The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay August 28, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in clone wars, comic books, comicbooks, comics, Dark Times, darktower, fan films, fox, kavalier & clay, kavalier and clay, las vegas, Michael Chabon, michaelchabon, pulitzer, pulitzer prize, sarah conner, serentiy, star wars fan films, the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay, zarek.1 comment so far
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
From time to time, I actually stray from reading core SciFi pulp like Star Wars and Star Trek to more …literary works.
After sitting on my shelf for years a recent flight to Europe gave me enough pause to read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. This is a Pulitzer Prize winning novel, which usually is an automatic disqualification for me since i’m not a fan of literary works… this is an exception.
Essentially its the tale of two boys becoming adults in the comic book industry. Now of course there is alot of back and side story, WWII being a major plot backdrop.
Chabon’s style is easy and fluid often interspersed with the narrators voice filling in plot elements. Many times things are left unsaid and the scene changes or jumps ahead and only later we find out what happened.
The beginning, middle and ‘almost end’ of the book kept me enthralled as our ‘heroes’ Sammy Clay and Joe Kavalier go through life’s adventures..the end though wasn’t particularly interesting to me and it felt almost like a let down (read it yourself and see if you agree).
That said, this is one of the best books that i’ve read in years and certainly better than the last Chabon book i read (which was actually written latter) – The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.
Drinking Klingon Blood Draft Beer At Quarks August 1, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in babylon5, craigslist, jacen solo, klingon, klingon blood wine, las vegas, las vegas hilton, new horizons, Romulan Ale, Sci Fi, science fiction, scifi, Star Trek, star trek experience, star trek the next generation, star trek tng, startrek, starwars, Uncategorized, upsps.2 comments
I find myself in Las Vegas this week (again). When in Vegas i always visit the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton – i dunno i guess it’s the only ‘geeky’ scifi attraction that speaks to me so it’s the only thing i visit repeatedly.
This time I actually ate and drank there too. That is at the recreation of Quark’s bar from the DS9 promenade. It’s an experience that i hope all star trek fans get to have at least once.
No regular ales here…only Romulan.
NO Klingon Blood wine – but there was a Klingon Blood Draft – a red beer that was quite tasty.
No sports nonesense on the screens..only Trek episodes and..BONUS real fans behind the counter. The bartender and I had a solid discussion on the merits of the last episode of Star Trek Enterprise.
The dude also whipped out his iPod on which he had the remastered version of Star Trek classic and let me watch an episode on it.
Drink dispensing isn’t normal either. Though not quite a replicate – with a flash strobe light the effect is ..well ‘materializing’.
The menu is loaded with Star Trek themed materials too – this time i had the Rings of Betazed – can you guess what that is?…
Onion Rings.
Star Trek The Experience – An old ride in Vegas that need an overhaul May 24, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in las vegas, science fiction, sciencefiction, scifi, Star Trek.2 comments
I found myself in Las Vegas this week and when in Vegas I always visit The Star Trek Experience.
For those of you that aren’t familiar with it, it’s essentially a Star Trek theme ride attraction inside of the Las Vegas Hilton. The highlight are a pair of simulations Borg 4D and Klingon encounter.
The first time you go on either of the simulators is an AWESOME experience – problems is it’s the same simulators year after year and they have haven’t changed in the last 4 years at least. Nothing wrong with that but it would be neat if there could be some kind of refresh maybe even just on the graphic simulations which were state of the art at one time but now appear to somewhat dated.
When visiting the Star Trek Experience you’ve got to visit Garak’s store – they always have something on sale – this year its Klingon Bobble heads – only $9.99..
Show Me SciFi 