Introducing "Brief Asides"

In addition to my regular posts here at Kindle Taproom, I’m going to debut a monthly column about what I’ve been reading and seeing, called Brief Asides.  Each column will include a bunch of short items and quick recommendations, things readers will hopefully find interesting.   Anyway, this is the first installment, which just made it under the wire for January’s offering!

Speaking of January, often at the beginning of each year I’ll try to take on a reading assignment, usually involving reading or re-reading a favorite series of years past.  This year it’ll be a sort of combination of those things, as I’m going to put Isaac Asimov’s famous Foundation series in my sights.  It’s a combination because I’ve already read the three central novels in the series- Foundation, Foundation and Empire, and Second Foundation (for decades those were the only books in the series, which were collectively described as The Foundation Trilogy), but I had never read the two prequels and two sequels Dr. Asimov periodically added to the central trilogy later in his life.  The books are great fun (well, the ones I already read are great fun, anyway), both mind expanding and laced with adventure. So now I’m going to try to do all of them this year, four for the first time.

If you want to join me, here are the seven books in the series, presented in chronological order as their events unfold (that’s how I’m going to read them, not in the order they were written): Prelude to Foundation; Forward the Foundation; Foundation; Foundation and Empire; Second Foundation; Foundation’s Edge; and Foundation and Earth.  I’m reading Prelude to Foundation right now on my Kindle, and enjoying it a lot so far.

Oh, one final thought on the topic.  HBO and Warner Bros. television are now working to adapt the Foundation series for HBO, with Jonathan Nolan (successful screenwriter and brother of director Christopher Nolan) producing.  This is exciting news, and it’s what gave me the idea to read all the books in 2015.  I’m sure the show will be great, but I want the original source material fresh in my mind first. 

On the television front, I’m also enjoying a few good things on both broadcast and premium channels.  On the CW (channel 13 on my Philadelphia area Comcast system), The Flash is great fun, demonstrating that a superhero show can have action, danger, and drama, while still remaining fresh, bright, and upbeat.  I hope this one lasts a while.

On pay cable, Banshee is finally back! Now in its third season on Cinemax, Banshee tells the tale of a gritty ex-con who (through a series of unlikely but entertaining circumstances) assumes the identity of sheriff of a small Pennsylvania town in Amish country.  And he’s actually a pretty good sheriff, though he still performs (along with his entertaining cronies) the occasional bank or armored car heist in his off hours.  Unapologetically violent, sexual, pulpy, and over the top, the series is great fun (I know, I’m using that phrase a lot here- but that’s what this column is all about: things I find to be great fun).  Also, I like the fact that the show is extremely cool, but doesn’t constantly remind you that it’s cool:  It just consistently does its thing and keeps moving.

For me, January is also a time to check out all the movies that have been nominated for Best Picture Oscars.  It’s not that I need the Academy of whatever it’s called to tell me what the very best movies are in a given year, but I find that making an effort every year to see the movies nominated for Best Picture always results in my seeing a bunch of very good movies, some that I might not have sought out otherwise.  This year I have a lot of work to do to see them all, as when the nominations were announced earlier this month I had seen only about one or two of the movies nominated (eight were nominated for Best Picture this time).  I’ve since seen three more of the films, with a few more to go.  Check out my other posts for some thoughts on these movies, but for now I’ll tell you that I really enjoyed The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything.  Boyhood was very good, too.

That’s it for now. The next installment of Brief Asides will be put up sometime in February, along with a few other posts, I hope.  I want to breathe a little more life into Kindle Taproom in 2015, and I want this column to be a successful part of that initiative.  And, please, share your own thoughts about some of this stuff.  It would be nice to get actual comments on this blog again!

Universal appeal

The amazing life journey of Dr. Stephen Hawking was wonderfully portrayed in The Theory of Everything, another of this year's strong contenders for a Best Picture Oscar.

Blessed with a level of genius few could comprehend, yet trapped in a body that had betrayed, crippled, and threatened him at every turn, Dr. Hawking has nevertheless managed to redefine astrophysics, marry twice, father three children, and get honored by the Queen.

While definitely paying tribute to his intellect, as well as the irony of being a man with a super advanced brain and a debilitated wreck of a body, The Theory of Everything concentrates on Dr. Hawking's lesser known personal life and how that life, and particularly the people in it, were impacted by both his genius and his disease.

Inspirational figure and a great, fascinating movie- and, believe it or not, one that is largely upbeat. Like The Imitation Game, this is another bio-pic that's well worth a trip to the theater.

At the movies

The Imitation Game is a terrific World War II movie, telling the not very widely known story of British math geniuses trying to break the Nazis' formidable Enigma code.  Undoubtedly an extremely complex series of events in real life, the movie skillfully distills everything down to an engrossing and fast-moving two hours.

Benedict Cumberbatch is compelling as team leader Alan Turing, a troubled, tragic figure now credited as being one of the fathers, if not the father, of the modern computer.  Keira Knightley (of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies) and Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones) are among the many excellent supporting players.

More capsule reviews of this year's Best Picture-nominated films will be posted here in the weeks to come.

Quick Bat-tip

Originally appearing as a 13-part comic book limited series in the late 1990's, Batman: The Long Halloween is an epic, involving tale set during the early career of the caped crusader. Writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale tell a story that skillfully combines Batman's colorful rogues gallery (Joker, Riddler, Catwoman, etc.); more realistic criminal elements (in the form of warring gangster factions); and a terrific whodunit (who is the mysterious killer known as "Holiday"?). It all results in a wonderfully immersive story and hundreds of pages of gorgeous, moody artwork.

By the way, many of the story elements and set pieces of Batman: The Long Halloween inspired sequences- sometimes pretty directly- in Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" films, and Mr. Nolan acknowledges his debt to this story in the collection's forward. In any event, I'm glad I finally took the time to discover this little epic by Mr. Loeb and Mr. Sale, and look forward to soon moving onto Dark Victory, their sequel of sorts to Batman: The Long Halloween.

Batman: The Long Halloween is available in both print and Kindle editions.

Here ya go

Until I post something a little more substantial, please enjoy this photograph of a pretty woman and the following handful of clever puns (both photo and puns courtesy of spam and the internet).  The photo and puns really don't have anything to do with one another, but so what, right?

I changed the name of my iPod to Titanic.  It's syncing now.

I tried to catch some fog.  I mist.

I know a guy who is addicted to brake fluid. But he said he can stop anytime.

I stayed up all night to see where the sun went.  Then it dawned on me.

I'm reading a book about anti-gravity.  I can't put it down.

PMS jokes aren't funny, period.

I took a class trip to the Coca Cola factory.  I hope there's no pop quiz.

What does a clock do when it's hungry?  It goes back four seconds.

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

How do make holy water?  Boil the Hell out of it!

The real McCoy

Remember the scene near the beginning of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan where Admiral Kirk is mildly depressed and Dr. McCoy encourages him to get back his command of the Enterprise? That scene is recounted at the beginning of this engaging little story, where it gets McCoy thinking of an emotional crisis of his own way back when.

The bulk of this Kindle novella (probably about a hundred pages long if it ever appeared in print form) describes an early adventure of McCoy's on the remote planet of Capella IV, where McCoy and his medical colleagues study and interact with a primitive humanoid species, with the aim of trying to secure permission from the tribe's leaders for the Federation to mine a needed ore from the planet. The Prime Directive, politics, and a "needs of the many versus the needs of the few" situation all conspire to create a personal and professional crisis for McCoy, which he recounts to Mr. Spock years later after his meeting with the depressed Kirk.

As I said, this is an engaging little story, with interesting details about the alien race, decent banter and interactions among the Starfleet personnel, and even some saucy humor involving the alien race's mating rituals. The story's conclusion depends a little on being familiar with how things eventually worked out for Kirk in Star Trek II, but I suspect that 99 percent of the people who purchase this story will already be up to speed on that.

In the end, Michael A. Martin has written a crisp, entertaining novella that is true to the characters we know, and well worth the modest price being asked (something around three bucks at the time I purchased it).  I'll be on the lookout for more Star Trek tales from Mr.Martin.

Grave doings

After reading this book, it seemed to me that Robert Dugoni wasn't trying to re-invent the wheel with My Sister's Grave, but just wanted to deliver a rich, satisfying police thriller / mystery story. And that's exactly what he did.

Seattle police detective Tracy Crosswhite's younger sister Sarah had disappeared decades before in their old hometown of Cedar Grove, and though a body was never found, strong circumstantial evidence pointed to her murder, and a creepy local guy was eventually convicted for the crime. But now the body has been discovered, along with clues that suggest that the person convicted may have been framed for Sarah's murder.

With her ultimate aim being the identification of the real killer and bringing him to justice, Tracy works to get the case reopened. But she can't do that until the original guy is exonerated and released from prison because of the shady procedures used to convict him. Tracy's efforts to do all that don't make her popular with the residents of Cedar Grove, who don't want the disturbing crime from their town's past getting all stirred up again.

Dugoni has a nice, readable style, skillfully mixing investigation, family dynamics, action, danger, and even a gentle romance as Tracy becomes close with the lawyer helping her with her case. Some of the story is revealed in flashbacks, which are skillfully integrated into the main flow of the story.

This is the first novel of Mr. Dugoni's that I've read, and I look forward to sampling another one of his books in the near future.