I know, I know. What, you are no doubt wondering, am I doing STILL buying books – or, to quote an editor friend of mine, dabbling in “dead tree media”? Well, truth be told, I do own a kindle which I find very convenient…whenever I travel. But, the rest of the time, nothing beats the looks and feel of a good old-fashioned real book. And nothing beats perusing a bookstore and picking up a title that just happens to catch my eye, something far less likely to happen when shopping online. In fact, four out of the five titles pictured above were impulse buys. The fifth was the reason I’d made the trip to Chapters in the first place, a book whose release I’d been anxiously looking forward to for months.
Crackpot Palace is the latest collection of short fiction by one of my favorite authors, Jeffrey Ford, whose work ranges from delightfully curious to mind-blowingly inventive. I plan to ration these stories out, two a night, because this is a book I fully intend to savor.
If you’d like to check out Jeffrey Ford’s amazing work, might I suggest you start with The Empire of Ice Cream or The Girl in the Glass : A Novel or The Shadow Year: A Novel.
Hey, speaking of upcoming releases, look at what’s scheduled to hit the shelves just in time for my birthday month celebrations:
October 23rd! Circle the date. No one writes epic fantasy like Joe Abercrombie, delivering dark humor, colorful characters, and visceral action in novels that upend the staid genre in enormously entertaining fashion. If you’re interested in checking out Joe’s work, might I suggest starting with The Blade Itself (The First Law: Book One).
Resuming our trip down Stargate Atlantis memory lane…
THE ARK (316)
As much as I find great satisfaction in arc-driven episodes, I love these truly SF stand-alone stories simply because they’re so hard to do. Shep and co. discover a deserted space station hidden within a moon. Their subsequent investigation leads to a surprising discovery, a shocking double-cross, and a seat-of-your pants ride down from a rapidly deteriorating planetary orbit. Great performances all around.
An inadvertent bit of product placement occurs in one scene, the result of someone leaving a water bottle and Snickers bar in the shot. Nobody noticed – until AFTER the episode aired. It has since been fixed by the VFX department. I think.
The notes session on this script gave rise to one of the most memorable executive utterances. Just as the conference call got underway, Brad was asked to clarify something: “So, just to be clear…is this Earth’s moon?”. Earth’s moon? This series takes place in the Pegasus Galaxy. Welcome to Stargate: Atlantis, season 3.
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