标签: fiction

A few years ago, I read Locke Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriquez, and Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.   I really love the graphic novel medium and I'm constantly impressed with the different ways in which the various wordsmiths and artists communicate their stories -- some are very linear in their timelines, while others bounce around all over the place in time and space; some follow a standard comic format (left page top-to-bottom then right page top-to-bottom with talk bubbles also progressing top-to-bottom), while others totally stretch the medium; and some present their tale in a straightforward manner, while others are the graphic novel equivalent of Catch 22 , introducing characters and references about which you don't have a clue, and then tying up the loose ends later. I love them all.   The reason I mention this here is that I've recently become enthralled with a whole bunch of new graphic offerings, and I thought I'd share them in the hope that I'll end up with someone with whom I can discuss the little rascals.   Now, I'm not going to give full reviews here; I'll do that sometime in the future when I've finished the various series. Instead, I'll point you to the first volume in each series over on Amazon. Suffice it to say that I'm only mentioning things that I consider to be worth reading, plus you'll see that they all score highly with other Amazon readers.   First up we have Saga by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples. The story revolves around two soldiers from opposite sides of a never-ending galactic war, who fall in love and risk everything to bring a fragile new life into a dangerous old universe. All I can say is that the graphics, the characters, and the storyline are spot on.     Next we have Chew by John Layman and Rob Guillory. This is a really interesting one. It's based on the premise that the lead character, Tony Chu, is Cibopathic, which means he gets psychic impressions from whatever he eats. This also means that he's a heck of a detective, just so long as he doesn't mind nibbling on the corpse of a murder victim to figure out whodunit, and why.   Another interesting offering is Black Science by Rick Remender, Matteo Scalera, and Dean White. This involves a dysfunctional family who are bouncing around from one dimension to another via a damaged machine, desperately trying to get back home. This is one of the ones in which you are introduced to things out of order, so you start off wondering "how on Earth did we get here" or "who the heck is this character" and then discovering the answer several pages later.     I tell you, these stories are jumping around all over the place. Next we have LOW by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini. This tale takes place in the far distant future when the sun's premature expansion has irradiated the Earth and forced humanity to live in radiation-shielded cities in the depth of the oceans. Things are starting to look pretty grim until a robot probe that was launched generations before returns bringing the hope of a new world in a distant part of the galaxy.     Last, but not least (for the moment), we have Trees by Warren Ellis and Jason Howard. This story is based in a near-future world where life goes on under the shadow of gigantic alien trees that mysteriously appeared all over the world. In the ten years since they arrived, we've learned that there is intelligent life in the universe, but that they don't recognize us as being either intelligent or alive.     Well, that's it for the moment. The graphic novels mentioned above are the series I'm actually reading at the moment -- I have a pile of others sitting on the shelves here in my office just waiting for me to find the time to peruse and ponder them. As soon as I do so, I'll post a follow-up column. In the meantime, are there any graphic novels you would care to recommend?

It's quite well-known that I love science fiction. One of the genre's I particularly enjoy is the "something happens to almost everyone else and you are one of the few left standing" type story. (I should point out that I only enjoy reading or watching these -- I have no desire to experience it in the flesh, as it were).   One classic story of this ilk is The Stand by Stephen King, which evolves from a "nasty artificial virus gets out" to "the final confrontation between good and evil."   Another interesting one is the graphic novel Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra. The idea behind this one is that something kills every living mammal possessing a Y chromosome except for our hero, Yorick Brown, and his pet monkey. Now, you might think that being the only man left standing in a world of women would convey certain advantages. It turns out, however, that quite a lot of the ladies are of the opinion that one man in the world is one man too many, and they feel obligated to try to rectify the situation.   The reason I'm waffling on here -- actually, I'm hoping to impress you with my Atticism (why yes, I did just received today's "Word of the Day" from Dictionary.com; how did you guess?) -- is that I just started watching a relatively new TV series called The Last Man on Earth . I can’t recall how I ran across this, but I downloaded the first few episodes to my iPad to give me something to watch on my recent trip to the UK.   The first episode starts off with a caption that reads "One year after the virus…" This very tidily sets the scene without consuming a lot of time explaining what happened. It also leaves us with a strangely -- yet refreshingly -- tidy world without any dead bodies strewn around.   The story is set in 2020 when we meet Phil Miller who -- to the best of his and our knowledge -- is the only person left alive on the planet. We follow Phil as he travels around the USA looking for any other survivors before returning to his home town of Tucson, Arizona.   We then observe how loneliness takes its toll on things like Phil's sanity and his personal hygiene, eventually leaving him lounging in -- while simultaneously drinking out of -- a plastic pool full of alcohol.     Eventually, the loneliness becomes too much, and Phil decides to take his own life. He's only seconds away from driving his car into a rock when he sees the smoke from a camp fire. When Phil investigates, he meets a lady called Carol, who is a really nice person, but also something of a nag with more than her fair share of eccentricities.   Now, I don’t want to spoil the plot, but I do want to share a few thoughts. When Carol first meets Phil, he's striding around wearing naught but his underwear. When they later drive to a store, Carol is horrified when Phil drives through stop signs, and she goes ballistic when he parks in a handicapped slot outside the store.   On the one hand, I can see Phil's point of view. If you truly believe that you are the only person on the planet, does it really matter if you prance around in your undergarments and drive through stop signs? On the other hand, having mulled this over for the past few days, I honestly believe that I would continue to wear my shorts and Hawaiian shirts (at least when going somewhere). I also believe that I would largely continue to follow traffic signs and that I certainly wouldn’t park in handicapped spots.   Silly? Maybe. It's hard to explain. I do have a deep respect for authority and rules and such that I think would persist even if that authority had evaporated. I also think I'd have niggling thoughts along the lines of: "What if my mom and dad are looking down from above watching me do this?" How about you? If you were to find yourself in the position of believing you were the last person on earth, how do you think you’d behave? Would you run wild and free, or would you try to maintain some sense of decorum?

Here's another column in which we pause for a moment to take a deep breath (hold it... hold it... now exhale), slow down, relax, and start winding down in preparation for the weekend. As part of this exercise, I've gathered a few choice diversions for your delectation, delight, pondering, and rumination. This week's humble offerings are as follows: No. 1: Let's start with a rather cool video that's billed as The Future of Design . This really does smack of all the incredible computer-generated effects you've been seeing in science fiction films over the last few years—with gesture-controlled computer interfaces—but it's starting to look like the future is now! ( Click here to see more.) No. 2: For those techno-weenies amongst us—of which I am a proud, card-carrying member—I just saw a really cool website showing the reverse-engineering of Clive Sinclair's amazing 1974 calculator hack. ( Click here to see more.) No. 3: Are you familiar with the work of American cartoonist and illustrator Reuben Lucius Goldberg (1883-1970) and his British counterpart William Heath Robinson (1872-1944)? They are both famous for creating illustrations of machines that were intended to perform relatively simple tasks, but whose implementations were incredibly complex, in that they performed their tasks in exceedingly convoluted and indirect ways. This led to the concept of a Rube Goldberg machine, of which there are many examples, such as the really cute video of one I just saw involving little puppies. ( Click here to see more.) No. 4: Of course, as soon as you start talking about videos of Rube Goldberg machines, one that immediately springs to mind is the classic—now legendary – Honda Commercial. ( Click here to see more.) No. 5: As usual, the problem with this sort of thing is that you just cannot stop. One of my very favourite Rube Goldberg-inspired videos is the one accompanying the song This Too Shall Pass from the OK Go album. ( Click here to see more.) No. 6: Now, generally speaking there is nothing amusing about someone who has consumed too much alcohol operating any form of machinery. On the other hand, I just saw a video showing the faces of people about to take a flight in a small helicopter when they see their pilot approaching while appearing to be under the influence. ( Click here to see more.) No. 7: Last but certainly not least (for this week), we have a very moving video that almost brought me to tears. This shows employees of Delta Airlines forming an honour guard for one of America's fallen warriors. This isn't cool beans in the usual sense, but it's definitely cool beans in that it makes one pause for a moment's thought and reflection. I had no idea that the folks at Delta did anything like this. All I can say is, "Thank you Delta Airlines employees!" ( Click here to see more.) As usual, if you know of any interesting sites you'd care to share, please leave a comment below.  

I have to declare that I love science fiction. No matter what else I'm reading, I always have a science fiction book "on the go" at the same time. Over the years I've often thought "I wish they would make this into a film!" , which leads me to the topic of this column: If you had a choice, which science fiction / fantasy books would you most like to see made into a film? Below are a few suggestions in no particular order and off the top of my head, but I reserve the right to add more as comments later: - The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. This has to be one of the best time-travel stories ever. - The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. I'm thinking that this could be GREAT if it was done on the same epic scale as The Lord of the Ring trilogy directed by Peter Jackson (I cannot wait for the forthcoming Hobbit Films to come out). - Eon by Greg Bear: This is an amazing book that covers so many genres, including post-apocalypse, time travel, and generation starship, to name but a few. - Titan by John Varley: In 2025 an expedition to Saturn discovers that one of the moons is in fact a humongous living creature in which other races live. The remaining books in the trilogy might be hard to film, but if you took some elements from them and added them into Titan you would have an amazing movie. - Tunnel in the Sky by Robert Heinlein: A group of students are sent through a "Gate" to another planet as part of a survival course ... but the gate fails to reopen to bring them back... - Time for the Stars by Robert Heinlein: Follows the story of two telepathic young lads – identical twins Tom and Pat. Along with other telepaths, they act as "human radios" to communicate between starships and the Earth. But as the ships approach the speed of light, the twins on Earth age faster than their siblings... Now, I can think of a bunch of other books I would live to see as movies, but instead of me waffling on, let me hand the floor over to you...