Mare Somniorum

I just got a hold of someone I hadn’t talk to in years.  Well, close to a decade probably at this point.  The upside?  I got to extend some birthday wishes and a dinner is in the works.  Good tidings! It’s also great to hear that peope you knew are doing well and essentially living the life you expected them to want — at least in the general sense.  Sometimes I almost believe this pale blue dot can be a happy place.

Yarr, what do you do when you’ve been up for ~35 hours and you want to do something before bed?  You go see a movie.  Preferably a movie that manages to keep you awake.  I’ll give you this much, if you like Simpsons at all, you’ll stay awake for this one.  As far as cartoon-goes-to-the-big screen goes, it can’t get done much better.  They keep the people, the pace, the blend of humor and the entirety of their bravado, and they make it work for an hour and a half.  It’s quite a feat.

The storyline is as you’d gather Simpsonesque, we wobble a bit here and there as the family goes through less than good times, as per usual.  It starts of funny and keeps on going, there aren’t many moments between laughs, be it from slapstick, subdued jokes, internal references, personalities gone wrong, the whole nine yards — and this without feeling like a string of jokes or a repeated string of the same joke.  Well done!

Should you see it?  If you like the TV series, yeah, your really really should.  If you don’t like the TV series, I’m sure you and that other dude can meet up and do something the two of you.  The rest of us have a movie to watch.

It was one of those things, I’d decided to go on a binge of Gaiman and didn’t quite know where to start. I’d read “American Gods” and his Sandman-related works and I had liked both. However, when I picked up “Neverwhere” I had no idea at all what I was getting into. I didn’t know the story, I didn’t know the people and I realize I didn’t know Gaiman.

In hindsight, which is always 20/20, I should have seen a fastball coming. It should have been apparent that hey, this is different. And I mean different, not as in “oh look, names are replaced and the goose became a dog”, it is completely out of, well, neverwhere.

The story is simple, a normal man runs into a girl who’s world isn’t quite what he’s used to. The idea that the girl is named “Door” is just another one of those details that makes you boggle a little to begin with. After the first quarter of the book though, this tale is spun so well you’re dizzy with all the magic. The writing is beyond eloquent — it is mind-boggling in its detail. “Neverwhere” is one of the best written pieces of text I have ever read. Gaiman comes out blazing with his dictionary on fire — without ever giving the impression that he’s showing off. It’s never inappropriate, never out of place, never wrong. It’s all good, all the time.

Another bit that does make this truly different is that it’s a short book, it’s not a short story but it’s not that far off. It is however just long enough. The story is told from page to page and doesn’t seek to actually tell more than it does.

The plot is great, the characters are outstanding and the writing is excellence defined. Pick up “Neverwhere”, sit down, enjoy. The next hours of your life will be some of your best.

“Fallen Dragon” is most likely the most consistent work I’ve read from Hamilton. It’s not a bazillion pages long and it doesn’t contain stories about the friend of the waiter who met a guy on the street who ran into a character that was mentioned in passing by someone who might constitute a major character. It is however one of the best story-based sci-fi books I’ve read in ages.

This is one story told as just that, it doesn’t try to dazzle you with extras, blind you with plot twists and hide itself under a ton of text. It’s solid and quite well paced, it’s also quite an interesting story, you might find yourself caring about the people involved, which I do admit isn’t the main draw of some of his other works.

So aye, I liked it. If you’re looking to start on Hamiltion, or giving him another shot, try it. It’s not hard sci-fi and it’s not the big evil needing to be put down. It’s quite refreshing in both regards.