January 01, 2008

New Orleans

by Alan Beatts

Happy New Year everyone!

I hope that you all had a nice time through the holidays and that 2008 finds you well.  I had a great time this last month.  My brother and his family were in town for all of December, which was just great and for New Years I went to New Orleans with my daughter.  It was her first trip there and she loved it (takes after her dad that way, I'm guessing).

I was a little concerned about what New Orleans would be like.  I hadn't been back there since before the hurricane in 2005 and I was really concerned that it wouldn't be the same.  Actually I had no doubts that the city wouldn't be the same.  No city can go through what New Orleans did and not be changed.  What I was concerned about, in my selfish way, was the French Quarter and (to a lesser degree) the area around Frenchman St. and the Garden District.

December Bestsellers

Hardcovers
1) Halting State by Charles Stross
2) Pirate Freedom by Gene Wolfe
3) Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
4) The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy
5) Confessor by Terry Goodkind
6) Fatal Revenant by Stephen R. Donaldson
7) Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis
8) Dreamsongs vol. 1 by George R.R. Martin
9) Spook Country by William Gibson
10) The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds (UK edition)

Paperbacks
1) The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
2) The Android's Dream by John Scalzi
3) Three Days to Never by Tim Powers
tie with The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
4) The City, Not Long After by Pat Murphy
5) Forest Mage by Robin Hobb
tie with The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
6) Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
7) Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
8) Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
9) Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge
10) Dust by Elizabeth Bear tie with
For a Few Demons More by Kim Harrison

Trade Paperbacks
1) World War Z by Max Brooks
2) The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
3) Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams
tie with Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
4) His Dark Materials (Omnibus Edition) by Philp Pullman
5) Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel

Notes From A DVD Geek

by Jeremy Lassen

Happy New Year, movie fans. The new year is a good time to talk about new versions, and old versions of some classic movies. First up is Rob Zombie's interesting and earnest remake of John Carpenter's "Halloween". As Carpenter himself is a director who has "re-imagined" many movies to good effect, I was eager to see what could happen to the "Halloween" franchise, re-imagined by one of my favorite new directors.