Another World

Links:

Johannes Cabal Cabal Fanart
Johannes Cabal Cabal with Pokemon Fanart
Johannes Cabal Cabal Fanart
Movies: Star Trek: Into Darkness [Video]
Movies: Cats on Film Reviews of movies with cats in them.
Words: Word of the Year 2012

There seems to be a small but devoted JC fanbase on Tumblr, so I decided to get myself one -- GeistWorks.

In other news, I'm finally up to date on Castle. The recent Halloween episode at the convention was superb.

Books:

I decided to actively read the Dresden Files in order to catch up to the very latest book, Cold Days. I'm slowly working my way through Ghost Story right now which is harder to read because my second favourite character hasn't turned up yet, and probably won't.

Anyway, here are my reviews for all the books I've read in the past month and a bit in the order I read them:

Johannes Cabal: The Detective, Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute, M.R. James: The Haunted Dolls' House and Other Ghost Stories, Volume 2, Dexter: Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dresden Files: Grave Peril #3, Dresden Files: Summer Knight #4, Dresden Files: Blood Rites #6, Dresden Files: Dead Beat #7, Dresden Files: Turn Coat #11, Dresden Files: Changes #12, and Roberts: The Dragon With The Girl Tattoo.

Film:

I went to see Skyfall and Argo recently. I imagine that you've already seen Skyfall if you were planning on it. All I have to say is that 1) I liked Q, but I don't ship him with Bond and 2) I felt a little inadequate with Bond going "Omigod, I can only do ten pull-ups and fifty push-ups *sob*."

Argo was really good. Surprising, considering Ben Affleck directed and starred in it. I was already interested in the basic premise, but I was impressed by how taut the final scenes were.

Next: The Hobbit.

Life:

I performed impro at a theatre in front of a paying audience a few weeks ago. Felt good to be back. I'm also close to finishing a novel I've been working on and I don't think it's too bad, for once.

I hope everyone's okay and safe, particularly with things like Sandy hitting the US.

Anime: Moonphase Not quite sure why I didn't do this years ago, but I tracked down the new Moonphase. I guess I really haven't been paying much attention to anime lately.
Anime: K [Anime] Another ungoogleable anime, starring Namikawa Daisuke, Ono Daisuke, Tsuda Kenjirou, Sugita Tomokazu, Sakurai Takahiro, Fukuyama Jun and Miyano Mamoru. Just started airing.
Anime: Psycho-Pass [Anime] Homophone for 'psychopath' in Japanese. Stars Seki Tomokazu, Nojima Kenji, Ishida Akira and Sakurai Takahiro. Just started airing.
Anime: Zetsuen no Tempest Stars Toyonaga Toshiyuki, Suwabe Jun'ichi and Yoshino Hiroyuki. Just started airing.
Books: Johannes Cabal: The House of Gears On a massive Johannes Cabal kick lately. Here's a free, legal short story featuring him.
Books: How To Introduce Johannes Cabal Into Your D&D Module
Book Reviews: Flashman, Detroit Metal City #1 and Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer.

In the last three months, aside from Tiger & Bunny: The Beginning, I've seen three films in the cinema and all of them have been dystopian sci-fi. So in order of release/viewing and in reverse order of how well I remember them:

Total Recall

Did I really not review this one here? I know I posted about it on Twitter, Facebook and Absolute Write.

Anyway I loved the aesthetics of this. It's a beautiful, grimy, sci-fi landscape that seemed like it could be an updated version of Blade Runner. I must admit, I spent a lot of time playing 'spot the kanji in the background'. Visually stunning, and probably the best of the three.

Dredd 3D

Based on the trailers, this looked a little like Blade Runner too with beautifully ethereal slow-motion shots. Those were taken from brief moments in the film where people take a drug that's very similar to Brass Eye's Cake, and the rest of the film is massively gory. Massively, massively gory. But pretty good for what it is. If you can stomach it, you'll love this.

Looper

I still don't know how I feel about this one. Every time someone says how wonderful it was, I can't help but nod at all the things they point out, but overall I didn't feel it. At its core, it's a thoughtful, intelligent movie about time travel that takes itself seriously, but the whole time travel mechanism is broken. Oops.

(Also, it turns into a new movie about half-way through and every female character is literally a mother or a whore. Most of those praising it consider the first point a plus and don't notice the second.)

Next up: Skyfall.

Links:

???: Otters Who Look Like Benedict Cumberbatch (Thanks, golden_bastet)
Fashion: Steampunk Plague Doctor
LGBT: Lambda (LGBT) Literary Award Finalists Announced There's one book in both the trans* category and the SFF category. Well. This is Relevant To My Interests. However, I read the synopsis (here or here) and it sounds bad. Basically: Damon loves his girlfriend Alex. What he doesn't know is that she is actually a shapeshifter capable of changing her physical sex at will. Her parents implant a device that makes her permanently male, the gender which they view her as. Alex is distraught, but she'd better get used to it, as there's going to be a whole lot of angsty buttsex as poor Damon comes to terms with loving... a man! Having said that, due to the whole nature of the awards, I presume at least one trans* person on the committee has read it and felt that it spoke to them in some way.
Movies: In Michael Bay's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Will Be Aliens

I went into London on Wednesday (another interview) and headed to the National Gallery beforehand and the National Portrait Gallery after.

I'll hear back about the job on Monday, which starts the following day. If I get it (unlikely...), that will mean an emergency relocation to London. It'd be brilliant if I did though.

My writing is getting back on track and I've started outlining a new full-length story, although what I'm reading tends to influence the voice a lot. I just finished "Storm Front" by Jim Butcher, and that's more deadpan than what I was going for originally.

Napoleon Dynamite was on TV last night, so J and I stayed up late watching it and eating homemade Black Forest gateau cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I'd never seen the film before, couldn't remember what I'd heard it was about, and the first fifteen minutes didn't help much. Probably I'd filed it in the back of my mind solely due to its status as a cult movie. Anyway, once I got into it, I liked it quite a bit, although it'll never make my top ten. There's a clever bit where they're at the prom watching everyone else dance to "Forever Young" though.