#Steven Kurtz

[oldschoolfrp]

Thiondar, King of the Ch'thar and Keeper of the Stone of Gul, elf fighter 12 - wizard 18 (Jim Holloway cover, featuring characters from Steven Kurtz' AD&D adventure "Thiondar's Legacy," Dungeon 30, July/August 1991)

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Mark Hamill - Slipstream (1989)

[thisisyourdriverspeaking]

It's the most iconic race in the world so it's deserved it's own post & playlist. I give you the all the drivers in the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans racing tunes. Enjoy (even though this post is a little late). 😊

John Hartshorne (18th April 1957) - Malcolm Vaughan - The World Is Mine

Thomas Flohr (17th March 1960) - Bert Weedon - Big Beat Boogie

Claudio Schiavoni (14th November 1960) - Brenda Lee - I Want To Be Wanted

Satoshi Hoshino (7th April 1961) - Nat 'King' Cole - The World In My Arms

Johnny Laursen (16th February 1964) - Cliff Richard - Don't Talk To Him

George Kurtz (5th May 1965) - Pretty Things - Honey I Need

Hiroshi Koizumi (25th May 1969) - Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Takeshi Kimura (22nd October 1970) - Tom Jones - I (Who Have Nothing)

Ben Keating (18th August 1971) - Gilbert O'Sullivan - We Will

John Falb (13th December 1971) - The Who - Let's See Action

Alexander Mattschull (2nd March 1972) - The Partridge Family - It's One Of Those Nights

Michael Wainwright (25th July 1973) - Stevie Wonder - You Are The Sunshine Of My Life

Rodrigo Sales (2nd November 1973) - Rod Stewart - Oh No Not My Baby

Ian James (22nd July 1974) - Main Ingredient - Just Don't Want To Be Lonely

Naveen Rao (21st May 1975) - Billy Swan - Don't Be Cruel

Giacomo Petrobelli (7th November 1975) - George Harrison - You

Hiroshi Hamaguchi (1st October 1976) - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Tears Of A Clown

Francois Perrodo (14th February 1977) - Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way

Valentino Rossi (16th February 1979) - The Pretenders - Stop Your Sobbing

Sebastien Bourdais (28th February 1979) - Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Oliver's Army

Brendan Iribe (12th August 1979) - David Bowie - DJ

David Heinemeier Hansson (15th October 1979) - Secret Affair - Time For Action

Jenson Button (19th January 1980) - Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Pina Colada Song)

Scott Dixon (22nd July 1980) - Leo Sayer - More Than I Can Say

Ryan Hardwick (3rd October 1980) - Gladys Knight & The Pips - Taste Of Bitter Love

Frederic Makowiecki (22nd November 1980) - David Bowie - Fashion

Ahmad Al Harthy (31st August 1981) - Central Line - Walking Into Sunshine

Patrick Pilet (8th October 1981) - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Souvenir

Andre Lotterer (19th November 1981) - The Four Tops - When She Was My Girl

Loic Duval (12th June 1982) - Danger Danger - Comin' Home

Jose Maria Lopez (26th April 1983) - Eurthymics - Love Is A Stranger

P.J Hyett (10th August 1983) - Shakin' Stevens - It's Late

Augusto Farfus (3rd September 1983) - Paul Young - Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)

Francois Heriau (25th October 1983) - Hot Streak - Body Work

Neel Jani (8th December 1983) - Robert Plant - In The Mood

Richard Lietz (17th December 1983) - Ann Breen - Pal Of My Cradle Days

Alessandro Pier Guidi (18th December 1983) - Black Lace - Superman

Oliver Jarvis (9th January 1984) - Lionel Richie - Running With The Night

James Cottingham (21st January 1984) - Pat Benatar - Love Is A Battlefield

Daniel Serra (24th February 1984) - Bourgie Bourgie - Breaking Point

Franck Perara (21st March 1984) - World Famous Supreme Team - Hey DJ

Nicolas Lapierre (2nd April 1984) - Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me

Arnold Robin (7th October 1984) - Orange Juice - Lean Period

Matteo Cressoni (28th October 1984) - Tracey Ullman - Helpless

Nick Tandy (5th November 1984) - Paul McCartney - No More Lonely Nights

Robert Kubica (7th December 1984) - Meat Loaf - Nowhere Fast

Ben Hanley (22nd January 1985) - Bronski Beat - It Ain't Necessarily So

Filipe Albuquerque (13th June 1985) - Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA

Salih Yoluc (22nd August 1985) - Maria Vidal - Body Rock

Renger Van Der Zande (16th February 1986) - The Damned - Eloise

Rahel Frey (23rd February 1986) - Madonna - Dress You Up

Maxime Martin (20th March 1986) - Dee C Lee - Come Hell Or Waters High

Paul Di Resta (16th April 1986) - Simple Minds - Sanctify Yourself

Romain Grosjean (17th April 1986) - Jim Diamond - Hi Ho Silver

Mathias Beche (28th June 1986) - Madonna - Live To Tell

Davide Rigon (26th August 1986) - Pam Hall - Dear Boopsie

Kamui Kobayashi (13th September 1986) - Modern Talking - Brother Louie

Rene Rast (26th October 1986) - Marti Webb & The Simon May Orchestra - Always There

Edoardo Mortara (12th January 1987) - Mick Karn - Buoy

Francesco Castellacci (4th April 1987) - Lionel Richie - Se La

Alex Malykhin (17th August 1987) - Total Contrast - Jody

Tom Van Rompuy (8th September 1987) - Marshall Hain - Dancin' In The City

Darren Leung (25th September 1987) - ABC - The Night You Murdered Love

Jean-Karl Vernay (31st October 1987) - Rick Astley - Whenever You Need Somebody

Nicky Catsburg (15th February 1988) - The Cure - Hot Hot Hot

Paul Lafarque (8th July 1988) - Natalie Cole - Everlasting

Daniel Mancinelli (23rd July 1988) - Maxi Priest - Wild World

Colin Braun (22nd September 1988) - The Beatmasters & PP Arnold - Burn It Up

Kevin Estre (28th October 1988) - Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry By Happy

Sebastien Buemi (31st October 1988) - Robert Palmer - She Makes My Day

Miguel Molina (17th February 1989) - Big Country - Peace In Our Time

Sarah Bovy (15th May 1989) - Royal House ft Ian Star - A Better Way

Christopher Mies (24th May 1989) - Swing Out Sister - You On My Mind

James Calado (13th June 1989) - Robert Palmer - Change His Ways

Matt Bell (5th November 1989) - Erasure - Drama!

Marco Wittmann (24th November 1989) - D Mob Introducing Cathy Dennis - C'mon And Get My Love

Brendon Hartley (10th November 1989) - Phil Collins - Another Day In Paradise

Mirko Bortolotti (10th January 1990) - Inner City - Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin'

Andrea Caldarelli (14th February 1990) - The Beloved - Hello

Stephane Richelmi (17th March 1990) - David A Stewart ft Candy Dulfer - Lily Was Here

Ollie Millroy (21st April 1990) - Lloyd Cole - Don't Look Back

Jean-Eric Vergne (25th April 1990) - MC Duke - The Final Conflict

Earl Bamber (9th July 1990) - Luciano Pavarotti - Nessun Dorma

Michael Christensen (28th August 1990) - DNA ft Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner

Marco Sorensen (6th September 1990) - Happy Mondays - Step On

Matthias Kaiser (22nd January 1991) - Alexander O'Neal - All True Man

Jack Hawksworth (28th February 1991) - Patsy Cline - I Fall To Pieces

Ryan Cullen (26th March 1991) - The Bee Gees - Secret Love

Ben Barker (23rd April 1991) - Inspiral Carpets - Caravan

Daniel Juncadella (7th May 1991) - Pet Shop Boys - Where The Streets Have No Name

Laurens Vanthoor (8th May 1991) - Vic Reeves & The Roman Numerals - Born Free

Jordan Taylor (10th May 1991) - K-Klass - Rhythm Is A Mystery

Will Stevens (28th June 1991) - Divinyls - I Touch Myself

Klaus Bachler (27th July 1991) - Amy Grant - Baby Baby

Robin Frijns (7th August 1991) - Voice Of The Beehive - Monsters And Angels

Jakub Smiechowski (11th October 1991) - Gloria Estefan - Live For Loving You

Paul-Loup Chatin (19th October 1991) - Oleta Adams - Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

Harry Tincknell (29th October 1991) - Public Enemy - Can't Truss It

Nicolas Costa (14th November 1991) - Love And Money - Winter

Rene Binder (1st January 1992) - James - Sound

Nico Muller (25th February 1992) - Texas - Alone With You

Stoffel Vandoorne (26th March 1992) - The Charlatans - Weirdo

Zacharie Robichon (31st May 1992) - Michael Jackson - In The Closet

Norman Nato (8th July 1992) - KWS - Please Don't Go

Felipe Nasr (21st August 1992) - Luther Vandross & Janet Jackson - The Best Things In Life Are Free

Alex Lynn (17th September 1993) - Pet Shop Boys - Go West

Pipo Derani (12th October 1993) - Salt-N-Pepa - Shoop

Antonio Giovinazzi (14th December 1993) - Brian May - Last Horizon

Michelle Gatting (31st December 1993) - Belinda Carlisle - Lay Down Your Arms

Alex Riberas (27th January 1994) - Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle - A Whole New World

Ryo Hirakawa (7th March 1994) - Morrissey - The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get

Giorgio Roda (18th March 1994) - Urban Cookie Collective - Sail Away

Daniil Kvyat (26th April 1994) - Roxette - Sleeping In My Car

Mathieu Jaminet (24th October 1994) - Take That - Sure

Matthieu Vaxiviere (3rd December 1994) - Sophie B Hawkins - Don't Don't Tell Me No

Raffaele Marciello (17th December 1994) - PJ & Duncan - Eternal Love

Mikkel Jensen (31st December 1994) - Pearl Jam - Spin The Black Circle

Nyck De Vries (6th February 1995) - M People - Open Your Heart

Matt Campbell (17th February 1995) - MN8 - I've Got A Little Something For You

Alessio Rovera (22nd June 1995) - Pizzaman - Sex On The Streets

Charlie Eastwood (11th August 1995) - Oasis - Some Might Say

Jack Aitken (23rd September 1995) - Vanessa Williams - Colours Of The Wind

Dennis Olsen (14th April 1996) - Oasis - Supersonic

Antonio Fuoco (20th May 1996) - Kavana - Crazy Chance

Matteo Cairoli (1st June 1996) - Gloria Estefan - Reach

Kelvin Van Der Linde (20th June 1996) - Blur - Charmless Man

James Allen (4th July 1996) - Gina G - Ooh Aah.. Just A Little Bit

Larry Ten Voorde (2nd November 1996) - Los Del Rio - Macarena

Sean Gelael (1st November 1996) - Huff & Puff - Help Me Make It

Ben Barnicoat (20th December 1996) - Phil Collins - Dance Into The Light

Mikkel O.Pedersen (26th January 1997) - The Prodigy - Poison

Nicklas Nielsen (6th February 1997) - Kavana - I Can Make You Feel Good

Ben Tuck (3rd March 1997) - Space - Dark Clouds

Alex Palou (1st April 1997) - Spice Girls - Who Do You Think You Are

Louis Deletraz (22nd April 1997) - Michelle Gayle - Sensational

Ferdinand Habsburg (20th June 1997) - Sneaker Pimps - Six Underground

Laurents Horr (11th September 1997) - Refugee Allstars & Lauryn Hill - The Sweetest Thing

Frederik Schandorff (26th December 1997) - Course - Best Love

Dries Vanthoor (20th April 1998) - Ultra - Say You Do

Erwan Bastard (9th June 1998) - Solid Harmonie - I Want You To Want Me

Job Van Uitert (10th October 1998) - Ultra - The Right Time

Callum Ilott (11th November 1998) - Culture Club - I Just Wanna Be Loved

Mick Schumacher (22nd March 1999) - Men Of Vizion - Do You Feel Me? (Freak You)

Marino Sato (12th May 1999) - Melky Sedeck - Raw

Sheldon Van Der Linde (13th May 1999) - Busta Rhymes ft Janet Jackson - What's It Gonna Be?

Fabio Scherer (13th June 1999) - Bjork - All Is Full Of Love

Riccardo Pera (4th July 1999) - Salt Tank - Dimension

Julien Andlauer (5th July 1999) - Luscious Jackson - Ladyfingers

Phil Hanson (5th July 1999) - Tina Cousins - Forever

Ritomo Miyata (10th August 1999) - Lolly - Viva La Radio

Robert Shwartzman (16th September 1999) - Paul Johnson - Get Get Down

Bent Viscaal (18th September 1999) - Supergrass - Moving

Rui Andrade (23rd September 1999) - Lauryn Hill - Everything Is Everything

Gregoire Saucy (26th December 1999) - Holly Johnson - The Power Of Love

Scott Huffaker (28th December 1999) - Leann Rimes - Crazy

Felipe Drugovich (23rd May 2000) - Mel C & Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes - Never Be The Same Again

Timur Boguslavskiy (30th April 2000) - Andreas Johnson - Glorious

Yifei Ye (16th June 2000) - Peter Lazonby - Sacred Cycles

Sebastian Baud (6th July 2000) - Morgan - Flying High

Oliver Rasmussen (6th November 2000) - Texas - In Demand

Nicolas Varrone (6th November 2000) - Darude - Feel The Beat

Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer (19th November 2000) - Robbie Williams & Kylie Minogue - Kids

Clement Novalak (23rd December 2000) - Kandi - Don't Think I'm Not

Alex Quinn (29th December 2000) - Britney Spears - Stronger

Simon Mann (10th February 2001) - ATB ft York - The Fields Of Love

Roman De Angelis (15th February 2001) - Ash - Shining Light

Charles Milesi (4th March 2001) - Spooks - Things I've Seen

Joel Sturm (28th November 2001) - Dido - Hunter

Frederik Vesti (13th January 2002) - Westlife - Queen Of My Heart

Olli Caldwell (11th June 2002) - Sugababes - Freak Like Me

Bijoy Garg (15th July 2002) - The Prodigy - Baby's Got A Temper

Antonio Serravalle (18th September 2002) - Nore - Nothin'

Reshad De Gerus (1st July 2003) - Flaming Lips - Fight Test

Malthe Jakobsen (29th October 2003) - Sheryl Crow - The First Cut Is The Deepest

Carl Bennett (2nd September 2004) - Stonebridge ft Therese - Put Em High

Esteban Masson (18th September 2004) - Easyworld - How Did It Ever Come To This

Nico Pino (21st September 2004) - Kylie Minogue - Slow

Kyffin Simpson (9th October 2004) - The 411 - Dumb

Nolan Siegel (8th November 2004) - Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot

Lorenzo Fluxa (23rd November 2004) - Daniel Bedingfield - Nothing Hurts Like Love

Jonas Ried (18th December 2004) - Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten

Vladislav Lomko (27th December 2004) - Electric Six - Radio Gaga

Morris Schuring (20th February 2005) - Keane - Bedshaped

Maceo Capietto (12th January 2006) - James Blunt - Goodbye My Lover

Conrad Laursen (11th May 2006) - Beyonce ft Slim Thug - Check On It

And here is the link to the playlist 😊

[alfvaen]

Novel Mother

With the winds blowing us all backwards into the future, I read another month's worth of books in May of 2024. And made thoughtful comments about them in a file which got turned into a blog post. This very one, in fact.

Details below the cut; possible spoilers for Rachel Bach's "Paradox" series, N.K. Jemisin's "Great Cities", Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of The Fallen, and of course Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga.

Katharine Kerr: Daggerspell, completed May 1

This book came out in 1986, and I remember seeing it on the shelves at the time, if only because I was reading a lot of Katherine Kurtz at the time, and I kept seeing this one and thinking it was Kurtz, but it wasn't. It had a sequel, Darkspell, which I also recall seeing, and apparently there were more after that but I've rarely spotted them. I probably originally picked it up used, and it sat on my shelves for a while. According to my records, I read it in 1996, in my "Random" slot, i.e. literally selected at random out of my unread books at the time. (It's an interesting technique; I should maybe do it more often.) And I remembered very little about it, except perhaps that the "daggerspell" of the title was a little deceptive, though not more than that. I did also end up with a copy of Darkspell, and even the third book, The Bristling Wood (abandoning the title theme, which is probably for the best), but I haven't read them.

So why did I take it out to reread? Good question. I guess I had it in my head somewhere that I had heard that Deverry, the world where these took place, was another planet. Which made me wonder if this was actually another Steerswoman-type situation, science fiction in fantasy clothing, which made it seem more interesting. It had certainly been long enough that if I ever did want to go on in the series (which is now up to like sixteen books, divided into multiple "acts" or subsequences) I'd want to reread the first book. Since I like to put one standalone reread in with my series rereads these days (along with the Pratchett, the Star Trek, and now the Dick Francis), I put it into that slot. (It's not a standalone, of course, but I figured that as the only book in a series that I've read it would be close enough.)

It pretty clearly is not a secret science fiction book--it's a Celtic fantasy (though at least more Brythonic than Gaelic, for a change) in a secondary world. There's a lot of familiar elements--elves and dwarves, mercenaries (here distinguished by their silver daggers, also used as a metonymous designation for them), inns and horses, clearly-defined patriarchal gender roles, etc. And there's dweomer (magic), prophecies, Wyrd (fate), and a hefty helping of reincarnation. We start with a young girl who can see fairies, her mother dies and her silver-dagger father takes her to live on the road with him. But it turns out that 400 years earlier, she was a beautiful woman fought over by a prince, her brother (TW: incest), and another lord, and things go badly for most of them. The prince, who wanted to abandon his life to study the dweomer anyway, swears not to rest until he can fix things in some future life, and ends up cursed with immortality until he has fulfilled his vow. The flashbacks into the earlier timelines (we also see one other earlier reincarnation where things do not get resolved properly), and the youth of the main character, sap the early momentum of the story, and it's not until almost halfway through the book that we settle into our main plot, meeting the other reincarnated characters, and also dealing with other plot elements. A furtive glance at the Wikipedia page for the series implies that we mostly stick with characters from this timeline, and don't keep jumping further, but I could be wrong.

I had planned to get through the book in four days--under a hundred pages a day, should have been doable--but in the end it did not happen, partly because of other things going on, but mostly because I just was not being drawn in. I ended up committing to five days instead (bumping it into May's list) and even the reduced quota was a bit of a slog. Things did seem to pull together a little by the end--after resolving the external conflict with the bad guys, the author still leaves plenty of time to resolve the good guys' interpersonal problems, giving them to chance to use what they've absorbed from their multiple reincarnations to change their Wyrds. So I'm not feeling quite as firmly convinced as I was while I was actually reading the book that I will never continue on in the series. I guess I'll see how I feel. (As nice as it would be to weed a few more books and reclaim a modicum of shelf space…)

N.K. Jemisin: The World We Make, completed May 5

Cycled back around to the female diversity slot, which, as mentioned before, seems to leave me with a lot more choices than male does, with my current collection at least. And while there are several new authors for me to try, I'm also in the middle of a few series, so I elected to progress with one of them. It didn't feel quite time yet to go back to Michelle Sagara/West, and really I was interested in finishing off N.K. Jemisin's Great Cities duology.

The City We Became was a weird but cool book, "urban fantasy" in the absolutely strictest most literal sense of the word. As in, the fantastical creatures living in the cities were…well, cities. Several people find themselves becoming the avatars of New York boroughs, with the city's overall avatar itself in trouble. Like many people who don't live there, I imagine, my familiarity with New York is somewhat superficial, and probably mostly Manhattan-focused, from comic books and "Friends" and the like, and I couldn't have really told you the difference between Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx, so I found it educational and informative. There were also strong social justice themes underlying the story, and a little bit of cosmic horror too. And there were also some guest appearances by other city avatars, with the implication that we'd see more of them in the sequel.

The book feels like it could be longer, the resolution to some issues made more concrete. The author talks in the endnotes about how this was planned as a trilogy, but uncomfortable convergence with real-world events made her collapse it down to two books, so perhaps that accounts for some of it. The conflicts have a very magic-realism feel to them, where things happen according to an internal logic which doesn't line up to the real world, and some of them get very abstract. And I'm not sure I found the ultimate resolution to be 100% satisfying. But I enjoyed reading it nonetheless.

Rachel Bach: Honour's Knight, completed May 9

Now I wanted something other than an epic or urban fantasy, with a female author, but I still felt like something reasonably fast-paced after Daggerspell. I decided this meant it was time for the next Rachel Bach book.

Rachel Bach is really Rachel Aaron, using a pseudonym because this is SF and not fantasy like the Eli Monpress series she was known for at the time. I read and enjoyed the Eli Monpress books, though I have to say that by the end of the fifth book it had really twisted the default-seeming secondary fantasy world into something a lot weirder. I always appreciate that, when you realize that the default assumptions you've been making about the nature of the world weren't actually justified at all.

This is the second book in the Rachel Bach series (officially designated the Paradox series, which seems to be the name of the culture/planet/interstellar polity/whatever that the main character is from). In the first one, Fortune's Pawn, Devi, a high-tech fighter from Paradox (which is now no longer at war with the Terrans--she is human, though there are aliens around as well) is looking for work and gets hired on a small cargo ship as security. The captain of the ship is clearly not on the up-and-up, since it rarely carries any cargo and frequently makes odd stops at isolated planets. And his daughter Ren doesn't talk to anyone and just sits and plays chess all day. Also, the ship's cook, Rupert, is more than he seems, and Devi is drawn to him. Oh, and sometimes she sees glowing insects floating around the ship that nobody except Ren seems to notice.

At the beginning of the second book, though, things have changed, and Devi has a weird gap in her memory. (Kind of like the gap I have in my own memory, since it's been a year and a half since I read the first book.) The other security guy is dead, and she feels a weird revulsion whenever she sees the cook guy (whose name she can never remember). When they go to hire a replacement security guy to help her out, most of the applicants mysteriously don't show up, leaving the only obvious candidate a guy named Rashid. Who we saw in the prologue of the book, when his daughter was abducted by mysterious people and somehow…transformed into a duplicate of Ren? So clearly a lot is afoot.

The book does shed light on a lot of the mysteries, but there's multiple groups with overlapping but differing goals, and Devi is going to have try to decide who to trust and who she can work with and who she has to work with. Should be an interesting third book…

Steven Erikson: Forge of Darkness, completed May 19

It'd been a minute since I read some Steven Erikson. I finished the Malazan Book of The Fallen in 2015, and since then I've only read one of the Bauchelain and Korbal Broach short story collections. I may have mentioned before how much I bogged down in Toll The Hounds, the eighth Malazan book (it took me three weeks to get through), and while things did pick up for the last two books, I guess I was left a little gunshy. I have instead been reading some of Ian Esslemont's books in the same world (the two writers share the Malazan world, interestingly), and I did consider reading the next one of those instead, but ended up with this one instead.

I have been kind of avoiding thick books because of the Goodreads challenge thing, but I guess I'm deciding now that that's not a good enough reason. On the other hand, when I'm reading a book for a long time I start to get antsy and want to get on to something else, so probably that will keep me from reading too many of them in a year anyway.

This is the first book of the Kharkanas trilogy, which I generally understood was a prequel series, going back possibly centuries, though given that some of the characters are extremely long-lived (the Tiste are vaguely elf-coded) we do see a few familiar faces. It's a little unclear where exactly things take place, though. There's some maps at the beginning, but one of them is for a place called Kurald Galain. Now, in the main (future-timeline) Malazan series, Kurald Galain is a warren, a term which is helpfully (but belatedly) explained in the fifth book, Midnight Tides. Essentially, warrens are other worlds that are sources of magical power for mages to draw on. In this book, on the other hand, warren is only used in the literal sense of a burrow for a small animal to hide in. Which leads me to think that maybe warrens don't exist yet, and that perhaps we will see their formation by the end of the series. (Similarly, there is an abandoned city, formally inhabited by members of the Jaghut species, called Omtose Phellack, which is also a warren in the later books.)

The Tiste are in a state of restlessness, having put down a major invasion, and while some are willing to embrace peace, at least one fellow is ambitious for Urusander's Legion to become active again, and so he schemes to create unrest so the Legion has to be recalled. Many families have exchanged hostages to attempt to assure peace. Anomander Rake, a major player in the Malazan series, but only a minor one in this book, is having a sword made, and his brother Andarist is getting married. They and their brother Silchas Ruin have been adopted by Mother Dark, a near-divine Tiste woman worshipped by many (those who don't, the Deniers, are outcasts and easy targets for violence). The Tiste in the Malazan series are divided into three sub-races: Tiste Andii (dark), Tiste Edur (shadow) and Tiste Liosan (light), and we begin to see those divisions forming here. We also get to see several Azathanai (powerful, godlike creatures) like Hood (before he became God of Death) and Draconus (consort of Mother Dark and divisive figure), and the return (?) of the Eleint, also known as Dragons. There are some horrible scenes of slaughter and rape, and some characters you just want to see come to a bad end.

I do have the next book, Fall of Light, though it may take me a while to get back to it. (I did take a bunch of notes and put them into a file for when I do go back to it; now I just need to not lose it this time like I did all those notes on Diana Pharaoh Francis's Crimson Wind…still no idea where that got to.) On the other hand, apparently this series was not doing as well as the Malazan books, so the third book is not actually out yet, because he turned to a different series, Witness, spinning off "fan-favourite" character Karsa Orlong from the Malazan series. So there's no rush.

Lois McMaster Bujold, "Winterfair Gifts", completed May 20

For completeness in the Vorkosigan reread, the next entry is this novella, a quick read which does help offset the long Steven Erikson book. The next novel to come out was Diplomatic Immunity, set after Miles and Ekaterin's wedding, and I read that one before reading the story of their actual wedding. I originally read it in the Irresistible Forces anthology, a collection of romance novellas with a SF/fantasy "theme", and I did read the rest of the stories, though I recall very little of them right now.

Years of reading comic books have shown that it's probably best that your wedding not actually take place onscreen, or else something will go wrong with it, and sadly, this is also the case here. Armsman Roic is the POV character, after his small but memorable, and quite embarrassing, role in the climax of A Civil Campaign. He meets Miles's offworld wedding guests, particularly Sergeant Taura, and they have a little bit of a romance before things start to go awry, but between them they are able to figure out the problem and, if not solve it, at least bring it to the attention of those who can. Roic redeems himself and get the girl (for a little while, anyway).

James F. David: Footprints of Thunder, stopped reading May 22

If you've been paying attention, you may be able to figure out my criteria for this next book. Male author, since two (non-reread) books ago was a female author. First book after a reread, so it's either a diversity slot or trying a new author, but since the last one (the N.K. Jemisin) was diversity this one isn't.

Picking the actual book I mostly leave up to random chance; often it'll be some book or author that I heard mentioned, or that I thought of for some reason. In this case, I actually saw someone mentioning this book on the SF Stack Exchange, or rather describing the book and trying to get it identified. I sometimes look at those (though rarely am I the identifier), and when someone suggested this book, I realized it sounded familiar, and sure enough, it was sitting in the rows of books by untried author sitting, um, on my pool table (that's the untried-author-book storage department right now). I did get, I suppose, some minor spoilers from the Stack Exchange post, but no worse than reading the back of the book; from what I gather, it's a sort of disaster book in which time portals back to Dinosaur Days open up and dinosaurs invade the "modern day" (in this case, probably circa the publication date of 1995). Which leads me to realize that Under The Dome was basically a disaster book, wasn't it? Except a very localized one.

Apparently what happens is that there's a full-fledged "Time-Quilt" event where small patches of the world get replaced with their copies from the past,which includes a lot of dinosaurs. We meet a number of characters, including a lot of people from Oregon (presumably the author's own stomping grounds). There's a small group of scientists and students who, based on a number of "objects or creatures raining out of the sky" events and ancient Sumerian prophecies, conclude that something is about to happen, but they don't know what. One of them takes his cave-guide sister and her hapless charges hostage underground to try to protect them. We also meet a blended family sailing to Bermuda, and a widow in a New York apartment. And then the event happens--the widow gets to see some dinosaurs, the sailing family's boat is swamped by a tsunami (apparently sometimes chunks of earth manifest in the ocean as "floating islands" that quickly sink, which was an interesting concept), and other people encounter dinosaurs and chunks of primeval jungle. And we got the obligatory fictional president (improbably enough, from a Democratic splinter party???) and his advisors.

The dinosaur thing was probably supposed to be a big selling point in the wake of "Jurassic Park" (which came out a couple of years before this book), but every description reminded me how dated that movie's dinosaurs seem already. I mean, this was before the "dinosaurs have feathers" facts really went mainstream. I ended up putting the book down less than 150 pages in--I wasn't caring about the characters, the gosh-wow-dinosaurs thing wasn't getting me, and things were getting too fragmented. But also there's the fact (for which the author likely cannot be blamed) that the second-hand paperback book I was reading was really quite filthy. More than once I ran across dark brown stains that had soaked through multiple pages, and bits of dried food or whatever. Plus a badly curved spine and a cover on the verge of coming unglued, and it was just a mildly unpleasant object to hold, physically. So I set it aside, and quite frankly put it into the recycling because it was just in too poor condition to donate.

Mary Robinette Kowal: Valour And Vanity, completed May 27

I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about the next book--should be a female author, and presumably something slightly different from Footprints of Thunder, but while sometimes I spend a lot of time poring over my shelves (in physical form or some digital form, like the Goodreads list or my tracking spreadsheet) to narrow down the next book, for some reason this one bubbled up right away and I just went with it.

I actually first heard of Mary Robinette Kowal at the World Fantasy Convention that I attended in Calgary in 2008. At the banquet, my wife and I ended up sitting with a bunch of people we didn't know, which turned out to include Carrie Vaughn (whose Kitty And The Midnight Hour I had already read), Diana Rowland (whose Kara Gillian series hadn't quite started to come out yet), and Mary Robinette Kowal, who had recently won what was then still the John W. Campbell award (which came with a tiara, which she was wearing) but didn't have any novels out yet either. So I kept an eye out for her name, and read her first novel, Shades of Milk And Honey, when it came out.

Shades of Milk And Honey is the first book in this series, the Glamourist Histories, a sort of alternate history with magic. But the magic, or "glamour", is mostly just for the creation of illusions of light and sound (with some minor side effects which can, say, be used to draw heat out of things). The series is deliberately Austenesque in tone, following Jane and her initial romance and then marriage with glamourist Lord Vincent, and developing her own powers as well. I took a break after the previous book, Without A Summer, to read the Lady Astronaut series, but decided to return to it.

This is, apparently, a heist book, mostly set in and around Venice (mostly on the island of Murano), with nuns (which makes me think of Donald Westlake's Good Behaviour), Lord Byron, and plenty of glamour. A trifle slow in parts, but picks up admirably towards the end. One book remains in the series, which I will probably read before going on to her SF mystery The Spare Man.

Susanna Clarke: Piranesi, completed May 30

I had a little trouble trying to decide what to read next. It should still be a female author, but not space opera because there's another Vorkosigan reread coming up next, not thick fantasy because I still need more time to recover from Forge of Darkness, and I wasn't really feeling like urban fantasy after Valour And Vanity. (Yes, I know that's not really urban fantasy, but somehow it feels similar, perhaps only via the fact that Gail Carriger's books are kind of similar to both?) I was vaguely considering a zombie book (either Mira Grant's Feedback or the next Diana Rowland "White Trash Zombie" book), but then I ran across Piranesi, which seemed reasonably short, and, my wife assured me, "not that similar to any other book she'd ever read". Seemed ideal.

Though it does have some similarities to other works, from time to time. The endless palace makes me think of Gormenghast; the individual surviving in a watery environment makes me think of Patrick Rothfuss's The Slow Regard of Silent Things; and bits of it make me think of Iain Banks's The Bridge, if only because I feel like the POV character is in a surreal environment and has forgotten a lot of their past. But apart from those similarities, it does seem more than somewhat sui generis.

I have also gotten back into one of the nonfiction books I'd started months ago but got bogged down in--Sugar: A Bittersweet History by Elizabeth Abbott. Some years ago I had read an interesting book about the history of salt, and this seemed like it might be the same sort of thing. But apparently is it a lot darker than that, because so much of the sugar industry is tied into the history of slavery in the Caribbean and the Americas, and I guess Abbott decided to lean into it, so a lot of the book is about slavery. That's one of the reasons I put it down earlier, but now, I guess feeling more braced for it, I've picked it up again. I've got a stack of seven other nonfiction books I'm ready to pick up one of if I get bogged down again, but so far so good.

I also reread the second Calvin & Hobbes collection, and finished another month of Marvel Comics, which I probably won't get back to until I finish Sugar (or give up on it).

And currently I am into the next Vorkosigan reread, Diplomatic Immunity, which shouldn't take me too long.

[olumsuzsozler]

Müzik Derleyen Öztürk Aydın Pdf

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S2VvMx29adB7wSQhiRuarveUChert82J/view?usp=sharing

Müzik gerçekliğin aynasıdır. Karl Marx Müzik anlayışı temizler. Henry Ward Beecher Müziksiz bir hayat, hatadır. Friedrich Nietzsche Her kuşağa yeni bir müzik gerekir. Francis Crick Yalnız müzik var, ilişkilerimin iyi olduğu. Paul Klee Müzik, kötülüğü olmayan tek bedensel zevktir. Samuel Johnson Tüm gürültüler içinde sanırım en çekilir olanı müzik. Samuel Johnson Kelimelerin başarısız olduğu yerde, müzik konuşur. Hans Christian Andersen Sanatsız kalan bir milletin hayat damarlarından biri kopmuş demektir. Atatürk Çoğu insan içindeki müzik cevherini açığa çıkaramadan ölür. Oliver Wendell Holmes Hayatın sıkıntısından üç şeyle uzaklaşabilirsiniz: Müzik, kitap ve kediler. Albert Schweitzer Müzik herkesindir. Ancak yayımcılar ona insanların sahip olduğunu düşünüyor. John Lennon Ağaç tepelerindeki rüzgarın uğultusu benim için her zaman iyi bir müzik olmuştur. John Burroughs Dinleyemeyecek kadar üzgün olduğum zamanların dışında, müzik benim tesellim olmuştur. Marcel Proust Ağır ağır ölürler; okumayanlar, müzik dinlemeyenler, vicdanlarında hoşgörüyü barındırmayanlar. Pablo Neruda İnsan her gün bir parça müzik dinlemeli. İyi bir şiir okumalı. Güzel bir tablo görmeli ve mümkünse bir kaç mantıklı cümle söylemelidir. Goethe Bilginin tek bir çeşidi yoktur. Kendimizi ve çevremizi anlayabilmemiz için, şiir, roman, müzik ve başka alanların da yardımına gereksinim duyarız. Steven Rose Aynı tarihten geldik - 2000 yıllık zulüm - acılarımızı daha farklı ifade ettik. Siyahlar mavileri geliştirdi. Yahudiler şikayet ettiler, biz hiç müzik dinlemeyi düşünmedik. Jon Stewart Hayat müziktir. Müzikle ilgisi olmayan varlıklar insan değildirler. Eğer söz konusu olan hayat insan hayatı ise müzik mutlaka vardır. Müziksiz hayat zaten mevcut olamaz. Atatürk Müzik nedir? Mehtaplı sakin bir gece, Yaz aylarında yaprak hışırtısı, Annesi Hüzündür! Müzik bir ömür için yeterlidir. Ama bir ömür müzik için yeterli değildir. Sergei Rachmaninoff Müzik, şiir, edebiyat, resim, dans ve tiyatro en zengin zevklerimiz arasında … Güzel sanatlar hayatın güzelliğine ölçülemez bir katkı sağlıyor ve bu yüzden onlara değer veriyoruz. Paul Kurtz İnsanlar bana tanrı vergisi bir müzik yeteneğin var dediklerinde, tabi ki bunu bir hakaret olarak algılarım. 18 yıl boyunca, her gün saatlerce süren emeği, bir mitolojiye maledilsin diye vermedim ben. Josh Groban

[motorsportverso]

IMSA Indianapolis resultado-Porsche faz 1-2 , vence #6 com a dupla Nick Tandy e Michael Christenssen

Resultado

1-6-Nick Tandy\Michael Christenssen-Porsche 963-Porsche Penske Motorsport-GTP-113 Laps

2-7-Felipe Nasr\Matt Campbell-Porsche 963-Porsche Penske Motorsport-GTP

3-25-Conner de Philippe\Nick Yellolly-BMW M LMDH V8-BMW M TEM RLL-GTP

4-31-Pipo Derani\Alexander Sims-Cadillac V Series R-Whelen Engering racing\Action Express racing-GTP

5-10-Ricky Taylor\Filipi Albuquerque-Acura ARX06- WTTR Andretti-GTP

6-60-Tom Blonqvist\Colin Braun-Acura ARX06-Meyer Shank Racing-GTP

7-01-Sebastien Bordais\Range Van Der Zande-Cadillac V Series R-Cadillac Racing-GTP

8-5-Mike Rockenfeller\Tijmen Van Der Helm-Porsche 963-JDC Miller Motorsports-GTP

9-59-Harry Ticknell\Gianmaria Bruni-Porsche 963-Proton Competition-GTP

10-11-Steven Thomas\Mikkel Janssen-Oreca 7-TDS Racing-LMP2-110+3 Laps

LMP2-TOP 3

1-11-Steven Thomas\Mikkel Janssen-Oreca 7-TDS Racing-LMP2-110 Laps

2-8-Luis Deletraz\Dan Goldberg-Oreca 7-Tower Motorsports

3-04-George Kurtz\Ben Hanley-Oreca 7-Crowdstrike Racing by APR

LMP3-TOP 3

1-17-Antony Mantella\Wayne Boyd-Duqueine D08-AWA-107 Laps

2-74-Gar Robinsson\Josh Burdon-Ligier JS P320-Riley

3-30-Nolan Siegel\Garett Grist-Ligier JS P320-JR III Motorsports

GTD PRÓ

1-79-Daniel Jucandella\Jules Gounon-Mercedes-AMG GT3-WHEATERTECH RACING-104 Laps

2-23-Ross Gunn\Alex Riberas-Astom Martin Vantage AMR GT3-Heart Of Racing Team

3-14-Ben Bernicoat\Jack Haksworth-Lexus RCF GT3-Vasser Sullivan Racing

GTD

1-57-Russel Ward\Philipi Ellis-Mercedes-AMG GT3-WINWARD Racing-104 Laps

2-78-Luca Spinelli\Misha Goikhnberg-Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo 2

3-1-Bryan Sellers\Madison Snow-BMW M4 GT3-Paul Miller Racing

[oldthymefarm]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: The Best of Starlog Volume 3 - Special Collectors Edition - 1982 - Star Trek | S.

[screamingreek]

The Best Of Starlog - Vol.3 1982 - Steven Spielberg, William Shatner, Philip K Dick, Gary Kurtz - Vintage Magazine

FOR SALE!!! FIND THIS ITEM AND MORE AT screaming-greek.com The Best Of Starlog - Vol.3 1982 - Vintage Magazine Featuring Steven Spielberg, William Shatner, Philip K Dick, Gary Kurtz Read the full article

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Star Wars Trilogy: Bonus Material 2004

[movie-titlecards]

Carnivore (2000)

My rating: 4/10

I really wanted to like this one, and it has the potential for some great cheesy so-bad-it's-good fun, but it never quite gets there - and it's not being helped any by the godawful audio quality, which appears to have been recorded with a turnip and leaves 90% of the dialogue about as intelligible as Charlie Brown's teachers.

[90smovies]

Jurassic Park

[oldschoolfrp]

Adventures in the Flow (Steve Schwartz for “Flowfire” -- nine Spelljammer encounters by Steven Kurtz, Dungeon 39, January/February 1992)

[fountaintheatre]

Fountain Theatre announces cast and creative team for L.A. premiere ‘If I Forget’ The Fountain Theatre is thrilled to announce the complete cast of the Los Angeles Premiere of  Steven Levenson’s (

[popculturebuffet]

Christmas Carnage: A Christmas Horror Story Review (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! Halloween’s in the rear view and that means we’re ready for the next big holliday.. Christmas! And thanksgiving too I guess but since my producer Kev coudlnt’ wait to unwrap his presents, he’s comissioned a whole month of holiday horrors for ya’ll to enjoy that i’m dubbing CHRISTMAS CARNAGE. It’s all christmas, all horror, all this month. Well not all this month I still have frogs, ducks and some other stuff to attend to. But the point is it’s gonna be good. 

Starting us off we have an anthology film, a format for film i’ve grown fond of. Wether it’s a bunch of stories around the same period of time that zig and zag out of one another like Love Actually or Dazed and Confused or just straight up a bunch of stories held together by a wraparound of some sort like Tales From the Hood or The French Dispatch, I love this kind of film. So I was excited to dive into this one. 

From what I could gather up, ACHS was thought up by the producer of the Ginger Snaps films, Steven Harvey who also directed the film along with Grant Harvey and Brett Sullivan who had both worked on the Ginger Snaps series, a series I do need to check out at some point as it sounds great. The writing was handed off to the guys who wrote a series called Darknet, a canadian horror anthology> Did this rag tag canadian crew make a christmas classic or another lump of coal? Join me under the cut to find out!

Content Warning: This review has mentoins of forced abortion. Feel free to sit this one out if you need to. I love you all. 

So before we get into four tales I need to talk about the films... creatttttivveee.. no that dosen’t feel right... baffletageous? Closer... Baffletastic. Oh yes that’ll do.

I want to talk about this films baffletastic decision on how to present the four shorts. As I showed earlier most anthology films either have the shorts on their own, sometimes with a cool wraparound story like Tales From The Hood’s mortuariy or french dispatch’s having the story presented and narrated as pieces for the titular magazine and bookending each story with the editor of the magazine talking the piece over with his writers. The other option of course is to have a bunch of interconnected stories that weave in and out of each other sharing characters as the night goes on. You can even do that with the previous format, simply having characters from the previous story show up in another one. There’s a lot of clever ways to do this sort of film and it’s part of their charm. 

This film.. chooses to take four self contained films, chop them up, and intersperse them, having one continue when another one’s scene ends.  While the films DO have connections, their small ones that would’ve been better served if the films were all seperated and simply connected by our wraparound DJ’s antics. Instead we’re stuck watching the shorts as if I was watching a film on tv and someone took my remote and bonked me over the head with it every couple of minutes to turn on another movie that just happened to be in the same genre. It also wrecks the shorts pacing as the School and Changeling shorts are slow paced and built on tension... but then cut to another story entirely which ruins what their going for. It’s messy and disoreinting. To show just how it feels here’s a little experiment I did. I’ve taken four, unrelated christmastime comic strips and chopped them up like this flim does to give you a sense of just how jarring this feels. 

I think you get the point. Now here’s each of the original strips as they were intended. 

I did this both so the original authors, in order Berkely Breathead, Randy Milholland, Lynn Johnson and Scott Kurtz could have their strips properly presented.. and so said proper presentation can prove my point further.  It dosen’t RUIN the stories but it still hurts them to be presented this way.  But even if the format’s janky, are the stories any good? well let me tells you

Dangerous Dan:

I named each story myself because the filmakers didn’t for no apparent reason. Like you don’t have to have titlecards but simply name them in the credits.  It’s not that hard. 

So the wraparound is DJ Dangerous Dan trying to inject some Christmas Joy into the town of Baileyville, which one year earlier had a massacre happen in a school. Naturally one of our stories is about said massacre, but for now we’re just focused on good old William Shatner, ham, egotist, astronaut and a delight in the right work. He’s the only actor here who has a bundle of experince, as most of the actors were ameturers and unknowns. Sadly he just dosen’t ham it up the way you’d think, especially since his first segment has the character getting drunk and his segments are just kinda there. Again if this film had proper framing he’d be a great intro to each segment, giving us some yuletide stuff releated to the story... that then contrasts with how dark the story actually is.  It’s not hard. He also gets told “Fuck Christmas” by his weatherman, and reports on a situation at the mall. Gee I wonder if this is setup for later.

Now for the stories i’ll be following them in MOSTLTY order of introduction, the one exception being the Santa segment which gets a teaser to start the film but dosen’t properly start till after the other three segments and ends up closing out the film so i’ll be saving it for last. 

A Child Was Unborn This Christmas Day:

So instead we start off with this segment. Three bland teenagers, Molly, a redhead, Ben, your standard movie NEEEERRRDDD who clearly has a crush on Molly, and Dylan, their friend whose just kinda there and whose girlfriend Caprice...

Gets them the keys to sneak into the school to break into an old convent beneath their school where last year two grusome murders took place. One of them is Dangerous Dan’s nephew as we later find out. Caprice was going to go but has to go with her family instead, which leads into her segment which we’ll get to in a moment. It once again would’ve worked better had we seen her segment later instead of the next scene, allowing this shitty passion play to continue and THEN find out what happened with her later. 

The three break into the school because Molly wants to investigate the murders because she’s doing a school project on the murders and wants to get good footage since she can’t use the police video. Because taking murder tourisim videos is the fastest way to get an a..... in getting your ass thrown out of the school. Nothing about this makes sense.. like was she ASSIGNED to talk about the murders or did she choose that thinking “Gee the teachers sure want to be reminded of two of their students getting horribly murdered in the basement” 

The characters themselves.. are nothing. Molly wants to do some murder tourism, Ben is there and is sorta implied to have feelings for Molly and Dylan is also there. I don't’ blame the actors as it turned out I had seen Dylan’s actor before in Degrassi: The Next Generation as Zayne. And you may scoff but the directors and writers on degrassi gave him way more to do and an actual character to play, and I owe the show an enternal debt of gratitue for opening my eyes to the struggles of the trans community and their existance. Before then most things i’d seen with trans characters had used them as cheap punchlines.  I will always give them credit for that any time I get the chance to. 

Here though the cast really just dosen’t pop, and given they’ve gone onto other works. Sure some of it is soapy stuff like the 100 and riverdale, where Molly’s actress played the wife to a cult leader who tried escaping in a rocket while wearing an evil kenevil jumpsuit, just after Betty had to defuse a bomb. What i’m saying is I don’t hold their performances against the actors and I really should review Riverdale at some point and wish I was watching that instead as I haven’t seen it, only heard of the madness secondhand. but it calls to me.... it calls to me. 

Anyway the plot proper has our heroes breaking into the school, dodging a teacher, and then breaking into the basement. Say do you guys like bland teenagers slowly walking around poorly lit hallways for about 15 minutes?

Well neither do I but I’m being paid to review this so I had to put up with it. It honestly reminded me of another horror “classic”: 1313 Haunted Frat, a film by a guy who clearly makes films just to put attractive young men in their underwear, that was literally just a guy walking around in his underwear for all but maybe 10 minutes of a 70 minute movie. This movie is that minus any novelty value from “someone actually paid for and filmed this and amazon actually agreed to put it on their service”. With this it’s just footage that’s so dark and incomprehensible at times I swear this is how Hans Moleman sees the world. 

Eventually plot DOES happen, centered around a rumor Zoey spouts off earlier about a teenager who had a virgin pregnancy but no one belivied her. Via some jump scares she finds out the poor woman was forced into an aborition by the nuns. I scoffed at nuns actually doing this.. and still do, as it turns out there’s a LONG history of sexual abuse of nuns including forced abortions in the catholic church. So this nightmare is possible, it’d just likely be a corrupt preist who actually did the impregnating ordering these women to do it. 

But the ghost of that girl is still around and posseses molly, as it turns out the killings were her host being rejected and Grace. said teen, killed them out of spite or something. It’s pretty vauge ghost stuff. She has Molly throw herself at Dylan and when he turns her down due to having a girlfriend, he gets killed offscreen, though when we later see his impaled corpse which is a pretty neat pratical effect. 

She’s more succesul with ben, who gladly does it, and the whole scene is genuinely creepy, using the fact Grace is using molly like a puppet and barely emoting for maximum horror. Ben somehow gets Grace pregnant because magical ghost pregnancy, while Grace is horrified at what they did. They realize what’s going on, and what the bloody message on the wall seen at the start of the short when they watched polcie footage meant. The ghost ends up killing ben because he has a weapon? I guess. Either way he’s cruficied and flops around goofily so.. that sure did happen. Molly is let go and I count the moments till I get paid for this one

This segment is awful. What a shocker I know I hid it so well, but it’s long, padded, the characters arne’t fleshed out enough to care about and even it’s one effective scene is still awkawrd as all hell. This segment is just terrible what’s next

The Changeling

From the worst story to the best we have the Changeling. We follow a family of three: Scott, a troubled black police officer whose on leave due to being heavily rattled by the events of last year, as he was the cop on the scene and in the video the three doucheketeers watched, his wife Kim who he has a strained but loving relationship with and their cheery son will. So he decides the best way to fix his strained relationships is to commit some gold old fashioned family theft and take a christmas tree from someone’s off limits property. I would also like to point out that this family are the only black characters in the entire film and clearly the directors did not think their implications through at alll when casting this segment.  But Will happily partakes in his dad’s tree theft, but soon wonders off and goes missing, causing his parents to fight till they find the boy in a tree. Nothing weird about that no sir. So they take their boy home only for Will to start acting a bit weird: he dosen’t speak any more, only responds to orders, and eventually only to Kim’s orders, and when eating eats incredibly fast and when Scott tries to get him to slow it down slow it way down he plays a good old fashioned father son game of stabby hand. Will wins because he has the stabbing fork. 

Scott and Kim argue over it, Kim takes a VERY long shower that wouldn’t be out of place on skinimax, and eventually Will opens all the presents and Scott gets out his belt in response. Again.. they REALLY shoudl’ve thought this segment through more. 

Still the aftermath is well done: Kim is disgusted whlie Scott poors over the files, clearly troubled by what he’s done to his son and repentant. Will’s response to this.. is to choke him to death off screen and decorate his dead body in decorations. Tis truly the hap-happiest season of all to commit patracide. 

Kim is horrified and having gotten a call earlier from a creepy weirdo saying the kid isn’t hers, the same creepy weirdo that owned the tree they stole, finally listens to him. The creature in there is not Will but a changeling, the mythical being that replaces one’s child. It’s a fascinating myth but not an often used one in horror, and I question why as there’s a LOT you could do with it and this short shows how, with the sheer terror of bringing your child home only to find your child is missing and someTHING has taken his place. 

Creepy Old Man explains he’ll switch real will for fake will and Kim tries to bluff the creature. She then stuffs her not child in a sack and leaves her husband’s corpse to rot because it really ties the room together. 

Shockingly the creepy old bearded man in the middle of nowhere who can somehow get anyone’s phone number wasn’t being fully truthful: not only does he not know where will is, but he starts beating the changeling the second he gets the sack and his clear abuse makes it VERY clear why the changeling acted why it did: it ate so fast because it likely never got to eat actual food before, it followed simple commands because likely it had that beaten into it, and it attacked Scott because he reminded him of his abusive master. It turns will’s death from a monster attack.. to a tragedy of a creature who killed a semi-innocent man simply because he didn’t know better and who simply wanted a better life, a human life instead of being treated like a thing just for existing. 

While Kim dosen’t share my sympatheties, she does have a gun and waves it at Creepy Old Man, eventually accidently shooting him as the guy approaches her like the creepy old guy he is. He dies thankfully and the creatures are freed... and Changeling Will genuinely thanks her by returning the original will. The Creatures are free to find the life they wanted, hopefully without kidnapping more children it’s a coin flip, and Kim and Will can go home. I’ts a bittersweet but throughly satisfying ending. 

The Changeling is, as I said the best short: it’s mood and pacing are top notch, it’s concept is great and it finds a clever way to tie it into christmas. It’s sad, horrifying and suspensful and it easily could’ve been i’ts own much better movie. As it stands though it’s the best part of a thorughly medicore film. It’s got great acing and unlike most of the segments actual directing, with suspensful shots panned around. It’s just that good and hopefully someone recuts it as a standalone, more people need to see this segment and JUST this segment. But I’m being paid for the whole film so...

A Very Krampus Christmas:

Caprice returns alongside her bratty younger brother, annoying gold digging mother, and scam artist dad whose driving them up to their rich old aunt’s house to try and milk some money out of her, to everyone else’s annoyance. Spending time with these characters is just as fun as it sounds and when they arrive the aunt’s butler is just as annoyed with them as I am while the aunt herself is standofish. Eventually though the kid among them breaks a figurine and the Aunt tells them to skeedaddled, leading to more arguging and yelling in the car. Seriously the first 10 minutes of this short has a lot of first world problems complaining and me praying for the krampus but the krapmus won’t come yet. 

The Krampus does finally come though and wrecks their car before slowly attacking the family, grabbing the little brother when he’s alone

And slashing the dad in his tummy. The family books it to saftey but the mom wants to go back for her boy despite him being red snow by now. The father however feels if they confess their sins, the Krampus will go away and reveals his company’s turned into a ponzi scheme all to keep his wife and he’s clearly going to prision, forgetting he’s rich and white and thus has the cheat codes for the system. His wife refuses and instead wants to go back only for the Krampus to bust in because he’s not a vampire and thus chruches don’t hurt him, and kill the dad, then the mom while she protects Caprice, like she shoudl’ve done when she was born by not naming her Caprice but better late than never amirite? Caprice runs and eventually reaches the aunt’s house, only to encounter the crampus. luckily she manages to stab and shoot the motherfucker killing him and revealing the butler. Her aunt invites her in and we get the full story: the figurine had nothing to do with the curse , it was a red herring. Sadly it was not Red Herring, he was in tahiti back then selling faulty watches. Good guy that Red Herring. Turns out people simply turn into krampuses if they get sufficently upset enough at someone because this world apparently runs on hulk rules, so butler guy’s anger at their shitty behavior caused him to hulk out and murder almost all of them.  Caprice realizes that her aunt sent them away, while KNOWING this guy was angry over their behavior and willingly turns Krampus , ending her aunt and gaining a new super power. So ... kind of a wash for her I guess? She lost her family and boyfriend but she can turn into a Krampus now, so.... fair enough?

This segment.. is okay. I’ts nothing special and i’ve heard the film Krampus released a few years later does a similar theme far better, and i’ll find out in a few weeks when I cover it. It’s quickly forgetable and not really much of note. It’s not great like changeling, terrible like the ghost story or batshit insane like our final tale. it’s just kinda there. Speaking of our final tale

Santa Claus Conquers the Evil Dead

This one is just pure scholocky fun till the twist ending. Santa Claus is at the north pole getting ready when one of his elves dies and gets infected, something that shouldn't happen given their all immortal. Turns out his elf got infected with some sort of virus by his old friend the Krampus, and it’s spreading. It’s basically the evil dead, same shit talking from the possessed and blood from the mouth, but with less gore effects and more elf murders. Really this plot is just santa killing a lot of creepy infected elves for 20 minutes and eventually mrs. claus too when she succumbs. And while quality wise it’s okay, it was clearly shot in an office building and it shows, it makes up for having eh quality by just being batshit: santa having to axe down his elves and fight his way through is awesome and like Changeling should be expanded into it’s own feature.

Though it turns out theirs a twist: after the cover battle with the Krampus, which is also cheestastic, we find out Santa is actaully Phil from earlier, who was said to be playing santa at the maul, snapped and thus acted out the night Santa went crazy but in real life. he’s sadly gunned down by the cops as Dangerous Dan reuminates. This twist is pretty good.. it’s somewhat telegraphed if your paying close atention ( I was not) but it reconteulizes things interstingly, Either versoin of this, disturbed santa man killing people in a delusion or the evil dead but with santa claus would be awesome and combined their pretty fun > At the very least cutting back to this madness is a nice repreive from the lesser part sof the film and a needed shot of adrenline

Final Thoughts

This film.. is not very good. It’s segments are in order, utter garbage, a hidden masterpiece, oh right that one and schlocky fun. It’s far from the worst i’ve seen, but it had so much POTETIAL to be a classic that it’s really fucking sad to see the awful results. it’s not even bad when it’s bad in the fun ways. i’ts just two mediocre films choppily edited into a good and so bad it’s good film.  Hopefully someone else takes a shot at this. 

Next Time: GOLLLLDBERRRG goes on what will hopefully be a much more fun murder spree!

If you enjoyed this review consider joining my patreon and thanks for reading. 

[readreadbookblog]

Books That I’ve Read

Here is all the new movies that I consumed in the year of 2021. I only put here the new items that I previously never have experienced before. Listed in the order that I saw them in. Lets hope that 2022’s list is greater.

Books

The Last Stone by Mark Bowden REVIEW

How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr REVIEW

A Brief History of Nakedness by Philip Carr-Gomm

Alien: Out of the Shadows by Tim Lebbon REVIEW

Alien III by William Gibson REVIEW

The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800 by Conor Cruise O’Brien REVIEW

You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington by Alexis Coe REVIEW

John Adams Under Fire: The Founding Father’s Fight for Justice in the Boston Massacre Murder Trial by Dan Abrams and David Fisher REVIEW

Call Waiting by R.L. Stine REVIEW

Fear Street: Fear Hall: The Beginning by R.L. Stine REVIEW

Goosebumps Horrorland The Wizard of Ooze by R.L. Stine REVIEW

Goosebumps Horrorland The Streets of Panic Park by R.L. Stine REVIEW

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson REVIEW

Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II by Robert Matzen REVIEW

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke REVIEW

Caffeine by Michael Pollan REVIEW

A Boob’s Life: How America’s Obsession Shaped Me...And You by Leslie Lehr  REVIEW

A Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don Winslow REVIEW

The Minuteman: The Forgotten Legacy of Nat Arno and the Fight Against Newark’s Nazis by Greg Donahue REVIEW

Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America by Steven J. Ross REVIEW

A Cool Breeze on the Underground by Don Winslow REVIEW

To Hell and Back by Audie Murphy REVIEW

Nights of the Living Dead Anthology edited by Jonathan Maberry and George A. Romero REVIEW

A Narco History: How the United States And Mexico Jointly Created the “Mexican Drug War” by Carmen Boulllosa and Mike Wallace REVIEW

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix REVIEW

Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel by Dan Ephron REVIEW

Napoleon’s Hemorrhoids and Other Small Events That Changed History by Phil Manson REVIEW

Yocandra in the Paradise of Nada by Zoe Valdes REVIEW

When Books Went to War by Molly Guptill Manning REVIEW

My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix REVIEW

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis REVIEW

Empire of Mud: The Secret History of Washington, DC by J.D. Dickey REVIEW

The China Mission: George Marshall’s Unfinished War, 1945-1947 by Daniel Kurtz-Phelan REVIEW

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata REVIEW

The Egg and Other Stories by Andy Weir REVIEW

The Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson REVIEW

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis REVIEW

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown REVIEW

[starling-illu]

22! ☺️🌺

There are sooo many but I will try to keep the list relatively short

Devin Elle Kurtz makes me want to be able to draw backgrounds...someday

Abelle Hayford has amazing character designs and colour schemes

Tess Fowler’s linework and comic style!! beautiful

GalacticJonah’s work is probably what got me into drawing fan comics! 

Will Kirkby all around beautifully, more linework I admire although I hate doing linework myself

My sister was my original inspiration and is now an incredible backgorund artist for Cartoon Saloon.

Other older influences are things like ATLA and Steven Universe, Ghibli and Disney, you know, the typical things. Games like Professor Layton, Pokemon, Harvest Moon and Persona also had a big influence on my art when I was younger