Kim Stanley Robinson Eco Thrillers

Kim Stanley Robinson: His 80’s ‘Three Californias’ trilogy: The Wild Shore/The Gold Coast/Pacific Edge shows, roughly speaking, humanity ignoring technology, then humanity overindulging in technology—both leading to disastrous results—and finally humanity finding a balance between using technology and living sustainably with the environment. Even as Pacific Edge reads as a Utopian novel, it is not without conflict and tragedy.

In his ‘Science in the Capital’ series—Forty Signs of Rain/Fifty Degrees Below/Sixty Days and Counting—he again explores the consequences of Global Warming, but here lets things go to the brink of disaster (and quite a bit over it: the Gulf Stream fails, for one) before a modicum of sanity sets in and, if not actually saving the day, keeps hold of what’s left of it.

 

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Book to Movie

Synopsis

They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies…Now they’re coming for you. In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.

When the Robot War ignites — at a moment known later as Zero Hour — humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us…and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.

Facts

Steven Spielberg has tapped Robopocalypse as his next directorial project. DreamWorks, Walt Disney Pictures and 20th Century Fox will distribute the film. Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises, Les Miserables) was recently rumored to be up for one of the film’s lead roles, and has now confirmed her involvement:

Chris Hemsworth (The Avengers, The Cabin in the Woods) will also star. Ben Whishaw (Skyfall, Cloud Atlas) is reportedly being looked at to play a hacker named Lurker in the film.

Robopocalypse is currently scheduled for theatrical release on April 25th, 2014.

 

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Stannis the grammar king

Stannis Baratheon earns my respect, as an english teacher, by being a word usage nerd. His correction of Davos on “fewer” vs. “less” was both accurate and exactly what I’d want to see in my king.

Roose Bolton

“A naked man has few secrets, a flayed man none,” says the sinister and soft-spoken Lord Roose Bolton

NaNo

I am building my characters for my November's novel writing. Right now, I am constructing my hero's backstory. Then I will move on to rest of the people who will be in my story. I have read that best to use all archetypes and have them already prepped for November 1st.

Robopocalypse

Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I loved it! Not as structurally gripping as World War Z, but nonetheless a fantastic ride. I can't wait for the movie in 2013!



View all my reviews

Feast for Crows

Words are like arrows...once loosened, you cannot call them back.

He understood the way that you could sometimes fall right into them, as if each page was a hole into another world.

I prefer my history dead.  Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.

Words are wind.

His strength, his speed, his valor, all his hard-won skill...it was worth less than a mummer’s fart, because he flinched from killing.  Remember that.

Beneath the gold the bitter steel.

Learn three new things before you come back to us...

Learn three new things before you come back to us...she always did.  Sometimes it was no more than three new words of the Braavosi tongue.  Sometimes she brought back sailor’s tales, of strange and wondrous happenings from the wide wet world beyond the isles of Braavos, wars and rains of toads and dragons hatching.  Sometimes she learned three new japes or three new riddles, or tricks of this trade or the other.  And every so often, she would learn some secret.

It is being common-born that is dangerous, when the great lords play their game of thrones...

Technorati Tags: Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin, Quotes, Favorite, Book, Fanatasy

Ghost Story

I’m looking forward to the new Harry Dresden novel.

Books of the Future

September 2011

 

How Firm a Foundation (Safehold 5) by David Weber (Tor)

 

A Beautiful Friendship (Honorverse YA) by David Weber (Baen)

 

January 2012

 

A Rising Thunder (Honor Harrington/Torch/Saganami) by David Weber (Baen) – will be split in two

 

In the Mouth of the Whale (Quiet War Universe) by Paul McAuley (Gollancz)

Iron Jackal

So this is the new cover for the Chris Wooding book.  I asked him about it and he said it had been leaked.  And he would have words with art dept.  I pointed out that it looked a lot like Desolation Road by Ian MacDonald.

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Storm of Swords

...in battle discipline beasts numbers nine times of every ten, father had once told him.

Bedding...is not wedding.

The north is hard and cold, and has no mercy.

I count no day as lived unless I have loved a woman, slain a foeman, and eaten a fine meal.

For the oak recalls the acorn, the acorn dreams the oak, the stump lives in them both.

Everyone knew that bastards were wanton and treacherous by nature, having been born of lust and deceit.

It does not matter how brave or brilliant a man is, if his commands cannot be heard...

Valar morghulis was how they said it in Valyria of old.

Technorati Tags: Book, Fanatasy, Favorite, George R.R. Martin, Quotes, Storm of Swords

A Game of Thrones

If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him look into his eyes and hear his final words.  And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.

A ruler who hides behind paid executioners son forgets what death is.

Where the king does, the realm follows...

Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

I swear to you, sitting a throne is a thousand times harder than winning one.

They say it grows so cold up here in winter that a man’s laughter freezes in his throat and chokes him to death.

A bastard had to learn to notice things, to read the truth that people hid behind their eyes.

Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not.  Make it your strength.  Then it can never be your weakness.  Armor yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.

...a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.

Let them see that their words can cut you, and you´ll never be free of the mockery.  If they want to give you a name, take it, make it your own.  Then they can’t hurt you with it anymore.

The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends...IT is not matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace...They never are.

Distrusting me was the wisest thing you’ve done.

When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.  There is no middle ground.

Castles are not friendly places for the frail.

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World War Z

 

Brad Pitt’s production company beat Leonardo DiCaprio’s company out for the rights to the book.  Pitt is set to star in the movie version written by J. Michael Straczynski.  Though Max Brooks says he has ZERO control over the production, he has said he is happy with the choice of Brad Pitt.

A Dance with Dragons

Dance of Dragons finally has a release date of July 12th.  Now I just read that he hasn’t finished the novel yet, so perhaps that will be moved AGAIN.  Well, 2006 was its initial release date, so maybe we shouldn’t complain so much.  There is  light at the end of the tunnel.

According to the publisher, the book will run to 900 pages.  So it will be about the same length of Feast For Crows.

Technorati Tags: Book, George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons, Fantasy

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The Hot Gate: Troy Rising III

At Salamis, another of those critical battles...the Greeks painted their ships with names like ‘Citizen,’ ‘Freedom,’ ‘Democracy.’  Even the Spartans, despite a rigid lifestyle that subsumed identity to the state, were freer than any Persian.

Islam brought with it that essential mindset that all men are slaves to a higher power.  The Persians it was Xerxes and Darius as god-kings.  Islam simply substituted Allah and kept the same thought-process.

Muerto Minisculo, the tiny death

Been there, got the scars.

Technorati Tags: Book, Favorite, Quotes, John Ringo, Hot Gate, Scifi

The other side of Lord of the Rings

So a Russian author in 1999 wrote the story of the Lord of the Rings from the point of view of Mordor.  Russian Kiril Yeskov wrote The Last Ringbearer, a novel that looks at the events of the Lord of the Rings from the point of view of a human medic and an orc scout, both who have pledged themselves to Sauron.  Apparently the Tolkien estate has been keeping this interesting story from the public for some time now.  But you can get the PDF here and see what you think for yourself.  Me, I will be reading it simply because I don’t like censorship AND I’d like to see this other perspective on these well know events.

new Safehold novel

David Weber’s official homepage promises a new Safehold novel, the fifth, late this year probably October or November. It is named How Firm a Foundation.

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A Rising Thunder

So the new Honor Harrington novel is rumored to be published January 2012 and to be split into two parts.

January 2012

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a new Cassandra Kresnov series

Joel Shepherd is rumored to be starting another Cassandra Kresnov series.  If it is anything like the original, it will be a fantastic ride.

Technorati Tags: Book, Coming Soon, Scifi, Joel Shepherd, Cassandra Kresnov

A Beautiful Friendship

A new YA novel by David Weber centered on one of Honor Harrington’s ancestors.

October 2011

It is based on the short story by the same name coming in October. It centers on Stephanie Harrington, Honor’s ancestor that was the first human to be adopted by a treecat, the telepathic felines of Honor’s home planet.

Technorati Tags: Book, Coming Soon, David Weber, Honor Harrington, Scifi, A Beautiful Friendship