We all went to see the Hulk yesterday. The comic-obsessed teenager in me really enjoyed it. It had all the Hulk-iana one could want: Hulkbuster Base, huge southwestern desert vistas, gamma bombs and Glen Talbot. I was looking for Rick Jones, but I don't think he made it into the film.
I have some issues with the pre-show trailers this time, however. Would someone explain to me what Dr. Seuss ever did to deserve the ravaging disrespect his ideas are getting from Hollywood? The trailer for The Cat in the Hat was cut from the same cloth as those for the Grinch movie ... inappropriate sexual single-entendres; overly literal set design, etc. Plus, like the Grinch movie, it's just a bad idea ... who needs an adult retelling of a fantastic cartoon that's not that old? What's next? Baywatch Babes in Toyland?
Brewed up a wheat beer (weizen) with James from the SBC yesterday; it was a lot of fun! I need to make another batch for myself soon; this one was for the summer party in July.
Books I've read since the last time I discussed books:
The Year's Best Science Fiction, 19th ed., edited by Gardner Dozois
Still a great way to keep in touch with the Science Fiction community. I have nothing else to say about it right now; I'm writing this several months after reading it.
Summerland, by Michael Chabon
Not quite as good as Chabon's Kavalier and Klay, but since that was the best book I've read in a decade, this is still pretty darned good. This is a children's/young teen book, a fantasy about a magical land where baseball is natural law. It brought back a lot of memories about my own terrible performance in the kids' leagues, with a much happier ending for the tormented right fielder protagonist.
Writing Los Angeles, compiled by the Library of America
Everyone living in LA should take a look at this book. No matter where in the mini-country we call Los Angeles you've been living, you'll learn something you didn't know before. It was fun to show my parents the photos from the architechural article and see them recognize landmarks from the 60s that don't exist anymore. The short stories from Raymond Chandler and others are fantastic. This is a perfect book to while away a month with, reading on the balcony as the California sun bakes the soil around your patio chair.
Fallen Dragon, by Peter F. Hamilton
I hated military SF when I was growing up. I left all that stuff to my best friend, he loved it. David Drake, Jerry Pournelle, all that Semper Fi techno-porn left me cold. This book was different. The excitement and action of military SF is there, but it has a social conscience that was missing from all that 70s hardware fiction. This book resounds strangely after Gulf War II, with corporate armies taking "dividends" from defenseless subject worlds. A deus ex machina ending simply accentuates the hopeless feeling for the modern reader. Not a feel good book, but meaningful.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2002
One of the most important articles I've ever read is in this book. Samantha Power's "Bystanders to Genocide" discusses the American complicity in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. This is an important document that is already having some effect in our government's reaction to the similar dreadful events happening in the Congo this year. There are other fantastic articles in here as well, but Powers' article is the standout.
Mapping Mars, by Oliver Morton
This book is just fun as hell. Especially when you pair it up with the glorious NASA Atlas of the Solar System, which I just happen to have a copy of. I now crave the MOLA (Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter) globe of the red planet. This book refers often to old NASA maps that I used to see when Dad was working at TRW during the old Viking projects, and also to the Kim Stanley Robinson "Mars" cycle, which I understand will be a SciFi Channel miniseries next year. As I finished this book, two or three new Mars probes lifted off from Earth, a fitting coda to a fascinating story of cartography and geography.
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cary Doctorow
Ad-hocracy? An economy based on, well, karma? Hmm. Cary Doctorow has written a story that takes place in a Wired paradise, with a murder mystery that's investigated by an immortal victim in Walt Disney World. I downloaded this book for free from Doctorow's web-site and read it on my off-time at work. At that price, this is a great read, and I'd even recommend the non-free dead-tree version as a great mystery for computer nerds.
Gun, with Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem
I saw an article by J. Lethem in the LA Weekly last week; they didn't even refer to this book in his little mini-bio. That's a shame; this is a great book. Lethem captures the essence of the noir crime novel -- the metaphors, the hopelessness, the resignation. That it takes place in the future just accentuates the feeling of doom. The "memory box" that debuts toward the end is one of the most terrifying devices in literature, up there with the scuttling red crabs at the end of Wells' The Time Machine. Oh, the economy in this book is also based on karma. Signs of things to come?