I’ve been aware of the Southern Vampire Mysteries for a while now…  But I hadn’t read any of them until very recently.

I heard decent things about them from other people.  Saw vaguely interesting information on the web.  I was aware that HBO was doing a television series.  But I just wasn’t that interested.

I’d enjoyed Anne Rice’s vampire books…  And I usually enjoy vampires in general…  I generally enjoy supernatural stories, and thrillers, and mysteries…  But I had a suspicion that there was something wrong with the series if so many people liked it.  Especially since it seemed to be caught up in the same swirling miasma of supernatural romance that Twilight was.

But Dead Until Dark was on sale on B&N recently, and I picked it up.  And I’ve just recently finished reading it.  And I’m impressed.

I feel vaguely wrong saying that…  It feels like I’ve just admitted to liking Twilight…  Largely because there are some superficial similarities…

But it really was a decent book.  Decent enough that I’m eager to read another one in the series.

I was genuinely impressed with the handling of the vampires.  They aren’t some kind of sparkly, harmless things like we see in Twilight.  They’re genuinely powerful, frightening creatures.  And unlike most of Anne Rice’s vampires, these guys seem to be genuinely dangerous.

Anne Rice wrote her books from the vampire’s perspective.  They generally had enough self control not to go on killing sprees…  But even if they did, humans weren’t given a whole lot of attention in her books.  They were just blood-filled forms moving through the background.  Convenient snacks for the main characters.

Charlaine Harris writes her books from a human perspective.  Humans are weak, frail, mortal things.  Vampires are supernaturally strong, fast, and vicious.  There’s a genuine sense of danger when they’re around.  There’s a real question of just how much self control they have.

It’s very interesting to see a vampire that isn’t portrayed as something human, and yet is still a love interest.  It’s kind of like watching somebody fall in love with a rusty bear trap.

Last night, Princess of Mars was on SyFy.  PZ Myers sums up my reaction quite well:

I had to watch a few minutes to discover that it was a heretical abomination which must be burned and its television creators hunted down and punished. I saw enough to notice that:

• The green Martians were made up with some cheesy lumpy appliance over their heads; their tusks wobbled like rubber every time they talked.
• The green Martians had only two arms. Two! They were also runts, far short of 12 feet tall. I tuned out before I could see how amputated the banths or calots were.
• Dejah Thoris was not naked. Nor red. And she was played by Traci Lords, who looked exhausted beyond her years.

It was bad. Really, really bad.

I kind of figured the acting would be a bit cheezy, since it was obviously a low-budget film.  And the dialogue would be corny, since the book was a bit on the corny side too.  But I really hoped for a reasonably accurate translation of the book.

Instead we got tiny little green martians with only two arms…  And more gunfights than swordfights…  And two Earthlings on Mars, instead of just the one…  But it wasn’t really Mars…  And there were no calots…  Nor white apes…  But there were “spiderlings”…  And no planet-shaking love between John Carter and Dejah Thoris…

They took the first third of the book, butchered it up, and then stretched it out into a movie.  They left out at least half the content of the book.  Big, important, climactic elements were just plain gone.

I was really disappointed.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and have been raving about it to my wife for a good couple of months.  I hoped the movie would interest her enough to go read the story…  Now I’ll be lucky if I can ever convince her to check it out.

Then, today, we went to see Splice.

It looked like a decent movie…  Some kind of sci-fi thing about splicing human genes with an animals, and things going horribly awry.  The trailers reminded me a bit of Species.  And it was directed by the same guy who did Cube and Nothing – both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.  So I figured it ought to be relatively decent.

It wasn’t.

Sure, the acting and special effects were good.  They definitely made good use of their budget.  But the movie itself just wasn’t terribly enjoyable.

The story itself reminds me more of Frankenstein than Species.  It wasn’t about aliens using our curiosity to invade…  Or even science gone wrong.  It was about humans crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed and paying the penalty for it.

Having blurred the lines between good and evil when they blurred the lines between human and animal, morality goes right out the window.

We see Elsa start making some very questionable decisions.  She shifts from treating the experiment like a pet, to a child, and back to a pet again.  Her relationship with Clive starts to crumble.  Their jobs are suddenly in jeopardy.  Her sanity seems to be eroding.

Then we have Clive engaging in some kind of bestiality/incest thing with Dren…  And then Dren winds up raping Elsa…  And Elsa sells her child…

It seems as if the movie is some kind of roughly-crafted morality play.  Some kind of warning that if we play god there’ll be hell to pay.  And there’s really nothing wrong with a morality play, but it comes across as very heavy-handed and awkward.

So, instead of a swashbuckling sci-fi romance, I got a horrifying bad adaptation of one of my favorite books.  And instead of a scary sci-fi thriller, I got an overbearing lesson on morality.

What I need now is a stiff drink and a good zombie apocalypse to scrub my brain clean.

I can’t say too much about Heart Shaped Box, as my wife hasn’t finished reading it yet…

Suffice to say that it was easily one of the best books I’ve read in a while.  Certainly the best horror story in a good couple of years.

I’m definitely going to have to keep an eye on Joe Hill…

Unbound | Version 1.3 Available Now!

Included in NOOK Version 1.3 software (available now) is the breakthrough Read In Store (Beta) experience where you can browse complete eBooks (and soon periodicals) in your local Barnes & Noble store at no cost! NOOK automatically connects to the fast and free Wi-Fi® and you’re free to read any parts of any available eBook for up to an hour per day! You’ll find lots of great titles, from the current bestsellers to classics, as we have more content available from more than 200 publishers including all the major publishing houses.

We’ve also enhanced Wi-Fi® connectivity so you connect to even more hotspots and rolled out a basic Web browser (Beta).

Plus, we’ve added some fun and challenging games — our first android apps. Sudoku anyone? Or, how about chess — pit your knight, queen, or rook against NOOK!

We’ve also made additional reading and device performance enhancements including improved page turn speed, faster access to previously opened eBooks, enhanced color touch screen navigation and more.

Some nice changes, but I still want to see some way to better organize my books.  Some tags, or folders, or shelves, or something.

I can’t say I care too much about the games…  But enhanced WiFi connectivity will be nice, as will the web browser.

Can’t wait to load it up and see how it all works.

Earlier this week, the Unbound blog announced that we’d be seeing an update for the Nook…  But things have been awfully quiet since then.

No patch notes, no details, no dates…  Which has lead to an awful lot of speculation.

Personally, I’d like to see some way to better organize my ebooks.  Tags, or shelves, or folders, or something.  It’s annoying to wade through 150+ books in an alphabetical list every time I want to find something new to read.

Texas Schools Ban Author for Book He Didn’t Even Write

When I read things like this it just fills me with despair.  This is the reason the USA is falling apart…  This is the reason why our economy is going to hell, why our politicians can’t get anything done…  We’ve become a nation of flaming idiots.

A school board in Texas was so terrified that their children might learn something about Marxism that they banned all books written by Bill Martin Jr. – who has never written a book about Marxism.

The guy who did write a book about Marxism is Bill Martin – notice the lack of “Jr.” there.  A subtle difference, sure…  But you’d think somebody might have done a little research before banning an author’s books.

All they did is throw the guy’s name at a Borders web search…  And when they saw the Marxism title they banned him.

Nobody read the Marxism book to see whether it was appropriate for children.  Nobody read the children’s books to see whether any Marxist sentiments showed up.  Nobody even bothered to make sure it was the same author.  They just banned him.

Looks like there’s been an update to the nook’s firmware.  I’m not entirely sure when it was released…  I’ve been too busy and too exhausted lately to do much more than crash in bed at the end of the day.  But there’s an update out, and it’s been downloaded and installed on my nook.

The first thing I noticed was a new GUI.  The buttons look more like buttons now…  Everything has a slightly rounded and contoured look to it.  Frankly, I liked the old style better.  The interface was much simpler.

There’s also the ability now to sort your “My Documents” section by author’s name or book’s title.  This is very handy because previously that section was sorted by file name, which wasn’t always helpful.

What I’d really like to see is the ability to organize my ebooks in some way – to be able to tag them, or sort them into folders, or something.

I’ve got roughly 150 books on my nook.  Some of those I’ve read, some of them I haven’t.  And I’d really like to get the read ones out of the way without removing them entirely.

With books purchased on the B&N website you can “archive” them…  This removes the book from your nook, but leaves it in your on-line library, so you can download it again.  And the book’s title on the nook gets grayed-out, so it is obvious that the book has been archived.

With the books that you add from other sources, however, there is no such functionality.  The ebooks all wind up in your “My Documents” section, and there’s no way to categorize them beyond simply sorting by title or author.

Slashdot | Amazon Surrenders to Macmillan on eBook Pricing

Amazon has thrown in the towel and announced it will now sell books at Macmillan’s increased prices; up to $14.99 from $9.99. Said Amazon in a statement: ‘We will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.’ Macmillan has sensed Apple’s iBooks opens the way for higher prices. Perhaps the question should be: do we even need publishers like Macmillian? Publishers have long managed to keep their old business model chugging along nicely despite the Internet; Academics are still forced to give up copyright (PDF) of their work in exchange for publication. Textbook publishers have a history of unethical practices like frequent edition changes, unjustifiable price increases and bribing teachers. For that matter, why do the RIAA’s members still control the music business? Why do these dinosaur publishing businesses still manage to thrive despite the Internet?

I’m really not convinced that this is a horrible thing.

Obviously I’d like to pay as little as possible…  Free is always good…  But I do believe that authors deserve to be paid for their labor.

And it isn’t like this is going to be an across-the-board price increase.  They aren’t going to start charging $15 for some trade paperback that sells for $5 in Borders.  This price increase is going to affect brand new releases and large, expensive volumes.  The things that normally cost $15 or more in paper editions.

But, I do think we’re going to start seeing a shift in book publishing as ebooks and their readers become more common.  Just as the recording industry is becoming increasing irrelevant in the age of broadband and MP3s…  I think the publishing industry is going to have problems with ubiquitous ebook readers.

I suspect that as people become accustomed to reading their books and magazines on the computer, or Kindle, or nook, or iPad, or their smartphones we’re going to see an explosion of authors publishing directly to electronic formats.  And I think the paper publishing companies are going to find themselves in a hard place – just like newspapers and record labels are.

Finished reading Already Dead last night.

Good book.  Fairly quick read…  Not terribly deep or substantial…  But a lot of fun.  I’ll definitely be reading more of these Joe Pitt books.  Which clearly shows the wisdom of making that book available for free…  It really isn’t the kind of book I would ever have purchased for myself.  But, because it was free, I read it anyway.  And now I’m going to go out and buy more.  Smart.

I’ve just started in on DEAD(ish) by Naomi Kramer.  Another ebook I got for free on the Barnes & Noble website.

Honestly, I didn’t even really check to see what it was about.  The cover looked cute, it had “dead” in the title, and it was free.  So I grabbed it.

When I opened it up for the first time on my nook I noticed something interesting though…  In the first few pages, where the copyright notice normally is, it indicated that the ebook is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution and Non-Commercial Use license.

This is interesting, because no dead tree publisher would ever touch such a license.

A quick search showed that while someone named Naomi Kramer does have some other books published…  DEAD(ish) is only available in ebook form…  And is published by Smashwords, Inc.

Smashwords appears to publish only ebooks…  And it appears to be completely free.  Simply create an account, submit your manuscript, and off you go.

So, once again, we see digital distribution breaking down the barriers to entry.  Just like the advent of the Internet, inexpensive computers, good-enough recording equipment, and MP3s made it possible for pretty much anyone to record and distribute music…  The advent of the Internet, inexpensive computers, and good-enough ebook formats is making it possible for pretty much anyone to publish and distribute books.

Very cool stuff.

Corporate Mission Night, Part 2, didn’t happen last night.  I didn’t really plan on attending, since it was TV Night…  But I was logged in and doing my own thing for a few hours last night anyway.  And as the 8:00 mark approached, there were only three of us in corp. chat.  I don’t know if anyone else showed up later…  But the place was looking pretty dead when I logged off for the night.

Of course, TV Night didn’t happen either.  Like I said yesterday, there really isn’t anything that makes Wednesday nights special anymore.  There aren’t any special shows on, and we can watch the shows we like whenever we want.

So, Terri and I wound up reading last night.  Just curled up in bed and cracked open a couple books.

I finished reading The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes yesterday…  Every single story except for The Adventure of the Final Problem seemed familiar to me.  I’m still not sure how I managed to miss that story before…

So, now I’m on to a new book – Already Dead by Charlie Huston.

It isn’t really the kind of book I’d normally read…  It’s kind of a detective story with vampires, and a bit of a noir feel to it…

But it was free on Barnes & Noble, and it looked interesting, so I grabbed it and gave it a try.

So far I’m enjoying it quite a bit.