow.

Magnus Stoneslayer.

 

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 14.

A word, dear diary, concerning wine. In these lush southern climes ��� indeed in any country with an established viticulture ��� I drink it by the flagon, by the bottle, by the barrel or amphora.

Some might ask why a burly savage would partake of the grape, the beverage whose very name evokes simpering, bloated, fetid civilization. Why not beer, a man’s drink? Fret, not. I have answers to this question, dear diary.

The beer available in most cities is poor stuff indeed: weak, flavorless, useful only if the water is questionable. I have foundation to judge. The women of my tribe brewed fine ales: hearty, robust, potent enough to inspire both warrior and skald. (I’ll defer discussion of mead until a later entry, dear diary. Suffice it to note that I have not encountered it within any city gates.) So, I can eschew urban ale on grounds of taste alone. Rural inns can be another matter entirely, but that would undermine my thesis, so let the subject lie.

Given my disdain for civilization, is it not hypocritical of me to enjoy its advantages and pleasures? No, and I will give a couple of reasons. Firstly, while my disgust is both intellectual and visceral, I am no crusader or reformer. I recognize civilization’s inherent flaws and am content to let each fall under its own rotting weight without assistance from me. Secondly, I am a barbarian, that is to say a born hedonist. I live life to the fullest, sample experience voraciously. Moderation is a civilized concept, not barbaric. I am far from being a hypocrite. I instead epitomize the savage nature and am thus consistent.

And so, dear diary, I quaff pale amber liquid from an earthenware cup and dark ruby nectar from a dented tin chalice. And I do so in the knowledge that I remain true to myself, and I remain, until tomorrow, yours truly, dear diary.

Morgan Stoneslayer

The other entries in the series to date can be found here:

Savage Journal 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

To Cull or Not to Cull? (But Not Kull.) Plus, Savage Journal Entry 12.

I doubt it is possible to own too many books. Yet at times I peruse my shelves, see a volume, and ask myself if I have any solid reason for keeping it. Why do I hold onto this particular book? Why should I? Why not sell it?

One of the questions I ask myself in these situations is “Will I ever read this again?” Now I do re-read books, so that isn’t an entirely empty question. I’m not sure precisely how many times I’ve read The Lord of the Rings. And I’ll certainly grab a volume or two of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories just to enjoy the exploits of the twain again. That is only two examples. Yet it must be said that most of my books I’ll never read again. Am I likely to pick up Life of Johnson again? Or The Thirty Years War? Probably not. But I might, even if merely for reference purposes. What about The Mask of Circe? Or The Texas-Israeli War: 1999. I recall enjoying those. But I probably won’t read them again. Probably. But I liked them, so best not to take the risk of getting a hankering to revisit them but no longer possessing a copy

What about books I didn’t like? I did not care for The Shadow People. But Margaret St. Clair is in Appendix N, so I really ought to retain at least something of hers, right? If only for merely curatorial purposes. But then there is something like The Road to Corlay, which I didn’t dislike but which left no positive impression. There is no compelling reason to keep it. I have no interest in passing it down to the HA. It was not influential, possesses no importance within the history of genre fiction. Why keep it? Or take Tales of Neveryon, much of which I found repellent. It does, I think, carry some genre importance, but generally of negative connotations. Do I want it on my shelves?

It isn’t as if I’ve never sold books before. There was a period when I was 18 or 19 that I was compelled to sell books for gas money. Sure, I’d like to have those back now. (Or I think I would. I repurchased a copy of The Yngling. I’m afraid the memory of it would have served me better.) I’ve sold others for reasons other than impecuniousness. Once I’d finished assembling all the Horseclans books I sold the collection. It opened up a nice stretch of shelf space.

And yet I remain reluctant to part with what I have. Perhaps it is the instincts of a collector. Or perhaps I’m merely a hoarder with an extremely limited symptomatic range.

If you’d like to help fund my addiction, why not pick up one of my books? If you want to take a break from Amazon purchases, Barnes and Noble can help with such books as Reunion, Under Strange Suns, or Thick As Thieves.

For those still following in the footsteps of Magnus Stoneslayer, here’s the next entry.

SAVAGE JOURNAL

ENTRY 12.

Let me extol the virtue of the humble loincloth, dear diary, that simple, intimate garment, that most minimal of vestments, a bare strip of cloth wound about the loins (hence loin cloth, of course.) It is the first thing a savage possesses, and sometimes the only thing.������ Now, for example.

My trek south to Bandahar took me through land recently annexed to the Zantian Empire, a narrow finger stabbing westward on the map from the clenched fist to the east, a wedge thrust between quiet petty kingdoms to the north and the decadent city states of the south. It was my misfortune to run afoul of an Imperial patrol.

Quite the fracas ensued, dear diary. Unless he is willing to enlist as a Zantian auxiliary, a barbarian receives no affection from an Imperial. Some other time I might just have enlisted; I’ve signed upon the spur of the moment with other military, or quasi-military organizations before. I’m a savage, a creature of the moment. But at this moment I’m on my way to Bandahar and I disdained their enticement to enlist ��� i.e. abuse and threats.

I made a good account of myself, laying several of them low once the action commenced. Eventually I took a glancing blow to the top of my head ��� more than glancing, really, but I’ve a skull like a wild bull.

I woke to a headache and to a surprise. The surprise was that I was alive. The surprise gave way to the commonplace: the Imperials had stripped me of all I owned ��� except my loincloth. Seldom do brigands take the loincloth (or breech clout, I like breech clout. I think I’ll use that or the remainder of this entry, dear diary.) Whether due to reluctance to handle the intimate apparel of another man, discomfort at the thought of where precisely that strip of cloth has spent unknown hours between washings, or a fundamental decency in the basest villain, the breech clout is seldom pilfered. Only when humiliation is the intent will thieves strip the victim of the breech clout, or if the thief is at the uttermost limits of desperation.

So, dear diary, tomorrow I will continue my journey unencumbered by any civilized accouterments. Look out Bandahar.

Mangnus Stoneslayer.

Appendix N: Stanley Weinbaum’s Bizarre Bestiary. Resurrected Post.

January 6, 2019Appendix N: Stanley Weinbaum���s Bizarre Bestiary

Stanley G. Weinbaum tantalizes we later generations. What else could his fertile mind have produced had cancer not taken him at the age of 33?

 

Weinbaum���s enshrinement in Appendix N is another head-scratcher for those who remain incredulous that Dungeons and Dragons��� influences include science fiction. Pick up a Weinbaum collection and there���s nary a wizard or sword-swinging barbarian to be found. His noteworthy output is science fiction and, generally speaking, not soft science fiction, not Burroughs-esque sword and raygun sci-fi.

Though Weinbaum���s degree was in Chemical Engineering, he seems to have had a passion for biology. Bizarre, alien life forms and wild permutations and mutations infuse his writing. Therein, I speculate, lay Gary Gygax���s interest. A reader of Weinbaum���s can glean all manner of foes to bedevil adventurers beyond the usual run of orcs and dragons.

Gygax would certainly have been familiar with A Martian Odyssey, Weinbaum���s masterpiece and most famous story. I���m not going to rehash the extensive influence of this story. A writer who has influenced Bugs Bunny cartoons requires no further boost from me. But perhaps it was Weinbaum���s creepy, intelligent plants that inspired Gygax the most. Perhaps the inscrutable, alien motivations of many of Weinbaum���s creations intrigued him as well: how do adventurers deal with menaces that are not driven by familiar desires and needs?

Stanley G. Weinbaum may be in danger of slipping into obscurity. If you haven���t already given his stuff a read, do yourself and his legacy a favor: pick up a collection. Enjoy the strange trip, then wonder what might have been.

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2018 New Year’s Eve Post. Resurrected Post.

December 30, 20182018 New Year���s Eve PostThe Snow Family

The Web Log wishes you and yours a Happy New Year. Despite a dearth of publication, 2018 was a good year for me. I hope yours suited you. 2019 looks promising, especially as far a publication is concerned. I will keep you updated.

Enough talk. Enough writing (except of course for tomorrow; I must get in my word count before the Bowl Game. But other than that, enough writing for 2018.)

Those of you who stay up late enough to watch the ball drop, have a good time. For the rest of us, may our neighbors keep the noise down and let us get some rest.

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Too Late Movie Reviews: The Tiresome Series Continues. Resurrected Post.

December 23, 2018Too Late Movie Reviews: The Tiresome Series Continues

MBW and the HA flew to Mexico several days ago. I will join them briefly for Christmas before flying back. Oh, what joy, flying on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, two of the most relaxing travel days of the year. But what this enforced solitude at home means for purposes of this web log is that I caught up on several movies many of you saw months ago.

Time, then, once again for me to provide my pointlessly late opinions.

 

First up we have Ready Player One. I wished to see this solely in order to watch the Tomb of Horrors scene. It soon appeared that that part of the book did not make it into the script. Though there was an Easter egg reference to it in the form of a graphic on the back of a van later on in the film. My goodwill, however, is not so readily purchased. The virtue, such as it is, of the novel is the borderline fanatical concentration of eighties nostalgia. The film makers, wisely I suppose, endeavored to broaden the appeal by seeding the movie with a wider range of pop culture ephemera. I could see myself watching the movie frame by frame to catalog all the cameos I could recognize: that is, I could see myself doing this had Ready Player One been a better movie. As it is, I can���t see myself watching it again. The cast is generally bland. The story is even less interesting than the novel���s thin plot: of course that is generally inevitable when adapting a long form work such as a novel into a the compressed duration of a film.

Positives? The effects are generally top notch, and the action, though perforce video-gamish, is fun enough. There, I said something nice.

Second was Deadpool 2. Heh-heh. As I near fifty years of age I am relieved to discover fifteen-year old Ken is still alive and well. I will say Deadpool 2 adhered a trifle more to conventional storytelling than did the original. There appeared to be less anarchic fourth-wall breaking. But that is a minor complaint, and one that perhaps might be disproved by a back-to-back comparison. In other words, I could be wrong, shocking as that might be to some of you. If you are in the target audience for this sort of film you���ll enjoy the hell out of it. If not, best to steer clear. I don���t think there���s a lot of middle ground here.

Third up was ��Avengers: Infinity War. It started off a bit bleak, but soon the humor and playfulness we���ve begun to expect from the Marvel films reasserted itself and I began to enjoy the film. Admittedly it dragged at times, the price the viewers must pay for the apparent requirement to include roles for almost every character shown on screen to date. The ending was also rather bleak, but every viewer over the age of twelve understood it merely as the prelude to the next film ��Avengers: The Reset Button.

Fourth was Solo: A Star Wars Story. I grew up with Star Wars. For me, other than the initial trilogy of films, Han Solo was defined by the Brian Daley novel trilogy. This character ��� this slight, feckless, ineffective character ��� portrayed in Solo wasn���t Han Solo, despite the coincidence in names. Now, with the understanding that this was merely an action-comedy heist film notionally set in the Star Wars universe, Solo is a fun, engaging flick. The acting and the action are both well done. I enjoyed the homage to Firefly in the train heist scene. There is something almost incestuous about it in a meta-fictional sense, given Malcolm Reynolds archetypal descent from Han Solo.

A lot of people hated Solo. I understand that. I guess when it comes right down to it, I don���t care enough about Star Wars to be bothered by what can be viewed as disrespect to beloved characters. So I was able to watch with very low expectations, and the film exceeded them.

Fifth was Ant-Man and the Wasp. This is a masterclass in creating a light, fun, probably forgettable movie. I had a great time watching this. It provided everything I wanted from a superhero movie. It made me laugh. The action scenes were inventive and well-executed. The actors all seemed to be having a good time, with the exception of one of the villains, who would have been fired from the role had she displayed much pleasure. I���d watch this one again.

There you have. All the movie reviews you���ll get from until next time I���m left Home Alone.

View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like ������� 0 comments ������� flag Published on December 23, 2018 12:33

Audiobooks. Resurrected Post.

December 16, 2018Audiobooks

I may have mentioned that I have a substantial commute to work. Others might not consider forty minutes each way substantial, but I do. The point is that I spend a great deal of time each week in the car. Some might spend this time listening to the radio: music or new or talk. I listen to books.

 

I used to check out books on tape or CD at the library. My new ride came without a CD player, something I did not notice until I got it home. I mean, why wouldn���t a car have a CD player? Apparently I am old and thus did not realize music is now delivered via mp3, or streamed, or through some other magical conveyance. Anyway, I had to adapt. So now I download library audiobooks to my mobile phone which then play then via Bluetooth over the car���s media system. It works, but the options remain limited.

Anyway, I go through a lot of books. Often I end up sitting in the car a minute or two after I arrive at my destination in order to finish up a particularly engrossing section.

I love the immersive nature of the medium. Especially if the narrator possesses a pleasant, versatile voice and an engaging delivery. Not all of them do. Some ��� generally celebrities, apparently hired for name recognition rather than vocal skills ��� perform reasonably well, delivering the emotion and intonations in a skillful fashion but fail to pronounce certain words properly. That never fails to eject me from the story. The narrator continues on, of course, but I���m still back at the point where he screwed up the pronunciation of ���mischievous��� or what have you. It might be thirty seconds or so before I am drawn back into the story, wondering what I���ve missed in the meantime. (One of the technical issues with newer audiobook media is the difficulty involved in or impossibility of rewinding. That was never a problem with tapes.)

But the sheer fact that I feel as if I���ve been physically removed from another world speaks to the immersive nature of audio books. Right now I���m revisiting some of Patrick O���Brian���s Aubrey and Maturin novels. I���m not a sailor. I have no notion of what he is describing half the time when he writes of catheads and futtocks. But I don���t care. I don���t need to imagine the specifics, I���m too engrossed in the sensation, the spell woven by the words he employs to depict nautical doings, creating a poetic shell enclosing the reader that evokes the feeling of the events more convincingly than he could by mechanistically conveying the information in a didactic manner. While he was a skilled enough writer that I���m sure he could explain to me how and why to rig a preventer backstay, I���m happier simply existing in the bubble universe he creates through his terminological poetry ��� as read by a gifted narrator, that other, essential component.

So, three cheers for audiobooks.

View more on Ken Lizzi’s website ��Like ������� 0 comments ������� flag Published on December 16, 2018 13:40