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The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Couple of weeks ago I finished reading Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol“. I’m big enough a fan of his writing I would say, and had already read everything else he had written aurl[1] long time ago [before the Da Vinci Code movie was made…], but somehow never got to this one. When I heard the news that “Inferno” was finally released, I picked up “The Lost Symbol” and pretty much devoured it!

Plot-wise this was probably not my favourite Dan Brown book. That however does not mean that I didn’t enjoy the book. It just means that this book was even more of a textbook than his previous ones. Generally Dan Brown has the tendency of teaching through his books and getting many messages through. In “The Lost Symbol”, there is simply much more of that, than story telling. That being said, I really found what was being “thought” quite interesting, and in some ways very much in line with my own way of thinking. So I did in fact enjoy the book quite immensely.

Now, finally to “Inferno”. =)

Comic-Con 2013

So during the weekend in between my notebooks and my tablet I managed to see just everything I cared to see from Comic-Con 2013 [and not really get anything else done! =P]. Aaaaaand it’s been exciting.

J.J. Abrams’ “Almost Human” series is going to be here in a few months, and I really can’t wait to see it. The series is about Androids, and seems to have a very Asimov theme and feel to it. Oh, and Karl Urban is the main guy apparently. Enough said.

Marvel’s “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D”, created by Joss Whedon, is also right around the corner. It turns out Agent Coulson is alive and kicking, which is an awesome surprise. can’t wait for this one either.

As for panels and such, I think I’m now officially a much bigger fan of the Nerd HQ panels than the official Comic-Con ones. Nerd HQ panels are very very different, they’re a lot less formal, a lot less directed and formatted and just a lot more fun to watch. This year’s Nerd HQ panels were again awesome, and my favourite one was most likely the one with Tom Hiddleston, a.k.a. Loki. =) Here’s that:

The Nerd HQ Doctor Who panel was also awesome. Honestly Steven Moffat [now known as Steven Fat] is absolutely hilarious:

And on the same channel you can find the panels with Joss Whedon, Richard Madden, 2 panels with Nathan Fillion and a whole bunch of other really cool one.

Thanks to some good friends I was also able to have a look at several of the official Con panels. I absolutely LOOOOOOOOOOVED Loki’s appearance on the Marvel panel, that was just bloody awesome! =D  I also really enjoyed the X-Men panel, and of course the Doctor Who panel hosted by Greg Ferguson was quite entertaining. 😉

loki-marvel-studios-panel[1]

But of course I have to do a bit of ranting too. =P For one thing I don’t know who gave permission to these people to produce another idiotic 300 movie. Unbelievably disappointing.

But the real disappointment is of course how Marvel seems to have picked up an axe to go after their own Cosmic story arcs altogether. I have been waiting for a “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie to happen for many many years. Now that it’s finally going to happen, they have taken the writing from Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, and handed it to Brian Michael Bendis, who really, really is NOT the writer for this. And of course James Gunn is directing…. right. And basically the same thing has happened to Nova… So now I wonder if this is really the end of Marvel Cosmic, or at least anything that was good about Marvel Cosmic… or will it somehow be rescued, I guess we just have to wait and see.

Neo4j And Connected Data

A few weeks ago I attended a very informative [as well as extremely funny] tech talk titled “Neo4j And Connected Data“.  During the presentation Jim Webber made a  mention of his new book called “Graph Databases”, which is available to download from here.

graphdatabases_v31[1]

During the past weeks I’ve had a chance to have a better look into the book, and simply put, I like it! =) For anyone interested in the relevant topics, I really recommend checking it out.

How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers

I just finished reading “How We Are Hungry” by Dave Eggers. The book is a collection of url[1] short stories, most of which are more like images of a situation than actual stories. I’ve read books in this style before and I’ve not always been a fan of them, but I really enjoyed reading this one. The very last story, “After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned”, which is told by a dog, is probably my favourite. =)

Life of Pi

I read the book “Life of Pi” a few years back, due to the suggestion of one of my profs. I enjoyed reading the book quite immensely, and felt quite moved by it. Somehow I felt a lot of connections between the life of Pi and the life of myself. The book is definitely one of the best I’ve ever read.

When I heard that “Life of Pi” was made into a movie, and especially after reading up on the crew and the cast, I figured this is probably not yet another case of a really good book being mutilated into a movie. The book, as deep and wonderful as it is, it also tells a very simple story which I didn’t imagine would be too hard to make into motion picture. And then I saw the trailer, and I knew that I absolutely had to see the movie.

As it turns out, the movie is indeed a very good adaptation of the book. Aside from remaining completely faithful to the book, the visual aspects of the movie are quite marvellous, and the music is breathtaking. And I’m also very happy to see that they didn’t try to somehow hollywoodize the whole thing. =)

So for anyone who is a fan of the book, as well as anyone who’s never heard of it before, “Life of Pi” is totally recommended. Best if you actually go to a movie theatre and see the 3D version, as there are some truly spectacular scenes in there. I enjoyed it very very much. =)

Couple of nights ago I finished reading “A Dance with Dragons“, book 5 of “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R. R. Martin. Meaning that now I have to wait till next year [supposedly] to get my hands on the next book. Too much of a bloody cliff hanger…. *sigh*

Well, it’s been quite a trip. It’s an amazing universe GRRM has created, with characters that are believable and understandable, and plots and events that are impossible to predicts. Everything can happen, everyone can die… and apparently everyone does die… =P Heroes make disastrous mistakes and the most brilliant set ups go gloriously wrong, and then the devil saves the day….. And you can’t put the bloody book down. =)

Oh, and regarding the TV series… as great as the series are, they’re not nearly as good as the books, so if you’re a fan of the TV series just go and read the books… Especially in the more recent episodes the TV series has been deviating more and more from the books, somehow annihilating some interesting aspects of the story line.

So, now I’m going to go about finally finishing Codex Alera [which I’ve been stretching as much as I could! =P]. And after that… we’ll see.

Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

A friend was asking me today if I finally read “Inheritance“, the last book in the “Inheritance Cycle” by Christopher Paolini, and what I thought about it. I remembered I never wrote anything about it…

So yes, I read Inheritance some months ago and actually like it quite a bit too. As I wrote here before, the trilogy was not exactly among my favourites. But the 4th instalment really did save the whole thing. Even though the very end left me somewhat unsatisfied, but the 4th book was able to give a new depth and direction to the cycle.

I truly enjoyed reading the 4th book, and now I’m hoping that Christopher Paolini will, as he said, at some point go back to Alagaesia and show us a bit more about the future of the main characters. I don’t want to give spoilers here since a couple of friends are going to read the book soon, but lets just say that I would like Eragon to reconsider his choice of residence location eventually. 😉

The Art of Dramatic Writing (1946)

So for a bit of out of the box [or, out of “my” particular box] reading…. I recently read this. Don’t ask how it happened. But it’s interesting.

Araris – The Art of Dramatic Writing (1946):

The History of Love

Recently I randomly came across one of these quotation ecards that fly around the web, and the quotation somehow got into me enough to do a search and find the book that it came out of. It’s called “The History of Love”, by Nicole Krauss. I got me the ebook, and the 260 pages took me about a month to read [which is the time in which I usually read about 10 times that amount!]. I suppose you could say I meditated on each page. I think this is one of the greatest non sci-fi books I’ve ever read. Probably will read it again after some time. =) More info here.

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Hey, I'm Aasemoon, and this is my blog which has been around since 1998. Childhood toy project that ended up growing up with me. You can reach me here: aasemoon.blue

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