I got a wild hair this evening and started organizing and cataloging our books. Dani and I, being voracious readers, have enough books to qualify for library status, and keeping track of them is, frankly, impossible. But, since I've found myself re-buying the same books several times recently, I figured it couldn't hurt to at least keep track of the ones on my shelves… the ones I either haven't read or are among my main interests.
While digging through the stacks, I came across a few that begged for comment…
When I, Robot came out on DVD, the copy I picked up came with a copy of The Illustrated Screenplay, by Harlan Ellison. Yes, I bought the DVD. I actually found the movie entertaining, especially the climactic battle at USR. You just need to keep in mind that the movie bears about as much resemblance to the source material as a James Bond movie does to the book it shares a title with.
Of course, the irony here is the thought of Ellison's screenplay being bundled with this over-the-top action-movie take on a book that is so much a part of the Science Fiction canon.
What makes the irony truly uncomfortable is the forward, "Me 'n Isaac at the movies." It's Ellison's memoir/reminiscence/screed detailing the slow, torturous process of attempting to adapt and, more frustrating, get his adaptation of I, Robot produced. It's filled with the regular Ellison bad guys; studio heads and lawyers, for the most part; and is almost tragic in its plea to recognize the heart in this adaptation and to help it get produced.
Ellison failed, of course, and instead we got Will Smith in patented action hero mode, with the incomparable Dr. Susan Calvin relegated to the obligatory screaming-female-who's-also-incredibly-capable supporting role. Again, I had a good time at this movie, but all the "3 Laws" quoting in the world won't make it Asimov's, or even Ellison's, I, Robot.
Another book I stumbled upon was The Arcanum, a novel following firmly in the footsteps of books like The Dante Club and, to a (much) lesser extent, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
The historical characters hijacked for this little adventure are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, H. P. Lovecraft and the voodoo Princess Marie Laveau. And for a while, I was really along for the ride on this one (unlike the Dante Club, which I found rather tedious after a while). It was exciting and there was a strong sense of the occult with secret societies seemingly around every corner.
But then I realized that I was nearly halfway into the book and we still didn't have our core group working together and we hadn't learned anything about the villain of the story. By the end, the story had devolved into the same bad action movie territory as that OTHER League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the one you want to avoid at all costs) and I was left not only wanting more (and better) but annoyed at the time I'd ended up wasting finishing the book.
So I was amused when I read the author's bio to find that this was his first novel and, for the past eight years, he's been a working Hollywood screenwriter. (Apparently, under a different name, since an IMDB search for Thomas Wheeler draws a blank.) Suddenly the clumsy, pointless, over-the-top action movie ending for the book makes a whole lot more sense. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that, whoever Thomas Wheeler really is, he had a hand in that other League, or something equally soulless.
In the meantime, The Arcanum is on the "find a used book store" pile, along with a random selection of books that sounded so much better before I'd actually read them.
While digging through the stacks, I came across a few that begged for comment…
When I, Robot came out on DVD, the copy I picked up came with a copy of The Illustrated Screenplay, by Harlan Ellison. Yes, I bought the DVD. I actually found the movie entertaining, especially the climactic battle at USR. You just need to keep in mind that the movie bears about as much resemblance to the source material as a James Bond movie does to the book it shares a title with.
Of course, the irony here is the thought of Ellison's screenplay being bundled with this over-the-top action-movie take on a book that is so much a part of the Science Fiction canon.
What makes the irony truly uncomfortable is the forward, "Me 'n Isaac at the movies." It's Ellison's memoir/reminiscence/screed detailing the slow, torturous process of attempting to adapt and, more frustrating, get his adaptation of I, Robot produced. It's filled with the regular Ellison bad guys; studio heads and lawyers, for the most part; and is almost tragic in its plea to recognize the heart in this adaptation and to help it get produced.
Ellison failed, of course, and instead we got Will Smith in patented action hero mode, with the incomparable Dr. Susan Calvin relegated to the obligatory screaming-female-who's-also-incredibly-capable supporting role. Again, I had a good time at this movie, but all the "3 Laws" quoting in the world won't make it Asimov's, or even Ellison's, I, Robot.
Another book I stumbled upon was The Arcanum, a novel following firmly in the footsteps of books like The Dante Club and, to a (much) lesser extent, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
The historical characters hijacked for this little adventure are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Harry Houdini, H. P. Lovecraft and the voodoo Princess Marie Laveau. And for a while, I was really along for the ride on this one (unlike the Dante Club, which I found rather tedious after a while). It was exciting and there was a strong sense of the occult with secret societies seemingly around every corner.
But then I realized that I was nearly halfway into the book and we still didn't have our core group working together and we hadn't learned anything about the villain of the story. By the end, the story had devolved into the same bad action movie territory as that OTHER League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the one you want to avoid at all costs) and I was left not only wanting more (and better) but annoyed at the time I'd ended up wasting finishing the book.
So I was amused when I read the author's bio to find that this was his first novel and, for the past eight years, he's been a working Hollywood screenwriter. (Apparently, under a different name, since an IMDB search for Thomas Wheeler draws a blank.) Suddenly the clumsy, pointless, over-the-top action movie ending for the book makes a whole lot more sense. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that, whoever Thomas Wheeler really is, he had a hand in that other League, or something equally soulless.
In the meantime, The Arcanum is on the "find a used book store" pile, along with a random selection of books that sounded so much better before I'd actually read them.
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