2010 Jan 15
Bev(BB)Journals DC Comics, fun stuff, links heads-up, Quirk Books
The Weird
Several months ago, I ran across mention of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, then Sense and Sensibilities and Sea Monsters, both from Quirk Books. I think my brain froze. I didn’t exactly ignore them or even put off talking about them. Exactly. Really. I just don’t believe I could figure out what to say then. Period. Full stop. For me that’s saying a lot. Then I found this the other day:
“Android Karenina” will be available June 8th.
I think what I enjoy most about this series is the genre twisting. Turning Austen’s romance novels into high adventure kung-fu tales is great as it is; making Tolstoy’s celebrated “Anna Karenina” a sci-fi love story just warms my heart.
And my greatest hope is that these books will open up a previously inaccessible world of Russian classics to the general public. After all, those who may not initially enjoy a 100-year-old romance novel could give it a second look when robots are involved.
via Read Street: Coming in June: ‘Android Karenina’ – A blog for a community of readers, in Baltimore and beyond. – baltimoresun.com.
And I finally had something to say, or rather ask, which has nothing at all to do with how good or bad these remakes may indeed be. Why is it that people who want to change books into something else think of them as romance novels but romance readers usually don’t?
Moving on to The Wonderful
My eyes almost glazed over in delight when I found this next one. Okay, so some of the entries are campy and some are downright obscure but I thoroughly enjoyed the stroll down memory lane found in this three page article. Well, of the ones I remembered. 
The best thing is that it includes not just pictures but also video clips so be warned if you have a slow connection that you may need to adjust for that.
The History of DC Comics on TV
From Adam West as Batman to Smallville, all of the live-action DC superheroes who have hit the small screen.by Eric Goldman January 13, 2010 – This Sunday sees the premiere of Human Target on FOX – a new action series based on the DC Comic book of the same name. But Human Target is hardly the first TV version of a DC hero, and we thought we’d take the opportunity to look back at all of the DC heroes who’ve graced the small screen in the past – or in some cases, never got further than the pilot stage most of the time for good reason. Keep in mind we’re sticking to live-action TV projects – as a history of DC animated series is a whole other topic. We’re also including only TV projects with characters who have at one point been part of the core DC Universe – so don’t look for, say, the Global Frequency pilot from a few years back.
via The History of DC Comics on TV – TV feature – at IGN.
2010 Jan 08
Bev(BB)Journals fun stuff, links heads-up, vampires, zombies
Zeek had me literally LOL with a ‘Nuff Said post the other day. Go see it. It’s worth it. Trust me. 
Which reminded me that I had several sort of related quote clippings that I needed to clean out of the old files and this would be a good time to do it.
I ran across this item several weeks ago and just couldn’t stop staring. Seriously. The odd thing is, I think I have a link to something on the actual book somewhere around here. I’ll have to dig around and get back to you:
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Movie Moving Forward
The answer to the question of how you get your boyfriend to a chick flick is right here. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has been tapped for the big screen.
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is moving ahead on becoming a feature length movie. A strange combination of English romance novel with a flesh eating twist.
Natalie portman will play lead in the Jane Austen zombie fest.
David O’Russel is set to direct the movie with such titles as Tree Kings and I Heart Huckabees to his name.
What do you think? Should this classic novel be left to a reading material or is this the new generation of screen writing combining a classic love story with a bizzare twist in the mix to create a movie so unthinkable that it actually could work?
via Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Movie Moving Forward.
And then there’s this from an article about Brad Pitt possibly doing a new Dracula movie. Yeah, I know. Boggles the mind. Read the article in full though after you read the clip that caught my attention:
Bram Stoker just happened to come across the name Dracula — associated with the prince — while working on his classic novel. And he liked it so much he used it as the name of his title character. That’s it! Period. End of story. While it’s all very romantic to ascribe some mythology or backstory to the character, those who do so are really missing the point of what makes Stoker’s novel great — it’s a lurid potboiler examining male anxiety in Victorian England; and it’s a horror novel that happens to depict, uniquely and perhaps unintentionally, a fear that polite society, in those days, dare not speak of — that as England became more mannered, more civilized, more sophisticated, Eastern European “savages” would take away its women.
Dracula is not, has never been, and never will be, a romance novel or a tale of action. Two things that Hollywood seems determined to covince people it is.
via Is Brad Pitt Getting Long in the Tooth? – FEARNet.
2009 Dec 16
Bev(BB)Journals fun stuff, games, links heads-up, Love Spell
(Skip to bottom for update)
Twice in almost as many days and I’ve run across another game based on a romance novel? Somehow this doesn’t seem like a coincidence. And yet there’s or rather here’s another one:
New gaming company, PassionFruit Games, launches with romance casual game based on bestselling author Marjorie M. Liu’s Tiger Eye novel.
PassionFruit Games today announced the creation of a new romance-themed casual game, Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, based on the novel Tiger Eye (A Dorchester Love Spell paperback) by New York Times bestselling author Marjorie M. Liu.
Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box also officially marks the launch of PassionFruit Games and represents a unique moment in the history of gaming. Although a market for romance-themed video games has existed abroad for years, these games are essentially unknown in the U.S.
Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box will be one of the first romance casual games to hit the U.S. market when it goes on-sale in April 2010.
via Liu’s TIGER EYE computer game « Romantic Reads.
Odd, though, that I can’t seem to find a description of what type of game it is, other than casual. Hmmm.
UPDATED: Just found another article that included a short, and I do mean short, description of what might be in the game:
According to the group’s press release, there will be puzzle-solving and mini-games for the PC/Mac game, as well as a storyline that grows as the characters become closer. What’s interesting to me is the fact that Liu — already a New York Times bestselling author (and smart as heck to boot) — will be joining writers such as Eric Trautmann and Brian Reed, who also have ties in the video game world.
via Blog@Newsarama » Blog Archive » Marjorie Liu gets her own game.
2009 Dec 15
Bev(BB)Journals fun stuff, games, Harlequin, links heads-up
Okay, several months ago, I discovered Big Fish Games and I do love their “hidden object” games but this one literally made my jaw drop when I ran across an article about it:
Big Fish Games is launching a game aimed at women in a partnership with romance novel empire Harlequin Enterprises.
The game from Seattle-based Big Fish Games is Harlequin Presents: Hidden Object of Desire. It is a “hidden object” game, a popular casual game genre where users can find lots of treasures or secrets just by clicking on the landscape of a game. Of course, the game has a romantic storyline.
The game is inspired by The Royal House of Karedes, a series of Harlequin books. It features Allie, a reporter on assignment covering the 30th birthday of the Prince of Aristo. Upon her arrival in the Kingdom of Adamas with her photographer, Allie has to unravel a mystery by finding hidden objects and solving puzzles.
via Big Fish Games releases Harlequin romance game | VentureBeat.
Let’s just say I’m still recovering from the shock — but seriously tempted at the same time. Purely out of curiosity, of course. Ahem. ;-)
2009 Oct 31
Bev(BB)Journals fun stuff, links heads-up, reading light, rocking chair
For years I’ve looked for just the right reading chair. Somehow, I don’t think this is quite it. The idea is… interesting but as the article asks, “What if you didn’t want to rock and read?” Of course, the idea is to apparently store the energy from the rocking for later use but still. Needs more work, I think. Don’t you?
OTOH, we readers will read in some of the strangest places and positions as the discussion over on Access Romance – Reader’s Gab thread of Location, Location, Location clearly shows.
2009 Oct 18
Bev(BB)Journals Barbie, fantasy, fun stuff, links heads-up, romance, science fiction, Star Trek, Twilight
I ran across something several weeks ago before my mother went into the hospital and really didn’t know what to do with it. In term of posting about it, I mean. I didn’t actually want it, myself. Seriously. No really. Ahem.
Then these comments by Linnea Sinclair on the Does Science Fiction Romance Need a Gene Roddenberry? post over at The Galaxy Express caught my eye:
So do we need a Gene Roddenberry? Totally, but if you think about it, we had him. He had several romance plot lines in the original Trek. Later versions had Troi and Worf, and Kira and Odo. Firefly had Mal and Inara. The visual media has NOT been romance-deficient. But watchers are not always readers, apparently.
And I immediately knew I had to bring this out as evidence in support of what she said.
Yeah, my brain works in strange and wonderful ways. Okay, just strange ways. Oh, shut up.
Anyway, can you believe this? Official Star Trek Barbie dolls. Well, of course, I can believe they exist but couldn’t they simply have done just Spock and Uhura? Hmmm. Why did Kirk have to horn in?
Ahem.
Oh, and I found the Star Trek Barbie dolls by way of finding the Twilight ones if anyone wants to see those, too.
I just have one other question – who is the audience for this? For either one of those sets, I mean.
2009 Aug 18
Bev(BB)Journals Bastien Club, Bianca D'Arc, Commentary, Daziel, Dragon Knights, fun stuff, Katie MacAlister, menages, Racy Romance Reviews, Resonance Mates, smell, steampunk, Stephanie Laurens, The Galaxy Express, The Good The Bad & The Unread
I’m trying to be more diligent about giving heads up for any good discussions I run across and/or join into on the web. Most of the time, I figure new book finds can wait until Friday but what’s the point of waiting to tell you about the posts I’m already commenting on? That makes no sense. And sometimes those are about books. It’s a confusing conundrum so the confusion stops here. (At least for me. You could very well still be scratching you head. ) Anyway, just to catch you up, here’s what I’ve been up to lately.
Book 1: Heather over @ The Galaxy Express posted the Cover for Katie MacAlister’s STEAMED and, oh, my word, it’s a doozy. The book sounds interesting too. A steampunk romance. I can’t wait to get my hands on it. You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for romance to discover steampunk. Any other fans of steampunk out there? Books or movie recommendations welcome. (Oh, and I love it when they work in authors from the era like H.G. Wells or Jules Verne. Just a quirk.)
Book 2: Then there’s the review by C2 over on The Good, The Bad and The Unread for Stephanie Lauren’s Daziel book in the Bastien Club group called Mastered by Love. I could’ve really done without knowing this book was out. Seriously. I was happily ignoring the rest of that series because Laurens hadn’t written Daziel’s book. Now someone has told me about it. Doggone it! I have some major catching up to do. Wonder if I can skip some books and go straight to his? I can’t even remember which ones I’ve got/read in that group. Really. Sigh. Sometimes these spin-off series truly are a pain because one just doesn’t know. Help?
Book 3: Trust between an author and a reader is a precious thing. It’s nebulous and difficult to describe but it’s something that’s either there or it isn’t. If it exists it can cause a reader to try a type of story they wouldn’t otherwise but if it doesn’t it can stop them dead in their tracks when an author goes in a new direction. There’s one particular ebook author that I’ve found I would pretty much try anything she wrote because I’ve found that I can trust her writing style even in those areas that I normally don’t like to go and that’s Bianca D’Arc. I say all this because she has a new book, Grady’s Awakening, out today in a series, Resonance Mates, that I haven’t even gotten started on yet because it has menages. The thing is that I’ve read other books by her that have menages in them, most noteably her Dragon Knights series, and loved them. She doesn’t just toss the menages into the stories. They are there for a reason. Yeah, it’s a fantasy reason for the most part as well as truly working on the extended relationship but it works and that’s what I trust. So, why have I been hesitating on this other series?
Heck if I know.
And the giggle: Jessica over on Racy Romance Reviews posted a hilarious, um, sampling of lines from romances featuring the sense of smell. If you haven’t read it yet, treat yourself and go over to check out Smells Like Romance Spirit: On the super noses of our heroines and heroes. It’s worth the time.
2009 Aug 14
Bev(BB)Journals biography, Commentary, Eureka, fun stuff, links heads-up, off-site, Racy Romance Reviews, Royal Pains, Samhain Weblog, The Galaxy Express, Theodore Roosevelt, Tron Legacy, Warehouse 13
Currently reading
It doesn’t happen often but occasionally I get in the mood to read a biography or an autobiography. Normally, they’re just not on my non-fiction to look for. I tend more towards arts and crafts with a smattering of self-help type books. Recently, though, I’ve become interested in the story and life of Teddy Roosevelt. It’s not simply the political climate in the country but oddly enough I’ve run across several romances over the years that have him in them. Yeah, they do exist. And he’s almost always portrayed as a “character” to say the least. An interesting one but definitely a larger than life personality, almost more so than many of our other Presidents. So, anyway, I got curious and thought I’d start looking for a book on his life and lo, and behold, one was just published and I grabbed it last weekend - The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America by Douglas Brinkley. I’ve just started what’s a really, really big book so I’ll have to get back to you on what I think of it after I wade through some of it.
Summer TV
Do you love or hate summer TV? I can never decide. On the one hand, we have reruns but, on the other, we have summer replacement series. It can be an uneven trade-off. I was thinking about this the other night while catching up on some recordings I was behind on. There were several replacement series there that I have definite mixed feelings about but a couple I love. In the mixed category are Royal Pains and Warehouse 13. In the love, love, love, can’t get enough of is Eureka. (Warning, those are all graphic intensive sites.) I actualy wish Eureka was on all year long, it’s that’s good. But then, there is the old saying about too much of a good thing, so mayb not.
Great discussions here and there that I’ve been following
And in the “did you know?” category
There’s a new Tron movie in the works called Tron Legacy. Well, I hadn’t heard about it until I ran across a blog post about it the other day.
2009 Aug 10
Bev(BB)Journals art, Books, fun stuff, links heads-up, recycling, sculpture
Yes, those are made out of books, and although I do like the concept and appreciate the art, I’m just not sure the reader in me can deal with the destruction found in “Don’t like reading? Read on….”
Could you?
2009 Jul 24
Bev(BB)Journals architecture, botany, building, covers, fun stuff, Gothics, links heads-up, paperbacks, pulp fiction, romances, RWA, trees, vintage
Somehow it just doesn’t look like a romantic treehouse to me
Maybe more like something out of a sci-fi novel. Or a horror movie. Seriously. I can’t figure out if the picture creeps me out or intrigues me to no end but it definitely caught my attention and made me want to read the article about architects who are experimenting with “growing” buidings using trees grown around metals. And tree houses it definitely is. This is truly wild. Who would have thought willows of all the trees could be used to create towers like that? Then again, maybe that does make sense.
Gothic goings on in the night:
Over on Teach Me Tonight, Laura brought up this quote about Gothic covers:
Nearly every modern gothic issued before 1974 sported a predominantly green and blue drawing exhibiting a terrified woman, clad in a long, swirling robe, who was fleeing from a darkened mansion lit only by a glow in an upper window. (Radway 144)
She also added that “You can see images of a number of gothic romance covers at Morticia’s Morgue.”
Which tied in nicely with this quote that I found on a page of vintage Gothic romance covers:
Schreuders continues (I quote page 114): One popular Gothic author tells a wonderful story about the immutability of the Gothic Cover: “Once, just to see what would happen, I wrote a story set in a suburban ranch house in a densely-populated valley, with every single scene taking place in broad daylight; the heroine was a short-haired redhead who wore jeans throughout the entire book. But when the paperback came out, sure enough, there on the cover was a long-haired blonde in a flowing white dress, haring away from some frightening mansion at the top of a lonely hill in the dead of night!”
Did you see the Inter-Galactic Spy at RWA?
Yeah, I know this is way late, but just in case anyone missed them, there were a couple of posts over on The Galaxy Express blog that were absolutely hilarious and that even manage to include some pulp fiction references. At least I think they’re pulp fiction. Hard to tell really. Check out Blood at the RWA Conference and Blood at the RWA Conference Part II for some laughs.
2009 Jun 19
Bev(BB)Journals calendar events, cats, collectibles, comics, fun stuff, Garfield, graphic novels, links heads-up
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Recently I realized I had collected several things related to Garfield and it got me curious enough to check for how long the, um, happy cat has been around. Did you know he’s been gracing our lives since June 19, 1978?
I didn’t. Wow. I knew I’d loved that cantankerous cat for along time but, still, wow. So, what do I have in my personal Garfield stash?
- Metallic picture that looks more like it belongs in a tavern than anywhere else – I’m honestly not sure how long I’ve had this one. Or where exactly I got it. But I love it and it’s been hanging over my desk for years. He has such a satisfied expression on his face that you just know he has to have been up to something. Or into some lasagna.
- A “Some people have no respect for slow risers” poster with the perpetually perky Odie giving grumpy Garfield a big slurpy wake-up call that only a dog can do while the big orange furball is still half asleep in his bed, which doesn’t make for a happy cat (what does with Garfield?) – that poster struck a cord with me for some odd reason , which is why I’ve hung onto it all these years. I think I got it when we were in college. (I’d scan it but it’s way too big for my scanner)
- “I’m roadkill on the information superhighway” bookmark
- “Don’t Ask” bookmark (Both gotten in the obvious way, i.e, book shopping, naturally.)
- Garfield head eraser, still in the package – I suspect this one was a stocking stuffer or a gift from one of my kids at one point
- Garfield at large: His first book - a graphic novel collection from the early years of Garfield comics and well worth the read, if just to put everything into perspective
- Garfield bigger than life: His third book – more of the same and reminds me that I need to get more of these because there’s a whole bunch of them out now
- “Use your friends wisely” mug – picked this one up just a couple of months ago at yard sale or some such, which is what got me started wondering what all I had
And the circle is complete. Well, not quite. I did find one other thing while scrounging around, The Official Website of Garfield & Friends, a pretty neat site but a little warning here that it’s graphic intensive and has a loud music score that plays the second you arrive. Otherwise, have fun.
2006 Sep 13
Bev(BB)Journals body parts puzzles, book covers, fun stuff
Thanks to Paula Beaty who gave me a heads up about one of her covers, I have a new entry for the Body Parts Puzzles. Feast your eyes on this beauty:
2006 Sep 03
Bev(BB)Journals body parts puzzles, book covers, fun stuff
Since I seem to be appallingly fascinated (fascinatedly appalled?) by them. The newest is thanks to Squawk Radio. Feast your brain on this one:
So, have you figured it out yet?
I know I’ve found more recently so I’m going to go back through my archives and make sure I haven’t missed any but let me know if you’ve run across any yourselves.
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