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| Thursday, October 24, 2019 04:13 PM |
| Book Report: Hyperion |
 by Fëanor |
I could have sworn I'd read Dan Simmons' Hyperion before and been disappointed by it, but maybe I was thinking of some other book. The overall story was vaguely familiar, especially "The Priest's Tale," but most of it was entirely new to me. And I'm still not sure how I feel about it. But I did read the whole thing, and now I want to read the sequel, so I certainly didn't hate it. It's a really interesting book, with some fascinating ideas and moving stories. Plus it ends on a damn cliffhanger, and I have to know what happens next!! But for a famous entry in a genre that is meant to be so forward-looking, it's an oddly backward-looking book.
I should note, I was going to try to leave spoilers out of my write-up, but I ended up... not doing that. So beware!
Hyperion is a sci-fi version of The Canterbury Tales, set in a future when humanity has left its dead home behind and formed an interstellar web of societies known as The Hegemony of Man ("Man"? Really?). Like The Canterbury Tales, it's about a small group of pilgrims on a religious journey who spend their travel time each telling a tale of how they came to be on the pilgrimage. The tales are used to critique modern society and religion. There's a twist, though: we're informed at the beginning that one of the pilgrims is a spy and a traitor to the Hegemony. Which is it?
Taken together, the tales also tell an over-arching story about a mysterious, monstrous, and possibly wish-fulfilling Lord of Pain (also known as the Shrike) that lives among time-travelling tombs on a haunted, alien world. That world, Hyperion, is the destination of the pilgrimage, and it's also become the center of an interstellar conflict that may very well flare up into a war that will end humanity. The combatants in the conflict include Hegemony military forces, a nomadic space-bound group known as the Ousters (sort of outerspace Vikings), and a group of artificial intelligences known as the TechnoCore. Each of the pilgrims has their own secrets - most of them quite horrific - and their own perspectives on the Shrike.
"The Priest's Tale: The Man Who Cried God" is first, and is unabashedly a horror story, even making use of the epistolary format that Stoker leverages so effectively in Dracula. The horror of "The Priest's Tale" is religious, existential, and physical. Unfortunately, it also relies a bit on ableism. The story is told at a remove, as our narrator is presenting the journal of another character who he knew only slightly years ago, although he does eventually become caught up in the tale himself. The journal slowly reveals the horrific details of an awful parody of Catholicism that exists in secret on Hyperion, and which seems to have some distant connection to the Shrike (although the nature of that connection remains unclear). This tale is the least connected and the most unnecessary to the overarching story of the novel, but it is disturbing and effective. What it's trying to say about religion I'm not totally sure. In the face of this twisted mimicry of his religion, one character actually finds his faith is restored. But he also ends up crucified on an electrified tree, dying over and over again in horrible agony, so maybe that changes his mind.
Next is "The Soldier's Tale: The War Lovers." That title can be taken in two ways, and both are accurate to the story: it is about those who love war, but also about those who love each other in the midst of war. An infamous colonel tells the secret history of his love affair with a dream woman, and her connection to the Shrike, and to his own transformation from a military man to a man who fights for peace. The sex scenes are graphic and pretty gross. This book is very much a straight white man's book; even the one story told from the perspective of a woman (which we'll get to in a bit) feels weighted with a male outlook. For a book about cultures on alien worlds in the far future, it's also stubbornly heteronormative and really rather conservative in its descriptions of culture, gender, and sex. I don't think the existence of gay people is even mentioned in its entire length. The woman in this story is a kind of succubus; a feminine embodiment of war. Violence and sex are blended together until one final act of love looks likely to bring about a galactic apocalypse. How exactly, it's unclear. Although this is science fiction, a lot of what happens in it feels more in the fantasy vein, with monsters and magic and maidens struck down by terrible curses. But more of the overarching story is revealed in this tale: the Shrike appears to be seeking the end of the universe through some ultimate conflict, and is trying to use the Colonel as its instrument.
The third story is "The Poet's Tale: Hyperion Cantos." This story would seem to be particularly important, as the series of which this novel is the first entry shares its name (Hyperion Cantos). It's meta in more than just that way, too; the main character here is a famous poet who has come to believe he wrote the Shrike into existence and is in some sense responsible for the death and destruction it's caused. He even seems to believe that as he continues to write his Hyperion Cantos, he is writing the future - creating reality. It's possible we're meant to think of him as the author of this book - as if he has somehow written the story he's a character in. But again, for a character in a book about the future, he is very traditional, to the point of being almost antiquated. He's a bawdy, grossly male and heterosexual hedonist. He's constantly compared to a satyr, and most of his references and quotations (in fact most of the references and quotations in the book) are to very old works of art. Admittedly, references to made-up future works that the reader doesn't know about wouldn't have as much of an impact, but this book was published in 1989. Why have your poet quote Shakespeare, the Bible, and John Keats? Why is the only movie referenced The Wizard of Oz? Other art was made in between The Wizard of Oz and 1989! Our poet does admit he is very backward-looking, and his most famous work, The Dying Earth (which shares its title with a famous series by Jack Vance, a fact which Simmons slyly mentions in the book) is an elegy to "Old Earth," humanity's now dead (murdered, in fact, by an event known as "The Big Mistake") home planet. And later in the book, a character decries this civilization's increasingly desperate and violent attempts to hold onto old ways. But is that just lampshading, or is the backward nature of these characters and their society a legitimate theme of the novel? I'm not sure. I know I really disliked the Poet's Tale until its narrator's mind is destroyed by cheap suspended animation, and he has to rebuild his vocabulary from nine words (most scatological profanity). This section is poignant and funny. I was also fascinated by the idea of the poet writing the Shrike into existence, and the drama and romance of him haunting the ruins of the Poet's City on Hyperion, and his fiery confrontation with Sad King Billy and his Muse.
The most effective and moving story is definitely "The Scholar's Tale: The River Lethe's Taste Is Bitter." As you might have guessed from the ancient reference in the title, it also features some of the most traditional, conservative characters and societies that we've yet seen in the book. It's hard to believe a family unit and small town this traditional could exist in the future; it wouldn't be out of place in '50s America. The husband calls his wife "Mother," and the wife calls her husband "Father," and they bought their little girl a bike for her birthday, and the couple met at a college party where the man spilled something on the woman. The man is a scholar and researcher, but his research topics are things like a story in the Bible, and a writer who would be even more ancient in his time than he is already in ours. The scholar's name is also an extremely traditional Jewish name: Sol Weintraub. He is even dubbed The Wandering Jew in the tale. Why is this future so old?
Still, maybe it's partly because this setting and cast are so familiar that this story is so effective. Weintraub's daughter (who also has an incredibly traditional name: Rachel Sarah Weintraub) ends up traveling to Hyperion to perform research there for her graduate dissertation. While she's alone one night in one of the mysterious structures called the Time Tombs (structures that are somehow moving backward through time, and that appear to be connected somehow to the Shrike), she experiences a paranormal-like event that infects her with a unique disease: Merlin syndrome. She begins living backwards, becoming younger and younger each day, and each time she sleeps, her memories reset to what they were when she was originally that age, and she forgets everything she experienced since then. What follows is a brutal, heart-rending tale, as her parents try desperately to help their daughter while she fades slowly and inexorably away from them. Weintraub begins to have a dream where he is ordered by a God-like figure (possibly the Shrike) to bring his daughter to Hyperion and sacrifice her, and he becomes obsessed with the story in the Bible where Abraham is ordered by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. Weintraub ultimately decides that any God who demands obedience before all else, any God who would expect a worshiper to be willing to execute his own family member, is an evil God that does not deserve worship. This is a deep and powerful story and probably the best in the book.
The next story is "The Detective's Tale: The Long Good-bye." Yes, it's really called that! And indeed it's very much in the format of an old-school film noir murder mystery/detective story, complete with a rough-and-tumble private dick armed with her father's automatic (his death by "suicide" inspired her to become a detective, natch), a mysterious femme fatale client who becomes a romantic interest for the detective, and a labyrinthine case that ultimately uncovers a gigantic conspiracy and brings to light the evils of society. The interesting bit (as you might have guessed from the pronouns used above) is that the two main characters are gender-swapped: the detective and narrator is a woman, and the femme fatale is a man. Well, "man" is a bit misleading; he's actually a male avatar for an artificial intelligence modeled on the poet John Keats. Oh, and the detective's name is Lamia. Yeah.
This one is rough. I found myself rolling my eyes a bit at all the detective story tropes, even though I actually like a good film noir. We also get some cyberpunk tropes thrown in for good measure, as this story explores the seedy underside of the equivalent of the internet that's envisioned by the novel. There are definitely some fascinating ideas here, though: the warring factions of AIs, their Ultimate Intelligence project, their attempts to fully predict the future by taking into account all possible variables (that reminded me a little bit of Asimov's Foundation novels), and the way the inexplicable, incalculable variable of Hyperion and the Shrike keeps frustrating their efforts. There's another weird religious thing going on in this story, as our detective ends up being revered by the Church of the Shrike as the future mother of some kind of messianic figure. (Yes, somehow she is having the John Keats cyborg's baby, like you do.) I haven't mentioned the Church of the Shrike before, but they're an interesting bunch who show up again and again throughout the novel. Adherents of the religion are often broken, suicidal people, but not all of them are. There's definitely something creepy and mystical going on with them. What it is exactly is - like so many other things - not explained in the novel.
The final story is "The Consul's Tale: Remembering Siri," and it's definitely one of my least favorite. Like "The Priest's Tale," it's also told at a remove, with a grandson presenting the journal of his grandfather, and then adding his own story onto the end. The journal jumps back and forth through time in a confusing fashion. This is probably an attempt to mirror the time-fractured nature of the relationship that is at the center of the story. The author of the journal is a "shipman" named Merin Aspic (Aspic? Really?) who, as part of his work to build the farcaster portal that will bring the Maui Covenant colony into the Hegemony, is constantly traveling between the stars at relativistic speeds, and so incurring enormous amounts of "time debt." Against orders, and in search of "nookie" (ugh), he mingles with the natives while on shore leave and ends up in a relationship with a (criminally young!!) girl who is unfortunately named Siri. (Constantly being reminded of Apple's voice-activated AI assistant made it hard to take her seriously as a character, although that's hardly Simmons' fault.) She's only 16! I mean, he's only 19 at the time, but still. It is very hard to like Merin, and very hard to understand what Siri sees in him, especially after he ends up murdering her cousin (!) at the end of their first meeting. But their time-fractured romance becomes legendary among her people. Each time he returns to meet her again, he's aged maybe a year or two, while she's aged decades. She has kids by him and raises them into men while he's off working on his spaceship. It's pretty gross. The tale very much follows in the tired vein of the "civilized white man is converted to the side of the primitive natives by their charming culture as personified by a sexy young girl" story (although in this case she doesn't remain young for long). The most recent example of this genre is probably John Cameron's Avatar, but there's also Dances With Wolves (which came out only a year after Hyperion), and I'm sure plenty more, much older examples. What we come to realize, as we jump back and forth through Siri and Merin's very strange relationship, is that the culture of Maui Covenant, and many of the people and animals that live there, will be utterly destroyed by the Hegemony when it takes over. It's old school Imperialism in its purest form. Which, okay. But the way the native culture is exoticized and romanticized, while we are given almost no details about it, is clumsy. And, again, it's hard to understand how a culture so traditional, archaic, and without technology would exist in this future universe. I appreciate that you're telling a story about how Hegemonic Imperialism is bad and destroying aboriginal societies is bad. But why does it have to be from the perspective of one of the White Imperialists, a dumb young jerk who's having lots of sex with the young native woman?
At the end of this story, the Consul - grandson to Merin and Siri, and high ranking official in the Hegemony government - reveals that the way the Hegemony treated Maui Covenant is the way it treats pretty much all colony worlds. It shows up, wipes out the natives, and takes control. The Hegemony, in other words, is pretty awful. We have learned almost nothing about the Hegemony's enemy, the Ousters, in the rest of the book; they're just kind of a barbarian boogey man banging at the gates. The Consul now gives us a rough sketch of the beauty of their culture, and reveals that he is the spy and the traitor. However, he is also a traitor to the Ousters. A kind of triple agent. His goal seems to be to eliminate everyone, to end the conflict by letting the combatants destroy each other. To let the Shrike loose on the universe to wreak whatever retribution it sees necessary on all of humanity.
Interestingly, his fellow pilgrims react by hugging him and absolving him. Then they all walk together down to the Shrike and the Time Tombs, hand in hand, singing "We're Off to See the Wizard." And that's how the book ends.
I'm not even kidding!
I've almost talked myself into hating the book by writing about it here. It's got a lot of ridiculous tropey bits. And I find it hard to take a book seriously anymore that is so stubbornly traditional and stereotypical and heteronormative. It definitely made me think a lot about my own novel and its own flaws, and how I should probably revise it again to include more minorities and more queerness. White hetero male stories are pretty dull and old anymore.
All that being said, the book is well written, with some great ideas, and I really would like to know what the Shrike does when the pilgrims show up, and who lives and who dies, and what the deal is with the Time Tombs. So I'll probably read the next one eventually. |
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| Monday, November 19, 2012 10:44 AM |
| Recyclotron |
 by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- If you have not been to the Windows 95 Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks Tumblr yet, you are missing out on something seriously disturbing and hilarious. Here is a representative sample.
- Pretty cool collection of GIFs highlighting the major characters from Return of the Jedi.
- Speaking of GIFs, I still deeply love flux machine. A couple of vaguely recent entries. That long, anxious moment as you wait for the GIF to do something creepy might be the best part.
- 72-year-old grandfather models women's clothes for his granddaughter's clothing line. Pretty bad-ass.
- Great redesign of Darth Vader.
- Here's an idea for a new James Bond film: Idris Elba as James Bond and Tom Hiddleston as the villain. All kidding aside, that would be amazing.
- Some great classic monster movies got redesigned posters on Reelizer lately. Here's The Mummy, a couple of Frankensteins, and an Invisible Man.
- You probably already saw this amazing photo floating around somewhere or other (like on any or all of my social media platforms). But have you seen the Spockified version??
- Brad Bird was forced to confirm on Twitter - numerous times! - that he is not directing Star Wars VII. Ah, well. It was a lovely dream while it lasted.
- Heh.
- Maybe people will finally wake up to the dangers of climate change when wild coffee starts going extinct? What a horrifying thought.
- Pretty amazing photo. And they went to a lot of trouble to get the shot, so worth a click.
- Fun toy roundup on Super Punch. Tis the season and so forth.
- Reimagining Snow White as an anarchist.
- A Stardust the Super Wizard action figure! There's a Kickstarter to make this a reality.
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| Tagged (?): Animated GIFs (Not), Art (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Computers (Not), Disney (Not), Environment (Not), Fashion (Not), James Bond (Not), Links (Not), Movies (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Star Trek (Not), Star Wars (Not), Toys (Not) |
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| Thursday, November 1, 2012 09:50 AM |
| (Last updated on Thursday, November 1, 2012 09:53 AM) | | A New Hope |
 by Fëanor |
So it's been a few days since the news broke that Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion. I wasn't sure how to feel about it at first. I think even as few as 5 years ago I probably would have hated the idea. But as time has gone on and I've thought more about this deal, I've become more and more excited about it.
I used to really despise Disney and everything it stood for. I felt like it was responsible for lowering the quality of American entertainment; making everything bland and happy and small-world-after-all-ish. Maybe because I've since had a kid, softened up, and had positive experiences with a lot of Disney products, I've changed my tune quite a bit. I prefer a happy ending these days. Two of my favorite current TV shows, Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls, are Disney creations, and even though Pixar has a rocky history with the Mouse, and is in some ways a rather uneasy partner, it is a Disney company, and it's responsible for some truly great films that I personally cherish. Not to mention, Disney now owns Marvel, the creators not only of my favorite comic book universe, but also of some of my favorite recent movies.
Swallowing up Lucasfilm as well is a brilliant move for Disney, and a wise one for Lucas himself. He gets the satisfaction of knowing his baby will be well cared for, by a gigantic company that's in line with his sensibilities and has all the necessary resources, and Disney gets some of the most valuable properties in the entertainment universe.
But beyond that, I think it's a healthy thing for my beloved Star Wars. Lucas had already said he wasn't planning on making any more movies, and frankly, after the prequels, nobody wanted him to. It was pretty clear that even if he did have more movies in him, they weren't going to be good movies. A lot of talent and good ideas went into the prequels, and there was a tremendous amount of potential for great things, which is what makes their ultimate failure all the more disappointing and painful. In my memory I keep reconstructing them as better than they really are, wanting them to live up to my hopes, and each time I return to them, they just seem to get worse and worse. Lucas has great story ideas, and great attention to detail as far as sounds and effects and visuals go, but his abilities as a writer of human dialog and a director of human actors are deeply lacking. The best thing that could happen to Star Wars is that it get handed off to fresh talent with the resources and the ability to do something new and wonderful with it, and I think that might be what just happened.
Of course, Star Wars: Episode VII (and the other sequels that Disney has already promised) could easily be a tremendous failure. It's amazing any movie of that magnitude, with all those moving parts, ever turns out even halfway decent. But I always like to remain cautiously optimistic about things like this, and I feel like with Disney in charge, I have good reason to feel that way. |
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| Monday, May 2, 2011 12:17 PM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Now here's a noble goal: teaching computers to understand "that's what she said" jokes. I feel like my friend Cyn has to be involved with this somehow...
- Apparently Oscar Wilde's original version of The Picture of Dorian Gray contained many passages that were deemed objectionable by the editor and were thus removed. The good news: the original, uncensored version will soon be published.
- The Onion A.V. Club explains various Beastie Boys references.
- Robert Zemeckis is lined up to direct an actual live-action movie! About time travel, no less! Sort of. It's more of a Groundhog's Day-type thing.
- A look at some of the amusing images/memes that have been generated by the royal wedding - in particular, that hat. You know the one.
- Thanks to Lionsgate, Joss Whedon's The Cabin in the Woods may finally get released!
- A nice piece of art involving a monster.
- Boba Fett plays "Laura Palmer's Theme" from Twin Peaks on the accordion.
- An impressively detailed cross-section of the Millenium Falcon.
- Maybe I have to start watching Batman: The Brave and the Bold. This episode, "Night of the Batmen," wherein Batman is injured and his fellow Justice Leaguers have to temporarily take his place, sounds fantastic.
- These illustrations featuring various Disney characters playing characters from Star Wars are pretty cute, although it seems backwards to me that Mickey was chosen to play Han and Donald to play Luke.
- Something called EVOL - which is either a single artist or an art collective, I'm not clear on that - transforms trash cans, electrical boxes, and other items of the urban landscape into tiny skyscrapers.
- Super Punch provides another fun art roundup, which includes a great piece of Dune art.
- Super Punch is trying to nail down the worst headline related to Osama Bin Laden's death. Here are two candidates. (If you're interested my feelings on the news, click here.)
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Batman (Not), Books (Not), Cartoons (Not), Celebrities (Not), Computers (Not), Disney (Not), Dune (Not), Joss Whedon (Not), Links (Not), Mashups (Not), Monsters (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Photoshop (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Science (Not), Star Wars (Not), TV (Not), Twin Peaks (Not), Video (Not) |
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| Monday, March 21, 2011 03:39 PM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- Dude! Official pics from the set of The Hobbit! It's Bag End!
- Awesome poster for a Lovecraft-inspired exhibition and art book called Dead and Dreaming.
- Let's Be Friends Again unveils the newest member of the Endless.
- Now we know who Joseph Gordon-Levitt is playing in The Dark Knight Rises, and it's not really anybody I would have expected. A very obscure character! But it does fit in very well with the story Nolan has been telling throughout his Batman films, so okay.
- In case you haven't seen it yet, Warren Ellis started another redesign thread on his message board, this one for the cover of Fantastic Four #1. Some pretty great stuff in there.
- Super Punch presents another nice illustration roundup.
- Speaking of Super Punch, here are a couple more entries in the site's X-Men: First Class poster redesign contest.
- Cinematical picked out some fun bits from an interview with Billy Dee Williams, including the hilarious revelation that the guy has an Ewok head in his closet.
- There's going to be an Office Space Printer Smash in Philly on April 26th. Bring your tech rage!
- Voting has begun for the second round of io9's March Movie Madness poll. I am deeply upset that The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is currently losing to District 9. District 9 isn't a terrible movie, but it's not as good as some people say it is, and it's certainly nowhere near as excellent as the original TDtESS. That movie's a classic! C'mon people! Respect!
- What the hell is with all the Peter Pan movies in development?
- Michael Chabon might write Disney's Magic Kingdom. Huh. That movie just became more interesting to me.
- True Lies is a pretty okay movie, excepting a lot of the incredibly creepy first half, in which Arnold is basically torturing and abusing his wife for almost cheating on him after ignoring her for years. But a sequel? No, we do not need that.
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Batman (Not), Books (Not), Celebrities (Not), Comic books (Not), Disney (Not), Fantastic Four (Not), Harry Potter (Not), Links (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Michael Chabon (Not), Movies (Not), News (Not), Peter Pan (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Star Wars (Not), Tolkien (Not), X-Men (Not) |
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| Friday, January 7, 2011 11:41 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- NASA is auctioning off a huge number of items on January 13th. Check out a preview here. Up for sale are the flight plan that went to the moon, a lunar meteorite, and Buzz Aldrin's 8th grade report card. (Via)
- The guy who made the Tin Man and Alice miniseries for Syfy is making a four-hour Peter Pan prequel called Neverland - you can watch a behind-the-scenes teaser video here. The filmmaker tells us it will reveal what Neverland is, and where Peter Pan and the Lost Boys came from. Which are things I think we're better off not knowing, actually, but... okay. Interestingly, Bob Hoskins will reprise the role of Smee, which he first played in 1991's Hook.
- A synopsis and some pics from Steven Spielberg's upcoming time-traveling adventure TV show, Terra Nova.
- Blastr collected together the 55 "hottest" trailers for movies coming out this year, in case you want to kill some time watching a ton of videos.
- A gigantic infographic featuring every Batmobile ever (supposedly - it's hard to believe they managed to include every single one, seeing as how there have been so many).
- Tronified versions of Bambi and Stitch.
- As 2010 turned to 2011, Japan broke a Twitter record with 6,939 tweets per second.
- Wow, Fringe has got a crazy awesome promotional dealie going on. In the next episode, Walter is going to meet his musical idol, the keyboardist for a '70s band called Violet Sedan Chair. The crazy bit is, the show's producers actually created a vinyl album by Violet Sedan Chair called Seven Suns and shipped copies to record stores around the country. Each copy is unique and contains clues and spoilers about the show hidden in the lyrics and liner notes. Awesome.
- I've already posted about the rumor that Orlando Bloom might return as Legolas in The Hobbit, and how I think that could work. But now there's a rumor going about that Elijah Wood might reprise his role as Frodo, and that makes less sense, seeing as how his character wasn't born yet during the events of The Hobbit. I guess they could use him in some kind of frame story, but that seems rather lame and unnecessary.
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Automobiles (Not), Batman (Not), Celebrities (Not), Craft (Not), Disney (Not), Fringe (Not), Links (Not), Lists (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Peter Pan (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Space (Not), Steven Spielberg (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), Tron (Not), TV (Not), Twitter (Not), Video (Not) |
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| Wednesday, December 22, 2010 11:55 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- A funny, sad, and insightful analysis of how Star Wars fans feel about George Lucas.
- Another fun entry in HBO's series of videos on the making of Game of Thrones. This one focuses on designing and fitting the armor. Yay, armor!
- Dan Hipp draws a famous scene from The Empire Strikes Back.
- With the assumption that Fringe's new Friday night time slot could mean the show's doom, io9 gives us five things we can do to save Fringe right now.
- Salon presents a slideshow of photos from locations where famous sci-fi movies were filmed. (Via)
- WOW. When I first read about Hanna, I assumed it would be just another girl assassin movie. But this thing looks AMAZING.
- More year-end round-up stories: the worst new TV series of 2010, 2010's worst puns in movie ad quotes, and the cheapest toy roundup: all-dollar-store edition (which is actually just kind of depressing).
- Some amusing sketches by cartoonist Kelly Tindall, including Gambit playing poker with dogs, and Dazzler ruining a funeral. (Via)
- I posted this web comic to Twitter the other day, but it's so amazing I thought I'd repost it here. (Via)
- Graham Annable has been making doodles based on requests made to him on Twitter. Here's the Flickr set. Some wonderfully random concepts wonderfully executed. (Via)
- A Krampus/Claus Christmas card, and Hellboy as Santa. (Via)
- A bunch of fun Disney/Tron mashups.
- An animated video for Sam Prekop's latest single, "The Silhouettes." The music is a bit more repetitive and electronica-oriented than I usually like, but it's okay.
- Chris Sims will astound, terrify, and entertain you with his list of the five most insane Christmas comics of all time.
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Cartoons (Not), Christmas (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Disney (Not), Fringe (Not), Game of Thrones (Not), George R.R. Martin (Not), Hellboy (Not), Holiday (Not), Links (Not), Lists (Not), Mashups (Not), Mike Mignola (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Song of Ice and Fire (Not), Star Wars (Not), Tron (Not), TV (Not), Twitter (Not), Video (Not), Web comics (Not) |
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| Wednesday, December 15, 2010 10:19 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- 30 geeky shirts that make perfect holiday gifts. Not all of these are great, but many are. Hint, hint.
- A totally fascinating infographic takes a look at the hacked Gawker passwords and reveals the most popular ones. Looks like a lot of people are still using the Spaceballs theory of password generation. Although, to be fair, I don't think I'd use a very secure password on a commenting account, either.
- A new Firestarter movie is on the way with more "edge" and franchise appeal. "Edgy" is a keyword that really raises my hackles, but still, I could see how this could be fun. Anyway, I've always enjoyed the concept of being able to start fires with your mind.
- A.V. Club picks the 15 worst films of 2010. I managed to miss seeing all of them - except the absolute worst one. Yay.
- Jon Favreau walked away from Iron Man 3 in order to direct Magic Kingdom. Seems like an odd choice, and I can't help but wonder if Marvel would have wanted him for Iron Man 3 anyway, considering they didn't want him for Avengers. But okay!
- Artist Sam Bosma has posted the first six pages of his fantasy comic Turtle Soup, the whole of which will appear in something called The Anthology Project, to be released in the spring. It's quite neat so far, so I might have to seek out that book.
- Dave Perillo put together a wonderful album cover for an LP by the Max Rebo Band.
- Another amusing photo blog: Uncomfortable Moments With Putin. (Via)
- Twitter's Year in Review for 2010. The lists are at turns fascinating and depressing. The most retweeted tweets are particularly facepalm-worthy. I mean, I'm glad Stephen Colbert got the top spot, but that's not even close to the funniest thing he tweeted this year. And seriously, what is it with Justin Bieber? I mean... why?
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Celebrities (Not), Christmas (Not), Comic books (Not), Disney (Not), Holiday (Not), Internet (Not), Iron Man (Not), Links (Not), Lists (Not), Movies (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Shirts (Not), Star Wars (Not), Twitter (Not) |
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| Monday, December 6, 2010 10:11 AM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- GeekDad comes up with five ways to get Cthulhu into your Christmas, which I think is a noble goal.
- One of my favorite web comics, Axe Cop, is officially making the jump to real comics!
- The A.V. Club reviews the intriguing new video game, Epic Mickey. Sounds like it's just okay.
- A handful of older links, including links I already tweeted but wanted to repost here because they are so cool: the meat nativity; wonderful Dr. Seuss/Star Wars mashups; Lord of the Rings/Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer mashup T-shirt design by Adam "Apelad" Koford.
- A cute, plush version of Link from Legend of Zelda.
- I don't know about the girl side, but I find the boy side of this timeline of the best gifts to be pretty accurate. (Via)
- Cory Doctorow gives Tron: Legacy a pretty darn positive review. Encouraging! (Via)
- Something Awful gives us a tour of the magazines of the future. Super Punch has it right: this is the best one.
- Even though its plot clearly centers around the old "assassin is ordered to hurt a child, and thus immediately rejects his entire self and past and becomes a good guy we can feel okay rooting for" cliche, The Warrior's Way is still vaguely attractive to me, mostly because it is apparently about a master assassin fighting ninjas in the Old West, with the help of a dirty, drunken Geoffrey Rush. Thankfully Cinematical's review has put my desire to see the film to bed.
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| Tagged (?): Art (Not), Cartoons (Not), Christmas (Not), Comedy (Not), Comic books (Not), Craft (Not), Disney (Not), Food (Not), Links (Not), Lists (Not), Lovecraft (Not), Mashups (Not), Movies (Not), News (Not), Ninjas (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Shirts (Not), Star Wars (Not), Tolkien (Not), Toys (Not), Tron (Not), Tron Legacy (Not), Video games (Not), Web comics (Not), Zelda (Not) |
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| Tuesday, September 7, 2010 02:16 PM |
| Recyclotron |
| by Fëanor |
Fëanor pours the entire internet into the Recyclotron, and only the best links come out the other end for you to enjoy.
- They're going to make a horror movie about an evil Paul Bunyan called... Bunyan. It will star Joe Estevez of Werewolf fame (yes, the MST3K movie), and it will come out next year. Amazing.
- io9 has collected the early reviews for Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. Some are criticizing the movie for its backward ways, but others are praising it. Hmm...
- Terry Gilliam might convert Time Bandits to 3D. He wouldn't be changing anything in the film, just putting it in 3D. I'd watch that!
- Apparently Sam Prekop of The Sea and Cake has a new album! I was excited about this, until I read the Onion A.V. Club's review, and found out it's basically just a lot of random noise. Not sure I really need to hear that.
- The Onion A.V. Club also has an interesting review of Metroid: Other M. The fact that it's sort of on rails is actually attractive to me, as I don't really have time for a game that makes me do a lot of wandering and exploring, but a lot of the other things they mention here don't sound very fun. Still, I'm intrigued. I mean, it's Metroid!
- Apparently they really are going to make a Doctor Strange movie and Stan Lee is going to have a cameo in it. Cool!
- The new (3D, natch) Judge Dredd film will be called simply Dredd and will star Karl Urban as the title character and Olivia Thirlby as his psychic partner.
- Ridley Scott has a few fascinating details about his Alien prequel. Also, Gemma Arterton may star.
- Dude built an impressive working replica of the motorcycle in Excitebike.
- Pizza soda and bacon soda? I'd try 'em.
- Pretty great 8-bit track with appropriate 8-bit video accompaniment.
- A pic from Duncan Jones' Source Code! It's not particularly enlightening or thrilling, but it's a pic from the film, nonetheless.
- LEGO TARDIS! Very nice. I feel like the claim that it's functional is probably an exaggeration, though.
- Masters of the Universe as a medieval religious icon.
- Love the Metroid print.
- Wizard Alley.
- Angelina Jolie leaving Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity almost killed the movie, but supposedly Natalie Portman might save the day by taking over for her.
- An interesting preview of Epic Mickey.
- D'oh. Sounds like Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote movie is dead in the water again, due to the financing falling through.
- Official sonic screwdriver Wii Remote??!!? Give to me! Now!
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| Tagged (?): Aliens (Not), Art (Not), Automobiles (Not), Bacon (Not), Celebrities (Not), Craft (Not), Disney (Not), Doctor Who (Not), Dr. Strange (Not), Drink (Not), LEGO (Not), Links (Not), Masters of the Universe (Not), Metroid (Not), Movies (Not), MST3K (Not), Music (Not), News (Not), Photography (Not), Recyclotron (Not), Toys (Not), Video (Not), Video games (Not), Wii (Not) |
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Jim Genzano's books on Goodreads
