Edmund Lester

Forget all the drawings, paintings, models and computer generated imagery of what an alien race should look like. All you have to do is look up this creature - the giant isopod or Bathynomus giganteus. It is a very weird looking animal and you can find them in the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean. You don't need to go traveling to other worlds (of the imagination or otherwise) to see strange creatures.

I've not been blogging much of late. Holidays and new bookcases have taken up a lot of my time. I spent a week based in Belgium and managed to go exploring in Holland, Germany, France and Luxembourg (in addition to Belgium itself). I still love Belgium. I think I may have to go back there many more times. As for the book cases. Well we had a little bit of building work done earlier this year and some of the extra space was devoted to storing my books. And book cases arrived this last week. So I had the happy task of going through the boxes which have contained many of my books for the past couple of years and give them shelf space. Oh it was fun. I have managed to find time to watch some movies too - so I thought I'd spend a few minutes giving some short comments. 1. Night of the Demons. I liked the original of this back in the 80s. It was a fairly tasteless, silly little horror comedy. It had all the elements you'd expect for a straight to video (remember pre-DVD age) rele...

The last weekend in August in the UK means a three day weekend with a national holiday on the Monday. So it seems all the ingredients for a good time. Didn't quite happen that way though. Not writing wise in any case. Firstly the weekend statrs with a rejection from Drabblecast and today it has ended with another rejection, this time from Neo-opsisfor a story I still feel is one of the best I've written. Although now that it has received six rejections maybe I should re-assess that belief. Mind you it has taught me not to write stories in second person narrative. Which is a great shame as I rather like second person tales. They make me feel as though I'm in the middle of the action. And running all through the three days was the fact I had a lot of extracurriculur from the day job. I spent nearly all this weekend, including until 4am yesterday (on a Sunday) updating our software system. And sitting here now at 9pm Monday I have more yet to do. I don't dislike my day job...

I enjoyed reading. Okay a number of people may read much more than me but I do manage to get through two or three books in a week so I don't think I do too badly. And I will admit this is largely due to a liking for shorter books. I read a lot of novellas so I guess I get a bit of assistance from the books I choose to read. Anyway I recently discovered a new way of adding to my reading tally. I take a book with me to work. Before you start accusing me of not actually doing anything for the day job, I want to say I restrict my reading to lunch hours only. But it does mean I can add an extra book into the reading schedule each fortnight. As long as I stick clear of fiction that is. I don't think I could ever read a novel in the middle of a crowded canteen. But non-fiction. I can do that. So recently I've read a book about the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, Dava Sobel's Longtitude, a couple of travelogues and am currently reading a book on Fermat's Last Theore...

This weekend I watched a relatively new release horror film that I feel I need to mention to anyone who happens to read this blog. The film has a really fun title - Backwoods Bloodbath and a cool silhouetted scythe on the cover. Ok, the plot is a little familiar - group of city folk head to a remote cabin in the woods in a region where there's your stereotypical local legend (can't really call it an urban legend in the middle of nowhere) and encounter a mad man (yeah, the one the locals went on about) armed with a scythe who proceeds to start killing. But an overused plot is nothing a well made horror film can't overcome. Good directing, halfways decent acting (screaming doesn't have to be Oscar winning level to be effective), and some kick-ass effects and you can have a really good gory scarefest out of this much-used scenario - after all they wouldn't keep using it if it didn't work. However this film isn't all the things you might hope - and certainly not...

I've been watching a few movies of late and it's about time I posted a few comments about them. I'll start with the more commercial stuff. Alice in Wonderland - yeah, Tim Burton. Well, it looks good. Nice and dark, twisted in just the right Tim Burton way. The acting's pretty good, and the plot paced well - decent and quick. Only problem is the plot content. It feels like a sequel. Guess it was always going to as, in many ways, it is. The story isn't a straightforward telling of the Alice books. It features a grown up Alice (nineteen years old I think) who's dismissed her previous visits to Wonderland as the rich imaginings of a child. So all through she's refinding all the characters and places of Wonderland. Johnny Depp is good, although a little overbearing - his role has been beefed up a little too far, kicking the film out of balance. It's okay - but I wanted it to be so much more. Daybreakers is a cool, near future sf-flavoured vampire movie. It ha...

When I was a kid, somewhere about 9 years old, I heard music. I mean really heard. I know music must have been around me before then but I can't remember it making much of an impression. At nine though that changed. I heard The Who. Something about it excited me. Well I bought a Who album. Then having listened to that for a while I bought another. And not long after started wondering what else there was and a schoolfriends older brother played me (and him I guess) some Rolling Stones tracks. Band number two in my life. So I bought a Stones album. Maybe I didn't pick the best one (Got Live If You Want It) but I liked it enough. So much that I bought a second - Rolled Gold. That was the better choice. And it ended up with me and my music tastes having developed to what they are now - Dream Theater, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Rush, Tom Waits, Nick Cave. I could go on and on. But my purchase of Rolled Gold was way, way back in the days of vinyl. And since selling all my vinyl records ...

Much as I have been a lifelong sf fan and the majority of my past reading being sf I have always had a soft spot for decent horror. And of late with the fact most of my writing seems aimed at horror zines I've read more horror than not (unless you can call a history of English cricket horror in which case it's been exclusively horror). And I have to say I've been thoroughly enjoying doing so. I've read a number of damn fine novels of late and just wanted to let you know some thoughts on them and on just how many sf themes are running through these stories (okay if you read any of my reviews some of this might be familair but hey... Nate Kenyon's Sparrow Rock is the first I'll mention. At it's core it has a classic 1950s sf theme - nuclear war - and the action takes place in or around a nuclear bunker. Okay a lot of the actual action and detail is horror flavoured but the concept of an atomic explosion leading to mutated creatures is pure old school sf. But f...

I'm going to show my age here - and possibly my terribly taste in music. Heck, I don't care about either. I am what I am, and I like what I like. And to be honest if you disagree with my choices then it's simple. You're wrong - at least from point of view. Well, hey - this is my blog I can be self-centred about it. Anyway enough rambling I'm here to blog about this evening's procrastination - and I'm already finding something else to type...hmmh I was reminded of an old band I saw in the 80s this evening - the Icicle Works. I was rather a fan of theirs. So I hit YouTube and went to check out a few vids. I could have just put a CD on - I'm sad enough to have bought them. But I didn't. End result after watching a couple whilst sorting a thing or two out I remembered another 80s band I liked and probably no one who might read this will have even heard of them. The band's called The Faith Brothers. Now I can't lean over and put one of their CDs o...

I've been a fan of heavy metal for - heck most of my life. He sang on some of my favourite albums (Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell and Dio's Holy Diver spring to mind). I just read of his death from cancer on the BBC News website and I'm saddened. Okay as a heavy metal singer maybe other people had more of an effect on the world but his music made me happy - and I'm sure many others. It's a sad day.

I like the way the US makes TV shows. I like the way that they have 20+ episodes a year to develop an idea - providing of course the show makes it that long. Well ok, maybe except for stuff like Dexter with only 13 - still more than most UK shows get for a season. So recently I finally cottoned on to House - only partway through season six. Then I finally decided to check out Smallville and found it nowhere near as bad as I had feared. I felt it could be a Beverly Hills 90210 with super-powers and, well ok it is a bit, but it does have merit. Third show I tried (belated) was Lost. The story of Lost, when it was first advertised five years ago, just never appealed. A group of people get stranded on a desert paradise only to find weird stuff. Didn't grab me. But over recent months a number of people I work with convinced me it was worth watching. And fortunately they were right. And now I've got a fourth. I was in Blockbusters the other day and noticed a TV series box set on sale...

Saturday is book hunting day. It's my release. I've been a collector since I was a kid and I know there's always a chance that I'll find that next book out there. Today was one fot hose days. I found an old sf book that really appealed to me - a 1965 paperback of Milton Lesser's Secret of the Black Planet. It has a very typical 1960s cover - man in tight fitting space suit with ray gun looking all Buck Rogers, a woman in a short skirt with the image completed by a typicaly of the period cigar shaped rocket ship. Yeah, I know that image could also describe a typical 1930s sf magazine cover (for anyone who wants to go look at some there's a lot of them on a UK sf call The Eternal Night - http://www.eternalnight.co.uk/magazine/magazinea.html ) But I like these things as objects and I like finding them. Fortunately for me it's not an expensive hobby - these books aren't worth much, I picked this one up for two pounds. I just like finding them. And you never ...

The last few weeks have been just a little hectic - and very, very strange. Two years into this economic downtown, things have been tense. Greece has been going through some tumultuous times - riots resulting from their austerity measures. The Euro as a currency has been under tremendous strain as have relations within the EU over the negotiations to shore everything up. So in the middle of all this Estonia has been cleared to join the Euro from 2011 - providing all the nations agree which I can't see being a problem. In the middle of a major recession tiny Estonia, with only 1.3 million people, is a success story. It's budget deficit last year was a tiny 1.7% of GDP; government debt a mere 7.2%. The UK's debt is more than 10 times this level. I'm simply in awe. Well done Estonia!

I've been fascinated with politics as long as I can remember. I mean it - back when I was a kid and unable to vote I found it interesting. Sad I know, but I can remember the 1974 election (the second one) and I was only six. I guess you might not think this if you've checked through my blog over recent weeks and seen pretty much nothing about politics whatsoever on it. I've ummed and ahhed about blogging about the campaigning before now - about the news stories, the debates, the LibDem upsurge, the gaffs and so on - but everytime I've started typing I got so far and just stopped. It somehow seemed pointless. There was so much election stuff already out there what could I add? So why start now? Don't know. It just seemed more right. And before you worry I have absolutely no intention of telling against whose name I placed my vote. These things are supposed to be secret ballots after all. It's the broadcast itself I feel needs comment. I've watched many of the...

I picked up a book at the weekend - Simon Hughes' "And God Created Cricket". I have a number of books on my reading pile that I really should read first but it sat there, calling to me. I was helpless, it knew all my weaknesses. Well it's as good as I had hoped it would be. Simon Hughes has an obvious love of cricket. When combined with his wonderfully acerbic wit it makes for a highly entertaining, if somewhat rambling and irreverent, history of the game. I recommend it to everyone - well everyone who likes cricket at any rate.

I like episodic television. Okay most of it tends to be science fiction in nature but I do occasionally venture outside sf. I followed ER pretty regularly. I watch CSI and Bones. Okay looking at those alternates I guess they are fairly science based. So it might not be that much of a remove. And I've found another series that's hooked me - House. Again not much of a departure I guess as it's heavy on the medical science. But evidence that I might not be up to date with things. After all House has been running for five years before I happened upon it. Never said I was the most observant of people. Still at least it does mean I have quite a number of episodes to catch up on - thanks be to the people who first thought of selling episodes of TV shows on tape or disk.

I had really, really low hopes for this film. I can remember John Carpenter's original of this movie somewhere back before the dawn of time. My memory of it was that it wasn't one of Carpenter's best movies. So a remake...? Hmmh! This onecomes emblazoned with the banner "From the Makers of Halloween". Films that have "From the makers of..." on the front always worry me a little. They make me think they don't have a review quote good enough to help sell the film. Still is the film worth watching? Well to be brutally honest I couldn't tell you. I mean it. I watched this a week ago now (admittedly before succumbing to a rather unpleasant virus over the weekend) and can hardly remember anything of it. It made next to no impact on my memory whatsoever. Never mind, eh?

I had absolutely no idea what this film would be like when I popped it into the DVD player. I'd never heard of it before I saw it on the shelf in the video store. I find that's often the best way. I've seen far too many films with pre-conceptions they just didn't live up to. Long Distance centres on a young woman called Nicole who one night dials a wrong number. Sounds innocent and safe enough, except the man that answers calls her back repeatedly. The following day she finds out he was calling from the house of a woman he'd just murdered. And now it seems she's the target of a killer's obsession. This is not a bad film at all. It manages to build a pretty decent level of suspense. Decent plotting, good direction and fair acting. But it does rather have a telegraphed ending. I'd imagine they were going for a serious twist here, one that might grip the viewer. The only problem I had was this "twist" was pretty obvious - which meant the ending wa...

I am a long time fan of rugby. I support Leicester Tigers and I'm English. So as you can probably guess I'm not overly happy with the games today. First off England lost. And not just lost, they lost to a team that I didn't think played all that well. England were just not good enough. Now, compared to the match two weeks ago when they played Italy (and just about scrapped a win) they were a lot better. But when you consider the talents of the players they have on the pitch they really should be able to do more than that. Anyway that finished I turned over to watch the Northampton vs Leicester match. And yes I realise that the conditions were pretty awful. The pitch was boggy and it rained for most of the match. But despite Leicester having the majority of the possession throughout the game they just didn't look like scoring. Result 19-3 to Northampton. So two matches watched and two defeats. Darn!!!

I'm addicted to this computer based life. So when I've not really spent any time on my home PC for more than a week (and wasn't away enjoying myself in Italy or Belgium) something just has to be wrong. I've had flu. Plain and simple. For four days over last weekend I really couldn't do anything. Pretty much at all. I'm not after sympathy. I'm not playing the martyr card. I was just ill. I don't like being ill. I know no one does and I'm not claiming anything special. It was only flu for heaven's sake. But it did expose me to the horrors of daytime TV. Golly that stuff's terrible. Sorry if you like it but I am afraid I just DON'T! And in the middle of the Winter Olympics too! Now I don't like the the Winter Olympics particularly. Okay falling off a hill (or ski-jumping) is half-decent. And I don't mind a little bit of cross country skiing or speed skating. But only a little. Still at least there were the documentary channels. I spe...