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Monthly Archives: May 2017

Top 5 Wednesday | Fandoms You Are No Longer In

31 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in blog, Coffee, friend, home, House, Life, list, Love, male friendship, Money, time, Today, Top 5 Wednesday

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t5w1Top 5 Wednesday is a Goodreads group that began in 2013 that provides book related topics for readers so that they can produce content for their videos or blogs. Spending anytime on the Booktube wing of YouTube will show that T5W is quite popular, so I figured I would incorporate this into my blog as well.

The irony is that, for my introductory topic for Top 5 Wednesday; Fandoms You Are No Longer In, I will have to refer to television show that I watched when I was younger that I got heavily invested in. The reason is that I can’t recall ANY book related fandoms that I’d say I felt part of. I’m not sure why I haven’t been able to get heavily invested in books like I once did with TV shows.

So I’ll begin…

5. Six Feet Under

sixfeetunder

In short – I was obsessed with this show. I loved every aspect of this series and a remember staying up late just to watch the new episodes as they came out. Interestingly, I really didn’t know anyone else who liked the show – or watched it for that matter, so I would seek out internet chat rooms that talked about the show.

I moved on from Six Feet Under when I graduated high school and moved off to college. Although I was obsessed at the time for this show – I can’t really recall much of it now.

4. CSI
CSI_pinball

My entire family watched this together – along with it’s spin off’s. I just really enjoyed the science in it, along with the story lines. CSI for awhile was the thing that I would look forward to going home and watching.

Once again, in retrospect I don’t recall much from the series.

3. The Whitest Kids U Know

wkuk

MANY of the phrases and inside jokes that I use with my friends can be sourced directly to this show. Randomly screaming out “Nailgun” when things are beginning to go weird has it’s origins with this show.

In regards to WKUK, I was certainly in a ‘fandom’ with this show. When new episodes would air, I’d get online and open up my instant messengers (AIM and MSN!) and quote lines from the shows to friends who would respond with lines from the show to me. Sometimes I’ll go back and watch entire seasons of WKUK just for the memories.

2. Boy Meets World

boy-meets-world-season-4I watched every single episode of every single season of Boy Meet’s World from the first day it aired.

I was always envious of the friendship that Cory and Shawn had and continue to this day to have something like that.

In early post’s on this blog, I may even reference this show in regards to my [former] best friend and I. This show helped me to formulate what an ideal friendship should look like.

And now that things have fallen apart in the friendship between myself and my [former] best friend, I sometimes look to a quote from Boy Meets World for, perhaps, a glimmer of hope.

“You do your thing and I do my thing. You are you and I am I. And, if, in the end, we end up together, it’s beautiful.”

In many ways this show continues to shape my life – even in retrospect. It was a show that I grew up with in my teenage years and watched religiously – just like it’s predecessor, The Wonder Years. Recollections of the show does bring back a lot of emotions. It’s difficult to believe how many memories I have attached to Boy Meets World, and how integral large portions of it are to my life.

1. The Tribe 

the_tribe_main

The Tribe is my Harry Potter/Hunger Games/ Game of Thrones / Throne of Glass etc. This IS the ‘fandom’ of my childhood.

The Tribe was a New Zeeland(?) TV show that had a plot similar to many modern day dystopian Young Adult novels. In The Tribe, a virus had been created that killed off all the adults, leaving a world of children who were fighting to stay alive. The kids form small groups – or tribes as they struggle through this new world. The primary tribe the show follows are called the Mallrats who live in an abandoned mall. The Mall rats are comprised up of outcasts of various other tribes who sought refuge in this mall.

Each kid plays a different role in the Tribe, there is the scientist, the engineer, the spiritual one, the farmer, the warrior, the scavenger, the deal maker, the leader, etc. The show had numerous stories interwoven into it that made for a very compelling show. As one character was trying to develop an antidote for the virus, others were trying to fight off an attacking rival tribe.

Barter was the way of conducting business.

The Tribe took on a whole bunch of grown-up topics, like teenage pregnancy, religion, depression, suicide, rape, sex, death, slavery and numerous forms of violence that you generally would not see in an American children’s show.

If Boy Meet’s World helped to shape the way I viewed friendships and personal relationships, The Tribe was instrumental in helping me shape my views of the world. It is the precursor that most likely lead me to the anarchist views I hold to this day.  A lesson that both Boy Meets World and The Tribe taught me is that people must be valued over money and possessions.

A Tribe fandom still exists to this day. I will watch old episodes on YouTube when I’m in the mood. It was a lovely show that, whenever I meet someone else who once watched it, I feel instantly connected with. Although I have one older brother and two younger sisters – they never really got into The Tribe, so I’d always be watching the newest episodes with my mom – a connection I have with her that I would never trade.

CHANGE AGENT by Daniel Suarez Discussion & Review

29 Monday May 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, blog, Book Review, books, Coffee, Discussion, recommendation, science fiction, time, Today, Writer

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Change Agent by Daniel Suarez is a 398 page science fiction, thriller novel that I read in the span of two days, and I enjoyed every word of it.

I’m going to cut to the chase and say it out-right, I liked this book – a lot.

ChangeAgentThe year is 2045 and Kenneth Durand, an Interpol agent, works diligently to protect the world from genetic crime. Durand’s existence however poses a threat to the worlds largest criminal genetic cartel, the Huli jing and their leader sets out to stop him by transforming Durand into the leader of the Huli jing, Marcus Demang Wyckes.

The ideas explored in this novel are, essentially, the reason why I enjoyed it so much. The action sequences were appropriate, however what I enjoyed most about this book was it’s speculative science that, quite frankly, isn’t far off. This book isn’t set in a dystopia or utopia, it is simply a world in which technology has out grown it’s restraints.

Where the book succeeds is in it’s ability to ask questions without trying to moralize with answers. Durand, who is quite hard-lined against genetic manipulation even begins to shift in his views as he see’s that there are benefits that go along with the negatives – even if those benefits aren’t technically legal in the world he lives in.

The book also delves into the meaning of identity, asking where does true identity lie – in our physical appearance or somewhere deeper. But at the same time, it examines how our physical appearance does have an impact on our ‘deeper’ identity – that who we are is the result of both our physical appearance and also what is commonly thought of as our soul.

There is a lot going on in this book on numerous levels, and quite honestly I am unaware why this book is receiving such bleak reviews from people. I did not find the book ‘preachy’, nor did I feel that the action was slogged down by scientific explanations.

Whenever I go into a book, my desire is to get something out of it – basically, to be entertained is NOT my first motivation when going into a book. If pure entertainment is the goal of a reader, then I could understand why the hard science in Change Agent might be a chore to get through.

I absolutely loved this novel and highly recommend it.

☆☆☆☆☆ – Change Agent by Daniel Suarez

BORNE by Jeff VanderMeer discussion & review

27 Saturday May 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, blog, Book Review, books, cat, Coffee, Discussion, Life, science fiction, time, Today, Writer

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In a near-future world where the creations of a biotech company known as The Company run amok terrorizing and destroying a once prosperous city is where we find ourselves in Jeff VanderMeer’s latest novel, Borne.

borneFollowing Rachel, we learn of the origins, the ‘life’ and the ultimate fate of an undefinable creation of The Company that is known in the book as Borne. Borne is introduced to us as a discovery made by Rachel in the fur of a sleeping three-story tall flying bear known as Mord. When she takes her discovery back to her home in the Balcony Cliffs – a defunct hotel – she initially believes it to be some bio-engineered form of plant life.

Until it begins to grow.

Soon Rachel begins to see that what she had brought back is actually some formless sentient being that she gives a name; Borne. Nothing about Borne is ‘normal’ in regards to what we consider to be ‘life’. It consumes but leaves no waste – and everything that it consumes becomes a part of it. This creation that Borne is has a desire to learn, to know, to be and we see this being try to become what it is lead to believe it is; a person.

But is Borne even a form of life?

Through the course of events we learn about Rachel’s origins – we learn about Wick, the man she lives with at the Balcony Cliffs. We watch from afar the terror that is unleashed by a giant, flying bear known as Mord and his equally violent proxies. As the story unfolds we get brief snippets of this peculiar character referred to as the Magician. The role that the Company has played in all of this, and finally we get to watch Borne become … something.

Before this novel, I hadn’t read anything by Jeff VanderMeer and given the initial response to the release of this book I thought I was in for something that would be extraordinary. What I got was this rather wordy story that I continually had to force myself to pick up and read. The beginning was great, but somewhere along the way the book went from being a delight to read to simply being a chore.

I went from being deeply invested and interested in what the outcome would be to simply just not caring. The only thing that prevented me from not DNF’ing this book was to see if there was any merit in the rave reviews this novel had received.

There wasn’t.

The ENTIRE story pivots around the work of the Company. The origins of Mord, of Borne and essentially the entire cast of this book have something to do with this biotech corporation. You do learn a bit about Borne’s initial purpose, but not the intention of his creators – the same goes for Mord.

Why were these creatures brought into being?

VanderMeer even has his main character and her boyfriend(?) Wick entering the Company and briefly go into the areas of Mord and Bornes development, but that is the extent of it. Unfortunately by the time we get to this point I’m not sure I really cared any more.

Will this novel stand the test of time?

I’m not sure if this book will be remembered past 2017 – I doubt I’ll be able to recall much of it past May of this year.

As for the authors other books….

Any interest I had in reading VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy also evaporated when I finished this book.

☆½ – Borne By Jeff VanderMeer

#Thursday #Quotables

25 Thursday May 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Author, books, Life, Love, On Being, Quotables, Quote, rain, Thursday Quotables, time, Today, Writer

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quotables-button

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else … Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”

― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

APES AND ANGELS by Ben Bova (Star Quest Trilogy #3) REVIEW [w/ spoilers]

20 Saturday May 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in blog, Book Review, books, Coffee, Discussion, Life, list, rain, recommendation, time, Today

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Apes and Angels by Ben Bova, was perhaps one of my most highly anticipated reads of 2017 because I could not wait for the epic conclusion of the story that began with New Earth and continued in Death Wave. What I got with Apes and Angels was neither “epic” nor a conclusion.

51Xlpws-ilL._AC_UL320_SR218,320_New Earth begins with a space expedition to a distance planet that looks like it could support life. So humans board a ship and voyage there to, essentially, have a closer look. Upon arrival it is discovered that this planet isn’t just inhabitable, it is already inhabited by aliens that are essentially human clones. Through the book you learn that a very advanced alien race created the planet in order to one day lure humans there. The advanced alien race knew that it would be dangerous to try and make contact with humans first so believed that the best thing to do was to have humans come to them.

The alien race that so desperately wanted to lure humans to the planet that they created had a dire warning for humanity and felt that humans were the only beings in the solar system who could carry out a task that if not confronted, could wipe out all life in space.

There was a death wave coming and it’s arrival at any planet meant total extinction for every creature that lived there. The task that humans had to take on was whether or not they’d be able to go these far off planets with the technology required to save these alien species from the incoming death wave.

51geRVcqdGL._AC_UL320_SR212,320_Death Wave, the second book in the Star Quest Trilogy has an all together different tone than New Earth. In Death Wave the plot revolves around the monumental task of convincing the World Council – the earths one world government – that there is an extinction level event approaching Earth (and other life supporting planets) and if the World Council doesn’t act – it will mean the end of life on earth as we know it.

Death Wave does not have any of the space exploration that the first book has and is quite political in nature. You have two people, one human, one alien (a couple) doing all they can to warn a very stubborn government about the approaching doom out in space. By the end of the book you get the sense that, after plenty of persuasion, the couple were successful in their task and World Council is going to take the necessary steps to protect itself and other worlds from the death wave.

By this point, the first two books have developed a rather clear trajectory into what you’d think the third (and final?) book in this trilogy is going to be all about. I, at least, was under the suspicion that Apes and Angels would be about how the World Council ultimately deals with the death wave and the types of missions that it sets up in order to help aid other planets. I was really expecting a lot more about this death wave and, especially, how alien species would respond to news of its approach.

51aZWuK229L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Sadly that is not what I got at all in the final installment of the Star Quest Trilogy. This book is, to be blunt, a mess. The very beginning starts off strong but it’s as if half way through it Ben Bova forgot the premise of his trilogy and just started writing whatever he thought sounded interesting at the time. This book, by itself, created for itself so many plot holes and loose ends that reading it gets frustrating. And if you are wondering about the death wave – don’t bother learning too much in this book.

Apes and Angels is about a mission to a distant star that has multiple planets that orbit it and they all support various life forms. The mission is to visit these planets, set up the necessary screens to protect them from the approaching death wave so that these alien species live and to ultimately study these aliens as well. The book opens with the Desmond Morris quote; “we may prefer to think of ourselves as fallen angels, but in reality we are rising apes,” (a quote also used in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes FIRESTORM). With the first 100 or so pages, the expectations is that you are going to encounter a rich story about contacting alien species and how humanity learns a bit about its self – as well as about the aliens.

But no, you get none of that.

You get a sub-plot about alien squid-like creatures that have a primitive language, but don’t get your hopes up, Bova gives up on those and expects you to forget about them as soon as he does. You then learn about the Gamman’s who live on planet Gamma. You get to read some terrible explanation that Bova provides for the difference between ‘apes and angels’ that is never really addressed again. You get to read about these six-legged cats that ride eggs from their planet to the planet the Gammans are on just to kill them.

You then get to read an argument between the scientists as to whether it is OK or not to save these alien species lives when THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF THE MISSION IS TO SAVE THEIR LIVES FROM THE DEATH WAVE.

This book really just pissed me off.

In the last section of the book you learn that while all this stupidity that we got treated to in the book was taking place OTHER scientists on the same mission were setting up the screens that would protect these planets from the death wave.

I honestly wish that when TOR received this manuscript from Bova, they should have demanded a rewrite, perhaps drop the stupid love story and focus more on the approaching death wave. And drop this idiot Brad main character all together and focus on a character that is working directly with the anti-death wave screens.

This book was a flop – a flop that sets itself up for equally awful spin-offs that I’m not sure I’ll read.

This trilogy took one hell of a nose dive with this book.

☆☆☆☆ – New Earth

☆☆☆☆ – Death Wave

☆½  – Apes and Angels

LIBRARY OF SOULS by Ransom Riggs book discussion & review

13 Saturday May 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in blog, Book Review, books, Coffee, Discussion, home, House, recommendation, time, Today

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Library Of Souls.jpgRansom Riggs final book to his Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children trilogy, Library of Souls, provides a rather exhaustive collusion to this peculiar adventure story.

[The following will contain some spoilers.]

I have been reading the paperback editions of the Miss Peregrine trilogy as they’ve been released over the course of the past few years and I couldn’t wait for the paperback of Library of Souls to be released. I have just finished it moments ago and I’ve yet to discover the correct word to describe the conclusion provided in this trilogy.

Let’s begin with the premise.

The Miss Peregrine’s trilogy is the story about a boy, Jacob Portman, who begins a quest to learn the secrets of his grandfathers past. This quest unravels into an adventure as Jacob learns that he isn’t exactly ‘normal’ and has within himself some abilities that set him apart from other people – and allows him to enter into a world that is only accessible to people like him.

In this alternate world that Jacob enters, he encounters other people similar to him. People that his grandfather once spent a lot of time with. These people are known as Peculiars – and they all have certain abilities that make them unique. These abilities however, have made them the targets of creatures that have gone evil. When Jacob enters this world, these evil creatures are just beginning a new attack on the Peculiars which is what the trilogy is essentially about.

pergrineIt is interesting to note that the Peculiar trilogy takes place over the course of only a few weeks. This I found a bit irritating at times.

One of the major aspects of this trilogy is how Riggs uses photo’s to propel the story forward. In the first book, the idea felt unique – in the second book, the photo’s seemed to flow quite well with the story but by the third book this aspect of the book seemed quite forced and just seemed like a way for Riggs to add to the word count.

Anyway, it’s time to focus on Library of Souls.

Library of Souls begins exactly where Hollow City ends – there is no elapsed time between the books. Jacob and Emma, along with the peculiar dog Addison are being pursued by some evil creatures – the same creatures that had kidnapped many of their fellow Peculiar friends. These creatures want Jacob for reasons that Jacob isn’t even aware of yet.

Without giving away too much of the plot of Library of Souls, I need to discuss the part of the book that I found annoying and distracting – how contrived the use of the photo’s were in this book in comparison to the previous books. It felt like whenever Riggs had trouble trying to effectively tell the story, he’d grab a random photo out of hat and haphazardly try to work whatever was in the photo into the story. Way too many times in this book this was done very clumsily and I just wanted to stop reading.

I can’t recall how many times I wanted to DNF (“did not finish”) this book. It felt like Riggs had purposely dragged out this story 150 pages or so way too long. I felt at times like I was just pleading with the author to just make it all end. After awhile, every “twist” in the book began to feel like a punishment from the author. “Here, let me take 50 pages and 10 photo’s to explain this wonderful twist I came up with that I could have left out entirely.”

Needless to say I spent a lot of time flipping through the pages trying to figure out how many more pages I must endure before the chapter ended. The worst part about this is that I went into the book all excited, but half way through I really no longer had the ability to care how the story ended. Was the ending favorable? Disappointing? All I know is that I was just happy that it was done.

Although I didn’t review the first two books on this blog, I’ll provide the ratings I gave them below.

★★★★½ Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

★★★★    Hollow City

★★½        Library of Souls

The low rating is due to how quickly the book caused me to lose interest half way through it. I remember the excitement I had for the first two, and the excitement I had when I began Library of Souls – but all the side stories that were haphazardly worked into the final book caused me to lose interest.

 

 

THE FORGOTTEN MAN by Amity Shlaes – Book Discussion [Part 3]

06 Saturday May 2017

Posted by chadwickheller in Book Review, books, cat, Coffee, debt, Discussion, job, Life, Money, time, Today, work

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hoover-dam

Since I recently finished the book, what I have consists primarily of thoughts I had while reading the last 100 pages or so of THE FORGOTTEN MAN. Since this is a non-fiction book, I prefer to have ‘discussions’ rather than have a review of the contents. Generally speaking, providing a rating of a non-fiction book seems impractical when critiques are more suitable.

But anyway…The Forgotten Man

After an economy falls apart – who is more suitable in rebuilding it; the government or the private sector? This is the question that Amity Shlaes explores in her book, THE FORGOTTEN MAN A NEW HISTORY OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION. The argument that Shlaes is proposing is that the governments interference in the economy actually prolonged the depression rather than rectify it.

After the economy fell apart and millions of people were without jobs, the US Government under the direction of  President Roosevelt believed that the best remedy to this was to put people back to work. In order to do this, the government set up numerous agencies to help re-energize the work force. The Government also believed that another way to help with the economy was to regulate how businesses operated.

The US Government was learning how to deal with the economy through a series of experiments and by observing how other governments were dealing with similar problems. What the author inadvertently made clear was that there was no set procedure in how to pull the USA out of the Great Depression. Whether the private sector could have done it itself or whether the Government prolonged the Great Depression can only be argued in hindsight.

Shlaes presented several anecdotes where the government had overstepped it’s bounds in an effort to show how the government often acted as a hindrance. Although presented as an example as how the Governments programs worked against the economies natural growth – what it really showed was the governments inability to recognize it’s own limits.

I wouldn’t consider the New Deal necessarily wrong – the intention was certainly to correct a problem that hadn’t been encountered to such a degree in America. The largest issue with the New Deal was that the government – primarily Roosevelt – put way too much faith in it. Instead of adjusting to eliminating programs that weren’t going to work – the Government preferred instead to stand behind them, despite the economic destruction they were causing.

The Great Depression and the New Deal were both the results of inexperience – both in Government and in the economy. Before they happened, there was no “lesson” from a previous experience to learn from. Shlaes even notes how the US Government looked to both the Soviet Union and Fascist Italy for answers – the implication being that there was to prior event to look to.

Fear and hope were the primary motivations behind what the Government did – with no procedure to deal with such a problem, of course they’d run into problems – or become the very problem they were so diligently trying to avoid.

Either way, the book, albeit dry at times, was quite insightful.

Interestingly, the New Deal was largely a massive social experiment with varying degree’s of success and failure. The problem is that it essentially became the Government’s go-to blueprint in how to deal with a troubled economy. How numerous parts of it didn’t work is what needs to be examined – but rarely are and instead are just repeated, resulting in similar errors of the past.

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