Bona Fide: Weekly Roundup #41

Hello and welcome to issue #41 of my Weekly Roundup. Once again, I have carefully divided my time between reading, reviewing, blogging, and commenting on blogs, and of course staying in contact with everyone. Sadly, a tsunami hit my google reader, and I now have over 1000 unread entries... which has never happened to me before. But I won't complain, because I had a really good time with reading, reviewing and blogging and all of the above. So expect some interesting reviews in the next few weeks. And now, enjoy the reading..

Bona Fide's Menu

Books

1. Delivery of the week: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest and giveaway at Tor.com
2. Shelf discovery of the week: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Blogosphere

1. The Gatehouse and the Gatehouse Gazette
2. The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
3. The blogs they are a changing: Dave Brendon (for the young folks: this is an allusion to an old Bob Dylan song)

Movies

1. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Quotes

1. This week's quotes are related to Bones

Books

This week I received my copy of Boneshaker (2009) [US][UK], by Cherie Priest, and I can't resist posting the cover just one more time. I'm 100 pages in and the atmosphere is intense. I can't wait to continue reading after I have finished the Roundup.
You would like to get a copy, you say? Then don't waste time, and jump to Steampunk Month Giveaway: Cherie Priest's Boneshaker over at Tor.com. They threw in 20 copies!! To enter you only have to leave a comment until noon EST on Wednesday, October 14th. Good Luck!
What's that? You don't know what the book is about? Read the official summary:

" In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.
But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.
Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.
His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive."
Viva La Steampunk!

Last week I started to present you books which were hidden somewhere deep in my shelves. I thoroughly enjoy the hunt, because I "find" books that I lost sight of long ago. Therefore, I will continue with the (re)discovery of my shelf. This week I found: The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2006) [US][UK], by Michael Chabon. As far as I know it is a detective story set in an alternate history.

Now I had to decide: A blurb or a trailer or both? Finally I decided to give you both. The trailer has this great, gritty film noir feeling.

"For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka in the Alaskan panhandle - a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Isreal. But now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end.
His life a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster, homicide detective Meyer Landsman if the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. And to make matters worse, in the cheap hotel where Landsman has washed up, someone has just committed a murder..." [Source: Back of my paperback copy]

Surprised? Yes, it is true, I don't only read epic fantasy and steampunk. Have any of you read the book? Let me know your opinions, as I am wondering if I should change my reading order to accommodate it?

Blogosphere

Last week, I posted about the Steampunk Month over at Tor.com. This week I would like to draw your attention to a blog and an online magazine:
"The Gatehouse Gazette is an online magazine in publication since July 2008, dedicated to the speculative fiction genres of steampunk and dieselpunk. It is published every two months, featuring articles and columns along with reviews of related novels, films and video games as well as interviews with authors, artists and designers." [Source]
Visit and discover The Gatehouse and download issue #8 of The Gatehouse Gazette. This is the Halloween edition which celebrates "Forbidden Tales of Fervor and Fright" with features that ought to startle any steampunk enthusiast worth their salt. If this is your first contact with the Gatehouse Gazette, than you have definiteley missed issues #1 though #7. No problem at all. They are still available for download.

Did you ever hear about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage ? If you are interested in steampunk you will "meet" them sooner or later.
Next question. Do you like comics - web comics? Normally I'm not that interested, but here is something which I really like: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. I fell in love with these awesome comics. Jump and enjoy.

Recently I posted about the Nights of Villjamur interview series over at Dave Brendon's Fantasy & Sci-Fi Weblog. In case you want to follow the series you have to switch to Dave's new blog Realms & Galaxies: Celebrating SFF! Besides the welcome post, you ca find a great review of the upcoming Stephen King novel Under The Dome (2009) [US][UK]. I added the book to my list recently. Read Dave's review and you will understand why..

Movies

Terry Gilliam (member of the famous British comedy group Monty Python) directed another fantasy film which, hopefully, will hit the cinemas within the year: The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. It is about the leader of a travelling theatre who made a deal with the Devil! The film stars Heath Ledger in his last role. I hope you like the trailer as much as I did.


Quotes

So we have one Boneshaker and 206 total bones in your body That means 207 reasons for bone quotes.

"When two dogs fight for a bone, and the third runs off with it, there's a lawyer among the dogs.”
German proverb

"The University of Nebraska says that elderly people that drink beer or wine at least four times a week have the highest bone density. They need it - they're the ones falling down the most. ”
Jay Leno

"A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.”
Jack London, US adventurer, author, sailor (1876 - 1916)