Whilst I appreciate these quizzes don’t count as content, becoming a science-fiction/fantasy writer of sorts is something of a dream so I thought I’d share this with you.
 | I am:
Beginning with technological action stories and progressing to epics with religious overtones, this take-no-prisoners writer racked up some huge sales numbers. |
Which is cool. Stranger in a Strange Land was a deeply weird book when I first read it (I was 12) but it’s a masterful piece of storytelling.
Please can someone send me these? I’d really like to see what they look like.
For those who don’t know, Joost is an internet TV service that’s undergoing a trial phase. It was created by the founders of Skype. The BBC iPlayer is another internet TV service for BBC programming – an evolution of the BBC iMP, which I tested last year.
I like to be up with these cool tech trends but have been left off the list this time :-( — hoping someone can send them my way soon! Thanks.
I’ve had a busy weekend. Indie, chilling, birthday dinner, movie (Dreamgirls, bad), walk (Hampstead Heath, good), hot choc, supper, online shopping (damnit), and, erm, now to bed. But first, via Ze, I bring you ‘G’.
Share and enjoy. (Erm, you draw a stick figure, name it and it dances. That’s mine.)
Apologies to all the people who read this blog and find it overwhelmingly full of tech/geek posts at the moment. I will write more eclectically (and regularly) in the coming months. Has been a ludicrous January, but now that I am back up to being broadbanded up at home and have a clearer picture of what’s coming up things should be more predictable.
My buddy Jon has gone to work at Electronic Arts, and has arranged for me to get some games to review on here – thanks Jon! The first one that came through was Superman Returns on PS2, and here are a few brief thoughts, alongside an FMV trailer.
I’m not gonna give you the story – it’s not relevant, really – the game has a Spidey 2 / GTA style free-roaming, choose your own mission feel, involving any number of Metallo-bots and other baddies. Sometimes asteroids. And you’re Superman. That’s all you really need to know.
Gameplay-wise, its kind of fun to fly around as a Superhero, but the cool and relatively straightforward control scheme falls down when you start to get bored from having to deal with incredibly repetitive baddies and disaster scenarios. Whilst the end-of-stage bosses present something more of a challenge and novelty, this is a game that will involved a large amount of button mashing.
Sound – is fine. Nothing to complain about or sing about here, really. Not a game that needs a lot of atmosphere.
Graphics – show off the PS2’s decrepitude as a console. There are no textures, and about 7 polygons. Kind of reminds of me of ‘Alone in the Dark’. Anyone remember that? If you don’t… video follows. I hope its better on the other consoles.
Overall: I’d give this game about a 3. It’s not great, has some novelty value, but even superhero wannabes like myself will lose patience with the repetitive action and poor graphics. And if, like me, you’ve recently come into possession of an Xbox 360, you’ll probably want to play Gears of War for a while yet…
EA does have a bunch of very cool games in development: Hellgate London and Army of Two to name two… hopefully I’ll get a preview of these soon and will write about them here.
Huh – who’d have thunk. My blog has actual content on it. Big up!
Just been to the VENUS premiere with Maz. Was a great film, actually. Wasn’t too sure on the basis of the trailer (especially with the cheesey American voiceover in the version below)…
I don’t think this can be said often enough, but Peter O’Toole and Leslie Phillips are LEGENDS. I had a very strong desire to walk up to them both at the end of the film and simply say “Marvellous. Splendid. Wonderful.” — completely sincerely (although I would have fun speaking in posh). Sadly Leslie was occupied and Peter had left early, but still. Splendid. Marvellous. Wonderful. I hope you’re into blogging ;-).
Here’s the trailer for you:
It opens this week and I recommend everybody sees it: all the acting is magnificent, most of the writing is wonderful, you feel uncomfortable where you’re meant to, warm where you’re meant to, and pensive and confused where you’re meant to. Occasionally, admittedly, it is confusing as to why he’s quoting the most obvious Shakespeare out there (I mean, even I recognised the quotations), but it was, I guess, broadly appropriate.
It’s a love story. And a story of a life (mostly) well lived. “You have been loved, Maurice.”
Thanks to Alicia for sorting tix via Buena Vista…
Celebrity spottings: Hanif Kureshi, Peter O’Toole, Leslie Phillips and Jodie Whittaker (beautiful young star of the film) – for those curious, it’s her real accent (or close to it!).
Update: Sheels was at the premiere too, and just sent me a text to let me know she is standing at the bar next to Peter O’Toole! Cool!
Right, my adoring public. The internet problem has been resolved (ish) and I’m now back online. Once I started getting my hackles up the ISP seemed to pull its thumb out and I’m surfing at a reasonable 6MB now. Given that I was able to connect at 17MB before, there’s still clearly an issue, not to mention my landline doesn’t accept incoming calls… but hey, after all they’ve put us through, this is veritable luxury.
A stable wireless connection. W00t!
If you missed it, I’m sure it’ll repeat on More4 soon. Whatever you think of the sentiment, this is a stunning piece of television; beautifully shot, great timing, fantastic music. Just really well put together.
Oh, and Sophie Winkleman (who I was at college with) is in it.
If you don’t know what it is, it’s the year 2010 and Tony’s about to hand over the leadership to his successor. But Mr Blair has got more in store for him than his book deal and conversion to Catholicism… The Americans would like a word…
I’ve been reading a lot of short stories lately. Neil Gaiman and Alistair Reynolds in particular; they’re learning me structure and tone of voice; both things I need a bit more practice with so that I can rein my imagination in and actually write something down.
Neil G seems to be master of two things in particular: atmosphere and singularly dark plotlines.
Reynolds has tight control over story structure, and space-operatic universe in which to play.
Me? I got nothing. This writing lark is hard. But I’m plugging away…
The internet situation being what it has been (I’ve now been ‘escalated’ to a supervisor 9 times, spoken to 6 engineers and had the problem reported as ‘resolved’ twice — needless to say, it has not been resolved), I apologise for ongoing light blog presence.
I also just checked my comment spam for the first time in a week or so – 350 offers of various drugs and university qualifications and a few people who ‘like my site’ and link back to Google (why???). I wish I’d scored them like Michael Pollitt, who knows he’s crossed the 50,000 spam mark…
Hi – sorry about continual hold-ups to posting. My broadband connection continues to be out and my service provider continues to be unable to fix it. I will hopefully be back soon.
In the meantime, I have been playing some Xbox360 (and watching the CES news with interest) and reading a lot of short stories. Neil Gaiman is a dark inspiration. I have also been seeing much of friends, which has been… awesome.
Be back soon. If I don’t get t’internet fixed soon I may have to take drastic measures.