Cthulthu + cyberpunk. minus the punk. minus the cyber.

I’ve got no food to talk about today. If you want food tonight, go to food network, because I’m already over it. Sure, I could pour through my cookbooks to find something, but I’d rather just talk about some cool stuff I’ve been reading. Cuz it’s cooler than food.

I just finished reading Cory Doctorow’s collection of short stories Overclocked. It’s sort of cyberpunk, except without the punk. And without the cyber. Ever started reading a William Gibson or a Charlie Stross and wondered “wtf”? start with Doctorow. He’s the steps in between, the almost future, the tomorrow you can see on a horizon a few clicks before the cyberpunk. This volume has 5 short stories, most of which are prophetic and funny, and a little scary. Doctorow claims to know the future by knowing the present, and he’s right. We’re only a few steps away from his predictions of sentient computers who commit suicide, and already there with people in 3rd world countries being paid to play WoW and sell the winnings on E-bay. When you think about it, his predictions make perfect sense, because we have all the tools to make them a reality. When you think about it some more, you realize they make perfect sense because we’ve already been there before. Maybe not the same people, or the same countries, or the same technologies, but the same wars and the same bigotry. and his I Row-Boat story is just hilarious. I want the website for the Asimov Yeshiva!



it’s very sad how lacking I am in my scifi foundations. Embarrassing, in fact. You can’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you’ve been.
Next in the reading pile is Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, a tomb of short stories by H.P. Lovecraft (duh), and other authors who took over his legacy after his death in the 1930s, such as Clark Aston Smith, Frank Long, Robert Bloch, and August Derleth. I’m only two stories into the tomb, and I’ve already scared the crap out of myself. Most of these short stories were written between 1920 and 1940, with a few written in the last 20 years (such as that one by Stephen King). Yes, the writing style is more formal than I am used to, but I’ll get over it. it’s very sad how lacking I am in my scifi foundations. Embarrassing, in fact. You can’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you’ve been. Maybe one day I’ll have enough of a foundation of what the hell is going on to really understand what I’m reading.

I’m now signed up to be a reviewer with SFRevu, and I got my first book from them, called Splinter, by Adam Roberts. Not much on the back cover, but I’m immediately thinking Nickelodeon’s “Skyland”. SFRevu’s reviewing guidelines are on the vanilla side, but what can I say? I’m a whore for free ARCs.

What, this bookgasm isn’t enough food for thought?

Random thought for the day: the theme song to Kappa Mikey and Avril Lavigne’s new song “Girlfriend” are exactly the same. I’ve been watching Kappa Mikey just so I can sing the Avril lyrics, and everytime I hear that stupid bubblegum song on the radio, I sing the Kappa Mikey song.

I wonder what my life would be like if I watched a tv channel other than Nickelodeon?