Monday, August 08, 2005

Long Weekend and Awards

The impending doom of bills to come seems to mount after buying a house, I'm learning. This past weekend was a long, entertaining weekend. Saturday night into Sunday morning was a bachelor party, I didn't pull up to my driveway until 5AM. It has been a long time since I pulled one of those. Slept for a few hours before going to the NY Renaissance Festival on Sunday with Mrs. Blog o' Stuff my brother-in-law and friend. I had a good time, ate some good food and I was sleep walking for the latter parts of it, since I barely had 3 hours sleep.

This coming weekend is the wedding of the groom for the aforementioned bachelor party, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Less than 2 months until the NHL season begins, and there have been a flurry of interesting moves. Khabibulin, unfortunately, signs with Chicago, Forsberg signs with the Flyers and my Devils haven't done much. It will be interesting and fun to see how things play out with the rule changes and new faces on new teams.

The Hugo Awards were given out this past weekend, and the book I felt to be the most over-rated novel in some time walked away with the Award for best novel. I really thought China Miéville's Iron Council would get the nod. I only read two of the novels on the ballot, so I can't judge either Iron Council, which I enjoyed, if less so than his other novels, and Clarke's against the others. However, a good deal of buzz had been surrounding Ian MacDonald's River of Gods, and I thought perhaps, it would have won. I'll find out about that book early next year as Pyr brings the book to US readers.

In November, it will be interesting to see if Clarke goes two for two in the genre awards. Once again, she is up against China Miéville, with three different works on the list: Stephen R. Donaldson's The Runes of the Earth, Sean Stewart's Perfect Circle and Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight. Of the remaining three (or four) I've only read The Wizard Knight, and since reading it early in the year, it is still probably the best thing I've read this year. While I love Donaldson, I haven't tackled the new Covenant book for a couple of reasons. I re-read the first Chronicles of Thomas Covenant last year and while I enjoyed them, something about them didn't hold up over time. I think it was a case of the wrong book at the wrong time, but I really do want to see what Donaldson has in store for the Land. I've seen very mixed things about the book. The only book I read by Stewart was Galveston, again earlier this year, and I absolutely loved it. I've seen people say Perfect Circle is an even stronger novel. Stewart won the World Fantasy for Galveston, so I wouldn't be surprised if he gets it again. Aside from Clarke, I think I'd be satisfied with any of these wining the award, though Wolfe is whom I am rooting for.

In telling my brother-in-law about the bachelor party, he referred to me a better name for said event. He heard this from comedian Adam Corolla, and it is pretty funny: a Penis Funeral. I will leave on that note.

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