Month: June 2013

One cool place to read the second-to-last chapter of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane is bleeding out at a donation place. A blood donation place. And, best place to read the last chapter, at least in Boulder, Colorado? Sitting in the bright bright sun in front of TimeWarp Comics.

Also cool about this big little novel is that, in a very cool way, it feels like he’s been going toward it for a while now. I mean—my American Gods is packed away for the summer, so I can’t cite thi…

Just talking World War Z. Which, I mean, I was doing that anyway, so, you know, it all worked out:

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/27/how-world-war-z-stands-up-to-the-zombie-film-genre

…

The first thing to get out of the way when talking the World War Z movie is the obvious thing: it’s not the novel. Whereas with Hunger Games, say, sure, there’s a lot in the novel that doesn’t end up on screen, and a lot of what does is different, but still, condense the Hunger Games novel and the Hunger Games movie to a one-sentence synopsis, and you’ve got the same thing, don’t you?

Not so with World War Z, unless the way you distill the two versions is “There’s zombies. And that sucks.…

Back when, the Pa Kent-Superboy dynamic made a certain kind of wholesome sense, didn’t it? Behind the eventual Superman’s heroism there was always this one old Kansas farmer’s values, really saving the world. There was something kind of safe and comforting about that. And, it’s not so much in opposition to the idea of an ‘alien’ being Earth’s savior as it is a championing of good parenting, sacrifice, trust—all that stuff that needs no argument.

However, Man of Steel, it’s a d…