Sunday, January 16, 2011

I'm recovering from a cold type thing this weekend

cold kind of a day today. I had a decent day today even though I didn’t venture outside to go anywhere.

Most of the day was spent reading “The Automatic Detective,” which I finished earlier Saturday evening. So here’s a brief “review:”


*****/5 Stars


Synopsis: Our hero of this tale is a robot cabbie named Mac. Mac Megaton’s friends and neighbours (The Bleakers) have been kidnapped. The story is a delightful romp through the City as Mac tries to find his friends and finds himself in an alien conspiracy in the process.

Pros: Strong character development in a nice mix of techno jargon that isn’t over the top. World building is handled expertly and the narrative flow is fast paced.

Cons: The villains could have been made more threatening to the MC‘s supporting cast. The supporting cast didn’t have enough substance in them for me to care about.


Bottom line: This was a fun read and might just be the best book that I’ve read this year. It’s impression will be with me for a long time.

We have a few more days of this cold snap to contend with. So far this winter we've had about 50 Cm of snow, which is roughly about 2 feet. We begin to warm up here in a few days. Hopefully this next warming trend will be with us until at least the end of the month. I love winter and the snow, makes us appreciate Spring, summer, fall. I grew up in the lower mainland in the 1960's and '70's and for the most part we got very little snow, if any. I recall maybe once growing up 1970 ish when we actually had a good dump of snow on Regan Ave at the old place. I like winter, I just don't like severe winter.

Now I'm right in the first 10 pages of reading Alastair Reynolds "Pushing Ice." It's a big book and I don't think I'll have it read until about the end of February if that, what with all the work I have to do at the Lodge coming up in February. It's work I want to do anyway.

I haven't been doing so good at the job lately though since I got that $1800 banner ad cold sale on the card, last Wednesday. Thursday I got nothing and Friday I got nothing. My commission on the banner ad though is supposed to be nice. I'll believe it when I see it. That sale was the largest single card sale I have ever got in all my 10 years where I work.

I'm not one for Vampire movies but after seeing the trailer for "Priest" yesterday afternoon on Attack of the Show, this looks really good. I think its supposed to be coming out in May of this year. There are other trailers on YouTube. Priest is a science fiction, fantasy, martial arts, horror, type movie. This is one movie, I want to see this summer.


I haven't heard anything yet about Matt Smith and new Doctor Who episodes for 2011 but I imagine they are in production and I hope they keep the whole production team from last season. "Discovering" Doctor Who last year was one of the best things about 2010. When I can I also like to watch the previous Doctor before Smith, David Tennant. I wish I would have discovered the Doctor back then. It's great science fiction, I love it.


Coast (as usual on a Saturday night) has another boring topic but I think I have a new SF Signal Post I can listen to to fill in on these Saturday nights when Coast to Coast has lame Ian Punnet topics. Sorry Ian but your shows are lame. Anyway, that's about all for now.

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