Galactica Wins Hugo 
The first episode of Battlestar Galactica's first season, "33", won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form beating out the Lost pilot. The Incredibles won for Best Dramatic Presentation, a great film. The Best Novel award went to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell which I own but have not read yet. I'll move it up on the list.
Via Unofficial Battlestar Galactica Blog.
The White Knuckle Thrill Ride of the Year
What happens when you put the five top trailer voice-over actors in the same limo? You get a night of "Unending Suspence and Terror!"
Via Metafilter.
Knights!
Hellroy blogged about Knights! last week and then he IM'ed me to get in the game. I did and it's really fun - but I don't know how to describe the appeal. Go to the Knights! site and make a new character. You are then a Lord or Lady and the year is 1120. To get anything done you have to choose an available knight as your vassal. All the knights are non-player characters - you can't control them, you only pick them, much like you would pick a player on a fantasy sports team. You have a contract with that knight for 24 hours. Every 24 hour period is one game year where four seasonal jousting tournaments are played. If your knight does well in a tournament, you get honor points. Maybe someday you can become the King or Queen! There is a very small user base right now and it's a fun community. The site is a homebrew PHP application that is very well done. Check it out, I'm Tharkad of New Avalon.
Stephen King Recommends...
This week's Entertainment Weekly (yes, yes, we read it in the bathroom) has list of Summer reading recommendations from Stephen King. First on his list? Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. Wow! Uh, I'm not sure the bulk of the American public is ready for what's in there. Plot synopsis:
| In a future fictional Japan, every year a set of 9th grade classes are transported to a deserted island, given random weapons, and told that they must kill each other until there is only one left who can then leave the island. Battle Royale is the story of one of those classes as each must decide if they can really kill their classmates - some have less problems with that than others. |
King does not mention the shocking film version but that's where I first experienced the story. It was a movie night over at Alex's place - and by the way, you should be reading Alex's movie reviews regularly. He starts the movie and the teaser is one of the best ever. At the end of the film I felt similar to the first time I saw Robocop, like I'd been hit over the head with a 2 x 4. I wanted to know more about the story as I read that the film jettisoned most of the political elements of the book to concentrate on the (bloody) plot. I was surprised when I saw the novel at my Barnes and Nobel and I really enjoyed it.
