What the Hell am I Doing-New Year's Edition

Reviewing this list since my last list, I realize I’ve been doing less in the month past than typically. I’m slowing down. This is a good opportunity to review and re-pace myself. I need January to set the pace for the rest of the year, and it can’t be a slow one. Not this year. This is the year everything changes.

Trying something new this post: More links. If you are curious about others opinions of the books, the links will lead to Amazon reviews.

Last Read: Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. This is a great, fast read with lots of twists and turns. It’s ostensibly about a young Indian boy whose family owns a zoo. While traveling on a Steamship with the animals (they’ve have been sold to a zoo in America), disaster strikes and he ends up on a lifeboat with a group of animals, including an adult carnivorous Bengal tiger. Is that redundant? In the middle of the ocean. And from there it just gets wilder. The last third is a kicker. I highly recommend the experience. This will never be made into a movie, at least not an adequate one, so the book is the only way to have this experience. This is on my list of top ten re-reads. Speaking of which, in no particular order, her are the first five (other than the one already outlined above). I’m cutting this into chunks, since I want this to be a somewhat readable list. Will post the rest sometime in the next month.:

The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.
I know I said no particular order, but really, this should be the top of the list. This is an amazing love story told through two lives-one of a man who jumps through his life, with no control of it, and the other of the woman he loves, and who loves him. Amazon synopsizes it better than I can. But it’s great piece of fiction. I can’t praise this enough. “If you read only one time travel romance thriller this year…”

Time and Time Again, by Jack Finney.
Okay, on the subject of time travel, which fascinates me for some reason, this is a good one. This was made into a schlocky movie with Christopher Reeve, and is one of those examples of movies I don’t understand. Why would you like a story enough to say you want to make a movie of it, and then fundamentally change the basic tenants of that story? Why does that happen so very often? Lesser movie, excellent, completely different, book. though not on the level of The Time Traveler’s Wife, above.

The Bee Keeper’s Apprentice, By Laurie R. King.
More period stuff. This title is the first of a series, whose premise is following the story of the brilliant and interesting woman whom Sherlock Holmes, in his later, retired years, meets, educates, falls in love with and marries. For Holmes fans, it may be a stretch, but I found it intriguing, and a great, sweeping story, as well as a great springboard for the latter titles.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr. This is the period piece that got me started. Scientists and a reporter in NYC in 1896, use modern profiling and evidence gathering techniques to profile and identify a serial killer. CSI:Old New York, with elements of a thriller and mystery.

End of Part one.

Last Seen: Apocalypto. This was a sweeping thrill ride. I’m not one for director swooning anyway, and think that every famous director from Spielberg to DePalma to Scorcese has had his share of lackluster efforts. I’ve never been one to say I want to see a movie because of the director. So the same holds true for the reverse—I wouldn’t avoid a movie because of the director, which seems to be a theme in all the other reviews I’ve seen. I’m a story guy. Gimme a good story, and I’m with you, right there. Anyway, this keeps your heart racing throughout the blood and gore and sadness (and there is a fair share, though nothing like, from what I’m told, Children of Men. Skipping that one, for now. Like I have a choice. This is my at-the-theater quota for the next 2 months.)

Last drawn: Finished the fifth page (in line art) for the children’s book I’m working on. Next, I need to do the color, which feels a bit intimidating, as I haven’t touched watercolors in a few years. Then on to dummying up the rest of the book, laying out at actual size. and mailing to my writer friend to sell. Pages are posted at my website.

Coming up: I am planning at this point (subject to chickening out and pending getting a pass) on attending the NY Comicon. This will be the first comic convention I will have been to since leaving Marvel. Spread the word to anyone who you know will be there! Meet my oldest! Poke my grey hair! Throw work at me!