Ray Bradbury

 One of my favorite writers of all time, Ray Bradbury spanned the limits of the imagination in his books and often wrote of distopian societies in his dim predictions of what the future held for mankind. I have read just about everything that Ray Bradbury wrote and spent several hours as a kid watching Ray Bradbury theater where his talents were showcased by film-makers attempting to capture the realities expressed by Bradbury and hosted by the author. 1984 and  fahrenheit 451 are probably two of his most famous works. 1984 was a story about a big brother society in which two people fall in love during the apex of a big brother society where the government watches everything that people do, and in Fahrenheit 451 he writes of a culture that is forbidden to read books because of the terrible power that information has on society. though the accuracy of of Bradbury's books in relation to our own timeline is off the books are well written enough that the art definately imitates life in its ability to re-write history into the present and future effectively. definately was my favorite author as a kid and inspired me to read science fiction often. Bradbury for sure left behind a legacy of storytelling that is rarely paralleled and often imitated. his foresight on technological advances and their effects upon mankind are uncanny and sometimes terrifying. I enjoyed this series quite a bit and I will contnue to read and re-read it over and over again.

The best of HP. Lovecraft

   Lovecraft is and has been one of my favorite authors for a very long time.  It is no suprise to me that he made the reading list because his stories have quite a reputation. Stories like "The call of Cthulu" and "The Dunwich Horror " have inspired movie makers two or three times over to attempt to capture the magnitude of supernatural horror and fantasy that is Lovecraft. If you have ever read any of his books then you know that in the world he creates for us that gigantic elder gods from space once controlled the earth and seek to take it back, consume it and enslave anything on it. Here was a man that was sitting in Victorian America writing about the horrors that can be found in outer space which is pretty amazing because no-one at that point had ever been there, and no-one was writing about monster gods from space and no-one did again until Dianetics. His writing was said to be inspired by his nightmares which he feverishly wrote down constantly, as well getting inspiration from he writings and illustrations by Lord Dunsany. His books consistently go into archaic histories of cultists, scientists and conjurers and almost never have happy endings leaving the reader to assume that all is still not right with the world even after  the tale has been told. I have to say  that I recommend these stories to anyone looking for cult classic horror that captures both the fantastic and the horrible all in one package.

Labyrinth

                        Labyrinth is definitely Jim Henson and David Bowie both at the top of their game. A story that brings the real world to fantasy, while telling a tale of selflessness and selfishness. after seeing this the first time when I was a kid I thought it was great. though its a bit dated now, the amount of work that went into both the story and visuals was incredible for its time. Kate Moss plays Sarah, who is a teenager that winds up babysitting her baby brother. whilst babysitting she accidentally summons the Goblin King who kidnaps her brother and will turn him into a member of his goblin horde. With the afore mentioned theme there are many scenes which are super awesome vignettes performed by fantasy creatures of many varieties. there is something here for just about everyone and the display of artistic prowess involved with the making this movie  make it a classic. overall this movie is really fun to watch  even with the eighties datedness. there is alot offered in the way of visual elements, music and colorful costumes and well designed characters & environments that kept me watching.

interview with a vampire

Anne Rice writes about vampires in a way that I think has a universal appeal and keeps the story moving. The story of Louis The 200 year old indigo farmer-turned vampire and his distaste to exist whether alive or undead is one that I found hard to put down. the way that the book essentially runs in a timeline from the past forward as told by Louis was an interesting and effective element in the storytelling. Louis while in the story is very reserved made fun of and eventually pursued by his counterpart Lestat, who is his polar opposite in every way imaginable. The dynamic between these two vampires is really what makes this story interesting to me. also the point in the story where Louis goes to Paris and discovers the vampire acting troupe was pretty cool twist. Louis was out having a vampire identity crisis seeking vampires like himself to no avail except to find some wrong turn-esque vampires.
when he finally meets some vampires of equal caliber, they turn out to be killing kidnap victims en-masse en stage in an avant-garde theater show. Alot of questions are raised within the story line about the morality of the vampire which I think is a good way to kind of keep the human element within the characters. Our protagonist is a complete pacifist so he's pretty much everything that a Vampire shouldn't be.
Pacifism  can be somewhat of an issue when it keeps you from being able to eat to survive. another issue of morality is raised when Lestat reanimates a little girl for his own amusement to pull on the heartstrings of Louie's altruism. The problem is that the little girl no matter how old she gets will never be anything but a little girl. This leads to the eventual demise of Lestat when both Louis and  the little girl Claudia whom had been made vampires by lestat decided to kill him for his recklessness.
 Avery entertaining read that kept me involved, and removed my skepticism of reading Anne Rices novels, after hearing of her overly harlequin book style of story-telling . I will continue reading more in her vampire series when I get a chance!

stars my destination

                                                Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Definitely a fun to read story with a lot of elements that have made a resurgence in movies as of late. I have to say that I enjoyed the prologue just as much as the story with its tale of how humanity began to plague itself then the universe by spreading the reach of mankind an then by taking away all of life's great mysteries through science. I love how the Bester is aware of mankind's boredom of itself and reminds me kind of the attitudes during the great depression when several people went over niagara falls to the betterment of nothing when compared to how countless people gave their lives to further understand teleportation and the mechanics of it on a fluke disaster in the tale. Upon improving and unlocking the secrets of teleportation we of course have to go to war because boundaries are only limited to where a person has been, therefore we must lock up our wives and grand tour the universe to disaster.

The hero (anti -hero) of this story is an interesting character because he is driven purely by principle and will stop at nothing to get closure as to why his life was not worth a corporate vessel stopping to pick him up after he adapted to survival in the vacuum of space aboard the vessel he worked on which was now stranded due to its destruction in combat.  A very simple man who's inner and outer dialogue reflect a class structure put in place to provide limitations very similar to Aldus Huxley's "brave new world."  Gully Foyle is a man who survives insurmountable odds and is just not satisfied with that. His limited speech unwillingness to die for the sole purpose of revenge on the captain of the ship that left him behind takes hime on a journey that leaves a path of destruction and mayhem wherever he goes. I read to some disbelief the first time he rocketed out of a tattooed science/religious sect that had almost all but deified him and he left them to die at the mercy of his ship blasting off from the asteroid they had colonized completely disregarding the fact that they had rescued him. I regret that I did not finish reading the story all the way through but i nonetheless enjoyed it and will finish the tale in the future.

Alfred bester is definitely an author I will look toward in the future when I want something fun to read in the space opera genre that is out of the mainstream.

troll bridge

Not what I expected from a story called Troll Bridge but a quite welcome welcome take. As the story starts out our hero is old, cold decrepit and I was starting to wonder if he was really a hero after all. but much to my surprise this was an interesting take on the mark of industrialized society. I think its funny that the author decided to tell the tale this way, that the land was running out of hero's and legends and haunted creepy forests had been cut down killing off the things that had once scared the daylights out of  everyone. trolls and heros alike could no longer make an honest living doing what they did because industrialized society had driven up the cost of living and driven away the usual means of bread winning. The discussion that comes into play between Cohen the Barbarian and Mica the troll & family is really what makes this story. I find it funny that the troll was so willing to die by the hand of Cohen simply on the grounds that since times had changed the best thing going for him was death by a proper hero in front of his family. failure to modernize had left the troll and his family impoverished while relatives thrived in the lumber business and had swankier bridges while failure to put away for retirement also left our hero Cohen impoverished as well. I really enjoyed this short story and will read more works by Terry Pratchett in the future

Zone One by Colson Whitehead

   I was eagerly anticipating diving into Zone One after learning that it was a zombie novel. I was ramped up for reading about slow walking predatory corpses and gunfights and, and, and yeeeeaaahh people munching gory madness! Whoops not this book... I suppose if your a fan of Colson Whitehead previous to reading this book then I suppose it would be right up your alley. I have to say that I'm a fast reader but I found myself reading and re-reading the same chapters over and over again hoping I had missed some clue...some key element that would make sense out of the lack of transition from thing to the next except words in past tense. I really hate being hypercritical about a book but I cant remember dragging myself through a book before.

Right from the jump Whitehead places his knowledge of the streets of New York front and center by describing them street by street, block by block...for awhile. I would be awed but he lives there and has for most of his life. the characters that he placed in the story didn't really do much for me in the way that they were either relatable or believable. I feel that no time was really spent doing any personal research on how people react to high stress situations particularly life and death. Mark Spitz is often self described as hopeless but I would find it hard to believe that anyone who wallowed in hopelessness and thought so little of people would survive two seconds in an hostile environment. theres just alot in wording and character development that I think is missing leaving kind of a caricature (and not a good one) of what Colson Whitehead imagines people to be like. Now to the story end of it...No plot. nothing I really found rewarding, or really anything to keep me wanting to turn the pages. Mark Spitz and the other sweepers amble through the city while I get to read cynical sardonical dialog about how people were zombies before the infection because of their ineffectual purpose and occupation. An attempt at cleverness I guess but I really think that Colson Whitehead might think that he needs to make everything that didactic, either because he has a huge ego or because he thinks his audience needs to be told how to interpret things.  He should've stuck to his previous subjects because they must have served him well prior.

The Zombies on the other hand proved to be slightly more interesting. his descriptions of the chain of events leading to their demise in the way of zombiedom were a different approach however, still not too far of a cry away from the living. Naming the zombies "skels" was a good description, I have to say I'm a visual thinker and things like that prompt good mental imagery. Its great, just not so great in the infrequency of zombie related homicide, in its place we read of zombie fratricide which is also infrequent. I really tried repeatedly to the point of frustration to like this book and the love never came. jumping from idea to idea, to flashback, to current situation, and back again only to get 1970's tv pilot talk like having to stay frosty....come on. never in my life did I ever imagine that I would've been bored to tears reading a zombie novel but Colson Whitehead hats off to you my friend, in my book your ten slots below RL Stein, I at least can appreciate predictable plots and story lines in children's horror way better than the lack of either in a book for adults.  I really thought that the whole PASD thing lacked creativity and only served to further me in my assessment that Whitehead didn't pause to do any research on he topics he presented us with. I understand that I 'm reading fiction but even the best fiction has roots in reality.

For those that enjoyed the book awesome. but for me If I have any say in anything about reading Colson Whitehead in the future, I will never do it again.