The world came to me in sporadic bursts of colors. Sounds were beyond my ability to register the reality of my surroundings. The long walk leading to the staff's living quarters became shorter due to the intermittent darkness brought by my erratic blinking. My depleted energy reserves barely allowed me to perform route correction. Still, I managed to imagine myself raising arms and mumbling "brrrraaaaiiiiiinss;" it put a grin on my face. I was a picture perfect zombie after three days of troubleshooting my piece of the elephant. Back then, we called it "the elephant." Each and every one of us was hired to design a pretty specific piece of equipment under the most stringent specifications. Each and every one of us was kept in the dark as to what other pieces of hardware were being built. Our confidentiality agreements clearly stated that any breach of secrecy were to be considered an immediate forfeit of the involved parties' remuneration. The certainty of being under surveillance 24-7 and the lack of interest in losing a seven figures paycheck kept our mouths shut off.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The Age of Odin by James Lovegrove...
I came to The Age of Odin after finishing reading the other two books of the trilogy written by James Lovegrove, The Age of Ra and The Age of Zeus. I enjoyed the book.
For starters, the switch from third-person omniscient narrative to first-person narrative was refreshing. Lovegrove's really found a compelling human voice for this story.
Also, I find his fantasy style to be more honed than his science fiction attempts. In reducing the science fiction elements to a few constructions by the end of the book, and changing the focus from character development from campaign description to character development through human interaction, Lovegrove manages to entertain and fulfill his role as storyteller.
The novel is good; it kept me interested and I almost didn't realize that he was using here the same well defined sectioning that he used in the previous deliveries of the trilogy. Furthermore, I really loved the way how he opens up his hand and delivers all the subtleties of the story twists through character interaction; I failed to put one plus one together and predict them.
In short, it is a good fast read. The best of the trilogy. I hope you enjoy as much as I did reading it.
Thank you Mr. Lovegrove for these hours of entertainment.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Last weekend movies...
It seems like this weekend I will manage to write about last weekend and this weekend movies for the first time...
- Moon, *****An awesome movie! I was surprised about the much that good acting, and just a few of actors, can do when I first watched Solaris and now the feeling comes back to me again. Sam Rockwell does a great job portraying the engineer in the moon and Kevin Spacey voice work is good. As always with the good films I will keep this without spoilers. A must watch! Go, fetch your copy now!
- Tropa de Elite 2, ****The second film following BOPE, the elite troop squad of Rio de Janeiro military police. It is a fiction work portraying the violent reality and mob dynamics of Rio. It is an action packed film with a lot of socio-political discourse located in different layers. I would love to see an equivalent Mexican film but, wait, it most probably will be stopped by the corrupt politicians and officials in our tricolor Banana Republic.
- The Messenger, **War, loses, KIA, and the messenger delivering the bad news. I wish I could say something objective, but a very different war is ravaging my home state and I really cannot find a way to put into words the fear that something can happen to one of the family...
- Little Fockers, **The adventures of psychologically castrated Gaylord Focker and his father in law keep going on as the extended Focker family deals with cheating and infidelity.
- Gulliver's Travels, **A modern time retelling of the classic with the same name written by Jonathan Swift centered in Lilliput only and with the romantic comedy twist. When will the movies about lucky losers without attitude/brains/charisma will stop?
- Megamind, ****It seems like redemption season has not finished yet. Good but not great animation.
- Black Dynamite, **This is a parody, I hope, of those 70s b list films and tv series on black empowerment. It is great to see extras change in a take, different cars being burned, and all those glitches that made those old films funny. Awesome cheesy/pimpy lines and nunchakus too.
This week, there was no episode of "The Big Bang Theory" neither of Glee! but I managed to catch up with the third season of Castle. It is still a good entertaining tv series, a must see.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
The Age of Zeus by James Lovegrove...
As you, my four readers, already know, last weekend I got my lazy derrière all the way up to Page One in Vivo City and got myself "The Pantheon Trilogy" written by James Lovegrove.
After finishing the first of the trilogy, "The Age of Ra," I was a little dispirited but I started with the second book of the trirlogy, "The Age of Zeus," as soon as possible in order to finish with what I thought will be an ordeal. I am very happy to say that "The Age of Zeus" was a better read, all in all, and I do not regret buying all the trilogy at once.
The age of Zeus is a kind of militaristic science-fiction story set up in an alternate version of our earth. Note, that it is not militarisctic-science-fiction any more. Now, this book is proper scifi with powered robotic armor and genetically engineered humans in almost every page. But it remains a "kind of militaristic" as the description of strategy and tactics still lack that flow and feeling of military novels.
It seems that Lovegrove favors a very well defined three sections structure, with the introductions made in the first, again a hundred and something pages, the plot developed in the second reaching the climax by its end, now a three hundred and something pages of compact short stories dealing with well defined operations, and the third bringing the great finale, again a hundred and something.
This book is neither a prequel nor a sequel of Age of Ra. It is set in an alternate earth and only shares the motif with Age of Ra.
All in all, "The Age of Zeus" is a good, fast and no-brainer read, it took me some ten hours of bus and before-bed time, with a couple of interesting twists that you can imagine and figure out but they are not so plain, simple and clear as in "The Age of Ra."
Go and get your copy, you will enjoy it.
After finishing the first of the trilogy, "The Age of Ra," I was a little dispirited but I started with the second book of the trirlogy, "The Age of Zeus," as soon as possible in order to finish with what I thought will be an ordeal. I am very happy to say that "The Age of Zeus" was a better read, all in all, and I do not regret buying all the trilogy at once.
The age of Zeus is a kind of militaristic science-fiction story set up in an alternate version of our earth. Note, that it is not militarisctic-science-fiction any more. Now, this book is proper scifi with powered robotic armor and genetically engineered humans in almost every page. But it remains a "kind of militaristic" as the description of strategy and tactics still lack that flow and feeling of military novels.
It seems that Lovegrove favors a very well defined three sections structure, with the introductions made in the first, again a hundred and something pages, the plot developed in the second reaching the climax by its end, now a three hundred and something pages of compact short stories dealing with well defined operations, and the third bringing the great finale, again a hundred and something.
This book is neither a prequel nor a sequel of Age of Ra. It is set in an alternate earth and only shares the motif with Age of Ra.
All in all, "The Age of Zeus" is a good, fast and no-brainer read, it took me some ten hours of bus and before-bed time, with a couple of interesting twists that you can imagine and figure out but they are not so plain, simple and clear as in "The Age of Ra."
Go and get your copy, you will enjoy it.
The Age of Ra by James Lovegrove...
Last weekend I got my lazy derrière all the way up to Page One in Vivo City and got myself "The Pantheon Trilogy" written by James Lovegrove. I came to the trilogy without any prejudice and without a clue. The books seemed to be either science-fiction or speculative-fiction. I took the bait and bought the three of them.
"The Age of Ra" is a kind of military-science-fiction work set in an alternate current time earth. I say "kind of" because it is not really that military, it lacks the vivid descriptions of tactical maneuvers of the military genre, and it is not really that scifi as the only futuristic equipment are the god-powered weapons and arms.
The book deals with an alternate modern era earth that is identical to ours but for the fact that the Egyptian Pantheon rule over the human population of the planet. In the beginning it brought memories of "The Lathe of Heaven" by the greatest Ursula K. Le Guin, but I was too fast to make the comparison.
The story is simple, it is quite possible that by the first hundred and something pages, where the first third of the book dealing with the introduction of characters finishes, you will figure out what will happen in the following first hundred and something pages, where the main plot develops and gets epic.
Actually, the book is a good no-brainer read. It flows easily, the plain story helps a lot with the flow, and I finished reading it in some seven hours distributed in mornings and afternoons at the bus and before-bed time.
Truth be honored, by the end of the book I was banging my head in the wall for buying the trilogy but I started the second one and I liked it better.
The book deals with an alternate modern era earth that is identical to ours but for the fact that the Egyptian Pantheon rule over the human population of the planet. In the beginning it brought memories of "The Lathe of Heaven" by the greatest Ursula K. Le Guin, but I was too fast to make the comparison.
The story is simple, it is quite possible that by the first hundred and something pages, where the first third of the book dealing with the introduction of characters finishes, you will figure out what will happen in the following first hundred and something pages, where the main plot develops and gets epic.
Actually, the book is a good no-brainer read. It flows easily, the plain story helps a lot with the flow, and I finished reading it in some seven hours distributed in mornings and afternoons at the bus and before-bed time.
Truth be honored, by the end of the book I was banging my head in the wall for buying the trilogy but I started the second one and I liked it better.
Last weekend movies...
Two of them were chosen by lovely Lyx and one by me. Of course, my choose was the teen movie...
- Inception, *****Truth be told, I have become a fan of Christopher Nolan almost as much as I am a fan of Darren Aronofsky. Inception is beautifully piece of art; it's story, storytelling, photography and visual effects are as close to perfection as you can get. All of the actors make a good job portraying their characters. And, the best thing of them all, I never knew what was coming next. As you, my two readers, know, that is what wins my confidence vote. A must see!
- Easy A, ****When I choose this film, I was expecting just another teen movie. One when I could just sit down, turn my brain off and relax. Do not jump to conclusions too fast, this is a no-brainer. But the story does not suck big time, the story telling is quite fluid and fresh and the actors manage to do their job. I was won when I realized the title was a reference to "The Scarlet Letter" of Nathaniel Hawthorne which still sits half read in my bookcase. It was great to see footage and good references to the 1926 film and not so good reference to the 1995 film, where the great Gary Oldman and Robert Duvall acted. If you have nothing to do and want to laugh a good time, this is your film.
- It's Complicated, ***I cannot say that I wanted to watch this film. I really did not have a clue about what it was about. Moreover, I was starting to be afraid of the existence of a new kind of movie genre: the grown-up movie; that is a teen movie, but with grown up characters in the range from 40s to 70s instead of teens; the ones with characters in their 20s to 30s are called romantic comedies. And it is confirmed, this is everything a teen movie is but played with characters in their 60s. Anyway, the movie is good and a good laugh too.
I sat down and watched the latest episode of "The Big Bang Theory"; that is, episode 20 of season 4. It was back to see useless nerd saved by farm girl penny but yet not even close to being one of the best ones. So far this season was getting closer to the super funny first season and took a dump with this last episode.
I have also managed to finish the first two seasons of the animated series "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." I think I am starting to become a fan of animated films and television series. The Clone Wars fills in the gaps in between the second and third episodes of the Star Wars saga. This particular 3D CGI tv series is made in Singapore! Somewhere in this beautiful city, someone is animating Anakin Skywalker and all the Jedi council and making them wage war!
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