Blackmoor Vituperative

I read Now, Discover Your Strengths today, and took the “StrengthsFinder” quiz. Circuit City is in love with this book, and they give a copy to every employee.

Of the five “themes” which ostensibly are my strongest talents, two are correct, one is so-so, and two are completely, absurdly wrong.

Like most personality tests and fad self-help books, this one is 30% common sense, 30% BS, and 40% a sales pitch for the publisher’s other products. Don’t waste your time on this one.

People are so damned guillible. If I was a little bit more evil, I’d start a religion or become a politician, and capitalize on it.

OXFORD (Reuters) – Thousands of young girls auditioned on Tuesday for a chance to star in a new movie franchise that promises to be a dark rival to the “Harry Potter” films.

Philip Pullman’s bestseller “His Dark Materials” trilogy is being adapted for the screen by New Line Cinema, which also made the “Lord of the Rings” films.

The first installment, “The Golden Compass,” follows a young protagonist named Lyra Belacqua who travels to the Arctic Circle to save a friend with the help of a bear and a witch.

Producers are scouring England to find an actress aged 9 to 13 who can embody her “loyalty, bravery and mischievous nature.”

Pullman’s books have been a hit with critics, adults and children alike, although some groups objected to their strong criticism of organized religion.

(From Yahoo! News, UK girls vie for role in ‘Dark Materials’ films)

I have never even heard of these books. I guess I’ll have to add them to my ever-growing list of books I intend to read.

News from the world of The Destroyer:

Hi All!

It’s a deal that’s been a while in the making, but… I received the go ahead just moments ago to release this to you! We at WarrenMurphy.com are excited at the possibilities this will present in the (hopefully not-too-distant) future.

The full release follows:

***********
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Warren Murphy announced today that he had signed a Destroyer film production deal with Robert Evans independent production company in Hollywood. The deal covers film and television, as well as computer games and merchandising, and the old man says “after quite a few years in the Destroyer doldrums, we’ve got a chance here of seeing something good happen.”

For those who don’t know, Robert Evans is a one-time actor who took over the running of Paramount Studios when the company was down the drain and on the verge of bankruptcy. In just a handful of years, Evans produced The Odd Couple, Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, Love Story and The Godfather, and turned Paramount into the hottest studio in town.

*****************

More information on Robert Evans can be found at:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0263172/

So it look as if there may still be a movie in our future after all! Let’s keep our fingers crossed.

Thanks for being here!
Brian Murphy
Webmaster@WarrenMurphy.com

Discuss this topic and more at the forums on
http://www.warrenmurphy.com/forum

The first Greyhawk novel (and the first of many truly dreadful D&D novels) now has a sequel: Return To Quag Keep.

I’ll pass.

Thinking In Java, 4th Edition, by Bruce Eckel, should be in bookstores some time in the next week. You can pre-order the book now. You can also check out Eckel’s site to download the source code.

After 25 novels in 25 years, Rice, 64, hasn’t published a book since 2003’s “Blood Chronicle,” the tenth volume of her best-selling vampire series. They may have heard she came close to death last year, when she had surgery for an intestinal blockage, and also back in 1998, when she went into a sudden diabetic coma; that same year she returned to the Roman Catholic Church, which she’d left at 18. They surely knew that Stan Rice, her husband of 41 years, died of a brain tumor in 2002. And though she’d moved out of their longtime home in New Orleans more than a year before Hurricane Katrina, she still has property there—and the deep emotional connection that led her to make the city the setting for such novels as “Interview With the Vampire.” What’s up with her? “For the last six months,” she says, “people have been sending e-mails saying, ‘What are you doing next?’ And I’ve told them, ‘You may not want what I’m doing next’.” We’ll know soon. In two weeks, Anne Rice, the chronicler of vampires, witches and—under the pseudonym A. N. Roquelaure—of soft-core S&M encounters, will publish “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt,” a novel about the 7-year-old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. “I promised,” she says, “that from now on I would write only for the Lord.”

(from Newsweek/MSNBC.com, The Gospel According To Anne)

It’s just as well. Her books have been horrible since she got so powerful that editors don’t dare to touch them. I don’t have the time to read 1000 pages of filler to get 200 pages of story.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell , by Susanna Clarke, is the most interesting book I have read recently. The premise is that English magic has slowly faded from the world, until by the early 19th century it is little more than the subject of dry scholarly papers. One of the main conflicts of the book is the difference in perspective between the two title characters, who are two of the last practical magicians in the world.

This isn’t a book of high fantasy or Tolkienesque adventure. Nor is it a Harry Potter for grown-ups, although I have heard it described as such. Of any books I can recall, it most reminds me of the excellent Lempriere’s Dictionary, by Lawrence Norfolk. Both books are a joy to read: clever, inventive, subtle, literate, and very long. Give them both a try.