[Books] Dune Messiah

I can't imagine what it must be like once you've written your first ever best-selling novel. I mean let's face it - years of writing in obscurity and then suddenly BOOM, you're all famous and everyone knows who you are. Everyone reads your book and then comes the expectation of the future - what do you do next? How you do top your previous masterpiece?

Or should you even try? Should you claim to be loyal to the core story that you've written and just focus on that? Should you try to not care about all the fan mail that you get now and just hope that things will revert back to normal and you can just keep writing the stories you want to write and not the stories that the publishers and the fans are now clamoring for you to write?

This is why sequels are always very interesting to me. It's the test of the resolve of the writer whether to stick to what he was doing in the beginning before the fame hit and all that.

[Movies] Avatar (2009)

Some stories are pretty much classic - the templates of many stories are often repeated throughout history. May it be in the form of books or even movies and TV shows, there are patterns that emerge as people gravitate towards certain story concepts over and over again. Just look at the Philippine entertainment industry - it's built on giving people the exact same content over and over again with new actors.

This isn't always a bad thing - sometimes a new version of an old story can come out pretty well. While oftentimes it's the reverse, we can hope for the continued creative drive of people to shine through and new masterpieces to emerge from the dusty bones of older tales. Just look at the Hero's Journey, a truly classic archetype that more often than not succeeds as long as the premise is creative enough (i.e. Star Wars).

What case this movie was is always open to debate, but naturally I'm going to weigh in my opinion for the heck of it.

[Movies] eXistenZ (1999)

My partner and I are getting ready to dive into an Aeon / Trinity game with our gaming group. The defunct White Wolf gaming system is all about science fiction story archetypes and I'm pretty excited about it given the science fiction geek that I am. At the same time, it's pretty interesting because of the premise of the world.

The world of Trinity features an interesting mix of traditional technology versus highly advanced biotechnology. This means not just gene splicing and cloning but actually integrating weapons and other elements of technology into the bodies of the players. Biotech of this nature is hardly common in the stories that I have written, a concept that is usually limited to non carbon-based lifeforms or something like the Mycon in the Star Control series of computer games. Ah well, but that's me.

This movie really got into the biotechnology aspect in a way that was more vivid than most. Plus it had a lot of stars I wasn't quite expecting to see all within a single story.

[Books] Dune

I was trying to figure out a comic book or book to review today when I realized that there are a large number of books that I had read before I started writing reviews on the Geeky Guide that definitely deserve reviewing.

That oddly pressures me to want to re-read a lot of books just to be sure about my ratings, but then I shouldn't really obsess about it too much, now should I? So to be more confident, I'm first revisiting my "classics" - those books that mean so much to me that no matter how many times I re-read them, they manage to provide new insights on the story and perhaps the world in general.

Thus today's title of choice - my favorite book of all time and my favorite science fiction series of all time. You know it's worth it.

[Movies] Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

Over the years, video games that get turned into movies rarely perform decently at the box office. Let's face it - video games are set in fictional worlds that are hard to match in terms of live-action performances and so it takes a LOT of creative direction to pull this kind of a movie off. We have yet to see major successes in this arena - heck, I can't even think of a successful video game movie right now. That can't be good.

To be fair, these movies rely heavily on fan support and thus it ends up driving certain behaviors. One, you get a movie with minimal plot or at least a shallow one since it's either largely based on the game, which was shallow to begin with, or you get one that was created just for film, which features only limited elements from the original game. Second, you tend to get a movie with very limited budget since the movie studios have seen that such movies don't perform too well at the box office and so they'll want to minimize their exposure while hopefully maximizing potential revenue. Ironically enough, these behaviors only continue to drive the poor performance of these films at the box office and one can only hope that sometime take that gamble and go all out in support of a video game movie.

Yeah I know, keep dreaming, right?

[Comics] Finals

In the comic book world, the easiest way to may the high school / college setting interesting is to introduce people who aren't quite ordinary. This normally means super powers or aliens or something along those lines and we've seen many stories of that nature time and time again. I'm not complaining or anything - just trying to make an observation here.

It's not exactly easy to get out of this mold - college is college and young adults don't have much to bring to the table other than drama, angst and perhaps varsity sports when it comes to stories. Thus it becomes absolutely necessary to introduce supernatural elements in order to give things a little twist.

So I have to give credit to Vertigo comics for what they tried to accomplish with this particular comic book mini-series. It's still set in the school world, but this time they wanted to avoid the whole super powers angle and just embrace the extremes of human potential. The results were rather...interesting, to say the least.

[Movies] Zombieland (2009)

I've mentioned a number of times now that zombies have gained popularity in recent days for some reason. It's not overly deliberate that I seem to be reviewing a number of zombie movies these days - there are just so many of them, it's hard to avoid it completely. Just wait for me to get around to reviewing DC's Blackest Night story arc once it finishes.

The typical zombie story has seen certain variations in recent years such as making the zombies being capable of running for a change or making them capable of limited speech. Whatever the variation, we end up with mixed results in terms of how these movies fare in the public arena. I'm not a particularly major zombie follower, but I do enjoy tracking the different techniques and seeing how things go.

I think I'm developing a taste for zombie comedies, though.

[Pink Culture] Flirting Faux Pas Of The Clubbing World

Image via Wikipedia

As much as I'm a geek and probably not well-known for my (highly limited) dancing abilities, I do enjoy hitting the clubs every now and then, having drinks with my friends or even enjoying a campy drag show or two. The local gay club scene isn't too different from the rest of the world, I assume although we have weird ways of making the rounds.

So this is going to be a rather opinionated entry - it's my blog after all. So there.

Anyway, the point is that in my times at the club scene or based on stories I hear from friends and especially my partner, there are a lot of weird stuff that happen in bars as part of our dying sense of social etiquette. I mean seriously, don't people know how to talk anymore? Don't people have the guts to just try to introduce themselves directly? Instead, we get all these passive aggressive techniques for trying to get the attention of others in bars and a lot of them are just really lame.

So that's what I'm tackling for this Sunday - what I like to think about as the flirting faux pas of the gay club scene (or at least the things that I find annoying / pathetic as heck).

[Movies] Fido (2006)

Zombies are all the rage these days. Whether it's a new movie concept, a popular multi-player video game or even a comic book, the token element that seems to be used time and time again is zombies. Let's face it - people seem to have developed a taste for zombies, if you pardon the pun. I'm generally okay with zombies myself, although I'm not necessarily a fan.

As much as this idea is getting more and more repetitive in recent times, there are still those major gems that really present zombies in a more interesting and refreshing light. One of the better ones that come to mind is the Simon Pegg comedy, Shaun of the Dead. That was a really good movie and a great way to take a new spin on the whole zombie thing. Not all movie makers are quite that way and tend to focus on movies that will give them the bigger (and quicker) return on their investment. This results in a lot of low quality, copycat films that just insult our general intelligence.

Then there are those ones that seem to come out of nowhere and surprise you. Oh yes, these are the movies that remind us why this medium will always be popular.

[Google] Going Chrome (For Real)

Image via Wikipedia

When I first reviewed Google Chrome while it was still in beta, I made a declaration that it was pretty decent and that I was willing to experiment with using it as my main browser. Of course my dependence on more complicated websites and more innovative Firefox extensions eventually had me going back to my roots and using Chrome as an alternative when Firefox was buggy.

Of course since then Chrome accelerated to drop the beta label, came up with a beta version of the browser with new features along with a developer version for the more hardcore Google adventurers and over time it has secured a larger segment of the browser market.

Now with the announcement of extensions for Google Chrome beta, I find myself pretty excited to venture forth into this new realm. Sure, I had already been testing a few extensions using the developer version of Chrome, but this was different. This meant there's actually an extension gallery. Oh fun.

[Movies] Fanboys (2009)

The Star Wars community remains to be one of the most vibrant ones amongst geek groups, especially with the strong support they get from the film's creators. This has led to a wide variety of fan-created films released over the years with varying levels of quality and humor. Oh yes, the fans can't get away from the humor.

Trying to understand fandoms of this nature is a bit tricky for people outside of geekier circles and it all just looks like grown men and women playing dress-up or unable to leave their childhood behind. There's a unique character to geeks who get into things of this nature and express their love and dedication for their fandoms to such a significant degree that's hard to capture anywhere else.

It's a concept often parodied in many movies, often a source of ridicule and mockery, but we geeks understand and have gotten pretty used to shaking it off. It's not very often that we actually get to see movies that take the contrary stand and try to celebrate those geekier traits that make things so much more interesting, so when we do, it's certainly a reason to check it out to see for ourselves what's what.

[Pink Culture] Manila Pride March 2009

As much as I've written many entries about gay advocacy on this and other blogs I write, I have to admit that my more active participation in true more public activities has been limited to the White Party every June. I've always wanted to rectify this, but for one reason or another I'd fail at it and pretty much continue to disappoint myself. I'm not saying I'm not excused for missing out in the past - it's just an explanation of what brought me to this point.

So given the strength of my views and naturally the personal interest in fighting for gay rights in terms of equality, better representation and respect in the eyes of the law, this year I mapped out in my head that I'd do better and finally make more of a difference somehow. You may have noticed this in the more liberal tone of this blog, the including of more LGBT content here and there and these Sunday articles discussing gay news, issues and concerns.

[Movies] Atonement (2007)

A movie is not just a medium - it's an experience that becomes much more than the sum of all its parts. Sure, you can have great actors, an amazing director, stunning visuals, epic sets and moving music, but just adding those diverse elements together doesn't immediately make a great movie. It's the interaction of these components and how these various pieces come into play as the story unfolds that makes all the difference.

I feel a lot of people forget the important role music plays. As much as awards are given out to the scoring of a film, it doesn't necessarily equal to recognition and appreciation for such things. The average viewer just thinks of the scoring as something in the background to be enjoyed to a limited degree, but for them the real focus is the story as it unfolds. But in truth, the music in the scene (or even the absence thereof) help push the emotions, stress the message that the director is trying to convey.

This movie really drives that point home and it's no wonder it won the Oscar for it.

[TV] The State of Science Fiction TV

Image via Wikipedia

November is always such a traumatizing month for TV geeks like me.

Let's face it, as much as sweeps week puts a lot of pressure on the TV networks and thus potentially pushing better content, it's also a means optimizing screen time for better shows and thus cutting lower-performing ones.

We live in a time without a Star Trek series on the air and by the same note without a major science fiction epic to carry us fans along. Battlestar Galactica has finished its noble run while its spin-off Caprica is taking its sweet time of getting here. We have few other shows trying their luck in terms of making it big or something along those lines, but no dice just yet.

What is happening to the world?

[Google] My Google Wave Wish List

Image by jlori via Flickr

So I've been using Google Wave for more than a month now, and it's been an interesting trip thus far. At first all I was wishing for was either more friends on Google Wave or to actually have invites for the application so I could have more friends on Google Wave. Long story short, a mass of invites seems to have gone out in the past two weeks and now practically all of my geek friends seem to have it now (and I still have about 20 invites left.) So naturally more contacts on Google Wave has resulted in a lot more experimentation.

There are something things that I'm already loving about this application and you can certainly feel the potential for it. The big things for me are (1) the ability to edit anything in the Wave, (2) true real-time collaboration and (3) it's just so gosh-darned shiny!

But given this is still in beta, there are also some major things I'd love to see in upcoming updates in Google Wave, so here's my short wish list just in case Santa works at Google:

[NaNoWriMo] 2009 WINNER!

I did it, I did it, I did it! **SQUEEE**

Yes my fellow geeks, I am happy to report that your Geeky Guide not only survived NaNoWriMo but did in fact manage to write more than 50,000 for a new novel which I'm currently calling The Interrogation. Of course given the nature of NaNoWriMo, the novel as it stands now is probably a bunch of crap and is not really worth reading just yet. But given a bit more spit and polish, I think I should get it halfway decent before the year ends. I'll continue tweaking the story during the month of December so I can close this particular chapter of my life at the end of the year.

I'm really happy with what I really accomplished here - this was me kick-starting my creative writing again and proving to myself that I haven't really lost the craft over the years. While it doesn't mean that I'm going to quite my call center job and start writing novels for a living, at the very least it indicates that I'll be putting a bit of my time back into such creative endeavors.

Of course for you geeky readers, what really matters is that I'll be able to get back to more regular posting capacity with the loss of the burden of trying to write nearly 2,000 words a day so expect the Geeky Guide to be back on track starting this month.

Thanks for all your support!