Where's Sonic Now? photos

Here are a bunch of photos I took of a book called Where's Sonic Now?, basically a Sonic the Hedgehog version of Where's Wally, and sequel to a previous book called Where's Sonic?. I took them to send into popular Sega blog, UK:RESISTANCE and they never got used, but I found them on my webspace today and thought I'd share them. Here's the directory: http://jephso.spheresofchaos.co.uk/sonic/. And here's a sample:

I like the style of these. If I was to scan them properly they'd make nice desktop wallpaper.

Neuromancer film

I just came across this piece of news about a film adaptation of William Gibson's cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. I recently read Neuromancer for the first time and it was quite unlike any other book I've ever read, largely due to its unique narrative style, which I found really hard to follow. Gibson doesn't paint a full picture of what's happening in his story, rather he prefers to give you bits and pieces, and expects the reader to fill in the blanks. And while this makes the story quite exciting and fast-paced at times, I found it frustrating for the most part, especially when I'd leave a few days in between reading, so the story and situations weren't always fresh in my mind. It'd be interesting to hear what anyone else who's read the story has to say about this.

Saying all that though, the story itself and all the technological implications of the book were intriguing, and to say it was written in 1984 the book was quite a visionary work in regard to computers and 'cyberspace'. So I found myself wishing that the story was a film, as then I wouldn't have had any difficultly understanding and visualising what was going on. I'll be on the lookout for this film.

The Best of Isaac Asimov

I've recently finished reading The Best of Isaac Asimov, which is a book containing a good cross-section of Asimov's work up until the time when it was published in 1973. I'd never read any of his stuff before, so I thought this would be a good place to start. I picked the book up in quite good condition from Amazon Marketplace for a penny, and it has a cool front cover, although I'm not sure which story the picture refers to, if any.

There are twelve short stories, and each one is enjoyable in its own way. I like Nightfall for its dramatic ending, The Martian Way for its adventure and creativity, The Deep for its view of Earth through the eyes of aliens, The Dead Past for its grippingly dark plot and The Last Question for its thought provoking look into the far-future.

The fact that these are short stories means that without investing too much time in each one you can still see an interesting progression, and Asimov's background as a professor of biochemistry helps add a certain realism to everything. In fact, he actually made some fairly accurate predictions in these works of fiction, describing, for example, the feeling of euphoria experienced when walking in space before anyone had actually done so. Really good stuff.