The college library has both volumes of "Otto Von Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman", which is particularly interesting because I couldn't find this translation anywhere on the netahol. So, yeah, I figured it was worth a shot.

Amazingly, they were a fast damn read.

A couple of the chapters didn't have what I wanted, but the majority of the book talked about German principalities, the Siege of Paris and the Ems Telegram. The thing I learned were a mishmash of information, but fascinating anyway.

In no particular order: Bismarck wanted the German princes to keep their titles, but be subordinate to the primary German Emperor, he wanted the Siege of Paris to bring out the heavy guns so they wouldn't be under siege for a crazy duration, and connected to that latter, apparently cholera frequently diseased German armies.

Cholera!

The book was part of Bismarck's memoirs, so I wonder how unbiased they are, but nonetheless they were a grand read. He had a great sense of drama and exaggeration.

I've been reading Gail Simone's run on the Birds of Prey series. I'm currently on the fourth volume, "The Battle Within", and I really like the way she writes. The librarians are getting familiar with my recurring habit - and it's always a little embarrassing, because its artwork is just a little cheesecake.

But once you get past that - and it isn't as though I'm arguing or anything, hell, I read Marilith - the series is extraordinarily fun. The visuals-vs-words contrast complements the mood, the characters are witty, the pacing is such that I'm enjoying the speechless panels more often than usual, and Simone has a knack for the splash pages.

If Black Canary is on the DC vs Mortal Kombat game, I know who I'll play. But if Oracle is on there, too, I might have to switch back and forth. How unusual would it be to have a woman in a wheelchair in a fighting game? Babs definitely has the badassery to pull it off.

And I love Lady Shiva.

Anyone else been reading any cheerful graphic novels lately?

I love reading con reports... so it seems appropriate that I should be writing one.

For most purposes, this was my first real anything convention. I went to SogenCon twice, but for various political reasons it was rather disorganized. Detour was much more interesting. The size alone shows the difference: SogenCon might have had 900 or less people. Three frelling thousand people went to Detour.

This might not seem too amazing to most of the people reading this, but it boggled the mind of this guy who lives in a small town next to a college and corporate town of 12K people. Dad said that it's the size of another local town...

So, yes. I haven't seen this much leather short of a shopping mall, this many chains probably ever, and the five women walking around in skin tight rubber, three of them dressed in Eva plugsuits, er, say no more.

I can't be too coherent, because it's my first Uber convention. But as for some of the highlights, I played the legendary Dodonpachi freaking finally, a Motoko Kusanagi cosplayer joined my twenty-people Ghost in the Shell panel, I chatted with a girl dressed as a Ragnarok Online alchemist, and I saw and slightly joined in my first rave.

When I wandered to the front of the rave, in the middle of the psychedelic lights and the electronic music in the bloody Twin Cities, I could understand why people become addicted to conventions and dances. It really does feel like you're standing in the center of the world with everything revolving around you. I hadn't felt that feeling since eighth grade.

I don't usually write un-money-ified reviews for the fun of it for series novels other than the first one, because if someone likes the first one they keep reading them until they get boring, but these thoughts are crossposted to Jim's bulletin board. I have too many opinions jumping about the series and had to ramble them.

( Commentary about White Night )

Galactica 2K3 boggles itself again.

That's some dark storytelling.

I might get to write a review of it for the SMSU Spur. If I don't, I shall post it on my journal.
That season premiere needs a frelling review.

I finished reading Emma Bull's War for the Oaks in May, and here's the review. Something of a classic of its genre, it was probably very original when it was published. I agree with many other people who have read it, that it would be a very fun movie. Similar to Farscape and Labyrinth, it simply needs animatronic Muppets.

It's a classic story, and I think I really figured out its intricacies. :)

( Read more... )