Shadow Wrought's Journal: Some Quick $.02 Reviews

Here are some books, movies, and games that I've either read watched, or played recently and some thoughts on them. FWIW.

• Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan. This is Book 11 in the Wheel of Time series and is alleged by Jordan to be the second to last in the series. I finally feel like I can believe him. After 10 books of plots, subplots, and character arcs suddenly appearing things finally start getting tied together. Subplots are resolved, larger plots move forward for a change, and characters stop arriving. Tarmon Gaidon also looms as something that is going to be happening in the next few months, as opposed to within the next few years. I had started feeling a bit put off by the series because nothing ever seems to end, but now I have actually decided that if Book 12 is indeed the last, then i will re-read the whole series before finishing off 12.
• Friday by Robert Heinlein. I have not read a lot of Heinlein, though I really enjoyed Starship Troopers (much cooler than the movie- I think that if they made the movie now, instead of almost a decade ago, the translation would have been much better) I had not read any of his other works. A friend recommended Friday and I thought it was a fantastic book. Somewhat spooky is how prescient heinlein was about the future world captured within Friday
  The big controversy about Friday is that, early on, the main character is raped and tortured. I have still not fully figured out how I feel about this controversy, but I can say that depictions of rape in movies or books have always left me feeling extremely uncomfortable. FWIW I have always felt that the actual depiction of a rape, especially on screen, in many ways detracts from the pain caused by women who have been the victims of rape. So I cannot wholesalely endorse Friday because of that. What I will say though is that the rape scene is unlike any that I had previously encountered and that, despite the rape, Friday maintains her cool and power throughout. This chapter of pages has already generated far more words, thoughts, and essays, so I will leave it at that, especially since I'm still figuring out where I stand on it.
• Barry Trotter and the Dead Horse by Michael Gerber. This is a straight lampooning of the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. It is hilarious. Well, as long as you enjoy a book full of bathroom humor, bad puns, and self depracating jaunts outside the fourth wall. It is apparantly the third book to have come out and I thought it was just a plain fun book to read. That the Dork Lord Valumart tries to kill Barry right under the nose of Aldus Bumblmore and that Viktor draws animated x-rated doodles is pretty much all you need to know as to whether or not this book is for you.
• Doom the movie. It doesn't stay true to the story of the game but they never pretended like they were going to. It is certainly influenced by Doom, however, and is a fun movie to watch. Especially on DVD so you can comment on it;-) It has the normal collection of war flick personalities (from the new guy to the psychopath all the way to the religious type) and certainly doesn't leave you guessing, but like I said its a fun romp. The FPS view so advertised does NOT predominate the movie either. So if that kept you from seeing it earlier, as it did me, then don't worry. It fits the way they use it, and it is done as more of a tribute than as a plot moving device.
• XIII for GameCube. This FPS is rendered like a graphic novel and even has little cartoon frames appear to show head shot replays;-) I have only really just dabbled in the multiplayer arena, so I cannot comment on the main gameplay- yet. What I can say is that multiplayer is just plain fun. I've been playing it with my stepsons and we all just have a lot of fun with it. It was a great investment for $8 at Game Crazy;-)

Finally, I have not been able to learn any coding sicne my last JE on the subject. With a pair of trials in February (1 win, 1 hung) and my wife's first wedding as a coordinator, it was a busy time. (BTW_ the wedding went off great and I am very proud of my wife and what she did.) I'm only just now feeling like I have some mental energy returning. NCAA Football 2003 requires a lot less noggin juice than Python, so that's been my escape other than those listed. Starting this weekend, however, I will once again begin learning. After all, I have a screensaver, a Football predictor, and a couple three games that I need write;-)

Hope you all enjoy the weekend- its supposed to snow here!

Re: Starship Troopers

[Aumaden]

If you liked "Starship Troopers", try "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman. The warships accelerate to some percentage of c; out to a single battle and back. Troops arrive home after a year of service only to find ~30 years have elapsed on earth.

Re: Starship Troopers

[Shadow Wrought]

Sweet. I will add that to the list. I'm almost done with Glory Road by Heinlein, and then I only have one other book before I'll be looking.