iBrain and from Homer to Twitter

iBrain and from Homer to Twitter

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ibrain_cover_finalLast month I read a psychology book exploring the implications of the digital information age. In iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Human Mind, authors Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan walk the reader through the possibility that the influx of digital communication technology and social networking tools has not only changed the way we behave, but it is also causing our brains to evolve differently. Small and Vorgan discuss the gap between “digital natives” (Generation X on up) and “digital immigrants” (everybody else) and cite psychiatric studies showing behavioral changes that have occurred from a flood of multi-tasking with digital technology and the different parts of the brain that are activated by this technology.

Thankfully, iBrain isn’t an anti-technology screed—you can find plenty of those, and they won’t do one bit of good in halting technology’s march. But the book does fail to follow through on the grand promise of the first half where it shows the tremendous psychological changes that have swept through our society and right into the neurons in our gray-matter. Ultimately, iBrain devolves into a tepid “self-help” book that can only advise that maybe digital natives should turn off the computer and read a book or go outside occasionally so they can also learn social skills. Oh, and if you’re a digital immigrant, maybe you should take some computer classes or ask younger people for help.

Well I could have told you that, and I don’t have an M.D. in psychiatry like Gary Small. It’s a shame that a great premise in book like iBrain has to collapse into humdrum advice that anybody could come up with.

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The Red Wolf Conspiracy

The Red Wolf Conspiracy

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I guess it’s kind of of odd that I write for a publication that features adventure sword and sorcery type fantasy when that really isn’t my thing. Nothing against it; it’s just that with so much to read, there has to be something to really grab my attention for me to pick up a traditional epic fantasy, particularly if it means a commitment to multiple volumes. Here’s one that has, Robert Redick’s The Red Wolf Conspiracy. To find out why, read more here.

Tangent Online reviews Black Gate 13

Tangent Online reviews Black Gate 13

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The esteemed Dave Truesdale, founder of Tangent, has posted a detailed critique of our latest issue:

This thirteenth issue of Black Gate—with its usual complement of book and fantasy gaming reviews (not to mention a dandy article by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. on the magic in his popular Recluse series), and with its hallmark 200+ pages—was another wild ride, with some real standout pieces. Easily worth the $9.95 cover price.

Dave draws particular attention to two stories, including Myke Cole’s “Naktong Flow”:

Myke Cole‘s prose in “Naktong Flow” is smooth, evocative, and thoroughly professional. Some years ago he won the Writers of the Future contest, and it shows. “Naktong Flow” is set in the forest-jungles of the Far East, and follows Ch’oe, his men, their ancestor-magician, and a strange, magically-imbued wooden machine as they travel up the Naktong river in pursuit of the less-than-human creatures named the bonesetters… Think Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now and you’re on the right track. While totally self-contained and a proper short story, the ending is not what one might expect, and leads to the obvious conclusion that “Naktong Flow” should be part of a larger story. I, for one, will be eager to read it.

As well as the final chapter of The Naturalist by Mark Sumner:

An absorbing read and thoroughly enjoyable. Set in an alternate Central America in the 1830’s, it tells the tale of British explorers who encounter a race of swarming antriders who destroy everything in their path, including, of course, human settlements. Told through journal entries written by the protagonist, a Mr. Brown—the “naturalist” of the title–in the wonderfully expressive language of the time, it recalls the “lost world” tales of H. Rider Haggard and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Sumner constructs a remarkably rich and well-researched world, full of detail and nuance, through which the naturalist, his entourage, and the British forces stationed there must fight to survive. Fraught with danger and excitement, and full of the mystery and color of a grand adventure, I heartily recommend The Naturalist.

The complete review is here.

Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight

Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight

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dragonlanceDragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight
Directed by Will Meugniot. Featuring the Voices of Keifer Sutherland, Lucy Lawless, Michael Rosenbaum, Michelle Trachtenberg, Jason Marsden, Rino Romano.

During one of the classic episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, while Mike and the ‘Bots are watching the conclusion of the delightfully weird and wretched 1960’s Coleman Francis masterpiece The Skydivers, Mike abruptly remarks: “I don’t know guys. I still like this movie better than Top Gun. A lot better.”

So I will say this about the recent animated film adaptation of Dragons of Autumn Twilight: “I still like this movie better than the 2000 Dungeons & Dragons movie. A lot better.”

Be warned: these will be the last friendly words you are likely to hear in this review.

If Wizards of the Coast, the current owners of the Dungeons & Dragons media franchise, had serious intentions of starting a successful line of direct-to-video animated films based on the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels, they couldn’t have done a finer job of slicing themselves off at the knees with a broadsword than this disaster of a movie. The DVD came out in January, and the reason you probably haven’t heard much about it until now is because so many people are trying to abide by “If you can’t say anything nice…” Or else the film immediately slipped their memory after seeing it. Both concepts make sense.

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Who knew?

Who knew?

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Courtesy of Locus comes this link to, of all places, Penthouse, an article about Geek Love. Don’t get too excited, this is rated PG-13, despite its source.

Who knew being a geek was a way to meet cool chicks? Yet another thing I lived too long past to know existed. Back in my day, geekdom meant girls didn’t want anything to do with you. And, really, scroll down to the picture of the guys dressed up like Ghostbusters…maybe my ideas of sex appeal are just outdated.

The Truthiness of Legends

The Truthiness of Legends

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Not about myth this week, exactly, but legend–the sort of myth that begins as historical fact.

I was googling randomly to escape the weariness of my days and nights and I ran across the Wikipedia entry on Gráinne Ní Mháille (a.k.a. Grace O’Malley, a.k.a. the Pirate Queen of Ireland).

An account is given of the queen’s encounter with a certain Tudor pretender to the throne of Ireland.

[Legend meets punchline after the jump.]

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A Fine and Private Place after almost 50 years

A Fine and Private Place after almost 50 years

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a-fine-and-private-place1A Fine and Private Place
Peter S. Beagle (Viking, 1960)

Peter S. Beagle wrote his first novel, A Fine and Private Place, fifty years ago at the age of nineteen. Which really annoys me because the book is so blasted good, making me aware that, although I was a skilled nineteen-year-old in my day, there was no conceivable way I could have crafted at that age a work as beautiful and knowledgeable about life, death, and love as A Fine and Private Place.

And Beagle’s greatest work, the traditional fantasy classic The Last Unicorn, still lay ahead of him.

I’ll try not to take this all personally and just feel glad we have A Fine and Private Place around… and still in-print, a minor miracle considering how fast our culture embraces new and tosses everything else into the dustbin.

A Fine and Private Place is one of the masterpieces of contemporary fantasy, and only the long shadow cast by The Last Unicorn keeps it from getting more notice. The tale occurs almost exclusively within an enormous graveyard, features ghosts and a talking raven, but it isn’t a horror story or even a dark fantasy, but a gentle and often sorrowful look at the difficulties of love and the realities of death, neither of which work out the way any person living or dead might expect.

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SF Site reviews Black Gate 13

SF Site reviews Black Gate 13

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Sherwood Smith – who has reviewed virtually every issue of Black Gate – offers her usual detailed and thorough critique, this time at the SF Site:

“The Face in the Sea” by John C Hocking

Hocking’s story begins like a fragment from the middle of a Norse saga. We are at sea with the narrator Brand, taking ship after having rescued Asdia, daughter of Thorgeir Broadshield. Hocking hints at sparks between Brand and Asdir with the same economy one finds in the sagas as the action swiftly rises to disaster in the form of Einar’s dragon-ship chasing by magical means, aided by the evil Skorri…  a smashing action tale with strong evocation of northern myth.

The issue ends powerfully with Mark Sumner’s “The Naturalist, Part III: St. George and the Antriders.”

I believe a reader could catch up fairly rapidly, but to get the full impact, one really ought to read the earlier installments in Issues 10 and 11. This is a novel — complex, beautifully written in the idiom and cadence of the 1830s, but the horrifying battle against the alien antriders is so terrifying there is no danger of the reader finding the pace slow. Mr. Brown, a naturalist, is the narrator; the story is told in his journal as he follows Captain Valamont and his soldiers around, trying to investigate — and then escape — the invading antriders. Sumner brings the story to an elegiac close.. with an exquisite twist. This is a bravura story, well worth appearing in book form.

You can find the full review at www.sfsite.com/06b/bg298.htm.

A Happy Ending To A Short Tale About Prejudice

A Happy Ending To A Short Tale About Prejudice

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I am somewhat embarrassed to confess that until now, I had never read a Discworld novel. It’s happened before: I’m bandwagon-phobic and when books and series become popular, a voice I’m often not even conscious of starts harumphing, “It can’t be any good. It certainly can’t be as good as everyone says it is.” The Harumpher was busy for years on the subject of Patrick O’Brian, despite his series being recommended to me by many people of impeccable taste whom I knew were undoubtedly right. Yes, I know it is a character flaw to act against one’s own best interests.

Living in the Great Arabian Book Desert, without the means to (as some people do) rent space in a container for a huge yearly shipment of books from Amazon.com, I’ve had to shove the Harumpher into a corner with a gag in her mouth. I was so happy to find a free (!!) copy of Master and Commander on the paperback exchange shelf at my son’s school. Those people on the bandwagon were right! The book is brilliant. So now I’m going to have to shell out $15 or $20 for a used paperback copy of #2, which I might even be able to find here. Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic (all British editions here) showed up on the same shelf and I took it for my son whom I knew had read and enjoyed all of Pratchett’s kid books. But then I opened it up and found Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser practically on page 1. I was immediately drawn in by the mix of satire, broad humor, and complex intertextual engagement with the entire sword and sorcery tradition.

OK. OK, you guys have all read the whole series, probably. I’ve largely avoided humorous fantasy (although I enjoy humor in adventure fantasy, a different animal to my eye). This just seems smarter, by which I think I probably mean that it is serious at its heart. Or maybe it’s just because I, like Pratchett, prefer Lieber to Howard, or Dunsany, for that matter, although those and many other authors are in there too…. Anyway, it makes me happy that now I have two whole long series to look forward to.