Blog Archives
Book Review: The Abide Guide: Living Like Lebowski by Oliver Benjamin & Dwayne Eutsey
As many of you may have already noticed, I am quite a huge fan of the film The Big Lebowski. My avatar and username here on the site both reference the movie, and when out and about I tend to try to find any situation where I can slip a quote in from the film. Beyond its quirky sense of humor and delightful characters, The Big Lebowski is a rather deep film when one takes a look into it. To sum it up neatly, it’s an American take on Eastern philosophies and religions such as Buddhism and Taoism wrapped around a tale of mistaken identity, micturation, and bowling. Past its first initial flop in the theaters, The Big Lebowski found a following on home video, and what a following it found. The fandom and people taking a deeper look into the film led to the birth of Dudeism, touted as a religion for humor purposes, but more along the lines of a philosophy, like Buddhism. ”The philosophical rug that ties the room together” as the authors Oliver Benjamin and Dwayne Eutsey put it.
Book Review: Blindness by José Saramago
Have you ever thought that everyone in the world is blind to reality. That they don’t notice anything of importance going on around them and only think of themselves. Portuguese author José Saramago definitely thought of that and took it a couple of steps further and wrote a novel about a world where everybody becomes stricken with blindness. Instead of writing a novel about a bunch of blind people bumping into things or writing an epidemic story, he writes a deep and philosophical novel about humanities worst and also its best, all with a truly unique writing style.
Book Reviews: A Song of Ice and Fire – George R.R. Martin
This is a repost of a review of the series I wrote some years ago. I know some of the info is a bit dated, but it still gets the point across and is spoiler free 
So, what is A Song of Ice and Fire? Well to put it simply, it is a still continuing fantasy novel series written by George R.R. Martin. Four books in the series have been released, A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows and there are another three in the works which are expected to be titled A Dance with Dragons, The Winds of Winter, and A Dream of Spring. Each book runs about 800-1200 pages in paperback with smaller print. So, why would one want to spend months reading massive books of an incomplete fantasy series? Well, let me tell you why.
Book Review – Hunter’s Run – George R.R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, Daniel Abraham
I’m sure many of you have read some form of the novel The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell or at least have seen one of its many film adaptations. It’s the story where a guy finds himself abandoned on an island to soon find that he is being hunted by a rich guy who wants the real thrill of hunting something intelligent. And I’m pretty sure everyone is familiar with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. If you were to take those two novels and blend them together and add a good helping of psychological and social undertones with a good smattering of twists, aliens, and imagination you will find yourself with the science fiction novel Hunter’s Run, written as a collaboration effort between George R.R. Martin, Gardner Dozois, and Daniel Abraham.
Book Review – Windhaven – George R.R. Martin & Lisa Tuttle
Some weeks ago my wife surprised me with a pair of books from George R.R. Martin’s back catalog (Windhaven and Hunters Run). Needless to say, with A Song of Ice and Fire being my favorite series of all time, I dove right in starting with Windhaven first (currently reading the other at the time of writing this). While it pales in comparison to his current epic, Windhaven is a delightful read filled with wonder and imagination.
Matt’s(Atleastimhousebroken) Top Ten NonMetal Things of 2011
Here’s a list of a bunch of other random things like movies, books, and video games that I enjoyed in 2011. To make this list I just to have has seen/played/read/etc in 2011 so a handful of these aren’t super current releases. What were some of your “other” favorite things of 2011? Enjoy!! Peace Love and Metal!!!
10. Stephen King
I don’t know how I kept myself away from reading Stephen King for over 30 years, especially since A. I usually enjoy the movies his books are turned into, and B. The Dark Tower. After reading a couple of his books this year (Tommyknockers and starting The Dark Tower) I know I will be backtracking quite a bit with his gargantuan catalog of novels. Any suggestions?
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Book Review-John Ajvide Lindqvist-Let the Right One In
Why am I writing about a book that seemingly has nothing at all to do with metal here? Well, in general, metal fans often tend to be fans of the horror genre and that is what Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist is. Also throughout the course of the book there are a good handful of references to Iron Maiden and Kiss which gives it metal cred in my book. That, and it is a really good read that you should check out.
Let the Right One In takes a genre of a specific class of horror monster that many have come to utterly despise due to a series of books and movies that hurled literary and cinematic filth all over, and puts an interesting twist on the classic creature. It takes the classic Gothic vampire and brings it to a modern-day setting and tells an endearing tale of puppy love. But before the big “T” word alarm goes off in your head, this is not anything like that literary excrement. Let the Right One In is a story involving brutal murder, alcoholics, shunned and bullied youth, and the most twisted tale of puppy love you will ever hear.
