Every year on May 25th we celebrate Towel Day, taking a towel with us everywhere we go all day long. This is of course in honor of the brilliant author Douglas Adams, creator of the radio play that grew up to be the five books of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. It then went on to become a computer game, a TV series, and a movie, among other things; and that was only one of the works created by Doug. Another began as a book, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, then became a radio play, and finally turned into a TV show. Wear your towel with pride; I had DON’T PANIC printed on mine.
It has been a while since I have posted about reading, mostly because all the flashy visuals kick me into “Shiny, Pretty…” mode, and I get distracted. But two of my favorite authors, Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling, have written a story together that you can read online: Good Night Moon. This is a tasty little story that the two of them obviously had a good time writing, and they do poke more than a little fun at themselves in the course of it. Thanks to the authors and to TOR books for making it a free online read.
A book series I have been enjoying recently is the Parasol Protectorate, a Steampunk treat that has a field day turning the classic Victorian era Gothic novel on its ear, and presenting us with a world that should have been. The creation of Gail Carriger, I tend to think of them as the Less group, since the titles are Soulless, Changeless, and Blameless, with Heartless and Timeless coming soon. The writing is wonderful, the humor is intense, and the attitude is spot on. The description I have read that fits the best to me: They are either Jane Austen doing urban fantasy, or PG Wodehouse doing steampunk. The first novel in the series, Soulless, has already been turned into an Audio Book (you can listen to the first chapter here), and is now in production to become a graphic novel. I would love to see this become a miniseries in the UK; I have seen what they have done with Terry Pratchett, I know they would do these stories justice. You can find out more at Gail’s Blog, or at any of her many online interviews.
Be warned, this one is NOT work friendly, but it is a whole lot of fun! The original lives at the Rachel Does Stuff directory on YouTube (owned and created by Rachel Bloom), and I was passed the link by Neil Himself. Just after that he posted the famous Kurt Vonnegut quote: What Science Fiction & Pornography had in common was their vision of an impossibly hospitable world. Only fitting, considering what the final T-Shirt of the video says. And for those who were wondering, this video is by the same woman who Tweeted: Promo line for the new season of Weeds: “The plot deepens.” How much deeper can it get? Nancy f*cks a Martian and invents the flying car? 10:40 PM Jun 5th via web.
The new Harry Potter trailer is just a bit dark, and the last book is broken into two different films, but it still looks like fun to me. So even though we all saw it this weekend in the Theater, here it is again.
In the land of Authors, I have to endorse this review of Ken MacLeod’s Restoration Game, and encourage anyone who hasn’t read MacLeod to get off their ass and buy and read a copy of everything he has ever written. He comes at the world from directions most of us cannot imagine. I would also like to recommend this weeks favorite Steampunk Romance author, Gail Carriger, who managed to create a wonderful milieu and the characters to populate it. If you can’t afford to buy them, hit your local library and read Soulless, Changeless, and Blameless, and see how the stories and series began.
Martin Gardner, born in 1914, died on May 22nd. He wrote science fiction puzzle stories for Asimov’s from just about the first issue, as well as a study of and a sequel to L. Frank Baum’s Oz series (two completely different books). I was alerted to his passing by a posting in Locus Magazine online, but for 35 years he wrote my favorite column in Scientific American, Mathematical Puzzles, so if you really want to know the full range of this brilliant mathematician and author, see their tribute to Martin Gardner.
Warning: Not work friendly, but a real fun video! Now to see if I can accurately type that many words as a URL with no typos…