Science Fiction

PROS: Excellent display; rich feature set; great battery life. CONS: Awkward form factor; steep price tag. Over the course of the past few years, I’ve warmed up quite a bit to eBook reading. Part of this was because it seems that eBooks have finally, after years of missteps, finally found a foothold as a viable product. Another reason is because eBook readers have come a long way and, well, I’m a bit of a gadget hound. So when kobo offered to send along the new Kobo Auara HD eBook Reader for review purposes, I jumped at the chance. Where I’m Coming From It helps to know one’s prior experience with certain types of devices in order to understand their impressions of them. To that end, I will state that I have been reading electronically for several years, first on PDAs (remember those?), then on Smartphones, and finally on a dedicated eBook reader when I received a 3rd generation Kindle as a gift. I’ve since upgraded that to a Kindle Paperwhite because the backlit display means I no longer have to struggle to find a well-lit reading space. I occasionally read electronically on an iPad — Did I mention I was a gadget hound? — but find it too large and heavy for any long-term reading. I almost never read for pleasure on a computer screen because, well, it’s simply not enjoyable to do so. Despite owning several multi-function devices, my preferred reading device is a dedicated eBook reader that uses e-Ink. The clarity is great (far superior to raster screens) and there are no distractions coming at me from other features of the device. eBook readers are also (usually) the right size for long-term holding; not too big and not too small. Introducing the Kobo Aura HD With that out of the way, let’s talk about the Kobo Aura HD. It’s packaged in a discreet box and comes with a USB charging cable and small Getting Started guide. To begin, the Kobo HD needs to be activated. While this can be done over Wi-Fi network, the booklet that comes with the device recommends that users download the Kobo Desktop software on their computers and hook up the device with the provided USB cable. I followed the recommended approach because, even though most of my eBook purchasing is done over Wi-Fi, my personal home Wi-Fi network has an access list that requires a device’s MAC address, which (like most devices) is not accessible to the user until after they activate it — a chicken-and-egg problem that’s solved by physically hooking up the device to my computer and running Kobo Desktop. The software installed OK and asked for my Kobo credentials or, optionally, to sign up for a free account. Since I had a passing flirtation with Kobo back in 2009, I already had my credentials and provided them. Unfortunately, the Kobo Desktop application crashed when I clicked to proceed. It seemed to register the device anyway, because when I re-ran the program, it began syncing my Kobo library to the device. Then, I was off to the races. The Display The display is wonderful. The 6.8 inch display screen offers a resolution of 1440 x 1080 pixels. An impressive spec, to be sure, but honestly not noticeably different than the Kindle Paperwhite. The backlit screen is fairly bright when dialed all the way up, or it can be completely turned off for sunny daylight…or set somewhere in between. Page turning speed on the display is good, about on par with the Kindle Paperwhite. (I’m not a fan of page-turning animations on tablets and smartphones, preferring instead an instant page refresh — a feature not possible with eInk technology today.) Speaking of page refresh, there were times (mostly after returning from a settings page) where a ghosted image of the previous screen’s controls was visible on the screen. There is a page refresh setting that can be set to help alleviate that, though it means a slight slower page turn (insignificant, really, but worth mentioning). Also

Last year, I picked up and read The Stars My Destination for the first time. It’s an astonishing book, one that I alternatively wish that I’d read it earlier, and that I’m glad that I read it now, with the capabilities to really get how important of a book it is. I’ve been waiting to get to Bester for a while now. Over on the Kirkus Reviews Blog today: The Nomadic Alfred Bester, Renaissance Man. Related posts: Today at the Kirkus Reviews Blog: Warhammer 40K in a Nutshell! REVIEW: The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester Kirkus Reviews Launches New Blog Network with SF/F Content

http://www.palacecinemas.com.au/movies/muchadoaboutnothing/ Palace Nova Eastend will be showing the movie.

As part of his blog tour promoting the recently released BLOOD AND BONE, Ian C Esslemont dropped by Elitist Book Reviews to share his thoughts. His blog prompt was about the benefits and drawbacks of writing in a shared world, and how he differentiates himself from his Malazan co-creator, Steven Erikson. Enjoy!*** Writing in a shared world does have its benefits and drawbacks. On the plus side, there is the extraordinary synergy and energy I draw from Steve’s work. Everything I see suggests more and more what I can do in response. For me, it’s like playing tennis with a pro: it really makes you try to up your game. On the drawback side, well, Steve is just so damned good. There’s no way I can match that – so I just do my own thing. Other than this, there’s been no major drawbacks that I’ve seen. One thing people often ask about is whether he or I have been unhappy with what one or the other has done with a certain character. But this has never been a problem. If Steve picks someone up, I’m just anxious to see what he’s done with the character – how he or she has blossomed in his hands, or what well-deserved end they have met! This leads into the second part of the question regarding differentiating myself from Steve. Not an issue. As I said, he’s a fantastic writer and I don’t see any way that I could imitate him -- nor would I want to: he’s doing his thing, and I’m doing mine – this is how it should be. Our content might be the same (the same world) but our styles are very different, so that’s not a worry. --Ian C Esslemont *** From all of us at Elitist Book Reviews, we'd like to thank Mr. Esslemont for taking the time to share his thoughts. We have a huge amount of respect for him as a genuinely awesome guy, and as a terrific writer. As part of this tour, EBR is giving away one copy of Esslemont's new novel, BLOOD AND BONE. Shoot us an email at elitistbookreviews@gmail.com giving us your address, and telling us why you are desperate to get you hands on a copy of this novel. We'll pick one at random, and a novel will be sent to you. We have to limit this to USA readers only. We'll announce the winner early next week. Here is you link to buy the novel: BLOOD AND BONEAnd lastly, for those of you who want a snippet, here is Chapter One of Ian C Esslemont's BLOOD AND BONE:CHAPTER IThe voice of an old friend hailed me, when, first returned from my Wanderings, I paced again in that long street of Darujhistan which is called the Escarpment Way; and suddenly taking me wonderingly by the hand, said, ‘Tell me, since you are returned again by the assurance of Osserc, whilst we walk, as in former years, towards the blossoming orchards, what moved you, or how could you take such journeys into the Wastes of the World?’Chanat D’argatty Journeys of D’argattySaeng pounded mortar with pestle, grinding the sauce for the midday meal. In went nuts, young crayfish, greens and peppers, all to be mixed in with sliced unripe papaya for a salad. She worked on her knees, bent over the broad stone mortar, her muscular forearms clenching and flexing. Her long black hair stuck to her sweaty brow and she pushed it away with the back of a hand.All the other women her age in the village were performing the same task in their family huts, yet with the all-important difference of fixing the meal for husbands and children. Saeng had neither. She prepared meals and cleaned house for herself and her aged mother, who, to Saeng’s continual annoyance, never missed an opportunity to criticize her efforts, or to wonder pointedly why her daughter was on her way to an early spinsterhood. How could it be otherwise, Mother? With you dismissing all our neighbours’ religious festivals as superstitious cowshit, their household shrines as false idols, and their faiths as ignorant childishness? No wonder Father disappeared. And no wonder we stand as the village pariahs.She dished the meal on to two banana leaves then squatted crosslegged, frow

*A civilization that could pull off a stunt like this would have something to boast about. http://www.nature.com/news/universal-flu-vaccine-effective-in-animals-1.13042

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7nv8Y4u0OAQ Someone has compiled various scenes that Buffy has been referenced in from several TV shows, right up until 2013, and put them into a video.

The Book of Lost Tales 1 by J.R.R. Tolkien My first attempt to read The Book of Lost Tales 1 was made way too early in my life and made certain that my response was to put it on the shelf and decide that all of this background stuff, especially taken from this early phase in Tolkien’s life as a writer, was way too different from the Middle-Earth stories that I loved for me to waste any time on it. Looking at where the bookmark from my first attempt still sat when I picked it up again, I noticed that I didn’t even get much beyond the first several pages of the introductory chapter “The Cottage of Lost Play.” I remember thinking that it was just altogether too twee for me, what with the Eldar of Middle-Earth still being referred to as ‘faeries’ and the, to me, bizarre structure of a wanderer coming to a tiny cottage (bigger on the inside than the outside) peopled by dancing and singing children and adults who primarily sat around telling tales and reciting pretty mediocre poetry. It wasn’t really Middle-Earth now was it? Well, at the time I put down the volume and decided that I’d stick with the ‘real’ stuff of LORD OF THE RINGS, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion and that, as they say, was that for probably about two and a half decades. Then it came about that I discovered my greatest love vis a vis Tolkien’s work was growing to be the posthumously published The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth, both of which contained some of the most beautiful and powerful of Tolkien’s writing. I looked at the corpus of THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH with something of a new eye and decided that I might just dip into it and see what it was like. I consciously chose to first read those volumes that dealt with the matter of the First and Second ages of Middle-Earth and were latest in the chronology of composition thus presumably assuring that I was coming across ideas and stories that were closer in tone and content to the ones with which I was so familiar and that thrilled me with their mythic reverberations. I ended up loving what I found in Morgoth’s Ring and The War of the Jewels and decided that maybe this huge work undertaken by Christopher Tolkien to present the works of his father in toto wasn’t an altogether bad idea after all (especially given my hunger for more material regarding the tales as told in The Silmarillion). So now I find myself re-embarking on the journey from the beginning and tackling the very Book of Lost Tales (part one) that defeated me in my youth. I’m glad I came back. Pushing through past the point in the first chapter beyond which I never made it before I actually found a fair bit to like, even though it wasn’t the undiluted Middle-Earth vintage I had initially wanted. I was actually reminded a bit of William Morris’ medieval romances that so influenced Tolkien as I read about the journey of Eriol the mariner upon the Isle of Tol Eressëa and once the tales themselves began to be told I saw that there was a surprising amount of coherence between these earliest versions of the myths of Middle-Earth with what eventually came to be published in The Silmarillion. The differences themselves were intriguing and I found as the chapters sped on the framing device didn’t bother me half as much as once it had. I will readily admit that much of the poetry in this volume leaves something to be desired. I am not one of those readers of Tolkien that skips over the poems, and I think that many of them are quite beautiful (especially Bilbo’s poem of Eärendil sung in Rivendell), but the early ones showcased in this volume are not really my cup of tea (though one can certainly see Tolkien’s word-craft in them improving as time went on). The Cottage of Lost Play itself took on greater interest as well as I started to see some parallels between it and the ultimate development of Elrond’s house of Rivendell as “a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and

The idea of a magical, mystical object that’s bigger on the inside did not start or end with Doctor Who’s TARDIS, though it’s known for being associated with that phrase the most. Dern and O Abnormal hunted through pop culture history to remind us all the other times such objects have existed. The only one [...]

The BFI have today confirmed the latest screening in their monthly series, Doctor Who at 50. July will see Remembrance of the Daleks on the big screen on Saturday, July 27 at 2pm. The four-part story first aired in 1988 and stars Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred. Guests have yet to be announced and the tickets go on sale to the public on Tuesday, June 11. As previously announced HERE, next month sees a screening of the Colin Baker story, The Two Doctors, on June 15, 2pm. Visit the BFI website HERE. Read Blogtor's review of the latest event, featuring Tom Baker and The Robots of Death, HERE. Thanks to the BFI.