Heard a Good Book Lately?

I have two credits saved up on Audible.com with a third credit due any day now. I am trying to figure out what audiobooks to get. I already have a handful that I've downloaded and I haven't listened to. The issue at hand is that the plan I am on only allows me to save up to three credits before I start losing them, so I need to pick some spend credits on.

I'm still taking a break from the "Saga of Seven Suns" series by Kevin J. Anderson. He really could have chopped the first five books (where I've stopped for the moment) into a three book series and then started a second series for the follow-up. Books four and five just draaaaggggeeeedddd on in some parts (as I'm sure this post will also do) and I'm too anal to skip ahead (or to chop this post down.)

I just now got back to listening to "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons. I have actually read the four Hyperion books before; "read" as in books in hand. Two of my World of Warcraft characters are Perion and Dymion as in hyPERION and enDYMION. The problem being that everybody pronouces Dymion as "Dime-e-on" instead of "Dim-e-on" They also call Perion, "Pery" which drives me nuts, but then again what doesn't these days.

Speaking of nuts, I have had a half dozen people ask me if I was allergic to nuts in the last few days. I'm not sure what is up with that or why I thought it worth a tangent in the middle of this tangent.

I had stopped "Hyperion" to listen to 2 sessions of "the Bendis Tapes" on Word Balloon. Word Balloon being a comic book, interview format, podcast hosted by John Siuntres. The Bendis tapes are these massive shows he does twice a year with comic writer, Brian Michael Bendis (pictured), whom I ranted about back in early February; because, he got me to watch the entire 7 seasons of the Gilmore Girls for which I was the target of much abuse by friends and colleges.

Brian has a message board over and jinxworld.com (which also hosts forums for a number of other comic writers, artists and now even Word Balloon) and he lets his fans post questions about his works. He and John answer and discuss the questions and a ranger of other topics over the course of the interview. I hadn't listened to the last two sessions, because I didn't want spoil the Secret Invasion storyline Bendis had been orchestrating as the Marvel, cross-comic, summer event. I managed to finish it just before leaving Perth.

I have a slight problem with jinxworld though. They don't let you register with any of the common free email accounts such as yahoo or gmail. It would appear you can't even register under a real email address and then change it to one of those free ones. I still don't know if I am going to keep the hewitt.org email address when it expires this month (there has been some other change of ownership or something.) I understand Bendis might have a spammer or abusive poster problem over there, but they have moderators for that sort of thing. Also, those moderators could be used to hand approve email address exceptions. In any case, unless they do something, I'll just be registered with an email address I never check and which may be going away. Hope they board never tries to send me any email for anything important.

Okay, back the audiobooks:

I was going to download "Swords and Deviltry: The Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser" which has been sitting on my wishlist. It is the first book in Fritz Leiber's classic sword-and-sorcery series which launched the sword-and-sorcery genre, and were the inspiration for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons. I remember hearing a lot about this series back when I was in Jr. High School, but reading the reviews I think I am going to pass on it for now. One of the reviewers summed it up with, "Might have been a classic novel, but it doesn't hold up as a "modern" fantasy novel." The other reviewers were less kind.

I see they are offering "Midwinter" by Matthew Sturges. Matthew writes the DC/Vertigo comic "Jack of Fables" which is a spin off from Bill Willingham's "Fables" series. But I don't think the "Jack of Fables" series is really all that good and the Amazon.com reviews of Midwinter speak of much the same disappointment. Reading the summary blurb, I am also afraid to read it because it has some of the same elements of a story I am putting together and I don't want to be influenced by things he has thought of.

I think I am at least going to try "Daughter of the Blood" by Anne Bishop. It is the first book in the "Black Jewels" series. The reviews seem okay, though they all warn you that the series is not for the prudish or squeamish. The thing holding me back is that it is yet another big series of books. Well that is partly true; the wiki points out that the first three books are the main trilogy. The fourth book is another story that takes place in that world. Then fifth book that is a collection of four short stories which expands on the events in and after the main trilogy. The fifth and sixth books appear to also be just other stories set in that world. But still, for somebody anal like me, that is seven books.

Anybody have any other suggestions of some good fantasy books?

iPod Blues

My iPod nano stopped working last weekend. I had been listening to "A Forest of Stars" the second book in Kevin J. Anderson's "Saga of the Seven Suns" series as I travel across Brisbane from comic store to comic store trying to fill in my missing issues of my Daredevil collection. (Hows that for geek quota?) I had been swapping the iPod into the car radio adapter and headphones all day. But then once I got home it wouldn't turn on. I tried plugging it into the charger and computer with no results. I went online and tried all the tricks and still couldn't get it to turn on.

Monday morning I took it down to the Apple store which is complete with its 'overly hip' Apple store employees. Somehow I got my time of my trip back to the states for the last E3 confused with my trip to SOE the year before and thought it was out of warranty. I was told by the 'Apple Guy' that Apple doesn't do repairs and instead will sell me a refurbished iPod for FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! (thats Australian dollars btw) which is about the same price as an 8 meg Nano. Mine is the cheap 1 meg version. He gave me the number of 'The Mac Doctors' which was an independent store in Brisbane that does do Apple repairs. He wrote the number on a card from memory implying they refer people to them a lot.

I realized my mistake about when I bought the iPod a few hours later and went back. I was met with a little suspicion but once I showed him my receipt and he looked up my 'registered' iPod in the computer they accepted it.

I picked up my refurbished replacement today no problem except for the parking. They are right next to the Bose store where I bought my excellent noise canceling headphones. Both stores have two designated parking spaces and both places park their official company car in one of the spaces. Idiots.

But the back to the $400 AUD for a refurbished iPod. WTF? Seriously why would they charge so much for a refurbished iPod when you could buy a top of the line new one for the same price. Even if they wanted you to buy a new one, wouldn't it be easier to just offer you a discount price on a new one? Offering to sell you a refurbished, out dated older model when yours breaks so soon after the warranty going out just made me want to buy a cheaper MP3 players. I certainly didn't feel like spending a lot more money to buy a new iPod, cheap or top of the line version.