Neil Gaiman

For those of you have heard of the science fiction and fantasy writer, Neil Gaiman, my commendations to you, and for those of you who haven't, you're missing out. Recent movies you may know, Stardust and Coraline, were both based on books written by Gaiman and both were very good. I knew from the beginning of this blog that I wanted to write about Gaiman, but I couldn't decide what to write about because everything he writes and produces is so incredibly well done. I decided to highlight two or three of my favourite novels/stories by him. Most, if not all, of his writing has a degree of darkness to it. While I don't immediately look for darker themes in literature, it generally doesn't matter what genre it is when something is well written. I am currently rereading American Gods which is about a man named Shadow and his life after prison and the meeting of Mr. Wednesday, an old god. The idea behind the novel is that when people immigrated to America, they brought their beliefs and gods with them. Some came over of free will, others were slaves, and there were the Native Americans. In present day, those old gods are all but forgotten in this land and are a shadow of their former selves, or feable copies of what they are where they are still worshipped in the world. New gods of technology, obesity, Internet, and more are rising up and always trying to oust the old gods. Some of the old gods who are still strong enough to fight, band together as a front against the takeover of these new gods.

I highly recommend this book, as well as my other two personal favourites from Gaiman, Good Omens and The Graveyard Book. Good Omens is a somewhat comedic take on the Apocalypse and what would happen if the Anti-Christ grew up in the wrong family. It was co-written by another Terry Pratchett, the author of the Discworld series. This book is my personal favorite by Gaiman and it is usually the personal favourite of most who have read his stories. The Graveyard Book is a shorter book about a boy whose family is killed and he ends up growing up in a graveyard and parents by ghosts.

Has anyone else read anything by the author Neil Gaiman or has any favourite books or stories they'd like to share?

Spacial Trayshures

American English has evolved extensively from the days of Columbus and the Pilgrims. This evolution has not always been in the right direction. Certain words and phrases tend to take the spotlight and become overused and outdated. Unfortunately some words skip the whole dying out phase and are still frequently used by the public, celebrities, and political figures.

According to a poll taken by the Marist Institute for the Public Opinion, the words “whatever” and “you know” ranked highest as the most annoying. Caroline Kennedy was put in the spotlight with her use of the phrase “you know” 142 times in one interview. Some runner-up annoying phrases and clichés were “it is what it is” and “at the end of the day”.

One my biggest issues with the English language are the people who speak it. From living in Pittsburgh, you can have many colorful pronunciations of words. Instead of “I’m going to go downtown”, you may get something like “I’m gunna go dahntahn”. My personal favorite is the mispronunciation of anything that is or rhymes with “special”. The following is a list of the correct words, followed by the obvious incorrect ones.
1. special - ‘space’ial
2. treasure – trayshure
3. measure – mayshure
4. flashlight – flaishlight
5. picture – paycture

I don’t think I will even give “yinz” more than one sentence of mention, it’s that bad.
How have you seen the English language tortured?

Borderlands

A couple days ago, a new RPG based, fps video game called "Borderlands" came out and I've been playing it nearly every night since I got it. You're basically a treasure hunter on an alien planet called Pandora. Your aim is to discover a fabled alien vault and discover what treasures it may hold. You level your character through fighting enemies and doing missions. The idea of this game closely related to that of another game, World of Warcraft, but on a smaller scale. Having played WoW for many years and only in the past year recovered fully from my addiction to that game, it is nice to play another game that is very similar but isn't so time consuming as warcraft is. Also there is a near unlimited variance on the weapons available so every time you play and even as you're playing, you never see the same thing twice. There are shotguns, revolvers, sub-machine guns, combat rifles, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers plus thousands of different kids of each. All of the weapons are futuristic in some sense and some even have elemental type bonuses where they could perhaps do fire damage on top of bullet damage, which is awesome. The game is also class based, so you can level the different attributes your specific class has. This game is definitely worth the money and definitely has replay value.

USS Enterprise > Aircraft Hangars

Today in between my several midterm tests, I decided to go home and relax. I turned on the television to the History channel that I frequently watch. Modern Marvels was on and the episode was about air and space craft hangars. They ranged from WW2 hangars all the way to the NASA space shuttle hangars. The most interesting one was the one they built for the assembling rockets back during the space race. This thing is HUGE. I wouldn't use all capitals if I didn't mean it. They compared this hangar to a skyscrsaper in New York City. The hangar is about four times as high, taller than even the Statue of Liberty.

I decided this was relevant and worth writing about because it shows how much anything is possible. Even fifty years ago, who would have thought the construction of a building this tall would be possible and that the purpose of it would be to assemble shuttles that go into outer space. This was science fiction to the previous years until it happened. It gives me hope that one day I or my decendents will be on a U.S.S Enterprise exploring the frontiers of space.

Paranormal Activity

I went to see Paranormal Activity at the Waterfront last night. It was pretty scary. I don't know if this counts as science fiction or not, but i figured it was close enough and scary enough that I could talk about it. Scary movies aren't my thing to begin with but this was even beyond that. I found myself watching it through my hands most of the time and I definitely didn't watch the last 10 seconds or so. I was told this was a good thing because those 10 seconds were terrifying. There were some people walking out of the theatre saying they were unimpressed. I'm sure some of these were legit but I could tell some of them were saying for "tough guy's" sake. After one kid remarked it was stupid, his girlfriend replied, "I think it's suppose to be fictional." Boyfriend was visibly and audibly relieved it wasn't a true story, much to his earlier statement.
I would tell more, but I don't want to ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it and want to. It comes out in more and closer theatres this weekend, Delmont and Greensburg Carmike theatres included.

"All You Zombies"

"All You Zombies" was a short story written by Robert A. Heinlein. It is one of the most well known science fiction short stories and it was written in one day over 50 years ago. This story involves time travel and several time paradoxes. The story is about a young women who gets pregnant by an older man but during childbirth, the doctors realize their young women has both male and female reproductive organs. Complications of giving birth force the young women to have a sex change. Now, his baby is taken away and he goes on with his life but goes back in time, with someone named the Bartender, later on and impregnates a young women. The Bartender is the one who goes forward in time an takes the baby and puts it in an orphanage in past. It turns out every character in this story is the same person. At the end the Bartendder is contemplating his life and says "I know where I came from—but where did all you zombies come from?".

With Halloween coming up, I'm trying to decide on costume ideas. There are several different ones I am considering. My group of friends all want to dress up as Halo characters and seeing as how I'm the shortest, I was opted for being the Grunt.

But that would require a lot of work because I'm pretty sure there are no Grunt costumes out there. And it's not fair everyone else gets to be Spartans and Elites. My second options was the default zombie, not like 28 days later zombies but like traditional slow shambling zombies.

Found these pictures browsing around online. I got a pretty good kick out of them.

Fringe

For fans of good sci-fi, the Fox prime-time Series Fringe is definitely worth checking out. The shows, based in present time, revolves around fringe science and it's consequences. As defined by Wikipedia.org, "Fringe science is scientific inquiry in an established field of study which departs significantly from mainstream or orthodox theories, and is classified in the "fringes" of a credible mainstream academic discipline". The study of these unorthodox theories is what the series is based on all the while following a division of the FBI that examines the unnatural phenomena.

The division consists of Olivia Dunham an FBI agent, Walter Bishop a deranged fringe scientist and his once estranged son Peter, and their lab assistant Astrid. The teams purpose is to investigate the pattern of mysterious events on a national scale, and understand the bigger picture using Walter's experience in the field. Some of these events relate biogenetics, teleportation, reanimation, psychic abilities, and bio-terrorism. By following these cases the team often finds themselves in interesting and dangerous situations. I would expect nothing else from writer/director J.J. Abrams.

If you are even remotely interested in science fiction or even action or horror, I would definitely check out Fringe. I look forward to Thursday evening every week and I always end up re-watching each episode several times.

ODST

I've been playing a lot of ODST, the new Halo game released last week and I sincerely wish it wasn't just science fiction. As an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper) soldier, your job is first line offense. You arrive at the planet you are invading and are dropped in from orbit in your own personal pod full of guns and ammunition and supplies for several weeks. Their job is secure a location for a temporary base so the larger force of infantry and vehicles can safely land and unload. They also wear armor of considerable quality and have a pretty sweet built-in HUD in their helmets.

"It's a Good Life"

"It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby is a science fiction short story ab0ut a town "in" Ohio. The scarcely populated, 46 people, town of Peaksville, Ohio is home to a young boy, Anthony, with immense telepathic and -kinetic powers. Being barely through the toddler years, at the age of 3, the teaching of good morals and values has not had time to take place. Whatever Anthony thinks or feels, happens. The other townspeople, including Anothony's family, have to be very careful about what they are thinking, too strong of an emotion will capture Anthony's attention. Whether he likes you or not, his solutions to your problems are not something you want to happen. Thinking jumbled thoughts or mumbling is the only way to deter the young boy from paying attention to you. There is no possible for the people of Peaksville to leave and get away.
When Anthony was born, the doctor screamed and tried to kill him but the newborn wailed and the rest of the world was gone, either the town moved or the rest of the world was destroyed. The members of Peaksville are forced into coming over for dinner and watching "television" because it is what Anthony wants. If somebody is openly unhappy with Anthony or think "bad" thoughts around him, they are never seen again.



Fact or Science Fiction?...

I definitely would never want events or fiction details of this story to become fact. The first time I read this story, I remember thinking how awful it would be to have to live in such an oppressive society where thinking the wrong thing or acting just a little out of line could silence you forever. It takes the idea of a dictatorship just a bit further where not even your mind is safe from being probed.

No one else probably thinks about science fiction as much I do but one of the first things I think of is "what would I do if this actually happened?". I think of the pros and cons and just dwell on it for awhile. Like if someone could create anything with his mind, he could solve so many problems! There would be no shortages, of anything. He could think away disease and illness. He could think up more finite resources such as crude oil and fossil fuels such as carbon. I wouldn't have to worry about paying high gas prices. But who would regulate or control this person. What if, one day he just decides to do what he wants and at that point, there is nothing we could do about it. The good things really don't outweigh the bad in this.

This shorty story was also made into a Twilight Zone episode in the 60's. You can watch it here ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfGWvexg90w&feature=related