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jazzfishFrank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, with Richmond Lewis, Batman: Year One
A Batman origin story. Suitably original; you don't read 'classic' comics expecting brilliant creativity, but sometimes you're pleasantly surprised. Detective Gordon. Alfred saying "Next you'll be wearing a cape, like that fellow in Metropolis." A sane Harvey Dent. Plus the origin of Catwoman. All this and the emergence of Batman from Bruce Wayne. Yeah, we all know about his parents being killed before his young eyes, but what actually made him put on the tights? Now we know.
I understand the movie with Christian Bale will be loosely based around this concept, if not the actual storyline. This bodes well.
Vivian Vande Velde, Dragon's Bait
YA novel about a young girl falsely accused of witchcraft [so that the greedy next-door neighbor can seize her land] and left out as bait for a dragon, who proceeds to befriend her and help her get revenge. It's preachy at times, which turned me off, and some plot points come together a little too neatly. To the left, there's bits like "When I'm a human I can speak to you. When I'm a dragon I speak dragon, when I'm a hawk I speak hawk. I take the tongue of whatever beast form I'm in" and the iron manacles that made it worth reading. Don't know if I could really recommend it to anyone else, though.
Leonard Mlodinow, Feynman's Rainbow
Mlodinow was a young physicist at Cal Tech during the last few years of Feynman's life, and had an office right next door to Feynman and [on the other side] Murray Gell-Mann, Feynman's partner and rival. Reminiscences, M's personal growth, a contrast of Feynman and Gell-Mann's personalities. Not life-changing, not brilliant like Surely You're Joking or What do You Care. . . but still a good read, and a pleasant portrait of Feynman. Worth reading if you want to know more about him.
The About the Author says that Mlodinow, after doing some sort of excellent work in string theory [I think], went on to write scripts for Star Trek. This strikes me as not wholly implausible, given the direction of the end of the book. Feynman tells him to make sure that he's doing physics because he loves it, not because he thinks he ought to be doing it; later, a Distinguished Professor [nameless] expresses disdain at the idea of M writing a screenplay, because it's not 'real work.' Good stuff.
A Batman origin story. Suitably original; you don't read 'classic' comics expecting brilliant creativity, but sometimes you're pleasantly surprised. Detective Gordon. Alfred saying "Next you'll be wearing a cape, like that fellow in Metropolis." A sane Harvey Dent. Plus the origin of Catwoman. All this and the emergence of Batman from Bruce Wayne. Yeah, we all know about his parents being killed before his young eyes, but what actually made him put on the tights? Now we know.
I understand the movie with Christian Bale will be loosely based around this concept, if not the actual storyline. This bodes well.
Vivian Vande Velde, Dragon's Bait
YA novel about a young girl falsely accused of witchcraft [so that the greedy next-door neighbor can seize her land] and left out as bait for a dragon, who proceeds to befriend her and help her get revenge. It's preachy at times, which turned me off, and some plot points come together a little too neatly. To the left, there's bits like "When I'm a human I can speak to you. When I'm a dragon I speak dragon, when I'm a hawk I speak hawk. I take the tongue of whatever beast form I'm in" and the iron manacles that made it worth reading. Don't know if I could really recommend it to anyone else, though.
Leonard Mlodinow, Feynman's Rainbow
Mlodinow was a young physicist at Cal Tech during the last few years of Feynman's life, and had an office right next door to Feynman and [on the other side] Murray Gell-Mann, Feynman's partner and rival. Reminiscences, M's personal growth, a contrast of Feynman and Gell-Mann's personalities. Not life-changing, not brilliant like Surely You're Joking or What do You Care. . . but still a good read, and a pleasant portrait of Feynman. Worth reading if you want to know more about him.
The About the Author says that Mlodinow, after doing some sort of excellent work in string theory [I think], went on to write scripts for Star Trek. This strikes me as not wholly implausible, given the direction of the end of the book. Feynman tells him to make sure that he's doing physics because he loves it, not because he thinks he ought to be doing it; later, a Distinguished Professor [nameless] expresses disdain at the idea of M writing a screenplay, because it's not 'real work.' Good stuff.