So I say shame on you Mr. Eley for bringing us this tripe and implore you to look for more stories like:

• #005: Snow Day
• #007: The Trouble With Death Traps
• #013: The Once and Future Dentist
• #020: The Burning Bush
• #028: Your Corporate Network and the Forces of Darkness
• #031: Robots and Falling Hearts
• #034: Free Will, Baby
• #038: L’Alchimista
• #039: My Friend is a Lesbian Zombie
• #042: Practical Villainy
• #045: Are You Ready For the End of the World?
• #047: Poet for Hire
• #052: Single White Farmhouse
• #054: Tk’tk’tk
• #056: The Clockwork Atom Bomb
• #061: I Look Forward To Remembering You
• #064: Head of State
• #070: Squonk the Dragon
• #075: Nano Comes to Clifford Falls
• #076: The Dinner Game
• #078: The Shoulder of Giants
• #082: Travels With My Cats
• #100: Nightfall
• #102: The Angle of My Dreams
• #104: Lust for Learning
• #110: Frankie the Spook
• #123: Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane

Notes…

• Why no, this post is not a blatant attempt at being named BofW and getting a free book from Escape Pod. What would ever give you that idea. *grin*
• Ok, I could be fibbing when I made the above comment.
• Alright I was fibbing and it is a blatant attempt at just that.
• However I also wrote up this post to draw attention to what I feel are the very, very best of Escape Pod. Any sci-fi and/or fantasy fans not listening to Escape Pod should start and they should definitely start with the stories on this list!

Escape Pod, for shame! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Mark’s Rating: 4 out of 5

A dark, brutal and depressing movie that touches the heart. Pan’s Labyrinth was imported form Spanish (original title: El laberinto del fauno) and is a modern fairy tale. Don’t let that fairy tale description fool you, this is no film for young children. The setting is somewhere in the countryside of Spain, 1944. Ofelia is a young child who dreams of fairies as she goes with her pregnant mother to meet her new stepfather. Her stepfather is a ruthless captain in the Spanish army who works to put some a rebellion in the region.

Review: Pan’s Labrynth © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien*
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein*
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr.
13. Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children Of The Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card*
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson* This is really three books that they’ve lumped altogether and I don’t see any combined version for sale on Amazon. The individual books are: Lord Foul’s Bane (Book 1), The Illearth War (Book 2) and The Power That Preserves (Book 3).
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams*
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
29. Interview With The Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
42. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash., Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein*
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

50 most significant sci-fi/fantasy novels © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Take the What High School Stereotype Are You? quiz.

Heh, no surprise in that result.

What High School Stereotype Are You? © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

I think the best description of Ghosts in the Snow, by Tamara Siler Jones, that I’ve heard is “forensic fantasy”. It’s got ghosts, magical items, foreign religions and gruesome murders. Dubric Bryerly is the Castellan¹ of Castle Faldorrah and it is his duty to keep the peace. Recently, a serial killer has been stalking serving maids and killing them, one after another. The troubling part for everyone is that no one has seen the killer. The real trouble for Dubric is the ghosts of the slain are haunting him.

Unlike many of the fantasy authors that I’ve read; Ms. Jones doesn’t try to beat it into your skull that this is a fantasy novel. Though there are ghosts and magic, these are presented more as facts of life than as extraordinary things that you must pay attention to. I find this method to be both a more realistic² & a more enjoyable approach. But it’s more than just her approach to describing the fantasy elements that makes me really enjoy Ms. Jones book. It’s the wonderful characters.

• Dubric: a combination of kindly old uncle, drill sergant & private eye.
• Dien: Dubric’s right-hand man. A bit of a bruiser, but with a big heart
• Nella: An innocent trapped in the middle of the vicious murders
• Lars: The unwanted son of a nobleman who works for Dubric and strives to make his family proud.

It’s an amazing piece of work and I give it 5 out of 5 stars. I highly recommend you pick it up and read it; preferably leaving your weekend free, so you can finish it in one sitting.

¹ Dictionary.com defined castellan as “The keeper or governor of a castle.” For readers of Ghosts in the Snow, it’s better to think of it as chief of police combined with head detective.
² Though I’m not entirely sure that it is proper to call an approach to writing fantasy,“realistic”.

Review: Ghosts in the Snow © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Before you ask, no I’ve no idea what the quest really was beyond a vague notion that we were out to save the world. Anyway, we were traveling along with the water women. Who are they? Well, these are another strange product of the dream world. They look completely human but they pull water up and out of the ocean into large balls¹ which they then get on top of and use to walk across water. They can even allow others onto the balls and to spilt the balls into 2 smaller balls that their passenger can use to go another direction from them. Though the smaller balls don’t last very long. The water women had a somewhat earthy look to them but my dream didn’t allow me to examine their looks; instead I was focused on their abilities.

To continue, our group had been walking with the water women for quite a ways and the one I was with, was telling us of some legend that they have. We were excited because the legend seemed to fit with what we were trying to do. After some lengthy walking, the water women spilt their balls with us and they started heading home as we had to go into forbidden territory. We continued onwards and shortly thereafter reached a massive stone wall that was starting to fall apart from age & neglect but still had something of a dock/platform on the outside. We hurried over to that and then got off the balls and onto it. The balls vanished as soon as we were off of them. Once we were on the platform; we noticed down and to our left was a door sized opening but it was blocked off with a 2 layers of simmering light. The outer layer was pinkish-purple and the inner was a calm sky blue. There was another opening in the wall at the back of the platform but it was too small for anyway to go through. Also for some reason, the platform was high enough that one could look over the wall but somehow one couldn’t just jump over it.

On the other side fo the wall, there was s stinky, swampy sort of purple oozy water and fog/haze. We could sort of make out that there was a pathway leading off from the larger opening in the wall. The woman in the group was complaining about the smell while my character seemed to think it smelt like home². While we were arguing about the smell; suddenly the pinkish-purple light was gone as was the kid. We hurried through the larger opening and.…BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!!!

My alarm went off again.

Dream Two
After hitting the snooze, I went right back to sleep and I knew I was on the other side of the wall but now that area was different. Also, now I was actually me and the woman who was with me before was Ariesna. The area we were in appeared to have a stage in the center with bleacher style seating around 3 sides and at the back of the stage was a wall of prizes. There was a guy on the stage, but I don’t recall him saying anything. Instead there were announcers up in a booth at the top of bleachers to my left. We sat there for a bit and then the announcers started talking about an individual in the audience, who he called Cletus. The few people in the audience were yelling and clapping as the guy stood up. He turned out to look like the one of the ugliest hillbillies you ever did see. Tall and skinny like a bean pole, dressed in some ratty old jeans and a brown flannel shirt with a hunting vest over it (still somewhat orangish but toned down in color by the dirt) a red/black plaid cap with ear flaps and a scraggy looking blonde beard on his chin. I got the impression that Cletus might be some sort of TV star but I don’t know for sure. Shortly after that Ariesna was called to get a prize. She went on the stage and quickly came back with a small box. It turned out to be some sort of crappy shareware security program. I looked at it and looked at her. She popped back up and went over to the guy on stage. She showed him the box and asked about exchanging it. He looked at the box and said “Oh yeah, that’s [name of program]. Sure grab whatever you like.”

She did just that and came back with a small totebag looking thing with “m&m“³ embrodiered on the side. When she got to our seat, I suddenly had a PDA⁴ in my hands and it was reading off the value of the prize as being $58,326! We opened the bag. Inside under a couple of layers of wrapping & packaging was some electronic device. As near as I could tell it was some kind of home phone system and .….BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!!!

My alarm went off again and I had to actually get up. *sigh* I wonder what other programs I missed watching by not hitting snooze again.

¹ Roughly, the balls have a 4 foot radius.
² This is why I was thinking my character had some sort of agricultural background.
³ Like the logo for M&M’s candy.
⁴ No, I didn’t pull it out of my pocket and I don’t recall having one in the dream until the moment it appeared in my hands.

Snooze buttons are the channel-changers of the dream world © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

01. Bought everyone in the pub a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula.
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said “I love you” and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Done a striptease

11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Stayed up all night long, and watch the sun rise
15. Seen the Northern Lights
16. Gone to a huge sports game
17. Walked the stairs to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
19. Touched an iceberg
20. Slept under the stars

21. Changed a baby’s diaper
22. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
23. Watched a meteor shower
24. Gotten drunk on champagne
25. Given more than you can afford to charity
26. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
27. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
28. Had a food fight
29. Bet on a winning horse
30. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill

31. Asked out a stranger
32. Had a snowball fight
33. Photocopied your bottom on the office photocopier
34. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
35. Held a lamb
36. Enacted a favorite fantasy
37. Taken a midnight skinny dip
38. Taken an ice cold bath
39. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar
40. Seen a total eclipse

41. Ridden a roller coaster
42. Hit a home run I never got into baseball, but I used to be able to kick a soccer ball from one end of the field to the other. Does that count?
43. Fit three weeks miraculously into three days
44. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
45. Adopted an accent for an entire day Arrgh!
46. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
47. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
48. Had two hard drives for your computer. Only 2?
49. Visited all 50 states
50. Loved your job for all accounts

51. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
52. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
53. Had amazing friends Over the years, I’ve been blessed with several of them.
54. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
55. Watched wild whales
56. Stolen a sign
57. Backpacked in Europe
58. Taken a road-trip
59. Rock climbing
60. Lied to foreign government’s official in that country to avoid notice

61. Midnight walk on the beach
62. Sky diving
63. Visited Ireland
64. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
65. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger’s table and had a meal with them
66. Visited Japan Just this past summer
67. Benchpressed your own weight Came awfully close a couple of times
68. Milked a cow
69. Alphabetized your records
70. Pretended to be a superhero

71. Sung karaoke I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I sing like a dog gargling with rocks but Japanese-style karaoke rocks!
72. Lounged around in bed all day
73. Posed nude in front of strangers
74. Scuba diving
75. Got it on to “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye
76. Kissed in the rain
77. Played in the mud
78. Played in the rain
79. Gone to a drive-in theater
80. Done something you should regret, but don’t regret it.

81. Visited the Great Wall of China
82. Discovered that someone who’s not supposed to have known about your blog has discovered your blog
83. Dropped Windows in favor of something better Currently using SuSE 9.0 Pro, but thinking about upgrading to 9.2 once it hits the stores
84. Started a business Not yet, but I think about this every once in a while. Particularly as some days I loathe the idea of going to work
85. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
86. Toured ancient sites I saw some beautiful temples in Japan
87. Taken a martial arts class Not yet, but I’ve thought about doing so in order to get into shape.
88. Swordfought for the honor of a woman Does offering to thrash somebody who hurt the feelings of a female friend count? Particularly if you have swords and would have used them given the opportunity?
89. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
90. Gotten married Not yet, but May’s coming up fast

91. Been in a movie
92. Crashed a party
93. Loved someone you shouldn’t have
94. Kissed someone so passionately it made them dizzy
95. Gotten divorced
96. Had sex at the office
97. Gone without food for 5 days
98. Made cookies from scratch
99. Won first prize in a costume contest
100. Ridden a gondola in Venice

101. Gotten a tattoo
102. Found that the texture of some materials can turn you on
103. Rafted the Snake River
104. Been on television news programs as an “expert“
105. Got flowers for no reason
106. Masturbated in a public place
107. Got so drunk you don’t remember anything Not that I can recall…
108. Been addicted to some form of illegal drug
109. Performed on stage
110. Been to Las Vegas

111. Recorded music
112. Eaten shark
113. Had a one-night stand
114. Gone to Thailand
115. Seen Siouxsie live Never heard of them
116. Bought a house Not yet, but I really want to.
117. Been in a combat zone
118. Buried one/both of your parents
119. Shaved or waxed your pubic hair off
120. Been on a cruise ship

121. Spoken more than one language fluently Nope, but I’d like to and I did receive several compliments on my Japanese while I was over in Japan (though I think they were just being nice to me)
122. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone
123. Bounced a check But it wasn’t my fault. I sent a $50 check to my credit card company and they processed it as though it was $500.
124. Performed in Rocky Horror
125. Read — and understood — your credit report
126. Raised children
127. Recently bought and played with a favorite childhood toy
128. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
129. Created and named your own constellation of stars
130. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country

131. Found out something significant that your ancestors did
132. Called or written your Congress person
133. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
134. — More than once? — More than thrice?
135. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
136. Sang loudly in the car, and didn’t stop when you knew someone was looking
137. Had an abortion or your female partner did
138. Had plastic surgery
139. Survived an accident that you shouldn’t have survived.
140. Wrote articles for a large publication

141. Lost over 100 pounds
142. Held someone while they were having a flashback
143. Piloted an airplane This is something that I’d like to do someday
144. Petted a stingray
145. Broken someone’s heart
146. Helped an animal give birth
147. Been fired or laid off from a job
148. Won money on a T.V. game show
149. Broken a bone An arm and a leg. Fortunately, it wasn’t at the same time.
150. Killed a human being

151. Gone on an African photo safari
152. Ridden a motorcycle
153. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100 mph No, but I’ve come close to it
154. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
155. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
156. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
157. Ridden a horse
158. Had major surgery
159. Had sex on a moving train
160. Had a snake as a pet

161. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
162. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
163. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
164. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
165. Visited all 7 continents
166. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days (Rafting, but close enough)
167. Eaten kangaroo meat
168. Fallen in love at an ancient Mayan burial ground
169. Been a sperm or egg donor
170. Eaten sushi

171. Had your picture in the newspaper
172. Had 2 (or more) healthy romantic relationships for over a year in your lifetime
173. Changed someone’s mind about something you care deeply about
174. Gotten someone fired for their actions
175. Gone back to school
176. Parasailed
177. Changed your name
178. Petted a cockroach
179. Eaten fried green tomatoes
180. Read The Iliad

181. Selected one “important” author who you missed in school, and read
182. Dined in a restaurant and stolen silverware, plates, cups because your apartment needed them.
183. — and gotten 86’ed from the restaurant because you did it so many times, they figured out it was you
184. Taught yourself an art from scratch
185. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
186. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt
187. Skipped all your school reunions. They lost track of me and I never get invited. Then again, I didn’t like high school all that much, so I might not have gone even if they hadn’t.
188. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
189. Been elected to public office
190. Written your own computer language

191. Thought to yourself that you’re living your dream
192. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
193. Built your own PC from parts
194. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn’t know you
195. Had a booth at a street fair
196: Dyed your hair
197: Been a DJ
198: Found out someone was going to dump you via LiveJournal
199: Written your own role playing game Close. I was helping a friend write one; once upon a time.
200: Been arrested

200 Things About Me © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Playstation 2
• Castlevania: Lament of Innocence
• Jak & Dexter
• Jak II
• Marvel vs. Capcom 2
• Onimusha: Warlords
• the PowerPuff Girls: Relish Rampage
• Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter
• Wild Arms 3

Playstation
• Final Fantasy VII
• SoulBlade
• Spin Jam
• Wild Arms
• Wild Arms 2

Console Video Games I’ve got © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

You will not be able to stay home, dear Netizen.
You will not be able to plug in, log on and opt out.
You will not be able to lose yourself in Final Fantasy,
Or hold your Kazaa download queues,
Because revolution is not an AOL Keyword.

.…

Revolution is not an AOL Keyword © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Then I moved form NC to Iowa and up here (back then) there really wasn’t any where to play soccer. You basically had your choice of basketball or football; neither of which I give a fig for. My favorite memory of this sort of thing was when I met the coach at my 2nd high school and told him that I had no interest in either basketball or football. I could just see the disappointment build in his eyes.

Then again, I probably shouldn’t relish that moment because he more than got his revenge on me in the next 3 years of PhysEd classes. *ugh*

But the main thing about dooce’s post that reminded me of my own experiences was volleyball. While having me on your team was no guarantee of winning¹; it certainly helped. What really helped was my “backhanded beeeatch-slap return” (patent-pending); see I’d be standing next to the net waiting for the ball to come over. I’d have my hands clasped ready to bump the ball back up, but I’d get bored waiting for the it, look up for the ball, see it hanging there just over the next and with my back still to the next reach up and smack the ball with the back of my hand. This worked rather like a low-flying spike; except that the other team almost never saw it coming because I was facing the wrong way. Ah, those were the days. *grin*

Oh for the record, my other 2 favorite activities in PhysEd class were Archery (I read too many fantasy novels) and floor hockey. Gods, I loved playing that game. Simply because I can fondly recall the kids who I truly disliked running full-tilt at me with the puck; expecting me to either move aside or fall down. Let’s think about this a moment; I’m 6’5″ and I wasn’t a skinny little kid. Dude, in floor hockey, I was the WALL. I didn’t dodge and I didn’t fall down. That’s what the other kids had to do. Muhahahahaha! Okay, I really should be doing some work; so that’s enough writing for now.

¹ I’ve absolutely no jumping ability whatsoever, which makes some hits difficult to counter and is one of the reasons I hated basketball.

Livin’ Large © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.