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Messages - PixelFish

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Brandon Sanderson / Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« on: December 10, 2007, 07:52:16 PM »
I couldn't quite wrap my head around this...but wow, major congrats, man.

2
I may be in the minority here, because by and large, I like Jon Foster's work, although I have to admit that I like the original cover better than the paperback. And I felt it suited the story better. The view of Vin from below, flying over her nemesis, was intriguing. I know his angular, slightly shifted surreal style isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I liked the energy Jon Foster was able to get into the work.

 New cover: I disagree with the Grim Reaper figure being in the background, even allegorically, because I think the inclusion of that throws off the tone of the book. And while Vin is still very much in motion, seeing her from the side, or from above, does less to convey the same sense that she's using her powers to skate over the heads of her adversaries. As an artist, I think the painting is fine, BUT I don't feel that it's the right cover for Mistborn, per se. I'm very much a fan of the first cover.


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Brandon Sanderson / Re: If Mistborn was a movie. . . .
« on: December 02, 2006, 07:43:55 AM »
I can get behind Alan Rickman being in the cast. He could be the Lord Ruler, but I also see him as playing the Lord that takes Vin in as a pretend scion to his house. (Name escapes me for the moment.)

If you don't cast Alan Rickman as the Lord Ruler, would it be too cliche to cast Gary Oldman as the old/middle-aged Lord Ruler? Or Ben Kingsley (if you have seen him in Sexy Beast, you would know why) Or....wait, why didn't I think of this before? IAN McSHANE! (He can do EVIL really really really well. He's best known for playing Al Swearengen in Deadwood or Lovejoy in the Lovejoy Mysteries.)

Kelsier - Possibly Bruce Willis. Or Hugh Jackman. Or Mandy Patinkin. (Refer to Dead Like Me for a taste of his character, Rube, as a much older guy taking a younger girl under his wing and showing her the ropes.)

Vin - Natalie Portman (Girl looks good with a shaved head and scruffy looks.) or Parminder Nagra (Bend It Like Beckham) or Kiera Knightley

Elend - Orlando Bloom or Oliver Hudson (although Oliver solely on looks, I don't know if he can act)

Breeze - Stephen Fry.  And if we can work in Hugh Laurie as one of the others on the team....so much the better.

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Video Games / Re: Wii November 19th
« on: December 02, 2006, 07:22:25 AM »
Wait...they released versions for the GBA and DS of A Link to the Past? *skibbles off to look*

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Books / Re: What are you reading, part 3
« on: December 02, 2006, 07:18:41 AM »
Chimera: I loved the Ordinary Princess too as a kid. My sister bought me a nice hardcover edition last Christmas.

Dan_Guidan: John Ford passed away recently, and I've been trying to find his Star Trek novels. I've heard a lot of people praise his work, not just Jordan.


What I am reading: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, by James Tiptree Jr. - a collection of her short stories. I'm now on The Girl Who Was Plugged In, which has really hooked me. The Screwfly Solution was pretty riveting too, in the same sort of dark fascinating way I found Shirley Jackson's The Lottery. I'm trying to decide if the stories are too dark--I kinda like some optimism in my science fiction, so I have to be in the right mood to read these stories, but I still think they are well written.

Also just finished Maskerade by Terry Pratchett. He is as amusing as always, although this novel still won't be a favourite. Recommended if you are a Pratchett completist. (BTW, anybody hear about the Hogfather film?)

In the middle of Blindsight, by Peter Watts. Am liking it a lot. The characterisation is interesting to me, as well as the interwoven stories (the past on earth, the future in space). The character of Jukka the vampire is a nice riff on vampires without getting too cliche. Less romance, more predator.


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Video Games / Re: Wii November 19th
« on: December 02, 2006, 07:08:19 AM »
I'm hoping they release A Link to the Past sometime as one of the virtual console games, although I didn't see it on your list, Spriggan. (I've been playing my Ocarina of Time again, while waiting hopefully for an Xmas Wii and Twilight Princess.)

(When the Wii came to our office, it got everybody out of the cubes quicker than the fire alarm does.)

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Irene Gallo, the art director at Tor, has a blog, where recently she posted some works by Jon Foster, the artist for Mistborn covers. I guess they are doing a second cover for the paperback version, and she posts a shot of the cover as it proceeds from sketchy underpainting to finished work.

I thought the Mistborn fans would be interested in seeing this, if they hadn't yet.

http://igallo.blogspot.com/2006/11/jon-foster.html

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Books / Re: What are you reading, part 3
« on: September 05, 2006, 10:09:10 PM »
Forgot to mention that I picked up the first book of what seems to be the latest David and Leah Eddings series, The Dreamers. I didn't set particularly high standards for it, because while I enjoyed their first few series when I was much younger, the writing got rather repetitive and the "said-ism" is pretty rampant. (You know, when the author consults a thesaurus every time a character says anything, ie. Polgara murmured, Barak groaned, Belgarath gloated, Garion muttered, etc.)

Anyway, I'm only about halfway in, but even more than the Althalus book, this one almost reads as a parody of the Eddings' style. Characters seem rehashes of other characters: Eleria being a direct copy of Flute/Aphrael, right down to the obsessive kissing and silly names for other characters, Rabbit being the Silk/Talon character, Zelana being a cross between Polgara and Ce'Nedra, and so on. I can't say whether I'd recommend this to past fans or not. I'm relatively tolerant of the early series flaws and quirks and this one is irking me.

Also, as with most of the Eddings books, you could more or less skip right over the theologically inclined prologue setting up the myths and story themes. The flowery language they tend to go for there usually ends up killing any vitality of the myths they are trying to create.

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Books / Re: What are you reading, part 3
« on: September 05, 2006, 04:20:12 PM »
Perdido Street Station:

I started that two months back, and then laid it down mid-chapter, and forgot to come back to it. I'm only a handful of chapters in, and I remember some pretty imagery, and the beginnings of a plot, but little other than that. (Mostly I remember the insectoid people, and some building descriptions.)

While I want to like the book, the fact that I put it down and forgot about it til now does not bode well....

10
Everything Else / Re: RIP Steve Irwin...crikey
« on: September 04, 2006, 03:14:41 PM »
I really really did not expect to see that headline this soon. And it really saddens me in a way.

From the CNN article on his death:

"He has left a legacy: That people do love some of the unloved animals like crocodiles and reptiles that people wanted to kill," Stainton told CNN. "He's actually put a position in their hearts for them. I want that to continue. ... I want people to really go out there and remember Steve Irwin for what he really was, which was a great conservationist, saving wildlife and actually promoting wildlife that people didn't love."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/04/australia.irwin/index.html


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Books / Re: Want to read a good book?
« on: September 01, 2006, 03:42:34 PM »
E-books and e-readers: I think part of it for me is how much I can see on a page at once, and how much my eyes have to scroll. On a smaller device, I only get a paragraph or two before I have to scroll down. Since I read fairly swiftly  and my eyes "grab" large blocks of text, this means I have to constantly scroll or press a button, and the text is moving fairly constantly. This becomes tiring after a while.

On a computer monitor at home, a lot of my ability to read swiftly and stay engaged has a lot to do with the format the text is presented in. Graphic design studies in useability have shown that many humans don't like having to move their head to read text over long periods of time. Thus websites that scroll all the way across a page are harder to read swiftly than website that maintain a comfortable perimeter from the edges of the screen. On wider formats, eyes tracking a line have a higher incidence of accidently skipping a line or re-read the same line over. Of course, many younger users seem to have less issues with this than older users, so some of it may be an issue of adaptation.



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Books / Re: Want to read a good book?
« on: August 31, 2006, 04:50:05 PM »
This also begs the question: What would you read in the bathtub? The practical minded individual no doubt has considered the effects one wrong move would have on his PDA.

On the other hand, the movers like you more if your entire library is on the PDA. :)


Me, I think there will always be a demand for books. They don't require batteries, they don't require porting to new formats, they don't require backups.

Even if we get to a future where we get used to reading everything on wee machines, I think books will be treasured as art forms. The binding, the printing, the paper, the illustrations or photos....There are people that love the physical sensations of turning the pages, inhaling all that lovely new book smell. (My boyfriend has to be physically restrained at the Chronicle kiosk in the Metreon--their books smell delicious.)

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Video Games / Re: The Day the Gaming Died.
« on: August 30, 2006, 03:41:00 PM »
That's pretty understandable. :)


14
Movies and TV / Re: Chick Flicks
« on: August 30, 2006, 02:39:48 PM »
Quote



-Bend it Like Beckham (It's about people who are East Indian living in London. A mix of two things I think are really cool. And I relate to her dilemma of wanting to follow her dreams, even if her family doesn't agree. Oh, and Scottish boy is cute, too.)




Oh, you mean Jonathon Rhys-Meyers. *licks lips* Yes, he's yummy. In my head, he plays my assassin boy for my embryonic fantasy novel.

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Movies and TV / Re: Bubba... who?
« on: August 30, 2006, 02:38:17 PM »
Seriously?

Not sure what to think about that. I liked Bubba Ho-tep, and I love Bruce Campbell, but half that movie belonged to Ossie Davis.

Still...sounds cool.

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