A WALL

Yup, I hit a wall. A reading wall. Last Friday I finished reading Hunter's Run (a fine SF novel by Gardner Dozois, George R.R. Martin, and Daniel Abraham) and had started in on Stephen King's latest, Duma Key. That start was fine enough, not hooking me instantly but not turning me off either, but I had a problem. I was a bit burned out on books and was feeling a bit overwhelmed. I had read 4 books in 20 days and had a bunch of books piled up and coming due at the library (you can't renew if other people have requested them, which was the case for a few I had) and just felt like I needed a break. So, I stopped the King and returned it along with a number of other things from my pile. That's what happens when you request a bunch of books that all come out at the same time. Anyway, I will get to most of those books...I just needed to feel a bit of control and to take a break.

What did I do instead? Well, I watched a lot of TV. The good news is that I got pretty well caught up on shows on the DVR. As of right now, I have only 6 things on the DVR that I haven't watched and there's a new ep of The Wire I could watch On Demand as well. Not bad, considering.

I also read one of the trades I'd picked up at the sale the previous weekend - Captain America: Winter Soldier Vol. 1. It collects the first 7 issues of the ongoing series (#35 comes out tomorrow, so I'm still over 2 years behind), of which I read the first when it came out. The creative team for this series is Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting (with flashbacks drawn by Michael Lark, who is also my second cousin) and they do a great job with a mix of action, history, and mysteries. I kinda wish I had bought more trades of the series at the sale. Oh well, I'll get to them at some point.

To add more to my stack of pop culture, I went out to Best Buy and used up the last of my gift cards and some of my cash still left for Christmas to pick up Justice League: The New Frontier and The Darjeeling Limited. I had planned on rereading Darwyn Cooke's DCU: The New Frontier series in preparation for the former but still haven't gotten to it. As for the latter, I didn't see it in theaters but I can't pass up a Wes Anderson movie.

That's about it.

OUT AND IN

Last week I actually got myself out into the world someplace other than work or a store. I decided that Valentine's Day would be a good one to get myself back into the open mic groove at Front Porch (it was also nice to have a night that wasn't freezing cold for it). It was the first time I played there this year and only my second time playing at all. I did "Dear Prospective Employer" (a love song of the desperate) and a slowed down version of "Let's Get Married Tonight" in which I whispered some of the choruses and seemed to go over well. It was also great seeing friends I hadn't seen in months and being a part of the community.

The next night I drove to a town about 45 miles away for a surprise birthday party for a friend. Tom is another musician and has been extremely generous to me ever since I started "The Year of 35." The party was in the top floor of an old building and was a cool space - old but big with a stage in front of windows looking over the county courthouse. A variety of people got up and jammed and I got in on the act too. I hopped up with my guitar and started playing music I've been working on; Graham joined on bongos and Tom eventually hopped up and played the fiddle with it. I liked the sound of the fiddle and think I'll pursue him playing it with me as I get the lyrics written and the song finished. We also played around with "Let's Get Married Tonight" - Tom on guitar and Graham on bass and Barry hopping up on drums partway through; "That's Okay" with Tom on fiddle; and "Dear Prospective Employer" with Tom on bass and Barry on drums. Lots of fun and Tom was definitely surprised.

On Saturday afternoon I went over to the comics shop for the semi-annual sale. I still had a bunch of cash leftover from Christmas plus some extra and thought it would be a good time to splurge. Of course, my usual intent is to take advantage of the sales but I tend to dither as to what I should buy and end up with nothing. This time I had a couple things in mind and then took a little time to decide what else I should get. I ended up with a combination of stuff I haven't read and stuff I read in singles format but no longer own and want to own. I got 4 trades for $53 and change, which is pretty good. I still have money left too!

Last week I managed to read 2 books - Inside Straight (a mosaic novel by many writers and edited by George R.R. Martin) and Like You'd Understand, Anyway (a story collection by Jim Shepard). The first is another in the "Wild Cards" series of which I read many books years and years ago but haven't read any of the more recent entries. That didn't matter as the book was very accessible with a wide variety of characters and a plot focusing on an American Idol-type show for super-heroes and political upheaval in the Egypt. I enjoyed it. The second book had a number of stories on men (or women) on futile quests...quests for yetis or an inland sea in Australia or love in outer space...as well as stories about modern alienation and more. Shepard is a strong writer and I definitely want to delve into his other work.

I'm also 50 pages into a new book but still have another 4 piled up from the library after that (and more on request).

I've watched a lot of TV shows on the DVR as well, though I'm still about a week behind. We did watch Lost, of course, which just gets more and more interesting. Yay for the writer's strike being over too!

There's more but we'll save it for another day and another post...

RUNNIN' DOWN SOME DREAMSONGS

I took advantage of Jill and Grant going to see a movie on Friday night (the new Veggie Tales movie) to crack open one of my Christmas presents - the Peter Bogdonavich documentary on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Runnin' Down A Dream. It's a four hour movie split into two discs - I watched the first one on Friday and the second Saturday afternoon because I didn't want to wait to watch the rest. It's a fascinating look at Tom and the group, full of pain and truth and humor and a shitload of great rock music. If you're a fan of the band, I think you'll want to watch this documentary. If you're not a fan, I'm not sure if we can be friends anymore. Seriously, it's good music. The best part? I still have another DVD in the set that has the full homecoming concert in Gainsville that provides the spine for the doc as well as a CD of rarities. The worst part? Mike Campbell's hair in the concert and interview footage. Yikes. One of the most underrated guitar players in the world, though.

I've spent the last 10 days reading my 2nd book of the year, Dreamsongs: Volume II by George R.R. Martin. I liked the first volume so much that I didn't want to wait too long to get to the second half. This volume is just as big but doesn't have as much material; what it does have is longer material, which isn't a bad thing in this case. The first section has two stories about Haviland Tuf, an ecological engineer who travels the stars with a gigantic ship left over from another age. He's a bit of a bastard and doing business with him won't turn out the way you want but the stories are very readable.

The next section contains some samples of his TV work (he was a big part of the show Beauty and the Beast, of which I was a big fan). There aren't any scripts from that show but a story from a later iteration of The Twilight Zone and the pilot for a series he was going to run called Doorways, which has some similar ideas to Sliders, another show of which I was a big fan.

Section three (or eight, when counting volume one) has some stories that he wrote for the shared super-hero series Wild Cards. Guess what? I was a big fan of those books - they started coming out when I was in high school. I now wish I had picked up the reissues several years back but they are now out of print. Sigh. Anyway, "Shell Games" is about the redemption of Doctor Tachyon and the rise of The Great and Powerful Turtle; "From the Journal of Xavier Desmond" is the tale of a fact-finding mission undertaken by a variety of people affected by the "wild card" and is told by a Joker (who were dealt mutations). Good stuff.

Finally, the last section puts it all out there. "Under Siege" brings back some of the story from "The Fortress" but uses time travel and an alternate world and turns it into something even more powerful. "The Skin Trade" is about a P.I. and a werewolf trying to discover secrets about various deaths. "Unsound Variations" is an uncomfortable look at success and failure through a lens of chess and time travel. Death abounds in "The Glass Flower." We get a prequel to his series A Song of Fire and Ice in "The Hedge Knight," which I loved. Guess I have to start reading that series now. Finally, "Portraits of His Children" is a chilling tale of a writer who chooses his work over his life.

I am completely sold on George R.R. Martin and I am going to read as much of his work as I can. It's great to discover a wrier who is new to you, though a bit disheartening when you realize you could have been reading them for years. Ah well, better late than never.

I also found some time to read a comic over the weekend, Teen Titans Lost Annual #1. It's a story written by Bob Haney, who wrote the Titans back in the 60s. Unfortunately, he died a couple years ago (the comic was held up for a few years). I've never really read his work but if this comic is any indication, it was unique. The plot has the Titans traveling to an alien world after Robin realizes President Kennedy has been replaced by a duplicate. He was brought to this world in order to defeat The Violaters, a savage race that has been warring with the Ullustrans for centuries. The Violaters aren't so bad though - Wonder Girl falls in love with one of them. Meanwhile, Robin has a plan to save the day and Kid Flash and Speedy quip wise and run fast or shoot arrows. Aqualad? He stays behind on Earth to hold the fort. Like I said, unique. The art is done by Jay Stephens (pencils) and Mike Allred (inks) and it is fantastic. Of course, they are two of my favorite artists but this issue shows why. Clean lines, kinetic action, and a sense of vibrant fun. I guess that's why this comic is. Vibrant fun. They don't make them like this anymore and I wouldn't want to see all comics be like this but as a change of pace, it's a blast.

CROSS-GENRE

I recently finished a big collection of stories by George R.R. Martin, Dreamsongs: Volume 1. The only Martin I've read before this was his occasional story in an SF mag and his work in (and editing on) the Wild Cards series, which mixed alternate history and super-heroes to captivate me in the early 90s (late 80s?). I've been hearing great things about his ongoing fantasy series "A Song of Fire and Ice" and thought I would just dive right into his breadth of material (there is a second volume as well, which came out a few weeks after the first).

The book is broken up into five themed sections and each has an accompanying essay where Martin talks about his background and the formation of the stories in that section. We get a section of his early stories written for comics fanzines, his first sales as a pro, science fiction, fantasy, and horror (with is often cross-bred with another genre).

We get the mood piece of "With Morning Comes Mistfall" and the love story of two telepaths on an alien world of "A Song for Lya." There's the loneliness and weirdness of "The Stone City" and the look at the future of religion in "The Way of Cross and Dragon." There's the dark fable of "In the Lost Lands" and the heart-breakingly wonderful "The Ice Dragon." And that doesn't even cover the delicious horrors of "Nightflyers" and "Sandkings" and so much more.

Martin knows how to unspool a plot and he knows how to write about people, whether human or alien. He knows how to tell a story and this book has almost 700 pages of them. I can't wait to read the next volume and I'll probably dive into "A Song of Fire and Ice" next year too. Great stuff.

YET ANOTHER STAT

I just read my 200th story of the year, "The Way of Cross and Dragon" by George R.R. Martin. Today is day #345 of the year, which means I've average about .58 stories read per day this year. That's not too bad. Of course, I'm still not done. I have more than 300 pages left in this story collection by Martin (which is due on Thursday!) and will probably get to some more SF mags before the end of the year too. The average might come up a bit...I might make it up to 220 stories or so by the time it's done.

And now back to reading...