Premature Book Review: The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu

"...This man, whether a fanatic or a duly appointed agent, is, unquestionably, the most malign and formidable personality existing in the known world today. He is a linguist who speaks with almost equal facility in any of the civilized languages, and in most of the barbaric. He is an adept in all the arts and sciences which a great university could teach him. He also is an adept in certain obscure arts and sciences which no university of to-day can teach. He has the brains of any three men of genius. Petrie, he is a mental giant."

I came upon this book completely by accident while looking for a Kindle download. The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manch by Sax Rohmer was written in 1913. The character of the Doctor (the villain) is a well known monster, nearly as famous as Dracula or Frankenstein's Monster. Few know of Nayland Smith, the hero, but Dr. Fu-Manchu has been immortalized by the likes of Christopher Lee and Peter Sellers.

So far, the book reads like a cheesey James Bond rip-off. The plot is predictable and some of the methods and dialogue are ridiculous. Also, there is a lot of what we would consider to be highly racist these days. Much of this we must forgive because the book is nearing one-hundred years old. There was no James Bond to rip-off in 1913, nor were there other spy novels (none I know of). The ridiculous method for assassination we have seen so far is straight out of The Abominable Dr. Phibes, but again the book is the predecessor. As for the racism, there is plenty of that in the literature of the time. Chandler and Burroughs are both guilty, and this is only a decade after The Boxer Rebellion, a war Rohmer's homeland of Britain was involved. The United States and Canada both had anti-Chinese immigration legislation at the time (Chinese Exclusion Act in the US, and Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 in Canada).

If anything, the book makes me want to see the Christopher Lee film (films?), and the parody, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu-Manchu with Peter Sellers. I plan to continue reading the book. Despite its flaws, it is smartly written and a real vocabulary expander. It is a real piece of nostalgia, and Rohmer clearly deserves his place with other pulp masters, grain of salt notwithstanding.

Shit Talkin' Tough Guys: Red Sonja

Gottfried sat down on a piece of fallen wall, and because he was shaken and exhausted, and still mazed with drink and blood-lust, he sank his face in his huge hands and wept. Sonya kicked him disgustedly.

"Name o' Satan, man, don't sit and blubber like a spanked schoolgirl. You drunkards had to play the fool, but that can't be mended. Come—let's go to the Walloon's tavern and drink ale."

"Why did you pull me out of the moat?" he asked.

"Because a great oaf like you never can help himself. I see you need a wise person like me to keep life in that hulking frame."

"But I thought you despised me!"

"Well, a woman can change her mind, can't she?" she snapped.

Shadow of the Vulture

"Red Sonya from Rogatino—that's all we know. Marches and fights like a man—God knows why. Swears she's sister to Roxelana, the Soldan's favorite. If the Tatars who grabbed Roxelana that night had got Sonya, by Saint Piotr! Suleyman would have had a handful! Let her alone, sir brother; she's a wildcat. Come and have a tankard of ale."

So, I finished "Shadow of the Vulture" this weekend. All-in-all a very good story. As I mentioned in an earlier post I have not read much of Robert E. Howard. Verdict; I will read some more.

As a short story, it works very well. It has good action and details mass combat without losing the reader. I am no expert on the history described, but if I want to know about the Ottoman Empire or the Siege of Vienna I would go somewhere else anyway.

Initially, I think Marvel did a nice job transforming Sonja to the Hyborean Age. Their Sonja is pretty close early on (Marvel Feature presents... Red Sonja and Red Sonja: She-Devil with a Sword). Later adaptations by Marvel were not so good. Obviously Marvel also sexed her up a bit, but comics are a visual medium.

One thing I like is the lack of overt feminism to the character in Howard's work. I consider myself a feminist (regardless of my love of porn and strippers), but enjoy when a female character, for the most part, just gets to be a character. Howard does not beat you over the head with "ooooh, she's a woman in a man's world." Obviously there are moments, but in many respects it is like Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. We, hopefully, will not make a big deal out of race and let a great character be a great character.

Nerd Girl of Note #35

As if being in Freaks and Geeks was not nerd-cred enough, Linda Cardellini portrayed the greatest of nerd girls, Velma Dinkley (hallowed be thy name) in two live action Scooby Doo and Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. As Velma she broght what many of us were waiting for; the self-conscious, bookish, know-it-all, but traded in the baggy sweater for a low-cut top. I for one was in nerd heaven.

Now, I have to forgive Ms Cardellini for appearing in one of my least favorite show, E.R., but that is easily done. She also appeared in Legally Blonde, the Twilight Zone episode "The Path," and an episode of Robot Chicken.

Unintentional (I Think) Twitterlarity

Since she does not follow me, I am assuming this is coincidental.

Just Some Stats

I have to admit, I am surprised by a few of them, but it appears most people who get here get here honestly :-)

Crap Names for Superheroes on Twitter

There is a fun little thing going around Twitter called #crapnamesforsuperheroes. Basically a string of awful superhero names, some of which are quite good. Click here to see them.

My personal best so far (IMHO): The Iron Taint!

Some of you may not know what a "taint" is. I believe it is a Southern thing. Definition:

"'Tain't balls, and 'tain't ass."

Therefore, it is the space in between.

"...and knowing is half the battle!"

Where Will the Whiteplume's Be This Weekend?

Well, while the sister watches the house, we will be in beautiful downtown Waynesville, NC for our eleventh anniversary.

Gonna stop at Biltmore Estate in Asheville, and just bum around eating and drinking.

Why Waynesville? It is a cool little town that we got stuck in a few years back. We were taking a motorcycle trip to Deal's Gap. Three of us went. My motorcycle broke down the day before we left. Our friend's broke down the morning we were leaving. Finally the one I rode broke down in Waynesville, about an hour from our destination. It was a trying trip (I got hypothermia riding in the rain too).

So why are we going back? Well, I guess we are second chance kind of people :-) If this is your neck of the woods, drop me a line.

The Eyes Have It!

Not sure what spurred this on.

I never said I was clever, just quick.

I work with a lot of old farts. Here is a snippet of lunch conversation.

Coworker #1: "I had my colonoscopy Friday."

Coworker #2: "Where did you have it done?"

Whiteplume: "In his ass."

Thanks to Jimmy from South Park for that nugget of comedy gold.

Fiction's Finest Nerds #19

Luke Smith is the adopted son of Sarah Jane Smith on the BBC programme The Sarah Jane Adventures (a Doctor Who spin-off). He was a creation of the Bane, an alien race bent on taking over the Earth.

Luke was created as "the Archetype" from samples of people touring the "Bubble Shock!" bottling plant (run by the Bane). He has the sum strengths and weaknesses of all the visitors, and has all of their combined intelligence. He was later needed by the Slitheen to complete a device they were creating.

Premature Book Review: Red Sonya, Shadow of the Vulture

This is the Howard story that gave birth to Red Sonja. She is not the Sonja we all know (we all do know Red Sonja, right?) but rather a female heroine set in the Ottoman Empire after the Siege of Vienna (1529). She is the inspiration for the Marvel character.

I have to admit, in my youth I was never a big Howard fan, but I also failed to enjoy Burroughs as much as I do today. I think all the Raymond Chandler and H.P. Lovecraft (Howard contemporaries), as well as Michael Moorcock led me to love Burroughs, and seems to have had a similar effect on my opinion of Howard.

I am only a short way into the story but "Sonya" has yet to appear. Like the Conan comic of the same name, it is really about Gottfried von Kalmbach, a very Conan-like warrior and enemy of Suleman the Magnificent, who I gather will exact revenge for the Viennese.

This might be a good time to discuss the pulp writer of the '20s and '30s. I am no expert, and not fact checking, but go with me on this.

One reason the greatest writers of that time period are so beloved is due to the styles of publishing prevalent at the time. Burroughs, Howard, Chandler, and Lovecraft all wrote for magazines, eventually there were novels, but often pulp paperbacks were compilation or combination of magazine stories (this is true of Moorcock as well). This allowed for short, purposeful writing. Stories needed to begin and end logically, particularly if they were serial. The other benefit of the pulp era was book length. As today, most sci-fi and fantasy books were of similar length, the difference is that the length now is greater. The need to fill more pages leaves more room for the story to meander—and they are have only gotten longer.

The bigger reason is that they were excellent writers. Popular music is much like pulp literature; the cheaper production becomes, the more publishing and buying is done. Think of all the crap bands who had albums in the '80s. There were tons, and that's not just counting one-hit-wonders. Now, think of the really great bands from the '80s. Not many, but there were some really spectacular ones. Bands like U2 and REM are the Chandler and Burroughs of this metaphor. We remember them because they were great, but we know of them because the publishing climate was right.

Okey, enough for now. I have a short attention span, and this post is bordering on too long for me to read. Feel free to discuss in the comments.

BTW: I spell "okey" that way because that's how Raymond Chandler spelled it :-)

Premature Book Review: Resident Evil Genesis

This is actually a full-fledged review, of sorts, as I actually finished the book already!

Resident Evil Genesis is the novelization of the first Resident Evil movie. All-in-all there is nothing new here, save that you get a more solid time line of events that led up to the T-Virus release. The movie has flashbacks while the book keeps events in continuity. You also get perspective from secondary characters like Matt Addison, Rain Melendez and Kaplan, as well as learning a bit more about the Umbrella Corporation.

Verdict: probably a fan-only read, or a good used book find if you want to read something semi-mindless (no zombie pun intended). I believe there are five more in the series, though only three movies (the next book and movie being "Apocalypse").

Will I read any of the others? Perhaps.

How the West Was Won...

...from the unholy tentacled plague!


vi@ Tronçonneuse

Too Many Movie Choices?

So, you are picking out a movie. There is Dawn of the Dead, Road Warrior, Escape from New York, Lord of the Rings... so many nerdly choices, but you only have time for one movie.What is the busy nerd to do? You might want to try 2008's Doomsday

Now, I have to admit that I had problems with this movie when it first came out. First, it looked like Dawn of the Dead meets Escape from New York. Does not sound that original. Second, when I found out that was in fact not Kate Beckinsale in the lead role... well, at the time that was a problem.

I was right on the first mark, but it is so much more than a female Snake Pliskin fighting zombies while driving through a futuristic wasteland. It has some LotR/Excalibur/Army of Darkness swordplay action. It is a huge mish-mash of genres, and is oddly enjoyable.

Is it the best movie I have seen? No. Does it do anything remarkable for any of the genres it mimics? No. Is it a fun movie with ass-kicking, car stunts, and some comedy? Yes. Best, I think it knows it is not groundbreaking, save in mixing genres to an unprecedented level.

The new Hadrian's Wall.

One-eyed hero, huh?

Bob Hoskins!

Ooh. Snake Pliskin could have used that.

Crazed mob of cannibal punks!

Obligatory evil sexpot.

A little bit for the torture crowd.

Wow, was not expecting that.

This is why the pick does a x3 critical!

Where is the one-man helicopter?

Big Day at the Whiteplume Residence

I typically blog from work, or more likely from my laptop. The problem with the laptop is that I use it often on my lap. Laptops are too hot for the testicles, if you pardon my blunt language. Well, no longer. In the mail today I got a lovely piece of tech from One Jay of The Sexy Armpit fame. A nice, cool wireless keyboard, and yes I mean "cool" in both types of common parlance. Big ups to Jay for the geek love!

The other big thing was that we made the trip to Charlotte to go to IKEA. It was like The Lord of the Rings. Google Maps was way off, and the little towns had badly marked highways. It took five hours to make the three hour trip!

Once we got there it was pretty cool, in a homeowner sort of way. We ate at the IKEA cafeteria, and spent way to much money on things we could, in fact use.

While there, I found what my rapper name would be. I guess they forgot to add the space before the "G" :-)


It took a log time to get home. We decided to take another route, and it was as poorly marked as the first. Ah well. It was an Adventure in Nerdliness!

Hotties of Yore: Debbie Dunning

Nerd Girl of Note #34

Fetish model, movie star, animated character, Penthouse Pet. Julie Strain is a walking, talking comicbook hero who inspired Heavy Metal's F.A.K.K.2 comics, movie and videogame. Like fellow NGoN Darla Crane, Ms Strain has been painted by fantasy artist Olivia, and also Boris Vallejo and Luis Royo. She has appeared in numerous Andy Sidaris babes-and-guns movies.







NSFW here.

Centurians!

Check it out!


One hundred followers! Little ol' me!

Welcome to all the new faces. Have not gotten to know you all yet, but feel free to comment. We tend to keep things informal around here. :-)

Fiction's Finest Nerds #18

Robot 13

As many of you know, I am not a huge comic book fan. There are, however, certainly things I like.

Thomas Hall from Blacklist Studios contacted me about the comic he and Daniel Bradford created called Robot 13. You can read more about it on their site. I wanted to post a quickie for a few reasons; I was flattered to be asked to review it, I liked it, and there is a tentacled fiend involved :-) I also thought it would be up many of your alleys because it has a steampunk/Victorian super-science thing going on. As Thomas describes it, it is a sort of Frankenstein cum Odysseus story.

I am not much of a reviewer, and I'm not getting anything for this. If it sound/looks interesting, stop by Blacklist Studios for a better description and some sample pages.

Star Trek Movie Thoughts

Okey, I hope I gave everyone time to see it. If not, there be spoilers, matey. Turn ye back now!

Seriously. Spoilers ahead. Giving you a chance to stop reading.

All gone? Okey.

First, I really liked the movie. The movie fan in me liked it 100%. The Trek fan in me liked it about 90%.

High points:

1. The guy who went with Kirk and Sulu to stop the drill; what color was his uniform? That's right. Red as a Bolshevik. I love how gung-ho they made him, just to see him eat it at the first opportunity.
   
2. McCoy. I think he is going to be the most underrated part of the movie, but he was dead-tap-center Bones. He had the voice, the cadence, the attitude spot-on. Seriously, watch some old Trek, then find some clips of Karl Urban as McCoy. It is fucking brilliant.
   
3. Simon Peg as Scotty. It is obvious, but I think it was a great Mr. Scott.
   
4. Little nods of fan-service. Once in a while, you'd see this little touch that really called back some Trek minutiae. Not heavy-handed, but it was there.

Low Points (only two, really):

1. Why did the Vulcans send so much red matter, when it appeared so little was necessary?
   
2. I thought that the destruction of the Romulan ship was unnecessarily blood-thirsty. They were going through a black hole, and dying anyway. Why blast them to bits. Maybe I am taking the destruction of Vulcan to lightly? I did feel less opposed when I re-watched Star Trek VI and saw how vengeful Kirk was toward the Klingons, but still, Star Trek is a less violent future for me.

Okey, that is all. I really hate that some Trekies don't appear to be enjoying the film. I think if they gave it a chance, and looked for all the little nuances that hearken back to the originals they would be pleased. After all, alternate universes and Star Trek are like peas and carrots.

Oh, Twitter. What hath thou wrought?

First, let me say that I love the Diane Rehm Show on NPR, and frankly must say she's pretty hot for an old dame, but I digress.

Her show uses Twitter for listener questions, and I guess they are not getting much action today. When I saw this post, I had to laugh a bit. Well, enough to bother clipping and posting.


Twitter has gotten to be very SPAMmy lately, and as some of us know, unreliable. I am not sure how to take this post. Is Ms Rehm being a ten year-old about things, or what? The guest, btw, is a novelist. Maybe no one has any questions for him?

Fear my Geek-Fu! Blue Snaggletooth!

Just kidding, but I did want to show you all what is lurking in my garage. I have no idea which cardboard box he is lurking in, and he is in nowhere near this good of shape (I played with my action figures :-)


Don't you just love the disco boots on this guy? He was the only one dressed to score at the cantina!

For the uninitiated, this is Snaggletooth from Star Wars. This particular one came only with a cantina set from Sears ("set," in this case is a word that means cardboard cutout). Also included were the standard Greedo, Hammerhead, and Walrusman.

Read more here.

Many probably remember the red Snaggletooth, pictured below. The pictures are not to scale, as they had the same head and torso, but the height difference is obvious based on the gorilla arms alone :-)

Coming Soon: The Necromancer

On the 25th, Michael Scott's The Necromancer will be released. This is the fourth book in the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series. You can see my Premature Book Review of book three, The Sorceress, here.

Do You have a Drinking Problem?

If you own any of these, there is a good chance.




Seven bucks?!? That's two cases of Bud!

Photos via tas33 and Wal-Mart ;-)

Premature Book Review: Pornucopia

Piers Anthony is an extremely well known and prolific Sci-Fi and Fantasy author. His Xanth books alone are worthy of note. Well, I am not a big reader of his, and I am always wary about getting in on the middle of a series, so while perusing the Kindle store I came across one I couldn't pass up.

So far, Pornucopia is the story of a young man, Prior Gross, with a healthy appetite who comes across a Succubus (hey, I'll make the jokes here). It turns out that prior has a special quality that science is very interested in.

While Mr. Anthony lists this book as erotic, it is not so much steamy as it is dirty. It is fun and clever and will make you get out your dictionary once in a while. I have read only a few Piers Anthony novels, and it is on par with those. The setting is a near future of sorts. Not quite Blade Runner, but different from today. There is an openness of magical creatures; the aforementioned succubus, a satyr, vampire, and werewolf make the scene. There is also super science at work.

If you liked the Adept series you will feel at home. It is still Piers, just like he got hired to write for Hustler.

Okey, now things I like, and welcomes!

Since I did pet peeves, I thought I should do a more positive post. No particular order.

1. New Followers! Hey there, and welcome.

2. The Mighty Boosh: This is an absurd British comedy now showing on Adult Swim. Sundays at 1am Eastern, IIRC (IPU bless you, DVR!).

3. Mountain Dew Baja Blast: The best reason to go to Taco Bell, except when it's a Taco Bell/Long John Silver's, then it is bonus!

4. Béla Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin: A banned ballet. The music is so Hitchcock it is scary, and it was written in 1924.

5. Trader Joe's Cookies: All of them. Before these I thought food was love. Now I know that food can be a three-way.

6. Tumblr: At first, Tumblr was very confusing. Then I realized it was just an expanded Twitter. Now when I see something I like, I Tumbl it.

7. New Star Trek Action Figures: They come with little bridge pieces. It is the greatest thing ever! Well, that is an exaggeration.

8. VGA Input on the LCD TV: We finally caught up with the 21st century and got an LCD TV. The other night we watched Star Trek VI which was downloaded from Amazon. If I get a Blue Tooth keyboard and mouse I may never touch my laptop again :-)

9. Amazon Kindle: Great for reading books, particularly for reading naughty books in public (hey, it is research). Also has web access, which is not great, but good for Twitter on the go.

10. The Daily Bunny: How could you not love The Daily Bunny?

Nerd Girl of Note #33

Kaley Cuoco first hit my radar on 8 Simple Rules... for Dating my Teenage Daughter. Gotta say, I didn't really feel her. Annoying, prom queen, popular girl? Pass. Since then she has done a lot of nerd-friendly stuff, including Charmed, and the excellent The Big Bang Theory as Penny.

In a lot of ways, Penny really makes tBBT work. Obviously Leonard and Sheldon are the focus of the show, Penny has a bigger effect than the plot device origin of her character type. She gets to be the wacky neighbor without being at all wacky. She provides sexual tension with Leonard, but also intellectual tension for Sheldon, and the show as a whole.

Fiction's Finest Nerds #17

Well, it has been a Star Trek month, and while I try to buck trends (except Twitter :-), I did see Star Trek, and loved it. So, nerd-wise I thought we'd look at the oft-forgotten and ridiculed Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy.

We often think of Bones as the grumpy old man who says, "dammit Jim," and, "I'm a doctor, not a..." Well, he's a bit more than that, to say the least. Bones is a skilled doctor, yes, but he is the emotional Yang to Spock's Ying. He is passionate and driven. The loss of life, even for his enemies, is unacceptable as there is always another way. For a nerd, he is also quite the ladies man, as you can see in the episode "Shore Leave" where he is making time with Yeoman Tonia Barrows.

One could go on, but for a nerd I am shockingly not all that into minutiae. You can read all about Bones at the excellent Memory-Alpha, The Star Trek wiki.


Bones and Barrows from "Shore Leave"

Pet Peeves. Not a rant.

Just a few things that bother me when encountered.

1. Bars that serve Pepsi.

I do not take sides on the Coke/Pepsi debate. I like both, but I hate it when you order a whiskey and Coke, and get whiskey and Pepsi. Pepsi is not a good mixer.

2. The new-ish 7-Up.

While I am on sodas... 7-Up used to be great, but now it just tastes like Sprite. I like Sprite, but they used to be two different drinks. I like the un-cola.

3. Laptops with proprietary drivers.

Look at your Windows tray (the place the clock is). If you have a big name computer, you probably have a ton of icons down there. Some companies (Toshiba in particular) have a ton of programs that do the same things Windows already does. This means you are running two virtually identical processes. Wireless is the biggest culprit.

4. Not enough cheese pizza.

I don't eat meat with feet, so if I go to a slice place like Sbarro, I generally can only get cheese pizza. They never seem to make enough, even though so many meat eaters get it as well.

5. Getting car help from strangers, mainly a jump-start.

Ever have a dead battery in a parking lot and need a jump? Ever notice the guy who helps you has to tell you how you should clean your terminals, or do this, or do that? It is like the price of his help is his getting to feel superior for a minute. Never mind the battery is old and it is somewhat your fault it is dead, can't he just jump you off and shut the fuck up? If you don't have a car, you might have a similar experience with alpha maleness when cutting the grass or lighting charcoal - or help with anything from your Dad. I practice what I preach. If I give you a jump, I just give you a jump. You are pissed already, no need for me to add to the stress.

6. Bloggers who go on and on about pointless little problems.

Oh. Wait... Maybe I should stop now :-D

AEon Flux

This is my favorite episode of AEon Flux, even though she's hardly in it.

Hotties of Yore: Les Femmes du Star Trek

Click Image to Expand in a New Window/Tab


Saavik


Valeris


Navaar


Mudd's Women


Marta


The Borg Queen


Kes


Hoshi Sato


Dr. Crusher


Evil Uhura


Uhura


Deanna Troi


B'Elanna Torres


Kira Nerys


Tasha Yar


T'Pol