The Avengers: Glorious Symphony of Awesomeness

May 12, 2012 in Movies | 6 comments

If you’ve known me or followed my posts on the Net for any length of time, you’ll know I’ve been a Joss Whedon fan for ages. Buffy, Angel, and Firefly, oh yeah, down with all of those. And I’ve also certainly enjoyed the Marvel superhero movies leading up to this one–both the Iron Man flicks, Thor, and Captain America being the ones I’ve seen. (I never caught Edward Norton as the Hulk.) So I was absolutely expecting to enjoy the hell out of the Avengers.

I was not disappointed. There was no moment of that movie that was not a GLORIOUS SYMPHONY OF AWESOMENESS. <3

This is going to be less ‘review’ and more ‘fangirl squealing’! Look behind the fold for overall reactions!

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Further musical planning for the Great Atlantic Canadian Adventure!

May 11, 2012 in Music | No comments

*squeal*

Keeping a hawk’s eye on the tour Calendar on leventdunord.com just paid off. Looks like they ARE booked to play on the 28th at Memoire et Racines, the weekend that Dara and I will be in Quebec! Which means that the priority of getting to that festival for a day trip on the 28th just shot up to CRITICAL. :D Because yeah, I need me another Le Vent du Nord show STAT, and I especially want to see how they work a Francophone crowd. Also, it would be sporting of me to give them another fighting chance at my musical affections, given that Great Big Sea will be steamrollering over everything else once Dara and I reach St. John’s in August.

I also note with huge delight that Les Charbonniers de l’Enfer’s tour schedule ALSO shows July 28th (and the 29th, but the 28th is the pertinent date here). Which means that ideally I’ll get to see them too! They better not be scheduled opposite Le Vent, or else I shall be quite sad! Now all I need is to determine whether Galant Tu Perds Ton Temps is also booked on the 28th, to complete the trifecta of awesome–though really, if I get Le Vent and the Charbonniers in the same day, that’s quite a bit of awesome right there and that may be enough all by itself for me to explode from squee. :D

(Special side message to userinfoframlingem! You still in for this? Let me and Dara know! The Festival’s official full program goes online on June 14th and I’ll be getting Dara and me tickets, I want to make sure our plans can still align!)

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The free, DRM-free, and Kickstarter-provided books are awesome roundup!

May 4, 2012 in Books | 2 comments

Picked up from Angry Robot Books today from their 50 percent off DRM-free sale:

  • Roil, by Trent Jamieson. Fantasy/steampunk.
  • Morlock Night and Infernal Devices, by K.W. Jeter. Steampunk.
  • Hard Spell, by Justin Gustainis. Urban fantasy/detective noir.
  • Blackbirds, by Chuck Wendig. Horror/urban fantasy.
  • Empire State, by Adam Christopher. Urban fantasy/noir.
  • Camera Obscura and The Great Game, by Lavie Tidhar. Steampunk.
  • Sixty-One Nails, by Mike Shevdon. Urban fantasy.
  • Moxyland, by Lauren Beukes. Urban fantasy.

And, picked up for free at work because our licensing department had a bunch of free copies:

  • Unearthed, Submerged, and Vanished, all by Jordan Gray. These are the rest of the Mystery Case Files books put out by Harlequin–i.e., the books very loosely based upon our Mystery Case Files games at work! Kind of obliged to read these, I think. ;)

And, picked up because Kickstarters are awesome and I love this whole idea of throwing money directly at people to make art go (not that I have a vested interest in that or anything):

  • No Dominion, by C.E. Murphy. Urban fantasy, a companion tale to the Walker Papers, from the point of view of cab driver Gary. Cannot wait to read this now that I’ve finished Raven Calls!

This’ll put me at 65 for the year!

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Note to my brain: no, you may not write this yet

May 2, 2012 in Music, Writing | 1 comment

Memo to my brain:

No, you may NOT write a short story based on the Le Vent du Nord song “Le dragon de Chimay”. No matter how awesome a mental image you have in your head of a dragon breaking out of chains that hold him underground and surging up into the open air in desperate search of his lady love, and finally transforming back to human shape before her…

… damn, that’s an awesome image, innit? And it is NOT HELPING that I’m totally seeing this young woman and her “preux chevalier si tendre et amant”, as the cathedral collapses on him and he’s forced into dragon shape and she frantically tries to dig him out and no, no, no, dammit brain! You have a novel to finish and a novella to finish and a whole other novella to write and plan for all these lovely Kickstarter people throwing money at you, so STAY ON TARGET!

You are, however, totally allowed to geek right out over the translation of the lyrics, and listen to the song as many times as you like.

Because yes, folks, I like this band so much I want to write them fanfic. Or in this case, songfic!

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Montreal chimes in on the Great Canadian Adventure!

April 30, 2012 in Music | No comments

HEL-LO, the Montreal portion of the Great Canadian Summer Adventure just got way, WAY more interesting!

I have had THIS brought to my attention–most recently by Monsieur de Grosbois-Garand, that fine gentleman who gave me the nifty flute lesson. I’d already discovered it poking around various band schedules to see if anything fascinating might crop up that could line up with my and Dara’s trip. But now, after seeing a promo pic go up on Le Vent du Nord’s Facebook page and then poking around on the actual site for the festival, I see that not only Le Vent will be involved, but ALSO the Charbonniers and Galant Tu Perd Ton Temps.

This, mes amis d’Internet, is extremely goddamn relevant to my interests, is what this is. :D

But augh the site for the festival appears to be considerably north of Montreal, at least 40 minutes’ drive and as long as 2 hours by transit. Transit seems right out as an option.

HEY userinfoframlingem and userinfoscrunchions! Don’t suppose either of you would be up for playing native guide and helping userinfosolarbird and me get to this thing, probably on the 28th as a target date? ‘Cause if I have a shot at seeing ANY of these bands live while we’re in Montreal, I am ALL. OVER. THAT. :D This might be my only shot at all to see the Charbonniers or the Galant girls!

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Le Vent du Nord and Genticorum videos!

April 28, 2012 in Music | No comments

Because YouTube loves me this weekend and wants me to have awesome things, I bring to you three brand new videos posted by YouTube user bordurat, who clearly has a lock on all the best Quebecois band videos, and two older ones from the same user’s posts.

Videos behind the fold! The three new ones are from Le Vent du Nord’s recent CD launch party in Montreal–so all the between-song stage talk is in French, too fast for me to follow, but the videos are long and have two songs each, so they are quite worth your time. The two older ones are Genticorum, who I feature here now since those boys are putting in a powerful bid to become my Official Second Favorite Quebecois Band (though I reserve final judgement until De Temps Antan gets out here in August)!

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How to get a raging introvert with a flute to go to a PARTY

April 23, 2012 in Music | 3 comments

Yesterday, O Internets, I had the second most amazing musical experience of my entire year, thanks to the local Quebecois music crowd and the band Genticorum!

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Super-quick book roundup

April 22, 2012 in Books | No comments

Picked up in print from B&N:

And, picked up electronically from B&N:

    Nights of the Round Table and Other Stories of Heroic Fantasy and February Thaw and Other Tales of Contemporary Fantasy, both by Tanya Huff. These are two short story collections, available electronically. Because, of course, Tanya Huff is awesome and I need every word she’s ever written!

51 for the year. And hopefully once I’m done with Kickstarter adventures, I can get in more progress on my sadly backlogged book reviews!

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Tromper le Temps by Le Vent du Nord: A fangirly and footnoted album review!

April 21, 2012 in Music | 4 comments

How much do the gods of all music love me this month? This much: they have given unto me the shining present of the brand new Le Vent du Nord album, Tromper le Temps! Now, mind you, its official release date on CD is the 25th–but it’s shown up early on the iTunes and Amazon MP3 stores, and I could not resist the musical shininess. I will, however, also be buying the CD. Because this album? So awesome I am buying it twice! Now that I have it, though, I can present for you a review! And in honor of Le Vent du Nord’s native language, I now present to you the first paragraph of this review of this album, en français1 2!

Vous savez déjà, mes amis d’Internet, que j’ai une grande admiration3 pour Le Vent du Nord, le premier groupe à contester Great Big Sea pour mes affections! Il n’est donc pas surprenant que j’aime ce nouvel album. J’aime son esprit. J’aime ses souliers4. J’aime son énergie, son harmonie, et les histoires qui m’attendent dans les paroles. J’aime cet album tellement je vais l’acheter à deux reprises, sur iTunes et sur CD! Et je vous exhorte tous à l’acheter aussi, parce qu’il est beau et impressionnant!

(Okay, that’s about as much French as I can coherently manage in one blog post.5 The Too Long; Didn’t Read Because I Don’t Understand French version: buy this album, because it is a thing of beauty and the boys of Le Vent du Nord are awesome. Tell them I sent you!)

Full review, including song-by-song reactions, behind the fold!

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Post-Norwescon book roundup

April 13, 2012 in Books | Permalink

And now, since I picked up several books at the convention last weekend and a couple since, here’s the latest book roundup!

Bought in print from Norwescon:

  • Fuzzy Nation, by John Scalzi. SF. This is Scalzi’s reboot of H. Beam Piper’s Little Fuzzy, finally out in mass market paperback, so I picked it up.
  • The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity, by assorted authors, edited by Patricia Bray. Anthology, bought on the strength of Joshua Palmatier being in it, and on the title. Because that’s a hell of a title!
  • The Singers of Nevya, by Louise Marley. This is an omnibus edition of the series of the same name, including Sing the Light, Sing the Warmth, and Receive the Gift. I had copies of these ages ago and wanted to read them again.
  • Leaves of Flame, by Benjamin Tate. Which I’d already had in ebook form, but I bought it again in paperback on general principle!

Also gotten from Norwescon, but in the freebie bag rather than as a purchase:

  • Touched by an Alien, by Gini Koch. I’d call this a paranormal romance, except it’s more like an SF romance, and instead of supernatural beings, we have aliens! It’s still definitely got mostly paranormal romance sensibility, though; partway through reading it as of this writing. I’d already gotten the ebook, so it amuses me to have a print copy too.

Speaking of ebooks, picked up from B&N today:

  • Once Upon a Winter’s Eve, by Tessa Dare. Romance. This is actually book 1.5 in one of Tessa Dare’s series, and it’s a novella, snarfed off of bn.com for the low, low price of 87 cents plus tax. Grabbed it because I saw SB Sarah tweeting bits of Dare’s prose, thought she had a nice turn of phrase, and thought I’d give this novella a look. Plus, what with my current interest in French Canadian music, a guy speaking Breton–the language of the Celts that live in France–seemed like an excellent blend of two different swoonable tastes that taste great together.

48 for the year.

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